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Monday, September 9, 2024

Harris finally publishes policy website after month into campaign — and it still lacks specifics

 Vice President Kamala Harris finally went live with her campaign website Sunday after going more than a month with no official policy platform — yet critics said the site still lacks specifics beyond a general vision and hopes.

The new website lists the policies that Harris has already announced in the past — including her $25,000 handout for new home buyers, increasing tax deductions for new small businesses from $5,000 to $50,000, banning price-gauging on groceries and a $6,000 child tax credit.

The website is touted as “a new way forward” — despite Harris having been VP for more than the past three years and repeating some of President Biden’s policies.

Kamala Harris’s campaign finally got its website up and running — and it’s still woefully lacking in any specifics, critics say.AFP via Getty Images

On the border crisis, the policy site lists no points other than saying Harris will fight for the Senate’s related bill and that she will establish a “pathway to citizenship” for migrants who entered the US illegally.

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Some voters expressed online concern for her lack of other concrete proposals, especially on the border.

“These are not policy positions..nothing on border security either. These are goals, goals that scream ‘we are raising your taxes’!” an X user wrote.

Another person said, “The ‘border bill’ is political theater. Trump didn’t require legislation to achieve a more secure border, and neither does Biden or Harris.”

Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, “Kamala Harris added a late-night, half-ass, wish list of policies to her website to solve the problems SHE helped create over the past four years.

“If Kamala really wanted to lower costs and secure the border – why did she cast the tie-breaking vote to cause inflation and support the war on our energy industry, and why is she allowing an invasion of illegal immigrants through our southern border as we speak?”

NY Post composite
The site still lacks some concrete positions for the vice president.kamalaharris.com
Harris is being bashed for offering no real solutions to the country’s border crisis.James Keivom

Other parts of Harris’ policy agenda on the site lay out her goals for her potential future administration but don’t establish how she would get there other than to say she will “fight” for them.

“She’ll fight to raise the minimum wage, end sub-minimum wages for tipped workers and people with disabilities, establish paid family and medical leave, and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers,” the website reads.

“Vice President Harris will fight to ensure parents can afford high-quality child care and preschool for their children,” it adds.

At another point, the site says, “She and Governor Walz will always fight for the freedom to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis.”

One of the main ideas on Harris’ site comes from President Biden — to limit the terms of the nine US Supreme Court justices.Getty Images

On the US Supreme Court, the site says Harris sides with President Biden on establishing unprecedented reforms such as term limits and “requiring Justices to comply with ethics rules.

“Vice President Harris believes that no one is above the law. She’ll fight to ensure that no former president has immunity for crimes committed while in the White House,” the website reads.

“She will also support common-sense Supreme Court reforms—like requiring Justices to comply with ethics rules that other federal judges are bound by and imposing term limits—to address the crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court,” it says.

Harris doesn’t offer any new vision for Israel on the site but reiterates that she will “ensure” Israel has the right to defend itself and that she and Biden are working on a hostage deal with Hamas to release Israelis and make sure the “suffering in Gaza ends.”

The Harris campaign did not respond to an inquiry from The Post on Monday.

https://nypost.com/2024/09/09/us-news/kamala-harris-finally-publishes-policy-website-and-it-still-lacks-specifics-critics-say/

We’ve never paid migrants’ costs before — so why is Eric Adams doing so now?

 Mayor Adams must think Gotham needs more illegal migrants: He’s offering them up to $5,000 to leave city-funded shelter for permanent housing — which of course is more incentive to come here in the first place.

No joke: The city’s Department of Homeless Services launched a pilot program in December that grants supposed “asylum-seekers” cash to cover the costs of moving out of a city shelter and into permanent quarters.

Already, 150 families have benefitted, and the city is looking at “scaling up and expanding access” to the funds.

It means up to four grand in cash is to cover security deposits, moving expenses and first and last month’s rent, plus $1,000 more available via gift cards. Sweet!

A city official told The Post she “can’t say” how much the program could eventually spend, since every family is considered on a “case-by-case” basis. (Huh?)

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And all this on top of the free shelter housing, food, health care, education, debit cards and other services illegal migrants already get. Pure madness.

No wonder in just two years the city has already blown through a whopping $5 billion on migrants — as much as the entire NYPD spends annually.

It isn’t supposed to work this way: Immigrants who’ve flocked to our shores for centuries have had to make their own way — depending on friends, relatives or their own grit to survive.

Now the city is basically paying migrants who break the law and hop the border to come here — and it’s using funds from hard-working New York citizens to do so.

Ones who get little help from the city: When was the last time City Hall offered to pay for your moving expenses?

True, primary blame for the migrant crisis lies with President Biden and Border Czar Kamala Harris, who sent out “la invitacion” to rush in, then waved them in at the border.

And make no mistake, Harris will keep up that policy, if not broaden it: She’s still pushing that “bipartisan border security bill” that would create new rights for “asylum seekers.”

But that’s no reason for City Hall to add more cash rewards for border-jumpers.

Start working to stop the flow, at least to New York, Mr. Mayor, and quit trying to “manage” the endless influx — especially with gimmicks that only make the situation worse.

https://nypost.com/2024/09/09/opinion/why-is-eric-adams-paying-migrants-costs-unlike-for-past-migrants/

The even more serious story about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio

 It’s a wild viral claim that has been snapped up and memed by Elon Musk, Republican influencers and even former President Donald Trump’s running-mate JD Vance — but it also stems from a serious problem.

Are migrants from Haiti grabbing pets out of yards and ducks from public parks so they they can eat them?

Springfield police told the Springfield News-Sun that migrants turning pets into pâté was “not something that’s on our radar right now. A city spokesperson said, “there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.” 

Critics have said the claims about Haitian migrants eating pets are racist.

Police in Springfield, Ohio have denied claims that migrants are abducting and eating pets.Getty Images

The tale, however, hints at much larger concerns about the recent influx of migrants into Springfield — a city of 60,000 people about 45 minutes west of Columbus.

Officials say that up to 20,000 Haitian immigrants have flowed into the city in the last several years, putting a huge strain on city services.

‘They’re in the park grabbing up ducks’

The craze began with an August meeting of the Springfield City Commission, where a 28-year-old man claimed — without evidence — that Haitian migrants were beheading ducks at local parks and then taking them home to eat.

“They’re in the park grabbing up ducks by they neck and cutting they head off and walking up with them and eating them,” the man said, imploring the city commission to rein in the migrants.

A 28-year-old man made the claim that migrants were stealing ducks from parks at a Springfield City Commission meeting in August.City of Springfield

Also spreading online are grabs of a post made by someone in a Springfield Facebook group claiming a friend’s cat went missing — and then was purportedly seen strung up and butchered for dinner in a Haitian migrant’s yard.

One of the videos that went viral with the claims shows a woman who was arrested for allegedly eating a cat last month. The clip appears to show 27-year-old Allexis Telia Ferrell, who according to Fox 12, was charged after a maddened Aug. 16 rampage in which she allegedly stomped on the cat and then devoured it in front of her neighbors.

However, records do not indicate the woman is either Haitian or a migrant — and she was arrested in Canton, about three hours from Springfield.

Haitian migrants preparing to depart a Customs and Border Protection station in Maratahon, Fla. on June 26, 2024.Al Diaz/Miami Herald via AP
Another image that is part of the viral story, of a man holding a goose, appears to originate from an August Reddit post in a group dedicated to Columbus, where the poster provided no context beyond bewilderment.
Vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance has amplified the claims.AP Photo/Zoë Meyers)
Vance questioned what “border czar” Vice President Harris will do to the claims coming from Springfield.X / @JDVance

A super viral claim

Vance, who is also an Ohio senator, was one of the first major politicians to amplify the reports of migrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.

“People have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country,” Vance wrote on X Monday.

Musk has also jumped on the bandwagon — commenting on or reposting AI-generated images of Trump saving ducks and kittens.

Vance has defended his amplification of the claims.

“Senator Vance has received a high volume of calls and emails over the past several weeks from concerned citizens in Springfield: his tweet is based on what he is hearing from them. The city has faced an influx of 15,000-20,000 Haitian migrants over the past four years, stressing public resources and leading to housing shortages, all thanks to Kamala Harris’s policy of extending temporary protected status designations,” a Vance spokesperson told The Hill.

“Many residents have contacted Senator Vance to share their concerns over crime and traffic accidents, and to express that they no longer feel safe in their own homes. Unlike the liberal media, JD takes his constituents’ concerns seriously.”

Claims of racism

Springfield has long been a largely-white city – 70% of residents were white as of 2022, according to Data US, compared to 17% black, and 5% reported being Hispanic.

But that white majority has been declining over the last ten years – slowly but steadily – while minorities have been growing.

Some social media commenters have said the claims of Haitian immigrants eating pets is nothing more than a racist, xenophobic responses to Springfield’s shifting demographics.

“This is the same old anti-black playbook that we’ve seen for hundreds of years in Ohio being rolled out to divide and create hate, especially around election times,” Erik Crew, an attorney for the Haitian Bridge Alliance told the Hill.

“White supremacist and antidemocratic movements have always used the claim that so-called black savages are coming to destroy, especially when political power is up for grabs. This is no different.”

Scores of blatantly racist memes have cropped up on the heels of the pet-eating claims, including one that shows shirtless black people chasing down Donald Trump as he flees with ducks and kittens under his arms.

The real migrant concerns in Springfield, Ohio

The issue of Haitian migrants have become a flashpoint in Springfield — a former manufacturing hub of 60,000 between Dayton and Columbus.

Over the last four years the city’s migrant Haitian population has grown 15,000 to 20,000 people — increasing Springfield’s population by as much as one-third, according to city officials.

Many residents and local politicians — including Vance — have expressed outrage at the influx, claiming the Haitian population has strained the city’s services and left legal Americans in the lurch.

Tensions have been heightened since August 2023 after a 36-year-old Haitian immigrant – Hermanio Joseph — lost control of a minivan he was driving without a valid US license on highway near Springfield and strayed into the path of an oncoming school bus.

The bus driver swerved to avoid Joseph, and went careering off the road, throwing 11-year-old Aiden Clark from a window and fatally crushing him as it rolled.

Twenty other kids were hospitalized.

Joseph had been living in Springfield for over a year at the time of the accident, according to Spectrum News. He was sentenced to at least 9 years in prison.

https://nypost.com/2024/09/09/us-news/all-about-viral-claims-of-haitian-migrants-eating-pets-in-springfield-ohio/