Month: April 2018

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Oregon Governor: ‘I’ll Say No’ if Trump Asks Me to Send National Guard to Border

Gov. Kate Brown, center / Facebook

BY:

Oregon’s Democratic governor said Wednesday that she will refuse any request by President Donald Trump to deploy National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Gov. Kate Brown announced her intention on Twitter, saying she is “deeply troubled” by the Trump administration’s plan to “militarize” the country’s southern border with Mexico. Her tweet came after Trump signed a presidential memorandum seeking to address a surge of “illegal activity” on America’s southern border by deploying the military.

The governor clarified in a subsequent tweet that the federal government had not made any requests for National Guard deployment, writing that her announcement was meant to serve as a preemptive declaration of resistance. Brown also took a shot at the president, saying she had no “intention of allowing” the Oregon National Guard to be used as a distraction from the commander in chief’s “troubles” in Washington, D.C.

Trump’s proclamation comes as U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported a surge in the apprehension of illegal immigrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. In February 2018, the agency reported apprehending 36,695 individuals attempting to make an illegal border crossing, up from 23,555 in the same month of the previous year.

The president’s actions mimic those taken by his predecessors. In 2006, President George W. Bush sent 6,000 National Guard troops to serve in a support capacity, helping with fence installation and training new border agents. In 2010, President Barack Obama dispatched 1,200 members of the National Guard to enforce border security after a string of violent incidents.

Brown’s response differs from that of Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R.), who embraced Trump’s move, saying Congress had ignored the issue of border security for too long. Arizona, which unlike Oregon shares a border with Mexico, has long sought to address the adverse effects of illegal immigration.

It is unclear how Trump will respond to Brown’s announcement. As governor, Brown serves as commander in chief of the state’s military forces, a role that gives her sole responsibility for mobilizing and deploying the state’s National Guard. The president, however, does reserve the right to federalize Oregon’s National Guard, an action that would prevent Brown from overriding his orders.

via Blog – Washington Free Beacon

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Outdoor Retailer Gets Huge News After Telling Gun Grabbers to Get Lost

To succeed in business, you have to serve a need among customers.

As some of the country’s largest retailers cut back their gun offerings in the wake of February’s deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, one retailer has gone in a different direction.

The result? Higher sales.

Sportsman’s Warehouse has a new CEO, and he was very frank about the company’s plans when it comes to firearm sales.

“We continue to support the legal sale of firearms under the Second Amendment,” Jon Barker said during a March 28 conference call to discuss the company’s quarterly earnings report.

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Guns, ammunition, and other hunting and shooting items account for nearly half of the company’s overall sales. And those sales improved in a quarter when some of the company’s largest competitors scaled back gun and ammunition sales.

Dick’s Sporting Goods announced it would stop selling assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines at its Field & Stream store locations following the tragedy in Parkland, and it would stop selling guns to anyone younger than 21.

Walmart also banned the sale of guns or ammunition to anyone under 21 years of age. Kroger, the nation’s largest grocery chain,  stopped selling guns and ammo to customers who are younger than 21 years old at its Fred Meyer stores.

A few weeks after announcing its new policy, Dick’s reported a larger-than-expected decline in store sales from the previous year.

Are you more likely to buy something from Sportsman’s Warehouse because of their stance?

“There’s going to be some pushback and we expected that,” Dick’s CEO Edward Stack told Wall Street analysts of the drop. “There are going to be the people who don’t shop us anymore for anything.”

Stack also predicted the new gun policy is “not going to be positive from a traffic standpoint and a sales standpoint.”

But it has been positive for Sportsman’s Warehouse.

“That’s having an impact on our business,” Barker said of his competitors’ new policies. “We’re off to a strong start to the year … It’s bringing more people into the stores. We’re seeing good traffic.”

RELATED: Gun Ban Finally Makes a Difference in Crime — London Murder Rate Overtakes NYC

Barker said firearm sales were up 3.2 percent on a same-store basis from the same period a year ago “as we continue to gain market share in the states where we serve.”

Baker also noted the company’s online sales have also increased.

It’s worth noting that the quarterly results announced by Dick’s and Sportsman’s Warehouse cover only a brief period of time after the Parkland shooting. The larger impact of their respective decisions, as well as those of Walmart and Kroger, won’t be truly reflected on those companies’ bottom lines for several more months.

But as gun control advocates use the Parkland shooting to push their agenda, the economic reality of supply and demand — as well as the loyalty of Second Amendment supporters — is proving to be a recipe for success for Sportsman’s Warehouse.

What do you think? Scroll down to comment below!

via Conservative Tribune

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More California Cities Join Revolt Against ‘Sanctuary State’

More California Cities Join Revolt Against ‘Sanctuary State’

by Joel B. Pollak5 Apr 2018Santa Monica, CA0



Two more California cities joined the growing revolt this week against “sanctuary state” laws enacted by Governor Jerry Brown.

The city council of Fountain Valley in Orange County voted on Tuesday to join the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit against the state that was filed last month in Sacramento — thanks, in part, to intervention by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who faces a tough re-election fight in November.

The Los Angeles Times reports: “A majority of the Fountain Valley City Council overcame a reluctance to spend public funds on joining the growing Orange County movement against California’s so-called sanctuary immigration laws after U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher offered Tuesday to foot the bill for the city to file a court brief supporting a federal lawsuit targeting the laws.”

And on Wednesday, the city council of Escondido in San Diego County also voted to join the fight by filing a brief in support of the Trump administration’s case by Friday.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports:

Following a contentious, three-hour meeting filled with name-calling and impassioned pleas, the Escondido City Council voted 4-1 Wednesday to file a legal brief in support of the U.S. government’s lawsuit challenging the state’s sanctuary laws.

…

More than 70 people spoke during a public meeting in a packed City Council chambers, with most addressing the larger issue of immigration and often echoing the national divide between President Trump’s supporters and detractors.

Escondido Mayor Sam Abed, himself an immigrant, defended the council’s 4-1 vote against “sanctuary” laws, underscoring the need to work with federal law enforcement authorities to keep the community safe.

The lawsuit targets three statutes: the Immigrant Worker Protection Act (HB 450), the Inspection and Review of Facilities Housing Federal Detainees law (AB 103); and the California Values Act (SB 54).

Thus far, several Orange County cities, and the county itself, have joined the revolt.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

via Breitbart News

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‘Fake Weed’ Blamed for Two Deaths, 56 Cases of Severe Bleeding

‘Fake Weed’ Blamed for Two Deaths, 56 Cases of Severe Bleeding

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

by Nate Church3 Apr 20180



Two deaths among 56 cases of severe bleeding in Chicago, Illinois, and surrounding areas have been directly attributed to “Spice,” also known as “K2” or “fake weed.”

Among the symptoms that hospitalized all 56 victims were coughing up blood, blood in the urine, bloody noses, and bleeding gums. Nine of those cases even tested positive for brodifacoum, a type of rat poison. It remains unclear, however, where the drugs in question were obtained. Such products are available online but also even in convenience stores and gas stations.

Illinois Department of Public Health Spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said that “this is the first time we’ve seen an outbreak of this magnitude in the area” and stressed that they are “working with numerous different partners across the city and state as we investigate this outbreak.”

The department’s Director, Dr. Nirav Shah, said in a statement that they “continue to see the number of cases rise.” According to Shah, they continue to “work with local health departments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with other partners, to try to identify common products.”

However, “without more information, IDPH does not know how much contaminated product is circulating or where.” The warning was spelled out very clearly: “We strongly urge everyone not to use synthetic cannabinoids,” he said.

This is Chicago’s first synthetic weed fatality, but certainly not for the country at large. America’s problem with the dangerous and unregulated drug — which despite the terminology has very little in common with marijuana at all — is only growing. The drugs have been found to be approximately 85 times as potent as actual weed and cause intense side effects such as rapid heart rate, vomiting, agitation, confusion, hallucinations, heart attacks, kidney failure, seizures, and even death.

It is also difficult to know for sure whether the synthetic weed was purposely laced with poison, inadvertently contaminated, or if this is the result of a new type of synthetic. But in the meantime, it is probably best that would-be users pause to consider their choices before smoking literal pest control.

via Breitbart News

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Gun Sales Soar, Set Record in March Amid Push for New Gun-Control Measures

Great job, Parkland activists!

Via Free Beacon:

Last month saw the most gun-related background checks run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of any March on record, documents released by the agency on Tuesday show.

With 2,767,699 checks conducted by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in March 2018, the month beats the previous record of 2,523,265 set in March 2016 by 244,434 checks. That represents a 9.68 percent increase.

The March results put 2018 on pace to see more gun-related background checks than 2017, the second-best year on record, but still behind 2016, the best year on record.

The number of checks run through NICS in a month is considered one of the strongest indicators for how well gun sales are doing because each sale made by a federally licensed dealer, such as a gun store, is subject to a check. The state, however, is not an exact representation of gun sales due to a number of factors. For instance, the vast majority of states don’t require checks on the sale of used guns between private parties, some states use the checks in their process for issuing gun-carry permits, and sales of multiple guns during a single transaction by a dealer generally only requires a single background check.

Keep reading…

via Weasel Zippers

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MUST READ=> Lawyer Explains How Rosenstein Unconstitutionally Usurped AG Sessions’s Power, Gave Mueller “Secret Authorization” To Go After Manafort

MUST READ=> Lawyer Explains How Rosenstein Unconstitutionally Usurped AG Sessions’s Power, Gave Mueller “Secret Authorization” To Go After Manafort


by Joshua Caplan
April 3, 2018

In an insightful Twitter thread Tuesday, lawyer Robert Barnes explained why he believes Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein usurped the power of his boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and ultimately granted special counsel Robert Mueller “secret authorization,” to go after former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.

“Thread: Legal analysis on problems w/ Rosenstein’s purported “authorization” of to investigate matters outside the time frame & subject matter of the 2016 campaign. Upshot: Rosenstein usurped Sessions’s power & gave secret authorization to Mueller to witch-hunt Manafort,” Barnes begin.

“Problem 1: Rosenstein was “acting attorney general” only on matters Sessions had recused himself. Sessions only recused himself from DOJ investigations of 2016 campaign. Yet, Rosenstein claimed to authorize Mueller to investigate matters dating back to 2006 & ending before 2016,” Barnes noted.

“Problem 2: Rosenstein’s original authorization of Mueller extended only to matters of “Russia government collusion” in 2016 campaign, not to internal Ukranian politics from 2006 & ended years before 2016 campaign. A special counsel cannot be continually used as a substitute AG.”

“Problem 3: Rosenstein does not have authorization over tax crimes. Only the Assistant Attorney General in charge of Tax Division can authorize indictments of tax crimes. Rosenstein could not authorize Mueller to look at tax crimes when Rosenstein himself never had that authority,” Barnes pointed out.

“Problem 4: Rosenstein’s letter tells Mueller only to look to Rosenstein for clarification of Mueller’s authorization. Rosenstein is not the Attorney General of the United States, and could not monopolize supervision of Mueller for matters that did not relate to Sessions’ recusal.”

“Problem 5: issuing his expanded authorization in secret creates a secret Inquisitor, unelected & un-appointed by elected officials, with all the powers of the federal criminal law enforcement, but none of the democratic checks and balances. Unconstitutional!” Barnes concluded.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, last night, Mueller and Rosenstein presented to the courts a rebuttal for Manafort’s latest action – they presented a previously undisclosed memo to a federal court in Washington supposedly addressing Manafort’s argument.

The memo is dated August 2nd, 2017 and is from Rosenstein to Mueller supposedly directing Mueller to look into Manafort actions with a Russian operative perhaps before 2016.

This, however, is clearly outside the scope of Sessions’ recusal as argued by Manafort and doesn’t even address Manafort’s argument that these actions are not for Mueller to take or Rosenstein to order but are Sessions actions alone as Attorney General.

In January, Manafort filed a civil lawsuit in a D.C. court against Mueller, Rosenstein and the Justice Department, alleging the special counsel went outside of the investigation’s scope.

 

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Foreign student threatened to shoot up a Catholic school – here’s the arsenal cops found

Police say that a foreign exchange student was prevented from shooting up his high school after they were tipped off by his friend about his plans.

Here’s what happened

18-year-old foreign exchange student An Tso Sun told a fellow student who was 17 years old not to come to their school on May 1 because he was going to attack the other students. That classmate spoke to school authorities about the threat, and they contacted the police.

Sun was arrested later by the police, and said that he was joking when he warned his classmate at Bonner and Prendergast Catholic High School.

Police say they discovered 16,000 rounds of ammunition and a handgun in a black carryall case and they allege that these belong to Sun, but have not revealed how they discovered the evidence.

Sun is originally from Taiwan.

The social media account for the Upper Darby police tweeted the booking photo for Sun.

“An Tso Sun, 18, arrested for threatening to shoot up local high school,” they tweeted.

“Sun was found to have a military vest and ammunition at his residence,” they added. “Kudos to the person who stepped forward and helped to avert a tragedy.”

“We have zero tolerance for anyone who threatens to shoot, bomb, or hurt a school,” said Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood. “They will be locked up. Period.”

Sun denies the charges

Lawyers for Tso Sun released a statement denying the allegations and asserting rhetoric was growing overheated in the media about the case.

“Our client just turned 18 in January and is a senior in high school,” the statement said. “This young man has had no prior contacts with the courts and has been considered an affable, precocious student with no discipline or antisocial tendencies. The young man’s parents have flown in from Taiwan and fully support their child.”

“Our investigation reveals that there was no intention to terrorize or otherwise commit any criminal act,” they added. “The family is concerned by the rising level of rhetoric that is being transmitted to the news media and hopes that the public will keep an open mind as all the facts and circumstances are brought forward.”

Here’s a media briefing with Upper Darby official Chitwood:

via TheBlaze.com – Stories

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Unhinged Leftists Blame the NRA For Shooting at YouTube Headquarters

Unhinged Leftists Blame the NRA For Shooting at YouTube Headquarters

Cristina Laila
by Cristina Laila
April 3, 2018

As TGP’s Cassandra Fairbanks previously reported, an active shooter unleashed a barrage of bullets at the YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California Tuesday afternoon.

The female shooter, who is now deceased, opened fire at her boyfriend before turning the gun on herself, according to witnesses.

Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein immediately called for gun control.

We saw the same blame game after the Parkland shooting. NRA memberships exploded after liberals attacked the gun rights organization.

On Tuesday, unhinged leftists blamed the NRA and spread false statistics about gun violence and mass shootings. Shocker.

New York Assemblyman from the Bronx, Jeffrey Dinowitz admits he doesn’t know all the facts about Tuesday’s tragic shooting at YouTube HQ, but he still decided to blame the NRA, because why not?

Other Twitter users falsely claimed Tuesday’s shooting was the 58th mass shooting in 2018.

It appears the trend of tweeting about the ’58th mass shooting for 2018′ started with Hillary Clinton’s former digital strategist:

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911 centers being hacked by criminals, systems held for ransom

In an effort to use scare tactics for financial and political gain, hackers are now disabling American 911 call centers and holding them for ransom.

Henry County, Tennessee’s 911 call center was shut down in 2016 via a ransomware attack, leaving dispatchers hobbled and forced to use pen and paper to take calls. The county’s information technology manager recalled: “It basically brought us to our knees.”

The hackers demanded thousands in bitcoin currency to reestablish services, which Henry County refused to pay.

Baltimore’s emergency services also had to scale back to manual calls during a similar instance in late March, and Atlanta is still reeling from a digital ambush of their police department systems a week or so ago.

NBC News reports “there have been 184 cyberattacks on public safety agencies and local governments in the past 24 months” in the US, pointing to a growing threat. They cite information from cybersecurity firm SecuLore Solutions, which has been tracking the attacks.

According to the firm, roughly 23 percent of centers have been directly attacked, while a few dozen more were overcome by the use of viruses to control programs remotely. The remaining large majority of attacks caused the immobilization of systems via a barrage of automated bogus dials which resulted in a “denial of service” for legitimate 911 calls.

SecuLore’s CEO, Tim Lorello, says, “911 is the perfect [target] because it can’t afford to be shut down.”

A six-month-old boy in Dallas died last year following breathing troubles after his babysitter called 911 and was put on hold for over 30 minutes and hung up on three times. While the system was not held up by hackers, but rather a glitch, it’s an example of how critical immediate emergency services are.

The hacker in Tennessee was able to gain access after a former employee had left a weak password in the system. But the perpetrator was never caught in Henry County or in Baltimore.

While increasing the sophistication of security measures on emergency systems would help block such attacks, many states have diverted 911 fees paid by consumers via phone bills to other uses. Between 2008 and 2015, the FCC cited two dozen states who had redirected dedicated 911 funds away from emergency services.

via TheBlaze.com – Stories

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Record-Low Ratings for Politicized Kids’ Choice Awards

Editor’s Note: The following has been adapted with the author’s permission from its original publication on Carolina Culture Warrior. To be fully transparent, the author also owns shares in ABC (as previously disclosed).

If Nickelodeon thought politicizing its annual Kids’ Choice Awards would draw viewership, the liberal tween-centered network was sadly mistaken. In fact, despite a slew of star power and a fun segment based on the critically-acclaimed Nintendo Switch game Super Mario Odyssey, the blatant and unnecessary March for Our Lives references looks to have turned kids and their parents away in droves.

According to recent reports, the annual ceremony has reached a record low, with only 1.87 million viewers. It’s a particular embarrassment for Nick considering that even last year’s Video Music Awards on sister network MTV garnered more viewers — although it too was at an all-time low.

Could part of the reason be that most of the content that was honored wasn’t kid-appropriate? Popular superhero movies were honored this year, but so were songs in the music categories with lewd lyrics with N.E.R.D. performing their recent song Lemon on the show, which includes numerous profanities (although most weren’t used in their Kids’ Choice performance). NewsBusters’ Corinne Weaver has more:

[T]he appropriateness of some content honored at the awards was questionable, at best. Ed Sheeran’s sensual “Shape of You,” with lyrics that most elementary school students can’t relate to (“Now my bedsheets smell like you” isn’t really a lyric you want to hear on a kids’ camping trip), was given the award for best song, while Fifth Harmony and Camila Cabello both won awards for their music. The band and the singer do not create family friendly content, for the most part. Fifth Harmony’s “Worth It” has girls singing that they “like it a little rough.”

It’s Nickelodeon. How old is their target audience again?

Like MTV, Nickelodeon has eroded down to a shell of its former self thanks to not only its left turn but the growing abundance of streaming options like Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix. From the perspective of a ’90s kid, children and tweens alike used to watch the Viacom-owned network because it spoke to and for them, from the imaginary adventures of the Rugrats to the slice-of life tales of Doug to (more recently) the nonsensical and surreal humor of flagship show SpongeBob SquarePants.

In part, although some shows were a bit too controversial for children’s TV at the time (sometimes a bit too gross for some parents to let their children watch, i.e. Ren & Stimpy), the Nickelodeon brand used to mean something. 

Today, Nickelodeon has gone the way of MTV, wanting kids to grow up too fast — from politics to crude humor. The Kids’ Choice Awards definitely proved that, and sacrificed ratings and parents’ trust in the process.

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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