In Los Angeles, 1 in 10 Residents is an Illegal Immigrant, Study Says

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Photo Credit: David McNewA report released Tuesday suggests that one quarter of the illegal immigrant workforce in the United States lives in California, and it offers a detailed look at who they are and how they live, using the Golden State as a microcosm to explore how current immigration reform efforts in Washington could impact America.

The study by the University of Southern California’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration estimates that about 7 percent of California residents – or more than 2.6 million people – are in the country illegally. In Los Angeles County – the nation’s most populous – 1 in 10 residents is illegal. Sixty-three percent of those undocumented residents in Los Angeles are Mexican, 22 percent are from Central America and 8 percent are from the Philippines, China, or Korea.

Statewide, immigrants are concentrated in seasonal or low-wage industries such as farm work and retail trade, according to the report. But nearly half have lived in the US for 10 years or more, meaning they are more often than not permanent residents rather than seasonal migrants. Moreover, they generate more than $31 billion in personal income, even though they endure high levels of poverty.

For policymakers in Washington, that suggests that the challenges facing the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants are unlikely to go away if immigration reform efforts fail.

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Obama Used Taxpayer Funds in Benghazi Cover-Up

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Photo Credit: WNDAs the House Oversight Committee hears from witnesses presenting a chronological timeline that starkly contrasts with initial statements by the Obama administration on the Benghazi attacks, it is instructive to recall how the administration spent $70,000 in taxpayer funds on an ad denouncing an anti-Muhammad film.

The ad aired on Pakistani television amid White House claims that the Benghazi attacks were caused by popular protests against an obscure Muhammad film released on YouTube.

It would later emerge that no such protests took place and that the Obama administration almost immediately had evidence the Benghazi attacks were carried out by jihadists.

The ads reportedly aired on seven Pakistani networks. They also came in response to protests in Pakistan that were reportedly a reaction to the film. However, it was the claim of popular protests in Benghazi at the time that garnered the biggest public reaction from the White House.

The Sept. 19, 2012, ads feature Obama and Clinton making statements against the film in the wake of the Benghazi attacks, which transpired one week prior.

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Igniting Debate: School Scrubs Photo of Professors Burning Book

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Photo Credit: SJSU.eduWhat could prompt two college professors to burn a book? Disagreement with the contents, of course.

Two San Jose State University professors took a picture as they held a match to a book that takes on the idea of global warming, and the photo landed on an official school website until some realized the idea of academics burning books is not exactly scholarly. The image depicted Alison Bridger, a professor and chairwoman of the university’s department of meteorology and climate science, holding a lit match beneath “The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania” as the 312-page paperback was held by assistant professor Craig Clements.

“This week we received a deluge of free books from the Heartland Institute,” the original caption read, according to an archived version of the webpage. “ … Shown above, Drs. Bridger and Clements test the flammability of the book.”

The picture and the accompanying caption, which was posted late last month, were later removed from the university’s servers after a popular climate change website, Watts Up With That?, noticed it and referenced Fahrenheit 451, the 1953 novel by Ray Bradbury in which books are outlawed and widely burned.

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Obama’s Green Program Paid $11.45 Million for Each Job Created

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Photo Credit: DOE Loans Programs OfficeWithout much fanfare, the Department of Energy (DOE) recently updated the list of loan guarantee projects on its website. Unlike in 2008, when Barack Obama pledged to create 5 million jobs over 10 years by directing taxpayer funds toward renewable energy projects, there were no press conferences or stump speeches. But the data are nonetheless revealing: for the over $26 billion spent since 2009, DOE Section 1703 and 1705 loan guarantees have created only 2,298 permanent jobs for a cost of over $11.45 million per job.

As the astronomical cost of the DOE’s loan guarantee program indicates, subsidizing renewable energy is not a good deal for taxpayers. But loan guarantees are just one of the ways the federal government bankrolls risky green energy projects. Energy-related tax preferences cost taxpayers about $13.5 billion in FY 2012, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. But solar and wind power, for which the majority of the tax preferences for renewable energy were directed, produced only 3.6 percent of the nation’s generation in 2012.

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No Buzz: Aldrin Trashes Obama Asteroid Mission

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Photo Credit: US NewsThe second man to set foot on the moon wants to see NASA send people further into space than he ever traveled. Buzz Aldrin trashed NASA’s plan to bring an asteroid into lunar orbit in a speech, advocating for a Mars colony.

Aldrin, who recently published the book “Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration,” said at the Washington, D.C. Humans to Mars summit Wednesday that President Barack Obama’s asteroid mining plan is merely a distraction.

“Bringing an asteroid back to Earth? What’s that have to do with space exploration?” he asked. “If we were moving outward from there and an asteroid is a good stopping point, then fine. But now it’s turned into a whole planetary defense exercise at the cost of our outward exploration.”

The Apollo-era astronaut, now 83, has devised a plan to “cycle” spacecraft to Mars, continually launching humans to the red planet to expand on its colony. Aldrin advocates using Phobos, a moon of Mars, as a sort of home base for landing on the planet.

“Going to Mars means permanence, we’d become a two planet species. In Mars, we’ve been given a wonderful set of moons … where we can send continuous numbers of people,” he said. The trips would be one-way.

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Teacher Who Was Removed from Class for Having Students Stomp US Flag Gets $85,000 Settlement

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In a crazy twist made possible by our litigious society, a South Carolina teacher who was removed from his teaching position for making his students repeatedly stomp on a United States flag during a class – purportedly on freedom – has apparently gotten the last laugh.

After the teacher was removed from the classroom, his lawyers threatened to bring a federal lawsuit against the school district. The school district apparently then entered into a secret settlement where the teacher was required to resign but would continue to be paid through June 7 of this year. He also received and $85,000 settlement and $32,000 in attorneys fees. The total package, including salary and benefits, likely exceeded $150,000.

The revelation of the district’s settlement came as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request by a South Carolina newspaper.

Navy Seal Team VI Families to Reveal Obama Admin.’s Culpability in Death of Sons

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Photo Credit: Marion DossThree families of Navy SEAL Team VI special forces servicemen, along with one family of an Army National Guardsman, will appear at a press conference on May 9, 2013, to disclose never before revealed information about how and why their sons along with 26 others died in a fatal helicopter crash in Afghanistan on August 6, 2011, just a few months after the successful raid on the compound of Osama Bin Laden that resulted in the master terrorist’s death.

Accompanying the families of these dead Navy SEAL Team VI special operations servicemen will be retired military experts verifying their accounts of how and why the government is as much responsible for the deaths of their sons as is the Taliban.

The areas of inquiry at the press conference will include but not be limited to:

1. How President Obama and Vice President Biden, having disclosed on May 4, 2011, that Navy Seal Team VI carried out the successful raid on Bin Laden’s compound resulting in the master terrorist’s death, put a retaliatory target on the backs of the fallen heroes.

2. How and why high-level military officials sent these Navy SEAL Team VI heroes into battle without special operations aviation and proper air support.

3. How and why middle level military brass carries out too many ill-prepared missions to boost their standing with top-level military brass and the Commander-in-Chief in order that they can be promoted.

4. How the military restricts special operations servicemen and others from engaging in timely return fire when fired upon by the Taliban and other terrorist groups and interests, thus jeopardizing the servicemen’s lives.

5. How and why the denial of requested pre-assault fire may have contributed to the shoot down of the Navy SEAL Team VI helicopter and the death of these special operations servicemen.

6. How Afghani forces accompanying the Navy SEAL Team VI servicemen on the helicopter were not properly vetted and how they possibly disclosed classified information to the Taliban about the mission, resulting in the shoot down of the helicopter.

7. How military brass, while prohibiting any mention of a Judeo-Christian God, invited a Muslim cleric to the funeral for the fallen Navy SEAL Team VI heroes who disparaged in Arabic the memory of these servicemen by damning them as infidels to Allah. A video of the Muslim cleric’s “prayer” will be shown with a certified translation.

“This press conference takes on special significance given that our government has over the last twelve years since September 11 committed brave American servicemen to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which, in large part as a result of politics, were poorly conceived of and implemented, resulting in the deaths of thousands and the maiming of tens of thousands of our brave heroes. To make matters even worse, America has effectively lost these wars,” stated Larry Klayman, legal counsel for the families.

For more information, contact Freedom Watch at [email protected] or Tel: 424 274 2579.

Source: Only President Could Have Made ‘Stand Down’ Call on Benghazi

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Photo Credit: Breitbart A source with intimate information about the events that happened on the ground in Benghazi the night the U.S. Consulate and the CIA annex was attacked by terrorists told Breitbart News that, ultimately, only the President of the United States, or someone acting on his authority, could have prevented Special Forces either on the ground or nearby from helping those Americans who were under deadly assault.

According to the source, when the attack on the Consulate occurred, a specific chain of command to gain verbal permission to move special-forces in must have occurred. SOCAFRICA commander Lieutenant Col. Gibson would have contacted a desk officer at the time, asking for that permission.

That desk officer would have called Marine Corps Col. George Bristol, then in command of Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara. From there, Bristol would have made contact with Rear Admiral Brian Losey, then Commander of Special Operations Command Africa. Losey would have contacted four-star General Carter Ham, commander of U.S. AFRICOM at the time.

“Ham answers directly to the President of the United States,” said the source. It wasn’t a low-level bureaucrat making the call, the source adamantly added.

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Senator: “The Dam is About to Break on Benghazi”

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Photo Credit: APSen. Lindsey Graham on Tuesday predicted that “the dam is about to break on Benghazi,” and said that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would shoulder some blame.

“I think the dam is about to break on Benghazi,” Graham (R-S.C.) wrote on his Facebook page. “We’re going to find a system failure before, during, and after the attacks. We’re going to find political manipulation seven weeks before an election. We’re going to find people asleep at the switch when it comes to the State Department, including Hillary Clinton.”

Graham has been a vocal critic of the Obama administration for its handling of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Amb. Chris Stevens, among others.

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Media Bias at Work: US Gun Crime Plunges, but Most Americans Think It’s Increased

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Photo Credit: AFP-GettyGun crime has plunged in the United States since its peak in the middle of the 1990s, including gun killings, assaults, robberies and other crimes, two new studies of government data show…

In less than two decades, the gun murder rate has been nearly cut in half. Other gun crimes fell even more sharply, paralleling a broader drop in violent crimes committed with or without guns. Violent crime dropped steeply during the 1990s and has fallen less dramatically since the turn of the millennium.

The number of gun killings dropped 39% between 1993 and 2011, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in a separate report released Tuesday. Gun crimes that weren’t fatal fell by 69%…

Despite the remarkable drop in gun crime, only 12% of Americans surveyed said gun crime had declined compared with two decades ago, according to Pew, which surveyed more than 900 adults this spring. Twenty-six percent said it had stayed the same, and 56% thought it had increased.

It’s unclear whether media coverage is driving the misconception that such violence is up. The mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., were among the news stories most closely watched by Americans last year, Pew found. Crime has also been a growing focus for national newscasts and morning network shows in the past five years but has become less common on local television news.

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