A rash of knife attacks by recently released terrorists has put Britain on edge and serves as a reminder that the United States needs to do more itself to prepare for the imminent release from prison of convicted terrorists. In order to avoid the current problems of the British government, which is rushing to pass emergency legislation, American lawmakers should take advantage of our federalist system to bring state and local resources to play in tracking released terrorists.
The British government is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/02/streatham-attacker-was-released-terror-offender-sudesh-amman">struggling to address</a> the threat from dozens of convicted jihadi terrorists who are due to be released within months. Britain has seen several high-profile attacks from freed terrorists who received early release before serving even half their sentences.
Earlier this month, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/03/wave-jihadi-terrorists-due-freed-early-release-within-months/">20-year old Sudesh Amman</a> strapped on a fake explosive vest before launching a knife attack on Streatham High Road in London. Despite being under direct police surveillance during the attack, the jihadist critically wounded one person. Amman had previously been sentenced to three years and four months in prison for multiple terrorism offenses in November 2018 <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-46592539">related to distributing Islamic State propaganda</a>.
The attack methodology of a fake suicide bomb vest and knives directly mirrored that of Usman Khan, another convicted terrorist, who in November 2019 <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50653191">killed two people</a> on London Bridge. Prior to the attack, authorities had considered Khan <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50653191">a model</a> rehabilitated prisoner. Khan was attending a deradicalization conference minutes before he launched his attack.
Official data show that the British government has reconvicted <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/12/six-terrorists-freed-from-jail-committed-further-terror-act-figures-reveal">an additional six British jihadi terrorists</a> released from prison between 2013 and 2019.
This newest wave of attacks is a reminder that the U.S. also faces a risk from previously convicted terrorists who are released; various “rehabilitation” schemes are highly suspect.
Aimen Dean, a former al-Qaeda member who later spied for Britain’s MI6, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/al-qaeda-spied-mi6-know-deradicalisation-doesnt-work/">told The Telegraph</a>, “there is no such thing as a rehabilitated jihadist.” Morton Storm, a Danish former al-Qaeda member who later helped to betray terrorist leader Anwar al-Awlaki to the CIA, agrees. Rehabilitation efforts, he says, ignore that jihadis are not confused or mentally ill, <a href="https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/joseph-perticone/denmark-aims-rehabilitate-not-punish-returning-jihadists">but are adherents of an ideology</a> to which they are committed. “[D]eradicalizing the jihadists doesn’t work, because they’re religiously motivated,” Storm told the Associated Press in 2017, in response to a Danish rehabilitation program.
Nearly two decades after 9/11, even high-level terrorist leaders facing long sentences are becoming eligible for parole and may even complete their full sentences. While there is very little information available on recidivism rates among convicted terrorists, the recidivism rate of jihadist fighters released from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility was nearly 17% in 2018, with another 13% also suspected of returning to active terrorism.
In 2017, a National Counterterrorism Center <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/the-troubling-us-post-prison-experiment-to-rehabilitate-an-isis-supporter">report noted,</a> “more than 90 homegrown violent extremists incarcerated in the U.S. who are due to be released in the next five years will probably re-engage in terrorist activity.”
In order to address this challenge, U.S. federal, state, and local law enforcement need tools in order to prepare for released terrorists. One such tool would be a terrorism registry, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/america-needs-a-national-terrorist-registry-to-keep-us-safe">which would provide law enforcement</a> the ability to track the location of former terrorists in the same way police and the public can keep tabs on sex offenders — with legal sanction for failure to register. Louisiana successfully passed the first terrorism offender registry law in 2019, and several states have expressed interest in following suit.
<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/america-needs-a-national-terrorist-registry-to-keep-us-safe">A nation-wide network</a> has also been proposed by Patrick Dunleavy, a specialist on terrorist activity in the prison system. Realistically, such a proposal requires both federal assistance with information-sharing, as well as state laws to establish the registries and allow state authorities to enforce them.
A nationwide system of state terrorism registries would also take advantage of American federalism, utilizing state and local law enforcement to help prevent federal counterterrorism agents from being overwhelmed with keeping tabs on prior offenders.
Public registries protect and empower the individual citizen without need for government controls. The Department of Justice maintains a <a href="https://www.nsopw.gov/">public sex offender registry</a>, which private companies often use as a database for <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fsp.android.h&amp;hl=en">websites and apps that alert citizens</a> about rapists, stalkers, and molesters living in their neighborhoods.
Pseudoscience models of rehabilitation treat convicted terrorists as emotionally stunted unfortunates rather than committed ideologues willing to use violence for a political purpose. This has proven to be a disaster. Instead, the U.S. should implement a registry system for terrorists, bringing state and local law enforcement resources, as well as private enterprise, to bear and improving communication and cooperation for law enforcement in order to ensure that terrorist re-offenders do not slip through the net.
&nbsp;
Kyle Shideler is the Director and Senior Analyst for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy.

London

SHIDELER: Stop Releasing Jihadists From Prison

Al Qaeda

Great Britain

Islamic State (ISIS)

Jail

Prison

Radical Islam

Radical Islamic Terror

United Kingdom

On Monday, far-left New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio conceded that the recent high-profile surge in crime in New York City may, in fact, have something to do with New York state&#8217;s new deeply controversial &#8220;bail reform&#8221; law that de Blasio and his fellow leftist Democrats championed prior to its enactment.
&#8220;We had, for six years, steady decreases in crime across the board. There’s not a whole lot of other environmental things that have changed recently,&#8221; de Blasio said, as <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/02/07/de-blasio-admits-nyc-crime-jump-is-linked-to-bail-reform/">reported</a> by the New York Post. &#8220;It sort of stands out like a sore thumb that this is the single biggest new thing in the equation and we saw an extraordinary jump.&#8221;
“Of course there’s always a possibility this is plain statistical variation, that happens sometimes,” the mayor added, the newspaper noted. “But I think it’s pretty clear that there’s only one new major piece in the equation.”
De Blasio did offer one concrete proposed reform to the &#8220;bail reform&#8221; law: Offering judges the discretion to impose pretrial detention upon those defendants deemed a bona fide public safety risk. “I think judicial discretion should be clarified so that there are very clear checks and balances, so that we avoid any inkling of bias entering into the process, but I think a system predicated only on the question of flight risk misses the fact that there are some individuals who are just consistently, by their own actions, and by the proof of due process, consistently creat[ing] a threat to their neighbors,&#8221; he said.
New York&#8217;s new &#8220;bail reform&#8221; law, which outright eliminates bail for all but the most truly violent criminals, has faced mounting opposition amid a panoply of headlines showcasing the awful caliber of criminal defendants let off into the streets pretrial. In fact, as The Daily Wire&#8217;s Amanda Prestigiacomo <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disaster-dems-consider-changes-to-ny-bail-reform-just-one-week-after-implementation">reported</a> last month, even many Empire State Democrats have been pushing to tweak the pro-criminal law.
&#8220;After an onslaught of bad press over the disastrous first week of Democrat-implemented &#8216;bail reform&#8217; in New York, Democrats are considering changes to the legislation,&#8221; Prestigiacomo noted.
&#8220;Bail reform, which was reportedly implemented early in New York City by &#8230; de Blasio, led to a woman charged with an anti-Semitic attack to be arrested and released three times in five days,&#8221; Prestigiacomo continued. &#8220;[Tiffany] Harris &#8216;was nabbed for allegedly slugging three Jewish women and yelling &#8220;F-U, Jews!&#8221; but let go Saturday with no bail, despite an open assault case. Last month, she got no jail for a felony in another incident,&#8217; [the Post] <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/30/revolving-door-injustice-serial-slugger-gets-sprung-again/">reported</a>. &#8216;Nabbed again Sunday in a new attack, she was once more freed, on no bail, Monday.'&#8221;
Appearing last month on “Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler” on One America News Network, I <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-hammer-on-tipping-point-with-liz-wheeler-new-yorks-insane-pro-criminal-bail-law">strongly criticized</a> New York&#8217;s new criminal-mollycoddling law:
<blockquote>The problem with the Left is the Left speaks about justice and compassion and all these fancy words. They never focus on the people who actually suffer … from their policies. So in the case of border security and amnesty, there is no one who suffers worse from an open border and the human trafficking by drug cartels than the aliens themselves who are trafficked. In the case of “criminal justice reform,” “bail reform,” no one suffers more than victims of crime.
Where is anyone speaking for the victims of crime? But you know what the Left also does, Liz? The Left is amazing at getting the right version of language for their policies. “Bail reform,” it sounds so innocuous, right? What they’re doing is they’re throwing out a system of bail that has existed since at least 13th century England! That is how far back bail goes — cash bail, monetary bail. This is literally a centuries-old phenomenon that they are just throwing out.</blockquote>

Bill de Blasio

Jailbreak Is To Blame For Spike In NYC Crime, De Blasio Admits

bail reform

Crime

New York City

New York Post

True Crime

Violence

On Monday, Jelani Maraj, brother of famed rapper Nicki Minaj, was sentenced 25 years to life for repeatedly raping his then-11-year-old stepdaughter.
&#8220;A judge convicted Jelani Maraj of predatory sexual assault and child endangerment in November 2017. The victim testified during the trial that Maraj repeatedly raped her in 2015 while her mother was at work,&#8221; the <a href="https://apnews.com/5843c95f464f7195256c42b3ce83e384">Associated Press</a> reported.
According to <a href="https://www.revolt.tv/news/2020/1/27/21083986/jelani-maraj-sentence">Revolt</a>, the child claimed the first assault took place in April 2015 inside Maraj&#8217;s bedroom.
“He told me to take off my pants. &#8230; He told me to come under the covers with him, and he started to caress my back,” the child said, according to the outlet. “He took off his boxers … after that, we had <a href="https://www.revolt.tv/news/2020/1/6/21054044/harvey-weinstein-charged-two-counts-sexual-assault">sex</a>.”
“I was on my forearms on the bed and my pants were pulled down,&#8221; the girl added.
The abuse continued even after the child&#8217;s brother allegedly walked in on an assault. The victim said she told her brother not to say anything to their mother.
&#8220;Prosecutors have said DNA evidence recovered from the girl’s pajama pants was linked to Maraj. The girl’s younger brother also testified at the trial that he witnessed one assault,&#8221; the AP report added.
Maraj, who was convicted in 2017, reportedly pleaded for a &#8220;second chance&#8221; in the courtroom, highlighting his alcohol problem.
His defense team also noted that Maraj &#8220;suffered from health issues including hypertension, gout and anemia and requested the minimum sentence of 10 years to life,&#8221; the AP said.
According to <a href="https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/nicki-minajs-brother-jelani-maraj-sentenced-to-25-years-1841302924">The Root</a>, &#8220;Maraj’s attorney appealed conviction in 2018, claiming that there was jury misconduct. The judge ruled in October that the defense did not meet the necessary burden of proof.&#8221;
A <a href="https://pitchfork.com/news/nicki-minaj-set-to-testify-at-brothers-child-rape-trial/">Pitchfork</a> report in 2017 said Minaj was set to testify on behalf of her brother.
&#8220;Nicki Minaj plans to take the witness stand in defense of her brother Jelani Maraj in his on-going child rape case, a lawyer for Maraj confirmed to Pitchfork today,&#8221; Pitchfork outlined at the time. &#8220;Maraj plead not guilty after being indicted of felony sexual assault against a child in April of 2016. According to the lawyer, he intends to make the argument that the alleged victim and her mother tried to &#8216;shake down&#8217; Nicki to the tune of $25 million &#8216;to make the charges go away.'&#8221;
It&#8217;s unclear if Minaj did testify, though she did reportedly pay her brother&#8217;s $10,000 bail in 2015 shortly after he was arrested, according to the <a class="gnt_ar_b_a" href="http://pagesix.com/2015/12/05/nicki-minaj-bails-out-her-brother/" data-t-l="|inline|intext|n/a">New York Post</a>.
As noted by <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2015/12/04/nicki-minajs-brother-arrested-rape-charges-involving-child-under-13/76799100/">USA Today</a>, the rapper posted a photo of herself hugging her brother at his wedding to Jacqueline Robinson in August 2015.
&#8220;Jelani, I love u more than you&#8217;ll ever comprehend,&#8221; the Instagram post was captioned.
&#8220;I would cross the ocean for u,&#8221; a post on another photo said. &#8220;I would go &amp; bring u the moon. Promise u. For u I will. I love my brother so much man.&#8221;
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</a> 
 <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/6tcnXpL8bQ/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">Jelani, I love u more than you&#39;ll ever comprehend. 😢</a>
<p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A post shared by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/nickiminaj/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;" target="_blank"> Barbie</a> (@nickiminaj) on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2015-08-23T03:03:45+00:00">Aug 22, 2015 at 8:03pm PDT</time>
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Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj Brother Sentenced After Repeatedly Raping 11-Year-Old Stepdaughter

Rape

Michael Avenatti, the lawyer who previously represented adult film actress Stormy Daniels, was arrested last week in Southern California during a California Bar Association hearing for an unrelated offense. 
The “creepy porn lawyer,” as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U950t7M1Tbg">nicknamed</a> by Tucker Carlson, has since found himself in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Corrections Center in Manhattan, New York, the same jail that housed high-profile inmates such as Jeffrey Epstein and international drug trafficker &#8220;El Chapo.&#8221; 
But Avenatti’s legal team isn’t having it. 
“He is in a cell reportedly once occupied by El Chapo, on a floor that houses individuals charged with terrorism offenses,” reads a <a href="http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2020/images/01/21/avenatti.attorneys.letter.mcc.jail.conditions.pdf">letter</a> written to Manhattan judge Paul Gardephe that was obtained by CNN. “He is apparently under special administrative measures (SAMs), which almost completely restricts his communications with the outside world.”
The lawyer also complains that Avenatti has not been given the opportunity for phone calls, and that the temperature of his jail cell has made it so uncomfortable that he has “great difficulty functioning.”
“Mr. Avenatti was permitted two social calls upon arriving at the facility, but none since. He was told that his classification entitles him to one pre-scheduled social call per month,” continues the complaint. “The temperature in his cell feels like it is in the mid-40s. He is forced to sleep with three blankets.”
According to the letter, Avenatti’s legal team doesn’t understand why Avenatti has been placed in the special housing unit, the jail’s most secure floor, and wants him given access to materials and services that will allow him to prepare for trial, saying that the current “situation is truly hampering our ability to prepare for trial.”
According to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/21/judge-orders-michael-avenatti-prosecutors-to-explain-jail-conditions.html">CNBC</a>, Gardephe responded sympathetically Tuesday to the letter filed by Avenatti’s legal team, saying that prosecutors had to explain why exactly they decided to toss Avenatti into the housing unit usually reserved for people accused of terrorism and drug trafficking. 
The news agency notes that Avenatti has denied allegations that he unsuccessfully tried to extort the athletics company Nike, as well as allegations that he scammed his clients. 
Last week, Donald Trump Jr. responded to the impeccably poor timing of Avenatti’s arrest, considering that the lawyer was detained during a Democratic Party presidential primary debate and had previously garnered serious attention as a potential challenger to President Trump in 2020. 
“Again??? He would have been more entertaining on tonight’s [Democratic debate] than these jokers. What happened?” tweeted the president’s son. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Again??? He would have been more entertaining on tonight’s <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/demdebate?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#demdebate</a> than these jokers. What happened?
Michael Avenatti Arrested by Feds at California State Bar Hearing <a href="https://t.co/87uhv63hIH">https://t.co/87uhv63hIH</a>
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1217285644071964672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/donald-trump-jr-trolls-michael-avenatti-for-getting-arrested-during-dem-debate">The Daily Wire</a> previously reported, Avenatti has seriously considered running for president on two separate occasions, changing his mind both times. The first time, he changed his mind, citing family concerns; the second time, he stated he was “50/50” about running.
“Never say never,” Avenatti told <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/03/michael-avenatti-is-mulling-a-2020-run-for-president-again.html">CNBC</a> last August. “The Dems need a non-traditional fighter. They have a lot of talent but not a lot of fighters.”

Michael Avenatti Attends Court Hearings On Fraud, Extortion And Theft Charges

Avenatti’s Lawyer Files Complaint: Same Cell As El Chapo, ‘Forced To Sleep With Three Blankets.’ Judge Responds.

Judiciary

Michael Avenatti

Last night, Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, an attorney and former federal judicial law clerk, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cup29nPmOgo">joined</a> “Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler” on One America News Network to discuss New York state&#8217;s extraordinarily controversial new &#8220;bail reform&#8221; legislation. The law, which the New York Post editorial board <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/01/07/with-lives-at-stake-albany-must-bail-reform-failure-now/">decries</a> today as a flat-out &#8220;bad law,&#8221; eliminates the possibility of judge-imposed cash bail for the overwhelming majority of crimes committed in the Empire State.
Here is how the Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/01/07/with-lives-at-stake-albany-must-bail-reform-failure-now/">describes</a> some of the problems with the law:
<blockquote>One huge problem: The new law prevents judges from ordering most criminal suspects jailed, or even requiring them to post bail, no matter how clear a threat to public safety they pose. Judges retain discretion only if the charges include a handful of very violent crimes and they deem the suspect a clear flight risk.
This guarantees a revolving door for serious perps: Caught for a minor holdup, you’ll be charged and released — and can do it again, get caught again and be released again, time after time after time.</blockquote>
The Daily Wire has also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-bail-reform-woman-involved-in-anti-semitic-attack-arrested-released-for-3-crimes-in-5-days">previously reported</a> on the law&#8217;s noxiousness. The Daily Wire&#8217;s Amanda Prestigiacomo recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-bail-reform-woman-involved-in-anti-semitic-attack-arrested-released-for-3-crimes-in-5-days">reported</a> on a serial anti-Semitic assaulter who astoundingly committed three separate crimes in a span of five days due to the law&#8217;s inordinate leniency. As also reported by Prestigiacomo, all five borough district attorneys in New York City have gone on the record stating that the law goes too far in favoring defendants.
Hammer has consistently been very critical of this type of pro-criminal, &#8220;jailbreak&#8221;-style legislation. Last weekend, Giancarlo Sopo of TheBlaze <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/virginia_weak_on_crime_democrats">quoted</a> him in the context of a similar partisan Democratic initiative in Virginia:
<blockquote>Reached by telephone, constitutional law attorney and Daily Wire editor-at-large Josh Hammer told TheBlaze that [the proposed Virginia] bill is part of a pattern among Democrats and like-minded &#8220;weak-on-crime&#8221; Republicans.
&#8220;Across the country, we see so many leftist Democrats — joined by no small share of libertarian-leaning Republicans — subscribing to the same weak-on-crime agenda,&#8221; Hammer, who has been critical of similar so-called &#8220;criminal justice reform&#8221; efforts, said.
&#8220;New York&#8217;s harrowing recent &#8216;bail reform&#8217; proposal is a shining example, and this Democratic proposal in Virginia fits in neatly, as well. Americans have historically cherished law and order, and it is devastating to see these kind of jailbreak, pro-criminal policies take hold as we descend further into mass lawlessness,&#8221; he added.</blockquote>
Wheeler began the segment by asking Hammer about the New York lawmakers&#8217; purported aim — to reduce inequality and promote justice — and why the law&#8217;s authors do not seem to care about equality and justice for the actual victims of crime. Hammer launched into a rant about how the Left is able to effectively wield seemingly anodyne language, such as &#8220;bail reform,&#8221; as a cudgel to advance their lawless agenda:
<blockquote>The problem with the Left is the Left speaks about justice and compassion and all these fancy words. They never focus on the people who actually suffer &#8230; from their policies. So in the case of border security and amnesty, there is no one who suffers worse from an open border and the human trafficking by drug cartels than the aliens themselves who are trafficked. In the case of &#8220;criminal justice reform,&#8221; &#8220;bail reform,&#8221; no one suffers more than victims of crime.
Where is anyone speaking for the victims of crime? But you know what the Left also does, Liz? The Left is amazing at getting the right version of language for their policies. &#8220;Bail reform,&#8221; it sounds so innocuous, right? What they&#8217;re doing is they&#8217;re throwing out a system of bail that has existed since at least 13th century England! That is how far back bail goes — cash bail, monetary bail. This is literally a centuries-old phenomenon that they are just throwing out.</blockquote>
WATCH:
<iframe title="New York&#039;s No Bail Law Disaster" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Cup29nPmOgo?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Hammer OANN 1.07.20

WATCH: Hammer On ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: New York’s Insane Pro-Criminal Bail Law

Anti-Semitism

Hate Crime

Leftism

New York

Progressivism

On Sunday, Donald Trump Jr. <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-jr-instagram-ar15-weapon-rifle-hillary-clinton-behind-bars/">decided to exercise</a> his Second Amendment rights at the local shooting range. And in an Instagram post, he shared an image of a very special magazine that was affixed to his AR-style sporting rifle.
&#8220;Nice day at the range,&#8221; Trump wrote on Instagram. &#8220;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/rarebreedfirearms/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">@rarebreedfirearms</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/spikes_tactical/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">@spikes_tactical</a> adding a little extra awesome to my AR and that mag &#8230; .&#8221;
It turns out that the magazine was an image of former first lady, senator, secretary of State, and two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton &#8230; behind prison bars.
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</a> 
 <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B67J4TTlnDn/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">Nice day at the range. @rarebreedfirearms and @spikes_tactical adding a little extra awesome to my AR and that mag&#8230;🔥🤣🔥🤣🔥</a>
<p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A post shared by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/donaldjtrumpjr/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;" target="_blank"> Donald Trump Jr.</a> (@donaldjtrumpjr) on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2020-01-05T04:18:38+00:00">Jan 4, 2020 at 8:18pm PST</time>
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&#8220;The rifle was also adorned with a cross symbol used during the Crusades,&#8221; The Hill <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/477014-trump-jr-displays-gun-magazine-showing-hillary-clinton-behind-bars">reported</a>. &#8220;The Instagram post featured a variety of pictures of the AR-15 style rifle, which was made by Texas-based Rare Breed Firearms and named the Crusader. It remains unclear if Trump Jr. owns the weapon.&#8221;
&#8220;In response to some backlash online, a spokesperson for Trump Jr. told The Hill that the &#8216;Instagram post was strictly about him using a famous meme to mock Hillary Clinton, as he and many others have done on numerous occasions and will surely do again in the future, so long as it continues triggering humorless liberals,'&#8221; the outlet continued.
Trump Jr. is &#8220;an avid gun enthusiast and hunter,&#8221; as CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/06/donald-trump-jr-rifle-magazine-shows-hillary-clinton-cross.html">observed</a>.
As the Daily Caller <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2020/01/05/donald-trump-jr-ar-15-hillary-clinton-magazine/">noted</a>, the Clinton-behind-bars rifle magazine is a fairly direct reference to the &#8220;lock her up&#8221; chants that often dominated Trump presidential campaign rallies in 2016: &#8220;President Trump and his supporters have continued to chant &#8216;lock her up&#8217; at rallies when Clinton’s name is mentioned, something that was heard at nearly every rally when Trump was running for president in 2016.&#8221;
The Instagram post will only continue to stir up rumors about Trump Jr.&#8217;s possible future political plans. Politico recently <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/01/03/2024-presidential-election-candidates-091055">profiled</a> what it apparently considers the leading 2024 presidential contenders, and had this to say about Trump Jr.:
<blockquote>
While his sister Ivanka has earned a reputation as an ineffectual inside player who is ideologically out of step with her father and the Republican Party, Junior has been a caustic, partisan warrior on social media, and a rock star on the campaign trail for his father and congressional candidates. When speaking at a San Antonio event in October, a shout of “2024!” was heard from the crowd. One attendee told a reporter, “He’s just like his father and I can’t wait to vote for him someday too.”
That Trump voters would be intrigued by Trump Jr. should surprise no one. 
If Republican voters had a problem with a man born into wealth styling himself as a man of the people by lobbing verbal bombs at liberals and media figures, then Donald Trump, Sr., wouldn’t be president.
What to watch for in 2020: Will we see Donald Trump, Jr., get a prime-time speaking slot at the 2020 convention? Will we see the crowd launch into a “2024” chant? And if Pence does get dumped from the ticket, would Trump, Sr., replace him with someone who disavows interest in running for the presidency, making it easier to keep the Oval Office in the family?
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Donald Trump Jr

Donald Trump Jr. Shares Image Of AR-15 With Depiction Of Hillary Clinton Behind Bars

Donald Trump Jr.

Guns

Hillary Clinton

Second Amendment

The year 2019 wraps up as one of the most anti-Semitic in the recent history of New York City — capped off by a slew of hate crimes occurring over the celebration of Chanukah and even extending into the nascent new year.
In just over a week, nine incidents were perpetrated against Jews in the greater New York area, among them a machete-wielding attacker injuring five individuals at a suburban Monsey Chanukah celebration, a shooting threat at a Jewish organization’s headquarters in Brooklyn, and a Hasidic man punched and thrown to the ground by a group of thugs. At least 13 anti-Semitic assaults have been reported in New York City just since December 23.
And while the latest wave of anti-Semitism carried out in the New York City metropolitan area is disturbing, the upward trend of anti-Semitic attacks over a span of several years demonstrates a much larger and more predictable pattern. Anti-Semitic incidents in New York state surged over 96% from 2016 to 2017, with over 50% of the anti-Semitic assaults committed nationally occurring just in the Empire State. For the year 2017, more than 60% of New York state anti-Semitism took place in New York City.
The year 2018 saw anti-Semitic assaults in New York proliferate yet again, this time by an order of 55% — all of that just within the five boroughs. And yet again, in 2019, anti-Semitism accounted for considerably over half of all hate crimes perpetrated in the city.
Nationally, similar patterns arise, with anti-Semitism consistently ranking as the most prominent form of religious discrimination, but the unenviable ascent of anti-Semitism in New York City remains unparalleled in any other big city.
And the logic for the rapid rise in New York City-based Jew-hatred lies, in no small part, with the leadership and neglectful inaction by Mayor Bill de Blasio. Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming narrative surrounding any form of discrimination — anti-Semitism chief among them — in New York City places blame squarely with those on the far-right. Ironic, perhaps, given that New York City consistently ranks among the most liberal urban areas globally, that the far-right might hold sway there. Nonetheless, de Blasio trudges forward, claiming last summer that “the violent threat, the threat that is ideological, is very much from the Right.”
Sadly, the vast majority of the recent anti-Semitic attacks have been perpetrated by <a href="https://www.investigativeproject.org/8240/black-on-jewish-violence-marks-the-new-new-anti">black and Hispanic individuals</a> and in some of the most liberal enclaves of an already left-leaning city. In the first four months of 2019, with anti-Semitic hate crimes on pace to increase by 82% from 2018, de Blasio denied City Council Speaker Corey Johnson’s request for a fully-funded Office of Prevention of Hate Crimes. Speaker Johnson noted, at the time, that the funding necessary for a fully functional office would nearly double in the 2020 fiscal year, yet de Blasio has shown no intention to allocate any additional funds.
Beyond budgeting shortfalls, New York City’s criminal and bail reform practices have demonstrably returned virulent anti-Semites to the street without bail set. Thirty-year-old Tiffany Harris, responsible for the aggravated assault of three Jewish individuals last week, was released from police custody without bail following the first assault, only to commit the same heinous act twice more — a day later. She was again released with no bail. A policy enacted for the new year disqualifies swaths of crimes from being eligible for bail altogether in New York state. The laundry list of now-disqualified crimes includes third-degree assault, forms of aggravated assault, terrorist threats, arson in the third- and fourth-degrees, and even second-degree manslaughter. These crimes are often the direct criminal behaviors that have been taking place against Jews.
Tangible solutions and an end to the public safety crisis faced by Jews won’t come about by denying the realities of the situation. Pragmatically, significant fault lies with de Blasio himself and the state legislature, due to enacting poorly conceived policies and deflecting responsibility for the attacks to a preferred ideological foe.

Sunset in New York City

PHILLIPS: A Year Of Rampant Anti-Semitism In New York City

Judaism

New York Police Department (NYPD)

Tonight brings the year 2019 to a close. Please stay safe, everyone. And for you truly crazy masochists who will be packed like sardines tonight in New York City&#8217;s Times Square — well, as they say in the South, &#8220;bless your heart.&#8221;
This past year was an eventful one, from a political perspective. From the Covington Catholic High School media imbroglio back in January through the unveiling of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s much-anticipated eponymous report in April through a slew of horrific mass shootings over the dog days of the summer through House Democrats&#8217; (<a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1207731722995023872">kind of</a>/<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/us/trump-feldman-impeach.html">sort of</a>) formal impeachment of President Donald Trump, 2019 pretty much saw it all.
As we enter 2020, I have two main substantive political wishes to complement my <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-here-are-three-reasons-why-i-plan-vote-josh-hammer">electoral wish</a> that the president be <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-yes-any-moral-stain-trump-now-mostly-sunk-josh-hammer">re-elected</a>. We need less socialism and we need more law and order.
It is possible that, perhaps above all else in the broader political universe, the year 2019 will be remembered by historians as the year in which unvarnished socialism became truly ascendant on the American Left. Embodied by the harrowing all-freshman congresswoman <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-aocs-squad-will-destroy-democrats-2020-josh-hammer">&#8220;Squad&#8221;</a> of economically illiterate would-be despots, socialism has likely not been this popular since the fall of the Berlin Wall itself. According to <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/257639/four-americans-embrace-form-socialism.aspx">Gallup</a>, an eye-opening four in ten Americans now support some form of socialism. Perhaps even more terrifyingly, MarketWatch <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/for-millennials-socialism-and-communism-are-hot-capitalism-is-not-2019-10-28">reports</a> that more than a third of Millennials approve of communism itself.
It is impossible to overstate how grossly irresponsible this flirtatiousness is with the economic <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/09/capitalisms-triumph-michael-tanner/">fool&#8217;s errand</a> of socialism and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-bernie-sanders-entire-worldview-grotesquely-josh-hammer">outright evil political totalitarianism</a> to which socialism inevitably leads: Communism. No ideology in human history has ever <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/100-years-of-communismand-100-million-dead-1510011810">killed more human beings</a> than has communism. None. Alas, as it is said, those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. And as we enter 2020, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/who-will-win-democratic-primary-latest-2020-josh-hammer">leading presidential candidate</a> for the Democratic Party, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Loonbag-VT), is a former Soviet Union-honeymooning, hammer and sickle flag-waving communist who sided with America&#8217;s existential geopolitical foes at the very height of the Cold War. This is utter moral idiocy. Hopefully 2020 sees a resurgence of traditional American skepticism of socialism.
A similarly immensely dispiriting trend, and one that unfortunately has more bipartisan support, is the rise of an all-encompassing culture of lawlessness. From weak-on-sentencing judges to the <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/accused-cop-killer-bragged-prior-releases-jail-offered-bail/">decline of bail</a> to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/09/us/first-step-act-release-alleged-murder/index.html">&#8220;First Step Act&#8221;</a>-style early prison release of violent felons to leftist/libertarian assaults on the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-in-defense-of-prosecutors">integrity of prosecutors</a> to the continued <a href="https://nypost.com/2017/05/07/fbi-confirms-the-deadly-costs-of-a-war-on-cops/">war on cops</a> to the misplaced calls for <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomangell/2019/09/19/beto-orourke-proposes-drug-war-reparations-funded-by-marijuana-taxes/">mass drug liberalization</a> to the neo-Confederate illegality of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-why-no-one-pointing-out-sanctuary-cities-josh-hammer">sanctuary jurisdictions</a>, 2019 was also marked by a general decline in pervasiveness of traditional American support for law and order.
The rule of law is an indispensable piece of the broader puzzle that is the American experiment. Without robust and diligent enforcement of the law, we are nothing. The bipartisan infatuation with mass jailbreak initiatives, the likes of which bamboozled Trump into signing the First Step Act federal <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/first-step-criminal-justice-reform-bill-whats-in-it/">legislative catastrophe</a> and which are locally responsible for recent high-profile criminals from <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/anti-semitic-terrorist-new-york-7-arrests-little-prison-time/">New York</a> to <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/texas-church-shooter-massive-rap-sheet-almost-no-prison-time/">Texas</a> being free to roam to streets and wreak havoc upon a vulnerable citizenry, simply must stop. The mentality of mollycoddling criminals and failing to stand for the victims of crime — most emphatically illegal alien crime, but certainly also crime committed from those American citizens who ought to be incarcerated — has long since moved from the realm of the merely pernicious to the realm of the full-on societally ruinous. Along with the<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1373"> inherent lawlessness</a> of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi">Supremacy Clause</a>-defying sanctuary cities, the totality of all these attacks on law enforcement and the rule of law is to inculcate a culture of sheer anarchy. Anarchy, much like socialism and communism, is complete moral idiocy. Hopefully 2020 sees a resurgence of traditional American support for law and order.
Surely that isn&#8217;t asking too much for our political environs in the year 2020. Is it?

2020 goals on notepad

HAMMER: A Political Wish For 2020: Less Socialism, More Law And Order

2020 Election

Capitalism

Law Enforcement

Libertarianism

Police

On Wednesday, Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who is a constitutional attorney by training, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvpfIAdvldI">joined</a> &#8220;Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler&#8221; on One America News Network to discuss freshman <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-aocs-squad-will-destroy-democrats-2020-josh-hammer">&#8220;Squad&#8221;</a> member Rep. Ayanna Pressley&#8217;s (D-MA) harrowing new &#8220;criminal justice reform&#8221; bill. As <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pressley-transgender-inmates-prison">reported</a> by Fox News, Pressley&#8217;s bill would &#8220;allow &#8216;transgender individuals to be housed in a facility that conforms with their gender identity&#8217; &#8230; [and] would also give incarcerated people the right to vote, repeal federal laws that criminalize illegal immigration, require inmates who are working to be paid no less than federal minimum wage, and increase support for inmates transitioning back into society.&#8221;
Hammer, who identifies as a traditional <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-dont-let-kim-kardashian-fool-you-america-josh-hammer">law-and-order</a> conservative with little in the way of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-in-defense-of-prosecutors">sympathy for criminals</a>, joined Wheeler to discusss Pressley&#8217;s far-reaching bill.
Wheeler began by asking Hammer whom, exactly, Pressley claims to represent when she says she wants to make our criminal justice system safer and more humane. Hammer responded by lamenting how there oftentimes seems to be strong bipartisan agreement to model criminal justice policy away from the victims of crime and toward the criminals themselves:
<blockquote>There is a bipartisan, across-the-political spectrum problem in our criminal justice political and legal discourse. We are always talking about that the victims of crime are the criminals — and not the victims. On the left, it speaks for itself — that&#8217;s what&#8217;s going on here [with Pressley]. But on the Right, there&#8217;s a lot of libertarian, &#8220;criminal justice reform,&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-dont-let-kim-kardashian-fool-you-america-josh-hammer">Kim Kardashian</a>-flirting about letting violent people out of prison.
You know, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) in 2016 was not very popular when he said this, but he was absolutely correct: We actually have an <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/tom-cotton-under-incarceration-223371">under-incarceration problem</a> in this country. We have a lot of people in prison, but you know what? We&#8217;re also a very violent society. Nineteen percent of property crimes in America, we actually find the perp. Forty-seven percent of violent crimes — less than half of violent crimes in America — law enforcement can identify the perp. So we actually really need to be locking up more people and not letting people out, but you know — right here. Ayanna Pressley, she&#8217;s the Ringo Starr of the &#8220;Squad,&#8221; I mean, she&#8217;s auditioning for the John Lennon Paul McCartney role, I guess.</blockquote>
Wheeler responded by pointing out the possibility that Pressley&#8217;s plan does not attempt to find a happy median in criminal justice policy; rather, &#8220;she just straight-up wants to release anybody who is in prison for any reason.&#8221; Hammer replied by pointing out how there has been a recent rise in violent crime, thus paring back the gains made during the Reagan and Clinton tough-on-crime decades:
<blockquote>[I]t&#8217;s just over the past, really two to three, maybe four, years that the FBI crime statistics are starting to show an increase again [in violent crime]. This is pretty harrowing. I mean, you know what, a lot of these people on the libertarian-leaning Right were talking about &#8220;criminal justice reform&#8221; three, four, or five years ago. Maybe it made a lot more sense then; the statistics today just tell a very different story.</blockquote>
WATCH:
<iframe title="Dems Want To Do Away With Life Sentences" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AvpfIAdvldI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-dont-let-kim-kardashian-fool-you-america-josh-hammer">Don&#8217;t Let Kim Kardashian Fool You. America Has An UNDER-Incarceration Problem.</a>

Hammer OANN screen grab 11.20.19

WATCH: Hammer on ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: Far-Left Democrats Love Criminals

Ayanna Pressley

Transgender

As of right now, most national head-to-head polls for the 2020 presidential general election show President Donald Trump losing to his Democratic Party presidential primary rivals. This trend generally holds, regardless of whether the nominee is any of the leading top three Democratic candidates: Former Vice President <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html">Joe Biden</a>, Sen. <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_warren-6251.html">Elizabeth Warren</a> (D-MA), or Sen. <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-6250.html">Bernie Sanders</a> (I-VT).
While the Trump campaign might be tempted to rest on its laurels and sneer at the polls based upon a look back at the perceived polling debacle that was the 2016 presidential election, such a move would be just as haughty as it is myopic. As Harry Enten&#8217;s <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-just-a-normal-polling-error-behind-clinton/">article</a> from November 4, 2016 — that would be four days before the general election — presciently pointed out, in retrospect, polling from the 2016 election cycle was not actually irreconcilable with a Trump victory. Trump obviously trailed Hillary Clinton in the polls, but his victory was actually not outside the realm of polling feasibility — or even outside the realm of polling reasonableness.
As such, the 2020 Trump re-election campaign would be wise to focus on what it can do to win over a larger share of independent, moderate, and suburban voters. In doing so, the Trump campaign would be wise to look back to a much-ballyhooed part of Karl Rove&#8217;s 2004 blueprint for George W. Bush&#8217;s re-election: Specifically, that campaign&#8217;s ingenious focus on the &#8220;<a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/security-moms-bushs-secret-election-weapon-gl6jc8cxr7j">security mom</a>.&#8221; The mythical &#8220;security mom,&#8221; at the time, was symbolized by the proverbial suburban mother who was worried about revanchist Islamist terrorism and sought to protect her home and family against those who would seek to kill us.
Although some of the specific animating issues have changed over the past 15 years, there is tremendous potential this election cycle for Trump to deploy similar messaging and reach out to a similar sect of voters.
Violent crime in America, despite overall dramatically declining since the 1990s, has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-in-defense-of-prosecutors">unfortunately spiked</a> over the past few years. Why isn&#8217;t Trump formally renouncing the <a href="https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20191004/he-was-released-early-from-prison-in-february-now-hes-wanted-for-murder-on-federal-hill">harrowing</a> First Step Act jailbreak law, the passage of which he apparently already <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/trump-reportedly-regrets-passage-jailbreak-first-step-act-gullible-conservatives-supported/">regrets</a>, and doubling down on &#8220;Willie Horton&#8221;-style anti-crime messaging?
Left-wing Democrats are campaigning harder than ever on anti-Second Amendment, gun-grabbing policy proposals. Why isn&#8217;t Trump leading Republicans on a 2020 platform of cracking down on the gun felons that <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/html/decriminalization-delusion-14037.html">light-on-crime</a> jurisdictions like California seem <a href="https://calmatters.org/gun-violence/2019/10/felons-firearms-california-federal-charges-gun-control-newsom/">hellbent on unleashing</a> upon the general public?
The global jihad — as embodied both by the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-designating-muslim-brotherhood-terrorist-josh-hammer">Muslim Brotherhood</a>, the mother&#8217;s milk of Sunni jihad, as well as more public-facing Islamist outfits like al-Qaeda and Islamic State — continues, 18 years after 9/11, to pose a threat to the U.S. homeland. Why isn&#8217;t Trump running on a platform of discussing not just the wall and border security, but also the arguably even more indispensable issue of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-border-wall-nice-interior-enforcement-nicer-josh-hammer">interior visa enforcement</a>? What about the need to radically <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-never-forget-911-we-need-rethink-how-we-josh-hammer">restructure our immigration policy</a> away from letting in largely unvetted populations of Middle Easterners?
Across the nation, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-who-will-stand-for-the-forgotten-american">neo-Confederate</a> &#8220;sanctuary&#8221; jurisdictions employ anti-<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi">Supremacy Clause</a> erroneous legal &#8220;reasoning&#8221; to defy <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiHsv7v4LXjAhWTHM0KHZKMB7gQFjAAegQIAxAB&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.law.cornell.edu%2Fuscode%2Ftext%2F8%2F1324&amp;usg=AOvVaw2EunpYa249SvA-oBwwFrS2">federal immigration law</a>, ignore ICE detainers on <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/another-illegal-alien-arrested-brutal-rape-notorious-sanctuary-montgomery-county/">violent criminal aliens</a>, and aid and abet the work of the transnational Mexican cartels that traffick drugs and criminals alike into the homeland. Why isn&#8217;t Trump proposing more aggressive policies to strip federal funding away from sanctuary jurisdictions and effectively message to suburban voters that the government will act to help prevent MS-13 thugs from terrorizing their neighborhoods?
There are a myriad other examples, to be sure. But to maximize its 2020 re-election chances, the Trump campaign ought to focus more intensively on appealing to moderates and suburban swing voters. In order to do so, there is no better platform than a safety and security agenda tailored to the very &#8220;security moms&#8221; that President Bush so effectively courted in 2004.

Handcuffed prisoner

HAMMER: Trump Needs To Focus On A Safety And Security Agenda For 2020

Democratic Party

Donald Trump

Hamas

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

MS-13 Gang

National Security

Kim Kardashian was <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kim-kardashian-returns-white-house-criminal-justice">back at the White House</a> this week to peddle her pernicious &#8220;criminal justice reform&#8221; agenda. While Kardashian&#8217;s passion about helping ex-felons reintegrate into society may be well-intentioned, the cold truth is that an absolutely staggering <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/staggering-doj-study-83-percent-of-prisoners-re-arrested-within-9-years-of-release/">83% of state prisoners</a> are re-arrested within nine years of their release. According to the <a href="https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/18upr9yfup0514.pdf">U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics</a> (BJS), furthermore, the so-called &#8220;low-level drug offenders&#8221; that Kardashian and much of the weak-on-crime/jailbreak cartel so aggressively promote are, in fact, also huge recidivism risks for acts of violent crime:
<blockquote>
Overall, 68 percent of released state prisoners were arrested within three years, 79 percent within six years and 83 percent within nine years. The 401,288 released state prisoners were arrested an estimated 2 million times during the nine years after their release, an average of five arrests per released prisoner. &#8230;
More than three-quarters (77 percent) of released drug offenders were arrested for a non-drug crime within nine years, and more than a third (34 percent) were arrested for a violent crime.
</blockquote>
The risk of recidivism is not just a fantasy concocted by law-and-order conservatives &#8212; it is very, very real.
But the broader reality is that weak-on-crime political operatives often operate under misleading or disingenuous premises. As Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/first-step-criminal-justice-reform-bill-whats-in-it/">pointed out at National Review</a> in the debate leading up to a vote on the White House-supported &#8220;First Step Act&#8221; criminal justice reform jailbreak bill, this &#8220;low-level drug offender&#8221;-centric law actually allows for <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/these-are-the-violent-criminals-slated-for-early-release-under-the-jailbreak-bill/">early prison release</a> for a veritable hodgepodge of thugs &#8212; everyone from dangerous weapon-wielding robbers to law enforcement officer assaulters to violent carjackers to traffickers of fentanyl, a narcotic so potent that a sugar packet-sized dose could kill a whole room. The general profiles of these miscreants would more readily resemble MS-13 brutes than they would the &#8220;low-level drug offenders&#8221; that the weak-on-crime sycophants would have you believe are the true target of &#8220;reform.&#8221;
Far from having a general over-incarceration problem, the United States in the year 2019 actually has an under-incarceration problem &#8212; especially for violent criminals and mid-high level drug traffickers. As Sen. Cotton <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/tom-cotton-under-incarceration-223371">argued</a> in 2016, the actual percentage of violent criminals even arrested &#8212; let alone prosecuted and subsequently convicted &#8212; is harrowingly low: &#8220;Law enforcement is able to arrest or identify a likely perpetrator for only 19 percent of property crimes and 47 percent of violent crimes. If anything, we have an under-incarceration problem.&#8221; Indeed, according to <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017">2017 FBI Uniform Crime Reporting statistics</a>, the number of cases uncleared by law enforcement in a given year is astonishing: 6,013 murder cases, 79,310 rape cases, 206,091 robbery cases, and 349,190 aggravated assault cases in 2017 alone.
The good news, from a broader perspective, is that crime in America has indeed dramatically plummeted over the past few decades. According to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/03/5-facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/">Pew</a>, citing FBI statistics, violent crime fell 49% between 1993 and 2017. That is outstanding news and ought to be applauded. But as Pew also <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/03/5-facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/">notes</a>, violent crime actually recently rose from 2014&#8211;2016. Furthermore, BJS&#8217;s <a href="https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/cv17pr.cfm">2017 National Crime Victimization Survey</a> showed a &#8220;statistically significant increase&#8221; in violent crime victims from 2015&#8211;2017.
Distressingly, this recent increase in violent crime has coincided with a continued hollowing out of America&#8217;s prison population. As psychology professors Keith Humphreys and Richard Lane <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/30/weve-made-remarkable-progress-black-incarceration-now-we-need-know-why/">observed</a> in April, in <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/trump-lurching-left-crime-will-not-win-re-election/">focusing solely upon</a> the black subset of our prison population, &#8220;the African American male imprisonment rate has dropped by a third since its peak and is now at a level not seen since 1991. African American women&#8217;s rate of imprisonment has dropped 57 percent from its peak and is now at a 30-year low.&#8221; Amazingly, Pew actually <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/02/americas-incarceration-rate-is-at-a-two-decade-low/">noted</a> last year that America&#8217;s total incarcerated population is now at a two decade-low:
<blockquote>
At the end of 2016, there were about 2.2 million people behind bars in the U.S., including 1.5 million under the jurisdiction of federal and state prisons and roughly 741,000 in the custody of locally run jails. That amounts to a nationwide incarceration rate of 860 prison or jail inmates for every 100,000 adults ages 18 and older.
The nation&#8217;s incarceration rate peaked at 1,000 inmates per 100,000 adults during the three-year period between 2006 and 2008. It has declined every year since then and is now at its lowest point since 1996, when there were 830 inmates per 100,000 adults.
</blockquote>
The generally tough-on-crime policies of the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton presidencies blessed this country with decades of relative tranquility. Why on earth would we risk throwing that away to satisfy law enforcement officer assaulters and MS-13 fentanyl traffickers? Why on earth would we now be further hollowing out the nation&#8217;s prison population, amidst a two-decade low in the prison population and recent increases, contrary to the longstanding trend, of increased violent crime?
On the contrary, now is the time to double down on giving law enforcement the resources they need to arrest more violent criminals and on giving prosecutors the resources they need to charge and ultimately convict more violent criminals. There are far, far too many violent criminals and drug traffickers who get off scot-free.
Now is not the time to be hoodwinked by perhaps well-intentioned, but nonetheless naive, promoters of the weak-on-crime and jailbreak agenda. And as for President Donald Trump, he should stop <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1139277199180259328">appeasing weak-on-crime</a> <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46959/hammer-be-very-skeptical-jared-kushners-new-josh-hammer">libertarians</a> within his White House and quickly retreat to his 2016 campaign-era rhetoric on drugs and crime. He had it right back then.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This election is a choice between law, order &amp; safety &#8211; or chaos, crime &amp; violence. I will make America safe again for everyone. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ImWithYou?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ImWithYou</a>
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/752849315094298624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 12, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Violent crime is rising across the United States, yet the DNC convention ignored it. Crime reduction will be one of my top priorities.
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/759450053379579905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 30, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Look how bad it is getting! How much more crime, how many more shootings, will it take for African-Americans and Latinos to vote Trump=SAFE!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/770245313345052673?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 29, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>

HAMMER: Don’t Let Kim Kardashian Fool You. America Has An UNDER-Incarceration Problem.

Kim Kardashian

Murder

Speaker of the House and leftist icon Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44521/just-not-worth-it-nancy-pelosi-says-no-impeaching-ryan-saavedra">performed</a> a very <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47633/pelosi-sounds-alarm-over-trump-impeachment-james-barrett">careful</a> <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47966/nancy-pelosi-gets-heckled-california-democrats-emily-zanotti">dance</a> on the issue of possible impeachment for President Donald Trump. Most recently, as The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47966/nancy-pelosi-gets-heckled-california-democrats-emily-zanotti">reported</a> earlier this week, Pelosi found herself heckled by her fellow California Democrats for being insufficiently zealous about impeachment:
<blockquote>
Local lawmaker Pelosi &#8230; clearly anticipated a friendly audience, and took the stage Saturday afternoon to update California&#8217;s progressive activists on a handful of ongoing Congressional investigations into President Donald Trump&#8217;s personal finances and pre-presidential business dealings. When she got to the part of her speech focused on Special Counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s report on potential collusion between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russian officials, though, the crowd turned on her.
Pelosi began discussing Trump&#8217;s potential &#8220;obstruction of justice,&#8221; a charge outlined in the Mueller report but subsequently dismissed by the Attorney General&#8217;s office, and it wasn&#8217;t long before members of the audience were drowning her out, yelling &#8220;Impeach! Impeach!&#8221; &#8230;
Pelosi struggled for several minutes before launching back into her speech, looking very uncomfortable.
</blockquote>
&#8220;Pelosi and other long-time Democrats have been the subject of progressive ire lately, after refusing to sign on to articles of impeachment, preferring instead that Democrats treat the 2020 presidential election as a referendum on Trump&#8217;s actions, including potential obstruction of justice,&#8221; The Daily Wire&#8217;s Emily Zanotti <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47966/nancy-pelosi-gets-heckled-california-democrats-emily-zanotti">added</a>.
But this week, Pelosi reportedly went full Woke® in a private Capitol Hill exchange with House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). Specifically, as Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/05/pelosi-impeachment-1355435">reports</a>, Pelosi actually called not for Trump&#8217;s impeachment, but for his imprisonment:
<blockquote>
Speaker Nancy Pelosi told senior Democrats that she&#8217;d like to see President Donald Trump &#8220;in prison&#8221; as she clashed with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler in a meeting on Tuesday night over whether to launch impeachment proceedings. &#8230;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison,&#8221; Pelosi said, according to multiple Democratic sources familiar with the meeting. Instead of impeachment, Pelosi still prefers to see Trump defeated at the ballot box and then prosecuted for his alleged crimes, according to the sources.
They said she was expressing solidarity with pro-impeachment Democrats who want to hold the president accountable while disputing the idea that it is now time to take that step.
</blockquote>
The leaked statement amounts to an interesting political calculation for Pelosi. The speaker, it seems, is attempting to thread a needle between mollifying the restive progressive base of her party and assuaging institutional Democratic establishment forces who are concerned about the possible political ramifications at the ballot box in 2020 of such an unjustified impeachment push. Whether Pelosi will come across as less &#8220;radical&#8221; for claiming that a sitting president of the United States deserves to be imprisoned is, at best, a shaky proposition.
Political prediction market <a href="https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/5158/Will-Donald-Trump-complete-his-first-term">PredictIt.org</a> currently has Trump as an overwhelming favorite to successfully complete his first term as president &#8212; and to therefore not be impeached. Republicans, after all, retain control of the U.S. Senate &#8212; where two-thirds of members are required, in any event, to successfully convict upon the House&#8217;s initial impeachment.

Nancy Pelosi Wants To See Trump ‘In Prison’

Impeachment

Jerrold Nadler

Nancy Pelosi

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange&#8217;s biggest celebrity fan, former &#8220;Baywatch&#8221; actress Pamela Anderson, visited the disgraced hacktivist in prison on Tuesday and subsequently denounced the high-security measures police have taken against him.
&#8220;He does not deserve to be in a super max prison,&#8221; Anderson said in a statement outside of the jail, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/07/uk/pamela-anderson-julian-assange-prison-gbr-intl/index.html">CNN</a>. &#8220;He has never committed a violent act &#8230; he&#8217;s an innocent person.&#8221;
Anderson extolled Assange as a good man who has been wrongfully persecuted by being &#8220;cut off from everybody.&#8221;
&#8220;He&#8217;s a good man, he&#8217;s an incredible person, I love him, and I can&#8217;t imagine what he&#8217;s been going through,&#8221; Anderson said.
WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson accompanied Pamela Anderson to the high-security prison in Belmarsh on Tuesday. She told the press that the visit made everyone &#8220;quite emotional.&#8221;
&#8220;It is for me shocking to see my friend, an intellectual, a publisher, a journalist. A man who has transformed the world of journalism with his work sitting in a high-security prison,&#8221; Hrafnsson said. &#8220;Someone said that you could judge the civilization of a society by visiting its prisons and, frankly, I have to say from my heart that this visit did not reflect well on this society here.&#8221;
Hrafnsson appeared to be referring to a famous quote from Dostoevsky: &#8220;The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens, but by how it treats its criminals. If he has a conscience, he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishment &#8212; as well as the prison.&#8221;
Julian Assange received a year-long prison sentence earlier this week for violating his bail and hiding from authorities for up to seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He apologized &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46614/wikileaks-julian-assange-sentenced-50-weeks-prison-james-barrett">unreservedly</a>&#8221; to those who may have felt disrespected by his decision. WikiLeaks tweeted that the sentence was a vindictive act of the British government.
&#8220;Julian Assange&#8217;s sentence is as shocking as it is vindictive. We have grave concerns as to whether he will receive a fair extradition hearing in the UK,&#8221; WikiLeaks tweeted. &#8220;Julian Assange&#8217;s sentence, for seeking and receiving asylum, is twice as much as the sentencing guidelines. The so-called speedboat killer, convicted of manslaughter, was only sentenced to six months for failing to appear in court.&#8221;
The WikiLeaks founder still faces extradition to the United States, where he faces federal charges for allegedly aiding former U.S. intelligence analyst Bradley Manning (now Chelsea Manning) in the hack to obtain classified and damaging information that he subsequently published on WikiLeaks. As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45882/doj-charges-julian-assange-conspiracy-hack-emily-zanotti">reported</a>, the United States could have a difficult time actually convicting Assange by having to prove he aided Chelsea Manning in the hack on government computers &#8212; rather than merely publishing already-obtained or already-leaked sensitive information.
&#8220;The case against Assange, as it stands, seems weak, and hinges on whether Assange speaking to and &#8216;encouraging&#8217; Chelsea Manning constitutes conspiracy to hack into and steal classified records,&#8221; reported Emily Zanotti. &#8220;The DOJ document supposes that Assange was an accomplice to Manning&#8217;s crimes, but the evidence seems to suggest that Assange&#8217;s &#8216;encouragement&#8217; may have involved little more than receiving Manning&#8217;s stolen documents and requesting more.&#8221;

Pamela Anderson Visits Julian Assange In Prison: ‘He’s A Good Man’

Julian Assange

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) seems to be struggling to get much traction for his 2020 presidential bid. According to prediction market website <a href="https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3633/Who-will-win-the-2020-Democratic-presidential-nomination">PredictIt.org</a>, Booker is currently the eighth most likely Democrat to win the presidential nomination. And in one recent Democratic presidential primary <a href="https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/442310-joe-biden">poll</a> that shows former Vice President Joe Biden with a massive 32% lead over <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43796/hammer-bernie-sanders-entire-worldview-grotesquely-josh-hammer">socialist</a> Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Booker barely registers with merely 3% support.
In other words, Booker needs a spark &#8212; perhaps a spark to energize the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44424/hammer-stark-choice-facing-jewish-democrats-josh-hammer">increasingly hard-left</a> Democratic Party activist base. In a CNN appearance on Monday, Booker may have tried to generate that spark by offering a (tyrannical and anti-constitutional) paean to the vehemently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42837/hammer-kamala-harriss-flirtation-banning-all-semi-josh-hammer">anti-Second Amendment partisans</a> of the Democratic Party base.
Mikhael Smits of The Washington Free Beacon tweeted Booker&#8217;s underlying CNN clip and noted: &#8220;Cory Booker won&#8217;t say whether he&#8217;ll jail Americans who refuse to surrender firearms they lawfully purchased if he&#8217;s president.&#8221;
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Cory Booker won&#8217;t say whether he&#8217;ll jail Americans who refuse to surrender firearms they lawfully purchased if he&#8217;s president: <a href="https://t.co/DTGDDLp2ud">pic.twitter.com/DTGDDLp2ud</a>
&#8212; Mikhael Smits (@mikhaelsmits) <a href="https://twitter.com/mikhaelsmits/status/1125403441432551426?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 6, 2019</a></blockquote>
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As Smits <a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/booker-dodges-on-jailing-gun-owners/">elaborated</a>, CNN anchor Poppy Harlow pressed Booker on whether he agreed with the proposals of his fellow 2020 presidential candidate Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43486/house-judiciary-committee-democrats-target-private-josh-hammer">anti-gun stalwart</a>, who supports &#8220;buy-back programs, where Americans who currently have [certain types of] guns could sell them, essentially, to the government.&#8221; As Harlow noted, Swalwell then proposes that if the gun owners &#8220;don&#8217;t [turn in their weapons] within a certain period of time, they would be prosecuted, thrown in jail.&#8221;
Booker prevaricated, initially resorting to the tangential leftist platitude that the &#8220;critical thing is I think most Americans agree that these weapons of war should not be on our streets.&#8221;
But Harlow was not satisfied. Per <a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/booker-dodges-on-jailing-gun-owners/">Smits</a>:
<blockquote>
Harlow again pressed Booker.
&#8220;But would you prosecute people?&#8221; she asked. &#8220;Do you support the government buying them back and if not, potentially people could go to jail if they don&#8217;t want to sell them back? Yes or no?&#8221;
Booker would not answer the question.
&#8220;Again, we should have a law that bans these weapons and we should have a reasonable period in which people can turn in these weapons,&#8221; Booker answered. &#8220;Right now we have a nation that allows in streets and communities like mine these weapons that should not exist.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Cory Booker therefore<a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/cory-booker-americans-should-be-thrown-in-jail-if-they-wont-give-up-their-guns"> appears to want</a> to throw Americans in jail who do not voluntarily turn in lawfully purchased firearms to their federal government overlords.
Earlier yesterday, Booker unveiled an elaborate gun control plan. Axios <a href="https://www.axios.com/cory-booker-2020-presidential-election-gun-control-plan-6c00d290-b4c1-4cc1-aa03-89593b50b432.html">reported</a>:
<blockquote>
The plan features some of the most progressive measures to combat gun violence proposed by any 2020 candidate. &#8230;
The biggest thing in the proposal is a national gun licensing program, which would force Americans to apply for 5-year gun licenses before obtaining a firearm. The process would include fingerprinting, an interview, gun safety courses, and a federal background check.
<ul>
<li>It includes a ban on assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and bump stocks.</li>
<li>It would seek to close loopholes, like the one that allows people on the federal terror watch list to be able to obtain guns.</li>
<li>It would increase oversight on gun manufacturing, giving more leeway to the Consumer Product Safety Commission to put warnings on firearms and recall them, if necessary.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
The Democratic Party activist base is increasingly extremely hostile to Second Amendment rights. In a USA Today <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/04/26/kamala-harris-owns-handgun-unacceptable-2020-democratic-race-column/3567371002/">op-ed</a> last month, Peter Funt argued that Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) ought to be disqualified as a possible 2020 presidential candidate merely because she <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46000/hypocrite-much-kamala-harris-admits-owning-gun-josh-hammer">owns a handgun</a>.

Cory Booker Appears To Want Americans ‘Thrown In Jail’ If They Don’t Give Away Their Guns

Cory Booker

Gun Buybacks

Gun Control

Gun Laws

Alex Villanueva, a progressive Latino who <a href="https://abc7.com/politics/la-county-sheriff-mcdonnell-opponent-villanueva-sound-off-ahead-of-election-day/4470299/?utm_source=The+Appeal&amp;utm_campaign=04adabdaa7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_06_22_03_58_COPY_01&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_72df992d84-04adabdaa7-58410691">vowed</a> to &#8220;kick ICE out&#8221; of the nation&#8217;s largest jail system if elected, was sworn in as Los Angeles County&#8217;s new sheriff on Monday.
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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NewSheriffInTown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NewSheriffInTown</a> <a href="https://t.co/ve1eJVMBwq">pic.twitter.com/ve1eJVMBwq</a>
&#8212; Alex Villanueva (@Alex4Sheriff) <a href="https://twitter.com/Alex4Sheriff/status/1066377892119093248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 24, 2018</a></blockquote>
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He stunned the local political establishment last month after winning 53% of the vote to defeat then-Sheriff Jim McDonnell, who became the first incumbent voted out of that office in more than a century. Villanueva had recently retired from the L.A. County Sheriff&#8217;s Department with the rank of lieutenant after more than three decades of service.
A staunch supporter of California&#8217;s sanctuary state law, Villanueva appealed to African-Americans, Hispanics, labor unions, and registered Democrats in a deep-blue county. Together, they <a href="http://www.laist.com/2018/11/07/why-la-sheriff-race-was-so-close.php">helped brand</a> his nonpartisan opponent as a pro-Trump Republican who willfully collaborated with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
&#8220;We will not allow any divisive policies from outside Los Angeles or California to dictate the way we do our job here,&#8221; Villanueva told the crowd assembled at East L.A. College, where he took the oath of office. &#8220;Our hard-working immigrant families shouldn&#8217;t have to wonder if we are here to protect them or to deport them.&#8221;
Villanueva made several statements during the campaign that were perceived to be hardline stances against federal immigration authorities, but critics have <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-sheriff-villanueva-20181126-story.html">accused</a> him of sending mixed signals about cooperating with ICE.
The U.S. Air Force veteran <a href="https://abc7.com/politics/la-county-sheriff-mcdonnell-opponent-villanueva-sound-off-ahead-of-election-day/4470299/?utm_source=The+Appeal&amp;utm_campaign=04adabdaa7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_06_22_03_58_COPY_01&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_72df992d84-04adabdaa7-58410691">promised</a> &#8220;to create a very bright line between [the] department&#8217;s actions and ICE&#8221; and &#8220;actually physically kick ICE out of the county jails.&#8221;
However, he later clarified that inmates would still be transferred to ICE custody, as required by state law.
The Los Angeles Times <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-sheriff-election-20181103-story.html">reported</a>:
Villanueva said he would not let ICE agents step inside the jails, but would &#8220;march [inmates] out ourselves and give them to ICE,&#8221; a comment some have interpreted as signifying an even more direct cooperation with immigration authorities.
Beat reporters who covered the race <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-sheriff-election-20181126-story.html">noted</a> that Villanueva&#8217;s proposals &#8220;do not diverge entirely from the policies adopted by McDonnell&#8221; <a href="http://www.laist.com/2018/11/07/why-la-sheriff-race-was-so-close.php">and that</a> &#8220;the candidates&#8217; differences on this issue were relatively minor in the end.&#8221;
Although Villanueva did not receive official endorsements from anti-ICE activist groups, an <a href="https://www.aclusocal.org/en/letter-sheriff-mcdonnell-re-elect-your-sheriff-forum-cancellation">ACLU-led alliance</a> <a href="https://www.laprogressive.com/alex-villanueva/">indirectly promoted</a> his candidacy by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ACLU.SoCal/videos/1071035646407455/">organizing community forums</a> and encouraging <a href="http://reformlajails.com/l-a-sheriff-candidates-responses-to-reform-l-a-jails-candidate-questionnaire/">strategic social media efforts</a>.
Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who <a href="http://dignityandpowernow.org/about-us/">chairs</a> <a href="http://reformlajails.com/a-note-from-our-chair-patrisse-khan-cullors/">two</a> of the groups in that coalition, hosted a series of events leading up to the vote which she <a href="https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10157749682208906&amp;id=727718905">said</a> were &#8220;partly about shaming ICE-loving incumbent L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell&#8230;&#8221; Cullors later <a href="https://www.facebook.com/429234337113804/posts/1882952685075288/">referenced</a> Villanueva&#8217;s &#8220;significant promises to community groups&#8221; and instructed her massive social media following &#8220;to make sure Alex will not collaborate with ICE.&#8221;
But just two weeks after the election, Villanueva confirmed that his administration would continue honoring ICE requests to detain certain inmates.
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Villanueva flips on everyone who voted for him ahead of schedule <a href="https://t.co/d4CMmQCl8a">pic.twitter.com/d4CMmQCl8a</a>
&#8212; Scott Frazier (@safrazie) <a href="https://twitter.com/safrazie/status/1065344448811347968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 21, 2018</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;You have very dangerous convicted felons. You&#8217;re gonna have rapists, sexually violent predators. I cannot release them into the public knowing that they&#8217;re eligible for deportation,&#8221; he <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-sheriff-election-update-20181120-story.html">said</a> at an event on November 20.
Villanueva did make good on a campaign promise to &#8220;clean house,&#8221; <a href="http://www.laist.com/2018/11/28/la_sheriff-elect_starts_to_clean_house_even_before_he_takes_office.php">relieving</a> several of the department&#8217;s highest-ranking officials of duty. He takes over an agency with a $3 billion budget, that employs 16,000 people, and secures approximately 18,000 inmates daily. The L.A. County Sheriff also provides policing services to 42 contract cities including Compton, Malibu, and West Hollywood.
Follow Jeffrey Cawood on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/Near_Chaos">@Near_Chaos</a>.

L.A.’s New Progressive Sheriff Vows To ‘Kick ICE Out’ Of Nation’s Largest Jail System

Los Angeles

In 2013, a grandma was arrested on a drug charge, misclassified as transgender, and sent to an all-male prison where she was harassed. Now a federal appeals court has reinstated her lawsuit against the doctor and nurse who misgendered her despite a strip-search.
Fior Pichardo de Veloz, who is now an attorney and an elected local official in the Dominican Republic, was visiting Miami to be present at her grandchild&#8217;s birth when she was arrested for a decades-old federal drug warrant she was unaware of, <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article222363520.html">according to the Miami Herald.</a>
<a href="http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/unpub/files/201713059.pdf">According to the court&#8217;s factual background of the case</a>: 
When originally arrested, Pichardo&#8217;s gender was listed as female. When she was processed at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, she was processed as a female. After being strip-searched by a female officer who said she &#8220;did not notice anything abnormal,&#8221; Pichardo was given a female jumpsuit.
But after Pichardo was sent to the medical unit for a routine checkup due to her high blood pressure history, a nurse asked a corrections officer if Pichardo was actually a woman because she was taking hormone pills to help with symptoms of menopause. 
&#8220;Male inmates take hormone pills to enhance their breasts,&#8221; the nurse, Fatu Kamara Harris, said to the corrections officer. Harris then asked Pichardo what her gender was; she responded she was a woman.
Pichardo was then led to an exam room where Dr. Fredesvindo Rodriguez-Garcia asked her a series of questions about her medical history but did not perform a physical examination, ask her about her gender, or question why she was on hormone pills.
Rodriguez-Garcia later reclassified Pichardo as a man.
Harris, who was not present in the exam room when Rodriguez-Garcia met with Pichardo, later told a jail officer that &#8220;everything fell out&#8221; in the exam, referring to Pichardo&#8217;s nonexistent male genitals. 
The officer protested and called her supervisor, but was unable to go against the doctor&#8217;s orders.
&#8220;Transgender, male parts, female tendencies,&#8221; Harris added to Pichardo&#8217;s file.
Another officer, Kimberly Jones, questioned Harris about the physical examination but the court documents claim Harris replied, &#8220;She&#8217;s a man,&#8221; and walked away.
Pichardo was then transported to the all-male Metro West Detention center where she again tried to affirm her true gender to an officer. &#8220;You are a woman. Good luck if you&#8217;re alive tomorrow,&#8221; the officer reportedly replied.
Pichardo was then placed in a cell with about 40 men where she said she feared for her life, according to the opinion. Pichardo said male inmates called out to her, yelling &#8220;Mami! Mami!&#8221; She told an investigator that she felt &#8220;psychologically assaulted&#8221; because &#8220;everyone looked at her as if she was a piñata.&#8221; Pichardo also said she urinated on herself because she was too afraid to use the toilet.
The court documents also state:
Pichardo was put at the front of the room where the officers &#8220;always&#8221; put &#8220;someone that looks female&#8221; so officers can watch them for protection. One elderly inmate attempted to stand up for Pichardo and tell officers Pichardo was female, but officers did not do anything.
The jail only realized the mistake when Pichardo&#8217;s family members demanded answers. 
Another strip-search was performed where Pichardo says male officers laughed at her and one person even took a photo of her when she was undressed. 
The nurse who strip-searched her confirmed her true gender and Pichardo was transferred back to the correctional center where she was originally processed and misgendered.
Pichardo sued on the grounds that the jail staff violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution &#8220;cruel and unusual punishment&#8221; clause. 
Despite a federal judge throwing out the case earlier claiming the staffers from the jail were protected from a trail for negligence, a federal appeals court reinstated the lawsuit against the nurse and doctor who originally misgendered her.
The court added that there was strong evidence that the conduct of the doctor and nurse amounts to &#8220;deliberate indifference.&#8221;
&#8220;Moreover, like Nurse Harris, Dr. Rodriguez, knew that sending a woman to an all-male prison would pose a risk of serious harm to her safety,&#8221; Judge Frank Hull wrote in the unanimous opinion.
&#8220;Every reasonable prison officer and medical personnel would have known that wrongfully misclassifying a biological female as a male inmate and placing that female in the male population of a detention facility was unlawful,&#8221; Hull added.
&#8220;The opinion correctly held, as we believed, that the defendants could not be so struthious as to ignore the overwhelming evidence in front of them that Mrs. Pichardo was in fact female,&#8221; said Pichardo&#8217;s lawyer, Ryan Marks.

Grandma Seeking Justice After Being Misclassified As Trans And Put In All-Male Prison

Florida

Two Kachin Christian pastors, who have been jailed for more than a year in a Myanmar prison following their criticism of airstrikes the military launched near civilian structures including churches, have been released.
Pastors Dumdaw Nawng Lat and Langjaw Gam Seng were among 8,500 prisoners granted amnesty by the newly-elected President U Win Myint, Morning Star News <a href="https://morningstarnews.org/2018/04/two-pastors-in-burma-freed-from-prison/">reports</a>. 
Mong Maung town Pastor Zau Ra celebrated their release. &#8220;We are happy that they were freed, but they spent one year and five months in prison,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It is not good for them, their family and even for the convention. They were arrested for being suspicious and sentenced into prison. It was a waste of time, and it was not fair.&#8221;
&#8220;It is important that respective authorities make sure that this wouldn&#8217;t be happening in the future, as we are in peace-building process,&#8221; he said, adding that the pastors are in good health. 
&#8220;This would harm relationship and trust-building between the government and civilians.&#8221;
The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/23022/human-rights-watch-calls-myanmar-drop-charges-jacob-airey">reported</a> that the two ministers were arrested on Christmas Eve in 2016 by army prosecutor Maj. Kyaw Zin Htun, who accused them of violating Unlawful Associations Act and the Export and Import Law. 
The Human Rights Watch organization accused the government of retaliating against the men after they showed journalists buildings that had bombed in an army raid and immediately called for their release.
The U.S. Embassy in Yangon issued a statement expressing &#8220;concern&#8221; over the treatment of the ministers at the time the arrests were made.

Pastors Jailed For Over A Year In Myanmar Finally Released

Christianity

Conservatism

Human Rights Council

Persecution

A co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement and an activist funded by George Soros&#8217; Open Society Foundations are leading a new coalition formed to stop Los Angeles County from spending billions of dollars on two new jails.
As politicians finalized the upcoming budget on Tuesday morning, activists <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/225583684640336">launched</a> the &#8220;Justice L.A.&#8221; campaign outside the L.A. County Board of Supervisors headquarters, where they set up approximately 100 steel jail beds in the middle of a downtown street.
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If someone set up 100 beds in front of your home, wouldn&#8217;t you come out to at least see what was going on? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LACounty?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#LACounty</a> Board of Supes didn&#8217;t. <a href="https://t.co/4ChR79KlVH">pic.twitter.com/4ChR79KlVH</a>
&#8212; JusticeLA (@JusticeLANow) <a href="https://twitter.com/JusticeLANow/status/912837665912799232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 27, 2017</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;The 100 replica beds we&#8217;ve created are a far cry from the upwards of 6,000 beds that the L.A. County Board of Supervisors is trying to build,&#8221; said Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, who led the demonstration.
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&#8220;I&#8217;m a lover of life and I deeply believe in humanity&#8217;s ability to do better than we&#8217;re currently doing&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/OsopePatrisse?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@OsopePatrisse</a> at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/JusticeLANow?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#JusticeLANow</a>. <a href="https://t.co/TFce7VS3pF">pic.twitter.com/TFce7VS3pF</a>
&#8212; #BlackoutNFL (@UnitedBlackout) <a href="https://twitter.com/UnitedBlackout/status/912823489685471232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 26, 2017</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;When the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors talk about building jails, they talk about beds,&#8221; Cullors continued. &#8220;What they&#8217;re really talking about isn&#8217;t beds. It&#8217;s black people. It&#8217;s brown people. It&#8217;s indigenous people. It&#8217;s undocumented people.&#8221;
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&#8220;No more jails no more cells&#8221; protest outside the Hahn building. <a href="https://t.co/w0nJHp2zxf">pic.twitter.com/w0nJHp2zxf</a>
&#8212; Marcus Yam (@yamphoto) <a href="https://twitter.com/yamphoto/status/912730624208728064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 26, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Justice L.A. pre-released a video campaign last week which featured Cullors and other anti-incarceration activists, including <a href="https://youtu.be/8cx5B-XNv74">Mark-Anthony Johnson</a>, who was recently <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/press-releases/foundations-announce-2017-soros-justice-fellows">awarded</a> a paid fellowship from Soros&#8217; foundation to &#8220;push for progress toward a more humane criminal justice system in the United States.&#8221; Johnson was one of the <a href="https://twitter.com/JusticeLANow/status/912707605411147776">lead organizers</a> at Tuesday&#8217;s protest, <a href="https://twitter.com/FlyEgret/status/912713364538662912">tweeting</a>: &#8220;You want jail beds, we brought the beds to your doorstep.&#8221;
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You want jail beds, we brought the beds to your door step. Tell your county supervisors to stop the 3.5b jail plan! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/justicela?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#justicela</a> <a href="https://t.co/TZFICMifA5">pic.twitter.com/TZFICMifA5</a>
&#8212; Mark-Anthony Johnson (@FlyEgret) <a href="https://twitter.com/FlyEgret/status/912713364538662912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 26, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Both Johnson and Cullors were mentored and trained by Eric Mann, who became involved with the Students for a Democratic Society and its more radical splinter group, the Weather Underground, in the 1960s. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/carl-oglesby-antiwar-leader-in-1960s-dies-at-76.html">According</a> to the New York Times, the Weather Underground &#8220;advocated the violent overthrow of the United States government.&#8221; Mann currently heads the Labor Community Strategy Center, which coincidentally is part of the conglomerate of more than 30 activist groups demanding a moratorium on jail construction in L.A.
Shaun King, a nationally known writer and activist associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/shaunking/videos/1555496064489306/">broadcast</a> Tuesday&#8217;s demonstration on Facebook Live. Justice L.A. representatives used the digital platform to draw attention to LAPD officer-involved shooting deaths and the thousands of inmates housed in L.A. County jails &#8212; two local institutions organizers say inherently discriminate against black, brown and transgender people.
&#8220;(Los Angeles) is not a center of liberalism or progressivism; it is the center of oppression,&#8221; said Greg Akili, a Black Lives Matter-LA member who formerly <a href="http://www.jasmyneacannick.com/black-lives-matter-activist-sues-after-arrest-during-l-a-police-commission/">worked</a> as an organizer for the United Farm Workers under Cesar Chavez. &#8220;These 100 beds represent that oppression.&#8221;
&#8220;The Los Angeles County jail system is the largest jail system in the world,&#8221; said Cullors, who is also a <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/16357/exclusive-radical-professor-calls-abolition-police-jeffrey-cawood">prison abolitionist</a>. &#8220;Those of us that have been imprisoned and/or have had loved ones inside jails and prisons know that what they&#8217;re really talking about isn&#8217;t beds; it&#8217;s marginalized people.&#8221;
As the Los Angeles Times <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-black-lives-matter-protests-jail-expansion-20170926-story.html">reported</a>:
The demonstrators, led by Patrisse Cullors, an L.A. native and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, launched the &#8220;Justice L.A.&#8221; campaign to call on county leaders to redirect funds intended for new jails to community services and other alternatives to incarceration.
The county plans to spend $2 billion to build a 3,885-bed replacement for the downtown Men&#8217;s Central Jail and a 1,600-bed women&#8217;s facility at the now-vacant Mira Loma Detention Center in Lancaster.
The plan, which opponents contend could amount to $3.5 billion by the time the jails are completed, was first approved by the Board of Supervisors in 2015. 
The LAPD <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-black-lives-matter-protests-jail-expansion-20170926-story.html">confirmed</a> that Justice L.A. organizers had not obtained a permit for the demonstration, which shut down a major thoroughfare downtown.
Shortly after Justice L.A.&#8217;s protest concluded, an inmate housed at the nearby Men&#8217;s Central Jail <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mens-central-inmate-death-20170926-story.html">died</a> after being pepper-sprayed by deputies. The man was <a href="http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Inmate-Dead-After-Being-Pepper-Sprayed-During-Assault--448307823.html">identified</a> on Wednesday as Juan Correa Jr., 31, whose hometown was not known.

Follow Jeffrey Cawood on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/Near_Chaos">@Near_Chaos</a>.

Black Lives Matter Co-Founder, Soros-Funded Activist Aim To Stop L.A. From Building New Jails

Black Lives Matter

George Soros

Last week in Edmonton, Canada, a newlywed couple ended their wedding night in jail after a barroom brawl spilled out into the street.
Photos and videos posted on social media showed brawlers coming out in droves from the Denizen Hall bar and piling into the street; police arrived and took control. One witness, Matt Machado told <a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/absolutely-absurd-bride-groom-arrested-in-post-wedding-bar-brawl-1.3557668">CTV Edmonton</a>, &#8220;The doors just explode open and bodies just start piling out.&#8221; A second witness added, &#8220;The bride is just swinging, and the melee ends up on the sidewalk.&#8221; A third witness chimed in, &#8220;As we&#8217;re watching you just see this girl in a wedding dress right in the middle of it.&#8221;
According to police, the bride was arrested and charged with assault; the groom was charged with mischief.
Noreen Remtulla, spokesperson for the Edmonton Police Service, told <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/bride-groom-arrested-post-wedding-bar-brawl-canada/story?id=49403496">ABC News</a> that the couple was released on a promise to appear in court; their first appearances have been scheduled for September.
Pictures below:
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This is the greatest picture I will ever take. Goodnight. <a href="https://t.co/XQhuiVQrKy">pic.twitter.com/XQhuiVQrKy</a>
&#8212; Ryan (@IAmByks) <a href="https://twitter.com/IAmByks/status/899132289858158593">August 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
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If I wasn&#8217;t there I wouldn&#8217;t have believed it. Here&#8217;s another pic I just found on my phone <a href="https://t.co/d5GfhhaIFE">pic.twitter.com/d5GfhhaIFE</a>
&#8212; Ryan (@IAmByks) <a href="https://twitter.com/IAmByks/status/899443919741624320">August 21, 2017</a></blockquote>
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How&#8217;s your wedding night? <a href="https://t.co/sQXLxksdXI">pic.twitter.com/sQXLxksdXI</a>
&#8212; Section O&#8482; (@Section_O) <a href="https://twitter.com/Section_O/status/899128950806298624">August 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
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your wedding is trash <a href="https://t.co/C1hAZKwrys">pic.twitter.com/C1hAZKwrys</a>
&#8212; Section O&#8482; (@Section_O) <a href="https://twitter.com/Section_O/status/899129880922673152">August 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
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TILL JAIL DO WE PART: Bride And Groom Spend Wedding Night In Jail

Traditional Marriage

We&#8217;ve seen it in <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/17756/orwellian-canadians-can-now-be-fined-or-jailed-amanda-prestigiacomo">Canada</a>, and now its dripping into the United States.
Soon, in the liberal Mecca California, jail time will be on the table for those who do not fully capitulate to the Left&#8217;s extreme gender ideology. In a proposed bill, it would become illegal to use the &#8220;wrong&#8221; gender pronouns of transgender senior citizens in long-term care facilities. Additionally, the proposal mandates such facilities to designate their bathrooms and showers by &#8220;gender identity,&#8221; as opposed to biological sex.
There are no exceptions for religious care facilities.
&#8220;It shall be unlawful for a long-term care facility or facility staff to &#8230; willfully and repeatedly fail to use a resident&#8217;s preferred name or pronouns after being clearly informed of the preferred name or pronouns,&#8221; reads SB 219, called &#8220;Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Long-Term Care Facility Resident&#8217;s Bill of Rights.&#8221;
&#8220;It imposes fines and jail time on any long-term care employee who refuses to use transgender pronouns. Fines for repeat offenders could be as high as $1,000 and a jail term of up to a year,&#8221; <a href="http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2017/july/california-proposes-jail-time-for-using-the-wrong-pronoun-for-senior-transgenders">reports</a> CBN News.
The bill is sponsored by Equality California and penned by Senator Scott Wiener of San Francisco, notes CBN.
Opponents of the bill (or, people who&#8217;ve read the Constitution) are arguing that the compelled speech is an infringement on the First Amendment.
&#8220;How can you believe in free speech, but think the government can compel people to use certain pronouns when talking to others?&#8221; asks Greg Burt of California Family Council. &#8220;Compelled speech is not free speech. Can the government compel a newspaper to use certain pronouns that aren&#8217;t even in the dictionary? Of course not, or is that coming next?&#8221;
&#8220;Those proposing this bill are saying, &#8216;If you disagree with me about my view of gender, you are discriminating against me,'&#8221; he continued. &#8220;This is not tolerance. This is not love. This is not mutual respect. True tolerance tolerates people with different views. We need to treat each other with respect, but respect is a two-way street. It is not respectful to threaten people with punishment for having sincerely held beliefs that differ from your own.&#8221;
In Canada, such Orwellian measures are already in place. If you refuse to use the pronouns which match a person&#8217;s &#8220;gender identity,&#8221; you could be found guilty of a &#8220;hate crime&#8221; and face massive fines and possible jail time.
Bill C-16 enshrines &#8220;gender expression&#8221; and &#8220;gender identity&#8221; into Canada&#8217;s Human Rights Code and Criminal Code.
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Great news: Bill C-16 has passed the Senate &#8211; making it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity or expression. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LoveisLove?src=hash">#LoveisLove</a>
&#8212; Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) <a href="https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/875516673758986240">June 16, 2017</a></blockquote>
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In New York City, thanks to Comrade de Blasio, citizens are opened up to <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/5847/new-york-city-will-fine-you-not-calling-people-ze-hank-berrien">massive fines</a> if they do not use an individual&#8217;s pronouns of choice. 
You will be made to care.

California Proposes JAIL TIME For Using Wrong Gender Pronoun For Senior Citizens

California

Gender

Gender Pronouns

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