Amnesty’s Message: Send Us Your High School Dropouts

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Photo Credit: ros k @ getfunky_paris

For much of our history, the sheer difficulty of getting to America and surviving here ensured the nation was stocked with immigrants who represented a sort of natural elite.

No, these immigrants did not come from foreign aristocracies, nor need they come from any particular location, ethnic group or profession.

But before Franklin Roosevelt began establishing an American welfare state, and before a series of Roosevelt’s successors decided they would make no serious effort to secure our national borders, immigrants to America had at least two things in common: The ability to get to a place that was hard to reach and the ability to survive there on their own.

Now America is becoming a magnet for high-school dropouts.

That is why the report that the Congressional Budget Office produced this month for House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan ought to become a focus of national debate, as members of both parties in Congress work with President Obama to try to give foreign nationals living here illegally a way to become citizens.

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Federal Workers Furloughed by Sequester to Receive Unemployment Benefits

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Photo Credit: IFPTE

Should federal employees on furlough be allowed to collect unemployment benefits? Workers at a Navy engineering station in Philadelphia think so.

The local union affiliate of International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers has signed an agreement with the Navy which would allow their civilian federal workers to group furlough days in one-week blocks. It’s a strategy with one key goal: enable those employees to recoup some of their lost wages through unemployment checks.

Here’s how it works.

Bill Coleman, a mechanical engineer who works for the Navy, makes around $104,000 a year, before taxes. Like most Department of Defense employees, he expects to be furloughed for 11 days between July and September. He will lose roughly $4,400 in pay during that stretch.

If his furlough days are scattered throughout the three month period, he will not qualify for unemployment benefits in Pennsylvania. Workers in that state cannot earn more than $745 in one week and still qualify for unemployment benefits.

Based on government pay grades, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry estimates most federal employees will not be eligible for benefits unless they work less than 28 hours per week. Indeed, if Coleman works just four days a week — he would surpass the $745 limit.

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California Bill Would Give Driver’s Licenses to Illegal Immigrants

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Photo Credit: Ken Lund

More immigrants living in the U.S. illegally would be able to obtain a California driver’s license under a bill that is moving through the state Legislature.

A measure from Democratic Assemblyman Luis Alejo, of Watsonville, would allow people without a Social Security number to apply for a license. They must show several alternative forms of identification, including a birth certificate and proof of residency.

Unauthorized immigrants seeking a license also must pass a driving test like other applicants.

The legislation, which passed the state Assembly on Wednesday, follows a law approved last year that allowed driver’s licenses to be issued to unauthorized immigrants who are eligible for work permits under a revised federal policy.

Alejo said his bill, AB60, would increase safety on California roads. A recent study by the state Department of Motor Vehicles showed that unlicensed drivers are nearly three times as likely to cause a crash, he said.

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Grandfather Shot in his Own Drive by Cops Responding to Neighbor’s Alarm System (+video)

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Photo Credit: Texas Department of Public Safety

A Texas man was gunned down in his own driveway by police officers yesterday morning after he came out of his house to check out a neighbor’s burglar alarm.

The death of 72-year-old Jerry Waller, shocked the quiet Fort Worth community, where six shots rang out just before 1am.

Mr Waller was reportedly awoke after a burglar alarm had gone off at a home across the street. He grabbed his .38 caliber handgun and went outside to investigate.

Police responding to the alarm instead went to Mr Waller’s home, where they encountered him in his driveway and near the garage.

Fort Worth Police Cpl Tracey Knight told reporters that the officers – both rookies who have been with the department for less than a year – ‘felt threatened’ by the elderly grandfather – and shot him.

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Why the US Dollar is Going Extinct

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Is the Dollar Dying? Why US Currency Is in Danger

By Jeff Cox. The US dollar is shrinking as a percentage of the world’s currency supply, raising concerns that the greenback is about to see its long run as the world’s premier denomination come to an end.

When compared to its peers, the dollar has drifted to a 15-year low, according to the International Monetary Fund, indicating that more countries are willing to use other currencies to do business.

While the American currency still reigns supreme — it constitutes $3.72 trillion, or 62 percent, of the $6 trillion in allocated foreign exchange holdings by the world’s central banks — the Japanese yen, Swiss franc and what the IMF classifies as “other currencies” such as the Chinese yuan are gaining.

“Generally speaking, it is not believed by the vast majority that the American dollar will be overthrown,” Dick Bove, vice president of equity research at Rafferty Capital Markets, said in a note. “But it will be, and this defrocking may occur in as short a period as five to 10 years.”

Bove uses several metrics to make his point, focusing on the dollar as a percentage of total world money supply.That total has plunged from nearly 90 percent in 1952 to closer to 15 percent now. He also notes that the Chinese yuan, the yen and the euro each have a greater share of that total. Read more from this story HERE.

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The Dying Dollar and the Rise of a New Currency Order

By Anthony Migchels. For years now, the collapse of the dollar has been in the cards. Recent developments show mounting pressure on the dollar’s reserve currency status. With a major international deflation going on, the threat of inflation through money printing is unreal. However, should the dollar’s reserve currency status end, the repatriation of trillions of petro- and eurodollars could lead to a strongly inflationary scenario.

The roles of a reserve currency are to finance international trade and to function as a store of value for Governments. Until the second world war it used to be the British pound, but with the demise of the British Empire, the pound lost its international relevance and was overtaken by the dollar. This was formalized in the 1944 Bretton Woods system. All other currencies were fiat currencies, but pegged to the dollar, which in turn was pegged to Gold at 40 dollars an ounce and redeemable for international trading partners.

The Eurodollar
With the dollar as the reserve currency, the US had to export dollars. In the early years after the war especially for Europe, the famous Eurodollars. This sounds great: print money and buy whatever you like. But with the Gold window it was also risky: overprinting could mean excess dollars would be exchanged back to Gold, depleting US Gold reserves.

This was also a weakness that those annoyed with American Hegemony could exploit. In 1967 the leftist press mogul Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber penned a famous screed called ‘le défi Américain’ (the American challenge’), arguing Europe was being colonized economically by superior American competition.

France, at the time, was run by de Gaulle, who never was impressed with Anglo-American supremacy. He made a point of exchanging every dollar he could lay his hands on as a means to undermine it. Read more from this story HERE.

Americans Deserve the IRS

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Photo Credit: Townhall

Individually, Americans do not deserve to be subservient to such a fear-mongering, intimidating and powerful agency as the Internal Revenue Service; but collectively, we do. Let’s look at it.

Since the 1791 ratification of our Constitution, until well into the 1920s, federal spending as a percentage of gross domestic product never exceeded 5 percent, except during war. Today federal spending is 25 percent of our GDP. State and local government spending is about 15 percent of the GDP. That means government spends more than 40 cents of each dollar we earn. If we add government’s regulatory burden, which is simply a disguised form of taxation, the government take is more than 50 percent of what we produce.

In order to squeeze out of us half of what we produce, a government tax collection agency must be ruthless and able to put the fear of God into its citizens. The IRS has mastered that task. Congress has given it powers that would be deemed criminal if used by others. For example, the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment protects Americans against self-incrimination and being forced to bear witness against oneself. That’s precisely what one does when he is compelled to sign his income tax form. However, a Fifth Amendment argument can’t be used as a defense in a court of law. The IRS will counter that you voluntarily provided the information on your tax return.

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Don’t Fool Yourselves, the Media will Always Love Obama

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Some conservatives think that the elite media are finally turning on Barack Obama and his administration.

The argument goes like this: The trio of scandals that have burst forth in the last couple of weeks—the events before, during, and after the deadly attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi; the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups; and especially the Department of Justice’s secret subpoenas of Associated Press phone records and targeting of Fox News reporter James Rosen as a potential co-conspirator in a leak investigation—will mark an inflection point. From here on out, journalists will apply far more scrutiny to President Obama. His free ride is over.

Don’t believe it.

In saying this, we don’t mean to suggest that journalists won’t ask tough questions or say critical things about the administration from time to time. But sooner or later they will—with a few impressive exceptions—revert to their ways. We are, after all, dealing with deeply ingrained habits and ideological commitments.

Take the New York Times. On May 17, in a story about how President Obama is trying to move beyond his current problems, the Times declared, “In the last few days, the administration appears to have stopped the bleeding. The release of internal e-mails on Benghazi largely confirmed the White House’s account.”

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Hezbollah Member, Referred to as ‘God of Death,’ Arrested in Texas

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Photo Credit: euthman

In the defense’s version, Wissam Allouche was a former linguist for the U.S. Army who ran a gas station in Northeast San Antonio as he became an American citizen.

But to counterterrorism officials, Allouche, 44, belonged to Hezbollah, falsely claimed to be a U.S. special forces officer during visits to Fort Sam Houston, and even tried to hook up with women at the post, possibly to gain access to sensitive information.

The two pictures emerged during a bail hearing Wednesday for Allouche, whose own statements recorded by investigators or stated in interviews often were contradictory about his allegiances to Hezbollah.

Allouche was arrested by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force here last week after being indicted on charges of not disclosing, during his quest to obtain his U.S. citizenship, his membership in the Amal militia and Hezbollah in Lebanon in the 1980s.

He’s also charged with not disclosing his prior membership in those groups when he applied for a security clearance with the Defense Department as he sought a contracting job.

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Gosnell’s Wife Sentenced to Seven Months in Prison for Role in ‘House of Horrors’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Pearl Gosnell, the wife of convicted Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, was sentenced on Wednesday to serve between seven and 23 months in prison for her role in her husband’s abortion clinic that became known as the “House of Horrors.”

The abortionist’s wife was convicted on charges of racketeering and performing illegal abortion. Her sentence was reduced, however, after spending two years under house arrest. Mrs. Gosnell’s children had asked Court of Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner to spare her prison time.

Local reporter Sean G. O’Sullivan wrote that, at her sentencing, Mrs. Gosnell, 52, expressed anger at her husband, who is now serving three life terms after being convicted on three counts of first-degree murder, one count of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a patient by overdose, and hundreds of other lesser charges.

“I am the wife of Kermit Gosnell and I’m not happy about that now,” said Pearl Gosnell. “I’m sorry for my part in this horror.”

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Ratings Crash! MSNBC in Massive Plunge

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Photo Credit: WND

The Obama administration-friendly MSNBC is taking a stunning ratings crash dive – averaging a dismal 175,000 viewers in the adults 25-54 demographic.

The network is struggling with double-digit drops from last May, with viewership down approximately 20 percent. It had only 539,000 viewers in primetime.

As WND recently reported, news media generally sympathetic to the president’s agenda have been plunging.

MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes” is down 32 percent in total viewers from “The Ed Show” last May. Chris Hayes was expected to draw in younger audiences. The New York Times’ Brian Stetler called Hayes “the youngest of all the cable news hosts on any network. He will also be perhaps the most unabashedly progressive host of any of the three major outlets.”

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