Tag: reparations

State of New York Hearing: Reparations for Slavery Only Form of ‘True Justice’

Black New Yorkers attending a state commission studying remedies for racism said they were due cash reparations for slavery and other past injustices.

The New York “State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies” hearing follows Gov. Kathy Hochul signing a bill in 2023 for a commission to study slavery in New York state and examine various forms of compensation.

“We need $800,000 for each foundational black American. That’s simple,” Aubrey Muhammud, one of the attendees, told Fox News Digital. “That’s — in New York — that’s about the cost of living that’ll get you a home or a small business or for you to recover from any financial duress.”

New York joins several other Democratic run states and local municipalities looking to issue reparations in some form.

The Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois went as far as paying $25,000 in cash to Black residents to address past racial housing discrimination, according to Fox’s coverage of the controversial issue Saturday.

San Francisco enacted legislation earlier this year establishing official reparations of $5 million to each eligible Black residents. However, facing a $1 billion city budget deficit, the measure contains no taxpayer-allocated funds or guaranteed cash payouts.

New York’s public hearing allowed for residents to relate their experiences to the commission, reportedly in an effort to examine past discriminatory policies and slavery in the United States.

“Certainly grateful that you all came up here today to enjoy and participate and lend your voice to this public hearing. Our theme today is truth before repair,” commissioner Seanelle Hawkins told the audience.

Who exactly would get payments is a matter of concern to some attendees.

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Black New Yorkers Reveal How Much They Want in Reparations from the State and What They Think These Payments Should Look Like

Black New York residents have some provocative thoughts on the issue of reparations as compensation for slavery and other ‘racial injustices.’

Back in December 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill that established a “community commission to study the history of slavery in New York state” to examine “various forms of reparations.”

Less than a year later, an emboldened NYC council passed slavery reparations legislation to ‘yield material solutions’ from US history.

FOX News caught up with activists following a New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies last Saturday and asked them several questions, including how much the reparations should cost.

One New Yorker said that the cost per resident should be “$800,000 for each foundation of Black Americans.”

“We need $800,000 for each foundation of Black Americans. That’s simple,” Aubrey Muhammud told Fox News in an interview. “That’s in New York.”

“That’s about the cost of living that’ll get you a home, or a small business, or for you to recover from any financial duress.”

New Yorkers had differing opinions on what such payments should look like, however. One thought it should operate like a central bank for black people.

“I think it should be, me personally, I think there should be a new Freedmen’s Bureau back, and that is like a central bank almost to Black America and would be distributed to Black communities,” Rex Burns said.

Others said the state government should write a check.

“It shouldn’t only be a check, but it should start with a check,” Brooke Lean told Fox News.

Regardless of the final payment amount and method, locals who attended the public hearing said that the government owed them after their ancestors were enslaved.

“I think that we are owed a debt,” Caprice Reins told Fox News.

Attendee Tanasia Poke added that financial compensation is the only way to achieve “true justice.”

“It’s been the greatest impact to our community overall, generationally. And so, by policy and finance, it’s how it’s been institutionalized in the first place. It is the way to repair it,” Poke said.

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Judge Blocks DOJ Victim Restitution After Leftists Complained The Victims Were Conservatives

Afederal judge blocked the Trump administration’s $1.776 billion anti-weaponization restitution fund Friday after plaintiffs claimed the fund was politically discriminatory because it helped victims of Democrat administrations. The Department of Justice created the fund earlier this month to provide restitution for targets of federal political persecution regardless of political affiliation.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, an appointee of President Bill Clinton with a history of ruling against the Trump administration, temporarily blocked the Justice Department from establishing the fund while Brinkema hears legal arguments.

Andrew Floyd, a fired assistant U.S. attorney and Jan. 6 prosecutor, John Caravello, a professor who was accused and acquitted of assaulting a federal agent, the National Abortion Federation, and far-left nonprofit Common Cause sued the Department of Justice last week to stop the fund.

With seemingly no sense of irony, the plaintiffs’ primary claim is that the fund is politically discriminatory against Democrats, apparently because the lion’s share of potential victims seeking restitution would be conservatives targeted by the Biden and Obama administrations. The plaintiffs’ argument implies that, because Democrat administrations decided to conduct large-scale political persecutions of normal Americans they perceived as their enemies — and there is a much larger number in that victim pool — restitution should not be allowed.

“By its own terms, the Anti-Weaponization Fund is available only to claimants who assert that they were targeted by ‘Democrat’ administrations, even though the current administration has weaponized the awesome power of the federal government against its perceived political opponents like no other administration before it,” the lawsuit states. The suit declines to acknowledge how the Biden administration sent its federal thugs after Americans peacefully praying outside abortion facilities, or parents concerned about their children’s public schools, or Catholics who attend Latin Mass, or Jan. 6 protesters who were wildly overcharged and over-sentenced, and much more. It also does not meaningfully mention the Obama administration’s targeting of the Trump campaign, the Russia collusion hoax, or any other abuse that effectively stripped the American people of proper representation in the White House by kneecapping Trump’s first term.

Vice President J.D. Vance has said that the fund is open to anyone who believes he was unfairly targeted by the federal government, explicitly stating it was open to Democrats as well. Each claim, he said, would be decided on a case-by-case basis. A DOJ overview of the fund explicitly states that “Democrats can submit claims, too.” It also notes that the fund is for victims of “use of government power to target them for ‘improper and unlawful’ reasons,” without mentioning a requirement that a particular party have wielded the power.

Floyd, through public statements, may be inadvertently making the case for the fund, as he has been displaying the zeal with which prosecutors like himself wanted to punish Jan. 6 protesters.

“First, hundreds of people attacked the foundation of an ordered society by trying to stop the results of a free and fair election — committing serious assaults on law enforcement and other crimes as they did so,” he said. “Then, this administration pardoned them — removing the accountability that had been hard earned by victims, witnesses, law enforcement, and prosecutors and imposed by impartial jurors and judges. Now they are asking taxpayers to illegally reward them for their crimes.”

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Sen. Bob Duff Pushes 100% Tax on Trump’s $1.776 Billion Anti-Weaponization Fund

Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) announced Thursday that he wants to explore ways for Connecticut to seize any payouts Connecticut residents receive from President Donald Trump’s $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund.

Duff said he plans to introduce legislation in the 2027 legislative session — after a legal review — that would impose a 100% state tax on any such payments, effectively confiscating every dollar.

The fund, created by the Department of Justice earlier this month as part of a settlement resolving Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS for illegally leaking his tax returns, aims to provide compensation and formal apologies to Americans who claim they were targeted by government weaponization and lawfare.

Claims are voluntary, with no explicit partisan restrictions. The $1.776 billion comes from the federal Judgment Fund.

While Democrats have blasted the fund as a “corrupt slush fund,” supporters view it as a long-overdue effort to hold the federal government accountable for years of political persecution.

It’s sparked lawsuits, GOP internal debate, and reactions like Connecticut’s proposed 100% state tax on any local payouts.

“The Trump regime just handed $1.8 billion in taxpayer money to the same people who beat police officers and stormed the United States Capitol,” said Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk). “Connecticut is not going to let a single one of our residents profit from that corruption. If you filed a claim with Trump’s slush fund and collected a check, we are going to explore every legal option available to take every penny of it back. We will not allow this state to be a safe harbor for insurrectionist windfalls.”

“We are living in unprecedented times,” he continued. “This regime acts in ways that were previously unthinkable, and their lapdogs on the Supreme Court and in Congress hand them a stamp of approval every single time. Connecticut is going to fight back with every tool we have. We are doing the legal work now so that when the 2027 session begins, we are ready to act.”

Duff’s hysterical meltdown is nothing more than rank partisan hackery and deliberate misinformation.

Far from a “slush fund for insurrectionists,” Trump’s $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund is open to any American who can demonstrate they were targeted by the federal government’s weaponized bureaucracy — including parents labeled “domestic terrorists” for speaking at school board meetings, pro-life activists raided by the FBI, and conservative organizations harassed by the IRS.

Instead of addressing Connecticut’s real problems, Duff is wasting time and political capital on a spiteful symbolic tax that will likely never survive legal scrutiny. His blind hatred for President Trump has once again exposed him as a petty, small-minded obstructionist more interested in grandstanding against Trump than serving the people of Connecticut.

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Blumenthal: If Dems Win Midterms We Can ‘Stop’ the Anti-Weaponization Fund

Thursday on MS NOW’s “The Briefing,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said if Democrats win control of “one or both Houses of Congress” in the midterm elections, they could bring a lawsuit to stop the Department of Justice’s so-called anti-weaponization fund.

Blumenthal said, “I think that Trump may have taken the Republicans in the Senate a ballroom too far. The ballroom itself was absolutely abhorrent to them because it’s so deeply unpopular, and they didn’t want to vote on it. And behind the scenes, I will tell you, a number of my Republican colleagues told me they were absolutely delighted that the parliamentarian declared that it couldn’t be part of the reconciliation package.  And now Trump was forcing them to vote on something that would actually potentially doom them this November. And again, I talked to Republican colleagues who said that there was just no way they were going to vote for it, even before Blanche came to talk to them.”

He added, “I think there’s a real possibility for conscience to be demonstrated. And I know we’ve said it again and again and again, but now is the time. And there are other remedies to the possibility of legislation like these amendments that we’re offering, the possibility even of clawing back some of this money if there is a Democratic administration. The possibility that one or both Houses of Congress, in the event that we take control over them, could bring a lawsuit to stop it. These kinds of possible avenues of remedy and redress are there, apart from what Republican colleagues do. But there is also the opening for a real conscience driven action.”

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Acting AG Todd Blanche SHUTS DOWN Crying Democrats – Says Even Hunter Biden Can Apply For $1.7B Anti-Weaponization Fund

The corrupt mainstream media and the unhinged Left are having an absolute, grade-A meltdown.

On Monday, the Trump administration dropped a massive truth bomb on Washington by establishing a landmark $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund.

Created as part of a settlement over the deep state’s illegal leaking of President Trump’s tax returns, the fund is a direct weapon against the horrific “lawfare” and weaponized justice that defined the Biden regime.

Immediately, Democrats like Representative Jamie Raskin ran to the cameras, hyperventilating and claiming this is a “taxpayer-funded slush fund” exclusively meant to line the pockets of President Trump’s allies and January 6th patriots.

“The View” co-host Ana Navarro appeared on CNN Monday night to air her grievances against the new fund, calling it a “slush fund” to pay off his supporters and “J6 insurrectionists.”

But during a Capitol Hill appearance, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche completely dismantled their entire narrative with one hilarious, jaw-dropping truth bomb.

Blanche flat-out STUNNED the leftists by pointing out that the fund has zero partisan requirements. In fact, he noted that even Hunter Biden could apply for the money if he wanted to!

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It’s Time For Reparations For Taxpayers Forced To Pay Reparations

Reparations have become quite popular among the “white guilt” liberal set who insist the rest of us pay for crimes 21st century Americans did not commit. The redistribution of wealth schemes driven by identity politics are popping up in leftist-led cities across the country. They seem to be making critical race theory charlatans and professional race-baiters a lot of money while sowing more division and discrimination.

How about reparations for taxpayers forced to pay unjust reparations?    

Take Evanston, Illinois, for example. The Chicago suburb teeming with self-loathing, wealthy white liberals and misplaced Big 10 football and basketball teams in 2019 became the first U.S. city to launch a reparations program. The city of some 75,000 souls has committed $20 million to the cause of assuaging its guilt for past transgressions of segregating and redlining black residents. 

The money is supposed to compensate today’s black residents for past racial injustice. The recipients were not enslaved nor are they necessarily victims of discrimination. But they get a hefty check, regardless. 

‘Incredible’

In its latest round of redistribution with one-sided representation, Evanston announced in February that it will be issuing $25,000 individual payments to 44 people, according to the city’s Reparations Committee. The money, Fox News reported, comes from $276,588 in Evanston’s real estate transfer tax, a collection from the sale of property in the college town. The city also levies a tax on cannabis sales, although that revenue stream reportedly hasn’t been sufficient to meet the reparations wish list.

City leaders would also like to strap a tax on Delta-8 THC products —  weed lite, if you will — to keep the reparations train rolling. 

Last June, the Reparations Committee announced it had doled out a total of $6.36 million “to ancestors and direct descendants of the Black Evanston community,” the Evanston Roundtable reported. 

At the time, Tashiek Kerr, assistant to the city manager, (not to be confused with the assistant to the regional manager), said Evanston officials had met with “116 out of 126 residents in the direct descendants group,” the newspaper reported. “These residents are related to Black Evanston residents who lived in Evanston from 1919 through 1969.” 

A total of nearly $3 million was disbursed to those residents, with another 135 recipients sharing $3.5 million, all black applicants who claim to have faced discriminatory housing practices. The payments are supposed to be used for housing assistance — mortgage payments, down payments, home repairs and the like. 

The committee’s chairwoman, Robin Rue Simmons, described the funding totals as “incredible.” The audience burst into applause, the Roundtable reported. 

Here’s the phrase that pays: 

“However, recipients in the next round are wondering when it will be their turn. Rue Simmons said it is undetermined due to funding,” according to the newspaper. 

And so it goes with the history of reparation proposals and plans. Like all leftist money grabs, it’s never enough. (*See the expansion of welfare, affirmative action, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977”, etc.) 

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Revealed: Greens hopeful who is calling for the UK to pay slavery reparations is a descendant of slave traders

A Green Party candidate pushing Britain to pay trillions of pounds in slavery reparations is descended from a Nigerian royal family that traded slaves.

Antoinette Fernandez is the ‘reparations officer’ for the party’s Global Majority Greens group which campaigns for ‘racial and environmental justice’.

However, she is also the daughter of a billionaire oil baron who was one of Africa’s richest men.

The local election candidate has campaigned for British taxpayers to pay reparations for the transatlantic slave trade and said that politicians who oppose it ‘show an appalling arrogance’.

Ms Fernandez – who is standing for Zack Polanski’s party in London – is the daughter of the Queen Mother of Lagos and is given the title ‘princess’ in the Nigerian press.

Her mother is Abiola Dosunmu and her father is Antonio Deinde Fernandez, a late business magnate and UN ambassador who is said to have made his fortune in oil, gas and mining and had a reported net worth of $8.7billion (£6.5billion) when he died in 2015.

Through her mother, the Green politician is a descendant of the Obas (kings) of Lagos, some of whom historians describe as ‘major’ slave traders that made ‘lucrative commissions from slave deals’.

One of Ms Fernandez’s ancient relatives personally owned 1,400 slaves and another even brought back slaves that had been sent to Brazil to build houses in Lagos, according to one historian.

The campaigner’s family accrued wealth through the slave trade which they used to purchase ‘velvet clothes, royal umbrellas, hats and stylish robes’, the account adds.

On Monday the Conservatives and Reform UK rounded on Ms Fernandez, branding her the ‘ultimate hypocrite’ for demanding hard-up Britons shell out for reparations.

But the Green Party said that reporting Ms Fernandez’s lineage is ‘racist’ and a ‘bad-faith attempt to undermine the case for reparative justice’.

Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807 and then spent millions of pounds – billions in today’s money – and thousands of sailors’ lives putting an end to the practice worldwide.

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Mamdani allocates $500K for reparations talks as NYC faces $5.4B deficit

Under Mayor Zohran Mamdani, New York City has set aside $500,000 to fund community discussions on reparations and other forms of assistance for Black New Yorkers as a major budget deficit looms, internal communications show.

An internal message, dated January, detailed how more than two dozen groups would be given tens of thousands of dollars each to participate in “conversations to discuss the development of a Reparations study” and to gather “input on the early development of the citywide Truth, Healing and Reconciliation plan.” 

Funding, according to the document, “allows for each community member to receive an incentive for their time” and covers the costs of providing participants with “refreshments.”

Amid the reparations spending, New York City faces an estimated $5.4 billion budget deficit throughout the next two fiscal years. 

Mamdani thus far has not proposed service cuts to address the shortfall, opting instead to seek out increased taxes and dip into the city’s emergency cash reserves while increasing funding for racial equity initiatives.

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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Calls for Reparations and Claims Restaurants Are Tied to Slavery in Bizarre Rant 

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is currently embroiled in some sort of feud with the city council over a raise for tipped workers and it’s not going the way he wants so he is lashing out.

This week, while he was remarking on the situation, he suddenly veered into the topic of reparations and then claimed that the restaurant industry has ties to slavery.

How was this man elected mayor of a major city? It really seems like there’s something wrong with him.

FOX News reports:

Chicago mayor links restaurant industry to ‘slavery’ as tipped wage fight intensifies

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson linked the restaurant industry to “slavery” Wednesday as he defended his push to eliminate the tipped wage, doubling down after surviving a City Council effort to block the policy.

Johnson’s remarks came after the Chicago City Council failed to override his veto of a measure that would have halted the city’s phaseout of the subminimum wage for tipped workers — a policy set to raise base pay to the full minimum wage by 2028 that is opposed by restaurant owners who warn it could drive up prices and cut jobs.

He called on Chicagoans to “challenge city council not to do stuff like take wages away from Black and Brown people,” saying that most workers in the service industry who rely on tips are minorities.

“You just watched the entire city council, in transparency, try to take wages away from the very people who are part of an industry that has its ties to slavery is hiding from that,” Johnson said. “I am boldly declaring that we need reparations in this city, and that’s why I’m funding it.”

What is he even talking about?

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