TYSON HAS LONG BEEN IDENTIFED WITH THE DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR OBVIOUS REASONS. Tyson Foods Faces Boycott After Firing 1,200 Americans, ‘Would Like to Employ’ 42,000 Migrants - AND BIDEN - MAYORKAS - SCHUMER HAVE USHERED OVER THE BORDER 15 MILLION TO PICK FROM.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Mexican Drug Lord Terrorist Endorses Obama's OPEN and UNDEFENDED BORDERS With Narcomex
MIGUEL ANGEL TREVINO
MORALES. THE MEXICAN DRUG LORD TERRORIST FROM
DALLAS, ENDORSES BARACK OBAMA, Hispandering president for OPEN BORDERS.
BARACK OBAMA IS DESPERATE FOR
MEXICO TO INVADE AND OCCUPY. FOR OBAMA, LA RAZA “THE RACE” ARE “CHEAP” LABOR
FOR HIS WALL STREET PAYMASTERS, AND UNREGISTERED VOTERS.
DEMS ARE NOW THE PARTY for
ILLEGALS.
WHILE OBAMA HAS SQUANDERED BILLIONS
TO PROTECT THE BORDERS OF MUSLIM DICTATORS, HE HAS DELIBERATELY SABOTAGED OUR
BORDERS WITH NARCOMEX.
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OBAMA’S
OPEN AND UNDEFENDED BORDERS:
Ruthless Drug Lord Takes Control of Deadly Cartel
By RANDY KREIDER and MARK SCHONE | ABC
News – 2 hrs 19 mins ago
ABC
News - Ruthless Drug Lord Takes Control of Deadly Cartel (ABC News)
The new head of the
Zetas drug cartel is a former Dallas resident who is scorned as a traitor by
many of his own cartel soldiers and mocked as an ex-"car washer" by
his enemies, but has risen to power thanks to a fearsome reputation for
violence.
"[Miguel Angel
Trevino Morales] is extremely brutal, to the point of sadism," says George
Grayson, an expert on the Zetas. "He is prepared to advance his interest
through unspeakable violence." Grayson's recent book on the cartel, "The Executioner's Men," opens with a
scene in which Trevino Morales slowly beats a female police officer to death,
in front of her colleagues, with a two-by-four.
Trevino Morales, also
known as El 40 or the Monkey, became the uncontested head of the Mexico's most
feared drug cartel when former kingpin Heriberto Lazcano was killed in a
shootout with Mexican Marines on Sunday. Lazcano had been linked to hundreds of
murders, including the massacre of 72 civilians, but Trevino Morales is
allegedly even more bloodthirsty. One of his preferred methods of dealing with
enemies, say authorities, is burning them alive.
Trevino Morales, 41,
was born in Mexico but spent some of his formative years in Dallas, Texas,
where authorities say he had a criminal record as a teenager. He has a dozen
siblings and reportedly still has family in the Dallas area.
According to the
Associated Press, he became a teen go-fer for the Los Tejas gang, which was
powerful in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, just across the Rio Grande
from Laredo, Texas.
Trevino Morales
joined the Zetas soon after their formation. The Zetas began in the late 1990s
as the security wing of the Gulf Cartel. The 14 core members of the Zetas,
including Heriberto Lazcano, all had military backgrounds, and took ranks based
on when they'd joined the group. Lazcano was known as Z-3. By 2004, due to the
death of Z-1 and the arrest of Z-2, Lazcano had become the leader of the Zetas.
Trevino Morales, who
did not have a military background, got the designation 40, with his brother
taking number 42. In 2005, Miguel Trevino Morales became the boss of the Nuevo
Laredo "plaza," or drug territory.
As a newly minted
underboss, Trevino Morales had traditional gangster tastes for fast cars, women
and fancy guns, and reportedly liked to hunt game imported from Africa. He
also, however, developed a developed a particular reputation for brutality in
group already renowned for violence. His favored methods for dispatching
enemies were dismembering them while still alive, or making them into a
"guiso," or stew -- stuffing them in 55-gallon oil drums, adding
gasoline and burning them alive.
By 2009, Trevino
Morales had been named in multiple federal indictments in Texas, D.C. and New
York for alleged crimes ranging from drug trafficking, kidnapping, and money
laundering to ordering a half dozen murders in Laredo, Texas. The DEA offered a
$5 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction, and
accused him of controlling more than 200 operatives and smuggling hundreds of
kilograms of cocaine into the U.S. weekly.
Early the next year,
the Zetas finally split from the Gulf cartel after the Gulf Cartel crossed Trevino
Morales. In January 2010, the Gulf Cartel tortured and killed one of his close
friends. Trevino Morales responded with an ultimatum demanding that the cartel
give up the killer. "Hand over the assassin of my friend," demanded
Trevino Morales. "If you don't comply, there will be war."
The order was
ignored, and Trevino Morales allegedly began killing members of the Gulf Cartel
en masse. The Zetas, now an independent cartel with Trevino Morales second in
command, were soon battling the Gulf Cartel for control of Northern Mexico, and
winning.
Civil
War Inside the Zetas Drug Cartel
By 2011, however,
there was a schism within the new cartel between Trevino Morales and those
loyal to Heriberto Lazcano. When Zetas boss "El Mamito," Enrique
Rejon Aguilar, was arrested in July, he said that he had been betrayed. Though
he did not name any names, the next month someone uploaded a slickly produced
music video to YouTube that bluntly accused Trevino Morales of being a
"Judas" who was disloyal to Lazcano and had betrayed Mamito and other
Zetas to the authorities.
Addressed to all the
members of "the Mafia," every major drug organization in Mexico by
name, and to the general public, "The True Story of Z 40" uses a
specially written "narcoballad" to detail the alleged offenses of
Trevino Morales against his fellow Zetas, especially leader Heriberto Lazcano.
One of the first
images in the five-minute video is a picture of Judas whispering in the ear of
Jesus. It then shows repeated images of Trevino Morales with the words "El
Judas" under his face, and displays arrest photos of all the Zetas bosses
he has allegedly betrayed, who were "captured because they trusted Z
40." Intended as a warning to Lazcano, it asks "El Lazca" why he
thinks so many of his underlings have been arrested.
The video also mocks
Trevino Morales as a former car washer for Los Tejas, and plasters his face
onto photos of police officers and a shiny-suited pop idol.
Rival groups have
also disparaged Trevino Morales as a car washer. In March, Joaquin Guzman, AKA
El Chapo or Shorty, the head of Mexico's other dominant drug organization, the
Sinaloa Cartel, sent his men into Trevino Morales' territory to murder and
dismember Zetas soldiers. He issued a public challenge to Trevino Morales on
huge banners above the body parts of his victims.
One banner,
accompanied by seven severed heads, accused Trevino Morales of failing to use
his own head, and of being Heriberto Lazcano's jockstrap. "You will always
be a car washer to me," said the banner, which was signed "El
Chapo." Another mocked Trevino Morales as a shoeshine boy, car washer and
traitor who killed innocent people.
In the summer of
2012, Trevino Morales' brother Jose, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in the U.S.
for moneylaundering after allegedly channeling the Zetas's drug money through a
successful horseracing operation. Not long after his arrest, the split within
the Zetas apparently cost 14 lives. The survivor of a mass execution in San
Luis Potosi state in mid-August said that the victims and the killers were
Zetas. Authorities believe the massacre was revenge by Trevino Morales on
"El Taliban," a leader opposed to EL 40's ascent.
By the end of August,
U.S. officials began saying that Trevino Morales seemed to have merged as the
winner in the Zetas' civil war, and had officially taken operational control of
the Zetas in Mexico from Lazcano.
High-ranking Zetas
then began to fall. El Taliban was arrested in late September, "The
Squirrel" just last Saturday. Lazcano, who was attending a baseball game
with two other men, died in a firefight on Sunday.
Grayson speculates
that Trevino Morales may have shared information with U.S. authorities to get
better treatment for his brother Jose, who is in U.S. custody.
Trevino Morales must
now direct the Zetas against the combined strength of the Gulf Cartel, the
Sinaloa Cartel and other players, who have united to drive the Zetas from their
"plazas." Grayson says that with Lazcano's death, El Chapo Guzman of
the Sinaloa cartel will be aided in his primary goal of taking control of Nuevo
Laredo, El 40's home base. Guzman has already dispatched what Grayson calls
"shock troops" to help the Gulf Cartel fight the Zetas.
El Chapo's troops
will be facing younger, less experienced, and less disciplined Zetas plaza
bosses than in the past, says Grayson. But he also notes that the Zetas new
leader, in addition to being more violent than his predecessor, may be more
cautious and wily as well. "El 40," says Grayson, "would never
have been at a baseball game."
*
Mexican cartels flood U.S. with cheap meth
Mexican drug cartels
are quietly filling the void in the nation's drug market created by the long
effort to crack down on American-made methamphetamine, flooding U.S. cities
with exceptionally cheap, extraordinarily potent meth from factory-like
"superlabs."
By JIM SALTER
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS —
Mexican drug cartels
are quietly filling the void in the nation's drug market created by the long
effort to crack down on American-made methamphetamine, flooding U.S. cities
with exceptionally cheap, extraordinarily potent meth from factory-like
"superlabs."
Although Mexican meth
is not new to the U.S. drug trade, it now accounts for as much as 80 percent of
the meth sold here, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. And it is
as much as 90 percent pure, a level that offers users a faster, more intense
and longer-lasting high.
"These are
sophisticated, high-tech operations in Mexico that are operating with extreme
precision," said Jim Shroba, a DEA agent in St. Louis. "They're
moving it out the door as fast as they can manufacture it."
The cartels are
expanding into the U.S. meth market just as they did with heroin: developing an
inexpensive, highly addictive form of the drug and sending it through the same
pipeline already used to funnel marijuana and cocaine, authorities said.
Seizures of meth
along the Southwest border have more than quadrupled during the last several
years. DEA records reviewed by The Associated Press show that the amount of
seized meth jumped from slightly more than 4,000 pounds in 2007 to more than
16,000 pounds in 2011.
During that same
period, the purity of Mexican meth shot up too, from 39 percent in 2007 to 88
percent by 2011, according to DEA documents. The price fell 69 percent,
tumbling from $290 per pure gram to less than $90.
Mexican meth has a
clearer, glassier appearance than more crudely produced formulas and often
resembles ice fragments, usually with a clear or bluish-white color. It often
has a smell people compare to ammonia, cat urine or even burning plastic.
"You can look at
it and see it has a much more pure look," said Paul Roach, a DEA agent in
Denver.
The rise of Mexican
meth doesn't mean American labs have disappeared. The number of U.S. meth labs
continues to rise even as federal, state and local laws place heavy
restrictions on the purchase of cold and allergy pills containing
pseudoephedrine, a major component in the most common meth recipe.
The crackdowns that
began a decade ago have made it more difficult to prepare large batches, so
many American meth users have turned to a simpler method that uses a 2-liter
soda bottle filled with just enough ingredients to produce a small amount of
the drug for personal use.
But south of the
border, meth is being made on an industrial scale. Sophisticated factories put
out tons of the drug using formulas developed by professional chemists. The
final product often is smuggled into the U.S. taped beneath tractor-trailers or
hidden inside packages of other drugs.
While clandestine
U.S. labs generally supply rural areas, Mexican meth is mostly targeted to
urban and suburban users. Increasingly large quantities are turning up in
dozens of American cities, including Dallas, Phoenix, Denver, Chicago, St.
Louis and Salt Lake City, according to the DEA.
The marketing format
follows a well-established pattern. By simultaneously increasing the purity and
cutting the price, the cartels get people hooked and create a new customer
base.
"They're
marketing geniuses," said Jack Riley, the agent in charge of the DEA
office in Chicago.
When Illinois
authorities recently confiscated 1,000 pounds of Mexican marijuana, they found
10 pounds of meth hidden among the pot - essentially a free sample for the
distributor to give out to drug users, Riley said.
Until recently, meth
was seldom seen in major urban areas, except in biker gangs and parts of the
gay community, Riley said.
"We've never
really seen it on the street like we've seen cocaine and heroin," Riley
said. He worries that if the estimated 180,000 members of street gangs in
Chicago get involved in meth trafficking, violence could follow.
Like the U.S., Mexico
has tightened laws and regulations on pseudoephedrine, though some labs still
are able to obtain large amounts from China and India. To fill the void, cartel
chemists have turned to an old recipe known as P2P that first appeared in the
1960s and 1970s in some parts of the western U.S.
That recipe uses the
organic compound phenylacetone. Because of its use in meth, the U.S. government
made it a controlled substance in 1980, essentially stopping that form of meth
in the U.S. But in Mexico, the cartels can get phenylacetone from other
countries, DEA experts said.
In the third quarter
of 2011, 85 percent of lab samples taken from U.S. meth seizures came from the
P2P process - up from 50 percent a little more than a year earlier, DEA
spokesman Rusty Payne said.
Federal agents say
the influx of meth from Mexico illustrates the difficulty of waging a two-front
war on the drug in neighboring countries. When one source of the drug is dealt
a setback, other suppliers step in to satisfy relentless demand.
Considering the
relatively untapped market of bigger American cities, the rise of Mexican meth
is not surprising, said Illinois State University criminologist Ralph Weisheit,
a meth expert.
"It's something
that was inevitable," Weisheit said. "This wasn't hard to
predict."
American authorities
are not the only ones taking notice. The sharp spike in meth activity also is
evident from the other side of the border. Seizures of labs and chemicals have
increased nearly 1,000 percent in the past two years.
Last year, Mexican
authorities made two major busts in the quiet central state of Queretaro,
seizing nearly 500 tons of precursor chemicals and 3.4 tons of pure meth with a
street value of more than $100 million. In Sinaloa, investigators found a
sophisticated underground lab equipped with an elevator and ventilation systems
as well as cooking and sleeping facilities. The facility was reachable only by
a nearly 100-foot tunnel with its opening concealed under a tractor shed.
And in February,
soldiers in western Mexico made a historic seizure: 15 tons of pure
methamphetamine, a haul that could have supplied 13 million doses worth more
than $4 billion.
The meth problem is
spilling into other parts of Latin America too. In December and January,
Mexican authorities seized nearly 900 tons of precursor chemicals at Mexican
ports, almost all of it bound for Guatemala, which seized about 1,600 tons of
meth precursors in 2011 - four times the 400 tons seized there a year earlier.
For now, cocaine
remains far and away the cartels' most profitable drug. The RAND Corp.
estimates the annual street value of cocaine is about $30 billion, heroin about
$20 billion and meth about $5 billion.
But cocaine is
getting more expensive and less pure. According to the DEA, the price per pure
gram of cocaine rose 59 percent from 2007 through September 2011. At the same
time, the purity level dropped 25 percent.
Cocaine also
typically comes from Colombia, meaning Mexican cartels serve as middle men who
compete against each other to smuggle it into the U.S. That marginalizes their
profits.
Because
methamphetamine is a synthetic drug the cartels can make for themselves, the
profit potential is enormous.
"It's not
plant-based," Weisheit said. "It can be completely produced in
Mexico. It's very compact, and that makes it easy to smuggle."
---
Associated Press
writers Mark Stevenson in Mexico City and Christopher Sherman in McAllen,
Texas, contributed to this report.
Source: Mexican teen killed by US BP agent | Nation & World | The Seattle Times - DAILY 12 AMERICANS MURDERED BY MEXICANS!
Source: Mexican teen killed by US BP agent | Nation & World | The Seattle Times
Some Illegal Immigrants have been arrested and Re-Arrested 6 Times - Illegal Immigrants arrested for being in the United States illegally may have been charged up to six more times, for more serious crimes, after they were released by local authorities. Additionally, the number of illegal immigrants deported after being declared a felon is on the rise.
The Justice findings by department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine examined the criminal histories of 100 illegal immigrants arrested and then released by local and state authorities in 2004, the latest complete data available. Of the sample group of 100, according to the audit, 73 immigrants were later arrested a collective 429 times - on charges ranging from traffic tickets to weapons and drug charges.
The data suggest "the rate at which released criminal aliens are re-arrested is extremely high," the audit noted. The report, parts of which were redacted, was required by Congress in 2005 and looked at how local and state authorities that receive Justice Department funding are working with the Homeland Security Department.
For years, the government was forced to release thousands of illegal immigrants who were caught in the United States because of not enough jail space and other resources. But last fall, with immigration as a key election-year priority, Homeland Security declared it would detain 99 percent of non-Mexican illegal immigrants until they could be returned to their home nations. The policy generally does not apply to Mexicans, who are almost immediately returned to Mexico after being stopped by Border Patrol agents.
The Justice audit, however, only looked at immigrants who were arrested and released by local and state authorities before they could be turned over to Homeland Security to be detained or deported. In all, 752 cities, counties and states participating in the program received $287 million in 2005, the audit noted.
Five states - California, New York, Texas, Florida and Arizona - received the bulk of the money, together pulling in more than $184 million.
Assistant Attorney General Regina B. Schofield, who oversees the Office of Justice Programs that controlled the funding, declined comment on the audit, noting that it does not contain any recommendations.
A separate report by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University showed that the number of immigrants who were deported as "aggravated felons" doubled over the last 15 years, from 10,303 in 1992 to an estimated 23,065 in 2006.
But TRAC, which obtained the data from the Justice Department's Executive Office of Immigration Review, noted concerns that some of those immigrants never committed felonies.
"An individual can be declared an aggravated felon on the basis of a conviction on misdemeanor charges such as shoplifting," the TRAC report concluded.
MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com
From the above blog,
email articles to those concerned about Obama’s endless push for amnesty.
FAIRUS.org
JUDICIAL WATCH.org
ALIPAC.us
*
TEN MOST WANTED
CRIMINALS IN CALIFORNIA ARE MEXICANS!
*
206 Most wanted criminals in Los Angeles. Out of 206
criminals--183 are hispanic---171 of those are wanted for Murder.
Why do Americans still protect the illegals??
http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_11255121?appSession=934140935651450&RecordID=&PageID=2&PrevPageID=&cpipage=1&CPISortType=&CPIorderBy=
Why do Americans still protect the illegals??
http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_11255121?appSession=934140935651450&RecordID=&PageID=2&PrevPageID=&cpipage=1&CPISortType=&CPIorderBy=
*
(read entire article on MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com)
The
Illegal-Alien Crime Wave
Heather Mac Donald EMAIL
Some of the most violent criminals at large today are illegal aliens. Yet in cities where the crime these aliens commit is highest, the police cannot use the most obvious tool to apprehend them: their immigration status. In Los Angeles, for example, dozens of members of a ruthless Salvadoran prison gang have sneaked back into town after having been deported for such crimes as murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and drug trafficking. Police officers know who they are and know that their mere presence in the country is a felony. Yet should a cop arrest an illegal gangbanger for felonious reentry, it is he who will be treated as a criminal, for violating the LAPD’s rule against enforcing immigration law.
*
Heather Mac Donald EMAIL
Some of the most violent criminals at large today are illegal aliens. Yet in cities where the crime these aliens commit is highest, the police cannot use the most obvious tool to apprehend them: their immigration status. In Los Angeles, for example, dozens of members of a ruthless Salvadoran prison gang have sneaked back into town after having been deported for such crimes as murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and drug trafficking. Police officers know who they are and know that their mere presence in the country is a felony. Yet should a cop arrest an illegal gangbanger for felonious reentry, it is he who will be treated as a criminal, for violating the LAPD’s rule against enforcing immigration law.
*
WHEN READING THE BELOW, CONSIDER THAT OBAMA, AND THE LA RAZA
DEMS, FEINSTEIN, BOXER, PELOSI, LOFGREN, AND REID, ALONG WITH THE CONGRESSIONAL
HISPANIC CAUCUS (LA RAZA) ARE DETERMINED TO SABOTAGE OUR BORDERS! OBAMA HAS
STOPPED THE WALL, DEPLOYED HUNDREDS OF BORDER GUARDS, ASSAULTED ARIZONA’S
ATTEMPT TO DEFEND AGAINST MEXICO’S INVASION, AND TURNED THE DEPT. OF HOMELAND
SECURITY INTO THE “HOMELAND SECURITY = PATHWAY TO CITIZENSHIP”.
NANCY PELOSI HAS LONG VOWED THE WALL WOULD NEVER BE BUILT!
*
“It’s all part of the Obama
Administration’s plan to pass a “compassionate” and “comprehensive” immigration
overhaul that aims to legalize an estimated 12 million undocumented aliens. The
legislation is currently being drafted by the chairman of a key congressional
task force, Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez, and promises to offer
undocumented immigrants U.S. citizenship and humane treatment in prisons.”
JUDICIAL WATCH
*
WHY WE NEED a BORDER FENCE, by Heather Mac Donald
*
The
Arizona law has the salutary purpose of increasing the chance that any given
illegal alien will be lawfully detected and deported, but the record suggests
that a huge percentage of individuals apprehended under the law will simply
illegally reenter.
This ICE press release boasts of success stories from the Secure Communities program, which under the Obama administration focuses on identifying and deporting only the most serious criminal aliens. It presents 26 cases in which violent or otherwise serious offenders were apprehended since late 2008; a full 13 of them had already been deported, many multiple times.
The record for reentry goes to a Mexican aggravated felon apprehended in Florence, Ariz., on May 22, 2009, who had been deported nine times, following 51 documented arrests under 16 different aliases. The runner-up is a Mexican arrested for assault causing bodily injury on June 9, 2009, in Starr County, Texas, who had been deported five times and was convicted of attempted murder in 2005. More typical is a Guatemalan drug dealer apprehended in Dallas on Aug. 7, 2009, who has been deported twice, and whose lengthy criminal history includes aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (legalese for shooting someone); a Honduran MS-13 gang member booked on March 8, 2009, in Boston, who had previously been removed once; and a Mexican gang member arrested for strong arm aggravated assault in Maricopa County, Ariz., who had been previously convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and deported once.
The logic of the Arizona law is that by increasing the chance of detection, it will discourage illegal aliens from entering in the first place and encourage those already in the country to leave on their own. Undoubtedly, many people will respond to the law as intended; the deterrent effect would be even greater if more states followed Arizona’s lead and discarded their actual or de facto sanctuary policies. But for other illegal aliens, the threat of detection and deportation is apparently not particularly meaningful. I don’t know whether the rate of illegal reentry (which is a felony) is higher for serious criminal aliens compared with illegal aliens who do not commit other crimes. But clearly, better interior enforcement, while a necessary part of restoring the immigration rule of law, cannot succeed in the absence of a truly secure border. The only reason for not creating a border fence that I can see is ambivalence about whether we really want to prevent illegal entry.
This ICE press release boasts of success stories from the Secure Communities program, which under the Obama administration focuses on identifying and deporting only the most serious criminal aliens. It presents 26 cases in which violent or otherwise serious offenders were apprehended since late 2008; a full 13 of them had already been deported, many multiple times.
The record for reentry goes to a Mexican aggravated felon apprehended in Florence, Ariz., on May 22, 2009, who had been deported nine times, following 51 documented arrests under 16 different aliases. The runner-up is a Mexican arrested for assault causing bodily injury on June 9, 2009, in Starr County, Texas, who had been deported five times and was convicted of attempted murder in 2005. More typical is a Guatemalan drug dealer apprehended in Dallas on Aug. 7, 2009, who has been deported twice, and whose lengthy criminal history includes aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (legalese for shooting someone); a Honduran MS-13 gang member booked on March 8, 2009, in Boston, who had previously been removed once; and a Mexican gang member arrested for strong arm aggravated assault in Maricopa County, Ariz., who had been previously convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and deported once.
The logic of the Arizona law is that by increasing the chance of detection, it will discourage illegal aliens from entering in the first place and encourage those already in the country to leave on their own. Undoubtedly, many people will respond to the law as intended; the deterrent effect would be even greater if more states followed Arizona’s lead and discarded their actual or de facto sanctuary policies. But for other illegal aliens, the threat of detection and deportation is apparently not particularly meaningful. I don’t know whether the rate of illegal reentry (which is a felony) is higher for serious criminal aliens compared with illegal aliens who do not commit other crimes. But clearly, better interior enforcement, while a necessary part of restoring the immigration rule of law, cannot succeed in the absence of a truly secure border. The only reason for not creating a border fence that I can see is ambivalence about whether we really want to prevent illegal entry.
*
Audit looks
at migrant re-arrests
McClatchy
Newspapers
Jan. 9, 2007 12:00 AM
Jan. 9, 2007 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - Some illegal immigrants are being released from
prison only to be arrested on new charges despite government efforts to deport
them and keep them out of the country.
The findings are part of an audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine that suggest authorities are still struggling to deport illegal immigrants who commit crimes, even though most state and local authorities are notifying immigration authorities of the imminent release of prisoners.
Fine's office analyzed the cases of 100 immigrants who had served time in prison and found 73 of them were rearrested after being released.
On average, each immigrant was rearrested six times, ranging from traffic violations to assault.
Fine's office couldn't determine how many illegal immigrants had been rearrested overall because immigration authorities don't keep track.
If the sample was any indication, "The rate at which released criminal aliens are rearrested is extremely high," the report said.
Last year, Homeland Security's inspector general said immigration authorities expected that most of the 300,000 illegal and legal immigrants eligible to be deported would be released.
Federal officials said they would need 34,000 additional beds at a cost of $1.1 billion to detain and remove all of them.
The findings are part of an audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine that suggest authorities are still struggling to deport illegal immigrants who commit crimes, even though most state and local authorities are notifying immigration authorities of the imminent release of prisoners.
Fine's office analyzed the cases of 100 immigrants who had served time in prison and found 73 of them were rearrested after being released.
On average, each immigrant was rearrested six times, ranging from traffic violations to assault.
Fine's office couldn't determine how many illegal immigrants had been rearrested overall because immigration authorities don't keep track.
If the sample was any indication, "The rate at which released criminal aliens are rearrested is extremely high," the report said.
Last year, Homeland Security's inspector general said immigration authorities expected that most of the 300,000 illegal and legal immigrants eligible to be deported would be released.
Federal officials said they would need 34,000 additional beds at a cost of $1.1 billion to detain and remove all of them.
*
JUDICIAL WATCH
Illegal Aliens Abscond Under “Humane” ICE
Program
Last
Updated: Wed, 10/28/2009 - 2:57pm
Touted
by the Obama Administration as key to overhauling the nation’s immigration
detention system, a program that monitors illegal aliens instead of jailing
them regularly loses track of offenders and the government distorts records to
cover it up.
Operated
by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the intensive
monitoring program allows illegal aliens to check in by phone, wear ankle
monitors and obey a curfew rather than go to prison while they wait for court
appearances. ICE claims the alternatives-to-detention program is a huge success
and Obama assures it’s a great model for his plans to create a more humane
immigration detention system.
But
records and statistics obtained by a Houston
newspaper
under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) tell a much different story. Nearly
one in five illegal immigrants who participated in the tracking project
absconded while under supervision during the last five years, according to the
records. Authorities were unable to locate nearly 20% of 6,373 illegal aliens
enlisted in the program during that time. About 5% were subsequently rearrested
for other matters.
ICE
brags about a near perfect success rate because it simply erases those who
absconded from the records as if they never existed. The Department of Homeland
Security’s largest investigative agency, with about 20,000 employees and 400
offices worldwide, includes only active participants when it calculates its
heavily altered statistics.
Based
on the blatantly misleading data, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
is working to expand the alternatives-to-detention program, which currently has
about 20,000 participants. The former Arizona governor, who has a documented
history of opposing
immigration enforcement,
will submit a proposal to Congress before year’s end in hopes of accomplishing
that goal.
It’s all part of the Obama
Administration’s plan to pass a “compassionate” and “comprehensive” immigration
overhaul that aims to legalize an estimated 12 million undocumented aliens. The
legislation is currently being drafted by the chairman of a key congressional
task force, Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez, and promises to offer
undocumented immigrants U.S. citizenship and humane treatment in prisons.
*
WHILE ILLEGALS HAVE TOTAL CONTEMPT FOR OUR LAWS, THEY SURE
USE THEM WHEN ITS TO THEIR ADVANTAGE.
JUDICIAL WATCH
Illegal Aliens Sue ICE Over Arrests
Last
Updated: Fri, 10/30/2009 - 11:04am
A
group of illegal immigrants recently spared deportation by a sympathetic
Connecticut judge are suing the federal agents that arrested them, claiming
their constitutional rights were violated in the raids that led to their
apprehension.
The
illegal aliens, who live in New Haven, assert in a federal lawsuit that
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents violated their rights during
an early-morning fugitive operation in 2007 that led to the arrest of 30
people. Seventeen of them were subsequently charged with being in the U.S.
illegally and a group of law students from a nearby Ivy League university
represented them pro bono.
In
August a federal judge (Michael Straus) in Connecticut blocked the deportation
of four of the illegal aliens, ruling that their constitutional rights were “egregiously
violated”
because immigration agents entered their apartments without a warrant, probable
cause or consent. Besides terminating removal proceedings, the judge suppressed
any evidence gathered by federal agents because the illegal aliens’
constitutional protections to due process were violated.
Evidently
emboldened by the ruling, the illegal immigrants are now suing the
agents who
conducted the raids, their supervisors and senior ICE officials. Weapons drawn,
agents entered the illegal aliens’ homes without cause, consent or search
warrants, according to the complaint filed this week. It further says that
authorities had not previously determined that most of the arrested were in
violation of immigration law and therefore had no reason to assume that they
lacked legal status.
The
lawsuit also declares that the feds deliberately conducted raids in New Haven
to retaliate against the city for its well-known efforts to accommodate illegal
immigrants. A few years ago New Haven became the nation’s first to offer
illegal aliens official identification cards so that they can enjoy public
services and integrate into the community. San Francisco followed its lead and
began offering illegal immigrants ID cards this year.
*
Some Illegal Immigrants Have Been Arrested and Re-Arrested 6 Times
Some Illegal Immigrants have been arrested and Re-Arrested 6 Times - Illegal Immigrants arrested for being in the United States illegally may have been charged up to six more times, for more serious crimes, after they were released by local authorities. Additionally, the number of illegal immigrants deported after being declared a felon is on the rise.
The Justice findings by department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine examined the criminal histories of 100 illegal immigrants arrested and then released by local and state authorities in 2004, the latest complete data available. Of the sample group of 100, according to the audit, 73 immigrants were later arrested a collective 429 times - on charges ranging from traffic tickets to weapons and drug charges.
The data suggest "the rate at which released criminal aliens are re-arrested is extremely high," the audit noted. The report, parts of which were redacted, was required by Congress in 2005 and looked at how local and state authorities that receive Justice Department funding are working with the Homeland Security Department.
For years, the government was forced to release thousands of illegal immigrants who were caught in the United States because of not enough jail space and other resources. But last fall, with immigration as a key election-year priority, Homeland Security declared it would detain 99 percent of non-Mexican illegal immigrants until they could be returned to their home nations. The policy generally does not apply to Mexicans, who are almost immediately returned to Mexico after being stopped by Border Patrol agents.
The Justice audit, however, only looked at immigrants who were arrested and released by local and state authorities before they could be turned over to Homeland Security to be detained or deported. In all, 752 cities, counties and states participating in the program received $287 million in 2005, the audit noted.
Five states - California, New York, Texas, Florida and Arizona - received the bulk of the money, together pulling in more than $184 million.
Assistant Attorney General Regina B. Schofield, who oversees the Office of Justice Programs that controlled the funding, declined comment on the audit, noting that it does not contain any recommendations.
A separate report by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University showed that the number of immigrants who were deported as "aggravated felons" doubled over the last 15 years, from 10,303 in 1992 to an estimated 23,065 in 2006.
But TRAC, which obtained the data from the Justice Department's Executive Office of Immigration Review, noted concerns that some of those immigrants never committed felonies.
"An individual can be declared an aggravated felon on the basis of a conviction on misdemeanor charges such as shoplifting," the TRAC report concluded.
*
THE FIGURE FOR MEXICAN
GANG MEMBERS IN OUR NATION NOW CALCULATED BY CNN TO BE MORE THAN A MILLION.
ACCORDING TO THE F.B.I., THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS OPERATE IN 233 AMERICAN
CITIES – HOMELAND SECURITY?)
Lou Dobbs Tonight
And there are some 800,000 gang members in this country:
That’s more than the combined number of troops in our Army and Marine Corps.
These gangs have become one of the principle ways to import and distribute
drugs in the United States. Congressman David Reichert joins Lou to tell us why
those gangs are growing larger and stronger, and why he’s introduced
legislation to eliminate the top three international drug gangs.
*
EVEN AS THE MEX DRUG
CARTELS POUR OVER OUR BORDERS, OBAMA HAS TAKEN HUNDREDS MORE GUARD OFF SINCE
SEPT 2009! AND THE OBAMA DECLARES “BORDER SECURITY” IS THE HALLMARK OF HIS
PATHWAY TO CITIZENSHIP!
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Monday, September 28, 2009
And T.J. BONNER, president of the National Border Patrol Council, will weigh in on the federal government’s decision to pull nearly 400 agents from the U.S.-Mexican border. As always, Lou will take your calls to discuss the issues that matter most-and to get your thoughts on where America is headed.
Monday, September 28, 2009
And T.J. BONNER, president of the National Border Patrol Council, will weigh in on the federal government’s decision to pull nearly 400 agents from the U.S.-Mexican border. As always, Lou will take your calls to discuss the issues that matter most-and to get your thoughts on where America is headed.
*
ACCORDING TO SENATOR LAMAR SMITH OF TEXAS, WHEN
CHALLENGING SO- CALLED “HOMELAND SECURITY = PATHWAY TO CITIZENSHIPS” LA RAZA
JANET NAPOLITANO, AS TO WHY OUR BORDERS ARE WIDE OPEN TO NARCOMEX, OBAMA HAS
CUT ENFORCEMENT BY MORE THAN 60% IN ALL AREAS.
Obama soft on illegals enforcement
Arrests of illegal immigrant
workers have dropped precipitously under President Obama, according to figures
released Wednesday. Criminal arrests, administrative arrests, indictments and
convictions of illegal immigrants at work sites all fell by more than 50
percent from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2009.
The figures show that Mr. Obama has made good on his pledge to shift enforcement away from going after illegal immigrant workers themselves - but at the expense of Americans' jobs, said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the Republican who compiled the numbers from the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Mr. Smith, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said a period of economic turmoil is the wrong time to be cutting enforcement and letting illegal immigrants take jobs that Americans otherwise would hold.
The figures show that Mr. Obama has made good on his pledge to shift enforcement away from going after illegal immigrant workers themselves - but at the expense of Americans' jobs, said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the Republican who compiled the numbers from the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Mr. Smith, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said a period of economic turmoil is the wrong time to be cutting enforcement and letting illegal immigrants take jobs that Americans otherwise would hold.
OBAMA'S OPEN BORDERS - Mexican cartels flood U.S. with cheap meth | Nation & World | The Seattle Times
Sen. Dianne Feinstein Dedicated to Helping Sen. Barbara Boxer Collect Millions in "CONSULTANT FEES" Bribes
FEINSTEIN IS ONE OF THE MOST CORRUPT POLITICIANS IN AMERICAN
HISTORY. SHE’S GOTTEN RICH WHILE CA BURNED!
VOTING FOR A CORRUPT INCUMBENT IS LIKE VOTING FOR MORE OF
THE SAME MELTDOWN. WE CAN’T SAVE OUR COUNTRY UNTIL WE RID OURSELVES OF WHORES
LIKE FEINSTEIN.
VOTE ELIZABETH
EMKEN FOR U.S. SENATOR!
DEMS, THE BANKSTER-OWNED PARTY of ILLEGALS,
HAS LONG USED A DIRTY LITTLE DEAL OF SIPHONING OFF CAMPAIGN BRIBES FROM THE
SPECIAL INTERESTS THEY SERVE TO FAMILY MEMBERS.
FEINSTEIN’S LAP-BITCH, THE UTTERLY WORTHLESS
BARBARA BOXER BEGAN ELECTED OFFICE WITH NOT ONE CENT. NOW SHE HAS MILLIONS!
SHE TAKES HER BRIBES AND SALTS THEM AWAY AS
“CONSULTANT FEES” TO HER SON, OAKLAND LAWYER, DOUG BOXER.
ONE OF BOXER’S BIGGEST BRIBSTERS IS
FEINSTEIN’S PIMP HUSBAND’S, RICHARD C. BLUM. HE LIKES THE FACT BOXER VOTES FOR
ANYTHING THAT FEINSTEIN IS PUSHING IN THE SENATE THAT WILL PUT MORE MONEY IN
BLUM’S POCKETS!
“I’ll
whore for FEINSTEIN and more campaign bribe “consultant fees”!” Senator Barbara
“FEINSTEIN’S LAP-BITCH” BOXER
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D‑Calif.), for example, paid her son
Douglas $320,409.17 in campaign donations through his company Douglas Boxer and
Associates from 2001 to 2006, CREW found. Douglas Boxer is a lawyer and a 10‑year
veteran of her political team, a Boxer spokesman said.
BOXER DID RUN FOR OFFICE, AND
WAS REELECTED BY ILLEGALS DUE TO HER OBAMA – FEINSTEIN – PELOSI PLATFORM OF NO
E-VERIFY, NO WALL, OPEN BORDERS, DREAM ACTS, AND NO ID REQUIRED OF ILLEGALS
VOTING!
To no one's surprise, Boxer is running for re-election
This just in
from the state Democratic Party convention: Sen. Barbara Boxer announced she's
running for re-election in 2010.
Now a lot of
people are probably scratching their heads and wondering if they'd missed
something: Wasn't she already running for re-election?
Well,
yes. As a matter of fact, the three-term senator brought
then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama to San Francisco in February
2007 for a 2010 re-election fund-raiser at the St. Francis Hotel. And her campaign website has been up and running for months.
But, to quote
from the senator's speech today, "I'm formally announcing, in front of
this convention, that I am running again for the United States Senate."
There were
plenty of yellow and black "Boxer 2010" signs in the hall and the
delegates were happy enough to wave them and cheer the announcement, so no harm
done. And it did give the senator a chance to plug her new line of campaign
clothes, on sale at her campaign table. It includes a bib for "Babies for
Boxer" and neckwear for dogs, also known as "Barkers for Boxer.''
"You
should buy the new Boxer merchandise so you can be on the cutting edge of
fashion,'' she told the crowd.
So far, Irvine
Assemblyman Chuck DeVore is Boxer's only GOP challenger, although former
Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina has made noises about running.
"Don't
listen to anyone who says our race will be easy,'' Boxer said. "My races
are never easy.''
That depends on
your definition of easy.
In 2004, she
ran against former Secretary of State Bill Jones, who never raised enough money
to run a television ad. A couple of weeks before the election, Boxer was doing
a campaign swing through rural California. An October campaign appearance
before a dozen people at a home in Amador City, population 196, shows just how
concerned she was about re-election.
The final
total: Boxer 58 percent, Jones 38 percent, which is definitely landslide
territory.
But Boxer is a
fierce campaigner who takes no prisoners. She's tough on the stump and more
than willing to defend any of her positions and rip apart those of her
opponents.
"I hope no one runs against me,'' she
told reporters after her speech to the convention. But if someone does, she
warned, "You'll face a tough race and I'll win re-election. So think about
it.''
*
"I
see no evidence of anything improper in this body," said Senate Rules and
Administration Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D‑Calif.) during the floor debate.
Senators
Diverting Campaign Funds to Kin
Loophole
in Ethics Rules Is One That the Senate Did Not Close Last Year
By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 24, 2008; A04
Under long‑standing congressional ethics rules, corporations, unions
and other large organizations cannot directly pay senators stipends. But their
contributions to senators' election campaigns can be paid without limit to the
children, spouses, in‑laws and other relatives of the lawmakers, in a practice
that has aroused controversy but is fully legal.
Since 2000, at least 20 members of the Senate dipped into
their campaign contributions and wrote more than half a million dollars in
checks to their own relatives, typically as payment for fundraising and other
campaign work, according to a new report by the watchdog group Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D‑Calif.), for example,
paid her son Douglas $320,409.17 in campaign donations through his company
Douglas Boxer and Associates from 2001 to 2006, CREW found. Douglas Boxer is a
lawyer and a 10‑year veteran of her political team, a Boxer spokesman said.
Sen. Mike Enzi (R‑Wyo.) paid his daughter‑in‑law Danielle
Enzi $306,718.18 from his campaign accounts over the same period, according to
the report. She was a fundraiser before she married into the Enzi family, an
Enzi spokesman said. Sen. Jim Bunning (R‑Ky.) paid his daughter Amy Towles
$138,933.37 over six years, CREW found. Bunning's office said it was for
campaign accounting.
"It is an area that's ripe for abuse, for someone who wants
to turn campaign funds into personal use," said Craig Holman, a lobbyist
for the nonprofit group Public Citizen. Although most lawmakers do not abuse
the practice, he said, "those campaign funds always come from special
interests, and those special interests are always looking for something in
return."
Information about the practice is not easy to find, because
senators are required to disclose such payments only in the minutiae of their
periodic public statements of campaign finance expenditure and do not flag the
recipients as relatives. CREW staff compiled the data over nine months by
looking at microfiche and electronic records for the 2002, 2004 and 2006
election cycles, and by tracing names.
None of these arrangements appears to violate federal election
law (THESE FUCKERS MAKE THE LAWS!), noted Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive
director. Although lawmakers are barred from hiring relatives as staffers in
their legislative offices, family members may perform campaign work, as long as
the pay is reasonable and the individuals are qualified.
Yet some lawmakers are seeking to restrict payments to some
family members as part of a broader effort to eliminate opportunities for
conflicts and improprieties ‑‑ an effort urged by watchdog groups such as CREW
after ethics scandals over the past two years, including several cases
involving lawmakers' family members on political payrolls who may or may not
have performed much work.
The senators' family payments were relatively small,
compared with the $5.1 million that 72 House members paid from campaign funds
to relatives or to relatives' companies or employers during the same period,
according to CREW. "We found much worse stuff in the House," Sloan
said.
Yet the Senate has become a roadblock to changing the rules
on family employment. The House, in contrast, approved legislation last July to
ban payments from campaign or leadership funds to candidates' spouses and to
require the disclosure of campaign payments to other immediate family members.
The bill was sent to the Senate, where it has stalled indefinitely.
The House acted after disclosures that former lobbyist Jack
Abramoff organized campaign contributions or other payments that wound up in
the hands of several lawmakers' relatives. Rep. John T. Doolittle (R‑Calif.),
who announced his retirement from the House last month, is under federal
investigation along with his wife, Julie, in part related to employment for her
provided by Abramoff and other lobbyists.
BOXER
VOTES AGAINST STOPPING BRIBES SIPHONED THROUGH RELATIVES!
Senators took up the issue before passing the Honest
Leadership and Open Government Act on Jan. 18, 2007. The law tightened rules on
accepting meals, private plane rides and other perks from lobbyists. But an
amendment to ban the practice of paying relatives for their campaign work was
rejected 54 to 41, with Boxer voting "present."
Even senators with no relatives listed in the CREW report
criticized the measure, offered by Sen. David Vitter (R‑La.), as overly harsh. "I see no evidence of anything improper in this
body," said Senate Rules and Administration Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D‑Calif.)
during the floor debate.
But Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D‑Calif.), who sponsored the House
bill, said he thinks "there's some serious self‑interest involved" in
the Senate's refusal to go along. Keeping a spouse on the payroll, Schiff said,
"just struck me as an inherent conflict of interest. Most people are
shocked that it's not a crime, and it should be outlawed." He is still
seeking a senator to take up the cause in that chamber.
Some Senate family members do work for bargain prices, at
least by Washington standards. Towles, who lives in Kentucky, has kept her
father's campaign books since the 1990s, said Bunning spokesman Mike Reynard.
He described her as "a one‑person office." Towles's Citizens for
Bunning salary rose from $19,589.10 in 2001, according to CREW, to $23,180.60
in 2006. She received an additional $4,999 through the separate Political Hall
of Fame PAC, the group found.
Enzi spokesman Coy Knobel said Danielle Enzi works as a
contract fundraiser for the Wyoming senator and has other political and
nonprofit clients. "I think it's essential to point out the work Danielle
does for Senator Enzi is paid for by donors to his campaign," as opposed
to public funds, Knobel said. "If the donors don't agree with something,
then they don't have to give."
The campaign political director for Sen. Michael D. Crapo (R‑Idaho),
whose wife, Susan, was paid $78,514.50 over six years, said Susan Crapo
"has always been the top campaign hand." Jake Ball described her
duties as "organizing and carrying out big events," along with
keeping Crapo's schedule and driving him to events.
"She's able to make decisions and act on things that
other campaign workers would not feel as bold at doing," Ball said.
"Any dollars she's paid are dollars she has earned."
Other names on the CREW list include Senate Foreign
Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D‑Del.), whose sister,
Valerie Biden Owens, has managed all of his Senate campaigns, dating back to
1972. She was paid $51,286.27 in 2002, according to CREW. Her daughter
Catherine Owens, also known as Casey, was paid $3,618.51 for her job as a field
organizer.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D‑Mass.) has paid nephews Joseph and
Matthew Kennedy, who co‑chaired his 2006 reelection campaign, a total of
$50,073.87 from his Kennedy for Senate 2012 campaign fund.
Sen. Richard Burr (R‑N.C.) reached to a farther branch of
his family tree, employing Mary T. Fauth as the treasurer of his leadership
political action committee, the Next Century Fund. Fauth is the wife of Burr's
wife's brother, according to a spokesman for the senator, and earned $32,013
over six years, the report found.
...........................
From the Los
Angeles Times
Opinion
Meet the new political bosses, worse than the old political
bosses.
Democrats
wallow in a 'culture of corruption'
Jonah
Goldberg
May 5, 2009
Some days you have to ask yourself, my God, what if these people were Republicans?
Democrats took back Congress in 2006 and the presidency in 2008 in no small part because of their ability to bang their spoons on their high chairs about what they called the Republican "culture of corruption." Their choreographed outrage was coordinated with the precision of a North Korean missile launch pageant. And, to be fair, they had a point. The GOP did have its legitimate embarrassments. California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and lobbyist Jack Abramoff were fair game, and so was Rep. Mark Foley, the twisted Florida congressman who allegedly wanted male congressional pages cleaned and perfumed and brought to his tent, as it were.
Of course, it wasn't as if Democrats were without sin. Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson was indicted on fraud, bribery and corruption charges in 2007, after an investigation unearthed, among other things, $90,000 in his freezer. Then-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was busted in a prostitution scandal.
But that's all yesterday's news. Let's look at the here and now. Barack Obama, who vowed he'd provide a transparent administration staffed with disinterested public servants with the self-restraint of Roman castrati, appointed an admitted tax cheat to run the Treasury Department -- and he's hardly the only one in the administration.
New York Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is under investigation for, among other things, failing to report income from his Caribbean villa. Meanwhile, Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, got sweetheart deals from subprime lender Countrywide and has yet to adequately explain his too-good-to-be-true deal on his million-dollar "cottage" in Ireland, which he may have gotten in exchange for finagling a pardon (from President Clinton) for a felon. Oh, Dodd also secretly protected those AIG bonuses that raised such a ruckus last month.
Rep. Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania, Nancy Pelosi's moral authority on military matters during the Iraq war, has been revealed as a kleptomaniac of sorts, delivering as much of the federal budget as possible to various cronies and lobbyists.
John Edwards, who had an affair even as he was scoring Oprah-points as the supportive husband during his wife's battle with breast cancer, is being investigated by the feds for the improper use of campaign funds. It looks like the silky haired champion of the little guys may have used their donations to bribe the alleged "baby mama" into silence.
And it would be a shame to let it pass that Obama's Senate seat was put up for sale by the then-Democratic governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, and Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is under investigation for trying to buy it.
But you know what? We ain't seen nothing yet. For starters, the real corruption isn't what the media are ignoring or downplaying as isolated incidents. It's what the media are hailing as bold, inspirational leadership. The White House, as a matter of policy, is rewriting legal contracts, picking winners (mostly labor unions and mortgage defaulters) and singling out losers (evil "speculators") while much of the media continue to ponder whether Obama is better than FDR.
If a Republican administration, staffed with cronies from Goldman Sachs and Citibank, was cutting special deals for its political allies, I suspect we'd be hearing fewer FDR analogies and more nouns ending with the suffix "gate."
Take Obama's "car czar," Steven Rattner. According to ABC's Jake Tapper, Rattner is accused of threatening to use the White House to smear a Chrysler creditor if it refused to back the administration's bankruptcy plan. He's also connected to a massive pension fund scandal involving the investment firm he used to run. One allegation is that conspirators used investments in the low-budget movie "Chooch" to expedite their alleged chicanery. Chooch, by the way, is Italian slang for "jackass," which just happens to be the Democrats' mascot.
More to the point, political corruption is inevitable whenever you give hacks -- of either party -- too much discretion over public funds. Businesses look to Washington for profits instead of to the market. The thing is, this has become the governing philosophy of the Democratic Party, from banking and cars to healthcare and now student loans. The federal government is taking over, and the culture of corruption inevitably trickles down. That in itself should be a scandal. Call it "Choochgate."
May 5, 2009
Some days you have to ask yourself, my God, what if these people were Republicans?
Democrats took back Congress in 2006 and the presidency in 2008 in no small part because of their ability to bang their spoons on their high chairs about what they called the Republican "culture of corruption." Their choreographed outrage was coordinated with the precision of a North Korean missile launch pageant. And, to be fair, they had a point. The GOP did have its legitimate embarrassments. California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and lobbyist Jack Abramoff were fair game, and so was Rep. Mark Foley, the twisted Florida congressman who allegedly wanted male congressional pages cleaned and perfumed and brought to his tent, as it were.
Of course, it wasn't as if Democrats were without sin. Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson was indicted on fraud, bribery and corruption charges in 2007, after an investigation unearthed, among other things, $90,000 in his freezer. Then-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was busted in a prostitution scandal.
But that's all yesterday's news. Let's look at the here and now. Barack Obama, who vowed he'd provide a transparent administration staffed with disinterested public servants with the self-restraint of Roman castrati, appointed an admitted tax cheat to run the Treasury Department -- and he's hardly the only one in the administration.
New York Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is under investigation for, among other things, failing to report income from his Caribbean villa. Meanwhile, Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, got sweetheart deals from subprime lender Countrywide and has yet to adequately explain his too-good-to-be-true deal on his million-dollar "cottage" in Ireland, which he may have gotten in exchange for finagling a pardon (from President Clinton) for a felon. Oh, Dodd also secretly protected those AIG bonuses that raised such a ruckus last month.
Rep. Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania, Nancy Pelosi's moral authority on military matters during the Iraq war, has been revealed as a kleptomaniac of sorts, delivering as much of the federal budget as possible to various cronies and lobbyists.
John Edwards, who had an affair even as he was scoring Oprah-points as the supportive husband during his wife's battle with breast cancer, is being investigated by the feds for the improper use of campaign funds. It looks like the silky haired champion of the little guys may have used their donations to bribe the alleged "baby mama" into silence.
And it would be a shame to let it pass that Obama's Senate seat was put up for sale by the then-Democratic governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, and Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is under investigation for trying to buy it.
But you know what? We ain't seen nothing yet. For starters, the real corruption isn't what the media are ignoring or downplaying as isolated incidents. It's what the media are hailing as bold, inspirational leadership. The White House, as a matter of policy, is rewriting legal contracts, picking winners (mostly labor unions and mortgage defaulters) and singling out losers (evil "speculators") while much of the media continue to ponder whether Obama is better than FDR.
If a Republican administration, staffed with cronies from Goldman Sachs and Citibank, was cutting special deals for its political allies, I suspect we'd be hearing fewer FDR analogies and more nouns ending with the suffix "gate."
Take Obama's "car czar," Steven Rattner. According to ABC's Jake Tapper, Rattner is accused of threatening to use the White House to smear a Chrysler creditor if it refused to back the administration's bankruptcy plan. He's also connected to a massive pension fund scandal involving the investment firm he used to run. One allegation is that conspirators used investments in the low-budget movie "Chooch" to expedite their alleged chicanery. Chooch, by the way, is Italian slang for "jackass," which just happens to be the Democrats' mascot.
More to the point, political corruption is inevitable whenever you give hacks -- of either party -- too much discretion over public funds. Businesses look to Washington for profits instead of to the market. The thing is, this has become the governing philosophy of the Democratic Party, from banking and cars to healthcare and now student loans. The federal government is taking over, and the culture of corruption inevitably trickles down. That in itself should be a scandal. Call it "Choochgate."
IF
YOU HAVE ISSUES WITH BOXER’S CORRUPTION, SEND A COPY OF THIS TO HER SON, AND RECIPIENT
OF HER BRIBES.
(AS LISTED IN CA STATE BAR)
DOUGLAS BOXER
300 FRANK H OGAWA PLZ, No 500
OAKLAND, CA 94612-2040
FAX 510-835 0415
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, AND HER LAP BITCH BARBARA BOXER, HAVE
VOTED FOR ANY AND ALL WARS FOR MUSLIM DICTATORS, WHILE THEY DEMAND THAT OUR OWN
BORDERS BE LEFT OPEN AND UNDEFENDED AGAINST NARCOMEX.
KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT ABOUT MY WAR PROFITEERING WHORE WIFE’S
MANSIONS! HERE’S A BRIBE TO DO SO!
“Since the
2000 election cycle, Blum has contributed over $75,000 to the Democratic
Senatorial Committee, and thousands more to individual Democrats, including
John Kerry, Robert Byrd, Joe Lieberman, Ted Kennedy, and Barbara Boxer.”
*
March 1,
2006 The Democrats' Daddy Warbucks
Feinstein
family war profits, part II
Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum,
could well be called the Democrats' Daddy Warbucks. He's scored bundles from
war contracts. He has recently purchased a $16.5 million crib in San Francisco
and along with his wife has handed hundreds of thousands of dollars over to
fellow Democrats. Since the 2000 election cycle, Blum has contributed
over $75,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Committee, and thousands more to
individual Democrats, including John Kerry, Robert Byrd, Joe Lieberman, Ted
Kennedy, and Barbara Boxer. Richard Blum's history as an entrepreneur began at
the ripe age of 23 when he began to work for the San Francisco brokerage firm
Sutro & Company. Blum quickly climbed the ranks and became a partner by the
age of 30. According the San Francisco Chronicle, "Blum proved that he had
an eye for fixer-upper properties when he led a partnership that acquired the
struggling Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for $8 million – then
sold it to Mattel Inc. four years later for $40 million." In 1975, Blum
went out on his own and formed a brokerage agency. Today, Blum's lofty firm,
Blum Capital, holds positions in more than 20 companies, including real estate
giants, credit bureaus, and yes, even military contractors. Blum sees himself
as an altruistic capitalist, claims one of his ex-employees: "He likes to
go after companies that are down and out, and bring their stock back to life.
He thinks he's doing good." Blum shares a large stake in Perini, a civil
construction company that is happily employed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But not
all of Blum's war profits come from Perini. In 1975, his venture capital firm
went after fledging construction and design company URS when the business was
about to be bought out by another corporation. Since then, Blum has increased
his stock in URS, capitalizing on its recent military contracts. Unlike Blum's
dabbling with Barnum & Bailey, his current profits aren't so safe for child
consumption. Here are the basics to date: Blum currently holds over 111,000
shares of stock in URS Corporation, which is now one of the top defense
contractors in the United States. Blum is an acting director of URS, which
bought EG&G, a leading provider of technical services and management to the
U.S. military, from The Carlyle Group in 2002. Carlyle's trusty advisers, past
and present, include former President George H.W. Bush, James Baker, and ex-SEC
Commissioner Arthur Levitt, among other prominent neoconservatives and
Washington power brokers. URS and Blum have since banked on the Iraq war,
scoring a phat $600 million contract through EG&G. As a result, URS has
seen its stock price more than triple since the war began in March 2003. Blum
has cashed in over $2 million on this venture alone and another $100 million
for his investment firm. "As part of EG&G's sale price," reports
the San Francisco Chronicle, "Carlyle acquired a 21.74 percent stake in
URS – second only to the 23.7 percent of shares controlled by Blum
Capital." The Carlyle Group has long been accused of exploiting its
political connections to turn a profit. And if Carlyle can come under the
microscope for its government ties and war profiteering, as it did in Michael
Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, than surely Blum's URS ought to be subject to the same
scrutiny. Owen Blicksilver, Blum's spokesman, claims his boss and Sen.
Feinstein have never talked shop at home in their gated mansion: "Mr. Blum
and Sen. Feinstein have never had any discussions about outsourcing, government
contracts, or URS." If this were a Republican senator's spouse scoring
bundles off the spoils of war and passing it along to fellow Republicans, the
liberals would be up in arms. But since Dianne Feinstein is a leading Democrat,
mum's the word. Partisanship trumps ethics. The Byrne Report Hawk Tale By Peter
Byrne ON JAN. 18, California senator Dianne Feinstein introduced Dr.
Condoleezza Rice at a Senate nomination hearing for Secretary of State in terms
so saccharine that molasses seemed to ooze out of her mouth. She was a
precocious child, Feinstein purred. She has skill, judgment and poise. She
loves football. Bush loves her. "The problems we face abroad are complex
and sizable. If Dr. Rice's past performance is any indication, though, we can
rest easy." That very same day, Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum, took
advantage of a spike in the price of his URS Corporation stock. He sold a third
of his holdings in the defense contractor for $57 million, according to filings
with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. With Rice confirmed, the
business of death and occupation looks rosy as hell for Feinstein, who--let's
get real--benefits tremendously from sharing community property with Blum. URS'
largest customer is the U.S. Army, which accounted for 17 percent ($587
million) of its cash revenue in 2004. In 2001, URS enjoyed a mere $169 million
in defense contracts. Now, its war contracts total more than $2 billion.
According to its annual report, the San FranciscoÐbased URS anticipates that
profits will rocket up in 2005, because "operations in the Middle East are
expected to generate increased work related to the development of weapons
systems, the training of military pilots and the maintenance, upgrade and
repair of military vehicles." Provided, of course, that our hawkish
leadership remains as poised and lovable as the new Secretary of State.
Feinstein, who sits on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, is an advocate
of first-strike warfare, even though it flouts international law and the
standards of common decency. Interestingly, her Financial Disclosure Report for
2003 was more than three times the size of her 2002 disclosure (Feinstein's
2003 disclosure numbers 133 pages, compared to Sen. Barbara Boxer's six-page
report). The Feinstein-Blum portfolio is crammed with multimillion dollar
investments in the military-industrial-financial complex and corporations that
heavily exploit Third World peoples. The senator has a lot to lose should the
neoconservative war machine falter. Hubby holds a controlling interest in
another engineering firm, Perini Corporation of Framingham, Mass. Perini ranks
No. 6 by dollar amount in war-related government contracts in the Middle East.
According to its annual report, "Perini proudly supports the U.S.
government with global rapid response capabilities for defense, reconstruction
and security." Perini builds military facilities and roads in Afghanistan,
electrical infrastructure in Iraq and U.S. embassies around the world. After
the Senate, Feinstein included, approved Bush's war plans in 2002, Perini's
defense contract awards soared from negligible to $2.52 billion. But, as with
many of the sole-source, open-ended contracts awarded to politically connected
firms, there are problems with accountability. Last summer, Department of
Defense auditors determined that Perini could not adequately justify its costs
in Iraq as fair and reasonable. That's government-speak for: They're gouging
the #!$% out of us. Perini is heavily engaged in military and municipal public
works projects inside the United States; at least two are also under investigation
for contract fraud. For example, the city of San Francisco has sued general
contractor Perini--which was in a joint venture with the Tutor-Saliba
construction firm--for $100 million in cost overruns at a San Francisco
International Airport project. The lawsuit alleges that the joint venture
engaged in "a sophisticated pattern of fraud," including inflating
costs, fabricating delays and setting up minority front companies to exploit
affirmative-action preferences. The attorney general of Massachusetts is
looking into alleged false claims made by a Perini joint venture in the
"Big Dig" urban highway construction boondoggle in Boston. Ron Tutor,
owner of Tutor-Saliba and CEO of Perini, bought into the latter company, along
with Blum, as it teetered on the edge of solvency in the mid- 1990s due to a
bad real estate investment. It rebounded, thanks to the firm's sudden ability
to obtain lucrative U.S. military and government contracts, which, of course,
had nothing to do with the fact that Blum's powerful wife has her hands on the
military's purse strings. Remarkably, Perini grossed $1.37 billion in 2003, up
27 percent from the previous year, before the U.S. invasion and occupation of
Iraq. Perini attributes its rocketing profits to "increased volume of work
in Iraq and Afghanistan." As a risk factor, the firm notes that continued
demand for its military services depends upon "the political situation in
Iraq," which, logically, means that it desires the bloody war and useless
occupation to continue indefinitely--a wish that hawktails with the foreign
policy positions of Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld and Feinstein. I almost forgot: Perini Corp. is the
nation's most active builder of Indian-fronted casinos. That explains a few
things about Sen. Feinstein and the politics of gambling, soon to be revealed
in greater detail in this space.
510-286-2937
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