Tag: slavery

America’s Family Secret

Achiseled block of sandstone in the U.S. Capitol’s visitor center serves as a reminder that the home of the nation’s Congress was built in part by enslaved Black people. A bronze plaque says the stone, originally part of the building’s exterior, “commemorates their important role in building the Capitol.”

Many lawmakers need look no further than their own family histories to find a much more personal connection to slavery in America, a brutal system of oppression that resulted in the deadliest conflict in U.S. history.

In researching the genealogies of America’s political elite, a Reuters examination found that a fifth of the nation’s congressmen, living presidents, Supreme Court justices and governors are direct descendants of ancestors who enslaved Black people.

Among 536 members of the last sitting Congress, Reuters determined at least 100 descend from slaveholders. Of that group, more than a quarter of the Senate – 28 members – can trace their families to at least one slaveholder.

Those lawmakers from the 117th session of Congress are Democrats and Republicans alike. They include some of the most influential politicians in America: Republican senators Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton and James Lankford, and Democrats Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan.

In addition, President Joe Biden and every living former U.S. president – except Donald Trump – are direct descendants of slaveholders: Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and – through his white mother’s side – Barack Obama. Trump’s ancestors came to America after slavery was abolished.

Two of the nine sitting U.S. Supreme Court justices – Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch – also have direct ancestors who enslaved people.

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You Can’t Make This Up: Champion of Slavery Reparations Sunny Hostin Discovers on “Finding Your Roots” Program that She is a Descendant of Slave Owners from Spain

In a twist that sounds like it’s straight out of a satirical comedy, Sunny Hostin, a far-left progressive political commentator and a co-host of The View, experienced a jaw-dropping revelation on PBS’ Finding Your Roots.

Hostin, an outspoken advocate for slavery reparations, was shocked to learn that her own lineage traces back to Spanish slave owners.

The episode left the 55-year-old far-left host grappling with a complex personal revelation.

Hostin, whose mother is Puerto Rican and father is African American, has long identified with her Puerto Rican heritage and the civil rights movement.

However, the PBS series hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. uncovered that Hostin’s maternal ancestors were far from the freedom fighters she had imagined; they were slave owners in Spain.

According to Daily Mail, Hostin’s third great-grandfather, Fermín, a son of a Spanish merchant who was likely involved in the slave trade, was revealed to have owned slaves. Hostin also found out that she is only 7% indigenous Puerto Rican.

“Wow, I’m a little bit in shock. I just always thought of myself as half Puerto Rican. I didn’t think my family was originally from Spain and slaveholders,” she said.

“I think it’s actually pretty interesting that my husband and I have shared roots, so I do appreciate that, and I think it’s great for our children to know this information.”

“I guess it’s a fact of life that this is how some people made their living, on the backs of others.”

“I had no idea the Spanish roots to this extent. I’m still sort of shocked at the depth of the ties,” Hostin added.

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NEVER FORGET… Kamala Harris Kept Black Men in Prison Past Their Release Date for Cheap State Labor in California

Kamala Harris kept hundreds of black men in prison past their release date so she could use these men for $2 a day for cheap California state labor.

That alone should have disqualified Kamala Harris from public office.
Extending prison sentences for cheap labor sounds like criminal activity.

Back in February 2019 Jackie Kucinich at The Daily Beast wrote about Kamala Harris’s Attorney General office keeping inmates locked up so the state could use them for cheap labor.

Just like slavers.

Kamala also locked up 1,500 people for marijuana violations.

The Daily Beast reported:

Ordered to reduce the population of California’s overcrowded prisons, lawyers from then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ office made the case that some non-violent offenders needed to stay incarcerated or else the prison system would lose a source of cheap labor.

In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Plata that California’s prisons were so overcrowded that they violated the Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Three years later, in early 2014, the state was ordered to allow non-violent, second time offenders who have served half of their sentence to be eligible for parole.

By September 2014, plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit were back in court, accusing California of slow-walking the process, which lawyers for Harris’ office denied.

According to court filings, lawyers for the state said California met benchmarks, and argued that if certain potential parolees were given a faster track out of prison, it would negatively affect the prison’s labor programs, including one that allowed certain inmates to fight California’s wildfires for about $2 a day.

“Extending 2-for-1 credits to all minimum custody inmates at this time would severely impact fire camp participation—a dangerous outcome while California is in the middle of a difficult fire season and severe drought,” lawyers for Harris wrote in the filing, noting that the fire camp program required physical fitness in addition to a level of clearance that allowed the felon to be offsite.

Not only that, they noted, draining the prisons of “minimum custody inmates” would deplete the labor force both internally and in local communities where low-level, non-violent offenders worked for pennies on the dollar collecting trash and tending to city parks. A federal three-judge panel ordered both sides to confer about the plaintiffs’ demands, and the state agreed to extend the 2-for-1 credits to all eligible minimum security prisoners.

This is the Democrat Party’s nominee for VP.

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Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands

A hidden path to America’s dinner tables begins here, at an unlikely source – a former Southern slave plantation that is now the country’s largest maximum-security prison.

Unmarked trucks packed with prison-raised cattle roll out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where men are sentenced to hard labor and forced to work, for pennies an hour or sometimes nothing at all. After rumbling down a country road to an auction house, the cows are bought by a local rancher and then followed by The Associated Press another 600 miles to a Texas slaughterhouse that feeds into the supply chains of giants like McDonald’s, Walmart and Cargill.

Intricate, invisible webs, just like this one, link some of the world’s largest food companies and most popular brands to jobs performed by U.S. prisoners nationwide, according to a sweeping two-year AP investigation into prison labor that tied hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of agricultural products to goods sold on the open market.

They are among America’s most vulnerable laborers. If they refuse to work, some can jeopardize their chances of parole or face punishment like being sent to solitary confinement. They also are often excluded from protections guaranteed to almost all other full-time workers, even when they are seriously injured or killed on the job.

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Squad member Jamaal Bowman on slave reparations – says he wants ALL 42 MILLION black Americans to get $333,000 and reveals ‘creative ways’ to pay them

A New York lawmaker is calling for every black person in the US to receive $333,000 as reparations for slavery.

Jamaal Bowman is among nine backers of federal bill H.R. 414, which states there is a ‘moral and legal obligation’ to make restitution to the descendants of slaves.

The legislation would force the government to distribute $14 trillion between almost 42 million black Americans.

The figure is based on academics’ estimates of the amount the US benefited from forced labor between 1619 and the end of slavery in 1865, according to the bill.

Yonkers representative Bowman, a member of the so-called ‘Squad’ of young controversial Democrats in Congress, also suggested ‘creative’ ways of paying, including staggering the payments over a number of years.

He also claims the federal government’s response to the pandemic and the space race prove it has the capacity for the program. 

‘When COVID was destroying us, we invested in the American people in a way that kept the economy afloat,’ Bowman told the Journal News. ‘The government can invest the same way in reparations without raising taxes on anyone.’

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Conscription may be on its way back after Nato warns of all-out war with Russia

Atop military officer has warned people could be conscripted into the armed forces after Nato admitted it is preparing for an all-out war with Russia.

Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of Nato’s military committee, delivered a chilling message that civilians must brace themselves for the prospect of being called up for military service.

In a stark warning, he said we must all be ready for a full-scale conflict with Russia in the next 20 years that would completely change lives.

The 61-year-old also said large numbers of civilians would need to be mobilised in case World War Three breaks out and that governments would need systems in place to manage the process.

‘We have to realise it’s not a given that we are in peace,’ he told reporters after a meeting between Nato defence chiefs in Brussels.   Continue reading

‘And that’s why we have the plans, that’s why we are preparing for a conflict with Russia.

‘But the discussion is much wider. It is also the industrial base and also the people that have to understand they play a role.’

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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson calls for reparations funding to reduce violent crime

Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson insisted to CNN that funding for reparations in his new budget will help get to the root of the city’s record violent crime epidemic.

While speaking to network anchor Poppy Harlow on “CNN This Morning” Wednesday, Johnson acknowledged the high crime rate in Chicago and declared that the “full force of government” is required to solve it, including the city throwing $500,000 at reparations programs. 

Harlow prompted his answer by citing Chicago Police Department statistics revealing that although “the murder rate is down from 2022,” “all other forms of violent crime, Mr. Mayor, are up from a year ago, up 17% overall.”

“Are Chicagoans going to be safer in 2024?” the anchor asked. 

Johnson, who has been mayor of the Democrat-run city for about seven months, claimed the solution to the problem lies with a major government response, and the “full out community safety plan,” he claimed, “not only gets at the root causes of violence in the city of Chicago,” but makes “critical investments.”

He listed the investments: “A quarter of a billion dollars to address homelessness, $100 million for violence prevention. We added 80 million more dollars to our youth employment program of which we hired 25,000 young people just this summer. That’s a 20% increase from the previous year.”

Johnson also touted his proposal “to hire 4,000 additional young people this summer,” adding, “We have stood up an entire office dedicated to re-entry. So individuals who are returning to our communities who have been incarcerated because of failed policies will have a welcoming space for them.”

He then spoke about city funds being diverted to providing reparations for its African American community. “I’ve added a half a million dollars for restoration and reparations to address, again, the cycle of violence, which looks like school closings, closing of mental health facilities, of which I’ve invested in now. We’re going to open up two mental health clinics that were closed from two previous administrations ago.”

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Alabama is sued by inmates who claim state made a staggering $450M by ‘convict leasing’ – and forcing them to work in fast food joints like McDonald’s and Burger King ‘for next to nothing’ in move ‘similar to cotton-picking’

A group of current and former prisoners are suing Alabama state alleging they made $450million by forcing them to work in fast food chains for ‘next to nothing’. 

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday at the Middle District Court, claims the prisoners were forced into a ‘modern-day form of slavery’ by the state. 

It says they were ‘entrapped in a system of ‘convict leasing’ in which incarcerated people are forced to work, often for little or no money’ while the state kept the profits of their labor. 

The plaintiffs said they are regularly forced to work at McDonald’s, KFC, Wendy’s, and Burger King franchises, Anheuser-Busch distributors, and meat processors. 

According to the complaint, inmates, ‘live in a constant danger of being murdered, stabbed, or raped… and if they refuse to work, the State punishes them even more.’

The lawsuit accuses government agencies – including the Alabama Department of Corrections – and over two dozen state officials, including Governor Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall, of violating the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

Alabama makes $450 million a year from forced labor, according to the complaint, which says since 2018, 575 private employers and over 100 public employers have ‘leased’ labor from Alabama prisons.

It says the inmates work against their will in ‘unsafe work conditions’ and the ADOC takes 40 percent of gross earnings claiming it is ‘to assist in defraying the cost of his/her incarceration’.

In September 2023, the complaint says 1,374 incarcerated people were enrolled in the work program. 

One of the individuals involved in the complaint, Lakiera Walker, was imprisoned from 2007 to 2023. 

She said she was forced to perform long hours of uncompensated work ‘upon threat of discipline’.

Her jobs included housekeeping, stripping floors, providing care for mentally disabled or other ill incarcerated people, unloading chemical trucks, working inside freezers, and at Burger King. 

She said she was paid just $2 per day and was subjected to sexual harassment by a supervising officer.

When she was so ill she could not work, she said a supervisor told her to ‘get up and go make us our 40 percent’. 

She told Law&Crime: ‘Those women need help. They really need a voice. I knew I had to do something. I want justice for this forced labor.’ 

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RFK Jr. comes out in favor of reparations, carving out lane to Biden’s left

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. supports issuing reparations to the black community, making him the most prominent 2024 candidate to favor the controversial policy meant to atone for slavery and legal segregation.

President Biden has largely been silent on the issue, leading to frustration among the far left.

Kennedy — who ditched his Democratic primary challenge to Biden earlier this month — has spoken out in favor of issuing federal dollars to “rebuild black infrastructure” like banks and businesses, and as well as “direct redress payments or tax credits” rather than no-strings cash giveaways.

“Communities that were specifically targeted for destruction need to be specifically targeted for repair,” he states on his campaign website.

“During Jim Crow, Black banks, businesses, hospitals, schools, and farms were targeted for destruction. Racists knew that without these, the Black community had no chance of building wealth. We must set federal dollars aside to rebuild Black infrastructure.”

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The US Military Is Laying the Groundwork to Reinstitute the Draft

The most recent edition of the US Army War College’s academic journal includes a highly disturbing essay on what lessons the US military should take away from the continuing war in Ukraine. By far the most concerning and most relevant section for the average American citizen is a subsection entitled “Casualties, Replacements, and Reconstitutions” which, to cut right to the chase, directly states, “Large-scale combat operations troop requirements may well require a reconceptualization of the 1970s and 1980s volunteer force and a move toward partial conscription.”

An Industrial War of Attrition Would Require Vast Numbers of Troops

The context for this supposed need to reinstate conscription is the estimate that were the US to enter into a large-scale conflict, every day it would likely suffer thirty-six hundred casualties and require eight hundred replacements, again per day. The report notes that over the course of twenty years in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US suffered fifty thousand casualties, a number which would likely be reached in merely two weeks of large-scale intensive combat.

The military is already facing an enormous recruiting shortfall. Last year the army alone fell short of its goal by fifteen thousand soldiers and is on track to be short an additional twenty thousand this year. On top of that, the report notes that the Individual Ready Reserve, which is composed of former service personnel who do not actively train and drill but may be called back into active service in the event they are needed, has dropped from seven hundred thousand in 1973 to seventy-six thousand now.

Prior to the Ukraine war, the fad theory in military planning was the idea of “hybrid warfare,” where the idea of giant state armies clashing on the battlefield requiring and consuming vast amounts of men and material was viewed as out of date as mass cavalry charges. Instead, these theorists argued that even when states did fight, it would be via proxies and special operations and would look more like the past twenty years of battling nonstate actors in the hills of Afghanistan. In a recent essay in the Journal of Security Studies, realist scholar Patrick Porter documents the rise of this theory and the fact that it is obviously garbage given the return of industrial wars of attrition.

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