THERE'S NO GREATER DISASTER ON AMERICA THAN THE DEMOCRAT PARTY!
Non-Citizens Can Become Police in Illinois Under New Democrat Law
Non-U.S. citizens can now become police officers in Illinois, according to legislation Democratic governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law Friday.
Illinois House Bill 3751, which removes U.S. citizenship as a qualification for law enforcement officers, comes as the Democrat-led state struggles with police shortages and rising crime in its largest cities, Fox News reported. The bill, which follows the example of other blue states like California and Colorado, "provides that an individual who is not a citizen but is legally authorized to work in the United States under federal law is authorized to apply for the position of police officer, subject to all requirements and limitations, other than citizenship, to which other applicants are subject," the legislation reads. It also requires non-citizen applicants be eligible by federal law to "obtain, carry, or purchase or otherwise possess a firearm."
The legislation has drawn much criticism from Republican lawmakers. On Saturday, Republican Rep. Mary Miller (Ill.) said passing such legislation was "madness."
"At 5pm yesterday, when no one was paying attention, Pritzker signed a bill to allow illegal immigrants to become police officers, giving non-citizens the power to arrest citizens in our state," Miller said. "No sane state would allow foreign nationals to arrest their citizens, this is madness!"
Chapin Rose, a Republican member of the Illinois Senate, blasted the bill in May as "a fundamentally bad idea."
"I don’t care where this individual is from. Australia—they should not be able to arrest a United States citizen on United States soil."
Pritzker defended the law on Monday, NBC Chicago reported, emphasizing that the measure is limited to those legally allowed to work and possess a gun in the United States.
"I am tired of the right-wing twisting things," Pritzker said. "They put it on Facebook, they tell lies. There are people out there that think we’re just allowing anybody to become a police officer. That’s just not accurate."
Recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program are also eligible to become police officers under the new law. DACA shields children of illegal immigrants from deportation if they entered the United States before age 16 and have remained in the country continuously since at least 2007. There are currently about 580,000 active recipients in the United States, according to NBC News.
Pritzker's law will take effect January 1, 2024.
Published under: Border Crisis , DACA , Democrats , Illinois , Immigration , J.B. Pritzker , Police
No Bail for Any Crime in Illinois as Judge OKs Democrats’ Law
Illinois's top court on Tuesday upheld a 2021 state law that eliminated cash bail and ordered that it take effect in September, clearing the way for the state to implement one of the most sweeping bail reforms in the nation.
The law, passed by the Democratic-controlled legislature and signed by Democratic governor J.B. Pritzker, had been blocked after a judge found in December that it violated the state constitution.
Several other states, including New Jersey, New York, and California, have taken steps to reduce the use of cash bail, in which defendants charged with certain offenses can pay money to secure their freedom until their trial begins.
Critics of cash bail say the system effectively creates a tiered justice system in which wealthy defendants remain free while poor arrestees spend months in jail.
Proponents, including many law enforcement officials, argue that bail ensures defendants show up in court and prevents dangerous criminals from returning to the streets while awaiting trial.
Prosecutors in dozens of Illinois counties filed lawsuits challenging the law, leading to the state Supreme Court's 5-2 ruling on Tuesday, reversing the lower court's decision.
"Our constitution creates a balance between the individual rights of defendants and the individual rights of crime victims," Supreme Court justice Mary Ann Theis wrote for the majority. "The act's pretrial release provisions set forth procedures commensurate with that balance."
Under the law, judges cannot set any bail, but they can order defendants charged with certain serious crimes to be jailed until trial if prosecutors can show they either pose a danger to the public or are likely to flee the state. Judges can also set conditions, such as house arrest, for defendants.
In a statement, Pritzer said, "We can now move forward with historic reform to ensure pre-trial detainment is determined by the danger an individual poses to the community instead of by their ability to pay their way out of jail."
Meanwhile, Johnson has busied himself with looking to put $25 million in city funds to house illegal aliens, and turning several of the city’s schools and colleges into shelters for illegal aliens. Even as up to 50 Chicagoans have been shot every weekend since he took office.
Chicago Police Finally Make Large Number of Arrests During Teen Mass Rampage
For the last several years, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) has engaged in a policy of “hands-off” as huge groups of hundreds of teens and young adults rampage through neighborhoods looting stores, vandalizing cars, fighting with each other, and even shooting people. But on Sunday, police reversed that policy and actually made dozens of arrests during one such mob scene.
Last weekend, the CPD made about 40 arrests as a large group of teens again targeted an area along Roosevelt Road in the city’s South Loop business district.
It was the largest number of arrests since 61 were arrested during a mob rampage in July of 2021, according to CWB Chicago.
Still, a mere 40 arrests made only a small dent in the mob of some 400 teens carousing through the area and totally trashing a 7-Eleven convenience store in the process.
Video shows the scene at the store:
According to NBC 5, most were charged with misdemeanors and immediately released, though a select few were hit with gun charges.
But, the CPD certainly made an about-face. In fact, according to CBS News, several CPD supervisors were heard encouraging officers to make arrests.
“Let’s be clear – for these kids are running in the street, mass arrest. Lock them up,” a supervisor was heard saying, CBS added.
“If you’re an officer, you should be putting hands on people and arresting them right now – not watching them walk by you,” the supervisor reportedly added.
Interim Chicago Police Supt. Fred Waller stood by the arrests.
“Our posture has been tolerant, and usually when we say that it’s curfew and we ask them to disperse, they do,” Waller said. “Yesterday, they, so to speak, crossed the line.”
Waller also said the arrests were for cause, not random.
“The arrests are a result of the actions. Before we asked them to move, we asked them to go home. It was curfew time, and they did. This time, they refused. They began fighting against each other,” Waller said. “We haven’t arrested people like that, but this group got so out of hand we had no choice.”
Community activists also tried to jump into action ahead of the appearance of the mob of teens. Seeing social media posts encouraging teens to gather in the area, activists say they began contacting businesses to close up and lock down to try and prevent damage to their best ability.
These mobs of teens have been causing havoc in Chicago for several years, now, and little has been done to stop them.
Just in April, a couple suffered injuries as groups of hundreds of teens rioted through the city’s downtown Loop area.
Mayor Brandon Johnson listens during a City Council meeting Wednesday, May 24, 2023, at City Hall in Chicago. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Also in April, two teens were shot by someone seemingly shooting randomly into the crowd of hundreds during four days of teen mob action.
In May, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a self-professed “progressive,” took office, but has thus far been able to make a dent in the rising crime rates, or put a stop to these mobs of teens terrorizing the city.
In fact, Johnson has scolded anyone critical of the mobs. In April he was heard chastising the media and Chicago’s weary residents for “demonizing” the mobs of teens.
“In no way do I condone the destructive activity we saw in the Loop and lakefront this weekend,” Johnson said after the four days of destruction wrought in April. “It is unacceptable and has no place in our city. However, it is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”
Meanwhile, Johnson has busied himself with looking to put $25 million in city funds to house illegal aliens, and turning several of the city’s schools and colleges into shelters for illegal aliens. Even as up to 50 Chicagoans have been shot every weekend since he took office.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston.
'There's a Lot of Pandering': Fed-Up Black Voters Could Cost Biden the 2024 Election
Bahta Mekonnen, a 28-year-old U.S. Army captain from the key voting state of Georgia, is among the millions of black voters who helped deliver President Joe Biden the White House in 2020.
Three years later, he is one of the voters who Democrats fear could cost Biden a second term in 2024.
Disappointed by what he sees as Democrats' lurch to the left, free spending and empty promises, but also turned off by far-right Republicans, Mekonnen says he sees nothing but bad options at the ballot box next year.
"What I'm noticing across the Democratic Party right now is there's a lot of pandering to the Black community," he said. "It seems like they do a lot to try to make it seem like they are the party for young Black men or Black men as a whole, but they don't back it with anything. They don't follow through."
Long the most loyal Democratic constituency, black voters played a large role in rescuing Biden's struggling 2020 presidential campaign in the South Carolina primary, and sending him to the White House with Democrats in control of the Senate, thanks to further success in Georgia.
In return, many black voters expected Biden and Democrats to push new federal protections against restrictive local voting laws, police and criminal justice reform, student loan debt relief and economic empowerment.
Many of those efforts have been blocked by Republicans, leaving Biden to ask voters to let him "finish this job," with a second term, but with no clear path to get these things done.
On the other hand, Democrats' focus on LGBTQ and abortion rights leaves voters like Mekonnen feeling alienated.
"I'm probably getting turned away from the left, just because the Democrats are turning more left in my books," he said, adding he wished Democrats spent more time on the economy.
Polls and Reuters interviews show younger black voters and black men of all ages are losing their faith in Democrats, Biden and perhaps even the political process, just three years after the U.S.'s biggest protests for racial justice and civil rights in a generation.
A New York Times/Siena poll conducted last month suggests a 2024 matchup between Biden and Donald Trump would be closer than it was in 2020, largely because Trump has made "gains among Black, Hispanic, male and low-income voters."
The vast majority of black voters, including men, are still expected to choose Biden over a Republican.
But the question for Democrats is whether disillusioned black voters will turn out to the polls in large enough numbers in crucial cities, from Philadelphia to Atlanta, Milwaukee and Detroit to keep Biden in the White House.
"Democrats need to understand that there is a growing population, especially with black men, who are reaching the point of being fed up with always being pushed over and looked over," said LeLann Evans, 33, a political campaign manager who is running as a write-in candidate for Nashville City Council.
Democrats' failure to secure widespread student loan relief or legalize marijuana has been disappointing, Evans said, adding that Republicans' more aggressive approach when they have power means they are "actually getting things done."
TURNOUT DROPS
Self-identified black Americans make up 14.2 percent of the U.S. population, or 42.7 million people, a 30 percent jump from 2000, Pew Research shows. These Americans are five years younger than the population as a whole, with an average age of 33, and Democrats' earning their loyalty is crucial for the party to keep winning in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia, and to recapture districts in the South in the future.
Instead the opposite is happening.
Black voter turnout dropped by nearly 10 percentage points, from 51.7 percent in the 2018 midterm elections to 42 percent in 2022, according to a Washington Post analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau's survey released earlier this year. White voter turnout slipped by only 1.5 points to 53.4 percent.
"Black voter turnout was down across the country in 2022. We saw it in the polls, the surveys, the exit polls and every way you could measure it," said Michael McDonald, a politics professor at University of Florida.
Some Democrats have also been disturbed by recent polls showing that some black voters are defecting to Republicans.
One in five black people under the age of 50 voted Republican in the 2022 midterms, roughly double the number of their elders, according to a previously unreported analysis of exit polling data by HIT Strategies, a public opinion research firm aligned with Democrats that routinely surveys black Americans. black men and women under the age of 50 voted Republican in similar numbers, the poll showed.
Republican Donald Trump's 12 percent share of the black vote in 2020 was 4 percentage points higher than it was in 2016, according to exit polls by Edison Research.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted July 11-17 found 18 percent of black Americans would pick Trump over Biden in a hypothetical matchup, compared to 46 percent who favored Biden, including about one in four black men, compared to about one in seven black women.
Compared with black women, black men were more likely to say they would back a presidential candidate that supported abortion restrictions and increased police funding to fight crime.
ECONOMIC GAINS?
Democrats are favored by black voters who value abortion rights, voting rights and opposition to racism, says Terrance Woodbury, chief executive officer at HIT Strategies.
But that margin shrinks when it comes to managing the economy.
"When you get to economic issues - economic security, inflation, job security - those 50 and 60 point gaps began to shrink to near parity, where you have young Black folks saying that Republicans are almost as good for them on the economy as Democrats are," Woodbury said.
Julian Silas, 25, a black investment research analyst from the Chicago area, said many of his friends and family are reexamining their politics and questioning just how much the loyalty of black Americans to the Democratic Party bettered their lives, particularly their economic standing.
Every four years, Democratic candidates talk about increasing black wealth and closing the gap between black and white Americans, but "nothing actually really happens," Silas said.
"It seems like there's things that they talk about that seem good, that I can align with, like student loan debt relief or home ownership and all these different things, but maybe sometimes it doesn't feel like it's moving fast enough," Silas said.
The U.S. black unemployment rate has fallen to historic lows under Biden, but hit a 10-month high in June, driven in large part by black workers leaving the labor market.
Black families had 4.4 percent of total household wealth in the first quarter of 2023, Federal Reserve data show, up slightly from 4.3 percent at the beginning of 2020.
The Democratic Party has spent considerable time, money and resources to retain and expand the black vote, including mounting registration drives in battleground states and recruiting black campaign staff.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the first black person to hold that position and the highest U.S. black elected official, and Jaime Harrison, the African-American chairman of the Democratic National Committee, attended this summer's Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans and have lavished attention on historically black colleges and universities and media outlets including black radio stations.
Harris spoke at the annual NAACP gathering on Saturday.
"As we head into the 2024 cycle, the DNC is doubling down on our commitment to engaging black voters with meaningful and sustained investments to make sure they know how President Biden and Vice President Harris have delivered for them," said Tracy King, the DNC's director of outreach communications, in an emailed statement.
For some, right now, that's not enough.
"I'm kind of stuck with Biden until someone else comes along," said Andre Russell, 47 and from Chicago, who works in education. "As a society we definitely have to move past the trope of old white men running everything."
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw; Additional reporting by Jason Lange and Eric Cox; Editing by Heather Timmons and Alistair Bell)
Published under: 2024 Election
Biden Admin Waives More Migrants Through Southern Border Than Promised
An average of 1,473 migrants were released into U.S. per day during July
The Biden administration is ignoring its own limits on asylum seekers, allowing more to enter the United States than it said it would, internal Department of Homeland Security data obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show.
Customs and Border Protection waived through 45,662 migrants with the CBP One mobile application in the month of July, an average of 1,473 a day. Customs and Border Protection dramatically expanded the app’s parameters in May after the end of the public health measure Title 42—which gave immigration authorities power to promptly deport migrants—but limited the amount of daily appointments to 1,000 a day. The number of daily appointments was later expanded to 1,250 and then 1,450 at the end of June. But the data from the Department of Homeland Security show immigration officials are not honoring that limit either.
The figures raise serious questions about President Joe Biden's proposals to fix the border crisis, which is the worst in the nation's history. The United States saw more than 2.76 million illegal border crossings in the 2022 fiscal year alone, compared with the Trump administration's annual high of roughly 1.6 million. Although the average daily surplus in CBP One appointments is roughly 23 migrants, that translates to nearly 8,400 annually at a time when cities are struggling to house and feed a surge of new arrivals. New York City, for example, entered into a $275 million contract with hotels to shelter just 5,000 migrants and its mayor Eric Adams (D.) says its city has "no space" left.
Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for comment.
The CBP One app allows migrants to apply for asylum remotely on their phone as a way to streamline the asylum process and bring order to the southern border. Republicans such as Rep. Clay Higgins (La.) have criticized CBP One as part of a "shell game" that merely reclassifies would-be illegal border crossers and releases them into the U.S. interior.
But Biden in January touted the CBP One app as part of a "new process" that "is orderly … safe … and humane. And it works." Those who are not approved on the app, Biden said, would be immediately deported.
"And let me say it again: The actions we’re announcing today will make things better—will make things better but will not fix the border problem completely," Biden said.
The news of the nearly 46,000 CBP One admissions comes as the southern border saw a 50 percent increase in illegal crossings in July compared with June, according to the Washington Post. Law enforcement arrested more than 130,000 illegal aliens along the Mexico border last month, the paper reported, a period that traditionally sees a dip in crossings given the extreme heat.
"The short term effects of the many legal pathways Biden has pushed to curb illegal immigration are failing," one senior Department of Homeland Security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Washington Free Beacon. "One can only wonder what changes are coming to bring more would-be illegal aliens in legally. The slippery slope ends at open borders."
The Biden administration initially took a victory lap after a brief decrease in southern border crossings at the end of Title 42, crediting its CBP One app. In a statement to the Washington Post, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection blamed the subsequent increase in illegal border crossings on "disinformation" from smugglers who are continuing to lure migrants across the border with the promise that they will not be deported.
Both Republican-led states and immigration activists have filed lawsuits against the Biden administration’s recent immigration policies. Those lawsuits could spell doom for the CBP One app. Republicans allege it is an illegal power grab, while liberal groups have said the penalties for migrants who are denied on the app are too harsh.
A federal judge in California struck down many of the regulations governing CBP One app in July. The Department of Justice said it would appeal the ruling.
Published under: Border Crisis , Customs and Border Protection , Department of Homeland Security , Illegal Immigration
MEANWHILE JOE AND MAYORKAS HAVE FLOODED AMERICA WITH 7 MILLION ILLEGALSS TO FIX THE JOBS AND HOUSING CRISIS!
CA HAS THE LARGEST AND MOST EXPENSIVE PRISON SYSTEM IN THE NATION. HALF THE INMATES ARE MEX. CA ALSO HAVE THE LARGEST MEXICN WELFARE STATE AS WELL AS THE LARGEST NUMBER OF HOMELESS LEGALS.
California's Homelessness Policy Is a Disaster. Biden Wants to Replicate It.
Dem admin invests $3 billion into programs that pursue Golden State's failed 'Housing First' policies
California's homeless population has skyrocketed since the state adopted housing policies that critics say enable drug users and fail to treat the mentally ill. Now, the Biden administration is spending more than $3 billion to replicate those policies.
President Joe Biden's Department of Housing and Urban Development in July announced its investment in so-called Housing First programs, which subsidize rent costs for those living on the street but do not impose drug or mental health treatment requirements. California adopted those programs in 2016 and has since seen its homeless population steadily grow. Last year, for example, California was home to 30 percent of the nation's homeless people, despite Californians making up less than 12 percent of the U.S. population. From 2020 to 2022, California's homeless population increased by roughly 6 percent, a rate 15 times higher than the rest of the country.
Biden, during his 2020 campaign, presented himself as a run-of-the-mill Democrat who would restore "normalcy" to America. After taking office, however, Biden has in many cases mirrored California—perhaps the nation's most liberal state—on policy. After California banned the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, for example, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm credited the state for inspiring her to "move faster and further" toward a green energy transition. The Biden administration went on to introduce environmental proposals that effectively force automakers to sell electric cars over their gas-powered counterparts.
Housing First programs have failed the Golden State, experts told the Washington Free Beacon, because they exclude treatment requirements for issues that commonly plague the homeless, such as substance abuse and mental illness. As a result, homeless people who receive housing subsidies often continue using drugs and fail to become independent, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Stephen Eide argued.
"Other problems are left as sort of afterthoughts, and nothing much ends up being done about them at all," Eide told the Free Beacon. "In practice, actually, this looks a lot more like 'Housing Only' than 'Housing First.'"
The Department of Housing and Urban Development did not return a request for comment.
Californians have soured on Housing First since it formally became the state's strategy to combat homelessness in 2016, Eide said. After the strategy's adoption, the number of unsheltered homeless people in California grew, prompting Eide to call Housing First a "failed strategy."
"The communities that were most passionate about Housing First invested the most money into it—California most notably—and the results were not very impressive," he said.
American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Howard Husock echoed Eide, saying Housing First is "built on false premises."
"If you put people with substance abuse problems and mental health problems into their own four walls without necessarily providing treatment of some kind, including withdrawal from drug addiction, what's the case for this being the best approach?" he told the Free Beacon. "It's just self-evident."
Beyond its adoption of California's homelessness policies, the Biden administration has embraced so-called harm reduction, a public health theory that argues governments should minimize the hazards associated with drug use instead of eradicating it. Biden's Department of Health and Human Services has funneled tens of millions of dollars to harm reduction facilities to fund "smoking kits" and other materials meant to help addicts get high without overdosing. The White House earlier this year also made naloxone, a drug used to reverse opioid overdoses, available over the counter.
California has also worked to advance harm reduction, investing $61 billion in such programs in July. Months earlier, in April, liberal California lawmakers blocked bills to strengthen punishments for fentanyl dealers, arguing that the state should pursue harm reduction instead.
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