Shocking Images From Cameras on Southern Border Capture Steady Stream of Illegals Sneaking Into US with Drugs and Guns

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Cameras placed along Texas’ 1,200-mile border with Mexico have captured the stream of illegal immigrants sneaking into the country on a daily basis.

The network of more than 1,000 motion detectors, similar to those used to film wildlife, have been placed strategically in areas that have not been secured – where Mexican citizens can cross and evade capture with ease.

They helped border guards apprehend nearly 30,000 suspects and led to 88,400 pounds of drugs being seized in 2014 as part of Operation Drawbridge.

Photo Credit: Daily Mail

Photo Credit: Daily Mail

The system has also had a significant impact on Mexican cartels and their ability to smuggle narcotics, people and stolen vehicles between the two countries.

The startling images have been revealed as President Obama continues to fight to push through an executive order to shield illegal immigrants from deportation. (Read more from “Shocking Images From Cameras on Texas-Mexico Border Capture Steady Stream of Illegal Immigrants Sneaking Into the United States With Packages of Drugs and Guns” HERE)

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Hundreds of Troops Participate in Homeland Response Drill Across 7 States

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militaryBy Poststar.com. Nearly 600 Army and Air National Guard forces from New Jersey and New York are preparing for the worst.

They are participating in a homeland response force drill at New Jersey’s Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst on Friday. (Read more from “Nearly 600 Troops Participate in Homeland Response Drill” HERE)

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Big Spring Invites Army to Conduct Special Ops Training in City

By Julia Deng. A large-scale military exercise set to run from July 15 to November 15 has sparked rampant conspiracy theories involving everything from Walmart to martial law.

The Special Operations mission, called Jade Helm 15, is just another training opportunity to “practice core special warfare tasks,” according to United States Army representatives.

“The size and scope of Jade Helm sets this one apart,” said Army Special Operations Command officials. “To stay ahead of environment challenges faced overseas, Jade Helm will take place across seven states… The diverse terrain in these states replicates areas Special Operations Soldiers regularly find themselves operating in overseas.”

Special Operations Forces will only train in five states: Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado.

According to Jade Helm operations planners, training will only be conducted on private and public land with the permission of landowners or regional authorities. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Wal-Mart Suddenly Closed 5 Stores and Laid off Thousands of Workers and No One Knows Why

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walmart-wal-mart-32Wal-Mart suddenly closed five stores in four states on Monday for alleged plumbing problems.

The closures could last up to six months and affect roughly 2,200 workers in Texas, California, Oklahoma, and Florida, CNN Money reports.

Wal-Mart employees say they were completely blindsided by the news, having been notified only a couple hours before the stores closed at 7 p.m. Monday.

“Everybody just panicked and started crying,” Venanzi Luna, a manager at a store in Pico Rivera, California, told CNN Money.

All workers will receive paid leave for two months. After that, full-time workers could become eligible for severance, according to CNN Money. But part-time workers will be on their own. (Read more from “Wal-Mart Suddenly Closed 5 Stores and Laid off Thousands of Workers and No One Knows Why” HERE)

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Dry Wells Plague California as Drought Has Water Tables Plunging

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Photo Credit: Bloomberg Business

Photo Credit: Bloomberg Business

Near California’s Success Lake, more than 1,000 water wells have failed. Farmers are spending $750,000 to drill 1,800 feet down to keep fields from going fallow. Makeshift showers have sprouted near the church parking lot.

“The conditions are like a third-world country,” said Andrew Lockman, a manager at the Office of Emergency Services in Tulare County, in the heart of the state’s agricultural Central Valley about 175 miles (282 kilometers) north of Los Angeles.

As California enters the fourth year of a record drought, its residents and $43 billion agriculture industry have drawn groundwater so low that it’s beyond the reach of existing wells. That’s left thousands with dry taps and pushed farmers to dig deeper as Governor Jerry Brown, a 77-year-old Democrat, orders the first mandatory water rationing in state history.

“The demand we’re placing on the aquifer and the deep bedrock drilling, which is going on at an alarmingly fast pace, is really scary,” said Tricia Blattler, executive director of the Tulare County Farm Bureau. “Folks are really concerned we’re not going to be able find water in the groundwater system much longer. We are tapping it way too quickly.”

Nowhere has lack of rain been felt more than in Tulare County, in a valley dotted with dairy farms and walnut orchards at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains. With 458,000 residents, it’s home to 1,013 dry wells, accounting for more than half of those that have failed in the state since January 2014. (Read more from “Dry Wells Plague California as Drought Has Water Tables Plunging” HERE)

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USDA Veterinarian: Bird Flu Outbreak Could Be ‘Devastating’

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birdThe nation’s poultry industry may have to live with a deadly bird flu strain for several years, which would be “devastating,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief veterinary officer said Thursday.

Dr. John Clifford also said that while new cases should drop to close to zero once the weather warms up and kills off the virus, there’s “very likely” to be a resurgence this fall when the wild waterfowl that are natural carriers of avian influenza fly south for the winter.

Clifford spoke on a visit to Minnesota, the state hit hardest by outbreaks that have led to the death of over 2.5 million turkeys and chickens in the Midwest since early March. He said the fact that the highly pathogenic H5N2 virus has already appeared as far east as southern Ontario means there’s an uncomfortable risk of it spreading to the East Coast where much of the U.S. broiler chicken industry is based.

“If it sticks around and continues it’s going to be very devastating to our poultry industry and our international markets, trade markets, as well as the loss domestically,” Clifford said in an interview with The Associated Press. “That’s why we have to really use this time appropriately to do all that we can to determine how best we can address and prevent introductions in the future.”

Authorities have confirmed H5N2 outbreaks at nearly 40 commercial poultry farms in the Midwest, including 26 in Minnesota. All were turkey operations except for one chicken farm in Wisconsin. On Thursday, officials said four more Minnesota farms and two more in Wisconsin had been struck. (Read more from “USDA Veterinarian: Bird Flu Outbreak Could Be ‘Devastating'” HERE)

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GOP Doesn’t Care that 541,000 Illegals Were Just Issued Social Security Cards [+videos]

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moneyHere is a story of a failed Republican opposition party laid bare before the American people.

In a letter from the Social Security Administration responding to inquiries posed by Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Ben Sasse (R-NE), it was revealed that 541,000 Social Security cards have been illegally issued to Obama’s DACA amnesty recipients as of Sept. 30, 2014. That number has likely grown over the past six months. Unfortunately, GOP insouciance to the rule of law is just as much to blame as Obama and his partners in crime.

For those of us disappointed with the lackluster GOP reaction to Obama’s mass executive amnesty in November of last year, remember that Republicans did absolutely nothing in response to the 2012 DACA amnesty. Mitt Romney refused to make it an issue in the presidential campaign and most Republicans didn’t even put out a press release opposing it. That amnesty for younger illegal aliens was just as unlawful as the “DAPA” amnesty of 2014, but Obama was given free reign.

Republicans, at least on a party level, declined to even pursue legal recourse in the court system. Instead, Kris Kobach, the famed immigration enforcement attorney, took the initiative and sued the administration on behalf of 10 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

On April 4, 2013, Judge Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled that the Obama administration’s DACA program was a clear violation of Section 1225(b)(2)(A) of the INA, which requires ICE agents to place all illegal aliens into removal proceedings. However, he said that ICE agents lacked standing to sue the administration in Article III Courts and were directed to lodge their complaint to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), an administrative panel dedicated to mediating disputes between federal employees and the government.

After two years of being led down the garden path, they finally got a hearing before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Recently, the 5th Circuit tossed out the lawsuit, amazingly, noting that ICE agents lack standing to sue, even though they are being forced to execute actions antithetical to their job description and the statutes of the United States Congress. Obama has even threatened agents who fail to implement his unconstitutional policies.

Accordingly, we are now stuck with a program that is clearly unconstitutional, but we lack the ability to stop it.

What are the consequences?

With Obama approving DACA applications at over a 90% rate, almost no criminal elements are being weeded out. Indeed many DACA recipients have already been arrested for criminal activity. They all have Social Security cards. And remember, even if conservatives can put an end to DACA and terminate the work permits, the Social Security numbers are there to stay.

In addition, the fiscal cost of this Social Security charade is enormous. An illegal immigrant who receives a Social Security number will be entitled to refundable tax credits, Social Security retirement benefits, and Social Security disability benefits. An individual low-income illegal immigrant – who would have no net tax liability – could be eligible to receive up to $3 in Social Security benefits for every $1 contributed through payroll taxes, and could even get up to $35,000 in tax credits for their household in a single year. Remember, that most of these young illegal immigrants are predominantly low-income earners.

This is fundamentally unfair.

The GOP establishment has run away from this issue because of the oleaginous arguments put forth by the left about sympathy for those who came here “of no fault of their own.” But they also came here of no fault of our basic laws of sovereignty and no fault of the American taxpayer. Their predicament is not the fault of our laws; it’s the fault of their parents and countries of origin that have violated our sovereignty.

Even one who believes in granting them amnesty at some point has no justification in supporting federal benefits for a new population at a time when we can’t afford the welfare state for native Americans and legal immigrants. Moreover, it is fundamentally unfair to legal immigrants who are not eligible for federal assistance for at least five years after receiving a green card.

If Congress truly cared about fairness and the rule of law, they would pass Rep. Randy Weber’s (R-TX) bill, H.R. 1332, which would block both the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and child tax credit for DACA and DAPA applicants.

If Republican presidential candidates really cared about this issue, they would embrace fairness in Social Security and tax credits as a campaign issue, instead of just touting a talking point about “securing the border” when finally forced to discuss immigration. (See “541,000 Illegally Issued Social Security Cards? GOP Yawns” HERE)

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Security Expert Pulled off Flight by FBI After Exposing Airline Tech Vulnerabilities

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robertsinternal5515One of the world’s foremost experts on counter-threat intelligence within the cybersecurity industry, who blew the whistle on vulnerabilities in airplane technology systems in a series of recent Fox News reports, has become the target of an FBI investigation himself.

Chris Roberts of the Colorado-based One World Labs, a security intelligence firm that identifies risks before they’re exploited, said two FBI agents and two uniformed police officers pulled him off a United Airlines Boeing 737-800 commercial flight Wednesday night just after it landed in Syracuse, and spent the next four hours questioning him about cyberhacking of planes.

The FBI interrogation came just hours after Fox News published a report on Roberts’ research, in which he said: “We can still take planes out of the sky thanks to the flaws in the in-flight entertainment systems. Quite simply put, we can theorize on how to turn the engines off at 35,000 feet and not have any of those damn flashing lights go off in the cockpit.”

His findings, along with those of another security expert quoted in the Fox News reports, were backed up a GAO report released Tuesday.

“If you don’t have people like me researching and blowing the whistle on system vulnerabilities, we will find out the hard way what those vulnerabilities are when an attack happens,” Roberts said. (Read more from “Security Expert Pulled off Flight by FBI After Exposing Airline Tech Vulnerabilities” HERE)

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Senator Investigates Why So Many Veterans Are Being Placed On FBI ‘Mental Defective’ Gun Ban List

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chuck-grassley-e1429195947640Nearly all of the individuals included on the Justice Department’s gun ban list in the “mental defective” category are referred by the Department of Veterans Affairs. This has Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley investigating a possible infringement on veterans’ Second Amendment rights.

Grassley, an Iowa Republican, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday seeking information on how the Justice Department manages its National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS).

Federal agencies are required to report individuals that fit into the “mental defective” category to NICS, which is managed by the FBI. Doing so blocks them from being able to purchase firearms.

According to data from Congressional Research, in 2012 the VA was responsible for 99.3 percent of all “mental defective” referrals to NICS. That’s ironic given that it is veterans who are charged with protecting Americans’ constitutional rights, according to Grassley.

“It’s disturbing to think that the men and women who dedicated themselves to defending our freedom and values face undue threats to their fundamental Second Amendment rights from the very agency established to serve them,” Grassley said in a statement. (Read more from “Senator Investigates Why So Many Veterans Are Being Placed On FBI ‘Mental Defective’ Gun Ban List” HERE)

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Unconventional Warfare Exercise in the Hill Country [+video]

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militaryThe military says Real County deep in the heart of the Hill Country is the perfect place for a new training operation called Jade Helm.

“Jade Helm is a challenging, eight week military and interagency unconventional warfare exercise,” said an Army representative to a packed Real County Courthouse.

What Army representatives say “unconventional warfare exercises” means in regards to Jade Helm is special forces blending in to small towns and better communicating with locals.

Hypothetically, according to the military, Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and Colorado have been “taken over” by an enemy. Elite forces then infiltrate those states and learn how to better relate and communicate with – again, fictitious – rebels who are fighting against the occupiers. That’s the basis of Jade Helm.

The military says it had already made arrangements with a rancher in Real County to use his property for Jade Helm operations. The only thing stopping the military was the approval of county commissioners. (Read more from “Unconventional Warfare Exercise in the Hill Country [+video]” HERE)

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UPDATE: Senator Harry Reid Beat Up by the Mob?

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Harry Reid Black EyeBy Eddie Scarry. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who recently announced plans to retire, rebutted conservative media speculation on Wednesday that his severe injuries are the result of a run-in with the mob.

On CNBC’s “Speakeasy,” host John Harwood asked Reid about theories put forth by conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh and Breitbart News that the injuries Reid sustained at the beginning of this year, including a blow to his right eye, are not, as he has said, the result of an accident involving elastic exercise equipment. . .


Doubts within conservative media over Reid’s version of events — that he was smacked in the face by an elastic exercise band that broke, causing him to fall down — date back to almost immediately after the New Year’s Day incident. John Hinderaker of the conservative Power Line blog speculated on Jan. 6 that Reid “looks like he has been in a fight, and not with an elastic band”. . .

In Late March, Limbaugh said, “I don’t believe for a minute that whatever happened to Harry Reid has anything to do with an exercise machine unless somebody repeatedly threw him into it.”

A day after Limbaugh’s commentary, the right-leaning Breitbart News website wrote a lengthy story analyzing the floor plan of Reid’s Nevada home. “A Breitbart News investigation of Reid’s home exercise accident has uncovered facts that appear to discredit Reid’s version of the home exercise accident for three very specific reasons,” the story said. (Read more from “Sen. Harry Reid Beat Up by the Mob?” HERE)
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Sen. Harry Reid “Sightless” in Right Eye as Result of Alleged Elastic Band Accident

Harry Reid EyeBy Seung Min Kim. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he’s now “sightless” in his right eye following a brutal exercise injury in January, in comments released Tuesday.
In an interview with Univision, Reid said he has undergone 11 hours of surgery to repair the eye, but he’s still unable to see out of it until “something comes along that’ll change it.” He’s having trouble with depth perception, particularly when he uses the stairs, Reid said.
Story Continued Below

“They’ve tried. I can’t see out of my right eye,” Reid told Univision’s Jorge Ramos in the interview, which will air Sunday. “And that’s OK, I can live with that.” (Read more from this story HERE)
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Reid Loses Eyesight, Breaks Ribs, but Isn’t Suing the Maker of the Defective Exercise Band?!

By Jim Treacher. Why isn’t [Senator Harry Reid] warning people about the dangers of these exercise bands? Why isn’t he demanding answers?

The faulty exercise band also broke several of his ribs and gave him a concussion. Yet he’s shrugging the whole thing off. Oh well. Just one of those things.

Has Harry Reid ever been the forgiving type?

In completely unrelated news, Harry’s brother Larry got popped for DUI in Nevada a month later. At noon.

larry_reid

Oh, and he also attacked a state trooper. (Read more from this story HERE)
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Rush Limbaugh Says He Might Know Who Beat Up “Dingy Harry”

larry-beat-harryBy Rush Limbaugh. kay, so I’m the guy responsible for the story that Dingy Harry got beat up by the mob in his bathroom. Now, I did offer here that I don’t think the nature of his injuries was such that this wasn’t a run-in with an exercise machine or the elastic band, whatever the story was. I did raise the specter that it did appear to me that Dingy Harry got beat up. I don’t know by who, although I might now. Bottom line is, I might now know who did it. And I wasn’t even gonna bring this up. . .

So after the program one day a couple of weeks ago I got on the phone with John Hinderaker and this caller from Las Vegas who claimed to know what happened to Dingy Harry Reid. Hinderaker wrote the story up and published it on Power Line. I don’t know what the date was because I didn’t print. But it’s just a couple, three weeks ago. And here’s the upshot of it. . .

Elliott, the caller, who wanted to speak to Hinderaker and me, “Elliott spent a portion of last New Year’s Eve at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Henderson, Nevada,” which, for all intents and purposes, is Vegas. “His AA group has meetings every hour on New Year’s Eve, along with a pot luck supper. There were approximately 20 people present at the meeting during the events,” that you will next hear about.

“Some time between 10:00 and 11:30 p.m., a man entered the meeting. His appearance was striking: there was blood on his clothing, beginning around his midsection. His left hand was swollen. He appeared to be somewhat intoxicated and was visibly agitated,” and he wanted to share, at this AA meeting.

“He introduced himself as ‘Larry.’ In a group discussion that was heard by a number of people, Larry said that he had just had a fight with a family member. Larry said he had been at a family get-together, and he didn’t remember much about the fight because he had blacked out. When he came to, he was rolling on the ground, fighting with a family member, and his clothes were bloody,” and in fact that’s how he showed up at the AA meeting. “Now, he said, he was frightened that the Secret Service would come after him.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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Las Vegas Man Admits Concocting Story About Harry Reid’s Eye

By Nick Gass. No, Harry Reid was not beaten up by his brother, says the man who concocted the false rumor to explain the Senate minority leader’s injuries after an exercise accident several months ago.

Larry Pfeifer told the Las Vegas Sun that he made up the story after being appalled that conservative blogger John Hinderaker published a rumor that Reid’s injuries occurred as a result of a Mafia enforcer roughing him up.

“It was just so outrageous,” Pfeifer told the Sun. “The fact that someone can say something completely false that can destroy somebody’s life, it’s just wrong. Where’s the moral compass?”

Pfeifer said he fabricated the story that Reid’s brother Larry showed up drunk to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on New Year’s Eve and claimed he had beaten up a relative.

Pfeifer, whom the Sun describes as a former consultant in the nightclub and entertainment industry, said he thought the episode “would be over in a day and a half.” (Read more from this story HERE)