Court Rejects Male Prisoner’s Motion for Preferred Female Pronouns

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A federal appeals court rejected a male federal prisoner’s request to be addressed with female pronouns in accord with his gender identity.

Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, an appointee of President Donald Trump, issued the opinion denying Norman Varner’s motion to be addressed with female pronouns.

In 2012, Varner plead guilty to attempted receipt of child pornography and was subsequently sentenced to 15 years in prison and then 15 years of supervised release. He had previously been convicted on a state charge of possession of child porn and failure to register as a sex offender.

The opinion notes that, in 2018, Varner asked the district court to change his name on the document ordering his committal to “Kathrine Nicole Jett,” to reflect his transgendered status. The lower court rejected the name change, stating “Norman Varner” was his legal name at the time the court’s documents were prepared.

In his motion, Varner stated failure by others to use his preferred female pronouns when addressing him “leads me to feel that I am being discriminated against based on my gender identity.” (Read more from “Court Rejects Male Prisoner’s Motion for Preferred Female Pronouns” HERE)

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Man Released After Arrest for Arson Now Charged With Child Rape

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Advocates of so-called criminal justice reform are so good at concocting a utopian vision of criminal behavior under their jailbreak proposals that they start believing their own virtual reality. The problem for them is that criminals on the streets don’t work like liberal arts textbooks on “restorative justice.” Now, New York Democrats are learning this the hard way. They have lost control of the narrative because of the logical consequences of their illogical legislation.

Anthony J.M. Hart of Glen Falls, New York, is the latest poster child – one of many – for New York’s abolish bail law, which has been phased in by state judges over the past few months. Hart was arrested in Warren County on November 7 for setting fire to a vacant home. He was released on his own recognizance several days later because the arson charge did not qualify for a bail requirement, meaning the judge had to release him immediately.

This is the sort of people who are considered “low-level, nonviolent” threats by the Left. But as Reagan said, leftist ideology is rooted in “utopian presumptions about human nature.” Well, Hart’s human nature kicked in, and on Tuesday, he was arrested for raping a 14-year-old girl. Hart was charged with second-degree rape and second-degree criminal sexual act for an incident that is alleged to have happened in Warren County on December 31.

There is no limit to the number of needless victims that will be created as a result of people with this sort of threat potential being let out on the streets. In order to push this and similar legislation, liberals (in some states, with the help of Republicans) propagate a talking point that our jails are filled with low-level criminals who aren’t a threat, and incarceration just winds up being costly and counterintuitive. It’s a great talking point. But the data shows the opposite – that almost everyone serving even a little time is a repeat offender. Moreover, there are many violent criminals who escape justice.

Now the reality on the streets is catching up to that fact. When leftists refer to crimes as “nonviolent” and “low-level,” they obfuscate an important point. Given the threshold for probable cause and certain evidence standards, more often than not, some of the most violent criminals are undercharged and are most certainly under-convicted. On paper, second-degree assault or third-degree arson doesn’t sound so bad, but often the worst beatings that horrify the public only result in a second-degree charge, not to mention an eventual plea deal, driving down the punishment even further.

For example, on Tuesday night, 20-year-old Jay Vasquez-Paulino was caught on tape in the Bronx beating a woman violently and threatening her with a knife.

Vasquez-Paulino was released on an appearance ticket, pursuant to the new bail law. Anyone would agree he is a violent threat, but ultimately, because the victim didn’t sustain major injuries, Vasquez-Paulino was only charged with second-degree menacing, attempted third-degree assault, fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, and second-degree harassment. None of those crimes qualify for a bail hearing because they were regarded as low-level.

But the reality is the overwhelming number of hard-core assaults are only charged as second or third-degree offenses. Ditto with rape and murder charges. In fact, even Reeaz Khan, the illegal alien charged with the horrific rape and murder of 92-year-old Maria Fuertes in Queens, was only charged with second-degree murder. He was also charged with first-degree rape and is finally being held. But again, even some of the most horrific criminal acts don’t result in charges that the system treats seriously enough. Now, they are being downgraded even further. The core problem with these jailbreak proposals is that criminal charges are very technical and do not reflect the threat level of the offender. New York took away the ability of the judge to analyze the threat level as well as prior criminal history to set a level of bail.

It all gets back to the dirty little secret of the criminal justice system. We have a ton of violent crime in this country. Most of the people serving meaningful time in prison are violent repeat offenders, and there is a heck of a lot more crime on the streets because of loopholes, plea deals, and technicalities. Thus, if your obsession is to reduce the prison population rather than reducing crime, there is only one way to do it – release violent criminals. The problem is that doesn’t sound quite as mellifluous as the release of “first-time, low-level, nonviolent, reform-minded” criminals. And the public is catching on. (For more from the author of “Man Released After Arrest for Arson Now Charged With Child Rape” please click HERE)

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‘Extreme Vetting’? Trump Administration to Continue Training Saudis on Our Military Bases

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It is not too much to ask for a process to ensure that those who come into our country as immigrants or on long-term visas actually have a love for this country or, at the very least, not a hatred for it. Indeed, President Trump promised a moratorium on immigration from the Middle East until such a system could be conceived. But now the administration is not even ending the visa program that brings them to our military bases, even after the Pensacola attack.

After a supposedly vetted Saudi military trainee killed three people at Naval Air Station Pensacola, I noted that this would be the perfect time for Trump to fulfill a key campaign promise on immigration, as well as a promise to end the gun-free zone policies. In December 2015, Trump promised a “total and complete shutdown” of Middle Eastern migration “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on” and “where this hatred comes from.” Now, following the Pensacola terror attack, the Trump administration is refusing to terminate the Saudi training, much less suspend the broader program, much less suspend any of the hundreds of thousands of long-term visas and green cards given out to nationals of countries where this “hatred” is pervasive.

The Hill reported on Thursday that Secretary of Defense Mark Esper plans to visit the naval base in Pensacola next week and announce new security measures. However, one of those security measures will not be terminating these foreign military training programs. Instead, the DOD will be resuming the training of roughly 850 Saudis after it was temporarily suspended following the attack. In fact, several weeks ago, Esper expressed his desire to grow the program’s enrollment by 50 percent.

Are we really to believe that in just a few weeks’ time, officials have carefully vetted not just the 850 existing Saudi trainees but the several thousand others from countries like Afghanistan? How can we really know the nature of their family ties and whether they subscribe to jihadist views when we missed openly jihadist social media postings of Mohammad Alshamrani, the shooter at Pensacola?

The answer to these questions is further disquieting given that Attorney General William Barr seemed to indicate that we don’t even care about the Sharia supremacist views of those who enter the country for military training, much less as civilians. During Monday’s press conference, the attorney general announced that 21 members of the Saudi military were disenrolled in the training and are being sent back after 17 of them “had social media containing some jihadi or anti-American content” and “15 individuals (including some of the 17 just mentioned) had had some kind of contact with child pornography.”

I expected Barr to continue and declare emphatically that we will not tolerate jihadist sympathizers on our soil, much less on our bases, and that in the future there will be a system of vetting to bring in only those who we can confidently certify are against jihad. Instead, he went on to say that nothing posted was criminal under our laws. “However, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia determined that this material demonstrated conduct unbecoming an officer in the Saudi Royal Air Force and Royal Navy and the 21 cadets have been dis-enrolled from their training curriculum in the U.S. military and will be returning to Saudi Arabia (later today).”

As Andrew McCarthy observed in a recent column, our government is missing the point about terror threats. It’s not just about vetting visa applicants to see if they are carrying cards that identify them as members of a known terror group. It’s about vetting for the anti-American, Sharia-supremacist mindset.

“Consequently, it has long been known that our capacity to protect America from jihadist attacks hinges on our ability to discourage the infiltration of the political ideology that fuels them, which would necessitate vetting for sharia supremacism and jihadism when foreign Muslims seek to enter the United States,” wrote McCarthy, who studied Islamic ideology carefully as the lead prosecutor in one of America’s earliest Islamic terror trials. “Nevertheless, though the Constitution would not prevent such vetting (there being no constitutional right for an alien to enter the U.S.), our laws, guidelines, and political conditions have made it practically impossible to bar foreigners from entering the United States on ideological grounds. Instead, we draw the line at violence: If it can be shown that an alien has ties to a known terrorist group, or has engaged in terrorist activities, that alien may be denied entry.”

This is the core point made by President Trump in his speech in Ohio on August 15, 2016, when he announced his plan for “extreme vetting.”

“A Trump Administration will establish a clear principle that will govern all decisions pertaining to immigration: we should only admit into this country those who share our values and respect our people,” said then-candidate Trump as he announced a new screening policy. Noting how the recent terror attacks “involved immigrants or the children of immigrants,” Trump was the first Republican to drill down on the need to not only “screen out all members or sympathizers of terrorist groups,” but also “screen out any who have hostile attitudes towards our country or its principles – or who believe that Sharia law should supplant American law.”

Trump again promised “to temporarily suspend immigration from some of the most dangerous and volatile regions of the world that have a history of exporting terrorism,” noting that “the size of current immigration flows are simply too large to perform adequate screening.”

“We admit about 100,000 permanent immigrants from the Middle East every year,” observed Trump. “Beyond that, we admit hundreds of thousands of temporary workers and visitors from the same regions. If we don’t control the numbers, we can’t perform adequate screening.”

The president was so presciently on target. There is simply no way to properly vet just one category of Saudis, much less hundreds of thousands of visa and green-card applicants from the most volatile countries.

Fast-forward three years, and in 2018, by my best estimate, we handed out over 150,000 green cards to nationals of predominantly Muslim countries, not including over 100,000 foreign student visas and other visa categories.

Three years in, if this administration won’t even halt foreign military training programs following the Pensacola terror attack, this is yet another immigration promise that is headed for the ash heap of history, unless conservatives gently but firmly remind the president of his continued opportunity to fulfill it. (For more from the author of “‘Extreme Vetting’? Trump Administration to Continue Training Saudis on Our Military Bases” please click HERE)

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11 U.S. Troops Injured in Iran Missile Attack

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While it was initially reported that the Jan. 8 Iranian attack on Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops caused no casualties or injuries, 11 U.S. service members have been treated for injury.

The troops were airlifted to Germany and Kuwait and underwent treatment for traumatic brain injuries and screening, said Col. Myles Caggins, a spokesman for U.S. military command in Baghdad.

“As previously stated, while no U.S. service members were killed in the Jan. 8 Iranian attack on Al Asad Air base, several were treated for concussion symptoms from the blast and are still being assessed,” Caggins told Defense One.

“Out of an abundance of caution, some service members were transported from Al Asad Air Base, Iraq to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, others were sent to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, for follow-on screening,” he added. “When deemed fit for duty, the service members are expected to return to Iraq following screening. The health and welfare of our personnel is a top priority and we will not discuss any individual’s medical status.” (Read more from “11 U.S. Troops Injured in Iran Missile Attack” HERE)

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SCOTUS to Hear Electoral College Case That Could Impact 2020 Election

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On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that would decide whether electoral college delegates must vote for the winner of their state’s popular vote. Half the states currently have laws requiring their electors to follow the voters’ decision in their state.

Electors who do not vote in accordance to the winner of their state’s popular vote are known as “faithless electors.” According to NBC News, the so-called problem of faithless electors has never really been an actual problem before. In fact, most states simply throw out the ballot of an elector who doesn’t follow the state’s popular vote.

But in 2016, the Democrats ran such a rotten candidate that several electors in states carried by Hillary Clinton cast their ballots for someone else. One elector in Colorado voted for John Kasich, one in Hawaii voted for Bernie Sanders, and four in Washington state voted for someone else — three for Colin Powell and one for Faith Spotted Eagle, the name of a Native American activist, not Elizabeth Warren. Other Democratic electors contemplated voting differently but were reportedly pressured into voting for Clinton. Colorado simply replaced its errant elector with one that would vote for Hillary, while Washington state fined their independent-thinking electors for violating state law.

The Washington state Supreme Court ruled against the electors who challenged the fines imposed upon them. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Steven Gonzalez took issue with the court’s decision, arguing “[t]he Constitution provides the state only with the power to appoint, leaving the electors with the discretion to vote their conscience.”

While states can choose their own electors and require them to pledge certain loyalties, once the electors form the electoral college they are no longer serving a state function but a federal one. (Read more from “SCOTUS to Hear Electoral College Case That Could Impact 2020 Election” HERE)

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Trump Administration Issues MORE Sanctions Against Iran

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The Trump administration continued to tighten the screws on the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism on Friday as Special Envoy to Iran Brian Hook announced new sanctions against a top general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).

“The United States is listing IRGC Brigadier General Hassan Shahvarpour under section 7031c visa sanctions. General Shahvarpour committed gross violations of human rights against protestors in Mahshahr. He oversaw the massacre of 148 helpless Iranians in the Mahshahr region last November,” Hook said. “General Shahvarpour was in command of units responsible for the violent crackdown and lethal repression around Mahshahr. This is the first designation on an Iranian regime official being taken under the State Department authority from section 7031c authorities.”

Hook noted that the tip-line that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo established last November has received 88,000 tips from the people of Iran.

“Since the violent crackdown on protests last November, the United States has sanctioned two judges and eight other regime officials for their roles in brutalizing the Iranian people. We are continuing to review all information we receive from the Iranian people and will continue to hold more regime officials responsible for human rights violations,” Hook continued. “Over the past week, many Iranians took to the streets again to protest a corrupt government that lies to them. President Trump recognized their courage with his tweets in Farsi this past week standing with the Iranian people. We call on all nations to join our lead, particularly by sanctioning Iranian officials for human rights violations.” (Read more from “Trump Administration Issues MORE Sanctions Against Iran” HERE)

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There Is No Such Thing as Student Loan ‘Cancellation’

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This week, Elizabeth Warren unveiled a plan to “cancel” billions of dollars worth of student loans without involving Congress. She believes a legal loophole may allow her to erase the debt with the stroke of her pen, no questions asked.

The most obvious problem with exploiting this loophole is that it probably doesn’t actually exist. The next most obvious problem is that this would represent a seismic expansion of executive power, which would be ironic given all of the concern among Democrats that Trump wants to be a dictator.

But there are two even larger and more fundamental issues with any plan to cancel student loans. First, there is no such thing as “canceling” student loans. What various Democratic candidates have proposed are plans to transfer, not cancel, the outstanding debt of millions of college graduates. They wish to remove the burden of the loans from the people who agreed to the loans and have received their degrees in exchange for it, and place that burden on the shoulders of people who did not agree to the loan and did not receive anything in exchange for it. Student debt will still be paid; we would just be taking the funds from someone else’s pocket.

Even under Warren’s magic wand proposal, the debt will still certainly land at someone’s doorstep and become their problem. If you think the federal government would ever in a million years choose, out of the kindness of its heart, to simply eat a $1.5 trillion dollar loss without recouping the funds elsewhere, I’ve got an invisible unicorn to sell you. The taxpayers will be footing the bill, one way or another. Of that much we can be sure.

The more feasible plans would supposedly see the loans transferred from college graduates to the dreaded “ultra rich.” I’ve got another unicorn to sell if you think the government is going to recover that full amount solely from billionaire CEOs. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that an initiative of this scope and size will inevitably involve tax hikes on everyone, no matter what they tell us now. But even putting that aside, rich people are still people, last I checked. We still have to deal, ethically, with the fact that we’d be requiring private citizens to pay back loans they didn’t take out, for a product they didn’t purchase. Defend that morally dubious model all you want, but don’t call it cancellation or forgiveness. Nothing at all is being forgiven. We are just forcing someone else to do the atoning. (Read more from “There Is No Such Thing as Student Loan ‘Cancellation’” HERE)

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More Explosive Epstein Evidence: Condition of Eyes, Legs Likely PROVE Murder (VIDEO)

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By New York Post. Jeffrey Epstein’s eyes had burst capillaries after his body was found in his Manhattan jail cell, suggesting that the convicted pedophile was likely murdered through manual strangulation and did not hang himself, a forensic pathologist says in a TV interview.

In a clip provided to The Post from a “Dr. Oz” special set to air Thursday, former New York City Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Baden discusses his theories and examines graphic photographs.

Among them are the burst capillaries and the fact that Epstein’s lower extremities were pale and not purple or bluish, which he said would have been the case had he hanged himself in August at the Manhattan Correctional Center.

“The blood settles after we die. The so-called lividity, if you’re hanging, the lividity is on the lower part on the legs. These would be like maroon/purple, front and back and they aren’t,” Baden tells Dr. Mehmet Oz. (Read more from “Pathologist: Jeffrey Epstein’s Gruesome Autopsy Points to Murder” HERE)

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Jeffrey Epstein had burst capillaries in his eyeballs after he died which pathologist tells Dr. Oz suggests he was STRANGLED and did not hang himself

By Daily Mail. A forensic pathologist has claimed that Jeffrey Epstein was likely murdered and did not hang himself because he had burst capillaries in his eyes which is consistent with manual strangulation and not hanging, DailyMail.com can reveal. . .

He said he believes there are many ‘red flags’ which suggest he was murdered and did not kill himself. . .

Dr. Baden says it is ‘very unusual’ how Epstein’s death was ruled.

‘The initial death certificate was issued at the time of the autopsy, it’s pending further study, getting more information.

‘Five days later it was changed to hanging suicide and one of the things the family wishes to know, the estate wishes to know is, what was that additional information that caused them to change it when five months later and the family still doesn’t know what happened to in the first encounter and what happened to him when he was found dead. (Read more from “Jeffrey Epstein had burst capillaries in his eyeballs after he died which pathologist tells Dr. Oz suggests he was STRANGLED and did not hang himself” HERE)

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Finally. the Feds — Including ICE — Appear to Be Investigating Rep. Ilhan Omar

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On Oct. 30, I reported that the Department of Justice had assigned an FBI Special Agent in Charge, or SAC, to review Rep. Ilhan Omar’s apparent, astonishing spree of felonies from 2009 to 2017.

Minnesota state Rep. Steve Drazkowski (R) had previously filed a complaint on the matter with the Minnesota District of the Department of Justice. That office — headed by U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald, a 2018 Donald Trump appointee — directed the FBI to review the complaint. An FBI SAC formally met with Rep. Drazkowski, and others, in mid-October to receive a prepared file of evidence and related information. . .

In October, the FBI SAC stated that the wide range of criminal activity suggested by the evidence against Rep. Omar may lead the FBI to expand the review to other federal departments. In such situations, the SAC continued, the FBI often acts as a hub — sharing evidence, or coordinating a joint investigation, with several other investigative agencies. . .

Since August 2016, the remarkable story of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s past has produced scarce political, law enforcement, or media activity. A near-perfect inversion of the Trump/”Russian collusion” yarn, with which it is inseparable. . .

Concurrently — in August 2016 — Minnesota reporters Scott Johnson and Preya Samsundar were publishing extensive, verified, still-unchallenged evidence implicating Rep. Omar in multiple felonies. Their exponentially more substantial evidence was ignored by the Democratic Party and supportive media. Their evidence was even ignored by law enforcement, per an extraordinary public dismissal shortly before Omar’s 2016 election to the Minnesota House of Representatives. (Read more from “Finally. the Feds — Including ICE — Appear to Be Investigating Rep. Ilhan Omar” HERE)

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Joe diGenova: American Embassy in Ukraine Blocked Giuliani and My Wife From Investigating Attempts to Frame Trump

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Joe diGenova told Breitbart News that his wife, Victoria Toensing, and Rudy Giuliani were both blocked from obtaining visas to visit Ukraine due to pressure from the American embassy in Ukraine. He joined Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

Marlow asked, “Joe, is it true that you’ve been travelling internationally to kind of investigate some of this stuff and to investigate some of the general corruption that you think is happening?”

DeGenova replied, “My wife, Victoria Toensing, was asked by Rudy Giuliani to represent some Ukrainian public officials and private individuals who had information about attempts to frame Donald Trump and Paul Manafort. Those efforts were underway to go interview those people overseas in Ukraine, but because of the resistance of the American embassy, the American embassy threatened the Ukrainian government not to grant visas to Rudy and my wife Victoria, and of course the trip never happened. There was no trip. There were no interviews conducted over there.”

(Read more from “Joe diGenova: American Embassy in Ukraine Blocked Giuliani and My Wife From Investigating Attempts to Frame Trump” HERE)

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