DEA Head Chuck Rosenberg Resigns. Now Who Takes Over?

The Washington Post and New York Times have reported that Chuck Rosenberg, acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), will resign at the end of this week. The Times attributed Rosenberg’s departure to his growing conviction that President Trump “had little respect for the law.”

Rosenberg, who will step down on October 1, was a holdover from the Obama Administration. He’s been running the agency in an acting capacity since 2015, when he took over for then-DEA Administrator Michelle Leonhart. Leonhart resigned over her mishandling of a scandal involving DEA agents and prostitutes. Leonhart had also disagreed strongly with how President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder handled state-legal marijuana.

Rosenberg moved over to guide the DEA after serving as chief of staff to then-FBI Director James Comey. Comey was fired by President Trump earlier this year, and the action did nothing to improve the relationship between the President and his acting DEA administrator. When Trump suggested that police “please don’t be too nice” when handling criminal suspects, Rosenberg rejected his comments in an email sent to DEA employees. “We have an obligation to speak out when something is wrong,” he wrote.

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Will Trump allow release of JFK assassination papers?

Scholars are eagerly awaiting the anticipated release of thousands of never-before-seen government documents related to President John F. Kennedy's assassination.

Now, they're waiting to see whether President Donald Trump will block the release of files that could shed light on a tragedy that has stirred conspiracy theories for decades.

The National Archives has until October 26 to disclose the remaining files related to Kennedy's 1963 assassination, unless Trump intervenes.

The CIA and FBI, whose records make up the bulk of the batch, won't say whether they've appealed to the Republican president to keep them under wraps.

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Pending Home Sales Plunge; NAR Admits "The Housing Market Has Essentially Stalled"

After dismal drops in existing and new home sales, this morning's pending home sales data for August was a disaster, tumbling 2.6% MoM (3.1% YoY) to its lowest SAAR since January 2016.

This is the second YoY decline in sales in a row, with SAAR tumbling to its lowest since Jan 2016..

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says this summer’s terribly low supply levels have officially drained all of the housing market’s momentum over the past year.

“August was another month of declining contract activity because of the one-two punch of limited listings and home prices rising far above incomes,” he said.

“Demand continues to overwhelm supply in most of the country, and as a result, many would-be buyers from earlier in the year are still in the market for a home, while others have perhaps decided to temporarily postpone their search.”

With little relief expected from the housing shortages that continue to plague several areas, Yun believes the housing market has essentially stalled.

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Crowd Boos As Entire Cowboys Team, Owner, & G.M. 'Take A Knee' In Arizona

In an apparent demonstration of unity, the entire Dallas Cowboys team, Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones, as well as executive vice presidents Stephen Jones, Charlotte Anderson and Jerry Jones Jr., all decided to 'take a knee', notably before the national anthem was sung.

Boos were heard from the crowd in Arizona which reportedly included a large number of Dallas fans...

"...as they take a knee collectively, boos can be heard from this sell-out crowd in Arizona..."

As ESPN reports, Jerry Jones and his daughter, Charlotte Jones Anderson, said their players wanted to take a knee as a statement for equality and unity, but also wanted to separate that message from the national anthem.

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Sen. Bob Corker Announces Retirement One Day After Breitbart Reports on His $3 Million Swamp Deal

Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) announced late Tuesday afternoon he will not be seeking re-election to a third term in the Senate in 2018, just hours before polls were scheduled to close in the Alabama U.S. Senate Republican runoff election between conservative Judge Roy Moore and Corker’s establishment ally, Senator Luther Strange (R-AL).

Corker’s surprising announcement came one day after the publication of the third story in a series by Breitbart News that documented his sweetheart deal investment in a Mobile, Alabama retail center arranged by a law firm that donated $28,000 to Luther Strange’s Senate campaign. In that deal, Corker is expected to receive more than $3 million in sales tax payments made by Alabama consumers to the City of Mobile over the next twenty years as part of a sales tax rebate incentive to a development company in which Corker has a 13 percent ownership interest.

Corker has made a number of high profile political missteps over the past several years that have hurt his approval ratings among likely Tennessee Republican primary voters.

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Bill O'Reilly Stuns On Hannity

Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly appeared on “Hannity” Tuesday, addressing the beliefs of the far-left in America.

“They’re after–they don’t want capitalism. They don’t want the electoral college. They don’t want white people…generally calling the shots. So they have to mobilize minority Americans to be angry,” O’Reilly told Sean Hannity.

O’Reilly also claimed that far-left agents, which he believes to be “evil,” want to “destroy the Constitution” by changing it.

“‘Who forged it? Slave owners — Thomas Jefferson, George Washington. We can’t have a Constitution that they made — we have to have a new one!’ That’s the end game,” O’Reilly said.

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Mo Brooks on NFL Protest Controversy: Terminate Any Federal Support of Professional Football

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) said on Tuesday that the federal government should not financially support the NFL because of players’ disrespectful “take a knee” protests during the national anthem.

“I believe we ought to terminate all federal government support of the NFL,” Brooks told Breitbart News following the Conversations with Conservatives event at the Capitol. “That would include the termination of any and all advertising that is done on behalf of the federal government — military and non-military — to the extent we do any.”

“The same thing with any other professional sport that insults our country and our flag and our anthem as the NFL has done,” said Brooks, who is a member of the House Freedom Caucus.

CNN Money reported in 2015 the NFL teams get “billions in subsidies from U.S. taxpayers.”

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All that kneeling ignores the real cause of soaring black homicides

The FBI released its official crime tally for 2016 on Monday, and the data flies in the face of the rhetoric that professional athletes rehearsed in revived Black Lives Matter protests over the weekend.

Nearly 900 additional blacks were killed in 2016 compared with 2015, bringing the black homicide victim total to 7,881. Those 7,881 “black bodies,” in the parlance of Ta-Nehisi Coates, are 1,305 more than the number of white victims (which in this case includes most Hispanics) for the same period, though blacks are only 13 percent of the nation’s population.

The increase in black homicides last year comes on top of a previous 900-victim increase between 2014 and 2015.

Who is killing these black victims? Not whites, and not the police, but other blacks.

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Record $135 billion a year for illegal immigration, average $8,075 each, $25,000 in NY

The swelling population of illegal immigrants and their kids is costing American taxpayers $135 billion a year, the highest ever, driven by free medical care, education and a huge law enforcement bill, according to the the most authoritative report on the issue yet.

And despite claims from pro-illegal immigration advocates that the aliens pay significant off-setting taxes back to federal, state and local treasuries, the Federation for American Immigration Reform report tallied just $19 billion, making the final hit to taxpayers about $116 billion.

State and local governments are getting ravaged by the costs, at over $88 billion. The federal government, by comparison, is getting off easy at $45 billion in costs for illegals.

President Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and conservatives in Congress are moving aggressively to deal with illegals, especially those with long criminal records. But their effort is being fought by courts and some 300 so-called "sanctuary communities" that refuse to work with federal law enforcement.

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Multiple Foreign Nationals Criminally Charged For U.S. Election Fraud

A county-level grand jury in Ohio indicted several foreign nationals for election fraud related to the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien announced Thursday that the Franklin County Grand Jury returned indictments against seven foreign nationals who allegedly voted illegally in recent U.S. elections.

Originally, the Secretary of State and Ohio Attorney General referred 36 cases to O’Brien’s office of non-citizens who “had registered and/or voted in recent elections in Franklin County.”

After further investigation by the Board of Elections and Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office, seven foreign nationals, who were not U.S. citizens, were criminally charged “for registering and voting in elections” in Franklin County.

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Strange Endorsement Is Just the Latest Awful Advice Trump Received from Jared Kushner

To no one’s surprise, President Donald Trump is apparently “furious” over his woefully misguided decision to go all-in for Luther Strange in Alabama’s U.S. Senate primary.

It was a decision that blew spectacularly up in the president’s face last night with Strange’s massive 10-point loss to Roy Moore, an outsider much closer in spirit to Trumpism than establishment crony Strange.

In what is becoming a disturbing pattern, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner was apparently one of those who advised the president to back Strange, to once again sail into big, jagged rocks — a humiliation for Trump that anyone with any real-world political sense should have (and did) seen coming from a mile away.

Appointed under shady circumstances, Strange is a walking-talking poster child for everything Trump ran against, a good ole’ boy, Republican establishment backslapper strongly backed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has done nothing but post failure after failure since Trump’s inauguration.

What makes this Kushner catastrophe even more notable than the others (which I will get to), is that this time Trump led with his chin, was out there publicly championing a sure-loser, and most importantly, was doing so in defiance of his own base.

For the first time since he stepped into the political arena, Trump did not look like a leader, he looked led — he looked like a weak politician being handled and manipulated..

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LFL | NATIONAL ANTHEM RESPONSE

Breaking News: Tom Price, the health secretary, has resigned.

Already in trouble with Mr. Trump for months of unsuccessful efforts to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s health care program, Mr. Price failed to defuse the president’s anger over his high-priced travel by agreeing to pay a portion of the cost and expressing “regret” for his actions.

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Addison Russell knocks over Cardinals fan's nachos, delivers him new ones

Some Wounded Warriors Can't Take a Knee, NFL

Whenever I hear about NFL players who take a knee during the national anthem, I am reminded of the double amputees that have returned from America’s wars and the fact that while, because of their sacrifice over centuries, we are entitled to speak freely, none of us are entitled to a particular forum.

NFL players are employees of a larger organization, just like Curt Shilling was when ESPN fired him for what he thought was protected speech. The speech is protected. Your access to a particular forum is not. They are teammates in a sport that pays these allegedly oppressed spoiled brats millions. Their teammates may share a different view, so does the locker room become a game prep area or a debating society? Does the field remain a sporting arena or a campaign rally? Those who take a knee were indeed given that right by many who no longer have knees and are privileged to take a knee in a sport paid for by millions of fans who may disagree with them and who paid to see a game, not a protest. Players who take a knee think they are being patriotic, when they are merely being elf-indulgent and selfish. Go rent out a stadium and invite people to pay just to see you take a knee and see if anybody shows up. The response by the NFL Players Association is disingenuous:

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NEWS IN NUMBERS

15 out of 25

SEPTEMBER 28, 2017

Major metro areas with the highest black-white segregation that are in the Rust Belt.

Source: Brookings

$3 million a day

SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

Money Florida lost by suspending tolls to help speed up evacuations and relief efforts for Hurricane Irma. It amounted to more than $45 million.

Source: CBS Miami

12 hours

SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

Amount of time HealthCare.gov will be shut down on every Sunday but one during open enrollment for maintenance. Critics have accused the Trump administration of intentionally making it harder for the Affordable Care Act to succeed by also shortening the enrollment period and cutting funding for advertising and navigators, people who help others buy ACA insurance.

Source: Kaiser Health News

Less than 1 day

SEPTEMBER 25, 2017

Time it took Gatorade to settle a lawsuit from California accusing the company of false advertising for implying in an online game that drinking water slows runners down. The game has since been disabled, and the state is now $300,000 richer.

Source: AP/The Washington Post

More than 24

SEPTEMBER 22, 2017

Illinois state lawmakers who have either resigned this year or said they won't seek re-election, which is about 15 percent of the General Assembly and an unusually large exodus. Many have cited the state's political gridlock and increasingly angry citizenry as reasons for moving on.

Source: AP/The Southern Illinoisan

36

SEPTEMBER 21, 2017

States that would face federal funding cuts in 2026 if the Graham-Cassidy bill to repeal Obamacare becomes law. Almost all of them expanded Medicaid. Meanwhile, most of the states that didn't expand Medicaid would see an increase in federal funding.

Source: The New York Times

7

SEPTEMBER 20, 2017

Democratic governors and state attorneys general who are women, which accounts for 20 percent representation. The Democratic Attorneys General Association hopes to increase that number and recently launched "the 1881 Initiative" -- named for the first year that a woman ran, unsuccessfully, for state AG -- to help.

Source: The New York Times

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Forget Congress: Trump and the states can fix healthcare on their own

Once again, it appears healthcare reform has died in Congress, and now that time is running out for Republicans to take advantage of the Senate's budget reconciliation rules, it looks as though there's virtually no chance healthcare reform will be passed in the near future.

Adding insult to injury was a Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, statement announcing her rejection of the Graham-Cassidy healthcare proposal, in which she complained the legislation would have cut too much of the federal government's funding of Medicaid and that the bill would "open the door for states to weaken protections for people with pre-existing conditions … Some states could allow higher premiums [and] … could also limit specific categories of benefits for Affordable Care Act policies, such as eliminating coverage for mental health or substance abuse treatment."

Let's get this straight: Collins says she opposes the Graham-Cassidy proposal because it would reduce federal involvement in healthcare and allow states to choose what kind of healthcare policies would work best for their own people. What a stunning statement from a Republican senator and alleged supporter of free-market, pro-liberty reforms!

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McConnell Pledges to Support Roy Moore and Donald Trump’s Agenda

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) congratulated Judge Roy Moore on his blowout victory in the Alabama Senate GOP primary over Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL) — the candidate he backed.

“I would like to congratulate Roy Moore on his victory in Alabama tonight,” McConnell said in a statement.

McConnell added that Moore “ran a spirited campaign centered around dissatisfaction with the progress made in Washington” — not acknowledging his own role as senate majority leader or support for Strange.

“I share that frustration,” McConnell said, pledging to support Trump’s agenda, noting it was what “the American people voted for last November.”

“We look forward to Judge Moore’s help enacting that agenda when he arrives,” he said:

McConnell pledged to back Moore in the general election scheduled for December 12 against Democrat Doug Jones and urged those active in the primary election to “redouble” their efforts in the general election.

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Trump: Ask Senate If They Still Have Confidence in Mitch McConnell

President Donald Trump still has confidence that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can do his job, despite a list of political failures in the Senate.

Two separate efforts to replace Obamacare have failed in the Senate under McConnell’s leadership, and he was dealt a heavy blow after his preferred candidate, Sen. Luther Strange, lost big in Alabama in spite of the establishment’s spending millions to beat outsider candidate Roy Moore.

Trump said Republican senators had to decide for themselves if they still want McConnell to lead them.

“I do have confidence in him, yes,” Trump replied to reporters when asked if he still has confidence in McConnell. “But it’s really not up to me; it’s up to the Senate.”

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Trump ‘Embarassed and Pissed’ by Strange Endorsement Mistake

Multiple reports Wednesday cited White House sources claiming President Donald Trump is “embarrassed” over the outcome of Tuesday’s Alabama U.S. Senate election and understands he made a mistake in endorsing, along with Chamber of Commerce and Republican leadership, Luther Strange over Judge Roy Moore.

Trump “knew [endorsing Strange] was a mistake but one he was willing to make because Luther was loyal,” a senior White House official told CNN. A person familiar with his mindset said the President went to bed “embarrassed and pissed.”

Reportedly, Stephen K. Bannon, Breitbart News executive chairman and, until recently, Trump’s own White House chief strategist, was a particular focus of the president’s anger over Roy Moore’s landslide victory. Bannon pulled out all the stops to rally pro-Moore forces in the closing days of the campaign, making multiple TV appearances, and working to bring a team of populist-nationalist all-stars to the Yellowhammer state for Moore, including former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, ex-UKIP leader Nigel “Mr. Brexit” Farage, Duck Commander founder Phil Robertson, and fellow ex-White House adviser Dr. Sebastian Gorka.

Gorka also emphasized that supporting Moore was a loyal move for Trump supporters like him. He told Fox News’s Brett Baier on Friday:

"The president has gone with the forces of the establishment on this one candidate. But guess what happens – when Judge Moore wins on Tuesday, it will strengthen the president, because now he’ll be able to go to the establishment GOP – to the swamp dwellers and say, ‘Hey guys, we are back on my agenda. This wasn’t worth it.’

Despite his reported frustrations with the defeat of his chosen candidate, Trump appeared Tuesday to have come around to Gorka’s way of thinking on the matter..

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