I’m not sure why it took so long to recognize that the Democrats wanted the endless supply of illegals to themselves.
President Trump announced he is going to try to give them what they want but now the Democrats are vigorously defending against it.
Of course they are, it doesn’t fit the plan.
How are they going to turn those red states blue and champion the United Nation’s Replacement Migration plan while their precious Sanctuary Cities crumble?
Cher tweeted an urgent message of sudden coherence in response to President Trump’s proposal, saying, “I Understand Helping struggling Immigrants, but MY CITY (Los Angeles) ISNT TAKING CARE OF ITS OWN. WHAT ABOUT THE 50,000+ Citizens WHO LIVE ON THE STREETS. PPL WHO LIVE BELOW POVERTY LINE & HUNGRY? If My State Can’t Take Care of Its Own (Many Are VETS) How Can it Take Care Of More?”
Cher is right to be concerned.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, Los Angeles has taken in at least 10 percent of the United States’ population of illegal immigrants.
Second on that list, Harris County, Texas is fueling a blue wave that is gradually heading into central Texas.
What’s more, as illegal aliens replace Americans in the heartland, they also replace them in the suburbs as the Atlantic reported way back in 2014: “In 2000, more than half of immigrants lived in the suburbs of the nation’s largest metros. That number is now up to 61 percent, as more immigrants migrate to suburban communities instead of urban centers, according to census data from 2000-13 analyzed by the Brookings Institution.”
The Democrats want to silence the vote and voice of Americans ad it’s never been clearer than it is today.
Let’s fill their precious Sanctuary Cities until they realize what a crisis truly is.
More than 280 employees of Texas company have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, NBC News is reporting.
Officials called it the biggest single workplace raid in a decade.
Employees of CVE Technology Group Inc. in Allen, Texas were arrested on administration immigration violations. Federal immigration authorities said they were working in the U.S. unlawfully, the network news reported.
The company repairs tech products and has a national receiving center in northern Texas, NBC News reported.
Authorities said the arrests were part of an investigation into complaints the company might have knowingly hired without authorization and that many of those people were using fraudulent identification.
"In this case with CVE, we received many tips that they were hiring illegal aliens who were using fraudulent documents," said Katrina Berger, special agent in charge for ICE's Homeland Security Investigations in Dallas.
And she added: "As far as immigration-related arrests, this is the largest ICE worksite operation at one site in the last 10 years."
She said federal law stipulates employers must verity that workers are in the U.S. legally with an I-9 form.
After an audit of the forms, ICE "confirmed numerous hiring irregularities," the agency said.
"Unauthorized workers often use stolen IDs of legal U.S. workers, which can profoundly damage for years the identity-theft victim's credit, medical records, and other aspects of their everyday life," USA Today quoted from a statement released by ICE.
MOSUL, Iraq – When Ahmed Khalil ran out of work as a van driver in the Iraqi city of Mosul three years ago, he signed up with the Islamic State group's police force, believing the salary would help keep his struggling family afloat.
But what he wound up providing was a legacy that would outlast his job, and his life.
In Mosul and elsewhere across Iraq, thousands of families — including Khalil's widow and children — face crushing discrimination because their male relatives were seen as affiliated with or supporting IS when the extremists held large swaths of the country.
The wives, widows and children have been disowned by their relatives and abandoned by the state. Registrars refuse to register births to women with suspected IS husbands, and schools will not enroll their children. Mothers are turned away from welfare, and mukhtars — community mayors — won't let the families move into their neighborhoods.
The Islamic State group's "caliphate" that once spanned a third of both Iraq and Syria is now gone but as Iraq struggles to rebuilt after the militants' final defeat and loss of their last sliver of territory in Syria earlier this year, the atrocities and the devastation they wreaked has left deep scars.
"They say my father was Daesh," said Safa Ahmed, Khalil's 11-year old daughter, referring to IS by its Arabic name. "It hurts me."
Iraq has done little to probe the actions of the tens of thousands of men such as Khalil who, willingly or by force joined, worked and possibly fought for IS during its 2013-2017 rule. Instead, bureaucrats and communities punish families for the deeds of their relatives in a time of war.
Khalil was killed in an airstrike in Mosul, in February 2017, during the U.S.-backed campaign to retake the city that IS seized in 2014. It was liberated in July 2017, at a tremendous cost — around 10,000 residents were believed to have been killed in the assault, and its historic districts now lie in ruins.
His widow, Um Yusuf, and their seven children were left to bear the stigma of his IS affiliation. She cannot get social assistance, and her teenage son Omar is being turned away from jobs.
They live in an abandoned schoolhouse, living on what they can make selling bread on the streets of the devastated city. Just three of the children are in school — the oldest two dropped out because of bullying about their father, and the youngest two cannot enroll because the civil registrar's office won't issue their IDs.
"It's true their father made a mistake," Um Yusuf said. "But why are these children being punished for his sin?"
Under Iraq's patrimonial family laws, a child needs a named father to receive a birth certificate and an identity card, to enroll in school and to claim citizenship, welfare benefits and an inheritance.
But in post-IS Iraq, virtually every bureaucratic procedure now includes a security check on a woman's male relatives, further frustrating mothers and children.
A U.N. report this year estimates there are 45,000 undocumented children in Iraq. Judges and human rights groups say an urgent resolution is needed or the country risks rearing a generation of children without papers or schooling.
"By punishing entire families, you marginalize them and you seriously undermine reconciliation efforts in Iraq," said Tom Peyre-Costa, a spokesman for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which provides legal aid to Mosul mothers struggling to get their children ID papers.
At al-Iraqiya school in western Mosul, one of the city's first to reopen in 2017, principal Khalid Mohammad said he faces pressure from the community to deny enrollment to children whose fathers are in jail or missing — an absence many interpret as proof of IS affiliation.
"If anyone complains and someone is sent to investigate, I could lose my job," he said.
At a legal office and clinic supported by the Norwegian Refugee Council, Nour Ahmed was looking for a way to claim legal custody of her undocumented younger son, in order to collect food and fuel aid for the family.
Her husband, she said, was abducted two years ago in Mosul by a group of pro-government militiamen who likely thought he was an IS member. Ahmed insists he wasn't. He has been missing to this day.
Born in 2016 at a hospital run by IS, their son was given a birth certificate notarized by the Islamic State group. As Iraq doesn't recognize IS documents, the 3-year-old has no legal mother or father.
Ahmed was told she would need to find her husband to re-register her son's birth. If she submitted a missing person's report, it would raise questions about the child's parentage, jeopardizing his right to citizenship.
"I just want to find him," said Nour.
Adnan Chalabi, an appeals court judge, said he sees more than a dozen cases each day related to civilian documentation, brought largely by the wives, widows or divorcees of IS suspects. There is little he can do to help, he said, without a change to the law first.
"Daesh held the city for three years. Did people stop getting married, divorced, and having children during those three years?" he said. "We need a legislative solution."
There is little appetite to change the country's family and patrimony laws, said Iraq's parliament speaker, Mohamad Halbousi, though there is a proposal to open civil registries for a limited period, to register undocumented children.
"These families need to be cared for. They cannot be left to melt away into society," he said.
Outside a mosque in Mosul, where Um Yusuf was selling bread with her children, the widowed mother of seven said she was losing the strength to look after her family.
"We are deprived of everything," she says. "The whole family is destroyed."
Michael Savage believes that Islamist terrorists may have been behind the Notre Dame blaze, and he is being vocal about it. In response, Twitter has reportedly moved to shadow ban Savage to stop his opinion spreading.
Savage’s reasoning is that terrorists attempted to set the cathedral on fire as recently as 2016, in addition to the fact that hundreds of churches in France have been desecrated over the past year.
why do I say 'TERRORISTS SET NOTRE DAME ABLAZE? in 2016 3 RADICAL ISLAMISTS WERE CAUGHT IN FRONT OF THE CATHEDRAL WITH GAS CANNISTERS IN THEIR CAR. ARRESTED TRIED AND SENTENCED JUST LAST WEEK https://t.co/B8Pxj9bkjP
how can the investigation' of possible arson or terror be 'over' when the ashes are still smoldering! LIES, COVER-UP. USE COMMON SENSE. THIS WAS TERRORISM
Savage found that after he expressed that opinion, Twitter stopped a lot of other users from seeing his posts.
“It became apparent Sunday after being temporarily blocked last week following the burning of Notre Dame, that now he may join the rebels in the shadows,” wrote Amanda Metzger, who works for Savage on his website.
“Some followers who used to receive notifications of his tweets on their smartphones no longer received them,” she added.
Metzger also noted that Savage “suddenly found his Periscope live broadcast was limited in the number of viewers.” (Periscope is owned by Twitter).
Infowars’ Alex Jones is still permanently banned from Twitter. No explanation was ever given, other than the vague suggestion that Jones ‘violated’ T&C’s.
It appears Savage now finds himself in the Twitter sin bin along with Jones and many others.
“Who is in the shadows deciding who is heard and who is silenced? Someone in a dark room behind a bright screen in a foreign country with no First Amendment?” Metzger asked, adding “maybe it’s an American trying to create a safe space online.”
“I can’t think of anything less safe – anything more damaging – than limiting the exchange of ideas,” she continued. “We’re in a dangerous place when we’ve forgotten the phrase, ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’”
“We are getting closer to the point where federal regulation of social media is inevitable. The airwaves are regulated. In this case, my plea is that there is some transparency in who is banned, blocked or deplatformed and why,” Metzger urged, adding “I would prefer no one find themselves silenced by another.”
“Maybe you don’t care who was deplatformed last year. You didn’t agree with them anyway and seeing their tweets and posts ruined your day,” Metzger concluded. “But if you don’t stand up for them now, they won’t have a voice to come to your defense when you are silenced.”
In related news, it appears that Twitter is planning to allow users to report tweets that they believe are an attempt to ‘mislead’ people at election time.
What could go wrong there?
In a blog post regarding the change, Twitter declared that “Any attempts to undermine the process of registering to vote or engaging in the electoral process is contrary to our company’s core values.”
The move appears to be an effort on behalf of Twitter to adhere to the EU ‘Code of Practice against disinformation’ which Facebook and Google have also signed up to.
FILE PHOTO: A large robot nicknamed Kong lifts the body of a Ford Expedition SUV at Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant as the No. 2 U.S. automaker ramps up production of two large SUV models in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S., February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Nick Carey/File Photo
March 19, 2019
By Joseph White
DETROIT (Reuters) – Ford Motor Co <F.N> said it will boost U.S. production of its largest sport utility vehicles in a move to grab profits in a market where consumers favor larger, more comfortable vehicles.
Ford’s Kentucky Truck plant in Louisville will increase the production rate for Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator sport utility vehicles by 20 percent in July – the second 20 percent increase in a year for both models, executives said during a media briefing on Monday.
The move highlights Detroit automakers’ aggressive efforts to capitalize on popular, profitable large vehicles in America’s heartland, even as policymakers in California, China and Europe push for smaller, electric vehicles to reduce carbon dioxide emissions linked to climate change.
The Trump administration, however, has proposed freezing U.S. fuel efficiency standards – a decision that would make it easier for automakers to sell large SUVs and pickup trucks. [nL1N20T0TB]
With gasoline relatively cheap, U.S. consumers are paying premium prices for large SUVs that seat eight people and can tow a four-ton trailer.
The average transaction price of a new Ford Expedition is $62,700, Ford U.S. marketing director Matt VanDyke said, up $11,700 from the previous year. Ford does not disclose profits by model line. Average prices for the luxury Navigator rose to $81,000 in February from $78,000 a year earlier, according to Lincoln data.
In January, Ford said transaction prices across its U.S. model lines averaged $38,400, above the $34,000 industry average.
General Motors Co <GM.N>, which dominates the North American large SUV segment, will launch a new generation of its large SUV Chevrolet Suburban and Tahoe, and GMC Yukon, models later this year. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV <FCHA.MI> last month said it will re-enter the large SUV segment with new models due out in late 2020. [nL1N20L156]
Ford workers and engineers redesigned portions of the Kentucky Truck assembly line to allow for the latest increase, Ford North American manufacturing chief John Savona said.
For the first time, he said, workers at certain stations will be positioned at two levels – some in pits and some on platforms – to install parts on upper and lower sections of a vehicle in unison.
The redesigned Expedition and Navigator assembly system requires 550 additional workers, and those jobs will be filled by workers currently at Ford’s Louisville assembly plant, which builds small Ford Escape and Lincoln MKC SUVs, Savona said.
Ford invested $925 million to build the new generation Expedition and Navigator SUVs at the Kentucky plant. The automaker is pushing for market share in a segment it largely surrendered to rival GM over the past decade.
Since launching its new big SUVs, Ford has improved its share of the U.S. large SUV segment by 5.6 percentage points, Ford’s VanDyke told reporters on Monday.
But GM still commands a 70 percent share of a market where vehicles sell for more than double the average price of a midsize sedan. Ford on Monday night launched a marketing campaign to win over customers. Their slogan: “Built to be a better big.”
FILE PHOTO: Azerbaijan's Valentin Hristov competes on the men's 56Kg Group A weightlifting competition at the London 2012 Olympic Games July 29, 2012. REUTERS/Dominic Ebenbichler
March 29, 2019
BERLIN (Reuters) – Azeri weightlifter Valentin Hristov was stripped of his 2012 Olympics 56-kg bronze medal on Friday after he was one of three athletes to test positive for banned substances in re-tests conducted by the International Olympic Committee.
The IOC said Hristov’s London Games sample tested positive for a prohibited anabolic steroid (oralturinabol) when it was reanalyzed.
Anis Ananenka of Belarus, who finished 43rd in the men’s 800m, was also disqualified for the same substance, while fellow Belarussian Alena Matoshka, 25th in the women’s hammer throw, was the third athlete to be disqualified. Her sample tested positive with the steroid oxandrolone.
Previously 48 anti-doping violations were found in more than 500 reanalysis of London Games samples. Mostly were for anabolic steroids.
The IOC stores and regularly re-tests samples from past Olympic Games with methods that did not exist at the time. In an effort to protect clean athletes and the integrity of the competition, the IOC also looks out for substances that were not known at the time.
Samples since the 2004 Athens Olympics have been stored and reanalyzed systematically.
More than 110 adverse findings have been found in Olympic Games since 2004 through re-testing of samples.
The reanalysis of 2012 samples, using the latest scientific methods, will continue before the statute of limitations is reached in 2020, the IOC said in November.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
FILE PHOTO - Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who many nations have recognized as the country's rightful interim ruler, talks to the media during a news conference in Caracas, Venezuela April 2, 2019. REUTERS/Manaure Quintero
April 3, 2019
By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Keeping up pressure for political change in Venezuela, 15 U.S. senators introduced sweeping bipartisan legislation on Wednesday to provide $400 million in new aid, internationalize sanctions and ease penalties on officials who recognize a new government in Caracas.
The Republicans and Democrats introduced the Venezuelan Emergency Relief, Democracy Assistance and Development (Verdad) Act more than two months after President Donald Trump’s administration recognized opposition leader Juan Guiado as the country’s legitimate leader, pushing for the departure of President Nicolas Maduro.
Senator Bob Menendez, ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee and a lead sponsor, said the act should “put teeth behind” support for the Venezuelan people and provide tools for a “substantive and peaceful” strategy.
“This legislation will offer needed humanitarian assistance and support for Venezuela’s long path to democratic order,” said Republican Senator Marco Rubio, another lead sponsor, who has worked closely with Trump on Venezuela.
The act would also revoke visas for relatives of Venezuelans sanctioned in connection with corruption or human rights abuse, remove sanctions on those not involved in human rights abuses if they recognize Guiado and require work with Latin American and European governments to implement their own sanctions.
It also requires U.S. agencies to lead efforts to recover “corrupt financial holdings” of Venezuelan officials and accelerate planning with international financial institutions on Venezuela’s economic restructuring.
The bill does not address temporary protected immigration status, or TPS, which would allow 70,000 Venezuelans already in the United States to remain. TPS proposals have faced some opposition in the Trump administration, which takes a hard line on immigration.
Menendez said on a conference call with reporters that he hoped separate legislation seeking TPS for Venezuelans could move concurrently with the Verdad Act.
He also said he thought the bill stood an excellent chance of moving ahead in the Senate, given its bipartisan support.
The bill’s sponsors included eight Republicans – Rubio, Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, Todd Young, Lindsey Graham, John Barrasso, Bill Cassidy and Josh Hawley – and seven Democrats – Menendez, Dick Durbin, Ben Cardin, Tim Kaine, Jeanne Shaheen, Michael Bennet and Chris Coons.
That level of bipartisan support is not typical of major legislation in the current, fiercely partisan, Congress.
“I think we have very good prospects here,” Menendez said.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
Avengers fans gather at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood to attend the opening screening of “Avengers: Endgame” in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake
April 26, 2019
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Marvel Studios superhero spectacle “Avengers: Endgame” hauled in a record $60 million at U.S. and Canadian box offices during its Thursday night debut, distributor Walt Disney Co said.
Global ticket sales for the film about Iron Man, Hulk and other popular characters reached $305 million for the first two days, Disney said.
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn attends the funeral service for murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast, Northern Ireland April 24, 2019. Brian Lawless/Pool via REUTERS
April 26, 2019
LONDON (Reuters) – The leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said on Friday he had turned down an invitation to a state dinner which will be part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Britain in June.
“Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honor a president who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric,” Corbyn said in a statement.
He said maintaining the relationship with the United States did not require “the pomp and ceremony of a state visit” and he said he would welcome a meeting with Trump “to discuss all matters of interest.”
(Reporting by Andy Bruce; Writing by William Schomberg)
Libyan Minister of Economy Ali Abdulaziz Issawi speaks during an interview with Reuters in Tripoli, Libya April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Hani Amara
April 26, 2019
By Ulf Laessing
TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libya’s U.N.-recognized government has budgeted up to 2 billion dinars ($1.43 billion) to cover costs of a three-week-old war for control of the capital, such as treatment for the wounded, to be funded without new borrowing, the economy minister said.
Ali Abdulaziz Issawi suggested the government hoped for business to continue more or less as usual despite the assault on Tripoli, in the country’s northwest, by forces tied to a parallel administration based in the eastern city of Benghazi.
Once Africa’s third largest producer of oil, Libya has been riven by factional conflict since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with the country now broadly split between eastern-based forces under Khalifa Haftar and the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, in the west, under Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj.
Still, with Haftar’s Libyan National Army forces unable so far to pierce defenses in Tripoli’s southern suburbs, normal life and business activities continue in much of the capital and western coastal towns.
Issawi, in an interview with Reuters in his Tripoli office, also said Libya’s commercial ports and wheat imports were still functioning normally, although some roads have been blocked.
He said the Serraj government estimates it will spend up to 2 billion dinars extra on medical treatment for wounded, aid for displaced people and other “emergency” war costs.
He said this was not military spending but analysts believe that the sum will also cover expenditures such as pay for allied armed groups or food for fighters.
“We could actually spend less,” he added, in comments that gave the first insight into the economic impact of the fighting.
Issawi said the Tripoli government, which controls little territory beyond the greater capital region, would not incur new debt to fund the war costs, sticking to a plan to post a 2019 budget without a deficit.
Tripoli derives revenue largely from oil and natural gas production, interest-free loans from local banks to the central bank, and a 183 percent surcharge on foreign exchange transactions conducted at official rates.
But with centralized tax collection greatly diminished, public debt has piled up – to 68 billion dinars in the west, including unpaid state obligations such as social insurance.
Some analysts expect Serraj’s government will be forced to raise new debt if the war for control of Tripoli drags on.
With much of Libya dominated by armed factions that also act as security forces, the public wage bill for both the western and eastern administrations has soared as fighters have been made public employees in efforts to buy their loyalty.
The east has sold bonds worth 35 billion dinars outside the official financial system as the Tripoli central bank does not fund the parallel government apart from some wages.
Despite its limited reach, the Tripoli government still runs an annual budget of around 46.8 billion dinars, mainly for public salaries and fuel subsidies.
“This year we cannot finance via debt…we will not borrow (by agreement with the central bank),” Issawi said.
According to International Monetary Fund data, Libya’s central government debt-to-GDP ratio is 143 percent, making it one of the most heavily indebted in the world on that measure.
Issawi declined to say what parts of the budget would be trimmed to support the extra outlay for war costs.
However, with some 70 percent of the budget allocated to public wages, fuel subsidies and other welfare benefits, a portion devoted to infrastructure is most likely to be axed.
Widespread lawlessness has meant there have been no major infrastructural projects since 2011, when a NATO-backed uprising overthrew dictator Muammar Gaddafi, leaving schools, hospitals and roads in acute need of restoration.
FOREX SURCHARGE
Issawi said the government planned to raise as much as 30 billion dinars by the end of 2019 from hard currency deals after imposing in September a 183 percent surcharge on commercial and private transactions done on the official rate of 1.4 to the U.S. dollar. That fee has effectively devalued the official rate to 3.9, much closer to the black market equivalent.
Some 17 billion dinars have been raised since then, with hard currency allocated for import credit letters now issued without delays, Issawi said. The forex fee has helped the government forecast a budget in the black for 2019.
Despite the narrowing spread between the two rates, the black market continues to thrive. Dozens of traders remained at their favorite spot behind the central bank headquarters in Tripoli when Reuters reporters visited it last week.
But traders said it could take time for the Serraj government to register the extra forex receipts as official banking channels were taking up to six months to approve import financing, keeping the black market in play for dealers.
Issawi said authorities planned to lower the forex fee from 183 percent, without saying when. The black market rate has dropped from 6 to around 4.1 since September but it has hardly moved of late as demand for black market cash remains high.
The Tripoli government has stopped subsidizing food and bread, which used to be cheaper than drinking water in Libya. Wheat imports are now being arranged by private traders and there are surplus stocks of flour at the moment, Issawi said.
(Reporting by Ulf Laessing in Tripoli with additional reporting by Karin Strohecker in London; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., threatened possible jail time for White House officials refusing to comply with subpoenas to testify before the House Oversight Committee.
Connolly, a member of the House panel, made his comments during an interview on CNN on Thursday. He said that “if a subpoena is issued and you’re told you must testify, we will back that up.”
He added: “And we will use any and all power in our command to make sure it’s backed up — whether that’s a contempt citation, whether that’s going to court and getting that citation enforced, whether it’s fines, whether it’s possible incarceration.”
“We will go to the max to enforce the constitutional role of the legislative branch of government.”
His comments came after three officials have refused to comply with congressional requests to testify, CNN noted.
Trump told The Washington Post that his staff should not testify on Capitol Hill, explaining that the White House cooperated fully with special counsel Robert Mueller and “there is no reason to go any further, especially in Congress where it’s very partisan.”
“Outdated laws” need fixing to deal with the surge in illegal immigrant families crossing the U.S. border with Mexico, a top Border Patrol official said Friday.
Historically 70 to 90 percent of apprehensions at the border were quickly returned to Mexico, Hastings said.
Now, 83 percent of those apprehended have come from the Central American northern triangle which includes Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, and of those 63 percent are “family units” and children who cannot be returned, he said.
“There are no consequences that we can apply to this group currently,” Hastings said. “We’re overwhelmed. If you look at agents there doing a tremendous job trying to deal with the flow.”
The law dictates children have to be released after 20 days of detention.
“Up to 40 percent of our agents are processing at any given time,” he said. “That should say that in and of itself is pulling from those border security resources.”
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