28. February 2010 by admin.

Speaker Pelosi asked fellow Democrats to fall on the sword, take one for the team or vote against their values to force a 2,700-page health care legislation bill onto the American citizens that simply doesn’t believe a faltering economy can handle another trillion-dollar entitlement program.

President Obama claimed he heard the voters in his State of the Union speech in January. He promised his administration would pivot to jobs and the economy. In fact, not only has the President failed to live up to his speech, but also his administration plans to focus on the health care topic for the next two to three months.

The recent economic indicators show the country in fact is headed for a double-dip recession. The housing market posted lower than expected sales, the recent positive bounce in unemployment didn’t last, more jobs have disappeared and consumer-spending confidence has dipped again. Keep reading

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28. February 2010 by admin.

One year ago today, concerned citizens throughout America began the arduous task of organizing a movement. The movement would grow like wildfire and be known as the Tea Party. The leaderless grassroots group would focus on big-government spending and infringement of laws threatening American liberty and freedom.

Tea Party members say this will be the first battle of the Second American Revolution. Across America the calls were heard and citizens formed a vast patriot social network. By April, the Tea Party movement included millions of Americans, and on April 15th, 850 tea parties across the nation hosted 1.2 million patriots voicing their defiance of an out-of-control government.

“To date in California we have 173 different Tea Party groups and we are home to the largest coalition in the country – we are even bigger than Texas,” said Dawn Wildman co-founder of the Southern California Tax Revolt Coalition in San Diego. “It’s great to see the rain or the last minute parking charge (formally a free lot on the weekends) didn’t keep the 1,000 Tea Party supporters from our first anniversary.”

The parking charge didn’t sit well with the Tea Party organizers and after the event it was back to work doing what the citizen activists do best – hit the phones. Keep reading

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26. February 2010 by admin.

It has been reported by the Associated Press that the ethics investigation panel has decided Charles Rangel (D-N.Y) and his staff broke the rules when they knowingly accepted Caribbean vacations on behalf of large corporations.

It is a violation of the House rules to accept extravagant trips on behalf of any businesses while serving in the U.S. Congress. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus say Rangel had been exonerated on four of the trips, however he was guilty of other island vacations.

Rangel, who is an establishment lawmaker, could face the loss of control in the powerful Ways and Means Committee that oversees Medicare and Social Security benefits as well as tax issues.

It is worth pointing put that the House and Means Committee must rewrite the expiring of former President Bush’s tax laws that the committee is expected to tackle – much of it is complicated legislation to craft.

This ethics decision comes as another blow to established Democrats who have suffered a variety of setbacks from passing health care legislation to retiring stalwart leaders. Rangel who has served in the Congress for 34 years could lose his powerful chairmanship. Keep reading

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25. February 2010 by admin.

A few short days ago Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) voted for pay-as-you go legislation – in which she referred to as a way to “help us maintain fiscal discipline while we continue the hard work of rebuilding America’s economy,” and she broke her promise to her Californian constituents by voting for the new $15 billion stimulus bill disguised as a ‘jobs bill.’

This was the first test legislators faced on their new pay-as-you-go rule and they quickly moved to break the promise of paying for all new bills by cutting other programs or raising taxes.
Last month Boxer and her Democrat friends voted for the PAYGO legislation in order to provide political cover for another vote to raise the national debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion to a record $14.3 trillion. This ballooning debt measure was needed after the Democrats maxed-out the government’s credit card in order to pay out $787 billion for the overrated stimulus package.
“It’s inexplicable that Senator Boxer voted to waive the same law that she applauded the President for reinstating just four weeks earlier. This hypocrisy highlights why Barbara Boxer is facing the toughest re-election battle of her career,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) spokeswoman Amber Marchand. “Voters are tired of the out-of-control spending from the Democrat-controlled Congress and they are looking for real change in Washington this November.”
Boxer said on MSNBC that she “believed in PAYGO. If I want to spend something then I’ve got to cut something or figure out a way top for it.” Keep reading

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24. February 2010 by admin.

Looking for ways to slow human trafficking and the evils that comes with the modern-day slavery, California Against Slavery has started its petition drive to get tougher penalties for those who peddle in human trafficking onto California’s books.
The groups seeks much tougher criminal penalties, aid to district attorneys to better prosecute cases, increase protections for victims and train law enforcement officers all with hope of deterring those who continue to smuggle immigrants in America under the guise of a better life.
Victims of human trafficking are often subjected to forced labor, sexual exploitation and blackmail from their captures. This phenomenon isn’t unique to the United States, but is thriving in many countries around the world.
“We support and desperately need to see revision in our state law with regard to human trafficking,” said Jenny Williamson, founder and president of Courage to Be You, a Sacramento-area organization that rescues and restores victims of child sex trafficking. “Severe fines and extended jail time for the perpetrators of this evil must be enacted if ever this crime is to be deterred. Our courageous law enforcement officers must be equipped and encouraged with mandatory, specific training so that rescuing these vulnerable victims and putting their perpetrators away becomes a priority within our state.”
Taking a crack at the issue is Daphne Phung, executive director and founder of California Against Slavery;

1. How many people are found in California and U.S. who are victims of human trafficking?
Due to the underground nature of human trafficking, the counts of victims in California and the U.S. are not concrete or recent. Keep reading

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23. February 2010 by admin.

Tea Party organizers have found their voice, grown exponentially and have exerted their political will into both parties. Many of these grassroots organizations are now celebrating their first anniversary, but one thing is certain, they won’t rest until Washington politics is restored to its roots and begins to live within its means.
According Dylan Ratigan at MSNBC the Tea Party movement has “no coach, no game plan, and did we mention, the tea party has a bit of an integrity problem, as everybody from birthers, to open racists, to outright Nazis are actually on the team. And no one involved, including its leadership, seems to mind the fact.”
Ask the millions of everyday Americans who attended political rallies for the first time in their lives about main stream media view of their cause and you get something along the lines of “sticks and stones.”
While the mainstream media continues to mock the grassroots movement, the Tea Party folks look at the swelling ranks assuring their value in the political process.
“There are two things I have discovered during the course of the past year regarding the media. First, San Diego is blessed to have very engaged and fair-minded local news organizations. Second, in terms of national coverage, Tea Party participants rely mainly on the internet, Facebook, and Twitter and we really don’t expect much out of the beltway/New York media organizations,” says Leslie Eastman founder of the Southern California Tax Revolt Coalition. Keep reading

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18. February 2010 by admin.

According to a report in El Universo, the Ecuadorian government will ask the Organization of American States (OAS) to consider pushing the U.S. to adopt an open-border policy to encourage all people of Northern and Southern America to be free to move throughout the region, thus ending the need for deportations.
In the story, Hernan Holguin, sub-secretary of the Ecuadorian national department that oversees migrant issues, said he would bring this matter to the attention of OAS in an effort to solve the “human rights” and to halt the “irregular immigrants” deportations.
The move by Ecuador’s leaders hopes to impose a new world order in the west. Hernan expressed that people around the globe are advancing to a ‘universal citizenship’ and the world at large has already accepted that world globalization extends beyond foreign trade and is advancing towards ‘universal citizenship.’
The Ecuadorian government believes citizens of the world should be able to travel to countries whenever they want to.
The one-world proposal urges that “an integrated migrant policy with full respect for human rights in the framework of human mobility,” Hernan explains. He also emphasized that the process of immigrant returning to their country of origin should be “orderly, planned and supported.” Keep reading

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17. February 2010 by admin.

Describing the mishandling of the House of Death case and ICE’s treatment of confidential informants goes something like this – what happens in Mexico, stays in Mexico or government agencies gone wild; or law enforcement agencies gone wild.
Not only has the House of Death incident never been fully investigated, but also none of the DEA, ICE and DHS management officials responsible for supervising the case reprimanded. No rule books were written to ensure U.S. law enforcement agencies could ever take part in covering-up a dozen murders that crossed international borders with Mexico.
Once the case was shut down and the ‘stuff’ hit the fan ICE agents found themselves in the middle of a game of ‘Clue.’ Except this was very real – it was Mr. ICE agency, with the rope in the House of Death.
A common fact that many news stories and ICE representatives in Washington D.C. conveniently leave out about this gruesome murder tale is the fact each time informant 913 - Guillermo Eduardo Ramirez Peyro or ‘Lalo’ was debriefed about his visits south of the border, several ICE agents and supervisors were present in the interrogation room.
In a recent series of articles by NPR a Kumar Kibble, acting director of criminal investigation for ICE said, “we have been successfully recruiting informants year after year, and I think they have a comfort level working with ICE,” he says. “I mean, otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to continue to bring the highly successful investigations that we have been bringing.”

But according to the NPR story Kibble wouldn’t talk about Lalo. He had no comment about why the agency wants to send its star informant back to Mexico, where Lalo faces torture and death at the hands of the cartels he sold down the river.
Several attempts were made to contact ICE and Mr. Kibble, but the agency could not find an employee with that name. Nevertheless Lalo’s attorney Jodi Goodwin made it clear that this problem is not isolated and she represents many informants in similar cases. “The fact they tried to blame this on Lalo and his ICE handler Bencomo and not any of the supervisors who made the decision to move forward after each murder is ridiculous.”
In an effort to cover-up their tracks ICE fired Lalo’s handler, Raul Bencomo. Not only was Bencomo a low-level agent, he was never in a position to tell Lalo to participate in murder and stay inside the Juarez drug cartel and collect damning information to bring down a major kingpin and give ICE some much-wanted notoriety. “In the end ICE did me in. They wanted a fall guy and I shouldn’t have been the fall guy. Why weren’t any of my supervisors who directed me through this case I didn’t want to be a part of lose their jobs?” Bencomo said.
The House of Death case did garner ICE notoriety, but it was the kind Washington decided to sweep under the mat and cross their fingers mainstream media would fail to pick up on the cover-up that went all the way to the Bush White House. ICE got lucky and indeed the mainstream media decided to focus on the war in Iraq.  Keep reading

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16. February 2010 by admin.

In a new CBS News/ New York Times poll only eight percent want the current members in the House to remain in office while a staggering 92 percent want the bums kicked out.

The November election is shaping up to be historical in nature especially with the general public completely placing their anger squarely on the ultra-partisan politics taking place under the tutelage of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

The question being raised is how will President Obama react if he loses the majority in both chambers, will he dig in or will he morph much like President Clinton did after the 1994 Congressional revolution?

Nowhere is this scenario on display more than the shocking announcement from Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) that he would not seek reelection-not because he didn’t like serving, but he didn’t like D.C. politics.

The American people are voicing their concern in a big way as 80 percent of those polled stated Congress is more interested in serving special interests rather than their constituents.

It doesn’t get much better for those poll participants who voiced their overwhelming disapproval of the job Congress is currently doing, 75 percent are unhappy with House members.

As far as the President is concerned, the left-leaning poll reports Obama’s numbers continue to sink and now stand at 46 percent with 45 percent strongly disapproving of his performance.

Also there’s no improvement when it comes to Obama’s signature piece of legislation – health care reform. Highlighting the process that took place behind closed doors and bribing his own party members didn’t bode well with respondents, 55 percent said they disapproved of the President’s handling while only 35 percent sided with Obama. Keep reading

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11. February 2010 by admin.

Looking to build on the Scott Brown (R-MASS) Conservative mania sweeping across the country, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has dedicated a new political action committee to help lesser-known candidates.The Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF) is floating much needed finances to Conservative candidates in hotly contested primaries.
DeMint explains the SCF has made sure the “conservative voice” is heard within the Republican Party as well as around the nation. “What we are trying to do with the Senate Conservatives Fund with people like Marco Rubio, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, Chuck DeVore in California, and a number of others is to at least give Republicans an option of main stream conservative candidates in the primaries.”
A good example of this “mixing it up politics” is the Florida GOP primary where establishment guy Charlie Crist is facing a tightening race with young up-and-comer Marco Rubio.
“RubioMoneyBomb.com is the money bomb we hope to drop on Marco Rubio. He’s a great young candidate in Florida running for the Senate against more of an establishment Republican. He believes in limited constitutional government and I think he is the new face of the Republican Party,” DeMint told Fox News. Rubio was able to surpass the $200,000 mark with a few hours to spare. Keep reading

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