Tag: democrats

Chicago’s mayor Brandon Johnson wants to push ‘mansion tax’ on homes that sell for more than $1 million – and members of his team want to tax households earning $100,000 or more in report named ‘First We Get the Money’

Chicago‘s mayor Brandon Johnson is pushing a ‘mansion tax’ on sales of homes of more than $1 million, as his administration continues to push higher tax on households earning over $100,000.

The newly elected mayor, who took over from his disastrous predecessor Lori Lightfoot in May of this year, wants to push a hike in taxes in order to fight homelessness in the city. 

Allies of Mayor Johnson, 47, have also announced plans to push a $12-billion plan for the city titled ‘First We Get the Money’.

The plan, seemingly named after a quote from the 1983 film Scarface, aims to build a ‘more just’ Chicago by slashing funding for the police and implementing new taxes in the city. 

Johnson believes people that own properties worth $1 million in the third-largest city in the U.S. are ‘rich, and should pay if they sell those homes’. 

The plan, named ‘Bring Chicago Home’ is a compromise from his previous plan that would have seen the transfer-tax rate triple from 0.75 percent to 2.65 percent. 

According to the National Review, Johnson is now proposing a three-tier progressive-transfer rate. 

This means that sales below $1 million would see the tax cut from 0.75 percent to 06. percent, while property owners who sell their homes for between $1 million and $1.5 million would see tax rates rise from 0.75 percent to 2 percent. 

Property sales of $1.5 million and above would see their tax rate quadrupled to three percent of the transfer amount. 

A search of real estate sites by DailyMail.com showed that it was difficult to find substantial sized properties for over a million dollars, with the majority being condos or small townhouses.  

According to Midwest Real Estate Data seen by Chicago Business, there were 2,391 homes sold for $1 million or more in Chicago last year, down 14.5 percent from the previous year. 

Zillow is also currently reporting that the average price of a home in Chicago is $287,709, which is down 1.2 percent over the last year. 

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Warnock’s Church Resumes Evictions From Low-Income Apartment Building as It Enriches the Senator

With Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) safe and secure in the Senate for the next six years, the church where he collects a salary as a part-time pastor is back to evicting residents of the low-income apartment building it owns—a subject that became a flashpoint in Warnock’s 2022 reelection campaign.

Since the Democrat won reelection in December, Fulton County court records show, the apartment building owned by Ebenezer Baptist Church has moved to evict six residents. The building, Columbia MLK Tower, has received over $15 million in federal and state funding to shelter the “chronically homeless,” but has nonetheless taken four residents to court this year for falling behind on rent by less than two months. Law enforcement officials forcibly ejected another resident from the pest-infected building in July.

Warnock denied during the 2022 campaign that the church was evicting residents, telling Georgia voters that the Free Beacon reports were “vicious and venomous” attempts to “sully Ebenezer Baptist Church” and the “church of Jesus Christ.”

Ebenezer pays Warnock a six-figure salary for his part-time pastoral services at levels that exceed the outside income allowance for senators. Warnock has leveraged several accounting loopholes to rake in sums far beyond that $30,000 limit. The church paid the senator $120,000 in 2021, for example, $89,000 of which was a tax-free “parsonage allowance” that he used to pay for his $1 million Atlanta home. And though Warnock made $155,000 from his church in 2022, the senator claimed $125,000 of that salary as “deferred compensation” for services he rendered before he was sworn into office in January 2021, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

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Sen. Blumenthal: US Getting Its ‘Money’s Worth’ in Ukraine Because Americans Aren’t Dying

Fresh from a trip to Kyiv, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is arguing that the US is getting its “money’s worth” in Ukraine because Russia is taking losses and no Americans are dying, showing a lack of concern for Ukrainian lives.

“Even Americans who have no particular interest in freedom and independence in democracies worldwide, should be satisfied that we’re getting our money’s worth on our Ukraine investment,” Blumenthal wrote in the Connecticut Post.

“For less than 3 percent of our nation’s military budget, we’ve enabled Ukraine to degrade Russia’s military strength by half … All without a single American service woman or man injured or lost,” he added.

The argument has become a common talking point among hawks in Washington who want the US to keep fueling the proxy war against Russia. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) recently called the conflict “the best national defense spending I think we’ve ever done.”

“We’re losing no lives in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians are fighting heroically against Russia,” Romney said. “We’re diminishing and devastating the Russian military for a very small amount of money … a weakened Russia is a good thing.”

The hawkish senators’ comments came amid Ukraine’s faltering counteroffensive. Despite the lack of success on the battlefield, the Biden administration and most members of Congress want to keep funding the war, which they acknowledge would not continue without US support.

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Colorado Democrats Appoint Marxist Teacher Who Called for ‘FORCEFUL Cultural Revolution’ Against ‘Whiteness’ to State Legislature

A Colorado teacher who called for a “FORCEFUL Cultural Revolution” against “whiteness” has been appointed to serve on the state’s House of Representatives.

Tim Hernández was chosen on Saturday to serve as a state representative for the Denver area.

A committee of Democrats selected the far-left Marxist to fill the vacant seat of Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, who is leaving after being elected to the Denver City Council.

Fox News reports, “Hernandez worked at Aurora West Preparatory Academy in the Aurora Public Schools District, according to its website from May. Their staff list has since been scrubbed, and it was unclear if he continues to work in the Colorado district. A sign in his classroom called for ‘Dismantl[ing] White systems.’”

On his social media accounts, Hernández called for a “FORCEFUL cultural revolution,” particularly against American “whiteness” and “white supremacy.”

Hernández said that a good way to teach children about Communism is to show them the movie “A Bug’s Life” to teach them about “proletariat revolution.”

“If White people spent HALF of the time they spend trying to distance themselves from their Whiteness and instead spent it actually deconstructing systems of White supremacy, where would we be?” he asked. “[S]ystems of white supremacy are upheld by individuals- to remove individuality from this conversation is unproductive… I am absolutely advocating for a Cultural Revolution where we dismantle individual and systemic White supremacy,” he said in January 2021, according to the Fox News report.

“We’re talking about Whiteness and White supremacy. And I’m willing to advocate for any form of disruption to it and every manifestation it has,” he said.

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Massive 2020 Voter Fraud Uncovered in Michigan – Police Find: TENS OF THOUSANDS of Fake Registrations, Bags of Pre-Paid Gift Cards, Guns with Silencers, Burner Phones, and a Democrat-Funded Organization with Multiple Temporary Facilities in Several States

On October 8, 2020. only one month before the 2020 general election, Muskegon, MI City Clerk Ann Meisch noticed a black female (whose name was redacted from the police report), dropping off between 8,000-10,000 completed voter registration applications at the city clerk’s office.

The Muskegon Police Department was contacted and asked to investigate. On 10/21/20 First Lieutenant Mike Anderson was contacted by Tom Fabus, Chief of Investigations for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s Office. According to the MI State Police report, Mr. Fabus asked for Michigan State Police assistance with a joint investigation of alleged voter fraud being conducted by the Muskegon Police Department and the AG.

An investigative task force was formed, and an investigation was initiated.

The following is from the MI State Police report:

On 10/16/20 Muskegon City Clerk Ann Meisch and Deputy Clerk Kimberly Young contacted the Muskegon Police Department after noticing irregularities in voter registration applications received both in person and by mail.

The Muskegon city clerk became suspicious when the female, (whose name is redacted in the first part of the police report, but then later, is unredacted), hand-delivered thousands of voter registrations to her office, many of them in the same handwriting.

On 10/20/20 (deadline day for in-person voter registration applications) the suspect retumed to the *Muskegon City Clerk’s office to deliver additional registration forms in person. Meisch estimated that (suspect) brought an additional 2500 forms. Meisch contacted the Muskegon Police Department and Detective Logan Anderson and Captain Shawn Bride conducted a non-custodial interview with the suspect. 

Meisch stated that in her opinion a quantity of the voter registration forms were highly suspicious and possibly fraudulent.

Meisch’s opinion was based on the fact that numerous forms appeared to have been completed by the same writer and upon initial examination, addresses on multiple forms were invalid or non-existent.

Meisch investigated further and found that phone numbers on multiple forms were erroneous and signatures on multiple forms didn’t appear to match signatures on file with the Department of Secretary of State. Examples included an address in the and another in the [REDACTED]

Those addresses do not exist in the Muskegon City house numbering system. Another form listed 80 W. Southern Ave which is the address for Muskegon High School and is clearly not a residence.

Later in the report, the name of the female suspect was unredacted.

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Democrat State Attorneys General File Brief In Support of Biden Censorship Power

In a move that underscores the unceasing tension between free speech and the control of information online, 20 Democratic state attorneys general have made appeals through federal court to restore their power in urging social media entities to censor user content.

Headlined by New York Attorney General Letitia James, the collective is adamant that federal court decisions are hindering their capability to prevent the circulation of misleading information.

July 4 saw US District Judge Terry Doughty issue a directive that greatly restrains government officials’ influence over social media moderation, after there was enough evidence already presented to show possible First Amendment violations.

Stemming from a lawsuit filed in May 2022 by Republican attorneys in Louisiana and Missouri, the verdict argued that both the presiding Biden administration had unjustly pressured social media platforms into suppressing posts perceived as potential triggers for vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 crisis or destabilizers for electoral processes.

This pursuit for moderation by government officials, the suit asserted, unjustly infringed upon the First Amendment right to free speech. In particular, these assertions were aimed at tech conglomerates like Meta’s Facebook and Google’s YouTube, accused of commencing the limitation of information dissemination allegedly deemed misleading circa 2019.

Currently held in suspension due to an appeal by the Biden administration, the order, should it be reactivated by the 5th Circuit, will prevent government departments, including the likes of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, from communication with social media companies for the removal or suppression of content considered as protected free speech under the First Amendment.

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House Democrat Argues The Government Should Define ‘Truth,’ Americans Need to Be Censored

Democratic Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett, a non-voting delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands, said the quiet part out loud while appearing on MSNBC’s ‘The Inside Interview’ with former White House mouthpiece Jen Psaki on Sunday.

The U.S. government should define for America what the “truth” is and censor those Americans who don’t agree.

“Well, you know, first of all, they wanna talk about censorship,” Plaskett said. “That anytime you point out untruths, you’re censoring, you’re stopping people from speaking. It’s not that we’re not stopping people from speaking [sic], people can speak, but we’re also going to give the American people the truth so that they can have science and facts and history against wild, outlandish claims that the Republicans are trying to get. That’s not only going to keep them from going to the polls or suppressing vote or telling untruths, but is also really very detrimental to the American people.”

In other words, the U.S. government is going to stop people from speaking what Stacey Plaskett and her Democrat colleagues call “the truth.” Numerous times in the past ten years, the Democratic Party and the media have misled the American people on the truth. Whether it was false claims about Covid vaccines to the Russia hoax or racially incendiary police shootings, the American people have been pushed to believe in a damaging political agenda.

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How Democrats & Republicans ‘Stole’ Votes From the Greens, Libertarians in 2020

Many things that everyone knows, are not true. Sometimes, quite rarely, one of those widely-believed falsehoods not only turns out not to be true, but obscures the fact that the exact opposite is true.

Most people believe that small political parties siphon off votes from one of the two major parties. Mainstream media repeatedly declares, without bothering to cite evidence because its obviousness rises to the level of self-evident, that Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the 2000 election (not true) and Jill Stein sucked away enough Democratic votes from Hillary Clinton to put Donald Trump in the White House (also not true).

Let us, for the purpose of this essay, set aside the usual counterarguments to the claim that you shouldn’t vote Green they’re just spoilers: no presidential election is decided by a single vote so you can’t possibly individually change any outcome, people who don’t live in swing states really have no reason to worry about tipping an election, parties ought to have to earn votes, voting for a lesser evil is still voting for evil, a little party will never become bigger until we stop overthinking our tactical voting and simply support that candidate and the party we like best.

But—are small parties really electoral succubi? First, a look at Republican losers who blamed third parties for their losses.

Running as a Progressive in 1912, a vengeful Teddy Roosevelt out to punish his former protege for deviating from progressive Republicanism is alleged to have sucked away votes from William Howard Taft. We did wind up with President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat—a result cited as the ultimate example of a third-party candidate splitting a party.

But historians forget to mention that it was a four-way race. Wilson faced his own “spoiler,” from his left: Eugene Debs of the Socialist Party, who got six percent of the popular vote. Taft was such a weak candidate that neither Teddy nor Debs made a difference; Wilson would have won no matter what.

Pundits say Ross Perot created a big enough sucking sound of votes from George H.W. Bush in 1992 to hand the race to Bill Clinton. Pundits are mistaken: Perot pulled equally from the Democrats and the Republicans. Libertarian Gary Johnson is unfairly blamed for contributing to Trump’s defeat in 2020.

Similarly, left-leaning third-parties—since 2000, this has meant the Greens—have never poached from Democrats in big enough numbers to change the outcome. Green Party supporters tend to be leftists like me, who would otherwise not vote at all. If the only two parties on the ballot were the Democrats and Republicans, we’d sit on our hands.

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Dems Try And Fail To Censor RFK Jr. At Censorship Hearing

House Democrats tried and failed to censor Robert Kennedy Jr., a Democratic Party candidate for president, at a hearing on censorship.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) moved to shift the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing on Thursday to executive session “because Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly made despicable anti-Semitic and anti-Asian comments as recently as last week.”

The congresswoman cited a House rule against testimony that may tend to “defame, degrade, or incriminate” any person, which would allow the committee an aside to determine whether to allow the testimony at issue during the open hearing. In making her case, Wasserman Schultz cited, “among many other things,” comments Kennedy recently made about COVID-19, which the candidate says has been misconstrued.

“COVID-19, there is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy claimed, according to The New York Post. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

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Sen. Chris Murphy Wants the Government To Help You Make Friends

Is there any social issue that elected officials don’t think they can solve? Loneliness is a highly complex phenomenon, produced by an interplay of cultural components and personal psychological attributes. One senator thinks he can fix it with bureaucracy and “public awareness.”

On Tuesday, Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy announced the introduction of his “National Strategy for Social Connection,” a bill that would create “a federal office to combat the growing epidemic of American loneliness, develops anti-loneliness strategies, and fosters best practices to promote social connection,” as Murphy put it.

The idea that the federal government can solve loneliness is naive and laughable. If there is an “epidemic of loneliness” in America—a big if—its causes are surely so diverse that no group of bureaucrats is going to dislodge it. And certainly not with the silly solutions Murphy proposes.

Murphy’s bill would create an “Office of Social Connection Policy to advise the president on loneliness and isolation,” order federal agencies to implement a “national strategy on social connection,” and start a public awareness campaign to educate people about fostering connections.

“Similar to existing national guidelines on nutrition, sleep, and physical activity, the Office would issue research-based best practices on how to better engage and connect with our local communicates,” Murphy’s summary of the bill states.

U.S. nutrition guidelines, of course, have a long history of being ridiculously unscientific and plagued by cronyism. And whatever one thinks about nutrition and physical activity guidelines today, there’s no denying that Americans are massively overweight and way too sedentary. So, I’d hardly call these things models of efficacy.

In fact, national guidelines on how to be less lonely are bound to work about as well as nutrition and physical fitness guidelines have: not at all.

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