BBC : According to United Nations : Peru and Colombia, Two countries that are close allies of the United States reduce poverty - But we should not interpret these as good news for American conservatives or liberals

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These are not good news for the Right or Left in the USA or Europe. ..... Because these Latin Nations use a mixture of Conservative and Liberal Ideas in their Economies. They are experimenting and are somewhat eclectic ( using all tools ) to see if they can progress.

Their rate of progress is moderate and they are surviving the World Economic Crisis, however these are not the "Asian Tigers" that grew at rates of 9% or 10%. Latin nations have more moderate growths.

The Recent "Conservative" triumph in Spain's Elections does not mean that Conservatism is the Wave of the Future and that Liberalism is foolish.

British Broadcasting Corporation BBC
United Nations economic body for Latin America
Latin America poverty level lowest in 20 years, says UN
November 30, 2011


Latin America poverty level lowest in 20 years, says UN


Some excerpts :

Poverty in Latin America is at its lowest level for 20 years, the UN's regional economic body, Eclac, says.

From 1990 to 2010, the rate fell from 48.4% to 31.4%, which means 177 million people currently live in poverty.

Eclac says the main reason for the reduction in poverty and inequality is the rise in household incomes.

But progress is hindered by the big gaps between productive and better paid sectors and work that is poorly paid and of low productivity, Eclac says.

"Poverty and inequality continue to decline in the region, which is good news, particularly in the midst of an international economic crisis," said Alicia Barcena, Eclac's executive secretary.

"However, this progress is threatened by the yawning gaps in the productive structure in the region and by the labour markets which generate employment in low-productivity sectors."

According to Eclac's report, Social Panorama of Latin America 2011, the rate of extreme poverty or indigence also fell from 22.6% to 12.3%.

The body forecasts that by the end of the year, 174 million people will be classed as living in poverty.

However, a rise in food price is set to see the indigence rate increase slightly to 12.8%.

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HuffPost : Mitt Romney Needs Early 2012 Knockout To Avoid Extended GOP Primary - Why it will be mathematically impossible for Romney -- or anyone -- to eliminate opponents early on. Extended Fight will harm Romney's chances for the Presidency

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Things look uphill for Mitt Romney :

Probably he won't pitch a shutout in the first four contests, so the competition inside the Republican Party will drag on.

Huffington Post
Mitt Romney Needs Early 2012 Knockout To Avoid Extended GOP Primary
By Jon Ward and Mark Blumenthal
November 27, 2011

Mitt Romney Needs Early 2012 Knockout To Avoid Extended GOP Primary

Some excerpts :

WASHINGTON -- The first two months of 2012 represent Mitt Romney's best chance to deliver a knockout blow in the Republican presidential primary.

If he cannot do so, he could be in for a drawn-out primary similar to the 2008 Democratic race.

The conventional wisdom has been that the primary will likely be decided on Jan. 31 in Florida, which goes fourth in the series of caucuses and primaries, and is the most expensive contest. Some think Romney could end things in Iowa on Jan. 3 if he wins those caucuses convincingly. Even if he places second or third there but goes on to win New Hampshire on Jan. 10, South Carolina on Jan. 21 and Florida, many think those victories could create the impression of inevitability.

But the 2012 primary calendar is heavily back-loaded, with major states such as California and New York going much later in the process than in 2008 and far fewer delegates up for grabs through Super Tuesday. In fact, the altered calendar will create the most spread-out contest since the 1970s. And more states than in the past will award delegates based on each candidates' portion of the vote, rather than all of a state's delegates going to the winner of the popular vote. All together, it will be mathematically impossible for Romney -- or anyone -- to eliminate opponents early on.

On the other hand, none of Romney's primary opponents appear capable of uniting the party's fractured conservative base and simultaneously convincing the rest of the GOP that they can win a general election match-up with Obama. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is currently surfing a wave of momentum, but he has a long record to attack, a troubled personal past and little organization compared to other campaigns, especially Romney's.

But given the strong anti-Romney sentiment still surging through portions of the Republican Party -- combined with the fact that the race for delegates between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton in 2008 educated the public and the press about the importance of electoral math over an impression of momentum -- it's questionable whether Romney can clear the field early on and cruise to victory.

If Romney doesn't blow his competition away in January, he will still likely do very well in the contests between Florida and Super Tuesday on March 6.

The February states are Maine, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Arizona and Michigan. In 2008, Romney won all but Arizona, which was John McCain's home state.

Yet, mathematically, it will be hard for Romney to argue after January and February that he is the putative nominee.

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

"It’s possible that Obama’s polling strength is slightly depressed right now. With the election a year out, he’s been largely judged in a vacuum against either an ideal version of himself or against a “generic” Republican in voters’ minds up to this point"

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No need to be obsessed with Dangers to Obama's Reelection : Swing States are not Dragons or Monsters, they also have Working Women, Educated Women, Youngsters, Educated People with College Educations, Gays, Lesbians, etc ...

Swing States do not vote, it is people, those that vote are human beings.

There is a lot of obsession and fear in Democratic Circles about the White Working Class that may refuse to vote for Obama, and that is OK and a strategy is needed to counter that problem, but think of the strength that Obama may have with Women in General ( Women's Abortion Rights ) and with Gays, Lesbians, etc .... not to mention Minorities where he will excel !

Talking Points Memo
The Road To 270: Team Obama Maps Out Their Victory Plan
By Benjy Sarlin
November 25, 2011


The Road To 270: Team Obama Maps Out Their Victory Plan


Some excerpts :

But the demographic trends that buoyed Obama in 2008 — namely, a growing base of Hispanic voters, and an influx of educated professionals into the South — have only gotten stronger. At the liberal Center for American Progress, Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin recently put out a detailed study analyzing Obama’s strengths among the three most distinct major voting groups: minorities, college-educated whites, and whites with lower levels of education. Obama’s strength in the last presidential election was his ability to rack up huge margins and turnout with the first group, split the vote with the second, and keep the third from becoming a total wipeout. And because the share of the electorate in 2012 is likely to include more minority voters and more college educated voters, he has more leeway to underperform with white voters and still win re-election.

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But as Romney looks more and more like a general election nominee, voters seem to be warming to Obama a bit. His approval ratings are slowly ticking back up from their summer lows and there are signs his more populist message is gaining traction. A recent poll of swing states by Purple Strategies showed Obama improving his position into a tie with Romney, even as he still faces dangerously low approval ratings.

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VIDEO, Rick Horowitz, comedian, the great master of sarcasm laughs at Rick Perry's brain freeze and at the emptiness of Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain - Very fine humor, high quality sarcasm - Enjoy !

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What Was That Third Thing Again?



Uploaded by yesrick on Nov 12, 2011


Rick Perry has a brain freeze.
Rick Horowitz has a suggestion.

What Was That Third Thing Again?

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William Galston : "Mortgage debt is at the core of the failure to recover and grow briskly enough to bring down unemployment. If elites can’t figure out how to fix this problem, average Americans will pay the price"

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"Conversely, nothing would do more to benefit working Americans. Is the president prepared to take the lead? And if he does, will anyone follow?"

The New Republic
What Does the Super Committee’s Failure Mean For Obama’s Reelection Campaign?
November 22, 2011

By William Galston
William Galston is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor for The New Republic.

What Does the Super Committee’s Failure Mean For Obama’s Reelection Campaign?

Some excerpts :

To that end, the alternative—higher risk, higher reward—strategy is for Obama to offer a much more specific program than he has up to now, making clear how he would combine stimulus over the next year or two with a plan to place the budget on a sustainable course by the end of the decade. That would mean organizing his 2012 State of the Union and budget proposal around two issues—bold new measures to spur consumption and job creation, coupled with a long-term budget plan that combines the best features of the Bowles-Simpson and Domenici-Rivlin plans.

This may sound like unconvincing boiler-plate: What bold new growth measures? Well, here’s an idea ripped from an article by Adam Posen:

Central banks and governments can engage in forms of coordinated action that will target the burden of past debts that is hanging over the global economy. In the United States, that means resolving the distressed mortgage debt that is weakening our financial system and reducing labor mobility, thereby constraining not only our growth but also our ability to grow. It is time for the Federal Reserve and elected officials to jointly tackle that housing debt.

Posen is the latest in a lengthening list of leading economists across the ideological spectrum to finger mortgage debt as the core of our failure to recover and grow briskly enough to bring down unemployment. If elites can’t figure out how to fix this problem, average Americans will pay the price. Conversely, nothing would do more to benefit working Americans. Is the president prepared to take the lead? And if he does, will anyone follow?

.........

The economic situation seems very grave in Europe, and we should not delight in SchadenFreude ( joy of the suffering of others ) because Europe can do a lot of harm to all of us. I mean a European Depression will devastate other continents with economic stress

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There are cases in which competition leads us to suicide, while collaboration makes everybody richer. This is true for individuals and for nations.

I do not have the solution for the Europeans. But there is no reason why we should not be concerned about Europe.

My heart feels for all the Europeans that are out of work and suffering the stress of big government cuts when they are more harming ( being unemployed ! )

My best wishes for Europe, specially the Southern Europeans. I do not blame prime ministers, government officials or nations. I hope for Euro Recovery.

And yes, I want the Euro to survive as an important currency with high value, and I wish that the European Union becomes stronger and stronger and does not dissolve.

The Western Hemisphere : let's hope that things evolve for the better and that the American Economy improves in all matters including Employment and New Jobs.

Perhaps it is possible to become more conciliatory and less aggressive, so that solutions can be found. Otherwise the elections of November 2012 will make the decision.

Vicente Duque

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Paul Krugman : Barring an evil miracle, the super committee will fail. One side is willing to make concessions, while the other isn’t, and the result is that the G.O.P. pays no price for refusing to give an inch. So the supercommittee will fail — and that’s good

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The New York Times
Failure Is Good
By PAUL KRUGMAN
November 17, 2011


Failure Is Good


Some excerpts :

For one thing, history tells us that the Republican Party would renege on its side of any deal as soon as it got the chance. Remember, the U.S. fiscal outlook was pretty good in 2000, but, as soon as Republicans gained control of the White House, they squandered the surplus on tax cuts and unfunded wars. So any deal reached now would, in practice, be nothing more than a deal to slash Social Security and Medicare, with no lasting improvement in the deficit.

Also, any deal reached now would almost surely end up worsening the economic slump. Slashing spending while the economy is depressed destroys jobs, and it’s probably even counterproductive in terms of deficit reduction, since it leads to lower revenue both now and in the future. And current projections, like those of the Federal Reserve, suggest that the economy will remain depressed at least through 2014. Better to have no deal than a deal that imposes spending cuts in the next few years.

But don’t we eventually have to match spending and revenue? Yes, we do. But the decision about how to do that isn’t about accounting. It’s about fundamental values — and it’s a decision that should be made by voters, not by some committee that allegedly transcends the partisan divide.

Eventually, one side or the other of that divide will get the kind of popular mandate it needs to resolve our long-run budget issues. Until then, attempts to strike a Grand Bargain are fundamentally destructive. If the supercommittee fails, as expected, it will be time to celebrate.

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Mi casa es Kansas ( My home is Kansas ) : Dorothy speaks in Spanish to the Wicked Witch of the West - One Alabama tomato farmer told PBS he had lost $300,000 so far

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From Washington Independent :

One Alabama tomato farmer told PBS he had lost $300,000 so far. He’s hired new people to do the work, but few of them have lasted, saying either that the work is too hard, or the pay is too low

 "Where do all the immigrants fleeing places like Alabama and Arizona go ? any head to the small towns of the Midwest. There is nothing new about this migration to the Midwest, apparently. As small towns in Kansas and Nebraska lose residents to more prosperous places, people of Hispanic descent move in, opening businesses and stabilizing local economies. Mostly, they are welcomed, reports The New York Times. In many cases, when Hispanic children grow up in these small towns, they end up staying to raise their own families instead of moving on in the grand American tradition".

The Washington Independent

Alabama immigration law panned by local and national media

By admin

Wednesday, November 16, 2011


Alabama immigration law panned by local and national media


Some excerpts :

From Monday’s New York Times:

For generations, the story of the small rural town of the Great Plains, including the dusty tabletop landscape of western Kansas, has been one of exodus — of businesses closing, classrooms shrinking and, year after year, communities withering as fewer people arrive than leave and as fewer are born than are buried. That flight continues, but another demographic trend has breathed new life into the region.

Hispanics are arriving in numbers large enough to offset or even exceed the decline in the white population in many places. In the process, these new residents are reopening shuttered storefronts with Mexican groceries, filling the schools with children whose first language is Spanish and, for now at least, extending the lives of communities that seemed to be staggering toward the grave.

That demographic shift, seen in the findings of the 2010 census, has not been uniformly welcomed in places where steadiness and tradition are seen as central charms of rural life. Some longtime residents of Ulysses, where the population of 6,161 is now about half Hispanic, grumble over the cultural differences and say they feel like strangers in their hometown. But the alternative, community leaders warn, is unacceptable.

…

There has long been a strong Hispanic presence throughout the region, which is rich with difficult work in meatpacking plants and on farms, feedlots and oil fields. But over the last decade, as their population in the rural Great Plains spiked by 54 percent — a figure comparable to gains in metro areas in the region — Hispanic residents have pushed from hubs like nearby Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal into ever smaller communities, buying property on the cheap, enticed, many say, by the opportunity to live quiet lives in communities more similar to those in which they were raised.

In the sparsely populated western half of Kansas, every county but one experienced a decline in the non-Hispanic white population, two-thirds of them by more than 10 percent.

At the same time, a vast majority experienced double-digit growth in Hispanic population, more than offsetting the declines in seven counties and many smaller cities and towns. Those places with the highest percentage of Hispanic residents tend to have the lowest average ages, the highest birth rates and the most stable school populations.

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VIDEO, "Job Creation For Complete Idiots" by Old Fart Rants - Old Fart is brash, lacking in sensitivity and tact, blunt, abrupt, disconcertingly frank in speech and vulgar - Wonderful Excellent !

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Uploaded by oldfartrants on Nov 3, 2011:

George Bush's tax cuts for the so called "job creators" didn't do a damn thing to create jobs. Over 50,000 American factories closed which cost about 6 million people to lose their jobs -- jobs that will probably never come back. If those people were still working today the unemployment rate would be about 5 or 6%. All tax cuts for the rich have done is increase the income of the ultra rich at the expense of the working class.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks the reasons private companies layoff employees says that in the first 6 months of 2011, a little over 1000 jobs were lost due to the Republicans talking points, while almost 145,000 jobs were lost due to poor demand by customers.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses also says "poor sales" is the number one reason businesses don't hire. The 500 companies on the S&P index are sitting on $800 billion in cash. The 1,600 companies Moody's tracks are sitting on $1.2 trillion in cash. That's 2 trillion dollars they're doing nothing with. 

Giving these companies tax cuts is NOT going to make them hire employees - they have plenty of cash to do that right now but they're not doing it. Even though their profits are the highest they've been in history, 30 of those Fortune 500 companies pay no taxes at all -- none! In fact they even get money back from the taxes they don't pay! If you pay 1 penny you pay more income tax than they do.

Now how much more do you think we should cut their taxes? Over the past 3 decades the wealth of this country has been slowly re-distributed UP to the ultra rich to a point where a handful of people now own half this country's wealth. Trickledown economics is a complete joke - it should be called trickle UP economics! 

Maybe you're so stupid you actually think that passing laws about abortion, that have already been laws for over 30 years creates jobs. Maybe you're so stupid you think passing resolutions to affirm that "In God We Trust" is still the official motto of the United States creates jobs.

Maybe you're so stupid you actually think that blocking legislation that actually would create jobs creates jobs! Maybe you're so stupid you can't even tell when somebody is lying to you right in your face! But maybe you have 1 working brain cell left that will listen to Bruce Bartlett - economist for Ronald Reagan and one of the guys who came up with trickledown economics. Here's what he says now about cutting taxes for the rich creating jobs, and I quote: "It's nonsense. It's just made up. When it comes to creating jobs Republicans have nothing to offer." End quote.

"Job Creation For Complete Idiots" by Old Fart Rants

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Gawker.com : The State of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Russell Pearce and Jan Brewer is a swing state in 2012. Thanks to SB 1070 - Arizona has limits with Nevada and New Mexico, and touches a corner of Colorado, all of them quintessential swing states

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And that is not all : add a border with Liberal Democratic California :


Gawker.com
Has the Arizona Immigration Bill Created A New Swing State?
By Evan McMorris-Santoro
November 16, 2011


Has the Arizona Immigration Bill Created A New Swing State ?


Some excerpts :

The rumors are true, Rep. Chad Campbell, the Democratic leader of the Arizona state House, told TPM Wednesday: the state best known for Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the toughest immigration law in the land really is a swing state in 2012. And Democrats have SB 1070 to thank for it.

"I'd hesitate to say it was ever good that it was passed," Campbell said in a sitdown interview. "Because of the damage it did to the community, damage to the economy. But I do think it motivated a lot of people, especially people in the Latino community, to get involved and it energized them."

"If that's the final outcome of it, so be it," he added. "That's a good thing, obviously."

Campbell's not the only one saying that. The Obama campaign has said Arizona can be a target next year, thanks largely to a fired up Latino base. It wasn't supposed to be that way - Republicans in Arizona and nationally were eager for a fight with the White House over 1070, which has involved the Justice Department sweeping into Arizona to stop the law. That's the exact sort of thing the tea party types and conservatives who helped push 1070 through hate the most, and there was a belief that by taking immigration into their own hands in the states, Republicans could show Obama as ineffective on the issue and take states like Arizona off the map.

That scheme appears to be heading down the road to failure, Campbell said. The architect of 1070, state Sen. Russell Pearce (R-AZ), became the first-ever Arizona legislator to be recalled earlier this month, and now Campbell says there's a moderate and Latino voter base in Arizona that's reemerged after 1070.

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Stunning Breach of Ethics : Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, were feted at a dinner sponsored by the law firm that will argue against Obamacare before the Supreme Court and by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc

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Los Angeles Times : Wining and dining and being feted by attorneys who have pending cases before the court and by Big Pharma - Is this a flagrant form of Corruption and being bought ??

Los Angeles Times
Scalia and Thomas dine with healthcare law challengers as court takes case
By James Oliphant
November 14, 2011


Scalia and Thomas dine with healthcare law challengers as court takes case


Some excerpts :

The day the Supreme Court gathered behind closed doors to consider the politically divisive question of whether it would hear a challenge to President Obama’s healthcare law, two of its justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, were feted at a dinner sponsored by the law firm that will argue the case before the high court.

The occasion was last Thursday, when all nine justices met for a conference to pore over the petitions for review. One of the cases at issue was a suit brought by 26 states challenging the sweeping healthcare overhaul passed by Congress last year, a law that has been a rallying cry for conservative activists nationwide.

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Another sponsor was pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc, which has an enormous financial stake in the outcome of the litigation.

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

Nevertheless, the sheer proximity of Scalia and Thomas to two of the law firms in the case, as well as to a company with a massive financial interest, was enough to alarm ethics-in-government activists.

“This stunning breach of ethics and indifference to the code belies claims by several justices that the court abides by the same rules that apply to all other federal judges,” said Bob Edgar, the president of Common Cause. “The justices were wining and dining at a black-tie fundraiser with attorneys who have pending cases before the court. Their appearance and assistance in fundraising for this event undercuts any claims of impartiality, and is unacceptable.”

Scalia and Thomas have shown little regard for critics who say they too readily mix the business of the court with agenda-driven groups such as the Federalist Society. And Thomas’ wife, Ginni, is a high-profile conservative activist.

.......

NYT Editorial : "If there is any place where bigotry does not go unrecognized, it is Alabama", "Jim Crow is dead, but his cousins are still alive", "a law whose express aim is misery and panic", "to hasten racial exclusion and family disintegration, to make a particular ethnic group of poor people disappear"

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The New York Times
Editorial
On the Rise in Alabama
November 13, 2011


On the Rise in Alabama


Some excerpts :

Alabama is far from alone in passing a law whose express aim is misery and panic. States are expanding their power to hasten racial exclusion and family disintegration, to make a particular ethnic group of poor people disappear. The new laws come cloaked in talk of law and order; the bigotry beneath them is never acknowledged.

But if there is any place where bigotry does not go unrecognized, it is Alabama.

“It is a fear of folks who are not like us,” said Judge U. W. Clemon, a former state senator and Alabama’s first black federal judge, now retired. “Although the Hispanic population of the state is less than 5 percent, the leaders of the state were hell-bent on removing as much of that 4 percent as possible. And I think they’ve been fairly successful in scaring them out of the state of Alabama.”

There are, of course, significant distinctions between the civil rights movement and the fight for immigrant rights. African-Americans have endured 400 years of oppression, and toppled laws created to deny their equality and to brutalize them. Unauthorized immigrants are a group who arrived by choice, mostly. They are living outside the law, and want in.

Yet to those, like Judge Clemon, a civil rights foot soldier who fought Bull Connor and George Wallace, the common thread between then and now — the threat of racial profiling and the abuse of a cheap, exploited work force — is obvious, as is the racism driving the law.

A sponsor of the legislation, State Senator Scott Beason, chairman of the Rules Committee, was secretly taped by the F.B.I. talking about black residents of Greene County. “They’re aborigines,” he said. He is the lawmaker who urged fellow Republicans to “empty the clip” to stop illegal immigrants.

And, just as in the early days of the civil rights struggle, the oppressed and their advocates are scrambling to respond. Early this month, organizers from Alabama and around the country convened a training session for immigrant leaders in rural Albertville, where chicken plants rely heavily on Latino labor. They went from trailer home to trailer home, signing up volunteers to build immigrant networks that will help people protect one another while fighting for repeal of the law and integrating themselves into the life of their state.

This fledgling movement has been embraced by the N.A.A.C.P., whose leaders in Birmingham met recently with immigrant advocates to stress the need for blacks and Latinos to unite against the law. “Jim Crow is dead,” the Rev. Anthony Alann Johnson told the group, “but his cousins are still alive.”

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The U.S. Constitution applies to persons, not just to citizens. - A new policy consensus on smarter and fairer enforcement would target violations of the law, not immigrants and their families

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Civil Freedoms Organization
National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms
Crossing the Line: From Enforcing the Law to Targeting People
November 3, 2011

By Donald Kerwin
Executive Director, Center for Migration Studies


Crossing the Line: From Enforcing the Law to Targeting People


Some excerpts :

Many of the provisions in the Arizona and Alabama laws have been enjoined. While these laws have garnered political and popular support, it would serve us well to think harder about how they actually work and what they embody. Targeted, proportional immigration control measures differ from broad-gauge attempts to make life unlivable for unauthorized immigrants (and their families) in important ways. Consider the ties that immigrants form over time in the United States. While often characterized as an undifferentiated group of lawbreakers, the U.S. unauthorized population includes:

    Nearly 6 million who have lived in the United States for 10 years or more, and 1.4 million who have lived in the U.S. for at least 20 years (Pew Hispanic Center).

    The parents of 4.5 million U.S. citizen children (Pew Hispanic Center)

    A substantial percentage of the 3.4 million persons whose visa petitions have been approved based on a qualifying relationship with a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident (Migration Policy Institute);

    2.1 million young people raised and educated in the United States who meet the prima facie qualifications for the DREAM Act (Migration Policy Institute); and 5.2 percent of the US workforce (Pew Hispanic Center).

Deportation-by-attrition strategies have severe consequences not only for them, but for their U.S. families, employers and communities. They are also corrosive of the rule of law and the United States’ identity as a nation committed to shared values and generous civic ideals. They seek to deny rights — to housing, to work, to education, (effectively) to police protection, to enter contracts, to public utilities, even to citizenship — as a means to an end. What’s more, they would criminalize the exercise of long-recognized rights. As such they would undermine the community’s well-being and the shared “good” of its members.

A new policy consensus on smarter and fairer enforcement would target violations of the law, not immigrants and their families. It would seek to tailor enforcement measures to the federal government’s authority to determine who can enter, who must leave, and who can stay. It would recognize that not all restrictions against immigrants implicate the federal government’s authority to regulate immigration, and that the U.S. Constitution applies to persons, not just to citizens.
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William Galston : "Virginia and North Carolina, key to Obama’s victories in 2008, are becoming more and more uncertain" - Obama campaign needs to go all-out in Ohio and Pennsylvania - "Winning Pennsylvania is a necessary condition of Democratic victory, winning Ohio is a sufficient condition"

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"Ohio may be back on Obama’s dance card" - Obama should concentrate on Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, states that he won in 2008 - Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, that he also won in 2008 are becoming very difficult for Obama 2012.

The New Republic
Forget the 2008 Map: A New Poll Shows Why Obama’s Re-Election Is Riding On Ohio
November 12, 2011

By William Galston
William Galston is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor for The New Republic.


Forget the 2008 Map: A New Poll Shows Why Obama’s Re-Election Is Riding On Ohio

Some excerpts :

Obama is doing reasonably well in Ohio, although his lead over Romney is well within the margin of error. One hypothesis, to which the recent referendum results lend credence, is that Governor Kasich’s unpopularity is giving the president a bit of a boost. (Only 36 percent of Ohio voters approve of their governor’s job performance, while 51 percent disapprove.) But Obama’s margin is nowhere near as large as the margin by which Kasich’s anti-collective bargaining legislation was repealed—in part, we may conjecture, because two-thirds of Ohio voters also expressed their disapproval of the individual health insurance mandate at the heart of the president’s health reform legislation.

Conversely, Obama is doing poorly in Florida, with significantly lower job approval, “deserves reelection” numbers, and vote shares than in the other key swing states.

And finally, considering that Obama won Pennsylvania by more than 10 points in 2008, his standing there is surprisingly weak today, perhaps because there’s nothing dragging down Republicans in that state. On the contrary, 46 percent of Pennsylvanians approve of Republican governor Tom Corbett, versus only 31 percent who disapprove—a 15-point positive advantage that is the mirror-image of Kasich’s 15-point net negative rating.

Let’s put this in the context of Electoral College arithmetic. Of the states that Obama won in 2008, he is certain to lose Indiana, he will be hard-put to reproduce his razor-thin edge in North Carolina, and his chances of prevailing in Florida appear well short of 50-50. Those three states alone accounted for 53 of Obama’s 365 electoral votes in 2008.

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Super Conservative Judicial Luminary appointed by Nixon and Reagan to the bench and famous for defending Guns voted in Appeals Court to uphold the constitutionality of the most controversial aspect of ObamaCare - Washington Post Editorial Board Opinion

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The Super Conservative Newspapers and Magazines are furious against this Great Friend of Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan for allowing ObamaCare to pass a hard test. - The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the constitutionality of the individual mandate, a key provision of President Obama’s health-care plan that requires most individuals to purchase insurance coverage.

Washington Post

In health-care ruling, precedent trumped politics

Editorial Board Opinion

November 10, 2011


In health-care ruling, precedent trumped politics

Some excerpts :

“PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN must be spinning in his grave,” exclaimed Maureen Martin of the Heartland Institute. A “Lazy Endorsement of Obamacare,” read the headline on an article on National Review Online. A “strange opinion,” concluded a Wall Street Journal editorial.

These reactions were to a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that upheld the constitutionality of the individual mandate, a key provision of President Obama’s health-care plan that requires most individuals to purchase insurance coverage. For many conservatives, adding insult to the injury of the ruling, released Tuesday, was its author: Laurence H. Silberman, a senior judge on the federal appeals court.

A former official in the Nixon administration, a Reagan appointee to the bench and a Federalist Society favorite, Judge Silberman is one of the country’s most respected and conservative jurists. He penned — to the delight of the right — the D.C. Circuit’s 2007 decision that struck down the District’s gun laws, concluding that the Second Amendment recognized an individual right to keep and bear arms. We disagreed with Judge Silberman’s analysis but recognized the decision as a serious and thoughtful one. The Supreme Court largely adopted Judge Silberman’s rationale when it decided the matter. (Again wrongly, in our view.)

That this conservative luminary voted to uphold the constitutionality of the most controversial aspect of the president’s health-care proposal is welcome news — and not simply because we agree with this result.

.......

Tucson Weekly ( Arizona ) : U. S. Representative Raul Grijalva from Arizona : "Democrats are not an endangered species". - "Russell Pearce’s loss in his recall election is a "game-changer"." - Bad Guy may not be finished !

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Perhaps Bad Guy Russell Pearce is not yet Politically Finished - He may resurrect like Dracula from his tomb to do more harm and suck more blood from innocent victims :

Tucson Weekly ( Arizona )
Grijalva: Pearce Recall a "Game Changer"
by Jim Nintzel
Wednesday, November 9, 2011


Grijalva: Pearce Recall a "Game Changer"


Some excerpts :

“There have been a lot of politicians locally and statewide and nationally who have used hate and division as their principle political tool,” said Grijalva, who has been one of loudest critics of Pearce’s signature SB 1070 immigration legislation. “Pearce’s loss is going to make everybody pause.”

There are a lot of folks on the left who say that Pearce is finished politically, but The Range isn’t so sure. We don’t yet know what his future legislative district is going to look like, but Pearce could just as easily shoot for another target: Congress, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (against fellow Republican Don Stapley, who isn’t exactly popular among Pearce’s voters) or even Maricopa County sheriff, should Joe Arpaio decide he’s had enough. (We see no evidence that Sheriff Joe is ready to give up the spotlight, despite the scandal that engulfed his closest advisors.)

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Diann M. Cook, attorney and first generation Irish American, from the North of Ireland. - Long, tortured history of repression against Irish Catholics - Member and leader of Tequila Party Civil Rights speaks about the California Dream Act

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“A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.” -- Banksy

TucsonCitizen.com

Tequila Party Paper on Immigration: A First Generation Irishwoman’s Perspective On The California Dream Act

by Hispanic-Politico on Nov. 10, 2011,
under National tequila party movement

By Diann M. Cook

Diann M. Cook is an attorney, who spends her free time, advocating for social justice and human rights. She is active in a variety of causes including human trafficking, domestic violence, GLBT civil rights and the continuing discrimination and its tenets, still prevalent in Northern Ireland. Politically, she is non-partisan. After thoughtful consideration, Diann has become a leader of The Tequila Party. Current immigration issues, that are polarizing this Country, are a priority. The presidential candidates must focus on and articulate their position and proposed solutions.

“Diann takes on opponents of the California DREAM Act front first with factual and articulate information. An investment in our future and our youth is never a waste.” [-DeeDee Garcia Blase]

Tequila Party Paper on Immigration: A First Generation Irishwoman’s Perspective On The California Dream Act


Some excerpts :

I make it a habit to keep on top of public opinion with respect to important social issues. What I have found is that quite a few people, or sometimes referred to as “sheeple”, have lost the ability to ability to engage in independent thought and reason. This applies as well to our government officials. Immigration issues have paralyzed Congress, by their tendentious, politically correct diatribe. This form of communication inhibits an honest debate, making communication difficult. Provocative comments such as” anchor babies” and “electrified fences” only serve to divert a real debate. The public parrots these comments and/or have tunnel vision, by factors, such as indoctrination, race, blanket statements, costs and other peoples’ views.

Opponents of the California Dream Act secured a referendum to overturn the California Dream Act. Let us engage in independent thought and reason. Opponents of the Dream Act and immigration issues cite various reasons enumerated below:

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Unfortunately, all of the improper and inflammatory rhetoric regarding immigration has resulted in a significant increase in anti-Latino hate crimes. Harassing, verbally abusing and physically attacking Latinos, is reprehensible, as are other forms of abuse. I refer you to an article titled “Anti-Latino Hate Crimes on Immigration Debate Intensifies” HuffPost-Latina Voices dated 10/23/2011 wherein Raul Flores was murdered by members of the Minutemen Vigilantes, for being a Mexican, in front of his nine year old daughter, who they murdered as well. This article cites other cases.

In closing, I implore you to take the time to educate yourself and engage in open and honest communication. You may find that your visceral response is not one of common sense. This is your obligation to your country and your fellow human beings. If you find that too difficult, then look into your heart, invoke your morality and look at this from a social justice and human rights aspect. I will leave you with a quote from an Irish friend of mine, who wrote this poem about ethnic cleansing.

“There are those that will decry you from the day that you are born, Be it colour or religion, in their side, you are a thorn, But the good must rise above this, yet never fear to speak, Racial hate and prejudice are the weapons of the weak…. The day they came to punish us, in who’s name did they serve, One day they shall be treated with the contempt they deserve”.

Think of our future generations and the world we want for them to have. Ignoring the issues, or being reluctant to change, will only create more problems, in the decades to come. Decide what you know is right for a better society. Let our legacy be a world in which the American Dream could come to fruition.

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VIDEO : Were the GOLDEN PLATES made in Prophet Joseph Smith'ss fathers Cooper shop ? - Joseph Smith's father worked in a cooper shop (metal works) is it possible the plates were made of tin there ?

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Since the USA may be ruled by a Mormon - Then it is a good idea to know what Mormonism is !

Uploaded by Contend4theFaith1 on Nov 3, 2011

Were the GOLDEN PLATES made in Josephs fathers Cooper shop?

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Rev Al Sharpton : Tuesday's Elections : Defeat of Big Money, anti-Labor, anti-Union, anti-Women's rights, electors restored Maine's election-day registration status. - Defeat of a bill designed to strip away collective bargaining rights - Victory for progressives

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The Written "speeches" of Al Sharpton all always Wonderful and Excellent :

Al Sharpton, Jr. (born 1954) is an American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election. He hosts his own radio talk show, Keepin’ It Real, and he makes regular guest appearances on Fox News (such as The O'Reilly Factor) CNN, and MSNBC. He has recently been named the host of MSNBC's PoliticsNation, a nightly talk show which premiered on August 29, 2011.

Sharpton's supporters praise "his ability and willingness to defy the power structure that is seen as the cause of their suffering" and consider him "a man who is willing to tell it like it is". Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, a one-time foe, said that Sharpton deserves the respect he enjoys among African Americans: "He is willing to go to jail for them, and he is there when they need him."

Huffington Post
Progressives Made a Clean Sweep -- Don't Look Now But the Movement Has Begun
By Al Sharpton
November 9, 2011


Progressives Made a Clean Sweep -- Don't Look Now But the Movement Has Begun


Some excerpts :

Yesterday morning, I joined community and labor leaders on the steps of New York's City Hall to announce plans to launch a Dec. 10th rally in front of the UN designed to address the need for global jobs and justice for all. We at National Action Network (NAN) have also been actively fighting against concerted efforts to further disenfranchise Black, Latino and poor voters by attempts to enforce new voter ID laws across the country. Organizing a 25-city nationwide rally, NAN will tackle the greatest modern threat to voting rights head on. When this sort of egregious legislation is being passed, we simply cannot sit silently and watch our collective progress be stripped away.

It was labor and civil rights organizations that brought about progress in this nation decades ago. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself was fighting for the liberties of sanitation workers at the very moment his life was taken. In states like Ohio, labor, civil rights organizations like NAN and the NAACP joined forces yet again to increase civic participation and deliver a more accurate portrayal of what voters want for themselves and for the next generation. On October 15th, we led a march and rally for jobs and justice in Washington, D.C. where tens of thousands participated in order to demand employment opportunities and a more equalized playing field. And all across this country we see the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations not only continuing their push for bridging the tremendous wealth gap in society, but simultaneously gaining momentous traction and supporters as it continues to expand.

Everywhere you look, there's a movement afloat. Whether it's in the civil rights community or within organized labor, or among everyday citizens, there is something in the air, something on the ground and now something in the voting booth. To those that want to keep pretending we're a center-right country, I say again, nice try. Just look at yesterday's election results -- the proof is in the pudding.

And for those that think voting doesn't matter, all you have to do is observe what took place on Election Day 2011. There are some in positions of authority that can -- and will -- do anything to have us believe that we do not have power, but just remember that we are the majority and we will not tolerate attempts from the right-wing to destroy all of the progress we have achieved.

Let the movement begin.

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VIDEO, Jerry Lewis Speaks After Defeating Russell Pearce, embraced and kissed by followers and family and thanking the voters and supporters - Clean and Civil campaign, different from the filth and dirt of Russell Pearce

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Jerry Lewis, a school principal is now a celebrity after defeating the most powerful politician in Arizona.

What seemed impossible became Reality !

Uploaded by ModernTimesMagazine on Nov 9, 2011

Jerry Lewis speaks to the media after defeating Russell Pearce in an Arizona district 18 recall election.

Jerry Lewis Speaks After Defeating Russell Pearce

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzWNNtE4mSo


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Defeat of Nazi Swastikas and Double Sig Runes : Russell Pearce lost an historic state senate recall election Tuesday in Arizona. Russell Pearce was the key force behind Arizona's controversial crackdown on illegal immigrants

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America wins - Hate loses ! 


Russell Pearce's Bag of Dirty Tricks failed - The American Spirit and Democracy was superior to Racial Hatred and Election Frauds ( many ugly filthy tricks )

Beginning of the End for Arizona Racist Bastards and Nazis. The Great Friend of American Nazi Chief Gauleiter J. T. Ready is ousted from his post in Arizona Senate.

America Defeated the Nazis in the Second World War with the loss of many hundreds of thousands of American Lives - And the Nazi Racists parade in Phoenix Arizona to gather strength to rule the nation. But they are beginning to fail now.

Christian Science Monitor

Russell Pearce, architect of illegal immigration law in Arizona, loses election

By David Schwartz, Reuters

November 9, 2011

Russell Pearce, architect of illegal immigration law in Arizona, loses election

Some excerpts :

A powerful Republican state Senate leader who championed Arizona's controversial crackdown on illegal immigrants lost his office on Tuesday in a historic recall election, returns showed. Russell Pearce's defeat is a message to the GOP, say some analysts, that jobs and the economy should be a higher priority than illegal immigrants.

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Russell Pearce branded his political opponents as "far left liberals" and labor union activists, and chastised the recall election coming when he has just one year left in his current term.

Lewis, 55, has maintained that residents could not afford to wait until the next election to replace a man who he said has tarnished Arizona's image.

The stage for the recall race was set in July when Brewer, a strong supporter of Pearce, approved the mid-term election challenge after a citizen's group turned in enough signatures to put it on the ballot.

Lewis said the Southwestern state badly needs someone who can tackle immigration and other issues with an approach free of "fear-mongering and political rhetoric," and said Arizona should work with the federal government on a comprehensive immigration solution, not battle the government in court.

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Two VIDEOs, Robocall Election Fraud in Arizona Today, November 8, 2011 - Russell Pearce's Henchmen are deceiving Democrats and Latino Voters - The Last in Nazi Scoundrels and Dirty Trick Politics

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Russell Pearce has been one of the closest friends of the Greatest American Nazi Bastard J. T. Ready.

Robocall Deceives Arizona Latino Voters?

Uploaded by NewsyPolitics on Nov 7, 2011


Transcript by http://www.newsy.com


BY ADAM FALK
ANCHOR CHRISTINA HARTMAN

Just a day before a recall election between current Senator Russell Pearce and challenger Jerry Lewis, some Mesa, Arizona voters are claiming 'voter deception.' This comes after some received a robocall instructing them to protest the election. Here's KNXV with the call.

"Voters beware. If you plan to vote this Tuesday, you should know that both candidates for State Senator, Russell Pearce and Jerry Lewis, are Republicans. The only other candidate, Olivia Cortez was forced to withdraw last month. You can protest this one-sided election by writing in your own candidate."

Since the robocaller had a Spanish accent and mentioned Olivia Cortes, some say the robocall was targeted at Latino voters in Mesa's 18th district.

REPORTER: "The message seems to try to split Latino voters' loyalty. Do they vote for the man who opposes Pearce, Jerry Lewis, or try and write in a candidate of their own? And if that happens does it hurt Lewis' chances to win."

GLORIA CHAVEZ: "You're purposefully trying to mislead voters, and that should be illegal." (KNXV)

The person behind the robocall, Ron Ludders. Although he claims the message was purely informational, critics were quick to point out, Ludders is a Pearce supporter. The Phoenix New Times says...

"Riiight. Maybe that's why the robocall fails to "inform" voters that Olivia Cortes was herself a Republican, as well as a sham candidate placed on the ballot by Tea Party members in order to assist their wingnutty God, Russell Pearce."

The Los Angeles Times provides some background on Pearce, who was already a controversial choice for Latino voters due to his strong stance on immigration.

"He wrote the more recent controversial Senate Bill 1070, which forces police to investigate the immigration status of people they have lawfully detained. It is being challenged by the Obama administration."

The Pearce campaign says they didn't know about nor did they approve the robocall. The message is currently under investigation, and if it is found to have deceived voters, the Arizona Attorney General will take on the issue.

Transcript by Newsy.

Robocall Deceives Arizona Latino Voters?

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Another Russell Pearce Scandal Ron Ludders

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Robert Kuttner : The best thing for the Super Committee to do is what Congress does best : nothing. If the Super Committee does nothing as expected and there is no consensus then $4 trillion in Bush tax cuts will expire, solving most of the deficit problem

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The American Prospect
Super Dupes
By Robert Kuttner
November 4, 2011


Super Dupes - By Robert Kuttner


Some excerpts :

With the Congressional Super Committee required to produce a bipartisan budget-cutting plan by November 23, the best possible outcome would be for the committee to collapse of its own weight.

With no deal, automatic cuts would kick in beginning in 2013. Those budget cuts would be excessive, but that question could—and will—be reopened after the election. And in the meantime, $4 trillion in Bush tax cuts will expire, solving most of the deficit problem.

If Democrats win, it’s all up for grabs. If Republicans win, the cuts will be even deeper.

The 2012 election will be a referendum on whether we want growth or austerity, and whether we want tax fairness.

For now, the six Republicans on the Super Committee, predictably, want all of the budget savings to be on the spending side and are adamantly opposed to any tax increases. On Thursday, 33 Senate Republicans sent a letter to their colleagues on the committee warning them not to support any form of tax increase.

What’s bizarre, however, is how bad the Democrats’ proposals are. Erskine Bowles, the investment banker and nominal Democrat on the late Bowles-Simpson Commission, testifying before the committee Tuesday, proposed $600 billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts, deeper cuts even than those in Speaker John Boehner’s final offer to President Obama just before the bipartisan budget deal collapsed last summer.

A majority of Democrats on the committee have put forth a proposal in the same spirit, one that is bad economics and worse politics. It would cut Medicare by $400 billion, and Medicaid by $75 billion. It raises less in new revenue than the majority plan put forth by the Bowles-Simpson Commission. It even cuts $75 billion from Social Security by tinkering with the cost-of-living adjustment.

What’s going on here? While President Obama has moved on, thankfully, to emphasize job creation and has pledged to defend Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, a majority of Democrats on the committee are still stuck in a time warp, in which deficit reduction and budget cutting take priority over promoting a recovery and the illusion of bipartisanship lives on.

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Arizona won't be able to compete with Mexico in Agricultural Products during the Next Years. Many undocumented workers are leaving the United States, because Mexico is acting like a magnet with plenty of work in the agricultural fields, construction, etc ...

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Arizona has a lot of trouble because of Shortage of Laborers for Agriculture, the costs of the Agriculture Industry are rising up and Labor has been scarce, even before Jan Brewer assumed as Governor of Arizona. Those same shortages of labor are appearing in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, states that want to treat the foreign laborers with harshness and even hatred.

Meanwhile the Economy of Mexico is progressing at a steady pace and a higher rate than the one in Arizona. And many people are finding that it is a good thing to remigrate to their original nation : Mexico.

Arizona Independent Voter Network
Remigration: Arizona's agricultural workforce dilemma
by Chris Hinyub
Wed, 2011-08-31 03:49

Remigration: Arizona's agricultural workforce dilemma

Some excerpts :

Two factors are converging to create a farming crisis in Arizona: one has its origins in domestic policy – hard-line immigration laws which have been harped on endlessly by the press – while the other factor has its roots planted in foreign soil, growing in step with an economy that is outpacing our own.

It's odd to hear the phrase “labor shortage” tossed around during a time of double-digit jobless rates, but a lack of a reliable work force is exactly what farmers across the Southwest are experiencing. Arizona has been hit especially hard by the flight of undocumented farm workers from the state. Are the Nazi-esque, “papers please” identification requirements of SB 1070 or the E-Verify mandates placed upon state employers the catalyst for mass “remigration,” or are these policies helping to drive an exodus that already had considerable momentum?

In a piece titled, “A Shortage of Mexican Laborers Threatens Arizona Farming,” Phoenix New Times author Monica Alonzo explores this question, quoting Arizona Farm Bureau lobbyist Joe Sigg as saying, “even before these laws started to pop up, we were seeing a shortage of workers.” The Public Policy Institute of California has quantified Arizona's agricultural labor-loss in a recent study. From 2008 to 2009, some 92,000 illegal workers either fled the state or sought self-employment as a result of the Legal Arizona Workers Act, which forces employers to check the legal status of employees against a federal database. That was a 17 percent reduction in Arizona's working-age population of unauthorized immigrants.

But those migrants didn't seek greener pastures in California, which is unaffected by any onerous immigration laws. In fact, the Golden State has lost over 300,000 undocumented immigrants over the past three years say PPIC researchers.

The construction industry drew a great number of undocumented workers from Mexico during the height of the housing bubble. Many of these workers had homes or businesses in Mexico that they left to work seasonally here in the states. After the bottom fell out of housing, most of these workers turned to agriculture to make ends meet only to find lower wages and an increasingly hard time receiving medical and government assistance. The majority have been forced to weigh the costs of renting in America against the benefits of permanently returning home to what Sacramento's Mexican consul general Carlos González Gutiérrez has dubbed a “middle-class country.”

Mexico's economy is growing 4 to 5 percent a year as its birthrate is declining steeply, a sign that its society is transforming from a rural to an urban one, says the consul in this Sacramento Bee article. Gutiérrez adds that the consequence of its 4.9 percent unemployment rate and its improving economic conditions is that Mexico is “running out of Mexicans to export.” Mexico's growing middle class “reduces the appetites to come because there are simply many more options at home,” says Gutiérrez.

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September 2002 : Mitt Romney, Candidate for Governor of Massachusetts - Mitt was enthusiastic about Abortion in a meeting with NARAL Pro-Choice Mass. - National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League opposes restrictions on abortion and fights to expand access to abortion

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Mitt was "pro-choice" in September 2002 - Mitt Romney, The Ultimate Opportunist, in this and other matters. Once in the White House Romney will be "Pro-Choice" again.

Washington Post :
As governor, Romney worked to reassure liberals
By Peter Wallsten and Juliet Eilperin
November 2, 2011


As governor, Romney worked to reassure liberals


Some excerpts :

Mitt Romney was firm and direct with the abortion rights advocates sitting in his office nine years ago, assuring the group that if elected Massachusetts governor, he would protect the state’s abortion laws.

Then, as the meeting drew to a close, the businessman offered an intriguing suggestion — that he would rise to national prominence in the Republican Party as a victor in a liberal state and could use his influence to soften the GOP’s hard-line opposition to abortion.

He would be a “good voice in the party” for their cause, and his moderation on the issue would be “widely written about,” he said, according to detailed notes taken by an officer of the group, NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts.

“You need someone like me in Washington,” several participants recalled Romney saying that day in September 2002, an apparent reference to his future ambitions.

Romney made similar assurances to activists for gay rights and the environment, according to people familiar with the discussions, both as a candidate for governor and then in the early days of his term.

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

Melissa Kogut, the NARAL group’s executive director in 2002, recalled Wednesday that as she and other participants in the meeting began to pack their belongings to leave after the 45-minute session, Romney became “emphatic that the Republican Party was not doing themselves a service by being so vehemently anti-choice.”

The abortion rights supporters came away from the meeting pleasantly surprised. Romney declined to label himself “pro-choice” but said he eschewed all labels, including “pro-life.” He told the group that he would “protect and preserve a woman’s right to choose under Massachusetts law” and that he thought any move to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision would be a “serious mistake for our country.”

“We felt good about the interview. He seemed genuine,” said Nicole Roos, the NARAL official who took the notes and shared them with a reporter.

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Jesse Jackson : Obama exposes GOP strategy : "O has had enough of what he rightly calls an “increasingly dysfunctional Congress.” Over the past week, he has begun to use his own authority to issue executive orders to move reforms the country desperately needs

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Obama : "“Where they won’t act, I will.”

Chicago Sun Times
As Obama finally acts, he exposes GOP strategy
November 1, 2011

By Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson, Sr. (born 1941) is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. In 1965, he participated in the Selma to Montgomery marches organized by James Bevel, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders in Alabama. When Jackson returned from Selma, he threw himself into efforts by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to establish themselves a beachhead in Chicago. In an AP-AOL "Black Voices" poll in February 2006, Jackson was voted "the most important black leader".

As Obama finally acts, he exposes GOP strategy

Some excerpts :

He’s issued orders that will help an estimated 1.6 million college students pay off their student loans, assist an estimated 1 million homeowners renegotiate their mortgages, help thousands of veterans find a job. He’s established an online center to help small businesses looking for export markets. And Monday, he issued an executive order designed to help seniors with prescription drugs that are in short supply, calling on the Federal Food and Drug Administration to increase monitoring, move more rapidly to adjust production when needed, and using the Justice Department to crack down on corporate collusion or price fixing.

By issuing executive orders, the president takes the offensive, instead of waiting on Congress to act. When the Republican Congress repeatedly refuses to act on the president’s initiatives, the public sees a government that doesn’t work.

The tendency is to blame both sides, so the obstructionist strategy works. Congress has earned the lowest levels of public approval ever, but approval of the president has declined, as well. If your overriding goal is to ensure that Obama is a one-term president, as Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced, then obstruction of needed reforms makes a perverse sense, even if it virtually guarantees a stagnant economy, mass unemployment and declining wages.

But by acting, the president stops banging his head against that wall. Instead, he demonstrates what he is fighting for, where his priorities are — and he exposes what that partisan wall in Congress is blocking. He takes the offense— and that makes Republicans uncomfortable, as demonstrated by Republican House Budget Chair Rep. Paul Ryan complaining at the Heritage Foundation about the president practicing the “politics of division.”

Governance by executive order goes back to George Washington, who issued the first order in 1789. Of all the presidents since Washington, Obama actually has issued the fewest executive orders. But the Constitution allows a president to protect the nation’s interest from a Congress in rebellion.

The leaders of the opposition party have proved their priority is not jobs, not public health for all, not stopping foreclosure, and not stopping onerous loans for students but is only to stop the president.

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Border Explorer : Billie Greenwood : Border Communities Remember Immigrants Lost Due to Violence in Mexico & Broken U.S. Immigration System - After sharing stories of loved ones lost forever, hundreds will process four-miles to El Paso's downtown San Jacinto Plaza

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Billie Greenwood, Great Activist of Human Rights and a person with the Greatest Experience in the Problems of Immigration

October 28, 2011

Border Communities Remember Immigrants


Some excerpts :

The combination of a failed immigration system in the U.S. and unaccountable violence in Mexico has proven deadly for migrants. In the past two years U.S. immigrant deportations to Mexico have surged — often provoking terrible consequences. Not only are deportees separated from their families, but many are also ultimately killed in Mexico due to corruption and the Mexican government’s failure to protect it's people from violence.

The Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR) in El Paso, Texas will pay tribute to those murdered migrants as part of their annual Dia De Los Muertos event.

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