Guntown

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U.S. Arms Sales Overseas Are On Record Pace With Big Mideast Sales

U.S. arms sales overseas could crush records in fiscal year 2017 after the State Department cleared helicopter, missile and other military sales to allies in the Middle East. But President-elect Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric could weigh on future sales to the region.

On Thursday the State Department approved a possible sale of 37 Boeing (BA) Apache helicopters to the United Arab Emirates along with engines and other spare parts for an estimated $3.5 billion, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

An estimated $3.51 billion order for 48 Boeing Chinook helicopters, related equipment, training, and support was approved for Saudi Arabia.

Other major deals approved included an $108 million deal for TOW anti-tank missiles to Morocco and United Technologies' (UTX) Pratt & Whitney F117 engines and logistic support to Qatar.

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What eating an ice cream cone looks like in a police state

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Jason Kander's take on guns

Jason Kander, a Democrat, is challenging Republican Roy Blunt for his U.S. Senate seat in Missouri. And Kander will be getting plenty of attention for his cause thanks to this remarkable new campaign ad he just released in response to Blunt attacking him on the issue of guns.

Kander, 35, is Missouri's secretary of state. He also happens to be an Afghanistan war veteran. And his literally hands-on message about guns leaves quite the impression. Indeed, this is the kind of spot that can swing a race. 

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/did-missouri-democrat-just-make-best-campaign-ad-2016-election-173548

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In honor of the Snacktivists

From the Malheur Refuge Occupation in Oregon came a movement to showcase the plight of the "sovereign-citizens-patriot-militia" (trademark pending) who like guns, taking public lands, and free snacks,

Praise Mildred.

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Ammon Bundy's lawyer quotes from Western film, mocks federal prosecutors in last-minute legal motion

Five days before jury selection is set to begin, Ammon Bundy's lawyer mocked federal prosecutors for their concise rejection of his last-minute efforts to convince the court to throw out the indictment based on his client's continued challenges of federal control of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and the court's authority.

On Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Knight wrote, "This Court has jurisdiction ... because this is a case involving federal criminal charges.''

He added, "Moreover, Bundy's adverse possession theory is fatally flawed because it does not apply to the federal government.''

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2016/09/ammon_bundy_quotes_from.html

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Putin's warning to the world

The most important document in terms of US mission statement is NSC68. It's more significant than the Constitution. One cannot understand US foreign and domestic policy without it.

https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/coldwar/documents/pdf/10-1.pdf

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‘Real America Is Coming After You:’ Former U.S. Rep. Declares War on ‘Black Lives Matter Punks’ and President Obama

For former U.S. Representative Joe Walsh, the former is the one and only explanation for last night’s ambush. In a now deleted tweet, Walsh declared war on the anti-police brutality group Black Lives Matter and even President Barack Obama,  warning that “Real America is coming for you.”

http://atlantablackstar.com/2016/07/08/real-america-is-coming-after-you-former-u-s-rep-declares-war-on-black-lives-matter-punks-and-president-obama/

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CONYERS’ Remarks at Press Conference To Condemn Senseless Violence & Call For Congress To Act

Conyers: Out of Respect for All Who Have Lost Their Lives – Both Law Enforcement and Civilian – We Must Dedicate Ourselves to Engaging the Difficult Issues

Washington, D.C. – House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) joined members of the Congressional Black Caucus at a press conference today to denounce the slayings of police officers in Dallas,  and the slayings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota. Below are Congressman Conyers’ remarks as prepared for delivery: 

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

“I stand here today with a heavy heart. From Orlando, to Baton Rouge, to Falcon Heights and Dallas – our Nation is reeling from recent acts of violence. My heart goes out to the families of every single one of the victims this week, including the fallen officers in Dallas.

“Whether mass shootings, officers dying in the line of duty, killings on our streets, or lives lost at the hands of misguided police - there are too many such tragedies. Congress cannot continue to sit on the sidelines while blood flows in our streets. There are real issues of public safety impacting Americans that must be addressed at the federal level.

“I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: we need to adopt gun violence prevention legislation to expand background checks to all gun purchases, and we need to reinstate a ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons.   And at the same time, I also believe we need to take a comprehensive approach at addressing the issue of building and strengthening trust between local police and their communities.

“As the longest serving Member of Congress, I have dedicated a major portion of my career to policing issues and gun violence prevention, introducing legislation, chairing town hall discussions across the country, and meeting with the grieving families of fallen officers and citizens alike.  As part of the now controversial 1994 Crime Bill, I was able to pass the Federal Pattern and Practice Enforcement provision that allows the Department of Justice to investigate state and local police departments, most recently like Ferguson and Baltimore, for unconstitutional and discriminatory conduct.

“Last year, the Judiciary Committee held a hearing on 21^st Century Policing Strategies to begin addressing the issue at the Federal level.  Shortly before the hearing, I introduced the End Racial Profiling Act which works to eliminate racial profiling through changing the policies and procedures underlying the practice.

“Following the hearing, I introduced the Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act, which would provide incentives for local police organizations to voluntarily adopt performance-based standards to ensure that incidents of misconduct will be minimized through appropriate management, training and oversight protocols and that if such incidents do occur, that they will be properly investigated.  The bill also provides police officers -- the vast majority of whom are great people who are concerned about their communities -- with the tools necessary to work with their communities and to enhance their professional growth and education.

“Since that time, Chairman Goodlatte and I have been hard at work on negotiating a version the Law Enforcement Trust & Integrity Act to bring before the Committee.  However, like too many well intended efforts, we are stuck at the 1 yard line, trying to push toward a finish.

“We have been able to find agreement on major items, like accreditation standards, best practices, body cameras and even data collection.  The real challenge now is finding the support to bring the bill forward in the Committee.  We must find a way past objections to this most basic tenet: if you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it....

“Though there has been a consistent call for mandatory data collection by law enforcement agencies – with 28 states passing some form of data collection requirements and 17 others having proposed legislation – data collection remains a serious matter of controversy in the law enforcement community. 

“The tragic shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile might have been avoided with better training, particularly in detentions and use of force, as addressed by accreditation standards and best practice provisions currently in negotiation before the Committee. 

           

“I will continue to work with Chairman Goodlatte to see this bill progress. I will also continue to work with my colleagues to push for passage of commonsense gun violence prevention bills that we know will make us safer.

           

“Out of respect for all who have lost their lives – both law enforcement and civilian – we must dedicate ourselves to engaging the difficult issues to make lasting change in our communities and heal as a Nation.”

Congressman Conyers introduced both the End Racial Profiling Act and the Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act to help build trust and strengthen the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve.

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LISTEN TO WHAT THIS POLICE OFFICER HAS TO SAY ABOUT THE ‪#‎ALTONSTERLING‬ SHOOTING IN BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA....

Cred: ‪#‎OfficerNakiaJones‬

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The Second Amendment's Second-Class Citizens

After losing the Civil War, Southern states quickly adopted the Black Codes, laws designed to reestablish white supremacy by dictating what the freedmen could and couldn’t do. One common provision barred blacks from possessing firearms. To enforce the gun ban, white men riding in posses began terrorizing black communities. In January 1866,Harper’s Weekly reported that in Mississippi, such groups had “seized every gun and pistol found in the hands of the (so called) freedmen” in parts of the state. The most infamous of these disarmament posses, of course, was the Ku Klux Klan.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/alton-sterling-philando-castile-2nd-amendment-guns/490301/

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CONYERS SITS IN TO DEMAND ACTION ON GUN VIOLENCE

Washington, DC – House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) released the following statement on the sit-in on the House floor today to demand action on gun violence:

Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) is pictured on the House floor during the sit-in with Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) and House Democrats.

“It is simply unacceptable for Congress to choose to do nothing in the face of gun violence, which takes a deadly toll on our streets and in our communities every day.  It appears that Republicans’ only response to gun violence is silence — but we won’t be silent. What we are doing on the House floor is a call to action.  We are challenging Republicans in the House to simply hold votes on common-sense bills that are supported overwhelmingly by our citizens. 

“I join my colleagues today for the sit-in because now is the time to face the challenges posed by gun violence by taking steps that we know will make us safer. I thank my good friend Congressman John Lewis for initiating this sit-in to demand that Congress act now.

“Our Republican colleagues can no longer ignore the plight of the American people and calls from Democratic members of Congress to do something. It’s past time that we act, and bring legislation to the floor that addresses serious problems within our system that allow guns to fall into the wrong hands.”

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Van Jones turns Trump’s mass shooting policy on its head: ‘Start racially profiling white men’

During a Sunday interview, the presumptive GOP nominee suggested that he would consider racial profiling as a tactic to prevent terrorism.

“Well I think profiling is something that we’re going to have to start thinking about as a country,” Trump told CBS News. “And I hate the concept of profiling but we have to start using common sense and we have to use our heads.”

On Monday, Jones pointed out that racially profiling Muslims would be an ineffective way to prevent mass shootings.

“I just think it’s really interesting that we’re talking about racially profiling in the context of mass shootings,” he noted. “The vast majority of the people who are doing the mass shootings in America aren’t Muslims at all.”

“Young white men,” CNN host Brooke Baldwin sighed.

Jones continued: “You are seven times more likely to be killed by a right wing extremist — a racist or an anti-government nutjob — seven times more likely than a Muslim.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/van-jones-turns-trumps-mass-shooting-policy-on-its-head-start-racially-profiling-white-men/

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Gretchen Carlson comes out for banning assault weapons

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Donald Trump: Americans Who Don’t Report Their Suspicious Neighbors Should Be ‘Brought To Justice’

Donald Trump on Monday proposed punishing Americans if they don’t turn in their friends and neighbors for behaving suspiciously.

“In San Bernardino, people knew what was going on, they knew exactly, but they used the excuse of racial profiling for not reporting it,” Trump said during a speech in the wake of the Orlando mass shooting. 

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee was presumably referring to unverified reports that a woman who lived near the mother of one of the San Bernardino shooters had noticed that the family received “quite a few packages within a short amount of time, and they were doing a lot of work out in the garage.”  

A man who claimed to be friends with this neighbor said she did not report the packages and the behavior to authorities because she “didn’t want to do any kind of racial profiling.”

In Trump’s America, however, that woman would face serious consequences. “We need to make sure every single person involved in this plan, including anyone who knew something, but didn’t tell us, is brought to justice,” Trump said in New Hampshire. “These people need to have consequences, big consequences.” 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-orlando-san-bernardino_us_575f1802e4b0e4fe51435eb2

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Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick deletes "reap what you sow" tweet after mass shooting at LGBT club

http://m.chron.com/about/article/Texas-Lt-Governor-Dan-Patrick-tweets-reap-what-8076147.php

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The cash donations Hillary simply has no answer for

Among all the rivers of money that have flowed to the Clinton family, one seems to raise the biggest national security questions of all: the stream of cash that came from 20 foreign governments who relied on weapons export approvals from Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

Federal law designates the secretary of state as “responsible for the continuous supervision and general direction of sales” of arms, military hardware and services to foreign countries. In practice, that meant that Clinton was charged with rejecting or approving weapons deals — and when it came to Clinton Foundation donors, Hillary Clinton’s State Department did a whole lot of approving.

While Clinton was secretary of state, her department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to Clinton Foundation donors. That figure from Clinton’s three full fiscal years in office is almost double the value of arms sales to those countries during the same period of President George W. Bush’s second term.

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/31/the_cash_donations_hillary_simply_has_no_answer_for_partner/

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Hitler Reacts to the Death of LaVoy Finicum

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George Zimmerman auctioning off gun used to kill Trayvon Martin — and using money to ‘fight’ BLM and Clinton

George Zimmerman is auctioning off the gun he used to fatally shoot Trayvon Martin.

Zimmerman, who was found not guilty of second-degree murder and manslaughter after arguing self-defense, explained in an interview with WOGX, “I’m a free American. I can do what I like with my possessions.”

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Bundy supporters seethe over arrest of militant with illegal machine gun: They’re playing with a ‘time bomb’

Authorities have arrested yet another member of the armed militant group that occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon early this year, the Oregonian reports.

Michael Emry, who describes himself as a reporter who “embedded” himself with the Bundy-led militia during the 41-day stand-off, was arrested Friday on federal weapons charges.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/05/bundy-supporters-seethe-over-arrest-of-militant-with-illegal-machine-gun-theyre-playing-with-a-time-bomb

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