March 2019 – In The News Feed.

News and Headlines. In The News, Immigration, Politics, World News.

In The News:

It’s Official: US is First Country in World History to Increase GDP by More than $1 Trillion in a Year!

For the second year in a row President Trump broke the record for the largest annual increase in GDP in history!

In 2017 the US GDP increased by a record $853 billion.

But this record was shattered in 2018 with an increase of greater than $1 trillion, the largest annual increase in GDP by any country in world history!

The World Bank reported for 2017 that the US was about 25% of the total world GDP of around $80 trillion.

The World Bank reported the US at $19 trillion to China’s $12, Japan’s $5, Germany’s $4 and the UK’s $3.

U.S. oil pushes back above $60 a barrel, on track for strongest quarter in a decade

Oil posted strong gains Friday, shaking off a slump in the previous session attributed to a tweeted plea to OPEC for lower prices by President Donald Trump, putting crude on track for its strongest quarter in a decade on worries over tightening global supplies.

The U.S. benchmark is up more than 32% over the first three months of 2019, on track for its strongest quarterly performance since 2009.

Vietnam Veterans Day

Celebrated every March 29, Vietnam Veterans Day is set aside as a day for Americans to honor the courage and sacrifice of those who served in the Vietnam War.

At Military.com we know that the benefits you earned through service matter — from discounts, to the Department of Veteran Affairs veterans ID card program, to need-to-know information about your VA healthcare.

Military.com honors the selfless service of Vietnam veterans from the Coast Guard, Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps.

Democrats in Congress Swap POW-MIA Flags for Transgender Banners

Only a handful of Republicans joined the Democrats to oppose the ban: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.), Rep. Trey Hollingsworth (R-Ind.), Will Hurd (R-Texas), John Katko (R-N.Y.), and Tom Reed (R-N.Y.).

According to Fox News, the flags were delivered to every member of Congress by a group named “National Center for Transgender Equality” along with a request to fly the flags outside their offices.

Several Congressional Democrats replaced flags honoring the American veterans with banners celebrating “transgender equality,” according to photos the Democrats shared on social media.

Hot Pockets heiress among those embroiled in college admissions scandal

Among those appearing in Boston federal court is Michelle Janavs, a former executive at her family’s food manufacturing company, Chef America, which made the popular microwaveable snack Hot Pockets.

The company was bought out by Nestle for $2.6 billion in 2002.

Janavs is accused of paying at least $100,000 to “fix” her daughter’s college admissions exam and get her into the University of Southern California as a volleyball recruit although she did “not play competitively,” Mass Live reported.

She also allegedly paid thousands to get her youngest daughter’s ACT test score altered, Mass Live reported. It was not immediately clear where Janavs’ youngest daughter planned to go to school.

Obama HHS Abortion Mandate Loses in Court, Can’t Force James Dobson to Fund Abortions

A federal district court issued an order Tuesday that permanently prevents the federal government from enforcing the Affordable Care Act’s abortion-pill mandate against the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute and its “Family Talk” radio show.

The order also declares that the mandate violates the organization’s rights protected by the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The Obama-era mandate forces most employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception through their health plans under threat of heavy penalties.

The Trump administration’s Department of Justice abandoned its defense of the flawed mandate.

Texas Senate To Protect Religious Rights Of Lawyers, Doctors

The proposed legislation will simply prohibit state licensing agencies from adopting rules or policies that limit a professional’s free exercise of religion — including denying or revoking a license for actions taken according to a “sincerely held religious belief.”

Recently, a clerk in a neighboring Bible-belt state of Kentucky was jailed and illegally fined by the courts for refusing to issue gay marriage licenses; her 1st Amendment was made a “teachable moment.”

Sen. Perry’s bill is arguably an extension of the “Texas Privacy Act” passed last session, and is mirrored by the rulings and opinions given by Texas Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton on the sanctity of marriage — specifically the right of state employees to deny gay couples marriage licenses on the basis of “sincerely held religious belief.”

6 in 10 Americans Say Congress Should End Trump Probes

“After 3 years of lies and smears and slander, the Russia hoax is finally dead. The collusion delusion is over,” Trump told 12,000 supporters in the Van Andel Arena.

Although many Democrats still want to keep the investigations into Trump rolling—voters appear to have had enough.

Just 31 percent of all likely U.S. voters think congressional Democrats should do their own investigation, despite the Mueller probe finding no evidence of Russian collusion, according to March 29 data from Rasmussen Reports.

The majority of those polled, 61 percent, said it’s time for Democrats to move on to other issues, according to data from Rasmussen, one of the most accurate polls in predicting the 2016 presidential election results.

Teacher’s Trump-Related Assignment Triggers Anger from Parents

Texas State Rep. Briscoe Cain (R) posted a photo of the assignment on Facebook along with a note from an angry parent.

The passage in the assignment comes from a student-written essay and features statements like “some of Trump’s policies have gone against American value” and accuses President Donald Trump of making “racist remarks” and calls on the American people to “take a stand” against the commander-in-chief.

“This individual has violated the sacred trust that every parent has with the State of Texas when they send their child into a public school,”

Cain wrote. “They have lost the privilege of being in a classroom with Texas children, and forfeit the title of teacher.”

“No teacher should attempt to indoctrinate a child to their ideology, no matter who is in the White House.”

All-female spacewalk canceled

NASA’s historic all-female spacewalk has been indefinitely postponed. The reason?

They couldn’t reconfigure a spacesuit for one of the female astronauts at the last minute.

100% pure UPS guy takes selfies with all the neighborhood dogs

Hardesty is a UPS driver in New Orleans, Louisiana. He describes himself as a “very easily entertained UPS driver,” which makes sense — Hardesty loves taking selfies of himself with all the neighborhood dogs.

“There’s a lot of dogs on my route. I came across a really cute one and took a picture with him,” Hardesty told Mashable over DM.

“I posted it and got a lot of good feedback and realized people wanted more of that so I started taking pics of the dogs I came across.”

California man sentenced to 20 years for fatal ‘swatting’ of Kansas man

FILE – In this May 22, 2018, file photo, Tyler Barriss, of California, appears for a preliminary hearing in Wichita, Kan. (Bo Rader/The Wichita Eagle via AP, File)

Tyler R. Barriss, 26, admitted last November to calling Wichita police from Los Angeles in late 2017 to falsely report a shooting and kidnapping at the Kansas home where 28-year-old Andrew Finch lived.

He pleaded guilty to a total of 51 federal charges related to fake calls and threats.

Finch answered the door when police descended on his home, and an officer shot the unarmed man.

Fifth member of ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect arrested in latest kidnapping plot

Matityau Moshe Malka, a member of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect “Lev Tahor,” along with four jailed members of the group, were allegedly planning to kidnap a 14-year-old girl and her 12-year-old brother who recently fled the sect with their mother.

Malka is accused of providing the girl with several cellphones, so she could speak with members of the group.

He is facing federal kidnapping and obstruction of justice charges.

According to a new chilling indictment, the sect threatened the children’s mother, Sara Helbrans, that they would “fight the mother until the last drop of blood and they will fight her to the death,” the New York Post reported.

Neighbor ID’d as suspect in shooting recorded on cellphone

The phone was found next to 63-year-old Gary Dolce’s body after he was shot several times on Wednesday in Colorado Springs and was still recording, The Gazette reported .

According to an arrest affidavit, the video shows a blue SUV driven by James William Hanlon, 53, who points a black handgun at Dolce while wearing a blue, disposable glove.

The video captures several shots and Dolce falling to the ground yelling “Oh my God!” A second volley of shots are heard but are not captured on video.

Immigration:

Trump threatens to close border ‘next week’ if Mexico doesn’t ‘immediately stop’ flood of illegal immigrants

Trump’s warning comes as Customs and Border Protection officials say March is on pace to exceed 100,000 border apprehensions — the highest monthly total in a decade. According to CBP, this week alone, agents have more than 12,000 migrants in custody.,

“The DEMOCRATS have given us the weakest immigration laws anywhere in the World. Mexico has the strongest, & they make more than $100 Billion a year on the U.S.,” Trump tweeted.

“Therefore, CONGRESS MUST CHANGE OUR WEAK IMMIGRATION LAWS NOW, & Mexico must stop illegals from entering the U.S. through their country and our Southern Border.”

“Mexico for many years made a fortune off of the U.S., far greater than Border Costs.

If Mexico doesn’t immediately stop ALL illegal immigration coming into the United States through[sic] our Southern Border, I will be CLOSING the Border, or large sections of the Border, next week.”

Former acting ICE director challenges Democrats: What have they done to solve the ‘crisis’ at the border?

“The Congress has failed the American people.

The Democratic leadership, show me one thing they’ve done to solve this crisis down at the border,” Homan said on America’s Newsroom.

“What have they done to address the surge at the border?

The only one who is doing anything is this administration.

The president has done executive actions, declared national emergencies.

He’s getting sued every time he does executive action to try to stem the flow of the tide. The 9th circuit has got him tied up every time he turns around.”

Border Patrol agent who was actually undocumented immigrant is sentenced to probation

Marco A. De La Garza Jr., 38, actually is a Mexican citizen who managed to slip into the U.S. Navy, where he served on a nuclear submarine, and into the Customs and Border Protection agency with a U.S. birth certificate that he obtained with phony documents.

Authorities opted for leniency, citing his otherwise clean background and dedicated service to the United States.

The federal judge, Raner C. Collins, said that De La Garza’s record of service in the military and in the government job “ought to count for something.”

Illegal Alien Gets Life in Prison for Raping, Beating Muslim Teen to Death

Darwin Martinez Torres, a 22-year-old illegal alien from El Salvador, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering Hassanen in June of 2017.

Last year, the illegal alien pleaded guilty to raping and murdering the teenage girl.

As Breitbart News reported at the time, Hassanen and a group of fellow Muslim teenagers were eating at a nearby McDonald’s when they left and started walking back to the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center.

According to police, Torres started following the teenagers.

Soon after the teens noticed Torres, the illegal alien jumped a curb with his car and got out of his vehicle and started chasing the teens while wielding a baseball bat.

New York City to give additional $1.6 million to city attorneys to defend immigrants slated for deportation

The move to bolster the funding arose from a deal between New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Council Speaker Corey Johnson.

Attorneys and immigrant rights groups had pushed for money, saying that courts were rushing decisions on deportation and that immigrants were at a disadvantage if they did not have the help of an attorney.

At present, the city has an allotment of $10 million for public defenders who work on immigration cases.

The attorneys had requested an extra $6.6 million, citing the addition of immigration courts in New York aimed at accommodating a backlog of deportation cases, the Daily News said.

Mo Brooks: Illegal Alien-Flooded States Diluting Votes of Red States

During testimony at a House Oversight and Reform Committee this week,

Brooks said asking United States residents on the upcoming 2020 Census is necessary to know the number of illegal aliens living in the country and to ensure that congressional districts are drawn based on the number of American citizens, rather than entire populations, including citizens, noncitizens, and illegal aliens.

“I submit the inclusion of the citizenship question on the next census is not only common sense, it is a Constitutionally required,” Brooks said.

As Breitbart News has reported, the counting of only American citizens to divide up congressional districts and electoral college votes would shift power away from the affluent, metropolitan coastal cities of the U.S. and towards middle America.

If congressional districts were set by the number of citizens, the overall average population needed per congressional seat could decrease to about 670,000 citizens per district.

This would give a stronger advantage for states with small illegal alien populations to gain and keep their current number of congressional seats.

Politics:

TIP OF THE ICEBERG: Florida Voters Upset People in NY Voting in Their Name – Faces Of Voter Fraud #2

In today’s investigation, we meet three voters in Florida who used to live in New York.

Voting records indicated that these three men were voting illegally in both states.

But our reporting lead to another more sinister conclusion… in each case it looks like someone is voting in New York state in their name without their knowledge.

Spygate: How Obama Officials Plotted to Take Down Trump [2019] PART 1

Spygate has become one of the greatest political scandals in America’s history.

In this special two-part series we explore how the intelligence community and federal agencies conspired against Donald Trump’s presidency.

A willing and complicit media spread unsubstantiated or falsified leaks as facts in an effort to promote the Russia-collusion narrative rather than objectively report on it.

The Spygate scandal also raises a bigger question, was the 2016 election a one-time aberration or is it symptomatic of decades of institutional political corruption?

This story builds on dozens of Congressional testimonies, court documents, and other research to provide an inside look at the actions of Obama administration officials in this scandal.

Senator Offers Amendment to Reveal Obama’s Role in Probing Trump Campaign

Paul’s amendment would modify a resolution, which calls on the attorney general to release the full report by special counsel Robert Mueller to Congress and the public.

The resolution passed the House by a vote of 420-0 on March 14 and is now before the Senate.

“What we need to discover, and we do not yet know, was President Obama involved?

Was this done for partisan purposes? Was this done to try to elect Hillary Clinton?” Paul asked on the Senate floor.

According to a summary of Mueller’s final report released by Attorney General William Barr, the special counsel did not find any evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Mueller’s finding raises questions about the origins of the investigation of the Trump campaign and suggests that the probe was started without evidence of wrongdoing.

Rick Crawford: Adam Schiff Turned Intelligence Committee into ‘Propaganda Organ of the Democrat Party’

Under Schiff’s chairmanship, added Crawford, the House Intelligence Committee operates as a partisan tool of the Democrat Party.

“The Intelligence Committee is supposed to be about protecting the country, and what Adam Schiff has turned it into, it’s an arm of the DCCC.

It is a propaganda organ of the Democrat Party and what can we do to smear the president sufficiently to deny him a second term.”

All Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, including Crawford, requested Schiff’s resignation on Thursday given Schiff’s involvement in advancing the “collusion” narrative.

George Soros Paid Judge Kim Foxx $400K to drop charges Jussie Smollett, Tucker & Michelle Malkin

George Soros Paid Judge Kim Foxx $400K to drop charges in Jussie Smollett Case, Tucker Carlson & Michelle Malkin.

MSNBC, NBC News top political editor accused of ‘trying to intimidate’ reporter on ‘behalf of the DNC’

Yashar Ali, a high-profile freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the Huffington Post and New York magazine, said he was so taken aback by his conversation with Dafna Linzer, who has held the key NBC position since October 2015, that he posted his synopsis of it in a series of tweets Friday.

Linzer, he said, was trying to block him from publishing the dates of the 2020 Democratic Party primary debates – a move Ali suspects was made to benefit the DNC, not her employers.

“Dafna, who oversees the political coverage for NBC and MSNBC, was calling to bully me into delaying the publication of an innocuous scoop and at no point did she advocate for her network, it was only about the DNC.”

Ali then outlined the allegation, which he claimed stemmed from a “scoop” he had regarding the dates of the Democratic primary debates in 2020.

Glenn Greenwald Calls Out Establishment Media for Russia Hoax

Greenwald is a left-of-center journalist who isn’t afraid to criticize establishment media for lies and dishonesty.

From the beginning of the seemingly endless Russia probe, Greenwald pushed back on attempts from sponsored media personalities such as Rachel Maddow to depict Donald Trump and his presidency as controlled opposition puppeteered by Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.

The conspiracy theories, Greenwald asserted, were fuel for a hawkish project to create hostility between the United States and Russia without regards for the consequences.

In doing so, he became a target of fury from establishment Democrats and their associated media outlets.

The New Yorker ran an article of the Brazilian resident known for his work with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden likening him to a conspiracy theorist.

World News:

House of Commons rejects Brexit divorce deal for third time

MPs voted by 344 votes to 286 to reject the key pillar of the deal, the Withdrawal Agreement — a majority of 58. May said the implications of the result were “grave,” adding “I fear we are reaching the limits of this process in this house.”

But she hinted that she might try to bring the deal back before MPs for a fourth time, saying she would continue to press for an “orderly Brexit.”

The result means the U.K. will not meet an 11 p.m. deadline to approve the deal and forfeits an automatic extension of the Article 50 negotiating period until May 22 offered by the EU last week.

The government must now, by April 12, present a new way forward to the EU, most likely involving a longer extension and requiring the U.K. to take part in European Parliament election.

Otherwise the country will leave with no deal.

‘Everything is bad’: Ukraine on edge in election with untested comedian as front-runner

Volodymyr Zelensky, a 41-year-old entertainer who plays a president on TV, leads in the polls ahead of the first round of Ukraine’s presidential election Sunday.

Behind him, polls show, are the two erstwhile favorites with long political resumes: incumbent President Petro Poroshenko and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

They are expected to be in a down-to-the-wire battle for second place to face Zelensky in the April 21 runoff vote.

The country’s scrambled political landscape on the eve of the election reflects Ukraine’s rocky road since mass protests toppled a Moscow-friendly president five years ago.

Russia, NATO Poised for Black Sea Standoff

A Russian B-268 Veliky Novgorod Kilo class diesel-electric submarine (Project 636.3), designed for anti-shipping and anti-submarine operations and built at Admiralty Shipyard has joined Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, seen March 29, 2019 in Sevastopol, Russia.(SERGEI MALGAVKO/TASS/GETTY IMAGES)

Three vessels from the militaries of Canada, the Netherlands and Spain reportedly passed through Turkey’s Bosphorus Straits on Thursday as a part of a pre-planned exercise with a task force known as Standing NATO Maritime Group Two.

They are currently patrolling in the Black Sea, the site of a contentious standoff between the militaries and coast guards of Russia and Ukraine earlier this year, in which forces loyal to Moscow blocked access to some of Ukraine’s most consequential ports.

Two dozen Ukrainian seamen remain in Russian custody as the U.S. considers how it might escalate its support for Kiev.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Congress this week the alliance may announce new forms of aid at a meeting of NATO’s foreign ministers next week.

China Building Long-Range Cruise Missile Launched From Ship Container

The new missile is in flight testing and is a land-attack variant of an advanced anti-ship missile called the YJ-18C, according to American defense officials.

The missile will be deployed in launchers that appear from the outside to be standard international shipping containers used throughout the world for moving millions of tons of goods, often on the deck of large freighters.

The YJ-18C is China’s version of the Club-K cruise missile built by Russia that also uses a launcher disguised as a shipping container. Israel also is working on a container-launched missile called the Lora.

Iraqi leader says there’s ‘consensus’ on US troops presence

In an exclusive interview with the Associated Press on Friday, Barham Salih says there is “general consensus” that Iraq needs continued collaboration with the U.S. forces “as long as it is necessary.”

Some 5,200 troops are stationed in Iraq as part of a security agreement with the Iraqi government.

Salih’s comments are in stark contrast with that of deputies in the Iraqi Parliament who say they are preparing draft laws calling for a full withdrawal of U.S. troops.