A Logan Square woman charged with throwing a Molotov cocktail onto her Venezuelan neighbors’ back porch told them “Leave on your own or we will make you” in a note at the time of the alleged March 2024 attack, records show.
Federal prosecutors accused Ana Hernandez
, 69, of throwing an explosive onto her neighbors’ porch “to injure, intimidate and interfere” the alleged victims because of “their race, color and national origin” in a criminal information filed Monday in U.S. District Court. A Cook County grand jury indicted her on one count of aggravated arson and one count of hate crime in April.
The alleged victims’ landlord told Chicago police Hernandez had clashed with the first-floor tenants, who are from Venezuela, over the volume of their music on March 3, 2024, according to police records obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request. The next day, the complainant found his back porch “on fire from two Molotov cocktails.” The tenants put the fire out and cleaned up the porch and police did not identify any suspects, according to the report. The report stated that a security camera was installed on the porch shortly afterward, and Hernandez later denied being involved in the fire.
On March 17, the complainant told police that Hernandez had appeared on the security footage throwing a Molotov cocktail onto the porch, according to the police report. The neighbor also said Hernandez left a note on his car that read “Stupid Venezuelans go back to your country, we don’t want you in our neighborhood. Leave on your own or we will make you.”
Police arrested Hernandez on April 10, 2024. Cook County Judge William Fahy ordered her release pending trial on the condition that she not return to the block where the fire took place. Court records show that Judge Steven Watkins allowed Hernandez to return briefly to her apartment in December to move her things.
She is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court Jan. 15.
Donald Trump
hasn’t even retaken the office of the presidency yet, and he’s already drastically reshaping American foreign policy
.
At a Tuesday press conference, which covered a wide range of topics, President-elect Trump announced that his administration would be renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
The once and future president also doubled down on his aims to acquire Greenland, retake control of the Panama Canal, and put pressure on Canada
to change its trade relations with the United States.
One reporter asked Trump whether he would rule out using “military force” to take Greenland and Panama.
“I’m not going to commit to that,” Trump said
. “It might be that you’ll have to do something. The Panama Canal is vital to our country.”
Trump added that the United States needs Greenland for “national security purposes.”
When he was later asked whether he would use military force to make Canada a part of the United States, Trump said he wouldn’t, but instead would employ economic pressure.
Trump Not Use Military Force to Annex Canada. But He’s Considering Economic Force.
Reporter: Are you considering using military force to annex Canada?
Trump: No. Economic force.
President-elect Donald Trump has floated the idea of making Canada the 51st state in the past.… pic.twitter.com/pf4g5KXNwR
There’s no question that Trump occasionally “spitballs” ideas at news conferences on all kinds of subjects, but I’d argue that he’s developing a clear agenda
for his second go-around in the White House.
Trump’s foreign policy outlook, if viewed holistically, clearly aims to be much more limited and realistic than the dominant “make the world safe for democracy” and U.S. global primacy ethos that’s dominated Washington thinking in the post-Cold War world.
Trump 2.0 foreign policy, at least from the perspective of his public comments, appears to be shaping up into something akin to a neo-Monroe Doctrine. Its focus will be on shoring up the most important American interests at home and close to home, avoiding needless conflicts and adventurism in far-off places with marginal ties to American interests, and most importantly of all, restoring America’s confidence as a great country with a bright future.
For a little refresher, the original Monroe Doctrine was once the defining foreign policy attitude of the United States in the 19th century. It was initiated under President James Monroe, but is often attributed to John Quincy Adams, his brilliant secretary of state (and successor as president).
The Monroe Doctrine’s goal was limited, but profound, for the development of the United States.
America wouldn’t be unleashed on the world seeking monsters to destroy. It would instead secure its freedom at home with the threat that any great power abroad—especially a great colonial power from the Old World—would be looked upon with suspicion or hostility if it intruded in the New World.
Historian Walter McDougall wrote in his book, “Promised Land, Crusader State
: The American Encounter With the World Since 1776,” that the principles of the original Monroe Doctrine “were conceived narrowly, and in terms of vital, nearby American interests.”
It was best understood, McDougall wrote, “as a purposefully vague proclamation of U.S. determination to defend whatever vital national interests it had, or might in the future, identify, in the Western Hemisphere.”
Later iterations of the Monroe Doctrine became perhaps a bit more expansive under Theodore Roosevelt and others, but the general principle remained in place. American interests expanded with the nation.
What Trump is doing with his recent remarks about the Panama Canal, Greenland, and even Canada is bringing back this traditional way of thinking of America as a country rooted in the Western Hemisphere. It even comports with his attitude toward national borders and immigration controls.
Why is the U.S. more committed to defending the border of Ukraine than its own border with Mexico? Trump doesn’t rule out that the U.S. may have interests that stretch across the globe, but he insists on putting vital and immediate interests at our own national doorstep first.
That includes the Panama Canal, which is no longer under American control—even though we built it and paid for it—but is absolutely connected to American economic and military security.
China’s de facto control over the canal would be an enormous long-term threat to the United States. China making massive inroads into Panama and elsewhere in Central and South America is the kind of great power threat that the Monroe Doctrine was originally meant to counter.
The question isn’t why Trump is suddenly bringing the issue up. Why haven’t American leaders already made it a priority?
Greenland, too, is important for American defense. It not only has abundant natural resources, but is in a prime location for exerting power over the Arctic and defending the U.S. against potential threats from Russia, China, or any other great power in the region.
Obviously, the nature of our relationships with Canada and Mexico should be a priority. But the right kind of relationship that serves America best won’t always come through gentle words and platitudes.
Trump is a New York real estate man. Ultimately, he doesn’t care about niceties to get a deal done, though he’s clearly willing to use his own brand of soft power in negotiations. He’s sending many of his allies, including son Donald Trump Jr. to Greenland to win them over.
The bottom line is that Trump is signaling that his policy will be both more constrained and more focused on narrow American interests. If we make threats, they certainly better be seen as threats and not mere bluster. This will certainly be a change from outgoing President Joe Biden’s strategy, which amounted to “holler loudly and incoherently about everything while nobody listens.” Or just “don’t
.”
If Trump does revive some form of the Monroe Doctrine, it could represent a much-needed return to tradition and to a stronger foundation for U.S. security in an increasingly dangerous world.
NEW ORLEANS — She ran around in silver sparkling shoes, her faux chainmail tunic shimmering in the freezing breeze, maneuvering horses made of paper mâché, a giant green dragon, and sheep constructed from milk cartons.
Antoinette de Alteriis was preparing with hundreds of others to put on the Joan of Arc parade, a joyous, freewheeling kickoff to Carnival season.
Just a few blocks away, people wept and laid flowers and crosses at the site of a horrific truck attack that killed 14 people only six days earlier. A memorial to the dead stretched for half a block.
“That’s a hard thing. How do you reconcile that with having a parade?” de Alteriis said. “Here’s how we reconcile it: We chose hope.”
Countless times in the past week, politicians and outsiders have praised the city for its ability to bounce back. New Orleans has faced tragedy again and again, perhaps more than any other American place.
Locals wince when people praise the city’s “resilience.” They say they’re exhausted at being asked to endure the systemic problems and inequities and government failures.
Mark Schettler, a veteran bartender, said he prefers to think of this parade, and all the ones that will come after it, as an act of defiance that inspires others to follow, to act. That, he said, is what the city needs most right now.
“We’re so sick and tired of having to be resilient. How about for once things just work?” Schettler said. “But as long as I have two middle fingers I will always be waving them around defiantly.”
Stop calling it resilience
Schettler watched the parade from the Double Club on Chartres Street, at a party reserved for people in the service industry. It was his 39th birthday — he had a stack of dollar bills pinned to his chest, a New Orleans birthday tradition — but there was a bittersweet tinge to the celebration.
Schettler grabbed random people at the bar and quizzed them: What’s the R word that you hate the most? Most knew the answer right away.
“Resilience?” said service industry worker Andy Pratt. “Pay us! We’re sick of being resilient.”
“It’s not fair to be judged by your ability to navigate trauma,” said Dominic Hernandez, the club’s co-owner with his wife Cierra.
“It is so dismissive,” said Cierra Hernandez.
“It’s honestly insulting,” said Rafaela Lopez, a tattoo artist and bartender.
They were given little choice but to keep moving: Bourbon Street reopened a mere 36 hours after the carnage, before all the bodies had yet been identified by the coroner. The Sugar Bowl was delayed, but by less than 24 hours. Officials, eager to move forward, plugged the upcoming Super Bowl.
Many people who work as waiters, bartenders or dancers in the French Quarter had to go back to work the day after the attack.
Still grappling with the bloodshed in their streets, some said they felt forced into a state of resiliency by leaders prioritizing those who visit the city, over locals’ need for time and space to heal. Louisiana relies on tourism, with 42.6 million visitors in 2022 generating $17.1 billion.
Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, who oversees Louisiana’s marketing and tourism efforts, said that while he understands the need for time to mourn, he also recognizes that the state needs tourism dollars to survive.
“Those tourism dollars are what keeps the rest of the city and the rest of the state working,” Nungesser said. “How we shine for the Super Bowl will affect tourism for years to come.”
And although some view the return to normalcy as resilience, others don’t share that view or see it as a compliment. It’s a forced state of being that requires nothing of anyone but the people who are hurting.
Dressed in leopard print with glitter sparkling all over her cheeks, Lopez said the only real resilience is in the support that the community has for itself.
“The only people who take care of each other is us,” Lopez said.
Someone brought out shots for the table, and they all raised a glass. They laughed and made a toast: “To resilience, y’all!”
A city marked by tragedy
It’s been just 20 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, and in the decades since there have been more hurricanes, the BP oil spill, and spasms of violence. The city had the highest per-capita homicide rate in the nation in 2022. The numbers have decreased in the years since, but residents still say violence is so ingrained in city life, they’re often numb to it.
On New Year’s Day, just hours after the carnage on Bourbon Street, the owner of a Vietnamese supermarket was gunned down in a robbery. Thanh Vu, a mother of six and widely known as Ms. Maria, was described to the local media as a “beloved matriarch.” Two others were killed in separate shootings that same day: 19-year-old Kayron Hall and 41-year-old Percy Baytop.
“Things keep happening here — hurricanes, floods, now a terrorist attack. We’re just expected to dust ourselves off and keep going,” said New Orleans native Julie Laskay.
De Alteriis said she still has post-traumatic stress disorder from surviving Hurricane Katrina. She spent months after living in a makeshift shelter with her elderly mother, her son and two cats, and still gets pangs of fear when a bad storm rolls in, a compulsion to check in with friends – the same instinct she felt after the attack on New Year’s Day.
Some people have criticized Mayor LaToya Cantrell and Chief of Police Anne Kirkpatrick for leaving the French Quarter vulnerable on New Year’s Eve; the city was in the midst of replacing the steel barriers, leaving a security gap that gave the attacker an entry onto the street. The mayor later admitted she remains unsure if the expensive new barriers would be able to stop a similar vehicle attack.
If not resilience, then what?
The parade marched on. It was a motley assembly of hundreds of volunteers, smaller than in past years, from retirees who had participated for nearly two decades to twentysomethings who signed up on a whim for the first time ever.
Spectators expressed gratitude for the knights, monks, angels and others who had donned their elaborate costumes in near-freezing weather: “Thank y’all!” “Y’all look so great!” “Gorgeous!” Strangers smiled at each other, friends reconnected and hugged along the route and the warmth of the moment seemed to hold the city together.
Hannah Miller held a sign reading “I love you New Orleans”″ with little lights around it.
“Tonight felt almost like a protest or a rally,” she said. “Because love is bigger than fear.”
It felt, some said, like a light in the darkness.
Wren Misbach, a marcher dressed in a silvery tunic, viewed it as an act of service to the city she loves.
“We take care of ourselves here,” Misbach said. “We rise again, we live to fight another day, we put ourselves back together.”
Yasin Frank Southall and his friends celebrated in a most New Orleans fashion: Pouring out free hot toddies and slicing king cake for anyone who passed.
“Going back to normalcy is really important. It’s about tradition, it’s about love,” said Southall, a 42-year-old community engagement manager for a housing organization.
As the parade wound to a close, Kathleen Ford, a 56-year-old realtor draped in a pink and white coat with a bejeweled felt crown, called out to the marchers: “Pray hard!”
She had to be here tonight despite the cold, despite how tired she was of bouncing back ever since she lost her house beneath 10 feet of water after Hurricane Katrina. A former French Quarter resident, her favorite bar was just a block away from where the attack happened.
This parade, she said, isn’t about resilience. It’s about the city, and what it means, its beauty, its pain, its grit.
“It’s what we do, it’s part of our DNA, my DNA,” Ford said. “It’s the soul of my heart and soul of New Orleans.”
As the parade ended before her, a procession of angels brought up the rear, their white-gloved hands clasped in prayer to the tune of Hallelujah.
They marched through a flutter of confetti and flashing blue police lights.
Galofaro reported from Louisville, KY, and Cline from Baton Rouge, La.
This seemingly went public after Trudeau’s Finance Minister/Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland resigned, due to conflicting beliefs on Trudeau’s handling of the Canadian economy. In a letter Freeland sent to Trudeau which later was published to social media, Freeland stated that Trudeau’s handling of the economy included “costly political gimmicks” and that the two had been “at odds” recently on how to handle the upcoming Trump administration
.
Additionally, the public polling for the Liberal Party in general has been at a record low. It is now predicted that the Liberal Party has a less than 1% chance of winning the majority of seats in Parliament. According to The New York Times
, the Liberal Party’s popularity problem, even in liberal strongholds such as Montreal, is Trudeau himself. He has essentially become the poster child for the unpopular policies that Canadians see as contributing to higher prices of living and the current housing crisis.
In his departing press conference, Trudeau recognized the political turmoil in which his party was currently residing. He believes the country will be best served if he is to stay on as prime minister until a new Liberal Party leader is elected, which is expected on March 24.
Most fascinating during the speech is how Trudeau listed his administration’s COVID-19 policies as being among one of his greatest achievements in office. His COVID-19 policies
led to the months-long “Freedom Convoy” in 2022, causing major disturbances in the supply chain between Canada and the U.S. Trudeau’s administration, in congruence with the Biden administration, required anyone crossing the border (including semi-truck drivers) to be vaccinated. The Canadian courts across the country denied numerous requests for religious or conscientious exemptions.
What was most egregious during the COVID-19 pandemic was Trudeau’s apathy towards Christians
. His most blatant public display of this was in 2021. In June 2021, there was a mass grave site of First Nations children found at a residential school run by the Roman Catholic Church in southeastern Saskatchewan. Just a few weeks prior, a similar mass grave site was found in British Columbia.
This set in motion the summer of fire. In 2021 alone, 90 churches across the country were burned to the ground. Being such a nationwide epidemic, one would think Trudeau would have strongly condemned such violence. However, in his statement after the height of these attacks, he discussed that he understood the anger the arsonists were feeling. He went on to apologize for the government and then called on the schools and Pope Francis himself to apologize.
Speaking of the arsonists he said, “It’s real and it is fully understandable given the shameful history we are all become more aware of.”
This all happened as Trudeau’s administration imposed COVID-19 lockdown restrictions upon churches as well. While most of the world was locking down to prevent the spread of disease, Canada was also jailing pastors, fining them, and seizing properties and assets if these congregants tried to worship together. Pastor James Coates of Edmonton, Alberta was jailed for 35 days and his church property was seized by local police and barricaded. GraceLife Church was trying to meet outside to ensure social distancing but afterward had to meet in clandestine underground services. Pastor Tim Stephens of Calgary, Alberta was jailed for 21 days for holding an outdoor worship service. Despite his efforts to comply and bring a semblance of health and safety to his congregants, he was still arrested in front of his wife and children at his home.
Pastor Artur Pawlowski of Calgary, whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, was jailed for 50 days and put in solitary confinement for at least a week for holding church services. Pastor Tobias Tissen of Steinbach, Manitoba, along with four lay pastors, were arrested and then the government prosecutor in the case sought fines in the amounts of $18,000 and $42,000 per person plus court costs and fees. Again, this pastor did try to ensure the health and safety of parishioners by hosting church services outdoors. Pastor Michael Thiessen of Alliston, Ontario was fined $300,000 and a potential three years in jail for keeping his church open—all the while grocery stores, liquor stores, marijuana dispensaries, and other “essential” businesses remained legally open.
These are just a sampling of the violations of religious liberties across Canada under Trudeau. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., called for Canada to be put on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom’s Watch List, stating, “I am troubled that our Canadian neighbors are effectively being forced to gather in secret, undisclosed locations to exercise their basic freedom to worship.”
One of Canada’s neighbor states, Ohio, recommended this as well in Ohio House Resolution 194, sponsored by former Rep. Reggie Stoltzfus and former Rep. Timothy Ginter. Over 50 pieces of written testimony were originally received to present to the Ohio House State and Local Government Committee. These included stories from students, nurses, pilots, food service workers, soldiers, and even local elected officials about how they were systemically denied religious freedoms regarding COVID-19. For brevity, some of the testimonies were condensed into a statement by Liberty Coalition Canada, headed by Pastor Michael Thiessen.
Pastor Pawlowski was still imprisoned at the time of the committee hearing and dictated his testimony over the phone to his family. His written testimony details a much longer history of religious liberty violations he has suffered than just due to COVID-19 restrictions. His testimony demonstrated a systematic intolerance on behalf of the Canadian government for his Christian activity such as: feeding the poor, handing out Bibles, holding traditional biblical views of marriage, and preaching in the local park.
The resolution was to urge the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom to put Canada on the Special Watch List of countries whose governments “engage or tolerate in severe religious freedom violations, but do not rise to the CPC (countries of particular concern) standard of “systematic, ongoing, and egregious” violations. If they had indeed been added at the time, they would have been named alongside countries such as: Egypt, Turkey, Sri Lanka, and other serious human rights violators. Importantly, the State Department would have had more diplomatic tools at their disposal in relations with Canada to help correct this behavior.
While they were not added to the Special Watch List at United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and many have moved on from the COVID era, there are some who have not forgotten. Some of us still remember Trudeau’s campaign beginning with promises of freedom of choices, most prominently a woman’s right to choose abortion and a person’s right to choose the LGBTQ+ lifestyle. However, his policies did not include protecting the freedoms of those who believed in upholding Christ and Christian values.
Thus, as he steps down, let us not forget his legacy (lest we become doomed to repeat it). Let us remember the Trudeau legacy as one of true religious bigotry and persecution and vow to not let it happen again, either on Canadian or American shores.
