Saturday, March 16, 2013

LA RAZA OPEN BORDERS ADVOCATE Sen. Robert Menendez investigated by federal grand jury - Washington Times

Sen. Robert Menendez investigated by federal grand jury - Washington Times


Obama's 'Hispanicazation' of America

 


PRAYERS for AMERICANS MURDERED BY ILLEGALS: THE LA RAZA CRIME TIDAL WAVE

ALIPAC:


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THE LA RAZA MEXICAN CRIME TIDAL WAVE FLOODS AMERICA!


 

THERE IS A REASON WHY THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS OPERATE IN MORE THAN 2,500 AMERICAN CITIES, INCLUDING OBAMA’S CHICAGO!

THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS IN OBAMA’S HOMETOWN OF CHICAGO:


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MEXICAN GANGS - 14 YEAR OLD MEXICAN BOY born in San Diego (Anchor baby?) BEHEADS 4 FOR MEXICAN DRUG CARTEL

 

Edgar Jimenez Lugo, who authorities said was born in San Diego, was wanted on suspicion of killing rivals — allegedly beheading some — as part of his work for a violent drug-trafficking cartel.


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EVERY DAY THERE ARE 12 AMERICANS MURDERED BY LA RAZA AND 8 CHILDREN MOLESTED. THERE HAVE BEEN MORE THAN 2,000 CALIFORNIANS MURDERED BY LA RAZA WHO THEN FLED BACK OVER OUR BORDERS TO AVOID PROSECUTION! REALLY WANT THE DEMS’ AMNESTY AND OPEN BORDERS?

Illegals Committing Heinous Acts Against Children & civilians in U.S.
PDT



EXAMPLE #1 : • What sort of monster could murder three children in the most brutal manner — one child was beheaded and the two other were nearly decapitated. They also suffered a variety of injuries including blunt force trauma and asphyxiation. The victims, residents of Baltimore, (l. to r.) were siblings Alexis Quezada (10) and Lucero Quezada (9) and their cousin Ricardo Espinoza (9). The two men arrested for the crime were also relatives: Policarpio Espinoza, 22, brother of the father of the two siblings, and Espinoza's cousin Adan Espinoza Canela, 17. The accused are illegal aliens as are the parents of the murdered children. Apparently the arrests were based on DNA/blood evidence.

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MEXICO BANKRUPTS CALIFORNIA HOSPITALS  - MEX CONSULATES URGE LOOTING OF LEGALS


While the Obama Administration halts deportations to work on its secret amnesty plan, hospitals across the U.S. are getting stuck with the exorbitant tab of medically treating illegal immigrants and some are finally demanding compensation from the federal government.

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ROBERT RECTOR: THE STAGGERING COST OF MEXICO’S INVASION, OCCUPATION AND EVER GROWING WELFARE STATE


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Immigrating America Into a Colony of Mexico


Article by Frosty Wooldridge

America faces a greater and more dangerous threat from within than from without. While our armed forces secure Afghanistan and Iraq, our own borders stand unguarded 24 hours a day. Al-Qaeda insurgents plan their next attacks somewhere inside our country. They advocate a violent overthrow of America.

Immigrating America Into a Colony of Mexico


We’ve got an even more ominous enemy within our borders that promotes “Reconquista of Aztlan” or the reconquest of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas into the country of Mexico. With 9.2 million Mexicans now living in America, their goal of colonizing our country back into Mexico moves forward. A more sobering reality stems from the evidence that it’s Mexican-American citizens in the forefront of this disintegration of our country.

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The Feinstein-Boxer LA RAZA Welfare State: (you're paying for it stupid gringo!)

SENS. FEINSTEIN and BOXER, TWO OF THE MOST CORRUPT AND SELF-SERVING POLITICIANS IN AMERICAN HISTORY HAVE THREE (3) TIMES ATTEMPTED A “SPECIAL AMNESTY” FOR 1.5 MILLION ILLEGAL FARM WORKERS DESPITE THE FACT THAT ONE-THIRD OF ALL FARM WORKERS END UP ON WELFARE.

 

THEY DO SO ON BEHALF OF THEIR GREEDY BIG AG BIZ DONORS!




Jose Herria emigrated illegally from Mexico to Stockton, Calif., in 1997 to work as a fruit picker. He brought with him his wife, Felipa, and three children, 19, 12 and 8 -- all illegals. When Felipa gave birth to her fourth child, daughter Flor, the family had what is referred to as an "anchor baby" -- an American citizen by birth who provided the entire Silverio clan a ticket to remain in the U.S. permanently.


Sen. Elizabeth Warren: U.S. Success Due to Government Regulation - Obama: Success of Bankster Looters Depends on No Prison Time for Criminal Banksters Donors and No (real) Regulation

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: U.S. success due to government regulation - Washington Times


and the Mexican Drug Cartels


“I’m not here to punish banks!” Barack Obama in the faces of the American People his bankster donors looted – State of the Union Message

“Records show that four out of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).”

OBAMA’S WALL STREET and the LOOTING of AMERICA – SECOND TERM

“The response of the administration was to rush to the defense of the banks. Even before coming to power, Obama expressed his unconditional support for the bailouts, which he subsequently expanded. He assembled an administration dominated by the interests of finance capital, symbolized by economic adviser Lawrence Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.”

OBAMA’S WALL STREET and the LOOTING of AMERICA – SECOND TERM

The corporate cash hoard has likewise reached a new record, hitting an estimated $1.79 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, up from $1.77 trillion in the previous quarter. Instead of investing the money, however, companies are using it to buy back their own stock and pay out record dividends.

Megan McArdle Discusses How America's Elites Are Rigging the Rules - Newsweek/The Daily Beast special correspondent Megan McArdle joins Scott Rasmussen for a discussion on America's new Mandarin class.


 


 

AN AMERICAN STATE UNDER LA RAZA SIEGE - ARIZONA FIGHTS BACK MEXICO'S, OBAMA'S and SEN. JOHN McCAIN'S ASSAULT for OPEN BORDERS and LA RAZA SUPREMACY


OBAMA’S ASSAULT ON AMERICA FOR MEXICO BEGINS WITH ARIZONA – CALIFORNIA ALREADY SURRENDERED TO MEXICO YEARS AGO!


high cost of illegals in Arizona

 

Arizona’s illegal immigrant population is costing the state’s taxpayers even more than once thought -- a whopping $2.7 billion in 2009, according to researchers at the public interest group that helped write the state's new immigration law.
Researchers at FAIR – The Federation for American Immigration Reform -- released data exclusively to FoxNews.com that show a steady cost climb in multiple areas, including incarceration, education and health, in the last five years.

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FROM THE MEX-OWNED NEW YORK TIMES – MOUTHPIECE FOR LA RAZA PROPAGANDA!

Arizona Border Quiets After Gains in Security


NOGALES, Ariz. — Flying low along the Mexican line in a Black Hawk helicopter, the United States Border Patrol officer saw surveillance towers rising above the cactus. He saw his agents’ white and green trucks moving among the mesquite, scouting for illegal crossers.

Far overhead, a remotely guided drone beamed images of the terrain to an intelligence center in Tucson. Pilots cruised in reconnaissance planes carrying radars and infrared cameras that could distinguish a migrant with a backpack from a wild animal from many miles away.

Sabri Dikman, the patrol’s executive officer for this region, liked what he saw — and what he did not see. If any illegal migrants were trying to make their way into the United States, he said, the chances were very good that agents would find and detain them.

“We know what we’re dealing with and where we are dealing with it,” Mr. Dikman said. “In some manner we have the capacity to observe every part of the border of Arizona.”

As Congress debates a broad overhaul of the immigration laws, including a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, skeptical lawmakers are asking if the Southwest border is secure enough to withstand any new wave of illegal crossings that might be spurred by a legalization program, or by new growth in the American economy.

Officers who guard the line say the border is more secure in most places than they have ever known it. They say they are in a strong position to hold off an illegal surge, and to show why they point to Arizona, once the busiest and most contentious border battlefront. To the east, in Texas, agents are still struggling to stop persistent migrants in hundreds of miles of varying and penetrable terrain. But in Arizona, every available measure shows steep declines in the number of people making it across, figures that border agents say demonstrate what they can accomplish.

In Congress, many Republicans recall that an amnesty in 1986, which was supposed to solve illegal migration, was followed by an even larger unauthorized influx. A bipartisan group in the Senate is working on a proposal that would require measurable gains in border security before immigrants would be allowed to proceed onto a path to full citizenship.

But to border officials here, Congress seems to be behind the times, failing to notice that they have already made many of the enforcement advances that lawmakers are seeking. Since 2005, the number of patrol agents in the Southwest has nearly doubled, to more than 18,000. Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of the Border Patrol, has built its air wing to more than 260 aircraft. It acquired an array of technology, including ground sensors and aerial detection devices developed by the Defense Department in Iraq and Afghanistan, and created a military-style command structure with expanded intelligence operations to coordinate agents on the ground.

While tightening the border, officials also created a system of penalties for those who get past it, making it far more likely that migrants who were caught would be jailed, prosecuted as criminals, or expelled from the country far from the place where they tried to enter.

Border officers, once a beleaguered force overwhelmed by illegal flows, have acquired a bit of swagger.

“It’s all of these things coming together that have really given us the capability to bring the border to a level of security that is, in my opinion, unprecedented,” said David V. Aguilar, the agency’s commissioner, who will retire this month after 34 years on the borders. “We haven’t seen this lack of activity in 25, 30 years,” he said.

In Arizona in 2005, more than 577,000 apprehensions were made of migrants crossing illegally, a surge that sparked a political furor in the state. Border officials declared that they would make a “last stand” here.

Last year in Arizona, the apprehensions (an imperfect but still useful indicator of unauthorized flows) dropped to 126,500, a 78 percent decline from 2005, a sharper decrease than seen elsewhere along the border. The recession in this country and drug-trafficking violence in Mexico also contributed to the falloff, here and along the length of the border. But in 2005, about half of all apprehensions in the Southwest were made in Arizona. Today, it is closer to one-third, with the largest share now shifted to Texas.

Mr. Dikman remembers the bad old days, when the agents’ rule of thumb was to open a formal deportation only after an illegal crosser had been caught and expelled to Mexico 18 times.

Now, Customs and Border Protection is adjusting its strategies to the reality of greatly reduced numbers, but more troublesome adversaries.

Jeffrey Self, the commander of the agency’s Joint Field Command for Arizona, based in Tucson, said migrants rarely try to cross these days without hiring a coyote, or smuggler, and those guides are generally linked to narcotics organizations in Mexico.

“It’s pretty much all organized smuggling at this point and it’s pretty much all controlled by the transnational criminal organizations that operate over there,” Mr. Self said.

Border officials worry there may not be much more they can do with enforcement alone to further reduce illegal crossings and sharpen the focus of their operations on criminal threats, without other changes in the immigration equation.

“If this country has a continued demand for labor by way of our market economy,” said Mr. Aguilar, the commissioner, “you have a baseline draw for illegal immigrants.”

He said if Washington created more legal channels for migrants who want to come to this country primarily to work, it could significantly cut the numbers of people trying to pass illegally, freeing border officers to pursue traffickers and other criminals.

“Now that would be a tremendous force multiplier,” Mr. Aguilar said. Lawmakers are considering proposals for some form of temporary guest worker program, and also measures to give legal status particularly to migrant farmworkers.

Officials said border gains could also be affected if Congress imposed deep budget cuts. Last week Mr. Aguilar announced the beginning of 14-day furloughs for his agency’s employees under the sequester.

Twin Cities

Here in Nogales, a laid-back border town that surrounds the largest port of entry in Arizona, Border Patrol vehicles drive freely along the dirt road along an 18-foot barrier of metal poles that divides the American city from its Mexican twin, also called Nogales. Until recently, agents had to keep a distance. But Leslie Lawson, the top Border Patrol agent in Nogales, Ariz., said the barrier was an example of a small tweak that made a big difference.

A lower fence built in the 1990s had been covered with mats to prevent Mexicans from seeing through. Smugglers would send people or narcotics over the fence, then hurl rocks at agents from hills on the Mexican side while the migrants slipped away into nearby gulches. In 2011, Ms. Lawson’s sector had more rock assaults on agents than any other in the country — 170 in all.

Last year three miles of the old fence was replaced with the poles, set just far enough apart to see through. Agents can spot migrants before they approach it. Rock assaults are down 60 percent.

“Every day the smugglers will change their tactics,” Ms. Lawson said. “They are always watching us. So we are always changing our tactics.”

With tighter security along the line, more undocumented foreigners are trying to come through the border station. But recent changes have made it more difficult for smugglers to pass their clients with forged papers. Instead, officials said, smugglers rent out valid United States documents, and encourage their clients to make themselves look as much as possible like the people in the photographs.

One day in late February, an elderly Mexican woman and a Mexican farmworker were stopped at the Nogales crossing after they presented documents that were legitimate but did not belong to them.

A sharp-eyed customs inspector at the pedestrian walkway also singled out an 18-year-old Mexican girl who had a valid border crossing card but also a nervous twitch. A pat-down revealed that the teenager, Selena Andrea Perez Cruz, had stashed nearly a pound of heroin in her bra.

Ms. Perez Cruz was turned over to federal authorities in Arizona for narcotics prosecution. But officers were not done with the other Mexicans either. Part of the Customs and Border Protection strategy is to ensure that almost all migrants who are detained face a penalty on this side before being deported — what officers call their consequence delivery system. Commander Self said some penalty was applied to at least 90 percent of illegal migrants apprehended at the state’s border.

In a holding cell, the Mexican grandmother, who said she had hoped to reunite with relatives in Arizona, was formally booked. Her record would remain in federal databases after she was expelled. If she was ever caught trying to enter the United States illegally again, she could face felony charges and months, if not years, in prison.

Other forlorn Mexicans stopped in Arizona were waiting to be deported through a transfer program, another one of the consequences. They would be taken by bus three days east and expelled at Del Rio, Tex.

Officers use the transfers “to break that smuggling cycle, to separate the smuggled aliens from the smugglers and the guides,” Commander Self explained.

Some migrants detained in Nogales would be turned over, under a consequence program called Operation Streamline, for criminal prosecution. In Yuma, which has applied the program for six years to virtually every illegal crosser, the fast-track cases have clogged the federal courts and drawn a host of complaints from legal rights groups.

But their impact is unmistakable. In 2005, more than 138,000 apprehensions were recorded in Yuma. By last year, the number had decreased to 6,500, a decline of 95 percent. Since authorities began to apply the consequence system five years ago across the southwest border, the numbers of deportees who try to cross again within a year has consistently declined.

Measures of Change

One defender in Nogales of the border agency’s progress is the mayor, Arturo Garino. He says his city has become one of the safest in Arizona, with one murder in the past six years.

“We used to have street chases all the time,” he said in an interview in City Hall. “Now all those things are gone, something you don’t even hear about.” He said lawmakers in distant Washington should concentrate on fixing the immigration system.

“I don’t care how many more Border Patrol you have,” Mr. Garino said. “You can’t secure this border any more than it is right now, and that is a fact. Do we want to line them up, hand in hand, all the way to Texas?”

Beyond urban areas, however, control is spottier. Ranchers close to the border report that they often see migrants on their property, and they do not feel safe.

But added staff and technology have greatly expanded what Customs and Border Protection officers call their situational awareness. On a wall of video screens in his command center in Tucson, Commander Self can summon aerial images of vast swaths of borderland. Thousands of agents are patrolling in vehicles, on all-terrain vehicles and on horseback. When incidents arise, the closest ones can be quickly dispatched.

But greater efficiency has exacted a human toll. Migrants have been pushed ever farther toward the rock faces and remote valleys of the border’s most deadly landscape. Migrants pay smugglers higher fees, but with security tight, the coyotes no longer feel any obligation to finish the job of guiding them to the United States.

According to data compiled by The Arizona Daily Star, last year 172 bodies were found in the state’s border desert.

In late February, on a mountain flank west of the border outpost of Sasabe, 19 migrants tried to slip past the Border Patrol’s deployment. A rare blizzard had brought a biting freeze, frosting the saguaro cactuses with snow. With only light jackets and plastic ponchos, the men, from Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala, spent three nights in the cold while their hired coyotes searched for an opening between agents on horseback and surveillance planes overhead.

On the fourth morning, inside United States territory, the men arose to discover that their guides had fled.

Utterly lost, they chose to turn back. After another six hours wandering through cactus brush into Mexico, they happened upon a Mexican government rescue group. The men were mute with hunger and thirst.

After a gulp of water, Helio León Reyes, 31, a Mexican from the state of Guerrero, began to cry. The cold, he said in Spanish, “was too much to bear.” His feet were still stiff with cramps, and his money was lost to the smugglers.

Mr. León said he had hoped to make it to New York, where a brother lives. But he decided on that day that his trip to the United States was over. He would go back to his wife and children. “This is too complicated,” he said.

Robert Gebeloff contributed reporting from New York.

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AMERICANS (LEGALS) HAND THEIR JOBS OVER TO ILLEGALS USING STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS, PAY FOR THE ANCHOR BABY BREEDING = 18 YEARS OF WELFARE, AND CRIME TIDAL WAVE… but have NO vote in amnesty?

BUT THE DEMS ARE REALLY NOT CONCERNED ABOUT AMNESTY PASSING AS OBAMA WILL CONTINUE NON-ENFORCEMENT UNTIL THERE ARE SO MANY ILLEGALS VOTING… THEY WILL VOTE THE HISPANDERER FOR A THIRD TERM!


AMERICANS SAY NO TO AMNESTY!


Obama's 'Hispanicazation' of America

 


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Most Illegal Immigrant Families Collect Welfare… ALL GET AMERICAN JOBS???

April 05, 2011

Surprise, surprise; Census Bureau data reveals that most U.S. families headed by illegal immigrants use taxpayer-funded welfare programs on behalf of their American-born anchor babies.


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CRIMES AGAINST AMERICA: Barack Obama, His Criminal Banksters and the Mexican Drug Cartels


“I’m not here to punish banks!” Barack Obama in the faces of the American People his bankster donors looted – State of the Union Message

“Records show that four out of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).”

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THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA IS FUNDED BY BARACK OBAMA WITH AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS AND OPERATES OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE UNDER OBAMA APPOINTEE CECILIA MUNOZ


OBAMA’S CYNICAL JOKE of HOMELAND SECURITY


(ALL THE BELOW POSTS IN THE ABOVE)

 

According to DHS’s own reports, very little of our nation’s borders (Southwestern or otherwise) are secure, and gaining control is not even a goal of the department.


AMNESTY: WILLIAM GHEEN (ALIPAC) EXPOSES OBAMA’S AGENDA TO SURRENDER OUR BORDERS TO MEXICO


WIKILEAKS EXPOSES OBAMA’S AGENDA OF ASSAULTING OUR BORDERS, AMERICANS IN JOBS HE WANTS TO FILL WITH ILLEGALS


JUDICIAL WATCH:

It proves the Obama administration is willing to go to any extent - including gaming the courts - to continue stonewalling the full story of its lawless release of illegal aliens. Now, with the prison floodgates being thrown open to illegal aliens under the phony pretense of abiding by sequester cuts, it is more important that details of this threat to the public safety be revealed.


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PAYING FOR WALL STREET'S LOOTING and OBAMA'S WAR FOR MUSLIM DICTATORS' BORDERS! Obama renews calls for slashing Medicare, Social Security

Obama renews calls for slashing Medicare, Social Security


OBAMA’S WALL STREET and the LOOTING of AMERICA – SECOND TERM

“The response of the administration was to rush to the defense of the banks. Even before coming to power, Obama expressed his unconditional support for the bailouts, which he subsequently expanded. He assembled an administration dominated by the interests of finance capital, symbolized by economic adviser Lawrence Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.”

OBAMA’S WALL STREET and the LOOTING of AMERICA – SECOND TERM

The corporate cash hoard has likewise reached a new record, hitting an estimated $1.79 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, up from $1.77 trillion in the previous quarter. Instead of investing the money, however, companies are using it to buy back their own stock and pay out record dividends.

Megan McArdle Discusses How America's Elites Are Rigging the Rules - Newsweek/The Daily Beast special correspondent Megan McArdle joins Scott Rasmussen for a discussion on America's new Mandarin class.


 


 

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DID OBAMA PUNK AMERICANS AS BADLY AS IT LOOKS NOW?

 


"There is a populist and conservative revolt against Wall Street and financial elites, Congress and government," Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg warned in an analysis this week. "Democrats and President Obama are seen as more interested in bailing out Wall Street than helping Main Street."

OBAMA, THE BANKSTER OWNED LA RAZA DEM

“The response of the administration was to rush to the defense of the banks. Even before coming to power, Obama expressed his unconditional support for the bailouts, which he subsequently expanded. He assembled an administration dominated by the interests of finance capital, symbolized by economic adviser Lawrence Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.”

 

OBAMA DONORS STILL LOOTING - Senate report documents fraud and lawbreaking by JPMorgan Chase

Senate report documents fraud and lawbreaking by JPMorgan Chase


and the Mexican Drug Cartels


“I’m not here to punish banks!” Barack Obama in the faces of the American People his bankster donors looted – State of the Union Message

“Records show that four out of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).”

THE OBAMA-STYLE SACKING of DETROIT WHILE HE HANDS HUNDREDS of MILLIONS TO MUSLIM DICTATORS

Politicians, media hail appointment of emergency manager for Detroit


MORE ON OBAMA'S ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN WORKER FOR GREATER WALL STREET PROFITS BELOW


MANAGEMENT, FOR WALL ST. PERIOD… for jobs… they only thing he has come up with is AMNESTY!

HE’D SELL US OUT TO THE BIG MONEY PEOPLE IN A FLASH… Actually, that’s all he’s done!

BUSH IN DRAG! AND AS CORRUPT ANY DAY!

 

“Obama hasn’t done anything,” he continued. “The only thing he’s done is take us to war. He’s no different than any other president we’ve had.”

Wsws.org…. get on their free no-ads E-NEWS!

 

 

“You have to work to live, and then they want to deprive you of your work.”

Detroit workers face desperate jobs crisis

By Tom Eley and Lawrence Porter
6 December 2010


Nowhere in the US is the unemployment crisis more severe than in Detroit and its metropolitan area in Southeast Michigan. Once the hub of the US auto industry and home to some of the best working class jobs, Detroit is now the poorest big city in America.

As the winter months approach, Detroit residents face a desperate situation—continued mass unemployment, the cutoff of extended federal benefits, the ever-present danger of having their utilities shut off or their homes seized. Whatever jobs are available pay poverty-level wages, hardly adequate to keep food on the table.

The unemployment rate in the metropolitan area is 13.4 percent, down two percentage points in one year. However, this decline is largely attributable to the long-term unemployed falling out of the workforce. The real unemployment rate may be 20 percent or higher. In Detroit proper, real unemployment—including those involuntarily working part time and those who have given up all hope of finding work—is estimated at 50 percent.

By refusing to extend unemployment benefits, Congress and the Obama administration are condemning the population of cities like Detroit to mass impoverishment.

Reporters from the World Socialist Web Site recently went to an office of the Michigan Bureau of Workers’ and Unemployment Compensation to speak to workers about the consequences for themselves and their families.

HallThe unemployment center

The office is located, with historical irony, in the old headquarters of General Motors, once the biggest private employer in the world. The expansive size of the building, Cadillac Plaza—once the largest single-occupant office building in the world—and its vaulted ceilings and marble, granite, and limestone construction, stand in sharp contrast to its present purpose. In addition to the office for unemployment, the building holds a state lottery claims center and other state offices.

The benefits office was busy; there were perhaps 150 workers waiting in line for assistance. However, this is still a small fraction of the unemployed in Detroit. Most claims and filings now happen on-line or by telephone.

All sorts of obstacles are set up to keep workers from accessing unemployment benefits. There are strict requirements related to the length of steady employment prior to being unemployed. Workers are also required to prove they are actively seeking employment. If benefits can be secured, they are kept low as a punitive means of “encouraging” the unemployed to seek work. In Michigan, weekly benefits are low even relative to the rest of the country and are generally equivalent to the levels prevailing in the Deep South.

NikitaNikita Johnson and husband Sylvester Strickland

The WSWS spoke to Nikita Johnson and her husband Sylvester Strikland. Nikita lost her job in October 2010 following an injury. She worked as a medical technician in an apartment complex for senior citizens. Despite her recovery, the company refused to hire her back.

Nikita said she understood what the long-term unemployed were going through. “I feel that it is wrong to cut off the extension,” stated Nikita. “Even though they were given extensions, they still need the income. What is going to happen if they are cut off? Many of those people will lose their homes and become homeless. A lot of people will lose their families. They don’t understand that people wouldn’t be asking for it if they didn’t need it. It’s like they don’t care.”

Nikita said that a lot of the jobs these days are paying $7, $8 maybe $10 an hour without benefits, and people just can’t live on it.

Sylvester, self-employed as a mechanic, said working people face a terrible jobs situation. “This government should be ashamed,” stated Sylvester. “If they cut off people, and we are talking about 2 million people, what are they going to do for money? It’s going to be a bad situation for everybody.”

“A lot of people are doing whatever they can to get by,” Sylvester continued. “Some people are becoming self-employed like what I am doing. You just can’t find a job.”

Looking at his wife and child with him at the center, Sylvester said, “I know a lot of people are moving in with their families. It is not unusual now to have three families living in the same house hoping that someone is going to get a job.”

Sylvester said he is convinced that the census count in Detroit is skewed because of the number of people living together.

“A lot of people are living with illegal utility hookups, and with ten or more people in a house. It’s tough, but what are people supposed to do?”

Eric Quick is unemployed with children. He is not eligible for benefits because he has been out of work for too long. The decision to allow unemployment benefits to expire is “just going to run the crime rate up,” Quick said. “People are going to steal, rob, and kill to try feed themselves and their families.”

“Not too much has changed with Obama,” Quick said. “Nothing has changed for the poor. Maybe things are better for the rich.”

LevonLevon

Levon has been out of work for a year since being laid off from the Thompson Group, a Detroit-area manufacturer. He now gets $300 every two weeks in benefits, with two kids to support.

“There are no jobs. When I put in applications, they say I’m either not qualified or over-qualified,” Levon said. “You have to work to live, and then they want to deprive you of your work.”

“You get into the situation that you can’t afford your heat and gas, you’re not sleeping at night because of the cold, and you’re not eating square meals.”

Levon asked the WSWS about the Wall Street bailout. “What’s going on with all the money the banks have been issued?” he asked. “Why aren’t they issuing that money to people?”

JoseJose

Jose is an out-of-work construction worker, born in Mexico. “There are no jobs. I did asphalt construction, but it’s over,” he said. “I’m hoping that in the spring jobs will come back. Somebody’s got to pay the bills”

Francisco, 31, has been laid off from a landscaping job for seven months. He gets checks every other week for $400. He must support three kids on that income, plus the money his girlfriend earns as a nurse. Francisco hopes to get a job with a friend clearing snow for the winter. He is also considering moving out of Detroit to the suburb of Southfield because he believes insurance will be cheaper.

Francisco is angry that funding for the jobless benefit extension was ended, even as Congress works on extending tax cuts for rich. “That’s what I hate,” he said. “They always look out for the rich people.”

“Obama hasn’t done anything,” he continued. “The only thing he’s done is take us to war. He’s no different than any other president we’ve had.”

FranciscoFrancisco

“I got arrested and put in prison when I was 18. I was young and dumb. That was 12 years ago, and I can’t get a job because I was a convict. But I was only 18. I’ve tried everything. Nobody’s hiring.”

Francisco says he knows many households that live without utilities. Some of them make “little bonfires” inside their houses to keep warm on cold days, he says. “One of my girlfriend’s friends just got her gas cut off for being $2 short on a bill. She owed $117 and she accidentally sent in $115, so they cut the gas and lights.” He worries about “innocent little kids dying in house fires because they’re in homes without heat or lights.”

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THE LOOTING OF AMERICA

POVERTY RISES AS WALL ST. BILLIONAIRES WHINE!

These guys profited from puffing up the housing bubble, then got bailed out when the going got tough. (Please see The Looting of America for all the gory details.) Without taxpayer largess, these hedge fund honchos would be flat broke. Instead, they're back to hauling in obscene profits.

These billionaires don't even have to worry about serious financial reforms. The paltry legislation that squeaked through Congress did nothing to end too big and too interconnected to fail. In fact, the biggest firms got even bigger as they gobbled up troubled banks, with the generous support of the federal government. No bank or hedge fund was broken up. Nobody was forced to pay a financial transaction tax. None of the big boys had a cap placed on their astronomical wealth. No one's paying reparations for wrecking the US economy. The big bankers are still free to create and trade the very derivatives that catapulted us into this global crisis. You'd think the billionaires would be praying on the altar of government and erecting statues on Capital Hill in honor of St. Bailout.

 

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While 43.6 million Americans live in poverty, the richest men of finance sure are getting pissy. First Steve Schwartzman, head of the Blackrock private equity company, compares the Obama administration's effort to close billionaires' tax loopholes to "the Nazi invasion of Poland." Then hedge fund mogul David Loeb announces that he's abandoning the Democrats because they're violating "this country's core founding principles" -- including "non-punitive taxation, Constitutionally-guaranteed protections against persecution of the minority, and an inexorable right of self-determination." Instead of showing their outrage about the spread of poverty in the richest nation on Earth, the super-rich want us to pity them?

Why are Wall Street's billionaires so whiny? Is it really possible to make $900,000 an hour (not a typo -- that's what the top ten hedge fund managers take in), and still feel aggrieved about the way government is treating you? After you've been bailed out by the federal government to the tune of $10 trillion (also not a typo) in loans, asset swaps, liquidity and other guarantees, can you really still feel like an oppressed minority?

You'd think the Wall Street moguls would be thankful. Not just thankful -- down on their knees kissing the ground taxpayers walk on and hollering hallelujah at the top of their lungs! These guys profited from puffing up the housing bubble, then got bailed out when the going got tough. (Please see The Looting of America for all the gory details.) Without taxpayer largess, these hedge fund honchos would be flat broke. Instead, they're back to hauling in obscene profits.

These billionaires don't even have to worry about serious financial reforms. The paltry legislation that squeaked through Congress did nothing to end too big and too interconnected to fail. In fact, the biggest firms got even bigger as they gobbled up troubled banks, with the generous support of the federal government. No bank or hedge fund was broken up. Nobody was forced to pay a financial transaction tax. None of the big boys had a cap placed on their astronomical wealth. No one's paying reparations for wrecking the US economy. The big bankers are still free to create and trade the very derivatives that catapulted us into this global crisis. You'd think the billionaires would be praying on the altar of government and erecting statues on Capital Hill in honor of St. Bailout.

Instead, standing before us are these troubled souls, haunted by visions of persecution. Why?

The world changed. Before the bubble burst, these people walked on water. Their billions proved that they were the best and the brightest -- not just captains of the financial universe, but global elites who had earned a place in history. They donated serious money to worthy causes -- and political campaigns. No one wanted to mess with them.

But then came the crash. And the things changed for the big guys -- not so much financially as spiritually. Plebeians, including me, are asking pointed questions and sometimes even being heard, both on the Internet and in the mainstream media. For the first time in a generation, the public wants to know more about these emperors and their new clothes. For instance:

• What do these guys actually do that earns them such wealth?
• Is what they do productive and useful for society? Is there any connection between what they earn and what they produce for society?
• Did they help cause the crash?
• Did these billionaires benefit from the bailouts? If so, how much?
• Are they exacerbating the current unemployment and poverty crisis with their shenanigans?
• Why shouldn't we eliminate their tax loopholes (like carried interest)?
• Should their sky-high incomes be taxed at the same levels as during the Eisenhower years?
• Can we create the millions of jobs we need if the billionaires continue to skim off so much of our nation's wealth??
• Should we curb their wealth and political influence?

How dare we ask such questions! How dare we consider targeting them for special taxes? How dare we even think about redistributing THEIR incomes... even if at the moment much of their money comes directly from our bailouts and tax breaks?

It's true that the billionaires live in a hermetically sealed world. But that doesn't mean they don't notice the riffraff nipping at their heels. And they don't like it much. So they've gotten busy doing what billionaires do best: using their money to shield themselves. They're digging into their bottomless war chests, tapping their vast connections and using their considerable influence to shift the debate away from them and towards the rest of us.

We borrowed too much, not them. We get too much health care, not them. We retire too soon, not them. We need to tighten our belts while they pull in another $900,000 an hour. And if we want to cure poverty, we need to get the government to leave Wall Street alone. Sadly, their counter-offensive is starting to take hold.

How can this happen? Many Americans want to relate to billionaires. They believe that all of us are entitled to make as much as we can, pretty much by any means necessary. After all, maybe someday you or I will strike it rich. And when we do, we sure don't want government regulators or the taxman coming around!

Billionaires are symbols of American individual prowess and virility. And if we try to hold them back or slow them down, we're on the road to tyranny. Okay, the game is rigged in their favor. Okay, they got bailed out while the rest of us didn't -- especially the 29 million people who are jobless or forced into part-time work. But what matters most is that in America, nothing can interfere with individual money-making. That only a few of us actually make it into the big-time isn't a bad thing: It's what makes being rich so special. So beware: If we enact even the mildest of measures to rein in Wall Street billionaires, we're on the path to becoming North Korea.

Unfortunately, if we don't adjust our attitudes, we can expect continued high levels of unemployment and more people pushed below the poverty line. It's not clear that our economy will ever recover as long as the Wall Street billionaires keep siphoning off so much of our wealth. How can we create jobs for the many while the few are walking off with $900,000 an hour with almost no new jobs to show for it? In the old days, even robber barons built industries that employed people -- steel, oil, railroads. Now the robber barons build palaces out of fantasy finance. We can keep coddling our financial billionaires and let our economy spiral down, or we can make them pay their fair share so we can create real jobs. These guys crashed the economy, they killed billions of jobs, and now they're cashing in on our bailout. They owe us. They owe the unemployed. They owe the poor.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was no radical, but he accepted the reality: If America was going to prosper -- and pay for its costly Cold War -- the super-rich would have to pony up. It was common knowledge that when the rich grew too wealthy, they used their excess incomes to speculate. In the 1950s, memories of the Great Depression loomed large, and people knew that a skewed distribution of income only fueled speculative booms and disastrous busts. On Ike's watch, the effective marginal tax rate for those earning over $3 million (in today's dollars) was over 70 percent. The super-rich paid. As a nation we respected that other important American value: advancing the common good.

For the last thirty years we've been told that making as much as you can is just another way of advancing the common good. But the Great Recession erased that equation: The Wall Streeters who made as much as they could undermined the common good. It's time to balance the scales. This isn't just redistribution of income in pursuit of some egalitarian utopia. It's a way to use public policy to reattach billionaires to the common good.

It's time to take Eisenhower's cue and redeploy the excessive wealth Wall Street's high rollers have accumulated. If we leave it in their hands, they'll keep using it to construct speculative financial casinos. Instead, we could use that money to build a stronger, more prosperous nation. We could provide our people with free higher education at all our public colleges and universities -- just like we did for WWII vets under the GI Bill of Rights (a program that returned seven dollars in GDP for every dollar invested). We could fund a green energy Manhattan Project to wean us from fossil fuels. An added bonus: If we siphon some of the money off Wall Street, some of our brightest college graduates might even be attracted not to high finance but to jobs in science, education and healthcare, where we need them.

Of course, this pursuit of the common good won't be easy for the billionaires (and those who indentify with them.). But there's just no alternative for this oppressed minority: They're going to have to learn to live on less than $900,000 an hour.

Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009.

 

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Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses


 

BY TIMOTHY P CARNEY

 

 

Editorial Reviews

Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?

Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.

Congressman Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.” And Johan Goldberg, columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”

If you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil.

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Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?

Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers.

Investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics. In this explosive book, Carney reveals:

* The Great Health Care Scam—Obama’s backroom deals with drug companies spell corporate profits and more government control
* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda
* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)
* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists
* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle Obamanomics

If you’ve wondered what’s happening to our country, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages” that create make-work government jobs, this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil.

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Praise for Obamanomics

“The notion that ‘big business’ is on the side of the free market is one of progressivism’s most valuable myths. It allows them to demonize corporations by day and get in bed with them by night. Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best. It reveals how President Obama is exploiting the big business mythology to undermine the free market and stick it to entrepreneurs, taxpayers, and consumers. It’s an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”
—Jonha Goldberg, LA Times columnist and best-selling author

“‘Every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich.’ With this astute observation, Tim Carney begins his task of laying bare the Obama administration’s corporatist governing strategy, hidden behind the president’s populist veneer. This meticulously researched book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how Washington really works.”
—David Freddoso, best-selling author of The Case Against Barack Obama

“Every libertarian and free-market conservative who still believes that large corporations are trusted allies in the battle for economic liberty needs to read this book, as does every well-meaning liberal who believes that expansions of the welfare-regulatory state are done to benefit the common people.”
—Congressman Ron Paul

“It’s understandable for critics to condemn President Obama for his ‘socialism.’ But as Tim Carney shows, the real situation is at once more subtle and more sinister. Obamanomics favors big business while disproportionately punishing everyone else. So-called progressives are too clueless to notice, as usual, which is why we have Tim Carney and this book.”
—Thomas E. Woods, Jr., best-selling author of Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guideto American History

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·         Hardcover: 256 pages

·         Publisher: Regnery Press (November 30, 2009)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 1596986123

·         ISBN-13: 978-1596986121

 

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OBAMA, THE BANKSTER OWNED LA RAZA DEM

 

“The response of the administration was to rush to the defense of the banks. Even before coming to power, Obama expressed his unconditional support for the bailouts, which he subsequently expanded. He assembled an administration dominated by the interests of finance capital, symbolized by economic adviser Lawrence Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.”

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THE REASON OBAMA BROUGHT IN GEITHNER, BUSH’S ARCHITECT FOR BANKSTERS’ WELFARE, WAS TO SIGNAL HIS BANKSTER DONORS THERE WOULD BE NO CHANGE!

 

“Rattner’s evident involvement in the scheme underscores the criminal character of the Wall Street financiers who the Obama administration put in charge of destroying the jobs and living standards of auto workers. Selected by Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers—who were both deeply involved in the deregulation of the finance industry and the Wall Street bailout”

Here’s what Obama did for GM and against the workers:

The crisis in the auto industry—provoked by the 2008 financial breakdown and the plunge in auto sales to the lowest per-capita rate since World War II—was used by Wall Street and the US government to destroy jobs and wages and transform the industry into a lucrative investment for the same speculators who provoked the catastrophe.

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WSWS.org….. get on their free no ads E-NEWS!

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A union-free America. Growth down a little, employment down a lot. Profits and productivity up, wages flat. Health-care costs up for workers, down for employers. The return of a thriving middle class? Dream on.

 

After the elections: Behind the Democratic debacle

4 November 2010

Only a day after the midterm elections, the US media quickly coalesced around a narrative, accepted by everyone in the political establishment, that the victory of the Republican Party was a popular repudiation of the supposedly left-wing policies of the Obama administration. In his press conference on Wednesday, Obama himself adopted this analysis, pledging to work closely with the Republican Party, find some compromise on tax cuts for the wealthy, and improve his relations with corporate America.

Underlying this claim are two premises, both of which are false: 1) that Obama has carried out an anti-corporate program during his first two years; and 2) that the population as a whole has used the election to give a rousing affirmation of capitalism and big business. These premises are not only absurd, they clash with the basic facts.

In the flood of political commentary, no one in the mainstream media has suggested a far more plausible explanation: After coming to power by posing as the tribune of “hope” and "change you can believe in," Obama, through his pro-corporate and pro-war policies, has succeeded in alienating and politically demoralizing large sections of the population that had voted for him.

The event that secured Obama's election was the spectacular collapse of Wall Street in September of 2008, which shattered whatever was left of the credibility of the Bush administration and deeply discredited the capitalist system itself. Obama came into office with an overwhelming mandate for radical reform.

The response of the administration was to rush to the defense of the banks. Even before coming to power, Obama expressed his unconditional support for the bailouts, which he subsequently expanded. He assembled an administration dominated by the interests of finance capital, symbolized by economic adviser Lawrence Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

The administration opposed any constraints on executive compensation and rejected out of hand sanctions against or the prosecution of those responsible for the economic catastrophe. Over the past two years, the wealthiest individuals have vastly expanded their share of the national income and the largest banks are expected to hand out record compensation packages.

The economic crisis has led to a jobs crisis unlike anything seen since the Great Depression. The administration has rejected any government hiring programs. Throughout the crisis, Obama has endlessly repeated the claim that employment levels are a “lagging indicator.”

After bailing out Wall Street, Obama oversaw the forced bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler, demanding that workers accept deep cuts in jobs, wages and benefits. As a result, profits for the auto giants have soared while the assault on auto workers’ wages has become the model for wage-cutting in every economic sector and in every part of the country.

The consequences can be seen in the collapse of support for the Democratic Party in the industrial Midwest, the site of half the seats lost by Democrats in the House of Representatives. In Michigan, a center of the auto industry, the Republicans swept state and local offices, amid a turnout of only 45 percent. In Detroit, which had voted for Obama overwhelmingly in 2008, barely one in five voters showed up at the polls.

The principal domestic program for which Obama is associated is the overhaul of the health care system. The bill was entirely tailored to the interests of insurance companies and giant corporations. For the sake of “bipartisanship,” Obama abandoned anything that hinted of progressive reform, including the “public option.” Elderly voters, in particular, quite correctly saw the entire measure as a step toward cutting Medicare benefits and rationing care, resulting in a significant electoral swing to the Republican Party, which recorded an 18 percent advantage among voters over 60.

Joseph Kishore

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