Zuckerberg: Immigration ‘One of Biggest Civil Rights’ Issues of Our Time (+video)

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Guillaume PaumierWith the movement on immigration reform at a standstill in Congress, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other top Silicon Valley executives joined together on Wednesday to urge lawmakers to press ahead with their work on fixing the country’s immigration system.

Zuckerberg, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Dropbox CEO Andrew Houston were on hand to help kick off a “hackathon” event at LinkedIn’s headquarters, where a group of 20 young immigrants who came to the country illegally as children, often called “Dreamers,” will spend the next 25 hours coding Web tools aimed at advocating for immigration reform.

“I think this is one of the biggest civil rights issues of our time,” Zuckerberg told reporters and the room of young coders from across the U.S. “We’re at a pretty critical moment in the movement right now where it’s really important to keep pushing ahead.”

The three tech executives, along with Groupon co-founder Andrew Mason and immigration rights advocate Jose Antonio Vargas, will judge the young immigrants’ final work on Thursday afternoon and determine which project wins for “best design,” “best advocacy app” and “best storytelling app.”

FWD.us, the political advocacy group co-founded by Zuckerberg that’s funded by many of the tech industry’s most powerful executives, is hosting the event to show Congress that it’s not backing down from its push for passing immigration legislation that includes a path to citizenship for the more than 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rush Limbaugh Outlines Nightmare Scenario that Would Give Dems ‘Authoritarian, Non-Challengeable Control’ (+video)

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreDuring his radio show on Thursday, Rush Limbaugh reacted to the Democrat-led U.S. Senate passing the “nuclear option” that essentially stops the GOP from filibustering presidential nominees.

Limbaugh argued that by reducing the number of votes needed to end filibusters against President Barack Obama’s nominees from 60 to 51, Democrats have fundamentally altered the Senate’s balance of power.

Read more from this story HERE.

‘Dozens’ of Terrorists May Be in US as Refugees

/7 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: FBI Several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees, according to FBI agents investigating the remnants of roadside bombs recovered from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The discovery in 2009 of two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky — who later admitted in court that they’d attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq — prompted the bureau to assign hundreds of specialists to an around-the-clock effort aimed at checking its archive of 100,000 improvised explosive devices collected in the war zones, known as IEDs, for other suspected terrorists’ fingerprints.

“We are currently supporting dozens of current counter-terrorism investigations like that,” FBI Agent Gregory Carl, director of the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC), said in an ABC News interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News’ “World News with Diane Sawyer” and “Nightline”.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there were many more than that,” said House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul. “And these are trained terrorists in the art of bombmaking that are inside the United States; and quite frankly, from a homeland security perspective, that really concerns me.”

As a result of the Kentucky case, the State Department stopped processing Iraq refugees for six months in 2011, federal officials told ABC News – even for many who had heroically helped U.S. forces as interpreters and intelligence assets. One Iraqi who had aided American troops was assassinated before his refugee application could be processed, because of the immigration delays, two U.S. officials said. In 2011, fewer than 10,000 Iraqis were resettled as refugees in the U.S., half the number from the year before, State Department statistics show.

Read more from this story HERE.

Reports of Violent “Knockout” Attacks Spreading (+video)

/5 Comments/in , /by

Three “Knockout” Attacks Reported In Philadelphia Area

By CBS.

“Knockout” attacks have been reported in several states around the country and now investigators believe three people have been attacked in our area.

Police in Lower Merion are investigating two attacks in the area, and Philadelphia detectives are investigating an attack in Northeast Philadelphia.

It’s a violent crime that in other parts of the country has proven fatal.

Videos from cities around the country show people being punched and beaten at random.

The attackers are calling their crimes a game, the goal being to knock out the victim with one punch.

Read more from this story HERE.

____________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: Fox 5Could “Knockout Game” be spreading to DC?

Police say they are investigating the two women punched in the head in Columbia Heights on Thursday and Friday as simple assaults. But the victims wonder if they were targets of the Knockout game.

It’s a game being played by teens in some cities where groups of people attack innocent victims, with the intention of knocking them out with one sucker punch.

The most recent assault in the District occurred Thursday night. Phoebe Connolly, in town from Vermont, was riding her bike up 11th Street NW near Cardozo High School. She encountered a group of several teens standing on their bikes in the street.

DC News FOX 5 DC WTTG

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Agent Foresees ‘Health-Care Apocalypse’

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: WND Because President Obama and his staff seem to care more about “good intentions” and political posturing than sound policy and have little respect for the constraints of executive power, the Obamacare disaster is about to get much worse for Americans, a former Secret Service agent who once protected Obama believes.

Dan Bongino, who resigned from the elite Presidential Protective Division in 2011 and now is running for Congress, told WND in an interview that Obama doesn’t seem to understand the level of outrage among the populace toward his health care law.

“It’s obvious right now to just about all of America that this thing has been an abysmal failure,” he said of Obamacare. But Obama “cares more about political successes than he does policy successes.”

Bongino, author of the newly released book “Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All,” learned first-hand how Obamacare is affecting the nation when he lost his own health insurance plan and was faced with a premium spike along with worse coverage, as WND reported.

“For as bad as you think this is, we haven’t even seen the health-care apocalypse coming once the employer mandate kicks in and that website actually works, and people start to see the pricing for real,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Shocking Dashcam Video Released of Vet’s Viral Arrest for ‘Rudely Displaying’ Rifle on Hike with Son, Officer States that Police are ‘Exempt from the Law’

/9 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: YouTube Officials in Bell County, Texas, have released the dashcam footage of a police officer in Temple, Texas, disarming and arresting decorated veteran C.J. Grisham while he was on a hike with his son in March. The officer is seen grabbing the dad’s gun and then seemingly attempting to unlatch it from the man’s sling without telling him why or asking for permission.

Video recorded by Grisham and his son went viral earlier this year, but it did not show the moment the dad was approached and disarmed by the officer. He was later charged with “interference with duties of a public servant,” though the officer is heard in the video from March telling Grisham he was stopped for “rudely displaying” his rifle.

On Nov. 19, Grisham was found guilty by a jury of three men and three women of “interference with duties of a public servant” and ordered to pay a $2,000 fine. In an email to TheBlaze, the veteran said he plans to appeal the decision.

In the newly released dashcam video, officer Steven Ernis can be seen flagging down Grisham and asking him, “What are we doing?”

“We’re hiking,” Grisham replies.

Read more from this story HERE.

Agent Warns of Ongoing Threat of “Nearly Unguarded Northern Border”

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Townhall Where does the greatest threat from terrorists trying to enter the U.S. come from? If you guessed the Southwest Border you’d be wrong. According to National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd, it’s the U.S.-Canada border.

“For the most part, when discussions on border security arise, the conversation tends to focus on the Southwest border,” he said before a House committee hearing on Wednesday. “In no way do I want to detract from the importance of securing the Southwest Border, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the ongoing threat of the nearly unguarded Northern border to the safety of the American public.”

For example, the border crossing at Angle Inlet, Minnesota is based on the honor system. There are no permanent customs or immigration officials here. Instead, the government asks people who cross over from Canada to report themselves over a videophone (see this and this).

“As far as I am aware, all recent threat assessments have pointed to the Northern Border as the most likely point of entry into our country for terrorists,” Judd said before reminding the committee of our recent history…

Read more from this story HERE.

NYC Writer: ObamaCare Forced My Mom Into Medicaid

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Wall Street Journal My mother is not one to seek attention by complaining, so her recent woeful Facebook post caught my eye: “The poor get poorer.” It diverged from the more customary stream of inspirational quotes, recipes and snapshots from her tiny cottage in Pierce County, Wash.

The post continued: “I just received a notice: ‘In order to comply with the new healthcare law, your current health plan will be discontinued on December 31, 2013.’ Currently my premium is $276 and it is a stretch for me to cover. The new plan . . . are you ready . . . projected new rate $415.20. Now I can’t afford health insurance.”

The unaffordable ObamaCare-compliant plan that her insurer offered in a Sept. 26 letter is not what makes my mother’s story noteworthy. Countless individually insured Americans have received such letters; many are seeing more radical increases in premiums and deductibles.

But most of these people are still being offered the chance to choose what health-care insurance they will receive, or to opt out before they are automatically enrolled in a state program. Not so my mother, Charlene Hopkins, as I soon discovered when I called after seeing her Facebook post.

Since she couldn’t afford the new plan offered by her insurer, she told me she was eager to explore her new choices under the Affordable Care Act. Washington Healthplanfinder is one of the better health-exchange sites, and she was actually able to log on. She entered her personal and financial data. With efficiency uncommon to the ObamaCare process, the site quickly presented her with a health-care option.

Read more from this story HERE.

Expert Testifies: Common Core Causing Self Mutilation (+video)

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: YouTube Mary Calamia of Stony Brook, New York is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She recently testified at the Suffolk County Education Forum hosted by the New York State Assembly Minority Education Committee on the increase in self-mutilation and other behaviors, particularly among honor students, since the Common Core was implemented.

According to Calmia and other clinicians, the Common Core attempts to have students perform activities that are not developmentally appropriate. It isn’t as much the material as it is what students are expected to do with the material that falls outside the developmental norms for the age group in which the material is directed.

In her opinion, much of this self-mutilation is induced by the stress of repeated testing and the nature of the questions in testing. The prefrontal cortex is not fully developed in young children, yet the kind of questions common core asks children requires a developed prefrontal cortex. Because of the lack of neurodevelopment, the child’s mind will tap into the limbic system where fear and anger rule the logic. The result is series of destructive behaviors, including self-mutilation.

The text of her testimony tracks closely to her oral presentation, but there are some minor differences in words. Her testimony is haunting, and a reminder that children are not miniature adults.

Remember the old public service announcement “this is your brain on drugs” that showed an egg being fried? Well, one could make an add “this is your child on Common Core” with what clinicians are seeing in their practices in places where Common Core is in full implementation.

Read more from this story HERE.

U.N. Disabilities Treaty Would Not Help Veterans; It Would Hurt What They Fought For

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: St Petersburg Times, ZUMAPRESS, NewscomHeritage expert Steve Groves writes in RealClearPolicy today:

Perhaps the American people have come to expect less than straight talk from the White House. But blowing smoke that misleads Americans with disabilities—including U.S. veterans badly wounded in combat—crosses a red line even by today’s standards.

The Obama Administration claims this treaty will help Americans with disabilities, including veterans, when they travel abroad. But having the U.S. sign on to this treaty simply would not do this. As Groves says, the treaty’s supporters “would have us believe that human-rights treaties like the [Disabilities Treaty] act as a sort of magic wand—if a treaty says that all signatories must do something good, then presto-chango, it shall be so. But in the real world, human-rights treaties simply don’t work like that.”

Read more from this story HERE.