HUMA ABEDIN: Hillary Clinton’s Handmaiden of Jihad

Hillary Clinton longtime lieutenant Huma Abedin’s exhaustively documented connections to Islamic terror are receiving renewed attention thanks to a new column written by political gadfly Roger Stone.

Abedin, now vice-chairman of Clinton’s campaign, is the person “closest to the most powerful woman in American politics and perhaps the next President,” Stone writes at Breitbart. “Huma has been described variously as Hillary’s ‘body woman,’ a sort of glorified go-to personal maid, gentle confidant, and by others as an Islamic spy.”

“She may be all of these things,” writes Stone, who is close to GOP presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump.

“Abedin was deeply involved with the establishment of Hillary’s private email server, which was used for all of her work as Secretary of State. Now, since we know Hillary had hundreds of classified or top-secret documents on her vulnerable server (despite her early lies saying she did not), any faith in Huma’s judgment — at the very least — has been demolished. You will soon ask yourself, ‘how did this woman get a security clearance?’”

bedin’s background, including her suspect ties to Saudi Arabia, was previously examined by FrontPage but sounding the alarm about her connections to the Islamist underworld takes on a heightened urgency now that polls suggest Clinton is dangerously close to assuming the presidency. Abedin has been joined at the hip to Hillary for decades and would probably be a major figure such as policy director or chief of staff in the White House if she wins.

The power this daughter of jihad could — once again — wield over Americans and world affairs is truly frightening. For all we know, Abedin may have played a role in shutting down counter-terrorism measures that could have been useful in preventing Islamist attacks in the U.S. and abroad.

Stone’s report was part rebuttal to a lie-packed column earlier this year from Media Matters for America, the “conservative misinformation” monitoring group Clinton brags about founding. Placed in the unusual position of having to attack its liberal allies in the mainstream media, the MMfA post purported to debunk a relatively mild Vanity Fair profile that examined Abedin’s Islamist ties.

Stone’s report comes in the wake of the jihadist bloodbath perpetrated early Sunday morning by Omar Mir Siddique Mateen at Pulse, a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Police said Mateen wielded a semiautomatic Sig Sauer MCX rifle and a Glock 17 handgun to kill 49 innocent victims and wound another 53 in what has been called the worst mass shooting in American history and the worst domestic terrorist attack since 9/11.

It was widely and incorrectly reported by the Second Amendment-hating media that an AR-15 rifle was used, probably because it fits the Left’s predetermined narrative. The Left fetishizes the wildly popular AR-15, portraying it as a monstrous weapon of mass destruction because in 2012 it was used in the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and the movie theater in Aurora, Colo. It was also used in the mass shootings last year at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., and in San Bernardino, Calif.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the weekend attack after it took place. Mateen himself “claimed allegiance to the Islamic State and praised the Boston Marathon bombers,” before being killed by police on the scene, the New York Times reports.

The Orlando attack is the 86th Islamist terror plot in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, according to the Daily Signal. It is the 20th Islamist attack or plot “aimed at large public gatherings, such as bars and restaurants, shopping malls, parks, and conventions” and the sixth Islamist domestic terror plot or attack in 2016 alone.

FrontPage readers already know the basics about Abedin and her family’s generational ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Born in 1976 in Kalamazoo, Mich., Abedin’s mother is Pakistani-born Saleha Mahmood Abedin, widow of Indian-born Zyed Abedin, an academic who taught at Wahhabist Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz University. Mr. Abedin was affiliated with the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at Western Michigan University. The MSA was founded in the 1960s by the Muslim World League (MWL), Saudi Arabia’s largest charity, which is also a militant organization with links to Osama bin Laden.

In 1978 the Abedins moved to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Islamist Abdullah Omar Naseef hired Mr. Abedin to work at the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), an Islamic think tank. Huma’s parents became members of the editorial board of IMMA’s publication, the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, which Andrew C. McCarthy has said seeks “to grow an unassimilated, aggressive population of Islamic supremacists who will gradually but dramatically alter the character of the West.”

Naseef himself is an extremist with ties to al-Qaeda. In 1983 he became secretary-general of the MWL, an organization McCarthy calls “the Muslim Brotherhood’s principal vehicle for the international propagation of Islamic supremacist ideology.” Huma’s mother became an official representative of MWL in the 1990s. When her husband died in 1994, Mrs. Abedin became the IMMA’s director. She currently serves as editor-in-chief of its journal, identified on its website as “Saleha S. Mahmood.” She is also a founding member of the related group called the Muslim Sisterhood.

When Huma returned to the U.S. and interned in the Clinton White House she was simultaneously a member of the executive board of George Washington University’s MSA. From 1996 to 2008, Abedin was assistant editor at the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. Her brother, Hassan Abedin, and sister, Heba Abedin Khalid, are both editors at the publication.

The MWL has received more than $1.3 billion from the Saudi government since 1962, Stone notes.

Naseef, the MWL, and Pakistan created the Rabita Trust in 1988 which a month after 9/11 was designated as a terrorist front and its assets frozen. The Treasury Department said the trust is run by Wa’el Hamza Jalaidan, who founded al-Qaeda with Osama bin Laden. Jalaidan’s assets are also frozen.

A radical cleric named Abdullah Azzam and his protégé, bin Laden, created an organization called Maktab al-Khidamat or MAK in Pakistan in the 1980s to recruit terrorists and raise money. Azzam subsisted on money from the MWL, Stone writes. MAK founders operated in Peshawar out of the office of the MWL and the Muslim Brotherhood. MWL funded MAK using Saudi money “that would eventually go to jihad against the West,” Stone adds. While bin Laden and Azzam rubbed elbows at the MWL’s office the league’s president was Naseef, benefactor of the Abedin family.

On 9/11, Huma was working for Clinton, then a U.S. senator from New York. As the Twin Towers fell Abedin failed to step forward “to shed light” on Naseef, the MWL, or the Rabita Trust. “Sen. Clinton and Huma Abedin betrayed every New Yorker and every American with their silence,” Stone writes.

He notes that on Sept. 18, 2006, while earning a $28,000 annual salary, Abedin purchased a $649,000 Washington, D.C. apartment. “[W]here did the money come from?”

Stone adds:

“We’ve caught the greatest spies due to their spending well beyond their salaries. At the least, what to make of someone who has lived for 17 years in Saudi Arabia, with parents who have close, long-standing ties with people connected to terrorist organizations, and then comes to the U.S. and within two years gets a job as the First Lady’s assistant?”

“This isn’t some minor aide,” Stone writes. “Huma Abedin has been at Clinton’s side for decades, and it’s time America got some answers.”

Recall that Clinton served as secretary of state from Jan. 21, 2009 to Feb. 1, 2013, during which she poured gasoline on the Muslim world and lit a match. She failed to support the “green revolution” uprising in Iran in 2009. She engineered the “Arab Spring,” a period of civil unrest, wars, and revolutions in the Arab world that began in late 2010 and was followed by the Arab Winter, a backlash that made Islamism and authoritarianism ascendant in the region. She helped the Muslim Brotherhood overthrow longtime U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak in 2012 to clear the way for their candidate, Mohamed Morsi, to assume the Egyptian presidency.

Hillary helped to oust Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, a move that plunged Libya into chaos. In that anarchic environment Muslim terrorists attacked a U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya, on the 11th anniversary of 9/11. Clinton failed to provide proper security and did not send U.S. armed forces to attempt a rescue, leaving four Americans dead. She also lied about the nature of the military-style attack, claiming it arose out of Muslims’ anger at an obscure anti-Islam video.

While Hillary was getting people including U.S. allies like Qaddafi killed, ruining lives, undermining American power, advancing political Islam, and lying to the faces of the Benghazi victims’ families, what exactly was Abedin doing behind the scenes?

Stone is right.

Americans need to know what, if any, role Abedin played in Clinton’s decisions that put Americans in harm’s way, started wars, and caused governments to fall.

The stakes are too high not to know. (For more from the author of “HUMA ABEDIN: Hillary Clinton’s Handmaiden of Jihad” please click HERE)

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Sources Say Major Arrest Likely in Connection to Orlando Shooting

As federal investigators continue piecing together the events leading up to the nation’s deadliest mass shooting, one name continues to surface as a possible accessory to the heinous crime.

While the FBI has identified 29-year-old Omar Mateen, killed by the police at the scene, as the man who opened fire in an Orlando gay night club early Sunday morning, agents believe his wife might be the key to learning more about his motives.

According to developing reports Tuesday, Noor Salman has cooperated with authorities thus far in their investigation into her husband’s actions. Some of what she has revealed, however, has led agents to believe she might have had advanced notice of Mateen’s murderous plans.

Such knowledge, if confirmed, could result in scores of accessory charges against her. Reports indicate the chances are high that she will be arrested in connection with the shooting that left 49 dead and dozens more injured.

Fox News cited multiple sources who confirmed Salman revealed during an interview with investigators that Mateen told her he intended to commit an act of violence. Furthermore, the gunman might have called his wife from Pulse — the nightclub he targeted — during the rampage.

Salman, with whom Mateen reportedly had a 3-year-old son, also reportedly revealed that she joined her husband when he purchased firearms shortly before the shooting.

As Western Journalism previously reported, Salman is believed to have driven Mateen to Pulse before the shooting as he scouted potential locations for the attack. (For more from the author of “Sources Say Major Arrest Likely in Connection to Orlando Shooting” please click HERE)

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Here Are the Celebrities — Including More Than a Few Liberals — Who Aren’t Ashamed to Pack Heat

While it does not take much effort to find a Hollywood star or popular singer complain about Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms, there are plenty of celebrities who proudly pack heat and work to ensure that freedom is preserved for future generations. Below are a few that surprised us the most.

James Earl Jones

Renowned screen and voice actor James Earl Jones has been an advocate for gun rights and, at least at the time of his 2004 autobiography, was a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association.

He made it clear, however, that his support of the Second Amendment does not make him an ideologue.

“When it comes to the right-wing politics of the NRA,” he said, “I don’t get into that. I just believe in my right to have a gun in my house.”

Johnny Depp

The star of popular films including Edward Scissorhands and the Pirates of the Caribbean series is also a fan of the shooting sports.

In a 2009 interview, Johnny Depp recalled fondly firing a variety of guns as a youth.

“We would just go out and line up a bunch of cans and shoot with rifles, handguns and at times, submachine guns,” he said. “When I was a kid it was a controlled atmosphere, we weren’t shooting at humans; we were shooting at cans and bottles mostly.”

He affirmed the experience is one he wants to share with his own children.

“I will most certainly take my kids out for target practice,” he said.

Kurt Russell

Shortly after the 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., actor Kurt Russell explained why he believes efforts to disarm Americans is foolish.

“Now is not a good time to lay down your weapons,” he opined. “How will you protect yourself?”

The self-described “hardcore” libertarian went on to assert that gun control is an inherently flawed concept.

Referring to a previous dust-up he and an anti-gun reporter engaged in just prior to the interview, Russell said: “I just didn’t get where he was going saying that gun control was a magic wand of fixing the situation with terrorism. That isn’t going to stop them from what they want to do.”

Ice-T

Though it might not be shocking to hear a gangsta rapper speak fondly of his firearms, Ice-T has expressed some thought-provoking insight on a topic he thinks should be important to all Americans.

The rapper-turned-actor said in an interview with British media that he believes the nation’s founders included the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights for a very specific reason.

“The right to bear arms is because that’s the last form of defense against tyranny,” he said. “– not to hunt. It’s to protect yourself from the police.”

Kid Rock

Eclectic entertainer Kid Rock is outspoken on a number of controversial topics — not the least of which is his stance on guns.

“I’m always buying more guns,” the Republican rocker announced in a 2015 interview with The Guardian.

Referring to his ever-widening collection, he said that he currently has “everything from a Civil War cannon to an MP5 machine gun and old police guns.”

Vince Vaughn

Echoing Ice-T’s assessment of the Second Amendment, comedic actor Vince Vaughn revealed in a 2015 interview with GQ that he is in favor of unfettered access to guns as provided in the Bill of Rights.

“We don’t have the right to bear arms because of burglars,” he insisted. “We have the right to bear arms to resist the supreme power of a corrupt and abusive government. It’s not about duck hunting; it’s about the ability of the individual.”

Taking his point further, Vaughn noted that most of the nation’s most deadly shootings had one thing in common.

“They’ve only happened in places that don’t allow guns,” he said. “These people are sick in the head and are going to kill innocent people.” (For more from the author of “Here Are the Celebrities — Including More Than a Few Liberals — Who Aren’t Ashamed to Pack Heat” please click HERE)

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Ex-Wife Says Orlando Shooter Was Gay, FBI Told Her to Keep Quiet About His Sexual Orientation

The ex-wife of Orlando mass killer Omar Mateen claimed Monday that she believed he was homosexual — as it was revealed that he frequented the gay nightclub where he staged the nation’s worst massacre in modern times.

Sitora Yusufiy, who was married to Mateen in 2009 for three months, made the shocking claim on Brazilian television station SBT Brazil.

Her fiancé, Marco Dias, speaking in Portuguese on her behalf, said Yusufiy believed that Mateen had “gay tendencies” and that his father had called him gay in front of her. Dias also claimed “the FBI asked her not to tell this to the American media.”

The bombshell came as a male former classmate of Omar Mateen said he had been asked out romantically by the mass killer, who reportedly was a virtual regular at the Pulse nightclub, having visited it more than a dozen times over the years. (Read more from “Ex-Wife Says Orlando Shooter Was Gay, FBI Told Her to Keep Quiet About His Sexual Orientation” HERE)

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Here’s the Left’s ‘Official Lie’ About the Orlando Terrorist Attack

Reacting Monday to the ISIS-inspired terrorist attack in Orlando, Mark Steyn—filling in for Rush Limbaugh—said that the “official lie” of the Left is that gun-toting “right” wing extremists are responsible for the shooting and radical Islamic terrorism is not.

The fact, Steyn said, is a radical Muslim killed 49 in a terror attack and the Left doesn’t know how to cope with the “internal contradictions of the rainbow coalition.”

Listen:

Steyn read the American headlines reporting the event which showed a stark contrast with international headlines by reporting a deadly “mass shooting” instead of an ISIS-inspired “terror attack.”

While the Left is clamoring for more gun control and screaming at the NRA, it is ignoring that radical Islam is responsible for the attack and only wants to destroy what the Left believes in. “The arithmetic isn’t complicated,” Steyn explained, “the more Islam, the fewer gays.” (For more from the author of “Here’s the Left’s ‘Official Lie’ About the Orlando Terrorist Attack” please click HERE)

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IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES: Officials Knew Pulse Terrorist’s Imam Was Radicalizing Inmates, Did Nothing

Where are the articles of impeachment?

Against them all.

Congress. Obama. The State Legislatures. The judges.

All of them.

I have written many times about the revolving door problem in our prisons. There’s a basic principle in our justice system that once you serve your time you’ve paid your debt to society. This is how it should be, and it should apply across the board. Yes, that means that when you get out and probation is done, it’s done.

No more firearms restrictions, no more anything.

Why?

Because it focuses the mind, that’s why. Specifically, it focuses the mind of judges and parole boards on whether or not the person convicted remains a risk to society.

If you can’t keep playing post-hoc games then you must evaluate the risk up front and when you’re wrong it’s blatantly obvious why and who’s to blame. That in turn means that the public and should rise and demand that the person(s) responsible be held accountable — fired without pensions or even prosecuted if a negligence charge can be sustained.

A few years ago I wrote in the Ticker about a particular individual who shot a Marshal coming to serve a warrant on him. His rap sheet included his first serious felony, carjacking (and resisting arrest), for which he went to prison. He got out and then decided that sexual assault on a minor was a good idea, and went to prison again.

Subsequent to the second release he shot the Marshal.

Of course everyone wants to know why he had a gun. My question is why he was on the street, since it proved that his first crime was not an aberration but rather a way of life — by committing the second offense.

That Marshal should not be dead, but the indirect responsibility for it lies with everyone involved in that jackwad being released the second time, and thus in a position to shoot somebody.

Now here it appears we have an imam who prosecutors knew was radicalizing people in prison, they let him out, and…… the shooter in Orlando and he have been linked.

The gunman who murdered at least 50 people in a Florida nightclub early Sunday morning was a follower of a controversial gang leader-turned-bank robber who was released from prison last year despite warnings from prosecutors that he would recruit people to carry out violent acts, sources told FoxNews.com.

That’s right, we let gang leaders who like to rob banks out of prison even after they try to radicalize people into Islam while in jail!

Are you freaking kidding me?

Folks, there is only one answer to this sort of crap since the government won’t stop it: Everyone needs to start packing, all the time and everywhere and we must keep making noise on this point until the Second Amendment is respected nationally as written.

It is clear that so-called “law enforcement”, “prosecutors” and “judges” will not do their jobs. Nor will any other government agency just as they didn’t before 9/11 when the FBI and other agencies had plenty of warnings they ignored and even better, a large number of the hijackers had Florida Driver Licenses despite not being either citizens or permanent residents!

Oh by the way, that’s the ID they used to get on the planes.

The entire reason the Second Amendment exists is so that in the gravest extreme, no matter what sort of tyrant or jackass is trying to kill you, you can elect to have a fighting chance of living through the encounter. The only means or device that works for this purpose on a reliable basis irrespective of your age, sex or physical prowess is a gun.

It is specifically because your right to be alive is pre-political (that is, it exists prior to and independent of any political system) and the government not only might not be able to but in this case through negligence, intentional misconduct or both has failed to take any sort of step to interdict known and emergent threats that the responsibility for same does and must fall first on you, individually.

Governor Scott, I call upon you, and the other governors of states that do not have “Constitutional Carry”, to call your legislators back into emergency session (if necessary) right damn now and demand that same be passed, and that all laws restricting where someone may carry openly or concealed be immediately repealed except where said government is willing to provide full-time armed security (e.g. in a courtroom.)

Nothing else will do, and there is no compromise on this position.

You either can’t or won’t act even when you have foreknowledge as apparently was the case here and was the case on 9/11. That, in turn, means that we the people, who are the ones who get shot and blown up by planes used as bombs must have our right to attempt to not die respected all the time, everywhere, without exception.

Pass the law and repeal the garbage, or resign and get the hell out of The People’s House. (For more from the author of “IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES: Officials Knew Pulse Terrorist’s Imam Was Radicalizing Inmates, Did Nothing” please click HERE)

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CLINTON CASH COMIX: Helpfully Illustrated for Democrats and the Mentally Deficient, but I Repeat Myself

Courtesy of our summer intern @BiffSpackle:

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(For more from the author of “CLINTON CASH COMIX: Helpfully Illustrated for Democrats and the Mentally Deficient, but I Repeat Myself” please click HERE)

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Was the Orlando Gunman Really a Lone Wolf?

A shooting by a lone Muslim gunman at an Orlando gay nightclub, which has left at least 50 people dead and dozens more injured, has been called an “act of terrorism” by law enforcement agencies.

The shooter, Omar Mateen, opened fire on hundreds of people at Pulse nightclub, then took hostages until police crashed an armored vehicle into the building and killed him in a gunfight. Mateen was a U.S.-born citizen, whose parents were born in Afghanistan. According to law enforcement officials, Mateen had been “on the radar” of U.S. officials for some time.

The FBI says it is looking at all angles to find a motive. “We do have suggestions that that individual may have leanings towards that particular ideology [Islamic extremism]. But right now we can’t say definitively, so we’re still running everything around,” said Ron Hopper, FBI assistant agent in charge of the FBI’s Tampa division.

The immediate reaction from many news pundits has been to downplay any possible connections to radical Islamism. As often happens after these terrorist attacks, including those in Paris and San Bernardino, pundits and politicians are quick to point out that a “lone wolf” doesn’t necessarily get direct orders from ISIS. They focus on the “hate crime” angle or the need for gun control instead of putting the attack in the context of a global jihad.

Just this morning on Fox News Sunday, columnist George Will, indignant of any suggestion at this time that the attack was motivated by Islamic extremism, said the idea of international terrorists giving Mateen directives to shoot up a gay nightclub was preposterous.

Will, like so many others, are simply perpetuating ignorance when it comes to how lone wolves operate. As has been outlined by the Institute for the Study of War, ISIS has a global strategy to carry out attacks against infidels, and lone wolves are essential to that strategy.

This was made clear in 2014 when the chief spokesman for the Islamic State called on supporters throughout the world to act on their own initiative to attack Western targets.

As reported by McClatchy DC in June 2014, Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammed al Adnani “vowed that the group would kill Western men and enslave their women even as he accused the Western news media of distortion by inaccurately portraying the group as violent.”

“If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way, however it may be,” Adnani said, according to an English translation posted online by al Furqan Media, the communications arm of the Islamic State.

“Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict,” he said. “Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling.”

A similar directive was later given to women throughout the world. As I reported at The Federalist after the San Bernardino terrorist attack, guidelines had been released by Islamic State leaders, saying they “can fight without the permission of others.”

Counterterrorism expert Sebastian Gorka has pointed out repeatedly that there is really no such thing as a lone wolf—that they’re actually “known wolves.”

It’s time to “ditch” the “lone wolf” label, Gorka told Fox News, because it obscures the ideology that ties all independent American jihadists together.

“This is a global network of jihadi activists,” Dr. Gorka explained, noting that the “lone wolf” label– applied to a number of Islamist shooters, from Fort Hood’s Nidal Hasan to Chattanooga’s Mohammad Abdulazeez–“is designed to make us think these are sporadic, disconnected individuals– they’re not.” The label “is designed to disconnect the dots,” he explains, as many of these individuals are watching similar, if not identical, Islamist propaganda online. In reality, “They are all connected by the ideology, by the stuff they consume on the internet,” Dr. Gorka explained.

Gorka said the State Department has failed to crack down on Islamist propaganda online—where many American Muslims are recruited—because they ignore that this is about an ideology: radical Islam. We aren’t fighting “extremism” or “terrorism,” Gorka has said. We are fighting people who hold to a particular ideology, which means supporters of the Islamic State don’t need direct orders every time an attack is made against Western targets—civilian or military.

The attack on a gay nightclub is in complete alignment with the ideology of radical Islam. Homosexuality is illegal according to Sharia Law and is punishable by death. Men who have fled the Middle East testify to this fact and have spoken to the United Nations Security Council about the horror of being gay in the Islamic State.

“In my society, being gay means death,” said one Iraqi man, hiding his identity out of fear for his safety.

Another man, Subhi Nahas, said he watched as a group linked to al-Qaeda took control of his hometown of Idlib and systematically tortured and murdered of men who were thought to be gay.

“I was terrified to go out,” he said. “Nor was my home safe, as my father, who suspiciously monitored my every move, had learned I was gay. I bear a scar on my chin as a token of his rage. At the executions, hundreds of townspeople, including children, cheered jubilantly as at a wedding. If a victim did not die after being hurled off a building, the townspeople stoned him to death.”

Given that the Islamic State has already given directives for global jihad, and that supporters are motivated by a shared ideology, it makes logical sense that a “known wolf,” as we seem to have in Orlando, would target a gay nightclub, killing 50 souls who were doing nothing but minding their own business with friends and loved ones. (For more from the author of “Was the Orlando Gunman Really a Lone Wolf?” please click HERE)

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McConnell Waves White Flag, Steers GOP Away From ObamaCare Fights

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has urged GOP colleagues in private to avoid distracting political fights, yielding a surprising ceasefire on labor and health issues, two of the bloodiest battlegrounds in Congress.

For the first time in seven years, the Senate Appropriations Committee last week passed a bipartisan bill funding the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services. It’s the largest spending bill after the one for the Defense Department and a perennial source of partisan strife.

The bill is not likely to go anywhere because the House has slim chance of passing a Labor-HHS spending bill, but the drama-free passage was an important victory for McConnell, who has staked the Senate Republican majority on the argument that Republicans know how to govern.

“We went eight years in the minority and during that time we didn’t pass these bills and then the public’s outraged,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). “Behind the closed doors of the conference, he emphasizes over and over again that he wants to keep the extraneous things off and do what people expect us to do.”

The full Senate is now poised to act on the Labor HHS bill, which hasn’t passed the chamber as a stand-alone measure since 2007. (Read more from “McConnell Steers Republicans Away From ObamaCare Fights” HERE)

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Romney Makes Official Announcement About Third-Party Candidacy to Take on Trump

Mitt Romney, excoriated for months by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as a failed candidate for the way in which he conducted his 2012 GOP campaign for president, attacked Trump again Friday but said he will not enter this year’s race as a third-party candidate to take on the billionaire.

Romney, who energized the party’s #NeverTrump movement in March by lambasting Trump’s policies and character, also indicated he would never vote for Trump for president and said he was looking with interest at the platform of Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.

Romney was interviewed Friday by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

“I think you’re not going to find a credible candidate actually running as a third-party contender,” Romney said. “I’d like to see someone run, but that’s not likely.”

Romney said he would not be the one to oppose Trump, but spoke wistfully of battling the presumptive GOP nominee.

“I thought it was time for someone new. I’m glad I wasn’t out there with Donald Trump,” he said. “Had I been in the race, I can assure you I would have taken him on. I’m sure he believes he would have been successful pushing me aside just like he did others in part because I would have been seen as an establishment Republican.”

Romney continued his assault on Trump’s character, labeling Trump as a “dangerous” president who is “too great a departure from the values of our country.”

“Presidents have an impact on the nature of our nation, and trickle-down racism, trickle-down bigotry, trickle-down misogyny, all these things are extremely dangerous to the heart and character of America,” he said.

When asked if Trump was a racist, Romney said that Trump’s comments “appeal to the racist tendency that exists in some people, and I think that’s very dangerous.” (For more from the author of “Romney Makes Official Announcement About Third-Party Candidacy to Take on Trump” please click HERE)

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