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No Surprise: Democrats Hold Sizable Lead in Vote-By-Mail Enrollment

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Democrats are holding a sizeable lead in vote-by-mail enrollment in Florida, leading Republicans by over 300,000 voters, according to Division of Election data released last week.

Current data shows Democrats enjoying a sizeable advantage, enrolling 1.46 million Democrats for vote-by-mail. Republicans, meanwhile, have 1.16 million signed up. According to Politico, Democrats “held an advantage of about 8,800 in vote-by-mail enrollment” in 2016. The news could signal trouble for the Trump campaign, which narrowly secured the Sunshine State in the last election, winning by less than 113,000 votes.

Democrats, both nationwide and in Florida, specifically, have been encouraging voters to apply for absentee ballots, citing concerns related to the novel coronavirus. However, Republicans, including the president and Attorney General William Barr, have warned against vote-by-mail on a large scale due to the increased risk of voter fraud.

The Democrat PAC Priorities USA filed a lawsuit last month against Florida officials, including Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), demanding changes to provisions to make vote-by-mail easier for November’s election. (Read more from “No Surprise: Democrats Hold Sizable Lead in Vote-By-Mail Enrollment” HERE)

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Federal Judge Decisively Rules Florida Ex-Felons Can’t Be Denied the Right to Vote

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A federal judge ruled Sunday that it is unconstitutional to prevent felons in Florida from voting because they can’t afford to pay back court fees, fines and restitution to victims, striking down parts of a law passed by Republican lawmakers and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis last year.

Calling the law a “pay-to-vote system,” U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle’s 125-page ruling declares that court fees are a tax, and it creates a new process for determining whether felons are eligible to vote.

“This order holds that the State can condition voting on payment of fines and restitution that a person is able to pay but cannot condition voting on payment of amounts a person is unable to pay,” Hinkle wrote.

With one sentence, Hinkle also allowed two large groups of felons to register to vote: those who were appointed an attorney for their criminal case because they couldn’t afford one on their own, and anyone who had their financial obligations converted to civil liens. . .

For all other felons who can’t afford to pay their financial obligations, Hinkle ordered state officials to adopt a new process for determining whether felons are too poor to vote: They can request an advisory opinion from Secretary of State Laurel Lee. (Read more from “Federal Judge Decisively Rules Florida Ex-Felons Can’t Be Denied the Right to Vote” HERE)

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Naval Air Station Shooter Turns out to Be Al-Qaeda Operative

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The Associated Press reported Monday that “the gunman who killed three U.S. sailors at a military base in Florida last year repeatedly communicated” with al-Qaeda operatives “about planning in the months leading up to the attack.” And he didn’t just communicate with them. Attorney General William Barr noted that the shooter, Mohammed Alshamrani, had “significant ties to Al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula not only before the attack, but before he even arrived in the United States.” Yet he was still able to get into the country and execute the attack he planned – and that is the real story here.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said that Alshamrani’s attack on December 6, 2019, at Naval Air Station Pensacola was the “brutal culmination of years of planning and preparation.”

He added: “We now know enough to see Alshamrani for what he was — a determined AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] terrorist who spent years preparing to attack us. He wasn’t just coordinating with them about planning and tactics. He was helping the organization making the most it could out of his murders.” Wray said that al-Qaeda “certainly more than just inspired” Alshamrani’s massacre.

How many Americans know that al-Qaeda claimed — three months ago — to be behind the murderous attack by a Muslim from Saudi Arabia at a U.S. Naval Base in Florida last year? How many Americans do you think even know that there was a murderous attack by a Muslim at a U.S. Naval Base in Florida last year? (Read more from “Naval Air Station Shooter Turns out to Be Al-Qaeda Operative” HERE)

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Florida Sheriff Who Arrested Pastor Now Releasing 163 Actual Criminals (While You’re Locked in at Home)

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In case you still think every unilateral action taken by local officials is driven by science and intrepid concern for public safety and health, I present to you the case of Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister.

On Monday, after holding a virtue-signaling press conference lecturing the public on the Bible, Chronister arrested Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne for holding services on Sunday, even though his lawyer says he was following CDC guidelines for sanitation and social distancing.

“His reckless disregard for human life put hundreds of people in his congregation at risk and thousands of residents who may interact with them this week in danger,” the sheriff said.

The sheriff really cares about human life and public safety, right?

Well, now channel 10 news in Tampa is reporting that Chronister has released 163 prisoners as a “precautionary” measure to avoid spreading the virus in jail, as if somehow taking them out of the ultimate quarantine into the general population will stop the spread, and as if criminals will actually abide by the home confinement Chronister so zealously wants to impose on all citizens.

Chronister repeated the same disingenuous line that these criminals are all low-level. “These defendants are the lowest public safety risk,” Chronister said. “They were merely sitting in jail because they could not afford to pay the amount it would take to bond out.”

The problem is that most people who wind up in jail these days, especially with the trend of leniencies up and down the system, usually are serious criminals or repeat offenders. Non-serious criminals simply don’t serve time any more. These releases don’t take into account prior history and plea bargains, which are ubiquitous throughout the system. Judges will often keep people locked up for “low-level” crimes, if they have priors and have been arrested for more serious charges that were pled down.

Channel 10 lists the criminal charges among those released by the sheriff, and the bulk of them were locked up for theft, burglary, and drugs. Yes, some of them could be relatively low-level, but what we’ve seen nationwide is that it is usually high-level criminals who are rearrested and jailed on these sorts of crimes. Any cop looking at these crimes will tell you that these are not people who just simply couldn’t pay their bail and will stay out of trouble if released.

Last week, a woman in Utah was violently attacked by a man who broke into her home after he was released under coronavirus jailbreak because he was “only” serving time for drug charges.

As the streets remain quiet and lined with vacant stores, is now the time to release career burglars? Farther south in Florida, Palm Beach County is experiencing a rash of burglaries. “We have seen an uptick in the number of burglaries because, unfortunately, some people are trying to take advantage of others during this time of crisis,” said state attorney Dave Aronberg in an interview with WPTV.

Palm Beach County is under a shelter-in-place order, even as the rest of the state has not ratcheted the restrictions to that level yet. It turns out criminals don’t follow emergency edicts the same way they don’t follow basic laws.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that none of this jailbreak is rooted in concern for public health, and it certainly will not be limited to low-level offenders. California Governor Gavin Newsom commuted the sentences of 14 people charged with murder, citing coronavirus and the concern of spreading the disease for expediting their release. Several of them were convicted of murdering children, and one was convicted of murdering a pregnant woman. Two of them are immigrants who should be deported, but Newsom does not cooperate with ICE to ensure safe transfer, even of other countries’ murderers.

These jailbreaks are now occurring in every major city in both blue and red states. Despite Governor Greg Abbott’s efforts to block jailbreak, Harris County, Texas, still plans to release 1,000 inmates. But fear not, Houstonians, Mayor Sylvester Turner has begged criminals not to commit crime, so you will be safe. “Until the coronavirus is resolved, criminals take a break. Okay. Stay home. Stay home and don’t commit any crimes,” implored the Houston mayor on Monday. “Wait till the coronavirus is over and then we’ll all be okay.”

Thus, as pastors and business owners get arrested, just remember that if you are caught violating your home arrest, you can just tell the cops you are on your way to committing a “low-level” crime and you will be let off the hook. Whether you like it or not, this is what must be done for your well-being. It’s all in the scientific models and projections. A message brought to you by the Ministry of Truth in “1984.” (For more from the author of “Florida Sheriff Who Arrested Pastor Now Releasing 163 Actual Criminals (While You’re Locked in at Home)” please click HERE)

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Megachurch Pastor Arrested for Ignoring Social Distancing Requirements

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A controversial Florida pastor who refused to stop holding packed church services, in violation of coronavirus restrictions, was arrested Monday by a local sheriff who said the preacher was putting his followers’ lives at risk.

Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne was booked on misdemeanor charges of unlawful assembly and violation of public health rules after flouting social distancing orders at The River at Tampa Bay church.

Howard-Browne—an ally of President Donald Trump—has been an outspoken opponent of social distancing requirements, claiming his church has machines that can stop the coronavirus and vowing to personally cure the state of Florida himself.

“His reckless disregard for human life put hundreds of people in his congregation at risk, and thousands of residents who may interact with them this week, in danger,” Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said at the press conference.

Howard-Browne did not respond to an immediate request for comment. He turned himself in to a neighboring sheriff’s office, was booked and released within 40 minutes, according to jail records. (Read more from “Megachurch Pastor Arrested for Ignoring Social Distancing Requirements” HERE)

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First Person Charged Under Florida ‘Red Flag’ Law Found Guilty

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The first person to have his guns confiscated under Florida’s 2018 “red flag” law has been found guilty over his refusal to voluntarily surrender the weapons.

Jerron Smith, 33, now faces up to five years in prison after a jury in Broward County rejected his argument that he did not fully understand the new law. The jury returned the verdict Friday after a short trial.

Smith, of Deerfield Beach, was the subject of a risk protection order soon after the law was enacted in response to the Parkland high school mass shooting in February 2018.

Smith owned an AR-15 rifle and a .22-caliber rifle which Broward deputies seized after his arrest in March 2018 on charges of firing six shots at a vehicle being driven by his best friend, according to reports.

Smith is facing trial on an attempted murder charge in connection with that incident. He was accused of firing at his friend with a Glock handgun that deputies also took, according to reports. (Read more from “First Person Charged Under Florida ‘Red Flag’ Law Found Guilty” HERE)

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Pensacola Shooting Suspect Reportedly Loathed U.S. as ‘Nation of Evil,’ Hosted Dinner to Watch Mass Shooting Videos; Pensacola Muslims Fear ‘Backlash’ After Jihad Massacre

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By Daily Caller. A Saudi military student training at Pensacola Naval Air Station reportedly wrote an anti-American manifesto prior to the Friday shooting that killed three people.

Mohammed al-Shamrani called the United States a “nation of evil” in an online manifesto, AFP reported Saturday. Shamrani died in the attack that left eight other people wounded. Authorities are assessing whether the incident was a terrorist attack. . .

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis identified the shooting suspect as a Saudi Arabian national who was on the base for military flight training. In the 9/11 attacks 15 of the of the 19 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia and some had learned how to fly at civilian flight training centers in Florida.

According to the SITE Intelligence Group that investigates radical Islamist media, Shamrani had posted a manifesto on a since-deleted Twitter account that read in part: “I’m against evil, and America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil.”

(Read more from “Pensacola Shooting Suspect Reportedly Loathed U.S. as ‘Nation of Evil,’ Hosted Dinner to Watch Mass Shooting Videos” HERE)

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Here We Go Again: Pensacola Muslims Fear ‘Backlash’ After Jihad Massacre

By PJ Media. The Pensacola News Journal was first out of the gate this time around with what is a recurring feature of establishment media coverage of jihad attacks: the follow-up weeper about how the local Muslims are shocked (Shocked!) by the massacre, and are now cowering in fear of an “anti-Muslim backlash.” That backlash rarely, if ever, materializes, but when has the media ever allowed reality to intrude upon a good narrative?

The News Journal interviewed Salma Ashmawi of the Islamic Center of Northwest Florida, and Ashmawi hit all the expected notes, asking: “What can anybody do in a case like that except pray?” Ashmawi added, said the News Journal, that “the mosque’s membership is also raising money to help the victims.” She said: “We are all Pensacola residents. We’re hurt and we’re in mourning.”

Amid all this pious magnanimity, Ashmawi also remembered to play the victim: she “said parents who usually take their children to Sunday school at the mosque are planning to keep their children home this week out of fear they will become targets of backlash aimed against Muslims.” . . .

No claim that Muslims were the real victims would be complete without a bit of moral equivalence, so Ashmawi “said what the shooter did was an act against God and against humanity, though she added that Christians don’t have to live in fear or face calls to apologize every time someone claiming to be a Christian does something wrong.” She did not, of course, mention the fact that jihad murderers quite often scream “Allahu akbar” while killing infidels, while Christian criminals don’t generally invoke Jesus while in the midst of their evildoing.

Ashmawi insisted that it was all because “Islamophobes” don’t understand Islam: “But sadly enough, people don’t understand that this has nothing to do with our faith. In fact, what he did is totally forbidden and against faith. Somebody that does something so horrific is not blessed. God has said if you kill one human, it’s as though you have killed all humanity.” (Read more from “Here We Go Again: Pensacola Muslims Fear ‘Backlash’ After Jihad Massacre” HERE)

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Florida County Declares Itself a ‘Second Amendment Sanctuary’

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A Florida county has become the first in the state to pass a resolution declaring itself a “Second Amendment Sanctuary” in support of gun rights.

The Lake County Commission in central Florida approved the measure last week in response to mandatory gun buyback proposals by Democrats running for president, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

The resolution, which passed by a 4-0 vote, says that Lake County’s law-abiding gun owners are safe from having their firearms taken away. The county’s other commissioner was absent, but expressed support for it.

Commissioner Josh Blake was quoted by the paper and other local media as saying that the resolution draws a line in the sand. (Read more from “Florida County Declares Itself a ‘Second Amendment Sanctuary'” HERE)

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Sheriff Defends ‘in God We Trust’ Patrol Car Decal After Atheists Complain

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A sheriff of Brevard County, Florida, has refused to back down from the decision to place new decals on patrol cars that depict the phrase “In God We Trust” after an atheist group lodged a complaint.

“They have a better chance of me waking up thin tomorrow morning than they do of me taking that motto off our cars!” Sheriff Wayne Ivey told Fox News. “I personally believe that our country is at a tipping point, and if we, as strong patriotic Americans, don’t stand for the principals of our great nation, we are going to lose the America we all know and love!”

Ivey was responding to the complaint by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), which expressed its view in a letter that the new decal is “frightening and politically dubious.” . . .

“Spending taxpayer time placing religious messages on patrol cars is beyond the scope of secular government,” she wrote, adding:

Further, in a time when citizens nationwide are increasingly distrustful of law enforcement officers’ actions, it is frightening and politically dubious for the local police department to announce to citizens that officers rely on the judgment of a deity rather than on the judgment of the law.

(Read more from “Sheriff Defends ‘in God We Trust’ Patrol Car Decal After Atheists Complain” HERE)

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Privacy Warning: Detective Permitted to Override Privacy Settings of 1.2 Million Users of DNA Site

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Last week, a Florida detective made a startling public announcement: a judge had ruled he could permit him to have access to the privacy settings of the 1.2 million users of GEDmatch, a personal genomics database and genealogy website that was used by police to identify a suspect in the Golden State Killer case in California in 2018.

Detective Michael Fields of the Orlando Police Department, determined to solve a decades-old case of a serial rapist, appealed to Judge Patricia Strowbridge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida to approve a warrant permitting him to override the privacy settings of GEDmatch’s users, according to The New York Times. Once Patricia Strowbridge consented, GEDmatch let Fields have access less than 24 hours later, according to Fields.

20 million people have uploaded their genetic profiles to consumer DNA sites, but the two major sites, Ancestry.com, which has 15 million users, and 23andMe, which boasts 10 million, have stated they will respect their customers’ privacy. The Times added, “GEDmatch, severely restricted police access to its records this year.”

After the judge’s decision had been rendered, NYU law professor Erin Murphy warned, “That’s a huge game-changer. The company made a decision to keep law enforcement out, and that’s been overridden by a court. It’s a signal that no genetic information can be safe.” She added, “I have no question in my mind that if the public isn’t outraged by this, they will go to the mother lode: the 15-million-person Ancestry database. Why play in the peanuts when you can go to the big show?”

Yaniv Erlich, the chief science officer at MyHeritage, a genealogy database, echoed, “They won’t stop here.” (Read more from “Privacy Warning: Detective Permitted to Override Privacy Settings of 1.2 Million Users of DNA Site” HERE)

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