Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy 9/18

[SVPete]

Law Firm Sues Dearborn, Mich. For Discrimination In Favor Of Islam/b]

https://thefederalist.com/2026/09/17/law-firm-sues-dearborn-mich-for-discrimination-in-favor-of-islam/

public interest law firm filed a lawsuit today against the city of Dearborn, Michigan, for allegedly establishing Islam as a religion in violation of the U.S. Constitution and civil rights laws. The American Freedom Law Center is pursuing the suit on behalf of Dearborn resident and Federalist Senior Legal Correspondent Margot Cleveland.

“The lawsuit alleges that City officials spent public funds and used City property to promote and celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan while refusing Cleveland’s repeated requests that the City extend the same recognition to Christian and Jewish holidays — and that Mayor [Abdullah] Hammoud and other City officials retaliated against Cleveland for speaking out about the disparity,” says an AFLC press release.

The complaint filed Thursday alleges that the city of Dearborn has spent public funds for years to commemorate Islamic holidays but not the holidays of other religions such as Christianity and Judaism. It says AFLC and Cleveland have made numerous requests, by email and at city council meetings, that the city give equal treatment to religions with public funds and avoid a lawsuit. City officials not only failed to respond, the complaint says, but Hammoud directed the city attorney to tell city council members not to respond.

Gee, I wonder why the legal group suing is not "Americans United For Separation of Church and State". It's almost as if "Americans United ..." is specifically anti-Christian.

[SVPete]

‘Bulldozers and hazmat suits’: Large, disease-ridden homeless camp near UC Berkeley finally cleared

https://www.thecollegefix.com/bulldozers-and-hazmat-suits-large-disease-ridden-homeless-camp-near-uc-berkeley-finally-cleared/

Berkeley city officials have been trying for years to shut down a large and disease-ridden homeless encampment next to UC Berkeley. They finally got their wish.

Earlier this week, “police and city officials descended on the controversial site with bulldozers and hazmat suits to evict 21 unhoused Berkeley residents following a court order from a federal judge stemming from a longstanding legal battle,” the Daily Californian student newspaper reported.

The infamous encampment had gone viral once again in late August thanks to a video taken by a parent dropping her son off at UC Berkeley that showed large camping tents, trash, sleeping bags, garbage, tarps, dirty mattresses, bikes and other debris piled up in heaps and spilling out into the street for several blocks.

The encampment had been officially deemed a fire hazard by public officials, with community services also noting “dead rats all over the streets,” as well as regular instances of “visible bodily fluids and feces” on the ground, as The College Fix reported.

It was also the location of a leptospirosis outbreak.

Homeless advocates had fought efforts by city officials and local business owners to shut the encampment down, even filing a lawsuit to block efforts to clean it up.

I'm mildly surprised that PETA didn't join in trying to block this. Think of all the rats and fleas made homeless!

[SVPete]

Exclusive – Secretary Rollins on SNAP Fraud Fight: Trump’s USDA Has Moved Almost 6 million Off Food Stamps

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/09/17/exclusive-secretary-rollins-snap-fraud-fight-trumps-usda-has-moved-almost-6-million-off-food-stamps/

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins detailed the Trump administration’s efforts to root out fraud in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) during an appearance on “The Alex Marlow Show,” saying USDA has shifted personnel who previously worked on reducing the department’s workforce toward examining the food assistance program.

Asked by host Alex Marlow what USDA is doing to identify fraud, Rollins pointed to SNAP, commonly known as the food stamp program. “Well, we have the SNAP program, right? The food, the food stamp program, and you talk about fraud!” Rollins said, adding that other administration officials were also finding fraud in housing, Medicaid, and Medicare programs.

Rollins said one of the challenges with SNAP is that it is “a fully federally funded program,” but the federal government “just hand that money over to the states, and there’s no accountability.”

“The spending on that program went up 40 percent under the last administration under Biden, which is crazy,” Rollins said. “More and more people got on food stamps.”

“There was no checking of whether, you know, they were working or trying to find a job,” she continued. “There was no checking on their means. There was no checking on whether they’re driving Lexuses or, you know, Range Rovers, which a lot of them are.”

[SVPete]

Letitia James Seized Aging Nuns' $19 Million. Why Won't She Release It?

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2026/09/18/letitia-james-seized-aging-nuns-19-million-why-wont-she-release-it-n3819128

No good deed goes unpunished. Especially in the socialist state of New York, where the Attorney General has transformed herself into a one-woman Board of Real Estate Values and Applications. ... Now James refuses to release the proceeds of a Manhattan property sale to aging nuns who can no longer support the ministry they ran in New York City for more than a century.

And it's no small amount, either. The Sisters of the Congregation of Divine Providence, based in Kentucky, ran the Jeanne D'Arc Residence for 123 years to benefit young women coming to the city on their own. The order grew too small to continue operations, as Madeleine Long reports for the Free Press, and needed to shift resources to support aging members of their own religious order and others – itself a charitable effort. The sisters sold the property to John Catsimidis for $22.5 million. As required by New York State law, James' office approved the sale of the property owned by a charitable organization.

And it's no small amount, either. The Sisters of the Congregation of Divine Providence, based in Kentucky, ran the Jeanne D'Arc Residence for 123 years to benefit young women coming to the city on their own. The order grew too small to continue operations, as Madeleine Long reports for the Free Press, and needed to shift resources to support aging members of their own religious order and others – itself a charitable effort. The sisters sold the property to John Catsimidis for $22.5 million. As required by New York State law, James' office approved the sale of the property owned by a charitable organization.

And then it seized the proceeds and has, for two years, refused to release them. Why? James disapproves of the plans the order has for their use:

The attorney general’s office told The Free Press that the religious order never provided “a breakdown of what they plan to do with the funds,” even though Christine Sama, the sisters’ lawyer, had told state officials in a January letter that the money would be used “to carry out the exact same activities as Jeanne d’Arc.”

In an interview, Sama told The Free Press that state officials objected to plans by the religious order to use the money to care for aging sisters at Holy Family Home, the order’s retirement home in Kentucky. They also plan to support their other ministries, which include running a local emergency shelter, supporting immigrant resettlement, and operating health clinics and schools in rural Madagascar.

“They are saying that use is not sufficiently similar” to the building that the sisters sold, Sama said.

Well, James has anti-Trump lawfare to defend, and nuns are Catholics, so win-win.