Crowd at Al Sharpton’s NAN Conference Demands Reparations Pledge from Hickenlooper: ‘Yes or No!’

Former Colorado Gov. and 2020 Democrat presidential candidate John Hickenlooper said Friday that he will support legislation to establish a commission to study reparations for black Americans if elected president. Hickenlooper endorsed the measure while speaking at the four-day conference of the National Action Network, the civil rights organization founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton. The MSNBC host asked whether Hickenlooper would sign such a bill as president, and when he began to equivocate, the crowd became agitated, with one audience member crying out: “Yes or no!” Hickenlooper quickly went off script and shouted, “Yes, I’m gonna pass it!”

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), would “make recommendations concerning any form of apology and compensation to begin the long-delayed process of atonement for slavery.” Other 2020 presidential contenders such as Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) have voiced support for the measure. White House candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is a co-sponsor of the bill. On Wednesday, former Rep. Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (D-TX) came out in favor of it, declaring at the National Action Network conference that he would “absolutely I would sign that into law.”

Later, speaking with Equal Justice Initiative executive director Brian Stevenson, O’Rourke said the word “repair” is foundational to reparations. “Until all Americans understand that civil rights” also involves “the injustices that have been visited and continue to be visited on people, we will never get the change that we need to live up to the promise of this country. So absolutely I would sign that into law,” the Texas Democrat said. Julian Castro, who is the most supportive candidate of reparations, said Wednesday that he believes the U.S. “will never truly heal until we address the original sin of slavery.” “If, under our Constitution, we compensate people if we take their property, why wouldn’t we compensate people who were considered property and sanctioned by the state?” he asked National Action Network conference attendees.

In a recent statement to Reuters, Warren said she supports government reparations to African-Americans who were impacted economically by slavery. “We must confront the dark history of slavery and government-sanctioned discrimination in this country that has had many consequences including undermining the ability of Black families to build wealth in America for generations,” Warren said. “Black families have had a much steeper hill to climb – and we need systemic, structural changes to address that,” she added.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), the highest-ranking African-American member of Congress, recently dismissed the idea of reparations to reduce economic racial disparity, despite Democrat candidates for the presidency expressing support for the concept. In an interview with the Post and Courier, Clyburn panned “pure” reparations as “impossible to implement.” “[W]e can deal with the issue [of racial inequality] if we just admit, first of all, that it exists and then come up with some straightforward ways to deal with it,” the 78-year-old lawmaker said. Clyburn’s comments came after Harris said she is “serious about taking an approach that would change policies and structures and make real investments in black communities.” Clyburn, largely seen as a kingmaker of sorts in South Carolina, a key primary state, voiced satisfaction with Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) proposal to lessen racial inequality. In a CNN town wall, Sanders pledged to apply Clyburn’s “10-20-30” formula to solve poverty in different parts of the country. The policy directs ten percent of federal funds to counties containing at least 20 percent living below the poverty line in the last 30 years. “To me, that’s a much better way to deal with what reparations is supposed to be about,” Clyburn told the newspaper.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/05/crowd-at-al-sharptons-nan-conference-demands-reparations-pledge-from-hickenlooper-yes-or-no/

Exclusive: Sen. Thom Tillis to Investigate Allegations of Retaliation Against Green Berets

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told Breitbart News on Thursday that his office will investigate allegations that a two-star Army general has wrongly retaliated against Green Berets under his command at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (SWCS). Those allegations center on Army Maj. Gen. Kurt L. Sonntag, who unleashed a string of career-ending punishments last year, after one Green Beret instructor at SWCS wrote a 6,399-word anonymous email expressing concern over the alleged lowering of standards for candidates going through the Qualification course, where Green Berets are graduated. “That is something when I get back to my office [in North Carolina] we’ll be looking into it,” said Tillis, who is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee and represents North Carolina, where SWCS is located at Fort Bragg. “There are some standards that I think are completely appropriate, but when we start lowering the standards to address anything other than capabilities and readiness, then I’m willing to take the politically unpopular position to make sure that our folks are, well, they’re safe and lethal. I’ll make sure that my staff follow up on it.”

He said he has not seen the specific allegations, so he cannot yet say if he agrees with them, but he said they are “certainly” worth looking into. “Anytime you have somebody on the ground — we’re talking Green Berets — these are highly skilled, experienced people, and anytime, they have a vested interest in making sure that their peers are equally ready and capable, and so anytime those folks on the ground, their opinion is very important,” he said. Last month, Breitbart News detailed allegations in a report from more than half a dozen current and recent Green Beret instructors stating Sonntag had retaliated against them and others for speaking out privately and publicly against the lowering of standards.

After the email with their concerns leaked, Sonntag launched an investigation that included seizing computers and email records and narrowed down the suspects to instructors in one company at a training battalion at SWCS. He fired the company’s commander and gave him the worst possible rating on his evaluation report. He fired the company’s executive officer and the company’s first sergeant, as well. Additionally, he fired the battalion commander of the company. After finding the author, a senior non-commissioned officer and instructor within the company, he revoked his Special Forces tab. He went after two additional senior non-commissioned officers who were suspected of being involved. They requested a court-martial to prove their innocence after he issued both of them Article 15 punishments. He then withdrew those Article 15 punishments and punished them both with permanent General Order Memorandum of Reprimand (GOMOR) that triggered their discharge from the military entirely. Several sources told Breitbart News the Pentagon inspector general is investigating allegations of retaliation by Sonntag.

After Breitbart News’s report, at least six more current and recent Green Beret instructors have privately reached out to say they can confirm the allegations of either retaliation, lowered standards, or both. At least two have also reached out to say the allegations of lowered standards are not true. U.S. Army Special Operations Command, which oversees SWCS, has also denied that any standards have been lowered. Sergeant First Class Micah Robertson, one of the Green Beret instructors who received a permanent GOMOR and is facing separation from the Army, said in a brief statement to Breitbart News, “Myself, the other cadre that have been wronged by General Sonntag and our fellow brothers on the teams, are relieved and encouraged by the news that Sen. Tillis and his office have taken note of this issue and have decided to start an investigation. The officers and men that have been wrongfully pursued by Gen. Sonntag are ready and willing to bear witness to every wrongdoing Gen. Sonntag and his command have done.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/04/thom-tillis-investigate-allegations-retaliation-green-berets/

Exclusive: Pentagon Investigating Army Two-Star General for Retaliation Against Green Berets

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/03/11/exclusive-pentagon-investigating-army-two-star-general-for-retaliation-against-green-berets/

Anthony Weiner Designated as Level 1 Sex Offender

NEW YORK (AP) — Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) has been ordered to register as a sex offender as he nears the end of a 21-month prison sentence for having illicit online contact with a 15-year-old girl. A New York City judge on Friday designated Weiner a Level 1 sex offender, meaning he’s thought to have a low risk of reoffending. Weiner must register for a minimum of 20 years. He’s required to verify his address every year and visit a police station every three years to have a new picture taken. Weiner didn’t attend Friday’s court hearing. He’s in a halfway house after serving most of his sentence at a prison in Massachusetts.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/05/ex-democrat-rep-anthony-weiner-designated-as-sex-offender/

Chuck Todd Admits Media 'Playing Two Levels of Telephone' With Mueller Sources

The liberal media had their hopes raised of seeing President Trump jailed by the recent dubious reports by The New York Times and The Washington Post claiming that members of the Special Counsel felt Attorney General Barr mischaracterized their findings. Few in the liberal media would dare to admit the questionable nature of the sourcing of their reporting, but that’s what MSNBC host Chuck Todd did during Thursday’s MTP Daily.

To his credit, Todd began his program by pointing out their use of sources that refused to go on the record: This is how the evidence against Mr. Trump was characterized in all of these reports, which, by the way, are all based on anonymous sources. To The Times it was “more damaging for the President than Mr. Barr explained.” To the Post, it was “alarming and significant.” And to us here at NBC News, it was “compelling.” “But, folks, we preached caution when Barr told us what Mueller’s evidence really meant. So, we're going to preach caution in this case as well,’ he added.

One of his guests for the evening was Rosalind Helderman, one of the authors of The Washington Post report. Todd’s first question to her regarded their use of anonymous sources: How nervous are you that we're basing all of this on anonymous – or people that don't want to go on the record? You know who they are. But we're in this situation in the same way that Barr put us in there in the first place where we're all flying a little blind here. Helderman’s answer didn’t instill the greatest confidence in their reporting. She said they trusted they “accurately describing the attitudes of some members of the Mueller team,” but they didn’t have “confidence about exactly what's in that report and how damning or not damning it is, because we haven't seen it a that's just a weird place to be.” Todd then asked NBC intelligence and national security reporter Ken Dilanian about dealing with his sources. “And it's even more dramatic than just they won't go on the record, we're getting this secondhand,” He shockingly admitted. “We're not getting this directly from people who worked for Robert Mueller. We’re getting this from people who spoke to those people.” A few minutes later, the MSNBC host even conceded that Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani made a “credible” in noting how, “if there was a significant difference, Mueller would have corrected it as he did with the false BuzzFeed report.

“The problem that Democrats have of pushing against that statement….is that it is all anonymous people,” Todd lamented. “All of us are admitting – Our organization, yours, the Post. It is people who are talking to people who’ve talked to reporters. Right? We're playing two levels of telephone.” It’s highly disturbing that they would sprint to use secondary tertiary sources to report on something so consequential. Oh, how far the media had fallen.

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2019/04/05/chuck-todd-admits-media-playing-two-levels-telephone-mueller