Scalia Found Dead With Pillow Over His Face

My San Antonio | By John MacCormack | February 15, 2016

MARFA — A first-time guest to the Cibolo Creek Creek Ranch, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was animated and engaged during dinner Friday night, as one of three dozen invitees to an event that had nothing to do with law or politics, according to the ranch owner.

Just hours later, he would be found dead of apparent natural causes, which media outlets were reporting Sunday was a heart attack.

"He was seated near me and I had a chance to observe him. He was very entertaining. But about 9 p.m. he said, 'it's been a long day and a long week, I want to get some sleep," recalled Houston businessman John Poindexter, who owns the 30,000-acre luxury ranch.

When Poindexter tried to awaken Scalia about 8:30 the next morning, the judge's door was locked and he did not answer. Three hours later, Poindexter returned after an outing, with a friend of Scalia who had come from Washington with him.

"We discovered the judge in bed, a pillow over his head. His bed clothes were unwrinkled," said Poindexter.

"He was lying very restfully. It looked like he had not quite awakened from a nap," he said.
Scalia,79, did not have a pulse and his body was cold, and after consulting with a doctor at a hospital in Alpine, Poindexter concluded resuscitation would have been futile, He then contacted federal authorities, at first encountering a series of answering services because he was calling on a weekend.

"Ultimately they became available and handled it t superbly. They flew in by helicopter. They told me to secure the ranch, which I did until this morning," he said.

Scalia was just the latest newsworthy guest to visit the celebrity hideaway that covers 30,000 acres near the Chinati Mountains. Mick Jagger, Julia Roberts and Tommy Lee Jones have also partaken of its scenic vistas and luxury accomodations.

Established in 1857 by Milton Faver, known as the first Texas cattle baron west of the Pecos, the ranch retains 19th Century constructions, including "El Fortin de Cibolo," a primitive fort designed to protect settlers from Apaches.

In a special guest package offered last month, rooms went for $545 to $565 a night for two people, with a meal package and ranch tour included. Other activities include hiking, horseback riding, bird-watching and ATV tours.

Scalia, who was scheduled to return to Washington on Sunday, had little time to avail himself of the ranch's offerings. Poindexter said he had only met Scalia once before briefly, in Washington. Scalia came to the ranch because he was friends another guest.
Poindexter said he knew the other guests.

"All the guests were friends of mine, I paid for all of them. There were no politics, no jurisprudence in the slightest," he said.

"This was strictly a group of friends that the judge decided to join. He was coming with his son who had to drop out for reasons I don't' know.

"It was an honor to have him. He was widely admired. There were no speeches. He wasn't asked any hard questions, it was all about the outdoors and Texas, and what it's like to being a Supreme Court Justice," he said.

Scalia's personal financial disclosures show no previous trips to the ranch. The disclosures, posted on OpenSecrets.Org show that the justice made several trips to Texas since 2005 to speak at colleges and universities, including St. Mary's University in 2008.

Poindexter, 71, said Scalia's sudden death was both a "personal tragedy" for those at the ranch, and for the nation.

"All of us here saw him as a stalwart defender of our way of life in Texas, in a real sense," he said.
"It's a great loss. Having made that statement, if it was his time to go, he was surrounded by friends, in fairly nice setting, with a full tummy too. He said he was very happy to be invited so it could have been in worse circumstances," he said.

"It's caused all of us here to stop and think about life, how precious it is, and how it is so unexpectedly lost," he added.

The body of the Supreme Court justice was moved to an El Paso funeral home early Sunday.
The body was driven from Marfa and arrived around 2:30 a.m. at Sunset Funeral Homes, according to spokesman Chris Lujan.

Lujan said the funeral home was chosen by family of the justice, and at the advice of a family friend.

The El Paso County medical examiner's office said they hadn't received any information regarding the possibility of performing an autopsy.

Staff Writer David Saleh Rauf contributed to this report

FEDS PUSH NEW PLAN FOR HOME VISITS TO CHECK ON PARENTS

Paul Joseph Watson | Infowars | FEBRUARY 12, 2016

The federal government is seeking to create a new bureaucracy that would intervene in family life and could even see state-appointed monitors conduct routine home visits to assess a child’s well-being.

The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has published a draft document which outlines a plan that will treat families as “equal partners” in the raising of children, opening the door for government intrusion at all levels.

The paper describes how government employees will intervene to provide, “monitoring goals for the children at home and the classroom,” and that if parents are failing to meet the standards set, “evidence-based parenting interventions” will be made to, “ensure that children’s social-emotional and behavioral needs are met.”

The document reveals how the state will help oversee, “constant monitoring and communication regarding children’s social-emotional and behavioral health.”

The program bears the hallmarks of a controversial scheme in Scotland, set to take effect later this year, under which a “shadow parent” appointed by the government would monitor the upbringing of every child until the age of 18.

“The document argues that Big Brother needs to know about essentially everything, for the supposed benefit of the child it wants to “partner” in caring for,” writes Alex Newman. “Citing “research,” the policy statement claims that “the institutions where children learn cannot ignore family wellness if they want to … fulfill their mission to prepare children for school and academic success.” In other words, every aspect of family life is now fair game under the pretext of checking “family wellness.”

The document also extends the understanding of the word “family,” to include, “all the people who play a role in the child’s life,” a definition that could include not only teachers but government monitors.

In a related development, the federal government is pushing for a task force to oversee a program under which pediatricians and doctors would, “screen all students over 12 years old regularly for depression and issue prescriptions or treatment as necessary.”

The program would increase the likelihood of teenagers being given dangerous antidepressant drugs such as Prozac and Lexapro.

The idea of children belonging not just to their parents but to a “community” that involves the state is a common theme of collectivist thinking.

That notion was promoted in the video below from 2013 featuring MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry, in which she asserted, “We have to break through our private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families.”

FBI surrounds 4 remaining Oregon occupiers with armored vehicles

RT - FEBRUARY 11, 2016

Members of the FBI man an entry as Harney County residents protest the FBI's presence at the Burns Municipal Airport in Burns, Oregon © Jim Urquhart / Reuters

The FBI has surrounded the four remaining protesters occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, local media reported.

According to the Oregonian, the FBI has placed armored vehicles around the area where the occupiers are located.

“At this time, the FBI has moved to contain the remaining occupiers by placing agents at barricades both immediately in front of and behind the area where the occupiers are camping."

"Negotiations between the occupiers and the FBI continue. No shots have been fired,” the FBI said in the statement.

The FBI stated that the situation began when one of the remaining protesters had ridden an ATV beyond the barricades set up by the occupiers. The individual was spotted by the FBI, but as agents tried to approach the driver, he turned around and sped back to the refuge.

Those remaining at the refuge have been identified as David Fry, Jeff Banta, and Sean and Sandy Anderson, who are husband and wife.

The move by the FBI came on the 40th day of the Malheur occupation. It began when a group of armed ranchers and protesters took over the refuge headquarters to protest federal land management and express their anger over the arson convictions of two other ranchers under an anti-terror law.

In an audio live-stream of the standoff posted by activist Gavin Seim on YouTube, the occupiers debated how to proceed. The protesters invoked the Constitution numerous times and held prayers, while worrying over the possibility of the situation coming to a violent end.

READ MORE: Oregon grand jury indicts 16 wildlife refuge occupiers – prosecutors

“They killed LaVoy!” a protester said multiple times, referring to rancher LaVoy Finicum, who was fatally shot during a roadside confrontation between law enforcement and the occupiers.

That confrontation also led to the arrest of multiple protesters, including leader Ammon Bundy.

US intelligence chief: we might use the internet of things to spy on you

The Guardian | Spencer Ackerman and Sam Thielman | 9 February 2016 16.51 EST

The US intelligence chief has acknowledged for the first time that agencies might use a new generation of smart household devices to increase their surveillance capabilities.

As increasing numbers of devices connect to the internet and to one another, the so-called internet of things promises consumers increased convenience – the remotely operated thermostat from Google-owned Nest is a leading example. But as home computing migrates away from the laptop, the tablet and the smartphone, experts warn that the security features on the coming wave of automobiles, dishwashers and alarm systems lag far behind.

The government just admitted it will use smart home devices for spying.

In an appearance at a Washington thinktank last month, the director of the National Security Agency, Adm Michael Rogers, said that it was time to consider making the home devices “more defensible”, but did not address the opportunities that increased numbers and even categories of connected devices provide to his surveillance agency.

However, James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, was more direct in testimony submitted to the Senate on Tuesday as part of an assessment of threats facing the United States.

“In the future, intelligence services might use the [internet of things] for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials,” Clapper said.

Clapper did not specifically name any intelligence agency as involved in household-device surveillance. But security experts examining the internet of things take as a given that the US and other surveillance services will intercept the signals the newly networked devices emit, much as they do with those from cellphones. Amateurs are already interested in easily compromised hardware; computer programmer John Matherly’s search engine Shodan indexes thousands of completely unsecured web-connected devices.

Online threats again topped the intelligence chief’s list of “worldwide threats” the US faces, with the mutating threat of low-intensity terrorism quickly following. While Clapper has for years used the equivocal term “evolving” when asked about the scope of the threat, he said Tuesday that Sunni violent extremism “has more groups, members, and safe havens than at any other point in history”.


The Islamic State topped the threat index, but Clapper also warned that the US-backed Saudi war in Yemen was redounding to the benefit of al-Qaida’s local affiliate.

Domestically, “homegrown extremists” are the greatest terrorist threat, rather than Islamic State or al-Qaida attacks planned from overseas. Clapper cited the San Bernardino and Chattanooga shootings as examples of lethal operations emanating from self-starting extremists “without direct guidance from [Isis] leadership”.

US intelligence officials did not foresee Isis suffering significant setbacks in 2016 despite a war in Syria and Iraq that the Pentagon has pledged to escalate. The chief of defense intelligence, Marine Lt Gen Vincent Stewart, said the jihadist army would “probably retain Sunni Arab urban centers” in 2016, even as military leaders pledged to wrest the key cities of Raqqa and Mosul from it.

Contradicting the US defense secretary, Ashton Carter, Stewart said he was “less optimistic in the near term about Mosul”, saying the US and Iraqi government would “certainly not” retake it in 2016.

The negative outlook comes as Carter traveled on Tuesday to meet with his fellow defense chiefs in Brussels for a discussion on increasing their contributions against Isis.

On the Iran nuclear deal, Clapper said intelligence agencies were in a “distrust and verify mode”, but added: “We have no evidence thus far that they’re moving toward violation.”

Clapper’s admission about the surveillance potential for networked home devices is rare for a US official. But in an overlooked 2012 speech, the then CIA director David Petraeus called the surveillance implications of the internet of things “transformational … particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft”.

During testimony to both the Senate armed services committee and the intelligence panel, Clapper cited Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and the Islamic State as bolstering their online espionage, disinformation, theft, propaganda and data-destruction capabilities. He warned that the US’s ability to correctly attribute the culprits of those actions would probably diminish with “improving offensive tradecraft, the use of proxies, and the creation of cover organizations”.

Clapper suggested that US adversaries had overtaken its online capabilities: “Russia and China continue to have the most sophisticated cyber programs.”

The White House’s new cybersecurity initiative, unveiled on Tuesday, pledged increased security for nontraditional networked home devices. It tasked the Department of Homeland Security to “test and certify networked devices within the ‘Internet of Things’.” It did not discuss any tension between the US’s twin cybersecurity and surveillance priorities.

Connected household devices are a potential treasure trove to intelligence agencies seeking unobtrusive ways to listen and watch a target, according to a study that Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society released last week. The study found that the signals explosion represented by the internet of things would overwhelm any privacy benefits by users of commercial encryption – even as Clapper in his testimony again alleged that the growth of encryption was having a “negative effect on intelligence gathering”.

The report’s authors cited a 2001 case in which the FBI had sought to compel a company that makes emergency communications hardware for automobiles – similar by description to OnStar, though the company was not named – to assist agents in Nevada in listening in on conversations in a client’s car.

In February 2015, news reports revealed that microphones on Samsung “smart” televisions were “always on” so as to receive any audio that it could interpret as an instruction.

“Law enforcement or intelligence agencies may start to seek orders compelling Samsung, Google, Mattel, Nest or vendors of other networked devices to push an update or flip a digital switch to intercept the ambient communications of a target,” the authors wrote.

DOCUMENTS: OBAMA HAS SPENT $74 MILLION IN TAXPAYER DOLLARS ON HOLIDAYS

Steve Watson | Infowars - FEBRUARY 5, 2016

The Obama family has wracked up a bill of $74 million, charged to the taxpayer, in vacations since taking office, according to recently obtained records.

The watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit to find out how much money the first family has spent on luxury getaways since Obama took office.

Documents, obtained after Freedom of Information Act requests were ignored, reveal that the total figure is at least $74,124,562.48.

“Now that we’ve sued, the Secret Service has stopped ignoring our requests for details on more of the costs of Barack Obama’s luxury vacations,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said on Wednesday.

The records show that just two of the most recent Obama family vacations cost taxpayers more than $5 million dollars.

Secret service accommodations alone for the 2014 Martha’s Vineyard and Honolulu vacations cost taxpayers $1,243,057.

“Taxpayers, the U.S. Air Force and the Secret Service are being abused by Barack Obama, who too often treats Air Force One and his security detail like some of sort of kingly entourage.” Fitton noted.

“Does Barack Obama really think that over $5 million for two family vacations, which include nearly $1 million in Secret Service hotel bills for a two week Martha’s Vineyard vacation, is an appropriate use of tax dollars?” the Judicial Watch President urged.

The group highlighted that in Martha’s Vineyard, the Obama family booked out a “plush, secluded seven-bedroom, nine-bath, 8,100-square-foot house in the exclusive Chilmark neighborhood.”

An earlier day trip to New York, just to “hang out with his girls” was said to have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In October, Judicial Watch revealed that in just two months the President spent close to $4.5 million on golfing and fundraising trips.

The documents showed that:

Obama’s February 14, 2015, golf outing to Palm Springs required a five-hour flight, costing taxpayers a total of $1,031,685.
Transportation for Obama’s February 19 day trip to Chicago cost taxpayers $619,011.00.
Transportation for Obama’s March 2015 fundraising trip to Los Angeles cost taxpayers $1,980,835.20.
Obama’s March 28, 2015, golf outing to Palm city required a 3.9-hour flight, costing taxpayers $804,870.30.

The two golf outings alone cost taxpayers $1,836,555 in travel expenses. Obama played a total of five rounds of golf, equating to a cost of $20,406 per hole.









—————————————————————-

Steve Watson is a London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com.

Obama Urges Congress to Approve TPP ‘This Year’; Leading Presidential Candidates Oppose It

CNS News | By Patrick Goodenough | February 4, 2016 | 4:17 AM EST

After trade ministers from the U.S. and 11 other countries on either side of the Pacific on Thursday signed one of the biggest trade deals in history, President Obama called on Republicans and Democrats to approve it “this year.”

Obama said in a statement he would “continue working with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to enact it [the Trans-Pacific Partnership] into law as soon as possible so our economy can immediately start benefiting from the tens of billions of dollars in new export opportunities.”

“We should get TPP done this year and give more American workers the shot at success they deserve and help more American businesses compete and win around the world,” he said.

Obama clearly has the November election in mind: Leading candidates in both parties oppose the TPP while the deal has supporters and critics on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

America’s 11 partners in the TPP, which has been under negotiation for five years, are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. All 12 countries must now ratify it.

At the signing ceremony in Auckland, New Zealand, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman expressed confidence that Congress would approve the deal.

“We are working with members of Congress, working with the leadership of Congress, educating everybody as to what’s in the agreement, addressing their questions and concerns,” he said.

“And I’m confident that at the end of the day, because of the strong benefits to the U.S. economy – which have been estimated to be over $130 billion a year in GDP growth, as well as more than $350 billion in additional exports – that members of Congress will see the benefits for their constituents and we’ll have the necessary bipartisan support to be approved,” Froman said.


Democratic primary frontrunner Hillary Clinton moved from backing the TPP while secretary of state – saying in 2012 that it set “the gold standard in trade agreements” – to rejecting it last July.

Her socialist opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, pledged last October to “lead the effort to defeat” the TPP.

Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has called the TPP “a horrible deal,”charging during a Fox Business Network debate last November that it was “designed for China to come in, as they always do, through the back door and totally take advantage of everyone.”

(Sen. Rand Paul accused Trump of mistakenly saying China was a TPP member although Trump did not exactly do so; TPP critics have warned that China may later join the original 12 members. Nonetheless, Politifact ratedTrump’s statement untrue.)

Among the other GOP candidates, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has been most supportive of the trade deal.

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida voted last June in favor of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), giving the president “fast track” authority to negotiate agreements like the TPP. Later in the year he declared himself “generally very much in favor of free trade” but said he would need to understand the details of the TPP “before we can commit to voting for something. But generally, it’s very positive.”

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas voted against the TPA. After not taking a position in favor or against the TPP for months, he said in Iowa in November that he would vote against the trade pact.

Among others in the GOP pack, the TPP has the support of neurosurgeonBen Carson (“with reservations”) and of Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who has called it “critical.”

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina last June voiced skepticism about the TPP, and also cited concerns that China could join later.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is on the record as saying he generally believes in free trade but that he has “real concerns about this president’s ability to negotiate anything that represents a great deal for America.”

THE TRUTH BEHIND FEDERAL LAND GRABS

David Knight & Kit Daniels | Infowars - FEBRUARY 3, 2016

IMAGE CREDIT: PUBLIC DOMAIN

Is the federal government so desperate to monopolize land that it’s literally burning down the forests they are supposed to manage?

Infowars interviewed Oregon logger Tad Houpt, with the Grant Co. Forest Commission, who had organized the meeting where Ammon Bundy, LaVoy Finicum and others were going to speak to 400 people and the Grant Co. Sheriff before Finicum was killed by the FBI and the other speakers were arrested.

“This last summer we had the biggest fire we’ve ever had here, 110,000 acres,” Houpt said. “I was one of the people who got burned out; close to 50 homes burnt.”

He believes this happened because the forests managed by the U.S. Forest Service are “a disaster.”

Houpt also mentioned there were “about 2 tons [per acre] of light fuels [dead trees & other organic matter] on the ground are known to be acceptable and the live trees will withstand the fire,” but he added that “some areas of the federally managed lands exceed 500 tons per acre of fuel on the ground,” i.e. 250 times the safe limit.

“I’m telling you this is intentional,” he said. “If a jet liner crashes there’s an immediate investigation into what caused that jet liner’s crash.”

“These fires are happening all over the western U.S. and there’s no investigation, they don’t even want to talk about what’s causing them and it’s their policies [that] are 100% causing these fires.”

And perpetuating the fire dangers and the resulting economic hardships are the BLM’s arbitrary rules, such as the ban on cutting trees greater than 21 inches in diameter — even if a tree is burned and dead.

Instead of providing lumber and livelihood for loggers, dead trees greater than 21 inches in diameter will be allowed to remain, increasing the fuel on the ground and the danger and intensity of future fires.

This is all part of Agenda 21, which is intended to force people out of rural areas and into large cities where they can be easily taxed and controlled.

Signed in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush and later phased in by President Bill Clinton, the United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development program is based on communitarianism, which calls for government to eventually take control of all land use without leaving any decision making in the hands of private property owners.

“It is assumed that people are not good stewards of their land and the government will do a better job if they are in control,” Agenda 21 expert Rosa Koire wrote, who is a Californian Democrat and the author of Behind The Green Mask: U.N. Agenda 21. “Individual rights in general are to give way to the needs of communities as determined by the governing body.”

And if you already live in an urban area, you may already be familiar with some key aspects of Agenda 21:

– The accelerated implementation of toll roads, especially toll roads that discourage driving by increasing prices for traveling alone or for driving in “congested” areas

– The development of expensive and inefficient public rail systems in cities in order to increase centralized government control while also reducing the use of private transportation

– Utilities monitored by “Smart Meters” which can be controlled remotely by public utility companies

– The purposeful lack of easy freeway access in cities so residents remain close to their neighborhoods

Another good example of how Agenda 21 is currently being implemented is to look at the mass construction of “mixed use” condos which feature retail stores on the ground floor with several residential floors above.

These buildings are designed to restrict people from traveling by placing businesses within walking distance – and, interestingly, medieval serfs were likewise not able to travel long distances.

And, despite being fiction, the megacities in the comic series Judge Dredd feature many planned aspects of Agenda 21, a scary scenario even if real cities never completely match these fictional counterparts.

The overall intent of Agenda 21 is to expand government power at the expense of individual liberties by moving the population out of rural areas and packing them into major cities where they are more dependent on city infrastructure controlled by the government.

While Agenda 21 proponents constantly harp that the program is “voluntary,” it is a moot point when so many cities are already implementing Agenda 21 which clearly benefits the government at the expense of its citizens.

“The plan is to restrict your choices, limit your funds, narrow your freedoms and take away your voice,” Koire added.

U.S. eyes ways to toughen fight against domestic extremists

Reuters | By Julia Harte, Julia Edwards and Andy Sullivan | February 4, 2016

Department of Justice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is considering legal changes to combat what it sees as a rising threat from domestic anti-government extremists, senior officials told Reuters, even as it steps up efforts to stop Islamic State-inspired attacks at home.

Extremist groups motivated by a range of U.S.-born philosophies present a "clear and present danger," John Carlin, the Justice Department's chief of national security, told Reuters in an interview. “Based on recent reports and the cases we are seeing, it seems like we’re in a heightened environment.”

Over the past year, the Justice Department has brought charges against domestic extremist suspects accused of attempting to bomb U.S. military bases, kill police officers and fire bomb a school and other buildings in a predominantly Muslim town in New York state.

But federal prosecutors tackling domestic extremists still lack an important legal tool they have used extensively in dozens of prosecutions against Islamic State-inspired suspects: a law that prohibits supporting designated terrorist groups.

Carlin and other Justice Department officials declined to say if they would ask Congress for a comparable domestic extremist statute, or comment on what other changes they might pursue to toughen the fight against anti-government extremists.

The U.S. State Department designates international terrorist organizations to which it is illegal to provide "material support." No domestic groups have that designation, helping to create a disparity in charges faced by international extremist suspects compared to domestic ones.

A Reuters analysis of more than 100 federal cases found that domestic terrorism suspects collectively have faced less severe charges than those accused of acting on behalf of Islamic State since prosecutors began targeting that group in early 2014.

Over the past two years, 27 defendants have been charged with plotting or inciting attacks within the United States in the name of Islamic State. They have faced charges that carried a median prison sentence of 53 years - half of the defendants faced more, and half faced less.

In the same period, 27 adherents of U.S.-based anti-government ideologies have been charged with similar activity. They faced charges that carried a median prison sentence of 20 years.

Carlin said his counter-terrorism team, including a recently hired counsel, is taking a “thoughtful look at the nature and scope of the domestic terrorism threat” and helping to analyze “potential legal improvements and enhancements to better combat those threats.”

The counsel, who was appointed last October and has not been named publicly, will identify cases being prosecuted at the state level that “could arguably meet the federal definition of domestic terrorism," a Justice Department official said.

That would give the department a direct role in more domestic extremism cases.

Recognizing that domestic threats were “rapidly evolving, and had the potential to grow,” the department in March 2015 rated disrupting such terrorists as a key component of its broader counter-terrorism efforts, officials said.

THE THREAT PENDULUM

The Justice Department aggressively pursued domestic extremists after Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.

The government shifted its focus to international terrorism after al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.

But in recent years anti-government activists, like those who occupied a wildlife preserve in eastern Oregon last month, have regained prominence.

As law enforcement experts confront domestic militia groups, "sovereign citizens" who do not recognize government authority, and other anti-government extremists, they also face a heightened threat from Islamic extremists like the couple who carried out the Dec. 2 shootings in San Bernardino, California.

"A new development we're seeing is that when it comes to ISIL investigations, the flash-to-bang time from radicalization to action appears to be happening faster than with other types of terrorists," said Michael Steinbach, the head of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division.

As a result, government agents are quick to investigate people who appear sympathetic toward Islamic State, current and former officials say. But some say the government has been overzealous in its pursuit of Islamic State suspects.

Similar actions by extremist suspects have yielded sharply disparate sentences.

Eight Islamic State-related defendants have been sentenced so far, to prison terms that range from three to 20 years, the Reuters review found. Over the same period, 18 domestic extremists have been sentenced to terms from one day to 12 years.

Prosecutors say Harlem Suarez, 23, of Key West, Florida, tried to buy a bomb last year from an undercover FBI agent as he plotted attacks on behalf of Islamic State. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison and has pleaded not guilty.

Michael Sibley, 67, left two unexploded pipe bombs and a Koran in a park in Roswell, Georgia in 2014 in what he later told police was an attempt to highlight the danger of Islamic terrorism. He pleaded guilty and faces a maximum of five years in prison.

"A different standard is being applied to Muslims than to other people," said Daryl Johnson, a former counterterrorism expert at the Department of Homeland Security who now works as a law enforcement consultant.

"SPRING-LOADED"

Steinbach said that the FBI can never open up any type of investigation “just on the basis of race, creed, or religion,”

But he added that federal agents are "spring-loaded" to open investigations into Americans who support groups on the State Department list of designated terrorist organizations.

The maximum penalty for supporting one of these groups has been raised from 10 years to 20 years in prison since 2001.

It has been applied in 58 of the government's 79 Islamic State cases since 2014 against defendants who engaged in a wide range of activity, from traveling to Syria to fight alongside Islamic State to raising money for a friend who wished to do so.

Judges usually issue sentences below the maximum, but some charges trigger sentencing "enhancements" that raise the baseline sentence a judge can issue – and the material support charge raises it more than most.

Domestic groups enjoy greater constitutional protections because being a member of those groups, no matter how extreme their rhetoric, is not a crime.

Prosecutors can bring “material support” terrorism charges against defendants who aren't linked to groups on the State Department's list, but they have only done so twice against non-jihadist suspects since the law was enacted in 1994. The law, which prohibits supporting people who have been deemed to be terrorists by their actions, carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Current and former federal prosecutors say they rarely consider that statute in domestic terrorism cases because it is often hard to convince a jury that someone who is not affiliated with a foreign group can be guilty of terrorism.

William Wilmoth, a former federal prosecutor who invoked that law in a 1996 case against a West Virginia militia member, said he was surprised to hear that it isn't used more often.

"These guys have every right to have off-center political views," he said. "But when they made affirmative steps to blow up an actual federal facility... we thought it was an important place for us to go and prosecute."



(Reporting by Julia Harte, Julia Edwards and Andy Sullivan; editing by Stuart Grudgings)

As Feds Plan to Cut Border Monitoring, Texas Officials Ask Why

The Texas Tribune | by Julián Aguilar | Feb. 1, 2016

A Customs and Border Protection vehicle patrols on the Texas border near the Rio Grande, Thursday, July 24, 2014, in Mission, Texas. Texas is spending $1.3 million a week for a bigger DPS presence along the border.

Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat, pressed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Monday to explain why the agency plans to reduce its aerial surveillance on the Texas-Mexico border.

In a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, the lawmakers said the cut to a requested 3,850 hours of aerial detection and monitoring in 2016 amounts to 50 percent less coverage than recent years.

“Given the recent surge of migrants from Central America and Cuba along the southern border, we believe DHS should request more surveillance and security resources, not fewer,” Abbott and Cuellar wrote in a letter.

The pair also reminded Johnson that in September, Abbott’s office asked the DHS for more aerial resources and U.S. Border Patrol agents but that the request was never acknowledged.

A DHS spokesperson said the agency would respond "directly" to the governor and the congressman.

Monday’s request comes as CBP is reporting a new surge in the number of undocumented immigrants crossing the Rio Grande. From October to December of 2015, about 10,560 unaccompanied minors entered Texas illegally through the Rio Grande Valley sector of the U.S. Border Patrol. That marks a 115 percent increase over the same time frame in 2014. The amount of family units, defined as at least one child and adult guardian or parent, has increased by 170 percent to 14,336 in the Rio Grande Valley.

The El Paso sector also saw 1,030 unaccompanied minors, an increase of almost 300 percent.

In Monday’s letter, the pair also requested a detailed breakdown of how the DHS determined the reduction in aerial surveillance was warranted and information on how staffing and operation levels would be affected.

While Abbott has spoken extensively about illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America, the letter marked the first time Abbott has referenced a recent surge of Cubans coming into Texas.

Abbott visited the island nation last year to explore expanding trade between Cuba and Texas. During that trip, he spoke about the current trade embargo but not the migrant issue.

During the 2015 fiscal year, about 28,400 Cubans entered Texas through U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Laredo field office, which extends from Del Rio to Brownsville. That’s compared to about 15,600 in 2014.

The surge came after the Obama administration announced in 2014 its plans to re-establish ties with Cuba, leaving many Cubans fearing they will lose a special designation that allows them to apply for legal residency status, or a “green card,” after living in the country for a year. Cuellar and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, have called for the repeal of that designation.

Company Developing ‘Tech Tattoos’ So People Can Track Their Medical, Financial Info

CBS | January 29, 2016 11:18 PM





NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Could we soon be carrying all of our medical and financial information on a tattoo?

Software company Chaotic Moon has developed a “tech tattoo” that gets embedded into a person’s arm and can track a person’s financial and medical information.

Eric Schneider, the company’s hardware creative technologist, explained the tattoo can monitor if a person is about to get sick.

“Rather than going to the doctor once a year for your physical, this tech tattoo can be something you put on your body once a year and it monitors everything that they would do in a physical and it sends that to your doctor, and if there’s an issue they can call you,” Schneider said. “So the tech tattoos can really tie in everything into one package. It can look at early signs of fever, your vital signs, heart rate, everything it needs to look at to notify you that you’re getting sick or your child is getting sick.”

The tattoo will transmit this information wirelessly to a mobile app or computer being monitored by their health professionals.

Schneider also said that people would be able to carry their financial information through this tattoo.

“We carry wallets around and they are so vulnerable. With the tech tattoo you can carry all your information on your skin and when you want your credit card information or your ID, you can pull that up automatically through the system,” he said.

The tattoos are made with “electro conductive ink” that contain various sensors, and in some cases tiny microchips. The makers say they will last for up to a year.

Tim Moynihan of Wired Magazine thinks there could be a future with these tech tattoos.

“Twenty percent of Americans, I think, have tattoos so there is a potential market there.” Moynihan told CBS2.

Lance Ulanoff of Mashable called it a “fascinating idea” that could potentially be used to help track missing children or checking up on soldiers in combat.

“Right now they wear suits to try and keep track of all their vitals, and if something goes wrong with the suit then maybe there’s a problem, but if it’s on your skin, they know all the time,” Ulanoff told CBS2.

Cosmetic company L’Oreal is also getting in on the action with a temporary tattoo that can track UV exposure and alert people if they’re in danger of burning.

Official: Some Clinton emails 'too damaging' to release

By Catherine Herridge, Pamela K. Browne | Published January 29, 2016 | FoxNews.com

EXCLUSIVE: The intelligence community has now deemed some of Hillary Clinton’s emails “too damaging" to national security to release under any circumstances, according to a U.S. government official close to the ongoing review. A second source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, backed up the finding. 

The decision to withhold the documents in full, and not provide even a partial release with redactions, further undercuts claims by the State Department and the Clinton campaign that none of the intelligence in the emails was classified when it hit Clinton's personal server.

Fox News is told the emails include intelligence from "special access programs," or SAP, which is considered beyond “Top Secret.” A Jan. 14 letter, first reported by Fox News, from intelligence community Inspector General Charles McCullough III notified senior intelligence and foreign relations committee leaders that "several dozen emails containing classified information” were determined to be “at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, AND TOP SECRET/SAP levels."

The State Department is trying to finish its review and public release of thousands of Clinton emails, as the Democratic presidential primary contests get underway in early February.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, there is an exemption that allows for highly sensitive, and in this case classified, material to be withheld in full -- which means nothing would be released in these cases, not even heavily redacted versions, which has been standard practice with the 1,340 such emails made public so far by the State Department.

According to the Justice Department FOIA website, exemption “B3” allows a carve-out for both the CIA and NSA to withhold "operational files." Similar provisions also apply to other agencies.

Fox News reported Friday that at least one Clinton email contained information identified as "HCS-O," which is the code for intelligence from human spying.

One source, not authorized to speak on the record, suggested the intelligence agencies are operating on the assumption there are more copies of the Clinton emails out there, and even releasing a partial email would provide enough clues to trace back to the original – which could allow the identification of “special access programs” intelligence.

There was no comment to Fox News from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General, or the agency involved. Fox News has chosen not to identify the agency that provided sworn declarations that intelligence beyond Top Secret was found in the Clinton emails.

Reached for comment by Fox News, a State Department official did not dispute that some emails will never be made public.

“We continue to process the next set of former Secretary Clinton’s emails for release under the FOIA process and will have more to say about it later,” the official said. “As always, we take seriously our responsibilities to protect sensitive information.”

The State Department was scheduled to release more Clinton emails Friday, while asking a D.C. federal court for an extension.

FBI investigators looking into the emails are focused on the criminal code pertaining to “gross negligence” in the handling and storage of classified information, and “public corruption.”

“The documents alone in and of themselves set forth a set of compelling, articulable facts that statutes relating to espionage have been violated,” a former senior federal law enforcement officer said. The source said the ongoing investigation along the corruption track “also stems from her tenure of secretary. These charges would be inseparable from the other charges in as much as there is potential for significant overlap and correlation."

Based on federal regulations, once classified information is spilled onto a personal computer or device, as was the case with Clinton and her aides, the hardware is now considered classified at the highest classification level of the materials received.

While criticized by the Clinton campaign, McCullough, an Obama administration appointee, was relaying the conclusion of two intelligence agencies in his letter to Congress that the information was classified when it hit Clinton’s server -- and not his own judgment.

Joseph E. Schmitz, a former inspector general of the Department of Defense, called the attacks on McCullough a “shoot the watchdog” tactic by Clinton’s campaign.

The developments, taken together, show Clinton finding herself once again at the epicenter of a controversy over incomplete records.

During her time as the first female partner at the Rose Law firm in Arkansas during the mid-1980s, she was known as one of the “three amigos” and close with partners Webb Hubbell and Vince Foster. Hubbell ended up a convicted felon for his role in the failure of the corrupt Madison Guaranty, a savings and loan which cost taxpayers more than $65 million. Hubbell embezzled more than a half-million dollars from the firm.

Foster killed himself in Washington, D.C., in July 1993. As Clinton’s partner in the Rose Law firm, he had followed the Clintons into the White House where he served as the Clintons’ personal lawyer and a White House deputy counsel.

Clinton’s missing Rose Law billing records for her work for Guaranty during the mid-1980s were the subject of three intense federal investigations over two years. Those records, in the form of a computerized printout of her work performed on behalf of Guaranty, were discovered under mysterious circumstances in the Book Room of the private White House living quarters.

The discovery of those records was announced during a blizzard in January 1996 by attorney David Kendall, who still represents Hillary Clinton. After Clinton testified before a grand jury, prosecutors concluded there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt she committed perjury or obstruction of justice.

Despite Clinton’s recent public statements about not knowing how the technology works, at least one email suggests she directed a subordinate to work around the rules. In a June 2011 email to aide Jake Sullivan, she instructed him to take what appeared to be classified talking points, and "turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure."

A State Department spokesman could not say whether such a fax was sent.



Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

MYTH BUSTED: ACTUALLY, YES, HITLER WAS A SOCIALIST LIBERAL

Louder With Crowder | COURTNEY KIRCHOFF - JANUARY 29, 2016

IMAGE CREDITS: FLICKR.

A favorite tactic employed by leftists is to describe the Nazis as “right wing,” with Adolf Hitler, their leader, as the grand leader of this “right wing” movement. Rewriting history is pretty common for leftists, as their history is littered with injustice (the KKK was founded by Democrats, did you know?). Injustices they claim to fight against today. Awkward.

But thanks to this nifty thing called “history” in combination with “the internet,” we can bust this myth once and for all. Thoroughly. Or until a leftist insists on ignoring it. Then we’ll hold them down and tape their eyes open. Just kidding, that’s only what a leftist would do.



Adolf Hitler wasn’t “right wing.” If you take nothing else from this post, just remember Hitler was a socialist. With terrible facial hair. There’s an easy way to remember it, too. NAZI stands for National Socialist GermanWorkers‘ Party. Associate it with blunt mustaches.

What does National Socialist German Worker’s Party mean? Glad you asked. Is it different from “Democratic socialism”? Only in semantics. A Democracy is mob rule, which is why America is actually a constitutional, representative republic, NOT a democracy. A representative republic protects the minority from the majority, whereas a democracy is the rule of the majority. Leftists get caught up in words, getting tripped up over “National Socialism” as opposed to “Democrat Socialism.” But it’s just that. Semantics. So when Hitler ginned up hatred for the Jews, he could get the mob to agree with him. He could get the mob to believe him. There were no representatives to stop Hitler. He was one man helming the desperation of a majority of people. Spot the difference?

When we examine Hitler’s Nazi Germany through the lens of history, most, if not all of us, think of the Holocaust. In fact the holocaust might be the only thing we associate with Hitler’s Nazis. We’ve all been told of the Jews being marched off to death camps where they were worked, tortured, then gassed. We’ve also heard of the experiments conducted by Hitler’s Dr. Mengele. All terrible practices which we rightly find horrifying. Unless you’re one of those people who think Planned Parenthood is great.



What we don’t often hear or learn about is how Hitler ruled the rest of Germany, what his domestic policies were for the German people he didn’t march off to death camps. Hitler’s domestic, socialist policies will be the focus of this post. Trigger warning: they’re eerily similar to what American Democrats tout today. Double trigger warning? He initially had the support of the mob of people. So replace many of Hitler’s policies with something you hear from Bernie Sanders…

Brief Historical Background on Hitler…

Germany lost World War I. As such, Germany was in a state of economic and national depression. Not totally unusual for losing a giant war. But the depression was a long, drawn out one (15 years) leaving the German people poor, hungry, desperate, lacking any confidence. Then along came a young man named Adolf Hitler…

Hitler was a powerful and spellbinding speaker who attracted a wide following of Germans desperate for change. He promised the disenchanted a better life and a new and glorious Germany. The Nazis appealed especially to the unemployed, young people, and members of the lower middle class (small store owners, office employees, craftsmen, and farmers).

Human beings may advance technologically, but spiritually? Not so much. In fact I’d contest we rarely learn our lessons when choosing our leaders. Especially charismatic ones. If a man (or woman) can speak eloquently, with confidence, we cannot help but be enthralled. We often follow along, like the town’s children following the pied piper.

Employment for All

After that depression, Hitler made a huge promise to his people: employment for all. How did he do it? Roads and infrastructure:

As Fuhrer, Hitler’s first priority was jobs, or the lack of them. German unemployment had peaked at 6 million due to the Depression devastating the economy. With innovative public works schemes such as the building of autobahns, Hitler put every German back to work. He also advocated schemes such as KdF – Strength Through Joy – which gave workers increased benefits for increased levels of production. This policy was popular and increasingly with the proletariat who had seen their country decimated by the depression…

By putting people back to work and making huge public spending, inflation was bound to happen. However, Hitler kept this under control by not allowing wages to rise with prices. This may have been one unpopular aspect of Hitler’s economic policy but there were many that the people supported.

So Hitler created jobs…through government. While at the same time, he criticized certain segments of the population, demeaning them, blaming the countries woes upon them. The rich, they just ruin everything. Sound familiar?

Big Education

If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch WW2 Surivor’s Account Draws Chilling Similarities between Nazism and Liberalism.

When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.

Public education, where children are at school all day long, with state-funded and state-sponsored curriculum… convinced yet?

Nationalized Healthcare

Also from the WW2 Surivor’s accounting of Nazism:

After Hitler’s health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.
As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.

Do I really need to write commentary on this one? Really?

Gun Control

Yes, Germany had gun control. It started before Hitler with a national gun registry:

…in the 1920s in the chaos of Germany’s Weimar Republic, which opted for gun registration. Law-abiding persons complied with the law, but the Communists and Nazis committing acts of political violence did not.

Here’s what happened as a result:

In 1931, Weimar authorities discovered plans for a Nazi takeover in which Jews would be denied food and persons refusing to surrender their guns within 24 hours would be executed. They were written by Werner Best, a future Gestapo official. In reaction to such threats, the government authorized the registration of all firearms and the confiscation thereof, if required for “public safety.” The interior minister warned that the records must not fall into the hands of any extremist group.
Finally, Hitler just took the guns from Jews. An armed citizenry is a dangerous one, after all. Hitler even said this about guns in the hands of the people: “The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms.”

In Breslau in 1933, Jews were ordered to “surrender [their] weapons forthwith to the police authorities” on the basis that “Jewish citizens have allegedly used their weapons for unlawful attacks on members of the Nazi organization and the police.” This was a regular occurrence all over Germany until the Waffengesetz of 1938, which effectively banned Jewish firearm ownership in all of Germany (though this had been something of a reality for a while, as in 1935 the Gestapo had ordered no weapons permits to be issued to Jews without the approval of the Gestapo itself).

So excuse us Second Amendment supporters when we here Obama, Sanders and Clinton talking about regulating guns more than they’re regulated today. Call us paranoid. We’ll keep our guns.

Abortion

The great sacrament of the left, abortion. You’ll be pleased to know that Hitler was pro-choice:


Dr. Tessa Chelouche goes on to quote Hitler’s 1942 policy statement on the application of abortion to Slavic people, which is chillingly similar to modern Planned Parenthood propaganda:

“In view of the large families of the Slav native population, it could only suit us if girls and women there had as many abortions as possible. We are not interested in seeing the non-German population multiply…We must use every means to instill in the population the idea that it is harmful to have several children, the expenses that they cause and the dangerous effect on woman’s health… It will be necessary to open special institutions for abortions and doctors must be able to help out there in case there is any question of this being a breach of their professional ethics.”

Compare the Nazi’s application of abortion to how Planned Parenthood (a government-funded organization) operates. Also read up on Margaret Sanger, who echoed much of Hitler’s sentiment.

Blaming the One Percent Jews

Hitler used the Jews as a scapegoat, blaming them for everything, including economic hardship, even though the Jewish population in Germany was less than one percent…

Jews in Germany made up less than one percent of the German population. But held According to the census of June 1933, the Jewish population of Germany consisted of about 500,000 people. Jews represented less than one percent of the total German population of about 67 million people.

Despite that, Hitler insisted on taking their money…

Nearly 120 billion Reich marks – over £12 billion at the time – was plundered from German Jews by laws and looting.

The official study commissioned by the ministry examined the years from 1933 to 1945. Hans-Peter Ullmann, a Cologne history professor, said the tax authorities under the Nazis actively worked to “destroy Jews financially” and to loot wealth in the nations the Germans occupied.

Even Jews who managed to escape from Germany before the Holocaust had to leave part of their wealth behind in the form of an “exit tax”. Tax laws discriminated against Jews from 1934 onwards.

And boycotting their businesses…

APRIL 1, 1933 NATIONWIDE BOYCOTT OF JEWISH-OWNED BUSINESSES
At 10:00 a.m., members of the Storm Troopers (SA) and SS (the elite guard of the Nazi state) stand in front of Jewish-owned businesses throughout Germany to inform the public that the proprietors of these establishments are Jewish. The word “Jude,” German for “Jew,” is often smeared on store display windows, with a Star of David painted in yellow and black across the doors. Anti-Jewish signs accompany these slogans. In some towns, the SA march through the streets singing anti-Jewish slogans and party songs.

Review: Hitler demeaned the Jews. He blamed the economic and national depression on them. He instituted national boycotts of their business. He then took their money through taxes and outright looting. Hey, maybe they weren’t paying their “fair share.”

The Police State

If you dared oppose the Nazis or Hitler politically, especially with yourwords, you better watch out. The Gestapo was on the hunt for political dissidents, many of whom would simply vanish.

SS chief Heinrich Himmler also turned the regular (nonparty) police forces into an instrument of terror. He helped forge the powerful Secret State Police (Geheime Staatspolizei), or Gestapo; these non-uniformed police used ruthless and cruel methods throughout Germany to identify and arrest political opponents and others who refused to obey laws and policies of the Nazi regime.

Compare the Gestapo with how leftists want to jail people who do not believe in man-made climate change. Compare the Gestapo to the Gaystapo, who fines people who do not agree with gay marriage or the gay lifestyle. Compare the Gestapo to liberal New York, which fines you for not using the right gender pronouns.

In Conclusion

Hitler was a horrible human being. But aside from how he treated the Jews, aside from his monsterous ways, his polcies were anything but “conservative.” He wanted big government, he wanted big eductation, he wanted thought control. He hated political dissidents. He loathed free-speech. He feared an armed citizenry.

So stop saying “Hitler was right-wing.” No, he wasn’t. If anything, he was a full-fledged left-winger. With a horrible mustache.

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.

SANDERS CAMPAIGN WORRIED MICROSOFT APP WILL MISREPRESENT IOWA CAUCUS VOTE

Kurt Nimmo | Infowars - JANUARY 28, 2016

IMAGE SOURCE: INFOWARS.COM

On Wednesday the Bernie Sanders campaign said it is concerned software giant Microsoft will tamper with caucus election vote tallies in Iowa next week.

Microsoft has partnered with both establishment parties and will provide a “mobile-enabled, cloud-based platform that will facilitate accuracy and efficiency of the reporting process,” according to its website.

Under the new system, each Iowa political party will have their own app available on all mobile and PC platforms, which will support the party’s unique caucus voting process. The reporting apps may be used in every precinct in Iowa by both parties. The results will be securely stored and managed in Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform.

“You’d have to ask yourself why they’d want to give something like that away for free,” said Pete D’Alessandro, who is heading up the Sanders campaign in Iowa.

Both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns have built reporting systems based on the Microsoft app.

In addition to taking money in the past from Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and George Soros, Clinton has connections to Microsoft through Mark Penn, a former top advisor to both Bill and Hilary Clinton. Penn was Hillary’s “pollster, chief strategist and message guru all wrapped into one,” according to Politico. In 2012, he was named Corporate Vice President for Strategic and Special Projects at Microsoft. Penn was behind Microsoft’s award-winning Super Bowl 2014 ad “Empowering Us All” and the corporation’s “Celebrating the Heroic Women of 2013.”

Last September the Clinton Global Initiative used Microsoft’s audience engagement technology Bing Pulse to gauge audience feedback in real-time during CNBC’s interview with President Bill Clinton. The former president also keynoted the Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas in March, 2014 and was interviewed by Wired magazine alongside Microsoft founder Bill Gates in 2013.
Establishment Will Pull Out All Stops to Beat Sanders and Trump

The establishment is in disarray over the presidential campaigns of Sanders and Donald Trump.

“With ever-growing hysteria, the Establishment is begging, cajoling and warning American voters not to elect a rogue President from the Right or the Left, neither Donald Trump nor Bernie Sanders, but to accept instead one of the ‘sane’ mainstream options. Yet, the unspoken truth is that the American Establishment has been off its rocker for decades,” writes Robert Parry.

The establishment’s derailment of the Ron Paul campaign demonstrates it will take drastic measures to distort primary results.

Going into Iowa, Ron Paul held a lead over the other Republican candidates. In response the Iowa GOP changed the final vote count to a secret location and results from 8 precincts—including results from colleges in a state where Paul won 48% of the youth vote—put Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum in the lead. Rule changes and similar tactics were used in the early primary states of Nevada and Florida to defeat Paul.

Activist Bev Harris and others have demonstrated how black box voting is used to flip votes and rig the election process. “We now know that the machines that they’re making that count the votes are not secure from tampering. And add to that, we’ve got a situation where everything inside the machines is secret, we’re not allowed the see how they count the votes. So this is not an acceptable situation,” Harris said back in 2003 when the first Diebold electronic voting machines were rolled out.

During the globalist confab in Davos, Switzerland, the elite expressed their consternation at the prospect of a Donald Trump victory. Harvard University’s Niall Ferguson said Trump’s chances “could be over before Super Tuesday,” and that populists never win the presidency, but that the public is “mad as hell” and this is what’s driving the Trump phenomenon.

Meanwhile, the GOP is working to take down Trump, preferably before the primaries.

According to columnist Ann Coulter, the establishment may cook up a scandal that will be floated before the primaries to take the edge off Trump’s commanding lead. “Look for a fake Trump scandal to break—probably from a conservative news outlet—right before the Iowa caucus,” she wrote on January 20.

Despite the frantic effort to derail the Trump campaign—and that of alleged outsider Ted Cruz as well—some believe Hillary Clinton will win the election regardless of Republican challenge or the email scandal and the Benghazi imbroglio. In the end, Democrats will abandon Sanders and line up behind Clinton.

“It doesn’t matter who the Republicans put up… Hillary will win,” the highly influential CEO of WPP PLC (Wire and Plastic Products), Martin Sorrell, told DC Whispers on January 24.

Fraud at the polls and manipulated poll results in Iowa may help, but in the final wash it will be Hillary because of the fear level of a Republican victory. The Democrat establishment has mastered the art of fear, hysteria and stampeding the rank and file.

The New York Times reports “the Sanders surge is about to hit a wall: the rank and file of the Democratic primary electorate… Nearly half of the Democratic primary electorate is moderate or even conservative” and deathly afraid of a Republican victory despite the obvious fact there is little difference between the two sides of a domineering establishment party.

Follow Kurt Nimmo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kurt_nimmo

Hundreds of DHS badges, guns, cell phones lost or stolen since 2012

By Adam Shaw | Published January 27, 2016 | Fox News

Feb. 20, 2014: A U.S. Customs and Border Protection arm patch and badge is seen at Los Angeles International Airport, California. (Reuters)

Hundreds of badges, credentials, cell phones and guns belonging to Department of Homeland Security employees have been lost or stolen in recent years -- raising serious security concerns about the potential damage these missing items could do in the wrong hands.

Inventory reports, obtained by the news site Complete Colorado and shared with FoxNews.com, show that over 1,300 badges, 165 firearms and 589 cell phones were lost or stolen over the span of 31 months between 2012 and 2015.

The majority of the credentials belonged to employees of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), while others belonged to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) employees.

The lost or stolen guns also mostly belonged to CBP employees, though others were cited as belonging to TSA and ICE workers. The agencies all fall under DHS.

The missing badges and guns suggest a shocking lack of security from federal law enforcement officers and represent a significant security risk, experts say.

“It’s scary that you’d have that number of credentials out there that someone could manipulate,” Tim Miller, a retired Secret Service special agent, told FoxNews.com.

While Miller said the phones are likely to have enough protocols in place to prevent them from being used for nefarious purposes, the badges and credentials are an entirely different matter and could allow access to sensitive areas such as cargo.

“The thing that’s particularly concerning is that if you get real credentials, it’s very easy to manipulate them, and you’ve got someone else’s picture on what law enforcement would see as valid," Miller said. "Then you factor in terrorism, it’s a significant concern that people would run around with authentic credentials and be able to access areas they wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.”

When reached for comment, DHS did not dispute the inventory report data -- which Complete Colorado, a Colorado-based online news site, had obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request. The reporter who obtained the data also works with Denver-based free-market think tank the Independence Institute.

In a statement to FoxNews.com, a DHS spokesman said they strive to be “good stewards of government resources” and have improved oversight and reduced the number of lost or stolen items over the past few years.

“If a credential holder loses or has their credentials stolen, the holder must report the incident to their supervisor and credential issuance office immediately,” spokesman Justin Greenberg said. “Once the incident has been reported, this information is entered into appropriate DHS and law enforcement databases, which disables use of the lost or stolen item.”

He also noted that DHS encrypts all mobile devices, laptops and tablets.

Miller said officials need to be doing more, considering the sheer number of guns and badges that have been lost or stolen.

Lawmakers also have expressed concern about the safety of DHS property in the past. In December, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee approved legislation that would tighten screening of TSA workers, review security protocols and increase fines and enforcement requirements related to missing credentials.

The legislation was put forward after members of the committee wrote to TSA officials in March expressing concern about reports of unaccounted TSA badges, and the reported use of badges to bypass security checkpoints.

“Officials entrusted with protecting the American public cannot consider the loss of sensitive items normal or routine," Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., chairman of the committee, told FoxNews.com.

"When the Commerce Committee looked at lost and missing airport security credentials, we discovered that existing rules weren’t being effectively enforced. Mistakes happen, but if we don’t work to eliminate them and insist on accountability, then we’re left with unacceptable risk,” Thune said.

FBI negotiator refuses to investigate gross complaints against federal agencies: Oregon Occupation intensifies

Intellihub | January 25th 2016



BURNS, Ore. (INTELLIHUB) — Although a plethora of information can be found on Intellihub.com about the constitutionality of the Oregon Occupation and the root of the problem, the FBI can’t seem to find any information on what’s really going on and is unwilling to investigate federal agencies, period.

We are putting this video out there as an open letter to the federal government hereby requesting investigation into the unconstitutional wrongdoings currently taking place in Harney County.

During a phone meeting with the lead FBI negotiator known only as “Chris,” Ammon Bundy said:

“The FBI does not have anything really to do with the situation–it is the people their county and their land. The federal government simply needs to adhere to the Constitution of the United States, adhere to the rules in Article 1, 8, 17 and comply.”

Bundy explained to Chris how the locals are not happy that the FBI is there.

‘You have a standing army in town,’ Bundy said.

At one point the negotiator even threatened Bundy with an investigation of his person, rather than to even focus on the task at hand.

Additionally the FBI negotiator failed to provide his last name upon Bundy’s request.

“Get your investigators out here. Get interviewing these ranchers,” Bundy told the FBI.

FBI sets up checkpoints around Oregon refuge after deadly confrontation

Yahoo | By Peter Henderson

(Reuters) - U.S. and state officials in Oregon on Wednesday set up checkpoints around Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, where an armed group pledged to prolong its standoff with the government a day after one protester was shot and eight others were arrested.

Authorities said the new security involves a series of checkpoints along key routes into and out of the refuge, and was made out of an "abundance of caution" to protect the public and law enforcement after the confrontation.

The month-long occupation of the wildlife reserve over federal control of large tracts of the country turned violent on Tuesday after officers stopped a car carrying protest leader Ammon Bundy and others near the refuge. Activists said Robert LaVoy Finicum, a rancher who acted as a spokesman for the occupiers, was killed.

There were no details on why shooting broke out at the traffic stop. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said authorities would hold a news conference on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. PST (1730 GMT) in Burns, a town near the refuge.

One of the remaining occupiers, Jason Patrick, told Reuters by phone they would stay until the "redress of grievances."

Ammon Bundy

“I've heard 'peaceful resolution' for weeks now and now there’s a cowboy who is my friend who is dead – so prepare for the peaceful resolution,” Patrick said.

Authorities on Wednesday said the checkpoints will allow only ranchers who own property in the area to pass and anyone coming out of the refuge will have to show identity and have their vehicle searched.

The Malheur takeover, which started Jan. 2, was a flare-up in the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion, a decades-old conflict over federal control of millions of acres in the West. Protesters say they are defending the Constitution.

Federal officials said they had probable cause to arrest Finicum, who told NBC News earlier this month that he would rather die than be detained.

Patrick likened Finicum’s death to that of Tamir Rice, an unarmed 12-year-old black youth fatally shot by Cleveland police outside a recreation center in 2014. The officers were not charged.

"The government can kill who they want for whatever reason they want with impunity," Patrick said.

He was asked how the occupiers would respond to authorities entering the refuge but did not indicate a clear plan.

"I don't know what to tell you but if somebody saying 'peaceful resolution' comes in and points guns at me ...," Patrick said before trailing off.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco, Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Jonathan Allen and Ed Tobin in New York; Editing by Bill Trott)