The Pentagon Flew as Many Domestic Drone Missions in 2018 as It Did in the Last 7 Years Combined

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The Pentagon’s drones are an iconic symbol of war abroad, plane-sized matchsticks with wings lurking over cities and countrysides waiting for the moment routine patrol becomes un-routine. For the most part, the missions of those drones have remained abroad, but over the years the Department of Defense has flown drones a handful of times over the United States in support of civil authorities here. From 2011 to 2017, the Pentagon reports just 11 total domestic drone missions.

But in 2018, that total doubled, with 11 domestic missions flown by military drones.

On Jan. 11, the Department of Defense published its 2018 statistics. The drones involved include everything from MQ-9 Reapers down to DJI Phantoms, and involvement in missions ranging from training exercises to border security and emergency response. (Notably, drones operations by the Department of Homeland Security are excluded from these statistics). These numbers are helpfully collected and contrasted with domestic drone use by by the military from 2011 to 2017 by Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard University.

In 2018, military MQ-9 Reapers flew five missions over the United States, four of which were in support of forest firefighting in California and Oregon. One Reaper mission, flown from May 7 to May 10, was described as incident and awareness exercise in the state of New York. RQ-11B Ravens flew two missions, one a base installation in Bangor, Kitsap, Washington, and the other was a Defense Support of Civil Authorities mission in response to Hurricane Florence and requested by the South Carolina National Guard. (Read more from “The Pentagon Flew as Many Domestic Drone Missions in 2018 as It Did in the Last 7 Years Combined” HERE)

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Japan’s Supreme Court Upholds Transgender Sterilization Requirement

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Japan’s Supreme Court has upheld a law that effectively requires transgender people to be sterilized before they can have their gender changed on official documents.

The court said the law is constitutional because it was meant to reduce confusion in families and society. But it acknowledged that it restricts freedom and could become out of step with changing social values.

The 2004 law states that people wishing to register a gender change must have their original reproductive organs, including testes or ovaries, removed and have a body that “appears to have parts that resemble the genital organs” of the gender they want to register. (Read more from “Japan’s Supreme Court Upholds Transgender Sterilization Requirement” HERE)

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58,000 Noncitizens Illegally Voted in Texas

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A yearlong investigation of Texas voter rolls has indicated that about 95,000 non-U.S. citizens might have improperly registered to vote, including about 58,000 who cast a ballot “in one or more Texas elections” since 1996, state officials announced Friday.

In an advisory to county voting officials, Texas Secretary of State David Whitley said his office used newly available data from the Texas Department of Public Safety to identify registered voters who might not be U.S. citizens.

The names were provided to the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who promised to investigate and prosecute illegal voting activity. . .

Texas law requires registered voters to show one of seven forms of photo ID before casting a ballot: a Texas driver’s license or handgun license, a U.S. passport, U.S. military ID card, U.S. citizenship certificate or a DPS-issued personal ID card or election identification certificate.

Voters without a photo ID can show documents that include their name and address, such as a utility bill or paycheck, and sign a “reasonable impediment declaration” stating that they could not obtain a photo ID because of a lack of transportation, disability, illness, work schedule, family responsibilities, lost or stolen ID or other reasons. (Read more from “58,000 Noncitizens Illegally Voted in Texas” HERE)

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Roger Stone’s Dishonesty Might Save Him

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Early this morning, a group of 29 heavily armed FBI officers carried out a pre-dawn raid to apprehend the foppish 66-year-old Republican political consultant Roger Stone at the request of special counsel Robert Mueller. At last our streets are safe, or at least they were before Stone was immediately released on $250,000 bond. CNN, apparently tipped off to the raid, lurked outside Stone’s Florida home to capture video of the arrest.

Perhaps Roger Stone appreciated the FBI’s cheap political stunt. No operative in recent memory has earned and encouraged a greater reputation for political dark arts than Stone. A longtime friend and political advisor to President Trump, Stone played his first dirty trick in grade school and boasts that he hasn’t stopped since. Here are just a handful of Roger Stone’s greatest hits:

Third Graders For Kennedy: Though he currently sports a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back, in 1960 eight-year-old Roger Stone supported John F. Kennedy for president. When his Connecticut grade school asked students to choose the next president, Stone recalls that he stood at the end of the cafeteria line and told every student that Richard Nixon wanted school on Saturdays. Kennedy won in a landslide. . .

Now Roger Stone stands accused of obstructing a congressional inquiry and of witness tampering. Mueller’s indictment alleges that Stone informed senior Trump campaign aides as early as June or July of 2016 that he knew WikiLeaks had obtained documents damaging to Hillary Clinton. By then, however, the hacked emails had already been released to the public. In August, Stone claimed to have been in contact with WikiLeaks; in September of 2017, he denied any direct contact with the organization.

WikiLeaks agrees with this latter characterization. “Stone is playing slovenly Democrat-aligned journalists like a fiddle, brilliantly inserting himself, as is his habit to raise his public profile and market his books,” according to a Wikileaks spokesman, who observed that Stone “was pushed out of the Trump team a long time ago for just this time of opportunism.” The most convincing evidence that Stone did not collude on behalf of the Trump campaign with any foreign actors is that he bragged about having done so. Roger Stone’s dishonesty may save him—perhaps his dirtiest trick yet. (Read more from “Roger Stone’s Dishonesty Might Save Him” HERE)

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WATCH: Here’s What a Late-Term Abortion Procedure Actually Looks Like. It’s Horrifying.

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This week, New York Senate Democrats passed the euphemistically-named Reproductive Health Act, legislation which allows abortion up to the moment of birth, loosens restrictions on who performs them, and removes the fatal procedure from the state’s criminal code.

The truth is, the reality of abortion is so gruesome that abortion activists rely heavily on euphemism and secrecy. For example, it’s been shown time and again that self-described “pro-choice” folks change their mind about abortion after they’re shown what the fatal procedure actually entails — and, no, it’s not remotely comparable to a “dentist appointment,” as we are commonly told by left-wing activists.

So how exactly is a late-term abortion carried out? What will it look like when abortionists in New York state kill the unborn from 25 weeks to birth? In short: infanticide.

Dr. Anthony Levatino, a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist who performed over 1,200 abortions before he became pro-life, explains the horrifying procedure in a video for pro-life organization Live Action.

“At this point, the baby is almost fully developed and viable, meaning he or she could survive outside the womb if the mother were to go into labor prematurely. Because the baby is so large and developed, the procedure takes three or four days to complete,” says Levatino (video below).

(Read more from “WATCH: Here’s What a Late-Term Abortion Procedure Actually Looks Like. It’s Horrifying.” HERE)

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Palestinians Renounce All U.S. Aid. They Forgot One Big Thing.

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In what will surely be music to the ears of the pro-Israel communtiy, the Palestinian Authority announced this week its renouncing of all U.S. aid and financial assistance. . .

Because here is the kicker. As The Daily Wire’s Frank Camp reported, President Trump in March signed into law the Taylor Force Act — which actually already halted all American aid to the Palestinian Authority.

The Taylor Force Act demands that the Palestinian Authority ceases payment of “salaries to terrorists serving in Israeli prisons, as well as to the families of deceased terrorists, is an incentive to commit acts of terror.” The law is named after Taylor Force, a 29-year-old American who was stabbed to death in 2016 by a Palestinian man while in Tel Aviv.

The Palestinian Authority has a long history of rewarding terrorists and their families with monthly stipends, and lawmakers in the United States have long debated withholding funding to the PA until they officially denounce and discontinue the practice.

One major question, moving forward, will be how the “news” of a Palestinian rebuffing of (largely non-existent) U.S. aid will affect the Trump administration’s upcoming proposed peace plan for Israel and the Palestinian-Arabs. The Post reports that Jared Kushner will be taking the lead in promoting the thus-far unannounced plan, in advance of the 2020 presidential election. Many pro-Israel hawks, such as Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes, are already dreading Kushner’s proposed plan. (Read more from “Palestinians Renounce All U.S. Aid. They Forgot One Big Thing.” HERE)

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Students Thought the Shutdown Was Trump’s Fault…but More Information Changed Their Minds

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George Mason University students were shocked that President Donald Trump attempted to make compromises with Democrats to get the border wall built, as shown on a video from CampusReform.org posted Friday.

Cabot Phillips, the media director for CampusReform, went to the campus recently to talk to students. He asked them who they blamed the government shutdown on. All of the students in the video said Trump. . .

Phillips then asked students if Democrats should consider Trump’s offer for a wall if he agreed to provide protections for DREAMers, put 800 million dollars into humanitarian aid and increase funding for immigration judges to tackle the backlog of immigration cases. All of the students agreed.

Phillips then revealed that Trump made those offers to Democrats, and the students were stunned that Democrats didn’t take the deal into consideration. Many of them uttered laughs of shock and disbelief when they heard the truth. . .

The video was published hours before President Trump announced from the White House that he was able to secure a deal that would temporarily end the government shutdown until Feb 15. (Read more from “Students Thought the Shutdown Was Trump’s Fault…but More Information Changed Their Minds” HERE)

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Ted Cruz Shuts Down Dem Senator’s Anti-Wall Tirade

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Things got a little heated on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon as the chamber prepared to vote on two contrasting plans to end the partial government shutdown (both of which ultimately failed).

It all began with remarks from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, making the case for passing a measure to pay members of the Coast Guard.

Sen. Michael Bennett, D-Colo., responded with a floor speech in which he likened Cruz’s concerns to “crocodile tears” and lambasted Republicans for partially shutting down the federal government over funding for what he called a “medieval wall.”

Here’s Bennet’s full tirade:

https://youtu.be/1LlCn-HZDuYSen. Ted Cruz, however, was not about to take Bennett’s rant lying down. He fired back with a passionate rebuttal, seizing on Bennet’s use of the word “medieval.”

“I find it amusing a new adjective has creeped in,” Cruz responded. “It’s medieval wall. “I don’t know if there’s something in there that has a moat and has catapults and they’re throwing burning tar. Medieval wall now.”

“It does raise the question,” Cruz continued. “If walls are medieval, why did the senator from Colorado and every other Democrat in 2013 vote for 350 miles of medieval wall? To the extent walls are medieval, they were presumably were medieval in 2013 just as much as they are now.”

For reference, Senate Democrats not only voted for physical border security, but also to axe chain migration and the visa lottery back in 2013.

But Cruz wasn’t finished. He went on to call out Bennet, who does not represent a border state, for taking to the Senate floor to lecture his colleagues “about what it’s like on the border and what works securing the border.”

You can watch Cruz’s rebuttal here. It starts just after the three-hour mark. (For more from the author of “Ted Cruz Shuts Down Dem Senator’s Anti-Wall Tirade” please click HERE)

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GOP Senators Introduce Bill to Relax Regulations on Firearms Suppressors

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A handful of Republican senators are trying to make it easier for hunters and recreational shooters to get equipment to better protect their hearing, but don’t expect the anti-gun crowd to go along with it.

On Thursday, GOP Sens. Mike Lee, Utah, John Cornyn, Texas, Rand Paul, Ky., James Risch, Id., and Mike Crapo, Id., introduced the “Silencers Helping Us Save Hearing Act of 2019,” which would “ensure the elimination of all federal regulations of suppressors.”

“Suppressors can make shooting safer for the millions of hunters and sportsmen that exercise their constitutional right to use firearms every year,” reads a statement from Lee’s office. “The current process for obtaining a suppressor is far too expensive and burdensome. Our bill would remove these unnecessary federal regulations and make it easier for firearms users to protect themselves.”

Given that there aren’t 60 Republicans to prevent a filibuster on this and the House speaker’s gavel is currently held by the vehemently anti-gun Nancy Pelosi, this legislation realistically has less than a snowball’s chance of making it to the president’s desk during this session of Congress.

But bills like this also spark conversations and debates to move cultural needle on an issue. And there’s a lot of complete misinformation out there about suppressors.

Suppressors, colloquially referred to as “silencers,” are non-lethal gun accessories that lower the volume of a gunshot, which, the press release notes, goes from around the level of an airplane takeoff to that of a running chainsaw.

If it’s been said once, it’s been said a thousand times, the term “silencer” is a gross and widespread misnomer. Suppressors don’t silence guns at all. They simply suppress the sound; hence the term. Don’t believe everything you see in movies. These devices aren’t as good at creating the kind of muffled “pew pew” sound that an international spy would need to discreetly assassinate someone outside a European cafe in broad daylight as Hollywood and the anti-gun lobby might lead you to believe. But they’re great at mitigating hearing damage for hunters and sportsmen who shoot on a regular basis.

If you don’t believe that, here’s some video of suppressors at work.

Despite this reality, suppressors are regulated much in the same way that fully automatic machine guns and short-barreled shotguns are. This means that there’s an extensive, expensive, and bureaucratic process to get hold of one legally. That process is what this bill is trying to end. (For more from the author of “GOP Senators Introduce Bill to Relax Regulations on Firearms Suppressors” please click HERE)

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Here’s a List of States That Permit Abortion up to Birth

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Many have been upset recently by New York’s new permissive abortion law that allows abortion “within 24 weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or there is an absence of fetal viability, or at any time when necessary to protect a patient’s life or health.”

However, New York’s law is not as extreme as the policies in the following seven states that have no, or little, restrictions on abortion and allow abortion up until birth, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research and policy group.

The states with the most lenient abortion laws are Oregon, Vermont, Colorado, New Hampshire and the District of Columbia, where there are no major prohibitions on abortion.

As evident from Guttmacher’s overview, in these states there are no laws requiring that abortions must be performed by a licensed physician or that they must be performed at a hospital. There are no 20-week, 24-week, or even official viability prohibitions on abortion. . .

In Alaska, New Jersey, and New Mexico, abortions are allowed up until birth and the states fund “all or most medically necessary abortions,” however, the procedures must be performed by a licensed physician. New Jersey has the additional requirement that abortions must be performed in a hospital past 14 weeks. (Read more from “Here’s a List of States That Permit Abortion up to Birth” HERE)

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