United States – Page 21

Al Qaeda loots Iraqi banks

As reported yesterday, in yet another humiliating blow to US foreign policy and the State Department, Al Qaeda-linked ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) militants took over the key northern town of Mosul, where an unknown number of US-made Black Hawk helicopters were parked and have been captured by Al Qaeda (potentially the same forces that have been trained by the US across the border in Syria).

Adding insult to injury the Al Qaeda militants also appear to have looted some $429 million from local banks. From IBtimes:

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (Isis) has become the richest terror group ever after looting 500 billion Iraqi dinars – the equivalent of $429m (£256m) – from Mosul’s central bank, according to the regional governor.

Nineveh governor Atheel al-Nujaifi confirmed Kurdish televison reports that Isis militants had stolen millions from numerous banks across Mosul. A large quantity of gold bullion is also believed to have been stolen.

Following the siege of the country’s second city, the bounty collected by the group has left it richer than al-Qaeda itself and as wealthy as small nations such as Tonga, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and the Falkland Islands.

The financial assets that Isis now possess are likely to worsen the Iraqi governement’s struggle to defeat the insurgency, which is aimed at creating an Islamic state across the Syrian-Iraqi border.

In other words, now that it is armed with US-made weapons, this particular al-Qaeda group also happens to be the world’s richest terror force!

And so with all disposable cash it needs for a long time and armed to the teeth, what is Al Qaeda to do? Why continue expanding of course. Moments ago, via Reuters, we got confirmation that the “insurgents” have just captured yet another symbolic Iraqi town, Tikrit: the birthplace of none other than Saddam.

Sunni insurgents overran parts of the Iraqi city of Tikrit on Wednesday, security sources said.

Tikrit, which is located 150 km (95 miles) north of Baghdad, is the hometown of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Will they stop here? Of course not. Expect the ISIS force to continue south until finally it overruns Baghdad itself and until all of Iraq, courtesy of a crippled army, officially belongs to Al Qaeda. America’s job is done here.

One can’t wait until Al Qaeda is also in charge of all the other countries recently liberated by the US and/or CIA.

Source: Zero Hedge

First US commercial drone licence to BP

Authorization comes as FAA moves to integrate commercial drones into American skies

The Federal Aviation Administration announced Tuesday it has granted oil giant BP the first-ever approval to fly drones for commercial purposes over U.S. land.

Manufactured by AeroVironment, the drone is slated to conduct aerial surveillance over Prudhoe Bay in Alaska’s Northern Slope. The Bay is home to the largest oil field in North America, and is plagued with routine spills, environmental damage, and air pollution.

BP and AeroVironment launched the first drone flight on Sunday under a license that expires in five years, according to AeroVironment. The drone, a “Puma AE,” is about 4.5 feet long with a wingspan of 9 feet, according to the FAA.

Based in Monrovia, California, AeroVironment has been slammed as a war profiteer because it is a major supplier of small drones to the U.S. military, including the Switchblade, which conducts surveillance and can transform into a small bomb.

The green light for BP follows the FAA’s temporary approval last year of drone flights over Arctic waters in preparation for fossil fuel exploration.

The authorization is the latest sign that oil and gas companies are leading the way in commercial drone use. Last year, the FAA granted ConocoPhillips authorization to fly drones over Arctic waters for the purpose of drilling for fossil fuels.

The drone license could be a sign of what’s in store for the future, as the FAA moves to implement orders from Congress to integrate drones into U.S. airspace by 2015.

Last December, the FAA launched a drone testing program at public institutions in six states across the U.S. as part of this plan.

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx declared in a statement about authorization for BP drone flights, “These surveys on Alaska’s North Slope are another important step toward broader commercial use of unmanned aircraft.”

Source: Common Dreams

Illegal immigrants pour into US

In recent weeks, a tide of young, unaccompanied minors crossing the Texas border illegally has pushed the US immigration system to its breaking point. Unable to cope with the volume of children crossing the border without their parents, immigration authorities have had to find emergency solutions, such as housing thousands in a San Antonio Air Force base, a California Navy base, and a makeshift detention center in Nogales, Ariz.

The Associated Press reported that the Nogales warehouse was running out of supplies.

The Obama administration has linked the trend to unrest in Central American countries, but Republican critics say an executive action that the president took in 2012 is to blame, calling the situation “an administration-made disaster.”

President Obama delayed rolling out new deportation reforms in late May partly because did didn’t want to further anger Republicans who accuse him of unconstitutionally bypassing Congress to set immigration policy. Now, if he proceeds, he will have to fend off fresh claims that the very policies he has set have pushed the country into crisis.

At issue is Mr. Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which in 2012 allowed some undocumented immigrants who came to America as minors to defer deportation for two years. Last week, the administration announced guidelines for how these immigrants could defer deportation for a further two years.

DACA would not apply to anyone coming across the border today. Only undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as minors before June 15, 2007, are eligible. But to Republican critics, DACA created the opportunity for misinformation and confusion.

“Word has gotten out around the world about President Obama’s lax immigration enforcement policies and it has encouraged more individuals to come to the United States illegally,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R) of Virginia, a key broker in immigration reform efforts on Capitol Hill, in a statement last week.

The numbers are stark.

During the decade preceding fiscal year 2012, the federal government agency tasked with caring for unaccompanied minors who cross the border illegally dealt with an average of 7,000 to 8,000 cases a year, according to a Department of Health and Human Services fact sheet. In fiscal year 2011, the number was 6,560.

The following year, however, the number jumped to 13,625. This fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, 2014, federal officials are estimating that the number could be 80,000, according to an internal memo cited by The New York Times.

Source: DC Decoder

Big business running a guest worker racket

Tom Donohue, U.S. Chamber of Commerce president, just hurled a challenge to Republicans. If they don’t pass amnesty for illegal aliens, they “shouldn’t bother to run a candidate in 2016.”

Somebody probably told him that outrageous statement was a gaffe, which means the inconvenient revelation of an embarrassing viewpoint, so Donohue tried to pass off his threat as a joke. But it isn’t funny; Donohue’s big-business members want us to import more low-paid workers and they want them now, suggesting that this fall’s lame-duck session of Congress would be a good time to implement this racket.

And it is a racket. It’s a carefully planned, well-financed scheme to use false arguments to import foreign workers who will keep wages depressed for American college graduates.

Every time the amnesty issue comes up, and we remind the advocates that it will severely disadvantage low-paid and entry-level American workers by swamping the market with a flood of immigrants to compete for their jobs and depress wages, business leaders offer a compromise. They argue that at least we must accept guest workers on H-1B visas because U.S. STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) graduates are in short supply.

We are even told we should welcome them because the foreign STEM graduates are the best and the brightest. That’s false and also insulting. In the age of political correctness, American STEM graduates should be invited to cry discrimination and demand apologies.

As Obama was hopping around in May from one high-dollar Democratic fundraiser to another, he used his famous pen of the Imperial Presidency to create a new category of guest workers for which he has no statutory authority. He will unilaterally allow the spouses of H1-B visa holders to take U.S. jobs.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who is the best friend of American workers, says that Obama’s proposal to create 100,000 more guest worker permits for the spouses of H-1B holders is a plan that will keep 100,000 Americans from finding jobs.

The United States already has more than twice as many workers with STEM degrees as there are STEM jobs. The Economic Policy Institute, the RAND Corporation, the Urban Institute and the National Research Council have all found no evidence that STEM workers are in short supply.

There are more than 5,000,000 native-born Americans with STEM degrees working in non-STEM occupations, and an additional 1.2 million STEM graduates who are unemployed. There is absolutely no STEM worker shortage.

Senator Sessions organized a gathering of real experts on this issue. He included professors who obviously have studied Economics 101 and learned that the law of supply and demand results in wages going up if there is a shortage and down if there is an oversupply.

Rutgers University public policy professor Hal Salzman said that current wages in the high-tech and information technology industries do not indicate that there is any shortage because wages are not going up. In fact, wages are the same as they were when Bill Clinton was president, so Salzman asked, “If there is in fact a shortage, why don’t wages go up?”

Michael Teitelbaum, senior research associate at Harvard Law School and author of a new book on scientific talent, said the high-tech industry has gotten years of a “free ride” from the media about an issue which is really non-debatable because there is no evidence of shortages of scientists and engineers.

Many scholarly studies have refuted the widespread propaganda that there is a shortage of American STEM graduates. Norm Matloff, professor of computer science at the University of California Davis, asked, was there “a problem to begin with?”

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has spent millions on expensive campaigns to get more H-1B visas. Bill Gates is another big advocate of bringing in more guest workers.

Big businesses favor H-1B visa workers because they are cheaper; corporations can pay them less than American engineers. In addition, they are similar to indentured workers because their employers hold their work permits and can prevent the H-1B workers from quitting to take a better job from another employer.
Big corporations not only pay H-1B workers less when they are hired, but use them to replace Americans over age 35 who expect promotions. H-1Bs have destroyed the opportunity of American STEM workers to move up and provide for their families.

The high-tech industries continue to cry about skilled labor shortages, yet they provide no evidence and their statements have been debunked by scholars. But they repeat them and the pro-amnesty media continue to give them coverage.

Source: Breitbart

The American Dream is dead

The American Dream is impossible to achieve in the US.

So say nearly 6 in 10 people who responded to CNNMoney’s American Dream Poll, conducted by ORC International. They feel the dream — however they define it — is out of reach.

Young adults, age 18 to 34, are most likely to feel the dream is unattainable, with 63% saying it’s impossible. This age group has suffered in the wake of the Great Recession, finding it hard to get good jobs.

Younger Americans are a cause of great concern. Many respondents said they are worried about the next generation’s ability to prosper.

Some 63% of all Americans said most children in the U.S. won’t be better off than their parents. This dour view comes despite most respondents, 54%, feeling they are better off than their own parents.

The downbeat mood is not surprising, say economic mobility experts.

“The pessimism is reflective of the financial realities a lot of families are facing,” said Erin Currier, the director of the Economic Mobility Project at Pew Charitable Trusts. “They are treading water, but their income is not translating into solid financial security.”

The vast majority of Americans have higher incomes than their parents, but that’s in large part because most families have two earners now, she said. Only half have more wealth, she said. Meanwhile, the savings rate is low and unemployment is high. College costs are rising faster than inflation and student loan debt is exploding.

People also tend to be more pessimistic about the next generation’s fortunes in general than their own children’s prospects, Currier said. In Pew’s polls and focus groups, parents say that it will be tougher for their children to succeed, but they still believe it’s possible.

Source: CNN Money

Obama’s $1bn pledge on European defence could provoke new Cold War

President Barack Obama has pledged up to $1bn in new US funding for European defence, reasserting Washington’s role in the region despite warnings from Russia that any military build up near its borders with eastern Europe could provoke a new arms race and a new Cold War.

The announcement at the beginning of Mr Obama’s four-day trip to Europe coincided with heavy fighting in Ukraine, where government forces launched a fresh offensive against the pro-Russian citizens.

Eastern European elites are also seeking reassurances the US will protect them from their voters.

Obama referred to this new geopolitical landscape as he flew into Warsaw. Speaking in front of four F-16 fighter jets, he said America’s commitment was particularly important now. “The security of our allies in central and eastern Europe is a cornerstone of our own security, and it is sacrosanct,” Mr Obama said.

He will ask Congress to approve $1bn in new funding, which is earmarked for training and exercises for Nato forces, military equipment, naval deployments in the Black and Baltic Seas, and an increase in the deployment of US planners and advisers in eastern Europe.

The US has already sent 150 troops to Poland and more to the Baltic states, but Mr Obama was clear that they were not trying to provoke military confrontation with Russia. “We are interested in good relations with Russia. We are not interested in threatening Russia,” he said.

Russia is deeply suspicious of any creep of Nato forces towards its borders, and Moscow’s envoy to Nato warned on Monday that new rotations of troops or a build-up of military hardware would provoke a reaction.

“All this could cast Europe back to the days of the Cold War and launch an arms race,” Alexander Grushko was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

Nato defence ministers also met in Brussels with Ukraine at the top of the agenda. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Secretary General of the military alliance, said that they would be assessing their long-term response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine. He also praised America’s leadership in the crisis.

Source: The Independent

‘Russia has almost no troops abroad’

Russia is still ready for a dialogue with the US, which is the best way to reach mutual understanding, the Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with French TF-1 TV channel and radio station Europe-1, according to ITAR-TASS news agency. Extracts from the interview were released on Wednesday morning.

“I have no reasons to believe the US president does not want to talk to the Russian president, but, after all, he is free to do so,” Putin said. “I am always ready for a dialogue and think this is the best way to build bridges.” Until now, the two leaders had spoken on the telephone several times, he added.

Putin pointed to Washington’s highly aggressive actions on the international arena.

“It is no secret that the most aggressive, the most rigid policy on protection of own interests, as understood by the US Administration, is pursued exactly by the US, year in, year out,” Putin said. “We have barely any troops abroad, whereas the US has troops everywhere, it has military bases all over the world, and everywhere they participate in deciding the fates of other nations that are thousands of miles away from their own borders.”

Source: Voice of Russia

‘I kill white people like you’

Following takeoff from Nashville Sunday afternoon, a United Airlines passenger warned a fellow flyer that, “I kill white people like you” when she was asked to turn off her cell phone, investigators allege.

The disruption on Flight 4205, which was bound for Houston, resulted in the Embraer 135’s return to Nashville’s airport, where Lashonda Lee Williams was arrested for assault.

The 43-year-old Williams, seen at right, was asked by another female passenger to “turn off her cell phone due to the aircraft being in flight,” according to a court affidavit. In reply, Williams allegedly said, “I kill white people like you.”

Investigators noted that Williams told the other passenger, K. Colleen Coult, 50, that she would follow her upon reaching Houston “and find out where she lived.” The comments “created fear in Coult for her safety,” the affidavit notes.

A United flight attendant told cops that Williams’s statements “were causing anxiety and fear throughout the cabin.”

After being booked into the Davidson County jail, Williams, a Houston resident, was released on $3000 bond. She is scheduled for a June 25 County Court appearance.

Source: thesmokinggun.com

Shale: Wall Street easy money evaporating

No one expects the President of the US to have the time or the scientific background to delve into the geophysical complexities of shale energy. He naturally relies on competent advisers. What if the advisers, instead of being competent, like in so many US government agencies today, are in the sway (and sometimes perhaps pay) of the shale energy companies and their Wall Street investment bankers who have hundreds of billions of dollars riding on promoting the shale hype?

The current US Shale boom is being sustained on steroids, otherwise known as the Fed’s never-ending Quantitative Easing zero-interest-rate policy, a stance that shows no sign of reverting to normal interest rate levels as the economy continues to be depressed since the collapse of the 2007 real estate mortgage securitization bubble. In effect, shale drillers are able to keep in business only because Wall Street and other investors continue to throw money at them like it was falling from trees. Tim Gramatovich, chief investment manager for Peritus Asset Management LLC, an $800 million fund, notes, “There’s a lot of Kool-Aid that’s being drunk now by investors. People lose their discipline. They stop doing the math. They stop doing the accounting. They’re just dreaming the dream, and that’s what’s happening with the shale boom.”

Given the endless zero interest rate regime of the Fed, investment funds are desperate to find investments that yield higher interest. They are so desperate they are pouring money into shale gas and shale or tight oil companies like never before. The companies are operating at losses, loaded with debt and the credit rating agencies rate their debt as “junk”, i.e. in a market downturn, likely to default. One such company, Rice Energy, sold its bonds in April with a rating of CCC+ by Standard & Poor’s, seven steps below investment grade. That is below the minimum risk/quality level that major investors, such as pension funds and insurance companies, are allowed to buy. S&P says debt rated in the CCC range is “currently vulnerable to nonpayment.” Despite that, Rice Energy was able to borrow at an astonishingly low 6.25 percent.

“This is a melting ice cube business,” said Mike Kelly, at Global Hunter Securities in Houston. “If you’re not growing production, you’re dying.” Of the 97 energy exploration and production companies rated by S&P, 75 are “junk” or below investment grade. The shale “revolution” is but a Ponzi Scheme disguised as an energy revolution.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics , exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”

White Privilege Conference gets more stupid

Insensitive and racist actions were taken by organizers of the annual American White Privilege Conference held in Madison, Wisconsin.

According to Progressives Today, when a white student reporter attempted to enter a workshop being held at the conference he was escorted out of the area because his race was too offensive to other participants, the majority of whom were black.

The reason? An organizer told our investigator: “It can feel, for some people of color, unsafe. Not universally – like in your group everybody was fine, but for some people it can feel like, oh, I don’t … ”
“Because I was white they would feel unsafe?” our reporter asked as he was led out of the workshop.
“Exactly. Exactly,” the organizer said. “And it’s not because you’ve done anything. You seem like a perfectly fine person, but it’s because of experiences they’ve had with others.”
A promotional video entitled Lessons on Neo-Segregation says that the White Privilege Conference is an annual gathering of thousands of private and public educators, students and administrators from across the country. Their stated goal is to examine and confront what they see as “systemic race-based privilege in America.”

The video depicts numerous Caucasian individuals referred to as “White Allies” who provide some insight into how the organization defines racism and bigotry and how they indoctrinate children in American schools to believe that, if they are white, they were born with an unfair privilege. Moreover, the entire conference, attended by many of America’s public school teachers, stresses that Christianity is not a system of faith:

“A recurring theme at the White Privilege conference is the negative effects of European Christian culture. Christianity is presented not as a system of spiritual faith, but as an institutionalized system of social oppression like racism or sexism.”

Source: SHTFPlan

School cancels honors night for being ‘too exclusive’

Citing concerns about the “exclusive nature” of the annual honors night at Archie R. Cole Middle School, school officials have decided to scrap the tradition.

Instead, students who would normally be recognized at the annual spring tradition will be honored during team-based recognition ceremonies and graduation.

The notice was sent to parents over the weekend in an e-mail signed by School Principal Alexis Meyer and Assistant Principal Dan Seger.

“Members of the school community have long expressed concerns related to the exclusive nature of Honors Night,” the email stated.

By having the recognition ceremonies during team-based ceremonies, it will “afford us the opportunity to celebrate the individual and collective success of all students and their effort, progress and excellence.”

At the same time, Cole varsity athletes will get medals and trophies at an after school ceremony.

One parent told ABC6 that he’s not happy with the change.

“How else are they suppose to learn coping skills, not just based on success, but relative failure, it might not be failure, but understand what it takes to achieve high levels,” said parent Joe Kosloski.

Source: eastgreenwich.patch.com

Michelle O says students of colour lag behind

Sixty years after the Supreme Court outlawed “separate but equal” schools for blacks and whites, civil rights advocates say American schools are becoming increasingly segregated, while the first lady, Michelle Obama, lamented that “many young people are going to schools with kids who look just like them.”

“Today, by some measures, our schools are as segregated as they were back when Dr. King gave his final speech,” Mrs. Obama told 1,200 graduating high school seniors Friday here in the city that gave rise to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.

In a speech that was part commencement address, part policy pronouncement and part journey into her own past, Mrs. Obama said that Brown’s advances were being reversed. “Many districts in this country have actually pulled back on efforts to integrate their schools, and many communities have become less diverse,” she said, leading to schools that are less diverse.

“And too often,” Mrs. Obama said, “those schools aren’t equal, especially ones attended by students of color which too often lag behind.”

Source: NYT

Operation American Spring

A group of self-described revolutionary-style patriots with a million mobilized militia members are heading to downtown Washington, D.C., this week to bring a simple message to political leadership, from President Obama to House Speaker John Boehner: Get out.

They’re called the Operation American Spring — and they’re vowing to oust the likes of Mr. Obama, Mr. Boehner, Attorney General Eric Holder, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Raw Story reported.

“We are calling for [their] removal … as a start toward constitutional restoration,” said retired Army Col. Harry Riley, the leader of the group, Raw Story reported. “They have all abandoned the U.S. Constitution, are unworthy to be retained in a position that calls for servant status.”

The aim of the group, too, is to influence those politicos who aren’t targeted for ouster to “sponsor and pass very constitutionally crafted state legislation to dissolve the size, powers, scope and spending of the U.S. government by two-thirds,” the media outlet reported.

The group expects between 10 million and 30 million similarly thinking Americans to meet them in the capital on Friday for a rally that’s being billed as a sort of “Arab Spring” for Americans.

Meanwhile, the group is holding another event on the same day in Bunerkville, Nev., near cattle rancher Cliven Bundy’s property and in support of his stand-off with the Bureau of Land Management over grazing fees.

The Friday event was promoted by Tea Party Nation.

Mr. Riley said he hopes the event will go forward peaceably, but that so far, peaceful protests haven’t brought citizens much luck. He also said that more than 1 million militia members have already mobilized for the event — and that projections of 10 million to attend aren’t pie in the sky.

“For more than five years, ‘we the people’ have been writing, calling, faxing Congress, the media, screaming in town halls, marching, rallying, demonstrating, petitioning, all to no avail,” he said, Raw Story reported.

“Every branch of government looks at ‘we the people’ whom they have taken an oath to serve, as ‘pests,’ interfering with their political agenda, cramping their self-serving, greedy agendas. We have no faith in the ballot box any longer, as many believe this sacred secret box has been compromised.

Source: Washington Times

Jews vs. Nazi’s

A group of Florida teenagers in the US have devised a local version of the popular college beer pong drinking game. But in contrast to the traditional contest in which two teams gather on opposite sites of a table and try to bounce a ping pong ball into a plastic cup filled with booze, the Florida version has a charming new twist: The groups divide into teams of “Jews” and “Nazis.”

According to an image posted on the Imgur website, “The Nazis start the game off with “blitzkrieg”, with each “Aryan” player shooting freely into the “Jewish” cups until one misses. Jews are allowed to designate an “Anne Frank Cup” that can be removed from the table and hidden anywhere in the room. To balance out that unfair advantage, the Nazi team has the right to call “Auschwitz,” meaning one Jewish player is “selected” to sit out.

“Also, throughout the game you are supposed to talk a lot of **** and say as many racist things as possible to make it more enjoyable,” according to the website.

Source: jewishpress.com