Rep. Louie Gohmert's pay to be docked by $5,000 for entering House floor without security screening

The congressman had appealed the fine but the House Ethics Committee did not agree to the appeal.

Rep. Louie Gohmert will have $5,000 deducted from his pay because the House Ethics Committee has not agreed to the Texas Republican's appeal of a fine for failing to engage in a security screening prior to entering the House floor.

In his appeal of the fine imposed by the House sergeant-at arms Gohmert said that he had gone through the security screening process prior to entering the chamber, but then departed and reentered the chamber after going to use the bathroom beside the Speaker's Lobby.

"During the weeks that the metal detectors have been in place, I have entered the House floor previously after being screened through the metal detector, then later gone to the Members' restroom immediately beside the Speaker's Lobby many times. I have never before been wanded on coming from the restroom to the House floor. There was no metal detector at either end of the Speaker's Lobby," Gohmert wrote. Later in his appeal Gohmert noted that "a metal detector has now been placed at both ends of the Speaker's Lobby."

Gohmert said that he "mentioned to the officers on the day in question that I was going to the restroom right by the Speaker's Lobby, and they watched me go in and within probably less than three minutes, watched me return. The officer said I needed to be wanded but since I had already been through the metal detector thoroughly and having never before been required to be wanded after already having entered the Floor properly, I returned to the House Floor to engage in my turn to debate the bill under consideration. Having received no notice whatsoever of a new need to be … wanded on returning from the restroom beside the House Floor after proper clearance through the metal detector protocol, I was not screened yet again with the wand."

The Hill noted that rules adopted by House Democrats in February indicate that lawmakers should be slapped with a $5,000 fine for a first failure to go through security screening and a $10,000 fine of a second infraction. The money will be removed from the legislators' paychecks, though members can appeal the fine to the House Ethics Committee.

A press release that included a statement from Gohmert said that the House Ethics Committee's vote on his appeal had been evenly split 5-5 along party lines.

"Multiple witnesses watched Speaker Pelosi avoid metal detectors and avoid being wanded when she entered the House Floor that same day that I DID go through the metal detector to enter the House floor but was not wanded coming out of the restroom. If this is not corrected in a courtroom, then House members of both parties will be subject to the tyranny of a partisan, zealot Speaker for the rest of Congress' existence," Gohmert said in a statement.

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/rep-louie-gohmerts-pay-be-docked-5000-entering-house-floor-without-security

GOP Rep. Steube: ‘Absurd’ to Require Vax Passport for Citizens While Migrants Aren’t Tested

On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Evening Edit,” Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) criticized the idea of a vaccine passport by stating, “we’re going to force the citizens of our country to be able to show proof of being vaccinated in order to travel, yet we’re going to allow illegal immigrants to come across our border in droves without even being tested for COVID.”

Steube said, “I hope that there [are] more governors out in the country that are going to stand against this type of action from our national government mandating that individuals have to show some type of proof of getting the vaccine to travel in our country. It’s absolutely absurd when we look at what’s happening on our border right now. We have people coming across the border, 500 kids a day, who we know have COVID, 10% of them, and they’re not even being tested. And they’re being shipped out all across our country to be in different places because there [are] not enough places on the border to house them. So, we’re going to force the citizens of our country to be able to show proof of being vaccinated in order to travel, yet we’re going to allow illegal immigrants to come across our border in droves without even being tested for COVID.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/03/30/gop-rep-steube-absurd-to-require-vax-passport-for-citizens-while-migrants-arent-tested/

State Department to Spend $2.5M to Create Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The State Department on Tuesday notified Congress it intends to spend $2.5 million to establish the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion within the Office of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, according to State Department documents.

The documents, obtained by Breitbart News, showed the State Department intends to create the new office to support its newly established position of Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer (CDEIO) and to reprogram $2.5 million from elsewhere in the department’s budget to fund it.

The new office “will provide a framework that transcends historical limitations and promotes boundless possibilities for all individuals regardless of status,” the documents said.

“[W]e must continuously strive for a workforce that reflects our diverse nation and promotes an environment that values individual respect and dignity. This office will enhance the Department’s ability to conduct adequate monitoring and oversight of DE&I programs,” they added.

The new office, to be established by October 1, will have nine U.S. direct-hire full-time employees, including the chief officer, the documents said. The chief officer will have a rank equivalent to an assistant secretary and will report directly to the secretary.

The purpose of the new office will be to “serve as the focal point for the Department’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) efforts and will be responsible for proposing and coordinating the implementation of policies and programs that support DE&I at the Department.”

The documents said that in the past year, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) initiatives have “increased dramatically, along with requests for targeted DE&I resources by bureaus and missions.”

One of the new office’s functions will be to conduct the coordination and collection of analysis of personnel information “aggregated by gender, race, ethnicity, disability, rank, and placement to support long-term planning,” according to the documents

The documents said the State Department’s soon-to-be-released 2021 Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan would provide a blueprint for a two-year strategy with metrics and milestones to track the “shift of the Department’s culture towards increased inclusivity for all employees.”

Breitbart News reached out to the State Department for comment but did not receive one by publication.

The establishment of the office follows similar efforts at the Pentagon. In February, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin appointed Bishop Garrison as his senior adviser for “human capital, diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

The Biden Administration’s efforts on diversity and inclusion hit an embarrassing snag last week, after U.S. Special Operations Command announced it had hired its first chief of diversity and inclusion, Richard Torres-Estrada.

Immediately after his hire was announced, Torres-Estrada’s highly-partisan and misleading social media posts surfaced, and days later he was put under investigation and re-assigned from the job pending the investigation’s results.

Torres-Estrada had posted a meme comparing former President Donald Trump to a doctored photo of Adolf Hitler. Facebook labeled his post “Partly False.” He had also posted a meme in February criticizing Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), calling his facial hair “weird.”

The Pentagon said Monday that Austin was aware of the investigation and supported SOCOM’s decision to look into the matter.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/03/30/state-department-to-spend-2-5m-to-create-office-of-diversity-equity-and-inclusion/

US Department of Education Sued by 33 Students Over LGBTQ Discrimination at Religious Colleges

A civil rights law under the Education Amendment of 1972, Title IX, promises equal access to education for all students and protects them from discrimination based on sex. A subsection under this law has come under recent scrutiny over its exemption of educational institutions listed under religious organizations.

Dozens of former and current students from various institutions filed a class-action lawsuit against the US Department of Education on Monday over allegations that the religious exemption clause is unconstitutional because it violates the due process, as well as equal protection rights of LGBTQ students at religious colleges and universities.

The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court in Oregon on behalf of former and current students by the Religious Exemption Accountability Project (REAP), an organization that advocates for LGBTQ students at federally-funded religious colleges and universities.

With the goal of removing Title IX’s religious exemption clause, the lawsuit demands the government prevent such institutions from using tax-payer funds to harm disadvantaged people, NBC News reported.

One of the plaintiffs, Daniel Powell, reports that she was expelled from Grace University and ordered to repay thousands of dollars in institutional scholarship funds after she came out as pansexual, which is prohibited by the school’s honor code.

A former student of Liberty University, Lucas Wilson, alleges in the lawsuit that he received conversion therapy while he was an undergraduate from 2008 to 2012, in addition to attending classes that taught “the evils of the homosexual lifestyle.”

In total, 33 former and current students are alleging in the suit that they faced discrimination at 25 federally-funded Christian colleges and universities across 18 different US states, “where discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is codified in campus policies and openly practiced.”

Paul Southwick, who serves as the director of REAP, argues that the religious exemption “favors certain fundamentalist religious organizations, and gives them preferential treatment above all other educational institutions.”

Additionally, in the lawsuit, Southwick calls on the examination of the case Bob Jones University v United States, where a district court decision prohibited the Internal Revenue Service from giving tax-exempt status to private schools engaging in racial discrimination under held religious beliefs. The ruling withstands a Supreme Court held decision that limitations on religious liberty can be justified by an “overriding governmental interest,”such as eradicating racial discriminaton.

Asked about the development, a spokesperson for the US Department of Education told Forbes in a statement that, as part of the Biden administration, it is “fully committed to equal education access for all students.” Earlier this month, Biden informed the American public that he intends to guarantee an educational environment free from discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

https://sputniknews.com/us/202103311082494824-us-department-of-education-sued-by-33-students-over-lgbtq-discrimination-at-religious-colleges/

Feds Begin Hiring $144,000-Per-Year Babysitters for 'Urgent' Job Watching Kids Illegally Sent Over U.S. Border

Welcome to Joe Biden’s America, where teachers are back to in-person instruction… not for your kids, but for migrant teens who snuck over the border illegally and where the government is now attempting to hurriedly find $144,000-a-year babysitters to watch them as well. All on your dime.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management put out the call on March 25 for heads of departments and supervisors to find current and former federal employees to be reassigned temporarily to watch kids at illegal-alien holding facilities in Dallas, San Diego, San Antonio, and Ft. Bliss.

The feds appear to be trying to keep this job announcement on the low-pro, as it’s going out only to “heads of departments and agencies” on a link that is “not searchable on USAJOBS” webpage.

After Joe Biden announced his border plan to stop building the wall, open the border for illegal alien kids, and promised no deportations, Central Americans and the drug cartels answered the call and sent thousands of people to overwhelm the U.S. immigration system.

Mission accomplished.

There are so many unaccompanied minors that the DHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement put out the call for GS-9 to GS-15-level current and former federal employees who make anywhere from $46,083 to $143,598 per year to watch the kids whose own parents left them to the whims of human traffickers.

These are expensive babysitters.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2021/03/30/exclusive-feds-begin-hiring-144000-per-year-babysitters-for-urgent-job-watching-kids-illegally-sent-over-u-s-border-n1436156

fucking digits today off the chart

Italian Police Arrest Three Men Over Staged Kidnapping by Jihadists That Turned Real - Reports

What was supposed to be a lucrative business deal disguised as a kidnapping ended up with two men being taken hostage for three years by militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham*. Ironically, one of the terrorists' hostages, Italian businessman Alessandro Sandrini, was reportedly accused of fraud and faking a crime.

Police in Italy have arrested three men for orchestrating the abduction of two Italians who were held captive in Syria for three years, Sputnik Italy reported on Tuesday.

Back in 2016, the three apprehended - two Albanians residing in the northern province of Brescia, Frrokaj Fredi, 43, and Mitraj Olsi, 41, and an Italian citizen, Alberto Zanini, 54, - had persuaded local businessmen Alessandro Sandrini and Sergio Zanotti to fly to Turkey as a quid pro quo.

Sandrini was allegedly allured by the offer of faking his kidnapping and, as a result, earning ransom money while in Turkey, while Zanotti was reportedly seduced by a business deal involving Iraqi currency.

After arriving in Turkey, both businessmen were allegedly "sold" to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham - militants that are now operating largely in Syria's province of Idlib. The three criminals reportedly had accomplices in Turkey who carried out the abduction and handed the two Italians over to terrorists.

Sandrini was taken hostage in October 2016 and was freed in May of 2019.

Zanotti departed Italy in April 2016 and was incarcerated until April 2019, returning back home through diplomatic action.

According to local media reports, Sandrini is now being charged with fraud and staging a crime as part of the same investigation that led to the arrests. There is no information if charges are also being pressed against the other hostage.

According to Italian media, a third businessman was approached about heading to Turkey as well, but backed out at the last minute, refusing to board his plane.

https://sputniknews.com/europe/202103311082494939-italian-police-arrest-three-men-over-staged-kidnapping-by-jihadists-that-turned-real/

>>13334508

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