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Author: Fuzzy Slippers

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Fuzzy Slippers

I am a constitutional conservative, a writer, and an editor.

Follow me on Twitter @fuzislippers

Anthony "Carlos Danger" Weiner's online sexual predator persona is very well known.  His lewd forays on social media made him a disgraced laughingstock, and he ultimately resigned his House seat and then withdrew his bid for mayor of New York City as a result. The latest page in Weiner's "cautionary tale of self destruction" includes a mongoose, porn scenes, strappy black heels, and an epic catfishing expedition. The New York Post reports:
Sext fiend Anthony Weiner boasted of his animal prowess — claiming he was “deceptively strong . . . like a mongoose” — and gave his cellphone number to a college student during a flirty, private online chat on a recent trip to Los Angeles, The Post has learned. But the joke was on the horndog pol, whose wife, Huma Abedin, is a top aide and close confidante of Hillary Clinton.

The Iranian government hanged Shahram Amiri, a nuclear scientist, for giving "vital information to the enemy."  The enemy being, despite Obama's desperate groveling, the United States:  "This person who had access to the country's secret and classified information had been linked to our hostile and No. 1 enemy, America, the Great Satan" a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary said. NPR reports:
Iran has executed a nuclear scientist who allegedly provided U.S. officials with information about the country's nuclear program. In 2010, Shahram Amiri returned from the US. to Iran, where he was eventually arrested, as NPR's Peter Kenyon told our Newscast unit. "The spokesman for Iran's judiciary tells the official IRNA news agency that Shahram Amiri was executed following his conviction on treason charges," Peter reported. That spokesman, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, said in a news conference that Amiri "had access to top secret information about the Islamic Republic of Iran," which he provided to the United States, according to IRNA.

Hillary Clinton's relationship with law enforcement, like her involvement with any issue, has evolved over time. Sometimes over night. There are reports that Hillary, as First Lady, had little respect for—and was even verbally abusive toward—the Secret Service agents assigned to protect her . . . with their lives if necessary.  Apparently, she also gave these men the impression that her dislike extended beyond the Secret Service to "law enforcement and the military." After receiving harsh criticism from the left when she made the "mistake" of declaring that "all lives matter,"  Hillary started courting the Black Lives Matter movement, attempting to ingratiate herself and secure their support for her campaign. Against this backdrop and when faced with the decision of whether or not to seek the endorsement of the National Fraternal Order of Police, she declined to submit to the process.  A move seen as a snub by the police union.

Yesterday in Rio, 19-year-old Ginny Thrasher won the USA's first gold medal in the 2016 Olympics; she won the women’s 10-meter air rifle finals to the excitement and pride of every American.  Well, almost every American, the backlash from the left runs the gambit from droll to downright nasty and mean-spirited. Ginny is a college student from Virginia who first shot a rifle while hunting with her grandfather, joined her high school rifle team, and was subsequently inspired by the 2012 Olympic shooting events to go for the gold herself.  Ginny's performance on Saturday morning was nothing short of outstanding and is being called an "upset" in that she out-shot a two-time Olympic gold medal winner. The Washington Post reports:
Thrasher . . . was one of eight competitors to emerge from the 50-woman qualification round Saturday morning.

Back in March, Alabama's governor, Robert Bentley, signed into law legislation that will legalize brewers' direct sale of beer to customers for home consumption. Alabama.com reported at the time:
The new law will:
  • Allow breweries that make less than 60,000 barrels per year to directly sell up to 288 ounces of its beer per customer per day for off-premise consumption.
  • Allow breweries to deliver up to two donated kegs of its beer to a licensed charity event.
  • No longer require brewpubs to open only in historic buildings, historic districts or economically distressed areas.
That "288 ounces . . . per customer per day" limitation has resulted in a proposal from Alabama's alcohol regulators that has raised more than a few eyebrows.  They want breweries to require customers provide personal information so that the breweries can provide that, along with individual sales information, to Alabama's Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Board.

Sanctuary cities have long been a problem, but the heightened public awareness in the wake of  high profile murders like that of Kate Steinle has prompted Congress to take action (finally).  To that end, Congress has conditioned DOJ grants on compliance with federal immigration law.  For California, this move puts at risk as much as $135 million in federal grants. Fox News reports:
California state and local law enforcement agencies may have to choose between more than $100 million in federal aid and the “sanctuary city” immigration policies that supporters say are humane, but critics say fuel crime. The policies, whether in writing or just in practice, preclude local law enforcement from working with federal authorities when they catch an illegal immigrant who by law faces deportation. The laws have sparked a national controversy in the wake of dozens of murders and other violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants who local law enforcement did not report to the Department of Homeland Security.

Minimum wage hikes sound great on the surface, but as we've been reporting here at LI, such hikes tend to do the opposite of their proponents' stated intention.  From forcing businesses to fire employees, cut hours, and find technological replacements for workers, minimum wage hikes are counter-productive, even destructive to low-income workers. For example, a new study from Seattle shows that "there was almost no effect on workers' average total earnings" due to a combination of factors including fewer hours and a more difficult time finding a second job to make up those lost hours. The Washington Post reports:
[T]he actual benefits to workers might have been minimal, according to a group of economists whom the city commissioned to study the minimum wage and who presented their initial findings last week.

Here at Li, we've been covering the failure of socialism unfolding in Venezuela.  Toilet paper, sugar, and food shortages have resulted in violence and thus far unsuccessful attempts to oust President Nicolas Maduro.  With the country's citizens tired, hungry, and angry, Maduro has landed on a "solution" that would make Pol Pot proud:  forced labor. CNN reports:
In a vaguely-worded decree, Venezuelan officials indicated that public and private sector employees could be forced to work in the country's fields for at least 60-day periods, which may be extended "if circumstances merit." . . . .  President Nicolas Maduro is using his executive powers to declare a state of economic emergency. By using a decree, he can legally circumvent Venezuela's opposition-led National Assembly -- the Congress -- which is staunchly against all of Maduro's actions.

After every mass shooting, even those clearly terror related, Obama and Democrats leap at the chance to push for anti-Second Amendment legislation that will disarm the innocent and the law-abiding. From calls for gun control "action" to executive orders to "a day of action" for gun control, we consistently hear about the need for strict gun control from the left.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.  With the revelation of her involvement—as DNC chair—in scuttling the Bernie Sanders campaign, she has been ousted from her convention role, and Sanders is today iterating his call for her resignation. According to Fox News, a Democrat source said Wasserman Schultz has been "quarantined."

As Mary noted when she wrote about Erdogan's issuance of a three-month state of emergency, the purges have indeed continued and dramatically expanded beyond their initial scope: "What began as an effort to root out members of the military and security forces directly involved in the July 15 coup attempt has been extended to eliminate the Gulen movement’s influence from education, academia and the civil service." Reports are emerging that Turkey has moved forward with its plans to "purge" all purportedly Gulen-linked institutions and organizations. Bloomberg reports:
The Turkish government’s decision to shut down and seize the assets of organizations linked to the alleged mastermind of last week’s failed coup has come into force, and ministers continued to reassure foreign leaders and investors that the country isn’t backsliding on democracy and economic reforms.

The Brexit vote that resulted in David Cameron stepping down has also prompted a range of apocolyptic fear-mongering that British trade would collapse. In fact, numerous countries are beginning to explore free trade deals with Britain after its EU exit.  With the 2019 date for Britain's exit from the EU looming, the United States and Australia have emerged "at the front of queue" to line up trade deals.  Such deals with just these two countries "alone could be worth billions of pounds to the British economy." Australia, in particular, sees the opportunity to open up trading with Britain as a "matter of urgency." The Guardian reports:
Australia has called for a free-trade deal with Britain as soon as possible, in a boost for the newly appointed prime minister, Theresa May. In a phone call on Saturday, May spoke to her Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull, who expressed his desire to open up trading between the two countries as a matter of urgency.
For her part, May states her belief that these talks are important in terms of showing that Brexit can work out well for Britons.

David Wolfe, a California resident, has created a video on his Facebook page showing the results of the Syrian civil war in "before" and "after" images has gone viral. Haaertz reports:

A video produced by Los Angeles resident David Wolfe showing the vast destruction since the outbreak of the civil war in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, has gone viral. Posted on Wolfe's Facebook fan page, it has been viewed more than 11 million times and shared around a quarter million times on Facebook.

The photos used to put the video together are from the Bored Panda website, which noted that vast toll in human lives and the physical damage in Aleppo since 2012, including the city's Old City, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Among the 84 people killed in the Nice terror attack were an American father and son from Austin, Texas. USA Today reports:
The two American fatalities from Thursday's terror attack in Nice, France, were a father and son from this Hill Country enclave who bonded through baseball and were on a family trip through Spain and France. Sean Copeland, 51, was vacationing with his wife, Kim, 39, and their son, Brodie, 11, along with two of Copeland’s children from a previous marriage: Maegan, 29, and Austin, 22.

We've been covering the Nice, France terrorist attack here at LI, including updates as more information becomes available.  Today, ISIS has claimed responsibility for the terror attack that killed 84 people, including two Americans, and wounded hundreds more. The New York Times reports:
The Islamic State claimed on Saturday that the man who attacked the seaside city of Nice, France, was one of the group’s “soldiers.” France’s defense minister promptly blamed the terrorist network for inspiring the assault, while its top law enforcement official said the attacker, who was not previously known to intelligence agencies, may have “radicalized himself very quickly.”

. . . .  The Islamic State had kept silent on the Nice attack until Saturday morning, when it declared, in a bulletin issued in Arabic and in English on its Amaq News Agency channel:

“Executor of the deadly operation in Nice, France, was a soldier of the Islamic State. He executed the operation in response to calls to target citizens of coalition nations, which fight the Islamic State.”

Given what we know about the Dallas sniper, it's clear to most of us what his motive was in shooting and killing five officers.  As Mary noted, not only did he tell the police negotiator that he wanted to kill "white people, especially white police officers," but he was also inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and had a long history of not respecting authority.  He was also noted to have gone "all Black Panther" and to have been hording bomb-making materials and an assortment of weapons, presumably for some future plans he may have had. Nonetheless, one prominent progressive with a history of promoting the Black Lives Matter movement is completely confused by and uncertain about the sniper's motives.

As I've previously noted, Hillary's current email scandal echoes the '90's Project X scandal in which she was also involved in hiding sensitive high level email communications.  That's not the only echo from the past:  prosecutors during the Clinton presidency weighed whether or not to charge Hillary with a crime.  They even went so far as to draw up an indictment. The Washington Post reports:
While history remembers the 1990s probe led by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr for its pursuit of President Bill Clinton over the possibility he had lied under oath about his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky, internal documents from the inquiry show how close prosecutors came to filing charges at that time against Hillary Clinton. They even drew up a draft indictment for Clinton, which has never been made public. At issue then was legal work Clinton had performed in the 1980s while an attorney at Little Rock’s Rose Law Firm on behalf of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, which was owned by a business partner of the Clintons who was later convicted of fraud in connection with bad loans made by the thrift. Clinton said that her legal work was minimal and that she was unaware of the wrongdoing at Madison Guaranty.
Prosecutors, according to WaPo, weighed the likelihood of a conviction based on Hillary's then-status as First Lady.
The released records include a memo, written by Starr’s team, summarizing the evidence against Clinton. The prosecutors noted that she made numerous sworn statements between January 1994 and February 1996 that they thought “reflected and embodied materially inaccurate stories.”

Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn and the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency is reported to be on Trump's short list for the vice presidential slot. General Flynn was forced out of the DIA in 2014 amid rumors that his "management style" was "chaotic." The Washington Post reported at the time:
Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn is expected to end his tenure as DIA director this summer, about a year before he was scheduled to depart, according to officials who said Flynn faced pressure from Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. and others in recent months . . . . . . . . Flynn, who served as a top intelligence adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrystal in Iraq and Afghanistan, arrived at the DIA in July 2012 vowing to accelerate the agency’s overhaul. Asked after a public speech how he would treat employees reluctant to embrace his agenda, Flynn said he would “move them or fire them.” He drafted a blueprint that called for sending more employees overseas, being more responsive to regional U.S. military commanders, and turning analysts’ attention from the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan to a broader array of emerging national security threats.