Rubio calls Chinese Consulate in Houston 'massive spy center'

A day after the United States announced it has ordered the Chinese Consulate in Houston to close, a favorite target of the foreign government had some strong words about the Montrose landmark. "Houston consulate is a massive spy center, forcing it to close is long overdue," U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted Wednesday. "China's consulate in Houston is not a diplomatic facility. It is the central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States." Last week, China said it would impose sanctions on Rubio and two other U.S. lawmakers, and an ambassador in response to similar actions taken by the U.S. against Chinese officials over alleged human rights abuses against Muslims in the Xinjiang region. Rubio, Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Chris Smith and Ambassador for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback were targeted, as was the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. The four have been critical of the ruling Communist Party's policies toward minority groups and people of faith.

The U.S. said in a brief statement that the Houston consulate was ordered closed "to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information." "This needed to happen," Rubio tweeted. While Rubio was outspoken about the move Wednesday, Texas lawmakers have not been as vocal so far, except for a comment from Cruz on a user's remark about the Dallas Mavericks basketball team. "Everyone needs to calm down," one user tweeted in apparent jest over a debate about Mavericks players' decision to kneel during the national anthem. "The Chinese are just moving to their new consulate in Dallas." "Fair point," Cruz tweeted. Politics

Rubio calls Chinese Consulate in Houston 'massive spy center'

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The Florida senator had strong words about China In a series of tweets Wednesday.

A day after the United States announced it has ordered the Chinese Consulate in Houston to close, a favorite target of the foreign government had some strong words about the Montrose landmark.

"Houston consulate is a massive spy center, forcing it to close is long overdue," U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted Wednesday. "China's consulate in Houston is not a diplomatic facility. It is the central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States."

Last week, China said it would impose sanctions on Rubio and two other U.S. lawmakers, and an ambassador in response to similar actions taken by the U.S. against Chinese officials over alleged human rights abuses against Muslims in the Xinjiang region.

SEE ALSO: Documents burned on the grounds of the Chinese Consulate in Houston

Rubio, Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Chris Smith and Ambassador for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback were targeted, as was the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. The four have been critical of the ruling Communist Party's policies toward minority groups and people of faith.

RELATED: China sanctions Cruz, Rubio, Smith, Brownback for criticism

The U.S. said in a brief statement that the Houston consulate was ordered closed "to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information."

"This needed to happen," Rubio tweeted.

RELATED: China says it will retaliate after US orders its Houston consulate to close

While Rubio was outspoken about the move Wednesday, Texas lawmakers have not been as vocal so far, except for a comment from Cruz on a user's remark about the Dallas Mavericks basketball team.

"Everyone needs to calm down," one user tweeted in apparent jest over a debate about Mavericks players' decision to kneel during the national anthem. "The Chinese are just moving to their new consulate in Dallas."

"Fair point," Cruz tweeted. Sen. John Cornyn shared Rubio's initial tweet Wednesday morning, but had otherwise not yet weighed in on the conversation.

https://abc13.com/politics/rubio-calls-houston-consulate-massive-spy-center/6328929/

Judge rejects coronavirus release of illegal immigrant families

A federal judge rejected a demand for to free all illegal immigrant families being held in detention during coronavirus, ruling Wednesday that even with heightened risks of the disease in detention facilities, it was too far of a leap to do a “blanket release.” The ruling by Judge James Boasberg, sitting in Washington, D.C., is a major blow to activists, who had pleaded for relief. It’s also not the final word. Another federal judge in California has ordered all the children in the facilities released, with a deadline looming next week. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which runs the facilities, is pondering whether that means separating the families and releasing the children to sponsors, releasing the parents too, or getting the parents to agree to keep the children with them in the facilities. Judge Boasberg said in the case before him, ICE has taken steps to try to limit spread of coronavirus, already releasing many detainees and cutting the population by about 70%, imposing temperature checks on staff and voluntary testing and mandatory quarantining for new arrivals in the detainee population. And the judge said there are other things ICE could do, short of full release, to improve protections.

“Petitioners, fearful as we all are of contracting a novel and dangerous disease, understandably swing for the fences in seeking wholesale release. Those fences are high and hard to clear, however,” he wrote. He said a deterioration of standards could change his mind later. “This is a devastating loss for vulnerable asylum-seeking families and for all Americans who value dignity and decency,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. She said ICE could still use its own authority to release the families, and urged it to do so. She said she hoped the decision by Judge Boasberg, an Obama appointee to the court, would spark a new national conversation about immigration detention.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jul/22/judge-rejects-coronavirus-release-illegal-immigran/

Ex-cardinal McCarrick accused of running child sex ring out of beach house

A new lawsuit accuses former cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, of managing a “sex cabal” among seminarians, altar boys and priests at a New Jersey beach house in the 1980s. The 30-page lawsuit was filed late Tuesday in the Superior Court of New Jersey in Middlesex County by attorney Jeff Anderson on behalf of an unnamed plaintiff. It alleges one count of sexual battery and six counts of negligence against Mr. McCarrick, the Archdiocese of Newark, the Diocese of Metuchen, and several former or retired priests. Mr. McCarrick served as the bishop of Metuchen from 1981 to 1986 and as the archbishop of Newark from 1986 to 2000. At the center of the allegations is a beach house in Sea Girt, New Jersey, that was purchased with diocesan funds by Mr. McCarrick when he was the bishop of Metuchen. The lawsuit says the beach house was used as a place to groom boys for sexual assault. “At that house and detailed in the complaint … was an assembly of a large number of seminarians and other priests all answering in service to the boss, to the bishop, to McCarrick,” Mr. Anderson said Wednesday in a Zoom press conference from his offices in St. Paul, Minnesota. “And in the night, with the assistance of others, McCarrick would creep into this kid’s bed and engage in criminal sexual assault … whispering, ‘It’s OK.’”

The lawsuit details allegations of molestation against the plaintiff beginning in 1978, and later against an 11-year-old altar boy, and continuing from 1982 to 1983 at the beach house. The Diocese of Metuchen later sold the beach house, Mr. Anderson said. Tuesday’s lawsuit resulted from passage of a bill in New Jersey extending the statutes of limitation on child sexual abuse claims. Mr. McCarrick, who served as the archbishop of Washington from 2000 until his retirement in 2006, was defrocked in 2019, and had been living in a friary in Kansas until earlier this year.

Four of the other five clerics named in the lawsuit — including four priests and a Christian Brother who had served as principal of Essex Catholic Boys High School — had been on official lists of clerics with credible accusations against them. According to the lawsuit, Mr. McCarrick assigned boys on weekend trips to bedrooms shared by clerics in the Sea Girt beach house on the Jersey Shore beginning in 1982. Former priests Michael Walters, John Laferrera and Gerald Ruane and Brother Andrew Thomas Hewitt participated in sexually abusing the plaintiff, the lawsuit states. The plaintiff alleges that he was first sexually abused by former priest Anthony Nardino in 1978. Mr. Nardino left the priesthood in the mid-1980s and his whereabouts are unknown, Mr. Anderson said Wednesday. A spokesperson for the Diocese of Metuchen said officials have yet to receive the complaint but stand with “survivors of abuse.” “Our diocese renews our commitment to prevent these types of abuse from ever happening again,” said Anthony P. Kearns III, spokesman and chancellor for the Diocese of Metuchen.

A spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Newark said in an email to The Washington Times it would be “inappropriate to discuss or comment on matters in litigation.” “The Archdiocese of Newark remains fully committed to transparency and to our long-standing programs to protect the faithful and will continue to work with victims, their legal representatives and law enforcement authorities in an ongoing effort to resolve allegations and bring closure to victims,” the Archdiocese of Newark spokesperson said in the email. Mr. Anderson did not reveal the address of the beach house in Sea Girt at Wednesday’s press conference and stated that the diocese owned separate beach houses during the time period in question. The attorney added that the plaintiff had stayed quiet about allegations for decades for the same reason many survivors of sexual abuse do not disclose details of abuse — out of shame and fears of retribution from “the most powerful cleric in America.”

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jul/22/theodore-mccarrick-disgraced-cleric-accused-runnin/

>>10049569

>>10049582

What caught my eye moar was the nod at Mark Cuban, Maverick building being the new Chinese Embassy. Something other than investments that he has in China maybe?

Masked vandals target home of Oakland's Democratic mayor

OAKLAND, Calif. — Police were investigating after vandals targeted the home of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, spray-painting messages about defunding the police on the garage door, stone wall and sidewalk, authorities said. Witnesses say 30 to 40 people dressed in black and wearing masks shot projectiles, set off fireworks and vandalized the property around 2 a.m. Tuesday. The messages in red and white paint read “Defund OPD,” “homes 4 all,” and “blood on your hands,” KGO-TV reported. Schaaf’s spokesman Justin Berton confirmed to the East Bay Times that vandals shot projectiles at the home, lit fireworks and painted graffiti on her property.

“This attack, designed to intimidate the mayor and strike fear into her family, will not stop her from advocating for the policies she believes are in the best long-term interests of her beloved hometown,” Berton said in a statement. An item posted Tuesday on the San Francisco Independent Media Center’s website, indybay.org, carried the headline, “Wake up Libby” and claimed responsibility for the vandalism. The writer of the post took the name “some yay area comrades.”

The attack happened a day after President Donald Trump, who has long feuded with Democratic-run cities, threatened Monday to send federal troops to Oakland and several other cities. Trump said “Oakland is a mess. We are not going to let this happen in our country.” On Monday, Schaaf called Trump’s threat a campaign stunt and a “racist dog whistle.”

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jul/22/libby-schaaf-oakland-mayor-home-targeted-masked-va/

FBI says it has evidence linking anti-feminist lawyer to another murder

The FBI said on Wednesday it had evidence linking a deceased, self-described anti-feminist lawyer suspected of killing the son of New Jersey federal judge Esther Salas to a murder earlier this month in California. The FBI, in an emailed statement, said it was working with the sheriff’s office in San Bernardino, California, and had evidence tying the lawyer, Roy Den Hollander, to the July 11 killing of Marc Angelucci, a former associate of Hollander in the men’s rights movement.

Hollander, who was found dead on Monday in an apparent suicide, was the sole suspect in the Sunday attack at Salas’ home. The attack killed the 20-year-old son of Salas, a judge on the U.S. District Court of New Jersey, and wounded her husband. The FBI says it now believes Hollander was involved in the death of Angelucci, who was vice president of the National Coalition for Men (NCFM). Angelucci was found July 11 with apparent gunshot wounds in Cedarpines Park, California, which is about 75 miles northeast of Los Angeles. NCFM President Harry Crouch told Reuters that Hollander and Angelucci had had a falling out several years ago around the time Hollander was dismissed from the organization.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-shooting-salas/fbi-says-it-has-evidence-linking-anti-feminist-lawyer-to-another-murder-idUSKCN24N2KJ