By Nicole Darrah
State’s Attorney Kim Foxx recused herself on Tuesday, but it was not immediately clear why. First Assistant State’s Attorney Joseph Magats will take over the case as acting state’s attorney, Fox News has learned.
Foxx’s recusal came as the Chicago Police Department rejected a tip the bureau received earlier Tuesday regarding the “Empire” actor’s case.
Anthony Guglielmi, chief communications officer for the department, tweeted that the tip alleging that Smollett was spotted in an elevator in his building with two men who were initially considered suspects was “unfounded as it was not supported by video evidence obtained by detectives.”
Smollett, who is openly gay and black, reported that on Jan. 29, he was attacked by two masked men as he was walking home from a Subway restaurant. He claimed that the men shouted racial and anti-gay slurs at him, poured a chemical substance on him, threw a rope around his neck and shouted, “This is MAGA country!”
Investigators revealed on Friday that two suspects were questioned in connection with the alleged attack, but were released without charges “due to new evidence.”
Chicago police said on Saturday that Smollett was no longer considered a victim in their investigation.
Smollett’s attorneys, Todd S. Pugh and Victor P. Henderson, vehemently denied that the attack was a hoax, previously telling the press: “As a victim of a hate crime who has cooperated with the police investigation, Jussie Smollett is angered and devastated by recent reports that the perpetrators are individuals he is familiar with.”
“He has now been further victimized by claims attributed to these alleged perpetrators that Jussie played a role in his own attack,” the statement continued. “Nothing is further from the truth and anyone claiming otherwise is lying.”
Separately, court documents recently obtained by Fox News reveal that Smollett was convicted for DUI and providing a police officer with false information. It was not immediately clear what information he lied to police about, but it’s related to a vehicular charge. Smollett’s legal team did not deny the arrest.
FEBRUARY 19, 2019
Here are a few of the best Smollet Hoax memes from around the web:
Some memes pointed out the media’s double standard, while others highlighted the hypocrisy of Smollett’s virtue-signaling in light of new evidence indicating he staged the attack.
The media has been walking back their zealous reporting on the story, and placing blame on everybody but themselves for perpetuating the hoax.
With the left devastated over another fake hate crime hoax, it was only a matter of time until memes concerning the Jussie Smollett incident emerged.
Instagram reportedly censored commentator Mark Dice’s meme on Tuesday depicting Smollett as a Scooby Doo villain.
FEBRUARY 19, 2019
The footage allegedly takes place in the 1980s and shows Sanders answering a question about bread lines in Nicaragua due to the food shortages triggered by a local socialist party called Sandinistas.
“You know, it’s funny. Sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is when people are lining up for food,” he said. “That’s a good thing.”
“In other countries, people don’t line up for food. The rich get the food and the poor starve to death.”
The resurfaced footage of Sanders praising an iconic symptom of a failed state comes on the heels of President Trump pinning Venezuela’s collapse to its socialist policies.
“…But the American people will reject an agenda of sky-high rates, government-run health care and coddling dictators like those in Venezuela,” reads a Trump statement. “Only President Trump will keep America free, prosperous and safe.”
Interestingly, Sanders likend his 2020 campaign to a revolution in an email he sent to his supporters that also also called Trump the most dangerous president in modern American history.
“Together, you and I and our 2016 campaign began the political revolution,” said Sanders. “Now, it is time to complete that revolution and implement the vision that we fought for.”
By Molly Prince
CAIR is a notable pro-Palestinian organization with ties to Islamic terror groups. The U.S. Department of Justice listed CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in funding millions of dollars to the terrorist organization Hamas. Additionally, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) named CAIR a terrorist organization along with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in 2014.
Tlaib will be the guest speaker at CAIR-Michigan’s 19th annual “Faith-Led, Justice Driven” banquet on March 17, according to the organization’s invitation. Single tickets start at $50 per person and a table can cost upwards of $500. Tickets for Omar’s March 23 event start at a similar price point. (RELATED: Ilhan Omar To Fundraise For Hamas-Linked Muslim Organization)
Omar and Tlaib became America’s first Muslim congresswomen when sworn into office in January. Their time in office has been embroiled in allegations of anti-Semitism.
Tlaib invited a pro-Hezbollah, anti-Israel activist to her swearing-in ceremony and the following private dinner in January. Days later, an op-ed column she wrote in 2006 for Final Call, a Nation of Islam publication founded by Louis Farrakhan, surfaced. She also has come under scrutiny for having ties to other anti-Israel individuals and for questioning the loyalty of Republican lawmakers who support the Jewish nation-state.
Omar has defended anti-Israeli statements, such as ones invoking Allah to expose Israel’s “evil doings,” and she is on record implying Israel is not a democracy. She gave an interview to a host that referred to Israel as the “Jewish ISIS” and mocked how Americans speak about al-Qaeda and Hezbollah. (RELATED: Rashida Tlaib’s Ties To Anti-Semitism Run Deeper Than Previously Known)
Both congresswomen waited until after they won their congressional elections to reveal their support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to punish Israel by economically depriving the country for its alleged mistreatment of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The Anti-Defamation League describes the movement as “the most prominent effort to undermine Israel’s existence.”
BDS has been metastasizing through college campuses, initially promulgated by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the movement’s most visible arm. SJP has been linked to the Islamic terror group Hamas, according to The Washington Free Beacon. Moreover, the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, the American umbrella group of the BDS movement, has reportedly given money to terrorist organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
FEBRUARY 19, 2019
Who are the two men seen in the surveillance footage walking from the scene?
The answer lies in newly-released video from the streets of Chicago.
By Joel B. Pollak
The lawsuit, as expected, was filed by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, and was joined by attorneys general from “Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Virginia — all of which have Democratic attorneys general and all but one of which are led by Democratic governors,” the Wall Street Journal noted Monday.
However, ten of the 26 Democrat attorneys general have not joined the lawsuit — at least not yet, as of Tuesday.
The complaint, filed in federal court in the Northern District of California, decries what it calls “President Donald J. Trump’s flagrant disregard of fundamental separation of powers principles engrained in the United States Constitution.” It adds:
Contrary to the will of Congress, the President has used the pretext of a manufactured “crisis” of unlawful immigration to declare a national emergency and redirect federal dollars appropriated for drug interdiction, military construction, and law enforcement initiatives toward building a wall on the United States-Mexico border. This includes the diversion of funding that each of the Plaintiff States receive.
The complaint continues through several familiar talking points from the Democratic Party:
The federal government’s own data prove there is no national emergency at the southern border that warrants construction of a wall. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) data show that unlawful entries are near 45-year lows. The State Department recognizes there is a lack of credible evidence that terrorists are using the southern border to enter the United States. Federal data confirm that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than are native-born Americans. CBP data demonstrate that dangerous drugs are much more likely to be smuggled through, not between, official ports of entry—rendering a border wall ineffectual at preventing their entry into this country.
Later in the complaint, the states claim that the border wall is not only unnecessary, but that it will also cause environmental damage. The complaint also claims a border barrier will not block “drug smuggling corridors.”
President Trump said Friday that, following earlier patterns, he expected a legal challenge in California, to lose there and in the liberal Ninth Circuit, and then to prevail at the Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a 5-4 majority.
Unlike President Barack Obama’s invocation of executive powers to declare the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) programs, Trump’s use of emergency powers is arguably within the powers assigned to him by the Constitution and delegated to him by Congress under the National Emergencies Act of 1976, according to analysis by Breitbart News legal editor Ken Klukowski.
Many experts agree. The Journal notes that “courts have been reluctant to second-guess the president on national-security matters,” and quotes liberal constitutional law professor Mark Tushnet of Harvard as saying that the case is “not a slam dunk” for the states, though he added he believes there is a “decent chance” that they could prevail.
The case is State of California et al v. Trump et al, number 3:19-cv-00872, Northern District of California.
By John Binder
While the United States-Mexico border received only $1.3 billion for construction of a border wall at the overwhelmed southern border with soaring illegal immigration, foreign countries are getting help from American taxpayers to secure their borders.
The Republican-Democrat spending bill signed by Trump last week provides Pakistan with at least $15 million in U.S. taxpayer money for “border security programs” as well as funding for “cross border stabilization” between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In total, the spending bill provides about $6 billion in American taxpayer money to finance foreign militaries, some of which can be used by Lebanon to “strengthen border security and combat terrorism.”
The spending bill provides about $112.5 million in U.S. taxpayer money for economic support for Egypt, including $10 million for scholarships for Egyptian students. Egypt’s military receives about $1.3 billion in the spending bill, some of which can be for border security programs.
Additionally, the spending bill includes:
Meanwhile, illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border has swelled in recent months. In December 2018, the last month for illegal border crossing totals, there were close to 51,000 border crossings. The month before, there were nearly 52,000 border crossings. Experts project there to be at least 606,000 crossings this year at the southern border, a level of illegal immigration that surpasses nearly every year of illegal immigration under President Obama.
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