GIL CEDILLO, just one more corrupt Mexican bent on expanding the
MEXICAN WELFARE STATE which translates into mucho votes from illegals and mucho
big money from big business and
employers of illegals. It’s all about depressing wages!
CEDILLO IS THE LA RAZA (THE RACE) CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS. LIKE ALL CA
POLITICIANS HE HAS POCKETFULS OF SPECIAL
INTEREST MONEY. ANY SPECIAL INTEREST THAT BENEFITS FROM DEPRESSING WAGES BY
KEEPING THE FLOODS OF ILLEGALS POURING OVER OUR BORDERS. GRINGOS PAY FOR THE
REAL COSTS OF ALL THIS “CHEAP” LABOR.
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, LONG HAS SOLD OUT CA TO ANY SPECIAL INTERESTS THAT
PUTS MONEY IN HER BRA, OR DEALS ON HER PIMP-HUSBAND’S TABLE, IS WORKING ALONG
WITH HER SECRETARY, BARBARA BOXER, TO GET 1.5 MILLION ILLITERATE AND CRIMINALLY
PRONE ILLEGAL FARM WORKERS FOR HER BIG AG BIZ DONORS. NO ONE HAS TOLD THE OLD
WHORE FEINSTEIN THAT THERE’S A SERIOUS UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM IN MEXIFORNIA!
CALL HENRY WAXMAN’S OFFICE AND ASK HIM ABOUT WHAT HE’S DOING ABOUT THE
MEXICAN OCCUPATION AND HE HAS NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. HIS HANDLERS
AND PAYMASTERS ALSO DON’T WANT TO PAY A LIVING WAGE BY HIRING AMERICAN BORN
EMPLOYEES!
OBAMA THE HISPANDERER IS NEXT TO IMPOSE AMNESTY RIGHT AFTER HE FINISHES
HANDING OVER THE ECONOMY TO WALL STREET AND BIG BANKERS!
*
ANTONIO “TACO RUNT” VILLARAIGOSA,
AND GIL CEDILLO are both members of the
RACIST MEXICAN SUPREMACIST PARTY OF LA RAZA BENT ON EXPANDING THE MEXICAN
OCCUPATION AND WELFARE STATE for illegals. They HISPANDER TO GET THE ILLEGALS’
ILLEGAL VOTES BY OFFERING MORE WELFARE, GRINGO JOBS, NO ENGLISH HERE, AND FREE
DRIVER’S LICENSE, A DE FACTO CITIZENSHIP.
Here’s what CEDILLO AND TACO RUNT
VILLARAIGOSA have done for Los Angeles, that is for the ILLEGALS of Lalalando:
1. Characterized by the Christian
Science Monitor as Mexican gang capital of America!
2. 1,000 murders yearly by Mexican
gangs.
3. Car theft by Mexicans capital of
America.
4. ONE BILLION IN SOCIAL SERVICES
PAID OUT TO ILLEGALS.
5. NO enforcement of laws
prohibiting the hiring of illegals with stolen social security numbers.
6. $40 million per month paid out
to illegals on welfare.
7. Gringos pay for heavy Catholic
Mexican breeding. 1 in 5 births. 1 in 10 are illegals the rest of the country.
8. Millions of gringo money spent
cleaning up Mexican graffiti!
9. NO ENGLISH spoken here!
10. LA RAZA REGISTERS ILLEGALS TO
VOTE ILLEGALLY! Congresswomen Loretta and Linda Sanchez of Mex occupied Orange
Country “won” their seats in Congress with the illegal votes of illegals!
Do we really need one more MEXICAN
GANG MEMBER IN CONGRESS?
ANTONIO “TACO RUNT” VILLARAIGOSA,
AND GIL CEDILLO are both members of the
RACIST MEXICAN SUPREMACIST PARTY OF LA RAZA BENT ON EXPANDING THE MEXICAN
OCCUPATION AND WELFARE STATE for illegals. They HISPANDER TO GET THE ILLEGALS’
ILLEGAL VOTES BY OFFERING MORE WELFARE, GRINGO JOBS, NO ENGLISH HERE, AND FREE
DRIVER’S LICENSE, A DE FACTO CITIZENSHIP.
*
From the Los
Angeles Times
Cedillo reports that his campaign
donors bankroll lavish meals, travel and shopping
The congressional
candidate said he spent more than $125,000 in the last six years on fine
dining, high-end hotels and shopping sprees, expenses he says were 'relevant'
to his job as a legislator.
By
Michael Finnegan
April 11, 2009
Gil Cedillo, a Los Angeles state senator running for Congress, has spent more than $125,000 gathered from campaign donors over the last six years on shopping excursions, gourmet meals, entertainment and upscale hotels around the globe, public records show.
At Patina, the haute cuisine restaurant at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Cedillo paid $1,203 for dinner. He dropped $289 at Nic's Martini Lounge in Beverly Hills. At the Standard, a downtown hotel known for its hip rooftop bar and swimming pool, Cedillo and his staff spent $5,705 over the course of 26 visits.
In Mumbai, India, Cedillo's stay at the Four Seasons came to $829; his tab at the Bar des Arts in Sao Paulo, Brazil, $229; his hotel and dining charges on a jaunt to Rome and Florence, $1,969.
Cedillo, a former labor leader who made his name fighting to provide driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants, is not the only state lawmaker to tap campaign money for what many would consider lavish meals and travel. He often dines and attends retreats with fellow legislators.
But the scale of Cedillo's spending was on par with that of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, whose worldwide travel and shopping at retailers such as Louis Vuitton in Paris led the state to tighten campaign disclosure rules last summer.
Cedillo's spending, detailed in reports he filed with the secretary of state, contrasts with the frugal record of Judy Chu, his chief rival for the San Gabriel Valley congressional seat. A former Monterey Park assemblywoman elected to the state Board of Equalization in 2006, Chu has spent no campaign money on shopping or entertainment, and less than $5,000 on meals and travel over six years.
The two are vying in a May 19 election to fill the House seat vacated by U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.
Cedillo's expenses include $7,022 at Nordstrom; $3,483 at Banana Republic; $1,418 at Ann Taylor; $498 at Bloomingdale's; $450 at Crate & Barrel; and $375 at Macy's.
"None of it's for me," Cedillo said in an interview this week at his campaign headquarters in El Monte.
All of the purchases were gifts for staff, legislators and "other people who are important to my campaign and my office," Cedillo said.
The same, he said, goes for the $483 spent at Andrew's Ties in Rome, $132 at the Louvre Museum in Paris and $117 at an unidentified Coach leather outlet.
State law bars candidates from using campaign money for personal expenses. Cedillo said he has always complied with the law, which requires campaign spending to serve "a political, legislative, or governmental purpose." He pointed to a state audit that found one of his committees had substantially complied with disclosure laws from 2003 to 2006, apart from failure to report some donations on time.
"Not one aberration has occurred," he said.
Regardless of legality, the nature of Cedillo's spending is troublesome, said Robert Stern, president of the nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies and a longtime advocate of campaign finance reform.
"It sounds like he is using campaign funds to supplement his lifestyle," Stern said.
Cedillo collected $116,208 in salary last year and $39,825 in tax-free per diem. The Senate bought a $53,436 black Lexus hybrid for Cedillo; he is charged $280 a month for its use. The state pays for his gas.
But Cedillo has relied on campaign donors to bankroll his shopping and travel, along with hundreds of restaurant meals and tickets for the Rose Bowl, Los Angeles Opera and Clippers basketball games.
Like many lawmakers, Cedillo collected contributions from a host of groups that lobby for favors: labor unions, Indian tribes, and the pharmaceutical, casino, telecommunications, insurance and banking industries, among others. Since 2003, Cedillo has collected $1.2 million, even with no viable election challengers. For the congressional race, he must raise money separately under federal rules that are stricter than the state's.
In California, Cedillo's campaign treasury has covered stays at Casa Madrona Hotel and Spa in Sausalito; the River Terrace Inn in Napa Valley; Portola Hotel and Spa at Monterey Bay; La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad; and the Handlery Hotel and Resort in San Diego.
Cedillo's reports leave unclear how much of his hotel spending was for rooms, and how much for meals. The reports also do not indicate the length of stay. Although staff members incurred some of the expenses, Cedillo spent the great majority, the reports say.
In San Francisco, Cedillo favors boutique hotels in the Union Square and Embarcadero districts. His finance reports say he spent $1,584 at the Monaco, $742 at the Rex, and $543 at the Vitale on the bay-front.
His committees have spent $751 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Marina del Rey and $631 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. In both cases, Cedillo said, it was probably for meetings or retreats, not rooms. Travel elsewhere in California, he said, was for meetings of Democratic lawmakers and the state Latino Legislative Caucus, which he chairs.
Cedillo also paid $610 to the Fairmont Kea Lani Hotel on Maui, but said he canceled the trip and was charged nonetheless. He also reported a campaign trip to Las Vegas with multiple aides. They spent $1,269 at the Palazzo casino hotel resort and $1,962 at Harrah's.
As for the trips overseas, Cedillo said he visited India, Taiwan, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba and Mexico on Senate business. He recalled discussing energy, immigration, population growth, water and climate change with foreign officials. To help manage the world's eighth-largest economy, he said, senators must "go and engage people who have the same or similar circumstances throughout the world."
"All these experiences are relevant to the extent that they enrich my capacity as a legislator," he said.
Lodging at the Four Seasons in Mumbai might not look good to the public, Cedillo said, but aides choose the hotels. That would include the 17th century Sofitel in Florence and the Westin Excelsior near the Spanish Steps in Rome.
All told, Cedillo has spent about $77,000 on restaurants, $29,000 on hotels and $21,000 on airline tickets over six years in the Senate. (That does not include tens of thousands of dollars spent on fundraising events at restaurants, hotels or banquet halls.)
The restaurant charges that Cedillo reported as meetings, office or travel expenses include $424 at Ristorante Buca Mario in Florence; $298 at Ristorante San Francesco in Assisi, Italy; $501 at Emporio da Gula in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil; and in Los Angeles, $964 at Cicada; $559 at La Serenata de Garibaldi; $229 at Blair's; and $1,373 at the Palm.
In the interview, Cedillo recalled that the $1,203 dinner at Patina was with Nuñez and other lawmakers. The $289 visit to Nic's Martini Lounge was for a "meeting" of legislators, he said.
But Cedillo did not recall attending the opera for which his campaign bought tickets. He also could not explain the $176 charge at the Salon Cuvee and Day Spa in Sacramento. "I imagine a gift certificate either for someone from my staff or a friend of the office," he said.
At Ann Taylor, Cedillo said, he bought scarves and sweaters for women on his staff, and at Banana Republic, shirts and ties for men on his staff. Asked to identify who received gifts from Banana Republic, Cedillo named Dan Savage, his chief of staff.
Savage said Cedillo had indeed given him shirts and ties as gifts, but he did not recall any from Banana Republic. He also described his boss as "very into clothes."
April 11, 2009
Gil Cedillo, a Los Angeles state senator running for Congress, has spent more than $125,000 gathered from campaign donors over the last six years on shopping excursions, gourmet meals, entertainment and upscale hotels around the globe, public records show.
At Patina, the haute cuisine restaurant at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Cedillo paid $1,203 for dinner. He dropped $289 at Nic's Martini Lounge in Beverly Hills. At the Standard, a downtown hotel known for its hip rooftop bar and swimming pool, Cedillo and his staff spent $5,705 over the course of 26 visits.
In Mumbai, India, Cedillo's stay at the Four Seasons came to $829; his tab at the Bar des Arts in Sao Paulo, Brazil, $229; his hotel and dining charges on a jaunt to Rome and Florence, $1,969.
Cedillo, a former labor leader who made his name fighting to provide driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants, is not the only state lawmaker to tap campaign money for what many would consider lavish meals and travel. He often dines and attends retreats with fellow legislators.
But the scale of Cedillo's spending was on par with that of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, whose worldwide travel and shopping at retailers such as Louis Vuitton in Paris led the state to tighten campaign disclosure rules last summer.
Cedillo's spending, detailed in reports he filed with the secretary of state, contrasts with the frugal record of Judy Chu, his chief rival for the San Gabriel Valley congressional seat. A former Monterey Park assemblywoman elected to the state Board of Equalization in 2006, Chu has spent no campaign money on shopping or entertainment, and less than $5,000 on meals and travel over six years.
The two are vying in a May 19 election to fill the House seat vacated by U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.
Cedillo's expenses include $7,022 at Nordstrom; $3,483 at Banana Republic; $1,418 at Ann Taylor; $498 at Bloomingdale's; $450 at Crate & Barrel; and $375 at Macy's.
"None of it's for me," Cedillo said in an interview this week at his campaign headquarters in El Monte.
All of the purchases were gifts for staff, legislators and "other people who are important to my campaign and my office," Cedillo said.
The same, he said, goes for the $483 spent at Andrew's Ties in Rome, $132 at the Louvre Museum in Paris and $117 at an unidentified Coach leather outlet.
State law bars candidates from using campaign money for personal expenses. Cedillo said he has always complied with the law, which requires campaign spending to serve "a political, legislative, or governmental purpose." He pointed to a state audit that found one of his committees had substantially complied with disclosure laws from 2003 to 2006, apart from failure to report some donations on time.
"Not one aberration has occurred," he said.
Regardless of legality, the nature of Cedillo's spending is troublesome, said Robert Stern, president of the nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies and a longtime advocate of campaign finance reform.
"It sounds like he is using campaign funds to supplement his lifestyle," Stern said.
Cedillo collected $116,208 in salary last year and $39,825 in tax-free per diem. The Senate bought a $53,436 black Lexus hybrid for Cedillo; he is charged $280 a month for its use. The state pays for his gas.
But Cedillo has relied on campaign donors to bankroll his shopping and travel, along with hundreds of restaurant meals and tickets for the Rose Bowl, Los Angeles Opera and Clippers basketball games.
Like many lawmakers, Cedillo collected contributions from a host of groups that lobby for favors: labor unions, Indian tribes, and the pharmaceutical, casino, telecommunications, insurance and banking industries, among others. Since 2003, Cedillo has collected $1.2 million, even with no viable election challengers. For the congressional race, he must raise money separately under federal rules that are stricter than the state's.
In California, Cedillo's campaign treasury has covered stays at Casa Madrona Hotel and Spa in Sausalito; the River Terrace Inn in Napa Valley; Portola Hotel and Spa at Monterey Bay; La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad; and the Handlery Hotel and Resort in San Diego.
Cedillo's reports leave unclear how much of his hotel spending was for rooms, and how much for meals. The reports also do not indicate the length of stay. Although staff members incurred some of the expenses, Cedillo spent the great majority, the reports say.
In San Francisco, Cedillo favors boutique hotels in the Union Square and Embarcadero districts. His finance reports say he spent $1,584 at the Monaco, $742 at the Rex, and $543 at the Vitale on the bay-front.
His committees have spent $751 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Marina del Rey and $631 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. In both cases, Cedillo said, it was probably for meetings or retreats, not rooms. Travel elsewhere in California, he said, was for meetings of Democratic lawmakers and the state Latino Legislative Caucus, which he chairs.
Cedillo also paid $610 to the Fairmont Kea Lani Hotel on Maui, but said he canceled the trip and was charged nonetheless. He also reported a campaign trip to Las Vegas with multiple aides. They spent $1,269 at the Palazzo casino hotel resort and $1,962 at Harrah's.
As for the trips overseas, Cedillo said he visited India, Taiwan, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba and Mexico on Senate business. He recalled discussing energy, immigration, population growth, water and climate change with foreign officials. To help manage the world's eighth-largest economy, he said, senators must "go and engage people who have the same or similar circumstances throughout the world."
"All these experiences are relevant to the extent that they enrich my capacity as a legislator," he said.
Lodging at the Four Seasons in Mumbai might not look good to the public, Cedillo said, but aides choose the hotels. That would include the 17th century Sofitel in Florence and the Westin Excelsior near the Spanish Steps in Rome.
All told, Cedillo has spent about $77,000 on restaurants, $29,000 on hotels and $21,000 on airline tickets over six years in the Senate. (That does not include tens of thousands of dollars spent on fundraising events at restaurants, hotels or banquet halls.)
The restaurant charges that Cedillo reported as meetings, office or travel expenses include $424 at Ristorante Buca Mario in Florence; $298 at Ristorante San Francesco in Assisi, Italy; $501 at Emporio da Gula in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil; and in Los Angeles, $964 at Cicada; $559 at La Serenata de Garibaldi; $229 at Blair's; and $1,373 at the Palm.
In the interview, Cedillo recalled that the $1,203 dinner at Patina was with Nuñez and other lawmakers. The $289 visit to Nic's Martini Lounge was for a "meeting" of legislators, he said.
But Cedillo did not recall attending the opera for which his campaign bought tickets. He also could not explain the $176 charge at the Salon Cuvee and Day Spa in Sacramento. "I imagine a gift certificate either for someone from my staff or a friend of the office," he said.
At Ann Taylor, Cedillo said, he bought scarves and sweaters for women on his staff, and at Banana Republic, shirts and ties for men on his staff. Asked to identify who received gifts from Banana Republic, Cedillo named Dan Savage, his chief of staff.
Savage said Cedillo had indeed given him shirts and ties as gifts, but he did not recall any from Banana Republic. He also described his boss as "very into clothes."
...................
LA RAZA, THE POLITICAL PARTY OF THE
MEXICAN INVADERS, endorses one of their own: ANTONIO “TACO RUNT” VILLARAIGOSA!
ANTONIO “TACO RUNT” VILLARAIGOSA,
AND GIL CEDILLO are both members of the
RACIST MEXICAN SUPREMACIST PARTY OF LA RAZA BENT ON EXPANDING THE MEXICAN
OCCUPATION AND WELFARE STATE for illegals. They HISPANDER TO GET THE ILLEGALS’
ILLEGAL VOTES BY OFFERING MORE WELFARE, GRINGO JOBS, NO ENGLISH HERE, AND FREE
DRIVER’S LICENSE, A DE FACTO CITIZENSHIP.
The National Council of La Raza
(NCLR) is not only one of the wealthiest and most politically powerful militant
organizations in the country, it is also notoriously racist and subversive. The
group's name, "La Raza," means "The Race," by which they
are referring to ethnic Mexicans, or more broadly to "hispanics" or
"latinos." And it is quite clear from their decades of vitriolic
rhetoric — both spoken and written — that the La Raza activists are trying to
engender not only race consciousness amongst hispanic U.S. citizens and Mexican
migrants, but also racial militancy and animosity toward "Gringo
America."
The NCLR grew out of the La
Raza Unida (The Race United) Party and the Southwest Council of La Raza in the
late 1960s and early 1970s. The key leaders were Marxist-Leninist followers of
Fidel Castro and Che Guevarra.
In 1970, the California Senate
Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities said this about La Raza
Unida: "Its president is Maclovio Barraza. Mr. Barraza has been identified
by the Subversive Activities Control Board as a member of the Communist Party,
and presides over the Council which recently received a grant of $1,300,000
from the Ford Foundation."
Maclovio Barraza was the NCLR
Board of Directors' founding Chairperson, and the NCLR continues to honor this
hardcore Marxist by awarding the Moclavio Barraza Award to its top activist
each year.
One of the early founders of
La Raza was Professor Jose Angel Gutierrez, whose violent, extremist rhetoric
has caused NCLR some public relations problems. Back in 1969, Gutierrez said:
"We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the
worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him." He has continued to
promote the same hateful "reconquista" ideology ever since. But that
didn't stop NCLR from bestowing on him their "Hero Award" in 1994.
The radical student group
MEChA (Moviemento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan), with which NCLR has been
closely allied for several decades, is even more explicitly and militantly,
having adopted the slogan, "Por La Raza Todo, Fuera de La Raza Nada,"
which translated means: "For the Race, Everything; Outside the Race,
Nothing."
MEChA's founding documents and
literature are replete with appeals to "La Raza de Bronce" (The
Bronze Race) and condemnation of the "brutal gringo." MEChA, as its
name suggests, is also a leading promoter of the radical "reconquista"
(reconquest) movement, a plan of to take over the states of California,
Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas — a region they refer to as
"Aztlan" — which they claim was stolen from the "Aztecan"
peoples. NCLR provides major financial support to MEChA and many of NCLR's
leaders were MEChA leaders in their college days.
NCLR: Agents for the Government of
Mexico?
Especially troubling is NCLR's
leading role in the Fundacion Solidaridad Mexicano Americana (Foundation for
Mexican-American Solidarity, FSMA), an organization founded and funded by the
government of Mexico and directed by the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and Ministry of Public Education. Both of these ministries have been engaged in
efforts aimed at demanding full political rights for illegal aliens in the U.S.
and indoctrinating America's Hispanic population in radical, racist La Raza
ideology.
Top members of La Raza,
MALDEF, the National Immigration Forum and other leading immigration activist
organizations also serve on the Council of the FSMA. As such, they are acting
as agents for a foreign power that is actively seeking to influence our
national, state, and local laws and policies, in ways that are inimical to the
interests of our nation and our citizens. NCLR and these other participating
groups should be investigated by Congress to determine if they are breaking any
laws, especially since these organizations and/or their affiliates not only
enjoy tax-exempt status, but even receive millions of dollars from federal and
state government agencies.
*
New Stealth Federal Funding Bill for
La Raza
Which brings us to an
extraordinary matter of some urgency. Several weeks before the White House and
its Senate allies announced their big "breakthrough" legislation
(S.1348), radicals in the House quietly introduced legislation to pump $5
million directly into La Raza next year — and $10 million per year for
"each fiscal year thereafter."
H. R. 1999, entitled the Hope
Fund Act of 2007, should truthfully be labeled the "Perpetual Funding of
La Raza Radicals Act."
*****************************************************************************
Illegal aliens cost California billions
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published
December 7, 2004 (true figures much bleaker)
Illegal immigration costs the
taxpayers of California -- which has the highest number of illegal aliens
nationwide -- $10.5 billion a year for education, health care and
incarceration, according to a study released yesterday. A key finding of the
report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) said the
state's already struggling kindergarten-through-12th-grade education system
spends $7.7 billion a year on children of illegal aliens, who constitute 15
percent of the student body. The report also said the incarceration of
convicted illegal aliens in state prisons and jails and uncompensated medical
outlays for health care provided to illegal aliens each amounted to about $1.4
billion annually. The incarceration costs did not include judicial expenditures
or the monetary costs of the crimes committed by illegal aliens that led to
their incarceration. "California's addiction to 'cheap' illegal-alien
labor is bankrupting the state and posing enormous burdens on the state's
shrinking middle-class tax base," said FAIR President Dan Stein.
"Most Californians, who have seen their taxes increase while public
services deteriorate, already know the impact that mass illegal immigration is
having on their communities, but even they may be shocked when they learn just
how much of a drain illegal immigration has become," he said. California
is estimated to be home to nearly 3 million illegal aliens. Mr. Stein noted
that state and local taxes paid by the unauthorized immigrant population go
toward offsetting these costs, but do not match expenses. The total of such
payments was estimated in the report to be about $1.6 billion per year. He also
said the total cost of illegal immigration to the state's taxpayers would be
considerably higher if other cost areas, such as special English instruction,
school meal programs or welfare benefits for American workers displaced by
illegal-alien workers were added into the equation. Gerardo Gonzalez, director
of the National Latino Research Center at California State at San Marcos, which
compiles data on Hispanics, was critical of FAIR's report yesterday. He said
FAIR's estimates did not measure some of the contributions that illegal aliens
make to the state's economy. "Beyond taxes, these workers' production and
spending contribute to California's economy, especially the agricultural
sector," he said, adding that both legal and illegal aliens are the
"backbone" of the state's $28 billion-a-year agricultural industry.
In August, a similar study by the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington,
said U.S. households headed by illegal aliens used $26.3 billion in government
services during 2002, but paid $16 billion in taxes, an annual cost to
taxpayers of $10 billion. The FAIR report focused on three specific program
areas because those were the costs examined by researchers from the Urban
Institute in 1994, Mr. Stein said. Looking at the costs of education, health
care and incarceration for illegal aliens in 1994, the Urban Institute
estimated that California was subsidizing illegal immigrants at about $1.1
billion a year. Mr. Stein said an enormous rise in the costs of illegal
immigrants in 10 years is because of the rapid growth of the illegal
population. He said it is reasonable to expect those costs to continue to soar
if action is not taken to turn the tide. "1994 was the same year that
California voters rebelled and overwhelmingly passed Proposition 187, which
sought to limit liability for mass illegal immigration," he said.
"Since then, state and local governments have blatantly ignored the wishes
of the voters and continued to shell out publicly financed benefits on illegal
aliens. "Predictably, the costs of illegal immigration have grown
geometrically, while the state has spiraled into a fiscal crisis that has
brought it near bankruptcy," he said. Mr. Stein said that the state must
adopt measures to systematically collect information on illegal-alien use of
taxpayer-funded services and on where they are employed, and that policies need
to be pursued to hold employers financially accountable.
……..
From the Los Angeles Times
SANDY
BANKS
Cedillo's mailer on Pleitez smears a generation
Emanuel Pleitez, 26, a defeated
contender for Congress, faced an ugly attack by the opposition, which used his
Facebook pictures to tarnish his image.
May 23, 2009
Rookie candidate Emanuel Pleitez was written off early in his unsuccessful race for the 32nd Congressional District seat.
Still, the 26-year-old knocked on voters' doors every day, tapped an online network for donations and fielded a passionate corps of volunteers who didn't mind working 16-hour days, crashing on sofas and surviving on homemade tortas.
That's the upside of being a young candidate: the energy, the idealism, the ability to manipulate giant social networks to spread your message.
The downside is your Facebook page.
With so much on the ballot to consider, Pleitez probably wouldn't have registered a blip on the radar if not for the Facebook flap.
The campaign against him took an ugly turn when opponent Gil Cedillo -- a veteran state senator who also wound up losing -- used photos from Pleitez's Facebook page in attack mailers intended to undercut the candidate's clean-cut image.
One mailer asked in English and Spanish, "Should this man represent you in the House of Representatives or in 'Animal House'?"
The photo underneath featured a group of young people, Pleitez in the rear, his face circled in red.
Like the other two guys, he is smiling and wearing a tie. The young women are wearing skirts, suits, sweaters. Some are mugging playfully for the camera.
All seven of the women are black. And one of them is my oldest daughter.
"You won't believe this," she said one evening last week, carrying her laptop into the kitchen to show me the fliers. "I'm in somebody's campaign ad."
Other snapshots showed Pleitez dancing, hoisting a drink, lounging with a guy in a baseball cap, hugging a procession of young white women.
"Lots of women, hard liquor, dancing on the table and all night partying," the mailer said. ". . . Even nerdy guys want to be cool." "PARTY ANIMAL" had been scrawled across one picture. Other photos showed Pleitez "flashing gang signs," the mailer said.
The ad was supposed to frighten Pleitez supporters into Cedillo's camp, and it did scare off some voters.
But others saw it as a desperate attempt to tarnish not only Pleitez, but also the hard-working young people associated with him.
The "Animal House" photo that includes my daughter was taken at a gathering of Stanford students during their study abroad semester in Santiago, Chile. Some of those young women are now in law school or working on PhDs. Others are teachers, nurses, directors of nonprofit groups. Hardly the stuff of "Girls Gone Wild."
The guy pictured making a V sign with his fingers and wearing a hoodie and baseball cap? A USC student who mentors East Los Angeles youngsters and is "a rising star in the community," Pleitez told me.
"We're throwing up the peace sign," Pleitez said Thursday of their hand signals, frustration evident in a voice still soaked in disappointment from his third-place finish.
"To try to say that I'm romanticizing gangs, to try to make college students look like thugs. . . . They tried to find pictures with white and African American women, and only mailed them to Latino households."
"I expected to be hit at some point," he said, "but I didn't expect it to be as blatant as that."
Millennial Generation meet Geezer Politics.
Cedillo saw nothing wrong with ads "intended to show voters that Mr. Pleitez lacks not only the experience to be a member of Congress, but also the maturity," a campaign statement said.
But young voters lit into the tactic on political blogs, pointing out that the so-called gang sign in one photo is the symbol of Voto Latino, a national voter outreach program.
And the woman pictured making a V with her fingers alongside Pleitez is Rosario Dawson, who starred with Will Smith in "Seven Pounds" last fall. Either Cedillo didn't recognize the popular young Latina or thought she was throwing a gang sign as well.
That made Cedillo look foolish. But it also put young activists on notice.
"This is an embarrassing ad," one poster wrote on the Calitics political blog. "Everyone in the Facebook generation has photos like this. Will every Young Dem that decides to get into politics have to deal with this kind of garbage?"
On Tuesday night, Pleitez's headquarters was packed with dozens of young volunteers. The only party animal I saw was his 58-year-old mother, Isabel Bravo, trying to impose a celebratory mood.
"I am so proud of Emanuel," she told me. And ashamed of the political machine's low-brow efforts to smear her son.
Cedillo ought to be ashamed as well. Pleitez is the kind of role model every neighborhood needs. He grew up in East Los Angeles, the son of an immigrant single mother so poor the family lived in garages and he slept on the floor.
Yet he became a sports star and honor student at Wilson High and earned a scholarship to Stanford, a job at Goldman Sachs and a spot on Barack Obama's transition team. And he is being ridiculed for dancing at parties and having diverse friends?
His volunteers aren't wasting time fretting over the blow. Did they learn a lesson? Maybe. Before you throw your hat in the ring, let Grandma scour your Facebook page.
But they have a lesson to teach as well. Many cut their teeth campaigning for Obama, who was also too young and inexperienced -- not to mention too dark -- according to conventional wisdom not so long ago.
"We're not waiting for someone to pass us the torch of leadership," said George Bahamondes, 22, a USC finance grad who left a job on Wall Street to join Pleitez's campaign. "The era of getting to know the guy so he can tap you on the shoulder when it's your turn is over."
As Bahamondes talked, he looked around at high school students too young to vote "who came every single day to knock on doors" for Pleitez.
"Regardless of what the result is tonight," Bahamondes told me Tuesday, "we've engaged this community in a way they've never seen before."
And there's no going back. So join them, or move over.
Rookie candidate Emanuel Pleitez was written off early in his unsuccessful race for the 32nd Congressional District seat.
Still, the 26-year-old knocked on voters' doors every day, tapped an online network for donations and fielded a passionate corps of volunteers who didn't mind working 16-hour days, crashing on sofas and surviving on homemade tortas.
That's the upside of being a young candidate: the energy, the idealism, the ability to manipulate giant social networks to spread your message.
The downside is your Facebook page.
With so much on the ballot to consider, Pleitez probably wouldn't have registered a blip on the radar if not for the Facebook flap.
The campaign against him took an ugly turn when opponent Gil Cedillo -- a veteran state senator who also wound up losing -- used photos from Pleitez's Facebook page in attack mailers intended to undercut the candidate's clean-cut image.
One mailer asked in English and Spanish, "Should this man represent you in the House of Representatives or in 'Animal House'?"
The photo underneath featured a group of young people, Pleitez in the rear, his face circled in red.
Like the other two guys, he is smiling and wearing a tie. The young women are wearing skirts, suits, sweaters. Some are mugging playfully for the camera.
All seven of the women are black. And one of them is my oldest daughter.
"You won't believe this," she said one evening last week, carrying her laptop into the kitchen to show me the fliers. "I'm in somebody's campaign ad."
Other snapshots showed Pleitez dancing, hoisting a drink, lounging with a guy in a baseball cap, hugging a procession of young white women.
"Lots of women, hard liquor, dancing on the table and all night partying," the mailer said. ". . . Even nerdy guys want to be cool." "PARTY ANIMAL" had been scrawled across one picture. Other photos showed Pleitez "flashing gang signs," the mailer said.
The ad was supposed to frighten Pleitez supporters into Cedillo's camp, and it did scare off some voters.
But others saw it as a desperate attempt to tarnish not only Pleitez, but also the hard-working young people associated with him.
The "Animal House" photo that includes my daughter was taken at a gathering of Stanford students during their study abroad semester in Santiago, Chile. Some of those young women are now in law school or working on PhDs. Others are teachers, nurses, directors of nonprofit groups. Hardly the stuff of "Girls Gone Wild."
The guy pictured making a V sign with his fingers and wearing a hoodie and baseball cap? A USC student who mentors East Los Angeles youngsters and is "a rising star in the community," Pleitez told me.
"We're throwing up the peace sign," Pleitez said Thursday of their hand signals, frustration evident in a voice still soaked in disappointment from his third-place finish.
"To try to say that I'm romanticizing gangs, to try to make college students look like thugs. . . . They tried to find pictures with white and African American women, and only mailed them to Latino households."
"I expected to be hit at some point," he said, "but I didn't expect it to be as blatant as that."
Millennial Generation meet Geezer Politics.
Cedillo saw nothing wrong with ads "intended to show voters that Mr. Pleitez lacks not only the experience to be a member of Congress, but also the maturity," a campaign statement said.
But young voters lit into the tactic on political blogs, pointing out that the so-called gang sign in one photo is the symbol of Voto Latino, a national voter outreach program.
And the woman pictured making a V with her fingers alongside Pleitez is Rosario Dawson, who starred with Will Smith in "Seven Pounds" last fall. Either Cedillo didn't recognize the popular young Latina or thought she was throwing a gang sign as well.
That made Cedillo look foolish. But it also put young activists on notice.
"This is an embarrassing ad," one poster wrote on the Calitics political blog. "Everyone in the Facebook generation has photos like this. Will every Young Dem that decides to get into politics have to deal with this kind of garbage?"
On Tuesday night, Pleitez's headquarters was packed with dozens of young volunteers. The only party animal I saw was his 58-year-old mother, Isabel Bravo, trying to impose a celebratory mood.
"I am so proud of Emanuel," she told me. And ashamed of the political machine's low-brow efforts to smear her son.
Cedillo ought to be ashamed as well. Pleitez is the kind of role model every neighborhood needs. He grew up in East Los Angeles, the son of an immigrant single mother so poor the family lived in garages and he slept on the floor.
Yet he became a sports star and honor student at Wilson High and earned a scholarship to Stanford, a job at Goldman Sachs and a spot on Barack Obama's transition team. And he is being ridiculed for dancing at parties and having diverse friends?
His volunteers aren't wasting time fretting over the blow. Did they learn a lesson? Maybe. Before you throw your hat in the ring, let Grandma scour your Facebook page.
But they have a lesson to teach as well. Many cut their teeth campaigning for Obama, who was also too young and inexperienced -- not to mention too dark -- according to conventional wisdom not so long ago.
"We're not waiting for someone to pass us the torch of leadership," said George Bahamondes, 22, a USC finance grad who left a job on Wall Street to join Pleitez's campaign. "The era of getting to know the guy so he can tap you on the shoulder when it's your turn is over."
As Bahamondes talked, he looked around at high school students too young to vote "who came every single day to knock on doors" for Pleitez.
"Regardless of what the result is tonight," Bahamondes told me Tuesday, "we've engaged this community in a way they've never seen before."
And there's no going back. So join them, or move over.
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