SAN DIEGO ATTEMPTS TO BAN TERM ‘FOUNDING FATHERS’ DUE TO ‘GENDER BIAS’

Adan Salazar | Infowars - FEBRUARY 10, 2016

A memo intended for San Diego city employees attempted to bar them from saying the words “Founding Fathers” because of the “gender bias” the term allegedly implies.

Entitled, “Visual and Correspondence Style Guidelines,” the memo sought to implement speech restrictions banning employees from uttering everyday terms like “manmade” and “mankind” on the basis that such terms exhibit “non-inclusive language.”

“Most alarmingly,” reads a press release from the Pacific Justice Institute, “is the guidelines directive, on page 76, that City employees should refrain from mentioning those to whom owe our most fundamental freedoms, the Founding Fathers.”

The legal organization has offered free help for any city employee that is reprimanded for referring to Thomas Jefferson, George Washington or any of the men that shaped the nation’s history.

“The manual’s inane attempt to recast the fathers as simply the ‘Founders’ reaches a level of political correctness, censorship and insensitivity towards time-honored American values that is indefensible,” the press release reads.

Evidently San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer was unaware of the manual’s “gender inclusive” efforts until recently.

In a tweet sent today, he stated he had already ordered the manual removed from city use, citing it as an example of how political correctness has gone wild.

“Suggesting that our Founding Fathers should be referred to as ‘Founders’ is political correctness run-amuck. We are proud of our nation’s history and there is nothing wrong with referring to the Founding Fathers,” Faulconer said.

“At my direction this was removed yesterday from the City’s correspondence manual. The manual will be reviewed for other misguided examples that defy common sense and changes will be made accordingly.”

Indeed, the case is illustrative of how political correctness can grow so out of proportion that it begins to directly infringe on civil liberties.

Cities such as Seattle have similarly moved to ban words like “citizen” and “brown bag” on the basis that such words are offensive. In Ontario, Canada,France and other places, the words “mother” and “father” have even been removed from government forms in the name of inclusiveness.

California grants driver's licenses to 605,000 undocumented

Yahoo News | February 9, 2016

(AFP Photo/David McNew)

Los Angeles (AFP) - Some 605,000 undocumented immigrants who live in California were granted driver's licenses in 2015, the first year they have been able to enjoy that benefit, officials said Monday.

The law known as AB60 took effect on January 2, 2015. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) expects a total of about 1.4 million people will get their license under the law by late 2017.

Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed the law in October 2013 to give a legal document to the 2.5 million undocumented immigrants in California alone -- most from Latin America and particularly neighboring Mexico.

California officials believe the program -- which does not give license holders any US federal benefits -- does make roads in the most populous US state safer, several state sources said.

It does not allow license holders, for example, the right to fly on airplanes inside the United States, nor does it give anyone legal residency status, the right to work or to seek a US passport.

But among the upsides are that California drivers with the document can drive legally across the entire vast United States, without being fined or facing fear of having their vehicle impounded.

"If you can approve policies that integrate immigrants, I think it's a win-win for all people in a big state like California," said Luis Alejo, a California Assembly Member and author of the bill.

A total of 12 of the 50 US states plus the federal capital Washington have similar driver's license laws for undocumented immigrants.

Obama administration is starting in L.A. to help immigrants become citizens

LA Times | Sarah D. Wire | January 29, 2016

Obama administration officials are scheduled to meet in Los Angeles on Friday with Mayor Eric Garcetti, local nonprofits and business owners to discuss ways to encourage immigrants to become U.S. citizens.

The meeting is part of a multi-city tour by the White House’s Task Force on New Americans, which the administration previewed in a call with reporters Thursday.

Senior Deputy Director in the White House Office of Public Engagement Julie Chavez Rodriguez said Friday’s meeting will allow federal officials and members of Garcetti’s staff to coordinate with local leaders in business, nonprofit and community organizations.
Starting in California is a perfect kickoff from our perspective.- Julie Chavez Rodriguez, White House Office of Public Engagement

“Starting in California is a perfect kickoff from our perspective,” she said.

In recent years California has moved repeatedly to provide rights, benefits and protections to immigrants in the country illegally, including in-state tuition, driver's licenses, rules to limit deportations and state-funded healthcare for children.

Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose have signed on to participate in the task force, as have cities in 25 other states.

Rodriguez praised several California efforts, including the partnership between U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Los Angeles Public Library system to create “citizenship corners” at every branch and hold citizenship classes, increased funding for citizenship and naturalization services by the Napa Valley Community Foundation, and targeting of individuals eligible for naturalization and connecting them with resources in San Francisco.

Garcetti said Step Forward LA, a program created in 2015 that helps people determine whether they are eligible to become citizens and prepares them for the citizenship test, has helped 45,000 people.

He said there are an estimated 350,000 legal permanent residents in Los Angeles alone who are eligible to apply for citizenship but haven’t. In the greater area, the number soars to 750,000.

“This isn’t an abstraction for us. It isn’t an abstraction for me,” Garcetti said.

Joining the White House’s effort is former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, who became a U.S. citizen in July. He said he wants people to know there are resources available to assist people starting the process and to help integrate new citizens.

“I am excited to vote in my first presidential election,” he said.

According to Garcetti’s office, attendees of the closed-door meeting will include the mayor, Special Assistant to the President for Immigration Policy Felicia Escobar, Chief of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs Linda Lopez, and USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration Director Manuel Pastor.

Speakers include members of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Refugee Forum of Los Angeles, California Endowment, Univision, Asian Americans Advancing Justice of Los Angeles, and the Youth Policy Institute.

20 Dead, 200 Hospitalized After Reports US Lab "Leaks" Deadly Virus In Ukraine

Zero Hedge | by Tyler Durden on 01/25/2016 11:51

Amid the so-called "ceasefire" in Ukraine, yet ongoing shelling in many regions, the Donbass news agency reports that more than 20 Ukrainian solders have died and over 200 soldiers are hospitalized after an apparent leak of a deadly virus called "California Flu" from a US lab near the city of Kharkov.

As Donbass News International reports,

More than 20 Ukrainian soldiers have died and over 200 soldiers are hospitalized in a short period of time because of new and deadly virus, which is immune to all medicines. Donetsk People's Republic intelligence has reported that Californian Flu is leaked from the same place where research of this virus has been carried out.

The laboratory is located near the city of Kharkov and its base for US military experts.

Information from threatening epidemic is announced by Vice-Commander of Donetsk Army, Eduard Basurin.

Leak of deadly virus in Ukrainian side was published first time on 12.1.2016:

"According to the medical personnel of the AFU units (Ukrainian troops) there were recorded mass diseases among the Ukrainian military personnel in the field. Physicians recorded the unknown virus as a result of which the infected get the high fever which cannot be subdues by any medicines, and in two days there comes the fatal outcome. Thus far from the virus there have died more than twenty servicemen, what is carefully shielded by the commandment of the AFU from the publicity", said Basurin in daily MoD situation report.

Outbreak of deadly virus continues and Friday 22.1.2016 Vice-Commander told new information from epidemic:

"We keep registering new facts of growing the epidemics of acute respiratory infections among the Ukrainian military.

Just since the beginning of this week more than 200 Ukrainian military have been taken to civil and military hospitals of Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk. It is important to repeat that the DPR intelligence previously reported the research being carried out in a private laboratory in the locality Shelkostantsiya, 30 km away from the city of Kharkov, and involving US military experts. According to our information, it is there where the deadly Californian flu strain leaked from," Basurin said.

It appears it is not just military that is affected, as Radio Free Europe reports a flu epidemic is sweeping through the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk -- and the conflict smoldering nearby is making the situation even worse.Doctors are unable to identify the exact strain of the virus, because the laboratory they need is across the front lines in separatist-controlled Donetsk