Ever tried to board a flight without ID? For those in the dark ages who haven’t here’s a news alert… you can’t. At least, you can’t if you’re here legally and abiding by all U.S. laws. But if your first act when entering our nation is the act of committing a crime… no ID required.
Illegal aliens are being allowed to fly on commercial airliners without valid identification, according to the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC). “The aliens who are getting released on their own recognizance are being allowed to board and travel commercial airliners by simply showing their Notice to Appear forms,” NBPC’s Local 2455 Spokesman, Hector Garza, told Breitbart Texas.
“This is not the CBP [Customs and Border Protection] or another federal agency renting or leasing an aircraft, these are the same planes that the American public uses for domestic travel,” said Garza. “This just adds insult to injury. Not only are we releasing unknown illegal aliens onto American streets, but we are allowing them to travel commercially using paperwork that could easily be reproduced or manipulated on any home computer. The Notice to Appear form has no photo, anyone can make one and manipulate one. They do not have any security features, no watermark, nothing. They are simply printed on standard copy paper based on the information the illegal alien says is the truth.”
What does this say about security when someone can cross our borders, give a fake name and board a domestic flight without any sort of government ID?
Millions of dollars in high-tech war fighting equipment is flooding Wisconsin law enforcement agencies thanks to a federal program designed to give police departments access to tools originally designed for soldiers. According to records from the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs, thousands of items ranging from armored vehicles and fast boats to sophisticated imaging systems and fully automatic weapons have been transferred from the military to local police and sheriff’s departments.
Because of Wisconsin’s open records law, Media Trackers reviewed a DMA spreadsheet that listed all so-called 1033 transfers from the U.S. Department of Defense to state and local law enforcement. Over 160 individual agencies and departments obtained free equipment or weapons through the program between July 2004 and May 2014.
The Dane County Sheriff’s office in Madison received 151 fully automatic M-16 rifles, a Zodiac boat, night vision and infrared equipment, and miscellaneous other equipment. Nearby, the Dane County District Attorney’s office, led by Democratic attorney general candidate Ismael Ozanne, got 3 M-16 rifles.
The state’s Fox Lake Correctional Institution got 169 surplus combat helmets. The Milwaukee Police Department also got helmets, but they got 149 of them. Located next to Milwaukee, the Germantown Police Department got 30 helmets.
In Door County, the Sturgeon Bay Police Department got 105 laptops for a department in a town with a population of 9,144.
The town of New Lisbon, population 2,521, got 3 cargo trucks for its police department.
The single most popular weapon to be distributed to local departments is the M-16 rifle, which has been the military’s standard combat rifle since Vietnam. Today’s versions have been substantially upgraded since the original models were introduced, but they all pack a powerful, fully-automatic capable punch. The M-14, which shoots a heavier round and is based on an older design, and .45 caliber pistols were also distributed to law enforcement through the program.
The state Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation obtained 95 M-16 rifles, 25 .45 caliber pistols, and 4 heavy duty M-14 rifles thanks to the military’s generosity.
In Fond du Lac, the police department there got 34 M-16 rifles and 10 M-14 rifles.
Sheriffs in Juneau, Pierce, Portage, Racine, Rock, Washington and St. Croix counties each got between 23 and 33 M-16s for their respective departments, and some got suppressors and reflex sights for their weapons as well.
The Ozaukee County Sheriff got 1 truck and 17 M-16 rifles.
The Oregon Police Department got 9 M-14 rifles.
The Wood County Sheriff picked up 43 pistols through the program.
Waukesha police got 10 M-16 rifles and 15 M-14 rifles.
Dozens of other departments also got weapons, and those acquisitions are listed on the interactive map prepared by Media Trackers below.
In addition to miscellaneous vehicles, the biggest ticket items given law enforcement are the Mine Resistant Ambush Protection Vehicles, MRAPs for short, and Zodiac boats. MRAPs on average cost the federal government between $400,000 and $750,000 per vehicle, and the Zodiac boats, which vary in size, cost between $7,500 and $47,000 per copy.
In addition to Dane County, sheriffs in Jackson, Jefferson, Columbia and Grant counties got Zodiac boats for their departments. The Green Bay Police Department also got a Zodiac boat.
Previous Media Trackers research found that at least five Wisconsin law enforcement agencies obtained MRAPs through the 1033 program. Now, according to DMA records and other research, it is confirmed that 10 agencies have the heavy-duty armored combat vehicles in their inventory.
The master list of 1033 program distributions from the DMA lists the following recipients of MRAPs:
Portage County Sheriff St. Croix County Sheriff Appleton Police Department Oak Creek Police Department Madison Police Department Juneau County Sheriff Eau Claire County Sheriff Brown County Sheriff
Media reports indicate that the Door County Sheriff also has an ex-military MRAP, and the Racine County Sheriff is also confirmed to have an MRAP as well as an ex-military armored personal carrier that saw use in Kuwait.
Racine Co. Sheriff Armored Vehicle
Officials with the various agencies that have obtained the heavy-duty combat machines say they are needed to keep the public safe, but some of them are being kept by departments in areas that don’t have a high crime rate.
Racine County, for example, has a population of 194,797, but according to FBI crime statistics data from 2012 – the latest year for which complete data is available – Racine County law enforcement only reported 18 violent crimes. The City of Racine, on the other hand, reported 374 violent crimes, and while the thunderous MRAP beasts owned by the county sheriff are available for their use, they are practically useless in the majority of situations since they must be brought to the scene from their storage location.
Sheriffs in Portage, Juneau and Eau Claire counties, and the Appleton Police Department reported zero homicides in their jurisdictions in 2012 according to FBI data, but nevertheless they all have MRAPs.
The map below lists the myriad of acquisitions made by Wisconsin law enforcement agencies through the 1033 program.
Using his public school district email address, Southern Lehigh Education Association (SLEA) President Edward Sinkler encouraged members to lobby against pension reform, a union political priority.
“There is at present an attack being launched on your retirement system,” Sinkler wrote. “I would like to ask you to take the time to protect this benefit that you have earned by calling you [sic] State Representative and asking them to vote no on the [state Rep. Mike] Tobash amendment.”
A source confirmed Sinkler sent out the following email using his school district email address during school hours to the Southern Lehigh School District staff.
The email also included a script to use when calling state legislators.
This is not an isolated incident. Media Trackers reported in June that Octorara Area Education Association President Donna Edwards similarly used her school district email to lobby against pension reform.
Instead of doing this through union-provided resources or even from a personal account, both union presidents utilized their school district email addresses to ask members to call their legislators and lobby against pension reform. State lobbying laws classify this type of activity as “indirect lobbying.”
School district email systems are set up and maintained with taxpayer dollars. Pennsylvania law already dictates that legislators cannot legally use their publicly-funded resources for campaigning, and there are politicians who are now in jail because of it.
Public-sector unions, however, can add this exemption to a long list of special privileges they have under Pennsylvania law.
The Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) and other government unions across the state have been fighting any and every proposal that would reform the state pension systems and cut unsustainable costs. Combined, the two state retirement systems have $50 billion in unfunded liabilities.
In April, the US National Academy of Sciences elected 105 new members to its ranks. Academy membership is one the most prestigious honours for a scientist, and it comes with a tangible perk: members can submit up to four papers per year to the body’s high-profile journal, the venerable Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), through the ‘contributed’ publication track. This unusual process allows authorsto choose who will review their paper and how to respond to those reviewers’ comments.
For many academy members, this privileged path is central to the appeal of PNAS. But to some scientists, it gives the journal the appearance of an old boys’ club. “Sound anachronistic? It is,” wrote biochemist Steve Caplan of the University of Nebraska, Omaha, in a 2011 blogpost that suggested the contributed track could be used as a “dumping ground” for some papers. Editors at the journal have strived to dispel that perception.
…
Having control over the review process brings advantages. Those who work across disciplinary boundaries say that being able to choose your own reviewers is the best way to ensure that referees actually understand the material. “Chemists have no idea about glycobiology,” says Chi-Huey Wong of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, who studies the chemistry and biology of sugars.
Tommy Ramone, the last surviving original member of iconic New York punk band the Ramones, has died. The announcement was made early Saturday through the band's official Twitter account. He was 62.
The drummer, who was born Thomas Erdelyi in Budapest, Hungary, was the band's drummer from 1974 to 1978. He also co-produced their first three albums. Their hits included "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker," "Beat on the Brat" and "I Wanna be Sedated." He was a resident of Queens, New York.
NEW YORK (AP) — A month after a California judge ruled that job protections for teachers violated children's constitutional rights, one lawsuit making the same claim has been filed in New York, another has been announced and critics of teacher tenure in other states say they are preparing litigation as well.
The June ruling in California has been stayed pending appeal and may never take effect, but critics of teachers' unions are seizing on the idea of using the courts to weaken union power and thus try to improve schools.
Mona Davids, president of the parents group that filed the New York lawsuit targeting teacher tenure last week, called educational inequity "a crisis of epic proportions." She said New York City neighborhoods that are mostly black and Latino have the schools with the highest concentration of teachers rated unsatisfactory.
"Yet," Davids said, "every attempt to hold teachers accountable for educating our children is blocked."
The California ruling struck down state laws dictating how long it takes for a teacher to earn tenure as well as rules that protect senior teachers during layoffs. The plaintiffs argued that such union-backed job protections mean that poor and minority schools are staffed disproportionately by bad teachers, which violates students' rights.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said such lawsuits "mean a continuation of the artificial division that in order for students to win, teachers must lose."
But in the next few weeks, another group, the Partnership for Educational Justice, founded by former CNN newswoman Campbell Brown, says it will file an anti-tenure lawsuit in New York.
And parent activists in Connecticut and Pennsylvania say they are in the early stages of preparing similar lawsuits over teacher tenure. Gwen Samuel, president of the Connecticut parents Union, said 200,000 children are stuck in low-performing Connecticut schools.
"Teacher tenure doesn't ensure that those kids have an effective teacher," Samuel said. "Guaranteeing a person a job regardless of their performance is irresponsible."
But some say tenure rules are a small part of the reason some children have better teachers than others, also citing such factors as overcrowded schools, relatively low pay and chaotic working conditions.
"There are at least half a dozen strong reasons why we may not have as highly qualified a teacher force as we might like," said Michael Rebell, a Columbia University Teachers College professor and the executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity.
Rebell said the tenure system could be improved but it's a small factor that "certainly doesn't rise to the level of a constitutional violation."
Even some who agree with the impulse behind the California lawsuit question whether the courts are the right arena for deciding which teachers stay or go.
"The intention here is entirely admirable," said Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "I don't think the results are likely to turn out in a way that's going to actually promote reform."
He added, "It's not clear what exactly constitutes an acceptable teacher tenure standard. These are judgment calls."
A month or two ago news broke that Obama’s HHS was calling for private contractors to help transport illegal aliens throughout the interior United States. What made this already big news even bigger is the fact that the original call for proposals came out in January, long before the bulk of the illegal alien surge began.
The breaking news you’re about to read is ten times bigger, because the following proves the Obama administration was bankrolling America’s churches back in 2010. And the tens of millions were flowing in to prepare for the invasion currently underway.
The following is a small taste of what’s out there in grant records. This is just the tip of the iceberg, folks.
Between Dec 2010 and Nov 2013, the Catholic Charities Diocese of Galveston received $15,549,078 in federal grants from Health & Human Services for “Unaccompanied Alien Children Project” with a program description of “Refugee and Entry Assistance.”
Last year, the Catholic Charities Diocese of Fort Worth received $350,000 from Department of Homeland Security for “citizenship and education training” with a program description of “citizenship and immigration services.”
Between September 2010 and September 2013, the Catholic Charities of Dallas received $823,658 from the Department of Homeland Security for “Citizenship Education Training” for “refugee and entrant assistance.”
From Dec 2012 to January 2014, Baptist Child & Family Services received $62,111,126 in federal grants from Health & Human Services for “Unaccompanied Alien Children Program.”
Any questions?
H/T Terri Harris Hill for the tip and initial research.
Jim Wallis was among the lineup of speakers at the Wild Goose Festival in Hot Springs. His talk on race in America is attracting national controversy.
Calling Dr. Jim Wallis President Barack Obama’s “spiritual advisor,” the popular conservative news and opinion website The Daily Caller reported July 7 that the liberal evangelical leader went on a “race rant” at a recent event Hot Springs. The story was subsequently picked up by a number of other conservative media outlets and has been making national waves.
Wallis visits the White House on a regular basis, logging 65 meetings with the President or the First Lady, according to The Daily Caller. And at his June 29 speech in Hot Springs at the Wild Goose Festival, a progressive Christian event, the website portrays his remarks as “accusing all Americans, especially those who take conservative political stances, of being racists.”
But was it really an accusatory, racist rant, from a man “who has the ear of the leader of the free world,” as the website alleges?
J. Clarkson, the festival’s Director of Strategic Partnerships, says the the address aimed to generate “a conversation about justice and what people of faith can do to bring about a more just society.”
“While some of our festival goers probably agree with most of the statements made by Wallis, others might feel he has gone too far or, just as likely, not far enough,” Clarkson adds. “Whether the subject is marriage equality, immigration reform, Stand Your Ground laws, poverty, or persistent symbols of racism in popular culture, we feel that the time has long since come for people of faith to speak and work on behalf of justice for all of our brothers and sisters. If Jim Wallis’ words seem strident, it may be a reflection of our impatience with those who continue to twist the doctrines of our faith to justify an unsustainable status quo.”
A video of Wallis’ remarks at the Wild Goose Festival is below.
Video embedded here via Dale Lature’s YouTube page.
What do you think? Was Wallis’ speech a constructive dialogue or did it go too far? Feel free to voice your opinion in the comments field below.
The liberal media love to hate the Koch Brothers but are far less enthusiastic about connecting George Soros’ billions to liberal policies.
On July 6, Coral Davenport of The New York Times revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new regulations on power plant emissions were largely inspired by the work of environmental activists at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The broadcast networks have not mentioned the NRDC connection to the new regulations, and even the Times ignored that liberal mega-donor Soros has bankrolled the NRDC.
The Times called the EPA regulations “a remarkable victory for the National Resources Defense Council” for developing the “novel” framework that the EPA would adopt, but they also failed to mention the more than $1.7 million in Soros-funding the group received since 2004 ($1,771,893).
On June 1, the EPA unveiled drastic limits on carbon emissions, mandating steep emission cuts within 16 years. While emission limits weren’t a new idea, the EPA plan “sets different limits for each state and allows states the flexibility to meet the standards by picking from a menu of policy options,” according to Davenport.
Davenport traced this innovation back to a specific 110-page proposal, written by two lawyers, David Doniger and David Hawkins, and energy policy expert, Daniel Lashof. All three individuals work with the NRDC, though Lashof only advises the organization since hejoined left-wing billionaire donor Tom Steyer’s Next Gen Climate America in March. In February, Steyer pledged $100 million to pressure politicians on climate issues.
Few media outlets covered the Times’ revelations about NRDC’s involvement. None of the broadcast news programs brought it up. In fact, ABC, CBS and NBC news programs have ignored the EPA regulations since June 2.
Print media was not much better. While the Daily Mail (UK) reported on Davenport’s findings, few other news outlets joined in. The Hilland the National Journal both published brief pieces on EPA official’s response denying that the NRDC had any remarkable influence. None of that coverage brought up Soros’ donations to the NRDC.
Of course, both the networks and print media have been incredibly biased while pushing the EPA’s regulations. While discussing the plan, which CBS called “groundbreaking,” on June 2, 85 percent of the coverage completely ignored the economic impact. Additionally, an examination of major U.S. newspapers found that 90 percent of their editorial pages supported or ignored the EPA’s scheme.
