CAMDEN, N.J. - New Jersey's most impoverished city will close all three branches of its public library at year's end unless a rescue can be pulled off.
Camden's library board says the libraries won't be able to afford to stay open past Dec. 31 because of budget cuts from the city government. The city had its subsidy from the state cut.
The library board president says the library system, which opened in 1904, is preparing to donate, sell or destroy its collections, including 187,000 books.
Board president Martin McKernan says keeping the books around would pose a fire hazard.
Camden's library system is not the only one having financial problems. Fourteen libraries in Queens cut weekend services earlier this year.
As people looked for ways to weather the tough economic storm, many have found relief at their local library.
Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library, said he started noticing a large increase in library attendance when the stock market went into its steep decline. And that attendance has continued to build. "We've got more people visiting us now than we've had in half a century," he said.
New York library customer Elle Byram said she's trying to avoid coffee shops where she'll end up spending money. She said the library "is spacious, it has free internet access. You meet cool people, but it's not really supposed to be a social place."
"What the down economy is doing is reminding people that these libraries are there for them," LeClerc said. "Lots of folks have been going around, I think naively in the past, saying 'do we still need libraries?' Well the proof in the pudding is now 'yes.' Libraries are as essential, if not more essential, now than they have been in the last fifty years.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
Oakland Left-Wing Mayor Ron Dellums Owes $239,000 In Back Taxes
Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums owes $239,000 in back taxes, according to press reports. He follows in the footsteps of other local mayors, who variously killed a guy with a car; were convicted of theft; and boned an aide's wife.
The Dellums situation, in which he has acknowledged underpaying at least some taxes, is especially sad. While Dellums has been, on balance, tragically ineffective as mayor of Oakland, he had a distinguished, 28-year career in Congress that included passing anti-apartheid legislation over Ronald Reagan's veto. Now he's part of the "disgusting" backdrop of local deviance and depravity that techies love to hate, until the day they (read: some!) up and leave.
The Dellums situation, in which he has acknowledged underpaying at least some taxes, is especially sad. While Dellums has been, on balance, tragically ineffective as mayor of Oakland, he had a distinguished, 28-year career in Congress that included passing anti-apartheid legislation over Ronald Reagan's veto. Now he's part of the "disgusting" backdrop of local deviance and depravity that techies love to hate, until the day they (read: some!) up and leave.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Intel Experts Warn Obama And Israel May Bomb Iran Soon
Paul Joseph Watson - Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of former intelligence and military officials, warns President Obama in a memo that Israel is preparing to attack Iran this month, and that Obama needs to publicly denounce such an attack in order to prevent a wider war and the ultimate destruction of Israel.
“We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month. This would likely lead to a wider war,” states the VIPS memo, which is addressed to the President.
The letter is signed by Phil Giraldi, former CIA (20 years), Larry Johnson, former CIA; DoS, (24 years), W. Patrick Lang, Col., USA, Special Forces (ret.); Director of HUMINT Collection, Defense Intelligence Agency (30 years), Ray McGovern, US Army Intelligence Officer, CIA (30 years), Coleen Rowley, FBI (24 years), and Ann Wright, Col., US Army Reserve (ret.), (29 years); Foreign Service Officer, Department of State (16 years).
The intelligence experts explain that Israel’s tactic is to launch the war suddenly and then make it politically untenable for Obama to do anything other than offer the United States’ full military support for the campaign.
Pointing out that Israel has habitually employed surprise and deception in furthering its geopolitical aims, VIPS warns Obama that misplaced trust in Israeli Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s assurances that Israel would not launch a surprise attack would be foolhardy.
The memo highlights Netanyahu’s attitude to how pliable he believes the American government is to satisfying Israel’s demands, making reference to comments he made nine years ago on Israeli television.
“America is something that can be easily moved. Moved in the right direction. … They won’t get in our way … Eighty percent of the Americans support us. It’s absurd,” said Netanyahu.
“As we hope your advisers have told you, regime change, not Iranian nuclear weapons, is Israel’s primary concern,” states the memo, adding, “A strong public statement by you, personally warning Israel not to attack Iran would most probably head off such an Israeli move.”
The VIPS members appeal to Obama that only he can now head off an attack on Iran that could take place as soon as this month. But the group’s call on Obama to denounce a planned military assault on Iran is likely to fall on deaf ears, because Washington has been almost as active as Israel in planning an attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.
A report in Time Magazine last month confirmed that Israel had convinced Washington to put the idea of a military strike firmly at the forefront of strategic planning. The report stated that US Central Command had been finalizing a plan of targeted air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and that Israel had been brought into that process.
On Sunday August 1st during an appearance on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Admiral Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reiterated that the military option remained on the table.
Any such attack would come from the air and would utilize B-2 bombers and cruise missiles as part of a knockout blow against Iran’s nuclear facilities. This would be followed by a velvet revolution in which opposition groups, which are largely controlled by the CIA and its allies, would overthrow the Ahmadinejad government.
Destabilization efforts in pursuit of this overthrow have been ongoing for years, the latest of which appears to be a claim that Ahmadinejad himself was the target of an assassination attempt today, a story the Iranian state media has strongly denied.
The U.S. government has been funding and training the Sunni terrorist group Jundullah, formerly headed by the accused mastermind of 9/11 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to carry out bombings and other destabilization campaigns in Iran as part of a “campaign intended to destabilise, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs”.
As we have documented, political pressure is clearly being brought to bear on Obama in an effort to get the green light for the attack on Iran. Voices from both sides of the political spectrum are repeating the mantra that the only way to rescue Obama’s plummeting approval ratings is to rally the country behind another war in the Middle East.
Given this backdrop, it seems unlikely that the Obama administration would do anything other than vehemently support an Israeli-led attack on Iran. Perhaps the best way to try and stop such an outcome would be to appeal to current intelligence and military insiders who experienced the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction debacle at first hand and, as the November National Intelligence Estimate proved, are loathe to be hoodwinked into another staged war based on false pretenses.
“We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month. This would likely lead to a wider war,” states the VIPS memo, which is addressed to the President.
The letter is signed by Phil Giraldi, former CIA (20 years), Larry Johnson, former CIA; DoS, (24 years), W. Patrick Lang, Col., USA, Special Forces (ret.); Director of HUMINT Collection, Defense Intelligence Agency (30 years), Ray McGovern, US Army Intelligence Officer, CIA (30 years), Coleen Rowley, FBI (24 years), and Ann Wright, Col., US Army Reserve (ret.), (29 years); Foreign Service Officer, Department of State (16 years).
The intelligence experts explain that Israel’s tactic is to launch the war suddenly and then make it politically untenable for Obama to do anything other than offer the United States’ full military support for the campaign.
Pointing out that Israel has habitually employed surprise and deception in furthering its geopolitical aims, VIPS warns Obama that misplaced trust in Israeli Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s assurances that Israel would not launch a surprise attack would be foolhardy.
The memo highlights Netanyahu’s attitude to how pliable he believes the American government is to satisfying Israel’s demands, making reference to comments he made nine years ago on Israeli television.
“America is something that can be easily moved. Moved in the right direction. … They won’t get in our way … Eighty percent of the Americans support us. It’s absurd,” said Netanyahu.
“As we hope your advisers have told you, regime change, not Iranian nuclear weapons, is Israel’s primary concern,” states the memo, adding, “A strong public statement by you, personally warning Israel not to attack Iran would most probably head off such an Israeli move.”
The VIPS members appeal to Obama that only he can now head off an attack on Iran that could take place as soon as this month. But the group’s call on Obama to denounce a planned military assault on Iran is likely to fall on deaf ears, because Washington has been almost as active as Israel in planning an attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.
A report in Time Magazine last month confirmed that Israel had convinced Washington to put the idea of a military strike firmly at the forefront of strategic planning. The report stated that US Central Command had been finalizing a plan of targeted air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and that Israel had been brought into that process.
On Sunday August 1st during an appearance on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Admiral Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reiterated that the military option remained on the table.
Any such attack would come from the air and would utilize B-2 bombers and cruise missiles as part of a knockout blow against Iran’s nuclear facilities. This would be followed by a velvet revolution in which opposition groups, which are largely controlled by the CIA and its allies, would overthrow the Ahmadinejad government.
Destabilization efforts in pursuit of this overthrow have been ongoing for years, the latest of which appears to be a claim that Ahmadinejad himself was the target of an assassination attempt today, a story the Iranian state media has strongly denied.
The U.S. government has been funding and training the Sunni terrorist group Jundullah, formerly headed by the accused mastermind of 9/11 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to carry out bombings and other destabilization campaigns in Iran as part of a “campaign intended to destabilise, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs”.
As we have documented, political pressure is clearly being brought to bear on Obama in an effort to get the green light for the attack on Iran. Voices from both sides of the political spectrum are repeating the mantra that the only way to rescue Obama’s plummeting approval ratings is to rally the country behind another war in the Middle East.
Given this backdrop, it seems unlikely that the Obama administration would do anything other than vehemently support an Israeli-led attack on Iran. Perhaps the best way to try and stop such an outcome would be to appeal to current intelligence and military insiders who experienced the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction debacle at first hand and, as the November National Intelligence Estimate proved, are loathe to be hoodwinked into another staged war based on false pretenses.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Missouri Votes To Block Obamacare Health Insurance Mandate
(AP) - Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a key provision of President Barack Obama's health care law, sending a clear message of discontent to Washington and Democrats less than 100 days before the midterm elections.
With about 90 percent of the vote counted late Tuesday, nearly three-quarters of voters backed a ballot measure, Proposition C, that would prohibit the government from requiring people to have health insurance or from penalizing them for not having it.
The Missouri law would conflict with a federal requirement that most people have health insurance or face penalties starting in 2014.
Tuesday's vote was seen as largely symbolic because federal law generally trumps state law. But it was also seen as a sign of growing voter disillusionment with federal policies and a show of strength by conservatives and the tea party movement.
"To us, it symbolized everything," said Annette Read, a tea party participant from suburban St. Louis who quit her online retail job to lead a yearlong campaign for the Missouri ballot measure. "The entire frustration in the country ... how our government has misspent, how they haven't listened to the people, this measure in general encompassed all of that."
Missouri's ballot also featured primaries for U.S. Senate, Congress and numerous state legislative seats. But at many polling places, voters said they were most passionate about the health insurance referendum.
"I believe that the general public has been duped about the benefits of the health care proposal," said Mike Sampson of Jefferson City, an independent emergency management contractor, who voted for the proposition. "My guess is federal law will in fact supersede state law, but we need to send a message to the folks in Washington, D.C., that people in the hinterlands are not happy."
Legislatures in Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana and Virginia have passed similar statutes, and voters in Arizona and Oklahoma will vote on such measures as state constitutional amendments in November. But Missouri was the first state to challenge aspects of the federal law in a referendum.
The intent of the federal requirement is to broaden the pool of healthy people covered by insurers, thus holding down premiums that otherwise would rise because of separate provisions prohibiting insurers from denying coverage to people with poor health or pre-existing conditions.
But the insurance requirement has been one of the most contentious parts of the new federal law. Public officials in well over a dozen states, including Missouri, have filed lawsuits claiming Congress overstepped its constitutional authority by requiring citizens to buy health insurance.
Federal courts are expected to weigh in well before the insurance requirement takes effect about whether the federal health care overhaul is constitutional.
The Missouri Hospital Association spent $400,000 warning people that passage of the ballot measure could increase hospitals' costs for treating the uninsured, but there was little opposition to the measure from either grass-roots organizations or from the unions and consumer groups that backed the federal overhaul.
Some Missouri voters who opposed the ballot measure cited a potential cost-shift to those who have insurance if some people are allowed to continue visiting emergency rooms without insurance. Other opponents of Missouri's ballot measure said they wanted to give Obama's health care plan a chance to work.
"I don't think people should be walking around sick," said Kathy Ward, a 57-year-old Columbia nurse, who voted against Missouri's law. "The fact remains, people have the right to have health care, and they should get it. It help makes a healthier society."
With about 90 percent of the vote counted late Tuesday, nearly three-quarters of voters backed a ballot measure, Proposition C, that would prohibit the government from requiring people to have health insurance or from penalizing them for not having it.
The Missouri law would conflict with a federal requirement that most people have health insurance or face penalties starting in 2014.
Tuesday's vote was seen as largely symbolic because federal law generally trumps state law. But it was also seen as a sign of growing voter disillusionment with federal policies and a show of strength by conservatives and the tea party movement.
"To us, it symbolized everything," said Annette Read, a tea party participant from suburban St. Louis who quit her online retail job to lead a yearlong campaign for the Missouri ballot measure. "The entire frustration in the country ... how our government has misspent, how they haven't listened to the people, this measure in general encompassed all of that."
Missouri's ballot also featured primaries for U.S. Senate, Congress and numerous state legislative seats. But at many polling places, voters said they were most passionate about the health insurance referendum.
"I believe that the general public has been duped about the benefits of the health care proposal," said Mike Sampson of Jefferson City, an independent emergency management contractor, who voted for the proposition. "My guess is federal law will in fact supersede state law, but we need to send a message to the folks in Washington, D.C., that people in the hinterlands are not happy."
Legislatures in Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana and Virginia have passed similar statutes, and voters in Arizona and Oklahoma will vote on such measures as state constitutional amendments in November. But Missouri was the first state to challenge aspects of the federal law in a referendum.
The intent of the federal requirement is to broaden the pool of healthy people covered by insurers, thus holding down premiums that otherwise would rise because of separate provisions prohibiting insurers from denying coverage to people with poor health or pre-existing conditions.
But the insurance requirement has been one of the most contentious parts of the new federal law. Public officials in well over a dozen states, including Missouri, have filed lawsuits claiming Congress overstepped its constitutional authority by requiring citizens to buy health insurance.
Federal courts are expected to weigh in well before the insurance requirement takes effect about whether the federal health care overhaul is constitutional.
The Missouri Hospital Association spent $400,000 warning people that passage of the ballot measure could increase hospitals' costs for treating the uninsured, but there was little opposition to the measure from either grass-roots organizations or from the unions and consumer groups that backed the federal overhaul.
Some Missouri voters who opposed the ballot measure cited a potential cost-shift to those who have insurance if some people are allowed to continue visiting emergency rooms without insurance. Other opponents of Missouri's ballot measure said they wanted to give Obama's health care plan a chance to work.
"I don't think people should be walking around sick," said Kathy Ward, a 57-year-old Columbia nurse, who voted against Missouri's law. "The fact remains, people have the right to have health care, and they should get it. It help makes a healthier society."
Obamacare Only Looks Even Worse Upon Further Review
Kevin Hassett - One of the more illuminating remarks during the health-care debate in Congress came when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told an audience that Democrats would “pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it, away from the fog of controversy.”
That remark captured the truth that, while many Americans have a vague sense that something bad is happening to their health care, few if any understand exactly what the law does.
To fill this vacuum, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee, asked his staff to prepare a study of the law, including a flow chart that illustrates how the major provisions will work.
The result, made public July 28, provides citizens with a preview of the impact the health-care overhaul will have on their lives. It’s a terrifying road map that shows Democrats have launched America on the most reckless policy experiment in its history, the economic equivalent of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Before discussing what the law means for you, we have to look at what it does to government. That’s where the chart comes in handy. It includes the new fees, bureaucracies and programs and connects them into an organizational chart that accounts for the existing structure. It’s so carefully documented that a line connecting two structures cites the legislative language that created the link.
Ornate System
This clearly is a candidate for most disorganized organizational chart ever. It shows that the health system is complex, yes, but also ornate. The new law creates 68 grant programs, 47 bureaucratic entities, 29 demonstration or pilot programs, six regulatory systems, six compliance standards and two entitlements.
Getting that massive enterprise up and running will be next to impossible. So Democrats streamlined the process by granting Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the authority to make judgments that can’t be challenged either administratively or through the courts.
This monarchical protection from challenges is extended as well to the development of new patient-care models under Obama’s controversial recess appointment, Donald Berwick, whom Republicans are calling the rationer-in-chief. Berwick will run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where he can experiment with ways to use administrative fiat to move our system toward the socialized medicine of Europe, which he has at times embraced.
Closer to Home
A sprawling, complex bureaucracy has been set up that will have almost absolute power to dictate terms for participating in the health-care system. That’s what the law does to government. What it does to you is worse.
Based on the administration’s own numbers, as many as 117 million people might have to change their health plans by 2013 as their employer-provided coverage loses its grandfathered status and becomes subject to the new Obamacare mandates.
Those mandates also might make your health care more expensive. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that premiums for a small number of families who buy their insurance privately will rise by as much as $2,100.
The central Obamacare mechanism for increasing insurance coverage is an expansion of the Medicaid program. Of the 30 million new people covered, 16 million will be enrolled in Medicaid. And you could end up in the program whether you want it or not. The bill states that people who apply for coverage through the new exchanges or who apply for premium-subsidy credits will automatically be enrolled in Medicaid if they qualify.
Hurting the Elderly
To pay for this expansion, the bill takes $529 billion from Medicare, with roughly 39 percent of the cut coming from the Medicare Advantage program. This represents a large transfer of resources, sacrificing the care of the elderly in order to increase the Medicaid rolls.
For all this supposed reform, you, the American taxpayer, can expect a bill to the tune of $569 billion.
Front and center among the new taxes is the 40 percent excise tax on those lucky people with so-called Cadillac health plans. The higher insurance costs that are driven by the government mandates will push many more ordinary plans into Cadillac territory.
If the idea of taxing people with coverage deemed too good doesn’t bother you, maybe the new 3.8 percent tax on investment income will. That will apply even to a small number of home sales, those that generate $250,000 in profit for an individual or $500,000 for a married couple.
In vivid color and detail, Congressman Brady’s chart captures the huge expansion of government coming under Obamacare. Harder to show on paper is the pain it will cause.
(Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He was an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. The opinions expressed are his own.)
That remark captured the truth that, while many Americans have a vague sense that something bad is happening to their health care, few if any understand exactly what the law does.
To fill this vacuum, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee, asked his staff to prepare a study of the law, including a flow chart that illustrates how the major provisions will work.
The result, made public July 28, provides citizens with a preview of the impact the health-care overhaul will have on their lives. It’s a terrifying road map that shows Democrats have launched America on the most reckless policy experiment in its history, the economic equivalent of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Before discussing what the law means for you, we have to look at what it does to government. That’s where the chart comes in handy. It includes the new fees, bureaucracies and programs and connects them into an organizational chart that accounts for the existing structure. It’s so carefully documented that a line connecting two structures cites the legislative language that created the link.
Ornate System
This clearly is a candidate for most disorganized organizational chart ever. It shows that the health system is complex, yes, but also ornate. The new law creates 68 grant programs, 47 bureaucratic entities, 29 demonstration or pilot programs, six regulatory systems, six compliance standards and two entitlements.
Getting that massive enterprise up and running will be next to impossible. So Democrats streamlined the process by granting Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the authority to make judgments that can’t be challenged either administratively or through the courts.
This monarchical protection from challenges is extended as well to the development of new patient-care models under Obama’s controversial recess appointment, Donald Berwick, whom Republicans are calling the rationer-in-chief. Berwick will run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where he can experiment with ways to use administrative fiat to move our system toward the socialized medicine of Europe, which he has at times embraced.
Closer to Home
A sprawling, complex bureaucracy has been set up that will have almost absolute power to dictate terms for participating in the health-care system. That’s what the law does to government. What it does to you is worse.
Based on the administration’s own numbers, as many as 117 million people might have to change their health plans by 2013 as their employer-provided coverage loses its grandfathered status and becomes subject to the new Obamacare mandates.
Those mandates also might make your health care more expensive. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that premiums for a small number of families who buy their insurance privately will rise by as much as $2,100.
The central Obamacare mechanism for increasing insurance coverage is an expansion of the Medicaid program. Of the 30 million new people covered, 16 million will be enrolled in Medicaid. And you could end up in the program whether you want it or not. The bill states that people who apply for coverage through the new exchanges or who apply for premium-subsidy credits will automatically be enrolled in Medicaid if they qualify.
Hurting the Elderly
To pay for this expansion, the bill takes $529 billion from Medicare, with roughly 39 percent of the cut coming from the Medicare Advantage program. This represents a large transfer of resources, sacrificing the care of the elderly in order to increase the Medicaid rolls.
For all this supposed reform, you, the American taxpayer, can expect a bill to the tune of $569 billion.
Front and center among the new taxes is the 40 percent excise tax on those lucky people with so-called Cadillac health plans. The higher insurance costs that are driven by the government mandates will push many more ordinary plans into Cadillac territory.
If the idea of taxing people with coverage deemed too good doesn’t bother you, maybe the new 3.8 percent tax on investment income will. That will apply even to a small number of home sales, those that generate $250,000 in profit for an individual or $500,000 for a married couple.
In vivid color and detail, Congressman Brady’s chart captures the huge expansion of government coming under Obamacare. Harder to show on paper is the pain it will cause.
(Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He was an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. The opinions expressed are his own.)
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Mexican Drug Cartel Offers $1 Million Bounty For Chief Arpaio
A chilling audio tape with text, circulating by e-mail, has been reported that puts a million dollar price on conservative hero, Sheriff Joe Arpaio's head. Is it a coincidence that this was reported on the same day that Arizona's immigration law, SB 1070, became effective?
Though the SB 1070 law that has gone into effect is a gutted version of the real bill, yesterday was also the day that Governor Brewer filed an expedited appeal, vowing to fight all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. Yesterday was also the day that busloads of imported protesters from California chained themselves outside Sheriff Arpaio's jail.
Still, there are those who think the real solution isn't immigration reform or securing the border. Some feel certain the fact that Arizona is trying to block the drug highway from Mexico, thus cutting off the drug cartel's route to supply drugs to the United States is the primary reason that the drug cartel is allegedly out to eliminate Sheriff Joe. Therefore, they think the solution is to legalize drugs.
In the message, $1M reward is placed on Arpaio's head, and for mafia cartel recruiting purposes, another $1K to join the cartel.
The information about the tape was provided by a man, frightened enought to request anonymity, who was disgusted when his wife showed him the tape and followed up by reporting it to the sheriff's office. Death threats aren't uncommon for law enforcement officers who battle the lawlessness of border states,woefully overwhelmed and understaffed, and Sheriff Joe has had more than a few. This threat is considered real and credible, especially because of its timing.
It is believed this message originated in Mexico. The tape provides an international phone number and investigators are trying to trace the text message.
Ms. Allen from the Sheriff's office is "sure he's concerned... for his family more than anything else."
At last, "Undocumented", a film about illegal immigration "levels the ground" for all involved. Premiered at the Texas Film Fest, May 17th at the Angelika Film Fest in Dallas. See this trailer of the powerful documentary filmed by Dallas director and fim maker, Justin Malone.
Though the SB 1070 law that has gone into effect is a gutted version of the real bill, yesterday was also the day that Governor Brewer filed an expedited appeal, vowing to fight all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. Yesterday was also the day that busloads of imported protesters from California chained themselves outside Sheriff Arpaio's jail.
Still, there are those who think the real solution isn't immigration reform or securing the border. Some feel certain the fact that Arizona is trying to block the drug highway from Mexico, thus cutting off the drug cartel's route to supply drugs to the United States is the primary reason that the drug cartel is allegedly out to eliminate Sheriff Joe. Therefore, they think the solution is to legalize drugs.
In the message, $1M reward is placed on Arpaio's head, and for mafia cartel recruiting purposes, another $1K to join the cartel.
The information about the tape was provided by a man, frightened enought to request anonymity, who was disgusted when his wife showed him the tape and followed up by reporting it to the sheriff's office. Death threats aren't uncommon for law enforcement officers who battle the lawlessness of border states,woefully overwhelmed and understaffed, and Sheriff Joe has had more than a few. This threat is considered real and credible, especially because of its timing.
It is believed this message originated in Mexico. The tape provides an international phone number and investigators are trying to trace the text message.
Ms. Allen from the Sheriff's office is "sure he's concerned... for his family more than anything else."
At last, "Undocumented", a film about illegal immigration "levels the ground" for all involved. Premiered at the Texas Film Fest, May 17th at the Angelika Film Fest in Dallas. See this trailer of the powerful documentary filmed by Dallas director and fim maker, Justin Malone.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Men Run Onto Mets Citi Field With Mexican Flags
Two men carrying Mexican flags in protest of Arizona’s immigration law ran into the outfield during the seventh inning of the New York Mets’ game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night at Citi Field.
The men were apprehended by security fairly quickly without much incident.
Prior to the game, about 40 people across the street from the ballpark chanted “Oppose racism!” and “Boycott Arizona!”
The men were apprehended by security fairly quickly without much incident.
Prior to the game, about 40 people across the street from the ballpark chanted “Oppose racism!” and “Boycott Arizona!”
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Sen. Graham Discusses Changing Constitution On Anchor Babies
According to a staffer with Sen. Lindsey Graham’s office, the Senator discussed changing citizenship requirements for children born in the United State.
According to the 14th Amendment, all children born in the United States are citizens.
Graham’s proposal would require the parents of any children to be legal citizens of the United States.
The senator said it would require a constitutional amendment to change.
His office issued the following statement regarding the plan and the comments made in the State newspaper:
The State called it a “stunning reversal” but that’s not accurate. He is putting another issue on the table when it comes to our broken immigration system.
He still believes the first step is to secure our border. That needs to be now.
Then we need to address all the issues related to our broken immigration system – employment verification, guest worker program, merit-based immigration, and what to do with the 12 million illegal immigrants already here. He has added another issue to that list of things we need to address – what do we do with birthright citizenship.
According to the 14th Amendment, all children born in the United States are citizens.
Graham’s proposal would require the parents of any children to be legal citizens of the United States.
The senator said it would require a constitutional amendment to change.
His office issued the following statement regarding the plan and the comments made in the State newspaper:
The State called it a “stunning reversal” but that’s not accurate. He is putting another issue on the table when it comes to our broken immigration system.
He still believes the first step is to secure our border. That needs to be now.
Then we need to address all the issues related to our broken immigration system – employment verification, guest worker program, merit-based immigration, and what to do with the 12 million illegal immigrants already here. He has added another issue to that list of things we need to address – what do we do with birthright citizenship.
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