TheFrontPageCover
~ Featuring ~
First Step: Pro-Cop, Pro-Borders,
Pro-Criminal Justice Reform
by Michelle Malkin 
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Oil Crashes to Lowest Level in Over a Year after
Trump Puts Pressure on Saudi Arabia
by John Carney
{breitbart.com} ~ Oil prices dropped sharply on Friday as traders came to grips Donald Trump’s demands that Saudi Arabia keep oil prices low... The U.S. benchmark, West Texas Intermediate futures, fell by as much as 7 percent at its lows of the day, briefly slipping below $50 a barrel. Despite rebounding a bit to $51 a barrel on Friday afternoon, the American crude grade is deeply in bear market territory, off by more than 30 percent from its October 3 close. Brent crude, the global benchmark, is down 6 percent. It is also down by nearly a one-third from recent highs. Donald Trump’s tweet thanking Saudi Arabia for the low price of oil highlighted the political pressure bearing down on the kingdom. Investors are increasingly skeptical that the Saudis will risk alienating the Trump administration by supporting plans to cut oil supplies to boost prices at the December 6th OPEC meeting in Vienna. The stronger-than-expected growth in U.S. oil production is also contributing to the price decline. U.S. production climbed above 11 million barrels a day earlier this year, according to government data. Signs that European and Asian economies may be slumping also likely contributed to the sell-off, giving rise to the notion that global demand for oil and gasoline may decline even while supply remains high. China gasoline exports in October fell to their lowest in 13 months amid a glut of the fuel in Asia and globally, a Reuters report citing customs data showed on Friday....
A Deep State Motive Behind Conspicuous Releases?
by sundanceTaxpayers Spend Billions On Gay Sex Costs
{headlinehealth.com} ~ ~ In a long-awaited move, a federal advisory panel is recommending that doctors be encouraged to offer an HIV prevention pill... a step that would quickly expand insurance coverage for a medicine that has been difficult for some people to access due to its cost. In explaining its decision, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force determined there is “high certainty” that using the pill would provide a “substantial” benefit for people at a high risk of becoming infected with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS. The independent panel of experts noted that it found “adequate epidemiologic data” on risk factors that can be used to identify people who are at a high risk of acquiring HIV. Should physicians adopt the recommendation,the medicine may finally fill its potential. Known as PrEP but sold commercially as Truvada by Gilead Sciences (GILD), the pill was approved to treat HIV in 2004, and then endorsed for prevention in 2012. Yet the panel noted that an estimated 1.1 million people in the U.S. are currently living with HIV. The panel also noted that the CDC had estimated 1.2 million people were eligible for the pill three years ago, although only 78,300 actually used the medicine in 2016, when roughly 40,000 were diagnosed with HIV... https://headlinehealth.com/taxpayers-spend-billions-on-gay-sex-costs/
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Discount Canadian Oil Prompts
Huge Protest Against Trudeau
by David Krayden
{dailycaller.com} ~ Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Calgary, Alberta, Thursday, prompting a massive protest that shut down a city street... As the Canadian Press reports, Trudeau is in the oil-rich province as the energy sector has been crippled by a petroleum glut that has resulted in Canadian oil fetching $45 (CAD) barrel — about half of the world price that U.S. suppliers are receiving. The discount price is a result of a cruel combination of oversupply and lack of shipping capabilities. The fiscal consequence for the Canadian economy is about $80 million a day in lost revenue, according to Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. Trudeau told the Calgary Chamber of Commerce that he shared the city’s pain. “There is no question that folks in Alberta — folks here in Calgary — are living through extremely difficult times. This is very much a crisis,” Trudeau said. “When you have a price differential that’s up around $42 — $50, even — that’s a massive challenge to local industry, to the livelihood of a lot of Albertans. I hear that very, very clearly.” But outside the building, locals were booing the prime minister for failing to get the Kinger Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline built that would allow the province to move crude from Alberta to the West Coast... https://dailycaller.com/2018/11/23/discount-canadian-oil-huge-protest-trudeau/?utm_medium=email.
New Congressman Asks: What Freedoms,
Exactly, Has Trump “Undermined”?
{restoreamericanglory.com} ~ Two soon-to-be U.S. congressmen appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation” show on Sunday, and their views on what’s best for the country going forward couldn’t be more divergent... When Colorado Democrat Joe Neguse suggested that it was up to the House of Representatives to “save our democracy” from President Donald Trump, his Republican colleague – Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw of Texas – politely asked Neguse to come up with a single example of the president undermining American freedoms. “I think that right now it’s important for this majority in the House to engage in some really critical oversight of an administration that is undermining a lot of critical freedoms for folks in our country. When I say save our democracy, I mean precisely that,” Neguse said. “I think some of our democratic freedoms and the principles that we live by have been under attack for the better part of the last two years.” “What is he undermining exactly? You know, what democratic freedoms have been undermined?” Crenshaw asked, reasonably. “We just had an election where we switched power in the House. Democracy is at work. People are voting in record numbers.” Neguse could not obviously argue that point, so he and the other Democrats on the panel began discussing the White House feud with CNN clown Jim Acosta. Chrissy Houlahan, a new Democrat from Pennsylvania, said that when Trump is “disruptive” in White House press conferences, it is “literally an attack on the press.” Crenshaw, who was severely wounded in Afghanistan, asked that his colleagues tone down the idiotic rhetoric. “I’ve literally been attacked,” he said. “So I, don’t — let’s choose our words carefully.” Later, Crenshaw expanded on that thought, urging politicians and members of Congress to be more careful about their political rants... http://www.restoreamericanglory.com/freedoms/new-congressman-asks-what-freedoms-exactly-has-trump-undermined/
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First Step: Pro-Cop, Pro-Borders,
Pro-Criminal Justice Reform
by Michelle Malkin
{cnsnews.com} ~ The package of criminal justice reform proposals endorsed by President Donald Trump is not "soft" on crime. It's tough on injustice. And it's about time.Known as the "First Step Act," the legislation confronts the Titanic failure of the federal government's trillion-dollar war on drugs by reforming mandatory minimum sentences, rectifying unscientifically grounded disparities in criminal penalties for crack vs. powder cocaine users, and tackling recidivism among federal inmates through risk assessment, earned-time credit incentive structures, re-entry programs and transitional housing.
There's nothing radical about giving law-breakers who served their time an opportunity to turn their lives around and avoid ending up back behind bars. More than 30 red and blue states have enacted measures to reduce incarceration, control costs and improve public safety. Texas — no bleeding-heart liberal mecca — spearheaded alternatives to the endless prison-building boom a decade ago by redirecting tax dollars to rehab, treatment and mental health services. The Lone Star state saved an estimated $3 billion in new public construction costs while stemming the prison population tide.
Similar efforts adopted last year in Louisiana — long known as the prison capital of the world — have yielded promising reductions in the recidivism rate. Pelican Institute for Public Policy analyst Margaret Mire reports that "Louisiana's re-arrest rate in the first nine months is 19 percent, or 7 percentage points, behind the national, annual re-arrest average of 26 percent." State data show that the re-incarceration rate is down to 6 percent in the same time period — "on pace to be 9 percentage points lower than its full-year average prior to the reforms, or 15 percent."
Mississippi GOP Gov. Phil Bryant overhauled sentencing mandates, embraced faith-based ministries and funded counseling programs for inmates preparing for their transition to life on the outside. "Crime is down 6 percent," he reported at a White House prison reform summit earlier this year. "We have 3,000 less inmates. We saved $40 million since 2014. And you can do the same thing."
Despite staunch support from conservative Republican governors, prosecutors and law enforcement closest to the ground on this issue, the same hyperbolic talking points used by some immovable "law and order" opponents at the state level are now being used against First Step: Cops will be endangered, critics balk. Violent monsters will go free. Child predators and drug kingpins will flood our neighborhoods.
Scary, but deceptive. The plain language of the bill makes clear that its "early release" provisions must be earned. Moreover, as Utah GOP Sen. Mike Lee points out: "At all times the Bureau of Prisons retains all authority over who does and does not qualify for early release." Former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman, a veteran of the criminal justice system for 20 years, notes that inmates convicted of crimes of violence including assaults on police, drug trafficking including hardcore fentanyl and heroin dealing and child pornography would not qualify for credits. Period. The list of ineligible prisoners is a mile long.
As a staunch opponent of illegal alien amnesty for the past 25 years, the most potent attack by First Step critics concerns whether criminal aliens in federal prisons will be let loose en masse. They won't. The law states that no prisoner can earn time credits "if that prisoner is an inadmissible or deportable alien under the immigration laws as such term is defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act." And legislative analysts assert that under current Bureau of Prisons' regulations, a prisoner subject to an ICE detainer wouldn't be eligible for placement in home confinement, anyway.
Critic Dan Cadman of the Center for Immigration Studies is not satisfied and argues that "the simplest way to make it a clean bill where immigration enforcement is concerned is to say at the beginning of the bill that 'none of the sections that follow in this bill apply to incarcerated aliens.'" That should be a simple fix and is no reason to prevent First Step from moving to the Senate floor for vigorous debate.
My own awakening to the systemic flaws and failures of our criminal justice system came from viewing it through the eyes of the wrongfully accused and wrongfully convicted. Prosecutorial misconduct, police malfeasance, investigative bias and a guilty-until-proven-innocent agenda have ruined lives and squandered limited resources. From there, I've come to appreciate activists and practitioners on both sides of the aisle educating people about sweeping "hang 'em high" mandates that ensnare millions of their fellow citizens, clogging up jail space and wasting away productive years.
Our system is at its best when all involved can admit policy failures and work to change them. Why wait?
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