Archive for April 2011
Arizona To Build Fence On Mexican Border Using Inmate Labor
PHOENIX — Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill into law that authorizes the construction of a fence along the state’s portion of the U.S.-Mexico border, either with other states or by itself.
She signed the bill Thursday, but her spokesman, Matt Benson, declined to comment Friday on why she signed it or whether she plans to invoke the authority.
The bill does not specify a cost or make an appropriation but says the state would use donations, inmate labor and private contractors.
[...]
Another royal wedding, but a different England
Prince William and his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, share a kiss on the balcony at Buckingham Palace after their wedding on Friday.
What if Prince William had come home with a Pakistani girlfriend?
Much has been made of the fact that the prince who is second in line to the British throne married a commoner, Kate Middleton, whose family tree includes coal miners, a flight attendant and merchants.
Even so, the royal line of succession remains secure with a strictly white, Church of England family.
You don’t need to look to the far reaches of the Commonwealth — Jamaica, the Bahamas or Papua New Guinea — to see that these royals do not look like the people who call Queen Elizabeth their monarch.
You can see it right here in London. Immigrants are driving massive change in the face of Great Britain — so significant that one in three Londoners represents an ethnic minority.
Race, power shape new Texas House district map
A new plan for state House districts approved by Texas representatives Thursday protects Republican incumbents while maintaining “protected” status for minority-dominated districts, but Hispanics said it doesn’t do enough to promote the interests of Latino voters and a lawsuit from Democrats and minorities is all but certain.
The map was approved on a 92-52 vote after a marathon debate that dragged into the wee morning hours. Although the bill’s author, Republican Rep. Burt Solomons, said a top concern was protecting people already in office, it would pit several Republicans against each other, the natural result of the GOP’s unsustainably large supermajority. Republicans say the plan also would increase Latino voting strength in at least two districts and would create an extra district where blacks and Hispanics could play a dominant role in the Fort Worth area.
But Democrats disputed that, saying the GOP failed to create enough minority-dominated seats, particularly in south Texas, and some black lawmakers said their largely African American districts could be transformed into mostly Hispanic ones under some proposals that had been offered. Democrats and minorities are widely expected to file a lawsuit.
Some Republican members and activists wanted to make the map a much bolder grab for conservative seats and limit the number of losses. But House leaders easily beat back those attempts. Either way, there is only so much they can do given the constraints of federal anti-discrimination laws and shifts in population away from conservative rural areas and toward the suburbs that have seen explosive and diverse population growth.
The heated debate dragged on for some 16 hours, the longest single session in the House so far this year and testament to the importance lawmakers place on their own futures. The map was given final approval Thursday afternoon and now moves to the Senate.
Prosecutor: Kansas man ordered killings in Rwanda
Lazare Kobagaya
Jurors were offered conflicting views Friday during opening statements in the trial of the Kansas man accused of participating in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Prosecutors painted Lazare Kobagaya as a leader and organizer who ordered brutal ethnic killings and instructed followers on which of his neighbors’ houses to burn, while the defense described him as a peaceful, God-fearing man who protected others from the violence that had engulfed the region.
Which portrayal prevails will be determined in the next 10 weeks during Kobagaya’s trial in a federal courtroom in Wichita. The 84-year-old Topeka man is charged with unlawfully obtaining U.S. citizenship in 2006 and with fraud and misuse of an alien registration card in a case prosecutors have said is the first in the United States requiring proof of genocide.
“The only reason he was able to come here is because he lied about his actions in Rwanda,” prosecutor Christina Giffin said in her opening statement. “Those lies are the center of these charges here.”
Store hit by theft spree during zoo stabbing (Video)
Just before 6 p.m. Monday, a group of nearly 20 young men enter the trendy - and pricey - G Star Raw store at Connecticut Avenue and R Street near Dupont Circle and began helping themselves to whatever they wanted.
The store is down Connecticut Avenue from the National Zoo and this incident occurred about an hour after the stabbing there.
During their minutes long flash mob theft spree, video, exclusively obtained by ABC7 News, shows the suspects hunting through the merchandise as if they were looking for the right size, sometimes even leisurely. Other kids can be seen outside on cell phones and appear to be acting as lookouts for the police.
The store manager can be seen taking back some of the merchandise from some of the suspects.
According to store manager Gregory Lennon, the thieves made off with around a hundred items worth “thousands of thousands of dollars” from a store that is known for trendy and expensive styles of jeans, shirts and jackets.
The Adversity of Diversity
Now living in Cuba: “In May 1973, Assata Olugbala Shakur was involved in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike, during which New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and BLA member Zayd Malik Shakur were killed and Shakur and Trooper James Harper were wounded. Between 1973 and 1977, Shakur was indicted in relation to six other alleged criminal incidents—charged with murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, bank robbery, and kidnapping—resulting in three acquittals and three dismissals. In 1977, she was convicted of the first-degree murder of Foerster and of seven other felonies related to the shootout.”
“It is our duty to fight for our people. It is our duty to win. We must love and protect each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
Three times over, the hundreds of admitted UC Santa Cruz students, led onstage by alumna Eden Jequinto, echoed these words of Assata Shakur — a Black Panther fugitive and African-American rights activist — in unified chant.
The high school seniors, a mix of Latinos, African-Americans and Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders, each had similar stories to tell: mothers who worked multiple jobs at late hours, bad neighborhoods on the wrong side of town, growing up among thugs and gangsters. Many, if not all in attendance, would be the first in their family to even consider going to college.
Jequinto is no exception. Growing up in La Puente, Calif., Jequinto said she experienced a lot of hardship as a gay Filipino woman. She watched her drunken father turn on her mother, members of her family succumb to alcohol-induced dementia and die, and at the age of eight, she began drinking. Throughout high school, Jequinto said she hated herself for being homophobic but also gay. She said the people like herself and those in the audience that evening were not victims, but survivors.
Oklahoma Senate OKs bill targeting illegal immigrants
It would also give police officers more authority to question citizenship status of suspects.
The bill, approved by a 37-8 vote, originated in the Oklahoma House and underwent revisions in the Senate. The two chambers must reconcile differences in the bill before it can go to Governor Mary Fallin. Senators faced a deadline on Thursday to pass bills that originate in the House.
Oklahoma is one of several states — including Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah — where Republicans are pushing immigration measures reminiscent of the one that became law in Arizona a year ago. The Arizona law required police to investigate the immigration status of anyone they detained and suspected of being in the country illegally.
Under the Oklahoma measure, local police officers trained through a federal program would be authorized to ask about immigration status.
The bill would also make it a misdemeanor for undocumented immigrants to work, apply for work or solicit work in a public place. Convictions could result in up to a year in jail and/or a $500 fine.
America’s Third War: Is the U.S. Arming Mexican Cartels?
April 17: Navy members escort Martin Omar Estrada Luna, center, alias “El Kilo,” and alleged members of his gang in front of seized weapons and packages containing narcotics during a presentation to the press in Mexico City.
If you ever watch video or look at pictures of the drug war in Mexico, you’ll notice some pretty heavy weapons. This is a war being waged with rockets and plastic explosives, not pea shooters and Saturday Night Specials. Consider these incidents:
- A M26A2 fragmentation grenade used against a U.S. Consulate in Mexico in 2008
- Explosive projectiles and 21 grenades found during a raid in Guadalupe
- An unexploded grenade and pull ring used to attack a TV station in Monterrey
- Automatic weapons, including U.S.-made M16s found at a cartel crime scene in May 2009
- U.S. military-issued ammunition found in a cartel raid in Reynosa in November 2008
You can’t buy this stuff at a U.S. gun store. So where do the cartels get it? According to leaked diplomatic cables, there are three sources.
College Course: US Flag Is Racist, How-To Defeat America In Iraq And Afghanistan
While claiming the American flag represents racism and discussing today’s Progressive Movement’s efforts to defeat America both at home and abroad, including on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to help their international “comrades,” Communist Tony Pecinovsky pulls the mask off today’s Progressive Movement in two new exclusive Big Government videos of a University of Missouri course offering, already much in the news.
Pecinovsky first came to light yesterday in a Washington Times item by Kerry Picket.
Communism 101 at the University
Tony Pecinovsky, a Communist Party USA representative who is serving as the Communications Workers of America Secretary and Treasurer in St. Louis, spoke to students at the University of Missouri in St. Louis. In the video, he speaks about how the Communist Party looks to support candidates saying (5:30 mark in the video):
While discussing “the idea that the American flag is racist,” in the video below, Pecinovsky mentions a 2005 international youth festival in Venezuela sponsored by the World Federation of Democratic Youth(WFDY).
Criminal gangs behind 3 new mass displacements
Criminal groups have caused massive forced displacements in three communities in Colombia, according to government welfare group Accion Social.
Hundreds of people have been forced to flee their homes in communities in Antioquia, Nariño and Cordoba departments due to the imcreasing violence of criminal groups.
In Caceres, northern Antioquia, 20 families fled their homes after four community members were murdered by the neo-paramilitary group “Aguilas Negras”. 17 of the families were indigenous people of Zenu ethnicity, and three others were local farmers from the Campanario community.
At the same time, a total of 61 people between 15 families left their homes in the municipality of Policarpa, Nariño department due to ongoing fighting between “Rocas Campesinas”, who are a stem of “Los Rastrojos,” and the FARC.
Accion Social have said that the 15 families have sought refuge with relatives or friends due to the ongoing fight for territorial control between the two groups. In recent days, members of “Rocas Campesinas” drew families from their homes, confiscated phones, goods and food, prohibited the entry or exit of locals and threatened them not to speak to authorities.
