Free Republic

California is a mess, but I love it all the same--especially the Bay Area, where I lived for 15 years. I went to Berkeley in 1962--a refugee from Amherst College, which at that time was dominated by frat boys with high SAT scores. I didn't go to Berkeley to go to school, but to be a bus ride away from North Beach and the Jazz Workshop. In a broader sense, I went to California for the same reason that other émigrés had been going since the 1840s. I was knocking on the Golden Door. Immigrants from Europe had come to...

DECATUR, AL -- Decatur police have arrested one suspect in a Sept. 11 gang-style shooting at Funland Park and are searching for a second suspect who is considered to be armed and dangerous. Jose Luis Gonzalez, 19, was arrested Tuesday at the B&B Trailer Court on Modaus Road and charged with conspiracy to commit murder, three counts of attempted murder, three counts of second degree assault, shooting into an occupied vehicle and shooting into an occupied vehicle. He's being held in the Morgan County Jail on bonds totaling $400,000. Police are still searching for Samuel Trejo Carbajal, 19, of Elkmont....

Runner sues Attorney General over ballot wording SACRAMENTO • State Sen. George Runner is suing California Attorney General Jerry Brown for crafting what Runner calls an “overtly biased” summary of a ballot measure the senator created to prevent voter fraud. “I believe he has misrepresented what this initiative does,” said Runner, R-Lancaster, in an interview Monday. “That’s a tremendous disservice to the citizens of California.” Earlier this year Runner submitted ballot measure Vote SAFE, which would require voters to present photo identification at the polls, allow county Registrar of Voters additional time to count military votes and protect the identity...

Los Angeles religious leaders have launched a phone campaign to urge lawmakers to include undocumented immigrants in any healthcare reform plan. At a religious service Friday, faith leaders called access to healthcare a moral and spiritual imperative. More than 150 worshippers attended a Mass at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church and prayed for an all-inclusive reform plan.

"OMAHA, Neb. » A Nebraska man who stole a painting of the Virgin Mary to finance an abortion for a teen he raped has been convicted of first-degree sexual assault and felony theft. Aurelio Vallerillo-Sanchez, 39, of Omaha pleaded no contest to the charges Friday and faces up to 70 years in prison when sentenced in October, Douglas County prosecutor Brenda Beadle said Saturday. A call to the county public defender representing Vallerillo-Sanchez wasn't answered Saturday. Beadle said Vallerillo-Sanchez fled to Mexico with the 300-year-old painting worth $100,000 and the pregnant teen in March 2007. "The plan was that when...

By 2008 Agriprocessors, which was being run in Iowa by Mr. Rubashkin's son Sholom, was processing 60,000 chickens and buying 500 cattle a day from area livestock producers. It was the largest kosher meatpacker in the country, employing about 1,000 people. Agriprocessors hired Jewish rabbis to kill each animal to kosher standards. Further processing was conducted by local hires, and when that pool was tapped out, the company turned to immigrants from Ukraine, Russia, Somalia, Mexico, Israel, and most notably Guatemala. An area first settled by German and other European immigrants (Czech composer Anton Dvorak and his family spent summers...

Obama reverses stance on immigration Co-opts policy he once mocked By Stephen Dinan May 8, 2009 On the thorniest of political issues, President Obama has embraced the enforcement-first position on immigration that he criticized during last year's presidential campaign, and he now says he can't move forward with the type of comprehensive bill he wants until voters are convinced that the borders can be enforced. Having already backed off his pledge to have an immigration bill this year, Mr. Obama boosted his commitment to enforcement in the budget released Thursday. The spending blueprint calls for extra money to build an...

Three days of the family's whereabouts were missing in prior reports. Now we know why it was kept hush-hush - they were shopping in a Houston mall the day before he (supposedly) showed symptoms.

I sat in a hotel lobby and was watching CNN reporting on the "Pandemic". I commented to the person sitting next to me that the flus shouldn't be called the swine flu, because it actually is a combination of several flu viruses. To my surprise, he named off in rapid succession the four viruses that that latest flu bug contained. I asked him how was it that he was so knowledgeable. He responded that he worked for a large pharmacuetical firm. I commented that it seemed odd that several viruses purportedly from different parts of the globe could combine like...

An Associated Press story dated April 28 takes swine flu fears to a whole other level. A report datelined Washington by Ricardo Alonsozaldivar and Eileen Sullivan examined the worst-case scenario "if the swine flu gets out of control." "Two million dead," Alonsozaldivar and Sullivan wrote. "Hospitals overwhelmed. Schools closed. Swaths of empty seats at baseball stadiums and houses of worship. An economic recovery snuffed out. We're nowhere close to what government planners say would be a worst-case scenario: a global flu pandemic. But government leaders at all levels, and major employers, have spent nearly four years planning for one in...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency, while telling Californians not to panic about swine flu. His action gives permission for state health agencies to enter into any contracts needed to respond to the outbreak and to expand laboratory testing. Orange County health officials said early Tuesday there are no swine flu cases in Orange County, but they are continuing to be on watch. California now has 13 swine flu cases, with two Sacramento County seventh graders added to the list.

The Los Angeles County coroner's office is investigating two recent deaths for links to swine flu. Coroner's Capt. John Kades says tests are being run on two bodies to see if swine flu was a factor in their deaths, but there is no confirmation that the disease killed them. The Los Angeles Times reports on its Web site that both men's deaths were reported to the coroner's office on Monday. Coroner's spokesman Craig Harvey told the paper that a Bellflower hospital reported the death of a 33-year-old Long Beach man who was brought in Saturday with symptoms resembling swine flu....

A profound shift away from California's more transient and migrant-dependent past will soon produce the state's first generation of adults whose majority will be native-born, researchers at USC said in a study released Monday. More than 70% of Californians ages 15 to 24 were born and raised in the state, according to the report, "The New Homegrown Majority in California." By contrast, nearly two-thirds of state residents 45 to 54 years old were born out of state. SNIP Significantly -- and in contrast to the past -- the emerging homegrown majority will have been shaped entirely by their life experience...

Growing numbers of children of illegal immigrants are being born in this country, and they are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty than those with American-born parents... Overall, illegal immigrants' children account for one of every 15 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. In 2008, California had the most illegal immigrants at 2.7 million, double its 1990 number, followed by Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey.

Growing numbers of children of illegal immigrants are being born in this country, and they are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty than those with American-born parents, a report says. The study released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center highlights a growing dilemma in the immigration debate: Illegal immigrants' children born in the United States are American citizens, yet they struggle in poverty and uncertainty along with parents who fear deportation, toil largely in low-wage jobs and face layoffs in an ailing economy. The analysis by Pew, a nonpartisan research organization, found that the nation's estimated 11.9 million...

President Barack Obama plans to start addressing the thorny issue of immigration reform this year, including the search for a path to legalize the status of millions of illegal immigrants, The New York Times reported on Wednesday, quoting a presidential aide. Obama will speak publicly about the matter in May and bring together working groups including Democratic and Republican lawmakers over the summer to begin discussing possible legislation for as early as the fall, administration officials told the Times.

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― The University of Southern California Wednesday announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a driver who struck and killed one freshman student and seriously injured another. The Los Angeles County Council is offering a $75,000 reward and the Board of Supervisors will contribute $10,000, which totals $135,000. Adrianna Bachan, 19, and Marcus Garfinkle, also 19, were in a crosswalk on Jefferson Boulevard at Hoover Street about 3 a.m. Sunday when a car heading east on Jefferson ran a red light and struck them, according to police. Bachan, a freshman from...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Saying traditional census outreach will not be enough, Hispanic groups on Wednesday urged the Obama administration to follow through now on its pledge to pass immigration reform or risk an undercount of millions of people. The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Univision Inc., the League of United Latin American Citizens and SEIU announced a grassroots campaign that would supplement Census Bureau efforts to reach the traditionally hard to count Hispanic community.

A Modesto police officer had to pull his gun to keep a hostile crowd at bay early Sunday. The officer sustained minor injuries in the southwest Modesto incident, said police spokesman Sgt. Brian Findlen. Police are not releasing the officer's name. The officer's dog was assaulted but not seriously injured, Findlen said. Police arrested several suspects in connection with the incident. A loaded assault rifle was found later at the scene of the struggle, which unfolded about 2 a.m. Findlen said the officer pulled his gun only after other deterrents, including his police dog, failed to keep the crowd under...

Efforts by a street gang to recruit Fairfax County youths have led to the arrests of seven Chantilly area teenagers, ages 13 and 16... ...this time, the Latino gang Sur 13, with roots tracing to a notorious Mexican prison gang in Southern California, tried to pick up more members at Franklin Middle School, just off Centreville Road in western Fairfax County, court records state. A student at Franklin reported to the school resource officer that a student approached him during lunch period and asked him to join his gang, according to an affidavit for a search of the alleged gang...

San Francisco - Even as tuberculosis rates decline in the United States, drug-resistant strains of the disease showing up in states with large immigrant populations and are becoming increasingly hard to treat. Researchers are concerned about this trend while funding for labor-intensive disease control programs is being cut in cities such as San Francisco, which has the highest TB rates in the country.

City police say it is the largest raid in any single location in Douglas in recent memory DOUGLAS — More than 50 illegal immigrants were captured and detained today after the apartment they were using was discovered by the Douglas Police Department. The apartment, located at 337 G Avenue, was discovered as a result of a vehicle check at 7:50 a.m. Wednesday. Douglas Police Officer Tomas Romero spotted a suspicious vehicle on 19th Street and A Avenue. After checking on the plates of the 1999 yellow Chevy 3/4 ton pickup, it was discovered to be registered to a fictitious address...

Spectacular Hispandering (as Kaus calls it) from Madam Speaker, coinciding with The One’s decision to toss yet another hot-button issue that he doesn’t have to deal with right now onto his already crowded plate. Describing positions she disagrees with as un-American or unpatriotic is an endearing little habit of Pelosi’s and comes this time with a twist: Not only are immigration raids unpatriotic, apparently, but illegal aliens are among the greatest patriots of all. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently told a group of both legal and illegal immigrants and their families that enforcement of existing immigration laws, as currently practiced,...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently told a group of both legal and illegal immigrants and their families that enforcement of existing immigration laws, as currently practiced, is "un-American." The speaker, condemning raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, referred to the immigrants she was addressing as "very, very patriotic."

House Speaker recently told a group of legal and illegal Immigrants that enforcement of exsisting immigration laws, as currently practiced, is " Un-American " She said, " it must be stopped " " what value system is that? "

Despite his solemn promise to the American people to keep lobbyists out of his Admkinistration, two more have slipped in. The latest waivers were provided for Jocelyn Frye, director of policy and projects in the Office of First Lady, and Cecilia Munoz, director of intergovernmental affairs in the executive office of the president. Munoz was a senior vice president for the National Council of La Raza. She was heavily involved in the immigration battles in Congress in recent years, and is now a principal liason to the Hispanic community for the administration.

Editor's Note By Mark Potok Three Washington, D.C.-based immigration-restriction organizations stand at the nexus of the American nativist movement: the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), and NumbersUSA. Although on the surface they appear quite different--the first, the country's best-known anti-immigrant lobbying group; the second, an "independent" think tank; and the third, a powerful grassroots organizer--they are fruits of the same poisonous tree. FAIR, CIS and NumbersUSA are all part of a network of restrictionist organizations conceived and created by John Tanton, the "puppeteer" of the nativist movement and a man with deep racist...

Mexico football fans are adopting voodoo tactics ahead of Wednesday's crucial World Cup Qualifier with regional rivals the United States. Both sides will be looking to make a strong start to the final phase of qualifying for South Africa 2010, when they meet in the match at Columbus, Ohio. Mexico haven't won in the U.S. for ten years. In the hope of boosting their team's chances, Mexican sport magazine 'Record' has issued coupons for U.S. team voodoo dolls -- which could be attained with five different stamps from the publication. The move has also been supported by U.S. chain Blockbuster,...

The wobbly video shows a group of adults mulling inside Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant in Susquehanna Twp. Suddenly it pans left and captures a fight breaking out. The 22-second clip, uploaded Sunday to YouTube, is the latest example of what police describe as a disturbing and bizarre crime trend: escalating violence among adults at a place designed for children's birthday parties. Susquehanna Township police have been called to the restaurant on Union Deposit Road 12 times in the past year for reports of disorderly conduct, assault and theft. Those calls have resulted in 13 arrests, including six women -- five...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Sexual servitude is a new crime recently added to the books in Nashville. And for the first time in Metro two men now face those charges. Police said Jesus Miguel Garcia and Arturo Garnica Perez held a woman against her will for years and forced her into prostitution. She told police they threatened to hurt her family if she didn't do what they wanted. She also claimed they tortured her with ice picks. "There are those who say prostitution is a victimless crime. This certainly shows that it is not," said Metro police spokesman Don Aaron. The...

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Americans are “not concerned” that they may lose jobs to illegal aliens in a tight job market, according to speakers at a panel discussion conducted Thursday in Washington, D.C., by the National Council of La Raza. Simon Rosenberg, president and CEO of NDN – formerly the New Democrat Network -- said that Republicans are now “paying a steep price for demonizing Hispanics” in their “anti-immigration rhetoric” – rhetoric that he said created the “fear of losing jobs to undocumented immigrants of Americans.” Research conducted for La Raza, which describes itself as the “largest national Hispanic civil rights...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A researcher who has spent over a decade examining the economic impact of abortion finds that the approximately 50.5 million abortions in the U.S. since 1970 have cost the American economy $35 trillion. That comes in the form of lost productivity by having fewer workers contributing to society.Those contributions also come in the form of taxpayers contributing to state, federal and local governments that would have had more funds to pay teachers, offer health care benefits or put more police on the streets.The cost to the economy also includes the lost support for the social...

Immigration is the issue neither candidate will address. If you go to Sen. Barack Obama's campaign website, it says the following: Obama’s comprehensive immigration plan will: Create Secure BordersImprove Our Immigration SystemRemove Incentives to Enter IllegallyBring People Out of the ShadowsWork to Promote Economic Development in Mexico and Decrease Illegal Immigration" The same page sports a video of him speaking to the National Council of La Raza, the "open wide the borders" group, in which he says, "I won't walk away from the 12 million undocumented immigrants who work and contribute to our country every day."Not to put too fine a...

Hercules, CA (AP) -- Federal agents have taken 21 undocumented workers into custody after a raid of house in Hercules. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman says the raid of the five-bedroom home Wednesday came as part of an investigation into a chain of Chinese restaurants in San Pablo, Vallejo and Vacaville. ICE says since 2007 it has been investigating the family that owned the home and a chain of restaurants, including King's Buffet in Vacaville,

When Felicita Bautista prepared her husband’s coffee and kissed him goodbye on the morning of April 16, she thought she’d hear from him at lunchtime when he usually called. Instead, the phone rang at 8 a.m. Ms. Bautista’s husband, José Ramírez, told her immigration agents had raided the Pilgrim’s Pride chicken processing plant in downtown Chattanooga and that he had been arrested. “At first I didn’t believe him, I thought it was a joke, but he assured me it was true,” the 28-year-old Guatemala native said. Ms. Bautista’s husband, who had been in the United States illegally for five years...

For a generation, Mexican intellectuals have pondered the possibility of a “Greater Mexico” – the idea that Mexican immigration to the United States was so persistent and sustainable, that Mexican culture could “re-settle” lands lost to the United States at the conclusion of the Mexican American War. Americans, clinging to the belief of a “melting pot,” dismissed that notion, arguing that Mexican immigrants would follow historical norms and assimilate into mainstream American life, as previous generations of newcomers did before them. A new study by the Institute of Mexicans Abroad (IME), part of Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Relations, offers insight...

As pointed out by this representative of the Florida Attorney General's office, it is impossible to separate national security issues from illegal immigration, and one of the most important illegal immigration issues in Florida is the issue of human trafficking. And as Jake at Freedom Folks notes (thanks for the tip), this story doesn't appear to have been covered by the news wires. Here, a horrifying story is described of a little girl who, after being taken to the Florida panhandle from Mexico, resisted while being raped, and was subsequently made an example of by being beheaded in front of...

When the teenagers pushed past Laurie Lee Chilcote to get off the MAX train at the Gresham Central station on Nov. 3, he told them they shouldn't be shoving an old man. Fifteen-year-old Abel Chavez-Garcia responded by taunting the 71-year-old Chilcote and then bludgeoning him over the head with a baseball bat. On Thursday, Chavez-Garcia was sentenced to 91/2 years in prison after telling Multnomah County Circuit Judge Eric Bergstrom that he felt bad about what happened that night. "Nothing I can do about it anymore," said Chavez-Garcia, now 16. "I regret what I did." Chilcote wasn't in court to...

President Bush has signed an executive order requiring contractors and others who do business with the federal government to make sure their employees can legally work in the United States. Mr. Bush signed the order Friday and the White House announced the order Monday. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez planned an afternoon news conference to discuss the order and other ways the administration has stepped up its crackdown on illegal immigration. The order says federal departments and agencies must require contractors to use an electronic system to verify that the workers are eligible to work...

WASHINGTON - President Bush has signed an executive order requiring contractors and others who do business with the federal government to make sure their employees are working in the country legally.

MATTAWA, WASH -- . -- Nearly everyone in this small farming community in eastern Washington speaks Spanish -- nearly everyone except those in city government and the Police Department, where English is spoken. And almost everyone who speaks one language does not speak the other. That language barrier has engulfed the community, which has grown over the last 20 years from 300 to about 3,200 year-round residents. Nine out of 10 Mattawa residents speak Spanish at home, and 8 out of 10 adults speak English "less than very well," according to the 2000 U.S. Census. The Columbia River basin community,...

It is this reporter’s opinion that, after covering the invasion by illegal aliens over the past 40 years, it is difficult to find a story such as that related by Anna Gorman of the Los Angeles Times concerning illegal alien Ana Puente. “Ana was an infant with a liver disorder when her aunt brought her illegally to the U.S. to seek medical care,” said Gorman. The child underwent two liver transplants at UCLA Medical Center as a small child in 1989, and a third in 1998 — all totally paid for by the state of California. Now it is reported...

Melanie Bowers, 13, and her parents walked into Athens High School Monday afternoon to talk to campus police. They were hoping to get some answers. "It never should have happened in the first place. The whole assignment was a silly assignment and they should have contacted us immediately after it happened," said J.R. Bowers, Melanie's father. It was an assignment for history class--to make a protest sign for or against an issue, and Melanie said she chose illegal immigration. Her sign read, "If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration." Somehow, Melanie said the sign got passed around lunch and...

Melanie Bowers, 13, and her parents walked into Athens High School Monday afternoon to talk to campus police. They were hoping to get some answers. "It never should have happened in the first place. The whole assignment was a silly assignment and they should have contacted us immediately after it happened," said J.R. Bowers, Melanie's father. It was an assignment for history class--to make a protest sign for or against an issue, and Melanie said she chose illegal immigration. Her sign read, "If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration." Somehow, Melanie said the sign got passed around lunch and...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnnOOo6tRs8 This is what the BBC is saying about America. Is this for real.

“Your time to take this country over” By Michelle Malkin • March 3, 2008 10:04 AM Chris Kelly notes that if a person of non-color talked like George Lopez did while urging Latino voters to support Barack Obama, he/she would be run out of town on a rail. Hollywood television celebrity and popular comedian George Lopez brought U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s message of hope and change Wednesday afternoon to an estimated 1,200 potential young voters at the University of Texas at El Paso. “It is the time of the Latino, your time to step up, your time to take this...

What can we do should an amnesty/open-borders candidate win the Presidency? Can we go to the Supreme Court to make the President and Congress obey the law which demands that we protect our national sovereignty? Does anyone know of any other remedy should an amnesty bill be passed?

PAWTUCKET — Racism and xenophobia are contributing to a Rhode Island social climate in which immigrants are regarded as the villains, speakers at a pro-immigration rally said yesterday. “We build walls for people who have to leave their country for economic reasons,” said Gladys Gould of the Providence Presbyterian Church, one of a number of organizations that took part in “Unite for Fairness,” held at the Pawtucket Visitors Center. “You don’t see them going after the Irish. The difference is, the police will stop us because of the way we look. It is all about race,” said Gould, a native...

I don't know if this will work. I uploaded it to my own site: http://s154.photobucket.com/albums/s279/beetle_bucket/?action=view&current=aztlan.flv If that dont work, go to immigrationwatchdog.com look for movies (videos) and then look for a video called aztlan.

EDMOND — While I don’t listen too frequently to Rush Limbaugh these days, I certainly have in the past. I used to love it when he would say “words have meaning,” then precede to define a particular word with which he was referring. With that in mind, it is a real irritant when liberals and journalists, refuse to use the word “aliens” when referring to the hordes of law breakers already in the United States with more continuing to invade our nation on a daily basis. So I grabbed my trusty old Noah Webster 1828 Dictionary (the first dictionary published...