Several huge explosions were heard today at a US army base in Japan.
At least 10 fire engines rushed to the scene in Sagamihara city, south of Tokyo, amid reports of a blast sparked by an unknown cause.
Footage shows several small bangs and one huge explosion, which witnesses described on social media as like “a fireworks display.”
Pentagon spokesman US Navy Commander Bill Urban confirmed there are no injuries.
The site is part of a US army complex next to the capital where three deliberate explosions were reported in April, in what police suspect was an act of left-wing Japanese extremists. (Read more from “Huge Explosions at US Army Base in Japan as Warehouse Burns and Emergency Services Rush to Scene” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-08-24 01:55:502015-08-24 01:55:50Watch: Huge Explosions at US Army Base in Japan as Warehouse Burns and Emergency Services Rush to Scene
Off-duty members of the U.S. military subdued a gunman “known to intelligence services” after he opened fire, injuring three aboard on a high-speed train en route to Paris from Amsterdam Friday.
Three U.S. servicemen were on board the train and overpowered the man when the train stopped in the northern French city of Arras, 115 miles north of Paris, French media reported. Some reports said the men were U.S. Marines but that could not be confirmed.
Passengers on the train subdued the gunman and prevented further carnage, said Christophe Piednoel, spokesman for national railway operator SNCF. The train was then diverted to Arras, where police arrested the suspect, Piednoel said on French television i-Tele.
The suspect was arrested after the train stopped in Arras, 115 miles north of Paris, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henri Brandet said on French television BFM. Passengers were evacuated and police have secured the area . . .
The victims were identified as an American, a Briton and a Frenchman. Earlier reports said two American service members were among the injured. Two of the victims were in critical condition, according to a statement from the office of President Francois Hollande. (Read more from “3 Wounded as Off-Duty US Servicemen Subdue Gunman on Paris-Bound Train” HERE)
By Bill Gertz. China this week carried out another test of a new high-tech hypersonic glide vehicle, an ultra high-speed missile designed to deliver nuclear weapons and avoid defenses.
The latest test of what the Pentagon calls the Wu-14 hypersonic glide vehicle was carried out from the Wuzhai missile test range in central China. The test was judged successful, according to defense officials familiar with details of the event . . .
U.S. intelligence agencies have been tracking the Wu-14 since for over a year and have gained valuable insights into the weapon, the officials said.
No additional details were provided on the maneuvering activities of the Wu-14. However, the evasive actions bolstered suspicions that China is building the missile with capabilities designed to defeat U.S. defenses.
Current U.S. defenses are designed to track missiles that travel in predictable flight paths and are unable to counter maneuvering warheads and glide vehicles. (Read more from “China Conducts Fifth Test of Hypersonic Glide Vehicle” HERE)
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China Ramping up Publicity for Upcoming Military Parade
By Christopher Bodeen. China is ramping up publicity for its upcoming massive military parade commemorating the end of World War II, but officials still aren’t saying what other countries are taking part.
Propaganda officials escorted foreign journalists Saturday on a tour of a military base outside Beijing, where troops are practicing for the Sept. 3 spectacle that will feature 12,000 soldiers and 500 pieces of China’s latest military gear.
Almost 200 aircraft of about 20 different types will also the part. (Read more from this story HERE)
By Lim Chang-Won. South and North Korea traded artillery fire across their heavily militarised border on Thursday, in a rare exchange that left no casualties but pushed already elevated cross-border tensions to dangerously high levels.
North Korea followed up with an ultimatum sent via military hotline that gave the South 48 hours to dismantle loudspeakers blasting propaganda messages across the border or face further military action . . .
Direct exchanges of fire across the inter-Korean land border are extremely rare, mainly, analysts say, because both sides recognise the risk for a sudden and potentially disastrous escalation between two countries that technically remain at war.
Thursday’s incident came amid heightened tensions following mine blasts that maimed two members of a South Korean border patrol earlier this month and the launch this week of a major South Korea-US military exercise that infuriated Pyongyang.
In a detailed press briefing later in the day, the South’s defence ministry said the nuclear-armed North initially fired a single artillery round over the border shortly before 4:00pm (0700 GMT). (Read more from “North and South Korea Trade Artillery Fire as Tensions Soar” HERE)
Rival Koreas Trade Artillery, Rocket Fire at Border
By Hyung-Jin Kim. South Korea fired dozens of shells Thursday at rival North Korea after the North lobbed a single rocket round at a South Korean town near the world’s most heavily armed border, the South’s Defense Ministry said.
The Defense Ministry said in a statement that its artillery shells landed at the place where North Korea had fired its rocket. There were no other immediate details from the military and no reports of injuries. It appeared that North Korea did not respond to South Korea’s returned fire.
North Korea had previously threatened to attack South Korean loudspeakers that have been broadcasting, for the first time in 11 years, anti-Pyongyang propaganda messages across their shared border. Pyongyang also restarted its own loudspeakers aimed at the South.
About 80 residents in the South Korean town where the shell fell, Yeoncheon, were evacuated to underground bunkers, and authorities urged other residents to evacuate, a Yeoncheon official said, requesting anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.
In the nearby border city of Paju, residents were asked to stay home. On Baeknyeong Island near the Koreas’ disputed western sea boundary — the scene of several bloody skirmishes in recent years — residents in villages near a site where South Korea operates one of its loudspeakers were also evacuated, according to island officials. (Read more from this story HERE)
North Korea Declares “Quasi-State of War” Today on South
Photo Credit: CNN
By Stars and Stripes. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared his front-line troops in a “quasi-state of war” Friday and ordered them to prepare for battle against South Korea in response to an exchange of artillery fire on the border the day before. . .
Tensions on the Korean peninsula ratcheted up after two South Korean soldiers were maimed on Aug. 4 by land mines planted along the Demilitarized Zone. A U.N. Command investigation determined the mines had been planted by the North along a known South Korean patrol route. Pyongyang has denied involvement.
In response to the attack, South Korea resumed anti-Pyongyang broadcasts through loudspeakers along the border, and the North retaliated with its own broadcasts. North Korea demanded the broadcasts end by Friday evening.
On Thursday North Korea fired an artillery round into Yeoncheon near the DMZ. The South responded by firing dozens of shells at the point of origin of the North’s round, according to the Ministry of National Defense statements reported by Yonhap News.
While the two Koreas have traded fire several times in recent years, this marked the most serious incident since the North’s sinking of the Cheonan warship in 2010, killing 46 sailors, and its shelling of the Yeonpyeong island later that year that left four dead. (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-08-21 23:34:542015-08-21 23:34:54North and South Korea Trade Artillery Fire as Tensions Soar
It’s getting downright hazardous out there, and not just because the robo-machines were slamming the “sell” key today. The real danger comes from the loose assemblage of official institutions which claim to be running the world.
They might better be referred to as “can kickers united.” It is now blindly obvious that they have lapsed into empty ritualism, contrivance and double-talk in the face of a global economy and financial system that is becoming more unstable and incendiary by the day.
Who in their right mind would pile $95 billion of new debt on the busted remnants of Greece? Likewise, how can Japan possibly consider enacting still another round of fiscal stimulus when it already has one quadrillion yen of debt? And what geniuses are trying to fix the bankrupt finances of China’s local governments by swapping trillions of crushing bank loans for equivalent mountains of new municipal bonds?
Turning to the the home front it is more of the same. By what rational calculus can it be said, as the Fed did in its meeting minutes, that 80 months of free money has not quite yet done the job? And that is exactly what these mountebanks had to say:
The Committee concluded that, although it had seen further progress, the economic conditions warranting an increase in the target range for the federal funds rate had not yet been met. Members generally agreed that additional information on the outlook would be necessary before deciding to implement an increase in the target range.
Say again! We are now 74 months into a so-called “recovery” cycle that is well longer than the post-war average, yet the Fed is still manning the emergency fire hoses:
Even its own research department at the St. Louis Fed has just confessed that the whole rigmarole of QE and ZIRP has had no favorable impact on the main street economy. In a White Paper dissecting Fed actions since the financial crisis, Stephen D. Williamson, vice president of the St. Louis Fed opined that,
…….. the zero interest rates in place since 2008 that were designed to spark good inflation actually have resulted in just the opposite. And he believes the “forward guidance” the Fed has used to communicate its intentions has instead been a muddle of broken vows that has served only to confuse investors. Finally, he asserts that quantitative easing, or the monthly debt purchases that swelled the central bank’s balance sheet past the $4.5 trillion mark, have at best a tenuous link to actual economic improvements……..”There is no work, to my knowledge, that establishes a link from QE to the ultimate goals of the Fed—inflation and real economic activity. Indeed, casual evidence suggests that QE has been ineffective in increasing inflation,” Williamson wrote.
Self-evidently there is no main street emergency, but it is undeniable that ZIRP is the mother’s milk of Wall Street speculation. After all, the money market is where dealers and hedge fund gamblers finance themselves and put on their carry trades. That’s because no one with productive inventories of raw materials, work-in-process and finished goods would be foolish enough to fund their working capital in the overnight markets.
By contrast, speculators in tradable financial assets are thrilled to do that all day and night. They know that the shills who run the central bank’s printing press would never allow the money market to be parched for liquidity. Bernanke’s hair on fire panic in September 2008 proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
They also know that the Keynesian scholastics on the FOMC are so utterly naïve that they believe telegraphing to traders exactly what the intend to do for months in advance is an effective form of “policy”. Well, thank you Ben, Janet, et. al. for removing risk entirely from the oldest sin of finance—–that is borrowing short and hot and investing long and less liquid.
So the Wall Street gamblers back up their trucks and load-up all they can get of whatever is on offer in the casino. As long as it has a yield or a short-run appreciation potential, it is a no brainer to fund such “assets” in the zero rate money markets with repo, options and more exotic forms of bespoke leverage.
This creates unspeakable windfalls to the fast money which plays in the casino, of course. And it also generates enormous incentives for rank gambling in the capital markets and an endless inflation of financial asset prices. Indeed, it sucks endless capital, credit and collateral into the gambling enterprise that is enabled by contemporary Keynesian central banking, while depriving the real economy of true risk capital.
Needless to say, for the third time this century we have arrived at a bubble extreme. In fact, the aggregate market cap of the Russell 5000 at 133% of GDP is now higher relative to national income than even during the dotcom bubble (112%) and the housing blow-off (104%).
But that’s what ZIRP does—-it inflates financial bubbles. It is more than obvious by now that the household credit channel of monetary policy transmission is broken and done.
US households reached peak leverage in 2008, and have been struggling ever since to work out from under the mountain of debt that was created after Alan Greenspan arrived in the Eccles Building and discovered the printing press in the Fed’s basement could make him an enormously popular man about town.
But does it take a PhD in econometrics to read the obvious message of the above chart on total household debt. During the entire 80 months of ZIRP and country our brilliant monetary politburo has been pushing on a string. At the end of Q1 2015 there was still less mortgage, credit card, auto, student and other consumer loans outstanding than there were in Q4 of 2007.
Indeed, not a net dime of the massive $3.5 trillion of new liabilities created on the Fed’s balance sheet during that period ever escaped the canyons of Wall Steet. So read the Fed’s minutes of its latest meeting and weep: These fools are waving their arms at invisible Humphrey Hawkins goal posts and claim to be making steady, measureable progress toward the end zone.
The truth is, the Fed’s endless blathered about its 2% inflation target is a colossal hoax. In the first place there is no evidence whatsoever that real output and wealth increase faster at 2.0% inflation than the do at 1.0%—-or at any inflation rate at all. In fact, the Fed’s claim that it is still well shy of achieved its inflation target is the overriding reason why it keeps shoving zero cost credit into the money market.
Well, here a chart of inflation since the year 2010. The heavily medicated CPI published by the BLS has risen at a 1.8% compound rate and the core consumer component of the PPI has risen at a 2.6% annual rate. Only the PCE less food and energy has fallen appreciably below the Fed’s ostensible target, and that’s entirely due to the phony housing deflators on which it is constructed.
(Re-posted with permission, “David Stockman: Global Economy, More Unstable and Incendiary by the Day”, originally appeared HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-08-20 02:00:282015-08-20 02:00:28David Stockman: Global Economy, More Unstable and Incendiary by the Day
A new video out of Iran presents the imagined scenario of Jerusalem being conquered by a military alliance of the country’s Revolutionary Guard forces and Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists, a Jewish news site reported Tuesday.
Quoting the Middle East terrorism research organization the Investigative Project, the Algemeiner reported that the video was released two weeks after the Iran nuclear deal was announced.
The video showed the fighters preparing for battle with their gear, headbands, shoes and weapons, then descending on Jerusalem.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly pointed to Iran’s continued sponsorship of international terrorist groups including Hezbollah and to its dedication to destroying Israel as two reasons he believes the deal is dangerous for Israel.
The Algemeiner detailed the lineup of fighters portrayed in the video which, according to the Investigative Project, was produced by the Islamic Revolution Design House: “One dons the IRGC [Revolutionary Guards] insignia on his left arm, another the emblem of the Iran-backed Iraqi Shia Badr Organization. Yet a third dons a headband bearing the Lebanese Hezbollah logo, and a fourth is seen clad in Hamas’ characteristic balaclava and the Qassam Brigades green headband.” (Read more from “‘Israel Must Be Obliterated’: New Iranian Video “Shows” Muslim Invasion of Jerusalem” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-08-19 01:22:332015-08-19 01:22:33‘Israel Must Be Obliterated’: New Iranian Video “Shows” Muslim Invasion of Jerusalem
Despite a ban on arms shipments to Iran under international sanctions, Russia appears willing to proceed with the sale of advanced S-300 surface-to-air missiles to the country — in a development triggering objections from the Obama administration.
“We have long expressed our concerns over reports of the possible sale of this missile system to the Iranians,” Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told Fox News.
Russia, along with the U.S. and others, was a party to the recently struck Iran nuclear agreement, which keeps the arms embargo in place for five more years. A State Department official told Fox News this specific S-300 missile system is not technically prohibited under United Nations sanctions or the nuclear deal. But the department does not want the sale to proceed . . .
When asked to characterize the capability of Russia’s S-300 air defense system, a U.S. defense official with knowledge of Russia’s weapons systems told Fox News, “This is a very capable weapons system that can bring down U.S. or Israeli jet aircraft.”
The Obama administration has made its objections known before. When Russia first announced its plans to proceed with the sale in April, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, “The United States has previously made known our objections to that sale, and I understand that Secretary Kerry had an opportunity to raise these concerns once again in a recent conversation with his Russian counterpart.” (Read more from “Obama Administration Objects as Russia Moves Ahead With Iran Missile Sale” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-08-19 01:22:222015-08-19 01:22:22Obama Administration Objects as Russia Moves Ahead With Iran Missile Sale
Twenty-two Christians taken hostage by Islamic State (IS) terrorists in February in northeast Syria were released on Tuesday.
The 22 are part of a group of over 220 Assyrian Christians who were taken captive in several villages on the banks of the Khabur River not far from Hasaka. The released Christians came from Tal Shamiram and Tal Jazirah.
According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, tribal leaders mediated the release of the group. Reports indicate that money was paid for their freedom. The released elderly Christians, 14 of them women, were taken to one of the churches in Hasaka.
“This is certainly good news, but the fact is that Islamic State is committing genocide across Syria, Iraq and beyond,” says Jerry Dykstra, Media Relations Director for Open Doors USA. “The reign of terror is not abating. Thousands have been killed and kidnapped. Hundreds of villages have been destroyed. Christians in the West must stand in the gap for our fellow believers.”
The Assyrian Federation of Sweden, which has followed the case, said Tuesday’s release brings the total number of freed Assyrians to 45.
IS still holds 187 Christians from the Khabur-region captive. Please continue to pray for this large group. Pray that the Lord will strengthen them and that they continue to put their trust in the Lord. Pray for the people who are attempting to free them.
Last week IS abducted over 60 Christians from the central town of Quaryatayn, hours after it was captured by the group. Nearly half of them were later released, but the fate of the rest of the hostages remains unknown.Assyrians numbered about 30,000 among Syria’s 1.8 million Christians before the country’s conflict began. They lived mostly in 35 villages in Hasaka.
Syria is ranked #4 on Open Doors 2015 World Watch List of the 50 worst persecutors of Christians. Approximately 4 million Syrians have left the country. Inside Syria there are 6.5 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). It is estimated that 700,000 Christians have left Syria since the war began over four years ago.
Open Doors continues to work with churches and Christian partners in Syria to provide food, clothing, medical supplies and trauma counseling. Help feed an entire family for a month for just $50. (Re-posted with permission, “ISIS Releases 22 Christian Hostages in Syria”, originally appeared HERE)
“If making it easy to be an illegal alien isn’t enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again. If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give birth to a child, we reward that child with US citizenship and guarantee a full access to all public and social services this society provides, and that’s a lot of services. Is it any wonder that two-thirds of the babies born at taxpayer expense in county-run hospitals in Los Angeles are born to illegal alien mothers?”
No, these are not recent comments from Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Steve King (R-IA) or even Donald Trump. These were the words of Harry Reid in 1993 when he introduced an immigration enforcement bill, which, among other things, reaffirmed the original and proper reading of the 14th Amendment and qualified the birthright citizenship clause to exclude those born here from illegal alien parents.
That was 10 million illegal immigrants ago, at a time when the problem of incentivizing illegal aliens was not nearly as grave and consequential as it is today. Yet, even the leaders of the Democrat Party understood that no sane country would diminish the value of U.S. citizenship and use it to blatantly encourage illegal immigration and the growing birth tourism scam.
Fast-forward one generation, and the costs of not fixing this loophole have been incalculable. And yet not only have Democrats eschewed sanity as it relates to this issue, most of the pseudo-conservative talking heads are balking at proposals—most recently from Donald Trump—to fix this loophole.
In anticipation of the endless handwringing and misinformation from the conservative intelligentsia and the thumb sucking class, here is a fact sheet on the details behind birthright citizenship and the proposed fix to disincentivize illegal immigration and the birth tourism scam.
Myth: Unconditional birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Constitution under the 14th Amendment.
Fact: Actually, the prevailing interpretation of the citizenship clause—now used to grant automatic citizenship to children of both parents who are illegal aliens—is unconstitutional. Section 1 of the 14th Amendment states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Everyone agrees with the basic concept of birthright citizenship as plainly stated in the first part of this clause. But in addition to the requirement that a child be born on American soil, the plain reading of the citizenship clause adds another requirement: “…and subject to the jurisdiction thereof…” As we all know, there are no superfluous clauses in this tightly drafted document we call the U.S. Constitution. Clearly, the framers were drawing some limitation beyond simply being born on American soil.
Fortunately we need not speculate about their intent. The intent of the framers was crystal clear. The purpose of this amendment was to overturn the Dred Scott case and ensure guaranteed citizenship to all former black slaves born in American, and likely living here for generations. At the same time they wanted to limit citizenship to those subject to our jurisdiction, which excludes those who are not legal permanent residents of this country and certainly illegal aliens.
The 1866 Civil Rights Act, which was the forerunner to the 14th Amendment, reads as follows: “All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.” Anyone who is here illegally or on a temporary visa is still subject to the jurisdiction of his or her own country of origin.
Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, the principle author of the citizenship clause of the 14th amendment, explicitly said that candidates for citizenship must be born here AND not owe allegiance to another authority. He made it clear that allegiance “will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States.” If we can be sure that even children of Indian tribes were excluded from automatic citizenship, certainly temporary visitors from foreign countries were meant to be excluded as well.
The notion that the framers of the 14th Amendment desired to include illegal aliens in birthright citizenship is not only contrary to the explicit language and context of the amendment, it is patently absurd. It’s as absurd as the notion that the due process and equal protection clauses of that same amendment were designed to mandate the recognition of homosexual marriage.
Myth: You must amend the 14th Amendment in order to change the citizenship law.
Fact: As noted above, requiring that one parent be a legal permanent resident, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” is exactly what the 14th Amendment means. No case law has ever determined this to mean anything else. In Elk v. Wilkins 112 U.S. 94 (1884), the Court denied a bid for citizenship from an individual who was born on an Indian Reservation and moved to non-reservation territory in the U.S. Law Professor John Eastman has an impressive and concise analysis of the case law on the citizenship clause and proves incontrovertibly that any limitation on birthright citizenship (such as requiring that one parent be a permanent resident) would not need be enacted through a constitutional amendment.
Although an activist court in 1898 seemed to apply the birthright citizenship principle found in English Common Law in United States v Wong Kim Ark, which in itself was a reversal of previous precedent and against the plain interpretation of the 14th Amendment, the case only applied to a child of parents who were legal permanent residents. Liberals wrongly apply this ruling to children of illegal aliens, even though English Common Law explicitly excluded children born to those who illegally occupied territory, as noted by Professor Lino Graglia at a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing.
Sure, a statutory fix would be challenged in the courts, but it doesn’t mean the original meaning of the amendment shouldn’t be clarified and defended.
Myth: Upholding the law in this regard means stripping citizenship from those already deemed Americans.
Fact: Those promulgating this myth are either ignorant or willfully promoting misinformation. Nobody is proposing stripping citizenship retroactively. This change would merely ensure that future waves of illegal immigrants are not rewarded with citizenship. In fact, supporting birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants is even more radical than supporting amnesty. While the debate over amnesty is about those already here illegally, the debate over unqualified birthright citizenship is about future waves. Those who oppose this fix are essentially preemptively condoning (to say nothing of inviting) future waves of illegal immigration. Supporters of amnesty should be the most fervent opponents of birthright citizenship so that their amnesty doesn’t, once again, grow legs and incentivize a new wave of illegal immigration. What opposition to this fix really shows is that this is not merely a disagreement over what to do with those already here illegally; it’s a debate over whether we are entitled to sovereign borders.
Myth: Changing birthright citizenship is radical and uncalled for.
Fact: According to the Center for Immigration Studies, only 30 of the 194 countries in the world grant unqualified birthright citizenship (among western nations, Canada is the only other country to offer this status). No other developed country suffers from the effects of illegal immigration like we do, yet we are the last to debate this issue, lest political correctness render us “radical.” The true radical view is the one encouraging future waves of illegal immigration despite the past few decades of disaster. Nearly one in every 10 births in this country is to a mother here illegally. Why would we continue to incentivize this?
Moreover, nothing undermines the fabric of America and attenuates the value of our citizenship more than the practice of “birth tourism”–a trend most recently seen played out in so-called “maternity hotels” located in Southern California, hosting pregnant Chinese women coming to the U.S. for the sole purpose of giving birth in America to secure automatic citizenship and the benefits that come along with it. There is something fundamentally wrong when known drug lord El Chapo Guzman can openly send his wife here to give birth to American citizens.
A 2011 survey showed that Americans support closing the birthright citizenship loophole by a margin of 61-28. The position of the political class and the media is the only radical view on this issue.
Myth: Citizenship is then limited to children of citizens.
Fact: Wrong. All we are asking is that one parent be a legal permanent resident. As long as one parent is a green card holder, even if the other parent is an illegal alien, the child would still be recognized as a citizen under the proposed change to the erroneous but prevailing interpretation of the 14th Amendment. This would welcome all children of immigrants as automatic citizens while weeding out children of illegal aliens and those here on tourist visas. Many countries have stricter threshold requirements for citizenship.
As for children of those residing here on guest worker or student visas, most countries do not recognize them as citizens because they are not real immigrants. Germany grants citizenship to those born to parents on temporary visas who were living in the country for many years. Either way, this is a point that can easily be negotiated and compromised on so long as citizenship for illegal aliens and birth tourism scammers is terminated.
Myth: You are a racist if you support a fix of the birthright loophole.
Fact: Merely requiring that one parent be an LPR would prevent illegal immigration from all countries and ethnicities and it would stop the birth tourism from a variety of countries. This targets nobody in particular. In reality, it is those who misinterpret the 14th Amendment, which was designed to guarantee citizenship to African-Americans, who are racists because they are abusing the original civil rights efforts and misapplying them to birth tourist scammers.
Myth: Birthright Citizenship is a red herring to stir up the masses.
Fact: Birthright citizenship stands at the nexus of any true immigration reform that cuts off illegal immigration and makes our legal immigrations system merit-based, disposing of the chain migration model. These are two stated goals of most politicians (at least publicly). The only way to move in that direction is by ending unqualified birthright citizenship.
At a clip of 300,000-400,000 babies born in the U.S. each year to parents of illegal status, Pew estimated there are about 4 million “birthright” children in 2009, meaning there are likely over 5 million to date. Having American-citizen children allows illegal immigrants, a very indigent population, to benefit from the full smorgasbord of welfare programs, as noted by Harry Reid in 1993. In turn, these children can petition to bring in their relatives when they turn 18, perpetuating the untenable cycle we have helped create. Hence, unqualified birthright citizenship places the keys to our future legal immigration and our welfare system in the hands of illegal immigrants. Again, as Harry Reid said, no sane country would do this. (Re-posted with permission from the author, “Fixing the Birthright Citizenship Loophole: Myth vs Fact”, originally appeared HERE)
By Mac Slavo. The second Ukrainian ceasefire appears to have fallen apart as reports from around the country indicate that heavy fighting has resumed.
Though Western media has yet to report on activity that began Sunday, independent journalists and eye witnesses have been updating social networks with photos, videos and first-hand accounts.
It’s all-out war in the Ukraine with multiple Ukrainian cities now under attack by rockets, mortars and heavy artillery fire.
Other sources note that as many as 50,000 Russian military personnel have massed either inside of Ukraine or directly on its border, with heavy armor, including T-90A tanks making their way to the hot zones:
Ukrainian activists on August 14-15 published photos of the Russian amour on their Facebook page. Military authorities in Ukraine believe the number of Russian troops within and close to its borders has risen to more than 50,000, raising fears of a substantial escalation in the conflict raging in Ukraine’s eastern regions.
(Read more from “Russia Preparing for War: Country Prepares To Deploy Troops To Ukraine” HERE)
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Russia ‘Preparing for War’ Against Britain and Nato as Ukraine Conflict Escalates
By Patrick Maguire. A leading European think tank has said a Russian military exercise in March demonstrated that Russia “is actively preparing for a conflict with Nato”.
The European Leadership network also claimed a similar exercise by Nato in June indicated that the two powers were training their forces to get to grips with each other’s strengths and military plans . . .
The warning came just a day after defence secretary Michael Fallon warned the Russian separatists in Ukraine could seize more territory, and that the “red hot” conflict was set to escalate.
But the minister, who is currently in Ukraine, dismissed claims of an imminent war with Putin’s Russia – but said he could not see an end to the conflict “any time soon” . . .
The defense secretary yesterday announced that Britain is to expand its program of “non-lethal” assistance to train Ukraine’s armed forces to deal with improvised explosive devices and mines. (Read more from “Russia ‘Preparing for War’ Against Britain and Nato as Ukraine Conflict Escalates” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-08-18 03:01:122015-08-18 03:01:12Russia Preparing for War: Country Prepares To Deploy Troops To Ukraine [+video]
Several huge explosions were heard today at a US army base in Japan.
Off-duty members of the U.S. military subdued a gunman “known to intelligence services” after he opened fire, injuring three aboard on a high-speed train en route to Paris from Amsterdam Friday.
