Paradise News

Tag: General News

  • Watch: Comedian Nearly Arrested For Calling Dem Councilwoman ‘Big Booty Latina’


    Prankster Alex Stein gets in trouble for trolling Democrat New York City councilwoman.

    Comedian prankster Alex Stein almost got arrested after he trolled a New York City council meeting, where he called a council member a “big booty Latina.”

    The Blaze TV host landed in hot water when he triggered Brooklyn Councilwoman Jennifer Gutiérrez during a meeting this week, prompting security to insist he “keep it clean.”

    “Let me tell you something, Jennifer. I love big booty Latinas,” Stein told Gutiérrez.

    “You are out of line,” Gutiérrez responded.

    • URGENT! Keep Alex Jones in the fight against the NWO! Please pray & contribute at DefendJones.com today!

    “So [it’s] my First Amendment right to say I love big booty Latinas. How is that a crime?” Stein asked, going on to inquire, “Is that because you’re a big booty Latina?”

    The commentator went on to point out Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who he famously trolled on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, is his “favorite big booty Latina.”

    “You’re my second favorite big booty Latina,” Stein told Gutiérrez, “so don’t get all, you know, butt hurt about that. I still think you’re a beautiful lady. A little thick, but I like them thick.”

    The remarks prompted the city council’s Sergeant at Arms to approach Stein warning him to “keep it clean.”

    Stein protested that the First Amendment protects his right to call Gutierrez a “big booty Latina,” before proceeding to dress down the security officer for imposing on his speech.

    “Big booty Latina, it’s not a crime to say that, officer, but this guy is such a dummy he doesn’t understand it’s not a crime,” Stein said.

    “I can go to a meeting, I can call him a dummy. I can call you a big booty Latina, I can call [him] an idiot, I can call [her] a mask-wearer, 5-times vaccinated – and I know you’re probably going to get myocarditis – I can say all that,” adding, “I’m a pimp on a blimp.”

    The hilarious stunt is Stein’s latest effort to preserve free speech by openly confronting leftist politicians at city council meetings throughout the country in attempts to hold them accountable for promoting woke initiatives.

    Watch: Stein joined the War Room Wednesday to discuss what he saw when he infiltrated an illegal alien hotel in New York City.

    The forces of evil are increasing their attacks against Infowars, and the stakes have never been higher!

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  • Tinubu Appoints First Female NACA DG

    President Bola Tinubu has appointed Dr. Temitope Ilori as the new Director General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA).

    This was confirmed in a statement signed by the agency’s Head of Public Relations and Protocol, Toyin Aderibigbe on Thursday.

    Ilori, whose appointment makes it the first female Director-General of the agency, started her four-year term on February 22, 2024.

    Up until her appointment, Dr. Ilori was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Community Medicine, University of Ibadan, and a Consultant Family Physician in the Department of Family Medicine, University College Hospital, Ibadan.

    “Dr Ilori obtained her MBBS degree from the University of Ibadan and had her residency training at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria. She graduated as the best graduating Fellow of the Faculty of Family Medicine, West African College of Physicians in April 2012 winning the A.O. Senbanjo Prize. She is also an Associate Fellow of the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria.

    “Dr Ilori has a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science Degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She is a PhD Fellow at the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa sponsored by the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa.

    “Her areas of research interest include Primary Care, Immunization, Public Health Nutrition, Non-Communicable Diseases, and Women’s and Child’s Health. She is a prolific researcher who has co-authored over 30 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

    “She has been involved in policy formulation and strategic development. She was a Commissioner for Health, Osun State, Nigeria from 2011 to 2014 and Chairperson, Osun State Agency on Control of HIV/AIDS, and Osun State Technical Working Group on Immunization,” the statement said.

    Tinubu Appoints First Female NACA DG is first published on The Whistler Newspaper

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  • Fact Check: Can you ‘say gay’ in Florida schools? Explaining new settlement over LGBTQ+ ‘instruction’

    Two years after Florida’s governor received national attention over a new law restricting LGBTQ+ instruction in schools, the state reached a settlement with plaintiffs who said the law was unconstitutional.

    Critics and some media outlets panned the law, nicknaming it “Don’t Say Gay.” LGBTQ+ advocates sued over the measure, saying it was vague enough that classroom teachers feared being targeted and fired for merely mentioning their gay partners or for discussing LGBTQ+ identity in the classroom. 

    As news of a settlement over the Parental Rights in Education Act broke March 11, both sides appeared to proclaim victory.

    “After nearly 2 years of fighting DeSantis’ ​”Don’t Say ​Gay or Trans” law in the courts, we’ve reached a historic settlement with the state that puts an end to some of the most dangerous impacts of ​this law for students, parents, & teachers,” statewide LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Florida, one of the plaintiffs, said on X.

    Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office, meanwhile, issued a press release declaring the settlement “a major win against the activists who sought to stop Florida’s efforts to keep radical gender and sexual ideology out of the classrooms.”

    “Their judicial activism has failed,” the press release said. “Today’s mutually agreed settlement ensures that the law will remain in effect.”

    DeSantis signed the legislation into law in March 2022. It prohibited “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity” in kindergarten to third grade “or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” The Florida Board of Education later expanded the law’s applicability through grade 12.

    When LGBTQ+ advocates and others dubbed the measure “don’t say gay,” Republicans pushed back. The bill never says the word “gay” is not allowed in school, although advocates argued the law would send a message that could extend beyond lesson plans and assigned readings into what teachers can say about their families, what photos can be displayed in classrooms or what books can be on shelves. 

    The eight-page court settlement does not change the statute’s text, but seeks to clarify what falls under its purview. The state in filings to plaintiffs had already argued many of the points the court settlement expanded upon. The settlement requires all Florida school boards to receive a copy. One LGBTQ+ advocate noted, however, that the settlement does not require districts to reexamine or change policies they may have already enacted in response to the law. 

    Here are four things we learned from reading the settlement:

    The law pertains to instruction, not ‘mere discussion.’

    The settlement says the “statute restricts only teaching on the topics of sexual orientation and gender identity in a classroom setting,” not “mere discussion of them.”

    “Typical class participation and schoolwork are not ‘instruction,’” it says.

    Teachers may not use books to teach about sexual orientation or gender identity. But they would be “free to ‘respond if students discuss … their identities or family life,’” and “provide grades and feedback,” if a student, for example, writes an essay about their LGBTQ+ identity, the settlement says.

    Students and teachers can refer to a person’s family. And the law does not prohibit gay teachers from keeping photos of their spouses on their desks.

    “Just as no one would suggest that references to numbers in a history book constitute ‘instruction on mathematics,” the statute does not prohibit “incidental references in literature” to LGBTQ+ identity, the settlement says.

    Such references do not violate the statute “any more than a math problem asking students to add bushels of apples is ‘instruction on’ apple farming,” the settlement says.

    Under this law, teachers can still post “safe space” stickers, sponsor LGBTQ+ clubs and intervene in bullying cases. 

    The law does not prevent school employees from intervening in bullying cases that target  LGBTQ+ students. Employees need not remove “safe space stickers,” because they do not amount to classroom instruction. Gay-Straight Alliance clubs are not prohibited either under this statute.

    Settlement clarifies the law prohibits instruction on any sexual orientation, including heterosexuality.

    The law applies equally to instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity, whether it is LGBTQ+ or not.

    “The statute does not target ‘sexual orientations and gender identities that differ from heterosexual and cisgender identities,’” the settlement says. “For example, it would violate that statute to instruct students that heterosexuality is superior or that gender identity is immutable based on biological traits.”

    Attorney Simone Chriss, director of the Transgender Rights Initiative at Southern Legal Counsel Inc., who is in litigation with the state over other LGBTQ+ matters, told PolitiFact that she is concerned that the settlement’s language is contradicted by another legislative measure that became law in 2023. H.B. 1069 says, “It shall be the policy of every public K-12 educational institution that is provided or authorized by the Constitution and laws of Florida that a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex.”

    Other statutory restrictions affecting educational materials and educators’ use of gender-affirming pronouns remain.

    Although the Parental Rights in Education Act may not pertain to library books because they aren’t in themselves “classroom instruction,” the settlement clarifies that other sections of Florida law that govern these materials remain in effect. 

    The settlement doesn’t affect 2022 legislation that has been used to remove books from libraries, for example.

    Also, H.B. 1069, prohibits the use of gender-affirming pronouns and honorifics in schools. That means transgender teachers still face limitations on how they communicate with students. 



    Source

  • The Humanitarian Parole Program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans

    Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.

    Q:  Did the Biden administration secretly fly over 300,000 migrants to the U.S.?

    A: As of January, the Department of Homeland Security had admitted about 357,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans it vetted and authorized to fly to the U.S. through a humanitarian parole program. The travelers pay for the flights.

    FULL QUESTION

    Is it true that the federal government is or was paying for plane tickets to fly illegal migrants into American airports from foreign countries?

    FULL ANSWER

    Readers have been submitting questions like the one above since former President Donald Trump gave his Super Tuesday victory speech on March 5.

    While criticizing President Joe Biden, Trump said, “Today, it was announced that 325,000 people were flown in from parts unknown.” He continued: “They flew 325,000 migrants, flew them in over the borders into our country. So that really tells you where they’re coming from. They want open borders, and open borders are going to destroy our country.”

    Trump appears to have been referring to news reports that cited reporting from the Center for Immigration Studies, a self-described “low-immigration, pro-immigrant” group.

    In a March 4 post, Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow for the think tank, wrote about the more than 320,000 migrants who came to the U.S. in 2023 through a humanitarian parole program the Biden administration launched in late 2022 and expanded in early 2023. Bensman said the CIS filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to learn which international airports the migrants flew from, and which U.S. airports they flew to, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to reveal that information, arguing that disclosing the airport locations could jeopardize public safety.

    Later, the Daily Mail and some conservative news sites that wrote about Bensman’s analysis said Biden was “flying” hundreds of thousands of migrants “secretly” into the U.S.

    But the program is not a secret, nor does the government pay for the flights, as that description may suggest. Also, the migrants are vetted by the government before being allowed into the U.S., contrary to Trump’s claim that they were from “parts unknown.”

    Humanitarian Parole Program

    The Immigration and Nationality Act gives the Department of Homeland Security secretary the authority to grant parole temporarily to certain noncitizens “on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”

    In January 2023, DHS announced that it was expanding its almost three-month-old humanitarian parole program for citizens of Venezuela to include nationals of Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua. The expansion was one of a few “border enforcement measures” the department said it was implementing at that time to “improve border security, limit irregular migration, and create additional safe and orderly processes for people fleeing humanitarian crises to lawfully come to the United States.”

    (A similar parole program was created in April 2022 for Ukrainians affected by the war with Russia.)

    To be considered for advance authorization to travel to the U.S., beneficiaries must have a U.S. sponsor who initiates the application process and is willing and able to assume financial responsibility for them once they are in the country. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services then requires the person seeking parole, and any immediate family members they wish to bring with them, to provide biographic information and attest to their eligibility, including being up to date on public health requirements, such as vaccinations.

    Individuals provide that information, and a photo, through a USCIS website and the CBP One app, which was launched in October 2020 and is used for other programs and services managed by CBP. Applicants must have a valid passport for travel and pay for their own commercial airfare.

    Once they arrive at a U.S. port of entry, they are interviewed by CBP, which does additional screening and biometric vetting, including fingerprinting, and makes a determination. If approved, the parole program allows the migrants to live in the U.S. for up to two years and apply for employment authorization.

    There are 30,000 slots for parolees available per month.

    DHS has said that nationals of those four countries who do not follow this process, and try to cross into the U.S. without authorization or a legal basis to do so, will be removed or returned to Mexico, which has agreed to take in as many as 30,000 people monthly.

    Not a Secret

    Bensman, of the CIS, has described the parole program as “secretive” because CBP does not report all details about the program, such as the airports the authorized migrants are flying to and from. “But never have I called it an outright secret government program,” he wrote, saying such a description was a “common misconception.”

    DHS issued press releases about the original parole program for Venezuelans and the expanded one for Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas talked about the program in a Jan. 5, 2023, press conference, and Biden discussed it in a separate press conference at the White House the same day.

    USCIS explains the process step by step on its website, and DHS regularly publishes data on the number of applications, travel authorizations and paroles granted under the program.

    In a December update, CBP reported that as of the end of 2023, about 349,000 people had been authorized and vetted for travel to the U.S. through the program. Of those who were approved for travel, 327,000 were granted parole. The paroled figure increased to 357,000, as of January.

    “These processes are part of the Administration’s strategy to combine expanded lawful pathways with stronger consequences to reduce irregular migration, and have kept hundreds of thousands of people from migrating irregularly,” a DHS spokesperson said in an email to FactCheck.org.

    Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

    Sources

    “Trump Remarks after Dominant Super Tuesday Performance.” Video. Rev.com. 6 Mar 2024.

    Bensman, Todd. “Government Admission: Biden Parole Flights Create Security ‘Vulnerabilities’ at U.S. Airports.” Center for Immigration Studies. 4 Mar 2024.

    Bensman, Todd. “Fact Checking the Fact Check: CIS Reporting Stands.” Center for Immigration Studies. 7 Mar 2024.

    Caralle, Katelyn. “Biden administration ADMITS flying 320,000 migrants secretly into the U.S. to reduce the number of crossings at the border has national security ‘vulnerabilities.’” Dailymail.com. 4 Mar 2024.

    Hathaway, Candace. “Biden admin secretly flew in 320,000 ‘inadmissible’ illegal migrants — admits operation creates ‘vulnerabilities’: Report.” The Blaze. 5 Mar 2024.

    McCarthy, Charlie. “Biden Admin Flew 320K Migrants Into US Last Year.” Newsmax. 5 Mar 2024.

    U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “Parole Requests Fiscal Year 2023, Second and Third Quarter.” 4 Dec 2023.

    U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “DHS Continues to Prepare for End of Title 42; Announces New Border Enforcement Measures and Additional Safe and Orderly Processes.” Press release. 5 Jan 2023.

    U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “DHS Announces New Migration Enforcement Process for Venezuelans.” Press release. 12 Oct 2023.

    U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. Accessed 11 Mar 2024.

    U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “Secretary Mayorkas Delivers Remarks on DHS’s Continued Preparation for the End of Title 42 and Announcement of New Border Enforcement Measures and Additional Safe and Orderly Processes.” Transcript. 5 Jan 2023.

    White House. “Remarks by President Biden on Border Security and Enforcement.” Transcript. 5 Jan 2023.

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “CBP Releases December 2023 Monthly Update.” Press release. 26 Jan 2024.

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “CBP Releases January 2024 Monthly Update.” Press release. 13 Feb 2024.

    Spokesperson, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Statement emailed to FactCheck.org. 10 Mar 2024.

    Source

  • Bill Plummer, first manager of Chico Heat and two-time World Series champion, dead at 76 – Paradise Post

    Bill Plummer, an Anderson High School graduate who was part of the famed Cincinnati Reds’ “Big Red Machine” team of the 1970s, has died.

    He was 76.

    Plummer spent more than 50 years in Major League Baseball as a player, coach and manager.

    After his playing career, he worked years climbing the coaching ranks before he was named manager of the Seattle Mariners. He managed the Mariners for one season, going 64-98 in 1992, before he was replaced by Lou Piniella.

    Plummer was also the first manager of the original Chico Heat from 1997-99. His teams compiled a record of 171 wins and 98 losses in those three seasons, a winning percentage of .573.

    Rick Bosetti, who also graduated from Anderson High and played in the major leagues, said Plummer meant so much to so many people.

    Plummer was six years older than Bosetti, who recalled watching Plummer dominate the local baseball fields growing up.

    “I loved the guy,” said Bosetti, who got emotional remembering his longtime friend. “I looked up to him as a kid keeping the scoreboard at the Little League park when he was the star player, watching him.”

    “I got a chance to follow in his footsteps, meeting him and then playing against him,” Bosetti added.

    As a major league player, Plummer had a career .188 batting average with 14 home runs and 82 RBI.

    He was originally signed by the St. Louis Cardinals before going to the Reds organization. He spent eight years in Cincinnati, a good portion of it backing up Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench.

    Plummer’s best season was 1976, when he hit .248 and had four home runs and 19 RBI in 56 games, part of a Reds team that won the National League West title and the World Series, sweeping the New York Yankees in four games.

    Bosetti, who at the time played center field for the Toronto Blue Jays, remembers playing against Plummer in 1978. Plummer by then was playing for the Seattle Mariners, his last season in the big leagues.

    Plummer had plans to come to Bosetti’s house in Toronto for dinner after the game. The game went into extra innings before Bosetti got the winning hit to end it in the 12th.

    Bosetti said he was asked about his clutch hit.

    “I think I had a roast in the oven on a timer and Bill Plummer was coming over for dinner and I thought, ‘We need to get this thing over with,’” Bosetti recalled.

    Late Wednesday morning, the Cincinnati Reds on their Facebook page posted a tribute to Plummer with his picture: “The Reds are saddened to learn of the passing of former catcher Bill Plummer.” The post had 87 comments and 143 shares as of late Wednesday afternoon.

    In a 2020 Record Searchlight story recalling his time with Cincinnati and Reds teammate Joe Morgan, who had recently passed away, Plummer reflected on the clubhouse bond that propelled that mighty team.

    “We had a ball club that picked each other up,” Plummer said. “We had a lot of great players and Joe was one of the biggest parts. When we got him, he completed our team.”

    Plummer’s coaching career started in 1980 when he became manager of Single-A San Jose in the Seattle Mariners organization.

    Plummer managed seven years in the minor leagues and compiled a 480-452 record. He also managed the Chico Heat, a now-defunct independent minor league baseball team that played in the late 1990s.

    A documentary film on Plummer’s playing career, “PLUM: A Life in Baseball” was made in 2020 by Conor Fitzgerald, U-Prep graduate who started receiving hitting lessons from Plummer as a 12-year-old in 2012.

    “I’ve always been big into baseball history,” Fitzgerald said in a Record Searchlight story about his documentary. “I’ve known Bill for 10 years. When you took hitting lessons from him, ‘Plum’ would say this is what Edgar (Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez) would do. You tend to listen more as a kid when you hear those things more. There’s definitely a lot to be said about his playing career, but what I’m more interested in is what he did as a coach.”

    Bosetti and Plummer would often talk baseball when they got together after their playing days and Plummer spent time around the Redding Colt 45s, the summer league baseball team Bosetti runs.

    “When Plum and I got together and just talked about the game, those were some of the most wonderful times I had because of his breadth and depth and experience that he had, and what he could draw from that because he was in the game,” Bosetti said.

    Bosetti said there are plans to put a memorial to remember Plummer on the outfield wall this season at Tiger Field, where the Colt 45s play their games. He said Plummer’s family will decide what uniform to use for the tribute.

    Also, a Bill Plummer Memorial Scholarship has been established at Umpqua Bank, Bosetti said. People “can make a contribution to any Umpqua Bank branch,” he said.

     

    Source

  • Why Experts Say Keep Land In Your Family If You Can

    Despite some progress on the gender wage gap, women still make less than men, with women of color suffering the most. (Credit: Tima Miroshnichenko / Pexels)

    by Bria Overs

    Will Edmond, vegan chef and travel content creator, had had enough. After spending 13 years living in Atlanta and a couple of years in Louisiana, he decided it was time for a change. It was time to return to his roots.

    “Cities are becoming more stressful,” Edmond, 39, tells Word In Black. The appeal of urban living has declined for some due to the traffic, crime, and the rising cost of living. “I know my family has land back in East Texas. I can go back, clean it up, get it together, and build some unique structures on it. And that’s what led me here.”

    In 2022, Edmond and his partner, Austyn Rich, moved back to Edmond’s ancestral hometown in East Texas, also known as Piney Woods. It’s a rural area known for its beauty, pine trees, lakes, and nature trails. And it’s here that Edmond’s family land — a whole 45-acres passed down through generations — is located.

    But this experience, where Black folks keep land in the family, is rare.

    Financial experts frequently laud homeownership as the key to wealth building. Yet, the Black homeownership rate has never been above 50% — a level other ethnic and racial groups have reached and surpassed. For the Black community, the loss of land and property contributes to the widening homeownership gap and the even wider racial wealth gap.

    “The immediate cause of home loss is the lack of estate planning,” says Nketiah “Ink” Berko, an equal justice works fellow at the National Consumer Law Center. “Either someone didn’t write a will, or maybe they did, but in the will, they left the home to five or six people. And by doing that, they’ve fractured the homeownership interests in the property.”

    According to a 2022 Consumer Reports survey, one in three Americans has a will, but 77% of Black Americans lack one.

    Estimates vary on the exact amount of Black-owned land lost. The Land Trust Alliance, a land conservation advocacy organization, estimates that between 1865 and 1919, Black folks in the South owned 15 million acres of land. By 2015, Black Americans had lost 97% of their land.

    The American Bar Association offers a similar statistic: between 1910 and 1997, Black farmers and families lost more than 90% of the 16 million acres they owned — and the organization considers that to be a conservative estimate.

    @willedmond [Share + Save] We’ve been busy for the last year working on of our dream to build a homestead and glamping community alone in the woods. My great-great grandparents were born in the late 1800s and passed their land down and til this day it still belongs to us. 100+ years and the land is still in one family! @Austyn Rich and I were living in Atlanta, Georgia. And we asked ourselves, why are we paying a mortgage or rent when we can build my own paradise? And that’s how why we started Glamping Remote! I know how to grow my own food. I know how to operate a tractor. I know how to operate a bulldozer. I know how to run electricity. I know how plumbing works and so much more. Being self sufficient is what many of us are striving for and we’re on our way. I’m fulfilled and thankful that I never gave up, because it’s was many days that tested me. And we documented this entire journey and you can watch the full video on my YouTube channel. (Link in Bio) Have you ever thought about living off the land or doing off grid? #fyp #viral #homesteading #homestead #smallfarm #offgrid #homesteadlife #Vegan #Selfsustainable #Gardening #Farming #Farmtotable #Farmlife #Simpleliving #offgrid #livingofftheland #homesteadinglife ♬ Soulmate x Amélie x Interstellar x Passacaglia – edit – Andrea Vanzo

    Splitting Land Between Family

    Berko says that land initially divided by a few children can become further divided by several grandchildren and even more so by subsequent generations. This division, known as “heirs property” or “tangled title,” creates challenges and difficulties in maintaining and keeping the property within the family.

    This phenomenon also affected Edmond’s family. “My family, we own about six acres, and then my cousins up the street own some of the land as well,” he says. “We have all of the land still in our family to this day.”

    On his father’s side of the family — which also owns a lot of land — a relative sold off their portion. Selling is one way to lose land, but other ways are incredibly burdensome to families.

    A National Consumer Law Center report co-authored by Berko highlights laws and policies that could protect, resolve, or prevent heirs property. According to the report, heirs property owners are at greater risk of property tax lien foreclosure and frequently miss out on benefits or disaster relief.

    Or, mortgage companies may refuse payments from “people who are not the borrower, refuse to provide information about how much is owed, and refuse to consider heirs for loan modifications or other foreclosure avoidance options,” according to the report.

    “A lot of people lose their land for $4,000 because nobody in the family can agree to even pay anything on it, and then they lose it,” Edmond says. “Well, you only owe that much on it, and the land was worth $100,000. Now somebody else has it. I see that a lot around here.”

    Tax and mortgage foreclosures leave families vulnerable to investors who offer to purchase the property for much less than it is worth, adding to the racial wealth gap.

    Keeping it in the Family

    In 2023, Edmond, Rich, and their family members turned the abandoned land into a homestead and “glamping” destination called Glamping Remote. When the project was complete, they shared their story publicly.

    Edmond says it was important for him to share his journey and his family’s story because it can serve as an example of what’s possible for Black people. With it being unlikely that houses and property will get cheaper, Edmond believes if people can work with the property in their family or help pay the property taxes, they should.

    “If people want to have any type of wealth or to hold on to land that’s been passed down from generation to generation, they need to come back to their grandfather’s and uncle’s land,” he says. “Land is something that’s only made one time.”



    Source

  • Biden’s $1 Trillion Military Budget to Fund ‘Boutique, Expensive, Fragile’ Equipment


    Biden unveils massive budget, including nearly $900 billion for ‘defense’ spending

    Monday, US President Joe Biden unveiled a $7.3 trillion budget, including $895 billion of military funding. That number that balloons to over $1.5 trillion when including the “emergency supplemental” military spending that Biden requested from Congress and other military expenses like the Veteran Affairs and interest on security-related debt.

    The request, representing the most expensive military in world history, is the result of military contractors who are incentivized “to sell expensive items, not necessarily the most useful and effective items,” Independent journalist Jim Kavanagh told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Wednesday.

    We have seen in Ukraine “with the destruction of the Abrams tanks and the HIMARS missiles, that the American equipment is boutique,” Kavanagh said. “[Military contractors] send expensive, boutique, very complicated, fragile equipment,” which inflates the military budget. Kavanagh contrasted that with the simpler Russian equipment, “that’s cheaper to build and is suited for hard condition warfare.”

    “The whole [US Military Contracting economy] from beginning to end is corruption and [the] destruction of society, turning us into a militarized, censored society,” referencing the “ludicrous” so-called “TikTok Ban” that just passed the US House of Representatives but gives the government sweeping powers to ban any foreign website or app it deems a threat.

    Kavanagh decried the corruption while there are issues in America that could be addressed with that money, but he asserted that would get in the way of “neoliberal capitalism.”

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    “They’re not going to put $1 trillion or half a trillion or $10 billion into building housing for the people because that’s going to compete with private market housing,” Kavanagh explained. “Capitalists don’t care if [the government] spends billions of dollars on a sector of the economy that is going to be controlled by the government one way or another,” he continued. “But you want to build houses? You want to spend money on healthcare? You want to spend money on jobs for the people? No, because you’ll be competing with capitalists.”

    The issue cannot be solved by voting for Biden’s most prominent opponent in the upcoming presidential election Kavanagh explained, because former President Donald Trump is also “focused on getting all the money to the military-industrial-complex.”

    “This is the best you’re going to get from either party. Perpetual warfare, nothing to do for your healthcare, nothing to do for housing and rental, nothing to do for jobs… But $1 trillion for military plus supplemental appropriations, this is what the United States is in for if we don’t have a change and that is not going to come from either the Democrats or the Republicans.”

    Hidden Camera Inside Boeing Plant Reveals Horrifying Truth About Air Travel Safety

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  • Tinubu Writes Reps To Re-enact Student Loans Bill

    Bola-Ahmed-Tinubu

    …Gets Expeditious Hearing, Scales Second Reading

    President Bola Tinubu on Thursday transmitted a letter to the House of Representatives seeking the repeal and reenactment of the Students Loan Bill.

    This comes barely 48hrs after after the federal government announced the indefinite suspension of the loan scheme

    The letter which was read by the Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, during plenary on Thursday was titled
    TRANSMISSION OF STUDENT LOANS (ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION) (REPEAL AND RE-ENACTMENT) BILL, 2024 and dated March 14, 2024.

    The President said this seeks to enhance the implementation of the Higher Education Student Loan Scheme by addressing challenges related to the management structure of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELF).

    The letter reads, “Pursuant to Section 58(2) of the Constitution of The Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended). I forward, herewith, The Student Loan (Access to Higher Education) (Repeal and Re-Enactment) Bill, 2024 for the kind consideration of the House of Representatives.

    “The Student Loan (Access to Higher Education) (Repeal and Re- Enactment) Bill, 2024 seeks to enhance the implementation of the Higher Education Student Loan Scheme by addressing challenges related to the management structure of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELF), applicant eligibility requirements, loan purpose, funding sources and disbursement and repayment procedures.

    “Whilst hoping that this submission will receive the usual expeditious consideration of the House of Representatives, please accept, Rt. Honourable Speaker, the assurances of my highest consideration.”

    Meanwhile the Bill to repeal and reenact the scheme, which was presented during plenary on Thursday, received expeditious hearing as it scaled first and second reading.

    It was titled, “A Bill for an Act to Repeal the Students Loans (Access to Higher Education) Act, 2023 and Enact the Student Loans (Access to Higher Education) Bill, 2024 to Establish the Nigerian Education Loan Fund as a Body Corporate to Receive, Manage and Invest Funds to Provide Loans to Nigerians for Higher Education, Vocational Training and Skills Acquisition and for Related Matters (HB.1266).

    The existing Act was one of the first legislations signed by Mr Tinubu after his inauguration.

    All the lawmakers who debated the matter were unanimous in their agreement that it should be passed to law as quickly as possible for the benefit of Nigerian education.

    Tinubu Writes Reps To Re-enact Student Loans Bill is first published on The Whistler Newspaper

    Source

  • Fact Check: It takes longer than 24 hours to count presidential election votes, despite claim to the contrary

    How long does it typically take to count all the votes in a presidential election? According to social media influencer Andrew Tate, the answer is less than 24 hours.

    Tate, who is on trial for human trafficking, was featured in a recent Instagram video, talking about the 2020 election. 

    “Never in the history of an election in America has the results taken more than 24 hours to count,” Tate said in the March 8 post. “Never in history. Here we are seven days later, they’re not finished.” 

    This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

    The Instagram clip of Tate comes from a Nov. 21, 2020, podcast on Romanian fitness influencer Andy Popescu’s YouTube channel. 

    The 2020 election did not represent the first time presidential election vote counting took longer than 24 hours. In fact, experts said, it has always taken more than 24 hours to count presidential election ballots.

    Perhaps the most memorable example: The 2000 presidential election between then-Vice President Al Gore and then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, which was decided more than a month after Election Day when the Supreme Court stopped a manual recount and declared Bush the winner. 

    “The United States has never counted all the ballots in a federal general election in 24 hours,” David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit that promotes trust in election security, told PolitiFact. “Every single state takes days or even weeks to certify official counts, by design, to ensure that the counts are final and accurate.” 

    The United States Election Assistance Commission, a federal agency that provides information on election administration, says on its website that the results reported on election night “are never the final, certified results.” 

    Media organizations often call the election winners before the official count is over based on early ballots and data on demographics and voting history. 

    “Election night ‘winners’ are those that the media has projected will win based on the margin of victory of votes already counted versus the volume of bills outstanding,” Tammy Patrick, chief executive officer of programs at the National Association of Election Officials, told PolitiFact. “There are always ballots still being processed — that is why EVERY state has their official canvass days, even weeks later.” 

    In the 2016 presidential election, The Associated Press called Trump the winner at 2:29 a.m. EST on Nov. 9, before the organization finished calling every state, based on Trump winning the necessary number of electoral votes. Congress met nearly two months later, on Jan. 6, 2017, to officially certify the election. “That’s to ensure the counts are complete and verified,” Becker said. 

    In 2020, it took four days to tally enough ballots for media outlets to call the election. That election took longer than the previous presidential election to call because pandemic restrictions led to a historic amount of mail and early ballots, which take longer to count than in-person  Election Day votes. 

    The counting process for mail ballots is not uniform across states. Fifteen states, including Maine, Minnesota and Virginia, do not allow absentee votes to be counted until after the polls close, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Michigan and Wisconsin did not allow mail ballots to be counted before Election Day 2020, Becker said. That is why the graphs in the Instagram clip show that Biden overtook Trump’s lead after the polls closed. 

    More recent state elections have taken even longer to call. For example, Minnesota’s 2008 U.S. Senate race was declared eight months after Election Day, and a 2010 Alaska U.S. Senate race  was called after two weeks. 

    We rate the claim that the 2020 election was the only time in American history that an election took more than 24 hours to count False.



    Source

  • Posts Distort Missouri Divorce Law Regarding Pregnancy

    Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.

    Quick Take

    There’s no law in Missouri that prevents pregnant women from getting divorced. But social media posts claim Missouri women “cannot divorce their spouse if they are pregnant.” Legal experts told us a judge may wait to finalize a divorce until after a baby is born to determine custody and other arrangements.

    Full Story

    Nowhere in Missouri law does it say pregnant women are barred from getting divorced.

    But a judge handling a case where one party is pregnant may wait to finalize that divorce until the baby is born, which, experts told us, is done in order to consolidate custody and child-support agreements with other end-of-marriage arrangements.

    This can happen in other states, too.

    But recent posts on social media have revived an old claim that first circulated in 2022, saying, “Women in Republican-controlled Missouri cannot divorce their spouse if they are pregnant.”

    That version of the claim was shared by Brian Tyler Cohen, a liberal commentator with a large social media following who we’ve written about before. His Instagram post garnered more than 10,000 likes and was copied and reposted by others, including MSNBC commentator Joy Reid.

    Cohen is misrepresenting divorce procedures in Missouri, though.

    Either spouse is free to file for a divorce during pregnancy in Missouri. Someone petitioning for divorce must answer eight questions, including the dates of marriage and separation, proposed custody and support arrangements for any existing children, and “[w]hether the wife is pregnant.”

    Barbara Glesner Fines, a professor and dean emerita of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, explained to us in an email, “Nothing in the statute permits a court to make any judgments regarding custody or support for an unborn child, so those arrangements need to be made after the child is born. Likewise, there is nothing in the statutes that expressly prohibits a court from finalizing a divorce while a party is pregnant.”

    “Procedurally,” she said, “a court could grant the divorce and make arrangements for child custody and support for any children who have been born. Then, if and when another child is born after the divorce, one of the parents could bring a separate action for parentage, custody and support for that child.”

    The claim first circulated online in 2022, when news outlets published stories about women in Missouri who had experienced delays in their divorce proceedings due to pregnancy. The articles included comments from some lawyers who attested to the custom of Missouri judges to wait until birth to finalize a divorce, although none of them pointed to a statute or court rule that mandated judges to do so.

    “I suspect that the real reason they aren’t granting divorces comes down to efficiency,” Fines said. “If the court waits until the child is born, issues of divorce, property division, parentage, parenting plans, and support can all be determined in one action. If the court determines these issues while a parent is pregnant, there will have to be a second court case after the child is born. The court will have to reconsider all the same complicated factors for custody and support that it did in the first action and it is possible that the custody and support decisions for any children involved in the first action might need to be altered.”

    “So, bottom line, what I suspect is happening is that courts are exercising their discretion to schedule hearings and render judgments in a way that is more efficient,” Fines said.

    Mary Kay O’Malley, director of the Child and Family Services Clinic at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, agreed. “It’s not a statute in the divorce law — what it is is a practicality issue,” she told us in a phone interview.

    Importantly, Missouri is one of 22 states that has adopted a version of the Uniform Law Commission’s Parentage Act, which offers a legal framework for parent-child relationships that is consistent across states.

    That act, as adopted into Missouri state law, says, “A man shall be presumed to be the natural father of a child if” the baby is born within 300 days of the end of the marriage “by death, annulment, declaration of invalidity, or dissolution,” which is the legal term for divorce in Missouri.

    So, the law “contemplates that divorce could be granted during pregnancy,” Courtney Joslin, a professor at University of California, Davis School of Law and contributor to the most recent update of the Uniform Parentage Act in 2017, told us in a phone interview.

    Joslin explained that California, where she lives and works, also has nothing in state law “that precludes granting a divorce when a spouse is pregnant.” She pointed to the 300-day rule, which is also in California state law.

    The recent focus on Missouri in social media posts is likely due to a bill introduced by state Rep. Ashley Aune that would change the law to specifically state that a divorce could be finalized if the couple is expecting a baby. The proposed addition to the state’s existing law says: “Pregnancy status shall not prevent the court from entering a judgment of dissolution of marriage or legal separation.”

    A similar bill was introduced in Texas in 2023, but it died in committee.

    Sources

    Gore, D’Angelo. “NTSB Chair Contradicts Posts That Wrongly Claim Trump to Blame for Ohio Train Wreck.” FactCheck.org. 28 Feb 2023.

    Missouri Courts. Dissolution of Marriage. Accessed 12 Mar 2024.

    Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Title XXX Domestic Relations. Chapter 452. Last revised 28 Aug 2016.

    Glesner Fines, Barbara. Professor, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. Email to FactCheck.org. 1 Mar 2024.

    Krull, Ryan. “Pregnant Women Can’t Get Divorced in Missouri.” Riverfront Times. 13 Jul 2022.

    Spoerre, Anna. “Women in Missouri can’t get a divorce while pregnant. Many fear what this means post-Roe.” Kansas City Star. 20 Jul 2022.

    O’Malley, Mary. Director of the Child and Family Services Clinic, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. 29 Feb 2024.

    Uniform Law Commission. Parentage Act. Accessed 12 Mar 2024.

    Joslin, Courtney. Professor, University of California, Davis School of Law. Telephone interview with FactCheck.org. 1 Mar 2024.

    California Law. Family Code. Division 12. Part 3. Chapter 2. Enacted 1992.

    Missouri House of Representatives. HB 2402. As introduced 11 Jan 2024.

    Texas Senate. SB 80. As introduced 15 Feb 2023.

    Source