Photo Credit: Reuters Hundreds of badges, credentials, cell phones and guns belonging to Department of Homeland Security employees have been lost or stolen in recent years — raising serious security concerns about the potential damage these missing items could do in the wrong hands.
Inventory reports, obtained by the news site Complete Colorado and shared with FoxNews.com, show that over 1,300 badges, 165 firearms and 589 cell phones were lost or stolen over the span of 31 months between 2012 and 2015.
The majority of the credentials belonged to employees of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), while others belonged to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) employees.
The lost or stolen guns also mostly belonged to CBP employees, though others were cited as belonging to TSA and ICE workers. The agencies all fall under DHS.
The missing badges and guns suggest a shocking lack of security from federal law enforcement officers and represent a significant security risk, experts say. (Read more from “Hundreds of DHS Badges, Guns, Cell Phones Lost or Stolen Since 2012” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-27 22:40:242016-04-11 10:53:21Hundreds of DHS Badges, Guns, Cell Phones Lost or Stolen Since 2012
For more than two years, the Navy’s intelligence chief has been stuck with a major handicap: He’s not allowed to know any secrets.
Vice Adm. Ted “Twig” Branch has been barred from reading, seeing or hearing classified information since November 2013, when the Navy learned from the Justice Department that his name had surfaced in a giant corruption investigation involving a foreign defense contractor and scores of Navy personnel.
Worried that Branch was on the verge of being indicted, Navy leaders suspended his access to classified materials. They did the same to one of his deputies, Rear Adm. Bruce F. Loveless, the Navy’s director of intelligence operations.
More than 800 days later, neither Branch nor Loveless has been charged. But neither has been cleared, either. Their access to classified information remains blocked.
Although the Navy transferred Loveless to a slightly less sensitive post, it kept Branch in charge of its intelligence division. That has resulted in an awkward arrangement, akin to sending a warship into battle with its skipper stuck onshore. (Read more from “The Admiral in Charge of Navy Intelligence Has Not Been Allowed to See Military Secrets for Years” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-27 22:39:142016-04-11 10:53:21The Admiral in Charge of Navy Intelligence Has Not Been Allowed to See Military Secrets for Years
By B. Christopher Agee. Though his son predicted the opposite during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends on Tuesday morning, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump revealed later that day that he will likely skip Thursday night’s debate.
“I think ultimately he’ll be there,” Eric Trump said of his father, despite the candidate’s prior insinuations otherwise.
Since the first presidential primary debate, which, like the next one, was hosted by Fox News, Trump has nursed a very public feud with network anchor Megyn Kelly.
Earlier this week, Trump revealed he had considered boycotting the upcoming debate due to the Kelly File host’s inclusion as a moderator.
“Well, I’m making a decision,” he said at the time. “I think [Kelly is] not a professional. I don’t think she’s a very talented person. I don’t think she is a good reporter. I think they could do a lot better than that.”
Following Fox News’ release of the official prime-time debate lineup, once again set to feature Trump behind a center-stage podium, the unconventional front-runner told a crowd in Iowa that he is leaning toward skipping Thursday’s event. (Read more from “Right After Fox News Announced Debate Lineup, Trump Campaign Makes HUGE Announcement” HERE)
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Cruz Challenges Trump to One-On-One Debate
By Ben Schreckinger. Ted Cruz criticized Donald Trump’s withdrawal from Thursday night’s presidential debate and challenged the businessman to debate one-on-one in the coming days.
“Give the Republican primary voters the right to see a fair and policy-focused debate, not simply insults,” Cruz said on the Mark Levin radio show Tuesday night.
He proposed a 90-minute debate to happen before the Iowa caucuses on Monday.
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump said at a press conference here that he would not participate in Thursday’s Fox News debate because he believes co-moderator Megyn Kelly is biased against him and because he found Fox’s response to his concerns childish.
Cruz said that decision cast doubt on Trump’s ability to serve as commander in chief. “If he thinks Megyn Kelly is so scary what exactly does he think he’d do with Vladimir Putin?” asked the senator. (Read more from “Cruz Challenges Trump to One-On-One Debate” HERE)
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Trump Says He’ll Cut Deals With Pelosi, Schumer
By Sandy Fitzgerald. Donald Trump Tuesday morning said he believes he’ll be able to cut deals in the House and Senate, as he’s always had a good relationship with key Democratic lawmakers like California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, and outgoing Nevada Sen. Harry Reid.
“It’s wonderful to say you’re a maverick, and you’re going to stand up and close up the country, but you have to get somebody to go along with you,” the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, taking a dig at his nearest rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. (Read more from “Trump Says He’ll Cut Deals With Pelosi, Schumer” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-26 23:54:152016-04-11 10:53:23Right After Fox News Announced Debate Lineup, Trump Campaign Makes HUGE Announcement
By Sam Levin. An associate of the armed Oregon militia occupying a wildlife refuge was shot dead on Tuesday after a shootout with federal agents that resulted in the arrest of the group’s leader Ammon Bundy and a group of protesters.
The shootout appears to have taken place on a highway in rural Oregon – away from the federal refuge the armed militia have been occupying.
FBI officials said they arrested Bundy, his brother Ryan Bundy, Bryan Cavalier, Shawna Cox and Ryan Payne on Tuesday afternoon after they stopped them along the highway.
The agency described the shootout and arrests as resulting from “an enforcement action to bring into custody a number of individuals associated with the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge” that occurred at 4.25pm PST. (Read more from “Oregon Militia Standoff: One Dead After Ammon Bundy and Others Arrested” HERE)
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Ammon Bundy, Other Protesters Arrested in Oregon; LaVoy Finicum Killed
By Evan Perez, Holly Yan and Dana Ford. Ammon Bundy, leader of the armed protesters who took over a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, was arrested and one of his followers killed in a highway traffic stop Tuesday.
A law enforcement official told CNN that authorities pulled over two vehicles. Everyone obeyed orders to surrender except two people: LaVoy Finicum and Bundy’s brother, Ryan Bundy, the official said.
Shots were fired, but it’s not known who fired first, the official said. Ryan Bundy was injured, but Finicum died, the official added.
Finicum was among the most outspoken of the occupiers who took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns on January 2 to protest federal land policies. (Read more from “Ammon Bundy, Other Protesters Arrested in Oregon; LaVoy Finicum Killed” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-26 23:51:362016-04-11 10:53:23Oregon Militia Standoff: One Dead After Ammon Bundy and Others Arrested
It’s not the biggest player on Wall Street in terms of political money. But Goldman Sachs is financial public enemy No. 1 in this year’s election campaign.
The giant investment bank has become the symbol of the excesses of Wall Street, cited both by liberals leery of deregulated banking and conservatives opposed to big banks and “crony capitalism.” And it’s being singled out for its ties to the political establishment because of two top contenders for the presidency.
Hillary Clinton, the front-running Democratic candidate, received $675,000 in speaking fees from the firm. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a top challenger for the GOP nomination, borrowed $500,000 from the firm to help finance his Senate campaign and then failed to reveal it on one of his legally mandated disclosure forms. Also, his wife, Heidi, is a managing director at the firm in Houston, although she is on leave.
Their rivals drive home the connections to angry, anti-establishment voters.
“I don’t take money from big banks. I don’t get personal speaking fees from Goldman Sachs,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a recent debate with Clinton. (Read more from “Goldman Sachs Is in the Eye of the Campaign Storm” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-26 23:51:002016-04-11 10:53:24Goldman Sachs Is in the Eye of the Campaign Storm
The Courts are at it again. And with Republicans planning to confirm another Obama judge as their first vote of the week, it’s time for conservatives to pay attention to the judiciary.
If you thought the last term at the Supreme Court was just an anomaly, think again. The court system is irremediably broken, and that includes the majority of lower courts as well as the majority of judges on the Supreme Court.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been observing a pattern of cases in which the high court refuses to overturn lower court decisions that struck down state laws that were clearly constitutional, all the while refusing to reverse lower court decisions that upheld lawlessness.
For example, while the courts had no problem overturning state marriage laws, they have upheld state gun laws that are clearly unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has refused to take up any of these appeals, even though the lower courts are violating the McDonald decision. The court agreed to take Obama’s appeal to possibly overturn the lower court decision placing an injunction on the DAPA amnesty. At the same time, the court denied the appeal from Sheriff Arpaio to reverse the lower court decision upholding the DACA amnesty. Last week, the court refused to grant cert to those representing power plants languishing from Obama’s carbon rules that clearly violate congressional statutes.
The general theme is that what is in the Constitution is regarded as unconstitutional and what’s not in it is enshrined into the document by judicial action.
Yesterday’s announcements from the court were no different. On the same day the court struck down state sentencing laws regarding juveniles convicted of murder, it refused to hear an appeal from North Dakota after a lower court struck down its abortion law.
First, the sentencing decision. In Montgomery v. Louisiana, the court retroactively applied the Miller v. Alabama decision, which struck down most state laws sentencing juveniles to life in prison without parole. In 2012, Justice Kagan, writing for the majority opinion in Miller, found that the Eighth Amendment precludes states from issuing such sentences to juvenile murderers under most circumstances. Today’s decision in Montgomery, authored by Justice Kennedy, applied this decision retroactively to as many as 2,500 murderers serving life in prison without parole for murders committed as juveniles. Chief Justice Roberts joined with the five liberals, while Scalia, Thomas, and Alito dissented.
As Justice Thomas has said before, “the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause was originally understood as prohibiting torturous methods of punishment—specifically methods akin to those that had been considered cruel and unusual at the time the Bill of Rights.” Yet, once again, the court rules that the Constitution as adopted is unconstitutional. Now the federal courts can engage in retroactive jail break and foray into an area of law over which they clearly have no authority. And again, I will note that this same court stands by idly as states violate the plain meaning of the Second Amendment with prohibitions on concealed and open carry.
As Scalia concluded in his dissent:
[I]n Godfather fashion, the majority makes state legislatures an offer they can’t refuse: Avoid all the utterly impossible nonsense we have prescribed by simply ‘permitting juvenile homicide offenders to be considered for parole.’
Both Thomas and Scalia noted that the court created an entirely new constitutional right to retroactively overturn convictions that were completely constitutional at the time they were passed. Hence, with the ever-evolving standards of the legal profession’s “Constitution,” they can order judicial jailbreak at any time for any reason.
Meanwhile, as the high court overturned the Louisiana State Supreme Court and the state legislature on a retroactive creation of a newly concocted constitutional right, the court refused to hear a petition from North Dakota after a federal district court blocked the state’s six-week ban on abortion. Sadly, this is not surprising because SCOTUS refused to grant cert to Arizona after the Ninth Circuit struck down its 20-week abortion ban in 2014.
Here we are in the year 2016 and the courts have the final say on all important societal questions—from marriage and abortion to immigration and basic criminal justice laws. Many Republicans are excited by the degree of GOP control of state governments, but unless we rein in the courts and strip them of jurisdiction over political questions, they will void out the most basic laws, even those put in place at the founding of our union and the ratification of the 14th Amendment. At the same time, the courts will carelessly uphold blatantly unconstitutional laws passed by blue state governments.
If conservatives are fortunate enough to win back the White House in 2016, the most important looming question is what to do with the courts; for, if the courts are allowed to rewrite our Constitution and impel societal transformation without representation, elections will be rendered moot. (For more from the author of “SCOTUS Upholds Abortion, Strikes Down Juvenile Sentencing” please click HERE)
By Maggie Haberman. Joe Arpaio, the hard-line anti-immigration sheriff from Maricopa County, Ariz., will appear with Donald J. Trump in Iowa on Tuesday and endorse his candidacy, according to Mr. Trump’s campaign.
Mr. Arpaio, who espouses some of the Republican Party’s most conservative views about undocumented immigrants, will appear with Mr. Trump in Marshalltown, a month after appearing with Mr. Trump in Arizona. Mr. Trump has made combating illegal immigration a staple of his candidacy, including a proposal to build a wall at the southern border.
“I have great respect for Sheriff Arpaio,” Mr. Trump said in a statement. “We must restore law and order and respect the men and women of our police forces. I thank him for his support of my policies and candidacy for president.”
In a statement released by the campaign, Mr. Arapaio said: “Donald Trump is a leader. He produces results and is ready to get tough in order to protect American jobs and families. I have fought on the front lines to prevent illegal immigration. and I know Donald Trump will stand with me and countless Americans to secure our border. I am proud to support him as the best candidate for president of the United States of America.” (Read more from “Trump Just Landed Another Huge Endorsement” HERE)
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Republican Rivals Attack Trump in Attempt to Villainize Him
By Jonathan Swan. Republicans are testing out new lines of attack on Donald Trump meant to portray him as a ruthless dealmaker who sought to make money at any cost — even if he hurt working people in the process.
The attacks are meant to go after one of Trump’s greatest strengths: that he is a consummate business dealmaker who can bring those skills to the White House and better America’s position with the rest of the world.
Ted Cruz’s campaign has launched an ad that accused Trump of colluding with “Atlantic City insiders to bulldoze the home of an elderly widow for a limousine parking lot at his casino.” The elderly woman is shown on screen saying of Trump, “He doesn’t have no heart, that man.”
Team Cruz, which is fighting for supremacy with Trump in the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, makes no apologies for the hit.
“The idea is that eminent domain is for the public good and he attempted to use it for personal gain,” said Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler, in a telephone interview with The Hill. “It gives people the sense that, when [Trump] talks about the art of the deal … somebody’s going to get screwed. (Read more from “Republican Rivals Attack Trump in Attempt to Villainize Him” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-26 23:48:502016-04-11 10:53:24Trump Just Landed Another Huge Endorsement
The FBI “temporarily” halted efforts to process denial appeals on background checks, thereby leaving up to “7,100” Americans in limbo as to whether the federal government will allow them to buy a gun.
According to USA Today, FBI Assistant Director Stephen Morris said the halt in processing appeals, which went into effect on January 20, became necessary because the number of Americans buying guns has overwhelmed FBI background check examiners.
But the NRA-ILA says halting appeals on background checks is equivalent to halting 7,100 Americans’ rights to due process. They suggest the halt itself proves how little gun control groups really understand what actually goes into a background check for a gun purchase . . .
It is demonstrable that delays for gun purchases resulting from this halt are the inevitable fruit of trading freedom for false security in 1998, which is when the Clinton administration inserted government between the American people and the exercise of Second Amendment rights via background checks. (Read more from “FBI Declares Arbitrary Halt to Background Check Appeals” HERE)
Photo Credit: Twitter By Tammy Vigil. The victim of an armed robbery in his home could face criminal charges.
The homeowner shot and killed a man Sunday morning who came into his home in the 5400 block of South Taft Court after responding to a Craigslist ad.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office are weighing the evidence in deciding whether charges are appropriate.
But the homeowner’s neighbors and others question whether he’s protected by the state’s “Make My Day” or self-defense laws.
The man went from being the victim of an armed robbery inside his home to being a possible suspect for killing one of the men who tied him up at gunpoint and robbed him. (Read more from “Homeowner Fatally Shoots Robber… What’s Happening Next Will Outrage You” HERE)
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Homeowner Fatally Shoots Robber Who Answered Craigslist Ad: Cops
By Shamar Walters and Alastair Jamieson. A homeowner fatally shot one of two men who tried to rob him after responding to a Craigslist “for sale” ad, police in Colorado said . . .
The drama unfolded early Sunday when the two Hispanic men arrived at the house, in the southwestern suburbs of Denver, to see collectibles and household items advertised for sale online.
“At some point during the interaction, the males produced a gun, restrained the homeowner, and robbed him,” the sheriff’s department said in a news release.
The homeowner was able to free himself, and ran outside to find one of the suspects in the process of stealing his SUV. He fired several shots, and the stolen vehicle stopped in a neighbor’s yard, the statement said. (Read more from “Homeowner Fatally Shoots Robber Who Answered Craigslist Ad: Cops” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-26 23:43:122016-04-11 10:53:25Homeowner Fatally Shoots Robber… What’s Happening Next Will Outrage You
Donald Trump, when asked to define a conservative, responded first by saying it is someone who is risk averse, then adding it is someone who wants to conserve.
While a guest on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday, the candidate went on to liken his evolution to being more conservative politically on many issues to the journey former President Ronald Reagan took.
Face the Nation host John Dickerson asked Trump how he responds to the charge GOP rival Sen. Ted Cruz and others level that the businessman has not been a consistent conservative. “Usually, I just invoke the name Ronald Reagan,” Trump replied.
“I mean, Ronald Reagan was a fairly liberal Democrat, and he evolved over years and he became more and more conservative. And he was not a very conservative person, but he was pretty conservative. And he ended up being a great president,” the candidate added.
Cruz does not believe Trump’s comparison to Reagan is accurate. “I would note that Ronald Reagan spent decades as a principled conservative, spent decades traveling the country sharing his conservative, free-market views [and] defending the Constitution,” Cruz said.
“Ronald Reagan did not spend the first 60 years of his life supporting Democratic politicians, advocating for big government politics, supporting things like the big bank bailouts, supporting things like expanding Obamacare to turn it into socialized medicine,” the Texas senator added. (Read more from “Trump Asked to Define ‘Conservative’ – His Answer Has Some Supporters Worried” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-25 23:53:362016-04-11 10:53:25Trump Asked to Define ‘Conservative’ – His Answer Has Some Supporters Worried
