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How BLM Blew $90 Million. AND: Why Is The New York Times Not Disclosing a Source’s Ties to Hamas?

 Plus. . .

Emily Oster asks: Are smartphones stealing childhood? The New York Times fails to disclose a source’s ties to Hamas. And more.


It’s Wednesday, October 23, and this is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Coming up: Are smartphones stealing childhood?; the Abercrombie & Fitch CEO charged with sex trafficking; plus, legacy media quotes a Municipality of Gaza spokesperson without revealing his likely ties to Hamas. But first, the rise and collapse of Black Lives Matter. 

A lot can change in four years. Just ask Kamala Harris, who’s walked back various 2019 policies such as a fracking ban and support for Medicare for All. Now she’s boasting about owning a Glock. Meanwhile, Democrats have forgotten they ever uttered the words “defund the police.” But perhaps the most vivid example of how we’re not in 2020 anymore—and that the vibes have most definitely shifted—is the fall of Black Lives Matter. In 2020, after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, the movement took on quasi-religious status, with chapters raising $90 million in one year. Today, the BLM brand is widely recognized as a scam that lost $6.2 million in the last fiscal year. 

Earlier this month, Tyree Conyers-Page—a.k.a. Sir Maejor Page—the 35-year-old former leader of the BLM chapter for Greater Atlanta, was sentenced to 42 months in federal prison for money laundering and wire fraud. Instead of spending the $450,000 raised from 18,000 donors to “fight for George Floyd,” Page splurged on tailored suits, nightclub bar tabs, an evening with a prostitute and, as he texted to a friend, “a big-ass” mansion in Ohio. 

Page is not an outlier. Take Melina Abdullah, co-director of BLM Grassroots, who media reports accuse of using the organization’s money to pay for vacations to Jamaica and her own personal expenses. Though Abdullah has not been charged with a crime, California’s attorney general has threatened to revoke her organization’s tax-exempt status if she fails to turn over its delinquent tax filings and late fees by Sunday. 

“Abdullah has denied the allegations, but at least $8.7 million in donations is unaccounted for,” writes investigative reporter Sean Patrick Cooper in his first piece for The Free Press. “The answer to where the money went may come soon.” 

“Maybe,” Sean concludes, “if the founders had been as committed to social justice as to enriching themselves, BLM could have enjoyed a long life as a progressive institution.” Instead, the movement is a cautionary tale for what happens when people with good intentions are given too much money. Read Sean Patrick Cooper on how BLM misspent millions of dollars

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