Jim Banks: U.S. Must Stop Giving Taxpayer-Funded Unemployment Benefits to ‘Antifa Thugs’
Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) says American taxpayers should not be paying to provide federal unemployment benefits to “Antifa thugs” and those associated with Black Lives Matter (BLM) who have started riots across the United States.
Last week, Breitbart News exclusively reported Banks’ newly filed legislation, the Support Peaceful Protest Act, which would make convicted rioters ineligible for federal unemployment benefits and force rioters to pay police officers for the law enforcement they provide during the riots.
Banks explained his plan in an exclusive interview with SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Saturday, saying such a policy would have an immediate impact in terms of ending the months-long rioting.
“It’s occurred to me over the last few weeks that it’s not just George Soros and left-wing groups like BLM that are funding many of these riots and mob protests that are turning violent in the streets of America’s cities, but if you think about it, you and I are also funding it in a way,” Banks said:
These protestors, the Antifa thugs that are showing up and causing so much destruction are also getting $600 a week through unemployment benefits through the CARES Act and the federal benefits that have come about through the coronavirus aid. I want to put a stop to it. If they’re unemployed and they show up on a daily basis, and they’re traveling all over America — especially many of them coming to Washington, DC — the last thing they deserve is our tax dollars going into their pockets to pay the costs for these professional protestors and rioters and causing this kind of ruin and destruction in places like Washington. So that’s one big component of my bill. [Emphasis added]
There are videos online of protestors holding up traffic jams … I think these protestors should have to pay the cost of the law enforcement that have to come out and deal with situations like these. [Emphasis added]
“Why should hardworking taxpayers in my district have to pay whenever these thugs shut down the streets in places like Washington,” Banks said. “They should be on the hook to pay for it too.”
As Banks filed the legislation, a number of attendees from President Trump’s Republican National Convention (RNC) were accosted by Antifa and BLM protesters outside the White House.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and State Rep. Vernon Jones (D-GA) were both accosted, along with others. Breitbart News was on the ground when the instances occurred.
Over the weekend, a Trump supporter was shot and killed in Portland, Oregon, where riots have been ongoing for more than three months.
“Antifa is getting left-wing funding from some source … they’re not just getting that they’re also getting additional unemployment benefits,” Banks said. “So if we took away those sources of federal tax dollars that are going in their pocket, I think it would put a lot of these guys in a situation where they would think twice about their violent activities in places like Washington, DC.”
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/08/30/exclusive-jim-banks-stop-unemployment-benefits-to-antifa-thugs/
‘The new Babylon Bee?’ CNN commentator mocked after downplaying riots in Kenosha, Portland as ‘protests’ with a FIERY cover photo
CNN’s Chris Cillizza has become the butt of the joke online after he said that designating unrest in Kenosha and Portland as “riots” is a ploy by Trump. The photo in the article seems to be at odds with the spin, though.
CNN’s political commentator Chris Cillizza has faced a torrent of mockery from conservatives, who accused him of whitewashing violence festering in Kenosha, Wisconsin and Portland, Oregon after he opined that referring to the looting, vandalism and arson in both cities as rioting is unjustified and a “desperate” political ploy by US President Donald Trump.
“To hear Trump and his allies tell it, the situations unfolding in Portland, Oregon, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, in response to several high-profile shootings by the police of Black men is rioting, plain and simple,” Cillizza wrote in the piece titled ‘'Protests' or 'riots?' It makes a BIG difference.’
Trump's efforts to label what is happening in major cities as "riots" speaks at least somewhat to his desperation, politically speaking, at the moment.
The choice of the cover photo, which shows two riot police standing in front of the scorched carcass of a burning building, did not escape the netizens’ attention, triggering a meme-fest.
Critics have also pointed out that it was Portland police, not Trump, who have declared a riot multiple times in some 100 days since the violence first broke out there.
“Serious question: do you have a ballpark idea of how many riots Portland has declared in the last month? And do you think the city is wrong to call them riots?” a commentator asked.
It’s not the first time CNN’s coverage of the protests raises eyebrows. Earlier this week, the cable news channel chose to describe violence in Kenosha as “mostly peaceful protests” while showing viewers exactly the opposite, and invoking a torrent of ridicule upon itself.
https://www.rt.com/usa/499480-cnn-riots-protests-mockery/