Finally: A State Files Charges Against a Non-Citizen for Vote Fraud

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The Office of Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Sharen Wilson is working with the Office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to prosecute a case of repeated voter fraud against the State.

Rosa Maria Ortega of Grand Prairie, has been indicted by a Tarrant County Grand Jury for voting illegally in regional elections.

The indictment details that Ortega, who is not a citizen and therefore not legally eligible to vote, fraudulently registered to vote in Dallas County by claiming to be a U.S. citizen.

Ortega later twice attempted to register to vote in Tarrant County, however her applications were rejected by the Tarrant County Elections Office.

Dallas County records show that Ortega has voted in multiple elections in that county, starting in 2004, and most recently in the 2014 Republican primary runoff. (Read more from “Finally: A State Files Charges Against a Non-Citizen for Vote Fraud” HERE)

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This Billionaire Has No Plans to Back a Candidate in Republican Primary

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Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch said Wednesday he’s unlikely to back a candidate in the crowded Republican presidential primary, the latest sign that one of the most influential figures in conservative politics seems less than enthusiastic about his choices.

“I have no plans to support anybody in the primary now,” Koch told USA TODAY during a wide-ranging interview that touched on politics, his management theories and what he views as increasing threats to free speech at universities . . .

“If they start saying things we think are beneficial overall and will change the trajectory of the country, then that would be good, but we have to believe also they’ll follow through on it, and by and large, candidates don’t do that.”

Koch acknowledged that the vast policy and political network he helps oversee with his New York-based brother, David, might exceed his fundraising expectations before the presidential and congressional elections.

In recent weeks, the Kansas-based executive has downplayed what his organization might spend before the end of 2016, saying his network of about 450 donors might raise $750 million, down from an earlier estimate of $889 million over two years. (Read more from “This Billionaire Has No Plans to Back a Candidate in Republican Primary” HERE)

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Violent Shaking Along the Ring of Fire Continues a Progression of Disasters That Began in September

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Have you noticed that seismic activity along the Ring of Fire appears to be dramatically increasing? According to Volcano Discovery, 39 volcanoes around the world have recently erupted, and 32 of them are associated with the Ring of Fire. This includes Mt. Popocatepetl which sits only about 50 miles away from Mexico City’s 18 million inhabitants. If you are not familiar with the Ring of Fire, it is an area roughly shaped like a horseshoe that runs along the outer perimeter of the Pacific Ocean. Approximately 90 percent of all earthquakes and approximately 75 percent of all volcanic eruptions occur along the Ring of Fire. Just within the last 24 hours, we have witnessed a 4.4, a 5.4 and a 5.7 earthquake in Alaska, a 6.8 earthquake in Chile and 20 earthquakes in Indonesia of at least magnitude 4.3. And as you will see below, this violent shaking along the Ring of Fire seems to continue a progression of major disasters that began back during the month of September.

For whatever reason, our planet suddenly seems to be waking up. Unfortunately, the west coast of the United States is one of the areas where this is being felt the most. The little city of San Ramon, California is about 45 miles east of San Francisco, and over the past several weeks it has experienced a record-breaking 583 earthquakes…

A total of 583 small earthquakes have shaken San Ramon, California, in the last three weeks or so – more than five times the record set 12 years ago, according to the latest US Geological Survey updates.

“It’s the swarm with the largest number of total earthquakes in San Ramon,” said USGS scientist David Schwartz, who is more concerned about the size of quakes than he is the total number of them. Still, the number tops the previous record set in 2003, when 120 earthquakes hit over 31 days, with the largest clocking in at a magnitude of 4.2.

Could this be a prelude to a major seismic event in California?

We shall see what happens.

Meanwhile, records are being shattered in the middle part of the country as well.

For instance, the state of Oklahoma has already set a brand new yearly record for earthquakes…

The state recorded its 587th earthquake of 3.0 magnitude or higher early this week, breaking the previous record of 585. That record was set for all of 2014, meaning that Oklahoma has now had more 3.0 magnitude or higher earthquakes so far in 2015 than it did in all of 2014. So far this year, E&E News reports, Oklahoma’s averaged 2.5 quakes each day, a rate that, if it continues, means the state could see more than 912 earthquakes by the end of this year.

Oklahoma has also experienced 21 4.0 magnitude or greater earthquakes so far this year — an increase over last year, which saw 14.

And just over this past weekend there was a very disturbing series of earthquakes in the state…

Starting with a magnitude-4.1 temblor at 5:11 a.m. close to the Oklahoma-Kansas border, the region experienced a series of six earthquakes within a 75-minute period Saturday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on its website.

The largest earthquake Saturday morning was the 4.1, which had an epicenter nine miles northwest of Medford, Okla., 59 miles southwest of Wichita.

That was followed by five more quakes near Medford with magnitudes of 2.5, 2.8, 2.5, 3.1 and 2.9 – the last of which came at 6:24 a.m.

A seventh earthquake – this one a magnitude-4.2 temblor – was recorded at 12:29 p.m., 10 miles north-northwest of Medford.

So why aren’t more Americans alarmed that these records are being broken?

We are seeing things that we have never seen before, and I believe that it will soon get even worse.

And this dramatic increase in seismic activity that we are now seeing appears to fit into a larger pattern of major disasters that we have been witnessing over the past couple of months.

As we approached the end of the summer, all of a sudden massive wildfires erupted all across the western third of the country. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, the only time in U.S. history when wildfires had burned more acres by the end of October was during the record-setting year of 2006.

In 2015, a lot of these wildfires have really been threatening highly populated areas. I know, because at one point a major fire came within about 10 miles of my own house. Since the beginning of August, Barack Obama has made an astounding 25 disaster declarations related to fires, and by the end of September the horrible fires that were threatening key areas of the state of California were making headlines all over the world.

Then as we got to the very end of the month of September, a new kind of disaster began to take center stage. As I wrote about just recently, the storm that would later became known as Hurricane Joaquin developed into a tropical depression on September 28th.

Even though that hurricane never made landfall in the United States, moisture from that storm caused a tremendous amount of chaos along the east coast.

The governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, said that it was the most rain that some areas of her state had witnessed “in a thousand years”, and it is being projected that the economic damage that was done by all of the flooding “will probably be in the billions of dollars”.

Shortly after the flooding in South Carolina, a massive storm dumped an enormous amount of rain on southern California. Because that area had been experiencing severe drought for so long, all of that rain caused tremendous flooding and massive mudslides. Rivers of mud literally several feet thick completely stopped traffic along many major roads across the region. If you got caught in those rivers of mud, you were lucky to get out with your life. In fact, authorities pulled one dead man out of a vehicle that got completely buried by mud several days after the storms had passed. It took them that long to finally get to him.

The middle of the country was not spared either. Hurricane Patricia ended up being one of the strongest hurricanes ever measured, and the remnants of that storm dumped an incredible amount of rain on the state of Texas. There was so much flooding that a train was literally knocked off the tracks by the water. And about a week after that there was more flooding in the state that caused at least six deaths.

Overall, it has really been a bad couple of months for major disasters, and this sequence of events seems to have begun during the month of September. (For more from the author of “Violent Shaking Along the Ring of Fire Continues a Progression of Disasters That Began in September” please click HERE)

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Teacher Fired for Refusing to Address Girl, 6, as Transgender Boy

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A federal discrimination complaint has been filed on behalf of a [Texas] educator who says she was wrongly terminated for refusing to address a 6-year-old girl as a transgender boy, the teacher’s attorneys said Tuesday.

Madeline Kirksey, of Houston, who worked at the Children’s Lighthouse Learning Center location on Clay Road, was fired Nov. 3 after she would not agree to treat the child as a male and call the child by a new male name, according to a copy of the filing with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Attorney Andy Taylor pointed to Kirksey’s protected class as a black female over 40 who holds religious convictions. “All of those rights were not vindicated but destroyed,” Taylor said.

Taylor represented the plaintiffs who challenged the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, which was originally passed by the city council but was repealed by Houston voters last week. Taylor is joined in Kirksey’s case by attorney Briscoe Cain. Kirksey’s pastor also attended and spoke at a morning news conference at a Galleria-area hotel.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Jamie Izaks, a spokesman for the Children’s Lighthouse Learning Centers, said Kirksey was not fired because of the matter relating to the transgender student. He said he could not comment on matters related to employment. (Read more from “Teacher Fired for Refusing to Address Girl, 6, as Transgender Boy” HERE)

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Russia Reveals Secret Nuclear-Armed Drone Sub

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A Russian document shown on state-run television confirmed that Moscow is developing a high-speed drone submarine capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.

The secret weapon was shown on a document during several Tuesday Russian television broadcasts of President Vladimir Putin announcing plans for new strike weapons capable of defeating missile defenses.

Disclosure of the nuclear-tipped, torpedo-shaped weapon was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon and has been dubbed Kanyon by the Pentagon.

A Kremlin spokesman confirmed Wednesday that the weapon, which Moscow is calling the Status-6 system, was inadvertently disclosed.

“Some secret information did indeed end up in front of the camera lenses, so it was later deleted,” Russian spokesman Dmitri Peskov was quoted by Interfax as saying. “We hope this won’t happen again.” (Read more from “Russia Reveals Secret Nuclear-Armed Drone Sub” HERE)

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Teen Runner Disqualified From State Meet — Was It the Bible Verse?

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Was a high school cross country runner disqualified from a state championship meet because there was a Bible verse embroidered on his headband?

Georgia Congressman Douglas Collins seems to think so.

“Religious expression being squashed right here in the Ninth District,” the Republican lawmaker tweeted. “This is outrageous” . . .

The West Forsyth High School runner was disqualified because of a headband he was wearing – a white headband that was adorned with a Bible verse . . .

“Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Read more from “Teen Runner Disqualified From State Meet — Was It the Bible Verse?” HERE)

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Chinese Scientists Unveil New Stealth Material Breakthrough

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A group of scientists from China may have created a stealth material that could make future fighter jets very difficult to detect by some of today’s most cutting-edge anti-stealth radar.

The researchers developed a new material they say can defeat microwave radar at ultrahigh frequencies, or UHF. Such material is usually too thick to be applied to aircraft like fighter jets, but this new material is thin enough for military aircraft, ships, and other equipment.

Today’s synthetic aperture radar use arrays of antennas directing microwave energy to essentially see through clouds and fog and provide an approximate sense of the object’s size, the so-called radar cross section. With radar absorbent material not all of the signal bounces back to the receiver. A plane can look like a bird.

“Our proposed absorber is almost ten times thinner than conventional ones,” said Wenhua Xu, one of the team members from China’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology, in a statement.

In their paper, published today in the Journal of Applied Physics, the team describes a material composed of semi-conducting diodes (varactors) and capacitors that have been soldered onto a printed circuit board. That layer is sitting under a layer of copper resistors and capacitors just .04mm thick, which they called an “active frequency selective surface material” or AFSS. The AFSS layer can effectively be stretched to provide a lot of absorption but is thin enough to go onto an aircraft. The next layer is a thin metal honeycomb and final is a metal slab. (Read more from “Chinese Scientists Unveil New Stealth Material Breakthrough” HERE)

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Promised Bipartisanship, Obama Adviser Found Disappointment

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When President Obama first won the White House, he recruited Ray LaHood, a Republican congressman, to join his cabinet. The appointment, Mr. Obama said, “reflects that bipartisan spirit” that would distinguish his presidency.

Seven years later and now out of office, Mr. LaHood has concluded that the opposite turned out to be true. Rather than reflecting the bipartisan spirit of the Obama presidency, Mr. LaHood said his appointment as secretary of transportation came to reflect its failure.

Despite the glowing words, Mr. Obama abandoned his promise to govern across the aisle, Mr. LaHood said in an interview. The only elected Republican in Mr. Obama’s original cabinet, Mr. LaHood said the president never made a sustained effort to reach out and gave up too easily. As a result, he became isolated and reliant on a group of like-minded advisers.

That assessment from a man who served under Mr. Obama for four years punctuates Mr. LaHood’s new memoir, “Seeking Bipartisanship: My Life in Politics,” published last month by Cambria Press. While he expressed warm feelings toward Mr. Obama and approval of many of his policies, Mr. LaHood lamented the partisan fever that characterized his time in office.

“I do not believe the White House ever committed fully to a genuine bipartisan approach to policy making, despite the president’s words to the contrary,” Mr. LaHood wrote in the book, which he produced with Frank H. Mackaman. (Read more from “Promised Bipartisanship, Obama Adviser Found Disappointment” HERE)

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DHS Is Getting a Wearable Radiation Detector

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The easiest way to detect nuclear material is typically when it’s already too late. By the time seismographs, infrasound sensors, and radiation readers pick up on a blast, it’s already happened. Catching a nuclear weapon before it goes off is a lot trickier, which might be why the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is looking at some rather unconventional ideas. The latest: a small, wearable radiation detector. Think of it like a FitBit, only instead of telling its user about calories burned, it lets them know if they’re close to any nuclear weapons.

Huban Gowadia, Director of the DHS’s Domestic Nuclear Detection office, last Thursday blogged that the Department has awarded a multimillion dollar contract to develop such a device. The DHS is calling it the “Human Portable Tripwire.” She writes:

The award is for small, wearable radiation detector devices that passively monitor the environment and alert the user when nuclear or other radioactive material is present. Known as the Human Portable Tripwire (HPT), this device has the capability to identify the source of radiation and allow personnel to take appropriate action. The technology can also locate the source of the detected radiation and includes communication features that allow the user to easily seek additional technical assistance from experts if needed. These devices are a critical tool for personnel who operate in the maritime environment, at land and sea ports of entry, and within the United States.

(Read more from “DHS Is Getting a Wearable Radiation Detector” HERE)

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Great Moments in Public Education: Teacher Shows Nudist Show in Class… to Second Graders

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At least in Florida, they fire teachers for this kind of nonsense. In Los Angeles or New York, the school district would pay to have them binge-watch the reality show in case they get to run a classroom again. This time, a substitute teacher has been “banned” from working in the Collier County public school district for showing a class clips from a reality television show called “Naked and Afraid” . . .

Collier County Public Schools has banned a substitute teacher for showing a partially nude reality show to second graders.

Hours after the substitute showed Naked and Afraid in a computer lab class, she was told to go home. The incident is under investigation and the teacher is banned from working at every school in the district. …

That would be an interesting explanation, to be sure. What possible explanation could there be? The district refused to identify the teacher, so we may never get her side of the story, as WINK reporter Christina Lusby hoped to do. Any valid explanation would likely involve stupidity, chemical influence, or both … which may be another reason that the district would prefer to keep the press from finding the teacher. They might have to answer questions about their hiring practices. (Read more from “Great Moments in Public Education: Teacher Shows Nudist Show in Class… to Second Graders” HERE)

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