Surge of Killer Earthquakes Worldwide in Last Few Days; Hundreds Dead

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By Elisabetta Povoledo. A strong earthquake struck a mountainous stretch of central Italy early Wednesday, killing at least 247 people, trapping scores under debris and setting off tremors that awakened residents in Rome, nearly 100 miles to the southwest.

The earthquake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 6.2, struck at 3:36 a.m., about 6.5 miles southeast of the town of Norcia in the Umbria region, followed by about 200 aftershocks over the next several hours, including a 5.5-magnitude tremor at 4:33 a.m.

The authorities said the quake was comparable in intensity to one in 2009 in the Abruzzo region of central Italy that killed more than 300 people. (Read more from “Surge of Killer Earthquakes Worldwide in Last Few Days; Hundreds Dead” HERE)

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Powerful Earthquake Rocks Myanmar; 4 Dead, Temples Damaged

By The Associated Press. At least four people are dead after a powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 shook central Myanmar on Wednesday, knocking glasses off tables and sending people running out of buildings in the country’s largest city.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Chauk, an area west of the ancient capital of Bagan. It was located fairly far below the Earth’s surface at a depth of about 84 kilometers (52 miles), it said. Deep earthquakes generally cause less surface damage.

At least 185 brick pagodas in Bagan were damaged, the Ministry of Religious and Cultural Affairs said in a statement. Bagan, also known as Pagan, has more than 2,200 structures including pagodas and temples constructed from the 10th to the 14th centuries. Many are in disrepair while others have been restored in recent years, aided by the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO. (Read more from “Powerful Earthquake Rocks Myanmar; 4 Dead, Temples Damaged” HERE)

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7.3 Magnitude Quake in South Atlantic Ocean, No Tsunami Alert

By Pranshu Rathee. A major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 on the Richter scale was reported in the Atlantic Ocean, to the south-east of Argentina on Friday. According to an observatory in Germany, it occurred about 1,500 miles east of the southern tip of Argentina.

The German Research Centre for Geosciences said that the earthquake struck early on Friday and the epicentre was near the British administered South Georgia Island region. No tsunami alert has been issued by authorities. (Read more from “7.3 Magnitude Quake in South Atlantic Ocean, No Tsunami Alert” HERE)

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High Warning Alert for Vanuatu Volcano

By Ruby Taylor. Authorities have upgraded warnings around Ambae Volcano in northern Vanuatu, Radio New Zealand has just reported.

According to radionz, the country’s Geohazards Observatory has raised the alert to Level two on a scale of one to five which signifies the volcano is in a stage of major unrest.

“The observatory says volcanic activity could increase at any time over the next few days.” (Read more from “High Warning Alert for Vanuatu Volcano” HERE)

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New Florida Poll Shows Trump Leading Clinton

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Florida is a swing state during the general election, with both Republican and Democrats fighting hard to earn votes. Barack Obama won the state both in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections.

A new survey by the Florida Atlantic University Business and Economics Polling Initiative shows Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton by two points in the state of Florida.

Trump received 43 percent support over Clinton’s 41 percent. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson garnered 8 percent and the remaining 5 percent were undecided.

Both candidates have struggled with their favorability ratings in Florida. Trump currently sits at 56 percent unfavorable rating, while Clinton holds 58 percent. However, Trump has a higher loyalty score with voters, earning a strong 94 percent.

Clinton leads Trump among female voters with 4 points, while Trump leads among men 46 percent to 36 percent.

Associate professor of political science at FAU and a research fellow of the Initiative Kevin Wagner believes Florida will remain a close race and only the most pressing issues will determine the winner.

“The fact that both Mr. Trump and Secretary Clinton are significantly upside down in their favorability ratings could make it difficult for either to move substantially ahead,” he said. “Clinton likely got a boost from the fact that Floridians chose experience as the top quality they are looking for in their presidential candidate. But, Floridians also chose dissatisfaction with government as their top issue, which likely favors Mr. Trump.”

When it comes to Florida’s minority voters, Trump is lagging behind. He trails Clinton with African-Americans 68 to 20 percent, and Hispanics 50 to 40 percent, but leads significantly with white voters 49 to 33 percent.

“The race between Clinton and Trump among Hispanics in Florida is closer than it is nationally,” said Monica Escaleras, Ph.D., director of the BEPI. “Some of that is probably the Cuban vote. Trump’s support among Latinos in Florida is helping him stay competitive.”

The GOP nominee and real estate mogul recently launched an Hispanic outreach program which would focus his campaign on winning the Latino vote. This advisory council met with him Saturday in order to determine the most effective ways to present his proposals to the Hispanic community.

Trump has also made an appeal to black voters in order to close the wide gap between himself and Clinton, arguing that blacks who have suffered under Democratic leadership have “nothing to lose,” by taking a chance and voting Republican. (For more from the author of “New Florida Poll Shows Trump Leading Clinton” please click HERE)

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Pro-Life Clinic Sues City to Get Next to Abortion Business

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On July 5, pro-life pregnancy care center Hand of Hope was ready to become the pro-life neighbor of A Preferred Women’s Health Center in Raleigh, North Carolina — an abortion facility with thousands in regulatory fines under its belt.

Now, it’s suing the City Council for discrimination for not rezoning the lot next to the facility. The non-profit center paid $309,000 for the property, according to the lawsuit, and is suing on behalf of itself and the women and children its services would help.

“The City Council claimed that though it was the City’s plan to rezone the property just as Hand of Hope’s requested, it was premature to do so and that the City did not want to rezone their property,” Noel Sterett, an attorney for Hand of Hope, told The Stream.

“According to councilwoman Kay Crowder … the Council preferred to rezone Hand of Hope’s property at a later date as part of a larger commercial project rather than in a piecemeal fashion with small lots,” continued Sterett in an e-mail. “The City Council’s statement is belied by the fact that the City apparently and separately approved the rezoning of 4 one-to-two acre properties close by Hand of Hope’s property in a piecemeal fashion.”

Approved and Then Denied

Three city agencies approved Hand of Hope request for a rezoning that would allow it to be situated next to the abortion center, Sterett said — the Citizen Advisory Council, the city’s Zoning Staff and the city’s Planning Commission. The latter agency unanimously approved the rezoning after holding a hearing and finding that Hand of Hope’s use “was entirely consistent with the City’s comprehensive plan and the surrounding uses and fit into all of the City’s other land use policies or goals.”

The city’s attorney declined to comment to The Stream about the City Council’s decision, saying the city had not yet been served with the suit. But according to the minutes of the July 5, 2016 meeting where the Council’s decision was made, the council voted 7-0 against Hand of Hope because it did not want “lot by lot piecemeal nonresidential development.” The council wanted, in Crowder’s words, a “coordinated approach would produce a more efficient use of the land” producing higher tax value,” and the “Council believes that this dead-end street should be rezoned for such uses when all the properties along Woodsdale Road are rezoned.”

The city did not respond to The Stream’s question about why the abortion business was allowed on the street but Hand of Hope was not.

A Preferred Women’s Health Clinic is one of four facilities in a chain that has two locations in North Carolina and two in Georgia. According to Operation Rescue’s Cheryl Sullenger, “A Preferred Women’s Health Center has been cited by OSHA 13 times for violations categorized as ‘serious’ ones related to health. Fines levied were in excess of $12,000, indicating just how severe the violations actually were.” She told The Stream that the documents don’t give the details of the violations.

Sterett said that the abortion business “actively opposed Hand of Hope’s use,” and that “We are still investigating the relationships or known positions of the City Council members on the issue of abortion.” The abortion center did not respond to The Stream’s request for comment about its involvement in the debate over Hand of Hope’s request.

City Favoritism?

It appears a different city agency — the Raleigh Board of Adjustments — gave a different abortion facility a variance letting them put up a fence higher than the city regulations allowed. The center, according to pro-life testimony, asked for the variance after installing the fence at an illegal height.

According to the minutes of the Board’s May 9, 2016 meeting, approval was granted 4-1, thanks to employees and a volunteer for A Woman’s Choice of Raleigh Inc., who claimed the higher fence provided more privacy and other benefits for women getting abortions, as well as for employees. An opponent of the variance said the height would prevent him from recording legal violations at the facility, and another said he and his wife would be prevented from effectively offering adoption services to women going to and from it.

According to the Board of Adjustments, “The variance is consistent with the spirit, purpose and intent of the ordinance such that public safety is secured, and substantial justice is achieved.” The Board did say its “decision is subject to review for fraud, material misrepresentation, or other misconduct at the proceeding or for violations on the subject property,” and that “if such a determination is made by the Board, its prior decision may be reversed, modified, or affirmed.” (For more from the author of “Pro-Life Clinic Sues City to Get Next to Abortion Business” please click HERE)

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Leaked: DNC Finance Director Freaks Over Hillary Staffer Noting Tribal Donations in Email

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As the media scoured through the close to 20,000 emails from the Democrat National Committee that Wikileaks hacked and then released, forcing DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign, they overlooked one of particular significance: the response from DNC finance director Jordan Kaplan to a Hillary Clinton campaign staffer, who had emailed him about contributions from Native American tribes.

Clinton staffer Justin Klein told Kaplan that he was sending the DNC a few checks from the tribes, which wanted most of the money directed to the Democrat National Convention. Kaplan responded, “Don’t send me an email like this again. You know Alex. Don’t be a d***” (asterisks not in the original).

Kaplan’s Reasons

Why did Kaplan respond that way? Was he concerned that they were breaking the law and didn’t want a paper trail?

The tribes make millions of dollars from operating casinos. Although they are exempt from many campaign finance laws, Clinton and the DNC are not. Even though the tribes can contribute exorbitant amounts of cash to political campaigns and committees, the recipients are limited as to how much money they can accept.

Tribes are not required to form political organizations, so they can contribute under multiple different names to get around contribution limits to politicians and PACs. According to The Washington Post, “One tribe has used more than 75 names” to get around these requirements.

Based on an analysis of campaign finance law, it appears the Clinton campaign was likely trying to circumvent contribution limits. According to Politico, Clinton benefited from joint fundraising with Democratic state parties — but after the money was distributed into the states’ coffers, 88 percent of it was then immediately funneled to the DNC, where the bulk of it was spent to help Clinton defeat the unexpectedly popular Bernie Sanders in the primaries.

By using this joint method of fundraising, it appears that once donors maxed out their giving to her campaign, she essentially directed the money to state parties or the DNC. According to Politico, some state Democratic party leaders griped that they were being used as pass-through organizations. This was not considered fair play since the state parties were apparently never told they wouldn’t get to keep a fair share as part of joint fundraising committees with the Clinton campaign, nor was it fair for the DNC to funnel money Clinton could not legally accept to the DNC, which used it on her instead of Sanders.

The Democratic line was that Clinton was raising money for everyone else, not funneling it all back to herself. Actor George Clooney went on television and asserted, “The overwhelming amount of money that we’re raising, and it is a lot, but the overwhelming amount of the money that we’re raising is not going to Hillary to run for president. It’s going to the down-ticket.”

The Clinton Story Downgraded

This hybrid “Hillary Victory Fund” that raised most of the money in question was a joint effort of her campaign, the DNC and state Democratic parties. The website Politifact, which verifies the accuracy of news in politics, downgraded its positive rating of honesty from mostly true to half true regarding the fundraising after discovering more information. The site noted one of the more egregious operations:

The Hillary Victory Fund sent $214,100 to Minnesota, for example, and that state party didn’t keep a dime. It was routed to the DNC, which otherwise wouldn’t have been able to accept the money “since it came from donors who mostly had already maxed out to the national party committee,” Politico reported.

In the context of current campaign laws, this funneling of money through groups that can’t legally use it comes close to money laundering. (In fact, Jack Abramoff served several years in prison for coordinating contributions from Indian tribes.) Politicians have gone to prison for money laundering. No wonder Kaplan was so upset with his young colleague for blabbing about the donations in an email.

Unsurprisingly, the leaked email has not yet affected Clinton’s political fortunes. Almost no one in the left-leaning mainstream media dares to tangle with her.

Lingering Questions

But the question remains: If Clinton and the DNC did nothing wrong in the way they allocated Indian tribe donations, why was Kaplan so upset about a staffer mentioning the arrangement in an email?

Campaign funding experts are divided over whether laws were broken. Larry Noble, the general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, who served for 13 years as general counsel at the Federal Election Commission, told Politico, “It clearly goes against what was intended for the joint fundraising committees.”

While the tribes may not have broken the law — since the regulations they are subject to are much less stringent — Clinton and the DNC are at risk of jointly coordinating to subvert campaign finance laws, which would be considered a “criminal scheme” under federal law. (For more from the author of “Leaked: DNC Finance Director Freaks Over Hillary Staffer Noting Tribal Donations in Email” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

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Biden Takes Apology Tour to Turkish, Muslim Brotherhood-Loving Erdogan

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The Obama administration’s years-long international apology tour continues with its latest stop in Turkey, where Vice President Joe Biden expressed regret to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan that he couldn’t have come to the Islamist strongman’s aid sooner after the failed coup last month.

“The American people stand with you; we’ve stood with you from the beginning,” Biden said at a joint news conference the nation’s capital, Ankara. Barack Obama was one of the first people to call. But I do apologize, I wish I could have been here earlier.”

This is, of course, the same Islamist strongman who’s imprisoned tens of thousands of citizens during the country’s political unrest and has been accused of a laundry list of human rights violations, including torture, a crackdown on freedom of the press, and the subversion of the rule of law.

As expected, Biden avoided public criticism of the recent purge, in which The New York Times reported almost 9,000 police officers have been fired, a third of the country’s private school teachers have been suspended, and over 10,000 soldiers have been detained.

Rather, during his time in the Middle Eastern nation, “Biden [was] expected to emphasize to Turkish officials that the purge was damaging perceptions of Turkey within the U.S., Europe and the business community,” an unnamed U.S. official told Bloomberg News.

This meeting-and-apology move is obviously an attempt to keep a finally-engaged Turkey involved in regional efforts against ISIS, which did far more harm than good as the insurgency gained ground after its precipitous rise to power in 2014.

As I have previously written:

Erdogan’s tenure in control of the country began in 2003, when he became prime minister and has continued through his assumption of the office of president in 2014. During this time, he has gained a reputation as a strongman politician who is cozy with the Muslim Brotherhood, and bent on Islamizing Turkey. Additionally, he’s been roundly criticized for his compliance in the rise of ISIS, stemming from a willful blindness to the insurgent threat. In fact, it’s almost impossible to imagine a rise of ISIS without a poorly-managed Turkish border allowing both the influx of foreign fighters to enter the so-called caliphate, while allowing smuggled oil and antiquities to come out.

In fact, Biden’s last public apology to his “old friend” was in direct connection to Turkey’s complacency in regard to ISIS’ rise. In 2014, he called Erdogan and publicly apologized for implying that the Turkish president’s inactions were partially responsible for strengthening the jihadist organization’s presence in the region.

Nonetheless, the Obama administration is making sure that it’s on record propping up the Muslim Brotherhood-loving, ISIS-complicit strongman, who will be more than emboldened to continue turning his country into a Sunni version of Iran.

This, of course, all lines up with the Obama administration’s past. It offered outspoken support for former Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi (a former Muslim Brotherhood member) during the North African country’s 2013 revolution and other policies that abetted the growth of the jihadist presence in other areas of the continent. And all that is not to mention former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s abysmal China policy that signaled to the country’s communist government that its egregious religious freedom violations would go unchallenged.

But that’s the Obama Doctrine for you. (For more from the author of “Biden Takes Apology Tour to Turkish, Muslim Brotherhood-Loving Erdogan” please click HERE)

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Trump Just Officially Took the Jeb Bush/Gang of 8 Position on Amnesty

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In part two of Republican candidate for president Donald Trump’s town hall with Sean Hannity, scheduled to air tonight on Fox News, it seems Mr. Trump will finally clarify his position on amnesty. For the worse.

Speaking on what to do with non-violent illegal aliens, Trump said that under his plan they will “pay back-taxes” and that it would be a “very hard thing” to “throw them and their family out.”

Having illegal immigrants pay a fine and back taxes to stay in the country was the policy proposed in the Gang of Eight amnesty bill!

Further, that is the position on amnesty once held by former candidate for the Republican nomination for president Jeb Bush.

“I think for the eleven or twelve million people here illegally, they should come out from the shadows, they should pay a fine, they should pay taxes, they should work,” Bush said in an interview back in October of 2015.

He famously, or infamously, drew fire from conservative critics for referring to illegal immigrants crossing the southern border illegally as an “act of love.”

“A great country ought to know where those folks are and politely ask them to leave,” he said, adding later that properly targeting people who overstay visas “would restore people’s confidence” in the nation’s immigration system.

“There are means by which we can control our border better than we have. And there should be penalties for breaking the law,” he added. “But the way I look at this — and I’m going to say this, and it’ll be on tape and so be it. The way I look at this is someone who comes to our country because they couldn’t come legally, they come to our country because their families — the dad who loved their children — was worried that their children didn’t have food on the table. And they wanted to make sure their family was intact, and they crossed the border because they had no other means to work to be able to provide for their family. Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony. It’s an act of love. It’s an act of commitment to your family. I honestly think that that is a different kind of crime that there should be a price paid, but it shouldn’t rile people up that people are actually coming to this country to provide for their families.”

One of those Bush’s fiercest critics was … Mr. Trump himself.

Remember this Instagram ad?

This is no "act of love" as Jeb Bush said…

A video posted by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on

Now that Trump himself has proposed non-violent illegal aliens be allowed to remain in the United States after paying fines in the form of “back taxes,” is Mr. Trump’s plan substantially different from Mr. Bush’s? Or the Gang of Eight bill’s?

(For more from the author of “Trump Just Officially Took the Jeb Bush/Gang of 8 Position on Amnesty” please click HERE)

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Pentagon Plays Hide and Seek With Trillions of Your Tax Dollars

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After years of protesting that they were “too big to audit,” the Pentagon is finally under a congressionally-mandated review. Under a law passed in 2009, the Pentagon must provide their financials to Congressional overseers by September 30, 2017.

However, a new report published by the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General (IG) highlights how problematic the Pentagon’s books truly are. The IG now believes there is “considerable risk” that the Pentagon will not be audit-ready by the date mandated by law.

And, really, it’s more than just a simple problem. To borrow a Trumpism, it’s a YUGE problem. In fact, according to the Pentagon, the U.S. Army has trillions of dollars in accounting errors in their books. Yes, trillions. These errors are based on missing receipts and invoices, or statements that literally just don’t add up.

Reuter’s Scot Paltrow found that the Pentagon didn’t simply misplace a few receipts, nor was it as simple as offering an Accounting 101-style refresher. Instead, Paltrow concludes, that the military was forced to “make trillions of dollars of improper accounting adjustments to create an illusion that it’s books are balanced.”

As the report highlights, we’re talking about insane bookkeeping flubs. In fact, the Pentagon fabricated nearly $2.8 trillion ledger entries in just the third quarter of 2015; overall, $6.5 trillion in fabricated entries for the year. The evidence is damning; such poor mishandling will put additional scrutiny on defense spending, the largest expenditure in the discretionary budget. As can be expected, it will be difficult for the military to justify needed resources when, in fact, the Pentagon admits:

[F]inancial statements were unreliable and lacked an adequate audit trail. In addition, DoD and Army could not rely on their accounting system data when making management and resource decisions.

How could this happen?

Part of the problem begins with the culture of military support in Washington. For years, military spending has been a sacrosanct topic. Politicians are often reluctant to question or challenge the ever greater need for military resources; it is a subject that can immediately make a politician look weak on national security.

Today, the military spends roughly as much as it did during the Cold War era, or at least, during the Reagan defense buildup. All told, including war funding, the military will cost the U.S. taxpayer roughly $586 billion this year.

To truly put the size of our defense budget into perspective, it is often helpful to compare it to, well, the resources of other nations – particularly those who may be foes. As you can see in the chart, we crush everyone in military might; or at least when it comes to buying military hardware.

The inability of the Department of Defense to manage their own budget is an affront to the American taxpayer, as well as to the troops the DoD oversees. Every few months a new story develops where the military has literally lost billions of dollars. For example, in April of 2015, the military was accused of losing $45 billion in Afghanistan.

That’s nearly as much as the federal government provides to build our nation’s roads, each year. Taking taxpayer funds for granted; squandering them, or losing them is a disservice to the American people. Yet, that is not even the most unfortunate aspect.

Most concerning is what this means for the fate of U.S. Military might in the future. The federal government is cash strapped, with $19.5 trillion in debt, and a social safety net that is consuming the federal budget. As a result, each dollar sent to the DoD will be under greater and greater scrutiny.

Even the Pentagon realizes that asking for additional funds to build up the military is unrealistic when they fail to account for the resources they currently have. In their Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) proposal, a five-year defense budget, the Pentagon has effectively asked for flat funding, or, on average, $534 billion per year through 2020.

In fact, instead of expanding the military, the Pentagon is already looking for new savings. Plans are in place to reduce the number of active duty troops, from 1.31 million to 1.27 million. The Pentagon also would like to reform military pay and initiate a new round of base realignments and closures.

The U.S. military is the best in the world. Men and women throughout our history have sacrificed their lives to protect the freedom we cherish, even as they seek to liberate other lands from tyranny and terror. However, the means to achieve these heights should not be abused. The sacred honor with which our troops commit themselves should not be disregarded and shamed by an organization that squanders the pledges of U.S. taxpayers. Each dollar committed to our national defense should be treated with respect, and with purpose. Anything less tarnishes the honor of our troops, and the costs which they have so bravely borne. (For more from the author of “Pentagon Plays Hide and Seek With Trillions of Your Tax Dollars” please click HERE)

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What a School Letting Students Opt out of Pledge of Allegiance Says About Our Patriotism

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Can America thrive as a post-patriotic society?

A Florida elementary school recently caused a stir on social media when a man posted an image of his niece’s waiver from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. The waiver form asked parents if they would like to opt their child out from “standing and placing his/her right hand over his/her heart” and reciting the pledge.

The infuriated uncle wrote on Facebook, “My niece brought this home from school today…What is happening to our country?!?”

Florida students have been able to opt out of the pledge since 2000.

The just over 30-word Pledge of Allegiance, written by Francis Bellamy in 1892, received an addendum of “under God” in the 1950s under President Dwight Eisenhower, but has remained a fairly constant and little-changed staple at schools and public gatherings for over half a century. While the specific merits of the pledge have elicited opposition on the left and right over the decades, the casual and increasingly dismissive treatment of even simple patriotic acts is a symptom of deeper trends in American society.

The decline of patriotism in American life will lead to profound crisis for the world’s youngest civilization—which has been fortunate enough to maintain one of the oldest, and certainly the greatest, of political systems.

A June Gallup poll indicated that only 53 percent of adults are “extremely proud” to be Americans, a 17 percent decline since 2003. The numbers were dragged down in particular by millennials; only 34 percent of adults under the age of 30 reported being “extremely proud” to be citizens of the United States. These steadily declining numbers, more than economic malaise or any other factor, demonstrate the current fragility unity of the world’s greatest superpower.

In spite of recessions, economic setbacks, and widespread government dependency, Americans remain a dynamic and entrepreneurial people at heart. But these factors alone aren’t alleviating the fact that most Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, fueling the current populist mood of the nation.

The great French observer of American life, Alexis de Tocqueville, warned that “ … epochs sometimes occur in the life of a nation when the old customs of a people are changed, public morality is destroyed, religious belief shaken, and the spell of tradition broken.”

Tocqueville ominously wrote that the country in such a state:

… assumes a dim and dubious shape in the eyes of the citizens; they no longer behold it in the soil which they inhabit, for that soil is to them an inanimate clod; nor in the usages of their forefathers, which they have learned to regard as a debasing yoke; nor in religion, for of that they doubt; nor in the laws, which do not originate in their own authority; nor in the legislator, whom they fear and despise. The country is lost to their senses; they can discover it neither under its own nor under borrowed features, and they retire into a narrow and unenlightened selfishness.

The decline in true or even symbolic patriotism is especially bad news for a country like the United States.

The blending of disparate races, ethnicities, and religions into a lasting national identity has been one of the greatest and historically rarest triumphs of this country. Americans have traditionally embraced displays of patriotism to a degree that astounds and occasionally disturbs citizens of other countries. But it has been necessary for a civilization that has brought together so many diverse peoples under one flag.

The long-term American cultural project of assimilation is fraying and its decline could open up the cleavages that exist under the country’s surface. For most of the world, “nationalism” has symbolized ethnic identity more than love of country—in the wake of quickly declining patriotism, this will likely become the norm in the U.S. as well.

When using the phrase “land of opportunity” is labeled a “micro-aggression” by universities, and most students fail a basic civic literacy test, it is no wonder young Americans have little attachment to their country. They may learn that their only true ties are to the subgroups their leftist professors imbue with such importance, rather than to all of their fellow Americans.

While the trendy notion of being a “citizen of the world” is popular in Western, cosmopolitan societies, in a globalized world in which communities have broken down, individuals fall back on tribe or look to radical mass movements to fulfill this sense of loss.

The flippant way in which patriotism is being cast aside in this country makes it vital that Americans attempt to restore patriotic sentiment and understanding of the nation’s traditions for current and future generations. Leaders capable of articulating what has made America unique are necessary, as is a public that has a keen understanding of what ideas are at the cornerstone of the republic.

South Carolina’s new law requiring students to study the founding documents is one of many ways civic and patriotic attachment to country can be restored—and similar laws could at least provide a baseline for responsible citizenship.

In an 1894 speech, Theodore Roosevelt spoke of the need for “true Americanism” for the U.S. to be a great country. He said:

We shall never be successful over the dangers that confront us; we shall never achieve true greatness, nor reach the lofty ideal which the founders and preservers of our mighty Federal Republic have set before us, unless we are Americans in heart and soul, in spirit and purpose, keenly alive to the responsibility implied in the very name of American, and proud beyond measure of the glorious privilege of bearing it.

If the trends continue and America proceeds down the path of being a post-patriotic society, no election or economic boom will put the country back on the right track or restore sagging confidence in the country’s political institutions.

Patriotism and pride in the U.S.’ unique institutions and founding principles has been the glue holding together a country diverse in ethnic backgrounds and creeds. Without allegiance to the American experiment, we may find that our citizens choose ethnic ties or “global citizenship” as more meaningful than their hollowed out and meaningless American identity. (For more from the author of “What a School Letting Students Opt out of Pledge of Allegiance Says About Our Patriotism” please click HERE)

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Under Obama’s New Enforcement Program, Fewer Illegal Aliens Being Captured for Deportation

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Under a revamped Obama administration program intended to encourage greater cooperation from local law enforcement agencies in helping deport illegal immigrants who the government considers “a danger” to public safety, fewer people are being taken into custody for eventual removal from the country.

In November 2014, the administration introduced the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), a less demanding version of a previous system that had been accused of violating immigrants’ civil rights, and did not differentiate between low-level and serious offenders.

The old program, called Secure Communities, influenced a number of local jurisdictions—known as “sanctuary cities”—to not work with the federal government.

While more local agencies are indeed working with federal immigration authorities since the new program began, a new study shows that those closer ties have not resulted in greater apprehensions of illegal immigrants who the government seeks to deport.

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) reports that only 2 percent of its requests to local law enforcement were declined in the first two months of fiscal year 2016.

However, during that same time period, ICE did not take custody of more than 60 percent of individuals it had requested information on.

“Obviously it takes an enormous time to turn around something as big as a Department of Homeland Security program, and this is clearly something that needs continuing monitoring,” said Susan Long of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, who acquired and compiled the data for her recent study. “But there is no indication at this point that the PEP directives have in fact been implemented successfully.”

New Program, Narrower Focus

In the old program, Secure Communities, ICE asked law enforcement agencies to hold somebody in custody for an extra 48 hours from when they would normally be released so that person could be picked up and deported. These requests were known as detainers.

With the new program, local authorities, in most cases, are asked to only notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement when they plan to release someone from jail whom the government seeks to deport.

ICE still can issue a detainer if it believes it has probable cause to deport an illegal immigrant who has been arrested, even if they haven’t been convicted.

In addition to switching from Secure Communities to the Priority Enforcement Program, the administration at the same time also announced it was narrowing the types of people it seeks to deport.

ICE officers are told to first target illegal immigrants considered to be threats to national security and public safety, who have likely been convicted of a felony. Other priorities for deportation include individuals who have been convicted of multiple misdemeanors, and recent arrivals who came here illegally after Jan. 1, 2014.

With about 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally, the administration argues that smart policy dictates focusing its deportation efforts more specifically, at people it considers to be dangerous.

The natural result of this more narrow focus is that ICE is seeking to deport fewer people, according to the statistics acquired by TRAC.

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Under a revamped Obama administration program intended to encourage greater cooperation from local law enforcement agencies in helping deport illegal immigrants who the government considers “a danger” to public safety, fewer people are being taken into custody for eventual removal from the country.

In November 2014, the administration introduced the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), a less demanding version of a previous system that had been accused of violating immigrants’ civil rights, and did not differentiate between low-level and serious offenders.

The old program, called Secure Communities, influenced a number of local jurisdictions—known as “sanctuary cities”—to not work with the federal government.

While more local agencies are indeed working with federal immigration authorities since the new program began, a new study shows that those closer ties have not resulted in greater apprehensions of illegal immigrants who the government seeks to deport.

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) reports that only 2 percent of its requests to local law enforcement were declined in the first two months of fiscal year 2016.

However, during that same time period, ICE did not take custody of more than 60 percent of individuals it had requested information on.

“Obviously it takes an enormous time to turn around something as big as a Department of Homeland Security program, and this is clearly something that needs continuing monitoring,” said Susan Long of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, who acquired and compiled the data for her recent study. “But there is no indication at this point that the PEP directives have in fact been implemented successfully.”

New Program, Narrower Focus

In the old program, Secure Communities, ICE asked law enforcement agencies to hold somebody in custody for an extra 48 hours from when they would normally be released so that person could be picked up and deported. These requests were known as detainers.

With the new program, local authorities, in most cases, are asked to only notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement when they plan to release someone from jail whom the government seeks to deport.

ICE still can issue a detainer if it believes it has probable cause to deport an illegal immigrant who has been arrested, even if they haven’t been convicted.

In addition to switching from Secure Communities to the Priority Enforcement Program, the administration at the same time also announced it was narrowing the types of people it seeks to deport.

ICE officers are told to first target illegal immigrants considered to be threats to national security and public safety, who have likely been convicted of a felony. Other priorities for deportation include individuals who have been convicted of multiple misdemeanors, and recent arrivals who came here illegally after Jan. 1, 2014.

With about 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally, the administration argues that smart policy dictates focusing its deportation efforts more specifically, at people it considers to be dangerous.

The natural result of this more narrow focus is that ICE is seeking to deport fewer people, according to the statistics acquired by TRAC.

For example, in October of 2008, the first month and year from TRAC’s data, ICE issued more than 19,000 detainer requests to local law enforcement. None of those requests were rejected by local law enforcement.

In November of 2015, the last month and year of TRAC’s data, ICE submitted a little more than 6,000 detainer and notification requests to local agencies. Almost 100 of the requests were rejected. Still, that refusal rate—about 1.6 percent—is much less than what it was at the height of the controversy over Secure Communities, when there were more sanctuary cities.

In June and July of 2014, for instance, 10.4 percent of ICE requests to local law enforcement were refused.

Serious Criminals ‘Getting Through’?

Immigration experts who reviewed the TRAC study noted that it has limitations. It only captures a short amount of time since PEP was implemented, and it does not show how many of those taken into custody by ICE were actually deported.

But some observers are concerned that even with increased cooperation from local law enforcement, ICE is apprehending fewer people it seeks custody of.

Randy Capps, the director of research for U.S. programs at the Migration Policy Institute, says that because ICE is more narrowly tailoring its deportation focus to those it considers to be serious criminals—and recent border crossers—it stands to reason that some of those who are not taken into custody are dangerous.

“It’s clear that the overall number of people getting detainers and into ICE custody are both going down so we have evidence that ICE is narrowing whom they seek to deport,” Capps told The Daily Signal. “And it is also clear a lot more major jurisdictions are sending people into ICE custody, while there are still some that are not.”

“So one has to ask, are people who would be considered a top priority and may commit a serious crime getting through and not getting deported?” Capps added. “We don’t know for sure because ICE has other ways to pick these people up. But one can assume a fair number with serious convictions are not getting into ICE custody.”

‘No Correlation’

An ICE official, who would not comment directly on the TRAC study, told The Daily Signal it’s not appropriate to conclude that just because the agency is receiving greater compliance from local jurisdictions, it should therefore be taking custody of more people who are referred to them for deportation.

That’s because, in instances where local agencies refuse to help facilitate the removal of illegal immigrants targeted by ICE, federal immigration officials often go off into communities on their own to find and take custody of those individuals.

These dispatched ICE officers, known as Fugitive Operations Teams, are usually tasked with finding and apprehending illegal immigrants who don’t show up for their deportation hearings, or those who have been ordered removed but escape before they’re deported.

But in other situations, the ICE official and Capps said, the Fugitive Operations Teams will be dispatched to find those who the government considers to be serious criminals—people who local agencies refuse to help deport.

“There is no direct correlation between a record showing an alien in ICE custody and a local jurisdiction honoring an ICE detainer,” the ICE official said. “In uncooperative jurisdictions, ICE officers often attempt to track down and arrest those individuals after they have been released from local custody. These are considered ‘at-large’ arrests because they take place outside the confines of a jail.”

These type of arrests that occur without the help of local law enforcement are not included in TRAC’s data.

“That wouldn’t show up in this [TRAC] data,” Capps said. “It does not count as someone taken into custody via a detainer. And as the number of issued detainers comes down, I think you will see fugitive operations picking up a higher share of people than in the past.”

Fugitive operations are also considered more expensive and time-intensive, Capps said.

“The limitation of fugitive operations is ICE has to go find people,” Capps said. “With that, there are all sorts of extra constraints, and it is much more expensive and difficult to do. When someone is in jail, they are captive, and you just go get them.”

Local Laws ‘Trumping’ ICE Policy

For ICE, the implementation of PEP was supposed to help avoid that extra effort, by promoting flexibility with how cities and counties devise their policies, and thus encouraging more cooperation.

That has happened in some cases.

ICE reports that of the 25 jurisdictions with the highest number of declined detainers, 17 of those jurisdictions are now PEP participants in some shape or form. These 17 jurisdictions represent 61 percent of previously declined detainers. So from ICE’s perspective, there is still progress left to be made.

Indeed, the TRAC data shows that since fiscal year 2014, a number of local jurisdictions in California have racked up the highest numbers of declined detainers and notification requests.

Before PEP was implemented, the Santa Clara County Main Jail had the highest refusal rate in the nation at 88.2 percent.

In the latest available data since PEP has been in place, from July through November 2015, ICE reports that Santa Clara County has only declined 4.8 percent of requests. Yet ICE has still been unable to take custody of the illegal immigrant in nearly every one of those cases.

“This raises the question: Did Santa Clara’s cooperation actually increase? Or did ICE simply stop recording refusals that occurred? Or is there some other explanation for these wildly dissimilar trends?” the TRAC report states.

To Capps, no matter what ICE considers to be cooperation, the data makes sense. In California, it’s harder to apprehend illegal immigrants through detainer requests because of a state law, known as the Trust Act, that strictly limits the situations in which local agencies will help ICE take custody of those it seeks to deport.

“The huge discrepancies in the refusal rate vs. not taking somebody into custody suggests to me that the refusal rate does not have that much meaning,” Capps said. “The share taken into custody has much more meaning in showing who is actually cooperating, and how well PEP is performing as it’s intended to. And some of that is outside ICE’s control if states and localities have laws that for the time being seem to be trumping ICE policies.” (For more from the author of “Under Obama’s New Enforcement Program, Fewer Illegal Aliens Being Captured for Deportation” please click HERE)

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RED ALERT: NYT Asks Google to Censor Search Results Related to Hillary’s Health Problems and They Do It

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Some radical nutjob and New York Times reporter (but I repeat myself) recently called on Google to censor search results related to Hillary’s numerous health issues.

Farhad Manjoo is a reporter for the New York Times who writes about tech issues. His latest passion is a beef with free speech, though of course, as a leftist, he would never frame it that way.

More specifically, Manjoo is upset that a Google search about Hillary’s health turns up what he calls “conspiracy theories.” And because he’s decided that the negative information available on line about her health is unfounded, Google should “fix” the problem.

Based on my research, it would appear that Google is now obliging that request:

Curiously, Google’s super-smart auto-suggest feature appears incredibly ignorant when it comes to matter of Hillary Clinton’s well-documented health problems.

I did a few experiments, but judge for yourself:

Any results for Hillary health problems?

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Negatory, good buddy.

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How about Hillary health condition or concerns?

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No, apparently zillions of people are searching for “Hillary health centre” instead. That certainly seems plausible.

What does Google Trends have to say about the matter? This separate, and far less used service, allows users to determine search volumes for certain key phrases. I wonder what it has to say about search volume for Hillary health questions?

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Gee, that seems awfully curious. As tales of Hillary’s falls, concussions, confusion, reported seizures, sleepiness and a possible tongue biopsy slipped out of late, searches for Hillary health have skyrocketed.

Pity the guys at Google Type-Ahead Land never got the memo.

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In fact, the number of folks searching for Hillary seizures and Hillary health problems are also noteworthy.

Need definitive proof Google is censoring the results? Check out the type-ahead results here and note Hillary headband.

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Now compare the actual search volume for Hillary headbands versus Hillary health problems:

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So Julian Assange is completely wrong, folks. Google isn’t deeply entwined with Hillary’s campaign. No, that’s just a conspiracy theory.

So, shut up: there are no concerns whatsoever with Hillary’s health. Why, just ask our new Overlords at Google, all you rubes in flyover country. (For more from the author of “RED ALERT: NYT Asks Google to Censor Search Results Related to Hillary’s Health Problems and They Do It” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.