Julia Jackson, the mother of Jacob Blake, harshly condemned the violence happening in Kenosha, Wisconsin, over the shooting of her son during an interview Tuesday on CNN in which she also apologized to President Donald Trump.
What did Jackson say to rioters?
Riots erupted in the southern Wisconsin city late Sunday just hours after Blake was shot seven times by Kenosha police, who were responding to a domestic incident. Businesses have been burned and looted, and two people were even killed late Tuesday as the riots entered their third consecutive night.
"My family and I are very hurt and quite frankly disgusted. And as his mother, please don't burn up property and cause havoc and tear your own homes down in my son's name," Jackson said.
"You shouldn't do it. People shouldn't do it anyway, but to use my child or any other mother or father's child — our tragedy — to react in that manner is just not acceptable. And it's not helping Jacob. It's not helping Jacob or any other of the men or women who has suffered in these areas," she continued.
When asked by Lemon whether she has a message for politicians, Jackson used the opportunity to apologize to the president for missing his personal phone call and for comments that another family member had made about him.
"For our president, Trump: First I want to say a family member and I don't know if it was heard or not said something that was not kind. She is hurting and I do apologize for that. Our outburst does not reflect our behavior. And then also, for President Trump: I'm sorry I missed your call because had I not missed your call, maybe the comments that you made would have been different," Jackson said.
She added, "I'm not mad at you at all. I have the utmost respect for you as the leader of our country. Like I said before and I'm not saying this to him directly: We should always get the details from the right source before we start throwing bricks."
Anything else?
Blake, who survived being shot seven times, is paralyzed as a result of his injuries, a family attorney said, adding that at least one bullet tore through his spinal cord. According to a CBS News report, the bullets left holes in Blake's stomach, caused damage to his kidney and liver, and required that "nearly his entire colon and small intestine" be removed.
"The medical diagnosis right now is that he is paralyzed and because those bullets severed his spinal cord and shattered some of his vertebrae… it is going to take a miracle for Jacob Blake Jr. to ever walk again," family attorney Benjamin Crump said, CBS News reported.
The city dumped at least six homeless pedophiles, all still on parole, at a luxury Upper West Side hoteljust a block from an elementary-school playground — an apparent violation of state law, online records show.
The outrage is only the latest slap in the face to residents of the Manhattan neighborhood — who as The Post reported have had to deal with everything from public urination to open drug use since the city began moving hundreds of homeless into the area amid the coronavirus.
“Completely unacceptable,” seethed Sabina Popovic, 32, who was at the playground with her daughter, 5, and son, 1, Friday.
The six parolees — including a man who had forced sex with a 4-year-old girl — were listed by the state Sex Offender Registry as current residents of the Belleclaire hotel at Broadway and West 77th Street as of Friday night.
The hotel is just under 1,000 feet from the playground of PS 87 — and New York state law bars such high-risk sex offenders on probation or parole from “knowingly entering into or upon” schools or other facilities or other facilities “primarily used” by children if a minor is present. Courts have interpreted that to mean they must keep 1,000 feet away.
Reached for comment on the registry listings showing the men currently live at the Belleclaire, a city rep said Friday that the listings are not accurate and that the “names you reference are not at that location.”
Asked if the men had ever lived at the hotel — and why that remained their official address — the rep declined further comment, citing confidentiality rules.
A rep for the state registry said the list reflects the most current information the agency has.
The city began quietly moving the homeless into the Belleclaire and other Upper West Side hotels in recent weeks, amid fears that its shelters couldn’t provide enough pandemic social distancing.
The six sex-offenders who are still on parole and, according to the sex offender registry, living at the Belleclaire as of Friday night are:
Devron Vernal, 26, a sexually violent offender convicted in 2015 of physically overpowering and having sex with a 4-year-old girl. He was sentenced to four years in prison and remains on parole until 2028.
Jonathan Evans, 29, a sexually violent offender convicted in 2010 for using threats to force intercourse on a 6-year-old boy. He was sentenced to five years prison, and is not off of parole until 2025.
Anderson Stuckey, 51, is a sexually violent offender convicted in 2005 for using threats to rape a 10-year-old girl.
He was sentenced to 12 years prison, and is not off parole until 2024. Under the condition of his supervision by state parole officials, he is to have no contact with minors, no alcohol, and must submit to substance abuse testing. “NO SEXUAL ENHANCING MEDICATIONS” his registry listing states in all caps.
Orlando Velasco, 35, is a sexually violent offender convicted in 2011 of repeatedly sexually molesting a child who was under the age of 11. He was sentenced to 42 months of prison, and is not off parole until 2022.
Under the terms of his parole, he must take a sex offender program and anti-violence and aggression counseling, consume no alcohol, not operate a motor vehicle, and have no unsupervised contact with minors. “NO SEXUALLY ENHANCING DRUGS” his registry listing also states.
Ronald Butler, 62, is a predicate sex offender who was convicted in 2013 of rape in the third degree for repeatedly using physical force to overpower and have intercourse with a 16-year-old girl.
He was sentenced to 30 months state prison, and is not off parole until 2025. Among the conditions of his supervision by state parole officials he must continue counseling, consume no alcohol and have no contact with minors.
Rafael Medina, 37, was convicted in 2015 of forcibly sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl in Fort Plain Village, in Montgomery County, NY. He was sentenced to three years prison and is on parole until 2023.
“Look, we’re a progressive-minded community, and we tend to be sympathetic to the homeless,’’ a neighborhood mom who asked not to be identified by name said at the PS 87 playground Friday.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s economic collapse has left most homes without reliable running water, so Caracas resident Iraima Moscoso saw water pooling inside an abandoned construction site as the end of suffering for thousands of her poor neighbors.
Workers had long ago stopped building a nearby highway tunnel through the mountain above them. Yet, spring water continued to collect inside the viaduct and then stream past their homes, wasted. The construction firm had also left behind coils of tube.
Moscoso, 59, rallied her neighbors to salvage the materials and build their own system, tapping into the tunnel’s vast lagoon and running the waterline to their homes. Today, they’re free of the city’s crumbling service and enjoy what many in Venezuela consider a luxury.
Men, equipped with inner tubes, wade through an abandoned highway tunnel with the aid of a safety line as they work to repair a self-created water system in the Esperanza neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, June 11, 2020. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
“Everybody here has water,” said Moscoso, seated on the stairs of her hillside neighborhood of cinder block homes. “We all benefit.”
Venezuela’s water crisis is nothing new, but it’s started driving residents to extraordinary measures — banding together to rig their own water systems and even hand dig shallow wells at home. Water today is even more important as a way to protect against the pandemic.
Critics of the socialist government blame chronic infrastructure failures on years of corruption and mismanagement that have also left the electrical grid fragile and destroyed Venezuela’s once-thriving oil industry.
An estimated 86% of Venezuelans reported unreliable water service, including 11% who have none at all, according to an April survey of 4,500 residents by the non-profit Venezuelan Observatory of Public Services.
María Eugenia Gil, of the Caracas-based non-profit Clear Water Foundation, said residents have no other choice than to hunt for water, breaking a nationwide quarantine that was imposed to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. They’re exposing themselves to illness or possibly spreading the virus to others, she said.
“They don’t have an alternative,” Gil said. “You can’t stay at home locked inside if you don’t have water.”
President Nicolás Maduro’s government has accused political foes of sabotaging pump stations, and recently celebrated the purchase of a fleet of 1,000 “super tanker” trucks from China to deliver water to residents.
A car drives past hauling a plastic water tank on it's rooftop, in the Petare neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, June 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
That’s no solution for Arcangel Medina, 66, who recruited young men in his neighborhood to dig for five days, striking water at a depth of four meters (13 feet). He bought $200 worth of pipes and an electric pump so he can share the water with other homes.
“We went four months without running water,” said Medina, complaining that when city lines used to flow every two weeks, dirty water spewed from his faucets.
“It’s a blessing,” said Medina, one of a dozen residents in his sector who took the drastic measure. He next had to figure out how to get rid of the dirt pile on the street in front of his home.
Moscoso, who proudly organized her neighbors to build their own system, estimates that 5,000 people in her neighborhood now have water. It started flowing in May, said Moscoso, who works at the mayor’s office.
Their above-ground water line starts at the abandoned tunnel’s mouth and runs 1,000 meters (3,200 feet) - under a highway, strung from power poles over a city street and down to their homes.
Four other neighborhoods have run similar lines from the tunnel.
Moscoso said the water is perfectly safe, drinking down a glass as proof. She declined to say how much it cost them after salvaging the abandoned pipes, claiming she hasn’t had time to add up the expenses.
“For me it’s priceless,” Moscoso said.
A man, wearing a protective face mask, pushes a dolly filled with empty containers, as he and a child go in search of water in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, June 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Buckets, some of them filled with water provided by a government tanker truck, are stored in the living room of a house in the Petare neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, June 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
A residents fills a container with water provided by a government tanker truck in the Petare neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, June 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
A man pushes a stripped down baby stroller with containers he filled with water that he collected from a street faucet, in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, June 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
A child ascends a flight of stairs with an empty container to be filled with water provided by a government tanker truck in the Petare neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, June 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
A man, wearing a protective face mask, pushes a dolly holding a container filled with water he collected from a street faucet, in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, June 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
A woman wearing a protective face mask, turns around as she is called by a friend, in the Baralt highway tunnel in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, June 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A boy jumps into a drainage ditch which channels water from an abandoned highway tunnel in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, June 6, 2020. Workers had long ago stopped building the highway tunnel through the mountain. Yet, spring water continues to pool inside the viaduct, then stream past homes, wasted. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A woman, wearing a protective face mask, pushes a dolly of containers filled with water, in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, June 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
A worker controls a water hose from a government tanker truck to distribute water to residents in the Petare neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, May 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
La Lira neighborhood residents protest the lack of public services including water, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, May 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A man cleans the inside of a water container situated on the roof of his home in the San Agustin neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, May 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A child wearing a protective face mask rides her scooter in the bed of a water fountain of Los Proceres promenade in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, April 26, 2020. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A woman scrubs her protective face masks with runoff water from the Avila mountain in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, June 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Venezuela on Brink of Famine With Fuel Too Scarce to Sow Crops Fabiola Zerpa James Attwood Nicolle Yapur Bookmark June 11 2020, 3:30 PM June 11 2020, 8:13 PM (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan farmer Roberto Latini fears his window to plant this year’s crop is quickly closing. He’d hoped to seed corn, but couldn’t find the fuel to operate his trucks and equipment before the dry season ended. So he set his sights on rice, which can be planted even in heavy rains. Weeks later, fuel is still short and “as time goes by, it’s getting too late to sow,” Latini said. continue
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, was given $900 million to start a mental health initiative focusing on helping the homeless in the city. Four years later, no one seems to know what that money was actually used for, according to the New York Post.
The City Council discovered this shocking amount of potential waste during a meeting Wednesday. And while it sounds good to spend heavily on a mental health initiative, it appears that nobody has noticed any real benefits from that investment.
"I like the fact that money is going toward mental health, but when they say we're seeing a benefit in all areas, I take exception to that, because I don't see it everywhere," Queens Councilman Robert Holden told The Post. "I'm not sure anybody does."
The Thrive program, which had its budget raised to $250 million per year in 2019, has produced some underwhelming numbers in terms of how many people it impacts.
Seven mayors attended a 2017 national mental health conference in New York City. Only 570 of the estimated 12-15,000 mothers who experience postpartum depression have been reached by the program, Politico reported, a number NYC disputes.
Of the 78,000 newborn deliveries in the city annually, only 28,560 new mothers have been screened by the Thrive program.
Bob McManus harshly assessed the program's effectiveness for the New York Post:
So, ipso presto, co-Mayor Bill coughed up enough cash to break a pack mule's back and sent it off to co-Mayor Chirlane — who then went forth to cure Gotham's mental-illness problems.
Fast-forward to Wednesday, when the City Council was startled to discover that McCray and Team Thrive are closing in on having spent an eye-popping $900 million since the program's inception — and nobody seems to have a clue on what.
That is, nobody appears to have kept receipts; the subways and street corners are still overrun with crazy people, and nobody in charge knows what's to happen next.
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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