• Yesterday,  a good friend and contributor to my blog, Lee, sent me the following with comments:

  

  I thought I would pass this along to you, as I think it can gain momentum and send a message… I hope all is well with you and yours

  Oh, and I have been trying to continue my post on this subject from your post, but I think LinkedIn is preventing me… If you were interested, my point of view is the following : I can certainly appreciate your opinions and views… You have made some valid points… But let me, if I may try to express what I feel the true problem is in Black America.

  I feel that black America points the finger at white america when something sensational occurs within the black community. It seems to me that black America has an epidemic that needs serious attention. White america also has an epidemic within its culture.

  Let me start with the issues I see that Kaepn Krunch is protesting. “The oppression of the black man in the USA”, and for, “police disproportionately targeting and killing African-Americans.”

  Let’s examine those key words and apply some statistics to the problem, 25% of black households live below the poverty line as opposed to 8% for white households. Blacks are twice as likely to be unemployed opposed to whites. The unemployment rate for blacks has been twice as high as whites over the last 50 years.

  Gun violence in America is rising. Blacks are suffering the most because they are six times more likely to commit a homicide opposed to whites and seven times more likely to be a victim of homicide than whites. So what is the problem here?

  From my point of view, the problem stems from a President who says he is in it for Black America, yet does nothing to help Black America! Oppression? Who is oppressing who? We have a president in office who “has had time to advocate for gays – getting them gay marriage, repealing the US military’s gag order on opening gay and lesbian soldiers serving in the military.

  Through executive order, Obama prevented millions of illegal aliens age 31 and under from being deported from America…” But blacks, who voted at a rate of 95 per cent for Obama in 2008 and 93 per cent in 2012, have gotten nothing in return for their efforts. Why do you suppose that Black America voted so high for our President? Why do you suppose that 71% of Latinos (including nearly half of Cuban Americans), 75% of Asian Americans and 93% of African-Americans voted for Obama?

  My theory is that Black America truly believed that he would change our nation’s policies and lend a hand up not a hand out to the people who were living below the poverty line. Instead, what we got is more free hand outs for the poor, more welfare, more promises of easy living… why work when the system will take care of you and yours?

  The government and its current DOMESTIC POLICIES in my opinion, not the citizens of our country have oppressed the blacks. The SYSTEM AS A WHOLE, not the citizens, have oppressed the blacks… Many people of all races will continue to turn out in fantastic numbers to vote for a President who will continue these GOVERNMENT HANDOUTS.

  How about a system that continues to let down the Black youth over and over again? You want to protest something? Protest the current POTUS AND HIS POLICIES. Protest the man at the helm who was to be the Black Messiah. Don’t use our American Flag or our National Anthem to demonstrate your frustrations, our flag and our national anthem is so much better than that.

  Too many people have fought and died for that flag, do not desecrate it in an attempt to make a statement – YOU are better than that! We are better than that! I honestly do not see a difference between ignoring the Anthem as a citizen of the USA, or burning our flag as an enemy combatant… in MY opinion, they are 1 in the same.

  I would like to share with you, an excerpt from the writing of Ruth Apperson Rous titled, “I AM THE FLAG”:

  “Today fifty stars signal from my union, one for each of the fifty sovereign states in the greatest constitutional republic the world has ever known. My colors symbolize the patriotic ideals and spiritual qualities of the citizens of my country. My red stripes proclaim the fearless courage and integrity of American men and boys and the self-sacrifice and devotion of American mothers and daughters. My white stripes stand for liberty and equality for all. My blue is the blue of heaven, loyalty, and faith. I represent these eternal principles: liberty, justice, and humanity. I embody American freedom: freedom of speech, religion, assembly, the press, and the sanctity of the home.”

Originally posted 2016-09-15 11:37:05.

See my highlighted red. Send in the Marshal’s. I mean send Federal Marshals to the head of Homeland Security , and simply say give us the report or come with us to jail. Ge’ez I believe they have the power, but are a bunch of wimps and afraid to use their authority. How dare they ignore an order from congress. What has happened to my once great nation?

DHS accused of sitting on damning border report as immigration issue drives presidential race

By Malia Zimmerman, William Lajeunesse

Published September 15, 2016

FoxNews.com

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Federal lawmakers seeking to pinpoint the number of illegal immigrants who successfully sneak across the southern border ordered up a report from the Department of Homeland Security, but the agency refuses to release it and instead cites a misleading statistic that overstates the number who are nabbed, sources told Fox News.

DHS denied it is holding back the report, but sources say it was completed in November and that it shows roughly half of adults who attempt to cross the border make it.

But that number is at odds with DHS’ official estimates. The agency claims authorities catch 80 percent of adults trying to sneak in, but critics say the figure is padded to make it appear border security is more effective than it really is.

If released by the Obama administration, the true numbers could have major implications in the current presidential race, in which illegal immigration and border security have become a key issue, say observers.

One source familiar with the report told Fox News that DHS is suppressing the report for “political reasons . . . because it would ‘look bad’ and ‘help elect Donald Trump.”

Republican lawmakers are furious that the report they ordered is not being released.  Oh my, they are furious, really?

“It erodes the trust as to whether the administration is being honest with the American people about what the threat is,” said Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., who serves on the Committee on Homeland Security and chairs the Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee. “This should not be a partisan issue. Democrats, Independents and Republicans in my community want to make sure that border communities are safe.”

The report was requested by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees as part of the Fiscal 2016 Omnibus Bill, but has been shrouded in secrecy. Viewed by a select few in key administration figures, critics say it is being withheld because of its explosive findings, which could potentially benefit GOP nominee Donald Trump. FoxNews.com requested a copy from both DHS and the White House, but was told the report is not yet finished, an assertion disputed by sources familiar with the process.

“Any suggestion that DHS is delaying release of a report on new border enforcement measures for political reasons is false,” a DHS spokesperson told Fox News. “To the contrary, at Secretary Johnson’s direction, DHS has been making significant progress in the development of such measures. At this point, however, the work is still preliminary and requires further refinement, to ensure the new measures are accurate and reliable.

“The November 2015 report purportedly obtained by Fox News is one building block provided by a research organization DHS has been working with to develop these measures,” the spokesperson added.

The study was written by analysts from DHS and the outside firm Institute for Defense Analyses, and is the most extensive survey of illegal activity and U.S. enforcement at the southwest border to date. Researchers went to the southwest border three times over 9 months and conducted independent surveys of Mexican migrants caught by the Border Patrol. They also reviewed Border Patrol intelligence, internal DHS records, apprehensions at ports of entry and detention records. The report was peer reviewed by a number of experts.

The document examines, in part, the Interdiction Effectiveness Rate (IER), or the number of adults caught at the border by law enforcement. But when DHS briefed members of the House and Senate earlier this year, sources familiar with the report say it was blended with non-IER statistics, such as unaccompanied children and those who surrendered to Border Patrol. Those figures were used to buttress the claim that only 20 percent of would-be illegal immigrants are successful when the real IER estimation was half, sources said.

“There is a distrust, because of the shifting measurements,” McSally said. “We would like to follow up with those researchers and better understand what is going on related to suppressing those results, if that’s an accurate report.”

It is concerning, but not surprising, that the Obama administration has kept secret this credible research, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy research for the Center for Immigration Studies.

“It appears to me that this research could have been suppressed because it contradicts the Obama administration’s narrative that the border is secure, and it contradicts the administration’s wish for people to believe that illegal immigration is a thing of the past,” Vaughan said.

The taxpayer-funded research should be released to the public and available for review by experts, said Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a co-author of the CFR report, “Managing Illegal Immigration to the United States: How Effective is Enforcement.”

“How can we expect Congress to make decisions on border enforcement if it doesn’t know how many people are entering illegally, if it doesn’t know the apprehension rate, if it doesn’t know the detection rate…. what percentage of people the border patrol is seeing,” Alden said. “All of these are critical variables about making intelligence decisions about border enforcement and they simply at the moment are not in the hands of the Congress and the public.”

The irony is the data, by and large, reveals what appears to be a “good news” story, Alden said.

“We have seen a significant decline in illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States and it’s clear that the Border enforcement build-up has been a big reason why that decline has been as sharp as it has been,” Alden said. “Our estimates suggest that the number of successful illegal entries has fallen from extremely high numbers — more than 3 million annually up to the mid-2000s — to much, much smaller numbers, about 250,000 last year. Keep in mind that these numbers do not represent individuals who came to stay in the United States – these are the total number of illegal border crossings.”

The numbers have fallen dramatically in recent years partly due to economic and demographic changes, such as a smaller population of young Mexicans looking for work, Alden said. But enforcement also has played a significant role because the odds of getting caught while crossing have gone up and, more importantly, the consequences for getting caught are much greater, he acknowledged.

The Institute for Defense Analyses report is not classified or marked in any way and can be publicly disseminated without restriction, sources said. But the chances of it getting out look dim, as a decades-old report also commissioned by DHS — the 2006 “CBP Apprehensions at the Border” study prepared by the Homeland Security Institute — also has never been released.

Originally posted 2016-09-15 11:18:37.

For a Veteran, the DD-214 is the most important document he should have in his possession. Oftentimes, over the years it gets lost, or upon discharge the Vet doesn’t realize the importance of it and loses it. Now there is one place the Vet can go to obtain a certified copy. You can get nothing accomplished at the VA without your DD-214. Please pass this on to every Vet in your address book.

DD-214 Request Online
The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) has provided the following website for veterans to request a copy of their DD-214’s online:

http://vetrecs.archives.gov/ or try
http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/

This may be particularly helpful when a veteran needs a copy of his DD-214 for employment purposes. NPRC is working to make it easier for veterans with computers and Internet access to obtain copies of documents from their military files.

Military veterans and the next of kin of deceased former military members may use the online military personnel records system to request documents. Other individuals with a need for documents must still complete the Standard Form 180, which can be downloaded from the online web site.

For next of kin needing an expedited search because of a death of a veteran you can call 314-801-0800.

Because the requester will be asked to supply all information essential for NPRC to process the request, delays that normally occur when NPRC has to ask veterans for additional information will be minimized. The web-based application was designed to provide better service on these requests by eliminating the records centers mailroom and processing time.

Please pass this information on to former military personnel you may know and their dependents.

For more on veteran benefits, visit http://www.military.com/benefits

Originally posted 2016-09-12 09:54:17.

Originally posted 2016-09-11 12:54:43.

If this person fit to be the leader of the free world, and more importantly the leader of our country? This is an astounding report by someone that appears to know what he’s talking about and supports his premise with medical facts. Believe me, it may be a tad long, but if you care about our country and it’s future you need to watch it to the end.

Originally posted 2016-09-07 15:07:58.