Yes the shit is flowing in every neighborhood; from downtown to Russian Hill, from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Presidio, to Nob Hill and Pacific Heights. Indigents have taken over. These are Nancy Pelosi’s people. Drug addicts, alcoholics and illegals who litter the streets with no shame and they do it with abandon. So if you intend to visit the City by the Sea don’t wear a flower in your hair – wear latex gloves and a surgical mask and be particularly careful where you step. Beware of those wearing shorts; the possibility exists that one of those formerly described vagrants may take you for a hydrant.
A mix of used hypodermic needles, human feces, and other trash litters the streets and sidewalks in a large section of downtown San Francisco, a local news outlet reported Sunday night.
It’s a problem that has grown by epic proportions in recent years and has many concerned for the health and safety of some the city’s youngest residents, KNTV-TV revealed.
An investigative team from the local NBC station found filthy conditions that many experts believe may be worse than the slums in some developing countries.
Where was the survey done?
The investigation encompassed 153 blocks of the city, including popular tourist spots, major hotel chains, schools, city hall, playgrounds, and a police station.
Over the course of three days, they found 100 drug needles, more than 300 piles of feces throughout downtown, along with numerous piles of trash, food, and other junk.
During the survey, a group of preschoolers encountered dangerous contaminants while walking to city hall for a field trip.
“We see poop, we see pee, we see needles, and we see trash,” Adelita Orellana, the students’ preschool teacher, said. “Sometimes they ask what is it, and that’s a conversation that’s a little difficult to have with a 2-year old, but we just let them know that those things are full of germs, that they are dangerous, and they should never be touched.”
Thousands of pounds of human waste, close to 14,000 hypodermic needles cleaned out from Santa Ana River homeless encampments
A syringe found by county workers cleaning up trash around a homeless encampment along the Santa Ana River Trail in Anaheim, on Wednesday, February 14, 2018. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Orange County Public Works released eye-popping figures Thursday, March 8, on the total amount of debris, needles and hazardous waste removed when crews cleaned up the area along the Santa Ana River Trail once populated by the encampments of homeless people.
Here’s what was collected between Jan. 22 and March 3 from a more than two-mile stretch of bike trail roughly from I-5 in Orange to Ball Road in Anaheim, according to OC Public Works spokesman Shannon Widor:
404 tons of debris
13,950 needles (approximate number based on what disposal containers hold)
5,279 pounds of hazardous waste (human waste, propane, pesticides and other materials)
Crews from the Orange County Conservation Corps work to clean trash left behind by homeless people on the Santa Ana River Trail in Anaheim on Monday, Feb 26, 2018. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
More than 700 people were living in the encampments when they were dismantled in late February. Most of those people are being housed temporarily in local motels while county outreach workers assess their need for services and housing.
The bike trail cleanup is the beginning of an environmental remediation effort that was expected to include the removal of 2 to 3 inches of soil in the project area and tree trimming. Planned improvements on the bike trail from Katella to Ball Road/Taft Avenue also could include sealing cracks and applying a slurry seal, Widor said.
The entire island of Puerto Rico is without power, after Hurricane Maria slammed into the U.S. territory. Officials estimate that it could take months for the island to be restored. Check out these incredible images of the storm and its aftermath.
Six months after Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico, many leaders there are pointing the finger at Washington, but the scandal, corruption and waste that now plague the U.S. territory were around long before last summer’s storm.
Decades of dysfunction, mismanagement and embarrassing abuses of power left Puerto Rico reeling well before the storm delivered a knockout blow, say obervers. Enormous debt, absurd infrastructure projects and a tradition of corruption have hampered the commonwealth’s ability to get off the canvas.
“There’ve been so many problems that have built up year after year,” Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., told Fox News. “It’s a tough situation.”
“All these mayors were using borrowed money to build things that were underutilized.”
– Emilio Pantojas-Garcia, University of Puerto Rico
Reckless spending sprees by a revolving door of politicians have turned the commonwealth into a bloated bureaucracy that can’t pay its bills and yet enjoys the benefits of a welfare society without any of the responsibilities attached to it.
Before Maria hit in September, Puerto Rico was already navigating the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. government history at a whopping $120 billion in combined bond and pension debt.
For years, the island blew through billions of dollars in borrowed money.
Pricey and impractical infrastructure projects almost always got the go-ahead.
“Every town in Puerto Rico has a new baseball park,” Emilio Pantojas-Garcia, a sociology professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, told Bloomberg News. “All these mayors were using borrowed money to build things that were underutilized.”
One such project was a 1,000-seat performing-arts center in the small city of Humacao. The building was designed for big-budget Broadway-style performances. Instead, it was rarely used and ended up being the place where the occasional stand-up comic performs.
The territory’s towering debt and mismanagement also led to less money being available for schools and hospitals.
Then Maria hit and things on the island went from bad to catastrophic in the blink of an eye.
Multiple cases of corruption and greed by local leaders, government officials and inexperienced contractors surfaced, shedding light on the toxicity that is still very much a part of everyday life in Puerto Rico.
Those who can leave, often do.
The government of Puerto Rico now estimates that by the end of the year, another 200,000 residents will have moved to the mainland.
But for residents stuck in Puerto Rico, the future looks grim.
“We’re used to it by now but that doesn’t make it right or fair,” Sunita Howell, a waitress in Old San Juan, told Fox News. Howell’s family, who lives in the Hato Rey neighborhood of the city, struggles daily.
Howell says after Maria hit, her family was approached by someone offering to restore power to their home for $3,000.
“I don’t have that kind of money,” she said. “Who has that here? You are supposed to be helping us not taking our money.”
The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority – PREPA- has already suspended three employees without pay and says it is looking into another 25 reported cases of possible bribery in the days and weeks after Maria.
PREPA confirmed to PBS that all of the cases involve field employees responsible for restoring power.
El Vocero, a San Juan-based newspaper, said that some employees demanded up to $5,000 to reconnect power.
PREPA’s director was forced out in November after the utility, the commonwealth’s sole electricity provider, failed to call for help from its mainland counterparts after the storm.
Instead, PREPA granted a power-restoration contract to Whitefish Energy Holdings. It was a disaster of a deal and PREPA was forced to rescind the contract after public pressure.
PREPA was also accused of stockpiling supplies badly needed to help with rebuilding after Maria.
“The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority has become a heavy burden on our people, who are now hostage to its poor service and high cost,” Governor Ricardo Rossello, who is planning to sell PREPA to the private sector, said in a statement. “What we know today as the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority does not work and cannot continue to operate like this.”
PREPA’s problems are just one of several crises slowing down recovery on the island.
The federal government recently awarded a $156 million contract to a one-person Atlanta-based company that was supposed to deliver 30 million meals to Puerto Rico. Owner Tiffany Brown, who had no disaster relief experience, got the gig but managed to deliver only 50,000 meals to the storm-ravaged island.
There have been problems with the housing situation too and now, the island’s largest restoration contractor says it will pull out of Puerto Rico in the next few weeks after maxing out its $746 million contract.
“It never ends,” Howell said. “Tomorrow I’ll wake up and there will be another scandal, another Whitefish.”
THE COMING SHOWDOWN. WHY WE NEED OUR AR-A15’s. Not to kill a deer AS the LUNATIC GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK SAYS, BUT TO SHOOT A GANG BANGER, A LOOTER A MEMBER OF MS-13!
Ask one who lives in a gated community if they are armed, what type of munitions do they have to protect life, liberty and happiness. What type of security detail is stationed at Gracie Mansion. We bet Cuomo’s Tonton Macoutes (a special operations unit) have automatic weapons. For What we may ask is the Governor afraid of? He is armed and we must be.
We would challenge the Governor to take a nightly tour of the deep crevices, the inner sanctums, the no-go zones and hoods of New York City, St Louis, Baltimore and Los Angeles without an armed security detail. He wouldn’t last a minute. Expect him goyellow pants, cry like a baby and get down on his kneesbegging for mercy. Not gonna happen though because the governor lack cajones!
But the set up for a breakdown of civil order is in place. Middle America, the Patriot, the 2nd Amendment advocate and those who love the country will not be intimidated by a YELLOW BELLY excrement liberal progressives who invite the illegal murderer, rapist and law breaker into our communities. Those who proffer sanctuary cities are as much a danger as the illegal. A destroyer of cities, states and country the governor is. Failure to obey the laws and protect the citizens of the New York and beyond is treason. Governors like Cuomo belong behind bars for their horrendous crimes against humanity.
The ignition switch is turned on, one push of the button and WE WILL TAKE AMERICA BACK. They say back from what? Back from the leech. Read the following blog post. When payments to those who are scamming the system are stopped expect civil war. Suburbia will not escape the humdrum implosion of the cities, but ostensibly will be the next target. The only way to survive is with automatic weapons, with AR-15 defensive type weapons.
Nut cakes like him will continue to give succor to the mentally deranged. The bureaucracy will fail time and time again because of political correctness and the lack of will to enforce the law. While Cuomo will be begging for his life we will taking out those who threaten us.
Sending money down a rat hole is a Democrat priority; we give Solyndra as the quintessential example. Seven Hundred Fifty Million Dollars ($750,000,000) up in solar flames. The Donkey party patronage system paved the way for one of the largest scams in the past twenty years, yet no one was indicted. Why? The answer is simple, those involved in the scam were, shall we say, WELL CONNECTED. Big doners to the Democrat party get access to funds that the average Joe only dreams about. Bloomberg reported in 2011 that Solyndra’s $733 million plant had whistling robots and spa showers, along with many other signs of extravagant spending – all of this was on our dime.
Continuing on the scheme to fleece America we advise any one of you to spend a day or two at your local Social Security Office. What to look for? Notice the people in line, do they look like you? The majority of which are there to run the Disability Scam. To collect Social Security Disability we advise you to check any numerous of these (click)websites out.
Depending on the severity of your medical condition, you may be eligible for permanent benefit payments if you have any of the following common impairments:
In other words, any person who breathes can collect SSDI. Scamming America has never been higher. The number of people collecting social security disability is over 10,000,000. Over 61,000,000 people are collecting social security benefits one way or another. The facts are these, those collecting social security has never been so easy.
The number of people on SSDI now exceeds the entire population of Greece. The aging of the population has nothing to do with the increase. In 1968 there were 51 workers for every person on disability. Today there are 13 workers for every person on disablity. Even the most pollyanna would agree that medical advancements since 1968 have been significant. These medical advancements would argue for less people being on disability and unable to work. Workplace safety measures have been increased exponentially since 1968, so that also argues for less disabled workers. The good old ADA law forced all workplaces to become disabled friendly. That argues for less people on disability. The country has transitioned from a manufacturing society to a service society. Workers don’t work on dangerous assembly lines anymore. Robots do the dangerous stuff. This should have dramatically reduced worker injuries and disabilities.
Everything I’ve pointed out is true. The tremendous increase in people on SSDI is nothing but a gigantic fraud, perpetuated by the Federal government and slimy lawyers. The government broadened the scope of disabilities to include stress, depression, and non-diagnosable things like aches and pains. I have stress, depression and pains too, but I get up at 5:15 every morning and go to work. The SSDI program is a joke. More than half the people on SSDI are lazy good for nothing leeches. They are sucking you and I dry while sitting around eating cheetos, watching Judge Judy on their government subsidized cable TV, and texting with other lazy fucks on their iPhones. And don’t forget, you get the added benefit of Medicare coverage after only two years of SSDI stress.
An 18-month investigation by a Senate subcommittee found that in more than 25 percent of cases reviewed, evidence confirming disabilities was “insufficient, contradictory or incomplete.” The staff reviewed 300 decisions in which individuals were awarded disability benefits by administrative law judges. A 2011 internal SSA report echoed the findings, showing a national error rate of 22 percent.
Going forward, it is essential that Congress take significant steps to rein in SSDI’s growth. To do nothing — to continue to prioritize the able bodied over the truly infirm — is far worse.
Some people in the United States have already filed their 2015 income tax returns — not because they are super-law-abiding, but because they want to get a check from Uncle Sam in the mail. Some savvy illegal aliens, since they can get substantial tax breaks, will have filed by now.
The first day that IRS accepted returns was January 19 this year — the deadline is two and a half months away, the usual April 15.
This year there is yet another tax break for illegals in the tax system. Unlike citizen and green card workers who are not participating in Obamacare or another qualifying plan, who will be paying a penalty of up to $695 per adult (with a family limit of $2,085) for not joining the system, illegals without coverage pay no penalties. None at all. These penalties were much smaller last year.
That is also true for the semi-illegals covered (for the moment) by the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program. (On the other hand, these illegals and semi-illegals cannot — legitimately — be covered by the insurance, though some must be beating that system.)
But the big attraction for filing early is not the new Obamacare tax break, which simply reduces the amount owed, it is the Old Faithful of tax breaks that illegal aliens can access: the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC). Illegals filing their income taxes can claim the ACTC if they have (or claim to have) children in the United States. This tax credit, unlike virtually all others, can result in a negative income tax payment. That means that no taxes will be collected from the individual, but he or she will get a check in the mail for all taxes withheld plus a bonus for the credit, as my colleague Jim Edwards has reported in the past.
The ACTC is well worth filing for; it can be as high as $1,000 per child claimed and proving the existence of a child is all too easy, with an ID number issued all too casually by the IRS, as we reported a couple of years ago. This is now called the TIN (tax identification number) and, in the immediate past at least, it was issued in such a sloppy way that the process was roundly criticized by the inspector general of taxation for the Department of the Treasury.
There are at least three kinds of children that an illegal can claim for the ACTC: actual citizen kids living in this country; actual children living abroad, but claimed to be living in the United States; and, at the bottom of the ladder, nonexistent children. The IRS has created a system that makes it very hard to distinguish between these three classes.
A somewhat similar tax program, the Earned Income Tax Credit, requires a Social Security number for the claimed children, and thus is a bit harder for illegals to misuse.
IRS earned income credit or EIC is another one of frauds committed by illegal aliens.
IRS Corruption Fuels Billions in Fraudulent Payments to Illegal Aliens
I am sorry to report that the IRS practice described in this recent FORBES headline is not new. It’s an old story that continues to shock most — but not all — Americans:
“IRS admits it encourages illegals to steal Social Security numbers”
Imagine my surprise when I found a pile of IRS 1040 tax returns among the tons of trash at a “lay-up site” used by illegal border jumpers near the Mexican border west of Douglas, Arizona. There are dozens of such places where the thousands of border invaders change clothes, discard trash and wait to be taken by their “coyote” to their pick-up location for moving on to Phoenix or El Paso or Houston.
The IRS 1040 forms were filled out and had been used. Hey, who says illegal aliens don’t pay taxes?
I collected the 1040 forms and we noticed all had claimed Earned Income Tax Credits and all also had claimed around nine deductions for children. The average refund was around $4,000. It occurred to me only much later that the American taxpayer may be funding the coyote’s $1,500 fees for smuggling poor Mexicans, Salvadorans — and Iraqis and Vietnamese — across our southwest border.
When I sent the 1040 forms to the Social Security Administration and the IRS, I was told that the practice described in the FORBES article was the one being followed in dealing with these returns. I tried to amend the appropriations bills for the IRS to be the practice, but I got nowhere. My Republican colleagues didn’t want to hear about it and were ticked at me for bringing it up.
Illegal aliens use “the system” to report income and also gain every possible “refund” the tax law — and IRS collusion — allows. Who can blame them when the welcome sign is in bright green neon letters?
This FORBES headline should not shock anyone. The IRS collusion with illegal alien tax fraud is not a secret. Over the past decade, there have been regular news stories exposing tax fraud by illegal aliens– and IRS indifference to the scandal.
The shocking thing is that the FORBES headline is not an exaggeration. The IRS knows illegal aliens are using stolen Social Security numbers and is glad they are doing it. But that is only the tip of the iceberg called illegal alien tax fraud.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen made the revelation in congressional testimony this past week, but no one was really shocked. The IRS wants illegal aliens working illegally to file tax returns and pay taxes on their illegal earnings like everyone else. So, the government figures it is a smart thing to make it easy for them to do so. The government doesn’t care whether the Social Security number used is stolen or not, it’s the tax filing itself that is important to the IRS.
When asked why the agency has a policy to ignore notifications from the Social Security Administration that a number does not match the name used on the tax filing, the agency replies, literally, “That’s not our job.”
The IRS deliberately and unapologetically avoids telling you when your SSN is being used unlawfully by another person — or ten or twenty other people.
Efforts in Congress to fix that problem are criticized as “racist.”
But as I said, that IRS scandal is only the beginning of the story of tax fraud by millions of illegal aliens. Millions of illegal workers are filing tax forms not to pay their taxes but to claim and then receive refundable tax credits– that is, cash refunds– and those cash payments run into the billions annually.
It’s politically correct in Washington, DC, to say that illegal aliens are willing, even anxious, to “pay their fair share of taxes.” It’s part of the mythology of the noble “undocumented worker” seeking the American dream. Even the Republican National Committee believes it.
This week the RNC sent a fundraising letter to a few million prospective donors using the tired gimmick of a “poll” on critical issues. One question asked voters if they support legalization for illegal aliens if they meet a number of tests, one of them being “paying back taxes.” We all know illegal aliens are anxious to do that to prove they have earned the right to stay here and contribute to the economy.
The problem is they already have a way to pay back taxes if they want to do it, but millions are doing just the opposite. Millions of illegal aliens are collecting refundable tax credits– that is, cash — by filing fraudulent claims. And the IRS doesn’t care.
An April 2012 investigative report by an Indiana television station found numerous cases of tax fraud in the Child Tax Credit and Additional Child Tax Credits programs.
Four illegal alien tax filers had used the same address and claimed a total of 20 children for refundable tax credits of up to $1,000 for each child. Only one child actually lived at the address, and the other 19 lived in Mexico and had never even visited the United States.
That aspect of the fraud is in fact not really illegal: the child you claim on the tax form does not have to live in the United States. the child can be living with Aunt Rosa in Peru or Grandpa Felix in Algeria.
The IRS response to the fraudulent payments? They refused to comment or to confirm any investigation and refused to meet with reporters to answer questions.
IRS refusal to act on documented fraud by illegal aliens is legendary. For a decade the agency’s own Inspector General has complained of inaction by agency managers.
According to reports of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), millions of illegal aliens are filing tax forms in order to claim refundable tax credits and receive billions in tax dollars — even if they have never paid one dollar in federal income taxes.
Illegal aliens are accessing not only the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) but the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Additional Child Tax Credit ACTC) to the tune of billions annually.
And according to testimony of the Treasury Department’s Inspector General, the IRS has refused to take steps to curtail illegal aliens cashing in on these programs.
You may be thinking that the government surely would take action if the tax fraud is costing the Treasury millions of dollars. It’s fraud on a small scale, right? Nope. It’s costing billions, not millions.
While I was in Congress back in 2007, I tried to blow the whistle on this IRS partnership with schemes costing taxpayers billions.
A brave IRS employee in one of the agency’s Western regional offices called my office and met with my staff clandestinely at a restaurant in the capital of one of our southwestern states. He offered concrete, credible information and internal reports that showed there was a huge problem– and that it was being ignored by agency management.
His regional office team had studied a random sample of Child Tax Credit claims by tax filers using “ITIN” numbers– tax ID numbers given lawfully to persons who do not qualify for Social Security numbers but are employed and need to file tax returns.
Their sample revealed a high rate of fraud which suggested widespread fraud involving hundreds of millions of dollars. But he and his regional colleagues could get no action from headquarters to investigate it further.
Can you guess who blocked any congressional action to demand the IRS investigate illegal alien abuse of these “refundable tax credit” programs? The Congressional Hispanic Caucus threatened massive protests against “discriminatory practices” if the IRS pursued the issue.
At that time, Democrats were in the majority in the House and the Senate and thus controlled the committees, so no investigation was ever conducted. But did Republicans undertake to clean up the mess when they gained the majority in the 2010 election? No.
There is no evidence the problem of tax fraud by illegal aliens is something the IRS cares about.
A December 2014 report by Watchdog.org revealed that an IRS audit documented a 24 percent error rate in claims made under the EITC — a loss of $14.2 billion in unlawful tax refunds in the year 2012.
A similar audit of the Additional Child Tax Credit program in 2012 revealed erroneous payments in the range of 25 percent to 31 percent.
But did the audits result in corrective actions? No.
Adding all of the fraud rates together from three separate refundable tax credit programs suggests total tax fraud in the realm of several billion dollars. Of course, not all of the fraud is by illegal aliens. But the lack of IRS interest in curtailing illegal alien abuse of these tax credit programs tells us the problem will only get worse in the years ahead.
Let’s add the shameful, willful taxpayer-funded philanthropy toward illegal workers to the many reasons why IRS Commissioner Koskinen should be impeached and a new management team put into the agency to conduct a thorough house cleaning.
What are the odds of that happening under President Hillary Clinton? Or President John Kasich?
More than a week after Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhandelivered a blistering speech in Chicago in which he said “powerful Jews are my enemy” and “white folks are going down,” calls are growing louder for Democratic leaders and Women’s March founders with ties to denounce him or step down.
Among those in the line of fire are several members of Congress and Women’s March co-chairwoman Tamika Mallory, who attended the Nation of Islam’s national convention late last month, There, Farrakhan delivered the controversial address and Mallory, who has expressed admiration for him in the past, posted Instagram photos from the Chicago event.
“Here’s the problem: Farrakhan does have an audience and still has widespread popularity among his devoted followers,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote in a blog published on Thursday. “Because of Farrakhan’s reach and influence and his broad name recognition and something like celebrity status, some public officials, politicians and hip-hop entertainers are still willing to meet with him, still willing to have their pictures taken with him.
“They seemingly have a blind spot when it comes to his anti-Semitism,” he added.
President Obama was recently criticized when a photograph of him with Farrakhan, taken before his 2008 election, surfaced. The photographer said he buried the picture on orders from tthe Congressional Black Caucus, which believed it would hurt Obama’s election chances.
Seven members of the Congressional Black Caucus have had ties with Farrakhan, according to The Daily Caller, which said it had reviewed videos and witness accounts to create the tally.
Trust certain Ghanaians to take their ‘shenaniganism’ to the backyards of whoever opens his country for them and while at it, they are sure to make global headlines with their ‘get rich schemes.’
A Ghanaian based in Worcester, USA has pleaded guilty to $3.6 million fraud after she was busted for screwing the United States food stamp benefit system, which is to help support people of low income.
She attended Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana from 1991-1994, according to her LinkedIn page. She enrolled in Quinsigamond Community College between 2003-2005 in Worcester where she studied electronics.
In 2011 her community college bragged about her and called her a “success story.”
CONVENIENCE STORE FRAUDSTER TAKES $3.6 MILLION FROM THE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS
Convenience store owner Vida Ofori Causey out of Worcester, Mass. was charged in federal court Monday after pleading guilty to $3.6 million worth of food stamp fraud.
According to authorities, Causey abused the program between 2010 and 2014. Food stamps, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), is run by local and federal agencies. It is overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). She was able to scam the program by buying food stamp benefits from receipts for half the actual value.
“Causey purchased the benefits at a discounted value of approximately fifty cents for every SNAP dollar,” a press release from Department of Justice stated. “By so doing, Causey caused the USDA to electronically deposit into a bank account controlled by her the full face value of the SNAP benefits fraudulently obtained.”
As a result, recipients had cash on hand to buy restricted items. The restricted items could include alcohol, cigarettes and even drugs. The program is supposed to be used to provide food to low-come individuals and families. In total, Causey defrauded the USDA for approximately $3,638,900.
SNAP is the nation’s largest food-assistance program. According to a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the program has increased from 17 million participants in 2000 to nearly 47 million in 2014.
JUST A LITTLE MORE INFORMATION ON IMMIGATION FROM GHANA TO WORCESTER, MASS:
The demographics of the City of Worcester underwent a considerable change between 2000 and 2010, according to a new report from the Worcester Regional Research Bureau.
In “Worcester’s Demographic Trends: 2010 Census,” the Research Bureau found that the city’s African American population increased by 77 percent during the first decade of the 21st Century. During the same period, the Latino population grew by 45 percent and the Asian population grew by 31 percent as well.
Meanwhile, the number of residents identifying as white decreased by more than 5 percent, even as the city’s overall population grew by almost 5 percent to 181,045.
Since bottoming out in 1980, Worcester’s population has grown by nearly 20,000 residents, an increase of almost 12 percent over three decades.
Surprising Demographic Shifts
“I think the most surprising was where people are coming from,” said Roberta Schaefer, president and CEO of the Research Bureau.
As of the 2010 Census, 3,401 residents, or 9.63 percent of the city’s foreign-born population, immigrated from Brazil, earning the South American country the top spot on the list.
With 3,356 foreign-born residents, or 9.51 percent of the immigrant population, originating from Vietnam, the country came in a close second. Ghana rounded out the top three as the home country for 3,049 residents, or 8.64 percent of the foreign-born population in Worcester.
3 IN 4 REFUGEES ON FOOD STAMPS, MANY USING OTHER FORMS OF PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
The Office of Refugee Resettlement’s Annual Report to Congress for FY2013 reveals that nearly 3 in 4 refugees were on food stamps.
Additionally, nearly half were on some form of cash assistance and more than a half were on medical assistance. More than 20 percent were on Supplemental Security Income, more than 22 percent were in public housing and nearly 20 percent were on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
The report noted that many households received more than one type of assistance and the data dealt with refugees who arrived in the U.S. between March 1, 2008 to February 28, 2013.
Click here for the full article from Breitbart. Become familiar with the SNAP program. How to qualify, click here.
F. Roger Devlin and Henry Wolff, American Renaissance, October 14, 2015
The numbers are even worse than we thought.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has published a new report called “Welfare Use by Immigrant and Native Households.” The report’s principle finding is that fully 51 percent of immigrant households receive some form of welfare, compared to an already worrisomely high 30 percent of American native households. The new study is based on the most accurate data available, the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). It also reports stark racial differences in the use of welfare programs.
Previous studies of welfare use have been based on the less accurate but more easily accessible data available from the Current Population Survey; this led to less alarming figures of 39 percent of immigrant households using welfare and 24 percent of native households. CIS’s Steve Camarota took the trouble to work with the SIPP data, which cover a larger number of welfare programs. His results have been independently verified by Decision Demographics, a company specializing in analysis of Census Bureau data.
The programs covered in Mr. Camarota’s study include Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (what used to be most commonly called “welfare”), the Women, Infants and Children food program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (“food stamps”), free and subsidized school lunches, Medicaid, and public housing and rent subsidies.
Needless to say, the percentage of immigrants using some form of welfare varies enormously according to the part of the world from which they come. Rates are highest for households from Central America and Mexico (73 percent), the Caribbean (51 percent), and Africa (48 percent). Those from East Asia (32 percent), Europe (26 percent), and South Asia (17 percent) have the lowest rates.
An appendix to the report includes some startling information on welfare use by race and ethnicity. In 2012, the most recent year for which figures are available, the percentages of each group that used at least one welfare program were as follow:
A majority of native black and Hispanic households are on some form of means-tested welfare, compared to just 23 percent of native white households.
A disproportionate share of welfare is directed to households with children. For this group, the corresponding numbers for 2012 are even higher:
A striking 82 percent of black households with children receive welfare–double the white rate. Hispanic families are not far behind blacks.
Of course, different welfare programs are used at different rates. What follow are sets of charts showing, first, the welfare rates for all US households, and second, welfare rates only for households with children. The percentages for Hispanic and black immigrants include both legal and illegal immigrants.
Among natives, blacks receive cash handouts at more than three times the white rate; Hispanics at more than twice the white rate. Rates for black and Hispanic immigrants are relatively lower due to often-ignored restrictions on immigrant use of these programs.
Among all households, native blacks and Hispanics receive food handouts at three times the white rate; for Hispanic immigrants, the figure is four times the white rate. Among households with children, nearly all immigrant Hispanics–86 percent–get food aid. Native blacks and Hispanics aren’t far behind, with rates of 75 and 72 percent, respectively.
It’s clear, too, that non-whites benefit disproportionately from Medicaid, which helps explain why red states have opted out of Medicaid expansion.
Native Hispanics and blacks, especially, are also heavy users of housing assistance. Among households with children, native Hispanics use these programs at nearly four times the white rate and blacks at seven times the white rate. Some effort is made to limit the access of illegal immigrants to subsidized housing, which helps explain why Hispanic immigrants get housing handouts at less than half the rate for native Hispanics. Amnesty for illegals would mean a sharp rise in the percentage of Hispanics in public or subsidized housing.
Spreading the wealth around
For each of the four welfare categories presented above, the black and Hispanic rates are at least double the white rates. Native Asians appear to use welfare at slightly lower rates than whites, but their SIPP sample size is too small to be certain.Asian immigrants, who are not included in the charts above, exceed native white welfare rates by about 25 percent (see table A3 in the CIS report). The US has three times as many immigrant Asian households as native Asian households.
What little public discussion there is of disproportionate welfare use by blacks and Hispanics is inevitably muddied by the claim that the majority of those receiving welfare are white. This ignores the fact that there are five times as many whites as blacks and four times as many whites as Hispanics in the United States; what matter are differences in the rates at which each group uses welfare. Furthermore, at least in terms of households, this claim is no longer be true.
According to data in the CIS report, there are 39.88 million households in the US receiving some sort of means-tested welfare. Of those households, just 19.66 million–or 49 percent–are either native or immigrant whites (Middle Eastern immigrants are classified as “whites”). That means the majority of US households on welfare are now non-white.
As mass Third-World immigration continues, the US will have an ever-burgeoning dependent class of non-whites. Black voters will be joined by increasing number of Hispanic voters in their support for more handouts. When they vote in 2016, a majority of black and Hispanic households are likely to be on welfare–just as they were in 2012. Arguments about freedom and limited government will mean nothing to them. Obamacare is just the beginning.
Whites must decide if this is the future they want for their children and grandchildren. If they don’t take action soon, blacks and Hispanics will decide for them.
Time has come for a full accounting and audit of all government handout programs. Interviews of SS disability, Welfare, Medicaid and other free programs by an independent Accounting firm from the Big Four. Our bet is that 50% will be unqualified to collect any benefit from the government. Additionally, the child care credit collected by illegal aliens who defraud the IRS is a high priority.
PUERTO RICO – THANKS MARIA FOR EXPOSING THE WELFARE ISLAND
Alex Witoslawski, American Renaissance, October 4, 2017
Not Donald Trump.
Puerto Ricans are blaming President Trump for the fact that two weeks after Hurricane Maria, their island is still a mess: power outages, flooding, fuel shortages, spotty cell service, washed out bridges, roads blocked by fallen trees. But who is really to blame for the island’s paralysis?
Consider this: Puerto Rico has a population of only 3.4 million but their elected government has run up a debt of over $70 billion and pension obligations of $50 billion. That’s more than $35,294 per resident and over 100 percent of GDP. Puerto Rico has already defaultedon a $58 million bond payment in 2016, due to its already-high taxes and unwillingness to cut government spending. It fell into crushing debt despite the $21 billion annually the island receives in aid from the United States, much of it spent on welfare programs such as Head Start, public housing, and food stamps. That’s over $6,000 per capita in federal welfare that the islanders consume. And due to the special status of the island, Puerto Ricans do not even pay federal income tax.
Borrowing and US handouts sustained the welfare habits of the people, but Puerto Rico left its infrastructure embarrassingly outdated. According to the Los Angeles Times, Puerto Rico’s electrical grid is so starved of physical and human capital that it suffers from power outages four-to-five times the average—even in good weather. Puerto Rico also failed to invest in infrastructure to protect against flooding. The island has few floodwalls and dangerously weak dams—a dam on the island cracked following the hurricane, forcing the evacuation of more than 70,000 people.
These problems were foreseeable and preventable, but liberals and Puerto Rican officials are blaming Donald Trump. Perhaps he is being too nice. Puerto Rico created its own problems; why should we be on the hook for them?
After acquisition by the United States following the Spanish-American War in 1898, the island’s residents never integrated with Americans culturally, linguistically, or racially. Puerto Ricans are culturally Hispanic, racially a mix of Spanish colonists, African slaves and Taino natives, and most of them don’t speak any English. They may technically be United States citizens but they share little common history or ancestry with Americans and are clearly a nation that developed separately from our own. And what could indicate a clearer sense of alienation from the United States than the fact that Puerto Rico has its own Olympic team?
Puerto Ricans, meanwhile, have many gripes with what they perceive as their American overlords. For example, even before this latest hurricane-induced crisis, a major problem for Puerto Rico was their inability to conduct trade independently. According to U.S. law, goods must travel between Puerto Rican and mainland American ports on American-made vessels before they are exported or imported. This weakens Puerto Rico’s economy.
The best solution would be to let Puerto Rico become an independent country, free to make its own decisions and responsible for its own problems. This could be done amicably and generously. Since we pay the island tens of billions of dollars every year in welfare payments, we could easily pay off their debt and give them post-hurricane humanitarian aid as incentives to independence.
We could also offer remigration cash incentives for Puerto Ricans living in America who are willing to give up their U.S. citizenship and move to the island. This would not only be an opportunity for the Puerto Rican diaspora in the United States to reunite with their people, but also a great way to reverse the brain-drain. Over the past century, many of the more intelligent and hard-working Puerto Ricans moved to the mainland for better opportunities. The 2010 U.S. Census counted the number of Puerto Ricans living in America at 4.6 million, making it America’s second-largest Hispanic group after Mexicans. This represents a tremendous loss in cultural, economic, and human capital for the island.
Finally, we could offer military protection and economic advice for a couple decades. Chile took economic advice from free-market economists from the University of Chicago and the economy boomed. With the right advice and incentives, Puerto Rico could experience a similar economic rebound.
Separation would come with an expensive up-front price tag for us, but it would save Americans money in the long run and would give Puerto Rico full control over its culture and destiny.
CLICK HERE – Trump tweets that “federal aid won’t last forever.”
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is now purportedly looking into whether the United Arab Emirates, with perhaps help from a top adviser, tried to gain political influence by putting money into Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign — a tack that would indicate Mueller’s investigation continues to expand beyond whether campaign officials colluded with Russia.
Mueller’s investigators in recent weeks have questioned the adviser, Lebanese-American businessman George Nader, and asked witnesses for information about whether the UAE tried to buy political influence by giving money to the Trump campaign, according to The New York Times.
Nader has been a frequent visitor to the Trump White House. And the president has praised the UAE for the Persian Gulf nation’s efforts to work with the United States on economic issues and squashing terrorism in the region, thanking Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed for his efforts just last week, according to the White House.
Nader has purportedly been an adviser to the crown prince. Axios first reported that Mueller investigators were talking to Nader.
Mueller took over the Justice Department investigation in May 2017. And in recent weeks, he has made several moves that suggest his probe has expanded beyond possible collusion, including charging former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort with alleged tax and bank fraud and indicting 13 Russians in connection with trying to sow political discord during the 2016 elections.
Nader was purportedly close to top Trump political strategist Steve Bannon, who in in August 2017 was forced from the White House.
(Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
The Times story also states Mueller’s team is interested in how much influence Nader might have — or had — on White House policymaking and whether foreign money has recently flowed into the U.S. to impact Washington policy.
The Times also reports that it has a copy of a memo that Nader received about a private Oval Office meeting between Trump and Elliott Broidy, who purportedly has millions worth of private-security contracts with the UAE.
The CIA probe shows once more that the law does not control this attorney general.
It was a dozen years ago when Eric Holder began his first tour of duty at the Justice Department, as deputy attorney general. At the time, DOJ had a major hot potato on its hands: Al Gore, the vice president of the United States, had engaged in a clear, black-and-white felony violation of campaign-finance laws.
Gore made phone calls soliciting campaign contributions from his White House office. As Charles Krauthammer wrote at the time, “Section 607 of Title 18 of the U.S. Criminal Code states very clearly there is to be no solicitation of campaign funds in federal government offices. Gore broke the law as written, as understood and as practiced.” Violations of Section 607 called for a penalty of up to three years in prison.
Gore had no real defense, so he trotted out a phony one: There was, he infamously claimed, “no controlling legal authority.”What he meant was that there weren’t many court decisions interpreting the meaning of Section 607. It was laughable. The rule of thumb for judges, as for the rest of us, is that laws are construed to mean what they say, the ordinary, everyday understanding of the words. Most statutes are not 1,000 pages of health-care arcana. When they are succinct and clear, we don’t need judicial opinions to divine their meaning. No solicitation of campaign funds in federal government offices means: No solicitation of campaign funds in federal government offices.
Al Gore and the Temple of Cash
It took more than a year of prodding to get the Justice Department interested in how the White House and the Democratic National Committee financed the 1996 campaign, but the indictments are flowing now. Maria Hsia is charged with laundering over $55,000 from the Buddhist temple luncheon for Vice President Al Gore on April 29, 1996. A Senate committee’s charge that Ms. Hsia was a Chinese intelligence agent during an eight-year period when she worked closely with Mr. Gore and the D.N.C. has yet to be proved, but the tale of those years is too important to be lost amid war talk and sex scandals.
One fascinating aspect is the way in which Mr. Gore’s memories of the temple event have evolved — to use the politest possible term — as more information has emerged. During the 1996 campaign, Mr. Gore said his appearance at the Hsi Lai Temple was a ”community outreach” event. Four months later, he remembered it was ”finance related.” Indeed, it was. According to a report by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, a witness recalled fund-raising announcements from the podium. The committee also found a memo from Harold Ickes to Mr. Gore telling him that the event would raise $250,000 and would be organized by John Huang, the D.N.C. official who circulated among the donors during lunch.
If Mr. Gore was not aware that the presence of Mr. Huang and Ms. Hsia at the temple luncheon in 1996 proved that money was being raised, we are dealing with obliviousness of a rare order. Those two joined with the Clinton Administration’s wealthiest Asian supporter, the Riady family of Indonesia, to form a fund-raising group, the Pacific Leadership Council. In 1989, Ms. Hsia helped arrange a P.L.C. fund-raiser for then-Senator Gore that was attended by several monks and nuns from the Hsi Lai temple. Mr. Gore wrote Ms. Hsia a letter thanking her for helping finance his 1990 senatorial campaign. He also traveled to Taiwan on a trip she arranged.
Others who helped arrange that trip were Mr. Huang, later to emerge as the D.N.C.’s main collector of tainted Asian money, and James Riady, whose family lobbied the White House to put Mr. Huang at the D.N.C. While the Huang-Riady-Hsia team was in close contact with Mr. Gore, Ms. Hsia was developing a remarkable talent for getting nuns and monks to give to the Democrats. The Republicans believe that over $100,000 was laundered through Hsi Lai Temple monastics in 1996 alone. The Justice Department charges specifically that Ms. Hsia helped solicit $55,000 for which individual donors were illegally reimbursed with temple funds.
Justice’s formal charges and the related, but more serious Republican allegations will be proved or disproved over time. Meanwhile, the pattern that emerges is provocative. In Mr. Clinton’s friend Charlie Trie and Mr. Gore’s associate Maria Hsia, people with clear Administration ties are being indicted at a smart clip. Finally, the Justice Department is moving. What we do not know is whether it is curious enough to follow the trail wherever, and however high, it leads.
The country’s constitution is now likely to be amended to allow for the confiscation of white-owned land without compensation, following a motion brought by radical Marxist opposition leader Julius Malema.
It passed by 241 votes for to 83 against after a vote on Tuesday, and the policy was a key factor in new president Cyril Ramaphosa’s platform after he took over from Jacob Zuma in February.
Mr. Malema said the time for ‘reconciliation is over’. ‘Now is the time for justice,’ News24 reported.
CLICK HERE TO UNDERSTANDTHERADICALISM OF EX-PRESIDENT OBAMA. Listen to the first few out-takes of a few of Obama’s speeches.These are not taken out of context but manifest the Radical Ideologue of Obama.There is no doubt that Obama was impacted by the likes of previous race baiting radicals, for example Frank Marshall Davis and Malcolm “X” Little.American’s never believed in the narrative, but swallowed the fish, hook, line and sinker.
Obama never lost the biological IMPREGNATION of Africa passed down by his Kenyan relatives – his inner self was never sanguine, but fuming inside over the treatment of Blacks, no matter where they lived. However, we set the record straight. White America was never responsible for the murders, killings, thefts that occurred and continue to deluge various nations in Africa.
Make no mistake about it that the cause of grief, poverty and social havoc in Africa is not to be blamed solely on the African Black, but the primordial reason for their current condition is caused by the CRIMINAL GOVERNMENTS that rule the nations of Africa. Listening to the Hannity interviews of Obama’s brothers reveal that they are well spoken and educated. This, we believe, is not unique.
The sad saga of white South Africa should be a wake-up call to all European settler nations. White South Africans, with their mixed heritage of Dutch, Huguenot French, German, Portuguese, English, and Greek heritage, bear far more similarities with the whites of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.Every one of these countries are currently experiencing the rise of anti-white vitriol, including popular celebrations of declining white birth rates. South African Boers are facing much worse, and indeed their plight shows us what could happen in the event of white minority status. – Thermidor
The truth is that when the first Dutch people landed on the Cape of Good Hope, the only natives to South Africa were the Khoikhoi people, more often known as “Bushmen.” The Zulu and other Bantu tribes did not start migrating to eastern South Africa until the 19th century.By that point, white South Africans, commonly called “Boers,” had been farming the land for over two hundred years.
China’s Authoritarian State Has an Edge in Artificial Intelligence Development
A wealthy repressive state can press ahead with tech innovation unimpeded by privacy concerns
Artificial intelligence researchers say that while the Chinese may not have political freedom, they have the economic freedom to chart their own course—and Beijing doesn’t throw up roadblocks to the technology on privacy grounds, as occurs in the West.PHOTO: WANG GANG/ZUMA PRESS
China made enormous economic strides in the past quarter-century by manufacturing everything from toys to tires inexpensively and exporting them overseas. To become a truly wealthy nation, it must move beyond its role as a low-cost manufacturer and become an economic innovator itself.
Can a repressive state, led by a central government specializing in five-year plans and surveillance of its own people, make such a leap? The odds against success look steep. Economic history includes few examples of authoritarian states becoming innovative business leaders. But China aims to make that jump in artificial intelligence—or high-level machine learning—with an unusual approach that can’t be dismissed.
Beijing is bankrolling a big effort in AI, in part, to keep better track of homegrown individuals it considers criminals and dissidents, and to intimidate would-be opponents. That work involves fundamental research in image recognition, data collection and sorting that could have commercial spinoffs in the software used to run complex systems. A city with millions of self-driving cars, for instance, would need data analysis and the ability to recognize, say, that a ball bouncing across the street might be followed by a child chasing it.
“What gives China an edge is there is more of a sense of urgency,” says Paul Triolo, a technology research manager at Eurasia Group.
Last summer, China’s central government published a comprehensive plan for artificial intelligence development that aims to make the nation “the world’s primary AI innovation center” by 2030.
In China such plans aren’t simply blueprints, but indications of central government priorities, which work down to localities, state-owned firms and entrepreneurs. So far, local governments, looking to turn themselves into software centers, have pledged about $7 billion in funding for AI development, estimates a congressional panel that focuses on China.
Mix that with genuine enthusiasm for the technology among Chinese scientists and companies—and world-class talent—and you have a formidable force, say U.S. researchers who have studied China’s AI program.
“There’s an enthusiasm for AI and culture of dynamism that we don’t see as much in the U.S., at least outside of Silicon Valley,” says Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Erik Brynjolfsson.
Among the most innovative—and threatening—of the Chinese research involves surveillance. The Wall Street Journal has detailed how Beijing has turned its western Xinjiang regioninto a warren of facial scanners to track millions of Uighur minorities. Police there use hand-held devices to search smartphones for encrypted chat apps. A new twist: mobile facial-recognition units mounted on eyeglasses that police use to search crowds for fugitives, among other uses.
Artificial intelligence works by the collection of vast amounts of data used to “train” computer software to recognize patterns and reach conclusions, precisely the kind of skills needed to track a small number of dissidents among a sea of Chinese faces.
“A repressive state can be an engine of innovation,” says Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a tech policy center.
In the past, Chinese efforts to innovate have stumbled over the state’s desire to centralize control, denying researchers and companies the freedom to follow their own ideas. China, for instance, has tried to jump-start its semiconductor industry with projects dating as far back as the Cultural Revolution, but still hasn’t produced a company that can compete with global leaders like Intel or Samsung. Beijing is trying once again in computer chips, putting together a massive government fund, but the U.S. government so far has blocked China’s efforts to acquired advanced Western technology.
AI may be different, say U.S. technology researchers. China’s AI effort is being joined by globally competitive internet powerhouses including Tencent HoldingsLtd. , which is focused on medical imaging, and Alibaba Group HoldingLtd. , which wants to help create smart cities that use sensors, cameras and computers to manage traffic. So far, the government is following their lead in technology development, AI researchers say, whatever the goals laid out in the government plan.
Chinese researchers may not have political freedom, they say, but they have the economic freedom to chart their own course. And the Chinese government doesn’t throw up roadblocks to the technology on the grounds of privacy, as occurs in the West.
“Freedom is very important,” says Mr. Brynjolfsson. “But there is more freedom in China to do startups than most people realize.”
Becoming an innovator in high technology and making a business success of those innovations in international markets is something that only a few countries have done, says Loren Graham, an emeritus MIT science historian.
“All of them—so far—are open, democratic societies in which government companies do not dominate,” he said.
He says China’s push in AI represents a great economic experiment.
“Can a country like China with lots of money combine repression, creativity and economic success based on that creativity? If the answer is yes, then we will have to rethink everything.”
The Kurdish-majority town of Afrin in northern Syria.Getty Images
BEIRUT – Turkish warplanes struck pro-Syrian government forces in the northwestern Afrin region of Syria on Saturday, killing at least 36 of them, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
It said this was the third time in 48 hours that Turkish warplanes had struck pro-government forces that entered Afrin last week in support of the Kurdish YPG militia as it fights to stave off an offensive by Turkey and allied Syrian militias.
Afrin offensive: 36 pro-Syrian government soldiers ‘killed in Turkish air strike’
At least 36 pro-Syrian government troops have been killed by a Turkish air strike in the region of Afrin, a monitoring group says.
The strike targeted a camp at Kafr Jina in the northern Syrian region, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.
The pro-government troops entered Afrin two weeks ago to back Kurdish forces.
They are fighting a Turkish military offensive that was launched to clear Kurdish groups from Afrin.
Turkey considers the Kurdish militiamen there terrorists.
The Syrian government has denounced the offensive as a “blatant attack” on its sovereignty and, according to state media, forces were sent in to support the Kurds.
The air strike followed one of the bloodiest days for Turkish troops since they began the offensive in January.
Eight Turkish soldiers were killed and another 13 were injured on Thursday in fighting in Afrin.
Five “heroic comrades fell as martyrs and seven were wounded”, an initial statement from Turkey’s military said. A second statement announced three more soldiers had been killed and six more wounded.
No official details of the clashes were given but the private Dogan news agency said Kurdish fighters used tunnels to ambush Turkish special forces in the Keltepe district.
A Turkish helicopter sent in to rescue the wounded was hit and had to turn back, the report added.
Thousands of civilians in Afrin have fled their homes since Turkey’s offensive began.
The Turkish government says the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia is an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought for Kurdish autonomy in south-eastern Turkey for three decades.
The YPG denies any direct organisational links to the PKK.
Analysis by Sebastian Usher, BBC Arab Affairs Editor
When pro-government militia forces edged into Afrin last month, it wasn’t clear what their strategic purpose would be.
Videos showed a small group of militiamen being welcomed to Afrin city by Kurds there as their saviours. But it didn’t seem likely that they would play much more than a symbolic role, allowing the Syrian government to vaunt a new territorial initiative but at no major risk.
In fact, it seemed that it might be a way of de-escalating the latest conflict in Syria after Turkey launched its operation against Kurdish fighters there.
A deal to allow the Syrian government to take over much of the control of the area might suit many of the parties involved. It might even be a less bad option for Turkey, allowing it to turn down the intensity of its offensive.
But if the reports are true that pro-government forces have been badly hit by Turkish airstrikes, that would appear to undercut this interpretation, raising the prospect of yet another new flashpoint in Syria.
Moscow: 20 US bases set up in Kurdish areas of Syria
Secretary of the Russian Security Council Alexander Venediktov told Ria Novosti. “The return of peace and stability to Syria is hampered by continued external interference in the Syrian crisis. For example, in the territory controlled by the people’s self-defense units of Kurdistan, some 20 US military bases have been created,” the official said. According to the Russian official, US interference in the Syria conflict “provoked Turkey’s military operation” targeting Kurdish militias in Afrin. DEBKAfile: The 20 US bases in Syria were first reported on Jan. 11. The rerun of the report supports Moscow’s campaign against the US military presence in Syria, which claims that it is illegal, whereas the Russian military was invited by the “legitimate” Assad regime.
"Where Revolution is the Solution" Taking back the Empire
