Month: November 2018

A Georgia man described as a “grandfather to the neighborhood” is being mourned by family and friends after being killed and dismembered, allegedly at the hands of a new resident.

“What began as a search for a well-respected member of the Clayton County community has now turned into a murder investigation,” WAGA-TV reported Monday.

“Authorities found the body of Clayton County minister Robert Page Thursday night not far from his home.”

And the way that the 70-year-old man met his death was beyond grisly.

Police say a neighbor who moved into a Clayton neighborhood 3 months ago, killed 70 y/o Robert Paige & dismembered his body. We asked police about a motive. I have a live report coming up in 15min on Ch2. Turn your tv on now please pic.twitter.com/ls9JYxEwfP

— Tyisha Fernandes (@TyishaWSB) November 9, 2018

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When Page was reported missing Thursday evening, the search began with his next-door neighbor, Martinez Ponce.

He was seen outside the home of the minister on the night Page went missing. When investigators wen to Ponce’s home, the case cracked open.

“Officers went to the back of the residence, and located the offender, hiding under a couch, acting very nervous and suspicious,” said a spokesperson for the Clayton County Police Department.

“Officers then noticed a trail of blood, in the backyard. They followed the trail, which led them to the victim, Mr. Page’s dismembered remains.”

WSB-TV reported that Ponce was combative with police, which led to an obstruction charge on top of a malice murder charge for the killing of Page.

Ponce had only lived in the area for about three months. No motive has been reported for the killing yet, nor is there any information on whether he was dismembered while he was alive. The two didn’t know one another.

However, tributes from the community show how much he’ll be missed.

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“He’s irreplaceable. The personality he had was priceless. Nobody will ever be able to top him,” Bobby Austin, Page’s grandson, told reporters.

“Even if you weren’t related to him, if he saw that you were a younger nice person, he would say, ‘You’re my grandson or granddaughter’ or ‘You’re my son or daughter,’ something like that. He was a very (embracing) person … and to go in such a tragic way, it just hit us all really hard at the moment,” Austin added.

“He was a great guy. He helped me build my driveway and all. We talked every day and he helped me build my fence and my gate and all, and we were just friends,” another neighbor said.

“I don’t have any words for it. It was just crazy to know something that outrageous could happen right next door.”

And that’s the sad lesson: We need to be able to defend ourselves against cases such as this. Most people understand that being in public presents some dagers even if the chance of anything truly bad happening is remote.

But something this outrageous could also happen right next door. No, the likelihood isn’t high, but it’s something we ought to realize is a possibility — and there are very good ways to handle it.

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

That Silicon Valley refuses to support conservative ideas is well known, but some firms won’t countenance their employees donating to conservative causes and candidates. Just ask Facebook.

In a congressional hearing in April, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg referenced an employee who was fired, calling it “inappropriate to address.” He denied that the termination was politically motivated. Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus, was placed on leave and then fired from Facebook a few days after the Daily Beast reported that he donated $10,000 to a pro-Trump group called NimbleAmerica.

At first, according to the Wall Street Journal, Luckey was accused of posting “misogynistic comments” on a Reddit group called The_Donald. Apparently, a user called “NimbleRichMan” said he was donating to the group so it could post unflattering memes of Hillary Clinton. The Daily Beast said that “NimbleRichMan” was in fact Luckey.

He was put on leave and encouraged to circulate a statement written for him by Zuckerberg, who wrote that Luckey did not support Trump but instead supported libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.

Luckey’s work reviews throughout this time were positive. He donated $100,000 to President Trump’s inaugural committee in November of 2016. Luckey was asked to resign in December, refused, and was then fired in March of 2017.

Former Daily Beast reporter Ben Collins wrote in a series of tweets on Sunday, November 11, that the Journal ignored the unsavory behavior of many Reddit users who had belonged to The_Donald. He said, “The_Donald was an extremist internet community in the 2016 election cycle.” He also said that the Beast had on record Luckey admitting to being “NimbleRichMan,” and then later lying about it to Facebook executives.

Silicon Valley and Facebook in particular donate millions of dollars every year to liberal political candidates. The fact that Facebook took offense at a conservative executive who donated $10,000 to a conservative group is frightening, to say the least.

BY: Charles Fain Lehman Follow
@CharlesFLehman

November 12, 2018 4:30 pm

A new version of a criminal justice reform proposal could grant early release to many fentanyl dealers, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Although the latest version of the FIRST STEP Act does exempt certain fentanyl traffickers from being released early, loopholes evident in a copy of the text obtained by the Free Beacon mean that many distributors of the deadly synthetic opioid could still go free. Such language appearing in the final bill language could spell trouble, as a failure to exempt fentanyl traffickers in a previous version helped cement President Donald Trump’s opposition to it.

FIRST STEP is a bipartisan proposal to reduce the size of the federal prison system and increase exposure to rehabilitative programs. It would use a system of “good time” credits to shorten federal sentences, releasing as many as 4,000 federal prisoners early.

However, after passing the House of Representatives, FIRST STEP stalled out in the Senate. This was thanks to concerns about, among other things, what kind of prisoners were excluded from receiving good time credits. Specifically, drug traffickers were eligible for early release unless “death or serious bodily injury resulted from the use” of the drug they had sold.

The possibility of mass-releasing drug dealers did not fly with Trump, whose opposition sank the bill’s chances of a floor vote before the midterm. In a meeting before he came out against the bill, Trump said he would never support a bill that set fentanyl traffickers free, and agreed with then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions that Congress should toughen fentanyl sentencing guidelines.

Backers, responding to Trump’s concerns, have put together a new version of FIRST STEP, expected sometime early this week. Koch Industries V.P. and general counsel Mark Holden, who has been a key representative for the bill in the media, told the Washington Post that he expects that text to receive an up-or-down vote during the lame duck session.

Whether or not it actually does ultimately depends on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (Ky.) willingness to bring the bill to the floor, which he has said he will only do if a whip count indicates it will receive 60 votes

The new version of the bill ostensibly excludes fentanyl dealers from receiving the sentencing reductions, a change that was central to it receiving the backing of the Fraternal Order of Police (which did not respond to a request for comment for this article).

“The FOP played a key role in making sure that truly dangerous offenders, like those who commit crimes while armed and those who traffic in deadly narcotics like fentanyl, are ineligible to participate in the First Step program,” said FOP President Chuck Canterbury in a statement on his group’s support of the bill.

But the text of the bill, as seen by the Free Beacon, does not categorically exclude any person convicted of selling fentanyl from early release. Rather, it specifically excludes individuals convicted of manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to distribute fentanyl and its analogs if and only if they are also found to have been an “organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor of others in the offense.”

This language comes from the “role adjustment” sentencing modification that certain offenders can receive for playing leadership roles in drug trafficking schemes. Data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission indicate that just 7 percent of all drug trafficking offenders received any kind of “aggravating” role adjustment, of which the leader adjustment is just one example.

In other words, the overwhelming proportion of individuals who might be charged for trafficking fentanyl are not organizers, leaders, manager, or supervisors—and all of these people are still included in eligibility for FIRST STEP’s sentence reduction.

Additionally, the new version of the bill adds only fentanyl and its analogs to the list of drugs the trafficking of which would exclude certain people from release.  A person convicted of trafficking other drugs, like heroin and cocaine, can still get out early.

However, fentanyl is rarely, if ever, trafficked by itself. Rather, it is usually mixed with counterfeit prescription pills, heroin, or cocaine, meaning that individuals who traffic in these drugs may very well also be fentanyl distributors.

While heroin or cocaine trafficking is often also fentanyl trafficking, most federal drug trafficking offenders are not convicted of actually trafficking fentanyl. This is because it is much easier to identify heroin or cocaine, as opposed to fentanyl, which requires a lab test to confirm. This helps explain why 93 percent of all federal drug offenders are incarcerated for drugs relating to cocaine, heroin, marijuana, or meth; few if any are actually convicted of fentanyl distribution.

All of this means that the actual language included in the revised version of FIRST STEP is unlikely to do much to forestall the early release of fentanyl dealers—an eventuality that would lead to more deadly fentanyl on America’s streets.

The bill’s specific exclusion of only certain fentanyl dealers—and inclusion of all other drug dealers—is not popular with the public. A survey commissioned by the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys found that 74 percent of respondents would oppose “a proposal to reduce penalties for traffickers in heroin, fentanyl, and similar drugs.”

Normally, there is something honorable and respectable about persistent people living out the adage, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.”

But if that person is Hillary Clinton? It’s not so much honorable and respectable as it is pathetic and laughable.

American voters already gave a resounding response to Clinton’s bid for the presidency in 2016, and she has done nothing in the last two years to really change that narrative.

Clinton’s defeat tour since losing the election to Donald Trump has included “painful” appearances on late night television and “horribly unfunny” appearances on underwhelming sitcom reboots. There’s been virtually nothing of substance she has accomplished since losing the election.

It’s been lackluster enough that Clinton has basically become persona non grata within her own party.

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Rumors have been swirling about Clinton’s next potential move for a while, and now some gasoline has been thrown on that fire thanks to two Mark Penn, a senior adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton from 1995 to 2008, and Andrew Stein, a Democrat and former New York City Council president.

In a Wall Street Journal piece titled “Hillary Will Run Again,” Stein and Penn literally start the piece with “Get ready for Hillary Clinton 4.0.”

Stein and Penn go on to explain that “Hillary Clinton 4.0” will be an even more liberal version of herself. In other words, think Bernie Sanders but even more irritating.

“More than 30 years in the making, this new version of Mrs. Clinton, when she runs for president in 2020, will come full circle — back to the universal-health-care-promoting progressive firebrand of 1994,” Stein and Penn claim. “True to her name, Mrs. Clinton will fight this out until the last dog dies. She won’t let a little thing like two stunning defeats stand in the way of her claim to the White House.”

Another adage comes to mind when discussing Clinton’s “two stunning defeats.” Something about “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”

Stunningly, Stein and Penn make the case that Clinton has learned virtually nothing from her resounding defeat in 2016.

“Mrs. Clinton has come unbound. She will not allow this humiliating loss at the hands of an amateur to end the story of her career,” the two wrote.

Dismissing Trump as an “amateur” shows just how little Clinton and her camp has learned from defeat. Yes, in the most literal sense, Trump is a political “amateur” in so far as his lack of political experience before becoming president.

But dismissing him in such a manner undersells all of the many reasons he did win the election.

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Trump is an outsider, a maverick and the literal opposite of a career politician. That’s how he dispatched the likes of Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton en route to winning the presidency. Americans were sick of the elitist “dynasties” that were looking out for themselves before the people of this country.

Trump represented a welcome break in the system. He represented a disruption to the woeful status quo. If Clinton and her camp don’t realize that now, they can expect a 2020 run to go remarkably similar to 2016.

“You can expect her to run for president once again. Maybe not at first, when the legions of Senate Democrats make their announcements, but definitely by the time the primaries are in full swing,” Penn and Stein argue.

That sentence might be the best news Trump has heard in a while.

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

BY: Todd Shepherd Follow
@shepherdreports

November 12, 2018 1:50 pm

PHOENIX, Ariz.—Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes’s (D.) answers to questions about controversial emergency voting centers opened on the Saturday and Monday before Election Day only inspired more criticism from Republicans, who consider the centers workarounds for voting election deadlines set by law.

The debate over Maricopa County’s logistical decisions comes as ballots continue to slowly be counted in Arizona’s Senate contest.

On the Wednesday following Election Day, Republican congresswoman Martha McSally led Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema by over 17,000 votes. However, there were also about 650,000 votes still to be counted, with the majority of those in Maricopa County.

As of Monday, Sinema has a lead of about 32,900 votes, and the Arizona Republic estimates 215,000 votes remain to be counted across the state.

By law, early voting is supposed to end on the Friday before Election Day, but the law also provides for the emergency voting centers that may be created after. Ambiguities over the “emergency voting” statute—including questions as to what constitutes an emergency and whether or not a voter should have to prove their emergency—are the points of conflict.

During “Sunday Square Off” on local NBC Affiliate 12News, political reporter Brahm Resnik pressed Fontes on the decisions, first by asking about the locations of the emergency voting centers, and whether the locations favored Democrats.

Resnik: How fair is this when vast swaths of the valley [Phoenix metro area] – and maybe some Republican districts, some might argue were left out of these voting centers—while you have two very close to each other in a Democratic area?

Fontes: Here’s what’s interesting about this. On the one hand we have people complaining that I shouldn’t be doing something in the first place. And on the other hand when I do it, they criticize me for the way it happens. And that’s fair. I’m an elected official, and I’ve got big shoulders.

The following image, provided by the Arizona Republican Party, shows precinct-by-precinct results for Maricopa County for this election, and also shows the location of the emergency voting centers.

Fontes then went on to describe the locations of the emergency voting centers, and said he got a request from an elected official for others, with the request he said coming “very close to the last minute.”

The request from the elected official was the mayor of Tolleson, who endorsed Sinema almost a year before the election.

Then Resnick asked about the ambiguities around the emergency voting statutes.

Fontes: Now, here’s the thing. Emergency voting has been in the statutes for decades. And county recorders outside of Maricopa County have been doing this for decades. And so the fact that we just…

Resnik: But this is the first time Maricopa County did it.

Fontes: Yes.

Resnik: And I could have gone, without any illness and – for any reason I could have gone to one of these centers for any reason at all.

Fontes: You would have had to had an emergency.

Resnik: Are you sure about that?

Fontes: Yep.

Resnik: Uh, Democrat candidates were putting this number and address out on door hangers saying, ‘Just show up.'”

Fontes: The law says you can have emergency voting available, if a voter has an emergency.

Resnik: You weren’t checking for emergencies at the door.

Fontes: It’s not my business what your emergency is, Brahm. I’ve got HIPPA [health privacy laws] laws that prevent me from asking. You’ve got your privacy that I have to respect, and by the way, what, pray tell, is the problem with giving voters access to the ballot box? That’s my first question.

Continuing its criticism of the controversy, the Arizona Republican Party Sunday morning tweeted out a Fox News interview with election law attorney and former Maricopa County prosecutor Tim La Sota.

“Tim La Sota: Democrats are not concerned with counting votes, they’re concerned with counting their votes. #AZSEN” the tweet read.

After the emergency voting locations were open on the Saturday before Election Day, Republican officials sent letters to every county recorder in the state about concerns they had over the legality of some processes which were underway, but singled out Maricopa County in particular.

“It has come to our attention that the Maricopa County Recorder’s office may be systematically permitting electors to cast in-person early ballots between Saturday, November 3 and Monday, November 5, irrespective of whether such individuals have cited any articulable ’emergency,'” the letter said. “If true, this practice impermissibly circumvents the statutory deadline and constitutes a de facto extension of general early voting.”

The GOP asked county recorders to segregate all ballots cast in emergency voting centers, in case more legal questions arose.

The Arizona Republic reported on the letter saying that “[Fontes] would not confirm whether the office is complying with the request and separating the ballots.” The same report estimated that about 3,000 ballots were at issue.

After election day, the GOP straightforwardly accused Fontes of destroying evidence by not segregating the ballots as it had requested.

Fontes has maintained that a “plain reading” of the election law and the emergency voting statutes support his decisions.

While “all eyes” are on Florida amidst accusations of potential election fraud, there may have been something fishy going on in St. Clair County, Illinois. According to The Gateway Pundit, this would not be the first time something like this has happened, either.

Peggy A. Hubbard posted a multi-tweet thread explaining what happened in the 2018 midterm elections, noting that she was an election judge. She began describing some of what she witnessed as she watched the polling station.

I witnessed attempted voter fraud on Tuesday.

92 yr old woman with dementia who could not speak

A man with 2 drives licenses and 4 different addresses

A woman that didn’t live in the city she was voting in. And, Democrats were going to let them all VOTE!

I stopped it….

— ❌Peggy A Hubbard❌ 🇺🇸 (@pahubb43) November 10, 2018

But that wasn’t all she saw.

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I even had a man SO drunk he forgot his name. You could smell him from 7 feet away. And, they were going to let him vote.

Unreal what Democrats would allow.

— ❌Peggy A Hubbard❌ 🇺🇸 (@pahubb43) November 10, 2018

Not only is it shocking that anyone would allow this, but it’s also shocking that someone would get in such a state before then going to vote.

Hubbard noted that she also caught a city council member just feet away doing no good. But it was Hubbard taking flack.

The Democrats filed complaints against me. They are asking for my REMOVAL as an election judge in St Clair county IL

This after i caught a city council members less than 10 feet from the polling place passing out fliers and other items. Rules say 100 ft. I called State attorney

— ❌Peggy A Hubbard❌ 🇺🇸 (@pahubb43) November 10, 2018

She also elaborated further on how she put a stop to what she witnessed. It appears that these actions may have led to the complaints filed against her and her removal as an election judge being sought.

I challenged it. Called the county court house, called the states attorney who are on stand by.

And i wasn’t intimidated by the Demcrat poll watchers or election judges. I challenged.

— ❌Peggy A Hubbard❌ 🇺🇸 (@pahubb43) November 10, 2018

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Hubbard has also posted about other problems with the election in her state. These are from 2016.

2016East St Louis, ILPrecinct officials caught buying votes for alcohol and $5 bucks

Alorton, ILMayor and 4 city council members caught stuffing ballot box and absentee ballots from vacant lots

Washington Park, IL75 absentee ballots from same address

ALL DEMOCRATS

— ❌Peggy A Hubbard❌ 🇺🇸 (@pahubb43) November 10, 2018

Hubbard is no stranger to standing up for what she believes in or in being attacked for it. In 2015, she “compared the black community’s reaction to the shooting of Mansur Ball-Bey in North St. Louis outside a crack house with the shooting death of 9 year-old Jamyla Bolden in Ferguson,” according to The Gateway Pundit.

Her video rant went viral. And the typical name-calling ensued, including her being referred to as an “Uncle Tom.”

Service isn’t new to Hubbard, either. She is a veteran who served aboard the USS SAMUEL GOMPERS AD-37.

HAPPY VETERAN’S DAY

It was my honor to have served this great nation 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/NVBDhF9uYm

— ❌Peggy A Hubbard❌ 🇺🇸 (@pahubb43) November 11, 2018

Hubbard’s Twitter feed is filled with hard-hitting posts about the left and Democrat shenanigans. She has no problem speaking out against the “Democrat Plantation” and “Black Lives Matter,” contrary to what blacks in America are expected to do.

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