Tag Archives: GoFundMe

South Los Angeles street vendor robbed in broad daylight in front of his 8 year old daughter

Street-Vendor-Robbery

Important Takeaways:

  • Thugs brutally attack street vendor in front of his special needs daughter, 8, steal all his money; single dad already was struggling to keep them both afloat
  • A group of masked males brutally attacked a street vendor in front of his 8-year-old special needs daughter and stole all his money in south Los Angeles over the weekend, KTLA-TV reported.
  • The robbers made off with some of Carbajal’s merchandise, but they also stole $2,200, his car registration, his passport, and his debit card, which the robbers used to purchase gas, KTLA reported.
  • Carbajal and his daughter are living in a hotel, the station said, adding that he said he was saving up for an apartment.
  • The robbery, however, has forced him to start from scratch, KTLA reported.
  • Some good news
  • The station noted that individuals have been reaching out to Carbajal and making donations through a GoFundMe campaign; the goal was $1,000 — but as of Tuesday afternoon, the total has exceeded $32,300.

Read the original article by clicking here.

Final Warning if your Big Rig is in the street you could lose your insurance, corporate accounts will be cut, your bank accounts will be frozen

Proverbs 22:8 “Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of his fury will fail.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Banks have started to freeze accounts linked to the protests, says Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland
  • In a final warning, finance minister says truckers at the protest will be stripped of their insurance
  • Freeland, who is also the finance minister, said the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies have been gathering intelligence on convoy protesters and their supporters and sharing that information with financial institutions to restrict access to cash and cryptocurrency.
  • The law also allows banks to target for account closure donors to the GoFundMe and the GiveSendGo fundraising campaigns that fueled this protest. Freeland said she wouldn’t get into the “specifics of whose accounts are being frozen.”
  • Citing terrorist financing laws, the government has forced crowdfunding websites and payment providers to register with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), the government’s financial intelligence unit.
  • Using powers granted under the Emergencies Act, the country’s banks and other financial institutions have been ordered to stop doing business with people who are “directly or indirectly” associated with the anti-vaccine mandate protests that have seriously disrupted Ottawa’s downtown core.

Read the original article by clicking here.

GoFundMe attack on Freedom Convoy blocks “mandate” protestors from $10 million in funds raised

Important Takeaways:

  • GoFundMe’s ‘attack’ on Canada’s Freedom Convoy shows dangers of big tech: ex-NY official
  • GoFundMe’s decision to remove the fundraiser for the trucker freedom protest in Ottawa is the latest example of big tech trying to shut down voices shunned by the left and is the “latest red flag that Silicon Valley’s power over us has to be stopped,” a former lieutenant governor of New York said.
  • Icing out the protesters from the $10 million raised in online donations.
  • The company defended its move based on reports that there has been “violence and other unlawful activity.”
  • Portland, Ore., 2020, GoFundMe seemed to have no issue helping raise “hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Portland General Defense Committee” that defended those arrested in the city “who set fires to police stations, vandalized city hall, wielded weapons and injured police officers.”

Read the original article by clicking here.

Informal U.S. refugee network turns to text messages, GoFundMe to rescue Afghans

By Ted Hesson, Kristina Cooke and Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The desperate plea was sent via text message from one refugee advocate to another trying to aid frantic evacuations from Afghanistan: “Just got a call for a young mom with her two young kids,” it said, “She got through Taliban but being turned away by U.S. forces.”

The Afghan woman, a U.S. permanent resident who was in Afghanistan to visit family, and her U.S. citizen children were hoping to board a flight from Kabul to rejoin her husband in North Carolina on Thursday following the Taliban’s rapid takeover of the country.

It was her second attempt to leave Afghanistan after she and her small children were trampled in a stampede triggered by gunfire near the airport on Wednesday, advocates and the woman’s husband said in interviews, requesting anonymity for her safety.

Thousands of miles away in the United States, Jenny Yang from the refugee resettlement agency World Relief had so far been unable to reach U.S. authorities.

Yang’s last resort was a text message to Chris Purdy, a U.S. military veteran and project manager with the advocacy organization Human Rights First, hoping he could use personal government contacts to get her out.

Then they lost contact with the woman and her children.

The frenzied text messages are just one tactic in a sprawling improvised effort by current and former officials, military veterans, congressional staff members and advocacy groups across the United States to get vulnerable people out of Afghanistan, often without clear guidance from the U.S. government. Many are Afghans who worked with the U.S. military in the 20-year war and fear the Taliban will hunt them down.

Desperation on the ground has been exacerbated by a lack of coordination between U.S. military forces controlling the airport perimeter and the State Department, which is notifying U.S. citizens and eligible Afghans about departure flights.

A State Department spokesperson said they are processing Afghans entering the airport as fast as possible, but that “congestion levels are high.” The spokesperson said they could not confirm details of specific incidents.

After being injured in the first melee, the woman returned only to faint from a grueling seven-hour wait outside the airport gates. When she came to, she re-established contact with her husband and is now at home waiting for another opportunity to flee.

“Some of the most desperate people are going to be stuck, and will continue to be stuck, unless the State Department figures out a way to get this mess under control,” Yang said.

New York-based Human Rights First has collected tens of thousands of names of people in Afghanistan who may need to be evacuated. The group shares the list with the State Department.

While it remains unclear exactly how the U.S. government uses the information, some people on the list have boarded planes, Purdy said.

The network of people trying to aid the evacuation has shared tips to pass through Taliban checkpoints. Wear traditional clothing, keep eyes down and persist. “You have to try many, many times,” reads one tip sheet. “Be patient.”

One Afghan man disguised himself in a burka, a traditional female robe, to get through Taliban checkpoints as he traveled hundreds of miles to reach the airport in Kabul, Purdy said.

Democratic Representative Jason Crow, a former U.S. Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan, told Reuters that the Taliban have been using files from Afghanistan’s intelligence agency to round up Afghans who worked for the United States.

U.S. President Joe Biden has said that the United States expected to evacuate between 50,000 and 65,000 people from Afghanistan. That is fewer than the number eligible for safe harbor, according to estimates by advocates.

The Pentagon said on Thursday that in August roughly 12,000 American citizens, U.S. Embassy personnel, Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants and others have been evacuated.

GOFUNDME CAMPAIGN

U.S. defense contractors are also working to get their current and former employees out of Afghanistan, with mixed results.

Abdul Noori, 29, arrived in the United States six years ago with SIV status because of his work as an interpreter for the U.S. military, he said. Last month, his older brother followed. But a third brother, who worked for a U.S. security contractor, had his visa interview scheduled for next week canceled as U.S. Embassy staff evacuated.

Stuck in Afghanistan, Noori’s brother sent screenshots of emails from his employer telling him to stay in a safe location. A senior manager wrote he was “doing everything in my absolute power” to get Afghan employees to the United States. The company confirmed the emails but asked not to be named due to security concerns.

Noori was not impressed with the effort. “If you want to help, get them papers, get them a visa,” he said.

No One Left Behind, a charitable organization that for years has helped relocate at-risk Afghans, has emerged as a central node in the growing informal network striving to evacuate people from Kabul. The group has raised more than $2.5 million for charter flights through a GoFundMe campaign, said James Miervaldis, chairman of No One Left Behind.

But Human Rights First said the U.S. government was not allowing charter flights out of Kabul.

Some in Congress are also working to get U.S. citizens and others out of Afghanistan, fielding requests from constituents and trying to coordinate with U.S. agencies to arrange flights.

“What’s abundantly clear is in the last week the evacuation has not gone the way that it should,” Crow, the U.S. lawmaker, said.

Crow, whose office fielded over 1,000 evacuation requests in the past four days, said people were emailing and texting passport photos and visa information to him. Informal chat groups shared details like which airport gates were open.

“We’re doing everything we can to help on the ground,” he said.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson and Jonathan Landay in Washington, and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Doyinsola Oladipo in Washington; Editing by Mica Rosenberg, Cynthia Osterman and Daniel Wallis)