Category Archives: U.S. Constitution

New Chilling Facts on Immigration in the U.S.

Posted on by

Dick Morris weighs in on immigration, says we are drowning in immigrants.

Philadelphia: The School District of Philadelphia’s special registration for immigrant students who speak a language other than English closes on Aug. 28, giving families of such students roughly two weeks to register their child for the upcoming school year.

The school year begins Sept. 8 for grades 1 through 12, and on Sept. 12 for kindergarten students; interested families should contact the Multilingual Assessment Center at (215) 400–4240 and selecting option 1. The office is open for registration Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m.

Student registration packets are also available through the district’s website at www.philasd.org/announcements/New-Immigrant-Student-Registration-Packet.pdf.

Last year, the center registered more than 800 students from more than 70 countries. Collectively, those students spoke more than 40 different native languages.

The district also noted families shouldn’t be concerned about registering their child based on their immigration status. The district referred to Plyler v. DOE, a U.S. Supreme Court decision which held that it is unconstitutional to deny free public education to children who are not legally admitted into the United States.

City immigrant populations have been on the rise since Mayor Michael Nutter’s signage of a pair of executive orders, starting in 2009.

 

“All city services, including but not limited to the following listed services, shall be made available to all city of Philadelphia residents, consistent with applicable law, regardless of the person’s citizenship or legal immigration status,” read a portion of one order. “[Those services include] police and fire services; medical services, such as emergency medical services, general medical care at community health centers and immunization; testing and treatment with respect to communicable diseases; mental health services; children protective services and access to city facilities, such as libraries and recreation centers.”

That order also stipulated that law enforcement officials alone are allowed to question an individual’s immigration status, or those who work for a municipally–governed service or program. Nutter’s second immigrant executive oder, signed in 2014, ended the procedure of detaining individuals without a warrant on behalf of Immunization and Customs Enforcement.

“No person in the custody of the city who otherwise would be released from custody shall be detained pursuant an ICE civil immigration detainer request,” read a portion of the most recent executive order, “nor shall notice of his or her pending release be provided, unless such person is being released after conviction for a first or second degree felony involving violence and the detainer is supported by a judicial warrant.

“The police commissioner, the superintendent of prisons and all other relevant officials to the city are nearby required to take appropriate action to implement this order.”

And earlier this summer, Jim Kenney, winner of May’s democratic mayoral primary, joined with pro–immigrant groups Juntos and Philadelphia Stands United to support Nutter’s stance on immigration and to roundly reject Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s comments on immigrants.

“I also would wish that the United States congress would be as animated and as energetic about gun violence and education as they are about holding immigrants without a warrant,” Kenney said. “Our neighborhoods are not safer if people are afraid of the police. They’re not safer if they’re afraid to come forward and be a witness. They’re not safer if the relationship between the police and the community is a negative one.”

Mayor’s Office of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Executive Director Jennifer Rodriguez said Nutter has “repeatedly stated that a piecemeal approach to immigration is not effective and has called onto congress and the federal government to address our broken system by enacting reform that reflects the welcoming values that our nation and our city were founded on.”

Syrians?

In part from Refugee Resettlement: Yikes!  Look at this opinion piece posted at a “progressive” website of all places. This worldly Syrian woman, born in America and apparently now living in Syria, says many Syrian so-called ‘refugees’ arriving in Europe are not from unsafe parts of Syria, but are just looking for “El Dorado” (a mythical city of gold)—for Europe to give them free everything!

Here is some of what Deena Stryker says of her fellow Syrians (emphasis is mine):

“My husband is one of 10 children. Of that large extended family, many have taken the boats to Europe now. Some are in Sweden, Denmark, Italy and Germany. Several are in Turkey. None of these people needed to leave Syria. They were all living in safe, violence free zones (Latakia on the coast). None of them had been attacked or threatened or were in any danger from Syrian government, or police, etc.

Why did they leave? They left homes and cars and possessions here in order to take up the offer of FREE money and housing in Europe. They had been sure that once in Europe they will be given free medical, education, housing, food and provided for in every way forever. They think of Europe as “El Dorado”. There is also a large dose of jealousy involved, as they saw their neighbors going and they didn’t want to be left behind. Syrian hate to see someone else get a good deal, and not get a piece of the pie themselves.  More here.

 

This is What War Planning and Victory Looked Like

Posted on by

The nobility of another time where the United States had a strategy and led.

World War II ended 70 years ago — here’s the planned US invasion of Japan that never happened

Business Insider: On August 14, 1945, US President Harry Truman announced the unconditional surrender of Japanese Emperor Hirohito, thereby ending World War II.

vj day kiss

The surrender came after months of bombing raids across the Japanese countryside, two atomic bombs, and the Soviet Union’s declaration of war on the island nation.

The iron resolve of the Japanese was a major factor the US anticipated while planning the invasion of mainland Japan. The culture known for literally putting death before dishonor with practices such as hara-kiri would not, by any stretch of the imagination, go softly into surrender.

By the time the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, 500,000 Japanese had already died during bombing raids, not just in Tokyo, but in smaller towns too.

This badly hurt Japanese morale as Yutaka Akabane, a senior-level civil servant, observed: “It was the raids on the medium and smaller cities which had the worst effect and really brought home to the people the experience of bombing and a demoralization of faith in the outcome of the war.”

But despite several bombing raids a week in the beginning of 1945, and the resulting displacement of 5 million people, the Japanese remained resolute.

And as US forces prepared a ground invasion, they were acutely aware of the challenges they faced against an iron-willed Japanese population.

tokyo bombing ww2 wwii world war 2 japan

The planning committee for the US invasion expected that “operations in this area will be opposed not only by the available organized military forces of the Empire, but also by a fanatically hostile population.”

Nevertheless, the Allied forces prepared to send 42 aircraft carriers, 24 battleships, and 400 destroyer ships and escorts to Japan’s coast. The Allies expected 456,000 deaths in the invasion of Japan’s military stronghold at the island of Kyushu alone.

In preparation for what everyone expected to be a bloody, prolonged clash, the US government manufactured 500,000 Purple Hearts to be awarded to troops wounded in the invasion.

At the same time, 32 million Japanese braced for war. That figure includes all men ages 15 to 60, and all women ages 17 to 45. The US anticipated them to bear whatever weapons they could muster, from bamboo spears, to antique cannons, to machine guns.

Children had even been trained to act as suicide bombers, strapping explosives to themselves and rolling under Allied tank treads.

But on July 16, 1945, the US secretly and successfully carried out the world’s first atomic-bomb detonation, giving the US another option in the war against Japan.

atomic bomb

After the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, where 140,000 lost their lives, on August 8, the USSR then declared war on Japan as well, and on the next day they attacked Japanese-occupied Manchuria, China. On that same day, an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing another 40,000 instantly.

hirohito japan

Japanese Emperor Hirohito.

Japan had previously been presented the Potsdam Declaration, or terms for an unconditional surrender, but the country had refused it.

Even after the two atomic bombs, Japan would not surrender for fear of how Emperor Hirohito would be treated after the war.

Emperor Hirohito was not merely a constitutional monarch, but a living god in the eyes of the Japanese. They would not see him treated as a war criminal by Allied forces — and after Pearl Harbor and 20 million or so Asian lives lost to Japanese imperialism, the Allies would accept nothing less than an unconditional surrender.

Japan and the Allies spent mid-August arguing over the exact language of the surrender, but on August 15, Emperor Hirohito addressed his nation via radio for the first time ever to announce the country’s surrender. Because of a difference in time zones, this anniversary is remembered on August 14 in the US.

Just last month, Japan officially released the master audio recording of Hirohito’s surrender. A version of this recording can be heard below:

 

 

StemExpress Cuts Ties with Planned Parenthood

Posted on by

LifeNews: StemExpress Cuts Ties With Planned Parenthood After Expose’ Videos Show Sales of Aborted Babies

A breaking news report this afternoon indicates the biotech firm StemExpress is officially cutting ties with the Planned Parenthood abortion business after a series of expose’ videos show the abortion company selling it aborted babies and body parts from aborted babies

The sixth and most recent video features Holly O’Donnell, a licensed phlebotomist who unsuspectingly took a job as a “procurement technician” at the fetal tissue company and biotech start-up StemExpress in late 2012. That’s the company that acts as a middleman and purchases the body parts of aborted babies from Planned Parenthood to sell to research universities and other places.

The new video includes O’Donnell’s eyewitness narrative of the daily practice of fetal body parts harvesting in Planned Parenthood abortion clinics, describing tissue procurement workers’ coordination with abortion providers, the pressure placed on patients, and disregard for patient consent.

StemExpress is one of a handful of biotech firms that works with Planned parenthood by purchasing aborted babies and their body parts and selling them to scientists at research universities for medical experiments. But Politico is reporting that the biologics company is breaking its ties with the abortion corporation.

Politico reports that notice of the decision to cut ties came in the form of a letter from StemExpress to a Congressional committee that is investigating the abortion business and its sales of aborted babies. More details here.

Meanwhile the White House is making threats if Planned Parenthood is defunded.

WH warns states: Defunding Planned Parenthood might break law

The Obama administration has warned Louisiana and Alabama that they could be violating federal law by cutting off Planned Parenthood from their states’ Medicaid programs.
The Republican governors in both states this month terminated their state Medicaid contracts with the organization in the wake of controversial undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the price of fetal tissue for medical research.
But the White House points out that federal law says Medicaid beneficiaries may obtain services from any qualified provider and that cutting Planned Parenthood out of the program restricts that choice.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) has contacted Louisiana and Alabama about the issue.

“CMS has notified states who have taken action to terminate their Medicaid provider agreements with Planned Parenthood that they may be in conflict with federal law,” Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Ben Wakana said in a statement.
“Longstanding Medicaid laws prohibit states from restricting individuals who have coverage through Medicaid from receiving care from a qualified provider,” he said. “By restricting which provider a woman could choose to receive care from, women could lose access to critical preventive care, such as cancer screenings.”
The warning was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Federal courts have in the past blocked state attempts by states including Indiana and Arizona to cut Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid, citing the law that gives consumers a choice in providers.
Mike Reed, a spokesman for Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), indicated the state and its Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) are standing by its decision.
He cited a provision in the state Medicaid contract allowing either party to cancel it at will, with 30 days notice.
“CMS reached out to DHH after we canceled the Medicaid provider contract with Planned Parenthood,” Reed said. “DHH explained to CMS why the state chose to exercise our right to cancel the contract without cause.”
Jindal is one of 17 big-name Republicans running for president in 2016.
Planned Parenthood praised the Obama administration’s move.
“It’s good to hear that HHS has clarified what we already know — blocking women’s access to care at Planned Parenthood is against the law,” Dawn Laguens, the group’s executive vice president, said in a statement.
She added that the group will “do everything in our power to protect women’s access to health care in all fifty states.”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest has defended Planned Parenthood and said it follows the “highest ethical standards.” The White House has also threatened to veto any government spending bill that defunds the organization, which some Republicans are calling for.

U.S. Flag Raised in Cuba Today by John Kerry and Envoy

Posted on by

The weekend before Secretary of State John Kerry travels to Cuba with an envoy to raise the U.S. flag at the re-opening of the embassy in Havana, 60 Cubans were arrested in what is more repression. Arrested were Cuban Ladies in White and yet Barack Obama on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard had nothing to say and John Kerry was mute of the matter himself.

John Kerry leads delegation to Cuba for flag raising at U.S. Embassy

WaPo: The United States plans to raise the Stars and Stripes at its embassy in Havana Friday morning, kicking off a day of symbolism and carefully balanced outreach to both Cuba’s communist government and its restive population.

Two U.S. government aircraft are scheduled to depart Washington at dawn to carry Secretary of State John F. Kerry and dozens of others on the 2   1/2 hour flight to the island. In addition to a 20-person official delegation of officials and members of Congress, selected Cuban-Americans, entrepreneurs and a large media contingent will be aboard, along with the three retired Marines who last lowered the flag when relations were severed more than 54 years ago.

Speeches are to follow the raising of the banner outside the seven-story embassy building, built in the early 1950s on the Malecón, Havana’s sweeping waterfront boulevard. The U.S. Army’s Brass Quintet will play both country’s anthems.

President Obama’s inaugural poet, Richard Blanco, whose family left Cuba shortly before he was born in 1968, will read “Matters of the Sea,” a poem he has written for the occasion.

The embassy has been open for nearly a month, following the official July 20 re-establishment of U.S.-Cuba relations. But the flag has been kept under wraps for the arrival of Kerry, the highest U.S. government official to set foot in Cuba since Franklin D. Roosevelt was president .

After the ceremony, Kerry will meet privately with Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Havana. Ortega was instrumental, along with Pope Francis, in the success of nearly two years of secret bilateral negotiations that led to this day. Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced plans to restore relations last December.

In a carbon copy of last month’s official opening of the Cuban Embassy here, Kerry will meet with Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez at his ministry, and the two will then hold a joint news conference.

Later in the afternoon, a separate U.S. flag will be raised at the oppulent estate in western Havana that is the once and future residence of the U.S. ambassador, currently occupied by Charge d’Affairs Jeffrey DeLaurentis. Members of Cuban civil society — including political dissidents — ave been invited to that ceremony and to a reception with Kerry will host.

In an interview Wednesday with CNN Espanol, Kerry rejected criticism Cuban government opponents were not asked to attend the morning events at the embassy.

“We just disagree with that. We’re going to meet,” he said. The embassy ceremony, “is a government-to-government moment. We’re opening an embassy. It’s not open to everybody in the country. And later we’ll have an opportunity where there is a broader perspective to be able to meet with … a broad cross-section of Cuban civil society, including dissidents,” he said.

While many dissidents support the U.S-Cuba opening, many also oppose it, charging that the administration is helping the Castro government stay in power while getting little in return. Since the restoration of relations was announced, the number of opposition demonstrations has sharply increased, along with government detention of dissidents.

“The truth is that this will not be the complete and total change everybody wants overnight. It’s going to take a little bit of time,” Kerry told CNN. “But I am convinced … President Obama is convinced, that by being there, we will be able to do more to help the Cuban people,” he said. “Their concerns, their issues, their hopes, their dreams will be better represented more directly to our government with accountability in that process.”

Human rights, Kerry said, is “at the top of our agenda in terms of the first things that we will be focused on in our direct engagement with the Cuban government,” including his Friday talks with Rodriguez.

In a Thursday letter to Kerry, the organization Reporters Without Borders USA noted that Cuba ranks 169 of 180 countries on its press freedom index. “Cuba’s information monopoly and censorship practices do not apply only to local media,” it said, “foreign journalists are also subject to restrictions, receiving accreditation only selectively” and “deported” when they displease “the current regime.”

Despite the restoration of relations, the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba remains in place. Obama has called for Congress to lift it, along with remaining restrictions on U.S. travel to the island, but lawmakers have resisted.

The eight members of Congress in Kerry’s official delegation include Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.); and Democratic Reps. Karen Bass (Calif.), Steve Cohen (Tenn.), Barbara Lee (Calif.) and Jim McGovern (Mass.).

The embargo continues to be a rallying point for the Cuban government. In an article published in Granma, the official Cuban Communist party paper, on the occasion of his 89th birthday Thursday, revolutionary leader and former president Fidel Castro criticized the United States for everything from dropping an atomic bomb on Japan near the end of World War II, to setting the stage for global economic crisis by amassing most of the world’s gold supply.

That crisis, Castro said, had battered Cuba’s economy, even as it is “owed compensation equivalent to damages, which have reached many millions of dollars” as a result of the U.S. sanctions.

 

Now Veterans Can Grade VA Facilities

Posted on by

Listen To A VA Employee And A Veteran Break Down On The Phone Over Access To Care, the full story is here.

The plight of veterans when it comes to the Veterans Administration continues and no one is really taking any action to clean up the mess while vets actually die waiting for an appointment for medical services.

Some disabled veterans go hungry and can’t afford basic resources for themselves because the disability rating they have been given by the VA isn’t high enough for them. They have to seek assistance from somewhere like these Georgia VA disability lawyers to help them get the disability rating they deserve. Few veterans are treated with the respect they deserve but now there are new platforms to make things better for them.

Now a new ratings platform has been launched to help vets navigate and even grade each facility, a new tool that is desperately needed. The Secretary of the VA ignores reports and the Congress has worked diligently to install cures and solutions that the VA is loathe to accept.

Washington ~ Stars and Stripes: More than 35,000 veterans have had their health care delayed by a Department of Veterans Affairs computer program that automatically put them in limbo — many for years. Yet the VA says it lacks the authority to override the system.

According to documents leaked to the Huffington Post, the veterans — most of whom served in Iraq and Afghanistan — were erroneously put onto a “pending” list for failing to fill out a means test. But combat veterans are not required to fill out means tests to receive health care.

About 16,000 of the cases have been pending for more than five years, according to the Huffington Post. Under VA rules, combat veterans are eligible for five years of free health care after discharge, but the period begins the day of discharge. But VA spokeswoman Walinda West said combat veterans who are granted Veterans Health Administration benefits received them for life.

The VA has known about the problem since at least April, according to the Huffington Post. As of Wednesday, staffers were calling and mailing notices to affected veterans, telling them to fill out paperwork to agree to copays – which appears to duplicate paperwork they have already filled out — in order to enroll in the program.

VA website

New VAratings.com Healthcare Site Allows U.S. Veterans to Rate & Review VA Facilities Nationwide

Charleston, SC: VetFriends.com – the largest Website reuniting U.S. military veterans – has launched a nationwide online database of VA Hospitals with ratings and reviews at https://www.VAratings.com. The goal of the site is to allow veterans to share their experiences, rate their local VA hospitals and clinics and to help improve and provide awareness to Veterans Affairs facilities nationwide.

U.S. veterans and military personnel are the foundation of what has made America the symbol of freedom and opportunity that we enjoy today. The VetFriends.com Veteran Healthcare Resource Center is a free resource for all veterans and their families.

VAratings.com powered by VetFriends.com provides a free ratings/review system with a directory of all VA Hospitals, Outpatient Clinics, Veteran Centers, National Cemeteries and Intake Centers. The rating system consists of a 5 star rating process with questions about a veteran’s visit that deal with: Department, Ease of scheduling, Wait times, Treatment quality, Staff’s quality of care and more. A comment section is also available where veterans can add more information and others visitors can respond directly to posts.

VAratings.com was created to provide objective reviews of services provided by the VA from U.S. veterans and their families. It is important for veterans to know that their VA facility has the highest quality of care and expertise. VAratings.com is an ideal platform for information to be exchanged, questions asked and unbiased reviews are posted.

Each month a topic will be spotlighted in our awareness campaign featuring a specific health issue. The topic covered will coincide with the national awareness months such as Breast Cancer Awareness in October and American Diabetes Month in November. Additional resources include information on how veterans can obtain VA Benefits, along with a library of VA forms. Furthermore, health topics and articles address illnesses, new treatments and discoveries, along with healthy lifestyle tips plus a variety of others.

VetFriends.com offers additional services such as: search over 1,900,000 members to make contact with old service friends and relatives; information on how to obtain your own or a relative’s military records and medals; message boards; military veteran job boards; upload past and present photos; military jokes; search and post reunions, military pride merchandise and more.

VetFriends.com encourages all Companies, and all Americans to honor and support our U.S. veterans and active military of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard — All heroes of our nation.

Founded in 2000 by a U.S. military veteran, thousands of people have been reconnected through VetFriends.com, spanning from World War II through to Operation Desert Storm and the present. For further information and/or interview opportunities please contact VAratings.com at: (843) 606-2578(843) 606-2578