News You Can Use

[mes5464]

California City Will Fine Couple $500 For Not Watering Brown Lawn, State Will Fine’em $500 If They Do

When you’re in a steady relationship, communication is clear. Because when mom says to do one thing, and dad says another, the kids get really confused. Such is the case in California, where the state has issued rules for homeowners to conserve water in the midst of extreme drought, with fines of $500 per day or violating those guidelines, but one city is threatening to fine a couple $500 — unless they water their lawn.

In the epitome of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation, Laura and Mark received notice from Glendora, Calif. that they’d get a $500 penalty for not watering their brown lawn… on the same day the state approved mandatory outdoor watering restrictions with the same fine for violating that attached, $500.

[mes5464]

White House says Obama’s LGBT executive order will not provide religious exemption

President Obama, resisting calls from several prominent faith leaders, will not include a new exemption for religiously affiliated government contractors when he issues an executive order Monday barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, the White House said Friday.

Obama announced last month that he would sign such an order after concluding that Congress was not going to act on a broader measure prohibiting discrimination based on sexual discrimination or gender identity by companies.

Since then, faith leaders have urged him to include an exemption for government contractors with a religious affiliation, such as some social service agencies.

[BroJones]

Will Obama's LGBT order affect the LDS church, I wonder? or its corporations doing business?

Other news:

Hundreds of protests are taking place across the United States this weekend in opposition to the surge of immigrants illegally crossing the country’s southern border and proposed immigration reform that organizers say gives amnesty to those already living illegally in the country.

Organizers say 321 protests will take place over the next two days -- from state capitals to highway overpasses to Mexican consulates.

The protests have been sparked by the thousands of Central American immigrants who in the past few months have entered the U.S. illegally in hopes of staying.

“We know that 12,000 people expected to attend roughly 300 events shows illegal immigration is the most important problem facing America,” William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, said Wednesday.

Many of the estimated 55,000 children and others from Central American who have entered the U.S. since this spring are being housed in federal facilities across the country at taxpayers’ expense. Such situations are also adding to protesters' frustration about their broken immigration system and what they consider President Obama’s invitation to illegally cross the border.

Gheen points to a June 20 Gallup poll that shows 65 percent of Americans disapprove of Obama's handling of the country’s immigration issues.

“More people are learning that Obama is smuggler in chief,” Gheen said, referring in large part to the president’s 2012 executive memo that softens deportation guidelines for some young illegal immigrants. “It’s a welcome mat that is a complete breech of existing law.”

This weekend’s protests also follow individual protests in cities and states across the country -- from Murrieta, Calif., to Westminster, Md. -- by residents opposed to illegal border-crossers being temporarily housed in facilities in their neighborhoods.

Earlier this week, residents in Westminster, about 35 miles west of Baltimore, successfully protested against a Health and Human Services Department plan to house illegal immigrant children in an Army Reserve center.

The weekend “National Days of Protest Against Immigration Reform Amnesty & The illegal Immigration Surge” events are scheduled to take place through Sunday and are also being organized by the Overpasses for America and Make Them Listen groups.

Westminster, Md is near where my daughter lives. Any protests near you or children?
--
Steve

PS - wildfires in Washington, destroying homes

[mes5464]

BRICS shake up global economic architecture

By creating their own multilateral financial institutions, the BRICS emerging-market powers are shaking up global economic governance but remain far from dismantling the post-war system dominated by the West.

[mes5464]

Obama aides were warned of brewing border crisis

Nearly a year before President Obama declared a humanitarian crisis on the border, a team of experts arrived at the Fort Brown patrol station in Brownsville, Tex., and discovered a makeshift transportation depot for a deluge of foreign children.

Thirty Border Patrol agents were assigned in August 2013 to drive the children to off-site showers, wash their clothes and make them sandwiches. As soon as those children were placed in temporary shelters, more arrived. An average of 66 were apprehended each day on the border and more than 24,000 cycled through Texas patrol stations in 2013. In a 41-page report to the Department of Homeland Security, the team from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) raised alarms about the federal government’s capacity to manage a situation that was expected to grow worse.

[mes5464]

Dear Fellow American: Do You Remember Iraq? Syria? ANYTHING?

Dear fellow American:

Do you remember that our government lied us into a war in Iraq?

Do you remember that that didn’t turn out very well?

[mes5464]

Deadly mosquito virus reported in eastern Mass.

West Nile virus found in Tulsa County mosquitoes

[mes5464]

Passionate Farmer Takes On Her Government Harassers

With her life’s dream of being a small family farmer in Virginia, Martha Boneta obtained 64 acres in Fauquier County, Va in 2006 to raise vegetables, herbs, raw honey, eggs, and host small animals. Little did she know that a birthday party with eight ten-year old girls would trigger zealous county regulators who saw the party as an event needing special exception permits and required a hearing that would impose fees.

Thinking she had all the right commercial permits and licenses, Boneta was still threatened with $5,000 per day fines despite Virginia being a right to farm state, where local governments are considered unable to use zoning laws to bring nuisance suits for customary farm operations.

Soon enough, it became clear that there were outside interests who seemed connected to county government, the IRS and even her mortgage who wanted to force her off her land, and she decided to fight back.

[mes5464]

I wonder if I am on the list.

US terrorist database growing at rapid rate

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (AP) — The U.S. government is rapidly expanding the number of names it accepts for inclusion on its terrorist watch list, with more than 1.5 million added in the last five years, according to numbers divulged by the government in a civil lawsuit.

About 99 percent of the names submitted are accepted, leading to criticism that the government is "wildly loose" in its use of the list.

[mes5464]

Mystery: Posters in NYC, D.C. call Clintons 'America's Lannisters'

Bswdie_CEAIU1h1.jpg (74.07 KiB) Viewed 1758 times

A new Clinton mystery has hit New York City and Washington, D.C. with the surprise display of posters declaring the Clintons as “America's Most Dangerous Family" and "America's Lannisters."

[mes5464]

Execution or exodus, Iraqi Christians face grim choice

Mosul (Iraq) (AFP) - For Iraqi Christian Fadi and his young family, it is a lonely wait to see whether they will be executed soon.

Their Christian neighbours and friends have already fled the city of Mosul in Iraq's north, which last month fell into the hands of Sunni jihadists led by the Islamic State group, which espouses an extreme form of Islam.

A DESPERATE CRY FROM IRAQ'S CHRISTIANS

Iraq’s Christian leaders have just made a desperate cry for help. Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, head of Iraq’s Catholic church, has issued an appeal “to all who have a living conscience in Iraq and all the world.”

SEBASTIAN GORKA: CHRISTIAN HOLOCAUST UNDERWAY IN IRAQ, USA AND WORLD LOOK ON

[mes5464]

[BroJones]

Gov't transparency? or cover-ups?

President Obama’s new spokesman, Josh Earnest, recently declared – with a straight face – that the Obama Administration was, in fact, the most transparent administration in history.

Really?

Even the very liberal Huffington Post website has run stories noting that the Obama administration has gone to “unprecedented lengths” to restrict freedom of the press, declaring it (in the ultimate Huffpo insult) “worse than Bush.” Citing a Committee to Protect Journalist report, the liberal site noted:

[The report] examined a range of Obama administration tactics that hinder government transparency. These include unprecedented use of the Espionage Act in prosecuting media leaks, classifying government documents as secret when no harm could come from their release, increased government surveillance that jeopardizes the safety of news sources, Freedom of Information Act violations, and White House-produced content that can't substitute for independent, accountability journalism.

The Obama administration’s aggressive secrecy represents a direct threat to democratic accountability.
The consequences are profound. Simply put, on some of the most critical issues of our time, White House secrecy, spin, and deception have been so effective that we may never learn the truth. Let’s look at a few examples:

First, Benghazi.

We’re approaching the two-year anniversary of a multi-hour firefight in and around the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya and we still do not have a definitive account from the Administration on the events of that fateful night when four Americans were murdered – including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. We have bare-bones outlines full of contradictory information, and we don’t know yet where the President was and precisely what orders he issued, if any.

To understand the absurdity of this information gap, one only has to compare the Obama administration’s secrecy with our military’s relative transparency. Within weeks after significant combat operations, the military will publish comprehensive accounts and often make the soldiers who participated available for interviews. Indeed, the press is often embedded with units and therefore able to provide first-hand accounts.

The Obama administration, by contrast, has steadfastly kept the Benghazi survivors from the media, reportedly even forcing them to sign new confidentiality agreements. And so one of the most damaging terror attacks since 9/11, a deadly attack that allegedly targeted a key CIA facility, remains shrouded in mystery.

Next, the IRS.

Just as Congress, the Department of Justice, and multiple lawsuits – including our own American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) case brought on behalf of 41 groups in 22 states – were uncovering a comprehensive, nationwide abuse of power, the IRS “lost” evidence, key evidence.

Not only has it “lost” Lois Lerner’s emails (Lerner, is the former director of exempt organizations at the IRS and a key figure in the Tea Party targeting scandal) to and from outside agencies, it “lost” emails from other important IRS accounts, including the former chief of staff to the IRS commissioner.

The IRS’s epidemic of computer crashes is so suspicious, that now two separate federal judges are requiring explanations from IRS officials (under oath) and the Department of Justice is investigating.

But in spite of all these investigations, IRS officials tell the public that the “lost” information is simply gone. Forever. And we’ll never know the truth.

Finally, Fast and Furious.

No, I have not forgotten Operation Fast and Furious. I have not forgotten the first Obama administration scandal to cost lives.

Nor have I forgotten how Attorney General Eric Holder has effectively blocked the congressional investigation by asserting an incredibly broad executive privilege, an assertion so broad that a federal judge has already expressed skepticism about its merits.

In fact, in Operation Fast and Furious, the administration defied Congressional information requests so brazenly that Congress held Attorney General Holder in Contempt – in a bipartisan vote, no less.

The list could go on, of course. After all, this is the administration a New York Times report called “more prone than any administration in history in trying to silence and prosecute federal workers.”

The Obama administration’s aggressive secrecy represents a direct threat to democratic accountability.

And that threat is only compounded when secrecy is concealed behind a cynical public relations campaign, where the president’s spokesman claims transparency to a public that often can’t follow politics closely enough to separate truth from spin.

At a very basic level our system of government depends on the integrity of its officials. Yes, a vigorous mainstream media – if it existed – can help hold officials accountable. Yes, an independent judiciary can – and often does – strike down administration lawlessness. And certainly an informed public can deliver the ultimate verdict on a deceptive politician.

But in the absence of integrity, deep damage is still done. It’s possible that even the best investigators won’t learn the full truth about Benghazi, the IRS, Fast and Furious or other Obama administration scandals. And without the full truth there won’t be full accountability.

Without truth, there can be no justice. And if there’s one thing this administration does well, it conceals the truth.


Jay Sekulow is Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which focuses on constitutional law. He hosts a daily radio show, "Jay Sekulow Live," which is broadcast on more than 850 stations nationwide as well as Sirius/X satellite radio. Follow him on Twitter @JaySekulow.

[mes5464]

Armed bandits demand water in dry northern India

LUCKNOW, India (AP) — Armed bandits are threatening villagers with death unless they deliver 35 buckets of water each day in northern India, where water is scarce thanks to an ongoing drought and a poor supply.

So far, 28 villages have been obeying the order, taking turns to deliver what the bandits are calling a daily "water tax," police said.

"Water itself is very scarce in this region. Villagers can hardly meet their demand," officer Suresh Kumar Singh said by telephone from Banda, a city on the southern border of central Uttar Pradesh state and caught within what is known in India as bandit country.

[mes5464]

Swiss, Chinese Central Banks Enter Currency Swap Agreement

[mes5464]

TLC Wrongly Accused Hundreds of Being Illegal Cabbies in Past Year

NEW YORK CITY — Kareeal Akins still gets chills thinking about the long, frigid walk home that he and his then-pregnant wife were forced to make this past winter after the city seized his car.

At about 9 p.m. on Jan. 24, he drove his white 2002 Honda Accord from his Sheepshead Bay apartment to the corner of Church Avenue and Ocean Parkway in Kensington to pick up his wife, Natalie, from her friend’s home.

He remembers pulling up to the intersection, his wife getting into his car and then a vehicle behind them flashing its sirens.

It wasn’t police officers stopping them. It was two Taxi and Limousine Commission inspectors, enforcement agents tasked with policing livery cars and yellow taxis to protect New Yorkers from dangerous and uninsured illegal cabbies.

[mes5464]

Meanwhile, in the Gun Control Capital of Chicago, At Least 40 People Shot, 4 Killed This Weekend

[mes5464]

DREAMERS STAGE GOP 'FUNERAL' IN CONGRESS: 'REPUBLICAN PARTY IS DEAD TO US'

On Monday, DREAMers stormed the halls of Congress to stage a "GOP funeral" in front of the offices of Republican senators, some of whom have expressed concerns that President Barack Obama's unilateral grants of temporary amnesty have caused the current border crisis.

DREAMer-Funeraljpgjpg.jpg (62.18 KiB) Viewed 1690 times

BORDER PATROL WHISTLEBLOWER: WE’RE BEING ORDERED TO RELEASE PREGNANT ILLEGALS

Below is the agent’s e-mail to Infowars in full,

At my muster yesterday, we received orders to begin releasing all pregnant female illegal aliens in the RGV sector. ANY stage of pregnancy, whether two weeks or eight months. We do not have a method of testing for an actual pregnancy, either. It appears that we have to take their word for it. They will receive a Notice To Appear classification and paperwork just like UAC children and Family Units. I will look for an official memorandum to support this. This looks like it will become another major loophole once the word gets out.

[mes5464]

Mom Loses Kids After Asking Craigslist If Anyone Could Shelter Her Children

A North Carolina mom got her kids taken away from her after she asked for them to be sheltered on Craigslist.

Moshimalee Johnson first went to the Durham Department of Social Services for housing assistance for her and her five children, only to be told they couldn’t help her, the News & Observer reports.

So she used Craigslist to find shelter for her children.

“I am currently homeless and looking for someone to take my five kids until I can find a job and a place to live,” Johnson’s July 9 ad said. “I called DSS and they won’t take them. The shelter has a waiting list and [Durham Rescue Mission] won’t let you work if you come there. I am a certified nursing assistant but can’t find work due to numerous doctor’s appointments because my 6-year-old accidentally hung himself. Please help anyone.”

Two days later, the DDS’s child protective services took away her kids and put them into foster care.

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” Johnson said. “I didn’t want to give the kids up. I wanted a place for me and my kids.”

[BroJones]

Too bad she did not approach a Church group for help with her children... something to avoid "legal abduction" by the state!
Another topic (transparency/ cover-up)

President Obama’s new spokesman, Josh Earnest, recently declared – with a straight face – that the Obama Administration was, in fact, the most transparent administration in history.

Really?

Even the very liberal Huffington Post website has run stories noting that the Obama administration has gone to “unprecedented lengths” to restrict freedom of the press, declaring it (in the ultimate Huffpo insult) “worse than Bush.” Citing a Committee to Protect Journalist report, the liberal site noted:

[The report] examined a range of Obama administration tactics that hinder government transparency. These include unprecedented use of the Espionage Act in prosecuting media leaks, classifying government documents as secret when no harm could come from their release, increased government surveillance that jeopardizes the safety of news sources, Freedom of Information Act violations, and White House-produced content that can't substitute for independent, accountability journalism.

The Obama administration’s aggressive secrecy represents a direct threat to democratic accountability.
The consequences are profound. Simply put, on some of the most critical issues of our time, White House secrecy, spin, and deception have been so effective that we may never learn the truth. Let’s look at a few examples:

First, Benghazi.

We’re approaching the two-year anniversary of a multi-hour firefight in and around the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya and we still do not have a definitive account from the Administration on the events of that fateful night when four Americans were murdered – including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. We have bare-bones outlines full of contradictory information, and we don’t know yet where the President was and precisely what orders he issued, if any.

To understand the absurdity of this information gap, one only has to compare the Obama administration’s secrecy with our military’s relative transparency. Within weeks after significant combat operations, the military will publish comprehensive accounts and often make the soldiers who participated available for interviews. Indeed, the press is often embedded with units and therefore able to provide first-hand accounts.

The Obama administration, by contrast, has steadfastly kept the Benghazi survivors from the media, reportedly even forcing them to sign new confidentiality agreements. And so one of the most damaging terror attacks since 9/11, a deadly attack that allegedly targeted a key CIA facility, remains shrouded in mystery.

Next, the IRS.

Just as Congress, the Department of Justice, and multiple lawsuits – including our own American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) case brought on behalf of 41 groups in 22 states – were uncovering a comprehensive, nationwide abuse of power, the IRS “lost” evidence, key evidence.

Not only has it “lost” Lois Lerner’s emails (Lerner, is the former director of exempt organizations at the IRS and a key figure in the Tea Party targeting scandal) to and from outside agencies, it “lost” emails from other important IRS accounts, including the former chief of staff to the IRS commissioner.

The IRS’s epidemic of computer crashes is so suspicious, that now two separate federal judges are requiring explanations from IRS officials (under oath) and the Department of Justice is investigating.

But in spite of all these investigations, IRS officials tell the public that the “lost” information is simply gone. Forever. And we’ll never know the truth.

Finally, Fast and Furious.

No, I have not forgotten Operation Fast and Furious. I have not forgotten the first Obama administration scandal to cost lives.

Nor have I forgotten how Attorney General Eric Holder has effectively blocked the congressional investigation by asserting an incredibly broad executive privilege, an assertion so broad that a federal judge has already expressed skepticism about its merits.

In fact, in Operation Fast and Furious, the administration defied Congressional information requests so brazenly that Congress held Attorney General Holder in Contempt – in a bipartisan vote, no less.

The list could go on, of course. After all, this is the administration a New York Times report called “more prone than any administration in history in trying to silence and prosecute federal workers.”

The Obama administration’s aggressive secrecy represents a direct threat to democratic accountability.

And that threat is only compounded when secrecy is concealed behind a cynical public relations campaign, where the president’s spokesman claims transparency to a public that often can’t follow politics closely enough to separate truth from spin.

At a very basic level our system of government depends on the integrity of its officials. Yes, a vigorous mainstream media – if it existed – can help hold officials accountable. Yes, an independent judiciary can – and often does – strike down administration lawlessness. And certainly an informed public can deliver the ultimate verdict on a deceptive politician.

But in the absence of integrity, deep damage is still done. It’s possible that even the best investigators won’t learn the full truth about Benghazi, the IRS, Fast and Furious or other Obama administration scandals. And without the full truth there won’t be full accountability.

Without truth, there can be no justice. And if there’s one thing this administration does well, it conceals the truth.


Jay Sekulow is Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which focuses on constitutional law. He hosts a daily radio show, "Jay Sekulow Live," which is broadcast on more than 850 stations nationwide as well as Sirius/X satellite radio. Follow him on Twitter @JaySekulow.

[mes5464]

White Flags Mysteriously Replace American Flags Atop Brooklyn Bridge

MANHATTAN — American flags were removed from atop the Brooklyn Bridge's two towers Tuesday morning and replaced by white flags, sources said.

Police were checking surveillance footage from the bridge after images of the white flags hit social media about 7 a.m., sources said.

"Why are there white flags on top of the Brooklyn Bridge?" City Council member Mark Weprin tweeted at 9:34 a.m.

It was not immediately clear how the white flags, which are usually a military symbol for surrender, got there.

extralarge.jpg (237.5 KiB) Viewed 1603 times

[mes5464]

Sharia law in America.

Cops: Leaders Of Philly Mosque Tried To Cut Off Man’s Hand With Machete

According to investigators, the 46-year-old arrived at the mosque at about 4:00 a.m. for Morning Prayer services.
At about 5:30 a.m., after the prayer service concluded, police say the victim was approached by the mosque’s Imam and the Amir.
Investigators say the two males accused the victim of stealing jars of money from the Masjid.

[mes5464]

LUIS GUTIERREZ TO LA RAZA: GET AMNESTY TO 'PUNISH' AMERICANS AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) believes Hispanics should get amnesty and citizenship to punish Americans who are against illegal immigration.
After he told the La Raza conference in Los Angeles that President Barack Obama gave the Latino community a "down payment" with his temporary amnesty program that halted the deportations "of our people," Gutierrez urged Hispanics to seek retribution at the ballot box.
"We need to raise our voices, make ourselves citizens, sign up to vote and punish those who speak ill and criminalize children who come to our border," Gutierrez reportedly said in Spanish this weekend.
Gutierrez addressed the conference this weekend and also spoke on a panel. He said Obama assured him in a White House meeting last week with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that he would use executive actions to be a "generous and broad" as he can to "stop the deportation of people each and every day," as Breitbart News reported.
Gutierrez has been one of the biggest proponents of a pathway to citizenship for all of the country's illegal immigrants.

[mes5464]

ISIS TORCHES 1,200 YR-OLD MOSUL CHURCH, ETHNICALLY CLEANSES CHRISTIANS

Christians face death, rape, confiscation of property

[mes5464]

1 Now behold, I will show unto you that they did not establish a king over the land; but in this same year, yea, the thirtieth year, they did destroy upon the judgment-seat, yea, did murder the chief judge of the land.

2 And the people were divided one against another; and they did separate one from another into tribes, every man according to his family and his kindred and friends; and thus they did destroy the government of the land.

3 And every tribe did appoint a chief or a leader over them; and thus they became tribes and leaders of tribes.

4 Now behold, there was no man among them save he had much family and many kindreds and friends; therefore their tribes became exceedingly great.

5 Now all this was done, and there were no wars as yet among them; and all this iniquity had come upon the people because they did yield themselves unto the power of Satan.

6 And the regulations of the government were destroyed, because of the secret combination of the friends and kindreds of those who murdered the prophets.

7 And they did cause a great contention in the land, insomuch that the more righteous part of the people had nearly all become wicked; yea, there were but few righteous men among them.

The Ambitious Plan to Break California into 6 States – A Model for the Future?

The more I’ve thought about potential solutions to the gigantic mess we have found ourselves in as a species, the more I have come to believe we need to break apart into a vast multitude of city-states. The revolutionary concept of America in the first place was this idea of “self-governance,” something we do not posses an iota of in this day and age. As was noted recently in an academic paper published by Princeton and Northwestern, these United States have mutated into nothing short of an oligarchy. In fact, the study demonstrated that the will of the people has essentially zero impact on legislation whatsoever.