Trump Flings Open U.S. Doors to Refugees From All Countries

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America’s refugee door is swinging back open Tuesday as the Trump administration said it will now accept refugees from all countries into the U.S., with more stringent vetting for newcomers from 11 unidentified “high-risk nations.”

President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday imposing more enhanced vetting procedures for the refugee applicants from the 11 nations.

While officials refused to name the 11 high-risk nations, the Washington Times reported that they include Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mali, North Korea, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Applicants from those nations will be required to show that they will contribute to America’s national interests before refugee status can be granted.

“There will be a general resumption of refugee admissions under this exec order,” a senior administration official told Fox News. “While that review is ongoing, refugee admissions from the 11 countries will be considered on a case-by-case basis and poses [sic] no threat to the welfare of the United States.”

In June, President Trump ordered that the Department of Homeland Security establish an “extreme vetting” process to ensure “radical Islamic terrorists” won’t enter the U.S. while claiming refugee status. The president instituted a 120-day freeze on the refugee program, but that freeze expired Tuesday. (Read more from “Trump Flings Open U.S. Doors to Refugees From All Countries” HERE)

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City Uses ‘Dirty Play’ to Squelch Citizen Revolt Over Refugees

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What happened at the St. Cloud, Minnesota, City Council on Monday night is being described as a well-organized “ambush” designed to shut down a citizen uprising or “pocket of resistance” against runaway refugee resettlement in the small city.

College-age students filled the council chambers. Only five people were allowed to approach the podium and speak, all of them in favor of unlimited refugee resettlement with no accountability to the taxpayer . . .

And the local Somali community is now celebrating.

It all started when several of the council members who support unlimited refugee resettlement with no financial accountability to the taxpayer were informed that one of their colleagues, Councilman Jeff Johnson, planned to introduce a resolution at their Nov. 6 meeting calling for a moratorium on all resettlements in St. Cloud until an economic impact study could be completed.

Johnson’s resolution would also require the city to verify that it is in full compliance with all facets of the federal Refugee Act of 1980 as signed by then-president Jimmy Carter. (Read more from “City Uses ‘Dirty Play’ to Squelch Citizen Revolt Over Refugees” HERE)

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Governor Reverses Ban on Men in Women’s Bathrooms

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By Bob Unruh. Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has completed the reversal of state legislation that barred men from women’s public restrooms and showers.

The move is drawing a warning from one of the state’s most prominent personalities: Franklin Graham.

The CEO and president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse commented Monday via Facebook after Cooper signed an executive order allowing people to use facilities according to their “gender identity” rather that biological sex.

“North Carolinians have been betrayed by Governor Roy Cooper. The people of this state are now going to be exposed to pedophiles and sexually perverted men in women’s public restrooms,” Graham wrote. (Read more from “Governor Reverses Ban on Men in Women’s Bathrooms” HERE)

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NC Governor Signs Order Allowing ‘Gender Identity’ to Determine Bathroom Use

By Townhall. The back and forth between the state’s legislature and former governor on one side and proponents of the LGBT community on the other seems to have come to an end. North Carolina’s current governor, Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC), signed an executive order on Thursday that forces businesses to allow men and women to choose whichever bathroom they prefer.

North Carolina’s former Republican governor, Pat McCrory, prevented the transgender bathroom policy from moving forward and received backlash from politicians on the Left, celebrities and musicians stating they would not perform in the state, and sports organizations like the NBA.

While the executive order is now in effect, conservative and religious groups are pushing back against the measure. At the same time, members of the LGBT community are still not happy with Gov. Cooper as they do not believe the executive order goes far enough.

Earlier this year Gov. Cooper signed HB 142 into law. HB 142 was meant to weaken the HB 2 legislation that was signed into law by former Gov. McCrory. Initially, HB 142 kept the provision that stated men and women could only use showers and bathrooms that aligned with the sex that was found on their birth certificate. The executive order has now removed that provision but does not repeal HB 2 entirely, which the LGBT community wants to see. (Read more from “NC Governor Signs Order Allowing ‘Gender Identity’ to Determine Bathroom Use” HERE)

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NFL Stadiums Nearly Empty Due to Anthem Backlash

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The NFL likely hoped for a return to normalcy for Week 6, especially after Commissioner Goodell’s call to “move past the anthem controversy,” and address the issue in detail at league meetings on Tuesday. Instead, what the NFL got was a return to what has become the “new normal” in the age of anthem protests: empty seats.

Throughout the league, stadiums could be seen with thousands of empty seats at kickoff, and, in some cases in the middle of the game.

Here is a pic with several empty, or near empty stadiums at kickoff on Sunday:

(Read more from “NFL Stadiums Nearly Empty Due to Anthem Backlash” HERE)

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Kate Steinle’s Killer Goes on Trial as Kate’s Law Goes Nowhere

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The trial for the illegal immigrant who shot and killed Kate Steinle on a San Francisco pier in 2015 begins this week. It brings the case to a close but leaves the immigration debate far from settled and the law passed in her name stalled in the U.S. Senate.

Jose Ines Garcia Zarate claims that Steinle’s death was an accident. He said he found a handgun wrapped in a T-shirt under a bench on the pier and that it fired as he tried to extract it, shooting the 32-year-old Steinle in the back while she was walking with her father.

The handgun originally belonged to a Bureau of Land Management ranger who had reported it stolen a week before the shooting. Zarate has been charged with second-degree murder and will face a maximum sentence of 15 years to life in prison if convicted.

Now 54, Zarate had been deported five times previously. On the campaign trail, President Trump criticized the state of California’s weak immigration policy for failing to keep Steinle’s killer out of the country. President Trump strongly supported the passage of Kate’s Law, which would increase penalties for those who attempt to reenter the country after deportation.

The House of Representatives passed Kate’s Law in June with bipartisan support, but the Senate has yet to act upon it.

The Senate will need to meet a 60-vote threshold to pass the bill, meaning eight Democratic senators will need to cross the aisle to move the bill past a filibuster for a full vote on the Senate floor.

But there is no indication when the Republican majority in the Senate will decide it’s time to try to get Kate’s Law to the president’s desk. Having failed to repeal Obamacare several times, the top Republican priority is the passage of a budget that will add $1.5 trillion to the deficit in order to set the stage for tax reform to pass under budget reconciliation.

Kate’s Law seems to have fallen out of the national policy discussion. In early October, the Trump administration released a list of immigration priorities the Democrats must agree to in exchange for DACA amnesty. While there was general support for increased border security in the president’s ask, there was no specific mention of Kate’s Law.

This is disappointing — Kate’s Law was a “day one” promise of Trump. The trial of Steinle’s killer presents the president with an opportunity to ensure the Senate gets to work on fulfilling the president’s campaign promise. (For more from the author of “Kate Steinle’s Killer Goes on Trial as Kate’s Law Goes Nowhere” please click HERE)

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Poll: Americans Stand With Trump on Iran Nuclear Deal

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The American people stand strongly with President Trump on the controversy of the Iran nuclear deal.

After choosing to forgo recertifying the deal last week, the president has called on Congress to renegotiate the terms of the deal with the nuclear weapons-seeking Iranian regime. An overwhelming majority of voters — 70 percent — say the Obama-era deal should be renegotiated, according to a new Harvard-Harris Poll.

Broken down by party affiliation, 85 percent of Republicans, 71 percent of independents, and 57 percent of Democrats support new terms of the deal.

A 60 percent majority of Americans believes Obama’s deal with Iran was bad for the U.S, and two-thirds of those surveyed believes Iran has not complied with the terms, including half of Democratic voters.

In a rebuke of the Obama administration’s style of unilateral decision-making, a whopping 81 percent said a new deal needs to be received by Congress as a treaty and should require Senate approval.

After President Trump decertified the Iran deal, Congress has 60 days to act and put sanctions against Iran back in place. If Congress fails to act, the president has declared he will officially cancel the deal. (For more from the author of “Poll: Americans Stand With Trump on Iran Nuclear Deal” please click HERE)

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Men Taking Classes to Unlearn ‘Toxic Masculinity’

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. . .So earlier this year, Hicks signed up for the pilot Rethink Masculinity class, a partnership between the Washington, D.C., Rape Crisis Center, Collective Action for Safe Spaces, and ReThink, an organization that works to prevent sexual assault.

The program bills itself as a class where men “learn how social constructs of masculinity harm them and the people around them, and work to construct healthier masculinities.” Or, as Hicks puts it, “It was eight weeks of guys discussing how they can address their actions with better self-awareness and less toxicity.”

“We spoke of emotional labor, consent, violence, communication, empathy, and vulnerability,” he adds, noting that the last subject, in particular, was a struggle for him: “[I was] trained and conditioned to be tough growing up.”

The Rethink program is the latest in a growing number of courses targeted toward people who identify as men, including the Men’s Project at the University of Wisconsin, Masculinity 101 at Brown, and the Duke Men’s Project at Duke. The goal, proponents say, is to help men examine their own biases and behaviors in order to cut down on misogyny and gender-based violence. (Read more from “Men Taking Classes to Unlearn ‘Toxic Masculinity'” HERE)

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House Conservatives Say Tax Bill Draft Is Coming Within Days

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By Bloomberg. House and Senate leaders laid out an ambitious schedule for drafting and releasing tax legislation over the next few weeks — a set of deadlines that must be met to try to achieve President Donald Trump’s goal of delivering major tax-rate cuts by year’s end.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows said Monday he’s been promised that the House Ways and Means Committee will release its plan about seven days after this Thursday’s scheduled vote on a budget resolution. That would mean a bill text would be published on or before Friday, Nov. 3.

On Monday evening, Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady said only that the timing for a bill “is very shortly.”

“On the day that budget is approved, signed, sealed and delivered,” he’ll announce plans for marking up tax legislation, said Brady, a Texas Republican. He said during the annual meeting of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association that “the timing is accelerated” for tax legislation after the House decided to vote on the Senate’s version of the budget. (Read more from “House Conservatives Say Tax Bill Draft Is Coming Within Days” HERE)

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Trump’s Promises Narrow GOP’s Options on Tax Bill

By The Washington Post. Republicans are accelerating efforts to fill in key details of their plan for massive tax cuts, but as lawmakers work to turn their proposal into legislation, President Trump’s numerous tax promises are proving difficult to keep.

On Monday, Trump promised the party would not touch tax benefits for 401(k) retirement plans, protecting a popular benefit for more than 50 million Americans but also further limiting the areas where Republicans could seek to raise new revenue.

His vow to protect 401(k) plans, made in a Twitter post, comes just days before House Republicans are planning to introduce a bill that would dramatically slash corporate tax rates, consolidate tax brackets for families and individuals, and eliminate the alternative minimum tax and estate tax. (Read more from “Trump’s Promises Narrow GOP’s Options on Tax Bill” HERE)

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Fallen Soldier’s Father Receives Promised $25G Personal Check From Trump

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Almost a week after the father of a soldier killed overseas said President Trump failed to deliver on a promise to send $25,000, the check finally arrived.

The personal check was dated October 18 — the same day that the White House came out strongly against a Washington Post article claiming Trump failed to deliver. WTVD tweeted out a photo of the signed check Monday.

Chris Baldridge of Zebulon, North Carolina, told the Post that Trump promised him $25,000 of his own money when they spoke in the summer about the loss of his son, Army Sgt. Dillon Baldridge, killed in Afghanistan, but the check never came.

“The check has been sent,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters told Fox News last Wednesday. “It’s disgusting that the media is taking something that should be recognized as a generous and sincere gesture, made privately by the President, and using it to advance the media’s biased agenda.” (Read more from “Fallen Soldier’s Father Receives Promised $25G Personal Check From Trump” HERE)

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Las Vegas Shooting Details Still Murky as Mandalay Bay Ordered to Keep Evidence

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What happened in Vegas seems to be staying in Vegas.

Nearly three weeks after the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, the release of details surrounding the horrific attack has slowed from a trickle to a standstill: police have yet to schedule another news conference, confusion continues to surround the gunman’s motive and critical questions linger about what exactly happened on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

The president of the union representing Jesus Campos – a security officer at the hotel who was shot during the attack and who became the subject of intense public interest after bailing on scheduled TV interviews last week – also told Fox News he has “no idea” whether or not Campos will return to work at Mandalay Bay.

And inside and outside the opulent resort and casino, the crime scene remained frozen in time Friday, as the Las Vegas enterprise was ordered by a judge to not destroy anything that could be considered evidence in a trial — right down to the broken glass from gunman Stephen Paddock’s suite. (Read more from “Las Vegas Shooting Details Still Murky as Mandalay Bay Ordered to Keep Evidence” HERE)

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