DEA: Heroin Epidemic Worse Than Ever

A veteran DEA official told Congress yesterday that he has “never seen” heroin use more common than it is today.

“I’ve been with the DEA almost 30 years, and I have to tell you, I’ve never seen it this bad,” acting DEA deputy commissioner Jack Riley told a House Judiciary Subcommittee On Crime, terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations.

Heroin deaths grew from 5,900 to 8,200 between 2012 and 2013, according to the White House Office of National Drug Policy. More than half of all overdose deaths in the United States are from heroin or prescription painkillers.

The epidemic has affected Americans of all backgrounds, Riley added.

“Heroin can be found in virtually every corner of our country, in places I’ve never seen it, large and small, urban and rural,” he said.

Riley and other officials blamed the surge in heroin use on the over-prescription of prescription painkillers, pointing out that eighty percent of new heroin users previously used prescription opioids. People who become addicted to prescription pills often turn to heroin as a cheaper alternative.

“The price of heroin has fallen to new lows, about ten dollars a day,” said Rep. Judy Chu of California. “Prescription opioids cost about 80 dollars a day. For those already addicted to prescription drugs, heroin becomes an attractive option.”

The chairman of the House Judiciary committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, said the Obama Administration hasn’t done enough to fight the problem.

“Despite the ongoing heroin epidemic, despite the surge in deaths, and despite that illicit controlled substances and their purveyors pose a lethal threat to the American people, the Obama administration has continued to shirk its duty to protect this nation from dangerous narcotics,” he said.

FBI Investigating Tennessee Shooter’s Possible Ties To Terror Groups

The FBI said it is investigating whether the 24-year-old Muslim who shot and killed four marines in Tennessee on Thursday had any contact with terrorist groups during a seven-month trip to Jordan and other Middle Eastern countries last year.

"It would be premature to speculate on exactly why the shooter did what he did," an agent said. "However, we are conducting a thorough investigation to determine whether this person acted alone or was inspired or directed."

Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez was born in Kuwait but moved to Tennessee as a child, where he was raised in a devout Muslim family. He graduated with a degree in engineering at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and briefly worked at a nearby nuclear facility.

Although very little about him is known at this point, it seems as he Abdulazeez became more radicalized after he returned from the Middle East last year. He grew a beard, frequently attended Muslim religious services, and posted ominous comments on his blog, including one claiming Muslims should never miss “the opportunity to submit to Allah.”

On Thursday, he showed up heavily armed at a Navy-Marine training center and used an AK-47 to kill four American soldiers and injure three others. He was killed after a firefight with police.

This tragic episode serves as a reminder of how easy it is for enemies of the United States to go undetected even in our own country, and how much damage a single terrorist can cause. Thanks to the rise of “homegrown terrorism,” all somebody like Abdulazeez has to do is bring a gun to a public place and start shooting.

Hopefully, this attack will serve as a reminder of the dangers our country faces and remind people to remain vigilant at all times.

Obama’s Shameful Silence On “Sanctuary Cities”

Despite growing pressure from members of both parties, President Obama has remained completely silent on the issue of “sanctuary cities” – cities that refuse to comply with federal immigration laws.

Sanctuary cities have been in the news since Kathryn Steinle was shot and killed by an illegal immigrant in San Francisco earlier this month. Despite having been convicted of a number of felonies and deported five times, the killer was set free before the murder because San Francisco refuses to observe federal immigration restrictions.

On Tuesday, the House Appropriations committee voted to block sanctuary cities from getting certain federal grants as part of a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security. House Republicans also grilled Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson over why Obama has allowed these cities to disobey federal law.

Yet the President himself has been totally AWOL, failing to so much as acknowledge Steinle’s tragic preventable murder.

Perhaps he is keeping his mouth shut because he knows that Kathryn Steinle’s blood is on his hands. For too long, he has taken a completely hands-off approach to immigration, refusing to simply enforce the laws as they are written. Instead, he has let local politicians choose for themselves which laws they want to obey.

Kathryn Steinle is not the first American to pay the price for Obama’s permissiveness. As Marc Thiessen pointed out in a Washington Post column earlier this week, the director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently admitted that the Obama had released no less than “121 unique criminal aliens who had an active [deportation] case at the time of release and were subsequently charged with homicide-related offenses.”

All 121 of those people died for one simple reason – the President refused to do his job.

Dem Bill Would Eliminate The Words “Husband” And “Wife” From Federal Law

Right on the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage, Democrats in Washington, D.C. have introduced a bill to eliminate the words “husband” and “wife” from federal law.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Lois Capps (D-California), said the bill would ensure federal law “reflects the equality of all marriages.” Under her proposal, “husband” and “wife” would be replaced with “gender-neutral” terms like “spouse” and “married couple.”

Capps added that “gendered terms” like “husband” and “wife” reflect “prejudice and discrimination” against homosexuals.

"The Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act recognizes that the words in our laws have meaning and can continue to reflect prejudice and discrimination even when rendered null by our highest courts," she said. "Our values as a country are reflected in our laws. I authored this bill because it is imperative that our federal code reflect the equality of all marriages."

The proposed bill would also amend the law to make it illegal to threaten the “president’s husband.” It is currently only illegal to threaten the “president’s wife.”

Police Warn Against Gun-Shaped iPhone Cases

Police are advising against purchasing a gun-shaped iPhone case that recently came on the market, saying officers could easily mistake it for the real thing.

The case, which has a realistic-looking handle and trigger, holds an iPhone where the barrel of the gun would normally go. An online vendor selling the case calls it a “sexy pistol protective shell for iPhone 6 with unlimited times to pull the trigger.”

Police in a number of states are telling customers not to purchase the novelty item. A sheriff in said he worried what might happen if an officer saw someone with the device tucked into his pocket or waistband.

“If he tugs on that pistol grip, we’re going to assume it’s a gun,” the sheriff said. “That’s the scary part. It’s a split-second decision the officer has to make. You could have something tragic happen.”

Police in other states have echoed the sentiment, with a detective in Alabama calling the case “the most stupid and ridiculous thing I’ve seen in a while.” The detective added:

“It’s going to draw attention and possibly get you shot. Just think of the commotion it’s going to cause if you walk into Wal-Mart with that hanging out of your pocket. I have read on the Internet and received officer alerts on real guns that are hidden in cell phones and cell phone cases. This is stupid and very dangerous.”

Iran Negotiations Miss Another Deadline

Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program missed another deadline yesterday, as the two sides continue to have “sharp disagreements.”  The deadline has been extended to July 7.

Negotiators have been clashing over issues like “inspections of Iranian nuclear sites, how quickly the west will roll back sanctions, and what types of research and development Iran will be permitted to conduct on advanced nuclear technology,” Fox News reported.

Meanwhile, evidence continues to emerge of Iran’s shameless duplicity regarding its nuclear program. According to Town Hall, in the past few weeks alone:

“Two European intelligence reports spelled out how Iran's nuclear cheating has continued during the negotiations; experts determined that Iran's nuclear stockpile has increased significantly during this period, during which Tehran's program was ostensibly ‘frozen’ with its stockpiles reduced; [and] the State Department once again affirmed Iran's continued status as a major state sponsor of international terrorism, concluding that the regime's malignant activities have carried on ‘undiminished.’”

President Obama has insisted that a deal with Iran would, at the very least, prolong the time it takes Iran to become a nuclear “breakout” state. Yet a nuclear expert wrote in the New York Times last week that even these modest claims are “greatly exaggerated.” He wrote:

[Obama says] the pending deal would shrink Iran’s nuclear program, so that if Iran later “decided to break the deal, kick out all the inspectors, break the seals and go for a bomb, we’d have over a year to respond.” Unfortunately, that claim is false, as can be demonstrated with basic science and math. By my calculations, Iran’s actual breakout time under the deal would be approximately three months — not over a year. Thus, the deal would be unlikely to improve the world’s ability to react to a sudden effort by Iran to build a bomb. Breakout time is determined by three primary factors: the number and type of centrifuges; the enrichment of the starting material; and the amount of enriched uranium required for a nuclear weapon. Mr. Obama seems to make rosy assumptions about all three.

Failure to stop the Iranian nuclear program would have unthinkable consequences. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out yesterday, allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons would be no different than allowing allowing ISIS to develop nuclear weapons.

“No one would dream of allowing the Islamic State of ISIS to have nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said. “Why would anyone consider giving the Islamic State of Iran, which is a lot more powerful than ISIS and acts with much greater power than ISIS, to have additional power of nuclear weapons?”