12160 Social Network2024-03-28T10:56:19ZAmaterasu Solarhttps://12160.info/profile/AmaterasuSolarhttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1961350256?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://12160.info/forum/topic/listForContributor?groupUrl=a-republic-if-you-can-keep-it&user=140qdp6r9v238&feed=yes&xn_auth=noWITH KENNEDY RETIRING, RIGHT-WING KOCH BROTHERS READY MILLIONS TO BUY NEXT SUPREME COURT SEATtag:12160.info,2018-06-28:2649739:Topic:17925192018-06-28T17:28:35.174ZAmaterasu Solarhttps://12160.info/profile/AmaterasuSolar
<div id="newsheader"><h2>SOURCE:<span> </span><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/28/kennedy-retiring-right-wing-koch-brothers-ready-millions-buy-next-supreme-court-seat">COMMON DREAMS…</a></h2>
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<div id="newsheader"><h2>SOURCE:<span> </span><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/28/kennedy-retiring-right-wing-koch-brothers-ready-millions-buy-next-supreme-court-seat">COMMON DREAMS</a></h2>
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<div class="field field--name-field-main-caption field--type-text-long field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p><em><sub>Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement on Wednesday, which will enable President Donald Trump to nominate someone to fill his seat. (Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tabor-roeder/33339382532">Phil Roeder</a>/Flickr/cc)</sub></em></p>
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<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div><p>After the U.S. Supreme Court this week <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/27/siding-billionaires-against-workers-supreme-courts-janus-ruling-assault-labor">crippled</a> labor unions, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/26/endthelies-abortion-rights-advocates-slam-all-male-majoritys-scotus-ruling-fake">sided</a> with anti-choice health clinics, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/26/dark-day-america-gorsuch-casting-decisive-vote-supreme-court-upholds-trump-muslim">upheld</a> President Donald Trump's Muslim ban, and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/25/severe-blow-voting-rights-supreme-court-preserves-gop-gerrymanders-texas-and-north">preserved</a> GOP gerrymandering, Justice Anthony Kennedy <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/27/handing-trump-chance-move-supreme-court-even-further-right-justice-anthony-kennedy">announced</a> his retirement, which will enable Trump to nominate a far-right replacement—and the billionaire <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/koch-brothers">Koch Brothers</a>' political network plans to pour millions into promoting the president's choice.</p>
<p>Once Kennedy's departure was made public, a spokesperson for the Koch-backed group Americans for Prosperity (AFP) told <em>NPR</em> about plans to spend "seven figures" to support a forthcoming nominee.</p>
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<div class="SandboxRoot env-bp-350"><div class="EmbeddedTweet EmbeddedTweet--edge js-clickToOpenTarget tweet-InformationCircle-widgetParent" id="twitter-widget-0" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="EmbeddedTweet-tweet"><blockquote class="Tweet h-entry js-tweetIdInfo subject expanded" cite="https://twitter.com/timkmak/status/1012059652748709889"><div class="Tweet-header"><a class="TweetAuthor-avatar Identity-avatar u-linkBlend" href="https://twitter.com/timkmak"><img class="Avatar Avatar--edge" alt="" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/713204131893129216/-DHIXPyE_normal.jpg"/></a><div class="TweetAuthor js-inViewportScribingTarget"><div class="TweetAuthor-nameScreenNameContainer"><span class="TweetAuthor-decoratedName"><span class="TweetAuthor-name Identity-name customisable-highlight" title="Tim Mak">Tim Mak</span></span><div class="Icon Icon--verified" title="Verified Account"></div>
<span class="TweetAuthor-decoratedName"><span class="TweetAuthor-verifiedBadge"><b class="u-hiddenVisually">✔</b></span></span><span class="TweetAuthor-screenName Identity-screenName" title="@timkmak" dir="ltr">@timkmak</span></div>
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<p class="Tweet-text e-entry-title" lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">Koch network ready to spend a million dollars plus on SCOTUS nominee: <br/><br/>"We're prepared to commit seven-figures to support a nominee in the mold of Gorsuch - someone who will interpret the law as written and not legislate from the bench." <br/>-Americans for Prosperity Spox</p>
<div class="Tweet-metadata dateline"><a class="u-linkBlend u-url customisable-highlight long-permalink" href="https://twitter.com/timkmak/status/1012059652748709889">3:46 PM - Jun 27, 2018</a></div>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Koch network ready to spend a million dollars plus on SCOTUS nominee:<span> </span><br/><br/>"We're prepared to commit seven-figures to support a nominee in the mold of Gorsuch - someone who will interpret the law as written and not legislate from the bench."<span> </span><br/>-Americans for Prosperity Spox</p>
— Tim Mak (@timkmak)<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/timkmak/status/1012059652748709889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
<p>As the <em>Huffington Post</em> <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/koch-network-plans-to-spend-millions-backing-trumps-court-pick_us_5b33ea8ee4b0b745f17a4817">noted</a>, the Koch network—which includes the groups AFP, Freedom Partners, and Concerned Veterans for America—dropped millions on "waves of direct mail, canvassing, digital ads in a dozen states, town halls, and more than 500,000 phone calls" in support of Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch, who filled the seat left vacant by Antonin Scalia following a choice by Senate Republicans to block former President Barack Obama's efforts to appoint a justice to the position.</p>
<p>Sarah Field, the vice president for judicial strategy at Americans for Prosperity, told the <em>Post</em> the network is "impressed with the whole list" of Trump's <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trumps-supreme-court-list/">25 potential nominees</a>—noting that "the president has a great record of picking judges with a fidelity to the Constitution"—and plans to back whichever candidate he ultimately chooses.</p>
<p>As <em>Washington Post</em> reporter Michelle Ye Hee Lee pointed out, the billionaire brothers has been salivating over the chance to use their vast wealth and political power to shift the court even further to the right:</p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">The Koch network has been gearing up for this moment -- the next Supreme Court vacancy. My story from earlier this year:<span> </span><a href="https://t.co/GnMK0vR7Yp">https://t.co/GnMK0vR7Yp</a></p>
— Michelle Ye Hee Lee (@myhlee)<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/myhlee/status/1012038895071121412?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div><p>While Field <a href="https://americansforprosperity.org/afp-thanks-justice-kennedy-for-service-urges-president-trump-to-nominate-fair-and-qualified-justice-for-scotus-vacancy/?utm_source=AFP%20Social&utm_medium=TWITTER&utm_content=Organic&linkId=53582946">said</a>, "faced with a vacancy on the highest court, we encourage President Trump to build on that success by nominating a Supreme Court Justice in the spirit of Justice Neil Gorsuch—a nominee who will respect the rule of law, interpret the Constitution as written, and not seek to advance a political agenda," adding to the court a justice who subscribes to that form of judicial interpretation would likely mean a series of victories for a far-right political agenda.</p>
<p>Although Kennedy has had a hand in forcing through 5-4 decisions that pleased Republicans, he also has been a key vote on cases involving reproductive and LGBTQ rights. The court cannot simply overturn past decisions without a case to weigh in on, but after Kennedy's annoucement Wednesday, critics expressed concerns about future rulings on cases <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/koch-network-plans-to-spend-millions-backing-trumps-court-pick_us_5b33ea8ee4b0b745f17a4817">pertaining to</a> abortion, marriage equality, or affirmative action if the president can get a nominee through the Senate before the midterms.</p>
<p>Critics <a href="https://twitter.com/ellievan65/status/1012304472243146752">slammed</a> the Koch network's plans to invest heavily in backing Trump's nominee as "one more example of big money attempt to establish a society governed by the rich," and declared, "This is not democracy."</p>
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<div class="field__item even"><em>This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License</em></div>
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</div> How Congress Quietly Passed The Second Patriot Acttag:12160.info,2015-12-19:2649739:Topic:16025652015-12-19T04:34:25.239ZAmaterasu Solarhttps://12160.info/profile/AmaterasuSolar
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<h1 class="article-title">How Congress Quietly Passed The Second Patriot Act</h1>
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<div class="entry-content"><div class="ssba ssba-wrap"><em>Update: CISA is now the law</em>: <strong>OBAMA SIGNS SPENDING, TAX BILL THAT REPEALS OIL EXPORT BAN</strong></div>
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<p>Back in 2014, civil liberties and privacy advocates were up in arms when the government tried to quietly push through the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA, a law which…</p>
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<h1 class="article-title">How Congress Quietly Passed The Second Patriot Act</h1>
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<div class="entry-content"><div class="ssba ssba-wrap"><em>Update: CISA is now the law</em>: <strong>OBAMA SIGNS SPENDING, TAX BILL THAT REPEALS OIL EXPORT BAN</strong></div>
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<p>Back in 2014, civil liberties and privacy advocates were up in arms when the government tried to quietly push through the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA, a law which would allow federal agencies – including the NSA – to share cybersecurity, and really any information with private corporations “notwithstanding any other provision of law.” The most vocal complaint involved CISA’s information-sharing channel, which was ostensibly created for responding quickly to hacks and breaches,<strong>and which provided a loophole in privacy laws that enabled intelligence and law enforcement surveillance without a warrant.</strong></p>
<p>Ironically, in its earlier version, CISA had drawn the opposition of tech firms including Apple, Twitter, Reddit, as well as the Business Software Alliance, the Computer and Communications Industry Association and many others including countless politicians and, most amusingly, the White House itself.</p>
<p>In April, a coalition of 55 civil liberties groups and security experts signed onto an open letter opposing it. In July, the Department of Homeland Security itself warned that the bill could overwhelm the agency with data of “dubious value” at the same time as it “sweep[s] away privacy protections.” Most notably, the biggest aggregator of online private content, Facebook, vehemently opposed the legislation however a month ago it was “surprisingly” revealed that Zuckerberg had been quietly on the side of the NSA all along as we reported in “<a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-27/facebook-caught-secretly-lobbying-privacy-destroying-cyber-security-bill">Facebook Caught Secretly Lobbying For Privacy-Destroying “Cyber-Security” Bill.” </a></p>
<p>Even Snowden chimed in:</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-57012" src="http://govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/snowden-tweet.jpg" alt="snowden tweet" width="509" height="210"/></p>
<p>Following the blitz response, the push to pass CISA was tabled following a White House threat to veto similar legislation. Then, quietly, CISA reemerged after the same White House mysteriously flip-flopped, expressed its support for precisely the same bill in August.</p>
<p>And then the masks fell off, when it became obvious that not only are corporations eager to pass CISA despite their previous outcry, but that they have both the White House and Congress in their pocket.</p>
<p>As Wired reminds us, when the Senate passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act by a vote of 74 to 21 in October, privacy advocates were again “aghast” that the key portions of the law were left intact which they said make it more amenable to surveillance than actual security, claiming that Congress has quietly stripped out “even more of its remaining privacy protections.”</p>
<p><strong>“They took a bad bill, and they made it worse</strong>,” says Robyn Greene, policy counsel for the Open Technology Institute.</p>
<p>But while Congress was preparing a second assault on privacy, it needed a Trojan Horse with which to enact the proposed legislation into law without the public having the ability to reject it.</p>
<p>It found just that by attaching it to the Omnibus $1.1 trillion Spending Bill, which passed the House early this morning, passed the Senate moments ago and will be signed into law by the president in the coming hours.</p>
<p>This is how it happened, again <a href="http://www.wired.com/2015/12/congress-slips-cisa-into-omnibus-bill-thats-sure-to-pass/">courtesy of Wired</a>:</p>
<p>In a late-night session of Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced a new version of the “omnibus” bill, a massive piece of legislation that deals with much of the federal government’s funding. It now includes a version of CISA as well. Lumping CISA in with the omnibus bill further reduces any chance for debate over its surveillance-friendly provisions, or a White House veto. <strong>And the latest version actually chips away even further at the remaining personal information protections that privacy advocates had fought for in the version of the bill that passed the Senate.</strong></p>
<p>It gets: it appears that while CISA was on hiatus, US lawmakers – working under the direction of corporations adnt the NSA – were seeking to weaponize the revised legislation, and as Wired says, the latest version of the bill appended to the omnibus legislation seems to exacerbate the problem of personal information protections.</p>
<p><strong>It creates the ability for the president to set up “portals” for agencies like the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, so that companies hand information directly to law enforcement and intelligence agencies instead of to the Department of Homeland Security. </strong>And it also changes when information shared for cybersecurity reasons can be used for law enforcement investigations. The earlier bill had only allowed that backchannel use of the data for law enforcement in cases of “imminent threats,” while the new bill requires just a “specific threat,” potentially allowing the search of the data for any specific terms regardless of timeliness.</p>
<p>Some, like Senator Ron Wyden, spoke out out against the changes to the bill in a press statement, writing they’d worsened a bill he already opposed as a surveillance bill in the guise of cybersecurity protections.</p>
<p>Senator Richard Burr, who had introduced the earlier version of bill, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.</p>
<p><strong>“Americans deserve policies that protect both their security and their liberty,” </strong>he wrote. “<strong>This bill fails on both counts</strong>.”</p>
<p>Why was the CISA included in the omnibus package, which just passed both the House and the Senate? Because any “nay” votes – or an Obama – would also threaten the entire budget of the federal government. In other words, it was a question of either Americans keeping their privacy or halting the funding of the US government, in effect bankrupting the nation.</p>
<p>And best of all, the rushed bill means there will be no debate.</p>
<p>The bottom line as OTI’s Robyn Green said, <strong>“They’ve got this bill that’s kicked around for years and had been too controversial to pass, so they’ve seen an opportunity to push it through without debate. And they’re taking that opportunity.</strong>”</p>
<p>The punchline: “<strong>They’re kind of pulling a Patriot Act.”</strong></p>
<p>And when Obama signs the $1.1 trillion Spending Bill in a few hours, as he will, it will be official: the second Patriot Act will be the law, and with it what little online privacy US citizens may enjoy, will be gone.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://whatreallyhappened.com/content/investigating-alternatives-microsoft-windows-can-get-you-nsa-list" target="_blank">Zero Hedge</a><br/></em></p>
</div> Paul Ryan Betrays America: $1.1 Trillion, 2,000-Plus Page Omnibus Bill Funds ‘Fundamental Transformation of America’tag:12160.info,2015-12-17:2649739:Topic:16024232015-12-17T06:51:29.140ZAmaterasu Solarhttps://12160.info/profile/AmaterasuSolar
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<p class="byline"><span style="font-size: 1.5em;">Rep. Paul Ryan's first major legislative achievement is a total and complete sell-out of the American people masquerading as an appropriations bill.</span></p>
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<div class="entry-content"><p>Too harsh, you say? Let the programs, the spending, and the implications speak for…</p>
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<p class="byline"><span style="font-size: 1.5em;">Rep. Paul Ryan's first major legislative achievement is a total and complete sell-out of the American people masquerading as an appropriations bill.</span></p>
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<div class="entry-content"><p>Too harsh, you say? Let the programs, the spending, and the implications speak for themselves.</p>
<p><strong>(1) Ryan’s Omnibus Fully Funds DACA</strong></p>
<p>Though much of the public attention has surrounded the President’s 2014 executive amnesty, the President’s 2012 amnesty quietly continues to churn out work permits and federal benefits for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. Paul Ryan’s bill funds entirely this 2012 executive amnesty for “DREAMers”—or illegal immigrants who came to the country as minors.</p>
<p>Specifically, Division F of Ryan’s omnibus bill contains no language that would prohibit the use of funds to continue the President’s unconstitutional program. Obama’s executive action, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), has granted around 700,000 illegal aliens with work permits, as well as the ability to receive tax credits and federal entitlement programs. A recent GAO <a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/671724.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> documented how this illegal amnesty program for alien youth is, in large part, responsible for the illegal alien minor surge on our southern border.</p>
<p>In 2013, Paul Ryan <a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/20/paul-ryan-job-u-s-lawmaker-put-shoes-foreign-citizens/" target="_blank">said</a> that it is his job as a U.S. lawmaker to put himself in the shoes of “the DREAMer who is waiting” and work to find legislative solutions to his or her problems.</p>
<p><strong>(2) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds Sanctuary Cities</strong></p>
<p><span>Five months ago, 32-year-old Kate Steinle was bleeding to death in her father’s arms. </span>She was gunned down in broad daylight by a five-time deported criminal alien whose presence in the country was the direct result of San Francisco’s refusal to comply with U.S. immigration law—yet Paul Ryan’s omnibus rewards these lawless Sanctuary Cities with federal grants. Division B Title II of Ryan’s omnibus funds various grant programs for the Department of Justice (pages 167, 168, and 169) and contains no language that would restrict the provision of such grants to sanctuary jurisdictions.</p>
<p>In a Congressional hearing, Steinle’s father <a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/07/21/kate-steinles-father-if-kates-law-saves-one-person-she-wont-have-died-in-vain/" target="_blank">demanded</a> Congressional action and <a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/21/father-of-kate-steinle-help-me-dad-are-last-words-i-will-ever-hear-from-my-daughter/" target="_blank">recalled</a> his daughter’s dying words: “Help me, Dad.”</p>
<p><strong>(3) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds All Refugee Programs</strong></p>
<p>Despite broad support amongst Republican lawmakers for a proposal introduced by </p>
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to halt all refugee resettlement, Ryan’s appropriations bill will fund President Obama’s refugee resettlement operation and will allow for the admission of tens of thousands of refugees with access to federal benefits. Division H Title II of Ryan’s bill contains appropriations of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and contains no language that would restrict the program. Nor are there any restrictions for the program in Division K of Ryan’s bill, which provides funding for the Department of State, which oversees refugee admissions.<br />
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<p><span>Ryan is not one<span> of the <a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/3314/cosponsors" target="_blank">84 cosponsors</a> of Ba</span>bin’s bill to halt the refugee operation, and he recently <a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/19/paul-ryan-tells-sean-hannity-will-not-support-cuts-muslim-immigration-thats-not/" target="_blank">told</a> Sean Hannity that he does not support halting resettlement because, “</span><span>We’re a compassionate country. The refugees laws are important laws.” Similarly, this outcome represents a legislative win for </span></p>
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, who <a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/24/marco-rubio-tells-hannity-hed-hate-use-funding-measure-stop-obama-syrian-refugee-resettlement/" target="_blank">told</a> Sean Hannity he’d “hate to use” Congress’s power of the purse to deny funding for Obama’s resettlement operation. <br />
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<p><strong>(4) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds All of the Mideast Immigration Programs That Have Been Exploited by Terrorists in Recent Years</strong><strong> </strong></p>
<p><span>Although multiple immigrant and visa programs in recent years have been exploited by terrorists (such as the F-1 “student” visa, the K-1 “fiancée” visa, and our green card and refugee programs), Ryan’s proposal does nothing to limit admissions from jihadist-prone regions. As Senators Shelby and Sessions </span>of Alabama <a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/11/jeff-sessions-richard-shelby-ryans-omnibus-will-admit-hundreds-thousands-migrants-jihadi-regions/" target="_blank">noted</a> in a joint statement: “The omnibus would put the U.S. on a path to approve admission for hundreds of thousands of migrants from a broad range of countries with jihadists movements over the next 12 months, on top of all the other autopilot annual immigration.”</p>
<p><strong>(5) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds Illegal Alien Resettlement</strong></p>
<p>On page 917 of Ryan’s omnibus a section titled<strong> </strong>“Refugee and Entrant Assistance” funds the President’s resettlement of illegal immigrant border <span>crossers.</span></p>
<p><strong>(6) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds the Release of Criminal Aliens</strong></p>
<p><span>Senior legislative aides tell Breitbart News that Ryan’s bill </span><span>does not do anything to change the enforcement priorities that Jeh Johnson established a little over a year ago that would shield entire categories of criminal aliens from immigration law, nor does it include language <a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/11/jeff-sessions-richard-shelby-ryans-omnibus-will-admit-hundreds-thousands-migrants-jihadi-regions/" target="_blank">recommended</a> by Sessions and Shelb</span>y to “<span>deny the expenditure of funds to issue visas to countries that refuse to repatriate criminal aliens.”</span></p>
<p><span><strong>(7) Ryan’s Omnibus Quadruples</strong></span><span><strong> H-2B Foreign Worker Visas </strong></span></p>
<p><span>Despite Ryan’s </span><a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425996/paul-ryans-selection-speaker-represents-all-thats-wrong-gop-mark-krikorian" target="_blank">pledge</a><span> not to move an immigration compromise with President Obama, </span>tucked 700 pages into Ryan’s spending bill is language that would resuscitate and expand a controversial provision of the Schumer-Rubio Gang of Eight plan to increase the H-2B visa program.</p>
<p>The provision “would quadruple the number of H-2B visas for unskilled guest workers, for a total of more than 250,000,” writes immigration attorney Ian Smith. <span>The Americans who fill these jobs are typically “society’s most vulnerable — including single women, the disabled, the elderly, minorities, teenagers, students, and first-generation immigrants,” Smith </span><a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428587/increasing-guest-worker-visas-h-2b-bad-americas-least-skilled-workers" target="_blank">explains</a><span>.</span></p>
<p><span>A recent BuzzFeed exposé </span><a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicagarrison/all-you-americans-are-fired#.ysMQgxA15Z" target="_blank">revealed</a><span> how this program allows businesses to discriminate against American workers and “deliberately den[y] jobs to American workers so they can hire foreign workers on H-2 visas instead.” As one GOP aide told Breitbart News, “This provision is a knife in the heart of the working class, and African Americans.”</span></p>
<p><strong><span>(8) </span><span>Ryan’s</span><span> Omnibus Funds Tax Credits for Illegal Aliens</span></strong></p>
<p>Ryan’s bill <a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/263374-leaders-clinch-deal-to-push-back-obamacare-taxes" target="_blank">preserves</a> the expansion of the President’s expiring child tax credits without any accompanying language to prevent illegal aliens from receiving those tax credits. While Sen. Sessions attempted to include language in the bill that would prevent illegal immigrants from receiving tax credits, his recommendation was rejected.</p>
<p><strong>(9) Ryan’s Omnibus Locks-In Huge Spending Increases</strong></p>
<p>The bill funds the Obama-Boehner budget deal, which eliminated spending caps, and will <a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://www.vox.com/2015/10/26/9619214/budget-deal-congress" target="_blank">increase</a> both defense and non-defense spending next year by $25 billion more each.</p>
<p><strong>(10) Ryan’s Omnibus Fails to Allocate Funds to Complete the 700-Mile Double-Layer Border Fence That Congress Promised the American People</strong></p>
<p>Nearly a decade ago with the passage of the 2006 Secure Fence Act, the American people were promised a 700-mile double-layer border fence. However, funding for the fence was later gutted and, as a result, its construction was never completed. Despite heightened media focus over the past six months about Americans’ desire for this barrier to illegal entry, Ryan’s bill does not require that funds be allocated to finish the construction of the 700-mile double-layer fence.</p>
<p><span>A vote could occur as early as Thursday after midnight, giving lawmakers and the public only one full business day to review the 2,242 page package</span><span>. The Ryan-Pelosi package represents nothing short of a complete and total betrayal of the American people.</span></p>
<p>Yet Ryan’s omnibus serves a second and equally chilling purpose. By locking in the President’s refugee, immigration, and spending priorities, Ryan’s bill is designed to keep these fights out of Congress by getting them off the table for good. Delivering Obama these wins–and pushing these issues beyond the purview of Congress–will suppress public attention to the issues and, in so doing, will boost the candidacy of the Republican establishment’s preferred presidential contenders, who favor President Obama’s immigration agenda.</p>
<p>What may prove most discouraging of all to Americans is that recent reports reveal that conservatives in the so-called House Freedom Caucus are praising Ryan even as he permanently locks in these irreversible and anti-American immigration policies.<a title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/budget-house-freedom-caucus-216876" target="_blank">According to <em>Politico</em></a>, the House Freedom Caucus will “give Ryan a pass” even as he funds disastrous policies that prioritize the interests of foreign nationals and global corporatists above the needs of the American people whom lawmakers are supposed to represent.</p>
<p><span class="by">by</span><span> </span><a class="byauthor" href="http://www.breitbart.com/author/stephenkbannonjuliahahn/">STEPHEN K. BANNON & JULIA HAHN</a></p>
</div> Town demolishes veteran’s home while he’s away for surgerytag:12160.info,2015-11-30:2649739:Topic:16001002015-11-30T19:48:55.689ZAmaterasu Solarhttps://12160.info/profile/AmaterasuSolar
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<p><a href="http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/town-demolishes-veterans-house-while-he-has-surgery/ar-AAfLzph?ocid=spartandhp" target="_blank">WEST HEMPSTEAD, N.Y</a>. — When a U.S. Navy veteran traveled from Long Island to Florida for a knee replacement, his house was the last thing on his mind. But now his memory of it is all he can think about.</p>
<p>Philip Williams’ home was demolished in the spring by town officials while he spent about six months recuperating from surgical complications in Fort Lauderdale. Back in New York, officials in the Town of Hempstead deemed his modest two-story home unfit for habitation and knocked it down.</p>
<p>The 69-year-old has now waged a legal battle against the suburban New York town. He wants reimbursement — for the house and all the belongings inside.</p>
<p>“I’m angry and I’m upset. It’s just wrong on so many levels,” he said “My mortgage was up to date, my property taxes were up to date … everything was current and fine.”</p>
<p>Williams went to Florida in December 2014 for the procedure, so a friend could help with his recovery. But he developed infections that forced further surgery and heart complications, leaving him hospitalized until doctors deemed him medically able to return home in August.</p>
<p>When Williams pulled up to what should have been a two-story cream-colored cottage with a red door in West Hempstead, there was just an empty lot.</p>
<p>“My first thought was there was a fire or something,” Williams said.</p>
<p>But there was no fire. According to town officials, neighbors had been complaining the house was in disrepair and a blight on the community. Hempstead officials, responding to those complaints, sent inspectors and determined the house was a “dilapidated dwelling” unfit for habitation. So they knocked it down.</p>
<p>“The house was in terrible condition for a long time,” next door neighbor Keylin Escobar said. “Nobody really lived in the house; the house was abandoned. Everyone who came over to visit, people always say, ‘What’s going on with this house?'”</p>
<p>Kathleen Keicher, who has lived across the street from Williams for 12 years, said notices tacked to the front door of the home began piling up and the house had holes in the side and appeared unkempt.</p>
<p>“I feel terrible. When we knew a house was coming down, it was sad,” she said. “We thought the house was coming down, someone would buy the land, a new house would come up, a new family would move in. … We don’t want anyone to lose their home.”</p>
<p>Williams says he was never contacted and believes town officials thought his house was a so-called “zombie home” — a dwelling abandoned after foreclosure proceedings begin, but one not yet seized by the bank — and rushed to demolish it.</p>
<p>“The town basically took everything from me,” said Williams, who is now staying with a friend in Florida and has only two suitcases of belongings. “The town does not have a right to take all of my property, all of my possessions.”</p>
<p>Williams had lived in the house since he was 6 months old. He said many of the items in the home had been in his family since he was a newborn or had sentimental value, like his late wife’s engagement ring, photos of his six children growing up and a model train set he had since he was a child. He lost all of his clothing, a bicycle he’d just purchased, dishes, silverware and other housewares.</p>
<p>Town officials say they tried to contact Williams and provided The Associated Press copies of letters they said they mailed to the home and to banks. They also held a public hearing before going forward with the demolition. But Williams contends he never received any of the notices and said he couldn’t figure out why the letters were mailed to four separate banks where he never had accounts.</p>
<p>“I have no idea who those banks are,” Williams said. “But they never contacted me in any way, shape or form.”</p>
<p>And that’s why his attorney believes that town’s actions were illegal.</p>
<p>“Under the law, it should not happen,” his attorney, Bradley Siegel said. “It’s un-American. It just doesn’t seem believable.”</p>
<p>Williams has filed a notice of claim, the first step in a lawsuit against the town, and also is fighting for public records he believes may show what happened. Williams says town officials wouldn’t tell him the name of the demolition company or the date the house was torn down.</p>
<p>The town said in a statement that it “followed all proper procedure with regard to property owner notification.” But town officials refused to answer any other questions, citing pending litigation.</p>
<p>Williams has contacted police and the Nassau County district attorney’s office and has asked for a criminal inquiry. A spokesman for the district attorney’s office said the matter is under review.</p>
<p>“You see people who went through a tornado or a flood and they say they lost everything, but that’s not preventable,” Williams said. “This was preventable. The town took my house.”</p> Family Of Secrets {All Parts} Russ Baker interview June 22, 2010tag:12160.info,2015-11-19:2649739:Topic:15985962015-11-19T04:51:56.526ZAmaterasu Solarhttps://12160.info/profile/AmaterasuSolar
<p><span class="font-size-4">This is an interview that Dave Emory did with Russ Baker did on June 22, 2010.…</span></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-4">This is an interview that Dave Emory did with Russ Baker did on June 22, 2010.</span></p>
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</p> Civil unrest is already happening in America and it could get a lot worse in 2016tag:12160.info,2015-09-12:2649739:Topic:15874282015-09-12T14:19:00.271ZAmaterasu Solarhttps://12160.info/profile/AmaterasuSolar
<p><a href="http://govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/riot.jpg"><img alt="riot" class="aligncenter wp-image-40109" height="555" src="http://govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/riot.jpg" width="833"></img></a></p>
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<p> Social unrest has been bubbling to the surface of the news all over the country, and all over the world.</p>
<p>Earlier this month marked the one-year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014.</p>
<p>It happened in Taylor, Michigan over an unexpected shortage of Section 8 housing vouchers in 2013.</p>
<p>It happened in New York City over…</p>
<p><a href="http://govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/riot.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-40109" src="http://govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/riot.jpg" alt="riot" width="833" height="555"/></a></p>
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<p> Social unrest has been bubbling to the surface of the news all over the country, and all over the world.</p>
<p>Earlier this month marked the one-year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014.</p>
<p>It happened in Taylor, Michigan over an unexpected shortage of Section 8 housing vouchers in 2013.</p>
<p>It happened in New York City over the death of Eric Garner in July 2014.</p>
<p>And just this past April it happened right here in Baltimore over the police brutality and subsequent death of Freddie Gray.</p>
<p>The world seems to be becoming a much more dangerous, unsettled place lately, and in these uncertain times, violence born of debt, frustration, and politics could strike at any minute.</p>
<p>In the United States alone, there have been <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States" rel="nofollow">over ten instances</a> of social unrest and rioting in the past two years.</p>
<p>But this problem isn’t limited to the good ol’ U.S. of A.</p>
<p>Even cities traditionally seen as more placid, like Singapore, have seen demonstrators taking to the streets — typically spurred by social inequalities and political discontent.</p>
<p>Check out the video below, in which Singapore watched in disbelief as 400 foreign workers caused a damaging riot in 2013.</p>
<p>As it says in the clip, the city’s police commissioner had never seen rioting on Singapore streets in his 26 years as an officer, and citizens debated over social media why the riots started, speculating that the low-paid foreign workers acted out of desperation.</p>
<p>Not to mention, mass uprising and resistance is now <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/theworldin2014/2013/12/social-unrest-2014" rel="nofollow">easier to coordinate</a> than ever before with smartphones and social media. Technology isn’t slowing down any time soon, and with political and economic tensions on the rise worldwide, every savvy citizen must wonder: where will social unrest erupt next year?</p>
<p><a href="http://read%20more%20at%20http//www.economist.com/blogs/theworldin2014/2013/12/social-unrest-2014#gvjxqKWq2ZTurOEu.99" rel="nofollow">The Economist Intelligence Unit</a> measures the risk of social unrest in 150 countries around the world, and places a heavy emphasis on institutional and political weaknesses.</p>
<p>According to its ratings, 65 countries (43% of the 150) were at a high or very high risk of social unrest in 2014. Compared with five years prior, 19 more countries are now in the high-risk categories.</p>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/55defebb9dd7cc24008b63da-1038-579/screen%20shot%202015-08-27%20at%208.11.56%20am.png" alt="Screen Shot 2015 08 27 at 8.11.56 AM"/><span class="source">The Daily Reckoning</span></span></p>
<p>If you’re reading this and thinking yeah, sure, there have been a few riots here and there, but it’s nothing more than a fluke or strategic media coverage. But don’t be a skeptic — potentially damaging and dangerous social unrest is coming to a town near you.</p>
<p>In an <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#.VbugrJNVhHx" rel="nofollow">op-ed</a> entitled “The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats,” billionaire and venture capitalist Nick Hanauer taps into that very notion of “it’ll never happen to me.” He writes:</p>
<p><em>Many of us think we’re special because “this is America.” We think we’re immune to the same forces that started the Arab Spring—or the French and Russian revolutions, for that matter.</em></p>
<p><em>Here’s what I say to you: You’re living in a dream world.</em></p>
<p><em>What everyone wants to believe is that when things reach a tipping point and go from being merely crappy for the masses to dangerous and socially destabilizing, that we’re somehow going to know about that shift ahead of time.</em></p>
<p><em>Any student of history knows that’s not the way it happens. Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning.</em></p>
<p>It’s time for us to wake up and smell the civil strife, folks!</p>
<p>In an article on The New American titled <a href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/commentary/item/19480-prediction-economic-collapse-civil-unrest-in-america-by-2016" rel="nofollow">“Prediction: Economic Collapse, Civil Unrest in America by 2016,”</a> author Selwyn Duke echoes the same sentiment, writing:</p>
<p class="p1"><em>Violence. Rioting. Looting. Economic collapse and civil unrest. This isn’t a dystopian movie plot, but something else according to an economist with a good track record for prognostication: America’s dark future.</em></p>
<p class="p1"><em>The economist is Martin Armstrong, whose correct predictions include the 1987 Black Monday crash and the 1998 Russian financial implosion. And now he’s<a href="http://armstrongeconomics.com/archives/24780" rel="nofollow"><span class="s2">predicting</span></a> civil unrest in America by 2016, precipitated by an economic collapse which he calls “the magic ingredient.” “Turn the economy down,” he continued, “and you get civil unrest and revolution.”</em></p>
<p class="p1"><em><span class="s1">And what would precipitate our economic collapse? Many observers have warned that our runaway spending and loose monetary policy constitute a ticking time-bomb… </span><span class="s1">Of course, some will say that the United States isn’t Hungary or Zimbabwe. But we should seriously wonder what we will be tomorrow if we won’t stop digging an economic grave with credit cards, counterfeit cash, and covetousness cloaked in compassion.</span></em></p>
<p>In 2009, government debt in Britain was fast on the rise, and after a tax raise and spending cuts, a riot broke out at the Bank of England. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6819470/Moodys-warns-of-social-unrest-as-sovereign-debt-spirals.html" rel="nofollow">The Telegraph</a> reports:</p>
<p><em>In a sombre report on the outlook for next year, the credit rating agency raised the prospect that future tax rises and spending cuts could trigger social unrest in a range of countries from the developing to the developed world.</em></p>
<p><em>It said that in the coming years, evidence of social unrest and public tension may become just as important signs of whether a country will be able to adapt as traditional economic metrics. Signaling that a fiscal crisis remains a possibility for a leading economy, it said that 2010 would be a “tumultuous year for sovereign debt issuers.”</em></p>
<p>The article goes on to explain that the sheer quantities of debt from leading nations would increase social tensions and the risk of investor fright. Countries with rapidly increasing debt need to rein in their deficits, which will almost <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6819470/Moodys-warns-of-social-unrest-as-sovereign-debt-spirals.html" rel="nofollow">certainly test social cohesion.</a></p>
<p>Consider the Greek debt crisis of this past June. After defaulting on a $1.73 billion payment to the IMF and closing off banks, sever rioting and social unrest broke out. In an article titled “4 Alarming Reasons American Could Be The Next Greece” author Daniel Jennings details the specific ways<a href="http://www.offthegridnews.com/current-events/4-alarming-reasons-america-could-be-the-next-greece/" rel="nofollow">Uncle Sam could be following in Greece’s footsteps</a>:</p>
<p><em>Debt and other economic problems could destroy American independence just as they undermined Greece’s status as a nation.</em></p>
<p><em>Those who don’t believe America could share Greece’s fate need to take a look at some disturbing trends in the US economy. America, sadly, is repeating some of the same mistakes that destroyed Greece’s.</em></p>
<p>Below is a quick summary of Jennings’ <a href="http://www.offthegridnews.com/current-events/4-alarming-reasons-america-could-be-the-next-greece/" rel="nofollow">four reasons</a>:</p>
<ol>
<li>America is accumulating more debt than it could ever possibly pay off, just like Greece</li>
<li>America spends most of its money on entitlements, just like Greece</li>
<li>Too many American citizens are dependent on the government for benefits, just like in Greece</li>
<li>America is experiencing economic stagnation, just like Greece</li>
</ol>
<p>This clip paints a lovely picture of what could happen in your neighborhood or country if it faces a similar situation to Greece.</p>
<p><a href="http://nationalinterest.org/feature/scary-thought-could-america-become-the-next-greece-13341" rel="nofollow">Nationalinterest.org</a> also believe America could become the next Greece — considering the fiscal pressures confronting the United States spring from sources similar to those afflicting Greece:</p>
<p class="p1"><em>Growing spending on public benefits threatens to overwhelm the U.S. economy in the long term. At the federal level, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs consume more than half of the budget, and spending on these programs is growing steeply. After accounting for other benefits, transfer payments make up about 70 percent of all spending in the United States today.</em></p>
<p class="p1"><em>Implementing important reforms to unaffordable and outdated benefit programs has proved to be a difficult feat politically. However, waiting too long on reforms diminishes the ability to phase in major changes gradually, in a way that will protect those who rely on benefits the most and leave others time to adjust to new fiscal realities. Waiting for a major crisis to force reforms, as Greece has done, brings unnecessarily painful austerity.</em></p>
<p class="p1"><em>Greece and other struggling European countries offer Americans a window to the future. If U.S. policy makers and the public take away only one key lesson from what’s happening in Europe right now, it should be to put the budget on a path to balance during good times such as these. The alternative is much, much worse.</em></p>
<p>It makes you wonder what kind of backlash might occur if and when Yellen and her cronies at the Federal Reserve finally decide to raise interest rates…</p>
<p>Which leads me to the question of why social unrest occurs in the first place.</p>
<p>There is a laundry list of reasons — anything from police brutality and abject poverty, to social inequality and the wage gap.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/21589143-where-protest-likeliest-break-out-ripe-rebellion" rel="nofollow">According to Laza Kekic</a> from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), economic distress is almost a prerequisite for protest, but does not explain outbursts entirely:</p>
<p><em>Declines in income and high unemployment are not always followed by unrest. Only when economic trouble is accompanied by other elements of vulnerability is there a high risk of instability.</em></p>
<p><em>Such factors include wide income-inequality, poor government, low levels of social provision, ethnic tensions and a history of unrest. Of particular importance in sparking unrest in recent times appears to have been an erosion of trust in governments and institutions: a crisis of democracy.</em></p>
<p>But it’s not necessarily going to be all angry mobs and pitchforks.</p>
<p>In today’s tech-obsessed world, there is more than one form of social unrest.</p>
<p>Sure, there are demonstrations in the streets, looting, and crime waves.</p>
<p>But there are also movements occurring in cyberspace that run amok in peoples’ lives and finances.</p>
<p>Perhaps the biggest confirmation of this social unrest theory is the extent to which local government and police have bulked up their equipment, firepower and technology.</p>
<div class="page" title="Page 223"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><a href="http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2015/04/west_michigan_police_beefing_u.html" rel="nofollow">Police in Michigan</a> have already bulked up their operations with the military’s surplus equipment — which includes armored trucks, grenade launchers, and bayonets — all thanks to the Military Surplus program, which takes already-paid-for-by-taxpayers equipment and gives it to police agencies:</p>
<p><em>…many West Michigan police agencies have become better equipped to handle both violent incidents and disasters, thanks to the U.S. military.</em></p>
<p><em>Since about 1990, police have been able to acquire military surplus through the federal government via the 1033 Program.</em></p>
<p><em>But it wasn’t until late 2014 that the Pentagon began releasing detailed information about the surplus items going to police agencies across the nation.</em></p>
<p><em>The chaos in Ferguson, Missouri, as heavily armed police using armored equipment clashed with protesters over <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6b68e7416c314dd097c1d972e5dd4f69/civil-lawsuit-be-filed-thursday-michael-browns-death" rel="nofollow">the Michael Brown shooting last year</a>, led to calls for transparency about police agencies and their military surplus.</em></p>
<p><em>In Michigan, what the data showed was a large release of armored vehicles going to law enforcement, mostly between 2011 and 2014.</em></p>
<p><em>Even before the unrest in Ferguson, the American Civil Liberties Union last June raised concerns about police using surplus SWAT-type vehicles for seemingly routine operations.</em></p>
<p><em><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/55df001d9dd7cc10008b6498-3336-2336/rtr1t20v.jpg" alt="mrap demonstration"/><span class="source">Larry Downing/Reuters</span><span class="caption">A MRAP, or Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle. Seems totally necessary, right?</span></em></p>
<p>This trend toward increased militarization of domestic police, combined with government contingency plans like Rex 84, should perk up a few ears.</p>
<p>Rex 84, or the <a href="http://occupycorporatism.com/government-silently-positions-for-martial-law-as-financial-collapse-arrives-in-america/" rel="nofollow">Readiness Exercise 1984</a>, <strong>“</strong>outlines continuity of government wherein the US Constitution is suspended, martial law is declared and the US military command take over state and local governments in order to ensure stabilization of our nation at any cost. Any American who is deemed a “national security threat” would be detained in an interment or FEMA camp.”</p>
<p>To give you an idea — Rex 84 has only been implemented twice before: during the Los Angeles riots and on 9/11.</p>
<p>And what about the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/07/18/424194114/jade-helm-15-military-exercise-underway-in-texas" rel="nofollow">Jade Helm 15 Military Training Exercise</a> that began this past July?</p>
<p>This is a seven-state, months-long U.S. military exercise, but, due to the fact it’s one of the largest military training exercises ever performed on domestic soil, many people believe it’s a cover for an impending military takeover and the establishment of martial law.</p>
<p>So we’re dealing with a mixed bag of social unrest tactics here, but one thing’s for sure: social unrest is here to stay. You should prepare.</p>
<p>One of the first things you can do is ensure that you and your family will be able to provide for yourselves without depending on others.</p>
<p>This means stockpiling some survival essentials to protect yourself from whatever problems may come down the road after an outbreak of social unrest, violence, robberies, home invasions, rioting, or worse.</p>
<p>Laissez-Faire Book’s “Family Survival Blueprint,” agrees, writing:</p>
<div class="page" title="Page 2"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><em>Not only has the financial, economic and social fallout of the 2008 crash remained present… many analysts are predicting an even worse meltdown coming in the near future.</em></p>
<p><em>If a serious financial calamity hits us soon, most americans will be caught helpless. store shelves will be cleared within hours… gas stations within days… and even police departments, government offices and major infrastructure may collapse within weeks or months.</em></p>
<p>The Survival Blueprint provides a list of the 7 essential items you’re going to want to keep you and your family safe:</p>
<ul>
<li>Water: no brainer — keeps you healthy and functional, and in dire cases can be used as currency</li>
<li>Food: water keeps you hydrated, but food keeps you alert and functional</li>
<li>Clothing: consider clothes you would pack for hiking or camping</li>
<li>Shelter: stock up on a tent and/or supplies to build a reliable shelter</li>
<li>First-aid kit: when the world is unraveling into chaos, you don’t want a small cut to lead to a life-threatening infection</li>
<li>Basic Gear: matches, flashlight, batteries, a knife, etc.</li>
<li>Weapons: if things get really, truly bad, things will get dangerous — a gun is probably your best bet, but if your state or country won’t allow that, a knife or club will suffice</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
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<p>If you’re looking for a more practical, less apocalyptic suggestion, Jim Rickards recommends buying a “Monster Box” issued by the U.S. Mint:</p>
<div class="page" title="Page 223"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><em>You can buy them through reputable precious metals dealers. A Monster Box is a sealed container of 500 1-ounce pure silver American Silver Eagle coins. The box is colored “Treasury green.”</em></p>
<p><em>You should not break the seal on the box unless you actually need the coins for transactions. The price varies with the market, but one box would be about $8,000 plus a small commission based on the current price of silver.</em></p>
<p><em>This is not only a good store of wealth, but the coins will prove useful for shopping and smaller transactions in the event the power grid and banking systems break down in a future financial crisis or natural disaster. You can store the Monster Box in a reputable nonbank vault or in a home safe — just don’t let anyone know you have it.</em></p>
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<p>With our country’s “tomorrow” looking bleaker than ever before, do yourself — and your wealth — a favor and by preparing for impeding social unrest in your town. Remember, the prepared are spared.</p>
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<p>À tout à l’heure,</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-civil-unrest-could-get-worse-2015-8" target="_blank">Genevieve LeFranc</a></p>
</div>
</div> Taxpayers Fleeing Democrat-Run States for Republican Onestag:12160.info,2015-09-05:2649739:Topic:15860122015-09-05T05:09:31.444ZAmaterasu Solarhttps://12160.info/profile/AmaterasuSolar
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=a27rr5" target="_blank"><img alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic" border="0" src="http://i62.tinypic.com/a27rr5.jpg"></img></a></p>
<p></p>
<p>(<a href="https://www.atr.org/taxpayers-fleeing-democrat-run-states-republican-ones" target="_blank">Paul Blair</a>) In 2013, more than 200,000 people on net fled states with Democrat governors for ones run by Republicans, according to an analysis of<a href="http://www.irs.gov/uac/SOI-Tax-Stats-Migration-Data-2012-2013"> newly released IRS data</a>by Americans for Tax…</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=a27rr5" target="_blank"><img src="http://i62.tinypic.com/a27rr5.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"/></a></p>
<p></p>
<p>(<a href="https://www.atr.org/taxpayers-fleeing-democrat-run-states-republican-ones" target="_blank">Paul Blair</a>) In 2013, more than 200,000 people on net fled states with Democrat governors for ones run by Republicans, according to an analysis of<a href="http://www.irs.gov/uac/SOI-Tax-Stats-Migration-Data-2012-2013"> newly released IRS data</a>by Americans for Tax Reform.</p>
<p><strong>“People move away from high tax states to low tax states. Every tax refugee is sending a powerful message to politicians,”</strong> said ATR President Grover Norquist. <strong>“They are voting with their feet. Leaders in Texas and Florida are listening. New York and California are not.”</strong></p>
<p>That year, Democrat-run states lost a net 226,763 taxpayers, bringing with them nearly $15.7 billion in adjusted gross income (AGI). That same year, states with Republican governors gained nearly 220,000 new taxpayers, who brought more than $14.1 billion in AGI with them.</p>
<p>Only one-third of states with Democrat governors gained taxpayers, compared to three-fifths of states with Republican governors.</p>
<p><strong>Top 5 loser states for Democrat governors in 2013:</strong></p>
<p>· <a href="http://www.atr.org/taxpayers-crown-winner-america-s-biggest-loser-new-york" target="_blank">New York (114,929 people with $5.7 billion in AGI)</a></p>
<p>· Illinois (68,943 people with $3.8 billion in AGI)</p>
<p>· California (47,458 people with 3.8 billion in AGI)</p>
<p>· Connecticut (14,453 people with $1.8 billion in AGI)</p>
<p>· Massachusetts (11,915 people with $1 billion in AGI)</p>
<p><strong>Top 5 winner states for Republican governors in 2013:</strong></p>
<p>· Texas (152,912 people with $6 billion in AGI)</p>
<p>· <a href="http://www.atr.org/new-irs-data-florida-biggest-beneficiary-wealth-other-states" target="_blank">Florida (74,094 people with 8.3 billion in AGI)</a></p>
<p>· South Carolina (29,176 people with 1.6 billion in AGI)</p>
<p>· North Carolina (26,207 people with $1.5 billion in AGI)</p>
<p>· Arizona (16,549 people with $1.5 billion in AGI)</p>
<p>The single largest net migration from one state to another took place between New York and Florida (17,355 people).</p> These Alarming New Passport Laws Are Being Snuck Through Congress Right Nowtag:12160.info,2015-08-19:2649739:Topic:15829122015-08-19T03:56:22.508ZAmaterasu Solarhttps://12160.info/profile/AmaterasuSolar
<p><a href="http://i2.wp.com/govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/passport.jpg"><img alt="passport" class="aligncenter wp-image-48335" height="458" src="http://i2.wp.com/govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/passport.jpg?resize=802%2C458" width="802"></img></a></p>
<hr></hr><p><strong> </strong>Just the other day we <a href="http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2015/july/21/today-congress-votes-to-take-your-passport/" target="_blank">wrote</a> about a U.S. House “suspension” bill that would give the Secretary of State the authority to cancel your passport if he decided that you had “aided” an organization that he rules is…</p>
<p><a href="http://i2.wp.com/govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/passport.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-48335" src="http://i2.wp.com/govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/passport.jpg?resize=802%2C458" alt="passport" width="802" height="458"/></a></p>
<hr/><p><strong> </strong>Just the other day we <a href="http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2015/july/21/today-congress-votes-to-take-your-passport/" target="_blank">wrote</a> about a U.S. House “suspension” bill that would give the Secretary of State the authority to cancel your passport if he decided that you had “aided” an organization that he rules is terrorist.</p>
<p>There is no definition of what “aided” means, no chance to dispute the Secretary’s decision, no trial or presentation of evidence, and in fact any evidence the government has can be classified as secret so that you may not see it. In effect the Secretary of State can unilaterally consign you to internal exile and there is nothing you can do about it.</p>
<p>Because Members of the U.S. House were too cowardly to go on record voting for such an anti-American piece of legislation, the bill passed by a <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/237/actions" target="_blank">voice vote</a>.</p>
<div class="insert-page insert-page-25186"></div>
<p><a href="http://democrats.senate.gov/2015/07/23/schedule-for-thursday-july-23-2015/" target="_blank">Today</a> the U.S. Senate plans to one-up its counterparts on the lowlier side of Capitol Hill. Buried inside the U.S. highways funding bill is a provision to revoke or deny issuance of a U.S. passport to anyone who has a large outstanding tax debt to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. According to a Senate Finance Committee <a href="http://www.finance.senate.gov/download/?id=6B8C8DDB-F442-4F23-BEDB-77EFB8E20E5B" target="_blank">summary</a> (PDF) acquired today, the measure provides for:</p>
<p>Revocation or denial of passport in case of certain unpaid taxes. This provision would authorize the Federal government to deny the application for a passport when an individual has more than $50,000 (indexed for inflation) of unpaid federal taxes which the IRS is collecting through enforcement action. It would also permit the Federal government to revoke a passport for such individuals. Before revocation, however, the Federal government would be allowed to limit a previously issued passport only for return travel to the United States or to issue a limited passport that only permits return travel to the United States. The provision would be effective on January 1, 2016, and is estimated to raise $0.398 billion over 10 years.</p>
<p>As can be seen from the summary, this measure threatening to imprison Americans within (or outside) U.S. borders is simply viewed as a means by which to raise revenue. The hoped-for increase in revenue coming from this threat is considered an “offset” to the money being spent on the highway bill — in other words the threat to imprison US citizens within their own country or freeze them out is considered appropriate incentive to force them to pay what the government claims it is owed.</p>
<p>Unconvinced that the US government would do such a thing? Check the bill coming to the Senate Floor. Section 52102 of the Highway Funding bill, to be taken up by the Senate today, <a href="http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/7311e4f6-04eb-43b1-a5c2-7586dee4e805/edw15730.pdf" target="_blank">states</a>:</p>
<p>If the Secretary receives certification by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue that any individual has a seriously delinquent tax debt in an amount in excess of $50,000, the Secretary shall transmit such certification to the Secretary of State for action with respect to denial, revocation, or limitation of a passport pursuant to section 52102(d) of the Transportation Funding Act of 2015.</p>
<p>Tax “deadbeats” will be either denied entry into the United States or forbidden from leaving the United States.</p>
<p><strong>The use of citizenship rights as a weapon against Americans is becoming increasingly common as Washington is ever more desperate for control of its passport holders.</strong><br/>The last time Ron Paul ran for president, the mainstream media <a href="http://nation.foxnews.com/ron-paul/2011/09/07/ron-paul-border-fence-will-be-used-keep-us" target="_blank">ridiculed him</a> for claiming that U.S. government’s border control strategy is most likely designed to keep Americans from leaving the country rather than to keep illegals from entering. These two measures within a week’s time pretty clearly confirm what was once laughed off as a “paranoid” view that the U.S. government was building a virtual Berlin Wall to keep its citizens from departing.</p>
<p>Perhaps that is why this year a <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/08/pf/taxes/american-expats-passports-renounce/" target="_blank">record number</a> of Americans are renouncing their passports and getting out of the country… while they still can.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://thecrux.com/americas-war-on-your-passport-continues/" target="_blank">Daniel McAdams</a></strong></p> California To Confiscate 300 Farms By Eminent Domain, For Unapproved Water Projecttag:12160.info,2015-08-18:2649739:Topic:15828002015-08-18T04:30:54.948ZAmaterasu Solarhttps://12160.info/profile/AmaterasuSolar
<h1 class="article-title">California To Confiscate 300 Farms By Eminent Domain, For Unapproved Water Project</h1>
<p class="ap-story-p"><a href="http://i1.wp.com/govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/jerry-brown.jpg"><img alt="jerry brown" class="aligncenter wp-image-53838" height="571" src="http://i1.wp.com/govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/jerry-brown.jpg?resize=785%2C571" width="785"></img></a></p>
<hr></hr><p class="ap-story-p">State contractors have readied plans to acquire as many as 300 farms in the California delta by eminent domain to make room for a pair of massive, still-unapproved water tunnels proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown, according to documents…</p>
<h1 class="article-title">California To Confiscate 300 Farms By Eminent Domain, For Unapproved Water Project</h1>
<p class="ap-story-p"><a href="http://i1.wp.com/govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/jerry-brown.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-53838" src="http://i1.wp.com/govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/jerry-brown.jpg?resize=785%2C571" alt="jerry brown" width="785" height="571"/></a></p>
<hr/><p class="ap-story-p">State contractors have readied plans to acquire as many as 300 farms in the California delta by eminent domain to make room for a pair of massive, still-unapproved water tunnels proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown, according to documents obtained by opponents of the tunnels.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">Farmers whose parcels were listed and mapped in the 160-page property-acquisition plan expressed dismay at the advanced planning for the project, which would build 30-mile-long tunnels in the delta formed by the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">“What really shocks is we’re fighting this and we’re hoping to win,” said Richard Elliot, who grows cherries, pears and other crops on delta land farmed by his family since the 1860s. “To find out they’re sitting in a room figuring out this eminent domain makes it sound like they’re going to bully us … and take what they want.”</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">Officials involved in the project defended planning so far ahead regarding the tunnels.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">“Planning for right-of-way needs, that is the key part of your normal planning process,” said Roger Patterson, assistant general manager for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, one of the water agencies that would benefit from the twin tunnels.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">The district serves 17 million people in Southern California as well as large farms and businesses.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">Brown’s administration said re-engineering water flows of the delta – the largest estuary on the West Coast – is essential to undoing mistakes of past water projects and to supplying water to Southern California.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">Brown has pushed for a massive delta makeover since his first stint as governor in the 1970s and 1980s. In May, he told critics of the tunnels to “shut up.”</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">Opponents say the tunnels would jeopardize delta farming and destroy vital wildlife habitat.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">“If these reports are correct, then we have further confirmation that the tunnels project has been a forgone conclusion,” state Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, who chairs a committee on the delta, said in an email Monday.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">The environmental review, “which should be used to choose a project, is simply being used to justify the favored project,” she wrote.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">Through October, the project officially is in a period of public comment on the environmental impact of the tunnels. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which opposed an earlier version of the project, also must still weigh in.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">Restore the Delta, a group of farmers, fishing associations, environmental groups and other opponents, released the property plan that was obtained with a request made under the state open records law. The plan targets public and private land in Sacramento, San Joaquin, Contra Costa and Alameda counties to be acquired for the project.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">Under the plan, landowners would have 30 days to consider and negotiate a one-time state offer, while officials simultaneously prepare to take the land by forced sale if owners declined to sell. “Negotiations to continue in parallel with eminent domain proceedings,” the plan notes.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">Contractors also appear to call for minimal public input.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">“All transactions are conducted, reviewed and approved internally by DCE staff and managers to maintain control and avoid unnecessary delays to schedule,” the property plan outlines. “DCE shall seek to minimize external review and approval requirements.”</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">DCE is short for Delta Conveyance Facilities Design and Construction Enterprise, a private-contractor group embedded within the state Department of Water Resources to work on the proposed tunnels.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">In a June interview, Neil Gould, an attorney for the Department of Water Resources, said planning for the proposed tunnels was no more than 10 percent complete and had focused on assessing the environmental impact.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">Asked if planning the process of eminent domain was warranted as part of the project’s environmental review, Department of Water Resources spokeswoman Nancy Vogel said Monday in an email, “identification of properties that may be within the project area is necessary … as DWR needs to estimate the proposed project’s potential impacts to those properties.”</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">Public water agencies paid for the property acquisition plan, Vogel said. Those include water agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area and Central California, as well as Southern California, she said.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">Patterson, with the Metropolitan Water District, said the latest revisions to the overall tunnels project laid out using more public land and less private land.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p">Osha Meserve, an attorney for some of the delta farmers fighting the project, said the latest plans still proposes taking roughly the same land as before.</p>
<p class="ap-story-p"><a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CALIFORNIA_WATER_TUNNELS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-08-17-15-58-05" target="_blank">SAN FRANCISCO</a></p> DONALD TRUMP RELEASES IMMIGRATION REFORM PLAN DESIGNED TO GET AMERICANS BACK TO WORKtag:12160.info,2015-08-16:2649739:Topic:15825702015-08-16T22:16:29.323ZAmaterasu Solarhttps://12160.info/profile/AmaterasuSolar
<div class="featured-container"><img alt="Donald Trump" class="attachment-isc-bbn-full wp-post-image" height="480" src="http://media.breitbart.com/media/2015/07/trump-pointing-AP-640x480.jpg" width="640"></img><div class="attribution">AP Photo/Danny Johnston</div>
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<p class="byline"><span class="by-author"><span class="by">by</span> <a class="byauthor" href="http://www.breitbart.com/author/matthew-boyle/" rel="nofollow">MATTHEW BOYLE</a></span><span class="bydate">16 Aug 2015</span><span class="bycity">Washington, DC…</span></p>
<div class="featured-container"><img width="640" height="480" src="http://media.breitbart.com/media/2015/07/trump-pointing-AP-640x480.jpg" class="attachment-isc-bbn-full wp-post-image" alt="Donald Trump"/><div class="attribution">AP Photo/Danny Johnston</div>
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<p class="byline"><span class="by-author"><span class="by">by</span> <a rel="nofollow" class="byauthor" href="http://www.breitbart.com/author/matthew-boyle/">MATTHEW BOYLE</a></span><span class="bydate">16 Aug 2015</span><span class="bycity">Washington, DC</span><a rel="nofollow" class="bycount" href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/16/donald-trump-releases-immigration-reform-plan-designed-to-get-americans-back-to-work/#disqus_thread">5,063</a></p>
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<h2>Billionaire Donald Trump <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/immigration-reform" target="_blank">released a detailed immigration policy position paper</a> on Sunday morning, a paper that walks through exactly what steps he would go through as president to help American workers.</h2>
<p>The paper is detailed to the level of specific areas of policy, and it also calls out one of his opponents, </p>
<div class="crtvwrapper"><span class="scoreregex">Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)</span><div class="cr-pill"><div><div><div>80<span>%</span></div>
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, the author of the last Congress’ “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill—as being the “personal senator” of billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, because Rubio is doing Zuckerberg’s bidding by pushing for an increase in H-1B visas to replace American workers in high-tech fields with cheaper foreign labor.<br />
<p></p>
<p>The paper—which really constitutes a completely new look at immigration and a complete overhaul of the current system, politicians’ priorities, and special interest involvement—starts with three principles. Firstly, Trump argues, “a nation without borders is not a nation.”</p>
<p>As such, he writes, “there must be a wall across the southern border.”</p>
<p>Secondly, Trump argues, “a nation without laws is not a nation.”</p>
<p>“Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced,” he writes as part of his second principle.</p>
<p>Thirdly, Trump argues, “a nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation.”</p>
<p>“Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans,” he writes to flesh out the third principle.</p>
<p>The paper, which was clearly influenced by </p>
<div class="crtvwrapper"><span class="scoreregex">Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)</span><div class="cr-pill"><div><div><div>80<span>%</span></div>
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who Trump consulted to help with immigration policy, contains three major parts: How a President Trump would handle border security, interior enforcement, and legal immigration policy as it relates to getting Americans—at historically low workforce participation rates right now—back to work. Perhaps most importantly, Trump uses the term “immigration reform” to describe what he will do—taking that term away from those who use it to push for fundamental transformation of the United States with immigration policy.<br />
<p></p>
<p>“When politicians talk about ‘immigration reform’ they mean: amnesty, cheap labor and open borders,” Trump writes. “The Schumer-Rubio immigration bill was nothing more than a giveaway to the corporate patrons who run both parties. Real immigration reform puts the needs of working people first – not wealthy globetrotting donors. We are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of our own. That must change.”</p>
<p>The plan details not just that Trump believes in putting “American workers first” over the interest of foreign workers, foreign nations, and special interests, but how he would do so. Trump is the first and only presidential candidate this cycle who has done this and gone into this level of policy detail.</p>
<p>“Decades of disastrous trade deals and immigration policies have destroyed our middle class,” Trump’s position paper reads. “Today, nearly 40% of black teenagers are unemployed. Nearly 30% of Hispanic teenagers are unemployed. For black Americans without high school diplomas, the bottom has fallen out: more than 70% were employed in 1960, compared to less than 40% in 2000. Across the economy, the percentage of adults in the labor force has collapsed to a level not experienced in generations. As CBS news wrote in a piece entitled ‘America’s incredible shrinking middle class’: ‘If the middle-class is the economic backbone of America, then the country is developing osteoporosis.’”</p>
<p>Trump writes that the “influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working class Americans – including immigrants themselves and their children – to earn a middle class wage” and that about “half of all immigrants and their US-born children currently live in or near poverty, including more than 60 percent of Hispanic immigrants.”</p>
<p>“Every year, we voluntarily admit another 2 million new immigrants, guest workers, refugees, and dependents, growing our existing all-time historic record population of 42 million immigrants,” Trump writes. “We need to control the admission of new low-earning workers in order to: help wages grow, get teenagers back to work, aid minorities’ rise into the middle class, help schools and communities falling behind, and to ensure our immigrant members of the national family become part of the American dream. Additionally, we need to stop giving legal immigrant visas to people bent on causing us harm. From the 9/11 hijackers, to the Boston Bombers, and many others, our immigration system is being used to attack us. The President of the immigration caseworkers union declared in a statement on ISIS: ‘We’ve become the visa clearinghouse for the world.’”</p>
<p>Trump calls for a halt to the issuance of new green cards until Americans are back to work.</p>
<p>“Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers,” Trump wrote in a section of the paper called “immigration moderation,” an area where he cites U.S. Census Bureau data and information from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “This will help reverse women’s plummeting workplace participation rate, grow wages, and allow record immigration levels to subside to more moderate historical averages.”</p>
<p>He called for also increasing the prevailing wage when it comes to the issuance of H-1B visas so as to get Americans—especially Hispanics, blacks, and women—hired into corporate positions in Silicon Valley rather than foreigners. It is here where he points out that Rubio—who along with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is one of the two candidates in the Republican primary against Trump that the donor class is pulling for—has put forward legislation that would drastically harm American workers’ job prospects, and he’s done so on behalf of Zuckerberg and other donors.</p>
<p>“We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program,” Trump wrote. “More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program’s lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant, instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.”</p>
<p>Trump also laid out his belief that there should be a requirement that companies hire Americans before hiring foreigners from visa programs.</p>
<p>“Too many visas, like the H-1B, have no such requirement,” Trump wrote, citing testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and a Forbes magazine report about how incomes are falling in the U.S. because people are working less. “In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need to companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed. Petitions for workers should be mailed to the unemployment office, not USCIS.”</p>
<p>Trump called for an end to the J-1 Visa program—essentially a jobs program for foreign youths—and for it to be replaced with a jobs program for American youths in inner cities.</p>
<p>“The J-1 visa jobs program for foreign youth will be terminated and replaced with a resume bank for inner city youth provided to all corporate subscribers to the J-1 visa program,” Trump wrote under a section header calling for a “jobs program for inner city youth” while citing a National Public Radio report on the J-1 visa program.</p>
<p>Trump calls to “end welfare abuse,” as well.</p>
<p>“Applicants for entry to the United States should be required to certify that they can pay for their own housing, healthcare and other needs before coming to the U.S.,” he wrote.</p>
<p>He also pushes for the focus of refugee programs and asylum to shift to helping American children get more opportunities in life.</p>
<p>“Increase standards for the admission of refugees and asylum-seekers to crack down on abuses,” he wrote, citing congressional testimony and two Breitbart News reports on welfare abuse by refugees in the U.S. and on crime among refugee communities. “Use the monies saved on expensive refugee programs to help place American children without parents in safer homes and communities, and to improve community safety in high crime neighborhoods in the United States.”</p>
<p>That’s all just legal immigration policy. Trump said generally when it comes to enforcement that he thinks that America needs to defend her laws and the Constitution.</p>
<p>“America will only be great as long as America remains a nation of laws that lives according to the Constitution,” Trump wrote before setting up a list of specific policies he would implement if elected president to protect the United States from illegal immigration. “No one is above the law. The following steps will return to the American people the safety of their laws, which politicians have stolen from them.</p>
<p>Trump details here many things, including that he believes there should be an end to “birthright citizenship.”</p>
<p>“This remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration,” Trump wrote of birthright citizenship before citing Rasmussen Reports polling data showing Americans are opposed to it. “By a 2:1 margin, voters say it’s the wrong policy, including </p>
<div class="crtvwrapper"><span class="scoreregex">Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)</span><div class="cr-pill"><div><div><div>2<span>%</span></div>
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who said ‘no sane country’ would give automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.”<br />
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<p>Trump thinks America needs to triple the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers working in the country. Trump said he’d pay for it by cutting off tax credit payments currently handed out to illegal aliens.</p>
<p>“As the President of the ICE Officers’ Council explained in Congressional testimony: ‘Only approximately 5,000 officers and agents within ICE perform the lion’s share of ICE’s immigration mission…Compare that to the Los Angeles Police Department at approximately 10,000 officers. Approximately 5,000 officers in ICE cover 50 states, Puerto Rico and Guam, and are attempting to enforce immigration law against 11 million illegal aliens already in the interior of the United States. Since 9-11, the U.S. Border Patrol has tripled in size, while ICE’s immigration enforcement arm, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), has remained at relatively the same size.’ This will be funded by accepting the recommendation of the Inspector General for Tax Administration and eliminating tax credit payments to illegal immigrants.”</p>
<p>Trump also believes there should be “nationwide E-verify” and that such a “simple measure will protect jobs for unemployed Americans.”</p>
<p>Trump calls for a “mandatory return” of any criminal illegal aliens in the country to their home countries. “The Obama Administration has released 76,000 aliens from its custody with criminal convictions since 2013 alone,” Trump wrote. “All criminal aliens must be returned to their home countries, a process which can be aided by canceling any visas to foreign countries which will not accept their own criminals, and making it a separate and additional crime to commit an offense while here illegally.”</p>
<p>He also called for “detention” of illegal aliens caught crossing the border, not “catch-and-release” as has been done under President Obama.</p>
<p>“Illegal aliens apprehended crossing the border must be detained until they are sent home, no more catch-and-release,” Trump wrote.</p>
<p>Trump believes that America should “defund sanctuary cities,” too.</p>
<p>The government should, he wrote, “cut-off federal grants to any city which refuses to cooperate with federal law enforcement.”</p>
<p>There should also, he wrote, be “enhanced penalties for overstaying a visa.”</p>
<p>“Millions of people come to the United States on temporary visas but refuse to leave, without consequence,” Trump wrote. “This is a threat to national security. Individuals who refuse to leave at the time their visa expires should be subject to criminal penalties; this will also help give local jurisdictions the power to hold visa overstays until federal authorities arrive. Completion of a visa tracking system – required by law but blocked by lobbyists – will be necessary as well.”</p>
<p>In addition to that, Trump believes that the federal law enforcement should work alongside local law enforcement’s “gang task forces” to eliminate crime.</p>
<p>“ICE officers should accompany local police departments conducting raids of violent street gangs like MS-13 and the 18th street gang, which have terrorized the country,” Trump wrote citing news reports about the illegal alien gangs. “All illegal aliens in gangs should be apprehended and deported. Again, quoting Chris Crane: ‘ICE Officers and Agents are forced to apply the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Directive, not to children in schools, but to adult inmates in jails. If an illegal-alien inmate simply claims eligibility, ICE is forced to release the alien back into the community. This includes serious criminals who have committed felonies, who have assaulted officers, and who prey on children…ICE officers should be required to place detainers on every illegal alien they encounter in jails and prisons, since these aliens not only violated immigration laws, but then went on to engage in activities that led to their arrest by police; ICE officers should be required to issue Notices to Appear to all illegal aliens with criminal convictions, DUI convictions, or a gang affiliation; ICE should be working with any state or local drug or gang task force that asks for such assistance.’”</p>
<p>In addition to all of that, Trump laid out how he would build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico —and how he would make Mexico pay for it.</p>
<p>“For many years, Mexico’s leaders have been taking advantage of the United States by using illegal immigration to export the crime and poverty in their own country (as well is in other Latin American countries),” Trump wrote. “They have even published pamphlets on how to illegally immigrate to the United States. The costs for the United States have been extraordinary: U.S. taxpayers have been asked to pick up hundreds of billions in healthcare costs, housing costs, education costs, welfare costs, etc. Indeed, the annual cost of free tax credits alone paid to illegal immigrants quadrupled to $4.2 billion in 2011. The effects on jobseekers have also been disastrous, and black Americans have been particularly harmed.”</p>
<p>He noted that the impact from crime by illegal aliens has been “tragic,” yet the government of Mexico profits off U.S. incompetence.</p>
<p>“In recent weeks, the headlines have been covered with cases of criminals who crossed our border illegally only to go on to commit horrific crimes against Americans,” Trump wrote. “Most recently, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, with a long arrest record, is charged with breaking into a 64 year-old women’s home, crushing her skull and eye sockets with a hammer, raping her, and murdering her. The Police Chief in Santa Maria says the ‘blood trail’ leads straight to Washington. In 2011, the Government Accountability Office found that there were a shocking 3 million arrests attached to the incarcerated alien population, including tens of thousands of violent beatings, rapes and murders. Meanwhile, Mexico continues to make billions on not only our bad trade deals but also relies heavily on the billions of dollars in remittances sent from illegal immigrants in the United States back to Mexico ($22 billion in 2013 alone).”</p>
<p>That means, Trump wrote, that Mexico’s government “has taken the United States to the cleaners” and that “they are responsible for this problem, and they must help pay to clean it up.”</p>
<p>“The cost of building a permanent border wall pales mightily in comparison to what American taxpayers spend every single year on dealing with the fallout of illegal immigration on their communities, schools and unemployment offices,” Trump wrote. “Mexico must pay for the wall and, until they do, the United States will, among other things: impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing cards – of which we issue about 1 million to Mexican nationals each year (a major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of entry to the United States from Mexico [Tariffs and foreign aid cuts are also options]. We will not be taken advantage of anymore.”</p>
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<p><span> </span><a rel="nofollow" class="byauthor" href="http://www.breitbart.com/author/matthew-boyle/">MATTHEW BOYLE</a></p>
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