Obama reverses opposition to Mexican trucks

By Jerome R. Corsi

One day after signing the $410 billion omnibus funding bill into law, along with provisions ending the Department of Transportation's Mexican truck demonstration project, the Obama administration has announced intentions to restart the program as soon as possible.

Debbie Mesloh, a spokeswoman for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, told the Associated Press Obama has asked the office to work with Congress, the DOT, the State Department and Mexican officials to come up with legislation to create "a new trucking

project that will meet the legitimate concerns" of Congress and the U.S. under the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.

The Obama administration's determination to see Mexican long-haul rigs roll throughout the U.S. is a setback for labor unions, including the Teamsters, who supported Obama in the 2008 presidential election, in part on his promise to renegotiate NAFTA to preserve U.S. jobs.

The sharp policy reversal will also be a blow to many Democrats in Congress, including Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., who fought hard for the past two years to stop the project out of concerns that Mexican trucks do not conform with U.S. safety regulations.

After Tuesday's vote in the Senate to pass the funding bill with language ending the truck project, the Mexican government put immediate pressure on the Obama administration to reinstate approval for Mexican trucks to operate throughout the U.S.

"Mexico

still believes that the United States' noncompliance on this issue, more than 14 years overdue, is a violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement," Mexican Embassy spokesman Ricardo Alday told the AP.

Alday insisted Mexico is willing to work with Congress and the U.S. "in finding a solution that honors its international obligation."

The Mexican truck issue became rancorous over the past two years as Bush administration Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters fought off repeated efforts by Congress to confine Mexican trucks to a narrow 20-mile-wide commercial area north of the southern border.

WND reported that after the truck project began, an examination of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration database

revealed hundreds of safety violations by Mexican long-haul rigs on U.S. roads.

The contention of opponents has been that Mexican trucks and truck drivers do not reliably meet U.S. standards.

As WND reported, in a contentious Senate hearing last March, Dorgan got Peters to admit that Mexican drivers were being designated at the border as "proficient in English" even though they could explain U.S. traffic signs only in Spanish.

In the tense hearing, Dorgan accused Peters of being "arrogant" and in reckless disregard of a congressional vote to stop the truck project by taking funds away.

As WND reported, opposition in the House was led by DeFazio, who in September 2007 accused the Bush administration of having a "stealth plan" to allow Mexican long-haul rigs on U.S. roads.

"This administration [of President George W. Bush] is hell-bent on opening our borders," DeFazio then said, "but has failed to require that Mexican drivers and trucks meet the same safety and security standards as U.S. drivers and trucks."

Previously, Peters had argued the wording of the Dorgan amendment did not prohibit the Transportation Department from stopping a Mexican truck project already under way, even if the measure prohibited DOT from starting any new project.

Despite strong congressional opposition, the Department of Transportation under President Bush had announced it planned in its final months to extend the truck project for another two years – an attempt to force the incoming Obama administration to comply.

Obama backtracking on NAFTA promises?

The administration's determination to open the U.S. to Mexican trucks raises questions about whether Obama intends to fulfill campaign promises to renegotiate NAFTA to get provisions more favorable to American workers and jobs.

During the presidential campaign, top Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, an economics professor at the University of Chicago business school, stirred controversy after reporters learned he traveled to Canada to reassure Canadians that Obama's harsh words about NAFTA were just campaign rhetoric.

In the Ohio and Pennsylvania Democratic Party primaries, Obama pledged to renegotiate NAFTA as part of his appeal to workers in the states that have lost manufacturing jobs under the free trade agreements negotiated by Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush.

Now, Goolsbee has joined the Obama administration, having taken a leave of absence from the University of Chicago after Obama appointed him chief economist and staff director of the newly created Presidential Economic Recovery Advisory Board, chaired by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker.

Obama also appointed Goolsbee to the Council of Economic Advisors, or CEA, which is charged with assisting in the development of White House economic policy.

In his first trip to a foreign nation, Obama traveled to Canada, where he used a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to backtrack on his promise to renegotiate NAFTA.

The London Guardian reported Obama's comments in Canada "muddied his position" on NAFTA.

Obama responded to a question at the joint press conference with Harper saying, "Now is a time where we have to be very careful about any signs of protectionism."

Translated, this meant that any renegotiation of NAFTA by the Obama administration might involve fine-tuning some of the side agreements, not renegotiating NAFTA itself in any fundamental way.

Then there was the issue of the "Buy American" provision inserted into the administration's $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

Canada was concerned that the provision could hurt Canadian steel exports to the U.S., and the EU complained the provision was antithetical to the spirit of the Transatlantic Economic Council, which President Bush signed with the EU last April.

The Obama administration did not object when language was added to the economic stimulus bill to specify that the "Buy American" provision would be interpreted as buying American products if it was consistent with U.S. international trade obligations. That meant any free trade agreement would override the obligation.

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Previous stories:

Congress halts Mexican trucks in U.S.

Bush team extends Mexican truck test

Mexican truck drivers take English exam in Spanish

Senator thrashes Bush's Mexican truck hat dance

Heads to roll? Mexican trucks in U.S. sparks firing call

Mexican trucks defy Congress, still roll

Congress cuts funding for Mexican trucks

Mexican trucks roll on despite opposition

Bush officials team with Mexico to defend trucks

Satellite tracking mandated for Mexican trucks

Senate votes to kill Mexican truck demo

Senator moves to block Mexican trucks

NAFTA Superhighway plans advance south

1st Mexican truck rolls across border under cover of darkness

Mexican trucks approved for long-haul trips in U.S.

Mexican rigs hitting U.S. pavement today

Snow not buying Hoffa's 'disaster' description

Hoffa: Mexican trucks are disaster for U.S.

San Antonio developing NAFTA inland port

Jailed border agents case tied to Mexican trucks

Mexican rigs ready to roll

114 congressmen: Why is DOT ignoring law?

White House presses Senate to allow Mexican trucks

Truckers demand feds come clean on Mexican rigs

Mexico announces date for trucks to roll in U.S.

Feds stonewall on Mexican trucks

Now U.S. trucks to cruise Mexico

Teamsters sue to halt Mexican truckers

Truckers with criminal record could access U.S.

Mexican trucks to enter U.S. in 15 seconds

Angry truckers to encircle D.C. with 'blockade'

Mexican truck stampede to hit U.S.!

Congressman moves to block Mexican trucks

Roadblocks for Mexican trucks in U.S.

It's official: Mexican trucks coming

Mexican truckers to hit U.S. roadways next year

NAFTA superhighway to mean Mexican drivers, say Teamsters

More evidence Mexican trucks coming to U.S.

Docs reveal plan for Mexican trucks in U.S.

Freddie to seek another $30.8 billion

byAlan Zibel

Freddie Mac, facing mounting damage from the U.S. housing crisis, said Wednesday it will ask the government for nearly $31 billion in additional aid after posting a gargantuan loss of more than $50 billion last year.

The report comes just weeks after Fannie Mae said it would need more than $15 billion in government assistance after losing almost $60 billion last year.

The two companies, which were seized by the government last fall, are critical to the health of the U.S. real estate market. Together, Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee more than half of all U.S. home loans.

The Treasury Department has pledged up to $400 billion in aid for the duo. But as losses mount, many analysts see the companies remaining under government control, perhaps indefinitely. Until officials know the final bill for the housing crisis, it will be tough to figure out whether they can be spun off as private companies, said debt analyst Jim Vogel of FTN Financial in Memphis, Tenn.

"No one's going to be confident yet to either plan or look forward until they see another two quarters," he said.

Meanwhile, Freddie Mac's chief executive, David Moffett, is stepping down this week after six months on the job.

"We absorbed heavy financial losses," Mr. Moffett said. "But we also provided vital liquidity to the strapped housing market."

John Koskinen, a member of Freddie's board of directors, will temporarily replace Mr. Moffett as the top executive, the company said Wednesday. Mr. Koskinen is a corporate-restructuring specialist who spent two years directing planning for the "Year 2000" computer conversion.

The interim CEO has his work cut out for him.

Freddie's request for $30.8 billion in federal aid comes on top of $13.8 billion the McLean-based company received last year. Freddie Mac was forced to go back, hat-in-hand, because its net worth - the value of its assets minus the value of its liabilities - fell below zero.

The recent loss was driven by $13.2 billion in hedged trades, $7.2 billion in credit losses from the declining housing market conditions and $7.5 billion in write-downs of the value of its mortgage-backed securities. The company also took a charge of $8.3 billion for now-worthless tax credits. bailout

The faltering economy, driven down by the collapse of the housing bubble, is causing the housing crisis to spread. Nearly 12 percent of all Americans with a mortgage - a record 5.4 million homeowners - were at least one month late or in foreclosure at the end of last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Fannie and Freddie are both being called upon to advance President Obama's agenda of helping up to 9 million borrowers avoid foreclosure through refinanced mortgages or loans that are modified to lower monthly payments.

Freddie Mac said that 1.7 percent of the single-family loans it owns or guarantees were delinquent at the end of the December, up from 1.2 percent in September and 0.65 percent a year earlier. The number of foreclosed properties owned by the company grew to more than 29,000, about double their level at the end of 2007.

Police Union Accuses Ayers in Deadly 1970 San Francisco Bombing

from FoxNews

A San Francisco police union has accused former domestic terrorist William Ayers, co-founder of the Weather Underground, and his wife in a 1970 bombing that killed one sergeant, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The union, in a letter to a conservative organization lobbying for arrests in the case, accused Ayers and wife Bernardine Dohrn of bombing a city police station.

On Feb. 16, 1970, a bomb placed on a window ledge of Park Station killed Sgt. Brian McDonnell and injured eight other officers, the Chronicle reported.

The union said it had not been in contact with investigators nor did it have new evidence, but it cited Larry Grathwohl, who works with the conservative organization America's Survival of Maryland and claims that he infiltrated Weather Underground as an FBI informant and heard Ayers confess, the Chronicle reported.

"There are irrefutable and compelling reasons to believe that Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn ... are largely responsible for the bombing of Park Police Station," the Feb. 24 letter reads, according to the Chronicle.

Ayers denies any involvement in the bombing and told the Chronicle in January that his accuser, Grathwohl, was a "paid dishonest person."

Ayers was once again thrust into the spotlight during last year's presidential campaign, when President Obama's ties to the radical were questioned.

Ayers is now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dohrn is a law professor at Northwestern University.

China stocks up on bargain oil

by Chris O'Brien

BEIJING| -- China is forging ahead with an overseas spending splurge, snapping up resources especially oil at bargain prices and strengthening its long-term prospects for growth before Western economies can bounce back.

A series of high-profile energy deals and mining bids in the past month marked an end to the nervousness that appeared to impinge on Communist Party leaders at the outset of the global financial crisis. Attention has turned from hoarding foreign exchange reserves worth close to $2 trillion to locking up future supplies. Oil has emerged at the top of China's shopping list.

In February, China secured oil supply deals totaling $41 billion with Russia, Brazil and Venezuela.

Among the most lucrative: an agreement reached with Russia, in which China will lend $25 billion to Russian oil giant Rosneft and oil pipeline company Transneft. In return, according to Russian news reports, China will receive 300,000 barrels of crude a day for the next 20 years at a rate of about $20 a barrel less than half the current price of $45.

While touring Latin America, Vice President Xi Jinping signed a deal to lend $10 billion to Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras. China will receive up to 160,000 barrels a day, again over a 20-year period.

A subsequent announcement from China's National Energy Administration further clarified Beijing's intentions. China is considering setting up a fund for China's three state-owned energy giants PetroChina, Sinopec and the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) to purchase oil and gas companies overseas. The firms will benefit from low-interest loans and direct capital injections, the announcement said.

The oil deals complement efforts to buy into the Australian mining industry. China's biggest aluminum producer, Chinalco, has submitted a bid of $19.5 billion to buy an 18 percent stake in beleaguered mining company Rio Tinto. Chinese firm Minmetals has offered $1.7 billion for Oz Minerals.

China also is seeking diversification of its foreign exchange reserves, now heavily in dollars. The head of China's energy bureau, Zhang Guobao, said earlier this week that China should accumulate more gold and uranium as well as other strategic commodities.

The spending spree extends to fast cars. Last month, a delegation of 90 Chinese companies, headed by Commerce Minister Chen Deming, toured Europe. Purchases included 37,000 BMWs from Germany and 13,000 Jaguars from Britain.

The purchases were a shrewd diplomatic move, pleasing European manufacturers, making a small dent in China's huge trade surpluses and undercutting the U.S. "buy American" drive, a policy that Chinese officials have been quick to criticize.

Song Hang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, summed up the strategy in the China Daily newspaper on the eve of the European tour, saying, "Chen can take a positive message to the world: China, as a major trading power, has no interest in adopting protectionism."

Parliamentary sessions in Beijing have spurred lively debates about how best to deploy China's mountain of cash. Commentaries in state media have called for the country to push forward with overseas acquisitions.

China "should take advantage of the current weak commodity prices in global markets by boosting certain strategic resource imports and converting some capital reserves into resources reserves," said an editorial in Outlook magazine, owned by the official news agency, Xinhua.

Much less coverage has been devoted to possible political stumbling blocks if China wields its purchasing power too assertively.

China faces opposition from those who feel Chinese companies, propped up by state cash, have an unfair advantage.

Rumbles can be heard in Australian parliamentary circles in light of the recent mining bids. Critics in Australia fear China is being granted too firm a grip on the country's resource markets, enabling Beijing to influence the prices of commodities.

Similar concerns derailed a bid by CNOOC to buy Californian oil firm Unocal for $18.5 billion in 2005. The Chinese company withdrew the bid after Congress vehemently opposed the proposed deal. Unocal was sold to Chevron, which had submitted a lower bid.

Global intelligence firm Stratfor warns of a backlash as other economies stabilize.

"China's rush to buy up resources, allies and markets faces charges of imperialism on an epic scale, bottom-feeding and taking advantage of the downtrodden," Stratfor said in a report.

U.S. companies have received minimal interest from China. The Unocal affair sticks in the government's memory, nestled just behind recent investments in Morgan Stanley and the Blackstone Group in which China lost billions of dollars.

A major factor, said Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, is that China's acquisitions have been focused on resources that tend to be found outside the U.S.

But if China starts looking at U.S. firms, such as the struggling car industry, it might avoid another Unocal moment. Western economies are in such a weak position that they may not be so selective.

"If there were some opportunities in the U.S., there might be less congressional opposition than with Unocal," Mr. Lardy said. "The focus is on the domestic recovery and there is a greater recognition in the Congress that as long as we save little, we depend on capital inflows."

Workers' Health Benefits Eyed for Taxation

(Compiler's note: Here they go again .... finding new ways to redistribute your money.)

By Lori Montgomery

With President Obama's plan to tax the rich to pay for health care facing deep skepticism on Capitol Hill, key lawmakers are pressing a different way to raise money: taxing the health benefits workers receive from their employers.

Since companies began offering group health insurance on a large scale during World War II, the value of that benefit has never been counted as income, reducing workers' taxable earnings by an average of $9,000 a year for family coverage.

In recent weeks, however, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the tax-writing Finance Committee, has repeatedly advocated changing tax laws to include employer benefits, arguing that it makes sense to fund the health-care changes by sucking cash out of the existing system. Meanwhile, 13 other senators -- from both sides of the aisle -- have signed on to a plan for universal coverage that includes a tax on employer-provided benefits.

"I think it's extremely important from a credibility standpoint to show the American people that you're making savings in the enormous sums now being spent on health care before you go out and ask them for billions of dollars more," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of the sponsors of that proposal. "And I don't think I'm the only senator who feels that way."

So far, administration officials have been careful not to endorse the idea, which Obama blasted as a major tax increase last year after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made it the centerpiece of his presidential campaign's health plan. But the president hasn't slammed the door on it, either.

This week, White House budget director Peter Orszag said taxing employer benefits was among several ideas that "most firmly should remain on the table." White House economic adviser Jason Furman called for an end to the so-called "employer exclusion" before he joined the administration. Meanwhile, some congressional Democrats say the White House has signaled that Obama would accept a tax on employer benefits as long as he didn't have to propose it himself.

"Everybody's got to share together in the solution. And this might be one component to sharing," Baucus said in an interview. But "it's early," he said. All the tax proposals will be analyzed before his committee tackles the funding question in May.

The debate on how to pay for Obama's plan to expand coverage to some of the 46 million Americans who lack health insurance is nearly as hot as the debate on the details of remaking the health system itself. By raising taxes and cutting spending on federal health programs, Obama has proposed creating a $634 billion reserve fund that would serve as a "down payment" on changes expected to cost well over $1 trillion over the next decade.

Some of Obama's ideas to generate that revenue have been well received, but others have run into serious opposition. For example, Obama wants to raise $8 billion by making wealthy seniors pay more for Medicare prescription-drug coverage, an idea lawmakers roundly rejected two years ago.

And lawmakers in both parties have panned his proposal to raise nearly half the money by limiting the value of itemized deductions for families who earn more than $250,000 a year. Those deductions can include mortgage interest, gifts to charity and state and local taxes; detractors say a tax increase could hurt charities, further depress the housing market and unfairly target residents of high-tax states.

Taxing employer-provided health benefits has not proven politically popular, either. The Democratic Congress summarily dismissed the idea two years ago when President George W. Bush included it in his budget request. Many senior House Democrats continue to oppose the idea, arguing that it could be catastrophic at a time when companies are scaling back coverage for their workers and dropping it completely for retirees.

"I would caution against doing anything that would undermine existing coverage for the individuals who receive their health coverage from their employer," Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), who chairs an important health subcommittee, said yesterday.

Many economists and tax analysts have long argued for changing current tax law on health coverage, which disproportionately benefits wealthier workers. The law encourages people to enroll in the most comprehensive health plans on offer, the so-called Cadillac plans that provide vast coverage, mask the true cost of health care and contribute to skyrocketing costs.

Many lobbyists and others involved in the health-care debate say they see few other places to go for the kind of money that will be needed to meet Obama's demand for ambitious change. In their view, the question is not whether employer benefits will be taxed but how much of the benefit will be spared.

Waters Helped Bank Whose Stock She Once Owned

By SUSAN SCHMIDT

WASHINGTON -- When Rep. Barney Frank was looking to aid a Boston-based lender last fall, the Massachusetts Democrat urged Maxine Waters, a colleague on the House Financial Services Committee, to "stay out of it," he says.

The reason: Ms. Waters, a longtime congresswoman from California, had close ties to the minority-owned institution, OneUnited Bank.

Ms. Waters and her husband have both held financial stakes in the bank. Until recently, her husband was a director. At the same time, Ms. Waters has publicly boosted OneUnited's executives and criticized its government regulators during congressional hearings. Last fall, she helped secure the bank a meeting with Treasury officials.

Getty Images

Rep. Maxine Waters, center, with Earvin "Magic" Johnson, left, and Ms. Waters's husband, Sidney Williams, at the 2009 BET Honors Reception in Washington, D.C.

Her involvement isn't new. Ms. Waters has detailed her financial ties in a series of federal disclosure forms and has been vocal in public in support of the bank. Those ties, however, have received little public attention. Nor is it well known how the influential lawmaker has over the years acted to support the bank and its executives.

Such potential conflicts of interest are more serious as the banking system's crisis has led the government to take an increasingly active role in overseeing financial institutions, including OneUnited. The financial-services committee on which Ms. Waters sits oversees banking issues, and the lawmaker is a potential future chairman.

Representatives of the bank and Ms. Waters didn't return calls seeking comment. Ms. Waters's congressional staff didn't respond to written questions about her and her husband's relationship with the bank.

Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group, says Ms. Waters should have recused herself from any matters involving the bank. If her support helped OneUnited, "it was a disservice to her constituents," Ms. Krumholz says.

Ms. Waters, who represents inner-city Los Angeles, hasn't made a secret of her family's financial interest in OneUnited. Referring to her family's investment, she said in 2007 during a congressional hearing that for African-Americans, "the test of your commitment to economic expansion and development and support for business is whether or not you put your money where your mouth is."

OneUnited's executives have donated $12,500 to Ms. Waters's election campaigns.

Through a series of acquisitions, OneUnited grew to become what it says is the largest African-American-owned bank in the country. It once counted the late Motown Records boss Jheryl Busby as a vice chairman.

Ms. Waters and her husband, Sidney Williams, were investors in two African-American owned California banks that merged with other lenders in 2002 to form OneUnited. Congressional financial-disclosure forms show Ms. Waters acquired OneUnited stock worth between $250,000 and $500,000 in March 2004, as did Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams joined the board of OneUnited that year.

Each sold shares in September 2004 -- including Ms. Waters's entire stake -- but Mr. Williams continued to hold varying amount of the company's stock. In the lawmaker's most recent financial-disclosure form, dated May 2008 and covering the prior year, Ms. Waters reported that her husband held between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of the bank's stock.

Getty Images

Mr. Williams also received interest payments from a separate holding at the bank, also worth between $250,000 and $500,000. The 2008 form doesn't specify what that is. Mr. Williams stepped down from the bank's board last spring. It couldn't be learned whether he still owns stock in the bank. Mr. Williams didn't return calls seeking comment.

At a hearing on minority lending in 2007, Ms. Waters criticized regulators for not doing enough to help minority banks stave off mergers with non-minority institutions. The lawmaker said she had contacted the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2002 over such concerns and "I was told that there was nothing that could be done."

In her 2007 remarks, Ms. Waters alluded to two banks, Independence Bank of Washington, D.C., and "another bank that was about to be acquired by a major white bank out of Illinois."

Ms. Waters didn't mention that OneUnited had been an unsuccessful suitor of Independence, which had been taken over several years earlier. The second bank, which she didn't name, appears to have been Family Savings Bank of Los Angeles. In 2002, that bank backed out of a merger agreement with FBOP Bank of Oak Brook, Ill., and shortly afterward was acquired by OneUnited.

News reports at the time credited the intervention of Ms. Waters and others for Family Savings's change of heart.

At the hearing, Ms. Waters praised OneUnited's senior counsel, Robert P. Cooper, as "typical of the young, brilliant minds that have been amassed at OneUnited Bank."

OneUnited's minority-lending record is mixed. The bank received "outstanding" Community Reinvestment Act ratings for lending in Los Angeles. It has weak ratings in Massachusetts and failed to meet minimum standards in Florida.

In January, Ms. Waters acknowledged she made a call to the Treasury on OneUnited's behalf. The bank's capital, which was heavily invested in shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was all but wiped out with the federal takeover of the two mortgage giants, and the bank was seeking help from regulators.

OneUnited eventually secured bailout funds under the government's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was set up later that month.

In a brief interview in January, Ms. Waters said she was unaware the bank received $12 million of TARP money, which arrived in December. OneUnited was "just a small" bank, she said.

A provision designed to aid OneUnited was written into the federal bailout legislation by Mr. Frank, who is chairman of the financial-services panel. Mr. Frank has said he inserted the provision to help the only African-American owned bank in his home state. He said in an interview that Ms. Waters's interest "had zero impact on the outcome because I would have done it anyway."

In October, regulators demanded that OneUnited raise fresh capital and name an independent board. The bank was ordered to stop paying for a Porsche used by one of its executives and its chairman's $6.4 million beachfront home in Pacific Palisades, Calif., a luxury enclave between Malibu and Santa Monica.

Justice Dept. Investigates Arizona Sheriff for Enforcing Immigration Law

By Penny Starr

By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, left, orders approximately 200 convicted illegal immigrants handcuffed together and moved into a separate area of Tent City, inmates behind Arpaio, for incarceration until their sentences are served and they are deported to their home countries Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2009, in Phoenix.

(CNSNews.com) - The Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Arizona following requests by congressional Democrats and allegations by liberal activists that the department has violated the civil rights of illegal aliens.

Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), and Robert Scott (D-Va.) requested the investigation, and activists groups such as National Day Laborer Organizer Network and ACORN launched petition drives and rallies in support of the probe.

The investigation focuses on Sheriff Joe Arpaio and dozens of officers under his command who were trained through the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security (ACCESS), which partners federal and local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws. (The Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement division is known popularly as ICE.)

In a letter dated March 10, 2009, Loretta Smith, acting assistant attorney general at the DOJ, detailed what her department would be investigating:

"This is to inform you that the United States Department of Justice is commencing an investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (''MCSO'') pursuant to the pattern or practice provisions of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994,42 U.S.C. §14141 ("Section 14141") and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968,42 U.S.C. § 3789d ("Safe Streets Act"), and pursuant to the prohibitions against national origin discrimination in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d to 2000d-7 ("Title Yr') and the Safe Streets Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d(c)."

The letter continues: "The investigation will focus on alleged patterns or practices of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures conducted by the MCSO, and on allegations of national origin discrimination, including failure to provide meaningful access to MCSO services for limited English proficient (LEP) individuals."

"In conducting the investigation, we will seek to determine whether there are violations of the above laws by the MCSO," the letter says.

Sheriff Arpaio's efforts to enforce immigration laws have been the focus of previous criticism, but Arpaio has defended his department and the results his ICE-trained officers have netted.

Concerning the DOJ’s investigation, Arpaio told CNSNews.com: “I will not back down. What I am doing is upholding the laws of the state of Arizona, and I will not be persuaded to turn my back on my oath of office as sheriff of this county.”

In an August 2008 press release, Arpaio's office detailed those results.

"While the Sheriff’s illegal immigration and human smuggling operations conducted on the streets and roadways here have netted nearly 2,300 arrests, another very successful effort to locate illegal aliens has been quietly happening inside Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jails," the release said.

It continues: "Despite the growing criticism of the Sheriff’s illegal immigration fight by some valley politicians and activists, Sheriff Arpaio says 60 detention officers trained by ICE officials have conducted over 106,000 interviews and investigations of inmates booked into jail since April of 2007.

"In those 18 months, 16,000 inmates were determined to be illegal aliens. Either they have already been deported or will be deported after being tried and/or serving their sentences for crimes committed in the valley. The work being done be Arpaio’s detention staff is a likely contributor to the recent reduction in crime in the valley,” the press release added.

"That number of 16,000 represents a full one-third (1/3) of all inmates in the United States who have had holds placed on them after being identified by jail or prison officials as illegal aliens."

The press release goes on to say that 20 percent of inmates in the Maricopa County Jail are illegal aliens and that of those, 2,000 illegal aliens - 70 percent - were arrested for felony crimes.

Those felony crimes committed included the following: forgery, 12 percent; kidnapping, 10 percent; aggravated assault, 7 percent; driving under the influence, 7 percent; drug charges, 27 percent; robbery, 3 percent; murder, 3 percent; and theft, 4 percent.

The Democratic Congress members have also asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to launch an investigation into the training provided by ICE.

Obama official on leave after FBI raids

by Associated Press writers Philip Elliott, Donna Borak, Brian Westley and Brett Zongker contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An aide to President Barack Obama is on leave from his White House job after the FBI raided his old District of Columbia government office Thursday, arresting a city employee and a technology consultant on corruption charges, a White House official said.

The charges were lodged against the two men at a federal court hearing as the FBI finished searching the city's technology office, which was led until recently by Obama's new computer chief, Vivek Kundra.

Kundra is on leave from his White House job until further details of the case become known, according to a White House official speaking on condition of anonymity because the official did not want to publicly discuss personnel matters.

At the court hearing, Yusuf Acar, the acting chief security officer in the city's technology office, was ordered held without bond pending a hearing Tuesday. Prosecutors said $70,000 in cash was found during a search of Acar's Washington home and that he posed a serious flight risk.

Technology consultant Sushil Bansal of Dunn Loring, Va., was released but was ordered not to conduct overseas financial transactions or leave the Washington metropolitan area. Bansal is due back in court on April 21, and prosecutors said they were hopeful that a plea agreement could be reached in his case.

Acar worked under Kundra, Obama's pick to coordinate federal computer systems. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs would not say whether the White House knew the investigation was under way when it named Kundra last week, but called the case "a serious matter."

Mafara Hobson, a spokeswoman for Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, said she was "very confident" Kundra is not a target of the investigation.

Bansal's lawyer, David Lamb declined to comment. It was not immediately clear who would represent Acar in the case.

Acar, a 40-year-old native of Turkey, had a $127,468-a-year position purchasing the city's computer equipment and lining up contract workers for numerous city agencies, according to court documents.

Authorities say Acar and Bansal, along with others, defrauded the government through a variety of schemes, including billing the city for items that were never delivered and "ghost" contract employees who did not work. The scheme involved Acar approving falsified bills and splitting the money with vendors including Bansal, who submitted them, court documents alleged.

Bansal, a native of India who turns 42 next week, is a former city employee and the founder and chief executive of Advanced Integrated Technologies Corp. The company has offices in Washington and India and did more than $13 million in business with the District of Columbia government in the past five years, according to court documents.

One contract involved providing computer support for the city's Department of Motor Vehicles. The company also was given a contract to upgrade the city's human resources computer records and sold virus detection software to the city.

In August Bansal was named entrepreneur of the year by the Association of Indians in America.

An FBI affidavit supporting the arrest warrants indicates that several other businesses and individuals were involved in the alleged schemes, but the other people are identified only by their initials.

The FBI worked with another employee in the city's technology office, who was in on the scheme and secretly recorded conversations with Acar and Bansal as part of the investigation.

In 2007, federal investigators uncovered a massive embezzlement scheme in the city's tax office.

Men and women dressed in suits and wearing latex gloves could be seen entering and leaving the glass-enclosed lobby of the Office of the Chief Technology Officer on Thursday afternoon.

Even as the raid was taking place, Kundra was giving a speech at FOSE, an annual government technology expo. Kundra said part of his focus is to change the way the government buys technologies from vendors.

Homeland Security Has Plan for Border Chaos, War

from NewMax

WASHINGTON -- A top Homeland Security official told a House panel Thursday that Mexican drug cartels are the biggest organized crime threat to the United States.

Homeland Security official Roger Rufe said a department plan to respond to escalating violence on the southwest border includes — as a last resort — deploying military personnel and equipment to the region if homeland security agencies become overwhelmed.

Rufe, echoing comments a day earlier from President Barack Obama, said now is not the time to militarize the southwest border.

"We would take all resources short of DoD and National Guard troops before we reach that tipping point," Rufe told lawmakers. "We very much do not want to militarize our border."

Rufe said military forces would be called in only when homeland security and other government agencies are overwhelmed. He did not specify what circumstances would trigger a call for troops.

The Mexican government has deployed 700 extra federal police to Ciudad Juarez, a city bordering Texas where local police have been overwhelmed by drug violence. Earlier this month, 3,200 federal troops were sent to the city.

Mexican officials say the violence killed 6,290 people last year _ and more than 1,000 in the first eight weeks of 2009. Warring drug cartels are blamed for more than 560 kidnappings in Phoenix in 2007 and the first half of 2008, and killings in Atlanta, and Birmingham, Ala.

Rufe said while the violence along the border in Mexico is appalling, violent crimes have not increased in U.S. border cities as a result. He said kidnappings are up, but violent crime is down.

"We're not so concerned, at least at this point, about that violence spilling over into our cities," he said.

Further, the Homeland Security Department's attache to Mexico said the violence in Mexico is not as dangerous to U.S. tourists as has been portrayed.

Alonzo Pena said the violence is in isolated areas of the country and only affects the people involved in criminal activity. He said the violence is not affecting U.S. citizens visiting Mexico and Americans should not cancel their vacations in the country.

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives warned college students on spring breaks not to travel to parts of northern Mexico because it was too dangerous.

In February, the State Department advised travelers to avoid areas of prostitution and drug-dealing in Mexico.

FBI stonewalls on whether it still has ties to CAIR

from Jihad Watch

Why? What does it have to hide? The FBI is supposed to have cut ties to CAIR back in October. Why not answer the Congressman's questions?

"Lack of Answers on CAIR's Questionable Ties," from FOXNews, March 11 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A leading U.S. congressman investigating the nation's largest Islamic advocacy group says he is "deeply disappointed" with an embarrassing reply he received from a letter he sent to the FBI.

Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., sent the letter on Feb. 2 after FOXNews.com report that the bureau had severed ties with the Council on American-Islamic Relations amid mounting evidence that the group was linked to a support network for Hamas.

The FBI severed its ties with all local chapters of CAIR after a 15-year investigation culminated with the conviction in December of Hamas fund-raisers. CAIR was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

Wolf reached out to the FBI's assistant director for counterterrorism to find out whether the bureau still had any contact with the group it called a front for Islamic radicals, and whether CAIR was receiving funds from foreign sources.

After waiting more than a month, Wolf said, the only response he got was a four-paragraph letter from the FBI's head of public relations.

The response left the 15-term congressman seething -- and now he's pushing back.

"I would like these questions fully answered by this Friday, March 13, and by someone who works on counter-terrorism, rather than a public affairs officer," Wolf wrote in a follow-up letter this week. "I would think the Bureau would be embarrassed to send the insufficient response I received."...

CAIR is seething, too. "GOP Rep Pressures FBI for 'Payback' Against Muslim Civil Rights Group," a CAIR press release (thanks to Axel):

WASHINGTON, March 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) charged today that a Virginia member of the U.S. House of Representatives has "abused his office" by seeking to pressure the FBI to produce negative information about the Muslim civil rights and advocacy group....

Memo to Ibrahim "Honest Ibe" Hooper: the FBI doesn't have to produce negative information about CAIR. CAIR is doing a terrific job of that on its own.

Cyber czar

by Bill Gertz

The Obama administration is moving ahead with plans to name a cybersecurity czar, and National Security Agency (NSA) Director Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander is the leading candidate for the post, Inside the Ring has learned.

According to U.S. government officials, President Obama plans to promote Gen. Alexander to four-star rank and give him wide-ranging authority to implement the new Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative.

Word of Gen. Alexander's likely appointment comes as the Department of Homeland Security's senior official in charge of cybersecurity, Rod A. Beckstrom, resigned this week to protest what he said was excessive NSA and military influence over cybersecurity policies.

The electronic intelligence-gathering NSA is one of the least public but most effective of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. Mostly in secret, NSA has been leading U.S. government efforts to secure computer and other information networks and to block foreign electronic attacks on U.S. systems, which for the Pentagon number tens of thousands of electronic attempts every day. The agency during the past several months has begun receiving tens of millions of dollars in Pentagon funds under the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), said defense officials familiar with the program.

Dennis C. Blair, the retired admiral who is director of national intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that the Obama administration is reviewing the security initiative "to ensure it is consistent with its own cybersecurity policy."

Mr. Blair said a number of nations, including Russia and China, have technical cyberwarfare capabilities that can disrupt elements of the U.S. information infrastructure as well as gather intelligence. Terrorist and criminal groups also conduct cyberattacks.

"To be sure, significant work remains in order to protect, defend and respond to the cyberthreat in a manner that markedly improves our nation's overall security," Mr. Blair said. The initiative was launched in January 2008 and seeks to deal with cybersecurity threats, both current and future, and is working with private-sector companies to create an "environment that no longer favors cyberintruders over defenders," Mr. Blair said.

"The CNCI includes defensive, offensive, education, research and development, and counterintelligence elements while remaining sensitive throughout to the requirements of protecting the privacy rights and civil liberties of U.S. citizens," Mr. Blair said. He noted that the initiative has made "considerable progress" in identifying the threat and in developing solutions.

White House National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer declined to comment on Gen. Alexander's candidacy for the cyber-czar post.

Speicher report
A U.S. intelligence report that was the basis for the Navy's decision on Tuesday to reclassify Michael "Scott" Speicher as missing in action and no longer missing-captured, states that the action followed a review of captured Iraqi documents and an extensive search of Iraq for the pilot, shot down in 1991.

The March 4 report is based on a classified assessment and states that "based on all available intelligence, the [intelligence community] assesses that Capt. Speicher died shortly after his aircraft was shot down."

"The IC does not know the location of his remains," the report states. "In the 18 years since Capt. Speicher was shot down, the U.S. government has found no credible information to indicate what happened to him after he ejected from his aircraft."

The report produced by the Intelligence Community POW/MIA Analytic Cell states that its judgment was based on intelligence, knowledge of Iraqi prisoner handling under Saddam Hussein and U.S. government efforts to account for Capt. Speicher since 1991.

More than 1.6 million Iraqi government documents were reviewed.

"Documents were found accounting for the capture, imprisonment, and release of all other coalition prisoners of war and the recovery and return of coalition individuals killed in action. No documents on Capt. Speicher have been found," the report says.

The report also says intelligence sources that claimed the pilot was alive before the 2003 Iraq war were discredited and were either "fabricated" or "embellished" information or mistakenly identified someone else as Capt. Speicher.

Another factor in the recent decision was that the remnants of the Saddam regime made no effort to exploit Capt. Speicher after the 2003 U.S. invasion to negotiate the release of prisoners, including Saddam.

Also, Iraqi facilities were searched throughout the country, and no evidence was found that Capt. Speicher was kept at any facilities.

"U.S. investigators have interviewed and debriefed hundreds of Iraqi government, military, and intelligence officials, including Saddam Hussein," the report says. "All have denied any knowledge of Capt. Speicher being captured or held prisoner by the Saddam government."

Iraq's supply of remains in 1991 that were found not to be those of Capt. Speicher were the result of Iraqis attempting to conceal an unrelated administrative error, the report says.

Forensic and handwriting analysis of the initials "MSS" found on a Baghdad prison wall and on an I-beam in a carport near Tikrit were "not linked to Capt. Speicher," the report says.

Pentagon detainee office
The Pentagon is planning to downsize the scope of the Office of Detainee Affairs and shift the office to the control of a different assistant secretary of defense, special correspondent Rowan Scarborough reports.

A defense official said the reorganization is being eyed in light of the fact that the Obama administration has moved major decision-making on detainees from the Pentagon to the Justice Department.

The president has announced plans to close within a year the prison at Guantanamo Bay, the home of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the admitted mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and about 240 other terrorist suspects.

The source, who asked not to be named because the reorganization is not complete, said the next deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs would focus on battlefield detention and internment centers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The office is within the domain of Michele A. Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy. She is heading a review of her organization.

The Pentagon created the detainee office in 2004, when Donald H. Rumsfeld was defense secretary, as the Guantanamo prison came under increasing assault from human rights groups and various foreign governments.

Charles "Cully" Stimpson, the second deputy assistant secretary for detainee affairs, resigned in 2007 after he was criticized for questioning the motives and financial ties of lawyers defending terrorist suspects. The post is vacant.

The position had led a joint committee within the Pentagon that handled issues such as whom to release back to their home country. At its peak, the prison held nearly 800 detainees, most captured in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

Phillip Carter, a former Army officer who headed the Obama campaign's outreach to military veterans, has been mentioned as the next detainee office chief.

Nuclear dangers
William H. Tobey, until recently the Energy Department's deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration, stated recently that the danger of terrorists obtaining nuclear material for a bomb is real.

Mr. Tobey said U.S. aid to Russia has helped secure nuclear facilities but concerns remain about nuclear material being stolen or smuggled out of the country. "There are research reactor sites in Russia that use highly enriched uranium; they remain a concern," he told the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

On terrorists seeking nuclear material, Mr. Tobey said: "I don't think you can separate terrorists and nonproliferation issues. We're worried about the material falling into the hands of terrorists, but we're also worried about it falling into the hands of nation-states that would pursue illicit weapon programs."

In Russia, the threat of nuclear-material smuggling depends on the type of facility, he said. "If you're talking about research reactors, it's probably less likely that it would be an insider threat," Mr. Tobey said. "But if you're talking about other, larger, facilities where weapons-usable material is handled, an insider threat would probably be more acute. We know from experience that bulk material is more vulnerable to theft by insiders."

One of the key questions for those seeking to prevent the use of a terrorist bomb is whether the origin of the material can be traced after one is set off.

Asked if a nuclear bomb detonated in the United States could be traced, Mr. Tobey said, "At this point I think there's an excellent chance that we would be able to determine physical characteristics which would point to the origin of material that went off in a bomb. But these things take time. It's not something that could be done overnight. Moreover, even if the country of origin of such material is known with certainty, it does not necessarily explain how it came to be in a weapon that detonated. Was it, for example, used directly by a nation-state, sold by a nation-state to a third party, or stolen by a third party?"

Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project, said Mr. Tobey's disclosure that Russian research reactor sites remain vulnerable is worrisome.

"These sites probably contain many bombs' worth of highly enriched uranium in the form of fresh reactor fuel," Mr. Milhollin said. "It would increase everyone's security to have this material fully protected. The new administration should make it a high priority to protect these sites. It is the one obvious thing we can do to reduce the risk of weapon-ready nuclear material falling into the wrong hands."

Top Takes on National Security - Is negotiating with an Islamist entity a good idea?

(Compiler's note: This is a must read article to prepare you for what you will observe next on the world stage.)

by Family Security Matters National Security Team

Alex Alexiev

So President Obama wants to reach out to "moderates" in the Taliban. Let's imagine for a moment that such exotic specimens actually existed and that we were able to find them and make a deal with them. What might they want from us in return for a cease fire? What they'd want is exactly what they recently got in Swat, a federal territory, where the Pakistani government recognized Taliban control of the territory and their right to impose shariah. In other words, Islamabad allowed them to accomplish what they had not been able to achieve by force of arms. Put another way, Islamabad implicitly sanctioned the Taliban's right to burn girls' schools on its sovereign territory.

But why be cynical? Surely somebody as well-intentioned as Mr. Obama should be able to find some moderate fanatics even among the Taliban - as long as he continues to speak softly and carries no stick.

- Alex Alexiev is an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute Washington, D.C.

Sandra Carney

The naïveté and inexperience of this President are astounding and frightening!

He does not understand the fundamental difference between those in Iraq, brutal as they may have been and the Taliban in Afghanistan, who are indoctrinated with the teachings of Mohammed. One cannot negotiate with religious fanatics.

The consequences for America's safety under this kind of leadership is bleak to say the very least!

- Sandra Carney is keenly interested in world events and fiercely protective of her adopted country, the U.S.A.

Lee Ellis

Islamic Terrorists have been trained from birth to regard negotiation as a form of weakness. They will use this time not for bargaining, but to size up their enemy's needs and plan an ambush that will hone in on those perceived weaknesses. America must always display strength; it is the only quality terrorists respect.

- Lee Ellis is a retired journalist, narrator, and formerly a Vice President with both CBS and Gannett (USA Weekend). He can be contacted at indiolee@dc.rr.com.

Paul Hollrah

Yes, negotiating with Islamist terrorists may be worth a try. Out here in Oklahoma we have a large number of people who have always insisted that it’s possible to negotiate with rattlesnakes. The idea is to simply kneel down in front of the snake, look him squarely in the eye, and say, "Now lookie here, snake! If we're gonna' occupy the same piece of real estate, we're gonna' have to open up a meaningful dialogue (I think that's the term liberals use)."

Actually, most of those people are now dead. Those who are not have noses very much like Bill Clinton's. But rattlesnakes and Islamists are not exactly the same breed of cat, so Obama should probably be encouraged to engage in a bit of personal diplomacy. When he doesn't return, we'll search for him... for a while.

- Paul Hollrah is a Senior Fellow at the Lincoln Heritage Institute.

M. Zuhdi Jasser

President Obama’s recent overture to the Taliban not only sends a dangerous message of appeasement to our sworn enemies, but it sends a lethal message of abandonment to all those who have suffered the oppression of the Taliban. He is effectively telling the Taliban that “we will work with you.” Is President Obama unable to see the evil that has been perpetrated against humanity over the years by these Islamists? How can a Presidential candidate who campaigned on a message of “change” turn around as President and completely abandon those who seek change away from the thugs and theocrats of the Taliban of Afghanistan?

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the Taliban can be trusted or serve as any type of viable “partner” in a negotiation of the future of Afghanistan and global security. They have in fact repeatedly proven to be sworn enemies of freedom and liberty. They will tell the Obama administration what it wants to hear in order to get American advocates for liberty out of Afghanistan and allow them to reestablish their Islamist oppressive regime in the region. Rather than empowering our anti-Islamist Muslim allies in the region who are already underfunded and outmatched, President Obama is giving our ideological allies the signal that the United States “would rather sit with your oppressors and get short term assurances of stability than sit with real agents of anti-Islamist change.” President Obama may yearn for quick solutions, but in so doing he places our long term global security in peril.

- M. Zuhdi Jasser is the founder and Chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy based in Phoenix Arizona. He is a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, a physician in private practice, and a community activist. He can be reached at Zuhdi@aifdemocracy.org.

Jim Kouri, CPP

President Barack Obama – like most political people who never faced battle nor held a real job – is following the same pattern that led to September 11, 2001. His enthusiasm for discussion provides a sign to our enemies that the Obama Administration is weak. When his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that North Korea's pursuit of strategic nuclear weapons was 'unhelpful,' my reaction was “duh, ya think?” These people are amateurs playing at geopolitics, and our enemies know it.

- Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he's a staff writer for the New Media Alliance.

Geoff Metcalf

"Negotiating" with extremists is epically myopic and counter intuitive. It never has , and never will, yield a benefit with extremists. Negotiating is a sign of weakness to an adversary who by definition will not compromise.

Embracing negotiation as policy in Afghanistan exceeds mere naïveté. It is a recipe for disaster...basic “scorpion and the frog” stuff.

- Geoff Metcalf, a former Green Beret and retired Army officer, is a nationally syndicated author and major market radio show host. E-mail Geoff at geoff@geoffmetcalf.com.

Adrian Morgan

A Suicidal Folly Not Worthy Of a President

Obama's suggestion to the NYT about seeking out "alienated" Islamists in Afghanistan is deeply worrying. Richard Holbrooke could never make such a venture successful. The Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan have never been known to compromise and should any Taliban try to talk to the West their life would be worth little. In Pakistan's tribal regions countless civilians have been beheaded by the Taliban, merely because of unfounded rumors that they "spied" for the US. A disaffected Islamist is still an Islamist, forever opposed to everything the West stands for. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, teachers are killed and schools continue to be blown up, merely because they educated girl children. The Taliban's Deobandi faith commands them to revile the rights of women and to impose brutal sharia laws (killing adulterers, or just any woman who wears make-up, beheading other women). If Obama wants to act like Neville Chamberlain, then he will cheapen the role of the U.S. presidency.

- Adrian Morgan is a British-based writer and artist who has written for Western Resistance since its inception. He also writes for Spero News.

Maj. W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

Negotiating with terrorists accomplishes five things, each of which favors the terrorists.

First, negotiations buy them time, and time is everything to a Jihadist. Second, arranged talks lend an air of legitimacy to the terrorists, which emboldens them and serves as an enabler of their recruiting efforts. Third, an expressed desire to negotiate with terrorists sends a message to all terrorists that suicide bombings and the deliberate targeting of non-combatants is an effective tool to achieve one's aims. Fourth, our reaching out to terrorists makes us appear weak and somewhat desperate in their eyes. Lastly, Jihadists deceive – in fact lie – to "infidels" as a matter of policy through the Islamic principle of al taqiyya which is justifiable according to their faith. So any attempt to negotiate with the bad guys only sets us up, whereas it is advantageous to them on every level.

- Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

Joan Swirsky

It’s always a wise idea to leftists who, historically, have failed to learn that our enemies mean what they say when they threaten to annihilate us. As the Chinese now act provocatively toward the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea, Hugo Chávez steals an American oil company operating in Venezuela, an American is beheaded in Mexico and the Mexican drug wars invade the United States, Iran forges ahead with its nuclear-weapons program, North Korea rattles its nuclear sabers, emboldened terrorists murder 30 people in Baghdad with a car bomb, and Hamas fires rockets into Israel daily, President Obama extends a “negotiating” hand to the murderous, er “moderate,” Taliban, offers to give up American Missile Defense in exchange for Russia’s eternally unreliable “help” with Iran, makes overtures to terrorist-harboring Syria, offers over $20 million to Palestinians (read, Hamas) to migrate to the U.S., and suggests relaxing sanctions toward Communist Cuba, on and on and on. Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad demands the U.S. apologize for 60 years of insults, Putin says yes to no missile defense but no to help with Iran, Chavez invites Obama to join the Socialist revolution, and, I imagine, the Taliban and Hamas, are – in Internet lingo – rolling on the floor laughing at the stupefying naïveté of the new American president.

- Joan Swirsky is a New York-based journalist and author who can be contacted at joansharon@aol.com.

Jerome Corsi: U.S. Becoming a 'Dual Country'

By: Rick Pedraza

Jerome Corsi says he warned the nation about President Barack Obama’s socialist indoctrination when he wrote last year's New York Times best-selling book, “The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality.” Now, he fears, the U.S. is becoming a “dual country."

“I think it’s ongoing right now,” Corsi says. “We’re already becoming a dual country.”

The author, pundit and political scientist says that Obama is using open borders, economic integration, and the crises surrounding the financial meltdown to “advance the agenda of worldwide integration, economically on the way to political integration."

[Editor's Note: Watch Jerome Corsi discuss the coming dual nation - Go Here Now]

The goal is simple: “redistribution of income.” It’s a trait deeply rooted in Obama’s youth as a community organizer and follower of the late Chicago radical Saul Alinsky. Alinsky, Corsi says, advised radicals in the ‘60s “to cut their hair and run for office. Say whatever was necessary to get elected; listen to the grievances of the people so you can appear to be one of them.

“But when you got elected, the goal was to redistribute income,” Corsi adds. “It appears to be the only consistent theme in the early days of the Obama presidency.”

Corsi believes the U.S.A. under Obama could make an alliance with Mexico and Canada. It’s a theme he touched on in his book, “The Late, Great U.S.A.”

How will this happen? It is the intent of the Obama administration, Corsi says, to legalize the estimated 12 million illegal aliens in the U.S. to make it "virtually impossible for any Republican to be elected president" again.

“President Obama said as much,” he notes. “He went on (Spanish language) Univision radio and told Spanish listeners that comprehensive immigration reform was going to be introduced by the Obama administration very soon.”

Corsi says Obama’s plan will include fast tracks set up for illegal immigrants to achieve citizenship under guest-worker programs, or “some other form of citizenship or entitlement they have by being here.

“I think the idea for Democrats on the left is that open borders imports an underclass which will vote Democratic for generations to come,” Corsi says of the administration's plan to nationalize illegal aliens. But Republicans, too, are responsible for the trend: their pro-business wing favors “cheap workers that can be used in the jobs that can’t be outsourced overseas,” Corsi says.

Corsi says the fact that 10 percent of Mexico’s population currently lives in the U.S. today is another sign of the U.S. becoming a dual country. He also notes there are 50 Mexican consulates in the U.S. to protect civil rights of Mexicans to live as Mexican national citizens, under Mexican law, within the United States.

Democrats also are seeking to gain control over the airwaves. Encouraging and promoting diversity and communication via media ownership is, essentially, accomplishing the same thing as bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, Corsi argues.

“President Obama says he is not in favor of the Fairness Doctrine, and that tends to put everybody asleep saying, ‘Oh, we’ve dodged a bullet,’” Corsi offers.

“But this whole idea of decentralizing radio stations -- where you would say that in any market area, no radio chain could have more than 10 percent of ownership of the radio stations -- this would be an attempt to attack syndication,” Corsi says of syndicated talk radio shows by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Mark Levin.

“It’s an attempt to backdoor the breakup of conservative talk radio. And it will be a tragedy because commercial radio will suffer. If ‘Air America’ and Al Franken had been a commercial success, the Democrats wouldn’t need a government regulation in order to restrain the First Amendment," Corsi says..

“It’s a totally political move,” Corsi warns. “I don’t see the Democrats trying to restrain MSNBC from being totally in love with Barack Obama."

The Democrats, Corsi says, "can’t tolerate criticism. You’ve got a president with a thin skin who doesn’t like to be criticized – and he’s going to attack the First Amendment as a consequence.”

[Editor's Note: Watch Jerome Corsi discuss the coming dual nation - Go Here Now]

Drug smugglers using ultralights to cross border

TUCSON, Ariz. – Smugglers facing strengthened border defenses have turned to an old and risky tactic — using single-seat ultralight aircraft to fly marijuana loads into the country.

Officials know of at least three such attempts in recent months — all of which ended badly for the smugglers — but they don't know how many others have been made or whether any have been successful. ....

Congress halts Mexican trucks in U.S.

By Jerome R. Corsi

The $410 billion omnibus funding bill headed toward President Obama's desk for signing contains a carefully worded measure that would shut down the Bush administration demonstration project allowing 100 Mexican trucking companies to run their long-haul rigs throughout the U.S. in direct competition with American truckers.

The issue became rancorous over the past two years as Bush administration Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters fought off repeated efforts by Congress to confine Mexican trucks to a narrow 20-mile-wide commercial area north of the southern border.

In what appears to be a major victory for Teamster boss James Hoffa, the Obama administration worked closely with Senate Democrats, including Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota to toughen up language of an amendment Dorgan successfully had inserted in the DOT fiscal year 2008 appropriations bill.

Keeping Mexican trucks south of the border appears to be a reward to organized labor for its support of Obama's presidential campaign last year.

The move comes as a blow to free trade advocates in the Republican Party that have pushed hard for new ways to open the Mexican border for increased opportunities between the two countries.

"The driving public is put at risk when trucks from Mexico that don't meet U.S. standards are allowed to roam our highways," Hoffa said in a statement. "The Mexican government has not held up their end of the bargain to meet U.S. standards."

Hoffa said Mexican trucks are "unsafe and Mexican drivers are not required to meet the same criteria that American drivers must meet to earn a commercial drivers license." Hoffa said.

"It's long past time to close the border to these unguided missiles," he said.

WND reported that after the truck project begun, an examination of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration database revealed hundreds of safety violations by Mexican long-haul rigs rolling on U.S. roads under the project.

Opponents of the project have contended that Mexican trucks and truck drivers do not reliably meet U.S. standards.

As WND reported, in a contentious Senate hearing last March, Dorgan in tight questioning got Peters to admit that Mexican drivers were being designated at the border as "proficient in English" even though they could explain U.S. traffic signs only in Spanish.

In the tense hearing, Dorgan accused Peters of being "arrogant" and recklessly disregarding a congressional vote to stop the Mexican project by taking funds away.

As WND reported, opposition in the House was led by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., who in September 2007 accused the Bush administration of having a "stealth plan" to allow Mexican long-haul rigs on U.S. roads.

"This administration [of President George W. Bush] is hell-bent on opening our borders," DeFazio said, "but has failed to require that Mexican drivers and trucks meet the same safety and security standards as U.S. drivers and trucks."

Previously, Peters had argued the wording of the Dorgan amendment did not prohibit the Transportation Department from stopping a Mexican truck project already underway, even if the measure prohibited DOT from starting any new project.

Despite strong congressional opposition, the Department of Transportation under President Bush had announced it planned in its final months to extend the truck project for another two years – an attempt to force the incoming Obama administration to comply.

The restrictions passed in the Omnibus Funding Bill will limit Mexican trucks to a 20-mile commercial zone north of the Mexican border, except in Arizona, where the limit is 75 miles.