Thursday 07-21-16

The Feds “Assault” on U.S. War Veterans You Won’t Believe

Constitutional Attorney Michael Connelly, JD, who also is the Executive Director of the United States Justice Foundation, has written the article “OUTRAGEOUS: Veterans are now receiving letters prohibiting the purchase, possession, receipt, or transport of a firearm/ammunition…” that every voter and law abiding citizen in the USA ought to read to understand the scope of what’s happened in this country and, seemingly, we don’t give a fiddler’s damn about.  How truly sad!
According to Connelly, veterans are receiving a letter from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs that states in part,

A determination of incompetency will prohibit you from purchasing, possessing, receiving, or transporting a firearm or ammunition. If you knowingly violate any of these prohibitions, you may be fined, imprisoned, or both pursuant to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, Pub.L.No. 103-159, as implemented at 18, United States Code 924(a)(2).?

It seems as if the VA has taken another tact of dealing with neutralizing veterans apparently by denying them due process because, according to Connelly,

In every state in the United States no one can be declared incompetent to administer their own affairs without due process of law and that usually requires a judicial hearing with evidence being offered to prove to a judge that the person is indeed incompetent. This is a requirement of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that states that no person shall “… be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law…

Veterans of all wars, first and foremost, this writer wants to thank YOU for your personal sacrifices you made on behalf of our country, and also extend the most heartfelt condolences to those families who lost loved ones during those “war games” – some of which, probably historically, were unnecessary, e.g., Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan [1], plus other skirmishes stretching back decades that only greased the skids toward globalism, in my opinion.
How about all the unconstitutional war games our military and troops engaged in because Congress was never consulted? [2,3,4,5]  Did they want to play with their newest technological war games and see how they work?  How about the depleted uranium weapons used in Middle East wars!  [7,8]  What are we doing to our military personnel who deploy and were exposed to those ordnances, let alone innocent citizens of the countries the U.S. ‘saves for democracy’.
If there is such a thing as karma, then I only can cringe at what probably is storing up in the ethers of law and justice for the USA.  When will we wake up and demand NO MORE WAR!
Currently, our country, as this writer assesses it, is ‘chomping at the bit’ to participate in what’s being ‘euphemized’ as World War 3.  Are the media programming us for it?  Geopolitical signs everywhere point to it.  Why?  War fills the financial coffers of those ‘movers and shakers’ who want it, plan it, and profit from it! [6]   Check out the 36 minute documentary “War = Profit”

http://www.activistpost.com/2016/07/feds-assault-u-s-war-veterans-wont-believe.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ActivistPost+%28Activist+Post%29

Miramar Police Officer Refused Service At Local Gas Station

MIRAMAR (CBSMiami) – A Miramar police officer says he was refused service at a Sunoco service station and convenience store.

“And here you are just trying to do your job, you effort an arrest. You go inside the store and the clerk won’t serve you,” said Jeff Marano with the Miramar PD.
This from the Miramar police officer, who described the clerk as a black male:  “[he] walked up to me and asked why we had arrested ‘his boy.’ The individual stated he would not ring me up and stated, ‘you know why.’ I proceeded to ask him again to ring me up and the individual again refused.”
“Apparently there is some kind of relationship, the way I understand it, between the clerk and the person that was arrested, because he called him, ‘his boy,’” said Marano.
All this went down Sunday, the same day three Baton Rouge police officers were ambushed and killed and with the death of five Dallas police officers July 7th fresh on the nation’s mind.
“I was not here yesterday and I do not want to talk to anyone,” said a clerk at the store Monday evening. “[The owners] will be here a little later.”
Marano wrote “I asked the individual why he was refusing to ring up a police officer trying to buy a drink, to which he stated, ‘Because I don’t have to, that’s why.’”
“Basically tells you he is not going to serve you in front of other customers while you are standing there in a police uniform,” said Marano.

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2016/07/18/miramar-police-officer-refused-service-at-local-gas-station/

Monday 06-20-16

If you have to ask, then I'm sure you are.  If you are concerned if it is, you definitely are.

Is YOUR picture in the FBI's facial recognition database?

There's a good chance it could be.
Facial recognition has been part of the FBI's Next Generation Identification program for years now. It's been used to catch criminals in the past, which is a good thing, but some are worried that the system is taking things a little too far and could affect innocent citizens.

A new study requested by Senator Al Franken reveals that the FBI's facial recognition database includes an estimated 411.9 million images, comprised of 30 million mugshots, 140 million visa application pictures and even millions of drivers' license photos from 16 states of innocent and law-abiding citizens.
Does the FBI have your photo in its database?

• If you've ever had a mugshot taken or been charged with a crime, the answer is yes. If you've applied for a visa, the answer is yes.
• If you live in Utah, North Dakota, Michigan, and South Carolina, the answer is yes.
• If you live in New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, Delaware and Vermont, the answer is highly likely.
• If you live in Alaska, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts or Connecticut, there's good news. These states don't release license photos to the FBI.

Privacy advocates are concerned about the growing database of images too. The main concern is that normal, every citizens like you and me will get caught up in the system and be grouped in with criminals, which could lead to some unfortunate events for many people.
A spokesman for the ACLU said in a statement:

"Face recognition is a relatively new technology and it's important that not only the FBI but the public be aware of its limitations. Errors mean random people could be falsely identified as potential criminals and find themselves coming under the FBI's powerful investigatory microscope. That could be not only invading people's privacy, but also exposing them to accusations of wrongdoing."

What do you think? Is the database necessary to protect our country? Or is the FBI taking things a little bit too far? Let us know what you think by posting in the comments below.

Please share this information with everyone. Just click on any of these social media buttons.

http://www.komando.com/happening-now/363483/is-your-picture-in-the-fbis-facial-recognition-database

Where is the outrage about this?  It is ok?  If it would have been skinheads attacking a Hillary rally, or segregation rally.

Cops: San Jose Protesters Attacked Anything With An American Flag

A new statement from an undercover police officer in San Jose reveals anti-Donald Trump rioters targeted anybody they saw carrying or wearing an American flag.
The revelation is included in the arrest report for Antonio Moses Fernandez, a teenager who was arrested during the June 2 riot for allegedly hurting a police officer with a thrown barricade.
“Protesters armed themselves with eggs, bottles, rocks, and newspapers and threw items at Trump-supporters,” the report says. “I also observed anyone wearing the American flag or a printed American flag were being confronted in an aggressive manner. It was my belief the protesters associated the American flag [with] a Trump supporter.”

  http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/09/cops-san-jose-protesters-attacked-anything-with-an-american-flag/#ixzz4BwPtLuq8
 

Thursday 06-02-16

I really don't no what else to say other than this mindset explains a lot.

VIDEO: Democrat State Rep Barbara Norton Attacks Declaration Of Independence On House Floor

HB 1035, a bill by Rep. Valarie Hodges that would have mandated that schoolchildren in Louisiana be taught the Declaration of Independence, sailed through the House Education Committee with a 6-2 vote. But Wednesday, when the bill reached the floor of the House, it had a different fate – amid a torrent of squabbling, Hodges returned the bill to the calendar and it’s likely finished for the session.
The Louisiana House of Representatives has 61 Republican members out of 105, and yet it was apparent no consensus for a cornerstone of basic civics in the state’s public schools was available to the bill’s supporters.
And yet, the bill did serve to provide a bit of civic education for the people of Louisiana – although perhaps not the lesson Rep. Hodges was looking for.

 

What we found out was something many of us knew – namely, that Rep. Barbara Norton, a Democrat from Shreveport, isn’t a fan of our founding documents – and also is a barely sentient being.
Have a look at Norton’s cranky questioning of Hodges about the Declaration of Independence, and consider the prospects of Louisiana’s legislature contributing positively to the state’s civic progress…



 http://thehayride.com/2016/05/video-democrat-state-rep-barbara-norton-attacks-declaration-of-independence-on-house-floor/#ixzz4AGnSmHOU

Long-Dreaded Superbug Found in Human and Animal in U.S.

The antibiotic resistance factor MCR, which protects bacteria against the final remaining drugs of last resort, has been found in the United States for the first time—in a person, and separately, in a stored sample taken from a slaughtered pig.

Department of Defense researchers disclosed Thursday in a report placed online by the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy that a 49-year-old woman who sought medical care at a military-associated clinic in Pennsylvania last month, with what seemed to be a urinary tract infection, was carrying a strain of E. coli resistant to a wide range of drugs. That turned out to be because the organism carried 15 different genes conferring antibiotic resistance, clustered on two “mobile elements” that can move easily among bacteria. One element included the new, dreaded gene mcr-1.

The discovery “heralds the emergence of truly pan-drug resistant bacteria,” the DOD personnel, Patrick McGann of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and Kurt Schaecher of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, along with eight colleagues, write in the journal report.

Beth Bell, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the CDC has begun working with the researchers and the Pennsylvania Department of Health to understand how the woman came to be carrying the highly resistant bacterium. (Later Thursday, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf confirmed the case, and the CDC joint investigation, in a statement.)

The DOD researchers who described her case, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, provided no other information on her case, except to say that she had not traveled in the previous five months, suggesting she did not pick up the bacterium outside the U.S.

“It is extremely concerning; this is potentially a sentinel event,” Bell said in a phone interview. “There is a lot that needs to be done in terms of contact tracing and field investigation, to have a sense of who else might have been exposed or might be carrying this resistant bacterium.”

Bell disclosed that the U.S. Department of Agriculture will shortly announce the first identification of MCR in the United States in an animal. It was found in a stored sample of pig intestine that was collected as part of the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System, a shared project of the CDC, USDA and Food and Drug Administration that looks for resistant foodborne bacteria in people, animals, and meat.

“We have been intentionally looking for this since MCR was first announced,” she said.

The Department of Health and Human Services subsequently confirmed the pig finding in a blog post Thursday afternoon.

The existence of MCR was reported for the first time just last November, in a report by British and Chinese researchers who said they had found the gene in people, animals, and meat in several areas of China. Subsequently it has been found in people, animals, or meat in at least 20 countries across the world.

MCR is so troubling because it confers protection against colistin, the last remaining antibiotic that works against a broad family of bacteria that have already acquired resistance to all the other antibiotics used against them. Colistin has worked up to this point because it is a toxic drug from the early days of the antibiotic era, seldom prescribed because of its side effects; because it was used so infrequently, bacteria had not adapted to it.

But because it is effective, agriculture adopted it instead, using it widely and legally for prevention of diseases in food animals. By the time the medical community discovered that it needed the drug back, resistance to colistin was already moving from agriculture into the human world.

Colistin is not actually used in animals in the United States, though it has been approved for use by the FDA. That makes the arrival of colistin resistance a mystery that will have to be plumbed through genetic sequencing.

Advocates who track antibiotic resistance, especially in agriculture, reacted to the news of U.S. colistin resistance by emphasizing the gravity this finding deserves.

“This shows that we are right on the verge of getting into the territory of routine bacterial infections being untreatable,” Steven Roach, the food safety program director at the Food Animal Concerns Trust, said by phone. “It underscores the failure of both the federal government and Congress, and the industry, to get a grasp of the problem. We can’t continue to drag our feet on taking needed action.”

The Pennsylvania woman’s diagnosis occurred thanks to a system set up within the DOD after MCR was discovered. Since last fall, any E. coli that was already resistant to a family of drugs known as ESBLs (extended-spectrum beta-lactams), as hers was, has been sent up the chain to Walter Reed, to be scrutinized for colistin resistance. That kind of systematic checking for antibiotic resistance, known as active surveillance, is rare in the United States. Most civilian surveillance systems are patchy; they focus only on foodborne illnesses, or rely on physicians or labs to report diagnoses, or draw from a few state health departments with already well-funded labs.

“This shows how much we need comprehensive surveillance, so that things are not discovered by accident,” Bell said. The CDC recently received additional funding under the Obama Administration’s national strategy for antibiotic resistance that will allow it to begin to set up regional lab networks. “We’ll be able to identify things systematically, identify clusters and begin contact investigations quickly,” she said.

“The first known case of MCR-1 in a U.S. patient underscores the urgent need for better surveillance and stewardship programs to combat antibiotic resistance,” agreed Dr. David Hyun, an infectious-disease specialist who is a senior officer in a long-running antibiotic resistance project at the Pew Charitable Trusts.

If there is any good news in the announcements of MCR’s appearance in the United States, it is that it has not, as yet, combined with other resistance genes into a completely untreatable organism. Bacteria acquire resistance genes like gamblers amassing a hand of cards, but the way the “cards” arrive is not step-wise—bad resistance, and then worse resistance, and then the worst—but randomly. What that means, in this case, is that the Pennsylvania E. colipossesses ESBL resistance (bad) and colistin resistance (worst)—but it remains susceptible to other intervening categories of drugs. (The stored pig sample has a yet different resistance pattern, colistin plus what is known as ASSuT, for the drug families represented by ampicillin, streptomycin, sulfas and tetracycline.)

But the random roulette of bacterial genetic recombination makes it more likely that an untreatable combination—of, for instance, colistin resistance plus carbapenem resistance, which the CDC has previously called “nightmare bacteria”—might occur. In fact, it already has occurred in patients in China, where MCR was first identified.

“We’re one step closer to carbapenem-resistant and colistin-resistant E. coli bumping into each other in someone’s gut,” Lance Price, a molecular biologist and the director of the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at George Washington University, said by phone. “It doesn’t matter in which direction the transfer takes place—if the carbapenem-resistant strain picks up colistin resistance, or if the colistin-resistant strain picks up carbapenem resistance. It’s double jeopardy.”

Once bacteria begin to collect resistance to multiple families of antibiotics, the speed and direction of their spread becomes hard to predict, because using any of the antibiotics to which they are resistant allows them to increase in number. (Not because the drugs affect the resistant bugs—they don’t—but because they kill susceptible organisms nearby, freeing up additional living space and food.) That makes it crucial to create surveillance systems that can identify them early.

The Department of Defense system that detected the Pennsylvania organism is a model for how surveillance ought to be carried out, Price said: “We need active surveillance for multi-drug resistant or high-priority resistant organisms, in animals and people, throughout the U.S.” 

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/26/colistin-r-9/

Tuesday 04-19-16

Yellow fever outbreak in Angola is 'threat to entire world'

An outbreak of yellow fever in Angola in which hundreds have already died could be "a threat to the entire world", the World Health Organisation has warned.

Cases of the mosquito-borne virus were first reported in Angola's capital Luanda in December. The disease has now spread to 16 of the country's 18 provinces. 

So far, thousands of people are suspected to have been infected with the disease and 238 people have died, WHO has reported. 

"The evolution of the situation in Angola is concerning and needs to be closely monitored," it stated in a report. 
People travelling from Angola have already exported the virus to China, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where at least 21 people are reported to have died. 
The trend has sparked concerns among the WHO, which fears the virus is at risk of spreading further because of the large international communities living in Angola that regularly travels to neighbouring countries. 

Countries where there are Aedes mosquitos, carriers of the yellow fever virus, are particularly at risk. Areas where there have been previous outbreaks of Dengue, Chikungunya or Zika virus would also be fertile grounds for the disease to spread. 

WHO has called for "an urgent need to strengthen the quality of the response in Angola" and increase the control of travellers' immunisation status, when coming from areas affected by the virus. 
Together with UNICEF, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), WHO is monitoring the situation in Angola and a situation of emergency has been declared. 

No travel or trade restrictions to Angola have yet been advised.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/yellow-fever-outbreak-symptoms-angola-threat-to-entire-world-warns-the-world-health-organisation-a6988011.html

Poll: Americans angry with federal government, happy at home

 

Graphic shows results of AP-GfK poll on attitudes toward government; 2c x 3 inches; 96.3 mm x 76 mm;

CHICAGO (AP) — All that talk of an angry America?

An Associated Press-GfK poll finds that most Americans are happy with their friends and family, feel good about their finances and are more or less content at work. It’s government, particularly the federal government, that’s making them see red.

Almost 8 in 10 Americans say they’re dissatisfied or angry with the way the federal government is working, while about the same proportion say they’re satisfied or enthusiastic about their personal lives. Republicans are far more likely to be angry — half of GOP voters, compared with about one-quarter of Democrats or independents — and those Republicans are much more supportive of Donald Trump, the front-runner for the party’s presidential nomination.

Still, anger isn’t so much driven by political ideology as it is by an overall disdain for a political system that doesn’t seem to be working, voters said in follow-up interviews. They’re upset with both parties, as well as career politicians and Washington insiders who, those surveyed said, don’t put their constituents’ interests first.

“There are too many lobbyists and people who are not really working for the people anymore. They’re working to line their own pockets,” said 37-year-old Greg Boire of Belding, Michigan, who works as a bank customer service representative and voted for Trump in that state’s Republican primary. “It happens on both sides. … It’s just the whole government in general.”

John Santoro of San Jose, California, a 58-year-old market development manager for a company that makes semiconductor-related products, said he’s doing well financially but is angry about a lack of progress to lower the country’s debt.

He mostly blames President Barack Obama, but “politicians on both sides of the aisle are to blame because they just can’t get anything done. They just fundraise and get contributions from special interests.”

The AP-GfK poll showed that angry Republicans such as Boire and Santoro were much more likely than those who are just dissatisfied to have a favorable view of Trump, by 62 percent to 42 percent. Fifty-eight percent of dissatisfied Republicans, but just 36 percent of angry ones, have an unfavorable opinion of Trump.

Both men say they do support Trump — to a point. They believe he could shake up Washington, but worry about his rhetoric and lack of campaign organization.

Boire said he’s impressed that Trump is spending his own money and that what he says “is his opinion and not that of the lobbyists.” But Boire would be satisfied if the more politically experienced Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won the nomination because Trump “does not have the filter to shut off” negative comments.

Santoro said he might vote for Cruz in the California primary if Trump doesn’t “cinch things up” and run a more professional campaign.

Even so, Trump has harnessed anger toward the federal government to win many die-hard supporters, like 58-year-old Debra Waterson of Petoskey, Michigan. She supported Obama in 2008 and former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., four years ago.

She’s upset that the gun lobby has a strong influence in Washington and that the Senate won’t vote on Obama’s nominee for Supreme Court. But she’s even angrier about the economy and foreign trade deals, so she voted for Trump in the Republican primary.

“Up here in northern Michigan, there is so much unemployment and so many can’t afford to eat or buy medicine,” said Waterson, who said her family is getting by.

In the Democratic race against Hillary Clinton, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders also has drawn support of voters who say they’re fed up with the federal government.

Retired Miami postal worker Kenneth Olinsky, a Sanders supporter, said he’s angry at Republicans in Congress for being “obstructionist” on legislation that could help working-class or low-income families.

“They haven’t done anything for the people as much as they’ve done for the wealthy and for businesses,” said Olinsky, 61. “There is a definite class system in this country; it’s the haves against the have nots.”

In the poll, people were slightly more likely to describe the economy as good than they were in February, 45 percent to 41 percent. Despite the current uptick, 54 percent describe the economy as poor.

Still, two-thirds or more of Democrats and Republicans say they’re at least satisfied with their personal and family relationships, financial situations, careers, and work-life balance. Independents lag behind on each of those measures, but are still more likely than not to be satisfied with each.

But the vast majority of Americans — 71 percent — still think the country is headed in the wrong direction. Nearly half of Democrats, but less than 1 in 10 Republicans, think the country is headed in the right direction.

Christopher Ashby, 32, a stay-at-home dad in Albemarle, North Carolina, who describes himself as a very conservative Republican and firm Trump supporter, said he is angry about government handouts for people and corporations and the influence of lobbyists and special-interest groups.

“For everyone in politics at this moment, it’s a career, and nobody is in this career to help the little person,” said Ashby. “We need a complete whitewash of the system (because) politics should … be something you do because you love helping the people.”

__

The AP-GfK Poll of 1,076 adults was conducted online March 31-April 4, using a sample drawn from GfK’s probability-based KnowledgePanel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

http://wtop.com/dc/2016/04/poll-americans-angry-with-federal-government-happy-at-home/

Wednesday 08-12-15

I have seen this first hand and  so have you.  You don't want to replace paper books, you can augment or duplicate, but you still need a paper copy.

Digital takeover: 71% mags lose subscribers, online news overtakes TV

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/digital-takeover-71-mags-lose-subscribers-online-news-overtakes-tv/article/2569931


VT mom who lost custody of child kills DCF worker, officials say

BARRE, Vt. —A woman who was upset about losing custody of her daughter used a hunting rifle to fatally shoot a child-welfare agency worker who had handled her case, authorities said.

The shooting happened Friday outside a state office building that houses the Department for Children and Families, Gov. Peter Shumlin's office said. The mother, Jody Herring, was detained by people in and around the building after the shooting, police said.

Barre City Mayor Thom Lauzon said the worker's shooting death was a tragedy not just for his city, which has about 10,000 residents, but for the state.

"My heart goes out to the victim and the victim's family," he said.

The Department for Children and Families worker, Lara Sobel, had been involved in a case that saw Herring's 9-year-old daughter taken into state custody, officials said. Sobel had just left a DCF office on Friday afternoon when she was shot twice, authorities said. She died at the scene.

Herring was in police custody on Friday night and couldn't be reached for comment. A home telephone number listed for her had been disconnected. She will be arraigned on Monday, police said.

The DCF has dealt with recent criticisms over its handling of cases, which prompted a new law.

A special legislative committee was set up to investigate the state child welfare system after the deaths last year of two toddlers who had been involved with DCF, 2-year-old Dezirae Sheldon, of Poultney, and 15-month-old Peighton Geraw, of Winooski. Murder charges are pending against Dezirae's stepfather and Peighton's mother, who have pleaded not guilty.

The new child safety law shifts the state's priority in protecting children, focusing on their well-being instead of on an imperative to reunite them with their families.

Shumlin said DCF employees deal with challenging family situations and do their work "out of their dedication to the children and families of this great state."

"To lose one of our own in the course of that duty," he said, "is shocking and heartbreaking."

Department for Children and Families staff members were directed to go out this weekend only on emergency calls and accompanied by law enforcement.

The DCF worker's shooting happened on the last day of work for state police director Col. Tom L'Esperance, the Burlington Free Press reported. A retirement dinner for him was taking place in South Burlington, about 40 miles away, when reports of the shooting were broadcast, and troopers left to go to the scene, the newspaper said.

http://www.wcvb.com/news/vt-mom-who-lost-custody-of-child-kills-dcf-worker-officials-say/34604788

Friday 07-17-15

Part of Americas mind set, what if a white mayor had said that about another race?

Mayor brags: Our white population plummets

The mayor of Kansas City, Kansas, in an address to the radical socialist organization National Council of La Raza, bragged that his city is no longer majority white and the city’s schools now have students who speak 62 different languages.
According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Kansas City, Kansas, was 52 percent white.

 

But in a speech before the La Raza National Affiliates Luncheon earlier this week in Kansas City, Mayor Mark Holland boasted that only five years later his city’s white population has been reduced to 40 percent.
He seemed to suggest that La Raza was at least partly responsible for the progress. But he also cited the refugee resettlement work of the United Nations and U.S. State Department for the city’s transformation into a gleaming example of multicultural diversity.
Kansas City, he said, “is very proud of the work of National Council of La Raza.”
“Kansas City, Kansas, is a city with no ethnic majority. Kansas City, Kansas, is 40 percent white, 28 percent Latino, and 26 percent African-American,” Holland said. “Our school district speaks 62 different languages by the children every single day. And Kansas City, Kansas, has a proud heritage of welcoming all people into the community, people who are not welcome in other places.”
Like the reporting you see here? Sign up for free news alerts from WND.com, America’s independent news network.
Latinos started coming with the Santa Fe railroad more than 100 years ago, to build the railroad, he said. Another railroad, the Underground Railroad, brought African-Americans to Kansas. “If they could get across the river they were free and settled in a township of Quindero.”
“We continue to have a number of groups of refugees from around the world,” he added, mentioning the large Hmong community that came in the 1970s and 80s following the Vietnam War.

In recent years, the city has welcomed more refugees from other parts of the world, including Muslim Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq, Hindus from Bhutan and Buddhists and Muslims from Burma.
LGBTs welcome in KC
Kansas City has also thrown open its arms to the LGBT community, Holland said, even though most of the state of Kansas leans Republican.
He said the city is the home of another “persecuted group – the Democrats.”
“The Democrats still have a foothold in Kansas City and we’re very proud of that,” said the Democrat mayor. “And because Democrats are in Wyandotte County, we welcome our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters and celebrate their life and their love, and always will.”
Holland, an ordained Methodist minister, then went on the attack against any Christians who don’t share his liberal theological views on same-sex marriage.
He applauded the recent 5-4 Supreme Court decision that redefined marriage for all 50 states.
“But we cannot let our guard down. This religious freedom component, I believe is the Confederate Flag of religious bigotry, being flown long after the fact,” Holland said. “As an ordained United Methodist pastor myself, I’m offended to note, when they say Christians are offended by the ruling. In fact, many of us Christians celebrate the ruling and the continued welcome and recognition of all people. But I want to close by saying we just couldn’t be more proud that La Raza is here in Kansas City and it’s an honor to be able to greet you.”
Police, fire departments lagging in diversity
In August 2014 Holland told city commissioners that the Kansas City police and fire departments were too white, reported KMBC-TV 9.
Holland said he was working with the U.S. Department of Justice to fix that problem and bring more diversity to the fire and police forces. He said he did not like the fact that only 40 percent of the city’s population was white yet whites made up 72 percent of the police department and 82 percent of the fire department.
The theme of the recent La Raza conference in Kansas City was “Empower, Lead, Connect.”
The U.S. State Department, working with the United Nations, has sent 2,371 international refugees to Kansas City, Kansas, since 2002. The State Department’s database does not include U.N. refugees dispersed throughout the U.S. before 2002 but the program has been ongoing in its current form since 1980. The U.N. picks about 95 percent of the refugees sent to the U.S. The State Department, working with nine major contractors such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, distributes about 70,000 refugees annually from mostly Third World nations into 190 U.S. cities and towns.
View the full list of approximately 190 U.S. cities and towns where the U.N. is secretly sending refugees, without the permission of elected city councils.
U.N. sends KC 2,371 refugees since 2002
The refugees, unlike most other classifications of immigrants, immediately qualify for a smorgasbord of state and federal welfare benefits and are placed on a fast-track toward full citizenship, which is obtainable within five years.
Since 2002 Kansas City has received 1,090 refugees from Burma, 577 from Bhutan, 190 from Somalia, 126 from Iraq, 47 from Liberia, 37 from Eritrea, 36 from Russia, 34 from Burundi, 33 from Afghanistan, 26 from Vietnam, 24 from Sudan, 18 from Uzbekistan, and 11 from Iran, according to State Department data.
The city’s overall population has been in decline for four straight decades since reaching its peak of 168,000 in 1970, Census records show. By 2010 that population had fallen to 145,786. But, by using the refugee program and a general “welcoming” approach to all immigrants, the city has been able to recharge its population somewhat, with an estimated 149,636 residents as of 2014.

http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/mayor-brags-our-white-population-plummets/

Sounds like one of the alphabet agencies wanted it more.

A $200 privacy device has been killed, and no one knows why

A security researcher has abruptly cancelled next month's scheduled unveiling of a privacy device designed to mask Internet users' physical locations. It's a move that has both disappointed privacy advocates and aroused suspicions.
Ben Caudill, a researcher with Rhino Security Labs, took the unusual step of saying he no longer plans to release the software or hardware schematics for his so-called ProxyHam box. He said the devices already created have been destroyed. Caudill has offered no explanation for the killing of the project, but he has reportedly ruled out both intellectual property disputes and Federal Communications Commission licensing concerns.
That has left some people to speculate a secret government subpoena known as a National Security Letter is at play in the decision to kill the project. That speculation seems unlikely because NSLs are a very specific legal process typically served on e-mail providers, phone companies, or the like for specific information, Electronic Frontier Foundation General Counsel and Deputy Executive Director Kurt Opsahl said.
"It's not clear to me how that could possibly map to the product you described," he said after Ars explained how ProxyHam worked. "It's not a catch-all letter by which the government can obtain any action for anybody."
The ProxyHam device was able to mask the location of an Internet user by broadcasting on a 900MHz radio frequency so the owner could connect from up to 2.5 miles away from the source of the Internet connection. As a result, even if someone tracked down the location of an IP address, the user wouldn't automatically be discovered. The box was billed as using open-source software and requiring less than $200 in hardware. It was scheduled to be the topic of a now-canceled talk at next month's Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas.
Other speculation on why the project was cancelled holds that ProxyHam was never the break-through device some journalists and privacy advocates made it out to be. ProxyHam, according to Errata Security CEO Rob Graham, was little more than the combination of a Raspberry Pi computer and a $125 900 MHz bridge from a company called Ubiquiti Networks, with some software that made them interoperate.
"I don't know why the talk was canceled," Graham wrote in a blog post published Monday afternoon. "One likely reason is that the stories (such as the one on Wired) sensationalized the thing, so maybe their employer got cold feet. Or maybe the FBI got scared and really did give them an NSL, though that's incredibly implausible."
Whatever the reason for the cancellation, it wouldn't be hard for someone else with expertise in hardware to create a box that does exactly what Caudill described. So far, there's no word of anyone offering to sit in for Caudill.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/07/a-200-privacy-device-has-been-killed-and-no-one-knows-why/