Rand Paul Is Going to War With His Own Party

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Restoring Liberty Editor’s note: Rand Paul is calling out the RINO hypocrites (about 95% of the GOP) for refusing to actually support repeal of Obamacare. He points out that the despicable GOP bill contains many of the exact same Obamacare provisions that Republicans have always screamed about (during their election cycles, of course).

What Senator Paul is pointing out is something that most of us are already aware of: the GOP does not represent our interests. They, along with the Democrats, represent the interests of their Establishment handlers (aka, “the elites”).

Do you think this is why the American political experiment may be entering its twilight? If 80% of Republicans were elected on a platform of repealing Obamacare, but virtually none of them actually work to do so, doesn’t that justify a lack of confidence in our elected leaders?

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Sen. Rand Paul has not been quiet about his displeasure with the Republican healthcare bill as it was written, saying many times that he can’t vote for it unless it looks more like an actual repeal of Obamacare.

Paul has derided Republicans for dropping the essence of their previous “repeal and replace” mantra for another big government approach, which promises an infusion of more federal money into the healthcare system.

Now that Paul has voiced support for separating the repeal effort from the replace effort into two different bills, he has distinguished himself even further from the rest of his caucus as one of the few remaining small government, pro-liberty Republicans.

Commenting on the current bill, he said, “We have nearly $200 billion in insurance bailouts. Does anybody remember us complaining that Obamacare had insurance bailouts?” (Read more from “Rand Paul Is Going to War With His Own Party” HERE)

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Deadline Looms on Obama’s Parting Gift to Genocidal Islamist Thug

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A bipartisan group of lawmakers is calling on President Trump to delay permanently lifting sanctions on Sudan – a dictatorial African regime with which the former President Obama sought to build a relationship with during his final days in office.

A letter signed by 53 members of Congress urges the Trump administration to hold off on making any lasting decisions on the U.S.-Sudan relationship, especially as key foreign policy positions at the White House and State Department remain unfilled.

The case for keeping Sudan cut off is exceedingly clear to those who are concerned about the country’s atrocious human rights record, unrepentant history as a state sponsor of terrorism, and the fact that the country’s Islamist dictator – Omar al-Bashir – has been on the lam for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide for over eight years now.

“The Sudan government has one of the worst human rights records in the world,” the congressional letter reads. “Over the past thirty years, President Omar al-Bashir has presided over the murder and violent displacement of millions of Sudanese people.”

The reason this is currently being discussed is due to yet another parting gift from the Obama administration. In an executive order signed a week before leaving office, the 44th president also temporarily lifted sanctions on the country – sanctions which had been in place for 20 years.

The prior administration temporarily lifted the economic and trade blockade with the intention of trying to “normalize” relations with the regime, giving the next administration six months – until Wednesday – to decide whether the move should remain permanent.

“I did not support this executive order when it was issued by the Obama Administration and I don’t believe the actions of the Sudanese government warrant any sanctions relief at this time,” co-signer Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla., said in a statement.

“The reality is that violence and displacement at the hands of government forces still persists in Sudan, and there has been no credible, widespread evidence of increased humanitarian access to the abused populations.”

“Warming relations and lifting sanctions with a genocidal regime in the final days of President Obama’s term in office is not only deeply upsetting to rights advocates,” wrote Jewish World Watch’s Mike Brand in January, when Obama lifted sanctions. “[I]t is a slap in the face to all those who suffer under Bashir’s reign of terror, the hundreds of thousands who have been killed, and the millions who have been displaced.”

Off the Hill, other voices in the international religious freedom movement have been calling on the U.S. to reverse Obama’s softened stance and retake the harder line against the Sudanese government’s abuses.

In May, Rev. Thomas Reese, S.J., chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, penned a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urging him to put the pressure back on Bashir, citing several abuses from recent memory alone:

Since South Sudan’s secession in 2011, USCIRF has documented a deterioration of religious freedom conditions year after year. During this period, the Sudanese government has arrested nearly 200 Christians, including 14 religious leaders. Of these detentions, three pastors were prosecuted on spurious capital charges, including waging war against the state and espionage.

Sudan remains one of 10 “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPCs) which the commission designates every year – putting it in the same league as other notorious religious oppressors like North Korea, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

More recently, a coalition of seven non-governmental organizations has also called on the State Department to take a serious look at Bashir’s various atrocities, urging that no sanctions should be lifted before the regime meets a long list of requirements.

“Sudan remains a disaster for religious freedom,” Travis Wussow, general counsel and vice president for public policy at the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission told the Baptist Press. “The Sudanese government should not be rewarded with sanctions relief when so many are crippled under the oppressive status quo found throughout the country.” (For more from the author of “Deadline Looms on Obama’s Parting Gift to Genocidal Islamist Thug” HERE)

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Meet the Colorado Woman Training Teachers to Use Guns to Stop School Violence

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This fall, some Colorado teachers will return to school armed with knowledge—and guns.

Laura Carno, author of “Government Ruins Nearly Everything: Reclaiming Social Issues from Uncivil Servants,” is bringing advanced firearms training to school teachers.

“Can government stop school shooting[s]? The answer is no … How do we as a community keep our kids safer if we say government is not the right place to fix that problem?” Carno told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

Her answer is a training program called the Faculty/Administrator Safety Training and Emergency Response, or FASTER. Carno’s nonprofit Second Amendment advocacy group, Coloradans for Civil Liberties, planned to bring the program to Colorado teachers this summer.

The Program

FASTER trains school workers “not to replace police and EMT, but to allow teachers, administrators, and other personnel on-site to stop school violence rapidly and render medical aid immediately,” according to the FASTER website.

“The faster you stop the shooter, the faster you stop the bleeding, the fewer people die,” Carno said.

In Colorado, handguns are permitted on school grounds “in conformance with the policy of the employing agency,” according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The workshops provide over 26 hours of training, and the curriculum is taught by career law enforcement professionals, according to Carno.

The program’s tuition is $1,000 per participant, but Coloradans for Civil Liberties sponsors some school workers through scholarships.

How It Came to Be

Carno said she began thinking more seriously about the Second Amendment while facing “assault weapon” bans in California in the 1990s.

“I was very disappointed, living in California, that some of the Republicans were [changing] on gun rights,” Carno said.

In 2013, she saw another anti-Second Amendment state legislation push—this time in Colorado. These laws included these requirements, among others, according to The Denver Post:

Universal background checks for firearm transfers.

A fee for background checks.

Prohibition of ammunition magazines with more than 15 rounds.

“I wasn’t in the position to do anything,” Carno said.

So, she co-founded Coloradans for Civil Liberties with the motto, “Restoring Freedom One Round at a Time.” The group works with the Independence Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Denver.

After attending a FASTER session in Ohio, she said she decided to bring the program to her home state.

“The state with Columbine and a number of other shootings … our kids should be as safe as Ohio’s kids,” Carno said.

Carno said the community response has been “great” and considers her efforts to be nonpartisan safety measures: “Regardless of political ideology, parents want their kids safe. What we know about these shootings is that they end quickly when the bad guy is confronted with somebody who’s armed.”

(For more from the author of “Meet the Colorado Woman Training Teachers to Use Guns to Stop School Violence” please click HERE)

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Jobs Report Stronger Than Expected, but More Must Be Done to Boost the Economy

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Despite the low rumble of an economic slowdown on the horizon from various experts predicting the worst is to come, the Trump administration will no doubt be happy to say the experts were wrong with the July Jobs Report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday.

They report the economy added 222,000 jobs, which represents a significant increase over expert predictions of 158,000 jobs. The June unemployment rate was virtually unchanged at 4.4 percent, and the Labor Force Participation rate crept up to 62.8 percent after four months of decline.

In addition to this, Bureau of Labor Statistics revised upward their April payroll numbers by 33,000 jobs, from 174,000 to 207,000. Also, the May numbers were revised up 14,000 jobs from 138,000 to 152,000. This increases the average number of jobs per month created to nearly 189,000 per month since President Donald Trump took office in January.

While on the face, these numbers are decent, the White House celebration should be short-lived, and more attention must be placed on passing meaningful reforms through Congress. Growth cannot be sustained if we continue down the same path we are on.

Similar to last month, we saw primary gains in Health Care (37,000 jobs)–continuing its upward trend since early 2016, Social Assistance (23,000), Financial activities (17,000), and mining employment (8,000) – representing an increase of 56,000 jobs since reaching a low in October 2016, and representing a promise kept by Trump to put coal miners back to work.

Even though the Labor Force participation rate fell slightly, there are still several million Americans who could be working that are not. This means that job creators are still not confident enough to expand their employment rosters.

In addition, we continue to see long-term unemployment numbers struggle (24.3 percent of those unemployed), as well as stubborn numbers for people marginally attached to the workforce and persons employed part time for economic reasons.

As mentioned above, many experts are hesitant to celebrate considering their concerns about inflation, and a tightening job market. Other than heroic executive action by Trump, the economy still struggles under the accumulated weight of growth-killing policies left over from the Obama administration. If nothing is changed, the numbers (and the experts) will continue to be pessimistic and stagnant.

Over the last 10 years, Washington has raised taxes, increased the regulatory burden on manufacturers, destroyed choice and affordability of healthcare, invested nearly a trillion dollars of government money in a failed effort to “stimulate” the economy, and propped up the stock market with quantitative easing.

All of this for an average growth rate of 1.9 percent.

Currently, there are several proposals on the table that would jump start this economy. They range from tax cuts, to repealing Obamacare, to reforming the tax code, to renegotiating deals that allow for free trade between our friends in other nations. All are likely to help.

It’s time to try something different, it’s time for policies that encourage the millions of people that could be working to get back in the workforce.

Similar to last month, we saw primary gains in Health Care (37,000 jobs)–continuing its upward trend since early 2016, Social Assistance (23,000), Financial activities (17,000), and mining employment (8,000) – representing an increase of 56,000 jobs since reaching a low in October 2016, and representing a promise kept by Trump to put coal miners back to work.

Even though the Labor Force participation rate fell slightly, there are still several million Americans who could be working that are not. This means that job creators are still not confident enough to expand their employment rosters.

In addition, we continue to see long-term unemployment numbers struggle (24.3 percent of those unemployed), as well as stubborn numbers for people marginally attached to the workforce and persons employed part time for economic reasons.

As mentioned above, many experts are hesitant to celebrate considering their concerns about inflation, and a tightening job market. Other than heroic executive action by Trump, the economy still struggles under the accumulated weight of growth-killing policies left over from the Obama administration. If nothing is changed, the numbers (and the experts) will continue to be pessimistic and stagnant.

Over the last 10 years, Washington has raised taxes, increased the regulatory burden on manufacturers, destroyed choice and affordability of healthcare, invested nearly a trillion dollars of government money in a failed effort to “stimulate” the economy, and propped up the stock market with quantitative easing.

All of this for an average growth rate of 1.9 percent.

Currently, there are several proposals on the table that would jump start this economy. They range from tax cuts, to repealing Obamacare, to reforming the tax code, to renegotiating deals that allow for free trade between our friends in other nations. All are likely to help.

It’s time to try something different, it’s time for policies that encourage the millions of people that could be working to get back in the workforce. (For more from the author of “Jobs Report Stronger Than Expected, but More Must Be Done to Boost the Economy” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Someone Put a Bounty on This Woman’s Head for Peeing on the American Flag

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A Philadelphia woman posted a video on social media on the Fourth of July in which she can be seen urinating on the American Flag and pissed off a lot of Americans in the process.

In the video, the young woman, who has been identified as Emily Lance, stands over a toilet draped with an American flag and proceeds to urinate on it using a device that helps women to pee while standing up . . .

As you would expect, the disrespectful and disgusting act angered those who came saw it resulting in death and rape threats against the woman. The video even led an angered viewer to post a bounty on craigslist of $3,000 for her head, according to Terez Owens . . .

(Read more from “Someone Put a Bounty on This Woman’s Head for Peeing on the American Flag” HERE)

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‘Black Lives Matter!’: Police Officer Attacked, Threatened at Traffic Stop

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A man in Naples, Florida allegedly punched a deputy in the face at a traffic stop and yelled “Black Lives Matter!” when being taken to jail Wednesday.

The man, 34-year-old Anthony Denson Jr., was pulled over after a police officer saw he was driving without a seat belt, Naples Daily News reports . . .

Denson randomly accused the deputy of wanting to shoot him, and the deputy asked him to come out of the car. Denson refused, and the deputy threatened to use a taser if he didn’t listen.

Denson then got out of the car, but used that opportunity to punch the cop in the face. He was arrested.

Later, while being booked, he yelled “Black Lives Matter!” (Read more from “‘Black Lives Matter!’: Police Officer Attacked, Threatened at Traffic Stop” HERE)

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CNN May Have Had the Worst Week in Washington

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The network’s rough week started on Sunday when President Trump jumpstarted controversy by tweeting a video that showed him body-slamming the CNN logo. The tweet was met with widespread condemnation in the media, which resulted in the video being shown over and over again on national television . . .

The network published a story on Tuesday night detailing how it tracked down the identity of an anonymous Reddit user who claimed credit for creating the video behind Trump’s tweet and had a history of making racist and anti-Semitic posts online. (It’s unclear, however, if Trump actually got the video directly from Reddit.) . . .

The hashtag #CNNBlackmail shot to the top of Twitter’s trending topics. News aggregator Matt Drudge made the story the lead of his website, The Drudge Report, all day on Wednesday, guaranteeing further scrutiny of the network’s story.

Online trolls on Wednesday and Thursday flooded the network’s iPhone app with negative reviews, quickly dragging it down to a one-star rating. Many of the negative reviews made references to the network’s coverage of the Reddit user.

Weekly ratings posted on Thursday by TV Newser brought more bad news for CNN, as the network slid to #13 in cable TV rankings, two spots behind children’s television program Nick-At-Nite. (Read more from “CNN May Have Had the Worst Week in Washington” HERE)

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Planned Parenthood Branch Won’t Escape Lawsuit by Closing Down

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Just because a Planned Parenthood branch in California closed down doesn’t mean it will escape justice being sought in a lawsuit that alleges the abortion business illegally tried to suppress the constitutional rights of its critics.

That’s according the Pacific Justice Institute, which filed two lawsuits over Planned Parenthood’s operations in Vacaville, California.

The first lawsuit, against a landlord who reneged on a lease agreement with a pro-life organization when Planned Parenthood objected, has been dismissed because the Planned Parenthood clinic closed its doors permanently.

A second lawsuit, over Planned Parenthood’s “ruthless” campaign to suppress the rights of the Solano Alpha Crisis Pregnancy Center, will continue.

PJI’s founder, Brad Dacus, confirmed the second lawsuit “for the discovered emails between Planned Parenthood employees that prove the abortion business’s ruthless and illegal attempt to suppress the voices of the pro-life community” will go on. (Read more from “Planned Parenthood Branch Won’t Escape Lawsuit by Closing Down” HERE)

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New Holes in Loretta Lynch’s Story on Hillary Probe

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When former Attorney General Loretta Lynch testified last year about her decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information, she swore she never talked to “anyone” on the Clinton campaign. That categorical denial, though made in response to a series of questions about whether she spoke with Clintonworld about remaining attorney general if Hillary won the election, could come back to haunt her.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which has launched a bipartisan investigation into Lynch for possible obstruction of justice, recently learned of the existence of a document indicating Lynch assured the political director of Clinton’s campaign she wouldn’t let FBI agents “go too far” in probing the former secretary of state.

Lynch’s lawyer says she is cooperating with committee investigators, who are seeking answers to several questions, as well as relevant documents. Among other things, they want to know if she or any of her Justice Department staff “ever communicated with Amanda Renteria,” who headed Clinton’s political operations during the campaign. Renteria, who has been identified in the document as the senior Clinton campaign aide with whom Lynch privately communicated, has also been asked to testify. (Read more from “New Holes in Loretta Lynch’s Story on Hillary Probe” HERE)

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Recordings Reveal FBI Gave Man a Rifle, Urged Him to Carry out Mass Shooting to ‘Defend Islam’

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Restoring Liberty Editor’s note: The story below is not particularly surprising. Just look at the feds’ use of informants in other cases.

In Alaska, we have the 2011-2012 Schaeffer Cox case where Cox was constantly egged on to criminal acts – even threatened – by the exact same informant (Bill Fulton) who handcuffed a reporter at one of Joe Miller’s town halls in 2010. That was the incident that the national press suggested cost the election (in reality, it turned out to be massive voter fraud, as we discovered in subsequent ballot reviews). By the FBI’s own admission, that same informant was debriefed by the agency after the handcuffing incident.

Do you think this level of entrapment really accomplishes any legitimate public service? Should folk like Samy be locked up for decades after falling prey to such federal schemes? Why do you think feds are doing this?

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It’s become a near-weekly occurrence. Somewhere in some state, the FBI will announce that they’ve foiled yet another terrorist plot and saved lives. However, as the data shows, the majority of these cases involve psychologically diminished patsies who’ve been entirely groomed, armed, and entrapped by FBI agents. Simply put, the FBI manufactures terror threats and then takes credit for stopping them.

But what happens when they take it too far? What happens if the FBI actually tells someone to conduct a mass shooting? Well, in Milwaukee, WI, we are seeing this unfold first hand.

A little over two years ago, Samy Mohamed Hamzeh, 25, found himself in the midst of an FBI sting. Little did he know that he was being groomed for terrorism by the same government who claims to fight terrorism.

Hamzeh was born in the U.S. but lived much of his childhood in Jordan before moving to Milwaukee when he was 19. For four years, Hamzeh lived an entirely normal life, until one day, he was contacted by people who wanted to radicalize him and give him weapons.

The group, entirely controlled by the FBI was plotting to shoot up the Humphrey Scottish Rite Masonic Center during an event.

In February of 2016, the FBI announced they had foiled a terror plot by a man who was planning to kill at least 30 people to “defend Islam.” Americans cheered, and everyone felt safer — the FBI had saved us from extremists once again.

For months, two corrupt FBI informants goaded Hamzeh into obtaining weapons. According to his attorneys, hundreds of hours of recorded conversations show the FBI pressed Hamzeh into getting these weapons and eventually began pushing him to carry out a mass shooting.

Despite the intense peer pressure from people pretending that they were mass murderers, Hamzeh resisted. He didn’t even want the guns. Now, his attorneys have filed a motion to get him released on bond because they say he’s been set up.

The informants, the motion states, “frequently lobbied Hamzeh to get a machine gun despite his repeated protests that all he wanted was a legal handgun to protect himself.”

In spite of the FBI claiming Hamzeh was going to carry out a mass shooting — they were attempting to force him to do — the recordings, according to his attorneys, show he resisted and adamantly refused to ever participate in violence.

Even after the FBI announced their foiled terror plot, they were unable to charge Hamzeh with anything other than possessing a machine gun and a silencer. And even these items had been essentially shoved into his lap by the FBI.

As the Journal-Sentinel reports, a psychiatrist who evaluated Hamzeh in jail concluded he does not fit a profile of someone who would kill strangers and “has a strong moral code with a very prominent conscience and empathy.”

“There is also no evidence that Hamzeh ever made any plans or was doing anything other than making empty boasts to express his resentment about Israel or to gain attention,” reads their brief in support of the bond motion.

Hamzeh has now been in jail for a year and a half because the FBI tried to make him carry out a mass shooting that he didn’t want to do. And, he could be there much longer as each of the charges for the weapons — that he also did not want — carry 10 years a piece.

If Hamzeh never had any intention of carrying out a terror attack and the weapons were forced on him by the FBI, why on Earth would this be on the news and touted as some foiled plot?

Well, the answer to that is simple.

Former FBI assistant director Thomas Fuentes actually reveals the answer as he defends the tactics used by the FBI to set up poverty-stricken men by offering them large sums of money and weapons to commit crimes.

After he defended the FBI’s role in bribing poor, mentally diminished people to get them to commit crimes, he let out a bombshell statement, confirming what many of us already know.

“If you’re submitting budget proposals for a law enforcement agency, for an intelligence agency, you’re not going to submit the proposal that ‘We won the war on terror and everything’s great,’ cause the first thing that’s gonna happen is your budget’s gonna be cut in half,” states Fuentes. “You know, it’s my opposite of Jesse Jackson’s ‘Keep Hope Alive’—it’s ‘Keep Fear Alive.’ Keep it alive.”

There you have it. The FBI puts Americans in danger by grooming otherwise entirely innocent people into doing harm — so they can keep fear alive.

But what would’ve happened if Hamzeh would’ve actually carried out this shooting that the FBI was trying to force on him? Would the FBI still claim they had informants attempting to groom him? Would they admit to forcing him to accept weapons?

David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer, had this to say about these most unscrupulous operations:

Most terrorists are false flag terrorists, or are created by our own security services. In the United States, every single terrorist incident we have had has been a false flag, or has been an informant pushed on by the FBI. In fact, we now have citizens taking out restraining orders against FBI informants that are trying to incite terrorism. We’ve become a lunatic asylum.

Indeed, we’ve become a lunatic asylum.

(For more from the author of “Recordings Reveal FBI Gave Man a Rifle, Urged Him to Carry out Mass Shooting to ‘Defend Islam'” please click HERE)

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