Tag: hypocrisy

Earmarks Are Back: House Republicans “Opened The Bar” For The Spendaholics

Democrats take every opportunity to spend your tax dollars. The GOP was supposed to know better…

Unfortunately, the first thing the GOP did after they took control of the U.S. House – before the new Congress was even sworn in – they held a secret vote on earmarks. Last December, 158 GOP members of Congress voted to include earmarks in the year-end omnibus spending bill.

House Republicans “opened the bar” for the spendaholics.

Those 158 secret-voting members caused $16,012,272,565 of your tax dollars to be spent on 7,509 earmarks.

Not only did those 158 members adopt earmarks, the Republicans spent more of your tax dollars than their Democratic earmarking colleagues.

In the fiscal year 2024 spending bills being debated this fall, the top 63 earmarkers in the U.S. House are Republicans. Eight of the top ten earmarkers in the U.S. Senate are Republicans.

The U.S. House has a bartender at the spendaholics earmark bar – Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas). She chairs the Appropriations Committee that approves every one of those earmarks. When she was elected to Congress in 1997, the federal debt was $5.4 trillion.

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Not The Onion: Bernie Sanders’ Staffers Have Left-Wing Antiwar Activists Arrested Outside Office

A group of 50 activists and Vermont constituents staged a sit-in inside Senator Bernie Sanders’ office on Wednesday, demanding the senator to call for peace and diplomacy in Ukraine instead of more weapons and war. The sit-in resulted in the arrest of 11 activists, including an 89-year-old CODEPINK peace activist.

The group was joined by Green Party Presidential Candidate Dr. Cornel West in the Senate lobby for a prayer vigil before the sit-in. The prayer vigil and sit-in were part of a week of action that included an antiwar rally on Tuesday night featuring Dr. West, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary; Claudia de la Cruz, Co-Executive Director of The People’s Forum; Lee Camp, American comedian, writer, podcaster, news journalist; Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange; and Eugene Puryear, American journalist, activist, and host on Breakthrough News.

“We need Bernie to provide leadership to put a stop to the US funding of the Ukraine war now. Use the money for healthcare, not warfare,” said Burlington resident James Marc Leas.

Crystal Zevon, an artist and CODEPINK peace activist from Barnet, VT, expressed her disappointment in Senator Sanders, who has voted for more weapons to Ukraine and even criticized Democrats who called for peace talks. “Yes, Bernie should condemn the Russian invasion, but he should also be calling for a negotiated end to this brutal war,” said Zevon.

The group carried signs in support of peace talks and negotiations, including one quote from the Senator himself in which he previously called for a diplomatic solution.

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As Arrest Made, Murdered NYC Activist’s Pals Run GoFundMe To “Take Time Off Work”

Friends of murdered New York City liberal activist Ryan Thoresen Carson have created a GoFundMe page in which the “collective” solicits donations so they can take “time off of work” — and have already raked in $69,000. However, some donors are chipping in just for the privilege of leaving scathing comments. 

Carson was stabbed to death at 3:50 am on Monday in New York’s Bedfort-Stuyvesant neighborhood, as he and his girlfriend were returning from a Long Island wedding. They encountered an enraged young man who was kicking over parked mopeds and scooters before turning his rage on Carson, asking, “What the f*** are you looking at?  I’ll kill you!”

In video that captured the crime, Carson be heard repeatedly telling his assailant to “chill.” Carson was stabbed multiple times, including a fatal strike to his heart. (Note: Issuing orders to an enraged man is seldom a sound de-escalation strategy.)

On Thursday, NY cops arrested 18-year-old Brian Dowling — who lives near the crime scene on Lafayette Avenue near Malcom X Boulevard — and charged him with murder and criminal possession of a weapon. A search of Dowling’s apartment produced a sweatshirt matching the one that appears in security-camera video of the murder, along with a knife. He’d previously received summonses for disorderly conduct, and allegedly smashed items in his girlfriend’s apartment. In a 911 call, his aunt described him as mentally disturbed. 

Meanwhile, a self-identified “collective of Ryan’s close friends” is managing a GoFundMe account on behalf of themselves and Carson’s girlfriend Claudia Morales. However, rather than seeking funds for funeral and other final expenses, the group says they need the money “to eas[e] the burden and stress of this horrifying situation so that we can have space and time to grieve.” More pointedly, they say “immediate needs are to offset the costs of working class people taking time off of work to properly mourn.”

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Lawyer, 81, who advised judge in Charles Manson trial shoots dead his wife, 75, before turning the gun on himself in murder-suicide in their $3.5 million Long Beach homes

A lawyer who was the legal advisor in Charles Manson’s murder trial shot dead his wife before turning the gun on himself.

Police in Long Beach, California, are probing the deaths of Lawrence Eric Taylor, 81, and Judy Strother Taylor, 75, as a murder-suicide.

Authorities responded to a welfare check at their $3.5million home in Naples on Wednesday, after the couple stopped answering their phone and front door.

Taylor set up his own legal firm after serving as the trial judge’s legal advisor in Manson’s trial and was Supreme Court counsel in the Onion Field murder case.

His wife worked under President Richard Nixon at the now-closed White House Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention.

Long Beach Police Department found the couple dead in their home, with Judy suffering from ‘gunshot wounds to the head’ according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office

Taylor also suffered a ‘gunshot wound’ to the head, with cops recovering a firearm at the scene.

The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Taylors’ death as a suicide and Judy’s as a murder.

Cops confirmed that the Medical Examiner will conduct an independent investigation. 

The couple were both pronounced dead at the scene, and the motive for the shooting is currently unclear. 

Judy worked as a youth mentor  and within the juvenile justice system for more than 20 years,

She teamed up with Mentor Management Systems President Jerry Sherk to bring an employee-to-employee mentoring program to the US Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles, Albuquerque, and Colorado Springs.

Taylor was retained by the Attorney General of Montana as an independent Special Prosecutor to conduct a one-year grand jury probe of governmental corruption.

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Defenders of the Florida and Texas Social Media Laws Contradict Themselves

Social media companies argue that their content moderation decisions are a form of editorial discretion protected by the First Amendment. Conservative critics of those companies reject that argument, even as they complain that the platforms’ decisions reflect a progressive agenda.

That contradiction is at the heart of two cases that the Supreme Court recently agreed to hear, which involve constitutional challenges to state laws that aim to correct the bias that Republicans perceive. Although supporters of those laws claim they are defending freedom of speech, that argument hinges on a dangerous conflation of state and private action.

The 2021 Florida law at issue in Moody v. NetChoice requires social media platforms to host speech by any “candidate for office,” even when it violates their content rules. The law also says platforms may not limit the visibility of material “by or about” a political candidate and may not “censor, deplatform, or shadow ban a journalistic enterprise based on the content of its publication or broadcast.”

The law does not cover relatively small, right-leaning platforms such as Gab, Parler, Rumble, and Truth Social. It applies only to the largest platforms, such as Twitter (now X), Facebook, and YouTube, which Republicans have long accused of discriminating against conservative speech.

Florida politicians made it clear that they were trying to address that perceived imbalance. The bill’s legislative findings, which complain that Facebook et al. have “unfairly censored, shadow banned, deplatformed, and applied post-prioritization algorithms,” assert that the state has a “substantial interest in protecting its residents from inconsistent and unfair actions” by those platforms.

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Transgender World Cup swimming races scrapped after no one enters

World Cup swimming races designed to accommodate transgender competitors have been abandoned because no one entered.

Open category events – made up of 50 and 100-metre races across all strokes – were due to be part of the competition starting in Berlin on Friday.

But no entries were received for the events, World Aquatics (WA) said.

“Even if there is no current demand at the elite level, the working group is planning to look at the possibility of including open category races at Masters events in the future,” it said.

“The World Aquatics Open Category Working Group will continue its work and engagement with the aquatics community on Open Category events.”

In response, former British Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies – a vocal critic of transgender women competing in women’s sport – posted on social media: “If trans women aren’t going to get the physical benefit of racing females instead of others males, they’re not interested!”

Swimming’s governing body, formerly known as FINA, voted last year to only allow people who had completed their transition by the age of 12 to take part in elite women’s competitions – a deadline criticised as unworkable, given age restrictions in many countries.

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It would appear some people are above the law

“In this country, no one is above the law” has become a rallying mantra of both our national media and increasing, the Democratic Party (but is there a difference, really?). Attorney General Merrick Garland used this phrase on 60 Minutes this past Sunday, as did President Joe Biden during a friendly kid glove chat with ProPublica reporter John Harwood.

As justification for pursuing more than ninety indictments on several fronts against former president Donald Trump, on everything from electioneering to housing classified documents, the left has pounded the tables on the rule of law being the most important foundational principal to the survival of the Republic itself. And it has been solemnly reported that way by several cable news infotainment, including Jake Tapper and Rachel Maddow.
Well now they get to put this claim to the test. This past weekend, as members of Congress were staying to vote on a continuing resolution to avert a possible government shutdown, Representative Jamaal Bowman, from New York, was captured on video camera in the federal Cannon Building appearing to pull a red and clearly-labeled fire alarm. Bowman’s excuse, per his office, was that he was in a hurry and the notion of a push-bar exit door confused and disoriented him at the time.

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New York Democrats to distribute flyers telling illegal immigrants to go somewhere else

New York City has had enough of illegal immigrants exhausting the city’s resources and is planning on distributing flyers to illegal immigrants that state they will not be able to find work in the Big Apple and to go elsewhere.

According to Bloomberg, the flyers will be dispersed to illegal immigrants in NYC shelters and at the US/Mexico border in an attempt to dissuade them from coming to the concrete jungle. The contents of the flyer warn illegal immigrants that that “you will not be placed in a hotel”, “NYC is one of the most expensive cities in the world; you are better off going to a more affordable city”, and “NYC cannot help you obtain a work permit, and you will not be able to easily find work.”

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Outraged protesters block bus carrying migrants on Staten Island: ‘You’re not welcome!’

Outraged Staten Island residents took to the street Tuesday night to physically block the arrival of an MTA bus carrying asylum seekers to a newly converted shelter — a move that Mayor Eric Adams called “ugly,” even as over 100,000 migrants have been shipped to the Big Apple since last year.

The group of unruly protesters, captured on video wailing and banging on the sides of the bus, halted traffic just before 10 p.m. after intercepting the bus, which was headed to the former Island Shores senior assisted living facility.

Police said 10 people were taken into custody, with nine being issued summonses for disorderly conduct.

A 48-year-old man, identified as Vadim Belyakov, was charged for allegedly assaulting an officer who was trying to make an arrest.

One video taken of some of the protesters outside the facility at Father Capodanno Boulevard and Midland Avenue showed people whistling and screaming, “You’re not welcome!” and “You are illegal!”

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Chicago Teachers Union Boss Sends Son to Private School

The head of the Chicago Teachers Union who has described school choice as “the choice of racists” sends her son to a private school. 

Stacy Davis Gates, who was elected as president of the Chicago Teachers Union in 2022, has long derided school choice—a wide range of policies that make it easier for parents to send their children to schools other than their local public school, often by getting back some of the government funding that would have followed their child to public school—as inherently racist.

“*School choice* was actually the choice of racists,” Gates tweeted in August 2022. “It was created to avoid integrating schools with Black children. Now it’s the civil rights struggle of our generation?”

In a letter she wrote earlier this month, Gates explained her decision to enroll her son in a private school while her other two children remained in Chicago Public Schools (CPS).

Chicago classrooms are “struggling to recover from waves of school closings and disinvestment under previous mayors. Public and charter high schools in our Black and Brown neighborhoods are living and breathing examples of inequality,” she wrote. “For my husband and me, it forced us to send our son, after years of attending a public school, to a private high school so he could live out his dream of being a soccer player while also having a curriculum that can meet his social and emotional needs.”

This excuse misses key context. While Gates is right that school systems across the nation, including in Chicago, are still reeling from pandemic-era setbacks, she herself led the charge to keep Chicago Public Schools closed sporadically as late as early 2022. When CPS announced a two-week shutdown in January 2022, Gates told The New York Times that the closure was necessary for schools to “get themselves together.”

Gates also frames CPS as underfunded, describing “decades of systemic underinvestment in marginalized communities.” However, over the past five academic years, CPS’ operating budget has actually skyrocketed—increasing from $5.92 billion to $8.49 billion, despite enrollment dropping by nearly 40,000 students over the same period. 

Further, in consistently framing school choice advocates as racist, Gates also ignores the fact that minority parents are often the strongest supporters of school choice. According to a RealClear Opinion Research poll from earlier this summer, 73 percent of black respondents supported school choice, the highest of any demographic group. At least 70 percent of other demographic groups also support school choice policies.

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