Plus. . .
Emily Oster asks: Are smartphones stealing childhood? The New York Times fails to disclose a source’s ties to Hamas. And more.
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.
https://www.thefp.com/p/front-page-how-blm-blew-90-million-plus?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=260347&post_id=150587432&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=rd3ao&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email