Watch Live: Biden To Announce Executive Order Amnesty Plan
“The American Journal” is live every weekday from 8-11 am CST.
As Americans like Rachel Morin are being killed by the illegal alien crime wave, Biden decided to roll out a mass amnesty program.
This program would grant citizenship to an entire class of illegal aliens and allow them to vote.
Heck no!!https://t.co/mRgv5IkUsP pic.twitter.com/OszDoasbIB— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 18, 2024
Follow The American Journal on Telegram:
400,000 More Canadians Live in Poverty Now Compared to 2020: Gov’t Report
OTTAWA, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) –– Decades of progress in lowering the poverty rate in Canada has been wiped out in the last few years under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, one of his own federal departments has reported.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, a recently released report dated December 11, 2023 by the Department of Social Development “estimates” that “9.9 percent of Canadians, some four million people, live in poverty compared to 6.4 percent in 2020, the equivalent of ‘approximately 400,000 more Canadians,’” and that “[f]uture increases in the rate of poverty could stall progress towards reaching the 2030 poverty reduction target of a 50 percent reduction in poverty versus 2015 levels.”
The report observed that high inflation in Canada combined with “lagging household incomes” has led to “affordability pressures among many households.”
While the uptick in the poverty rate is certainly concerning for many Canadians, it may come as little surprise as this is not the first time one of Trudeau’s own departments has warned of such a trend.
In January, the National Advisory Council on Poverty (NACP) observed to Parliament that fast-rising food costs have led to many people feeling a sense of “hopelessness and desperation.”
“Persons with lived expertise of poverty and service providers alike told us things seem worse now than they were before and during the first years of the pandemic,” read the NACP report.
“We heard that people are worried about the rising cost of living and inflation,” it continued, adding, “More people are in crisis and these crises are more visible in our communities.”
The damning figures comes as critics, including the nation’s leading taxpayer watchdog, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, have warned that the Trudeau government’s deficit spending and oft-increasing tax regime has been putting undue strain on the pocketbooks of its citizens.
Previously speaking to LifeSiteNews, CTF federal director Franco Terrazzano urged the Trudeau government to cut spending, balance the budget and “completely scrap” the “carbon tax.”
“More debt means more money wasted on interest charges and less room to cut taxes,” Terrazzano stated, warning that “[i]n a handful of years, every penny collected from the GST (Goods and Service Tax) will go toward paying interest on the debt.”
Under Trudeau, Canadians have seen their overall tax rate go up thanks to the punitive carbon tax that affects all goods and services in the nation.
Even the Bank of Canada, the nation’s central bank, has taken issue with Trudeau government policy, acknowledging last year that some of its federal “climate change” programs, which have been deemed “extreme” by provincial leaders, are helping to fuel inflation.
Atlanta Speed Cameras Illegally Collected up to $500K in Fines From Unfairly Ticketed Drivers
Speeding cameras in Atlanta have improperly fined drivers in the city, with the total amount of improper citations ranging from $350,000 to $500,000.
One investigation by Fox 5’s I-Team revealed that automatic traffic cameras have been improperly ticketing drivers for allegedly speeding in a 25-mile-per-hour school zone during times when the school zone’s lights were not flashing. Without the orange lights, drivers assumed the speed limit was 35 miles per hour.
Atlanta Public Schools (APS) confirmed the discrepancy and announced that affected drivers would receive refunds. A spokesperson acknowledged that the school system had been aware of the issue since late November but did not explain why the cameras, which photograph license plates and issue tickets, were not adjusted or turned off.
The I-Team analyzed citation data obtained through a Georgia Open Records Act request, finding that over seven months, 4,460 citations were issued during times when the flashers were not operating, potentially confusing drivers. The total amount in fines improperly collected likely ranges from $350,000 to $500,000.
Atlanta’s traffic cameras notorious for improperly fining drivers
This is the third instance the I-Team has uncovered of school zone cameras issuing incorrect tickets in metro Atlanta, following similar issues in Jonesboro and Riverdale last school year. The latest investigation began after drivers reported receiving tickets despite not speeding.
(Related: Police department in Pennsylvania using drone tech to crack down on theft and other petty crimes.)
Ivan DeQuesada, a resident of east Atlanta, received a $75 citation for going 39 in a 25-mile-per-hour zone at 4:52 p.m. on a Friday in March.
“I remembered what I was doing and realized the school zone light wasn’t on,” DeQuesada said. He discovered that several neighbors had received similar unexpected tickets.
James Murphy, another neighbor, received two tickets, and his wife received another. “They shouldn’t be making money from cars driving when there’s no light blinking,” Murphy said. “It feels like a money grab rather than a safety measure.”
According to an APS schedule, the school zone lights outside Drew Charter School at the very eastern edge of Atlanta should activate from 7:15 to 8:30 a.m. and from 3:45 to 5 p.m. However, the lights have been turning off around 8:15 a.m. and 4:45 p.m., creating two 15-minute windows where drivers were wrongly ticketed.
Murphy challenged his tickets in Atlanta Municipal Court, where other drivers shared similar experiences. “The sign wasn’t flashing,” said Takeviuas Kelly of Ellenwood. Chief Judge Christopher T. Portis dismissed their citations.
The accountability for this issue is unclear. A private camera company, Verra Mobility, contracts with APS. The school zone speed safety program is run by APS alongside the Atlanta government, with the flashing lights managed by Atlanta’s Department of Transportation (Atlanta DOT) under the purview of the Georgia Department of Transportation (Georgia DOT).
In response to questions, APS stated that they, along with Atlanta DOT and Verra Mobility, worked to correct the discrepancy. APS began requesting the correction in late November. Atlanta DOT sought authorization to adjust the flasher times from Georgia DOT on November 26, but approval came on April 29, with adjustments made by May 2.
APS and Verra Mobility did not explain why the cameras continued issuing tickets during the five months before the flasher times were corrected. APS stated that the program aims to ensure the safety of students and improve driver behavior in school zones, though no one from APS was available for an on-camera interview.
APS indicated that around 2,000 citations will be refunded, although it is unclear why this number is less than half of the 4,460 tickets issued. Some refunds have already been processed, and the exact number of drivers who successfully contested their tickets in court is unknown.
GOP State Rep. Charles Cannon plans to reintroduce a bill to ban automated school zone speed cameras, citing concerns over whether they prioritize safety or revenue. He asked: “I think that’s the underlying question: Are these cameras really for safety or are they for revenue?”
With the I-Team uncovering a third instance of unfair fines, Cannon commented, “I think in this case, it kind of leans more towards … it’s about revenue.”
Watch this video explaining how speed cameras are a road safety scam promoted by the United Nations.
Donald Trump’s Campaign is Attracting Increasing Numbers of Young Voters, Threatening to End Democratic Dominance Over This Demographic
A new poll has found that former President Donald Trump could end up winning the youth vote in the upcoming presidential election.
Former President George H.W. Bush was the last Republican to win the youth vote during a presidential election back in 1988. But a new New York Times/Siena poll believes Trump is very close to ending the 36-year reign of Democrat over this demographic.
The poll among prospective voters between the ages of 18 and 29 found Trump trailing Joe Biden by only two points at 47 percent to Biden’s 45 percent. Another poll conducted by the Quinnipiac Polling Institute found Trump leading with registered voters in the 18 to 34 age group by one point.
In 2020, exit polling showed that Biden won the 18 to 29-year-old vote by 24 percentage points. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won this same demographic by 19 points in 2016.
Trump offering policies that cater to preferences of younger American voters
Analysts are suggesting that Trump is offering policies that cater to the preferences of younger voters even if those proposals don’t map neatly to the conservative consensus within the Republican Party. Axios journalist Neal Rothschild is suggesting three key policy proposals that have made Trump stand out among his colleagues in the GOP: TikTok, cryptocurrency and tipping.
Firstly, after a proposal to ban TikTok received bipartisan support in Congress and got the approval of Biden’s White House, Trump baffled conservative China hawks by coming out against a unilateral ban.
The electoral upside of such a stance is clear given TikTok’s popularity among younger Americans, and support for a ban is lowest among the young voter demographic. Trump himself is attempting to appeal to young voters by going on TikTok himself and posting content on the platform.
Secondly, Trump has increasingly embraced the world of cryptocurrency. He has promoted Trump-themed NFTs (non-fungible tokens), vowed to end the federal government’s regulatory hostility to crypto and endorsed the possibility of the U.S. government mining bitcoin as a way to help America become “energy dominant.” This stance is in contrast with the Biden administration’s posture toward the industry.
Finally, Trump has recently vowed to get rid of tip taxation in comments made at a recent rally in Las Vegas.
“For those hotel workers and people that get tips, you’re going to be very happy. Because when I get to office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips,” said Trump.
“You do a great job of service. You take care of people. And I think it’s going to be something that really is deserved,” he added. “So those people that have jobs in restaurants, whatever the job may be, a tipping job, we’re not going after for taxes anymore.”
As much as 43 percent of all adults in the U.S. have personally worked in a job where their income relied on tipping. The allure of having a significant portion of their income not subject to taxation is a clear one, especially since service industry workers like those in hotels and restaurants skew young.
Learn the latest developments from Trump’s presidential campaign at VoteRepublican.news.
Watch this clip from Fox News reporting on how Trump may take back another demographic that the Democrats have dominated for decades – Black voters.
Pope Francis Faces UN Investigation Over Alleged Illegal Wiretappings in Embezzlement Scandal
(LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis faces a U.N. investigation for allegedly authorizing illegal wiretappings of phones during the Vatican embezzlement trial linked to the sale of luxury London real estate.
The Telegraph reported on Sunday that lawyers of British financier Raffaele Mincione, who is accused of defrauding the Vatican in a London real estate deal, filed a complaint to the United Nations for alleged human rights abuses committed by the Pope during the trial.
According to the Telegraph, the complaint is addressed to the U.N. special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Professor Margaret Satterthwaite, and lists the Pope as a “perpetrator” of human rights abuses.
Leading human rights lawyer Rodney Dixon, who represents Mincione, has accused Francis of personally authorizing illegal wiretaps of Mincione’s phone during investigations into the investor’s alleged wrongdoing.
“This unreasoned authorisation to prosecutors by an absolute monarch greenlit the undertaking of surveillance without the articulation of definite reasons, ongoing judicial or other independent and impartial supervision, or a mechanism by which to challenge the implementation of the surveillance before an independent and impartial tribunal,” Dixon argued.
During the Vatican embezzlement trial, which began in 2021, reports emerged that the Roman Pontiff authorized phone wiretaps during investigations into the financial scandal.
The New York Post pointed out that in April 2021 Pope Francis amended Vatican law to facilitate prosecutions for cardinals and bishops. Days later, the Pontiff reportedly ordered “the adoption of technological tools suitable for intercepting fixed and mobile devices, as well as any other communication, including electronic ones,” according to leaked documents.
Shortly thereafter, Vatican officials and Italian police officers reportedly seized Mincione’s phones and computer while the businessman was on vacation.
READ: Pope Francis authorized wire-tapping phones in financial scandal investigation: report
In December of last year, a Vatican tribunal convicted Mincione, alongside Cardinal Angelo Becciu and several other defendants, sentencing him to five-and-a-half years in prison.
In his complaint to the U.N., Dixon argued that Mincione cannot be sentenced by a Vatican court on the basis of canon law for a “secular transaction.”
“It is not appropriate for religious tenets to be imposed on the regulation of a secular transaction without the consent of those involved in the transaction,” Dixon said in the complaint.
Dixon also criticized the alleged surveillance of Mincione’s lawyers while they were in Rome for the trial in front of the Vatican tribunal. He said the lawyers seemed to be “victims of interference if not intimidation” at the “instigation” of the Vatican.
Mincione told the Telegraph:
My basic rights have been trampled on and been ignored. How can it be correct that I have been handed criminal penalties for breaches of spiritual law which only applies to members of the Church, which don’t seem to apply to anyone else that handles the Vatican’s investments, and which I didn’t know anything about?
The Telegraph report states that Mincione is appealing his conviction by the Vatican court “on the basis that he was actually cleared of the criminal offences from the original indictment and only convicted of new offences introduced at the 11th hour and based on the Vatican’s canonical – religious, not criminal – law.”
The Vatican has maintained that it acted lawfully. The Telegraph quotes a Vatican spokesperson who said, “The legitimacy of the investigations and the correspondence of the Vatican judiciary system to the principles of fair trial has been recognised by various foreign courts.”
The Vatican trial around the luxury London flat
The Vatican embezzlement trial involving Mincione, Cardinal Becciu, and other defendants chiefly centered on a Vatican property investment in London, which Becciu authorized as Substitute for General Affairs at the Vatican Secretariat of State. In 2014, Becciu bought a stake in 60 Sloane Avenue, a luxury London real estate development using charitable funds from the Vatican as collateral for loans of 200 million euros (around $260 million using conversion rates at the time) that were then funneled through a fund operated by Raffaele Mincione.
Mincione joined Becciu in the dock, was found guilty of “embezzlement” and money laundering, and was handed the same sentence of five-and-a-half years in jail, an €8,000 fine, and a permanent ban on public office.
Mincione’s company had purchased the property in 2012 and sold a stake in it to the Vatican. When the Vatican finalized its buyout in 2018 – courtesy of Becciu and Monsignor Mauro Carlino, Becciu’s former secretary – Mincione made around £128 million from the Vatican in the process.
It was these transactions that Becciu is believed to have “personally authorized” and to have kept them hidden from attention of Cardinal George Pell, then-Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.
As controversy and scandal grew around the property in late 2020, the Vatican initiated its own corruption investigation into Becciu’s dealings in late 2020 – by which time he was prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and had been since 2018. Francis at this point accepted Becciu’s resignation, when the cardinal renounced his cardinal privileges, while retaining the title.
READ: Cardinal Becciu given 5 and a half years in jail by Vatican court for financial crimes
Becciu was then indicted July 2021 by the Vatican Tribunal with Mincione and eight others also indicted for corruption. Becciu was personally charged with “embezzlement and abuse of office, also in collaboration, as well as subornation.”
In July 2022, the Vatican sold the London building at the heart of the ongoing investigation, with a reported loss of $200 million, as the AP estimated the Vatican had spent around €350 million (around $359 million) in purchasing the building initially.
In December 2023, the Vatican court sentenced nine of the 10 defendants, including Mincione and Becciu, to financial penalties and jail time.
Becciu and his lawyers have maintained his innocence and claimed that Pope Francis himself had supported the London investment deal.
Burn an American Flag? No Problem. Deface an LGBTQIAAP2S+ Flag? PRISON TIME
A trio of teenagers from Spokane, Wash., is facing felony charges after the boys were caught making their mark on a giant LGBT flag mural on the street.
Ruslan Turko, 19, along with two other teenagers who are underage allegedly rode their scooters over a freshly painted LGBT street mural, leaving marks all over it. They were arrested and charged with first-degree “malicious mischief,” the penalty for which could be up to 10 years in prison.
On top of that, prosecutors are asking for $15,000 bail, this despite the fact that the boys harmed nobody – all they did was speak their truth in a public place atop a gargantuan shrine to perversion that quite frankly has no business being painted on a public street in the first place.
Keep in mind that there are no penalties for burning or defecating on an American flag, nor can someone get in trouble for spitting on a veteran (unless the veteran can successfully argue that the spitting constituted assault).
“In America, you can spit on Vietnam veterans, defecate on the U.S. flag, threaten the lives of U.S. Supreme Court Justices, mock Christianity, and burn entire cities to the ground in the name of a career felon,” reported Revolver.
“But if you dare to trample on the rainbow flag, oh, there will be serious hell to pay, mister.”
3 teens are facing felony charges after they made marks on a Pride mural. They were charged with “malicious mischief” – a Class B felony in WA.
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 7, 2024
“Free speech” when people burn the American flag but a criminal offense if someone makes marks on a Pride flag. pic.twitter.com/hVmB2NP1SZ
Freedom is dying
The massive street mural devoted to “the kinky homosexual lifestyle” and other LGBT perversions is a centerpiece in downtown Spokane. Visitors are expected to honor it at all times or else face charges of a “hate crime.”
When witnesses at nearby O’Doherty’s Irish Grille on Spokane Falls Boulevard and Howard Street saw the boys riding around on Lime scooters purposely making skid marks on the LGBT flag mural, they called the police. From there, the boys were arrested and taken in for questioning.
A similar incident occurred back in February when a Florida teen was arrested and charged with felony criminal mischief for leaving tire burnout marks on a perversion flag painted in the middle of an intersection in that state.
Again, it is perfectly okay in America today to burn the American flag near the White House on Independence Day:
Ever notice how it’s only liberals who burn the American flag?
— The American Girl (@TheAmericanGrl) July 5, 2019
Conservatives respect and honor the symbol of our great nation!pic.twitter.com/z0VF9YOug7
Raise your hand if it doesn’t surprise you that Liberals are burning the American flag on Independence Day. pic.twitter.com/Qm7wmRQ0Q7
— ??SNIPER??? (@Sniper64286433) July 5, 2019
It is not, however, okay to ride your vehicle, bike or scooter in a “mean” way across a giant perversion flag painted on a public right-of-way funded by taxpayers, many of whom oppose LGBT perversion.
“This type of forced, government-mandated behavior is akin to Taliban-level religious tyranny,” Revolver warns about the double standard for LGBT. “It’s the left’s version of Sharia Law and should be called ‘Rainbow Law.’”
“That’s how incredibly dangerous and stifling the LGBTQ+++ movement has become – all by design. It was never about just ‘holding hands in public’ and tax breaks. The LBGTQ+++ movement, like everything on the left, is about power, control, and regulating thoughts and behavior, much like your typical run-of-the-mill Islamic radical.”
LGBT is a dangerous religious cult. Learn more at Gender.news.