Civil War Monuments

AJC 3/29/18, “Debate on Cobb Park with Rebel earthworks reopens old wounds” reports another Mableton Discovery Park, but it is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places as the “Johnson Line” and is identified as a battlefield, so the local hysterical society is debating with the Cobb snowflakes over changing the name.  They say it’s a tourist draw and don’t want to risk a name change. 

This is in the same category with the statue removers, who would also tear down the Washington Monument and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.

The only group that has a stake in tourism are the merchants, who operate hotels, souvenir shops and restaurants and maybe they use the hysterical society as a front, but none of that is mentioned.

When we moved to Atlanta in 1983, I thought we would spend more time as a family visiting Civil War sites than we actually did. We did see a few and that was enough.

I have no dog in this fight.  I probably would have voted no on building any monuments and don’t believe that tourism is needed to be able to sell my house someday. I think the roads might be less congested without tourists, but I don’t think there are enough of them to make much difference.  But the government guys and the snowflakes apparently care about this stuff and they deserve each other.

I would have diverted tax funds from unnecessary projects like monuments to water, sewer and road projects. These are clearly tax funded responsibilities I would call “necessary”. Most other things politicians spend tax money on are “nice, but not necessary”.

So, if you snowflakes and government guys can agree on changing the names of things to be more politically correct, then have at it.  If you would rather not take a chance on reducing the blessed tourism then leave it alone.

These are the same snowflakes who wanted to remove Andrew Jackson from the $20 bill and replace him with Harriet Tubman.  But Andrew Jackson saved the US by winning the War of 1812 and Harriet Tubman didn’t.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

MARTA T-SPLOST Revisited

The AJC, 3/31/18, “Bill could pave the way for MARTA” article credits the Georgia Legislature for revisiting the MARTA T-SPLOST that failed by 66% in 2012 and had a one cent sales tax increase to raise $4.5 billion for road projects that didn’t fix our congestion and $3.5 billion for public transit expansion subsidies.

This has the Atlanta Regional Commission’s finger prints all over it. North Point CID chief State Senator Brandon Beach sponsored the Bill to get $2.5 billion to expand the MARTA train from Sandy Springs to North Point.

The MARTA train connects the failing malls. Low ridership and low ticket prices combined with high expansion and operating costs are built in to prevent government public transit from becoming a self-supporting, profitable enterprise. It isn’t smart to expand a losing proposition and increase our losses. All public transit should be privatized to eliminate all tax subsidies and focus schedules on commuter hours.

The Bill adds a “special taxing district” for public transit to the unlimited powers of counties to fleece its voters. ARC expects counties to put the additional one cent sales tax increase on the ballot in 2019.

To help make the issue seem less onerous, the 4 government subsidized public transit agencies have been merged into something called “The ATL”. Also, rather than basing the vote on a “regional” majority, each county will determine whether or not to add this additional tax. Those counties who vote no should petition their county council to privatize public transit in their county.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

2nd Amendment

The Founders put “the right to bear arms” in the Bill of Rights because they believed in persons’ rights to defend themselves. In the 1700s this required guns and it still does. Those in the US who need them most are in our poorest neighborhoods. Today, guns are a deterrent to crime. Criminals don’t know what their potential victims may have at their disposal to defend themselves.

There are currently laws on the books that deter citizens from shooting trespassing criminals, who can sue their would-be victims and those nullifying laws need to be reviewed. They are interfering with our right to protect ourselves and our property. So far, I believe it’s ok to shoot criminals in your house, but not in your yard as they attempt to escape, but are still on your property. This gives criminals more incentive to break into your house, so they can sue you. We should not allow lawyers to serve in our legislatures.

There are current laws on the books that exempt law enforcement from law suits. They are entitled to shoot criminals who do not “stop”, before they shoot. No-Knock Warrants allow them to break down your door and shoot you before they realize that they have the wrong house. You will also note that the only thing you can sue a government agency for is race discrimination.

The Founders also intended citizens to have guns to protect themselves from their own government, when that government becomes too abusive. There is also the deterrent from invasion when most citizens have guns. That is the case for not banning assault rifles.

Very few families include “hunters”. This could be considered a “subculture”. The hunter problem is completely different from the 80 year old Black grandmother who lives alone in a bad neighborhood.  But neither should have their guns taken away. 

The bottom line on the gun problem is to make sure nut-balls don’t have access to guns. Here we count on parents, family, neighbors and friends of nut-balls to enforce a family-based gun restriction policy for nut-balls.  You also don’t want them to have access to explosives or even automobiles. We have laws on the books that protect privacy. But that assumes you don’t break any laws and aren’t a nut-bag.

Schools need to be hardened effectively to be able to control entry. I think we know how to do this and it’s up to the schools to make this investment.  If they don’t, I would expect students to transfer to online school and learn from home. Hopefully, they would also escape the political indoctrination camp schools have become. The best education is self-education augmented by tutors. Students can learn everything they need to learn and more by looking up topics on the internet.

There is folly in the notion that schools need trained, uniformed police officers posted at all schools in the event that something happens.  It makes more sense to arm teachers who volunteer to carry guns as a deterrent to school shooters. Spending money to hardening a reception area to control entry and electronic locks would be more cost effective than paying police officers to just “be there”. They are trained to catch criminals after they have already committed the crime. Here we are attempting to prevent the crime.

If we can’t reduce government spending enough to escape a national bankruptcy like Venezuela, we need to keep our assault rifles.

“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, which have connected them with another…” – Declaration of Independence 1776.. http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Refugee Fraud

Burmese refugees jittery about USCIS fraud investigation
US Investigation Rattles Resettled Burmese Refugees, Posted by Ann Corcoran 3/28/18

When letters from the U.S. government last month summoned more than 1,000 Burmese refugees in the United States for official interviews, chatter spread across the immigrant community: Were the letters real? Did the refugees have to attend? What was the government trying to glean from meeting with refugees who were already in the country, in some cases for years?
 
So, aren’t those all legitimate reasons to see if fraud is occurring, and isn’t it about time we uncover the truth! 

It appears that the USCIS is doing something rarely done and that is attempting to find holes in the system that have allowed the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program to chug along for decades with rarely an examination of the fraud that we hear is rampant at processing centers throughout the world.

The suspicion of fraud in the huge Burmese flow to America, processed mostly through the Muslim country of Malaysia, does not surprise me (I’ve talked to sources who know about fraud first hand!).

Since FY07 we admitted 166,539 refugees from Burma. The vast majority are Christians and many obediently go to work in meatpacking towns across the country.

Although it should be noted that we have started to bring in more Muslim Rohingya. In Obama’s last two years in office we admitted 3,809, and 3,127 Muslims (some processed through Malaysia) to bring the total to 19,607 since FY07.

Texas, by far, is the number one placement destination.

Here is reporter Victoria Macchi penning a story obviously tilted toward ‘ain’t Trump’s people awful’! 

Voice of America! Shouldn’t we expect more from a media outlet that works FOR the US government!

WASHINGTON — The letters — sent by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the federal agency that conducts interviews with refugees overseas and vets immigration applications — were real.

Some of the refugees opted to go to the interviews, depending on where they were in the residency or citizenship process. Failing to comply could jeopardize pending immigration applications, according to the letters.

The ultimate goal of the investigation into possible identity fraud, specifically, two refugees entering under the same name, that may go back nearly a decade remains unclear a month later. USCIS will not say whether criminal charges have been or will be filed, and refugee advocates have not reported any such actions.

Jill Niswander, director of communications and fund development at EMBARC Iowa, a refugee support organization in Des Moines, Iowa, said the USCIS interview requests rattled the Burmese community.

This next bit is when Ms Macchi really shows her bias, and, in so doing, causes me to dismiss VOA as a balanced news source. But, I guess what more can you expect from ‘journalists’ educated at Columbia Univ.  They just can’t help themselves!

The investigation into potential identity fraud cases isn’t the first time the U.S. has investigated its refugee vetting process. It’s rare, and narrow in scope when it does happen.

Yet, an internet search of fraud and refugee-vetting turned up a mix of stories, many of which tout the risk of refugees to the country. The subject is a favorite among ultra-conservative, pseudo news sites and xenophobic blogs.

In one, the U.S. temporarily suspended refugee arrivals from East Africa in 2008 after some refugees failed DNA testing to confirm blood relations they claimed in their paperwork.

Somali fraud!

She downplays the incredible degree of fraud uncovered by the State Department in 2008 (in one of the only fraud investigations I know of!) which was first revealed by Miriam Jordan at The Wall Street Journal (not this “xenophobic blog”).  The State Department estimated that at least 20,000 Somalis entered the US fraudulently through family reunification and the whole P-3 program for Somalis and other Africans was closed for more than four years! Ms.

Macchi says “temporarily suspended!”  See here.

The fact that there was very little coverage of the Somali cheaters (except at “ultra-conservative, pseudo news sites and xenophobic blogs”) is because the mainstream media and probably VOA never mentioned it because it didn’t fit their narrative!

Not one of the Somali liars was removed from the country that I know of!

Ms. Macchi goes on…..Though the problem originated on the ground in Malaysia, when refugees were registered with the U.N. system, it remains unclear how the errors occurred — whether there was a system for buying refugee identity cards, or errors in data entry in the rush to register refugees, or if refugees assumed the identities of other refugees in an attempt to get out of a country that was threatening them.

My guess is that the fraud is occurring either with the UNHCR or through the International Rescue Committee (one of the nine federal resettlement contractors) that works for the US State Department in Malaysia, see here.

Someone doing the paperwork is being bought off I suspect. Whatever it is, American citizens (paying for it all!) have a right to know!

There is more, but the darn article was jumping around my screen so much I couldn’t stand it another minute.

https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2018/03/28/burmese-refugees-jittery-about-uscis-fraud-investigation/

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Jet-Set Sleeze

CLINTONS RECEIVED CASH FROM 'CULT' LEADERS WHO BRAINWASHED SEX SLAVES, Court documents: Women 'required to be naked,' 'threatened with being put in cages', 3/27/18,

It’s a bizarre and twisted tale of brainwashed sex “slaves” who were branded with a leader’s initials on their private parts – and top executives of the secretive group in upstate New York reportedly pumped thousands of dollars into Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Keith Raniere, co-founder of NXIVM, was arrested Monday in Mexico and extradited to the U.S., where he is being charged with sex trafficking. He appeared in court Tuesday in Texas and signed a waiver for US Marshals to bring him back to New York.

On Tuesday, the FBI raided the Albany home of Nancy Salzman, 63, a registered nurse and hypnotist who is president of NXIVM. The organization describes itself as a “community guided by humanitarian principles that seek to empower people and answer important questions about what it means to be human.” In a series of articles published by James Odato in the Albany Times Union, NXIVM’s practices were questioned and the group was compared to a cult.

A criminal complaint charging Raniere, 57, with sex trafficking alleges that he made female followers have sex with him and do menial chores for masters. The women were reportedly forced to stay quiet about the arrangement or they would be publicly humiliated.

According to the complaint, victims were branded in their pelvic areas with a symbol featuring Raniere’s initials. The branding was performed with a cauterizing pen. Raniere was reportedly known as “The Vanguard.”

“During the branding ceremonies, slaves were required to be fully naked, and the master would order one slave to film with the other held down the slave being branded,” the legal document states, according to CBS News.

“Investigators said that Raniere preferred exceptionally thin women, so ‘slaves’ had to stick to very low-calorie diets and document every food they ate,” CBS reported. “As punishment for not following orders, women were forced to attend classes where they were ‘forced to wear fake cow udders over their breasts while people called them derogatory names,’ or threatened with being put in cages, court papers say.”

Raniere reportedly fled the U.S. last year after the government started interviewing witnesses. Court documents say he dumped his cell phone and began using encrypted email.

Authorities found him living with several women in a posh gated community in Puerta Vallarta.

“After authorities took him into custody on a U.S. warrant, investigators said that the women got into a high-speed car chase,” CBS reported.

The NXIVM website describes Raniere as a “scientist, mathematician, philosopher, entrepreneur, educator, inventor and author” who has “devoted his life to studying the human psychodynamic and developing new tools for human empowerment, expression and ethics.”

Senior FBI official William Sweeney told BBC News: “Keith Raniere displayed a disgusting abuse of power in his efforts to denigrate and manipulate women he considered his sex slaves. He allegedly participated in horrifying acts of branding and burning them, with the co-operation of other women operating within this unorthodox pyramid scheme.

These serious crimes against humanity are not only shocking, but disconcerting to say the least, and we are putting an end to this torture today.”

In 2017, Raniere denied the claims against him in a letter on his website, stating, “These allegations are most disturbing to me as non-violence is one of my most important values.”

In October 2007, then-New York Post writer Charles Hurt reported that leaders of the Albany group gave thousands to Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. And Salzman, the woman whose home was reportedly raided by the FBI, is reportedly a member of the Clinton Global Initiative.

Hurt reported: Executives and top associates of the Albany-based NXIVM group – along with their family members – donated $29,900 to Clinton’s presidential campaign, according to federal records.

On March 14 and April 13, records show, more than a dozen contributions poured into Clinton’s coffers from NXIVM, an executive and group-awareness training organization led by Brooklyn-born Keith Raniere, 47.

Most were from first-time political donors, each giving the $2,300 maximum. …At least three of them – group President Nancy Salzman and the Bronfman sisters – are members of Bill’s charitable organization, the Clinton Global Initiative. Membership is by invitation only and requires at least a $15,000 donation per person for one year.

An Albany woman with the name of Nancy Salzman has also contributed nearly $1,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and $400 to the pro-abortion group Emily’s List.

http://www.wnd.com/2018/03/clintons-received-cash-from-cult-leaders-who-brainwashed-sex-slaves/

FBI shields Orlando Shooter

Court Reveals Orlando Shooter’s Father Worked for FBI, Allowing His Son to Carry out Massacre, by Matt Agorist, 3/27/18

In a bombshell revelation, court documents revealed that the father of the Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, worked for the FBI and got his son out of an indictment that would've prevented the shooting.

Orlando, FL — Headlines across the internet today are focusing on the March for Our Lives movement that took place over the weekend in which hundreds of thousands of kids and adults begged the government to disarm them to ostensibly prevent mass shootings. As the government moves in to boost the police state, a quiet headline out of Florida revealed that the father of the Pulse gunman was actually part of that police state and may have known of his son’s plans to attack the nightclub.

Attorneys for Noor Salman are calling for a mistrial after they say new details from prosecutors reveal that Pulse gunman Omar Mateen’s father was an FBI source and is currently under a criminal investigation, according to a scathing report from ClickOrlando.com.

Seddique Mateen, Omar Mateen’s father, was an FBI informant for 11 years, according to a motion filed by the defense.

From 2005 until June of 2016—when his son murdered 53 people in an Orlando nightclub—Seddique had an intimate relationship with the FBI. His position within the FBI appears to be the apparent impetus behind the controversial cover-ups and even the reason for Omar Mateen to have legally purchased the firearm he used in the massacre—in spite of setting off multiple red flags.

The defense claims that to protect their asset, Seddique Mateen, they are attempting to pin charges on Omar’s wife. According to the motion, the defense states that the decision not to give Noor Salman a polygraph was possibly “based on the FBI’s desire to implicate Noor Salman, rather than Seddique Mateen in order to avoid scrutiny of its own ineptitude with the latter.”

What’s more, according to the defense, Seddique’s role within the FBI also stopped an indictment against Omar in 2013—which could have put him in jail and prevented the massacre—because he was threatening his coworkers.

“Mateen’s father played a significant role in the FBI’s decision not to seek an indictment from the Justice Department for false statements to the FBI or obstruction of justice against Omar Mateen during its 2013 investigation into his alleged threats,” the motion stated.

According to the defense, Seddique is currently under investigation for money transfers to Turkey and Pakistan after documents were found at his home on the day of the Pulse attack.

The government email to Salman’s attorneys also states that in 2012, “An anonymous tip indicated that Seddique Mateen was seeking to raise $50,000-$100,000 via a donation drive to contribute toward an attack against the government of Pakistan.”

In spite of being under investigation for plotting international acts of terror, Seddique was campaigning for then-Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.

The FBI asset who was under investigation for plotting acts of war, who kept his son out of jail for threatening to kill people—which allowed a mass shooting to happen—appeared in photos with Clinton, positioned directly behind her during her speech. You cannot make this up.

“What went into your decision about going to this event right near Orlando, where this Pulse nightclub shooting happened?” Mateen was asked at the event. He then replied with a bizare answer that had nothing to do with the question.

“I wish my son joined the Army and fought ISIS and destroyed ISIS,” he said. “That would be much better.”

But that is not all. Seddique Mateen was also a regular visitor to the White House and there are photos from his own Facebook page to prove it.

Only 2 months before his son—who he knew threatened to kill people—would carry out the deadly attack in Orlando, Seddique Mateen was shaking hands with political leaders in Washington DC.

It gets worse. As TFTP reported at the time, the FBI was also tipped off by a gun store owner about Omar’s attempt to purchase body armor and a large amount of ammunition. Nothing happened.

Since the beginning, the FBI has been covering up what really happened in Orlando and it appears that we now know why. They are protecting their asset.

As TFTP reported, this protection started at the beginning. A letter from the FBI dated June 20, 2016, attached to a lawsuit brought by the City of Orlando seeking the release of 911 calls in full, as well as other records pertaining to the shooting, had also been forwarded to the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office — but included instructions for law enforcement to deny all requests for information.

The letter directed law enforcement agencies to deny information to anyone asking and “immediately notify the FBI of any requests your agency received” so “the FBI can seek to prevent disclosure through appropriate channels, as necessary.” Shady indeed.

It now seems that Noor Salman is going to take the fall for her abusive husband’s bloody rampage—despite being unethically coerced and likely innocent—and all of it is due to the FBI’s attempt to cover for the real accomplice, their own asset.

Article posted with permission from The Free Thought Project

https://freedomoutpost.com/court-reveals-orlando-shooters-father-worked-fbi-allowing-son-carry-massacre/

Pension Bailout Scam

Congress Wants to Bail out Pension Funds at Taxpayer Expense ~ Liberty Planet

As the mainstream media’s financial pundits focus on President Trump’s new tariffs, China’s response to the new tariffs, politics surrounding the upcoming spending bill and Facebook’s loss of value, one very important bit of financial news has been almost totally ignored.

Amidst all the chaos that surrounds Washington politics, Congress is quietly working on finding a way to bail out pension funds. Like all other bailouts, the hundreds of millions of dollars that would be needed to pay for such a scheme would come from tax-payers.

The massive spending $1.3 trillion bill that President Trump just signed contains a lot of hidden surprises that a lot of people are bound to strongly dislike, including conservatives.

One of the items not getting very much attention is a provision snuck in by Congress to create a committee that would use federal funds to bail out up to two hundred multi-employer pension plans.

Congress also considered a proposal pushed by private sector unions and employers to use taxpayer money to make loans to private, union-run pension plans. These loans would essentially be bailouts under a different name.

The fact that the government is even considering such plans is extremely alarming. There are over 1,400 multi-employer pension plans in the United States, and they are facing a collective shortfall of over $550 billion. A quarter of all these plans are expected to be broke within the next decade.

Given these stats, Congress’ plan to bail out 200 plans seems laughable, especially when considering the fact that the plans that would be bailed out are not even the ones that are expected to go broke the fastest.

At the same time, Congress’ willingness to throw taxpayer money at pension plans sets a dangerous precedent. If Congress did in fact decide to bail out some pension plans, what criteria would be used to decide which plans get bailed out and which do not? Would Congress only bail out pension plans considered to be “too large to fail”, leaving individuals who are part of smaller pension plans to fend for themselves?

Another factor that is well worth considering is the fact that many state pension plans are facing the same funding problems as multi-employer pensions. States are already trying to come up with ways to fund these plans so that current retirees and those who are set to retire in the future can have the pensions promised to them. If the federal government gives itself the authority to bail out pension plans at its discretion, state governments will certainly take note.

Yet another problem with the government’s plan to bail out pension funds is that this action would most likely encourage pension funds to make unrealistic promises to future workers, underfund pensions and then come calling on the Federal government to pick up the slack.

While instability in the financial markets coupled with long-term, historically low interest rates have made it very difficult for many pension funds to turn needed profits, some politicians and pension fund trustees are making investment decisions based on political correctness rather than maximizing investment return. Many pension funds have been banned from investing in tobacco stocks, even though these pay high dividends and consistently perform well. Pension funds across the country are facing calls to divest from gun stocks and a number of liberal politicians are looking for ways to mandate divestment from fossil fuels.

Taxpayers across the nation should not have to fork over their hard-earned cash simply because pension plans mismanaged their finances.

There is no easy solution to the pension crisis facing the nation. People on the verge of retirement, many of whom have contributed portions of their salary to the company pension plan, expect to receive the pay and benefits they were promised. Unfortunately, the money promised is simply not there and cannot be created out of thin air.

Having taxpayers foot the bill for a pension bailout is a recipe for disaster as it encourages future pension fund mismanagement. Instead of throwing billions of dollars at the problem at hoping it goes away, it would behoove the federal government to regulate pension funds to ensure they are properly managed in the future. At the same time, individuals who are counting on pensions for retirement should seriously consider making a “Plan B” and set money aside in order to enjoy their golden years

http://www.libertyplanet.com/articles/congress-wants-to-bail-out-pension-funds-at-taxpayer-expense/