Below is my column on the conflict in Democratic states over the fulfillment of prior political pledges from reparations to sanctuary cities. Democratic states like California cannot blame the opposing party for a failure to fulfill the pledge for cash reparations. That leaves them in a bind. Small payments will belittle a commitment that was called a civic duty and moral imperative. After years of campaigning on the issue, expectations are high and tensions appear to be rising.
Here is the column:
“It’s time to pay.” Those four words from Rep. Cori Bush (D., Mo.) are being heard a lot by Democratic politicians across the country this month. For Bush, the debt amounts to $14 trillion for reparations for every black American.
In California, activists are demanding as much as $5 million per black resident and asking Gov. Gavin Newsom “where’s the money.” One member of Newsom’s Reparations Task Force demanded that the state pay its “sin bill.”
In New York and Chicago, mayors are balking at towering costs of migrants being shipping from the border to their “sanctuary” cities.
In Tampa, after demanding $3 million per black resident, a witness said that he and others were putting “white people on notice that we want our reparations.” Bills are coming due after years of political campaigning on these issues.
Reparations and sanctuary cities have long been the bread and butter of identity politics. For years, Democratic politicians have campaigned on these “moral imperatives” in passing sanctuary laws and setting up reparation task forces. It is the equivalent of a compounding interest on credit card debt. Each election Democrats used these issues for short-term political gains. Now those bills are coming due and Democratic leaders are balking.
President Joe Biden and Congress are in a potentially lethal game of chicken over the looming default over our debt. It would not seem an ideal time to demand an additional $14 trillion, but Bush declared “Black people in our country cannot wait any longer.” She was joined by members like Reps. Barbara Lee, Jamaal Bowman and Rashida Tlaib.
It is a view being voiced across the country by black citizens who were told that these payments are an undeniable moral obligation. The years of politicking on the issue have created a sense of entitlement to large cash payments. As one well-known California activist declared: “It’s a debt that’s owed, we worked for free. We’re not asking; we’re telling you.”
Gov. Newsom recently balked at the payment of the reparations recommended by his own task force, though he has indicated that some cash payments may still be made. Newsom attempted the long-expected pivot and said, rather plaintively, that dealing with the legacy of slavery “is about much more than cash payments.” It may be too late for that spin. Recent polling shows 77 percent of Black Americans now support reparations–a stark increase in recent years.
Task Force member Rev. Amos Brown said that they will not accept any excuses and that the state has to commit to the full amount and, if needed, “pay it over installments.”
Mario Cuomo famously said that politicians campaign in poetry, but they govern in prose. However, the “prose” of many Democratic leaders is not winning any prizes.
While many have denounced the busing of migrants to sanctuary cities, most privately admit that there is an element of poetic justice. For years, these cities have told undocumented migrants that they are welcome to come to their cities where they would be protected. Then they showed up. It was a political version of “Look Whose Coming to Dinner,” the movie about a liberal couple who are confronted with a visit of their daughter and her black fiancé.
The single most riveting moment came at Martha’s Vineyard where residents came out to clap and wave to the migrants . . . as they were shipped to a military base off the island. New York City has been shipping migrants to other cities, which are going to court to stop the relocation. Many of these towns point out that, unlike New York City, they have never declared themselves a sanctuary for undocumented persons.
Even though these cities have been sent a fraction of the influx of states like Texas, mayors in sanctuary cities like Chicago have expressed outrage.
As with those expecting reparations, these migrants are understandably confused. They were told that Chicago was a “ciudad santuario.” Chicago reaffirmed this status in 2022 when it extended protections and benefits. At the time, politicians scrambled for cameras to declare, as did Alderwoman Rossana Rodríguez, that Chicago must be “a welcoming city for immigrants” and reaffirmed that “our city is responsible for acting with solidarity towards the people that are the most marginalized and the most impacted by a system that oppresses them.”
Then they showed up in greater numbers and the former Mayor Lori Lightfoot demanded that the migrants be sent elsewhere or kept in border towns overwhelmed by far greater numbers of migrants.
In some cases, there is no alternative but to try to quietly abandon prior campaigns that generated acclaim nationally and caused serious damage locally. For example, some of us criticized cities like San Francisco for declaring a boycott of states which did not adhere to their views on issues like transgender rights. I noted at the time that the boycott would cost the city dearly in cutting off 22 states by driving up costs. It did and the city quietly rescinded the boycott after losing millions. While the media paid far less attention to the rescission than the original decision, other reversals have come at a greater political cost on the left.
For example, cities that led efforts to defund the police are now refunding the police after soaring crime rates and high-levels of police retirements and resignations. Activists in cities like Los Angeles called it a “slap in the face” given years of promises from Democratic politicians.
In the meantime, Newsom’s task force has demanded an assortment of other changes, including eliminating cash bail, abandoning the prosecution of certain crimes, subsidizing home purchases for black residents, and guaranteeing a “right to return” by taking over development projects to guarantee black housing ownership. Some of those reforms can be finessed by politicians, but there is no spin that will obscure the absence of a cash payment.
These are the creditors of the Democratic Party and they now seem intent on collecting on compounded interest of years of identity politics.
This column previously appeared on Fox.com
Reparations should be paid by the tribes that first captured them.
…and profited by selling them.
Beware, the latest talking point by the leftist main stream media is about Amanda Gorman’s poem The Hill We Climb being banned from a Florida school. It’s on every leftist news outlet. Politico Magazine reported the story. Conveniently they didn’t get to the truth until the very last paragraph in the article. “In a tweet after publication, the Miami-Dade school district stated that the book wasn’t banned and remains “available in the media center as part of the middle grades collection.” I thought that the Democrats were all in favor of stopping disinformation??
“BLACK ONLY GRADUATION”
“The University of California Berkeley proudly hosts a ‘black only graduation ceremony,’ contradicting the very laws established during the Civil Rights movement, which vehemently outlawed racial segregation.”
– Reddit
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The whole Lincoln racial illegal immigration scam that persists to this day must be corrected and reversed, per extant immigration law of January 1, 1863, which was the Naturalization Act of 1802, in full force and effect. Just as the Supreme Court acted retroactively by 50 years to correct abortion, the Supreme Court must now act retroactively by 150 years to correct extant contemporary immigration law and to correct not one, but three improperly ratified, forcibly imposed and unconstitutional “Reconstruction Amendments.” The “Reconstruction Amendments” were done as a massive national crime with a gun to America’s head.
America must be restored to its rightful place under the Constitution and Bill of Rights of the United States of America, 1789.
They said they wanted freedom. What they really wanted was nothing less than your money and your country – the whole ——- enchilada. They’re fooling you and they’re getting away with it all. Wake the —- up! Compassionate repatriation or, at a minimum, the full abrogation of redistribution of wealth and redistribution of status.
The entire communistic American welfare state is unconstitutional including, but not limited to, matriculation affirmative action, grade-inflation affirmative action, employment affirmative action, quotas, welfare, food stamps, minimum wage, rent control, social services, forced busing, public housing, utility subsidies, WIC, SNAP, TANF, HAMP, HARP, TARP, HHS, HUD, EPA, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Labor, Energy, Obamacare, Social Security, Social Security Disability, Social Security Supplemental Income, Medicare, Medicaid, “Fair Housing” laws, “Non-Discrimination” laws, etc.
Article 1, Section 8, provides Congress the power to tax ONLY for debt, defense and “…general Welfare…,” omitting and, thereby, excluding any power to tax for individual welfare, specific welfare, particular welfare, favor or charity. The same article enumerates and provides Congress the power to regulate ONLY money, the “flow” of commerce, and land and naval Forces. Additionally, the 5th Amendment right to private property is qualified by the Constitution and is, therefore, absolute, allowing Congress no power to claim or exercise dominion over private property, the sole exception being the power to “take” private property for public use. If the right to private property is not absolute, there is no private property, and all property is public.
Government exists, under the Constitution and Bill of Rights, to provide maximal freedom to individuals while government is severely limited and restricted to merely facilitating that maximal freedom of individuals through the provision of security and infrastructure only.
Well, hoping for some type of payment 158 yrs after the civil war has always been lunacy. Especially since 22 million of America’s 31 million occupants in 1860 were in states where slavery was illegal and they spent vasts sums of money to prosecute the war that preserved the union and ended slavery. The also spent the lives of approximately 500,000+ union soldiers and sailors, devastated the slaveholding section of the country that remained in near poverty until WW 2 and left a scar on the whole country for decades. That time has passed. Squandering your lives seeking redress or revenge is nonsensical. A saying attributed to many says when you embark on a journey for revenge, dig 2 graves, one of which is your own since you will be just as damned as your enemy. Reparations in this manner is simple revenge. The allies got revenge and reparations after WW1 and what did it get them. Hate, chaos, abject humiliation and near destruction of Germany and another even worse war 20 yrs. later.
Legitimately how would the rest of the country respond to this. Not well would be an understatement.
Politicians that promised this were idiots but no less so than the people that believed them.
Slavery was British and on its way out when the Constitution was adopted.
1.4% of Americans owned slaves.
George Washington freed his slaves in his will.
_____________________________________
“Washington signed his will on July 9, 1799, six months, before he died. He wrote it on fifteen sheets of specially prepared paper that contained his watermark. The will was probated at the Virginia Fairfax County Courthouse on January 20, 1800, by George Deneale, the Clerk of Court.”
– Mount Vernon
Revenge, maybe! Opportunism, definitely!
And the Israelite slaves were out of Egypt before the ink was dry on their release papers, but then, they had the capacity, acumen and gumption sufficient to the task.
The sole compelling desire of all normal abductees is to be returned to their homes immediately posthaste.
Let’s really see what the Democrat’s are made of … Every registered Democratic should be taxed for reparations and then add to this – payments to Sanctuary cities. Let’s see how many will change party affiliation because it is the old adage – ‘Put your money where your mouth is”. BTW – wasn’t affirmation action – costing billions – the first acknowledgment for slavery wrongs? Here was an opportunity for anyone who wanted to move up the economic ladder to get better educated and have extra benefits in the workplace. Wasn’t opportunity enough? How many who came from unrecognized ethic groups would have loved this consideration!
Compassionate repatriation with massive “exit” taxes.
BTW, the film is “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”.
The cities who have used reparations as a political tool should honor their moral commitment. If they cannot pay up in cash, they should divide up their assets such as real estate, property rights, buildings, etc. and use these as legal tender to satisfy their moral obligation. I would add goodwill as an asset but these cities are long bankrupt in that account.
Let’s be honest, it’s not about equality any more, it’s about revenge. “To the privileged, equality feels like a step down.” Logically, the escalating demands of privileged Lawfare culture warriors and professional black identity activists will never be satisfied by reparations until they can own white slaves. I am being facetious here by exaggeration – like a good sauce, exaggeration often brings out the meat. Reparations? What kind of woke mind-virus conceived that demand? Where do “reparations” end. How wide and far back does one go? Must the nation fragment into a latticework of sullen DEI demands? Is that what makes a nation and a culture great? I think not.
Seems the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner.
What is their way out? Why have a Democrat in Congress introduce a bill to support reparations! Then when it gets voted down, blame Republicans. This will promote the, “the Republican party is racist/white supremacists!” It will also promote racism/white supremacists are everywhere, promote more division, hate and violence.
This will end badly.
One thing we are not seeing: Billions of dollars in aid sent to the Ukraine (with questionable accountability/corruption).
This is where I agree with Trump and the whole America First idea.
Would I like to see Russia and Putin fail?
Absolutely.
Is that going to happen, realistically without American/NATO troops on the ground and possible WWIII or nuclear Armageddon?
No.
Yet, here we are, sending billions of dollars to the Ukraine.
“moral imperatives”? There is no obvious legal solution to the reparations issue. However, ‘morally’, those that profited directly from slavery, those that fought the abolition of slavery and those that attempted to re-establish features of slavery should be brought to task if they are still around. Low and behold, they still are! And no less than in the form of the Democrat Party. Democrats owned slaves and fought the abolition of slavery. Democrats and their paramilitary wing, the Klu Klux Klan, fought the post civil war efforts to incorporate prior slaves into US society. Democrat presidents and congressmen brought about the re-segregation of the government, military and society and later fought desegregation. Democrats fought civil rights legislation. Clearly, if we are going to consider “moral imperatives”, the Democrat Party has to ante up big time to demonstrate their sincerity in the reparations game. Or maybe Democrats are not sincerely apologetic for their actions after all? Put your money where your mouth is Democrats.
And the stupefying wonder of all these shenanigans is that the main body of people promising and demanding reparation are Democrats. I guess this is a great example of what happens when schools do not teach history.
What if you are half black and half white like Obama? Do you get half a payment?
No, For the sins of his father(marrying a white) Obama has to actually write a check to the reparations fund.
Iowan2, did Obamas father actually marry her, or did he just knock her up?
Same difference, is woke speak.
You get half but give it back.
Chicago, Chi-Town was the end of the Underground Railroad for many and a place sought out for emancipation well into the 1970s.
It is surprising that Chicago of all the U.S. places, a Mecca, for Civil Rights would turn away Migrants.
I believe the Black community has fully realized that They are a Minority permanently, and that the Hispanic/Latino community is the Greater minority and are becoming the Majority very soon. Whites are on notice as well of Their status. Change is here.
The Black community calling for ‘reparations is likely a ‘last call’ (S.O.S.) before the New Majority takes its place in American History.
Sadly as the U.S. population grows, you are going to see Caste in every Ethnicity.
Chicago Freedom Movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Freedom_Movement
Chicago principles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_principles
Fact: Chicago is spending about $7,000 per month per migrant. Chicago is now “hosting ” about 9,000 migrants. Simple math says the monthly bill is $63 million . Remember this is a city that already has large short and long term debt. Add in the fact that Chicago over the last two years, Chicago’s population has dropped by about 3% and its prime business areas , LaSalle Street and North Michigan Ave, have retail vacancy rates of about 30%. No wonder that the new Socialist Mayor Brandon Johnson wants a city income tax of 3.5% on everyone earning $100,000 or more.
Earl, the new mayor promises to raise the taxes of businesses and rich people…as they are already fleeing. They want to be a sanctuary, they actually screech that all are welcome. They are morons.
I just want to be able to get off at Randolf Station and walk to the: Art Museum, The Auditorium, Buddy Guy’s Place, the Bergoff, walk down N. Michigan Ave and Rush Street (Around the Loop) … Without getting: Mugged, Raped, Robbed, Panhandled, Threatened, or Killed.
Live without Fear in Chicago. I used to love that.
Earl Hickey, pits the thought that counts.
Dumb politicians love to make quick headlines with bumper sticker promises like reparations, sanctuary and defund the police, but they never think a few steps ahead to worry about the repercussions of such demands. They play checkers instead of chess. I shoot some 9 ball billiards and this is equivalent to jumping for joy after making the 1 ball without realizing you have no shot on the 2 ball. You had the joy of making the shot, but you are now dead in the water. The reparations bills will now put the Democrats “behind the 8 ball”.
As for Cori Bush, one of the dumbest people in public life, why doesn’t someone, you know, like a reporter, ask KJP whay she thinks of the comments of Cori Bush? If some backbencher Republican says something dumb all Republicans are asked about it. Why not ask the Big Guy his thoughts on reparations? Why not ask Cori Bush her thoughts on Newsome backtracking?
CA is 32 billion in the red and they are demanding trillions for Reparations. We can’t settle the debt limit debate and we have a SITTING CONGRESSWOMAN demanding 14 trillion. Also, who the he** is this moron to be demanding anything?
Odd that sitting members of congress are demanding reparations due to how racist our country is and yet THEY ARE SITTING MEMBERS OF CONGRESS?!?!?!?!??! We have the sitting VICE PRESIDENT telling us how racist we are. We had the sitting PRESIDENT telling us how racist we are??? Imagine the coal miner n W VA hearing these very wealthy politicians telling him how privileged he is.
Tell Cori Bush we will consider her reparations after we cut off all welfare, all food stamps, all subsidized housing, all free legal advice, all free phones, all government support for college loans, end affirmative action, end no cash bail laws, tighten all penalties for crimes involving a gun as well as property crimes.
More evidence of Western Civilization crumbling into a smoking pile of ruins. How these politicians and the like had any credibility to begin with is beyond comprehension. A majority of the people in this country are just too ignorant to be any part of self-government.
Amazing how voracious greed can wipe out actual history. “Reparations” have been paid by hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the Civil War, and by civil rights acts, voting rights acts, affirmative action and many other forms of retribution. Black elites and white liberals thought they could leverage the reparations scam to their benefit, but now it will blow up in their faces because — newsflash — there are more than just two races in America; and all the other races who will be forced to pay for this scam will not be happy about it. Everything stems from the “systemic racism” myth, because without that to blame the failure of black communities on, we would be forced to look at personal and familial responsibility. And no one can demand “reparations” for their own personal failures.
GioCon,
Oh! You said, “we would be forced to look at personal and familial responsibility.”
Dont you know that is verboten?
To actually question people, of any color, of their personal life choices? To hold them responsible for those choices? Like, buying a hand gun on the black market and robbing a gas station, getting caught and having to serve time? Like, selling drugs, getting caught and having to serve time? Stealing a car? Home intrusion and burglary? Getting a woman pregnant and not taking responsibility for the child (i.e. Hunter)? Having a record like the fine man, Jordan Neely?
Oh! No! It was not, never is, their fault!
It is the “system!”
It is systemic racism (I would expect Hunter to claim the same)!
It is white supremacy that made them do it!
What it comes down to is we are responsible for ourselves and our actions in life.
Karl Marx is ROFLHAO (assuming he gets a break from shoveling coal.) One of his goals was to free slaves in America then use them to promote revolution. They’ve been duped since the 1930s when leftist Democrats started using them to get in and stay in office. .
There are consequences when liars make promises to stupid people.
The politicians are shameless, but aren’t blacks embarrassed that they were conned by such a blatant pitch?
Blacks got played.
Time to go home and lick their wounds.
Hope that they learned something.
I have enough DNA info to claim that my ancestors were the victims of enslavement by Julius Caesar when his legions ran all over Gaul and enslaved at least 6 million of my kin. I want $5 billion from Italy because of that! Does that sound about right?
If California offered reparations to the descendants if thise enslaved by the Romans, a lot of people would qualify, from Mexican-Americans whose families lived here since statehood to tecent Slavic immigrants.
Reparations for black people? No. Actually black people born within Western Civilization owe royalties to white people for not being born in Africa and for white people ending slavery. That will be $1000/day, annually adjusted for inflation, from birth till death. Or move out!
You are exactly right! American blacks have no idea how good they’ve got it.
Not sure what else to offer. They currently have free phones, government subsidized housing, heavily subsidized public transportation, preference in civil jobs, preference in entry to elite colleges, free healthcare.
It would seem like a lot to an African resident.