CURRENT EVENTS MARCH 24 - 29

  • Thread starter Thread starter nycfan
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies: 209
  • Views: 7K
  • Politics 
Status
Not open for further replies.


“… Bozell has been a prominent right-wing activist for decades. He is the founder and president of the Media Research Center, a self-described “watchdog” dedicated to exposing alleged liberal bias. In the late 1990s he founded the Parents Television Council, which opposed what it saw as indecent content on the airwaves. Bozell’s son, L. Brent Bozell IV or “Zeeker,” was among the people who were sentenced for their role in the January 6 attack before being pardoned by Trump earlier this year.

… As part of its opposition to the meeting between Tambo and Shultz, the “Coalition Against ANC Terrorism” produced a publication that highlighted the ANC’s Soviet and communist ties.

The group also held hearings in the weeks before Tambo’s visit that were presided over by the late U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), who was a prominent advocate for segregation here in the United States. Speakers at the coalition’s hearings included John Gogotya, a Black South African politician who led a moderate group that was later revealed to have been backed by the apartheid regime’s military intelligence operation. …”
 


“… But on Wednesday, the bureau went a step further: It is seeking to give back $105,000 that a mortgage lender paid to settle racial discrimination claims last fall.

In an especially strange twist, the case — against Townstone Financial, a small Chicago-based lender — was brought during Mr. Trump’s first term by Kathleen Kraninger, the director he appointed to run the consumer bureau.

Russell Vought, who became the agency’s acting director last month, said it had “used radical ‘equity’ arguments to tag Townstone as racist with zero evidence, and spent years persecuting and extorting them.”

… The case began in 2020 when the consumer bureau accused Townstone of redlining and breaking fair-lending laws by discouraging residents living in majority-Black neighborhoods from applying for its housing loans. It homed in on comments made during the company’s radio show and podcast, “The Townstone Financial Show,” saying they were intended to rebuff Black borrowers or those seeking to buy homes in certain neighborhoods.

Show guests and hosts — including Barry Sturner, Townstone’s chief executive — described Chicago’s South Side as a “jungle” and a “war zone” that became a “hoodlum” hive on weekends, according to the bureau’s legal complaint. Statistical analyses of Townstone’s mortgage loan applications showed that it drew far fewer from majority-Black neighborhoods than its lending peers, the agency said.

… Mr. Sturner’s lawyers joined the consumer bureau in asking the federal court to vacate the settlement deal.

“Now we know that C.F.P.B. knew — or should have known — it had no case and targeted Townstone for its speech,” said Steve Simpson, a lawyer at the Pacific Legal Foundation who represents Mr. Sturner. “Justice demands that this settlement be vacated.”

… Christine Chen Zinner, a senior lawyer at Americans for Financial Reform, a progressive advocacy group, called the consumer bureau’s attempt to overturn the settlement “bananacakes.”

The appellate panel’s unanimous decision that the fair-lending law applied was a clear signal that the case had merit, she said.

“Literally dropping the settlement sends a clear green light to businesses that discriminatory conduct is acceptable,” she said….”
 
www.nytimes.com

China Is Courting, and Confronting, U.S. Allies Made Uneasy by Trump

Even as China offers itself to nations like Japan as a more reliable partner, its ships are pushing into their neighborhoods — sometimes on the very same day.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
When China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, met with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in Tokyo last weekend, he said China saw “great potential” for trade and stability if the three neighbors worked together. Citing what he called their shared “Oriental wisdom,” he quoted a proverb, seemingly alluding to the United States as an unreliable, distant ally: “Close neighbors are better than relatives far away.”

But even as the officials were talking, two Chinese Coast Guard ships had begun an unusual incursion into waters near disputed islands in the East China Sea. Japan’s coast guard, which moved to intercept them, said the Chinese ships were armed and had been pursuing a small Japanese fishing boat.

Japan said the incursion, which lasted nearly four days, was China’s longest yet into the waters around the islands, which are claimed by both countries. Japan’s foreign minister said he had protested to Mr. Wang on Saturday about an increase in such activity around the uninhabited islands, which Japan calls the Senkaku and China calls the Diaoyu.

China’s simultaneous pledges of friendship and deployment of armed ships reflect the two sides of Beijing’s strategy for dealing with a Trump administration that is rapidly recalibrating America’s place in the world.
 


“The Trump administration is discussing plans to try to block certain colleges from having any foreign students if it decides too many are "pro-Hamas," senior Justice and State Department officials tell Axios.

… The idea of prohibiting colleges from enrolling any student visa-holders grew out of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's "Catch and Revoke" program, which now is focusing on students who protested against the war in Gaza.

…
  • "Every institution that has foreign students ... will go through some sort of review," the official said. "You can have so many bad apples in one place that it leads to decertification of the school ... I don't think we're at that point yet. But it is not an empty threat."
…
  • "What you're going to see in the not-too-distant future is the universities that we can show that were not doing anything to stop these demonstrations in support of Hamas — or encouraged enrollment by activists — ... we can stop approving student visas for them, and they can no longer admit foreign students," the official said. …”
 

A pissed-off surfer crowdsourced friends — and cracked an alleged crime gang​


Loading…

www.cnn.com

“… Dulien sent the grainy images to a techy friend who cleaned them up, sharpening the face of the alleged thief. He posted what had happened to him and that surveillance camera footage to his more than 120,000 followers on social media. Stab, an online surf publication, then picked up the story, too. “All these surfers started DMing to me: ‘The same thing happened to me!’” said Dulien with a gleeful grin. “I’m like: This is what these guys do — they rob surfers!”

… According to court documents, a low-level accomplice would steal a surfer’s phone and wallet then immediately hand them off to that hacker. Bypassing phone security and FaceID is very complex. Even the FBI brings in outside contractors to do it. But these days, once you get into a phone, once you crack FaceID, you have access to pretty much every cent the owner of that phone has in the world. …

… That hacker whom Dulien described as a “Jedi Master” was, authorities say, picked up nearby with cards, phones and other incriminating evidence in his possession. His name is Moundir Kamil. He’s a Moroccan national who is in this country illegally, previously convicted of bank robbery. He’s even served time in a California prison.

“I don’t care if you’re a Republican, if you’re a Democrat,” said Dulien, who does not follow politics. “How could anyone think, ‘Yeah, let’s keep this guy, let’s let him hang here and keep robbing all of us.’” …”
 

RFK Jr. Plans 10,000 Job Cuts in Major Restructuring of Health Department​

Changes would reshape the nation’s health agencies and close regional offices​



“… Kennedy is set to announce Thursday the planned changes, which include axing 10,000 full-time employees spread across departments tasked with responding to disease outbreaks, approving new drugs, providing insurance for the poorest Americans and more. The worker cuts are in addition to roughly 10,000 employees who opted to leave the department since President Trump took office, through voluntary separation offers, according to the documents. …”
 




IMG_5939.jpeg
Light on details thus far but good news if accurate.



Will this guy get more due process than the 100 dudes with little to no criminal record (and 150 more with criminal charges) they already rendered to El Salvador?
 
altmin said:
US law enforcement wearing face coverings and dragging people off on made up charges. Do people not think this will be happening to citizens soon? We are entering a full Stazi era.
Click to expand...
Could very well start to happen. This is just setting a precedent. The first week he was in power Hitler didn’t begin the process of rounding up Jews and having them shot (concentration camps and gas chambers came later).
 
Technically, this is from last week. I'm just hearing about it today.

Apparently, there have been 20 recent "SWAT"ing incidents involving conservatives and conservative influencers.

‘I just fell to the ground’: Some of Trump and Musk’s most public supporters targeted in a wave of swatting incidents​


Loading…

www.cnn.com
 


Trump on ‘secret offer’ from King Charles: ‘Sounds good to me’​


thehill.com

Trump on ‘secret offer’ from King Charles: ‘Sounds good to me’

President Trump quipped Friday that a secret offer from King Charles III sounded good to him, following an invite from the king for a state visit to the United Kingdom. The president shared on Trut…
thehill.com

“President Trump quipped Friday that a secret offer from King Charles III sounded good to him, following an invite from the king for a state visit to the United Kingdom.

The president shared on Truth Social an article from The Sun, which reported that the king will make a “secret offer” to Trump during the visit. The reporting claims the offer could be to reduce tensions between the White House and Canada and could be to include the U.S. as an “associate member” of the Commonwealth.

… Canada is part of the Commonwealth of Nations, which it joined in 1931 to mark its historic link to the United Kingdom. Charles is the head of the commonwealth, which comprises 56 countries. …”
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top