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Communist officials in Langfang, a city just south of Beijing, China, issued a directive prohibiting all Christmas sales and decorations between Dec. 23 and Dec. 25, including any “Santa” displays. 

The Urban Management Bureau of Langfang distributed the notice and claimed it was not targeting Christmas but wanted to ensure its city streets were clean and orderly to qualify for inclusion in the “National Civilized Cities” competition, reported the Global Times.

The Communist-run Bureau banned Christmas trees on streets, and stores were ”not allowed to put up posters, banners or light boxes about Christmas sales,” reported The Times. ”Outdoor performances to celebrate the holiday or promote sales [were] also prohibited.”

The paper further reported that “city peddlers [were] forbidden from selling Christmas related items like Christmas apples, Santa costumes and stockings, or Christmas trees.”  

Commenting on what happened, the Christian relief group ChinaAid said the directive “comes amid Chinese authorities’ building an unfounded anxiety about foreign religions infiltrating China in order to overthrow their power.”

“As a result, they have begun ‘Sinicizing’ religions, or forcing them to conform to Communist Party ideals, in order to preserve their ideological control of the people,” said ChinaAid in a statement. “ Those who refuse to comply are often arrested or otherwise harassed.”

h/t ChinaAid

(CNSNews.com) – The Internal Revenue Service had in its weapons inventory 4,487 guns and 5,062,006 rounds of ammunition as of late 2017, according to a report published this month by the Government Accountability Office.

Included in this arsenal, according to the GAO, were 15 “fully automatic firearms” and 56,000 rounds of ammunition for those fully automatic firearms.

The same report–“Federal Law Enforcement: Purchases and Inventory Controls of Firearms, Ammuntion, and Tactical Equipment“–says that the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services had 194 fully automatic firearms and 386,952 rounds of ammunition for those fully automatic firearms.

“The term ‘fully automatic’ used in this report,” says a footnote in the report, “encompasses a range of firearms classified as machine guns, including submachine guns, three round burst guns, and guns with a selector switch that can enable continuous fire.”

[Above is Table 4 from the GAO report.]

The guns in the IRS inventory also included 3,302 pistols, 623 shotguns, 543 rifles, and 4 revolvers.

The ammunition stockpiled by the IRS—in addition to the 56,000 rounds for its fully automatic firearms–included 3,156,046 pistol and revolver rounds, 368,592 shotgun rounds and 1,481,368 rifle rounds.

The IRS’s firearms and ammunition are used primarily by its Criminal Investigation (CI) unit, which is manned by 2,148 federal law enforcement officers. But some of it also used by the IRS’s Police Officer Section, which includes only 9 federal law enforcement officers.

“IRS’ Criminal Investigation serves the American public by investigating potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code and related financial crimes in compliance with the law,” the GAO explained in the report it published this month.

“IRS’ Police Office Section,” said the report, “provides protection for the people, property and processes of its Enterprise Computing Center in Martinsburg, West Virginia, which houses 10 of IRS’ 19 critical tax processing functions.”

The GAO looked at how 20 federal agencies spent money on firearms and ammunition for the federal law enforcement officers (FLEOs) under their authority, whether they accurately reported those firearms and ammunition purchases, and how agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency and the IRS, practiced “inventory control” for their guns and ammunition.

“Federal law enforcement agencies purchase firearms, ammunition, and tactical equipment, such as riot shields, to support their missions,” the GAO said in summarizing its report. “GAO was asked to review these purchases for federal law enforcement agencies, and inventory controls at HHS, EPA and IRS specifically.”

The report listed five members of Congress as the requesters: House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Trey Gowdy (R.-S.C.), Rep. Mark Meadows (R.-N.C.), Sen. Jim Inhofe (R.-Okla.), Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R.- Mo.) and Rep, Richard Hudson (R.-N.C.)

“The 20 federal law enforcement agencies in GAO’s review reported spending at least $38.8 million on firearms, $325.9 million on ammunition, and $1.14 billion on tactical equipment—at least $1.5 billion in total—from fiscal years 2010 through 2017, based on data agencies provided to GAO,” said the report.

The report explained that the agencies in question purchase ammunition for use by federal law enforcement officers for both training and operations.

“At these federal agencies, FLEOs are authorized to carry firearms,, and are required to train in their use and pass certain firearms qualification standards,” says the report. “To help ensure officers’ maintain the firearms proficiency of their firearms-carrying workforce, these agencies purchase ammunition for training, qualifications, and operations.”

The report said that one of the questions the GAO examined was: “What types and quantities of firearms, ammunition, and selected tactical equipment do HHS, EPA and IRS have documented to be in their inventory systems, as of November 2017?”

The original report that the GAO produced on this included some information considered too “sensitive” by HHS, IRS and TSA to be released. So, the report was modified for review by the public.

Specifically, among other things, the report removed some information about “the number and some firearms, ammunition, and tactical equipment in NIH’s and IRS’s inventory.”

“This report is the public version of a sensitive report that we issued in October 2018,” said GAO. “HHS, IRS and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) deemed some of the information in our October report to be sensitive, which must be protected from public disclosure.

“Therefore,” said GAO, “this report omits sensitive information about the number of FLEOs at TSA, an illustration of how HHS’s National Institutes of Health Police secures its firearms, and the number and some firearms, ammunition, and tactical equipment in NIH’s and IRS’s inventory.”

Table 4 of the GAO report lists the elements of the EPA, HHS and IRS that employ federal law enforcement officers that use firearms.

Among these agencies, the law enforcement element with the most guns and ammunition is the IRS’s “Criminal Investigation” (CI) unit.

At the EPA, the Office of Investigations in the Office of the Inspector General had 48 FLEOs, according to Table 4. As of November 2017, this IG’s office had 231 pistols, 20 shotguns, and 6 rifles. It also had 95,576 pistol rounds, 31,145 shotgun rounds, and 5,278 rifle rounds.”

In addition to these guns and ammunition, the EPA IG also had tactical equipment that included 4 silencers.

The EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance had 157 FLEOs. This unit was armed with 377 pistols and 223 shotguns. It also had 220,418 pistol rounds and 146,075 shotgun rounds.

At HHS, the Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigation had 232 FLEOs. This force was armed with 390 pistols and 122 shotguns. It also had 166,783 pistol rounds and 30,620 shotgun rounds.

In tactical equipment category, the FDA Office of Criminal Investigation also had 16 piece of “breaching equipment.”

Table 4 did not include the number of FLEOs or the weapons on ammunition inventories by the NIH’s Division of Police. Instead, the table said: “This information was determined to be sensitive by NIH.”

The HHS Office of Inspector General had 444 FLEOs. This force was armed with 1,061 pistols, 12 revolvers, 194 fully automatic firearms, 1 shotgun, and 2 rifles. It also had 541,864 pistol and revolver rounds. 386,952 fully automatic firearms rounds, 225 shotgun rounds, and 420 rifle rounds.

Its tactical equipment included 219 piece of breaching equipment.

The IRS Criminal Investigation unit had 2,148 FLEOs. They were armed with 3,282 pistols, 4 revolvers, 15 fully automatic firearms, 621 shotguns, and 539 rifles. It also had 3,151,500 pistol and revolver rounds, 56,000 fully automatic firearms rounds, 367,750, shotgun rounds, and 1,472,050 rifle rounds.

In the tactical equipment category, IRS Criminal Investigation had 103 “aiming devices,” 178 “specialized image enhancement devices,” and 10 “tactical lighting” instruments.

The IRS’s Police Officer Section had 9 FLEOs. This force was armed with 20 pistols, 2 shotguns and 4 rifles. It also had 4,546 pistol rounds, 842 shotgun rounds and 9,316 rifle rounds.

A footnote to the report says that the “IRS CI ammunition counts are as of December 2017”—not November 2017.

The GAO report said that the IRS CI did “not have a documented policy to track ammunition or conduct a regular inventory.”

“IRS CI currently limits access to ammunition and entrusts use of force coordinators with independently managing their ammunition inventory to meet the training needs of their area of responsibility,” said the report. “One IRS CI use of force coordinator said that she relies on her experience and judgment to keep track of ammunition use at her field office without formally recording it. IRS CI is the only component in our review that does not have a documented policy to track ammunition or conduct a regular inventory; however, IRS CI officials indicated they are in the process of establishing a nationwide policy to track ammunition and conduct a regular ammunition inventory.”

For the third year in a row, the village of Hempstead, Long Island encouraged boys and girls to exchange their toy guns for a different toy at Christmas as a way of “saying no to guns … even toy guns.”

“Saying no to guns is important — even toy guns,” Hempstead Village Mayor Don Ryan told local TV station WABC at the Dec. 13 event.

Village Trustee LaMont Johnson said, “The purpose is to offer a safe alternative to toy guns. We don’t want the kids playing with guns. Guns are dangerous.”

The toy gun exchange program was started by former New York City police officer Sean Acosta. “It has to start at a young age,” said Acosta. “If we can get them to say, ‘It’s not cool to carry these toy guns,’ then maybe when they get older, they won’t ever carry a real gun.”

At this year’s exchange, 50 kids were invited to participate — to bring in a toy gun and exchange it for an alternative toy.

For kids who didn’t have toy guns to exchange, the event’s organizers provided them with water pistols and nerf blasters to turn in.

h/t WABC

 

(CNSNews.com) — In response to the political impasse and partial government shutdown over funding for a border wall, President Donald Trump tweeted on Friday that he may shut down the entire southern border with Mexico if the Democrats do not agree to allocate funds for the wall’s construction and help the administration to fix the illegal immigration problem. 

“We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with,” tweeted Trump on Dec. 28.

“Hard to believe there was a Congress & President who would approve!” he added.

The Trump administration and congressional Republicans have sought to allocate $5 billion to pay for more border wall construction, either as tall, steel-slatted fencing, concerte, or a combination thereof. 

House Republicans passed a bill to appropriate the $5 billion but the legislation did not pass in the Senate, which under current rules would require a 60-vote majority to pass. 

Republicans hold 51 seats in the Senate; Democrats (and two Independents) hold 49.  The Senate did pass legislation last week to keep the government funded through Feb. 8 but the president rejected the bill because it provided no money for the border wall. 

In another tweet this morning, President Trump said, “Either we build (finish) the Wall or we close the Border.” 

He also tweeted, “Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are doing nothing for the United States but taking our money. Word is that a new Caravan is forming in Honduras and they are doing nothing about it. We will be cutting off all aid to these 3 countries – taking advantage of U.S. for years!”

A Guatemalan family filed a lawsuit against Universal Orlando theme park in Florida this month for not posting ride warning signs in Spanish.

The family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the theme park, claiming that Universal Orlando was partially responsible for a 38-year-old father’s death because he suffered a heart attack after he rode on the “Skull Island: Reign of Kong” ride.

The entrance to the ride reportedly displayed a sign in English stating, “Warning! This ride is an expedition through the rough terrain of King Kong’s natural habitat. The movement of the truck is dynamic with sudden accelerations, dramatic tilting, and jarring actions.”

The warning continued, stating that people with heart, back, neck, and blood pressure issues should not get on the ride. Expectant mothers were also advised to refrain. Each of the English language warnings had visuals accompanying them.

The 38-year-old, Jose Calderon Arana, who had a history of heart problems, did not understand the English-language theme park warning signs because he spoke Spanish.

After Arana went on the ride, he sat down on a bench and told his family he had a stomachache. His wife and son left him on the bench while they went on another ride. When the family returned, they discovered Arana had collapsed.

Medics took him to a hospital for treatment, where he died, according to the lawsuit.

The family claimed in the suit that the theme park was negligent because it did not provide park warning signs in Spanish, adding that the park should not have delayed providing aid to Arana when he collapsed.

Lou Pendas, an attorney for the family, claimed it was not an unreasonable demand for a theme park in America to display signs in English, French, and Spanish so park-goers could make educated decisions about which attractions to enjoy.

Officials for Universal Orlando said they would not comment on pending litigation.

Via Blue Lives Matter:

Menlo Park, CA – Blue Lives Matter has confirmed that Facebook is taking actions against Facebook accounts that call a cop-killer an illegal immigrant.

Corporal Ronil Singh was murdered within 100 miles of Facebook’s headquarters, but the company appears to be concerned about anybody pointing out that his killer was in the country illegally.

Gustavo Perez Arriaga, 32, fatally shot Cpl. Singh during a predawn traffic stop on Wednesday, leading to a massive multiagency manhunt. He was captured Friday morning.

Arriaga is an illegal immigrant, has self-promoted his status as a member of the Sureno street gang, and has two prior drunk driving convictions in Madera County, Sheriff Christianson said.

“This suspect, unlike Ron – who immigrated to this country lawfully and legally to pursue his lifelong career of public safety, public service and being a police officer – this suspect is in our country illegally. He doesn’t belong here. He’s a criminal,” Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said during a press conference on Thursday afternoon.

A sheriff’s deputy whom I personally know posted the following picture on Facebook on Friday:

Keep reading…

Donald Trump has become a convenient punching bag for most of the left, especially on the issue of immigration. Whether it’s mass caravans of migrants demanding asylum or adults trying to illegally cross the border carrying children, the liberal narrative has become rather predicable: It’s all Trump’s fault.

A prime example might be liberal Hollywood actress who Anne Hathaway, who breathlessly shrieked about the government “gassing children” after non-lethal tear gas was used by Border Patrol. Like much of the media, Hathaway ignored the many times that Obama-era officials did the exact same thing, while pinning all blame on Trump.

But on Saturday, the president pushed back against that narrative. Posting to Twitter — where else? — Trump declared that Democrats owned much of the blame for the border situation after years of mis-management.

“Any deaths of children or others at the Border are strictly the fault of the Democrats and their pathetic immigration policies that allow people to make the long trek thinking they can enter our country illegally,” he posted. “They can’t. If we had a Wall, they wouldn’t even try!”

Any deaths of children or others at the Border are strictly the fault of the Democrats and their pathetic immigration policies that allow people to make the long trek thinking they can enter our country illegally. They can’t. If we had a Wall, they wouldn’t even try! The two…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2018

TRENDING: NBC’s Christmas Attack on Trump Backfires Hours Later

He didn’t randomly decide to talk about the deaths of children. Trump was referencing several recent incidents in which kids who were brought up through Mexico by adult border-crosses ended up having serious health complications after being found by Border Patrol.

“Felipe Gomez Alonzo, eight, died this week after being apprehended by border agents in Texas,” reported Fox News. Was it Trump’s fault? The facts suggest not.

“After an agent noticed Alonzo coughing, father and son were taken to an Alamogordo (New Mexico) hospital, where Felipe was diagnosed with a common cold and found to have a fever of 103 degrees,” Fox continued. “But after being released with medication, he fell ill and died in the hospital.”

It’s worth pointing out that in that case, hospital staff with no political agenda signed off on the boy being released from the hospital before he ended up getting worse.

In another instance, a young girl died after she went for several days without food or water — a sad situation that happened well before Border Patrol found her and tried to help.

“The two children in question were very sick before they were given over to Border Patrol,” President Trump acknowledged on Twitter.

“The father of the young girl said it was not their fault, he hadn’t given her water in days. Border Patrol needs the Wall and it will all end. They are working so hard & getting so little credit!” he added.

Trump’s tweets will likely do nothing to quell the anger of liberals, and there’s no denying that from a public relations standpoint he sometimes needs to step away from the keyboard. But the thing is, he has an interesting point.

RELATED: Trump Throws Down Ultimatum if Border Wall Doesn’t Receive Funding

It appears to be true that Central American migrants were told falsehoods about how arduous the journey across Mexico would be, or what would happen once they reached the U.S. border.

Interview after interview with migrants, not to mention the evidence of their own actions, supports the claim that they were expecting to be let into the United States with seemingly no questions asked.

Would the tragic deaths of young migrant children have happened if they hadn’t been dragged thousands of miles without proper food, water, or medical care? Probably not.

And who has been promoting open borders and mass immigration? Who has been encouraging the migrants to make that dangerous trek? It hasn’t been Trump. It hasn’t been conservatives.

It has been the left, both in the United States and in places like Honduras.

If one group keeps encouraging people to try to swim across a dangerous river where many people drown, who is at fault for the deaths: lookouts on the other side of the rapids, or the voices who keep urging more and more people to jump into the deadly water?

That’s essentially what’s happening right now with mass migration across unsafe areas like central Mexico. Liberals can point fingers at the president all they want, but they are the ones who keep encouraging it. Reality speaks for itself.

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

Media and Hollywood leftists predictably reacted in horror after President Donald Trump signed several Make America Great Again campaign hats owned by members of the military.

Trump made a surprise trip to visit the troops in Iraq and Germany on Wednesday, spending time greeting the troops, snapping selfies, and giving autographs. Some of them brought Trump their MAGA hats for the president to sign.

“Just awful,” wrote actress Mia Farrow on Twitter in response to the news.

Just awful. 🇺🇸 https://t.co/DR95qh4Io6

— Mia Farrow (@MiaFarrow) December 27, 2018

CNN analyst and former member of the Obama administration John Kirby warned the troops that having a Trump campaign hat could be breaking military guidelines.

“It is, in fact, a campaign slogan, that is a campaign item, and it is completely inappropriate for the troops to do this,” Kirby said.

CNN continued to air segments about the “controversy.”

“It’s just not appropriate in front of a military audience,” Ret. Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling said on CNN Thursday morning.

Ret. Lt. Gen. @MarkHertling says President Trump signing MAGA hats during his trip to troops in Iraq was “over the top.”

“It’s just not appropriate in front of a military audience,” he says about Trump discussing domestic politics during the visit. https://t.co/5CZln009mH pic.twitter.com/TTcNQralS6

— New Day (@NewDay) December 27, 2018

Trump also signed a soldier’s arm patch that read ‘Trump 2020.’

In Germany, several soldiers brought their MAGA hats during their meeting with the president. Another soldier was spotted carrying a Trump flag.

#maga hat contingent at Ramstein waiting for President Trump pic.twitter.com/18wdP87vZK

— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) December 27, 2018

Trump flag (she dropped it after she saw me taking a photo) pic.twitter.com/LhPwUNdEK3

— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) December 27, 2018

Philippe Reines, a former adviser for failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton doubted whether the troops even purchased their own hats.

trump signed MAGA 2020 hats. Safe bet our troops in Iraq aren’t buying and shipping hats to themselves 6,000 miles away in case he drops by.

Which means rbis was another taxpayer funded trump commercial. And unethical.

Right @waltshaub?

Next Up: A fundraising tweet. pic.twitter.com/XNoIUdSGJa

— Philippe Reines (@PhilippeReines) December 26, 2018

Trump’s opponents continued to complain on social media.

“As a former Navy JAG, I can tell you that engaging in partisan political activity such as flying a Trump flag or wearing a MAGA hat, while in uniform is a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and its implementing regs,” wrote Pam Keith, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Florida.

“That’s a Art 32 offense for conduct unbecoming of an officer,” wrote MSNBC analyst Malcolm Nance.

 

Following the death of a second migrant child in federal immigration custody in the past month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says systems for dealing with border security and migrants are being pushed to the “breaking point.”

“Our system has been pushed to a breaking point by those who seek open borders,” DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a written statement. “Smugglers, traffickers, and their own parents put these minors at risk by embarking on the dangerous and arduous journey north. This crisis is exacerbated by the increase in persons who are entering our custody suffering from severe respiratory illnesses or exhibit some other illness upon apprehension.”

“Given the remote locations of their illegal crossing and the lack of resources,” the secretary explained, “it is even more difficult for our personnel to be first responders.”

Border Patrol agents apprehended 139,817 migrants in the past two months, she explained. This compares to 74,946 during the same period the year before. Of those apprehended, 68,510 were family units and 13,981 unaccompanied minors. The secretary said the problem has only “become starker in December.”

Nielsen blamed the massive increase in migrant crossings, particularly family units and unaccompanied minors, on several “draw factors.” Among those, she listed:

• an immigration system that rewards parents for sending their children across the border alone,
• a system that prevents parents who bring their children on a dangerous and illegal journey from facing consequences for their actions,
• an asylum process that is not able to quickly help those who qualify for asylum,
• a system that encourages fraudulent claims, and a system that encourages bad actors to coach aliens into making frivolous claims.

“The bottom line is that 9 out 10 asylum claims are rejected by a federal immigration judge,” Secretary Nielsen stated.

The DHS secretary announced some additional precautions that will be taken moving forward to make sure holding facilities and detention centers are as safe and healthy as possible:

At my direction, all children in Border Patrol custody have been given a thorough medical screening.  Moving forward, all children will receive a more thorough hands on assessment at the earliest possible time post apprehension – whether or not the accompanying adult has asked for one.

I have also spoken with our partners in Mexico to ask that they begin to investigate the causes of these illnesses on their side of the border and to provide medical assistance in shelters as needed.

I will be travelling to the border later this week to see first-hand the medical screenings and conditions at Border Patrol stations.

Nielsen said that additional Border Patrol agents trained in emergency management will be assigned to remote areas along the border. Currently, there are 1,500 medically trained Border Patrol agents and CBP officers along the border.

“As a result of bad judicial rulings from activist judges and inaction by Congress, we are seeing a flood of family units and unaccompanied alien children,” Nielsen concluded. “The unprecedented number of families and unaccompanied children at the border must not be ignored.  I once again ask – beg – parents to not place their children at risk by taking a dangerous journey north. Vulnerable populations – including family units and unaccompanied alien children should seek asylum at the first possible opportunity, including Mexico.”

“To those in Congress who continue to refuse to take action to address the loopholes that cause a flood of humanity to travel north and place children at risk, I once again call on you to do your job, protect vulnerable populations, secure our borders, and provide the men and women of DHS the authorities and resources we need to address this crisis,” the secretary said.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for the Breitbart Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.