Category Archives: DOJ, DC and inside the Beltway

Dems Move to Stop Benghazi Cmte, But not so Fast

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Congresswoman Louise Slaughter of NY is on the move attaching an amendment to shut down the Gowdy led Benghazi Committee to another piece of legislation where a new select committee would be created to investigate Planned Parenthood.

The State Department is not trusting Hillary. They are asking Hillary to check again, where are ALL the emails.

State Dept. tells Hillary Clinton to search for more emails

WashingtonTimes: The State Department has instructed former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton go back to her Internet companies and try to recover email messages from any personal email accounts that she used during her time in government, saying it appears she didn’t turn over all of her documents.

In a letter to Clinton lawyer David E. Kendall, the department said it has become aware of messages Mrs. Clinton sent to other government officials in her first few months in office, but which she did not turn over as part of the more than 30,000 emails she did relinquish last December.

Mrs. Clinton had previously said she used a personal email account — the same one she kept as a senator — to do government business during the first couple of months she was at the State Department. Her campaign said she no longer had access to those messages.

But after some of those messages were produced from the Defense Department, the State Department realized it had a problem.

“As a result, I ask that you confirm that, with regard to her tenure as secretary of state, former Secretary Clinton has provided the department with all federal records in her possession, regardless of their format or the domain on which they were stored or created, that may not otherwise be preserved in the department’s recordkeeping system,” Patrick F. Kennedy, under secretary of state for management, said in the letter, dated Oct. 2.

“To the extent her emails might be found on any internet service and email providers, we encourage you to contact them.” Mr. Kennedy wrote.

Mrs. Clinton’s email practices have become a major problem for her presidential aspirations.

During her time as secretary she rejected use of an account on State Department servers, instead using her personal email for several months, then switching over to an account she kept on a server at her home in New York.

Some of her top aides, likewise, did their business on non-State.gov accounts. The arrangement meant that many key communications have been shielded from public disclosure for years, thwarting the intent of open-records laws.

Mrs. Clinton has said her goal was “convenience” for herself, not an effort to circumvent those laws.

Mills shared now-classified info with Clinton Foundation

Politico: Hillary Clinton’s No. 2 at the State Department twice forwarded information to the Clinton Foundation that was later deemed classified, the latest instance of former Clinton staff transmitting now-classified information.

According to a new email chain shared with POLITICO by Citizens United, Cheryl Mills — Clinton’s former chief of state at State — forwarded State Department background information about Rwanda and the Congo to the Clintons’ philanthropic organization. Citizens United, a conservative activist group, obtained the messages via a Freedom of Information act lawsuit.

Former President Bill Clinton was visiting Africa, including Rwanda, around the time that Mills sent the email, which was mostly redacted. Former president Clinton was also considering giving Rwandan President Paul Kagame a plenary role at the Clinton Global Initiative, according to the emails.

“Fyi for [Bill] since he is in contact w/Kagame,” Mills wrote in an email chain dated July 28, 2012, forwarding to the foundation a message originally written to State employees under the subject “Developments in the Eastern Congo.”

“Thanks,” Ami Desai, the foundation’s director of foreign policy, wrote back. “He has been talking about giving Kagame a plenary role at CGI.”

The information in the 2012 emails was classified by the State Department in July of this year because of national security and foreign policy reasons, according to the documents. The classification specifically related to foreign government information and intelligence activities, sources or methods, according to the redaction labels.

Mills’ lawyer Beth Wilkinson of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison did not respond to requests for comment. Previously, Mills’ legal team has argued that she did nothing wrong because the messages were not marked classified when she had originally sent them.

Meanwhile, the FBI is currently investigating whether classified information was ever mishandled via Hillary Clinton’s private email server. For months, Clinton maintained that she did not have classified information on her homemade email server, until government watchdogs unveiled that she did. After those reports, the campaign maintained that Clinton had not received messages that were “marked” classified at the time.

The State Department has agreed with that assessment, but the intelligence community inspector general does not and has argued many of the emails were indeed classified at the time in 2012.

Beyond the classification issue, Republicans and other transparency groups have questioned whether the foundation’s work, funded in part by foreign donors, ever influenced what happened at the State Department. Or if the foundation received preferential treatment.

Mills sat on the foundation’s board before becoming the department’s No. 2 official and returned to the board after leaving State in 2013. And she appeared to continue to advise the foundation while at State, according to other emails revealed by the Citizens United lawsuit. Republicans say those connections between Mills and the Clinton Foundation raise questions about whether the relationship was too close.

“The fact that these two email chains — which are now classified — were sent only 16 days apart, makes it appear as if the sharing of sensitive government information with the Clinton Foundation was a regular occurrence,” David Bossie, president of Citizens United, said in a statement. “Time will tell as more emails become public.”

The emails are just the latest in a series of communications by Clinton and top staff being publicly released due to ongoing lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act, which have forced the State Department to ask Clinton and her top brass to turn in email records from years before. The messages are just now becoming public.

The Washington Free Beacon last week reported the first instance of an email suggesting Mills shared now classified information. That email chain dated July 11, 2012 seems to be intended for Clinton specifically. Johnie Carson, an assistant secretary of state for the bureau of African affairs, asked Mills what she thought about them encouraging Bill Clinton to use his trip to Rwanda on July 18, 2012 to “in his private conversations with Kagame to quietly encourage him to defuse the tension with the DRC” and “terminate any [direct] or indirect to support to DRC.”

A chunk of the email about the situation in Rwanda is now classified.

Mills forwarded it to Ami: “See below and attacked points which I requested for WJC.”

 

 

 

 

IRGC Commander Plotted out Russian Action in Syria

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From the U.S. Treasury terror list noted in 2011:

10/11/2011
SOLEIMANI, Qasem (a.k.a. SALIMANI, Qasem; a.k.a. SOLAIMANI, Qasem; a.k.a. SOLEMANI, Qasem; a.k.a. SOLEYMANI, Ghasem; a.k.a. SOLEYMANI, Qasem; a.k.a. SULAIMANI, Qasem; a.k.a. SULAYMAN, Qasim; a.k.a. SULEMANI, Qasem); DOB 11 Mar 1957; POB Qom, Iran; citizen Iran; nationality Iran; Diplomatic Passport 008827 (Iran)  issued 1999 (individual) [SYRIA] [NPWMD] [IRGC] -to- SOLEIMANI, Qasem (a.k.a. SALIMANI, Qasem; a.k.a. SOLAIMANI, Qasem; a.k.a. SOLEMANI, Qasem; a.k.a. SOLEYMANI, Ghasem; a.k.a. SOLEYMANI, Qasem; a.k.a. SULAIMANI, Qasem; a.k.a. SULAYMAN, Qasim; a.k.a. SULEMANI, Qasem); DOB 11 Mar 1957; POB Qom, Iran; citizen Iran; nationality Iran; Diplomatic Passport 008827 (Iran)  issued 1999 (individual) |[SDGT] [SYRIA] [NPWMD] [IRGC]|
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During the Iranian negotiations Iran was plotting, punking all of the P5+1 members. The head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Commander Soleimani, who has sanctioned travel restrictions violated the sequestration and traveled to Moscow twice. The plotting begins including maps and tactics.

Guessing here that once again, Obama missed his presidential daily briefing on his specially designed iPad, but the distribution list included many others such as John Kerry, Susan Rice, and global military command centers.

Crickets….

How Iranian general plotted out Syrian assault in Moscow

By Laila Bassam and Tom Perry

 Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Soleimani stands at the frontline during offensive operations against Islamic State militants in the town of Tal...

BEIRUT (Reuters) – At a meeting in Moscow in July, a top Iranian general unfurled a map of Syria to explain to his Russian hosts how a series of defeats for President Bashar al-Assad could be turned into victory – with Russia’s help.

Major General Qassem Soleimani’s visit to Moscow was the first step in planning for a Russian military intervention that has reshaped the Syrian war and forged a new Iranian-Russian alliance in support of Assad.

As Russian warplanes bomb rebels from above, the arrival of Iranian special forces for ground operations underscores several months of planning between Assad’s two most important allies, driven by panic at rapid insurgent gains.

Soleimani is the commander of the Quds Force, the elite extra-territorial special forces arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, and reports directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Senior regional sources say he has already been overseeing ground operations against insurgents in Syria and is now at the heart of planning for the new Russian- and Iranian-backed offensive.

That expands his regional role as the battlefield commander who has also steered the fight in neighboring Iraq by Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia against Islamic State.

His Moscow meeting outlined the deteriorating situation in Syria, where rebel advances toward the coast were posing a danger to the heartland of Assad’s Alawite sect, where Russia maintains its only Mediterranean naval base in Tartous.

“Soleimani put the map of Syria on the table. The Russians were very alarmed, and felt matters were in steep decline and that there were real dangers to the regime. The Iranians assured them there is still the possibility to reclaim the initiative,” a senior regional official said. “At that time, Soleimani played a role in assuring them that we haven’t lost all the cards.”

“SEND SOLEIMANI”

Three senior officials in the region say Soleimani’s July trip was preceded by high-level Russian-Iranian contacts that produced political agreement on the need to pump in new support for Assad as his losses accelerated.

Their accounts suggest planning for the intervention began to germinate several months earlier. It means Tehran and Moscow had been discussing ways to prop up Assad by force even as Western officials were describing what they believed was new flexibility in Moscow’s stance on his future.

Before the latest moves, Iran had aided Assad militarily by mobilizing Shi’ite militias to fight alongside the Syrian army, and dispatching Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps officers as advisors. A number of them have been killed.

Russia, an ally of Damascus since the Cold War, had supplied weapons to the Syrian army and shielded Damascus diplomatically from Western attempts to sanction Assad at the United Nations.

Their support did not prevent rebels – some of them backed by Assad’s regional foes – from reducing Assad’s control of Syria to around one fifth of its territory in a four-year-long war estimated to have killed 250,000 people.

The decision for a joint Iranian-Russian military effort in Syria was taken at a meeting between Russia’s foreign minister and Khamenei a few months ago, said a senior official of a country in the region, involved in security matters.

“Soleimani, assigned by Khamenei to run the Iranian side of the operation, traveled to Moscow to discuss details. And he also traveled to Syria several times since then,” the official said.

The Russian government says its Syria deployment came as the result of a formal request from Assad, who himself laid out the problems facing the Syrian military in stark terms in July, saying it faced a manpower problem.

Khamenei also sent a senior envoy to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin, another senior regional official said. “Putin told him ‘Okay we will intervene. Send Qassem Soleimani’. He went to explain the map of the theater.”

RESIDENT IN DAMASCUS

Russian warplanes, deployed at an airfield in Latakia, began mounting air strikes against rebels in Syria last week.

Moscow says it is targeting Islamic State, but many of Russia’s air strikes have hit other insurgents, including groups backed by Assad’s foreign enemies, notably in the northwest where rebels seized strategically important towns including Jisr al-Shughour earlier this year.

In the biggest deployment of Iranian forces yet, sources told Reuters last week that hundreds of troops have arrived since late September to take part in a major ground offensive planned in the west and northwest.

Around 3,000 fighters from the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah have also mobilized for the battle, along with Syrian army troops, said one of the senior regional sources.

The military intervention in Syria is set out in an agreement between Moscow and Tehran that says Russian air strikes will support ground operations by Iranian, Syrian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces, said one of the senior regional sources.

The agreement also included the provision of more sophisticated Russian weapons to the Syrian army, and the establishment of joint operations rooms that would bring those allies together, along with the government of Iraq, which is allied both to Iran and the United States.

One of the operations rooms is in Damascus and another is in Baghdad.

“Soleimani is almost resident in Damascus, or let’s say he goes there a lot and you can find him between meetings with President Assad and visits to the theater of operations like any other soldier,” said one of the senior regional officials.

Syria’s foreign minister said on Monday that the Russian air strikes had been planned for months.

 

Here Comes Another Obama Prison Break

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Just consider, that giving a pass to drug and narcotic offenders, promotes more lawlessness and the laws on the books become inert. Further, what are the prospects for the business and economic outlook for America and compare that to other competitive countries. The implications are surfacing. Of particular note, we cannot begin to estimate how many of those being released are illegal aliens.

How to Deal With the Retroactive Drugs Minus Two AmendmentThe Sentencing Commission voted to reduce by two levels the base offense levels for drug offenses subject to the Drug Quantity Table at USSG § 2D1.1(c), and to make parallel changes to the quantity tables at § 2D1.11 for chemical precursors. See Amendment 3, Reader Friendly Amendments to the Sentencing Guidelines (eff. Nov. 1, 2014).1 The amendment will take effect November 1, 2014 unless disapproved by act of Congress.2 This two-level reduction in the base offense level is one reason that the sentences of many (though not all) drug offenders would be lower if imposed today. See How a Sentence for a Drug Offender May Be Lower if Imposed Today.

On July 18, 2014, the Commission voted to make this “drugs minus two” amendment retroactive. Unless Congress disapproves it, beginning November 1, 2014, inmates who were already sentenced can ask courts to retroactively reduce their sentences, and courts can rule on those requests, but no one can be released before November 1, 2015.3 The Commission estimates that 46,376 inmates could benefit from the retroactive amendment, and that the average reduction will be 25 months.4 Thus, your clemency client may be eligible for a retroactive sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), which provides that when a defendant was “sentenced to a term of imprisonment based on a sentencing range that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing Commission,” “the court may reduce the term of imprisonment, after considering the factors set forth in section 3553(a) to the extent that they are applicable, if such a reduction is consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission.”

Justice Department about to free 6,000 prisoners, largest one-time release

WaPo: The Justice Department is set to release about 6,000 inmates early from prison — the largest ever one-time release of federal prisoners — in an effort to reduce overcrowding and provide relief to drug offenders who received harsh sentences over the past three decades.

The inmates from federal prisons nationwide will be set free by the department’s Bureau of Prisons between Oct. 30 and Nov. 2. Most of them will go to halfway houses and home confinement before being put on supervised release.

The early release follows action by the U.S. Sentencing Commission — an independent agency that sets sentencing policies for federal crimes — which reduced the potential punishment for future drug offenders last year and then made that change retroactive.

The commission’s action is separate from an effort by President Obama to grant clemency to certain nonviolent drug offenders, an initiative that has resulted in 89 inmates being released early.

The panel estimated that its change in sentencing guidelines eventually could result in 46,000 of the nation’s approximately 100,000 drug offenders in federal prison qualifying for early release. The 6,000 figure, which has not been reported previously, is the first tranche in that process.

“The number of people who will be affected is quite exceptional,” said Mary Price, general counsel for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, an advocacy group that supports sentencing reform.

The Sentencing Commission estimated that an additional 8,550 inmates will be eligible for release between this Nov. 1 and Nov. 1, 2016.

The releases are part of a shift in the nation’s approach to criminal justice and drug sentencing. Along with the commission’s action, the Justice Department has instructed its prosecutors not to charge low-level, nonviolent drug offenders who have no connection to gangs or large-scale drug organizations with offenses that carry severe mandatory sentences.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission voted unanimously for the reduction last year after holding two public hearings in which they heard testimony from former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr., federal judges, federal public defenders, state and local law enforcement officials, and sentencing advocates. The panel also received more than 80,000 public comment letters with the overwhelming majority favoring the change.

Congress did not act to disapprove the change to the sentencing guidelines, so it became effective on Nov. 1, 2014. The commission then gave the Justice Department a year to prepare for the huge release of inmates.

The policy change is referred to as “Drugs Minus Two.” Federal sentencing guidelines rely on a numeric system based on different factors, including the defendant’s criminal history, the type of crime, whether a gun was involved and whether the defendant was a leader in a drug group.

The sentencing panel’s change decreased the value attached to most drug-trafficking offenses by two levels, regardless of the type of drug or the amount.

An average of about two years is being shaved off eligible prisoners’ sentences under the change. Although some of the inmates who will be released have served decades, on average they will have served 8 1/2 years instead of 10 1/2 , according to a Justice Department official.

“Even with the Sentencing Commission’s reductions, drug offenders will have served substantial prison sentences,” Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said. “Moreover, these reductions are not automatic. Under the commission’s directive, federal judges are required to carefully consider public safety in deciding whether to reduce an inmate’s sentence.”

In each case, inmates must petition a judge who decides whether to grant the sentencing reduction. Judges nationwide are granting about 70 sentence reductions per week, Justice officials said. Some of the inmates already have been sent to halfway houses.

In some cases, federal judges have denied inmates’ requests for early release. For example, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth recently denied requests from two top associates of Rayful Edmond III, one of the District’s most notorious drug kingpins.

Federal prosecutors did not oppose a request by defense lawyers to have the associates, Melvin D. Butler and James Antonio Jones, released early in November. But last month Lamberth denied the request, which would have cut about two years from each man’s projected 28 1/2 -year sentence.

“The court struggles to understand how the government could condone the release of Butler and Jones, each convicted of high-level, sophisticated and violent drug-trafficking offenses,” Lamberth wrote. The Edmond group imported as much as 1,700 pounds of Colombian cocaine a month into the city in the 1980s, according to court papers.

Critics, including some federal prosecutors, judges and police officials, have raised concerns that allowing so many inmates to be released at the same time could cause crime to increase.

But Justice officials said that about one-third of the inmates who will be released in a few weeks are foreign citizens who will be quickly deported.

They also pointed to a study last year that found that the recidivism rate for offenders who were released early after changes in crack-cocaine sentencing guidelines in 2007 was not significantly different from offenders who completed their sentences.

“Prison officials and probation officers are working hard to ensure that returning offenders are adequately supervised and monitored,” Yates said.

Federal prison costs represent about one-third of the Justice Department’s $27 billion budget. The U.S. population has grown by about a third since 1980, but the federal prison population has increased by about 800 percent and federal prisons are operating at nearly 40 percent over capacity, Justice officials said.

Last week, a group of senators introduced a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill, the first such legislation in decades. Although some advocates say it doesn’t go far enough, the measure, which is supported by a coalition that includes the Koch brothers and the American Civil Liberties Union, would shorten the length of mandatory-minimum drug sentences that were part of the tough-on-crime laws passed during the war on drugs in the 1980s and 1990s.

If passed by Congress and signed by Obama, the reforms would apply retroactively, allowing inmates who were previously incarcerated under mandatory minimums an opportunity for release.

“It’s a remarkable moment,” Price said. “Over the past several years, the tone of the discussion about incarceration has changed dramatically. We have come to the realization that our punitive approach to drug crimes is not working and has produced significant injustices.”

 

Are we Stupid?

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The state run schools are controlling behavior, of this there is no dispute. In case you are not convinced, read on. This is a commie model infiltrating schools. Hello parents?

Remember going to school and having recess each day where we could go out an play tether ball, hopscotch, basketball, use the swings, or play kickball? Sure there was a bully or two, but they were quickly neutralized by their own peers on the playground. The matter of bullies never escalated to the principals office or with that phone call to the parents. Kids handled themselves and quite well.

So today, students cant stare at each other without being suspended, they cant eat a pop-tart for some administrator thinks each bite make it look like a gun, then students cant wear red, white and blue for being offensive to someone else. Teachers cheat on reporting student test scores, art classes have been eliminated and working simple arithmetic now takes an IBM mainframe to solve through CommonCore. America is still lagging behind other developed countries in education competition but now it comes back to recess. Forget that gum class..just 45 minutes of playground fun takes a higher and more expensive consultant.

We are stupid, as the very location where courses are taught are making us more stupid…..STUPID.

Two Edina elementary schools hire recess consultant

Two Edina elementary schools, worried about the politics of the playground, are taking an unusual step to police it: They have hired a recess consultant.

Some parents have welcomed the arrival of the firm Playworks, which says recess can be more inclusive and beneficial to children if it’s more structured and if phrases like, “Hey, you’re out!” are replaced with “good job” or “nice try.”

But some of the kids at Concord and Normandale Elementary say they are confused, or that the consultants are ruining their play time.

“The philosophy of Playworks does not fit Concord,” said Kathy Sandven, a parent of twin boys who attend the school. “It is a structured philosophy — an intervention philosophy — not allowing kids for free play.”

The two schools have joined a growing number of districts that have hired consultants to remake the playground experience into more structured and inclusive play time. The games and activities, like four square and jumping rope, are overseen by adults and designed to reduce disciplinary problems while ensuring that no children are left out.

Edina school officials spent about $30,000 on the recess initiative over the summer, and some administrators are already becoming believers.

Chris Holden, principal at Normandale Elementary, has seen the Playworks benefits in the first few weeks of school. He’s noticed fewer student visits to the principal’s office and the nurse’s office after recess.

“Every school is looking for a way to increase student activity and engagement and decrease conflict,” he said.

Playworks reports that its partner schools boast drops in disciplinary incidents and increases in participation and focus in class.

The aim is to build skills that would make kids “incredibly successful adults,” said Shauna McDonald, executive director of Playworks Minnesota. “It’s about creating opportunity.”

Mathematica Policy Research and Stanford University studies found that Playworks resulted in less bullying and more learning focus in schools.

Playworks has offered its services or had its staff in elementaries around the metro area — including schools in the Minneapolis, St. Paul, Anoka-Hennepin and Minnetonka school districts — and across the country. Parents, students adjusting Edina school officials say that data collected through the fall will determine whether Playworks will eventually be rolled out at all schools. Its implementation wasn’t spurred by any extreme uptick of behavioral issues, but rather a desire for quality playground experience, said Susan Brott, district communications director.

But some students and parents say they hope that school officials scrap the structured play.

Jolted by their kids’ complaints, skeptical parents recently took to the playground to observe the new recess for themselves. Instead of usual recess referees on the sidelines policing the worst conduct, the adults were on the ground, explaining rules and new games to confused-looking kids.

Parents at Concord Elementary voiced concerns to the principal and 177 of them signed an online petition Labor Day weekend. Concord fifth-graders banded together and made a petition of their own.

At Normandale Elementary, Holden said he has received a few parent comments supporting and some bashing the new recess.

Caroline Correia’s fourth-grade son, Liam, has been complaining about recess at Concord Elementary, where children can select from “games of the week.” Children can opt to play a game not on the list, but Correia said it’s not likely a child will know how to ask for more options.

But psychologist Peter Gray of Boston College argues in his book “Free to Learn” that activities built by adults for children aren’t really play. He believes that play comes from self-chosen motivations; the learning in free play can’t be replicated.

The adult atmosphere changes the recess dynamic for her son, Correia said. “He feels like that’s not playing anymore,” she said.

The level of Playworks intervention is up to each school. Some will use a coach that operates recess; some will use an on-site coordinator one week per month; some will give training to school staff.

Forest Elementary in Robbinsdale Area Schools spends $14,500 for an on-site coordinator to spend one week a month at the school.

At the school, recess is made up of clear adult-facilitated activities. On a day last week, a kindergartner said he wanted to play basketball. A recess coach explained that wasn’t a choice at the time; he decided to play another game.

Melissa Jackson, the principal at Forest, used Playworks when she was principal at Bethune Community School in Minneapolis.

She said she’s seen a positive impact on the school community. After a few weeks at Concord, Playworks has become more routine. Students crawled through the play set and played jump rope games. A group of girls at Normandale acted out a game of television commercials on benches while others played four square.

Adults got involved in soccer and football games in other parts of the yard.

Away from direct supervision, some free-spirited girls at Normandale climbed on top of a spider structure, climbing higher and higher.

An adventurous one jumped from near the top into wood chips on the ground below. “I made it, I made it!” she said.

USA Loses Identity due to Obama’s Policy

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Does Minneapolis, Minnesota look like it did 5 years ago? How about Lewiston, Maine or Cape Coral, Florida?

Forget Miami, Los Angeles and New York–America’s newest immigrant capitals are the country’s recent boom towns.

Top of the list: Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., with a 122% increase in its foreign-born population from 2000 to 2007, according to a Brookings Institution analysis of U.S. Census Bureau information. Also ranking high are the metro areas of Nashville, Tenn., (74% increase), Indianapolis (71%), Orlando, Fla., (64%) and Raleigh, N.C. (62%).

It makes sense. Like everyone else, immigrants are drawn to places with jobs. These towns offer a relatively low cost of living, compared with their big-city brethren and, in recent years, ample opportunities for work in various fields. Raleigh is a hub of North Carolina’s “Research Triangle,” and in 2007, about 15% of its working immigrant population worked in professional, scientific and administrative occupations, according to the Census Bureau. Orlando, a major tourist destination, is a hub for service-sector jobs.

From Breitbart:

The following chart and background have been provided to Breitbart News exclusively from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, which is chaired by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL). The chart shows that for every 1 net American born to today’s population—births minus deaths—the federal government will add 7 more people to the country through future immigration.

1-7-immigration

The Senate Subcommittee told Breitbart News:

October 3rd marked the 50th anniversary of the Immigration and Nationality Act. According to Pew Research, in the five decades since the Act’s adoption, 59 million immigrants have entered the United States. Pew further estimates that, including the descendants of those new arrivals, immigration policy added 72 million people to the population of the United States. In 1970, fewer than 1 in 21 Americans were foreign-born; today, nearly 1 in 7 are foreign-born. The United States has taken in four times more worldwide immigrants than any other nation on Earth. Over the next five decades, Pew projects that new immigration, including the descendants of those new immigrants, will add 103 million to the current U.S. population. The net addition of 103 million new persons is exclusively the result of new immigration of persons not currently in the U.S. The 103 million figure does not include any immigrants currently in the U.S. or their future children. (As a side note: Pew data shows that new foreign-born arrivals will not lower today’s median U.S. age of 38; Pew estimates the median age of the foreign-born in 2065 will approach 53.)

Pew also found that, by more than a 3-1 margin, Americans wished to see immigration rates reduced – not raised. Unless such reductions are enacted, the foreign-born share of the U.S. population will soon eclipse the highest levels ever recorded in U.S. history and will keep climbing to new all-time records every decade of the 21st century. Pew projects that by 2065, more than 1 in 3 U.S. residents will either be foreign-born or have foreign-born parents, assuming no law is passed to reduce immigration rates. By contrast, in the 20th century, after the foreign-born population share peak reached in 1910, immigration was reduced for the next six consecutive decades.

Lower-income workers, including millions of prior immigrants, are among those most severely impacted by the vast inflow of new workers competing for the same jobs at lower wages. Across the economy, average hourly wages are lower today than in 1973, while the share of people not working is at nearly a four-decade high. Yet the Senate’s Gang of Eight bill would have tripled green card issuances over the next decade (issuing more new green cards than the entire population of Texas) and the industry-backed I-squared bill would triple admission of new H-1B foreign workers provided to technology corporations as low-wage substitutes for their existing workers.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the chairman of the subcommittee, responded to the startling data his committee uncovered by telling Breitbart News there should be immigration controls put in place immediately.

“We should not admit people in larger numbers than we can reasonably expect to vet, assimilate, and absorb into our schools, communities, and labor markets,” Sessions said. “It is not compassionate but uncaring to bring in so many people that there are not enough jobs for them or the people already here. Over the last four decades, immigration levels have quadrupled. The Census Bureau projects that we will add another 14 million immigrants over the next decade. It is not mainstream, but extreme, to continue surging immigration beyond all historical precedent. It is time for moderation to prevail, and for us to focus on improving the jobs, wages, and security of the 300 million people already living inside our borders.”

The subcommittee also pointed to polling data that proves Americans are united entirely behind what Sessions wants to do.

“Polling from Kellyanne Conway shows that, by nearly a 10-1 margin, Americans of all backgrounds are united in their belief that companies should raise wages and improve working conditions for people already living in the United States – instead of bringing in new labor from abroad,” the subcommittee noted.

Sen. Sessions is appearing on Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot Channel 125 with Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon on Sunday evening to discuss this and more right at 7 p.m.

*** The same goes for Europe:

Tip of the iceberg: No end in sight to migrant wave

ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — One month after the body of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach — and a week after the European Union agreed to secure its borders — the migrant crisis has largely fallen off the front pages and reporters are going home.

But the human tide keeps rolling northward and westward, and aid agencies are preparing for it to continue through the winter, when temperatures along the migrant trail will drop below freezing. They fear the crisis may get worse.

“One thing is clear, the movement is not going to die down,” said Babar Baloch, the U.N. refugee agency’s representative in the Balkans. “What we are seeing right now … it’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

While over a half million people have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year, more than double the figure for all of 2014, that is only a fraction of the people who are on the move. Some 4 million have fled Syria after more than four years of civil war, and 8 million have been displaced inside the country. And it’s not just Syrians. It’s Iraqis and Iranians, Afghans and Eritreans.

The EU acknowledged the scale of the problem last week, even after it approved a plan to toughen border controls and provide at least 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to help Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan care for refugees living in their countries. The first new border measures won’t take effect until November, and a proposal for strengthening the EU border agency is due in December.

“Recently I visited refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan and I heard only one message — we are determined to get to Europe,” European Council President Donald Tusk said after the agreement was announced. “It is clear that the greatest tide of refugees and migrants is yet to come.”

While the UN High Commissioner for Refugees on Friday reported a “noticeable drop” in migrants entering Greece by sea — as weather conditions deteriorated this week — agency spokesman Adrian Edwards said “any improvement in the weather is likely to bring another surge in arrivals.”

About 1,500 people arrived in Greece on Thursday, down from 5,000 a day in recent weeks, UNHCR said.

The EU was spurred to act after photos of Aylan lying face down on a Turkish beach were published around the world, triggering outrage over the suffering of migrants fleeing war and poverty. Aylan drowned, along with his mother and brother, when their boat capsized on the journey from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos.

Before the EU can stop the influx, it must convince the world that it has regained control of its borders after months of news coverage showing the virtually unimpeded flow of people traveling from Turkey to Greece, then north through the Balkans to Austria, Germany and Sweden.

The surge came as donors cut back on funding for groups supporting Syrian refugees. The World Food Program in August said funding shortfalls forced it to cut food aid by 50 percent for 1.5 million refugees living in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. EU members pledged to restore funding for the WFP as part of their agreement last week.

The aid is important. Most refugees are unable to build new lives in their Middle Eastern host countries because they are barred from working. And as they watch their resources vanish, even people who hadn’t planned to go to Europe are now considering it.

“There’s no hope at all, so moving on seems the only option,” Baloch said. “It could be an exodus in the making.”

Take, for example, Zafer, a Syrian refugee who spoke on condition that his last name not be used for fear of reprisals. Zafer, 43, fled his country three years ago for Istanbul and is now contemplating Europe, encouraged by a friend who made the illegal crossing to Greece and is now in Germany.

“I don’t have a future here, it is very hard. I had a budget but it is running out,” he told The Associated Press. “I am worried about my children’s education. Now they are young, but what will happen later when they are older? I am worried.”

He isn’t alone.

With a migrant path clearly established, complete with signposts on how to get to Europe, aid groups say it’s almost as if a message has gone out: This is your chance. Now or never.

“In normal conditions, you will think twice about crossing the Mediterranean with your children because it is dangerous,” said Gianluca Rocco, western Balkans coordinator for the International Organization for Migration. “But now you go with the flow. The flow is there and it is moving very quickly.”

Macedonia, the main corridor for people traveling north from Greece, is preparing for the flood to continue through the winter.

Authorities are installing floors and heating in tents at the Gevgelija refugee camp, and aid agencies will provide warm clothes and blankets for the migrants, said Aleksandra Kraus, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Macedonia.

The Macedonian parliament in September extended the state of emergency on the country’s borders until June 2016. The country of 2 million people is spending about 1 million euros a month on migrants.

“Conditions and capacities for migrants depend on the budget,” said Ivo Kotevski, a police spokesman. “We appeal for assistance.”

All over the region, groups are already struggling to keep pace with arrivals, especially with winter drawing close.

“It will get much colder still, and the provision of adequate shelter is not even close to matching the number of people crossing into Serbia every day,” Doctors Without Borders President Meinie Nicolai told The Associated Press.

It’s unclear whether the EU actions will stem the flow, particularly in the short term.

Social media savvy asylum seekers are now aware the new border measures may take effect in November; and that effectively gives potential migrants a deadline that could spur them to make a dash for Europe, making the events of recent weeks a mere prelude to an even larger flood of humanity.

The EU is moving in the right direction, but the new programs will take time to implement, and the conditions that have pushed the refugees toward Europe haven’t changed, said Maurizio Albahari, author of “Crimes of Peace: Mediterranean Migrations at the World’s Deadliest Border,” and a social anthropologist at the University of Notre Dame.

“People in Turkey and in Libya are on top of the news. This includes both smugglers and refugees,” he said by email. “The winter months and the promise/threat of additional border control/patrols at the EU’s external borders might motivate them to move earlier than they would.”