Gothamist.

New York lawmakers are considering a new measure to speed up repairs at fire-damaged apartment buildings by forcing some landlords to pay the rent for displaced tenants.

The legislation introduced by state Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris on Wednesday would apply to property owners found at fault for a fire or other disaster that made their tenants homeless. It would also guarantee tenants can return to their apartments once the city deem them safe, unless they chose to move elsewhere.

Gianaris cited a Tuesday report from Gothamist detailing the yearslong waits many tenants face before they are finally able to return to their apartments following fires. If a landlord refuses to pay for tenants’ temporary housing, the legislation requires the city to cover the costs and then recover the money from the owner.

Gianaris said he hoped the measure would give landlords a “kick in the rear” to expedite renovations.

I predict that they will find ways around it, and it will not do what it is intended to do.

I also predict that, like most government do-goodism, it will wind up hurting the people it is designed to help.

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Note: No distinction admitted between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants.

Launched in 2022, Acacia Center argues that “no immigrant should be detained” and that electronic surveillance to track illegal aliens “must be abolished.” According to the center, “the use of local law enforcement for immigration purposes … must be dismantled.”

It maintains that the immigration detention and deportation system is “intentionally designed to exploit, exclude, criminalize, detain and deport” people deemed to be “undeserving of inclusion in our national fabric, particularly Black and brown people.”

That puts it squarely at odds with the Trump administration, which has pledged to increase deportations of illegal aliens dramatically. The administration has threatened to pull federal funds from sanctuary cities and states that prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Trump has ordered federal agencies to shut down the kinds of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies pushed by the Acacia Center.

Long on ‘must’, short on ‘why’.

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A day after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott demanded criminal and civil investigations into the Irving Independent School District, an administrator resigned Wednesday amid the uproar over his comments about circumventing a state law regarding transgender athletes.

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Leta’s see … Democrats hate democracy, so calling them Democrats is false advertising.

They really love taxes, though, so I suggest that we call them Taxocrats.

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Connecticut’s governor and attorney general, both Democrats, have publicly embraced illegal immigrants in their state amid President Donald Trump’s mission of mass deportations and securing of the nation’s borders.

“It is the policy of the state of Connecticut to respect, honor, and protect immigrants and immigrant families in full compliance with the law,” said Attorney General William Tong, CT Insider reported Friday. “We’re going to do what we can for immigrants and immigrant families because they’re important to us.”

Tong’s office issued a memo last week detailing protections against deportation in state law, including the Trust Act, passed in 2013 and updated in 2019, which prohibits state and local authorities from working with federal immigration enforcement in most situations. The memo, according to CT Insider, emphasized there is nothing in state law to prevent Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents to detain an illegal immigrant.

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Gothamist.

It’s a tough town. Where is Snake Pliskin when you really need him?

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My, what a surprise.

Moral: Quit electing Democrats and expecting competence.

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Apparently it wasn’t affordable for the company to offer it, so they didn’t. The next step is a law to force companies to provide the service anyway (as with hospitals), so the companies go out of business or go somewhere else, and everybody suffers.

Price controls don’t work If they force the price lower than the market price, supplies dry up.

Examples: Minimum wage laws, insurance premium caps, ‘price-gouging’ laws, ‘windfall’ taxes, etc.

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The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) today announced that it has dismissed 11 complaints related to so-called “book bans.” The complaints alleged that local school districts’ removal of age-inappropriate, sexually explicit, or obscene materials from their school libraries created a hostile environment for students – a meritless claim premised upon a dubious legal theory. Effective Jan. 24, 2025, OCR has rescinded all department guidance issued under the theory that a school district’s removal of age-inappropriate books from its libraries may violate civil rights laws. OCR is also dismissing six additional pending allegations of book banning and will no longer employ a “book ban coordinator” to investigate local school districts and parents working to protect students from obscene content.

“By dismissing these complaints and eliminating the position and authorities of a so-called ‘book ban coordinator,’ the department is beginning the process of restoring the fundamental rights of parents to direct their children’s education,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor. “The department adheres to the deeply rooted American principle that local control over public education best allows parents and teachers alike to assess the educational needs of their children and communities. Parents and school boards have broad discretion to fulfill that important responsibility. These decisions will no longer be second-guessed by the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education.”

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And you know the reason why.

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Of course they are. This is the Marxist ‘reserve army of the unemployed’ except that proglodytes have discovered that such don’t need to be employed, just dependent on government benefits that will last so long as they vote for the Party of Free Stuff.

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents carried out a raid on a Newark business Thursday, detaining non-citizens and citizens alike, according to Mayor Ras J. Baraka.

“A Newark native, Baraka is the son of poet and activist Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones) and his wife Amina Baraka.” — Wikipedia. Another Democrat grifter who thinks that adopting an Arab (or Arab-sounding) name is ‘more authentically black’, even though the Arabs (and other Muslims) enslaved more black Africans than white Europeans.

The incident, which could not immediately be confirmed with ICE or its parent agency, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, comes three days after President Donald Trump reiterated on Inauguration Day his campaign pledge to launch a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.

Baraka denounced the raid as an “egregious act” conducted without a warrant and in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees “the right of the people be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

This clown needs to consult a lawyer before spewing his lies. ICE doesn’t need a warrant to detain suspected illegal immigrants, any more than police need a warrant to detain suspected robberts.

“One of the detainees is a U.S. military veteran who suffered the indignity of having the legitimacy of his military documentation questioned,” Baraka, a Democrat seeking his party’s nomination for governor this year, said in a statement late Thursday afternoon. “Newark will not stand by idly while people are being unlawfully terrorized.”

Documentation needs to be checked. Fakes are all around us. ‘Nobody is above the law.’

NBC News.

Gee, I wonder why?

Gothamist.

New York state Assemblymember Al Taylor of Harlem retired at the end of last year — which is probably news to his constituents, whom he still represents.

Taylor, a Democrat, is the latest state lawmaker to take advantage of a constitutional quirk that lets him collect his public salary and pension at the same time. All he had to do was briefly “retire” before beginning his new term, which he did by filing his papers on Dec. 31, and return to work the next day.

Taylor will now receive his $142,000 base salary as well as public retirement benefits that could exceed $75,000 annually, depending on which payment option he selected and whether he selected a beneficiary. He is one of at least 15 New York state lawmakers currently collecting a public pension and public salary, according to the state comptroller’s office. Taylor did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

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Long-running accusations of anti-Semitism that for years dogged California’s troubled National Guard resurfaced at a crucial time for the force that is currently battling historic Los Angeles wildfires. A fired commander with extensive firefighting experience has filed a lawsuit alleging he’s now on the sidelines because he’s Jewish.

Brigadier General Jeffrey Magram is suing the state of California, Governor Gavin Newsom (D.), and Adjutant General Matthew Beevers, a Newsom appointee who was previously accused of referring to his Jewish subordinates as “kike lawyers.” Magram claims his dismissal was driven by anti-Semitic animus.

The California National Guard is the largest such force in the country, and 2,500 guard members (including some reinforcements from Nevada and Wyoming) are now battling the wildfires from the air and the ground, as well as helping with public safety. But the “scandal plagued” guard, as the Los Angeles Times calls it, has been bogged down by unseemly allegations of impropriety, including the coverup of an incident in which someone urinated in a guardswoman’s boot, indecent exposure at a restaurant, retaliation against whistleblowers, and the use of spy planes and fighter jets to monitor and intimidate protesters.

Magram’s ouster just over two years ago came after an inquiry found he used military personnel for personal tasks, among other infractions that the inquiry claimed compromised his leadership. He was one of five generals who were fired or retired under pressure amid ballooning scandals at the guard in the last few years. But in his lawsuit, Magram—who was not implicated in the more lurid scandals that dogged the guard—argues he was targeted in a smear campaign that overlooked a sterling record because he is Jewish.

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Embattled New York City Mayor Eric Adams said that the Democratic Party “left” him and the working class behind, during an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that aired on Tuesday.

“People often say, ‘You don’t sound like a Democrat. You seem to have left the party,’” Adams told Carlson.

“No, the party left me, and it left working-class people.”

Throughout the interview, Adams tied his indictment on bribery and corruption charges to his decision to speak out against the illegal immigrant surge in New York City.

He claimed those who push back on “the norm” within the Democratic party get “demonized.”

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I believe in restraint, tradition, decorum, and the precepts of our system of criminal justice: deterrence, punishment, and retribution. Turning the other cheek accomplishes none of these. Joe Biden’s last-minute pardons for his family, and his unprecedented preemptive pardons for members and staff of the January 6 Committee, Anthony Fauci, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Milley, underscore the necessity for Congress and Donald Trump’s Justice Department to perform their duties to investigate crime.

The Supreme Court made clear in Burdick v. United States (1915) that the “confession of guilt implied in the acceptance of a pardon” may be avoided only by rejecting it. In December, the Biden Justice Department advised a federal judge that January 6 defendants hoping for a pardon from soon-to-be President Trump “would first have to accept the pardon, which necessitates a confession of guilt.”

The Biden administration and its proxies engaged in the unrestricted, weaponized use of our justice system to take down the leading Republican candidate for president and his family, supporters and advisors, as well as Christians, conservatives, and pro-life activists. They censored, investigated, humiliated, intimidated, arrested, indicted, and jailed their political opponents using long-abandoned, novel, and manifestly flawed legal theories.

Democrats express horror that the Trump Justice Department might investigate whether laws were broken by officials who engaged in these tactics. They angrily assert that if the Trump administration exacts “retribution” it would endanger civil liberties and tear asunder the fabric of our justice system.

This reminds me of bullies who strike a classmate and then recoil, wag a finger at the victim, and warn him that he better not hit back.

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Of course. Grifters gotta grift.

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Former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and three other defendants were charged by federal prosecutors in an eight-count indictment unsealed on Jan. 17 alleging the group participated in a bribery and corruption scheme that sought to benefit a company with nearly $90 million in city contracts.

And Democrats are crooked every age….

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With good reason.

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Good intentions are not enough. Competence is a necessary component.

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The Department of Energy, in one of its final actions under President Joe Biden, earmarked billions of dollars in green energy loans to utility companies based in Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm’s home state of Michigan—defying the agency’s inspector general, who called on the Biden administration to suspend the loan program amid conflict-of-interest concerns.
Some of Granholm’s largest campaign benefactors during her Michigan gubernatorial campaign were among the companies receiving the hefty last-minute loans.
The Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office announced Thursday that it awarded a staggering $22.9 billion in loan guarantees for utility companies to develop green energy projects across 12 states. More than $14 billion of that total was awarded to DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, the two companies with ties to Granholm, solely for projects in Michigan.
In addition, on Friday afternoon, the office announced a $1.3 billion loan for Michigan Potash Company to help fund a sustainable fertilizer plant in Osceola County, Michigan.
DTE Energy’s political action committee contributed more than $34,000 to Granholm’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign, according to state records. Then-DTE Energy CEO Stephen Ewing, whom Granholm appointed to serve on the state’s Early Childhood Investment Corporation Executive Committee, personally donated another $3,400 to Granholm’s campaign in 2004.

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The mayors of Philadelphia and New York City have positioned their cities into a posture of willingness to help the incoming Trump administration with its plan to deport illegal immigrants, a marked departure from President-elect Donald Trump’s first term in office, NBC News reported Sunday.

New York Democrat Mayor Eric Adams has voiced a willingness to work with the Trump administration in the aftermath of his election victory, meeting with border czar Tom Homan last month and visiting with Trump on Friday in Florida.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker and District Attorney Larry Krasner, both Democrats, have also softened their stance on the city’s status as a sanctuary city.

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Time to leave.

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Biden has been living in Democrat World so long that he thinks it’s actual reality.

During NBC’s recap of the week’s headlines on Saturday’s installment of Today, Joe Fryer hyped President Joe Biden’s “warning about the future” of an oligarchy under incoming President Donald Trump. However, Fryer, like his ABC and CBS network counterparts, ignored Biden’s Friday claim that he could amend the Constitution by simply issuing a declaration and posting it on social media.

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President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris declared on Friday that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is “the law of the land.” It isn’t, as Biden and Harris do not have the authority to approve constitutional amendments, their statements carry no legal weight, and the U.S. archivist tasked with certifying the amendment has repeatedly determined the ERA was not legally ratified.

Biden nonetheless tweeted that the ERA “is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex.” Harris followed suit hours later, tweeting, “The Equal Rights Amendment is the 28th Amendment, and it is the law of the land.”

Congress first introduced the amendment in 1923, though it didn’t gain steam until nearly five decades later. At that point, in 1972, lawmakers passed the amendment with the required two-thirds majority, sending it to the states, 38 of which needed to ratify it on a deadline first set at 7 years and later extended to 10 years.

That deadline came and went without the necessary support, prompting activists and lawmakers to concede defeat—until three states, Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia, voted to ratify the amendment more than 30 years later, in 2017, 2018, and 2020, respectively. While those votes pushed the number of states in support to 38, they did so well after the extended ratification deadline. Lawmakers in Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, and South Dakota, meanwhile, voted to rescind their support, prompting ERA advocates like former Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to say that the ratification process needed to start over.

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As if America needed any more proof that Democrat-ruled Illinois is the worst state in the union, that Democrats don’t care about the suffering of women and children, and that Democrats have no interest in the common good, Illinois Democrats have announced that they will be proposing legislation to “decriminalize sex work.” In other words, they plan on moving step by step toward legalizing prostitution. If successful, Illinois would have the dubious honor of being the first state to decriminalize prostitution.

Well, no; Nevada has had legal prostitution since the 1930s, although it is illegal in parts of the state; like abortion in the U.S., Nevada leaves it up to local authorities. But this would make the first state in which prostitution was legalized on a statewide basis.

The instigators of this offense against women are Chicago Democrat State Representative Will Guzzardi—a product of an Ivy League education—and State Senator Celina Villanueva. They are collaborating with crossdressing man and former prostitute “Reyna” Ortiz and homosexual Brian C. Johnson, another Ivy grad and CEO of Illinois’ infamous LGBTQ+ activist organization, Equality Illinois.

The first step by leftists in their eternal quest to make America unlivable is always to redefine terms, hence the Newspeakian term “sex work,” with its positive connotations of labor and industry. Illinois Democrats hope to destigmatize the degrading purchase of women’s bodies for the hedonistic pleasure of men by associating such evil with other forms of work.

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“They are going to turn Altadena into one gigantic apartment complex,” X user Bay Area State OF Mind said, referring to local officials who want to change zoning in the Altadena area from single-family to multi-family. In other words, some officials want to usher in the construction of apartment buildings and so-called ‘smart cities.’

Altadena (and other areas in L.A. County) could serve as a proof-of-concept for how the Democratic Party transforms single-family neighborhoods into apartment buildings in a world where citizens own nothing and will be happy.

Illustrating that ‘zoning’ regulations, far from improving a city, merely make its use of real property subject to politics, i.e. corruption and ideological oppression.

Like an HOA on steroids.

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Progressive staffers on Capitol Hill penned a letter to congressional leadership on Thursday asking for a 32-hour week, claiming it would increase staff retention, prevent burnout, and serve as a national model.

The Congressional Progressive Staff Association said the role of a congressional staffer can be “demanding and intensive,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Washington Examiner and sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and “all members” of the 119th Congress.

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YACBFDP.

UPDATE: Raphael Warnock-Led Charity Admits It Illegally Campaigned for Stacey Abrams, Will Pay $300,000 Fine  Crooks of a feather flock together.

NBC News, a Voice of the Crust.

The Minnesota Democratic caucus plans to skip nearly three weeks of the new legislative session in a bid to deny Republicans the ability to conduct business before a special election.

Have you ever noticed how the arrested adolescents in the Democrat party don’t seem all that interested in actual democracy? Somebody ought to sue them for false advertising.

New York Times, a Voice of the Crust.

A nonprofit founded by Stacey Abrams, a Georgia Democrat, admitted on Wednesday that it had violated state law by concealing the fact that it had campaigned for her during her 2018 run for governor.

At the time of that campaign, the group was led by Raphael Warnock, who was later elected to the Senate as a Democrat from Georgia.
At a meeting of the state’s ethics commission, the nonprofit New Georgia Project conceded that it had paid for fliers and door-to-door canvassers telling voters to support Ms. Abrams and other Democrats.

Under federal law, tax-exempt charities like this one are forbidden to campaign for candidates, but this case was about a violation of state law.

YACBFDP.

Washington Poop, a Voice of the Crust.

Questions surrounding a newly reelected Democratic lawmaker deepened in recent weeks as Florida moved to sue the company she once led in an attempt to recoup a more than $5 million covid overpayment.

The Office of Congressional Ethics, the House’s internal watchdog, referred Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Florida) to the House Ethics Committee for further investigation in September 2023 after finding “substantial reason” to believe that she may have violated campaign finance rules. The office released its report on her alleged misconduct last month.

The House Ethics Committee’s investigative subcommittee is still looking into the matter, the committee acknowledged in a statement on Jan. 2.

Yet Another Crooked Black Female Democrat Politician. (YACBFDP)

The Other McCain.

There may be dumber people in the Senate than Mazie Hirono, but I’m having trouble naming one after the Hawaii Democrat’s absurd questions to Pete Hegseth during Monday’s confirmation hearing,

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In the 21st century, Democrats are misnamed:

They’re the less democratic of the two great parties, and their insider-dominated politics explains both how Biden wound up in a role for which he was unfit and why the candidate picked to replace him went on to lose every battleground state.

Kamala Harris had never won a presidential primary.

Minnesota Star-Tribune.

Minnesota House Democrats were sworn into office Sunday evening in a private ceremony at the Minnesota History Center, a “covert” move that Republicans criticized as illegitimate.

The swearing-in is the latest twist in a contentious run up to the 2025 legislative session, which House Democrats are promising to boycott for several weeks without a power-sharing agreement with Republicans.

DFL leader Melissa Hortman said in a statement that they wanted to make sure their members were “properly and legally sworn in” if they don’t show up for session on the first day Tuesday. Members are typically sworn into office as the legislative session convenes.
“Any attempt to subvert that is illegitimate,” said GOP House Leader Lisa Demuth,

esponding to the news Sunday that Democrats had secretly sworn in their members. “This move is a slap in the face to the institution and to every voter who expects their elected officials to act in good faith and uphold the integrity of the legislative process.”
Democrats lost three seats in the state House in the fall election, leaving the chamber tied 67-67. But Republicans successfully challenged in court the residency of a Democrat who won a Roseville-area seat, leaving the chamber with a 67-66 GOP edge pending a special election on Jan. 28.

Have you ever noticed that Democrats don’t seem to like actual democracy very much?

UPDATE: The Pitched Battles for Partisan Control in State Legislatures (New York Times)

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The always thoughtful, clearheaded and logical Democrat ‘squad member’ U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal is under fire this week for mocking victims of the Los Angeles wildfire.

It’s another sad ‘par for the course’ incident for the far left, who has become so attached to identity politics and toxic ideology that even after getting trounced on November 4th, they can’t seem to see that when one finger points out, there more point back at them.

Rather than focus on the victims and solutions of the devastating fire, Jayapal took the tragedy as a cue to spew anti-capitalist climate change rhetoric on social media, according to KTTH.

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Among the many laws that took effect at the beginning of this new year is one in New Jersey that will astound and should anger people with children in the state’s public schools. It’s called Act 1669 and it removes a requirement that teachers pass a basic reading, writing and math test to be eligible to teach. The law was signed by Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) last June.

The rationale, if one can call it rational, is that New Jersey is not attracting enough teachers to the profession and so standards must be lowered so more will apply. This reminds me of what the Army has done for physical fitness requirements. In 2022, the Army lowered the physical fitness standards for women and older troops in its annual physical fitness exam to attract more enlistees. Where did the idea come from that lowering standards might produce higher achievement?

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Democrats lie; they can be depended upon to do so, early and often.

Time to leave.

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After Lori Lightfoot was voted out of the mayor’s seat in Chicago following her calamitous tenure, I dearly hoped that the residents of Chicago had come to their senses about progressive mayors and would vote for someone who had some understanding of fiscal responsibility and the role of a big city mayor.

It was not to be.

The mayoralty of Brandon Johnson has been, to say the least, a disaster. Witnessing his rejection by boards, committees and the residents of

That would be a good idea for an annual contest: Worst Mayor in America. Of course, it would always be won by a Democrat from either New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. (Maybe cameo appearances from Seattle, Portland, or Detroit.)

Newsweek, a Voice of the Crust.

The 2024-25 California state budget, which Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law in June 2024, slashed funding for wildfire and forest resilience by $101 million as part of a series of cutbacks according to an analysis by the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office.

However overall, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE)’s wildfire protection budget has increased sharply from $1.1 billion in 2014 to $3 billion in 2023, much of which took place after Newsom became governor in 2019.

Speaking to Newsweek, a spokesperson for Newsom said that under the governor’s “leadership” the CAL FIRE budget had doubled from $2 billion in 2018-19 to $3.8 billion in 2024-25, whilst the department’s personnel went from 5,829 to 10,741 over the same period.

UPDATE: MSNBC’s Jansing Puts On Climate Alarmist to Blame LA Wildfires on Fossil Fuels

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Reports released by two House committees in December shine a harsh light on the deceptions and oppressive tactics utilized by numerous federal agencies, the Intelligence Community, and leaders of the Democratic Party. During the last year of the first Trump Administration, agencies within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), State Department, and Justice Department (DOJ) initiated improper contacts with media in an effort to censor conservative views. These agencies also took steps to interfere in the 2020 election to benefit Joe Biden.

The Biden-Harris Administration supercharged the weaponization of the federal government against the American people. With the active participation of the media, the administration followed a whole-of-government effort to collude with, and coerce, the media to suppress and censor conservatives and others who opposed progressive goals. It threatened parents with terrorist “threat tagging” and visits from the FBI for speaking their minds, stretched statutory authority beyond recognition to prosecute Donald Trump and his supporters, harassed and penalized whistleblowers, invaded bank privacy, sent heavily armed federal agents into private homes, and brought an unprecedented barrage of litigation against states to force them into compliance with the administration’s unconstitutional goals.

The Foundry.

While California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass blame this week’s devastating wildfires on climate change or claim that they did all they could to prepare, the evidence tells a different story. Their focus on a woke, climate-driven agenda has come at the expense of practical, effective wildfire prevention measures. The result? Lives lost, homes destroyed, and a state left unprepared.

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A federal district court in Kentucky issued a decision Thursday blocking the Biden administration’s attempt to change the meaning of “sex” in Title IX to include “gender identity.”

The Department of Education under the Biden-Harris administration issued new rules reinterpreting Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a law that bars discrimination on the basis of sex in education.

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Just weeks before five wildfires engulfed the City of Angels, Los Angeles fire chief Kristin Crowley warned that Mayor Karen Bass’s (D.) budget cuts to her department “severely limited” its response to wide-scale emergencies—including wildfires.

In a memo dated Dec. 4, Crowley wrote that Bass’s $7 million reduction to the Los Angeles Fire Department’s overtime budget “severely limited the department’s ability to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires, earthquakes, hazardous material incidents, and large public events.” All told Bass cut more than $17 million from the fire department this year, according to the enacted budget, although she initially proposed slashing nearly $23 million.

“These budgetary reductions have adversely affected the Department’s ability to maintain core operations,” such as training and fire prevention, Crowley wrote in her memo to the Board of Fire Commissioners, which is comprised of mayoral appointees. “Specialized programs and resources, such as Air Operations, Tactical EMS Units, Disaster Response, and Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT), which rely heavily on [overtime], are now at risk of reduced effectiveness.”

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A major California city is suing the state over its sanctuary law, arguing that it violates the Constitution and prevents local officials from protecting their community.

The City of Huntington Beach filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against SB 54, otherwise known as the California Values Act, which dramatically restricts how local and state law enforcement can cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The lawsuit argues that the policy not only violates the Constitution, but also directs city officials to violate federal immigration laws.

“We are fighting the Sanctuary State Law because it obstructs our ability to fully enforce the law and keep our community safe,” Huntington Beach Mayor Pat Burns said in a public statement. “When the stakes are currently so high, with reports of increases in human trafficking, increases in foreign gangs taking over apartment buildings in the U.S., killing, raping, and committing other violent crimes against our citizens, we need every possible resource available to fight crime, including federal resources.”

UPDATE: Canadian Lawmaker Urges US States to Join Canada

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The two Democratic senators representing Laken Riley’s home state of Georgia remain noncommittal on legislation bearing her name nearly a year after she was murdered by an illegal migrant.

The Senate is slated to hold a procedural vote on the Laken Riley Act, legislation that requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement to detain illegal migrants who commit theft-related crimes, as early as Friday. Most Senate Democrats, including Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, have refrained from supporting the bill, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s multiple inquiries to every Democratic lawmaker on whether they back the Laken Riley Act’s passage.

The Laken Riley Act is named in honor of the 22-year-old University of Georgia nursing student who was murdered by an illegal migrant while out on a run near her college campus in February 2024. The legislation is notably backed by members of Riley’s family and is sponsored by the entire Senate Republican conference as well as Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Ruben Gallego of Arizona.

Ossoff and Warnock have notably refrained from expressing support for the bill despite Riley previously being one of their constituents.

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Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue may have raked in millions through fraudulent donations, according to the testimonies of elderly Americans who said federal election records do not reflect their giving.

Eighteen registered Democrats in Connecticut, all over the age of 70, appear to have donated $1.9 million to Democratic causes, including ActBlue, through hundreds of thousands of small donations from 2016 to 2024, according to a review of Federal Election Commission filings by Dominic Rapini, cybersecurity company CEO and a former Connecticut Republican candidate for office.

Curious about the donation patterns, Rapini tracked down some of the Connecticut residents and asked them if they really did make thousands of small donations, sometimes multiple in a day, through ActBlue.