ICE arrests 3 released in western Michigan after detainers ignored

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Deportation officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) have arrested three criminal aliens in western Michigan over the last several weeks after they were released from Kent County Sheriff’s custody with an active immigration detainer in place.

"The release of criminal aliens back on west Michigan streets continues to pose a serious threat to our communities,” said Rebecca Adducci, ERO field office director for Detroit, which covers the two-state region of Michigan and Ohio. “ICE remains committed to arresting and removing criminal aliens in the interest of public safety and national security, despite local decisions to not honor detainers and jeopardize the safety of its citizens.”

Case examples:

Kent County: Unlawfully present Honduran national arrested locally for assault with intent to murder; after subject repeatedly stabbed another man in the head with a broken beer bottle in an apparent fight. On Feb 26, subject was convicted of assault with a dangerous weapon (felonious assault). Released, despite ICE’s issuance of a detainer.

Kent County: A previously-deported Mexican national arrested locally for DUI. Released, despite ICE’s issuance of a detainer.
Kent County: A previously-deported Mexican national arrested locally for operating while intoxicated. He had been convicted previously for battery, battery 2nd, fraud-false info to law enforcement, felony-reentry after deportation. He is currently in U.S. Marshals custody pending additional felony charges. Released despite ICE’s issuance of a detainer.

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Subject: BLEXIT CONFERENCE RICHMOND: Statues vs. Governors

Virginia, it’s time.

Time to stop allowing the Left to use minorities as shields to go after their political opponents. The truth has never been more evident. The Left doesn’t care about racism. The Left doesn’t care about anti-Semitism. The left doesn’t care about homophobia. What the Left cares about is mining the hurt from our respective histories, to emotionally control us.

Come learn the TRUTH about the Democrats STEEP history of racism at the BLEXIT conference, RICHMOND.

Because it is time for blacks, latinos and ALL minorities, to take a stand against the hypocritical nature of a group and

A state that launches mass protests against statues and yet ignores the problematic leadership of Ralph Northam is ready for a #BLEXIT

Learn more here

Flashback: The Inside Story Behind How Blexit Was Born

What has ceding support for six decades to the Democrat Party done for black Americans?

That’s the question 29-year-old conservative firebrand Candace Owens says haunted her one February afternoon. The Turning Point USA communications director was standing backstage at the annual conservative convention CPAC in Washington D.C., when she heard British politician Nigel Farage deliver a prime-time speech about how he helped lead the fight for Britain’s exit — or Brexit — from the European Union.

“Oh my God,” Owens recalls saying to herself at that moment, “we need a Blexit.”

“Black people need to exit the Democrat Party,” Owens told me in a phone interview in early October.

While so many black Americans have reaped the social and economic benefits of mainstream American life, Owens said, there are still millions of us trapped in nearly unlivable inner cities that are suffocated by crime, and awash with shoddy schools and hopelessness.

What’s the connective tissue tying many of these declining communities together, Owens asked: they’re all run by Democrats.

“I had this concept in my mind that made sense. But I needed to move the idea from Candace’s brain to a room full of my peers,” Owens told me.

She began organizing a retreat, which would put nearly two dozen of the most influential black conservatives in one room to discuss how a Blexit would look.

“And then Kanye happened,” Owens said...

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Border Patrol Chief: There IS a Border Crisis

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost broke down in a testimony to Congress why the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border qualifies as a national security crisis.

“There is an ongoing debate as to whether this constitutes a border security crisis or a humanitarian crisis. Let me be clear, it is both,” Provost, President Donald Trump’s top border official, said Tuesday during a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee.

Provost’s comments run counter to claims made by Democrats and other Trump critics who argue that, because border apprehensions are down considerably from 20 years ago, there is no actual crisis. While the 361,000 people the Border Patrol caught in fiscal year 2018 is less than half of the 1 million who were caught in the 1990s and 2000s, Provost says there is more to the numbers than meets the eye.

“I’ve been asked many times how the current situation can be a crisis compared to years when we surpassed 1 million apprehensions,” the Border Patrol chief said to lawmakers. “To understand the numbers, you have to look at what’s happening on the ground.”

In years past, the majority of those apprehended at the border were Mexican nationals who, after taken into custody and documented by Border Patrol, were handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations office for deportation. In present time, more than half of all border apprehensions are Central American children or families. Due to a 2008 trafficking law, the children cannot be immediately deported because these they are not from Mexico or Canada.

“Each day, nearly 25 percent of my agents are diverted away from our border security mission to care for, transport, and process family members and unaccompanied children,” she said Tuesday. “We know that when agents are occupied, narcotics smugglers, criminal aliens, gang members, and others use the opportunity to violate our borders and our laws.”

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China Infiltrating U.S. Education System in Propaganda Coup

The Chinese government has infiltrated nearly every sector of the U.S. education system via a package of programs and monetary schemes that seek to indoctrinate American children and bring the Communist government's propaganda into the classroom, according to a new report by a Senate investigatory body.

The wide-ranging report by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has found that China has spent nearly $200 million on educational entities known as Confucius Institutes. These programs have been instated in U.S. schools across the country with the mission of indoctrinating students and painting a sympathetic portrait of the Chinese Communist government, according to the report.

The institutes are shrouded in mystery and have been the cause of much consternation on Capitol Hill and elsewhere as information about their reach and power in the United States becomes clearer.

While the programs appear on their surface to be mundane—mainly focusing on language and cultural issues—the Senate committee found that these institutes constitute a threat to the United States. The Chinese government, the committee found, "is attempting to change the impression in the United States and around the world that China is an economic and security threat."

"As China opened over 100 additional Confucius Institutes in the United States over the last 15 years, the Department of Education remained silent," the Senate committee warns in its report.

While Confucius Institutes have become a mainstay on college campuses across the United States, the Chinese government also has plans to expand into the kindergarten through 12th grade curriculum.

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Schumer is very angry about having to vote on the Green New Deal

The decision by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to force a vote on the preposterous Green New Deal proposal championed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., is having what I suspect is its intended effect. To wit-- making Democrat leaders look ridiculous. It leaves them with no choice but to denounce McConnell for bringing a vote on a proposal put together by members of their own caucus.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for example, complained Wednesday that McConnell would stoop so low as to, uh, force a vote on a bill drafted by a Democrat senator and sponsored by 11 Senate Democrats.

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Denmark Refuses to Rule Out Deporting Somalis by Force

The Danish government has refused to rule out forced deportations of Somalians without the right to stay in the country, although Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen has said he would rather they left voluntarily.

The Danish leader commented on the situation following a recent meeting with Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed in Egypt saying he thought it would be beneficial if the Somalians returned to their country to help rebuild it, BT reports.

So far, the Somalian government has rejected the idea of their citizens returning home from Denmark but the Danish leader dismissed the refusals saying, “As I think now, it is not so much dependent on Somalia. But it is more dependent on the speed of our own Danish bureaucracy.”

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California Refused 5.6K Requests to Turn over Criminal Illegals to Feds

The sanctuary state of California refused 5,600 requests by federal immigration officials over two years to turn over criminal illegal aliens, state data finds.

In an exclusive interview with SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Tonight, Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) Executive Director Dale Wilcox revealed that within a 27-month period, the state of California had failed to honor about 5,600 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers which are the holds ICE agents file to local jails and police to request that an illegal alien be turned over to them for arrest and deportation.

Of these 5,600 failed ICE detainers, more than 3,400 were lodged against an illegal alien who had been classified “level 1” and “level 2” offenders — meaning that these illegal aliens had been charged with crimes like homicide, kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, drugs, and fraud.

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CIVIL WAR: Rep Ilhan Omar Calls "Overthrow" Of "Dictator" Trump "Inevitable"!

Democrat Rep Ilhan Omar tweeted out a call for the ‘inevitable overthrow’ of the duly elected American President.

Do you even recognize America anymore?

Rep. Ilhan Omar: I believe that impeachment is inevitable. It also is a terrifying notion. Nations struggle any time they overthrow a dictator, and Trump really has the markings of a dictator.

Note, Mueller’s report isn’t even in yet, and Cohen gave no smoking gun on collusion. But impeachment is inevitable.

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Are The Democrats Committing Electoral Suicide? WaPo Says Yes

Democrats are misinterpreting their mandate and dramatically overestimating the popularity of their agenda...

In an age where tribalism rules – that’s our narrative and we’re sticking to it, right or wrong – it is increasingly rare to experience the sensation of someone in the opposing tribe reinforcing our own view of things.

That’s why it was instructive, if not heartening, to see a long-prominent liberal opinion writer at The Washington Post, of all places, provide unexpected affirmation of what is becoming increasingly clear to conservatives: The Democrats are laying the seeds of their own destruction in the 2020 election.

Richard Cohen, more a conventional 20th century liberal than an AOC-inspired woke socialist, has penned a piece in WaPo entitled “Democrats are Handing Trump a Gift.” And it is quite useful in helping us understand how rank-and-file Democrats view the direction of their party. For while the resistance wing of the party receives most all of the attention these days, don’t kid yourself: There are millions of standard-issue Democrats who want their party to win, but are actually more concerned about the state of the nation than with taking down Donald Trump at any cost, or resorting to socialism to draw as sharp a contrast as possible with the president.

Cohen starts with a bang in evaluating the perilous state of the Democrats as they head for the 2020 presidential election:

“I don’t quite know what a handbasket is, but the Democratic Party is heading in one to electoral hell with its talk of socialism and reparations.”

The author has evidently not donned the blinders or rose-colored glasses so many on the left are wearing, in believing their increasingly radical brand of statism will appeal to the broader electorate.

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Former D.C. Government Employee Convicted of $400,000 Welfare Fraud

A former Washington, DC, government employee was convicted Wednesday of running a $400,000 welfare fraud scheme where he pocketed funds meant for D.C. residents.

Gary T. Holliday, 49, pleaded guilty on Wednesday in his appearance before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and could face up to 41 months behind bars at his June sentencing for the federal wire charge, the Washington Postreported.

D.C. Department of Human Services spokeswoman Dora Taylor-Lowe told the Postthe agency “discovered irregularities” with welfare payments and filed a report with the D.C. inspector general’s office.

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Anti-Israel Democrats Defend Past Comments At Anti-Israel Restaurant

Busboys and Poets owner has said United States takes 'marching orders from Tel Aviv'
Freshman Democratic congresswomen Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) defended their comments on Israel and its influence in the United States on Wednesday night at Busboys and Poets, a restaurant owned by a man who himself has said the United States takes "marching orders from Tel Aviv."

The Washington, D.C., restaurant was filled to capacity for the "Progressive Town Hall," which also included representatives Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.) and Mark Pocan (D., Wis.), who heads the influential Progressive Caucus in the House. The members were introduced by restaurant owner Andy Shallal, an activist who in addition to arguing that the United States takes orders from Israel has accused the Jewish state of "terrorizing" the Middle East.

Omar, a Somalian-born Muslim from Minnesota, has found herself apologizing for comments she made about Israel that have been deemed anti-Semitic, but on Wednesday night defended her criticism of Israel and said the criticism comes just because of her religion.

"What I am fearful of, because both Rashida and I are Muslim, is that a lot of our Jewish colleagues and constituents go to thinking that everything we say about Israel is anti-Semitic because we are Muslim," Omar said. "It's something designed to end the debate."

"It's almost as if every time we say something that is supposed to be about foreign policy, or advocacy about ending oppression, or the freeing of every human life, we get to be labeled and that ends the discussion," she said. "We end up defending that and nobody gets to have the broader debate about what is happening with Palestine."

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Student Debt Relief Act Of 2019

Important Legislation Expands Promise Scholarship Program, Provides Much-Needed Tax Relief To StudentsNote: House Appropriations Committee to Hold Hearing on HB 41 on Thursday, February 28, 2019, 1:00 PM

“In Maryland, nearly 60 percent of all of our college students are graduating with thousands of dollars in student debt. This financial burden is preventing young Marylanders from achieving financial security and has become a roadblock to home ownership and saving for retirement.” - Governor Larry Hogan, July 16, 2018

Student Debt Relief Act Of 2019

Governor Hogan’s Proposed Legislation Expands The Maryland Promise Scholarship Program To Include Four-Year Maryland Public Institutions; Students Who Qualify For, And Fulfill The Graduation Requirements Of The Promise Scholarship Will Be Eligible To Receive Free Tuition For The Remaining Two Years. “There is a program of Maryland Promise Plus Scholarships in the State that are awarded under this subtitle. The purpose of the program is to provide tuition assistance for students to attend an eligible institution in the State… An applicant is eligible for a Maryland Promise Plus Scholarship if the applicant… Is a student at a community college in the State… Will have earned an associate degree from a community college in the State by the end of the semester in which the applicant plans to transfer; Has been accepted for admission to an eligible institution; Intends to enroll at an eligible institution to complete a bachelor’s degree program…” (“House Bill 41,” Maryland General Assembly, 1/11/19)

The Governor’s Proposal Will Double The Deduction For Families Participating In Maryland 529 Savings Plans From $2,500 To $5,000. “The subtraction under subsection (a) of this section includes the amount of advance payments of qualified higher education expenses made by an account holder or a contributor during the taxable year as provided under a prepaid contract in accordance with the Maryland Senator Edward J. Kasemeyer Prepaid College Trust. Subject to paragraphs (4) and (5) of this subsection, for each prepaid contract, the subtraction under paragraph (2) of this subsection may not exceed [$2,500]: $3,750 for a taxable year beginning after December 31, 2018, but before January 1, 2020; or $5,000 for any taxable year beginning after December 31, 2019.” (“House Bill 41,” Maryland General Assembly, 1/11/19)

Under Governor Hogan’s Proposed Legislation, Governor Hogan Would Allow Marylanders To Deduct 100 Percent Of The Interest Paid On Their Student Loans From Their State Income Tax Return. “Subject to subparagraph (II) of this paragraph, the subtraction under subsection (a) of this section includes an amount equal to: 1. 50% of the interest paid on a qualified student loan by the qualified taxpayer during a taxable year beginning after December 31, 2018, but before January 1, 2020; or 2. 100% of the interest paid on a qualified student loan by the qualified taxpayer during a taxable year beginning after December 31, 2019.” (“House Bill 41,” Maryland General Assembly, 1/11/19)

The Governor’s Student Debt Relief Act Of 2019 Would Provide Students With $151 Million In Tax Relief Over The Next Five Years. (Maryland Department Of Budget And Management)

Governor Hogan Has Fought To Make Higher Education More Affordable

Governor Hogan Supported And Enacted Legislation To Establish The Maryland Promise Scholarship, To Cover The Cost Of Community College For Qualified Students. “Scholarships of up to $5,000 to students whose families earn less than $125,000 a year and adults earning less than $90,000. It is a last-dollar program, meaning the state would cover tuition left over after factoring in other scholarships and grants. To qualify, prospective students must enroll in one of Maryland’s 16 community colleges within two years of finishing high school or obtaining a GED. Students must take 12 credit hours of courses and have a high school grade point average of 2.3.” (Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, “Maryland Governor Plans To Sign Free Community College Bill Into Law,” The Washington Post, 5/4/18)

Governor Hogan Introduced Legislation And Enacted The Maryland SmartBuy Program, The First Program Of Its Kind In The Nation; Provides Graduates With Home Ownership Opportunities And Student Loan Debt Assistance. “Maryland is making a play for a generation of would-be homebuyers with one thing in common: student debt… SmartBuy uses an innovative model to clear a path to homeownership. If a buyer has at least 5 percent for a down payment, the state will provide up to 15 percent of the purchase price toward outstanding student loans. Any remaining balance must be paid in full by the closing date.” (Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, “This Program Could Revolutionize Homeownership For Student Loan Borrowers,” The Washington Post, 11/24/16)

• In July 2018, Governor Hogan Announced An Expansion Of The Maryland SmartBuy Program. “Maryland SmartBuy helps homebuyers with qualifying student debt purchase a home. Today’s $3 million expansion to the program, and Hogan administration commitment to double to $6 million in funding over the next year, works by paying off student debt during the purchase of the home through special Maryland Mortgage Program (MMP) financing.” (Press Release, “Governor Larry Hogan Announces College Affordability & Student Debt Relief Initiatives,” Office Of The Governor, 7/16/18)

Governor Hogan Signed An Executive Order Creating The Maryland SmartWork Program To Help State Employees Receive Increased State Assistance To Repay Student Loans. “Maryland SmartWork will offer Maryland state employees working in specified shortage areas – such as correctional officers, nurses, and IT workers – the opportunity to receive state assistance to repay their student loans. Current state employees working in those areas that are paying down their children’s student loans also qualify for this benefit. To enact this program, the governor signed Executive Order 01.01.2018.17, Student Loan Repayment Benefits to Relieve State Workforce Shortages.” (Press Release, “Governor Larry Hogan Announces College Affordability & Student Debt Relief Initiatives,”Office Of The Governor, 7/16/18)

Duke University Faces Anti-Semitism Charges for Editorial

Rabbi Cooper: 'I thought it was from Tehran University, not Duke University'

Duke University's administration and student newspaper, the Chronicle, are facing charges of anti-Semitism after editors on the student newspaper penned an editorial smearing a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group and defending anti-Jewish comments recently made by freshman representative Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.).

In a recent unsigned editorial, "AIPAC and the blockade on critiquing Israel," students at the Chronicle defended Omar's recent declaration that powerful Jewish interests control politics, an age-old anti-Semitic trope that was condemned by Democratic and Republican leaders.

The op-ed, which set off a firestorm on campus, particularly among pro-Israel and Jewish students, went on to repeat anti-Semitic canards about Jewish control in politics and allege that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, wields outsized control over lawmakers.

Both the university leadership and the Chronicle editorial staff declined Washington Free Beaconrequests for comment on the matter, leaving the op-ed and its smears to publicly stand. This has riled pro-Israel leaders and those who work to combat anti-Semitism across the globe.

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Average New Car Payment Hits Record High $545 Per Month

Two weeks ago, the NY Fed made waves in the finance community when it reported that a record 7 million Americans are delinquent on their auto loans. Of course, to regular readers, none of this was new as we covered that exact same topic back in May 2018 when we reported that "Subprime Auto Loan Default Rates Are Now Higher Than During The Financial Crisis."

Alas, that does not make the Fed's conclusions incorrect, and in fact according to the Experian's latest State of the Automotive Finance Market report, the situation is getting worse by the day as not only are auto loan delinquencies rising but Americans are now paying a fresh record high monthly payment for both a new and a used car and assuming a larger amount of debt to make it happen as affordability continues to decline. Americans now hold $1.178 trillion of outstanding auto loan debt (a record) up from $1.072 trillion two years ago....

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Smollett Lies Expose a Culture of Lying to -- and About -- the Police

Lawyers representing Jussie Smollett, the actor who apparently lied to the Chicago Police Department about an alleged hate crime, called him a "man of impeccable character and integrity."

Before Smollett's tale of being of a victim of an attack by two men yelling pro-Trump slogans fell apart, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), one of many who vouched for his character, blamed President Donald Trump for creating an atmosphere that encouraged such an attack. Waters said: "I know Jussie. I love him. His family's a friend of mine. I know his sisters, I met his mom, and I called already to Jazz, one of the sisters, to talk to her about what's happening, what's going on."

This "man of impeccable character and integrity" appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" two weeks ago, where an oh-so-sympathetic Robin Roberts interviewed him. Smollett, at times tearing up, described the pain of being attacked by racist Trump-supporting homophobes. But he also described his second painful experience, that of being doubted. "It feels like if I had said it was a Muslim or a Mexican or someone black," Smollett told Roberts, "I feel like the doubters would've supported me a lot more, and that says a lot about the place that we are in our country right now."

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MD House of Delegates formally censures Del. Lisanti for racial slur

ANNAPOLIS (WBFF) - The state's House of Delegates voted unanimously Thursday to formally censure Del. Mary Ann Lisanti for using a racial slur.

Meanwhile, Harford County community leaders are joining in calls for the longtime elected official, a Democrat from Havre de Grace, to resign.

Condemnations came Thursday from local Democratic and Republican groups.

Lisanti represents "the most diverse area in Harford County," where "more than 64% of the [county's] African-Americans reside," wrote Denise Perry, chair of the Harford County Democratic Central Committee. "Her use of a racial slur is not only disturbing, she let down the very people who put her in office."

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House Democrats Unveil Plan to Bring Total Government Control Over American Health Care

Liberal House Democrats just unveiled the Medicare for All Act of 2019, a comprehensive bill to abolish virtually all private health plans—including employer-sponsored coverage—and impose total federal government control over Americans’ health care.

Despite its sweeping and detailed government control, as well as the imposition of huge but unknown costs, the 120-page bill has nonetheless initially attracted106 Democrat co-sponsors, almost half of all Democrats in the House.

The legislation is profoundly authoritarian.

For example, Section 107 ensures that no American, regardless of their personal wants or medical needs, would be able to enroll in any alternative health plan that “duplicates” the government’s coverage.

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MPAA Gives Pro-Life Film R-Rating

Producers claim politics influenced rating in former Planned Parenthood worker's pro-life biopic

A pro-life film has been given an R-rating despite the absence of nudity, sex, violence, or curse words and filmmakers are convinced it's the message that led to the prohibitive rating.

Unplanned is a biographical film about the life of Abby Johnson, the former Texas Planned Parenthood manager who has gone on to become a pro-life activist. The film details her conversion and, while depicting the abortion process, it is short on any sort of graphic scenes. That is why filmmakers were surprised when the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) handed the film an R-rating. Producer Daryl C. Lefever said the rating, which restricts audience members below the age of 18 from attending without a guardian, would curtail the potential viewership of the film, and suspects the film's pro-life message played a part in the decision.

"We really thought we had made a PG-13 film," Lefever said in an email to the Washington Free Beacon. "There is no violence, no nudity, no sex, no profanity, and the only violence takes place in the womb, which most Hollywood folks don't think is a person."

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Omar on Anti-Semitic Tweets: I Did Not Apologize for Being Anti-Semitic

'I apologized for the way that my words made people feel'

Commenting on anti-Semitic tweets she wrote earlier this month, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) said she did not apologize for being anti-Semitic during an interview with The Intercept released on Thursday.

"You've since apologized unequivocally for the tweet. You've said rightly that anti-Semitism is real. But just to be clear, I mean we're a few weeks on now, what were you apologizing for? Was it a badly worded tweet that you were apologizing for? Or was it for being anti-Semitic, wittingly or unwittingly?" host Mehdi Hasan asked around the 12:45 mark of the audio at the link above.

"Oh absolutely not," Omar responded. "I apologized for the way that my words made people feel. Oftentimes, you know, we are in places where someone will say something, and they might not know how it makes you feel and it's not acceptable, that once you express to them that this is hurtful, that you have felt attacked by their words, they should acknowledge how you feel, they should speak to that, they should apologize and figure out a way to remedy that situation."

"That's why you apologized?" Hasan asked.

"That's why I apologized," Omar said.

"And is that why you deleted your tweets this week?" Hasan asked. "The chairwoman of the Republican Party is all over Twitter suggesting that was some sort of … bad faith move on your part."

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Trump Was Right to Walk Away From North Korea's Bad Deal

Hopes were high in Hanoi, Vietnam, this week, as President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un smiled and shook hands, ready for their second summit. Perhaps the United States and North Korea would finally reach a deal to denuclearize the latter, paving the way for a more benign, fruitful relationship between the two countries. Alas, it was not meant to be. Trump and Kim ended their summit on Thursday after failing to agree on any steps to curb North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program. But while the talks collapsed—at least for the moment—people should not view the result as a failure. Indeed, Trump should be commended for walking away from a bad deal.

Many observers thought Trump would be so desperate for a deal that he would agree to almost any terms, succumbing to dreams of diplomatic greatness. They watched Trump call Kim his "friend" and worried the president was too trusting. Perhaps Kim felt this way, too, hence his widely one-sided proposal (more on that in a moment). Ultimately, however, Trump did not do what his critics feared.

"I am never afraid to walk from a deal," Trump told reporters after the summit ended. "Sometimes you have to walk."

Lifting sanctions on North Korea seemed to be the main roadblock to further negotiations. According to Trump, Kim insisted that all of the United Nations's sanctions imposed on Pyongyang be lifted in exchange for dismantling the Yongbyon nuclear facility, the site of a reactor and plutonium-reprocessing plant and a central piece of the North's weapons program.

"It was about the sanctions," Trump said. "Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, but we couldn't do that."

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HOA issues fine for what it claimed was a penis-shaped outline in snow

(KUTV) — KUTV isn't new to Home Owners' Associations controversies, like the rule against flying the American flag except on holidays, or the homeowners in Grantsville that didn't know they lived in an HOA, but a woman in Tennessee may have the best absurd HOA story of them all.

She posted on a Reddit community dedicated to people angry about HOAs — called F%#& HOA — that she was asked to pay a $100 fine after her car let the shape of a supposed penis on on the pavement after a snowstorm.

"Your car, specifically the Honda, left this offensive image on the ground," she was told in a letter. The snow shape apparently violated a rule against "displaying offensive images or slogans."

The board claimed to have photographic evidence of the "obscene" pattern.

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The 'sober curious' movement takes off

When Sammi Shay stopped drinking at age 25, her friends were puzzled.

“You didn’t have a problem,” they would say.

Shay hadn’t been drinking more than her peers or doing anything unusual under the influence of alcohol. Maybe she’d send a text she wouldn’t otherwise have sent, she said, or tell the same story twice. But while her friends could laugh off such gaffes, Shay, who is prone to anxiety, would often end up feeling panicky and ashamed. Drinking wasn’t working for her, so two years ago, she simply stopped.

“It feels great,” said Shay, a graduate student who lives in Logan Square.

“I have so much clarity, and I feel like when I connect with people, it’s honest and it’s real. And I have the confidence in myself that I’m always going to remember what I said, and that what I’m feeling in the moment is true.”

Shay, now 27, is part of a growing group of “sober curious” Americans, many of them women influenced by health and wellness concerns, who are experimenting with alcohol-free living. The sober curious often cut out alcohol entirely or drastically reduce consumption, but in contrast to those who enroll in traditional 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, they don’t typically identify as addicts or insist on total, lifelong abstinence.

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Bernie & The Leftists

Salisbury Barrack DUI Arrests for February 2019

Troopers from the MSP Salisbury Barrack arrested the following subjects during the Month of February:

Omar E Salgado Sanchez 18 years of age

April Renee Joseph 38 Years of age Salisbury, MD

Fulton Knight Singleton Jr. 72 Years of age Salisbury, MD

Elijah C. Lewis 31 years of age Willards, MD

Philip Burton Jenkins 35 years of age Salisbury, MD

Tempress Ashmere Simpson 31 years of age Salisbury, MD

Matthew Logan Meekins 21 years of age Salisbury, MD

Jack Frederick Baumann 43 years of age Salisbury, MD

Jacob Andrew Somers 25 years of age Salisbury, MD

Robert J. McKenzie 50 years of age Laurel, DE

John Diante Jones 28 years of age Salisbury, MD

Kevin M. Lewis 40 years of age Willards, MD

Mario Alphonse 38 years of age Seaford, DE

Andres Garcias 44 years of age Salisbury, MD

Kara Lynn Costa 20 years of age Salisbury, MD

Wayne Tyler Warren 29 Years of age Salisbury, MD

Terrez Melvin Rounds 38 Years of age Salisbury, MD

Joshua Michael Thomas 19 years of age Vienna, MD

John Emery Miller 38 years of age Salisbury, MD

Nicholas Sykes 37 years of age Salisbury, MD

Nichole Lynn Lewis 38 years of age Salisbury, MD

Kendall Earl Snead Jr. 25 years of age Crisfield, MD

Jordan Patrick Fisher 29 years of age Salisbury, MD

Effort to Abandon Electoral College Gains Steam. Here’s What It Would Ruin for America.

Colorado is joining a list of states attempting to overturn the way Americans have selected their presidents for over two centuries.

The Colorado Legislature recently passed a bill to join an interstate effort called the “interstate compact,” to attempt to sidestep the Electoral College system defined by the Constitution. Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, called the Electoral College an “undemocratic relic” and vowed to sign the bill into law.

So far, 12 states representing 172 Electoral College votes have passed the initiative into law. With the addition of Colorado (which has nine votes), that number will rise to 181. They need 270 for the compact to go into effect. It would then undoubtedly be challenged in the courts.

Some major voices on the left were gleeful about the potential change.

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Ocasio-Cortez Hit With FEC Complaint Alleging She Laundered Money To Boyfriend

The Coolidge Reagan Foundation filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Wednesday alleging that socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) may have illegally funneled money to her boyfriend through an allied PAC.

Fox News reports that the group alleges "in their complaint that when the Brand New Congress PAC (BNC) -- a political arm of Brand New Congress LLC, a company that was hired by Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to run and support her campaign — paid Roberts for marketing services, it potentially ran afoul of campaign finance law."

The complaint highlighted a report from earlier in February by Luke Thompson, who "published an article entitled 'The Congresswoman Loves the Swamp. Her Wealthy Chief of Staff Used a PAC to Pay Her Boyfriend,' on Medium, which parses FEC records to reveal evidence Ocasio-Cortez funneled money from her official campaign account to her boyfriend, Riley Roberts."

The complaint added: "The timing and amounts of these transactions, the use of two affiliated entities as intermediaries, the vague and amorphous nature of the services Riley ostensibly provided, the magnitude of these transactions compared to both the limited funds the campaign had raised at the time and the total amount of its expenditures, and the romantic relationship between Ocasio-Cortez and Riley collectively establish reason to believe these transactions may have violated campaign finance law."

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Rashida Tlaib Suggests Mark Meadows ‘Racist’ for Inviting ‘Prop’ Lynne Patton

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) accused Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) of a “racist act” in presenting Housing and Urban Development official Lynn Patton, a black woman, as a refutation of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s claim that President Trump is “racist.”

“Just to make a note, Mr. Chairman, just because someone has a person of color, a black people working for them, does not mean they aren’t racist,” Tlaib said in her closing remarks after question Cohen. “And it is even insensitive, some would even say the fact that someone would even use a prop, a black woman in this chamber, in this committee, is alone racist in itself.”

The Michigan Democrat repeated her statement when asked by Cummings if she wished to rephrase her remarks.

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Biden Calls Mike Pence A 'Decent Guy.' Then This Happens.

Former Vice President Joe Biden was shamed Thursday evening by LGBT activists for merely calling Vice President Mike Pence a "decent guy" during a speech in Omaha, Nebraska. In cowardly fashion, Biden — who's a top contender to be the Democrats' 2020 Trump-challenger, though he's yet to officially throw his hat in the ring — walked back the utterly mild compliment.

"The fact of the matter is it was followed on by a guy who's a decent guy, our vice president, who stood before this group of allies and leaders and said, 'I'm here on behalf of President Trump,' and there was dead silence. Dead silence," Biden told an audience at the Chuck Hagel Forum in Global Leadership at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, according to CNN.

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Delingpole: India and Pakistan Going to War Would Make the Migrant Crisis Look like a Tea Party

India and Pakistan are teetering on the brink of war again.

This is a fairly regular occurrence: since Partition in 1947, there have been four actual Indo-Pakistan wars (1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999). The fact that most of us aren’t aware of this says more about our ignorance of Indian subcontinental geopolitics than it does about the seriousness of the conflicts. The seventeen-day war in 1965, for example, saw the largest tank battle since the Second World War; the one in 1971 saw Pakistan lose half its navy, a quarter of its air force and a third of its army.

The worry about this latest bout of aggression – which started with the St Valentine’s Day massacre of 40 Indian paramilitary troops in Kashmir by a suicide bomber and has now escalated with the shooting down of an Indian fighter jet – is that both nations are so much more populous, powerful and swaggeringly aggressive, and have points to prove.

India has a population of 1.3 billion.

Pakistan’s is 208 million.

Imagine if it escalates further; suppose it, God forbid, were to go nuclear. The fall-out, in both senses, would be astronomical. In India and Pakistan, of course, the suffering would be horrendous. Thereafter, it would lead to greatest refugee crisis in history.

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S&P Warns Power Companies About Becoming the Next PG&E

After PG&E's bankruptcy and downgrades, S&P says more could follow if the state doesn't reform utility regulations.

After two devastating wildfire seasons, California’s largest utility is bankrupt -- and it might not be the last.

Faced with as much as $30 billion in liabilities for its equipment allegedly sparking wildfires in 2017 and 2018, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) filed for bankruptcy protection last month. Now, S&P Global Ratings is warning that, thanks to extreme weather and weak protections for power companies in the state, more utility upheaval could follow.

“Without any regulatory reform, we view it as entirely possible that another electric utility could face a devastating wildfire during the 2019 wildfire season," wrote analysts Gabe Grosberg and Rebecca Ai. "Depending on the magnitude and severity, its board of directors could similarly determine that the best course of action would be to file for a voluntary bankruptcy before year-end 2019."

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We're Hiring for the 2020 Census – Apply Now!

The Census Bureau is hiring temporary employees for the 2020 Census. Our jobs offer weekly pay, competitive pay rates, flexible hours, and paid training. By joining the 2020 Census team, you can support your community while getting paid to do it.   Watch this short video and then click the button below to get started. Apply Now

The U.S. Census Bureau is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Note: If you've already started an application or started a new position with the Census Bureau, you can ignore this message.

ICE discovers 67 illegal aliens, including 6 unaccompanied teens, in deplorable conditions in a shed in NM

EL PASO, Texas — Deportation officers and special agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Monday discovered 67 illegal aliens from Guatemala and Ecuador, including six unaccompanied teenagers, in a stash house in Dexter, New Mexico.

The stash house, in the 7300 block of Southeast Main Street, was used by an alien smuggling organization to house illegal aliens who had been smuggled into the United States. Dexter is about 18 miles from Roswell, New Mexico.

Tomas Miguel Mateo, 38, of Guatemala, is charged in a federal criminal complaint with harboring the illegal aliens and with unlawfully re-entering the United States after having been previously deported. 

“As the deplorable conditions of this stash house demonstrate, transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) have no respect for human life,” said Jack P. Staton, special agent in charge of ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) El Paso. “Human smuggling is a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, and the individuals being smuggled are viewed as cargo by the criminal networks. HSI continues to investigate this organization and will hold them accountable for their illicit activities.”

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$1.50 Taco Special All Weekend

Unlike other restaurants, we serve 3 beef tacos, ($1.50 each) including lettuce, tomato, salsa, cheese and sour cream. There is NO upcharge for each item. Customers say these are the best tacos they've ever eaten. We open at 11:00 AM today.

Bizarre: LGBTQ Groups Condemn Trump Admin's Move To Decriminalize Homosexuality Worldwide

Trump derangement syndrome has gone so far into overdrive that his detractors are now criticizing him even when he does something solely to their benefit. The LGBT pushback against his administration's policy to decriminalize homosexuality worldwide is perhaps the most puzzling example.

According to Fox News, LGBT activists have largely denounced the Trump administration's policy on decriminalizing homosexuality as a cheap ploy rather than an actual promise.

"Donald Trump and Mike Pence have turned a blind eye to a campaign of violence and murder targeting LGBTQ people in Chechnya that has stretched on for two years," said Jeremy Kadden, Senior International Policy Advocate for the Human Rights Campaign.

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Hours After Racism Flap, Rep. Tlaib ‘Likes’ Tweet Referring to ‘White Privilege and White Fragility’

Hours after equivocally apologizing to Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and saying she was not calling him a racist, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) “liked” a tweet that essentially described Meadows as an example of “white privilege and white fragility.”

Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing involving President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen featured heated words after Tlaib accused “someone” of bringing a Trump-supporting black woman along to the hearing as a “prop” – an act she said was “racist in itself.”

Meadows had invited Lynne Patton, an African-American Trump family friend now working at the Department of Housing and Development, and challenged Cohen’s depiction of Trump as a racist, saying that there was no way that Patton “would work for an individual who's a racist.”

The exchange in question began when Tlaib said, “just because someone has a person of color, a black person, working for them does not mean they aren't racist. And it is insensitive that some would even say it’s – the fact that someone would actually use a prop, a black woman, in this chamber, in this committee is alone racist in itself.”

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Twitter Warns Michelle Malkin for Violating Pakistan’s Sharia Law on Platform

Twitter has been warning users from around the world, including conservative writer and commentator Michelle Malkin, that their posts on the platform violate Pakistan’s Sharia law, and that they “may wish to consult legal counsel.”

Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin received Twitter’s Sharia notice, as well as Muslim reformist Imam Mohamad Tawhidi, Islam critic Pamela Geller, human rights activist Ensaf Haidar, and FrontPage Magazine managing editor Jamie Glazov.

“Last week, the little birdies in Twitter’s legal department notified me that one of my tweets from 2015 is ‘in violation of Pakistan law,'” proclaimed Malkin in a blog post. “My innocuous tweet featured a compilation image of the 12 Muhammad cartoons published by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005. It also linked to my Jan. 8, 2015, syndicated column on the Charlie Hebdo jihad massacre in Paris. There’s no hate, violence, profanity or pornography, just harmless drawings and peacefully expressed opinions about the Western media’s futile attempts to appease the unappeasable enforcers of sharia law, which bans all insults of Islam.”

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NYPD: MS-13 Planning To Target Off-Duty Cops At Their Homes

The NYPD is warning police officers about a possible threat from the MS-13 gang, particularly when they are off-duty.

CBS2’s Dick Brennan reports that in a bulletin the NYPD put out this alert: “Members of MS-13 are looking to ‘hit’ NYPD police officers, specifically in the Brentwood/Central Islip area as well as possibly Patchogue.”

The bulletin says that the gang members would carry out the attacks on off-duty officers “in order to gain street credibility.”

“Whenever a law enforcement officer is being threatened, especially by an organization like MS-13 which we already know is uber violent and has killed numerous people throughout the country if not throughout the world, this has to be taken serious,” said former FBI agent Manny Gomez.

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O’Keefe: ‘I Just Wish’ Facebook Would ‘Admit’ They Censor Conservatives

James O’Keefe, the founder and head of Project Veritas, invited insiders within Facebook, Google, and Twitter to become whistleblowers and expose Big Tech’s politically motivated censorship, which he wishes the Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe would admit publicly, during a Thursday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

Marlow said, “We all figured this was happening. This is a nightmare for Facebook, and it’s all thanks to you.”

O’Keefe responded, “This is confirming the suspicions. Also known as shadow-banning, you don’t know that you’re being de-boosted. You don’t know that your boost is being taken away and that you’re being down-ranked. That’s what makes this so egregious.”

O’Keefe added, “If you’re being disabled, if your account is suspended, you know that and you can protest it, and there’s actually a system at Facebook to police that. They have adults in the room, and they usually put you back up unless you did something very egregious. But in this case, you don’t know that it’s happening to you.”

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Poll: Majority of Americans Favor a Border Wall over a Green New Deal

A majority of Americans would rather have a wall sealing America’s southern border than the Green New Deal, according to a poll released on Wednesday.

Fifty-one percent of Americans say that they would rather have a border wall on America’s southern border, compared to 31 percent who say that they want a Green New Deal, according to a poll released by Remington Research Group.

Republicans said that they would prefer a border wall by a 68-point margin, while Independents said that they would prefer a border wall by a two-to-one margin.

Overall, a majority of Americans, or 51 percent, said they oppose a Green New Deal, 51 percent of Democrats support the radical environmental program, while Republicans and Independents overwhelmingly oppose Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) idea outright.

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#RedforEd Leader in Marxist Magazine: Teachers Must Embrace Community Organizing

Noah Karvelis, the 24-year-old leader of the #RedforEd movement that inspired teacher strikes around the country in 2018 and 2019, wrote in an article published by a Marxist magazine last month that community organizing “must be embraced” by teachers, “particularly in ‘right-to-work’ states.”

Karvelis — who, after teaching music at an Arizona public school for just two years, led the Arizona teachers strike when he launched the #RedforEd movement in March 2018 — has confirmed in his own words what Breitbart News reported last week:

"A well-funded and subversive leftist movement of teachers in the United States threatens to tilt the political balance nationwide in the direction of Democrats across the country as Republicans barely hang on in key states that they need to hold for President Donald Trump to win re-election and for Republicans to have a shot at retaking the House and holding onto their Senate majority. Its stated goals–- higher teacher pay and better education conditions -–are overshadowed by a more malevolent political agenda: a leftist Democrat uprising designed to flip purple or red states to blue, using the might of a significant part of the education system as its lever."

“The first lesson I hope people take away from Arizona #RedForEd is that a grassroots, rank-and-file movement is absolutely necessary — particularly in ‘right-to-work’ states,” Karvelis wrote at the Jacobin Magazine website in January.

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Thank God Its Friday 3-1-19

What will you be doing this weekend?

True That

From The Facebook Page of Governor Hogan

Goes To Show You How Stupid Voters Can Be

Right On

Then Came Caribbean Joe's Huge Portions...

Salisbury Affordable Housing Units Next Right...

Welcome To Somerset County

Only 6 States Have More Liberals than Conservatives Because their Policies Suck ...But Dems Own the Media, Hollywood, Academia, etc.!

Only six US states have more liberals than conservatives according to the latest Gallup poll.

The Examiner reported:

The number of states where liberals outnumber conservatives has dropped more than 30 percent, with just six now in that category: Massachusetts, Hawaii, Vermont, Washington, New York, and New Hampshire.

According to the latest Gallup survey, in every other state but California, where conservatives and liberals split 29 percent to 29 percent, conservatives lead.

Nationally, those who identify themselves conservative hold a nine-point lead.

But Democrats own the mainstream media, academia, social media and Hollywood so they are able to make gains with the public.

They count on lies, cheating and delusion to bring in voters.

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Pennsylvania & The Folly Of Minimum Wage Laws

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has proposed raising the legal minimum wage to $12 per hour on July 1, 2019, and then an additional 50 cents per year until the minimum wage reaches $15 per hour in 2025.

Laws mandating a minimum wage have existed without interruption since the federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. So habituated have we become to this form of government intervention that when a politician like Gov. Wolf proposes to mandate a higher minimum wage, few people bother to question whether government is competent to rule on what a proper wage is.

Neither government officials nor committees of experts that they assemble can possibly process as much information as free markets provide through the forces of supply and demand to determine what wages should be. This is one of the fundamental errors of socialism (take note, Bernie and Alexandria) - namely, the presumption that government planners have enough wisdom to overrule markets and set prices. Alas, the woeful result of such hubris is that by supplanting the pricing mechanism that brings supply into balance with demand and thus coordinates economic activity, economic production becomes uncoordinated, irrational, and chaotic, leading to impoverishment (see Venezuela).

Advocates of minimum wages might retort that there are normative issues here that take precedence - that it isn’t “just” or “fair” that an employer pay an employee (even one who is eager to work at a low wage) less than their arbitrarily chosen minimum. Those who clamor for higher minimum wages are completely free to pay higher wages to anybody they choose to employ. But what gives them the right to tell somebody else how much they must pay for something?

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