Latinos always has been the primary focus for U.S. Recruitment.

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The US military says it has met its recruitment goals for 2008, However, signing new soldiers is getting more difficult, with an unpopular war in Iraq and open-ended commitments both there and in Afghanistan.

New figures reveal there has been a 40 per cent drop in African-Americans signing up for the army. The Pentagon wants to expand the size of the army to 547,000 soldiers by the year 2010, and are counting on Hispanics to fill the gap. To do so, recruiters are turning to incentives to bolster their numbers. Mike Kirsch explores the sometimes questionable tactics being used to entice Latino recruits into the US army.
Back then in 1967 most of the young chicanos were about to gain a new title from the draft board. Letter "A" And it's mean that they should be the first to be shipped out to Vietnam to dodge bullets. How come on the Military services the Minorities are the Majority? It's a lot easier for our students to carry a gun than a book?.

The Lord Prayer. By Michael Smith.

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There will always be those who choose not to believe and are threatened by us who choose Christ. For those who choose not, I pray for their souls and for Christ to give them understanding!!!!!

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."
(Matthew 7:7-8)

The Lord Prayer.

Our Father, which art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Our Father, which art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy name

Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven

Our Father, which art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Hallowed be Thy name

Our father, which art in heaven
Our father
Hallowed be thy name
Hallowed be thy name

Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven

Give us this day
Our daily bread
And forgive us our debts
As we forgive our debtors

And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us, deliver us from evil

Can we restore the Rule of Law? Unlawful detained by Suspicion.

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A video produce by CheckpointUSA On November 26th, I was stopped & seized for about the 50th time since the beginning of 2008. The seizure took place at an internal suspicionless Homeland Security checkpoint along Southern Arizona's SR86 near mile post 146. SR86 is an East-West public highway located over 40 miles North of the border and never intersects the border at any point.

During the stop, Agent Gilmore admitted he knew who I was & all three agents told me I wasn't being detained. Nonetheless, these facts didn't stop the agents from refusing to allow me to go about my lawful business, choosing instead to escalate the encounter by requesting that I move to secondary inspection for more intensive scrutiny absent my consent or any articuable suspicion.

While continuing to deny that I was being detained and refusing to allow me to leave, the agents threatened me with arrest for impeding their operations.

After close to eight minutes of being unlawfully detained, a Border Patrol supervisor eventually arrives on-scene and wastes no time in telling me that I'm free to go with no further scrutiny.

Given the circumstances surrounding this extended non-detention, the only reasonable explanation that can be attributed to the agent's behavior is a desire to train the traveling public to be obedient to the whims of any federal agent with a shiny badge & a gun.

For those of you who actually think the government cares about the border, how many illegal aliens do you think crossed unchallenged 40 miles to the South because three Border Patrol agents were harassing Americans 40 miles to the North at a suspicionless checkpoint?

Can we restore the Rule of Law and aprehend real Criminals?

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Juana Villegas: A Pregnant Woman Detained Watch Juana relate the trauma of being shackled and detained while giving birth. She was nine months pregnant when stopped for "careless driving”, but instead of receiving a customary citation, she was shackled and detained, and remained shackled while giving birth. All this because of agreement 287(g) between local police and federal immigration authorities.

Can we restore Human rights or we are above the rule of Law?

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Ali: An HIV+ Man Suffers in Detention Ali has been living in New York city for 30 years with a green card. Life changed when he spent more than a year in immigrant detention where he witnessed the worst kind of physical abuse and medical mistreatment, including constantly fighting to get his HIV medication. Despite all this, Ali reaffirms that “life is beautiful”! Can we restore the Rule of Law, Civil Rights and Human Rights?

Again Republican Politic misleading America.!!!!!!!!. Where are those facts?

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What we're seeing from Republicans on immigration so far this Congress is kind of like Groundhog Day, Memento, and a Bush State of the Union Address all rolled into one. Call it cyclical delusion.

GOP strategists keep talking about how the Party needs to make nice with Hispanic voters, but Republicans just can't seem to resist reaching for that trusty "Scapegoat the Immigrants" playbook, and thinking that it will work this time. At this rate, Republican lawmakers are set to turn every single piece of legislation into a nasty debate about immigration.

Earlier this month, Republicans tried to block health care for kids ( on the grounds that legal immigrant children would qualify), and now they are trying to delay passage of the economic stimulus package because of immigration issues. Reid says the bill has nothing to do with anything illegal -- and that it creates jobs for people in this country lawfully.

If this scenario sounds hopelessly familiar, it's because we've been through it before.

The anti-immigration wing of the GOP, with its single-minded, extreme immigration focus, may block progress on crucial issues in the short term, but it will come at the price of getting bulldozed by a new political reality.

Right Dana Rohrabacher? Do you want an Honest and open discussion about Undocumented Immigration? Open your eyes and ears, do not be blind to miss facts from Lou Dobbs and Minuteman groups..They are thousands of facts out there from Government agencies that U.S. Citizens are the major factor of draining social services, do not misleading, scapegoating, diminished the Undocumented people. We always trended to blamed the people who do not have a voice either a vote. You want facts? There too close to you. Seems that you are following the trend and vision of Tom Tancredo that rounded up and deported all undocumented Immigrants will solve our Immigration and Financial crisis or even restore the rule of Law. Did you ever saw someone driving more than the speed limit? That's illegal right? Then How come we fight at war with other Countries for Liberties, Freedom but we are not let people stay here for those who are running away from their Country of origin for Freedom, and liberties? Are you there? or you want me to continue?. Follow me........

History of Mormons in California.

This is from the video "More Precious Than Gold." The Mormon Battalion was the only religious "unit" in American military history serving from July 1846 to July 1847 during the Mexican-American War. They provided funds from their salaries and allowances to assist the Mormon exodus west, such as part of their clothing allowances they provided to Brigham Young to help finance the Latter-day Saint's move to the Salt Lake Valley.
The battalion was a volunteer unit of 500 soldiers, nearly all Mormon men with regular army officers in command and key staff positions along with Mormon company officers. The battalion made a grueling march from Council Bluffs, Iowa to San Diego, California. The Mormon Battalion were mostly members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who were fleeing religious persecution in Nauvoo, Illinois. The battalion's march and service was instrumental in helping secure new lands in several Western states, especially the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 of much of southern Arizona. The march also opened a southern wagon route to California. Veterans of the battalion played significant roles in America's westward expansion in California, Utah, Arizona and other parts of the West.
President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Brigham Young, sent Elder Jesse C. Little to Washington, D.C. to seek assistance from the federal government for the Mormon trek west. After several interviews with President James Polk in early June 1846, the offer to enlist some 500 men after the Mormons arrived in California was accepted. Yet, orders through military channels were misread and an army officer went to the Mormon camps in Iowa to enlist men into a battalion consisting of all Mormons.
The battalion was mustered into volunteer service on July 16, 1846 by Captain James Allen of the famous 1st U.S. Dragoons. Dispatched by Colonel (later Brigadier General) Stephen Kearny, Allen met no success in recruiting until Brigham Young and other members of the Twelve gave public approval. Eventually some 500 men volunteered into this unique "federal" unit, which was not structured as a more typical militia or state volunteer organization. Several large families, some soldier's wives and a number of teen age boys accompanied the battalion, making it appear more as a pioneer party than a military force. The Mormon Battalion would be part of the Army of the West under General Kearny, a tough and seasoned veteran, that would have two regiments of Missouri volunteers, a regiment of New York volunteers who would travel by ships to California, artillery and infantry battalions, Kearny's own 1st US Dragoons, and the battalion of Mormons.
The Mormon Battalion arrived in San Diego, California on January 29, 1847 after a march of some 1,900 miles from Iowa. For the next five months until their discharge on July 16, 1847 in Los Angeles, the battalion trained and also performed occupation duties in several locations in southern California. The most significant service the battalion provided in California and during the war, was as a reliable unit under Cooke that General Kearny could rely on to block Fremont's mutinous bid to control California. The construction of Fort Moore was one measure Cooke employed to protect legitimate military and civil control under Kearny. Some 22 Mormon men died from disease or other natural causes during their service. About 80 of the men re-enlisted for another six months of service.
A few of the men escorted John C. Fremont back east for his court-martial.
A few discharged veterans worked in the Sacramento area for James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill. Henry Bigler recorded the actual date, January 24, 1848, in his diary (now on display at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA) when gold was discovered. This gold find started the California Gold Rush the next year.

Undocumented Immigrants draining Welfare system? A lie or a Lie.

Again is beyond belief the Anti Immigrants group are narrow minded towards facts and myths regarding draining social services like Welfare, Medicare, and Medicaid. Just a few facts for them; Are you there Lou Dobbs? Glenn Beck, Minuteman Groups? Read these facts:

A former Alabama Department of Human Resources employee from Prichard pleaded guilty this week to using her position to steal hundreds of dollars in food stamps, the attorney general's office announced Tuesday.

Three other Mobile County women also were convicted this week on charges of welfare fraud, according to a news release from Attorney General Troy King.

Elanda Stallworth, 57, admitted to charges of second-
degree theft of food stamp benefits or money from DHR and that she intentionally used her position for unlawful personal gain, the release states. She pleaded guilty in Mobile County Circuit Court on Monday. Stallworth apparently used her own computer to steal six checks worth $149, or a total of $894, King said. Source:


Attorney General Troy King today announced the convictions of three women in Mobile County Circuit Court for charges of welfare fraud.
“When people lie to receive welfare benefits to which they are not entitled, they are committing a crime against the State, the taxpaying public, and those who are truly deserving of welfare benefits,” said Attorney General King. “I take seriously my responsibility as Attorney General to protect public funds on behalf of the people of Alabama and pledge to prosecute those who break the law by abusing the welfare system.”

Chantell Robinson, 33, of Mobile, pleaded guilty today to third-degree theft of property in the amount of $1,401. She was sentenced to one year, which was suspended, and placed on probation for two years. The court ordered her to pay full restitution to the State of Alabama.

Tosha Lee, 32, of Chickasaw, pleaded guilty today to third-degree theft of property in the amount of $4,867. She was sentenced to one year, which was suspended, and placed on probation for two years. The court directed her to pay full restitution to the State of Alabama.

Shirley Ann Blackmon, 44, of Mobile, pleaded guilty yesterday to second-degree theft of property in the amount of $4,617. She was sentenced to three years, which was suspended, and placed on probation for three years. The court ordered her to pay full restitution to the State of Alabama.

The Attorney General commended Assistant Attorney General Noel Barnes and Senior Special Agent Assie Webb for their work in handling these cases. Attorney General King also thanked the Department of Human Resources in Mobile County for its assistance in preparing information and referring the matter to the Attorney General’s Office for review and appropriate action, noting in particular Rose Johnson, director of Mobile County Department of Human Resources; Avis Buford, caseworker, Mobile County DHR; Leon Kennedy, claims worker, Mobile County DHR; and Geraldine W. Turner, claims supervisor, Mobile County DHR.

Johnson stated, “We work to have our Food Stamp program deliver timely benefits to eligible individual’s and appreciate the Attorney General prosecuting those who illegally receive benefits. Every dollar given fraudulently takes away from those truly in need. We want the public to have confidence in the administering of these programs and appreciate prosecution when appropriate.”

The Mobile County cases are part of a continuing statewide effort by Attorney General King to aggressively investigate and prosecute welfare fraud. Prosecutions are pending in approximately 38 counties, including Baldwin, Clarke, Monroe, Escambia and Conecuh counties. Source:


Couple plead guilty to welfare fraud

A Shingletown couple have pleaded guilty to welfare fraud and are due to be sentenced March 24, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

William Wallner, 34, pleaded guilty Monday to welfare fraud and perjury in two separate cases, and is to be sentenced to three years in prison, Deputy District Attorney Michael Hemker said.

Teresa Wallner, 34, pleaded guilty to two counts of welfare fraud and is to be sentenced to 180 days in jail, he said.

Between 2004 and 2008, the couple were overpaid nearly $30,000 in welfare benefits for failing to report job and unemployment income, Hemker said. Source:

Polygamous Sect are the largest funded groups from Medicare and Medical.

If you are going to have three wives and 15 children, you need to figure out a way to support three wives and 15 children. Source:

Today our worst fear was realized.

Towards our leaders and institutions; they are naive beyond belief. Although being used, abused and oh so confused by their so-called leaders, big media and this one-sided economic system; they keep on chuging along still wanting to believe in the american dream they are sold every minute, every day. There's a Hope Program, no guidelines, no one has been aproved because there is no guidelines, No one, Zero, Nada; there is no hope, there is no help from Mortgages, Lenders, Goverment Agencies for a responsible homeowners. Ohhh yeah but they can used our taxpayer money to bail out big Corporations, Banks, Car dealerships without helping people for who has been used and abused?. Enough is enough.!!!!!

The real whiners are that 10% of happy few replutocrats and their 90% + of the whole shabang. They are the ones we are bailing out. They are the ones constantly lobbying & amp; begging for more deregulation & tax cuts. They are the welfare corporations slaughtering US's middle class and making them feel guilty about it too… But know who should be accountable for responsible homeowners losing their homes, their jobs, the increased foods prices, Gas prices and the SALARIES GOING DOWN? Anybody said me.........Many mental-health crisis and suicide hotlines are reporting a surge in calls from Americans feeling despair over financial losses.

The escalating pace of unemployment and foreclosures rising fears among some homeowners about keeping up with their mortgages are creating a range of emotional problems. People are seeing more drinking, domestic violence and marital problems linked to Economic crisis concerns ? as well as children trying to cope with extreme anxiety when their families are forced to move. They're depressed, anxious. It's affected marriages, relationships. Sixty-one percent in the West Coast identify housing costs, such as rent or mortgage payments, as significant sources of stress.

Then Yesterday around 8.30 am were a sad event all over the news: Los Angeles man kills wife, 5 children, himself.
It's hard to understand the suicide; I do not want to judge anybody because is not on my hands to do so but my Family prayers are for the all Lupoe Family.

At the bottom of the letter, Lupoe wrote,

They did nothing to the manager who stated such and did not attempt to assist us in the matter, knowing we have no job and five children under 8 years with no place to go. So here we are.

"Oh lord, my God, is there no hope for a widow's son?" Continue reading here: Source

Today's bible verse is" 14 The LORD upholds all who fall,
And raises up all who are bowed down.
15 The eyes of all look expectantly to You,
And You give them their food in due season.
16 You open Your hand
And satisfy the desire of every living thing.

17 The LORD is righteous in all His ways,
Gracious in all His works.
18 The LORD is near to all who call upon Him,
To all who call upon Him in truth.
19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
He also will hear their cry and save them.
20 The LORD preserves all who love Him,
But all the wicked He will destroy.
21 My mouth shall speak the praise of the LORD,
And all flesh shall bless His holy name
Forever and ever."(Psalm 145 : 14 - 21

A trail of a Joke comes to a Reality. Canada deports disabled U.K. Citizen.

::: BREAKING NEWS :::
In 2009 the government will start deporting
all the mentally ill people.
I started crying when I thought of you.
Run my little crazy friend, run!

Well, what can I say?? Someone sent it to me, and I'm NOT going alone !!

I receive this email that it may offend some people like me but many found it to be so funny. You will said that I do not have a sense of Humour but you are wrong; I believe we should not be laughing on behalf of the people who needs us the most, people who needs our care, our compassion, our support, our understanding and we needs to change our inmoral behavior to be more Humane. I understood from the beginning that Canada was a Green, tolerant, modern thinking, progressive nation....how wrong. Shame on you Canada.!!!! This is why I am ashamed and disgusted from this joke comes to a reality for people who needs us the most. See for yourself and do not forget about Pedro Guzman mentally disabled U.S. citizen who was mistakenly deported to Mexico.

Canada deports disabled U.K. citizen

A British man who was injured while working in Canada has been deported because authorities concluded keeping him in the country would be an economic burden for taxpayers.

Chris Mason, 36, was ordered deported to the United Kingdom after Canadian immigration officials determined that granting the wheelchair-bound man permanent resident status would create an undue economic burden.

Border services agents took Mason to Winnipeg's James Richardson International Airport on Monday and put him on a flight to Manchester. Several of Mason's friends were at the airport to give him money and his belongings — but they were barred from seeing him. Mason had been in detention since last Wednesday.

Mason said he had no desire to return to England where he hasn't lived since he was a child. He lived with his father in Greece before coming to Canada in 2001.

Once here, he began working as a truck driver in Ontario and British Columbia before settling in Winnipeg. The long-haul trucker became a paraplegic after damaging his back on the job.

Mason was further injured in 2007 when he was hit by a taxi while leaving hospital and has been unable to work since.

He had been living in Canada illegally without a visa for more than two years and had been collecting social assistance while battling Manitoba's Public Insurance Corp. over injury benefits when his application for permanent resident status was denied.

"You'd think he was a terrorist," said his mother Gillian Kilford from Manchester. "He was injured during the course of this work. After a period of readjustment he went back to work. He paid taxes in Canada."

She said her son would face hardship finding wheelchair accessible accommodation in Britain. Her son would not be able to negotiate the stairs in her home, she said, adding she had no idea Monday where or when Mason would arrive back in the U.K. since no one from the Canada Border Services Agency had contacted her to make arrangements to greet him at any U.K. airport. "I expect they'll just dump him at immigration," she said.

Advocates for the disabled have been lobbying for Canada to amend the Immigration Act, removing a clause that says anyone who might cause undue economic demand on the social welfare system can be denied the right to live here.

Refugees, who can be injured before being admitted to Canada, are excluded from the "excessive demand" clause in the Immigration Act, but the clause applies to everyone else.

"The Immigration Act frankly prohibits people with disabilities from immigrating to Canada," said Laurie Beachell of Disabled People's International. "The effect would mean people like Stephen Hawking, world-renowned physicist, brilliant man, could never become Canadian

Border Patrol at Church? They weren't there for Mass.

A churchgoer says he and several others will not be going back to pray, because of who might show up. Raul Atkinson did not want to appear on camera, but agreed to talk with us about why he’s afraid to go to church.

He says he has faith and always makes time to pray. But Atkinson says he never thought he’d skip out on a service until some Border Patrol agents showed up.

Atkinson claims they weren’t there for mass. Instead, they were looking for information.

“We didn’t know what was going on. They just walked into our church asking for papers and IDs. And the ones that didn’t have any, they were picked up,” says Atkinson.

Atkinson tells us he watched as agents took a woman and children into custody. He says at first, he thought it was some sort of raid.

Atkinson says they were picked up during their prayer. He says no one was given a heads up and that Border Patrol agents walked right through the door and started asking for documents.

Border Patrol Agent John Lopez says no record of any arrests inside the Apostolic Assembly exists.

“As for as places that are worship centers, we will not - by policy, we will not enter these places, unless it’s absolutely necessary,” Lopez explains.

Atkinson says he’s been keeping in touch with the pastor. He hopes to be back in church soon so he can attend mass in peace without any interruptions or fear.

Since Border Patrol agents told us they did not go into the church, we checked with ICE officials. They also said there was no record of agents going into the church.

Why we remained silent towards Racism and Hate against Minorities?

I do understand that people living in fear due to the Economic Crisis, but that is not an excuse, or reason to response and utilize hate or racism as a vehicle as escape of they own emotional actions against Minorities. Every time ICE reinforce Raids and safety, We develop a big wave of fear but we do not understand that the most destructive element in the human mind is fear and FEAR creates aggressiveness.

STOP HATE, STOP RACISM, ENDS INTOLERANCE, AND STOP BIGOTRY.

ANCHOR NEWS MUST BEING ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ANTI IMMIGRANT TONE.

We should learn the ART OF HEARING, We always Translating what others are saying. There is a difference between the comprehension of words and the comprehension of the state of Fear. If you ask me whether is possible to live without fear or not? I will said yes, We need to stop make comparison and identify your causes of fear. Then if you identified those are your factors and your mind seeing those as bringing about fear then the very perception of those factors ends the contributory causes.

A spate of seemingly unrelated incidents in Mountain View — a vandalized school sign; middle school students chased down a street by BB gun wielding teens; a neighbor unhappy about Latino day laborers; and more recently, an e-mail peppered with racial insults directed at the new mayor — has rattled officials and leaders of a city that views itself as a model of diversity.

Days before she was sworn in to office, Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga, the city's first Asian-American female mayor, received e-mail through her public City Hall address. "I can't believe this city elected a stupid Asian-American like you," Abe-Koga quoted from the unsigned e-mail, which went on to blame undocumented immigrants for the country's economic woes.

"It didn't surprise me," said the Harvard University graduate Abe-Koga. "But I was angry."

The day she took office Jan. 6, Abe-Koga, 38, condemned the recent incidents that occurred weeks apart late last year, and referred to the e-mail she received.

"To remain silent was something I couldn't do," Abe-Koga said. "This is not what we're about. We need to come together."

Abe-Koga has joined a growing chorus of city leaders and community groups who say the incidents may be isolated, but a forceful, vocal response is the best defense against a worrisome trend that "something is brewing" in Mountain View.

"It's happening to middle school students. It's happening to the mayor," said Oscar
Garcia, president and co-founder of Mesa de la Comunidad, a local education and advocacy group for Latinos. "The community needs to know it's happening at all levels."
Garcia is teaming up with Alicia Crank, a former city human relations commissioner, the police department and other community leaders to plan a "Not In Our Town" gathering, an event named after a 1995 film documentary about the unequivocal response by residents of Billings, Mont., against white supremacists. A similar gathering was held in Newark in 2003, a year after the killing of a transgender teenager.

"We need to ask where this is coming from," Crank said. "There's something there that needs to be exposed so we can move past it." The event has not been scheduled.
The first incident was reported the day after the November election. Garcia's wife was driving past an empty lot festooned with all sorts of candidate campaign signs. One sign stood out. "No More Aliens" was stenciled in red across a Spanish sign about school registration.

"To me it was a deliberate attempt to intimidate the Latino community," Garcia said. "To me, the message was, 'Anyone who speaks Spanish, you're not welcome here.' "
Also sometime in November, day laborers at the Mountain View Day Worker Center's old office on Escuela Avenue were confronted and reportedly intimidated by an apparently disgruntled neighbor unhappy about the immigrant workers.

"There's a lot fear," said Maria Marroquin, executive director the day worker center, which is now located near downtown Mountain View. "There's a lot of ignorance."
On Dec. 5, three white teens, ages 14 and 15, were arrested by police and charged with hate crimes, making criminal threats, brandishing a replica firearm and conspiracy to commit a felony. One of the 15-year-olds was also charged with possession of marijuana. The cases are pending in juvenile court and the identities of the teens were not released by police.

According to police, four 11-year-old Latino students were walking home from school. As they walked, the teens shouted racial comments from the open window of a house and threatened to kill the students. Then the teens chased the students down the street.
In an interview with the Mercury News, Abe-Koga, the daughter of Japanese immigrants, disclosed another incident in December. As she and her 7-year-old daughter were walking from Castro Elementary School, a group of Latino boys began talking. She said she realized later that the boys were doing a racial taunt, speaking mock Chinese.

"I just felt sadness," she said. "Maybe there's no connection between these incidents, but I want people to be aware of this problem."

English Only in Nashville, TN, A waste of taxpayer money or Anti Immigrant measurement?

This is the proposed English only Amendment:

THE PROPOSED ENGLISH-ONLY AMENDMENT.

“English is the official language of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee. Official actions, which bind or commit the government, shall be taken only in the English language, and all official government communications and publications shall be in English. No person shall have a right to government services in any other language. All meetings of the Metro Council, Boards, and Commissions of the Metropolitan Government shall be conducted in English. The Metro Council may make specific exceptions to protect public health and safety. Nothing in this measure shall be interpreted to conflict with federal or state lawIn the same week President Barack Obama championed the country for being shaped by every language and culture, Nashville voters today will head to the polls to decide whether their Metro government will conduct its business in only one language — English.

This is the current Tennessee Acts of 1984, ch. 821, § 1.]":

English is hereby established as the official and legal language of Tennessee. All communications and publications, including ballots, produced by governmental entities in Tennessee shall be in English, and instruction in the public schools and colleges of Tennessee shall be conducted in English unless the nature of the course would require otherwise.

Seems to me that Mr. Eric Crafton has some problem on understanding the Law because he breaks the law by not reporting donors as required by LAW. What's Mr. Crafton try to accomplish? embarrasement? waste of taxpayers money? Political power? or being recognized as Anti Immigrant? but he is not facing the real problems of his own Budget deficit were the Emergency response are under staffing. This a clearly action to bashing Hispanics, Latinos out Nashville, TN.

That Mr. Crafton Understand that residents, Legal and undocumented even foreign Investors, tourists could die due to this amendment?. A non-English speaking immigrant who calls 911 for an emergency may NOT get access to a bilingual operator
or a Doctor when they call for save their or other lifes..!!!!


The English Only special election brings to a head an issue that’s been hovering over Music City since 2007 when Metro Council passed an ordinance which was ultimately vetoed by former Mayor Bill Purcell.

English Only proposes to make English the official language of Metro, while also stating individuals have no right to services in other languages. It offers the provision that Metro Council may make exceptions for health and safety purposes, but Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act already mandates most local government offices must offer their services to all citizens.

Metro’s major departments have repeatedly said they have virtually no idea the impact the charter amendment proposal would have, if it were to pass.

The primary champion of English Only has been Eric Crafton, a Metro Council member from Bellevue, who insists the proposal is merely to ensure Metro’s board, commission and Council meetings are done in one language. Crafton says Tennessee code annotated, which already makes English the state’s official language, doesn’t go far enough.

And yesterday, on the eve of the special election, he was confident of a victory.

“Nashville English First (the local committee advocating the proposal) has won a tremendous victory just by giving people the chance to vote,” Crafton said. “They had to go through two lawsuits and two petition drives just to give the people the chance to vote, despite efforts by the anti-English crowd to suppress. I think that is what democracy is all about. I’m very proud and very excited. I hope 50,000 people turn out to vote.”

Crafton has consistently said that English Only is simply about whether Metro business should be conducted in one language. But only last month The City Paper interviewed some of the Davidson County residents who signed his petition drive and streamlining Metro business was not the reason they supported the charter amendment proposal — instead their comments touched on the issue of illegal immigration.

It is the anti-immigrant sentiment that has rallied a broad coalition against Crafton’s English Only push, which starts at the top with Mayor Karl Dean, who has spoken out against English Only since Crafton began the petition drive last summer.

In recent weeks, Dean has ramped up his opposition by filming television advertisements, recording a message for automated “robo” calls to voters and conducting a series of national interviews on the issue.

Joining Dean in opposing the charter amendment proposal are the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, a coalition of dozens of area churches and faith-based groups, immigrant rights groups and even some prominent Nashville Republicans.

“I really can’t speculate on the outcome,” Dean said when asked how he thinks today’s election will go. “I am proud of the unprecedented coalition of business groups, activist groups, individuals, church leaders, university presidents — all the people who have come together to make a statement about who we are as a city, regardless of the outcome.

“I do know this. No matter what comes of the election, Nashville will still be a great city, and we will continue to move ahead and stay focused on the things we want to accomplish,” Dean said.

The list of media outlets following the special election continues to grow. The New York Times, Fox News, and Lou Dobbs from CNN, have all covered the special election in recent weeks. A City Paper reporter was interviewed by the BBC yesterday on the issue.

Crafton blames the opposition for drawing so much attention nationally to the issue. He insisted that if Purcell had not vetoed his original Council bill, then no one outside of Nashville would have noticed. As it stands, Nashville is on the verge of becoming the largest municipality to pass an English Only resolution.

“The whole thing has been blown out of proportion and unfortunately the anti-English folks have made this into a national issue,” Crafton said. “The very thing they wanted to avoid, they caused, but by their actions they’ve made this a national issue.”

Opponents say the proposal sends the wrong message about Nashville, a city they point out is growing more diverse with each passing year.

Stephen Fotopulos, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition said the community his nonprofit advocacy organization represents is keeping a close watch on today’s election results.

“I personally have never seen the immigrant and refugee community in Middle Tennessee so unified around a certain issue,” Fotopulos said. “I think English Only more than anything else makes it clear that this is not an assault on one group. It’s an assault against everyone who looks or sounds different.

“I’m incredibly encouraged to see leaders of the immigrant and refugee community come together.”

In the English Only fund-raising race, Crafton told The City Paper his group had raised about $60,000, a far cry from the nearly $300,000 the opposition raised. However, Crafton and Nashville English First refused to file a financial disclosure with the Davidson County Election Commission until after today’s election.

“For people not to want people to become self-sufficient, to me is the wrong approach,” Crafton said. “I am surprised, to some extent, at how much money they raised to oppose something that a vast majority of people support.”

The English Only proposal is not the only one on today’s ballot. There is also a proposal to simplify the petition-driven charter amendment process.

That proposal would allow for referendum proposals to coincide with every countywide election and would downsize the number of signatures needed to put a proposal on a ballot.

Dean and others have spoken out against the second proposal, too, stating it would make it too easy to amend Metro’s governing document. Metro government has already been shaped distinctly by one referendum that now forces all future property tax increases to go to a referendum for approval.

Police Officer violating Civil Rights beaten a man while restrained in a wheelchair.

I wonder why some fellow Citizens refuse to call to Police for help.!!!!!!!!!!.
A Chicago police officer pleaded guilty today to violating the federal civil rights of a man whom the officer struck repeatedly with a dangerous weapon while the man was handcuffed and shackled in a wheelchair, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Loretta King, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI’s Chicago Field Office announced.

William Cozzi, 51, pleaded guilty to a one-count information in U.S. District Court in Chicago, admitting he used excessive or unreasonable force while acting under color of law. Cozzi joined the Chicago Police Department in 1992 and was assigned to the 25 th District at the time of the alleged incident. He was subsequently suspended from duty. Cozzi was indicted in April 2008 for depriving the victim of his civil rights.

On Aug. 2, 2005, while performing his duties as a police officer, Cozzi admitted that he used a “sap,” a dangerous weapon similar to a blackjack, to repeatedly strike the victim who was handcuffed and shackled in a wheelchair at Norwegian American Hospital, resulting in bodily injury. At the time, the victim was awaiting treatment in the hospital emergency room after being stabbed in the shoulder.

“The defendant violated the public trust by abusing his law enforcement authority,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King. “This prosecution demonstrates that the Civil Rights Division is committed to aggressively prosecuting law enforcement officers who willfully use excessive force.”


“No law enforcement officer may use unreasonable force with impunity and every citizen, regardless of being in police custody, has a constitutional right to be free from the use of excessive force,” U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald said.

Cozzi pleaded guilty while reserving his right to appeal a ruling last year denying his motion to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that the prosecution was based in part on compelled statements he made to the Chicago Police Department’s Office of Professional Standards and during a police review board hearing.

According to a plea agreement, Cozzi was dispatched to the hospital to respond to the stabbing and approached the victim who was being loud and verbally abusive while awaiting treatment for the stabbing. Shortly after approaching the victim, Cozzi placed him in handcuffs and left the emergency room to retrieve leg shackles, which he then placed on the victim. With the victim restrained, Cozzi used a sap to repeatedly strike him in the face and body. According to the plea agreement, at the time of the assault the victim posed no physical threat to Cozzi or anyone else at the hospital.

Cozzi also admitted that he subsequently prepared a false arrest report and misdemeanor complaints stating that the victim attempted to punch him and two hospital security guards, as well as a false tactical response report stating that he used an “open hand strike” on the victim but omitted that he struck the victim with a sap.

U.S. District Judge Blanche Manning set sentencing for March 26, 2009. Cozzi faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Drury from the U. S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois and Trial Attorney Betsy Biffl of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Another Brutal and racist attack against Latinos.!!!!

Ya Bastaaaa. Ya BASTA, Enough is enough. One single hate crime is more than enough.!!!!!!! Alert, Alert. Alert, Alert, Alert.
This situation must called for immediate action Know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Action. Action.
The question is how are all these haters succeeding in the face of hate crime legislation?. High Alert! Some “hate groups,” they warn, are changing their approach and attempting to use Latinos, Hispanics people as vehicles for their purposes. Ashamed and Outrageous this type of crimes still happen in United States of America.!!!!!!

Colombian immigrant Wilter Sanchez, 33, was brutally attacked in Wednesday afternoon by a gang of hate-filled thugs in the town of North Plainfield, New Jersey.

Doctors at the Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick say that Sanchez is lucky to be alive given his injuries. They are set to perform reconstructive surgery on Sanchez' face as soon as the swelling eases.

Five African American men between the ages of 17 and 19 young years of age were arrested for the hate crime. Continue Reading here: Source:

Detention Centers Standards experienced agressive Hardships for Immigrants.

Some 300 women held at immigration detention centers in Arizona face dangerous delays in health care and widespread mistreatment, according to a new study by the University of Arizona, the latest report to criticize conditions at such centers throughout the United States.
The study, which federal immigration officials criticized as narrow and unsubstantiated, was conducted from August 2007 to August 2008 by the Southwest Institute of Research on Women and the James E. Rogers College of Law, both at the University of Arizona. It was released Jan. 13.
Researchers examined the conditions facing women in the process of deportation proceedings at three federal immigration centers in Arizona. An estimated 3,000 women are being held nationwide.
The study concluded that immigration authorities were too aggressive in detaining the women, who rarely posed a flight risk, and that as a result, they experienced severe hardships, including a lack of prenatal care, treatment for cancer, ovarian cysts and other serious medical conditions, and, in some cases, being mixed in with federal prisoners.
Katrina S. Kane, who directs Arizona detention and removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, dismissed the study as unsubstantiated accounts from a limited number of detainees and their advocates.
“Reports such as this, while alleging to be unbiased, do great harm to the public’s understanding of the complex issues involved in immigration law enforcement,” Ms. Kane said.
The director of border research for the institute on women, Nina Rabin, an immigration lawyer who led the study, countered that interviews with detainees, former detainees and their lawyers corroborated a pattern of endemic mistreatment.
And Ms. Rabin said she had spoken with immigrant advocacy groups around the United States, many of whom stated that mistreatment of women at the centers was not unusual.
“We were pretty shocked to learn about all the ways in which life is made endlessly difficult for these women,” Ms. Rabin said, especially those who were pregnant or had recently given birth.
The immigration department has been under increasing pressure to improve conditions at its detention centers. The federal Government Accountability Office and the inspector general’s office at the Department of Homeland Security have each released reports in the last three years criticizing standards at such centers, many of which are operated by private contractors.
Last September, the immigration department announced plans to improve conditions at its detention centers, but the new rules will not fully take effect until 2010. Meanwhile, Congress has been weighing whether to impose its own requirements on the department after a New York Times article on immigrants who died in federal custody.
The three centers that the study focused on are not run by the immigration department but by the Pinal County Sheriff’s Department and the Corrections Corporation of America.
“We strictly enforce all national ICE standards,” Ms. Kane said, “and if we find those standards are not being met and we feel the deficiencies are not being corrected, we locate our detainees to other facilities.”
In one of several cases documented in the study, a woman being held at the Central Arizona Detention Center in Florence who experienced excruciating abdominal pain for months after she had been forced to undergo female genital mutilation in West Africa was told by the center’s staff to “exercise and watch her diet,” her lawyer at the time, Raha Jorjani, said. After nearly six months, the woman, who had been convicted of a nonviolent crime, was taken to a hospital where an ultrasound revealed a cyst the size of a five-month-old fetus, Ms. Jorjani said.
Immigration officials then suddenly released the woman with no money or health insurance to treat the cyst, Ms. Jorjani said.
“That she had to remain in detention at all during this period is egregious,” Ms. Jorjani said. “She shouldn’t have had to get that sick for immigration to consider her request for release.”
Ms. Kane, the department spokeswoman, said that this was the first the agency had heard of the case and that it took accusations of mistreatment seriously.
In one case the study described, an Undocumented immigrant identified as Ana, who had come to the United States from Mexico as a baby and served a brief stint in jail for using a fake credit card, was being held at the Central Arizona Detention Center.
Although Ana was six months pregnant and had an ovarian cyst, she was ordered to use a top bunk and denied a sonogram and prenatal vitamins during the five weeks she was held, the study said.
Three women also told a local immigrant rights group that they had suffered miscarriages while in detention in the last three years, according to the study.
Ms. Kane said that while her department could not corroborate any of the report’s accusations, it had found that a detainee’s contention that she had not received treatment for cervical cancer had proved false.

Stop Immigration Raids.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Several hundred immigrant supporters and religious leaders from across the country marched to the Southwest Washington headquarters of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency yesterday, strumming guitars, beating drums and waving colorful homemade banners exhorting President Obama to halt immigration raids and promote legislation offering illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.
Although the demonstration featured many speeches in Spanish and cries of "Sí se puede!" -- Yes we can! -- the crowd was also notable for its diversity. Suely Neves, 26, of the Boston group Deported Diaspora had come on behalf of her fellow Cape Verde immigrants. Standing next to her, Indian American immigrant Dimple Rana, 28, said she was concerned about the fate of the Cambodian refugees she works with in Lowell, Mass.
"I've seen a lot of good friends deported because of minor prior convictions," Rana said as groups waving banners from Florida and New Orleans chanted behind her.
Many of the demonstrators had come to town to celebrate Obama's inauguration, and the mostly religious representatives who addressed the crowd portrayed the event as a chance to spiritually "cleanse" the agency of the Bush administration's stepped-up enforcement approach. At the same time, they urged Obama to make good on his campaign promise to push through a legalization plan similar to one that former president George W. Bush twice tried unsuccessfully to get through Congress.

Margarito Esquino, an activist for indigenous rights in El Salvador, lit incense and waved condor feathers toward the sky, shouting in Spanish, "O Great Spirit, we ask you to get rid of all the badness in this building and bring in the good!"
Rabbi David Schneyer, of the Am Kolel Sanctuary and Renewal Center in Beallsville, blew on a shofar, a ram's horn traditionally sounded for the Jewish new year.
The Rev. Frederick Hancock of Gethsemane United Methodist Church in Capitol Heights performed a libation ceremony meant to evoke African ancestral rituals, pouring grape juice -- symbolizing wine -- onto the roots of a potted plant as he called for strength from civil rights icons such as Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez.
Many participants said they believe Obama's first priority must be to right the economy, even if that means delaying an overhaul of immigration law for months and even years. But they are also eager for the administration to declare an immediate moratorium on deportations and immigration raids.
Antonio Bernabe, an organizer with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles and one of several immigrant activists who met with Obama's transition team in recent weeks, said he was very optimistic based on its response. Still, he said, demonstrations remain necessary.
"The anti-immigrant groups are already moving, and we have to assure Obama that . . . [the raids] are not acceptable," he said.

California will recover 112 million for Medi Cal Program fraud.

Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced that California will recover $112 million for its Medi-Cal program as part of a national settlement with Eli Lilly and Company for the unlawful off-label marketing of its anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa, which the company aggressively marketed for such unapproved uses such as treatment for depression, anxiety, irritability, disrupted sleep, nausea and gambling.

“This settlement means that Eli Lilly can no longer reap massive profits by aggressively marketing this drug for unapproved uses at the expense of state health care programs for seniors and the infirm,” Attorney General Brown said. “California’s Medi-Cal program will receive almost $112 million, which is more than welcome at a time when the state faces massive budget deficits.”

Eighteen percent of the $112 million recovered for the Medi-Cal program will go to relators (whistleblowers) – the remainder will be split between the State, which will receive $54 million and the federal government, which will receive $41 million.

Beginning in 2001, Eli Lilly launched a marketing campaign called “Viva Zyprexa!” which encouraged physicians to prescribe Zyprexa for children, adolescents, and dementia patients.

In October 2008, the California Attorney General entered a settlement with Eli Lilly over the Zyprexa marketing campaign. In his original complaint, Attorney General Brown alleged that Eli Lilly engaged in unfair and deceptive practices when it marketed Zyprexa for off-label uses and failed to adequately disclose the drug’s potential side effects (including diabetes and hyperglycemia) to healthcare providers.

Under this settlement, Eli Lilly agreed to change its marketing practices and to cease promotion of its off-label uses. Off-label uses are those not approved by the FDA when it approves the sale and use of a particular drug. Physicians are allowed to prescribe drugs for off-label uses, but federal law prohibits pharmaceutical manufacturers from marketing products for off-label uses.

The total settlement is $1.415 billion—the largest recovery in a health care fraud investigation in U.S. history. The settlement includes $800 million in civil damages to be paid to the States and $615 million as a result of criminal charges brought against the company for illegal marketing.

Although both California and the U.S. contribute 50% to the funding of the Medi-Cal program, California’s share is larger than the federal share due to the federal Deficit Reduction Act, which provides monetary incentives to states to use False Claims Acts to pursue Medicaid fraud.

You're all I want.

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I'm so touch in a unique way by this song, I have you know I listen to it everyday. It touches my soul. Wow! God really gives us talent. Beautiful song!
Sometimes is so hard to remember that our faith has to be so simple "Jesus is everything we need" nothing more, God Bless all, God Bless America.

Scripture John 15:7
7 "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.


Lyrics You're All I Want.


Find me here, speak to me
I want to feel you, I need to hear you
You are the light that's leading me to the place
Where I find peace again
You are the strength that keeps me walking
You are the hope that keeps me trusting
You are the light to my soul
You are my purpose
You're everything
And how can I stand here with you
And not be moved by you
Would you tell me how could it be any better than
this
You calm the storms and you give me rest
You hold me in your hands
You won't let me fall
You still my heart, and you take my breath away
Would you take me in take me deeper now
And how can I stand here with you
And not be moved by you
Would you tell me how could it be any better than
this
And how can I stand here with you
And not be moved by you
Would you tell me how could it be any better than
this
Cause you're all I want,
You're all I need
You're everything... everything
You're all I want
You're all I need
You're everything... everything
You're all I want
You're all I need
You're everything... everything
You're all I want
You're all I need
Everything... everything
And how can I stand here with you
And not be moved by you
Would you tell me how could it be any better than
this
And how can I stand here with you
And not be moved by you
Would you tell me how could it be any better any
better than this
And how can I stand here with you
And not be moved by you
Would you tell me how could it be any better than
this
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this

4Th Amendment and your Freedom.

The surveillance inside the United States. Senator Arlen Specter’s (R-Pa.) bill (S. 2453), which Specter revised to accommodate White House requests for greater authority, would ratify and dramatically expand the President’s authority to wiretap U.S. Citizens and non U.S. Citizens.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. — Fourth Amendment, U.S. Constitution.

“If the right to privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion.” — William J. Brennan, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice.

The right of an individual to conduct intimate relationships in the intimacy of his or her own home seems to me to be the heart of the Constitution’s protection of privacy.” — Harry A. Blackmun, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice.

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances.” — Christopher Dodd, U.S. Senator.

A Canadian Immigration Officer posed as a Lawyer.

A man hiding in Toronto after he was ordered deported to Brazil claims a border services agent arrested him after posing as his lawyer using the Terrorism bill to identify, persecute, prosecute, convict and punish undocumented Immigrants as Terrorists but also Canada's widely known values of fairness and respect for human rights. Hmmmmm?
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Fabricio Campos's lawyer, Guidy Mamann, said the failed refugee claimant was arrested Tuesday outside his friend's west-end apartment by an immigration enforcement officer who had called Campos's cellphone that morning identifying himself as one of his lawyers and offering to take him to meet his wife.

"This is not about (my client) but about people who get a call from a lawyer, who ends up being a law enforcement officer impersonating and interfering (in) one's rights to legal counsel," Mamann said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Campos, a drywaller, is being detained at an immigration holding centre. He's due for deportation to Brazil on Tuesday.

In a statement issued yesterday, the Canada Border Services Agency would not comment specifically on Campos's claims, but it did say "our information conflicts with the complainant's."

The release said all allegations of employee misconduct are taken seriously, and management reviews and investigates all complaints.

In an affidavit not yet filed in court, Campos claimed he had a call on his cellphone Tuesday morning from a man claiming to be a lawyer "Joel" from Mamann's law firm.

"Naturally when the caller identified himself as `Joel,' I believed he was referring to Mr. Sandaluk. The caller told me that he wanted to take me to see my wife in detention," Campos said in the affidavit. "He asked me if I was at 75 Emmett Ave. I told him, no, I'm at a friend's house at Trethewey and Black Creek. I told him the address."

Campos said he asked the caller twice if it was safe to see his wife since immigration authorities were out looking for him. "He assured me that I wouldn't be detained," he said. Ten minutes later he was arrested by two immigration enforcement officers in the lobby.

Mamann said Campos's phone displayed the caller's number – the same as that used by one of the officers. "Why would someone in hiding tell an arresting officer where he was?" the lawyer asked.

Campos has been in Canada since 2002. His wife, Marta Sousa, was arrested with their Canadian-born daughter a day earlier when officers arrived at their home looking for him. Sousa and the girl were released after Campos's arrest.

Mamann plans to complain to the Canadian Bar Association, the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Civil Liberties Association about the officer's alleged conduct

Racists a Treat for Obama Administration?

Oooops you better believe it.!!!! There should be a great concern for Obama Administration for Racist groups were racist talk is supposedly protected but harmful acts are not.

Hate crimes experts and law enforcement officials are closely watching white supremacists across the country as Barack Obama becomes our first African American president of the United States.

So far, there is no known organized effort to express opposition to Obama's rise to the presidency other than a call by the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan for its members to wear black armbands as well as fly the U.S. flag upside down on Inauguration Day and Obama's first full day in office.

Anger, violence and interest in racist ideology did increase in the hours and days after Obama was elected president in November, hate groups experts said.

While experts said it is difficult to determine how many people belong to hate groups, they do agree with an SPLC estimate that claims there are about 900 operating now, a 40 percent increase from 2000. The vast majority of these groups promote white supremacist beliefs, and range from skinheads living in urban areas to the KKK ,which is based largely in rural settings.

I am glad that SPLC monitoring those groups but some times It is difficult to pinpoint how many people subscribe to white supremacist views, because the Internet allows people to follow the movement under the cloak of anonymity.

Keep reading here: Source

The Challenge of Liberty, Morals, Freedom and Humanity.

Now if you want a president by his speeches, consider Herbert Hoover. He is among the greatest Americans ever to be president. Perhaps only George Washington, among the 44 who have held that office, did more good in the world both before and after his White House service. And Washington’s immortality is as much based on what he didn’t do. Jimmy Carter’s hammer-taps don’t come close to what Hoover did in organizing, managing, and impelling efforts that saved literally millions of human lives.

It was his peculiar fate, like that of John Quincy Adams a century before, to have run an administration that failed in the midst of a life of hard-won triumphs in the service of his nation and humanity.

Hoover’s vision of America, of hope and work and public spirit, is much like the one Obama invoked Tuesday. More like it than the words of Lincoln, FDR, JFK — the presidents who popped into the media’s mind on the occasion.

The problem with Hoover is, his vision now is tied up in his prose. Literally. he’s not a good writer. He writes like a businessman, with a clunky voice and an inability to resist the temptation to use a hollow cliche if he finds one in his path.

So he’ll never be Lincoln, or Obama, but if you simply pay attention to the words and ideas, it’s the best elucidation of Americanism I can find.

Hoover is under no illusions about big business and the sort of crooks that will be parasites on the financial system. He also forcefully asserts the need to have the federal government play an active role in the game as an umpire and enforcer of the rules.

Most of all, he believes in the American people. Or he tells them he believes in them, which is just as important. If they think they are what he sees in them, if they strive just a little every day to live up to the ideal, if they keep this American way fixed in their minds, they will be better than they ever could be without that ideal.

Here is something he wrote in 1934 in a book called “The Challenge to Liberty” [pp.30-1]:

No civilization could be built to endure solely upon a groundwork of greed or even upon the enlightened self-interest of the individual. It is out of the altruistic and constructive impulses that the standards and the ideals of the nation are molded and sustained.

Our American System is not alone an economic method, a definition of rights, a scheme of representative government, an organization to maintain order and justice, a release of constructive instincts and desires. It is far more than that, for it is a system of stimulation to higher standards, to higher aspirations and ideals.

While we have built a gigantic organized society upon the attainment of the individual, we should not have raised a brick of it but by the stimulation to self-restraint and by drawing upon those high aspirations of men and women expressed in their standards of truth and justice and in their spiritual yearnings.

These ideals are never wholly realized. Not a single human being personifies their complete realization. It is therefore not surprising that society, a collection of persons, a necessary maze of instincts of individuals, cannot realize its ideals wholly.

This is not a “_______, but …” statement. There is no taking it back. It is what he believes.

While his work during and after World War I is notable, it is his less-known work after World War II, in the immediate years when starvation stalked Europe and Asia, that impresses me most. He had been in the political wilderness as long as Roosevelt was in office — Roosevelt deliberately and pettily cut Hoover out of participation in anything that would have reflected credit to him. Truman didn’t have that pique, and the two Midwesterners quickly got along and worked well together.

The war laid waste to the world. The channels of commerce that had fed humanity collapsed. Hoover took charge of buying or coaxing food from nations that had it and getting it to those that didn’t. Distribution, not supply, was the problem. And, again, as a conservative estimate, millions were saved that otherwise had perished.

Again, he took the case to the American people, and rallied their sense of what was right in plain language. After he toured the world’s capitals and took stock of the relief efforts, he came home and made a major U.S. radio address on May 17, 1946, to raise awareness and sympathy for the plight of world famine victims. Part of what he said was this:

On this journey I have seen much which I could criticize as to the management of the famine relief. I criticized such matters to many officials in the world frankly. I could criticize them bitterly. But, after every boiling of inward indignation at men and at nations, I come back again and again to the fact that millions are in grave danger of starvation. To explode into public criticism in this crisis would only weaken the amount of support and diminish the food they will receive. Criticism can wait for history. I only want to record that all has not been perfect in the world that I have witnessed. It all adds emphasis to the fact that today the vital need is unity and cooperation now, so that we may master this crisis.

Frank acknowledgment that the system has many gross defects and shady corners and outright waste. A desire to make it work better rather than have the mere glory of the critic and whistleblower. Give me more of that in bureaucrats.

Then a plain argument for feeding the enemy:

There are Americans who believe it right, and a duty, to feed women and children even of a surrendered enemy. No one is the enemy of children. There are others who believe that the only hope of a peaceful world is to save the enemy peoples from starvation and thus start building them into peaceful, cooperative peoples. There are others who, remembering the immesurable crimes the enemy has committed against all mankind, believe in “an eye for an eye,” a “tooth for a tooth.” To these, let me say that to keep five hundred thousand American boys in garrison among starving women and children is unthinkable. It is impossible because, being Americans, they will share their own rations with hungry children; it is impossible because hunger brings the total destruction of all morals; it is impossible because of the danger to American boys of sweeping infectious diseases, which rise from famine. It is unthinkable because we do not want our boys machine-gunning famished rioters. It’s unthinkable because we do not want the American flag flying over nation-wide Buchenwalds.

Americans will listen to that sort of appeal. If not, we’re no longer worthy of the name.

The strength and wealth of America was its people and its ideals. Hoover prefered that that strength and wealth act directly on the problems, rather than waiting for the government to make rules to force it. He knows large organized efforts must be made and only governments can accomplish them. But he felt the tendency to rely on the government to do everything sapped the power and will of the people. He wanted the public to know it was doing the essential ground-level work on its own.

And here is where he sounds a different note than Obama (or, when you get past the mere rhetoric, any other modern president of either party). Here is his press statement on President Truman’s appeal to save food, New York, Feb. 8, 1946:

I am convinced that it is entirely possible for us to meet this need of increased food exports by voluntary action to eliminate waste and unnecessary consumption and to do it without compulsory rationing. We have now had experience with both systems. In the first World War we placed food consumption on a moral and Christian appeal and voluntary organization of the housewives, eating places and food trades. We have now, in this war, had experience with compulsory rationing, and an examination will show that the consumption over capita was no greater and probably less under the voluntary system

.

Hoover had a Quaker spirituality. He supported a war but was aware of its toll on the victors’ souls, and the need to restore and repair not just infrastructure but national morals and dedications to truth and liberty, both of which necessarily are impinged in war.

[B]efore the war we protested in deep indignation the bombing of children, women and civilian men by the Japanese at Nanking, the Russians at Helsinki, the Germans at Warsaw and London. We said war must be confined to clashes of armed men, not the killing of civilians. Yet did we not wind up the war by killing tens of thousands of women and children at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Even if we grant that it was necessary, it is not a matter to exult over

The two needs, post-war self-redemption and charitable expression, dovetail in the relief effort. Here is part of an address he gave in Madison Square Garden Sept. 21, 1947, to “rally for another winter American moral and spiritual forces engaged in voluntary relief to a distressed world.”

Primarily, this meeting is concerned with charitable programs. While the broader bases of economic action such as I have mentioned are necessary if we shall solve the world situation, there is no less need in the world for private effort and charity. This earth is indeed in need of spiritual and moral stimulation. Charitable action and the voluntary reduction of consumption to save human life are among the highest of moral and spiritual inspirations to mankind. We must call upon these forces of the spirit if we are to succeed in our economic as well as our charitable programs. Indeed, the great charitable organizations in the United States which will be putting forth their efforts to save the individual cases of destitution and hardships, as distinguished from broad governmental programs, have a great work to perform — not only in the service they give, but in the moral and spiritual stimulation they can lend to the American people in these efforts.

The fundamental law of our civilization is based upon compassion and charity. And compassion and charity do not ask whether the sufferer has always been good or bad, whether he has brought his misery upon himself, or is the innocent victim of forces beyond his control.

It is sufficient that there is suffering and that we possess the means to alleviate it. The key to our hearts can always be turned by little children, by mothers, by the aged and the destitute. We are, thank god, sentimentalists. We know that the great bounty that has been placed in our keeping must not be hoarded while others starve and are in pain. We dare not, even in this age of gross and abject materialism, forget that our consciences were forged by tender women and strong men who have built for themselves a world to their liking, always setting aside a mite for the charity that they knew God enjoined upon good people.

And we are a good people. We have in the past responded to every call for human aid.

I hope that the day never comes in this country when all our good works are done through taxes, for then the moral strength that comes from compassion and charity is lost to us

Patriot Act. U.S. Citizen Jailed without evidence.

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The story of one US Citizen who was wrongfully detained without charges and later sentenced to jail without evidence. It is just one of the many examples of scapegoats produced by the ideological-hatred, indifference and incompetence reflected in both the 'under-the-table' Congressional agendas and the Bush Administration's controversial Patriot Act.

Patriot Act. The date America change Security for Freedom,

This video shows clearly how September 11, 2001 change the way America view Ethnicities from Around the World specially muslims, Arabs and Hispanics violating their Civil rights to achieve the security of Americans giving up Freedom, Liberties, and Civil rights.

Persecution through imprisonment, expulsion, or punishment members of an ethnic minority by a majority to achieve ethnic homogeneity in majority-controlled territory is a Ethnic Cleansing.

Patriot Act and the War on Civil Liberties.

A brief history of the Patriot Act, showing the many deceptions brought in by the Bush Administration, including: requesting total secrecy form public input and swapping at the last moment, the original Bill that Congress agreed to sign, with one manipulated by the Administration. The Administration's version of the Bill contained unconstitutional provisions that had been rejected earlier by Congress.

Regardless, Congress rushed to pass an, otherwise, unread Bill which sought to greatly expand all federal law enforcement powers -- far beyond their intended means. Hence, America would later discover that the Patriot Act had little, if anything, to do with fighting the actual "war on terror" and much more to do with bypassing the civil protections, granted under the US Constitution

Law is the Law but where are the American Values? Morals? Dignity?.

This is an outrageous action against Hispanic, latinos just for his Irrational and Inmoral values of Joe Arpaio for Political and personal power. That's just Ashamed to see this Happen in America. The land of the BRAVE and the home of the FREE? Takes real courage to leave two innocent, scared, crying children behind while taking away their mother. This is the Change we want for us as Americans? This is the way foreigners want to perceive as Americans? Heartless?, Uncompassionate for others?.

Two young children were separated from their mother, Ciria Lopez, in Maricopa County, Arizona earlier this week when she was arrested for an unpaid traffic ticket. The arrest was the result of an immigrant suppression sweep by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who gained infamy for reinstating chain gang labor and dressing predominately Latino inmates at his county jail in pink underwear, pink handcuffs, and striped jumpsuits.

Salvador Reza, a local community organizer, captured video of the arrest and the reaction of Mrs. Lopez's frightened children. The video below was featured this morning on The Board, a blog shared by editorial writers at The New York Times. Mrs. Lopez's children are staying with her niece while Mrs. Lopez remains in custody.
Ciria Lopez appeared in court today, facing fines for an unpaid traffic ticket from 2006. Judge James Mapp cleared Mrs. Lopez of all municipal charged after the ticket was paid. Sheriff Arpaio continues to hold Mrs. Lopez under his 287(g) agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Despite criticism from Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Arizona Ecumenical Council, and the Anti-Defamation League, The Fox Reality Channel offered Sheriff Arpaio a reality TV show entitled, "Smile, You're Under Arrest." The show centers around elaborate sting operations run by Sheriff Arpaio to capture people wanted on outstanding warrants.
According to the East Valley Tribune, the focus on immigration enforcement has negatively affected other areas of law enforcement in Maricopa County. Response time to 911 calls has increased, arrest rates have dropped, and overtime costs related to immigration enforcement ran up a $1.3 million deficit over the final three months of 2008.

Lenders and Banks ignoring the responsible Homeowners.

Need help from your bank before you're forced to default? Good luck with that. Conventional wisdom may tell homeowners who can see financial trouble approaching to reach out for help as soon as possible. But most borrowers trying to follow that advice are finding they can't get their bankers to discuss the options — including loan modifications — until they've missed payments.
"It is extremely difficult for any consumer who is not delinquent to even find someone to talk with at their lender," says Michele Johnson. "The consumer who is really being proactive and trying to do the right thing faces challenges that are unexpected."
A harsh reality Marvin Webb, pastor of the Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church in Richmond, Calif., called his bank nearly two months ago to say that although his credit is good and he's current in his payments, he can see financial trouble coming. "They said they were looking for a loan they could put me in, something good. But they never got back to me," Webb says.
He called back recently. "I told them what they told me, and they still didn't have anything to say. You know, they take your number and (say) 'We'll call you back.'"

Logic suggests banks should help struggling homeowners early, renegotiating loans to avoid even-more-costly foreclosure. Ben Windust, Wells Fargo senior vice president for customer and default operations, says, "We can always work with any borrower who is having any kind of financial difficulty," even before a loan is in default. But those who work with homeowners say that, mostly, that's not happening.

"One of the really unfortunate contradictions of this crisis is that it's only when people have ruined their credit that they can get even a response from their bank," says Adam Kruggel, director of the Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization. Part of the problem is banks are overwhelmed by the flood of people who cannot make payments. And that leaves plenty of struggling but still-current borrowers "hanging on and sometimes they are making enormous sacrifices; in some cases they are draining their entire life savings" to keep up their mortgage payments, he says.

Sean Woods was one of them. At this time last year, he was a mortgage broker in Goodyear, Ariz., an expensive suburb of Phoenix. He was earning about $12,000 a month, he says, so payments of roughly $4,500 a month on two loans for his family's home in a golf-course community seemed manageable.
Then, in February, Woods received what turned out to be his last mortgage commission payment. Record home prices in the Phoenix area had encouraged overbuilding, so prices were falling and sales were slowing. "I saw the writing on the wall," he says.
In late spring, he called Washington Mutual to say that although he was current in his payments, he was struggling. He was running through savings and using credit-card cash advances to make his home payments.
He asked to talk to the bank's loss-mitigation department. Typically, when you punch your loan number into the bank's phone system, you are routed to the bank's customer service or collection department, depending on whether your payments are current or overdue.
A collections officer's job is to recoup past-due payments and set up repayment plans allowing a homeowner to make full, regular payments plus a portion of the delinquency in order to catch up. But negotiating a lower interest rate or reduction in the loan principal is usually beyond the authority of the collection department, says Azucena Valladolid, chief operating officer at Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Nevada and Utah.

Woods says he told his bank, "I'm making the payments, but it won't be long before trouble will be upon me, before I start missing payments."
Loss mitigation basically told me, 'This loan is performing. You haven't missed a payment.' Basically (they said), 'Call us when you start missing payments.'"

In July his check bounced and his mortgage went into default. He got financial counseling and the bank offered a tentative modification offer.By then, though, he'd begun to question the value of a bank modification. What was the sense in committing to a plan without an income to support it? Shouldn't he just focus on getting work?
The big picture Like the troubled loans they are meant to fix, modification plans can include complex loan features: interest-only periods that reset in a few years, gradually increasing payments, or complicated formulas for sharing appreciation or equity. Some simply stretch the loan over 40 years reducing the payment amounts but increasing the total loan cost.

Woods, sadder but wiser, is keeping his options open. "I'm one of those homeowners that's troubled but also accepts the responsibility for signing these documents and getting into this situation myself," he says.

Today, his $597,500 home is worth about $435,000. "I paid over $100,000 in just payments for this home in the last two years and my principal payment may have went down $5,000. At some point, either you concede to be insane or you wise up and say it's better to walk away from this thing than continue to put money down a black hole."

Banks are making relatively few modifications. In the third quarter of 2008, only about 40,000 loans were modified — a small proportion of the millions of loans said to be in trouble. And 58% of loans modified this year were back in default within eight months, according to the Office of Comptroller of the Currency.

Rod Dubitsky, a banking industry analyst at Credit Suisse, says there's no consistent program or standard to help people who are struggling financially but who are still current on their mortgages. He says the government should analyze data from banks on modification agreements to see which modification plans are really working, then create a national program with uniform standards.
"The sad thing," Dubitsky says, "is that the message a lot of struggling 'currents' are getting is, 'Come back to us when you're delinquent.' I've heard it said that some servicers will coach the borrower to become delinquent (in order to get help)."

An unexpected rescue That's the advice friends were giving Barbara Quinn of Asheville, N.C., after she got little help when she called Ocwen, the company collecting payments on her home mortgage. She says she reached out to the servicer before her interest rate reset and added $300 to her house payment but "got bounced around from one person to another and really didn't get to talk to anyone who could talk with me."
Friends were advising her to stop making payments in order to get the bank's attention. She couldn't stomach that idea. "I was saying, 'I don't want to be in default on my mortgage,'" she says. "I'm not the kind of person to miss a payment."
Also, it scared her. What if the strategy didn't work? "Then you're out on a limb," she figured. "I was wondering, at 75 years old, what am I going to do? Live in the street?".

Take action and be proactive. If you run into a wall, call your Congress member and senators. (Find contact information here; enter your ZIP code next to "Find Your Officials" at the upper right corner of the page.) Also, grassroots activist groups work through the PICO National Network to press local, state and federal officials to take homeowners' needs into account in addressing the mortgage crisis.

The economy sank because some people over-borrowed for houses they couldn't afford, and financial institutions over-borrowed for investments they badly misjudged. Lawmakers solution is to borrow $800 billion that it cannot afford. How will adding $800 billion to the national debt (which will also raise interest rates) solve a recession created by imprudent borrowing? And who will bail out the American taxpayer when the bill comes due?