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Maryland Man Inspired by ISIS Taken Down Before Alleged Plot To Mow Down US Citizens with U-Haul

Remember radical Islamic terrorism? The threat from that? Probably not so much, at least if your memory is anything like the media’s.

If Islamic terrorism gets mentioned at all in this country, it’s only to state that it’s less dangerous than terrorism from white supremacists. Which, while terrorism from white supremacists is indeed dangerous, I don’t remember them crashing planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people in the process.

Rondell Henry wasn’t thinking that big, according to federal prosecutors. However, the alleged wannabe terrorist still wanted to emulate the 2016 attack in Nice, France, that killed 87 people, according to documents unveiled in a Washington-area court this week.

“A Maryland man inspired by the Islamic State group plotted to ram a stolen U-Haul truck into as many pedestrians as possible at a popular convention and tourist destination just outside the nation’s capital, federal prosecutors said Monday,” The Associated Press reported.

“The allegation was made in a court filing as prosecutors in Maryland urged a judge to keep the defendant, 28-year-old Rondell Henry, detained on a charge of driving a stolen vehicle across state lines. The police arrested him on March 28 after officers who discovered the stolen truck saw him leap over a security fence,” the report said.

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When he was taken into police custody, Henry began talking about his plans for the truck, according to prosecutors.

“‘I was just going to keep driving and driving and driving. I wasn’t going to stop,’ the document quotes Henry as telling law enforcement authorities who questioned him. He said he wanted to create ‘panic and chaos’ similar to a deadly truck attack that killed scores of people in Nice, France, in 2016, prosecutors say.”

Henry’s alleged target was National Harbor, a complex of restaurants, retail shops and hotels on the Potomac River in Maryland.

Later in the report, the AP notes the computer engineer was described in court documents “as harboring hatred for ‘disbelievers’ and looking to emulate Islamic State militants he saw on beheading videos and fighting overseas.

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“On his phone, which prosecutors say he discarded on a highway in an apparent attempt to conceal evidence, authorities found images of the ISIS flag, armed ISIS fighters and the man who carried out the massacre in an Orlando, Florida, nightclub three years ago.”

Speaking of ISIS, when the last piece of Islamic State group-controlled territory was finally recaptured by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, there was almost nothing in the way of celebration in the media or among Democrats.

Nor, in fact, is stopping radical Islamic terrorism a major policy priority of the Democratic Party.

However, this is the party that’s willing to push the Green New Deal — unless, of course, someone wants to vote on it, because it won’t pass. The plan isn’t just profoundly unrealistic about how soon we can eliminate carbon emissions, it could also end up costing us up to $93 trillion. (And it wouldn’t even eliminate cow farts!)

And then there’s H.R. 5, known as the Equality Act, which has been getting attention as of late. As Terry Schilling wrote in The Daily Caller, its idea of “equality” may or may not be yours.

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“The ‘Equality’ Act would make it illegal to make private spaces such as changing rooms, bathrooms, and even your local gym’s locker room only open to women. Girls in school will have no say over who can enter their bathrooms and locker rooms,” Schiller wrote.

“Battered women’s shelters can and will be sued and shut down if they refuse to let men who claim to identify as women room with abused women. The ‘Equality’ Act would even criminalize doctors who refuse to perform sex-change surgeries simply because a patient ‘wants it.’”

These are the legislative priorities of the Democrats. In the meanwhile, Islamic terrorism remains a real threat.

Yes, we don’t know the exact details of Rondell Henry’s alleged plot or how serious he was. We don’t know how much of a chance he had of succeeding. We don’t know if he’s even guilty of any of this.

What we do know is that there are people who want to run U-Haul trucks into crowds — and worse — in the name of a twisted religious vision.

In the meanwhile, we can all be thankful that the left is looking out for those cow farts.

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The Truth About How Much Americans Are Paying in Taxes

As Americans file their taxes this April, they might be in
for a surprise: Most Americans got a tax cut last year.

It shouldn’t be a surprise given the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
of 2017, but unfortunately, the media has
produced
a
never–ending
deluge
of
misleading
or
inaccurate
reporting
on the issue.

Last year, The Heritage Foundation studied how
the tax cuts would affect Americans in every congressional district across the
country. We found that each of the 435 districts got a tax cut and that the
average American household paid about $1,400 less in taxes as a result in 2018.

Americans with children also benefit from the tax cuts. A
married couple filing jointly with two children saw their tax bills fall by an
average of $2,917.

Depending on how much you make, where you live, and how many
kids you have, the numbers can look different. You can check out the average
tax cut in every congressional district here.

Americans don’t just benefit from the lower taxes. They
benefit a second time from higher wages generated by a faster-growing economy. Lower
taxes for businesses and individuals help fuel more investment and innovation,
which means more jobs and higher wages.

Over the next 10 years, thanks to a larger economy, the
typical American will benefit from over $26,000
more in take-home pay, or $44,697 for a family of four.

Tangible Results

Average tax cuts can be a bit abstract and can seem too good
to be true, so we crunched
the numbers for specific taxpayers. Here are two examples.  

Sofia Lopez, a single teacher making $50,000, paid $5,474 in
federal income taxes for 2017. This year, she paid $1,104 less to the federal
government. Her marginal tax rate dropped from 25 percent to 12 percent. Overall,
she got a 20 percent tax cut.

Under the old tax code, John and Sarah Jones—a married couple with combined earnings of $75,000, three children and a home mortgage—paid $1,753 last year. They just finished filing their taxes, and this year their federal income tax bill will decline by $2,014. In fact, because of the larger $2,000 child tax credit, they will get a refundable credit of $261.  

As a result of tax reform, 9 out of 10 taxpayers got a tax
cut, which most Americans received through lower employer
withholding.

Even if most people got a tax cut, some people are concerned
that their tax refunds might be smaller after initial reports showed that some
refunds could be smaller than in previous years.

The key to remember here is that tax refunds are the
government paying you back if you overpaid your taxes throughout the year. They
are not related to the size of your actual tax cut. Nonetheless, folks are
still rightly concerned about the unanticipated change.  

Since the initial reporting, revised numbers now show that
average refunds are about
the same as last year. Americans likely got a tax cut and still got the
refund they were expecting.

Another change that has gotten a lot of negative attention
is the capping of the state and local tax deduction (SALT). This cap begins to
fix how the deduction that until recently had subsidized
unusually high taxes in some states at the expense of federal taxpayers in
low-tax states.

After sustained negative press, Ryan C. Sheppard, an accountant at Knight Rolleri Sheppard in Fairfield, Connecticut, recently explained to Bloomberg that “[a] lot of folks are coming in assuming they’re going to lose under the new tax law when in fact, they’re not.” That’s because the cap was paired with new lower tax rates and other reforms, like a larger exemption for the alternative minimum tax.

It has now been more than a year since the tax cuts were
signed into law, and many Americans may have forgotten how the law changed.

Here’s
a brief summary of the major reforms for individual taxpayers in
2018:

Lower Tax Rates. Tax
rates were cut across all seven of the income tax brackets. The top marginal
rate decreased from 39.6 percent to 37 percent. The marginal rate for a single
earner making $50,000 dropped from 25 percent to 22 percent, while the rate for
a married couple with $75,000 of income declined from 15 percent to 12 percent.

Bigger Standard
Deduction. The amount of income fully exempt from the income tax, called
the standard deduction, almost doubled. For married joint filers, the deduction
is $24,000; for single filers, it is $12,000. The new larger deduction takes
the place of the personal exemption and simplifies tax filing. About nine in 10
taxpayers will simply claim the new standard deduction in 2018 rather than
itemize their taxes.

$2,000 Child Tax
Credit. The child tax credit doubled from $1,000 to $2,000 per child and
begins to phase out at almost quadruple the income level of $400,000. The new
larger credit more than offsets the repeal of the personal exemption for
dependents.

$10,000 State and
Local Tax Deduction. Taxpayers who choose not to take the standard
deduction are able to deduct up to $10,000 of state and local property taxes
and income taxes (or sales taxes) paid.

For individuals, the bill also expanded 529 college savings
accounts to K-12 expenses, limited the mortgage interest deduction for new
mortgages, zeroed out the individual mandate tax, raised the death tax exclusion,
eliminated the phase-out of itemized deductions, and increased the exemption
for the alternative minimum tax, among many other changes.

But all of the individual tax cuts expire after 2025 and
will need to be extended. Otherwise, Americans will face steep tax increases down the road.      

Taken as a whole, these changes simplified
taxpaying for typical American taxpayers and cut their taxes by
thousands of dollars. Thanks to tax reform, paying taxes this year will be less
painful than last year.

The post The Truth About How Much Americans Are Paying in Taxes appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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AOC Makes Mistake of Defending ‘Racist’ Accent, Instantly Slammed by Minorities Who See Through Her

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a new excuse for her strange accent at the National Action Network conference last week: Code-switching.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the controversy, here are the basics: At the predominantly black conference last week, the New York Democrat seemed to adopt a Southern drawl when talking about menial work.

“I’m proud to be a bartender, ain’t nothin’ wrong with that,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with working retail, folding clothes for other people to buy. There is nothing wrong with preparing the food that your neighbors will eat. There is nothing wrong with driving the buses that take your family to work.”

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Once the incident garnered attention, Ocasio-Cortez quickly went on the defensive.

“As much as the right wants to distort & deflect, I am from the Bronx. I act & talk like it, *especially* when I’m fired up and especially when I’m home,” she wrote in one Twitter post. “It is so hurtful to see how every aspect of my life is weaponized against me, yet somehow asserted as false at the same time.”

People still didn’t seem to buy that, so we got a new explanation: She was just code-switching.

If you’re not familiar with the linguistic concept, a crude description would be to say that it’s switching between two different dialects or languages during a single conversation or sometimes within the wider context of a certain milieu. In Ocasio-Cortez’s case, she was just taking on a Southern accent in front of black people because she was … a black person from the South? Oh well, let her explain it:

“Next time you‘re told straight hair is ‘unprofessional’ & that speaking like your parents do is ‘uneducated,’ then you can complain about code-switching,” she tweeted when someone questioned the argument being made for her. “Code switching is a tool communities learn when they’re told their voice, appearance, & mannerisms are ‘unprofessional.’”

“We see the perceived ‘costs’ to not code-switching all the time. Can’t tell you how many young people in our community don’t have the confidence they should bc they didn’t grow up learning secondary speech,” she continued. “Their talents get stifled by ‘respectability,’ despite enormous gifts.”

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“The good news is that we can improve this easily w/ honest reflection. For ex, are certain hairstyles discouraged in your workplace? Why? Can you think of someone who didn’t advance bc of how they spoke? Why? Examine what’s deemed ‘unprofessional’ around you & adapt it to 2019.”

Now mind you, she didn’t make the code-switching argument to begin with, arguing this is how she’d talked in other speeches. That doesn’t mean that she didn’t think she was code switching or that it’s mutually exclusive from her original explication of the strange lapse into a Southern accent — that it was no different from speeches she’d given previously, which was clearly false.

But it is interesting to note.

It’s also interesting to note that some African-American Twitter users didn’t think she possessed that particular code to switch (though CNN’s Don Lemon apparently wasn’t one of them):

Some reactions were a bit more forceful about the point. (WARNING: The image below links to the original tweet where the obscenities are written in full.)

And then others pointed out the obvious.

That’s arguably the most disturbing thing — the fact that she adopted this speech before the National Action Network, a predominantly African-American group, while talking about menial jobs. That probably wasn’t the moment to drag that out.

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Also, while we’re on it, Ocasio-Cortez’s rant about the horrors that code-switching is meant to avoid seems pandering as well.

Professionalism isn’t a bad thing. It isn’t racist or enforcing homogenous cultural norms. If you don’t speak and act professionally in an interview, you’re not going to have the same chance at the job that someone who speaks and acts professionally does. Get used to it. This isn’t racist, classist, sexist or anything of that nature — and minority Twitter users realized that.

Beyond that, however, it’s clear that even if she was code-switching that some minorities weren’t buying that she had the right to. Granted, these are three responses, but one can extrapolate this — particularly when one considers the fact that just about everyone — regardless of race — is tiring of Ocasio-Cortez’s excuses in this matter by now.

I hope this doesn’t go away, however, because I’m curious what she’ll come up with next.

Multiple personalities, perhaps? Repressed trauma from being among the oppressed class? Imitating the colonizer? So many possibilities, so few news cycles for this story to remain fresh.

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

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ANNOYED: Ocasio-Cortez Appears To Be Getting On Pelosi’s Last Nerve

While the mainstream media just can’t get enough of the new socialist hotshot in Congress, House Speaker seems to be growing weary of the wunderkind, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Pelosi, after all, is the leader of the Democratic caucus that now control the House, so she expects to be garnering the lion’s share of the media coverage. Instead, the 29-year-old former bartender from New York is grabbing all kinds of headlines, and getting those sought-after invites to late-night talk shows.

Pelosi, 79, is a pro, so when she appeared to take aim at Ocasio-Cortez — who has nearly 4 million followers on Twitter and millions more on Instagram and Facebook — she did so without naming her.

During an interview with USA Today, Pelosi was asked about the difficulty of coordinating House Democrats while some freshmen like Ocasio-Cortez “proudly embrace socialism” and are busy shoving the party far to the left with “sweeping action on climate change and call for a government-run health care system.”

“While there are people who have a large number of Twitter followers, what’s important is that we have large numbers of votes on the floor of the House,” Pelosi said.

Zing.

Ocasio-Cortez has been complaining about Democrats who occasionally vote with Republicans on issues important to their constituents and wants the party to target those consider disloyal. But Pelosi, who has been in Congress more than 30 years, told USA Today it’s not that simple.

When USA TODAY asked how more liberal members responded when she told them they needed legislation that could pass, she responded, “They’re fine.”

“As I say to my own district, ‘You go out and elect 218 people, just like San Francisco, then we can talk,’ ” she said.

It’a not the first time Pelosi has dissed the upstart from New York. Back in February, she seemed to mock Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal,” which calls for the end of automobiles and planes and even wants to address farting cows. The estimated cost for the program over 10 years is $93 trillion.

The day AOC was unveiling the GND, Pelosi “brushed off the idea of the Green New Deal as a ‘suggestion,’” Politico reported.

“It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive,” Pelosi said. “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it right?”

And Pelosi snubbed Ocasio-Cortez, passing her over for a seat on the Ways and Means Committee, even though the incumbent AOC beat — Joe Crowley — sat on the committee. Ocasio-Cortez was also reportedly left out of the Pelosi-controlled Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

The post ANNOYED: Ocasio-Cortez Appears To Be Getting On Pelosi’s Last Nerve appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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College President Argues Against Free Speech on Campus

Union College President David R. Harris recently penned an argument against free speech on college campuses, claiming that institutions of higher learning have a responsibility to manage speech by providing “constructive engagement,” so that students can have an optimal learning experience.

Union College president David R. Harris penned an op-ed, entitled, “A Campus Is Not the Place for Free Speech,” in which he argues that it is the role of colleges and universities to filter the conversations on campuses to provide “constructive engagement.”

“I oppose free speech on college campuses,” states Harris in his op-ed, “I think college campuses should be safe havens from voices on the left and right that violate what I have learned and what I believe.”

The college president had written his op-ed in response to President Donald Trump’s recent executive order requiring colleges and universities to uphold the First Amendment on campus in order to continue receiving federal research funding.

“Many of the president’s supporters have applauded his free speech decision,” states Harris, “because they argue that higher education institutions trumpet liberal perspectives and silence conservative voices.” Harris adds that the members of academia higher education believe “the president and his supporters do not understand what actually happens on college campuses.”

Harris also claims  in his op-ed that institutions of higher learning would only be managing speech on campus for students’ own good, suggesting that when left unchecked, free speech would not facilitate a productive learning experience, arguing that individuals will end up using speech irresponsibly when utilizing it in its “purest form”

“Free speech, in its purest form, is an exercise in what is achieved when a person yells a view and then leaves, after which someone with an opposing perspective does the same” states the college president, “The speakers do not grow as a result of the experience, and the audience has no opportunity to probe the opposing points of view.”

Harris also insists that he is a supporter of free speech, but just not when it comes to college campuses. On campuses, Harris says, “we must strive for something more than free speech.”

“It is not enough for individuals to speak freely,” continues Harris, adding that college students are already having more constructive and diverse interactions than “most adults,” claiming, “college campuses and social networks tend to be more diverse than ‘real world’ neighborhoods and social clubs.”

One could argue, however, that younger generations today seem to be less tolerant of everything from intellectually diverse conversations, to even lighthearted comedy skits.

Last week, for example, students at Texas State University demanded censorship of the school’s Turning Point USA student group, a conservative club on campus that some students say need to be banned in the name of “free speech.” The school’s student government plans to vote on a resolution regarding the matter on Monday.

Moreover, students at Columbia University kicked Saturday Night Live comedian Nimesh Patel out of their own event where they had invited him to perform last December, claiming that his jokes were “offensive.”

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo and on Instagram.

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Belgians Charge CEO Recruiting ‘Sugar Babies’ with ‘Incitement to Debauchery’

A Norwegian CEO who ran poster campaigns trying to recruit young women to become “sugar babies” to older men outside university campuses has been charged with “public incitement to debauchery” in Belgium.

Sigurd Vedal, 47, began his ‘Rich Meet Beautiful’ website in Scandinavia, launching a recruitment drive to expand the business in Belgium in 2018 with a promise to provide young when with a “Fifty Shades of Grey” experience, according to the Guardian.

Vedal placed billboards recruiting for the website near university campuses, causing the Université Libre de Bruxelles to complain.

“We presumed the existence of a sexual counterpart to the registration on this site,” a spokesman for the institution told the newspaper.

“The message is: ‘you’re young, you’re beautiful, go out with a sugar daddy!’ Everyone understands what it’s about,” they added.

In response, the Belgian authorities are now charging the CEO with violating anti-sexism laws, debauchery, and public incitement to debauchery.

Vedal’s lawyer Eric Cusas said Rich Meet Beautiful was not about sex, describing it as “a specialised site aimed at bringing certain people together with a nice physique and others who are well-off” and insisting that any perceived sexual element was “only in the eye of the observer”.

Some of the posters show a woman lying prone in her bra with her eyes closed and her mouth open, with a shirtless man bearing down on top of her from behind.

Vedal has also run poster campaigns in the United Kingdom, targeting universities including the City of London Law School, London School of Economics (LSE), and Kings College London in an attempt to recruit 100,000 users.

“It’s disgusting. It should be illegal for these perverts to pray on youngsters like this,” a student at one of the universities told MailOnline.

“University is expensive, we all know that, and I’m in a massive amount of debt.

“But me and my friends would never turn to prostitution in order to reduce that, and these sorts of websites are tantamount to that — it’s exploitative and wrong,” she said.

Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBMontgomery
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Atlanta Mayor Welcomes Drag Queen Story Hour to City Hall After Library Pulls Support

Keisha Lance Bottoms, mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, tweeted an invitation Friday to allow a drag queen story hour at city hall after the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System removed one of the story hours from its calendar.

“Miss Terra Cotta Sugarbaker and all of our LGBTQ friends are always welcome at Atlanta City Hall,” posted Bottoms. “How about we host your next story hour? @City of Atlanta – let’s make it happen!”

Bottoms invited the drag queen to read to young children at city hall after support for the event to be held at an Alpharetta library branch was pulled.

Steven Igarashi-Ball, a 40-year-old Buford native who performs in drag as Miss Terra Cotta Sugarbaker, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he feels the Fulton library system discriminated against him. The system is reportedly allowing only an unsanctioned version of the “Drag Queen Story Hour” on April 27 in the Alpharetta branch, though the event no longer appears on its calendar.

Igarashi-Ball said his past success at a drag queen story hour in another library branch led to an invitation to read to the children at the Alpharetta branch.

“The community has made it clear that they want the event and the county canceled the event,” he said.

Igarashi-Ball explained to Project Q Atlanta that he received an email from a public relations spokesperson for the library system in early March about the change in the program.

“I was told that the event was being cancelled by the county and not by the library and they said that it was above the library’s decision,” the drag queen said. “I was told that all of the libraries support the event and wanted it to continue, but that the county had say over them and that the county was cancelling it.”

Igarashi-Ball posted on Facebook about the cancellation of his event. “I felt that if our program and myself were under attack, I would have a right to know who my attackers were,” he said.

Jessica Corbitt-Dominguez, spokeswoman for the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System, said in a statement to the AJC that the system does “appreciate the community support for the Drag Queen Story Time event, which has been successful and well received at the Ponce de Leon Library.”

“We recommended to the organizer that it continue at the location where it has a strong track record. … Not every program is offered at every location,” she added.

According to the AJC, Igarashi-Ball responded to Bottoms’ invitation that he was “definitely interested to discuss the possibility,” adding, “We love that the Mayor is supporting our event!”

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Senate Plans Hearing for Social Media Sites On Censorship

Another Senate hearing probing into the treatment of free speech at social media companies is scheduled to happen on April 10. The hearing, “Stifling Free Speech: Technological Censorship and the Public Discourse,” will be headed by subcommittee chair Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

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Leak of Classified Info Reaches ‘Record High Levels’ Under Trump

Illegal leaks of classified information have reportedly reached "record high levels" during the Trump administration, according to a nonprofit group citing DOJ stats.

"Agencies transmitted 120 leak referrals to the Justice Department in 2017, and 88 leak referrals in 2018, for an average of 104 per year," the Federation of American Scientists reported, citing numbers issued by the Justice Department. "By comparison, the average number of leak referrals during the Obama Administration (2009–2016) was 39 per year."

While Trump administration officials have sought to stem the flow of these leaks, they appear to have continued at record levels.

"It has continued," FAS noted in its newsletter. "Despite preventive efforts, the 2018 total of 88 leak referrals was still higher than any reported pre-Trump figure. (The previous high in recent decades had been 55 referrals in 2013 and in 2007. The lowest was 18 in 2015.)."

"The newly released aggregate data on classified leak referrals serve as a reminder that leaks of classified information are a ‘normal,’ predictable occurrence," FAS reported. "There is not a single year in the past decade and a half for which data are available when there were no such criminal referrals."

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