OVERSIGHT ARCHIVE, OCT-DEC 2014

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OVERSIGHT ARCHIVE, OCT-DEC 2014

NEWS YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE GLEANED FROM THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA

Compiled by Ed. Wolff

As more recent OVERSIGHT posts preempt older posts, those older posts are moved here to serve as a searchable resource.

The Palm Beach County Tea Party (PBCTP) Oversight Function helps members understand current events. Below is a copy of what was sent out in the weekly email. The text beneath each link is a synopsis of the material. A visit to the link provides more detail.

Items in this report generally satisfy the following four criteria:
Underreported: Not likely to be seen or heard elsewhere by the reader
Timely: Occurred since the previous report was issued.
Germaine: Deals with Tea Party precepts and/or Constitutional issues.
Non-Fiction: Not just on someone’s wish list.

This report does not represent any official positions of the PBCTP.

OVERSIGHT CONTRIBUTORS

The people involved in the oversight activities and the initials used to identify their contributions are:
Barbara, Mel Grossman – B.M.G.

For the most recent Post Go to OVERSIGHT.

Please send any comments you have to: oversight@palmbeachcountyteaparty.org.

The more recent archived information, reported first, includes:

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Posted 10/5/2014

CONTENTS

1. An independent Florida? No way, people say
2. Report: Immigrant Population in U.S. Reaches Record 41.3M; Middle East, Asia, Africa Lead Growth
3. Upcoming Anniversary: October 1st Will Mark 18 Years of No Global Warming
4. Obama Forbids FBI to Use Religion in Identifying Terror Threats.
5. Bureaucrat SMACKED DOWN After Warning Homeschooling Parents They ‘Must Follow’ Common Core
6. What the Motor Voter Act Has to Do with Election Fraud
7. In Vermont even fraudulent votes count
8. A New Border Surge Opens Us to Surge Of Epidemics
9. By Disrespecting Its Base, GOP Risks Electoral Flop
10. The Secret Recordings of Carmen Segarra
11. Government employees and politicians get special status from TSA
12. No-info Californians endorse Karl Marx for president 2016
13. Ohio man who raised $55K to make potato salad throws party to celebrate crowd-sourcing success
14. World leaders call for end of UN veto power. I call for end of UN
15. Everybody’s Heard About the ‘Vanishing Middle Class.’ One Chart Debunks That It’s Gone Anywhere.
16. Why Is The USDA Buying Submachine Guns?
17. Russia threatens to retaliate against U.S. Military
18. What Our Framers Knew: The Constitution, Vattel, and “Natural Born Citizen”
19. Tuberculosis Trouble in Texas: Something Just Doesn’t Add Up
20. Obama Admits Plan in Syria is to Overthrow Assad
21. CDC warns funeral homes in U.S. To prepare for ebola victims
22. U.S. about to pass Saudi Arabia as largest liquid petroleum producer
23. Microsoft Launches Predictive Polling Platform
24. Obama’s ‘Refugee’ Designation Nothing But Politics
25. Taming The Executive Branch: A New Case For Term Limits

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1.
An independent Florida? No way, people say
. After Florida Today newspaper opinion writer Matt Reed playfully posited the possibility that Florida should be an independent nation, we took to the streets to ask Floridians what they thought of the idea. “No way, good Lord!” said Silvia Núñez, a Cuban immigrant who has lived in the United States for more than 50 years. “You’ve got to be joking.” That pretty much sums up the opinion of several people we approached, though Gabriel Prado did admit Florida has its own brand of weirdness. “Although it seems like we are in our own world down here in South Florida, I don’t think it would be a good idea.” “What are we going to do? Make Nicaraguans, Hondurans and Cubans bosses here while leaving the Americans up there?” Manuel Martinez asked. “We are the foreigners here.”

2.
Report: Immigrant Population in U.S. Reaches Record 41.3M; Middle East, Asia, Africa Lead Growth
. A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released on Thursday shows that the number of immigrants living in the United States – legal and illegal — reached a record 41.3 million as of July 2013, and the fasting growing immigrant population are from the Middle East, Asia and Africa. According to the report, the regions with the largest increases of immigrants to the U.S. from 2010 to 2013 were South Asia (up 373,000, 16 percent growth); East Asia (up 365,000, 5 percent growth); the Caribbean (up 223,000, 6 percent growth), the Middle East (up 208,000, 13 percent growth); and sub-Saharan Africa (up 177,000, 13 percent growth).

3.
Upcoming Anniversary: October 1st Will Mark 18 Years of No Global Warming
. According to the datasets used last year, October 1st will mark the 18th year of “no significant warming trend in surface average temperature,” says Patrick Michaels, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for the Study of Science. And even if the current 18-year trend were to end, it would still take nearly 25 years for average global temperature figures to reflect the change, said Michaels, who has a Ph.D. in ecological climatology and spent three decades as a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia.

4.
Obama Forbids FBI to Use Religion in Identifying Terror Threats, as the Islamic State Recruits Openly in U.S. Mosques
. Even now, when heads are rolling — literally — and countries are falling to the caliphate, Obama still refuses to identify motive and ideology of jihad terrorists, even as American Muslims return to the homeland battle-hardened and primed for battle. The threat is bigger. The denial is bigger. Here is AFDI’s platform in defense of freedom. “Obama Forbids FBI to Use Religion in Identifying Terror Threats, as ISIS Recruits Openly in U.S. Mosques,” by Karin McQuillan, The American Thinker, September 24, 2014AT had a chance to catch up with Steven Emerson, head of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, and hear his assessment of the ISIS threat here on American soil. Emerson runs the country’s top data center on Islamic terror groups in the United States, working like a man possessed, and accomplishing the work of thousands on sheer guts and determination to protect our country.

5.
Bureaucrat SMACKED DOWN After Warning Homeschooling Parents They ‘Must Follow’ Common Core
. The Home School Legal Defense Association says it has successfully intervened in the case of two New Jersey parents who decided to homeschool their child instead of utilizing the Westfield, N.J. public school system. According to the homeschooling advocacy group, the trouble began earlier this school year when the assistant superintendent of the Westfield Public Schools sent a letter to the parents warning them that they have no choice but to abide by New Jersey’s Common Core standards. The letter ordered the parents to present a “letter of intent” to school district officials and an outline of their proposed curriculum. Then, the letter reportedly said, the parents had to hope the superintendent would accept their curriculum and allow them to continue homeschooling their own child. The parents responded by contacting the Home School Legal Defense Association. In a letter of his own, Scott A. Woodruff, an attorney for the organization, schooled the assistant superintendent on New Jersey homeschooling law.

6.
What the Motor Voter Act Has to Do with Election Fraud
. Millions of ineligible and invalid registrations pollute American voter rolls, J. Christian Adams writes in a new Heritage Foundation report. This is in part because the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, popularly known as the Motor Voter Act, has been used largely by liberal interests. “For most of the history of the law, enforcement actions have been directed against election officials who sought to clean voter rolls and against states for insufficiently pushing voter registration among entitlement recipients,” Adams writes. The law also empowered liberal activist groups, he continues:

7.
In Vermont even fraudulent votes count
. With early voting under way and election day drawing near, Vermonters can rest assured every vote counts. Fraudulent votes, legitimate votes, every vote. In Vermont, even fraudulent votes count. The situation arises in big elections, such as the 2012 presidential election, where scores of new voters show up at the polls and vote although their names aren’t on the statewide checklist. In a recent interview with Vermont Watchdog, Scott Schrader, assistant chief administrative officer in the Clerk/Treasurer’s Office in Burlington, explained how his office handles the hundreds of uncertified voters who cast ballots in big elections.

8.
A New Border Surge Opens Us to Surge Of Epidemics
. Secretary of State John Kerry warns of a new surge of illegals, just as Central America is being hit by a new wave of epidemics. No doubt about it: President Obama’s open-borders policy is exposing us to disease, too. In a background press briefing at the U.N. last Tuesday, a senior State Department official said Secretary of State John Kerry told his counterparts from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico that the pause in minors coming across our southern border was temporary, and that “we have to use this time to put in place more efforts, greater efforts to get at the root cause of this, because we know that those numbers may rise again.” The next wave may be worse than the first, however, because monsoon conditions, a harsh drought and the globalization of transport are ensuring that the 50,000 or so unscreened new entrants will be bringing a raft of new diseases with them.

9.
By Disrespecting Its Base, GOP Risks Electoral Flop
. Political pollsters have a tough job. They have to create formulas to determine if the person they are interviewing is likely to vote, and it is within this calculation that their reputations are made. Typically, those who are likely to vote in an off-year election are pretty set. They are the people who always vote in elections — with some motivated by specific issues. In a wave election, the number of those motivated by specific issues escalates, changing the electoral landscape as the candidates who are beneficiaries of this increased participation sweep to victory. The 2014 election is rapidly looking like something new and different. Democrats are reportedly demoralized by the failed Obama administration and general fatigue. Republicans, in an orgy of expectations, believe the key to taking the Senate was getting “electable” candidates nominated. And get them nominated they did. The establishment got their candidates. Now they’re looking at a potentially disastrous election where their chosen ones dramatically underperform all reasonable expectations, the result of attacking their own party’s base to cement primary victories. One state party chairman has privately bemoaned that social conservatives in his state openly question why they should bother voting at all. Given the national party’s desire to kick them out of the big tent to make room for a hoped-for influx of pot smoking hipsters, who can blame them?

10.
The Secret Recordings of Carmen Segarra
. Today we have secret recordings taped inside one of the most powerful institutions in this country. It’s a place we pretty much almost never get a glimpse inside. And they’re revealing, and in lots of ways very disturbing.

11.
Government employees and politicians get special status from TSA
. Government employees and politicians get preferential treatment from the Transportation Security Administration simply for being government employees and politicians. Meanwhile, everyone else is stuck in an “aviation security caste system” based on dozens of watchlists compiled by the TSA, FBI and other law enforcement agencies, along with a secret formula the TSA believes can sort passengers based on hypothetical analyses and conjecture.

12.
No-info Californians endorse Karl Marx for president 2016
. He’s in San Diego asking people to sign a petition to get Karl Marx on the ballot for President in 2016 because Obama has endorsed Marx and it’s important to continue Obama’s communist agenda. Lest you think this video is a misrepresentation of the average intelligence of Obama supporters and other no-information Americans, here are some of Dice’s other man-in-the-street interviews and petitions:

13.
Ohio man who raised $55K to make potato salad throws party to celebrate crowd-sourcing success
. An Ohio man who raised $55,000 in a joking crowdfunding appeal to pay for his first attempt at making potato salad threw a huge public party Saturday that promised “peace, love and potato salad.” PotatoStock 2014 was held in downtown Columbus and featured bands, food trucks, beer vendors and, yes, plenty of potato salad. With more than 3,000 pounds of potatoes, the charity-minded party was open to people of all ages. Zack Brown had jokingly sought $10 on Kickstarter in July to buy potato salad ingredients, but his mission drew global attention and earned tens of thousands of dollars. The Idaho Potato Commission and corporate sponsors donated potato salad supplies for the party. Brown is partnering with the Columbus Foundation to support charities that fight hunger and homelessness. The account started with $20,000 in post-campaign corporate donations and will grow after proceeds from PotatoStock are added.

14.
World leaders call for end of UN veto power. I call for end of UN
. World leaders demanded Security Council reform during their addresses to the UN General Assembly, calling for the addition of more permanent and non-permanent seats on the council and the elimination of the veto.“The world is bigger than five,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in his speech during the General Debate, referencing the five countries with veto power – the US, UK, France, China, and Russia.Heads of state from across the globe echoed his call for reform. The status quo has made the governing body inefficient, Peru’s President Ollanta Humala Tasso said. He asked for the addition of more permanent and non-permanent members, which, he said, should result in a more democratic process.Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pleaded his case for Japan’s acceptance as a permanent member of the Security Council.During his speech last year to the General Assembly, French President François Hollande called on the five powers to agree on a set of scenarios in which the veto should not be used, notably when resolutions address mass atrocities.China and Russia have used their veto to protect the genocidal regime of Bashar Asad in Syria and action within the council on the crisis in Ukraine has been crippled in part because Russia has veto power, and it would veto any action condemning or holding it accountable for her involvement in the crisis.Everyone agrees that the UN, as it is structured, is flawed. It is unfair and ineffective. The problem is that the suggested remedies are worse than the disease.

15.
Everybody’s Heard About the ‘Vanishing Middle Class.’ One Chart Debunks That It’s Gone Anywhere.
. It’s a rare week when a media outlet or politician doesn’t bemoan a disappearing middle class, the rise of the haves over the have-nots, or some such thing. Another common claim is that wages have stagnated or that average household income has dropped since the 1970s.

16.
Why Is The USDA Buying Submachine Guns?
. Why Is The USDA Buying Submachine Guns? “Submachine guns, .40 Cal. S&W, ambidextrous safety, semi-automatic or 2 shot bur[s]t trigger group, Tritium night sights for front and rear, rails for attachment of flashlight (front under fore grip) and scope (top rear), stock-collapsib[l]e or folding, magazine – 30 rd. capacity.” In May, the USDA’s Office of Inspector General filed a request for these weapons. But why exactly do they need them? According to a USDA press rep, the guns are necessary for self-protection. “OIG Special Agents regularly conduct undercover operations and surveillance. The types of investigations conducted by OIG Special Agents include criminal activities such as fraud in farm programs; significant thefts of Government property or funds; bribery and extortion; smuggling; and assaults and threats of violence against USDA employees engaged in their official duties,” wrote a USDA spokesperson.

17.
Russia threatens to retaliate against U.S. Military
. Russia has delivered a behind-the-scenes threat to retaliate if airstrikes carried out by the U.S. or its allies target the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Middle Eastern security officials told WND. The security officials said Russia complained Sunday in quiet talks with United Nations representatives that the Obama administration’s current aerial campaign against Islamic State fighters in Syria is a violation of international agreements regarding control of Syrian airspace. The officials said Russia warned it could potentially retaliate if U.S. or Arab airstrikes go beyond targeting Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, and instead bomb any Syrian regime targets. The officials told WND they do not have any information about the seriousness of the Russian threat or whether Moscow meant it would retaliate directly or aid Assad’s air force in a military response. The officials said Russian diplomats asserted terms regarding Syrian airspace were agreed upon last September as part of a sweeping deal to disarm Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons by the middle of 2014.

18.
What Our Framers Knew: The Constitution, Vattel, and “Natural Born Citizen”
. From our beginning, we were subjects of the British Crown. With the War for Independence, we became citizens.1 [READ this footnote!] We needed new concepts to fit our new status as citizens. Vattel provided these new republican concepts of “citizenship”. The gist of what Vattel says in Law of Nations, Book I, Ch. XIX, at §§ 212-217, is this: § 212: Natural-born citizens are those born in the country of parents who are citizens – it is necessary that they be born of a father who is a citizen. If a person is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country. § 213: Inhabitants, as distinguished from citizens, are foreigners who are permitted to stay in the country. They are subject to the laws of the country while they reside in it. But they do not participate in all the rights of citizens – they enjoy only the advantages which the law or custom gives them. Their children follow the condition of their fathers – they too are inhabitants. § 214: A country may grant to a foreigner the quality of citizen – this is naturalization. In some countries, the sovereign cannot grant to a foreigner all the rights of citizens, such as that of holding public office – this is a regulation of the fundamental law. And in England, merely being born in the country naturalizes the children of a foreigner.

19.
Tuberculosis Trouble in Texas: Something Just Doesn’t Add Up
. An employee working at a hospital in Texas may have exposed over 900 people to tuberculosis (TB). The employee worked in the nursery unit at Providence Memorial Hospital in El Paso. Infants born at the hospital between September 2013 and August 2014 could be infected with the bacterium. It is estimated that, as of the time of this writing, 858 babies and 43 employees were exposed.

20.
Obama Admits Plan in Syria is to Overthrow Assad
. On 60 Minutes, President Obama flatly stated the US plan for Syria leaves no room for President Assad, the democratically-elected leader of the country. As Obama backs away from his “no boots on the ground” promise, he drops a bomb on the American people as big as any that have hit Syria.

21.
CDC warns funeral homes in U.S. To prepare for ebola victims
. A three page list of recommendations instructs funeral workers to wear protective gear while handling Ebola victims, as well as warning them not to carry out autopsies or to embalm corpses. “If the outbreak of the potentially deadly virus is in West Africa, why are funeral homes in America being given guidelines?” asks WFSB.com.

22.
U.S. about to pass Saudi Arabia as largest liquid petroleum producer
. US production of oil and related liquids such as ethane and propane was neck-and-neck with Saudi Arabia in June and again in August at about 11.5m barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency, the watchdog backed by rich countries. With US production continuing to boom, its output is set to exceed Saudi Arabia’s this month or next for the first time since 1991.

23.
Microsoft Launches Predictive Polling Platform
. Hoping to revolutionize the way opinion polling is conducted, Microsoft announced the launch of Microsoft Prediction Lab on Tuesday. The interactive platform aims to provide more accurate predictions on everything from political outcomes to sporting events. The effort is being led by David Rothschild, a Microsoft researcher and fellow at Columbia University’s Applied Statistics Center.

24.
Obama’s ‘Refugee’ Designation Nothing But Politics
. President Obama has declared 4,000 illegal immigrant minors “refugees” and given them the right to stay in the U.S. Why just 4,000 and not all of them? Well, it might just be that the lucky 4,000 are tied to people who can vote. As some 66,000 illegal minors, along with 240,000 larger family groups, stream across our border confident the White House won’t send them back, President Obama abruptly announced a de facto amnesty for 4,000 Central American children. He is allowing them to apply for refugee status in their home countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala without the cost of the illegal journey north. This smacks of special-interest politics, a little perk for the Latino immigration lobby, considering that the refugee status will be offered only to those whose parents are already in the country legally. In other words, the benefit will be only for those most likely to vote, not those most likely in need of relief — a fundamental abuse of a system that should be reserved for real refugees.

25.
Taming The Executive Branch: A New Case For Term Limits
. “The legislative department is everywhere…drawing all power into its impetuous vortex” James Madison, Federalist 48 Unfortunately, Congress’ vortex now spins the other way, throwing off powers that the executive scoops up. Hence this autumn’s spectacle: Feverish House and Senate candidates waging ferocious campaigns to win or retain offices that are of rapidly diminishing significance. It is official: America “is at war.” We know this because the president’s press secretary says so. Congress has not said so, but many members say that the Islamic State must be countered and that they may have more to say about this in a few months.