Trump to Crack Down on Software Connected to Chinese Communist Party

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Trump to Crack Down on Software Connected to Chinese Communist Party

(Headline USA) President Donald Trump plans to take action on a broad array of national security risks presented by software connected to the Chinese Communist Party, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday.

Pompeo’s remarks followed reports that Microsoft is in advanced talks to buy the U.S. operations of TikTok, which has been a source of national security and censorship concerns for the Trump administration.

“These Chinese software companies doing business in the United States, whether it’s TikTok or WeChat — there are countless more … are feeding data directly to the Chinese Communist Party, their national security apparatus,” Pompeo said on FOX News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures.

“Could be their facial recognition patterns. It could be information about their residence, their phone numbers, their friends, who they’re connected to. Those — those are the issues that President Trump has made clear we’re going to take care of.”

Trump had said on Friday that he would soon ban TikTok in the United States.

A federal committee is reviewing whether that’s possible, and its members agree that TikTok cannot remain in the U.S. in its current form, because it “risks sending back information on 100 million Americans,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

“We all agree there has to be a change…everybody agrees it can’t exist as it does,” Mnuchin said Sunday on ABC News This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

As speculation grew over a ban or sale of the social media’s U.S. business, TikTok posted a video on Saturday saying: “We’re not planning on going anywhere.”

TikTok’s catchy videos and ease of use has made it popular, and it says it has tens of millions of users in the U.S. and hundreds of millions globally.

Its parent company, Bytedance Ltd., launched TikTok in 2017. It bought Musical.ly, a video service popular with teens in the U.S. and Europe, and combined the two. It has a similar service, Douyin, for users in China.

But TikTok’s Chinese ownership has raised concern about the potential for sharing user data with Chinese officials as well as censorship of videos critical of the Chinese government.

TikTok says it does not censor videos and it would not give the Chinese government access to U.S. user data.

“The President, when he makes his decision, will make sure that everything we have done drives us as close to zero risk for the American people,” Pompeo said. “That’s the mission set that he laid out for all of us when we get — we began to evaluate this now several months back. We’re closing in on a solution. And I think you will see the president’s announcement shortly.”

The debate over TikTok parallels a broader U.S. security crackdown on Chinese companies, including telecom providers Huawei and ZTE.

The Trump administration has ordered that the U.S. stop buying equipment from those providers to be used in U.S. networks.

Trump has also tried to steer allies away from Huawei over concerns that the Chinese government has access to its data, which Huawei denies.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

Supreme Court Allows Trump to Keep Building Border Wall

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Supreme Court Allows Trump to Keep Building Border Wall

(Headline USA) The Supreme Court decided by a 5-4 vote Friday to let the Trump administration continue construction of portions of the border wall with Mexico.

The court’s four liberal justices dissented, saying they would have prohibited construction while a court challenge continues, after a federal appeals court ruled in June that the administration had illegally sidestepped Congress in transferring the Defense Department funds.

“The Court’s decision to let construction continue nevertheless I fear, may operate, in effect, as a final judgment,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in a brief dissent for the four liberals.

Friday’s order means the court is not likely even to consider the substance of the issue until after the November election, while work on the wall continues.

Last summer, at an earlier stage in the case, the justices also split 5-4 to allow the administration to begin construction using $2.5 billion in Defense Department funds.

That allowed President Donald Trump to make progress on a major 2016 campaign promise heading into his race for a second term.

The administration wanted to use the money to replace a total of 129 miles (208 kilometers) of rundown or outdated fencing in New Mexico, Arizona and California.

As of mid-July, 92 miles (148 kilometers) have been completed according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The case has its origins in the 35-day partial government shutdown that started in December of 2018. Trump ended the shutdown after Congress gave him approximately $1.4 billion in border wall funding, but that was far less than the $5.7 billion he was seeking.

Trump then declared a national emergency to take cash from other government accounts to use to construct sections of wall.

At the time, the money Trump identified included $2.5 billion in Defense Department money, $3.6 billion from military construction funds and $600 million from the Treasury Department’s asset forfeiture fund.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

Court Overturns Boston Marathon Bomber’s Death Sentence

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Court Overturns Boston Marathon Bomber’s Death Sentence

(Headline USA) A federal appeals court Friday threw out Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, saying the judge who oversaw the case did not adequately screen jurors for potential biases.

A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new penalty-phase trial on whether the 27-year-old Tsarnaev should be executed for the attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others.

“But make no mistake: Dzhokhar will spend his remaining days locked up in prison, with the only matter remaining being whether he will die by execution,” Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson wrote in the ruling, more than six months after arguments were heard in the case.

An attorney for Tsarnaev said they are grateful for the court’s “straightforward and fair decision: if the government wishes to put someone to death, it must make its case to a fairly selected jury that is provided all relevant information.”

“It is now up to the government to determine whether to put the victims and Boston through a second trial, or to allow closure to this terrible tragedy by permitting a sentence of life without the possibility of release,” David Patton said in an email.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston said they were reviewing the opinion and had no immediate comment. Prosecutors could ask the full appeals court to hear the case or go straight to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The mother of Krystle Campbell, the 29-year-old killed in the attack, expressed outrage at the court’s decision.

“I just don’t understand it,” Patricia Campbell told The Boston Globe. “It’s just terrible that he’s allowed to live his life. It’s unfair. He didn’t wake up one morning and decide to do what he did. He planned it out. He did a vicious, ugly thing.”

Former Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officer Dic Donohue, who was severely injured in a gunfight with the brothers, said the ruling was not surprising to him.

“And in any case, he won’t be getting out and hasn’t been able to harm anyone since he was captured,” he tweeted.

Tsarnaev’s lawyers acknowledged at the beginning of his trial that he and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, set off the two bombs at the marathon finish line. But they argued that Dzhokar Tsarnaev is less culpable than his brother, who they said was the mastermind behind the attack.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a gunbattle with police a few days after the April 15, 2013, bombing. Dzhokar Tsarnaev is now behind bars at a high-security supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

Tsarnaev was convicted on 30 charges, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction. The 1st Circuit upheld all but a few of the convictions.

Prosecutors told jurors that the men carried out the attack to punish the United States for its wars in Muslim countries.

In the boat where Tsarnaev was found hiding, he had scrawled a confession that referred to the wars and wrote, among other things, “Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop.”

Tsarnaev’s attorneys identified a slew of issues with his trial, but said in a brief filed with the court that the “first fundamental error” was the judge’s refusal to move the case out of Boston.

They also pointed to social media posts from two jurors suggesting they harbored strong opinions even before the 2015 trial started.

One juror had said in Twitter posts that she was “locked down” with her family during the manhunt and retweeted another post calling Tsarnaev a “piece of garbage,” but later told the court she had not commented on the case or been asked to shelter in place, the defense said.

On the day of Tsarnaev’s sentencing, the juror changed her Facebook profile picture to an image that said “BOSTON STRONG,” a phrase used in the wake of the bombing, the attorneys said.

Tsarnaev’s lawyers pushed several times to move the trial out of the city where the bombs exploded, arguing the intense media scrutiny and number of people touched by the attack in Boston would taint the jury pool.

President Donald Trump weighed in on the ruling during an address to supporters on the tarmac of Tampa International Airport.

“I see in Boston, where you have the animal that killed so many people during the Boston Marathon,” Trump said. “They just sent this conviction for the death penalty back to the lower courts so they’ll argue about that for a long time. It’s ridiculous.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

20,000 People Protest Germany’s Coronavirus Mandates

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20,000 People Protest Germany’s Coronavirus Mandates

(Headline USA) Thousands protested Germany’s coronavirus restrictions Saturday in a Berlin demonstration marking what organizers called “the end of the pandemic.”

A 17,000-person crowd marched through downtown Berlin from the Brandenburg Gate.

Protesters who came from across the country held up homemade signs with slogans like “Corona, false alarm,” “We are being forced to wear a muzzle,” “Natural defense instead of vaccination” and “We are the second wave.”

They chanted, “We’re here and we’re loud, because we are being robbed of our freedom!”

Police used bullhorns to chide participants to adhere to social distancing rules and to wear masks, apparently with little success.

They tweeted that they drew up a criminal complaint against the rally’s organizer for failing to enforce hygiene rules, then said shortly afterward that the organizer had ended the march.

Police estimated about 17,000 people turned out.

The demonstrators were kept apart from counterprotesters, some of whom chanted “Nazis out!”

Protesters continued to a subsequent rally on a boulevard running through the city’s Tiergarten park, which police estimated drew 20,000 people.

Police declared that event over as organizers again failed to get demonstrators to wear masks or keep their distance.

Protests against anti-virus restrictions in Germany have drawn a variety of attendees, including conspiracy theorists and right-wing populists.

“Thousands of #covidiots are celebrating themselves in Berlin as ‘the second wave,’ without distancing, without masks,” tweeted Saskia Esken, a co-leader of the Social Democrats, the junior party in Germany’s governing coalition.

“They are not just endangering our health, they are endangering our success against the pandemic and for the revival of the economy, education and society. Irresponsible!”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

Homicides Rise Sharply in Chicago This Year Over Last

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Homicides Rise Sharply in Chicago This Year Over Last

(Associated Press) Homicides and shootings have surged in Chicago during the first seven months of the year.

From Jan. 1 through the end of July, there were 440 homicides in Chicago and 2,240 people shot, including many of those who were killed, according to statistics released Saturday by the police department.

There were 290 homicides and 1,480 shootings, including people who were killed, in the first seven months of last year.

July was especially violent, as the city recorded 105 homicides and 584 shootings.

Among them was a 9-year-old boy who was killed Friday when someone opened fire in the direction of a number of people, including him and his friends, according to police.
There were 308 shootings and 44 homicides in July 2019.

Despite the increase in violent crime, overall crime, which includes violent crimes, burglaries and thefts, was down 9% compared to the same period last year.

The decrease was driven by a 26% decline in thefts and a 19% decline in sexual assaults, police said.

The police department is moving more officers into districts and has been “focused on creating teams that can address violent crime head-on within our most vulnerable neighborhoods,” police Superintendent David O. Brown said in a news release.

Violent crime has risen in many U.S. cities this year.

President Donald Trump recently announced he was sending federal agents to some of them, including Chicago, to help local authorities fight such crime as part of an operation that started last year.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot pushed back in letter to the White House, writing: “We need you, as President, to take a leadership role in enacting meaningful and common-sense gun legislation, which you so far have refused to do.”

Republican Party to Renominate Trump as Presidential Candidate in Private

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Republican Party to Renominate Trump as Presidential Candidate in Private

(Headline USA) The vote to renominate President Donald Trump is set to be conducted in private later this month, without members of the press present, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Convention.

While Trump called off the public components of the convention in Florida last month, citing the virus, 336 delegates are scheduled to gather in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Aug. 24 to formally vote to make Trump the Republican Party presidential nominee once more.

If the GOP decision stands, it will mark the first party nominating convention in modern history to be closed to reporters.

“Given the health restrictions and limitations in place within the state of North Carolina, we are planning for the Charlotte activities to be closed press Friday, August 21 – Monday, August 24,” a convention spokeswoman said. “We are happy to let you know if this changes, but we are working within the parameters set before us by state and local guidelines regarding the number of people who can attend events.”

Privately some Republican Party delegations have raised logistical issues with traveling to either city, citing the increasing number of jurisdictions imposing mandatory quarantine orders on travelers returning from states experiencing surges in the virus.

The subset of delegates in Charlotte will be casting proxy votes on behalf of the more than 2,500 official delegates to the convention. Alternate delegates and guests have already been prohibited.

Adapted from the reporting by the Associated Press.

MURDOCK: Dems Speak Volumes w/ Denial of Portland Violence

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MURDOCK: Dems Speak Volumes w/ Denial of Portland Violence

(Deroy Murdock, Headline USA) Denial is not just a river in Egypt, as the ancient joke goes.

Deroy Murdock
Deroy Murdock

It’s the Democrat/media/Left’s comprehensive response to the nationwide riots that rage on, seven weeks after the funeral of police-brutality victim George Floyd.

His memory has been kidnapped by the most violent insurrectionists America has seen since 1968.

“Do you disavow the violence from Antifa that’s happening in Portland right now?” journalist Austen Fleccas asked Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, on Sunday.

“That’s a myth that’s being spread only in Washington, D.C.,” Nadler replied.

On Tuesday, Nadler further explained Portland’s mythical instability.

He excoriated William Barr at a hearing/verbal abuse session that the House Judiciary Committee arranged for the attorney general.

Clearly enraged by the Trump administration’s surge of federal officers sent to Portland to combat the carnage that is not happening there, Nadler said, “The president wants footage for his campaign ads, and you appear to be serving it up to him as ordered.”

“The playbook is to create the impression that there is violence, that he must send in federal troops,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said at Tuesday’s meeting. “And that is how he [President Trump] hopes to win the election.”

Gov. Kate Brown, D-Ore., wrote Wednesday via Twitter that federal agents “have acted as an occupying force & brought violence.”

Brown’s words echoed those of Mayor Ted Wheeler, D-Portland.

As he wrote via Twitter on July 14, “my biggest immediate concern is the violence federal officers brought to our streets in recent days … We do not need or want their help.”

But on July 3, Wheeler blamed others for his city’s chaos.

“I remain deeply concerned, however, by groups who continue to perpetrate violence and vandalism on our streets,” Wheeler wrote via Twitter, a day before federal Homeland Security officers reached Portland. “This has been going on for more than a month now.”

Unlike House Democrats, who mainly told Barr to shut up, Republicans introduced a radical reform: They asked Barr questions and let him answer.

“As far as the weapons you mentioned, let me get this straight,” said Rep. Steve Chabot, R- Ohio.

He listed: “rifles, explosives, knives, saws, sledgehammers, Tasers, slingshots, rocks, bricks, lasers. Have I missed anything?”

“You have missed some things, but that’s a good list,” Barr replied.

Portland riots
Federal law enforcement protect the courthouse in Portland, Oregon during Antifa-led riots. / IMAGE: NBC News via YouTube

“They have these powerful slingshots with ball bearings that they shoot,” he continued. “They have used pellet guns, we believe. We have found those projectiles have penetrated Marshals to the bone…They do start fires. They start fires, if they can get the fire inside or through the windows. And they start fires along the outside of the courthouse. When the Marshals come out to try to deal with the fires, they are assaulted.”

The Associated Press’s Michael Balsamo embedded himself inside the Mark Hatfield U.S. Courthouse. His dispatches, via Twitter, are chilling.

“The lights inside the courthouse have to be turned off for safety & the light from high-powered lasers bounced across the lobby almost all night,” he wrote. “The fear is palpable. Three officers were struck in the last few weeks & still haven’t regained their vision.”

DHS’ deployment to Portland is not ritual chest beating. It’s not toxic masculinity. It’s the law.

According to 40 U.S. Code § 1315, the Secretary of Homeland Security “shall protect the buildings, grounds, and property that are owned, occupied, or secured by the Federal Government.”

Acting Secretary Chad Wolf would break federal law if he left the courthouse undefended and let Antifa & Co. burn it to the ground.

“What makes me concerned for the country is this is the first time in my memory that the leaders of one of our great two political parties, the Democratic Party, are not coming out and condemning mob violence and the attack on federal courts,” Attorney General Barr said. “Why can’t we just say violence against federal courts has to stop? Could we hear something like that?”

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor, a contributing editor with National Review Online, and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research. 

Iowa Teachers Send Own Obituaries to Gov. to Prevent Reopening of Schools

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Iowa Teachers Send Own Obituaries to Gov. to Prevent Reopening of Schools

Iowa teachers are writing their own obituaries and sending them to Gov. Kimberly Reynolds in an attempt to shame the state into closing its schools once again this fall.

This movement began when art teacher Jeremy Dumkreiger, who has organized a Facebook group called the Iowa Educators for a Safe Return to School, wrote a self-authored obituary for the local news blog Iowa Starting Line.

In it, Dumkreiger demanded that Reynolds “declare a statewide school mask mandate,” and pass other coronavirus-related restrictions, if she hopes to reopen Iowa’s schools.

“If we do not require this mask mandate, we risk the chance of driving our teachers and schools into the ground, literally,” he wrote, while urging other teachers to write their obituaries as well.

Dozens of teachers across the state followed suit.

Kerry Finley, a 7th grade teacher in Iowa City, said she hopes the obituaries will “humanize” teachers and “make [Reynolds] see us as people,” according to ABC News.

“I’m very scared,” Finley said. “Are we going to wear scrubs? Are they going to amend the dress code? If we are going to do this, we are going to have to do this the way the hospitals did. We need training. We can’t just say, ‘OK, go back.'”

But there is no reason teachers can’t return to school and do so safely, said Reynolds.

As long as students and teachers follow the guidance soon to be released by the Iowa Department of Education, the reopening should go smoothly, she said. 

Teachers shouldn’t think of keeping schools closed as an option, Reynolds added.

“We need to keep our next generation learning, growing and preparing for a bright future and online learning is an essential component of that,” Reynolds said.

“But it can’t make up for the critical role our schools play in the development of social and emotional skills that our children rely on.”

ESPN Exposes Abuse at NBA’s Chinese Academies, Then Ignores Its Own Report

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ESPN Exposes Abuse at NBA’s Chinese Academies, Then Ignores Its Own Report

ESPN published a bombshell report this week detailing the constant abuse that took place at the NBA’s training academies in China, but only one of its television shows mentioned the report at all, according to Outkick.

The show, called “Highly Questionable,” spent an entire segment talking about the report and blasting the NBA for turning a blind eye to the human rights abuses taking place in China. 

“The way that the NBA has handled it has seemed particularly weak, even with LeBron James having what I believe to be his worst public moment as an athlete because he took the wrong side talking about Daryl Morey and free speech,” said host Dan Le Batard, referencing an earlier incident in which the NBA compelled prominent players to shut down debate over Hong Kong pro-democracy protests. 

Another host, Pablo Torre, said that the NBA essentially put its “logo” on “a series of human rights abuses and atrocities.”

“That’s worrisome,” Torre said.

“It’s especially insane, and it’s insane for this reason—they didn’t need this,” he continued. “They didn’t need to be in northwest China. They didn’t need to be in China at all. What they did, though, was want it, because there are giant dollar signs all over that part of the globe.”

ESPN’s other seven shows, however, did not spend one minute discussing its own reporters’ work or the fall-out the NBA could experience because of it.

As Outkick pointed out, all ESPN needed to do was narrate a “quick summary that pushed viewers to read the fully story online.” 

At least two Republican senators have already signaled that they might subpoena NBA Commissioner Adam Silver over ESPN’s findings:

“This is big-time money for the NBA, and I think we do deserve to know exactly what they’re making,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said of the NBA’s relationship with China.

“And we deserve to have them explain to us why they won’t stand up to this authoritarian regime.”

Md. Gov. Blasts Teen Activists David Hogg for Promoting Unrealistic Policies

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Md. Gov. Blasts Teen Activists David Hogg for Promoting Unrealistic Policies

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan dismissed Parkland activist and gun control advocate David Hogg during an event on Thursday night, arguing that Hogg’s radical policies bear no weight in reality.

Hogan, an anti-Trump Republican, flirted with the idea of a presidential run in this year’s election and is rumored to be considering a run in 2024.

Hogg insisted that Hogan does not care about helping minority communities because he supports law enforcement and has spoken out against efforts to defund the police, and because he has been critical of gun-control legislation. 

“You seem very willing to invest in police and give them hundreds of millions of dollars, but when it comes to investing in these communities with these bills, you didn’t do that?” Hogg asked, according to Fox News.

Hogan agreed that the “root causes” of inner-city violence must be addressed by the state governments, but pointed out that the vast majority of inner-city residents support officials who are tough on crime.

“I can tell you that 90% of the residents of Baltimore City and 90% of the African Americans of Baltimore City supported my crime bills to crack down on the violent crime,” Hogan said. “So this is not just me having a different opinion than you, this is everyone in Baltimore having a different opinion than you.”

Hogan also pointed out that he’s invested more money in Baltimore than any other Maryland governor, whether that was through “record investments in education,” funding for job training, or investments into law enforcement.

He also helped spearhead the creation of the “Purple Line,” a new D.C. Metro line that will connect northeastern D.C. and parts of Maryland to the rest of the city.

These are tangible solutions to the real problems plaguing minority communities, unlike Hogg’s radical agenda, Hogan said.

Hogg would abolish police departments everywhere if he could, when the real solution is to increase funding for police departments so that officers receive better training, better tools and more access to resources, he added.

“It’s one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard,” Hogan said of defunding the police in an interview with Fox News last week.

“If you want to go after the problems in inner cities and the violent crime and the murders, we’ve got to have more police,” he continued. “… If you want to try to recruit and have more diversity, you’ve got to invest more. If you want better training and better equipment and you want, you know, body cams and you want people to have the training and de-escalation, all of that takes money.”

Hogg evidently didn’t take Hogan’s criticism well, because he later accused Hogan via Twitter of “dodging questions.”

He also accused Hogan of “promoting his book” during the event, suggesting that Hogan’s appearance was unethical.

After graduating last year from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the site of the 2018 mass shooting, Hogg enrolled in Harvard, which initially had rejected his application but later retracted its decision amid a public outcry from the Left.

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