Politics
Lawmakers, service members celebrate authorization of Global War on Terrorism memorial
![Lawmakers, service members celebrate authorization of Global War on Terrorism memorial Lawmakers, service members celebrate authorization of Global War on Terrorism memorial](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/1647598948_Image-from-iOS-9-1.jpg)
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WASHINGTON – A number of bipartisan lawmakers, in addition to dozens of U.S. army veterans, service members and Gold Star relations, gathered on the Nationwide Mall Thursday morning for the primary annual “Ruck the Reserve” occasion celebrating the authorization of a extremely anticipated World Conflict on Terrorism (GWOT) memorial.
The occasion was spearheaded by the nonprofit GWOT Memorial Basis, which has been elevating cash and pushing Congress for a memorial on the Nationwide Mall alongside what is called “the reserve” since 2017.
Folks collect for the World Conflict on Terrorism Memorial Basis’s first annual “Ruck the Reserve” occasion. (Fox Information/Audrey Conklin)
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa; Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.; Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis.; and Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., helped lead an effort to move two payments – the World Conflict on Terrorism Memorial Location Act and The World Conflict on Terrorism Memorial Act – authorizing the development of a GWOT memorial on the Nationwide Mall despite Washington paperwork.
GOLD STAR FAMILIES WANT NATIONAL MALL MEMORIAL FOR SERVICE MEMBERS KILLED IN WAR ON TERROR, DECRY DELAYS
“We initially bought the authorization handed, after which we bought the invoice handed that authorizes a spot on the Mall. Now, we’ve to do the arduous work of continuous to lift cash and to be sure that the venture strikes ahead,” Gallagher instructed Fox Information Digital at Thursday’s occasion, which started on the Lincoln Memorial. “As you’ll be able to see, it is a terrific group of veterans, individuals who have been concerned within the legislative course of. And I believe it is a testomony that it has been really a bipartisan effort.”
![Lawmakers at the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation's first annual "Ruck the Reserve" event. (Fox News/Audrey Conklin)](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/7fa55465-Image-from-iOS-5-1.jpg)
Lawmakers on the World Conflict on Terrorism Memorial Basis’s first annual “Ruck the Reserve” occasion. (Fox Information/Audrey Conklin)
“It is an enormous hurdle that we bought over, so now, it is full velocity forward,” he added.
In 2017, former President Trump signed the World Conflict on Terrorism Memorial Act, which approved the memorial on federal land alongside the reserve in Washington, D.C., however it didn’t present a selected location.
The laws met resistance from the Nationwide Park Service. The appearing affiliate director of park planning instructed a Senate subcommittee in June 2021 that the reserve was a “accomplished work” based mostly on the Commemorative Works Act of 1986, which means the development of recent memorials alongside the Mall was not permitted.
![Boy marches at the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation's first annual "Ruck the Reserve" event. (Fox News/Audrey Conklin)](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/535d6d15-Image-from-iOS-6-1.jpg)
Boy marches on the World Conflict on Terrorism Memorial Basis’s first annual “Ruck the Reserve” occasion. (Fox Information/Audrey Conklin)
The newest model of the World Conflict on Terrorism Memorial Act waives the Commemorative Works Act and now requires the Nationwide Park Service to work with the World Conflict on Terrorism Basis to discover a location on the Nationwide Mall. Crow sponsored the Home model of the 2021 invoice, and Ernst sponsored the Senate model.
The muse has picked out three potential areas for the GWOT memorial between the World Conflict II and Lincoln Memorials. Contributors of Thursday’s “ruck” marched by every location Thursday morning.
JONI ERNST PUSHES FOR ‘GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM’ MEMORIAL ON NATIONAL MALL IN DEFENSE BILL
“It means the world to me to know that this memorial goes to be proper right here on our Nationwide Mall, and it’ll honor all of these large women and men who served in our armed forces within the World Conflict on Terror, however it additionally honors their households and people who misplaced family members,” Ernst instructed Fox Information Digital. “It is going to be a spot of remembrance. A spot the place households and communities can come collect collectively and simply bear in mind the numerous service and sacrifice over the previous 20 years of the [GWOT].”
![Sen. Joni Ernst seen at the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation's first annual "Ruck the Reserve" event. (Fox News/Audrey Conklin)](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/1647598945_577_Image-from-iOS-4-1.jpg)
Sen. Joni Ernst seen on the World Conflict on Terrorism Memorial Basis’s first annual “Ruck the Reserve” occasion. (Fox Information/Audrey Conklin)
She added that the annual “Ruck the Reserve” occasion will proceed to develop within the coming years as building of the memorial will get nearer to actuality.
GWOT Memorial Basis President and CEO Michael Rodriguez, who joined the U.S. Military in 1992 and served as a Inexperienced Beret till he medically retired in 2013 because of his fight accidents, stated throughout Thursday’s occasion that the memorial would be the “most broad, various and inclusive struggle memorial that has ever been constructed.”
![Michael Rodriguez at the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation's first annual "Ruck the Reserve" event. (Fox News/Audrey Conklin)](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_2769-1.jpg)
Michael Rodriguez on the World Conflict on Terrorism Memorial Basis’s first annual “Ruck the Reserve” occasion. (Fox Information/Audrey Conklin)
“We’re largely going to honor our brothers and sisters … that by no means got here house. We’re additionally honoring everybody who has served. Conflict touches you. Many people have set foot on a battlefield, and it should come house with you,” Rodriguez stated on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. “A few of us, it is a bit of extra apparent than others. We’re additionally honoring the household. I’ve typically stated probably the most difficult appointment for me weren’t the ten I went on, however it was the one the place I watched my son deploy to the identical areas of Afghanistan to do nearly the very same mission I did some years afterward.”
GOLD STAR FAMILIES WEIGH ‘HEARTBREAKING,’ ‘DEVASTATING’ CONSEQUENCES OF AFGHANISTAN CRISIS
The memorial will honor service members, veterans and households who served within the GWOT beginning 20 years in the past after 3,000 individuals died within the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults and ending simply earlier than September 2021, when 13 U.S. service members have been killed in an explosion in Kabul after President Biden pulled all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by Aug. 31 of final 12 months.
![People march at the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation's first annual "Ruck the Reserve" event (Fox News/ Audrey Conklin)](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Image-from-iOS-9-1.jpg)
Folks march on the World Conflict on Terrorism Memorial Basis’s first annual “Ruck the Reserve” occasion (Fox Information/ Audrey Conklin)
After the 13 service members, together with 11 Marines, one Military soldier and a Navy corpsman, have been killed on Aug. 26 in a suicide bombing outdoors Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport, D.C. residents and guests held a vigil on the Marine Corps Conflict Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, to recollect the fallen.
Gold Star households say a GWOT memorial on the Mall will present a unified gathering place for all service members and their family members to recollect those that gave the final word sacrifice in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere over the previous twenty years.
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Politics
Black Californians warn Newsom of 'direct impact' on Harris after Democrats kill slave reparation bills
![Black Californians warn Newsom of 'direct impact' on Harris after Democrats kill slave reparation bills Black Californians warn Newsom of 'direct impact' on Harris after Democrats kill slave reparation bills](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/09/AP24244812299639.jpg)
Black activists at the California assembly threatened a “direct impact” on Vice President Harris’ presidential campaign after state Democratic lawmakers held off on two bills that would have greenlighted slavery reparations.
Last week, the California legislature approved proposals allowing for the return of land or compensation to families whose property was unjustly seized by the government, and issuing a formal apology for laws and practices that have harmed Black people. But none of those bills would provide widespread direct payments to African Americans. After hours of heated debate and protests on Saturday, state lawmakers left out two bills – Senate Bills 1403 and 1331 – that would have created a fund and an agency to oversee reparation measures.
“The speaker needs to bring the bills up now, now, now. These are their bills. They have their names on the bills. They’re killing their own bills because they’re scared of the governor,” one Black man, a member of the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, said in the rotunda on the last day of the legislative year on Saturday. “Now listen, they’re gonna see this, and they’re gonna get mad at us. They killing their own bills, and then they’re gonna get mad at us. They’re killing their own bills because they’re scared of the governor. We don’t care. Bring the G– d— bills up now, now, now.”
“We need to send a message to the governor,” a Black woman who is part of the same group chimed in, according to video shared on X. “The governor needs to understand the world is watching California and this is gonna have a direct impact on your friend Kamala Harris who is running for president. This is going to have a direct impact, so pull up the bills now, vote on them and sign them. We’ve been waiting for over 400 years.”
“We have the votes,” the man added.
CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN LAWMAKER REACTS TO ‘CRAZY’ BILL THAT WOULD GIVE UNDOCUMENTED FIRST-TIME HOMEBUYERS MONEY
Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, right, talks to members of Coalition for a Just and Equitable California about two reparations bills in the rotunda on the last day of the legislative year Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Tran Nguyen)
State Sen. Steven Bradford, who authored the measures, said the bills failed to move forward out of fear that Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom would veto them.
“We’re at the finish line, and we, as the Black Caucus, owe it to the descendants of chattel slavery, to Black Californians and Black Americans, to move this legislation forward,” Bradford said, urging his colleagues to reconsider Saturday afternoon, according to the Associated Press.
“We owe it to our ancestors,” Bradford added, according to the Sacramento Bee. “And I think we disappointed them in a way.”
California Legislative Black Caucus Chair Assemblymember Lori Wilson said Saturday that the Black Caucus pulled the bills, adding the proposals need more work.
“We knew from the very beginning that it was an uphill battle…. And we also knew from the very beginning that it would be a multiyear effort,” Wilson told reporters.
![Black activists demand California lawmakers take up reparations bills](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/09/1200/675/AP24244812327525.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Members of Coalition for a Just and Equitable California protest in the rotunda on the last day of the legislative year Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Tran Nguyen)
Newsom has not weighed in on most of the bills, but he signed a $297.9 billion budget in June that included up to $12 million for reparations legislation. However, the budget did not specify what proposals the money would be used for, and his administration has signaled its opposition to some of them. Newsom has until Sept. 30 to decide whether to sign the bills that passed.
SAN FRANCISCO TO BEGIN ‘EQUITY AUDIT’ OF CONTROVERSIAL STATUES: CONCENTRATION OF ‘WHITE SUPREMACY’
Democratic Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who is Black, called his bill to issue a formal apology for discrimination “a labor of love.” His uncle was part of a group of Black students who in the 1950s were escorted by federal troops past an angry white mob into Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional. The students became known as the “Little Rock Nine.”
![Black reparations activists at California legislature](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/09/1200/675/AP24244812326156.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Members of Coalition for a Just and Equitable California demand lawmakers take up a vote on two reparations bill in the rotunda on the last day of the legislative year Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Tran Nguyen)
“I think my grandmother, my grandfather, would be extremely proud for what we are going to do today,” Jones-Sawyer said ahead of the vote on the legislation that was passed. “Because that is why they struggled in 1957, so that I’d be able to — and we’d be able to — move forward our people.”
Newsom approved a law in 2020 creating a first-in-the-nation task force to study reparations proposals. New York and Illinois have since followed suit with similar legislation. The California group released a final report last year with more than 100 recommendations for lawmakers.
Newsom signed a law earlier this summer requiring school districts that receive state funding for a career education program to collect data on the performance of participating students by race and gender. The legislation, part of a reparations package backed by the California Legislative Black Caucus, aims to help address gaps in student outcomes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Politics
Opinion: Should a five-time loser with grand juries be president?
![Opinion: Should a five-time loser with grand juries be president? Opinion: Should a five-time loser with grand juries be president?](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/82a042a/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3518x1847+0+252/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F03%2Fad%2F280d56bc423c98543309d3f66721%2Ftrump-capitol-riot-78748.jpg)
By now, two months before the presidential election, we voters ought to have seen a verdict in the federal criminal case against the three-time Republican nominee accused of conspiring to overturn the result of the previous contest. (That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.)
But there is no verdict against defendant Donald Trump, U.S. history’s biggest sore loser, thanks to the Supreme Court. Its right-wing super-majority — half of whom were selected by Trump, and two of whom should have recused themselves — dallied for half the year before issuing a surreal ruling in July granting the former president, and all future presidents, broad immunity from criminal liability for official acts, even for purportedly official acts intended to dynamite democracy’s foundation: free and fair elections.
Opinion Columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
So much for no person being above the law.
Thanks to special counsel Jack Smith, however, voters at least have a revised indictment against Trump in the Jan. 6 case. On Tuesday a new grand jury charged him with the same four conspiracy and obstruction crimes alleged in last year’s indictment, stripped of supporting material that might run afoul of the Supreme Court’s new tests for what is or isn’t an official act.
It’s far too late for a trial, and hence a verdict, before Nov. 5. And Trump’s team almost certainly will argue all the way back to the high court that Smith’s “superseding indictment” violates the justices’ immunity ruling.
Yet if nothing else, the retooled indictment is a useful refresher for those who’ve forgotten about, or become inured to, Trump’s antidemocratic outrages, the ones that made him the first American president to resist the peaceful transfer of power.
And more than that, the charges are a reminder about just why Trump wants to be president again: to avoid criminal liability and possibly prison. If reelected, he could thwart the rule of law, not uphold it as the oath of office demands. Trump could — would — make the Jan. 6 case go away, along with the separate federal charges against him for keeping classified documents. While he’s at it, he has promised to pardon hundreds of charged and convicted Jan. 6 insurrectionists, whom he grossly calls government “hostages.” He could also pardon himself, of course, for his alleged federal crimes (but not state charges).
After the grand jury action last week, former Justice Department official and MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann helpfully tweeted, “For those counting, FIVE separate grand juries (scores of citizens) have now found probable cause that Trump committed multiple felonies.”
Yes, for all of Trump’s daily lies that he’s being railroaded by “the Biden-Harris Regime” and its “weaponized” Justice Department, the facts are that many average Americans have heard evidence and decided against Trump. They’ve done so not only in those five grand juries, but also in several state trial juries that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to a porn star from voters before the 2016 election.
With that last judgment, Trump achieved another contemptible first: No other president has been convicted of felonies. Sentencing in the hush money case, in New York, was delayed until Sept. 18, thanks to the confusion spawned by the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, and Trump has asked for a further delay — past election day, natch. Judge Juan M. Merchan should proceed with the sentencing. Sure, Trump would cry foul. But all we’ve seen to date is excessive legal deference toward the lawless former president, his incessant whining about witch hunts notwithstanding.
Which brings us back to Smith’s overhauled Jan. 6 indictment, and its welcome reminder of Trump’s unprecedented power grab. The 36 pages are a maddening must-read for undecided voters, a ticktock of his falsehoods and scheming from the 2020 election through the violence of Jan. 6, 2021. Yet nearly four years later, instead of being held responsible, Trump is a candidate for reelection.
Smith strained to steer clear of Trump’s supposedly official acts, in keeping with the Supreme Court’s warped ruling. Out, for example, are accounts of his vile efforts to force Justice Department aides to lie about election fraud, as a pretext for lawsuits; they were his executive branch employees. But campaign advisors should be fair game for the prosecutors, and the indictment still recounts Trump’s refusals to accept their assertions and proof that he’d lost, that there was no fraud. Trump instead kept his aides spreading lies — “conspiracy s— beamed down from the mothership,” one wrote in an email cited in the indictment — and working on illegal slates of alternative state electors.
The document retains some details of Trump’s belittling pressure on Vice President Mike Pence. “You’re too honest,” the liar in chief once erupted, exasperated that Pence wouldn’t agree to throw out the electoral votes of pro-Biden battleground states during Congress’ Jan. 6 certification. And it includes Trump’s private and public haranguing of state officials to do his illegal bidding; they’re not feds, and presidents have no official role in states’ vote-counting.
Alas, for now all we have, still, are the charges, no trial and no verdict. But that fact defines the stakes for the 2024 election: A vote for Trump is a vote against his accountability. It’s really that simple.
@jackiekcalmes
Politics
Gold Star families slam Kamala Harris for 'playing politics' over Trump's visit to Arlington National Cemetery
![Gold Star families slam Kamala Harris for 'playing politics' over Trump's visit to Arlington National Cemetery Gold Star families slam Kamala Harris for 'playing politics' over Trump's visit to Arlington National Cemetery](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/kamala-graves-arlington-1.jpg)
Vice President Kamala Harris was recently excoriated by Gold Star family members who accused the Democratic presidential candidate of politicizing an incident at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday.
The messages were posted on former President Trump’s Instagram account. Eight videos, each featuring different parents of service members killed by ISIS-K terrorists amid the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan on Aug. 26, 2021, were published in total.
The videos were released in the wake of a statement published by Harris on Saturday, where the vice president criticized Trump for taking photographs at a wreath-laying ceremony event on Monday. The Army said this week that an Arlington National Cemetery official was “abruptly pushed aside” while interacting with Trump’s staff.
“As Vice President, I have had the privilege of visiting Arlington National Cemetery several times,” Harris said. “It is not a place for politics. And yet, as was reported this week, Donald Trump’s team chose to film a video there, resulting in an altercation with cemetery staff.”
TRUMP IMPERSONATES ELON MUSK TALKING ABOUT ROCKETS: ‘I’M DOING A NEW STAINLESS STEEL HUB’
Kamala Harris was called out by Gold Star families over a statement she released about Trump on Saturday. (Getty Images)
“Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt,” she claimed, before adding that she would “never politicize” such an event.
The Gold Star family members maintained that they had asked Trump for photographs, as opposed to Trump taking pictures to advance his campaign. In one video, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz called Harris’ post “heinous, vile and disgusting.”
“Why did we want Trump there? It wasn’t to help his political campaign,” Mark Schmitz said in the video. “We wanted a leader. That explains why you and Joe didn’t get a call.”
Darren Hoover, the father of Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, said that Harris lacks “empathy and basic understanding” about Monday’s event, and stressed that Trump’s appearance was respectful.
HARRIS SLAMS TRUMP OVER ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY ALTERCATION, PROMPTING FIERY RESPONSE FROM JD VANCE
![Trump Harris split image](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/Copy-of-Side-by-Side-split-9.png?ve=1&tl=1)
Vice President Kamala Harris slammed former President Donald Trump over last week’s incident at Arlington National Cemetery. (Getty Images)
“In keeping with the reverence and respect that is given to all members of our military that are buried there, we invited President Trump,” he said. “We are the ones that asked for the video and the pictures to be taken at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.”
Hoover also added that Trump has “been there for us from the very beginning,” and criticized Harris for “playing politics” over the incident.
“You should be ashamed and embarrassed [about] your lack of empathy and decency as a human being,” the father added. “You are only in this for the power and prestige. You don’t care for our military or the citizens of this country.
![Trump at Arizona rally](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/AP24237043125176.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Desert Diamond Arena, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
“You should hang your head in shame at your actions or lack thereof.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.
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