DENNIS RODMAN: Thank You Dennis For Spurring OBAMA Admin Into Action! (Help Free U.S. Prisoners In Other Countries)

#RODMAN

DENNIS RODMAN CONTROVERSY SPURS OBAMA ADMIN TO HELP FREE U.S. PRISONERS IN OTHER COUNTRIES

Were it not for the Controversy surrounding his recent Sports Venture Trip to NORTH KOREA, the OBAMA Admin would still be doing absolutely NOTHING to help Free U.S. Prisoners held Captive in other Countries.

For ex:

KENNETH BAE.

Pursuant to RODMAN'S on-air debate Monday with CHRIS CUOMO, the OBAMA Admin is now taking ACTION to help Free U.S. Prisoners in other Countries.

So.......

THANK YOU DENNIS RODMAN!!


Sources: AP, CNN

CITIGROUP Agrees To Pay Freddie Mac $395 Million For Toxic Mortgages & Poor Loan Servicing

#Citi

"Citigroup To Pay Freddie Mac $395 Million To End Mortgage Claims"

Citigroup Inc. (C), the third-biggest U.S. bank, agreed to pay Freddie Mac $395 million to resolve repurchase claims on soured mortgages sold to the government-backed firm over more than a decade.

The accord covers about 3.7 million loans sold to Freddie Mac between 2000 and 2012, the New York-based company said yesterday in a statement. The payment was covered by repurchase reserves as of June 30, Citigroup said.

The biggest U.S. home lenders, including Bank of America Corp.and Citigroup, faced mounting pressure after the housing crisis to resolve claims on faulty mortgages sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the U.S.-owned firms that took a $187.5 billion bailout. Citigroup announced a deal in July to pay Fannie Mae $968 million for loans over a similar period.

The deal with Freddie Mac is “another important milestone in successfully resolving Citi’s remaining legacy mortgage issues,” Jane Fraser, chief executive officer of the firm’s CitiMortgage unit, said in the statement.

The accord doesn’t release the bank from liability tied to servicing the loans.

It excludes less than 1,000 loans from the period with “certain characteristics,” including those already in the process of being repurchased. Citigroup said it believes it’s also adequately reserved for those.

The biggest U.S. home lenders, including Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. faced...

The company had $719 million in reserves for buying back faulty mortgages at the end of the June, according to a July 15presentation.

The bank added $3.9 billion to its reserves since 2009 through June, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

U.S. Seizure

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, its larger rival, bought about $2.2 trillion of mortgages from the 15 biggest banks and Ally Financial Inc.

(ALLY) between 2006 and 2009, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade journal.

Regulators seized the two firms in 2008 after their purchases of risky loans pushed them to the brink of collapse.

Citigroup sold $62.4 billion of mortgages to Freddie Mac between 2005 and 2009, according to data from Washington-based Compass Point Research & Trading LLC.

The bank’s CEO, Michael Corbat, 53, named Fraser in May to run the mortgage operation.

She has sought to reduce staff and move beyond legacy issues.

Citigroup said earlier this week it’s cutting about 1,000 jobs in its home-lending business as refinancings slow.

The bank said earlier this month that it closed a Danville, Illinois, facility, leading to 120 job cuts, and fired some telephone sales agents.

Separately, the firm is hiring employees to originate new mortgages for home purchases as opposed to refinancings, a person familiar with the moves said this week.

Citigroup created $65 billion of mortgages last year, or about 3.4 percent of the total market, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication.

#CITI

CITI MORTGAGE IGNORED OBAMA'S NATIONAL MORTGAGE SETTLEMENT BY PUSHING FAKE LOAN MODIFICATIONS TO STEAL HOMES!!

THAT'S HOW CITI'S PROFITS SOARED!!

In February 2012 Pres Obama signed a National Settlement Agreement w/ the CEOs of America's four largest Banks: BOFA, Chase, Citi & Wells Fargo.

Another MORTGAGE SETTLEMENT was signed in January of 2013.

Since then both BOFA & Citi have basically ignored the Terms of this Settlement.

Especially Citi Mortgage!

Yet Congress allowed Citi Mortgage to rake in huge PROFITS at the expense of Struggling Homeowners, many whom are now Homeless because Citi Mortgage Stole their Homes via FAKE Loan Modifications.

So How was this being done?

Five Different Ways: (FORT MILL, S.C. & O'FALLON, MO. LOCATIONS)

**1) Send Struggling Borrowers on a Wild Goose Paper Chase by asking them to send in the SAME Financial Docs over & over again.

**2) Hire Loss Mitigation Specialists, Poorly train them & Use their names to Foreclose on Millions of Properties.

**3) String Borrowers along on a Doc Chase until the Foreclosure Statue of Limitations in each State Expires.

**4) Grant only allow a Handful of Borrowers HAMP Certifications.

**5) Reward Managers & Loss Mitigation Specialists Huge Bonuses for helping to Steal Homes from Struggling Borrowers via FAKE Loan Modifications.



Sources: AP; Bloomberg; NJ.com; NY Times

Hillary & Bill Clinton vs Barack Obama Jr's Policies: Decision 2016 (HILLARY & CHRISTIE)

#CLINTONvsOBAMA2016

BARACK OBAMA JR vs BILL & HILLARY CLINTON IN 2016: ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES

If it were already Nov 2016 and BILL CLINTON was Legally allowed to run for a 3rd term, would I still Vote for him again??

YES! Without a doubt!!

BILL CLINTON Respected & Highly Valued BLACK American Voters.

He was also Not 100% Partisan.

However since BILL CLINTON can't Legally seek a 3rd term,
come Nov 2016, would I Support HILLARY CLINTON if She campaigns for U.S. President??

Most Likely, YES!

Well what about BENGHAZI??

As I've written previously, HILLARY CLINTON did Not make the Final decisions regarding SECURITY for Ambassador CHRIS STEVENS & his 3 comrades.

Although She was the U.S. Secretary of State at that time, HILLARY did Not call the shots on that situation.

So who was RESPONSIBLE for their Deaths?

I can speculate but I know for a Fact it was Not HILLARY CLINTON!

What about BARACK OBAMA JR??

If it were already Nov 2016, and BARACK OBAMA JR was Legally allowed to run for a 3rd term, would I Vote for him a 3rd time??

The Verdict is still out on that one.

I am a BLACK American Voter.

I would have to really Evaluate how BARACK OBAMA JR has Treated BLACK Voters after the 2008 & 2012 Elections, versus other Voting Blocks.

I would also have to really Evaluate Pres OBAMA'S Economic Policies & the way he has treated America's Vets and Active Duty U.S. Military Personnel.

If you want to know whether or not I would ever Support BARACK OBAMA JR again for Political office........

Check with me later on this question.

BARACK OBAMA JR vs BILL & HILLARY CLINTON IN 2016


Source: CNN

NSA: New Ruling Claims NSA Overreach Does Not Violate 4th Amendment Rights (It Does!)

#NSARuling

ANOTHER NSA RULING:

WHO SHOULD MANAGE THE NSA??

U.S. MILITARY vs U.S. FEDERAL GOV'T:

Friday a New York Federal Judge ruled NSA Data Mining & Mass Phone Surveillance of American Citizens is LEGAL.

Can someone please explain how can a procedure be LEGAL if it Violates the U.S. Constitution?? (4th Amendment)

I thought that Federal Judges were supposed to use LEGAL Precedent to Interpret & Enforce Laws, Not use the Judicial Bench to Legislate NEW Laws,
Or use the Judicial Bench to Destroy the U.S. Constitution!!

Now let's be clear.

If the U.S. Military manages the NSA Program, it Is LEGAL & I concur.

Why??

Because the U.S. Military will use ONLY use the Collected Metadata & Collected Personal Citizen Info to Target Real TERRORISTS.....

Not TARGET U. S. Citizens.
(i.e., National Security Purposes)

However.....

If the U.S. Federal Gov't manages the NSA Program, and SPIES on American Citizens,
We could be held HOSTAGE & have Collected Private Info used against Us.

Thus this action is Not LEGAL if the NSA is Managed by the Federal Gov't because it Violates Our 4th Amendment Rights.

I am also concerned if the U.S. Federal Gov't manages the NSA Program, it will use Collected Metadata & Personal Citizen Info for POLITICAL Purposes........

Not for National Security purposes!


Source: USA Today

NSA PHONE SPYING ON U.S. CITIZENS RULED AS UNCONSTITUTIONAL BY A FEDERAL JUDGE

NSA PHONE SPYING ON AMERICAN CITIZENS IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL & MAKES THE INTERNET LESS SAFE.

FEDERAL GOV'T CAN'T USE 1979 SCOTUS CASE TO SPY ON AMERICAN CITIZENS NOR TO CREATE "BIG BROTHER" TYPE SOCIETY.


"Updated: Federal Judge Finds NSA Spying Unconstitutional"

Government can't use 1979 law to justify its "Almost-Orwellian" Technology.

In a stunning decision, a DC-based federal judge has ruled that the National Security Agency spying revealed this summer violates the constitution.

The opinion (PDF) published today by US District Judge Richard Leon is in response to a lawsuit filed by Larry Klayman, a longtime conservative activist.

Klayman was fast on the draw, filing his lawsuit on June 6, one day after widespread NSA surveillance was revealed in June.

Leon's order grants an injunction that will shut down the NSA's Bulk Telephony Metadata Program, and it requires the government to destroy the metadata collected on the plaintiffs' accounts. The shutdown will only happen if an appeals court agrees with Leon, who has stayed the injunction pending appeal, "in light of the significant national security issues at stake in this case and the novelty of the constitutional issues."

A problematic precedent

Today's 71-page order works around a problematic precedent for privacy reformers, Smith v. Maryland. That's the 1979 Supreme Court decision that found there's "no reasonable expectation of privacy" in the actual phone numbers dialed from a telephone, because they are "business records." That's what allows "pen registers" to be installed by police without judicial review, since it's not a "search" in the eyes of courts.

"The question before me is not the same question that the Supreme Court confronted in Smith," wrote Leon. Using a pen register "is a far cry from the issue in this case." We've reached a turning point in the history of technology, in Leon's reading. The government's decades-old reasoning can't hold up in the present day.

He writes:

Indeed, the question in this case can more properly be styled as follows: when do present-day circumstances—the evolutions in the Government's surveillance capabilities, citizens' phone habits, and the relationship between the NSA and telecom companies—become so thoroughly unlike those considered by the Supreme Court 34 years ago that a precedent like Smith simply does not apply?

The answer, unfortunately for the government, is now.

The court of 1979 could not "have ever imagined how the citizens of 2013 would interact with their phones," writes Leon, leaving the Smith precedent with little value.

The pen register the court considered was operational for less than two weeks, in March 1976, and there was "no indication from the Court's opinion that it expected the Government to retain those limited phone records once the case was over." The "almost-Orwellian technology" used by the government to capture phone data "is unlike anything that could have been conceived in 1979."

The NSA is using two weeks of data collected from a single phone to justify "the creation and maintenance of a historical database containing five years' worth of data," writes Leon. "And I might add, there is the very real prospect that the program will go on for as long as America is combatting terrorism, which realistically could be forever!"

Fundamentally, Leon is making the case that the law must be reconsidered in the age of the smartphone. He cites data from CTIA counting more than 326 million mobile subscribers in 2012, including 22 million computers, tablets, and modems.

"Count the phones at the bus stop, in a restaurant, or around the table at a work meeting or any given occasion," writes Leon. "Thirty-four years ago, none of those phones would have been there. Thirty-four years ago, city streets were lined with pay phones. Thirty-four years ago, when people wanted to send 'text messages,' they wrote letters and attached postage stamps."
A new North Star

The Smith case and NSA surveillance are wildly different, so a different analysis must take place. "I cannot possibly navigate these uncharted Fourth Amendment waters using as my North Star a case that predates the rise of cell phones," writes Leon.

No judge outside the secret Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court has "has ever recognized a special need sufficient to justify continuous, daily searches of virtually every American citizen without any particularized suspicion," writes Leon. "In effect, the Government urges me to be the first non-FISC judge to sanction such a dragnet."

And Leon won't do it. The Verizon subscribers who filed the suit do have an expectation of privacy, and the government has intruded on it, he concludes.

In Leon's reading of the record, the government isn't merely trying to investigate possible terrorists. It's trying to do so as fast as it possibly can. "The affidavits in support of the Government's brief repeatedly emphasize this interest in speed," he notes. But the Government can't cite a single instance where the bulk metadata program "actually stopped an imminent attack."

He notes that the government could have shown more evidence to the judge privately, in chambers, but didn't. "Although the Government has publicly asserted that the NSA's surveillance programs have prevented 54 terrorist attacks, no proof of that has ever been put before me," Leon writes.

That leads him to have "serious doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program." While there's a "limited record" at this point in the litigation, the plaintiffs have a "substantial likelihood" of showing their privacy interests outweigh the government's interest in collecting the bulk data.

They are likely to show the bulk data program is an unreasonable search, and violates the Fourth Amendment, Leon finds. The public interest "weighs heavily in favor of granting an injunction" that will bar the government from collecting any metadata in association with their personal Verizon accounts.

Government lawyers also said that removing just the plaintiffs, two Verizon subscribers, from its database will be burdensome. That's not a "burden" Leon takes seriously. "Of course, the public has no interest in saving the government from the burdens of complying with the Constitution!"

A controversial plaintiff

In the coming months, Leon's opinion will be considered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. That court considers an array of federal agency issues, and until recently it had leaned strongly Republican as the Senate held up confirmation of the candidates put forth by the Obama Administration.

However, the opposition to judicial nominees has eased somewhat following Obama's re-election, and three of the four vacancies have been filled in 2013.

The case against the NSA is not Klayman's first controversial lawsuit. Many of his cases have not ended well. Klayman has been rebuked and sanctioned by several judges, and he has been barred from some courtrooms.

In 2012, Klayman filed a lawsuit in Florida to kick President Barack Obama off the primary ballot in that state, based on the discredited theory that he was not born in the United States. In 2011, he sued Facebook for "negligence" because it didn't remove an anti-Israel page quickly enough. Neither suit was successful.

The Klayman suit is not the only challenge to NSA telephone-data program.

The more widely known case is the one filed in July by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union.

That case, filed on behalf of First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles, was consolidated with a pre-Snowden anti-NSA lawsuit called Jewel v. NSA.

The government has filed a motion to dismiss, and the case awaits a judge's decision. A DC-based privacy group, EPIC, tried to take the issue straight to the Supreme Court, but that failed.

Dissatisfaction with NSA surveillance has hit Congress, as well.

The USA Freedom Act, which would end NSA spying, has 130 co-sponsors.

NSA leaker Edward Snowden's statement on today's decision has been published in The New York Times. Snowden said:

I acted on my belief that the N.S.A.'s mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts.

Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans’ rights. It is the first of many.


Sources: ARS Technica, CNN, NBC News

James Eagan Holmes Proves WHITE "Lonewolf" Terrorism On The Rise (Hate Crimes & White Supremacy)

Massacre at movie theater: What's behind the White Male home-grown Terror?

As the nation reels from another stunning act of terror delivered by one of our own, I wonder-- what is behind this senseless violence perpetuated by primarily young white males?

Twelve people are now dead, 59 injured among them a 3 month old baby--all because they attended the premiere of a movie based on a comic? The latest release of the Batman series, The Dark Knight Rises had a midnight showing in Aurora, Colorado, when 24-year-old James Eagan Holmes decided to walk into the theater and open fire like he was part of the fictional story on screen and the movie goers merely fictional themselves.

There is something utterly maniacal about this kind of violence, completely beyond the realm of sane and logical interpretation. What fuels this madness, this evil?

Reports say Holmes, who is now in police custody and due in court on Monday, was dressed in bullet proof vests, gas mask, dark clothing, ballistic helmet, ballistic leggings and throat protector. He allegedly opened fire commando style after throwing one smoke and tear gas bombs into the viewing crowd.

He reportedly used up to 4 guns, at least one AK style rifle, an AR15 assault rifle and 2 Glock handguns. Bullets penetrated an adjoining theater, wounding one.

Holmes apartment is currently booby-trapped and authorities said in a press conference Friday afternoon that this is a difficult situation which may take days to neuralize. Strangely, after his bloody rampage inside the theater, the alleged killer was apprenhended outside quietly without resisting and then told police about his bomb-rigged apartment.

Seems odd for one hell-bent on killing to warn law enforcement of what lay ahead at his place of residence.

One witness, Jennifer Seeger told CNN news that she ducked when the gunman pointed his gun directly at her and felt the sting of gun powder on her forehead as he sprayed bullets into people around her. She said she folded herself in a fetal position, then crawled out when he moved up some stairs.

We all remember that other senseless tragedy where 22 year old Jared Lee Loughner opened fired in Tucson, Arizona on January 8, 2011, killing 6 including a sitting judge and a nine year old young girl and seriously wounding Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford and 11 others.

Then there was Timothy McVeigh, since executed for the terror he unleased in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people and wounding over 800.

Again, what is behind the young male home ground terrorists? Speaking at a press conference one Colorado official said something interesting: "It doesn't look like an incident of terrorism at this time." If it's not terrorism, what is it? If the difinition of terrorism is unleasing acts of senseless mass violence on innocent folks here and around the globe, then this is it. Or is it only when it is ochestrated by 'foreigners'--those people from 'over there?'

When Norway happened in July of 2011, the media immediately thought Islamist terrorists were behind the atrocities. Many stopped calling the mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik a terrorist, when the dust settled and they saw it was a white male. But isn't he a terrorist for murdering 76 people and injuring many more?

We are forever hunting those 'others' considered our biggest threat--namely Islamic terrorists but there is this madness right in our backyard and beyond.

In fact, according to host of CNN's Global Public Square host Fareed Zakaria of the 294 terror attacks committed in Europe in 2009, only one was conducted by Islamists. That's a third of one percent. There were 249 terror attacks in Europe in 2010.

Only three of those attacks were carried out by Islamist terrorists. Again, that's about one percent. Most of the attacks were by separatist groups or anarchists."

Then there are the troubled teens who have committed mass violence in their schools. Again, there were young, white males who walked into schools, heavily armed and shot anyone in sight, some killing themselves after. There was the memorable massacre at Columbine, followed by several more.

This young man's only run-in with the law according to Colorado police, was a speeding violation. He was also intellegient and college educated, reportedly enrolled in a PhD program in neuroscience at the local university but at the point of dropping out. What turns someone like that--a simple speeding ticket holder into a mass murderer?

Was dropping out from the university, a trigger to a psychopathic personality lurking beneath the quiet, smiling eduated exterior? or is there much more to this sinister plot than meets the eyes? Where did he get his ammo, arsenal of weapons and military gear?

Incidentally, we had our resident incendiary loud mouth Rush Limbaugh, whose sole purpose to fame is spewing venomous rhetoric daily from the safe perch behind his radio microphone--say that this latest Batman movie was aimed at hurting the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney because one of the vallainous character was named Bain.

Bain is suppose to be taken from Bain Capital, the venture capitalist company Romney headed and is now causing a mounting of trouble for him on the campaign trail.

Is there a connection? There is daily conservative poison irresponsibly pandered for million dollar contracts and partisan politics on talk radio and television shows with unstable anarchists, white supremacists and other crazies listening-- and this can be a dangerous, explosive mix.

Another controversy re-ignited from this tragedy is the control of assault weapons flooding our communities. Any amendment to the Second Amendment is vehemently opposed by pro-NRA, 2nd Amendment supporters who say they rights are not to be tampered with.

Those in favor of some gun control say the madness and violence needs immediate attention from Washington legislators and a degree of change at the federal level.

Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg speaking on Friday, both called for immediate action in curbing the onslaught of weapons they say were meant for combat only. Any gun capable of firing numerous rounds in rapid succession, is a danger to society.

Holmes acquired those assault rifles legally which begs the question: would some form of gun control, prevent these kinds of mass massacre from happening?



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Sources: All Voices, AP, CNN, ITN News, PBS News, TMZ, Youtube, Google Maps

Bloomberg Hits Obama & Romney On Gun Control; NYC Theaters Beef Up Security

Bloomberg: Aurora Shooting Shows Obama, Romney Why Gun Control Is Needed


"Soothing words are nice, but maybe it's time that the two people who want to be President of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it," Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show.

"I mean, there are so many murders with guns every day, it's just got to stop.

"And instead of the two people -- President Obama and Gov. Romney -- talking ... about they want to make the world a better place, okay, tell us how."

Bloomberg's call to action on his WOR show with John Gambling came hours after a lone gunman turned a Colorado cinema showing "The Dark Knight Rises" into a shooting gallery.





New York Police Department increases security at movie theaters after 'Dark Knight Rises' shooting in Aurora, Colo.

The NYPD stationed officers at city theaters showing “The Dark Knight Rises” on Thursday as some Batman fans admitted the shooting at a Colorado cinema had left them unnerved.

“It was in the back of my head,” said Jim Thalman, 38, an actor who saw the film at the Regal Cinema in Union Square just hours after a gunman killed 12 people at a midnight screening of the movie outside of Denver.

“When a guy came in with a bag, I thought if he puts a mask on, I was going to crack him.” But his pal, Scott Nawrocki, 42, said he wasn’t worried about a replay of the ambush in Aurora.

“I’m so New York,” the Brooklynite said. “I’m jaded.” Two uniformed officers stood in the lobby of the Manhattan movie house. A total of 40 theaters around the five boroughs will getting extra police protection, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

“We're concerned that someone, perhaps seeking notoriety, will attempt to do something similar,” Kelly said adding that the security boost was meant “to address the potential of a copycat event and to reassure moviegoers, particularly parents.

“We know a lot of young people are going to see this movie,” he said. “These are judgments that we have to make. We think it’s appropriate at this time.”

Kelly said most of the theaters would have at least two cops and a vehicle posted in front. At the AMC Empire 25 theater on W. 42nd St., Heidi Harding, 32, said she was “not scared” as she waited on line to purchase tickets for an evening showing.

“You don't have any control over these types of situations,” said the Bronx assistant teacher. “You just have to live your life.

This is just one crazy individual."


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Sources: AP, Denver Post, NY Daily News, Youtube, Google Maps

Eric Holder Vows To Protect Voting Rights At La Raza Meeting In Vegas (Decision 2012)

Holder vows fight for civil rights at La Raza meeting

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Saturday told an Hispanic civil rights group that the nation's fight to ensure racial equality, fairness and justice for all "remains far from over" and he vowed to step up prosecution of those who discriminate against Latinos, African-Americans and other minorities.

He thanked the National Council of La Raza for leading the way for decades to protect Latinos and other disenfranchised immigrants and Americans. And he said President Barack Obama's Justice Department would work hard this election year to ensure voters have equal ballot access no matter their heritage or race.

"Our nation's struggle to overcome injustice and eliminate disparities remains far from over," Holder said, speaking to a luncheon audience of 1,850 people on the opening day of the four-day conference in Las Vegas. "We have further to travel on the road to equality."

The nation's first African-American attorney general, Holder was the keynote speaker at the conference of the largest U.S. civil rights organization representing Latinos, a rising political power in Nevada and the nation. In general, Hispanics are a Democratic-leaning voting bloc that could decide the White House race.

President Obama is sending Vice President Joe Biden to address the group on Tuesday, the last day of the conference of 5,000 La Raza members at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney sent one of his top Hispanic advisers to the conference. Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez wasn't offered a speaking role, but he greeted people attending a Latino Expo on Saturday as part of the conference.

Holder appeared relaxed, joking it was good to get out of Washington. Two weeks ago, lawmakers voted to hold him in contempt of Congress as Republicans pummel him over a botched government gun-tracking operation nicknamed " Fast and Furious."

"It's particularly nice to be outside of Washington, D.C.," Holder said.

A member of the audience shouted, "We love you!"

"I love you back," Holder said. "It's been an interesting few weeks in Washington."

In his 18-minute speech, Holder said he was pleased the U.S. Supreme Court recently threw out most of an Arizona law to crack down on illegal immigrants in the border state next to Mexico. But Holder said he was disappointed the high court upheld the most controversial part of the law that would allow police to ask for papers proving a person's immigration status if the person is stopped for some other reason.

The "show me your papers" part of the law must be narrowly enforced, the high court said, or it, too, would be open to a separate legal challenge.

The attorney general said the Justice Department would be watching enforcement of the Arizona law carefully, ready to intervene if it is abused and used to indiscriminately stop suspected illegal immigrants.

"Such laws cannot be seen as a license to engage in racial profiling," Holder said to applause.

Holder praised Obama for recently instructing federal authorities not to deport young adult children of undocumented immigrants who grew up in the United States. Instead, the Obama administration will launch a program to let young immigrants apply for two-year work permits.

Holder said the administration would continue to press Congress to pass the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to U.S. citizenship for those young immigrants who attend college or join the U.S. military. Meanwhile, he said there's no reason to waste money and effort to deport them.

Obama's new policy will "make our immigration enforcement effort not only more efficient and cost-effective, but also more just," Holder said. "There's no question this action represents a significant and a long overdue improvement of our immigration policy."

U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., addressed the conference lunch ahead of Holder. She, too, praised Obama's actions on immigration and called for passage of the DREAM Act . She also contrasted her views with those of her Republican opponent for U.S. Senate, incumbent Sen. Dean Heller, who doesn't support the DREAM Act and has praised the Arizona law.

"He says he wants to bring it here to Nevada," Berkley said. "Nevada doesn't want the Arizona law. Nevada doesn't need the Arizona law. And Nevada will do just fine without it."

Holder praised Berkley, calling the Democratic supporter of Obama "an extremely effective advocate for the people of Nevada."

"And I think she would make an excellent U.S. senator," he said.

Heller did not attend the La Raza conference. His campaign said he was spending the weekend celebrating his 28th wedding anniversary with his family and campaigning in Reno. Heller is among the Nevada politicians on the conference's honorary host committee, however.

Heller and Romney campaign officials manned booths at the Latino Expo, a free event for Hispanics and other members of the community being held with the conference. Democrats also reached out to the Latino crowd with more than 25,000 people expected to visit the free expo.

In an interview at the expo, Romney's Hispanic adviser, Gutierrez, said Latinos should have a natural affinity for Republicans' conservative policies, including "family, faith and hard work."

Gutierrez criticized Obama for not working on comprehensive immigration reform and only offering Hispanics short-term solutions in an election-year pitch for votes. He said stimulus spending didn't offer long-term job prospects for Americans, including Hispanics who suffer higher rates of unemployment - about 11 percent compared with 8.2 percent overall.

Gutierrez said Obama's offer of two-year work permits for young adult children of immigrants was a "patchwork solution" that didn't solve the long-running undocumented immigrant problem.

The presidential election, Gutierrez said, would come down to who could do a better job at boosting the economy to create jobs and improve the lives of Hispanics and all Americans. He said Romney's business experience makes him more qualified than Obama, a former U.S. senator.

"It's about who can do the job because this country is in trouble," Gutierrez said. "We need the right leadership. This is the biggest CEO job in the world. … It is obvious that we need a change. We need a positive change."

In recent weeks, Romney has been stepping up his outreach to Latinos, particularly in battleground states such as Nevada where they made up about 15 percent of the electorate in the last election. Four years ago, Obama overwhelmingly won Hispanics in Nevada by a ratio of 3 -to-1 over his GOP presidential foe, John McCain, and he remains popular among Latinos.

In June, Romney named dozens of top Republican Hispanics as national and state advisers to his campaign, including Gutierrez and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval. Gutierrez was commerce secretary for four years under former President George W. Bush.

Sandoval delivered a videotaped welcome to the La Raza conference.

Lisa Navarrete, an adviser to the president of the La Raza organization, said Romney lost a good chance to address Latinos. She said his Hispanic adviser Gutierrez could only come on Saturday and the conference organizers couldn't fit him into the schedule at the last minute.

"We think it was a missed opportunity," Navarrete said. "Our community doesn't know Governor Romney very well. If he wants to engage the community he has to address the community. For us, we're disappointed."


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Sources: AP, lvrj.com, Youtube, Google Maps

Obama Admin Nullifies "No Child Left Behind", Grants Waivers To States For Equal, Quality Education

‘No Child’ Law Whittled Down by White House

In just five months, the Obama administration has freed schools in more than half the nation from central provisions of the No Child Left Behind education law, raising the question of whether the decade-old federal program has been essentially nullified.

On Friday, the Department of Education plans to announce that it has granted waivers releasing two more states, Washington and Wisconsin, from some of the most onerous conditions of the signature Bush-era legislation. With this latest round, 26 states are now relieved from meeting the lofty — and controversial — goal of making all students proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014. Additional waivers are pending in 10 states and the District of Columbia.

“The more waivers there are, the less there really is a law, right?” said Andy Porter, dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.

While No Child Left Behind has been praised for forcing schools to become more accountable for the education of poor and minority children, it has been derided for what some regard as an obsessive focus on test results, which has led to some notorious cheating scandals. Critics have also faulted the law’s system of rating schools, which they say labeled so many of them low performing that it rendered the judgment meaningless.

In exchange for the education waivers, schools and districts must promise to set new targets aimed at preparing students for colleges and careers. They must also tether evaluations of teachers and schools in part to student achievement on standardized tests. The use of tests to judge teacher effectiveness is a departure from No Child Left Behind, which used test scores to rate schools and districts.

Congress has tried and failed repeatedly to reauthorize the education law over the past five years because Democrats and Republicans cannot agree on an appropriate role for the federal government in education. And so, in the heat of an election year, the Obama administration has maneuvered around Congress, using the waivers to advance its own education agenda.

The waivers appear to follow an increasingly deliberate pattern by the administration to circumvent lawmakers, as it did last month when it granted hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants a reprieve from deportation. The administration has also unveiled policies to prevent drug shortages, raise fuel economy standards and cut refinancing fees for federally insured mortgages.

Critics question whether the waivers have done much to genuinely shift the focus of federal education reform, given their continued reliance on standardized tests. The waivers “should probably make the meh list,” said Joshua Starr, superintendent of the Montgomery County schools in Maryland, which was granted a waiver in May.

Mr. Starr said he believed that education reform should focus on incentives to help teachers collaborate and help students learn skills that could not simply be measured by tests.

“It is another example to me of how we’re not focused on the right things in the American education conversation today,” Mr. Starr said. “I have a lot of respect for Arne Duncan,” he added, referring to the secretary of education, “but it’s just sort of moving around the chairs on the Titanic.”

Mr. Duncan, in a telephone interview on Thursday, said states that had received waivers, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, would also use a mix of other indicators to evaluate teachers and schools, like how many students actually enrolled in college or took Advanced Placement exams, as well as reviews of teachers by their peers, their students and their principals.

“You have to look at multiple indicators and multiple measures,” he said. “There’s been historically a push to way oversimplify what is very complex.”

House Republicans have repeatedly protested the Obama administration’s use of waivers as an end-run around Congress.

In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute this year, Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican and the chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Work Force, accused the administration of using waivers “in exchange for states adopting the policies he wants them to have.”

But education officials in the states that received waivers expressed relief from the pressure of the looming 2014 deadline.

“There was a general feeling that there were these goals that no one was ever going to meet,” said Kelli Gauthier, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Education. “Now we have standards that are possible.”

Instead of labeling all struggling schools as failing, the waivers direct states to focus most attention on the bottom 5 percent of low-performing schools. “With the waiver we can focus on those schools that really need a lot of help,” said June Atkinson, North Carolina’s state superintendent of public schools.

One of the most practical effects is that waivers will remove many schools from being branded with the tag that they had failed to make what the law deemed “adequate yearly progress” in getting more students to pass standardized tests.

Across the country, nearly half of all schools missed their targets under No Child Left Behind in the 2010-11 school year.

In some states, the rate was much higher. In Massachusetts, for example, 80 percent of schools did not make adequate progress during that school year, and in Virginia, the figure was 61 percent.

Charles Pyle, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Education, said that in some cases, schools that had improved test performance still failed to meet federal goals. “The idea that 6 out of 10 Virginia schools are failing is preposterous,” Mr. Pyle said.

But critics say putting a priority only on the lowest-performing schools will let too many others off the hook, especially those that serve minority students, poor children or high populations of students with special needs.

“Are we saying all the schools are good except for 5 percent?” asked Margaret Spellings, education secretary under President George W. Bush, who now oversees education policy for the United States Chamber of Commerce. “I just don’t get it.”

The administration said all schools would be required to show yearly improvement. “To label an improving school a failure is the worst thing you can do,” Mr. Duncan said. “If they’re doing the hard work to get better, it’s like, ‘Why are we killing ourselves to improve if we’re going to get slapped in the face for it?’ ”

The waivers also free up about $2 billion in annual federal funding that No Child Left Behind required low-performing schools to use either to transfer students to other schools or for tutoring services.

Maria Campanario, interim principal at Rafael Hernández School, a dual-language kindergarten-to-Grade 8 school in Roxbury, a Boston neighborhood, that has missed its federal targets four years running, said parents were often confused by the offer to transfer to another school.

“I have parents who come in who are English-language learners, and they would say: ‘What does this mean, we can go to another school? You don’t want us to be here?’ ” she said. “They would say, ‘But we like the school and think it’s fine.’ ”

Ms. Campanario said she welcomed the discretion to use the funding for “professional development that is going to support the whole school.”

“If you give me that money,” she said, “ I will put it to excellent use.”


Sources: AP, NY Times, Youtube

Corporations Legally Allowed To Purchase The 2012 Election; Citizens United

Groups Shield Political Gifts of Businesses

American Electric Power, one of the country’s largest utilities, gave $1 million last November to the Founding Fund, a new tax-exempt group that intends to raise most of its money from corporations and push for limited government.

The giant insurer Aetna directed more than $3 million last year to the American Action Network, a Republican-leaning nonprofit organization that has spent millions of dollars attacking lawmakers who voted for President Obama’s health care bill — even as Aetna’s president publicly voiced support for the legislation.

Other corporations, including Prudential Financial, Dow Chemical and the drugmaker Merck, have poured millions of dollars more into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a tax-exempt trade group that has pledged to spend at least $50 million on political advertising this election cycle.

Two years after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the door for corporate spending on elections, relatively little money has flowed from company treasuries into “super PACs,” which can accept unlimited contributions but must also disclose donors. Instead, there is growing evidence that large corporations are trying to influence campaigns by donating money to tax-exempt organizations that can spend millions of dollars without being subject to the disclosure requirements that apply to candidates, parties and PACs.

The secrecy shrouding these groups makes a full accounting of corporate influence on the electoral process impossible. But glimpses of their donors emerged in a New York Times review of corporate governance reports, tax returns of nonprofit organizations and regulatory filings by insurers and labor unions.

The review found that corporate donations — many of them previously unreported — went to groups large and small, dedicated to shaping public policy on the state and national levels. From a redistricting fight in Minnesota to the sprawling battleground of the 2012 presidential and Congressional elections, corporations are opening their wallets and altering the political world.

Some of the biggest recipients of corporate money are organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, the federal designation for “social welfare” groups dedicated to advancing broad community interests. Because they are not technically political organizations, they do not have to register with or disclose their donors to the Federal Election Commission, potentially shielding corporate contributors from shareholders or others unhappy with their political positions.

“Companies want to be able to quietly push for their political agendas without being held accountable for it by their customers,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has filed complaints against issue groups. “I think the 501(c)(4)’s are likely to outweigh super PAC spending, because so many donors want to remain anonymous.”

Because social welfare groups are prohibited from devoting themselves primarily to political activity, many spend the bulk of their money on issue advertisements that purport to be educational, not political, in nature. In May, for example, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, a group co-founded by the Republican strategist Karl Rove, began a $25 million advertising campaign, carefully shaped with focus groups of undecided voters, that attacks Mr. Obama for increasing the federal deficit and urges him to cut spending.

The Internal Revenue Service has no clear test for determining what constitutes excessive political activity by a social welfare group. And tax-exempt groups are permitted to begin raising and spending money even before the I.R.S. formally recognizes them. Two years after helping Republicans win control of the House with millions of dollars in issue advertising, Crossroads GPS’s application for tax-exempt status is still pending.

During the 2010 midterm elections, tax-exempt groups outspent super PACs by a 3-to-2 margin, according to a recent study by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Center for Public Integrity, with most of that money devoted to attacking Democrats or defending Republicans. And such groups have accounted for two-thirds of the political advertising bought by the biggest outside spenders so far in the 2012 election cycle, according to Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, with close to $100 million in issue ads.

The growing role of issue groups has prompted a rash of complaints and lawsuits from watchdog organizations accusing groups like the American Action Network, Crossroads and the pro-Obama Priorities USA of operating as sham charities whose primary purpose is not the promotion of social welfare, but winning elections. Efforts in Congress to force more disclosure for politically active nonprofit organizations have been repeatedly stymied by Republicans, who have described the push as an assault on free speech.

“These groups are being used as a conduit to hide from voters the identity of people and corporations who are bankrolling these television ads, which are designed to influence the outcome of elections,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland.

But Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for Crossroads, said, “Individuals and organizations have a First Amendment right to promote their beliefs through advertising, be that advertising against the Iraq war, against climate change or, in the case of Crossroads, advocating for free markets and limited government.”

Labor unions — themselves among the beneficiaries of Citizens United — have also donated millions of dollars to national super PACs and state-level nonprofit groups involved in battles over government spending, collective bargaining and health care.

Donations from corporations and unions alike must be disclosed if they go to expressly political groups like super PACs.

In April, for example, the air traffic controllers’ union contributed $1 million to a pro-Obama super PAC. But other contributions are harder to trace. Last year, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees gave $100,000 to Advancing Wisconsin, a tax-exempt group that supported labor’s fight with Republicans in that state; the donation was reported nowhere in Wisconsin, but it emerged in an annual financial report that unions must file with the federal Department of Labor.

Among the largest beneficiaries of corporate donations in recent years have been trade organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which largely backs Republican candidates. As a nonprofit “business league” under the tax code, the chamber does not have to disclose its supporters, who helped finance its $33 million in political ads in the 2010 midterm elections.

But voluntary disclosures by corporations — usually at the prodding of shareholder advocacy groups — shed some light on the use of trade groups for lobbying or as pass-throughs for political spending. A search of voluntary disclosures, some collected by the Center for Political Accountability, which advocates for transparency in corporate political spending, found more than $6 million in chamber donations by 10 companies last year.

Two of the largest came from Prudential Financial and Dow Chemical, which each gave $1.6 million, while Chevron, MetLife and Merck each gave at least $500,000. Some of the donations were directed to the chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform, which lobbies for limits on liability suits.

Some contributions are disclosed by accident. Aetna’s check to the American Action Network, along with a $4.5 million contribution last year to the chamber, was mistakenly included in a filing with insurance regulators. The disclosure was first reported by SNL Financial, a trade publication. Even where companies pledge voluntary disclosure of political contributions, they often make an exception for donations to tax-exempt groups.

In 2007, Aetna signed an agreement with the Mercy Investment Program, a shareholders group, to disclose trade associations to which it made large contributions. On regulatory filings, the company initially described its $3 million contribution to the Chamber of Commerce as a lobbying expense, but the company now says it was intended to finance “educational activities.”

An Aetna spokesman would not say whether the chamber donation would appear on the company’s 2011 voluntary disclosure. Sister Valerie Heinonen, the director of shareholder advocacy for Mercy Investment Services, said that a failure to do so would violate the company’s pledge.

Beyond the contributions to large, established nonprofits like the chamber and American Action Network, corporate money is also quietly shaping the political discourse through more obscure groups, none of which are required to disclose their donors.

In Minnesota last year, Express Scripts, a major drug benefit manager, gave $10,000 to a Republican-linked group, Minnesotans for a Fair Redistricting, involved in a partisan fight over redrawing legislative boundaries.

Express Scripts made the donation, previously unreported, because the “electoral maps in Minnesota were in doubt and we supported efforts to bring certainty to Minnesota voters,” said Brian Henry, a spokesman for the company, which is based in St. Louis. He added that the firm has a facility in Bloomington, Minn.

The reasons behind American Electric Power’s $1 million contribution to the little-known Founding Fund are less clear. The company characterized it as “lobbying” in a corporate governance disclosure last year, but the fund says it does no lobbying. The fund, whose address is a mail drop in Alexandria, Va., would not make any of its directors available for an interview.

The fund’s treasurer, Frank Sadler, is a lobbyist who previously worked for Koch Industries advising nonprofit groups that support free market causes, although he said the Kochs, major Republican donors, were not involved in the group.

In its public filings, the fund said it expected to raise about $10 million this election cycle, primarily from corporations, and use it to promote free markets and “the narrowing of the scope and reach of the federal government.”

A spokesman for American Electric Power, Pat D. Hemlepp, said the company supports organizations “with positions on issues that align with AEP’s positions” and strives to be transparent on political giving. “We also respect the positions of others, including some of the organizations that receive funding from AEP, to not publicly disclose funding or activities.

That’s their right under the law.”


Sources: Aljazeera, NY Times, TPM, Youtube

Freddie Lempe Slated To Die Due To North Carolina's Slack, Stingy Medicaid System (NC DSS & Health Care Reform Needed)

Medicaid approved for Smithfield teen in a coma

A Smithfield father fighting a Raleigh hospital to keep legal guardianship of his son has been able to secure Medicaid benefits to cover the teen's treatment for a traumatic brain injury.

Freddie Lempe, 18, has been in a coma at WakeMed since a car wreck in March 2011.

His father, Fred Lempe, says Medicaid coverage for his son was dropped in December when he turned 18.

The hospital has said that the teen was denied coverage because his father failed to file the paperwork.

It wants the court to appoint a guardian for Freddie who would be legally authorized to make all medical decisions.

Fred Lempe has said he's gotten conflicting information from the Johnston County Department of Social Services about what was required.

Calls and emails to WakeMed were not immediately returned Friday afternoon, and it's unclear whether the hospital will pursue its request in the court system.

A hearing is scheduled for July 25.


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Sources: WRAL, Google Maps