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Obama's Corruption Chronicles:

Amid Surge in Illegal Alien Crimes State Pushes for Broad Sanctuary Law

A surge in serious crimes by illegal immigrants—many repeat offenders—who have been shielded by sanctuary laws isn’t stopping legislators in Massachusetts from quietly pushing for a measure that would protect undocumented aliens statewide.

The move could not have come at a worse time, as the nation reels from a series of atrocious crimes committed by illegal aliens who long ago should have been deported. Instead, they were protected by sanctuary laws despite their criminal histories and illegal status in the U.S. A recent example is the gruesome July 4 San Francisco murder of a young woman by an illegal immigrant thug with seven felony convictions. The Mexican national had been deported five times.

Like a number of municipalities across the nation, San Francisco’s sanctuary law protects illegal aliens and bans any sort of cooperation with federal authorities, even when the perpetrator is guilty of a serious offense. In fact, in the recent San Francisco case Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had issued a detainer for the illegal alien, 45-year-old Francisco Sanchez, but local authorities did not honor it and instead released him. San Francisco’s mayor defended the policy after the senseless murder, saying that it “protects residents regardless of immigration status and is not intended to protect repeat, serious and violent felons.”

More than 200 cities, counties, and states across the U.S. protect criminal aliens from deportation by refusing to comply with ICE detainers or otherwise impede information exchanges between their employees, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Among them is Cook County in Illinois, Miami-Dade County in south Florida and practically the entire state of California. In Massachusetts only a couple of cities—Amherst and Boston—have sanctuary measures in place and some state lawmakers want to broaden the protection.

The legislature is looking to pass a measure that will offer sanctuary protections to illegal aliens statewide. If approved, all public agencies in Massachusetts will be banned from divulging information on illegal immigrants to federal authorities and state employees will be forbidden from denying any taxpayer-funded assistance, benefits or participation in public programs to those in the country illegally. “This shall include, but not be limited, to education or training, employment, health, welfare, rehabilitation, housing or other services, whether provided directly by the recipient of funds of the commonwealth or provided by others through contracts or other arrangements with the recipient,” according to language in the proposed law.

The measure also offers illegal immigrants assistance in gaining legal status in the U.S., possibly citizenship. “It shall be the policy of the commonwealth to support and encourage any and all residents in their attempts to obtain lawful immigration status and, if they choose, citizenship. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an agency or employee of the commonwealth or recipient of commonwealth funds from requesting the voluntary provision of information or documentation regarding immigration status to the extent necessary to assist an individual in resolving his or her immigration question when such assistance is part of a program’s activities and is consistent with this subsection.”

The bill was introduced by state Representative Byron Rushing, a Boston Democrat who claims his priorities are human and civil rights. The civil rights activist/politician should read this disturbing investigative series in his hometown newspaper about illegal immigrant sex offenders who have been released instead of deported. They include convicted rapists, child molesters and kidnappers. One law enforcement agency calls them “the worst of the worst.” Just a few weeks ago, another local news report revealed that two illegal immigrants charged with drug-related crimes are suspected of murdering a grandmother in Lawrence, which is about 29 miles from Boston.
 
U.S. Pays Black Comedian to Deliver Anti-White Racist Tirade at Fed Agency

The U.S. government paid a controversial civil rights activist/comedian to deliver an anti-white racist tirade at a major federal agency during Black History month and Judicial Watch has obtained the disturbing transcript and the shocking video of the offensive political rant.

It took place at the United States Census Bureau earlier this year and the paid speaker was Dick Gregory, a self-professed humanitarian and drum major for justice who claims that his social satire changed the way white Americans perceive African American comedians. But Gregory’s angry outburst at the Census Bureau was not funny to some employees and the agency was forced to explain that it will thoroughly review its procedures for selecting future speakers to “ensure their views are appropriate for the federal workplace.”

Based on Gregory’s well-known reputation as a fiery race-baiter, it’s unlikely that the government officials who booked him didn’t know about his discriminating, shock-based performances. The Census Bureau paid Gregory $1,400 to “share a wealth of history as a Civil Rights Activist,” according to the records obtained by JW under the federal public records law known as the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Instead, American taxpayers funded a disgusting stand-up routine filled with the “N word” and replete with conspiracy theories about whites and the U.S. government targeting prominent blacks—including Martin Luther King and Malcom X—for assassination or career destruction (golfer Tiger Woods and beleaguered comedian Bill Cosby).

Gregory also said whites stole black inventions, such as ice hockey and the cotton gin, and accused the U.S. government of conspiring to kill Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio. The movie King Kong is really a depiction of former heavyweight champion Jack Johnson dating white women, Gregory claimed at the Census Bureau performance, and whites treat President Obama “like dirt” and “like he’s a Redneck Cracker that can’t read or write.” Gregory delivered most of his routine in Ebonics (also known as African American Vernacular English) and advised his black audience not to obey “white racist cops,” which he also referred to as “filth.”

The rioters who destroyed Ferguson after a cop fatally shot a black man with an extensive criminal record who had just committed a robbery, didn’t steal enough merchandise from the businesses they looted, Gregory told his government audience. “I was complaining about Ferguson because the N_ _ _ _ _ _ wasn’t getting enough,” Gregory said, according to the transcript obtained by JW. “Did you see the brother go in there and walk out with a half-pint, I said ‘Get some tips.’ And, y’all be trying to trick them White folks and say rebellion. No rebellion is put together, predicated, on some White person shooting a Black person and that tips it off. Those was riots, riots.”

Gregory also told his audience of public servants that if he were president of the United States no white people would be in his cabinet. “Had I been elected to be the President, listen good White folks, none of y’all would be in my cabinet,” he says. “Now don’t worry about Black folks who be saying ‘oh, he didn’t mean it.’ So, I’ll say it ten times, non of y’all be in my cabinet, none of y’all be in my cabinet, none of y’all be in my cabinet.”
 
Kuwaiti Officials in U.S. to Help Free Gitmo Captive Denied Release by Obama’s Parole Board

Will the U.S. cave into an Arab nation’s pressure—witnessed firsthand by Judicial Watch—to release a senior Al Qaeda operative and Osama bin Laden advisor who has already been refused discharge by President Obama’s special Guantanamo parole board?

The terrorist is a Kuwaiti national named Faez Mohammed Ahmed al-Kandari and he’s been a prisoner at the U.S. military compound in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba since 2002. His Department of Defense (DOD) file says he has a history of participating in violent militant Islamic activities, poses a high-risk threat to the United States, has numerous connections to senior Al Qaeda members and was an influential religious figure for Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. Al-Kandari also provided ideological training at the al-Faruq camp and the Islamic Institute in Kandahar and served as a propagandist who produced and distributed multimedia recruitment material and wrote newspaper articles paying tribute to the 9/11 hijackers.

Last year the special Periodic Review Board (PRB) created by President Obama to empty the military prison at the U.S. Naval base in southeast Cuba, denied al-Kandari’s petition for release. The PRB is comprised of senior officials from the departments of Justice, Defense, Homeland Security and State as well as the Joint Staff and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Their job is to review whether a continued detention of particular individuals held at Gitmo remains necessary to protect against a significant threat to the nation’s security. Dozens of Gitmo captives, including bin Laden’s bodyguard, have been released by the PRB in the last few years in an effort to meet Obama’s goal of closing the facility.

Among them is the only other Kuwaiti still imprisoned there, Fawzi al-Odahm, released by the Obama administration to a laughable jihadist rehabilitation program last year. Al-Odah belonged to a London-based Al Qaeda cell and is an “extremist recruiter and courier,” according to his DOD file. Al-Odah also participated in hostilities against U.S. and Coalition forces and served on an Islamic committee providing inspiration to fighters in Tora Bora. He has a history of participating in jihadist combat and has connections to extremist affiliated non-governmental organizations yet he was let go.
Al-Kandari, on the other hand, was denied freedom last July when the PRB determined that his detention “remains necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.” By consensus Obama’s Gitmo parole board concluded that al-Kandari “almost certainly retains an extremist mindset and had close ties with high-level al-Qaeda leaders in the past.” The PRB found that al-Kandari was too susceptible for recruitment due to his connections with extremists and his “residual anger at the U.S.” The board also noted a lack of history regarding the efficacy of Kuwait’s comical terrorist rehab program, officially known as the Al Salam Rehabilitation Center.

Nevertheless, this week the Gitmo PRB granted al-Kandari another parole hearing and Judicial Watch covered the proceeding live via circuit television from a DOD facility in Crystal City, Virginia. High-level sheikhs from Kuwait’s government were present, reportedly to negotiate al-Kandari’s release. They included multiple diplomats, members of the government-run wire service Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), and the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States, all advocating for al-Kandari’s release. Al-Kandari is the last Kuwaiti prisoner at Gitmo and Middle Eastern news agencies have reported on the Arab nation’s mission to bring him home. In fact, Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah recently traveled to Washington to push for al-Kandari’s release and express the Emir of Kuwait’s “utmost concern for this case.”

The push likely helped al-Kandari get a second parole hearing in a year as other captives patiently wait for a turn to appear before the board. A Pentagon official told JW that the PRB should take a few weeks to make a decision in al-Kandari’s case. If the board commits an about-face by releasing this terrorist, it has some serious explaining to do. JW, which has repeatedly traveled to Gitmo to cover the military commission proceedings of the world’s most dangerous terrorists—including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri—will continue monitoring this case.
 
Obama to Protect Illegal Aliens Based on “Accrual of Unlawful Presence” in U.S.

Three years after the Obama administration quietly rewarded illegal immigrants with “unlawful presence waivers” it has a new plan in the works to shield them from deportation based on the “accrual of unlawful presence” in the United States.

That’s right; illegal aliens with the longest record of violating our laws will be rewarded by our government, according to the proposed plan obtained by Judicial Watch this month from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It’s all part of the president’s mission to grant amnesty to as many illegal immigrants as possible before he leaves office. This includes special executive programs created to help illegal aliens brought to the U.S. as children and “family reunification” measures that shield relatives and spouses of a broad range of immigrants.

In 2012 Judicial Watch reported on the administration’s behind the scenes effort to halt the deportation of certain illegal immigrants by granting them “unlawful presence waivers.” That measure applies to illegal aliens who are relatives of American citizens. Before the Obama administration changed the rules, aliens had to return to their native country and request a waiver of inadmissibility in an existing overseas immigrant visa process. This often caused U.S. citizens to be separated for extended periods from their foreign—and undocumented—relatives, according to DHS, and the change significantly reduced that.

The latest amnesty measure—based on accrual of unlawful presence—further relaxes the rule and drastically expands the pool of eligible candidates by, among other things, eliminating the requirement that applicants must be relatives of U.S. citizens. Here’s language straight from the government document obtained by JW and signed by Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson: “DHS proposes to expand its current provisional waiver process in two principle ways. First, DHS would eliminate current limitations on the provisional waiver process that restrict eligibility to certain immediate relatives of U.S. citizens. Under this proposed rule, the provisional waiver process would be made available to all aliens who are statutorily eligible for waivers of inadmissibility based on unlawful presence and meet certain other conditions.”

DHS also plans to eliminate a requirement that the illegal immigrant demonstrate that denial of the waiver would result in “extreme hardship” to their U.S. citizen spouse or parent. The proposed rule would expand who may be considered a qualifying relative for purposes of the extreme hardship determination to include lawful permanent resident spouses and parents, according to the DHS document obtained by JW. This is all being done in the “interests of family unity,” according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the DHS agency that oversees lawful immigration to the United States.

The agency explains in its new proposal that aliens who are in the Unites States and seeking lawful permanent resident status must either obtain an immigrant visa abroad with the State Department or apply to adjust their immigration status in the United States, if eligible. “Aliens present in the United States without having been inspected and admitted or paroled are typically ineligible to adjust their status in the United States,” the DHS document says, adding that because these aliens entered the country illegally, “their departures may trigger a ground of inadmissibility based on the accrual of unlawful presence in the United States…”

In fact, DHS confirms in its proposed rule that an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States for more than 180 days and less than a year who departs voluntarily before the commencement of removal proceedings is inadmissible for three years from the date of departure. An alien who is unlawfully present in the United States for one year or more and then departs (before, during, or after removal proceedings), is inadmissible for 10 years from the date of the departure. These violators will benefit tremendously under the new program.

Another interesting tidbit is that the administration is actually encouraging aliens to “complete the visa process abroad, promoting family unity, and improving administrative efficiency.”
 
Probe Ends Free Labor Union Ads on City Vehicles

A major U.S. city will finally stop giving a markedly leftist, politically-oriented national labor union free advertisement on the side of taxpayer-funded vehicles thanks to Judicial Watch.

The illegal arrangement has been going on for years in Phoenix, the nation’s sixth-largest city and Arizona’s biggest. Vehicles in the city’s fire department have long sported the logo of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO), the largest conglomerate of unions in the U.S. representing 12.5 million “working people in every walk of life.” The AFL-CIO is notorious for being politically active and spending huge sums to back mainly liberal candidates and issues.

In fact, the AFL-CIO brags about its political activism on its website, writing: “As part of the process, the AFL-CIO Executive Board will take a proactive approach by discussing and potentially identifying a pro-worker presidential candidate and encouraging such a candidate to run for the president in the 2016 election.” This makes the illicit arrangement with the Phoenix Fire Department (PFD) all the more outrageous because it has come at taxpayer expense with no benefit to the city or the public. The AFL-CIO, in turn, has had access to, and benefited from, a long standing advertising practice that’s afforded to no other entity.

When Judicial Watch learned about the shady deal it launched an investigation and fired off a public records request to Phoenix City Manager Ed Zuercher. The inquiry, dated April 1, 2015, included photos of the labor union logo on city fire vehicles and asked for contractual agreements, policies, regulations, ordinances, fee schedules and restrictions related to the display of names or logos of non-governmental entities on PFD service vehicles. JW also asked for records that identify other city service vehicles that are authorized to display names or logos of non-governmental entities and the procedures for them to request or purchase the display of its logos on city service vehicles.

JW never received answers to those questions, but was verbally assured by Phoenix city officials that the AFL-CIO logos would be yanked from PFD vehicles. JW subsequently obtained a memo issued by Phoenix Assistant City Manager Milton Dohoney, Jr. to Phoenix Fire Chief Kara Kalkbrenner asking that the labor union logos be removed from all department equipment as soon as reasonably possible and no later than within the next 3-4 months. “There is no contractual relationship that legitimizes the display” of the logos on fire vehicles, the assistant city manager tells the fire chief, adding that it “may constitute a violation of Arizona laws.”

It appears that there never was any formal procedure in place to grant the AFL-CIO free ad space on public vehicles in Phoenix. Based on the information JW has gathered, it’s reasonable to conclude that this is an example of a back-room deal between liberal mayors, enamored city council members and the longtime power of the AFL-CIO on the political arena. After all, how is it possible that a city manager, which serves as the crucial chief executive of a municipality’s government, not know what’s on his fire trucks? If JW didn’t investigate this matter, the powerful leftwing labor conglomerate would continue receiving free taxpayer-funded advertisement from the city of Phoenix.
 
Sadly, all of their efforts and accomplishments will only encourage and embolden them for more from here on out.
 
You think Ferguson, Chicago, and Baltimore are hot spots of racial tension...

wait till you see what happens when all the entitlements and handouts start getting slashed by the next Republican president...not to mention the coming war with Mexico's cartels at the border.
 
Kerry calls for democracy as US flag rises in Cuba

HAVANA — U.S. Marines raised the Stars and Stripes over the newly reopened American Embassy in Cuba on Friday as Secretary of State John Kerry made an unprecedented call for democratic change on the island ruled by a single party for more than five decades.

"We remain convinced the people of Cuba would be best served by a genuine democracy, where people are free to choose their leaders, express their ideas, practice their faith," Kerry said before an audience of Cuban and U.S. diplomats on the embassy grounds and millions of islanders watching and listening live.

Political change remains a taboo topic in Cuba despite a series of economic reforms and the reestablishment of diplomatic ties with the U.S. under President Raul Castro, who took over from his brother Fidel.

Hundreds of Cubans outside the embassy cheered as Kerry spoke, the United States Army Brass Quintet played "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the flag rose alongside the building overlooking the Malecon seaside promenade.

Across the country, it seemed as if virtually all of Cuba was glued to a television or listening to a live radio broadcast.

"We agree with what Kerry said," said Julio Garcia, a 51-year-old mechanic. "More democracy, elections, we hope for that to come with this diplomatic opening."

Dissidents were not invited to the embassy ceremony, avoiding tensions with Cuban officials who typically boycott events attended by the country's small political opposition. The State Department said it had limited space at what it called a government-to-government event, and invited dissidents to a separate afternoon flag-raising at the home of the embassy's chief of mission.

Giant Cuban flags hung from the balconies of nearby apartment buildings and people gathered at windows with a view of the embassy.

"I wouldn't want to miss it," Marcos Rodriguez, 28, said outside the embassy. He said he and many other Cubans hope the diplomatic thaw will bring "social and economic benefits for all Cubans."
High-ranking Cuban officials, U.S. business executives and Cuban-Americans who pushed for rapprochement gathered inside the former U.S. Interests Section, newly emblazoned with the letters "Embassy of the United States of America."

Soon after Kerry heads home Friday evening, the Cuban and U.S. diplomats who negotiated the embassy reopening will launch full-time into the next phase of detente: expanding economic ties between the two nations with measures like re-establishing direct flights and mail service.

The Americans also want to resolve billions of dollars in half-century-old American claims over property confiscated after the Cuban revolution. Cuba has its own claims, as noted in a newspaper column by Fidel Castro on Thursday saying the U.S. owes the island "numerous millions of dollars" for damages caused by the embargo.

"We have diplomatic relations; now we can get to the real work," said Wayne Smith, a retired U.S. diplomat who witnessed the closing of the U.S. Embassy in 1961, served in Cuba under President Jimmy Carter and returned to attend Friday's ceremony.

Obama and Raul Castro announced Dec. 17 that they would re-establish diplomatic ties 54 years after the flag was taken down from the embassy overlooking Havana's seaside boulevard, the Malecon.
Obama also said he would be moving to empower the Cuban people by loosening the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba through a series of executive actions that make it easier for American citizens to travel to the island and trade with its growing class of private business owners.

Eight months later, Havana has repeatedly demanded a complete lifting of the embargo. It has not responded to Obama's actions with measures that would allow ordinary Cubans to benefit from them, such as allowing low-cost imports and exports by Cuban entrepreneurs looking to do business with the U.S.

"I think we're ending one phase and entering another," said Robert Muse, a U.S. lawyer specializing in Cuba. "The handshakes, the fraternal regards, the raising of the flags, that'll end on Aug. 14. Then I think it's very particular conversations begin."

While Cuba has increased its highly limited Internet access since Dec. 17 in a measure U.S. officials partially attribute to the warming with Washington, ordinary Cubans are growing increasingly impatient for concrete results from the new relationship.

"I'm optimistic but cautious," said Rolando Mendez, a state worker walking outside the embassy. "We have to wait and see how events develop and if there really will be benefits for the two peoples."

The U.S. tried several times to hold discussions with Cuban officials about the details of Obama's loosening of U.S. regulations, but those meetings never happened amid the pressure to strike a deal allowing the reopening of embassies in Havana and Washington on July 20.

U.S. diplomats say that such a meeting, which could lead to a real increase in trade with the U.S., is among the top priorities of the normalization talks expected to start in earnest in coming weeks.
Kerry said in a series of interviews with Spanish-language press Wednesday that the day would move the U.S.-Cuban relationship into a series of detailed talks about topics including "law enforcement, maritime security, education, health, telecommunications."
 
Great...more wetback political prisoners and jail-house gang members being released with one way tickets to the United States.

Another promise fulfilled..."fundamentally changing America" into a 3rd world hell hole...wait till the rise in the crime rate goes through the roof in Florida and Georgia.

WAKE UP AMERICA...!!

Here's his real goal...to give Guantanamo Bay Naval Base back to Cuba...which will fulfill his promise to close Camp Delta...where the last, and most vicious of the detainees are held.

With that stroke of genius...he will basically park Russian and Chinese missiles and listening posts 90 miles from the US mainland.

This president should be tried as a traitor...
 
Chart Lists Terrorists in US Due to Lax Immigration Policies

The Obama administration’s lax immigration policies have allowed a large number of terrorists with documented ties to ISIS and other radical Islamic groups into the United States, including individuals from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Uzbekistan who have been criminally charged in recent years.

Examples include a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia (Hinda Osman Dhirane) charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, a lawful permanent resident (Akhror Saidakhmetov) from Kazakhstan charged with conspiracy to provide material support to Al Qaeda in Iraq, a Yemeni national named Mufid A. Elfgeeh who also supported a foreign terrorist organization, possessed illegal firearms and attempted to kill U.S. government officers and a Syrian national named Mohamad Saeed Kodaimati who knowingly made false, fraudulently and fictitious statements to the FBI.

That’s just a snippet of a long list of foreigners with terrorist ties who have been granted U.S. entry by the Obama administration. The document was provided this month by a pair of federal lawmakers attempting to pinpoint the tragic consequences of Obama’s negligent immigration policies. The legislators, both U.S. senators, are asking Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Secretary of State John Kerry to provide details on the immigration history of the individuals—as well as their family—that appear on the chart. The list features 72 people involved with or sentenced for terrorist activity in the last year alone.

They include individuals who have engaged in or attempted to engage in acts of terrorism; conspired or attempted to conspire to provide material support to a terrorist organization; engaged in criminal conduct inspired by terrorist ideology; or who have been sentenced for any of the foregoing, the senators, Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Ted Cruz of Texas, reveal. “We would like to understand more about these individuals, and others similarly situated in recent history, and the nexus between terrorism and our immigration system,” they write in a letter to Lynch and Kerry. Sessions chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and Cruz chairs the Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts.

They ask that the State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ) coordinate with other relevant agencies to provide answers to their questions by early next month. Among the senators’ inquires is an unredacted copy of each non-citizen or naturalized citizen’s alien file and a breakdown by immigration status of those who at any time after entering the U.S. got flagged as a member of a terrorist organization or political/social group that endorses or espouses terrorist activity. The lawmakers seek other information as well, including the identification of subjects with terrorist ties who have been deported from the U.S. and those who have been placed in removal proceedings but were allowed to remain inside the country.

As if it weren’t bad enough that terrorists are entering the U.S. legally thanks to our weak immigration policies, the Obama administration also has a terrorist “hands off” list that permits individuals with extremist ties to enter the country. The disturbing details of this secret list come from internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents exposed last year by a U.S. senator. Specifically, an electronic email exchange between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) asks whether to admit an individual with ties to various terrorist groups. The individual had scheduled an upcoming flight into the U.S. and was believed to be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and a close associate and supporter of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Islamic terrorists are also sneaking into the U.S. through the porous southern border. Judicial Watch has reported this for years and, more recently, published a series of stories documenting how Mexican drug cartels are smuggling foreigners with terrorist links into the El Paso, Texas region. The foreigners are classified as Special Interest Aliens (SIA) by the government and they are being transported to stash areas in Acala, a rural crossroads located around 54 miles from El Paso on a state road – Highway 20. Once in the U.S., the SIAs wait for pick-up in the area’s sand hills just across Highway 20. JW has also reported that Mexican smugglers are moving ISIS operatives through the desert and across the U.S.-Mexico border with tremendous ease.
 
Amid Security Failures DHS Spends 20.3 million on Conferences

While it let Islamic terrorists enter the country, wasted huge sums on faulty equipment and failed miserably to remove criminal illegal aliens, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was busy blowing $20.3 million to host 1,883 conferences last year.

It’s the inconceivable tale of the colossal agency—with practically unlimited funds—created after 9/11 to prevent another terrorist attack. The agency’s various components include Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the scandal-plagued Secret Service and the famously inept Transportation Security Administration (TSA), to name a few. In 2015, DHS asked Congress for an astounding $38.2 billion to continue its “commitment to the security of our homeland and the American public,” according to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson.

The agency must be agile and vigilant in continually adapting to evolving threats and hazards, Johnson writes in the budget request, adding that “we must stay one step ahead of the next attack, the next cyberattack, and the next natural disaster.” Preventing terrorism, securing our borders and enforcing our immigration laws are among the agency’s “basic missions,” Johnson states, even though we all know DHS has fallen short in all these areas. The failures involving the southern border have been especially well documented. In fact, just last month Judicial Watch reported that Mexican drug cartels are smuggling Islamic terrorists into the U.S. through the rural Texas border region.

While this is going on DHS and its various components polish up on a variety of skills at conferences that cost American taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, a federal audit reveals. This includes a dozen events that each exceeded $100,000. For those wondering what publicly-financed, extracurricular event could possibly merit such a large sum, here are a few examples: DHS paid $196,308 for a San Francisco forum aimed at preventing terrorism as well as “securing and managing our borders” and an additional $130,941 for a separate San Francisco shindig so 39 senior agency officials could engage with “key influencers and decision makers” in the cybersecurity industry.

The agency responsible for protecting the nation from terrorist threats also blew $179,053 on the International Oil Spill Conference in Savannah, Georgia, which focused on environmental impacts of oil spills and $125,348 on a Washington D.C. event aimed at “maximizing the benefits of gender diversity.” The idea behind that conference was to promote gender equity through a group known as Women in Federal Law Enforcement (WIFLE), a nonprofit created by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Treasury to address why women remain underrepresented in federal law enforcement.

A $110,993 “outreach” summit in Washington D.C. brought Customs and Border Patrol senior managers, transportation executives and foreign government partners together to discuss “securing and managing our borders” and a $108,617 Ft. Worth Texas conference provided a “platform for conveying information regarding relevant issues in immigration enforcement.” DHS also doled out $131,868 on the Afghanistan Pakistan Illicit Procurement Network Symposium in Tampa, Florida where discussions focused on preventing hostile nations and illicit procurement networks from illegally obtaining U.S. military products or sensitive technology that could be used against the U.S.

While all this costly nonsense is going on at taxpayer expense, the southern border remains dangerously porous, airport security is a huge joke and DHS gets exposed for spending $360 million on drones that have failed miserably after nearly a decade. The agency promised Congress that the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAC) would help effectively guard the Mexican border and, even after the experiment failed repeatedly, DHS asked Congress for another $443 million to keep it alive.
 
Government Let Rich Get Cheap Public Housing: "Positive Social Benefits" Cited

Tens of thousands of people who earn too much to qualify for the U.S. government’s taxpayer-subsidized public housing live in the facilities nationwide and the federal agency that runs the program has no intention of evicting the violators. That’s because “there are positive social benefits from having families with varying income levels residing in the same property,” according to the Obama administration official that runs the program.

Some beneficiaries earn tens of thousands of dollars a year more than the threshold allowed to qualify for the cheap housing and, in at least one case, a millionaire pays a mere $300 a month in rent for a public housing unit in Oxford, Nebraska. The tenant has an annual income of more than $65,000—which alone disqualifies her for public housing—and assets of nearly $1.6 million, including stock, real estate a handsome retirement account and a checking account with a balance of $334,637.

It’s inconceivable that the government allows this abuse to occur, but considering that it involves the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) it’s not all that surprising. The scandal-plagued agency is well known for its many transgressions and for looking the other way in the face of fraud and corruption, even among its own employees. Just a few weeks ago Judicial Watch reported that a HUD employee fraudulently charged nearly $12,000 in personal items on his work-issued credit card and the agency failed to even reprimand the employee or report the wrongdoing after learning about it.

Now we have a similar situation in which HUD’s inspector general exposes wrongdoing and the agency simply refuses to take action. In a recently issued report the agency’s assigned watchdog reveals that more than 25,000 “overincome” people, including the Nebraska millionaire mentioned above, live in public housing. Nearly half of the overincome public housing tenants around the country earn $10,000 to $70,000 a year more than the limit to qualify for the benefit, the IG found. About 1,200 have exceeded the income max for around a decade and thousands of others for more than a year.

Examples in the report include a family of four in New York City with an annual income of nearly half a million dollars and hundreds of thousands more in rental income from real estate holdings that pays $1,574 a month to live in a government-subsidized apartment. In Los Angeles a family of five that’s lived in public housing for decades made over $200,000 last year and paid only $1,091 a month for a four-bedroom apartment. This is outrageous and violates a HUD rule that states public housing was established to provide decent and safe rental housing for eligible low-income families.
Auditors confirm in the report, which includes informative graphs, that HUD has no intention of taking action to stop the fraud: “We did not find that HUD and public housing authorities had taken or planned to take sufficient steps to reduce at least the egregious examples of over income families in public housing,” the IG report states. “Therefore, it is reasonable to expect the number of overincome families participating in the program to increase over time.” This is downright outrageous !! "

Indeed, a high-ranking agency official, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Public Housing Milan Ozdinec defends HUD’s policy allowing taxpayers to get fleeced. “There are positive social benefits from having families with varying income levels residing in the same property,” Ozdinec said in a written response to the probe. “Forcing families to leave public housing could impact their ability to maintain employment if they are not able to find suitable housing in the neighborhood. Further, for families with children, it may be more difficult to find affordable child care, and it may impact school-age children’s learning if they are forced to change schools during a school year.”

Just another day of outlaw business practices at HUD. Earlier this year JW reported that a HUD director who simultaneously ran a leftwing nonprofit changed agency policies to benefit her group. Her name is Debra Gross and for years she headed a crucial HUD policy office while she served as deputy director of a leftist organization called Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA) that claims to work to “preserve and improve public and affordable housing through advocacy, research, policy analysis and public education.”

In 2011 a JW investigation found that the Obama administration violated the ban on federal funding for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) by giving the famously corrupt group tens of thousands of dollars in grants to “combat housing and lending discrimination.” The money, $79,819, flowed through HUD and clearly violated a law (Defund ACORN Act) passed by Congress in 2009 to stop the huge flow of taxpayer money that annually went to ACORN after a series of exposés about the leftwing group’s illegal activities.
 
$335 Million Dollar Afghan Power Plant Funded by US Taxpayers Ruined Due to Lack of Use

A $335 million Afghan power plant funded by American taxpayers is “severely underutilized” and the intermittent use of the costly facility has resulted in damage and premature failure, according to a federal audit.

It marks the latest of many scandals involving the U.S. government’s multi-billion dollar Afghanistan “reconstruction” effort, which has been rife with waste, fraud and abuse. A chunk of the money has gone to building roads, hospitals, schools and dams. This particular case involves the Tarakhil Power Plant in Kabul, which was supposed to help rebuild the war-torn Islamic republic and make life better for its citizens.

Tarakhil, a diesel-fueled plant constructed outside of Kabul was expected to provide affordable and reliable electricity considered critical to the economic growth and stability of Afghanistan. Instead it contributes a relatively small amount of electricity to the power grid serving Kabul, a federal investigation found. From February 2014 through April 2015, the Tarakhil Power Plant produced a mere 0.34 percent of the total power on the Kabul grid, according to the probe which was conducted by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

The multi-million dollar diesel-fueled Kabul power plant “does not seem to have contributed significantly” to the “important goal” of providing affordable and reliable electricity critical to the economic goal and stability of Afghanistan, the inspector general writes in its report. The document refers to the failed project as a “significant expenditure of U.S. taxpayer funds,” which is quite an understatement. “In addition to running far below its full capacity, the plant contributes a relatively small amount of electricity to the power grid serving Kabul,” the SIGAR report says. “From February 2014 through April 2015, the Tarakhil Power Plant produced only 0.34 percent of the total power on the Kabul grid.”

Not surprisingly, the scandal-plagued U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) oversees the Kabul power plant and insists it’s a “vital component” of the electrical grid serving the area despite its documented failures. With a massive budget and little oversight, USAID is charged with providing global economic, development and humanitarian assistance. The Kabul power plant is one of several USAID-run projects in Afghanistan and part of a broader crisis involving the free-flow of U.S. dollars to controversial causes in the country.

Last fall Judicial Watch wrote about a scathing SIGAR report documenting how the Clinton State Department blew $18.5 million to renovate a prison in Afghanistan that remains unfinished and unused years after the U.S.-funded work began. That watchdog probe found that the State Department officer overseeing the multi-million-dollar fleecing was corrupt and actually convicted for accepting bribes from an agency contractor. As a result only half the contracted work got done and it was later determined to be defective by an independent firm. This includes failure to backfill trenches, improper roof flashing, soil settlement issues and the failure to connect six back-up generators to the prison’s power grid.

The U.S. has also dedicated huge sums of money to Afghan programs with a documented history of fraud and corruption. For example, hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars were allocated to Afghanistan’s scandal-plagued healthcare system despite multiple warnings of fraud and corruption inside the Afghan Ministry of Public Health. The money was supposed to fund prenatal care for women, hospitals, physicians’ salaries and other medical costs. A few years earlier $475 million in oil—compliments of Uncle Sam—destined for the Afghan National Army vanished.
 
5 Yrs. after Earthquake U.S. Extends “Temporary” Amnesty for Haitian Illegal Aliens

In yet another depiction of the nation’s flawed immigration policies, the Obama administration is extending a humanitarian measure designed to temporarily shield illegal immigrants from deportation during emergencies for the fifth time in five years. It’s officially known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS) but should be renamed permanent—or at least long-term—protected status.

It involves tens of thousands of Haitians, who were originally granted TPS after an earthquake devastated the poverty-stricken Caribbean island in 2010. Then Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the benefit would last only 18 months and be limited to Haitian nationals who were in the United States as of January 12, 2010. The goal, according to Napolitano was to provide a “temporary refuge for Haitian nationals who are currently in the United States and whose personal safety would be endangered by returning to Haiti is part of this Administration’s continuing efforts to support Haiti’s recovery.”

More than five years later the Obama administration continues to allow the same group of foreigners, who would otherwise be deported, remain in the U.S. under the never-ending “temporary” measure. DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson made it official this week, extending TPS for Haitians an additional 18 months, through July 22, 2017. This will grant Haitians authorization to work in the U.S. and receive other taxpayer-funded benefits. “Haiti was initially designated for TPS on Jan. 21, 2010, after a major earthquake devastated the country,” the government announcement reads. “Following consultations with other federal agencies, the Department of Homeland Security has determined that current conditions in Haiti support extending the designation period for current TPS beneficiaries.”

Last year Johnson extended an existing TPS for Haitian nationals with no explanation or earthquake sob story mentioned in the official announcement. Previous to that, Napolitano renewed the measure every year after originally implementing it following the earthquake. This is referred to as a “re-designation” in the various DHS announcements. It allows at least 60,000 Haitians who should be deported to live and work in the U.S. Their children, of course, get a free education and other public benefits compliments of American taxpayers.

Like droves of foreign nationals from a number of struggling countries, Haitians have entered the U.S. illegally for years because their island nation has long been the poorest in the western hemisphere. However the U.S. has for years generously donated huge sums to Haiti and that includes $4 billion in post-earthquake assistance, according to State Department figures. The money keeps flowing and has helped provide shelter, healthcare, food, energy, education, security, jobs and a number of other essential needs.

Additionally, U.S. and international charities raised enormous sums of money for Haiti earthquake relief efforts. Dozens of groups and their affiliates raised $2.1 billion, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and more than half ($1.43 billion) came from Americans. A group of famous singers also joined forces to record an album (Hope for Haiti Now) that quickly raised tens of millions of dollars for earthquake relief in Haiti.

Haitian illegal immigrants aren’t the only ones who have enjoyed the long-term benefits of the special measure intended to grant only temporary reprieve. Last year the Obama administration extended TPS for tens of thousands of Hondurans and Nicaraguans. The order was originally issued more than a decade and a half ago after a hurricane (Mitch) hit the Central American countries and has been renewed over and over again, illustrating that there’s nothing temporary about these measures. Less than a year ago the Obama administration created an 18-month TPS for African Ebola nations, including Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
 
DOJ Accuses U.S. Business of Discrimination for Requiring Proof of Work Eligibility


In its crusade to protect and assist illegal immigrants, the Obama administration has accused an American company of discrimination for requiring employees to furnish proof that they are eligible to work legally in the United States.

You know the nation is in trouble when a U.S. business gets investigated by its own government for following the law. The case involves a Nebraska meat packing company that demanded workers to furnish proof of immigration status for the federal employment eligibility verification process. The Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) went after the company, accusing it of engaging in employment discrimination.

In particular the DOJ’s Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices objected to non-U.S. citizens being “targeted” because of their citizenship status. “The department’s investigation found that the company required non-U.S. citizens, but not similarly-situated U.S. citizens, to present specific documentary proof of their immigration status to verify their employment eligibility,” the DOJ claims. This could constitute a violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the feds assert, because its anti-discrimination provision prohibits employers from making documentary demands based on citizenship or national origin when verifying an employee’s authorization to work.

With the feds breathing down its neck the business, Nebraska Beef Ltd, agreed to pay Uncle Sam a $200,000 civil penalty and establish an uncapped back pay fund to compensate individuals who lost wages because they couldn’t prove they are in the county legally. Additionally, the business will undergo “compliance monitoring,” which means big brother will be watching very closely. The head of the DOJ’s civil rights division explains that the agency is on a mission to eliminate “unnecessary and discriminatory barriers to employment” so workers can support their families and contribute to the U.S. economy.

This case is part of a broader effort by the Obama administration to helps illegal aliens in the U.S. Besides shielding tens of millions from deportation via an executive amnesty order, the president has also expanded the DOJ to help carry out part of this mission. It’s why the agency’s civil rights division has grown immensely under Obama. A few years ago Judicial Watch reported that the DOJ’s civil rights division launched a secret group to monitor laws passed by states and local municipalities to control illegal immigration. Because the measures are viewed as discriminatory and anti-immigrant by the administration, the DOJ has spent huge sums of taxpayer dollars to track them and legally challenge them as it did in Arizona.

The federal tentacles have reached deeply into the workplace. A few years ago the DOJ civil rights division, under the leadership of renowned illegal alien advocate Thomas Perez, launched a plan to eliminate tests that supposedly discriminate against minorities in the workplace. The administration defines them as having a “disparate impact,” a racial discrimination created by the various written exams. The tests disproportionately screen out people of a particular race, even though they “present the appearance of objective, merit-based selection,” according to the Obama DOJ.

Last year a federal audit disclosed that the Obama administration was letting businesses that hire undocumented workers off the hook by drastically reducing fines and enforcement. During a three-year period the administration slashed by 40% the amount of fines collected from employers caught with illegal immigrants on their payroll, according to the probe which was conducted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General. This inconsistent implementation hinders the government’s mission to prevent or deter employers from violating immigration laws, the DHS watchdog wrote in its report. Now the DOJ is taking it a step further by going after employers that try to ensure their workers are in the U.S. legally.
 
Yet another way Obama has "diminished" the United States...

Russia just announced it's officially going back to the moon

Over 40 years have passed since any human has walked on the moon, and all of them were American.

Russia has some grand plans to change that as the US turns its attention to Mars.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, wants to set up a high-tech lunar base, complete with human habitats, science and tech labs, a launching and landing port for spacecraft, and even an astronomy observatory.

The moon and Roscosmos have a complicated past. During the Apollo-era space race, the former Soviet Union landed robotic rovers on the moon — but a series of rocket failures and explosions halted progress on any human-carrying missions. Eventually, Roscosmos decided its moon program wasn't worth the money and the risk and shut it down.

But now Roscosmos is reviving that program and sending a robotic spacecraft, called Luna 25, to the moon to do some scouting for a future lunar base. The agency has announced that it will land Luna 25 on the moon's south pole in 2024.

Engineers are already building the spacecraft, and the finished product will carry eight cameras to help it navigate, take pictures, and keep an eye on its drill tool as it digs into the lunar surface.
Here's a model of what the spacecraft will look like:

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The Luna 25 spacecraft will run its electronics using a battery fueled by a radioactive material called plutonium-238. As the plutonium-238 naturally decays it generates heat, and the battery converts the heat into electricity.

Plutonium-238 is pretty much impossible to turn into a nuclear weapon, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. It's also not the same kind of dangerous, skin-piercing radiation that humans have to worry about (unless it gets inside our lungs).

Lots of spacecraft are powered this way, but the world is quickly running out of Plutonium-238. Space agencies will need to come up with another fuel source soon — unless Russia has a secret reserve of the valuable stuff, or some way of making it.

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plutonium pellet

Roscosmos isn't the only agency thinking about a return to the moon. The European Space Agency already announced plans for its own ambitious moon colony.

In contrast, the US has turned its attention from the moon to Mars. Some spaceflight experts and engineers have criticized the US for this. They argue that NASA should practice setting up a lunar base first, and then move on to the more difficult — and more dangerous — Martian base once its worked out all the kinks. (Buzz Aldrin has a plan that incorporates both a moon base and a Mars base.)
Others argue that a return to the moon would be like moving backwards for NASA: We need to test the limits of human ingenuity if we want to make progress as a species, they say. Getting to Mars is one way to do that.

"Let's just go [to Mars] — prove that it is doable, prove that it is feasible and then examine how you do it on a regular basis that's affordable," Harley Thronson, a senior scientist at NASA, told Space.com in 2013.

It's not clear which strategy — moon or Mars? — is best for the US space agency.

"I refer to them as the Martians and the Lunatics – the people who want to go to Mars, and the people who want to go back to the moon," Roger Launius, a senior space history curator at the Smithsonian, told Space.com in 2012. "No one side has the clear-cut answer. There are positives and negatives for both."
 
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