Author: XicanoPwr

Texas takes pride in being the lone star state. It likes to think it is so unique and very hospitable. In fact, that is what the evacuess told First Lady Barbara Bush:

Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we’re going to move to Houston. … What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

No home. No job. No school. That’s the devastation hurricane Katrina wrought on the thousands of people in Louisiana. Now some 372,000 school-age kids from New Orleans and elsewhere have been displaced, and many of them are settling in Texas. The obvious question, where will they go to school?
In good ole fashion Texas hospitality, Texas Governor Rick Perry and the Texas Education Agency (TEA) have told the public schools to open the doors to hurricane evacuees coming to Texas, since it will be until next school year before their own schools will reopen.

“I want stranded families to know the doors of Texas’ public schools are immediately open to your school-aged children,” Perry said. “I also want school leaders to know that we realize this will put a strain on their capacity, so I have asked the Texas Education Agency to work them to make sure they have the textbooks they need, funding for transportation and the free-and-reduced lunch program and class size waivers as needed.”

Perry was even generous that the State will bear the financial burden for schooling the evacuees. However, there is one catch, the per-pupil federal dollars that would have gone to Louisiana schools will be diverted to Texas. Since this is so unprecedented, Texas will work out the details later. However, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is not so sure where exactly the money will come from. In the end, students have been integrated with the general population.

The question is, how are things going so far? Are Houston’s student body greeting their new classmate with open arms – overwhelming them as First Lady Barbara Bush claims.

Not exactly. Skirmishes between the Houston students and the New Orleans students began only days after the evacuees enrolled in local schools. On September, in Houston, 20 to 25 students started fighting after a student at a local high school threw his soft drink at some of the new kids from New Orleans. Naturally in adolescent behavior, the students fought back, sparking a brawl that sent three students to the hospital for facial and rib injuries. The police had to come in and ended up arresting five students, three from Houston and two from New Orleans.

In mid-November, after a student-faculty basketball game, a fight broke at Sharpstown High School, leading a school police officer to issue a frantic radio call for all available law enforcement.

In the city of Conroe, TX, school officials had to beef up security after friction involving 30 students erupted into a campus brawl. Students interviewed by the Houston Chronicle said:

The students said there has been tension between the two groups since the Katrina evacuees arrived in September. They also said many students did not show up at school Friday because of rumors about more fights and students bringing guns and knives to school.

The Chronicle also reported that other schools are also experiencing similar incidents involving local students and New Orleans students.

On Nov. 17 at Scarborough High School another brawl broke out between local students and New Orleans evacuees. Which lead to 9 students being suspended, 2 temporarily jailed, and 1 being dispatched to a juvenile detention center.

Scarborough has witnessed more than a dozen fights between New Orleans and Houston students, at least three of them melees, administrators say. Some social workers say the tension stems in part from the tight bonding among black New Orleans students in the face of adversity and the unknown. In their new surroundings, a melting-pot school comprised mostly of blacks and Hispanics, it doesn’t take much to upset the turf lines.

These incidents are not just in Houston, several fights broke out in other Texas cities. In Nov. a fight broke out at Lincoln High School in Dallas when the power went out temporarily.

Students from New Orleans said Dallas students ganged up on the New Orleans students when the lights went out, while others said the New Orleans students were to blame.

In San Antonio, TX, the principal from MacArthur High School was pulled into the fight as four students were fighting, which two of the students were Katrina Evacuees students. North East ISD spokesperson told the San Antonio Lightning Newspaper:

Two students had a physical fight which was broken up by North East Police (NEPD).

No administrator was involved in the physical fight. Following the fight, an administrator and two other students were involved in a verbal exchange.

Maybe those small fights was a sign to come because on Dec. 8, the brawl that took place at Westbury High School cafeteria and spilled outdoors resulted in the arrest of 27 students.

The brawl started out in the cafeteria between two groups of girls and evolved into several other fights throughout the school.

HISD spokesman Terry Abbott is reporting that only one student suffered a minor cut to the eye. According to the Houston Chronicle, 15 of the 27 of those arrested after the brawl were Katrina evacuees, and of the 27, 18 were considered to juveniles. The Chronicle further describes the tension that has been building up:

Graffiti scrawled on the door of a girls restroom seems to mark the built-up tensions.

On the door’s center, “New Orleans Takin’ Over,” is crossed out. Nearby, “H-town forever!” is scrawled. The phrase “Go home” is answered with a crude “no.” Profanities litter the door.

“They have fights all the time (at the school) but I never thought it would be my girls,” a parent told the Houston Chronicle.

After being released late Wednesday, the younger teen said the fight broke out when Houston students taunted a batch of students from New Orleans with gang symbols. The older sibling said she noticed the crowd of students and saw another girl hitting her sister so she rushed to help her from the ground. Then punches were thrown at her, she said.

“It was like the whole school was fighting,” the younger girl said.

The girls, who were suspended for three days, will not be returning to the school, their mother said. Instead, she will seek to enroll them in school in New Orleans.

Up till now, HISD is citing only 12 fights involving local students and Katrina evacuees since their arrival to the HISD schools. But that is just within Houston school districts, with more than 5,000 student spread throughout Houston and surrounding areas, the chances of other fights happening in other school districts are high, but are not being reported.

The sad truth, the school year is not even over. Even sadder, this is how Texans threat their guests who are in need.

Folks here in Texas do seem a bit schizophrenic. Welcome to Texas! Ya’ll can get the hell out now, ya hear! Hope you enjoyed your stay.

Right after the Thanksgiving holidays, California Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham gave a heatfelt teary eyed confession and he would also resign from Congress after pleading guilty to taking more than “$2.4 million in illicit payments and benefits from his Coconspirators in various forms, including cash, checks, meals, travel, lodging, furnishings, antiques, rugs, yacht club fees, boat repairs and improvements, moving expenses, cars, and boats.”

The unraveling began in June 2005, when the San Diego Union Tribune broke a news story regarding an apparent bribe to a very conservative Republican Congressman from California, Randy “Duke” Cunningham. According to this report, it seems that a front company for MZM, Inc. chief Mitchell Wade bought a house from Representative Cunningham that hadn’t been put on public market even though Mr. Wade wasn’t looking to live there. It was a quiet, quick, private deal. This deal also involved Thomas Kontogiannis, Long Island Real Estate Developer and Kontogiannis wife’s nephew John T. Michael, president of Coastal Capital.
In 2002, before  Kontogiannis purchased the congressman’s flat-bottom riverboat, the Kelly C,  Kontogiannis was pleading guilty in a bribery, kickback and contract-rigging scandal and pay-offs totaling roughly a million dollars to Queens school superintendent Celestine Miller, including some $80,000 into the coffers of her failed congressional bid in 1998.

Celestine Miller, a one-time Queens school superintendent, and her husband William Harris, were charged with taking some $1 million in bribes which included

several European trips, two houses, four phony mortgages, personal checks, paid credit card bills, $80,000 in contributions to “Friends of Celestine Miller” – for her failed 1998 Republican congressional campaign, and $50,000 in cash, which was handed in a brown paper bag.

At this point things turn from the normal to some bizzaro made for tv movie. As Kontogiannis was about to be convicted, he was seeking advice from Cunningham about getting a Presidential pardon. It was at that time Cunningham remembered Kontogiannis had always wanted the Kelly C, so Cunningham sold the boat Kontogiannis for $600,000. Even though Cunningham purchased in 1997 for $200,000 from Alabama Rep. Sonny Callahan. Therefore, making a $400,000 profit . That is not the end of it. According to Josh Marshal, Talking Points Memo, after pouring about $100,000 into Kelly C, Kontogiannis decided he didn’t really want the boat after all so Cunningham bought back the boat. Which is the reason Kontogiannis never changed the title on the boat from Cunningham’s name to his.

Then in late 2003, Cunningham bought a $2.55 million home in Rancho Santa Fe. Cunningham then asked Kontogiannis if Coastal Capital, the mortgage company owned by his daughter and wife’s nephew, could finance $1.1 million in mortgages. The congressman bought the new house soon after Mitchell Wade, MZM’s Washington defense contractor, paid $1.675 million for Cunningham’s old Del Mar home. Like Kontogiannis, Wade also decided he didn’t want to keep the house so he sold it for a $700,000 loss. The money Kontogiannis still owed to Cunningham for the boat, Kontogiannis used it to pay off the $500,000 Cunningham owed on the second mortgage on the Rancho Santa Fe home.

Kontogiannis relationship with Cunningham goes back 15 years according to the Washington Post.

Kontogiannis, who said he served in the Greek navy before coming to the United States in 1970, said he met Cunningham at a Washington function about 15 years ago. They talk a couple of times a year, he said. Cunningham was a Navy fighter pilot and an instructor at its Top Gun flight school.

In Cunningham’s travel portion of his 2005 report, Cunningham reported going on two trips from Washington to Saudi Arabia with return trips to San Diego. The first trip was between April 3-8, 2003, the second between Dec. 9 and Dec.14. The trips were not paid by Kontogiannis, but by San Diego real estate developer Ziyad Abduljawad, chairman of PLC Land Co. Union-Tribune reported that Kontogiannis went on the same trip as the congressman. They reported:

In a previously undisclosed link between Cunningham and Kontogiannis, the developer accompanied the congressman to Saudi Arabia last year. A Saudi-American businessman flew Cunningham to Saudi Arabia twice last year aboard a private jet. On the second trip, the jet stopped in Athens to pick up Kontogiannis, a native of Greece with businesses interests in several countries.

Ziyad Abduljawad, founder and chairman of San Diego-based PLC Land Co., paid for Cunningham’s two trips to Saudi Arabia, each at a cost of more than $10,000. Cunningham has described Abduljawad as an acquaintance who shares his interest in improving U.S.-Saudi relations.

Kontogiannis “went as a friend of Duke’s,” said Harmony Allen, Cunningham’s chief of staff. “That’s the extent of it. Duke asked him to go as a friend. I’m not sure if (Kontogiannis) had a special interest (in visiting) Saudi Arabia or not.”

It was unclear who paid for Kontogiannis’ trip.

Who is Ziyad Abduljawad? According to San Diego Reader, Ken Calvert joined Cunningham on the December 9 trip. On Calvert’s disclosure form, Calvert states “Due to security risks, I stayed in a private home where meals were provided. Below is my best estimate about expenses.” He estimated his expenses at $10,790, which happens to by the same amount as Cunningham. The Reader also reported:

Ziyad, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lives in Newport Beach, is a member of the kingdom’s wealthy Abduljawad family, which has its fingers into everything from home development in Orange County to high-tech electronics ventures. Reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show that Ziyad controls the shares of an outfit called Ellumina, LLC, which in turn has been in another venture with BridgeWest, LLC, run by Massih Tayebi, a big donor to the cause of San Diego Republicans such as Mayor Dick Murphy.

The venture the Reader is referring is in regards to the large number of stocks Tayebi and Ziyad own in  San Diego’s SYS Technologies.

SYS Technologies is a leading provider of information and communications systems for the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and Industrial markets. SYS Technologies’ expertise is in real time sensor capture, communications, applications development, integration and data visualization which forms the basis of its current success and future growth.

For the Department of Defense (DoD), we provide command and control systems to operational commanders. For the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and various state agencies, we provide real-time safety and security products and services, including sensor networking products and end-to-end solutions. For large industrial customers in the telecommunications, utilities, construction, chemical, and biomedical industries, our products and services are used to intelligently and profitably manage remote assets.

SYS Technologies is headquartered in San Diego at 5050 Murphy Canyon Road, San Diego, CA 92123 and has principal offices in California, Virginia and Washington, DC. For additional information, visit the SYS Technologies web site at http://www.systechnologies.com.

According to a recent press release, Ken Regan, President of SYS Technologies’ Defense Solutions Group announced that SYS was just awarded a $1.1 million subcontract by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).

The question still not answered, what is Kontogiannis connection to Mitchell Wade or Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes? Is there a link between Abduljawad, Wade, and Wilkes? What other connections does Abduljawad have with Saudi Arabia? What is Ellimina LLC or BridgeWest? All these companies are located in the San Diego area, are any of them connected with the Able Danger program and Mohammad Atta?

Stay tune folks, as Dukegate continues to unfold.

Cross posted on ePluribus Media

This policy analyst was inspired by Jeff Seemann and ePluribus Media members.

The issue of ending homelessness is once again going under national microscope. In July 2000, the National Alliance to End Homelessness took on an ambitious goal to end homelessness by creating ten-year plan to end homelessness. After the 2000 election, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Mel Martinez told the Alliance it would adopt this goal. Then President Bush made “ending chronic homelessness in the next decade a top objective” in his FY 2003 Budget. Soon after everybody got on this bandwagon – the New York Times wrote two lead editorials arguing forcefully for this goal, and several cities and some states have committed themselves to developing a plan by 2004.
At the time the 10-year plan was create, the National Alliance to End Homelessness was based on the Clinton/Gore administration commitment to end homelessness. During their administration, homeless program funds were steadily increasing. Now with the Bush Administration, our nation faces a host of conflicting social, economic and security priorities. Jeff’s experiences is evidence that front line agencies are struggling to meet increases in demand for shelter, housing and services. Jeff also provided evidence it is a very unfriendly world for the homeless, poor, and low-income people.

Just as the existence of homelessness demonstrates the failure of many community and economic supports, their are successful examples that demonstrate that rehousing and prevention can end the cycle of homelessness. The challenge is to bring together an effective systems, policies, and communities that touch the lives of the homeless in a partnership to end homelessness.

The current system that is in place can do little to prevent people from becoming homeless or change the overall availability of housing, income and services that will truly end homelessness. Although there are programs with the potential to prevent homelessness through such programs as welfare, health care, mental health care, substance abuse treatment, and veteran’s assistance, current resources and policies of these programs do not match the need.

Homelessness and Housing

Homelessness is often linked to the lack of affordable housing in the nation, oftentimes, programs forget the fact that a person’s earnings are insufficient to pay for the housing that does exist. People who become homeless are at the very bottom of the income spectrum; they are the people who struggle with paying their rent and with remaining adequately housed.

Those who are homeless and do have a job, many of them work in jobs that require less than 20 hours per week. Or if they do have a job that pays enough, their pay only covers the house payment, rent or mortgage.

As bad as it is for those who do have jobs and can’t escape homelessness, climbing out of homelessness is virtually impossible for those without a job. For those with limited skills or experience, opportunities for jobs that pay a living wage are very limited. In such a competitive environment, the difficulties of job-seeking as a homeless person can be almost insurmountable barriers to employment. During the time I was in county, successful programs were those who integrated job training and employment assistance into their housing programs.

One of the hallmarks Republican did soon after they controlled Congress in 1994, they cut – approved by Clinton – the Job Training for the Homeless Demonstration Program (JTHDP) that was administered by the Department of Labor. The JTHDP program provided funds for basic skills and literacy instruction, job training, referral, and job search activities. Although funding for the JTHDP program was cut, Congress required the Department of Labor to enhance the capacity of national employment programs such as the JTPA to serve homeless individuals. The problem, no one is monitoring this request.

Just because a homeless persons obtain work by successfully completing an employment program, does not necessarily end his or her homelessness. He or she still needs a decent job and a place to live.

Ending homelessness will require closing the gap between income and housing costs, but not just any type of jobs, employers need to play their part by paying a living wage. The reforms of our workforce development system have not served the homeless well. Congressional and Presidential action is needed to provide incentives for state workforce systems to include homeless people in the Workforce Investment Act and in other legislative opportunities. Besides having the Federal Government setting policies, labor and the private sector must work together to ensure that has an opportunity to obtain a job which pays a living wage, and the necessary supports, such as child care and transportation, to keep it. Housing instability will continue until the supply of affordable housing is increased; incomes are adequate to pay for necessities such as food, shelter and health care; and disadvantaged people can receive the services they need. Attempts to change the homeless assistance system must take place in the context of larger efforts to help very poor people.

Other Considerations

Agencies must receive strong support from funding sources, both private and public, that control capital resources, not just those that do services. Local capital to develop affordable housing is essential for any plan to succeed.

Federal agencies should continue to prioritize community-wide planning and integrated approaches for reducing chronic homelessness in general, and street homelessness for people with severe mental illness, chronic substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, or any  combination in particular.

Federal agencies should facilitate opportunities for practitioners and planners to observe new approaches in action, speak with consumers, see results, and consider how these practices could be applied in their own community.

The inactive Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) must step up in its charge with cross-agency authority. The ICH must make sure there is interagency cooperation in the plan to end homelessness.

The current system of prevention needs to be consistent in its actions to prevent homelessness. Currently, many agencies are duplicating services which create gaps in services with not central location within the cities to monitor these services. One consideration would be a neighborhood support center, however, it only works if they are adequately funded and if their strategies emphasize personal responsibility and if sufficient housing resources exist and if shelter becomes a relatively unattractive option and not a way to jump the queue to a housing subsidy or other benefits.

State and local agencies should establish procedures and resources to assure that people leaving psychiatric care, substance abuse treatment, correctional facilities, or foster care do not become homeless.

State and local agencies should facilitate capacity to serve chronically homeless clients by improving liaison and integrated service arrangements among mental health, substance abuse, medical care, and housing authorities.

Mainstream health, mental health, substance abuse, and welfare agencies should make their clients’ housing stability a high priority and create positions of housing developers and coordinators.

Housing providers need to understand the benefits of supportive services to their whole tenant base and not just to those who were once homeless.

Strong, skilled leaders committed to an integrated community-wide approach need to come forward and have the backing and resources of local mainstream agencies and elected officials.

Finally, every component of the system should be monitored based on outcome-based results. Providers should be held accountable for their results (e.g., moved 4 families of difficulty-level 3 to housing per month), not for their efforts (e.g., held four counseling sessions with families) which seems to be the current monitoring system. Which is included as one of the steps to end homelessness mentioned by the Alliance’s 10 year plan.

By collecting much better data, and creating a planning process focused on outcomes, some localities are able to provide a much more effective mix of assistance. These steps require bringing together homeless assistance providers and mainstream state and local agencies and organizations whose clients become homeless.

This based on several years working as a policy analyst and as coordinator for my area’s continuum of care program.

x-posted at ePluribus Media

As we know the issue of the avian flu virus has raised concerns from our homes to the White House. There is even talk that the virus can mutate into a form that can easily infect humans. Dubya and the CDC has told us there is no way for a new vaccine to be made until this evolution has occurred. So this also raises concern because it is impossible to mass produce enough vaccine to protect everyone here in the US.

Here is a quick and easy solution to this problem.
In August, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 42% of the public believe that “living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.” It is well known that random mutation is the engine of evolution, so it should be safe to say that the same 42% must believe that the virus for the avian flu will never mutate.

If so, problem solved. Why should we waste an already limited vaccine on those who are fighting tooth and nail in the court rooms and in the schools that evolution does not exist. Surely, they can believe there can possible threat to their lives if the virus is unable to mutate. – thus leaving those of us who do believe in evulotion sufficient supply.

Given the Presidents doubts about evolution, he should rise to the occasion and demonstrate his leadership by foregoing vaccination.

This approach has added benefits. Polls also tell us that 70% of evangelicals also do not believe in evolution.

This sounds like a great plan to me. Kind of makes them wish they did believe in evolution.

These sentences actually appeared in church bulletins or were announced in church services.

1. The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.
2. Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 PM in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King.

3. Don’t let worry kill you off – let the Church help.

4. The sermon this morning: “Jesus Walks on the Water.” The sermon tonight: “Searching for Jesus.”
5. Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don’t forget your husbands.
6. The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.
7. Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say “Hell” to someone who doesn’t care much about you.
8. Miss [Edited] sang “I will not pass this way again,” giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
9. For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
10. Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
11. B remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack’s sermons.
12. The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: “Break Forth Into Joy.”
13. IB and JC were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
14. A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.
15. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be “What Is Hell?” Come early and listen to our choir practice.
16. Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
17. Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
18. Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.
19. The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.
20. Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM – prayer and medication to follow.
21. The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
22. This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
23. Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. is done.
24. The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
25. Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.
26. The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
27. Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.

28. The Associate Minister unveiled the church’s new campaign slogan last Sunday: “I Upped My Pledge – Up Yours”

Those in the Radical Right who Fear of a Brown Planet are  calling on Dudya to support the creation of the “Great Wall of America.” There pundents can be found in the latest issue of FrontPageMagazine in a recent article by Dick Morris.

Its aim is to keep terrorists out and regulate the of number “illegal immigrants” into this country. Simply put, it is nothing more to keep out us job stealing non-English learning dirty filthy stinky wetback Mexijicens/mesikens out of this God lovin’ Christian country.

Currently in New Orleans, the creation of racial tension that will soon look like the current racial tension occurring in TX and other large urban cities.
At a time when we should be united, tensions are arising at the community level between immigrants and US-born communities of color. The reason this is happening is because of the anti-immigrant racism brought on by the same organized anti-immigrant racist movements based primarily in the white community, the hypocrites who want all undocumented workers out are the ones the ones bringing them in for cheap labor.

The truth is Immigrants, US-born Hispanics and African Americans are facing many of the same obstacles that include the very same forms of oppression and discrimination. Often, however, it is difficult to build and sustain multi-racial coalitions to challenge the dynamics of oppression.

In major cities around the country where there were none are now becoming a racial/ethnic war zone and these cities include: Dallas, Houston, Miami, Chicago, New York, and Los Angles. A 1999 report by the US Commission on Civil Rights concluded that a majority of these tensions and conflicts are cause over issues of jobs, schools, housing, and representation in leadership positions.

Currently in New Orleans, the small fire that was brought on by Bu$hCo is in danger of becoming a raging inferno. A couple of weeks ago Mayor Ray Nagin contributed to the fragile divide.

Nagin stoked the racial/ethnic divide between black and Hispanic people recently by asking: “How do I ensure that New Orleans is not overrun by Mexican workers?”

Although Nagin’s comment is the most often-quoted within the Hispanic community, he is not the only one questioning the questionable hiring practice that is meant to help in the clean up effort and rebuilding of New Orleans. Granted, the language he decided to use should have been more eloquent for a leader, but the issue is a real issue – as a Hispanic, I will be the first one to admit using undocumented labor to replace New Orleans’ local workforce is very troubling.

However, Nagin said what he said and it was caught on tv therefore his comment will be seen as another “us against them” among both ethnic and racial groups, which will add fuel to the racial/ethnic tension fire.

The current hiring conditions in New Orleans can be seen as a favorable “Petri dish” for questionable and illegal hiring practices which none of our own political leaders is willing to address. As of now, no one is asking the vital question which could answer Nagin’s and other concerned community leader’s question of the influx of undocumented workers. And that question is “Why is this happening?”

Dudya’s pro-business policy decisions are a major and a large reason for this influx. While the Dudya was promising everything short of declaring another “War on Poverty,” it was Dudya who decided to suspend the fair-wage guidelines in an effort to speed recovery. It was Dudya who decided to suspend the Davis-Bacon Act, which guarantees prevailing local minimum wages be paid for by government contracts, shortly after Katrina hit. The idea being that projects which are paid for through tax dollars will have guaranteed employees a livable wage and therefore, the bidding would be based on the quality of workmanship and not on cheap labor. Fortunately, there was enough protest that the wage-rule was reinstated. It was Dudya who decided to suspended the affirmative action guidelines, which would guarantee equal opportunity employment and contract to for New Orleans’ women, African Americans and other minorities, in short the local workforce.

The fair-wage that Dubya decided to suspend, opened the door to labor abuse. Some of the Hispanic laborers have been brought in by out-of-state so-called specialized disaster clean-up firms. Because of the neo-con’s never ending love of the free-market, Bu$hCo will never do anything to ensure that more local businesses receive contracts.

The Department of Fatherland Security decided to suspended fines for companies caught knowingly hiring unauthorized workers. The (il)logical reason: People may have lost their paperwork proving their right to work here legally. (Later on, Fascist Chertoff makes a statement, he was going to round-up every Mexkin and haul them off back to Mexico. To me, this is code talk for drafting the undocumented to go fight in Bu$hCo’s war.)

Currently, there is little to no workplace enforcement. In a recent GAO report, the number of companies being fined for knowingly hiring undocumented workers dropped from 417 in 1999, to a mere 3 last year. If people really think that corporate America finally got the idea that hiring undocumented workers is wrong, then I know some Federal property through the use of eminent domain they can get for free.

By giving business carte blanch, honest employers who would normally hire legal, documented workers are tempted to go the illegal route because they, too, are wanting to survive in this lackluster economy. These hard working immigrant workers are eager to work for lower wages and that becomes a huge factor when deciding who to hire.

Nagin needs to be honest about the grueling work going on in his city. Latino immigrants will flock where work is plentiful. See, to an immigrant, when it comes to the issue of wages, a large majority consider making $3 to 4 dollars an hour like hitting the financial jack-pot. Even if this means working the nasty tasks that U.S.-born folks shudder at performing. Immigrants are willing to sleep and work in conditions that would be considered illegal to some born in the U.S. Employers are aware of this and they are willing to exploit the immigrant. The immigrant does not complain because he knows he may face deportation.

The fact that FEMA scattered a large majority of the evacuees across the four winds without any means to return home is another reason many people have not returned for jobs. Houston alone had an increase in its street homeless population. If this has happened in Houston, what are the chances it is happening in the other cities FEMA has chosen as an evacuation site? Families who have children in school are not likely to take their child out of school so they can return home.

To answer the housing problem, elected officials need to providing housing to those who’s home is unlivable is one of the best ways officials could make it feasible for former residents to return to their city and local jobs.

Blaming immigrant workers who are “taking the jobs” should not be the target for a situation they did not create. Nor should they become scapegoats when it is the system that has been put into place by Dubya that has made them the scapegoats for everything bad that happens to this country.

And the Main Stream Media continues to flood the airwaves with negative stereotypes and damaging images of immigrants.

Whether in the news or entertainment programming, the media rarely acknowledges the white racism that has continually been a factor in this tension. The racial and ethnic hostilities in US culture, especially in the South and Southwest, reflect radicalized power relationships as much as stereotypes and negative attitudes. When the Main Stream Media does discuss the issue, it prefers to ignore the dynamic complexity of economic life for both groups, and instead, it only presents the simplistic stereotypes that mainly serve to bolster the neo-con political agenda: divide and conquer.

Today, Texas is the only state that will vote on a state constitutional amendment, Proposition 2 (Prop 2), that will ban same-sex marriage. In 2004, thirteen state constitutional bans on same-sex marriage passed overwhelmingly everywhere they were on the ballot.

It is assumed Prop 2 would pass easily in the Lone Star State since it is an off year in the national election, cycle. However, Prop 2 is facing an energized, hopeful and somewhat unusual opposition.
Texas law – added to the State Statue when Dudya was Governor – already restricts marriage to unions of one man and one woman.

Family Code Chapter 2 §2.001(b) A license may not be issued for the marriage of persons of the same sex.

The homophobic amendment would enshrine the policy in the state constitution and prohibit any part of the state government from recognizing any legal status “identical or similar to marriage” for same-sex couples.

Taking a page out of the Rovian playbook on electoral politics during the 2004 Presidential election. Gov. Rick Perry is using this issue as a way to rebuild his political base. Perry aides hope their “values voters” will once again get involved in politics to save Perry from his poor performance in his first term as Texas Governor.

The fight over Prop 2 has been heated up over the last two months, marred with accusations that amendment supporters are campaigning illegally, allegations that opponents plan to register fraudulent voters, an anti-gay KKK rally supporting Gov Perry and Prop 2 supporters, and conservative dirty tricks to get this amendment on the ballot and passed today.

Gov Rick Perry’s Political Stunt

To shore up his chances for reelection, Perry is following a model perfected by his mentor, Dudya: fire up the Religious Right.

On June 5, in a well-orchestrated piece of political theater cleverly designed to placate Religious Right forces, Rev. Rod Parsley and a phalanx of other Religious Right leaders, converged on a Pente­costal church school in Fort Worth. They happened to be there to join Perry for a bill-signing ceremony. There were two bills that required Perry’s signature; one bill requiring girls under the age of 18 to acquire parental consent before obtaining an abortion and another bill certifying the current ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage next year.

The location was also curious. The festivities was held in a gymnasium of a private school affiliated with Calvary Cathedral International, a mega-church founded by the Rev. Bob Nichols.

The whole bill signing event was nothing more than a Religious Right/GOP political rally. Speakers included Tony Perkins, president of the Washing­ton- based Family Research Council, the Rev. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association and Dr. Laurence White, pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church in Houston.

The staff of the Texas Freedom Network (TFN), an Austin- based group that monitors Religious Right activity statewide, has been watching developments with considerable alarm.

TFN says all indications are that conservative clergy are trying to create a church-based political machine, Texas Restoration Project, in the Lone Star State. Just so happens to be Texas Restoration Project the group very similar to Ohio’s Rev. Russell Johnson’s organization, Ohio Restoration Project, that Parsley worked in and, Parsley’s new founded a group, Reformation Ohio. According to Gay People’s Chronicle:

Parley’s activities are allied with Rev. Johnson’s Ohio Restoration Project to recruit ‘Patriot Pastors’ to motivate their congregations to vote for issues and candidates to their liking.

TFN’s Ryan Valentine said so far the Texas Restoration Project remains a shadowy group. Valentine noted that meals and accommodations at the pastors’ event were provided for attendees but TFN has been unable to find out who paid the bill. The Texas Restoration Project, he said, has not filed papers with the state and has no Web site.

Texas Restoration Project’s spokes­man is David Lane, past chairman to a group similar to Ohio and Texas, California Restoration Project, is also a long-time conservative and Republican Party operative. In 1991, Lane, who is white, pulled together a front group of African Americans to support the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Six years later, he helped Jerry Falwell launch one of his groups, the National Committee for the Restoration of the Judeo-Christian Ethic.

In 1998, Lane worked with far-right millionaire activist Edward Atsinger III to put on briefings for pastors in California. More recently, he serves as executive director of Texas pastor Rick Scarborough’s Vision America. How­ever, web site is no longer lists the group’s administrative list, a screen caption of the Vision America’s excutive board can be found here.

Currently in Ohio, an all out church-organizing project led by Parsley, is being used as a vehicle to put Secretary of State Kenneth Black­well, former state co-chair for the Bush campaign, in front of religious conservative voters as he prepares to run for governor in 2006. Just like it’s Ohio’s counter-part the Texas spin-off is an effort to boost Perry’s reelection chances.

The fact this is nothing but a political stunt against the Gay and Lesbian community is evidence Perry is under fire for his lackluster legislative session this year and is also worried about his ability to win reelection in 2006. Perry is currently dealing with intra-party challenger Texas Comptroller Carole “One Tough Grandma” Keeton Strayhorn, a feisty populist who has derided Perry as a “do-nothin’ drugstore cowboy.”

After reading Senator Bill “Insider Trader” Frist decry:

The United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership. They have no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas.

I was astounded to the extent of Senator Bill Frist’s arrogance and hypocrisy. The real “slap in the face” to the Senate is Frist’s personal behavior over the past few years, comprising of an ongoing investigation into his recent stock sales after subsequent inaction and allegedly lies about his conflict of interest; his politically calculated flip-flop on stem cell research; and, his pandering to the religious right in his shameful pronouncements about Terri Schiavo’s condition based on videos.

Could the investigated Senator be relating his true feelings since the flames of scandal are rapidly spreading wider within the Republican Party and upward towards the White House? Hopefully the supercilious, right-wing, reactionary regime that is currently monopolizing Washington will undergo severe, if not fatal, political damage.

The fundamental truth is Bush and the Radical Right Republicans who are running this troubled country to involuntary bankruptcy are so drunk with power they would do anything necessary to establish their perfect control  over their universe.
It is ironic that in the recent days right after their house of cards immediately began to collapse, they successfully developed a case of selective amnesia of their own malfeasance that is currently running ramped in their party.

The lavish corruption and the underhanded methods of the greedy mob-like politicians and their corporate profiteers that fund them must be exposed in our struggle to regain our democracy.

FRIST’S TRUST: Was never blind
How convenient for Frist to forget about his investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice for ordering his portfolio managers in June of this year, – a month before its price fell sharply – to sell his family’s shares in Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), the nation’s largest hospital chain, which was founded by Frist’s father and brother.

For years, Senator Frist and his staff has lied about his limited or no contact with members of his family or the HCA executives when it came to business issues or current policy matters. Frist has vigorously alleged that he has consistently stayed at “arm’s length” when it came to HCA and the family business. However, according to the records obtained by AP, from 1994 until 2002, Frist had a substantial amount of HCA stock in Bowling Avenue Partners, a business that was started by his brother. Interestingly, the company’s mailing address is conveniently the same address as Frist’s home address. During his term in the Senate, his company’s stock have earned him over $200,000. And the cash has also pouring in, over $170,000 in soft money has poured into Frist’s campaigns, PAC and 527, from top executives in HCA since 1993.

Bowling Avenue Partners, LP. Thomas Frist created Bowling Avenue Partners in 1994. Before it was dissolved in 2002, Bill Frist held $775,000 to $1.57 million worth of HCA stock in the company, outside the Senate approved blind trust. The company’s mailing address is the Frist family home, Senator Frist’s current home address. Frist advisors confirmed that the Senator’s brother could influence investment decisions in the partnership. [TN Secretary of State Business Filings for William H. Frist – Business ID#: 0284911; Business Type: Limited Partnership; Status: CANCELLED]

Frist’s malfeasance is so blatant the SEC is so afraid it would lose any credibility if it did nothing. All eyes are on the newly Bu$hCo appointed SEC chairman, former Rep, Chris Cox, who was appointed a couple of months ago.

The Congressional Shake Down
Elizabeth Drew’s, “Selling Washington”, presents a portrayal that sheds light to the complexities between the corporate America, the Bush administration, and its right-wing lobbyists political machine.

Drew also discusses how the aggressiveness of Radical Right wing lobbyists have become towards anybody who is in favor of the Democratic Party. She quotes a close friend who is also a lobbyist:

There are no restraints now; business groups and lobbyists are going crazy – they’re in every room on Capitol Hill writing legislation. You can’t move on the Hill without giving money.

She goes on to discuss the infamous K Street Project. The situation after the neocon toke over Congress in the 1994 election is so stereotypical that observers could easily draw comparisons with bad mob movies, in which heavy-handed ruffians intimidate a juror so that he won’t rule against the mob boss. In a mob-like tactic, neocon enforcers were quick to warn all “Washington lobbying and law firms that if they wanted to have appointments with Republican legislators they had better hire more Republicans.”

The Republicans don’t simply want to take care of their friends and former aides by getting them high-paying jobs; they want the lobbyists they have helped place in these jobs and other corporate representatives to arrange lavish trips for themselves and their wives, to invite them to watch sports events from skyboxes; and, most important, to provide a steady flow of campaign contributions.

The K Street project is intended to push Democrats out of the lobbying firms and immediately replace them with crony Republicans.

The Republicans don’t simply want to take care of their friends and former aides by getting them high-paying jobs; they want the lobbyists they have helped place in these jobs and other corporate representatives to arrange lavish trips for themselves and their wives, to invite them to watch sports events from skyboxes; and, most important, to provide a steady flow of campaign contributions.

Rep. Tom DeLay, Sen. Rick Santorum, and their associates have organized Congress in a systematic campaign to keep a close eye on those Republicans who step out of line on Capitol Hill. Grover Norquist and the Republican National Committee are also the muscle to put the shake down pressure on firms not just to hire Republicans but also to fire Democrats.

A Republican lobbyist told me, “Having the White House” has made it more possible for DeLay and Santorum “to enforce the K Street Project.” Several Democratic lobbyists have been pushed out of their jobs as a result;….The Republican lobbyist I spoke to said, “There’s a high state of sensitivity to the partisanship of the person you hire for these jobs that did not exist five, six years ago – you hire a Democrat at your peril.”

Last year, a shake down was taken against Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) when they decided to hire Dan Glickman, an 18-year Democratic congressman from Kansas and a former member of the Clinton cabinet, as president and chief executive, after MPAA was told not to hire the Democrat by Grover “The Enforcer” Norquist. Then in bizarre turn MPAA and Glickman hired an aide to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who is part of the congressional leadership. And it gets worse:

[Glickman] has made campaign donations, from his own pocket and Hollywood coffers, to the conservatives who ousted him from Congress a decade ago. And he volunteered to help President Bush twist arms on a White House priority, the free-trade pact with Central America, that passed the House last month by just two votes.

The shake down began when the “Congressional Crew,” led by Sen. Rick ” The Stoolie” Santorum and Rep. Tom “The Hammer” DeLay, withdrew a $1.5 billion tax relief measure to the movie industry. Soon after, Glickman had no choice but comply with Bu$hCo.

THE WHITE HOUSE TRUTH POLICY
As Bush and the Radical-right wing continue to line their pockets from their corporate funders; Corporate America, in return, are given huge tax breaks that benefit their profit interests. However, those who work for Dubya are encouraged to sweep unfavorable numbers under the rug if they would like to keep their appointed positions.

On Sept. 15, President Bush finally admitted something he’s been trying to avoid. Speaking of the Gulf region in his nationwide address, he said

As all of us saw on television, there’s also some deep, persistent poverty in this region… [P]overty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality.

This acquiescence by Bu$hCo was an effort to quell the moral outrage publicly being declared around the world to the government’s handling of the hurricane crisis. Bush, however, still did not address the racist treatment of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

Three days before, he responded to accusations that the slow response to the hurricane was tinged with racism by saying, “The storm didn’t discriminate and neither will the recovery effort. The rescue efforts were comprehensive.”

The out right denial that racism doesn’t exist comes as no surprise. Lawrence Greenfield was appointed the director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in September 2001. By refusing an order to to manipulate data on a press release that confirming racial profiling at the hands of local enforcement, Greenfield was later demoted.

In August, 2005, a congressionally ordered study that was based on 80,000 interviews obtained three years earlier found that Hispanic (11.4%) and Black (10.2%) motorists stopped for traffic violations were three times more likely to be searched or have their vehicles searched and were more likely to be subjected to force or threats of force than were whites (3.5%).

In addition, the report found that police were more likely to issue more tickets to Hispanic drivers and arrest, search and use of force against Black drivers.

Greenfield refused to comply when his supervisors crossed out this information on the draft of a press release about the report. Greenfielf was given the option of being terminated or receive a demotion – with retirement only a six months away, he accepted the demotion to protect his pension. No press release was ever issued on the report, and it was quietly posted to the bureau’s website.

Issues of racism isn’t the only thing the Bush administration has tried to cover up by bullying tactics. Bunnatine Greenhouse, the top contract procurement officer for the Army Corps of Engineers, was forced out of her job on Aug. 27 after denouncing the signing of a no-bid contract with a Halliburton subsidiary for oil field repair work in Iraq this past June. Greenhouse told Congress that the oil contract “was the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.”

It is more than ironic that in the immediate days following Hurricane Katrina, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root was awarded a no-bid contract for reconstruction in the Gulf area.

The real “hijacking of the Senate” as Frist puts it, was already carried out against the interests of the middle class and the oppressed, who oppose the corrupt right-wing reactionaries that Sen Bill First belongs to. Although the Democrats have every right to fight the current Neocon Mafia on grounds of corruption, they too are on notice. A large majority of them have been playing politics too. Some of them are for the occupation in Iraq with “Stay the course” as their motto. The seven members of the “Gang of 14” have already set back the civil rights movement when they secretly worked out their plan to end the “Neocon Nuclear option.” It is very troubling when half of the Democratic Senators voted for the right-wing, racist, anti-abortion, anti-worker, pro-big business John Roberts for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. So far, they have yet to help the victims of Katrina and Rita, except play politics and criticize.

We the people will no long settle for subtle or outright form of corruption from both parties who refuse to serve the interests of the majority of the people they were elected to represent – the middle class, the working class and the oppressed. And for those who want to continue –
GET READY TO RUMBLE AS WE BEGIN TO TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY NOW!!!

Just recently the AP reported the possible list of possible replacements for Libby. And guess whos name just appeared, Mary Matalin.

Other possiblities are:
David Addington – He is the vice president’s counsel and was a top aide to Cheney when Cheney was defense secretary.

Eric Edelman – U.S. ambassador to Turkey. He was Cheney’s national security assistant from February
2001 to June 2003 and worked closely with Libby when both were at the Pentagon earlier in their careers.

Dean McGrath – Cheney’s deputy chief of staff.

Steve Schmidt – Schmidt also helped John Roberts during Roberts’ successful confirmation to be chief justice of the United States.

What I like to know, how does Carville do knowing that his wife is part of the cabal who lied the country to go to invade and occupy Iraq. He must have know about it too. I do not buy the business that they do not talk about their work.

[From one of our newest members, 2435 who — until the Neocon heterosexual (and must-be-married!) white men’s mastery of the universe is complete — will still be known as XicanoPwr. He’s been writing several analytical and researched diaries here – susanhu.]

Part II: The Radical Right’s Hypocrisy

How did conservatives – along with the religious right – successfully defeat Dudya’s Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers? Where did the Democratic Party go wrong? One a side-by-side comparison between now confirmed Chief Justice John Roberts and Miers, they had the same views that matter to the GOP – pro-life, pro-business, and a fundalmentalist.

Yet former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott reacted philosophically at her demise.

“The president, in my opinion, made a bad choice here,” the former Senate majority leader told Fox News Thursday. “In a month, who will remember Harriet Miers?”

Chief Justice John Roberts

As noted on Law.com those who do know Roberts will confirm that he is a reliable conservative who can be counted on to undermine if not immediately overturn liberal landmarks like abortion rights and affirmative action. The minute Dudya announced Roberts, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council was ecstatic that Dudya had kept his promise by nominating “someone along the lines of a Scalia or a Thomas, and that is exactly what he has done” while Pat Robertson gleefully exulted that Roberts “was at the top of the list of candidates that Jay Sekulow and the ACLJ [an organization founded by Robertson] put together.”

Below the fold, Harriet Miers and The Radical Right Gender Natural Policy … along with some terrific Bill Maher quotes …

Harriet Miers

James Dobson, founder of the evangelical Christian organization Focus on the Family, told his listeners on his radio program that Karl Rove made a call to him to discuss Miers’ religious beliefs before Bush announced her nomination October 3.

Dobson also told his listeners Rove assured him Mier’s is “an evangelical Christian…[and] that she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life; that she had taken on the American Bar Association on the issue of abortion and fought for a policy that would not be supportive of abortion.” [emphasis mine]

The Radical Right Gender Natural Policy
According to HBO’s Bill Maher, it had nothing to do with her mastery of constitutional law. And it wasn’t about cronyism, either. Neither if she did overturn Roe v. Wade or set back civil rights for another generation.

Miers’ defeat had to do more what the Radical Right didn’t know about her. What was an enigma to the Radical Right was her sexuality. Bill Maher explained it best on his Oct 14 show:

It’s not that Harriet Miers’ views are a mystery. It’s that her genitalia are a mystery. You see, Republicans have issues with sex, or as they call it, “inserting pork.” Undefined sexuality in women makes them nervous.

Further commenting, he stated that “there are only three possibilities if you’ve never married or had kids by 60”: Miers is either “an asexual figure … [who] isn’t using the equipment God gave her for making babies,” a “practicing lesbian,” or “a slut.”

The last time “genitalia” was mentioned in a Supreme Court confirmation hearing was during the Clarence Thomas hearing. And we know happened there; when it seemed appeared that Hill’s testimony would end Thomas’ chances of being confirmed, Thomas’ supporters launched a masterful counter-attack to discredit Anita Hill. The attack was led by then right-wing activist David Brock. Brock would relentlessly villanized Hill with right wing propaganda. In 1992 Brock would latter write an article in the American Spectator claiming Hill had lied during the hearings and stating how she might be “a bit nutty and a bit slutty.” And Thomas won confirmation.

Earlier this month, Dotty Lynch, senior political editor for CBS News, brought up the possibilities sexism had a lot to do with Radical Right’s backlash. She said:

Why is it that battles for the Supreme Court have become more about sex than about the constitution? … Sex and sexism. Laura Bush and Ed Gillespie joined forces with Barbara Mikulski and Eleanor Smeal in suggesting that a lot of the opposition to Miers was based on sexism. Conservatives like Bill Kristol yelped that Republicans were using liberal arguments…

However, it is evident a conservatives apply a double standard when it comes to the gender issue. In many ways this type of concern can be found Justice David Souter’s 1990 Supreme Court confirmation hearing. In 2003, The Advocate reported when Papa Bush nominated Souter, the Radical Right believed Souter leaned with the far right. Like Miers, Souter also was a bachelor, so his appointment was greeted by hate filled speculation that he might be gay. Nevertheless, Souter survived, possibly because reporters found three of his former girlfriends.

“Souter had barely left the podium in the press room of the White House before Republican Party officials were raising ‘the 50-year-old bachelor thing,’ which was widely interpreted as a way of introducing speculation that Souter is homosexual,” Margaret Carlson wrote in Time magazine in August 1990, shortly after Souter’s nomination.

It’s important to point out I did not support her nomination because; 1) she did receive the seal of approval from Focus on the Family’s, Dr. James “Mr. Family Guy” Dobson, as well as the Reverends of Righteousness, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson; and 2) Dudya applied a religious litmus test, which is unconstitutional. The point I am trying to make is to show the Right Wingers hypocrisy when it comes to gender issues. As a Hispanic male, I am willing to admit, it is still a man’s world – a white man’s world. Something conservative women continually deny. It is interestingly to note, that it is often said that the Dudya is excessively loyal. Yet, when he had someone who he verbally said to be one of his very best friends; he had no problem kicking her to the curb to protect his white male Beltway Bandits.