The Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization expressed its displeasure Tuesday with President Joe Biden for “sending more military equipment” to local police than former President Donald Trump. “Our communities are being terrorized at a greater rate than they had been under Trump,” the organization tweeted. “Biden is currently sending more military equipment to our neighborhoods than Trump did. You read that right,” they claimed . BLM also noted Biden’s first 100 days are quickly approaching, a deadline the organization has set for ending “transfers” of military equipment to local communities. “Biden’s first 100 days are up in 10 days. By then we need him to which transfers military equipment into the hands of police across the country– including school & campus police,” they tweeted. Their website cites the 1033 Program, a Law Enforcement Support Office, which grants shifts of “surplus military-grade equipment to local law enforcement agencies across the country.” They also contend, “over $7 billion has been given to law enforcement agencies” since the Clinton administration. The organization points to the “military” apparently seen on the “streets ahead of the Chauvin verdict” as an example of “state-sanctioned violence against Black people,” their website reads. BLM has not gone without criticisms, despite its charity tax status. Indeed, the families of Breonna Taylor and Michael Brown, “two of the iconic victims in the Black Lives Matter movement,” are challenging where the organization’s funds are utilized. Taylor’s family has called the Kentucky Black Lives Matter division a “fraud.” “Those concerns are now being amplified by other figures within the movement, after Khan-Cullors defended her real estate purchases last week as part of her effort to support her family, and claimed her wealth was not due to the organization itself,” Breitbart News’ Joel B. Pollak reported . ...
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Joe Biden delivered the Chauvin verdict speech America needed
Gene Seymour is a critic who has written about music, movies and culture for The New York Times, Newsday, Entertainment Weekly and The Washington Post. Follow him on Twitter @GeneSeymour . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. View more opinion at CNN. (CNN) Here's what you are not going to get in a major address from President Joseph Biden: textured rhetoric woven with references to the classics; eloquent, poetic phraseology ringing like heavenly music and leaving its listeners with echoes of Shakespeare, Lincoln and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. CNN Digital Expansion 2015 Gene Seymour Here's what you are going to get in a major address from Biden: a torrent of phrases, some of them carefully clipped like a neighbor's hedge, most of them rolling and gushing like a river, all of them aimed not at the gut in the manner of his immediate predecessor, but directly towards the heart, whether to soothe or to rouse, keeping at bay any haste or incaution. The speech that Biden gave after a Minneapolis jury convicted ex-police officer Derek Chauvin on all three charges in the murder of George Floyd decision was no different from any number of speeches Biden has given throughout his five decades in public life: so emotional, anecdotal and plain-spoken that it seemed more off-the-cuff than it likely was. In short, it wasn't a "presidential" address to the nation so much as it was a "Joe" talk to the folks. All the folks. More to the point, it was a "Joe" talk that in its dual expressions of relief and resolve was well-suited to engage a verdict that, however logical and inevitable it may have seemed given the evidence and testimony leading up to it, took many people by surprise, especially African Americans whose expectations for justice in the violent, often deadly use of excessive police force against unarmed Black people have been perpetually thwarted in court. Read ...
Report: Joe Biden Supports Passing Amnesty Through Budget Reconciliation with Simple Majority
President Joe Biden told Hispanic members of Congress on Tuesday he supported the idea of moving legislation on immigration reform using budget reconciliation and a simple Democrat majority. “He said he was committed to making those statements publicly,” Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL) told Politico, detailing the meeting. Biden met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Tuesday at the White House. Soto said Biden would include rhetoric supporting the idea in his address to Congress later this month. U.S. President Joe Biden (4th L) speaks during a meeting with the leadership of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, (L-R) Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Vice President Kamala Harris, Chair Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA) and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), in the Oval Office of the White House April 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images) Hispanic Caucus Chair Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA) also told Politico Biden would support “a pathway to citizenship through the budget reconciliation.” The White House said in a readout of the meeting Biden discussed “immigration reform and a humanitarian response at the border.” Any budget reconciliation bill would have to win approval from the Senate parliamentarian, which might be difficult. The Senate parliamentarian ruled against the proposed $15 an hour minimum wage in the budget reconciliation process that helped Democrats pass the $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package without Republican support. That would likely narrow any amnesty options for any future budget reconciliation package. ...
Woke Companies and Individuals Donate Millions to Joe Biden’s Inaugural Committee
Dozens of woke corporations and wealthy individuals donated millions of dollars to President Joe Biden’s Inaugural Committee, totaling a sum of $61 million. Inaugural committees, unlike congressional and presidential campaigns, are free to accept corporate donations, providing an unusual occasion to give candidates huge money. “The list included companies with major business before the federal government — on everything from taxes to regulations — such as Uber, Lockheed Martin, Comcast, AT&T, Bank of America, Pfizer, and Qualcomm, all of which gave the maximum $1 million,” Politico reported . It’s worth noting Biden did not take any money from fossil fuel companies, foreign agents, or lobbyists. As compared to former Presidents Trump and Obama’s hauls, Biden’s diverged . Trump out raised Biden by $46 million in 2017, while Biden over-performed Obama’s second term committee by $18 million. Obama did bring in nearly $53 million with his first committee in 2007. According to Tuesday’s FEC report , the filings indicate three tranches of donations to Biden: One million cap, $100,000 plus, and notable individuals. One Million Bracket: Uber Lockheed Martin Comcast AT&T Bank of America Pfizer Qualcomm International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers labor union Sherwood Foundation (Susie Buffett) Levantine Entertainment LLC Masimo Corporation At Least $100,000 Bracket: Amazon Google United Airlines Ford Doordash Airbnb Charter Communications Anheuser-Busch Walmart Verizon Yelp Anthem Microsoft PepsiCo Holland & Knight Dow Chemical General Motors FedEx Amgen Quicken Loans National Football League United Association United Food Commercial Workers International Union American Federation of Teachers Notable Individuals Bracket: Brad Smith, Microsoft David Zapolsky, Amazon Ken Griffin, hedge fund billionaire and Republican megadonor ...
John Lott: Joe Biden Gun Proposals Will Harm Blacks, Hispanics
Appearing on Steve Malzberg’s weekly Sunday commentary show “Eat the Press” Dr. John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and author of Gun Control Myths , blasted President Joe Biden’s recent gun control proposals, claiming they were based on “lies” and will endanger “blacks and hispanics” living in high crime urban areas. After Malzberg called out Biden for denying he intends to limit the Second Amendment while saying “in the next breath” that “no amendment to the Constitution is absolute,” Lott replied that, “In ten minutes or so [Biden] literally made about at least two dozen different lies on [the subject],” with some of the claims being “so outrageous.” “It’s just like one false claim after another,” he added. One example Lott cited was Biden’s claim that the “alleged” reason for the substantial increase in homicides last year was due to a “lack of gun control.” “You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize that when you have inmates being released from jails and prisons, and some in a number of places more than fifty percent of the inmates being released; when you have police being ordered to stand down and not do their jobs; when you have police budgets being cut and prosecutors in major urban areas refusing to prosecute violent criminals; if you make it so that criminals aren’t being caught, and when they are caught — not being punished, and it’s not risky for them to commit crime, guess what? They’re going to commit more crime.” Lot added the “irony” of the situation is Biden is “claiming that he cares about poor blacks and hispanics that live in these high crime urban areas,” yet “the proposals that he wants are actually going to harm them.” “It’s going to make it so those are the very people who aren’t going to be able to afford the fees and other costs that he’s imposing on law-abiding gun owners,” Lott elaborated. Noting the left simultaneously seeks to prevent effective policing, ...