'Ghost gun' kits targeted by anti-gun group

A gun control group on Friday asked two web hosting companies to shut down websites selling devices that are used to make untraceable homemade firearms -- also known as ghost guns.

The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence asked that Shopify and DreamHost -- hosts of GhostGunner.net and GhostGuns.com -- disable the websites for violating the hosting companies’ terms of service.

The sites sell kits that help create homemade semi-automatic weapons and can be purchased legally for a few hundred dollars without the kind of background check required for traditional gun purchases.
But Cody Wilson, who runs GhostGunner.net, said the products he sells on his website are legal and in compliance with federal regulations. He said although there is no legal requirement that he conduct background checks, he tries to take precautions to make sure the weapons aren’t used nefariously.
“This is an attempt to apply pressure to deplatform a legal, American business selling legal products to law-abiding customers,” he said.

"This is an attempt to apply pressure to deplatform a legal, American business selling legal products to law-abiding customers."

- Cody Wilson, operator of GhostGunner.net

The Giffords Law Center was founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, an Arizona Democrat who made headlines in January 2011 when she survived an assassination attempt in Tuscon, Ariz.
Attorneys for the gun control group said that homemade weapons are increasingly being used in crimes and asked each of the companies to “invoke its policies to help stem the tide of this illegal, deadly behavior.”
They argue that Shopify and DreamHost should use their ability to terminate the websites, arguing that the two sites sell “the sort of products that have already caused scores of senseless deaths — and are likely to cause many more, unless taken off the market.”
Authorities say that the gunman who killed his wife and four others earlier this month in Northern California built two semi-automatic rifles at his home despite having been barred from owning guns.
Representatives for GhostGuns.com, Shopify and DreamHost did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

Trump says he passed on being TIME's 'Person of the Year'

In a tweet on Friday, President Trump claimed he “took a pass” on being TIME Magazine’s 2017 “Person of the Year” after the publication reportedly called and said they’d “probably” offer him the spot.

“Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photoshoot,” Trump said in the tweet. “I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!”

But in a tweet from TIME Friday night, the company said, "The President is incorrect about how we choose Person of the Year," and that the recipient will not be announced until Dec. 6.
Trump was awarded the title last year after he won the 2016 presidential election.
The magazine’s managing editor, Nancy Gibbs, said last year that the choice of Trump was “straightforward.”
In 2015, Trump made the short-list for the award but it was instead offered to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. At the time, Trump said in a tweet that he had predicted he wouldn’t win and referred to Merkel as the “person who is ruining Germany.”
TRUMP DENOUNCES ATTACK IN EGYPT, CALLS AGAIN FOR TRAVEL BAN
TIME recently defined its “Person of the Year” as “a person (or people) who has had the most influence over the news in the last 12 months.”
While the magazine’s editors make the final choice, they reportedly take into consideration the opinions of their readers and let them vote, TIME said.
According to their posted results as of Friday night, Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, was leading the pack, followed by Trump, “The Dreamers” and “#MeToo.”

Earliest Trump mention in Panama Papers dates to 1990s: Report

A reference to a Trump Corporation condo purchase and sale in the 1990s appears in the Panama Papers, a report says.  (Reuters)

A reference to a mysterious condominium purchase and sale in the 1990s is the earliest mention of Donald Trump in the notorious Panama Papers, according to a report published Friday.

A Panamanian company called Process Consultants Inc., which was owned through bearer shares, purchased a residential unit in the Trump Palace skyscraper in New York City in 1991, investigative journalist Jake Bernstein reported, citing the documents.

Bernstein is the author of "Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite."
Bearer shares, which provide a convenient means to transfer property anonymously, have been tightly regulated in recent years because they are frequently used in money-laundering and other illicit ventures.
The directors of Process Consultants (which is sometimes spelled “Process Consultans” in the documents) were employed by Mossack Fonseca, the once-obscure law firm whose clients were exposed by the massive Panama Papers leak.
But these directors were in reality “nominee directors,” Bernstein wrote, meaning that they were not the real decision-makers. Companies sometimes name nominee directors to obfuscate who is really running operations.
Jürgen Mossack, founder of the firm, was one of the nominee directors of Process Consultants, Bernstein reported.
In 1994, Process Consultants sold the apartment for $355,000 to a woman from Hong Kong, using the Trump Corporation as its broker.
While there is no indication that the sale was illegal, the quick turnaround on the condo and the secretive nature of Process Consultants spurred some concern that money laundering may have been involved, the New York Daily News reported.
Trump's name pops up elsewhere in the Panama Papers, but Bernstein’s find marks the president's earliest known appearance.
The 2016 leak of the Panama Papers, a trove of nearly 12 million financial documents tracing Mossack Fonseca's efforts to help politicians and celebrities shield their money from taxes, led to the removal of Pakistan and Iceland’s prime ministers and numerous high-level investigations around the world.
Early in November, Trump's Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, was revealed in the so-called “Paradise Papers” to have conducted large business deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin's son-in-law.

Conyers accused of taking staff meeting in his underwear, ordering subordinate to babysit his kid

No one had to guess whether Rep. John Conyers wore boxers or briefs, according to a former key staffer, who said the embattled Michigan lawmaker once called her into a meeting while sporting only his skivvies.

Melanie Sloan, a lawyer who worked with Conyers on the House Judiciary Committee, said she was called up to the long-serving congressman's office to discuss an issue only to find him “walking  around in his underwear.”

Sloan is the third woman to accuse Conyers of inappropriate behavior.
“It made me increasingly anxious and depressed about going to work every day,” she said, adding that “there was no way to fix it.”

“It made me increasingly anxious and depressed about going to work every day."

“There was no mechanism I could use, no person I could go to,” she said.
Sloan was a well-known Washington lawyer when she worked as Democratic counsel on the House Judiciary Committee in the 1990s. It was not clear exactly when the strange encounter with the lawmaker, now 88, occurred.
During her time working for the committee, she claims Conyers often screamed at her, fired her then re-hired her, criticized her for not wearing stockings and once even ordered her to babysit one of his children.
While those revelations came out earlier this week, word of Conyers, who was first elected to Congress in 1964, taking a meeting in his underwear came this week in a Detroit Free Press article.
Though Sloan maintains Conyers did not sexually assault her, she told the Detroit Free Press that “his constant stream of abuse was difficult to handle and it was certainly damaging to my self-respect and self-esteem.”
Conyers’ hometown newspaper earlier this week called for his resignation in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against him as well as a questionable payout to one alleged victim.
Conyers is accused of using taxpayer dollars to settle a claim in secret, after a former staff reportedly claimed she was fired for rejecting his advances.
In a scathing editorial published late Tuesday, the Detroit Free Press demanded the Democrat step down immediately.
The paper called Conyers' actions “the kind of behavior that can never be tolerated in a public official, much less an elected representative of the people.”
“He should resign his position and allow the investigation into his behavior to unfold without the threat that it would render him, and the people he now represents, effectively voiceless,” the board wrote.
BuzzFeed reported Monday that Conyers settled a wrongful termination complaint in 2015 with a staffer who claimed she was dismissed because she did not “succumb to [his] sexual advances.”
Conyers acknowledged in a statement that his office paid his accuser the money -- reportedly a $27,000 sum -- but “vehemently” denied the underlying claims.
“I expressly and vehemently denied the allegations made against me, and continue to do so,” Conyers, who has spent 53 years in Congress, said. “My office resolved the allegations – with an express denial of liability – to save all involved from the rigors of protracted litigation. That should not be lost in the narrative.”
But the Detroit Free Press, which described Conyers as an “undisputed hero of the civil rights movement,” took issue with how Conyers’ office chose to handle the issue.
After the alleged victim made a formal complaint through Congress' Office of Compliance, Conyers’ office reportedly pushed to handle the situation on its own. If the woman dropped her complaint, signed a legal document saying Conyers had done nothing wrong and promised not to make any additional claims against him, she would be re-hired as a temporary “no-show” employee and paid $27,111.75 for three months, according to reports. The accuser agreed to the terms.
Conyers’ office defended the agreement as a way to avoid litigation – though House ethics rules bar lawmakers from keeping an employee on the payroll who isn’t doing anything.
"A House member can’t retain an employee who isn’t performing work commensurate with the pay, and regardless, can’t give back pay for work that stretches further than a month," the editorial board wrote.
While acknowledging that payoffs happen in the private sector, the board said “it should never, ever happen where public dollars (and public accountability) are concerned.”
Calling it a “public betrayal,” the board wrote it’s impossible to know how often the practice takes places in Congress but added Conyers should have known better.
Even though resigning would end his otherwise “stellar career,” the paper wrote that it’s “the appropriate consequence for the stunning subterfuge his office has indulged here, and a needed warning to other members of Congress that this can never be tolerated.”
The House Ethics Committee announced Tuesday it has opened an investigation into the matter.

Bill Clinton and Monica Cartoons

Sex scandal boomerang: Is the left ready for a Bill Clinton 'reckoning'?

When Jeff Sessions testified on the Hill yesterday, he was grilled about the Justice Department's disclosure that it may seek a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton.

Was it political retribution? Perhaps there should be a probe of whether donations to the Clinton Foundation were tied to a 2010 Obama administration decision, in which Clinton participated, to allow a Russian agency to buy a company that had uranium rights in America.

But after President Trump repeatedly urged such an investigation, critics say that naming a prosecutor would undermine DOJ’s independence. The attorney general said the decision would not be made on political grounds.
There is, at the moment, another drive under way to look back at Clinton — in this case, Bill Clinton.
In light of the intense focus on sexual assault and harassment allegations involving Roy Moore, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K., business leaders and prominent journalists, the question arises: What about Bubba? And that question is being posed by liberal commentators.
Having covered all the Clinton sex controversies, it's generally not true that the mainstream media gave the 42nd president a pass. The Washington Post investigated the Paula Jones story and broke the news about the Monica Lewinsky probe. Kathleen Willey appeared on "60 Minutes." The Post and Wall Street Journal reported on Juanita Broaddrick, although NBC held an interview with her until after Clinton was acquitted at his Senate impeachment trial.
But a number of liberals defended Clinton during the 1990s against the allegations, blaming them on what Hillary famously called a "vast right-wing conspiracy."
Chris Hayes, the liberal prime-time host on MSNBC, tweeted the other day: "As gross and cynical and hypocritical as the right’s 'what about Bill Clinton' stuff is, it’s also true that Democrats and the center left are overdue for a real reckoning with the allegations against him."
In a piece called "The Reckoning," Atlantic contributing editor Caitlin Flanagan wrote Monday that we should "not forget the sex crimes" of which "Bill Clinton was very credibly accused in the 1990s. Juanita Broaddrick reported that when she was a volunteer on one of his gubernatorial campaigns, she had arranged to meet him in a hotel coffee shop. At the last minute, he had changed the location to her room in the hotel, where she says he very violently raped her. She said she fought against Clinton throughout a rape that left her bloodied.
At a different Arkansas hotel, he caught sight of a minor state employee named Paula Jones, and, Jones says, he sent a couple of state troopers to invite her to his suite, where he exposed his penis to her and told her to kiss it. Kathleen Willey said that she met him in the Oval Office for personal and professional advice and that he groped her, rubbed his erect penis on her, and pushed her hand to his crotch.
"It was a pattern of behavior; it included an alleged violent assault; the women involved had far more credible evidence than many of the most notorious accusations that have come to light in the past five weeks. But Clinton was not left to the swift and pitiless justice that today’s accused men have experienced. Rather, he was rescued by a surprising force: machine feminism."
As Exhibit A, Flanagan points to this 1998 New York Times op-ed by feminist leader Gloria Steinem.
If the allegations were true, Steinem wrote, "President Clinton may be a candidate for sex addiction therapy. But feminists will still have been right to resist pressure by the right wing and the media to call for his resignation or impeachment."
On Kathleen Willey’s tale of Oval Office groping, Steinem said: "Even if the allegations are true, the president is not guilty of sexual harassment. He is accused of having made a gross, dumb, and reckless pass at a supporter during a low point in her life. She pushed him away, she said, and it never happened again. In other words, President Clinton took 'no' for an answer."
In the case of Paula Jones, "Mr. Clinton seems to have made a clumsy sexual pass, then accepted rejection." His relationship with Lewinsky, despite the "power imbalance," was not coerced.
And he should stay in office, writes Steinem, because he was "vital" to "reproductive freedom."
This is hugely embarrassing to read now, nearly two decades later.
New York Times liberal columnist Michelle Goldberg now writes that she believes Juanita Broaddrick, that revisiting the Clinton scandals is "painful," and that "Democrats are guilty of apologizing for Clinton when they shouldn’t have."
With a lament that Hillary had to pay the price for Bill’s misdeeds, Goldberg says:
"It's fair to conclude that because of Broaddrick's allegations, Bill Clinton no longer has a place in decent society."
In the cauldron of impeachment politics, some liberals were as wedded to defending Clinton despite the mounting evidence as some conservatives today are to defending Roy Moore.
But there is a defend-our-guy-at-all-costs mentality in such cases that at least some liberals are belatedly attempting to confront.
Footnote: Sessions, whose old Senate seat is at stake in the Roy Moore race, made no attempt to defend his fellow Alabamian at yesterday’s hearing. "I have no reason to doubt these women," he said.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz. 

Congressional Russia probes likely to head into 2018

Some Republicans are hoping lawmakers will soon wrap up investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election that have dragged on for most of the year. But with new details in the probe emerging almost daily, that seems unlikely.
Three congressional committees are investigating Russian interference and whether President Donald Trump's campaign was in any way involved. The panels have obtained thousands of pages of documents from Trump's campaign and other officials, and have done dozens of interviews.
The probes are separate from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mueller can prosecute for criminal activity, while Congress can only lay out findings, publicize any perceived wrongdoing and pass legislation to try to keep problems from happening again. If any committee finds evidence of criminal activity, it must refer the matter to Mueller.
All three committees have focused on a June 2016 meeting that Trump campaign officials held in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer and others. They are also looking into outreach by several other Russians to the campaign, including involvement of George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty this month to lying to the FBI as part of Mueller's probe. New threads continue to emerge, such as a recent revelation that Donald Trump Jr. was messaging with WikiLeaks, the website that leaked emails from top Democratic officials during the campaign.
A look at the committees that are investigating, and the status of their work when they return from their Thanksgiving break:
SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE
The Senate intelligence panel, which has been the most bipartisan in its approach, has interviewed more than 100 people, including most of those attending the Trump Tower meeting. Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina and the panel's top Democrat, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, have said they plan to bring in Donald Trump Jr. The president's son was one of several Trump campaign officials in the meeting.
The committee has looked broadly at the issue of interference, and called in executives from Facebook, Twitter and Google, pushing them to take steps to prevent Russian election meddling on their platforms. Warner told The Associated Press the committee is still looking for more information from those companies, which were initially reluctant to cooperate.
Burr has said that he wants to wrap up the probe by early spring, when congressional primaries begin. While there are many areas of bipartisan agreement on the meddling, it's unclear whether all members will agree to the final report. It's also unclear if the report will make a strong statement on whether the Trump campaign colluded in any way with Russia.
Warner said it's plain there were "unprecedented contacts" as Russians reached out to the Trump campaign but what's not established is collusion.
HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE
In the House, Democrats hope the intelligence committee can remain focused on the Russia probe as the panel's GOP chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, and other Republicans have launched new, separate investigations into Democrat Hillary Clinton and a uranium deal during President Barack Obama's administration. Nunes stepped back from the Russia probe in April after criticism that he was too close to the White House, but remains chairman of the committee.
Some Republicans on the panel have grown restless with the probe, saying it has amounted to a fishing expedition and pushing for it to end. Still, the committee has continued to interview dozens of witnesses involved with the Trump campaign, among them several participants in the 2016 meeting. On Nov. 30, the panel will interview Attorney General Jeff Sessions behind closed doors. Lawmakers are interested in Sessions' knowledge about interactions between Trump campaign aides and Russians, and also his own contacts.
The top Democrat on the panel, California Rep. Adam Schiff, told AP the committee has multiple interviews before the New Year. He said the Republican investigations into Clinton and Obama could be "an enormous time drain," but they have not yet fully organized. He says the committee must be thorough and he doesn't believe the Russia investigation should end soon.
SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
The Senate Judiciary Committee has also divided along partisan lines as Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the panel's top Democrat, haven't agreed on some interviews and subpoenas. But as in the House, the panel has proceeded anyway, conducting bipartisan, closed-door interviews with several people who were in the 2016 meeting.
The panel is showing recent signs that it is aggressively pursuing the investigation. The committee is the only one to have interviewed Trump Jr. And just before the Thanksgiving break, it sent Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a letter asking him to be more forthcoming with the committee.
Grassley has been focused on a law that requires foreign agents to register and the firing of James Comey as FBI director. Along with the other committees, Judiciary is also looking into a dossier of allegations about Trump's own connections to Russia.
It's not known if the panel will issue a final report, or if its probe will conclude before next year's elections.

New Manafort travel docs reveal closer ties to Russia: report

Paul Manafort had taken 18 trips to Moscow and was in contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s allies for more than a decade before running President Trump’s 2016 election campaign, a new report said Thursday.

Manafort, who was indicted by a federal grand jury last month on 12 counts including conspiracy against the United States, had also taken at least 19 trips to Kiev to work with a pro-Kremlin political faction before joining Trump’s team, McClatchy reported.

The news outlet cited flight records they obtained from Ukrainian authorities as well as intelligence gathered from current and foreign government officials. The new evidence suggests Manafort’s ties to the Kremlin go much deeper than previously thought.
Even after the February 2014 fall of Ukraine’s pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych, Manafort continued to go to Kiev another 19 times in fewer than two years while working for the smaller, pro-Russian Opposition Block party, McClatchy reported.
Some have suggested Manafort had been turned into an asset acting on Moscow’s behalf.
“You can make a case that all along he ...was either working principally for Moscow, or he was trying to play both sides against each other just to maximize his profits,” Daniel Fried, a former assistant secretary of state who communicated with Manafort during Yanukovych’s reign in President George W. Bush’s second term, told McClatchy.
“He’s at best got a conflict of interest and at worst is really doing Putin’s bidding,” Fried, now a fellow with the Atlantic Council, said.
A central question for Justice Department Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller and several congressional committees has been whether Manafort collaborated with Russia’s cyber meddling aimed at giving Trump the electoral edge over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
A source familiar with the matter told McClatchy that investigators are looking over information they obtained as part of a deeper dive into Russian influence in the U.S. presidential elections.
Manafort resigned on Aug. 19, 2016 after The New York Times reported handwritten ledgers showed $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments to Manafort from Yanukovych. Investigators in Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau contend the payments were part of an illegal off-the-books system.
FBI agents raided Manafort’s Virginia home in July, taking documents that included financial and tax records.
Manafort and his associate Rick Gates were indicted and last month pleaded not guilty to all 12 counts.
A judge set bond at $10 million for Manafort, and $5 million for Gates. Both were put on house arrest.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson gave Manafort and Gates permission to leave their home and have Thanksgiving with their families, but said they must wear a GPS ankle monitor and not consume alcohol.

Michael Flynn lawyers cut ties with Trump legal team, report says

Attorneys for former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn have informed President Donald Trump's legal team that they can no longer discuss Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian activities during the 2016 election campaign, The New York Times reported Thursday.

The move could indicate that Flynn's legal team either is cooperating with Mueller's investigators or is negotiating to do so.

The Times story, which cited four anonymous sources, reported that the president's attorneys have been bracing for Flynn to be indicted in recent weeks.

Video

Mueller probing Flynn's contact with Turkish officials

Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, resigned as national security adviser in February after admitting that he "inadvertently" gave top White House officials incomplete information about conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Former FBI Director James Comey testified before Congress in June that Trump asked him to end the bureau's investigation into Flynn's conversations with Kislyak they day after Flynn's resignation, telling him, "I hope you can let this go." Trump fired Comey as FBI director in May.
In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that Mueller was investigating whether Flynn tried to obtain Hillary Clinton's deleted emails from Russian hackers.

Video

WSJ: Mueller investigators looking into Kushner's contacts

Earlier this month, the Journal reported that Mueller was looking into a meeting where Flynn allegedly discussed a plan that would pay him and his son up to $15 million to kidnap a U.S.-based Muslim cleric and hand him over to Turkey's government.
Flynn's attorney's disputed the Journal report, calling the allegations "outrageous and prejudicial."

Thanksgiving Turkey Day Cartoons

Erick Erickson: This Thanksgiving, we should all be thankful for Trump. I know I am

For more reasons that you might expect, I think we should all be thankful for the President. I know I am thankful.

President Trump is not perfect. He was not my choice to be President. But I am thankful for him in many ways.
I appreciate that President Trump has brought about the great sorting of the conservative movement. Though disappointing to see, it has confirmed for me that the nation is not as conservative as I once thought and also that there are a lot of people who have made a lot of money in the conservative movement who do not really believe in the ideals of conservatism.
President Trump has made me recommit to my faith. I could be distracted by politics for the longest time, but seeing the country headed toward the darkness with many so called conservatives cheering on the dark, I have been forced to reprioritize things. I have realized how much of my politics and faith do not align and how many Christian conservatives have worked very hard to conform their faith to their politics instead of the other way around.

The richest reward in the age of Donald Trump is a clearer vision of the country and a greater appreciation for the necessity of relying on God, not men.

I am thankful he put Neil Gorsuch on the bench. I am thankful for many of the President's policies and stellar personnel appointments like Ajit Pai, Justice Willett, Nikki Haley, Rick Perry, General Mattis, etc.
Though it has not happened to the extent I would like, President Trump's election has forced some Democrats to finally realize what conservatives were talking about when they said character counted. It has not been good on the GOP side now, but some Democrats are finally having to recognize it. Likewise, Democrats are starting to realize that defending President Obama's legacy at the expense of reality may not be the greatest thing. It will take further time for this to shake out, but from Iran to Russia to North Korea, at least privately Democrats are starting to acknowledge Barack Obama's failures.
Though not an exhaustive list, there is one last thing I am thankful of because of President Trump. There are people in the old center-right coalition who I may not see eye to eye with at times, but I have a new appreciation for their willingness to stand up. Even now, we do not always agree on things, but it has been nice to see people make it through the great sorting with their integrity intact. I have always had respect and rare disagreement with people like Jonah Goldberg and Bill Kristol, but add into mix with them people like Charlie Sykes and others it is refreshing to see people focus on ideas on the right, not just the cult of personality.
The richest reward in the age of Donald Trump is a clearer vision of the country and a greater appreciation for the necessity of relying on God, not men. This clarifying moment would not have come except for Donald Trump's election and it is clear the turmoil, problems, and opportunism of many were always there festering.
Erick Erickson is a Fox News contributor. He is founder/editor of The Resurgent. His new book is "Before You Wake: Life Lessons From a Father to His Children”. Follow him on Twitter @EWErickson.

NFL national anthem protests are teaching our children to NOT be thankful for America

The continuing protests by multimillionaire NFL players who refuse to stand for our national anthem – disrespecting our flag and the brave patriots in our armed forces – are setting a terrible example for America’s children as Thanksgiving approaches.

The message?  Don't be thankful for the many blessings America has given you. Instead, act ungratefully, disrespectfully and unpatriotically

And sadly, some children are now following that example.
To cite just a few examples of protests around the country:
Four high school football players from Michigan were benched when they said they planned a kneeling protest. In Texas, two high school players were kicked off their team after protesting during the anthem. Good decisions in both cases.
And football players on a team made up of boys 8 and younger were joined by their coach in kneeling during the playing of our anthem in Illinois, after the coach told them about the protests started by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Unbelievably, the coach said: “I felt like it was a good teaching moment for me.”
Teaching what? Hatred of America?
Schools are hyper-vigilant nowadays about not tolerating student expressions that might offend anyone. For example, a school in Texas shut down a voluntary Bible discussion during the lunch hour. God – oops, pardon that expression – forbid that any atheist child should be offended.
If students banded together in a planned show of disrespect for a rainbow flag – the symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride – you’d better believe they’d be punished for intolerance.
And if students held a protest objecting to radical political Islam, there’s no doubt they’d be disciplined for bigotry. The same would happen if students denounced and disrespected any country on Earth – with one exception.
When student football players disrespect America, our anthem and our flag, what happens? They get applauded by the left. That’s because the left hugs First Amendment language like an endangered tree when it comes to disrespecting the American flag and our anthem.
In 2010 the Department of Justice began studying bullying in school based upon “national origin” and other differences. That’s no surprise. There’s been a federally recognized prohibition against discriminating against national origin since the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The federal government’s website dedicated to eradicating direct and indirect bullying noted this example of prohibited conduct from North Carolina: "Bullying or harassing behavior includes … acts ... motivated by any actual or perceived differentiating characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin.”
Bullying of this kind is frequent. A New York survey this year of middle and high school students showed that 65 percent of respondents said bullying occurred because of “race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, or citizenship/immigration status.”
So what does the federal government do with a local bullying incident in the United States? The Justice Department, explaining on its website about an LGBT student it helped, said it intervenes:
“The School District knew of the harassment ... neither fully investigated the allegations, nor followed its anti-harassment policies and procedures. The failure to address and prevent this kind of bullying from occurring violates Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
Let’s examine how a recent real-life incident of anthem kneeling could still play out.
On Sept. 28, football players at Monroe Township High School in New Jersey knelt during the national anthem. Two referees walked off in protest, leaving the legitimacy of the game in doubt. Only the refs were punished, being suspended for the rest of the season.
Monroe has a bullying policy. In pertinent part it defines and prohibits as follows:
“Harassment, intimidation, or bullying means any gesture ...  motivated by either any actual or perceived characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression; that ... has the effect of insulting or demeaning any student or group of students.”
What should happen next is that a parent of any American student insulted by the disrespect for America should demand that the school enforce Monroe’s bullying policy and discipline the kneelers.
If the school doesn’t act, the parent has a private right of action to sue the school under Title IX. The parent can have the Justice Department intervene to enforce their child’s rights.
Normally I don’t encourage making a federal case out of school disciplinary matters, but if the left keeps jumping us with culture rumbles, we have to take their own weapons to use on them.

Presenting your 2017 Turkey Bowl winners

America has much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving: Peace, prosperity and what Abraham Lincoln called the “inestimable blessings” of “the Great Disposer of Events.”
But if you really want to talk about inestimable blessings this year, just ask a political journalist. Hoo, boy…
In a profession where we are accustomed to scrounging for news, especially in electoral off years, we are operating in a time of unparalleled abundance with scandals, leaks, partisan fratricide, shutdown threats and on and on and on.
The Time of Cofeve may not be very good for the republic, but it is most certainly fascinating to cover. When we think back to days in Novembers past spent trying to scrape together stories on legislative markups and midterm look-aheads, we are truly grateful for the abundance, even at the occasional risk to our sanity and our appetites.
It is in the spirit of this horn of plenty of astonishing stories that we offer this year’s edition of the Halftime Report Turkey Bowl, recognizing the individuals and organizations that have found ways, even in these imbecilic times, to stand out for their lapses.
To our winners, we say thank you for making it easy. To our readers, we offer our apologies in advance.
WORST BOOK TOUR: HILLARY CLINTON (REPEAT WINNER)
The 2016 Democratic nominee has had a rough decade, professionally speaking. And one would have thought that losing a second presidential campaign to a candidate even more unlikely than the first one might have been enough to cure Hillary Clinton of politics for good. But, alas...
Determined to reshape a fast-hardening narrative about her campaign (incompetent, overpriced and disconnected) and herself (scandal-soaked and entitled), Clinton has been grinding it out on the book circuit for months like someone whose family didn’t profit to the tune of more than $100 million in the 16 years since they left the White House.
But a defeated presidential candidate looking to re-write history isn’t a brand new idea. What makes Clinton’s book tour stand out are mostly events beyond her control.   
Clinton could not have known that just about the time she was warming up for her book signings and radio interviews that her longtime friend and benefactor, Harvey Weinstein, was about the immolated in a napalm bath of sexual misconduct accusations.
That could have been icky, but what made it a debacle was the fact that the Weinstein allegations kicked off a whole new round of accusations and, ultimately, a reconsideration of her husband’s own misconduct. Democrats who had once tolerated or ignored her husband’s alleged mistreatment of women moved unambiguously toward blame and denunciation. And all the while, Clinton was on camera.
She hit the road hoping to cover her offenses as a candidate. She will come home with her and her husband’s roles in opening the way for the Roy Moores of the world an accepted part of political conventional wisdom.

WORST SOCIAL MEDIA MOMENT: SENATOR CRUZ ‘LIKES’
Back in September, a late-night “like” from Sen. Ted Cruz’s account appeared for a tweet containing fetish porn. Cruz later pointed a finger at a member of his staff for the unfortunate like, but didn’t throw the Twitter lurker under the bus. Cruz also tried to be a good sport, saying that they should have “done something like this during the Indiana primary.” But, to be fair, Cruz also had a pretty epic win back in January. After Politico ran a piece that mentioned that the senator played basketball on a weekly basis, the sports website Deadspin called him out wanting proof. In turn, Cruz tweeted a photo of his younger doppelgangers, Duke guard Grayson Allen writing with it, “What do I win?”  The Twitterverse erupted in praise for Cruz, claiming him the winner of this small yet mighty Twitter war. Deadspin didn’t take the loss lightly, responding back with a simple, “Go eat s–t.”
WORST LAUNDRY BILL: STEVE BANNON
Fashion forward or a fashion faux pas? President Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon likes to layer. Why dies a man leading a populist revolt want to dress like a villain from a John Hughes movie? There’s no clear answer. Some say he picked up the trend from his time at military prep school and others say he calls it “beach fashion.” His spokesperson made it very clear, however, that’s it never just one and rarely just two shirts. Three is Bannon’s lucky number... truly a “layering extremist.” He always has extra shirts on hand, specifically at Breitbart’s headquarters.
WORST OUTERWEAR DEPLOYMENT: GEORGE W. BUSH
The 43^rd president of the United States stole the show of the inauguration with and his costar: his rain poncho. Former president George W. Bush struggled with the plastic sheet for several minutes until he ultimately gave up and simply wrapped it around his head. But, he wasn’t the only one to struggle with his rain poncho. Looking closer at photos from the event one will notice that his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, also seemed confused by the rain protector. Maybe it’s a genetic thing? The takeaway: 43 should stay away from ponchos. Vanity Fair noted that this isn’t the first time the former president struggled with this article of clothing. In 2009, while in Lima, he was caught on camera having similar struggles while sporting a traditional Peruvian poncho.
WORST RELOCATION: JAVANKA
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump made it no secret that they were house hunting in the nation’s capital after Election Day. They were poised to become a power couple par excellence and take Washington by storm. Instead, missteps and scandals have, ten months after inauguration, left the couple labeled as the “exiles on Pennsylvania Ave.” Kushner has reportedly told friends that he and his wife debate going back to New York every few months.

WORST ASTRONOMICAL TOURISM: STEVEN MNUCHIN
Many Americans traveled from their homes to be able to watch the historic moment of this summer’s eclipse at its peak. But how about Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and his wife, Louise Linton? Reports show the couple flew to Kentucky on a government plane that day, ostensibly to visit Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who just happens to live right along the path of the totality of the eclipse. Mnuchin claimed he had no interest in the eclipse because he’s a New Yorker. According to Politico he said, “You know, people in Kentucky took this stuff very serious,” followed by, “Being a New Yorker... I was like, the eclipse? Really? I don’t have any interest in watching the eclipse.” Despite his expressed Northeastern blasé, though, the picture told the tale.
Further compounding the error: The secretary’s wife posted a photo of herself on Instagram, including hashtags of all of the expensive articles of clothing she was sporting on their day trip to Kentucky. Unable to take the heat from an Instagram user’s comment, Ms. Linton lost her cool and replied with a condescending remark, belittling the user. Linton got a big thumbs down from everyone else for that one.
But the real loser of the Mnuchin-Linton eclipse outing: Former Health Secretary Tom Price. The hubbub over the Treasury trip got reporters checking on cabinet members’ private jet usage and Price turned out to be a serial offender. After that, the doctor was out.  
WORST BEACH DAY: CHRIS CHRISTIE
Let’s go to the beach… oh wait. New Jersians couldn’t because Gov. Chris Christie shut it down. Amid the state government shutdown, Christie was able to catch some rays at the Island Beach State Park over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Christie was asked about a rumored outing and scoffed at the notion. “I didn't get any sun today.” Ruh-roh. He got busted in the act when aerial photos revealed Christie, his wife and other family members lounging on the beach. Christie’s defense: “He did not get any sun. He had a baseball hat on,” said communications director Brian Murray.
WORST HAPPY HOUR: HOUSE REPUBLICANS 
Let’s go back to May, to the “beginning of the end of ObamaCare” as Vice President Mike Pence called it. And Republicans were ready to party like it was officially repealed. Cases of beer were rolled through the halls of the capitol building heading toward a GOP conference meeting. Later that day in the White House Rose Garden, President Trump beamed with pride, soaking in what he deemed as his accomplishment. Yet here we are six months later...

WORST LEAKER: ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI
It’s funny how much of a difference the three simple words “off the record” make. What a ten days Anthony Scaramucci had working in the White House. The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza recorded a phone call he had with the then-White House communications director. Initiating the call, Mooch went on to dish to Lizza about White House leakers, telling him he wasn’t afraid to “eliminate everyone in the comms team and [we’ll] start over.” He particularly aimed blame at then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. He also said that Trump adviser Steve Bannon engaged in a physiological impossibility… But what he never said to Lizza was those three magic words, so Lizza did what any good journalist would do and he wrote an article. What has the Mooch been up to since his White House ten day tenure? He’s keeping busy showing off his vocal cords.
[Ed. note: You may remember newspapers. As my son explained to his little brother, “It’s like they printed out the Internet so you can read it.” I got my start writing nighttime sports for my hometown paper when I was 17. I was a goner from the first. Part of what I loved about newspapering was the continuity – the musty old files of clips that reached back generations, making a record of who we were and how we became what we are. “Older than the state itself,” read the banner at the top of Page One. My favorite Thanksgiving newspaper tradition has for decades been that paper’s annual republishing of the same perfect column about the holiday by the late Adam Kelly, known to his readers as “the country editor.” I was privileged to have his son, Bob, a great newsman himself, as my mentor when I later learned my way around politics in Charleston, W.Va. They talk about Washington being a swamp. But trust me, if you can wrestle the political gators on the Kanawha River, you can cover politics anywhere in the world. Bob, who was taken from us far too young, taught a generation of newspapermen and newspaperwomen how to take our jobs seriously without taking ourselves seriously – to be skeptics without becoming cynics. It’s no mean feat when the world entices you always to see the story in first person rather than keeping the proper sense of first doing your duty to your country and your readers. The key to that, I’ve learned through hard-bought wisdom, is to begin with gratitude. If I count the blessings in my life, I can start to see how much more I have than I deserve. Understanding that makes us kinder, more gracious and, most importantly, less selfish. Bob’s father’s column, offered here by another newspaper, is properly called a litany, which is a kind of prayer where congregants respond to the preacher in the pulpit. The word “litany” descends from Greek, where its root “litaneia” means “entreaty.” My entreaty to you is that you read Adam Kelly’s good, old words and meditate on your blessings. I know I don’t enjoy today every blessing its author did; nor do you, probably. But we can all claim many of them as Americans. And if we could really all count our blessings, one suspects that we would be a people more inclined to mercy, more given to self-sacrifice and more committed to building up than tearing down. Fox News Halftime Report is pausing for the holiday and will resume publication Monday. In the meantime, I wish you and your families bounty and blessings, but most of all, the gift of gratitude, especially in the face of adversity.]

Phoenix homeowner pulls plug on Christmas lights after city crackdown

Christmas light display before it was taken down due to a Phoenix crackdown.

For the past 30 years, Lee Sepanek and his wife Patricia have celebrated the holidays by festooning their Phoenix home with 250,000 festive lights. The couple's annual display draws visitors from all over.

But this year, their house will be dark.

The reason: City officials have raised concerns about noise, traffic and parking issues, as well as with the Sepaneks' sales of cocoa and baked goods to offset costs, the Arizona Republic reported.
"I even bought a whole bunch of new stuff," Lee Sepanek, 66, told Phoenix's Fox 10. "I was gonna add stuff to my windows. I was going to increase my displays, my window displays. Now they're in storage."

MORE: Here’s the @gofundme link to “Save the Arcadia Christmas House” - the group is looking to save the tradition that thousands of Valley residents come to see every year for more than 30 years. https://t.co/6cr1yYMTwb

— Matt Rodewald FOX 10 (@Matt_Fox10) November 14, 2017

He said he was “disheartened” by a meeting with city officials, who advised him on changes intended to address complaints and possible violations. But Sepanek decided to pull the plug instead.
“They’re going to shut me down, so why would I put in the energy?," he told the Republic.
Sepanek said he never heard complaints from his neighbors about the light display.
"My whole neighborhood is supportive," he told Fox 10.
But Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio is reportedly working with the Sepaneks to resolve the issues so the lights can be back on full display next year.
Meantime, because the display costs roughly $10,000 a year, and because the couple won't be selling cocoa and baked goods this year, they've started a GoFundMe page to help meet next year's expenses -- if the light show resumes.
"This is my hobby. I have nothing else.," Sepanek told the Republic. " ...  For 30 years, I’ve not had nothing to do Thanksgiving to New Year's but Christmas lights and sit outside and talk to people.”

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