toadie800's Blog

Associated Press - November 18, 2008 9:35 AM ET

GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) - A state government panel in Colorado says it may ask the federal government to expand its capacity to jail illegal immigrants in that state and in Wyoming.

The panel includes Colorado state legislators and law enforcement officials. It's reviewing immigration enforcement in Colorado and is considering training jail deputies to spot detainees who are in the country illegally.

The panel also is considering asking federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement to expand its capacity to hold illegal immigrants in Wyoming and Colorado.

Currently, ICE has about 700 beds at facilities it contracts with in Colorado and Wyoming, says Lance Clem, a spokesman for Colorado's Department of Public Safety.

The panel will likely meet once more before it delivers a final report to Colorado Governor Bill Ritter by the end of the year.

By Clay Robison - Austin Bureau

AUSTIN -- Gov. Rick Perry demanded Tuesday that the federal government take steps to help state and local officials ensure that unauthorized immigrants who commit crimes in Texas remain in custody until they are deported.

In a strongly worded letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Perry said he was ``outraged'' to learn that many convicted immigrants in Texas jails were released after they completed their jail sentences instead of being deported.

``Texas has spent the last four years investing unprecedented amounts of state resources to secure our border with Mexico. To now learn that criminal aliens who have been jailed are being released back into our communities by federal authorities who have neglected to secure our border is infuriating and unconscionable,'' he said.

Spokeswoman Allison Castle said the governor was reacting, in part, to a series of stories in the Houston Chronicle, reporting how federal immigration officials have allowed scores of violent criminals to be freed despite the inmates' admission to jailers that they were in the United States illegally.

``We knew there was a problem, but we didn't know the scope and magnitude of it,'' Castle said. In his letter, Perry noted that some of the released immigrants were later charged with felonies, including capital murder, rape, robbery and child molestation.

Several, he said, were ``members of transnational gangs that work closely with the cartels in Mexico conducting criminal operations on both sides of the Texas/Mexico border.''

The governor asked Chertoff to ``immediately institute a policy that requires every criminal alien identified in a Texas jail to be detained after their sentence has been served and then immediately deported to their country of origin.''

Otherwise, he added, ``the federal government will be embracing a de facto 'catch and release' program that has already resulted in tragic consequences in our communities.''

Perry also asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement to share its criminal database with all Texas counties that have a jail with an electronic fingerprint booking capacity. At present, Castle said, the database is available only to Harris and Dallas counties.

On Monday, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn called for an investigation into how immigration officials screen inmates in the Harris County jail.

The Chronicle examined arrest and immigration records for 3,500 inmates who told Harris County jailers that they were in the country illegally during a span of eight months beginning in June 2007.

In 177 cases reviewed by the newspaper, inmates who were released after admitting to being in the country illegally later were charged with additional crimes, including felonies.

The Chronicle also found at least 178 cases involving suspects who absconded, meaning their bails were revoked for missing court dates or allegedly committing more crimes.

ICE has criticized the stories for containing ``outdated information.'' A spokesman said the agency has made significant improvements, including giving Harris County jailers access to a database that automatically checks suspects' immigration history.

Barack Obama's Grandma Sara Tuesday 11-18-2008 5:24am MTBarack Obama is a citizen of kenya According to his Grandmother in Kenya He is native born. we have a USURPER running for the presidency of the usa.  This cannot stand.

Alan Keyes lawsuit warns America may see 'usurper' in Oval Office

---

Posted: November 14, 2008
8:40 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

 

Alan Keyes

The California secretary of state should refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until President-elect Barack Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office, alleges a California court petition filed on behalf of former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others.

The legal action today is just the latest is a series of challenges, some of which have gone as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, over the issue of Obama's status as a "natural-born citizen," a requirement set by the U.S. Constitution.

WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi even traveled to Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.

The biggest question is why Obama, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists, simply hasn't ordered it made available to settle the rumors.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view
&pageId=80931

Barack Obama has selected Gregory Craig as White House counsel, a move that will recall some controversial legal cases over the last few years.  Craig has plenty of experience in politics as well as the courtroom, having served as Bill Clinton’s legal counsel during the impeachment hearings.  Craig flipped from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama early in the primaries, and Obama has repaid his support — but Craig’s caseload will raise a few eyebrows:

Gregory B. Craig, a well-known Washington lawyer who quarterbacked President Bill Clinton’s impeachment defense, has been chosen White House counsel by President-elect Barack Obama, according to Democratic officials.

Craig is intimately familiar with the president-elect’s record because he played the role of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in debate preparations.

The officials said Obama has settled on Craig but were not sure when the appointment would be announced.

The choice gives the president-elect both experience and loyalty. During the primaries, Craig was an early Clinton alumni defector to Obama. Columnist Robert D. Novak reported back in the winter of 2007 that Craig had told him he “was impressed with Obama when he first met him at the home of investment banker Vernon Jordan, an intimate friend and supporter of the Clintons.”

Craig was an Obama foreign policy adviser during the campaign. At the start of the Clinton administration, he had been the State Department’s Director of Policy Planning, the head of State’s in-house think tank. He also was senior adviser on defense, foreign policy and national security to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Besides defending Clinton through the impeachment process, an effort that Craig lost, who else had the benefit of Craig’s counsel?

• Elian Gonzalez’s father - Craig represented the father who demanded the return of his son after his estranged wife died trying to take Elian to freedom.  Most people saw this as a thinly-veiled publicity stunt from Fidel Castro, attempting to embarrass the US.  The dispute got resolved when Janet Reno ordered an armed assault on the house where Elian’s family in the US provided him a home.
• John Hinckley, Jr - Craig presented and won the insanity defense that allows Ronald Reagan’s would-be assassin to spend weekends with his family now.
• Kofi Annan - The former Secretary-General of the UN hired Craig to defend his interests in the Volcker Commission probe of the Oil-for-Food scandal, which put billions of dollars into Saddam Hussein’s pockets while providing cash for Annan’s son, his deputies, and some allege Annan himself.
• Pedro Gonzalez Pinzon - A Panamanian legislator wanted for murdering an American soldier in 1992.  The Dallas Morning News demanded that Obama force Craig to drop the case during the campaign, but no report of whether he did is easily available.

I doubt that any President has selected the defender of a presidential assassin as White House Counsel before now. Does anyone want to guess how long that takes to become a Trivial Pursuit question?

Given Craig’s dubious client list, especially Gonzalez Pinzon as an apparent active client, this selection is a disgrace.  The last person we need in the White House is an attorney who represented assassins, Castro and his goons, corrupt UN executives, and a suspected killer of an American soldier.  Those are the people the White House should focus on stopping, not embracing.

Update: I’m not saying that people should not have defense counsel when charged with a crime; that’s an absurd response to this post.  What I’m saying is that Craig is an absurd choice for White House counsel on the basis of the kinds of cases he himself pursued.  No one forced him to take Hinckley, Gonzalez Pinzon, Annan, or Gonzalez/Castro as clients.  Like most attorneys looking to boost their practice, Craig undoubtedly competed hard for their business.

Was Craig the only attorney available for this gig?  No.  Could Barack Obama find someone qualified who wasn’t currently representing a man suspected of murdering an American soldier or who represented a presidential assassin?  If not, then Obama’s more incompetent than anyone figured.

http://obamacrimes.com/attachments/065_Obama%20Crim
es%20Ad%20-%20Wash%20Times%2020081117.pdf

This full-page ad appeared today in the Washington Times National Weekly (Monday November 17th edition) It will hit subscribers' mailboxes on Tuesday. (PDF attached at bottom)

Federal authorities should throw the book at those who hire illegal immigrants.

WHEN JOB markets look grim, hiring illegal immigrants is especially egregious.

That's why the federal government should throw the book at restaurant owners Guo Hua Jiang and Jian Chun Liu if the latest charges against them prove true.

The two are accused of employing 10 illegal aliens for the past eight and a half months, as well as harboring them at the couple's two residences in Rincon.

There appears to be little doubt among immigration authorities that the two knew the undocumented workers were in the country illegally (officials would not identify the workers' nationalities).

According to the indictment against the two, the motive was simple greed: By hiring illegal workers, the restaurant owners were able to skip out on paying employee taxes such as Social Security, unemployment insurance, employee benefits, and worker's compensation, investigators say.

Such actions not only rob U.S. citizens and those with valid work visas of employment opportunities, the existence of a low-wage black market labor force puts downward pressure on the pay and benefits offered legitimate workers.

These illegal actions also make for an unfair playing field with the owners of restaurants or other businesses who scrupulously follow labor hiring laws.

Combined with the billions of dollars worth of remittances illegal workers send back to their home countries each year, the costs of such under-the-counter dealings to the American economy are substantial.

The head of investigations at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Atlanta field office, Kenneth Smith, said other businesses should view the Rincon arrests as a warning call that "ICE aggressively targets employers who knowingly employ an illegal alien work force."

Such measures are a welcome sign that federal officials may be stepping up efforts to enforce existing immigration laws in a way that will truly discourage the hire of undocumented workers.

Only when the cost of shady business practices exceeds the perceived benefits of a cheap, vulnerable work force will unscrupulous business owners keep their avarice in check.

---

 

There appears to be little doubt among immigration authorities that the two knew the undocumented workers were in the country illegally.

Incredibly, we are just nine weeks away from inaugurating the next president of the United States and millions of Americans still have citizenship eligibility questions that have never been addressed by Barack Obama and his entourage.

 

All that Barack Obama would have to do to put this issue to rest is to release his complete birth certificate, revealing where he was born and who were his parents.

 

It seems a simple thing.

Personally, I doubt the Democratic Party would be so stupid as to run an ineligible candidate for president of the United States. I doubt Hillary Clinton would have accepted defeat at the hands of a candidate ineligible for the job.

 

So it would seem Obama is simply thumbing his nose at the Constitution and the concerns of millions of American people. After all, he has made it clear the Constitution doesn't mean what it says anyway. It's all a matter of opinion.

Maybe his intransigence on this seemingly ridiculous matter is just his way of showing he will, as president, consider himself above the Constitution. I don't know any other way to interpret his behavior, do you?

Until last week, no one in the Obama camp would even comment on the controversy surrounding his complete birth certificate, which has never been released publicly. That changed after much hounding by WND staffers who managed to get one official Obama representative to proclaim – anonymously, I might add – that seven lawsuits filed by citizens trying to secure the birth certificate are "pure garbage."

Obama's record of non-cooperation and secrecy has now resulted in conspiracy theories that will plague him throughout his administration if he doesn't address them now with utter transparence. Do I expect him to do so? No, I don't.

He not only thinks those lawsuits are "garbage," evidently that's also what he thinks of the people who truly believe the Constitution means what it says and those who believe there ought to be some controlling legal authority determining Obama's eligibility for the highest office in the land before he is sworn in Jan. 20.

Count me among those who really want to see that birth certificate now.

Imagine the level of secrecy we can expect from an Obama administration that guards his birth certificate with such tenacity.

I'm calling on Barack Obama today to release the entire birth certificate. And just so there is no mistake about what I am calling for, I want the part of the birth certificate that shows which hospital he was born in and who his parents were. That is the only way to establish if he is truly a natural-born citizen. Further, I am asking as a journalist and pundit that if there is any government agency or government official anywhere on the planet who has inspected the birth certificate and can provide those details to the American people, the time to do so is now.

I'm also calling on all my colleagues, from coast to coast and around the world, not to let this matter drop. Apparently it is a point of real sensitivity with Obama people. Good. Let's rub it in. Let's demand he produce the birth certificate at every turn – at every press conference, at every appearance, on every talk show.

Could anything be more important than enforcing the requirements of our Constitution?

This is hardly a laughing matter. The longer this soap opera drags on, the more suspicions it will raise – the less credibility our electoral system will have, the more many people will believe the whole political system is rigged.

Whom does that benefit?

I honestly can't imagine.

What possible motivation could Obama have for not producing this simple, innocuous document that every citizen must produce to get a passport, driver's license or Social Security card?

Are you curious?

So am I.

Where's the birth certificate, Sen. Obama?

http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd415.htmp>

The constitution demands “natural born” so as to mitigate the possibility of “divided loyalties” ***

 

 

 

Anyone can swear and sign the form to the registrar in Hawaii that they were a citizen of Hawaii and within the previous year gave birth. The individual gives the date/time of the birth and a document record is dually entered. Perhaps someone can inform as to whether you even need to show the baby! Doesn’t look like it from my read of the statute.

 

 

 

 http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol06_Ch032
1-0344/HRS0338/HRS_0338-0017_0008.htm

 

One can get a “Certification of Live Birth” with minimal documentation and no eyewitnesses.  The date of birth can be any date the person enters! This document can then be used to establish citizenship for the purpose of obtaining a passport, but its lack of physically identifying information found on the "Certification Of Live Birth" precludes it from being useful in proving "Natural Born" status. I guess Obama thinks enough folks are so ignorant that he can get into the Whitehouse before too many find out.

 

 

 

 The normal “Birth Certificate” or "Certificate of Live Birth" often but not always contains uniquely identifying information but always has testaments from eyewitness’s (doctor, nurse, orderly) and the specific location so that it is now verifiable and traceable. What Obama’s has displayed in NOT a Birth Certificate, Even if it is real, (there are some forensic experts who say the displayed cert has signs of tampering) it does not provide any kind of traceable proof. This is not the traceable-to-an-individual “Birth Certificate” most any other American would be able to show. 

 

This may well be the biggest fraud ever perpetrated. What is the big deal in showing the real deal Obama? Don't you have one? 

 

 

 

No one is asking for your 1st born,

 

            Just proof as to where you were born.

 

Mr. Obama. Take off that mask.

 

 

 

Obama web posted computer generated doc

 

 

 

 

 

 This is what everyone is Expecting

 

 

 

SEE The Difference! The amazing thing is that lacking the real thing, forensic experts have really dug in and several put forth convincing evidence that even this worthless document has been tampered with. 

 

 

 

 

 

Note this dialog regarding the difference in certificates.

 

A Certification of Live Birth is not a legal document and is explained on this State of Hawaii Department of Hawaiian Home Lands website.
Quote
In order to process your application, DHHL utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.
End Quote - See
http://hawaii.gov/dhhl/applicants/appforms/applyhhl>

Note the difference between a "Certificate of Live Birth" and a "Certification of Live Birth." The certification needs v

 

 

 

 

 

Letter From Hank - A good run down on this key issues- a pithy read too 

 

I don't wear tin foil hats.  I really don't care about the font, or the word "AFRICAN" instead of the widely-used word of "NEGRO" or "BLACK" in 1961.  The borders make absolutely no difference, to me.  If you peel back the layers, and claim to find the word "Adobe" embedded in the electronic document - this means nothing to me.  Frankly, I don't even know what a "halo" around a word is.  The mystery surrounding Barack Obama's "Live Certificate of Birth", is in fact no mystery at all.  The document is authentic, and this cannot be disputed.   But Obama is hiding something, and I'll tell you how I know...   After months and months of unrequited requests, the Obama campaign did finally present a document which they claimed validated his eligibility (per the Constitution of the Unted States, Article II, Section I) as a "Natural born citizen" to have his name on the ballot in contention for the office of the President of the United States of America.    However, contrary to what the few media outlets who are giving this outrageous claim any attention at all have concurred, what the Obama campaign supplied was not, in fact, a "birth certificate".  What they supplied was actually a "Certificate of Live Birth."  There is a major difference between a "birth certificate" and a "Certificate of Live Birth."  Aside from the level of detail differentiating the documents (hospital of record, doctor, height, weight, etc) - in the state of Hawaii, one authenticates natural born citizenship, and the other doesn't.  This part is important, and again - it has nothing to do with tin foil hats.  Per the State of Hawaii's Department of Health, "Amended certificates of birth may be prepared and filed with the Department of Health, as provided by law, for 1) a person born in Hawaii who already has a birth certificate filed with the Department of Health or 2) a person born in a foreign country."  (For citation purposes, please feel free to visit their site: http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/vital-records/
index.html ).    Why is this important?  The "Certificate of Live Birth" provided by Obama, is in fact, a derivative of the "Amended certificates of birth" they site.  Why is that important?  Because per the second clause in the above citation, while you may earn citizenship via such a document, you do not necessarily earn "natural born" citizenship.  "Natural born citizenship" is what is required to be eligible to be considered for the Presidency, per the United States Constitution.    So where does this leave us?  Well for starters, it leaves many of us....some in tin foil hats, some not....wondering why the Obama campaign did not supply the definitive, actual, long-form birth certificate.  Contentions are, because one such authentic certificate does not exist.    "That's a pretty distant plea, from the far right, wouldn't you say?  I mean he couldn't have gotten this far without being properly vetted, right?"  That is the assumption that most people are making.  "This isn't possible.  You're out of your mind.  Get off the internet."  People have made the assumption, but that's all they've made....the assumption.  Fact: Senator Barack Obama is yet to provide an actual birth certificate to any governing or other body, validating his eligibility, per the United States Constitution, to have his name on the ballot as the next, prospective President of the United States of America.    When the Obama campaign, after several unrequited requests, did finally submit the "Certificate of Live Birth", in an effort to more formally properly vet and lend credence to the Senator's run for the Presidency - which governing body did they submit it to?  Was it to the Board of Elections?  No, not there.  Was it to the Federal Elections Commission?  No, not there either.  Well then it must have been to the Democratic National Committee, right?  Wrong again.  The Obama campaign chose as their advocate-for-legitimacy, none other than www.factcheck.org .  Yes, a non-governing, unofficial website.  Adding further mystification and fuel to the "conspiracy whack job" fire....like it or not, www.factcheck.org is a product and entity of the Annenberg Foundation; the very foundation that coupled Barack Obama with Bill Ayers, and Senator Obama worked so vigorously to denounce.    "Hey, come on.  Now you're just getting too far fetched."  Facts are facts.  However, let's get away from the fact that the sole body the Obama campaign relied on to provide legitimacy to his "Certificate of Live Birth" was birthed itself, from the very Foundation that partnered Senator Obama with Bill Ayers.  There is still yet another legitimate question, barring that fact:  Why a website?....   Why not the Board of Elections?  Why not the Federal Election Commission?  Why not the Democratic National Committee?  It may very well be because they likely chose not to draw undue attention to "proof" that they ultimately knew was accompanied by zero actual credibility. By handing a "Certificate of Live Birth" over to a true governing body as "proof", the burden is then on that governing body to put their own credibility on the line and provide advocacy for that proof.  Rather, however, given the illegitimacy of a "Certificate of Live Birth" as being proof of anything at all regarding natural born citizenship, they would have been forced to effectively say, "This means nothing. And now that you've brought it our attention, and asked for us to put our name on the line as complicit in validating your 'natural born citizenship', we're going to need the actual birth certificate. And if you can't provide it, apologetically, we absolutely can't cite what you've given us as validation." So what did they do?  They sent it to www.factcheck.org, knowing full well it would be embraced and credited by the allegedly non-partisan website.   And who stepped up after that and asked questions?  No one.  Wait, that's wrong....the "nut job, tin foil-hat-wearing right wing conspiracy theorists" did.   In August, "nut job, tin foil-hat-wearing right wing conspiracy theorist", lifetime Democrat, former US District Attorney General for the State of Pennyslvania, Philip Berg, challenged Barack Obama in court - seeking to ultimately compel him to produce an actual birth certificate.  After months of fighting this, and months of expending time, money and resources by the Obama campaign - the case was ultimately thrown out.  "Well if the case was thrown out, it must mean it was baseless."  Wrong again.  The case was thrown out, not unlike the one against Ohio's SOS, Jennifer Brunner, due to the standing of the party that brought the case, to do so.  There was no decision on merit.  There was no ruling.  There was only the citation that a citizen could not bring the charge.  But still, the question remained, why did the Obama campaign, or rather, Barack Obama himself - who the case was brought against, not quell the charge entirely by simply producing an actual, authentic, long-form birth certificate....thereby validating his eligibility to be complicit with the United States Constitution, Section II, Article I, prove his natural born citizenship, and march comfortably through the rest of a fair, tested, and properly vetted election process?  This time, I have no answer.  Do you?  Does he?  Many of us are waiting.   He had plenty of time to manufacture and execute and incredible campaign.  Outspending his opponent by estimates of up to 5 to 1, he certainly had resources.  He did find time, amidst this very quiet and clearly extraordinarily tricky trial that the media mostly would not touch, due to the "nut job" nature of the theories - to go to the state in question, Hawaii, to visit his grandmother.  When did he have time to make this trip?  Not only at the tail end of the election, but coincidentally - at the tail end of the trial questioning his natural born citizenship, in fact only a few days after he and his attorneys watched the clock expire on the court-recognized demand by the Plaintiff to produce the document.  But alas, no time or resources to actually hand a piece of paper over to the courts, the Board of Elections, the Federal Elections Commission or even the Democratic National Committee.   "Well Hank, that law in the Constitution is pretty minor compared to what Barack Obama will do for us as President."  That's very, very questionable - to anyone who truly understands the nature of capitalism and/or national security.  Actually, that's an unfair statement.  I would say, in the opinions of many, many Americans - that's very questionable to those who believe they, or Senator Obama's opponent, better understand the nature of capitalism and/or national security, than does Senator Obama.  So let's not ignore the Constitution entirely, just because potentially a little more than half of the voters believe he's the man for the job.  Afterall, I may very well be considered able-minded to more responsibly and effectively spend $100,000.00 better than a bank or it's customers....but this doesn't give me the authority to go in and steal it.   Obama has not yet properly disclosed the one document that would remove all doubt, and properly vet him for the position he has pursued, by way of the trust of the American people and the millions and millions of dollars of contributions they have handed over to him, and his effort.  He simply, has not yet done this.    He has given a less credible document to a website enabled and hosted by a foundation Barack Obama worked under, to provide advocacy on the issue.  But that document authenticates the claim the same way hearsay ineffectively would support a defendant's testimony.  It is still, one removed from the actual truth.  No.  In fact it's even less credible than that.  The fact is, the contention of Philip Berg is that Barack Obama was actually born in Kenya, per a hospital record that allegedly exists there for Barack Hussein Obama II, as well as his paternal grandmothers proud citations of having been in the delivery room in Kenya when he was born.  The document Senator Obama provided the website, per the Hawaii Department of Health, could be attained by someone who was not born in the United States.  It's effectively moot.  This is the Presidency of the United States of America.  This is a matter of upholding a basic fundamental of the United States Constitution.  These are bases of significant stature.  I have seen many people get many passes, but this simply cannot be one of them.  Whatever may or may not be done in the next 4-8 years, is entirely insignificant relative to what will happen to our process, and the indiscretion "We the people" allow to occur by affording someone the ability to cheat the American people on his way to the most powerful position on the entire planet.    He may not have known Bill Ayers was an unrepentant domestic terrorist when he sat in his living room and arguably launched his political career.  He may have been 8 years old when Ayers committed these acts, but at 40 years old....he may not have heard him repeatedly declare that he was not remorseful for his terrorist behavior.  It may have been coincidental that Ayers and Obama both gave interviews within a week of each other in September of 2001, where they each discussed the importance of the redistribution of wealth.  He might really have slept through 20 years of Jeremiah Wright's sermons, never once hearing the race-filled propaganda and anti-American sentiments we all eventually caught wind of.  Perhaps it slipped his mind when he claimed to have no ties to ACORN, that he led training sessions for them....or contributed over $800,000.00 to their umbrella for the 2008 election season.  Maybe that's all true.    What part of "natural born citizenship" escaped him though?  This one, I have to hear.  And if it's an illegitimate question, then I would plead with Senator Obama to retain all the money he's expending fighting the multiple cases that have popped up across the country, once and for all provide proof of his natural born citizenship by way of an actual birth certificate, and....I don't know, maybe give what he would have spent on the trials to the middle class he is so concerned about.  

 

 

 

 

 

FactCheck supposedly exists to look beyond a politician's claims. Ironically, in its analysis of NRA materials on Barack Obama, these so-called "FactCheckers" use the election year campaign rhetoric of a presidential candidate and a verbal claim by one of the most zealous gun control supporters in Congress to refute facts compiled by NRA's research of vote records and review of legislative language.

There's another possible explanation behind FactCheck's positions. Just last year, FactCheck's primary funding source, the Annenberg Foundation, also gave $50,000 to the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence for "efforts to reduce gun violence by educating the public and by enacting and enforcing regulations governing the gun industry." Annenberg made a similar grant for $100,000 in 2005. (source)

Regardless of the cause, it's clear that while FactCheck swoons over a politician's rhetoric, NRA prefers to look at the more mundane details - like how that politician voted on a bill and what kind of impact that legislation had or may have had on law-abiding gun owners.

FactCheck claims that NRA advertisements "distort" Barack Obama's anti-gun positions, but FactCheck's own sources prove otherwise. In fact, even Obama's campaign has refused to deny his most extreme positions.

FactCheck also dismisses NRA's statements as "contrary to what [Obama] has said throughout his campaign." But as FactCheck says, "believing something doesn't make it so." And unless FactCheck is an arm of the Obama campaign, isn't it their job to find out if Obama is telling the truth?

FactCheck claim: "Obama is proposing no ...ban" on use of firearms for self-defense in the home.

FactCheck is wrong. Obama supported local handgun bans in the Chicago area by opposing any allowance for self-defense. Obama opposed an Illinois bill (SB 2165, 2004) that would have created an "affirmative defense" for a person who used a prohibited firearm in self-defense in his own home.

As FactCheck notes, the bill was provoked by a case where a Wilmette, Ill. homeowner shot an intruder in self-defense in his home; the homeowner's handgun was banned by a town ordinance. (After the U.S. Supreme Court found Washington, D.C.'s similar ban unconstitutional, Wilmette repealed the ordinance to avoid litigation.)

The legislation was very plainly worded, but as limited as its protection was, Obama voted against it in committee and on the floor:

It is an affirmative defense to a violation of a municipal ordinance that prohibits, regulates, or restricts the private ownership of firearms if the individual who is charged with the violation used the firearm in an act of self-defense or defense of another ...when on his or her land or in his or her abode or fixed place of business.

If a person cannot use a handgun for self-defense in the home without facing criminal charges, self-defense with handguns in the home is effectively banned.

Even aside from SB 2165, Obama's support for a total handgun ban (see below) would be a crippling blow to defense in the home, since (as the Supreme Court recently affirmed) handguns are "the most preferred firearm in the nation to 'keep' and use for protection of one's home and family." (District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S.Ct. 2783, 2818 (2008)).

FactCheck claim: Obama "did not ...vote to 'ban virtually all deer hunting ammunition."

FactCheck is wrong. Obama voted for an amendment by longtime ammunition ban advocate Sen. Edward Kennedy (S. Amdt. 1615 to S. 397, Vote No. 217, July 29, 2005), which would have fundamentally changed the federal "armor piercing ammunition" law (18 U.S.C. ' 922(a)(7)), by banning any bullet that "may be used in a handgun and that the Attorney General determines... to be capable of penetrating body armor" that "meets minimum standards for the protection of law enforcement officers."

Federal law currently bans bullets as "armor piercing" based upon the metals used in their construction, such as those made of steel and those that have heavy jackets. (18 U.S.C. ' 921(a)(17)). The Kennedy amendment would have fundamentally changed the law to add a ban on bullets on the basis of whether they penetrate the "minimum" level of body armor, regardless of the bullets' construction or the purposes for which they were designed (e.g., hunting).

Many bullets designed and intended for use in rifles (including hunting rifles) have, over the years, been used in special-purpose hunting and target handguns, thus they "may be used in a handgun."

The "minimum" level of body armor, Type I, only protects against the lowest-powered handgun cartridges. Any center-fire rifle used for hunting, target shooting, or any other purpose, and many handguns used for the same purposes, are capable of penetrating Type I armor, regardless of the design of the bullet.

Obama also said, on his 2003 questionnaire for the Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization, that he would "support banning the sale of ammunition for assault weapons." (source) The rifles banned as "assault weapons" under the 1994 Clinton gun ban fire cartridges such as the .223 Remington and .308 Winchester - the same ammunition used in common hunting rifles.

It's true that in 2005, Sen. Kennedy denied his amendment would ban hunting ammunition. But in a floor debate on an identical amendment the previous year, Kennedy specifically denounced the .30-30 Winchester rifle cartridge, used by millions of deer hunters since 1895. "It is outrageous and unconscionable that such ammunition continues to be sold in the United States of America," said Sen. Kennedy. (Congressional Record, 2/26/04, p. S1634.)

Isn't it FactCheck's job to be skeptical of politicians' claims, especially when the plain language says otherwise?

FactCheck claim: "Obama says he does not support any ... handgun ban and never has."

FactCheck is wrong. Obama has never disavowed his support for a handgun ban. On Obama's 1996 questionnaire for the Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization, he clearly stated his support for "state legislation to ...ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns." Although Obama first claimed he had not seen the survey, a later version appeared with his handwritten notes modifying some of the answers. But he didn't change any of his answers on gun issues, including the handgun ban.

FactCheck itself cites Obama's 2003 questionnaire to the same group. When asked again if he supported a handgun ban, he could simply have said, "No." Instead, as FactCheck notes, he "avoid[ed] a yes-or-no answer" by saying a ban on handguns "is not politically practicable," then stated his support for other restrictions.

The 1996 and 2003 positions are not at all contradictory. Many anti-gun groups, such as the Violence Policy Center and Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, support total bans on handguns but also support lesser regulations that are more "politically practicable."

FactCheck claim: Saying Obama supports gun licensing is "misleading."

FactCheck is wrong. Obama's fancy election-year footwork - claiming he doesn't support licensing or registration because he doesn't think he "can get that done" - isn't enough to get around his clear support for handgun registration and licensing.

What's really misleading is the idea that handgun registration isn't really gun registration. Handguns are about one-third of the firearms owned in the United States, and American gun owners know better than to think registration schemes will end with any one kind of gun.

 FactCheck claim: Saying Obama would appoint judges who agree with him is "unsupported."

This FactCheck claim is just strange. Don't most Americans expect that the President will appoint people who agree with him to all levels of the government? And putting all Obama's campaign rhetoric about "empathy" aside, why would judges be any different?

And on the larger issue of Obama's view of the Second Amendment, FactCheck once again takes Obama's spin at face value. While Obama now claims to embrace the Supreme Court's decision striking down the D.C. gun ban, he refused to sign an amicus brief stating that position to the Court. And when Washington, D.C. television reporter Leon Harris said to Obama, "You support the D.C. handgun ban and you've said that it's constitutional," Obama nodded - and again didn't disavow his support. (WJLA TV interview, 2/11/2008.)

 

-NRA-

On a cloudy Monday afternoon in April, Tina Davila was buried according to her wishes: dressed in her favorite Dallas Cowboys jersey, with a photo of all five of her children tucked inside her coffin. In the picture, Kaylynn, the baby girl Davila died trying to protect, looks fussy, her chubby cheeks puckered into a pout.

Billy Brewer, Kaylynn's father, watched as Davila's coffin was lowered into a grave at San Jacinto Memorial Park Cemetery in Houston.

Brewer, a long-haul trucker, had a crush on Davila since he was a teenager. He loved her wide smile and how, he said, ''she wouldn't back down from nothing for nobody." Most especially on the day Davila, 39, tried to fight off the man who cornered her in a parking lot while Kaylynn was strapped into her car seat.

TOPICS - Illegal Immigration, illegal immigrants, illegal aliens, murder, Tina Davila, mother of five, Timoteo Rios, marijuana possession, failure to identify to a police officer, Mexican citizen, illegal immigrant, Immigration and Customs Enforcement , Harris County Jail, holds, deportation, criminal mischief,worked in construction, ICE, Kenneth Landgrebe, unlawfully present in the U.S, Kennedy Escoto,

Witnesses told police Davila refused to hand over her car keys and screamed as she was stabbed in the chest: "My baby! My baby!"

In the days after her death April 16, Brewer couldn't bring himself to watch the surveillance camera video of the slaying. Not yet. He had a 4-month-old baby, just learning how to roll from her back to her belly, and a house full of memories.

On the TV news, Brewer learned that Timoteo Rios, the man charged with killing Davila, was an illegal immigrant with a criminal record. Rios had admitted to local law enforcement twice before the slaying that he was in the country illegally, but he wasn't deported, according to arrest and immigration records.

"I just want to know why," Brewer said. "If they were doing their jobs right, he wouldn't have been out there. Why'd they let him go?"

First arrest
Rios, now 24, was arrested for the first time in Harris County on May 29, 2007, a Tuesday afternoon. He attracted little attention. About 370 inmates pass through the intake division of Harris County Jail daily. Rios, who was living in a southwest Houston apartment complex, was charged with failure to identify to a police officer and marijuana possession, both misdemeanors.

He was fingerprinted, photographed and asked a series of questions. His answers were entered into the jail computer system. Birth date: Oct. 6, 1984. Height: 5 feet 11 inches. Weight: 162 pounds.

The jailer eventually asked: Are you a U.S. citizen? The records show that Rios said no, he was a Mexican citizen.

The jailer then asked: Are you an illegal immigrant?

Yes, Rios replied, according to jail records.

The jailer entered Rios' name into a database of inmates, set up in September 2006, who have admitted they are in the country illegally. The data entries are shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Houston, who have unrestricted access to the county's four jails. Agents routinely question and place "holds" on inmates in Harris County Jail they suspect are eligible for deportation.

Rios' name was the 15th of 20 added that Monday to the database. ICE officials confirm that they did not file paperwork to detain him.

Rios pleaded guilty to both counts against him and was released from jail June 5, 2007.


Second arrest
Twenty-two days later, Rios was back in jail, charged with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor. Police said he argued with his 18-year-old ex-girlfriend, the mother of two of his daughters, and punched out her apartment window. Then he threw a beer bottle at his ex-girlfriend's mother.

Rios was booked at 4:35 p.m. Again, Rios told jailers he was in the country illegally and, for a second time, was added to the database. He filled out paperwork for the court, writing that he was from Michoacan, Mexico, and worked in construction.

He pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 20 days with 11 days credit and was released July 6.

Kenneth Landgrebe, ICE's head of detention and removal for Houston, said ICE agents didn't have a chance to get to Rios.

"He was released before we had an opportunity to handle the case," he said. "We're in Harris County (Jail) every day, but we can't be in all places at the same time. I believe he was in a different part of the jail that we were working in. He was not where we were.

"We have to prioritize," he said. "Should we have been over there identifying him and letting a child molester get out? Or a pedophile or a bank robber or someone convicted of a serious drug crime? In a perfect world, if we had all the staff we needed, we could hopefully identify every alien that is unlawfully present in the U.S."

Ruth Alsobrook, Davila's grandmother, still lives in the house where Davila was raised in Galena Park, a 1950s-era neighborhood near the Port of Houston. Davila's parents died before she was 12.

"I loved that girl," said Alsobrook, 93, sitting in an armchair. ''I raised her in the church. Every time the church doors were open, we were there."

Davila attended Galena Park High School and rebelled as a teenager. She married her high school sweetheart, Eric Matt, in the spring of 1988. They had three children: Patrick, 20, Patricia, 18, and Payton, 16. Davila and Matt divorced after eight years but stayed friends. Davila later remarried and had another daughter, but that marriage also ended after a long separation.

One night about two years ago, she and Brewer ran into each other at Del's, a diner on the city's east side. Brewer asked her out for a date, and she said yes.

He said he felt lucky every day since, until April 16.

It was Brewer's 35th birthday. He had to drive a load out to Oklahoma City. He kissed Davila and Kaylynn, who was 3 months and 28 days old. It was early morning when he left for work.

At 5:02 p.m., Davila pulled into the parking lot outside the Cricket cell phone store on Uvalde Road near Wallisville Road, about a five-minute drive from her house in Houston. The next few moments were captured on the video surveillance camera outside the store.

Davila parked her white Chrysler Aspen SUV and stepped out. She started walking toward the store, leaving Kaylynn buckled into her car seat. An older model Ford Taurus pulled in behind Davila's SUV. A man jumped out and ran to block the door. He and Davila struggled over her purse and car keys.

A witness in the parking lot told detectives Davila screamed for her baby. The man stabbed Davila and ran back to his car, tossing the keys away. She stumbled inside the store, clutching her chest.

That night, Brewer tried Davila's cell phone, but it went straight to voice mail. Finally, his mother called him.

"Billy, come home," she said. "Tina's had an accident."

"How bad?" he asked.

"Just come home," she said.


Unanswered questions
Davila was taken to East Houston Regional Medical Center. She was pronounced dead minutes after arriving. By the time Brewer reached his mother's house that night, Davila's death was already on the TV news.

Days after the slaying, Harris County detectives arrested 18-year-old Kennedy Escoto, the suspected getaway car driver. Investigators said Escoto implicated Rios in Davila's death. Detectives say Rios may have fled to Mexico.

Davila's older children had questions about what happened. They saw on the news that Rios had been arrested twice before the slaying — and was in the country illegally.

"The kids just couldn't understand why he could be illegal and commit crimes and still be here. And I couldn't explain it to them," Matt said.

After Davila was killed, Brewer exchanged his long-haul job for one that keeps him closer to home. He asked his cousin to care for Kaylynn, temporarily, he said, until she gets a little bit older.

He put down a $150 deposit on a grave near Davila's and is paying $50 a month.

The more he learns about the man accused of killing Davila, the more his anger grows.

"He should have been deported after the first arrest," he said. "It's that simple. There's got to be a better way."

Brewer has started putting together a scrapbook for Kaylynn. He's saving Davila's high school jacket, a bunch of magnets he picked out for her over the years on the road, and the program from her funeral service. On the cover, there's a picture of Davila, with a warm, wide smile.

some ordered deported decades ago — to walk away from Harris County Jail despite the inmates' admission to local authorities that they were in the country illegally, a Houston Chronicle investigation found.

A review of thousands of criminal and immigration records shows that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials didn't file the paperwork to detain roughly 75 percent of the more than 3,500 inmates who told jailers during the booking process that they were in the U.S. illegally.

Although most of the inmates released from custody were accused of minor crimes, hundreds of convicted felons — including child molesters, rapists and drug dealers — also managed to avoid deportation after serving time in Harris County's jails, according to the Chronicle review, which was based on documents filed over a period of eight months starting in June 2007, the earliest immigration records available.

Other key findings in the investigation include:

•In 177 cases reviewed by the Chronicle, inmates who were released from jail after admitting to being in the country illegally later were charged with additional crimes. More than half of those charges were felonies, including aggravated sexual assault of a child and capital murder.
•About 11 percent of the 3,500 inmates in the review had three or more prior convictions in Harris County. Many had repeatedly cycled through the system despite a history of violence and, in some cases, outstanding deportation orders.

The investigation found that the federal government's system to identify and deport illegal immigrants in Harris County Jail is overwhelmed and understaffed. Gaps in the system have allowed some convicted criminals to avoid detection by immigration officials despite being previously deported. The problems are national in scope, fueled by a shortage of money and manpower.

 

In reaction to the Chronicle's findings, U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, said ICE needs more resources to target immigrants convicted of crimes.

"There's no question about it," Poe said. "Criminals from foreign countries who get caught after committing a crime and prosecuted should go to the top of the list of people we deport."

ICE removed 107,000 convicted criminals from the U.S. in the 2008 fiscal year, which ended in September. But during the same time frame, ICE sent home more than two times as many illegal immigrants without criminal records, prompting criticism from some members of Congress.

Kenneth Landgrebe, ICE's field office director for detention and removal in Houston, said officials are doing the best they can with the resources they have. ICE trained nine Harris County jailers this summer through a federal program that empowers local law enforcement to act as immigration agents.

The Houston ICE office set a record by removing 8,226 illegal immigrants with criminal records from Southeast Texas last year, an increase of about 7.5 percent from fiscal 2007.

"No agency has enough law enforcement officers to do the job the way they'd like," Landgrebe said. "If you look at law enforcement in general — at Houston or New York City or Los Angeles police — do they apprehend every criminal that commits a crime? No. Do they arrest every person that speeds in a traffic zone? No.

"We have to prioritize what we handle," Landgrebe said.

 

Missed opportunitiesICE officials estimated that between 300,000 and 450,000 inmates incarcerated in the U.S. are eligible for deportation each year.

 

Though ICE has improved screening in federal and state prisons in recent years, the agency estimates it screens inmates in only about 10 percent of the nation's jails.

This spring, ICE officials announced a plan to identify and deport the most serious offenders in the nation's prisons and jails, estimating it would cost between $930 million and $1 billion and take about 3 1/2 years.

Congress is pressuring ICE to move faster.

"The present situation is unacceptable," said Rep. David Price, D-N.C., chairman of the House Homeland Security appropriations committee.

"The highest priority for ICE should be deporting people who have proven their ability and their willingness to do us harm. Immigration is a very, very contentious issue, but this seems to be one thing almost everyone agrees is a priority."

Yet, the Chronicle's review found hundreds of missed opportunities to deport convicted criminals, perpetuating a cycle of crime and violence.

•Armando De La Cruz, a Mexican national, told jailers on two occasions in 2007 that he was undocumented. Both times, he was convicted of assaulting his wife and released after serving his jail time. De La Cruz is now back in Harris County Jail, charged with raping a woman at knife point behind a southeast Houston apartment complex in July, and attempting to rape another woman less than a week later. His defense attorney, Ricardo Gonzalez, did not return phone calls.
•Pedro Alvarez, a convicted sex offender from El Salvador who was first deported in 1991, racked up eight convictions in Harris County over a span of two decades and was allowed to walk free from jail multiple times — as recently as the spring of 2007. Immigration officials finally charged him with re-entry after deportation in February. Sandra Zamora Zayas, the attorney who represented Alvarez in federal court in South Texas, did not return phone messages.
"It's just amazing how long it took them to catch up with him," the mother of a 5-year-old girl Alvarez sexually assaulted in 1988 said in an interview with the Chronicle, after learning about Alvarez's extended criminal history.

 

'Never lied about who I am'Miguel Mejia Rodriguez, 36, is locked up on the fifth floor of the San Jacinto Jail downtown, accused of raping and sodomizing a second-grader.

 

It is the fourth time in 12 years that Rodriguez, an unemployed drifter from Zacatecas, Mexico, has landed in Harris County Jail. Over the years, Rodriguez has served time for drug possession, theft, trespassing and indecent exposure. He told jailers he was in the country illegally in December 2006, after a security guard caught him touching himself in an apartment complex parking lot, records show.

But ICE officials did not file paperwork to detain Rodriguez. He was released after serving his 25-day sentence.

"I never lied about who I am, or where I'm from. I'm 100 percent Mexican," Rodriguez said in a jail interview with the Chronicle in September, after he was accused of the rape and sodomy of a 7-year-old.

According to court records, the girl told a friend Rodriguez started abusing her after her mother died in 2005, while he was living with her family.

The girl was hospitalized and treated for syphilis, court records show. In an interview with Houston police detectives, Rodriguez admitted to contracting syphilis from a woman he met in a Houston cantina, but he denied raping the girl. He said she was a "troublemaker" who lied because he punished her when she misbehaved.

When he was arrested on the sexual assault charge in July 2007, Rodriguez again told jailers he was in the country illegally, records show. In June, nearly a year after his arrest, ICE officials filed paperwork to detain Rodriguez, who is scheduled for trial in December.

 

Deadly consequencesKatherine Anne Bridges, deaf and mute, was just 19 in the fall of 2004 when she told Harris County authorities that Jeremias Fuentes, her boyfriend, tried to grab their 6-month-old baby boy from her arms and kicked her in the face. He hid her emergency phone so she couldn't call for help. Fuentes was sentenced to 20 days in jail.

 

Nearly three years later, in August 2007, Fuentes was arrested again, suspected of interfering with case workers trying to interview Bridges about abuse allegations. Fuentes, 36, told jailers he was an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, records show. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail. He was released after ICE didn't file paperwork to detain him.

On the morning of Nov. 26, 2007, a medical examiner puzzled over the writing scrawled on Bridges' palm. It read in part: "Payback because ... help me."

The evening before, Bridges' body had been found facedown in the bedroom closet of her southwest Houston apartment complex. She had blood in her brown hair and a dozen stab wounds on her face, neck, chest and back. A knife rested on the baby crib.

Detectives questioned Fuentes, who admitted he stabbed Bridges, but he said it was self-defense. In December, immigration officials filed the paperwork to detain Fuentes, who declined a request for a jail interview. He is scheduled for trial in February.

Andy Kahan, director of the Houston Mayor Crime Victims Office, said he hoped Bridges' case could be a ''catalyst for change" and encourage local authorities to work more closely with ICE to ensure inmates with violent criminal histories are vetted before release.

"There were numerous opportunities to do the correct thing, and that's have him deported, and that didn't happen. And as a result, a woman paid dearly with her life," Kahan said.

Matthew Baker, an assistant field office director for ICE in Houston, said agents try to screen out as many violent criminals as possible to avoid preventable crimes. Many illegal immigrants are identified by ICE in the state's prison system, he added, even if they are not caught while in jail.

"No one can measure the cases where we picked up and removed someone and prevented that carjacking or that drunk driving accident that kills a family," Baker said. "There are hundreds of thousands of incidents that we prevent every year; those are not measured because they don't happen."

 

Facts vs. fearsWhile the Chronicle's review found cases involving hardened criminals who slipped through the deportation net, the investigation also revealed that 43 percent of suspects who were arrested and admitted being in the country illegally were charged with misdemeanors and had no prior criminal record in Harris County.

 

Immigrant advocates cautioned against stereotyping illegal immigrants based on high-profile cases. Most research has found that recent immigrants are far less likely than their U.S.-born counterparts to commit crimes and end up in prison.

In Texas, foreign nationals made up approximately 15 percent of the state's population in 2005, and about 7 percent of state prison offenders.

"Many people see it as a profound insult when someone who is here without permission commits a heinous crime," said Rebecca Bernhardt, director of policy development for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. "To be outraged at the individual who committed that crime is an appropriate response. But to be angry at everybody who is just here trying to work to support their family and comes from the same background as that defendant is a mistake."

 

Asking about statusThe nation's system for identifying and deporting immigrants convicted of crimes is largely secretive. ICE officials refuse to disclose the names or basic immigration history of people detained and marked for deportation, citing privacy protections in federal law.

 

To better understand how ICE screens inmates, the Chronicle obtained a copy of a database, maintained by the Harris County Sheriff's Office, of inmates who tell jailers during booking that they are in the U.S. illegally.

The Sheriff's Office voluntarily started questioning inmates about their legal status and created the database in September 2006, after a previously deported felon killed Houston police officer Rodney Johnson. During the booking process, inmates are asked whether they are in the country illegally. If they answer 'yes,' their name and jail ID number is entered into a database that is shared with ICE agents in Houston.

The Chronicle compared the entries in the Sheriff's Office database with immigration ''holds" placed by ICE with the Sheriff's Office. An immigration hold is essentially a request by ICE agents that law enforcement notify them before releasing an inmate. ICE officials confirmed that jailers notify them before releasing immigrants who are marked for possible deportation.

The Houston Police Department, which runs the city's jails, notifies ICE only about suspects with immigration warrants and previously deported felons.

Of the more than 80,000 bookings into Harris County Jail during the review period, about 3,500 — less than 5 percent — admitted to being in the country illegally. ICE filed paperwork to detain roughly 900 of the 3,500. During the review period, the agency also filed paperwork to detain 2,500 suspects not included in the database, indicating that many immigrants who are eligible for deportation do not disclose that they are here illegally.

ICE, however, could not confirm whether the inmates marked for ''holds" actually were deported.

Landgrebe, the ICE official, also questioned the quality of the information in the Sheriff's Office database, because it was based only on inmate responses and was entered by some jailers without immigration training.

 

More removalsICE officials would not answer specific questions about ICE staffing at the Harris County or city jails but said screening has improved in recent months. In October, the Sheriff's Office started testing a Homeland Security database that gives jailers access to millions of immigration records. The county's participation in the federal government's 287(g) program, which trains jailers to act as immigration agents, also is expected to help improve screening, ICE officials said.

 

Harris County Sheriff-elect Adrian Garcia, who defeated incumbent Tommy Thomas in the November general election, said he plans to evaluate the office's participation in the program after he takes office in January.

Thomas said he believes the program is necessary — at least until ICE has the resources to improve screening.

''In a perfect world, I'd like to see our borders secured to where we have someone we find to be here illegally, we turn them over to ICE and have them deported," Thomas said. ''But that's not something that's happening at this day and time."

By Chris Sundheim
The Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 11.15.2008


advertisement


Mayors of three cities hit hardest by the economic crisis — Philadelphia, Atlanta and Phoenix — asked the federal government Friday for a piece of the $700 billion bailout package, saying they need help just like financial institutions.
Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia said he wants "to make sure that cities and metro areas are at the table, that their voices are being heard, that our challenges and problems are well understood, so that we can get relief."
The mayors proposed providing loans to help cities pay pension costs. They also want $50 billion in loans for infrastructure investments and additional one-year loans to cities that are unable to borrow cash because of tight credit markets.
The mayors made their requests in a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
Asked about the requests, a Treasury spokeswoman referred to Paulson's statement Wednesday that assistance to state and local governments was not the purpose of the bailout funding.
"The focus … is to stabilize financial institutions and strengthen the financial system, promote lending and so on," Paulson said.
Phoenix's budget deficit is at least $200 million and could reach $250 million by June if tax revenues keep shrinking. That figure represents up to 22 percent of the city's $1.2 billion general fund, which pays for most city services.
City officials say service cuts will affect every department. Phoenix will probably reduce hours at libraries, community centers and public pools and cut bus routes, among dozens of other actions.
If the government agrees to help, Phoenix could use the money to build new police and fire stations, water-treatment plants and extensions to a new light rail network.
"We're going to have to do this in order to keep our city growing and healthy and safe," Mayor Phil Gordon said.
President-elect Barack Obama has also called for some sort of aid to state and local governments so they do not have to raise taxes or lay off workers while the federal government tries to revive the economy. But he has not proposed or endorsed a specific plan.
"The future prosperity of this country is tied directly to our ability to provide basic services and quality infrastructure to our citizens," Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin wrote in a letter to Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. "We are at serious risk in failing in that most basic public responsibility."
Also on Friday, San Jose, Calif., Mayor Chuck Reed initially said he planned to make a separate request for $14 billion of the bailout package to pay for mass-transit improvements and expansion of the area's clean-technology businesses. He later said he wouldn't request any money.
"If the federal government is going to be doling out money, we'll be asking for our fair share," Reed said. "As the 10th-largest city in the country, we should at least get 2 percent. That would be fair."
In Atlanta, an expected budget shortfall of $50 million to $60 million means that 4,600 city employees will have their weekly hours and pay cut by 10 percent. The city has also adopted a hiring freeze for most agencies and dipped into its reserves for $12 million.
And those were not the first budget cuts. Earlier this year, Atlanta laid off 372 employees, eliminated about 900 jobs and raised some fees.
U.S. cities have seen revenue fall 4.3 percent from last year, according to Chris Hoene, director of policy and research at the National League of Cities.
For the first time since 1985, a survey showed that revenue from property, income and sales taxes are all down simultaneously, and widespread cuts in services are likely, he said.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he is open to receiving federal assistance, but he doesn't think it's likely.
"We would certainly love to have our share of it," he told reporters Friday. "Everybody's lining up now. There's no industry that isn't saying, 'We need a bailout.' There's no government entity that all of a sudden isn't saying, 'We need a bailout.' "
Other cities such as Dallas and Wilmington, Del., hope to obtain help from a separate assistance package being promoted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Congressional leaders plan to push for a second round of economic-stimulus measures in a lame-duck session next week.
In Lexington, Ky., officials would like $125 million to hire more police and make improvements to a wastewater treatment plant, the airport and the city's downtown.
"These aren't luxury items," Mayor Jim Newberry said. "These requests represent pent-up needs for the basics."
In Philadelphia, the city pension system lost more than $650 million in the first nine months of the year.
Last week, Nutter announced the city would lay off municipal employees, cut salaries, close most of its swimming pools and shut nearly a dozen library branches to cope with a $108 million shortfall this year caused by declining business and real estate tax revenue. The deficit could grow, he said.

By Joe Guzzardi

Amazing!

 

What other word is there? Three weeks ago, I asked how annoyed Americans are with our political leaders? I said we’d find out on November 4th.

And we did.

 

The sad answer is that despite our bluster and considering that Congress has only 10 percent approval rating, it turns out that Americans aren’t angry at all.

 

Supposedly, our ire would send us to the polls in record numbers.

 

This was true for Democrats who actually showed up. But Republicans, sensing disaster, stayed home. The net result was that 62 percent of Americans registered cast a vote versus 60 percent four years ago.

 

Like lambs to the slaughter, voters too often re-elected the same politicians who led them into a needless and costly war in Iraq, slept while bankers destroyed America’s financial system, applauded as free trade bills robbed the nation of its jobs, promoted amnesty, approved more non-immigrant visas for foreign-born workers , and signed off on a series of massive spending bills that brought the U.S. national debt to over $10 trillion, up from seven trillion when I wrote about it in January 2004.

 

A few of the most stunning returns:

 

• In Pennsylvania, my new home, Barack Obama heaped scorn on us calling us “bitter” but he coasted to an easy victory.

   

  
   
• In Alaska, voters gave enough support to the crotchety 85-year-old convicted felon Senator Ted Stevens to send his race against Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich into overtime. Alaskans endorsed Stevens despite Senate Majority leader Harry Reid’s promise that if elected he would not serve. [A Felon Leads in Alaska’s Senate Race, by T. W. Farnam, Wall Street Journal, November 5, 2008]

   

  
   
• In Minnesota, the Democrats’ inexperienced tax evasion candidate Al Franken forced incumbent Norm Coleman into a recount.[Coleman Leads Franken in Minnesota Senate Race, by Patrick Condon, Associated Press, November 5, 2008]

   

  
   
• In San Francisco, U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi, arguably the worst House Speaker in history, got more than 70 percent of the vote despite challenges from Independent anti-war candidate Cindy Sheehan and Republican Dana Walsh.

   

  
   
• In New York, Pelosi’s fellow Congressional liberal Democrat Nita Lowey defeated the conservative, immigration restrictionist, pro-environment candidate Jim Russell despite her money connections to the Wall Street crowd—specifically Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns—that has bankrupted America

   

In California’s 11th district that includes Lodi, Democratic incumbent Jerry McNerney survived his challenge from Dean Andal, a well-known and widely respected Republican.

 

Even though McNerney voted before Election Day for both federal bailout packages, largely unpopular with voters, he easily defeated Andal, a fiscal conservative. [McNerney with Strong Win Over Andal, by David Siders, The Record, November 5, 2008]

 

As of today, no one knows where the $700 billion urgently disbursed to the banks has been spent. Instead of stemming the crisis, the bailout McNerey supported accelerated the consumer catastrophe but allowed some banks to acquire its weaker sisters.

 

During the painful, endless presidential campaign John McCain and Obama took advantage of the uninformed electorate and the wimpy MainStream Media by playing to the lowest common denominator.

 

Confident that their audience is clueless, the candidates went from city to city, promising jobs and prosperity but rarely fielding a question about how the jobs or prosperity would be created.

 

That I am aware of, not one reporter said to McCain: “Sir, the free trade agreements that you voted for in Congress are the reason that there are no jobs in the first place.”

 

The anti-incumbency movement, about which I have written before, is dead. In fact, it never was alive.

 

The 2008 results prove that Americans are delighted with the status quo despite their protestations to the contrary.

 

Here’s the “throw the bums out” dismal final tally.

 

The Congressional retention rate remained the same as it has been since 1855, 95.6 percent overall.

 

As usual, no third-party congressional candidate was elected. A handful reached the 20 percent level while in the vast majority of cases they stayed in low single digits. 

 

In the presidential vote category, about just 1.6 m