AsCOVID-19 cases surge in the United States, anti-mask and anti-vaccine protests are continuing nationwide, with some turning violent. In a shocking story out of California, at least one person was stabbed and two journalists were attacked while covering…
As COVID-19 cases surge in the United States, anti-mask and anti-vaccine protests are continuing nationwide, with some turning violent. In a shocking story out of California, at least one person was stabbed and two journalists were attacked while covering an anti-vaccine, anti-mask demonstration outside Los Angeles City Hall on Saturday, August 14. The protest was attended by members of the Proud Boys and other right-wing groups. A Southern California mortgage broker named Tony Moon, who also participated in the deadly January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was videotaped attacking the independent journalist Tina-Desiree Berg. “He started screaming ‘Unmask them all!’ He ripped my mask off and manhandled me,” says Berg, a reporter at Status Coup News in Los Angeles, who describes how the same people have been involved in violent protests nationwide. “This is a group that has been traveling around … and they instigate violence wherever they go.”
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
As COVID-19 cases surge in the United States, with the country once again averaging 1,000 daily coronavirus deaths a day, we look now at how anti-mask, anti-vaccine protests are continuing nationwide, with some turning violent.
In a shocking story out of California, at least one person was stabbed and two journalists attacked while covering an anti-vax, anti-mask demonstration outside Los Angeles City Hall on Saturday, August 14th. That was two Saturdays ago. The protest was attended by members of the Proud Boys and other right-wing groups. KPCC Radio reporter Frank Stoltze was assaulted while doing an interview. He had his glasses ripped off, was repeatedly kicked. He said nothing like that had ever happened to him in his 30 years of reporting.
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The Huffington Postreports a Southern California mortgage broker named Tony Moon was videotaped attacking the independent journalist Tina-Desiree Berg. Moon was also seen screaming, “Unmask them all!” Moon was also in Washington on January 6 during the insurrection at the Capitol.
Well, last week, I spoke to Tina-Desiree Berg, a reporter at Status Coup News in Los Angeles, and asked her to describe the protest and what happened to her as she covered it.
TINA–DESIREE BERG: It was a wild day. I got there about 45 minutes before the violence actually started, because I had been — I had just released a story that morning, Saturday, where one of our gubernatorial candidates, Sarah Stephens, she had been involved with another press beating in front of the Wi Spa almost three weeks ago. I had filmed that beating. And coincidentally, the folks that did it had posted bodycam footage of themselves inside the vehicle as they were leaving, and they posted it on social media. So, when I saw that, I knew who had been responsible. But one of the persons in the vehicle was Sarah Stephens. She’s running for governor right now. And we were able to identify her not only through her license plate, but also through video surrounding the incident where you see her on the sidewalk. So my intention that morning was to go down, since she was one of the keynote speakers, and maybe try to talk to her about what happened at Wi Spa two weeks before, because I think that’s a newsworthy conversation to have if you’re running for governor.
But we never made it that far. So, initially, on the sidewalk, a group of me and other reporters were standing there. There had been some skateboarders that had been going up and down First Street and Spring Street, and they were preteens, kids. Maybe the oldest was 15, it seemed to me. I didn’t videotape much of them because I generally don’t videotape children. But at one point, one of the Proud Boys — his name is Benjamin Patino — came across the street and started harassing one of the skateboarders and calling them antifa. So, these guys, they have a broad brush with what they state to be antifa. They see antifa where there’s no antifa often, in my experience. So, he started harassing one of these skateboarders, and somebody that is in black bloc came to this kid’s defense and pushed Patino away.
Patino ran back across the street, but then he came back over with Adam Kiefer, who is another Proud Boy, Tony Moon, who is a Capitol insurrectionist, and a group of other folks, and I’m not sure who all of the other ones were. And that’s when you had the incident of one of them came up to me, called me a B-I-T-C-H — I’m not sure if we can say that — and he punched me in the camera. But I kept filming.
Then Tony Moon came over, and he had been hitting another woman with his water bottle, and I tried to intervene a little bit while I was filming, because I could see she had a bloody head. She had been hit in the head. And so, then he started screaming, “Unmask them all!” He ripped my mask off and manhandled me or shoved me a little bit. But then I kept filming.
And right after that, you’ll notice in the background of the video there is a counterprotester, who is pro-vaccine, who was — looks like he’s getting beaten by fists, but it turns out that that individual had a shank of some sort in his hand and was actually trying to stab him. So, that’s the second stabbing. The first stabbing had happened earlier. I didn’t catch it on video, but I did see the gentleman coming by from behind, walking towards the police officers, and you can see there’s blood on his shirt. And then he’s collapsed in the street, and they’re giving him aid. So, as far as I know, there’s definitely two stabbings. There might be more that I didn’t quite catch. But it was a very violent scene.
And it’s interesting to me, because some of these characters, including Tony Moon — he was also, incidentally, at that same Wi Spa event where this other press member was hit on the back of the head with a lead pipe. Tony Moon was there that day also with a water bottle, and he struck a counterprotester with that. So, I think it’s interesting, Amy, that this is a group that has been traveling around Southern California, they’ve also been up in Sacramento, they have also been up in Portland, and they instigate violence wherever they go. And again, these are — they’re right-wingers. They are definitely part of the group that supported Trump, but I don’t think this is solely about Trump anymore, or necessarily anti-vaccine. I think that they are just latching on from one movement to the next, and they’re kind of coalesced around this idea of freedom. And you’ll notice that they all have these gaiters on that are covering their faces. They’re not trying to prevent the spread of COVID; they’re trying to stop themselves from being identified.
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us more about the direct attack on you and how you know who Tony Moon is and that he was at the insurrection, January 6, at the Capitol.
TINA–DESIREE BERG: Yeah, so, I know who Tony Moon is because he had been at that Wi Spa event two weeks earlier. After I saw him hit the woman with the water bottle, I got online and started to research who he was, and I saw that he had been at the Capitol January 6th, because he had posted video of himself on his social media showing that he had been. And there was also a clip in the Parler archive, that’s on ProPublica, where you see him in that video. So he was definitely there.
And I think it also bears mentioning that he identifies himself as “Roof Korean,” and that is a very racist trope that goes back to the beating of Rodney King. So, he’s definitely identifying himself as a group that’s already radical right, racist, doing violence. So, yeah, he was there at Wi Spa. We looked into who he was. And then, when I saw him coming up to me, I said, “Oh, there’s Tony Moon. That’s the Roof Korean guy that was at Wi Spa a couple weeks ago.” But I will say this: He seemed much more violent and radicalized Saturday morning.
I think also maybe there’s a double meaning to “unmask them,” because we were all wearing masks for protection, so I had my surgical mask on. I think his idea is that not only are we unmasking you because we’re anti-vaxxers and we’re anti-maskers and we see this as an infringement to freedom, but also they’re very vested in this idea of doxxing and exposing anybody that is against, you know, their beliefs. Now, randomly, of course, I use my real name, so there’s not much to dox there, but I do think that’s why he was screaming, “Unmask them all!” It wasn’t solely because of the mask to prevent COVID transmission.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to throw to a clip of he attack on you, that you yourself filmed.
PROUD BOY: Hey, bitch!
TINA–DESIREE BERG: Hey! Yo! Stop it!
TONY MOON: Unmask them! Unmask them!
TINA–DESIREE BERG: [bleep] you!
TONY MOON: Unmask them! Unmask them!
TINA–DESIREE BERG: Yeah, so, the first guy that came up and punched me was not Tony Moon. It was another gentleman. He came right up to the camera. He called me the B-word and hit me, backed away back where the guys were. So he absolutely targeted me for some reason. I’m not sure why that is.
And then, you know, maybe 20, 30 seconds later, Tony Moon was right there. So, when he came up to me, you could tell his intention was to pull down — and he did pull it down — my mask. And I had put up my goggles at that point, as well, because somebody had been using bear mace. And, in fact, I believe it was the anti-vaxxer that was stabbed that had used bear mace, because I do have video of him earlier using bear mace and spraying people. This is a tactic that the Proud Boys have deployed for many months now. So we’ve seen it at various different protests, where they pull out bear mace and they mace people. So, he did successfully pull my mask down. He was, like I said, hitting that other woman — you’ll see she has a bloody head — and just kind of escalated from there and started screaming, “Unmask them all!”
And I also think it’s interesting that if you look at the video, you see that they all have orange armbands on and that their water bottles are all orange. So, obviously, orange is a significant color for them. I don’t know if they’re coordinating with it, but you will see they have orange armbands. And it sort of is reminiscent of January 6 at the Capitol, because, that day, the Proud Boys had been marking themselves with orange gaffer tape or orange beanies on their heads. And they had, at that point — Enrique Tarrio had told everybody to show up dressed not as they normally would in their Proud Boy attire, but into, you know, sort of antifa in disguise, and they had been marking themselves, ergo, with the orange color, whether it was the tape, the gaffer tape, or the beanies. I don’t know that there’s a crossover here with the group that was with Tony Moon, but I do think it’s interesting that they all had orange armbands on.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you personally feel when this was happening to you? I mean, this was a anti-mask, anti-vax rally. They’re pulling down your mask.
TINA–DESIREE BERG: I was actually very concerned about — in the moment, because you know that these folks aren’t vaccinated. I am absolutely fully vaccinated, but there’s still a chance of transmission. And that’s actually — I’ve been hit before. You know, when you’re in the field covering things, it’s something that sometimes happens, so this is not the first time I’ve been hit doing my job. But I was really concerned that they were willing to get so close to me and get into my face and pulled down my mask. And they — you know, higher chance, obviously, that they’re infected with COVID since they’re not vaccinated. So, that’s actually more scary to me than being punched. I do not want to get COVID, right? So, it was a violation of personal space. But I was just very focused on getting the video and staying focused on what I was filming in that moment.
AMY GOODMAN: Tina-Desiree Berg, where were the police? You were right in front of LAPD headquarters?
TINA–DESIREE BERG: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. So, I think that’s a significant part of the story. So, City Hall is stationed exactly across the street from LAPD headquarters. And where this bully happened is in the sidewalk and the street area right in front of the headquarters. The police had been there all morning. When I got there, there was probably five or six cruisers lined up with officers in them. So they were absolutely present. And I don’t know what the delay was, as far as, you know, not responding to what was going on, but they did not initially respond.
AMY GOODMAN: And then, track the people, some of the people that you saw there at this protest, along the coast, from California to Oregon to Washington.
TINA–DESIREE BERG: Right. So, the main guide that you see coming out — OK, so there’s Patino that came across the street, Benjamin Patino, and messed with the skateboarder kid and then went back.
Then you see another one appear. His name is Adam Kiefer. He is actually part of a more violent group that I’ve seen. And, in fact, related to this, I was covering another anti-vax protest in West Hollywood a couple of weeks ago, and Adam Kiefer came across the street towards me and two other journalists and started threatening us. I have some video of that, and in it, you’ll see him say, “Why are you throwing rocks at me?” — and which nobody was doing. Obviously, none of us were throwing rocks. And I respond to Adam, “I’m not throwing rocks. Nobody here is throwing rocks. We’re just journalists.” And then they ended up getting more aggressive. We ended up running into the Trader Joe’s and seeking refuge in there. They actually had to shut down the store for a few minutes, until they called the sheriff’s department to show up.
But so, I’ve seen him there. I have seen him in Huntington Beach as part of a group that’s been at the Huntington Beach rallies. Those were happening every week during the run-up to the general election. They were pro-Trump. He’s been in Beverly Hills assaulting people. They also had weekly rallies there at the Beverly Garland Park, which is right off of Wilshire Boulevard. So, I also have filmed him in Sacramento being violent, beating up people. So this is somebody that’s definitely traveled around.
So, it’s interesting to me, though, that at this point, Amy, that these guys are very dedicated to what they’re doing. And I don’t know that if you had ask them five or six years ago if they were anti-vaccine, that they would respond with an affirmative. I think this is just one more cause that they’ve picked up because they do see it as a violation of their freedoms.
AMY GOODMAN: Tina, how does this whole protest movement dovetail with the recall Governor Newsom movement?
TINA–DESIREE BERG: Yeah, that’s an excellent question. So, because this was — they called this a “freedom rally,” and that was part of the equation, was that we’re going to also have candidates that are running for governor here that are against Newsom. So, recall Newsom is definitely gaining speed here in California. You know, Sarah Stephens, which is the candidate that I mentioned earlier, she was involved with another Proud Boy, Aaron Simmons, at this Wi Spa assault. She drove the getaway car. So she’s definitely tied with these guys.
I was down in San Diego a couple of weeks ago trying to film a — Mike Pompeo was here, and he was doing a rally for Larry Elder, who is actually tracking number one right now to win if Newsom is recalled. It was an event that was hosted by a Christian Zionist group. Jewish Voice for Peace and the Palestinian Youth Movement joined together to do a counterprotest and rally. So I went down to film that. I covered the speeches and part of the march. But when we got to where Mike Pompeo was speaking, where Larry Elder was speaking, there was a group that had set up some sort of a phony barricade in front of the street, so we couldn’t get further. And as you approached them, they were — in much the same way you saw them menacing on Saturday, they were menacing us and egging people on — “Come here” — you know, very angry way.
I researched some of those guys. There was one named Mike Forzano, who is also a Proud Boy. He is also a member of the American Guard, which is a designated hate group from the Southern Poverty Law Center. He was one of them. He bear-maced me. He hit me, hit my phone out of my hand. And I’m sure that there were others there that I didn’t see that traveled down from Orange County, what have you.
But this is definitely a widespread thing here in California. And I think it’s probably shocking for a lot of folks outside of the state, because they see California as being a, you know, liberal, progressive state. But we do have an element of very hard-right folks here. And they do — they have become much more vocal under the Trump administration.
AMY GOODMAN: So, can you also tell us about what happened? I believe it was right at the same time as the insurrectionists were storming the Capitol that there were local protests around the country. And the attack on the Black trans woman in L.A., how this fits into the story? Her name was Berlinda. She was 25 years old.
TINA–DESIREE BERG: That’s right.
AMY GOODMAN: She said a large group of pro-Trump supporters attacked her.
TINA–DESIREE BERG: That is absolutely correct. So, she had — and I filmed this. I was there for that protest. My co-worker, associate Jon Farina was in the Capitol shooting that day. So, he was actually in the tunnel when the police officer had his head squished, filming that. And I remember, at the end of the day, where I was, I called Jordan, and I said, “I just filmed a hate crime.” And Jordan was like, “You obviously haven’t tuned in to what’s happening in D.C. today.” And I’m like, “No, is it worse?” He said, “Yes” — as an aside.
But Berlinda had just been walking down the street, because she lives in the area. And they came up to her. They held her back. They sprayed her with bear mace. And the worst part of it is a group of them grabbed her weave off of her head, and one of them was holding up the weave and screaming, “This is the first scalping of the new Civil War!” It was one of the most appalling things I’ve ever witnessed. Just appalling. And she was one of two individuals that I saw bear-maced that day. They did bear-mace a second Black individual that was walking through the park.
But here’s where this ties into the LAPD and where they bring their clear bias to the skirmish line. So, she went up to Stabile, who is one of the commanding officers for that division, and wanted to, you know, say, “Look, I was just assaulted. This is what happened.” And Stabile says to her — and I have all of this on video — Stabile says to her, “Well, you can file a citizen’s arrest.”
So, at that point, I interrupted, because I thought that was pretty appalling. I said, “Stabile, that’s what you do if there’s no probable cause. There’s clear probable cause here. We have the whole thing on video. How is this not a hate crime?”
And do you know, to this day, the LAPD has not investigated this particular thing or, at least as far as I know, brought charges in regards to this?
Now, if you go to Stabile’s personal social media, you will see very clearly that he is pro-Trump, that he talks a lot about antifa and how antifa is bad. He’s definitely, you know, making posts in regards to being anti-mask. And he’s not the only one. There’s another one in this division who’s named Sergeant Helper, and he also has a private — or, separate Instagram and Twitter where he posts some of the same similar sentiments.
So I think there’s definitely a problem that’s being crossed over here. When you have police officers that are in command and they want to bring their personal bias to the skirmish line, they’re going to, you know, let these guys get away with a certain level of violence before they step in. And we’ve seen it time and time again. And I can say without equivocation, if the reverse was happening, if this was BLM activists, if this was antifa or black bloc, they would be pulling their weapons and making arrests and beating people. That’s just not a controversial statement. So I think it is really a problem inside the LAPD at this point.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, if you could elaborate on what happened in July, the Korean spa called Wi Spa becoming a center of attacks? What’s its significance? And what happened?
TINA–DESIREE BERG: So, this is a very significant part of the story, because it’s, again, part of the same group of individuals, right? So, there had been a customer that had come into Wi Spa, and she was — you see a video that circulated. I think Tucker Carlson at one point picked it up. But she comes out, and she claims that there’s a pedophile, a trans individual, in the dressing room, and that, you know, she’s worried about children, this kind of a thing. So they staged a counterprotest and protest in front of Wi Spa.
Now, I did talk to the security at Wi Spa. They do have transgender clients that attend Wi Spa. There was no transgender clients present that day when this video was shot, so there’s a general feeling — and this is also coming from the LAPD — that that’s actually not an authentic video. I have not been able to verify that. That’s just what I’m being told by security and what the conclusions have been thus far from the investigation.
But this — you know, we had a group that have now combined with these other guys, and they’re very religious, right? So, they were — I have video of one gal. She’s screaming, “You’re animals! You’re going to burn in hell!” There was another gentleman that had a weapon sort of fashioned. It just — you have to see the audio or the video of this. It looks like a giant rosary, where instead of the beads being very small, they’re very large. They’re like about an inch, inch and a half, two inches in diameter. And he’s hitting people with this thing and screaming, “You’re an abomination! You’re an abomination! You’re animals!” You know, so very violent and religiously motivated bigotry. And, of course, now you have the second layer of these Proud Boys and these other folks, right-wingers, coming in and joining the fray and banding together with these guys.
In fact, at the second protest, we saw Based Spartan was there with them. Based Spartan, as you know, is somebody that’s been a subject even of a Vice article. He was up in Portland wearing kind of a Trojan outfit. He lives down here in Southern California. I’ve seen him at many of these protests, as well, hitting people.
So, yeah. So, the Wi Spa thing is significant, and Tony Moon was there, as well. You know, he was, again, hitting — he hit a woman there with a water bottle, as well. So, the violence — these two violent situations, I think, are conjoined, and also because of the Sarah Stephens element, where she was part of the lead pipe attack against Rocky Romano, who is the press member that was hit on the back of the head. She was driving the getaway car. We’ve confirmed that.
So, it’s just wild to me, Amy, that this is what 2021 is bringing us. If you had told me six months ago, even, you know, three months ago, that this would be the level of escalation of violence we would be seeing, I probably would have thought, “Mm, maybe not.” But I feel now very strongly that at some point somebody is probably going to get shot, because these are turning into full-blown sort of prison-level street brawls in the street.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me, finally, ask you: Do you think that women reporters are being particularly targeted, like yourself?
TINA–DESIREE BERG: Absolutely, I think that’s definitely the case. You know, I think it’s either smaller men or definitely women. And, in fact, I was talking with Adam Rose from the L.A. Press Club about this, because he’s noticed there’s an escalation of violence against female reporters across the board.
So, I do think that’s true, mainly because they — I was hit twice in that period of two minutes, and the male journalists were not, although they did go up and attack Frank later on in the day while he was doing an interview. In that first initial brawl out in the front of LAPD headquarters, they were not necessarily going after the male reporters at the same level. They were, however, punching all of the counterprotesters, male or female.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Tina-Desiree Berg, I want to thank you for being with us. Final question: Does this deter you from going out and covering what’s happening, especially among the Proud Boys?
TINA–DESIREE BERG: No, it doesn’t. And I’ll tell you why, Amy. People need to see what’s going on. And if I let them control what I do, then they kind of win the conversation. That’s the point of what they’re doing, right? To intimidate, to stop. They don’t want the press. They don’t want people filming them. They don’t want to be exposed for their violent actions. And so, the intention of what they’re doing is to try to silence me and other journalists like me from covering what they’re doing. And I absolutely am not deterred from doing it.
I will, however, be much more aware, take more, probably, safety precautions. You know, I go out now with a full set of safety precautions now that I never did before. I never used to wear any — a flak vest. I never used to wear a helmet. This just didn’t seem like necessary. I’m not in a war zone, right? But maybe that’s the case. Maybe this is where the United States is heading right now, because I feel that these groups are becoming more radicalized as time goes by.
And I think the next thing that we’re going to see, at least here in California, is sort of “stop the steal,” California edition, right? Because if Newsom does prevail and he does not get recalled, I think we’re going to see a whole host of these guys coming out and saying that it’s a rigged election, that the election results are false, and it won’t matter whether there’s any underlying evidence to prove that.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Tina, just to be clear, since you have so much of this video, and have shown it, have tweeted it out — and we’ve been showing it throughout this interview — was anyone arrested for attacking you?
TINA–DESIREE BERG: No.
AMY GOODMAN: Was anyone arrested for bloodying the other woman?
TINA–DESIREE BERG: No.
AMY GOODMAN: Was anyone arrested for the knifing?
TINA–DESIREE BERG: No. That’s the thing. Nobody has been arrested. So, I know that the LAPD is now looking for suspects in both stabbings, apparently, which — this is surprising to me. They’re saying yesterday, during the police commissioner’s hearing, that they weren’t aware of the second stabbing, but that they are now, and they’re going to look for the attackers.
But here’s the thing that’s troublesome about this. The attackers were there present that day, and if they had been arrested, detained or dealt with, we’d know who they are. But now it’s going to be very difficult to chase them down, because they were all covered up. You can’t really — it’s hard to decide who these folks are, because they have the gaiters up over their head. They have hats on, goggles, what have you. It’s going to be very hard to identify them. So, waiting to follow up on these acts of violence is very detrimental to the investigation.
AMY GOODMAN: Tina-Desiree Berg, reporter at Status Coup News in Los Angeles. On Sunday, members of the Proud Boys attacked anti-fascist activists in Portland, Oregon.
Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on more than 1,100 public television and radio stations worldwide. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its “Pick of the Podcasts,” along with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”MORE BY THIS AUTHOR…
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As the February 2021 hunt in Wisconsin made clear, with 2,380 hunting permits issued for a quota of 119 wolves and with
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Former “View” co-host Meghan McCain scolded Vice President Kamala Harris Monday for laughing when asked about the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan, comparing the “craven” veep to Joaquin Phoenix’s mentally troubled character in the 2019 film “Joker.”
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Former “View” co-host Meghan McCain scolded Vice President Kamala Harris Monday for laughing when asked about the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan. (Getty) (Lou Rocco/ABC | Ken Cedeno/CNP/Bloomberg)
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Joaquin Phoenix’s “Joker” suffered from uncontrollable laughter, sometimes at inappropriate times. (Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
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A watchdog group, the Office of Local Government, says that it was informed by the Bourke Shire Council that the dogs had been shot. (iStock)
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Local animal rights groups have called for an urgent investigation, with one stating that it had “totally” rejected the council’s justifications.
Australia is currently dealing with protests and public unrest in response to renewed COVID lockdowns, TMZ reports.
One of Australia’s most notorious vegan activists who stormed a designer clothes store wearing only a G-string in a bizarre protest against the ‘animal holocaust’ has revealed she was smeared in her own menstrual blood.
Tash Peterson, 26, has gained infamy for a series of public demonstrations, often featuring provocative outfits and the heckling anyone who isn’t vegan.
The shock-tactic demonstrations have targeted diners in food courts, butchers, meat isles in supermarkets, and families eating out in busy restaurants.
Now, in her latest outlandish stunt, the social media influencer has taken aim at fashion enthusiasts perusing a Louis Vuitton in Perth.
‘I used my period blood to cover my naked body in this protest to symbolise the bloodshed of the animal holocaust and the engrained anthropocentrism in our society,’ Ms Peterson later revealed to her army of fans on Instagram.
‘I am using my blood, my body, my voice and my human privilege to speak up for the non-human animals who are so oppressed they are not even considered to be victims.’
She outspoken herbivore said wanted to convey the message that ‘we are all bleed’ and all have the innate desire to live.
‘Human supremacists believe they have the right to take a life away from someone else if they are a different species,’ she said.
‘I am using my body and blood to help those who have no autonomy over their bodies.
‘I use my human privilege to expose the largest and longest holocaust in history, the animal holocaust.’
Serial animal rights protester Tash Peterson (pictured) has struck again – this time carrying out a demonstration in a busy Louis Vuitton store
The video posted online shows the animal activist marching into the luxury store with her derrière and breasts exposed, clutching a sign reading: ‘If you’re not vegan, you’re an animal abuser’.
Lifting the board above her head, she parades around the store attempting to shame shoppers for buying items featuring animal-derived materials.
‘Who was murdered for your leather bag, down jacket, and woollen jumper,’ she chants, as security guards attempt to usher her to the front door.
‘If you buy animal skin, wool, fur, feather, and scales, you are paying for the most horrific animal abuse on this planet. You are contributing to an animal holocaust.’
A security guard snatches the sign, prompting a tug-of-war between the pair as unimpressed shoppers stare at the almost naked activist digging her heels into the ground.
The social media influencer marched into the designer store in Perth wearing only a nude G-string, with menstrual daubed from her chest down to her crotch
Security guards tried to block her from progressing deeper into the store, as she stormed through chanting:’ If you’re not vegan, you’re an animal abuser’
Shoppers in the luxury label store appeared unperturbed by the outlandish stunt
As the board snaps in half, Ms Peterson grabs what is left of her sign and walks off to continue her tirade through the shop.
‘If you’re not vegan, you’re an animal abuser. Louis Vuitton are responsible for the murder of cows, sheep, goats, foxes, minx, ducks and pigs,’ she screams.
‘Louis Vuitton have blood on their hands, and so do you if you are not vegan.’
Security guards and management follow behind, attempting to block her passage through out the store, and stop her accomplice filming.
One tried to grab her sign, but only succeeded in ripping some of it off and she continued undeterred until she was eventually herded out the door.
‘Thank you, Louis Vuitton is a great brand, thank you,’ the man says calmly guiding her out the door, as she continues screaming into the street.
Her antics left social media users divided, with some praising her work while others felt her approach would be detrimental to her cause.
‘Go Tash. You make it so obvious just how crazy the animal rights movement is,’ one person wrote.
‘The arrogance and attitude of this nutter is such a waste of peoples own free time,’ another added.
Tash Peterson (pictured) ambushed patrons at a seafood restaurant and later compared herself to women’s rights activists
‘This person is trespassing on private property with no intent for the purpose the property is intended. Also if you look at the people in the shop. She won no friends.’
Ms Peterson, who moved to Melbourne in June, is currently back in Perth where she faced court on August 12 for disorderly conduct.
Last month, Western Australia initially denied her entry into her home state due to her spate of high-profile protests.
In June, she was banned from every pub in WA, after she was slapped with a disorderly behaviour charge for ambushing diners at a busy seafood restaurant and publicly chastising them about the ‘fish holocaust’.
Ms Peterson and a group of other activists stormed the Bathers Beach House restaurant in Fremantle in Perth’s south in May.
In another stunt, the militant vegan went topless and painted herself in cow print to protest outside a butcher’s shop
They proudly filmed her stood on a table where she called diners ‘animal abusers’ and shouted out a pre-written speech while furious diners yelled ‘boo’ and told her to ‘shut up’.
The Instagram and OnlyFans star has also dressed in bloodied aprons and stormed into restaurants and supermarkets like McDonald’s, KFC and Coles.
She even interrupted an AFLW match by running onto the field at Perth Stadium.
The serial protester ran around for about a minute before she was tackled by Fremantle midfielder Kiara Bowers long enough for security to catch up.
She was fined $1,800 in court for trespassing.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Louis Vuitton for comment.Read Entire Article
Karuna Peddalanka/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty ImagesWILLIAM TAYLOR8.22.2021 11:00 AM
IN THE WORLD’S HIGH mountain regions, life needs ice. From the Rockies to the Himalayas, glaciers and other accumulations of snow and ice persist throughout the year. Often found on shaded slopes protected from the sun, these ice patches transform barren peaks into biological hot spots.
Frozen heritage is melting from mountain ice in every hemisphere. As it does so, small groups of archaeologists are scrambling to cobble together the funding and staffing needed to identify, recover and study these objects before they are gone.
Alongside a group of scholars from the University of Colorado, the National Museum of Mongolia, and partners from around the world, I’m working to identify, analyze and preserve ancient materials emerging from the ice in the grassy steppes of Mongolia, where such discoveries have a tremendous impact on how scientists understand the past.
During the warm summer months, unique plants thrive at the well-watered margins of ice patches. Large animals such as caribou, elk, sheep, and even bison seek the ice to cool off or escape from insects.
Because ice patches are predictable sources of these plants and animals, as well as fresh water, they are important to the subsistence of nearby people nearly everywhere they’re found. In the dry steppes of Mongolia, meltwater from mountain ice feeds summer pastures, and domestic reindeer seek out the ice in much the same way as their wild counterparts. Climate warming aside, ice margins act as magnets for people — and repositories of the materials they leave behind.
It’s not just their biological and cultural significance that makes ice patches important tools for understanding the past. The tangible objects made and used by early hunters or herders in many mountainous regions were constructed from soft, organic materials.
These fragile objects rarely survive erosion, weather, and exposure to the severe elements that are common in alpine areas. If discarded or lost in the ice, though, items that would otherwise degrade can be preserved for centuries in deep-freeze conditions.
But high mountains experience extreme weather and are often far from urban centers where modern researchers are concentrated. For these reasons, significant contributions by mountain residents to the human story are sometimes left out of the archaeological record.
One of our discoveries was a finely woven piece of animal hair rope from a melting mountaintop ice patch in western Mongolia. On survey, we spotted it lying among the rocks exposed at the edge of the retreating ice.
The artifact, which may have been part of a bridle or harness, appeared as though it might have been dropped in the ice the just day before — our guides even recognized the technique of traditional manufacture. However, scientific radiocarbon dating revealed that the artifact is actually more than 1,500 years old.
Objects like these provide rare clues about daily life among the ancient herders of western Mongolia. Their excellent preservation allows us to perform advanced analyses back in the lab to reconstruct the materials and choices of the early herding cultures that eventually gave rise to pan-Eurasian empires like the Xiongnu and the Great Mongol Empire.
For example, scanning electron microscopy allowed us to pinpoint that camel hair was chosen as a fiber for making this rope bridle, while collagen preserved within ancient sinew revealed that deer tissue was used to haft a Bronze Age arrowhead to its shaft.
Ice patches in western Mongolia preserved a nearly intact arrow from the region’s Bronze Age past – along with sinew lashing and red pigmentation that reveal previously unknown details about the region’s early occupants.Peter Bittner, CC BY-ND
Sometimes, the objects that emerge end up overturning some of the archaeologists’ most basic assumptions about the past. People in the region have long been classified as herding societies, but my colleagues and I found that Mongolian glaciers and ice patches also contained hunting artifacts, like spears and arrows, and skeletal remains of big game animals like argali sheep spanning a period of more than three millennia.
These finds demonstrate that big game hunting on mountain ice has been an essential part of pastoral subsistence and culture in the Altai Mountains for thousands of years.
A 1,500-year-old pile of argali sheep skulls and horn curls, perhaps intentionally stacked by ancient hunters, melts from a glacier margin in western Mongolia.William Taylor, CC BY-ND
In the area my colleagues and I study in western Mongolia, satellite photos show that more than 40 percent of the surface cover of ice has been lost over the past three decades. After each artifact is exposed to the melting ice, it may have only a limited window of time for recovery by scientists before it is damaged, degraded, or lost because of the combination of freezing, thawing, weather, and glacial activity that can affect previously frozen artifacts.
Because of the scale of modern climate change, it’s difficult to quantify how much material is being lost. Many of the high mountains of Central and South Asia have never been systematically surveyed for melting artifacts.
In addition, many international projects have been unable to proceed since summer 2019 because of the Covid-19 pandemic — which has also prompted reductions, pay cuts, and even complete closures of archaeology departments at leading universities.
REVEALED BY WARMING, PROVIDING CLIMATE CLUES
Ice patch artifacts are irreplaceable scientific datasets that can also help researchers characterize ancient responses to climate change and understand how modern warming may affect today’s world.
In addition to human-made artifacts left behind in the snow, ice patches also preserve “ecofacts” — natural materials that trace important ecological changes, like shifting tree lines or changing animal habitats. By collecting and interpreting these datasets along with artifacts from the ice, scientists can gather insights into how people adapted to significant ecological changes in the past, and maybe expand the toolkit for facing the 21st-century climate crisis.
Meanwhile, the plant, animal, and human communities that depend on dwindling ice patches are also imperiled. In northern Mongolia, my work shows that summer ice loss is harming the health of domestic reindeer.
Local herders worry about the impact of ice loss on pasture viability. Melting ice also converges with other environmental changes: In western Mongolia, animal populations have dramatically dwindled because of poaching and poorly regulated tourism hunting.
As soaring heat exposes artifacts that provide insights into ancient climate resilience and other important scientific data, the ice loss itself is reducing humanity’s resilience for the years ahead.
Abattoirs, butchers and meat processors are set to employ prisoners and ex-inmates to help plug labour shortages.
Meat industry leaders held talks with the government on Monday to discuss options of how businesses could link up with prisons to fill vacancies.
The Association of Independent Meat Suppliers told the BBC the industry had about 14,000 job vacancies currently.
It said Covid, Brexit and perceptions over career paths had caused a looming “recruitment crisis”.
The industry body said businesses would seek to link up with prisons that contain prisoners who are part of the Release On Temporary Licence (ROTL) programme.
ROTL is a risk-assessed temporary release programme that inmates in open prisons use to gain work experience to help them in their transition back into the community.
Tony Goodger, of the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers, said the industry body would contact members who required staff and work with the Ministry of Justice to put them in contact with prison services, in a bid to recruit people about to leave prison or current inmates.
Mr Goodger said some members already employed inmates on ROTL, and had found them to be “well behaved, hard-working, and willing to learn”.
“It’s down to the members [who they employ],” he said. “They [prisons] have got offenders and prison-leavers, we have got members who need labour. It seems sensible to bring the two together.”
Turkey processing giant Bernard Matthews has previously formed links with HMP Norwich and regularly visits the prison as part of its recruitment cycle, to assess candidates and offer inmates contracts to start upon release.
Mr Goodger said that many prisons taught inmates food safety skills, which would aid them in finding work in the industry.
“We have suggested that they look at some of the other free training available such as the FSA’s Allergen training and Vacuum Packing training, in order that offenders can leave prisons ‘job ready’,” he added.
The food manufacturing industry has also looked to employ former armed service personnel. However, the number of people taking up jobs has been low.
The Covid pandemic and Brexit have both contributed to current worker shortages, with furloughed workers finding new jobs and EU nationals returning to their home countries.
The British Meat Processors Association said the current level of vacancies represented about 15% of the industry’s workforce.
The industry body said its members were “trying absolutely every avenue” to recruit workers.
Training expansion
The government recently announced the expansion of a kitchen training scheme across jails in England and Wales.
The Clink Kitchens Scheme sees prisoners train in professionally run prison kitchens for up to 35 hours a week while working towards professional qualifications to help them find employment on the outside.
However, the food industry is not the only sector to witness a shortage of workers. A lack about 90,000 HGV drivers “is placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”, according to lobby groups.
In a letter to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and freight trade group Logistics UK have warned that consumers will suffer unless the government intervenes.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said it would support “all industries with skills shortages where possible”.
“Helping prisoners find jobs during their sentence and after release makes it much less likely they will reoffend,” he added.
Negotiators are now working on a new, enhanced plan that would set goals for the next decade and beyond.
The draft of the new agreement has already been published and proposes 21 targets for 2030 including:
At least 30% of the land and seas should be conserved through effective, equitably managed measures;
There should be a 50% or greater reduction in the rate of introduction of invasive alien species, with controls to eliminate or reduce their impacts;
Nutrients lost to the environment should be cut by at least half;
Reduce pesticide use by at least two thirds;
Eliminate the discharge of plastic waste;
Nature’s contribution to global efforts to cut greenhouse gases should be increased;
Redirect or eliminate incentives harmful to biodiversity by at least $50b a year;
An increase in the funding for the conservation of nature to at least $200b a year.
The framework document had been due for discussion between government ministers at the biggest conservation meeting in a decade in Kunming, China
The gathering, known as COP15, was due in October 2020, but has been delayed three times due to the Covid pandemic.
There will now be a two-part meeting, with the first element taking place virtually this October. The second part with two weeks of face to face meetings will convene next April in China.
It’s expected that the key outcome of the October discussions will be the Kunming Declaration.
image captionThe new framework aims to protect 30% of the land and oceans
Observers believe it will give an important steer to the efforts to land an ambitious biodiversity treaty.
“This document will be the first time that China, as COP15 president, will directly decide a specific political outcome,” said Li Shuo, with Greenpeace China.
“So the quality of this declaration will be a test for China, I think it will also tell us a lot about China’s leadership style, and what they will do in the second half of the COP next year.”
Experts are concerned that much of the discussion to date has been focused on the question of targets.
“If you think about targets, they really only outline the vision of where we need to be in 10 years,” said Li Shuo.
“The more challenging part is actually how do we get there? You need implementation, you need the rules and the national commitment. To really do the work you also need resources.”
This is a highly contentious issue and refers to digital biological data and the sharing of benefits between countries that might arise from the use of these resources. At present it is not covered by the proposed framework, but some observers believe it may form part of the final agreement.
“The digital sequence of information and access and benefit sharing is one of those terms that’s quite complicated,” explained Georgina Chandler from the RSPB.
“But it is basically another way of saying resources being mobilised from developed to developing countries, because at the heart of it, that is part of the issue as well.
“And we know from countries such as Brazil and others, that they definitely want to see that integrated into the post 2020 framework for there to be an agreement around ambition as well.”
Iraan, Texas (CNN)From the front lawn of her friend’s house, Vicky Zapata went live on Facebook recently and burst into tears, praying.”We ask you God, that you heal our town, Father, from this disease,” Zapata said in the livestream.
As Zapata panned the camera to show her surroundings, more than a dozen cars could be seen parked in front of the house, their occupants following the livestream from inside their vehicles, to be Covid safe.
Zapata reflected on that moment in an interview with CNN, describing it as a cry for mercy given…
9 hours ago 108
