‘Since becoming one of the leading Republican foils for President Donald Trump, Kasich’s star has grown…’
John Kasich/IMAGE: CNN via Youtube
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) When it comes to NeverTrump Republicans, Ohio’s lame-duck Gov. John Kasich may not be the belle of the ball, but he can still make a pretty good living pooh–poohing the party leader on cable news shows.
An analysis by Cleveland.com showed a spike in Kasich’s appearances on five major Sunday talk shows in his second term as governor, up to and around his 2016 GOP presidential primary run, and continuing to flourish as he fashioned himself into a center–right critic of President Donald Trump.
“Since becoming one of the leading Republican foils for President Donald Trump, Kasich’s star has grown, and he’s devoted more and more time to national media appearances,” wrote the website’s Seth Richardson.
During his presidential run, between July 2015 and May 2016, Kasich made 42 appearances on the Sunday shows.
After a dip in the second half of 2016, as he presumably refocused himself on the task of running Ohio, Kasich’s appearances began to rise again, with 27 network segments in 2017 and 2018. No word on whether those were paid or unpaid appearances.
Kasich hosted the show “Heartland” on Fox News from 2001 to 2007, prior to his 2010 gubernatorial election, but curiously enough, his former network—and the one most often labeled as “conservative”—had him on the least both during and after the election.
His visits to Fox News since the 2016 election have numbered only three, while he has appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” 12 times during that span.
Kasich has publicly mused that he may try to return to a regular television spot, likely as the Republican token on one of the left-skewing networks.
However, he is also continuing to weigh the possibility of another Republican primary challenge against Trump, or even a third-party run.
Either way, he will continue doing what he does best: undermining the Trump agenda while masquerading for the Left as a voice of reason.
The Cleveland.com report said the brand-conscious Kasich, who began promoting his cable news appearances on Twitter around 2017, received his top retweets from posts that took direct aim at criticizing the president.
America is an idea. It’s not about money. That’s what President @realDonaldTrump doesn’t understand. Americans have died for our FREEDOMS, not so a select few can get rich. We need to stand for our values. pic.twitter.com/vaRRDhjat4
A June 2018 poll by Quinnipiac University showed that he had a 57 percent favorable rating from Democrats in the state, compared with only 46 percent from Republicans.
Likewise, the majority of Ohio Democrats (52 percent) wanted Kasich to run for president against Trump in 2020, while a whopping 73 percent of Ohio Republicans opposed the idea.
‘I can sink and ruin a perfectly good movie and a so–so career in one speech…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) A bold prediction for 2019: Christian Bale’s stock will soon plunge.
The actor, already notorious for his tyrannical on-set behavior, went off the deep end at Sunday’s Golden Globes, alienating a sizable market share with petty comments about former Vice President Dick Cheney, whom he portrayed in the movie Vice.
“Thank you to Satan for giving me inspiration on how to play this role,” he said.
Ironically, Bale—who was recently named the 11th most bankable star of 2018, with an average lifetime box-office gross of just under $91 million (driven largely by the “Dark Knight” franchise)—demonstrated remarkable self-awareness and prescience in his two-minute speech.
Immediately before taking the nuclear option on his career by going political, Bale thanked his wife for telling him “less is more” and reminding him that he “can sink and ruin a perfectly good movie and a so–so career in one speech.”
On Monday, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the daughter of the former veep, fired back on Twitter, reminding people of the Batman actor’s less-than-stellar personal code of conduct.
Satan probably inspired him to do this, too. Christian Bale arrested for ‘assault on mother and sister’| The Independent. https://t.co/kesnNno9Zv
The Golden Globes is known for being a more free-wheeling, off-the-cuff alternative to the Academy Awards, evident from the ample bottles of Moet champagne on the tables at Sunday’s ceremony.
It also has been known for ginning up political controversy, as when Meryl Streep used the podium to attack President Donald Trump two years ago.
Many in the industry speculated that Streep hoped her virtue-signaling might give her an edge with Oscar voters in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Ultimately, that effort fell short, although the rant did earn her a tweeted response from Trump.
Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a…..
The fallout from liberal grandstanding was apparent as last year’s awards ceremonies faced record declines in viewership. But apart from Bale’s speech, this year’s Golden Globes ceremony was, in fact, notably apolitical, perhaps suggesting behind-the-scenes pressure from producers to quell the ratings losses.
Some public figures in recent memory have found that political posturing can reap dividends when marketed properly. The controversy generated by Nike last year for hiring NFL anthem-kneeler Colin Kaepernick took the athletic-apparel company’s stocks to an all-time high by rebranding it to millennial consumers as both socially aware and anti-establishment.
In Hollywood, A-list stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Angelina Jolie who express cause-awareness that is generally benign—albeit insufferably preachy—have been able to maintain their brand, whether in spite of or because of their political bent.
However, direct affronts on red-state viewers’ values and political sensibilities rarely pay off, particularly where hypocrisy is concerned.
Likewise, gratuitous attempts at forcing progressive “wokeness” onto audiences have proven miscalculated, as revealed by 2016’s all-female “Ghostbusters” remake, which despite a $144 million production budget pulled only $128 million domestically (although it was able to recoup its losses in foreign receipts for a net gain of $85 million).
By contrast, conservative moviegoers have rewarded major releases that support their values, such as two of the top-grossing R-rated films of all time, Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ (net gain $581 million over production costs) and Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper (net gain $488 million over production costs).
Bale’s Vice opened Christmas Day and thus far has pulled only around $30 million in the box office—half its estimated production cost.
But the Cheney biopic—which was unlikely to draw conservative audiences from the start, and tempered its expectations accordingly—is desperately hoping to court favor with its niche audience of leftist hatemongers in Tinseltown itself.
“The fate of Vice depends on how it fares with critics and moviegoers,” wrote IndieWire. “But no matter what happens in that arena (and the fate of [production company] Annapurna may hang in the balance, as this smart, angry liberal movie cost some $60 million), screen actors will give Bale and [Amy] Adams the love.”
It’s a risky gambit that may have necessitated Bale’s headline-grabbing Globes performance in order to generate the buzz it needs to become Oscar bait. But short of a Faustian deal with the devil, history says it will likely backfire, with potentially disastrous consequences for its leading man.
‘The far-Left was so busy cheerleading Barack Obama’s wave of social experimentation that they never stopped to ask how those policies were received by the people they affected most…’
IMAGE: YouTube
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) A protracted legal battle over transgenders in the military took another step toward an inevitable Supreme Court showdown as a D.C. appeals court sided with Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump over the military assessments of activist liberal benches.
Although the appellate court overturned one lower court ruling, several other federal judges have also issued injunctions blocking Trump’s ban on transgender soldiers from taking effect.
Solicitor General Noel Francisco filed a request in November asking the Supreme Court to bypass the normal process in order to fast-track a decision on the four separate injunctions.
“The decisions imposing those injunctions are wrong, and they warrant this Court’s immediate review,” Francisco wrote.
Trump first put forward the idea after consulting with generals and military experts in July 2017, announcing it in a pair of tweets:
….victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you
Although a financial analysis determined that the Trump policy would save $8.4 million annually by breaking from the Obama-era approach of paying for service-people to have gender-reassignment operations, the judges said reversing the Obama protocol—which was first implemented in 2016—would be far too disruptive.
“There is absolutely no support for the claim that the ongoing service of transgender people would have any negative effect on the military at all,” District Judge Colleen Kollar–Kotelly ruled. “In fact, there is considerable evidence that it is the discharge and banning of such individuals that would have such effects.”
The service members “are already suffering harmful consequences such as the cancellation and postponements of surgeries, the stigma of being set apart as inherently unfit, facing the prospect of discharge and inability to commission as an officer, the inability to move forward with long-term medical plans, and the threat to their prospects of obtaining long-term assignments.”
The judges not only thwarted the outright ban, but even fought against other changes in policy, such as halting the recruitment of transgendered troops or ending the government funding of their sex-change surgeries.
The troops “are already suffering harmful consequences such as the cancellation and postponements of surgeries, the stigma of being set apart as inherently unfit, facing the prospect of discharge and inability to commission as an officer, the inability to move forward with long-term medical plans, and the threat to their prospects of obtaining long-term assignments,” said District Judge Marvin Garbis.
According to recent surveys, including one by Military Times, service members overwhelmingly support Trump, with his approval rating among active-duty troops triple that of Obama.
A poll by Smithsonian magazine of 1,031 service members said 61 percent of troops supported the transgender ban.
“The far-Left was so busy cheerleading Barack Obama’s wave of social experimentation that they never stopped to ask how those policies were received by the people they affected most,” wrote Tony Perkins for the religious values think-tank Family Research Council. “Now, two years into the Trump era of putting war-fighting first, new polls are showing just how relieved the rank and file are.”
‘They only want to impeach me because they know they can’t win in 2020…’
Editors Note: This article contains profanity.
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) It would take an awful lot of disgraceful behavior to fill the shoes of former Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the long-serving octogenarian congressman who resigned in 2017 amid shocking sexual harassment and misconduct allegations.
But his successor, Rashida Tlaib, seems poised to do just that—and is already off to a strong start.
In her first day on the job, Tlaib help set the tone for the 116th Congress and candidly revealed the Democratic majority’s chief legislative agenda by declaring of President Donald Trump, “[W]e’re gonna impeach the motherf***er.”
Tlaib was addressing a gathering of liberal activists with the group Move On when she made the remarks, according to Mediaite.
Prior to making the comments, she had spoken about the meaningfulness of being a role-model for young girls. “I cannot wait to inspire the next generation,” she said.
She also told the George Soros-backed organization, “For me it’s really about taking down these corporate billionaires.”
The impeachment remark was one of many such indicators from House Democrats, including newly elevated Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who, despite previous comments downplaying the possibility of partisan impeachment efforts, refused on Thursday to rule it out.
The drumbeat elicited a response from Trump, who said in a pair of tweets, “They only want to impeach me because they know they can’t win in 2020, too much success!”
How do you impeach a president who has won perhaps the greatest election of all time, done nothing wrong (no Collusion with Russia, it was the Dems that Colluded), had the most successful first two years of any president, and is the most popular Republican in party history 93%?
Tlaib, a former state representative, ran with no significant opposition in Michigan’s 13th District, comprising the predominantly African–American outskirts of Detroit, and became the first Palestinian–American elected to Congress, as well as one of the first Muslim women. She was sworn in Thursday on Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy of the Quran.
However, those historic milestones in identity politics have been eclipsed by the negative press she has received for anti-Semitic rhetoric—as well as her virulent, often obscene attacks on Trump.
On the day after Christmas, Tlaib coarsely criticized the president over the death of a Guatemalan child in custody at the U.S.–Mexico border.
In fact, she credited Trump’s election with being a “bat-signal” that caused her to run and first rose to prominence after heckling Trump at a rally, according to a CNN interview following her primary victory.
‘It took nearly no time at all for these new members to succumb to the pressure from D.C. Democrats and break their promise…’
Nancy Pelosi/IMAGE: CNN via Youtube
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Although increasingly befuddled at times in recent years, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D.-Calif., proved shrewd enough to deftly navigate the political waters into a reprise role as the country’s third-most powerful person.
The 69-year-old San Francisco congresswoman not only garnered the surprise support of President Donald Trump—despite a tooth-and-nail battle over border-wall funding—in her bid to become speaker of the House, but she also was able to stave off challenges from the far-left by negotiating a package of rules changes and leadership positions in the new Congress.
In the end, 19 newly elected Democrats who made campaign pledges to oppose Pelosi’s push for speaker fell in line for the final tally, enabling Pelosi to defeat GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy and claim the speaker’s gavel.
The conservative America Rising PAC made hay of their capitulation in a message to supporters. “Their constituents will be less than pleased to learn it took nearly no time at all for these new members to succumb to the pressure from D.C. Democrats and break their promise.”
Those who flip-flopped on their opposition to Pelosi were:
Two others who abstained by voting “present” were Elissa Slotkin and Jeff Van Drew.
America Rising also produced a short video montage showing the new congresspeople making their pledges.
‘In the history of American politics, there has never been a gubernatorial candidate more embroiled in political scandal and questionable financial dealings than Terry McAuliffe…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Those hoping the Clinton era ended with the 2016 election may have to wait a little longer.
Even if on-again, off-again contender Hillary Clinton ultimately decides not to try for a third time, one of the Clintons’ closest allies, former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, confirmed on Sunday what many have long assumed.
The one-time fundraiser and all-around henchman for the Clintons told Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he now has his own aspirations for the Oval Office—not to mention the White House’s lucrative Lincoln Bedroom.
“I’m obviously looking at it,” McAuliffe said. “I’ve got time. I’ve got a lot of great relationships. I have 40 years of working for this party.”
‘Sharp Elbows’
Although McAuliffe declined to outright declare his candidacy, he offered a preview of his sales pitch, touting his executive experience as Virginia governor, as well as his extensive Rolodex from previous stints as a fundraiser and chair of the Democratic National Committee.
“People want politicians to get results,” he said. “That’s why I think governors are always important. We have to balance budgets. We have to build roads. We have to clean the roads. We have to fund education. Very results-oriented.”
However, McAuliffe’s long record of involvement in Democratic politics may also be a liability.
Although he—and others in the media echo chamber—will no doubt emphasize his ability to turn a previously red state into solid-blue territory and attempt to paint him as a fiscally conservative moderate, McAuliffe is far from it.
Even The Washington Post in analyzing his CNN ‘audition tape’ seemed to acknowledge that among McAuliffe’s biggest assets to the party was his bag of dirty tricks. “Democrats may not be keen on McAuliffe—for a host of good reasons,” it said. “But they need to embrace his message: optimism, realism and a couple of sharp elbows.”
A Slimy Legacy
As with all things Clinton-related, McAuliffe’s main legacy as Virginia governor was the slimy residue he left behind.
Many of his top priorities, in fact, focused on securing the state for Clinton during the 2016 race, if not serving his own personal interests.
For McAuliffe, who narrowly won in Virginia by a margin of only 56,000 votes—his lead coming, suspiciously, from a single county in the twilight hours of the vote tabulation—the extra cushion of Democratic voters from the prison-to-polling-station pipeline was merely one piece of the puzzle.
Despite clear evidence of thousands of illegal immigrants casting ballots in the state, he also repeatedly vetoed voter reform efforts and pressured jurisdictions not to cooperate with watchdog groups seeking to inspect the tainted voter rolls.
And he was at the heart of the FBI’s bias scandal, functioning as a middleman for the Clintons once again by providing $675,288 in payments through political action committees to fund the 2015 state Senate campaign of Jill McCabe while her husband, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, was helping oversee the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?
Another advantage of McAuliffe’s in securing the Virginia governor’s mansion was the influx of dark money.
“In the history of American politics, there has never been a gubernatorial candidate more embroiled in political scandal and questionable financial dealings than Terry McAuliffe,” said Chris LaCivita, a strategist for McAuliffe’s GOP opponent, Ken Cuccinelli.
With help from billionaire donors including Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg, McAuliffe was able to raise and spend nearly twice that of Cuccinelli in the Virginia race.
But with both Steyer and Bloomberg eyeing their own 2020 presidential bids, McAuliffe may instead have to put in some calls to his old friends in China.
If McAuliffe were to take on Trump, though, his days as a Clinton bundler and his partnerships with foreign nationals would surely be scrutinized.
McAuliffe defended the Clintons’ suspicious fundraising activity in a 2015 interview with The Washington Post: “If the biggest attack on Hillary’s going to be that she raised too much money for her charity, okay, I’ll take that,” he said. “No one’s alleging anything beyond that she raised money and people gave her money and foreign governments gave her money. At the end of the day, that’s fine. It went to a charity. It helped a lot of people.”
Since then, however, many other allegations against the Clinton Foundation have cropped up. Most recently, a hearing by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees revealed that the Clintons frequently blurred the lines between their charity and personal interests, and likely used foundation money given by foreign entities during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of State to effectively operate an unregulated slush fund for her 2016 campaign.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, testifying at the congressional hearing, said, “There’s no wall of separation between the Clinton Foundation and the Department of State. It’s so bad that the crown prince [of Saudi Arabia] couldn’t get a meeting with Mrs. Clinton through the State Department, so he went to the Clinton Foundation.”
Chinagate
Bill & Hillary Clinton/IMAGE: YouTube
When it comes to shady foreign dealings, the Clinton Foundation was but the tip of the iceberg for McAuliffe.
McAuliffe worked closely with Loral Space and Communications, a company that lobbied on behalf of the Chinese—and whose chairman, Bernard Schwartz, was a top Democratic donor.
While nearly 100 people fled the country or took the Fifth in the aftermath—and Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, whose department was deeply involved, tragically died in a plane crash during the proceedings—the scandal was largely overlooked by the media.
GreenTech
McAuliffe—along with business partner Tony Rodham, brother to Hillary Clinton—also was at the center of an Obama-era scam involving electric-car company GreenTech, which faced multiple investigations and allegations that it abused a special visa program to give permanent residency to its Chinese investors.
The Free Beacon reported that the business received special treatment from the Department of Homeland Security due to McAuliffe’s “persistent and obnoxious” lobbying. DHS Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas wrote that after attempting to deny visas to GreenTech investors he received several voicemails from McAuliffe that were “laced with expletives at a high volume.”
McAuliffe resigned from the company prior to his 2013 gubernatorial run, and GreenTech subsequently declared bankruptcy after coming under fire from Watchdog.org.
‘We have these teams coming in to play in our Sun Bowl this weekend and the hotels are booked…’
After being released from ICE detention centers, illegal immigrants turn to nonprofit shelters for food handouts and other necessities. IMAGE/CBS News via Youtube
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) For years, the debate between Republicans and Democrats was how best to curb illegal immigration.
Under former President Barack Obama, who refused to enforce existing immigration law and encouraged families to leave their undocumented minors on America’s doorstep, the Left shifted its argument to “What’s the big deal?”
Now, as the scourge of the weakened immigration policies comes home to roost, leaving both law enforcement and humanitarian agencies overwhelmed on both sides of the border, Democrats have again moved the goalpost, asking “How dare you deny their entitlements?”
The shift in trajectory became clear this week as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, overwhelmed by new arrivals of caravan migrants flooding the border who have brought illness and other critical needs with them, released hundreds—possibly thousands—of formerly detained immigrants into the border town of El Paso, Texas.
ICE’s Office of Public Affairs was unavailable to respond to Liberty Headlines’ inquiry into the official count or reasons for the releases due to the government shutdown. However, media outlets on site reported that around 1,600 had already been released as of Friday with more expected next week.
Some linked it with the Flores settlement’s “catch and release” policy, which limits the length of time children—and thus families—can remain in detention, perhaps indicating that the recent influx of caravan migrants had hit this limit.
The deaths of two Guatemalan children recently while in detention also has led to exasperation at the Department of Homeland Security, which is being burdened by medical screenings on top of a more than 86 percent surge in illegal border crossings over last year.
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a recent statement, “Our system has been pushed to a breaking point by those who seek open borders,” while appealing to politicians and immigrant families alike to stop endangering children’s lives.
Nielsen was expected to travel to El Paso on Friday to inspect the situation firsthand.
Vox, a frequent mouthpiece of the extreme and irrational Left, articulated the angst that liberals now felt over the Trump administration giving them exactly what they had wished for by releasing the detainees:
“Amid growing scrutiny of Border Patrol detention conditions, the new release plan may seem welcome to Trump critics,” it wrote. “But that raises the question of where all those newly released families will go; who will help them adjust to life in the United States; and how they will get to where they need to go while awaiting their immigration court hearings.”
In El Paso, the nonprofit shelters forced to accommodate the influx complained about having the rug yanked from underneath them by the federal government.
Some, after being stretched to capacity were forced to turn away those seeking asylum from the winter cold under their roofs.
Rep. Beto O’Rourke, fresh off one of the most expensive Senate races in history, called on donors to assist while pointing the finger at ICE for creating the crisis.
“ICE made a mistake yesterday,” O’Rourke said Monday, according to the El Paso Times. “I don’t think it was intentional. I think they made a mistake in not alerting the community.”
But some elected officials’ spirit of forgiveness quickly gave way to angry demands that the federal agencies do something to take the problem off their hands.
Veronica Escobar/IMAGE: EPCC TV via Youtube
“This really is a federal obligation, and the federal government needs to step in and build some temporary housing facilities,” said Democrat Rep.-elect Veronica Escobar.
Escobar, who will take over the congressional seat being vacated by O’Rourke next week, said the immigration scourge could potentially wreak havoc on El Paso’s weekend tourism.
“We have these teams coming in to play in our Sun Bowl this weekend and the hotels are booked,” Escobar said, according to CBS News. “We’re facing a real crisis coming up … to find places for all of these [migrant] families.”
But despite the streak of NIMBYism, Escobar, touted as one of the first Latinas to represent Texas in Congress, maintained that her district will continue to welcome the immigrants and provide for them.
“As a community, we are going to do whatever we need to do to take care of these people,” she said. “They are vulnerable. They deserve compassion. And help. And support. And El Pasoans always rise to that occasion.”
With the announcement of another caravan planned for Jan. 15 to transport 15,000 migrants from Honduras to the U.S. border, Escobar will almost certainly be given the opportunity to have that resolve tested soon.
‘The president’s visit made fools of these critics…’
President Donald Trump visits troops in Iraq over Christmas./IMAGE: @realdonaldtrump screenshot via Twitter
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) With Wall Street, Capitol Hill and everywhere in between closed for the Christmas holiday, the non-stop flow of the news stream slowed to a drip this week.
Some newsrooms fell back on their “evergreens”—feel-good puff pieces, pre-planned and canned for use anytime.
Not so for the trolls at certain left-wing outlets, where the reflexive instinct to any story is to seek the Trump-bashing angle. Feasting on a string of negative headlines, they attempted to paint it as the president’s worst week ever.
But those expecting Trump to let down his guard for the holidays did so at their own peril as he once again reversed courses and left many with eggnog on their face following a surprise troop visit in Iraq.
Clinging to the familiar narratives, biased liberal outlets that were poised to savage Trump for taking a break during the government shutdown dispatched their crews to his Florida retreat, Mar-a-lago, only to find he wasn’t there.
The despondent journalists found themselves forced instead to torch Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, relying on a handful of random social media posts and paparazzi photos to justify the coverage.
Meanwhile, as the president canceled his plans—presumably so he could suffer the shutdown alone at the White House—the remaining “journalists” dug into the archives to try to ascertain what Trump wasn’t doing that he ought to be.
The Media Research Center reported that the echo chamber soon found its scoop. Starting with NBC, several outlets chimed in by criticizing him for being the first president since 2002 not to visit troops over Christmastime.
That alone may have seemed a bit ironic given Trump’s recent announcement that he was planning to withdraw troops from Syria and substantially reduce the forces in Afghanistan—moves which the typically anti-military media suddenly found itself indignant over.
But it became especially awkward when the news broke that Donald and Melania Trump had, in fact, made a surprise visit to Iraq, followed shortly thereafter by a visit to troops in Germany.
This left desperate media hacks scrambling for any other angle they could find to criticize Trump for doing exactly what they had criticized him for not doing (and fawned over his predecessor for doing).
Some even had the audacity to attack the troops who enthusiastically received the president.
CNN will attack anyone who supports President Trump, including the brave men and women of our military who fight everyday to protect our freedom https://t.co/x6VjuUJFdF
After noticing the double-standard in place between the Obama and Trump visits, The Washington Post obligingly ran a story to point out the contrasts, if only to go out of its way to try to pin each and every hypocritical media narrative onto Trump himself.
“The contrast between the two trips is sometimes stark—not just because of the timing, but also because of the very different tone they put on display,” The Post reached. “This itself is a reflection of the different personalities of the two men as commanders in chief, as well as the dramatic changes that have taken place in the Middle East in the past nine years.”
Much to its credit, despite its newsroom joining in the ballyhooing of the Iraq visit, USA Today ran an opinion piece by Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer of the London Center for Policy Research pointing out the overwhelming duplicity of the press coverage.
“The visit counters the false narrative that the liberal media and anti-Trump politicians have been working to construct about our commander in chief,” Shaffer said. “Instead of admitting to their error, they attack him for the visit.”
But, as is often the case when the media attempts to construct a narrative, Trump got the last laugh, said Shaffer.
“The president’s visit made fools of these critics. The troops’ enthusiastic welcome of their commander in chief and the Trumps’ Christmastime visit shows that the president cares first and foremost for the safety and well-being of the young Americans we rely on to protect us,” he said. “And the president’s foreign policy decisions show he is far more concerned about the price of war—and of individual sacrifice—than his recent predecessors.”
But after a controversial decree banning bump stocks that gun advocates said violated both the Constitution and all legal precedent, the Trump administration now faces friendly fire from conservatives seeking injunctive relief.
“[I]f anyone thought the election of Donald Trump would put the Second Amendment community on ‘Easy Street,’ this apparently will not be the case,” said Erich Pratt, executive director for Gun Owners of America, in an e-mail to supporters. “But we have fought gun-grabbers in dire circumstances before.”
GOA and several other pro-firearm stakeholders filed suit Wednesday in the Western Michigan District court challenging the recent policy change in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that would reclassify bump stocks as fully-automatic weaponry.
“ATF’s re-classification of bump stocks as machineguns is a political decision designed to circumvent the legislative process, not a legal one based on any technical evaluation,” said the complaint. “It ignores the plain text of the statute, and all prior ATF determinations and opinions.”
The plaintiffs contended that Trump’s decision was based solely on political pressure following incidents such as last year’s Las Vegas shooting at the Mandalay Bay hotel, where murderer Stephen Paddock was believed to have used guns that included bump-stock attachments to massacre 58 concert-goers in a barrage of rapid fire.
However, the plaintiffs said, “The classification of bump stocks as machine guns is arbitrary and capricious, contrary to law, obfuscates the way bump stocks operate, and reaches an irrational decision, unsupportable in either law or fact.”
While bump-stocks do, in the hands of trained users, permit a quicker firing technique, they do not change the guns mechanically into fully automatic weapons since the trigger mechanism still functions the same, requiring a separate push for each shot.
“Bump stocks are nothing more than a type of firearm stock (usually plastic) that fits loosely over the firearm, allowing the firearm to reciprocate back-and-forth freely,” said the suit.
Pratt warned in his email that the ATF ban, if it were allowed to take effect, would set in motion what might be an alarming precedent.
“If the bump stock converts an AR-15 into a machine gun, then AR-15s could be next on the chopping block,” he said. “After all, there are other items which can help bump fire an AR-15: rubber bands, belt loops, etc.”
The suit seeking the injunction was filed the same day as the new policy was published in the Federal Registry, giving bump-stock owners until March 26—without further court intervention—to destroy their devices or turn them in to a local ATF bureau.
“Unless you destroy or surrender your bump stock within 90 days (with no compensation whatsoever) and sign a form saying you waive all your constitutional rights, the ATF is claiming that you are a felon—subject to 10 years in prison,” Pratt said.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., responded to the initial policy change and GOA lawsuit by saying in a Washington Post opinion piece that legislation was also needed to reinforce the executive order.
“[L]et’s not celebrate too quickly,” wrote Feinstein. “Presidents can rescind regulations just as easily as they create them, and in this case, the bump stock ban will likely be tied up in court for years.”
Pratt said filing the suit in Michigan ensured that it could move through the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has proven itself to be supportive of gun rights, perhaps en route to a Supreme Court challenge.
In the meantime, plaintiffs hoped the injunction would be enough to block gun-confiscation efforts and allow due process to take its course.
“You may or may not own a bump stock,” said Pratt. “You may or may not like bump stocks. But you can bet that the goal of gun grabbers is, ultimately, not just banning bump stocks, but, rather, putting ‘points on the board’ toward its goal of banning civilian ownership of all firearms.”
‘Our system has been pushed to a breaking point by those who seek open borders…’
Kirstjen Nielsen/PHOTO: World Economic Forum via Creative Commons
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Following the second illness-related death recently of a Guatemalan immigrant child in Border Patrol custody Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen condemned activist judges and other illegal immigration advocates for incentivizing the dangerous journey.
“Our system has been pushed to a breaking point by those who seek open borders,” Nielsen said in a statement.
Although only one in 10 asylum-seekers is granted it, Nielsen said there had been an 86 percent surge in illegal border crossings compared with last year due to “a system that encourages bad actors to coach aliens into making frivolous claims.”
The uptick in unaccompanied minors and families is the result of former President Barack Obama’s decision not to enforce deportation through his Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals policy.
Despite President Donald Trump’s efforts to end the program, liberal judges in the 9th District court, notorious for issuing injunctions against him, have refused to allow him to undo his predecessor’s executive fiat.
In addition, the courts helped to block Trump’s child-separation policy for families arriving at the border.
Since the children can only be detained for a period of around three weeks when there is a guardian to release them to, this means the entire family is released into the U.S.
“To those in Congress who continue to refuse to take action to address the loopholes that cause a flood of humanity to travel north and place children at risk, I once again call on you to do your job,” said Nielsen.
Although she was highly critical of the politics behind it, Nielsen said DHS will continue to do everything within its means to ensure the well-being of the children taken into custody, including an in-depth look at the medical screenings process with help from the Centers for Disease Control, Coast Guard and Department of Defense to provide additional expertise and manpower to the Border Patrol.
Due to the increased numbers of children suffering respiratory illnesses, dehydration and other conditions that may be exacerbated by the journey, Nielsen said all children apprehended now will receive a thorough medical assessment, even if the accompanying adult does not ask for one.
However, she warned that there would continue to be limit on Border Patrol’s ability to provide medical services.
“Given the remote locations of their illegal crossing and the lack of resources, it is even more difficult for our personnel to be first responders.”
