Free Republic

Jamie Peachey One of the goddesses in the "green Chakra room" at Phoenix Goddess Temple ​Phoenix Goddess Temple, the "sexual healing" church featured in the New Times' story Sacred Sexuality in February, was raided by Phoenix police officers Wednesday. Sixteen people -- five men and eleven women -- were detained for questioning. Among those arrested was temple practitioner Wayne Clayton, who is one of 12 people being indicted on grand jury charges including illegal control of enterprise, maintaining a house of prostitution, and receiving the earnings of a prostitute. Phoenix police sergeant Steve Martos confirmed that officers served a search...

Obama's Jobs Package May Include School Renovations And A Tax Break For Hiring The president's proposal would mean construction work and an incentive for businesses to add employees. It's expected to come with a plan to reduce federal budget deficits. By Peter Nicholas, Christi Parsons and James Oliphant, Washington Bureau August 17, 2011 Reporting from Washington and Alpha, Ill.— The jobs package that President Obama plans to unveil shortly after Labor Day could include tens of billions of dollars to renovate thousands of dilapidated public schools and a tax break to encourage businesses to hire new workers, according to people...

The number of Hispanic voters nationally and in New Mexico is growing at a faster pace than any other ethnic group, and that could spell trouble for the Republican party over the next 10 years, a political analyst with a business advocacy group said Tuesday. “Republicans are in trouble with Hispanics,” said Michael Davis, the Washington, D.C.-based vice president for political programs of the Business and Industry PAC. The party’s stance on immigration may not be bad policy, David said, “but the tone and language is extremely harsh and it drives away Hispanics.” Either party can improve its chances of...

And, now, the group Americans for Rick Perry reports it has raised a fair amount of money in a short amount of time. Bob Schuman, a senior strategist for Americans for Rick Perry, said Thursday that the group is expanding its fundraising operation outside of Texas to include Miami, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The group can accept unlimited donations but, under federal law, can't strategize with Perry himself.

TX governor panders to 'The Race' Chad Groening - OneNewsNow - 7/21/2010 5:20:00 AMThe head of a grassroots borders enforcement organization says it's completely inappropriate for Texas Governor Rick Perry to speak to a radical Hispanic organization that supports granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. The Republican governor recently addressed a crowd of 1,800 members of the National Council of La Raza, which calls itself the largest Hispanic civil rights organization in the United States. Critics, however, point out that La Raza means "The Race," and claim the organization is nothing more than a Hispanic supremacist organization. One of...

Romney says he's 'also unemployed' By Michael O'Brien - 06/16/11 01:04 PM ET Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) risked looking as though he had a tin ear when telling out-of-work Floridians Thursday that he's also unemployed. Romney, a Republican presidential candidate and a millionaire many times over, sought to empathize with voters in Tampa facing economic hardship. "I'm also unemployed," he said, as reported by the New York Times. And Democrats pounced, calling Romney out-of-touch for his remarks. “Mitt Romney’s comments today at an event with unemployed Floridians that he’s ‘also unemployed’ is inappropriate and insensitive to the millions...

NEW YORK - Cornelia Aguilar needs help when she goes to the doctor or when her co-workers at a nail salon call her on the phone. A Mexican who has lived in the U.S. for two years, she only speaks a variant of Mixteco, an indigenous language from the states of Oaxaca, Puebla and Guerrero in southern Mexico. "It is hard sometimes," whispers the 28-year-old, who was born in San Miguel Grande. She is one of a sizable number of Latin American immigrants who have settled in New York in recent years and speak only indigenous languages — ancient tongues...

The last of the 14 Lewis and Clark-class cargo ships that General Dynamics NASSCO is building in San Diego will be named after Cesar Chavez, the late civil rights and labor leader. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus will visit NASSCO on Tuesday afternoon to make the formal announcement. Some members of the Chavez family are expected to be in attendance, says NASSCO, which recently laid the keel of the ship. "We suggested the name Cesar Chavez for the ship because we're in Barrio Logan and want to be good neighbors, and we want to show respect for our workers,"...

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) disagrees with the Navy's decision to name a cargo ship under construction in San Diego for California farm labor leader Cesar Chavez. The decision, announced Tuesday, "appear[s] to be more about making a political statement than upholding the Navy's history and tradition," Hunter said in press release....

"Governor Daniels showed us he was a man of his word and has stood by the commitments he made during the 2004 pre-election Iftar," stated Alia Shah, Executive Director of MAI. Local Muslims say such political connections are important if their concerns are to be heard in government. But faith, rather than politics, was the key topic Monday night -- the first iftar held at an Indiana governor's home. Several Muslim leaders called it historic. "To be blessed to make prayer at the governor's residence is significant," said Michael Saahir, an imam from the Nur-Allah Islamic Center on the Northside....

Rush slams Daniels on big tent By: Jennifer Epstein February 14, 2011 02:42 PM EST Mitch Daniels called on the GOP to look beyond talk radio listeners to find voters — but Rush Limbaugh isn’t having it. “You don’t diss the people who are already audiences of those shows — you don’t say that they’re irrelevant or unnecessary,” Limbaugh said on his show Monday afternoon when asked about Daniels’ comments. “Who won elections for your party year after year after year?" Speaking Friday at CPAC, Daniels said that Republicans needed to broaden their appeal to win elections. “We will need...

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, will visit Israel. The Republican Jewish Coalition announced Tuesday that it would host Barbour in Israel Feb. 5-9. The RJC has hosted Barber in 1994, when he chaired the Republican National Committee. He will be the third potential Republican 2012 presidential candidate to visit Israel in recent weeks. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney visited Jan 13-14; ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is currently touring the country. Barbour, like Romney and Huckabee, is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli government...

Need to Know January 18, 2011 Ahead of the curve! Lib writer praises Jeb Bush Posted by Staff Ezra Klein writes: I think Jon Chait gets Jeb Bush very wrong here. When Bush says that "second-generation Hispanics marry non-Hispanics at a higher rate than second-generation Irish or Italians" and that "second-generation Hispanics' English language capability rates are higher than previous immigrant groups," he's directly answering a critique that has a lot of power among anti-immigration groups: that there's something different about this wave of immigrants as compared with previous waves of immigrants.

Seizing a window of opportunity before the new year ushers in a more conservative Congress, Democratic lawmakers and a handful of Republicans are leading a final charge to pass the DREAM Act, a youth-oriented immigration reform policy that would have its deepest impact in California. Illegal immigrants who entered the country before their 16th birthday would have a chance at citizenship through the DREAM Act if they can graduate from high school, go to college or into the military, and stay out of trouble. "They didn't come here through their own free choice," said Congressman George Miller, D-Martinez, who is...

The Obama administration agreed Tuesday to pay up to $680 million to American Indian farmers to settle an 11-year-old class-action lawsuit alleging discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who took office promising to address longstanding complaints by minority farmers against the department, said eligible farmers and ranchers can receive up to $250,000 each for showing that USDA discrimination caused them economic losses. However, most farmers will probably opt for a uniform $50,000 payment, which involves less red tape. In the class-action suit, American Indian farmers allege that USDA bureaucrats denied them the low-interest rate loans

The link is to East Tennessee Catholic, and the article I'm responding to is "Triptych of Love," by Richard Stika, Bishop of the Diocese of Knoxville. (When you use the link, you'll have to go to page 3; I don't know how to link there directly.) The first half of Bishop Stika's article does a fine job of pointing out that the Biblical teaching of God's concern for "the widow, the orphan, and the stranger" can be applied in our day to the unmarried mother, the unborn child, and the immigrant. This much, I think, is true, accurate, and pastorally...

On Wednesday, Arturo Lopez, 18, was convicted of abducting and raping his foster mother in Henrico County, last April. The 55-year-old victim told the jury of her pain, and how she can longer trust anyone, ending her long service as a foster mother...The jury recommended a 20-year sentence for the abduction and 10 years for the rape. Lopez will be sentenced in November. On April 9, the woman called police to report that her foster son had just raped her at knife point. The victim was able to leave the house and call 911, after telling Lopez that she had...

NEW ORLEANS – Five years after Hurricane Katrina's wrath, President Barack Obama sought to reassure disaster-weary Gulf Coast residents Sunday that he would not abandon their cause. "My administration is going to stand with you, and fight alongside you, until the job is done," Obama said to cheers at Xavier University, a historically black, Catholic university that was badly flooded by the storm.

Companies using criminal records or bad credit reports to screen out job applicants might run afoul of anti-discrimination laws as the government steps up scrutiny of hiring policies that could hurt blacks and Hispanics. A blanket refusal to hire workers based on criminal records or credit problems can be illegal if it has a disparate impact on racial minorities, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The agency enforces the nation's employment discrimination laws. "Our sense is that the problem is snowballing because of the technology allowing these checks to be done with a fair amount of ease," said Carol...

Apparently, not all Hispanics have Harry Reid's permission to "come out of the shadows". From The Atlantic: Reid's Hispanic Pitch The Las Vegas Review Journal reports today on Harry Reid courting Hispanics in his re-election race, and the state's 24% Hispanic population (as of 2007; it's possibly grown since then) could certainly be a critical voting bloc for him. His opponent, Sharron Angle, is an outspoken supporter of Arizona's SB 1070 and has proposed making English the official language of Nevada; Reid supports giving illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship, but the Democratic Senate has failed to move on immigration...