Pro Immigrant

Fox News Spins Arizona Anti-Immigrant Law's Loss in 9th Circuit?

2011-06-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

That Fox News has been change the journalist and ethical standards? the When Fox News reported on the latest court to strike down large parts of Arizona's, anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, a law that promotes racial profiling and violates federal preemption of immigration policy, the supposed straight news program both mischaracterized the substance of the court's decision and unfairly smeared the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals itself, as I show in this video.

I am coming back...Get ready Anti Immigrants..

2011-06-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

To those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice..." -Isaiah 10:1-2

I have a Dream. Russell Pearce's SB1070 Attracts Nazi Tourists

2011-01-17T09:53:00.000-08:00

Hate speech is, outside the law, any communication which disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race or sexual orientation. In law, hate speech is any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group. The law may identify a protected individual or a protected group by race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, or other characteristic. In some countries, a victim of hate speech may seek redress under civil law, criminal law, or both. In some countries, such as the United States, hate speech laws have been held to be incompatible with free speech but has been protected by politicians and Law enforcement officials.

Center for Immigration Studies and the Arizona border

2011-01-12T17:46:00.000-08:00

Center for Immigration Studies and the Arizona border

The trail behind of the Anti Immigrant sentiment and the rethoric language against Immigrants and political parties associated with.
This sad tragedy is a wake up call for all Arizonans and the Nation. It's time to take back Nation from the right-wing, anti-people demagogues and their corporate masters. We must demand that they stop blaming immigrants, muslims,Jews, Asians, African Americans for their failures.
we're angry at the political climate in Arizona and the that encourages these acts of terrorism. We're angry at the talk radio shows, the right-wing legislature, U.S. Senator, R-Ariz., and the elected officials who come up with one racist anti-immigrant or anti-worker bill after another. Meanwhile our schools and health care continue to rot. And we're angry with the corporate interests who own the politicians and the hate spewing radio stations.
Every event here is turning into a memorial. A press conference that had been scheduled to denounce the attacks on the 14th amendment and ethnic studies in schools was a case in point. Kat Rodriguez of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos summed it all up, "Our legislature started the year walking in hate." All the speakers pointed out that it's not only the talk shows that encourage violence but it's the governor, legislative leadership and other right-wing elected officials who have created a climate that encourages acts of violence and terrorism.

Tucson tragedy: The Tucson Tragedy and Politics

2011-01-12T16:06:00.000-08:00

The rethoric political flames and Anti Immigrant sentiment..Obama birth certificate, Undocumented Immigration, Beheading Immigrants, murders, rapists, invaders... Everything start in Arizona... Change must come....

Hate Crime Instigated by Political Anti-Immigrant Rhe...

2011-01-12T09:52:00.000-08:00

The Historic of attacks on Hate crimes against Latinos said another history.
hate climbed against due to the Political Rethorica language, Latinos were the victims for hate crimes climbing 61 percent from previous years.

In the five years from 2003-2007, the number of hate crimes reported against Hispanics increased nearly 40 percent (from 426 in 2003 to 595 in 2007). Of all hate crimes reported in the United States in 2007, 7.8 percent were committed against Hispanics. Of hate crimes in 2007 motivated by bias due to the victim's ethnicity or national origin, nearly 60 percent were committed against Hispanics, up nearly 50 percent from 2003. This alarming increase, and its correlation to increasingly virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric

Political Rhetoric, Explained - Steven Pinker

2011-01-12T09:33:00.000-08:00

Political Rethoric language often tends to be vague, empty, and bland.

Russell Pearce Says 20% Of Immigrants Have A Criminal Record

2011-01-12T09:13:00.000-08:00

Rethoric language. The blind spot from Republicans against Latinos.

Ruseel pearce said 20% of Latinos coming across the border has a criminal record.
they are drug traffickers, child molesters, human smugglers, criminals but he is on denial about driven his political career dimishing, scapegoating, criminalizing legal, citizens and undocumented Latino Immigrants.
And Republicans are on denial of the rethoric language by Politicians, Like Russel Pearce, and other Republicans,Anchors news, like Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Minuteman hate crimes against latinos increased thru the recent years.

Russell Pearce Says Obama May Be Asked For Papers If He Visits AZ

2011-01-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

When will talking about rethoric language and disrepect of politicians. Republicans trended to climb the mountain faster than anyone else.
Just look this vidoe for a great disrespect for the President of the USA.

Russell Pearce says that the President may not visit Arizona for fear of being asked papers and He is the president of the Arizona Senate.

Other poor ignorants laugh at this bad and racist joke

Lou Dobbs if I post it , it's a fact.

2010-03-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

Lou Dobbs, whose views on Immigration roiled controversy, and despicable language on Immigration has exiled himself from CNN.

The longtime CNN anchor announced on his TV show Wednesday that he’s leaving the cable network he helped launch in 1980 and, save for a two-year stint with the Web site Space.com, has worked at ever since.

Wednesday’s edition of “Lou Dobbs Tonight” was Dobbs’ last at CNN. Although his contract was to run for a little more than two additional years, he told viewers CNN agreed to let him out of his contract.

Dobbs left open the possibility he might be moving to the Border…Hmmmmm ? I am wondering which border...... Saludos y hasta la vista Amigo..

My friend Lou, I will make sure you will be received with an open arms ..

Racism climate on Immigration? Anti Immigrant said No, what about you?

2010-03-28T12:08:00.000-07:00

Prince William County, Virginia becomes ground zero in Americas explosive battle over immigration policy when elected officials adopt a law requiring police officers to question anyone they have "probable cause" to suspect is an undocumented immigrant.

9500 Liberty reveals the startling vulnerability of a local government, targeted by national anti-immigration networks using the Internet to frighten and intimidate lawmakers and citizens. Alarmed by a climate of fear and racial division, residents form a resistance using YouTube videos and virtual town halls, setting up a real-life showdown in the seat of county government.

The devastating social and economic impact of the Immigration Resolution is felt in the lives of real people in homes and in local businesses. But the ferocious fight to adopt and then reverse this policy unfolds inside government chambers, on the streets, and on the Internet. 9500 Liberty provides a front row seat to all three battlegrounds

New Beginning.. Starting all over..

2010-03-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

The whole world's broke and it ain't worth fixing
It's time to start all over, make a new beginning
There's too much pain, too much suffering
Let's resolve to start all over make a new beginning.

Now don't get me wrong I love life and living
But when you wake up and look around at everything that's going down
All wrong
You see we need to change it now, this world with too few happy endings
We can resolve to start all over make a new beginning. Can we?

2010-03-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

Respect the religious beliefs of others.

The Way to Happiness is comprised of 21 precepts, each one predicated on the fact that one's survival depends on the survival of all others—and that without the survival of others, no joy and no happiness are attainable.

How could affect Immigrants the closure of 300 post offices?

2009-08-27T12:33:00.001-07:00

The U.S. Postal Service announced this week that it is offering up to 30,000 employees a $15,000resignation bonus to leave their jobs. The initiative would cost the USPS $450 million but could save another $500 million over the next fiscal year and a possibility of a major delays on the process of delivering mail on the peak season (Christmas).

Trimming back and going lean. It's like the Richard Simmons diet, for the post office.

And this no-carb plan offers participating employees an initial payment of $10,000 in the coming October followed by $5,000 in October 2010. Desk clerks, distribution center mail handlers and clerks, and motor vehicle technicians are eligible for the resignation bonus program. And they have until September 25th 2009 to decide.

The slow economy is not the only factor that has motivated the cutting measures. With increasing online and electronic communications, the USPS has already been experiencing a steady decline in mail deliveries. That decline paired with advances in technology, automating more aspects of the postal collection and sorting process, have created the need for fewer employees. In the current year alone, mail volume has dropped 12.6 percent. And if a $2.4 billion third-quarter loss wasn't difficult enough news, the projection of $7 billion as the total year's loss gives perspective for the job eliminations.

The resignation bonus is one of several cost-lowering efforts that also involved closing 300 post offices across the country, cutting over 100 million work hours, and mandating hiring and salary freezes for top executives.

The USPS negotiated the plan with workers unions, American Postal Workers Union and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union.

The success of the plan will be telling. If it meets a positive response, it could spark a re-emergence of the USPS---perhaps a leaner, greener machine equipped to adapt to the country's changing needs. And a best-case scenario for resignation bonuses in the Post Office could serve as a catalyst for other similar incentives in other government agencies.

The Postal Service lost $2.4 billion during its third quarter and forecasts a $7 billion year-end loss, according to figures released earlier this month. The financial woes can be tied in large measure to roughly $7 billion in mandated payments to fund current and future retiree health benefits. Postal officials say they will not make the payments for future retiree benefits if it faces an expected cash shortfall next month.

The decision to offer buyouts comes amid several other cost-cutting moves. The Postal Service may close about 300 post offices across the country, mostly in dense urban areas, while selling off other expensive, but underused, retail locations. It has already cut more than 100 million work hours this year, equal to 57,000 positions. It mandated a nationwide hiring freeze and salary freeze for top executives, stopped post office construction projects and closed six regional offices.

Can we have the change you promised Mr. Obama?

2009-08-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

It’s amazing that more people haven’t come around to it, but the Homeland Security are very threatening, at least here in California, NY, Arizona, Texas and Oregon.
I ask you, how many Americans actually carry their passports as proof of citizenship? Yet, this is what is required by the good Sheriff Arpaio, Lou Dobbs, Glen Beck and the Homeland INSecurity department; if you do not have any other picture ID documentation showing that you are a legal person in our country.
The reality is that you and I could be walking down the streets of any city minding our own business, innocent of any crime, but stopped and jailed for being or look like Mexican, Latino and not having the correct documentation showing our citizenship to the USA. This is another case of the dysfunctional and obsolete Immigration system. For millions there are no hope out there.

Jaime Mesa is the father, businessman and Woodside, Queens, resident for 43 years who was detained Aug. 13 by immigration authorities and is in danger of being deported.

"Things are looking up a little," said Jaime Mesa, referring to a temporary stay of his brother's deportation order.

"He is still in jail, but we have had a lot of support from hundreds of people who know Jorge, from friends and elected officials who have written letters or made phone calls on his behalf."

Home, of course, is not in the Colombia of his birth, but in Woodside with his fiancée, Olga Lucía Celis, a U.S. citizen, and their toddler son, Christian Enrique.

Rep. Joe Crowley (D-Queens) has written a letter to Christopher Shanahan, director of the New York field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in support of Mesa.

"I am strongly appealing to you to release Mr. Mesa while his attorney continues to work his case," Crowley wrote. "He turned his life around and has never encountered a problem since he was a teenager.

"He has become a successful businessman and is the proud father of a 14-month-old child. To deport him would be a hardship for not only him but his entire family."

Held at the Monmouth Correctional Institute in Freehold, N.J., Mesa's major concern is the future of his fiancée and his son.

"My family is my great worry," he said in a telephone interview.

Mesa's predicament stems from a 1981-1983 drug-related sentence. But as Crowley pointed out, in the past 26 years Mesa has never had a problem. More importantly, Mesa has earned the love and respect of all who know him.

"In all the years I have been assisting my constituents, I have never seen such an outpouring of support from the community [like the one] on Mr. Mesa's behalf," Crowley wrote Shanahan.

Like Crowley, Christina Hall, Mesa's lawyer, is amazed at the support her client has received from hundreds of people.

"He was just given a temporary stay of deportation so the Bureau of Immigration Appeals has time to go over the paper work," Hall said. "Monday, I sent them a 30-page addendum with 30 more letters in support of my client."

City Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens), who is running for public advocate, is outraged at what Mesa and his family are going through.

"I really want to help him. What's happening to Mesa is heartbreaking and wrong," said Gioia, who told the Daily News he is getting in touch with Crowley and Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand about Mesa's case. "Breaking up his family and deporting him does not do any good to anybody," Gioia added.

Gillibrand also wrote to the Department of Homeland Security requesting that Mesa be allowed to remain with his family while his appeal is pending, said Glen Caplin, her spokesman.

But it is in the dozens of e-mails that people from Woodside have sent to the Daily News where Mesa's unusual human qualities are best reflected.

"I have lived in Woodside all my life. In the past 16 years I cannot remember a time when Jorge Mesa wasn't around. My entire family has vacationed with him upstate for as long as I can remember and it would not be the same without him," said an e-mail from Jaime Fitzgerald. "He is a hardworking, kind-hearted man and Woodside would be suffering a big loss if he was deported."

Clearly this is the general feeling in Woodside. Let Mesa go home to his family and his community where he belongs.

US has barred HIV-positive travellers and potential immigrants from entering the country since 1987.

2009-08-27T10:31:00.000-07:00

An Aug 16 rally in support of lifting all travel restrictions on HIV positive visitors to the United States took place at the Peace Arch at the Canada-US border. Canadian Martin Rooney, who was denied entry into the United States in 2007 because he is HIV positive, organized the event. “Please Mr Obama lift this ban now,” said Rooney to approximately 30 attendees. “There is no medical science to support that HIV is a contagious disease that presents a threat to public health or national security of the United States.” He said the immediate publication of new regulations removing remaining travel restrictions would be “an enormous step forward” in treating HIV positive people with the dignity they deserve.”Former US president George W Bush lifted an outright ban in 2008, but HIV positive visitors are still required to submit a waiver before entering the United States. On World AIDS Day 2006, Bush instructed the secretary of homeland security to “initiate a rulemaking that would propose a categorical waiver for HIV-positive people seeking to enter the United States on short-term visas.”At the time, AIDS activists were cautiously optimistic but wary about what shape the new rules would take.The US has barred HIV-positive travellers and potential immigrants from entering the country since 1987. Congress codified this policy in 1993, as part of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), meaning it would take an act of Congress to reverse the ban completely.Under the new rules, waiver applicants would have to agree to give up the ability to apply for a change in status while in the US, including applying for legal permanent residence.Applicants would also have to travel with all of their HIV meds needed during the trip, prove they have medical insurance accepted in the US, and prove they won’t engage in behaviour that might put the American public at risk.David Parsons, who enjoys travelling to Seattle to watch professional sports, spoke about his experience with the new waivers. “Once you figure out the process, it takes maybe five days to get [the waiver],” he said. “It’s pretty easy and it costs $135. It’s not the best but it’s an improvement. You just go to an American consulate website and click on visa and you just follow the instructions from there.”But Rooney opposes the waiver on principle.“If I have a contagious disease of significant public threat to the United States and its people then $135 US doesn’t make me any less of a threat,” he said. “So on those grounds alone I will not apply for the United States waiver.”The restrictions, according to many rally attendees, serve as a reminder of the stigma faced by people living with HIV and AIDS. Sonia Marino, who works for an AIDS service organization, says she knows many people who face discrimination at the border due to their perceived HIV status.

Continue reading here: http://www.xtra.ca/public/Vancouver/Please_Mr_Obama_lift_this_ban_now_Rooney-7372.aspx

Democrats Condemn Republican's Budget Tactics

2009-06-13T08:18:00.001-07:00

Republican legislators have made it clear they intend to exploit California's budget crisis to push through policy goals that are unrelated to the budget situation. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass replied to their proposals with a simple, "Not on my watch." The Speaker was joined by members of the Assembly Democratic Caucus and advocates for the environment, workers rights and the disabled at a capitol news conference to condemn the GOP efforts to roll back protections. Speaker Bass says what the Republicans are really asking for is dirtier air; less access for the disabled, unprotected workers and damaged crops and tourism.

Porfirio Díaz recibe la espada de Napoleón.

2009-06-02T23:41:00.001-07:00

El 20 de julio de 1911 visito el General Díaz la tumba de Napoleón, lo recibieron los generales Niox, Launes y Forny, todos ellos excombatientes de la expedición a México con ellos evoca legendarios hechos de armas. Díaz recibe las llaves de la cripta del Emperador de los franceses, el general Niox lo escolta hacia aquel sancta sanctórum de Francia. En ese instante y en reconocimiento a la gallardía militar del General Díaz, Niox pone en sus manos la espada de Napoleón.

Cristeros - "El odio a la fe"

2009-06-02T23:38:00.003-07:00

El odio a la fe no es nuevo , es más fue brutal, durante el siglo pasado ideologías comunistas desataron la mas butal persecusion a la Iglesia, movidos unicamente por su odio a la fe.

Pero como en todas las ocasiones la Iglesia sigue en pie , por que no es una institución humana sino una institución divina que cuenta con la promesa de Cristo de que las fuerzas del infierno jamás podran vencerla.

Es extraño que de estos grandes genocidios y persecusiones ocurridas en Mexico , España , Rusia, Ucrania, etc se escuche tan poco. Será acaso un silencio complice de la sociedad

CRISTEROS HIMNO DE LA "ACCION CATÓLICA MEXICANA"

2009-06-02T23:38:00.001-07:00

FOTO CLIP DE LA PERSECUCION CATOLICA EN MEXICO EN 1927, (FONDO MUSICAL: HIMNO DE LA A.C.M. TOMADO DE UN DISCO DE PASTA DE 78 rpm EDITADO EN LOS 50´S).

PODEMOS VER: AL PADRE MIGUEL PRO JUAREZ, FUSILADO INJUSTAMENTE ACUSADO DE ATENTAR CONTRA ALVARO OBREGON, LUIS SEGURA VILCHIS, AUTOR DE UN ATENTADO EN CONTRA DE OBREGON, JOSE DE LEON TORAL, (QUIEN FINALMENTE MATO A OBREGON) ,LA MADRE CONCHITA CONCEPCION ACEVEDO DE LA LLATA
(ACUSADA FALSAMENTE COMO AUTORA INTELECTUAL DEL ASESINATO),ANACLETO GONZALEZ FLORES DE LA A.C.J.M. ASESINADO EN GUADALAJARA.

ADEMAS DE FOTOS DE LA LIGA DEFENSORA DE LA LIBERTAD RELIGIOSA, DEL CULTO PUBLICO AL AIRE LIBRE EN LUGARES SECRETOS, ASI COMO DE LOS CRISTEROS Y CRISTERAS SACRIFICADOS BARBARAMENTE, Y QUE OFRENDARON SU VIDA POR DIOS Y POR LA PATRIA

Hitler's Perfect Children part 2

2009-06-02T23:30:00.001-07:00

Most of the German Lebensborn children grew into adulthood not knowing that they were the product of a Nazi breeding experiment. And those that did find out were rarely able to learn the complete story because of the secrecy that surrounded the program.

Hitler's Perfect Children part 1

2009-06-02T23:29:00.001-07:00

They were bred to rule the world, but fate has consigned many to shattered, painful lives. HITLER'S PERFECT CHILDREN reveals how Lebensborn operated.

Blond hair, blue eyes and fair skin were the hallmarks of the ideal Nazi citizen. In order to insure the future of the "1000 Year Reich," Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, established the Lebensborn Foundation in 1935. Put simply, its goal was to breed Aryans.
HITLER'S PERFECT CHILDREN reveals how Lebensborn operated. Aryan women (especially the wives of SS men) were given the best possible pre and post-natal treatment, providing they could prove their own racial purity and that of the father. But only 7500 children were born in German Lebensborn facilities from 1935 to '45, so Himmler looked beyond Germany. In Scandinavia, he struck genetic gold, and thousands of women in occupied nations produced Aryan children in Lebensborns. And in Poland, up to 200,000 children were taken from orphanages or their parents to be raised as Germans. Only 40,000 returned to their homeland after the war

John and ken KFI 640 fans . The Hate on Mexican People . Fullerton "tax revolt"

2009-06-02T23:15:00.001-07:00

I wonder what IQ The minuteman passed. They need to take they desperate and outburst language..This is the kind of language to be teach at any elementary School..

TII: Fact-Checking Videos of 2008

2009-06-02T22:57:00.001-07:00

The real facts and the ilusionist information from Lou Dobbs and CNN..

Arpaio Loses in Court Against ACORN and MCSA

2009-06-02T22:52:00.001-07:00

This video is all about the arrests of 4 women by Sheriff Arpaio's deputies. Arpaio has arrested 10 people in less then a year who publicly oppose him. He has a history of misusing his authority to go after anyone who speaks out against him. In this case, the judge ruled against him. The other cases haven't gone to court yet.

Arpaio caught racial profiling, stalking public officials and neglecting his duties.

2009-06-02T22:51:00.001-07:00

Included is footage and testimony from Abigail Brown, a rape victim who was filmed by the rapists. MCSO closed the case using "exceptional means" meaning they didn't feel like investigating or charging anyone and gave no explanation. The Goldwater Institute called on Attorney General Terry Goddard to investigate these cases and the very next day he finds himself being stalked by MCSO.

Arpaio's excuse? No opportunitty for justice..

Sources: Obama Has More Than 6 People for Court

2009-05-13T21:35:00.001-07:00

Pres. Obama is considering a list of more than 6 contenders for the Supreme Court that is dominated by women and Hispanics, one that includes judges and leaders from own his administration who have never donned a judicial robe

Do you worry about Social Security and Medicare?

2009-05-13T21:33:00.001-07:00

Are you worried about your Social Security and Medicare? Would you prefer to see an increase in taxes or a reduction in benefits to help solve this problem? Do you think we should revisit the idea of privatizing Social Security?

US detainee abuse 'unprecedented' - 13 May 09

2009-05-13T21:32:00.001-07:00

A former state department official has accused the Bush administration of unprecedented abuse in its treatment of terror suspects.

Philip Zelikow said there was a "collective failure" on the question of torture and blamed both political parties in the US.

He also alleged that in 2006 former Bush administration officials sought to collect and destroy copies of a memo he wrote opposing the interrogation methods, as Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman reveals

Hate crime killed for looking at a white woman

2009-04-22T21:45:00.001-07:00

As I always said when intolerance will be change out of society and minds...Any Human life is priceless....There is no excuse for Hate crime..

Hate Crime Charge For "Whites Only" Sign Posting

2009-04-22T21:30:00.001-07:00

A 26-year employee of the Niagara Falls public works department worker was arrested on Friday and charged with a hate crime.

James Curtis, 52, is accused of writing a racist sign that was discovered on August 13 above a drinking fountain at the DPW building on New Road.

The sign, handwritten on white copy paper in blue pen ink states, "Whites only water fountain." A minority city employee discovered the sign.

Curtis is charged with second degree aggravated harassment, a hate crime under state law. He was released on $500 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned in Niagara Falls City Court

The Sound of Hate

2009-04-22T21:27:00.001-07:00

The sound of Hate within the Minuteman and supporters.

Minutemen with guns threaten kids at the peaceful Macehualli Center

2009-04-22T21:25:00.001-07:00

This video shows two Americas,one of love and one of hate. Please watch and decide which one you want to be a part of.

The Macehualli Center celebrated its 6th anniversary on 01/31/09 with a peaceful celebration, friendship and multi cultural sharing with Native American Dancers and indigenous ceremony including all people-regardless of nationality. But outside the center was a world of hatred
and prejiduce.
These racist militants have been terrorizing The Day Labor Center daily for over a year. They insult and threaten mothers, children and anyone with brown skin they deem as being "Illegal" (whenever they think nobody is watching with a camera).

They harass anyone that may attempt to hire a day laborer. They incite violence, carry guns and have no respect for humanity. What makes this most tragic is they have the support and encouragement of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Demand an investigation from the Department of Justice!

Wells Fargo reported 52 percent net income. I wonder why?

2009-04-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

Wells Fargo & Co. reported a 52 percent jump in net income as it reaped quick rewards from its acquisition of Wachovia Corp., but the San Francisco bank also boosted credit reserves in anticipation of mounting loan losses in the months ahead. Are you wonder why too. right? Well, 'Boy, we're glad we had this economic crisis?.

The company said Wednesday that first-quarter net income reached a record $3.05 billion (56 cents per share), in line with the preliminary results announced two weeks ago that sent the stock soaring and fueled a broader Wall Street rally. Wells Fargo earned nearly $2 billion in the year-ago period (60 cents per share), before it picked up its wobbling Charlotte, N.C., competitor on the cheap, for about $13 billion in late December.

How to educate someone as bigotry like Lou Dobbs?

2009-04-22T20:37:00.000-07:00

Well, Lou you are on my agenda for Immigration and History classes because you won't change you uneducated language and your Anti Journalism.

Clarissa Martinez De Castro, director of immigration and national campaigns for the National Council of La Raza, says that money inspires the anti-immigration rhetoric of talk radio hosts and CNN’s Lou Dobbs. She took part in a panel discussion at an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) conference in Washington, D.C. on Monday.

The thing about Lou Dobbs is you can’t educate somebody like Lou Dobbs,” Martinez said. “Because what guys like Lou Dobbs does, or what he did at some point, at this point, I’m not sure if he’s lost it completely. Continue reading here:

African American, Immigrant and Refugee Forge Common Agenda.

2009-04-22T20:31:00.000-07:00

In just three days, the lie that said that U.S. born African Americans reject humane immigration reform was utterly destroyed. In Baltimore, MD this weekend over fifty blacks from throughout the United States joined together to build the Black Immigration Network (BIN). The network will be made up of organizations and people of African descent who reside in the United States. Continue reading here:

On Earth Day, environmentalists must not link arms with anti-immigrant forces.

2009-04-22T20:26:00.000-07:00

The goal of these anti-immigrant groups is to lure the environmental community into an America First-style immigration policy.

On Earth Day, the environmental movement in the United States must reject bigotry. It should not join hands with anti-immigrant groups.

These groups are trying to infiltrate the environmental movement and coopt its message. Continue reading here:

EPA selects 50 polluted sites for stimulus money.

2009-04-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

Fifty of the country's most polluted and hazardous waste sites have been picked by federal environmental officials to receive a half-billion dollars of stimulus money.

The sites in 28 states were contaminated years ago by mining waste, lead smelters, and chemical releases. At half of the sites, cleanup stalled when the Environmental Protection Agency ran short of money. Continue reading here: http://news.lp.findlaw.com/ap_stories/a/w/1152/04-15-2009/20090415090506_14.html

Bruce Springsteen: THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND

2009-04-10T19:15:00.001-07:00

Beautiful song from Bruce springsteen on the reflection of the Land. This Land is yours. This Land is everyone's Land.

Lou Dobbs vs Al Sharpton and Bertha Lewis, Part 2.

2009-04-10T18:58:00.001-07:00

Where Lou Dobbs get his facts>?????

Lou Dobbs vs Rev. Al Sharpton and Bertha Lewis, Part 1.

2009-04-10T18:57:00.001-07:00

Just watch how Lou Dobbs is on denial stage about his buddies.

Help Homeowners Level the Playing Field

2009-03-01T10:19:00.001-08:00

It's sad how Goverment bail out Banks but Banks do not willing to help homehowners to keep their homes. Ashamed. I am wondering if this is a principles of the Contitution. We the People or we are the last people to receive help?.
Joan Adams is living out of a Motel 6 in the suburbs of Orange County, California. She lost her home to foreclosure. Theres no one out there to help, Joan says. Billions of dollars to all the banks for bailouts for something they caused, and yet were the ones that are homeless.

Tomorrow, Congress will vote on whether or not to level the playing field between the banks and struggling homeowners. Representative John Conyers has introduced legislation in the House that authorizes judges in bankruptcy proceedings to require banks to reevaluate mortgages of
homeowners in distress.

Sign our petition to let Congress know that you support Conyers bill, H.R. 1106. Then, call your Congressional Representative and ask him or her to vote for it.

Petition: http://fightingforourhomes.com
Find your Congressional Representative: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/w...

The banks have had their handouts. Now its time for working homeowners to be put first.

The Dysfunctional Immigration System breaking families apart.

2009-02-28T09:55:00.000-08:00

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La nicaragüense Maricela Soza pidió el miércoles al presidente Barack Obama que ayude a resolver la situación de miles inmigrantes cuyos hijos estadounidenses quedan solos cuando sus padres son deportados por estar en condición migratoria irregular, como le ocurrió el miércoles a ella.

Los hijos de Maricela realizaron una huelga de hambre para intentar frenar la deportación.

Al llegar a la capital nicaragüense, Soza formuló un pedido al presidente de Estados Unidos de que "revise mi caso para que pueda regresar a terminar de criar a mis hijos".

"No solo pido que (Obama) me ayude en mi caso sino en el de miles de madres que deben estar en la misma situación", agregó.

El abogado Alfonso Oviedo Reyes explicó en Miami que la junta de apelaciones de inmigración rechazó una moción para reabrir el caso y se negó así a detener la deportación de Soza, de 32 años.

"Vamos a pedir la reapertura del caso ante la Corte Federal de Apelaciones de Atlanta porque el esposo está aquí todavía, y el caso tiene vigencia", expresó el letrado, y explicó que mientras el caso no se resuelva en ese tribunal, la mujer deberá permanecer en Nicaragua. Podría llevar meses antes de que la corte tome una resolución, indicó.

Soza fue detenida en diciembre en su casa por permanecer en Estados Unidos sin documentos.

Horas después arribó al aeropuerto nicaragüense Augusto C. Sandino junto con un grupo de compatriotas suyos deportados, informó el Canal 2 de la televisión local. La familia de la mujer se encuentra en Ciudad Darío, a 67 kilómetros al norte de Managua.

"Yo me fui del país en busca del sueño americano. Vivíamos bien, honestamente, no somos delincuentes. Pagábamos impuestos, contribuíamos con nuestro trabajo y queremos a Estados Unidos", manifestó.

Su esposo y padre de los niños, Ronald Soza, de 42 años y también nicaragüense, permanecía en contacto telefónico con sus hijos, pero escondido en el sur de la Florida por temor a ser arrestado por las autoridades de inmigración, ya que también está indocumentado en Estados Unidos.

"Mis niños nacieron en los Estados Unidos, son americanos y humanamente no pueden ser privados de sus padres", expresó la mujer deportada.

Cecia y Ronald Soza, de 12 y 9 años respectivamente, comenzaron el lunes con el ayuno y lo continuaron hasta la tarde del miércoles, cuando Oviedo les informó que su madre había sido deportada.

Estuvieron acompañados por su tío Fausto Soza, que es ciudadano estadounidense, y su guardiana legal, Nora Sándigo.

The consecuences of the Anti Immigrant sentiment.

2009-02-28T09:38:00.000-08:00

Two Chilean students were killed and three others wounded when a man broke into a reunion in Pensacola (USA) and shot with a rifle attendees. Los jóvenes participaban en un programa de trabajo e intercambio estudiantil. Young people participating in a work program and student exchange.

The deceased are Nicolás Pablo Corp, for 22 years, and Racine Balbontín Argandoña 23. Los dos eran oriundos de Valparaíso (a 120 kilómetros de Santiago de Chile). Both were from Valparaíso (120 km from Santiago de Chile). Habían llegado a EE UU en diciembre, para una estancia de cuatro meses. Had come to the U.S. in December for a stay of four months. "Celebraban que les quedaba poco tiempo para volver a casa", explicó en declaraciones a este diario Rodrigo Balbontín, amigo de una de las víctimas. "Held that they had little time to go home," he said in remarks to this newspaper Balbontín Rodrigo, a friend of one of the victims. El cónsul chileno en Miami, Jorge Valdés, informó que uno de los heridos está en estado crítico. The Chilean consul in Miami, Jorge Valdes, reported that one of the wounded is in critical condition.

El presunto responsable es Dannie Baker, de 60 años, quien ha sido identificado por sus vecinos como "un racista", además de que había enviado correos electrónicos con amenazas a políticos demócratas, según informaron medios locales. The suspect is Dannie Baker, 60, who was identified by neighbors as a "racist", and had sent emails with threats to democratic politics, local media reported.

Un portavoz del Gobierno chileno se refirió a los hechos como "un crimen macabro" que significa "una tragedia lamentable y brutal". A Chilean government spokesman described the events as "a macabre crime" which means "an unfortunate tragedy and brutal."

Sheriff Arpaio must go.!!!!!!!!

2009-02-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

Demand Justice- Sign the Petition

Should "America's Toughest Sheriff" get a free pass on his controversial tactics? Should he round up immigrants at traffic stops and force them to sleep in separate "Tent Cities" in the desert?

We think he should get investigated by the Department of Justice.

With over 2,700 lawsuits against him, a history of virulently anti-immigrant and anti-Latino tactics, and 40,000 felony warrants outstanding in his jurisdiction, Arpaio has fostered a climate in which real criminals roam free while hard-working immigrants live in fear. America's Voice is calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to begin a federal investigation into his tactics, giving Sheriff Arpaio the attention he really deserves.

Demand an investigation from the Department of Justice:

Honorable Eric Holder
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that you direct your office to investigate Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, for gross civil rights violations in the name of immigration enforcement.

No official is above the law, and yet Sheriff Arpaio has engaged in racial profiling and civil rights abuses for years with impunity.

The case against the publicity-hungry Sheriff is well documented and horrifying. Joe Arpaio has made a mockery of our justice system by:

Relying heavily on racial profiling and double standards: routinely stopping drivers for minor violations and only forcing "Latino-looking" drivers to produce Social Security cards.

Engaging in sidewalk “crime sweeps” in low-crime communities – detaining those who cannot prove their citizenship status on the spot, while allowing dangerous felons to roam free.

Promoting horrifying detention conditions that have been condemned by health agencies and human rights organizations.

Arpaio’s prisons have been stripped of their health standards accreditation, the Mayor of Phoenix and other law enforcement officials have denounced the Sheriff's tactics, the Governor of Arizona has pulled some of his key funding, and over 2,700 lawsuits have been filed against him. Meanwhile, crime has surged. The Sheriff's office has over 40,000 outstanding warrants for real felons that it simply hasn't had time to tackle.

Mr. Attorney General, elected officials are subject to our nation's laws. Sheriffs should be held accountable for fighting crime, not rewarded for spreading fear. We request an immediate Department of Justice investigation into Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his appalling tactics.

Sign the petition here: America's Voice.

Anti Immigrants responsible for Hate crimes? Yes or no?

2009-02-19T22:16:00.000-08:00

Our anti-immigrant Politics, and many Anchor news dehumanizes the undocumented Immigrant as the “worst enemy" the way our military does during wartime; it lessens the burden of our atrocities on our consciences. This new racism equates "illegal immigrant" with "criminal behavior" and makes bigotry and HATE crime acceptable. For even the most bigoted amongst them like Lou Dobbs presenting false, unworthy, or knowingly tainted news, undermining the existence of journalism and correspondence credibility.

I can understand why people would have a problem with that. I can understand the arguments of people who believe there are more pressing concerns or the economy can't handle more immigrants. I don't agree, but I can understand. What I can't understand is dehumanizing, denigrating, diminished and demonizing undocumented immigrants, who are often taking one of the few opportunities to better themselves in the midst of the despair and ugliness of a world that often seems beyond broken.

Thus contrary to Federal regulations, U.S. Constitution, Civil rights statues and Basic Humanitarian rights in which the United States of America pride its itself and so vehemently upholds, stands for, and preaches around the World: It’s allowing within populist anchor news and organizations to outright violate the mentioned laws, statues, regulations, ethic, and procedural due process under the veil of unjust laws incompassed in the guise of the War on Terrorism in propaganda fashion.

I want to point out a couple of points what Lou Dobbs promoting on his segment Broken Borders and Border Security.

1.-Racism, Anti Immigrant Sentiment: Against a particular race, color, creed of people not only to those now labeled as Aliens/Illegal Immigrants of Mexican descendency, heritage and culture, but to those whom are Mexican American Citizens, Chicanos, or Hispanic Origin.

When Lou Dobbs speak of broken borders, and border security because of a terror threat from Al Qaeda, assimilates and associates two very different issues!! That of predominately Mexican migrant workers to this continent, and those of foreign Muslim Al Qaeda fighters. Thus a migrant people who come to work and live the American Dream and those foreign Immigrants with motives Terrorist.
This misleading, distorting, and twisting of the facts has expressively been sensationalized against the Undocumented worker as an Anti Immigrant sentiment.
This issues have been created a hostile, prejudice, fearful, and aggressive environment for a Hispanic race of people or those with Hispanic surnames in particular Mexican Americans, Chicanos, or just because looks kind a Mexican. See picture.

Lou Dobbs has polarized the Nation by sensationalizing the unjust laws, immigration reform, and blaming every social ill in the U.S. on the Mexican People as tough they are solely responsible.

Lou Dobbs has exploited and bashed the Mexican people for crossing the border. Which in itself is a minor offence? By, But not limited to discriminating, affiliating, associating, and profiling Mexicans, Hispanics, Latino people legal or undocumented with groups or organization of Terrorists implying that Mexicans could bring a Dirty Bomb. This is false and outrageous when the sons and daughters of Mexican descent are spilling their blood in the War WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq, and is in violation of constitutional rights. Thus creating an environment of hostility, anger, depriving freedom from fear of persecution and Liberty

Undocumented Immigrants draining social services? A Lie or a Fact?

2009-02-19T21:15:00.000-08:00

Let the sunshine in!!!! How many times did you hear undocumented Immigrants draining the social services like Medicare, Medicaid, Medical, etc?
Well Thousands of Children migrate to the United States each year. Many of these children’s come fleeing war, violence, abuse, or natural disaster; other comes to reunite with family members already here, or to seek a better life for themselves. They undertake difficult journeys, often across International borders, and often alone. Children and woman are the most vulnerable who cross our borders, the desert, and are in need of special appropriate to their situation. Yet they faced additional hurdles upon arrival. They are in detention centers placed like prisons intended for the incarceration of criminals, many were commingled with the delinquent population, subject to handcuffing and shackling, forced to wear prisons uniforms and locked in prisons cells like you see the of Inhumane and civil right violations like Joe Arpaio demonstration, while their immigration cases proceed through the courts and they must undergo adversarial immigration proceedings, often without a help or a Lawyer or Guardian.
Well many were de facto denied to legal and social services critical to their pursuit of asylum or other forms of relief of care because they were housed in detention centers far from hospital, and care available services.
Something that Society do not understand Latinos are the trend to be the youngest population so they're going to be part of a work force that will be supporting the Medicaid programs and all these senior programs. As a proportion, they'll be paying more and more of these taxes. Their taxes are going to be far more important to our economy than their parents' taxes are. So the contrary the Anti Immigrants, Nativist, and Protectionists claiming that Undocumented Immigrant will overcrowded classrooms and emergency rooms. Overwhelmed police and fire departments. Bankrupt Social Security, Medicare and welfare programs. Skyrocketing taxes but is it fact or fear-mongering?
I will say Fear mongering; they based those arguments with estimation, fiction, calculations on fictitious numbers. My theory is based on facts and there it goes..
A review of the arrest warrant declaration is a detailed lesson in health care fraud and how it begins and occurs at every level. It also is a lesson for those in the health care business (physicians, therapists, nurses, patients, marketers, purchasers of businesses, and others) that they need to be careful or they can get caught up working at or for a facility that is committing health care fraud and those nativist, protectionists, Minuteman members, and Anti Immigrants groups stop blaming undocumented Immigrants because If you buy the shares of a business, you could also be liable for prior illegal billing and overpayments. Social services is being taken advantage of by everyone, no matter who they're affiliated with; And I can't say it's just individuals or companies who are doing it. It's subjective. The ironic thing is that these providers try to involve the undocumented Immigrant as a scapegoat and make them seem like part of the main problem.

1.- A married couple from Groton were charged Friday as fugitives from justice for a $1.3 million health care fraud scam in California. The couple with multiple counts of heath benefits fraud, grand theft, receiving stolen property, identity theft, and money laundering, all felonies.

2.- Six Miami-Dade County residents have been indicted in connection with an alleged $10 million Medicare fraud scheme operated out of Midway Medical, a Miami clinic that purported to specialize in treating HIV/AIDS patients.
The indictment alleges that the physicians ordered medically unnecessary infusions and injections, and falsified medical records to make it appear that the HIV services were necessary. The indictment also alleges that many of the infusions or injections were never actually provided. Midway Medical billed more than $10 million to the Medicare program for services that were medically unnecessary and not actually provided between September 2002 and June 2005. During that time frame, Medicare paid more than $4.8 million on those fraudulent claims submitted by Midway Medical.

3.- State auditors recovered more than $269 million in Medicaid fraud and waste between October 2007 and March 2008, officials from the state's Office of the Medicaid Inspector General told The New York Sun. He said that going forward, his auditors would look at "every sector that gets significant public funds," including hospitals. He also described a method for rooting out Medicaid billing problems known as "data mining," in which a computer identifies mistakes or cases of fraud.

4.- It was created 40 years ago to provide health care for the poorest New Yorkers, offering a lifeline to those who could not afford to have a baby or a heart attack. But in the decades since, New York State's Medicaid program has also become a $44.5 billion target for the unscrupulous and the opportunistic. It has drawn dentists like Dr. Dolly Rosen, who within 12 months somehow built the state's biggest Medicaid dental practice out of a Brooklyn storefront, where she claimed to have performed as many as 991 procedures a day in 2003. After The New York Times discovered her extraordinary billings through a computer analysis and questioned the state about them, Dr. Rosen and two associates were indicted on charges of stealing more than $1 million from the program.

5.- A Concord, N.H., mental health counselor has been convicted of defrauding Medicaid, getting reimbursed for services that he never performed.
Fifty-five-year-old Lee Bird provided therapy services to clients who were eligible for Medicaid benefits. The Attorney General's office says after he stopped seeing some clients, Bird continued billing Medicaid for therapy services. That happened between January 2004 and February 2007.

6.- The state has overpaid day care providers at least $13.7 million in recent years - including millions of dollars spent on bogus child care that was never delivered, according to the state's own records.
When regulators have tried to collect the misspent taxpayer-funded money, parents and providers have stiffed the state to the tune of $6.4 million, the Journal Sentinel has found.
A four-month Journal Sentinel investigation published last month detailed a million Wisconsin Shares child-care lack of regulatory controls within the $340 Millions subsidy program - a system prone to abuse and fraud that can go undetected. Even with lax oversight, state regulators have identified millions of dollars that should not have been paid to providers.
The state of Wisconsin shut down 20 providers suspected of fraud in the last five years who owed $1.3 million. More than $1.2 million of that amount has gone uncollected.
For instance in one eight-month period, Wiley-Jorgensen (U.S. Citizen) appeared to have overbilled the state by $103,575, regulators calculated. The state didn't believe she was actually caring for the 24 kids she claimed in her reports
And so far I had not seen any document stated that any undocumented Immigrants has been part of this problem.

7.-According to their 2008 SEC filings, the largest hospital chain in the U.S., the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) - founded by the family of former Senator and Majority Leader Bill Frist; After his Senate career, Frist became a partner with health-care investment firm, and chairman of a nonprofit (????) charitable (???) foundation focusing on Global health initiatives and Education issues- reports that in 2008 about 49% of their revenues and 59% of their hospital admissions were Medicare and Medicaid "related." In 2007, HCA reported revenues of $26.9 billion, approximately $16 billion of which was paid for by American taxpayers.

What most people may not know is that HCA plead guilty to 14 felonies and was hit with a $1.7 billion fine – far and away the largest such fine in history - for Medicare fraud. These fines, it seems, were a minor bump in the road for HCA, on their way to grabbing hundreds of billions of American taxpayer dollars in the years to come. Doctors and hospitals reap the financial benefit of surgeries, whether they are warranted or not. American taxpayers, both in terms of Medicare/Medicaid payouts and higher insurance premiums, pay the real price.

American Dream

2009-02-19T20:49:00.003-08:00

Producer Patrick Murphy puts flip cameras in the hands of students from Louis University to discover their ideas about American Dream. The students watched a film about the American Dream and then were were given flip cameras in which they filmed what they thought embodied the American dream.

Minuteman says Mexico did the 911 attack

2009-02-19T20:49:00.001-08:00

See for yourself how minuteman are rant by ignorance and Anti Immigrant sentiment against Mexico and Mexicans.
They sure that 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by Mexico and Mexicans.. That's so pathetic that people claimed to be educated making those assessments..

A God's Love Letter.

2009-02-14T10:28:00.000-08:00

A heartwarming love letter from God for all of us. Do you have days where you feel lonely, un-loved, and not wanted? We all experience days like that, don't we? When I'm feeling down and lonely, I always turn to God in prayer. Here's a Love Letter from God to all of us. I want to encourage to all to open your heart and listen to god words. This is my expression of love to you all.

Detained!

2009-02-13T19:23:00.001-08:00

film about our friend Olof who was detained by the INS after a holiday in Sweden. He was put in a federal detention center in Louisiana for two years--a prison he had no reason to be in. Through his experience, learn about these disfunctional immigration laws which are a danger to every legal resident in this country! A film by Michele Barber and Laura deNey.

Due Process Violations in Detention and Deportation

2009-02-13T18:57:00.001-08:00

This video illustrates how United States detention and deportation policies fail to meet international standards for due process established, among other places, in the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man. Created by a nationwide coalition of documentarians and legal practitioners, it was edited by University of Pennsylvania law students for a general thematic hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights presented October 28, 2008

Facts: Immigration Detention in 2008

2009-02-13T18:56:00.001-08:00

In 2008, we are torturing immigrants who apply for asylum. We segregate them until they develop Stockholm syndrome, we deny them showers more than 3 times a week, we deny them fresh fruits and vegetables, we deny them medical care, but we house them in prisons across America without any convictions. We house them for years on end this way -- breaking all the human rights laws of the Geneva Convention; we keep their children in prison too; and we even deport U.S. citizens. These people are denied access to counsel, due process, and all the rights outlined in our Constitution which covers ANYONE inside our borders. Then we worry about Homeland Security? And many of the people we torture who wait for these people are U.S. citizens. I am one...and this is what I've learned about the for-profit prison system of CCA, that exploits immigrants for corporate profits. Today we build more prisons with taxpayer's money, and we have half the immigrants than last year.

Chinese provinces battle worsening drought - 12 Feb 09

2009-02-13T18:08:00.001-08:00

I am hoping that this can take as an example that the worst droughts is not only here because Nativist, Anti Immigrants blaming undocumented Immigrants.
Parts of northern and central China have been hit by one of the worst droughts in 50 years, and the government has moved quickly to irrigate fields and revive crops.

US citizens scramble for food aid - 11 Feb 09

2009-02-13T18:03:00.001-08:00

The number of unemployed Americans continues to rise and some are now struggling to put food on the table, becoming increasingly dependent on food stamps to help them get by.

Food stamps are a state-subsidised programme that helps people with a low income buy food at lower prices. But for many US citizens it may not be enough to help them weather the economic crisis, as Lucy Keating discovers in the US town of Knoxville in Tennessee.

The new Weapon of Resistance. Music

2009-02-11T08:31:00.001-08:00

The nomadic Touareg tribes have endured years of drought and civil war. The one constant through this hardship has been the music of Tinariwen.

Once a group of rebel soldiers, training alongside Colonel Gadaffi in Libya, after years of struggle and violence Tinariwen decided to lay down their guns and fight with a different weapon - music

Empowering Youth hispanics to join drugs, gangs, crime and they are the least educated. According to Lloyd Carter

2009-02-10T14:04:00.000-08:00

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Apology...No way..look at the tone of voice and his face remarks. I am wonder where Mr. Carter buying his foods?. Look at video and judge for yourself.

So I am proud to say that both my parents were hard working farmworkers. So, if we apply your theories about farmworkers and their children to me, I am not educated, I am a criminal, I am on welfare and I must be dealing in drugs with my gang.

This may be news to you, but I am educated (I have a BA in International Laws). I am also proud to say that I have never been arrested, been on welfare, never using drugs and I have never had a desire to belong to a gang. And by the way, when it was time for my mother she never use any Goverment benefits at all..imagine that!!!

Also, please stop referring to human beings as illegal aliens...i would recommend that you refer to them as undocumented workers. God give you a lighted guidance for your soul. God Bless you...

When you write 'KKK' and let's shoot the n-word in the head' and use confederate flags, you can't hide behind a free expression law.

2009-02-10T13:55:00.000-08:00

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The NAACP told a UNC commission why a hate speech policy is needed throughout the UNC Systems' 16 schools.

This comes in light of racist graffiti that was painted on North Carolina State University's Free Expression Tunnel after Barack Obama was elected President.

The NAACP started its presentation to the commission by displaying a picture of one of those racist statements painted on the Tunnel that reads, "let's shoot the N****r in the head.'"

"When you write 'KKK' and let's shoot the n-word in the head' and use confederate flags, you can't hide behind a free expression law," said The Rev. William Barber, NAACP President.

The commission is tasked with deciding if the UNC System needs a policy on hate speech. On Monday, Dr. Barber made his case why he believes it's necessary. He said the incident at NC State is not justifiable as free speech.

"That speech is not merely offensive, it's threatening and it's not protected (under the First Amendment)," said Dr. Barber.

Barber said the UNC System needs to define how it will investigate hate crimes and what the penalities are. Also, he said, "we need a clear curriculum that teaches us more about how we must interface and be one community."

But Barber said this issue extends beyond NC State. It's something he believes boils down to peoples' mindsets.

"We may not be able to change their mind, but we need laws and regulations that will prohibit actions," he said.

Barber was allowed to address the commission alone today because he was unable to attend the public hearing earlier this month.

The commission's next meeting is February 9th at 1 p.m. at the Spangler Center. Commissioners will have to decide by the end of March whether to implement a hate speech policy. They are also taking a look at whether students should be required to take diversity traning courses.

Illegals Immigrants draining social services? A lie or a Lie.!!

2009-02-07T07:48:00.000-08:00

There is no such as Illegal Immigrant either someone as undocumented Immigrant caugh draining or commited any fraud against any social services. Why continue blaming them for God sake. This is the main problem in America. Some have eyes but cannot see," "Some have tongues but cannot speak the truth. They have ears but can't hear. That's where the problem is".

According to their 2008 SEC filings, the largest hospital chain in the U.S., the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) - founded by the family of former Senator and Majority Leader Bill Frist; After his Senate career, Frist became a partner with health-care investment firm, and chairman of a nonprofit (????) charitable (???) foundation focusing on Global health initiatives and Education issues- reports that in 2008 about 49% of their revenues and 59% of their hospital admissions were Medicare and Medicaid "related." In 2007, HCA reported revenues of $26.9 billion, approximately $16 billion of which was paid for by American taxpayers.

What most people may not know is that HCA plead guilty to 14 felonies and was hit with a $1.7 billion fine – far and away the largest such fine in history - for Medicare fraud. These fines, it seems, were a minor bump in the road for HCA, on their way to grabbing hundreds of billions of American taxpayer dollars in the years to come. Doctors and hospitals reap the financial benefit of surgeries, whether they are warranted or not. American taxpayers, both in terms of Medicare/Medicaid payouts and higher insurance premiums, pay the real price. Source

A former Oklahoma pharmacist faces up to five years in prison on a federal fraud charge for making a false claim to Medicaid.

Sentencing for Gary Wayne Nichols, 33, is expected in the next 60 days, said Bob Troester, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Oklahoma City.
Nichols was charged in September with one count of making a false claim, and pleaded guilty to the felony in November. As part of a plea deal, he’s agreed to pay $180,000 in restitution, said his attorney, Jean Paul Bradshaw.
Bradshaw said his client wants to take responsibility for his actions.
"He’s a very hard-working guy who got caught up in what he was doing and made some mistakes,” he said. "He’s sorry for what he did and is trying to make amends.”

Billed Medicaid $339,436 for prescriptions for nursing home patients that were not prescribed or filled.

Bought $100,000 in drugs for $25,000 in the parking lot of one of his pharmacies and tried to use the drugs to fraudulently get a refund from a drug company. They belonged to a tribal health clinic.

Man had six pharmaciesT

he case stems from a 2006 investigation by the state Board of Pharmacy and the state attorney general’s office that resulted in Nichols losing his pharmacist license.
He was licensed in 2001 and had been owner or part owner of six pharmacies in Moore, Oklahoma City, Altus, Guthrie, Allen and Lexington.
John Foust, executive director of the Board of Pharmacy, said Nichols’ case is one of the larger fraud cases investigated by his office.
Nichols lost his license and was fined $11,000 by the board.

UPS Worker victim of Hate Crime.!!!!!! STOP HATE.!!! Act know.

2009-02-05T20:23:00.000-08:00

Hate crimes are criminal actions intended to harm or intimidate people because of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, or other minority group status. They are also referred to as bias crimes.

Since the 1980s, the problem of hate crimes has attracted increasing fear and tension within Minorities.

UPS DRIVER VICTIM OF HATE CRIME.

The Richmond chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was holding a vigil in Richmond Thursday afternoon in support of Brandon Manning, a black man who was beaten Jan. 24 in what police and prosecutors have alleged was a hate crime.

Seven people were initially arrested in connection with the beating but only four have been charged. The local NAACP chapter alleges that the three people who were released would have been charged if not for a delay by Richmond police in investigating the case.

In a phone interview Thursday, Manning, a 24-year-old Pinole resident who works for UPS, recalled the attack.

Manning said he had gotten off work early that day but didn't have a ride home, so he went to a nearby gas station to ask around for a lift.

"I got a ride from some ladies who drove me to the Valero station in Pinole," Manning said.

As he was trying to get a ride from the Valero station to his home, Manning saw a group of men. They started talking and Manning thought he recognized the driver of one of the cars, he said. The driver allegedly said he recognized Manning as well "and we agreed we knew each other from a past job," Manning said.

Manning said he asked the men if they would give him a ride home, since he didn't live far from the gas station.

They said they would, but instead of taking him home, they took him to La Moine Valley View Park in Richmond.

It was a large group and they were all drunk, Manning said, so he tried to "go with the flow."

"I didn't want to piss them off," he said.

While they were in the park, they saw a police car drive by and the group started walking away from the cars so the police wouldn't think they had been driving drunk.

They started walking toward some houses to make it look like they had walked to the park, Manning said.

"Then out of nowhere I get blindsided," Brandon said. "And the rest is history."

The group started kicking and punching Manning while shouting racial slurs at him, he said.

Manning said he lay there and waited for them to leave and then stumbled to a house to ask for help.

The residents of the first house he tried refused to help him, Manning said, so he knocked on the door of the next house and they called him an ambulance.

He said he was still in a lot of pain. The left side of his face is fractured in six places and he is scheduled to have reconstructive surgery next week.

Doctors are going to put metal plates in to support his cheekbone "so my face doesn't look like it's sinking anymore," Manning said.

The assault was reported at about 3 a.m. on Jan. 24, a Saturday, but wasn't investigated until the following Wednesday or Thursday because of an administrative error, Sgt. Bisa French said.

Seven suspects were initially arrested and four were charged earlier this week. The other three were released because there wasn't enough evidence to charge them, police said.

Steven Kinney, 18, Andrew Word, 19, Victor Faria, 18, and Richard Lange, 20, have each been charged with assault with a deadly weapon, felony battery and an enhancement for allegedly committing a hate crime, French said.

Lange also faces an additional charge for violating his probation.

Ken Nelson, president of the Richmond chapter of the NAACP, said that by holding the vigil he hopes to send a message to the community that hate crimes will not be tolerated in Richmond.

He also hopes to raise awareness of what he called the "incompetence of the police department" for not investigating the attack immediately.

Nelson said he believed a delay in the investigation led to the release of three of the suspects.

"It was not taken seriously," Nelson said. "It gives the appearance of a double standard."

"That had nothing to do with it," according to French.

She said detectives presented all the evidence to the deputy district attorney and that evidence wouldn't have been any different if the crime had been investigated immediately.

According to French, the delay happened because weekend shift detectives had put the initial report of the beating on their supervisor's desk at the end of their shifts, but their supervisor didn't get back to the station to assign the case to investigators until the following Wednesday or Thursday.

Police have since restructured how they process crime reports and all reports now go directly to the on-duty watch commander, French said.

"It is extremely difficult to look at this as an isolated event or just a mistake," Nelson said.

He said representatives from the NAACP spoke with the mayor and city manager about a month ago and told them they were concerned about racial discrimination in the Richmond Police Department.

"And now here we are a month later and we have this debacle," Nelson said.

Manning said that a lot of his friends were angry about what had happened to him. They were also angry that three of the suspects had been released without charges, but he said he was trying not to let his own anger take over and make him do something stupid.

"I have a little family I have to care for," Manning said.

He has two stepsons and a baby due in March.

Kinney, Word, Lange and Faria were arraigned Wednesday in Contra Costa County Superior Court in Richmond, but did not enter pleas. They are scheduled to return to court Feb. 11 to be assigned attorneys and enter pleas, according to the superior court clerk's office. Source:

Why are we remained Silent against Hate Crimes?.

2009-02-05T20:09:00.000-08:00

Selma Goncalves, 20, was killed January 21, 2009 by an attacker in her Brockton apartment. Another woman was shot and is recovering and a third person, a 72 year old man Arlindo Goncvalves, no relation, was shot and killed by the attacker as he fled the woman's home. The attacker, Keith Luke age 22 of Brockton had set out on a mission of hate killings according to the police. He wanted to kill and many non-whites and jews as possible. According to Luke, his intended target after the murder of Goncalves was a synagogue in Brockton that was hosting a weekly Bingo game that draws hundreds. Luke was captured after a wild chase and shootout over three miles in the city of 90,000. Selma Gonsalves had come to Brockton a year ago from her native Cape Verde. Luke face multiple charges of murder and other charges.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.!!!!!!!!!!!

Why are we remained Silent against Hate crimes?.

2009-02-05T20:04:00.000-08:00

Cape Verdean community mourns several People killed by Racial Hatred
Brutal Racial Murders in Brockton, Massachusetts

More than 50 mourners were at St. Edith Stein Church in Brockton this morning for the funeral Mass for Arlindo Goncalves, a 72-year-old city man who was shot to death last week during a killing spree that authorities said was motivated by racism,

Arlindo Goncalves, Cape Verdean Musician Killed, 72 years - Played Trumpet and Piano Keyboard on the Street.
Selma Goncalves, 20, was killed January 21, 2009 by an attacker in her Brockton apartment

Loving Father, Husband and Friend.

"Always a Happy Man, 72 years, Always a Lover of Music".
A Racial Murder Spree - Murderer also killed a Creole Woman.
Determined to kill as many non Whites as Possible.
I guess Cape Verdeans can be called Iberics or Hispanics because they speak Portuguese, so they speak a Latin derived language and can also be called Latinos.

Hispanic or Iberic Creole from Cape Verde ( Portuguese ) killed by Brutal Racist

More than 50 mourners were at St. Edith Stein Church in Brockton this morning for the funeral Mass for Arlindo Goncalves, a 72-year-old

Why we remained Silence against Hate crime against Latinos?

2009-02-05T08:11:00.000-08:00

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As Brockton looks to heal from the racially and religious motivated killings of two and wounding of a third person by a gunman this week, Rabbi Joshua Cohen of Temple Beth Emunah talks about the need to do a better job educating young people about racial and religious tolerance. Temple Beth Emunah was identified by t he suspect as one of his intended targets in his killing spree. The Synagogue hosts a weekly Bingo game that draws hundreds of participants. The accused killer, Keith Luke also told authorities he spent free time visiting hate websites.

Used, Abused, and Know treated as the worst Criminals. Outrageous.

2009-02-05T06:54:00.000-08:00

There was all the symbolism necessary for the glory he seeks: hundreds of men dressed in prison stripes with pink underwear protruding from their waists,
surrounded by even more heavily armed guards and at a given moment an old man gave a signal and they were marched through a public street into a tent jail that would house only other men of their color and status surrounded by a high electrified fence... and the old man pontificated about the law...Chihuahua hasta cuando esto va a parar, This a reminder to all Latinos, Hispanics and those looks kinda a Mexican.
We need to stop the continues violation of our civil rights, we have been diminished day by day, they are killing us by their hatred emotions day by day, They are demonizing everyone just because we look kinda a Mexican....I ask myself what's wrong with being or look like Mexican? or that Racism?. Do you believe you have been attained or acquired equally rights as Hispanic or Latino?. Nooooooo. do you ever heard this comment from Real State Agents: Do not buy a house on this neighborhood; you will better off on Latino or Hispanic community. How many times do you hear this comments at Dealerships, You are not qualified for this loan because your credit is bad?; But someone else with the same credit or even worst get better rate and loan performance. We always have been used and abused, stereotyping, discriminated, demonized and racially segregated. We need to stop and send a clear message. Enough is enough. We are entitled to a same and equal rights like everybody else.

While on Immigration there are valid arguments on both sides of the issue, the debate has also been framed, at times, by vitriolic anti-immigrant – and particularly anti-Hispanic – rhetoric and propaganda. Purveyors of this extremist rhetoric use stereotypes and outright bigotry to target immigrants kinda look like Mexican and hold them responsible for numerous societal ills. Why?. see some of the vitriols arguments from Anti Immigrants groups:

1.-Describing immigrants as "third world invaders," who come to America to destroy our heritage, "colonize" the country and attack our "way of life." This charge is used against Hispanics, Asians and other people of color.

2.-Using terminology that describes immigrants as part of "hordes" that "swarm" over the border. This dehumanizing language has become common.

3.-Portraying immigrants as carriers of diseases like leprosy, tuberculosis, Chagas disease (a potentially fatal parasitic disease), dengue fever, polio, malaria.

4.-Depicting immigrants as criminals, murderers, rapists, terrorists, and a danger to children and families.

5.-Propagating conspiracy theories about an alleged secret "reconquista" plot by Mexican immigrants to create a "greater Mexico" by seizing seven states in the American Southwest that once belonged to Mexico.

Why blaming undocumented immigrants for draining social services?.

2009-02-03T18:59:00.000-08:00

TWO AREA PHYSICIANS AMONG FOUR DEFENDANTS CHARGED IN THREE SEPARATE FEDERAL HEALTH CARE FRAUD SCHEMES.

CHICAGO – Two Chicago area physicians are among four defendants who have been charged recently in three separate, unrelated federal healthcare fraud cases, federal law enforcement officials announced today. Each of the physicians, who were charged in separate cases, allegedly defrauded either Medicare and/or private health care insurers – in one case for more than $13 million – by either billing for services they never provided or inflating the services they did provide to patients. In the third case, the operator and manager of two former suburban Chicago durable medical equipment providers allegedly defrauded Medicare and Medicaid by providing power wheelchair or orthotic devices that were not prescribed or medically necessary and the recipients were not qualified to receive.

“Health care fraud remains an important priority of federal law enforcement. We will use all of our resources to ensure that dishonest physicians and other medical providers do not profit from cheating Medicare and private insurers,” said Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

Mr. Fitzgerald announced the cases, all three of which were charged or unsealed this week in U.S. District Court, with Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of Federal Bureau of Investigation; Lamont Pugh, Special Agent-in-Charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General in Chicago; and James Vanderberg, Special Agent-in-Charge of the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General in Chicago. The Office of Personnel Management Office of Inspector General also participated in the investigations.

The defendants in all three cases were charged with one or more counts each of health care fraud. If convicted, each count carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The Court, however, would determine the appropriate sentence to be imposed under the advisory United States Sentencing Guidelines.

In each case, the public is reminded that charges are not evidence of guilt. The defendants are presumed innocent and are entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The details of each case follow:

United States v. Sushil Sheth

Dr. Sushil Sheth, a cardiologist with privileges at three unnamed Chicago area hospitals, was charged with health care fraud in a criminal information filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court.

Between January 2002 and July 2007, he allegedly received approximately $13.4 million – $8.3 million from Medicare and $5.1 million from other health care insurers – in fraudulent reimbursement for the highest level of cardiac care when those services were not performed, and then used the proceeds for his own benefit.

Sheth, 47, of Burr Ridge and whose business office is in Flossmoor, will be arraigned at a later date in U.S. District Court.

According to the charges, Sheth used his hospital privileges to access and obtain information about patients without their knowledge or consent. He then hired individuals to bill Medicare and other insurance providers for medical services that he purportedly rendered to patients whom he knew he never treated. Typically waiting almost a year after the treatment was purportedly provided, Sheth submitted false claims for reimbursement for providing the highest level of cardiac care – requiring hands-on treatment in an intensive care unit – on multiple days during patients’ hospital stays.

The charges seek forfeiture of approximately $13.4 million and two parcels of real estate in Scottsdale , Ariz. The Government has seized or restrained approximately $11.3 million in various bank and investment accounts held by Sheth and his wife.

The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven J. Dollear. The case was investigated by the FBI and the Inspector General’s offices of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Labor Department.

United States v. Otto Garcia Montenegro

Dr. Otto Garcia Montenegro, a general practice physician who owned and operated a private medical clinic, Montenegro Clinic, Inc., in Elmwood Park, where he treated dozens of patients each week, was charged with health care fraud in a criminal information filed yesterday in U.S. District Court. Between early 2003 and May 2007, he allegedly submitted false health insurance claims totaling approximately $500,000 to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois and other private medical insurance providers. The insurers paid Montenegro approximately $373,000 based on the false claims, the charges allege.

Montenegro , 47, of Elmwood Park , will be arraigned at a later date in U.S. District Court.

According to the charges, Montenegro did not collect deductibles and co-payments from patients and, instead, submitted hundreds of fraudulent insurance claims to insurers for services and treatments that he knew he did not actually provide in order to exhaust patients’ deductibles and copays and obtain money for himself. As part of the scheme, he allegedly created hundreds of bogus bills falsely identifying visits and treatments that never occurred.

The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Stern. The case was investigated by the FBI and the Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General.

United States v. Stephen Anthony Pam and Shavon Keyona Williams

Stephen Anthony Pam, who controlled and operated two former durable medical equipment companies in suburban Chicago that supplied motorized wheelchairs, scooters, reclining lift chairs and orthotic devices, and Shavon Keyona Williams, who at various times worked as office manager or salesperson for both business, were each indicted on 34 counts of health care fraud for allegedly fraudulently billing millions of dollars to Medicare and Medicaid and other health care benefit programs.

Pam, 47, of Sugarland , Tex. , was arrested on January 23 in Houston after returning from a foreign trip. He remains in federal custody while being transferred to Chicago to face prosecution.

Williams, 30, of Chicago , will be arraigned at a later date in U.S. District Court. They were indicted by a federal grand jury on December 11 and the indictment was unsealed following Pam’s arrest.

Pam controlled and operated the former Alliance Healthcare Services & Medical Equipment, Inc., in Glen Ellyn , and the former Medlinc Concepts, Inc., in Oak Brook.

Between 2004 and 2008, the defendants allegedly falsely claimed to Medicare and Medicaid that power wheelchairs or orthotic devices were medically necessary for beneficiaries when they knew that physicians had not ordered or prescribed such equipment and that beneficiaries did not qualify to receive them under Medicare and Medicaid rules. As part of the fraud scheme, Pam and Williams allegedly submitted hundreds of claims for reimbursement to Medicare and Medicaid totaling more than $5 million, falsely stating that Alliance and Medlinc had delivered equipment to beneficiaries when they knew that either no equipment was actually delivered; beneficiaries received less expensive scooters or reclining lift chairs instead of more expensive power wheelchairs; or beneficiaries received orthotic devices that were less in quantity or Medicare-approved quality than what was billed.

In one aspect of the fraud scheme, the indictment alleges that between February 2005 and May 2006, approximately 99 percent of the Alliance claims submitted to Medicare and Medicaid were for power wheelchairs and accessories that were never supplied. These claims totaled approximately $4.7 million. Pam, through Alliance , allegedly received reimbursements from these claims totaling more than $1.8 million, and the indictment seeks forfeiture of that amount.

The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Felicia Manno Alesia and Ryan Hedges. The case was investigated by the Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Inspector General and the FBI.

Why Anti Immigrants groups are in charge of any Immigration Reform?.

2009-02-03T12:02:00.000-08:00

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Three Washington, D.C.-based immigration-restriction organizations stand at the nexus of the American nativist movement: the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), and NumbersUSA. Although on the surface they appear quite different — the first, the country's best-known anti-immigrant lobbying group; the second, an "independent" think tank; and the third, a powerful grassroots organizer — they are fruits of the same poisonous tree.

FAIR, CIS and NumbersUSA are all part of a network of restrictionist organizations conceived and created by John Tanton, the "puppeteer" of the nativist movement and a man with deep racist roots. As the first article in this report shows, Tanton has for decades been at the heart of the white nationalist scene. He has met with leading white supremacists, promoted anti-Semitic ideas, and associated closely with the leaders of a eugenicist foundation once described by a leading newspaper as a "neo-Nazi organization." He has made a series of racist statements about Latinos and worried that they were outbreeding whites. At one point, he wrote candidly that to maintain American culture, "a European-American majority" is required.

Key Quotes from the Report:

"CIS' creation was part of a carefully thought-out strategy aimed at creating a set of complementary institutions to cultivate the nativist cause – groups including the Federation for American immigration Reform (FAIR) and NumbersUSA."

"…these organizations are frequently treated as if they were legitimate, mainstream commentators on immigration. But the truth is that they were all conceived and birthed by a man who sees America under threat by non-white immigrants."

On FAIR: "The nativist lobby's action arm has an ugly record of promoting racist ideas, conspiracy theories and anti-immigrant hatred."

On CIS: "The nativist lobby's supposedly ‘independent' think tank has never found any aspect of immigration it likes."

Strip-Search of 13 Year-Old Student, a Violation of Constitutional Rights?.

2009-02-02T23:00:00.000-08:00

The U.S. Supreme Court announced Friday it will decide if the 2003 strip-search of a 13-year-old Arizona female student was reasonable or if it violated her Constitutional rights. The Court will also determine whether the girl is entitled to a financial settlement from the school district or the school official who ordered the search.

The decision could have a lasting affect on a school's drug enforcement policies.

The case, Redding v. Safford Unified School District, was appealed from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which found the strip search to be unconstitutional. A six-judge majority of the appeals court further held that the school official who ordered the search is not entitled to immunity as a result of his actions.

"Overzealous school officials stripped our client of her clothes and her constitutional rights," said Steven R. Shapiro, Legal Director of the ACLU, a plaintiff in the case. "We are confident that the Supreme Court will recognize that such conduct has no place in America’s schools and will protect the privacy rights of America’s students."

Savana Redding, an eighth grade honor roll student at Safford Middle School in Safford, Arizona, was pulled from class on October 8, 2003 by the school’s vice principal, Kerry Wilson. Earlier that day, Wilson had discovered prescription-strength ibuprofen - 400 milligram pills equivalent to two over-the-counter ibuprofen pills, such as Advil - in the possession of Redding’s classmate. Under questioning and faced with punishment, the classmate claimed that Redding, who had no history of disciplinary problems or substance abuse, had given her the pills. Safford maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward all prescription medicines, including prescription-strength ibuprofen.

After escorting Redding to his office, Wilson presented Redding with the ibuprofen pills and informed her of her classmate’s accusations. Redding said she had never seen the pills before and agreed to a search of her possessions, wanting to prove she had nothing to hide. Joined by a female school administrative assistant, Wilson searched Redding’s backpack and found nothing. Instructed by Wilson, the administrative assistant then took Redding to the school nurse’s office in order to perform a strip search.

In the school nurse’s office, Redding was ordered to strip to her underwear. She was then commanded to pull her bra out and to the side, exposing her breasts, and to pull her underwear out at the crotch, exposing her pelvic area.

The strip search failed to uncover any ibuprofen pills.

"The strip search was the most humiliating experience I have ever had," said Redding in a sworn affidavit following the incident. "I held my head down so that they could not see that I was about to cry."

The ACLU says the strip search was undertaken based solely on the uncorroborated claims of the classmate facing punishment. The groups says no attempt was made to corroborate the classmate’s accusations among other students or teachers, no physical evidence suggested that Redding might be in possession of ibuprofen pills or that she was concealing them in her undergarments. Furthermore, the classmate had not claimed that Redding currently possessed any pills, nor had the classmate given any indication as to where they might be concealed. No attempt was made to contact Redding’s parents prior to conducting the strip search.

"It offends both common sense and the Constitution to undertake such an excessive, traumatizing search based on nothing more than an uncorroborated accusation of ibuprofen possession," said Adam Wolf, an attorney with the ACLU and counsel of record in the case. "Our fundamental right to privacy must not be cast aside when faced with groundless allegations rooted in unfounded fears of adolescent Advil abuse.

Mexican Americans are entitled to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment?

2009-02-02T22:46:00.000-08:00

Facts of the Case

Pete Hernandez, an agricultural worker, was indicted for the murder of Joe Espinoza by an all-Anglo (white) grand jury in Jackson County, Texas. Claiming that Mexican-Americans were barred from the jury commission that selected juries, and from petit juries, Hernandez' attorneys tried to quash the indictment. Moreover, Hernandez tried to quash the petit jury panel called for service, because persons of Mexican descent were excluded from jury service in this case. A Mexican-American had not served on a jury in Jackson County in over 25 years and thus, Hernandez claimed that Mexican ancestry citizens were discriminated against as a special class in Jackson County. The trial court denied the motions. Hernandez was found guilty of murder and sentenced by the all-Anglo jury to life in prison. In affirming, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that "Mexicans are...members of and within the classification of the white race as distinguished from members of the Black Race" and rejected the petitioners' argument that they were a "special class" under the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Further, the court pointed out that "so far as we are advised, no member of the Mexican nationality" challenged this classification as white or Caucasian.

Question

Is it a denial of the Fourteenth Amendment equal protection clause to try a defendant of a particular race or ethnicity before a jury where all persons of his race or ancestry have, because of that race or ethnicity, been excluded by the state?

Conclusion

Yes. In a unanimous opinion delivered by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects those beyond the two classes of white or Black, and extends to other racial groups in communities depending upon whether it can be factually established that such a group exists within a community. In reversing, the Court concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment "is not directed solely against discrimination due to a 'two-class theory'" but in this case covers those of Mexican ancestry. This was established by the fact that the distinction between whites and Mexican ancestry individuals was made clear at the Jackson County Courthouse itself where "there were two men's toilets, one unmarked, and the other marked 'Colored Men and 'Hombres Aqui' ('Men Here')," and by the fact that no Mexican ancestry person had served on a jury in 25 years. Mexican Americans were a "special class" entitled to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment

In 1951 in the town of Edna, Texas, a field hand named Pedro Hernández murdered his employer after exchanging words at a gritty cantina. From this seemingly unremarkable small-town murder emerged a landmark civil rights case that would forever change the lives and legal standing of tens of millions of Americans. A team of unknown Mexican American lawyers took the case, Hernandez v. Texas, all the way to the Supreme Court, where they successfully challenged Jim Crow-style discrimination against Mexican Americans.

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE presents A Class Apart from the award-winning producers Carlos Sandoval (_Farmingville_), and Peter Miller (_Sacco and Vanzetti_, The Internationale). The one-hour film dramatically interweaves the story of its central characters— activists and lawyers, returning veterans and ordinary citizens, murderer, and victim — within the broader story of a civil rights movement that is still very much alive today.

The film begins with the little known history of Mexican Americans in the United States. In 1848, the Mexican-American War came to an end. For the United States, the victory meant ownership of large swaths of Mexican territory. The tens of thousands of residents living on the newly annexed land were offered American citizenship as part of the treaty to end the war. But as time evolved it soon became apparent that legal citizenship for Mexican Americans was one thing, equal treatment would be quite another.

“Life in the 1950s was very difficult for Hispanics,” Wanda García, a native of Corpus Christi, explains in the film. “We were considered second-rate, we were not considered intelligent. We were considered invisible.”

In the first 100 years after gaining U.S. citizenship, many Mexican Americans in Texas lost their land to unfamiliar American laws, or to swindlers. With the loss of their land came a loss of status, and within just two generations, many wealthy ranch owners had become farm workers. After the Civil War, increasing numbers of Southern whites moved to south Texas, bringing with them the rigid, racial social code of the Deep South, which they began to apply not just to blacks, but to Mexican Americans as well.

Widespread discrimination followed Latinos from schoolhouses and restaurants to courthouses and even to funeral parlors, many of which refused to prepare Mexican American bodies for burial. During World War II, more than 300,000 Mexican Americans served their country expecting to return home with the full citizenship rights they deserved. Instead, the returning veterans, many of them decorated war heroes, came back to face the same injustices they had experienced all their lives.

Latino lawyers and activists were making progress at state levels, but they knew that real change could only be achieved if Mexican Americans were recognized by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — something that could only be accomplished by bringing a case to the Supreme Court.

In his law office in San Antonio, a well-known attorney named Gus García listened to the desperate pleas of Pedro Hernández’s mother, who traveled more than one hundred and fifty miles to ask him to defend her son. García quickly realized that there was more to this case than murder. The real concern was not Hernández’s guilt, but whether he could receive a fair trial with an all-Anglo jury deciding his fate.

García assembled a team of courageous attorneys who argued on behalf of Hernández from his first trial at the Jackson County Courthouse in Texas all the way to Washington, DC. It would be the first time a Mexican American appeared before the Supreme Court.

The Hernandez lawyers decided on a daring but risky legal strategy, arguing that Mexican Americans were “a class apart” and did not neatly fit into a legal structure that recognized only black and white Americans. As legal skirmishes unfolded, the lawyers emerged as brilliant, dedicated, humorous, and at times, terribly flawed men.

“They took a gamble,” says University of California-Berkeley professor of law Ian Haney-López in the film. “They knew, on the up side, that they could win national recognition for the equality of Mexican Americans, but they knew, on the down side, that if they lost, they would establish at a national level the proposition that Mexican Americans could be treated as second class citizens.”

The Hernandez case struck a chord with Latinos across the country. When funds to try the case ran out, the Mexican American community donated to the cause in any way they could, despite limited resources.

“They would come up to me and they would give you crumpled-up dollar bills and they’d give you coins. These were people who couldn’t afford it, but couldn’t afford not to,” recalled attorney Carlos Cadena, Gus García’s partner in the case.

On January 11, 1954, García and Cadena faced the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Cadena opened the argument. “Can Mexican Americans speak English?” one justice asked. “Are they citizens?” asked another. The lack of knowledge stunned Gus García, who stood up and delivered the argument of his life. Chief Justice Earl Warren allowed him to continue a full sixteen minutes past the allotted time, a concession a witness noted had not been afforded to any other civil rights lawyer before García, including the renowned NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall.

On May 3, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its ruling in the case of Hernandez v. Texas. Pedro Hernández would receive a new trial — and would be judged by a true jury of his peers. The court’s legal reasoning: Mexican Americans, as a group, were protected under the 14th Amendment, in keeping with the theory that they were indeed “a class apart.”

“The Hernandez v. Texas story is a powerful reminder of one of many unknown yet hard-fought moments in the civil rights movement,” says AMERICAN EXPERIENCE executive producer Mark Samels. “It’s easy to forget how far the country has come in just fifty years, reshaping our democracy to include all Americans.”

The way we view and called Liberty in America.

2009-02-02T22:20:00.000-08:00

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Opinions on what constitute liberty can vary widely, but can be generally classified as positive liberty and negative liberty. Positive liberty asserts that freedom is the ability of society to achieve an end. However, in modern time, liberty is generally considered to be the concept of negative liberty. This refers to an individual's liberty from being subjected to the authority of others. In this negative sense, one is considered free to the extent to which no person interferes with his or her activity. The social contract theory, invented by Hobbes, John Locke and Rousseau, were among the first to provide a political classification of rights, in particular through the notion of sovereignty and of natural rights. The thinkers of the Enlightenment reasoned the assertion that law governed both heavenly and human affairs, and that law gave the king his power, rather than the king's power giving force to law.
In the United States, more than 200 towns and counties are called Liberty. In this past historic election year, a new documentary explores the messy business of America's most celebrated value in a number of ways and places.

You are on Indian Land.By Mort Ransen 1969.

2009-02-02T22:09:00.000-08:00

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The film shows the confrontation between police and a 1969 demonstration by Mohawks of the St. Regis Reserve on the bridge between Canada and the United States near Cornwall, Ontario. By blocking traffic on the bridge, which is on the Reserve, the Indians drew public attention to their grievance that they were prohibited by Canadian authorities from duty-free passage of personal purchases across the border, a right they claim was established by the Jay Treaty of 1794.

Stimulus bill for Liars like Lou Dobbs and Bill O’Reilly.

2009-02-02T13:31:00.000-08:00

From what I've been able to find on reputable sites, (New York Times, Factcheck.org) and from my own knowledge Undocumented Immigrants pay more than 7 billion dollars into the system each year in Social Security payroll deductions and 1.5 billion dollars in Medicare taxes.

Most of the people use fake social Security cards or ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) to get jobs and most don't collect. Both Social Security and medicare would be in even worse shape if the undocumented workers were able to collect benefits but they are not entitled to any benefits.

Even if some are getting benefits, the overwhelming majority pay into the systems but never get anything from the system.

I'm not making excuses; I am just trying not to be blinded by the message of hatred from those who really are reacting without thinking their positions through.

Pushing false information has lasting consequences on the image of immigrants, and those perceived to be foreign.

On January 29, 2009, Associated Press staff writer Julie Hirschfeld Davis, released the article “Hill Republican: Stimulus aids illegal immigrants” where the false assertion was made that the Stimulus package would provide money for undocumented immigrants:

The $800 billion-plus economic stimulus measure making its way through Congress could steer government checks to illegal immigrants, a top Republican congressional official asserted Thursday.

Shortly after its publication, the story gained a lot of public attention by the conservative news site The Drudge Report, CNN’s Lou Dobbs, and FOX News. Hours after the false claim was retracted by the AP (3:02 p.m. ET), these “news organizations” repeated it nonetheless. The Drudge Report kept the link to the uncorrected AP story up for 4 hours. Dobbs made the claim at 5:27 pm ET. FOX News repeated the claim at 6:09 pm ET, and then again at 8:16 pm ET on Bill O’Reilly’s.

As it turned out, the one single anonymous source was later withdrawn and the article was rewritten to show the information provided by that source had been false.

A senior GOP congressional official expressed concern Thursday that the bill could steer government checks to undocumented workers, but in fact the measure prevents anyone without a Social Security number from claiming tax credits of $500 per worker and $1,000 per couple.

Stories like these tend to instigate anti-immigration sentiments given the controversial topic, and Fox News, Lou Dobbs, and the Drudge Report only add fuel to the fire. The point is simple: pushing false information has the lasting consequences on the image of immigrants, and those perceived to be foreign. Ineffectively informing the public about two important issues, immigration and the economy, will only strengthen the tensions amongst the various ideologies debating these topics.

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

2009-01-31T14:58:00.000-08:00

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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.

2009-01-31T14:32:00.000-08:00

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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.

2009-01-31T09:03:00.000-08:00

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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?

2009-01-31T08:48:00.000-08:00

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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?

2009-01-31T08:43:00.000-08:00

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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?

2009-01-31T08:28:00.000-08:00

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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.

2009-01-31T07:55:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-28T09:47:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-28T08:04:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-27T09:45:00.000-08:00

::: 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.

2009-01-27T07:57:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-01-25T19:13:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-01-24T09:05:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-24T08:46:00.000-08:00

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.!!!!

2009-01-24T08:07:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-24T07:43:00.000-08:00

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.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-01-23T22:28:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-23T07:50:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-22T19:12:00.000-08:00

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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.

2009-01-22T15:49:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-22T09:00:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-01-22T08:39:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-22T08:09:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-21T16:51:00.000-08:00

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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,

2009-01-21T16:34:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-21T16:27:00.000-08:00

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?.

2009-01-17T08:17:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-15T17:21:00.000-08:00

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?