Watch: 'Black Lives Matter' Just Got Put In Its Place By Niece Of One Of America's Civil Rights Icons

Watch: 'Black Lives Matter' Just Got Put In Its Place By Niece Of One Of America's Civil Rights Icons:

"Alveda King, the niece of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., doesn’t think much of the tactics used by the BLM activists. Though the disruptors claim that theirs is a new civil rights movement, King says it’s little more than a distraction."

Marine Discovers Hillary Can Get Away With What He Can't | The Daily Caller

Marine Discovers Hillary Can Get Away With What He Can't | The Daily Caller:

"Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign hasn’t yet been derailed by reports of classified mail on her private email server, but a Marine is finding out the hard way that he won’t be granted the same leeway.

Marine Reserves Major Jason Brezler, who has deployed four times, faces discharge for sending a classified report warning others in Afghanistan of the danger posed by Sarwan Jan, a notoriously corrupt district police chief known for trafficking drugs and weapons and suspected of being a “systematic child rapist,”

They drip with moronic insanity-----POW Flag: The New Symbol of Racism?

Michael Swartz: POW Flag: The New Symbol of Racism? — The Patriot Post

Like most leftists, author Rick Perlstein is not a fan of our nation’s efforts in Vietnam, despite the fact he was born in 1969 and, thus, too young to remember much of it himself.
Thanks to an op-ed in the progressive Washington Spectator that was picked up by the now online-only Newsweek magazine, we’ve learned that a venerable symbol of that war was just another example of American racism.
Perlstein opens the article by saying,
“You know that racist flag? 
The one that supposedly honors history but actually spreads a pernicious myth? 
And is useful only to venal right-wing politicians who wish to exploit hatred by calling it heritage? It’s past time to pull it down.”
“Oh, wait. 
You thought I was referring to the Confederate flag. Actually, 
I’m talking about the POW-MIA flag....”

Cruz Demands Obama Come Clean on Terrorist Immigrants - Tea Party News

Cruz Demands Obama Come Clean on Terrorist Immigrants - Tea Party News:

"72 cases documented in last year as record wave of immigration continues

(The Hill) – Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wants the Obama administration to hand over details on dozens of individuals he says are tied to terrorism, including their immigration status.

Cruz, who is running for president, and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) sent a letter on Wednesday to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry. They are asking for information on 72 individuals and the “nexus between terrorism and our immigration system.”

Mukasey’s judgment

Mukasey’s judgment | Power Line
Former federal judge and Attorney General Michael Mukasey provides a lucid tutorial in the law applicable to Hillary Clinton’s use of her home-based email/server for official business. Mr. Mukasey’s tutorial comes in the form of the Wall Street Journal column “Clinton defies the law and common sense” (accessible via Google here).
Drawing both on his expertise and his experience, he concludes:
It is no answer to say, as Mrs. Clinton did at one time, that emails were not marked classified when sent or received.
Of course they were not; there is no little creature sitting on the shoulders of public officials classifying words as they are uttered and sent.
But the laws are concerned with the sensitivity of information, not the sensitivity of the markings on whatever may contain the information.
The culture in Washington, particularly among senior-executive officials, is pervasively risk-averse, and has been for some time.
When I took office as U.S. attorney general in 2007, members of my staff saw to it that I stopped carrying a BlackBerry, lest I inadvertently send confidential information over an insecure network or lest it be activated, without my knowledge, and my communications monitored.
When I attended my first briefing in a secure facility, and brought a pad to take notes, my chief of staff leaned over and wrote in bold capital letters at the top of the first page, “TS/SCI,” meaning Top Secret, Secure Compartmentalized Information—which is to say, information that may be looked at only in what is known as a SCIF, a Secure, Compartmentalized Information Facility.
My office was considered a SCIF; my apartment was not.
The point he was making by doing that—and this is just the point that seems to have eluded the former secretary of state—is one of common sense:
Once you assume a public office, your communications about anything having to do with your job are not your personal business or property. 
They are the public’s business and the public’s property, and are to be treated as no different from communications of like sensitivity.
That something so obvious could have eluded Mrs. Clinton raises questions about her suitability both for the office she held and for the office she seeks.
A reasonable reader might disagree with Mr. Mukasey that what we know now only “raises questions about” Hillary Clinton/s suitability for higher office, but Mukasey’s tact adds to the power of his conclusion.
Whole thing accessible here.

Ted Cruz Storms the South to Sold Out Crowds - Breitbart

Ted Cruz Storms the South to Sold Out Crowds - Breitbart:

"Every single event has seen sold out or over capacity crowds, Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler told Breitbart News.

“After the debate—we feel like we got a really big bump out of the debate,” Tyler said, citing the recent NBC News poll that had Cruz in second place. “Within a hundred hours after the debate we raised over a million dollars.”

Yes, they are cheating. And they will win unless SOMEONE starts shouting!!!-----Unlocking Democracy: Inside the Most Insecure Voting Machines in America

Unlocking Democracy: Inside the Most Insecure Voting Machines in America
Like hundreds of thousands of other Virginians, I’ve been casting ballots for over a decade using Winvote voting machines.
I now have physical proof of how catastrophically insecure those machines are.
It’s a tiny key that opens the plastic door hiding the USB port on every Winvote terminal.
This keepsake came my way at an eye-opening presentation about voting-machine security at this past Tuesday’s Usenix Security Symposium in Washington.
Jeremy Epstein, a security scientist with SRI International, has spent years investigating the weaknesses of these and other electronic voting systems.
But even he didn’t know how bad Winvote terminals were until this past April.
That’s when the Virginia Information Technologies Agency condemned the security of these machines and banned them from the commonwealth.
Their only remaining use was, literally, as a lesson to others.
Epstein led off his his talk by asking the audience if any of us would like a Winvote key.
(“All the keys are the same for every Winvote that’s ever been made, because that way it’s easier,” he pointed out.)
How about one of the smart cards that poll workers used to administer these machines?
I took one of each.
He also offered us one of the spare Winvote terminals he had stashed in his car, but I passed on that.

• The e-voting gold rush

In the aftermath of the 2000 election, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
Among other things, the Act banned punched-card and mechanical-lever voting machines.
That in turn led to a rush to implement digital voting systems such as Winvote.
Outside of Virginia, only a few counties in Pennsylvania and Mississippi adopted Winvote (from the now-defunct Frisco, Tex.-based Advanced Voting Systems).
But Winvote terminals had much in common with other electronic voting machines of that time: They were built to win government contracts.
And they were based on general-purpose Windows platforms that made them needlessly complex and vulnerable to exploits.
On top of that, vendors paid too little attention to configuring those systems for security.
(See, for example, the flaws in Diebold’s voting machines that Johns Hopkins University professor Avi Rubin documented soon after Maryland agreed to spend $55 million deploying them statewide.) The geniuses behind Winvote, however, botched the job worse than anybody else.
It wasn’t just the horrible voter interface.
(My favorite example of that: When you chose a candidate on the Winvote touchscreen, your choice was highlighted in red, with an “X” next to it — which by any normal interface standards looked very much like you were voting against that person.) 
The innards were even worse.
As Epstein explained in his autopsy Tuesday:
• Winvote’s machine runs a version of Windows XP that hasn’t had patches installed since 2004 — four years before AVS deservedly went out of business.
• Its wireless network is “safeguarded” with insecure WEP encryption — and the password is abcde.
• The Windows admin password is (no, I’m not making this up) admin.
• Windows file-sharing is left on.
• The machine tracks votes using an obsolete version of Microsoft Access, in which the unencrypted database file is “protected” with a five-character password that a security tool cracked in seconds. (That password — shoup — apparently refers to a voting-machine company with a history of criminal indictments.)
• The system doesn’t log changes to that file.
• You can’t turn off the WiFi; if you remove the wireless card, the device won’t boot.

Colo. Ruling About Religious Liberty Has Beck Demanding ‘What Kind of Country Have We Turned Into?’ | Video | TheBlaze.com

Colo. Ruling About Religious Liberty Has Beck Demanding ‘What Kind of Country Have We Turned Into?’ | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"Beck read more information about the case, saying Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips declined to make a wedding cake for a gay couple in 2002, citing his Christian beliefs. But Phillips has also said he has no problem serving gay people at any other time.

“I’m trying to understand,” Beck said. “I’m still in the United States of America, right? I can’t cite my constitutional right to the right of conscience?”

“We’re in trouble. If this is allowed to stand, every bit of your constitutional right is gone,” Beck remarked."

Don't mess with little guys-----Big Guy Sucker Punches Smaller Guy And Pays For it

Wikipedia Wars: 'Controversial' Science Topics Are Edited More Often Than Uncontroversial Topics

Wikipedia Wars: 'Controversial' Science Topics Are Edited More Often Than Uncontroversial Topics | RealClearScience:
There's a silent war being waged on Wikipedia.
Entries on so-called "controversial" scientific topics are persistently edited to reflect ideology, not facts.
While topics like evolution, alternative medicine, climate change, and nuclear power are not scientifically controversial, they are politically controversial.
It is for this reason that those topics often fall victim to "edit wars" on Wikipedia, where users alter information to fit their biased beliefs or tarnish the integrity of the page with slanderous statements. Other users respond by correcting the changes.
Adam Wilson and Gene Likens, both based out of the University of Connecticut, were curious just how often this happens.
So they downloaded the complete revision histories (dating from 2003 to 2012) of three politically controversial scientific topics -- acid rain, global warming, and evolution -- and compared them to four politically uncontroversial topics -- heliocentrism, general relativity, continental drift, and the standard model in physics.
They found that significantly more edits were made to the controversial topics compared to the uncontroversial ones, and far more words were changed per day on average.
Table 1.  Statistics summarizing the view and edit history of selected Wikipedia articles.

...To prevent misinformation getting loose, Wilson and Liken offered some advice.
"Users should be aware that content in Wikipedia can be extremely dynamic; two students could obtain, within seconds, diametrically different information on a controversial scientific topic. Educators should ensure that students understand the limitations and appropriate uses of Wikipedia, especially for controversial scientific issues."

A New Rule Would Regulate Almost Every Type of Water in US.

A New Rule Would Regulate Almost Every Type of Water in US.:

"The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers’ final water rule under the Clean Water Act seeks to regulate almost every type of water in the country. 
And you don’t even need to get into the substance of the rule to know it’ll be a disaster.
Here are three signs that this rule should be killed off immediately.

• Sign 1: The Regulating Agency Is Acting More Like an Advocacy Group Than a Federal Agency.

The EPA engaged in controversial activities to help get support for the water rule.
It launched a video and social media PR campaign asking:
“Do you choose clean water?”
As if critics of the rule want dirty water.
And that was just one gambit.
According to the New York Times, “[l]ate last year, the EPA sponsored a drive on Facebook and Twitter to promote its proposed clean water rule in conjunction with the Sierra Club...”
...The water rule is a disaster.
There’s no maybe about it.
Even environmental groups are suing the agencies (albeit for not going far enough).
This rule isn’t about protecting water; it’s about protecting these federal agencies’ ability to regulate more water at the expense of property rights. 
Congress needs to do what it can to stop getting pushed around by these agencies.
Its first job should be simply to kill off this rule immediately."

Trey Gowdy Unleashed – “About Damn Time” We Got Hillary’s Email Server! - Eagle Rising

Trey Gowdy Unleashed – “About Damn Time” We Got Hillary’s Email Server! - Eagle Rising:

"Every explanation Secretary Clinton has provided about a week later was proven to be demonstrably false. This is just the latest one of those assertions that there was no classified info. I saw the clip this morning. she was very definitive – she neither sent or received classified information. Well, that is patently false. What I’m primarily concerned with is whether or not I’m going to have access to records that i need to do the job that the House asked me to do..."

These chicks are nuts!!-----The Free Bleeders Clearly Have Not Thought About What Happens to All That Blood

The Free Bleeders Clearly Have Not Thought About What Happens to All That Blood | Parenting: "I’ve had many of the links for this post for over a year.
Unfortunately, I was sure the issue would come around again.
It did.
Last week, Kiran Gandhi ran the London Marathon while letting her period flow freely. 
Yes, free bleeding is about women refusing to use sanitary products during their periods.
(And no, it isn’t a hoax. I will address that claim in a minute.)
These women argue that sanitary products are expensive and that women are forced by patriarchy pressure and shame tactics to use them.
While I agree that women should not be ashamed or embarrassed about periods, shame isn’t why women started to wear sanitary products.
As any woman who has done her own laundry can attest, blood stains.
Tampons might be more expensive than some think they should be, but they are certainly cheaper than rapidly replacing clothes that are stained or worn from scrubbing.
Furthermore, which creates more environmental waste, trashing some compressed cotton bullets or a monthly assortment of spent clothing?
Furniture presents a problem, too.
Under the free bleeding plan, women will need to spend at least five days a month avoiding sitting on un-wipeable surfaces (or they’ll have to add scrubbing upholstery and linens to their already overbooked days).
Then, we have the sanitary concerns, which should be evident in the name of the products.
Blood carries all sorts of biological hazards.
...And so, onto all of the other nonsense that is free bleeding, free bleeders might add a perfect example of how trendy western feminism only serves elite, progressive, usually white women."

History for August 16

History for August 16 - On-This-Day.com:
Menachem Begin (Israel) 1913, Shimon Peres 1923 - Israeli politician, Fess Parker 1925 


Robert Culp 1930, Frank Gifford 1930 - Football player, Kathie Lee Gifford 1953 - Television host ("Today") 


James Cameron 1954 - Director ("Titanic"), Madonna Louise Ciccone 1958 - Timothy Hutton 1960 


1812 - Detroit fell to Indian and British troops in the War of 1812. 


1829 - The "Siamese twins," Chang and Eng Bunker, arrived in Boston, MA. They had come to the Western world to be exhibited. They were 18 years old and joined at the waist. 



1923 - Carnegie Steel Corporation put into place the eight-hour workday for its employees. 


1937 - Harvard University became the first school to have graduate courses in traffic engineering and administration. 


1954 - Sports Illustrated was published for the first time. It was claimed that 250,000 subscriptions had been sold before the first issue came off of the presses. 


1954 - Jack Paar replaced Walter Cronkite as host of "The Morning Show" on CBS-TV. 


1984 - The U.S. Jaycees voted to admit women to full membership in the organization. 


1995 - Voters in Bermuda rejected independence from Great Britain. 


1999 - In Russia, Vladimir V. Putin was confirmed as prime minister by the lower house of parliament. 

Hillary Clinton Should be Terrified That Jim Comey Is Investigating Her Email Crimes | TheBlaze.com

Hillary Clinton Should be Terrified That Jim Comey Is Investigating Her Email Crimes | TheBlaze.com:

"To destroy classified documents is a crime.

Constitutional law professor Ronald Rotunda pointed out in the Wall Street Journal that it is a crime (18 U.S.C. section 1519) to destroy even one message to prevent it from being subpoenaed. Prosecutors charging someone with obstruction don’t even have to establish that any investigation was pending. They need only show that the documents were destroyed to make discovery more difficult for future investigators.

Mrs. Clinton already answered that question. In an interview in 2000 she said, “As much as I’ve been investigated and all that. Why would I ever want to do email?”

She gave the emails that she didn’t destroy to her attorney on a thumb drive. She gave them to the State Department in the form of 55,000 pages of printed documents. Thumb drives are searchable. Printed pages are not. Does it strike you that she was being particularly helpful in trying to get the documents out to the public?

Insane new video footage of yesterday's explosion in Tianjin, China.

The School Choice Myth That Just Won't Die

The School Choice Myth That Just Won't Die | Cato @ Liberty
The myth that there’s no evidence that school choice works has more lives than Dracula. 
Worse, it’s often repeated by people who should know better, like the education wonks at Third Way or the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate education committee. 
In a particularly egregious recent example, a professor of educational leadership and the dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education wrote an op-ed repeating the “no evidence” canard, among others:

The committee also expands the statewide voucher program. There is no evidence privatization [sic] results in better outcomes for kids. The result will be to pay the tuition for students who currently attend private school and who will continue to attend private school—their tuition will become the taxpayers’ bill rather than a private one. Additionally, the funds for the expansion would siphon an estimated $48 million away from public schools, decreasing the amount of money available for each and every school district in the state.

It is astounding that a professor and a dean at a school of education in Wisconsin would be unfamiliar with the research on the Milwaukee voucher program, never mind the numerous gold standard studies on school choice programs elsewhere. 
Fortunately, Professor James Shuls of the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Martin Lueken of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty set the record straight:

…the Wisconsin Legislature commissioned a comprehensive five-year study by researchers at the University of Arkansas. The research team matched and compared children at private schools in the choice program to similar students at Milwaukee Public Schools. The study concluded that children in Milwaukee who used vouchers were more likely to graduate from high school, enroll in four-year colleges and persist in college.

These findings are very similar to those of “gold-standard” studies done nationwide. Among 13 peer-reviewed studies on voucher programs that use research methods based on random assignment, all but one study concluded that vouchers benefit students (the other was unable to detect an impact). In addition, recent work by a Harvard economist demonstrates that giving low-income families better educational options can help improve social mobility for children.

...The 2009 study also found that the voucher program produced significant savings to the state taxpayers, as shown in the figure below:

Chart by Robert M. Costrell.

Gun Rights Group Wins ‘Big Victory’ in Court Against Anti-Gun NY Governor: ‘It Was Total Intimidation’ | Video | TheBlaze.com

Gun Rights Group Wins ‘Big Victory’ in Court Against Anti-Gun NY Governor: ‘It Was Total Intimidation’ | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"A New York state supreme court judge told Gov. Andrew Cuomo he has 30 days to turn over documents related to a gun-rights rally last year during which state troopers allegedly intimidated attendees and violated their First Amendment rights"

Another lying, moronic teacher exposed-----Teacher Quits, Rips GOP ‘Goons’ — Who Gave Her District $5.3 Million Extra Despite Fewer Students ...

Teacher Quits, Rips GOP ‘Goons’ — Who Gave Her District $5.3 Million Extra Despite Fewer Students ... [Michigan Capitol Confidential]:
"A Michigan teacher is receiving national media attention for going public with her resignation, claiming that “Gov. Rick Snyder and his Republican goons took over Michigan and declared war on teachers.”
Plymouth-Canton teacher Stephanie Keiles penned her resignation “Why I Can No Longer Teach In Public Education,” which was picked up by MLive, The Washington Post and Huffington Post.
She claims there has been a “chronic, purposeful underfunding of public schools” and that she barely scrapes by on a $63,000-plus salary.
However, her district has received $5.3 million more in state funding spread over the last four budgets approved by the GOP-controlled Legislature than what it received in Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s last budget in 2010-11, according to the Michigan Department of Education.
The Plymouth-Canton school district received that extra $5.3 million (or an average of an additional $1.3 million each year) despite seeing an enrollment decline of 1,366 students in those four years. 
In Michigan, school funding is allocated largely on a per-pupil basis.
Based on Plymouth-Canton's $7,201 per-pupil foundation allowance, a loss of 1,366 students in 2014-15 would equate to a loss of $9.9 million. 
But instead, the state pumped an extra $5.3 million into the district over those four years — a swing to the good of $15.2 million over the baseline of the last Granholm budget.
Also, Keiles claims “my take-home pay has been frozen or decreased for the past five years.” However, the school district said teachers received a pay raise in 2014-15.
Keiles made a salary of $63,171 in 2013-14, according to a Freedom of Information Act request put in to the state.
A Plymouth-Canton official confirmed all teachers received some sort of raise in 2014-15.
In Keiles’ case, that would have been a half-step raise, which amounts to about $1,300.
Keiles’ starting salary in 2006 would have been $39,954.
In her nine years, Keiles’ pay would have increased by an estimated $24,500.
MLive, The Washington Post and Huffington Post all carried the op-ed.
But none checked to see if the claims made by Keiles were accurate, or listed her teaching salary....

American Hostage Kayla Mueller Was Repeatedly Raped by Islamic State Leader Before Death, U.S. Finds | TheBlaze.com

American Hostage Kayla Mueller Was Repeatedly Raped by Islamic State Leader Before Death, U.S. Finds | TheBlaze.com:

"WASHINGTON (AP) — American hostage Kayla Mueller was repeatedly forced to have sex with Abu Bakr Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group, U.S. intelligence officials told her family in June.
“They told us that he married her, and we all understand what that means,” Carl Mueller, Kayla’s father, told The Associated Press on Friday, which would have been his daughter’s 27th birthday. Her death was reported in February."

Migrant crisis: Greek ship at Kos to house refugees

Migrant crisis: Greek ship at Kos to house refugees - BBC News
A passenger ship has docked at the Greek island of Kos to be used as a registration centre and accommodation for migrants and refugees.
The vessel could provide temporary shelter for up to 2,500 people.
Greek authorities hope it will help them cope with the influx of migrants - many of them Syrian refugees - who have arrived on the island.
Clashes broke out this week as police tried to contain people being held inside a football stadium.
More police have been drafted in and efforts are being made to speed up the registration process to try to prevent stop further unrest.
Correspondents say the Greek government is calling the ferry a reception facility, but critics view it as a detention facility.
The Eleftherios Venizelos will be the place where migrants can apply for the documents they need to travel to other parts of Europe.
Thousands of migrants have arrived this year on Kos, an island with a population of just 33,000.
EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said in a statement on Friday that the world was facing the "worst refugee crisis since the Second World War."...

Four Social Security myths

Four Social Security myths | Washington Examiner:
"Myth Three
The government guarantees that it will pay you back what you have invested in Social Security when you retire.
Congress calls Social Security a "benefit;" and as such it can change the laws affecting what, if anything, you will receive — at any time.
In the government's view, it only owes the checks that it has written — not the ones it has promised to write.
It is "the government's right and ability to alter potential future benefits," testified Goss.
"Until benefits become due and payable, there is no binding commitment over which a worker has control and so no liability can be recognized.""

Another Obama Administration Official Is Facing Scrutiny Over Private Emails | TheBlaze.com

Another Obama Administration Official Is Facing Scrutiny Over Private Emails | TheBlaze.com:

"Separately, the CEI filed a FOIA lawsuit to obtain records on a video Holdren did claiming the severe 2014 winter was caused by climate change. This prompted several scientists who believed climate change was a threat to challenge the scientific claims of the video. The CEI request records on the science used to back up the claims. There has been no action on this case in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia."

Map: What a year of Islamic State terror looks like

Map: What a year of Islamic State terror looks like - Washington Post:
"The Islamic State has grown beyond its original home in Syria and Iraq, extending its operations into other parts of the Middle East and North Africa by establishing alliances and absorbing other terrorist groups.
Data from IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center reveals how the group has claimed responsibility for carrying out attacks across the region.
The map(s) below reflects a year of Islamic State attacks following the capture of Mosul, one of Iraq's most important cities.
Since then, the militant group has carried out many attacks including a suicide bombing in Abha, Saudi Arabia, a beheading in Egypt, and most recently, a blast in Baghdad Thursday that left at least 60 dead."

Tianjin Explosion Pictures - Explosions in China

Tianjin Explosion Pictures - Explosions in China:
"At least 44 were killed in the series of explosions that rocked the northern China city of Tianjin on Wednesday.
The initial explosion went off at a warehouse in an industrial part of the port city.
By Thursday, 12 firefighters were among the dead and dozens more remained unaccounted for.
The following pictures show the extent of the damage."

A "must read" example of classic liberal delusion.... always funded by other-people's-money-----Few bite on taxpayer-funded cruise ship lure in Detroit

Few bite on taxpayer-funded cruise ship lure in Detroit:
Taxpayers anted up $22 million for a new Detroit riverfront building to entice Great Lakes cruise ships and other passenger traffic. 
They built it — but the ships never came.
Instead, four years after construction of the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority public dock, the building is used almost exclusively by a politically connected catering company for deluxe weddings and other parties.
Only one cruise ship has docked this year at the sleek, 21,000-square-foot building near the Renaissance Center — an improvement from zero in 2014.
The Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority building, meanwhile, gets plenty of party use by its caterer, Troy-based Continental Services.
On its website, the building is marketed as Waterview Loft@Port Detroit, a venue combining “indoor sophistication and outdoor chic” where wedding parties for up to 100 people start at $18,500.
Continental also owns a luxury yacht, the Ovation, that offers party cruises from the port for about $100 per passenger.
The caterer pays $500 docking fees for every cruise, and the arrangement strikes waterfront business owner Gregg Ward as wrong.
“Turning a $22 million taxpayer-funded Port Authority building into a glorified catering hall and political fundraising venue is inappropriate and scandalous,” said Ward, who operates a truck ferry on the Detroit River.
Ward referred to a $1,000-a-plate birthday party last July for Mayor Mike Duggan that public records indicate raised at least $40,000 for his nonprofit.
John Loftus, the authority’s current executive director, put an end to such fundraisers when he arrived last August, saying rules are “very clear” about about such events on public property. “You don’t do political functions,” he said.
...Continental Services is a well-known company that also has a contract to serve inmate meals at the Wayne County jail.
Its founders, Alex and James Bardy, donate heavily to Democrats and local officials.
A political action committee affiliated with their company, Sterling PAC of Continental Services, was formed by longtime Democratic fundraiser Ron Thayer, campaign records show.
It has donated tens of thousands of dollars over the years to local officials including Duggan, Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon and Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel.
Weddings and corporate events provide the authority with one of its few consistent revenue sources, almost $140,000 in 2014.
Continental pays the authority 15 percent of event sales, with a $1,500 minimum per event.
That’s not much more than the $128,000 the authority spent on office expenses that year, according to an audit of the agency.
Almost all of the authority’s $1 million budget comes from federal grants and subsidies from the state, city and Wayne County.
...Continental’s estimate was $38,000 for 150 guests, more than twice that quoted at comparable venues, Mongo said.
“This is supposed to be a public building.
Instead, we spent $22 million to host parties and for a private yacht,” Mongo said.
“The symbolism of it is awful.”
Loftus said he’s working to bring in ferry service to Windsor and cruise ships but cites problems, including resistance from U.S. Customs officials.
The cruise ship St. Laurent docked in Detroit two weeks ago after an unexpected route change.
“They liked it so much they decided to come back,” Loftus said.
But when the ship returned last week, U.S. Customs officials refused to staff the terminal so passengers could disembark: they landed in Windsor instead.
“I have been going back and forth with (Customs) and I am at my wit’s end,” he said.
Kris Grogan, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, responded in an email that the agency “has never refused to service passenger/cruise ships in Detroit.”
“The facility in question has not been completed and does not meet the IT and security requirements necessary to properly process cruise vessels and/or cruise passengers,” Grogan wrote in the email.
“These and other issues were discussed with the Detroit Port Authority over 4 years ago.”
Another former frequent user of the port, The Yankee Clipper, was seized by a German bank in 2013.
...“Detroit had to make this investment to become a viable port of call,” Conlin said.
“Is it a build it and they will come situation? 
I think it is.”

Beck Shocked by This ‘Disturbing’ John Kerry Quote: ‘Where the Hell Is the Press!’ | Video | TheBlaze.com

Beck Shocked by This ‘Disturbing’ John Kerry Quote: ‘Where the Hell Is the Press!’ | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"Kerry was speaking at a Reuters event when he warned that if the deal doesn’t pass, “That is a recipe very quickly, my friends, business people here, for the American dollar to cease to be the reserve currency of the world – which is already bubbling out there.”

“For him to say that, that’s a very big deal!” Beck remarked. “Remember when I said the United States dollar would not be the … economic reserve currency? What did they say about me? … I was a kook for seven years for saying that! Now you have the head of the State Department coming out and saying, ‘If you don’t go with that vote, the dollar will lose its reserve currency.’”

The truth shocks!!-----Hillary's Cribs Shock Young People