The proposition also included “white churches” providing $15 billion in reparations for their historical role in the slave trade, according to the Daily Mail.
It was reported by the news source that the event took place at Resurrection Lutheran Church and was put together by the Boston Peoples Reparations Commission, the group responsible that was responsible for demanding $15 billion.
Rev. Kevin Peterson was one of the speakers who appeared at the event. During his speech, he allegedly expressed his desire to rename the Faneuil Hall marketplace which was named after wealthy merchant Peter Faneuil, a prominent slave trafficker in the 18th century.
“We call sincerely and with a heart filled with faith and Christian love for our white churches to join us and not be silent around this issue of racism and slavery and commit to reparations. We point to them in Christian love to publicly atone for the sins of slavery and we ask them to publicly commit to a process of reparations,” he said.
According to Peterson, “[atoning] for the sins” would mean “[extending] their great wealth – tens of millions of dollars among some of those churches – into the black community.”
The letter that was signed by 16 clergymen was sent to churches that the group wanted to participate in giving reparations, the news source wrote. The letter went into detail about how the churches could pay the money by cash, by creating affordable housing or “financial and economic institutions in black Boston,” the Mail wrote.
“Obviously, it’s incalculable. It is impossible to put any dollar number on what African Americans have gone through in this country,” Edwin Sumpter, who is involved with the Boston Peoples Reparations Commission, said.
(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) It was recently revealed that “pride” flags were banned at all U.S. embassies, the decision that was part of the $1.2 trillion spending package that was signed by Joe Biden on March 23, 2024.
“The bipartisan funding bill I just signed keeps the government open, invests in the American people, and strengthens our economy and national security. This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted,” Biden said in a press release, according to the New York Post.
The Republican-led text in the 1,012-page package additionally stated that “[none] of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be obligated or expended to fly or display a flag over a facility of the United States Department of State.”
The news source also added that the issue of whether the flying of “pride” flags at U.S embassies should be allowed has been debated between both Democrats and Republicans for years.
The very first time when they were flown at U.S. embassies was during Barack Obama’s administration, prior to being banned by the Donald Trump administration back in 2019 and reinstated by the Biden administration in 2021, the Post reported.
“Biden believes it was inappropriate to abuse the process that was essential to keep the government open by including this policy targeting LGBTQI+ Americans,” a Biden spokesperson said on March 23, 2024.
In addition to that, the White House said that it would seek a way to repeal the ban.
The news source reported that the move did not come as a surprise to lawmakers or LGBT advocates.
“It poses absolutely no limits to other displays of a pride flag, hosting LGBTQ+ events or embassy employees’ ability to display Pride flags in their work spaces,” Human Rights Campaign spokesperson Brandon Wolf said in a statement on March 22, 2024.
(Matthew Doarnberger, Headline USA) A recent survey conducted by the Citizens Budget Commission revealed that only half of the respondents in New York City desire to stay there for the next five years.
This was a decline from over 58% who said they planned to stay in the city for at least a five year duration when the same question was asked in 2017.
The appeal of exiting “The Big Apple” seemed to coincide with the significant reduction in how residents viewed their quality of life, as well as concerns over general safety throughout the city.
When surveyed, only 30% of locals rated their quality of life as either “excellent” or “good,” down from 50% compared just seven years ago.
Those same New Yorkers also felt less safe than they did during the same time period.
The percentage who rated public safety in their neighborhoods as either “excellent” or “good” declined from 50% to 37%.
With several high-profile cases of subway attacks having made national news, even prompting New York Gov. Kathy Hochul recently to dispatch the National Guard to assist with security, feeling safe on the subway during the day experienced a drop of 81.5% to 49.1%.
That same concern was displayed by nighttime subway riders as those feelings of safety fell from 46% to 22%.
Ana Champeny, yhe vice president of the CBC, outlined what she thought the city needed to do in order to reverse these trends.
“The city needs to focus on the basics—safety, cleanliness, delivering high-quality services,” she said.
Doing these things would go a long way in making sure it “remains a competitive and attractive place to live and work,” she added.
This focus needs to come sooner rather than later, as the state of New York leads the nation in migration to other areas.
It is also estimated the over a trillion dollars in assets have left the state since the COVID pandemic in 2020.
All of this has also led to population shifts that caused the state to lose a congressional seat as a result of the 2020 Census.
Ironically, the efforts to import new citizens and bring additional political power to the state by adding more congressional seats might, in fact, fuel even more migration out of the state, while also eroding the tax base of citizens needed to pay for New York to subsidize its growing population of illegal immigrants.
Demonstrators greeted Harris with a catchy song protesting her visit to the island, which asked why she came and ended with “long live free Palestine and Haiti too!”
"We want to know, Kamala What did you come here for? We want to know, Kamala We want to see If you're going to talk about law 60 Or about the Fiscal Control Board
The vicepresident is here Making history We want to know What she thinks of the…
Harris, unaware of the meaning of the lyrics, started clapping along to the beat enthusiastically.
Mariana Reyes, executive director at La Goyco cultural center, where Harris stopped for the visit, explained to the veep what the lyrics meant, after which Harris clasped her hands and stop bopping to the beat.
The demonstrators came out with signs that read “Kamala Harris is a war criminal” and accused her of crimes against humanity, such as ethnic cleansing, genocide and forced starvation.
The stated purpose of the trip was to tout the Biden administration’s “commitment to supporting Puerto Rico’s recovery” after natural disasters and the economic impact of COVID, with a particular focus on infrastructure.
“What we all need to do then is just supply the community and the talent here with the capacity and the resources,” Harris said. “And so President Joe Biden and I have been very intentional about what we are doing for the leaders and the people and the families of Puerto Rico. So far, our administration has invested over $140 billion in Puerto Rico.”
As Twitchy noted, however, the timing seemed odd given that there had been no major disasters on the island since Hurricanes Nicole and Fiona hit nearly 18 months ago.
“In truth, the trip was to attend a Democratic fundraiser,” it noted, while adding that Harris also pushed the Biden administration’s green agenda by promoting the installation of solar panels—a questionable investment decision for an area frequently devastated by storms that could easily destroy the expensive panels and wipe out the energy grid.
In addition to advertising the many hands-on initiatives the federal government employed on the island, Harris presumably went to Puerto Rico to field votes for the upcoming presidential primary after Biden’s embarrassing fiasco in American Samoa, where he lost to political neophyte Jason Palmer.
The Democratic primary in Puerto Rico is scheduled for April 28; the Republican primary will take place on April 21.
The votes for the Puerto Rico primary are not binding, and typically are simply an indication of the political lilt of the region.
As a United States territory, Puerto Rico does not participate in presidential elections.
(Andrew Powell, The Center Square) Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a controversial new bill into law on Monday that will prohibit the use of social media platforms by children.
House Bill 3 requires that social media platforms be regulated to prohibit minors under age 14 from having a social media account if the platform allows users to upload content and view content from other users, uses algorithms and has certain addictive features to keep young children scrolling.
According to the bill, adult websites that have adult content that is sexually explicit or pornographic would also be required to use age verification before someone can access the website.
“One of the things I know a lot of parents have concerns about is the role that the internet and social media play in the upbringing of young kids,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis added that before the rise of the internet, parents had to worry about their children only if they were out of the house and noted that now the danger comes into the home via the internet.
“Now, with things like social media and all this, you can have a kid in the house, safe seemingly, and then you have predators that can get right in there into your own home,” DeSantis said. “You could be doing everything right, but they know how to manipulate these different platforms.”
DeSantis said that social media has created huge problems and mentioned that last session, the Legislature passed a bill to ban the use of cell phones in classrooms and further noted that the legislation has been successful.
“Ultimately, you know, trying to help parents navigate this very difficult terrain that we have now with raising kids,” DeSantis said. “So, I appreciate the work that’s been put in… but we have done an awful lot in the state of Florida over these last many years.”
Florida House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, made it a priority for greater online protections for children in the Sunshine State and said that problems can go deeper than children being at the mercy of predators.
“The internet has become a dark alley for our children where predators target them and dangerous social media leads to higher rates of depression, self-harm, and even suicide,” Renner said.
“I am proud of the work of all our bill sponsors Representatives Tyler Sirois, Fiona McFarland, Michele Rayner, Chase Tramont and Toby Overdorf for delivering a legislative framework that prioritizes keeping our children safe.”
(Casey Harper, The Center Square) President Joe Biden’s dogs have been on a biting spree, and now an investigation is under way.
The House Education and the Workforce Committee has launched an investigation into the Occupational Safety and Health Administration raising the question: Is Biden’s dog getting special treatment while White House staff fear getting bitten?
Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., sent a letter to the Department of Labor acting head Julie Su Monday, a follow-up to a previous letter on the same issue.
“Recently, news reports say the number of known dog-bite incidents involving the President’s dog Commander and Secret Service employees has risen to 24,” the letter said. “In light of this new information, the Committee stresses that it is still concerned about the occupational safety and health program for all employees working at the White House and the Executive Office of the President (EOP).”
Secret Service members are reportedly suffering the brunt of the dog bites, with at least one having to get six stitches.
CNN reports the number is actually much higher than 24 and that Secret Service has had to change the way it operates to work around the dogs.
Biden’s other dog, Major, has reportedly had the same issue though not to the same extent.
“After one incident, East Wing public tours were stopped for approximately 20 minutes due to the blood on the floor from the attack in the area of the ‘Booksellers,'” the group said in its release.
“A January 28, 2023, email chain discusses three biting incidents, ‘2 incidents today and one yesterday,'” it continued. “Later that day, a Presidential Protection Division official whose name is redacted emails Senior White House Advisor Anthony Bernal that ‘Commander bit one of the Navy Staff’ who worked at Camp David.”
Foxx’s letter raises questions about whether the White House is getting a pass on federal reporting requirements for these kinds of incidents.
The White House press team did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
“As I stated in my prior letters, the White House should not embrace an attitude of ‘rules for thee, but not for me’ when it comes to workplace safety,” Foxx wrote.
She noted that, according to the Congressional Budget Submission for FY2024, Biden’s office had “just over 2,000 full-time equivalent employees” and expressed surprise that there was no data from the Labor Department about the biting incidents, given the size of the staff.
“The Committee has an interest in ensuring that the White House is providing the same protections to its workforce that it demands of the private sector,” Foxx wrote. “Furthermore, the Committee has an interest in ensuring that [the Labor Department] has accurate data on the EOP and the White House.”
(Catrina Petersen, The Center Square) Attorneys Patrick Hughes and Daniel Suhr from Hughes and Suhr LLC filed lawsuit against the Chicago Teachers Union seeking damages for parents over a teachers strike.
The 2024 lawsuits stem from a strike that took place in January 2022. The attorneys said the strikes forced Chicago parents to face unexpected childcare costs, take unpaid leave from work and cope with additional financial strains.
John Kugler, a former employee of the Chicago Teachers Union, said he was there to help prepare the January 2022 strike.
“The 2022 COVID strike was more about the union election than it was about COVID,” he said.
“Remember, there was also a mayoral election and the strike was used to see what the strength of Stacy Davis Gates would be” in a match up against Mayor Lori Lightfoot, he added.
The CTU ultimately supported Brandon Johnson in the mayoral election. Johnson beat Lightfoot to become mayor.
The recent lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court accuses the union and leadership of allegedly conspiring to call an illegal strike. The union was protesting Chicago Public Schools. CTU claims CPS didn’t do enough to protect them from the spread of COVID-19.
Kugler said part of the rationale behind the CTU’s decision to walk out on students likely rests with Davis Gates’s desire for public office.
During the course of the strike, Lightfoot repeatedly referred to it as an “illegal work stoppage.”
In May 2022, Davis Gates was elected president of the union after previously serving as vice president under Jesse Sharkey, who stepped down. Davis Gates defeated two other challengers to become president.
Teacher strikes are illegal in eight of the 10 largest school districts in the nation, with Chicago being one of the two districts where strikes are allowed. Los Angeles Unified School District is the other, according to the Illinois Policy Institute.
A spokesman from the Hughes and Suhr LLC law firm said in Chicago Public Schools, 76% of all students are classified as low-income. They said teachers earn nearly twice the average income of the families they serve and the timing and length of the strike was particularly egregious.
Kugler said, in his opinion, CTU deserves punitive consequences.
Before he left his position, Kugler was employed by the CTU for over 10 years, where he was part of the union while strike preparation was happening. He said there’s a process to strike.
“You have to take votes, give notice, and have mediation. None of that happened,” Kugler said.
“Well then you can say, ‘well we are taking a wildcat strike because of some working conditions, COVID is unsafe.’ If you do that you need some paperwork, like grievances. None of that happened,” he continued. “Naturally if you scare people enough they’re going to vote with you.”
A spokesman from Hughes and Suhr LLC said the January 2022 strike, along with violating provisions under Illinois law, also breached the collective bargaining agreement between CTU and CPS.
The 2024 Hughes and Suhr LLC lawsuit isn’t the first lawsuit. There was a lawsuit in 2022 at the time of the strike and Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, said the intent with that lawsuit was really to get them to stop the strike.
“It really created a problem for a lot of parents when all of sudden, without much notice, their kids were home from school on days when they expected the kids to be in school,” said Schwab.
Schwab was skeptical of the motivation behind the strike and whether it really was about COVID and unsafe working conditions.
“The teachers were back in school after the Christmas break for a few days before they went on strike and that struck me as odd,” said Schwab. “If you’re saying the teachers were unsafe in schools then why even go back for a few days after break.”
The Liberty Justice Center lawsuit from 2022 is over.
In the 2024 lawsuit, attorneys Hughes and Suhr are representing lead Chicago plaintiff Ammie Kessem, who is a police officer with two children in CPS at the time of the strike. The plaintiffs are trying to get a Cook County Circuit Court judge to certify the case as a class action lawsuit.
(Brett Rowland, The Center Square) Former President Donald Trump said Monday that he doesn’t expect to go to trial over allegations he covered up hush money payments to an adult film actress as legal expenses.
Trump, in a news conference Monday, said he was willing to testify in his New York hush-money case, should it go to trial. The news conference came hours after a New York judge said jury selection in the case would begin on April 15.
However, Trump said he wasn’t convinced.
“I don’t know that you’re going to have the trial,” Trump said from 40 Wall Street. “I don’t know how you can have a trial like this in the middle of an election. … I don’t know that you’re going to have it. I think we’re going to get some court rulings.”
Trump also said he’d be willing to testify at trial if needed. He also said that he wasn’t worried about a conviction when asked if he thought a conviction could hurt his chances of returning to the White House.
“It could also make me more popular because the people know it’s a scam,” he said. “It’s a Biden trial, there is no trial, there’s a Biden trial.”
Trump said President Joe Biden was behind his four pending criminal cases along with an assortment of civil cases that threaten his finances.
Jury selection in Trump’s hush money case in New York could begin April 15, a judge ruled Monday, setting the stage for the first of Trump’s four criminal trials to begin ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Judge Juan Merchan rejected Trump’s request for a longer delay in the case.
One of Trump’s attorneys, Todd Blanche, was critical of the judge’s decision.
“We very much believe that starting this trial in April, or even starting this trial at any point before the election, is completely unfair to President Trump,” he said at the news conference. “It is completely unfair to the American people who are evaluating who they want to be the next president. We are going to continue to fight.”
The trial alleging Trump paid hush money to an adult film actress was set to begin Monday, but a last-minute document dump from prosecutors delayed jury selection, which will now start April 15.
Trump pleaded not guilty in April 2023 to 34 felony counts related to charges he paid off Stormy Daniels through a lawyer before the 2016 presidential election and covered it up as a legal expense before being elected president.
(Brett Rowland, The Center Square) The partisan prosecutor dubbed “Peekaboo” by former President Donald Trump will likely lose out on her yearslong dream of squatting in the penthouse of Trump Tower—even as the presumptive GOP nominee for president in 2024 continues to live rent-free inside New York Attorney General Letitia James’s head.
A New York appeals court on Monday gave Trump a lifeline in his New York civil case, allowing him to post a much lower bond while he appeals the verdict.
In an order, the five-judge state appeals court panel said it would give the Trump Organization and top executives 10 days to post a $175 million bond.
Trump was expected to come up with $464 million or a bond for that amount Monday to appeal a ruling by Superior Court Judge Arthur Engoron, the culmination of a yearslong lawfare attack waged by James—who ran in 2018 on the promise that she would “get Trump” and filed the suit shortly before her reelection in September 2022.
Engoron claimed that Trump, his company and top executives—including his eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump—deceived banks and insurers by inflating the value of his family’s wealth on financial statements used to secure loans.
Trump said Monday that he planned to comply with the order.
“We will abide by the decision of the Appellate Division, and post either a bond, equivalent securities, or cash,” he posted on Truth Social. “This also shows how ridiculous and outrageous Engoron’s original decision was at $450 Million.”
Trump’s attorneys previously said he couldn’t get a bond for the full amount and asked to put up a $100 million bond instead.
James wanted Trump to have to put up the full amount and had said she would seek “judgment enforcement mechanisms in court” if Trump couldn’t come up with the money—essentially, following through on her longstanding campaign promise to seize his private property.
Critics sounded the alarm on the verdict, noting that the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—which also, per the Supreme Court, applied at the state level—prohibited excessive fines.
Meanwhile, others noted that it would have a chilling effect on New York businesses, fearful that if the state could arbitrarily and capriciously use selective enforcement of the law to target Trump for political purposes, there would be nothing to stop James from doing the same to any other business that ran afoul of her whimsy.
Indeed, one Irish social club recently argued that it had encountered a parallel situation, according to New York Post columnist Miranda Devine.
The American Irish Historical Society recently issued a subpoena to James in a lawsuit arguing that she had “actively aided and abetted in the art of the steal” in an effort to help the society defraud a lender after using the Fifth Avenue building as collateral.
“This organization fraudulently inflated the value of their building to induce my client into giving them a mortgage which Tish James is now trying to help these fraudsters avoid having to repay,” said Tim Parlatore, the lawyer for plaintiff James Doyle.
“The theory of fraud Tish James accused the Trump Organization of engaging in is identical to the fraud she is aiding and abetting here,” he added.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A biological male inmate imprisoned for murder was caught earlier this month having sex with a female inmate at a women’s prison in Washington, according to a Friday report from the National Review.
Citing an internal prison report that the publication obtained, National Review reported the incident happened on March 14, when a corrections officer at the Washington Corrections Center for Women discovered 35-year-old Bryan Kim, who goes by Amber FayeFox Kim, having sexual intercourse with 25-year-old Sincer-A Marie Nerton. Kim is in prison for murdering the inmate’s parents.
EXCLUSIVE: A trans-identifying male inmate at Washington state's women's prison who strangled & bludgeoned his mother then stabbed his father, both fatally, was found having sex with his female cellmate last week🧵
According to the National Review, the prison guard looked into a cell during a routine check and saw Kim “laying on the floor completely nude from the waist down with their cellmate Nerton Sincer-A on top of them also nude from the waist down actively having sex.”
“I/I [Incarcerated Individual] Kim’s hands were on I/I Nerton’s buttox in a spread open position while I/I Kim’s erect penis was penetrating I/I Nerton’s Vagina,” the report added. “This is against MSU rules and policy. WAC-504-Engaging in a sex act with another person within the facility that is not otherwise included in these rules, except in an approved extended family visit.”
The National Review reported that the incident was counted as an infraction with a hearing expected to follow. The publication added that the Washington DOC views consensual, non-coerced sexual activity between individuals under its jurisdiction as permissible under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, a federal law enacted in 2003.
The incident with Kim is the latest case of a trans-identifying male inmate having sex with a female in women’s prison. The National Review report outlined other such instances.
DOJ Lawfare
Despite that, the Justice Department is mounting lawfare against the states in an apparent campaign to promote transgenderism in prisons.
Indeed, earlier this month the DOJ threatened to sue Utah’s Department of Corrections after alleging that the state violated an inmate’s rights by refusing to provide treatment for gender dysphoria.
And last month, the DOJ filed a statement of interest in support of a lawsuit from transgender inmate Jonathan C. Richardson, who now goes by the name “Autumn Cordellionè” and is serving a 55-year sentence for killing Richardson’s infant stepdaughter.
The DOJ’s support of Richardson followed a similar move in Georgia, where prosecutors filed a brief in January to support a lawsuit filed by an unnamed inmate against the Georgia Department of Corrections. Details of the inmate’s crimes weren’t included in the filing.
Additionally, the DOJ settled a lawsuit last June from a federal inmate—former Neo-Nazi bank robber Pete/Donna Langan—who sued the Bureau of Prisons in late 2021 to obtain a sex change. Langan became the first federal inmate in history to receive a sex change in January 2023, but continued to sue the BOP to also cover facial hair removal surgery.
The details of Langan’s settlement have not been made public.
