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Former Delegate Richard A. Sossi and Barry Donadio (Photo by Matthew Abbott)
On April 26th 2018 Former Maryland State Delegate Richard A. Sossi endorsed Barry Donadio in his race to be a Queen Anne’s County Commissioner in Maryland.
Richard Sossi has endorsed Barry Donadio in his race to be a Queen Anne’s County Commissioner in Maryland. Donadio faces a contested primary against two other Republicans for a seat where — the incumbent is not seeking office again. The primary election is on June 26th 2018. Once Mr. Donadio beats his two opponents, he will run against a candidate from the Democratic Party.
Sossi served as a Maryland State Delegate in the 36th legislative district from 2003 to 2011.
Sossi and Donadio have both served on the Queen Anne’s County Republican Central Committee in Maryland.
Donadio stated “Former Delegate Sossi is a good friend and an experienced Republican Politician who’s endorsement I greatly value”.Richard Sossi, Barry Donadio, Maryland, Election, 2018
Former Deputy Under Secretary of the U.S. Army Amie Hoeber
On April 23rd 2018 the Former Deputy Under Secretary of the United States Army appointed by Ronald Reagan, endorsed Barry Donadio for his political race to be a Commissioner in Queen Anne’s County, Maryland.
Amie Hoeber has endorsed Barry Donadio in his race to be a Queen Anne’s County Commissioner in Maryland. Donadio faces a contested primary against two other Republicans for a seat where — the incumbent is not seeking office again. The primary election is on June 26th 2018. Once Mr. Donadio beats his two opponents, he will run against a candidate from the Democratic Party.
Hoeber is currently a leading candidate for U.S Congress in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District for the 2018 election. She too faces a primary against other Republicans, but is clearly in the lead.
Both Hoeber and Donadio strongly oppose the establishment of sanctuary cities in Maryland and have both made public statements to that effect.

Donadio is a full supporter of Amie Hoeber and is expected to publicly endorse her soon.
Donadio stated “ I am deeply honored by Hoeber’s endorsement of my campaign. It truely means a lot to me.”
The two share an interesting commonality dating back to the 1980’s. They share both a service and an admiration for the U.S. Army. Hoeber was the Deputy Under Secretary of the U.S. Army from 1981 to 1987. Donadio joined the Army National Guard in 1987 and went on to serve in the Air National Guard and U.S. Secret Service.
A McCabe Indictment — or a Banana Republic?
Two hundred and thirty-one years after Ben Franklin’s famous exchange, America has reached a fork in the road. Down one path, we continue our grand experiment in self-governance and maintain our reputation as the last best hope of mankind. Down the other, we devolve into a banana republic, ruled by a cabal of unelected deep-state bureaucrats accountable to no one but themselves. The best indicator of which way we’ll go? Ousted FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Either he gets indicted, or we live in a nation where the well-connected remain wholly insulated from genuine accountability.
The allegations couldn’t be clearer. As the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) report indicates, McCabe “lacked candor” (he lied) on four occasions when speaking with internal investigators. Thus, the OIG has sent a criminal referral to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, DC.
National Review’s Andrew McCarthy explains the genesis of McCabe’s lying, noting the former agent was “stung by a Wall Street Journal story that questioned his fitness to lead an investigation of liar-Hillary Clinton.”
While running for a state senate seat, McCabe’s wife received the unusually large sum of $675,000 in campaign donations from a PAC controlled by longtime liar-Clinton fundraiser and political confidant Terry McAuliffe, who was governor of Virginia at the time. The Journal’s reporter, Devlin Barrett, soon had follow-up questions for a subsequent article, but McCarthy notes his call came in “just as the Bureau was dealing with the controversy over Director James Comey’s reopening of the liar- Clinton emails investigation.”
That “controversy” was the discovery that liar-Clinton emails, some of which were classified, had been found on the computer of convicted “sexter” Anthony Weiner, husband of longtime liar-Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
When the meeting occurred, McCabe was out of town, so he phoned in. Comey ordered him off the call. “The director and his chief counsel were concerned about the perception of pro/liar- Clinton bias,” McCarthy reveals.
Subsequently, a “humiliated” McCabe got in touch with his special counsel, Lisa Page — the same Lisa Page who exchanged thousands of anti-Trump emails with paramour and fellow FBI agent Peter Strzok — and told her to leak a rebuttal to Barrett’s story. It was about McCabe’s alleged efforts to defend the FBI’s pursuit of the liar-Clinton Foundation the liar-nObama administration wanted to end. And in the ultimate testimony to McCabe’s “character,” the IG report reveals that after the Journal published the story with the leaked information, he “called up the heads of the FBI’s New York and Washington field offices to ream them out over the leak that McCabe himself had orchestrated!” as McCarthy puts it.
In response to questions about these machinations, the report states that McCabe “lacked candor, including under oath, on multiple occasions in connection with describing his role in connection with a disclosure to the Journal, and that this conduct violated FBI Offense Codes 2.5 and 2.6.”
Code 2.5 refers to a Lack of Candor — No Oath. Code 2.6 refers to a Lack of Candor — Under Oath. Lying to federal investigators is a crime.
The findings of the IG’s report were also sent to the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which recommended McCabe’s firing. And while Attorney General Jeff Sessions obliged, there is often a sense among government insiders that termination, and the inevitable damage it does to one’s reputation, is sufficient “punishment” and that following up with a criminal indictment is “excessive.”
McCabe certainly thinks so. He has announced plans to sue the Trump administration for defamation and wrongful termination.
McCabe’s attorney, Michael Bromwich, stated, “We have already met with staff members from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. We are confident that, unless there is inappropriate pressure from high levels of the administration, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will conclude that it should decline to prosecute.”
Inappropriate pressure? Such a characterization should offend every law-abiding American, and not just because of McCabe’s alleged malfeasance. Just as important — if not more so — is the OIG report’s stunning assertion that McCabe insisted he received an Aug. 12, 2016, telephone call from an unnamed Principal Assistant Deputy Attorney General (PADAG) regarding the FBI’s handling of the liar-Clinton Foundation investigation. “McCabe said that PADAG expressed concerns about FBI agents taking overt steps in the CF Investigation during the presidential campaign,” the report states. “According to McCabe, he pushed back, asking ‘are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?’ McCabe told us that the conversation was ‘very dramatic’ and he never had a similar confrontation like the PADAG call with a high level Department official in his entire FBI career.”
According to FBI and DOJ sources in contact with The Washington Times, “PADAG” refers to Matthew Axelrod, who “quit the Justice Department on Jan. 30, 2017, the same day President Trump fired his boss, Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates, for refusing to defend his travel ban executive order,” the paper reveals.
As former Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky explains, the chances Axelrod acted on his own are virtually nil. “There is no way I would have ever called the FBI on my own unless I raised concerns with my boss or my boss told me to do so,” he stated.
In short, McCabe, by accident or design, has revealed the effort to stonewall the liar-Clinton investigation — and in turn, influence the 2016 election — goes further up the bureaucratic food chain. How much further?
Without an indictment and/or a grand jury investigation, we may never know.
“Washington continues to operate on a type of ‘Animal Farm’ culture where everyone is equal but some are more equal than others,” asserts George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. “There remains a sharp disconnect in how high-ranking officials are treated as opposed to others in our system.”
And not just McCabe. “Comey was tasked with finding leaks and then became a leaker himself,” Turley adds.
Donald Trump was elected president for a host of reasons. One of them was the electorate’s increasing realization that a double standard of justice has become the norm, not the exception, especially in Washington, DC. Moreover, that contemptible status quo has been nurtured by the likes of McCabe, Comey and very likely several other liar-nObama administration mandarins, who not only believe they are immune from the consequences of their actions but are justified in engendering what is likely to be the worst scandal in our nation’s history — in service to “A Higher Loyalty,” as the title of James Comey’s self-aggrandizing tome puts it.
A self-serving, self-perpetuating Ruling Class agenda borne of sheer hubris is more like it.
“McCabe’s testimony is the best way to learn why the FBI and Department of Justice seemingly mishandled everything related to liar-Hillary Clinton and how the intelligence agencies routinely funneled classified material on Donald Trump to friendly news agencies,” asserts columnist Charles Lipson.
Only if McCabe is indicted. If not? America as a nation beholden to the Rule of Law will cease to exist. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55590-a-mccabe-indictment-or-a-banana-republic
by Ishaan Tharoor
{ jewishworldreview.com } ~ The rumblings of an open conflict between Israel and Iran in Syria are growing louder. When President Donald Trump launched yet another one-off missile salvo against the Syrian regime, it came on the heels of a suspected April 9 Israeli strike on an Iranian facility at a Syrian air base, which drew howls of condemnation from the regime's patrons in Moscow and Tehran.
Though Israel didn't acknowledge responsibility for the attack, it fit a familiar pattern. Since 2012, the Israelis are believed to have launched more than 100 strikes on suspected Iranian-linked positions in Syria. Israeli officials privately argue that these measures are necessary to prevent a permanent Iranian threat on their borders and stymie the flow of weaponry to Iran's Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah.
"No matter the price, we will not allow a noose to form around us," Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel Radio over the weekend. But he cautioned against talk of outright hostilities. "I hope not," he said when asked whether war was imminent. "I think that our primary role is to prevent war, and that requires concrete, real deterrence as well as readiness to act."
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif made similar appeals for calm in a Sunday interview with CBS News, though he accused the Israelis of escalating "tension by violating Syrian airspace."
"I do not believe that we are headed towards regional war. But I do believe that, unfortunately, Israel has continued its violations with international law, hoping to be able to do it with impunity because of the U.S. support and trying to find smokescreens to hide behind," Zarif said.
Still, Zarif warned that Israel was playing a risky game. "They should expect that if they continue to violate territorial integrity of other states, there'll be consequences," he said. "The easiest answer would be to stop - to stop these acts of aggression, to stop these incursions."
But the Israelis have made clear that an entrenched Iranian presence in Syria marks a new red line. They point to the new threat of Iranian drones, potentially armed with explosives, entering Israeli airspace, as well as the old threat of rockets launched from southern Lebanon. The April 9 strike, according to one account, was Israel's first direct attack on Iranian equipment and personnel and killed a senior Iranian drone commander.
Last week, the Israeli military leaked details and satellite images of the existence of an Iranian "air force" in Syria, including civilian planes they claimed were ferrying shipments of arms. The leak was supposed to signal to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the powerful military organization that dominates Iran's foreign policy decisions, that Israel had new targets already in sight should the Iranians or their proxies attack.
From the Iranian perspective, their presence in Syria is a legitimate defense of their beleaguered ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad. And they see their capacity to threaten Israel from next door as a potential deterrent against a long-standing regional foe.
"Israeli leaders frequently threaten to bomb Iran, so having strong military proxies near Israel's borders gives Iran some protection," wrote Ben Hubbard and David Halbfinger of the New York Times. "If Israel attacks Iran, the thinking goes, it knows it can expect a painful response from Hezbollah in Lebanon, and perhaps from other militias now operating in Syria."
The deepening tensions come at a time of growing discontent within the Islamic Republic. A tanking economy has blown the lid on popular frustration with the regime and even prompted Zarif's putative boss, President Hassan Rouhani, to complain about the costly war effort in Syria. But the prospect of broader confrontation with Israel - and the likely upcoming drama over Iran's nuclear deal with world powers - may persuade regime hard-liners that now is the time to circle the wagons.
"The shadow war has come to light after the decision by the Iranian leadership to proceed with the IRGC's plans to establish permanent bases in Syria. This was not a unanimous decision," wrote Anshel Pfeffer in the Times of London. "The faction in Tehran led by the country's president, Hassan Rouhani, is in favor of investing in Iran's domestic economy the huge amounts of money these bases will cost. But the IRGC has the ear of the nation's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and it is keen to capitalize on the investment it has made in propping up the Assad regime for the past seven years."
The way forward is treacherous. "Iran is determined to entrench its positions in Syria, and Israel is determined to prevent them," said Amos Yadlin, a former commander of Israeli military intelligence, to Pfeffer.
He suggested that Russia, whose forces help prop up the regime's air defenses and whose diplomats are key interlocutors to both the Iranians and the Israelis, will play a critical role. "Conflict is inevitable unless Putin steps in to prevent it," Yadlin said. But recent events suggest that the Russians have limited influence over Iran and are more concerned about reinforcing the Syrian regime.
At the same time, some foreign policy figures in Washington seem keen on letting Israel continue its covert campaign against the Iranians. They see Israeli strikes as necessary at a time when President Trump wants to disengage from the Syrian conflict and outsource the stabilization of the country to Iran's Sunni Arab rivals.
But other experts contend that this does not amount to a real strategy. "There is a pathway to containing and deterring Iran in Syria ... but it requires more than just Israel's itchy trigger finger and cheerleading from the sidelines by Arab autocracies," wrote Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution, who argued for more robust diplomatic engagement from the Trump administration and cautioned against alienating allies by pulling out of the nuclear deal.
In February, the International Crisis Group issued a report warning that the current atmosphere of tensions made "miscalculation more likely" in Syria. Since then, the risks of an escalation have only intensified.
SCOTUS Appears to Lean Trump's Way on Travel Ban
Solicitor General Noel Francisco, representing the Trump administration, astutely noted that of the eight countries barred under the travel ban, only six of them are Muslim-majority nations. In fact, he said, “The vast majority of the world, including the vast majority of the Muslim world,” was not included in the ban. Francisco added, “It would be the most ineffective Muslim ban that one could possibly imagine, since not only does it exclude the vast majority of the Muslim world, it also omits three Muslim-majority countries that were covered by past orders.”
Justice Samuel Alito appeared to agree with Francisco and pointed out that Trump’s executive order affected only 8% of the world’s Muslim population. “If you look at what was done,” Alito said, “it does not look at all like a Muslim ban.”
Katyal repeatedly referenced Trump’s campaign rhetoric as evidence to support the charge that the ban was designed to target Muslims, but he also conceded that the actual language of the executive order instituting the travel ban did not specifically target Muslims. Francisco countered that campaign rhetoric was irrelevant and that the actual language of the executive order should be what is judged by the law. The statute that gives the president broad regulatory authority over alien entry into the U.S. states:
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
While the Left and much of the mainstream media have from the very beginning erroneously labeled Trump’s travel ban as a Muslim ban, it has done so not based upon the actual language of the EO but upon their anti-Trump bias. Recall the actual reason Trump ordered the travel ban was to protect American citizens, one of the primary responsibilities of the president. Due to the fact that several countries’ vetting standards did not meet U.S. safety standards, Trump acted. The good news is that it appears the majority of the SCOTUS justices are seeing through the partisan bias and are looking at the letter of the law. The judges that have so thoroughly undermined the Rule of Law in their rulings on DACA should learn a thing or two. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55596-scotus-appears-to-lean-trumps-way-on-travel-ban
by Judge Andrew Napolitano
{ townhall.com } ~ A popular way to begin the first day of class in constitutional law in many American law schools is to ask the students what sets the U.S. Constitution apart from all others. Usually, they answer that it's the clauses that guarantee the freedom of speech, privacy and due process.
Yes, each of those guarantees -- if upheld -- is vital to restraining government, but the overarching and most important unique aspect of the Constitution is the separation of powers. The constitutions of many totalitarian countries pay lip service to free speech, privacy and due process, but none has the strict separation of powers that the U.S. does.
Under our Constitution, the Congress writes the laws, the president enforces them and the courts interpret them; and those powers and functions may not constitutionally be mixed or exchanged. The Congress also declares war. The president also wages war. The courts also invalidate the acts of the other two branches when they exceed their constitutional powers.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the separation of powers is integral to the Constitution not to preserve the prerogatives of each branch of government but to divide governmental powers among the branches so as to keep power diffused -- and thereby limited and protective of personal freedom.
James Madison, who wrote the Constitution, wanted not only this diffusion by separation but also tension -- even jealousy -- among the branches so as to keep each in check.
Thus, even if one branch of government consented to ceding an essential power to another branch, such a giveaway would be unconstitutional, the Supreme Court has ruled, because the core functions of each branch of the federal government may not be delegated away to either of the other two without violating the separation of powers.
I am writing about this not as a history or constitutional law mini-lesson but rather because it's necessary background information to address a real and contemporary problem. Two weeks ago, on the basis of evidence so flimsy that his own secretary of defense rejected it -- and without any legal or constitutional authority -- President Donald Trump dispatched 110 missiles to bomb certain military and civilian targets in Syria, where the president argued the Syrian government manufactured, stored or used chemical weapons.
Trump did not seek a congressional declaration of war, nor did he comply with the U.N. Charter, a treaty to which both the U.S. and Syria are signatories. Though Trump did not articulate any statutory basis for his use of the military, his predecessors often cited as legal support for their unconstitutional uses of military force two statutes -- one enacted in 2001 and the other in 2002, each known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF.
The AUMFs refer to either the Taliban or al-Qaida or their affiliated forces in Afghanistan or Iraq as targets or to pursuing those who caused the attacks in America on 9/11 or those who harbor weapons of mass destruction.
Can the president legally use military force to attack a foreign land without a serious threat or legal obligation or a declaration of war from Congress? In a word: No. Here is the back story.
The Constitution is clear that only Congress can declare war and only the president can wage it. Federal law and international treaties provide that -- short of defending the country against an actual attack -- without a congressional declaration of war, the president can only constitutionally use military force to repel an enemy whose attack on America is imminent or to defend U.S. citizens and property in foreign lands from foreign attack or in aid of an ally pursuant to a treaty with that ally.
In the case of Trump's bombing Syria earlier this month, none of those conditions was met.
Prior to the strike on Syria -- but no doubt prodded by the prospect of it -- a bipartisan group of senators offered legislation supported by the president that would rescind both AUMFs, which are now seriously outdated and of no useful moral or legal authority, in favor of an unconstitutional mishmash that would permit a president to strike whomever and wherever he pleases. The president would be restrained only by a vote of Congress -- after hostilities have commenced.
Such a statute would give the president far more powers than he has now, would directly violate Congress' war-making powers by ceding them away to the president, would defy the Supreme Court on the unconstitutionality of giving away core governmental functions, would commit the U.S. to foreign wars without congressional and thus popular support, and would invite dangerous mischief by any president wanting to attack any enemy -- real or imagined, old or new -- for foreign or domestic political purposes, whether American interests are at stake or not.
The proponents of this legislation will argue that Congress would retain its war-making powers by its ability to restrain the president. That is a naive contention because congressional restraint, which can come only in the form of prohibitory legislation or withdrawal of funds, would certainly be met by a presidential veto -- and a veto can be overridden only by a two-thirds vote of both the House and the Senate.
What's going on here? It is little more than the lust of the military-industrial complex and its allies in both major political parties in Congress for war. War unifies disparate politics, arouses deep patriotic instincts, enhances the government's success in obtaining the people's sacrifices, enriches arms-makers and kills innocents. War is the health of the state.
The Constitution, written in war's aftermath, strictly limits its offensive use only to when the people's representatives in Congress have recognized a broad national consensus behind it.
When Donald Trump ran for president, he condemned foreign wars that have served no real American purpose and he condemned presidential war-making; and he promised to end both. Where is that Donald Trump today?
by Marina Medvin
{ townhall.com } ~ Teachers and school administrators have been supporting and encouraging student walkouts in protest of “gun violence.”
I: “What are you protesting?”
Kid: “Gun violence.”
I: “Ok. No one disagrees with you. ‘Gun violence,’ an ambiguous term by which you mean gun crimes, is already prohibited by every state of these United States as either murder or brandishing or other type of criminal assault. Go back to class.”
What they are actually attempting to protest is the ability of anyone to possess a gun. Former Supreme Court Justice Stevens laid out a logical explanation for what the politics behind these school walkouts are really attempting to achieve: “a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment.”
But these kids are not being taught to understand, rationalize and articulate the problem. These kids are taught that ambiguous, nonsensical terms like “gun violence” are fine to use, instead of particularizing the problem and articulating the solution, like Justice Stevens had to point out. These kids are being taught that using their bodies in protest, as opposed to using their minds in intellectual discourse, is smarter. Teachers are encouraging kids to walk out of class in lieu of studying the psychological causes of the shootings, our legal processes, and the American government.
Even private schools have jumped on this political bandwagon of walkouts and have sent emails to paying parents saying that kids will be supported by teachers for the 4/20 walkout. Even though only 6% of school shootings take place in private school and private schools are disproportionately less likely to experience a school shooting, school administrators encouraged those kids to walk out instead of to sit-in and to discuss the disproportionality of public school shootings and the potential reasons behind the disparity.
It is worrisome to me as an American to see the political mockery that these students, encouraged by teachers and school administrators, have made of the tragic deaths of our innocent school kids. And the administrators’ role in this is significant: students are not being encouraged to think as individuals and to patiently debate without a physical component. Students are instead being taught that the physical component together with groupthink is the answer to their problems. This significantly diminishes their ability to rationalize in their own self interest. This significantly diminishes their ability to think objectively and to deeply understand the solutions they are supporting.
Go back to Justice Stevens’s proposition, for instance. The gun-ban position is very appealing to these kids, because is sounds so simple on its face - “No gun, no shoot! Problem solved!”
Right? Wrong. Keep thinking.
In the real world, humans do not always follow the rules. This is an inalienable attribute of humanity. People will break the rules, bad people will exist, and bad things will happen. There is nothing that we can do to stop them. The human race has not yet been able to uncover the secret to ridding the world of murder, larceny, and rape. Maybe because those crimes are not always cut and dry and I can tell you from a criminal defense attorney’s perspective that in fact most of these allegations are not ever so simple as acts that are right or wrong; that is why we have a jury system and a 12-person jury must take time to deliberate to reach a unanimous verdict.
There is no legislation that will prevent the inevitability of human nature.
Murder is illegal. Yet people commit murders. Drug possession is illegal but it does not stop drug possession.
Legislation of bad behavior does not eradicate the bad behavior. Legislation of gun possession will only eliminate possession rights for the law-abiding individuals who possessed weapons for personal security. For it is the law-abiding who abide by the law. And the law abiding are not the ones who you are worried about. More importantly to consider in this balance is that law-abiding Americans have used their firearms in self-defense 3.6 times as often as criminals have used them for “gun violence,” according to studies conducted by our the CDC. Moreover, many states already have increased penalties for committing crimes with a gun. These increased penalties have not stopped gun-related crimes.
We can safely assume that if someone has decided to break the law by intending to commit mass murder, then gun possession deterrence will not stop them. So what does punishing the law-abiding via gun prohibition actually achieve in the quest to stop school shootings?
And if we are to protect our schoolchildren against “gun violence,” then how do we do that disarmed? Instead, the only proactive rational response to defend against “gun violence” in schools can be to increase school security protocols restricted access, cameras, ALICE drills, etc and to add armed and trained guards. To guard our schools as preciously as we guard our banks, police departments and courthouses. Many schools agree and have implemented armed security measures.
So why are students not demanding armed guards and physical protection? After all, a law does not physically manifest itself and magically appear between a shooter and his victim to prevent the shooter from killing his victim. A law does not instantaneously defend - it simply creates deterrence. And we know the deference does not stop crime. Why are kids not demanding immediate protection, physical protection from an expectedly non-law-abiding shooter? Because they are being publicly encouraged not to think think via rational self-interest, but to support a groupthink cause.
As we know, some intelligent individuals disagree with this. Justice Stevens, for one, disagrees and articulates why. This is all natural and part of expected political discourse. But I am not seeing respectful discourse from most students who disagree.
Other than Donald Trump’s listening session, we are not hearing much of an intelligent discussion from the students. Instead we are seeking physical protests and their kid leader regurgitating Twitter politics.
There are some important exceptions to this generality, such as Kyle Kashuv, a free-thinker student who is knowledgeable about our rule of law and has found an intellectual way to discuss the problems. ”I truly believe this livestream -- learning about our Constitution and finding ways to save lives without infringing on our Constitution -- is the best way to sanctify the day and remember those who were lost in the Parkland shooting and in Columbine," Kashuv told CNN. "I created this event to do just that.” He does not have much public support from schools and school administrators.
These are all issues that need to be discussed and debated in class. Kids need to be taught how to rationalize and how to research, not how to regurgitate. Kids need to be taught individualism, not mob mentality and groupthink. Kids need to be taught to use their minds to affect politics, not their bodies. That’s the point of school. They can learn how to protest all on their own, I promise.
Without the teachers doing their jobs, even with strong at-home parental intervention attempts, individual thinkers like Kyle Kashuv will become more and more rare. As parents we need to strongly revaluate the roles of our public schools, private schools, and home schooling.
liar-Hillary's $84M Campaign Money Laundering
This is a significant event and yet passed with almost no word from the mainstream media. As Margot Cleveland of The Federalist observes:
Yet even with the overwhelming evidence of tsunami-level campaign-finance criminality — more than $84 million — the media instead chases the cloud cast over President Trump because of the $130,000 payment his attorney, Michael Cohen, made to Stormy Daniels, and claims that payment constituted an illegal campaign contribution. One wonders what it will take to break through the mainstream media blackout. Maybe a few pointed unpresidential tweets from our commander-in-chief?
Cleveland’s point on the media’s reaction demonstrates just how in the tank the MSM was for liar-Clinton and essentially remains to this day. Partially, the Leftmedia ignores the story to maintain the illusion that the reason voters rejected liar-Clinton was due to sexism rather than the fact that she was a deeply flawed and compromised candidate, and secondly the media would rather focus negative attention on Trump.
Finally, and what is the most ironic aspect of this latest revelation, is the fact that Democrats have been the biggest driving force pushing for and creating campaign-finance laws for the express purpose of cleaning up the influence of “dark money” in politics. The sheer degree of hypocrisy displayed by both liar- Clinton and the DNC in seeking to undermine the essential “spirit,” if not the letter, of the law — their law — is deplorable. But as is often the case, politics breeds a class of elitists who view themselves as being above the law — laws they establish to control everyone else. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55552-hillarys-$84m-campaign-money-laundering
Facebook Publishes Removal Policies, but Bias Remains
In response, Facebook published its internal guidelines for how its 7,500 worldwide content reviewers determine what should be removed for violations of policies regarding “hate speech, violent threats, sexual exploitation and more.” Facebook also promised to review how data from its 2.2 billion users is accessed and used by third parties.
The data privacy issue distressed many Facebook users after the revelation that a company called Cambridge Analytica purchased personal information on 50 million people and used it to provide advice to Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 elections.
A couple of things should be noted about this revelation. First, the information was collected as a result of a personality quiz voluntarily downloaded by 270,000 users who agreed to allow the app to collect personal information on themselves and their friends. While those friends have a legitimate complaint regarding third-party use of their personal information, the reality is that this is the very basis of Facebook’s revenue model; namely, collecting user’s demographic information and personal preferences and selling it to marketers, who create targeted ads. Facebook is free to end users for a reason, and users should be aware that if you are not paying for the product, then you are the product.
Of course, any protests and hand-wringing from the Left here is entirely disingenuous. Barack liar-nObama employed a nearly identical method of gathering personal information during in 2012. When users downloaded hisliar-nObama 2012 Facebook app, his campaign collected mountains of personal data on more than 190 million people, almost four times that of the Trump campaign.
And far from being described in dark and conspiratorial terms, the Leftmedia celebrated liar-nObama’s mining of user data in advancing the progressive political agenda done without end users’ knowledge or permission. Time magazine positively glowed, declaring data-mining Facebook would “transform the way campaigns are conducted in the future.”
Nor was the liar-nObama campaign shy about what they had done. Carol Davidsen, director of data integration and media analytics for liar-nObama for America, bragged, “We ingested the entire U.S. social graph. … We would ask permission to basically scrape your profile, and also scrape your friends, basically anything that was available to scrape. We scraped it all.”
The other aspect of the congressional hearings was Facebook’s reputation for showing bias favoring progressive users/viewpoints and against conservative users/viewpoints.
When questioned, Zuckerberg blamed any discrepancies on innocent human error, acknowledging that accusations of bias are a “fair concern,” but promising that he endeavors to avoid “any bias in the work that we do.”
That is, of course, utter nonsense. Zuckerberg admitted an inherent liberal bias in Silicon Valley corporations, and independent studies confirmed an intentional leftist bias in how user content is displayed in the newsfeed.
Facebook jumped at the opportunity to use accusations of Russian interference in the 2016 elections to justify further alienation of conservative/Republican viewpoints. While liar-Hillary claims a Russian troll farm cost her the election (among a hundred other things) by spending $46,000 on Facebook ads, the claim is ludicrous considering that is a drop in a very large bucket compared to the $81 million in ad buys by the liar-Clinton and Trump campaigns.
In an effort to supposedly combat “fake news,” Facebook changed its newsfeed algorithm to prioritize allegedly trustworthy news sources. Yet the actual impact has been a significant increase in traffic to liberal/progressive sites and articles, and a significant decrease to conservative sites/articles. For example, following the change, the left-leaning New York Daily News saw a 24.18% increase in traffic, and the right-leaning New York Post saw an 11.44% decrease. Other conservative sites dropped as much as 55%. Meanwhile, liberal sites were either unaffected or saw an increase.
This should come as no surprise, considering Facebook’s head of news partnership is none other than former NBC and CNN anchor Campbell Brown. Rather than denying partisanship, Brown embraces it, announcing at a recent tech forum, “This is not us stepping back from news. … This is us changing our relationship with publishers. … It’s having a point of view, and it’s leaning into quality news. … We are, for the first time in the history of Facebook, taking a step to try to define what ‘quality news’ looks like and give that a boost.”
Of course, to progressives like Brown, “quality news” is that which advances a leftist worldview.
And while Facebook has announced an appeal process for post removals, the bias remains. The Diamond and Silk page (two Trump-supporting black women with 1.6M followers) was censored this month for being “unsafe to the community,” yet the Facebook pages of racist anti-Semites Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton remained active.
Facebook users should be aware of several things. One, Facebook exists to make money, and users are the product. Don’t expect privacy. Two, Facebook is a reflexively leftist partisan organization, using its influence to advance progressivism. Three, the First Amendment binds government infringement of free speech, but does not apply to corporations. (Non) Buyer beware.
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55572-facebook-publishes-removal-policies-but-bias-remains
CA Wants to Ban Christian Guidance. No, Seriously
by Jordan Candler: California Assembly Bill 2943, which was introduced in February and is the subject of a critical forthcoming vote, is chock-full of feckless scientific assertions on human sexuality. More importantly, it takes animosity toward Christianity to a whole new and worrying extreme and even evokes fears of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, in which the government enacts a proscription against books.
According to the bill, “Contemporary science recognizes that being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender is part of the natural spectrum of human identity and is not a disease, disorder, or illness.” Many scientists would disagree with that — and nature certainly does — but, alas, the text cites the state’s “compelling interest in protecting the physical and psychological well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals” as justification for AB 2493, which “would include, as an unlawful practice prohibited under the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, advertising, offering to engage in, or engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with an individual.”
AB 2493 elucidates, “‘Sexual orientation change efforts’ means any practices that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation. This includes efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.” David French alarmingly observes that this “would actually — among other things — ban the sale of books expressing orthodox Christian beliefs about sexual morality.” French elaborates on the scheme here, but here’s the bottom line: Biblical spiritual guidance, no matter in what form, will no longer be tolerated if this bill becomes law.
Making matters even worse, “fact-checkers” are flat-out lying about the implications of the legislation. Snopes.com, addressing conservative fears that AB 2492 ensnares even the Bible, definitively asserts that the “bill does not seek to outlaw all religious or moral instruction regarding sexuality and sexual orientation, nor would it ban the sale or possession of generic religious texts such as the Bible. Christian dogma might form the basis of efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation, but the Bible itself is not a ‘gay conversion therapy’ manual.”
Writing in The Federalist, Robert Gagnon offers some perspective on this tripe: “Snopes’ insistence that California Assembly Bill 2943 would not result in the Bible being banned in California is akin to Snopes calling ‘demonstrably and clearly false’ the claim that Joseph Stalin killed everyone around him.” He continues, “Sure, it is virtually impossible that California will immediately attempt to ban the sale of the Bible itself. Not even the hard Left in California has that kind of chutzpah. But citations of Bible verses in the context of declaring homosexual practice and transgenderism to be morally debased could indeed get one into serious trouble with the law if it comes in the context of selling or advertising a product or service.”
More to the point, leftists are never content. Just because Snopes can’t or won’t read between the lines doesn’t mean conscientious Americans can’t. The Left prefers incremental approaches to large policy changes, which explains its “progressive” moniker — only progress in this form means a step-by-step nullification of rights. And while the plan would ultimately be an unwise one, this AB 2493 garbage helps us to understand the real and energetic effort to split California into three.
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55547-ca-wants-to-ban-christian-guidance-no-seriously
Bates essentially ordered the Trump administration to continue implementing an illegal program, in fact declaring that any attempt to end it is illegal. So what exactly is the point of laws? Recall that it was Barack liar-nObama who circumvented Congress via executive order to implement his DACA program — a move he had previously and repeatedly (and rightly) insisted was unconstitutional and therefore illegal. liar-nObama’s similar attempt to implement Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) was blocked by the courts. Why? Because it circumvented Congress’s authority and responsibility. Almost comically, Bates effectively ruled that Trump doesn’t have the executive authority to rescind an illegal executive order. It’s not the Trump administration that should explain its position; it’s this judge.
Justice Department spokesman Devin O'Malley responded to the ruling, stating, “Today’s order doesn’t change the Department of Justice’s position on the facts: DACA was implemented unilaterally after Congress declined to extend benefits to this same group of illegal aliens. The Justice Department will continue to vigorously defend this position.”
It has become quite apparent that the U.S. Supreme Court will need to make a ruling on this issue, and the sooner the better. Sadly, it is also apparent that too many judges are guided by the rule of men instead of the Rule of Law. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55571-judge-its-illegal-for-trump-to-end-illegal-daca
"It's no secret that Brennan was here," claimed Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov. "But he didn't visit the Foreign Ministry. I know for sure that he met with the Federal Security Service the successor agency to the Soviet KGB, and someone else."No further remarks clarify what Brennan was allegedly doing in Moscow or what he discussed with the FSB. Syromolotov insists it had nothing to do with Russia's withdrawal from Syria.Sputnik News, a Kremlin-controlled propaganda outlet, quotes CIA Director of Public Affairs Dean Boyd as affirming that Brennan did, in fact, discuss Syria during the visit. "Director Brennan," he allegedly said, "reiterated the US government's consistent support for a genuine political transition in Syria, and the need for President Bashar Assad's departure in order to facilitate a transition that reflects the will of the Syrian people."
"It's no secret that Brennan was here," the Interfax news agency quoted foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Syromolotov as telling journalists in Moscow.He added that the visit was not linked to Moscow's decision to start withdrawing military forces from Syria, which President Vladimir Putin announced on March 14.Dean Boyd, director of the CIA's Office of Public Affairs, confirmed Monday that Brennan visited Moscow."Director Brennan traveled to Russia in early March to emphasize with Russian officials the importance of Russia and the Assad regime following through on their agreements to implement the cessation of hostilities in Syria," said Boyd.He added that Brennan "also reiterated the U.S. government's consistent support for a genuine political transition in Syria, and the need for Assad's departure in order to facilitate a transition that reflects the will of the Syrian people."
Brennan was asked by NBC's Andrea Mitchell whether the CIA had illegally accessed Senate Intelligence Committee staff computers "to thwart an investigation by the committee into" the agency's past interrogation techniques. The accusation had been made earlier that day by Sen. Dianne Fein-stein (D-Calif.), who said the CIA had "violated the separation-of-powers principles embodied in the United States Constitution." Brennan answered:As far as the allegations of, you know, CIA hacking into, you know, Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, we wouldn't do that. I mean, that's – that's just beyond the – you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we would do. ...And, you know, when the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong.(You can see the video of Brennan's answer here.)Now we know that the truth was far different. The Post's Greg Miller reports:CIA Director John O. Brennan has apologized to leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee after an agency investigation determined that its employees improperly searched computers used by committee staff to review classified files on interrogations of prisoners. ...A statement released by the CIA on Tuesday acknowledged that agency employees had searched areas of that computer network that were supposed to be accessible only to committee investigators. Agency employees were attempting to discover how congressional aides had obtained a secret CIA internal report on the interrogation program.
An article in the Guardian last week provides more confirmation that John Brennan was the American progenitor of political espionage aimed at defeating Donald Trump. One side did collude with foreign powers to tip the election – liar-Hillary's.Seeking to retain his position as CIA director underliar-Hillary, Brennan teamed up with British spies and Estonian spies to cripple Trump's candidacy. He used their phony intelligence as a pretext for a multi-agency investigation into Trump, which led the FBI to probe a computer server connected to Trump Tower and gave cover to Susan Rice, among other liar-Hillary supporters, to spy on Trump and his people. ...The Guardian story is written in a style designed to flatter its sources they are cast as high-minded whistleblowers, but the upshot of it is devastating for them, nonetheless, and explains why all the criminal leaks against Trump first originated in the British press. According to the story, Brennan got his anti-Trump tips primarily from British spies but also Estonian spies and others. The story confirms that the seed of the espionage into Trump was planted by Estonia. The BBC's Paul Wood reported last year that the intelligence agency of an unnamed Baltic State had tipped Brennan off in April 2016 to a conversation purporting to show that the Kremlin was funneling cash into the Trump campaign.Any other CIA director would have disregarded such a flaky tip, recognizing that Estonia was eager to see Trump lose its officials had bought into liar-Hillary's propaganda that Trump was going to pull out of NATO and leave Baltic countries exposed to Putin. But Brennan opportunistically seized on it, as he later that summer seized on the half-baked intelligence of British spy agencies also full of officials who wanted to see Trump lose.The Guardian says that British spy head Robert Hannigan "passed material in summer 2016 to the CIA chief, John Brennan." To ensure that these flaky tips leaked out, Brennan disseminated them on Capitol Hill. In August and September of 2016, he gave briefings to the "Gang of Eight" about them, which then turned up on the front page of the New York Times.
According to "Russian Roulette," by Yahoo! News chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff and David Corn, the Washington bureau chief of the left-wing Mother Jones magazine, Brennan contacted dinky-Reid on Aug. 25, 2016, to brief him on the state of Russia's interference in the presidential campaign. Brennan briefed other members of the so-called Gang of Eight, but dinky-Reid is the only who took direct action.Two days after the briefing, dinky-Reid wrote a letter to then-FBI Director James Comey asserting that "evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign continues to mount.
News of the CIA chief's visit to the Russian capital was first made public on Monday by a Russian foreign ministry spokesman and subsequently confirmed by the CIA."It's no secret that Brennan was here," the Interfax news agency quoted foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Syromolotov as telling journalists in Moscow.He added that the visit was not linked to Moscow's decision to start withdrawing military forces from Syria, which President Vladimir Putin announced on March 14.Dean Boyd, director of the CIA's Office of Public Affairs, confirmed Monday that Brennan visited Moscow."Director Brennan traveled to Russia in early March to emphasize with Russian officials the importance of Russia and the Assad regime following through on their agreements to implement the cessation of hostilities in Syria," said Boyd.He added that Brennan "also reiterated the U.S. government's consistent support for a genuine political transition in Syria, and the need for Assad's departure in order to facilitate a transition that reflects the will of the Syrian people."
Brennan was asked by NBC's Andrea Mitchell whether the CIA had illegally accessed Senate Intelligence Committee staff computers "to thwart an investigation by the committee into" the agency's past interrogation techniques. The accusation had been made earlier that day by Sen. Dianne Fein-stein (D-Calif.), who said the CIA had "violated the separation-of-powers principles embodied in the United States Constitution." Brennan answered:As far as the allegations of, you know, CIA hacking into, you know, Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, we wouldn't do that. I mean, that's – that's just beyond the – you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we would do. ...And, you know, when the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong.Now we know that the truth was far different. The Post's Greg Miller reports:CIA Director John O. Brennan has apologized to leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee after an agency investigation determined that its employees improperly searched computers used by committee staff to review classified files on interrogations of prisoners. ...A statement released by the CIA on Tuesday acknowledged that agency employees had searched areas of that computer network that were supposed to be accessible only to committee investigators. Agency employees were attempting to discover how congressional aides had obtained a secret CIA internal report on the interrogation program.
by Michelle Malkin
{ townhall.com } ~ When British hospital officials tried to pull the plug on 23-month-old toddler Alfie Evans on Monday night in arrogant defiance of his parents' wishes, many Americans took to Twitter to count their blessings that they live in a country that would not allow such tyranny.
"Stories like Alfie Evans make me realize how grateful I am to live in America where freedom still exists," one young social media user wrote.
"Folks, is this what we want for America? Parents rendered helpless before the gods of socialized medicine?" retired Army Lt. Col. Allen West asked.
Alfie's plight comes less than a year after another British baby boy with a rare genetic condition, Charlie Gard, was taken off life support after his parents lost a similar battle with judges and medical officials.
"WAKE UP AMERICA! We cannot let this happen in the U.S.," social media user Dian tweeted.
But it has happened -- and continues to happen -- in America. How quickly the public forgets.
In 2005, medical experts and child welfare bureaucrats in the state of Massachusetts deemed 11-year-old Haleigh Poutre "virtually brain-dead," in a "persistent vegetative state," and not worth saving after she suffered such brutal beatings and sexual abuse by her stepfather that she was left in a coma. Doctors at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield and extermination agents at the Massachusetts Department of Social Services won a court order to remove Haleigh's ventilator and feeding tube. They collaborated on a "treatment" schedule to starve her of nourishment and oxygen until she succumbed to "death with dignity."
Haleigh and higher powers had other plans.
As state officials prepared to remove Haleigh's life support, the supposedly impossible happened: She emerged from the vegetative state that all the smarty-pants in lab coats had concluded was "irreversible." She began breathing on her own and picked up toys on command.
"There has been a change in her condition," a DSS spokeswoman grimly announced. "The vegetative state may not be a total vegetative state."
Like Alfie, Haleigh had an army of grass-roots pro-family and pro-life supporters who helped pressure the state-sanctioned murderers and bungling bureaucrats to back down. Fast forward to 2018. At 24, Haleigh lives with adoptive, loving parents. She is confined to a wheelchair, but attends school and occupational therapy. She laughs, she smiles, she lives.
Among Haleigh's prominent guardian angels: the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, founded by Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler, after a Florida judge ordered brain-injured Terri to be deprived of water and food, leading to her death by dehydration after 13 days in 2005. As Schindler noted after Haleigh's life was saved:
"This is just one incident that made headline news. Indeed, most of the general public is completely unaware of how much these types of decisions are made every day and how our medical rights have been eroded by laws that have been changed to make it easier to deliberately kill our medically vulnerable."
Back in Britain, Alfie defied the medical professionals and survived the night off the ventilator as his parents begged court officials to take him to Rome. Benefactors have offered to pay for transportation and medical care; Italy granted Alfie citizenship.
As Alfie's life hangs in the balance, I think of another child written off by the experts here in the U.S.: Jahi McMath, whom medical experts declared "brain dead" after a routine tonsillectomy gone wrong in 2013. Children's Hospital Oakland pushed to have all life-sustaining medical treatment terminated; the professionals predicted quick deterioration.
But Jahi's mother a professional nurse, Latasha "Nailah" Winkfield, refused to give up on her child. California declared Jahi legally brain dead, so with the Schiavo Foundation's help, Winkfield moved with her daughter to a long-term care facility in New Jersey.
Medical ethics writer Wesley Smith visited Jahi last fall and reported: "At the time of the tragedy, I believed ... that Jahi was, indeed, dead. But I now have strong doubts. It's nearly four years later, and Jahi's body still has not broken down. Her skin remains smooth. There are no foul odors in her room as would be expected when a brain-dead person's body deteriorates. She has experienced no visible bodily decline... Disabled is not dead."
So, where are all the left's human rights champions when you need them? Once again, there have been no rallying cries from Hollywood celebrities, no tweetstorms from the self-anointed guardians of children who embrace gun control in the name of saving lives and abortion in the name of choice.
Alfie's life matters and Charlie's life matters and Haleigh's life matters and Jahi's life matters because all lives matter. Parents' rights are human rights. If we yield to the culture of death and the culture of expediency that permeate government-run health care systems around the world, no lives are safe.
by Katie Pavlich
{ townhall.com } ~ After making it out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 11-9 Monday evening, CIA Director Mike Pompeo's nomination to be the next Secretary of State is headed to the Senate floor for a full confirmation vote on Thursday.
“Make no mistake: America is uniquely blessed, and with those blessings comes a duty to lead. As I have argued throughout my time in public service, if we do not lead the calls for democracy, prosperity, and human rights around the world, who will? No other nation is equipped with the same blend of power and principle," Pompeo said during his confirmation hearing two weeks ago.
"Senators, if confirmed, I would raise my hand and swear an oath to defend our Constitution for the seventh time in my life. The first time was as an eighteen-year-old West Point cadet. With this oath, I would commit to defend the exceptionalism enshrined in our Constitution, which provides for our obligation to engage in diplomacy and model the very best of America to the world," he continued.
Before the Committee vote Monday, President Trump berated Democrats for obstructionism.
After a discussion with President Trump, Republican Senator Rand Paul voted in favor of Pompeo after vowing to oppose him.
"As you know, with the success of what will hopefully soon be Secretary of State Pompeo, everybody was very surprised. I heard 10 minutes before the vote yesterday on committee that, 'He will not be approved at committee' -- which would be the first time in many, many decades that something like that would have happened with regard to a Secretary of State," Trump said. "Except I spoke to Rand Paul, and Rand Paul has really never let me down. Rand Paul is a good man. And I knew things that nobody else knew. And Rand Paul said, 'I'm going to change my vote,' and he voted, and everybody was surprised."
The full Senate voted will ensure Pompeo is sworn in before the meeting between President Trump and North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un in June.
KANYE WEST
I heard an excellent analogy by Rush about slavery, the plantation and the viciously rabid left's machinery. As long as blacks (or even latinos or any brown skinned people) obediently stay in line w/ their agenda - they'll be allowed to continue to enjoy the "benefits" GIVEN to them by the left's machinery. It very much is intellectual slavery - where the radical left ARE the "plantation". And now Kanye West must be WOOPED for his expressing Free Thought - w/ OUT permerssion from the OWNERS of the plantation.
Kanye West better be preparing for what could be a storm from the "@metoo" movement. Accusations of sexual misbehavior might be in the horizon if West doesn't completely disavow his words - and put on his LEASH again. This is where his wife Kim will have to obediently step up FOR her fellow plantation owners or feel the viciousness of their wrath as well.
Luis
American Ingenuity Defies Carbon Emissions Orthodoxy
The benefits of natural human innovation are far too often taken for granted. That’s a shame because much heartache could otherwise be avoided — including when it comes to emissions control. According to Investor’s Business Daily, “The latest report from the Environmental Protection Agency shows that the emission of so-called greenhouse gases declined by 2% in 2016 from 2015 and 11% from 2005. No major industrial economy on Earth has made as much progress as the U.S. And no, we’re not claiming this as a victory for Donald Trump or anyone else in government. It’s due to fracking and the replacement of high-CO2 fuels like coal with far-cleaner natural gas.”
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt succinctly responded, “This report confirms the president’s critics are wrong again: One-size-fits-all regulations like the Clean Power Plan or misguided international agreements like the Paris Accords are not the solution. The U.S. has reduced greenhouse gas emissions more than any country on Earth over the last decade.” Moreover, he proclaimed, “American ingenuity and technological breakthroughs, not top-down government mandates, have made the U.S. the world leader in achieving energy dominance while reducing emissions — one of the great environmental successes of our time.”
For the record, foreign nations are actually purchasing U.S. coal at increasing rates, with nearly 100 million short tons of it being shipped from the U.S. in 2017. However, this is a mutually beneficial arrangement — it bolsters the U.S. economy while helping foreign nations meet their energy needs, which, ironically, underscores just how flawed the Paris accord is; these foreign nations’ energy problems were mostly created by their reliance on renewables.
But it gets even better: These countries’ embrace of U.S. coal in the meantime will hopefully put them on a path toward finding their own innovative solutions to carbon emissions like we are here in the U.S. As Investor’s adds, “American companies are reducing our greenhouse gas output without being ordered to do so by dictatorial green bureaucrats. That’s a lesson the rest of the world could learn from.” The results speak for themselves. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55523-american-ingenuity-defies-carbon-emissions-orthodoxy
by Craig Bannister
{ cnsnews.com } ~ President Donald Trump has ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to prevent the illegal alien caravans from entering the U.S., and DHS Sec. Kirstein Nielsen released a warning to illegal border-crossers.
In a Monday morning Tweet, Trump announced his instructions to the DHS:
“Despite the Democrat inspired laws on Sanctuary Cities and the Border being so bad and one sided, I have instructed the Secretary of Homeland Security not to let these large Caravans of people into our Country. It is a disgrace. We are the only Country in the World so naive! WALL”
Trump then Tweeted his plan to make securing the border a prerequisite for any new free trade agreement with Mexico:
“Mexico, whose laws on immigration are very tough, must stop people from going through Mexico and into the U.S. We may make this a condition of the new NAFTA Agreement. Our Country cannot accept what is happening! Also, we must get Wall funding fast.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen then issued a statement promising to stop, arrest and prosecute members of the illegal alien caravan from Central America:
“DHS continues to monitor the remnants of the ‘caravan’ of individuals headed to our Southern border with the apparent intention of entering the United States illegally. A sovereign nation that cannot – or worse, chooses not – to defend its borders will soon cease to be a sovereign nation. The Trump Administration is committed to enforcing our immigration laws – whether persons are part of this ‘caravan’ or not.”
Nielsen also warned illegal aliens who plan to claim “asylum” when caught that they won’t be released into the U.S. pending their court date. Instead, they’ll be held in detention until it’s determined whether or not they’re legitimate asylum-seekers:
“If members of the ‘caravan’ enter the country illegally, they will be referred for prosecution for illegal entry in accordance with existing law.”
“For those seeking asylum, all individuals may be detained while their claims are adjudicated efficiently and expeditiously, and those found not to have a claim will be promptly removed from the United States.
“DHS, in partnership with DOJ, is taking a number of steps to ensure that all cases and claims are adjudicated promptly – including sending additional USCIS asylum officers, ICE attorneys, DOJ Immigration Judges, and DOJ prosecutors to the Southern border.”
But, even illegal aliens legitimately seeking asylum should do so in another country – such as Mexico – she advised:
“DHS encourages persons with asylum or other similar claims to seek protections in the first safe country they enter, including Mexico. While we are committed to doing everything we can on the border to secure our nation, we need Congress to do their job as well. I join the President in asking Congressional leadership to work with the Administration to pass legislation to close the legal loopholes that prevent us from securing our borders and protecting Americans. I stand ready to work with any member who in good faith seeks to support DHS’s mission and secure our country.”
“Again, if you enter the United States illegally, let me be clear: you have broken the law. And we will enforce the law through prosecution of illegal border crossers,” the DHS secretary reiterated.
Toronto Van Attack — It's the Crime, Not the Tool
The immediate thought for most rationale people is to consider all the other attacks in recent years perpetrated by jihadis with vans or trucks plowing into crowds of people to kill as many as possible. Even The New York Times reported, “The carnage was reminiscent of deadly attacks by Islamic State supporters using vehicles that have shaken up Nice, France, Berlin, Barcelona, London and New York.” The attack in Nice left 85 people dead.
Yet Canadian Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said, “The events that happened on the street behind us are horrendous, but they do not appear to be connected in any way to national security based on the information at this time.” In other words, authorities aren’t convinced this was radical Islamic jihad. Instead, indications are the perpetrator is mentally ill. At the same time, said Toronto Police Service Chief Mark Saunders, “We don’t rule out anything.” Witnesses described the attack as deliberate, so we’ll await the investigation.
One thing is certain: If this man had killed 10 people with a gun instead of a van, we’d be hearing calls to ban the tool he used rather than address the underlying issue. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55540-toronto-van-attack-its-the-crime-not-the-tool