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Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Why You Should Be a Nationalist

Pollak: Trump Should Champion Bipartisan Compromises — and Dare Democrats to Refuse

President Donald Trump described his border wall policy last Thursday, derided by Democrats today as “racist” — by noting his opponents once embraced it: “The fact is they have always supported fences and walls and partitions, but you know what? They only don’t want to do it because of me,” he said.

Trump has discovered a winning strategy for the next two years: he can embrace areas of bipartisan agreement, and dare Democrats to disagree.

Prison reform is one example. And there are many similar issues. One is trade, where Trump’s U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is the kind of deal that labor unions demanded but never dreamed was possible. Democrats are threatening to oppose it, but they will only hurt working-class voters by doing so.

Another area of potential bipartisan cooperation is infrastructure. President Barack Obama talked endlessly about building roads and bridges, even if he wasted his “stimulus” on pet projects and government salaries. Trump’s plan targets actual infrastructure needs while bringing in the private sector and spending less federal money. Democrats would find it difficult to reject.

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There's No Stopping the Russian Baby Boom in Miami

Matryoshka was bustling as usual, selling blinis, caviar and borscht. Not all of the customers were pregnant. Just, it seemed, most of them.

The deli store in Sunny Isles Beach, a little city on a barrier island north of downtown Miami, has long been a gathering place for Russian-speaking foreigners who stay in the area as they wait to give birth. They come for the hospitals, the doctors, the weather, the beach — not, they will tell you with some exasperation, to score citizenship for their offspring.

The perk of a U.S. passport was “the last thing on my agenda, literally,” said Viktoriia Solomentseva, 23, a former Matryoshka regular who had a daughter seven weeks ago and recently flew home to Moscow with little Emily, a newly-minted U.S. citizen. “Why does Trump think everyone is dying to have one?”

It’s a somewhat sensitive topic for the women like Solomentseva who are driving a baby boom in south Florida. They’ve been swept up in the birthright citizenship debate, reignited when President Donald Trump recently vowed to end it for children of foreigners. While his target was undocumented immigrants, he also complained that the privilege granted in the 14th Amendment has “created an entire industry of birth tourism.”

That, in fact, it has. Data are scarce, but the Center for Immigration Studies has estimated more than 30,000 women tap it every year.

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Grandfather of Dead Guatemalan Girl Says Family Is Indebted to Human Smugglers

The grandfather of the little girl from Guatemala who died after crossing the border in New Mexico and being detained with her father and 161 other migrants says the family owes money to human smugglers.

The relatives of a young Guatemalan girl not only have to deal with the pain of burying their loved one, they must still pay the ruthless human smuggling organization that took them from their home country to the U.S. The family in Guatemala remains hopeful that the father of seven-year-old Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin will be allowed to stay in the U.S. where he could find work and pay off a sizable debt that the family owes to a human smuggling organization in their home country, Telemundo reported.

In an interview with the news network, the girl’s grandfather, Domingo Caal, said that the family owed money to the “coyotes,” or human smugglers, who are capable of taking all of the family’s possessions.

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John Lott Destroys Left’s 'Go-To' Gun Control Study

Crime Prevention Research Center’s (CPRC) John Lott took the left’s go-to gun control study for mass shootings apart on December 14.

The study, which claims the U.S. leads the world in mass shootings, was put together by University of Alabama’s Adam Lankford and released in 2013.

The study looked at 1966 through 2012, and Mother Jones summarized, “Over those five decades, the United States had 90 public mass shootings, defined as shootings that killed four or more victims. Of the 170 other countries examined in the study, only four even made it to double-digits: The Philippines had 18 public mass shootings, followed by Russia with 15, Yemen with 11, and France with 10.”

Lott asked to see the sources behind the study but Lankford demurred. So Lott set out to duplicate Lankford’s study via CPRC research and found that Lankford had missed, or completely ignored, thousands of mass shootings that occurred throughout the world during the time-frame in question.

On December 4, Breitbart News reported that Lott’s CPRC found the U.S. is not even in the top 50 in the per capita frequency on the list of countries that witnessed mass shootings from 1998 to 2015.

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Trump blasts FBI over 'missing' text messages, Michael Cohen 'break-in'

President Trump suggested the Federal Bureau of Investigation treated him differently than Hillary Clinton in a tweet Sunday where he blasted the agency for breaking into his former personal attorney Michael Cohen’s office.

He questioned why FBI agents didn’t force their way into Ms. Clinton’s office or the DNC to examine its server after it had reportedly been hacked by Russians during the 2016 election.

“Michael Cohen only became a ‘Rat’ after the FBI did something which was absolutely unthinkable & unheard of until the Witch Hunt was illegally started. They BROKE INTO AN ATTORNEY’S OFFICE! Why didn’t they break into the DNC to get the Server, or Crooked’s office?” the president tweeted.

He also took shots at former FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page for their erased text messages, calling it an outrage.

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Shut Out Migrants Taking Jobs, Claiming Asylum in Mexico

Shut out of crossing the border to the United States, migrants stuck in Mexico are turning to the local job market pitched by the Mexican government in a job fair boasting 7,000 openings, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Applicants can file to asylum in Mexico, obtaining a social security number and signing a job contract in Tijuana, according to the report.

"For the duration of their stay, we want it to be legal and contribute to economic development," the organizer of the job fair, Luis Rodolfo Enríquez, told the Journal.

Between 2,000 and 5,000 Central American migrants might get jobs by the end of the job fair this month.

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Buy them off. CBS pledges $20 million to women's groups

CBS has pledged to give $20 million to 18 organizations dedicated to eliminating sexual harassment in the workplace as the network tries to recover from a scandal that led to the ouster of its top executive, Les Moonves.

The announcement on Friday came as the network’s crisis deepens, with details emerging from an ongoing investigation into Moonves’ conduct and news surfacing of other instances of sexual misconduct at CBS.

In the latest revelation, CBS acknowledged that it reached a $9.5 million confidential settlement last year with actress Eliza Dushku, who said she was written off the show “Bull” in March 2017 after complaining about on-set sexual comments from its star, Michael Weatherly. Some women’s rights activists called on CBS to fire Weatherly.

The funds for the grants to the 18 organizations are being deducted from severance owed to Moonves under his contract, and the company had previously said the former CEO would have a say in which groups would receive the money.

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Meanwhile Behind The Scenes: Banks Quietly Slash Loans As They Prepare For The Next Recession

Reading through the Fed's latest Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SLOOS), revealed absolutely nothing to be concerned about when it comes to loan demand and loan standards (aside from a warning that a yield curve inversion would, predictably, result in substantially tighter financial conditions): as we noted one month ago, the net percentage of banks reporting easier standards on loans to large- and medium-sized firms stayed flat at 16%, while standards for small firms were basically unchanged on net. At the same time, terms on C&I loans eased somewhat for large- and medium-sized firms, as 27% of banks surveyed (in net terms) reportedly narrowed spreads of loan rates over the cost of funds; other terms, such as premiums charged for riskier loans, loan covenants, and collateralization requirements, all eased somewhat.

There is just one problem with the above: none of it is true.

In fact according to a Reuters investigation, when looking behind headline numbers showing healthy loan books, "problems appear to be cropping up in areas such as home-equity lines of credit, commercial real estate and credit cards" according to federal data reviewed by the wire service and interviews with bank execs.

Worse, banks are also starting to aggressively cut relationships with customers who seem too risky, which in a time when 3M USD Libor just hit a fresh decade high despite a flattening in short-term TSY yields, is to be expected: after all financial conditions in the real economy, and not the markets, are getting ever tighter and the result will be a wave of defaults sooner or later.

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Watch This Surfer Shred What May Be The ‘Biggest’ Wave In History — And Potentially Break The World Record

British surfer Tom Butler may have just shattered a world record by surfing what’s now being called the “biggest” wave on record.

Butler, who is 29 years old and hails from the tiny seaside area of Cornwall, England, surfed an estimated 100-foot wave at The Nazaré in Portugal on Friday. The previous record is just a measly 80 feet, held by Brazilian surfer Rodrigo Koxa.
Onlookers, who were equally terrified and mystified, caught the action on camera. Somehow, the footage is more unbelievable than the actual story.

WATCH:

Donald Trump: Why Didn't FBI Break into 'Crooked' Hillary Clinton's Office?

President Donald Trump expressed frustration with the FBI prosecution of his personal lawyer Michael Cohen, wondering why they never did the same to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“They BROKE INTO AN ATTORNEY’S OFFICE!” Trump wrote, referring to an FBI raid on Cohen’s home. “Why didn’t they break into the DNC to get the Server, or Crooked [Hillary]’s office?”

Trump was referring to the FBI never verifying DNC claims that they were hacked by Russians and never seizing Clinton’s private e-mail server where she illegally sent classified information.

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REPORT: US Student Loan Debt Hits All-Time High Of Nearly $1.5 Trillion

Student loan debt in the United States has hit a new all-time high, a new analysis says.

According to a report from Bloomberg, outstanding student debt has now reached $1.465 trillion, more than double what it was during the great recession nearly a decade ago. The outstanding debt was $675 billion in June 2009 during the Obama presidency.

According to Bloomberg’s analysis, students who took out loans in 2012 ran into the most trouble; loans taken out that year have spiked to the second-highest default rate on record and the highest of any rate since the recession.

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House Democrats Ready Bill to Criminalize Private Gun Sales

The incoming Democrat House majority is readying legislation to criminalize private gun sales.

Ironically, the push comes nearly 227 years to the day after private gun ownership was hedged in by the Founding Fathers via the Second Amendment, which was ratified on December 15, 1791.

Politico reports that Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) is spearheading the current gun control push through “universal background” legislation. Such checks criminalize private gun sales, making it illegal for a neighbor to sell a firearm to his neighbor, a friend to his lifelong friend, and even a father to his son.

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Dershowitz: Mueller Investigation Is Over 'as Far as Trump's Concerned'

Monday on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz reacted to President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani saying the president would not sit down for an interview with FBI special counsel Robert Mueller.

Dershowitz said it appears the investigation into Trump “is over” unless Mueller’s team subpoenas him.

“I think the cards that were shown yesterday were that this investigation as far as Trump’s concerned is over unless they try to subpoena him and then we have a constitutional conflict because Trump asserts article 2 and other constitutional rights,” Dershowitz said.

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Great Cartoons


Time to investigate the investigators?

Many in the mainstream media and on the left have been salivating since the Mueller memos were released last week. They believe that the information in the memos has brought them one step closer to achieving their ultimate goal, whereby President Trump is impeached and incarcerated. As they see it, information from various individuals is trickling in, and those on the left and their media sidekicks are predicting a very ominous future for the president. However, if the media and those on the left want to critique the information allegedly being disclosed, perhaps they should use the same lens and look at some of the allegations that have been made about the investigation and how it was conducted before rendering judgment.

For example, Jerome Corsi recently filed a lawsuit against Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team. According to Fox News, Corsi filed a "criminal and ethics complaint" against Mueller's team in which he accused investigators of trying to bully him into giving "false testimony" against the president. Pursuant to Corsi's complaint, "they wanted him to demonstrate that he acted as a liaison between [Roger] Stone and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on one side and the Trump campaign on the other, regarding the release of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee." Corsi further alleged that Robert Mueller's office threatened to charge him with providing a false statement unless he provided "false testimony" against Trump and others.

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Comey Lashes Out At Trump, GOP Lawmakers; Refuses To Deny He Leaked Classified Info

Fired FBI Director James Comey - who put two pro-Clinton / anti-Trump FBI employees in charge of investigating both Clinton and Trump, lashed out at the president and GOP lawmakers on Monday, according to The Hill.

"So another day of Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Steele dossier," Comey quipped to reporters following six hours of closed-door testimony on Capitol Hill. "This while the President of the United States is lying about the FBI, attacking the FBI, and attacking the rule of law in this country. How does that make any sense?"

Comey also slammed GOP lawmakers for sitting on their hands.

"Republicans used to understand that the actions of a president matter, the words of a president matter, the rule of law matters, and the truth matters. Where are those Republicans today," said Comey. "At some point, someone has to stand up and in the fear of Fox News and fear of their base, and fear of mean tweets, stand up for the values of this country and not slink away into retirement."

The former FBI Director also refused to deny that he leaked classified information after he was fired as FBI Director - an assertion made by President Trump and others in April after it was revealed that Comey released what he claimed were personal memos documenting conversations with then-president-elect Trump in which he says he felt pressured to end the investigation into former national security adviser Mike Flynn.

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America’s Most Profitable Non-Profit

It is hard to imagine a non-profit organization that raises more money in a single year than the Gross Domestic Product of 19 nations ranked by the International Monetary Fund. But that is what AARP has become and they are increasingly coming under fire for their questionable financial tactics.

According to AARP’s 2016 filing with the Internal Revenue Service, the non-profit raised more than $1.6 billion (yes, billion with a ‘B’) and had in excess of $1.1 billion of net assets that year, all of it shielded from the IRS because of its 501(c)(3) tax status. As non-profit groups go, AARP has done pretty well for itself, but at what cost?

Cable news channels are happy to take advertising money from AARP to sell its branded health care plans but are less inclined to report news of various legal actions against AARP for business practices that raise legitimate questions about whether this non-profit is acting as a for-profit business.

A lawsuit filed against AARP in Pennsylvania in August, 2018, alleges that seniors in that state who signed on to the non-profits health plans, “were fooled into paying artificially inflated insurance charges for Medicare supplemental health insurance policies so that defendants could use the inflated portion of the payment for illegal purposes.”

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Christopher Steele Admits He Was Hired To Help Hillary Challenge 2016 Election

Former UK spy Christopher Steele admitted in a London court that he was hired to help Hillary Clinton contest the results of the 2016 election in case Trump won, according to the Washington Times.

Steele assembled an anti-Trump "dossier" of opposition research investigative firm Fusion GPS, which was in turn hired by DNC law firm Perkins Coie LLP. The document used "a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure," and "a former top level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin," according to Vanity Fair. In other words, Hillary Clinton - through Steele and other intermediaries - was working with Russians against Donald Trump.

He said the law firm Perkins Coie wanted to be in a position to contest the results based on evidence he unearthed on the Trump campaign conspiring with Moscow on election interference.

His scenario is contained in a sealed Aug. 2 declaration in a defamation law suit brought by three Russian bankers in London. The trio’s American attorneys filed his answers Tuesday in a libel lawsuit in Washington against the investigative firm Fusion GPS, which handled the former British intelligence officer.

In an answer to interrogatories, Mr. Steele wrote: “Fusion’s immediate client was law firm Perkins Coie. It engaged Fusion to obtain information necessary for Perkins Coie LLP to provide legal advice on the potential impact of Russian involvement on the legal validity of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election.

“Based on that advice, parties such as the Democratic National Committee and HFACC Inc. (also known as ‘Hillary for America’) could consider steps they would be legally entitled to take to challenge the validity of the outcome of that election.” -Washington Times

During the election, Clinton told voters that Donald Trump would "threaten democracy" if he didn't promise to accept the results of the 2016 election - after Trump suggested he might not accept the results of a "rigged" contest.

😂Hillary Says:"Not Accepting the results of the Election is a direct assault on our Democracy,Dont b a Sore Loser"😂pic.twitter.com/l0pGRuYcoG— Sandi-The Ice cube that Kav threw!😂 (@sandiv11) November 15, 2016

Now listen to Hillary when she thought she was going to win the election:

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Comey Back On The Hill To Answer Questions After ‘I Don’t Know’ Testimony

Former FBI Director James Comey is scheduled to testify before House investigators Monday.

Members of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees will try again to assess Comey’s role in the revelation that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was using a private email server to conduct government business and why the collusion probe seemed to give authorities wide powers to spy on Trump’s closest associates.

His appearance Monday comes more than a week after the reticent Comey avoidedanswering hundreds of questions, according to multiple sources, about his role in the Russian collusion probe that continues to pursue President Donald Trump.

Comey’s most oft-repeated phrases were reportedly some variation of “I don’t know,” “I don’t remember” and “I don’t recall.”

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Pirro: FBI Didn't Want the Truth on Flynn -- 'They Wanted to Take Down a Bit Player to Get to the Big Player'

On Saturday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Justice,” host Jeanine Pirro slammed the FBI for recent revelations showing the tactics the agency used in the opening stages of what it alleged to be an investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Pirro said the saga of Flynn “at its core” was a story of injustice and accused federal investigators of not treating Flynn fairly. She went on to speculate as to why Flynn pleaded guilty to lying the FBI despite the questionable circumstances of Flynn’s interrogation.

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Rehoboth Beach leaders order removal of creche

WILMINGTON, Del. — A manger scene can make people feel good at Christmas and that's what Patty Derrick and her friends in Rehoboth Beach were aiming for when they spoke to town leaders about erecting a creche that has been part of the beach town for about a half-century.

"We were so positive about it," said Derrick, a shop owner and member of St. Edmond's Parish. "Everything was so positive, I don't know what happened. No idea."

In early December, volunteers from St. Edmond's erected a creche belonging to the local Kiwanis Club in the town square about 50 feet from the city's Christmas tree at the bandstand in the center of town. The club has put the creche up in town every year for at least 50 years, according Derrick, including for many years in the same location in the downtown square.

Last year and for several years previous, the creche had been displayed adjacent to a nearby bank while part of the town underwent a facelift during construction, she told The Dialog, newspaper of the Diocese of Wilmington.

This year, volunteers wanted to return it to its original location. Derrick said she was asked by the pastor at St. Edmond's, Father William Cocco, to contact Mayor Paul Kuhns for permission to put up the creche near the Christmas tree.

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FBI Email: James Comey Briefing Was ‘Trigger’ for CNN to Break Dossier Story

NEW YORK — An FBI email states that the “trigger” for CNN to first break the story revealing salacious and unsubstantiated claims made inside the infamous anti-Trump dossier was the leaking of ex-FBI Director James Comey’s official briefing on the dossier claims to President Donald Trump.

CNN on January 10, 2017 was first to report leaked information that the contents of the dossier were presented during classified briefings one week earlier to Trump and then-President Barack Obama.

Prior to CNN’s report leaking the briefings, which was picked up by news agencies worldwide, the contents of the dossier had been circulating among news media outlets, but the sensational claims were largely considered too risky to publish.

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Gun Confiscation Begins in New Jersey

President Obama and President Trump were both right, Obama when he told us elections have consequences and Trump in his 2018 stump speech that a consequence of Democrat victories would be renewed attacks on the Second Amendment. New Jersey’s ban on high-capacity magazines has been upheld by a federal court, opening the door to door knock gun confiscation and making off-duty police officers subject to criminal prosecution. The inmates are officially running the asylum.

This law is one of those “sensible restrictions” on gun ownership that liberals like to talk about but that criminals will ignore as the judge who ruled the law constitutional says that despite the asterisk put next to the Second Amendment by the court assures us there is nothing to worry about:

The law, signed by Gov. Phil Murphy in June along with five other new gun laws, gave New Jersey gun owners who currently possess the magazines in question 180 days to either surrender them, permanently modify them to only accept up to 10 rounds, or transfer them to somebody who is allowed to legally own them. The deadline is set to expire on Monday.

A lawsuit brought by the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs and supported by the National Rifle Association failed on Thursday as the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals declared the confiscation law constitutional. Any civilian caught in possession of a magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds may be arrested and prosecuted. Possession of such magazines after the deadline will be considered a crime of the fourth degree under state law and carry up to 18 months in prison and up to $10,000 in fines or both.

Nearly all modern full-size or compact handguns and rifles sold in the United States come standard with magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition…

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CBS Denies Les Moonves $120MM Severance, Will Terminate "For Cause"

Call him "Less" Moonves.

More than six months after the New Yorker's Ronan Farrow - one of the journalists who led coverage of the Harvey Weinstein abuse and assault allegations - published an expose detailing allegations from some half-dozen accusers, former CBS Chairman and CEO Les Moonves was fired Monday evening following the conclusion of a months-long internal probe. Furthermore, CBS's board said in a statement that Moonves was being terminated "for cause", and that he wouldn't receive a $120 million severance package.

In a statement released by the company, it concluded that there was indeed merit to claims that Moonves "forced [his accusers] to perform oral sex on him, that he exposed himself to them without their consent, and that he used physical violence and intimidation against them" as Farrow recounted in his New Yorker story. CBS's board also accused Moonves of deliberately misleading them about his conduct, mirroring allegations published in the New York Times earlier this month.

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Christmas Holiday Schedule

WICOMICO COUNTY GOVERNMENT OFFICES

Salisbury, MD ... Wicomico County Government Offices will be closed Monday December 24, 2018 and Tuesday, December 25, 2018 for the Christmas holiday.

HOLIDAY SCHEDULE FOR CONVENIENCE CENTERS, LANDFILL, BRUSH PILE AND FERRIES

Salisbury, MD ... On Monday, December 24, 2018, the Newland Park Landfill and Convenience Center and the Upper Ferry will be open; all external Convenience Centers, the Newland Park Brush Pile and the Whitehaven Ferry will be closed.

On Tuesday, December 25, 2018, the Newland Park Landfill, Brush Pile, all Convenience Centers and the Whitehaven and Upper Ferries will be closed.

For more information, please contact the Newland Park Landfill at 410-548-4935. Ferry information is available by calling 410-543-2765.

Veteran tech columnist Mossberg quits Facebook

Veteran tech columnist Walt Mossberg rocked the tech world Monday by announcing that he was quitting Facebook and company-owned Instagram, saying he's "no longer comfortable" with the policies and actions of the company.

Facebook has come under fire all year from tech pundits, politicians and concerned citizens over multiple data breaches, collecting personal information that can be in turn marketed to advertisers and how easy it's been for outside forces like Russia and other countries to manipulate media for political gain.

"This is a decision I am making just for myself. If the company or the service change significantly for the better, in my view, or become effectively regulated, I may resume regular use."

Mossberg declined further comment, saying he preferred to have his posts on Facebook and Twitter speak for themselves.

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Gingrich: Trump Should Pull in Dems on Healthcare

Now that a Texas federal judge has found the Affordable Care Act to be unconstitutional, President Donald Trump should reach out to incoming Democrats to push for healthcare legislation that works for Americans, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Monday.

"The important thing is 46 Democrat freshmen wrote a letter last week to [Nancy] Pelosi, saying they really came to legislate, not just investigate," Gingrich told Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria" host Maria Bartiromo. "Certainly by the State of the Union, he should have a serious proposal to fix the system in terms of access, in terms of preconditions."

He should also tell Democrats he wants to work with them, Gingrich said, "because health is more important than partisan infighting. Do they really come back and say 'no? We would rather let people not get insurance because we'd rather try to score points?'"

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It’s Coming: Pelosi Says House Democrats Will Be Bold And Decisive Pushing Anti-Gun Nonsense

Well, this was coming. If Democrats retaking the House wasn’t bad enough this year, the anti-gun trash they’re going to be spewing is probably going to be an even more insufferable event. The Left’s economic agenda is tax and spend. It’s riddled with regulations. Consumer and small business confidence could drop. It could usher in the Pelosi crash, but first—they need to lay the groundwork to the destruction of the Second Amendment (via Politico):

With backing from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and key chairmen, Democrats will move to require federal background checks on all gun sales, part of a broader effort by the party to advance long-stalled gun control measures.

While the proposal won't get through the Republican-run Senate, much less become law, getting through the House will be a win for the gun-control movement, which has little to cheer about since President Donald Trump was sworn into office.

Rep. Mike Thompson (Calif.) — head of a Democratic “gun violence prevention task force” that will have more than 140 members next year — says he’ll introduce the universal background checks bill early next year.

“It will be strong legislation to expand background checks, and I will have a very respectful show of [co-sponors],” Thompson said in an interview. “I think you will see it happen in the first 100 days.”

“The new Democratic majority will act boldly and decisively to pass commonsense, life-saving background checks that are overwhelmingly supported by the American people,” Pelosi said in a statement.

Thompson, a close Pelosi ally, said the bill would have bipartisan sponsorship, although he declined to name the Republican lawmakers who'll sign onto it. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), who has co-authored background checks bills with Thompson in the past, has already told reporters that he will back this latest effort as well.

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Omaha must pay $250,000 medical bills of gang member who shot three cops

A gang member who was filmed pointing his gun at cops in Omaha, Nebraska, during a routine traffic stop then firing it at them before being shot himself will have his $250,000 medical bill covered by the city.

John Ezell Jr. is still in custody awaiting his next court date on charges of attempted murder, first-degree assault of an officer and weapons offenses.

In September, he injured officer Ken Fortune and shot at others after they stopped him in a car.

He was in the passenger's seat and was seen pointing his gun at the officers in a photograph that went viral.

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Georgia teacher admits stealing 9-year-old student's violin to pay ticket, police say

DECATUR, Ga. – A Georgia teacher told police he stole a 9-year-old student's violin because he needed money to pay for a $700 ticket.

Citing an incident report, news outlets report that video showed 21-year-old Kalif Jones of Stone Mountain stealing the instrument from the cafeteria. It also showed the Brockett Elementary School teacher walking throughout the school with the violin case in hand before leaving with it.

The criminal investigation began in late November after the student came home without his instrument. Police arrested the Dekalb County teacher after he said he stole the violin because he had recently received a $700 ticket and needed money for it.

Jail records show he was charged with a count of misdemeanor theft Nov. 29. It's unclear if he has a lawyer.

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https://www.foxnews.com/us/georgia-teacher-admits-stealing-9-year-old-students-violin-to-pay-ticket-police-say

Teen marijuana use may trigger inflammation linked to schizophrenia and mental illness, study finds

Marijuana may cause brain inflammation that sets off a genetic time-bomb for schizophrenia in predisposed teenagers - but an anti-inflammatory drug might block the harmful effects a new study suggests.

As marijuana legalization sweeps the US and becomes increasingly popular among (and accessible to) teenagers, health officials are scrambling to understand the risks it comes with.

The link between marijuana and schizophrenia has been studied often, and seems hard to deny though how one affects the other is a muddier question.

But scientists at Johns Hopkins University believe that they have uncovered how marijuana can be the trigger for schizophrenia in teens that are already genetically predisposed to the disorder.

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Online Auction


Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner: Agents Need the Wall

Border Patrol agents need more barriers and a wall to help them keep people from entering the United States illegally, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said Monday.

"It's called impedance and denial," McAleenan told Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "If someone can run across and disappear into a neighborhood it makes it a lot harder for agents to do their job...Border Patrol agents have always wanted more barriers on the border to help them do their job. It's the only way you can stop large groups from flowing across."

Out of the first investments that have gone into building and repairing the wall, a big difference is being seen in California and other locations, but more is needed.

Detection devices also are needed to help prevent illegal drugs from coming through the nation's ports of entry, and President Donald Trump's budget requests both, said McAleenan. Often, large groups of families are being used to divert agents, while smugglers come in with hard narcotics, and that's a "phenomenon that we need to stop," he added.

More here

Monopoly Rule

A group of Minnesota parents caring for family members is asking the Supreme Court to help them break away from union representation.

On Thursday, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation petitioned the Supreme Court to review Bierman v. Dayton, a case challenging exclusive union representation. The case was filed on behalf of home health workers, including a mother caring for a child with cerebral palsy. The aides claim that they have been forced to surrender their representation rights to labor giant Service Employees International Union Minnesota Healthcare despite the fact that only 13 percent of workers participated in a 2014 mail-in representation election.

"For those who do not want that union speaking on their behalf, exclusive representation results in a ‘significant impingement on [their] associational freedoms,'" the petition says, pointing to the Court's June opinion in Janus v. AFSCME. "SEIU's authority to speak for providers necessarily associates them with SEIU and its speech."

The Right to Work Foundation has scored several major victories before the Supreme Court in recent years, including successfully overturning an Illinois scheme to force home health aides to pay union dues in the 2014 Harris v. Quinn case.

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Texas girl’s inoperable brain tumor vanishes

In what seems like a Christmas miracle, the inoperable brain tumor of an 11-year-old girl in Texas has disappeared, and doctors say they don’t know why.

Roxli Doss was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, or DIPG, in June, as KVUE reported.

Her parents, Gena and Scott, prayed for a miracle and they got it.

Her mom said: “It’s kind of our family thing that God healed Roxli.”

The girl’s medical team are equally in a state of disbelief.

“It is very rare, but when we see it, it is a devastating disease,” Dr. Virginia Harrod of Dell Children’s Medical Center told the news outlet.

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https://www.foxnews.com/health/christmas-miracle-texas-girls-inoperable-brain-tumor-vanishes

U.S. Makes Great Strides to Help Iraqi Christians

Over the past year, the United States has taken steps to aid Christians driven from their homes in Iraq after ISIS swept through the region. Nevertheless, much remains to be done to rebuild the communities of Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities.

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump signed into law the Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act, which will help the United States channel humanitarian and rebuilding assistance to Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria.

According to Crux, the bill, which was first introduced two years ago, authorizes funding for both faith-based and non-faith-based groups aiding recovery in the region and support for investigations into members of ISIS who perpetrated genocide. The bill also encourages "foreign governments to add identifying information about suspected ISIS perpetrators to security databases and screening and to apprehend and prosecute perpetrators."

Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.), who introduced the bill, emphasized the importance of saving evidence to prosecute ISIS perpetrators of genocide.

"You have to capture, save, chronicle the evidence or else convictions are not forthcoming," Smith told the Washington Free Beacon. One of the primary goals of the bill, he added, is to ensure "every way of effectively prosecuting war criminals for the genocide can be forthcoming."

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NAACP Launches #LogOutFacebook Effort

The NAACP has returned a donation it received from Facebook and said it is leading a worldwide protest of the social media platform via the #LogOutFacebook effort.

The civil rights organization confirmed the news via a press release on its social media handles, pledging Tuesday not to use Facebook or Instagram — the latter of which is owned by Facebook.

"Facebook's engagement with partisan firms, its targeting of political opponents, the spread of misinformation, and the utilization of Facebook for propaganda promoting disingenuous portrayals of the African American community is reprehensible," NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said.

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Judicial Watch: House Committee Hears Our Clinton Foundation Scandal Evidence

When I was asked by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s Subcommittee on Government Operations to testify this week about the Clinton Foundation, I knew the challenge would be organizing the vast trove of information we have accumulated through court action over the past several years.

That evidence, I told the committee, warrants a serious investigation of the Clinton Foundation. Moreover, there is evidence that the Obama Justice Department suppressed an investigation of the Foundation.

In my testimony, I said that we were suspicious from the very beginning of Hillary Clinton’s term at the State Department if she and Bill could keep Foundation and government business separate. By 2014, it was evident that we were right, and we issued a report with the Washington Examiner:

A joint investigation by the Washington Examiner and the nonprofit watchdog group Judicial Watch found that former President Clinton gave 215 speeches and earned $48 million while his wife presided over U.S. foreign policy, raising questions about whether the Clintons fulfilled ethics agreements related to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary Clinton‘s tenure as secretary of state…

State Department officials charged with reviewing Bill Clinton’s proposed speeches did not object to a single one.

Some of the speeches were delivered in global hotspots and were paid for by entities with business or policy interests in the U.S.

[A]n inspection by the Examiner and Judicial Watch of donations to the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton’s personal financial disclosure forms, and the State Department conflict-of-interest reviews show that at least $48 million flowed to the Clintons’ personal coffers from many entities that clearly had interests in influencing the Obama administration — and perhaps currying favor with a future president as well.

I detailed for the committee Bill Clinton’s speeches in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and China, all of which poured enormous sums into the Foundation. And there were Bill Clinton’s infamous speeches in Russia. There he gave two for $625,000. One was to the Russian investment bank, Renaissance Capital, at a 2010 event.

I also reminded the committee that it was our efforts that uncovered Hillary Clinton’s notorious private email system, which effectively shielded her various dealings. After our lawsuits forced the disclosure of the Clinton email server, another Judicial Watch lawsuit broke open what is now known as the Clinton Foundation pay-to-play scandal.

Emails we uncovered demonstrate that Clinton Foundation donors and supporters received special favors and consideration from the Clinton State Department.

Just one example:

Anti-Trump dossier author was hired to help Hillary challenge 2016 election results

British ex-spy Christopher Steele, who wrote the Democrat-financed anti-Trump dossier, said in a court case that he was hired by a Democratic law firm in preparation for Hillary Clinton challenging the results of the 2016 presidential election.

He said the law firm Perkins Coie wanted to be in a position to contest the results based on evidence he unearthed on the Trump campaign conspiring with Moscow on election interference.

His scenario is contained in a sealed Aug. 2 declaration in a defamation law suit brought by three Russian bankers in London. The trio’s American attorneys filed his answers Tuesday in a libel lawsuit in Washington against the investigative firm Fusion GPS, which handled the former British intelligence officer.

In an answer to interrogatories, Mr. Steele wrote: “Fusion’s immediate client was law firm Perkins Coie. It engaged Fusion to obtain information necessary for Perkins Coie LLP to provide legal advice on the potential impact of Russian involvement on the legal validity of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election.

“Based on that advice, parties such as the Democratic National Committee and HFACC Inc. (also known as ‘Hillary for America’) could consider steps they would be legally entitled to take to challenge the validity of the outcome of that election.”

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Turley: Cohen lied, broke the law and used Trump to get rich – and now blames Trump

In his federal court sentencing hearing Wednesday, President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen cut a tragic figure of his own making as he tried to convince a judge to spare him from prison for a host of crimes ranging from tax fraud to bank fraud to lying to Congress. He claimed he was a trusting soul undone by the ambition and the machinations of an evil man – Donald Trump.

It played out like a modern take on the Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire.” All that was missing was that signature line of the character Blanche DuBois: “Whoever you are … I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

Blanche was describing her life of woe to a doctor escorting her to a mental hospital. But her line could have been easily added to Cohen’s plea to U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III in New York City.

The former Trump “fixer” and lawyer – who made millions of dollars off his connection to Trump and illegal business dealings – is now a disgraced confessed criminal facing three years in prison (set to begin March 6) and $2 million in fines, forfeitures and restitution. His legal career is over and he easily fits the role of the type of train-wrecked characters that Tennessee Williams loved.

More here


https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jonathan-turley-cohen-lied-broke-the-law-and-used-trump-get-rich-and-now-blames-trump-for-his-troubles

Suspected Honduran Terrorist Attempts Shakedown at U.S. Consulate

Approximately 100 Central American migrants marched to the U.S. consulate in Tijuana on Tuesday delivering a letter with a 72-hour ultimatum: either “allow free entry to all members” of the caravan into the United States or pay them $50,000 each to return to their “homeland.” Organizer Alfonso Guerrero Ulloa of Honduras, a suspected terrorist allegedly involved in a 1987 bombing that wounded six American soldiers in Honduras, claimed that $50,000 was “a small sum compared to everything the United States has stolen from Honduras.”

The money, he said, could be used to return home and start a small business. So much for any fear of persecution in their “homeland” that would give these migrants a legitimate basis for seeking asylum! Simply pay each of the migrants $50,000 and they will be happy to go home.

A second group of about 50 caravan members delivered on Tuesday their own letter to the U.S. consulate, claiming that slow processing of asylum requests violated U.S. and international law. This letter did not contain any demand for money but pressed for an increase in the daily number of asylum-seekers admitted at the San Ysidro Port of Entry to as many as 300. The current rate is between 40 and 100.

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As for Me and My House...

Leftists want to make you choose between God and their vision for America. You're not allowed to be neutral

Candidly, I have not written in a while because I've been in a funk. I caught Rabbi Jonathan Cahn on TV sharing devastating stats confirming that we (conservatives) have lost the culture war – the battle for the hearts and minds of America.

New York City has legalized a "third gender" on birth certificates. Not that long ago, over 40 states passed resolutions supporting God's definition of marriage – between one man and one woman. According to the Public Religious Research Institute, a majority of Democrats, Republicans, blacks, whites, Latinos, Catholics, and white mainline Protestant denominations support so-called "marriage" between people of the same sex. The majority of evangelical Millennials support redefining marriage.

Years ago, LGBTQ activists claimed that openly homosexual leaders admitted into the Boy Scouts had no intention to change the organization from its founding on Christian principles. As it turned out, first on the LGBTQ agenda was to remove "morally straight" from the Scout Oath.

We are living in a pretty sick time when "morally straight" is deemed hateful and offensive.

More here

Belgium Police Fire Tear Gas, Water Cannon As Anti-Migration Protests Turn Violent

The streets of Brussels turned violent on Sunday after thousands of Flemish right-wing parties called for a march against a UN migration pact signed in Marrakech last week, according to the BBC.

Approximately 5,500 anti-immigration protesters came out in force against the pact- chanting various slogans such as "our people first" , "no jihad in our state" and "Brussels rats," while around 1,000 counter-protesters from left-wing groups showed up to oppose the march. Police fired tear gas and a water cannon as violence broke out between the groups, throwing fences and stones.

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Feds: Six doctors fueled opioid crisis in health care fraud conspiracy

Detroit — Six doctors were charged in an unsealed indictment Thursday with cheating Medicare and Medicaid out of almost $500 million and fueling the nation's opioid epidemic by illegally prescribing more than 13 million doses of prescription pain medication.

The dollars and drugs involved make the alleged health care fraud conspiracy one of the largest in Michigan history, and one of the largest nationwide.

The scheme was focused within three pain clinics in Macomb County. They are The Pain Center USA in Warren and Eastpointe, and Interventional Pain Center in Warren.

The three clinics were owned and operated by Dr. Rajendra Bothra, 77, of Bloomfield Hills, a surgeon, humanitarian and politician. In 1999, Bothra was presented with the highest civilian honor bestowed in India, known as the Padmashri.

Bothra was cited for humanitarian efforts in India, which included educating people about AIDS, the dangers of tobacco and alcohol, and fundraising efforts for medical equipment.

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Just Wait...


American tourists risk death to vacation in Mexico

Tatiana Mirutenko emerged happy from a bar in an upscale part of Mexico City after a night of dancing. Seconds later, the 27-year-old Chicago native was dead — hit by a stray bullet from two men on a speeding motorcycle.

Mirutenko, her husband and a group of friends had traveled to the sprawling metropolis of 21 million people to celebrate a delayed honeymoon and a first wedding anniversary in July.

They ate at Pujol and Quintonil, among the top-rated restaurants in the world, and Mirutenko texted her parents photos of the food, the ornate churches and even dogs at a local park in Lomas de Chapultepec, a privileged part of the city where billionaire Carlos Slim owns a mansion.

“She loved the culture, loved the people,” said her father Wasyl Mirutenko, who owns a security company in Chicago. He told The Post that his family had vacationed in Mexico — in Puerto Vallarta and Oaxaca — since Tatiana was a little girl.

But this time, Tatiana, a slim blonde who worked for a pharmaceutical company in San Francisco, returned home in a body bag, becoming one of the 16,399 homicides recorded in the country in the first seven months of this year, according to statistics collected by Mexican law enforcement.

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Doughnut shop brawl goes viral, sparks police investigation

Texas police said they are investigating after a brawl at a doughnut shop was caught on video and went viral.

The fight broke out Thursday at the Best Donuts in Killeen, Fox 44 Waco reported, and footage shows people jumping over the counter and exchanging punches with shop employees. No one appeared to have been seriously hurt.

Detectives with the Killeen Police Department are conducting the investigation, according to the station.

Fox 44 reported that the brawlers included an Ellison High School student, his two sisters and a Best Donut worker.

“The Ellison student is the one who jumped up on the counter in the video with his shirt off and was jumping up and down on the counter,” Terry Abbott, a spokesman for the Killeen school district, told the station. “But the people who jumped over the counter and were involved in the assault are not students. They are not connected with the school at all."

Abbott added, "This video, it shows some adults behaving very badly and they should get prosecuted for it."

The person who shot the 40-second video told the station he heard the donut shop employee hurl racial slurs at the Ellison student.

That employee, who was working for her father, the owner, accused the student of being the instigator, KWTX-TV reported Sunday.

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https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-police-investigate-after-donut-shop-brawl-caught-on-camera-goes-viral

Hemp Is Finally Legal. Let's See if It Can Save the World

In 1985, legendary cannabis activist Jack Herer published a magnum opus called The Emperor Wears No Clothes, which through painstaking research told the hidden history of hemp—a once-revered crop cultivated for more than 10,000 years that played a vital role in America’s economy from colonial times until the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 made growing it a federal crime.

Herer’s underground bestseller argued that ending hemp’s misguided prohibition, and allowing a commercial crop to flourish once again, would yield incredible benefits, including but not limited to feeding the world, freeing us from fossil fuels,reversing climate change,replacing plastics, ending the housing crisis, and restoring our planet’s depleted soils.

“I don’t know if hemp is going to save the world,” Herer once famously opined, “but it’s the only thing that can.”

The man who came to be known as The Hemperor passed away in 2010, but his legacy lives on in an unlikely place—an amendment to the 2018 Farm Bill, added by US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, that removes industrial hemp from regulation under the Controlled Substances Act, making it a legal agricultural commodity for the first time in more than eighty years.

That bill was passed by the Senate on Tuesday, and found approval in the House on Wednesday, Dec. 12. President Trump is expected to sign it into law later this week.

Jack Herer’s dream has finally come true. Hemp is legal, nationwide.

It’s Rope, Not Dope

I Would Name Him/Her, Shadow


DUI Related Traffic Accident

Date and Time: 12/16/2018 5:26 PM
Location: W/B Rt. 50 @ Hebron Woods Blvd Hebron MD
Vehicle: 2016 Ford F-150
Driver: Jacob J. Mcglothlin Jr 56 year old male of Milford, DE
Accused: Jacob J. Mcglothlin Jr 56 year old male of Milford, DE

Charges: Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol, Driving While Impaired by Alcohol, and other traffic related offenses.

Narrative: On the above time and date, Troopers from the Salisbury Barrack responded to W/B Rt. 50 @ Hebron Woods Blvd Hebron, MD for the report of a single vehicle accident. Upon arrival, they observed a gray Ford F-150 pickup truck off the right side of the roadway. The vehicle had struck a large pole in the grass. The vehicle was completely off the roadway. Investigation determined that the driver, identified as Jacob J. Mcglothlin was operating a Ford F-150, when he lost control of the vehicle, traveled off the right side of the roadway and struck a pole. The vehicle received moderate damage and Mcglothlin was uninjured. Investigation further revealed that he was operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol and driving on a revoked license. Mcglothlin was placed under arrest for DUI and transported to the Salisbury Barrack for Processing. He was charged accordingly and transported to WCDC to go before a Wicomico County District Court Commissioner.

Sanders Attacks Dems For Opposing Wall Despite Previous Support For Stronger Borders

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders called out Democratic Party leaders on “The Story With Martha MacCallum” Thursday night, criticizing their opposition to President Donald Trump’s plans to protect the border despite their support for the same thing under previous administrations.

Sanders’ comments come just two days after Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi visitedTrump in the White House in a televised meeting regarding border security, the wall and theimpending potential governmental showdown.

WATCH: