Month: March 2020

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (R) responded to Joe Biden’s March 2, 2020, gun control partnership with ‘Beto’ O’Rourke by suggesting O’Rourke try to confiscate Patrick’s AR-15 and “see how that goes.”

On March 3, 2020, Breitbart News reported Biden’s announcement that O’Rourke would be heading up his gun control push.

Biden made clear O’Rourke will “be the one who leads” the gun control push.

During a September 12, 2019, Democrat debate, O’Rourke said, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-17.”

On March 4, 2020, Texas Lt. Gov. Patrick reacted to the partnership between Biden and O’Rourke by saying:

Joe Biden says a lot of dopey things, you have a whole list of them and play them a lot. The dumbest thing he has said is he’s going to put Beto O’Rourke in charge of getting our guns. I’m telling you, that just added two or three points to President Trump’s victory in November if it’s the ‘Biden and Beto Show’.

Patrick also suggested O’Rourke should began his confiscation efforts at Patrick’s house. Patrick said, “[Beto] said he was coming to take our AR-15s. I have one, I want to invite him to my house first and see how that goes.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

Disney’s new animated film Onward has been banned in several Middle Eastern countries due to the film’s reference to a lesbian relationship.

The film features a pair of elfin brothers who go on a road trip in a quest to find magic, but in one scene the heroes meet a character that makes a passing reference to a lesbian relationship between two minor characters.

In the scene that apparently offended Muslim censors, the lead characters, voiced by Chris Pratt and Tom Holland, are speaking to a pair of female police officers, and one of them, voiced by Lena Waithe, casually mentions that her girlfriend’s daughter “got me pulling my hair out.”

The officer, named Specter, has been hailed as Disney’s first openly homosexual animated character.

Indeed, Waithe, who was picked to voice the character is herself openly gay.

“It just kind of happened,” the film’s producer, Kori Rae said attempting to belie the idea that the character was planned. “The scene, when we wrote it, was kind of fitting, and it opens up the world a little bit, and that’s what we wanted.”

The scene has brought condemnation from a group of Muslim countries including, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. But not all countries in the region have banned the film. Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt, for instance, have agreed to show the Disney feature.

Another country, Russia, has agreed to show the film, but only if the word “girlfriend” is overdubbed with the word “partner.”

Onward debuted in the U.S. on March 5.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.

Six times during an almost eight-year span when either Robert Mueller or James Comey were running the FBI for former President Barack Obama, the nation’s premier law enforcement agency had its eyes locked on potential terrorists.

But then it blinked, according to a Justice Department report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

The report covered the time from November 2009 to January 2017. Mueller was head of the FBI from 2001 until 2013, when Comey took the reins until he was fired in May 2017 by President Donald Trump. The attacks in question included the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013 and the Orlando, Florida, nightclub shooting in 2016.

The report’s measured tones summarize the issue.

“The FBI has acknowledged that various weaknesses related to its assessment process may have impacted its ability to fully investigate certain counterterrorism assessment subjects who later committed terrorist attacks in the United States. Following these attacks, the FBI made various efforts to evaluate and improve its assessment process. However, it has not ensured that identified areas for improvement were formalized and implemented into enhanced policies and procedures,” the report said.

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“During our audit, we found at least six attacks committed in the United States by individuals who the FBI had previously assessed or investigated and who were subsequently categorized as HVEs,” it said. The initials stand for “homegrown violent extremists.”

The report said that even when the FBI tried to right the ship, it failed.

“[I]n 2017, the FBI conducted an enterprise-wide review and identified potential terrorist threats that may not have been adequately assessed during calendar years (CY) 2014 through 2016, which amounted to 6 percent of the total assessments reviewed. We found that the FBI did not take adequate action on nearly 40 percent of these assessments for 18 months. After we inquired about the lack of action, the FBI reexamined these assessments and, in some instances, the reexamination resulted in the opening of an investigation,” the report said.

The report’s release drew a scorching tweet from Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

When I asked James comey after the Pulse mass shooting if in retrospect the FBI concluded too soon that Mateen was not a threat. The arrogant Comey refused to admit any mistake & maintained the opinion that Mateen was not a threat. Comey: tell that to the 49 people who died. pic.twitter.com/JSyduiUTjm

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 6, 2020

The first of the incidents examined was a Nov. 5, 2009, attack at Fort Hood, Texas, by then-Army Maj. Nidal Hassan in which 13 were killed — 12 military members and one civilian.

The report said “shortcomings in the FBI’s policies and procedures related to counterterrorism assessments contributed to delays and potential missed opportunities to mitigate Hasan’s actions. One of the recommendations made in this report included developing formal policies on the assignment and completion of routine counterterrorism assessments to address issues of timeliness and to encourage prioritization of counterterrorism assessments.”

But when the FBI reviewed its performance leading up to the April 15, 2013, Boston bombing by Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev that killed three people and left 260 wounded, there were still shortcomings.

“In April 2014, a multi-agency Inspector General review of the FBI’s actions in assessing Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the HVEs who carried out the terrorist attack, found that the FBI counterterrorism agent assigned to the Guardian assessment did not take certain available steps to evaluate the subject,” the report said.

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Although an initial assessment said Tsarnev had “no nexus to terrorism,” his file was flagged to note any overseas travel. However, the agency never investigated after Tsarnev went to Russia, even though “FBI supervisors stated that Tsarnaev’s travel to Russia was significant and warranted further investigation.”

Other attacks cited where the FBI had the attacker on its radar but closed its preliminary investigation include a failed attack in Garland, Texas, on May 30, 2015, that left the two shooters, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, dead; bombings in New York and New Jersey in September 2016 that injured 30 people, and a Jan. 6, 2017 attack at the Fort Lauderdale Airport that left five people dead.

“This report noted that threat information related to Elton Simpson was … not acted upon because field office agents did not interpret the information as portraying a significant threat, which resulted in a missed opportunity to avert the attack. The report also stated that although the field office subsequently received additional information regarding Simpson and opened an investigation on him, the field office did not open an assessment on Simpson’s roommate who also had indications of radical behavior and participated in the Garland terrorist attack,” the report said.

Omar Mateen, the shooter in the 2016 Pulse nightclub attack in Orlando, was the subject of an initial investigation that was opened in 2013 and closed in 2014, the report said.

“[T]he FBI found that Mateen had a documented history of mental health issues, but according to the FBI Inspection Division, the investigation did not properly address the underlying risk of his mental health condition. After the FBI closed the investigation, Mateen committed a terrorist attack in Orlando, Florida, and killed 49 people,” the report said.

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The video taken at a San Francisco Walgreens is self-explanatory.

But what it actually means for the city by the bay is dark — San Francisco is falling apart.

In the video, three hooded individuals casually loot store shelves in full view of employees. No one stops them.

And although a woman says, “Call the police!” it is unclear if anyone did and more unclear whether it would have mattered — police most likely would have simply filled out a report rather than chase anyone down.

San Francisco pic.twitter.com/liaxrF0RpJ

— Josh (@JoshLeCash) March 3, 2020

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If this video is any indication, shoplifting is not only on the rise but appears to be out of control.

Were this instance a locally owned small business instead of a corporation, sustained shoplifting like in the video would most probably not allow it to survive.

Residents of the city can thank the passage of California’s Proposition 47, otherwise known as the “Reduced Penalties for Some Crimes Initiative,” in 2014.

The main effect of the proposition was to turn some felony crimes into misdemeanors.

Shoplifting, grand theft, forgery, fraud and some drug possession charges were reclassified as misdemeanors so long as their value did not exceed $950.

The intended purpose of Prop 47 was to reduce the state’s prison population by reducing the severity of penalties associated with certain crimes. It apparently did accomplish that.

However, no crystal ball was needed to foretell the consequence of reducing criminal penalties: an increase in crime.

According to a 2018 study, Prop 47 led to an increase in larceny and auto break-ins since its passage.

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In fact, according to Fox News, San Francisco now has the highest rate of property crime among 20 of the largest cities across the U.S.

These property crimes include theft, shoplifting and vandalism.

Choosing not to deal with certain crimes only subsidizes and enables those who would commit them.

It forces good law-abiding folks to live with the poor choices of policymakers, who too often live in safer communities that are unaffected by their own decisions.

It isn’t like San Francisco is not already dealing with a bevy of other issues, such as homelessness and a new district attorney who ultimately might cause more harm than good.

But if the city’s residents are going to combat the anarchy of property crimes affecting their daily lives, they might want to start with the anarchy of their own policymakers first.

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An abortion advocate’s macabre choice of jewelry inadvertently highlighted the dark history of infanticide, a form of killing that was recorded in the earliest books of the Bible.

The protester’s earrings were shared by the Daily Caller on Wednesday. The woman wearing the gruesome accessories was apparently spotted at a pro-abortion rally the same day.

Appearing to be custom work, the earrings portray a crocodile with a small baby in its jaws.

What do you think about this pro-choicer’s earrings?@MaryMargOlohan @mattmiller757 pic.twitter.com/NzeTaegPwu

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 4, 2020

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It’s unclear what message this protester was trying to send.

The shock factor alone was enough to catch the Daily Caller’s attention, but it could have simply been an attempt to further dehumanize the unborn.

In Exodus, one of the earliest books of the Bible, the oppressive Pharaoh sends infants to a similar fate as the Hebrews multiplied to great numbers.

The infanticide account begins in Exodus 1:15-17, as Pharaoh orders Hebrew midwives to begin culling young boys belonging to the slaves. The midwives have different ideas, however.

“Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ‘When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.’ But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.”

Furious with the rebellious slaves and fearful of a growing underclass that threatened Egypt, Pharaoh instead turned to his own people. In Exodus 1:22, the Egyptian ruler gives the fateful order.

“Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, ‘Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.’”

Of course, the mass infanticide would lead to the hiding of Moses in a basket. Being spared from the purge and raised in Pharaoh’s own household, Moses lives and goes on to liberate the Hebrew people.

But what happened to all the other Hebrew babies that Pharaoh’s hordes cast into the Nile?

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In ancient Egypt, long before the damming of the Nile, the river was littered with dangerous animals. Hippos roamed the waterways, and venomous snakes hid among the reeds. Also lurking in the muddy water was the Nile crocodile — a savage reptile that ruled the river in the days of Pharaoh.

The Bible has no direct mention of these creatures, but it’s likely they feasted on the infants cast into the water.

While the abortion advocate’s jewelry may have been intended to shock conservatives, those who know the Old Testament realize this 21st century political statement is not unique.

As Ecclesiastes 1:9 promises:

“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”

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