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Obama's Corruption Chronicles:

. . . a black woman is being prohibited from sporting a hairstyle that is physiologically and culturally associated with the unwashed ancient savage people of African descent. . . .

There. I fixed it.

Of course this is easy for me (being mostly bald.)

Dreadlocks are filthy. The only way to keep them sanitary is to cut them off.
Get modern folks! You aren't going to serve me a pizza with that mess hangin' offa you.
 
. . . the “Afrocentric” religion born in the slums of Jamaica requires followers to have long, matted and knotted hair . . .

Either come out of the slums or move back.
Don't bring the slums to my kitchen, thanks.
 
DHS Agency That Enforces Immigration Law Honors Open Borders Activist Who Helps Illegal Aliens
SEPTEMBER 29, 2016

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Time left until Obama leaves office

111 days...12 hours...13 minutes...13 seconds

{ Time until Friday, January 20, 2017... Washington DC EST }

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The Homeland Security agency responsible for enforcing the nation’s immigration laws is honoring a renowned open-borders activist dedicated to defending illegal aliens in the U.S. with a prestigious award. Known as “Outstanding American by Choice,” it’s bestowed annually by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to recognize the “significant contributions and achievements of a naturalized” American citizen. This year’s winner is being crowned today at a ceremony in Los Angeles, California where she runs a billion-dollar charity largely dedicated to assisting immigrants.

Her name is Antonia Hernández, a civil rights attorney who spent two decades litigating on behalf of illegal immigrants at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the powerful open borders group that specializes in discrimination lawsuits on behalf of illegal aliens. Promoted as a “Latino advocacy” group, MALDEF also pushes for free college tuition for illegal immigrants and lowering educational standards to accommodate new migrants. The group’s leadership says it’s racist to make English the country’s official national language and inhumane to protect the southern border with a fence. Hernández was president and general counsel at MALDEF before becoming president and CEO at a like-minded nonprofit with deep pockets called the California Community Foundation. The charity ranks among the nation’s top100 foundations by size and giving with an endowment exceeding $1 billion. Among its focuses is “immigrant integration.”

Hernández is the oldest of seven children born to poor Mexican immigrants, according to a magazine profile that says before she could drive Hernández walked the picket lines in support of California’s farm workers. During twenty years at MALDEF Hernández successfully defeated a California measure—passed by voters—that would have denied health and education benefits to illegal immigrants, worked to create voting districts that equitably represented Latinos and litigated on behalf of limited-English proficient students in the nation’s public school system. A California congresswoman who honored Hernández with a public service award years ago described her as a “tenacious defender of immigration reform” and a “devoted advocate on behalf of fair and just immigration reform.”

Under Hernández’s leadership the California Community Foundation has dedicated large amounts of resources to assist illegal immigrants, especially in the last two years. In 2014, Hernández led an effort to form an emergency relief fund to help the influx of illegal alien minors—mostly from Central America— that the Obama administration allowed to enter the U.S. through Mexico. The government calls them Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) and many have ties to gang members in the U.S., specifically MS-13. In fact, earlier this year Judicial Watch reported that the execution-style murder of a Massachusetts man was committed by two Central American teens that came to the U.S. as UACs under the president’s open border free-for-all. Many of the UACs have also brought in dangerous diseases, including swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus and tuberculosis. Nevertheless, Hernández said this about the UACs when her nonprofit scrambled to help them: “They are our children.”

The award that Hernández is accepting today is supposed to go to a candidate that demonstrates “their commitment to this country and to the common civic values that unite us all as Americans,” according to a USCIS announcement. The agency purports to consider candidates’ civic participation, professional achievement and responsible citizenship. The government’s goal is to recognize individuals who chose to become Americans and have made significant contributions to both their community and the United States. Deputy Security of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, shamefully ousted as a Clinton federal prosecutor after orchestrating the pardon of a big-time drug dealer, will give Hernández the award at today’s ceremony. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announcement of the event describes Hernández as a civil rights attorney who has demonstrated her commitment of social justice and civic engagement for over four decades.
 
U.S. Intel Alert: Climate Change Aids Terrorists, Destabilizes Entire World, Stresses Military
OCTOBER 04, 2016

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK...

Climate change poses significant national security challenges for the United States and will create large-scale political instability, social disruption and food shortages, according to the nation’s intelligence agency. It marks the latest of many dire government warnings under President Obama about the ills of global warming and this one comes from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), though the agency concedes it’s based on information provided by the famously corrupt United Nations (UN).

That the nation’s intelligence agency has blindly adopted the information as fact is almost more alarming than the warnings outlined in its 13-page report. The ODNI is the broad agency that serves as an umbrella for the intelligence community and advises the president so its assessments carry a lot of weight. The ODNI is composed of more than a dozen spy agencies, including Air Force, Army, Navy, Treasury and Coast Guard intelligence as well as the CIA and FBI. This gives it tremendous credibility, which is probably why the UN-created Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is having the ODNI promote its seemingly outlandish findings. Like a good lapdog the ODNI obliged, promoting the questionable information of radical leftwing groups in the process.

The report even suggests that climate change can fuel terrorism by including these nuggets: “In 2015, insurgent groups in northern Mali exploited deepening desertification, worsened by persistent drought, to enlist locals in a “food for jihad” arrangement.” Here’s another example that illustrates how terrorists benefit from climate change, according to the new intel report. “The terrorist group Al-Shabaab exploited the 2011-13 famine in Somalia to coerce and tax international aid agencies, and it withheld food from those it deemed uncooperative, according to Human Rights Watch.” For the record, Human Rights Watch is a leftist group with questionable credibility when it comes to security matters so citing it as a source tying terrorism to global warming is almost comical.

As if the assertion that climate change enables terrorists wasn’t far-fetched enough, the ODNI also claims it will destabilize the entire world by risking human health, putting stress on military operations and negatively impacting investments and economic competitiveness. Meat and dairy lovers beware; “Heatwaves threaten livestock directly and also reduce fertility, decrease milk production, and make them more vulnerable to disease,” the ODNI writes, citing UN science. “Droughts, wildfires, and extended periods of reduced precipitation threaten pasture and food supplies, indirectly threatening livestock.”

As for health, extreme heat will contribute directly to deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory disease across the globe, particularly among the elderly, the report states. Military operations worldwide will be negatively impacted because more frequent and intense natural disasters will strain the capacity of U.S. and allied armed forces to deliver humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, according to the ODNI. As is the case in all global matters, the U.S. will carry most of the burden. “The US military may be called upon more frequently to respond to foreign crises if its counterparts in affected countries are overstretched, unable to handle their own crises or those in their neighborhood,” the report says.

Investments will be affected because “extreme weather events” will discourage investment in regions deemed vulnerable. “Infrastructure will be increasingly threatened by more extreme conditions in the near future, and freshwater from aquifers will be increasingly jeopardized by saltwater intrusion,” the ODNI writes. “Expectations of future losses will almost certainly increase insurance premiums and payouts, and insurance rates may increase well before real effects are felt in regions deemed vulnerable.” Additionally, the financial burden of responding to emergent climate trends and severe weather events, including the cost of efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, will reduce financing available for other investments. “Increasing heat stress is likely to adversely affect agriculture, manufacturing, and other sectors requiring physical labor and could significantly contribute to GDP loss.”

The Grim Reaper has come to town !!

In the last few years President Obama has committed tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to combat climate change—especially in developing countries—through programs operated by the World Bank, the UN and a global initiative called Green Growth Action Alliance headed by a former Mexican president. To justify the investment, the administration has created hysteria with a number of government-funded studies warning about the dangers of climate change. Among them are reports claiming that global warming will make food and water dangerous, cause mental illness, cancer and threaten national security. In fact, a consortium of Obama administration scientists from several government agencies—including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the State Department and National Institute of Environmental Health Science—have confirmed that global warming is one of the “most visible environmental concerns of the 21st century.”

One publicly-funded study claimed that the Washington D.C. area and surrounding government infrastructure will be virtually destroyed by global warming over the next century.
 
Obama commutes sentences of 102 inmates
October 6, 2016

Thanks for letting more criminals loose on our streets Mr. President...


President Obama on Thursday commuted the sentences of 102 inmates, the White House announced.

Obama has commuted the sentences of 744 individuals, more than the past 11 presidents combined, according to the White House. Thursday's announcement brings the total number granted this year alone to 590.

The latest round of commutations is part of the Obama administration's effort to free prisoners serving lengthy sentences doled out during the government's war on drugs.

With just three months left in office, Obama is accelerating the use of his clemency power. Obama in August handed out commutations to 325 inmates - including 214 on Aug. 3, the largest single-day total since 1900.

That alone nearly doubled the number of commutations granted during Obama's presidency.

Obama first launched a clemency initiative in 2014 to review sentences of non-violent drug offenders who would receive shorter prison terms under today's guidelines.
It's part of the president's broader push to reform the criminal justice system.

Facing pressure from reform advocates to pick up the pace of commutations, the administration has tweaked its strategy to accommodate more inmates.

He's shortened some inmates' sentences without immediately releasing them, leaving them years left to serve. That has allowed Obama to grant commutations to prisoners who have committed more serious offenses.

A larger number of inmates convicted of gun charges have received clemency from Obama, according to a USA Today review.
 
“Family Units” Entering U.S. Via Mexico Doubles, Unaccompanied Minors Up 52%
OCTOBER 12, 2016

GOOD THING I HAD TWO YEARS OF SPANISH BACK IN HIGH SCHOOL...

While the nation is absorbed with presidential election theatrics, the Obama administration continues letting huge amounts of illegal immigrants to pour in through the southern border and the latest figures released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are incredibly chilling. The number of family units apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2016 nearly doubled from the previous year, according to updated information released by the agency. The majority of these illegal border crossers will remain in the country under Obama’s special refugee and family reunification programs.

Fiscal years run from October through August and the latest available government stats show a 97% increase in the number of illegal immigrant family units this fiscal year compared to the same period in 2015. Family units are described as containing a child under 18 with a parent or legal guardian. Minors, classified as Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC), are also entering in droves, the DHS numbers reveal, with a 52% increase in apprehensions this fiscal year compared to 2015. In recent years the Obama administration has allowed tens of thousands of UACs, mostly from Central America, remain in the U.S. after crossing the Mexican border.

Initially, the influx of illegal alien minors received lots of media attention but the coverage has fizzled even though the crisis continues. In the first 11 months of the fiscal year the Border Patrol apprehended 54,052 UACs compared to 35,485 in 2015. The overwhelming majority of UACs—33,183—entered the U.S. through the Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas. During the initial surge in 2014, 48,468 UACs came in through the Rio Grande Valley and the number dropped to 21,131 last year before rising again this year. The same pattern applies to other crossings, some more pronounced than others. For instance, the Yuma sector in Arizona saw a 227% increase in apprehensions from last year and the El Paso sector in Texas a 133% increase.

The same crossings were the busiest for family units, the Border Patrol figures show. So far this fiscal year, 45,672 of the 68,080 illegal immigrant family units have crossed into the U.S. through the Rio Grande Valley, which saw an alarming 91% rise from last year. The El Paso sector had an astounding 361% boost in family units compared to last year with Yuma and El Centro in California 278% and 124% respectively. In both the family and UAC cases, the numbers spiked in 2014, dipped considerably in 2015 and came back up in 2016. Most of the family units came from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, though a few thousand came from Mexico. The majority of UACs also came from the same three Central American countries but a much larger chunk—10,854—are Mexican.

There seems to be no end to this madness, which continues to cost American taxpayers monstrous sums because the Obama administration allows most of these illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S. as refugees. Tens of thousands have been released to the custody of relatives, a majority of them also illegal aliens. Government records obtained earlier this year by the Washington D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) show that 80% of the 71,000 UACs placed between February 2014 and September 2015 were released to sponsors who are in the United States illegally. In more than half the cases the illegal alien minors were placed with parents, CIS writes in a report, and the rest were released to siblings, aunts and uncles. The Obama administration says it’s a family reunification program.

The cost to American taxpayers is outrageous. Besides the tens of millions of dollars that public school districts nationwide must spend to accommodate these kids’ special needs, the federal government uses a special Refugee and Entrant Assistance Account to help the UACs integrate in the U.S. as well as a separate Unaccompanied Children (UC) program with a billion-dollar budget. In its report the CIS states that the UC budget request for fiscal year 2017 is $1.226 billion, which marks an increase of $278 million from fiscal year 2016. The Refugee and Entrant Assistance budget is also massive at $2,184,860,000 in fiscal year 2017, a $510 increase over 2016. Additionally, the Obama administration uses funds from a $70 million slush account for “unexpected urgent refugee and migration needs,” the CIS reveals.
 
Up for a Third Term, El Paso County Sheriff Attends Fundraiser at Felon’s House
OCTOBER 13, 2016

Just days before the election that could keep him in office for a third term the top law enforcement official in El Paso County, Texas attended a fundraising event at the home of a convicted felon with connections to the illegal drug trade. Outraged officers in the agency that patrols over 1,000 square miles with a population of about 800,000 are asking commissioners to investigate the matter, which they claim will destroy public respect and confidence in their agency.

It’s not the first time that the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office (EPCSO) elected leader, Richard Wiles, is involved in a scandal. A few years ago one of Wiles’ deputy chiefs, Jesus “Eddie” Campa, got criminally indicted for embezzling millions of dollars in Homeland Security funds. Campa served in the department as a jailer and officer for two decades, according to public records. He left the agency in 2014 following the indictment allegations, supposedly for embezzling $5.6 million in Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) funds, sources told Judicial Watch. After an unusually short stint as police chief for the Ector County Independent School District in Odessa, Campa landed a spot as police chief in Marshall, a town of about 24,000 residents in northeast Texas.

As Wiles’ chief deputy at EPCSO Campa was arrested by the FBI and taken to a holding cell at the El Paso FBI office located at 660 Mesa Hills Drive along with another deputy, Randolph Tabbutt, who has also left EPCSO. There appears to be no public record of Campa’s indictment and a spokesman, Daryl Fields, at the United States Attorney’s office for the Western District of Texas told Judicial Watch that he “can neither confirm nor deny” that Campa was indicted. This response from federal prosecutors seems rather odd, as if there’s a concerted effort to cover up information related to the case.

As if it weren’t bad enough that this occurred under Wiles’ command, a few weeks before the November 8 election he hobnobbed with a “known drug felon,” according to the El Paso County Sheriff’s Association. In a letter to county lawmakers, the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas (CLEAT), which represents the group, writes that Wiles attended a campaign fundraiser breakfast on October 8 at the home of felon Raul Ricardo Hernandez.

The sheriff may have violated a number of agency policies prohibiting association with individuals that can be detrimental to the image of the office and conduct that adversely affects the morale or efficiency of the office, the CLEAT letter states. “There is no question that, had this conduct been alleged against a detention officer or deputy, that employee would have been placed under investigation by the Sheriff’s Office of Internal Affairs,” CLEAT writes.

Sheriff Wiles told a local news station that he didn’t know about Hernandez’s background before going to his house over the weekend. “There is an expectation that officers don’t associate with people of bad reputation,” Wiles said in the news report. “It depends on how old it is. The understanding is people get in trouble, pay their debt to society, we can’t hold that against them.” A veteran El Paso law enforcement officer who worked under Wiles for a decade told Judicial Watch this week that Wiles has damaged the agency’s morale for years and that “he’s out of control.”

It’s important to note that the El Paso County Sheriff’s Officers Association has endorsed Wiles’ opponent, Tom Buchino, a retired U.S. Army Special Forces Sergeant Major. It’s also worth noting that the treasurer of Wiles’ campaign is the mayor of El Paso (Oscar Leeser), raising questions about how objective the investigation will be.

Judicial Watch has investigated public corruption issues in the El Paso region at the federal, state and municipal levels. Unfortunately, the scope of those investigations has included a number of law enforcement officers. Judicial Watch’s investigative journalism resulted in Justice Department Inspector General investigations, other Inspectors General, and the involvement of investigative counsel from the staff of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. At one point, the degree of corruption and abuse within the Texas Department of Public Safety compelled Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley to send a handwritten note to Governor Greg Abbott in order to protect a brave whistleblower.

Judicial Watch will continue its ongoing investigation of public corruption in the El Paso region.
 
WIKI-Leaked Emails: Clinton allies pondered polling in 2008 on rumors about Obama’s cocaine use, his father’s Muslim faith:

AND I THOUGHT HE HAD A COLD...

Political campaigns and super PAC often hire pollsters to survey voters about the potential strengths and weaknesses of an opponent or themselves. Evidence of that type of polling has surfaced in emails hacked from the private account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, and released by the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks.

In January 2008, a group of progressive activists, including Podesta, pondered polling voters about rumors involving then-Sen. Barack Obama's cocaine use and about his late father's Muslim faith. The questions were set to be asked as rumors were already swirling that the future president was secretly a Muslim born overseas.

Obama has acknowledged experimenting with cocaine and marijuana in his youth.

Clinton and Obama were competing in the Democratic presidential primaries at the time.

Kristi Fuska, a polling analyst with Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, sent proposed questions for a telephone survey that would have asked questions about Obama, according to a message released by WikiLeaks. The message, entitled “McCain Survey,” was sent to Podesta and others close to the Clinton campaign, including Paul Begala and Tara McGuinness.

Here are the questions the poll team proposed asking:

* 1 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) was the only candidate at a recent event not to cover his heart during the national anthem and he has stopped wearing an American flag pin.
* 2 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) benefited from a land deal from a contributor who has been indicted for corruption.

* 3 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) would personally negotiate with the leaders of terrorist nations like Iran and North Korea without preconditions.

* 4 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) voted against allowing people to use handguns to defend themselves against intruders.

* 5 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) plans to raise taxes by 180 (one hundred and eighty) billion dollars a year to pay for his government-run health care plan.

* 6 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) voted repeatedly against emergency funding bills for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

* 7 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh)'s father was a Muslim and Obama grew up among Muslims in the world's most populous Islamic country.

* 8 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) is ranked as one of the ten most liberal members of the Senate because of his support of issues like gay adoption.

* 13 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive the procedure.

* 14 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) supports giving driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants.

* 15 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) described his former use of cocaine as using “a little blow.”

Begala said Friday that the message was sent to members of a group called Progressive Media USA, composed of Clinton and Obama supporters and led at the time by Tom Matzzie, a former director of MoveOn. The group later disbanded.

“We could not coordinate with either campaign, and worked to prepare to defend either candidate in the general election,” Begala explained in an email. “It was called 'McCain survey' because it was designed to test attacks that might come in the general election. Our entire focus was the general election. Both Obama and Clinton supporters were, at the time, concerned the eventual nominee would emerge wounded and vulnerable for the general election.”

“Every campaign and every PAC tests potential negatives against the candidate they support,” Begala said. “That's all this was.”
Matzzie described the polling as “Campaigning 101 to test vulnerabilities,” adding that they tested potential vulnerabilities for Clinton and Obama.

“While I can't verify 100% veracity of the specific words from hacked emails. I am certain we tested a lot of things like that,” he said in an email. “The researchers who helped us cook up negatives went on to work for the Obama campaign itself.”

Mattzie and Begala say they do not recall whether these specific questions were asked, but that they were consistent with the kind of work they would have been doing at the time.​
 
DHS Orders Border Agents to Give Haitians, Africans, Russians, Armenians Asylum Via Mexico
OCTOBER 14, 2016

This BS is why Democrats are Against Voter ID at the Polls...who are these people going to vote for ?...the Liberals that give them the Middle Class Taxpayer $$...that's who !!

Throngs of Haitians, Africans, Russians, Armenians and Guatemalans are being admitted into the United States via the Mexican border with virtually no vetting for security or health risks, high level Homeland Security officials told Judicial Watch this week. Overwhelmed and understaffed border agents are bombarded daily with an onslaught of immigrants from these countries and have been ordered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to process them as refugees with “credible fear.”

Most are camping out in Mexican border towns and going “port shopping” before gaining entry to the U.S., according to federal officials whose identities must be kept anonymous because they fear retaliation. The ports “are unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” said Patricia Cramer, a veteran border agent who serves as president of the U.S. Customs employee union in the Tucson, Arizona sector.

One federal agent at the San Luis Port of entry in Arizona described the situation as a “mass crisis, like a third-world country.” A DHS supervisor in the region told Judicial Watch that the agency has issued an order from Washington D.C. to all agents: “No one is allowed to speak to the media.” The veteran DHS official said that to accommodate the influx border agencies have suspended regular business and “people that have actually gone through all the legal and proper ways to get documents are being shoved to the side.”

One frustrated DHS official in the border region said she has never seen this type of rampant lawlessness throughout a lengthy career with the government. “The elected government officials claim we are against terrorism yet they are not doing anything to actually prevent terrorists from entering the country,” the DHS supervisor said, adding that the public should show up at ports of entry to see firsthand the problems border agents face every day.

The influx of Haitians and Africans has been making headlines in Mexico for weeks because droves of immigrants are being housed in shelters in Mexican border towns while they await entry into the United States under a secret accord with the Obama administration. The migrants’ journey begins in Brazil under a South American policy that allows the “free transit” of immigrants throughout the continent. Ecuador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama facilitate the process by transferring the concentration of foreigners towards Mexico based on an agreement that Mexico will help them gain entry into the U.S. so they can solicit asylum.

Under the plan Mexico gives the immigrants 20-day visas and temporary shelter but the backlog is out of control because the U.S. isn’t processing the migrants fast enough. This week Mexico’s secretary of the interior, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, told the country’s largest newspaper that DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson assured him the U.S. would speed up the process of admitting the refugees to “alleviate the crisis on the southern border.”

U.S. border agents can’t keep up and are working 16-hour shifts to accommodate the order, according to various officials on the frontline. DHS failed to respond to Judicial Watch’s request for an actual number, but here are figures provided to a Mexican newspaper by Mexico’s government this week: “More than 15,000 Haitian and Africans, especially from Congo, have crossed into Mexican territory in the last six months on their way to the United States, but more than 4,300 have been stranded on the border with California.” In a separate Mexican news report published this week the country’s secretary of health, Dr. José Narro Robles, delcared that the Haitians and Africans that remain in Baja California and Chiapas present serious health risks to Mexico.

Judicial Watch’s sources on the border say the overwhelming majority of migrants don’t appear to have been through any hardships. Instead many look in great physical shape, even muscular and fit, well-groomed and a lot of them have large amounts of cash. “They’re showing up with a few hundred dollars if not a few thousand dollars, new electronics, cell phones, tablets, etc.,” said a Border Patrol official in Arizona. Another border agent told Judicial Watch that many of the Haitians and Africans “know the administration is going to let them in and they come with an attitude of entitlement.”

It wouldn’t be the first time the Obama administration abuses the “credible fear” provision in immigration law to benefit its open borders agenda. In fact, last year Judicial Watch obtained government records showing that the administration let hundreds of illegal immigrants stay in the U.S. even though federal authorities knew in advance that an open borders group coached them to falsely claim “credible fear” to get asylum. The operation was part of a scam conducted by an immigrant rights organization called the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NITA), which had coordinated demonstrations along the Southwest border in Texas and Arizona.

In mid-2014 the group orchestrated a racket seeking to bring 250 illegal aliens into the U.S. through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego, California. To assure the migrants were allowed to stay in the U.S., the group had them falsely claim that they had a “credible fear” of returning to their native country. Foreigners can claim asylum under five categories, based on fear of persecution over race, religion, nationality, political opinions or membership in a specific social group.
 
You Knew It Was Coming: Hurricane Matthew Amnesty
OCTOBER 18, 2016

More of Obama giving away ...YOUR TAX $$

Never missing an opportunity to offer illegal immigrants reprieve, the Obama administration has repeatedly used inclement weather, a virus, natural disasters and tainted water in a U.S. city to extend the perk in the last few years. This month the administration announced yet another special amnesty for victims of Hurricane Matthew.

The powerful storm slammed the southeastern United States a few weeks ago, killing dozens and causing severe flooding. News reports have confirmed deaths in North Carolina, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia. Entire communities from central Florida to Virginia suffered power outages, major flooding and a lot of homes are still uninhabitable. There’s no disputing that Hurricane Matthew had a devastating impact in the region and its effects will linger for some time. This may call for federal emergency help, but amnesty ?

The government is calling it “immigration relief” that may help people affected by unforeseen circumstances, including natural disasters such as Hurricane Matthew. Among the relief measures that will be available are work permits, “change of nonimmigrant status or extension of nonimmigrant stay” for those in the U.S. illegally and forgiveness for immigrants who blew off deportation court hearings. Thanks to Hurricane Matthew this violation is now being referred to in the following manner: “Those who received a Request for Evidence or a Notice of Intent to Deny but were unable to appear for an interview, submit evidence or respond in a timely manner.” Thanks to the hurricane, the government will offer these individuals “assistance.” Furthermore, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which sustains itself largely with customer fees, will waive the fees “due to an inability to pay,” caused by the storm, of course.

A few years ago, the Obama administration took advantage of Hurricane Sandy to waive immigration laws, including for violators of student visas like most of the 9/11 hijackers. The official announcement, issued by USCIS, stated that the government “understands that a natural disaster can affect an individual’s ability to maintain a lawful immigration status.” Among the benefits of that hurricane amnesty was “expedited adjudication of off-campus employment authorization applications for F-1 students experiencing economic hardship.” Hurricanes in other countries have also benefitted illegal aliens in the U.S. who happen to be nationals of the affected regions, even though they don’t live there.

Other natural disasters abroad have also resulted in special reprieves for illegal aliens in the U.S. Earlier this year the administration implemented a special earthquake amnesty for Ecuadorean nationals living in the U.S. illegally and the word spread like wildfire in Spanish media reports published throughout Latin America. Officially this is known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a humanitarian measure designed to temporarily shield illegal immigrants from deportation during emergencies. In a Spanish announcement, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that it was helping Ecuadoreans in the U.S. by granting them work permits and waving visa fees of candidates show that their financial situation was hurt by the earthquake a continent away.

In the last few years Obama has granted Ebola amnesty for illegal aliens from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, earthquake amnesty for Haitians, hurricane amnesty for Hondurans and Nicaraguans and “ongoing armed conflict” amnesty for nationals of Yemen, an Islamic Middle Eastern country well known as an Al Qaeda breeding ground. Earlier this year the administration rewarded illegal aliens in the Southern and Midwestern United States “severe weather” amnesty due to the flooding that battered the region and forced rivers from Texas to Illinois to surge out of control.

Let’s not forget the water amnesty rewarded to illegal aliens in Michigan in February. That reprieve was implemented after pro-immigrant Spanish media outlets demanded that DHS refrain from enforcing immigration laws in areas of Flint affected by a crisis in which the areas water got contaminated with lead from decaying old pipes.
 
Former Chicago Mayor and Obama Pal Using Fraud-Infested Visa Program to Raise Millions for His Company
OCTOBER 20, 2016

Time left until Obama leaves office:
89 Days...8 hours...13 minutes...13 seconds

Time until Friday, January 20, 2017 ( Washington DC EST )

An Obama ally embroiled in a corruption scandal as a big-city mayor is using a controversial foreign visa program determined by Homeland Security officials to be plagued with “crippling fraud and national security vulnerabilities” to raise millions of dollars for his company. Hundreds of foreigners, mainly from China, are expected to bankroll a skyscraper project via the EB-5 program that provides visas and a path to American citizenship for foreign nationals that invest $1 million in the U.S.

In this case, former longtime Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and his son are asking the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to let them solicit $150 million from foreign investors by using the EB-5 visa program. Chicago’s conservative newspaper published an investigative piece this week after obtaining hundreds of pages of government records. Though the documents were “heavily redacted,” there was enough information to cause alarm, especially after connecting the dots between the president and the disgraced former mayor. During Daley’s tenure more than 30 city workers, including two senior administrators close to the mayor, and contractors got federally indicated for taking bribes. A dozen cabinet-level officials also resigned in the fiasco.

When Obama became president, he hired some of Daley’s top people, including David Axelrod, who was the Chicago mayor’s chief consultant, and Valerie Jarrett, his former deputy chief of staff. In his ill-fated effort to bring the 2016 Olympics to his adopted hometown of Chicago, Obama deployed Jarrett, a senior White House advisor, to the Windy City to work out the details with Daley. Judicial Watch investigated the scandal and had to sue to uncover records involving the president’s costly plan to bring the Olympics to Chicago. This included a trip to Copenhagen by Obama and his wife to appeal to the International Olympic Committee to give Chicago the bid that went to Rio de Janeiro. Four years and millions of dollars in planning came to an abrupt halt in the Windy City, where local leaders—including Daley—and politically-connected business owners were banking on Obama’s star power to bring the games home.

Now we have Daley, a powerful figure in the Democratic Party and Chicago’s longest serving mayor (the city has no term limits so he served 22 years), using his political connections to benefit his private business. The company seeking to lure foreign investors with U.S. visas is called Tur Partners and Daley owns it with his son Patrick. The records obtained by the Chicago newspaper say the father-and-son conglomerate wants to build a downtown skyscraper and their DHS application was submitted on September 22, 2015. The application shows that each would put up half a million dollars for the skyscraper project and pay a $50,000 administrative fee that would bring the Daleys’ company $15 million, the article states. “In return, the foreigners would be eligible to be granted visas allowing them and their immediate families to move to the United States and live here forever,” the story says. Of interesting note is that the Daleys will also collect an additional $50,000 from each investor to “cover the costs of offering migration services and marketing fees.”

The shady Daley project comes to light following a series of widespread problems surrounding the EB-5 visa program, which was created more than two decades ago to ignite economic development in rural areas and has come under bipartisan attack in recent years. Just last month a U.S. senator who sits on the Judiciary Committee reminded Congress that years ago an interagency working group consisting of DHS and other federal agencies with national security responsibilities recommended discontinuing the EB-5 visa program. The panel cited “rampant exploitation” in the program as well as “widespread fraud and national security concerns.” Additionally, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, has determined that the EB-5 visa program is susceptible to fraud and that its economic benefits are questionable.
 
U.S. Spends Millions on “Green Bus Corridor” in Mexico, “Bicycle Highway” in Colombia
OCTOBER 25, 2016

MORE OF YOUR TAX $$ AT WORK TO PUSH OBAMA'S AGENDA...NOTHING TO DO WITH HELPING THE USA !!

Surprise, surprise the U.S. is the first to donate millions of dollars to yet another global warming experiment—run by the famously corrupt United Nations—that aims to forge “climate resilient infrastructure” in third-world countries. The money will help build a bicycle highway in Colombia and bring electric buses and a “green bus corridor” to Mexico, issues that are unlikely to keep most American taxpayers up at night.

It’s part of an initiative called C40 Cities Finance Facility, launched at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris last year. The global warming powwow in France has already cost American taxpayers a chunk of change and Judicial Watch made the numbers public over the summer after obtaining records from the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of the Air Force. The documents offer a detailed breakdown of the cost but the total expenditure to have President Obama attend the ludicrous Paris shindig was an eye-popping $4,165,068l. Judicial Watch had to file a lawsuit to get the information because the administration refused to provide it under the federal public-records law that was enacted to keep government in check.

During the Paris conference the C40 Cities Finance Facility was launched to provide much-needed cash for a 10-year-old program called C40 that claims to be a “network of the world’s megacities committed to addressing climate change.” The conglomerate specializes in tackling climate change in developing countries by driving urban action that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks. Evidently, it’s come up with some brilliant ideas in the last decade to accomplish its mission but not enough money to implement them. As is the case in many of these global, feel-good initiatives, Uncle Sam has generously opened his checkbook for this important cause. Germany is the other “funding partner” listed along with the U.S.

The first $2 million, doled out this month by the U.S., will fund two urban pilot projects in Latin America that are expected to bring “climate change adaptation and mitigation benefits.” The first project is a 25-kilometer bicycle highway in Bogota, Colombia that will connect citizens from low, middle and high-income neighborhoods to work education and recreation opportunities. An announcement published by the U.S. government calls the project a “first-of-its-kind” traversing the Colombian city from south to north. The rest of the money will buy a fleet of at least 100 electric buses for Mexico City and install a “green bus corridor” in one of its major thoroughfares. It’s expected to serve an estimated 133,400 Mexicans daily, providing connections to metro lines. This is an important investment for the U.S., a government official says in the announcement, because the impacts of climate change are impeding cities from delivering reliable services, “especially to the poorest.”

Years ago, the Obama administration determined that the poor will feel the brunt of climate change and it has cost American taxpayers monstrous sums. In the last few years the U.S. government has funded a number of programs, both domestic and international, to prepare those communities for the impact. Back in 2012 the administration asked Congress for a whopping $770 million to help developing countries with climate change initiatives after it had already spent $323 million on a project called Global Climate Change Initiative that helps “meet the adaptation and mitigation needs of developing countries, including deploying clean energy technologies.” Earlier this year, a federal audit revealed that a $25 million project to help Guatemala combat the ills of climate change is rife with problems that include data errors and discrepancies. The program is officially known as Climate Nature and Communities in Guatemala (CNCG).
 
The 5 Most Outrageous Hillary Clinton Lies From The Last Debate

The third and, mercifully, final presidential debate featuring Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton also turned out to be the most conventional. Fox News’ Chris Wallace did a solid job pressing the candidates on issues in Las Vegas; giving them space to spar, but not enough space to spiral out of control.

Of course, not even a strong moderator will deter candidates from misleading, lying, and prevaricating all night. And since we know Trump's performance will be comprehensively fact checked by the entire media, let’s talk about Hillary.

1. Hillary Does Not 'Respect the Second Amendment'

Was there anything more ridiculous last night than Hillary's answer on guns? When pressed by Wallace to explain her opposition to 2008’s landmark District of Columbia v. Heller decision, Clinton went through a checklist of platitudes before landing on the following:

You mentioned the Heller decision, and what I was saying that you reference, Chris, was that I disagreed with the way the court applied the Second Amendment in that case. Because what the District of Columbia was trying to do was protect toddlers from guns.

Hillary brought up “toddlers” a few more times, because little children are mostly adorable and no one wants to see them shot.

The thing is, the Heller case revolves around Richard Heller, a then 66-year-old police officer in Washington DC, who was allowed to carry a gun in a federal office building to protect politicians and strangers, but not in his home to protect himself, his family, or his property. Also of note, the Heller decision had nothing to do with toddlers or saving toddlers’ lives or toddler gun safety or even toddlers shooting at each other. As my colleague Sean Davis has pointed out, the word “toddler” doesn’t appear anywhere in either the majority or dissenting opinions in the case.

After she was done fear mongering, Hillary went on to say this:
But there's no doubt that I respect the Second Amendment, that I also believe there's an individual right to bear arms.

No, she does not. Heller ended Washington’s “total ban on handguns” -- which was SCOTUS’s description of the gun-control laws in DC. It codified the Second Amendment as an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. Hillary admits she supports an effective ban on all handguns (for the toddlers), which is what instigated Heller. What “application” of the decision does she oppose if not the individual's right to own a gun?


 
2. Hillary Does Not Support Any Limits on Abortion

Let’s move to the only constitutional "right" Hillary believes shouldn’t have any constraints: abortion. Last night, Clinton reiterated her support for legal abortion on demand for any reason through the entire pregnancy. Although Clinton is free to hold this position, she’s not free to make stuff up.

For starters, the idea that Clinton, the woman who in 2008 argued that Barack Obama’s health-care plans were too modest, wants to keep government out of health-care decisions is worthy of 8,000 Pinocchios. Yet this is how she couches her support for unlimited abortions:

Because Roe v. Wade very clearly sets out that there can be regulations on abortion so long as the life and the health of the mother are taken into account. And when I voted as a senator, I did not think that that was the case. The kinds of cases that fall at the end of pregnancy are often the most heartbreaking, painful decisions for families to make.

While one hopes pro-lifers remain sensitive to the heartbreaking, painful decisions women make, Hillary’s insinuation that most late-term abortions most often save the life of the mother is not backed up by evidence. Abortionist Leroy Carhart was taped admitting that he often performs elective late-term abortions at 26 weeks “or more.” Martin Haskell, the pioneer of partial-birth abortion, was once taped acknowledging that 80 percent of abortions after 20 weeks were “purely elective.”

The evidence comports with Haskell’s claim. The pro-life Charlotte-Lozier Institute, using data from medical literature and late-term abortion providers, found that the majority of these procedures are not performed for “maternal health complications or lethal fetal anomalies discovered late in pregnancy.” The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute found that in “many ways, women who had later abortions were similar to those who obtained first-trimester procedures.” Which is to say convenience.

Though Hillary acknowledges that Roe v. Wade allows limits, she has never supported a single one. Today’s health exemption allows abortion to end the life of a viable fetus for nearly any reason at all.

3. $200 Billion Is $200 Billion More than Zero

To review: Hillary Clinton said these words in this very order: "I'm not going to add a penny to the debt."

Even if Clinton could tax the wealthy at a 90 percent top marginal rate, and raise rates on corporations, and enacted every other trickle-down tax on consumers she desires, and there’s still no way she would not add to the national debt. If she failed to enact her agenda and did absolutely nothing as president (we should be so lucky), Hillary would still add to the debt. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which accepts her economic plan on its face, found that under it debt would rise from $14 trillion to more than $23 trillion over the next decade -- with her plans adding $200 billion.

You, like me, might find this estimate implausibly low. But even in the fantastical world of contemporary progressive economics, $200 billion is a lot more than a “penny.”

4. Yes, There's Evidence of Clinton Foundation Corruption

When Wallace asked Hillary about the Clinton Foundation’s play-to-pay scheme, she pivoted to a rant about the various charitable accomplishments of her organization -- “making environments in schools healthier for kids,” and so on. Hillary spoke about these altruistic acts as if they precluded her foundation from engaging in corrupt acts.

They do not. Listen, just because mafia families handed out turkeys to the community on Christmas doesn’t mean they weren’t involved in protection rackets every other day of the year.

In the end, Hillary wouldn’t answer the question. This is as close as she came:

WALLACE: And the specific question went to pay for play. Do you want to talk about that?CLINTON: Well, but there is no -- but there is no evidence -- but there is...
There may be no prosecution, but there’s extensive “evidence” that the Clinton Foundation was a center of influence-peddling.

How else does a Clinton donor find himself on a government intelligence advisory board even though he has absolutely no relevant experience? Hillary’s never been asked this question personally, as far as I know. We do know from some of the emails Hillary attempted to destroy that her charity’s officials sought and gained access to State Department personnel while she was in charge. We can suppose that sheiks from various theocracies didn’t donate hundreds of millions of dollars to the Clinton Global Initiative because they were concerned that little girls weren’t having salubrious lunches at their local elementary school.

Moreover, we also know through an Associated Press investigation that more than half the private citizens Hillary met or spoke with while secretary of State also happened to donate to her foundation. These people kicked in around $156 million to a foundation that also procured giant speaking fees for her husband. The whole thing is so innocent that the Clinton Foundation had to refile its tax returns for the past five years after it failed to properly disclose millions in donations from foreign sources when she was at the State Department.

5. No, We Don't Always Accept the Outcomes of Elections

As I’ve noted elsewhere, Donald Trump has decided to engage in a destructive campaign to preemptively blame his imminent loss on electoral fraud. Liberal commentators have treated his strategy as if it were the most horrifying thing ever (until tomorrow’s most horrifying thing ever). The only story that mattered after the debate, according to numerous pundits, was Trump’s obstinate refusal to promise to accept the results of an election before the election had happened.

Hillary pounced:
We've been around for 240 years. We've had free and fair elections. We've accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them.
Well, for starters, it’s highly debatable that all our elections have been fair and free. White Democrats, for example, were rigging elections for years. And though it's not a perfect example, in 2000, Democrats, knowing full well they had lost Florida, attempted to invalidate votes and overturn the results until the Supreme Court forced them to stop.

Only then, when completely out of options, did they concede to the Republican. Actually, many liberal pundits and politicians never stopped questioning the veracity of the election, even after numerous media organizations counted all the voters and proved the election hadn't been stolen. Like many of the contentions we heard in Las Vegas, it was a lie peddled for political purposes.​
 
Obama's $3.6 million golf game with Tiger.

http://www.cbssports.com/golf/news/...-golf-trip-with-tiger-woods-cost-3-6-million/

According to the Washington Times, "the trip cost $3.6 million mostly on account of all the vehicles needed to transport and protect the president.

The Government Accountability Office reported Wednesday that the departments of Defense and Homeland Security spent more than $3.6 million in travel costs and other expenses for Mr. Obama's getaway weekend with Mr. Woods and other golf partners at an exclusive resort in Florida.

The audit said the costs included operation of Air Force One, at about $200,000 per hour of flight, plus a virtual squadron of "supporting aircraft and U.S. Coast Guard small boats," as well as per diem and other travel expenses for an unspecified number of Pentagon and Homeland Security personnel required to support the president's golf weekend."
 
JW Exposed Pa. AG Corruption Years Before Her Conviction
OCTOBER 27, 2016

Years before Pennsylvania’s first Democrat and first female Attorney General got convicted of crimes, Judicial Watch helped expose the corrupt way in which she ran her public office. The state’s disgraced top prosecutor, Kathleen Kane, was hauled away from a courtroom in handcuffs this week after getting sentenced to 10 to 23 month in jail. In August, a jury found Kane guilty perjury and obstruction for illegally disclosing details from a grand jury investigation to retaliate against a political rival then lying about it under oath.

Philadelphia’s largest newspaper described Kane’s sentencing this week as “capping a spectacular downfall for a woman once seen as one of the state’s fastest-rising stars.” Kane’s first year in office was marked by political and public relations successes, the paper states, but it went downhill from there. After “her star began to dim in 2014, she leaked confidential grand jury material to a newspaper in a bid to embarrass a political enemy, then lied about her actions under oath,” the story says. At this week’s five-hour sentencing hearing in Montgomery County the judge blasted Kane and rejected calls for leniency. The former prosecutor used and exploited her position to battle perceived enemies instead of focusing on the business of fighting crime, the judge, Wendy Demchick-Alley, said during the hearing.

The leak stems from a feud that Kane had with a former prosecutor in her office named Frank Fina, who Kane accused of planting a damaging media story. Before Kane got elected the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office ran a years-long, undercover sting operation that busted leading state Democrats embroiled in a bribery scheme. At the time the Attorney General was Republican Tom Corbett. When Kane took office in 2013, she shut the operation down. Before Kane ended the investigation, sources familiar with the inquiry said, prosecutors amassed 400 hours of audio and videotape that documented at least four city Democrats taking payments in cash or money orders, and in one case, a $2,000 Tiffany bracelet.

Back In 2014 Judicial Watch testified before a Pennsylvania House State Government Committee investigating Kane for refusing to uphold Commonwealth laws that she didn’t agree with. Judicial Watch Attorney Michael Bekesha explained to the panel that Kane had consistently failed to honor her sworn oath to uphold the state’s constitution by, among other things, refusing to defend the state’s marriage laws and failing to prosecute elected officials for accepting cash and other gifts in exchange for political favors. Bekesha also pointed out to the committee that the State Ethics Commission concluded that the promotion of Kane’s sister to Chief Deputy Attorney General in the child predator section created a perception that the promotion was not free from Kane’s influence. “Attorney General Kane is lawless,” Bekesha testified, adding that just the appearance of impropriety or misbehavior damages the office.

Kane has close ties to the Clintons and she worked on Hillary’s 2008 failed presidential campaign. In 2012 Bill Clinton endorsed Kane for Attorney General over former Pennsylvania Congressman Patrick Murphy. At the time the former president said “Kathleen is a great Democrat who understands that an Attorney General’s job is to stand up for consumers and people,” according to a press release dug up by a news outlet this week. After winning the election and making history as the first woman and first Democrat to hold the office, Kane was considered a rising star in the Democratic Party. Some believed she had a bright future in the U.S. Senate. Instead, the disgraced Attorney General is going to jail and her license to practice law has been suspended.
 
Food Stamp Craze: U.S. Spends $3.6 Billion to Give $70 Billion in Benefits
OCTOBER 28, 2016

Not only does the government spend a breathtaking $70 billion a year to give a record number of people food stamps, it wastes billions more to administer the bloated welfare program. Some states spend a lot more than others to distribute the free food vouchers and the discrepancies are downright outrageous. The government dedicates $3.6 billion annually just to administer food stamps (renamed Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—SNAP to eliminate stigma), according to a federal audit that includes mind-boggling figures.

For instance, California, the state with by far the largest food-stamp roll, spends a lot more than the national average to execute the federal nutrition program. The Golden State doles out an average of $34.06 a month for each of its 2 million food stamp cases while other states, like Ohio, spend only $9.55. Some California counties are off the charts with administration costs. For instance, San Francisco County spends a whopping $73 a month administering each food stamp case. To put this in perspective, New York City spends $23 per case. The huge gap suggests “possible waste and operational inefficiencies,” according to the audit conducted by the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the agency that dispenses food stamps. That seems to be putting it mildly.

SNAP is a federal program but states are responsible for distributing the benefit and they get big bucks from Uncle Sam to get the job done. Though federal regulations establish uniform requirements for managing administrative funds, once local governments get the money there’s no follow up from the feds, leaving the system open to fraud and corruption. The USDA watchdog reveals the problem has persisted for years and that despite the “large variances” in SNAP administrative costs the agency doesn’t bother monitoring or coordinating with states to “assist in containing costs, minimizing variances, and sharing best practices.” The audit attributes the problem to a lack of effective oversight. In other words, yet another swollen and derelict government agency failing miserably to carry out its basic duties.

A record 46.5 million people get food stamps from the government, but the probe only includes the ten states with the highest rolls so the waste is probably much larger. The figures are broken down in the report by state and county and they’re enough to outrage any sensible, taxpaying citizen. California leads in both charts, spending $825,316,195 a year to give 2,019,272 residents food stamps. San Francisco County spends a startling $27,947,139 a year to give just 32,074 residents food stamps and Los Angeles County $187,426,575 annually to distribute the benefit to 573,282. Other big spenders are New Jersey ($138,400,032 for 439,695 food-stamp cases) and North Dakota ($7,521,986 for 25,011). Hamilton County in Ohio did the most efficient job, spending only $5.70 to administer each of its 61,772 cases every month.

The nation’s food-stamp program has long been plagued with fraud and corruption that’s been well documented in a multitude of government audits in the last few years. Nevertheless, it hasn’t stopped the president from expanding the program to record levels in the name of eradicating what he calls an epidemic of “food insecurity.” Judicial Watch has reported extensively on this, dating back to 2012 when a federal investigation uncovered evidence that food-stamp recipients were using their welfare benefit to buy drugs, weapons and other contraband from unscrupulous vendors. A year later Judicial Watch broke a story about the U.S. government knowingly giving illegal immigrants food stamps for decades. That was followed by another disturbing scheme in which SNAP benefits were being sold online using social media such as Facebook, Twitter and ecommerce websites like Craigslist and eBay.

Earlier this year federal authorities in south Florida busted the largest food-stamp fraud operation in U.S. history. Twenty-two defendants in the largely black and Hispanic areas of Miami-Dade County known as Opa-Locka and Hialeah swindled the government out of $13 million by fraudulently trading food stamps for cash. The crooked vendors operated food and produce stands at a local flea market as part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s initiative to eradicate “food deserts,” common in poor, minority communities where fresh, healthy food is tough to find or often unavailable. The feds say the business owners and their employees let food-stamp recipients use their welfare benefit to get cash in exchange for a cut of the money. They swiped the recipient’s SNAP card for an inflated amount, doled out cash and kept a percentage. In most instances the recipient didn’t actually get food, according to federal authorities.
 
Feds Order Law Enforcement Agencies to Ignore Drug Use, Criminal Records to Hire Minorities
NOVEMBER 02, 2016

In a push to hire minority police officers, the Obama administration is asking the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies to forgive drug use, disregard the criminal records of candidates from “underrepresented communities” and lower standards on written and physical exams. It’s part of the administration’s Advancing Diversity in Law Enforcement initiative following a string of officer-involved shootings involving African Americans. Key to the mission is the racial diversification of local law enforcement agencies so that they “better reflect the diversity of the communities they serve.”

To accomplish this, several barriers must be removed and the details are outlined in a report issued jointly by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination laws. The document aims to help carry out the recommendations of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Chief among them is identifying barriers that undermine diversity in law enforcement in three key areas; recruitment, hiring and retention. To eliminate the largest barriers agencies are adopting a “holistic view” of applicants’ skills and strengths by, among other things, ignoring their criminal record. Here’s an excerpt from the report: “Certain barriers – including background investigations that treat all arrests and criminal convictions alike regardless of type of offense or how recent the occurrence, or even screen out those voluntarily admitting to drug use alone (without any conviction) – can prevent the agency from hiring the diverse officers it needs to connect with and serve the entire community.”

To further discourage law enforcement agencies from eliminating candidates with criminal pasts, the report states that “an employer’s use of criminal background information can violate either the intentional or disparate impact provisions of Title VII, depending on how that information is used.” This refers to the section of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. The argument here is that a disproportionate number of minorities will be eliminated by criminal background checks. The administration concedes that legal challenges claiming that criminal background check policies have unlawful disparate impacts “have generally not been successful in court.” Credit history checks and psychological evaluations also present “discriminatory employment barriers to women and racial minority applicants,” the report states.

A police department in Daly City, California is listed as an example of a model law enforcement agency that overlooks the criminal past of job applicants in the name of racially diversifying its workforce. The city, which is located just south of San Francisco, has lots of low-income communities where gang activity, violence and drug trafficking are prevalent. “The command staff understands that recruiting and hiring many residents means being open to individuals with complicated pasts,” according to the report. “From the chief’s perspective, these non-traditional hires have strong connections to the communities in Daly City and are able to move through them in a way that outsiders would find difficult, enhancing the department’s ability to do its work effectively.”

Besides discounting criminal records and drug use, the administration wants law enforcement agencies to lower standards on written tests because they have “been shown to have an adverse impact on racial minority candidates.” The president’s task force has determined that certain written tests used as part of entry-level hiring in state and local law enforcement agencies are likely to create an unlawful disparate impact and are not necessary for selecting the most qualified candidates.

“Reliance on these tests can create an unnecessary barrier to the hiring of qualified racial minority applicants,” the report says. Another factor keeping minorities out of policing is the emphasis that some law enforcement agencies have placed on the violent, dangerous nature of the profession, according to the report. The administration wants to change this to promote their role as “guardians of the community” even as cops get violently ambushed and brutally murdered around the country.
 
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