Archive for June 2009

Seven years before Barack Obama’s “spread the wealth” comment to Joe the Plumber became a GOP campaign theme, the Democratic presidential candidate said in a radio interview the U.S. has suffered from a fundamentally flawed Constitution that does not mandate or allow for redistribution of wealth.

In a newly unearthed tape, Obama is heard telling Chicago’s public station WBEZ-FM in 2001 that “redistributive change” is needed, pointing to what he regarded as a failure of the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren in its rulings on civil rights issues in the 1960s.

The Warren court, he said, failed to “break free from the essential constraints” in the U.S. Constitution and launch a major redistribution of wealth. But Obama, then an Illinois state lawmaker, said the legislative branch of government, rather than the courts, probably was the ideal avenue for accomplishing that goal.

In the 2001 interview, Obama said:

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be OK But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.

And that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing
and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

The video is available here:

In his top-rated national radio show today, Rush Limbaugh reacted to the tape.

State health officials delivered cease-and-desist letters Friday to two Las Vegas retail stores suspected of operating as illegal and unlicensed surgical centers.

Authorities said they took the action after gathering information from a female victim of a botched surgery at Botanica Maya, 5347 E. Lake Mead Blvd., Suite B. They also found medical waste in the store and in a trash bin behind the business, near Nellis Boulevard.

“What was going on here was totally wrong,” owner Adam Padilla said Friday. “I opened my eyes to what was going on and put a stop to it. Well, the police opened my eyes.”

Padilla, a Las Vegas resident, said he has owned Botanica Maya for five years. He said the business, which operates seven days a week, sells herbs and vitamins to its Hispanic clientele.

He said his father owns the other business, Botanica San Francisco, 2645 S. Nellis Blvd., Suite D, near Sahara Avenue, but did not reveal his name.

Padilla said Las Vegas police told him about the botched surgical procedure, which took place June 19.

When asked what type of surgery the woman had undergone, Padilla said, “I have no idea because I was not here.” He also said he did not know who performed the procedure.

Ben Kieckhefer, a spokesman for the state Health Division, identified the surgery as a gynecological procedure “to remove an abscess.” The patient told authorities that surgeries also were being performed at Botanica San Francisco.
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Mr. Bercow, whose early influences included Enoch Powell, stood for election to the national executive of the Monday Club pressure group on an anti-immigration ticket, despite the fact that he is himself descended from Romanian Jewish immigrants.

In 1981 he produced a personal manifesto which stated that: “The strengthening of our national identity demands a program of assisted repatriation.”

Although Mr. Bercow, then a politics student at Essex University, did not win the nomination, he did become the secretary of the Club’s immigration and repatriation committee, which called for “an end to New Commonwealth and Pakistan immigration, a properly financed system of voluntary repatriation, the repeal of the Race Relations Act and the abolition of the Commission for Racial Equality”.

Mr. Bercow has since described his membership of the Monday Club as “utter madness” and dismissed his views from that time as “bone headed.”

The Conservative MP has performed such an about-turn in his political views that at one stage there were rumors that he might defect to Labour.

But following his election as speaker earlier this week, former members of the Monday Club have spoken for the first time about the John Bercow they knew.

Gregory Lauder-Frost, a leading light in the Monday Club’s Young Members’ Group at the time, said: “When he stood, unsuccessfully, for election to the Club’s national executive he did so on a platform of supporting the repatriation of non-white immigrants, and made a speech to that effect which was well received.

“But he wasn’t very popular in the Monday Club. He just rubbed people up the wrong way because he was extremely pushy and rather pleased with himself.”

Another former member said: “He was a great admirer of Enoch Powell. He used to read Powell’s speeches and regurgitate them word for word, because he has this amazing memory. I always thought at the time that he sounded a bit like Enoch Powell, as if he modeled his voice on him when he made speeches.”

“Essex was a very left-wing university at the time and he was pretty much universally despised,” said one contemporary. “He was always attacking left-wingers.
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A single opinion column written by Ruben Navarrette and published by the San Diego Union-Tribune explains why:

• California is in a irreversible financial crisis
• Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will leave office with a popularity rating of about 20 percent.
• The state’s major newspapers are on the verge of bankruptcy. (Good!)

To understand fully the impact of what follows in my column, first read Navarrette’s. [Schwarzenegger Defends Immigrants, by Ruben Navarrette, San Diego Union-Tribune, June 17, 2009]

But if you are pressed for time or simply cannot stomach the idea of reading more Navarrette tripe, here’s a brief summary:

• In a meeting with the Union-Tribune editorial board, Schwarzenegger repeated his often-stated position that illegal immigrants are not to blame for the state’s economic crisis.
• Illegal immigrants, continued Schwarzenegger, contribute to California’s economy by paying taxes and doing jobs in “hard-to-staff industries”. Ignored by Schwarzenegger: many aliens work off the books and don’t contribute anything to the tax base.
• Californians who suggest that illegal immigration is an economic drain remind Schwarzenegger of “how Jews were blamed by the Nazis for Germany’s economic difficulties after World War I.” Schwarzenegger warns that linking “hard-working people” to economic strife could lead to “atrocities,” “crime,” and “executions” just as it did when Nazis governed Germany.

Where should I start?

• First, no problem as grave as California’s $25 billion budget deficit can be corrected if those responsible for resolving it refuse to recognize what is, at the least, a major contributor to that problem. For a complete breakdown of those costs, read Nicholas Stix’s blog here.
• Second, no California resident believes that illegal immigration does not play a role in the state’s collapse. And the further south anyone lives (e.g., San Diego), the more crystal clear the relationship is between illegal immigration and California’s financial catastrophe.
• Third, a newspaper’s role is to challenge its sources by asking the hard questions. For the editorial board (of which Navarrette is a member) to allow the governor to come into San Diego, make absurd statements and then print them as gospel—even in an opinion piece— is one of the major reasons no one reads newspapers anymore. Why should patriots who live in San Diego, of whom there are plenty, subscribe to or even read the Union-Tribune only to learn that it associates them with Nazis?
• Any comparison to patriotic immigration reform proponents and Nazis is outrageous. Navarette’s hedge—he wrote: “Obviously, Schwarzenegger’s comments should not be taken literally” only adds to his insult. Obviously, to make the Nazi association and then try to water it down doesn’t fool anyone.

Unless the Union-Tribune editors live in a bubble they, like every other Californian with eyes in his head, see the impact of illegal immigration all day every day.
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As most of you have probably heard by now, the DC Metro crash was possibly caused by a computer failure. [Computer Failure Could Be Cause of DC Metro Crash Killing ]That news got me and a few others interested if the DC Metro has been outsourcing work to India or bodyshops, and employing H-1Bs. The reasoning behind the research is that when employers are looking for the cheapest labor they often get what they pay for.

In the rest of this post allow me to share with you a surprising number of connections. They could be all coincidence at this point, and therefore have nothing to do with the crash.

Several previous posts have been published concerning President Obama’s appointment of Aneesh Chopra for Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Vivek Kundra for Chief Information Officer (CIO). Besides their obvious ethnic similarities, keep in mind that Aneesh Chopra led a large junket to India in 2006 to promote the outsourcing of Virginia state jobs. Read the previous newsletters on these two appointments to see how both of them have a long record of promoting the outsourcing of American jobs to India.Chopra and Kundra are definitely friends of India.

The following information isn’t in any particular order, and I think we should all be careful about what conclusions are drawn. Too little is known about the cause of the crash yet to blame any particular contractor so until more is known all of this should be considered circumstantial evidence. That said as a disclaimer, here is the stuff:

Primary contractor for the DC Metro is Optimal Solutions & Technologies(OST). Here is a link to the actual contract PDF

Vivek Kundra has many connections to OST. He was even on their board.

But that wasn’t the only reason Kundra put Optimal Solutions and Technologies in charge of nearly 100 subcontractors eager for a piece of as much as $75 million a year in technology contracts.

And what about the role of Optimal Solutions and Technologies, a D.C.-based company founded in 1999 by Vijay Narula?

Though allegedly Acar and Bansal violated city rules by regularly meeting and talking, Narula said his company, which has about eight employees assigned full time to the contract, was powerless to detect such behavior.[Federal Probe Casts Doubt on D.C. Contract Reform Effort - washingtonpost.com,  April 6, 2009]

Remember Sushil Bansal? He was the one that was arrested and jailed, and was the reason the FBI raided Kundra’s office. Acar has been charged with bribery.
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Wall Street’s largest trade group has started a campaign to counter the “populist” backlash against bankers, enlisting two former aides to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to spearhead the effort.

In memos of confidential meetings with top financial executives, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association said it began this month the “execution phase” of the operation, which pledges to “embrace change” and accountability. The plan targets policy makers and the media in New York, London, Washington and Brussels and calls for a “city-by-city, grass roots” approach.

The securities industry “must be perceived as part of the solution, which will allow it to better defend against populist overreaction,” the documents, prepared for a June 17 meeting of SIFMA’s board, said.

The board meeting minutes and staff-written papers, obtained by Bloomberg News, outline the program crafted by polling, lobbying and public relations companies paid at least $85,000 a month. The memos provide a glimpse, in often candid language, into how Wall Street is grappling with its pariah status.
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The bloodless genocide of Britain’s indigenous population through mass Third World immigration has been taken to new heights with the news that at least 40 percent of the under twenty year old population in London are non-indigenous.

This figure means that well within the next generation and a half, white British people will effectively be a total minority in Britain’s capital city, and shortly after that be extinct from the streets of London.

Whitehall’s annual Regional Trends report released yesterday said that more than 700,000 children and teenagers in Britain are classed as non-white, and make up 40 percent of that age group in London.

Currently it is estimated that a third of all of London’s population is non-white, but this figure is to change dramatically as the predominantly youthful population matures.

The figures also show that recent waves of immigration have made a bigger impact on London than other parts of the country.

The analysis from the Office for National Statistics said that in the West Midlands, the second most multiracial area of the country after London, just 19 percent of children and teenagers are non-white.

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There’s a saying, popular with members of Alcoholics Anonymous, that “Insanity is repeating the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.” Kipling, following  Proverbs 26:11, preferred “That the Dog returns to his Vomit,” which refers to the habit of some dogs of trying to re-eat something they couldn’t keep down in the first place.

As an example of this kind of behavior,  two stories highlight the fact that the Obama administration is still trying to get bankers to lend more money to minorities–minorities who by definition aren’t credit-worthy, or the bankers would want to lend to them. (Japanese-Americans, by contrast, have little difficulty getting mortgages.) Hans Bader writes at Examiner.com that

Obama backs corrupt status quo in financial rules overhaul

The mortgage crisis was caused largely by the reckless government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and by federal affordable-housing mandates. But Obama’s proposed financial rules overhaul does absolutely nothing about Fannie and Freddie, admits Obama’s Treasury Secretary, tax cheat Timothy Geithner, even though he admits that “Fannie and Freddie were a core part of what went wrong in our system.” Worse, Obama’s plan is “largely the product of extensive conversations” with two lawmakers responsible for the corrupt status quo, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, and it expands the reach of regulations that have been used by left-wing groups to extort pay-offs from banks.

(Fannie Mae engaged in massive fraud and political bullying to thwart reform. It and Freddie Mac lost so much money gambling on the housing market that they were taken over by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which took them over in the name of ending their risky practices, but instead actually increased their purchases of risky mortgage loans in an effort to artificially prop up the housing market. Obama made Freddie Mac lose $30 billion more after the takeover in order to write off mortgage loans to delinquent mortgage borrowers.)[More]

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