Houston homebuilder Bob Perry and grocery chain magnate Charles E. Butt ( HEB ) hired one of Austin's most powerful lobbyists to oppose the "Sanctuary Cities". Bob Perry is Texas top Republican donor. Last year, he gave some $7 million, $2.5 million to Rick Perry

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Lawmakers said business interests worried that the law would allow police to harass their workers. The construction and retail industries employ thousands of immigrants in Texas and across the nation.

The testimony of high level law enforcement officials throughout the state and opposition by key Republican frunders such as the Butt family of HEB convinced key Repulicans in the house to block the bill in the house.

REUTERS.COM
Business lobby helps scuttle immigration curbs in Texas
Business interests and law enforcement opposed bill
Texas legislation less restrictive than Arizona's
By Karen Brooks
June 29, 2011

Business lobby helps scuttle immigration curbs in Texas


Some excerpts :

BUSINESS CONCERNS

Two powerful Texas businessmen joined the lobbying against the bill, legislative sources told Reuters.

Houston homebuilder Bob Perry and grocery chain magnate Charles E. Butt hired one of Austin's most powerful lobbyists to oppose the legislation.

Bob Perry has long been known as the top Republican donor in Texas. Last year alone, he gave some $7 million to political candidates, mainly Republicans, according to the Texas Ethics Commission. Some $2.5 million of that went to Governor Rick Perry. Bob Perry is not related to the governor.

Butt, who owns the H-E-B grocery store chain, donated close to $1 million to political candidates on both sides of the aisle last year, according to the commission.

"They had real reservations about it," Bill Miller, the lobbyist hired by the influential businessmen, told Reuters. "They wanted some changes made, and we expressed the reservations they had about it to members, which kind of slowed it down,"

Miller would not say what those concerns were, and calls to homebuilder Perry for comment were not returned late Wednesday. But lawmakers said business interests worried that the law would allow police to harass their workers. The construction and retail industries employ thousands of immigrants in Texas and across the nation.

Another factor in the bill's demise may have been opposition from Texas law enforcement groups.

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The New Republic : The Health Care Mandate’s Big Win in the Sixth Circuit : Good for Obama and the Democratic Party - "If we were only willing to let people bleed to death on the street, all this unpleasantness could have been avoided"

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Those that refuse to buy Health Insurance are imposing large health care costs on other people. Therefore they are in the Market for Health Care as potential users..

The New Republic -
The Health Care Mandate’s Big Win in the Sixth Circuit -
By Andrew Koppelman -
Andrew Koppelman is a professor at Northwestern Law School.
June 29, 2011


The Health Care Mandate’s Big Win in the Sixth Circuit


Some excerpts :

He also is oddly respectful of the bizarre and often-repeated claim that the commerce power applies only to individuals who are already engaged in commerce. “Of all the arguments auditioning to invalidate the individual mandate, this is the most compelling.” But he punctures it summarily, noting that the Supreme Court upheld regulation of medical marijuana even though Angel Raich, the defendant who grew her own medical marijuana, “never entered any markets, whether interstate or intrastate.”

For the most part, his reasoning is sound. He systematically demolishes the notion that Congress can only regulate activity, not inactivity. He observes that this distinction appears nowhere in the Constitution, and spends several pages showing how unworkable it is in practice. He notes its strange results: Does this mean that courts must invalidate the federal law enforcing interstate child support obligations? Inactivity, after all, is what deadbeat dads are all about.

He acknowledges “the lingering intuition … that Congress should not be able to compel citizens to buy products they do not want.” States, however, may require individuals to buy health insurance, and two have. “Sometimes an intuition is just an intuition.”

Judge Graham, too, was unable to digest the activity/inactivity distinction. He also admits that there is a national problem that only Congress can solve. Then his reasoning goes completely off the rails. “That problems are felt nationwide,” however, “does not mean that Congress can try to solve them in any fashion it pleases.” This flies in the face of the basic principle, first articulated by the Supreme Court in 1819 and reaffirmed just last year, that Congress can choose any convenient means for carrying out its enumerated powers, without micromanagement by the courts.

Graham thinks that those who go without health insurance are immune from regulation because they have done nothing economic. They “are strangers to the health insurance market,” and they have merely “made a decision to accept risk.” Evidently it doesn’t matter that their decision to go without insurance is an economic one with economic effects, or that the risk they are accepting is the risk of imposing large health care costs on other people. The fact that they are getting a free ride at everyone else’s expense is a “problem … of Congress’s own creation,” because federal law requires emergency rooms to provide care regardless of ability to pay. Evidently, if we were only willing to let people bleed to death on the street, all this unpleasantness could have been avoided.

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The first two days at work the probationers on one farm quit by mid-afternoon while Latinos worked until at least 6 p.m. Latinos picked three times as much. One farmer: "It's not going to work. No way. If I'm going to depend on the probation people, I'm never going to get the crops up."

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Times Herald -
Newnan, Georgia -
Probation workers not keeping pace down on the farms -
Editorial -
June 23, 2011 -


Probation workers not keeping pace down on the farms


Some excerpts :

Georgia's new tough immigration law is creating problems for Georgia farmers this harvest season because they can't get enough workers to help them pick their crops.

With fewer Latino migrants available for the farm work, Gov. Nathan Deal has started an experiment to get unemployed probationers in the state to work in the fields to fill the 11,000 available agricultural jobs.

The early results of Deal's program -- which began about a week ago --are mixed at best.

The first two days at work the probationers on one farm quit by mid-afternoon while Latinos worked until at least 6 p.m.

One farmer pitted the probationers against the Latinos one work day. The probationers were assigned to fill one truck, and the Latinos were to fill a second truck. The result: The Latinos picked six truckloads while the probationers picked less than two truckloads.

One immigrant worker, who claimed he was the "best picker," picked about 200 buckets of cucumbers before lunch and expected to double that number in the afternoon. No probationer on this farm could keep pace. The best by a probationer was 134 buckets in a day. Some probationers picked as few as 20 buckets in a day.

Said one farmer: "It's not going to work. No way. If I'm going to depend on the probation people, I'm never going to get the crops up."

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VIDEO, Cenk Uygur, the Hypocrisy of Michele Bachmann, Welfare Queen, Big Medicaid Payments to her husband's clinic - She is a harsh critic of Federal Subsidies and Medicaid Payments - One Quarter of a Million in Federal Subsidies to her Family

.

Topmost in Hypocrisy :

Michele Bachmann aspires to be president of the USA, she is crazy, imprudent, right wing bigot, and on top of all that, she has a closet full of skeletons.

Uploaded by TheYoungTurks on Jun 28, 2011

2012 Republican presidential hopeful and Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann's husband has collected Medicaid payments for several years for a Christian Counseling Clinic. Cenk Uygur an Ana Kasparian discuss.

The Largest Online News Show in the World.

Michele Bachmann Medicaid Payments

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HISTORY.COM Forum : How come Black Confederates never fought in any battles ? -- Or did they ?? -- Mammy Monuments in the South and Southern Mentality - Secrets and Desires of the Confederacy ! - The Civil War still rages !

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Hundreds of posts about Blacks or no Blacks in the Confederate Secessionist Army. - Many people are interested in showing White Southerners as compassionate friends of Blacks. Is this REVISIONISM ??

HISTORY.COM
How come Black Confederates never fought in any battles?
FORUM
Started in June 2010


How come Black Confederates never fought in any battles?



A few posts, taken from hundreds :

Zeeboe

How come Black Confederates never fought in any battles?

03/06/10 06:20:01

Neo-rebs of all colors like to brag that there were black men who wore gray during the Civil War, but they fail to ever mention that those black men never even officially fought in any battles.

What led Johnny Reb to allowing the black man to fight in his war was after he saw how hard black troops were fighting on the other side. So he thought, why could some of them they still had in chains not do it for them? He knew that some black people were willing to go through great risks all to earn their freedom, and would do anything to get it, even fighting for the same government that wanted to keep black people slaves. But by the time they came to this conclusion, the rebs were already beat.

No more then a few dozen blacks were ever enlisted under the banner of Johnny Reb. Sixty from Richmond's Jackson hospital came under fire at Petersburg on March 11, 1865 as members of the Jackson Battalion, composed of three companies of white convalescents and two companies of black hospital workers. That was two days before the Rebel Congress authorized black enlistments.

On very rare occasions throughout the war, blacks such as those at Jackson Hospital had been pressed into combat service, often with guns at their backs and their loved ones held hostage in slavery.

No black units ever saw combat as Congressionally authorized rebel soldiers. No regiments of Confederate States Colored troops were ever formed.

Over two hundred thousand blacks had joined the Union by March of 1865. Hundreds of thousands were already free. Those still in slavery knew the rebels were whipped, and that they'd be free soon. The black people needed no favors from a near-by dead Confederacy to secure that freedom.

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libbyyell

03/06/10 11:56:56

A regiment of SC free blacks did try to join the CSA at the beginning of the war, but were turned down. The list of names is at the Confederate Museum in Richmond. Prroh is quite knowledgeable about this.

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Tom Black Confederates -- A Well Kept Secret

03/07/10 16:56:10

Longstreet519 wrote:

As usual with subjects that people take up more for the reason of heated political beliefs than the love of history, I think this post is more about semantics than finding the truth of what happened.

The proponents of the "theory" that there were thousands of voluntary black confederates argue this for one reason -- an attempt to obfuscate the significance of slavery as the primary causative factor in secession and the war. To me, a factual discussion of the actual role of African Americans in the CSA is certainly worth undertaking -- however this is only going to come from actual historians rather than Lost Cause "heritage" groups. There are reasons why free blacks joined local militias and these could be discussed on these boards -- these reasons have nothing to do with black opposition to protective tariffs.

In the North there was a vigorous debate over the use of black soldiers that resulted in the open use of such troops. There were public black leaders who were able to participate and shape, to some extent, those debates. These debates, as well as enrollment records, left a clear trail of what decisions were reached and when they were implemented.

In the South there was also a debate, but it was whites debating whites about what they thought their slaves wanted or were best suited for. There were no black voice in the debate. What should be clear to anybody with any common sense is that even in 1865 with the CSA gasping its last breaths the subject was still controversial. Nobody in favor of arming Southern blacks ever made what would seem to have been the perfect argument -- namely that they already had thousands of blacks fighting for the CSA. Not even Lee himself was aware of the alleged 3,000 black Confederate troops that supposedly marched through Fredrick, Maryland as part of his army.

Even Davis and Stephens, two rebels clearly "in the know", when they rewrote history to downplay the role of slavery, never thought to bring to light all these thousands of SECRET CONFEDERATES that would have made their case.

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Bellaray

03/07/10 19:51:39

Good job Diane.....

Now its time to dig a little deeper...some of those blacks could read and write....some of those blacks were surrendering with Union weaponry (could you imagine a proud black man with a Spencer, what an insult...no way!!!)

Why are all of today's sources from books that have been printed in the past 10 to 15 years....revisionist history at its finest.

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jpeter #16 [url] [-]

avatar

Posts: 1542

03/08/10 07:02:18

Ghost wrote:Tom-

"The proponents of the "theory" that there were thousands of voluntary black confederates argue this for one reason -- an attempt to obfuscate the significance of slavery as the primary causative factor in secession and the war."

And this is what scares the opponents. If there were thousands of voluntary black Confederates (which is true) that people will begin to question (and rightfully so) the view that the war was about slavery.

The war was about slavery.

The Constitution fought over slavery in 1787. John Calhoun said himself that the South would go to war if slavery was abolished ...and that was 1820! Every important headline even of the 1850's was about slavery. People wrote best-selling books on slavery, important Supreme Court decisions were about slavery, people dying in Kansas was about slavery, John Brown was about slavery, political interventions in Cuba and Nicaragua were about slavery, and Lincoln's highly publicized debates were about slavery.

As president, the only reason Lincoln felt compelled to say it was about preserving the union instead of slavery was to pacify the border states... whom he could not afford to offend in 1860 and 1861.

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Hundreds of posts here that I do not copy.

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diane wrote: Bellaray,

I agree statistics can vary wildly but I would consider which of those numbers for Lee's forces at Appomattox are from reliable, scholarly sources with good reputations for accuracy. Bruce Catton, for instance, estimates the effective force Lee surrendered at about 23,000.

I'd appreciate seeing your source on the Union officer's estimate of the blacks surrendered with Forrest. Wilson, for instance, never commented on them, nor were they ever on any roster of Forrest's or Taylor's. They were not mentioned as being at Gainesville. Now there are a couple of accounts of battles in which Union opponents were surprised to see black men with Forrest's troops but no indication they considered them in any way to be soldiers.

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offlineEarthTone

03/09/10 05:19:14

diane wrote:It's back to the fear of equality syndrome. Howell Cobb, one of the fire-eaters, opposed black military enlistment saying, "If slaves will make good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong." That theory of slavery was racial inferiority - hence Cobb's observation. After many, many years of defending this institution (and the basis upon which it was founded) they had too much invested in it to risk having it proved wrong. And it was proved to be wrong when slaves made good Union soldiers.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not so doctrinaire on the subject of black Confederate combatants/soldiers, as to think there might not have been at least some of them.

The numbers I hear most are that there were hundreds of them, to perhaps several thousand.

Let's say the CSA had 3,500 black combatants. There were perhaps 3.5 million slaves and free blacks in the CSA states in 1860... so if there were 3,500 black combatants, that would mean 0.1% of the black population were fighters... that's within the "anything's possible" range.

Having said that, it's clear that a combination of military prohibitions; prevailing racism and other social issues; and the reluctance of slave owners to lose property to war; made the occurrence of black combatants an exceptional event. I put black Confederate fighters in the same category as Sherman's 30 acres and a mule order and the Corwin Amendment: illuminating non-events.

I find it interesting that in the CSA Congress's discussions of the Negro Soldier Law, as well as discussions by military people like Cleburne and Lee, the existence of black Confederate combatants - such as in state militia - is never mentioned. Meanwhile, the presence of colored troops in the Union forces was mentioned often. It's clear that blacks-in-gray soldiers weren't on the radar for CSA political and military folks... most likely because, there were none to appear on the radar.

****

Diane, you raised an interesting point earlier. You mentioned that Forrest had offered freedom to the slaves who served for him.

And both Cleburne and Lee said that slave enlistment had to be tied to their manumission, in order to be effective.

I wonder how many black combatants, if there were any, were offered their freedom in return for fighting for the CSA? There were so few of these combatants in the first place; and many slaves were not literate enough to leave a record of their experience; that these types of records may be impossible to come by. But it would make for an interesting investigation.

****************

diane

Earth Tone,

That would indeed be an interesting study. There were small numbers of slaves and free blacks who fought for the Confederacy. There is, for example, a monument to loyal slaves and Catawbas at Ft. Mill in Columbia, SC - it has a couple of my relations mentioned on it. These people fought for the Confederacy and to protect the plantations while the white men were gone. For some it was better the known devil than the unknown. And there were some free blacks who owned slaves and there were Indian planters - nothing was completely cut and clear. But I should think battalions of colored troops to be fantastic.

Both Lee and Cleburne knew slavery was going the way of the passenger pigeon and so recommended enlisting the slaves and making it pay for them to do so. Lee, because he had slaves who had lived generationally on Arlington, knew many slaves considered their plantations as much their homes as the masters did. If they would be free and able to remain near their birthplaces and families, it would be a strong incentive to fight for the South. Forrest, for his part, was protecting his investment and preventing his slaves from being used against him. He didn't include their families - wives and children - which insured (if the South won) that even though they were free most would return to his plantation. (Half of them did so, after the war.) And, of course, any able-bodied man who said, "Well, no thanks massa, I'll just stay here and look after the place for you" would be punching his ticket to a swamp in Louisiana. (After the war, nobody stuck up for them more than Forrest, who protected them and saw that they received the same care white vets received.)

**************************

Tom

03/09/10 09:49:39

diane wrote:Earth Tone,

That would indeed be an interesting study. There were small numbers of slaves and free blacks who fought for the Confederacy. There is, for example, a monument to loyal slaves and Catawbas at Ft. Mill in Columbia, SC - it has a couple of my relations mentioned on it.

David Blight specifically mentions the Fort Mill monument in "Race and Reunion" (page 288). It was sponsored by a former CSA officer and "the richest man in the area." Blight writes:

"The idea of faithful slave and mammy monuments had only begun its career of inspiration in Lost Cause circles. Indeed, beginning as early as 1905, the UDC carried on a campaign for nearly two decades to erect mammy memorials in every state, and lobbied Congress for a national mammy memorial in Washington D.C. Support for mammy monuments was widespread within the UDC; many elite white women believed that they 'must remember the best friend of their childhood...'"

These monuments, IMO and Blight's, probably are most important for what they say about the beliefs of whites in the South at the turn of the century.

*******************

Anti-Latino anti-Obama State Laws : some day most Americans will dislike all these foolish State Laws, soon to be overturned by the Supreme Court or by a Presidential Election that reelects President Obama and changes the Court

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Arizona, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, etc .... and the anti-Latino agitation. It is in the most backward and poorest states that these Race Laws are approved. As if the American Civil War was never fought and lost for these Confederates.

All these anti-Latino and anti-Obama State Laws have a clear electoral purpose or are the fulfillment of Foolish Republican Electoral Promises of 2010.

They are not going to go far with this stirring of Law Passions, and this is not going to be very productive for Republicans in a year of Presidential Election. Electing a President is very different from electing a House of Representatives.

Latinos are strategically located to move "Swing States", also called "Toss Up States" or "Contended States" such as Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, etc ...

It is quite probable that stirring racism operates the magic of pushing Latinos to Voter Registration in those critical states. Do not forget that Texas, Arizona and Georgia have a good mass of Unregistered Latinos.

For the USA the unregistered but eligible Latinos may be close to 8 million, 2 of them in Texas.

For the Tea Party these racist laws are a "Sexual Pleasure", but we will see if Racism is productive in a Presidential Election.

A Tea Party candidate that becomes Republican nominee would be impossible to elect as President .... And in case that the nation elects Mitt Romney as President, I am sure that he would do exactly what the Tea Party hates ... He would be extremist and right wing only to pander to the Republican Base of Evangelicals, Extremists and Racists during the Republican Primaries.

But I am pretty sure that President Obama has the Goddess Fortune ( and Felix the Cat ) on his side.

...

Vicente Duque

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Death and Taxes Mag : Supreme Court said it’s not in the business of leveling the playing field so that average Americans can counteract corporate money. Indeed, their business is to ensure corporations always have the upper hand.

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This is good for the Republican Party and their Wealthy Sponsors :

Conservative Judicial Activism in the 5-4 Supreme Court overruled the Ninth Circuit and struck down Arizona’s Citizens Clean Elections Act. Dissent by Elena Kagan. The Two Obama Appointees are becoming stars of defending Freedom and Democracy.

"The ruling in the Supreme Court’s Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club Pac et al., v. Bennett, Secretary of State of Arizona, et al." - "The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Act had tried to clean up elections from corporate and union influence by offering public matching funds to those who accept campaign finance restrictions, but now its work has been dismantled by the conservative Supreme Court."

Death and Taxes Magazine
Supreme Court Favors Corporations in Campaign Finance Reform Ruling, Again
By DJ Pangburn
Monday, June 27, 2011


Supreme Court Favors Corporations in Campaign Finance Reform Ruling, Again


Some excerpts :

Corporations are people and campaign finance reform laws violate their 1st and 14th amendment rights. They are thus afforded the same free speech and equal protection rights that you and I enjoy. But, this was only an issue once the corporate campaign contributions were threatened. It was a legal argument, and a damned effective one, particularly with the Roberts Court.

And with the Roberts Court’s most recent decision regarding Campaign Finance Reform, corporations are also afforded the added luxury of being able to outspend average Americans and thus disseminate their self-interested political aims nearly without limit. Their political donations and soft money advertisements, because of the enormous funds at their disposal, can more effectively distort the truth and influence average Americans.

To be fair, corporations are comprised of individuals—of Americans (mostly). There is, however, a major difference between a corporate “person” and a singular, biological person: the latter dies, while the former sheds its constituent stockholders and executives like an evolving organism. And when the latter dies, the vote dies with them. The former is thus infinitely more powerful than the single individual—an immortal entity with infinitely more money, lawyers and accountants at its disposal.

And even if that single individual bands together with other single individuals to form an issue advocacy group to counter the corporation or joins a union, the corporation will almost always have more financial resources available to them in influencing elected officials and public opinion.

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New York Times : "Illegal immigration could provide the fastest way to shore up the long-term finances of Social Security"..."the money paid by "illegals" added up to about 10 percent of last year's surplus" ... and they can't use the benefits

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"Dead Souls", not in Russia but in America :

The US social security system is being heavily subsidized by unauthorized labor. And the Government officials know that the IDs are perfectly Fake. But who cares ??? ... that money is helping to save Social Security, those fake ID's won't collect benefits.

In the 19th-century novel "Dead Souls", by famed Russian author Nikolai Gogol, an enterprising swindler by the name of Chichikov, came up with a scheme to buy serfs who had died.

The Fictitious Social Security numbers in America, the "earnings suspense file", has been mushrooming : $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990's.

This was published in year 2005 but continues being true :

The New York Times
Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions
By EDUARDO PORTER
April 5, 2005


Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions


Some excerpts :

As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.

While it has been evident for years that illegal immigrants pay a variety of taxes, the extent of their contributions to Social Security is striking: the money added up to about 10 percent of last year's surplus - the difference between what the system currently receives in payroll taxes and what it doles out in pension benefits. Moreover, the money paid by illegal workers and their employers is factored into all the Social Security Administration's projections.

Illegal immigration, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, co-director of immigration studies at New York University, noted sardonically, could provide "the fastest way to shore up the long-term finances of Social Security."

It is impossible to know exactly how many illegal immigrant workers pay taxes. But according to specialists, most of them do. Since 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act set penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, most such workers have been forced to buy fake ID's to get a job.

Currently available for about $150 on street corners in just about any immigrant neighborhood in California, a typical fake ID package includes a green card and a Social Security card. It provides cover for employers, who, if asked, can plausibly assert that they believe all their workers are legal. It also means that workers must be paid by the book - with payroll tax deductions.

IRCA, as the immigration act is known, did little to deter employers from hiring illegal immigrants or to discourage them from working. But for Social Security's finances, it was a great piece of legislation.

Starting in the late 1980's, the Social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect - sometimes simply fictitious - Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the "earnings suspense file" in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.

The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990's, two and a half times the amount of the 1980's.

..............

In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.

In 2002 alone, the last year with figures released by the Social Security Administration, nine million W-2's with incorrect Social Security numbers landed in the suspense file, accounting for $56 billion in earnings, or about 1.5 percent of total reported wages.

Social Security officials do not know what fraction of the suspense file corresponds to the earnings of illegal immigrants. But they suspect that the portion is significant.

"Our assumption is that about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes," said Stephen C. Goss, Social Security's chief actuary, using the agency's term for illegal immigration.

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Mexicans shot a deadly hail of bullets to the Indian, but he repeatedly attacked Mexican soldiers with a knife, causing them to utter appeals to Saint Jerome ("Jeronimo!"). Americans heard this and thought his name was Geronimo, Operation "Geronimo" Osama Bin Laden

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U. S. 4th Cavalry sent into Mexico to pursue Geronimo 1886. Father of George H. Bush stole the skull of Geronimo - Bad behavior Bush Family

Wikipedia : History of Geronimo Apache Indian and Operation "Geronimo" to kill Osama Bin Laden


Some excerpts :

In 1886, General Nelson A. Miles selected Captain Henry Lawton, in command of B Troop, 4th Cavalry, at Ft. Huachuca and First Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood to lead the expedition that captured Geronimo. Numerous stories abound as to who actually captured Geronimo, or to whom he surrendered, although most contemporary accounts, and Geronimo's own later statements, give most of the credit for negotiating the surrender to Lt. Gatewood. For Lawton's part, he was given orders to head up actions south of the U.S.–Mexico boundary where it was thought Geronimo and a small band of his followers would take refuge from U.S. authorities. Lawton was to pursue, subdue, and return Geronimo to the U.S., dead or alive.

..................

Six members of the Yale secret society of Skull and Bones, including Prescott Bush, served as Army volunteers at Fort Sill during World War I. It has been claimed by various parties that they stole Geronimo's skull, some bones, and other items, including Geronimo's prized silver bridle, from the Apache Indian Prisoner of War Cemetery at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Alexandra Robbins, author of a book on Skull and Bones, says this is one of the more plausible items said to be in the organization's Tomb.

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....................

Code Name "Geronimo"

The U.S. military used the code name "Geronimo" for the operation to execute Osama bin Laden during the raid that killed the al-Qaida leader in 2011; but its use upset some Native Americans.[32] "Operation Geronimo" was subsequently reported to be named or renamed "Operation Neptune['s] Spear".[33][34]

“ Whether it was intended only to name the military operation to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden or to give Osama Bin Laden himself the code name Geronimo, either was an outrageous insult and mistake. And it is clear from the military records released that the name Geronimo was used at times by military personnel involved for both the military operation and for Osama Bin Laden himself.

Obviously to equate Geronimo with Osama Bin Laden is an unpardonable slander of Native America and its most famous leader in history.

And to call the operation to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden by the name Geronimo is such a subversion of history that it also defames a great human spirit and Native American leader. For Geronimo himself was the focus of precisely such an operation by the U.S. military, an operation that assured Geronimo a lasting place in American and human history.

........

We should respect and love everybody, even if they are different .... I am glad for the gays that can marry in New York. "Vivan los Gays y Dejenlos Vivir" - Long Life to Gays and let them live ( their lives )

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I am a happily married man ( with a woman ) and with no intentions of marrying another man ( I would have to get a boyfriend first ) but I have to congratulate a very close gay friend of many decades for the advancement of their cause. I am glad for all the gays, lesbians, etc .... of the World.

See, we are all different and this gives a lot of salt, pepper and spices to life !!

Sauces were invented because, chicken, beef, ham are very boring, specially if you eat them very often.

Our differences make all of us richer, including our different racial and physionomic characteristics, skin color,  ethnicity and cultural ancestors, mother languages, etc ....

Recently I published an article about the importance of Empathy and Sympathy for others - And that we should picture ourselves as being slaves in a Southern Plantation, Blacks in Apartheid South Africa, Blacks during Segregation and Jim Crow, Sick People with Cancer or an incapacitating disease. And most importantly today as "Illegal Aliens" or "Undocumented Immigrants" ...

I heard that P. T. Barnes ( of Circus Fame in 18xx ) used to say : "It is better to be a Circus Freak than a nobody" ...

And it is better to be alive and be respected, even if you are very different from others ....

We should picture ourselves as the underdog and wear their shoes !



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Our brains are very different :
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I know many people with DIFFERENT BRAINS ... Some can speak several languages comfortably and fluently and would testify in those languages before any Court. Some others never learn a foreign language even if living for decades in their midst.

I know people that can not draw with a pencil, people that can not play the piano or the violin ( myself ) or play tennis or ping pong.

I know people that hate driving a car.

Let's respect others and their preferences and tastes.


Vicente Duque
............

VIDEO, very unpolite Texas Senator Chris Harris is rude to a man that is giving testimony in Spanish ... The man was explaining the beautiful things of America, when interrupted very harshly

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Revealing Moments - Instants of truth : 

Snapshots from Reality and daily life :

An American Citizen that immigrated is treated with unnecessary harshness by an Old Texas Senator  ( with a face of contempt, scorn and haughtiness ) because of the Testimony given in Spanish. If the legislature accepts testimonies in Spanish then why the unnecessary harshness and rudeness.

Uploaded by KTRHnews on Jun 17, 2011

KTRH -- During committee testimony this week in Austin, a Texas senator interrupted a Spanish speaker and telling him he should "be speaking in English" during a committee hearing.

Antolin Aguirre of the Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition was testifying against Senate Bill 9 that would help crack down on illegal immigrants in Texas. Aguirre spoke through an interpreter even though he had been in the U.S. since 1988.

Two minutes into Antolin Aguirre's testimony, Sen. Chris Harris, a Republican from Arlington, interrupted asking Aguirre's interrupter, "Did I understand him correctly that he has been here since 1988?" Harris asked. "Why aren't you speaking in English then?"

KTRH -- Texas Senator Insulted Testimony in Spanish

We are now in year 2016, and a very strong president Barack Obama is finishing his second term - Presidential Race of Year 2016 : Andrew Cuomo versus Jeb Bush - Telling everything about the future without omitting any details

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September 20, 2016, Washington DC : 


The Two Parties have nominated their candidates for the Presidency of the United States. Thanks to the Gay Marriage of New York, many states are now Gay-Married and all Liberals around the Nation thank Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York for it. Andrew was the first national figure ever to embrace Gay-Marriage so enthusiastically. All liberals love Andrew and they dominated the Democratic Primaries of 2016, so Hillary Clinton and other candidates were smashed and crushed by the super popular Andrew Cuomo.

Mr Obama has been very successful in his second term, helping to draw down a beautiful number of 50% troops from the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iraq-Libya-Etc-Etc .... wars that are still raging very furiously.

Afghanistan is now a very super corrupted oligarchy of criminals, and all Women are oppressed and jailed at home ... .... and it is expected that the USA will have bases there forever and a little more.

The Republican Party suffered a great defeat in 2012 after his candidate Mitt Romney suffered horrible attacks from the Tea Party Candidates during the Primaries. Jeb Bush was the best moderate after Republicans became fed up with the Tea Party. Sarah Palin is now a Tourist Guide to Alaska.

Mr Obama has saved the nation from another depression and the Economy is doing pretty good and very strongly after taxes for the Rich and Wealthy were reinstated. He is very much beloved nationally and internationally.

The only dark spot in the Obama Presidency is the Immigration Stalemate and Paralysis, after successfully closing the border with a 60 foot fence ( 20 meters ) or five stories high of barbed electrified wire with many razor thin blades.

Unfortunately some poor illiterate and destitute laborers dig deep tunnels or use 70 foot ladders to climb the fence. Some throw hooks with ropes, it seems that all Mexicans are great acrobats.

It seems that these poor Mexicans are pushed by the "Cartel Wars", they are financed by the inexhaustible money of the American Consumers, and the Assault Weapons that the U. S. Government authorizes to be sent to Mexico, where Arm Laws are very strict and its commerce is forbidden.


Latinos continue reproducing themselves as bunnies and Texas is now a blue state, Rick Perry has now asked forgiveness to all Latinos for his fight against them ... and is now an evangelical pastor preaching Jesus and gathering crowds of one million close to the Houston stadium. His prayers for rain are very successful and are considered the envy of all Native American Indian Shamans.

The Major League Baseball is now 60% Latino and has boycotted Arizona, that poor state ( the poorest in the nation ) continues being dominated by Governor Jan Brewer and Senate President Russell Pearce that continue stirring the "Brown Peril" that they explain as "The Job-Stealing, Disease-Carrying Criminal Terrorist Invasion From The South".
 

Vicente Duque

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Latino voters in U. S. Presidential Elections : 7.6 million in 2004, 9.7 million in 2008, 12.2 million voters in 2012 ( projected ), that is a jump of 2.5 million voters - This depends on Voter Registration, Canvassing and Hard Work of Persuasion

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From 2004 to 2008 the jump was 2.1 million voters, some statisticians now project a jump of 2.5 million latino voters for 2012. But this is speculative.

Fox News - Latino -
Record number of Latinos expected to vote in 2012 -
EFE Agency - 
June 24, 2011 -


Record number of Latinos expected to vote in 2012


Some excerpts :

Washington – Latinos will break participation records in next year's presidential election, according to a study released Thursday by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund.

The report, presented during NALEO's annual conference, held this year in San Antonio, is a projection crafted using participation data from the last four presidential elections.

About 9.7 million Hispanics cast ballots in the November 2008 election that brought Barack Obama to the White House, compared with 7.6 million who did so in 2004, the study notes.

That participation is increasing and according to the report's projections this will be reflected in the 2012 election, when the Latino vote is anticipated to increase by 26 percent to 12.2 million voters, or 8.7 percent of the country's total.

................

The forecasts are that California, Florida and Illinois will be the states that will register the greatest increases in Hispanic turnout compared to 2008, above 30 percent, while in California, New Mexico and Texas at least one in every five voters will be Latino.

.................................

In 2008, 19.5 million Latinos were eligible to vote, but only half that number did so, either because they didn't register or because they didn't go to the polls.

..................

Between 2004 and 2008, turnout among Latinos in the 18-24 age group who were eligible to vote increased from 33 percent to 39 percent.

NALEO said that 54 percent of naturalized Latinos voted in 2008, compared with 48 percent of U.S.-born Hispanics.

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U. S. Supreme Court in its 1982 case, Plyler v. Doe reminded us why it's important not to foreclose public education to undocumented students : "Many of the undocumented children disabled by this classification will remain in this country indefinitely, and . . . some will become lawful residents or citizens of the United States"

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U. S. Supreme Court continues ( 1982 case, Plyler v. Doe ) :

"It is difficult to understand precisely what the State hopes to achieve by promoting the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare, and crime. It is thus clear that whatever savings might be achieved by denying these children an education, they are wholly insubstantial in light of the costs involved to these children, the State, and the Nation."

A+ Child Deportation : his teachers and school officials, filled with regret for the role they unintentionally played in this tragedy, are lobbying ICE officials and political leaders to halt Ernesto's deportation. They describe him as a "wonderful student," a "critical thinker and debater," who is "deeply insightful and compassionate."

Read the Whole Story here :


Huffington Post
Remarkable or Not, All Dreamers Deserve a Chance
By Bill Ong Hing
Professor of Law, University of San Francisco
June 24, 2011


Remarkable or Not, All Dreamers Deserve a Chance

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Some people suffer from being different in any way : crippled, in wheel chairs, being gay, transsexual, illegal alien, undocumented immigrant, the lower race in Apartheid or Segregation, being super ugly, being genetically mongoloid, mentally retarded or crazy, etc .....

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Can you imagine having a super horrible sickness, living in illness, being a super ugly monster, living in delusion and fantasy ??

They deserve some admiration for living their lives, sometimes very productive and creative lives .... We should feel sympathy and empathy for them. Not only pity, compassion and commiseration, but true EMPATHY.

Can you imagine yourself being extremely poor and in dire needs ? Can you imagine yourself being a slave in a Plantation in Georgia or Alabama ??. Or being a laborerer picking fruit and produce at temperatures above 100 fahrenheit, which is 38 centigrades. ( Working from 5 AM to 9 PM ) ?? ... and being persecuted by the Police at the same time ??

We should even feel some Empathy or at least some compassion for those people of the Extreme Right that are dedicated to diminish other human beings because of their birth, the circumstances of their birth, or their genetic make up of being of another race or ethnics.

And we should feel some Empathy for all the millions of fools that follow those "pundits" and politicians of the extreme right !

And that is why my blog RACIALITY.COM exists, to bring to all a message of EMPATHY, something that is considered degenerate, pernicious, malicious, deleterious, etc by the extreme right and their politicians, and by the great pundits and Right wing extremists : the anchor People in TV and Shock Jock Radio, the propagandists of Hate and Fear.

Vicente Duque

SALON.COM : Last Friday, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a memo saying that field agents and office directors should focus on only deporting dangerous illegal immigrants, instead of just any illegal immigrants they find

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SALON.COM
The right's real problem with immigrants
By Alex Pareene
Thursday, Jun 23, 2011


The right's real problem with immigrants


Some excerpts :

The conservative press, obviously, dubbed this a "stealth DREAM Act" and an act of "loosening the border rules for 2012." (The DREAM Act was the bill that would've allowed some minuscule number of basically perfect Americans unlucky enough to have been born elsewhere the opportunity to eventually become citizens. It failed. Repeatedly.)

That's obviously, patently absurd: The White House is still deporting more people than any previous administration and this memo only calls for some discretion in deciding whom to deport, because the nation literally cannot deport them all. ("Also on Friday, Mr. Obama extended the deployment of some 1,200 National Guard troops who are backing up immigration agents along the Southwest border." Why won't the president protect us from the Mexicans?)

But the question of whether we should allow immigration agents more discretion in deciding whether to defer or cancel deportations is not really what everyone is mad about, on the right. They're just mad at the thought that some immigrants might not get in trouble.

It's an urgent need to punish the "illegals" that animates so much anti-immigration rhetoric. It's probably related to the old conservative fear that, in Ta-Nehisi Coates' memorable formulation, somewhere, somehow, a black person is getting away with something. But the higher-brow arguments (as opposed to Lou Dobbs' rantings) aren't even particularly informed by anti-Latino sentiment: It's just people of privilege judging others for "not playing by the rules." It's a lot easier to play by the rules when you're born a winner!

........................

As long as our immigration system remains so badly broken, just about anything an otherwise responsible undocumented American does to stay in this country seems justified to me. "Playing by the rules" is a literal impossibility for millions. The fact that an "illegal's" mere presence in her own home is a violation of the law makes it an unjust law.

....

12 states and District of Columbia now have white populations below 50% among children under age 5 : Hawaii, California, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Maryland, Georgia, New Jersey, New York and Mississippi. Seven more states could flip to "minority-majority" status among small children in the next decade

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Fox News
America's Future
Census shows whites lose US majority among babies
Associated Press
June 23, 2011



Census shows whites lose US majority among babies

Some excerpts :

WASHINGTON –  For the first time, minorities make up a majority of babies in the U.S., part of a sweeping race change and growing age divide between mostly white, older Americans and predominantly minority youths that could reshape government policies.

................

Currently, non-Hispanic whites make up just under half of all children 3 years old, which is the youngest age group shown in the Census Bureau's October 2009 annual survey, its most recent. In 1990, more than 60 percent of children in that age group were white.

...................

Twelve states and the District of Columbia now have white populations below 50 percent among children under age 5 — Hawaii, California, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Maryland, Georgia, New Jersey, New York and Mississippi. That's up from six states and the District of Columbia in 2000.

At current growth rates, seven more states could flip to "minority-majority" status among small children in the next decade: Illinois, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, South Carolina and Delaware.

By contrast, whites make up the vast majority of older Americans — 80 percent of seniors 65 and older and roughly 73 percent of people ages 45-64. Many states with high percentages of white seniors also have particularly large shares of minority children, including Arizona, Nevada, California, Texas and Florida.

............

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Washington Post : Conservative George F. Will : "John McCain’s never-ending war" - A very respected Republican says that it is a good thing that Americans are war weary and warns against unnecessary eternal wars

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George F. Will has been publishing several articles criticizing and expressing many doubts about the sanity of the three ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya. At this stage of the conflicts George F. Will considers them irrational and counter productive.

Washington Post
By George F. Will
John McCain’s never-ending war
June 22, 2011

John McCain’s never-ending war


Some excerpts :

Is Jim Webb an isolationist? Virginia’s Democratic senator, who was Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the Navy, discusses Libya with a trenchancy that befits a decorated Marine combat veteran (Vietnam) and that should shame reticent Republicans:

“Was our country under attack, or under the threat of imminent attack? Was a clearly vital national interest at stake? Were we invoking the inherent right of self-defense as outlined in the United Nations charter? Were we called upon by treaty commitments to come to the aid of an ally? Were we responding in kind to an attack on our forces elsewhere, as we did in the 1986 raids in Libya after American soldiers had been killed in a disco in Berlin? Were we rescuing Americans in distress, as we did in Grenada in 1983? No, we were not.”

.......................

Although Barack Obama’s shifting reasons for the Libyan war are as risible as his denial that it is a war, some conservatives seem to regard it as “a splendid little war.” That was Ambassador John Hay’s description (in a letter to Theodore Roosevelt) of the Spanish-American War. McCain has frequently expressed admiration for TR, the only president who was an unvarnished imperialist (see Evan Thomas’s book “The War Lovers”). McCain’s bellicosity is, however, at least less obnoxious than TR’s, which represented a toxic strain of early 20th-century progressivism — a cocktail of racialism and political Darwinism.

Regarding Libya, McCain on Sunday said, “I wonder what Ronald Reagan would be saying today.” Wondering is speculation; we know this:

When a terrorist attack that killed 241 Marines and other troops taught Reagan the folly of deploying them at Beirut airport with a vague mission and dangerous rules of engagement, he was strong enough to reverse this intervention in a civil war. Would that he had heeded a freshman congressman from Arizona who opposed the House resolution endorsing the intervention. But, then, the McCain of 1983 was, by the standards of the McCain of 2011, an isolationist.

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America is essential, indispensable, unavoidable and necessary for others. Very necessary because of its riches and power, material and spiritual. It can do a lot of Evil and Bad things as in useless wars, but it can also do Good and save many countries

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International Economy and Inflation :

America can be useful and necessary to Europe, Latin America, Africa, the Pacific Ocean Nations and many others.

So the economic quandaries and predicaments of America are also a sickness for many others. Those that are not Americans and feel SchadenFreude because of the American Pains are preparing their own troubles and sufferings.

"When you see that someone is cutting your neighbor's beard, start wetting yours" this is a famous proverb of the time when Peter the Great shaved forcefully the beards of the Boyards ( the Nobility ).

It is true that some "Emerging Markets" like Brazil, Russia, India and China are doing beautifully in Economics and that is why they are called the BRIC. They also have a lot of inflation, that I suspect may be of some use, even if dangerous.

Another Inflationary Emergers may be Turkey ( horrible inflation in Turkey, almost always above 6% in last years ) and some Latin American Nations like Chile, Peru, Colombia and even Mexico at war with narco criminals.

But all those countries are too little and too late, but the time that the BRIC and the second tier of "emergers" save the World we will be "resting in peace" in a cemetery.

I really do not know what to do about the World Economy. I just wanted to call attention to the phenomenon of the Emerging Markets and the widespread phenomenon of Inflation.

Vicente Duque
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VIDEO : Jose Antonio Vargas, staff writer at The Washington Post, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former senior contributing editor for The Huffington Post, has revealed that he is an undocumented immigrant

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How many "Successful Americans" are "Undocumented Immigrants" or "Illegal Aliens" in racist parlance ??

La Migra, La Migra !!



Huffington Post
Jose Antonio Vargas: I Am An Undocumented Immigrant (VIDEO)
By Jack Mirkinson
June 22, 2011

Jose Antonio Vargas: I Am An Undocumented Immigrant (VIDEO)


Some excerpts :

In an article in the New York Times Magazine and an interview with ABC News, Vargas says that his mother sent him to the U.S. from the Phillippines when he was twelve, telling him that she would soon join him. But she never did, and Vargas only realized that he was an undocumented immigrant when someone at his local DMV told him his green card was fake.

He writes:

Over the past 14 years, I’ve graduated from high school and college and built a career as a journalist, interviewing some of the most famous people in the country. On the surface, I’ve created a good life. I’ve lived the American dream.

But I am still an undocumented immigrant. And that means living a different kind of reality. It means going about my day in fear of being found out. It means rarely trusting people, even those closest to me, with who I really am. It means keeping my family photos in a shoebox rather than displaying them on shelves in my home, so friends don’t ask about them. It means reluctantly, even painfully, doing things I know are wrong and unlawful. And it has meant relying on a sort of 21st-century underground railroad of supporters, people who took an interest in my future and took risks for me.

Vargas used a fake driver's license when he first became a staff writer at The Washington Post. That license protected him for years; he even used it to get into the White House. Vargas also used fake documents during his employment with The Huffington Post.

Vargas told ABC's Dan Harris that he is making the risky decision to admit his undocumented status as a way to fight for immigrant rights, as well as the passage of the DREAM Act, which would help undocumented children gain citizenship if they join the military or attend college.

"We all have a responsibility," he said. "...You can call me whatever you want to call me, but I am an American."

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Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini cited recent NATO air strikes around Tripoli in Libya killing large numbers of civilians and called for an immediate end to the war and a creation of corridors to allow humanitarian aid into Libya

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Many of the attacks are being launched from Italian soil. -

AntiWar.com -
Italy Demands Immediate End to Libyan War -
French Officials Slam Italy Over 'Sign of Weakness,' Insist on Further Escalation -
by Jason Ditz -
June 22, 2011 -


Italy Demands Immediate End to Libyan War


Some excerpts :

The war in Libya has been extremely controversial for a number of NATO member nations, and US officials have taken to task a number of nations, including Germany and Poland, which outright refused to participate. But the opposition appears to be growing.

Now it is a key participant in hostilities, Italy, which is withdrawing from the war. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini cited recent NATO air strikes around Tripoli killing large numbers of civilians and called for an immediate end to the war and a creation of corridors to allow humanitarian aid into the nation.

Which sparked angry condemnation from a number of officials, who are really sold on the three month old war’s continuation. NATO’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, though not addressing Italy specifically, vowed the war would continue.

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USA and Latin America, History : "anyone with one drop of African blood is deemed Black", "anyone with one drop of European blood is deemed White", "Buy a certificate of Whiteness from the Spanish Authorities" even if you are Black

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It is impossible at first sight to know who is Latino and who is Black in Baseball. And the players are confused.

History of Western Hemisphere : "Money makes you White", "Poverty makes you Black" .... African Scholars go to Cuba and Brazil to study African Languages, Customs and Cultures that disappeared in Africa.

"However, despite all of that, a high degree of racial consciousness, such as exists in the U.S. and the other former British colonies, never developed in Latin America. Even today in the U.S., where Hispanic and Latino Heritage Month is annually observed, rarely if ever is there an acknowledgement of Africa and African contributions to Latino culture".

San Francisco Bay View
National Black Newspaper
Race and immigration
June 20, 2011

by Jean Damu

Jean Damu is the former western regional representative for N’COBRA, National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, and a former member of the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, who taught Black Studies at the University of New Mexico, has traveled and written extensively in Cuba and Africa and currently serves as a member of the Steering Committee of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration.

Race and immigration


Some excerpts :

In 1817 – a British traveler to Brazil, Henry Koster – recorded these observations:

“Marriages between white men and women of color are by no means rare [though often commented upon – ed.]. Indeed, the remark is only made if the person is a planter of any importance and the woman is decidedly of dark color, for even a considerable tinge will pass for white. If the white man belongs to the lower orders, the woman is not accounted as being unequal to him in rank, unless she is nearly black.”

In these cases, where a European property owner wanted to actually marry an Indian or African, they usually applied to the Spanish authorities in Spain to have a Certificate of Whiteness issued declaring their partner officially to be white.

This is as clear a description as one is likely to find of the Latin One Drop theory – namely that anyone with one drop of European blood is deemed white – the polar opposite of the American One Drop theory. But both variants, American and Latin, worked to keep Blacks at the bottom of the social and economic spectrums.

................

On the other hand, what you don’t see in the U.S. that you see in most Latin countries are forms of African culture that are nearly as pure in form as when they arrived from Africa.

We should of course qualify here that in places like Brazil and Cuba, where African culture is so visible, it is believed that enslaved Africans were being introduced well into the late 19th century and possibly as late as the early 20th century.

It is well known for instance that in Cuba, hundreds of songs and poems are still recited in an orthodox form of Yoruba that hasn’t been spoken in Nigeria in more than a hundred and fifty years. In fact, researchers from Africa often travel to Cuba and Brazil to study early forms of their own cultures.

What you don’t see in the U.S. that you see in most Latin countries are forms of African culture that are nearly as pure in form as when they arrived from Africa.

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Washington Post : Split Court : The Supreme Court’s two former prosecutors Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor sit on opposite ends of the court’s long mahogany bench, and they take very different views of the criminal justice system

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The Competition between Liberals and the "Conservative Judicial Activism" of the Majority in the Supreme Court. It is clear that Alito and Sotomayor represent two extreme radical different views, they are the salt and pepper of the court. They are the fun of this spectacle and the two main actors of this soap opera.

Washington Post
Alito, Sotomayor give voice to court split
By Robert Barnes
June 19, 2011


Alito, Sotomayor give voice to court split


Some excerpts :

Justice Sonia Sotomayor underscored the need for another court creation, the Miranda rule, which requires police to tell those held in custody that they have the right to remain silent and to an attorney. The 5 to 4 decision in J.D.B. v. North Carolina said child suspects deserve special consideration.

“Even for an adult, the physical and psychological isolation of custodial interrogation can undermine the individual’s will to resist and . . . compel him to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely,” Sotomayor wrote.

“Indeed, the pressure of custodial interrogation is so immense that it can induce a frighteningly high percentage of people to confess to crimes they never committed.”

Sotomayor was an assistant district attorney in New York for five years, and as a former district federal judge she is the only one of the justices who has presided over a trial or sentenced someone to prison.

She has been critical of courts that cut short the appellate process for some of those challenging their convictions and has rapped her colleagues for not agreeing to accept petitions from death row inmates who allege that their attorneys did an inadequate job of representing them.

Her decision in the North Carolina case last week was her second swing at the Miranda rule. She wrote her first major dissent last term when the majority ruled that police may continue to question a suspect until he asserts his right to remain silent.

The decision “turns Miranda upside down,” Sotomayor wrote. “Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent — which, counterintuitively, requires them to speak.”

..................

Sotomayor’s experience in the New York DA’s office was probably more chaotic — and closer to the kind of prosecutions the court reviews. “She has a little more of an inkling that sometimes the system malfunctions,” he said.

Each can employ a blunt and skeptical tone. At oral arguments to review a judicial decision that California had to reduce its prison population by tens of thousands of inmates, Sotomayor asked the attorney for the state: “When are you going to avoid the needless deaths that were reported in this record? When are you going to avoid or get around people sitting in their feces for days in a dazed state?”

.........

The two also were in a direct debate in the North Carolina case; Alito wrote the dissent. He warned that injecting age as a factor that police and judges must consider complicates the calculus of when a person is in custody for Miranda purposes.

Sotomayor dismissed his concerns.

“Officers and judges need no imaginative powers, knowledge of developmental psychology, training in cognitive science, or expertise in social and cultural anthropology to account for a child’s age,” she wrote. “They simply need the common sense to know that a 7-year-old is not a 13-year-old and neither is an adult.”

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Newsweek : Paul Begala : "In the GOP’s historic 2010 landslide of distant memory, reducing the budget deficit was the top economic priority of their voters by a 20-point margin. Just eight months later, most Americans are in a very different place"

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If the Republicans continue with the cutting knife, cutting the budget and the Monies that the Federal Government needs to give appropriate service to Americans, for example Medicare, Health Services, Education, etc .... then they are doing a good effort for the Reelection of Obama and pushing the Democratic Party Agenda.

In Politics two years ( from 2010 to 2012 ) is an Eternity . - Republicans seem to ignore that for their own perdition.

Newsweek -
Republicans Box Themselves In -
The GOP is ignoring a critical message from its base—and that will be the party’s undoing. -
By Paul Begala -
June 19, 2011


Republicans Box Themselves In


Some excerpts :

A Fox News poll (unlikely to skew left), found voters preferring their leaders to focus on jobs and the economy over the deficit and government spending by more than 2 to 1—a 28-point margin.

.........

The GOP budget plan, sponsored by Rep. Paul Ryan, would, in the words of The Wall Street Journal, “essentially end Medicare.” Not just cut Medicare but essentially end it for future beneficiaries. And why not? Medicare is socialized health insurance for seniors, and we Americans hate socialism, right? In theory, sure. But in practice, umm, well, it’s more complicated. An overwhelming 70 percent of self-described Tea Party supporters oppose cutting Medicare and Medicaid.

................

Under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney (who famously quipped to then-Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill that “deficits don’t matter”), the Republicans took the largest surplus in American history and turned it into the largest deficit.

Ronald Reagan’s first-term budget director, David Stockman, admitted 30 years ago that supply-side economics was a Trojan horse for cutting the top tax rate for the rich. Well, the old empty horse is back. This time the GOP is using the deficit they created as justification to destroy the Medicare program they have always hated. Trouble is, while Republican politicians may hate Medicare, the American people love it.

And just what lurks inside the Trojan horse? More tax cuts for the rich. That’s right. The Republican budget plan doesn’t even reduce the deficit in the near term because it places a higher priority on cutting taxes, especially for the rich. Even after essentially ending Medicare, such cuts produce no deficit reduction—though they do reduce the top marginal income-tax rate on the rich to its lowest level in 80 years.

It’s a terrible box they’re in. As Newt Gingrich has recently proved, a GOP candidate cannot dare oppose the plan to essentially end Medicare if he or she hopes to garner the support of the revolutionary right that constitutes such a powerful force in Republican presidential primaries. But embracing that same plan could very well hand the 2012 election to Barack Obama and the Democrats. Nothing would please Team Obama more than to shift the focus away from America’s anemic job growth and onto a remake of Throw Momma From the Train.

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The National Organization for Women, United Food Commercial Workers (UFCW), and other unions not happy with the Supreme Court decision in favor of Wal-Mart, largest class-action lawsuit in history. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan are not anti-Women

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The three Women and Justice Stephen G. Breyer signed a partial dissent.

The Female Sex in the Supreme Court are extremely bright intellects, gloriously intelligent, They are the Liberals in the Court, add Justice Stephen G. Breyer and you have the Liberal Wing, those sympathetic with the Democratic Party and President Obama

The U. S. Supreme Court is sick with "Conservative Judicial Activism", but a second term for President Obama may cure part or all the sickness and malady.

The two Justices nominated by Obama : Sotomayor and Kagan represent Great Youth and Intellect in the Supreme Court.

Sonia Sotomayor "The Wise Latina" has turned out to be wiser and more combative than expected !...

....