https://nationalpost.com/news/world/germany-entices-illegal-migrants-to-leave-with-bribes-free-rent-for-a-year-at-home

Germany has been flooded this holiday season with billboards offering illegal migrants a bribe to leave — free rent for a year at home.

“Your country. Your future. Now!” displayed in seven languages, jumps off nearly 2,500 screens in 80 cities.

A series of flags corresponding with the top-destinations – Egypt, Turkey, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Russia – shapes a zigzagging road to a fictional horizon.

The “ReturningfromGermany” ad campaign is the latest tactic by the German government to boost departures and deter migration, in a reversal of Angela Merkel’s controversial welcoming policy of 2015 at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis. The campaign is the brainchild of interior minister Horst Seehofer, Merkel’s rebellious right-wing rival, who forced a coalition crisis over Germany’s asylum policy last summer.

While arrivals have normalized since three years ago – when Germany got 700,000 asylum requests – rejected asylum claims have piled up. The billboard campaign is mainly targeting the 235,000 persons who are still required to leave the country, the interior ministry says.

So why haven’t they left? The large majority of asylum seekers simply cannot be sent back – their claims have been rejected, but they cannot be returned because their country of origin is too dangerous, they lack documentation papers or suffer from illness. It’s a deadlock acknowledged by the German government itself: These 170,000 people are given special status – duldung (or tolerated) – to stay on temporarily. The others – those who are eligible for deportation according to the German yardstick – frequently don’t show up for their deportation. More than 20,000 airport repatriations were scrubbed this year; half of all scheduled. Every second person went missing in the run-up to departure.

So Seehofer took to the streets with his billboard campaign – aiming to push for voluntary departures. What’s he offering? A gift capped at 1,000 euros for a single person, 3,000 for families – to provide for basic facilities. Offering financial incentives to leave isn’t new. Since May 2017, the “ReturningfromGermany” portal shows the way to compensation fees and more than a thousand counselling centres to help navigate the return path.

Germany has a “stepping stone system. You get more money if you choose to leave earlier on,” says Meike Riebau, lawyer and migration expert at Save the Children Germany.

She is no fan of the current campaign.

“It’s a tasteless Christmas present.”

Depending on their nationality, asylum seekers can receive 1,200 euros if they return before the asylum procedure is completed; which drops to 800 after a rejected claim. But the 800 still beckons if they decide to depart voluntarily within 30 days.

Why are they paying people to leave?

This contradicts all the indoctrination and propaganda I have subjected to.

I'll give her props on this interview. Instead of taking an easy swipe at Trump, she expressed that maybe the American Empire should stop spending it's blood and treasure occupying foreign nations.

They can't be any worse than your posts.

Shots Fired.

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/12/07/texas-civil-asset-forfeiture-legislature/

Law enforcement leaders say civil asset forfeiture is a necessary tool for fighting crime, but several lawmakers see it as a violation of Americans’ civil liberties. Texas legislators are poised to take up the issue once again in 2019.

This story is part of a collaborative reporting initiative supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. All stories can be found here: https://taken.pulitzercenter.org/

In February 2016, prosecutors in Houston filed a lawsuit against a truck: State of Texas vs. One 2003 Chevrolet Silverado.

Houston police had seized the vehicle after surveilling its driver, Macario Hernandez, and pulling him over after he left his house. They took the truck to court, hoping to keep it or sell it at auction to fund their operations, claiming the vehicle was known to be involved in the drug trade.

But the truck’s owner, Oralia Rodriguez, was never charged with a crime. She wasn’t at the scene when officers pulled over Hernandez, her son, and found 13.5 grams of marijuana in his pocket. In fact, Rodriguez said she had recently loaned him the car so he could drive his pregnant girlfriend to the doctor. The girlfriend was having difficulty with her pregnancy and was at risk of losing the baby, Rodriguez said. She was desperate not to lose her truck, which had recently had new tires installed among other repairs, which she was still working to pay off.

“My sole intention was to help out. … Now I am in this situation of losing what I have worked very hard for,” she wrote to local prosecutors. “I am begging you please allow me to have my truck back.”

Seven weeks after police pulled over the truck, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office resolved the suit and agreed to release the vehicle back to Rodriguez, on the condition that she never loan it to Hernandez. But Rodriguez still had to pay $1,600 to get her truck back, plus any towing and storage fees it had accumulated over the course of the lawsuit. (Hernandez pleaded guilty to delivering drugs and spent several months in jail.)

What happened to Rodriguez was perfectly legal. Under a process known as civil asset forfeiture, law enforcement can take cash and property they believe to be related to criminal activity, even if the person involved is never charged with a crime. Prosecutors then file suit against the property, and if successful, police may keep much of it for their own purposes.

Civil asset forfeiture is a tool supported by law enforcement leaders, who say it is necessary for fighting crime, but panned by both liberals and conservatives who see it as a violation of Americans’ civil liberties and sometimes refer to it as “policing for profit.” It’s a longstanding, nationwide practice that has regained steam under the Trump administration but faces constitutional challenges in court.

When police seize a person’s property, the onus falls on the owner to prove the property was “innocent,” or not linked to a crime. If a person doesn’t fight the seizure in court — which is what happens in the majority of cases — they lose their property automatically. Many cases involve property worth no more than a few thousand dollars, and attorneys’ fees can end up being more costly than the value of the property itself.

Last year alone, law enforcement agencies and prosecutors throughout Texas grew their coffers more than $50 million by seizing cash, cars, jewelry, clothing, art and other property they claimed were linked to a crime. That includes property seized under both criminal forfeiture — which requires someone to first be found guilty of a crime — and civil forfeiture, which allows the state to sue the property itself and doesn’t require a criminal charge. The Texas Attorney General’s Office, which tracks these figures, does not distinguish between the two.

Sounds crazy. Though it's hard to say how crazy without knowing how much was criminal vs how much civil.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-calls-for-super-wealthy-to-be-taxed-70-to-fund-green-new-deal/

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sat with Anderson Cooper for an upcoming 60 Minutes interview set to air this Sunday, a portion of which has been released as a promotion. In the released segment, Ocasio-Cortez reveals how exactly she suggests paying for the environmental agenda known as the “Green New Deal” — with remarkably higher tax rates for the super wealthy.

Ocasio-Cortez suggests in the clip that in her esteem, people should be doing more to pay their “fair share.” When Cooper pressed on how she could possibly pay for the deal, she pointed to the progressive tax rate system in the 1960s, explaining that if you earn 0 to $75,000 a year, you would only pay 10% or 15% in income tax.

She continued:

“But once you get to the tippie tops, on your $10 millionth, sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60% or 70%. That doesn’t mean all $10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate. But it means that as you climb up this ladder, you should be contributing more.”

Cooper replied that she was proposing a “radical agenda.”

“If that’s what radical means, call me a radical,” she said.

The newly elected New York representative has quickly become something of a lightning rod of attention for people of all political stripes, so this suggestion is certain to get as much attention as the recently revealed and viral clip of a teen-aged AOC doing a Breakfast Club style dance on a rooftop.

Who is going to be watching 60 minutes this Sunday?

5 billion for the wall is a rounding error in the budget. This all seems like a con.

Looks like you have been proven right over the long term, then.

I'll stop linking "conspiracy sites' when you stop linking sites that have contributors who promote fake news. You got to be consistent.

That was Johnathan Morgan's tweet at the time. He knew he was creating those "Russian Trolls" yet he still tweeted that. Seems like a guy you can trust.

So a guy who makes his living off of Russia hysteria, creates more Russia hysteria and you are willing to brush it off.

Any integrity you had, just left the forums.