Paris and Washington Send a Message to Moscow: No Sanctions Relief Until Russian Troops Leave Ukraine

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The Kremlin’s gambit to secure sanctions relief by redrawing the political landscapes in Europe and the United States has, so far, been a failure.

In 2014, the U.S. and the European Union levied punitive economic sanctions on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and subsequent proxy war in eastern Ukraine. New presidential leadership in Washington and Paris have both made clear this year that the sanctions will stay in place until the Kremlin fulfills its commitments in implementing the Ukraine cease-fire, known as the Minsk II agreements.

Those commitments include the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukrainian territory, the return of Ukrainian control over its border with Russia in the Donbas, and unhindered access for international monitors in the conflict area.

“We will not submit to Russia or Mr. Putin’s values, as they are not the same values as ours,” French President-elect Emmanuel Macron said during the campaign, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Macron, a 39-year-old pro-European centrist, was elected president in a May 7 landslide over his pro-Russian, anti-EU rival, Marine Le Pen. Macron is set to enter office on Sunday.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pressed for the full implementation of the Minsk agreements during a Wednesday meeting in Washington with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“Sanctions on Russia will remain in place until Moscow reverses the actions that triggered them,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement following the meeting.

Consequently, there will be no workaround for the Kremlin to avoid fulfilling its Minsk II commitments. And, so far, neither the EU nor the U.S. has been willing to make concessions about Ukraine for tighter cooperation with Russia in combatting the Islamic State terror group in Syria.

“The [Trump] administration should be wary of getting distracted by Russia and [Bashar] Assad in Syria at the expense of countering Russia’s continued aggression in Europe,” Daniel Kochis, policy analyst in European affairs at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.

Setback

Macron’s victory over Le Pen in the May 7 French presidential election was widely perceived to be a setback to Putin’s efforts to influence Europe’s political future through a hybrid campaign of propaganda and cyberattacks.

Macron’s opponent, Le Pen, represented the pro-Russia, anti-EU National Front party.

In November 2014, according to French news reports, the National Front received a 9 million euro ($9.8 million) loan from the Russian-owned First Czech-Russian Bank, part of a larger 40 million euro request.

During the 2017 campaign, Le Pen said she would lift sanctions on Moscow. She praised Putin, criticized U.S. policy regarding Ukraine and Russia, and traveled to Moscow to meet with the Russian leader on March 24.

“Regarding Ukraine, we behave like American lackeys,” Le Pen told the Polish news site Do Rzeczy. “The aim of the Americans is to start a war in Europe to push NATO to the Russian border.”

“I will not accept to have my behavior dictated by Mr. Putin, and that is the difference with Mrs. Le Pen,” Macron said during the campaign.

In the last two days of the campaign, Macron’s campaign said it had been the target of a massive computer hack that dumped internal campaign emails online. Multiple independent investigations cited in news reports claimed the hackers had ties to Russian military intelligence. Moscow denied it was involved.

Without conclusively pinning the Macron campaign hack on Russia, U.S. National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers told Congress on Tuesday that the spy agency had warned French authorities about the threat of a Russian cyberattack before the election.

“If you take a look at the French election … we had become aware of Russian activity,” Rogers told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We had talked to our French counterparts prior to the public announcements of the events publicly attributed this past weekend and gave them a heads-up: ‘Look, we’re watching the Russians, we’re seeing them penetrate some of your infrastructure.’”

On May 8, the day after the French election, Putin made a conciliatory overture to Macron, urging Franco-Russian cooperation on shared security challenges such as combatting terrorism.

“The citizens of France have trusted you with leading the country at a difficult time for Europe and the whole world community,” Putin told Macron in a telegram, according to Russian news reports.

“The growth in threats of terrorism and militant extremism is accompanied by an escalation of local conflicts and the destabilization of whole regions,” Putin said in the message. “In these conditions it is especially important to overcome mutual mistrust and unite efforts to ensure international stability and security.”

Across the Pond

In Washington, the election of President Donald Trump has not resulted in any significant change in U.S. policy regarding sanctions on Moscow.

On Wednesday, Trump met with Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, as well as Ukraine’s foreign minister, Pavlo Klimkin, in the Oval Office during separate appointments.

Trump subsequently published pictures of his meetings with both Klimkin and Lavrov on Facebook, along with the message: “Yesterday, on the same day – I had meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the FM of Ukraine, Pavlo Klimkin. #LetsMakePeace!”

“The United States is ready to be further involved in making Russia implement Minsk agreements,” Klimkin said following the meeting with Trump, according to Ukrainian news reports.

Klimkin also suggested the U.S. might join the Minsk II negotiations, known as the Normandy format, which currently comprises leaders from Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday—one day before Lavrov’s Oval Office meeting with Trump—a Russian fighter jet flew within 20 feet of a U.S. Navy reconnaissance aircraft over the Black Sea, NBC News reported Friday.

Speaking to reporters in Moscow on Friday, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov blamed the current tensions between Russia and the U.S. on Trump’s predecessor, former President Barack Obama.

“Naturally, we do not expect that all problems—and there are quite a few of them—will be resolved overnight, because Obama and his team have left the gravest legacy on the Russian track and clearing away these obstructions will be extremely difficult,” Ushakov said, according to the Russian news agency TASS.

“Russia is open for dialogue with the United States in various spheres, including Syria and any other areas where our interests meet or can meet,” Ushakov said.

A History of Violence

Russia’s failure to achieve sanctions relief has not had a cooling effect on the Ukraine war. Overall, the conflict is stuck in a cyclical pattern of waxing and waning violence.

On May 7, the same day that French voters went to the polls to choose their next president, combined Russian-separatist forces fired more than 150 mortars at Ukrainian positions throughout the war zone, according to Ukrainian military officials.

On that day, one Ukrainian soldier was killed in combat; another soldier died in a military hospital due to wounds from a sniper shot on April 30. During the preceding week, four Ukrainian soldiers were killed due to enemy fire, and 40 were wounded.

Ukrainian military forces are engaged in a three-year-old proxy war with Russia in the Donbas, Ukraine’s embattled southeastern territory on the Russian border.

Along a 250-mile-long front line, Ukrainian troops are entrenched within a network of trenches and fortified fighting positions. Across no man’s land, they face a combined force of about 35,000 pro-Russian separatists and approximately 5,000 Russian regulars, according to Ukrainian and NATO intelligence estimates.

Artillery and rocket attacks, tank shots, and small arms gunfights are still daily occurrences. As are casualties, both military and civilian, on opposite sides of the conflict. At some places, no man’s land is only a few hundred meters wide—close enough for the enemy camps to hear each other talking.

The Minsk II cease-fire prohibits the use of heavy weapons above certain calibers within prescribed buffer zones around the front lines. The cease-fire also prohibits both sides from taking new ground or using airpower.

However, the war never ended. About one-third of the war’s 10,000 deaths have occurred since Minsk II went into effect in February 2015.

The international organization tasked with monitoring the cease-fire, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, has suspended operations in the war zone after an American paramedic attached to one of its patrols was killed in a landmine blast on April 23 in separatist-controlled territory.

The paramedic, 36-year-old Joseph Stone, was the first OSCE patrol member killed while on duty in eastern Ukraine.

“The restrictions have reduced the geographical scope of our patrols and have entailed a grounding of our mid-range unmanned aerial vehicles,” Alexander Hug, principal deputy chief monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, said during a press briefing in Kyiv.

“All of which means we are unable to monitor and report on facts, including violations, to the extent that we usually do,” Hug said. “The OSCE SMM imposed these restrictions in order to protect our unarmed civilian monitors.”

On Thursday, combined Russian-separatist forces attacked Ukrainian units 28 times, using mortars, small arms, grenade launchers, and heavy armor, Ukrainian Ministry of Defense spokesman Col. Andriy Lysenko told reporters in Kyiv on Friday.

Lysenko said two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and six were wounded during Thursday’s attacks.

“We assess that Moscow’s strategic objectives in Ukraine, maintaining long-term influence over Kyiv and frustrating Ukraine’s attempts to integrate into Western institutions, will remain unchanged in 2017,” Director of U.S. National Intelligence Daniel R. Coats told the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during a Thursday hearing.

“Russia largely controls the level of violence, which it uses to exert pressure on Kyiv and the negotiating process,” Coats said. (For more from “Paris and Washington Send a Message to Moscow: No Sanctions Relief Until Russian Troops Leave Ukraine” please click HERE)

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Here’s How Far Behind Trump Is on Political Appointments Compared to Obama, Bush

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President Donald Trump has begun to move on naming federal judges and will eventually be naming a new FBI director, but more broadly, he remains slow in filling political appointments compared to his predecessors.

Trump has made 85 nominations to the Senate at this point in his presidency as of Friday, according to the Center for Presidential Transition, which tracks presidential appointees. In that same period of his first term, President Barack Obama made 212 nominations, President George W. Bush made 161 nominations, President Bill Clinton made 182 nominations, and President George H. W. Bush made 135 nominees by this point.

Trump, so far, is leaving key management positions unfilled, said Mallory Barg Bulman, vice president of research and evaluation at the Partnership for Public Service, the parent organization to the Center for Presidential Transition.

“Leadership matters a lot, as does having the right people in place,” Bulman told The Daily Signal. “You can’t start the game until the whole team is on the field.”

Trump has no nominee for 460 of the 557 key leadership positions, as of Friday, according to Partnership for Public Service. Trump has nominated 49, announced the nomination of 19, and 29 people have been confirmed.

Earlier this week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the administration is taking time to vet employees.

“We’re actually going through the Office of Government Ethics and FBI clearances before announcing most of these individuals,” Spicer said at the Monday press briefing. “And so, there’s a little bit of a difference in how we’re doing this. But we are well on pace with respect to many of these [appointments] to get the government up and running.”

Trump has not yet even named a director to run the Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal workforce, noted Robert Moffit, a former assistant OPM director under President Ronald Reagan.

“The bottom line is that the president can’t run the federal government out of the White House and secretaries can’t run giant agencies huddled in an executive suite,” Moffit, now a senior fellow for health policy at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “Unilateral disarmament is a victory for the swamp. The swamp creatures have won the fight. Unless you control the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy controls you.”

Moffit, who also worked in the Reagan administration’s Department of Health and Human Services, said Reagan took control of the federal bureaucracy shortly into his presidency.

He said congressional relations is a key area where political appointees should be working, instead of leaving it to career civil service employees in some cases. That’s because, Moffit stressed, it’s the job of the career civil service employees to execute administration policy but the job of political appointees to advocate and explain those policies to Congress.

The president can name about 4,000 political appointees.

Out of that, 1,242 are key leadership positions that need Senate confirmation, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Another 472 political appointees—largely White House staff—don’t require Senate confirmation, according to the partnership. Further, 761 non-career senior executive positions can be filled throughout the executive branch—though not all are presidential appointees. Finally, 1,538 non-career federal employees report directly to a presidential appointee.

The partnership did not have a final number on how many of these positions are filled or unfilled, because it only tracks key leadership positions—most of which require Senate confirmation.

The White House Transition Project measures a different metric, but still finds Trump well behind other presidents going back through Reagan. Trump officially fell behind in March, said Terry Sullivan, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the executive director of the project.

Rather than measuring 4,000 jobs, which includes all U.S. marshals, U.S. attorneys, and every inconsequential U.S. ambassador, the White House Transition Project looks primarily at 221 government appointments that are required for the essential function of government, have policy roles, and have the potential to be controversial, Sullivan said.

“This is not a result of a policy predisposition to shrinking government,” Sullivan told The Daily Signal. “He wants a tax cut but he isn’t staffing up the Treasury Department. He doesn’t want more EPA regulations, but he isn’t moving slower or faster with that agency than Veterans Affairs or Health and Human Services, things he cares about.” (For more from the author of “Here’s How Far Behind Trump Is on Political Appointments Compared to Obama, Bush” please click HERE)

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How This Maryland Police Department Is Combating the MS-13 Gang

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Two years ago, a suburban Maryland county began to see a dramatic rise in killings attributed to MS-13, an international gang with ties to Central America.

In response, the Montgomery County Police Department assigned Capt. Paul Liquorie, a 23-year veteran of the police force, to lead a centralized street gang unit dedicated to stomping out the violence.

In an interview with The Daily Signal, Liquorie, 49, director of the department’s Special Investigations Division, described law enforcement’s approach to combating MS-13 in this affluent county just outside Washington, D.C.

Since August 2015, Liquorie said, the county has suffered seven MS-13-related homicides.

“The Latino community where MS-13 has a presence is terrified,” Liquorie said.

The Trump administration repeatedly has invoked the threat of MS-13, making the gang a central focus of its effort to enforce immigration laws aggressively.

Liquorie, in a Q&A below, describes MS-13’s increasing “brutality and callousness” and how Montgomery County works with federal law enforcement to find and prosecute the gang’s members.

“Law enforcement won’t tolerate this,” Liquorie said of the violence and other crimes associated with MS-13.

The Daily Signal: How long has MS-13 been present in Montgomery County, and what’s different about their activity in the county now?

Liquorie: It always has been a priority because MS-13 has such a presence here in the county.

What we attribute to MS-13 is that since August of 2015, we’ve had seven MS-13-related homicides where we believe the perpetrators are MS-13 and two victims we believe were MS-13.

One of the things most alarming recently is the number of homicides, and the brutality and callousness by which they occur.

What I mean by that is the reasoning behind the violence may just be someone flashing a gang sign on the internet, or someone who may be believed to be a rival gang member.

The murders are not done in the sense of to gain greater territory or monetary benefits for the gang itself.

Another alarming thing is how [MS-13 leaders] try to get junior members to rise in status. To prove your loyalty in the gang, you will have to commit a homicide to get the full confidence of the gang in your abilities.

What we have seen regularly in recent years is just the brutality of the violence. People are lured into wooded areas, [and] usually stabbed with some sort of edged weapon multiple times.

The other thing we have seen change in recent years is they want anyone who is present to be actively involved in the violence.

Rather than one person stabbing the victim, and two others being there on the periphery, they want everybody to stab the body multiple times to say now we are all equally culpable and you will be less likely to snitch or make a deal with prosecutors because you were also involved.

You are just as culpable.

When someone is shot, there is a level of distance. To stab someone is a very personal act. You have to be up close to that person and be right with them as they are dying.

Q: How has the escalation in violence that you are describing been impacted by the flood of unaccompanied Central American youth who have settled in the area in recent years? Are those recent arrivals targeted for gang recruitment?

A: Even outside the gang, there is a different status [perceived] between these new arrivals, these unaccompanied minors, and established immigrants. That means these kids further become alienated.

They don’t fit in at school. Some of them might not fit in at home. They come here hopefully trying to flee violence in their country, so whoever is their sponsor here, those people, many may be struggling economically already and are taking on this additional economic burden of sponsoring someone else.

The gang can come to you and can fill these voids, and that makes [the new arrivals] very susceptible to be gang members.

We see a grooming process very similar to what you would see with pedofiles to gain people’s trust.

A lot of these kids are in over their heads before they know it.

Q: Are the victims of MS-13 violence randomly targeted? What traits characterize the victims?

A: In the vast majority of them, we have been very successful in prosecuting the perpetrator of these crimes, and we have some [cases] that still remain open, where we hear through our investigation that the victims may have had ties to MS-13.

There is usually some affiliation with the gang. They may not be full-fledged members, but there may be some kind of action by the victim that leads [MS-13] to believe they are a rival gang member.

Q: What kind of crime does MS-13 involve itself with? What drives them to violence?

A: Mexican and Columbian cartels—in the amount of power they hold and the financial holdings they have—have a lock on the drug market. So it’s hard for MS-13 to really get a foothold in the drug market. So they really get whatever local markets are left over—whatever those organizations are willing to allow MS-13 to do.

What you see locally is their main form of revenue is extortion. Originally we would see that limited to underground economies, bordellos—or houses of prostitution—[and] cantinas—or unlicensed bars and restaurants that might serve ethnic food as well as beer and wine.

People without status here usually don’t have IDs to get alcohol, so you have this underground economy that serves this clientele. The gang is not running those businesses, but extorting them, providing quote-unquote “protection.”

What we are starting to see and [are] working on is that MS-13 is extorting from legitimate businesses within the Hispanic community. Anecdotally, you are seeing that with apartment complexes where there are a large amount of Hispanic residents.

[MS-13] are consistently looking for people and saying, “We will provide you protection to live in this community.”

The other case you hear anecdotally is where there are legitimate businesses, beer and wine stores for example, of El Salvadorian descent whose proprietors are being threatened by the gang to provide liquor to them and sell to these illicit cantinas. They use social media to realize who the proprietor of the business is, to figure out who their family members are in El Salvador, and they then threaten to do harm to them.

That is outside the reach of American law enforcement. That’s a very difficult problem to work on.

Q: How do you work with federal law enforcement to combat MS-13?

A: We are working closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in recent months. We have a large RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] case where we have 15 gang members who have been federally indicted and are being prosecuted.

Just like we do with other federal task forces, we have our [Montgomery County Police Department] members on the joint terrorism task force and DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency] task force. Similarly, we have task forces looking at gang activity as well.

We work with the Department of Homeland Security’s investigations arm to try to look at the gang holistically and target the organization as a whole to include its hierarchy.

Q: What is the Montgomery County Police Department’s approach to combating MS-13?

A: We take a holistic or “whole of government” approach.

We have three pillars: prevention, intervention, and suppression, based on best practices from gang programs throughout the country. What you see in Montgomery County on the preventative side is the Recreation Department of the county government going into neighborhoods where there are at-risk youth, to provide positive alternatives so they don’t fall under the lure of the gang.

Montgomery County [Public] Schools is doing similar things.

Intervention falls under the county’s Health and Human Services Department with street outreach, doing outreach in neighborhoods providing the full gamut of services: social, mental health, and other ways that may strengthen the family network and trying to find what’s best to help the child and family divert from gang activity.

Last is the suppression, that falls on the police. All police officers are tasked with [fighting] criminal activity.

Q: Why is Montgomery County vulnerable to MS-13? In other words, why is MS-13 so active in the county?

A: You see that we have a large enclave in the greater D.C. area of Central Americans and a certain percent, a small percentage, are going to be gang members or targeted by gang members.

I can tell you stories anecdotally where somebody starts into the gang and acquiesces and hopes they can limit their activity in the gang and says, “I will just do enough to be a part of the gang and not be targeted by them anymore.” But that starts the grooming process that goes on. There are others in MS-13 that are attached to the power and influence, but there are some who join the gang reluctantly.

MS-13 has become more prominent locally. We have seen the acts are becoming more isolated in the Hispanic community and that’s the double-edged sword for us. You hear from nonprofit organizations that work in these communities, and from school resource officers, that the Latino community where MS-13 has a presence is terrified. At the same time, that also makes them fearful to come forward to report.

One of the things I have been trying to emphasize is that the community’s silence is the gang’s strength.

Q: The Trump administration has pledged to aggressively target MS-13 and to deport its members. Can tougher immigration enforcement help combat MS-13 in Montgomery County?

A: I don’t really want to go there. But I will say, clearly, if you look not only at Montgomery County, but other law enforcement agencies across the U.S. that have large immigrant populations, they have all taken the same stance that it’s hard enough for the community to come forward to tell us activities that are going on with the gang.

If that same community also fears they will be deported if they come forward, that is just one other factor that prevents us from getting an understanding of what is going on in those communities, and it’s one more reason for the community not to go forward.

Q: How would you assess the progress you have made in combating MS-13? Do you think MS-13 will always have a presence in Montgomery County?

A: I think we are in a good place right now. Some of the things the [Trump] administration has been talking about have been ongoing in Montgomery County and the greater D.C. area.

We are using all our resources at the local and federal level to go after MS-13. The violence, it’s clear to us that it is something that can’t be tolerated in the community.

I don’t know if we can totally eliminate MS-13, but you can target the gang and its hierarchy and put pressure on them.

With every successful prosecution and case we bring that tells [MS-13] that they can’t continue to operate the way they have, we are sending the message that law enforcement won’t tolerate this.

The more successful we have community participation in some of these prosecutions, the more that will help us as well. When the greater community comes forward and says, “Look, we have had enough and we will come to the police to help,” that is a positive sign as well. (For more from the author of “How This Maryland Police Department Is Combating the MS-13 Gang” please click HERE)

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The Chilling Reason Why the ACLU Is Warning Against Traveling to Texas

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The ACLU issued a “travel alert” in the state of Texas Wednesday, warning “anyone planning to travel to Texas in the near future to anticipate the possible violation of their constitutional rights when stopped by law enforcement.”

The alert was announced in response to the passage of Senate Bill 4, otherwise known as the “papers please” provision. Texas Governor Greg Abbott unexpectedly broadcast himself signing the bill banning sanctuary cities in a Facebook live stream, during which he specifically targeted Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez for pushing back against the ban, warning, “This will not be tolerated. There will be consequences.”

The “papers please” law encourages police to demand proof of citizenship during routine traffic stops and “requires Texas law enforcement to comply with the federal government’s constitutionally flawed use of detainer requests, which ask local law enforcement to hold people for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), even when they lack the legal authority to do so,” the ACLU notes.

The executive director of Texas’ ACLU made it clear the organization will be challenging the new legislature, saying:

We plan to fight this racist and wrongheaded law in the courts and in the streets. Until we defeat it, everyone traveling in or to Texas needs to be aware of what’s in store for them. The Lone Star State will become a ‘show me your papers’ state, where every interaction with law enforcement can become a citizenship interrogation and potentially an illegal arrest.

According to a press release from the governor’s office, any elected official who does not comply with the draconian measures faces heavy penalties, including jail time, removal from office, and a fine of up to $25,500 for each day of the violation. “Elected officials and law enforcement agencies, they don’t get to pick and choose with laws they obey,” Gov. Abbott claims. Conversely, a competitive grant program will be established by the Governor’s Criminal Justice Division to reward counties and municipalities with financial assistance “to offset the costs” of enforcing immigration laws and honoring or fulfilling immigration detainer requests. In other words, the state of Texas is incentivizing local law enforcement agencies to hunt immigrants.

However, Texas’ top police chiefs have railed against the bill for months, saying the new legislation will endanger public safety. The police chiefs of Austin, Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, and the Texas Police Chiefs Association voiced their opposition in an open letter to the House of Representatives in April, calling SB4 “political pandering that will make our communities more dangerous.”

The letter explains how the law will further damage relations between law enforcement and their communities and leave more violent criminals on the street:Legal immigrants are beginning to avoid contact with the police for fear that they themselves or undocumented family members or friends may become subject to immigration enforcement. Such a divide between the local police and immigrant groups will result in increased crime against immigrants and in the broader community, create a class of silent victims, and eliminate the potential for assistance from immigrants in solving crimes or preventing crime. It should not be forgotten that by not arresting criminals that victimize our immigrant communities, we are also allowing them to remain free to victimize every one of us. When it comes to criminals, we are in this together, regardless of race, sex, religion or nation of origin.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus expressed his displeasure in a press conference Monday, stating “There’s nothing positive that this bill does in the community or in law enforcement. Austin didn’t seem to want to listen to its law enforcement leaders across the state. And that, to me, is troubling.”

McManus, just one of many law enforcement officials ardently opposed to S.B.4, has been very straightforward about exactly what this new law requires him and his officers to do — and who to target:

We’re talking about folks south of the border. We’re not talking about people we think might be here from Russia or from somewhere else. We’re talking about out people south of the border,” he said. “In order for me to identify someone who I don’t think is from here, it’s either skin color, language or accent. And in order to do, that I’m profiling. So that’s another part of the bill that’s distasteful, to say the least.

However, none of the police chiefs were staunchly opposed to the bill enough to give any indication they would refuse to comply with the “papers please” provision, despite the fact that they believe it to be dangerous. Sheriff Hernandez clearly stated she will comply with the sanctuaries ban if it becomes law— and she believes it will. Well, it has become law, and it officially goes into effect on September 1st, 2017, giving Texas law enforcement some time to remember the Oath of Honor they took, review their code of ethics, and decide whether to follow their consciences or their marching orders. (For more from the author of “The Chilling Reason Why the ACLU Is Warning Against Traveling to Texas” please click HERE)

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IT’s Over: Wikileaks Nukes the Trump-Russia Story From Orbit, Leaves Only Planetary Debris

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#FakeNews media, quarterbacked by CNN, continue to market the “Russia hacked the election” meme, 24×7.

If I’m in an airport, it’s certain that CNN is droning on, using the same comedians lightweights that completely missed the Trump phenomenon.

And all of this despite more than a dozen officials (of both party affiliations) who have publicly stated there was no Russia-Trump collusion.

Well, Wikileaks has just published an excerpt of the book Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign. It’s by a bunch of Democrat insiders. And it’s stunning.

I’ll cut to the chase: within 24 hours of their crushing election defeat, Hillary Clinton and her campaign aides created the “Russia hacked the election” meme from whole cloth. Yes, it’s true:

So… the clownish dolt John (“What’s your password?”) Podesta and, presumably, the rocket scientist Chelsea Clinton concocted the entire myth from thin air.

The real story is not the sci-fi thriller these crapweasels invented. It’s that they coordinated with their legacy media counterparts to sell it like a long-running infomercial.

And that Democrats were willing to risk an international conflict with Russia to paper over their political loss.

Fortunately, this bogus crap has overcooked so long, normal Americans have tuned completely out.

And, at this point, CNN’s slogan shouldn’t be “Fake News”, it should be “Political Sci-Fi Done Right”. (For more from the author of “IT’s Over: Wikileaks Nukes the Trump-Russia Story From Orbit, Leaves Only Planetary Debris” please click HERE)

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Trump: May Cancel Briefings for ‘Sake of Accuracy’

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President Donald Trump tweeted several times Friday morning after the firing of FBI Director James Comey, defending the narrative and timeline his administration gave for the decision.

He questioned whether his administration should cancel all future press briefings and, instead, replace them with written responses to questions, “for the sake of accuracy.”

The president’s advisers said this week that Trump fired Comey on Tuesday in response to a recommendation by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Later, however, they said that Trump had planned to fire Comey regardless. (Read more from “Trump: May Cancel Briefings for ‘Sake of Accuracy'” HERE)

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Merkel: Germany Won’t Step up Fight Against ISIS Even If NATO Does

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel does not plan on increasing the country’s commitment to the fight against the Islamic State even if NATO increases its commitment to the fight, she declared Thursday.

Merkel appeared with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg who has indicated he is amenable to President Donald Trump’s insistence that the alliance increase its commitment to the U.S. led anti-ISIS effort.

Trump pushed Stoltenberg to “adapt to the challenges of the future” during his April 12 visit. “This includes upgrading NATO to focus on today’s most pressing security and all of its challenges, including migration and terrorism,” he continued.

NATO is reportedly considering establishing an office solely dedicated to counter-terrorism. NATO officials, however, are reluctant to commit to the post without agreement from allies that counter-terrorism should be a priority. They are also seeking extra funding for training initiatives.

“I want to state very clearly, that even if such a decision is made, it will not mean that any military activity that Germany currently carries out, for instance, AWACS surveillance will be expanded or something like that,” Merkel emphatically declared. Germany only contributed approximately 150 troops to the anti-ISIS mission to train, advise, and assist forces according to an August 2016 Congressional Research Service report. (Read more from “Merkel: Germany Won’t Step up Fight Against ISIS Even If NATO Does” HERE)

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Past Time to End This Democratic Witch Hunt

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I don’t deny that President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey was handled poorly, but it pales in comparison with the Democrats’ ongoing partisan witch hunt against President Trump concerning Russia. That should be the story.

Shortly after Trump’s dismissal of Comey, Trump defenders had plenty of ammunition. Widely respected and nonpartisan Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had reportedly recommended that Trump fire Comey.

Trump’s Communications

But then the communications from Team Trump on the matter seemed to muddy the waters. Though maintaining that Rosenstein’s recommendation was pivotal, Trump spokespeople added other reasons. They claimed that Trump had fired Comey based on his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation and because numerous FBI agents and employees were dispirited by Comey’s actions.

Then acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe testified, “The vast majority of FBI employees enjoyed a deep, positive connection to Director Comey.” A number of retired FBI officials also apparently showed solidarity with Comey by using his face for their Facebook profile photos. And though Rosenstein has contradicted mainstream media reports that he was contemplating resigning over the narrative that he had recommended Comey’s dismissal, he reportedly claims that he did not expressly recommend the firing. Oh, boy.

Trump added more to the mix when he told Lester Holt in an interview that he had decided to fire Comey irrespective of the reported Rosenstein recommendation. Media outlets are having a field day with this alleged contradiction. Trump has thrown his communications team under the bus, they say, because his spokespeople clearly said that Trump’s firing was a response to the recommendation. Trump’s tweets concerning possible recorded conversations between him and Comey didn’t help, either.

What a mess.

Trump’s Constitutional Authority

Though it doesn’t look good that Trump’s version arguably varies from that of his spokespeople, I don’t see any major inconsistency here. I suspect that Trump was increasingly frustrated with Comey and wanted to fire him and that the recommendation helped justify it. Either way, Trump had the constitutional authority to fire Comey, and it would be scandalous only if he did so to impede a legitimate investigation into his alleged collusion with Russia, which is not the case.

Trump is obviously exasperated that the Democrats are impeding his policy agenda with their obsessive hammering of the bogus charge that he and his team conspired with Russia to interfere with the presidential election.

No Evidence of Collusion

Despite the incessant media reports and congressional investigations, not a shred of evidence has emerged to substantiate the charge of collusion. We keep saying this, but the media and Democrats keep pretending otherwise. It’s unconscionable. Even James Clapper, former President Barack Obama’s director of national intelligence, has admitted that there is no evidence of collusion and that he has no reason to suspect it.

The real scandal is not Trump’s firing Comey — even if Trump’s supporters are unhappy with the timing and the way it was handled and communicated. The scandal is the liberal establishment’s coordinated conspiracy to falsely allege that Trump stole the presidency by colluding with Russia. Liberals absolutely know that it’s not true, but they will not quit bearing false witness. How dare they posture indignantly about Trump’s supposed dishonesty?

Liberals’ Counterfeit Hysteria

Their counterfeit hysteria knows no bounds. Not long ago, Democrats were demanding Comey’s head, alleging that his public announcements had sabotaged Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Now they are claiming the firing is a “constitutional crisis” and a “coup.” Not only did Trump have the authority to fire Comey but also the termination does not end the investigation.

Author Jon Meacham claimed on Morning Joe that Trump had removed someone “in charge of an investigation that could lead to treason.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal said the firing may well lead to impeachment hearings. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor to oversee the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign.

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, said: “We have a deeply insecure president who understands that the noose is tightening because of this Russia investigation. And that’s why I believe he has let Jim Comey go.”

Kaine knows better. There is no evidence that there is any noose, much less that it’s tightening, and the media’s claim that Trump fired Comey because he was seeking more funds to investigate him has been expressly denied by acting Director McCabe. CNN’s Van Jones said that the only people who are happy about the firing “are sitting in the Kremlin.” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews claimed that the firing was “a little whiff of fascism.” Countless liberal media and political figures are comparing the Comey firing to the Saturday Night Massacre, in which Richard Nixon fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox.

Nonexistent Scandal

The way this firing transpired is unfortunate, but we wouldn’t be talking about this if Democrats and the media weren’t lying every hour of every day about a nonexistent scandal. This bogus investigation should end forthwith, no matter who is heading it, because it is based on nothing but innuendo and partisanship. You conduct an investigation not because you want something to be true but because you have some evidence suggesting it may be. There is no such evidence here, and they’ve admitted it. Let’s move on. (For more from the author of “Past Time to End This Democratic Witch Hunt” please click HERE)

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Teacher Fired for Giving Student a Bible Gets Job Back — Victory!

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Mr. Tutka [was] a substitute teacher in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. But he was fired from that job after he gave a student a Bible.

The student happened to be the last person entering through a door. Mr. Tutka told the youngster, “The first shall be last, but the last shall be first.”

The student later inquired on several occasions about the origins of the quote. He showed the student the verse in his Bible, which led to the student asking for a personal copy of the Bible. And being a good Gideon, Mr. Tutka gladly supplied the child with a copy.

First Liberty Institute took on Mr. Tutka’s case — and eventually scored a victory with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. They agreed that the school district had discriminated against Mr. Tutka on the “basis of religion and retaliation.” (Read more from “Teacher Fired for Giving Student a Bible Gets Job Back — Victory!” HERE)

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The Man Who Was Beheaded the Day He Became a Christian

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Most of us know the story of the 21 Coptic Christians from Egypt who held fast to their faith and were beheaded by ISIS in February, 2015. But did you know that only 20 of them were actually Copts from Egypt? Did you know that one of the martyrs was from Chad, and he had not been a Christian prior to the day of his beheading?

This story was previously reported. But I had not heard it before this week, when I attended the World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians hosted by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. A Coptic leader shared this remarkable story. It’s yet another tribute to the faith of these martyred Copts.

“Their God is My God”

All 21 men had been working in Libya when they were kidnapped by ISIS. But as can be seen in pictures where they are lined up on the beach to be killed, one of them had darker skin and different facial features. This was the man from Chad.

The Coptic Christians were given a choice to deny Jesus or die. They refused to deny Him, knowing it would cost them their heads.

When the terrorists ordered the man from Chad to deny Jesus or die, he answered, “Their God is my God,” thereby sealing his fate.

That’s how moved he was by the faith of these Christians. Their refusal to deny their Savior, even at the point of death — literally, at the point of a knife to their throats — moved him to make a profession of faith, one that would cost him his head as well. Can we grasp the intensity of this story?

The man had not been a believer. All he had to say was, “I don’t believe in Jesus” or, “Jesus is not the Son of God,” and he could walk away a free man. He would be with his family again. He would not die a brutal death. He would live to see another day.

How many Christians would be sorely tempted under such circumstances? How many would waver and, for that moment, deny their Lord, just to avoid beheading? Yet this man, who had not been a follower of Jesus before then, was so moved by the dedication of these Christians that he became a believer on the spot.

“Go ahead and behead me,” he was saying. “Your god is not my God. Their God is my God.”

Power of the Gospel

That is the power of the gospel, and that is how we overcome Satan, by not loving our lives to the point of death (Revelation 12:11).

That is why this story needs to be told and retold until the faith of those martyrs becomes our faith, until people look at our lives and say, “Your God is my God, whatever may come my way.”

And here’s something striking. As I have listened this week to the stories of persecuted Christians, even hearing from family members of martyrs, I have not heard a word of self-pity. Not a word.

I have heard words of courage and dedication. I have heard words of great love for Jesus. I have heard requests for prayer and help. But I have not heard any self-pity.

The daughter of an Iranian pastor martyred 20 years ago spoke of her own life experience and of her father’s refusal to back down. Now, 20 years after her father was buried in an unmarked grave, she could speak of multiplied hundreds of thousands of Iranian Muslims coming to faith in Jesus. Her father’s blood was not shed in vain.

That is how a seed planted in the ground first dies and then produces much fruit (John 12:24-25).

A Syrian Christian leader shared how a radical Islamic group offered to arm them to fight against another radical Islamic faction. He replied, “We already have two arms, love and forgiveness. We don’t want to become another militia.”

That is how we overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21). Some Christians even said to ISIS, “Thank you for helping to unite us!”

We Are More Than Conquerors Through Christ

Yet it would be wrong to think of these suffering believers as super saints, which is another lesson for us all.

Most of them are just ordinary Christians, not preachers or pastors, and certainly not big-name evangelists. They are mothers and fathers, young people and old people, laborers and housewives, educated and uneducated. Yet they have remained faithful under hellish pressure, enduring unspeaking suffering.

Yet rather than curse God, they bless Him, and rather than retaliate against their enemies with hatred and vengeance, they offer forgiveness and love.

Earlier this year, a couple told me about their trip to Ethiopia where they met with family members of the Ethiopian Christians beheaded by ISIS. They spoke with the widow of one of the martyrs who was pregnant when he was killed, making his death even more painful.

But when they talked with this young woman, rather than bemoan her terrible loss, she said to them, “How is it that I had the privilege of being married to a martyr for Jesus?” She was an uneducated woman with no social status, and she was humbled beyond words that she was chosen to be the wife of a martyr.

This is why radical Islam will ultimately fall before the name of Jesus and why every other force that seeks to wipe out the Church will fail in the end. It’s also why we should stop feeling sorry for ourselves when things get a little rough. Are we not also more than conquerors through Him who loved us? (See Romans 8:37) (For more from the author of “The Man Who Was Beheaded the Day He Became a Christian” please click HERE)

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