Cocaine trade 'kingpin' in New York for trial

Aljazeera A former navy chief of the small west African nation of Guinea-Bissau who is suspected of being a kingpin in the international cocaine trade was brought to the US for trial on drug charges following his arrest at sea by federal agents, authorities have said. A spokesman for the Manhattan federal prosecutor's office told AFP news agency on Friday that Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto was in custody in the city. "His arraignment will be today," the spokesman said on Friday. The indictment against Na Tchuto - better known as Bubo in his deeply impoverished homeland - and four other defendants, Manuel Mamadi Mane, Saliu Sisse, Papis Djeme and Tchamy Yala, says they were middlemen in a huge drug smuggling operation originating in Latin America. Guinea-Bissau's islands have been used for at least a decade by Latin American cartels as a stop-over point for trafficking cocaine into Europe. The five defendants were presented in a US Magistrate Court in Manhattan on Friday, according to a US Department of Justice statement. Na Tchuto, Djeme and Yala face charges of conspiring to import narcotics into the US. Mane, Sisse, and two Colombian men who were arrested in a separate action are charged with conspiring to engage in narco-terrorism, conspiring to import narcotics into the US and conspiring to provide aid to Colombia's FARC rebel group by storing FARC-owned cocaine in West Africa, the statement said. Na Tchuto and two other Guinea-Bissau nationals were taken into custody on Tuesday aboard a vessel in international waters in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, the release said. Stop-over to Europe According to court papers, the defendants agreed to receive cocaine off the coast of Guinea-Bissau and to store the cocaine in storage houses there prior to their shipment to the US. The US government alleged that the defendants also agreed that a portion of the cocaine would be used to pay Guinea-Bissau government officials to provide safe passage for the cocaine through the African country. Prosecutors said Na Tchuto discussed shipping tonne-quantities of cocaine from South America to Guinea Bissau by sea, saying it was a good time to transport drugs because Guinea Bissau government was weak because of a recent coup d'etat. They said he also said his fee would be $1 million per 1,000 kg of cocaine received in Guinea Bissau for the use of a company he owned to hide the shipments before they were moved to the US. If convicted, he could face life in prison. The US Treasury Department designated Na Tchuto as a drug kingpin in 2010 for his alleged role in the cocaine trade in Guinea-Bissau, freezing any assets he may have had in the United States. For at least a decade, Guinea-Bissau has played a key role in the drug trade. The country's archipelago of virgin islands has been used by Latin American cartels as a stop-over point for ferrying cocaine to Europe, where prices have skyrocketed at the same time that demand for cocaine levelled off in North America. A former navy chief of staff, Na Tchuto is believed to have played a role in the arrival of a plane carrying hundreds of pounds of cocaine from Venezuela to Guinea-Bissau in July 2008, according to a statement from the Treasury Department. Fernando Vaz, the spokesman for the government of Guinea-Bissau, said he hoped America would provide Na Tchuto a fair legal defence. Guinea-Bissau has been plagued by coups. The last few, including one last year, are believed to have been fuelled by an internal power struggle over which wing of the military would control the drug trade. A booming cocaine trade has turned Guinea-Bissau into a narco-state. Key members of the military have been named as complicit in the trade, including several army and navy chiefs who are now on the United States' drug kingpin list.

‘US wants to take S. Korea into new Korean war’

Rt.com

The US is trying to embroil South Korea in conflict with its Northern neighbor in a bit to oust its current government without taking heavy US casualties, political writer and journalist Dan Glazebrook told RT.

The Oxford-based expert believes that only stopping US military provocations will bring stability to the region.

RT: What do you think about the warning of North Korea telling international embassies to evacuate their staff? It sounds pretty dire, doesn’t it?

Dan Glazebrook: Their intention has been clear from the start of this crisis. North Korea’s whole intention is to show its willingness and preparedness to defend itself should war be launched upon it. Every year we have these massive provocations of joint US and South Korean war games exercises right at the borders of North Korea. This year the provocations were stepped up to actually simulate a nuclear missile attack on North Korea. B2 bombers were used for the first time along with B52s and F22 bombers. So there is a military provocation from the US. North Korea feels rightly threatened – they’ve seen what’s happened to Iraq, to Libya and so on. It feels threatened because it knows it was in the explicit hit-list of the American government some years ago. It needs to make very clear that it will not tolerate any kind of infringement of its sovereignty, any kind of attack, and this is all about to show that it’s willing to defend itself.

RT: We're receiving reports of an earthquake near North Korea - do you believe there could be any links with the country's nuclear intentions?

DG: Well, I think we should wait and see what happens, but of course constantly North Korea has this policy called the Army First policy, where it’s constantly trying to develop its nuclear and military resources to defend itself. Again, the lessons of Iraq and Libya are very clear – Saddam Hussein gave up his weapons program and we saw what happened to Iraq as a result, kind of [Muammar] Gaddafi gave up his weapons program and we saw what happened to Libya as a result. So they are constantly trying to upgrade their weapons in order to defend themselves. Of course, one of the reasons for this constant annual provocation, these war games exercises, is to keep tensions of the peninsular high to justify the massive US military presence – it’s one of the most militarized regions on the entire planet.

RT: Is there anything Washington can do to prevent a full scale confrontation in case North Korea is determined to take it to the extreme?

DG: Of course, they can stop launching these provocations, stop simulating nuclear strikes against North Korea on its border. The thing is that they would love to occupy North Korea, they would love to have troops right upon the border of China. What stops them every time is that they calculate their losses would be in the magnitude of tens and tens of thousands of soldiers.  What they would dearly love then, the US and its allies, would be actually to get South Korea into a new Korean War in which South Korea took all the casualties. This is why the North is so determined to make it clear that if the US and its allies attempt to provoke some kind of inter-Korean conflict they will have to pay a heavy price for that.

ACLU catches Ohio jailing those too poor to pay fines

Rt.com

A new ACLU report accuses Ohio courts of imprisoning people who are unable to pay court fees. The group, which claims to have found evidence in seven counties, likened the practice to a resurgence of debtor’s prisons - which were outlawed by the 1830s.

Entitled “The Outskirts of Hope,” the report also accuses Ohio judges of consistently denying those locked up in such circumstances court hearings to prove their financial status.

“Supreme Court precedent and Ohio law make clear that local courts and jails should not function as debtors’ prisons,” said American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney Carl Takei. “Yet many mayors’ courts and some municipal courts jail people without making any attempt whatsoever to determine whether they can afford to pay their fines.”

“Being poor is not a crime in this country,” said ACLU staff attorney Richard Goodman, who was quoted in the group’s announcement. “Incarcerating people who cannot afford to pay fines is both unconstitutional and cruel – it takes a tremendous toll on precisely those families already struggling the most.” 

Maureen O’Connor, Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, told the ACLU on Wednesday that she would investigate the matter.

The ACLU reported that 22% of all bookings in the Huron County jail between May 2012 and October 2012 were in some way related to an inmate’s failure to pay a court debt. The Outskirts of Hope also indicates that between July 15 and August 31, 2012, Parma Municipal Court (in suburban Cleveland) jailed at least 45 defendants for their inability to pay a fine while a Sandusky court locked up 75 people for the same reason.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that it costs Ohio taxpayers between $50 and $75 to jail person for one night. With an average fine of around $900, in some cases that cost eventually totals more than the unpaid fine itself. Seemingly unaware of the report, Parma Municipal Court judge Deanna O’Donnell told reporters that if there was evidence to prove the ACLU’s claim, then the courts would “fix it.”

Still, despite only focusing on seven counties, ACLU Director of Communications and Public Policy Mike Brickner warned that the problem is widespread across Ohio.

“Not only are those courts violating the law, they are losing money doing it,” he said. “These practices are legally prohibited, morally questionable, and financially unsound. Nevertheless, they appear to be alive and well in Ohio. It’s like something out of a Charles Dickens novel.”

Trayvon Martin's parents settle with Florida Homeowner's Association

USAToday

The parents of a teenager who was fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer last year have settled a wrongful-death claim against the homeowners association of the Florida subdivision where their son was killed.

The Orlando Sentinel reported Friday that an attorney for Trayvon Martin's parents — Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin — filed that paperwork in Seminole County and that portions of it were made available for public review Friday.

According to the newspaper, the settlement amount was marked out in five pages that it reviewed. Lower in the agreement, the parties specify that they will keep the amount confidential.

Benjamin Crump, the attorney for Trayvon Martin's parents, declined to comment Friday. He told the Associated Press that the filing was confidential.

A telephone message left Friday evening by AP with the homeowner association's attorney, Thomas R. Slaten Jr., wasn't immediately returned.

Martin was fatally shot in February, 2012 by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman during a confrontation in a subdivision in Sanford, about 30 miles north of Orlando.

A month-and-a-half delay in Zimmerman's arrest led to nationwide protests in the racially charged case.

Zimmerman has been charged with second-degree murder in Martin's death. Zimmerman claims he was attacked and acted in self-defense, but Martin's family claims he targeted the unarmed 17-year-old mainly because Martin was black. Zimmerman's parents are white and Hispanic.

Under the terms of the settlement, Trayvon Martin's parents and his estate agreed to set aside their wrongful-death claim and claims for pain and suffering, loss of earnings and expenses, the Sentinel reported.

According to a cover page attached to the settlement that was placed in Zimmerman's criminal case file, copies of the settlement were given Thursday to Zimmerman's attorney, as well as to the prosecutor and the judge, the newspaper reported.

Crump has previously said he intends to file suit later against Zimmerman, and the settlement specified that Zimmerman was not part of the homeowner association's deal.

More South Texas Deputies Accused of being on Drug Dealer's Payroll

ABCNews

A former South Texas sheriff's deputy who is the latest law enforcement officer in Hidalgo County to be accused of being on an alleged drug trafficker's payroll pleaded not guilty Friday to a federal drug conspiracy charge.

The growing federal indictment to which former Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies Jorge Garza and James Phil Flores were added this week now includes nine former officers, including the sons of the Hidalgo County sheriff and Hidalgo police chief.

Garza waived the reading of the indictment Friday and U.S. Magistrate Judge Dorina Ramos set his bond at $100,000. His attorney has declined to comment. A judge set the same bond for Flores last week. The charge carries a possible sentence of between 10 years and life in prison.

At the center is Fernando Guerra Sr., who was arrested in February. Prosecutors allege he would arrange to buy drugs in South Texas and then use corrupt law enforcement officers to intercept the deliveries. Prosecutors say what appeared to be legitimate busts were actually drug robberies with corrupt cops turning the product over to Guerra for resale.

The veneer of legitimacy was critical, because drug traffickers routinely mete out severe punishments for stolen loads. In at least some instances, Guerra went so far as to make sure the person he was buying from witnessed the phony police bust to tamp down any suspicion, according to court records.

An informant told authorities that Garza and Flores performed this ruse about 20 times and made about $10,000, court records say. Each load was typically more than 500 pounds of marijuana.

Additionally, authorities say Guerra paid Garza to guard the stash houses where the drugs were stored at night.

The pieces started falling in December, when four former officers were charged. Three of them were members of the "Panama Unit," a joint task force between the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office and Mission Police Department targeting the street-level drug trade in that city.

The Mission officers, Jonathan Trevino and Alexis Rigoberto Espinoza, are sons of Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino and Hidalgo Police Chief Rodolfo "Rudy" Espinoza.

Federal prosecutors say the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement department that conducts internal reviews received a tip in August about Espinoza and another task force member stealing drugs. Federal investigators set up a sting.

Those first four officers charged allegedly escorted drug loads for money in the sting last fall. But the indictment charges them in a drug conspiracy that dates to the beginning of 2009.

Sheriff Trevino disbanded the unit. The number of his former deputies now facing charges in the case stands at seven.

US “Mafia Protection Racket” on Korean Peninsula & media brainwashed mind control.

4th Media

US Protection Racket Root of Korea Conflict

The best way to understand the seemingly reckless, recurring threat of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula is this: the East Asian region is being run like a Mafia protection racket. And the criminal Mafia is the US. 

The conflict emanates from Washington and is perpetuated by Washington. Why? To justify what would otherwise be seen as simply outrageous US militarism in the Asia Pacific hemisphere, and in particular a criminally aggressive agenda towards the main geopolitical targets of Washington – China and Russia. 

Korea’s conflict is not primarily about North and South “enemy states”. It is, as it has been for the past 68 years since the end of World War II, about Washington using military force to criminally assert its hegemony on the global stage. 

But you wouldn’t know this from a casual reading of the Western news media. No, we are told over and over again that the US is “protecting” South Korea and its other Asian allies.

The military presence of the US is “serving” as a “deterrent” to aggression from a “sinister” North Korea. In this depiction, the US is the good guy, while North Korea is the menacing reprobate that is a scourge on everybody’s well-being and security. Kim Jong-un is the embodiment of the Axis of Evil. 

That so-called “quality” news media such as the BBC, New York Times and Guardian can get away with seriously presenting this situation in terms portraying the US as a benevolent force is an astounding feat of reality inversion and brainwashed mind control.

The irony is that such media implicitly mock North Korea as a Stalinist “Big Brother” state, where critical thought and expression are forbidden. Yet, these media display the very same habit of mental conformity that they disparage North Korea for. 

As noted above, the only way of properly interpreting the recent weeks of threat and counter-threat of all-out war in Korea is to recall scenes from the classic Mafia movie, The Godfather.

You know the drill. The mobster goes around the neighborhood demanding loyalty, respect and tributes “for protection”. If the residents don’t conform to the racket, then the boss arranges self-fulfilling violence to rain down on those who dare to reject his magnanimous “protection”. 

The exact same arrangement applies in Korea under the tutelage of the US. The Peninsula was unilaterally partitioned in 1945 by Washington into North and South statelets because the US could not abide the fact that the Korean population at that time was strongly anti-imperialist and yearning for socialist democracy. That egalitarian sentiment helped the Koreans resist the occupying Japanese imperialists prior to and during World War II. 

Tellingly, in order to assert its hegemony over Korea and the Asia Pacific, the US worked the neighborhood over assiduously in order to defeat the popular movement for independence and democracy that the Korean people exhibited so boldly.

Washington achieved this by installing pro-Japanese collaborators as the rulers of newly formed South Korea. Think about that one. The US fought a war allegedly to defeat fascism and imperialism, only to immediately collude with the same political forces to defeat Korean democracy. 

The dropping of the atomic bombs by Washington on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was part and parcel of American efforts to demarcate a postwar hegemony in the Asia Pacific to the Soviet Union and China – and this is why Korea was also fractured into two alien states that were then precipitated into war between 1950-53. 

That war – in which a third of the northern Korean population were exterminated by American indiscriminate carpet-bombing and napalm incineration – has never officially ended. The armistice signed in 1953 under Washington’s dictate is technically only a ceasefire.

For decades, North Korea’s demand for a full peace treaty has been repeatedly rejected by Washington and its South Korean client state. In other words, Washington has retained the implicit prerogative to resume its aerial bombardment of the North Korean population at any time it chooses. That constitutes a constant threat, or a policy of state terrorism by Washington. 

The threat from the US towards the Korean population has and continues to include nuclear annihilation. During the Korean War, the US air force would regularly fly nuclear-capable B-52 bombers over the Peninsula. People on the ground would recognize the aircraft, but they did not know what the operational intent was.

Can you imagine the terrorism that this conveyed? – barely five years after the US vaporized the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and at the same time that US military were compelling Koreans to live in caves as the only way of escaping mass destruction from conventional bombing. 

This same thuggish behaviour by the US government is consistent with its authorization during this past week for the flying of nuclear-capable B-2 and B-52 bombers over the Korean Peninsula. The dropping of “inert bombs” by these aerial monsters has to be seen as a heinous calculation in Washington aimed at heightening the terrorism. 

Yet, absurdly, the Western propaganda organs, otherwise called news, portray this American state terrorism as “protection”. 

The New York Times, for example, quoted one so-called “expert” as explaining North Korea’s response to the latest American provocation by saying: “The North Korean populace has to be regularly reminded that their country is surrounded by scheming enemies. Otherwise, they might start asking politically dangerous questions.” 

The laugh about this brain-washed expert thinking, and the New York

Times promoting it, is that the people of Korea are indeed surrounded by a scheming enemy – the US – and if the wider international public and media were to start thinking about that fact then there would be “politically dangerous questions” such as: what gives the US the right to conduct annual military “war games” off and on the Korean Peninsula for the past six decades, including the deployment of nuclear annihilation?

The people of Korea, North and South, deserve and desire peace. Despite the antagonism and belligerence highlighted in the Western propaganda media, the majority of people of North and South Korea have in fact no wish for war.

The consensus among ordinary Koreans is for peace and a democratic resolution to decades of conflict imposed on their homeland from outside. But they won’t obtain that reasonable condition as long as Washington continues to run its “protection racket”.

And, unfortunately, the American government will not, cannot stop its criminal behaviour – because domination, aggression and terrorism are the hallmarks of Washington’s Mafia regime.

Finian Cunningham, originally from Belfast, Ireland, was born in 1963. He is a prominent expert in international affairs. The author and media commentator was expelled from Bahrain in June 2011 for his critical journalism in which he highlighted human rights violations by the Western-backed regime. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism.

Is learning to beat the polygraph a crime?

Anti-PolygraphNews

A document published today by the Center for Investigative Reporting includes details of a criminal investigation into ten applicants for employment with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) who allegedly received "sophisticated polygraph Countermeasure training." CBP refused to respond to any of AntiPolygraph.org's questions, including whether CBP considers it a crime to provide or receive instruction in polygraph countermeasures:

Obama Is Pushing Banks To Make More Home Loans To Borrowers With Poor Credit

BlackListedNews

The Obama administration is engaged in a broad push to make more home loans available to people with weaker credit, an effort that officials say will help power the economic recovery but that skeptics say could open the door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first place.

President Obama’s economic advisers and outside experts say the nation’s much-celebrated housing rebound is leaving too many people behind, including young people looking to buy their first homes and individuals with credit records weakened by the recession.

In response, administration officials say they are working to get banks to lend to a wider range of borrowers by taking advantage of taxpayer-backed programs — including those offered by the Federal Housing Administration — that insure home loans against default.

Federal officials say as much as $700 million in Katrina, Rita aid may have been misspent

BlackListedNews

Federal investigators said Wednesday that as much as $700 million in federal aid intended to help some 24,000 Louisiana families elevate their homes after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 may have been misspent.

A report by the Housing and Urban Development Department’s inspector general said some homeowners who got grants of up to $30,000 used the money for something else, and that others didn’t provide sufficient documents to state officials to show that the work was done.

“The state did not have conclusive evidence” that $698.5 million in disaster recovery aid was used to elevate homes, the auditors wrote.

In response, HUD officials said the state is responsible for making sure the money was spent properly. But after seeing similar results in previous audits, department officials helped Congress put tighter reins on the program in distributing aid to victims of last fall’s Superstorm Sandy in the Northeast.

“In the years since Hurricane Katrina, HUD has already implemented a number of the recommendations made by the inspector general, including additional controls to ensure recovery funds are used appropriately,” department spokesman Jason Kravitz said.

Statements by North Korea are threatening provocations, but when the U.S. pretends to drop nuclear bombs just across your border, well, that's just how you "respond to provocation."

InfoClearingHouse

It's not easy to figure out what's going on with North Korea. We hear that new leader Kim Jong-Un is making threats to attack the United States, South Korea or both–and that's leading to some rather alarming, and alarmist, coverage.

As ABC World News reporter Martha Raddatz put it (3/31/13): "The threats have been coming almost every day, and each day become more menacing, the threat of missile strikes on the U.S., invading armies into South Korea and nuclear attacks."

The dominant narrative would have you believe that the United States was basically minding its own business when North Korea began lashing out. On CBS Evening News (3/29/13), Major Garrett explained:

North Korean saber-rattling is common every spring when the United States and South Korea engage in military exercises.

So there are "exercises" right next door, conducted by the world's most powerful military, which possesses thousands of nuclear weapons; and then there's menacing saber-rattling.

While North Korea's apparent threats are obviously troubling, one doesn't have to be paranoid to take offense at those military drills. As Christine Hong and Hyun Lee wrote (Foreign Policy in Focus, 2/15/13):

The drama unfolding on the other side of the 38th parallel attests to an underreported escalation of military force on the part of the United States and South Korea. In fact, on the very day that Kim visited Mu Island, 80,000 U.S. and South Korean troops were gearing up for the annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian. For the first time in its history, this war exercise included a simulation of a pre-emptive attack by South Korean artillery units in an all-out war scenario against North Korea. Ostensibly a defensive exercise in preparation for an attack by the north, the joint U.S./South Korea war games have taken on a decidedly offensive characteristic since Kim Jong Il's death. What’s more, a South Korean military official discussing the exercise raised red flags by mentioning the possibility of responding to potential North Korean provocation with asymmetric retaliation, a direct violation of UN rules of engagement in warfare.

In other words, there are some real world events that might bother North Korea's leadership–no matter what one might think about the level of North Korean paranoia. On much of the U.S. television coverage, the threats are virtually all coming from one side, without any explanation, and the United States is merely on the scene to bring down the level of tension.  As ABC's Raddatz (3/31/13) explained:

The U.S., which launched two nuclear-capable B-2 stealth bombers last week to carry out a practice bombing run less than 50 miles from North Korea, says it will continue to respond to provocation.

The U.S. will not say specifically what those counter-provocation measures may be. But an indication of how serious they are, the Pentagon says they hope they never have to put them into effect.

 Again, the standard is pretty clear: Statements by North Korea says are threatening provocations, while when the U.S. pretends to drop nuclear bombs just across your border, well, that's just how you "respond to provocation."

While it is certainly difficult to get a sense of what exactly the North Koreans are actually saying, one of the most interesting takes came from B.R. Myers, a professor at Dongseo University in South Korea. He was quoted by a New York Times blog (Lede, 3/29/13):

We need to keep in mind that North and South Korea are not so much trading outright threats as trading blustering vows of how they would retaliate if attacked. The North says, "If the U.S. or South Korea dare infringe on our territory, we will reduce their territory to ashes," and Seoul responds by saying it will retaliate by bombing Kim Il-sung statues. And so it goes.

I think the international press is distorting the reality somewhat by simply publishing the second half of all these conditional sentences. And I have to say from watching North Korea's evening news broadcasts for the past week or so, the North Korean media are not quite as wrapped up in this war mood as one might think. The announcers spend the first 10 minutes or so reporting on peaceful matters before they start ranting about the enemy.

That's important context.

Meanwhile, NBC reporter Richard Engel (NBC Nightly News, 4/1/13) told viewers that "if you watch North Korean state TV, the country looks like it's at war." And he closed:

The world's last Stalinist state talking war to stay in power. Pyongyang's secrecy makes the old Soviet Kremlin look transparent. North Korea appears to want to pick a fight and the U.S. says if it comes to that, it is ready.

The Death of the Chicano Left

CounterPunch  

by Rodolfo Acuña 

Prior to 1986 a clear Left voice could be heard on immigration reform. Among its priorities was that there would be no guest worker program, there would be no employer sanctions, there would be a more humane border enforcement policy, and there would be a clear path to citizenship with an absence of penalties and fees. For the most part we lost, and the only real victory was that proposals for a guest worker program died. 

The truth be told, immigration reform has never been a high priority among American progressives; as a consequence, no clear vision of what immigration reform was developed outside the Mexican American community. This lack of understanding and consensus has led to the probability of compromise — that invariably leads to a negation of meaningful and just reform. 

The question has become so muddled that not even the so-called Latino leadership knows what it wants. Having been invited and having sat at the Democratic Party table as guests of honor, they don't want to rock the boat –or like my mother used to say quieren quedar bien con todo mundo. 

As it is shaping up liberals seem committed to a path to citizenship for the undocumented, but they also seem willing to ignore the abuses of ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), and are going along with the increased enforcement of immigration laws — a grotesque and massive immigration apparatus that spent $18 billion on immigration enforcement last year. 

It is obvious that large chunks of the Latino leadership is willing to forget the extensive and rich literature on the bracero program, and are disposed to place their trust in President Barack Obama. The hard Left – what is left of it — opposes a guest worker program that excludes a clear pathway to citizenship for the bracero. They don't want to go back to the days where American farmers rented Mexicans at will, and repeat a program that was full of corruption and abuses. 

As a matter of fact, historically the U.S. has refused to deal with guest workers as "free labor" with the rights enjoyed by other workers. Consequently, the U.S. has engaged in a cut your nose to spite your face policy that has weakened American agriculture, with the nation importing food from China and other countries because it cannot get its crops picked. 

As conservative columnist Richard M. Estrada testified in in 1995: "One must …insist that the absence of slavery does not imply the presence of freedom. As commonly understood, the term free labor also implies that an individual can sell his or her labor on the open market to whomever will contract for it. It is in this regard that guest worker programs are, by definition, unfree labor arrangements or, at the very least, not totally free labor arrangements…To be specific, the agricultural guest worker is explicitly obligated not to sell his or her labor anywhere else but to the agricultural employer who sponsors entry. Employers tend to prize guest workers for their abilities, true. But they also value them because they have no options and are, therefore, more malleable. (Employers tend to prefer the term ‘disciplined.')" 

It is difficult to talk to Democrats about "free labor;" they prefer to concentrate on the globalization, which is important. However, globalization has always been with us, and not presuming to argue with the great theorist Immanuel Wallerstein, global capitalism is part of world history, beginning before the time of Christ. Numerous transformations caused the uprooting of entire societies. 

We must keep in mind that population growth in China and India caused the migration of ideas into the Middle East, Egypt, and Greece. The growth of the Chinese population and its markets moved the exploitation of the Americas, and the movement of "unfree labor." 

Another transformation took place during the Industrial Revolution, and as Oscar Handlin makes clear in his classic The Uprooted global changes in production and population growth led to the uprooting of entire societies – dispersing people not only to the United States but globally. 

However, at this point, I am more concerned about what is happening today in the Latino community, and how can we cope with it? In my view, ideas are important, and the role of a Left voice is vital in counteracting the contradictions of capitalism that lead to unbridled exploitation and the loss of liberty. 

At one time, the Soviet Union served as a brake on the imperial obsessions of U.S. foreign policy. Left ideas in this country have made this society more democratic by initiating major reforms. This contribution is obvious when you consider that the American right wing has not introduced a single reform. The Right's myopic worldview seems unique to the U.S.; witness that even ultra-conservative German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck initiated universal health care in the 19th century. 

In recent times, Mexico was developing a Left voice, but it was muffled by the absorption of the left parties into el Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD, in the late 1980s. The coalition of left parties then became a social-democratic political party, and electoral politics softened its voice. 

History suggests that a similar process has occurred within the Mexican American community. As we have become more invested in electoral politics, our electoral gains have softened the voice of the Left within the community on issues ranging from identity to police brutality. Our elected officials seem more willing to make arrangements, and at the national level our organizations often move to the right to accommodate the interests of other middle class Latinos. Witness that there was no outcry when Marco Rubio pretended to speak for "Latinos" on immigration. 

Because of the size of the Latino community, 70 percent of which is Mexican American, it is inevitable that we have been drawn into the game of politics. Without a doubt, the 2012 Presidential Election is a watershed in Chicana/o History. It is a recognition of our numbers not our skill at playing the political game. In my view, in order to survive the game, we must play it collectively and have clear principles. 

Not wanting to sound cynical, it will become more difficult for the Left to be heard because of the transformations brought about by the 2012 election. It is significant that a cadre of wealthy Latino business owners, entertainers, lawyers and financiers formed a PAC and collected roughly $30 million for Obama's re-election. 

The sum contributed is not significant, but the emergence of the Latino PAC is. Its bundlers sit or will sit on the boards of national Latino organizations. As a group they will represent Latino interests and collectively their political clout and leverage will increase – neutralizing left of center views. Necessarily their schooling and class interests will diverge from positions of the Left on questions such as immigration. 

I am not questioning the good faith of the members of the Latino PAC members; however, how they acquired their knowledge and life experiences often form their views and how strongly they feel about them. Attending an Ivy League is an accomplishment but it also acculturates you, and may even make you more willing to compromise on issues such as immigration. You rationalize that a half a loaf is better than none. 

Consider that for a time our voices could be heard through massive demonstrations such as those in 1994 and 2006. If history teaches us anything, we should study why after 1994 they diminished in size largely due to the 1996 Presidential Election and again after 2006 due to the 2008 Election. 

Rodolfo Acuña, a professor emeritus at California State University Northridge, has published 20 books and over 200 public and scholarly articles. He is the founding chair of the first Chicano Studies Dept which today offers 166 sections per semester in Chicano Studies. His history book Occupied America has been banned in Arizona. In solidarity with Mexican Americans in Tucson, he has organized fundraisers and support groups to ground zero and written over two dozen articles exposing efforts there to nullify the U.S. Constitution. 

Prosecutor Seeks Stay of Execution for Texas Prisoner Duane Buck, Sentenced to Death for Being Black

DemocracyNow

Although Duane Buck’s guilt is not in question for the 1995 murder of his former girlfriend Debra Gardner and her friend Kenneth Butler, critics say jurors in his case were led to choose a death sentence over life without parole based on testimony of a state psychologist who argued that African-American criminals are more likely to pose a future danger to the public. We’re joined by two guests: Linda Geffin, the second-chair prosecutor who helped win Buck’s death sentence in 1997, but now opposes his execution, and Christina Swarns, an attorney with Duane Buck’s legal defense team and director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Criminal Justice Project. [includes rush transcript]

Fox's Tucker Carlson Slanders Non-White Immigrants As Welfare-Addicted Gang Members Who Harm American Workers

MediaMatters

NY: Alternatives to Incarceration

NPR

Cash-strapped states like New York are struggling to reduce inmate populations so that they can close expensive prisons. Governor Andrew Cuomo plans to mothball two more correctional facilities downstate this year.

Reducing the number of people behind bars means experimenting with diversion programs for non-violent drug offenders: States are offering counseling programs, rehabilitation and therapy, and opening alternative, "drug courts." The goal is to battle drug addiction without incarceration.

Marc Mauer, the executive director of The Sentencing Project, says drug courts are one tool that states are trying to reduce the pressure and cost mass incarceration. He says trying treatment before incarceration just makes sense.

In a three-part  series of Prison Time Media Project, Natasha Haverty  traces one man through a system that is moving away from mass incarceration.  Listen here.

Sentencing Project Racial Justice News

Sentencing Project  EVIDENCE OF RACIAL BIAS IN TEXAS DEATH PENALTY CASES Under Texas’s death penalty statute, juries may impose a death sentence only if they find that the defendant poses a future danger. As evidence that Duane Buck was a “future danger,” prosecutors elicited testimony that African Americans, like Mr. Buck, are more likely to commit future acts of violence. In September 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court halted Mr. Buck’s execution in light of arguments that his death sentence was racially influenced. His lawyers have petitioned the court to grant him a new hearing. Mr. Buck was sentenced to death in Harris County, Texas. In their latest filing, his attorneys cite evidence of a history of racial bias and discrimination in Harris County’s schools, its political system, and its court systems. They also cite research showing that at the time Mr. Buck was sentenced to death, all else being equal, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office was three times more likely to seek the death penalty for African Americans than for whites in similar cases and that juries were twice as likely to impose the death penalty in cases involving blacks.  RACIAL IMPACT STATEMENT LEGISLATION IN ARKANSAS AND OREGON A bill is pending in Arkansas that would require a racial impact statement for any legislation that creates a new criminal offense; changes an existing offense or penalty for an existing offense; or changes existing sentencing, parole or probation procedures.  Similar legislation has also been introduced in Oregon. In 2008, Iowa became the first state to pass a law of this kind. The premise behind racial impact statements is that policies often have unintended consequences that are best addressed before a policy is adopted. They can be likened to fiscal or environmental impact statements. Racial impact statements are particularly important in the case of criminal justice policy because of how difficult it is to reverse sentencing policies once they have been enacted. ANOTHER EFFORT TO REPEAL NORTH CAROLINA’S RACIAL JUSTICE ACT A Senate Judiciary panel in North Carolina recently approved a bill to resume executions after more than six years and to repeal North Carolina’s landmark Racial Justice Act. In its original form, enacted in 2009, the Racial Justice Act made it possible for inmates to have their death sentence commuted to life without parole based on statistical evidence of racial bias. After an unsuccessful attempt to repeal the Act, it was modified to require evidence of racial bias in the specific case under review. Since the Racial Justice Act was enacted, four African-American death row inmates were resentenced to life without parole after proving that qualified African-Americans were intentionally excluded from their juries. Nearly all persons on North Carolina's death row filed appeals under the Racial Justice Act. Should the current bill to repeal the Racial Justice Act pass, courts will have to decide whether to hear the cases of those who filed appeals under the 2009 version of the law.  RACIAL DIFFERENCE IN ARRESTS OF NEGLECTED YOUTH A longitudinal study by Cathy Spatz Widom and colleagues followed groups of white, black, and Hispanic children through adulthood. The outcomes of children in each group who had experienced neglect were compared to those of matched controls of the same group who did not have histories of neglect. The study found that black and white neglected children were at increased risk for being arrested compared to matched controls of the same race. However, blacks who had been neglected were more than twice as likely to be arrested for violence compared to black children in the control group despite the fact that neglected black children were no more likely than their non-neglected counterparts to report violent acts. In contrast, white children who were neglected self-reported engaging in significantly more violence than non-neglected white controls, but were no more likely than white controls to be arrested. RACIAL DIFFERENCE IN NEIGHBORHOOD ATTAINMENT AFTER INCARCERATION Past research shows that members of minority groups are more likely than are whites to reside in disadvantaged neighborhoods following release from prison. A new study by Michael Massoglia and others examined whether this simply reflects differences that existed before incarceration. They found that, as a group, the neighborhoods blacks and Hispanics live in after release from prison are no more disadvantaged than the neighborhoods in which they resided prior to incarceration. Whites, on the other hand, lived in significantly more disadvantaged neighborhoods post-incarceration than pre-incarceration. The authors attribute their findings to racial differences in neighborhood inequality. As they explain, white offenders generally enter prison from more advantaged neighborhoods; therefore, they have further to fall in terms of neighborhood conditions. RACE AND PRE- AND POST-ADJUDICATION OF YOUTH A study by Michael Lieber examined predictors of pre- and post-adjudication detention for white youth and for black youth. The key finding was that black youth were less likely to be released to the community at early decision-making stages. At judicial disposition, however, black youth were less likely to be detained. The authors suggest that judges may be enacting a bias correction factor. RACE AND TRAFFIC STOP OUTCOMES A study by Rob Tillyer and Robin Engel assessed the influence of race on traffic stop outcomes in a Midwestern state. The results show that the combination of being young, black, and male had a stronger association with the increased risk of receiving a warning and with the reduced likelihood of receiving a citation beyond the effects of drivers’ age, race, and gender considered alone. In comparison, being Hispanic was associated with a reduced likelihood of receiving a warning and an increased likelihood of being issued a citation. Race was not significantly associated with the most serious possible outcome of traffic stops – arrest.

Arkansas legislature overrides governor's veto of voter ID bill - White Party's Jim Crow Law in Effect

Jurist

The Arkansas House of Representatives [official website] on Monday voted 52-45 to override Governor Mike Beebe's [official website] veto [JURIST report] of a bill [SB2, PDF] that requires voters to provide photo identification. Since the state senate voted March 27 to override the veto, the bill now becomes law under the requirements of Article VI of the Arkansas Constitution [text, PDF]. The bill provides that if a county clerk is unable to verify the voter's registration, then the voter may vote a provisional ballot that would only be counted upon verification the individual's voter status, and that the Secretary of State must provide voter ID cards at no cost to individuals upon request. The act is to go into effect January 1, 2014, provided that the necessary funding is available.

Voter ID laws [JURIST backgrounder] have become increasingly controversial and commonplace throughout the US. There are now more than 30 US States [NCSL backgrounder] that require voters to present some form of ID at the polls, including multiple states that have passed laws requiring photo ID. The law passed in Arkansas follows a recent wave of legislative veto-overriding. The state legislature in March overrode [JURIST report] Beebe's veto of the Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act [Act 301, PDF; materials] and in February overrode [JURIST report] the governor's veto of the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act [HB 1037, PDF].

Chris Matthews: "Racism Is The Belief That One Race, Whites, Should Rule All Others"

Study Exposes Racism Among Lehigh Valley Realtors

NBCPhili

Rob Gonza says he noticed something strange when he was trying to sell his house in Allentown.

“People were coming to see the house but there was nothing but Hispanics and minorities coming over,” he said. “I found it very unusual.”

According to tests done by community action groups in the Lehigh Valley in 2011, Gonza wasn’t imagining things.

“White buyers specifically were steered out of the city of Allentown,” said Lori Sywensky of Northampton County Community Development. “They were told things like, ‘you don’t want to go to this school district! You don’t want to live in this neighborhood! If they were Hispanic, they were being shown only places within the city of Allentown.”

The report, completed between March 2011 and December 2011, from the Fair Housing Council of Suburban Philadelphia, found realtors consistently pushed minority clients into poorer sections of Allentown. The community group, Envision Lehigh Valley, received a federal housing grant to conduct undercover tests at realty offices. According to the study, 73% of the people tested experienced differences in treatment based on race.

“We knew we had a problem prior to seeing the actual report,” said Sywensky. “But it was somewhat shocking to see the incidents of subtle racism that was persisting in our realty market.”

Yet several Allentown residents weren’t too shocked by the results.

“It’s sad to hear that it’s still about racial things,” said one woman. “Allentown is pretty bad.”

“If you can afford housing in the so-called elite section, no matter what your race or beliefs, you should be able to live there,” said another woman.

In reaction to the study, the Lehigh Valley Association of Realtors vowed to enact a broker’s pledge to erase discrimination from the realty process.

“One allegation was one too many,” said Justin Porembo, a member of the association. “We immediately wanted to partner with the community action group as well as the city of Allentown to mitigate the fair housing issue.”

The community action groups say they will continue to receive federal grants for more undercover studies. 

Alleged white supremacist, East Windsor man admits role in hate crime assault

Please note, a white supremacist is a white person (a racist) who practices racism against non-whites. Being a white supremacist has nothing to do with income, title, or status. It does not mean a white person belongs to the KKK, the Aryan Nation, or is covered with Nazi tattoos. A white supremacist can be a soccer mom, a businessman, or a US Senator if they are practicing racism against non-whites. Another term for a white supremacist is “racist white man” and “racist white woman.” [MORE] 

NJ.com

An East Windsor man who allegedly belongs to a white supremacist group admitted today to participating in the hate crime assault of two Middle Eastern men in Sayreville on New Year’s Eve 2011, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said.

Michal Gunar, 28, a purported member of a group called the Aryan Terror Brigade, pleaded guilty in federal court in Trenton to an indictment charging him with conspiracy to commit a hate crime assault and commission of a hate crime assault, the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a news release.

Gunar admitted to attending a New Years Eve meet-and-greet event for white supremacists at a home in East Brunswick on December 31, 2011, the release said.

After the party, Gunar, along with Christopher Ising and Kyle Powell, drove to a Sayreville apartment complex to assault random non-whites, pulling out a knife and attacking two Middle Eastern men while shouting anti-Arab slurs, authorities said.

Gunar today admitted to assaulting at least one man by pulling him out of a parked car and punching him in the face and head, the release said. He later bragged about the incident on the internet, claiming “it was me and my other bro on like 6 or eight and we whooped them,” authorities said.

Ising, 31, of Waretown, an alleged member of the white supremacist group Atlantic City Skins, pleaded guilty to the same two counts in February, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
Powell, 24, of Wildwood, also allegedly a member of the Aryan Terror Brigade, pleaded guilty in January to conspiracy to commit a hate crime assault.

Gunar faces up to 10 years in prison on the assault count and five years on the conspiracy count, and a fine of $250,000.

4th Amendment for Whites Only: Racial disparities in Lincoln, Omaha area stops

JournalStar

Blacks in two of Nebraska's largest metro areas continue to be stopped by police at roughly twice the rate of their percentage of the local population, according to a yearly crime report released Tuesday.

The findings closely resemble last year's numbers, which also showed blacks were stopped in disproportionate numbers relative to how many live in those areas.

Blacks accounted for 21.9 percent of drivers stopped by Omaha police last year, even though they represent 12.2 percent of the city's population. They made up for 8.7 percent of drivers stopped in Lincoln, although they comprise 3.3 percent of the city's population.

Nebraska Crime Commission executive director Michael Behm cautioned that the numbers by themselves may not indicate racial profiling. The commission compiles the data from local agencies, but does not analyze what is causing the trend. For instance, the numbers may reflect increased patrols in neighborhoods with large minority populations.

Behm said the report was intended for use by local law enforcement agencies.

"This is a good snapshot of what's going on with traffic stops across Nebraska," Behm said. "But it's summary data. We only require summary data be collected. It's no way to track any individual instance, or to get to a granular level of analysis."

Lincoln public safety director Tom Casady said the department uses its local traffic data in its officer training, partly to initiate a discussion about racial profiling in law enforcement.

"I'm probably one of the few law enforcement executives around Nebraska that would I say I really do believe racial profiling occurs because of bias," Casady said. "I just think that's a very small, almost minute part of the total explanation of the disparities."

Casady noted that law enforcement officers tend to work in greater concentrations in high-crime neighborhoods often plagued by poverty.

"It makes perfect sense to have more police assigned in areas where you might have a more diverse population," he said. "But that has the unintended side effect of making your expired plate more obvious."

Casady said the numbers also may reflect the larger prevalence of poverty among motorists who are stopped. In many cases, he said, motorists may get stopped because they can't afford to renew their license plates or registration tags.

An Omaha police spokesman said he had reached out to Chief Todd Schmaderer to respond to the state report, but he wasn't sure he would get a response on Tuesday.

Civil liberties advocates said they remained concerned that the disparity has remained relatively stable over the last few years.

"This data collection has demonstrated very little movement toward improvement," said Becki Brenner, executive director of ACLU of Nebraska. "A tool is only as good as what you use it for. Our hope is that any data collection that is done can be used for sensitivity training" and other efforts to reduce racial profiling.

Brenner said the disparity likely extended beyond race. Her group is supporting a bill now in the Legislature that would continue the data collection until Jan. 1, 2018. The crime commission is slated to stop collecting information on Jan. 1, 2014, because of a sunset provision in an earlier law.

The statewide breakdown of traffic stops by race is roughly in line with Nebraska's demographic makeup based on the latest census data, Behm said.

Law enforcement agencies initiated 505,481 stops in 2012, a decline from the previous year in which 515,390 were stopped. Behm said 483,268 motorists were stopped in 2009. Fifteen stops this year resulted in complaints, Behm said, but all of the officers involved were either cleared of wrongdoing, or the cases were deemed unsubstantiated.

Nebraska has required law enforcement agencies to collect and report profiling data since 2001, when the state banned racial profiling. The commission's annual report offers a snapshot of the traffic stops, but doesn't analyze the statistics.