Free Republic

Rev. Al Sharpton’s charity nearly doubled his compensation and also shelled out close to $300,000 for private jets so that he and other bigwigs could attend “important gatherings.” The National Action Network paid Sharpton $348,174 in 2021 as its president and CEO and gave him a hefty bonus of $278,503 — plus $22,117 worth of benefits for total compensation of $648,794, its latest tax filing shows. The preacher’s 2020 compensation came to $347,183, which did not include a bonus. NAN also forked over nearly $1 million on private jets and limos.

Kyle Rittenhouse supporters were not allowed to fundraise on the website. Defending oneself against attacks by the Left’s pet protesters, it turns out, is not allowed. When Rittenhouse jumped to GiveSendGo, Discover credit card cut off the ability to give money to that fundraiser. You might want to make a note of that. A “Save America” rally fundraiser by a conservative couple to oppose COVID-19 mandates was cut off. Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire set up a fundraiser for Congresswoman Alexandria Cortez’s grandmother to buy a new ceiling. But it was cut off when “someone” informed the fundraising platform...

Fed-up New York City parents are demanding no masks in the classroom when school reopens in September. Calling the coverings cruel, needless and detrimental to learning, some say they are even mulling homeschooling or private education options. “I’m not willing to send him to school with a mask,” Manhattan mom Katherine Rohland said of her 3 1/2-year-old son, Robert, who is scheduled to go to a Department of Education pre-kindergarten program in the fall. Rohland said the tot had to wear a mask at nursery school and immediately shut down, not talking to anyone, when he put it on. She...

The distraught dad whose 12-year-old son died after being attacked at school over what may have been a $1 dare was overcome with grief Saturday — and blamed the boy’s classmates. “They beat my son in the school. They kill him,” Romain Vilsaint, 59, sobbed, speaking in Creole as a neighbor translated. “Oh God, I lost my son, I lost my son.” His family said the boy complained of a headache Wednesday, but didn’t tell them until later he was jumped by two kids. They don’t know where or what sparked the incident. He went to school Thursday, where he...

One of the Black Lives Matter protesters now facing felony rioting and misdemeanor graffiti charges — after a window-smashing free-for-all in Manhattan — is a wealthy Upper East Sider whose mother is an architect and whose father is a child psychiatrist. Clara Kraebber, 20, is one of eight people arrested Friday night after a roiling, three-hour rampage that police say caused at least $100,000 in damage from Foley Square up to 24th Street. “Every city, every town, burn the precinct to the ground!” the group chanted as it moved up Lafayette Street while busting the plate glass facades of banks,...

Large crowds of maskless revelers are packing the streets in Astoria and partying like there’s no pandemic. A video shot Friday night shows hundreds of partiers packing Steinway Street as an NYPD cruiser tries to get by and police tell people to “get out of the street.” The crowd cheers as the car moves on, then fills the street again, plastic cups in hand. They stood in front of bars and restaurants, some of which had tables out for dining. Later, a group of officers can be seen standing on a corner looking on as crowds walk by. Another video...

In what one professor calls “affirmative action” grading, Brooklyn College wants to “re-educate” instructors whose minority students have lousy grades, The Post has learned. In an eight-point “anti-racist” agenda shared with the school community this month, college president Michelle Anderson said the school had “recently raised funds to offer professional development to faculty in classes with the highest racial disparities in outcomes” and the most grades of D or F or withdrawals.

Melissa Klein, co-owner of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, in Gresham, talks with a customer on Feb. 5, 2013. (Everton Bailey Jr./staff) The owners of a shuttered Gresham bakery fined by the state after refusing to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple want to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Lawyers for Aaron and Melissa Klein, the former owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, filed a petition Monday asking the high court to overturn the state's order to pay $135,000 in emotional damages to the couple they turned away. The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries...

Veteran professors at the Manhattan school renowned for training future crime-fighters ran a lawless den of depravity called “the swamp,” where they allegedly used and sold drugs, and “pimped” out and sexually preyed on students, according to two women at the center of a widening scandal at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The shocking allegations are now under criminal probe by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and the state Inspector General, The Post has learned. After the paper first revealed two weeks ago that formal sex-harassment complaints against four professors were being probed by the taxpayer-funded CUNY school,...

PORTLAND (ChurchMilitant.com) - The man who fined an Oregon Christian bakery $135,000 for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple has lost his run for public office, losing to his Republican opponent. It's the first time a Republican has won a statewide office in Oregon since 2002. Brad Avakian's rise to national prominence began when a lesbian couple filed a complaint to the Oregon Department of Justice back in 2013 when Aaron and Melissa Klein, Christian owners of Sweet Cakes bakery, declined to make a cake for a gay wedding. Brad Avakian, then Commissioner of Oregon Bureau...

You’ve seen the story multiple times already: a Christian baker declines to cater a gay wedding, and gets sued in the process. The most publicized came out of Oregon, where the bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa chose not to bake a wedding for a same-sex wedding. Rachel Bowman-Cryer and her mother visited Sweet Cakes planning to order a wedding cake. Bowman-Cryer had purchased a cake previously from the Kleins for her mother’s sixth wedding. Bowman-Cryer wanted to have the same cake she had purchased for her mother. That’s when Aaron Klein asked what the name of the bride and groom...

In 2013 - a small family bakery in Northwestern Oregon refused to make a cake for a lesbian wedding. The owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa had no idea that their decision to follow the teachings of their Christian faith would lead to a multi-year legal battle. It’s a battle still being waged. Aaron and Melissa Klein were eventually punished by the state of Oregon -- fined $135 thousand dollars for refusing to participate in the lesbian wedding event. It was the price they had to pay for refusing to violate their conscience. They also made the painful decision...

Melissa Klein was checking her bank accounts just a few weeks before Christmas when her face turned ashen. The money was gone - every single penny. Oregon's Bureau of Labor and Industries had confiscated all the cash in Mrs. Klein's checking account and savings account as well as a special account set aside for their church tithe. (snip) "It was like my breath was taken away," Mrs. Klein told me in a telephone conversation. "I panicked. Everything was gone." And, as I said before, Commissioner Avakian even seized money set aside for You Know Who. "We had three accounts," she...

A crowdfunding campaign for the Oregon bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa has set a site record by raising $352,500 in about two months after being kicked off the GoFundMe website, far exceeding the initial goal of $150,000. Jesse Wellhoefer, founder of Continue to Give, said the Sweet Cakes effort has raised more than any previous campaign on behalf of individuals in the three-year-old crowdfunding website’s history. Continue to Give also handles ongoing fundraising for nonprofit organizations as well as mobile and kiosk tithing for churches. GoFundMe, the nation’s largest crowdfunder, removed a campaign for Sweet Cakes by Melissa in April...

Defiant Oregon bakers fined $135,000 for their 2013 refusal to make a cake for a lesbian wedding reportedly vow to "fight back" against the state labor commissioner's stiff penalty – and are calling on "Christians … to take a stand." "For years, we’ve heard same-sex marriage will not affect anybody," Aaron Klein, co-owner of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, told The Blaze. "I’m here firsthand to tell everyone in America that it has already impacted people. Christians, get ready to take a stand. Get ready for civil disobedience." Oregon's Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian on Thursday issued a final ruling in the...

FULL TITLE: Baker Has a Message for the Gov’t Official Who Just Fined Him $135,000 for Declining a Gay Wedding Cake: ‘He’s Doing This With the Wrong Christian Just hours after Oregon officials announced that Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of Sweetcakes by Melissa, would be fined $135,000 for their refusal to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding, Aaron Klein had a message for government officials: He has no plans of backing down. “He wants to silence anyone who opposes his point of view,” Klein told TheBlaze, speaking specifically about Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian, who has spearheaded the...

Aaron and Melissa Klein ordered not to talk publicly about their faith. I don’t know if you’ve followed the case of Sweet Cakes by Melissa. This is the now-closed bakery in Oregon that has become a target of state officials because its Christian owners declined to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding. Not only has the business been forced to close, the state has fined the Kleins $135,000. But it gets worse. Much worse. Now that state has responded to a radio interview the Kleins gave by ordering them to no longer talk publicly about why their faith compels...

Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian finalized a preliminary ruling today ordering Aaron and Melissa Klein, the bakers who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, to pay $135,000 in emotional damages to the couple they denied service. “This case is not about a wedding cake or a marriage,” Avakian wrote. “It is about a business’s refusal to serve someone because of their sexual orientation. Under Oregon law, that is illegal.” In the ruling, Avakian placed an effective gag order on the Kleins, ordering them to “cease and desist” from speaking publicly about not wanting to bake cakes for...

Doug Band's exit...marks the end of a complicated relationship w/ Band’s controversial company, Teneo. The Clinton Foundation is under fire for pocketing $$millions in donations for access, but Teneo’s role is less well-known.....described as a vast money-making machine. “...not just emblematic of how "Clinton Inc." works, it's the political and financial mess that's been created,” author Halper said. The New Republic noted the suspicious nature of Band’s work in 2013. “...an undertow of transactionalism in the glittering annual dinners, the fixation on celebrity and a contingent of donors whose charitable contributions and business interests occupy an uncomfortable proximity. Even more...

The owners of an Oregon bakery learned Friday that there is a severe price to pay for following their Christian faith. A judge for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) recommended a lesbian couple should receive $135,000 in damages for their emotional suffering after Sweet Cakes by Melissa refused to make them a wedding cake. As a result - Aaron and Melissa Klein could lose everything they own — including their home. The Oregonian reports the recommended penalty is not final and could be raised or lowered by State Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian. The controversy started in 2013...