The Blaze

Liberal Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson blamed “right-wing extremism” for the migrant crisis plaguing the city on Tuesday.

Johnson was announcing new support for migrants when he went on a tirade blaming the right for the crisis after being asked if he would support a limit on the number of migrants being sent to Chicago from other states and cities.

“It has to be better coordination. What we have seen is a raggedy form instituted by right-wing extremism,” said Johnson.

“Everyone knows that the right-wing extremism in this country has targetted Democratically-ran cities and quite frankly, they’ve been very intentional about going after Democratically-ran cities that are led by people of color,” he added.

The mayor said that 17 churches were coordinating to provide shelter and other services for the thousands of migrants who have arrived in the city. He calls it the Unity Initiative and claims that it will come at no cost to the taxpayer.

The initiative will be a temporary stopgap measure as the city continues building a large tent camp for asylum seekers in the neighborhood of Brighton Park. That effort has also been criticized over accusations that the site has been contaminated by heavy metals.

Johnson said that Republicans were purposely sending migrants without coordinating with city officials in order to create chaos.

“This is the same political party that did not want to accept that President Obama was actually an American,” he continued. “It’s the same Republican right-wing extremism that stormed the Capitol. It’s the same right-wing extremism that refuses to accept the results of the Civil War. It’s raggedy. It’s disrespectful it’s mean-spirited. It’s an unclean spirit, quite frankly.”

Chicago’s Democrat leaders have had to face the anger from some of the residents who are angry at migrants being provided services that they say should go to legal residents.

Johnson went on to quote the singer Beyonce after accusing Republicans of racism.

Here’s a video of the migrant plan:

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Officials at a Texas school district said they removed a woman who had been tasked with helping decide sex curriculum after it was discovered that she had been previously convicted of prostitution.

“We had no idea what was going on in her personal life. She was always very friendly and personable,” said School Board trustee Kayla Lain of the Godley Independent School District.

An investigation by KDFW-TV also found that Ketcherside was currently advertising herself as an escort.

A spokesperson for the district said the family of Ashley Ketcherside entered into the school district this year, and she was selected as part of the Long Range Facility Planning Committee.

She also volunteered for the Family and Community Engagement Committee, Parent Teacher Organization, and Godley Athletic Booster Club as well as leading a local cheerleading group.

School Health Advisory Councils are required by Texas law but the incident with Ketcherside is raising questions about how people are selected to participate.

“I would not want children to be subject to those type of people,” said Lain to KDFW.

Lain said that she was made aware of Ketcherside’s prostitution conviction by a nonprofit group called Families Engaged for Effective Education.

“I don’t see any community wanting that to be the standard for their school district,” said Mary Lowe of the group. “I believe that parents need to know.”

She explained that parents became suspicious of Ketcherside when she claimed to own multiple businesses but did not provide any information about those businesses. When they investigated the matter, they discovered her past convictions.

Records show that Ketcherside, who was known under her maiden name of Ashley Villalobos at the time, was convicted of prostitution in 2012 and 2016.

The district says it has informed Ketcherside that she is not able to serve on any district committees or volunteer activities.

Critics want the background check standards to be revised in order to prevent any similar situation in the future.

“We would think that typically if you ran a background check that those arrests would show up, and they don’t — they’re misdemeanors in the State of Texas,” said Lowe. “I think this is something that the state needs to look at in regards to how they’re screening people that participate in schools.”

Escort sites are legal in Texas as long as payment isn’t exchanged for sex.

Ketcherside did not respond to requests from KDFW to comment on the story.

Godley is a city of about 1,858 people in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

Here’s a local news report about the incident:

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Model Gigi Hadid issued an apology on social media after being slammed with a wave of backlash over misleading accusations she made against Israel mistreating Palestinian children.

Hadid posted the bizarre claims from a video to her nearly 80 million followers on Instagram.

“Israel is the only country in the world that keeps CHILDREN AS PRISONERS OF WAR,” the story read.

“ABDCUTION, RAPE, HUMILIATION, TORTURE, MURDER, OF PALESTINIANS YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS BEFORE Oct. 7, 2023,” it continued.

The post has since been deleted.

Critics pointed out that the Palestinian used in the story was Ahmed Manasra, a boy who was caught on video along with his cousin stabbing Israelis in 2015 when he was 12 years old. His cousin was shot and killed by police while Manasra was arrested and later convicted of attempted murder.

Hadid posted a lengthy apology Tuesday to the same Instagram account.

“As someone of Palestinian descent, the endless heartbreaking news and imagery coming out of Gaza has been painful and often overwhelming. It is important to me to share real stories about the hardships that Palestinians have endured and continue to endure, but this weekend I shared something that I did not fact-check or deeply think about prior to reposting,” she wrote.

“I wanted to show the ways in which international law is being undermined by the Israeli government,” she continued. “In this case, I was trying to highlight how Palestinian children who are arrested by the IDF are often not given the same rights as an Israeli child accused of the same crime would. Unfortunately, I used the wrong example to make that point and I regret that.”

She went on to criticize Israel but admitted she had made a mistake by posting misinformation.

“I do not stand behind the spreading of misinformation, and have always condemned using the Free Palestine movement as justification for anti-Semitism,” Hadid wrote.

The 28-year-old had previously made headlines in 2016 when she mocked then first lady Melania Trump with a belittling impression of her at an awards ceremony.

Here’s more about the model’s bizarre post:

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A mother was horrified to watch as an armed robber drove off with her car with her baby still inside on Thanksgiving day, according to police in Sacramento, California.

The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office released a photograph of the alleged armed robbery suspect pointing his gun at the victim from an ATM machine near Stockton Boulevard and Lindale Avenue at about 6 a.m. Thursday.

Deputies said the car was found abandoned minutes later with the baby still inside near Florin Road and Fawn Way. The child was unharmed and reunited with the mother, according to police.

The suspect was able to escape despite police setting up a perimeter around the scene of the crime.

Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Amar Gandhi said the department is dedicating resources to this case equivalent to “just short of murder” in order to catch the suspect.

“If this shocks your conscience a little bit, and you know who this person is, come forward, this is not your standard run of the mill victimless robbery, this is a mother who had her kid in the car,” Gandhi added.

Police said that no arrests were made in the case and that they are seeking help from the public to identify the suspect. They described the suspect as either a white or Hispanic male wearing a dark-colored, hooded jacket during the incident.

“As fathers, especially, as brothers, husbands, everything else, that see this type of thing happening, we want to help her and help that child any way we can,” Gandhi continued.

He also defended the mother from people on social media blaming the woman for leaving her baby in a running car while she went to an ATM.

There’s a $1,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of the suspect.

Here’s a local news report about the incident:

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“The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg suggested on Monday’s program that condemning Hamas’ rape and sexual assault of Israeli women could “exacerbate” the terror group’s fury amid the Israel-Hamas war.

What are the details?

Fellow co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin kicked things off by sharing that she’s “devastated” over women’s groups’ silence in the face of Hamas’ rape and sexual assault of Israeli women.

“I am still devastated — we’re two months since this war’s been underway — by the silence from women’s groups in this country about rape being used as an act of war in this attack,” Griffin said before citing a recent video from tech icon Sheryl Sandberg, who also wrote a CNN op-ed on the subject saying the “silence on these war crimes is deafening.”

Griffin continued, noting that rape “violates every rule of warfare. It is the height of immorality, and … the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment has been silent, the U.N. Committee on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women has been silent, and the international MeToo movement has been silent.”

Goldberg jumped right in, practically cutting off Griffin with her own two cents: “Perhaps the reason they’ve been silent is for the same reason that you just described … they don’t wanna exacerbate.”

Goldberg didn’t say what she believes might be exacerbated by speaking out against Hamas’ rape and sexual assault of Israeli women, but one would logically conclude it’s the terror group’s fury and hostilities.

“Listen, I know that this is really hard for people to sit still with,” Goldberg added. “So, right now, we’re glad people are coming out, and that’s what we’re gonna keep talking about because we want to encourage — you know, the bottom line truly is this: You don’t have a choice, you have to end this because at some point it’s gonna dawn on everybody there that no one’s leaving. No one’s leaving the land. So the question has to become, ‘How do we live together on this land?’ That is all that people should be thinking about so that this does not continue to happen.”

Anything else?

Fox News noted that Griffin also called out far-left Democrats from “The Squad” for claiming Israel was responsible for an explosion at a hospital in Gaza: “I want to say shame on Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar because they played a role in the fact that this agreement, with the Arab nations that he [President Biden] was going to meet with fell apart. We now know that this hospital attack that took place, Biden said he is very confident it was not the Israelis that did it. It was likely Islamic Jihad and that’s because of U.S. Department of Defense intelligence and footage analyzed.”

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Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy exposed on Monday the hole in the Biden administration’s narrative that the economy is doing great because of President Joe Biden.

The number-one issue Americans are concerned about, polls show, is the economy. Those same polls have shown that the “Bidenomics” message — the Biden administration’s attempt to gaslight Americans about the state of the economy — completely flopped with voters. Whatever Biden is trying to sell, most Americans aren’t buying.

At the White House press briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed “the data” shows the economy is “improving” and that “households remain in a strong financial position.” And for any economic woes that may exist, she blamed Trump for those.

— (@)

After Jean-Pierre dodged his initial questions and regurgitated her trite narative, Doocy finally had enough and confronted her with the facts.

“Almost three years in office, inflation is up over 17% since President Biden came here. And you’re saying that’s still Trump’s fault?” Doocy asked.

Jean-Pierre claimed in response that “inflation is moderating because of the actions that this president has taken,” forcing Doocy to highlight the significance of her admission.

“Doesn’t that just mean that prices are going up slower?” he observed. “They’re still high.”

Facts on the table, Jean-Pierre tried to deny reality. She claimed “prices are going down,” pointing to the cost of turkey and gas. She attributed those purported deceases to “the actions that this president has taken.”

Unfortunately, Jean-Pierre did not specify a single action that Biden has taken to drive down prices as she claimed. Additionally, the price of turkey has decreased compared to last year, but according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, a “decrease in avian influenza cases and the resulting recovery in the turkey flock” are responsible for the decease — not anything Biden has done.

Meanwhile, inflation has improved from its alarming highs last year, but it’s still above the Federal Reserve’s targeted rate of 2%.

That means, as Doocy pointed out, prices are not going down as Jean-Pierre claimed; they are simply going up slower today compared to last year.

11/27/23: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and John Kirby

www.youtube.com

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Vapes were sold as a way to help those addicted to cigarettes quit.

However, all they actually did was get a generation of Americans hooked on electronic cigarettes — which aren’t healthy either.

Netflix’s “Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul” highlights the multibillion-dollar vape company that caused an epidemic and hence its own downfall.

“That was one of these Big Tech start-ups that was in the e-cigarette or vape business and that had a rocket ship of an ascension, and it turned out that, guess what, folks, news flash, inhaling smoke is not good for your lungs or your body and overall health,” Steve Kim of Jason Whitlock’s “Fearless” explains.

Kim notes that one of the most interesting things about Juul is “that it really used social media influence” in order to make the product go viral.

This is where it got dicey.

“They paid certain celebrities and influencers to go out there and market this. And it turned out, based on the social media craze, that it specifically seemed to target, unintentionally or intentionally, younger kids,” Kim says.

Before vapes there were cigarettes, which dealt with the same issue of marketing to children.

“I still remember the days of Joe Camel, another cartoon character, which [was] basically banned because the government stepped in,” Kim says, adding that it’s a little ironic that the government cares so much about the health of children when it comes to smoking — but not when it comes to permanently altering their bodies via “gender-affirming” care.

“Isn’t that a little bit strange? Isn’t there a bit of an inconsistency in a sense that we are telling people at certain points ‘my body, my choice,’ except when it comes to this or that?” Kim asks.

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Banks are refusing to provide loans to a local business based on the sheer state of San Francisco, the owner has claimed.

Owner Mark Sackett said that his event venue, which is also an antique shop, will be auctioned off because he can’t get a mortgage refinance.

The owner purchased the building for over $1.5 million in 2004, but with an existing $2.5 million mortgage, he will be forced to auction it off.

As many as 30 lenders have refused a mortgage refinance, the Washington Examiner reported, which means a massive loss is all but guaranteed.

“[Lenders] are not making commercial real estate loans in San Francisco due to the state of the city,” Sackett explained. “[City officials] don’t even return my calls,” he continued. “They care about bike lanes, nonprofits, safe injection sites. … They have just ignored small business … I’m just done with San Francisco and the bulls**t here. It’s out of control.”

Sackett explained his building has a broken window, which costs $4,000 to replace, while feces and needles are constantly spread near the storefront.

In addition to cleaning up human waste and drug paraphernalia, staff have had to use pepper spray in defense against attempted break-ins, while the owner has also been attacked by a person with a knife.

The business is also next to a drug sobering (detox) center, where people regularly smoke fentanyl outside, he told the San Francisco Chronicle.

“I’m just done with San Francisco and the bulls**t here,” Sackett said. “It’s out of control.”

A city official blamed COVID-19’s impact on businesses but didn’t shy away from mentioning the drug problems in the city.

“[The owner] and I share a lot of the same priorities, and I truly wish we could be making more progress sooner to turn things around in SoMa,” said Democrat Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents District 6 in San Francisco.

“This is a neighborhood that was disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, especially in terms of the number of shelter-in-place hotels here, and the myriad public safety challenges attributable to open-air drug markets and public drug use. I’m optimistic that the neighborhood is beginning to see some progress. But for too many businesses like Mark’s, we’re just not recovering fast enough,” he added.

Despite the issues facing the city, Sackett said, officials care more about coming after him than fixing problems. He claimed that the city has come after him for zoning laws, despite problems with sewage overflow that caused $85,000 in damage to his business.

Now, he said he’s battling to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“I can put a tent in front of someone’s front door and sleep … but the city comes after me for ADA compliance,” he complained.

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A group of conservative attorneys general have urged the Biden administration to reel back a new rule that would essentially bar many Christian families from being able to foster children and put the whole foster care system at risk.

Fox News Digital reported that Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, along with 18 other Republican lawmakers, signed and sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services, claiming that the proposed rule violates the Constitution and discriminates against those who hold to the Christian faith.

Not only would the new rule overtly discriminate against one’s religion, the attorneys general suggested that the proposed rule would also “harm children by limiting the number of available foster homes, harm families by risking kinship placements, and harm states by increasing costs and decreasing care options.”

“These injuries will be suffered while HHS fails to solve a problem that the proposed rule does not even prove exists in foster care,” says the letter, which was obtained by Fox News Digital.

The proposed rule, known as the Safe and Appropriate Foster Care Placement Requirements, suggests that any lack of “affirmation” could be considered a form of child abuse. The rule would appear to reinterpret the Social Security Act in such a way that would allow a child to call foul on a foster family who does not affirm what the child believes about himself, according to the Daily Signal.

The rule indicates steps agencies must abide by to meet the requirement for “LGBTQI+ children,” defined as children who “identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, as well as children who are non-binary, or have non-conforming gender identity or expression.”

Before agencies would be allowed to provide a home for a child, the foster parents would have to prove that they maintain “an environment free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse based on the child’s LGBTQI+ status.” The parents would also have to undergo training “to be prepared with the appropriate knowledge and skills to provide for the needs of the child related to the child’s self-identified sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.”

And lastly, the family would have to “facilitate the child’s access to age-appropriate resources, services, and activities that support their health and well-being.”

The attorneys general who signed the letter said that “caring for children in need is a duty of the Christian faith,” noting that the foster care system would not be what it is unless there were Christian families involved to care for foster children.

The letter argues that the foster care system “depends on individuals and organizations of faith.”

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A bizarre scene unfolded at the Disneyland theme park in Burbank, California, when a man began stripping off his clothing and wandered around the It’s a Small World ride as other visitors looked on.

Video showed the visitors to the Happiest Place on Earth watching in bewilderment as the half-naked man wandered around the animatronic displays in his underwear. That video showed his clothing in a pile inside the attraction.

A later video showed that he stripped off all of his clothing before jumping into the water as a park employee confronted him right outside of the entrance to the ride.

“I am on Small World and there was a streaker, I cannot believe this happening,” read a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, by a user named Ashley Esqueda.

The videos on social media were collected and published by KTTV-TV:

The visitors expressed concern that he may break the animatronic displays and also worried that he was going to fall and hurt himself.

A final video showed officers of the Anaheim Police Department carrying the man away in the middle of the park.

Anaheim Police spokesperson Sgt. Jon McClintock said officers were called to the park at about 1:30 p.m. and arrested a 26-year-old man on suspicion of indecent exposure and for being under the influence of a controlled substance.

Police said he was taken to a hospital as a precaution. The man’s identity has not yet been released.

Disneyland officials told KTLA-TV that they immediately stopped the ride after they were informed about the man’s behavior. The ride was inspected and restarted at about 3 p.m.

Here’s the video from the bizarre incident:

Naked Man Jumps Into Disneyland Ride

www.youtube.com

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