Obamas Accused of Unethical Actions: ‘Not Consistent with the Values They Preach’

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Barack and Michelle Obama have been accused of “deplorable behavior” by a Los Angeles entertainment attorney for filing a “meritless petition” amid a trademark dispute over the name of their company, Higher Ground Productions.

The legal team representing the Obamas filed a petition to cancel the trademark of an e-book publishing company called Higher Ground Enterprises, much to the chagrin of the publishing company.

“This is really deplorable behavior. I hope that the Obamas realize that these actions are not consistent with the values they preach and that they instruct their attorneys to immediately dismiss the petition,” attorney Larry Zerner told Fox News in a statement that was first given to The Hollywood Reporter.

Zerner told Fox News that the “Obamas have known for almost a year” that their Higher Ground Productions trademark application was rejected by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office because it was too similar to his client’s Higher Ground Enterprises. . .

“[T]he consumers of ‘media production services’ covered by the Application are likely to be highly sophisticated,” the Obamas’ team said in a letter to the Trademark Office, according to THR. “Media production services are generally offered not to individual consumers but to commercial entities and professionals in their field.” (Read more from “Obamas Accused of Unethical Actions: ‘Not Consistent with the Values They Preach'” HERE)

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Hurricane Dorian Death Toll Rises to 20 in Bahamas

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Bahamas Health Minister Duane Sands said Wednesday that the death toll for Hurricane Dorian had risen from seven to 20 and more deaths were expected as the storm clears the island archipelago and threatens to make landfall in the U.S. later this week.

Sands confirmed that 17 victims were from the Abaco islands and three were from Grand Bahama, adding that three of the victims died after being transported to a hospital in nearby New Providence. . .

Dorian, which had been downgraded to a Category 2 storm, regained Category 3 strength late Wednesday and was making its way toward the U.S. mainland, traveling close to the east coast of Florida. It was expected to make landfall in the Carolinas on Wednesday night or Thursday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Previously, as a Category 5 hurricane, Dorian slammed the Bahamas this past Sunday, first hitting the Abaco islands and then ravaging Grand Bahama as a Category 4 storm. The hurricane, which is the most powerful to ever hit the island, lingered for nearly two days leaving wreckage and disaster in its wake. . .

The Bahamian government sent hundreds of police officers and marines as well as doctors, nurses and other health care workers to the islands, where the land remained muddy, houses flattened or soddened and debris-strewn across the landscape, to aid the nearly 70,000 residents in the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama who were severely affected by the storm. (Read more from “Hurricane Dorian Death Toll Rises to 20 in Bahamas” HERE)

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WATCH: Biden BLAMES Climate Change for Cancer

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Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden suggested without evidence that climate change was responsible for the Darfur genocide and for cancer on Wednesday night during a CNN town hall event.

“Look what happened in Darfur,” Biden exclaimed. “What’ Darfur all about? Darfur’s all about the fact that the Sub Saharan desert, cause of the change in climate, no longer had enough arable land.”

Biden continued by claiming that many people have personal experiences with being impacted negatively from climate change, including being diagnosed with cancer.

(Read more from “Watch: Biden Blames Climate Change for Cancer” HERE)

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Will Trump Win? the Latest on Trump’s National and State-By-State Approval Ratings.

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As the 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidates battle it out for the nomination, politicos must also pay close attention to President Donald Trump’s approval rating across the 50 states. While Trump’s national approval rating has been hovering below 50% for his entire presidency, it was on the upswing for the beginning of the summer before only beginning to falter a bit toward the end of July.

Historically, presidents have fared well in re-election campaigns when they maintain approval ratings above 50%. This president, to be sure, has never had such an approval rating at any point throughout his presidency. But President Trump oversees a soaring economy, with record-low unemployment rates, and has a hardened base of core supporters. One must also never forget the sheer power of incumbency: Since FDR, only Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were elected and then subsequently not re-elected four years later. . .

As of September 4, 2019, the RealClearPolitics average for Trump’s national job approval rating sits at 43.0% — or 10.9% underwater.

Overall, national head-to-head polls do not presently show Trump to be in particularly good electoral shape. Specifically, one of the most accurate pollsters from the 2016 national election, IBD/TIPP, now shows Trump losing hypothetical head-to-head matchups with each of Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Kamala Harris. The IBD/TIPP poll has correctly predicted the last four presidential elections and was notable in 2016 for being the only national poll to correctly predict Trump’s shocking victory over Hillary Clinton. A Washington Post analysis of the 2016 polling landscape concluded that, overall, IBD/TIPP was the second most accurate pollster of the cycle behind only McClatchy/Marist. While still very early, the Trump campaign should therefore be taking this hypothetical head-to-head matchup polling very seriously. (Read more from “Will Trump Win? the Latest on Trump’s National and State-By-State Approval Ratings.” HERE)

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Kamala Has Another Dictator-Like Plan. This One Would Change Senate Procedures.

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As the 2020 Democratic candidates continue to vie for the party’s nomination, one thing becomes more and more clear, especially about Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA): not only does she want to be president but she wants to be a dictator with the ultimate authority.

She wants to get rid of gun violence in America so she said she would give Congress 100 days to act before taking executive actions to implement “common sense” gun laws.

She wants to protect women’s rights to abortion so she’d require states to come before her Department of Justice to ask for permission to implement pro-life legislation.

Now, she wants to get rid of the filibuster to make sure the Green New Deal becomes a reality. She made that point very clear during Wednesday night’s climate change town hall on CNN.

“We need to work across the aisle, but I’m going to tell you, I’ve been there now two years and some months and I’m seeing no evidence of it. I’m seeing, I kid you not, in our United States Congress, I was part of a committee hearing during which the underlining premise of the hearing was to debate whether science should be the basis of public policy,” Harris explained. “This, on a matter that is an existentialS threat to who we are as human beings. So, again, back to the United States Congress, because here’s my point: if they fail to act, as president of the United States, I am prepared to get rid of the filibuster to pass a Green New Deal.” (Read more from “Kamala Has Another Dictator-Like Plan. This One Would Change Senate Procedures.” HERE)

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Jussie Smollett’s Latest Legal Strategy: Blame Cops for Investigating

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The classic definition of the word “chutzpah” is: “that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.” It means looking the judge right in the eye and declaring yourself the innocent victim of your own crime. He knows you’re guilty. You know you’re guilty. Everybody knows you’re guilty. But hey, it’s worth a try, right? What have you got to lose?

Well, now there’s a new definition of “chutzpah.” It’s a lot easier to remember because it’s just two words: Jussie Smollett.

Michael Sneed, Chicago Sun-Times:

. . .But the latest court filing contends even if Smollett did make a false report, there is no way the city can assert he would have known the city would investigate — and investigate it to the extent cops did.

“We contend the city is wrong,” Quinlan said of the city’s assertion that Smollett should have known the city would spend nearly 2,000 hours investigating. “ … The mere fact somebody filed a police report doesn’t presume the investigation will be done and certainly not to the extent of what the city is claiming.”

(Read more from “Jussie Smollett’s Latest Legal Strategy: Blame Cops for Investigating” HERE)

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WATCH: Christine Blasey Ford’s Lawyer Reveals What, in Part, Motivated Her to Accuse Kavanaugh

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New video has surfaced of leftist activist Debra Katz, the attorney for Christine Blasey-Ford, admitting her client (falsely) accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct in order to protect abortion and Roe v. Wade.

“In the aftermath of these hearings I believe that Christine’s testimony brought about more good than the harm the misogynist Republicans caused by allowing Kavanuagh on the court,” Katz said during an event in Baltimore. “He will always have an asterisk next to his name. When he takes a scalpel to Roe v. Wade we will know who he is, we know his character and we know what motivates him. It’s important that we know and that’s part of what motivated Christine.”

(Read more from “Christine Blasey Ford’s Lawyer Reveals What, in Part, Motivated Her to Accuse Kavanaugh” HERE)

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After Months of Protests, Hong Kong’s Leader Finally Scraps Undemocratic Bill That Would Have Extradited Residents to Mainland China

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Following months of protests, the leader of Hong Kong has agreed to scrap a bill that would have allowed residents of the former British territory to be extradited to mainland China to stand trial.

Here’s what we know

Carrie Lam, the leader of Hong Kong appointed by the Chinese government, announced the decision on Wednesday.

“We must find ways to address the discontent in society and look for solutions,” Lam said on Wednesday, according to CNN. “After more than two months of social unrest, it is obvious to many that this discontentment extends far beyond the bill.”

Before this, the government of Hong Kong had shelved the bill, but had refused to get rid of it entirely. More than one million of the city’s roughly 7.2 million inhabitants had participated in protests over this issue.

Since Hong Kong was returned to China by the United Kingdom in 1997, it has seen some of its freedoms slowly chipped away. China had promised to utilize a “one country, two systems” model of governance for Hong Kong for at least the first fifty years, in order to ease the transition, but has periodically put laws in place to bring Hong Kong more into line with Chinese rule.

This extradition bill was just the latest example of this type of anti-democratic change. The people of Hong Kong feared that the Chinese government would use it to make opposition leaders disappear.

It is not unreasonable for the people of Hong Kong to fear this outcome. Over the past few years, China has rounded up more than one million of its own people who belonged to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority and placed them in re-education camps.

Olivia Enos, the senior policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, called Lam’s decision to withdraw the bill “an unmitigated win for protesters.”

“Unlike her previous declaration that the bill was dead, but it still technically remained in play, there is not threat of the bill resurfacing,” Enos told Blaze Media. She said that the bill had “posed an existential threat to freedom in Hong Kong.”

The government refused to budge on any other demands

In addition to getting rid of the extradition bill permanently, the protesters had also demanded reforms in Hong Kong including free elections and a halt to the prosecution of the more than 1,000 protesters who had been arrested (a demand Lam called “contrary to the rule of law”), as well as the creation of an independent commission that would investigate the city’s police department.

The protesters had also demanded that the government stop referring to them as “rioters,” but Lam dismissed this idea, saying that there was “no legal effect on how such incidents are described or categorized.”

Lam specified in her address on Wednesday that the government would not budge on any of these four additional issues. She urged the protesters to disband now that the extradition bill was gone, saying, “Let’s replace conflicts with conversations, and let’s look for solutions.”

(For more from the author of “After Months of Protests, Hong Kong’s Leader Finally Scraps Undemocratic Bill That Would Have Extradited Residents to Mainland China” please click HERE)

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The Trump Administration Is Planning to Re-Legalize Light Bulbs Set to Be Outlawed by Obama Admin

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Light bulbs that were set to be outlawed under an Obama-era regulation will stay on store shelves thanks to regulation rollback from the Trump administration.

Multiple outlets reported Wednesday that the Department of Energy had finalized a new rule striking a last-minute Obama regulation that outlawed certain kinds of light bulbs such as three-way bulbs, decorative bulbs, and “rough service lamps.”

“This regulation gives consumers more choices, and consumers are better off with more choices,” a Trump DOE official explained to The Hill.

One of the reasons that the Obama administration offered for the regulation was that people might purchase the these light sources instead of “other regulated lamp types” like LED or compact fluorescent bulbs. The Obama administration’s 2017 regulation was set to take effect in 2020.

Critics say that the Trump administration’s latest move will end up costing consumers more because the less regulated bulbs use more electricity.

“The rollback will lead to higher energy bills for homes and businesses, plus significantly more pollution harming our health and the environment due to all the extra electricity that will need to be generated,” the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a Wednesday statement. “Efficiency standards would ensure that every bulb purchased in the future is an efficient one. ”

“Wasting energy with inefficient lightbulbs isn’t just costly for homes and businesses, it’s terrible for our climate,” reads a statement from Alliance to Save Energy president Jason Hartke. “This rule means we’re going to need the electricity produced by 25 coal power plants just to power wasteful bulbs.

Nobody, however, will be forcing consumers to purchase and use less efficient light bulbs under the new rule, which is what the Trump Department of Energy said in the regulation.

“This rule does not prevent consumers from buying the lamps they desire, including efficient options,” the department. The department added that “the market is successfully transitioning to LEDs regardless of government regulation. Consumers are clearly taking advantage of the energy savings provided by LEDs.”

The regulations are an implementation mechanism for part of a 2007 energy law that addresses efficiency standards for light bulbs and was meant to phase out less efficient bulbs over time. The first wave of regulations from 2007 statute led to several unintended consequences such as plant closings and spurred on failed attempts to repeal it. (For more from the author of “The Trump Administration Is Planning to Re-Legalize Light Bulbs Set to Be Outlawed by Obama Admin” please click HERE)

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Media Blackout: At Least 6 Illegal Aliens Charged with Brutal Murder in Baltimore Suburb

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Living in Baltimore County close to the dreaded crime-ridden Baltimore City, I always consoled myself with the fact that at least I didn’t live in the D.C.-area counties that are ravaged by Salvadoran gangs. There are endless gang-related crimes in places like Montgomery County on a daily basis. Well, now it appears that this activity has come to my part of Maryland.

Yesterday, local media in Baltimore reported that seven individuals had been charged with first-degree murder for the killing of Daniel Alejandro Alvarado Cuellar, whose body was found near Towson, Maryland, on July 31. According to Baltimore County police, “The cause of death was multiple stab wounds, and through our investigation, we were able to determine it was more than one person who caused those stab wounds.”

Sound familiar? Whose modus operandi is it to murder in groups with knives in the state of Maryland? Well, not a single local media outlet bothered to ask the most important question: Is this a problem native to suburban Baltimore County, or is this an imported problem?

All of the local media outlets did report the names of the suspects who are now sitting in the Baltimore County Detention Center without bail:

Jonathan Escobar-Hernandez, 20, of Baltimore

Marlon Leonardo Fabian-Flores, 20, of Manchester

Edwin Edgardo Garcia-Martir,18, of Middle River

Hugo Portillo-Chavez, 31, of Cockeysville

Jose Fausto Rivera-Coreas, 19, of Cockeysville

Odaliz Rosas-Yanez, 20, of Cockeysville

Leonel Alexander Velasquez-Hernadez, 16, of Cockeysville

Unlike other reporters, I actually reached out to ICE and inquired if there are any ICE detainers on the suspects. An ICE spokesman confirmed with CR that there are detainers on six of the seven suspects, which means at least those six are currently here illegally. Fabian-Flores, Garcia-Martir, Portillo-Chavez, Rivera-Coreas, Rosas-Yanez, and Velasquez-Hernadez were all confirmed as illegal aliens in ICE’s system and members of MS-13, according to the official I spoke to.

The seventh may or may not have gotten some sort of legal status, which would explain why there is no immediate detainer. The ICE official also told CR that five of the six were Salvadoran nationals and one is a Mexican national. Maryland has the highest concentration of Salvadorans in the country.

Cockeysville is a nice quiet community of Baltimore County close to where I grew up. It’s very disquieting to know that we have now imported the gang culture to these areas as well.

The problem with all these cases is that almost every media report on a given illegal alien murder, rape, or child sex assault is reported as a domestic crime. No pressure will ever be brought to bear on local sanctuary officials and federal officials to clamp down on immigration laws unless they feel the heat from the American people. But that heat will never be applied if people don’t even know that these crimes are often being committed by people who should not be here to begin with.

These are not isolated incidents happening in a vacuum. They are part of a growing trend where Central American youth are coming here illegally with no sense of purpose and get swept up into gangs.

In a recent sting against MS-13 in California that resulted in the arrest of 22 of the most violent members, investigators noted how new recruits coming from the border feel the need to up the ante with their violence. Claude Arnold, who once ran the Los Angeles field office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was quoted as saying, “These are newer entrants, so they’re making their bones with the gang, it’s just how it is. They want to make a name for themselves, and those are the people who are generally the most violent members of street gangs.”

One parting thought to consider: If we continue importing Salvadoran gangs but stripping the rights of Marylanders to carry a gun, how will they protect themselves from the endless knife attacks by MS-13, which is taking over more and more of Maryland? (For more from the author of “Media Blackout: At Least 6 Illegal Aliens Charged with Brutal Murder in Baltimore Suburb” please click HERE)

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