Unlicensed Foreign National Drivers Kill, Major Study

Posted on March 30, 2016March 30, 2016 by Denise Simon

There is something called the ‘victims fund’ which Barack Obama and the Department of Justice have distributed funds that will shock you. Bet none of the victims below received a dime much less any recognition.

The Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), one of the seven components within the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), administers the Crime Victims Fund established under the 1984 Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) to help victims and victim service providers with program funding in accordance with OVC’s Program Plan for the fiscal year.

Thoughts?

After His Son Was Killed by Unlicensed Immigrant Driver, Dad Spent Years Compiling Data. He ‘Was Stunned at What’ He Found. (Hallowell)

Blaze/FNC: Since Drew Rosenberg was run over and killed while riding his motorcycle in San Francisco, California, on Nov. 16, 2010, by an unlicensed immigrant who reportedly came to the U.S. illegally, Drew’s father, Don, has been looking for answers.

Considering the manner in which his 25-year-old son tragically died, Rosenberg, 63, has set out on a mission to try and find out how many people die each year as a result of unlicensed drivers, launching a nonprofit to explore the issue called Unlicensed to Kill.

“I was stunned at what I found,” Rosenberg wrote on his website. “Not only were unlicensed drivers killing people in numbers only exceeded by drunk drivers, but many times they were barely being punished and many times faced no charges at all.”

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Car Crash Deaths By State Per 100k Population | Credio

He continued: “There are two different kinds of unlicensed drivers. There are those who have never been issued a license and those whose licensed has been suspended, revoked or expired. Over 90% of those who have never been issued a license are in this country illegally.”

Rosenberg estimates that 7,500 Americans die each year due to unlicensed drivers and that more than half of those deaths are caused by illegal immigrants. Rosenberg published his findings on his organization’s website.

But tabulating those numbers is quite difficult and ends up yielding mere estimates due to the fact that immigration statuses aren’t reported when it comes to highway deaths. Rosenberg has spent a great deal of time going through the data in an effort to parse out the stats.

Drew Rosenberg was killed by an unlicensed immigrant in 2010 (Unlicensed to Kill/Don Rosenberg)

“I’ve learned over time that many jurisdictions do not cite license status or immigration status when reporting these statistics, so if anything, the numbers are understated,” he told Fox News. “For example, San Francisco doesn’t report either criteria, so Drew’s death defaults to having been killed by a licensed driver who was a citizen.”

On the Unlicensed to Kill website, Rosenberg described the circumstances surrounding his son’s tragic death, noting the immediate information that he said authorities gave his family the day after the accident back in 2010.

“The next morning we met with the police inspector on the case. He told us that the driver of the car, Roberto Galo was unlicensed, in the country illegally and after killing Drew tried to flee the scene,” Rosenberg wrote. “A few days later the inspector called to tell us there was a mistake and Galo was in the country legally.”

The Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank, identified Galo as being from Honduras in a 2013 article on the matter, noting that the man was eventually arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement.

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Motor Vehicle Traffic Deaths in the United States | FindTheData

“Galo is an illegal immigrant who has been living here legally since the late 1990s under a grant of Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Beneficiaries of TPS may apply for driver’s licenses; but Galo could not get one because he failed the driving test three times,” wrote Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies.

TPS allows for some immigrants to remain in the U.S. “due to conditions in the country that temporarily prevent the country’s nationals from returning safely, or in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of its nationals adequately.” The status is granted to some nationals of those countries “who are already in the United States.”

The situation surrounding Galo’s purported immigration status was complex, though Fox News reported that he was eventually deported in 2013 following years of legal wrangling.

Senator Leahy’s Written Challenge to Israel on Human Rights

Posted on March 30, 2016March 30, 2016 by Denise Simon

Is this senator nuts or has he in fact been void of news or foreign policy updates provided to Congress? Both perhaps? And some fellow senators appear to have the same problem.

What is worse, the letter is addressed to SecState, John Kerry who is quite anti-Israel and for sure anti-Egypt but perhaps the White House has a few in the senate taking on this written challenge…..

Check this out…..

First comes Prime Minister Netanyahu’s response:

PM Netanyahu’s Response to US Senator Patrick Leahy’s Letter (Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser)

Following is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to US Senator Patrick Leahy’s letter:

“The IDF and the Israel Police do not engage in executions. Israel’s soldiers and police officers defend themselves and innocent civilians with the highest moral standards against bloodthirsty terrorists who come to murder them.

Where is the concern for the human rights of the many Israelis who’ve been murdered and maimed by these savage terrorists?

This letter should have been addressed instead to those who incite youngsters to commit cruel acts of terrorism.”

Then we need to ask some deeper questions regarding the influence some communist lobby groups have in Congress like American Friends of Service Committee. Perhaps this organization is also tied or maybe funded by Iran?

Leahy asked State Dept. to investigate Israeli human rights ‘violations’

Politico: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and 10 House members have asked the Obama administration to investigate claims that the Israeli and Egyptian security forces have committed “gross violations of human rights” — allegations that if proven truei could affect U.S. military aid to the countries.

In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry dated Feb. 17, the lawmakers list several examples of suspected human rights abuses, including reports of extrajudicial killings by Israeli and Egyptian military forces, as well as forced disappearances in Egypt. The letter also points to the 2013 massacre in Egypt’s Rab’aa Square, which left nearly 1,000 people dead as the military cracked down on protesters, as worthy of examination.

Leahy’s signature is particularly noteworthy because his name is on a law that conditions U.S. military aid to countries on whether their security forces are committing abuses.

“In light of these reports we request that you act promptly to determine their credibility and whether they trigger the Leahy Law and, if so, take appropriate action called for under the law,” the signatories state in the letter, which was obtained by POLITICO on Tuesday evening from an organization that provided input for it.

The Leahy Law’s application and impact have been difficult to measure, and while U.S. funding to a particular foreign military unit may be cut off as a result of the law, overall U.S. military aid to the country need not be stopped.

The letter’s real impact may be political: Israel’s unusual, if not unprecedented inclusion with Egypt on such an inquiry is likely to rile Israel’s allies in Washington, who bristle at the notion that the Middle East’s only established democracy could be lumped in with a notorious human rights abuser like Egypt.

Though it was sent to Kerry well beforehand, the timing of the letter’s release comes just days after an Israeli soldier was filmed executing a Palestinian prisoner at close range – setting off fury in the Arab world and launching a military disciplinary process that has many on the Israeli right fuming.

Leahy spokesman David Carle downplayed Israel’s inclusion in the request, noting that the Vermont Democrat “has always said” that the law that bears his name “should be uniformly applied.”

Egypt’s inclusion may be no easier to navigate, as the military-backed Egyptian regime has proved a vexing problem for President Barack Obama as he has sought to balance the U.S.’s traditional concern for human rights with its need to maintain Cairo as an ally in an increasingly chaotic Middle East.

The U.S. is so wary of losing Egypt’s friendship it declined to call the military’s 2013 takeover over of the elected Muslim Brotherhood government a coup — a label that would have triggered a legal obligation to suspend military aid. Israel, meanwhile, remains America’s closest ally in the region despite tense relations between Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and it has received billions in U.S. military assistance over the years.

The letter questions the current mechanisms that the U.S. has to monitor its military assistance to both countries and asks for clarity on how the various divisions of the State Department “document and determine the credibility of information related to allegations of gross violations of human rights by foreign security forces.”

“According to information we have received, the manner in which U.S. military assistance has been provided to Israel and Egypt, since the Camp David Accords, including the delivery of assistance at the military service level, has created a unique situation that has hindered implementation of normal mechanisms for monitoring the use of such assistance,” the letter states.

A State Department spokesman said it would provide a comment later Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the letter was hailed by left-leaning organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace, the National Lawyers Guild International Committee and others. These groups also provided input for the letter.

“Both Israel and Egypt receive billions of dollars in U.S. military aid, and both countries’ security forces have opened fire on protesters with impunity. This letter from key members of Congress is an important first step in the right direction,” said Sunjeev Bery of Amnesty International USA.

Added Raed Jarrar of the American Friends Service Committee: “We call on the Department of State to investigate all the cases mentioned in the letter, and to provide Congress with a comprehensive answer.”

**** About American Friends of Service Committee as noted in part from Wikipedia:

For its anti-war, pro-immigration, and anti-capital punishment stances, the AFSC receives criticism from many socially conservative groups. Often the criticisms allege that the AFSC has supported Communist activities.^{[citation needed]}

Throughout much of the group’s history the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and other government agencies have monitored the work of this and many other similar organizations.^[17]^[18]^[19]

Since the 1970s, criticism has also come from liberals within the Society of Friends, who charge that AFSC has drifted from its Quaker roots and has become indistinguishable from other political pressure groups. Quakers expressed concern with AFSC’s abolition of their youth work camps during the 1960s and what some saw as a decline of Quaker participation in the organization. The criticisms became prominent after a gathering of Friends General Conference in Richmond, Indiana, in the summer of 1979 when many Friends joined with prominent leaders, such as Kenneth Boulding, to call for a firmer Quaker orientation toward public issues.^[20] Some Jews have accused AFSC of having an anti-Jewish bias.^[21] Jacob Neusner calls the Committee “the most militant and aggressive of Christian anti-Israel groups.”^[

Palestinian Authority Paying Terrorists

Posted on March 29, 2016March 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

CRS March Report in part: Since the establishment of limited Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the mid-1990s, the U.S. government has committed more than $5 billion in bilateral economic and non-lethal security assistance to the Palestinians, who are among the world’s largest per capita recipients of international foreign aid. Successive Administrations have requested aid for the Palestinians in apparent support of at least three major U.S. policy priorities of interest to Congress:

* Promoting the prevention or mitigation of terrorism against Israel from Hamas and other militant organizations.

* Fostering stability, prosperity, and self-governance in the West Bank that may incline Palestinians toward peaceful coexistence with Israel and a “two-state solution.”

* Meeting humanitarian needs.

Report: Palestinian Authority Paying Terrorists with Foreign Aid, Despite Promise to Stop

TheTower: The Palestinian Authority has continued to award lifetime payments to convicted terrorists, despite a promise to end the practice, an investigative report published Sunday by The Mail on Sunday (MoS) revealed. The report was part of a broader investigation into what the paper described as the “wasteful” use of British taxpayer money.

According to MoS, the British government gives £72 million (over $102 million) to the Palestinians annually, with more than one-third of that sum directly going to the PA. While the PA said it that would no longer use aid money to pay terrorists or their families, recipients of the funds and official PA statements confirm that the practice continues.

Ahmad Musa, who admitted to shooting two Israelis dead, told MoS that he receives a monthly stipend of £605 (over $850). Musa was jailed for life for his crimes, but was freed after five years in an Israeli effort to restart peace talks with the PA.

Amjad and Hakim Awad, two cousins who in 2011 massacred five members of the Fogel family– parents Ehud and Ruth Fogel, 11 year-old Yoav, four year-old Elad, and three month-old Hadas– in their West Bank home, have been also been paid. Amjad alone may have received more than £16,000 (nearly $23,000), according to estimates. (In 2012, PA television praised the cousins as “heroes.”)

Another terrorist on the payroll is veteran Hamas bomb-maker Abdallah Barghouti. Barghouti is serving 67 life sentences in an Israeli jail over his role in numerous bombings, including at the Hebrew University cafeteria in 2002, the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in 2001, and a Rishon Lezion nightclub bombing in 2002, which killed 66 people. He is believed to have received £106,000 (over $150,000) for his efforts.

“[The] cash-strapped PA relies on foreign aid for nearly half its budget,” MoS reported. “Yet it gives £79 million a year to prisoners locked up in Israeli jails, former prisoners and their families.” When the paper asked the UK’s Department For International Development about the payments, the DFID defended them as “social welfare” for the families of prisoners, but denied that any British aid was involved. (In a similar vein, when asked about the PA’s payments to terrorists and their families, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Anne Patterson told a congressional hearing in 2014, “they have to provide for the families.”)

Another Judge Piles onto the Hillary Discovery

Posted on March 29, 2016March 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

Judicial Watch: Second Federal Court Grants Discovery in Clinton Email Case

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth granted “limited discovery” to Judicial Watch into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email matter. Lamberth ruled that “where there is evidence of government wrong-doing and bad faith, as here, limited discovery is appropriate, even though it is exceedingly rare in FOIA cases.”

The court’s ruling comes in a July 2014 Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit seeking records related to the drafting and use of the Benghazi talking points (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)). The lawsuit seeks records specifically from Hillary Clinton and her top State Department staff:

Copies of any updates and/or talking points given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency concerning, regarding, or related to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Any and all records or communications concerning, regarding, or relating to talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency

Judge Lamberth granted Judicial Watch’s Motion for Discovery, which was filed in opposition to the State Department’s Motion for Summary Judgement. The court ruled:

An understanding of the facts and circumstances surrounding Secretary Clinton’s extraordinary and exclusive use of her “clintonemail.com” account to conduct official government business, as well as other officials’ use of this account and their own personal e-mail accounts to conduct official government business is required before the Court can determine whether the search conducted here reasonably produced all responsive documents. Plaintiff is certainly entitled to dispute the State Department’s position that it has no obligation to produce these documents because it did not “possess” or “control” them at the time the FOIA request was made. The State Department’s willingness to now search documents voluntarily turned over to the Department by Secretary Clinton and other officials hardly transforms such a search into an “adequate” or “reasonable” one. Plaintiff is not relying on “speculation” or “surmise” as the State Department claims. Plaintiff is relying on constantly shifting admissions by the Government and the former government officials. Whether the State Department’s actions will ultimately be determined by the Court to not be “acting in good faith” remains to be seen at this time, but plaintiff is clearly entitled to discovery and a record before this Court rules on that issue.

The Court must observe that the Government argues in its opposition memorandum that “the fact that State did not note that it had not searched Secretary Clinton’s e-mails when it responded to Plaintiffs FOIA request … was neither a misrepresentation nor material omission, because these documents were not in its possession and control when the original search was completed.” The Government argues that this does not show a lack of good faith, but that is what remains to be seen, and the factual record must be developed appropriately in order for this Court to make that determination.

Today’s ruling refers to U.S. District Court Emmett Sullivan’s decision to grant Judicial Watch discovery on the Clinton email matter in separate litigation:

Briefing is ongoing before Judge Sullivan. When Judge Sullivan issues a discovery order, the plaintiff shall — within ten days thereafter–file its specific proposed order detailing what additional proposed discovery, tailored to this case, it seeks to have this Court order. Defendant shall respond ten days after plaintiff’s submission.

Judge Sullivan is expected to rule on Judicial Watch’s discovery plan after April 15. Judicial Watch’s discovery plan seeks the testimony of eight current and former State Department officials, including top State Department official Patrick Kennedy, former State IT employee Bryan Pagliano, and Clinton’s two top aides at the State Department: Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin.

“This remarkable decision will allow Judicial Watch to explore the shifting stories and misrepresentations made by the Obama State Department and its current and former employees,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This Benghazi litigation first uncovered the Clinton email scandal, so it is good to have discovery in this lawsuit which may help the American people find out why our efforts to get Benghazi answers was thwarted by Clinton’s email games.”

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The Other Iranian Spending Spree, Syria?

Posted on March 29, 2016March 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

Iran changing the face of Syria especially Damascus. Altering the human population and infrastructure has been underway for a long while. Question is how deeply involved is Russia with this? An Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps new base? Iran has moved to take full control of the Middle East and Russia paved the way with the assistance of Barack Obama and John Kerry.

Iranians Fuel Property Frenzy in Syria

VoA: The Iranian government is encouraging prominent Tehran developers to buy property in well-off Shi’ite majority neighborhoods in Syria’s capital, analysts and construction industry sources in Tehran said.

“Entire neighborhoods have been purchased by Iran,” Syrian economist Khorshid Alika told VOA.

During the early days of Syria’s civil war, Tehran kept Iran’s involvement in Syria mostly from public view. In recent months, though, the government-run media have been reporting how Iran has teamed up with Russia to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against opposition rebels and the Islamic State group.

Tehran has reportedly increased the size of its Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria, sending as many as 3,500 fighters to the front lines to defend Zeinab Shrine, a holy site for Shi’ite Muslims in the southern suburbs of Damascus.

Market inflation

According to news reports, rich and conservative Iranian business people with ties to the government are buying expensive properties and lavish homes in the affluent districts of Damascus. The high demand for property has contributed to price increases in Syria’s real estate market, experts said.

“Five million houses have been destroyed in the civil war. The increased Iranian demand to buy land and properties has naturally led to more inflation in the [real estate] market,” Alika said.

Iran has reportedly relied on a prominent Shi’ite cleric, Abdullah Nazzam, to arrange its real estate dealings in Syria. Using his religious authority in Damascus and ties with the Syrian government, Nazzam has persuaded residents to sell their properties to Iranian businessmen.

“Some Iranian businessmen have been offering huge sums of money to buy Syrian houses near a holy Shi’ite site,” a Damascus landowner recently told a pro-opposition Syrian news site, All For Syria.

He said some owners, including himself, had refused to sell their properties, but under Syrian government pressure, they had no choice but to accept the offers, the resident said.

Alika, who studies the trends of local economies in Syria’s civil war, said Iranians tend to buy properties in areas of strategic importance.

“They are buying houses and lands near Shi’ite religious sites in Damascus,” he told VOA by phone.

Iran’s interest in owning real estate in Syria is not new, analysts said, but it increased after the beginning of the rebel uprising in 2011.

“The [Iranian] regime has always been active in the real estate market in Syria, but their boost became more visible,” said journalist Ali Nawaf, a Damascus native living in Turkey.

“After the [Syrian] revolution [in 2011], Iran realized that buying properties in Damascus and elsewhere would give it yet another excuse to continue its interference in Syria,” he told VOA.

FILE – Members of a construction crew work at a site for new apartment buildings in Damascus, Syria.

Go to Syria, workers told

Iran’s government is urging Iranian construction workers to go to Syria.

“A few months ago I was invited to a work-related gathering, and a fellow veteran contractor with strong ties with [Iranian] authorities informed us that there are very lucrative opportunities for builders in Damascus,” Amir Maghsoudloo, an Iranian construction contractor in Tehran, told VOA.

“When we asked about the security of the site, he said that the zone is even more secure than Tehran,” he said. “I turned the offer down due to family and security reasons, but, two other fellow contractors, as far as I know, got some projects in Damascus.”

Bricklayer Tahir Esmaili, an Afghan national who worked in Iran before moving to Syria in 2015, told VOA some Afghan workers in Iran had been offered construction jobs in Damascus.

Roughly 3 million Afghans live in Iran. Most settled there after fleeing war and conflict in their homeland. Many Afghans in Iran lack basic rights and live without a formal status. Most earn low wages in Iran, making Syria a lucrative alternative.

“There are quite a few projects running near [the holy Shi’ite site of] Sayyida Rouqqaya and the Iranian Embassy,” Esmaili said. “These projects are being dominantly run by Afghan nationals from Iran.”

Wider area of control

By buying properties throughout Syria, Iran is seeking to safeguard its presence in the war-torn country, even after a potential collapse of Assad’s government, experts said.

“Iran’s goal of owning property in Syria goes beyond business interest,” said Iranian analyst Fariborz Saremi told VOA from Germany. “Controlling Syria politically, militarily and economically, through real estate, would only make Tehran in a better position to stay in control of other parts of the Middle East.”

Damascus isn’t the only area in Syria where Iranians have been buying properties, analysts said.

In the central city of Homs, local activists said more Iranian business people and companies are looking for new opportunities after the Syrian military and its Lebanese Hezbollah alllies took control of the city in late 2015.

“The [Syrian] regime wants Iranians to invest in Homs, because it connects Damascus to the Alawite heartland in the coastal region,” Nawaf said.

And with more Iranian-owned properties, Iran would have more incentives to maintain a stronger military presence in Homs and beyond, analysts said.

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VoA: Iran’s government wants its builders to buy up property in Shi-ite majority neighborhoods of Syria’s capital, Damascus.

It is also asking construction workers to go to Syria.

This information comes from construction industry officials in Tehran and Iranian experts.

Iranian analyst Fariborz Saremi said owning real estate gives Iran more control over Syria and other parts of the Middle East.

Rich and conservative Iranian business people with ties to the government are buying expensive homes in Damascus, according to news reports. This is influencing price increases in Syria’s real estate markets.

“Five million houses have been destroyed in the civil war,” said Syrian economist Khorshid Alika told Voice of America. “The increased Iranian demand to buy land and properties has naturally led to more inflation in the market.”

Iran’s interest in Syrian real estate is not new. But it increased after the rebel uprising began in 2011.

Government-run media have been reporting recently about how Iran joined Russia to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Assad’s government has been fighting against rebels and the Islamic State terror group.

Iran is not only asking people to buy homes and property in Syria. The country is also asking construction workers and contractors to take jobs there.