Baltimore Sun – by Erin Cox

With little debate, the Maryland House of Delegates on Thursday passed three gun control bills that expand the state’s assault weapons ban and creates ways to seize guns from dangerous people.

The chamber approved, 128-7, a ban on “bump stocks” and other devices that can turn a semi-automatic gun into a rapid fire one. Those after-market devices were used by the shooter in last year’s massacre that killed 58 at a Las Vegas concert.   Continue reading “Gun-control bills pass Maryland House of Delegates”

CBS News

The Trump administration is finalizing a plan to combat the opioid crisis that will call for changing mandatory minimums for drug traffickers and include language urging prosecutors to seek the death penalty as an option for drug dealers in fatal opioid overdose cases, a White House source confirmed to CBS News.

The plan, first reported by Politico, is expected to be released in New Hampshire on Monday where President Trump will make stops in Manchester. New Hampshire has some of the highest rates of overdose deaths in the country, according to the Center For Disease Control, coming in third after West Virginia and Ohio.
Continue reading “Trump’s opioid plan includes pushing death penalty for drug dealers”

Yahoo News

MIAMI (AP) — An innovative pedestrian bridge being built at Florida International University was put to a “stress test” before it collapsed over traffic, killing six people and sending 10 to a hospital, authorities said.

As state and federal investigators worked to determine how and why the five-day-old span failed on Thursday, one factor may have been the stress test that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said crews were conducting on the span.   Continue reading “Fallen bridge: ‘Stress test’ preceded collapse that killed 6”

USA Today

Surveillance video released Thursday shows former deputy Scot Peterson standing outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School while Nikolas Cruz fatally shot 17 students and staff.

Broward County Sheriff’s Office, which released the video, identified Peterson in the footage, adding that it “speaks for itself.”   Continue reading “Parkland surveillance video shows officer standing outside school during shooting”

The Hill

President Trump is reportedly open to a short-term fix for “Dreamers” in a government funding package in exchange for money for his proposed border wall.

GOP officials told The Washington Post that the White House has communicated with Republican congressional leadership about the shift in Trump’s position.   Continue reading “Trump open to DACA deal for border wall funding: report”

Yahoo News

For the first time in California’s history, the state has appointed an undocumented resident to a statewide post, announcing the decision just a day after President Donald Trump attacked its immigration approach during a visit to San Diego.

The decision made by the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday saw Lizbeth Mateo, a 33-year-old attorney and immigrant rights activist, appointed to serve on a committee that helps increase college access for students from low-income or underserved communities.   Continue reading “First Undocumented Immigrant Appointed to State Post in California”

Guns America – by S.H. Bannelberry

Our pets’ heads are fallin’ off!!!

That’s kinda how I feel at the moment.  What I mean is that who woulda thought that a year into Trump’s presidency we’d be watching the National Rifle Association — the nation’s preeminent gun rights organization — make a push for bump stock bans and firearm surrender bills?  Not me!

Because really, that’s where we are right now!!!  What happened to the Hearing Protection Act?  Concealed Carry Reciprocity?  Those goodies that we were led to believe were imminent with the election of The Don.   Continue reading “NRA-ILA Does 180 on Extreme Risk Protection Orders… Now It Supports ‘Em!”

Yahoo News

The younger sister of Dylann Roof, who was sentenced to die for murdering nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, was arrested Wednesday at her school for allegedly bringing weapons to campus and posting to Snapchat a message police said “caused alarm.”

Morgan Roof, 18, was arrested at A.C. Flora High School in Columbia, South Carolina, after school officials told police that she had a knife, pepper spray and marijuana in her possession, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.  Continue reading “Sister of Charleston shooter arrested at school after Snapchat post ’caused alarm’”

The Hill

The House on Wednesday easily passed a measure to strengthen school safety and security, a vote that coincided with the one-month anniversary of the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla.

The bill does not include gun control measures despite the growing calls for action on that front. Students across the country staged walkouts Wednesday on gun violence, with one of the protests taking place outside the Capitol.   Continue reading “House passes school safety bill”

Forbes – by George Leef

In the first century or so of our national existence, one of the Constitution’s provisions that was most often at issue was the Contract Clause. But following New Deal era decisions that eviscerated it, hardly any cases have since centered on it. The clause has been so forgotten that few Americans even know it’s there, in Article I, Section 10, reading, “No state shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts.”

The Constitution’s drafters had good reason to include that language, meant to assure people that contracts would be inviolate. During the years under the Articles of Confederation, the states frequently undermined the confidence in contracts by enacting debt relief laws and revoking business charters. The first state law to be declared invalid by a federal court was a Rhode Island statute that let a politically connected state businessman out of his debts. Unless contracts were reliable, the Founders knew, the new nation’s commercial development would itself be impaired.  Continue reading “The Supreme Court Will Soon Decide: Uphold The Contract Clause Or Let It Die?”

Fox News

Stephen Hawking, the famed theoretical physicist who defied a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to live virtually his entire adult life with the disease – in a wheelchair and paralyzed but making constant contributions to a world few could understand – has died at age 76, a family spokesman said.

Although Hawking may have been incapacitated physically, he managed to write books, including the best seller “A Brief History of Time,” teach physics and mathematics, deliver speeches and even float in zero gravity, all while working in the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity.   Continue reading “Stephen Hawking, famed physicist, dead at 76”

Washington Times

The Space Cadets want you!

President Trump said Tuesday that he was considering the creation of a “space force” to extend U.S. military power into the final frontier.

“Think of it, a Space Force,” Mr. Trump told troops at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego.   Continue reading “Trump proposes ‘Space Force’ to protect final frontier”

Times of Israel

WASHINGTON (AP) — US President Donald Trump’s choice to be the first female director of the CIA is a career spymaster who once ran an agency prison in Thailand where terror suspects were subjected to a harsh interrogation technique that the president has supported.

Trump tweeted Tuesday that CIA Director Mike Pompeo will replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state and that he has selected Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo.   Continue reading “Pick for new CIA chief a career spymaster who once ran secret prison”

Yahoo News

(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump issued an order on Monday prohibiting semiconductor maker Broadcom Ltd’s <AVGO.O> proposed takeover of Qualcomm Inc<QCOM.O> on grounds of national security, bringing an end to what would have been the technology industry’s biggest deal ever.

Qualcomm had rebuffed Broadcom’s $117 billion takeover bid, which was under investigation by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a multi-agency panel led by the U.S. Treasury Department that reviews the national security implications of acquisitions of U.S. corporations by foreign companies.  Continue reading “President Trump halts Broadcom takeover of Qualcomm”

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Paul Craig Roberts

Americans live a never-never-land existance. The politicians and presstitutes make sure of that.

Consider something as simple as the unemployment rate. The US is said to have full employment with a January 2018 unemployment rate of 4.1 percent, down from 9.8 percent in January 2010.https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
Continue reading “Make-Believe America”

Fox News

An illegal immigrant charged in a deadly hit-and-run crash bonded out of a Colorado jail and avoided detention by federal immigration agents over the weekend.

Ivan Zamarripa-Castaneda, 26, fled the scene of an accident on Interstate 70 involving a tractor-trailer that caught on fire last week, leaving the driver to die, according to the Denver Police Department.   Continue reading “Illegal Immigrant in Deadly Hit-and-Run Crash Bonds Out of Jail, Avoids ICE”

Fox News

A teenager was killed and at least two women were seriously hurt after a pair of explosions rocked homes in Austin on Monday — just two weeks after a third blast which authorities said is linked to at least one of Monday’s incidents.

Austin Police said they received a call about the first explosion in a neighborhood on the northeast side of the city around 6:45 a.m., after the 17-year-old resident found a package on the front step, brought it inside, and opened it in the kitchen where it exploded.    Continue reading “Austin package explosions leave teen dead, women hurt after three blasts in 2 weeks”

NBC News

WASHINGTON — Top Democrats in Congress called on the Trump administration Monday to do everything in its power to have the 13 Russian nationals indicted last month on charges of election meddling extradited to the United States to face trial.

The letter to President Donald Trump comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin told NBC News in an interview with Megyn Kelly that Jews and other minorities may have been responsible for the cyberattacks during the 2016 election.   Continue reading “After Putin blames Jews for election meddling, lawmakers demand he extradite indicted Russians”

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Mint Press News – by Darius Shahtahmasebi

Israel is in the process of plunging America into a war with Iran that could destroy what’s left of the Middle East and ignite a third world war, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, warned in Washington approximately a week ago.

Wilkerson, a retired army colonel who now teaches at Washington-area universities, didn’t hold back in his critique of where the status quo is leading the United States via its client state, Israel.   Continue reading “Retired US Colonel: Israel Is Dragging the United States Into World War III”

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USA Watchdog – by Greg Hunter

Former CIA Officer and whistleblower Kevin Shipp says the reason for all the crime and treason at the FBI and DOJ all boils down to one thing–the Clinton so-called “charity.” Shipp explains, “Hillary Clinton was running and is running a global financial criminal syndicate.  She was using these secret servers to conduct Clinton financial money laundering business.  The shocking thing about that is all the former directors of the CIA that have come out to support her, from Clapper to Brennan to Morell to Robert Gates supporting her being elected, knew about this criminal syndicate.  Continue reading “Clinton Charity Fraud Biggest Scandal in US History – Kevin Shipp”