Pelosi Bill Aims to Fight Coronavirus With Hate Crime Reform and ‘Environmental Justice Grants’

A COVID-19 relief bill chock full of liberal agenda items...

The Washington Free Beacon reports

The $3 trillion coronavirus relief package unveiled by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and her Democratic colleagues on Tuesday contains only 20 mentions of "diversity."

That's a significant reduction compared with the 32 times the word "diversity" appeared in the relief package Pelosi introduced in March, which was several hundred pages shorter than the current version. But there's still plenty for progressives to be excited about. The word "economy," for example, appears just twice in the entire bill.

Like its previous iteration, the newly introduced Democratic legislation is stuffed with left-wing policies that have been slightly reframed to suggest a relevance to the coronavirus pandemic. For example, the bill would allocate $50 million for "environmental justice grants to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus."

The Environmental Protection Agency would use the funding to "investigate or address the disproportionate impacts of the COVID–19 pandemic in environmental justice communities," whatever that means.

...

Other important pandemic-fighting reforms include a provision that would change the government's definition of "minority depository institutions"—minority-owned commercial banks or savings associations—to include women as a qualifying minority. The bill would establish special advisory committees to oversee these institutions and contains language designed to ensure that these committees are sufficiently diverse.

Additionally, the House Democratic plan to combat the coronavirus includes the establishment of new federal guidelines regarding hate crimes. It proposes providing federal grants to state and local law enforcement agencies to "train employees in identifying and classifying hate crimes."

The bill would also extend financial assistance to illegal immigrants by removing the requirement that recipients possess a Social Security number, a provision championed by celebrity freshman representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and other progressive members.

1 year, 12 months ago

Governors in Iowa, North Dakota and Alabama join GOP colleagues in banning TikTok for state employees

The Republican governors of three more states have joined the growing number of GOP governors who are banning TikTok among state government employees amid security concerns about the Chinese-owned social media platform

1 year, 12 months ago

Arizona Governor Creates Shipping Container Border Wall

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has had hundreds of double-stacked shipping containers topped with razor wire placed on the state’s border with Mexico

2 years ago

Stacey Abrams’s Georgia Nonprofit Could Face Criminal Investigations for Unlicensed Fundraising

New Georgia Project's charity license has lapsed in at least nine states

2 years ago

Biden says ‘more important things’ than border visit, despite 59 trips to Delaware, 8 stops for ice cream

Biden has yet to visit southern border despite historic crisis under his watch

2 years ago

Governor Kristi Noem delivers annual Budget Address, says the state can afford grocery tax cut

In about thirty minutes of remarks, Governor Kristi Noem laid out her administration would like to see nearly $2.2 billion spent over the course of the next fiscal year and a half.

2 years ago

‘A Clear And Present Danger To Its Users:’ South Carolina Gov. Bans State Employees From Using TikTok Amid National Security Concerns

South Carolina became the second state in the union Monday to permanently ban state employees’ electronic devices from using TikTok amid federal officials sounding the alarm that the Chinese-based social media app threatens national security