Why President Trump Is Keeping Those Classified DOJ Docs in His Back Pocket

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President Trump’s allies in Congress and the media have long wondered why he doesn’t declassify documents withheld by the Department of Justice that could vindicate him in the Russia probe. What’s stopping him from exercising his constitutional authority, they ask? Doesn’t he recognize the growing danger of inaction with the midterm elections at hand, which could spell his impeachment if he loses his Republican congressional majority?

RealClearInvestigations sought insight into the president’s thinking from current and past senior U.S. officials, most of whom spoke only on condition of anonymity. The picture of Trump that emerges plays against type.

On declassification, the president is not the impulsive hothead major media portray, as epitomized by his “witch hunt” bluster on Twitter. Rather, the sources characterized him as a deliberative, strategic executive inclined to keep his powder dry now for possible detonation later. (Because his supporters—some of whom have seen the documents—are pushing for declassification and his opponents are not, the assumption is that the documents would help the president.)

Trump told Fox News last week that while he didn’t want to interfere with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, he may have no choice but to declassify. “At the right time, I think I’m going to have to do the documents,” the president said.

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, for one, would be pleased with that step. Nunes told Fox recently that false “media narratives” are burying the real story of anti-Trump machinations within the government. “That’s why the sooner the president declassifies the better,” he said, with an eye toward the November midterm elections that—if Democrats win—would likely place Trump nemesis Rep. Adam Schiff as chairman of the committee. (Read more from “Why President Trump Is Keeping Those Classified DOJ Docs in His Back Pocket” HERE)

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New Data: The Border Surge Is Increasing Again

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What happens when we allow courts to countermand our immigration policy and unilaterally grant asylum to invaders at our border? What happens when every political and cultural institution sheds crocodile tears for illegal invaders rather than helping Americans harmed by their crime, drugs, gangs, and the fiscal burden? The laws of supply and demand dictate that more invaders will come. And indeed, that is what has happened in August. The president now has the perfect opportunity to make border security the number one demand of this month’s budget bill. Will he do it?

Illegal aliens respond to incentives very quickly

According to new data from Customs and Border Protection, the number of apprehensions of family units spiked by 38 percent in August compared to the previous month. That is a record for the month of August. The number of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) rose by 11.5 percent. Overall, almost 16,500 family units were apprehended at or in between entry points, a level that has not been seen during any month since the Obama administration.

This is even more disturbing given the growing trajectory. Because of the perception that policies would change with the new administration, the border flow slowed to a trickle in 2017. Now it has surged again, proving that the entire deterrent power of this administration is gone unless policies change. The flow of family units this August represents a 140 percent increase over August 2017, while the number of UACs increased by 44 percent. If record numbers of families are coming over during the August heat, that means we are in for a real treat in the fall and winter unless there is a change in policy.

The spike in the number of family units shows that a number of people who previously just sent their kids here alone to join other relatives, thinking that our leniency wouldn’t extend to adults, now understand that they can come together and be paroled together under catch-and-release.

The Daily Caller has published a video taken on an Arizona ranch showing 25 minutes of uninterrupted border infiltrations. This is not the hallmark of a first-world country. We have no control over our own sovereignty and security.

Remember, this is not even the busiest sector. Most of the families are pouring over the Rio Grande Valley in the far east sector of Texas.

What happens to these people?

As of the first three quarters of this fiscal year, only 1.4 percent of the 94,000 illegals who came as family units in 2017 were sent back home. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why most would feel comfortable coming here and telling their friends about our policies. Our country can’t survive when it takes years to remove individuals who are clearly not entitled to be here. It’s death by a million lawsuits.

It’s not just impoverished bogus asylum-seekers coming over

While roughly 46,500 illegals were apprehended at our border this month, that means that, given our interdiction rate, at least as many were not apprehended.

What comes over the border along with bogus asylum claims? MS-13 and an endless array of drugs. Appallingly, the very same politicians who have promoted this invasion that single-handedly led to the “opioid crisis” beginning in 2013-2014 are passing a spending bill this week in the Senate to “address” the opioid crisis. Yet they refuse to define what the crisis is and what caused it. If they actually properly identified it, they would realize the impetus for the polydrug crisis (it’s not an opioid crisis) is this very border surge they refuse to even stop encouraging, much less halt.

It’s not just opioids like heroin and fentanyl pouring over the border from Mexico and distributed by the gangs and cartels harbored by sanctuary cities. Non-opioids like methamphetamine are surging to record levels, making them historically cheap to purchase. Just during the first 11 months of fiscal year 2018, over 77,000 pounds of this poison were seized by border agents. As late as 2012, that number was around just 18,000 pounds. What happened in between? The Central American border surge that is growing every month happened. In 2007, 5,171 people claimed credible fear in order to get asylum. In 2016, it was 91,786.

That is your “opioid” crisis right there. Funding the border wall, blocking the asylum loophole, and ending judicial amnesty and sanctuary cities would be the ultimate “opioid package.” But legislators keep their focus on doctors and pain patients.

Aside from MS-13, the massive surge of bogus asylum-seekers also serves as strategic cover for the cartels and smugglers, who orchestrate the entire process, to bring in Middle Easterners. We’ve seen an increase in “special interest alien” activity with the growth of the Central American invasion. As Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies observes, in the final months of the Obama administration, none other than DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson sent out a memo to top law enforcement agencies warning that the growth of Middle Easterners at the border demanded their “immediate attention.”

But it’s worse than simply facing a migration crisis where Middle Easterners slip in undetected amid the chaos of the Central American migration. Even if they are successfully interdicted by agents on the way in, they claim asylum just like the Central Americans do and are released. As Bensman, a former intelligence officer for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said on my podcast yesterday, the Middle Easterners don’t initially come to our border with bombs, they come with good stories. He warned that the broken asylum policies are not just the cause of the Central American migration, which in itself is facilitating the flow of Middle Easterners, it also remains the Achilles heel of our security, whereby terrorists can claim asylum just like in Europe.

Thanks to the courts uprooting sovereignty and statutes, anyone from around the world can come here.

Seventeen years after 9/11, while we are still chasing our tails in Afghanistan, our border is wide open for people to stream across. Rather than marshalling the entire country to fight against a dangerous open border by staying in session all of August promoting a budget bill closing all the border loopholes and building the wall, Republicans helped promote the Democrat premise that the emergency was about “uniting families.” Well, those families have now responded by pouring over the border at an increased level.

In addition, nothing is being done about the ultimate magnet – the ability of illegal aliens to steal Social Security numbers, with the help of the IRS, to file tax returns and obtain employment in this country. According to a recent report from the Immigration Reform Law Institute, 39 million Social Security numbers were stolen between 2012 and 2016 in W-2 filings. Congress, and even the administration, can end the magnet tomorrow by barring the IRS from processing refundable tax credits to those whose numbers don’t match and work with SSA to immediately notify the victim, the employer, and local law enforcement when a duplicate or fraudulent number is used.

Getting rid of the magnets, the broken courts, and the broken asylum policies is just as important, if not more important, than building the wall. Imagine if Trump and the Republicans made the next few weeks a budget battle over terrorism, the crushing costs of illegal immigration, MS-13, and the drug crisis all wrapped up in border security and sanctuary cities. (For more from the author of “New Data: The Border Surge Is Increasing Again” please click HERE)

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Kavanaugh Explains Why He Didn’t Shake the Hand of Parkland Father

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Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says he would have shaken the hand of a school shooting victim’s father during a break in last week’s Senate hearing had he recognized him before being whisked away by security detail.

Kavanaugh’s explanation for the encounter with Fred Guttenberg — captured in an Associated Press photo that went viral on social media — was among a 263-page response to written questions from senators on a range of issues including abortion, executive power and his personal finances.

Kavanaugh wrote that he assumed the man who approached him “and touched my arm” during a break at the Senate Judiciary Committee proceedings had been one of the many protesters in the hearing room. Guttenberg’s 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was among 17 people killed on Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.

“It had been a chaotic morning,” Kavanaugh wrote. “I unfortunately did not realize that the man was the father of a shooting victim from Parkland, Florida. Mr. Guttenberg has suffered an incalculable loss. If I had known who he was, I would have shaken his hand, talked to him, and expressed my sympathy. And I would have listened to him.”

Kavanaugh’s security detail ushered the nominee out in a “split second,” according to the judge’s response to a written question from Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was among 1,287 questions from senators, almost all from Democrats.

Pressed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, if he had asked police to intervene, Kavanaugh wrote, “No.”

The flood of new documents comes as the Judiciary Committee is set to meet Thursday to consider Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

Democrats are fighting Kavanaugh’s nomination and decrying the process that Republicans used to compile his government records for review. Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, on Wednesday night released a new batch of “committee confidential” documents about Kavanaugh, repeating a tactic that could prompt a review from the Senate Ethics Committee.

Documents stamped “committee confidential” are intended only for members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and have not been officially approved for public release.

The 28 new “committee confidential” documents Booker released are from Kavanaugh’s time in the White House counsel’s office during the George W. Bush administration and show his involvement in judicial nominations, including for some of the more controversial judges of the era.

Booker is being criticized by Republican senators and outside groups for releasing the documents, which the Judiciary Committee is holding back on a confidential basis that makes them accessible only to senators. Last week, he released some documents that were later made public by the committee, but also others that weren’t. Wednesday’s disclosure brings the total to 75.

Booker said the documents about Kavanaugh’s work “raise more serious and concerning questions” about his honesty during his testimony before the committee.

The documents show Kavanaugh’s involvement in Bush’s nomination of Charles Pickering to an appellate court in the South amid questions about his views on race relations. Kavanaugh had indicated he was not substantially involved in the nomination.

At the same time, the conservative group Judicial Watch delivered a letter Wednesday to the Senate Ethics Committee seeking an investigation. It says Booker violated Senate rules against disclosing confidential documents and could face Senate expulsion.

Booker “explicitly invited his expulsion from the Senate in his egregious violation of the rules and contempt for the rule of law and the Constitution,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

At issue has been the unprecedented process the Senate Judiciary Committee used for gathering documents on Kavanaugh, an appellate court judge who is President Donald Trump’s nominee to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy on the court. The full Senate is expected to vote on his confirmation by the end of the month.

The committee was hoping to quickly process Kavanaugh’s unusually long paper trail and relied on Bush’s lawyer, Bill Burck, to compile the documents, first estimated to be 900,000 pages from Kavanaugh’s time in the counsel’s office. Eventually, some 267,000 pages were made public and 174,000 were held as “committee confidential.”

Democrats have complained the process was a “sham,” as Booker put it. It also excluded any documents Democrats wanted to see from Kavanaugh’s time as Bush’s staff secretary.

But Burck’s team stood by the process, according to a letter to the committee Wednesday obtained by The Associated Press. They remain willing to review documents and consent to senators’ requests for disclosure, “when appropriate,” the letter said. Despite those commitments, the letter said, one member of the committee has released more than 40 documents without consent, referring to Booker.

“Had we been consulted on these universally released documents, we would have consented to their public disclosure,” the letter said.

White House spokesman Raj Shah said, “Despite the endless complaints from critics, the committee has received more material regarding Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination than any nominee in history.”

He said senators have “more than enough information” to consider Kavanaugh’s nomination. (For more from the author of “Kavanaugh Explains Why He Didn’t Shake the Hand of Parkland Father” please click HERE)

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Ken Starr: Oh, I Was ‘This’ Close to Charging ‘Crooked Clinton’ With Perjury

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As the Russia collusion probe drags on with no evidence to point to the Trump 2016 campaign working with the Kremlin to tilt a presidential election, the capital is awash with overhype, overreactions, and lust for impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. The reason: he beat Hillary Clinton. It’s the biggest case of sour grapes in recent memory. It also shows that when American liberals lose, it can be incredibly entertaining. News flash: in American, where free and fair elections are held, often times your side loses. Get over it. But since there’s a special counsel, Robert Mueller, digging through the Trump world, let’s not forget that maybe this whole episode in American politics could be one of the best.

Both sides hate each other, there’s a sense of anger, but also clarity, at least for me; we know who the enemy is and their party’s symbol is a jacka…—sorry, it’s a donkey. Some say that Hillary and Trump being the two contenders for the White House shows how low we’ve gone in politics. I suggest it’s what it’s always been, an overly sanctified and idealistic venture whose craft is selling voters that you’re not going to sell them down river, which is exactly what happens. It’s a snake pit.

Clinton and Trump also share the special counsel/independent counsel (though the latter is a bit different) chapter in their public lives, though with everyone writing books as of late, Ken Starr, the former special prosecutor who looked into the Clintons, said he was this close to charging Hillary Clinton with perjury during the Whitewater investigation. To make a long story short, it was a probe into some shady real estate dealings the power couple had executed in the late 1970s. Starr describes Hillary’s testimony as mendacious:

(Read more from “Ken Starr: Oh, I Was ‘This’ Close to Charging ‘Crooked Clinton’ With Perjury” HERE)

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Rising Socialist Candidate’s Bizarre Past Exposed Days Before Election

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A socialist candidate for New York’s state Senate finds out on Thursday whether odd revelations about her life story will doom her bid to join the ranks of leftist insurgents knocking out mainstream Democrats.

Julia Salazar’s campaign against Sen. Martin Dilan, a 16-year incumbent in Brooklyn’s 18th Senate District, began attracting attention after fellow Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored a surprise win in June’s congressional primary.

But recently, the race has become a soap opera as reporters began digging into Salazar’s background.

Salazar, 27, faced criticism for saying she was an immigrant from Colombia who struggled financially when she was actually born in Florida and had hundreds of thousands of dollars in a trust fund. She was scrutinized, too, over a political and religious conversion during her years at Columbia University, where she transformed from a Republican, anti-abortion Christian to a hard-left, Jewish Democrat. One group revoked its endorsement after learning Salazar hadn’t graduated from Columbia, as she said on its survey.

Salazar said she “inadvertently misrepresented” her history.

Then things really got strange. Reporters revealed that in 2011, Salazar was accused of attempted bank fraud by the estranged wife of a famous neighbor, former New York Met Keith Hernandez.

Salazar was arrested but not prosecuted. She later filed a lawsuit accusing Hernandez’s wife, Kai Hernandez, of trying to frame her because Hernandez erroneously believed Salazar was having an affair with her husband. Kai Hernandez settled the lawsuit for $20,000.

Then, two days before the election, The Daily Caller told the Salazar campaign it was about to publish a story identifying her as a woman who had anonymously accused a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sexual assault.

Saying she didn’t want to be “outed” against her will, Salazar tweeted about the incident, saying the Netanyahu aide, David Keyes, had bullied her into an unwanted sex act.

Keyes called it a false allegation “made by someone who has proven to be repeatedly dishonest about her own life.” He has since denied allegations by other women who accused him of aggressive sexual behavior.

Salazar says unfair scrutiny has obscured her message that Dilan hasn’t done enough to fight gentrification.

Dilan, 67, said his constituents will stick with him over Salazar, who he described as a pretender and a gentrifier herself.

Keyes called it a false allegation “made by someone who has proven to be repeatedly dishonest about her own life.” He has since denied allegations by other women who accused him of aggressive sexual behavior.

Salazar says unfair scrutiny has obscured her message that Dilan hasn’t done enough to fight gentrification.

Dilan, 67, said his constituents will stick with him over Salazar, who he described as a pretender and a gentrifier herself. (For more from the author of “Rising Socialist Candidate’s Bizarre Past Exposed Days Before Election” please click HERE)

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A Veteran Reporter Who Covered Hurricane Katrina Has a Grim Warning for Anyone in Hurricane Florence’s Path Who Doesn’t Evacuate

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A veteran reporter who covered Hurricane Katrina in 2005 gave a dark warning on Tuesday to people refusing to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Florence: “Write your Social Security number on your arm, so officials can identify your body.”

Mark Schleifstein has been reporting on hurricanes and severe weather for the New Orleans newspaper The Times-Picayune since 1984, and he was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Category 5 Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Florence is expected to start pounding the US around North Carolina’s border with South Carolina as early as Thursday night, according to the National Hurricane Center’s latest predictions. Evacuations have been ordered in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Officials say the biggest danger is from storm surges and heavy rain, which the NHC says could cause floodwaters as high as 13 feet in some areas.

. . .

Schleifstein’s advice on Tuesday to those residents who won’t leave their homes is informed by his articles on Katrina. He covered the more than 1,800 deaths from the hurricane, many of which were due to flooding. (Read more from “A Veteran Reporter Who Covered Hurricane Katrina Has a Grim Warning for Anyone in Hurricane Florence’s Path Who Doesn’t Evacuate” HERE)

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Meh: New Poll Shows Voters Aren’t Thrilled Obama Is Back

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President Obama officially jumped back into politics last week ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. By berating Republicans and President Trump during a speech at the University of Illinois, the former President is trying to get voters to the polls in November.

“As a fellow citizen I’m here to deliver a simple message and that is that you need to vote, because our democracy depends on it,” Obama said. “Just a glance at recent headlines should tell you that this moment really is different, the stakes really are higher.”

But according to a new poll from Rasmussen Reports, voters aren’t exactly thrilled Obama is back.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 38% of Likely U.S. Voters say they are more likely to vote for a candidate whom Obama campaigns for, while 36% say they are less likely. Twenty-four percent (24%) feel an Obama endorsement has no impact on their vote.

Sixty-five percent (65%) of Democrats say they are more likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by Obama, while 57% of Republicans are less likely to vote for such a candidate. Among voters not affiliated with either political party, 26% say more likely, 36% say less likely and 35% say about the same.

(Read more from “Meh: New Poll Shows Voters Aren’t Thrilled Obama Is Back” HERE)

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‘Monster’ Florence Aims to Drench Carolinas as Waves Within Hurricane More Than 80 Feet High

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By CBS Local. Coastal residents fleeing a potentially devastating blow from Hurricane Florence encountered empty gasoline pumps and depleted store shelves as the monster storm neared the Carolina coast with 125 mph winds and drenching rain that could last for days.

The hurricane was downgraded to a Category 2 on Wednesday evening, but it is still a large and dangerous storm. As of 11 p.m., the storm was centered 280 miles southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina, and was moving northwest at 17 mph.

But the National Hurricane Center said Wednesday evening that the storm is expected to bring life-threatening storm surge and rainfall to the Carolinas as it approaches the coast Thursday and Friday.

The National Hurricane Center’s Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch said waves within the hurricane were more than 80 feet high.

“Wave heights to 83 ft were measured early this morning under the NE quadrant of Hurricane Florence. These enormous waves are produced by being trapped along with very strong winds moving in the same direction the storm’s motion,” the branch said earlier Wednesdayfge. (Read more from “‘Monster’ Florence Aims to Drench Carolinas as Waves Within Hurricane More Than 80 Feet High” HERE)

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83-Foot Wave Recorded by Satellite Monitoring Hurricane Florence

By CBS Local. A National Weather Service satellite monitoring Hurricane Florence has recorded a wave reaching 83 feet in the storm churning in the Atlantic Ocean.

That’s more than eight stories tall, for reference.

A satellite altimeter under the northeast quadrant, the strongest area of the storm, recorded the wave. It ranged 59 to 83 feet Wednesday morning. (Read more from “83-Foot Wave Recorded by Satellite Monitoring Hurricane Florence” HERE)

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James Woods Digs up Harrowing Security Footage to Bury Nike

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By Conservative Tribune. Upholding Kaepernick as someone who is willing to sacrifice “everything” for his beliefs is alarming, especially to actor James Woods, who is not at all happy about Nike’s endorsement of Kaepernick.

Especially when those words on the ad can be literally applied to the very police officers Kaepernick is so staunchly against, or those serving under the flag Kaepernick won’t stand for. . .


The Cincinnati Police Department released security footage and body camera video from the Thursday incident, in which a man opened fire on the lobby of the Fifth Third Bancorp headquarters in downtown Cincinnati.

The man, who has been identified as 29-year-old Omar Enrique Santa Perez, walked into the lobby with a gun and a briefcase containing hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Talking to The State, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters repeated the words of one of the investigators, who believed it could have been “a bloodbath beyond imagination. (Read more from “James Woods Digs up Harrowing Security Footage to Bury Nike” HERE)

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Cincinnati Police Release Footage of Gunman ‘Firing Shots at Anyone He Sees’

By Fox News. Police have released security footage of the gunman who killed three people in a Cincinnati office on Thursday, “firing shots at anyone he sees.”

The Cincinnati Police Department released security footage from inside the lobby of the Fifth Third Bancorp headquarters in downtown Cincinnati from Thursday. Authorities also released body camera footage from the incident.

The footage showed Omar Enrique Santa Perez, 29, walking in the lobby with his gun held up. Police said Santa Perez was carrying a briefcase containing hundreds of rounds of ammunition over his shoulder. A security officer was seen helping people get to a safe location as the gunman was “firing shots at anyone he sees,” Police Chief Eliot Isaac said on Friday.

Body camera footage from the officers showed them approaching the gunman. The footage showed the officers shooting through the glass of the lobby. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported the officers fired 11 shots, taking out the gunman.

“You could see in the video … the guy is shooting at the cops,” Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley said. “[You can see] them not being afraid and engaging and ending it.” (Read more from “Cincinnati Police Release Footage of Gunman ‘Firing Shots at Anyone He Sees'” HERE)

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Kyle Kashuv Uses His Knowledge of Fellow Student David Hogg to Crush Him

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. . .For the very few Americans who might still be unfamiliar with the two, Hogg and Kashuv both survived the Parkland shooting. Hogg went on to become the young voice of gun control, Kashuv a nationally known Second Amendment defender who believes security and and preparedness are the best way to defend against mass shootings.

When we recently saw the two facing off on Twitter, Hogg had tweeted something about how fighting bad guys with guns with good guys with guns is like fighting wildfires with more fires — it doesn’t work. Kashuv pointed out that controlled burns are actually one of the best ways to stop wildfires. Point and match.

The latest face-off has to do with Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general the National Rifle Association just endorsed for another term.

Yes, Vic Mensa — the rapper who performed at the “March for Our Lives” anti-gun demonstration in Washington in March — has a previous conviction for a firearms offense in 2017. . .

“Police found a loaded firearm in the car. Although Mensa had a license to carry in another state, the permit was not valid in California. After his arrest, Mensa was released on $35,000 bail. (Read more from “Kyle Kashuv Uses His Knowledge of Fellow Student David Hogg to Crush Him” HERE)

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