The Obama administration is considering resettling thousands of refugees who left Syria

 The Obama administration is considering resettling thousands of refugees who left Syria during the country's ongoing civil war to multiple towns and cities across the United States, the L.A. Times reports.

A resettlement plan under discussion in Washington and other capitals is aimed at relieving pressure on Middle Eastern countries straining to support 1.6 million refugees, as well as assisting hard-hit Syrian families.

The State Department is "ready to consider the idea," an official from the department said, if the administration receives a formal request from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, which is the usual procedure.

The United States usually accepts about half the refugees that the U.N. agency proposes for resettlement. California has historically taken the largest share, but Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia are also popular destinations.

U.N. refugee officials, along with diplomats and non-governmental relief groups, are scheduled to meet in Geneva this week to discuss potential resettlement plans. Germany has already agreed to take 5,000 refugees. 

"It was probably inevitable that in this crisis, with these overwhelming numbers, governments would start moving in this direction," Lavinia Limon, chief executive officer of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a Virginia-based advocacy and service group, told the L.A. Times. Limon added, "But there will be resistance."

Congress is unlikely to warm up to the idea of agreeing to resettle thousands of Syrian refugees into the U.S. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who are currently pushing immigration reform bills, particularly aimed at Latinos who are in the country illegally, will need to explain why they may favor or oppose resettling thousands of Syrian refugees. 

It should be noted that Congress resisted accepting Iraqi refugees in 2003 following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Between 1983 and 2009, the U.S. resettled a total of 76,205 Iraqis. Meanwhile, seventy percent of total refugees in the U.S. were on food stamps in 2009. Within that number, 95 percent of Iraqi refugees were food stamp recipients. Additionally, the report shows an unemployment rate of 46 percent in 2009 among Iraqi refugees. A total of 219 Syrian refugees were resettled in the U.S. between 1983 and 2009.

More importantly, President Obama's administration supports Syrians who are attempting to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad, but the emergence of Islamic extremist groups with ties to al Qaeda among the Syrian opposition presents a serious security concern. TheL.A. Times alludes to the potential danger with such a resettlement: 

Homeland security officials require careful vetting of refugees, with multiple interviews and background checks before they are allowed to enter the country. Under normal circumstances, the screening process can take a year or longer.

U.S. officials are likely to be extra careful with Syrian refugees. As Islamic militants take a more prominent role in the rebel forces, officials worry about fighters with Al Qaeda ties trying to enter the country. Two resettled Iraqis were convicted of trying to send arms to Al Qaeda from their home in Bowling Green, Ky.

New National Security Advisor Susan Rice and President Obama's nominee for U.N. ambassador Samantha Power are both refugee advocates and will likely push for the resettlement.

Just what Obama needed, to distract us, attack Syria

The "red-line" has been crossed.The New York Times is reporting that:

U.S. CONCLUDES SYRIA USED CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST REBELS: NYT, and
NYT SAYS EUROPEAN OFFICIALS REACH SAME CONCLUSION ON SYRIA
MCCAIN SAYS U.S. TO PROVIDE WEAPONS TO SYRIAN REBELS

And along side that finding, as part of (or justification for?) the arming of the Syrian rebels, the WSJ reports that theUS Military is calling for a limited no-fly zone inside Syria. The seriousness of this escalation must be put in the context of a desperately-needed distraction for the current administration - which makes the decisions being made even more concerning in their potential for extremes.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-13/us-propose-no-fly-zone-over-syria-concludes-use-chemical-weapons-against-rebels

Well Obama can breath a sigh of relief, he can get his rotting image a short break so the MSM can demand WAR!

Obama ‘Strongly Objects’ to Religious Liberty Amendment

The Obama Administration “strongly objects” to a proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday that would have protected the religious rights of soldiers – including evangelical Christian service members who are facing growing hostility towards their religion.

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The amendment was authored by Rep. John Fleming, R-La. It would have “required the Armed Forces to accommodate ‘actions and speech’ reflecting the conscience, moral, principles or religious beliefs of the member.”

The Obama Administration said the amendment would have a “significant adverse effect on good order, discipline, morale, and mission accomplishment.”

“With its statement, the White House is now endorsing military reprimands of members who keep a Bible on their desk or express a religious belief,” Fleming told Fox News. “This administration is aggressively hostile towards religious beliefs that it deems to be politically incorrect.”

Fleming introduced the amendment after a series of high-profile incidents involving attacks on religious liberty within the military- including an Air Force officer who was told to remove a Bible from his desk because it might give the impression he was endorsing a religion.

He said there are other reports of Christian service members and chaplains being punished for their faith.

• The Air Force censored a video created by a chaplain because it include the word “God.” The Air Force feared the word might offend Muslims and atheists.
• A service member received a “severe and possibly career-ending reprimand” for expressing his faith’s religious position about homosexuality in a personal religious blog.
• A senior military official at Fort Campbell sent out a lengthy email officially instructing officers to recognize “the religious right in America” as a “domestic hate group” akin to the KKK and Neo-Nazis because of its opposition to homosexual behavior.
• A chaplain was relieved of his command over a military chapel because, consistent with DOMA’s definition of marriage, he could not allow same-sex weddings to take place in the chapel.

Last month Coast Guard Rear Admiral William Lee told a National Day of Prayer audience that religious liberty was being threatened by Pentagon lawyers and service members are being told to hide their faith in Christ.

“Leaders like myself are feeling the constraints of rules and regulations and guidance issued by lawyers that put us in a tighter and tighter box regarding our constitutional right to express our religious faith,” he said.

Fleming said the purpose of his amendment is to clarify ambiguities in the Pentagon’s policies.

“The bottom line is the military is bending over backwards to remove – even in the case of chaplains – expressions of faith and conscience,” Fleming said.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, called the Obama Administration’s edict a “chilling suppression of religious freedom.”

“The Obama administration has joined forces with those who are attacking the religious freedoms of those who serve in our Armed Services,” Perkins said. “The Administration’s opposition to Rep. Fleming’s religious freedom amendment reveals that this administration has gone beyond accommodating the anti-Christian activists who want to remove any vestige of Christianity from the military, to aiding them by blocking this bipartisan measure.”

I Guess Some Would Call This.... "Leading By Example"

Census: White majority in U.S. gone by 2043

By Hope Yen, Associated Press

For the first time, America's racial and ethnic minorities now make up about half of the under-5 age group, the government said Thursday. It's a historic shift that shows how young people are at the forefront of sweeping changes by race and class.
The new census estimates, a snapshot of the U.S. population as of July 2012, comes a year after the Census Bureau reported that whites had fallen to a minority among babies. Fueled by immigration and high rates of birth, particularly among Hispanics, racial and ethnic minorities are now growing more rapidly in numbers than whites.
It’s the latest in a series of reports that have signaled a major, long-term shift in the demographics of the United States, as non-Hispanic white Americans are expected to become a minority group over the next three decades. For years, Americans of Asian, black and Hispanic descent have stood poised to topple the demographic hegemony historically held by whites.


Based on current rates of growth, whites in the under-5 group are expected to tip to a minority this year or next, Thomas Mesenbourg, the Census Bureau's acting director, said.
The government also projects that in five years, minorities will make up more than half of children under 18. Not long after, the total U.S. white population will begin an inexorable decline in absolute numbers, due to aging baby boomers.
The latest census numbers show:

• The population younger than 5 stood at 49.9 percent minority in 2012. 
• For the first time in more than a century, the number of deaths now exceeds births among white Americans. This "natural decrease" occurred several years before the government's original projection, a sign of the white population decline soon to arrive. For now, the white population is still increasing slightly, due to immigration from Europe. 
• As a whole, the nonwhite population increased by 1.9 percent to 116 million, or 37 percent of the U.S. The fastest percentage growth is among multiracial Americans, followed by Asians and Hispanics. Non-Hispanic whites make up 63 percent of the U.S.; Hispanics, 17 percent; blacks, 12.3 percent; Asians, 5 percent; and multiracial Americans, 2.4 percent. 
• About 353 of the nation's 3,143 counties, or 11 percent, are now "majority-minority." Six of those counties tipped to that status last year: Mecklenburg, N.C.; Cherokee, Okla.; Texas, Okla.; Bell, Texas; Hockley, Texas; and Terrell, Texas. 
• In 2012, 13 states and the District of Columbia had an under-5 age population that was "majority-minority," up from five states in 2000. In 25 states and the District of Columbia, minorities now make up more than 40 percent of the under-5 group.
• Among the under-5 age group, 22 percent live in poverty, typically in more rural states such as Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana. Black toddlers were most likely to be poor, at 41 percent, followed by Hispanics at 32 percent and whites at 13 percent. Asian toddlers had a poverty rate of 11 percent. 

"More so than ever, we need to recognize the importance of young minorities for the growth and vitality of our labor force and economy," said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution who analyzed the census data.
Analysis by Timothy Smeeding, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in income inequality, of the latest research and data on social mobility, provided to The Associated Press, shows that a child's achievement varies widely depending on a parent's education and income. The reason: More educated parents tend to have fewer children and generally earn more money than before, allowing them to spend larger amounts of time or money on a child's development, including music or art classes, extra tutoring, or travel and summer camps.
The gaps in achievement tend to emerge early in childhood, continuing through high school, and disparities are especially evident in SAT admission scores. College Board data show that average scores spread as wide as 130-140 points in each of the reading, math and writing sections for a student with family income of less than $20,000, compared with a student with family income exceeding $200,000.
About 40 percent of whites age 25-29 graduate from college, compared with 15 percent for Latinos and 23 percent for blacks.
Obama proposed expanding pre-K education for any 4-year-old whose family income was below twice the federal poverty rate, or $46,000 for a family of four. That is an increasingly minority age group that would benefit from what Obama calls the single most effective way to boost educational outcomes.
The plan would be paid for by a nearly $1 per pack federal cigarette tax. But at a time of strapped federal budgets, Republican lawmakers have been reluctant to expand the scope of government or raise new taxes. Medicare and Social Security costs due to aging of the mostly white baby boomer generation are also adding to the government burden.
A recent Rutgers University study found that state funding for pre-K programs had its largest drop ever last year, with states now spending less per child than a decade ago.

NSA

Obviously the RINO Boehner knew about the monitoring and was OK with it.

I can't believe how so many Republicans are lining up on with the President.

It's almost like someone has their emails etc... and is blackmailing them.

Colorado Senator Claims Democracy Is Racist

Colorado state Senator Angela Giron (D-Pueblo) says that democracy in our republic is racist. Colorado citizens, angry over her votes to further restrict their Second Amendment civil liberties, have gathered thousands of signatures to force a recall election.

The group working to recall state Sen. Angela Giron, D-Pueblo, delivered more than 13,000 signatures to the Colorado Secretary of State’s office in Denver on Monday.
Pueblo Freedom and Rights needed 11,285 signatures from registered voters in Senate District 3 to force a recall election. The group said it returned 13,570 signatures. Victor Head, a founder of the group, said the names were all collected by volunteers and were reliable.
Giron said she wasn’t surprised that the group was able to deliver boxes full of petitions. But she said she was surprised at the racial undertones taken by some of the group’s supporters.
“I know it’s partially about me being a Latina and being in this position of authority,” said Giron.

Colorado Peak Politics revokes Giron’s race card:

Carefully ignored is the fact that three other Hispanics, both Republican and Democrat, male and female, opposed a number of gun bills this session.
Republican Latina Clarice Navarro opposed all the gun bills.
Democrat Latinos Ed Vigil and Leroy Garcia opposed the Mag Ban, and Vigil also opposed the background check bill.
No recall campaigns have been initiated against any of those Hispanic politicians.

According to Giron’s logic, it’s racist then that she wants to disarm these Hispanics.

http://www.redstate.com/dloesch/2013/06/11/colorado-senator-claims-democracy-is-racist/

We are on the verge of a very interesting time, a time when the Constitution will be returned to the People

Over he next few weeks and months the NSA and the "law" that supports the unwarranted data gathering in order to keep us safe will be challenged. The ACLU and Two prominent civil rights groups have filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency over its program that reportedly collects the telephone records of millions of American customers of Verizon.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union say in a lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday that the program violates First Amendment rights of free speech and association. It also alleges the program violates Fourth Amendment rights to privacy.The National Security Agency (NSA) has come under the spotlight in the last week after The Guardian revealed that the agency is collecting data related to all phone calls — foreign and domestic — made on the Verizon network.

Why Is Monsanto the Most Hated Company in the World?

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/06/08/why-is-monsanto-the-most-hated-company-in-the-worl/

What is GMO?
You probably know something about GMOs, which stands for genetically modified organisms, since it's as closely associated with Monsanto as "IRS" is with taxes. The popular definition of a GMO is (according to Wikipedia) "an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques." If you want to get pedantic about this definition, humankind has been genetically modifying organisms ever since the first nomads settled down to grow crops, since virtually nothing we eat today is the same exact plant or animal (or Twinkie) it was 10,000 years ago. But that's not why everyone's afraid of Monsanto. Monsanto is scary because -- in the eyes of detractors -- it's compressing 10,000 years of genetic adaptations into 10 years of mad science.


Fear of a mod planet
A quick search of "GMO" will turn up all sorts of scaremonger websites, with all sorts of frightening claims that when you eat a Monsanto-developed crop, you're consigning yourself to a short, sickly life of gastrointestinal (or just general) agony. Cancer, allergic reactions, liver problems, sterility, and even the unnatural modification of your genes -- these are just the claims I found on the website of the Institute for Responsible Technology, which purports to be a leading anti-GMO advocacy group. I won't go into some of the anti-Monsanto conspiracy theories you'll find bandied about on less reputable corners of the Internet.
It may not be easy to debunk all of these claims, but thanks to extensive national medical records, we can at least see how close to the mark they may strike. Since America was the earliest adopter of GMO foodstuffs, and is now the world's predominant grower and consumer of GMO crops, it should be experiencing the worst of the purported GMO health problems.
Are we more cancerous today than we were in 1996? Actually, not by a long shot:

Source: National Cancer Institute, SEER Cancer Statistics Review 1975-2010.

The results are even more pronounced when focusing on cancers of the stomach, colon, and rectum, which all show a persistent and significant downtrend throughout the entire tracked period across race and gender divisions. If we're eating ourselves to death, shouldn't our digestive systems be the most damaged by these Frankenfoods? Cancer statistics don't back up anti-GMO claims at all, and with more than 16 years in the food supply, you'd expect there to be a statistically significant change. The one statistically significant spike on these graphs, occurring around 1990, is often blamed


Economic benefits?
There has to be a reason farmers keep using GMOs. The most obvious would be that the end product -- that is, the stuff you eventually eat -- would yield more per planting (that is, per acre), which should result in lower costs at the consumer level. To the extent that this is true, it can't be credited to the adoption of GMO seed, as yield improvements and price declines began long before Monsanto got into the seed business:

Source: Prof. Mark J. Perry. 

Soybean yields haven't grown quite as impressively but have still doubled on a per-acre basis over the same time frame. Cotton yields have also soared over the past several decades. GMO crops had nothing to do with it -- old-fashioned hybridization, improved production techniques and infrastructures, and the spread of these two important developments around the world created a modern agricultural revolution after the Second World War. GMO crops might be in the process of extending that revolution today, but they may not. Few processes are so simple that a simple tweaking of one element can completely explain a change in another.
GMOs can't claim to have reduced crop costs through efficiency gains, either. Since commercial introduction in 1996, two of the three major crops planted have nearly doubled in price:

US Producer Price Index: Farm Products: Soybeans data by YCharts

Ultimately, this is probably good for farmers, but bad for everyone else. Not only are you buying Frankenfoods that will wreck your health, but you're also paying twice as much for the privilege. Agriculture can be so cruel. (Yes, that was tongue-in-cheek.)
Monsanto itself claims that GMOs benefit farmers through increased yield, greater insect and disease protection, and drought and heat resistance. The modified crops also conserve the soil, minimize the use of herbicides, and reduce the energy used in the growing process.
I've already shown that yields have been increasing for decades, so Monsanto is at best merely continuing a long-running trend, and at worst piggybacking on other improvements to make disingenuous claims. Herbicides and fertilizers have shipped in more than 35% greater quantities this year over the volumes seen in 1996. Fertilizer, as you might expect, is one significant part of increasing crop yields. Since fertilizers are quite energy-intensive to make (many are derived from natural gas) and can be damaging to soil quality over time, this one factor tends to disprove a number of Monsanto's claims:

US Pesticide, Fertilizer, and Other Agricultural Chemical Manufacturing Shipments data by YCharts.

The increased use of herbicide designed to work with GMOs (and vice versa) appears to be creating strains of "superweeds" that actively resist the chemicals. Nature tends not to sit idly by while scientists try to pound it into submission. The long-term consequences of an arms race between chemical-cum-GMO producers and the invasive species they want to push out of farm fields could very possibly result in damages beyond the circumstantial ones I've already highlighted.
The only real claim that I can't disprove (or at least weigh down with caveats) is that of drought and heat resistance, mostly because it's not easy to find data on the claim in either direction. Reducing water use is no small feat in a world quite obviously enduring a period of abnormal heat and drought. However, this alone can't answer for the fact that something should be done about widespread droughts beyond the creation of GMOs that drink just a little bit less water -- particularly if these GMOs result in the indirect use of more water by herbicide-resistant weeds.


How do you solve a problem like Monsanto?
It's tempting to reduce complex issues into outraged sound bites, like "GMOs are killing people!" or "GMOs are feeding the world!" The truth, as always, isn't quite so easy.
The threat of tainted food -- whether by chemicals or through genetic manipulation -- is a cause that arouses outrage at a pitch few other causes will ever muster. The threat of a shadowy corporation with its fingers buried in the heart of our food supply only heightens this outrage, and Monsanto's heavy-handed efforts at control have done nothing to soften its public image. However, the science of GMOs has been carried out in a highly ideological way on both sides, which doesn't help when all you want is the truth.
It seems that GMOs will inevitably become a larger part of our food supply, because the corporate motivator in the United States has proved to be stronger than the citizen motivator in recent years. A few protests won't change that. It will take concerted, long-running national efforts to change diets and attitudes before Monsanto and its peers are forced to loosen their grip on American farmlands. If you choose to be one of the people on the vanguard of that effort, make sure that you understand the science as it is, and not as you'd like it to be.
Are we less healthy today than we were two decades ago? It's possible, even though most of the statistics don't show that. Is it all Monsanto's fault? Probably not.

Bill Maher: Total Asshole

Bill Maher's Anti-Wounded Warriors Joke

06/04/13


Transcript via NewsBusters:

BILL MAHER: George Bush, over the Memorial Day weekend, held the Wounded Warrior 100K, which was a kind of a celebration for wounded warrior who is came back from Iraq and I guess they walked or ran or something on their prosthetic limbs. And I found this to be nauseating. I mean, first he sends them off to war to get their limbs blown off and then he has them over for a barbecue. This is like the Cleveland guy having a pizza party for those girls he had in his basement.

Obama Demands Court Uphold His “Right” To Ignore Constitution

Obama’s Department of Justice is demanding a federal judge dismiss the injunction with which she sought to uphold the constitutional rights of the American people.

On May 16^th, federal judge Kathleen Forrest granted a preliminary injunction to plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against Barack Obama and the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA), striking down those sections of the Act that provide the president the power to indefinitely detain American citizens without benefit of their 5^th and 6^th Amendment rights.

Under the terms of the Act, Obama had been given exclusive authority to direct members of the US military to arrest and imprison anyone he believed to have “substantially supported” al Qaeda, the Taliban, or “associated forces.” When pressed by plaintiff’s attorneys about the practical extent of this authority, government lawyers admitted “…the NDAA does give the president the power to lock up people like journalist Chris Hedges and peaceful activists,” admitting that “…even war correspondents could be locked up indefinitely under the NDAA.”

And when asked by the judge what it meant to be an “associated force”, Obama’s lawyers “…claimed the right to refrain from offering any clear definition of [the] term, or clear boundaries of the president’s power under [the] law.” In short, it is the federal government’s scheme that the Act remain so vague that a corrupt and power-hungry Administration may imprison virtually anyone it considers a threat to its pursuit of absolute power.

On July 25^th, Administration lawyers filed papers demanding Judge Forrest’s preliminary injunction NOT be made permanent. In the filing, Obama made it clear his Administration would ignore the court and its injunction regardless of what the judge may decide, claiming incorrectly that “…[the] injunction would have ‘nil’ effect, for the government would continue to possess the identical detention authority under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force…” Of course, that is a lie, as the AUMF applies only to known members of al Qaeda or the Taliban.

Most indicative of the Obama Administration’s contempt for Judge Forrest, the law, and the American people was government attorney Benjamin Torrance’s claim that it was “the Obama Administration’s position” NDAA detention provisions do not apply to American citizens living in the US. Judge Forrest responded by quoting Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote in a 2010 case that the Supreme Court “…would not uphold an unconstitutional statute merely because the government promised to use it reasonably.” So much for Judge Forrest’s faith in the validity and value of Obama’s signing statement promise to not employ his Section 1021 authority to indefinitely detain the American public!

Yet incredibly, when pressed on the issue, this Obama mouthpiece suggested to Forrest that concerns about the president’s detention powers were excessive as American citizens would, after all, have the ability to file  a writ of habeas corpus should they be illegally or improperly jailed! “How long does [such a] petition take,” asked Forrest? When Torrance refused to answer, the Judge continued, “Several years, right”?

So not only did Obama’s attorney lie about his Marxist boss’s corrupt intentions; he actually claimed that the abuse of American citizens was somehow acceptable because those unconstitutionally imprisoned might ask that the charges against them be produced after ONLY a few years behind bars!

Judge Forrest will soon decide whether to make the injunction permanent. Every citizen must watch very carefully for that ruling, as the “mainstream” media has ignored the story completely. We must all hope the Judge will not be intimidated by this corrupt Regime as so many of her colleagues have been before her.