Month: November 2018

A caravan of nearly 400 migrants in eight buses arrived in the northern border state of Sonora, escorted by state and federal police on Monday.

A video posted by online depicts part of the caravan passing through a toll booth.

State and Federal police are providing security for the group as it heads to the U.S. border. The caravan stopped on the outskirts of Ciudad Obregon for a period of no more than 10 minutes to receive food and water. The caravan later stopped at a gas station, where they were met by personnel from Civil Protection and other agencies, according to local media.

Mexican authorities say doctors and specialists will be installed at various points on the road. Medical personnel are reportedly providing care for those who have become ill and also require vaccinations.

The caravan is expected to stop in the state capital of Hermosillo before continuing to Tijuana, which is currently experiencing a raging cartel war with record-breaking homicide figures.

Breitbart News reported extensively on the cartel violence taking place in Tijuana, with a total of 2,152 homicides in 2018. Some in the caravan are choosing to head to Tijuana to avoid areas such as Tamaulipas and Coahuila. The cartels controlling Tamaulipas and Coahuila areas tend to direct their violence against the migrant community via extortion schemes.

Robert Arce is a retired Phoenix Police detective with extensive experience working Mexican organized crime and street gangs. Arce has worked in the Balkans, Iraq, Haiti, and recently completed a three-year assignment in Monterrey, Mexico, working out of the Consulate for the United States Department of State, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Program, where he was the Regional Program Manager for Northeast Mexico (Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Durango, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas.) You can follow him on Twitter. He can be reached at robertrarce@gmail.com

Could the Active Denial System be the answer for possible border problems? Conservative commentator Glenn Beck thinks so.

You may not have heard of the ADS, which has been a topic of debate for over a decade now. The non-lethal deterrent system been labeled by both military personnel and press alike as a “pain ray” — which, I suppose, is a catchier way to refer to it than ADS.

The U.K. Telegraph, describing the system back in 2010, said that military officials described it as a “non-lethal, directed-energy, counter-personnel weapon.”

“Compared with most military vehicles, the device looks relatively harmless — like one of the broadcasting trucks you see outside big sporting events: an anonymous-looking military transport with what appears to be a square satellite dish mounted on top. But it contains an extraordinary new weapon, capable of causing immense discomfort from half a mile away without – its makers claim – doing any lasting damage,” the newspaper reported.

“The ADS works by projecting a focused beam of 3.2mm wave electromagnetic radiation at a human target. This heats the water and fat molecules on the skin, causing their temperature to rise by up to 50C (122 degrees Fahrenheit).

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“Philip Sherwell, a Sunday Telegraph reporter who tried out the ADS in 2007, describes it as ‘unbearably uncomfortable, like opening a roasting hot oven door.’ The immediate instinct is to escape the beam and seek cover — at which point the effect subsides.”

A Pentagon is description is less dramatic, but just as persuasive.

“The Active Denial System is needed because it’s the first non-lethal, directed-energy, counter-personnel system with an extended range greater than currently fielded non-lethal weapons,” a FAQ from the Pentagon reads.

“Most counter-personnel non-lethal weapons use kinetic energy (rubber rounds, bean bags, etc.). A kinetic-based system has a higher risk of human injury, and its effectiveness varies in relation to the size, age and gender of the target. The Active Denial System, however, is consistently effective regardless of size, age and gender and has a range greater than small-arms range. The Active Denial System will provide military personnel with a non-lethal weapon that has the same effect on all human targets.”

The system can hit targets at 700 yards.

That’s impressive, but even more so is how the military says it could be deployed.

“The Active Denial System will support a full spectrum of operations ranging from non-lethal methods of crowd control, crowd dispersal, convoy and patrol protection, checkpoint security, perimeter security, area denial, and port protection, as well as other defensive and offensive operations from both fixed-site or mobile platforms,” the FAQ states.

A Pentago video shows how it works.

RELATED: Homeland Security Blows Huge Hole in Left’s Asylum Narrative with Eye Opening Numbers

That means that it could be used in the event of a large group of people trying to force their way over the border — something that’s always a concern when it comes to caravans. And, as you can see above, this is basically a high-energy invisible wall.

That didn’t escape the notice of Glenn Beck.

Caravan – meet new non lethal defense system. Best idea for the border I Have seen yet. ⁦@POTUS⁩ https://t.co/hCQx5hOOoD

— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) November 13, 2018

So, could this be a tool used for caravans or similar situations involving border incursions?

The Telegraph notes that it can produce second- and third-degree burns if not used correctly and that weather conditions like rain, snow and fog can limit how effective it is. Also, reflective surfaces can limit its efficacy, meaning there are ways to beat it.

However, if you’re looking to mitigate the possible danger from large masses of people trying to make a run on the border — always a possibility with caravans — the ADS could just be the future of dealing with such threats.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

If your only source of news is the mainstream media, you might think that Donald Trump is the first president to act against a reporter who heckled him, and that denial of a White House pass to CNN heckler Jim Acosta is a grave threat to the public’s right to know. But that very same media largely applauded, or at least remained silent, when President Obama several times had reporters ejected from public events where he was speaking because he didn’t like their behavior or their questions.

The Political Insider takes us on a short trip down memory lane, rescuing those incidents from the memory hole.  Most remarkably, some of the reporters were from officially-designated victim groups, and therefore, in the eyes of the politically correct, entitled to holy status. For one example:

Not long after taking office, the Secret Service literally dragged away a black female reporter. Imagine the optics if an African-American woman were dragged away by Trump’s Secret Service.

YouTube screen grab

Here is another view of the incident:

 

Here’s a Female, African American reporter with White House Press credentials being carried away by Secret Service in 2009 for attempting to ask President Obama to protect “traditional marriage”#KaitlanCollins https://t.co/t2UFivG6Z4 pic.twitter.com/WHLH8s4tzi

— Rosie Memos (@almostjingo) July 26, 2018

 

 In 2015, President Obama had a transgender reporter who was heckling him ejected from a meeting, claiming that the White House is his house. Not the property of the American people,apparently:

“Hey, listen, you’re in my house,” the president continued. “You don’t start — it’s not respectful when you get invited to somebody … you’re not going to get a good response from me by interrupting me like this.”

“I’m sorry — no, no, no, no, no. Shame on you,” Obama added. “You shouldn’t be doing this.”

“You can either stay or be quite or we’ll have to take you out,” Obama told the person.

But perhaps worst of all, no misbehavior, or even any words, were need to eject a reporter from a news event.  

Washington Free Beacon reporter Adam Kredo was reportedly ejected from a State Department media briefing in Vienna Monday, as senior department officials threatened to call security on him.

Kredo, who is covering the White House’s ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran, tried unsuccessfully to attend a briefing with the State Department’s undersecretary of state for political affairs Wendy Sherman.

The Free Beacon reporter, who is credentialed through the Austrian government, suggested Monday that he was kicked out of the briefing because Obama administration officials are concerned about how media may cover its alleged concessions to Iran.

Ben Rhodes wrote about the importance of the “echo chamber” in support of the Iran deal, bamboozling reporters who “literally know nothing” into ginning up public support for the shipping of billions of dollars to the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. Having a savvy reporter with contrary views present would get in the way of Rhodes’s game.

There are more examples at the link. But when you review them, keep in mind that in emails uncovered by Judicial Watch, Josh Earnest as caught bragging about the ability of Obama administration officials to “exclude Fox News from significant interviews.” (hat tip: Rosie Memos)

Do you remember the firestorm this disclosure ignited? Neither do I.

So, take these protests over Acosta with a grain of salt. Make that a box of salt.

Hat tip: John McMahon

If your only source of news is the mainstream media, you might think that Donald Trump is the first president to act against a reporter who heckled him, and that denial of a White House pass to CNN heckler Jim Acosta is a grave threat to the public’s right to know. But that very same media largely applauded, or at least remained silent, when President Obama several times had reporters ejected from public events where he was speaking because he didn’t like their behavior or their questions.

The Political Insider takes us on a short trip down memory lane, rescuing those incidents from the memory hole.  Most remarkably, some of the reporters were from officially-designated victim groups, and therefore, in the eyes of the politically correct, entitled to holy status. For one example:

Not long after taking office, the Secret Service literally dragged away a black female reporter. Imagine the optics if an African-American woman were dragged away by Trump’s Secret Service.

YouTube screen grab

Here is another view of the incident:

 

Here’s a Female, African American reporter with White House Press credentials being carried away by Secret Service in 2009 for attempting to ask President Obama to protect “traditional marriage”#KaitlanCollins https://t.co/t2UFivG6Z4 pic.twitter.com/WHLH8s4tzi

— Rosie Memos (@almostjingo) July 26, 2018

 

 In 2015, President Obama had a transgender reporter who was heckling him ejected from a meeting, claiming that the White House is his house. Not the property of the American people,apparently:

“Hey, listen, you’re in my house,” the president continued. “You don’t start — it’s not respectful when you get invited to somebody … you’re not going to get a good response from me by interrupting me like this.”

“I’m sorry — no, no, no, no, no. Shame on you,” Obama added. “You shouldn’t be doing this.”

“You can either stay or be quite or we’ll have to take you out,” Obama told the person.

But perhaps worst of all, no misbehavior, or even any words, were need to eject a reporter from a news event.  

Washington Free Beacon reporter Adam Kredo was reportedly ejected from a State Department media briefing in Vienna Monday, as senior department officials threatened to call security on him.

Kredo, who is covering the White House’s ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran, tried unsuccessfully to attend a briefing with the State Department’s undersecretary of state for political affairs Wendy Sherman.

The Free Beacon reporter, who is credentialed through the Austrian government, suggested Monday that he was kicked out of the briefing because Obama administration officials are concerned about how media may cover its alleged concessions to Iran.

Ben Rhodes wrote about the importance of the “echo chamber” in support of the Iran deal, bamboozling reporters who “literally know nothing” into ginning up public support for the shipping of billions of dollars to the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. Having a savvy reporter with contrary views present would get in the way of Rhodes’s game.

There are more examples at the link. But when you review them, keep in mind that in emails uncovered by Judicial Watch, Josh Earnest as caught bragging about the ability of Obama administration officials to “exclude Fox News from significant interviews.” (hat tip: Rosie Memos)

Do you remember the firestorm this disclosure ignited? Neither do I.

So, take these protests over Acosta with a grain of salt. Make that a box of salt.

Hat tip: John McMahon

There’s a record number of unfilled jobs in the United States right now, and I’d like to add one to the list: Broward County supervisor of elections.

Oh, there’s already a Broward County supervisor of elections, mind you. Her name is Brenda Snipes. She’s being sued by multiple entities, not the least of which is Florida Gov. Rick Scott. Scott, who’s involved in a race for senator in the Sunshine State with incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson, isn’t terribly impressed with how Snipes has been holding down the fort. Like, say, the fact that she doesn’t know how many people actually voted.

“On election night, Broward County said there were 634,000 votes cast. At 1 a.m. today, there were 695,700 ballots cast on Election Day,” Scott said Friday. “At 2:30 pm today, the number was up to 707,223 ballots cast on Election Day.

“And we just learned, that the number has increased to 712,840 ballots cast on Election Day.”

A Florida court also found that Snipes violated state law and the constitution by refusing to provide updates on the vote tally, according to National Review, and she’s also done other fun stuff like mixing together rejected and acceptable provisional ballots for reasons unbeknownst to neither God nor man (at least if one were to judge by Snipes’ mind-boggling reasons for doing so) and having members of her office find uncounted early ballots in places they very much should not be.

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This should be enough to get you removed from your position no matter what. The problem is that Snipes should have been removed from her position years ago. Earlier this year, a judge ruled that she had illegally destroyed ballots in a primary race between veteran Democrat apple-polisher Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and progressive challenger Tim Canova after everyone’s favorite former DNC chief barely eked by — at least by the standards of a marginally famous politician and establishment sycophant — with a 58 percent tally.

After that ruling, Scott said he would make sure that this wasn’t an issue going forward.

“During the upcoming election, the Department of State will send a Florida elections expert from the Division of Elections to Supervisor Snipes’ office to ensure that all laws are followed so the citizens of Broward County can have the efficient, properly run election they deserve,” Scott said at the time..

Well, glad he solved that problem. Although, according to the counsel for the Florida Democrats, it’s not even a problem at all.

On Saturday, conservative activist Laura Loomer talked to Leonard Samuels, counsel for the Florida Democratic Party and a member of the phalanx of lawyers that seems to have parachuted into Florida from the back of Democrat-chartered C-130s. She asked him about whether or not Snipes should be overseeing this process — given her history — and he didn’t seem to have any issue with it.

The interview came during a livestream inside the Broward County Supervisor of Elections Office (“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy…” as Obi-Wan Kenobi might say), where Samuels said there was no ethical concern involving Snipes overseeing this whole fire of the dumpster variety.

“Of course she should oversee it,” Samuels said. “She was appointed by a Republican governor, Gov. Jeb Bush, she’s been re-elected several times by the voters of Broward County, who made that (decision) having all the information possible on the ballot.

“There’s been not one iota of fraud. There’s been not one iota of corruption,” he continued.

RELATED: Fraud? Several Georgia Counties Reporting Thousands of New Votes. Cut GOP Lead.

“There has, though,” Loomer interjected. “The judge ruled that she destroyed ballots in the race between Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Tim Canova … If you were an elections supervisor, shouldn’t destroying ballots be an automatic disqualification for overseeing elections?”

“I don’t — I don’t qualify that as fraud or corruption,” Samuels said. “It was way, way after the election and Debbie Wasserman Schultz won that election.”

The encounter then degenerates into a fair amount of crosstalk, with Samuels insisting that there hasn’t been any corruption in the process this time around and then simply settling on the “no evidence of fraud or corruption” line.

Beyond whether or not there was any evidence of fraud or corruption — a judge certainly thought that Snipes shouldn’t have destroyed the ballots even though it was “way, way after the election.” That’s still illegal under Florida’s “sunshine laws,” by the way, and, according to the Sun-Sentinel, Canova had requested the ballots just months after the primary to look into alleged irregularities in the vote. (Although, if you’re a lawyer I guess you can certainly define what “way, way after” entails.)

Let’s look at some of the other stuff here.

Yes, Snipes was appointed by a Republican governor, and yes, Jeb(!) Bush still does qualify as a Republican. This was back in 2003, however, making this factoid wholly irrelevant — particularly since Snipes hasn’t exactly earned many gold stars for outstanding performance since then.

As for being elected “several times” by the voters, this doesn’t make anyone ethically prepared for the job. It just means they were good at getting re-elected, something that isn’t exactly a formidable task as an incumbent Democrat in Broward County.

I can name you a dozen members of Congress who have been sent back over and over again by voters despite being ethically challenged. (I’ll save you having to read my list because you can probably name 12 of your own.)

And, as for “all the information possible on the ballot,” most of that information began really coming out in the public sphere after the ruling earlier this year.

Has there been an iota of corruption or fraud during this election? We don’t know yet, although there certainly seems to be a whiff of it. In terms of the past, there’s no question that destroying ballots illegally is fraud, even if Snipes’ defense was ignorance.

Has there been an avalanche of ineptitude? Most certainly — and more than enough that the Broward County supervisor of elections position should be added to the 7 million job openings in the United States.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

One thing Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis have going for them — besides the obvious lead in vote totals so far — is history. Republican presidential candidates Rutherford B. Hayes and George W. Bush both eventually ended up carrying the state of Florida in 1876 and 2000, two other prolonged elections.

Even before Brenda Snipes ran elections in Broward County, Florida had real issues with counting votes. My book, Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections, opens by asking, “What is it with Florida anyway?”

I never expected to be asking this question after the 2018 midterm elections. The country is also on edge this year over the outcomes of the Arizona Senate race where Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is slightly leading Republican Martha McSally. Also, Democrat Stacey Abrams won’t concede defeat to Republican Brian Kemp in the Georgia governor’s race, even though it appears Kemp is the likely winner. Razor thin elections create the risk that large portions of voters will view the winner as illegitimate.

Still, only Florida will definitely have recounts, in this case affecting two of the most closely-watched statewide races in the country. Perhaps the biggest common thread for 1876, 2000, and 2018 isn’t numbers and geography. Rather, it’s the Democratic party’s determination to hunt for votes after election day to gain power. 

Of course, other states have had past voting problems too. But Florida managed to be one of four states contested in the disputed 1876 presidential election — eventually decided by Congress. It was the only contested state in the 2000 election — eventually decided by the Supreme Court.

In one respect, the 2018 midterms are more similar to the 1876 centennial crisis of Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden, since multiples states are in question.

Rather than a recount, the 1876 controversy was about who carried the Florida’s four electoral votes. The other contested states in 1876 were South Carolina, which had seven electoral votes; Louisiana, which had eight; and one of Oregon’s three electoral votes was in question.

Today, “voter suppression” is a bumper sticker slogan the DNC rolls out every two years to raise money and oppose voter ID laws. In 1876, just 11 years after the Civil War, the south was in reconstruction. For the newly freed black Americans, voter suppression was a reality. Democrats were also eager to cheat in those days as well. In Florida, Democrats handed out Tilden tickets decorated with Republican symbols to try to deceive freedmen they believed were illiterate.

After the election, the Republican recanvasing boards determined Hayes won the Florida by 922 votes out of 47,000 cast. However, the Democratic officials found enough votes to contend that Tilden had won the state by 94 votes.

A federal electoral commission made up of five senators, five House members, and five Supreme Court justices voted 8-7 along party line that Hayes had won the electoral votes in all four contested states. After much partisan debate and a compromise to preemptively end Reconstruction in the South, a Democratic House and Republican Senate voted to ratify the commission’s determination and make Hayes president.

In another respect, the Florida mess of 2018 more resembles the 2000 presidential showdown between Bush and Democrat Al Gore. It’s a recount where Democrats insisted that new votes could be found in Palm Beach and Broward counties, among other Democratic strongholds in the state, if they looked and counted enough. Palm Beach and Broward are the two key counties today.

Gore reportedly said in the midst of the 2000 recount, “I’m not like George Bush. If he wins or loses, life goes on. I will do anything to win.”

Similar to Gore, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum conceded defeat then unconceded. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson never conceded, but, almost echoing Gore, Nelson’s campaign attorney Marc Elias said bluntly of the recount push, “We’re doing it to win.” 

In 2000, Democratic lawyers targeted overseas absentee ballots from the military, presumed more likely to be Bush voters. Democrats threatened to sue Seminole and Duval counties in Florida, over technicalities, to stop military vote counts.

Gore campaign operative Bob Beckel thought that there was a way to capture the Electoral College without the Florida recount. He said, “I’m trying to kidnap electors. Whatever it takes.” Beckel and the Democrats were researching the backgrounds of Republican electors across the nation in hopes of persuading them to give the Electoral College vote to Gore. However, Beckel insisted this was about lobbying and not blackmail.

These were both PR nightmares for Democrats, which previously had the upper hand in messaging by insisting every vote be counted.

Counting every vote has been a standby line for Democrats for years, but few folks believe it anymore. Most Americans only believe that every eligible and legal vote should count — not literally every vote. Whether it’s 1876, 2000 or 2018, the Democrats’ goal is to win and gain power. For that, Elias may deserve credit for honesty.

Fred Lucas is the author of Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections and is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal. 

One thing Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis have going for them — besides the obvious lead in vote totals so far — is history. Republican presidential candidates Rutherford B. Hayes and George W. Bush both eventually ended up carrying the state of Florida in 1876 and 2000, two other prolonged elections.

Even before Brenda Snipes ran elections in Broward County, Florida had real issues with counting votes. My book, Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections, opens by asking, “What is it with Florida anyway?”

I never expected to be asking this question after the 2018 midterm elections. The country is also on edge this year over the outcomes of the Arizona Senate race where Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is slightly leading Republican Martha McSally. Also, Democrat Stacey Abrams won’t concede defeat to Republican Brian Kemp in the Georgia governor’s race, even though it appears Kemp is the likely winner. Razor thin elections create the risk that large portions of voters will view the winner as illegitimate.

Still, only Florida will definitely have recounts, in this case affecting two of the most closely-watched statewide races in the country. Perhaps the biggest common thread for 1876, 2000, and 2018 isn’t numbers and geography. Rather, it’s the Democratic party’s determination to hunt for votes after election day to gain power. 

Of course, other states have had past voting problems too. But Florida managed to be one of four states contested in the disputed 1876 presidential election — eventually decided by Congress. It was the only contested state in the 2000 election — eventually decided by the Supreme Court.

In one respect, the 2018 midterms are more similar to the 1876 centennial crisis of Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden, since multiples states are in question.

Rather than a recount, the 1876 controversy was about who carried the Florida’s four electoral votes. The other contested states in 1876 were South Carolina, which had seven electoral votes; Louisiana, which had eight; and one of Oregon’s three electoral votes was in question.

Today, “voter suppression” is a bumper sticker slogan the DNC rolls out every two years to raise money and oppose voter ID laws. In 1876, just 11 years after the Civil War, the south was in reconstruction. For the newly freed black Americans, voter suppression was a reality. Democrats were also eager to cheat in those days as well. In Florida, Democrats handed out Tilden tickets decorated with Republican symbols to try to deceive freedmen they believed were illiterate.

After the election, the Republican recanvasing boards determined Hayes won the Florida by 922 votes out of 47,000 cast. However, the Democratic officials found enough votes to contend that Tilden had won the state by 94 votes.

A federal electoral commission made up of five senators, five House members, and five Supreme Court justices voted 8-7 along party line that Hayes had won the electoral votes in all four contested states. After much partisan debate and a compromise to preemptively end Reconstruction in the South, a Democratic House and Republican Senate voted to ratify the commission’s determination and make Hayes president.

In another respect, the Florida mess of 2018 more resembles the 2000 presidential showdown between Bush and Democrat Al Gore. It’s a recount where Democrats insisted that new votes could be found in Palm Beach and Broward counties, among other Democratic strongholds in the state, if they looked and counted enough. Palm Beach and Broward are the two key counties today.

Gore reportedly said in the midst of the 2000 recount, “I’m not like George Bush. If he wins or loses, life goes on. I will do anything to win.”

Similar to Gore, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum conceded defeat then unconceded. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson never conceded, but, almost echoing Gore, Nelson’s campaign attorney Marc Elias said bluntly of the recount push, “We’re doing it to win.” 

In 2000, Democratic lawyers targeted overseas absentee ballots from the military, presumed more likely to be Bush voters. Democrats threatened to sue Seminole and Duval counties in Florida, over technicalities, to stop military vote counts.

Gore campaign operative Bob Beckel thought that there was a way to capture the Electoral College without the Florida recount. He said, “I’m trying to kidnap electors. Whatever it takes.” Beckel and the Democrats were researching the backgrounds of Republican electors across the nation in hopes of persuading them to give the Electoral College vote to Gore. However, Beckel insisted this was about lobbying and not blackmail.

These were both PR nightmares for Democrats, which previously had the upper hand in messaging by insisting every vote be counted.

Counting every vote has been a standby line for Democrats for years, but few folks believe it anymore. Most Americans only believe that every eligible and legal vote should count — not literally every vote. Whether it’s 1876, 2000 or 2018, the Democrats’ goal is to win and gain power. For that, Elias may deserve credit for honesty.

Fred Lucas is the author of Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections and is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal. 

BY: Bill McMorris Follow
@FBillMcMorris

November 12, 2018 5:00 am

Taxpayers will no longer foot the bill for union officials at the Veterans Administration.

The Trump administration issued a new policy that will put an end to the practice known as official time, which forces the federal government to continue paying employees for work conducted on the union’s behalf, for medical staffers.

The agency has been the subject of numerous scandals in recent years following revelations that it doctored records exposing delays in care that resulted in the deaths of dozens of veterans.

President Trump campaigned on reforming the agency and has instituted measures aimed at streamlining service and imposing accountability on employees. In July, President Trump issued an executive order calling on the VA to review its official time practices. The new agency rules will apply to medical personnel, rather than the agency’s clerical workers, including all union physicians, dentists, registered nurses, and chiropractors, among other agency employees.

VA Acting Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Administration Jacquelyn Hayes-Byrd said the measure is intended to focus employees on the agency’s duty to care for former service members. Official time, she said, distracts doctors and other medical personnel from their mission. The new rules reflect “common sense.”

“Allowing health care workers to do taxpayer-funded union work instead of serving Veterans impacts patient care negatively,” she said in a statement. “President Trump has made it clear—VA employees should always put Veterans first. And when we hire medical professionals to take care of Veterans, that’s what they should do at all times. No excuses, no exceptions.”

The move sparked anger from the American Federation of Government Employees, which accused the White House of undermining the rights of workers. Union boss J. David Cox said the reforms represented a “grave disservice to our nation’s veterans.” Rather than detracting from the VA’s core duty, official time enhanced care. He credited union officials for exposing the agency’s failure to adequately care for veterans over the years.

“Clinicians use official time to raise concerns about patient safety, access to care, and staffing shortages. Silencing their voices endangers our veterans,” Cox said in a statement. “Removing access to this time is like asking the fire department to operate without firetrucks or a firehose—and the result will be just as disastrous for our veterans. Make no mistake, this is an attempt to silence the voices of VA employees at a time when such oversight is more critical than ever.”

The VA spent $49 million to cover union activities in 2016. The agency said those resources would be better spent on healthcare, pointing to an Office of Personnel Management report on official time. OPM found that the agency continued to pay one registered nurse despite the fact that she no longer provided any care to patients, instead focusing 100 percent of her time on union duties. The administration said such a role was “an example of the negative effect taxpayer-funded union time has on Veteran care.”

“Although she no longer provides patient care, she continues to receive a nurse’s salary, which at VA averages more than $90,000 per year,” the agency said in a Thursday evening release.

The nurse’s experience at the agency is not an aberration. Nearly 300,000 VA employees spent 1.1 million hours conducting union business on the taxpayers’ dime, according to a 2015 report from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office.

The Trump administration has sought to eliminate official time in other agencies, as well. The Department of Education spearheaded reforms to eliminate the practice through collective bargaining—the AFGE declined to participate in multiple negotiating sessions, but has filed legal challenges to the contract issued by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Labor watchdogs praised the administration for the reform. Patrick Semmens, spokesman for the National Right to Work Foundation, said the official time policies advanced by the Obama administration have been an albatross around the agency’s neck. He encouraged other agencies to follow the department’s lead and do away with the practice.

“The practice of granting federal employees ‘official time’ to do union business on the taxpayers’ dime has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars and diverted services from their intended recipients, in this case veterans in need of health care,” he said. ”If union activities are worthwhile then members will voluntarily pay for them, and if not then it only further demonstrates how outrageous it is that thousands of federal employees are being paid for so-called union business instead of the job they were hired to do.”

The policy will apply to 430 VA staffers currently serving union roles and is scheduled to take effect on Nov. 15.

Twitter has let its favoritism of the left go too far — and Fox News is striking back.

Smash Racism DC, a branch of antifa, attacked Tucker Carlson’s house, reportedly threatened his wife, and doxed Carlson and his family on Twitter on Thursday, November 8. Since then,  Fox News decided to hold Twitter accountable for enabling some of these violations. According to Business Insider, a managing editor at Fox News emailed employees telling them to “please refrain from tweeting out our content from either section accounts or your own accounts until further notice.”

On Friday, Fox News made the “conscious decision” to not tweet out from its official account after Smash Racism DC attacked Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Twitter suspended Smash Racism DC for this offense, but this wasn’t the first time the group had doxed a public figure. After chasing Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) out of a restaurant, the group posted Conservative Review’s Gavin McInnes’ phone number.

The hiatus from Twitter is said to be a “protest of Twitter’s response to complaints that users were posting Carlson’s home address online.”

Twitter apparently refused to delete tweets with Carlson’s address, according to a Fox News source cited by Tribune Media’s content manager Scott Gustin.

Fox News’s CEO Suzanne Scott and President Jay Wallace condemned what happened at Carlson’s house, saying, “The violent threats and intimidation tactics towards him and his family are completely unacceptable.”

Carlson himself only tweeted on November 11, in response to critics who claimed that he attacked a gay Hispanic man on October 13. He gave his side of the story and said, “Last month one of my children was attacked by a stranger at dinner. For her sake, I was hoping to keep the incident private. It’s now being politicized by the Left.”

 

Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and Cuba’s ceremonial “president” Miguel Díaz-Canel took the time Sunday to celebrate the birthday of fellow leftist autocrat Daniel Ortega, who turned 73 years old and has ruled Nicaragua for about half of the years since the 1979 Sandinista revolution.

The Trump administration recently announced a recalibration of its Latin America strategy to specifically target the three socialist/communist regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, citing their widespread human rights violations and cooperation in enabling criminal activity in the region.

American National Security Advisor John Bolton referred to Maduro, Díaz-Canel, and Ortega as the “three stooges of socialism” in a speech announcing the new policies in Miami this month.

“The people of Bolívar and Chávez unite with our Sandinista brothers to celebrate the birthday of our friend and president, Comandante Daniel Ortega,” Maduro wrote on Twitter. “We appreciate your contribution in the construction of a multicentered and pluri-polar world. Long live a free Nicaragua!”

Díaz-Canel replied to Maduro on Twitter, adding, “I add myself to President Maduro on this congratulation on the birthday of the brother Comandante Daniel Ortega. Congratulations.”

Me sumo hermano Presidente @Maduro a esa felicitación por el cumpleaños del hermano comandante @DanielOrtega. Felicitaciones #SomosCuba

— Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB) November 11, 2018

Comandante is a Spanish term popularized by late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro for the supreme leader in a communist society.

Maduro expressed his good wishes from Caracas, where he is currently presiding over a government that has devastated the economy to such an extent that it has triggered the largest migrant crisis in the modern history of South America. To suppress protests by pro-democracy voices who note that Maduro has banned free and fair elections and illegally dissolved the legislature, the Venezuelan socialist regime has taken hundreds of political prisoners and killed and tortured many not imprisoned for extended periods of time. According to Lorent Saleh, a student activist who spent four years in prison for organizing peacefully, guards in Venezuelan prisoners actively tortured prisoners using sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, beatings, extracting blood to weaken a prisoner, and crucifixion.

In neighboring Cuba, pro-democracy voices more often face public beatings and humiliation, as dictator Raúl Castro attempts to keep political prisoner statistics low to discredit human rights advocates. Cuba arrests hundreds of political activists every month, typically beating them and leaving them hours from home with no way of getting back. Some activists, like Ladies in White organization leader Berta Soler, are arrested nearly every week.

The Cuban regime actively supports and advises Venezuela. Some estimates place the number of Cuban state security agents in Venezuela running government operations at close to 100,000 people. As a result, Cuba’s economy has suffered, beaten down by the related collapse of Venezuela’s. Díaz-Canel, who serves as Castro’s ambassador to the world given the latter’s advanced age, is currently in Laos after visiting Russia, China, and North Korea seeking financial aid.

Ortega ran Nicaragua from 1979-1990 and returned as president in 2007, imposing the same socialist/communist ideology that his Sandinista revolution brought to power. Nicaragua’s government became significantly more violence in April of this year in response to a series of peaceful protests that began with demands to preserve the current social security system but resulted in widespread protests for Ortega to step down. Ortega has ordered police to violently attack and arrest peaceful dissidents. Recent estimates found that more than 300 people died in police attacks, over 2,000 were injured, and thousands more arrested. Those who survived prison report being raped, beaten, and tortured in attempts to make them claim to be affiliated with the United States and the CIA.

Ortega declared protests illegal in late September.

Pro-Ortega Nicaraguan media claimed that towns throughout the country organized celebrations for Ortega’s birthday featuring children singing performances in Ortega’s honor and that “families came together to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ in their homes.”

This month, the Trump administration launched a multi-pronged approach to diminish the influence of all three repressive regimes through a speech Bolton delivered in Florida.

“I am here to deliver a clear message from the president … to those three regimes,” Bolton told an audience largely composed of refugees from those countries. “We will not reward torturers, murderers, and abusers.”

“This Troika of Tyranny, this triangle of terror stretching from Havana to Caracas to Managua, is the cause of immense human suffering, the impetus of enormous regional instability, and the genesis of a sordid cradle of communism in the Western Hemisphere,” he added, referring to the two leaders and subordinate Díaz-Canel as “the Three Stooges of Socialism.”

“They are pathetic clowns that resemble Larry, Curly, and Moe, three absurd comedians,” he said.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.

Many have been critical of Google’s plan to launch a censored search engine in China, now a former Facebook executive has called out Google’s CEO for lying about the company’s motives.

Facebook’s former security chief Alex Stamos took to Twitter recently to attack Google CEO Sundar Pichai for his comments defending the company’s decision to move into the China market with its censored search engine known as “Project Dragonfly,” Silicon Beat reports.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Pichai stated that Google was “committed to serving users in China” and compared Chinese censorship laws to the “right to be forgotten” law in the European Union. Pichai received severe criticism for this comparison, both internally and from those outside of Google.

“Tech companies constantly walk a difficult path between complying with local law and protecting human rights,” Stamos tweeted Thursday. “For Sundar to compare the “right to be forgotten” (which I agree is problematic) with censorship in China is, at best, amoral and mendacious.”

Tech companies constantly walk a difficult path between complying with local law and protecting human rights.

For Sundar to compare the “right to be forgotten” (which I agree is problematic) with censorship in China is, at best, amoral and mendacious. https://t.co/EJNS7VSOKr pic.twitter.com/YAwv3Xyl02

— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) November 8, 2018

Stamos further added that: “China’s censorship regime is a tool to maintain the absolute control of the party-state and is in no way comparable,” to the right to be forgotten law.

The “right to be forgotten” is a form of censorship that has been abused by many individuals and it’s application extra-territorially should be resisted. However, China’s censorship regime is a tool to maintain the absolute control of the party-state and is in no way comparable.

— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) November 8, 2018

Google software engineer Colin McMillen tweeted: “It is extremely bad that Sundar appears to either think that RTBF is morally equivalent to government surveillance & censorship, or that he appears to think that nobody will notice this analogy is extremely inaccurate.”

It is extremely bad that Sundar appears to either think that RTBF is morally equivalent to government surveillance & censorship, or that he appears to think that nobody will notice this analogy is extremely inaccurate.

— mcmillen (@mcmillen) November 9, 2018

In another tweet, McMillen stated: “the RTBF regulation was passed by democratically-elected representatives, as opposed to an authoritarian state.” He later added, “It is very unlikely that the EU will ever attempt to trawl through records of past search queries to retroactively look for (and potentially imprison) people who searched for RTBF-covered queries. China, meanwhile, will almost certainly do so.”

During a speech before the Hudson Institute, Vice President Mike Pence China’s theft of U.S. technology, urging Google to take action on the issue. Pence said during the speech that other business leaders are hesitant to enter the Chinese market “if it means turning over their intellectual property or abetting Beijing’s oppression.”

Pence called on Google to listen to these other leaders and that “more must follow suit.” He also called on Google to end the development of its censored Chinese search engine project known as Dragonfly: “For example, Google should immediately end development of the ‘Dragonfly’ app that will strengthen Communist Party censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers,” said Pence.

In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Chinese policy expert Dr. Michael Pillsbury stated that Big Tech giant Google is “highly embarrassed” by the recent “Project Dragonfly” leaks which showed the company planning to launch a censored search engine in China. The search giant’s project has been in development since Spring of 2017, and was accelerated in December 2017, following a meeting between company CEO Sundar Pichai and top Chinese government officials. Google engineers have created custom apps named “Maotai” and “Longfei,” which have already been demonstrated for Chinese officials and could be launched within the next six to nine months.

A Google spokesperson told Fox News at the time: “We’ve been investing for many years to help Chinese users, from developing Android, through mobile apps such as Google Translate and Files Go, and our developer tools. But our work on search has been exploratory, and we are not close to launching a search product in China.”