Tag: slavery

Baltimore Creates $35 Million Reparations Fund But None of the Money Has Been Paid Out Because Everyone is Fighting For Control Of It

When the state of Maryland legalized the sale of marijuana a few years ago, they decided that they would set aside a few dollars from each sale to go into a reparations fund which would pay for all sorts of social programs.

Now the fund has $35 million in it but almost none of the money has been paid out because pretty much everyone involved is fighting for control of the fund. Who could have predicted that such a thing would happen?

It’s probably safe to assume that lots of people are going to be very disappointed when this is all finally sorted out and decided.

The Baltimore Beat reports:

Baltimore has received more than $35 million in cannabis reparations money, but none of it has reached residents

In the three years since Maryland legalized recreational cannabis, Baltimore has received more than $35 million in tax revenue to reinvest in communities devastated by the War on Drugs. To date, not a single dollar has reached the people it was meant to help, and the first round of funding may still be a year away.

At the center of the delay is an escalating dispute over who controls the money: City Hall or the Baltimore Community Reinvestment and Reparations Commission, the 17-member body established in November 2024 to oversee how the funds are distributed. City Hall says the mayor has final say, while commissioners maintain the body was created to independently manage the funds.

That holdup means that while Maryland’s legalization of cannabis in 2023 led to over $1.1 billion in sales over the following year alone, even as Black communities continue to be targeted by the drug war, none of it has helped repair that damage…

State Senator Mary Washington, who sponsored SB0894, told the Beat that the law was not intended to give local elected officials control over how the money is spent, and argued Baltimore City’s interpretation is out of step with how the law has been understood elsewhere in Maryland.

“The money was never intended to be a slush fund for a county executive or mayor,” she said. Instead, she said, it was meant to reinvest in communities impacted by the War on Drugs and mass incarceration, which continue to face disparities in homeownership, wealth-building, and life expectancy.

This has disaster written all over it.

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Automatic registration for US military draft to begin in December

Eligible men will automatically be registered into the military draft pool by December as part of an effort to streamline the previous process of self-registration and save money.

The Selective Service System (SSS) — the government agency that maintains a database of men to be called up to serve in the case of a national emergency — submitted a proposed rule to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on March 30, according to the office’s website.

Most men between the ages of 18 and 25 are already required to register with the Selective Service, but automatic registration was mandated in December 2025 as part of the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act.

The change, which was meant to save money, “transfers responsibility for registration from individual men to SSS through integration with federal data sources,” according to the website.

The proposed rule is currently under review by the regulatory affairs office and awaiting finalization.

The U.S. has not had a draft since the Vietnam War, with military service being voluntary since 1973. 

But former President Jimmy Carter in 1980 reinstated the Selective Service in the event of a “national emergency,” where the registry could be used to “provide personnel to the Department of War and alternative service for conscientious objectors, if authorized by the President and Congress.”

Many have questioned whether a U.S. military draft could take place amid the war in Iran, which is currently in a tenuous two-week ceasefire. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in March said that while a draft is “not part of the current plan right now,” President Trump “wisely keeps his options on the table.”

Trump alone cannot bring back the draft through executive action, as Congress would need to pass legislation to amend the Military Selective Service Act to authorize the president to induct personnel into the military.

Still, failure to register in the draft is considered a crime and can prevent people from receiving state-funded financial aid and employment in numerous states, cause ineligibility for many federal employment opportunities and job training under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, and can carry a fine of up to $250,000 and jail time for up to five years.

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Chicago moves toward reparations with bus tours and town halls as $150M deficit looms

Chicago took its first step after establishing a reparations task force two years ago.

Now, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to hold a public engagement forum called Repair Chicago to “gather lived experiences of harm of Black Chicagoans” in an effort to provide reparations for Black residents.

“Your experience is evidence, and we’ve placed it at the center of our work,” Johnson said. “By engaging directly with residents, we are grounding this work in the voices and lived realities of the people it is meant to serve.”

The first event took place Tuesday, and two more events are scheduled through April.

Johnson’s office announced the Repair Chicago effort would involve “bus tours, panel discussions, town halls and hearings,” helping the task force members gather input for the administration’s reparations study. 

“The community engagement process will gather input from Chicagoans across the city to better understand Black Chicagoans’ experiences across generations and how systemic racism has shaped their lives, opportunities and well-being,” Johnson said.

The move comes two years after Johnson named his chief equity officer, Carla Kupe, to lead the reparations task force with $500,000 in funding. 

In 2024, Johnson signed an executive order establishing a reparations task force of 40 members that addresses “historical harms committed against Black Chicagoans and their ancestors through the form of reparations.”

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U.N. Passes Resolution Demanding Countries Linked to Slavery Pay Trillions in Reparations

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a resolution calling on Britain and other countries involved in the transatlantic slave trade to enter talks on reparations.

Campaigners say potential payouts could run into the trillions of pounds.

The motion, introduced by Ghana on behalf of the African Union, describes the slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity.”

It calls for “good-faith dialogue on reparatory justice, including a full and formal apology, measures of restitution, compensation.”

The non-binding resolution passed 124 votes to 3. The United States, Israel, and Argentina voted against.

The U.K. abstained, alongside 52 other countries, including all European Union member states.

In supporting the resolution, member states s affirmed “the importance of addressing historical wrongs affecting Africans and people of African descent.

It also meant accepting that “claims for reparations represent a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs.”

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Could There Be a Military Draft? Trump Administration Says It’s ‘On Table’

As the United States continues to strike Iran roughly 10 days since ordered by President Donald Trump, questions about how long the war may last have been coupled with the prospect of a military draft that administration officials admit remains “on the table.”

Six U.S. soldiers have been killed in the war that Trump has continually defended on the backdrop of what he and other senior officials have attributed to “an imminent threat” posed by Iran towards the U.S., Israel and other Middle East nations. The potential length of this conflict has drawn many assumptions, as Trump has floated a “4-5 weeks” duration while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been more clandestine in presenting any particular timeframe due to not giving away U.S. military strategies.

That, in turn, has led to questions of whether U.S. troops could ultimately be on the ground in Iran due to airstrikes historically not providing enough military might over time for sustainability. 

On Sunday, Fox Business’ Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt about the prospect of Americans not enlisted in the U.S. military being forced to fight overseas.

“Mothers out there are worried that we’re going to have a draft, that they’re going to see their sons and daughters get involved in this,” Bartiromo said. “What do you want to say about the president’s plans for troops on the ground? As we know, it’s been largely an air campaign up until now.”

“It has been, and it will continue to be,” Leavitt said. “President Trump wisely does not remove options off of the table. I know a lot of politicians like to do that quickly, but the president as commander in chief wants to continue to assess the success of this military operation.”

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So-Called ‘Moderate’ San Francisco Mayor Signs Ludicrous Reparations Scheme That Could Award Each Black Resident $5 MILLION

The People’s Republic of San Francisco has decided to enshrine race-based reparations into law with the help of their alleged ‘moderate‘ mayor.

As the Daily Mail reported, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie gave black residents of his city an early Christmas gift by signing a reparations bill that could grant each one of them a whopping $5 MILLION in reparations. The legislation was signed on December 23.

Per The Daily Mail, here is how this scheme will unfold:

The ordinance establishes a reparations fund, as recommended by the city’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee (AARAC) in its 2023 report.

The legislation establishes the fund but does not allocate any money to it, setting up the framework for any future contributions, whether they be through the city or privately donated.

The AARAC is tasked with developing ‘recommendations for repairing harm in our black communities,’ according to its website. Per the 2023 report, every eligible African-American adult in San Francisco should be handed a $5 million lump sum to ‘compensate the affected population for the decades of harm that they have experienced.’

Approximately 50,000 black people live in San Francisco, and the qualifying requirements remain unclear.

This move also comes despite the city facing a whopping $1 billion budget deficit. But this did not deter Lurie in the slightest.

“For several years, communities across the city have been working with the government to acknowledge the decades of harm done to San Francisco’s black community,” Lurie wrote.

“While that process largely predates my administration, I am signing the legislation to create this fund in recognition of the work of so many San Franciscans and the unanimous support of the Board of Supervisors.”

Roughly a week before Lurie signed off on the plan, the city’s Board of Supervisors voted in favor of it.

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Conscription is coming

Are you Army-fit? Advertisements everywhere, on the internet, on the sides of buses, on the radio and in cinemas, implore people to contact an armed forces recruitment office. And they don’t only want young people. The government intends to extend the age of conscription – should that be needed – to 65. Recent retirees on company or public sector pensions will be expected to don khaki, perhaps joining a reformed brigade at Walmington-on-Sea.

If this sounds ludicrous, and if you believe that the British public would refuse to step into line as cannon fodder, think again. European leaders are drumbeating for war with Russia, while the USA is poking fires on several fronts. In some EU countries, conscription for imminent conflict has already begun.

The nations of Scandinavia, until recently, were idealised as modern, progressive places to live. Their highly educated populace embraced liberal values and eschewed ethnocentric patriotism to open their doors to immigrants, particularly Muslims. They had nothing but token armies, which pursued diversity and equality policies.

Pacifism no more: Sweden and Finland, after decades of neutrality, joined NATO. Their ‘woke’ female leaders seem to relish their new role in sabre-rattling with Vladimir Putin. Their citizens face enlistment for potential war, and that means women too. Two years ago Danish defence minister Troels Lund Poulsen announced that ‘more robust conscription, including full gender equality, must contribute to solving defence challenges, national mobilisation and manning our armed forces.’ Perhaps he should check his language – ‘manning’ is hardly gender-neutral.

Why Scandinavia to get the ball rolling on Western militarisation? One reason could be that unlike Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Great Britain, the Swedes and their neighbours are not associated with imperialism or fascism (okay, let’s forget the Vikings). Thus they present a positive image for boosting defence and protecting progressive European culture.

A second reason could be that Scandinavia is technologically advanced. Remember that Sweden was allowed to get through covid-19 without lockdown, as epidemiologist Anders Tegnell was lauded for a common-sense approach. But perhaps such licence was because Sweden was already well on its way to the Great Reset. The ‘new normal’ was promoted by young Swedes making purchases or entering offices using microchip hand implants. Digital identity is in widespread use.

Scandinavian conscription will soon be followed across Europe. To calm the horses, however, the British government states that conscription is not necessary at this moment. But the seed has been sown in the public psyche by mainstream media. Recently the Daily Telegraph had billboards with messages about how Putin is likely to invade the Baltic states next, and contesting the idea that being proud of your country is prejudice – subtle primers for jingoistic conscription?

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Wait, That’s What Set Off Libs About Abigail Spanberger’s SOTU Response? You’re Gonna Laugh at This.

Virginia Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger is set to deliver the State of the Union response tonight. Scratch that—it’ll likely be early Wednesday morning. President Trump is set to deliver one of the longest addresses of this nature ever. It’s going to be one for the history books. If Trump, who is known to go off-script, says this is going to be long, it’s going to be long.  

You don’t want to be the person selected to deliver the rebuttal at the State of the Union. No one cares, no one is watching, and in this case, no one literally won’t be watching. Yet, the Left is already having a tantrum on Bluesky because Spanberger will be delivering her remarks from Colonial Williamsburg.

These people are unserious and impossible to speak to, lost in their self-riotousness, drowning in arrogance, and so ignorant that they render everything incomprehensible with their random tangents that go nowhere. It’s truly an odyssey into who can come off as a bigger idiot who feigns academic bona fides.

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This Federal Judge’s Ruling Against Trump Oozes With Hypocrisy

Yet another activist judge has made the choice to subvert the will of the people by penning a pompous opinion targeting a completely reasonable action of the Trump administration. This time around, it’s a woman complaining that the removal of exhibits that overly emphasize the slave-ownership of George Washington is “Orwellian” while also arguing that the Trump administration is guilty of wrong-think.

Judge Cynthia Rufe, an appointee of George W. Bush, claimed that Trump “had attacked the concept of truth itself as it sought to erase details of America’s legacy of slavery,” according to Politico.

She also suggested that the Trump administration had declared war on the truth.

“The government here likewise asserts truth is no longer self-evident, but rather the property of the elected chief magistrate and his appointees and delegees,” Rufe argued. “And why? Solely because, as Defendants state, it has the power.”

While she might claim that the truth might not be the property of any politician, Rufe sure seems to believe that it is her property. An unelected judge suddenly gets to decide which signs the government is and isn’t allowed to have posted, and somehow the Trump administration are the Orwellian ones? It seems the only one who has the power to assert what is and isn’t true are the countless members of the judiciary that subvert the Trump administration at every possible turn.

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San Francisco Reparations Fund Now Causing Infighting Among Various Groups in the City

San Francisco passed a resolution right before Christmas, creating a reparations fund that is supposed to pay a ridiculous amount of money to black residents, despite the fact that California never even had slavery.

Bear in mind that there is no money for this. The city has a massive deficit.

To make matters worse, the divisive policy is now driving infighting among various groups in the city. It seems like this was inevitable.

FOX News reports:

San Francisco residents band together to shut down reparations fund, claiming it’s ‘dividing’ the city

Richie Greenberg, one of the plaintiffs suing San Francisco over its reparations fund, claimed the measure is divisive because it solely favors Black residents.

“It is dividing the city rather than trying to unite. So, what we really need is to be focusing on how to uplift everybody rather than focusing on one group giving everything to that one group. And then everyone else is then responsible for paying for that one group,” Greenberg told Fox News Digital…

The city was sued over its reparations fund on grounds its taxpayer money is being “unlawfully” used for a policy that allegedly violates the equal protection clause.

According to the Pacific Legal Foundation, several San Francisco residents and Californians for Equal Rights Foundation sued San Francisco Thursday, challenging an ordinance that establishes a fund for Black residents.

The lawsuit alleges that the ordinance is discriminating on the basis of race because it allows taxpayer money to be funneled into the fund. The plaintiffs said a win would protect taxpayers from supporting a government-based racially motivated program and establish boundaries for other cities implementing similar policies.

“Acknowledging past injustice does not give the government license to spend public resources on programs that sort people by race and ancestry today,” said Andrew Quinio, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation.

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