The Danger Of An Open Border

America is a land of immigrants–legal immigrants who came here to build a better life and were vetted before they were allowed in. Currently we are being overrun by people seeking access to our welfare system and an easy life. I don’t begrudge anyone seeking a better life, but I do have a problem with seeking a better life at someone else’s expense. As American cities pour money into housing, feeding and providing medical care for people who are here illegally, our own citizens who are struggling economically are being ignored. Our homeless are on the streets–they are not getting hotel rooms and three meals a day. Aside from the misplaced priorities of our current border policy (or lack thereof), there is the national security aspect.

On Friday, The Daily Caller reported:

  • Federal immigration authorities released for one day a Pakistani man who illegally crossed the southern border into California whose name appeared on the terror watchlist, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memo reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  • Border Patrol apprehended the Pakistani national on Nov. 10, 2023 in Tecate, California, according to the memo.
  • “Imagine how many cases like this one get through without us knowing,” a DHS official told the DCNF on the condition of anonymity because they’re not authorized to speak publicly.

The article continues:

The Pakistani national entered the U.S. illegally on Nov. 9, 2023 and was nabbed by Border Patrol the next day in Tecate, California, according to a memo the DCNF received from two different Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sources. While in Border Patrol custody on Nov. 22, the Terrorism Screening Center (TSC) confirmed he was a positive match on the terror watchlist, according to the memo.

Despite this, the memo says the terror suspect was released from the custody of ICE San Diego on Jan. 23. ICE served him with an “Order of Release on Recognizance” with tracking technology through the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program during that time.

Border agents served him with an expedited removal order on Nov. 11, after which he expressed that he had a credible fear of going back to Pakistan, according to the memo.

On Jan. 24, however, the ICE office in San Diego informed the agency’s office in Los Angeles of his presence on the terror watchlist, along with his “mandatory detention requirement,” and had him report on his own to the ATD check-in office. ICE Los Angeles was able to arrest him when he showed up for the check-in.

Imagine how many cases like this one get through without us knowing,” a DHS official told the DCNF on the condition of anonymity because they’re not authorized to speak publicly.

I fear we have reached the place where ordinary Americans are going to have to be responsible for their own safety. Terrorist do not generally value their own lives, and that fact makes them very dangerous. Because so many of the people who have crossed our southern border are military-age men, we may all have to be prepared to defend ourselves from a major attack within our country.

 

Having The Courage To Tell The Truth

On Wednesday, The Conservative Review posted an article about the screening of a film called “Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre.” The screenings will be held in Los Angeles and New York City.

The article reports:

Hollywood superstar Gal Gadot will help host uncensored screenings of footage laying bare the atrocities that Hamas committed in its Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Screenings of the film, which has been titled “Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre,” will be held in Los Angeles and New York City, according to the Wrap. Hollywood celebrities, journalists, and other influential figures are being invited to attend the events.

The Israel Defense Forces are providing 47-minutes of footage for the private screenings. The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee are also helping organize the screenings.

The article notes:

But the backlash against her has been fierce. The Quds News Network, a Palestinian “news” organization with connections to Hamas and Islamic terrorism, posted about the screening on social media, generating more than 50 million views and a ton of reaction.

“When we say these are not harmless opinions or individuals or careers to support, we aren’t exaggerating. Gal Gadot is a former IDF soldier using her access in Hollywood to push propaganda for an ongoing genocide,” said UCLA professor Nour Joudah.

The current spin by the ‘Palestinians’ is that Israel is committing genocide by going into Gaza. Israel is attacking military targets. What was Hamas doing when it went into Israel on October 7?

When Common Sense Takes A Vacation

On Tuesday, Fox News reported the following:

Los Angeles, California city officials announced a new public safety initiative which implements yoga, meditation and healing circles to homeless communities as an alternative form of unarmed policing. The initiative’s launch cost the city of Los Angeles $2.2 million in city funding.

If only homelessness and crime were so simple that they could be ended by yoga, meditation, and healing circles. Homelessness is generally related to mental illness and/or drug addiction. Until we are able to get to the root of either or both of these problems, homelessness will exist. It should also be noted that a person who is addicted to drugs will not be successful in a rehabilitation program until he decides he is willing to give up drugs. Other people can’t make that decision for him. The homeless are not as bothered by being homeless as the rest of us are bothered by seeing them homeless.

The article concludes:

Homelessness has become a pressing issue in Los Angeles as local leaders continue to feel pressure to address the matter amid increasing housing costs. 

According to a Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) as of Feb. 2022, there are 69,144 homeless people in Los Angeles County. Throughout 2022, the Los Angeles Police Department reported 229,584 crimes, an 11.6% increase from 2021.

There is nothing I can add to this.

When Justice Depends On Your Political Views

On Wednesday, comedian Dave Chappelle was attacked on stage during his Hollywood Bowl concert. Obviously there were thousands of witnesses. The attacker used a knife hidden inside a gun.

On Thursday, The U. K. Daily Mail reported the following:

LA’s woke DA George Gascon will not pursue felony charges against the attacker who stormed Dave Chappelle’s Hollywood Bowl concert with a bayonet, reducing the charges to misdemeanor instead. 

Isaiah Lee, 23, ran on stage at the show on Wednesday yielding the knife that was hidden inside a gun.  Chappelle, 48, was able to sidestep him and was unharmed. The attacker was then arrested at the scene, and taken to hospital with a broken arm. 

There were immediate questions over security at the event and how the man could have smuggled in the weapon. 

If the attack had been successful and the comedian killed, would it still be a misdemeanor?

The article notes:

But Gascon’s office – which is famously in favor of low-or-no-cash-bonds – is not pursuing the most serious line of punishment. 

Instead, they have referred the case to the LA City Attorney Mike Feuer,  recommending a misdemeanor charge because ‘the evidence as presented did not constitute felony conduct,’ according to ABC.

It means Lee, who is currently being held on a $30,000 bond for felony assault with a deadly weapon, may soon walk free. It’s unclear when he is next due in court. 

The article also includes a chart showing the impact of the changes District Attorney Gascon’s criminal policies have had on crime this year:

Maybe it’s time to rethink the District Attorney’s policies.

Actions Have Consequences

On Friday The U.K. Daily Mail reported that dozens of cargo ships anchored off the coast of New York City and Los Angeles are experiencing waiting times to unload as long as three or four weeks. The ports lack the manpower to unload the ships.

The article reports:

Dozens of cargo ships anchored off the coasts of Los Angeles and New York face shocking wait times of up to four weeks and railyards and trucking routes are hopelessly clogged due to the lack of manpower to unload goods – with an expert warning that the government needs to intervene or face spiraling inflation and unemployment.

The backlog of billions of dollars of toys, clothing, electronics, vehicles, and furniture comes as the demand for consumer goods hit its highest point in history as consumers stay home instead of spending money on travel and entertainment.

Supply chains have lagged far behind consumer demand due to a lack of manpower at American ports and the restrictions that came with the COVID-19 outbreak early last year. These constraints, which include social distancing and mandatory quarantines, have severely limited the number and ability of port workers to do their jobs.

This is another example of the bad things that happen when the government gets involved in business.

As Milton Friedman once stated:

“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”

The article concludes:

In an open letter on Wednesday, the workers groups warned that fragmented and inconsistent pandemic restrictions around the world have thrown global shipping into chaos.

The letter was signed by the union bosses of IRU, the world road transport organization; IATA, the International Air Transport Association; ICS, the International Chamber of Shipping; and ITF, the International Transport Workers’ Federation.

‘We are witnessing unprecedented disruptions and global delays and shortages on essential goods including electronics, food, fuel and medical supplies,’ the shipping workers warned.

‘The impact of nearly two years’ worth of strain, placed particularly upon maritime and road transport workers, but also impacting air crews, is now being seen,’ the group said. ‘Their continued mistreatment is adding pressure on an already crumbling global supply chain.’

‘At the peak of the crew change crisis 400,000 seafarers were unable to leave their ships, with some seafarers working for as long as 18 months over their initial contracts,’ the letter said.

‘Flights have been restricted and aviation workers have faced the inconsistency of border, travel, restrictions, and vaccine restrictions/requirements,’ it added.

‘Additional and systemic stopping at road borders has meant truck drivers have been forced to wait, sometimes weeks, before being able to complete their journeys and return home,’ the workers said.

The groups called on governments to grant freedom of movement for transport workers and prioritize them for vaccinations. 

It may be that the coming shortages are being accidentally created by our government, but there has been so much discontent sown by the Biden administration during their time in office, I am beginning to wonder what it accidental and what is on purpose. Is it possible to mess up our country so thoroughly in nine months accidentally or does it have to be intentional?

Is This Even Possible?

Yesterday Breitbart reported that U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter is doing his part to end the homeless crisis in Los Angeles.

The article reports:

U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday ordering the city and county of Los Angeles to ensure that every homeless person living in the notorious Skid Row district has housing by October 18 this year.

The article quotes The Los Angeles Times:

Judge David O. Carter granted a preliminary injunction sought by the plaintiffs in the case last week and now is telling the city and county that they must find single women and unaccompanied children on skid row a place to stay within 90 days, followed by helping families within 120 days and finally, by Oct. 18, offering every homeless person on skid row housing or shelter.

“Los Angeles has lost its parks, beaches, schools, sidewalks, and highway systems due to the inaction of city and county officials who have left our homeless citizens with no other place to turn,” Carter wrote in a 110-page brief laced with quotes from Abraham Lincoln and an extensive history of how skid row was first created.

The article at Breitbart notes:

Elsewhere in the decision, the Judge Carter — a Bill Clinton appointee — cited claims of “systemic racism,” and argued that homelessness is partly a result of historical racial discrimination.

In an unusually complex set of instructions, Judge Carter also ordered $1 billion earmarked by the city for spending on the homeless, announced Monday evening as part of L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s “Justice Budget,” to be placed in an escrow account. He also ordered a 90-day audit of city and county spending on the homeless, and a 30-day “audit of any funds committed to mental health (MH) and substance use disorder (SUD) treatment.”

I am no expert, but there seems to be something missing here. Unfortunately a lot of homeless people are homeless because of mental health issues or substance abuse. It seems to me that until you help people deal with those issues, putting them in houses won’t matter. It’s nice that they are calling for an audit of funds for mental health and substance abuse, but they really need to look closely at how that money is spent. You can house homeless people, but unless you deal with the issues that caused them to live as homeless people, you will accomplish very little.

Looking For The Science In This Decision

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about Angela Marsden, the owner of Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill in Sherman Oaks. Her restaurant is closed down due to the increased restrictions on businesses in Los Angeles. She has been forced to close down outdoor dining. Meanwhile, a film company working in an nearby area has set up outdoor dining in the same parking lot.

The article reports:

Angela Marsden, the owner of Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill in Sherman Oaks, stated that she is no longer allowed to stay open with the new Los Angeles County order prohibiting outdoor dining. She also alleged that Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti approved tents and tables being set up for use by a film company. 

“I’m losing everything. Everything I own is being taken away from me,” Marsden said in the video which has gone viral. “And they set up a movie company right next to my outdoor patio … They have not given us money and they have shut us down. We cannot survive. My staff cannot survive.”

There is nothing scientific about the decision to close down Ms. Marsden’s outdoor dining and open up outdoor dining in her parking lot for a film company. This is a blatant example of government overreach. Ms. Marsden’s restaurant could contribute to the spread of the coronavirus, but the film company’s outdoor dining won’t. Where is the science in that?  If working people don’t begin to take back the freedom to work and to run businesses that the government has stolen, we will not survive as a country.

Why The Census Is An Issue For The Democrat Party

The Democrats have been pursuing two paths regarding the 2020 Census and its impact on the 2020 election–the first is to eliminate the Electoral College and the second is the refusing to distinguish between American citizens and non-citizens during the census. Eliminating the Electoral College will put Los Angeles and New York City in charge of our country’s government (those two cities have not really mastered good government with fiscal responsibility) and counting non-citizens in the census will give more Electoral College delegates to the Democrat states.

On January 5th, The Blaze reported the following:

Population estimates show reliably Democratic states, like New York, California, and Illinois will each lose at least one congressional district and representation in the Electoral College. Conversely, states that tend to vote for Republicans—such as Texas, Florida, and Montana—are expected to increase their presence.

“This is looking to benefit Republicans only because of how the landscape has changed,” said Jenna Ellis, senior legal analyst for the Trump 2020 campaign, according to radio station KTRH.

Ellis also noted that Democrats’ anticipated losses is why they mobilized so strongly to oppose the Trump administration’s addition of a citizenship question on the Census.

“They’re not interested in laws,” she said. “They’re not interested in sound reasoning or fair and accurate representation of every American. They are only interested in concentrating their own political power by any means necessary.”

Most Americans have the option of voting with their feet. That is why California is rapidly losing citizen residents and Texas is gaining them.

The article lists the states gaining and losing population:

Among GOP strongholds expected to lose an electoral vote are: Alabama, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Among the blue states are California, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, and Rhode Island. That’s an even minus five for both parties from the 2016 election night map, according to an analysis by NBC News.

However, when analysts looked at states expected to gain seats, the GOP comes out on top. Three Republican states that went for Trump in 2016—Montana, Arizona, and North Carolina—are likely to pick-up one seat after the Census. On the Democratic side of the ledger, two states (Oregon and Colorado) will each add a seat, resulting in a net gain of one Electoral College seat for Republicans.

The big problem for the Left is that forecasts show Florida and Texas—both of which voted for Trump in 2016—picking up a combined five seats (two for Florida, three for Texas). Thus, if the estimates hold, Republicans will pick-up six Electoral College votes. Of course, this assumes that both the GOP maintains control of the Lone Star and Sunshine States, but that’s a topic for a different day.

The only hope for the Democrats is that the people moving to Republican states bring their big government ideas with them and overwhelm the population. As someone who lives in one of those states, I am hoping that doesn’t happen.

This Might Explain A Lot

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today that stated that more than one-fifth of of all U.S. newsroom employees live in the liberal strongholds of New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. New York has 12 percent and Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. each have 5 percent. The article notes that 13 percent of Americans live in these three cities–7 percent in New York, 4 percent in Los Angeles, and 2 percent in Washington, D.C.

The article notes:

All three cities are known for their strongly progressive bent. A Republican has not won New York City in a presidential election since 1924, or won Los Angeles County since 1984. No Republican has ever won Washington, D.C., in a presidential election.

According to Pew, only New York and Washington are home to a greater share of newsroom workers than workers overall. Given their significance in media and politics, those two cities are the broadcasting sites for every major show on cable and national network news.

Pew also found that 41 percent of newsroom employees who work in internet publishing live in the northeast, while just 18 percent of all workers live in the region overall. Thirty-seven percent of all workers live in the south, but it’s home to just 21 percent of newsroom employees who work in internet publishing.

Think about how where you live affects your worldview. Do you see poverty everyday? Do you see dirty streets and high crime? Do you see friendly people or stressed people? Is driving to work a grinding task or a reasonable chore? What are the views of the people you spend your time with? What are the values of the people around you?

I’m not a deplorable from flyover country where people cling to their God and their guns–I’m a deplorable living in a conservative stronghold in the southeast. But I wonder if the people in the newsrooms of the major media spent some time with the deplorables in various places, would their attitude and focus change? The bottom line here is whether or not the people charged with reporting the news to Americans can get past the their group biases against anything not liberal. If not, their industry will soon die from lack of relevance and from the consequences of biased reporting.

Those Who Ignore History Are Destined To Say Dumb Things

The Electoral College has come under fire in recent years. Those objecting to the Electoral College seem to have no idea why it was included in the founding of America. Small states were fearful of being shut out of the process of electing a President and wanted a way to insure that they would have a voice. Without the electoral college, no one would campaign in North Dakota, Idaho, Montana, Kansas, and many other states where the populations are not as dense as some of the coastal states. Without the Electoral College, America would be governed by New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Philadelphia. Is that really what you want? Evidently Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thinks that would be a good idea.

The Washington Times posted an article today about Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s recent remarks about the Electoral College.

The article reports:

The Democratic congresswoman posted an Instagram story Monday that started with her driving along a deserted highway and joking about how many votes there are in rural America.

“We’re coming to you live from the Electoral College,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said, National Review reported. “Many votes here, as you can see. Very efficient way to choose leadership of the country. I mean I can’t think of any other way, can you?”

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez cited a March New York magazine article that said black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters are underrepresented by the Electoral College compared with white Americans.

“Due to severe racial disparities in certain states,” the congresswoman said in her video, “the Electoral College effectively weighs white voters over voters of color, as opposed to a ‘one person, one vote’ system where all our votes are counted equally.”

What Representative Ocasio-Cortez wants is a democracy. We are a representative republic. She needs to go back to school and study American history.

How Much Are American Lives Worth?

Most of the people attempting to break into America are people simply looking for a way out of economic and political oppression. However, there are some seriously rotten apples in the bunch. Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about one group of rotten apples.

The article reports:

22 members of the violent El Salvadoran gang MS-13 were charged with enforcing a criminal racketeering enterprise by murdering people in ‘medieval style’ killing sprees.

A 12-count indictment was handed down Monday by prosecutors in Los Angeles who charged the MS-13 gang members with killing 7 people with machetes.

A rival gang member was dismembered and his heart cut out of his chest and thrown into canyon in Los Angeles.

 Now we know 19 of the 22 arrested gang members were here in the US illegally.

In February, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a resolution giving Los Angeles sanctuary status for immigrants. In a 12-0 vote, the council reaffirmed laws limiting cooperation with federal authorities regarding immigration enforcement policies. Loosely translated that means that law enforcement in the city will not cooperate with the federal government to enforce immigration laws. Had immigration laws been enforced, 19 of the 22 gang members would not have been here to commit the horrendous crimes they committed.

Received in my email today:

The United States’ Founders created the
Electoral College to ensure the STATES and ALL AMERICANS  are FAIRLY represented.

Why should one or two densely populated areas speak for the whole of the Nation?  Do they truly represent all states and our entire Nation?

There are 3,141 counties in the United States.

Trump won 3,084 of them.
Clinton won 57.

There are 62 counties in New York State.

Trump won 46 of them.

Clinton won 16.

Clinton won the popular vote by approx. 1.5 million votes.

In the 5 counties that encompass NYC, (Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan,
Richmond & Queens) Clinton received well over 2 million more votes
than Trump. (Clinton won 4 of these counties; Trump won Richmond)

Therefore these 4 MEGA counties in New York City alone, more than accounted for Clinton winning the popular vote of the entire country.

These 5 counties comprise 319 square miles.

The United States is comprised of 3,797,000 square miles.

Should a Nation that encompasses almost 4 million square miles,

be ruled by those who live in one small corner of the vast nation–a mere 319 square miles?

Should this small section of the country dictate a National Election?

Should large, densely populated Democrat cities (NYC, Chicago, LA)  speak for the entire Nation?

 

An Interesting Perspective On Homelessness

Christopher F. Rufo posted an article in The City Journal about the homelessness that has become so prevalent on the west coast of America. The title of the article is, “An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis.” Please follow the link above to read the entire article; it is very insightful.

The article states:

By latest count, some 109,089 men and women are sleeping on the streets of major cities in California, Oregon, and Washington. The homelessness crisis in these cities has generated headlines and speculation about “root causes.” Progressive political activists allege that tech companies have inflated housing costs and forced middle-class people onto the streets. Declaring that “no two people living on Skid Row . . . ended up there for the same reasons,” Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, for his part, blames a housing shortage, stagnant wages, cuts to mental health services, domestic and sexual abuse, shortcomings in criminal justice, and a lack of resources for veterans. These factors may all have played a role, but the most pervasive cause of West Coast homelessness is clear: heroin, fentanyl, and synthetic opioids.

Homelessness is an addiction crisis disguised as a housing crisis. In Seattle, prosecutors and law enforcement recently estimated that the majority of the region’s homeless population is hooked on opioids, including heroin and fentanyl. If this figure holds constant throughout the West Coast, then at least 11,000 homeless opioid addicts live in Washington, 7,000 live in Oregon, and 65,000 live in California (concentrated mostly in San Francisco and Los Angeles). For the unsheltered population inhabiting tents, cars, and RVs, the opioid-addiction percentages are even higher—the City of Seattle’s homeless-outreach team estimates that 80 percent of the unsheltered population has a substance-abuse disorder. Officers must clean up used needles in almost all the homeless encampments.

The article reminds us that drug-dealing is a lucrative industry for the cartels:

For drug cartels and low-level street dealers, the business of supplying homeless addicts with heroin, fentanyl, and other synthetic opioids is extremely lucrative. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the average heavy-opioid user consumes $1,834 in drugs per month. Holding rates constant, we can project that the total business of supplying heroin and other opioids to the West Coast’s homeless population is more than $1.8 billion per year. In effect, Mexican cartels, Chinese fentanyl suppliers, and local criminal networks profit off the misery of the homeless and offload the consequences onto local governments struggling to get people off the streets.

The article concludes:

No matter how much local governments pour into affordable-housing projects, homeless opioid addicts—nearly all unemployed—will never be able to afford the rent in expensive West Coast cities. The first step in solving these intractable issues is to address the real problem: addiction is the common denominator for most of the homeless and must be confronted honestly if we have any hope of solving it.

Part of the problem here is that some cities and states are moving toward legalizing recreational drug use. Obviously not all of that drug use will lead to further problems, but a percentage of it will–adding to the homeless problem. The other problem is that treating a drug addict will not be successful unless the addict desires to be free of drugs. You can lock up an addict until he is clean, but there are no guarantees that he will stay clean once he is out on the street again.

 

As People See The Results Of Democrat Policies, They Begin To Wake Up

CNS News posted an article today about California’s vanishing middle class. Being middle class in California is not a successful long-term plan.

The article reports:

A survey recently released by the Public Policy Institute of California found that President Donald Trump is more popular in the deep blue state than the Democratic legislature.

Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio recently told the Los Angeles Times, “All they hear from Sacramento are proposals for more taxes and more spending for everyone except the middle class. And they rightfully wonder where the high taxes they already are paying are going.”

While the president’s approval ratings are underwater with only 38 percent of Californians approving of his job, this pales in comparison to the state legislature having only 34 percent among likely voters having confidence in them.

With voters still anxious about a gas tax hike pushed through last year, recent suggestions of a $2 billion tax hike on everything from water to phones by California Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn’t eased that apprehension.

Newsom holds a job approval rating of 45 percent among likely voters with 29 percent disapproving and a 26 percent responding “don’t know.”

California’s fiscal policies are going to result in bankruptcy at some time in the not-so-distant future. The bad news is that the rest of the country will be required to bail them out. The major cities in California, San Francisco and Los Angeles, have areas that look like third-world countries–unsanitary conditions, homeless people living in tents, and needle-strewn streets. Diseases that America has not seen for decades are cropping up in these areas. Meanwhile, the state government continues raising taxes and doing business as usual. There will be a tipping point fairly soon. People are leaving the state in droves. The only thing keeping the population stable is the flow of illegal immigrants who are generally not contributing to the economic well being of the state.

Failed Parenting

One of the most important things a parent can do is lead by example. Any time a parent does something that is not above board, it is a pretty good bet that their child will learn that it is okay to take shortcuts that may not be entirely honest. Unfortunately there seems to be a group of parents that despite their success has not yet figured this out.

The Associated Press is reporting today that federal authorities have charged a number of wealthy and famous people with falsifying information to make sure their children got into their schools of choice. I understand the desire of any parent to provide the best education possible for their children, but this scheme definitely stepped over the line.

The article reports:

Fifty people, including Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, were charged Tuesday in a scheme in which wealthy parents allegedly bribed college coaches and other insiders to get their children into some of the nation’s most elite schools.

Federal authorities called it the biggest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department, with the parents accused of paying an estimated $25 million in bribes.

“These parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said in announcing the results of an investigation code-named Operation Varsity Blues.

…At least nine athletic coaches and 33 parents, many of them prominent in law, finance or business, were among those charged. Dozens, including Huffman, were arrested by midday.

The coaches worked at such schools as Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, Wake Forest, the University of Texas, the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. A former Yale soccer coach pleaded guilty and helped build the case against others.

The article continues:

The bribes allegedly were dispensed through an admissions consulting company in Newport Beach, California. Authorities said parents paid William Singer, the founder of the Edge College & Career Network, the bribe money to get their children into college.

Prosecutors said Singer was scheduled to plead guilty in Boston Tuesday to charges including racketeering conspiracy. John Vandemoer, the former head sailing coach at Stanford, was also expected to plead guilty.

Colleges moved quickly to discipline the coaches accused. Stanford fired Vandemoer, UCLA suspended its soccer coach, and Wake Forest did the same with its volleyball coach.

Several schools, including USC and Yale, said they were victims themselves of the scam. USC also said it is reviewing its admissions process to prevent further such abuses.

This is a sad commentary on where we are as a society. Obviously some parents want to take the guess work out of college admissions. What is the lesson they are teaching their children? I wonder exactly how much of these scheme the children involved were aware of. Certainly if a child is recruited for a sport he has no knowledge of, he might notice that something is amiss. I hope the penalties for the parents are severe. As much as I can sympathize with the stress of getting children into good colleges (all three of my daughters are college graduates, two have advanced degrees), what these parents did is inexcusable–first of all because it is patently dishonest and second of all because of the example it sets for the students.

Why Is There A Typhus Epidemic In Los Angeles?

This article is based on two articles, one posted at The Gateway Pundit yesterday and one posted yesterday at NBC 4 Los Angeles. Typhoid shots are often required for people traveling overseas, but it used to be a fairly unusual disease in America.

The article at NBC 4 reports:

Last year set a new record for the number of typhus cases — 124 in LA County for the year, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Last October, Mayor Garcetti vowed to clean up piles of garbage throughout the city to combat the typhus epidemic.

The Mayor allocated millions of dollars to increase clean-ups of streets in the Skid Row area, known lately as “the typhus zone.”

…Statement from Mayor Garcetti’s Office:

“Last fall we directed multiple City departments to begin a coordinated and comprehensive effort to improve cleanliness and protect public health in the Civic Center, including City Hall and City Hall East. In addition to increased trash collection and cleanings, aggressive action has been taken to address pests both in the buildings and in the surrounding outside areas — including abatement treatments and the filling of 60 rodent burrows and 114 tree wells. This work in busy and highly populated public buildings is executed carefully to protect workers and visitors, and the scheduling of extermination activities takes these factors into consideration.” — Vicki Curry, spokeswoman, city of Los Angeles

The Gateway Pundit notes:

Typhus is mainly spreading across the homeless population through fleas that live on the rats that rummage in heaps of trash, however Liz Greenwood, the Deputy City Attorney who works at City Hall contracted the disease.

Symptoms of typhus include fever, headache and a rash. Untreated cases are fatal.

I seems to me that Los Angeles needs to increase its efforts to deal with the sanitary problems in its streets and in its municipal buildings.

Our Future?

I think most Americans realize that Big Brother is getting to be a bit intrusive. Our computer searches are mined for advertising information, Alexa listens to our conversations, our government has been known to listen to our telephone conversations. This is not headed in a good direction. However, it gets even worse when you consider the fact that the next step will be modifying our behavior to fit some ideal created by someone who believes he has the right to control everyone. Not a pleasant thought. Think it’s too farfetched? An article posted at Wired on January 23 might change your mind.

The article begins:

A friend of mine, who runs a large television production company in the car-mad city of Los Angeles, recently noticed that his intern, an aspiring filmmaker from the People’s Republic of China, was walking to work.

When he offered to arrange a swifter mode of transportation, she declined. When he asked why, she explained that she “needed the steps” on her Fitbit to sign in to her social media accounts. If she fell below the right number of steps, it would lower her health and fitness rating, which is part of her social rating, which is monitored by the government. A low social rating could prevent her from working or traveling abroad.

China’s social rating system, which was announced by the ruling Communist Party in 2014, will soon be a fact of life for many more Chinese.

By 2020, if the Party’s plan holds, every footstep, keystroke, like, dislike, social media contact, and posting tracked by the state will affect one’s social rating.

Personal “creditworthiness” or “trustworthiness” points will be used to reward and punish individuals and companies by granting or denying them access to public services like health care, travel, and employment, according to a plan released last year by the municipal government of Beijing. High-scoring individuals will find themselves in a “green channel,” where they can more easily access social opportunities, while those who take actions that are disapproved of by the state will be “unable to move a step.”

We do an awful lot of business with China. When trade was opened with China, the idea was that our form of government and freedom would influence their government in the direction of freedom. Somehow, based on this story, I don’t think that is what has happened.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. There is no way I can summarize all of it, but I would like to share a few more points.

The article continues:

Perhaps we are reading the wrong books. Instead of going back to Orwell for a sense of what a coming dystopia might look like, we might be better off reading We, which was written nearly a century ago by the Russian novelist Yevgeny Zamyatin. We is the diary of state mathematician D-503, whose experience of the highly disruptive emotion of love for I-330, a woman whose combination of black eyes, white skin, and black hair strike him as beautiful. This perception, which is also a feeling, draws him into a conspiracy against the centralized surveillance state.

The Only State, where We takes places, is ruled by a highly advanced mathematics of happiness, administered by a combination of programmers and machines.

The article concludes:

Beauty is the ultimate example of human un-freedom and un-reason, being a subjectivity that is rooted in our biology, yet at the same time rooted in external absolutes like mathematical ratios and the movement of time. As the critic Giovanni Basile writes in an extraordinarily perceptive critical essay, “The Algebra of Happiness,” the utopia implied by Zamyatin’s dystopia is “a world in which happiness is intertwined with a natural un-freedom that nobody imposes on anyone else: a different freedom from the one with which the Great Inquisitor protects mankind: a paradoxical freedom in which there is no ‘power’ if not in the nature of things, in music, in dance and in the harmony of mathematics.”

Against a centralized surveillance state that imposes a motionless and false order and an illusory happiness in the name of a utilitarian calculus of “justice,” Basile concludes, Zamyatin envisages a different utopia: “In fact, only within the ‘here and now’ of beauty may the equation of happiness be considered fully verified.” Human beings will never stop seeking beauty, Zamyatin insists, because they are human. They will reject and destroy any attempt to reorder their desires according to the logic of machines.

A national or global surveillance network that uses beneficent algorithms to reshape human thoughts and actions in ways that elites believe to be just or beneficial to all mankind is hardly the road to a new Eden. It’s the road to a prison camp. The question now—as in previous such moments—is how long it will take before we admit that the riddle of human existence is not the answer to an equation. It is something that we must each make for ourselves, continually, out of our own materials, in moments whose permanence is only a dream.

This is scary–not scary enough to get me to get rid of Alexa–but scary.

A Step In The Right Direction

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article this morning about California and voting.

The article reports:

California and Los Angeles County have agreed to purge as many as 1.5 million inactive voter registrations across the state as part of a court settlement finalized this week with Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog.

Judicial Watch sued the county and state voter-registration agencies, arguing that the California government was not complying with a federal law requiring the removal of inactive registrations that remain after two general elections, or two to four years.

In August 2017, Judicial Watch reported:

Judicial Watch announced it sent a notice-of-violation letter to the state of California and 11 of its counties threatening to sue in federal court if it does not clean its voter registration lists as mandated by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). Both the NVRA and the federal Help America Vote Act require states to take reasonable steps to maintain accurate voting rolls. The August 1 letter was sent on behalf of several Judicial Watch California supporters and the Election Integrity Project California, Inc.

In the letter, Judicial Watch noted that public records obtained on the Election Assistance Commission’s 2016 Election Administration Voting Survey and through verbal accounts from various county agencies show 11 California counties have more registered voters than voting-age citizens: Imperial (102%), Lassen (102%), Los Angeles (112%), Monterey (104%), San Diego (138%), San Francisco (114%), San Mateo (111%), Santa Cruz (109%), Solano (111%), Stanislaus (102%), and Yolo (110%).

In the letter, Judicial Watch noted that Los Angeles County officials “informed us that the total number of registered voters now stands at a number that is a whopping 144% of the total number of resident citizens of voting age.”

Under Section 8 of the NVRA, states are required to make a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters from official lists due to “the death of the registrant” or “a change in the residence of the registrant,” and requires states to ensure noncitizens are not registered to vote.

There is “strong circumstantial evidence that California municipalities are not conducting reasonable voter registration list maintenance as mandated under the NVRA,” Judicial Watch wrote in the notice letter sent to California Secretary of State Alex Padilla.

Because the states refused to supply information to the President’s Commission to study election fraud, private groups like Judicial Watch have to to the work themselves. It is good to see that the work of protecting the votes of American voters who are legal voters is proceeding.

The Dangers Of Not Closely Monitoring Immigration

On Tuesday The Daily Wire posted an article about some recent information from the Department of Homeland Security.

The article reports:

The Department of Homeland Security revealed Tuesday that the threat of “fake families” declaring asylum together at the United States’ southern border is no joke; more than 150 illegal immigrant “families” have used non-familial children or adults to attempt to convince border patrol agents to allow them to remain in the country.

The Daily Caller reports that “there has been a 110 percent increase in male adults showing up at the border with children. Further, DHS separated 507 illegal immigrants between April 19 and September 30 because they fraudulently claimed they were part of a family unit.”

The thing to remember here is that there are people in various countries in South American coaching people on how to break into America. If that is a harsh word, I’m sorry–it is what is happening. I will admit that our immigration system needs serious reform, but that is no excuse for people thinking they can simply come here illegally and stay. Right now America is severely in debt. We have neglected our veterans and are not doing a good job of taking care of anyone. We cannot afford to be overrun with non-citizens who want to be taken care of.

When evaluating what is happening at our border, it might be wise to consider the Cloward-Piven strategy from the 1960’s. Cloward-Piven was a strategy to convert America to a socialist state (taken from Discover the Networks):

Inspired by the August 1965 riots in the black district of Watts in Los Angeles (which erupted after police had used batons to subdue a black man suspected of drunk driving), Cloward and Piven published an article titled “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty” in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation. Following its publication, The Nation sold an unprecedented 30,000 reprints. Activists were abuzz over the so-called “crisis strategy” or “Cloward-Piven Strategy,” as it came to be called. Many were eager to put it into effect.

In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when “the rest of society is afraid of them,” Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would “the rest of society” accept their demands. 

The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven’s early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. “Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,” Alinsky wrote in his 1971 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system’s failure to “live up” to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist “rule book” with a socialist one. 

This may well be what the caravans are actually about. If this theory is too wild for you, step back and look at the movement toward socialism in the recent election.

A Common Sense Solution To The Violence In Chicago

Carl Jackson posted an opinion piece at Townhall today with suggestions as to how to deal with the gun violence in Chicago. He refers to his solution as the “Three G’s”–guys, God, and guns.

The article reminds us:

First off, when I say the word “guys” I mean dads! At the very least young men need a healthy male role model around. Young men need dads to show them how to cope with the harshness of life.

A boy who grows up without a dad has no one to guide him into the man he can become despite his surroundings or circumstances. Not to mention, help him discover his gifts and talents so that he becomes a productive contributor to society. Without a dad around gangs and or other bad influences will fill that void because children need a sense of belonging. Kids that wind up in gangs typically rebel against authority because oftentimes the first father figure they encounter that’s willing to address their bad behavior authoritatively is a cop.

…Secondly, boys who grow up without loving fathers find it harder to believe and accept that they have a heavenly father that wants the best for them. Consequently, if kids don’t have a source for objective truth, they will invent their own truth, even if it means justifying crime. Young men, who grow up with a biblical worldview are less inclined to commit violent crimes because they believe there are eternal consequences to their actions. Beyond that, religious faith gives you a roadmap to daily living and a sense of purpose, joy and peace you can’t find on the streets.

Lastly, it’s time for the city of Chicago to embrace the Second Amendment. On the surface this may sound contradictory but it’s not. When gangsters start to realize they are outgunned by law abiding citizens who simply want to protect themselves and their families, they’ll keep their illegal guns in their pocket. I experienced this myself.

Mr. Jackson goes on to relate his culture shock at moving from Los Angeles to Orlando, Florida. He explains:

To escape the violence, I moved to Orlando, Florida and moved in with my aunt and uncle for a while. To my shock, I couldn’t believe how many people I saw driving around town with shotguns displayed inside of their pickup trucks. I was scared senseless! I thought I’d be shot and lynched. But that never came to fruition. Compared to Los Angeles, there wasn’t much violence besides an occasional school fight despite the high rate of gun ownership. Gun violence was rare. My attitude even shifted. I wasn’t trying to be a tough guy knowing people could legally carry firearms in Florida. In part, guns helped cure my case of “wannabe gangsteritis.”

I recommend that you follow the link above and read the entire article. Mr. Jackson has some good ideas.

The “Dreamer” Spin

If your news sources are limited to the mainstream media, you may have the impression that President Trump is randomly breaking up families and deporting illegal immigrants. Stories in the mainstream show crying children whose parent or parents are being deported, and these stories just reek of sympathetic angles. However, when you look past the obvious, you often find out that what you are being told may not be the entire story.

Hot Air posted an article today about one such story about a deported illegal alien.

The article reports:

ICE agents took Armando Nunez Salgado into custody outside his home. According to family members, he was in the backyard when agents walked right in through the side gate. His 14-year-old daughter Isabel Salgado dissolved into tears.

“I cried. I got very emotional, I was really sad,” said Isabel. “I mean to watch someone who is part of your everyday life and then you just have to watch him leave without saying goodbye. It kind of hurts.”

Armando is a construction worker who has been in America more than 30 years. His wife Elena Ponce said his parents brought him to the U.S. when he was only four years old.

The article at Hot Air begins to tell us more of the story:

But it turns out, Armando does have a dangerous past. After our interview, his family members told KPIX 5 he was involved in gangs and drugs for a long time.

In fact, at one point, he was on ICE’s most wanted list for charges of felony force and assault with a deadly weapon.

…“On Sunday, Feb. 25, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) San Francisco Fugitive Operations Team arrested ICE fugitive Armando Nuñez-Salgado, 38, a citizen of Mexico and documented Sureño gang member, who has been previously removed by ICE on four prior occasions. Over the past 18 years he has accumulated criminal convictions in California that have resulted in more than 15 years of prison sentencings. His criminal convictions include assault with a deadly weapon (statutorily enhanced because of his gang member status), burglary, hit-and-run causing injury and evading a peace officer.”

The man had been deported four times and done fifteen years in prison! This is not an innocent man who is an asset to America.

Hopefully This Was Not A Practice Run

The problem with terrorists is that they are always probing–looking for new ways to create problems for the rest of us. One reason the attacks of 9/11 were so successful is that no one actually believed terrorists would fly planes into a buildings. Now we know that this is not unthinkable. Americans have also learned that terrorists often do practice runs to test our security in various areas. Terrorists also engage in ‘lawfare’ to create court cases that result in changes to security rules and make it easier to attack us in the future. There was an incident on Friday on a flight from Los Angeles to Hawaii that might cause our security people to sleep a little less soundly.

MSN News posted a story this morning stating that on Friday two Air Force fighter jets were scrambled to escort an American Airlines jet into Honolulu International Airport after a disturbance involving a Turkish passenger aboard the plane was reported.

The article reports:

Federal authorities were preparing a criminal complaint to charge Turkish national Anil Uskanil, 25, with interference with a flight crew, Federal Bureau of Investigation special-agent-in charge Paul Delacourt said at a Honolulu news conference.

Delacourt, when asked by a reporter if Uskanil tried to break into the cockpit, said the Turkish man was in the aisle of the plane and it was “unclear what his motivation was”.

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) police said separately that Uskanil had been detained, questioned and released hours earlier after he was caught by security there going through a terminal concourse door leading out to the airfield.

Los Angeles airport police spokesman Rob Pedregon said Uskanil was a ticketed American Airlines passenger with a boarding pass who had cleared security screening but claimed that he lost his way because he was tipsy from drinking.

As he did not appear to meet the criteria for public drunkenness, police let him go with a citation for misdemeanor trespassing, Pedregon said. He was escorted to the street in front of the terminal when released, Pedregon said.

Because the LAX incident occurred at about 2:45 a.m. Pacific time, nearly three hours before the first flights of the day, he would have had ample time to get through security again and catch a plane to Hawaii as scheduled.

This is how someone could probe airport security–go through a door they were not supposed to go through to see what happens next and then claim to be drunk and lost. This is not a comforting story. However, one of my sons-in-law just reminded me that Americans will not allow an airplane to be hijacked again–we have learned our lesson. The article states that the man was subdued by an off-duty law enforcement officer and others aboard the aircraft. The only way to prevent future hijackings is for everyone on an airplane to take responsibility for the safety of the plane. If you are young and fit, you can attack a potential hijacker. If you are older or not fit, you can throw something. There are many ways to stop a potential hijacker. Meanwhile, we have to be alert to probes of the security at our airports and on our airplanes.

Why Policy Matters

The Los Angeles Times posted an article today about the stretch of wild brushland between the Rio Grande and the sprawling Texas border cities of Hidalgo and McAllen. That deserted piece of land was one a bustling crossing point for illegals coming into the United States. It is now very quiet.

The article reports:

Across the Southwest border, the number of immigrants caught crossing illegally into the United States has dropped dramatically. Fewer than 12,200 people were apprehended in March, a 64% decrease from the same time last year, and the lowest monthly number in at least 17 years.

…”We don’t really have a normal anymore,” said Castro, who has worked for Customs and Border Protection for nearly 20 years. She insists agents are not doing anything differently; the Trump administration’s executive orders are simply enforcing laws already on the books.

“Are you going to risk a 1,000-mile journey and pay $8,000 to be smuggled if you’re not sure you’ll get to stay?” Castro said, offering a reason she thinks fewer asylum seekers are crossing over. “I wouldn’t.”

Some of the reasons people are fleeing Mexico and countries south of there are the drug cartels and the gangs. It would make sense to work with some of the governments involved to clean up the drug cartels and the gangs. Unfortunately, that is very dangerous work, and the corruption runs deep. South American politicians who take on either the drug cartels or the gangs tend not to live very long. However, that is the answer. Ultimately, we need a wall to stop illegal immigration, but we also need a way to help stop the drug cartels and the gangs and to help the economies of our southern neighbors. We also need to understand that by not securing our borders, we are encouraging the drug cartels and the gangs to invade our country.

 

There Is A List

On Monday, the White House released a list of 78 terrorist attacks that they considered underreported. The Daily Caller posted the list. I apologize for the length of the list, but actually that makes the point. This list is the reason we need extreme vetting of immigrants.

Here is the unedited list:

TIMELINE: September, 2014 – December, 2016
NUMBER OF ATTACKS: 78

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
September, 2014
TARGET: Two police officers wounded in knife attack
ATTACKER: Abdul Numan Haider

TIZI OUZOU, ALGERIA
September, 2014
TARGET: One French citizen beheaded
ATTACKER: Jund al-Khilafah in Algeria

QUEBEC, CANADA
October, 2014
TARGET: One soldier killed and one wounded in vehicle attack
ATTACKER: Martin Couture-Rouleau

OTTAWA, CANADA
October, 2014
TARGET: One soldier killed at war memorial; two wounded in shootings at Parliament building
ATTACKER: Michael Zehaf-Bibeau

NEW YORK CITY, NY, USA
October, 2014
TARGET: Two police officers wounded in knife attack
ATTACKER: US person

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA
November, 2014
TARGET: One Danish citizen wounded in shooting
ATTACKERS: Three Saudi Arabia-based ISIL members

ABU DHABI, UAE
DATE: December 2014
TARGET: One American killed in knife attack
ATTACKER: Dalal al-Hashimi

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
December, 2014
TARGET: Two Australians killed in hostage taking and shooting
ATTACKER: Man Haron Monis

TOURS, FRANCE
December, 2014
TARGET: Three police officers wounded in knife attack
ATTACKER: Bertrand Nzohabonayo

PARIS, FRANCE
January, 2015
TARGET: One police officer and four hostages killed in shooting at a kosher supermarket
ATTACKER: Amedy Coulibaly

TRIPOLI, LIBYA
January, 2015
TARGET: Ten killed, including one US citizen, and five wounded in bombing and shooting at a hotel frequented by westerners
ATTACKERS: As many as five ISIL-Libya members

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA
January, 2015
TARGET: Two US citizens wounded in shooting
ATTACKER: Saudi Arabia-based ISIL supporter

NICE, FRANCE
February, 2015
TARGET: Two French soldiers wounded in knife attack outside a Jewish community center
ATTACKER: Moussa Coulibaly

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
February, 2015
TARGET: One civilian killed in shooting at a free-speech rally and one security guard killed outside the city’s main synagogue
ATTACKER: Omar Abdel Hamid el-Hussein

TUNIS, TUNISIA
March, 2015
TARGET: 21 tourists killed, including 16 westerners, and 55 wounded in shooting at the Bardo Museum
ATTACKERS: Two ISIL-aligned extremists

KARACHI, PAKISTAN
April, 2015
TARGET: One US citizen wounded in knife attack
ATTACKERS: Pakistan-based ISIL supporters

PARIS, FRANCE
April, 2015
TARGET: Catholic churches targeted; one civilian killed in shooting, possibly during an attempted carjacking
ATTACKER: Sid Ahmed Ghlam

ZVORNIK, BOSNIA
April, 2015
TARGET: One police officer killed and two wounded in shooting
ATTACKER: Nerdin Ibric

GARLAND, TX, USA
May, 2015
TARGET: One security guard wounded in shooting at the Prophet Muhammad cartoon event
ATTACKERS: Two US persons

BOSTON, MA, USA
June, 2015
TARGET: No casualties; one police officer attacked with knife
ATTACKER: US person

EL GORA (AL JURAH), EGYPT
June, 2015
TARGET: No casualties; camp used by Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) troops attacked in shooting and bombing attack
ATTACKERS: Unknown number of ISIL-Sinai members

LUXOR, EGYPT
June, 2015
TARGET: One police officer killed by suicide bomb near the Temple of Karnak
ATTACKER: Unidentified

SOUSSE, TUNISIA
June, 2015
TARGET: 38 killed and 39 wounded in shooting at a beach frequented by westerners
ATTACKERS: Seifeddine Rezgui and another unidentified attacker

LYON, FRANCE
June, 2015
TARGET: One civilian killed in beheading and explosion at a chemical plant
ATTACKER: Yasin Salhi

CAIRO, EGYPT
July, 2015
TARGET: One killed and nine wounded in VBIED attack at Italian Consulate
ATTACKER: Unidentified ISIL operatives

CAIRO, EGYPT
July, 2015
TARGET: One Croatian national kidnapped; beheaded on August 12 at an unknown location
ATTACKER: Unidentified ISIL-Sinai operative

PARIS, FRANCE
August, 2015
TARGET: Two civilians and one US soldier wounded with firearms and knife on a passenger train
ATTACKER: Ayoub el-Khazzani

EL GORA, EGYPT
September, 2015
TARGET: Four US and two MFO troops wounded in IED attack
ATTACKER: Unidentified

DHAKA, BANGLADESH
September, 2015
TARGET: One Italian civilian killed in shooting
ATTACKER: Unidentified

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
September, 2015
TARGET: One police officer wounded in knife attack
ATTAKER: Palestinian national

EL GORA, EGYPT
October, 2015
TARGET: No casualties; airfield used by MFO attacked with rockets
ATTAKER: Unidentified ISIL-Sinai operatives

PARRAMATTA, AUSTRALIA
October, 2015
TARGET: One police officer killed in shooting
ATTAKER: Farhad Jabar

RANGPUR, BANGLADESH
October, 2015
TARGET: One Japanese civilian killed in shooting
ATTAKER: Unidentified

HASANAH, EGYPT
October, 2015
TARGET: 224 killed in downing of a Russian airliner
ATTAKER: Unidentified ISIL-Sinai operatives

MERCED, CA, US
November, 2015
TARGET: Four wounded in knife attack on a college campus
ATTAKER: US person

PARIS, FRANCE
November, 2015
TARGET: At least 129 killed and approximately 400 wounded in series of shootings and IED attacks
ATTAKERS: Brahim Abdelslam, Saleh Abdeslam, Ismail Mostefai, Bilal Hadfi, Samy Amimour, Chakib Ahrouh, Foued Mohamed Aggad, and Abdelhamid Abaaoud

DINAJPUR, BANGLADESH
November, 2015
TARGET: One Italian citizen wounded in shooting
ATTAKER: Unidentified

RAJLOVAC, BOSNIA
December, 2015
TARGET: Two Bosnian soldiers killed in shooting
ATTAKER: Enes Omeragic

SAN BERNADINO, CA, US
December, 2015
TARGET: 14 killed and 21 wounded in coordinated firearms attack
ATTAKERS: Two US persons

LONDON, ENGLAND, UK
December, 2015
TARGET: Three wounded in knife attack at an underground rail station
ATTAKER: Muhyadin Mire

DERBENT, RUSSIA
December, 2015
TARGET: One killed and 11 wounded in shooting at UN World Heritage site
ATTAKER: Unidentified ISIL-Caucasus operative

CAIRO, EGYPT
January, 2016
TARGET: Two wounded in drive-by shooting outside a hotel frequented by tourists
ATTAKERS: Unidentified ISIL operatives

PARIS, FRANCE
January, 2016
TARGET: No casualties; attacker killed after attempted knife attack on Paris police station
ATTAKER: Tarek Belgacem

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
January, 2016
TARGET: One police officer wounded in shooting
ATTAKER: US person

HURGHADA, EGYPT
January, 2016
TARGET: One German and one Danish national wounded in knife attack at a tourist resort
ATTAKER: Unidentified

MARSEILLES, FRANCE
January, 2016
TARGET: One Jewish teacher wounded in machete attack
ATTAKER: 15 year-old Ethnic Kurd from Turkey

ISTANBUL, TURKEY
January, 2016
TARGET: 12 German tourists killed and 15 wounded in suicide bombing
ATTAKER: Nabil Fadli

JAKARTA, INDONESIA
January, 2016
TARGET: Four civilians killed and more than 20 wounded in coordinated bombing and firearms attacks near a police station and a Starbucks
ATTAKERS: Dian Joni Kurnaiadi, Muhammad Ali, Arif Sunakim, and Ahmad Muhazan bin Saron

COLUMBUS, OH, US
February, 2016
TARGET: Four civilians wounded in machete attack at a restaurant
ATTAKER: US person

HANOVER, GERMANY
February, 2016
TARGET: One police officer wounded in knife attack
ATTAKER: Safia Schmitter

ISTANBUL, TURKEY
March, 2016
TARGET: Four killed and 36 wounded in suicide bombing in the tourist district
ATTAKER: Mehmet Ozturk

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
March, 2016
TARGET: At least 31 killed and 270 wounded in coordinated bombings at Zaventem Airport and on a subway train
ATTAKERS: Khalid el-Bakraoui, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, Najim Laachraoui, Mohammed Abrini, and Osama Krayem

ESSEN, GERMANY
April, 2016
TARGET: Three wounded in bombing at Sikh temple
ATTAKERS: Three identified minors

ORLANDO, FL, US
June, 2016
TARGET: 49 killed and 53 wounded in shooting at a nightclub
ATTAKER: US person

MAGNANVILLE, FRANCE
June, 2016
TARGET: One police officer and one civilian killed in knife attack
ATTAKER: Larossi Abballa

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
June, 2016
TARGET: 14 killed in suicide attack on a bus carrying Canadian Embassy guards
ATTAKER: ISIL-Khorasan operative

ISTANBUL, TURKEY
June, 2016
TARGET: 45 killed and approximately 240 wounded at Ataturk International Airport
ATTACKERS: Rakhim Bulgarov, Vadim Osmanov, and an unidentified ISIL operative

DHAKA, BANGLADESH
July, 2016
TARGET: 22 killed, including one American and 50 wounded after hours-long siege using machetes and firearms at holy Artisan Bakery
ATTACKERS: Nibras Islam, Rohan Imtiaz, Meer Saameh Mubasheer, Khairul Islam Paye, and Shafiqul Islam Uzzal

NICE, FRANCE
July, 2016
TARGET: 84 civilians killed and 308 wounded by an individual who drove a truck into a crowd
ATTACKER: Mohamed Bouhlel

WURZBURG, GERMANY
July, 2016
TARGET: Four civilians wounded in axe attack on a train
ATTACKER: Riaz Khan Ahmadzai

ANSBACH, GERMANY
July, 2016
TARGET: At least 15 wounded in suicide bombing at a music festival
ATTACKER: Mohammad Daleel

NORMANDY, FRANCE
July, 2016
TARGET: One priest killed in knife attack
ATTACKERS: Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malik Nabil Petitjean

CHALEROI, BELGIUM
August, 2016
TARGET: Two police officers wounded in machete attack
ATTACKER: Khaled Babouri

QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA
August, 2016
TARGET: Two killed and one wounded in knife attack at a hostel frequented by Westerners
ATTACKER: Smail Ayad

COPENHAGEN, DENMAKR
September, 2016
TARGET: Two police officers and a civilian wounded in shooting
ATTACKER: Mesa Hodzic

PARIS, FRANCE
September, 2016
TARGET: One police officer wounded in raid after VBIED failed to detonate at Notre Dame Cathedral
ATTACKERS: Sarah Hervouet, Ines Madani, and Amel Sakaou

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
September, 2016
TARGET: One civilian wounded in knife attack
ATTACKER: Ihsas Khan

ST. CLOUD, MN, US
September, 2016
TARGET: 10 wounded in knife attack in a mall
ATTACKER: Dahir Ahmed Adan

NEW YORK, NY; SEASIDE PARK AND ELIZABETH, NJ, US
September, 2016
TARGET: 31 wounded in bombing in New York City; several explosive devices found in New York and New Jersey; one exploded without casualty at race in New Jersey; one police officer wounded in shootout
ATTACKER: Ahmad Khan Rahami

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
October, 2016
TARGET: Two police officers wounded in stabbing
ATTACKER: Belgian national

KUWAIT CITY, KUWAIT
TARGET: No casualties; vehicle carrying three US soldiers hit by a truck
ATTACKER: Ibrahim Sulayman

MALMO, SWEDEN
October, 2016
TARGET: No casualties; mosque and community center attacked with Molotov cocktail
ATTACKER: Syrian national

HAMBURG, GERMANY
October, 2016
TARGET: One killed in knife attack
ATTACKER: Unknown

MANILA, PHILIPPINES
November, 2016
TARGET: No casualties; failed IED attempt near US Embassy
ATTACKERS: Philippine nationals aligned with the Maute group

COLUMBUS, OH, US
November, 2016
TARGET: 14 wounded by individuals who drove a vehicle into a group of pedestrians and attacked them with a knife
ATTACKER: US person

N’DJAMENA, CHAD
November, 2016
TARGET: No casualties; attacker arrested after opening fire at entrance of US Embassy
ATTACKER: Chadian national

KARAK, JORDAN
December, 2016
TARGET: 10 killed and 28 wounded in shooting at a tourist site
ATTACKERS: Several gunmen

BERLIN, GERMANY
December, 2016
TARGET: 12 killed and 48 wounded by individual who drove truck into a crowded market
ATTACKER: Anis Amri

How Many Dead People Will Vote In November?

This is a story from May 2016, but it is very relevant to today’s events. On May 25, 2016, Townhall.com posted an article about voter fraud in Los Angeles. The story illustrates why voter identification laws are necessary.

The article reports:

A comparison of records by David Goldstein, investigative reporter for CBS2/KCAL9, has revealed hundreds of so-called dead voters in Southern California, a vast majority of them in Los Angeles County. “He took a lot of time choosing his candidates,” said Annette Givans of her father, John Cenkner. Cenkner died in Palmdale in 2003. Despite this, records show that he somehow voted from the grave in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010. But he’s not the only one. CBS2 compared millions of voting records from the California Secretary of State’s office with death records from the Social Security Administration and found hundreds of so-called dead voters. Specifically, 265 in Southern California and a vast majority of them, 215, in Los Angeles County alone. The numbers come from state records that show votes were cast in that person’s name after they died. In some cases, Goldstein discovered that they voted year after year.

This one local reporter, using this one method, uncovered hundreds of dead voters in just one small corner of the country — some of whom “voted year after year” after their deaths.

I wonder how many dead people will vote for Hillary Clinton.