Trump Touts His Record on Foreign Affairs

Ezekiel Loseke
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Trump Touts His Record on Foreign Affairs

(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) President Donald Trump touted his record of containing Russia, China, and the Taliban in his CPAC speech on Saturday.

Trump pointed out a startling fact.

“I was the only president where Russia didn’t take over a country during my term,” he said.

He explained his success.

“I got along with Vladimir Putin very well,” he said. “I said Moscow would be hit hard.”

Trump explained why he thought his threats were taken seriously.

“He [Putin] probably didn’t believe it,” he said. “But he believed that 10%.”

“He probably thought, I don’t believe him, but there’s a 10% chance. You never know. It’s true.”

Trump then produced evidence for his claim.

“But with Bush, they invaded Georgia, right?” he said. “With Obama, they took Crimea.”

Trump pointed out that things have gotten especially bad with Biden.

“With Biden, they tried to take everything,” he said. “And he won’t even know.”

Trump claimed that his mad-man method also worked on China with president Xi Jinping.

“President Xi knew it too,” he said. “Right now, China has its eyes strongly focused on Taiwan, and we could have a nuclear armed event.”

Trump claimed he even made the Taliban behave.

“I talked to Abul, the leader of Afghanistan, and I got a lot of criticism,” he said. “They said he’s talking to the leader of the Taliban.”

Trump said he did so to protect American soldiers.

“I don’t want to talk to the mothers and fathers who I would speak to a lot,” he said. “I don’t want to talk to them and tell them their son was shot through the head.”

“So I went to Abdul, I went up to them I said, Abdul, don’t kill any more of our soldiers because if you kill our soldiers we are going to hit you harder than any country has ever been hit in the history of the world.”

Trump then said that he disturbed the leader of the Taliban by sending him a picture of his house.

He reiterated that these actors did not misbehave during his presidency. China didn’t threaten Taiwan, Russia didn’t invade the Ukraine, and the Taliban did not blow-up American military movements.

“They knew that they couldn’t do it.”

Army Struggles to Recruit Because of Hostility from Teachers and School Administrators

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Army Struggles to Recruit Because of Hostility from Teachers and School Administrators

(Headline USA) Army recruiters struggling to meet enlistment goals say one of their biggest hurdles is getting into high schools, where they can meet students one on one.

During three days of back-to-back meetings across Chicago last month, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth spoke with students, school leaders, and recruiters.

Again and again, she asked, what can the Army do to better reach young people and sell itself as a good career choice.

In blunt sessions, recruiting leaders told her they need more and better access to high school students. But they also said the atmosphere can at times be unfriendly — or worse — with school leaders, many of whom are skeptical that the Army offers a good career option for their students. “I’m going to use the word hostile,” one recruiter told her. “There’s no other word to use.”

This information comes after the Army’s worst recruiting year in recent history, when it fell 25% short of its 60,000 enlistment goal.

Two years of the coronavirus pandemic shut down recruiters’ access to public events and schools where they could find prospects.

According to estimates, just 23% of young people can meet the military’s fitness, educational and moral requirements, with many disqualified for reasons ranging from medical issues to criminal records and tattoos.

Army leaders say their surveys show that young people don’t see the Army as a prime career choice, often because they don’t want to die or get injured, deal with the stress of military life or put their lives on hold.

In a meeting with Pedro Martinez, the chief executive for Chicago’s public schools, Wormuth noted the recruiters’ frustrations and she pressed for answers on how to fix things.

Martinez agreed that when recruiters try to work with individual schools, and a new recruiter comes in or a counselor leaves, “there’s not always a warm handoff.” He suggested working with the central district office instead.

Swiveling to Lt. Col. Shane Doolan, the recruiting battalion commander for Chicago, Wormuth asked if the team deals well with the central office.

Doolan and other recruiters told Wormuth that they face resistance from teachers’ unions and school board members who don’t see the value in offering students the military as a career option. In some cases, school officials view the military through a post-Vietnam era lens.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Dems and RINOs Seek to Allow Felons to Vote

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Dems and RINOs Seek to Allow Felons to Vote

(Headline USA) RINOs and Democrats are pushing to enable felons to vote in elections.

Restoring the voting rights of former felons drew national attention after Florida lawmakers weakened a voter-approved constitutional amendment and after a new election police unit, championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, arrested 20 felons attempting to vote.

Attempts like those to discourage felons from voting appear to be an outlier among the states.

At least 14 states have introduced proposals this year focused on restoration of voting rights, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

An Oregon proposal would allow felons to vote while incarcerated.

A Tennessee bill would automatically restore voting rights once a sentence is completed, except for a small group of crimes.

Texas legislation would restore voting rights to those on probation or parole.

In Minnesota, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz on Friday signed a bill restoring voting rights to convicted felons as soon as they get out of prison.

A bill moving through the New Mexico Legislature would do the same.

“Restoring voting rights really is an issue where we’ve seen bipartisan momentum,” said Patrick Berry, counsel for the Democracy program at the Brennan Center.

More than 4.6 million felons are currently prohibited from voting in the United States because of felony convictions, according to the Sentencing Project.

Laws vary by state, based on pardon requirements, payment of fines, fees and child support, and when a sentence (including probation and parole) is considered complete.

A bill that would eliminate a two year wait in Nebraska would alter a 2005 law. Before then, felonies in Nebraska brought a lifetime voting ban in most cases.

At the time Nebraska was in step with other states. Now, while a few states require wait times for specific offenses or define completion of a sentence as including things such as fines and restitution, Nebraska is alone in requiring a general waiting period beyond imprisonment and release from parole or probation, said Margaret Love, co-founder and director of the Collateral Consequences Resource Center.

Kathy Wilcot, a member of the University of Nebraska Board of Regents, was the lone dissenter from among the nearly 20 witnesses who spoke on Wayne’s bill.

“I do think that hopefully the waiting period reinforces the fact that voting is something very special, and hopefully that will be part of the things that an individual would consider if they’re tempted to break the law again,” she said.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

NYT: Black Horse Riders Can’t Find Helmets

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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NYT: Black Horse Riders Can’t Find Helmets

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) While actual news sources inform the public about what’s going on in this world, the New York Times publishes an article on its front page about how black women who like to ride on horses can’t find helmets for their thick hair.

The “Pulitzer Prize material” titled “Black Equestrians Want to Be Safe. But They Can’t Find Helmets” was published on Friday and talks about how horse-riding is “a sport that remains overwhelmingly white.”

“Chanel Robbins has been riding horses most of her life, ever since her grandmother traded a cow from their family’s farm in Ontario for a pony when she was 7,” the piece begins.

“About eight years ago, she reconnected with her father, a native of Jamaica. As the two grew closer, Ms. Robbins decided to style her hair in locks, like her dad. But there was a problem: Her riding helmet no longer fit, and she couldn’t find one that did.”

Instead of making a sacrifice as all people who are involved in any kind of sport do, Robbins demanded the world change for her.

“I finally freaking feel like myself, and now society is asking me to change. I just want to be able to ride,” she said.

Robbins, however, is not the only black person who feels that, instead of cutting one’s hair, the whole world must change instead.

“Black equestrians have long felt virtually invisible in a sport that remains overwhelmingly white. For those with natural hair, which for many is a declaration of pride and black identity, finding a helmet that fits properly can be nearly impossible, creating yet another barrier to full inclusion,” the Times wrote.

“Some are now lobbying for change, mindful that horseback riding is among the leading causes of sports-related traumatic brain injury.”

Horse-riding helmet manufacturers stated that they are aware of the “problem,” but said that it is not going to be an easy fix, since it will take a lot of time to produce something that is not even profitable since it targets a very niche market — thick-haired black women who refuse to cut their hair.

Even the leftist readers of the Times criticized Robbins.

“If you play a sport that requires your body to be a particular shape – whether it’s the weight for football, height for basketball, a minimal hairstyle for riding or shaving body hair for swimmers – you do it,” one person, whose comment was top-voted 800+ times, wrote.

“Demanding that things be changed because you prefer a particular look is entitled and unrealistic. I imagine the helmet manufacturers will give the correct responses and do nothing.”

James O’Keefe Brings Pfizer Whistleblower to CPAC Stage

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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James O’Keefe Brings Pfizer Whistleblower to CPAC Stage

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) James O’Keefe brought the Pfizer whistleblower that allowed the viral series in February to happen to CPAC this Saturday.

“We need brave whistleblowers. We need people on the inside. There were people on the inside of Pfizer who helped us obtain this,” he said.

“To be a whistleblower is to step outside the great chain of being, to basically be disconnected from the mothership. That’s sort of like how I feel right now,” O’Keefe said, referring to leaving Project Veritas.

He also said that the whistleblower was scared for her life because she was interrogated in “a room,” had a red van go to her home, was harassed and her loved ones threatened, according to the Post Millennial. Despite all of that, the whistleblower decided to go public on stage, even though she was scared for her life.

“I was worried that I would end up in a body bag, or in a car accident, but I realized that the spirit of fear is not from the Lord,” Debbie, the whistleblower, said.

“As a believer, I knew that I couldn’t just sit there, I couldn’t just sit there and watch. People get lied to, people get gaslit. It made me angry.”

“I think we all need to learn to not be fearful,” she continued.

“Fear is how the enemy controls us. The reason why our country is going the way it’s going is because of fear. People are willing to give up their freedom and their liberty to feel safe. We can’t do that. Freedom is not free.”

“I just want to tell all the people here in this room who are employed, if you guys work for big tech, media, a government agency, it’s your responsibility to stand up. Do not let these people keep getting away with this. If you don’t say something, they’re gonna keep doing it,” she added.

Far-Left ADL Attacks Christian GiveSendGo

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Far-Left ADL Attacks Christian GiveSendGo

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Heather Wilson, the co-founder of the crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo, said during the Conservative Political Action Conference interview that the Anti-Defamation League, an infamous leftist group, smeared her organization.

“The Anti-Defamation League defamed us [without] having any facts behind it,” Wilson said on Thursday.

She said ADL was referring to alleged extremists “who are raising funds for legal fees because we allow that on GiveSendGo [and] because we allow it in the United States of America,” according to the Daily Signal.

Wilson faulted ADL for publishing “a hit piece on GiveSendGo,” referring to ADL’s January report titled “How Bigots and Extremists Collect and Use Millions in Online Donations” because GiveSendGo allows individuals to raise funds for a wide variety of peaceful and legal causes. However, ADL failed to specify that those extremists don’t raise a lot of money.

“So they might put like one or two and if you click on the campaigns they’re quoting, there’s like $400 or $250.”

Wilson also said ADL faulted her organization for enabling people to raise money for their legal defenses, totally forgetting that people are innocent until proven guilty and, therefore, have a right to raise money on any platform that they would use to defend themselves in court.

ADL and others say GiveSendGo allows “extremist terrorists on our platform,” Wilson said, “and it’s just not true unless you want to call everybody that wants to get a good defense, when they found themselves on the wrong side of the law, an extremist terrorist.”

“We can’t do that with the presumption of innocence that is supposed to take place in the United States,” she said.

However, when it comes to raising money on the platform, GiveSendGo does apply certain limits excluding campaigns that would raise money for acts of violence or terrorism, fraud or murder. GiveSendGo also excludes any campaigns that raise money for abortion that the platform considers to be a form of murder and for child abuse, including child mutilations that are also known as “transgender treatments.”

Steve Bannon Slams Fox News at CPAC

Ezekiel Loseke
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Steve Bannon Slams Fox News at CPAC

(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) Steve Bannon, President Trump‘s former strategist, slammed Fox News for not adequately covering President Trump’s 2024 Presidential campaign at CPAC.

The conservative audience stood and cheered as Bannon laid into Fox News on Friday, according to MSN.

“Look at Fox News,” he said. “A guy gave you four years of peace and prosperity, announces he’s going to run again after having it stolen in broad daylight of which they participate in … they cover it live for 20 minutes and then they say if there’s anything newsworthy, we’ll cut back, and they go to some panel and some discussion.”

“Note to Fox Senior management: When Donald J. Trump talks, it’s newsworthy!”

Bannon attacked Fox News boss Rupert Murdock.

“Okay, Murdoch, here’s the way it’s going to be, brother: You’ve disrespected Donald J. Trump long enough. Okay?” Bannon said. “He hasn’t been on Fox News since he announced for presidency.”

“Wouldn’t you think, to have respect for the audience, you would have him back up here to talk about the geopolitical … would, if you had respect for people, wouldn’t you do that?”

Bannon concluded that Fox News does not respect the American people.

“They don’t respect you, read the depositions,” he said. “They have a fear and loathing and contempt for you.”

“You’re the ones that can make changes.”

Bannon suggested that there is only one way for Fox News to make things right.

“The Murdochs immediately have to start covering President Trump,” he said. “Just cover the man.”

“We need to hear the voice of Donald J. Trump.”

Bannon argued that all he was really asking of Fox was fairness.

“Play it straight,” he said. “You play it straight, [and] Donald Trump’s going to win the primary, and Donald Trump’s going to win the presidency.”

Bannon argued that Trump was up against an establishment media and political class.

“Let me leave you with what Trump is up against,” he said. “He’s not up against DeSantis or Nikki Haley or Mike Pompeo. He’s up against Ken Griffin and Mitch McConnell and Murdoch.”

“They have deemed if he wins the primary, they’re going to work for the Democrats, just like they worked for Hillary Clinton.”

Bannon then said that there was only one group of people who could resist the establishment.

“The only people [who] can stop them on the face of the earth are you, you, and you,” he said to the crowd. “MAGA, MAGA, MAGA.”

Oklahoma to Vote on Recreational Marijuana

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Oklahoma to Vote on Recreational Marijuana

(Headline USA) Oklahoma voters will decide Tuesday whether to approve a ballot measure that legalizes recreational marijuana.

Oklahoma already has one of the most liberal medical marijuana programs in the country, with roughly 10% of the state’s adult population having a medical license.

Unlike most other states, Oklahoma has no list of qualifying medical conditions, allows patients to get a recommendation from a doctor online, and gives licenses that are valid for two years.

People in the industry say Oklahoma’s low barrier to entry led to thousands of licensed growers, processors and dispensary operators competing for a limited number of patients. While inflation is causing the cost of many products to go up, marijuana prices at dispensaries have plummeted, and many operators are going out of business. A website for cannabis-related sales shows thousands of Oklahoma grow operations and dispensaries up for sale.

“They allowed for a free-market cannabis industry, and that’s what everyone wanted, but now we need more customers,” said Chip Baker, a grower who also runs a marijuana garden supply shop in Oklahoma City. “There needs to be an influx of people here to buy this product. It’s just simple math.”

While many in Oklahoma’s cannabis industry are eager for recreational sales, opponents include a group of clergy, law enforcement and prosecutors led by former Republican Gov. Frank Keating, an ex-FBI agent. Current Gov. Kevin Stitt and nearly all the Republicans in the Oklahoma Senate also have announced their opposition.

Opponents cite an increase in the amount of Oklahoma marijuana being exported out of state and sold on the black market, as well as criminal activity associated with some marijuana grows, including the execution-style slayings of four Chinese nationals at an illegal marijuana farm in rural Oklahoma.

“SQ 820 throws a match into the middle of what already is a powder keg in rural Oklahoma,” said Logan County Sheriff Damon Devereaux, president of the Oklahoma Sheriffs’ Association.

If approved, Oklahoma would be the 22nd state to legalize cannabis and likely the most conservative, following defeats of similar proposals in Arkansas, North Dakota and South Dakota last year.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Marianne Williamson Formally Challenges Biden for Presidential Nomination

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Marianne Williamson Formally Challenges Biden for Presidential Nomination

(Headline USA) Self-help author Marianne Williamson, whose 2020 White House campaign featured more quirky calls for spiritual healing than actual voter support, launched another longshot bid for the presidency on Saturday, becoming the first Democrat to formally challenge President Joe Biden for the 2024 nomination.

“We are upset about this country, we’re worried about this country,” Williamson told a crowd of more than 600 at a kickoff in the nation’s capital. “It is our job to create a vision of justice and love that is so powerful that it will override the forces of hatred and injustice and fear.”

She tweaked the president, a longtime Amtrak rider, by holding her opening rally at the ornately marble-columned presidential suite at Union Station, Washington’s railway hub.

Biden gave his own speech from Union Station just before last November’s elections.

Williamson, whose red, blue and black campaign signs feature the dual slogans “A New Beginning” and “Disrupt the System,” says she’ll be campaigning in early-voting states on the 2024 election calendar.

That includes New Hampshire, which has threatened to defy a Biden-backed plan by the Democratic National Committee to have South Carolina lead off the nominating contests. Democrats and Republicans in New Hampshire have warned that if Biden skips the state’s unsanctioned primary and a rival wins it, that outcome could prove embarrassing for the sitting president — even if that challenger has no real shot of actually being the nominee.

Striking a defiant tone Saturday, Williamson denounced “those who feel they are the adults in the room” and aren’t taking her candidacy seriously, proclaiming, “Let me in there.”

“I have run for president before. I am not naïve about these forces which have no intention of allowing anyone into this conversation who does not align with their predetermined agenda,” she said. “I understand that, in their mind, only people who previously have been entrenched in the car that brought us into this ditch can possibly be considered qualified to bring us out of it.”

Luke Stowell, 20, a musician and student at American University in Washington who sat in the front row for Williamson’s announcement, said “she has a really nice message that incorporates all of the prejudices and the social structures that inhibit, I think, a lot of people on a daily basis.”

Seated next to him, 24-year-old American University law student Ivan Claudio noted that, should he win a second term, Biden would be in his late 80s by the time he leaves office and “I think it is a cause for concern.”

Biden, the oldest president in U.S. history, would be 86 at the end of a second term. Most people in the United States — and even most Democrats — say they don’t want him to run again, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

“The American people have been trained to expect so little,” she said. “The American people have been played.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Utah’s Governor to Sign Abortion Clinic Ban

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Utah’s Governor to Sign Abortion Clinic Ban

(Headline USA) Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Friday that he plans to sign a measure that would ban abortion clinics from operating in the state.

After passing through the state Senate on Thursday with minor amendments, it returned to the Utah House of Representatives Friday morning, where it was approved and then sent to the governor for final approval. The move comes less than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision, returning the power to regulate abortions to states.

Cox told reporters that he will sign the legislation.

The measure is one of several that members of Utah’s Republican-supermajority statehouse has passed this year while abortion restrictions approved in years past are on hold because of a state court injunction.

Republican lawmakers’ push to shutter abortion clinics comes as red states throughout the country work to implement restrictions after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

In Utah, the ruling triggered two previously passed laws — a 2019 ban on abortion after 18 weeks and a 2020 ban on abortions regardless of trimester.

The clinic-centered push in Utah is unique among states with trigger laws, where many abortion clinics closed after last year’s Supreme Court decision including in West Virginia and Mississippi. The measure mirrors a raft of proposals passed in red states in the decade before Roe was overturned when pro-life lawmakers passed measures regulating clinics.

In Utah, the proposal from Rep. Karianne Lisonbee would require all abortions — via medication or surgery — be provided in hospitals by not allowing new clinics to be licensed after May 2 and not allowing any to operate once their licenses expire. It would affect the operations of the four clinics that provide abortions in Utah — three run by Planned Parenthood and the other by Wasatch Women’s Center, an independent clinic in Salt Lake City.

In Utah last year, clinics provided most abortions.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

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