A Bill Comes Due: Will California Pony Up for Reparations?

  Jonathan Turley   "Below is my column in The Hill on the recommendations for reparations by two appointed bodies in California. After years of declaring this a moral imperative, the bill has come due for leaders like Gov.  Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed. The collective demand is for trillions in California alone with additional trillions demanded from Congress in a national reparations program. California Democrats will now have to render a decision on committing real money on reparations to show that this was not mere virtue signaling. That decision could be coming soon.

"Here is the column:

"A long-awaited meeting of San Francisco’s board of supervisors was set this week to discuss the recommendation of its African American Reparations Advisory Committee to give $5 million to each eligible Black resident as reparations. The meeting was postponed, but the city and the state soon must make a decision on a bill that has come due for Democratic politicians.

"The city council voted unanimously to create the reparations committee in 2020. Even though California was a free state without slavery before the Civil War, the committee’s “particular focus has been the era of urban renewal, perhaps the most significant example of how the City and County of San Francisco as an institution played a role in undermining Black wealth and actively displacing the city’s Black population.” That could be viewed as only a partial payment for race-related injuries.

"In the meantime, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) created his own Reparations Task Force, which just reached its own recommendations for $223,000 per person. Others have insisted the figure should be $350,000 for individuals and another $250,000 for Black-owned businesses. One California politician insisted the figure needs to be $800,000 per person, reflecting the average cost of a home in the state.". . .

I can picture ex-Mayor Lightfoot being a semiregular on Joy Reid at MSNBC

On Tuesday night, Mayor Lightfoot was rejected by the voters. She came in 3rd place and will start packing her bags for a post-political life. My guess is that she'll end up at MSNBC but maybe I'm just cynical today. Silvio Canto, Jr.

Lightfoot Loss Blamed On Rampant Murderphobia | Babylon Bee   . . ."Murderphobia is still an unfortunate reality here in Chicago, and it is the reason I was not reelected as this city's mayor," said Lightfoot to reporters. "People were so busy being afraid of being shot in the face by gang members that they forgot about what an amazing mayor I was. Let me be clear: murderphobia is racist. Murderphobia is bigoted. Murderphobia is NOT ok. Full stop.". . .

Lori out -- but will anything change?

Bad timing also can’t explain Lightfoot’s inability to get along with people and a relationship with the City Council so contentious at least seven members of her own leadership team abandoned ship, endorsing other mayoral candidates.

Lori Lightfoot Effectively Calls Chicago Residents Racist, Sexist After Election Loss – RedState  . . ."Naturally, like any good radical leftist, Lightfoot took no personal responsibility for her loss, choosing to blame it instead on others. In this case, the entire city of Chicago is guilty of being sexist and racist as reported by the New York Post:

“I’m a black woman in America. Of course,” she replied when asked by a reporter if she had been treated unfairly.

…

“I am a black woman — let’s not forget,” Lightfoot, 60, told the New Yorker in a piece that ran Saturday. “Certain folks, frankly, don’t support us in leadership roles.

"Apparently, the city that elected her to the mayorship in the first place suddenly became racist and sexist during her time as that city’s mayor.

"The truth is that Lightfoot took a crime-ridden city filled with violence and murder and made it worse. Under her reign, Chicago’s violent crime rate increased a whopping 37 percent while auto thefts skyrocketed by 74 percent. Corporations abandoned the city for safer places as the homeless population increased to unmanageable proportions.". . .

 Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot loses re-election bid as crime surges (nypost.com) . . ."Naturally, like any good radical leftist, Lightfoot took no personal responsibility for her loss, choosing to blame it instead on others. In this case, the entire city of Chicago is guilty of being sexist and racist as reported by the New York Post:

“I’m a black woman in America. Of course,” she replied when asked by a reporter if she had been treated unfairly.

…

“I am a black woman — let’s not forget,” Lightfoot, 60, told the New Yorker in a piece that ran Saturday. “Certain folks, frankly, don’t support us in leadership roles.

 "Apparently, the city that elected her to the mayorship in the first place suddenly became racist and sexist during her time as that city’s mayor.

"The truth is that Lightfoot took a crime-ridden city filled with violence and murder and made it worse. Under her reign, Chicago’s violent crime rate increased a whopping 37 percent while auto thefts skyrocketed by 74 percent. Corporations abandoned the city for safer places as the homeless population increased to unmanageable proportions.". . .

If They Are Smart Enough to Kick Out Lightfoot, Why Aren’t They Smart Enough to Elect a Republican? - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics

"It amazes me that voters ever elected that creep in the first place."

. . ."Or consider how Mayor Lightfoot campaigned: “I’m a Black woman and, let’s not forget, some folks frankly don’t support us in leadership roles.”

"Yeah. Also some people frankly don’t support morons who lead a once-great city into the dungheap of murderous crime. In 2021, under Lightfoot’s enlightened footwork, the city suffered the most murders it had recorded in a quarter-century. Plus 3,651 shootings — comprising 1,415 more than had occurred only two years earlier. Chicago had more homicides that year under Lightfoot than any other city in America.". . .

Toronto trans teacher with ‘natural’ ginormous boobs on paid leave after getting caught being a man

 Yet commenters continue to refer to this man as "she".

Trans teacher with prosthetic Z-cup breasts put on leave after it was revealed they don't wear the fake boobs outside of school https://t.co/5KBVqOA3l7

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) March 2, 2023

Twitchy.com  "Did you hear the one about the Canadian teacher with the massive knockers?

"See, normally it would be considered pretty offensive, not to mention sexist, to ask a question like that. But not this time. This time, it’s totally appropriate. Because we’re talking, of course, about Kayla Lemieux. Even if the name doesn’t sound familiar, the story should ring a bell. She’s the trans Toronto high school teacher who claims that she’s actually intersex, which is why it’s entirely possible that she could have male reproductive organs as well as comically ginormous boobs (despite having no formal medical training, or even informal medical training, she diagnosed herself with gigantomastia). Lemieux was persecuted by intolerant parents who just didn’t understand that it’s a fundamental human right to be able to wear skintight tops as a schoolteacher, particularly when you’ve got Z-cups.

More:

The district previously claimed that interfering or criticizing the teacher would go against the Ontario Human Rights Code.

“The [Halton District School Board] recognizes the rights of students, staff, parents/guardians and community members to equitable treatment without discrimination based upon gender identity and gender expression. Gender identity and gender expression are protected grounds under the Ontario Human Rights Code,” the board said in a statement.

Well, it seems that the school board has since had a slight change of heart about Lemieux after she was spotted out and about looking like a dude and conspicuously missing the hooters:". . .

terrellaftermath.com

The Politicization of the Department of Justice

 It is not just political activists who are subject to DOJ intimidation. Attorney General Garland recently issued a guidance document prohibiting DOJ employees from speaking directly to members of Congress. This was plainly in response to at least 14 FBI whistleblowers reaching out to members of Congress—including Ohio Representative Jim Jordan and Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley—about misconduct within the DOJ. Garland’s action was highly improper, but it pales in comparison to the intimidation of concerned parents at local school board meetings.  

'The FBI Raid On Melania's Closet Was Justified,' Says Merrick Garland
 Wearing Gorgeous New Evening Gown And Sun Hat | Babylon Bee

Harmeet K. Dhillon; Imprimis (hillsdale.edu)   "The seal of the U.S. Department of Justice reads, “Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur”—“Who prosecutes for Lady Justice.” Depictions of Lady Justice are as familiar as they are instructive: she stands blindfolded while holding the scales of justice, representing her unyielding devotion to equal justice under the law. Contrary to this ideal, the DOJ today appears to be increasingly motivated by partisanship. Compounding the problem, it has access to the powers of the modern surveillance state. As someone passionate about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, I believe there is no higher priority than addressing this danger. 

"The tragic events of 9/11 marked a turning point in our nation’s recent civil rights history. First the terrorists attacked us—and then, in the name of national security, we began to attack ourselves. It has become almost cliché to say that we live in a surveillance state, but we do. Ever since Congress, on a fully bipartisan basis, enacted the Patriot Act six weeks after the attacks on 9/11, the ever-present eye of the government has been searching for new and creative ways to spy on American citizens. The government has the technology to monitor all of our electronic devices, listen to our phone calls, and read our emails and text messages—all under the auspices of national security. 

"This special law designed for an emergency has become a permanent addition to the government’s investigatory toolbox. The unfortunate reality is that the bulk of the actions taken by law enforcement under the Patriot Act have almost nothing to do with combating terrorism. Once-rare applications for surveillance warrants to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court have multiplied many times in relative peacetime. Most of the spying conducted under the Patriot Act is for run-of-the-mill crimes that we’ve long expected law enforcement to address without special surveillance authority.

"Now, it is bad enough to have a politically-neutral surveillance state controlled by the national security crowd and their DOJ cousins. But take that panopticon and put it in the hands of an executive branch willing to weaponize its reams of information against its perceived political enemies, and we’ve got a frightening problem on our hands.". . .

Lightfoot Blames Racism, Sexism for Reelection Defeat

 Townhall

“I don’t think it comes down to race,” Stevens continued. “There are people living in these communities that just want to be safe.”

"Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot complained to reporters that sexism and racism were the reasons behind her landslide defeat in Chicago’s mayoral election.

“ 'I’m a black woman in America. Of course,” Lightfoot, 60, said when she was asked by a reporter if she’d been treated unfairly as mayor, according to the New York Post.

“ 'Regardless of tonight’s outcome, we fought the right fights and we put this city on a better path,” Lightfoot also said, though crime skyrocketed under her watch in recent years.

"Earlier this week, Lightfoot said that race was a factor in her reelection campaign. 

“ 'I am a black woman — let’s not forget,” Lightfoot said in an interview with the New Yorker last week. “Certain folks, frankly, don’t support us in leadership roles.”

"In 2021, in an interview with WTTW, Lightfoot claimed that “about 99 percent” of the criticism she got was due to the fact that she’s a black woman. ". . .

Chicago polls close leaving Mayor Lori Lightfoot's future at risk amid soaring crime | Daily Mail Online  . . ." Former Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones tweeted: 'Chicago's Mayor Lori Lightfoot, just got the FOOT! Other Democrat mayors with run-away crime in your cities, take note. Even liberals are tired of being unsafe.'

"Jonathan Turley, a criminal defense attorney and FOX News contributor added: 'There is hope for my home city yet. Lori Lightfoot is out.". . .

Lori Lightfoot's critics sound off on Chicago mayor losing re-election: 'Crime doesn’t pay' | Fox News

Darren Beattie’s 2-word advice to Tucker’s team reviewing 40K hours of J6 footage: “Western perimeter”…

 "Brief note: Soros-funded harridans are still trying to cancel Revolver. We are extremely grateful and fortunate to be supported by our generous readership.". . .

Revolver News  "After a long and contentious battle for the Speakership, Kevin McCarthy is understandably eager to prove his bona fides to the America First constituency. In perhaps one of his most encouraging displays yet, McCarthy has agreed to give Tucker Carlson access to over 41 thousand — yes, thousand — hours of Capitol Police surveillance footage.

Axios:

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given Fox News’ Tucker Carlson exclusive access to 41,000 hours of Capitol surveillance footage from the Jan. 6 riot, McCarthy sources tell me.

Carlson TV producers were on Capitol Hill last week to begin digging through the trove, which includes multiple camera angles from all over Capitol grounds. Excerpts will begin airing in the coming weeks.

Why it matters: Carlson has repeatedly questioned official accounts of 1/6, downplaying the insurrection as “vandalism.”

Now his shows — “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News, and “Tucker Carlson Today” and “Tucker Carlson Originals” on the streaming service Fox Nation — have a massive trove of raw material.

Carlson told me: “[T]here was never any legitimate reason for this footage to remain secret.”

California attorney suspended for calling a male convicted child-molester...a male -

Wikipedia: Deadnaming is the act of referring to someone by a name they used prior to changing it, such as their birth name, but is not dependent on a legal name change - calling someone any name they used to go by but have informed you they no longer do will generally qualify as Deadnaming. 

 American Thinker  "The attorney who prosecuted a 26-year-old child-molester has been suspended by Los Angeles D.A. George Gascon.  "Hannah" Tubbs, the convicted child-molester, started calling himself a woman only after DNA evidence linked him to a previous crime, according to law enforcement sources. 

"Shea Sanna, who had been the lead prosecutor for part of the case, was suspended after being accused of misgendering and "deadnaming" Tubbs, who, speaking of deadnaming, is now also accused of beating Michael Clark to death with a rock in a wooded area in Kern County.

"Unbelievable.  At least I wish it were.

"Perhaps if the Unabomber had identified as a female and a prosecutor had subsequently "misgendered" or "deadnamed" him, his case would have been thrown out and the guilty prosecutor disbarred.

"Sanna claims that jailhouse phone calls show that Tubbs was attempting to use gender identity to game the justice system.  This accusation apparently made others in Gascon's office uncomfortable, which led to Sanna's suspension.

"Sanna, however, stated: "I was suspended for speaking out against the Gascón Administration.  Misgendering Tubbs while informing them that they were being played is just their excuse for the suspension."

"Tubbs has a lengthy criminal history in California — and Idaho — under his given name, James Tubbs, and allegedly began identifying as female after being arrested in connection with a 2014 child molestation case in which he pleaded guilty to attacking a 10-year-old girl in a Denny's bathroom stall.  Gascon's office sought to have Tubbs, now 27, placed in a juvenile facility because he had committed that crime prior to his 18th birthday.". .  .

China Warns Elon Musk Not to Address Coronavirus Lab Leak Theory

 Breitbart

"Communist China warned Elon Musk against addressing the coronavirus lab leak theory in case it impinges on his future business prospects in the country.

"The Twitter CEO commented over the weekend on a post from “Kanekoa The Great” that questioned if the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, had a role in creating the coronavirus.

“Dr. Anthony Fauci funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, lied to Congress about it, and now both the FBI & the Department of Energy have concluded that the coronavirus originated at the Wuhan lab. Does that mean Dr. Anthony Fauci funded the development of COVID-19?” asked the account.

“ 'He did it via a pass-through organization (EcoHealth),” Musk responded, referencing the nonprofit group that Fauci’s institute gave $8 million in federal research grants to study bat coronaviruses in China.". . .

The Supreme Court Is At The Heart Of America’s Racial Division

Bookworm Room

                                                    Society needs defamation law to function

"If you are trying to make sense of how our nation has become so toxic, a good starting point is the Supreme Court’s  1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan. That case radically altered existing law so that, for the first time in our history, it was, as a practical matter, impossible for any “public figure” to bring a successful defamation suit. There can be no better example of the horrid effect of that decision than a recent race-based defamation against Governor Ron DeSantis.

"Recently, the DeSantis administration sent a letter to the College Board informing it that the State of Florida would not allow a proposed AP African-American Studies curriculum to be taught within the state. The rationale was that much of the course was nothing more than a highly politicized and radical ideology dressed up as a history course, something illegal in Florida. 

"Factually, nothing DeSantis did was “racist”—that is, he did not treat Blacks differently because of their skin color. Nor did anything DeSantis say or do support “White supremacy”—that is, he did not promote White Americans as being inherently superior to Black Americans. And yet, the race hustlers instantly went on the attack:

"Since the 1960s, progressives have been using the race card to demonize and defame their ideological opponents.

"In that vein, it would be hard to imagine a more classically defamatory article than that penned the other day by Renée Graham, an associate editor of the Boston Globe: “Ron DeSantis’s Fear of American History.” Graham outrageously slanders DeSantis by claiming that racism motivated him. She compares DeSantis’s refusal to allow the wildly ideological African American Studies AP Course to be taught in Florida to the actions of a slave owner who refused to allow his slaves to learn to read. It is, she says, an act of “white supremacy.”... 

Democrats are drooling over the possibility of criminalizing any speech with which they disagree — and they’ll do it, too, if voters don’t deal them a stunning political loss.

"Rep. Sheila Jackson (D-TX; Yale BA; University of Virginia Law School JD) has floated a bill controlling speech with which she disagrees. It’s called the “Leading Against White Supremacy Act” and is intended to make expressions of “white supremacy” a federal crime. Usefully (for her purposes), Jackson Lee does not define “white supremacy.” Instead, the act opens with at Tautology:

A person engages in a white supremacy inspired hate crime when white supremacy ideology has motivated the planning, development, preparation, or perpetration of actions that constituted a crime or were undertaken in furtherance of activity that, if effectuated, would have constituted a crime.

"You got that, right? You will be charged for having engaged in a white supremacy hate crime if you were thinking white supremacist thoughts when you engaged in that hate crime.". . .

Even the left leaning Daily Beast says: Biden’s Befuddled Response to the Ohio Train Disaster Is Unacceptable

 

“East Palestine is overwhelmingly white, and it’s politically conservative,” my old boss Tucker Carlson said on his Fox News show. “That shouldn’t be relevant, but it very much is.”

Biden’s Befuddled Response to the Ohio Train Disaster Is Unacceptable (msn.com)

"Woody Allen might have been wrong about a lot of things, but I think he nailed it when he said, “Showing up is 80 percent of life.” President Joe Biden seems to have missed this particular memo. He has yet to visit East Palestine, Ohio, site of that horrible train derailment that spilled toxic chemicals, which residents claim is making them sick (though he is “keeping very close tabs on it.”). . .

. . ."But there’s another reason why failing to show up in East Palestine was a crucial mistake: In not doing so, Biden has inadvertently enabled what The Bulwark’s Tim Miller described as a “reverse Katrina situation.” In other words, Biden’s opponents have seized on this opportunity and used it to say, “You don’t care about rural white people.”

"Just as in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, there was a narrative that said George W. Bush didn’t “care about Black people,” there are those who suggest (fair or not) that Biden would have responded more swiftly if the derailment had occurred in a more racially diverse or progressive town.

Legacy media baffled that President Trump beat Biden and troupe to East Palestine

 Jack Hellner  . . ."The author says Trump is desperate to return to the White House. (News flash: we’re desperate for his return to the White House.) Yet, here are some things that show which party is actually desperate to occupy the White House:

"When Hillary and the DNC couldn’t run on her corrupt record and on their unpopular leftist policies, they paid a foreign national over $10 million to create a fictitious dossier to destroy Trump. They must have had trouble finding true dirt with which to destroy him.

"FBI director James Comey listed all of Hillary’s crimes and then falsely claimed no one would be prosecuted for those crimes.

"Corrupt FBI bureaucrats, who were so desperate for Hillary to win, continuously peddled the fake dossier as legitimate when they lied to the FISA court so they could illegally spy on associates of Trump as they sought to destroy him.

"For four years, the media and other Democrats intentionally lied, asserting that Trump had colluded with Russia; they challenged the legitimacy of the election and labeled him an illegitimate president.

"When Trump did his job and asked Ukraine to investigate the known corruption and kickbacks to the Biden family, the media and other Democrats colluded to push for Trump’s impeachment. The media and other Democrats have never cared about all the kickbacks to the Clintons or the Bidens.

"When a true story about a laptop came out before the 2020 election that showed how corrupt Joe and his family were, a cabal of journalists, government officials, former intelligence officials, and other Democrats engaged in a calculated campaign to knowingly censor the truth from the public. That shows pure desperation by a party so consumed with power that they were willing to intentionally interfere in a presidential election. They clearly didn’t care about democracy or election integrity.". . .

The audacity of Mr. Rogers

 Youtube