Sheriff Joe Arpaio: I’m Running for U.S. Senate!!!

I have thought long and hard about this decision. And I did not make it without many discussions with my wonderful wife of over sixty years, Ava. And Ava agrees with me. We cannot sit idly by while our nation faces unprecedented challenges. President Trump needs my help in the Senate. He needs a conservative vote he can count on, and a voice in the Senate who knows first hand the threats our nation is dealing with.

And, that’s why I’m running for United States Senate.

As the Sheriff of America’s fourth-most populous county for two decades, I witnessed every day the danger our streets and neighborhoods are facing. As Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, my deputies and I locked up violent drug dealers, callous human traffickers, and thousands of criminal gang members that were in this country illegally.

Friend, with many of President Obama’s failed and dangerous policies still in place, our nation is not safe – at least not yet. President Trump is working around the clock to make America great again, but he can’t do this alone – he needs our conservative voice and my vote in Washington.

Compared to when I was growing up in Springfield, Massachusetts as the proud son of Italian immigrants, our country today is barely recognizable. You know exactly what I’m talking about…

*Sanctuary cities like San Francisco are literally refusing to hold illegal immigrants accountable for their actions, just to further their politically correct, pro-Amnesty agenda.

*The once bedrock American commitment to paying our bills has been replaced by over $20 Trillion in national debt.

*The liberal Left attacks the rights of law abiding gun owners — but doesn’t even bat an eye while so-called “doctors” slaughter millions of unborn children in their mother’s womb every single year.

*Millionaire athletes are lionized by the fake news media as “heroes” for disrespecting the American flag and refusing to stand for our national anthem.

Enough is enough. I’m running for Senate because I want America to be great again.

I know this isn’t going to be easy. I know I’ll be attacked by the far left, the establishment right and of course, the liberal media. The media are going to say every nasty thing they can think of and try to break me. But I have never been one to shy away from a fight – and I can’t in good conscience sit back in retirement knowing that my grandchildren will inherit a country worse off than the America I’ve spent my entire life defending.

Friend, I have watched the liberal media try to tear President Trump to shreds… I know firsthand how gutless and ruthless they are. They’ve tried every trick in their liberal book against me, so I know how tough this Senate campaign is going to be.

Unlike my liberal opponent who is sitting on millions in campaign cash, at the end of the day I’m a retired public servant living on a retired public servant’s salary.

Add in the fact that the ACLU, La Raza, and the gaggle of liberal groups that have tried to take me down over the years will no doubt join the fray against me, I truly face an uphill battle.

My announcement today is certain to send a shockwave across Arizona and our country. History is going to be made in 2018, starting with what happens here in Arizona and with my announcement today.

Bundy Case Dismissed in Staggering Blow to Federal Government

By WND. In a blistering rebuke to the federal government, a judge dismissed all charges against rancher Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and militia member Ryan Payne stemming from an armed standoff with federal agents in 2014.

Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro issued a scathing analysis of the government’s conduct, terming it “outrageous.”

“There has been flagrant misconduct, substantial prejudice and no lesser remedy is sufficient,” she said.

The charges were dismissed “with prejudice,” which means the federal government will not be able to retry the men.

The same judge declared a mistrial in the case late last month, citing prosecutorial misconduct. (Read more from “Bundy Case Dismissed in Staggering Blow to Federal Government” HERE)

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Cliven Bundy Emerges Defiant After Nevada Case Against Him and His Sons Tossed

By Ken Ritter. The Nevada rancher accused of leading an armed standoff that stopped federal agents from rounding up his cattle in 2014 walked out of a courthouse in Las Vegas a free and defiant man Monday, declaring that his fight against U.S. authority is not over.

Cliven Bundy emerged to supporters’ cheers, while environmental and conservation advocates worried that the dismissal of his charges would bolster “violent and racist anti-government” followers who aim to erode established parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands controlled by U.S. officials.

“We’re not done with this,” the 71-year-old Bundy declared in his first minutes of freedom since his arrest in February 2016. (Read more from “Cliven Bundy Emerges Defiant After Nevada Case Against Him and His Sons Tossed” HERE)

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Mandalay Bay Admits Staff Visited Paddock’s Room 10 TIMES Before Shooting — Noticed Nothing

Three months after the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, yet another crucial change in the narrative has occurred as MGM Resorts International is now claiming that the hotel staff at Mandalay Bay had at least 10 interactions with suspect Stephen Paddock in the days before the shooting.

At least two of those interactions occurred on Oct. 1, the day that Paddock is alleged to have killed 58 people and injured more than 500 by launching a shooting spree out of his hotel room window on the 32nd floor. A spokesperson for MGM told The Las Vegas Review-Journal that the interactions on that fatal day consisted of a room service delivery and a visit from housekeeping:

Mandalay Bay staff, room service and housekeeping had contact with Paddock or entered his suite more than 10 times over the course of his stay, including the three days leading up to October 1. There were numerous interactions with Stephen Paddock every day at the resort, including a room service delivery and a call with housekeeping on October 1, all of which were normal in nature.

Following the shooting, reports claimed that Paddock’s arsenal consisted of 47 guns—23 of which were found in his hotel room—along with more than 50 pounds of exploding targets and 1,600 rounds of ammunition.

While the hotel’s surveillance footage from the days leading up to the shooting has yet to be released, one of the most pressing questions surrounding the massacre is how Paddock was able to transport all of the weapons and supplies to his hotel room without raising any red flags.

During an interview with Fox News Sunday one week after the shooting, chief executive of Wynn Resorts, Steve Wynn, suggested that Paddock may have escaped public attention by taking the service elevator, a perk typically given to “high rollers.”

“You’d never stop a man like this (Paddock) from coming in the building,” Wynn said. “However, nobody in this company’s history, no public person, has ever walked in the service elevator unless they were accompanied by security. Uh, that wouldn’t happen.”

At the time, Wynn was also critical of Mandalay Bay for failing to make contact with Paddock for two or three days, with the assumption being that he put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door of his room during his stay.

“The scenario that we are aware of would have indicated that he didn’t let anyone in the room for two or three days. That would have triggered a whole bunch of alarms here,” Wynn said.

The latest change in the timeline is significant because it implies that hotel staff were in Paddock’s room at least twice on the day of the shooting, and did not notice anything out of the ordinary about his luggage or his behavior.

While Wynn claimed that the scenario he was aware of involved Paddock using a “Do Not Disturb” sign for up to three days, the spokesperson for MGM claimed that if Paddock had done this, it would have required the hotel staff to conduct a welfare check.

“All MGM Resorts properties follow a health and welfare check operating procedure that stipulates a welfare check be performed after two consecutive days where a do-not-disturb sign has been displayed on the door and the guest has not interacted in-person or by phone with housekeeping or other hotel staff over the same period,” the spokesperson said.

Craig Eiland, an attorney for a number of victims from the shooting, noted that MGM Grand claims to have a “corporate watch center” that trains its employees to report any suspicious activity. So if a guest arrived at Mandalay Bay Hotel with two dozen rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition stored in 10 bags, why didn’t the employees who helped him, or the cleaning service who visited his room regularly, report suspicious activity? And if they did, why wasn’t it addressed?

I do think that after 30 days, we ought to be having more information than we have right now. For example, we know bits and pieces. We know that he arrived with 10 bags. We know that two bellmen helped him carry those bags up. Then we find out that those 10 bags had guns in them and 5,000 rounds of ammunition. We know that MGM claims to have an ‘If you see something, say something’ policy—and you’re telling us that nobody saw those guns over a 5-day period? No maid, no housekeeping, no food service ever saw any of the guns? Nobody saw him using power drills in the hallway? Nobody saw him setting up security cameras? These are all things that need to be answered.

However, the statement from MGM Resorts International concluded that despite having at least 10 interactions with Paddock in the days leading up to the shooting, the hotel staff believed that “there was no need to conduct a welfare check.”

As The Free Thought Project has reported, the narrative of the shooting has changed multiple times. From the facts surrounding whether an officer discharged his weapon upon entering Paddock’s room, to the presence of police and security guards when the shooting began, the official story has been riddled with inconsistencies. (For more from the author of “Mandalay Bay Admits Staff Visited Paddock’s Room 10 TIMES Before Shooting — Noticed Nothing” please click HERE)

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After Golden Globes Speech, James Woods Shares 3 Photos From Oprah’s Past

After Oprah Winfrey’s highly publicized speech at the Golden Globes sparked speculation of a presidential run, actor James Woods tweeted three pictures of her with disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

Winfrey, who starred in The Weinstein Company film “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” in 2013, is shown hanging on his shoulder in one picture posted by Woods.

In another, she appears to be showering affection on Weinstein.

Finally, in a third photo, Winfrey offers what looks to be a reassuring hand to Rita Ora, as Weinstein reaches over to touch the young singer.

As reported by The Western Journal, British actress Kadian Noble said that Weinstein used Winfrey and actress Naomi Campbell to fool her into believing he would further her acting career.

Noble had met Weinstein in 2014 at a British Academy Film Awards after-party.

There, Weinstein allegedly introduced Noble to Winfrey and Campbell, before telling Noble that he had an interest in her acting ability.

Noble claimed to have been impressed by Weinstein after she witnessed Winfrey “swinging off his arm.”

The actress recounted that instead of helping her career he only wanted to have sex with her.

Woods also took NBC to task for tweeting a picture of Winfrey from the Golden Globes with the caption, “Nothing but respect for OUR future president,” The Daily Wire reported.

NBC later took the tweet down explaining a “third party agency” posted the picture for the NBC Entertainment Network, and it was in reference to a joke host Seth Meyers told in his opening monologue.

Woods quipped in response, “But assure our followers we will still work behind the scenes to enable the #DNC agenda as always.”

CNN reported Monday that Winfrey is “actively thinking” about running for president in 2020.

One unnamed source said the conversations about a run for office goes back several months, but Winfrey has not made a decision.

Winfrey’s longtime partner, Stedman Graham, who attended the Golden Globes with her on Sunday, told the Los Angeles Times afterwards that a presidential bid is “up to the people.”

“She would absolutely do it,” he added.

Earlier in the evening, Meyers fed into the speculation with a joke at the Globes.

“Oprah,” Meyers said, looking out at her in the audience, “in 2011, I told some jokes about our current president at the White House Correspondents Dinner — jokes about how he was unqualified to be president — and some have said that night convinced him to run. So if that’s true, I just want to say: Oprah, you will never be president! You do not have what it takes!”

Asked about a potential Winfrey run, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said President Trump would “welcome all comers,” according to The Washington Times.

Gidley stated, “We welcome the challenge, whether it be Oprah Winfrey or anybody else.” (For more from the author of “After Golden Globes Speech, James Woods Shares 3 Photos From Oprah’s Past Oprah’s Past” please click HERE)

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Donald Trump to Senate: “Kiss My A**”; Renominates Court Picks Rated ‘Not Qualified’ to Serve

President Donald Trump on Monday resubmitted 21 judicial nominees to the Senate whose nominations expired in 2017 ― including two rated “not qualified” to be federal judges by the American Bar Association.

Charles Goodwin and Holly Teeter are among those in the president’s renominations. The ABA concluded in December that Goodwin, Trump’s nominee to a lifetime seat on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, is unqualified to fulfill the demands of a federal judge given his “work habits.” The ABA concluded in November that Teeter, Trump’s nominee to a lifetime seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, is not qualified based on her lack of trial court experience.

Judicial nominees rarely earn such an abysmal rating from the ABA, which has reviewed more than 1,700 federal judicial nominees since 1989. None of President Barack Obama’s nominees were rated “not qualified” during his eight years in office. Eight of President George W. Bush’s earned the rating during his two terms. In Trump’s case, four have earned the rating in his first year. Senate Republicans actually confirmed one of them, for some reason. The other one bowed out in embarrassment.

Part of Trump’s problem is that he’s flying through judicial nominations without much vetting, and he’s not submitting potential court picks to the ABA before he announces their nominations. Most presidents wait for the ABA rating to come out before announcing a nominee, in part to save face in case one of their nominees gets a bad rating. Obama had a handful of potential court picks who got a “not qualified” rating, but then they were never formally nominated.

Progressive advocacy groups are urging Senate GOP leaders to stop being a rubber stamp for Trump’s questionable court picks, despite being in the same party as him. (Read more from “Donald Trump Renominates Court Picks Rated ‘Not Qualified’ to Serve” HERE)

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FBI Agents’ Text Messages Spur Congressional Probe Into Possible News Leaks

Republican-led House and Senate committees are investigating whether leaders of the Russia counterintelligence investigation had contacts with the news media that resulted in improper leaks, prompted in part by text messages amongst senior FBI officials mentioning specific reporters, news organizations and articles.

In one exchange, FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and bureau lawyer Lisa Page engaged in a series of texts shortly before Election Day 2016 suggesting they knew in advance about an article in The Wall Street Journal and would need to feign stumbling onto the story so it could be shared with colleagues.

The text messages, which were reviewed by The Hill, show the two FBI agents discussed how they might make it appear they innocently discovered the article, such as through Google News alerts.

“I can get it like I do every other article that hits any Google News alerts, seriously,” Strzok wrote, adding he didn’t want his team hearing about the article “from someone else.”

Strzok played a key role in the early Russia election meddling probe before he was removed last summer by special counsel Robert Mueller for exchanging text messages critical of President Trump, then still a candidate, with Page. (Read more from “FBI Agents’ Text Messages Spur Congressional Probe Into Possible News Leaks” HERE)

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It’s Only January, and This Might Be the Biggest Bonehead of 2018

A Houston man with a remarkably distinctive tattoo is wanted in connection with several aggravated robberies on the city’s northside.

“They’re calling this guy ‘Social Security’ because he actually has his Social Security (number) tattooed across his forehead,” veteran Houston police investigator, Frank Heenan, said.

In fact, Robert Wooten, 40, has several tattoos, another appears to indicate his area code.

The numbers “713” appear prominently on his neck.

A man identified by police in surveillance video as Wooten shows him with a gun to the back of a pawn shop clerk. (Read more from “It’s Only January, and This Might Be the Biggest Bonehead of 2018” HERE)

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Supremes Allow Law Exempting Christians From Homosexual Promotion

Ever since five liberal justices on the U.S. Supreme Court created same-sex “marriage” – with two arguably having breached ethics rules by advocating for same-sex “marriage” while the case was pending – homosexual activists have been using the legal system to punish defenders of traditional marriage . . .

The high court has refused to intervene in a case regarding a Missouri state law that protects from retaliation or punishment of people who believe marriage is the union of one man and one woman, that gender is determined at birth and that sex is reserved for married couples.

The court’s decision not to intervene left standing a ruling from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that said the complainants didn’t have standing, meaning they didn’t suffer a specific injury.

The complaint was brought against the state’s Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act, signed into law in April 2016.

A federal district court blocked the law’s implementation, but the 5th Circuit allowed it to take effect, and now the Supreme Court’s decision not to intervene leaves the law in place. (Read more from “Supremes Allow Law Exempting Christians From Homosexual Promotion” HERE)

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Years After Retiring, Secret Service Agent Reveals How Clinton Sex Trysts Endangered Lives

In a new book released to the public this week, retired Secret Service agent Gary Byrne has revealed how former President Bill Clinton’s endless appetite for sex put the lives of those assigned to protect him in danger.

Byrne, who protected Clinton during his time in the Secret Service’s Uniform Division, claimed that Clinton often wanted a small motorcade to follow him around as he made trips that were “off the record,” or OTR, according to the Washington Examiner.

Often, these trips were made “for highly honorable reasons,” like when Clinton went to meet with the grieving widow of a high-ranking military official who had died.

“But the freedom of OTRs under this president was soon to be abused,” Byrne continued, before noting that in one case, an off-the-record trip “nearly cost an officer his life.”

“President Clinton used the OTRs to visit the well-known and lesser-known mistresses he frequented outside the complex, meaning the ones who did not have access to the White House,” he wrote.

The incident to which he was referring allegedly took place when the then-president was traveling to see one of these mistresses.

The driver of one of the cars in the motorcade, identified by Byrne as “Reverend,” was attempting to keep up with the convoy of cars, leading to him running through a red light and getting hit by a car coming through the intersection.

“Due to the haphazard, improvised, and extremely dangerous way the motorcade was operating, the tail car was T-boned by a civilian car correctly crossing the intersection at a green light,” Byrne said.

“It wasn’t that Reverend’s car just missed the red light. But many of the cars in front of him had missed the light as well, and he had simply followed through.”

For the civilian, the light had been green for some time, and the car had picked up speed “from a significant distance away.”

In the resulting crash, “Reverend was severely injured, as were another officer and two civilians,” according to Byrne.

Though the convoy did not stop, local police were alerted, which is how they eventually found out about the secret motorcades.

“Reverend,” meanwhile, had to be taken to the hospital “with a severe traumatic brain injury.”

Following the incident, Byrne claims the Secret Service attempted to stop “Reverend” from getting payments. It was only after he threatened to reveal the details of what had happened in court that the agency finally relented.

But the incident had caused many of those assigned to protect Clinton to question whether they were risking their lives for something — or someone — worthwhile.

“Word of what had happened to Reverend spread like wildfire through the Uniformed Division because any UD officer could have been in Reverend’s place,” Byrne wrote.

“And although many would take a bullet for the president, what was the risk for? Were Clinton’s sordid personal affairs worth an officer’s life? Was that the duty we had signed up for, the reason we spent so much time away from our families?”

This is not the first time that Byrne has gone public with claims about the Clintons.

In his 2016, book, titled “Crisis of Character,” the former agent “reveals what he observed of Hillary Clinton’s character and the culture inside the White House while protecting the First Family,” according to the book’s Amazon description. (For more from the author of “Years After Retiring, Secret Service Agent Reveals How Clinton Sex Trysts Endangered Lives” please click HERE)

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Bannon Regrets Trashing Trump in Family Book

By Mike Allen. Battered by the backlash from Michael Wolff’s book, Steve Bannon is trying to make amends with the Trump family, providing a statement to Axios that expresses “regret” to President Trump and praises his son, Donald Trump Jr.

“Donald Trump, Jr. is both a patriot and a good man. He has been relentless in his advocacy for his father and the agenda that has helped turn our country around.”

“My support is also unwavering for the president and his agenda — as I have shown daily in my national radio broadcasts, on the pages of Breitbart News and in speeches and appearances from Tokyo and Hong Kong to Arizona and Alabama.”

“President Trump was the only candidate that could have taken on and defeated the Clinton apparatus. I am the only person to date to conduct a global effort to preach the message of Trump and Trumpism; and remain ready to stand in the breech for this president’s efforts to make America great again.”

“My comments about the meeting with Russian nationals came from my life experiences as a Naval officer stationed aboard a destroyer whose main mission was to hunt Soviet submarines to my time at the Pentagon during the Reagan years when our focus was the defeat of ‘the evil empire’ and to making films about Reagan’s war against the Soviets and Hillary Clinton’s involvement in selling uranium to them.”

(Read more from “Bannon Regrets Trashing Trump in Family Book” HERE)

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How Bannonism Got Trumped

By Paul Waldman. The story of Bannon and Trump’s relationship isn’t just about a couple of colorful characters; it also tells us something important about this presidency and the Republican Party. Even if Wolff’s book had never come out, Bannonism was already dead. In the era of Trump, it never had a chance . . .

The first policy shifts that grew out of Bannon’s ideas, like efforts to clamp down on both legal and illegal immigration, were certainly amenable to President Trump. But as Trump now understands, he never had Bannon’s loyalty. Bannon saw Trump only as a vehicle for his own agenda, one Trump was never going to fully appreciate in all its ambitious majesty, even if the candidate might share pieces of it. What Trump certainly shared was its destructive force, the idea that smashing existing norms and institutions was essential to doing what Bannon wanted.

And Bannon certainly had something to offer Trump. His dark genius, such as it was, lay in identifying groups of angry people who could be mobilized for a political end, whether they really understood what that end was or not. As Joshua Green, author of the book Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency, explains, even before Bannon took over Breitbart News and later became CEO of the Trump campaign, a brief experience in the video game industry “awakened him to the power of what he called ‘rootless white males’ who spend all their time online. And five years later when Bannon wound up at Breitbart, he resolved to try and attract those people over to Breitbart because he thought they could be radicalized in a kind of populist, nationalist way.”

They were, but even after Bannon helped guide Trump to victory, he may have overestimated the degree to which Trump voters were actually in the market for a clash of civilizations. (Read more from “How Bannonism Got Trumped” HERE)

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