The gang, made of up six young people, is responsible for a brutal beating of a 15-year old Polish girl caught on tape as well as other attacks. learn more
In addition, the students won the right to deliver their own sermons without screening even after some sermons were previously found to be problematic.
An inspiring recap from the festival, which was organized and hosted by Honor Diaries, a Clarion Project film. The German newspaper Bild joined as co-host of the event.
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Chris Cox, shown here outside the Capitol Building with his dog, Trigger, is the founder of Bikers for Trump, which is hosting a demonstration of support for the incoming president on Inauguration Day. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
Chris Cox surveyed a small park near the U.S. Capitol, his German shepherd by his side. Wearing a Harley-Davidson jacket and a crocodile-skin cowboy hat adorned with the animal’s teeth atop his moppy, curly hair, Cox made for a particularly discordant sight in the heart of federal Washington on a misty weekend morning.
But Cox had logistics to sort out, an Inauguration Day demonstration with motorcycle die-hards from across the nation to plan.
The 48-year-old chain-saw artist from South Carolina was an early and enthusiastic supporter of President-elect Donald Trump. Now that his guy has won, Cox wants to ensure that the group he founded, Bikers for Trump, strengthens its political muscle during Trump’s presidency and beyond.
The group obtained a permit for what is expected to be the largest pro-Trump rally held by a private group in the nation’s capital timed to the inauguration. Cox calls the planned event at John Marshall Park a “halftime rally” and said there will be speakers, musical performances and upward of 5,000 bikers in attendance.
As he walked through the park with his dog, Trigger — the massive “Bikers for Trump” patch on the back of his jacket visible from every vantage — Cox began planning where to put the stage, the speakers and the portable toilets.
President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn into office during the 58th inauguration on Jan. 20. Here’s a look at what we know about the planned inaugural activities and a look back at how the tradition has evolved.President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn into office during the 58th inauguration on Jan. 20. Here’s a look at what we know about the inaugural activities. (Claritza Jimenez, Danielle Kunitz, Julio Negron/The Washington Post)
“Bikers are strongly organized locally,”Cox said. “They just haven’t been organized nationally before.”
Cox launched the organization in October 2015, back when Trump was still running what was considered a quixotic campaign. Since then, he has hosted rallies throughout the country, with his biker group growing to tens of thousands of mostly white men, many of whom are veterans.
During Trump’s own rallies, and at the Republican National Convention, the group has served as a vigilante security force, providing human barricades between supporters and protesters.
When Cox got Trigger a few months ago from the Czech Republic through trades he made with a guy he met at a Trump rally in South Dakota, he joked about naming the new pet Keith Schiller, after the head of security for the Trump Organization.
Ultimately, Cox said, he wants to transform bikers into a distinct voting bloc, akin to the Christian Coalition or Teamsters. His group is composed of members of established groups such as Bikers for Christ and Veteran Bikers MC, and Cox says there are many more unaffiliated “lone wolf” bikers to still bring into the political fray. But the plausibility of creating a unified voting bloc remains to be seen, particularly considering there are at least two other Trump motorcycle events happening in the District around inauguration.
Still, Cox has proved that while Trump, a rich Manhattanite, and bikers make for an unlikely alliance, there’s also some logic there: They can both be outspoken, revel in a tough-guy mentality and espouse hands-off government values.
“I’m not going to spend much time critiquing the vessel of the message,”Cox said. “It’s the message I’m interested in.”
Before Cox was Trump’s loyal biker guy, he was the nation’s heroic Lawn Mower Guy. He achieved national fame during the 2013 shutdown, when he showed up near the Lincoln Memorial and started mowing the lawn, a move that elevated him to a somewhat folksy legend during a time of ultimate Washington dysfunction.
This led him to lobby Congress to introduce a bill that would allow the monuments and parks to remain open during a government shutdown. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) introduced it, but the bill has mostly been stalled since then.
Cox said the experience gave him a window into the ineffectiveness of government. He decided that if he were ever to get his bill through, he would need outside politicians to help deliver it. And that’s how he landed on Trump as a candidate.
Bikers for Trump promotes its values of supporting veterans and bolstering the status of the country’s dwindling blue-collar workers, but it’s also a savvy way for Cox to gain political bona fides and ultimately push his bill. Cox is neither a veteran nor a blue-collar worker, and landed on the idea of harnessing that group after visiting biker bars and noticing that they overwhelmingly supported Trump.
“My goal is for the bill not only to pass, but for it to pass with the most co-sponsors in the history of the House of Representatives,”he said. “I’m optimistic that when Donald Trump sees it, he’ll be for it.”
Bikers for Trump’s main political goals are more controversial than Cox’s own personal ones. They want extremely tough vetting for Muslim immigrants, particularly Syrians, and a wall along the Mexico border. Trump’s ability to deliver these campaign promises remains uncertain, but Cox doesn’t really care.
“The wall that is built, it remains to be seen if it will be a concrete wall, a metal wall, trenches or just more border control,”Cox said.
Cox insists that his group is inclusive and disavows all parts of white nationalism. Cox repeatedly says that his group is pushing “racial reconciliation.”
Dwight Pape, a pro-Trump black bishop in Baton Rouge, plans to speak on this topic at Cox’s inauguration rally. Pape’s church was destroyed during the August 2016 floods, and he met Cox when bikers delivered food and supplies to the congregants.
“At a time when we needed help and hope and racial healing, the bikers showed up,”Pape, 62, said.
Cox grew up learning a little about how Washington politics works.His father, Earl Cox, worked in various federal agencies, including the Labor and Agriculture departments, and Cox spent much of his childhood in Northern Virginia. He left college in North Carolina to work in Republican politics, including campaigns for Dan Quayle and Elizabeth Dole.
That all makes him far from the typical biker. And Cox acknowledges that in many ways he is the stereotype of a liberal: He is a struggling artist with no health insurance who has been traversing the country this past year in a 1995 truck with a 1968 camper trailer attached. When he is out of money, he sells his chain-saw sculptures on the side of the road.
But he still possesses some undeniably Trumpian qualities. As Trigger obediently sat beside him, Cox ticked off some advanced commands. He said that Trigger learned the tricks in Czech and that he wants to ensure that the dog continues to respond to commands in the language.
“I don’t want anyone else to tell my dog what to do,”he said.
Michael Shelby, who is known as “New York Myke” in the biker community, met Cox in May in the District at Rolling Thunder — a massive biker demonstration holding the government accountable for all prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action. Shelby said he was initially a bit skeptical of Cox because he wasn’t a veteran, but Cox sold him with his sincere passion for Trump.
Shelby, a 72-year-old Vietnam veteran who owns a Harley-Davidson dealership in San Diego, said he has been involved in Republican veterans’ groups with a large biker contingency but never before in a group where being a biker was the main political identity.
“I can’t remember anyone ever saying Bikers for Dole, or Bikers for Bush before. No one has ever done that before,” said Shelby, who is attending the rally.
Cox has met Trump a few times at rallies and said the president-elect personally called to thank him for his work and tell him about American jobs he’s already saved. But Cox hasn’t yet brought up the bill to him.
“I didn’t want to bog him down with anything unrelated,”Cox said. “It was a matter-of-fact conversation that I would have with my friends. We laughed a bunch.”
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National Association of Pro-life Nurses announces the February 15 deadline for applications to this year’s $1,000 scholarship. Interested applicants can find all the necessary information on the website, www.nursesforlife.org. Scroll down to the “Scholarship Application” button.
ACTION ALERT: Tell Congress to Stop the Nation’s Capital From Legalizing Assisted Suicide On January 12, 2017, Congressman Brad Wenstrup (R-Oh.) and Senator James Lankford (R-Ok.) introduced a joint measure aimed at protecting the residents of the District of Columbia from becoming the 6th jurisdiction to legalize the dangerous practice of assisted suicide.
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Music legend Paul Anka will not only perform at Donald Trump’s Inauguration, he is reportedly rewriting the lyrics of a famous song just for the president-elect.
The 75 year old singer, whose hits include “(You’re) Having My Baby,” and “Put Your Head On My Shoulder,” is also known for writing the theme for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and “She’s a Lady,” one of Tom Jones’s biggest hits.
Anka also wrote the lyrics for Frank Sinatra’s signature song, “My Way,” and is planning to rewrite those lyrics specifically for Trump, according to Radar Online.
“Paul was asked by the members of the Trump inauguration committee and he was only too happy to do it for his longtime friend,” a source close to Anka told Radar.
“While everyone else was running scared from performing at the inauguration, Paul stood fast,”the source said. “He wasn’t about to be intimated by anyone!”
The Canadian-American singer has re-written the lyrics to “My Way” and will reportedly perform the song “during the inaugural dance for Donald and his lovely First Lady, Melania” the source told Radar.
“Paul won’t let the cat out of the bag or reveal his new lyrics yet,”said the source, “but will be tailor-made for President Trump. . .and it will be huge!”
Singer Marie Osmond made a surprising offer that could alienate her from the liberal elite in Hollywood, all for the sake of unity. She said she would be willing to perform at President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration if asked.
“I think when it comes to our country we need to unite,”Osmond recently said in an interview with Yahoo Finance. “I think we should all support our president whether we’re happy or sad. This is America.”
Osmond, 57, has eight children of her own, and she said they all have different political beliefs. She added that she would never want them to feel division over politics.
“We should come together, and I think an Inauguration should be a time to unite, it really should,”the singer concluded.
Osmond and her brother, Donny, performed at President Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981. She’s right that it’s time for the country to come together and let Trump do what the people elected him to do.
While Osmond confirmed that she would be on vacation during the event, we assume that she would have changed those plans had she been invited to perform. That’s a big risk, considering the amount of venom most of Hollywood has been spewing against Trump since he announced he would run for office. There’s no doubt Democrats and liberal news outlets will trash Osmond for making the offer, but that’s exactly the kind of hate we’ve come to expect from the left.
Yahoo reported that those who are scheduled to perform at the event included the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Radio City Rockets, the Talladega (Alabama) College Marching Tornadoes and “America’s Got Talent”star Jackie Evancho, who will sing the national anthem.
President-elect Donald Trump might as well have been in office for the past month. His latest accomplishment already overshadows everything that President Barack Obama did in the past eight years.
Building a wall on our southern border was a cornerstone of Trump’s campaign platform, and he insisted that Mexico would pay for it. Despite repeated denials, Mexico has now seemed to be inching toward that inevitability.
In a meeting with ambassadors and consuls yesterday, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said that Mexico will invest in modernizing and increasing security along the border, according to El Financiero.
That sounds an awful lot like they’re getting ready to pay for the wall, while saving face as they approach Trump’s hard line in the sand. If Mexico really believed the wall was a no-go, they wouldn’t be offering anything at all.
Mexico has a lot to lose if border security is tightened. Mexicans in the U.S. currently send home some $25 billion in remittances each year.Stopping the flow of cash would prove devastating to the Mexican economy, and Peña Nieto said he would work to “maintain the free flow of remittances,” according to Malaysia’s Sun Daily.
At his New York news conference yesterday, Trump doubled down on his pledge to build the wall sooner rather than later and to keep American jobs from heading to Mexico. While he was speaking, the value of the Mexican peso plunged to a new record low vs. the U.S. dollar, according to CNBC.
“We don’t ask permission or put our faith in electoral politics, instead, we use our bodies to stop the smooth operation of the system we oppose,” Disrupt J20 organizers say. (Photo: DisruptJ20.org)
A coalition of leftist causes calling itself Disrupt J20 plans a series of organizing sessions, classes, protests, and other activities aimed at disrupting Donald Trump’s inauguration as president Jan. 20.
“We’re planning to paralyze the city itself, using blockades and marches to stop traffic and even public transit.” —Disrupt J20 website
In appeals to “all people of good conscience,”Disrupt J20 seeks to bring thousands of fellow activists to Washington to join forces at American University beginning Saturday, six days before Inauguration Day. “We’re planning a series of massive direct actions that will shut down the inauguration ceremonies and any related celebrations—the inaugural parade, the inaugural balls, you name it,”Disrupt J20 declares on its website, adding: “We’re also planning to paralyze the city itself, using blockades and marches to stop traffic and even public transit. And hey, because we like fun, we’re even going to throw some parties.”
This photo graphic, as posted on Crimethinc.com, also bears these words in white block letters: NO PEACEFUL TRANSITION. (Photo: Crimethinc.com)
Organizers plan early-morning “blockade actions” Jan. 20 built around such banners as “racial justice,” “trade justice,” “climate justice,” “economic justice,” “communities under attack,” “labor direct action,” and “anti-war and Palestine.”
This all must be cool because the communist Workers World is covering it. The Daily Signal has not found direct calls for violence attributed to Disrupt J20 organizers, who did post this definition of what it means to take “direct action”:
Direct Action is when you take collective action to make social change without giving power over to an authority or middle person. We don’t ask permission or put our faith in electoral politics, instead, we use our bodies to stop the smooth operation of the system we oppose. Examples of direct action include the ongoing resistance at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline, the street and highway blockades of Black Lives Matter, or the occupations of public squares during Occupy Wall Street.
Anarchist-affiliated media sites such as Crimethinc.com, however, suggest the potential for violence.
“Some are calling for blockades at the checkpoints around the parade route, in hopes that Trump will ride into office in front of silent, empty bleachers,”Crimethinc wrote. “Others are preparing to rove the city, supporting and defending other protesters and responding to situations as they arise.”
Disrupt J20 does not disclose or identify itself with nationally known groups or major donors. It says the “direct action”planned is “supported by the work of the D.C. Welcoming Committee,”which it calls “a collective of experienced local activists and out-of-work gravediggers acting with national support.” That group isn’t funded by any nonprofits and has no connection with any political parties, according to the website.
But Matthew Vadum, senior vice president at the Washington-based Capital Research Center, said he has found an indirect link with hedge fund manager and liberal philanthropist George Soros.
“George Soros is a major funder of Alliance for Global Justice, a radical left-wing group that collected donations on behalf of the Occupy Wall Street movement,”Vadum told The Daily Signal, adding:
Alliance for Global Justice is now functioning as a fiscal sponsor for a group called Refuse Fascism that is heavily involved in the Disrupt J20 effort. A fiscal sponsor accepts donations on behalf of unincorporated or small groups and charges a modest administrative fee so that donors can deduct the donations from their taxes.
Kelly Kullberg, a founder of the American Association of Evangelicals, told The Daily Signal she doesn’t know who finances such efforts to cause chaos on Inauguration Day but considers them dangerous:
This ‘progressive’ worldview and funding accelerate the erosion of traditional wisdom like faith, family, and even freedom. It is regressive, and many people suffer the consequences. This should concern every American. We deserve to know more about this funding and their false narratives. We deserve truth.
Organizers also offer a “legal guide” for protesters who encounter the police, including advice for protesters who are placed under arrest. A section titled “Bulls— cops will say” tells protesters that “cops lie a lot” and lists examples. Disrupt J20 urges protesters to get started over the weekend by taking part in “Action Camps”from Saturday through Monday at American University in partnership with student groups there. These include a “racial justice”group called the Darkening, the Black Student Alliance, the Latino and American Student Organization, and the AU Student Worker Alliance.
American University spokeswoman Camille Lepre told The Daily Signal in an email that the school is neither prohibiting nor sponsoring the anti-Trump events being held in its facilities.
The camps also are set for Tuesday through Thursday at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Northwest Washington.
Topics of workshops include “Radical Cheerleading,” “How to Cop Watch,” “Nonviolent Direct Action,” “Know Your Rights,” “Street Safety,” “De-escalation,” and “Community and Workplace Organizing.” Participants may join “Climate Convergence” workshops Wednesday and have the opportunity to “stand in solidarity with others working for migrant rights, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, and more.”
Such different movements and organizations need to stand as one, according to Disrupt J20 organizers, because this way they can form a more potent force to “stop the rollback of progress” under the incoming Trump administration.
A map provided to Washington-bound protesters by the anti-Trump group Disrupt J20.
Disrupt J20’s “Call to Action” warns against the advent of a “security state”under Trump:
Trump stands for tyranny, greed, and misogyny. He is the champion of neo-nazis [sic] and white Nationalists [sic], of the police who kill the Black, Brown, and poor on a daily basis, of racist border agents and sadistic prison guards, of the FBI and NSA who tap your phone and read your email. He is the harbinger of even more climate catastrophe, deportation, discrimination, and endless war. He continues to deny the existence of climate change, in spite of all the evidence, putting the future of the whole human race at stake.
A group called the D.C. Anti-Fascist Coalition will host a sort of counter inaugural ballcalled the Protest the Fascist Alt-Right Deploraball on the night of Thursday, Jan. 19, at the National Press Club. Organizers say the event is being held as a protest of an inaugural ball for Trump supporters there.
Disrupt J20 plans its major events for Inauguration Day itself, beginning that morning in McPherson Square in Northwest Washington, where it asks activists to meet and regroup throughout the day. The website says:
We must take to the streets and protest, blockade, disrupt, intervene, sit in, walk out, rise up, and make more noise and good trouble than the establishment can bear. The [inaugural] parade must be stopped. We must delegitimize Trump and all he represents.
The Democratic Socialists of America, in partnership with Disrupt J20, has scheduled a “Stand Against Trump” event at 9 a.m. at the northwest end of the square.
Other events include “The Anti-Capitalist and Anti-Fascist Bloc” set for 10 a.m. at the Francis Scott Key Memorial. (Be sure to wear all black, participants are urged). A “Festival of Resistance”is set for Columbus Circle, in front of Union Station, where many out-of-towners will arrive for the official festivities.
Disrupt J20 organizers are setting up “Activist Housing” for the expected protesters, including “mass housing” at an unnamed local church. “Please bring a sleeping bag and anything else you need to be comfortable,”they say. “We will post community guidelines that all utilizing the mass housing option will be expected to follow to ensure everyone’s safety.”
[Re: ‘Should Parents Ransom Their Children From Terrorists?’]: It should be illegal, and they should do it anyway.
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[Re:’ISIS Children Execute Prisoners’]: ISIS couldn’t care less if you are a Democratic or Republican, these kids are being trained to kill your kids and your grandkids; wake up people and let’s all start working together to stop this!
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National Association of Pro-life Nurses announces the February 15 deadline for applications to this year’s $1,000 scholarship. Interested applicants can find all the necessary information on the website, www.nursesforlife.org. Scroll down to the “Scholarship Application” button.
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U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is sworn in to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing to become U.S. attorney general on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Republican Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks claimed during a Tuesday radio interview that Democrats who strongly criticize attorney general nominee and Republican Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions are motivated to do so by their party’s “war on whites” agenda.
As first reported by CNN Wednesday, Brooks told a local Alabama radio host that Democrats are trying to paint Sessions as a racist because it aligns with their political goals. “Well, if you get right down to it, it’s all about political power, and the Democrats are not shy about lying in order to achieve their political goals. And if they have to besmirch the reputation of a good man, Jeff Sessions, in order to achieve their political goals, they as a group are not hesitant to do so,”he stated on the show.
Brooks went on to defend Sen. Sessions’ voting rights record and argued Democrats are misrepresenting the nominee’s stances as a political “tool” to scare their voters. “It’s really about political power and racial division and what I’ve referred to on occasion as the ‘war on whites.’ They are trying to motivate the African-American vote to vote-bloc for Democrats by using every ‘Republican is a racist’ tool that they can envision,”he declared. “Even if they have to lie about it.”
Tuesday was not the first time Brooks caused controversy by saying there’s a “war on whites.”During an August 2014 radio interview with Laura Ingraham, he said President Obama and his party wage a “war on whites”to win votes among minority voters.
“This is a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party,”the congressman said at the time. “And the way in which they’re launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. It’s a part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008. He did it again in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things.”(RELATED: Alabama Congressman: Dems Waging ‘War On Whites’)
Image added by WhatDidYouSay.org
Ingraham disagreed with Brooks’ words and said the war claim was “a little out there.”
In spite of a swift backlash against his comments, the Alabama Republican doubled-down on them and further asserted that whites are the only race that can be “lawfully discriminated[d] against.”
Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis’s stance on women in combat and LGBT troops will be thrust into the spotlight Thursday when he faces senators for his confirmation hearing to be the next secretary of Defense. The man whom Mattis is in line to replace, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, opened all combat jobs to women with no exceptions in late 2015 over the objection of the Marine Corps. This summer, Carter also lifted the ban on transgender troops serving openly.
Supporters of the changes have been worried since Election Day that President-elect Donald Trump‘s administration will roll them back. Mattis has expressed skepticism in the past about whether women are suited for what he called “intimate killing” and has blasted civilian leaders with a “progressive agenda”pushing “social change” on the military.
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Though Mattis is highly respected for his military service and is expected to be confirmed, wary senators will likely push Mattis to answer for his past comments when he faces the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“I would have a concern if he wasn’t committed to supporting the policy going forward,”said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a member of the committee.
In a 2014 speech at the Marines’ Memorial Club in San Francisco, Mattis questioned whether women can handle the “atavistic primitive world”of the infantry. “The idea of putting women in there is not setting them up for success,”he said. “It would only be someone who never crossed the line of departure into close quarters fighting that would ever even promote such an idea.”
He stressed that his concerns were not about individual women’s ability to meet physical requirements. The point, he said, was mixing “Eros,”the Greek god of love, with the trenches.
“Some of us aren’t so old that we’ve forgotten that at times it was like heaven on earth just to hold a certain girl’s hand,”he said, to laughter and applause from the audience.
In a 2016 book Mattis co-edited with Hoover Institution colleague Kori Schake, the pair warned about the dangers of imposing social issues on the military, such as female combat troops and openly LGBT service members.
“We fear that an uninformed public is permitting political leaders to impose an accretion of social conventions that are diminishing the combat power of our military,”they wrote.
It’s a sentiment Mattis reiterated in a September interview with the Military Times.
“We have to be very careful that we do not undercut the military battlefield effectiveness with shortsighted social programs,”he said.
Concerns about Mattis’s statements are compounded by Trump’s own comments on the campaign trail. Trump blasted “political correctness” when asked during an October town hall about “social engineering” in the military. In September, he said he wanted to crack down on the “massive problem” of military sexual assault, but defended a 2013 tweet that blamed mixing men and women for the issue.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he expects Mattis to echo what many Republicans have said about the issue of women in combat roles.
“I haven’t asked him about it, but I’m sure he will say that he supports the role of women in combat as long as we don’t lower standards,”McCain said. “That’s my view, and that I think is the majority of the committee’s view.”
But Democrats aren’t so sure. Asked if she has concerns about Mattis’s views on women in combat and transgender troops, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), a committee member, firmly said, “Yes,”without elaborating.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a vocal advocate of women in the military, said she plans to ask Mattis for clarity on his views at the hearing. Gillibrand has already said she opposes Mattis for an unrelated issue: He needs a waiver from Congress to bypass a law that says Defense secretaries must be out of uniform for at least seven years.
“I do have concerns about women in the military and how sexual assault in the military is being addressed,”she said after meeting Mattis last week. “I’ll ask those questions specifically in the hearing so he can answer them for the record.”
Kate Germano, chief operating officer of the Women’s Service Action Network, said even if Mattis doesn’t outright reverse the decision to open all combat jobs to women, he could allow the Marines to slow-roll implementation, which she has accused them of doing already.
“I think this could absolutely exacerbate that,”said Germano, a recently retired Marine Corps officer. “The fact is that for women who want to pursue those jobs, that’s a letdown for them.”
Having a leader who doesn’t support women in combat could also hinder other efforts to fight gender bias, Germano added, such as integrating male and female Marines’ basic training and improving the military’s family policies.
As of Monday, her group had met with all but one member of the Senate Armed Services Committee to talk about Mattis, she said. Germano said she’s worried that Gillibrand’s concerns about Mattis are being overshadowed by her opposition to his waiver. She also added that staffers for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who joined the Armed Services Committee this year, have told the group she has concerns about Mattis’s positions as well.
Warren’s office did not return requests for comment.
Germano additionally highlighted Mattis’s close working relationship with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford, who as commandant of the Marines recommended Carter keep some jobs closed. Asked this week whether he expects the women in combat policy to stay the same in the next administration, Dunford said he “can’t comment on anything that might happen in the future.”
The Palm Center, an independent think tank that researches issues of gender and sexuality and has been active on the military’s LGBT policies, has also been reaching out to senators ahead of Thursday’s hearing. The group has been circulating a sheet of questions for senators to ask Mattis, including whether he supports the existing Pentagon policies, directives and implementation guidelines regarding open service by LGBT troops, what a reversal of the policy would consist of and what effect a reversal would have readiness, unit cohesion and morale.
“I expect Gen. Mattis, if he is confirmed, to take aim at LGBT troops and women and to politicize military personnel policy on the basis of outdated moral beliefs,”said Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center.
Republicans mostly did not support the transgender policy, saying the Pentagon did not provide adequate evidence that readiness would not be affected by allowing troops to transition in-service.
A RAND Corp. study commissioned by the Pentagon estimated about 65 troops per year would seek to transition and anticipated “minimal impact” on readiness.
Republicans were more divided on allowing women in combat, with some outright opposing any change, some upset Carter overruled the Marines’ request to keep some jobs closed and others supportive of the idea so long as standards aren’t lowered to ensure women make it into the newly opened jobs. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a member of the committee and a combat veteran of the Iraq War, supported the change with the caveat about standards. When asked whether she’s looking for something specific from Mattis on the issue, she demurred.
“I just look forward to having a great conversation with him about it on Thursday during the hearing,”she said.
Arizona Sen. John McCain cemented his RINO status when he admitted Tuesday that he handed the dossier that smeared Donald Trump to the FBI. “Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public,” he wrote in a statement on his website.
“Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI.
“That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue.”
The accusations published by Buzzfeed are admittedly unverified and potentially unverifiable
Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein told CNN that McCain was more intimately involved in the documents than he admitted.
“It came from a former British MI6 agent who was hired from a political opposition research firm in Washington who was doing work about Donald Trump for both republican and democratic candidates opposed to Trump,”he said.
“They were looking at Trumps business ties, they saw some questionable things about Russians, about his businesses in Russia, they in turn hired this MI6 former investigator, he then came up with additional information from his Russian sources, he was very concerned by the implications of it, he then took it to a FBI colleague that he had known in his undercover work for years, he took it to this FBI man in Rome who turned it over to the bureau in Washington in August.”
“And then, a former British ambassador to Russia independently was made aware of these findings and he took the information to John McCain – Senator John McCain of Arizona – in the period just after the election, and showed it to McCain – additional findings.”
“McCain was sufficiently disturbed by what he read to take it to FBI director James Comey himself personally, they had a five-minute meeting, very little was said, McCain turned it over to him and is now awaiting what the FBI’s response is to that information.”
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has begun a six-part series of talks on Trumpism at The Heritage Foundation in January. (Photo: Willis Bretz for The Daily Signal)
President-elect Donald Trump’s successful candidacy is the result of an unequivocal disconnect between elite media and average Americans, says former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Speaking Tuesday at The Heritage Foundation at the first of a six-part series on Trumpism, Gingrich explained how the media’s disdain for the American people ultimately led to Trump’s victory in November.
“Because the media had such contempt for the average American, they simply could not see what was happening,”Gingrich said.
Following his Heritage speech, Gingrich spoke to The Daily Signal about the divide that exists between the American people and the news media.
“There’s a huge gap between the world as reported by the news media and the world as it really exists,”Gingrich said.
Gingrich pointed to Hollywood’s display of hatred toward Trump at the Golden Globes as an example of the gap between Americans and Hollywood elites.
“Trump is anti-political correctness and that’s the heart of their self-delusion,”he said. “They think they’re wonderful humanitarians and they think they care about the whole planet. They don’t care about you, but they care about the whole planet. They cling together like a large collection of gerbils who all reinforce each other and the loudest gerbil the other night was Meryl Streep.”
According to Gingrich, Trump disrupts the left’s core identity of safe spaces, political correctness, and their vision of the appropriate behavior.
“It just was inconceivable to members of the establishment that someone this randomly noisy, running a campaign that was so radically different, articulating issues that were clearly politically taboo, and at times engaging in behavior and language that was unthinkable to the establishment definition of appropriate leadership, that such a person could become president of the United States until it became a fact,”he said.
Gingrich said the biggest disconnect came from the media’s failure to cover the issues that resonated most with Americans, while instead scrutinizing the way in which Trump delivered his message.
“Because Trump’s substance was so out of the mainstream, it was defined by the establishment media as lacking substance,”Gingrich said. “The attacks at him were about his style, not the substance. Voters were responding to the substance, while reporters and opponents were responding to how he said what he said.”
“The media kept saying this guy is noisy, he uses inappropriate language, he’s not clear, and the average person would go ‘yeah, but I get what he’s talking about,’” he said.
Gingrich will return to Heritage on Thursday for part two of the Trumpism series. The speech takes place at 11 a.m. EST.
Protesters held signs at the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to become U.S. attorney general on Jan. 10, 2017. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque /Reuters/Newscom)
<!– Protesters held signs at the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to become U.S. attorney general on Jan. 10, 2017. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque
/Reuters/Newscom) –>
Observers of this week’s confirmation hearings for the post of U.S. attorney general might think it odd to see Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., rewind the clock to a single voter fraud case from the 1980s. Under persistent questioning, Sessions has had to defend his decision to prosecute a case of brazen voter fraud—something that was his job to do. The repeated references to this case by some senators represent just how far the civil rights industry has swerved from its honorable roots to derail a confirmation.
Character assassination, false testimony, performance protests aimed at securing retweets instead of reconciliation, and more have all been trained on the Alabama senator.
The oft-referenced voter fraud case Sessions brought involved the harvesting of absentee ballots by a trio then lionized as “the Perry County Three” in the mid-1980s. These Perry County defendants faced charges for mail fraud and casting multiple ballots in a single election. They simply stole votes. They weren’t acting to further civil rights—they were committing crimes.
As Sessions mentioned in his testimony, the offense was reported by local black complainants whose absentee ballots were being intercepted and voted without their consent.
To understand the obscene dishonesty used to reframe this matter against Sessions, we must sample the misleading statements that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and its allies have used to retell the story.
Last week, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick penned a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, doubting Sessions’ ability to fairly protect the rights of minorities given his previous decision to prosecute the absentee ballot harvesters. Patrick portrayed the ballot harvesting as a benign tool to enfranchise the historically disenfranchised. A reasonable person who hears that claim repeatedly might fall for it. But there is a larger problem: It is simply untrue.
Contrary to what the NAACP and its friends may say, the right to vote exists with the individual, not the political machine that forces “assistance” on voters without their input. Arguing that the decision to prosecute voter fraud is itself a disqualifying offense when seeking the job of attorney general demonstrates just how perverse the modern left has become with respect to the rule of law. The left’s highlighting of this one case demonstrates that the institutional left is afraid. It is afraid it may soon lose enormous power because the Sessions Department of Justice will no longer participate in its radical racialist agenda.
For years going back before the Obama era, the Justice Department has served as a reliable signal caller to increasingly leftward actors that utilize racialized interpretations of law—particularly election policy—to ensure future political victories for Democrats.
As I wrote in my book, “Injustice,”the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder wasted no time in performing a course change that ignored the enforcement of federal requirements for maintaining voter rolls. It also later zeroed in on state voter ID laws with such zealotry that it started losing cases—such as in South Carolina. The Justice Department used the trappings of civil rights enforcement to advance the cause of the Democratic Party. Indeed, some academics writing about the Voting Rights Act have explicitly called for such partisan enforcement at Department of Justice. Michigan law professor Ellen Katz, for example, made this view plain in a law review article titled “Democrats at DOJ: Why Partisan Use of the Voting Rights Act Might Not Be So Bad After All.”
The mess that Sessions must clean up doesn’t end with naked partisanship in civil rights enforcement. It also reaches a racialist interpretation of civil rights, which protects some and neglects to protect others.
A Department of Justice inspector general report released in 2013 noted that there was open hostility among staff toward pursuing voting rights cases against black voters, especially where whites were harmed. (I pursued such cases in Noxubee County, Mississippi.) The inspector general investigation also revealed that management-level officers “did not believe the Voting Section should pursue cases on behalf of white victims.”We now see this attitude manifest in the inactionagainst the violent, racially motivated attacks against Donald Trump voters, despite civil rights laws clearly being implicated.
This is the Justice Department that Sessions will inherit. But unlike his predecessors, the Alabaman’s record directly contrasts with much of the established culture there.
Nonprofit allies have grown comfortable knowing there are colleagues in the Justice Department who are happy to race-test a case before pursuing a civil rights violation. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and others can count on a friendly brief flown in from Washington, D.C., when targeting an election integrity reform in a politically valuable state. They can even benefit from the department’s voice in telling a court to exclude parties dedicated to voter ID laws from joining the table of interveners in a case.
The financial incentive of certain organizations to maintain a Sessions-free status quo is also an important consideration. The groups allied with President Barack Obama’s Justice Department are more than email lists and press releases—these are giant edifices working to undermine the electoral system, which have become increasingly beholden to the largest progressive financiers.
The combined payroll of just a handful of leading organizations’ chief officers—to include the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Council of La Raza, and the National Action Network—is measured in the many millions, not thousands.
The professional struggle for racialized enforcement of voting rights has become an incredible vehicle for wealth creation inside the civil rights industry. Civil rights—genuine equality before law—has taken the back seat to power and wealth.
Attorneys general come and go. Every career Department of Justice veteran knows that. But what the establishment left knows even better is that a sea change in law enforcement priorities—like what Sessions promises—can be devastating to grand political designs and personal bank accounts alike. With that in mind, it’s no wonder that a former governor and assistant attorney general for civil rights like Patrick would hint that Sessions’ decision to prosecute a voter fraud case in the 1980s was a discriminatory act of voter intimidation.
If such a political act moves the needle slightly closer to a “no” vote, it will have been a necessary endeavor for the establishment left. But it will be just one more of its shameful acts.
Time Warner, which owns CNN, saw the power of Trump’s comments and that of the American people; for that matter. After calling CNN ‘fake news’ at his first press conference since becoming President-elect, the media conglomerate saw a fall in their stocks. This is incredible.
Media conglomerate Time Warner, which owns CNN, saw its stocks fall Wednesday after President-elect Donald Trump labeled the outlet “fake news,” a CNBC reporter says.
According to journalist Carl Quintanilla, the shares took a noticeable dip during the president-elect’s first news conference moments after Trump refused to answer questions from CNN Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta.
…
Steve Kopack, a social lead for CNBC’s breaking news desk, also stated that shares “fell to session low.” While the dip was just “1.2%,” Kopack asserted the incident showed the “power of Trump’s comments.”
It wasn’t just pharma/biotech stocks that Trump hit today, when he told @Acosta “you are fake news” $TWX shares fell to session low. pic.twitter.com/z5EwDct7Q1
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In a country of more than 320 million people, everything must happen once. So it’s somewhat surprising that not one of the alleged post-election hate crimes committed by Trump supporters has turned out to be true. They are false in one of two ways: Either they aren’t “hate”or they aren’t true. This week, we’ll provide tips for selling a hate crime that didn’t happen.
Hate Crime Hoaxer Tip No. 1: Don’t invent hate crimes that could form the opening of a Harlequin Romance.
Liberal girls always seem to be imagining strong, rough, Heathcliff-type white men demanding that they disrobe or become “sex slaves.” (Oddly, Heathcliff keeps doing this in well-trafficked areas in the middle of the day with no witnesses.)
The hijab hoaxer at the University of Michigan described her imaginary Trump-supporting pursuer as white, in his 20s or 30s, with an athletic build, unkempt and intoxicated. He demanded that she remove her hijab. (After a police investigation, she admitted she made it up.)
The alleged hijab victim at University of New Mexico, Leena Aggad, said her hijab was ripped off by “a really buff guy wearing a Trump shirt.” (The attack was serious enough for her to tell the media about it, but not serious enough to report it to campus security, much less the police.)
A 28-year-old black woman, Kara Stevens, claimed three Trump-supporting white men in their 30s approached her in a Safeway parking lot in Hillsboro, Oregon, mentioned Donald Trump — then threatened to turn her into their “sex slave”! (Investigation suspended with no video, no witnesses and no evidence.)
With a little more imagination, these stories could become the new “Fifty Shades of Grey.”
Hate Crime Hoaxer Tip No. 2: Don’t accuse white men of throwing things at you — even if it allows you to issue inspirational quotes, suitable for framing, like: “It’s going to take more than a brick to break me!”
An African-American woman, Eleesha Long, claimed that, the day after the election, three white men in Trump shirts threw rocks at her on the campus of Bowling Green State University.
The Safeway “sex slave,” Kara Stevens, claimed the Trump-supporters threw a brick at her. (She, of the inspirational quote.)
We’ve seen lots of rock-, bottle- and brick-throwing recently — in Ferguson, Baltimore, Charlotte, Oakland, Chicago — in fact, pretty much whenever disaffected urban youth encounter the police.
We’ve seen Mexicans throw eggs at Trump supporters and rocks at the police.
We’ve seen Brazilians throw rocks at journalists at the Olympic Games in Rio, Palestinians throw rocks at the military in Israel, and Muslim “refugees” throw rocks at the police in Europe.
But throwing things at people never really caught on with white men over the age of 6. (NOTE: Sen. John McCain’s bellicose sidekick is a notable exception — CNS News: Sen. Lindsey Graham, “I’m Ready to Throw a Rock”at Russia.)
Even sad, directionless, white (alleged) “men” at Occupy Wall Street protests — i.e., the molecular opposite of a Trump supporter — don’t seem to have thrown rocks at cops. The rock-throwing was done by their minority backup.
Again, we’re a country of 320 million people, so it must have happened sometime, but the 21st-century white American male is the most pacific — and least rock-throwing — Y-chromosomed being ever to walk the Earth.
Black women accusing white men of throwing rocks at them are thinking of what they would do, not what their athletically built, white male, Trump-supporting Lotharios would do.
Hate Crime Hoaxer Tip No. 3: Don’t post your tale of victimology on Facebook if your father may read it, worry about you and call the police. That’s what Eleesha Long’s father did, which — to Miss Long’s eternal embarrassment — led to a police investigation.
The cops found clear evidence of hate — hers. She’d texted her boyfriend such sweet nothings as, “I haven’t met a decent Trump supporter yet” and “I hope they all get AIDS.”
More significant in terms of the penal code, police determined from her cellphone records that she was nowhere near the site of the alleged rock-throwing incident.
Hate crime hoaxers, I don’t think I need to tell you this, but you do NOT want a police investigation. Much better to send anonymous reports into America’s leading hate group, the Southern Poverty Law Center, so your story can appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, the “Today” show, “Good Morning America,” etc., etc.
A brick might not break you, but a police investigation will.
President Barack Obama holds his final press conference of the year in the White House on December 16, 2016. (Photo: Douliery Olivier/ABACA USA/Newscom)
According to President Barack Obama, the last eight years have been just swell. But his rendition of history leaves out a few important facts about the state of America following his two terms as president. In two videos, we run through 13 facts about his administration’s domestic and foreign policy record he conveniently ignores.
On the domestic front, the national debt has almost doubled on his watch. He is responsible for an unparalleled expansion of the job-killing regulatory state. And his signature policy, the Affordable Care Act, has proven to be anything but affordable for many Americans.
His foreign policy and national security record also paints a bleak picture. By any objective measure, transnational terrorist threats are far greater today than when Obama took office in 2009. His policy of appeasement toward hostile regimes in Iran and Cuba have not made Americans safer or the Cuban people freer. And his refusal to adequately fund the U.S. military has threatened the readiness of our country’s armed forces.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., answers questions during his confirmation hearing Jan. 10 before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Photo: Dennis Brack/Newscom)
It got rowdy at times during the hearing Tuesday on Sen. Jeff Sessions’ nomination to become attorney general, but not so much because of fellow senators who questioned the Alabama Republican. Protesters interrupted the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing multiple times, some dressed in Ku Klux Klan outfits, others wearing the familiar Code Pink attire. They shouted “No Trump! No KKK! No fascist USA!” and other slogans.
The hearing itself wasn’t as contentious as some expected, as even some Democrats noted their friendship with Sessions, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to run the Justice Department as attorney general.
Until Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., challenged Sessions on the precise number of civil rights cases he was involved in as a U.S. attorney in Alabama, there was little talk about the allegations of racism that helped sink Sessions’ 1986 nomination as a federal judge.
“These are damnably false charges,”@SenatorSessions says.
Here are eight takeaways from the first day of the Sessions confirmation hearings:
1. Racism Allegations ‘Damnably False’
During his opening remarks, Sessions confronted head-on allegations lodged 30 years ago by other Justice Department lawyers that he was hostile to civil rights. “I was accused in 1986 of failing to protect the voting rights of African-Americans by presenting the Perry County case, the voter fraud case, and of condemning civil rights organizations and even harboring—amazingly—sympathies for the KKK,”Sessions told his colleagues on the Judiciary Committee. “These are damnably false charges.”
He explained that he brought a 1982 voter fraud case in Perry County, Alabama, against civil rights advocate Albert Turner at the urging of local prosecutors and a grand jury foreman. “The voter fraud case my office prosecuted was in response to pleas from African-Americans, incumbent elected officials who claim that the absentee ballot process involved a situation in which the ballots cast for them were stolen, altered, and cast for their opponents,” Sessions said. “The prosecution sought to protect the integrity of the ballot, not to block voting. It was a voting rights case.”
Turner and others were acquitted.
Sessions noted his role as both a U.S. attorney and later as Alabama’s attorney general in the prosecution and execution of Klansman Henry Hays.
“As to the KKK, I invited civil rights attorneys from Washington, D.C., to help us solve a very difficult investigation into the unconscionable, horrendous death of a young African-American,”Sessions told the committee, adding:
“There was no federal death penalty at the time and I felt the death penalty was appropriate in this case. I pushed to have it tried in state court, which was done. That defendant was indeed convicted and sentenced to death and 10 years later—ironically—as Alabama’s attorney general, my staff participated in a defense of that verdict. That murdering Klansman was indeed executed. I abhor the Klan and what it represents and its hateful ideology.”
Sessions said he “never declared the NAACP was un-American nor that a civil rights attorney was a disgrace to his race,”as he had been accused of in 1986.
2. He’ll Recuse Himself on Clinton
Sessions said as attorney general he would recuse himself from any federal investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or the Clinton Foundation, because he publicly criticized the Democratic nominee during the 2016 presidential race. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, asserted her concerns during opening remarks.
“The president-elect said to his opponent during a debate, ‘If I win, I’m going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look at your situation,’”Feinstein said. “Mr. Chairman, that’s not what an attorney general does. An attorney general does not investigate and prosecute at the behest of a president.”
Later, Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, raised the question. “In light of the comments that you made, some have pressed concern about whether you can approach the Clinton matter impartially in both fact and appearance. How do you plan to address those concerns?”Grassley asked. Sessions said it was a highly contentious campaign.
“I, like a lot of people, made comments about the issues in that campaign with regard to Secretary Clinton and some of the comments I made I do believe could place my objectivity in question,”Sessions said. “I’ve given that thought. I believe the proper thing for me to do would be to recuse myself from any kind of investigations involving Secretary Clinton and matters raised during the campaign.”
Later in the hearing, in response to a question from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Sessions said he never joined the chants of “lock her up” during the presidential campaign.
3. Russian Espionage
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked whether Sessions would recuse himself and appoint a special prosecutor for an investigation of any Trump campaign officials that might have worked with Russian intelligence. Durbin said it was “a hypothetical.”
His decision to recuse himself from any Clinton probe was “because I’ve made public comments that could be construed as having an impact on the final judgment that would be rendered,”Sessions said, adding:
“I don’t think I made any comments on this issue that would go to that. But I would review it and try to do the right thing as to whether or not it should stay within the jurisdiction of the attorney general or not.”
Early in the hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked about the alleged Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s email. “How do you feel about a foreign entity trying to interfere in our election? I’m not saying they changed the outcome, but it is clear they did it. How do you feel about it and what should we do?”Graham asked.
Sessions called it a “a significant event.” “We have penetration apparently throughout our government by foreign entities. We know the Chinese revealed background information on millions of people in the United States,”Sessions said, adding:
“These I suppose ultimately are part of international big power politics. But when a nation uses their improperly gained or intelligence-wise gained information to take policy positions and impact other nation’s democracy or approach to any issue, then that raises real serious matters. Really I suppose it goes in many ways to our State Department and our Defense Department in how we as a nation have to react to that.”
4. ‘Access Hollywood’ Video
In a line of questioning that seemed to catch Sessions off guard, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., brought up the 2005 “Access Hollywood” video, in which Trump is heard making lewd comments about groping women.
“If a sitting president or any other high federal official is accused of committing what the president-elect described in a context in which it could be federally prosecuted, would you be able to prosecute it and investigate it?”Leahy asked.
Sessions, who also agreed any such behavior would be sexual assault, said the president could be prosecuted.
“The president is subject to certain lawful restrictions and they would be required to be applied by the appropriate law enforcement official if appropriate, yes,”Sessions said.
5. Saying ‘No’ to President Trump
Sessions talked about how he would move from making law and voting on policy to enforcing laws—even laws he voted against—as a matter of duty. Stressing independence, he also said the attorney general is not a political office.
“He or she must be committed to following the law,”he said. “He or she must be willing to tell the president ‘no’ if he overreaches. He or she cannot be a mere rubber stamp to any idea the president has.”
He added:
“He or she also must set the example for the employees in the department to do the right thing and ensure that they know the attorney general will back them up, no matter what politician might call, or what powerful special interest, influential contributor, or friend might try to intervene.”
6. Abortion and Same-Sex Marriage
Feinstein pressed Sessions on two major social issues, abortion and same-sex marriage. Sessions said he would enforce the law on both.
“You have referred to Roe v. Wade as ‘one of the worst, colossally erroneous Supreme Court decisions of all time.’ Is that still your view?”Feinstein asked.
Sessions responded:
“It is. I believe it violated the Constitution and really attempted to set policy and not follow law. It is the law of the land. It is established and has been so for a long time. It deserves respect, and I will respect it and follow it.”
Asked later whether his Justice Department would argue before the Supreme Court in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion across the nation, Sessions said the question was too hypothetical.
Feinstein referred to a November interview that Trump gave on “60 Minutes”in which the president-elect said same-sex marriage was settled law. She asked whether Sessions agreed.
“It was 5-4 and five justices on the Supreme Court, the majority of the court has established the definition of marriage for the entire United States of America, and I will follow that decision,”Sessions said.
7. Illegal Immigration
On one of Trump’s signature issues, curbing illegal immigration, Sessions said the U.S. must enforce its laws. He also said Congress has a role in fixing the nation’s broken immigration system. “Colleagues, it has not been working right,”Sessions said. “We’ve entered more and more millions of people illegally into the country. Each one of them produces some sort of humanitarian concern. But it is particularly true for children. We’ve been placed in a particularly bad situation.” When the matter came up later, Sessions talked about the economic impact of illegal immigration.
“Immigration has been a high priority for the United States. We’ve been a leading country in the world in accepting immigration,”Sessions said, adding:
“I don’t think the American people want to end immigration. I do think if you bring in a larger flow of labor than we have jobs for, it does impact adversely the wage prospects, the job prospects of American citizens. As a nation, we should evaluate immigration on whether or not it serves and advances the national interest and not the corporate interest. It has to be in the people’s interest first.”
8. Operation Choke Point
Sessions briefly addressed Operation Choke Point, a secretive Justice Department program that works with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and other agencies to target legal businesses—such as payday lenders, tobacco sellers, and gun dealers—that the Obama administration opposes. Choke Point refers to the aim of discouraging banks and other lenders from doing business with these industries, thus choking off financing.
Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, later asked Sessions whether it is proper to target legal businesses for political reasons, and whether he would stop it if confirmed.
“At least as you framed this issue, as I understand the issue, from what little I know about it, fundamentally, a lawful business should not be attacked by having other lawful businesses pressured not to do business with the first business. For me that would be hard to justify,”Sessions said.
U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), an advisor to U.S. President Elect Donald Trump, speaks to members of the Media in the lobby of Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York November 17, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo ∧
Thomas Figures, an assistant U.S. attorney whose accusations of racial bias torpedoed Sen. Jeff Sessions’ nomination to the federal bench in 1986, had a history of erratic and disturbed behavior, colleagues and estranged family say.
New sworn statements obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation given by former colleagues allege Figures, who died in 2015, was a paranoid figure who, among other things, believed “CBS Evening News” anchor Dan Rather was communicating with him through his television. An office loner with a flair for confrontation, Figures was later indicted by federal authorities for attempting to bribe a witness.
30 years later, his testimony continues to shape press coverage of Sessions’ nomination to serve as attorney general in the Trump administration.
The Star Witness
A Democrat who joined the U.S. attorney’s office during the Jimmy Carter administration, Figures was the first black man to serve as a federal prosecutor in Mobile, Ala. Though a stalwart of local Democratic politics — he was vice chair of the Mobile County Democratic Conference and his brother was a state senator — Figures chose to remain on the staff of the district’s new conservative U.S. attorney, one Jeff Sessions, following the election of former President Ronald Reagan. The pair worked together for five years.
Sessions and Figures would part ways, if only for a moment, in 1985. One year later, Sessions was preparing for the exchange of platitudes typical of a committee hearing for a district judgeship, when Figures scuttled his nomination with crippling allegations of racist sympathies.
Invited by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee to give testimony to his character, Figures alleged Sessions regularly called him “boy” in private and admonished him to watch his mouth around the office’s white employees. His allegations were not corroborated by any member of Sessions’ staff. He also falsely claimed that Sessions ordered him to close his investigation of the lynching of a young black man named Michael Donald. Democrats on the panel peppered Sessions with biting questions and comments in the ensuing days. (RELATED: Leading Democrats Liked Jeff Sessions Before They Hated Him)
“Mr. Sessions is a throwback to a shameful era, which I know both black and white Americans thought was in our past,”Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy said during the proceedings. “It is inconceivable to me that a person of this attitude is qualified to be a U.S. attorney, let alone a U.S. federal judge.”
Figures was one of two witnesses who expressed concerns about Sessions’ racial politics. The other witness, a civil rights attorney named J. Gerald Hebert, testified that Sessions had made disparaging remarks about the ACLU and the NAACP. He went on to tell the committee he did not believe Sessions to be a racist.
Sessions’ appointment floundered, and the White House withdrew the nomination on July 31.
A Paranoid Streak
Federal investigators and former colleagues say Figures routinely displayed a pattern of erratic and paranoid behavior.
TheDCNF exclusively obtained an affidavit Monday given by former FBI special agent John Brennan, who worked with Figures while he was a federal prosecutor, that claims Figures often made strange claims. In the sworn statement, Brennan says Figures once told him he believed CBS News anchor Dan Rather was signaling to him during his nightly news broadcasts, and relaying information he wanted Figures to use.
“Mr. Figures told me that CBS News anchor Dan Rather and other news anchors would glance off camera and were signaled when he was watching television,”Brennan’s affidavit reads. “Mr. Figures claimed that, once signaled, Mr. Rather, or the other news anchors, would speak directly to him from the television and tell him things they wanted him to do or would give him information they wanted him to have.”
On another occasion, Figures allegedly told Brennan he believed his home was bugged and asked him to execute a search of the house. The ensuing search did not turn up listening devices. In a related instance, Brennan says Figures told him he terminated a road trip from Mobile, Ala. to Dallas, Texas because he believed a truck with a satellite antennae was following him.
Brennan’s statements correspond to a second affidavit obtained by TheDCNF given by Cheryl Crisona, an assistant U.S. attorney who worked with Figures from 1981 to 1985. Crisona alleges Figures was confrontational with colleagues, and often made a secretary she shared with him cry. The affidavit mirrors claims Figures’ ex-wife Janice made during divorce proceedings in 1991. (RELATED: Democrats Face Uphill Battle Blocking Sessions)
Crisona says Figures was suspicious of group conversations in the office, for fear he was the subject of discussion. “He was very paranoid about any group in the office talking, always assuming that we were talking about him,”the affidavit reads. “In a nutshell, every one of us in that office was afraid of Thomas Figures,”she added.
Figures Indicted
Six years later in 1992, Figures was indicted by federal prosecutors for attempting to bribe a convicted drug dealer.
The kingpin, John Christopher, was preparing to take the stand against Figures’ client, Noble Beasley, who was accused of attempting to distribute 11 pounds of crack cocaine. A letter written by Christopher’s lawyer, Joseph Kulakowski, that was obtained by TheDCNF, claims Figures presented himself as Christopher’s lawyer in the docket room of a county jail and gained access to Christopher in a private meeting room. During that meeting, federal authorities alleged Figures offered Christopher $50,000 not to testify against his client.
At trial, when confronted with recordings of his meeting at the county jail, Figures testified that he was attempting to lure Christopher into a criminal scheme so he could report him for attempted bribery. He was acquitted of all charges, though Beasley would go on to serve a life sentence.
Figures has since died, further calcifying a legacy of strained race relations. Accounts of Figures’ testimony have appeared, without reference to his dubious credibility, on CNN and CBS broadcasts, as well as in print through the Associated Press, Vanity Fair, and The Daily Beast, among others.It is a matter of public record that Sessions supported the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, the Defense of Marriage Act, and the Supreme Court’s ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which invalidated key provisions of the Voting Rights Act. However, remarks Sessions is alleged to have made behind closed doors, while widely disseminated in media, appear to rest on increasingly untenable grounds.
NEW YORK — Long-simmering tensions between Donald Trump, the press and the intelligence community exploded into the open on Wednesday at the president-elect’s first press conference in six months. About 300 reporters jammed into the narrow, gilded atrium at Trump Tower to hear him reject media reports about intelligence officials investigating whether the Russian government has compromising personal and financial information that it could use against him.
Trump also denied reports alleging that the nation’s top national security officials and some members of Congress are looking into whether key figures in the president-elect’s orbit were in touch with Moscow during the presidential campaign about how to defeat Hillary Clinton and get Trump into the White House.
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Trump’s fury over the reports reached a boiling point about 50 minutes into the hour long press conference, when he compared the leaks to something you would expect to see in “Nazi Germany” — an attack he’d previously made on Twitter. “It’s all fake news, it’s phony stuff, it didn’t happen and it was gotten by opponents of ours and many of the other people, a group of opponents that got together, sick people,”Trump said. “It should never have been released and it’s a disgrace. I think it’s an absolute disgrace.”Ten of the 17 questions at the press conference — Trump’s first since winning the election — were about the disputed reports, his relationship with Russia, the news media or the nation’s intelligence agencies. Trump fielded the questions from behind a lectern next to a table stacked with documents in manila folders that he said were evidence of the legal work he’s undertaking to separate himself from conflicts of interest stemming from his businesses. He was flanked by more than a dozen top aides and allies, including Vice President-elect Mike Pence, incoming press secretary Sean Spicer, senior advisers Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, longtime confidante Rudy Giuliani and his two adult sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, who clapped and cheered him on as he vented frustration about the leaks he claimed were coming from top intelligence officials.
“It would be a tremendous blot on their record,”Trump said of the intelligence agencies. “A tremendous blot, because it never should have been written, had or released.”
Trump and his top aides are also furious with Buzzfeed and CNN for publishing the reports. At one point, Trump called Buzzfeed a “failing pile of garbage,”and he later shut down a question from a CNN reporter, accusing him of dealing in “fake news.” The two reports in CNN and Buzzfeed were markedly different.
CNN reported on Tuesday that U.S. officials briefed Trump and President Obama on allegations that the Russian government has compromising personal and financial information about him. It declined to include any details on the specific allegations, which were uncorroborated and came from a former British intelligence agent hired by Trump’s political opponents, who put together a 35-page dossier detailing the allegations.
Buzzfeed published a story that included the specifics from the 35-page dossier, coming under criticism from many in the media in the process. That led Spicer to begin the press conference with a fierce diatribe against both Buzzfeed and CNN. “The fact Buzzfeed and CNN made the decision to run with this unsubstantiated claim is a sad, pathetic attempt to get clicks,” Spicer said. “For all of the talk about fake news, this political witch hunt by some in the media is based on flimsy reporting and is frankly shameful and disgraceful.”
After being shut down by Trump at the press conference, CNN reporter Jim Acosta said that Spicer threatened to throw him out of the press conference if he continued to try asking questions.
Pence followed Spicer at the press conference with another direct attack on the news media. “The irresponsible decision of a few news organizations to run with a false and unsubstantiated report when most news organizations resisted the temptation to propagate this fake news can only be attributed to media bias and an attempt to demean the president-elect and his incoming administration, and the American people are sick and tired of it,”Pence said.
Trump addressed some of the allegations directly.
Trump said he has no business deals in Russia, no deals in the works, and no debt with the nation. He said he reviewed the passport of his lawyer, Michael Cohen, who was said in the report to have travelled to Prague last year. Cohen never made the trip, Trump said.
And Trump addressed some of the report’s more salacious aspects, saying that they couldn’t be true because he always behaves as if he’s secretly being filmed when he’s travelling abroad and that he has a phobia of germs.
Trump also went out of his way to thank the news organizations that he said showed restraint by refusing to run the story or publish the disputed report.
“I want to thank a lot of the news organizations, some of which have not treated me fairly over the years, that came out strongly against that fake news and the fact it was written by primarily one group and one television station,”Trump said. “I have great respect for the news and freedom of the press, but some news organizations were so professional and have just gone up a notch as to what I think.”
Trump has long clashed with the news media, but his issues with the intelligence community have been picking up steam in recent weeks and appear to be coming to a head. Before his classified briefing last Friday, Trump refused to embrace the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia had interfered in the U.S. election by hacking the Democratic National Committee. Trump says that he doesn’t accept the intelligence reports as they’re relayed to him, but rather draws his own conclusions based on raw data he gets at the briefings.
On Wednesday, Trump erupted over what he described as an intelligence community that is leaking damaging information about him in an attempt to undermine his administration. “These meetings are confidential and classified, and it’s a disgrace that information would be let out,” he said.
The European Court of Human Rights rejected a bid by Muslim parents to exempt their pre-pubescent daughters from mixed swimming lessons. Clarion Project presents pros and cons of this case. Tell us what you think.
The Taliban violence against women in Afghanistan has never gone away. The many disturbing stories of suppression and brutality show a society hanging in the balance.
[Re: ‘US Judge Rules No Secret Jury In ISIS Case’]: This is a very difficult issue….both arguments raise valid concerns! Perhaps these concerns warrant an attempt to fined jurors willing to serve! I know that is unlikely but can the courts order a civilian to place themselves in danger?
C.M.
[Re: ‘Should Parents Ransom Their Children From Terrorists?’]: From the community’s perspective, absolutely not. From the parent’s perspective, absolutely yes. Both responses are moral. Both represent the individual parent’s best interests.
I.W.
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National Association of Pro-life Nurses announces the February 15 deadline for applications to this year’s $1,000 scholarship. Interested applicants can find all the necessary information on the website, www.nursesforlife.org. Scroll down to the “Scholarship Application” button.
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Jared Kushner exits Trump Tower, December 7, 2016 in New York City / AFP
“People in the political world try to put you into different buckets based on what exists. I think Trump’s creating his own bucket — a blend of what works and eliminating what doesn’t work,” he told Forbes.
But while Trump’s penchant for publicity, rows and controversy are legendary, Kushner is a stark contrast in social media silence, appearing only in smiling family photographs posted by his wife, who converted to Judaism before their lavish society wedding. But behind the scenes, his influence is almost second to none.
He was reportedly instrumental in personnel decisions, such as demoting scandal-dogged Chris Christie — the former prosecutor who jailed his father for tax evasion — and Trump’s selection of a fervent advocate of Jewish settlements as US ambassador to Israel.
Trump said last year that Kushner, whose family foundation has reportedly donated to Israeli settlements, was so talented that he could help “do peace in the Middle East.” Such is his influence that the New York Times reported that the outgoing White House was told that foreign policy matters that need to be brought to Trump’s attention should be relayed through Kushner.
He has also been a bridge to tech leaders, has won the friendship and support of legions of influential New York and global players, many of them significantly older than him, such as Rupert Murdoch. Even liberals welcomed his appointment as a potentially moderating influence.
“I respect him a lot,” New York’s left-leaning Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters on Monday, saying that he had known Kushner “for years”and considered him “a very reasonable person.”
The eldest son of developer Charles Kushner, he attended a private Jewish high school before going to Harvard, singled out as an example of the wealthy getting preferential admittance to Ivy League schools, before going onto New York University to get an MBA. Kushner was still a student when Christie jailed his father for tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions.
His son picked up the pieces, reportedly flying down to visit his father most weekends, and took up the reins of the family business, proving himself astonishingly successful.
– Ran campaign –
Like Trump, he shifted the focus of the family real estate business to Manhattan. Today Forbes estimates that together with his parents and brother Kushner is worth $1.8 billion. Under his leadership, Kushner Companies says it has completed more than $14 billion in transactions and $7 billion in acquisitions.
Kushner’s lawyer said he would resign as CEO of Kushner Companies and “divest substantial assets in accordance with federal guidelines.”
Ten years ago he also added The New York Observer lifestyle newspaper to his portfolio and revived its fortunes by taking it online.
During the campaign he went from writing speeches to masterminding a data-driven campaign that focused on message tailoring and harnessing social media to an unprecedented extent. “Best I can tell, he actually ran the campaign and did it with essentially no resources,” Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, told Forbes.
After the inauguration he is expected to work closely with White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon. The Times reported that he plans to work on issues involving the Middle East and Israel; try to forge government partnerships with the private sector and collaborate on free trade issues.
A sign protesting a recent North Carolina law restricting transgender bathroom access is seen in the bathroom stalls at the 21C Museum Hotel in Durham, North Carolina May 3, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake
The U.S. Department of Justice has asked a federal appeals court to overturn a judge’s ruling that suspended enforcement of the administration’s order allowing transgender students and workers to use the bathroom of their choice. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, blocked enforcement of the order in August.
Lawyers for the administration asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to throw out O’Connor’s ruling, arguing the courts do not have the power to review the government’s order. They also argue O’Connor’s ruling was too broad, as it applied to the entire country, instead of the states challenging the order.
The administration sent guidance to school districts across the country in May, advising them to allow trans students to use the bathroom consistent with their gender identity. “A school’s failure to treat students consistent with their gender identity may create or contribute to a hostile environment in violation of Title IX,”the letter said, in reference to the federal law banning gender discrimination in education. (RELATED: With Just Days Left, Obama Admin. Asks SCOTUS To Defend Gun Control)
The agencies argued that the guidelines they issued only reflect their interpretation of Title IX, and are not orders bearing the full force of law. They further contend the guidelines were issued because of ambiguities in Title IX, since the law does not address how a school should accommodate a transgender student. As a consequence, they argued the court must defer to their interpretation of the law, since a court may not overturn an agency’s interpretation so long as it is “reasonable.”
A coalition of a dozen states, led by Texas, accused the agencies of playing a “regulatory shell game” by issuing the guidelines by means of regulatory “dark matter,”a deluge of agency directives, notices, memoranda, guidance documents, and even blog posts that effectively create new policy without congressional legislation or Administrative Procedure Act (APA) protocols.
The states claim that this strategy allows agencies to evade review by the courts and achieve their policy objectives — because the guidance stems from so-called “dark matter,” it technically lacks the force of law and therefore cannot be reviewed by the courts. Nonetheless, districts that do not abide by the guidance are targeted for punishment by the agencies, ensuring district compliance with the new agency “rules.”
NEW YORK Jewish community centers in several U.S. states were evacuated on Monday after they reported receiving bomb threats, according to the organizations and national umbrella organization, though no explosives were found and no injuries reported.
Fifteen JCCs across the United States reported the calls and all resumed normal operations by 4:30 p.m. ET (2130 GMT), after police determined there was no threat, the JCC Association of North America said in a statement.
Kaplen JCC in the New York City suburb of Tenafly, New Jersey, said on its Facebook page that it received a bomb threat in the afternoon and had reopened as of 2:00 p.m. (1900 GMT). “The police have completed a thorough sweep of the JCC and have deemed the threat not credible and the building safe,”the center said.
Bender JCC of Greater Washington in Rockville, Maryland, said it had also reopened after receiving a threat and being swept checked by local authorities.
Other centers that received threats included ones in Miami Beach, Florida; Jacksonville, Florida; Columbia, South Carolina; and Nashville, Tennessee, according to local media reports.
Jewish community centers typically offer after-school activities, fitness programs and an array of other services.
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is aware of the threats and is prepared to assist local authorities if asked, spokeswoman Amanda Hils said in a phone interview.
(This version of the story corrects paragraph 6 to remove erroneous reference to Jacksonville as Florida state capital.)
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said Tuesday he would recuse himself from any possible investigations related to Hillary Clinton if he is confirmed as President-elect Donald Trump‘s attorney general.
Sessions said during a confirmation hearing the politically charged comments he made about the Clintons during the presidential campaign would give the appearance he is not impartial in potential probes of the private email server she used while secretary of State or of the Clinton Foundation.
“I do believe that that could place my objectivity in question,”Sessions told Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). “I believe the proper thing for me to do would be for me to recuse myself.”
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Republicans in Congress have vowed to continue an investigation into Clinton’s private email setup.Sessions’s comments are designed to assuage critics who believe the Justice Department could be politicized under Trump. The Alabama senator was a vocal campaign supporter of Trump, who suggested that Clinton should be imprisoned for her private email setup.
Sessions said he would refuse an order from the president to name a special prosecutor to go after Clinton, a move Trump called for during the campaign. “I believe that would be the best approach for the country because we can never have a political dispute turn into a criminal dispute,”Sessions said. “This country does not punish its political enemies. What this country ensures [is] that no one is above the law.”
But it’s unclear whether Trump wants to continue with such a probe as president. If an investigation does go forward, it would likely be overseen by Sessions’s deputy if he is confirmed.
For pro-life news updated throughout the day, visit LifeNews.com.
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National Association of Pro-life Nurses announces the February 15 deadline for applications to this year’s $1,000 scholarship. Interested applicants can find all the necessary information on the website, www.nursesforlife.org. Scroll down to the “Scholarship Application” button.
Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact LifeNews at news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.
Man Whose Mother Abandoned Him in a Dumpster as a Newborn: “I Forgive You” On Christmas Day, the New York Post ran an incredible story of pain and redemption. Susan Edelman of the New York Post covered the story of Marcus Wallace, a man who didn’t learn the shocking story of his birth until he was 20-years-old.
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Police and law enforcement officials are backing Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as Donald Trump‘s pick to lead the Department of Justice. Law enforcement groups view Sessions as someone who will bring a “police-first”mentality to Justice that they say was absent during President Obama’s eight years in office. In Sessions, they see a traditional law-and-order style enforcer who they believe will repair the relationship between the feds and local police that has grown frosty in the Obama administration.
Sessions is backed by key figures from within several prominent police groups, including the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the nation’s largest police union; the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association; the National Association of Police Organizations; and the National Sheriffs Association.
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“We have about a 20-year relationship with Jeff Sessions from his time in the Senate on the Judiciary Committee and our members in Alabama who worked with him, both as state attorney general and a U.S. attorney, and the best way to sum it up is that we don’t have anything bad to say about Jeff Sessions,”FOP executive director Jim Pasco told The Hill.
“He has extraordinary insight into the demands and stresses of a police officer’s life and also has a real reverence for the rule of law. It sounds corny but it’s true, and that’s what our members pray for in a prosecutor.”
Obama’s attorneys general, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, prioritized investigations into police practices,
Image added by WhatDidYouSay.org
particularly in minority communities. That focus and growing nationwide attention to potential police abuses led to several high-profile Justice Department investigations into police departments in Cleveland, Baltimore, Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere. Some law enforcement officials believe those investigations have produced onerous new restrictions and an intrusive level of oversight that they say has stripped the police of their ability to react instinctively to potentially dangerous encounters.
And they say public criticism and the intense focus from Obama’s White House and the Justice Department have undermined law enforcement authority at the local level by demonizing police. Those tensions exploded into the open just months into the Obama administration in July 2009, when police Sgt. James Crowley, who is white, arrested black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home for “disorderly conduct” after responding to a call about an alleged break-in. That incident sparked a national debate on race, which Obama inflamed after saying the police officer had “acted stupidly.”
The president later backed away from those remarks, saying that both men could have responded differently to calm the situation. Obama eventually held a “beer summit” with Crowley and Gates at the White House, but the incident badly damaged his standing in the eyes of the police groups.
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Law enforcement officials are optimistic there will be fewer explosive incidents like that under a Sessions Justice Department. “Sessions presumes that law enforcement officials in the main are good folks,”said Bill Barr, an attorney general under President George H.W. Bush. “He’s not going to be afraid to go after rogue cops. But he’s also not looking to undermine police authority and effectiveness because he doesn’t work from the assumption that the police are inherently bad. That will be a break from the Obama years.”
Police are also hopeful that Sessions will levy fewer “consent decrees” — arrangements between the Justice Department and a city that stipulate new methods police must use to address DOJ investigations into their practices. Consent decrees also involve the placing of federal monitors inside the police departments to ensure compliance. Law enforcement officials believe that the moves, while well intentioned, lead to bad outcomes. They say the administration’s interest in local law enforcement means police officers go into the field feeling constrained or fearful that their next encounter could make them the target of a civil rights lawsuit.
They point to Seattle as a case study in “over-enforcement”gone wrong. The city has seen an uptick in violent crime in the wake of a DOJ investigation there that produced a massive overhaul in how the city is policed. The Justice Department concluded its investigation into Seattle’s police department in late 2011. Crime levels spiked in 2013 and have remained above 2012 levels in the years since, according to the Seattle Police Department.“The question is, have these DOJ practices improved safety in the areas where they’ve gone after the police departments? The answer is no,”said former attorney general Michael Mukasey, who served under President George W. Bush. “There have been something like 20 or 25 different investigations into police departments across the country, usually with unhappy results. You see a place like Seattle, which gets federal oversight and then you see crime go through the roof. It’s an intrusion and in a lot of these instances, the police don’t have the resources or inclination to push back.”
Pasco, the FOP executive director, went further. “Early on, particularly during Obama’s first four yeas when [now-Labor Secretary] Tom Perez was the assistant attorney general for civil rights, there was a virtual jihad against police departments and practices,” Pasco said. “They imposed these unreasonable and draconian consent decrees to address real or perceived violations and the quote ‘remedies’ only exacerbated the rift with police. The bottom line is when Justice investigates, it’s supposed to produce a better result or product and improve the situation. Instead it seems to have exacerbated the problems and doomed some of these communities to failure.”
Still, Pasco funneled most of his anger at Perez, who is presently running to be chairman of the Democratic National Committee, rather than the Obama administration as a whole.
Not everyone in law enforcement has such a critical reading of the Obama administration’s legacy. Most are just eager to turn the page and see the relationship between police and the Justice Department start over. “You can’t in all fairness say that Obama is anti-police,”said Larry Thompson, a former deputy attorney general under George W. Bush. “If you read his statements, they’re not anti-police. But I do think the department and the administration have been too quick to point an accusatory finger at the police when these incidents have happened. Whether that’s accurate, it’s a perception you have to deal with and I think it will change under Sessions.”
On The Berlin Trail Of Anis Amri / Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Nearly half of Germany’s women now feel unsafe walking about their local neighbourhood, a survey has revealed, with many taking precautions such as pepper spray with them when out at night. The survey, by Emnid for Bild am Sonntag further found that 58 per cent of women believe that public places have become less safe in recent times, following news of events such as the mass sexual assault attacks on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve last year.
Forty-eight per cent of the women surveyed said they have changed their habits to avoid certain areas in their neighbourhood, while 16 per cent said they carried pepper spray when venturing out after dark.
In response to the survey, Focus Online gathered anecdotal statements from women across Germany and found that some were asking male relatives to chaperone them at night, while others had taken to carrying their keys in closed fists in case of attack.
One woman, Kerstin, told the paper: “I no longer feel safe as a woman. Harassment, rapes, and raids are happening everywhere. I was particularly concerned by the case of the jogger Carolin [G.], who was killed. I run myself and I find it particularly disturbing that this happened during bright daylight.
“I feel very uncomfortable on my own and avoid travelling alone in the evening or at night. I always constantly carry pepper spray with me.”
Another, Natalie, said that she “narrowly” avoided being present in Cologne on the night of the attacks, but luckily opted not to go. “[S]ince then [I] have avoided groups in the dark,”she said.
She added: “Anyway, I’m not going anywhere in the dark alone. When I arrive by train at our small station, my father is always there to go with me through the solitary underpass. I dare not go alone!
“I ordered two canisters of pepper spray two months ago from Amazon. Two, so that I can be sure of having one in each of my winter jackets.
“It worries me very much that even the German state does not know who is here.”
The German media have been keen to stress that violent attacks are becoming less common, however, statistics show that they are actually on the rise. 214,600 crimes were committed by immigrants in Germany in 2016, “several thousand more than in 2015”,according to the German edition of the Huffington Post. The media outlet went on to claim that, as 213,000 asylum seekers registered in Germany during the same period, overall the de facto rise in crime constitutes a net fall.
However, in November the German Federal Police admitted that there had been a massive 31.6 per cent increase in crime in 2016 over the previous year’s figures, a jump which they said was down to Chancellor Merkel’s open door policy on migration.
Follow Donna Rachel Edmunds on Twitter: Follow @Donna_R_E or e-mail to: dedmunds@breitbart.com
Christians remain the target of more persecution than any other group in the world, according to a new study set to be released in February from the Italian-based Center for Studies on New Religions. These findings are consistent with those of the Clarion Project, an organization that tracks Islamic extremism. The group’s national security analyst told Fox News that the U.S. government is doing very little to stem this tide of hate.
“U.S. policy has not had a strategy for specifically addressing the persecution of Christians,”said Ryan Mauro. “For example, very few people are even aware that Iraqi Christians began organizing to defend themselves and needed our help.”
The report outlines the stark data of persecution, finding that 90,000 Christians around the world died for their faith in 2016.One-third of these fatalities were a direct result of Islamic extremists, like ISIS, while other believers perished as a result of the hostile policies of anti-Christian states like North Korea.
A staggering 600 million Christians could not openly practice their faith due to that observance being illegal. Christians in Iraq, for instance, have suffered a steady decline in membership since 2003. A relatively thriving population of 1.5 million adherents has declined to an estimated 275,000 today.
The Italian study confirms information from 2015 that indicated a growing intolerance towards Christians around the world – especially where extreme Islamic practices flourish – that increasingly manifests itself in acts of violence, including beheadings.
Image added by WhatDidYouSay.org
Aid to the Church in Need conducted one such study that also indicated Christianity to be under fire in Africa and Asia, as well as the largely Muslim Middle East. In Africa, the group found that Islamic terrorists like Nigeria’s Boko Hara were routinely targeting Christians for kidnapping and killing.
In Asia, Christians are attacked as a foreign influence and rejected by religious group who narrowly define what religious beliefs are indigenous to a country.
As Robert Nicholson of the Philos Project told Foxnews.com: “There are many places on earth where being a Christian is the most dangerous thing you can be. Those who think of Christianity as a religion of the powerful need to see that in many places it’s a religion of the powerless. And the powerless deserve to be protected.”
Fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) carry the coffins of their fellow fighters, who were killed when Islamic State militants attacked the town of Tel Abyad on the Turkish border at the weekend, during their funeral procession at Ras al-Ain city, in Hasakah province, Syria March 2, 2016. REUTERS/Rodi Said TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY – RTS90VM ∧
U.S. anti-ISIS military assistance is emboldening Syrian Kurdish Marxist rebels, threatening to destabilize the region for decades.
The Kurdish rebels, known as the Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (YPG), subscribe to a Marxist ideology propagated by a jailed terrorist leader. The YPG has deep ties to the Turkish, Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which is a Kurdish independence group and recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
The YPG, however, has proven to be the most effective force in the anti-ISIS fight in Syria. Hundreds of U.S. military advisors are embedded with Kurdish militias, and they frequently receive aerial assistance from the U.S. military. The increasing reliance on such groups by the Obama administration has caused a major rift between the U.S. and Turkey, and made the YPG stronger than it has ever been before.
Turkeyregardsthe YPG as big of a threat to its existence as the Islamic State, and invaded northern Syria in late August to deny any further Kurdish attempts at establishing a de-facto state along its border.
“The military support has boosted the YPG’s confidence to move beyond Kurdish populated areas and grow their ambitions even beyond Syria,” International Crisis Group expert Maria Fantappie toldThe Washington Post. “It has huge political implications not only for Syria but also for neighboring countries,” she continued.
Reporters overheard several Marxist screeds in a recent visit to Kurdish-controlled northern Syria. One man was heard saying, “The state is an instrument of oppression.”Another said of the ideology, “It is like having a democratic mother who does not discriminate against her children.”
President-elect Donald Trump has not indicated what his anti-ISIS strategy will be, but has expressedsympathyfor Iraqi Kurds in the past. A recent Syrian ceasefire struck by Russia, Syria, Turkey, and Iran may indicate that the Kurds will not have as large as a say in the future of Syria. Turkey is highly unlikely to cede any major power to the Kurdish rebel groups.
Children, pulled away from an amusement park, execute ISIS prisoners by shooting and beheading. This is the face of the next generation of jihadis. learn more
Al-Faisal, who chairs the Beirut-based Arab Thought Foundation, said that a new path, based on moderation, was necessary in order to counter the ‘impotent equations’ of takfir vs. Westernization and extremism vs. moral decay.
“Iraq should begin to take measures in order to cancel the infamous American ‘Strategic Framework Agreement,’ and try to achieve a true strategic framework agreement with the countries that are fighting terrorism – an agreement that will be truly sponsored by Russia, Iraq and Iran.“
[Re: “Charlie Hebdo Journalist Quits, Says Paper Has ‘Gone Soft'”]: Can you blame them? We all need to share some of the risk to make it acceptable and we all haven’t so far.
M.S.H.
[Re:’How Edward Snowden Helped Terrorists Succeed’]: Did anyone commenting read the article? It makes a compelling case for how Snowden aided terror plots against the US by sabotaging our intelligence gathering programs and methodologies. I’d be interested in hearing Snowden supporters comment on the actual contents of the article instead of just defending him in general.
K.Y.
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Will THIS finally make liberals think ISIS is a greater threat than Russia? How OLD is this kid, do you think?
While we in the West get bent out of shape about POP TARTS bitten into the shape of a gun… Or ‘finger guns‘ on a Texas campus…The REAL world is waking up to THIS reality.
A toddler filmed — from several angles — shooting a bound prisoner in a playground. It’s part of a longer film that includes other horrors, like an older boy beheading another bound prisoner, and plunging a knife into his back. The use of an abandoned playground to stage this was deliberate symbolism, you can be sure.
Image added by WhatDidYouSay.org
This is what those who want us dead are doing to prepare themselves. Training children to kill in the name of their cause is nothing new. See: ‘janissaries’.
The Ottomans instituted a tax of one-fifth on all slaves taken in war, and it was from this pool of manpower that the sultans first constructed the Janissary corps as a personal army loyal only to the sultan.
From the 1380s to 1648, the Janissaries were gathered through the devşirme system which was abolished in 1638. This was the taking (enslaving) of non-Muslim boys, notably Anatolian and Balkan Christians; Jews were never subject to devşirme, nor were children from Turkic families. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, “in early days, all Christians were enrolled indiscriminately. Later, those from Albania, Bosnia, and Bulgaria were preferred.”—Wikipedia
A report indicates there is evidence that members of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) have forced children to play soccer with decapitated heads as a way to desensitize them to violence.
“Children not only get desensitized to violence, but they also deem these practices as normal, and eventually defend them,” wrote the researchers at the London based think tank the Quilliam Foundation. “Children have been seen accompanying prisoners to their death and, in one example, distributing knives to adults before a mass beheading.”
Their findings back numerous reports of people who witnessed children using decapitated heads. Last April, some Palestinians escaped a refugee camp after the Islamic State captured it.
“In Palestine Street, I saw two members of Daesh playing with a severed head as if it was a football,”explained Amjad Yaaqub, a 16-year-old refugee. – Breitbart
This is NOT the sort of hardened enemy that college snowflakes have been preparing themselves for, if in fact they’ve been preparing themselves for any threat at all.
Watch how quickly ‘Love Trumps hate’ become ‘Business Trumps Activism’
Remember how quickly the prominent leftist designers rushed forward to show their Liberal Bona Fides? The designer that’s been sewing curtains together and draping them over Michelle Obama wanted nothing to do with Melania. (As though he even had a shot at that gig. We’veSEENwhat Michelle wears.)
There was another virtue-signalling exercise by artists upset that their art was owned andshown by Ivanka. Morons who gladly accepted PAYMENT for their artwork thought their opinion of what was done with it after the accepted their money actually matters. And the other movement trying to pressure Nordstroms and other chains to pull Ivanka’s products. Because Donald Trump won.
They’ve come to realize that Trump’s name is going UP in value rather than down. And cutting themselves out of that loop means giving prominence and potential market share to a rival. It’s called Capitalism, snowflakes… look it up.
What do fashion designers think about dressing Melania on Inauguration Day? They’re actually pretty stoked about it.
It is customary of the First Lady to wear an American designer during her time in Washington, and especially during the inaugural weekend, and designers like Zac Posen, B Michael America, and Tommy Hilfiger are all interested.
…Jean Shafiroff, a New York socialite and philanthropist who is friendly with the Trump family, saw them at the New Year’s Eve Mar-a-lago fest, and told the New York Post that interest is growing with American and foreign designers.
She polled the couture council of the museum at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology to see who wants to dress Melania for her first weekend in the White House, and for the next four years.
Shafiroff told the post that Zac Posen, B Michael America, Victor de Souza and Zang Toi are all very interested. —DailyMail
Also, B Michael said ‘Any designer who dresses her will get enormous press.’ (And yes, for a business, ‘enormous press’ is kind of a big deal.)
You can add Tommy Hilfiger to the list. And also, Stefano Gabbana (of Dolce and Gabbana) has been very public in his support of Melania.
So what did everyone think about Meryl Streep’s Political Dissertation speech at the Golden Globes?
One of the contributors at ClashDaily has already summed up OUR thoughts on the issue and what it says about both HER, and Hollywood generally. As for those in attendance?
Well, when the camera panned over Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn… it was pretty clear. Hard to say which negative emotion is being expressed the most. Disgust is almost certainly a contender.
Social media means the public doesn’t HAVE to wait to bitch-slap celebs when they get out of line.
Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn’s faces during Streep’s speech explain exactly how half the country feels about Hollywood attacking Trump. pic.twitter.com/U4xhLOT8Bn
I don’t watch that #GoldenGlobes garbage but this pic of Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn remind me why they are 2 of my favorite actors!! pic.twitter.com/o9ch3YVtq3
Mel Gibson’s and Vince Vaughn’s faces during Meryl Streep’s fake speech make me proud to live in a MMA & football country. #GoldenGlobespic.twitter.com/xuH3Ql18FU
“Make America Sick Again” is Schumer and the democrats latest slogan in an attempt to save their failed program, Obamacare, from President-Elect Trump.
They had seconds to save lives. Fortunately, these private citizens were armed. Many lives were at risk and these ordinary people did extraordinary things. They stopped mass murder. All of these examples are from December.
–Our first story was in a crowded nail salon. It was the holiday season and the salon was crowded. They had with 10 employees and many customers in the shop that night.
Two armed robbers entered the store. The robbers presented their firearms. They shouted threats at the store employees and their customers. The robbers waved their guns and demanded money and valuables.
One of the store employees was armed. The armed citizen shot one of the robbers. Both robbers ran. One robber drove away and left his wounded accomplice in a stand of trees. Police captured the robber and found his gun. Police are looking for his accomplice. Neither the store employees nor their customers were injured.
–Our second storyhappened in a convenience store. The store clerk saw two men walk into his store at 3:30 in the morning. Even at that early hour on a weekday, there were five people playing video games in the back of the store. The two men who walked in were wearing masks and carrying guns. The clerk ran to the back office behind the counter. The office had a solid door, but the robbers were right behind him. The clerk tried to close the door as the robbers struggled to push it open.
The clerk reached around the door and shot the closest robber. The robbers fired back as they ran. Neither the clerk or his customers were hurt.
–Our third story took place in a pawn shop. The store owner and his employee had opened the store only a few minutes earlier. They already had two customers in the shop. Two more men entered, but these men were wearing ski-masks and carrying guns.
The robbers yelled, “Get down on the floor. Get down on the floor or I’ll kill you.”
Then the robber fired his gun. The owner drew his firearm and shot one of the robbers. The second robber ran.
The store owner said he hated to kill another man. The other store employee and the two customers were uninjured.
You saved many lives in December. You save lives every day. Thank you, and carry on.
Here’s what we know about the Ft Lauderdale shooter. (And how Libs are spinning it). It’s not a news story until professional race-baiters Liberals can inject race into it, right?
While most of us were interested in where he was from, whether he was a known risk, what might be driving him… Tariq Nasheed had a more pressing concern. Blame whitey.
As for the details the REST of us wanted to know? Here they are:
Esteban Santiago, the accused killer at the crowded baggage claim area of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, told the FBI in November that the government controlled his mind and forced him to watch ISIS videos.
The 26-year-old former combat engineer was born in New Jersey and raised in Puerto Rico. His brother, Bryan Santiago, lives in Penuela, where they grew up. He told reporters their father died, while his brother was serving overseas in the military.
…”He lost his mind,”Ruiz said in Spanish, as she referred to a psychiatric hospitalizationthat occurred after he allegedly suffered from hallucinations.
Federal law enforcement officials investigated Santiago last year. He told FBI agents that he heard voices in his head that told him to watch Islamic State materials, but he said he was in control and had no intention of hurting anyone, according to The New York Times.
…He was discharged for “unsatisfactory performance” and was given a general discharge under honorable conditions, which is lower than an honorable discharge.
Santiago’s brother told reporters in Puerto Rico and New York that after his military service, Santiago went back to school and when he couldn’t find work in Puerto Rico, he moved to Alaska, where he was arrested in January.
..Santiago’s brother also said he had been getting into “fights with a lot of people.”Police officers with the Anchorage Police Department responded to a domestic-violence incident. Prosecutors charged him with misdemeanor counts of property damage and assault and one count was dismissed. — ABC News
His history was the lead issue on O’Reilly factor that night…
The first guest, Jennifer Griffin, spoke about the killer visiting the FBI in Novemeber to complain about the government getting into his mind and forcing him to watch ISIS videos…
A later guest, Jim Hanson, of Center for Security Policy, referred to the picture we see of him with the scarf around his neck and the index finger raised. Both of those details were significant, he said (shortly after the four minute mark):
The keffiyeh is the ‘preferred neckwear of Palestinian terrorists’. (See: related Wiki page.)
And about the one finger salute? ‘… an ISIS gang-sign, essentially.’
‘Those two things lead me to believe he has affiliated himself in some way, shape or form to them.’
They may not have known who HE was, but even by his own admission, he knew who THEY were.
But what’s REALLY important to Tariq Nasheed is that we make sure to include the word ‘white’ as an adjective to describe him. You can be sure he insists every day that we do the same with Obama, right?
A Republican congressman took matters into his own hands Friday and personally removed a painting depicting police officers as pigs that a colleague had allowed to be displayed at the U.S. Capitol complex.
“I was angry,”Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told FoxNews.com. “I’ve seen the press [reporting] on this for about a week or so. … I’m in the Marine Corps. If you want it done, just call us.”
Hunter said he walked over to the artwork Friday morning with a few colleagues and unscrewed it. He then delivered it to the office of Rep. Lacy Clay, D-Mo., the congressman whose office had allowed the piece to be displayed. The painting, hanging since June, was done by a high school student who had won Clay’s annual Congressional Art competition.
The piece drew outrage, however, from law enforcement groups and fellow lawmakers.
As for whether the painting will stay down, Hunter said: “Lacy can put it back up, I guess, if he wants to … but I’m allowed to take it down.” Clay’s office has not yet responded to a request from FoxNews.com for comment.
More than 27,000 law enforcement professionals had been protesting the display of what they called a “reprehensible, repugnant and repulsive” painting in the hallway of the Capitol.
After being told the piece was removed, Ron Hernandez, president of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, said in a statement Friday they were “very pleased.”
He said: “At a time of our country facing rising crime and a shortage of those willing to work the streets as police officers and deputy sheriffs, we need to make it clear that depictions of law enforcement officers as pigs in our Nation’s Capital is not acceptable.”
The acrylic painting, which took first place in a congressional student art competition in St. Louis, depicts a police officer as a pig in uniform aiming a gun at African-American protesters. Above the scene, two birds — one black, one white — fight, and beside them, an African-American protester holding a scale of justice is crucified.
The art piece, “Untitled,”was created by then-Cardinal Ritter Prep senior David Pulphus, and was on display in the hallway between the Capitol and adjacent House office buildings. Clay’s office has said the teen who made the painting was speaking from his own life experience, considering where he lived and its location close to Ferguson, Mo.
Hunter said he’s friends with Clay, calling him a “great guy.” He added, “But you’ve got to respect our men in uniform and what they do.”
House leaders already were coming under pressure to take the painting down before Friday.
In an earlier statement calling on House Speaker Paul Ryan to remove it, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the Sergeants Benevolent Association of New York, and the San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose Police Officers Associations said: “This false narrative portrays law enforcement professionals as posing a danger to the very communities we serve. That is untrue and this ‘art’ reinforces this false narrative and is disrespectful on so many levels.”
Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
How ignorant these ‘Ivy League’ college students are is unbelievably SHOCKING. Firebrand Pamela Geller’s organization, American Freedom Defense Initiative, released a video today that will make you rethink Columbia University as an option for your kids and grandkids.
AFDI reporter, Laura Loomer, went to the Columbia University campus and asked students:
‘Should Planned Parenthood fund clitoridectomy?’
They hear the words ‘Planned Parenthood’ and their brain shuts off. Should they fund it? Sure! After all, it’s ‘her body her choice’, right?
Idiots.
Female Genital Mutilation occurs mostly on children under the age of 15. They don’t get to choose.
Also, Fun Fact: FGM is illegal in the United States.
FGC is against the law in the United States. The United States and many other countries consider FGC a violation of women’s rights and a form of child abuse. Federal law makes it a crime to perform FGC on a girl younger than 18 or to take or attempt to take a girl out of the United States for FGC. Girls and women who have experienced FGC are not at fault and have not broken any U.S. laws.
The United States considers FGC to be a serious human rights abuse and a form of gender-based violence and child abuse. Many girls have FGC forced on them and have no choice about whether it happens. It is painful and offers no health benefits. And FGC often causes long-term physical and mental health problems. For these reasons, the U.S. government works with other governments and organizations to help end the practice.
Even the uber-liberal United Nations World Health Organization thinks that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is wrong.
FGM is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. It reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children. The practice also violates a person’s rights to health, security and physical integrity, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death.
Female genital mutilation is classified into 4 major types.
Type 1: Often referred to as clitoridectomy, this is the partial or total removal of the clitoris (a small, sensitive and erectile part of the female genitals), and in very rare cases, only the prepuce (the fold of skin surrounding the clitoris). Type 2: Often referred to as excision, this is the partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora (the inner folds of the vulva), with or without excision of the labia majora (the outer folds of skin of the vulva ). Type 3: Often referred to as infibulation, this is the narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal. The seal is formed by cutting and repositioning the labia minora, or labia majora, sometimes through stitching, with or without removal of the clitoris (clitoridectomy). Type 4: This includes all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, e.g. pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterizing the genital area.
The question asked to students was if Planned Parenthood should fund ‘clitoridectomies’.
Watch:
It’s shocking how many people don’t want to admit to their own
Image added by WhatDidYouSay.org
ignorance and just say, ‘Yeah, that sounds good.’ They’re agreeing to the mutilation of girls for solely misogynistic reasons. And they don’t even realize it. They’re too busy dodging and weaving and trying to not be ‘intolerant’.
Some practices are vile and need to end. It’s ok to be ‘intolerant’ of those things. This is one of them.
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President Barack Obama plans to transfer out at least 22 of the 59 detainees who remain at the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by the time he leaves the White House, a move that will liberate jihadists who have threatened to behead and bomb Americans, the Daily Mail has learned.
In recent weeks, the number of detainees who are expected to be set free by the end of Obama’s tenure on January 20 has varied by news agencies from 17 to 19. Earlier this week, the White House responded to incoming President Donald Trump’s urging to stop transferring prisoners out of Guantánamo, saying it plans to liberate more detainees before Obama leaves office.
The Obama administration reportedly told Congress last month that the sitting president would reduce the population of Guantánamo, also known as Gitmo, by 19 to 40 detainees.
Now, the Daily Mail reports:
Image added by WjhatDidYouSay.org
President Obama is planning to transfer at least 22 additional Guantanamo Bay detainees out of the military detention center before he leaves office later this month, DailyMail.com has learned.
The group being released will be drawn from those held at Guantanamo – who include an accused senior al Qaeda bomb-maker, the terror group’s top financial manager, and two intended 9/11 hijackers, who have all been held in the Cuba-based U.S. detention facility for more than a decade
U.S. transfers 15 Guantanamo detainees to United Arab Emirates
Image added by WhatDidYouSay.org
Of the 59 prisoners still held at Gitmo, 22 have been cleared for release by Obama’s multi-agency parole-style board known as the Periodic Review Board (PRB) and nearly half (27) are considered “forever prisoners,”or too dangerous to release.
However, the PRB has made the decision to liberate prisoners who had already been designated too dangerous to release, which means the “forever prisoner” designation has not prevented the Obama administration from transferring out detainees.
According to theMiami Herald, the remaining 10 prisoners are still undergoing war crimes proceedings at military commissions, including six who are facing death penalty tribunals.
The Daily Mail reports:
The list of “recommended for transfer” prisoners includes a number of top al Qaeda operatives and commanders
[…]
Image added by WhatDidYouSay.org
Some of the recommended transfers have also vowed to return to jihad if they are ever released, according to reports from US military officials. They have also threatened to assassinate the U.S. president, kill American citizens, and attack other world leaders who are allied with the West.
At least four countries — including Italy, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia — are expected to take in some of the 19 prisoners who are expected to be transferred by January 20.
On Wednesday, Reuters reports that Obama will transfer four prisoners to Saudi Arabia in the next 24 hours.
The Daily Mail notes:
Fifty-nine enemy combatants in total still remain at Guantanamo, including terror “mastermind” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, two of the “20th hijackers” for the 9/11 attacks, and the strategists behind the USS Cole bombing of 2000.
The group includes al Qaeda henchmen from around the world who are trained in lethal military tactics – ranging from sniper assassins and rocket-propelled grenade operators, to explosives and chemical weapons experts.
Image added by WhatDidYouSay.org
According to the latest estimate by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), three out of every 10 Guantánamo detainees who have been released under both Presidents Obama and George W. Bush are suspected or confirmed to have re-engagedin terrorist activities. Some of the liberated prisoners are believed to have American blood on their hands.
The Daily Mail points out, “Some released detainees have gone back into terrorism. Four of the senior leaders in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) are former Guantanamo Bay detainees that were transferred to Saudi Arabia or Sudan.”
Cyberattacks by foreign nations had “absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election,” President-elect Donald Trump said in a statement following a briefing by senior intelligence officials on their assessment that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
While Trump conceded that “Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee,”he stopped short of saying that he believes Russia was the perpetrator of the DNC breach — or that it was an attempt to influence the outcome of the presidential election.
“There were attempts to hack the Republican National Committee, but the RNC had strong hacking defenses and the hackers were unsuccessful,”Trump said in the statement.
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Trump called the meeting “constructive,”noting that he has “tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this community to our great nation.”
Trump’s reaction to the briefing has been hotly watched as a barometer for whether he will accept the overwhelming conclusion of the intelligence community that Moscow attempted to interfere in the 2016 election. Trump has repeatedly rejected that assessment, treating any such reports as an attack on the legitimacy of his victory. He called the furor over the hacks a “witch hunt” carried out by defeated Democrats in an interview with The New York Times on Friday morning.
He has been outspokenly critical of the intelligence community’s findings, tweeting, “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”
In a series of tweets this week, he accused intelligence officials of delaying the briefing until Friday in order to build a case against Russia — an allegation rejected by other officials. Trump also appeared to side with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who released stolen emails believed to have been hacked by Russia. Trump noted Assange’s assertions that the emails did not come from Russia, while claiming that anyone could have hacked the DNC.
Senior intelligence officials have said publicly that there is no way to judge the impact of the hacks on the final vote tally. Trump noted in his statement that there was no tampering with physical voting machines.
“They didn’t change any vote tallies,”Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told lawmakers Thursday.
“We have no way of gauging the impact that — certainly the intelligence community can’t — the choices that the electorate made. There’s no way for us to gauge,”Clapper said.
Trump’s statement also called for the U.S. to do more to combat cyberattacks, saying that he will appoint a team to provide “a plan”within 90 days of his inauguration.
“The methods, tools and tactics we use to keep America safe should not be a public discussion that will benefit those who seek to do us harm,”he said.
The White House is imminently expected to release a declassified version of a recently completed intelligence report into Russian interference. President Obama received the full, classified version of the document Thursday and the so-called Gang of Eight in Congress reviewed it Friday. The public version could be released as soon as Friday afternoon.
One possible course of action is to reduce United States’ funding of the UN while the other would make funding voluntary with a mandate that any contributions must be agreed by the House every two years. Congressman for North Carolina Mark Meadows, who chairs the Freedom Caucus, said: “One is an incremental step; the other is really a herculean leap.”
The move follows the UN Security Council unanimously backing a motion calling for the end of Israel building settlements on disputed land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In the past the US has vetoed resolutions it deemed were critical of the Jewish state but the outgoing administration under President Barack Obama made the rare decision not to vote. The resolution was passed by 14 votes to nothing last month.
The diplomatic move was seen as hugely controversial and led to widespread condemnation from both Democrats and Republicans. Mr Meadows stated the decision would help fuel support for the US to end its commitments to the UN. He said: “Israel is a bipartisan issue so I think that [if the proposal] is measured and appropriate we could pick up a lot of Democrats to support it as well.”
Should the group get their way in Congress this would have a serious impact on the UN as the US contributes almost a quarter – 22 percent – of the UN’s entire funding. The US contributed £480million ($594m) to the UN’s regular budget plus an additional £1.9billion ($2.3bn) to the peacekeeping budget.
The move by the Congress group has also received support from senior Republicans in the Senate. The controversial Ted Cruz, a Texas senator who ran against Mr Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, said he believed efforts to introduce new laws to this effect would take place “very soon”.
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American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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What Did You Say? 
Character assassination, false testimony, performance protests aimed at securing retweets instead of reconciliation, and more have all been trained on the Alabama senator.
As Sessions mentioned in his testimony, the offense was reported by local black complainants whose absentee ballots were being intercepted and voted without their consent.
To understand the obscene dishonesty used to reframe this matter against Sessions, we must sample the misleading statements that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and its allies have used to retell the story.
Last week, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick penned a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, doubting Sessions’ ability to fairly protect the rights of minorities given his previous decision to prosecute the absentee ballot harvesters. Patrick portrayed the ballot harvesting as a benign tool to enfranchise the historically disenfranchised. A reasonable person who hears that claim repeatedly might fall for it. But there is a larger problem: It is simply untrue.
Contrary to what the NAACP and its friends may say, the right to vote exists with the individual, not the political machine that forces “assistance” on voters without their input. Arguing that the decision to prosecute voter fraud is itself a disqualifying offense when seeking the job of attorney general demonstrates just how perverse the modern left has become with respect to the rule of law. The left’s highlighting of this one case demonstrates that the institutional left is afraid. It is afraid it may soon lose enormous power because the Sessions Department of Justice will no longer participate in its radical racialist agenda.
For years going back before the Obama era, the Justice Department has served as a reliable signal caller to increasingly leftward actors that utilize racialized interpretations of law—particularly election policy—to ensure future political victories for Democrats.
As I wrote in my book, “Injustice,” the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder wasted no time in performing a course change that ignored the enforcement of federal requirements for maintaining voter rolls. It also later zeroed in on state voter ID laws with such zealotry that it started losing cases—such as in South Carolina. The Justice Department used the trappings of civil rights enforcement to advance the cause of the Democratic Party. Indeed, some academics writing about the Voting Rights Act have explicitly called for such partisan enforcement at Department of Justice. Michigan law professor Ellen Katz, for example, made this view plain in a law review article titled “Democrats at DOJ: Why Partisan Use of the Voting Rights Act Might Not Be So Bad After All.”
The mess that Sessions must clean up doesn’t end with naked partisanship in civil rights enforcement. It also reaches a racialist interpretation of civil rights, which protects some and neglects to protect others.
A Department of Justice inspector general report released in 2013 noted that there was open hostility among staff toward pursuing voting rights cases against black voters, especially where whites were harmed. (I pursued such cases in Noxubee County, Mississippi.) The inspector general investigation also revealed that management-level officers “did not believe the Voting Section should pursue cases on behalf of white victims.” We now see this attitude manifest in the inaction against the violent, racially motivated attacks against Donald Trump voters, despite civil rights laws clearly being implicated.
This is the Justice Department that Sessions will inherit. But unlike his predecessors, the Alabaman’s record directly contrasts with much of the established culture there.
Nonprofit allies have grown comfortable knowing there are colleagues in the Justice Department who are happy to race-test a case before pursuing a civil rights violation. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and others can count on a friendly brief flown in from Washington, D.C., when targeting an election integrity reform in a politically valuable state. They can even benefit from the department’s voice in telling a court to exclude parties dedicated to voter ID laws from joining the table of interveners in a case.
The financial incentive of certain organizations to maintain a Sessions-free status quo is also an important consideration. The groups allied with President Barack Obama’s Justice Department are more than email lists and press releases—these are giant edifices working to undermine the electoral system, which have become increasingly beholden to the largest progressive financiers.
The combined payroll of just a handful of leading organizations’ chief officers—to include the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Council of La Raza, and the National Action Network—is measured in the many millions, not thousands.
The professional struggle for racialized enforcement of voting rights has become an incredible vehicle for wealth creation inside the civil rights industry. Civil rights—genuine equality before law—has taken the back seat to power and wealth.
Attorneys general come and go. Every career Department of Justice veteran knows that. But what the establishment left knows even better is that a sea change in law enforcement priorities—like what Sessions promises—can be devastating to grand political designs and personal bank accounts alike. With that in mind, it’s no wonder that a former governor and assistant attorney general for civil rights like Patrick would hint that Sessions’ decision to prosecute a voter fraud case in the 1980s was a discriminatory act of voter intimidation.
If such a political act moves the needle slightly closer to a “no” vote, it will have been a necessary endeavor for the establishment left. But it will be just one more of its shameful acts.