Sadly, I do not think we now live in an America where all are equal under the law. I have no expectation that Hunter will ever be prosecuted. For the same reasons that Will Smith was not escorted out by police after assaulting another man in front of hundreds of witnesses, Hunter will get a pass. The privileged class is rarely held to the same standards as normal folk.
The federal investigation into President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, over his tax affairs has intensified in recent weeks, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
An increasing number of witnesses have appeared before a grand jury impaneled in Wilmington, Delaware, in recent months, the sources said, and have been asked about payments Hunter Biden received while serving on the board of directors of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, in addition to other questions about how Biden paid off tax obligations in recent years.
In February, DPI brought in Charlene Carruthers for its equity webinar series to talk about social transformation. Carruthers is a community organizer and PhD student at Northwestern University who specializes in “interrogating historical conjunctures of Black freedom-making post-emancipation and decolonial revolution, Black governance, Black feminist and queer theory,” according to her website.
“We’re going up against 300 years plus, at least of it being a formal state, of white supremacy, of patriarchy and of capitalism,” she told the teachers.
That’s also the core principle of CRT, which describes all aspects of American history and society within that framework. Although Carruthers’ life is dedicated to that work, she claims she’s not sure what people mean when they refer to CRT.
“I’m a black studies scholar, I cannot tell- I think could tell you what critical race theory is, and I can tell you for sure it is not the most radical thing to come out… ha! Wait until you hear what we really think, what we really believe in!”
DPI’s in-house education consultant Chrissy Thuli was nodding and laughing as Carruthers made that admission.
Carruthers is a vocal advocate of the defund the police movement. She referenced Freedom Inc’s work in Madison for the #PoliceFreeSchools campaign. Freedom Inc. played a key leadership role during the riots that destroyed downtown Madison in 2020.
As Milwaukee contends with double the number of homicides compared to the same time last year, Acting Mayor Cavalier Johnson said Tuesday he hasn’t yet had time to implement the full public safety plan he proposed at the beginning of his tenure.
Johnson became acting mayor in late December when former Mayor Tom Barrett resigned mid-term to become U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg. Within weeks, he rolled out a plan to combat crime through law enforcement, community healing and neighborhood-level investments.
“When you’re in this position, when a mayor resigns, you get thrusted right into a snap election,” Johnson said Tuesday when asked about homicides during a meeting of the Rotary Club of Milwaukee. “So you’ve got to spend time governing the city, but you also have to campaign for the office.”
[…]
Asked what steps within the mayor’s control needed to be taken now to stem homicides, Johnson pivoted to the city’s looming pension crisis.
“For those of you that may not be aware, the drumbeat of death is the fact that we’ve got this increased pension obligation that’s coming up starting next year,” he said.
Johnson’s comments came as Milwaukee has experienced record homicides for two straight years — and as the city has seen homicides double so far in 2022 compared to this time last year.
Morgan and a woman were in distress, having fallen off their Jet Ski into the lake, Oconee County sheriff’s officials said earlier. The two had no life jackets and the Jet Ski was circling.
The 74-year-old man and his wife on a pontoon boat drove over to help fish the pair out of the lake, the sheriff’s office said. The couple on the boat told authorities Morgan became agitated once he got on board and started assaulting them.
Investigators were told he may have wanted to get back on the Jet Ski. They also believe there may have been an argument between Morgan and the woman he was with before they fell into the water. Sheriff Mike Crenshaw told The Journal of Seneca that Morgan may have been intoxicated.
The woman who was with Morgan pushed him back into the lake in an attempt to defuse the situation, the sheriff’s office has said. The couple on the pontoon helped him aboard again, and the man shot him after a second encounter, saying he feared for his and his wife’s lives. Authorities have declined to name the couple.
Morgan died on the boat from a gunshot wound to the chest, the Oconee County Coroner’s Office said.
(CNN)Former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett was sentenced Thursday to 30 months of felony probation, ordered to pay restitution of more than $120,000 and a $25,000 fine and spend 150 days in jail for making false reports to police that he was the victim of a hate crime in January 2019.
After the judge announced his sentence, Smollett lowered his face mask and said he was innocent. “Your honor, I respect you and I respect the jury, but I did not do this,” the actor told the judge, before turning to the court. “And I am not suicidal. And if anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself. And you must all know that.”
Just before he was taken into custody, the actor yelled again that he was innocent and raised a fist in the air.
February 24, 2022 – West Bend, WI – The West Bend School District sent a note to families this week addressing concerns discussed by parents regarding bullying and safety on the school bus.
During the Monday, February 21, 2022, West Bend School Board meeting five parents spoke out about a student being bullied and injured during several incidents while the child rode the school bus.
MILWAUKEE, WI — Cavalier Johnson celebrated as the unofficial winner of the Milwaukee mayoral primary race on Tuesday. Johnson had nearly 37 percent of the vote as of 9:30 p.m., data from the Milwaukee County Election Commission data showed.
Johnson and former alderman Bob Donovan are projected winners of the 2022 spring primary. Donovan trailed behind Johnson with 27 percent of the vote, election commission data showed.
[…]
Several candidates told Patch that their first priorities for issues facing Milwaukee were tackling reckless driving and violence in the city, and each of their concerns boiled down to public safety.
Johnson, the acting mayor and president of the Common Council, told Patch he would address public safety with a strategy that combined law enforcement with criminal justice reform, neighborhood healing and community engagement.
Denyse Holt, 80, was alone at home in Illinois on 5 February when a naked and mentally ill suspect entered her home.
Her daughter in faraway Seattle noticed something was amiss when Ms Holt failed to send her daily Wordle.
The suspect now faces several felony charges.
According to Ms Holt, she was asleep in bed in Chicago’s Lincolnwood area when 32-year-old James H. Davis III entered her home and pointed a pair of scissors at her. He was naked and bleeding after being cut by window shards while entering the house.
“I didn’t think I was going to live,” she told CBS. “I was in shock. I was trying to survive.”
While Mr Davis told her he wouldn’t harm her, he did force her – still wearing a nightgown – to take a warm bath with him before taking two knives from the kitchen, disconnecting phones, and locking her in a cold basement bathroom.
Across the country in Seattle, Ms Holt’s daughter, Meredith Holt-Caldwell, soon noticed that her mother wasn’t responding to text messages and hadn’t sent in her Wordle, a popular daily word puzzle.
“That was disconcerting to her,” Ms Holt said, because her daughter knew that this was a routine she never missed.
A Detroit drug dealer was granted a $5,000 bond despite allegedly setting fire to his girlfriend who was 27 weeks pregnant with twins, burning 60 percent of her body and leaving her critically-ill.
Convicted drug pusher Devonne Marsh, 42, reportedly doused his 26-year-old girlfriend with lighter fluid and ignited her on fire after the pair had an argument.
Police told the Macomb Daily the pregnant mom was being held against her will and tortured. She was afraid to come forward fearing retaliation from Marsh.
[…]
Despite his at least two decades-long criminal record – which includes numerous violent crime and drug dealing charges – Marsh was awarded a $50,000 bail, meaning be could be released on a $5,000 bond.
Veteran Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, a Democrat, previously said she supported bail reform for minor issues, such as traffic infractions, is now filing a motion to have his bail increased due to the severity of the crime.
‘His original bond was woefully inadequate, and we will be seeking a more appropriate bond given these charges,’ Worthy told WWJ 950 radio.
Federal law enforcement in Washington, D.C., has been closely monitoring social media for signs of potential violence and extremist activity ahead of a widely publicized demonstration against vaccine mandates this weekend, according to documents obtained by Yahoo News.
“Defeat the Mandates: An American Homecoming” is being billed as a peaceful gathering to promote unity among people who oppose COVID-19 vaccine requirements implemented across the country in an effort to mitigate the impact of the ongoing pandemic. The event is scheduled to take place on the National Mall this Sunday, Jan. 23, beginning with a march from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, followed by a rally featuring speeches from several prominent anti-vaccine advocates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose nonprofit advocacy organization, Children’s Health Defense, is one of the event’s sponsors.
In an interview with News 3 Now last week, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said he was frustrated by the committee’s decision but hoped the pilot would move forward. He also said he hoped to hold a public hearing on the issue sometime this year.
Multiple attempts to install body-worn cameras on police officers in the city have failed in recent years.
A July 2021 report from the Police Body-Worn Camera Feasibility Review Committee concluded they should only be implemented if a number of steps were undertaken before the program was launched. Those steps ranged from making sure an independent police monitor and the Police Civilian Oversight Board have full access to video to making sure the Dane County District Attorney’s Office undertakes measures to prevent overall charging rates for low-level offenses from climbing as a result of the program.
When cameras reached a size and portability to make body cameras available, it was really the anti-police forces pushing for them under the thought that police were committing all sorts of offenses. They thought that the cameras would help them catch bad cops.
Personally, I was on the fence. I thought that having a video that shows one perspective could be used to smear good work. I also thought that as the public watched police do their work, they would be shocked by the sometimes aggressive tactics that they have to use to maintain order.
In practice, body cameras have been great. More often they exonerate police when accused of bad behavior than confirm it. Also, the cameras have given the public a good window into what modern policing looks like and the crazy people that they often deal with. It’s like the TV show COPS where we can marvel at the patience and professionalism of the vast majority of police. At the same time, the cameras have been useful in catching police officers who do abuse their power. I’ve become a huge supporter of body cameras for police.
Which makes it telling that liberal Madison continues to drag their feet. Since body cameras have been a positive thing for police instead of a negative thing, Madison’s leaders are reluctant to deploy them. As if we didn’t already know that Madison’s political leaders were anti-police, this is yet another example.
A New York teacher has been arrested for allegedly injecting a minor with a Covid-19 vaccine without the consent of his parents, police have said.
Laura Russo, 54, was arrested on New Year’s Eve in Sea Cliff after police were informed that she had allegedly injected a 17-year-old boy with a vaccine, the Nassau County Police department said in a news release on Monday.
According to the department, the 17-year-old boy had visited Russo’s home, where she administered what was believed to be a Covid vaccine to him. It is unclear how she came to obtain the vaccine.
Police said that the boy’s mother called the authorities after her son told her he had gotten the jab.
“The mother had not given permission or authority to have her son injected with a Covid vaccine,” the department said.
Disgraced former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been controversially cleared of causing 15,500 COVID deaths in nursing homes by a prosecutor who insists no crime was committed, his lawyer said.
Elkan Abramowitz, Cuomo’s lawyer, said Monday that the probe by Manhattan District Attorney’s Office had been dropped. The office, currently headed by DA Alvin Bragg, declined to comment. Its probe into Cuomo was launched by Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance, although it is unclear which of the two men apparently chose not to pursue charges against Cuomo.
‘I was contacted today by the head of the Elder Care Unit from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who informed me they have closed its investigation involving the Executive Chamber and nursing homes,’ said Abramowitz.
[…]
Cuomo still faces separate state and federal inquiries into the nursing home scandal, which saw the facilities forced to accept COVID patients from hospitals in March 2020, causing the virus to spread like wildfire among elderly and medically-vulnerable residents.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly $100 billion at minimum has been stolen from COVID-19 relief programs set up to help businesses and people who lost their jobs due to the pandemic, the U.S. Secret Service said Tuesday.
The estimate is based on Secret Service cases and data from the Labor Department and the Small Business Administration, said Roy Dotson, the agency’s national pandemic fraud recovery coordinator, in an interview. The Secret Service didn’t include COVID19 fraud cases prosecuted by the Justice Department.
While roughly 3% of the $3.4 trillion dispersed, the amount stolen from pandemic benefits programs shows ‘‘the sheer size of the pot is enticing to the criminals,’’ Dotson said.
Most of that figure comes from unemployment fraud. The Labor Department reported about $87 billion in unemployment benefits could have been paidimproperly, with a significant portion attributable to fraud.
The Secret Service said it has seized more than $1.2 billion while investigating unemployment insurance and loan fraud and has returned more than $2.3 billion of fraudulently obtained funds by working with financial partners and states to reverse transactions. The Secret Service says it has more than 900 active criminal investigations into pandemic fraud, with cases in every state, and 100 people have been arrested so far.
One could argue that the COVID relief funds have done more to support organized crime than they did to help those impacted by the pandemic.
As Americans returned to the festive Thanksgiving celebrations that many forewent last year for fear of the dreaded virus, a new threat rose across the Atlantic. The newly dubbed omicron variant of COVID19 has aggressively swept through southern Africa and has made beachheads in Asia, Europe, and North America. It will only be a matter of time before we find it in America.
While we are still learning about the omicron variant, we have learned that the short- and long-term consequences of overreacting to a virus are incredibly damaging. The stock market, as a leading economic indicator, has already begun factoring in more destructive public policy responses to omicron. We must do all we can to prevent more reactionary and damaging public policies.
What we know about omicron is developing quickly. It seems to spread much faster than the original virus — similar to the delta variant. It does not appear to be more deadly than the original version of the virus out of China. We do not yet know if the current vaccines will do much good against it, but natural immunity seems to be as strong as ever. We also know that attempts to keep it out of America are futile. It is a highly transmissible virus and will find a way to burn through available hosts.
What we absolutely know for certain is that shutting down our economy, shuttering schools, and abandoning normalcy has been devastating to our society. We are still reeling from disastrous public policy decisions and the willingness of people to subserviate everything to the cause of virus mitigation.
With the thought that we must prevent people from being close to other people to prevent the spread of the virus, we allowed our government to close businesses. This act forced many people out of work and businesses into bankruptcy. We also allowed our government to force people to stay in their homes and in the futile hope that the virus would pass us by.
In hindsight, such actions did very little to stem the spread of the virus. The spread of the virus in states and cities that had draconian lockdowns differs little from those that were more liberal with their policies. The economic statistics and personal toll from the places with more aggressive lockdowns are heart-rending. We must not be ruled by fear and allow our government to force us to lock down again.
In response to the fact that the government forced people out of work and businesses into insolvency, our federal and state governments overreacted with poorly thought-out welfare schemes. This, coupled with the nation’s socialists seizing the opportunity to advance their unpopular agenda under the cover of pandemic relief, has launched a bevy of destructive programs and unleashed the scourge of high inflation that we have not seen in a generation. We must not be ruled by fear and allow our politicians to “fix” the problems they created.
The shutdown of our government schools will harm our children and our society for a generation. The evidence from private schools that remained mostly open versus schools that shut their doors shows that denying children education had little to no impact on stemming the virus. It did, however, have a cataclysmic impact on the children’s education. Recent school report card data in Wisconsin shows a dramatic decline in educational performance even after they lowered the standards. Those are months and years of education that our children will never get back. We must not be ruled by fear and shut down our schools.
For both adults and children, the negative impact of shutdowns and lock-outs on mental health has been horrendous. Suicides, drug addiction, depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues have increased dramatically since our government began overreacting to COVID-19. We must not be ruled by fear and force people into isolation.
In conjunction with the societal deconstructing pro-crime insurgency of antifa and others, our public policy responses to COVID-19 have precipitated an explosion in crime — particularly violent crime. With less employment, more addiction, and defunded police departments, criminals have more freedom to wreak havoc than they have in decades. One could argue that the lengthy court delays in Milwaukee due to closing courts contributed to keeping the alleged Waukesha Christmas Parade killer on the streets well after he should have been imprisoned for previous crimes. We must not be ruled by fear and prevent speedy and judicial enforcement of the law. Finally, last year we allowed our government officials to completely abandon our electoral system for fear of the virus. We spent centuries crafting an electoral framework to allow free and fair elections where laws were made in the light of day by elected officials. We threw all of that in the garbage last November and allowed government officials to make up the rules as they went along. We must not be ruled by fear and abandon self-governance.
COVID-19, of any variant, is something to take seriously. Please take the time to wash your hands, avoid unnecessary contact, stay home if you are sick, get vaccinated if you choose, and take other reasonable steps to keep yourself and your loved ones from getting ill. But we must not be ruled by fear and give up our way of life. The virus is here to stay in one form or another. We must get on with living.
Chicago’s mandate for police caused concerns of a cop shortage at a time when the city is dealing with soaring violent crime.
So far this year, the city has seen 739 murders, a 3 percent increase from last year’s already elevated figure and a 60 percent jump from 2019. Shootings are up 9 percent and 66 percent from 2020 and 2019 respectively.
Lightfoot’s shaky standing with cops was worsened by the murder of Officer Ella French, with many turning their backs on the mayor when she visited French’s wounded partner in hospital.
Having previously defunded the police department, Lightfoot has now backed plowing more money into it amid worsening crime in her city.
The city insisted that those who didn’t comply with the vaccine mandate would eventually be placed on ‘no-pay status.’
EXCLUSIVE: Darrell Brooks Jr. has spent the last 10 days locked up in a Wisconsin jail cell after allegedly mowing through the barricades and into revelers at the Waukesha Christmas parade, killing six people and injuring 62.
Now he feels “dehumanized,” he told Fox News Digital Wednesday in his first remarks to the media, seemingly surprised that he had visitors.
“I just feel like I’m being monster – demonized,” Brooks, 39, said during a brief video visit in Waukesha County Jail – a stone’s throw from where tragedy struck over a week earlier.
[…]
Not even his mother has dropped by, he said. Earlier in the day, she released a statement on behalf of the family decrying Wisconsin’s criminal justice system for failing her son, a longtime felon with a 50-page rap sheet detailing domestic violence, firearms, drugs and other convictions in Wisconsin, according to documents obtained by Fox News Digital.
Brooks is also a registered child sex offender in Nevada and served time in Georgia for beating his ex, records show.
While we are still learning about the omicron variant, we have learned that the short- and long-term consequences of overreacting to a virus are incredibly damaging. The stock market, as a leading economic indicator, has already begun factoring in more destructive public policy responses to omicron. We must do all we can to prevent more reactionary and damaging public policies.
[…]
In conjunction with the societal deconstructing pro-crime insurgency of antifa and others, our public policy responses to COVID-19 have precipitated an explosion in crime — particularly violent crime. With less employment, more addiction, and defunded police departments, criminals have more freedom to wreak havoc than they have in decades. One could argue that the lengthy court delays in Milwaukee due to closing courts contributed to keeping the alleged Waukesha Christmas Parade killer on the streets well after he should have been imprisoned for previous crimes. We must not be ruled by fear and prevent speedy and judicial enforcement of the law. Finally, last year we allowed our government officials to completely abandon our electoral system for fear of the virus. We spent centuries crafting an electoral framework to allow free and fair elections where laws were made in the light of day by elected officials. We threw all of that in the garbage last November and allowed government officials to make up the rules as they went along. We must not be ruled by fear and abandon self-governance.
COVID-19, of any variant, is something to take seriously. Please take the time to wash your hands, avoid unnecessary contact, stay home if you are sick, get vaccinated if you choose, and take other reasonable steps to keep yourself and your loved ones from getting ill. But we must not be ruled by fear and give up our way of life. The virus is here to stay in one form or another. We must get on with living.
Mr Smollett’s defence lawyer, Nenye Uche, denied the prosecutor’s arguments, saying that his client “is a real victim” of a “real crime”, according to AP News.
In court, Mr Smollett’s lawyer argued that the brothers attacked the actor because they did not like him. He also suggested that a third attacker was involved.
Mr Smollett arrived in court flanked by supporters and wearing a black face mask.
Previous disorderly conduct charges against him had been dropped following an emergency court appearance in March 2019, prompting Chicago police and the city’s mayor to accuse courts of letting Mr Smollett “off scot-free”.
Father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan each faced nine felony charges during the trial. All defendants face a minimum sentence of life in prison.
Travis McMichael, the only one found guilty of malice murder, was convicted on all nine counts, which included felony murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit felony.
