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In the News
NEWS
Arrests made at the U.S.–
Mexico border hit record levels
in April, but fewer unaccompa-
nied minors entered the coun-
try, according to U.S. Customs
and Border Protection. ...A7
The withdrawal of remain-
ing U.S. military forces in Af-
ghanistan is up to 12 percent
completed, the Pentagon
says. ... A8
American shoppers con-
tinued to flock to the nation’s
malls in greater numbers in
April, signaling growing retail
recovery. ... A8
More than 120 retired U.S.
generals and admirals are
warning that the United States
is embroiled in a conflict be-
tween Marxism and “consti-
tutional freedom.” ... A8
Big tech companies are
monopolies that need to be
reined in to curb the amount
of censorship they’re engag-
ing in, lawyer says. ... A7
The American Medical As-
sociation has vowed to give
up its long-held meritocratic
ideal in favor of “racial justice”
and “health equity,” and to em-
brace critical race theory. ...A3
Passage of the Democrats’
“For the People Act of 2021”
will prompt “a rush to the
courthouse steps,” expert
says. ... A3
A group is challenging the
constitutionality of Massa-
chusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s
pandemic-related restrictions
in the Supreme Court. ... A4
Defense Secretary Lloyd
Austin has stressed the Unit-
ed States’ “ironclad support”
for Israel’s right to defend it-
self amid a military conflict
with Hamas. ... A10
Lawmakers have reintro-
duced a bill that they say would
ban so-called “ghost guns,” or
guns that are made from build-
it-yourself kits. ...A2
Rep. Elise Stefanik has an-
nounced that she is running to
be chair of the House Republi-
can Conference after Rep. Liz
Cheney was voted out. ... A4
President Joe Biden has
announced that 1 million
people have signed up for
health coverage after his ad-
ministration launched a spe-
cial sign-up window under
Obamacare provisions. ... A6
The Scottish National
Party has a clear mandate
to hold a second Scottish
independence referendum,
experts say. ... A10
A Chinese human rights
lawyer says that he has been
tortured and denied access to
his family and attorneys for
six months. ... A9
OPINION
Salena Zito: In the Face of
Most Democrats’ Opposition,
US Steel Cancels a Billion-
Dollar Investment...A13
Michael Walsh: ‘Things Fall
Apart’ With No End in Sight...
A16
James E. Fanell: China’s Na-
val Power Threatens America’s
National Security—Does Any-
one Really Care?...A17
FEATURES
A case for cooking with an-
chovies, the tiny fish that pack
powerful flavor. ...B1
Take advantage of fresh
garden peas, a sweet spring-
time treat, before they’re
gone. ...B2
DON’T DELAY.
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| T H U R S D A Y, M A Y 13 , 2 0 21
STATE DEPARTMENT International Religious Freedom Report, at the State Department in Washington on May 12, 2021.
State Department Sanctions Chinese
Official for Persecuting Falun Gong
Chinese Communist
Party official in Sichuan
Province sanctioned
for ‘gross violations
of human rights’
By EVA FU
T
he State Department an-
nounced sanctions against
a Chinese Communist Party
official for persecuting Falun
Gong, as the Beijing regime’s brutal
suppression of the spiritual practice
approaches its 22nd anniversary.
ECONOMY
Record Number
of Small
Businesses Can’t
Find Workers:
Report
44 percent had job openings
in April they couldn’t fill
By TOM OZIMEK
A record number of small businesses
couldn’t find enough workers to hire
in April, according to a new report
from the largest small-business lob-
by group in the United States, rein-
forcing concerns that the pandemic-
related federal unemployment boost
may be sidelining workers and hurt-
ing economic growth.
The National Federation of Inde-
pendent Business (NFIB) said in
its May 11 report that 44 percent of
all small-business owners reported
job openings they couldn’t fill in
April, up two points from March
and a record high. April’s reading
is 22 points higher than the 48-year
historical average of 22 percent and
is the third consecutive month of
Continued on A6
PANDEMIC
UK Government to Set Up Inquiry Into Handling of CCP Virus Pandemic
By LILY ZHOU
An inquiry into the UK gov-
ernment’s handling of the
CCP virus pandemic will
begin in the spring of next
year, Prime Minister Boris
Johnson has confirmed.
Speaking in Parliament
on May 12, Johnson said the
government will set up an
independent public inqui-
ry that will have “full pow-
Accuracy The Epoch Times was founded in 2000 as an independent newspaper with the goal to restore accuracy and
integrity in media. We have received numerous awards for our reporting, including from the Society of Professional
& Integrity Journalists, the Society for News Design, and the New York Press Association.
Truth & Tradition
Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at a news conference to announce the annual
The sanctions will bar Yu Hui,
former director of the agency spe-
cifically tasked with persecuting
Falun Gong in the city of Chengdu,
in Sichuan Province, from entering
the United States. The penalty also
extends to his immediate family.
“We will continue to consider all
appropriate tools to promote ac-
countability for those responsible for
human rights violations and abuses
in China and elsewhere,” Secretary
of State Antony Blinken said at a
press briefing as he announced the
release of the department’s annual
report on international religious
freedom, which cited arbitrary ar-
Motorists fill up gas cans at a Shell station in Charlotte, N.C., on May 12, 2021.
FUEL
71 Percent of Charlotte Gas Stations out
of Fuel; Police Warn of ‘Gas Crisis’
By JACK PHILLIPS
About 71 percent of gas stations
in the Charlotte, North Carolina,
area are completely out of gas, as
the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police
described the situation as a “gas
crisis” and requested that nones-
sential travel be avoided.
Patrick De Haan, a top analyst for
GasBuddy, said that 78 percent of
gas stations in the Greenville area
have no gas, and 72 percent of Ra-
leigh-Durham stations, 71 percent Continued on A6
ers under the Inquiries Act of
2005, including the ability
to compel the production
of all relevant materials,
and take oral evidence in
public, under oath.”
Johnson told members of
British Prime
Minister Boris Parliament that the Duchy
Johnson. of Lancaster Michael Gove
had spoken to the first min-
isters and deputy first min-
isters  in  Scotland, Wales,
and Northern Ireland, and
ANDREW HARNIK/POOL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
EDWARD DYE/THE EPOCH TIMES
Falun Gong practitioners participate
in a demonstration in Washington on
June 20, 2018.
rests, house raids, societal discrimi-
nation, and forced organ harvesting
of Falun Gong practitioners.
Continued on A9
LOGAN CYRUS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
of Charlotte-area stations, 69 per-
cent of stations around Greenville,
and 65 percent of Norfolk-area sta-
tions are out of gas.
Authorities with the Charlotte-
Mecklenburg Police Department
(CMPD), describing the situation as
a “gas crisis” on May 12, told local
media that people should limit non-
essential travel, check on neighbors,
and shouldn’t hoard fuel.
“We are going to get through
this,” CMPD Capt. Brad Koch told
that the government would consult
with those devolved administra-
tions before finalizing the terms of
the inquiry.
With regard to the timing of the
inquiry, the PM said he understood
that some MPs and many bereaved
families would be “anxious” for it to
begin sooner, but the pandemic is
not over, and “we must not inadver-
tently divert and distract the very
people on whom we all depend in
Continued on A11
VOL . X V I I I | NO. 2,960 $1.
NATION
Many Americans
Fall Victim to
Unemployment
Aid Fraud
Unemployment benefits
identification theft jumped
4,800 percent last year and is
expected to rise further in 2021
By EMEL AKAN
WASHINGTON—Generous un-
employment benefits put in place
by the CARES Act and subsequent
relief packages to respond to pan-
demic-related joblessness have
become an easy target for identity
thieves and other criminals. Most
states have been hit by fraud com-
mitted on a vast scale, mainly by in-
ternational organized crime rings.
Worst of all, we believe
that many victims still
don’t know they’ve been
victimized.
Doug Swetnam, section chief,
data privacy and ID theft unit,
Indiana Attorney General’s Office
In March, the Labor Department
inspector general’s office estimated
that more than $63 billion in unem-
ployment benefits had been paid out
improperly through fraud or errors
since the beginning of the pandemic.
Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.)
called it “a frightening number” that
exceeds “the entire budget of the
Department of Homeland Security.”
During a virtual roundtable that
she hosted on May 10 with state lead-
ers, employers, and fraud victims,
Walorski said that “criminal orga-
nizations, including international
cybercrime rings, prison inmates,
and opportunistic foreign actors are
Continued on A5
CONGRESS
Pelosi, Schumer
Come to Rep.
Cheney’s Defense
After House GOP
Votes to Oust Her
By JACK PHILLIPS
Top Democrats on May 12 came
to the defense of Rep. Liz Cheney
(R-Wyo.) after she was voted out of
her leadership position by House
Republicans.
“Congresswoman Liz Cheney is a
leader of great courage, patriotism,
and integrity. Today, House Repub-
licans declared that those values
are unwelcome in the Republican
party,” said House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a statement. “For
the sake of our democracy, reason-
able Republicans across the coun-
try must take back their party.”
Meanwhile, Senate Majority
Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.),
speaking from the Senate floor, said
he and Cheney, the daughter of for-
mer Vice President Dick Cheney,
disagreed on policy, but said her
ouster is a “dark moment” for the
GOP, while claiming she “had the
Continued on A4
US–CHINA
BILL WOULD FORCE
COLLEGES TO
DISCLOSE BEIJING TIES
“If the schools
want visas for
their foreign
students,
they’ll first
have to
disclose their
ties,” Sen. Chuck
Grassley said.
Read more on A9
A2 | NATION
Texas House Passes
Bill to Prohibit Using
‘Meat’ to Describe
Plant-Based Food
LI HAI
The Texas House of Representatives ap-
proved legislation on May 11 that would
prohibit companies that produce imita-
tion meat from using the terms “meat” or
“beef” on food labels.
The bill, HB 316, states that “beef” and
“pork” are edible portions from cattle and
swine carcasses and that “meat,” “beef,”
“pork,” and “poultry” cannot be used
to label or advertise food products that
are cell-cultured, plant-based, or insect-
based. If they are, the Department of State
Health Services will consider the products
“misbranded.”
The measure, which was approved by
124–21 vote, now heads to the state Senate.
“This is for those who choose to eat meat,
but it’s also for those who choose to not eat
meat,” said Republican state Rep. Brad
Buckley, according to the Austin Amer-
ican-Statesman.
Buckley, one of the authors of the bill,
said the most frequent call he has received
is from vegetarians who support the bill.
Plant-based food companies such as Be-
yond Meat, All Y’alls Foods, and Impos-
sible Foods oppose the measure. Chuck
Mains from Impossible Foods said in a
March hearing that the bill would “im-
pair their First Amendment right to free
speech and unduly restrict their ability to
accurately describe their product in a way
that consumers understand.”
Organizations such as Alliance for Plant-
Based Inclusion, the Good Food Institute,
and the Plant-Based Foods Association
also oppose the measure.
However,  Judith McGeary from
the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance
said at the hearing: “We advocate for
common-sense policies for local, diver-
sified agricultural and food systems. One
of the most basic issues is accurate, clear
labeling of foods so that consumers can
make informed choices about how and
where to spend their money. Without
clear, accurate information, the market
cannot function.”
Supporters of the bill also include in-
dividual farmers, the Texas Cattle Feed-
ers Association, the Texas and South-
western Cattle Raisers Association, the
Texas Poultry Federation, the Texas Pork
Producers Association, and the Texas
Farm Bureau.
Texas has the most farms in the United
States and leads the nation for livestock
and associated products.
About a dozen states have enacted simi-
lar laws, including Missouri, Arkansas,
Mississippi, South Dakota, Wyoming, Ala-
bama, Kentucky, Montana, North Dakota,
and South Carolina.
Because meat labeling laws directly af-
fect the meat-substitutes industry, plant-
based food companies are fighting the
measures in courts, with ongoing lawsuits
in Mississippi and Arkansas.
DAVID MCNEW/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Impossible Pork, a new plant-based “pork”
product by Impossible Foods, is served at
the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show in
Las Vegas on Jan. 9, 2020.
Biden Admin Approves Nation’s 1st
Major Offshore Wind Project
ISABEL VAN BRUGEN
The Biden administration has granted ap-
proval to a $2.8 billion offshore wind project
that’s seen as key to a transition to renewable
energy in the United States.
The Vineyard Wind project, which is set
to become the nation’s first major offshore
wind farm, will be built 14 miles off the coast
of Massachusetts. The Biden administra-
tion hopes the project, which was selected
by the state in 2018, will help slash carbon
dioxide emissions while generating renew-
able electricity.
It will have a generating capacity of 800
megawatts, with a goal of producing enough
energy to power up to 400,000 homes. Up
to 84 wind turbines will be built as part of
the project.
The U.S. Capitol in Washington on Aug. 6, 2020.
Lawmakers Reintroduce Bill
to Ban ‘Ghost Guns’
JANITA KAN
Democratic lawmakers have reintroduced
a proposal that would ban so-called “ghost
guns,” or firearms that are made from a
build-it-yourself kit, in their latest gun
control effort.
The measure, dubbed the Untraceable
Firearms Act, would expand the federal
law’s definition of “firearm” to include “ghost
gun” parts such as unfinished frames and
receivers. The move would require online
and other gun kit manufacturers and dis-
tributors who sell such parts to comply with
the same federal regulation that governs the
production and distribution of completed
firearms, such as requiring sellers to obtain a
manufacturer’s license and to place a serial
number on the frame or receiver included
in each kit.
Purchasers of such kits also must undergo
a background check.
Democrats and gun con-
trol activists have raised
concerns about ‘ghost
guns’ because they lack
serial numbers.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) in-
troduced the bill along with 11 co-sponsors
during a Senate Judiciary Constitution Sub-
committee hearing on May 11. Rep. David
Cicilline (D-R.I.) introduced a companion
bill in the House. A version of a similar bill
was introduced in 2020.
“Our bill would close the ‘ghost’ gun loop-
hole for good. An assault weapon built from
a kit ordered online can kill just as many
people as one bought in a store—only the
DIY version doesn’t require an ID, licens-
ing, or a background check,” Blumenthal
said in a statement.
“There’s nothing ghostly about ‘ghost’
guns—they look like guns, shoot like guns,
The announcement fits neatly with Presi-
dent Joe Biden’s broader agenda to combat
global climate change by decarbonizing the
nation’s economy. The president previously
outlined a plan for 30 gigawatts of offshore
wind by 2030.
“Today’s offshore wind project announce-
ment demonstrates that we can fight the
climate crisis, while creating high-paying
jobs and strengthening our competitive-
ness at home and abroad,” Secretary of Com-
merce Gina Raimondo said in a statement.
“This project is an example of the invest-
ments we need to achieve the Biden-Harris
administration’s ambitious climate goals,
and I’m proud to be part of the team leading
the charge on offshore wind.”
While President Donald Trump had stalled
Vineyard Wind’s permitting process late last
and kill like guns. Our legislation would
ensure that violent extremists, domestic
abusers, and foreign terrorists can’t evade
background checks and other safety mea-
sures by building weapons at home instead
of buying them from a store.”
Democrats and gun control activists have
raised concerns about “ghost guns” and oth-
er 3D-printed firearms because they lack
serial numbers, making them untraceable
by authorities. They are also often made of
plastic, meaning that they might not set off
metal detectors at airports. They are also
easy and cheap to make.
Moreover, they could render current gun
regulations unenforceable because people
who are normally restricted from obtaining
a gun could avoid background checks and
other regulatory procedures.
It comes after the Justice Department
(DOJ) on May 7 issued a notice of proposed
rulemaking that the department said would
“modernize the definition” of frame or re-
ceiver and close a regulatory loophole re-
lated to “ghost guns.”
“We are committed to taking common-
sense steps to address the epidemic of gun
violence that takes the lives of too many peo-
ple in our communities,” Attorney General
Merrick Garland said in a statement.
“Criminals and others barred from own-
year, Biden restarted the review within a
month of taking office.
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said
approval of the project will create thousands
of jobs that will support families, boost local
economies, and “address climate injustice.”
A clean energy future is
within our grasp in the
United States.
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland
“A clean energy future is within our grasp
in the United States,” Haaland said. “The
approval of this project is an important step
toward advancing the Administration’s
goals to create good-paying union jobs while
combatting climate change and powering
our nation.
“More importantly, it will create a new
THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
STEFANI REYNOLDS/GETTY IMAGES
SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES
Rifles are
offered for sale
at Freddie Bear
Sports in Tinley
Park, Ill., on April
8, 2021.
ing a gun should not be able to exploit a
loophole to evade background checks and
to escape detection by law enforcement. This
proposed rule would help keep guns out of
the wrong hands and make it easier for law
enforcement to trace guns used to commit
violent crimes, while protecting the rights
of law-abiding Americans.”
The DOJ noted that between 2016 and 2020,
there were more than 23,000 firearms with-
out serial numbers reported to have been re-
covered by law enforcement from potential
crime scenes, including in cases linked with
homicides or attempted homicides.
The department is also expected to intro-
duce a proposed rule declaring a stabilizing
brace that essentially turns a pistol into a
short-barreled rifle, and to publish model
“red flag” legislation for states, according
to a White House announcement in April.
Red flag laws let family members or law
enforcement ask a court to bar an indi-
vidual from owning guns, on the basis that
the person presents a danger to themselves
or others.
Gun rights advocates have criticized the
announcement by the Biden administration,
arguing that the proposed bans do “nothing
to address the criminal misuse of firearms.”
Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
generation of clean energy jobs and leave a
liveable planet for future generations.”
The project also faces opposition, and news
of its approval was quickly condemned by
the fishing industry which said its concerns
about the project’s effect on fish stocks and
vessel traffic had been “met with silence” by
government officials.
“For the past decade, fishermen have par-
ticipated in offshore wind meetings when-
ever they were asked and produced reason-
able requests only to be met with silence,”
said Anne Hawkins, executive director of
the Responsible Offshore Development
Alliance, a coalition of fishing groups and
businesses.
“From this silence, now emerges unilateral
action and a clear indication that those in
authority care more about multinational
businesses and energy politics than our en-
vironment, domestic food sources, or U.S.
citizens.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
 THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
Congressional lawmakers at a markup business meeting on the “For the People Act,” on Capitol Hill in Washington on
May 11, 2021.
Critics Say Dems’ Election
Reforms Will Prompt Flood
of Constitutional Challenges
MARK TAPSCOTT
Passage of Democrats’ top legisla-
tive priority—the massive regis-
tration and voting reform package
named the ‘For the People Act of
2021’—will prompt “a rush to the
courthouse steps,” according to
Jason Snead, executive director of
the Honest Elections Project.
“There are a number of consti-
tutional infirmities and deficien-
cies that stem from its treatment
of presidential and congressional
elections identically, even though
Congress has vastly reduced pow-
ers to regulate presidential elec-
tions under the Constitution,”
Snead told reporters during a vir-
tual news conference on May 12.
“There are problems under the
14th Amendment, for instance,
when it comes to felon reenfran-
chisement, because the 14th
Amendment clearly allows states
American Medical Association Embraces
Critical Race Theory, Rejects Meritocracy
GQ PAN
The American Medical Associa-
tion (AMA), the largest national
organization representing physi-
cians and medical students in the
United States, says it will set aside
its long-held concept of meritoc-
racy in favor of “racial justice” and
“health equity.”
In an 86-page strategic plan re-
leased May 11, the AMA set out
a three-year road map detailing
how the advocacy group will use
its influence to dismantle “struc-
tural and institutional racism” and
advance “social and racial justice”
in America’s health care system.
According to its plan, the AMA
will be following a host of strat-
egies, including implement-
ing “racial and social justice”
throughout the AMA enterprise
culture, systems, policies, and
practices; expanding medical
education to include critical race
theory; and pushing toward “ra-
cial healing, reconciliation, and
Minnesota Judge Opens Door to Longer Sentence for Chauvin in Floyd’s Death
ZACHARY STIEBER
Former Minneapolis police officer
Derek Chauvin faces the prospect
of a lengthier prison sentence af-
ter a judge this week agreed with
prosecutors that he abused his po-
sition of authority while arresting
George Floyd last year.
It has been proven beyond rea-
sonable doubt that Chauvin used
unreasonable force in restraining
Floyd, Hennepin County Judge
Peter Cahill ruled in a May 11 or-
der made public on May 12, citing
how jurors convicted Chauvin of
three counts, including second-
to make determinations about
whether someone is going to lose
their voting rights when they com-
mit a felony and are convicted,”
Snead said.
“There are problems with redis-
tricting where, again, the Consti-
tution says state legislatures have
that power, but this bill compels
by an act of Congress that they
effectively cede that to indepen-
dent redistricting commissions,
so there are lots of problems with
this, and I think you will see a tre-
mendous number of lawsuits filed
as Congress essentially tries to step
on the toes of the states.”
He also noted that 20 state at-
torneys general recently wrote to
Congress in a letter “that pointed
out just a few of the constitutional
issues that would undoubtedly un-
dergird some of their challenges.”
Also answering reporters’ ques-
tions during the news conference
transformation” regarding the
organization’s own “racially dis-
criminatory” past.
The AMA also makes clear that it
now rejects the concepts of “equal-
ity” and “meritocracy,” which have
been goals in the fields of medical
science and medical care.
“Equality as a process means pro-
viding the same amounts and types
of resources across populations,”
the association said. “Seeking to
treat everyone the ‘same,’ ignores
the historical legacy of disinvest-
ment and deprivation through
historical policy and practice of
marginalizing and minoritizing
communities.”
While the AMA doesn’t run
America’s health care system,
it holds tremendous influence
over medical schools and teach-
ing hospitals that train physicians
and other health professionals.
Those institutes, the AMA says,
must reject meritocracy, which
it describes as a harmful narra-
tive that “ignores the inequitably
degree murder.
Cahill also sided with the pros-
ecution in agreeing that Chauvin
treated Floyd “with particular cruel-
ty,” that children were present dur-
ing the time Chauvin was kneeling
on Floyd’s neck and back, and that
Chauvin committed the crime as a
group with the active participation
of at least three other persons.
It hasn’t been proven that Floyd
was particularly vulnerable, ac-
cording to the ruling.
Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s attorney,
declined to comment.
Minnesota Attorney General
Keith Ellison, a Democrat, and
SAUL LOEB/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
were former Virginia Attorney
General and Trump administra-
tion alumnus Ken Cuccinelli, who
is now chairman of the Election
Transparency Initiative, and Jes-
sica Anderson, executive director
of Heritage Action for America.
The Senate Committee on Rules
and Administration held a markup
session on May 11 on S.1, the upper
chamber’s version of H.R.1, which
the House passed earlier this year
on a 220-210 vote that included no
Republican supporters and one
Democratic opponent.
The proposal includes huge
changes in virtually every aspect
of voter registration and voting,
incorporating as a national man-
date temporary reforms used to
make voting easier in the 2020
elections amid the CCP virus
pandemic and lockdowns.
The reforms include nation-
wide voting early and by mail, the
distributed social, structural and
political resources.”
“The commonly held narrative of
meritocracy is the idea that people
are successful purely because of
their individual effort,” it states.
“Medical education has largely
been based on such flawed meri-
tocratic ideals, and it will take in-
tentional focus and effort to recog-
nize, review and revise this deeply
flawed interpretation.”
Instead, the AMA suggests, medi-
cal schools should incorporate into
their programs critical race theory,
an offshoot of Marxism that views
society through the lens of a power
struggle between the race of op-
pressors and that of the oppressed.
As a result, according to the theory,
all long-established institutions of
Western society are considered to
be tools of racial oppression.
“Expand medical school and
physician education to include
equity, anti-racism, structural
competency, public health and
social sciences, critical race theo-
other prosecutors had presented
Cahill in a recent motion with five
factors that would trigger an ag-
gravated sentence.
“Any one of these five aggravat-
ing factors would be sufficient
on its own to warrant an upward
sentencing departure. Here, all five
apply. The State therefore respect-
fully requests that the Court find
the facts necessary to support the
existence of these five aggravating
factors and that the Court impose
an aggravated sentence on that ba-
sis,” prosecutors said in the filing.
Nelson opposed each supposed
factor, arguing in a brief that the
elimination of virtually all voter
qualifications including photo IDs,
vote-harvesting practices critics
say encourage voter fraud, and
allowing voting by illegal immi-
grants and individuals convicted
of murder and other violent crimes.
The panel couldn’t agree on a
final version of S.1 to report out to
the full Senate, but the lengthy ses-
sion that lasted well into the eve-
ning voted on a host of proposed
amendments, rejecting most but
agreeing to a few.
One of the amendments that
passed was offered by Sen. Ted
Cruz (R-Texas) to eliminate a pro-
vision of the proposal that required
candidates for redistricting com-
missions to include in their appli-
cations descriptions of their reli-
gious activities.
Cuccinelli told The Epoch Times
following the news conference
that the provision “requires cer-
tain information from individu-
als who may be selected to serve
on the commissions, and among
that information is their affilia-
tion with and support for religious
organizations.”
Cuccinelli said he believes Dem-
ocrats included the provision as
a tool to prevent conservative
Catholics and evangelicals from
being involved in the redistricting
commissions.
“There can be no other reason
to request that information, be-
cause if you can’t use it and it isn’t
relevant, why would you ask for
it?” he said.
During the news conference,
Cuccinelli said Republicans
managed to gain adoption of an
amendment that struck a provision
that would have allowed incum-
bent congressmen and their chal-
lengers to use public campaign
financing funds for personal uses.
If the bill becomes law, it will al-
locate $6 in tax funds for every $1
in private contributions received
by incumbents seeking reelection
and their challengers.
“How much that provision would
be worth to these Democrats in
their last election cycles. In my
home state of Virginia, that would
have been more than $10 million
to Mark Warner,” Cuccinelli said,
referring to Sen. Mark Warner,
Doctors and nurses confer in a hospital in Leonardtown, Md., on April 8, 2020.
ry and historical basis of disease,”
reads the document, which is
loaded with critical race theory
vocabulary.
In a statement that accompa-
nied the plan, AMA President
Gerald Harmon said he is “fully
committed to this cause” and
called on the medical community
to join the effort.
“We believe that by leveraging
the power of our membership, our
influence, and our reach we can
help bring real and lasting change
state “has failed to meet its burden
of proving the existence of the al-
leged aggravating factors beyond a
reasonable doubt.”
Under Minnesota law, Chauvin
faces sentencing for the most
serious crime he was convicted
of, second-degree murder. The
charge carries a maximum sen-
tence of 40 years in prison. Min-
nesota convicts serve two-thirds
of their sentence in jail and the
other third outside of jail.
Without an aggravating factor,
Chauvin’s sentence would likely
have fallen between 10 years 8
months and 15 years.
NATION | A3
the Virginia Democrat who was
reelected in the 2020 election.
Had the provision been in effect
for the Senate elections in Geor-
gia, Cuccinelli said, it would have
provided “an astounding sum, it
would have maxed out the bill,
which was said in the committee
to be worth $80 million [for Sen.
Jon Ossoff, D-Ga.].”
The proposal in-
cludes huge changes
in virtually every
aspect of voter regis-
tration and voting.
Anderson said the markup ses-
sion illustrated for conservatives
“just how detrimental the provi-
sions of S.1 would be when you
saw the discussion of the federal
takeover of elections, you saw the
discussion of murderers and child
molesters voting with the provi-
sion automatically allowing felons
to vote on release, the discussion
around public financing of cam-
paigns, a partisan Federal Election
Commission, I mean that back and
forth was wild.”
The committee failed to advance
the amended measure on a 9–9
party-line vote, but it may yet make
it to the Senate floor. The Senate
is evenly divided 50–50 between
the parties, with Vice President Ka-
mala Harris to break ties. President
Joe Biden has promised to sign the
bill into law if it makes it to his desk.
Anderson said four Democratic
senators—Joe Manchin of West Vir-
ginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona,
Jon Tester of Montana, and Maggie
Hassan of New Hampshire—likely
will be the most important factors
in the bill’s ultimate outcome.
All three of the organizations rep-
resented at the news conference
are mounting multimillion-dollar
public education efforts to inform
voters of the problems they see with
the legislation and encouraging
them to contact their senators.
Congressional correspondent
Mark Tapscott may be reached at
mark.tapscott@epochtimes.nyc
WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES
to medicine,” he said.
The controversy around critical
race theory in U.S. institutions
gained more attention in 2020,
when President Donald Trump
banned the use of training materi-
als based on “divisive and harmful
sex and race-based ideologies” in
federal workplaces. President Joe
Biden rescinded the order, instead
issuing an order stating that his
administration would pursue “a
comprehensive approach to ad-
vancing equity for all.”
Cahill will announce the sen-
tence he decides on June 25.
The judge’s new ruling came
after two major developments in
the case.
Chauvin’s attorney last week
asked for a new trial, arguing
that the conviction was tainted by
prosecutorial and jury misconduct
and errors of law at trial. A few days
later, federal officials announced
that a grand jury indicted Chauvin
and three other former officers
who were involved with Floyd’s
arrest with violating Floyd’s right
to be free from unreasonable sei-
zure and excessive force.
A4 | NATION
Massachusetts Governor’s Pandemic Restrictions
Challenged in Supreme Court
MATTHEW VADUM
A good-government group is taking
to the Supreme Court its challenge of
the constitutionality of Massachusetts
Gov. Charlie Baker’s 14-month-old
pandemic-related state of emergency
and its continuing restrictions on civic
life and businesses.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance
(NCLA) filed a petition for certiorari,
or review, with the Supreme Court
asking the justices to review the Mas-
sachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s
December 2020 ruling that held the
Republican governor’s restrictions
didn’t violate the plaintiffs’ federal
constitutional rights.
In the case, the petitioners—indi-
viduals, business people, small busi-
nesses, and churches—argue that the
current restrictions on their civil liber-
ties violate their due process rights.
Baker’s capacity limitations, curfews,
and other restrictions on gatherings in
private homes “underscore the need
for judicial oversight of executive
decrees, even during a pandemic,”
NCLA stated.
Massachusetts is scheduled to re-
scind pandemic restrictions on Aug.
1 but there’s no guarantee it will hap-
pen, according to an April 27 state-
ment issued by Baker’s office.
“All industry restrictions will be
lifted at that time, and capacity will in-
crease to 100% for all industries, with
businesses encouraged to continue
following best practices. The gather-
ing limit will be rescinded. Depend-
ing on vaccine distribution and public
health data, the Administration may
consider re-evaluating the August 1st
date,” the statement read.
The appeal in the case, Desrosiers
v. Baker, was filed at the Supreme
Court by NCLA, which describes it-
self as “a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil
rights group” that strives “to tame the
unlawful power of state and federal
agencies and to foster a new civil lib-
erties movement that will help restore
Americans’ fundamental rights.”
In a statement, NCLA senior litigator
Michael P. DeGrandis said Baker has
exceeded his authority as governor.
“If the Governor can really choose
which assemblies to ban as long as
his stated purpose is neutral, and if
he can choose which jobs or activities
to ban just because it has a reasonable
relationship to a government interest,
no civil liberties are safe in this pan-
demic or the next,” DeGrandis said.
“The Constitution does not lose its
vitality just because there is a crisis;
in fact, that’s when we need it most.
The Supreme Court should review
the Desrosiers decision and reaffirm
that a crisis cannot justify abandon-
ing civil liberties or constitutional
principles.”
Baker “seized unprecedented ex-
Pelosi, Schumer Come to Rep. Cheney’s
Defense After House GOP Votes to Oust Her
CONTINUED FROM A1
courage to tell the truth.”
Both Schumer and Pelosi praised
Cheney’s recent comments that
were critical of former President
Donald Trump and his post-Nov. 3
election claims. Cheney continued
to criticize Trump on the morning
of May 12 even after she was voted
out as chair of the House Repub-
lican Conference, the No. 3 posi-
tion among House Republicans,
and said she would work to prevent
Trump from becoming president
again if he decides to run.
But House Republican leadership
said Cheney wasn’t ousted because
of her vote to impeach Trump. They
instead said she was increasingly
going off-message and said the
GOP needs a unified voice within
the party ahead of the 2022 mid-
term elections.
House Minority Leader Kevin
McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House
Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.)
both threw their support behind
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who on
May 12 formally announced she
would seek the House Republican
A shuttered restaurant accepting only take out orders in Dorchester, Mass., on March 22, 2020.
ecutive and legislative authority”
when he issued 67 executive orders
related to the pandemic, according to
the group. Under the current state of
emergency, the governor gets to arbi-
trarily declare which supposedly es-
sential businesses may remain open
and which non-essential businesses
must close, without a hearing or other
form of due process.
“Most of Baker’s orders from the last
year have curtailed freedoms by ban-
ning economic, religious, educational,
and cultural assembly in some form
or fashion. But a health crisis does not
ANDREW HARNIK/AP PHOTO
Conference chair role.
McCarthy, in an explanation
to House Republicans this week,
wrote that it isn’t the time “to take
our eye off the ball” ahead of the
midterms, saying that “these inter-
nal conflicts need to be resolved so
as to not detract from the efforts of
our collective team.”
“Having heard from so many of
you in recent days, it’s clear that
we need to make a change,” the
House GOP leader said. “As such,
you should anticipate a vote on re-
calling the Conference Chair this
Wednesday.”
It also comes as Democrats in
JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
empower the Governor to disregard
the First and Fourteenth Amend-
ments,” NCLA stated.
NCLA argues the Massachusetts
court erred in finding that relaxed
legal standards should be applied to
its clients’ First Amendment freedom
of assembly claims and that Baker’s
restrictions could pass muster under
the Due Process Clause so long as
they were reasonably related to a valid
state interest. Closer judicial scrutiny
is called for when “the restrictions on
personal liberty are so extreme and
have been imposed by order of a single
House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi
(D-Calif.), accom-
panied by then-
Senate Minor-
ity Leader Chuck
Schumer (D-N.Y.)
on Capitol Hill in
Washington on
Aug. 7, 2020.
the Senate are pushing their For
the People Act, which would sig-
nificantly overhaul the U.S. elec-
tion system amid dozens of GOP-
backed election-related bills being
pushed in state legislatures that are
designed to curb mail-in-balloting
and drop-boxes.
On May 12, Senate Majority Lead-
er Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on
the floor that Democrats’ election
bill is tantamount to a “one-party
takeover.”
“It will shatter public confidence
in our democracy if the Democratic
Party decides it can rig the rules,”
McConnell said.
THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
executive-branch official rather than
a legislature.”
Protesters rally to Baker’s office didn’t immediately
demand an end to
the statewide stay
respond to a request by The Epoch
at home advisory Times for comment.
and the new law At a press conference in Quincy on
forcing everyone May 10, he told reporters he wouldn’t
to wear a mask in comment on the pending litigation,
public, outside the but said: “The vast majority of advi-
Massachusetts State sories we’ve put in place have been
House in Boston on pretty consistent with public health
May 4, 2020. recommendations. They’re pretty
consistent with what most other states
have done as well.”
Baker said the state is moving for-
ward, adding that large outdoor ath-
letic events may now take place, with
stadium attendance capped at 25 per-
cent, MassLive.com reported.
“We’ve continued to see positive
progress on all the public health
measures we pay attention to,” the
The Constitu- governor said.
tion does not “We’re going to continue to make de-
lose its vitality cisions based on data so any decision
we make with respect to reopening is
just because a positive one that’s sustainable. That
there is a crisis. makes us a little more cautious than
others ... generally speaking, we have
Michael P. DeGrandis,
not had some of the blowback they’ve
litigator, New Civil
Liberties Alliance
had in other places when they’ve
opened up a little more quickly.”
Baker said the “faster people get vac-
cinated, the more likely we can do the
things we like to do.”
Rep. Stefanik and the entire Democrat and Far-
Left infrastructure,” Stefanik stat-
Makes Bid to
Succeed Cheney
ed in a May 12 letter, touting her
leadership abilities ahead of the
2022 midterm elections. “I know
as House GOP what it takes to flip a district and
grow the Republican Party.”
Conference Chair Stefanik, who didn’t mention
Cheney in the letter, wrote that she
JACK PHILLIPS will back Republican messaging
regarding the illegal immigra-
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) tion crisis along the U.S.–
announced she is offi- Mexico border, support
cially running to be law enforcement amid
chair of the House anti-police demon-
Republican Confer- strations and riots,
ence, the No. 3 posi- election security, and
tion among House strengthening the U.S.
GOP members, after military to “counter ad-
Republicans voted Rep. versaries like the Chinese
Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) out of Communist Party.”
party leadership on May 12. She added that she will
Rep. Elise
Former President Donald Stefanik develop a “communica-
Trump, House GOP Leader (R-N.Y.) tions posture” and will at-
Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), tempt to “break through the
and House Minority Whip Steve biased media.”
Scalise (R-La.) have said they “I will work hard today and
would support Stefanik’s bid. The every day to listen and earn
New York Republican, notably, your confidence and support as
backed some of Trump’s post-Nov. House GOP Conference Chair,”
3 election claims and mounted a she wrote. “And I look forward
defense of Trump during his first to working with you as we share
impeachment inquiry. our unified conservative vision,
“I know firsthand the discipline regain the Majority, [and] fire
and message it takes to fight back [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi]
against the biased national media once and for all.”
 THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021 NATION | A5

Many Americans Fall Victim to Unemployment Aid Fraud

CHUNG I HO/THE EPOCH TIMES
CONTINUED FROM A1

using stolen identities to falsely claim

unemployment benefits.”
In the state of Indiana, for example,
nearly 1.3 million claims have been
processed for unemployment, and
roughly 15 percent of these claims
“have been flagged for fraud indica-
tors,” according to Walorski.
Claims for unemployment bene-
fits have surged since the pandemic
lockdowns began. Most states have
been struggling to keep up with
a record volume of claims due to
their outdated systems. In addition,
they’re not equipped to deal with
large fraud attacks, particularly the
ones coming from overseas.
States have to put new technolo-
gies in place, according to experts,
so they can stop the fraud before it
happens, rather than try to chase it
down and claw it back.
“After the CARES Act was passed,
the unemployment insurance sys-
tem became a rich target in a way
that it had never been previously,”
Amy Simon, deputy assistant sec-
retary at the Department of Labor
under the Trump administration,
said at the roundtable.
“Many states were unprepared
to defend themselves against or-
ganized crime, against credential
stuffing.” New York State Department of Labor on Sept. 28, 2020.
At the Labor Department, Simon J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE-POOL/GETTY IMAGES

was working on the frontlines of the
department’s “daily inundation of
both claims and fraud.” Last month,
Simon herself became one of the
fraud victims when she got a text
message showing that she had filed
an application for unemployment
insurance in a state that she hadn’t
lived in for years.
“It was an unsettling reality to
accept that not only had I watched
fraud unfold on the macro stage, it
was now impacting my life directly,”
she said. The same day, the state’s
initial claim application portal was
shut down due to the volume of
fraudulent attacks.
Experts note that the total amount
of fraud nationwide could be signifi-
cantly higher than estimated by the
Labor Department, with the amount
being anywhere between $200 and
$300 billion.
Many Americans have been affect-
ed by this fraud. Those who have had
their ID stolen can’t apply for ben-
efits, they instead have to wait until
the matter is resolved.
Speaking at the roundtable, Doug
Swetnam, section chief for the data
privacy and ID theft unit for the In-
diana Attorney General’s Office, said
OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
that his unit saw a 1,500 percent in-
crease in identity theft in 2020 and is
After the on track to set a new record for 2021.
CARES Act “Worst of all, we believe that many
was passed, victims still don’t know they’ve been
victimized,” Swetnam said.
the unemploy-
ment insur- Fraud Surges 4,800 Percent
ance system People typically find out about the
fraud when they attempt to apply
became a rich for unemployment insurance ben-
target in a way efits or when their employers notify
them. Some also receive prepaid
that it had credit cards by mail often from
never been states where they don’t live. And
previously. others learn when they receive a
1099-G form in the mail that shows
Amy Simon, former dep- an amount of benefits that they never
uty assistant secretary, applied for.
Department of Labor Traditional ID verification isn’t Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington on Oct. 2, 2020.
enough to prevent these scams,
according to Pete Eskew, senior Speaking at the roundtable, Velas- said in a statement.
vice president at ID.me, an identity quez said unemployment identity Republicans have accused Demo-
verification company that currently theft increased 4,800 percent last crats of allowing this “widespread
serves 23 states, including Califor- year. fraud to happen.” They criticize Dem-
nia, Colorado, and New York. “We’re on pace to surpass our 2020 ocrats for not agreeing to hold a joint
The company helps individuals numbers before the end of the sec- hearing on the matter and rejecting
securely verify their identity online. ond quarter this year,” she said. a  proposal  offered  by Rep. Devin
“Due to our controls, we’ve stopped According to a survey by the Identi- Nunes (R-Calif.) that introduces safe-
about 1.6 million fraudulent claims ty Theft Resource Center, 33 percent guards to help prevent fraud.
protecting over $30 billion of tax- of the victims of unemployment- and In a letter to U.S. Department of
payer money,” Eskew said during stimulus-related identity fraud re- Labor Secretary Martin Walsh on
the roundtable. ported that they didn’t have enough May 10, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho)

International organized crime
groups from countries such as Rus-
sia, Uzbekistan, China, and Nigeria
are involved in the ID theft, Eskew
said, adding that a lot of domestic
organized crime is also “beginning
to get into this game.”
While some states have started
to take preventive measures and
deploy new systems to address the
problem, identity theft continues to
surge, according to Eva Velasquez,
president and CEO of the Identity
Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit
that helps victims of identity theft.
money to buy food or pay for utili-
ties. And 13 percent have stated that
they’ve been unable to get temporary
or permanent jobs as a result of the
misuse of their identity.
The Department of Labor and the
FBI have been unable to keep up
with the volume of fraud cases, ac-
cording to experts.
Republican lawmakers plan to
introduce the Combatting COVID
Unemployment Fraud Act this week
to prevent “criminals and interna-
tional cybercrime rings” from rob-
bing the American people, Walorski
and Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas)
urged the department to make
“targeted investments” to stop un-
employment fraud.
“The Department should act to
implement commonsense policies
to stop the ‘pay and chase’ model
of unemployment administration,
like requiring states to verify identity
and prior employment of applicants
before authorizing benefits,” the law-
makers stated.
The Labor Department didn’t im-
mediately respond to a request by
The Epoch Times for comment.

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A6 | NATION
Biden Touts 1 Million
Enrollments for
Health Coverage
During Special
Obamacare Window
TOM OZIMEK
President Joe Biden announced on May
11 that 1 million people have signed up
for health coverage after his administra-
tion launched a special sign-up window
under Obamacare provisions.
Biden signed an executive order in
January that expanded access to the
Affordable Care Act, including creat-
ing a special enrollment period for
HealthCare.gov, a federal marketplace
for private health insurance plans that
allows people to see if they qualify for
tax credits for private insurance or sign
up for programs such as Medicaid. The
special enrollment window was opened
on Feb. 15 and is set to last until Aug. 15.
“Less than three months later, I am
pleased to announce that one million
Americans have signed up,” Biden said
in a statement. “That’s one million more
Americans who now have the peace of
mind that comes from having health
insurance.”
Biden also credited the $1.9 trillion
American Rescue Plan for lowering insur-
ance premiums for the 9 million Ameri-
cans who buy their coverage through
Obamacare, saying that it has saved an
average of $50 per person per month.
“Since April 1, the median deductible
for Americans signing up for new cover-
age on HealthCare.gov has dropped by
nearly 90 percent, to just $50,” Biden said.
The American Rescue Plan expanded
Affordable Care Act subsidies for two
years at a cost of $34 billion.
Some health care experts have criti-
cized the Obamacare expansion, argu-
ing that it mostly benefits richer house-
holds and insurance companies.
Biden on May 11 called for the Afford-
able Care Act subsidies to become per-
manent.
“Today’s milestone demonstrates that
there is a need and a demand for high
quality, affordable health insurance
across this country,” Biden said. “It is up
to Congress to hear them, and act quickly
to pass the American Families Plan.”
The sprawling American Families
Plan consists of about $1 trillion in in-
vestments and $800 billion in tax cuts
and credits for families and workers. The
plan proposes to make permanent the
recent expansion of the child and de-
pendent care tax credit, and the earned
income tax credit for childless workers.
It also promises access to education, af-
fordable child care, and up to 12 weeks
of paid leave and medical leave.
Opponents of the American Families
Plan have criticized its lofty price tag
while calling it the largest expansion of
the welfare state since the 1960s.
Since taking office, Biden has proposed
a total of $6 trillion in new spending, in-
cluding the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief
package that he already signed.
JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES
A man holds a sign directing people to an
insurance company where they can sign
up for the Affordable Care Act, in Miami on
Feb. 5, 2015.
71 Percent of Charlotte Area Gas
Stations out of Fuel; Police Warn
of ‘Gas Crisis’
CONTINUED FROM A1
WBTV. “Similar to when we have severe
weather and we lose a lot of bread and milk
at stores.”
It comes after a ransomware attack on the
Colonial Pipeline system that transports
fuel from the Gulf Coast to the northeast-
ern United States. According to an update
from the firm on May 11, it’s still working to
restart the pipeline.
Colonial wrote that it’s continuing to
“make progress” on its efforts to return the
pipeline to service, saying it’s working to
A customer walks past a “Now Hiring” sign at a BevMo store in Larkspur, Calif., on April 2, 2021.
Record Number of Small Businesses
Can’t Find Workers: Report
CONTINUED FROM A1
growth in unfilled job openings.
“Small-business owners are seeing a
growth in sales but are stunted by not hav-
ing enough workers,” NFIB Chief Econo-
mist Bill Dunkelberg said in a statement.
“Finding qualified employees remains the
biggest challenge for small businesses and
is slowing economic growth.”
The top concern for businesses in April,
as in March, was labor quality, the report
indicates. A striking 92 percent of small
businesses hiring or trying to hire work-
ers in April reported few or no qualified
applicants for the positions they were
trying to fill, an increase of three points
from March.
Small-business own-
ers are seeing a growth
in sales but are stunted
by not having enough
workers.
Bill Dunkelberg,
chief economist, National Federation
of Independent Business
The NFIB report also noted that 37 per-
cent of small businesses have openings
for skilled workers, up three points from
March, and 20 percent have openings for
unskilled labor, up one point. At the same
time, a net 21 percent of small-business
owners said they plan to create new jobs
in the next three months, reinforcing con-
cerns about growing labor market slack, or
unmet demand for paid labor.
Further highlighting the hiring woes of
businesses, job openings in the overall
U.S. economy rose nearly 8 percent month-
over-month to 8.1 million in March, the
highest number in the history of the se-
ries, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in
a statement on May 11.
Business groups and Republican leaders
in Washington have blamed the federal
pandemic-related unemployment boost
make deliveries in “Atlanta, Ga., Belton and
Spartanburg, S.C., Charlotte and Greens-
boro, N.C., Baltimore, Md., and Woodbury
and Linden, N.J.”
Meanwhile, North Carolina Gov. Roy Coo-
per, a Democrat, issued a state of emergency
over potential fuel shortages, saying it’s de-
signed to prepare the state for fuel supply
issues and ensure drivers can have access
to gas or diesel.
De Haan told The Epoch Times that dur-
ing fuel shortages, drivers see other drivers
sitting in long lines and join them.
“Self-fulfilling prophecy—people see oth-
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks during a daily news briefing at the White House on May 7, 2021.
for sidelining workers.
Following a lackluster jobs report last
week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
called for an early end to the federal $300
jobless top-up (above and beyond what
states provide) which is scheduled to lapse
in September.
“The disappointing jobs report makes
it clear that paying people not to work is
dampening what should be a stronger jobs
market,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce Chief
Policy Officer Neil Bradley said in a state-
ment on May 7. “One step policymakers
should take now is ending the $300 week-
ly supplemental unemployment benefit.
Based on the Chamber’s analysis, the $300
benefit results in approximately one in four
recipients taking home more in unemploy-
ment than they earned working.”
A debate has simmered about whether the
Biden administration’s policies are creating
disincentives for people to take jobs.
“The federal unemployment benefit has
made it almost impossible for service in-
dustry businesses to maintain their work-
force. In a majority of cases, the unemploy-
ment benefits exceed wages earned from
working,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)
said in a statement on Twitter.
er people, they read about it, and everyone’s
freaking out,” he said. “Whereas smaller
communities, they may not be on top of it.
They’re apparently driving around to/from
work, they see gas lines and they think, ‘Oh
man, I better get it, too.’”
Earlier this week, the FBI confirmed
THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES
“The federal unemployment benefit has
had the effect of discouraging return to
work, and it is now time for that program
to come to an end,” he said.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, speak-
ing at a press conference on May 7, sought
to dismiss claims that the weekly jobless
top-up was discouraging people from tak-
ing jobs.
“I really don’t think the major factor is the
extra unemployment,” she said, arguing
that the jobs data tends to be volatile and
the broader trend is positive, pointing out
that, on average, the economy has added
around half a million jobs monthly in the
past three months.
“There’s no question that we’re hearing
from businesses that they are having dif-
ficulty hiring workers,” Yellen acknowl-
edged, although she said that the hard-hit
leisure and hospitality sector showed strong
job gains in April.
Republican governors in a number of
states—including Alabama, Arkansas,
Idaho, Iowa, Montana, South Carolina,
Tennessee, and Missouri—are respond-
ing to business hiring woes by ending the
federal unemployment boost ahead of its
scheduled termination date in September.
LOGAN CYRUS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Notes on gas
pumps letting
motorists know
that the pumps
are empty, at an
Exxon gas sta-
tion in Char-
lotte, N.C., on
May 12, 2021.
that a cybercriminal gang called DarkSide
was behind the ransomware attack. Dark-
Side, which is reportedly based in Russia,
claims it’s apolitical and only wants to
make money.
Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
 THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
Big Tech Companies
Are Monopolies
Engaged in
Censorship: Parshall
ZACHARY STIEBER &
JOSHUA PHILIPP
Big Tech companies such as Face-
book and Twitter are monopolies
that need to be reined in to curb
the amount of censorship they’re
engaging in, constitutional law-
yer Craig Parshall told The Epoch
Times.
Section 230 of the Communica-
tion Decency Act helped a small
group of companies, including
Google and Amazon, rise to pow-
erful heights. Those companies,
collectively known as Big Tech,
now wield enormous power.
Section 230 shields technology
companies from most lawsuits,
with few exceptions.
You have five mo-
nopolies [Facebook,
Google, Twitter, Ap-
ple, and Amazon]
created as a result
of a congressional
subsidy in the form
of a ‘get out of law-
suit free’ card.
Craig Parshall,
constitutional lawyer
“That gift was to incentivize
competition. What it’s done is it’s
grown a series, a handful of gi-
ants—I’d say it’s Facebook, Google,
Twitter, Apple, and Amazon—five
companies that basically rule the
landscape in terms of digital infor-
mation, viewpoint, and opinions,
everything from politics, to reli-
gion, to culture, arts, and enter-
tainment,” Parshall said on The
House Panel,
DOJ Reach
Agreement
in McGahn
Subpoena Case:
Attorneys
JANITA KAN
The Justice Department and attor-
neys for the House Judiciary Com-
mittee say they have reached an
agreement in a case seeking to en-
force a subpoena demanding tes-
timony from former Trump White
House counsel Don McGahn.
In a filing to a federal appeals
court, lawyers from both sides
said that the parties have reached
an agreement “in principle” on
an accommodation in the years-
long lawsuit. It also asked the
court to remove the case from
its May calendar in order to al-
low the parties to implement that
accommodation.
The status report didn’t inform
the court of details about the
agreement or accommodation
but noted that former President
Donald Trump, who isn’t a party to
the case, wasn’t part of discussions
to reach the agreement.
“The Committee on the Judi-
ciary and the Executive Branch
have reached an agreement in
principle on accommodation and
anticipate filing, as soon as pos-
sible, a joint motion asking the
Court to remove this case from
the May 19, 2021, oral argument
calendar in order to allow the par-
ties to implement the accommo-
dation,” the update reads.
House Democrats have begun
a slew of investigations against
Trump since 2019, which includ-
ed the subpoena of McGahn in
Epoch Times’ show “Crossroads.”
“So you have five monopolies
created as a result of a congres-
sional subsidy in the form of a ‘get
out of lawsuit free’ card.”
In recent years, there’s an in-
creasing amount of evidence that
the Big Tech companies dispro-
portionately target conservatives,
shutting down or limiting certain
viewpoints on topics including
COVID-19, Christianity, and trans-
genderism.
The market dominance of Big
Tech, which lacks serious compe-
tition, makes the censorship all the
more concerning, Parshall said.
“When the New York Post was
censored, and I use that word cen-
sored because Facebook and Twit-
ter are monopolies. And because
they’re information monopolies—
that’s even worse than a monopoly
that’s, let’s say, a monopoly over
automobiles or designer clothes
or furniture. Rather, monopolies
over the flow of information, which
is essential to a constitutional re-
public, then that’s a critical issue.
So the market dominance issue is
the important one,” he said.
“If we had a thousand Facebooks,
that wouldn’t be a problem. Be-
cause if 10 of them decided they
were going to not carry the New
York Post article during the elec-
tion that had implications for
Joseph Biden because of Hunter
Biden, his son, it would not be the
restriction of the free flow of diver-
sity of opinion. But when you have
five companies that basically rule
the vast majority of digital land-
scape on all these issues, then you
have a market dominance issue,
antitrust problems, and you have a
suppression, as the Supreme Court
said, just as dangerous as if the gov-
ernment were the one doing it.”
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has said
The Department of Justice in Washington on Jan. 2, 2020.
Litigation over
the subpoena had
taken a number of
twists with a full
federal appeals
court intervening
twice in the matter.
an effort to find information that
could lead to Trump’s impeach-
ment. The White House blocked
McGahn’s appearance, asserting
executive privilege over the doc-
uments, which prompted House
Democrats to subsequently sue
McGahn in August 2019 in an at-
tempt to enforce the subpoena.
Litigation over the subpoena had
taken a number of twists with a
full federal appeals court in-
tervening  twice in the matter.
The full District of Columbia Court
of Appeals in October 2020 granted
a request by the House committee
to rehear the case after a divided
three-judge panel ruled in August
that the House can’t look to federal
courts to enforce its subpoenas be-
cause there’s no law that gives the
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (top C), Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (top R), Google CEO Sundar Pichai (bottom L), and
Apple CEO Tim Cook (bottom 2nd L) are sworn in during a virtual hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on
Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 29, 2020.
Craig Parshall, a constitutional lawyer and special counsel for the American
Center for Law and Justice, during an appearance on The Epoch Times pro-
gram “Crossroads.”
the censorship of the Post article,
about the contents of a computer
that’s believed to have belonged
to Hunter Biden, was a mistake.
Facebook also limited the spread of
the article before the 2020 election.
Congress members on both
sides of the aisle are looking to al-
ter existing laws or craft new ones
to govern Big Tech, which largely
opposes antitrust measures and
other efforts to limit its power. But
even 10 years ago, when the cur-
rent market dominance was seen
SAMIRA BOUAOU/THE EPOCH TIMES
chamber the power to do so.
The full panel vacated the
three-judge panel’s August 2019
decision.
The majority in the August deci-
sion wrote that the case had to be
dismissed because the committee
“lacks a cause of action to enforce
its subpoena.”
“We note that this decision does
not preclude Congress (or one of
its chambers) from ever enforc-
ing a subpoena in federal court;
it simply precludes it from doing
so without first enacting a statute
authorizing such a suit,” the ma-
jority opinion stated.
Last year, the full panel visited
another issue in the case and
ruled that the House has the legal
right to bring suits, or standing,
to enforce its subpoenas, but also
allowed McGahn to continue
challenging the subpoena on
other grounds.
Following the new House ses-
sion, House Judiciary Committee
Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) re-
issued a subpoena for McGahn’s
testimony in January.
The case is scheduled to be ar-
gued before the full circuit court
on May 19.
THE EPOCH TIMES
in its early form, no one among
various experts could agree on
how to deal with it, according to
Parshall.
Democrats have urged Big Tech
to ramp up content moderation
even more, while Republicans
have decried the censorship, with
some maligning the companies’
monopolistic power.
Solutions include removing some
areas from the Section 230 shield,
Parshall said, such as how human
trafficking is already an exception.
CBP Southern Border Arrests Hit
Record Levels in April; Number of
Unaccompanied Minors Down
ISABEL VAN BRUGEN
Arrests and detentions at the
U.S.–Mexico border hit record
levels in April, although fewer
unaccompanied minors en-
tered the United States illegally,
according to U.S. Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) data
published on May 11.
Immigration arrests and deten-
tions at the southern border last
month rose by 3 percent from
March, to 178,622—the highest
one-month total in 20 years, CBP
data show. In contrast, the num-
ber of teens and children arriv-
ing unaccompanied last month
declined by about 9 percent from
March, to 13,962.
“CBP continues to see a large
influx of illegal migration along
the southwest border,” CBP Se-
nior Official Performing the Du-
ties of Commissioner Troy Miller
said in a statement.
“In order to disrupt criminal or-
ganizations that have little regard
for human life, CBP is leading the
way alongside external law en-
forcement partners through Op-
erational Sentinel. Day after day,
CBP rescues migrants abandoned
in harsh terrain, left for dead with
no food or water. CBP is commit-
ted to enhancing the security of
the U.S. border and helping save
the lives of vulnerable migrants.”
Last month’s figures mark the
first month since President Joe
Biden took office that the CBP
didn’t record a major month-
on-month jump in the number
of border arrests and detentions,
despite reaching record levels.
“The longer the president main-
tains his reckless immigration
policies, the worse this crisis at
NATION | A7
MANDEL NGAN/POOL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
“But then we get to free speech
issues about viewpoint suppres-
sion. I think the best way to han-
dle this in terms of a regulatory or
statutory remedy is to say if you’re
a market-dominant player, and
define those terms adequately,
that a market-dominant digital
company then has to follow the
principles and precepts of First
Amendment jurisprudence that
the Supreme Court’s carved out for
decades, with certain adaptation
to the fact that we’re talking about
cyberspace and we’re not talking
about a public park,” he said.
“So there’s certain kinds of ac-
commodation that has to be made
to the reality of computer engi-
neering that you wouldn’t have in
terms of a guy’s decision to pass
out leaflets on a public sidewalk.
But with those accommodations
in mind, I believe in taking the
First Amendment and making it
otherwise applicable even though
it isn’t applicable to state actors,
having a federal law saying it will
be applied to these giant monop-
olies unless they have adequate
and reasonable content modera-
tion processes that show they’re
doing it for themselves.”
our border will get,” Arizona At-
torney General Mark Brnovich
said on Twitter in response to the
latest CBP data.
Twenty Republican governors
from states including South Da-
kota, Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska,
and New Hampshire wrote a let-
ter to Biden and Vice President
Kamala Harris on May 11, urging
the administration to address the
crisis at the border.
“The crisis is too big to ignore
and is now spilling over the bor-
der states into all of our states,”
the governors wrote.
“At a time when our country is
trying to recover from a once-in-
a-generation pandemic, the last
thing we need is a self-created cri-
sis that exploits families, under-
mines public safety, and threat-
ens our national security. We urge
you to take action to end the hu-
manitarian crisis and secure our
southern border immediately.”
While the Biden administration
has called the unprecedented
surge in numbers a “challenge,”
neither the president nor the vice
president has visited the border.
On April 25, when a reporter
asked Harris why she hasn’t
visited the southern border, she
replied, “I’m not going to play po-
litical games.”
White House press secretary
Jen Psaki said on May 4, “After
coming into office, our admin-
istration immediately jumped
into action to address the influx
of migrants at the border—some-
thing that began during and was
exacerbated by the Trump ad-
ministration.”
Charlotte Cuthbertson
contributed to this report.
A8 | NATION
Pentagon Says Afghanistan Troop
Withdrawal Up to 12 Percent Complete
TOM OZIMEK
The withdrawal of remaining U.S.
military forces in Afghanistan is
making steady headway, with up
to 12 percent of the process already
complete, the Pentagon has said.
The Pentagon isn’t
disclosing specific
troop drawdown
numbers as a pre-
caution against
possible Taliban
attacks.
The U.S. military’s Central Com-
mand, or Centcom, said in a May
11 statement that it estimates com-
pletion of between 6 to 12 percent
“of the entire retrograde process,”
the technical term for withdrawal
of forces and equipment. At the
same time, the Pentagon isn’t dis-
closing specific troop drawdown
numbers as a precaution against
possible Taliban attacks.
Centcom said that enough equip-
ment has been decommissioned to
fill 104 of the U.S. military’s jumbo
transport aircraft, the C-17 Globe-
master planes. At the same time,
more than 1,800 pieces of equip-
ment have been turned over to
the Defense Logistics Agency for
destruction, while one facility has
been handed over to the Afghan
National Army.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby
told reporters on May 11 that the
U.S. military is being deliberately
guarded about troop numbers.
“Central Command has ex-
pressed a concern about the re-
People walk in downtown Brooklyn, N.Y., on May 3, 2021.
Mall Traffic Hits Post-
Pandemic High as Retail
Recovery Continues
TOM OZIMEK
Shoppers across the United States
continued to flock to the nation’s
malls in greater numbers in April,
with the foot-traffic gap nearly
halving in just two months, rein-
forcing the view of a retail recovery
gaining traction.
Foot traffic at a sample of 50
malls last month showed that,
compared to the pre-pandemic
April 2019 level, it was down 18.7
percent, a marked improvement
from recent months, according
to a report provided to The Epoch
Times by mobile-device location
data analytics firm Placer.ai.
“In this metric, there was a
strong forward momentum with
the visit gap shrinking from 23.7
percent down in March to just 18.7
percent down in April,” the com-
pany said in the report.
“This is the strongest mark the
index has seen since the pandemic
began, and another sign that the
retail recovery is already in prog-
ress,” the report noted, adding that
the data “further deepens the op-
timism around top tier malls and
lease of personnel figures specifi-
cally, given that we have to assume,
and we are still assuming that this
drawdown could be opposed by the
Taliban,” Kirby said, according to
Air Force Times.
Kirby in April warned of Taliban
threats to the U.S. military draw-
down, which is scheduled to be
completed by Sept. 11.
“We’ve seen their threats, and it
would be imprudent for us not to
take those threats seriously,” he
said at an April 15 press confer-
ence. “It would also be imprudent
for the Taliban to not take seriously
what [President Joe Biden and Sec-
SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES
their ability to anchor key retail
expansions moving forward.”
Placer’s report also featured a
striking statistic, namely that mall
foot traffic surged by a staggering
3992 percent in April compared
to April 2020, although the re-
port noted that “this number is
essentially meaningless as the
comparison is to a fully shut down
month the year prior.” An earlier
mall traffic comparison between
March 2021 and March 2020
showed a sharp 86 percent rise,
although with much the same
caveat that the baseline was low
because of pandemic-related clo-
sures in March last year.
The fate of the retail recovery
was clouded by earlier econom-
ic data showing U.S. consumer
spending falling by the most
in 10 months in February as a
cold snap gripped many parts
of the country and the boost
from a second round of stimulus
checks faded. But the most recent
release from the Commerce De-
partment’s Bureau of Economic
Analysis (BEA) dispelled much
of that gloom, showing that per-
retary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin]
both made clear: Any attack on our
drawdown, on our forces or our al-
lies and partners ... will be met very
forcefully.”
By the time it’s complete, the
drawdown will have brought back
to the United States all 2,500 or so
troops that have been stationed in
Afghanistan.
President Joe Biden announced
the withdrawal on April 14, saying
that “it’s time to end America’s lon-
gest war.”
The president’s decision to with-
draw the remaining troops has
drawn a mixed reaction on Capi-
sonal consumption expenditures
in March saw a sharp 4.2 percent
boost. Consumption is a key driv-
er of the U.S. economy, account-
ing for around two-thirds of gross
domestic product.
This is the strongest
mark the index has
seen since the pan-
demic began.
Placer.ai
The consumer spending data
came on the heels of a Moody’s
report that upgraded its outlook
for the U.S. retail and apparel sec-
tor from stable to positive.
“As pandemic pressures ease and
the cadence of vaccinations accel-
erates, we expect the retail sector to
experience broad-based improve-
ment. Operating profit will grow a
robust 10-12 percent in 2021, and
hard-hit sectors such as apparel,
department stores, and off-price
will see the most pronounced op-
erating profit growth over the next
12 to 18 months,” Mickey Chadha,
Moody’s vice president and senior
credit officer, said in a statement.
U.S. economic growth acceler-
ated sharply at a 6.4 percent an-
nualized rate in the first quarter,
fueled by the rush of consumer
spending, according to a separate
BEA release on U.S. gross domes-
tic product.
But the accelerating growth has
revived concerns about the econ-
omy overheating and putting up-
ward pressure on prices.
JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES
A H&M store in Miami Beach, Fla, on
Oct. 2, 2020.
THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
tol Hill and from security experts,
while national security adviser Jake
Sullivan said in late April that the
Biden administration “can’t make
any guarantees” that terrorist
groups such as al-Qaida and ISIS
won’t see a resurgence once the
drawdown is complete.
The foreign troop withdrawal has
sparked a surge in fighting between
Afghan security forces and the Tali-
ban, who have waged a decades-
long war to overthrow the foreign-
backed government.
Kirby was asked at a May 10
press conference how Afghan
security forces were coping with
120 Retired US Military Officers
Warn of Conflict Between Marxism,
‘Constitutional Freedom’
JACK PHILLIPS
More than 120 retired U.S. generals
and admirals signed an open let-
ter warning that the United States
is embroiled in an existential fight
and urged “all citizens” to get in-
volved in local and state politics.
“We are in a fight for our survival
as a Constitutional Republic like no
other time since our founding in
1776. The conflict is between sup-
porters of Socialism and Marxism
vs. supporters of Constitutional
freedom and liberty,” states the let-
ter, which was signed by 124 former
military leaders, released by “Flag
Officers 4 America.”
The letter also posited that opposi-
tion to proposed bills and laws that
would strengthen election initia-
tives has troublesome implications.
“Election integrity demands in-
suring there is one legal vote cast
and counted per citizen. Legal votes
are identified by State Legislature’s
approved controls using govern-
ment IDs, verified signatures,
etc. Today, many are calling such
commonsense controls ‘racist’ in
an attempt to avoid having fair and
honest elections,” the letter states.
According to the Flag Officers
4 America website, it’s a group
of former military leaders who
“pledged to support and defend
the Constitution of the United
States against all enemies,”
whether “domestic” or “foreign.”
Of note, signatories of the letter in-
clude retired Army Brig. Gen. Don-
ald Bolduc—a Senate candidate in
New Hampshire, retired Army Lt.
Gen. William Boykin, and retired
Vice Adm. John Poindexter—who
was the deputy national security
adviser to President Ronald Reagan.
“China is the greatest external
threat to America. Establishing
cooperative relations with the Chi-
nese Communist Party emboldens
them to continue progress toward
world domination, militarily, eco-
nomically, politically, and techno-
logically. We must impose more
U.S. Black Hawk military helicopters
fly over the city of Kabul,
Afghanistan, on April 19, 2021.
RAHMAT GUL/AP PHOTO
the renewed fighting and what
the prospects are, going forward,
given the dwindling support from
U.S. airstrikes as the wind-down
continues.
While declining to comment on
the specifics of operations, Kirby
expressed guarded optimism, say-
ing Afghan government forces have
“more capability” now than in the
recent past.
“It’s important to remember
that for a while now, a long while,
they have been in the lead in op-
erations in their country. And they
are fighters,” Kirby said of Afghan
security forces.
sanctions and restrictions to im-
pede their world domination goal
and protect America’s interests,”
the letter says.
Other threats they listed include
the United States reentering the
Iran nuclear deal, illegal immigra-
tion, and the stoppage of the Key-
stone XL Pipeline project. President
Joe Biden issued an order halting
the pipeline project early in his
presidency.
Meanwhile, amid the COVID-19
pandemic, the retired military
leaders said that lockdown orders
affecting schools and businesses
are tantamount to “population con-
trol actions.”
“We must support and hold ac-
countable politicians who will act
to counter Socialism, Marxism and
Progressivism, support our Consti-
tutional Republic, and insist on fis-
cally responsible governing while
focusing on all Americans, espe-
cially the middle class, not special
interest or extremist groups which
are used to divide us into warring
factions,” the letter states.
The letter concluded by urging
“all citizens to get involved now
at the local, state and/or national
level to elect political representa-
tives who will act to Save America,
our Constitutional Republic, and
hold those currently in office ac-
countable.”
Some former military members
questioned the purpose of the letter.
Retired Adm. Mike Mullen, for-
mer head of the  Joint Chiefs of
Staff, said that the letter “hurts the
military and by extension, it hurts
the country” and said it contains
GOP “talking points,” according
to Politico.
Meanwhile, in France, dozens of
retired generals were sanctioned
after they recently sent a letter
warning about a possible civil war
over the “protection of our civi-
lizational values.” They blamed
France’s leadership for not dealing
with what they described as unfet-
tered immigration into the country.
 THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
US Sanctions 2nd Chinese Official
for Persecuting Falun Gong
CONTINUED FROM A1
Blinken said the designation
was applied to Yu for his involve-
ment in “gross violations of hu-
man rights, namely the arbitrary
detention of Falun Gong practi-
tioners for their spiritual beliefs.”
The organization that Yu pre-
sided over is known as the 610
Office, an extralegal agency
established shortly before the
onset of the persecution with
the express goal of carrying
out the brutal campaign. The
organization wields enormous
power within the Party and
enjoys uncontested power to
persecute religious minorities.
Yu headed the Chengdu branch
beginning in 2016 and through
February 2018.
The spiritual discipline Fa-
lun Gong involves three core
tenets—truthfulness, compas-
sion, and tolerance—along with
a set of meditative exercises. Af-
ter its founder, Li Hongzhi, first
introduced the practice in Chi-
na’s northeastern city of Chang-
chun in 1992, Falun Gong gained
70 million to 100 million adher-
ents through word of mouth. The
Chinese regime, threatened by
the practice’s popularity, began
an eradication campaign in July
1999 aiming to wipe out the faith
in China.
The State Department sanc-
tions came a day before World
Falun Dafa Day, which marks the
anniversary of the practice’s in-
troduction to the public 29 years
ago, as well as Li’s 70th birthday.
The sanctions also made Yu the
second Chinese official punished
by Washington for persecuting
Falun Gong practitioners. In De-
cember 2020, the Trump admin-
istration sanctioned Huang Yu-
anxiong, a police chief in Fujian
Province, for “particularly severe
violations of religious freedom of
Falun Gong practitioners.” That
designation was made on Inter-
national Human Rights Day.
The U.S. decision “will surely
send a potent message across
China that the world is watching
and there will be real-world con-
sequences for persecuting Falun
Chinese Lawyer Tortured,
Denied Access to Family and
Attorneys for Over 6 Months
FRANK YUE
A Chinese rights lawyer has said
he’s been tortured and denied ac-
cess to his family and attorneys
for six months.
Chang Weiping, who is well-
known for representing vulner-
able groups in China, is currently
detained in a detention center in
Feng County, Shaanxi Province.
On May 4, human rights of-
ficials from the United States,
the European Union, Germany,
France, Finland, Norway, and
the Netherlands met in Beijing
with Chang’s wife, Chen Zijuan,
to express concern for the law-
yer, according to a May 7 post by
Chen on Twitter.
On April 9, Chen wrote a letter
of complaint to a top watchdog in
Shaanxi Province, accusing the
Baoji City Public Security Bureau
and its Gaoxin branch of illegally
collecting evidence against her
husband.
Her allegations include dis-
torting the facts in connection
to Chang’s case and threatening
witnesses.
Chang’s parents also protested
the Chinese regime’s torture of
their son in December 2020.
A Dangerous Party
Chang’s alleged ill-treatment
originated from a party held in
Xiamen city, Fujian Province.
According to Radio Free Asia,
about 20 citizens from different
provinces joined the day-long
Falun Gong practitioners take part in a parade in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens, N.Y., on April 18, 2021, to
commemorate the 22nd anniversary of the April 25th peaceful appeal by 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing.
Gong practitioners,” according
to Erping Zhang, spokesperson
for the Falun Dafa Information
Center in New York.
“As the news spreads among
the [Chinese Communist Par-
ty’s] security apparatus, it will
very likely make some think
twice about perpetrating further
abuses,” he said in a statement.
Sam Brownback, former U.S.
ambassador-at-large for interna-
tional religious freedom, simi-
larly applauded the move.
“I think it sends a very strong
signal to China,” he told Epoch
Times affiliate NTD. “It sends
the signal that we’re not going
to let them get away with this
war on faith.”
The World Organization to
Investigate the Persecution of
Falun Gong, a U.S.-based orga-
nization dedicated to the rights
of the faith group, named Yu as
a perpetrator of the campaign
and listed two instances of per-
secution that took place under
his watch.
Liu Guiying, a senior engineer
at a major state-owned telecom-
munications company called
party at a rented house in Xia-
men in early December 2019. At-
tendees included human rights
lawyers, including Ding Jiaxi and
Chang Weiping, and law schol-
ars including Xu Zhiyong. They
discussed challenges mainland
Chinese lawyers face in perform-
ing their duties.
Eighteen days later, on Dec. 26,
police launched a nationwide
raid against nearly all the partici-
pants, on charges of subversion of
state power.
On Jan. 14, 2020, Chang was
subjected to 10 days of secret
detention and his certificate to
practice law was revoked.
He was later released on bail
pending trial.
Torture
After months of silence, Chang
exposed shocking details about
the physical abuse he suffered,
via an 8 1/2-minute video posted
on YouTube on Oct. 16, 2020. He
also made a statement that he
would never commit suicide or
harm himself. Such a statement is
seen almost as a requirement for
dissidents or activists when they
face intimidation or torture from
the Chinese Communist Party.
“I was locked in a torture chair
in a room of Baoti Hotel for 10
days, 24 hours a day—an extreme
form of inflicting pain. The im-
pact on me is that my right hand’s
index and ring fingers remain
numb, senseless, or functionally
abnormal,” the lawyer said.
China Electronics Technology
Group, was sentenced to three
years in prison in December 2017
for her beliefs, after spending two
years in detention without trial.
The judge told her lawyer pri-
vately, “This has been pre-ar-
ranged by superiors and I have
no way around it.”
Later in prison, Liu wasn’t al-
lowed to bathe, wash her hair,
brush her teeth, or use toilet pa-
per, the organization said.
Pan Xiaojiang, a judicial as-
sistant with Sichuan Province’s
Nanchong Intermediate People’s
Court, was arrested in February
2017 for hanging a banner in
public, according to Minghui,
a website established by Falun
Gong practitioners in the United
States to collect first-hand ac-
counts of the persecution. She
was sentenced to four years in
prison after pleading not guilty
in June 2018.
The Falun Dafa Information
Center said Yu was one of 9,000
officials of the 610 Office who
was flagged by the State Depart-
ment earlier this year by advo-
cates for Falun Gong.
Chinese rights lawyer Chang Weiping’s parents protest the torture of their
son, in front of the Gaoxin branch of the Baoji City Public Security Bureau,
China, on Dec. 14, 2020.
According to former Chinese
detainees, a torture chair is col-
loquially called a “tiger chair” in
Chinese, and it involves fasten-
ing a detainee’s hands and feet
so that he or she is immobilized.
The detainee is then denied sleep
for hours or days.
Within those 10 days, the lo-
cal police interrogated Chang
16 times, searching through
his contacts, connections, on-
line speech, and immigration
records, only to find nothing,
he said.
On Oct. 22, 2020, six days af-
ter the video was posted, he was
taken away by police officers
from the Gaoxin branch of the
Baoji City Public Security Bu-
reau, who failed to present any
legal documents.
Since then, he has been held
under so-called “residential
surveillance at a designated lo-
cation.”
On April 20, 2021, Margarete
von Galen, president of the
Council of Bars and Law Societ-
ies of Europe, wrote an open let-
LARRY DYE/THE EPOCH TIMES
Minghui has verified and docu-
mented thousands who died at
the hands of the regime. It notes
that the true number of deaths is
likely much higher but can’t be
verified due to the CCP’s tight-
fisted control over any relevant
details. Researchers have de-
scribed forced organ harvesting
from Falun Gong practitioners as
a “cold genocide.”
In 2020, more than 15,000 ad-
herents experienced arrests or
harassment, with more than
600 people sentenced to jail, ac-
cording to Minghui. The oldest
person among those who were
sentenced was 88.
Brownback, in a phone inter-
view, described what the Chi-
nese regime has done to Falun
Gong practitioners as “hateful
and belligerent.”
“They seem to just absolutely
want to destroy Falun Gong,” he
told The Epoch Times. He cited
mounting evidence of systemic
organ harvesting targeting pri-
marily Falun Gong practitioners,
but also Christians and Uyghur
Muslims. “The world can no lon-
ger ignore this.”
THE EPOCH TIMES
ter to Chinese leader Xi Jinping
expressing “serious concern
over the continued detention”
of Chang.
The letter aimed to draw Xi’s at-
tention to the U.N. Basic Princi-
ples on the Role of Lawyers; urged
Xi to do everything in his power to
ensure Chang has immediate ac-
cess to his lawyers and to restore
his freedom; and requested that
Xi take all necessary measures
to “guarantee that all lawyers in
China are able to carry out their
professional duties without fear of
reprisal, hindrance, intimidation,
or harassment.”
On Nov. 16, 2020, Amnesty
International called for the “im-
mediate and unconditional re-
lease of Chang” unless there is
sufficient credible and admis-
sible evidence that Chang has
committed an internationally
recognized offense, and that he
be granted a fair trial in line with
international standards.
Hong Ning contributed
to this report.
CHINA | A9
KREEDER13 VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, CC BY-SA 4.0
A bust of Confucius at the Confucius
Institute on the Troy University cam-
pus, in Troy, Ala., on March 16, 2018.
Senators
Introduce Bill
Forcing Colleges to
Disclose Financial
Ties With Beijing
CATHY HE
Lawmakers recently introduced a
bill that would force U.S. colleges to
disclose their financial ties with the
Chinese regime, including its Con-
fucius Institutes, in order to qualify to
receive international students.
The bill, put forward by Sen. Chuck
Grassley (R-Iowa), would make such
disclosure a condition to a univer-
sity’s eligibility to be part of the
Student and Exchange Visitor Pro-
gram, which provides approval for
schools to enroll students holding
non-immigrant visas.
The centerpiece of
this bill is disclosure
and transparency.
Sen. Chuck Grassley
“The centerpiece of this bill is dis-
closure and transparency,” Grassley
said on the Senate floor on May 10. “If
the schools want visas for their foreign
students, they’ll first have to disclose
their ties to the Chinese government.”
The bill comes amid heightened
scrutiny on the Chinese regime’s
influence on American campuses.
A 2020 investigation by the Depart-
ment of Education found that uni-
versities received almost $1.5 billion
in contracts and gifts from China
from 2014 to 2020.
“The communist regime poses a se-
rious threat to U.S. research as well
as undue influence on our college
campuses,” Grassley said in a May 5
statement.
One of the vehicles of Beijing’s
influence is Confucius Institutes.
Billed as Chinese language and cul-
ture centers, the institutes have been
sharply criticized for promoting Bei-
jing’s propaganda and suppressing
academic freedom in universities
across the country.
From 2006 to 2019, the Chinese re-
gime poured more than $158 million
to about 100 U.S. universities through
Confucius Institutes, according to a
2019 U.S. Senate subcommittee on
investigations report. There are cur-
rently 47 Confucius Institutes in the
country, according to the National
Association of Scholars (NAS).
“This legislation will shine a light on
any funny business that the Chinese
government is trying to play on our
campuses under the guise of Confu-
cius Institutes and any financial ties
between our educational institutions
and the communist regime,” Grassley
said in the statement.
The proposed legislation would ef-
fectively codify a Trump-era policy
proposal that was automatically re-
scinded when President Joe Biden
took office because the proposed
rule hadn’t been formalized through
regulatory processes before the end
of President Donald Trump’s term.
Last year, the Trump administra-
tion  designated  the  Washington-
based Confucius Institute U.S. Center
as a foreign mission. Then-Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo said at the time
that the measure was a recognition
of the center’s role in “advancing
Beijing’s global propaganda and
malign influence campaign on U.S.
campuses.”
The Senate in March passed a bill
that would force host universities to
take full control of Confucius Insti-
tutes or lose their federal funding.
In the past few years, dozens of
Confucius Institutes have closed
down around the country. But in
their place, many universities have
simply entered into new rebranded
partnerships with the Chinese re-
gime under a different name, ac-
cording to the NAS.
A10 | WORLD
The Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh on May 3, 2016.
Clear Mandate for Another Scottish
Independence Vote: Experts
LILY ZHOU
The Scottish National Party (SNP)
has a clear mandate to hold a sec-
ond Scottish independence refer-
endum, although it may not hap-
pen for a while, experts say.
The argument over Scottish in-
dependence has intensified in re-
cent days after the SNP’s landslide
victory in the Holyrood election,
which also produced the largest
pro-independence majority in
the Parliament in the history of
devolution.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson
has since stood by his preelection
position, saying the focus should
be on the recovery from the CCP
virus pandemic and not on an-
other independence referendum.
“The SNP fell one seat short of
having the overall majority that
they desperately wanted during
the campaign,” Paula Surridge,
Bangladesh Rebuffs China’s Threat
Against Joining US-Led Quad
ALEX WU
Bangladesh’s foreign minister on
May 11 rejected remarks by the
Chinese ambassador warning the
South Asian nation not to partici-
pate in the U.S.-led Quadrilater-
al Security Dialogue because it
would damage bilateral relations.
The Quad is a four-nation Indo-
Pacific alliance led by the United
States, along with India, Japan, and
Australia. Beijing considers the
Quad a “small anti-Beijing club.”
“We are an independent and
sovereign state,” Bangladeshi For-
eign Minister A. K. Abdul Momen
said at a May 11 press conference
in response to the Chinese threat.
“We decide our foreign policy. Any
country can uphold its position.
But we will take decisions con-
sidering the interest of people and
the country.”
We are an indepen-
dent and sovereign
state. We decide our
foreign policy.
A. K. Abdul Momen,
Bangladeshi foreign minister
Momen expressed his surprise
regarding the long reach of the
Chinese communist regime’s
“wolf warrior” diplomacy in
interfering with Bangladesh’s
affairs. He described it as “un-
usual” and “aggressive,” adding,
“We did `not expect such behav-
ior from China.”
deputy director of the UK in a
Changing Europe initiative and
senior lecturer at the University of
Bristol, told Epoch Times affiliate
NTD on May 10.
“But there’s still a clear majority
within the Scottish Parliament if
you take the SNP and the Greens,
who pick up quite a lot of seats on
the list vote and who were also in
favor of a second referendum,” she
said.
“So there’s plenty of support
there and a mandate there, if you
like, in terms of the number of
seats.”
Sir John Curtis, professor of poli-
tics at the University of Strathclyde,
also said the SNP has a “much
clearer mandate” for a second ref-
erendum than it did in 2016.
Apart from the fact that pro-in-
dependence MSPs now have a ma-
jority in Parliament, “the crucial
difference from the last election
Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming (L), Bangladeshi Foreign Minis-
ter A.K. Abdul Momen (R), and Bangladeshi Health Minister Zahid Maleque take
part in a handover ceremony of 500,000 doses of the Chinese-made Sinopharm
COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on May 12, 2021.
He also said the Quad hadn’t
contacted Bangladesh to discuss
joining the alliance and wondered
why the Chinese ambassador
made the remarks prematurely.
Chinese ambassador Li Jim-
ing had warned on May 10, at an
event organized by the Diplo-
matic Correspondents Associa-
tion of Bangladesh (DCAB), that
if Bangladesh were to join the
group, China–Bangladesh rela-
tions would suffer “substantial
damage.” He noted that Chinese
Defense Minister Wei Fenghe had
delivered the same message dur-
ing his recent visit to the South
Asian country.
“We don’t want any form of par-
ticipation of Bangladesh in this
alliance,” Li said.
Meanwhile, China also tried
to win over Bangladesh and said
in 2016 is what the parties have
said in their manifestos,” Curtis
told NTD on May 10.
In a Scottish independence ref-
erendum in September 2014, 55
percent of voters voted to remain
in the United Kingdom, two years
before the UK voted to leave the
EU.
Curtis said that in 2016, SNP
said they didn’t want a second
independence referendum un-
less there was to be a “material
change of circumstance,” refer-
ring to Brexit.
“But this time around, they have
simply said, ‘We want another ref-
erendum at some point during the
course of the next five years, pref-
erably the next two years.’ So they
said something much more direct
and much clearer,” Curtis said.
“Insofar as politicians gaining
their mandate from voters having
voted for the manifesto that they
MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
that China would provide more
support to the country in its fight
against the COVID-19 pandemic
by promising to send more vac-
cines. Approximately 776,000
people in Bangladesh have been
infected with the Chinese Com-
munist Party (CCP) virus and
12,000 have died of it, as of May 11.
In March, U.S. President Joe
Biden, at a Quad virtual summit,
said it would be “a vital arena for
cooperation in the Indo-Pacific”
to counter Beijing in the years
ahead.
Bangladesh joined Beijing’s Belt
and Road Initiative, at the risk
of falling victim to its debt-trap
diplomacy and losing strategi-
cally important ports on the Bay
of Bengal to China, which would
give the Beijing regime access
points to the Indian Ocean.
THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
MATT CARDY/GETTY IMAGES
TOBY MELVILLE/REUTERS
The Scottish Saltire flag flies next to
the British Union Jack, in London on
July 29, 2019.
stood on, the SNP have this time
a much clearer mandate than the
one that they had five years ago.”
SNP Not Ready
With regard to when a sec-
ond Scottish independence ref-
erendum may happen, Surridge
said it’s unclear.
Pentagon Promises ‘Ironclad
Support’ of Israel Amid Conflict
With Palestinians
JACK PHILLIPS
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
on May 12 stressed the United
States’ “ironclad support” for Is-
rael’s right to defend itself amid
a military conflict with Hamas,
according to a statement from
the Pentagon.
The statement comes as Israeli
officials said that 16 members
of Hamas’s armed wing were
killed by airstrikes—coming
after Hamas and Islamic Jihad
terrorists fired numerous rockets
into Israel.
Department of Defense spokes-
man John Kirby confirmed that
Austin spoke with Israeli Min-
ister of Defense Benny Gantz on
May 12.
“Austin conveyed the Depart-
ment’s ironclad support for Israel’s
legitimate right to defend itself and
its people,” Kirby said.
Austin, meanwhile, “strongly
condemned the launching of
rockets by Hamas and other ter-
rorists groups that targeted Israeli
civilians,” according to Kirby. “He
reiterated the importance of all
involved parties to take steps to
restore calm.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu on May 12 confirmed
that the brigade commander for
Gaza City was among senior mem-
bers of the Islamist militant group
who had been killed.
“This is just the beginning.
We’ll hit them like they’ve never
dreamed possible,” he said.
Soon after the announcement,
a new rocket barrage was fired at
the Israeli city of Ashdod, and Is-
She said it’s also unclear if the
UK government would support a
call for a referendum, but “at the
moment, people are saying, now
isn’t the time,” because recovering
from the pandemic is more urgent.
Curtis said there’s another rea-
son the SNP isn’t ready to have the
referendum.
The argument over
Scottish indepen-
dence has intensified
in recent days after
the SNP’s landslide
victory in the Holy-
rood election.
Asked about the chance of a
“yes” vote, Curtis said it would
be a 50–50 shot.
The opinion polls in recent
weeks and over much of the last
three years suggested that “sup-
port for yes and support for no
to independence are roughly at
50–50 each,” Curtis said.
“And certainly, the message
from the ballot box is consistent
with that,” he said. “We are liter-
ally just over 50 percent of people
voting for the unionist parties on
the constituency balloting, just
over 50 percent of people vot-
ing for the Nationalist Party on
the list ballot. So it does look as
though the country’s split down
the middle.”
Curtis says both sides “have a lot
of work to do.”
“Above all their arguments, a lot
has changed since 2017,” he said,
adding that both sides would have
to “marshal their forces” to further
the debate and “shift the dial of
public opinion.”
“Both of them have a lot of work
to do. And we’d really have to wait
and see how the Scottish public
reacts. If and when we get into a
substantial debate about indepen-
dence, of the kind that so far we’ve
not really been having.”
Curtis said that both the impact
of the pandemic and the nation-
alist side’s own interest “point to
at least not a rush to try to hold a
referendum, but rather something
that is going to take place some-
time down the track.”
Jane Werrell of NTD contributed
to this report.
raeli media said the military was
preparing for new barrages on the
Tel Aviv area.
Hamas confirmed the death
of the commander and of “other
leaders and holy warriors” in a
statement.
“The confrontation with the ene-
my is open-ended,” Hamas leader
Ismail Haniyeh said.
In Gaza, a multi-story residen-
tial building and a tower hous-
ing media outlets, including one
linked to Hamas, collapsed after
Israel warned occupants in ad-
vance to evacuate, and another
structure was heavily damaged
in the airstrikes.
On May 12, another tower in
Gaza appears to have been lev-
eled by Israeli forces. Iranian
state-run media and Arabic news
outlets reported that the Al Sha-
ruk tower was destroyed.
At the same time, the Biden ad-
ministration earlier on May 12
confirmed that it’s dispatching a
top official on Israeli and Palestin-
ian affairs to Jerusalem in a bid to
deescalate the conflict—consid-
ered the worst in years.
Hady Amr, deputy assistant sec-
retary for Israeli and Palestinian
Affairs, will “urge on my behalf,
and the behalf of President Biden
the de-escalation of violence,” Sec-
retary of State Antony Blinken told
reporters.
“We are very focused on this. The
United States remains committed
to a two-state solution. This vio-
lence takes us further away from
that goal,” Blinken said.
Reuters contributed to this report.
 THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021 WORLD | A11

UK to Set Up Inquiry Into Government’s Handling

of CCP Virus Pandemic
DAN KITWOOD-WPA POOL/GETTY IMAGES

CONTINUED FROM A1

the heat of our struggle against

this disease.”
Jo Goodman, a co-founder of
COVID-19 Bereaved Families
for Justice group, said it was a
“huge relief” to hear the news,
but  spring 2022 is “simply too
late to begin.”
“It sounds like common sense
when the prime minister says that
an inquiry can wait until the pan-
demic is over, but lives are at stake
with health experts and scientists
warning of a third wave later this
year,” Goodman said in a state-
ment, cited by Sky News.
“A rapid review in summer 2020
could have saved our loved ones
who died in the second wave in
winter,” the statement reads.
The prime minister’s office has
defended the timescale for start-
ing the public inquiry, saying it
requires a “great deal of govern-
ment time” when it’s still under
the pressure of the pandemic.
The spokesperson said the
government doesn’t have a set
timeframe for selecting a chair
for the inquiry, and that it will
“come forward with terms of ref- (L–R) UK Chief Medical Officer Chris Witty, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance announce changes to lockdown rules
erence and name a chair in due in England, during a virtual press conference at 10 Downing Street in London on May 10, 2021.
course.” The spokesperson has
also confirmed that a lessons- a press briefing. the 2019 CCP (Chinese Com- “February 2020 was also a lost
learned review of the pandemic “And that’s been done previous- munist Party) virus outbreak in month when many more coun-
response has been carried out Goodman said ly and that’s been done through- China from becoming a global tries could have taken steps to
but declined to say whether it it was a ‘huge relief’ out this pandemic.” catastrophe. contain the spread of SARS-
would be published. to hear the news, Johnson’s announcement fol- “The time it took from the re- CoV-2 and forestall the global
“What you’re referring to is lows a damning report from the porting of a cluster of cases of health, social, and economic ca-
an informal, not public-facing but spring 2022 Independent Panel for Pandem- pneumonia of unknown origin tastrophe that continues its grip,”
work, that as you’d expect is stan- is ‘simply too late ic Preparedness and Response, in mid-late December 2019 to the statement reads.
dard practice for departments commissioned by the World a Public Health Emergency of The WHO declared the out-
to look into ways to continually
to begin.’ Health Organization (WHO), International Concern [PHEIC] break of the CCP virus a PHEIC
improve,” the spokesperson said which said a quicker internation- being declared was too long,” the on Jan. 30, 2020, and declared it
in response to a question during al response could have stopped panel said in a statement. a pandemic on March 11, 2020.

SARAH MEYSSONNIER/REUTERS

French Assembly Approves COVID-19

‘Health Pass’ on Second Attempt
PARIS—France’s National As-
sembly approved on May 12 the
creation of a COVID-19 “health
pass” that people can use to at-
tend sports events, festivals, and
theme parks with large crowds,
a hotly contested government
measure to help safely reopen
the economy.
The health pass, which will
take effect on June 9, will pro-
vide proof that a person has
either been vaccinated against
the coronavirus, holds a recent
negative PCR test, or is recover-
ing from COVID-19 and therefore
has natural antibodies.
The proposal initially was re-
jected in the lower house on May
11 over fears it would impinge on
civil freedoms, a rare defeat for
President Emmanuel Macron’s
ruling party, after centrist Mo-
Dem allies rebelled.
MoDem lawmakers accused the
government of being deaf to the
party’s red lines.
The health pass was approved
on a second vote in the early hours
of May 12 after the government
shortened the transition period
during which it will be able to
reimpose restrictions such as a
curfew without the permission
of parliament once France’s state
of emergency is lifted on June 2.
France has begun slowly un-
winding a third national lock-
down, despite registering nearly A woman
walks past
20,000 new cases every day and
a closed
with intensive care wards still restaurant in
saturated. Paris on May
On May 19, restaurants, cafes 6, 2021.
and bars will be allowed to reopen
for outdoor service and shops, Macron has said the health pass, or for access to public transport.
museums, and cinemas will re- which can be digital or paper- The legislation now advances to
open. Three weeks later, places of based, will curb the spread of the Senate.
worship and sports stadiums will the virus at events with crowds
be allowed to admit up to 5,000 of more than 1,000 people. It will By Richard Lough &
people and foreign tourists will be not be used for everyday venues Elizabeth Pineau
allowed to visit the country. such as restaurants and cinemas From Reuters

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TRUTH AND TRADITION


The U.S. Steel Corporation plant stands in the town of Clairton, Penn., on March 2, 2018.
In the Face of Most Democrats’ Opposition,
US Steel Cancels a Billion-Dollar Investment
SALENA ZITO
BRADDOCK, Pa.—Exactly
two years ago, U.S. Steel
Corp. announced that
the company would turn
its Mon Valley Works op-
erations into a key source
of lightweight steel for the
automotive industry.
At the time, local leaders and company
officials called the investment “transfor-
mational.”
It involved a whopping $1.5 billion
upgrade to the three Mon Valley Works
plants, all in Pennsylvania—the Edgar
Thomson Plant in Braddock, the Irvin
Plant in West Mifflin, and the Clairton
Coke Works in Clairton—with technology
and improvements that would have re-
sulted in cleaner air for all three commu-
nities, as well as good-paying jobs provid-
ing regional prosperity for decades.
On April 30, U.S. Steel said that after
months of tug of war with the Allegheny
County Health Department, it was cancel-
ing the $1.5 billion upgrade and idling three
batteries at Clairton Coke Works by 2023.
U.S. Steel said in a statement that
a dragged-out delay from Allegheny
County officials for permitting the proj-
ect contributed to the decision, along
with the new direction that the company
is taking to focus on sustainability.
Allegheny County chief executive Rich
Fitzgerald, a city Democrat, said he was
“blindsided by the news.”
Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, also a Demo-
crat, was simply devastated.
“It is heartbreaking,” said Fetterman,
whose home is across the street from the
sprawling 148-year-old Edgar Thomson
Works that hugs the Monongahela River.
Local economic development forecast-
ers estimate over 1,000 direct jobs will be
lost, as well as countless supporting jobs
that would have facilitated the buildout.
Jeff Nobers, the president of Pittsburgh
Works, an economic group made up of
officials in manufacturing, steel, energy,
and labor unions, said the unknown
costs and future implications due to this
decision are formidable and long-lasting.
“We have to be thinking about what
manufacturers who were looking to lo-
cate here are thinking,” he said. “Do they
OPINION
THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021 • A13
SHANNON VENDITTI
look at the climate here and wonder if it
is worth it? Well, that is a problem, too.”
Local elected officials are of several
minds on this project. Most of them were
just hoping it would fly under the radar
of the climate justice warriors and go up
without notice. That was never going to
happen. The rest fully backed its demise
because of their views on climate change.
One exception has been Fetterman,
the progressive populist Democrat
who is seeking his party’s nomination
for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated
by Republican Sen. Pat Toomey in 2022.
He was a vocal supporter of the project,
which sometimes placed him at odds
within his own party’s ranks. His sup-
port created a strange alliance between
him and Republican state lawmakers
such as Allegheny County state Sen.
Devlin Robinson and the state Senate
majority leader, Kim Ward.
Ward said that although she doesn’t
agree with Fetterman on much, she sure
does “on this one.”
Robinson agreed.
“The constant rhetoric attacking
manufacturing in this country is going to
impact jobs,” he said. “That is not some-
thing to worry about in the future—it is
happening right in front of us.”
Critics of the closure also point to the
constant drumbeat coming from local
environmental justice nonprofits and
reporting organizations funded by elite,
left-wing foundations such as the Heinz
Endowments. These, they argue, are con-
tributing to a hostile business climate.
The Edgar Thomson Steel Works,
named after a Pennsylvania Railroad
president, was built by Andrew Carnegie
in the 1870s on the site of an old French
and Indian War battlefield.
The statue of Joe Maga-
rac, a folktale steelworker
who could bend steel
with his bare hands, in
front of the 148-year-old
Edgar Thomson Works.
The constant
rhetoric attacking
manufacturing
in this country is
going to impact
jobs. That is not
something to worry
about in the future—
it is happening
right in front of us.
Sen. Devlin Robinson
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SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES
U.S. Steel also told its investors that it
is reallocating capital to other places—
which means all of the work that was
going to go here will likely go someplace
where bureaucrats are less beholden to
(or aligned with) environmentalists.
Fetterman calls the moment an op-
portunity lost: “We could have made the
safest, greenest steel in the world right
here in Braddock. We could have secured
thousands of good-paying union jobs.”
Now, that opportunity is gone.
President Joe Biden said in his joint
speech to Congress that there’s no reason
steel can’t be continually manufactured
in the United States, and in a safe and
green way. Biden even riffed, “There’s no
reason the blades for wind turbines can’t
be built in Pittsburgh instead of Beijing.”
“Well, that’s what this investment was
about,” said Robinson. “This $1.5 billion
was about making steel in a more envi-
ronmentally friendly way. But the cur-
rent environment right now is so hostile
to manufacturing, manufacturers know
making things in America is not a viable
option. Especially not now, and especial-
ly not into the future, where they’re going
to see a return on their investment.”
Manufacturers may have to relocate to
places where there are no unions, or even
outside the country. This makes hollow
Biden’s promise to protect union jobs and
bring back manufacturing—and it will be
doubly hollow if he looks the other way
when things like this happen.
This conflict between manufactur-
ing and environmentalism is also going
to place Biden at odds with both sides.
Biden argues that a decarbonizing
economy will create millions of jobs.
Here, however, it meant zero jobs created
and perhaps many destroyed.
Salena Zito has held a long, successful
career as a national political reporter.
Since 1992, she has interviewed every U.S.
president and vice president, as well as top
leaders in Washington, D.C., including sec-
retaries of state, speakers of the House, and
U.S. Central Command generals. Her pas-
sion, though, is interviewing thousands of
people across the country. She reaches the
Everyman and Everywoman through the
lost art of shoe-leather journalism, having
traveled along the back roads of 49 states.
A14 | OPINION THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021

Biden Census Pick Santos Recalls Government

Slush Fund for National Council of La Raza
DARIO LOPEZ-MILLS/AP PHOTO

LLOYD BILLINGSLEY “which makes him one of the highest-

Biden pick Robert Santos,
a “Latinx statistician,” is
being hailed as the na-
tion’s first “census direc-
tor of color.” If embattled
Americans find that puz-
zling, they might take a look
at the Biden pick’s actual record.
The Texas-born Santos serves as vice
president of the Urban Institute, where
“his specialty areas include undocu-
mented immigrants and other disad-
vantaged populations.” In 2007, Santos
co-authored “Paying the Price: The Im-
pact of Immigration Raids on America’s
Children,” a publication that was pro-
duced for the National Council of La Raza
(NCLR), an organization with origins that
Americans might find troubling.
“La Raza” derives from “La Raza Cós-
mica (The Cosmic Race)” by Mexican edu-
cator and politician José Vasconcelos. His
book contends that the fusion of Spaniards
and Indians is a new race, “infinitely supe-
rior to all that have previously existed.”
The author derides “the Mongol, with the
mystery of his slanted eyes that see every-
thing according to a strange angle.” The
“Asiatic peoples” are in decline and “ex-
hausted” because they are “lacking in the
necessary boldness for new enterprises.”
According to The Cosmic Race, blacks
are “uglier stocks” and part of the “inferior
races.” The black is “eager for sensual joy,
intoxicated with dances and unbridled
lust.” Vasconcellos ranks the Indian with
“inferior species,” although they attained a
“relative degree of civilization” because of
Spanish conquistadors such as Cortes and
Pizarro.
For Vasconcelos, “the mestizo, the
Indian, and even the black are superior
to the white in a countless number of
properly spiritual capacities.” According
to The Cosmic Race, American children
descended from Scandinavians, Dutch,
and English “are much slower, and
almost dull, compared with the mestizo
children and youth from the south.”
Their superior raza cósmica is replac-
ing the inferior black, white, Indian, and
Mongol races.
As Mexican American communist Bert
Corona explained in “Memoirs of Chica-
no History,” Vasconcelos became a fascist
and his racial theory was “close to the
kind of German racial superiority theory
supported by Hitler.” True to form, during
World War II, Vasconcelos edited Timon,
a German magazine that promoted the
Nazi agenda.
La Raza Cósmica never caught on in
South America but in 1979, it was repub-
lished by the Chicano Studies department
at Cal State–Los Angeles, a public univer-
sity supported by taxpayer dollars. La Raza
Cósmica was also the basis for the Nation-
Young unaccom-
panied migrants,
from ages 3 to 9,
watch television
inside a play area
at the U.S. Cus-
toms and Bor-
der Protection
facility, the main
detention center
for unaccompa-
nied children in
the Rio Grande
Valley, in Donna,
Texas, on March
30, 2021.
al Council of La Raza, whose executives
gained powerful positions in government.
For example, National Council of La
Raza Senior Vice President Cecilia Muñoz
became director of domestic policy for the
Obama administration. Muñoz played a
role in drafting an immigration bill that
included a $300 million slush fund for left-
wing nonprofits.
Muñoz told PBS that “even if the immi-
gration law is executed with perfection,
there will be parents separated from their
children.” So the separation policy was
intentional, and it turned out to be very
profitable for the politically connected.
Southwest Key, staffed by National Coun-
cil of La Raza members Juan Sanchez and
Anselmo Villareal, took in approximately
$500 million in federal contracts to house
immigrant children.
KXAN of Austin reported that South-
west Key had received $995 million in
federal funds and had “more than 200 vio-
lations at its facilities.” According to CNN,
Sanchez was bagging $1.47 million a year,
paid charity CEOs in the country.”
In July 2017, the National Council of
La Raza changed its name to UnidosUS.
Media reports contained little if any refer-
ence to La Raza Cósmica, although NBC
News noted that the organization began as
the Southwest Council of La Raza “until it
became a national organization in 1972.” It
was still the National Council of La Raza in
2007 when Robert Santos co-authored the
report for the organization.
The name change can’t obscure the real-
ity that the National Council of La Raza,
inspired by a racial supremacist, is perhaps
the most blatantly racist organization in the
United States. Even so, the federal govern-
ment hired razaist bosses and gave razaist
cronies millions of dollars to house illegals.
Whatever it chooses to call itself, a
ballpark figure for the amount of taxpayer
funds this group should receive is zero. As
the basis for “Chicano Studies” at public
universities, La Raza Cósmica serves as an
example of institutional racism. This vile
book should have no place in college or
high school curricula.
Legislators and media might want to
question Santos about his views on razaist
dogma. Legitimate citizens and legal im-
migrants might wonder if a specialist in
“undocumented immigrants” is the right
call for director of the Census Bureau.
President Joe Biden is on record that ille-
gals are “already Americans.” So for Biden
and his chosen Census boss, the rule of
law, due process, and the border itself have
little meaning.
Lloyd Billingsley is the author of “Yes I Con:
United Fakes of America,” “Barack ‘em Up:
A Literary Investigation,” “Hollywood Party,”
and other books. Billingsley serves as a policy
fellow with the Independent Institute.

COMICS
DILBERT GARFIELD

PEANUTS GINGER MEGGS

RED AND ROVER BIG NATE

GRAND AVENUE DRABBLE

FRANK AND ERNEST

MUTT & JEFF
 THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021 OPINION | A15

Stephen Gregory, Publisher

SPECIAL SERIES: How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World
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cal interests and the pursuit of

18
CHAPTER 3. Unrestricted Warfare
With Chinese Communist
Characteristics
e. The Many Forms of
Unrestricted Warfare (cont.)
Military Warfare
The CCP has developed asymmetric
weapons, such as anti-ship missiles
and anti-aircraft carrier missiles. In
terms of conventional weapons, the
CCP has attempted to surpass the
technological supremacy of the United
States by having a larger quantity of
matériel targeting high-value assets.
The CCP has grown economically and
technically, giving it greater operation-
al space to implement cyberwarfare,
outer-space warfare, and other un-
conventional high-tech attack vectors
against the United States, as addressed
in the last section.
In the PLA’s ideal war, “tangible na-
tional boundaries, intangible cyber-
space, international law, national law,
codes of conduct, and ethics [would
not be] binding.” Its forces would not be
restricted by any rules: “Anyone [could]
be a target, and any means [could] be
used.” The authors of “Unrestricted
Warfare” declare to their readers:
“Have [you] considered combining the
battlefield with the non-battlefield, war
with non-war, military with non-mil-
itary—specifically, combining stealth
aircraft, cruise missiles and network
killers, nuclear war, financial warfare,
and terrorist attacks? Or, simply put,
Schwarzkopf [then-commander-in-
chief of U.S. Central Command] + Soros
[leftist billionaire] + Morris [creator of
the Morris Worm computer virus] +
bin Laden? This is our true card.” [176]
Internet Warfare
Through the efforts of Huawei and
ZTE to seize the 5G technology mar-
ket, the CCP is striving to gain a domi-
nant position in 5G standards, and it
wants to play a leading global role in
the new technology. The former head
of the Federal Reserve of Dallas said, “If
China were to win the race, they would
establish the protocols for the internet,
just as English replaced German as the
language of science and became the
language of all crucial activity on a
global scale.” [177]
At present, with the impending roll-
out of 5G technology, the internet fac-
es a new round of evolution. With the
combination of 5G and artificial intel-
SPECIAL SERIES
The Huawei Digital Transformation Showcase in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China,
on March 6, 2019.
ularly the synthetic drug fentanyl from
China, is “almost a form of warfare.”
[178] In 2017, more than 70,000 people
died of drug overdoses in the United
States, of which more than 40 percent
were related to synthetic opioids (main-
ly fentanyl and its analogs). These drugs
are primarily produced in China and
then enter the United States through
the U.S. Postal Service or are smuggled
in via the U.S.–Mexico border. [179]
Markos Kounalakis, a senior re-
searcher at the Central European Uni-
versity, wrote that fentanyl was “be-
ing used as a weapon in China’s 21st
century Opium War against America.”
Kounalakis cited fentanyl trafficking as
an example of CCP strategy: The CCP
sees the real value of this chemical as
a “profitable opiate export that also
destroys American communities and
roils the U.S. political landscape.” [180]
With the combination
of 5G and artificial
intelligence, the
internet’s control over
the physical world is
dramatically expanding,
and the rules of the
entire world are being
rewritten. If the CCP
dominates 5G, it will be
Generations of Chinese people who
grew up in the Party culture carry it
with them when they travel abroad to
make a living, exporting Party culture
overseas and effectively acting as part
of a massive overseas army. This has
strengthened the CCP’s ability to con-
trol this army in the free world and use
it for subversion.
Cultural Warfare
The CCP has been peddling Party cul-
ture and its values under the banner of
Chinese traditional culture and cus-
toms for many years. People all over
the world have a strong interest in
China’s long history and rich culture,
yet their understanding is very limited.
The CCP knows this well and takes full
advantage of it. By adopting some of
the superficial forms of traditional cul-
ture, the CCP has disguised itself as the
guardian and true representative of
Chinese culture, making it extremely
difficult for people in other countries
to see through the deceit.
Financial Warfare
The CCP has begun promoting its own
financial payment system and use of
the renminbi through “economic as-
sistance” and private enterprises, in
an attempt to build a global infrastruc-
ture. It intends to use the renminbi to
replace the U.S. dollar’s dominance
in international currency circulation.
According to the CCP’s unrestricted
financial warfare strategy, the regime
can achieve its goals simply by print-
ing massive amounts of money, thus
destroying the financial system when
profit, our starting point and our
goal is to create a media for the
public benefit, to be truly respon-
sible to society.
We endeavor to educate read-
ers about today’s most impor-
tant topics, seeking to broaden
and uplift minds. We believe that
rational, balanced debate is key
for fostering a healthy democ-
racy and a compassionate
society.
As an independent media out-
let, we use our freedom to inves-
tigate issues overlooked—or
avoided—by other media outlets.
We seek to highlight solutions
and what’s good in society rather
than what divides us.
We report respectfully, compas-
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We stand against the destruc-
tion wrought by communism,
including the harm done to cul-
tures around the world.
We are inspired in this by our
own experience. The Epoch
Times was founded in 2000 to
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We still believe journalism is a
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ligence, the internet’s control over the
physical world is dramatically expand-
ing, and the rules of the entire world are
being rewritten. If the CCP dominates
5G, it will be able to act unimpeded.
In addition, once the CCP’s external
propaganda operations are successful-
ly integrated with a China-controlled
5G, its efforts at indoctrinating foreign
audiences will greatly exceed their cur-
rent scale and impact.
Narcotics Warfare
able to act unimpeded.
Mass Mobilization Warfare
In September 2018, a Chinese family
traveling in Sweden claimed they were
mistreated by police after they were
removed from a hotel for attempting to
sleep in the lobby. A video of the melo-
dramatic family being removed was
then exaggerated by the Chinese Em-
bassy and media, and Chinese people
began boycotting Swedish companies
necessary. CCP think tanks have ad-
vocated the weaponization of foreign
exchange reserves.
Notes
176. Qiao Liang 乔良 and Wang Xiangsui
王湘穗, “Unrestricted Warfare,” 61.
177. Eri Sugiura, “China’s 5G a Bigger Threat
Than Trade War, Says Ex-Dallas Fed Chief,”
Nikkei Asian Review, Sept. 24, 2018.
178. Gregg Re, “Trump Declares Opioids From
Mexico, China ‘Almost a Form of Warfare,’ Tells

At a U.S. Cabinet meeting held on Aug.
16, 2018, President Donald Trump said
that the proliferation of opioids, partic-
Ikea and H&M. [181] The Swedish TV
station SVT aired a satirical segment
about the incident on its comedy show,
which further exacerbated the situa-
SUBSCRIBE
Sessions to Sue Drug Makers,” Fox News, Aug.
16, 2018.
179. Kirsten D. Madison, “Stopping the Poison
Pills: Combating the Trafficking of Illegal

CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/THE EPOCH TIMES
Montgomery County sheriff's deputies and
emergency personnel respond to a sus-
pected drug overdose in a gas station park-
ing lot in Dayton, Ohio, on Nov. 1, 2019.
tion. Tens of thousands of Chinese in-
ternet users flooded the websites of the
Swedish Embassy and segment host
Jesper Rönndahl, as well as the TV sta-
tion’s Facebook page. [182]
After sixty years of destruction of tra-
ditional culture and its replacement
with Communist Party culture, the
CCP is able to coerce millions of Chi-
nese people and turn them into a mass
army. The CCP is able to use nation-
alism to control the public because it
has suppressed information about the
Party’s true history of corruption and
killing, leaving the people ignorant of
its crimes.
TODAY
Fentanyl from China,” prepared statement
before the Senate Caucus on International
Narcotics Control, Oct. 2, 2018.
180. Markos Kounalakis, “China Is Using
Fentanyl in a Chemical War Against America,”
McClatchy, Nov. 2, 2017.
Get the
181. Anna Fifield, “China’s Row With Sweden independent news
Over a ‘Racist’ TV Skit Has Citizens Urging
Boycotts of Ikea and H&M,” The Washington you won’t find
Post, Sept. 26, 2018.
182. Xinmei Shen, “How China’s Army of Online
anywhere else.
Trolls Turned on Sweden,” Abacus News, Sept.
26, 2018. Subscribe and get the
insights only The Epoch Times
can provide, delivered to your
See next edition for the next door every week.
installment.
ReadEpoch.com
A16 | OPINION
‘Things Fall Apart’ With No End in Sight
MICHAEL WALSH
Joe Biden, the phantom presi-
dent, gave a speech recently that
the world immediately little
noted nor long remembered.
For the doddering, barely
ambulatory, linguistically chal-
lenged Biden, his first address to
Congress was intended as a substitute
State of the Union speech, but like ev-
erything else he does, it fell as flat as he
nearly did when scrambling up the steps
of Air Force One back in March.
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
The Book You’ve Been
Waiting for...
“Extremely well “The Truth, as horrifying as it is,
researched and true.” shall set us free. This should be
on this country’s academia’s
list of required reading.”
HOW THE
SPECTER OF COMMUNISM
IS RULING OUR WORLD
The specter of communism did not
disappear with the disintegration of the
Communist Party in Eastern Europe
ORDER NOW!
EpochShop.com
NATHAN HOWARD/GETTY IMAGES
(Left) Police officers chase
rioters in Portland, Ore., on
April 12, 2021.
(Right) A woman looks at a
homeless man sleeping in
the sidewalk in Venice Beach,
Calif., on March 28, 2020.
President Joe Biden
addresses a joint session
of Congress as Vice Presi-
dent Kamala Harris (L) and
Speaker of the House U.S.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
look on in the House chamber
of the U.S. Capitol in Wash-
ington on April 28, 2021.
NOW
BIGGER SIZE,
EASIER TO READ
FORMAT
So let me help our poor president out:
The state of the union is terrible, and get-
ting worse. Examples abound:
H Russian hackers apparently just took out
one of the most important pipelines on
the East Coast, and it’s taken the admin-
istration more than a day to respond
to this direct assault on our national
security. But what’s the rush? The anti-
American “progressive” left hates the oil
industry anyway and is busy plotting an
oil-and-carbon-free future for Grass Hut
America, so overall, it’s a net plus!
H The American birthrate has now fallen
for six years in a row, to a record-low
1.64 babies per woman. Some blame
this on the dreaded COVID-19, but it
would make more sense for births to
rise, given that couples have had more
than a year of snuggle time while rid-
ing out the “pandemic” and collecting
government checks.
A more likely reason is the non-stop bar-
rage of propaganda from the anti-human
left, whose refrain has long been “how
can you bring a child into this world?”—
a world, by the way, they’ve been doing
their best to ruin for more than half a
century with abortion, divorce, and lat-
terly, child sex-change operations.
H Speaking of COVID-19—caused by
the CCP virus, which most indepen-
dent authorities now agree could have
been hatched in a lab in Wuhan—the
practically state-run media is now
openly fretting that vaccination rates
are leveling off as Americans begin to
ask themselves whether they want to
voluntarily take part in the biggest real-
time laboratory experiment in history.
And now, the FDA has authorized the
Pfizer vaccine for use on children aged
12 to 15—a group that is essentially
immune to COVID-19 anyway. Mean-
while, Washington—in collaboration,
National-Socialist-style, with its media,
tech, and corporate lackeys—will soon
turn to vaccine passports, brothers un-
der the skin with the old Soviet system
of internal passports.
“The Food and Drug Administration
on Monday authorized use of the Pfizer-
BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for 12- to
15-year-olds in the United States, a crucial
step in the nation’s steady recovery from
the pandemic and a boon to tens of mil-
lions of American families eager for a re-
turn to normalcy,” cheered The New York
Times, the American equivalent of the
USSR’s mouthpiece/newspaper Pravda.
H Around the country, especially in
Democratic-dominated states, “home-
less” encampments have sprouted like
kudzu. The famed Venice Beach in Los
Angeles now resembles the anarchic
opening “Dawn of Man” scene from
Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001: A Space
Odyssey,” with vagrants, derelicts, and
hobos viciously attacking and beating
residents and each other.
Meanwhile, across town in Ange-
lino Heights, work crews just removed
more than 35 tons of human biological
and hazardous waste from Echo Park
Lake and its surrounding park, which
is similarly bristling with brand-new
tents and, no doubt, cell phones.
H Meanwhile, “anti-racism” mania has now
turned its sights on technology and dis-
covered “techno-racism”—an unwitting
and unintended discrimination against
“people of color” that is, according to
CNN, “baked into some of the technology
we encounter every day.” The reference is
to the difficulty some facial-recognition
systems encounter in distinguishing
THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
APU GOMES/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
between and among black faces.
“Even when tech developers and users
do not intend for tech to discriminate,
it often does so anyway,” says one critic.
“Technology is not neutral or objective.”
H On the foreign-policy front, Russia is
about to gobble up whichever bits of
Ukraine it still desires; the commu-
nist Chinese just had a chunk of space
debris crash-land in the Indian Ocean;
and the manifestly unqualified Vice
President Kamala Harris has thus far
managed to foul up the one job she has:
addressing the entirely Biden-made cri-
sis at the U.S.–Mexico border.
Coming Apart
In short, things are coming apart, and
there’s no help in sight.
In 1920, just after World War I had come
to an end, the Irish poet William Butler
Yeats published what is likely his most
famous poem, “The Second Coming.”
To a shell-shocked populace stunned by
four years of brutal slaughter, the world
had indeed spun out of control:
“Turning and turning in the widening
gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falcon-
er; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot
hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon
the world, / The blood-dimmed tide is
loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony
of innocence is drowned; / The best lack
all conviction, while the worst / Are full
of passionate intensity.”
That could well describe our world to-
day. The worst—the international, cultur-
al-Marxist left—are indeed full of pas-
sionate intensity: an intensity fixated on
destroying the old order “by any means
necessary,” as their favorite saying goes.
In the half-century I’ve been interact-
ing with them, they have pulled down
the pillars of the American nation-state,
wielding our own laws, customs, and
Constitution against us.
“Mere anarchy,” indeed.
But anarchy is what they’re after, and
always have been. One by one, they’ve
eroded or even abolished constitutional
protections such as freedom of speech,
religion, and assembly found in the First
Amendment.
They’re publicly gunning for the Second
Amendment now and, over the course of
the post-FDR period, have rendered the
Ninth and 10th amendments (which were
intended to establish expressed powers/
limited government) as nullities.
Now, in a capital still ringed by barbed
wire, a confused old man sits at a desk
signing “executive orders” designed to
overturn any vestiges of his predeces-
sor—whose aim, you may recall, was to
“Make America Great Again.” The econ-
omy boomed, the nation became energy
self-sufficient, race relations had at least
stabilized, the Middle East was moving
toward stasis, and both the Russians
and the Chinese were under no illusions
about our international intentions.
And then came the election and huge
blunder of Jan. 6, and it all vanished. Well,
as they say, elections have consequences.
“Surely, the Second Coming is at hand,”
writes Yeats in the second stanza of his
great poem. But be careful what you wish
for: “And what rough beast, its hour come
round at last / Slouches towards Bethle-
hem to be born?”
If you thought Biden’s first 100 days
were bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Michael Walsh is the editor of The-Pipe-
line.org and the author of “The Devil’s
Pleasure Palace” and “The Fiery Angel,”
both published by Encounter Books. His
latest book, “Last Stands,” a cultural study
of military history from the Greeks to the
Korean War, was recently published.
 THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
China’s Naval Power
Threatens America’s
National Security, Does
Anyone Really Care?
JAMES E. FANELL
In the first four months
of 2021, the People’s
Republic of China
(PRC) demonstrated
its continuing efforts
and growing ability to
dominate the high seas of
the Western Pacific and, in the process,
to negate the power and influence of the
U.S. Navy. This change in the balance
of naval power hasn’t only destabilized
the region, but threatens the safety and
security of the average American—and
anyone else who doesn’t want to live
under the thumb of the Chinese Com-
munist Party.
On one day alone, April 23—the 72nd
anniversary of the founding of the PRC’s
navy—the self-proclaimed PRC “helms-
man” Xi Jinping oversaw the commis-
sioning of three new People’s Liberation
Army Navy (PLAN) combatants—two
warships and a submarine—at its naval
base on Hainan Island.
As noted by the PLA Daily, this ceremo-
ny contained three “firsts”: “the first time
that China’ top commander conferred
flags to three large vessels at the same
time; the first time the PLA Navy com-
missioned three vessels at the same time
in the same day; and the first time three
surface and underwater vessels were
commissioned to the same naval fleet.”
The three commissioned naval com-
batants—the Dalian, the Hainan, and
the Changzheng 18—augment the
PLAN’s warfighting capabilities in
unique ways.
The 12,000-ton Chinese naval ship
(CNS) Dalian (hull 105), a Type 055
guided-missile Renhai-class cruiser, is
the most powerful cruiser on the planet
today with 112 vertical launch cells for
anti-ship and land-attack missiles. The
Dalian is the third ship of Renhai-class
and the first commissioned to the South
Sea Fleet—five more are in varying
stages of production and will likely all
be commissioned by 2025. The Type 055
cruisers are the “shotgun” escorts for the
PLAN’s new aircraft carrier strike groups
(CSG) and expeditionary strike groups.
Interestingly, Xi also commissioned
the 35,000–40,000-ton CNS Hainan (hull
31), a Type-075 amphibious assault ship
(LHD) that is similar to the U.S. Navy’s
Wasp-class LHD. The PLAN’s Type 075
LHD will be combined with the 25,000-
ton Type 071 amphibious transport dock,
and escorted by the Type 055 cruisers, to
form the core of the PLAN’s expedition-
ary strike groups designed for an island-
seizing mission against Taiwan and
other island targets.
Lastly, Xi commissioned the PLAN’s
fourth operational Type 094 Jin-class
nuclear-powered ballistic missile sub-
marine (SSBN), the Changzheng 18
(hull 421). Armed with 12 x JL-2 inter-
continental ballistic missiles (ICBM),
when on patrol within the waters of the
western Pacific Ocean, the Changzheng
18 will provide the Chinese Communist
Party a nuclear strike capability against
America.
Six Jin-class SSBNs are expected
in total, to be followed by the newest
PLAN SSBN, the Type 096, which will be
equipped with at least 12 x JL-3 ICBMs
that will have a range of more than 6,200
miles and be equipped with multiple
independent reentry vehicles.
As noted by Nicholas J. Myers, presi-
dent of the War vs Peace Foundation,
these three ships are the 12th, 13th,
and 14th ships to be commissioned by
the PLAN in calendar year 2021, com-
pared to just one for the U.S. Navy (the
USS Oakland LCS 24) for the same time
period. Yes, 14 to 1, and the United States
is only expected to commission seven
ships for all of 2021—half of what the
PLAN has already launched.
This pattern of the PLAN outproducing
and commissioning the U.S. Navy has
been going on for the past decade. It’s
why last year, for the first time ever, the
U.S. Department of Defense acknowl-
edged the PLAN was the largest navy on
OPINION | A17
MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
A Great Wall 236 submarine of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, billed
by Chinese state media as a new type of conventional submarine, participates in
a naval parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the navy,
in the sea near Qingdao, Shandong Province, China, on April 23, 2019.
LINH PHAM/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Military
aircraft
including F/A-
18 fighter jets,
parked on the
flight deck of
the USS Carl
Vinson, the
U.S. Navy’s
nuclear-
powered
Nimitz-class
aircraft carrier,
anchored
off the coast
in Danang,
Vietnam,
on March 5,
2018.
the planet. Based on all evidence, the gap Jim Fanell, a retired U.S. Navy captain, is
between the size of the PLAN and the In addition to currently a government fellow at the Ge-
U.S. Navy is expected to continue to grow neva Centre for Security Policy in Switzer-
throughout the next two decades, by the increasing its land, and a former director of intelligence
end of which the size of the PLAN will be numbers of ships, and information operations for the U.S.
some 550 warships and submarines. the PLAN has Pacific Fleet. His nearly 30-year career as
“Experts” in Washington like to dismiss a naval intelligence officer spanned an
the importance of counting the numbers also been very unprecedented series of afloat and ashore
of warships and submarines. But what busy operating its assignments across the Indo-Pacific,
the commissioning event on April 23 warships at sea. specializing in the People’s Republic of
clearly demonstrates is that the PRC isn’t China’s navy and its operations. A recog-
just making more hulls, it’s also outpro- nized international public speaker and
ducing the U.S. Navy in tonnage (size) accomplished writer, Fanell also is the
of its ships, as well as in the number of creator and manager of the Indo-Pacific
battle force missiles—arguably the most Security forum Red Star Rising/Risen.
important metric when it comes to pure
naval power.
In addition to increasing its numbers
of ships, the PLAN has also been very
busy operating its warships at sea. For
instance, in early April, for the first time
ever, the PLAN dispatched a six-ship
CSG to the South China Sea. Led by its
first operational aircraft carrier, Liaon-
ing, this deployment was also the first
time a Type 055 cruiser had escorted a
PLAN aircraft carrier. Before heading
into the South China Sea, the Liaoning
CSG operated off the east coast of Tai-
wan, providing another example of the
level of effort the PLA will use against
Taiwan in an invasion scenario.
Interestingly, following the Liaoning
Behind the
CSGs operations off Taiwan and in the
South China Sea, the PLAN’s second air-
craft carrier, Shandong, deployed with its
carrier strike group to the South China
Sea as well. This back-to-back deploy-
Subscription
ment of PLAN carrier strike groups to
the South China Sea demonstrates the
commitment and ability of the PLAN to
dominate the waters of the First Island
Chain and thus drive out the U.S. Navy
and reduce the region’s trust and confi-
dence in the United States. Your subscription will not only provide you with
There were other displays of PLAN accurate news and features, but also contribute
power in the first four months of 2021. to the revival of American journalism and help
For instance, Type 022 fast-attack patrol
boats chasing Philippine reporters out of safeguard our freedoms for future generations.
their own waters and amphibious assault
exercises across the strait from Taiwan. We aim to tell you what we see, not how to think; we
Given the very public increase in PLAN
commissioning, capabilities, and opera- strive to deliver you a factual picture of reality that
tions, what is most hard to comprehend lets you form your own opinions.
is the lack of urgency in Washington to
address this growing gap in naval power.
Despite two decades of PLAN modern- We believe that we live in truly epochal times, where
ization, U.S. Navy leaders are once again the faithful representation of our current events
debating what it means for the United won’t just be important for the people of today, but
States to be a maritime nation, what
the role of sea power is in U.S. national also for the generations to come. The records we
security, and what kind of force structure keep now will directly inform the foundations of the
is necessary. While the debates con- history they’ll learn and the values they’ll cherish—
tinue and the PLAN keeps growing, one
wonders if anyone in Washington really and this knowledge is what drives us.
understands the threat or really cares
about the urgency of building the United Learn more at
States’ naval power.
If “everything is infrastructure,” as fa- EpochSubscription.com
mously stated by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
(D-N.Y.), then will the U.S. Navy get
any share of the trillions that are being
proposed for spending by this current
administration? If not, then it is entirely TRUTH AND TRADITION
possible the PLAN, not the U.S. Navy, will
be ruling the seven seas before long.
A18 | OPINION
The Undeniable Irregularity That
May Have Cost Trump the Election
ROB NATELSON
The liberal media loudly
proclaim that reports of
2020 presidential elec-
tion irregularities are
“lies.” But about one
particular irregularity, the
media are mum.
Perhaps they’re silent because they
know that this irregularity is undeniable
and may, indeed, have flipped the elec-
tion. It’s the elephant in the room they
pretend not to see.
The “elephant” in this instance was the
casting of mail-in ballots over a period
of weeks—directly violating a federal
statute specifically authorized by the
Constitution. This changed the result in
at least one swing state.
Here’s the background:
The Constitution (Article II, Section 1,
Clause 2) assigns to the legislature of each
state the task of deciding how the state
“chooses” or “appoints” its presidential
electors. (The Constitution uses both
verbs.) Every state legislature has delegat-
ed the choice or appointment to the voters.
However, the Constitution also limits
state legislative authority through its
“Same Day Clause” or “Presidential Vote
Clause” (Article II, Section 1, Clause 4). It
provides as follows:
“The Congress may determine the
Time of chusing [sic] the Electors, and
the Day on which they shall give their
Votes; which Day shall be the same
throughout the United States.”
The same day clause thereby grants
Congress two powers over presidential
elections:
1. Congress may fix a single day on which
all presidential electors in all states
vote for president and vice president.
2. Congress may set a “Time”—necessarily
uniform—in which Electors are chosen.
In other words, Congress may fix the
day or days on which we go to the polls.
Congress has exercised both of these
powers. The law prescribing when we go
to the polls is U.S. Code, Title 3, Section 1.
Here’s what it says:
“The electors of President and Vice
President shall be appointed, in each
State, on the Tuesday next after the first
Monday in November, in every fourth
year succeeding every election of a
President and Vice President.”
In 2020, “the Tuesday next after the first
Florida’s New Election Integrity
Law: Fact Versus Fiction
CHRIS TALGO
Like Georgia Gov. Brian
Kemp, Florida Gov.
Ron DeSantis is being
pilloried in the main-
stream media because
he had the audacity to
sign a bill that protects
election integrity in the Sunshine State.
How dare he!
However, when one takes a clear-
eyed look at the law, it’s quite apparent
that Florida’s new law, like Georgia’s, is
nothing more than an effort to increase
election integrity while making it more
President Donald Trump speaks at an event in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower
Executive Office Building in Washington on March 22, 2018.
Monday in November” was Nov. 3.
Congress has adopted only one excep-
tion to its single-day voting rule: If for
some reason, a state “has failed to make
a choice” of presidential electors on Elec-
tion Day, then the state’s legislature may
decide the issue after Election Day. (U.S.
Code, Title 3, Section 2.) But that is the
only exception.
An old legal rule, commonly ascribed
to the English jurist Francis Bacon, says
that exceptions strengthen the general
rule when applied to cases outside the
exceptions. For example, if your spouse
sends you to the grocery store to buy “any
vegetables you want except carrots,” then
(unless there is a family custom to the
contrary) you can assume carrots are the
only exception. You can buy any other
vegetables you wish.
In other words, these federal statutes
tell us: “There is one—and only one—ex-
ception to the rule that you must appoint
presidential electors on Election Day. In
narrow cases, you may choose them later.
But you may never choose them earlier!”
In 2020, many states—often under
pressure from Democratic Party activists
and lawyers—violated federal law by al-
lowing voters to cast ballots over periods
spanning weeks. Moreover, those periods
varied from state to state. True, the ballots
generally were not counted nor results
announced until on or after Election
Day. But a state “chooses” or “appoints”
presidential electors by balloting, not by
counting or making announcements.
All this is pretty clear. In fact, it’s so
clear that there haven’t been many court
difficult to commit electoral fraud.
Yet, that’s not how the new law is being
portrayed in the mainstream media. Per-
haps it’s time for some fact versus fiction
pertaining to the Florida election law.
Fiction: Florida’s new law is a veiled at-
tempt at voter suppression.
Fact: Florida’s new law is absolute-
ly not about voter suppression.
The bill signed by DeSantis strengthens
Florida’s existing voter ID statute. In the
Sunshine State, under the new law, all vot-
ers must present a government-issued ID
to vote in person. This isn’t voter suppres-
sion. It’s voter recognition.
ELISE AMENDOLA/AP PHOTO
Voters cast
their ballots
for the Flor-
ida presiden-
tial primary, in
Bonita Springs,
Fla., on March
17, 2020.
SAMIRA BOUAOU/THE EPOCH TIMES
cases on the subject. The few violations
of the same-day rule traditionally have
been small: States have allowed absent
armed service members and shut-ins to
vote early by mail. No one wants to stop
brave soldiers or disabled grandmoth-
ers from voting, so no one has sued to
prevent it. If no one sues, there’s no case
for the court to decide.
(Incidentally, there are ways of accom-
modating legitimate absentees without
violating federal law.)
Long voting periods virtually
assure that people voting
at different times will have
different levels of knowledge.
Probably the most important court de-
cision on the subject is Maddox v. Board
of State Canvassers. This case arose
during World War II, when millions of
Americans were abroad fighting the Axis
powers. The Montana Legislature had
passed a law allowing them to cast their
ballots either before or after Election Day.
No one challenged the provision for
early absentee ballots, but several people
sued to block late voting.
The state Supreme Court unanimously
voided the law and stopped late voting.
The court relied on the same day clause
and the federal statute. The justices
observed that extended voting could
produce “fraud and uncertainty.” One
justice stressed that he was “emphatical-
Fiction: Florida’s new law is Jim Crow
redux.
Fact: Florida’s new law is the antithesis
of Jim Crow.
Despite the mainstream media’s fer-
vent attempts to paint the new Florida
election integrity law as Jim Crow 2.0,
this simply isn’t true.
In the Jim Crow South, voting laws
were passed to specifically target certain
groups (namely black Americans) from
exercising their God-given right to vote.
This dastardly practice came via poll tax-
es, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and
all other types of laws intended to prevent
specific groups from casting ballots.
Absolutely nothing in the new Florida
election integrity law, in any manner,
prevents specific groups from voting.
Playing the Jim Crow race card in rela-
tion to the Sunshine State’s straightfor-
ward voting law is a disservice to those
who fought for equal voting rights, which
was achieved decades ago.
In 1965, Congress passed the Voting
Rights Act, which according to History.
com, “aimed to overcome legal barriers at
the state and local levels that prevented
African Americans from exercising their
right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
Moreover, since the 1965 Voting
Rights Act was passed, voting among
blacks has skyrocketed and remains
unencumbered to this day. As History.
com puts it: “The Voting Rights Act gave
African American voters the legal means
to challenge voting restrictions and
vastly improved voter turnout. In Missis-
sippi alone, voter turnout among Black
people increased from 6 percent in 1964
THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
ly opposed to any recognition of the right
to cast a ballot on any other day than the
one fixed by statute.”
The Constitution’s Framers would have
agreed with this decision. They designed
the presidential election system to fore-
stall what Alexander Hamilton called
“cabal, intrigue, and corruption.” They
knew that stretching an election over a
long period of time was an invitation to
trouble. For example:
Long voting periods heighten the risk
that ballots cast at different times will be
treated in different ways. This appears to
have occurred in some states in 2020.
Long voting periods make it easier for
people to cast ballots in two or more
places. This also happened in 2020.
Long voting periods allow political
operatives to use early results (now gar-
nered by opinion polling) to stampede
later voters. In 2020, some liberal media
may have been guilty of this by empha-
sizing Biden’s lead among early mail-ins.
Long voting periods virtually assure
that people voting at different times will
have different levels of knowledge. For
example, information suggesting that Joe
Biden knew of his son’s alleged miscon-
duct emerged before some people had
cast their ballots, but after others already
had done so.
Long voting periods give candidates
and parties additional opportunities to
confuse issues: They can target demo-
graphic groups that tend to vote early
with one set of messages and then, after
they have cast their ballots, woo later vot-
ers with inconsistent messages.
Did the widespread violation of fed-
eral law flip the election from Trump to
Biden? We don’t know yet. But we can
say with reasonable certainty that in one
swing state, the answer is yes.
Biden allegedly won Pennsylvania’s 20
electoral votes by a margin of only 80,555.
But more than 2 million of Biden’s ballots
came from mail-ins, among whom Biden
outpolled Trump 3–1.
Now, assume that all those ballots were
legitimate. If those who voted by mail had
been required to go to the polls instead,
experience shows that a significant
number wouldn’t have bothered. Trump
would have carried Pennsylvania—and
perhaps other swing states as well.
Robert G. Natelson is a former constitu-
tional law professor, senior fellow in consti-
tutional jurisprudence at the Independence
Institute in Denver, and author of “The
Original Constitution What It Actually
Said and Meant“ (3rd ed., 2014). His work
has never been funded by any organization
on either side of the gun control debate.
to 59 percent in 1969.”
Fiction: Florida’s new voting integrity
law is unnecessary because voter fraud
doesn’t exist.
Fact: Florida’s new law is necessary be-
cause voter fraud does exist.
Before the pandemic, in-person voting
was the norm in America. Mail-in voting,
though allowed in most states (including
Florida), wasn’t the default. Moreover, the
idea of mailing ballots to all eligible voters
on outdated and error-prone voter rolls is
absurd. However, that’s what happened in
several states, under the guise of COVID-19.
The new Florida law bans mass mail-in
voting, which studies show is much more
likely to result in fraud. Even former
President Jimmy Carter has spoken out
about mail-in voting. “Voting by mail
creates increased logistical challenges
and the potential for vote fraud,” was the
conclusion reached by Carter and James
Baker in their 2005 report, “Building
Confidence in U.S. Elections.”
Of course, all of this is lost on the
mainstream media, which continue to
perpetuate the completely false notion
that Florida’s election integrity law is an
underhanded attempt to skew elections.
Most Americans support the primary
elements of the new Florida law, includ-
ing voter ID.
Instead of repudiating governors such
as DeSantis and Kemp, the mainstream
media should champion their efforts to
ensure that elections are as free and fair
as possible.
Chris Talgo is senior editor at The Heart-
land Institute.
 THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021 BUSINESS & ECONOMY | A19

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SPRING PRODUCE FLASH IN THE PAN

Fresh Peas, a Sweet Pulling on My Celery Strings

Springtime Treat A mom’s secret for better egg salad.
Three ways to enjoy fresh garden peas
before they’re gone.

See B2 See B2

GOOD EATS|RECIPES|DRINKS THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021 B1

FOOD
GIULIA SCARPALEGGIA

Nam
quatur alitas
eum ilit, offic
temquodi reriant
dolorerum estibus,
odipit ut escipsa
quam none
core

Pair anchovies
with excellent
butter and crusty
bread for a simple,
delicious treat.

A CASE FOR

Anchovies
Whether in a starring role or as a background
boost, these tiny fish pack powerful flavor
GIULIA SCARPALEGGIA family of anchovy lovers. Trust me: Don’t

W
hen I cook, I often get
hungry. I like to nibble
on something, so I’ll open
the fridge and grab the
unsalted butter and the
small jar of salt-packed anchovies that is
always sitting in a corner. A slice of bread
will do. I’ll slather it with butter, then
tackle the anchovy. I rinse a fillet under
cold running water, remove the bones,
and then place it on my buttered bread.
If I’m feeling sophisticated, I’ll add a tiny
wedge of lemon; otherwise, I’ll greedily
bite into my pane e acciuga with utter
satisfaction. In its stark simplicity, this is
food fit for a king.
I’m an anchovy advocate, born into a
let your past bad experiences with over-
cooked, shriveled anchovies on pizza pre- Anchovies can become
vent you from discovering the extraordi-
nary qualities of good anchovies, ones that your secret ingredient in
have been treated or cooked with care. the kitchen when slowly
These small, humble fish are brimming
with flavor. You can eat them on their own, melted in warm olive oil.
which for me is a treat, especially when
paired with excellent butter and crusty
bread. Drape one on half a hard-boiled
egg, and you’ll elevate it to the status of cic-
chetti, the Venetian version of tapas.
Even more interestingly, though, an-
chovies can become your secret ingredi-
ent in the kitchen when slowly melted in
warm olive oil.
Continued on B4
IAKOV FILIMONOV/SHUTTERSTOCK

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B2 THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021

Fresh Peas,
UNSPLASH

a Sweet
Springtime
Treat
3 ways to enjoy fresh
garden peas before
they’re gone
VICTORIA DE LA MAZA

S
weet garden peas always make
me smile. There is something
about their prettiness and sweet-
ness that is just so charming.
Also known as English peas or
shelling peas, they are great for all sorts of
recipes: stirred into pastas, stews, or risot-
tos; made into dips or spreads for crostini;
mixed with eggs in omelets and quiches;
or roughly pureed as in the classic British
“mushy peas.” I always add them to my
paella, and serve them alongside roast
chicken and mashed potatoes. They add
bright color and sweet, delicate spring
flavor to all kinds of recipes.

At the Market
I use fresh peas whenever possible, as
they cook in minutes and maintain that By cooking
wonderful bright, verdant color. A popular and baking
addition to vegetable gardens, peas grow together
abundantly in vines, but with your
ALEKSANDRA BOGUSLAWSKA/UNSPLASH only for a short window children,
in the spring. you’ll be
creating
Unlike snow peas and memories
sugar snap peas, garden that will
peas have inedible pods last a
and need to be shelled. lifetime.
At my local farmers
market, they are sold
already shelled, and I
grab them whenever Garden peas, in season now, add bright color and sweet,
delicate spring flavor to all kinds of recipes.
possible, but frankly,
the little extra effort is
worth it in order to get
those masses of sweet, thread of pairing them with bacon or pan- bacon, this dish is perfect for a Sunday
green orbs. cetta; it just works. The sweetness of the lunch or as a first course for dinner. Serve
At the market, I look At the peas is enhanced by the meatiness and it with toasted baguettes to mop up all
for the smallest of the saltiness of the ham. the sauce!
small—petits pois,
market, I This pea and ham soup is my And lastly, I’m sharing what is
young garden peas—as look for the fresh take on the classic combi- now a classic dish at my house,
they will be fresh and tender, and cook nation. I cook English peas in and I’m sure will become one
them just ever so briefly. Their natural smallest of a flavorful vegetable stock and of the most requested recipes
sweetness requires little else—a pad of the small, puree it until smooth, then gar- in yours, too: a hearty pasta
butter and a sprinkle of salt will do. Once nish the final soup with panc- made with peas, bacon, cream,
shelled, they keep in the fridge for up to as they will etta and croutons. Bright green and cheese. Need I say more? I
three days, so it is best to use them right in color and flavored with a touch can practically make it with my
away. If you’re buying peas still in the pod, be fresh and of fresh mint, it is perfect served eyes closed. And yes, it is the best
shell them just before using. tender, and hot for a chilly spring night or cold late-night supper ever.
Frozen peas are perfect for soups and for a hot summer’s evening. These peas
stews; I certainly always have a bag or two cook them Huevos a la Flamenca, a fa- must be shelled, Victoria de la Maza is an award-
in the freezer for emergencies. I normally vorite springtime recipe from but the little winning cookbook author,
avoid canned peas, as they pale in com-
just ever so Spain, is made using seasonal extra effort is columnist, and international
parison, in both color and flavor. briefly. vegetables—asparagus, peas, worth it in order TV host. Passionate about great
to get those
and artichoke hearts—cooked masses
food, she combines American
Three Recipes to Try in a hearty beef broth with of sweet, traditions with her European
The recipes I am sharing today are all tomatoes and eggs, and then green orbs. heritage to create classic-with-a-
made with English peas, and you can use baked, sort of like shakshuka. IGOR SIRBU/
twist recipes and ideas for stylish
either fresh or frozen. There is a common Garnished with chorizo and SHUTTERSTOCK entertaining at home.

Pulling on ARI LEVAUX

Once, when Mom was out for a visit, she As for Mom,
Until then, I had been under the impres-
sion that chewing a cud of twine was just
the way celery-eating went. The new way,

My Celery made egg salad sandwiches. The kids

wolfed them down before I had a chance
to nab a sample. Their mouths were still
she won’t
complain, even
crunchy and juicy but not chewy, ushered
in a brand new celery honeymoon. More
than once I’ve de-stringed a piece of celery

Strings full when they asked for another round.

I paid close attention as she prepared
another batch, and watched her pull a
move I didn’t even know existed.
A mom’s secret She snapped a piece of celery in half,
leaving the two pieces connected by the
for better egg salad fibers that run down the ridge of a celery
stalk. She pulled the two pieces apart,
yanking the strings from both pieces at
once. Then she hunted for more, digging
and tugging out the fibers with the tip
of a knife. The de-stringed celery had a
glowing, freshly scrubbed look, while the
strings sat in a tangled pile like a green
hairball. The resulting egg salad, which I
managed to taste, was crunchy and soft,
EP
IN
chunky yet smooth.
E/
SH
UT Next time you want to give someone the
TE
RS
TO royal treatment, peel their celery. String-
CK
free celery is a luxury on par with break-
fast in bed, minus the mess.
if you leave
the string in.
for egg salad and then impulsively popped
it into my mouth like a Twix Bar.
Pulling those strings will make any
celery snack more palatable, and won’t
She never leave your heart deprived of fiber, be-
cause there will still be plenty left in that
complains. string-free stalk. If you could somehow
remove all the fiber from celery, there
would barely be anything left but a green
column of water.
Mom lives alone, and spent most of her
91st year in near isolation thanks to the
virus. In January, she came out to stay
with us for a while. This year, we spent
our first Mother’s Day under the same
roof in decades.
The problem with Mother’s Day is that
if we choose one specific, extraordinary
day a year to pamper, remember, or oth-
erwise celebrate the moms in our lives,
we simultaneously create 364 days of or-
 THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
PEA AND HAM SOUP
We all know about the classic split-pea and ham
soup, often pale green in color. This soup is not that.
I cook fresh peas in a flavorful stock and blend with
it mint for a refreshing, bright green soup made
even better garnished with crisp pancetta and
croutons. It’s delicious served either hot or cold.
You can also make it year-round using widely
available frozen peas. I avoid canned peas, as I
find that their color and flavor pale in comparison.
Double the recipe as needed; this soup will keep in
the fridge for up to 2 days.
SERVES 4
FOR THE STOCK
6 cups water
1 small onion, cut into quarters, peels
reserved
2 celery stalks, diced
1 carrot, sliced into 1-inch pieces
1/2 cup mixed fresh herbs and stems
20 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
FOR THE SOUP
8 ounces pancetta, diced
HUEVOS A LA FLAMENCA
This classic Spanish baked egg dish is made with
spring vegetables, such as fresh peas, asparagus,
and artichoke hearts, sautéed with tomatoes and
then garnished with bacon and chorizo. Eggs are
cracked into the pan and baked until the eggs are
cooked to your liking.
The recipe dates back to the early days of King
Philip II of Spain, when he moved his court from
Madrid to his palace in Aranjuez (about 18 miles
south of Madrid) during the spring. It was one of his
favorite dishes and was often served in his court.
The “Flamenca” name in the recipe is not from
flamenco or gypsies, a common misconception, but
from the name of the nearby finca, or estate, where
the vegetables were grown.
For an elegant presentation, I like to make it in
individual gratin dishes, but it is also perfect made
in an earthenware cazuela or a decorative oven-
to-table dish. Serve with bread, to mop up all the
sauce, and a creamy dressed salad for a sublime
Sunday lunch.
SERVES 6
8 rashers bacon, diced
1 pound chorizo, finely sliced
FETTUCCINE WITH CREAM,
PEAS, AND BACON
Necessity is the mother of invention, and this
recipe is based on items I always have in the pantry
and freezer. Falling somewhere between carbonara
and alfredo, it combines favorite ingredients to
make a hearty pasta dish. This is comfort food at its
best. It is now a classic in my home, a go-to recipe
for unexpected guests—and for late night suppers
when hunger strikes.
I use both white and green fettuccine to dress it
up a bit, and mix everything together just before
serving. The peas add freshness, the bacon crunch,
and the cream, well, creaminess and richness. With
a generous sprinkle of grated parmesan cheese and
dash of nutmeg, this dish is just as perfect on a cold
winter’s night by the fireplace as it is on a summer
evening al fresco.
SERVES 6
6 rashers bacon, diced
2 tablespoons butter, divided
3 small or 1 large shallot, peeled and minced
dinary treatment.
Nobody’s mom is getting any young-
er, and those who’ve already lost their
mother, or never experienced what it’s
like to have a mom, might advise you to
treat every day like it’s the last Mother’s
Day on Earth. And while of course we
should pamper Mom, let’s remember to
learn and absorb as much as we can, too.
These days when Mom makes egg
salad, I do the heavy lifting and fiber
pulling, and she leans against the coun-
ter, watching and tasting the progress.
The salt has to be just right. And you
can’t overwork it. Little things. But if
you don’t do the little things, the kids
will complain.
As for Mom, she won’t complain, even
if you leave the string in. She never
complains. It’s a lesson I hope to learn
someday myself. In the meantime, I’m
going to keep doing the little things for
her that she used to do for me. In life,
as in egg salad, the little things add up.
Ari LeVaux writes about food in
Missoula, Mont.
2 slices white bread, diced into 1/4-inch
cubes
2 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, peeled and diced
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
2 celery stalks, diced
1 pound fresh peas (from about 2 pounds
unshelled peas; or frozen, thawed)
1 cup fresh mint leaves
Sea salt and ground pepper to taste
MAKE THE BROTH
In a large stockpot, combine the water, onion,
celery, carrots, mixed herbs, peppercorns, and
bay leaf. Bring to a boil, and then lower the heat
and simmer for about 30 minutes. Strain, discard
solids, and set aside.
MAKE THE SOUP
In a medium sauté pan over low heat, add the
pancetta and cook until crisp. Remove with a
slotted spoon and set aside. To the rendered fat
in the pan, add a couple more tablespoons of
olive oil, and quickly sauté the diced bread until
golden. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on
paper towels.
In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low
heat. Add the onions, garlic, and celery and sauté
until translucent. Add the peas and 4 cups of the
reserved broth. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
10 thin asparagus tips, each about 3 inches
long
1 15-ounce can artichoke hearts, cut into
quarters
1 pound fresh peas (from about 2 pounds
unshelled peas; or frozen, thawed)
1/2 cup beef stock
6 large eggs
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to
taste
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
In a frying pan over medium heat, fry the bacon and
the chorizo until all the fat is rendered and both are
crispy. Drain on paper towels and set aside.
In a medium sauté pan, heat the olive oil over
medium-low heat. Add the onions and garlic and
sauté until transparent and soft. Add the diced
tomatoes with about half its liquid, along with the
asparagus and artichoke hearts, and simmer for 3
minutes. Add the peas and stir to combine. Add the
stock and simmer for 5 minutes. Season with salt
and pepper to taste.
(about 1/2 cup)
8 ounces fresh peas (from about 1 pound
unshelled peas; or frozen, thawed)
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese, plus more
for serving
1/8 teaspoon grated nutmeg
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to
taste
6 ounces spinach fettuccine
6 ounces white fettuccine
In a sauté pan, cook the bacon until crisp. Drain on
paper towels and set aside.
In a saucepan or saucier over medium-low heat,
add a tablespoon of butter and cook the shallots
until translucent. Stir in the peas. Add the heavy
cream, grated parmesan cheese, and nutmeg,
and season with salt and pepper. Simmer until the
cheese melts and the sauce begins to bubble, about
4 minutes.
In the meantime, bring a large pot of salted water
to boil and cook the pasta until al dente, following
the package instructions. Drain and transfer to a
MOM’S EGG SALAD
“Boil the eggs for nine minutes
Mix them with onion and celery
Salt and very little pepper
Add the mayonnaise. Carefully.”
SERVES 2
3 large eggs
1 stick celery
About 1/4 of a medium-sized onion
1/4 teaspoon salt
Dash of pepper
2 tablespoons mayo
Heat enough water to cover the eggs by at least
an inch. When it reaches a boil, carefully lower
the eggs into the water with a spoon. Boil for 9
minutes. Remove the eggs and place them in cold
water. When they are cool enough to work with,
peel them.
Break the celery stick in half. If the two halves
remain connected by threads, gently pull the two
pieces away from each other such that the strings
VICTORIA DE LA MAZA
This refreshing, bright green soup is made
even better with crisp pancetta and crou-
tons on top.
and simmer until the peas are soft, about 3 to 4
minutes. Remove from the heat, add the mint, and
stir until the leaves soften.
Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender
until very smooth, adding more water if necessary.
If serving hot, return to a clean pot and reheat. If
serving cold, place in the fridge to chill. Season with
salt and pepper to taste.
Garnish with pancetta and croutons.
VICTORIA DE LA MAZA
Make this Spanish favorite in a decorative
oven-to-table dish or individual gratin dishes.
Transfer the vegetable mixture to a baking dish
(or leave in the pan, if oven-proof). Using a large
spoon, make 6 evenly spaced indentations in
the vegetable mixture. Crack an egg into each
indentation and season with salt and pepper.
Sprinkle with the chorizo and bacon. Place in the
oven and bake until the eggs are cooked, about 12
to 15 minutes. Serve hot.
VICTORIA DE LA MAZA
The peas add freshness, the bacon crunch,
and the cream, well, creaminess and rich-
ness to this comforting pasta.
decorative dish. Toss the pasta with a tablespoon of
butter, then pour in the sauce and mix well. Sprinkle
the bacon on top and serve immediately with extra
parmesan cheese on the side.
ELENA SHASHKINA/SHUTTERSTOCK
In life, as in egg salad, the little things add up.
pull out. Once they are separated, remove any
more strings you can by digging them out with the
tip of a knife and pulling. You don’t need to fuss
about trying to remove every single fiber. But every
bit that you do remove will make the salad a little
easier to chew.
Mince the celery and onion together. Chop the eggs
as finely as possible without turning them into a
paste, and add them to a bowl. Add the minced
celery and onions, salt, and pepper. Gently mix with
a scooping motion to avoid crushing the eggs. Taste
to check seasonings. Gently fold in the mayo.
Serve on toast.
B3
ALL IMAGES BY SHUTTERSTOCK
Carrot Soup,
Clean and Simple
AMERICA’S TEST KITCHEN
Sometimes, the simpler the recipe, the
easier it is to overcomplicate it. Case in
point: carrot-ginger soup, whose flavors
often get elbowed out with the addition of
other vegetables, fruits, or excessive dairy.
But this simple, creamy, pared-down ver-
sion is velvety-smooth with clean carrot
flavor and subtle ginger background notes.
With the flavors in
check, we made a meal
out of this warm bowl of
comfort by adding some
hearty toppings.
Carrots are a long-lasting pantry staple,
and all it takes are three of them to form
the base of this soup. We used ginger as the
key aromatic, which eliminated the need
to add even onion or shallot, cutting down
our ingredient list drastically.
A small amount of milk adds subtle rich-
ness without dulling the flavors. With the
flavors in check, we made a meal out of
this warm bowl of comfort by adding some
hearty toppings. If you don’t have a blender,
an immersion blender or a food processor
would also work.
For 25 years, confident cooks in the know
have relied on America’s Test Kitchen for
rigorously tested recipes developed by
professional test cooks and vetted by 60,000
at-home recipe testers. See more online at
AmericasTestKitchen.com/TCA. Copyright
2021 America’s Test Kitchen. Distributed by
Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
GINGERY CARROT SOUP
SERVES 1 TO 2
1 tablespoon oil
3 carrots (8 ounces), peeled and cut into 1-inch
pieces
1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups chicken or vegetable broth, plus
extra as needed
1/3 cup milk
Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat until
shimmering. Add carrots, ginger, and salt and cook,
stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 5
minutes.
Stir in broth, scraping up any browned bits. Bring to a
simmer and cook, over medium-low heat until carrots
are very soft, about 15 minutes.
Process soup and milk in a blender until smooth,
about 2 minutes.
Return soup to now-empty saucepan and adjust
consistency with extra hot broth as needed.
Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve. (Soup
can be refrigerated for up to three days.)
RECIPE NOTES:
A handful of store-bought croutons or crispy
chickpeas, a sprinkle of cilantro, and/or some sour
cream or Greek yogurt add an extra layer of flavor
and texture.
This simple soup is a blank canvas for practic-
ing your garnishing skills.
B4
Continued from B1
They add an umami boost not only to
seafood dishes and soups, but also to
meat stews and braises, to salad vin-
aigrettes and vegetable stir-fries. The
added flavor is not fishy at all, it just
enhances all the other flavors.
Anchovies 3 Ways
I grew up in an anchovy-loving family,
so there have always been anchovies in
our fridge. I store them in the fridge once
the jars are opened, and they can keep for
months. They usually come in three forms:
Salt-packed Anchovies
These anchovies are sold whole, bones
and tail intact, covered in coarse sea
salt. You either find them in glass jars
in supermarkets, or big cans in local
delis. Rinse them thoroughly under cold
running water to remove the excess salt,
then simply fillet them by removing the
spine; from each anchovy, you will ob-
tain two neat fillets.
If you’re looking for high quality and
an intense anchovy experience, opt for
salt-packed anchovies, as the preserving
process concentrates the flavor, captur-
ing the briny taste of the sea. Use these
anchovies in pasta sauces or vinaigrettes,
or to make acciughe al verde, anchovy
fillets marinated in a herby sauce, or ba-
gna cauda, Piedmont’s famous assertive,
garlic-based dip.
Trust me: Don’t let your
past bad experiences
with overcooked,
shriveled anchovies
on pizza prevent you
from discovering the
extraordinary qualities
of good anchovies, ones
that have been treated or
cooked with care.
Oil-packed Anchovies
Oil-packed anchovies are salt-packed
anchovies that have already been
rinsed, fi lleted, and preserved in oil.
Just fish out a fi llet with a fork and lay it
on your buttered bread, or melt it into
warm olive oil to add an umami boost
to any dish.
If you are a beginner with anchovies and
want to tackle them gradually, choose oil-
packed anchovies. Search for good-quality
jarred or canned anchovies from Italy or
Spain, packed in pure olive oil.
Anchovy Paste
This has been a staple in my house for
years. I prefer topping my buttered bread
PASTA WITH CHERRY
TOMATOES AND ANCHOVIES
This pasta dish is a staple in my house, as you can
quickly prepare the anchovy and cherry tomato sauce
while the pasta is cooking. Garlic, parsley, and chile
pepper are often combined with anchovies as an
aromatic base. In this case, the anchovies are slowly
melted in the warm olive oil along with finely minced
garlic and chile pepper before adding the cherry
tomatoes.
This is one of those clever recipes made with pantry
ingredients that can feed a crowd in no time—at once
cheap, flavorful, and satisfying.
SERVES 4
12 ounces short pasta of your choice
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
Red chile pepper flakes to taste
8 oil-packed anchovy fillets
A dozen cherry tomatoes, quartered
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely minced
Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water,
according to the packaging instructions.
While the pasta is cooking, pour the olive oil into
a medium skillet and add the minced garlic, chile
pepper flakes, and anchovy fillets. Warm the olive
A CASE FOR
Anchovies
with a fillet, but my mum usually smears
on some anchovy paste directly from
the tube. This was also a quick snack my
grandmother would make me before a
road trip, since she believed the salt in
the anchovies would prevent me from
getting carsick.
Use anchovy paste wherever you need
some background anchovy flavor in a
dish. This is one of the essential ingredi-
ents in crostini neri, Tuscan chicken liver
crostini, providing savoriness, umami,
and a perfect contrast to the sweet
chicken livers.
3 Italian Recipes
Anchovies can be the star of a dish, as
A potent mix of garlic, chile flakes, and ancho-
vies melted in olive oil forms the base of this
easy pasta dish.
oil over medium-low heat and break the anchovies
with a wooden spoon, stirring until they melt. Add the
quartered cherry tomatoes, turn the heat to medium-
high, and cook them until they burst. Set aside.
Drain the pasta and reserve a ladleful of the cooking
water.
Pour the pasta into the pan with the sauce, add
the pasta cooking water and the parsley, and toss
everything together for a minute over medium heat.
Serve immediately.
ALL PHOTOS BY GIULIA SCARPALEGGIA
Salt-packed
anchovies (top)
and oil-packed
anchovies.
in the Piedmontese acciughe al verde.
They can be a starring partner, as in
mozzarella in carrozza, where they
become a filling along with mozzarella.
Or they can be a background note, as in
this pasta with cherry tomatoes. Experi-
ment with these three Italian recipes and
discover how easy it is to fall in love with
anchovies.
Giulia Scarpaleggia is a Tuscan born
and bred food writer, food photogra-
pher, and author of five cookbooks, in-
cluding “From the Markets of Tuscany.”
She is currently working on her sixth
cookbook. Find her online at her blog,
JulsKitchen.com
ACCIUGHE AL VERDE
(ANCHOVIES IN GREEN SAUCE)
Acciughe al verde is a typical appetizer from Piedmont.
You can order them in the piole, the local osterias,
where you can enjoy them along with other antipasti
such as bagna cauda, meat tartare, and vitello tonnato,
thin slices of veal blanketed in a tuna, boiled egg, and
anchovy sauce.
To make it at home, choose good-quality salt-packed
anchovies and rinse them thoroughly before filleting
them. Let them marinate in the parsley sauce for at
least 24 hours so that all the flavors can mingle. Start
with a small quantity, as a bit of anchovy fillet goes a
long way in terms of taste.
Serve acciughe al verde as a starter along with good
unsalted butter and crusty bread, boiled eggs, and
roast peppers.
SERVES 4
10 salt-packed anchovies
1 egg
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
10 mint leaves, finely chopped
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
Red chile pepper flakes to taste
Rinse the anchovies under cold running water.
THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
MOZZARELLA IN CARROZZA
(FRIED MOZZARELLA SAND-
WICHES) WITH ANCHOVIES
Anchovies and mozzarella are a perfect match. Tear
up fresh mozzarella balls into bite-sized morsels
and mix them with slices of ripe tomatoes. Add a few
anchovy fillets, some fresh basil, and a drizzle of your
best extra-virgin olive oil to make a spectacular salad.
In Roman cuisine, an anchovy fillet is often smuggled
into a zucchini blossom along with a bite of mozzarella,
before they are dipped in a thin beer batter and deep-
fried. I followed the same pattern and hid an anchovy
fillet in a batch of mozzarella in carrozza, a Neapolitan
fried mozzarella sandwich. It is known as mozzarella
in carrozza, mozzarella in a carriage, because a slice
of mozzarella is placed in between two pieces of
sandwich bread, just like in a carriage.
A perfect example of Italian cucina povera, mozzarella
in carrozza is a smart way to upcycle stale bread and
old mozzarella. Add an anchovy fillet for a boost of
flavor that will cut through the richness of the fried
cheese.
MAKES 4 SANDWICHES
2 large eggs
1/4 cup whole milk
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 slices sandwich bread
5 ounces fresh mozzarella, cut into 4 slices
4 oil-packed anchovy fillets
Vegetable oil for frying
Flaky sea salt for sprinkling (optional)
Whisk the eggs with the milk, then season with salt
and pepper.
Sandwich each slice of mozzarella with an anchovy
fillet in between two slices of bread, and press
together well.
Dip the mozzarella sandwiches into the egg and milk
batter, again pressing the edges together to seal the
mozzarella inside.
Heat 3 inches of vegetable oil in a large skillet. Check
if the temperature is right by dipping the handle of a
wooden spoon in it: If it is immediately surrounded by
tiny bubbles, the oil is ready for frying.
Working in batches, lay the sandwiches well-spaced
into the skillet and fry for two to three minutes per
side, until crisp and golden.
Remove the sandwiches from the oil, place on a
paper towel-lined plate to absorb the excess oil, and
sprinkle with flaky sea salt. Enjoy the fried mozzarella
sandwiches while they are still hot.
The anchovies smuggled into these fried
mozzarella sandwiches cut through the
richness of the cheese.
Anchovies are the star of Piedmontese acciughe
al verde, marinated in a fresh parsley sauce.
Gently remove the spines, opening the anchovy and
separating it into two fillets. Lay the fillets on a piece of
kitchen paper to dry.
Hard boil the egg, peel it, and separate the yolk from
the egg white. You’ll only use the yolk for this recipe;
the white can be eaten straight away with a tiny piece
of anchovy.
Mix the finely minced parsley and mint with the extra-
virgin olive oil, vinegar, egg yolk, and red chile flakes to
taste.
Arrange the anchovy fillets on a plate, cover them with
the parsley sauce, and wrap with plastic wrap. Let the
anchovies marinate in the fridge for at least 24 hours
before serving them.
 THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021 B5

Chocolate to McNuggets:
Book Details History of Kid Food DIANA GRYTSKU/SHUTTERSTOCK

Legend: Genghis Khan came up with an Nobody knows for sure who
early concept for hamburgers that in- made the first hamburger,
volved tenderizing meat scraps under the though several people claim
saddles of horses as his Golden Horde to have done it.
ransacked its way to China back in the
13th century.
Fact: Nobody knows for sure who first
came up with putting beef patties be-
tween bread.
Such bite-size anecdotes are among the
truths and folklore included in “There’s
No Ham in Hamburgers,” a new book
that serves up the history, science, and
geography behind a myriad of foods
beloved by kids. Burgers and fries are
represented, along with chocolate, pea-
nut butter, chicken, ice cream, and all
that sugary cereal so many parents love
to hate.
A history buff and promoter of reading
for pleasure in schools, author Kim Zach-
man in Roswell, Georgia, wrote the play-
ful, informative food dive for youngsters
ages 8 to 12.

“There’s No Ham in Ham-

burgers: Facts and Folklore
About Our Favorite Foods”
I hope it sparks kids to by Kim Zachman (Running
go out and learn more Press Kids, $16.99)

about other things in their

everyday lives.
Kim Zachman, author,
“There's No Ham in Hamburgers”

“I wanted to write history for kids and
I wanted it to be really fun,” she told The
Associated Press. “I was trying to think of
ideas and I was out walking my dog one
day, and I was like, why is there no ham
in hamburgers? I’d always kind of won-
dered that. That’s when I found so many
great origin stories.”
Some, she said, are untrue or unprov-
able. She also collected facts on nutrition
and health, and included simple recipes
and a single science experiment on how
to extract iron from fortified cold cereal.
The latter involves pummeling cereal
into dust and then hovering a powerful
magnet above the mess.
Zachman, mom to two daughters in col-
lege, doesn’t shy away from murky origins
or multiple claims to innovations in her
book, published by Running Press Kids.
Nobody knows, for instance, the meaning
behind the name Oreo, but one thing’s for
sure: The Nabisco treats were a copy cat of
the Hydrox sandwich cookie, which hit the
market four years prior, in 1908.
“It was surprising to me how little we
actually know about the origins of some
of these foods,” she said. “We really don’t
know for sure who made the first hamburg-
er. Several people claim to have done it.”
In the 1500s, German sailors on trade
ships crossing the Baltic Sea discovered
raw meat patties in Russia. Back home,
they tweaked the idea, frying the beef
patties with sautéed onions. Sailors from
other countries came ashore in Ham-
burg, the country’s most important port
city at the time, and discovered “Ham-
burg steak.” In the 1800s, millions of
Germans made their way to America and
brought the Hamburg steak idea along
for the ride.
Among those claiming to have in-
vented the modern burger: “Hamburger
Charlie” Nagreen, who in 1885, at age 15,
was selling meatballs at the Outagamie
County Fair in Seymour, Wisconsin. To
make them easier to carry, he smashed
them between two slices of bread and
called it a “hamburger.” It was a hit.
“I thought it was interesting for kids to
know that some things don’t just happen.
That’s how the human species evolves. It’s
not just one person who thinks of fire. It
happens all over the place,” Zachman said.
A big takeaway for Zachman was ex-
actly how long and laborious a process
it is to produce vanilla, the second-most
expensive spice behind saffron. The jour-
ney often starts on vanilla bean planta-
tions in Madagascar, the world’s leading
producer, and might end five years later
in a pint of ice cream in America.
It takes four years for a young vanilla
plant to produce a flower, and the flower
lasts for just one day. Workers must
pollinate and harvest by hand to pro-
duce the long pods, and pods are cured
through an intricate process that takes
six months.
“That blew my mind,” Zachman said.
The persnickety cacao tree was an-
other mind blower. The tropical trees,
from which chocolate hails, can’t handle
Chocolate is direct sunlight, need rain year round,
and take 3 to 4 years to produce blossoms
possible after that can only be pollinated by tiny flies
seeds are called midges. Out of 1,000 flowers, just
three or four will be pollinated and grow
fermented in into seed pods, which take about six
a warm, dark months to ripen. Chocolate is possible af-
ter seeds are fermented in a warm, dark
place, dried in the place, dried in the sun, and roasted.
Who figured all that out? Ancient civi-
sun, and roasted. lizations in Central America more than
Who figured all 3,000 years ago. Cacao seeds were so valu-
able that the Aztecs used them as money.
that out? Ancient Zachman doesn’t ignore some of the
big personalities behind popular kid
civilizations in foods, such as the brawling Kellogg
Central America brothers of Battle Creek, Michigan.
Younger sibling Will Keith added sugar
more than 3,000 to their wheat (later corn) flakes to make
years ago. Cacao them last longer and taste better. Older
brother John Harvey, a doctor, health
seeds were so nut, and devout Seventh-Day Adventist,
was furious, and the two ended their
valuable that the 25-year partnership bitterly in 1906, ex-
Aztecs used them changing lawsuits for years after that.
The popularity of cold cereal coincided
as money. with the mass pasteurization of milk. In
the beginning, many cereals were fortified
with vitamins to battle rickets and other
health issues for kids. Zachman is conflict-
ed about the mass of sugar cereal became.
“I was telling my mom about this and
she goes, ‘Yeah, it didn’t have a lot of sug-
ar in it so we would always just sprinkle
sugar on it,’” the 58-year-old Zachman
IAMTK/SHUTTERSTOCK
1 2
1. A big takeaway for Zachman
was exactly how long and labo-
rious a process it is to produce
vanilla.
2. The persnickety cacao tree
was another mind blower.
3. Processed chicken nug-
gets—boneless, breaded, and
deep-fried—have only been
around commercially for about
40 years, Zachman found.
laughed. “It’s later as the competition got
worse and they started advertising to kids
that the sugar got higher and higher.”
Processed chicken nuggets—boneless,
breaded, and deep-fried—have only been
around commercially for about 40 years,
Zachman found. The trick, she said, was
figuring out how to get the batter to stick
throughout the freezing and frying.
One Robert Baker came up with the
Chicken Crispie in 1959 at his Cornell
University lab. But it was Fred Turner,
chairman of the McDonald’s Corp. board
in 1979, who got things rolling in a big
way when he assembled the Chicken Mc-
Nugget SWAT team after the U.S. govern-
ment warned Americans to stop eating
so much beef. In 1980, the McNugget was
market-tested at 15 McDonald’s locations
in Knoxville, Tennessee. Like Hamburg-
er Charlie’s squashed meatballs, they,
too, were a hit.
Zachman, taking into consideration the
impressionable age of her readers, notes
that deep-fried chicken nuggets can be
high in cholesterol and saturated fats,
and urges moderation. She offers similar
health warnings for other foods, while
also pointing out health benefits.
“I had a blast doing the research,”
Zachman said. “I hope it sparks kids to
go out and learn more about other things
in their everyday lives.”
By Leanne Italie 
From The Associated Press
AMMIT JACK/SHUTTERSTOCK
AFRICA STUDIO/SHUTTERSTOCK
3
B6 THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021

CROSSWORD CONSTRUCTED BY TOM HOUSTON

EPOCH TIMES STAFF 8. Al Jolson’s real first 4NUMBERS CONSTRUCTED BY C. CHANG
AT 4NUMS.COM DAILY BRIDGE CLUB
name Leading question
Use the four numbers in the corners, and
9. Believer’s suffix the operands (+, - X, and ÷) to build an BY FRANK STEWART, TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY

10. Born, in bios equation to get the solution in the middle.

There may be more than one “unique” so- ©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11. Nonplus lution but, there may also be “equivalent”
12. Classifies solutions. For example: 6 + (7 X 3) +1 = 28 A “Best Bridge Writer” poll named the
and 1+ (7 X 3) + 6 = 28 late Terence Reese — a judgment I could
13. Money burns a hole in support. Besides classic books, Reese
their pocket wrote tons of newspaper columns. He
knew that a columnist’s job is to entertain
14. Poet W. H. ___ as well as instruct but once said, wearily,
15. Right lively he wished that for once he could just lead a
column with “South played at 3NT.”
20. Jumps (out) I’ll do that in Reese’s honor. South
21. Jumper played at 3NT. He won the first spade with
dummy’ s ace and saw that he didn’t want
26. Meet, as expectations East in for a spade return. So instead of
27. Bring to a standstill finessing in clubs, South took the ace, then
28. Goblin kin? led a second club.
29. Vegetable container EIGHT TRICKS
32. Spider’s website East won, but when West pitched a spade,
Hard 1 - 1 Solution East shifted accurately to the jack of hearts:
33. Mark for life queen, king. South won the heart return,
34. “O Sanctissima,” e.g. but since West had the king of diamonds,
South could take only eight tricks.
38. Deserving a D South played at 3NT — not well. To take
39. Sound the ace of clubs was fine, but South should
40. Quito’s country: Abbr. next lead a diamond to his ten. When West
wins, any return gives South a trick, and he
41. Dumped can force out the king of clubs for at least
42. Funny feeling nine tricks in all.
43. Like a good egg DAILY QUESTION
45. One of the Kennedys You hold: { A 6 4 75 7 5 3
yA J10 9 2. Your partner opens one heart,
48. Like some profs. you respond 1NT, he bids two diamonds
49. Be different and you return to two hearts. Partner next
Hard 2 - 1 Solution bids three clubs. What do you say?
50. Bangladesh’s ANSWER: Y our hand has suddenly be-
Across 37. Absorbs, with “up” 70. 52, in old Rome currency come quite potent. Y our partner has extra
1. Woman with ___ 40. Suffix with Roman 71. Letter-writing friend 56. Leg exercises strength since he tried for game despite
your weak two-heart preference. Bid five
6. Spots 43. Hoedown participant 73. Halifax clock setting: 58. Republicans, for short clubs or three spades. If he holds None, A
12. “Stat!” 44. Capital of Peru? Abbr. 59. “Me, too!” K 9 4 2, A Q 8 2, K 8 5 3, he should take at
46. Hawaii’s Mauna ___ 74. Yielded least 11 tricks at clubs.
16. Barcelona bulls 61. “Hoc ___ in votis”
17. Hot drink 47. Nicaraguan Contra 75. USA Equivalent of a (Horace) South dealer
18. “Leaving Las Vegas” doctrine USN Commander 62. Winter arrival Both sides vulnerable

actress 51. Diminutive suffix 80. P.D. figure 63. South American
52. Medical suffix 81. Undo
19. A common antacid plains
53. “Spy vs. Spy” maga- 82. Like some humor
22. ___’acte 64. Occupy
zine 83. “Working Girl” girl
23. Actress Sue ___ 65. Rates of return Easy 1 - 1 Solution
54. Bead material 84. Polishes
Langdon 55. Nabokov heroine and 85. Kids 66. “California ___” (1974
24. Right others Robert Altman movie)
25. B.&O. stop 57. “Bust of a Woman” Down 67. “Die Lorelei” poet
26. Semi painter Degas 1. Ideally 72. Telescope part
27. Soak 59. “Hägar the Horrible” 2. Ballerina’s pose 73. Business letter abbr.
30. Praying figure cartoonist Browne 3. Trig function 74. Clinton’s #2
31. Spider web’s abun- 60. Often over-general- 4. Take off 76. Book before Esth.
dance ized fashion 5. Dungeons & Dragons 77. “... the ___ of
35. Endings to some 66. More likely to retire game co. Aquarius”
e-mails 68. Lummox 6. Mooch 78. Highlands negative
36. Tree with pods 69. Mineral suffix 7. Pitch 79. Great Society pres. Easy 2 - 2 Solutions

WORDSEARCH CONSTRUCTED BY TOM HOUSTON

EPOCH TIMES STAFF SUPER KAKURO CONSTRUCTED
BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF

Help with Today’s Crossword Puzzle? Kakuro puzzles are like crosswords that use numbers instead of words. The goal is to fill the blank squares associated with a clue (called a “run”) with the numbers
1-9 so that the numbers add up to the corresponding clues. Like Sudoku, digits in a run cannot repeat. When the grid is filled, the puzzle is complete.

APAST EUNICE PEN PAL SPONGE

ARCTAN GRADE A PISCES STAINS
ASSORTS HEINE POINTE STALEMATE
AT BEST JESTS POSSET STEP-UPS
AUDEN LIVE AT PROPER STEREOTY-
BAILS LLANOS QUEASINESS PICALLY
BROAD NACRE RISE TO TOROS
CACAO NEGATE SHEENS YIELDS
DITTO ORANT SHIER
EDGAR PEAPOD SHOPAHOLIC
ESQUE PEART SPLIT

SOLUTIONS
CROSSWORD SUPER KAKURO
4 NUMBERS
HARD 1

HARD 2

EASY 1

EASY 2
 THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021 B7

SUDOKU CONSTRUCTED
BY KANNAN SANKARAN SUPERSUDOKU CONSTRUCTED
BY KANNAN SANKARAN WORK SPACE
Fill in the boxes using numbers between 1 and 9 so that each column, each Fill in the boxes using numbers from 0 to 9 and letters from A to F so that each column,
row, and each 3x3 square contain all nine numbers only once. each row, and each 4x4 square contain all ten numbers and six letters only once.
Hard

Easy

CRYPTIC QUOTE

EPOCH DOKU CONSTRUCTED

BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF

WORK SPACE

KAKURO CONSTRUCTED
BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF JUMBLE BY DAVID L. HOYT
& JEFF KNUREK

Kakuro puzzles are like crosswords that use numbers instead of words. The goal THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME
is to fill the blank squares associated with a clue (called a “run”) with the numbers By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek
1-9 so that the numbers add up to the corresponding clues. Like Sudoku, digits Unscramble these Jumbles,
*HWWKHIUHH-867-80%/(DSS‡)ROORZXVRQ7ZLWWHU#3OD\-XPEOH

in a run cannot repeat. When the grid is filled, the puzzle is complete. one letter to each square,
to form four ordinary words.
Easy (6<('
EPOCH ESCAPE MAZE
,/)</

COILAS

'2(8;6
Now arrange the circled letters
©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC to form the surprise answer, as
All Rights Reserved. suggested by the above cartoon.
Print your
answer here:

WORK SPACE

SOLUTIONS
SUPERSUDOKU SUDOKU: EASY JUMBLE EASY KAKURO
it was the — SOLE SOLE
was the only fish around, WORK SPACE

When the marine flatfish

Answers:
EXODUS
SOCIAL
FILLY
SEEDY
Jumbles:
SUDOKU: HARD EPOCH DOKU

CRYPTIC QUOTE
sight but no vision.
than being blind is having
The only thing worse
B8
WINE
Words on Wine
There’s a wine book for every wine drinker.
DAN BERGER
W
riting about wine is an Writings
art form that’s almost
as interesting as making about wine
it—and it’s a lot less messy. date back
Poets love wine, but alas,
what we often get is mundanity. A phrase thousands of
that comes to mind: “A dinner without
wine is like a day without sunshine.” Or,
years. Some
“Life’s too short to drink bad wine.” Noth- are technical,
ing pithy here.
Writings about wine date back thou- some
sands of years. Some are technical, some romantic;
romantic; others speak of the revelry of
harvest or wine’s medicinal qualities. others speak
Still, others discuss wine regions and the
character each region imparts. of the revelry
Jancis Robinson’s “The Oxford Compan- of harvest
ion to Wine” devotes almost four pages to
wine literature. The Wayward Tendrils is or wine’s
a wine book-collecting club founded in
1990. The Sonoma County Wine Library
medicinal
in Healdsburg, California, has arguably qualities.
the best U.S. collection of literary vini-
ana—which, incidentally, is the title of a
Made from Purslane
NATURE’S
OMEGA-3
GOLD
P uritang plant based Omega-3,6,7,9 is made
IURPSXUVODQHDQGSHULOODbVHHGV,WFRQWDLQV
RYHUb61%bFRQFHQWUDWLRQRIRPHJDbŋbWKHKLJKHVW
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QDWXUDOO\IURPƓVKRURWKHUSODQWVDQGWKLVbFRPELQHGZLWK
RPHJDDFFRXQWVIRUPRUHWKDQb90%bRISURGXFWFRQWHQW
3XUVODQHLVQDWXUHōVJROGPLQHRIRPHJDFRQWDLQLQJWKH
KLJKHVWOHYHORIDQ\JUHHQSODQWPDNLQJSXUHKLJKFRQFHQWUDWLRQ
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.RUHDōVEHDXWLIXO+ZDQJPDHVDQ0RXQWDLQDQDUHDZKHUHXVHRI
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ERUQHFRQWDPLQDQWV,WLVDOVRQRQ*020DGHLQ.RUHD
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AFRICA STUDIO/SHUTTERSTOCK
limited-edition book by Charles Walter
Berry published in 1930.
Among the masters of wine humor were
Thomas Kruse of the Gilroy, California,
winery of that name, and Randall Grahm at
Bonny Doon in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
I have collected a few lines that I cher-
ish. Here are a few of my favorites.
Northern Californian and retired pub-
lic relations specialist Mike Lynch, now
an inveterate golfer, once co-wrote (with
drawings by the brilliant artist Bob John-
son) a book titled: “A Day Without Wine
Is Like a Bicycle Without a Seat.”
Wine sage/author Hugh Johnson may
have written more about wine than any
other person. One line of his that I love,
from his 1990 book, “Vintage,” reads:
“How can a rare bottle of wine fetch the
price of a great work of art? Can it, how-
ever perfect, smell more beautiful than
a rose? ‘No’ must surely be the answer.
But what if, deep in the flushing velvet of
its petals, the rose contained the power
to banish care?”
Then, there’s the punch line to an old
www.Puritang.com
THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
joke. The successful Italian winemaker
for years refused to tell anyone the secret
to his success. At last, the old man is on
his deathbed. He summons his eldest son
and whispers the secret: “Si fa anche con
uva”—“It is made also with grapes.”
The Italian tradition gives us another
marvelous line, from the late Samuele
Sebastiani, who had it engraved on the
end of one of his famed hard-carved
casks: “Un buon bicchiere pira l’altro”—
“One good glass merely makes you want
another.”
Some wise sayings turn up in varying
forms. The late Leon Adams is reported
to have said, “All wine would be red if it
could,” which is a variation of “If it’s not
red, it’s not wine,” or “White wine is what
you drink until they open the red.”
In the book “Thinking About Wine,”
authors John Frederick Walker and Elin
McCoy quote Piero Antinori of Italy as
saying, “Red wine is wine; white wine is
just white wine.”
Hugh Johnson once asked former Acacia
Winery winemaker Larry Brooks, “What
made you think you could make wine?”
Brooks’s reply: “I always figured if the
Three Stooges could make movies, I can
make wine.”
“The way to make good wine is to get
good grapes and don’t trip on the mat.”
—Robin Day, former president of Orlando
Wines in Australia.
“They gave me so much wine for lunch
I had to stay for dinner.” —Dr. Maynard
Amerine, the late University of California,
Davis professor.
“Wine without alcohol is like the Ital-
ian language without vowels.” —Howard
Goldberg, the late New York Times wine
writer.
“We’re deadly serious when it comes to
planting the grapes. We’re deadly serious
when it comes to growing them. We’re
deadly serious when it comes to making
the wine. We’re deadly serious when it
comes to aging the wine. So when you
pull the cork, it’s time to whop it on down,
mate.” —The late Australian winemaker
Len Evans.
“Time’s fun when you’re having flies.”
—Motto of Frog’s Leap Winery.
To find out more about Dan Berger and
read features by other Creators Syndicate
writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators
Syndicate webpage at Creators.com.
Copyright 2021 Creators.com
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