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THE LAST DAY'S OF THE WORKING CLASS
When blue-collar pride became identity politics
Remembering how the white working class got left out of the New Left, and why we're all paying for it today

Detail of the "hard-hat riots" from the cover of "Stayin' Alive." (when construction workers beat up antiwar protesters near New York's City Hall)

The great political failure of the 1960s was the New Left's inability to bring the labor movement into its great liberationist tent. There were lots of reasons for that, one of them being that most big union leaders didn't want to be in that stinky tent with a lot of hippies, feminists, dashiki-wearing black militants and "fags." (That last comes from AFL-CIO leader George Meany's description of the New York delegation to the disastrous 1972 Democratic convention: "They've got six open fags and only three AFL-CIO representatives!") Also, not a small matter: The New Left opposed the Vietnam War; again, most labor leaders supported it.

Still, the inability to forge a political movement that was as much about class as race and gender rights haunts the United States today. We saw the shadows of that struggle even in the 2008 presidential campaign, as supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama traded charges of "racism" and "sexism," but few paid attention to the increasing openness of white working-class voters, especially men, to pick a Democrat again in a time of profound economic crisis. We see it today in the hostility of many Democrats, and the resistance of the Obama administration, to backing aggressive government action to address the continuing unemployment disaster. The decline of the labor movement hobbled the Democratic Party, and so far nothing has come along to replace it, to represent the great majority of Americans who are disadvantaged by the ever-increasing power of corporate America and the wealthy.

If you want to understand how we got here -- how the Democrats' New Deal coalition shattered in the 1970s, and why progressives are still picking the shrapnel out of their political hides -- you must read Jefferson Cowie's "Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class." If you missed the 1970s entirely, or only remember it as a child or teen (as I do), you'll learn a lot. If you lived through it, you might come to think about it all very differently -- the missed opportunities, and what they say about our own time. Plus, this isn't an eat-your-spinach review, it's a fun read with cultural insight that makes connections I hadn't, from "Saturday Night Fever" to "Dog Day Afternoon," Bruce Springsteen to Devo.

Telling the story of how the New Left clashed with Big Labor to bring about the end of New Deal liberalism, Cowie is impossibly fair. Some accounts stress the conservatism (and racism and sexism) of labor bosses; others emphasize the New Left's contempt for mainly white union members and its preference for what came to be called "identity politics," the struggle of women, minority groups and gays for equal rights. Cowie reveals the extent to which both narratives have some truth.

"Stayin' Alive" also makes clear that the roots of intra-Democratic Party strife in the '60s can be found in the glorious New Deal of the '30s, which, to win the support of Southern Democrats, excluded agricultural and service workers from its new protections, including the National Labor Relations Act, leaving out many blacks as well as women. That led to strange inequities, such as a firm legally and successfully arguing it laid off workers because they were black, not because of union activism (the first was OK, the second was prohibited by federal law).

And once industrial unions were forced, whether by upstart organizers or federal intervention, to bring blacks and women into their ranks, the decline of industries like steel, mining and auto manufacturing created a zero-sum agony in which the worst nightmares of white unionists came true: Integration often came at the expense of white guys, as the number of overall jobs began to contract nationwide. But nobody won: While the percentage of black steelworkers, for instance, climbed during the '70s, the overall number of black steelworkers actually declined. Cowie in no way suggests the push to integrate those industries was a mistake (nor do I); it just suggests that the paranoia of the white working class, that minorities and women would take away their jobs, in some cases came true. As Cowie puts it: "Diversity arrived to American industry just as industry was leaving America."

With their cultural and material standing on the wane, blue-collar workers drifted to the Republican Party, which came to represent a kind of identity politics for white working-class men. Cowie traces the story of Dewey Burton, an autoworker outside of Detroit who made the transition from Hubert Humphrey Democrat to George Wallace Democrat to Reagan Democrat in just about a decade. Frustrated with his job and his union, angry at Democrats for supporting mandatory busing to integrate the public schools, Burton became a symbol of the rightward drift of the white working class, profiled repeatedly by the New York Times. Nixon went after men like Burton in 1972, with a strategy of "cultural recognition" of their grievances while paying little attention to their economic travails. By the time of the notorious "hard-hat riots" of 1970, when construction workers beat up antiwar protesters near New York's City Hall, Nixon saw the promise of a blue collar-GOP alliance. The head of the building trades, Peter Brennan, did too; he went to the White House and presented Nixon with his own hard hat, and became secretary of labor in Nixon's second administration. While George Meany flirted with Nixon, he refused to endorse him -- but he did everything in his power to make sure George McGovern lost in 1972. As Cowie explains, "The majority of white working class voters [selected] Nixon by wide margins over the most pro-labor candidate ever produced by the American two-party system." The New Deal coalition was dead.

Just as voting Republican became a kind of identity politics for white working-class men who felt abandoned by Democrats, 1970s pop culture also detached the blue-collar worker from hoary notions of group pride and solidarity. On television and in movies, they were increasingly depicted as left-behind losers, whose only heroism derived from escaping their doomed brethren. Cowie contrasts that with the populism of Frank Capra, whose films always had heroes, but their heroism consisted in standing up for their family, friends and neighbors against attempts to abuse them, whether by government or business. In the late 1970s, working-class heroes from "Saturday Night Fever's" Tony Manero to the Bruce Springsteen of "Born to Run" could only prevail by leaving their roots behind ("It's a town full of losers and I'm pulling out of here to win," Springsteen sings to his lady in "Thunder Road," though later he would intentionally strive to represent and celebrate his working-class roots, not renounce them). Cowie's got an odd, funny meditation on disco, which actually managed to pull together the coalition the New Left never did -- blacks and women and "fags," as well as white working-class kids aping John Travolta. (I was the only one of my friends back in the day who loved disco and Springsteen.)

With Labor Day approaching, and President Obama preparing to make his annual bow to the labor movement, speaking at an AFL-CIO picnic on Monday, I had a long phone conversation with Cowie about his book, the Democratic Party's unraveling, and potential hope for the future. I asked him if he could pick the most disastrous single decision, by either a labor leader or a New Lefty, in the '70s, and he surprised me by doing so. Read on, and find out what it was.-http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2010/09/06/when_blue_collar_dreams_became_identity_politics/index.html
LINK

[Journalists Gretchen Morgenson and Geraldine Fabrikant wrote for The New York Times 4 September 2010:]

Foreclosure Mills

Journalists Gretchen Morgenson and Geraldine Fabrikant wrote for The New York Times 4 September 2010:
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No one disputes that foreclosures dominate Florida’s dockets and that something needs to be done to streamline a complex and emotionally wrenching process. But lawyers representing troubled borrowers contend that many of the retired judges called in from the sidelines to oversee these matters are so focused on cutting the caseload that they are unfairly favoring financial institutions at the expense of homeowners.

Lawyers say judges are simply ignoring problematic or contradictory evidence and awarding the right to foreclose to institutions that have yet to prove they own the properties in question.

“Now you show up and you get whatever judge is on the schedule and they have not looked at the file — they don’t even look at the motions,” says April Charney, a lawyer who represents imperiled borrowers at Jacksonville Area Legal Aid. “You get a five-minute hearing. It’s a factory.”

...Florida’s foreclosure mess is made murkier by what analysts and lawyers involved in the process say are questionable practices by some law firms that are representing banks. Such tactics, these people say, have drawn out the process significantly, making it extremely lucrative for the lawyers and more draining for troubled homeowners.

Doctored or dubious records presented in court as proof of a bank’s ownership have become such a problem that Bill McCollum, the Florida attorney general, announced last month that his office was investigating the state’s three largest foreclosure law firms representing lenders.
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http://tinyurl.com/2f3utdq

And that's how the financial markets are handling the fraudulent mortgage crisis...

[Journalist Susan Carroll wrote for The Houston Chronicle 24 August 2010:]

Journalist Susan Carroll wrote for The Houston Chronicle 24 August 2010:
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The Department of Homeland Security is systematically reviewing thousands of pending immigration cases and moving to dismiss those filed against suspected illegal immigrants who have no serious criminal records, according to several sources familiar with the efforts.

Culling the immigration court system dockets of noncriminals started in earnest in Houston about a month ago and has stunned local immigration attorneys, who have reported coming to court anticipating clients' deportations only to learn that the government was dismissing their cases.

Richard Rocha, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, said Tuesday that the review is part of the agency's broader, nationwide strategy to prioritize the deportations of illegal immigrants who pose a threat to national security and public safety. Rocha declined to provide further details.

Critics assailed the plan as another sign that the Obama administration is trying to create a kind of backdoor "amnesty" program.

Raed Gonzalez, an immigration attorney who was briefed on the effort by Homeland Security's deputy chief counsel in Houston, said DHS confirmed that it's reviewing cases nationwide, though not yet to the pace of the local office. He said the others are expected to follow suit soon.

Gonzalez, the liaison between the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which administers the immigration court system, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said DHS now has five attorneys assigned full time to reviewing all active cases in Houston's immigration court.

Gonzalez said DHS attorneys are conducting the reviews on a case-by-case basis. However, he said they are following general guidelines that allow for the dismissal of cases for defendants who have been in the country for two or more years and have no felony convictions.

In some instances, defendants can have one misdemeanor conviction, but it cannot involve a DWI, family violence or sexual crime, Gonzalez said.

Massive backlog of cases

Opponents of illegal immigration were critical of the dismissals.

"They've made clear that they have no interest in enforcing immigration laws against people who are not convicted criminals," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for strict controls.

"This situation is just another side effect of President Obama's failure to deliver on his campaign promise to make immigration reform a priority in his first year," said U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "Until he does, state and local authorities are left with no choice but to pick up the slack for prosecuting and detaining criminal aliens."

Gonzalez called the dismissals a necessary step in unclogging a massive backlog in the immigration court system. In June, there were more than 248,000 cases pending in immigration courts across the country, including about 23,000 in Texas, according to data compiled by researchers at Syracuse University.

'Absolutely fantastic'

Gonzalez said he went into immigration court downtown on Monday and was given a court date in October 2011 for one client. But, he said, the government's attorney requested the dismissal of that case and those of two more of his clients, and the cases were dispatched by the judge.

The court "was terminating all of the cases that came up," Gonzalez said. "It was absolutely fantastic."

"We're all calling each other saying, 'Can you believe this?' " said John Nechman, another Houston immigration attorney, who had two cases dismissed.

Attorney Elizabeth Mendoza Macias, who has practiced in Houston for 17 years, said she had cases for several clients dismissed during the past month and eventually called DHS to find out what was going on. She said she was told by a DHS trial attorney that 2,500 cases were under review in Houston.

"I had five (dismissed) in one week, and two more that I just received," Mendoza said. "And I am expecting many more, many more, in the next month."

Her clients, all previously charged with being in the country illegally, included:

An El Salvadoran man married to a U.S. citizen who has two U.S.-born children. The client had a pending asylum case in the court system, but the case was not particularly strong. Now that his case is terminated, he will be eligible to obtain permanent residency through his wife, Mendoza said.

A woman from Cameroon, who was in removal proceedings after being caught by the U.S. Border Patrol, had her case terminated by the government. She meets the criteria of a trafficking victim, Mendoza said, and can now apply for a visa.

Memo outlines priorities

Immigrants who have had their cases terminated are frequently left in limbo, immigration attorneys said, and are not granted any form of legal status.

"It's very, very key to understand that these aliens are not being granted anything in court. They are still here illegally. They don't have work permits. They don't have Social Security numbers," Mendoza said. "ICE is just saying, 'At this particular moment, we are not going to proceed with trying to remove you from the United States.' "

In a June 30 memo, ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton outlined the agency's priorities, saying it had the capacity to remove about 400,000 illegal immigrants annually — about 4 percent of the estimated illegal immigrant population in the country. The memo outlines priorities for the detention and removal system, putting criminals and threats to national security at the top of the list.

Up to 17,000 cases

On Tuesday, ICE officials provided a copy of a new policy memo from Morton dated Aug. 20 that instructs government attorneys to review the court cases of people with pending applications to adjust status based on their relation to a U.S. citizen. Morton estimates in the memo that the effort could affect up to 17,000 cases.

Tre Rebsock, the ICE union representative in Houston, said even if the efforts involve only a fraction of the pending immigration cases, "that's going to make our officers feel even more powerless to enforce the laws."
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still on the hunt eye see, you seek an answer, perhaps from 0bama bin Lying or his alter ego Barry 0blundermouth? Beware of the rage of the oysters from the gulf of 0bama's salad dressing, only there by his divine hand do oil and water mix to a sweet blend, so he says. watch out, when you near the top rolling that stone.

[Journalist Thomas Harding wrote for Telegraph Co uk 30 June 2010:]

Journalist Thomas Harding wrote for Telegraph Co uk 30 June 2010:
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In the past five months the number child insurgents has increased almost fivefold in the town of Sangin, to a band of 40, who are used to run weapons, plant bombs and carry out tasks for the Taliban, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.  ...The Taliban have resorted to the tactic because they know that British troops are unlikely to fire on children planting IEDs (improvised explosive devices). They have also been forced into the change because sophisticated surveillance technology is able to pick up Taliban IED planting teams and take action against them.

On one occasion surveillance cameras picked up two children under 10 walking along the main road with one placing an IED in a hole followed by another covering it up with a bag of stone and earth.

"They know that we won't engage the kids," said an intelligence source with 40 Commando, Royal Marines, based in Sangin. "The kids are less aware of the risks and will to do anything for a quick buck.
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article

[Journalist Jodi Upton wrote for The Detroit News 2 October 2003:]

Journalist Jodi Upton wrote for The Detroit News 2 October 2003:
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•  On Wednesday, the state attorney general charged 23 women with fraud for having children in the United States using emergency Medicaid, returning to their native countries and then coming back during subsequent pregnancies, between August 1997 and February 2003.

•  In December 2002, the attorney general raided Oakwood Hospital and Medical Center and seized 500 patient records; searched two doctors' offices at East Village Medical Center and the Women's Medical Center; and seized 20 patient records from the Arab social services center.

Twenty-three Arab women were charged with fraud by giving birth to children in Michigan using Medicaid, returning to their home country, and repeating the cycle each time they got pregnant, Attorney General Mike Cox said Wednesday.

More women may be charged in the next few weeks.

The women — originally from Lebanon, Syria and Yemen — and 34 children are all out of the United States now, and their names will be turned over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It's unclear if they will face extradition, said Cox's spokesman Sage Eastman. When they were in Michigan, 22 lived in Dearborn and one in Taylor.

"There's a possibility that (the cases) may be difficult to follow up on," Eastman said. "We charge based on the fact that Medicaid was defrauded."

The total fraud was $150,000.

The felony charges carry up to four years in jail and a $50,000 fine.

Fraud applies because the application for emergency Medicaid required the women to become permanent residents. But their visitor visas indicated they intended to return to their native country, which they did soon after giving birth. Because they were born here, all the children are U.S. citizens.

"The bottom line is protecting the Medicaid program and ensuring that the dollars are available for the ones who truly need it," Eastman said. "Our case alleges that these are individuals who came to the state and fraudulently applied, then returned to their native state."

It's unclear whether the women knew each other, but they all used the same organization to apply for Medicaid. Eastman refused to name the organization and said that "other avenues" are still under investigation and more charges may follow.

Ironically, though, had the women stayed and become permanent residents as directed, they would have been eligible for at least as much, if not more, aid. Most legal immigrants and visitors — even tourists — are eligible for emergency Medicaid.

"There's no difference, no difference whatsoever in what they are eligible for," said Maureen Taylor, director of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization. "So what's the purpose of going after the women?"

The women's care cost up to $17,000 in Medicaid per child, though the entire hospital cost was higher depending on complications, Eastman said. The state had not done background checks on the women to assess if they could afford to pay the fines or reimburse Medicaid, he said.

The state has been cracking down on Medicaid fraud, recovering more than $6.5 million since 2000.

Last fall, the state seized about 500 patient records from Oakwood Hospital and Medical Center, searched two doctors' offices at East Village Medical Center and the Women's Medical Center and seized another 20 patient records from three Arab social work agency locations, spokesmen from the attorney general's office said.

The hospital and the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services were not the focus of either investigation.

ACCESS, a Dearborn-based agency that helps immigrant women apply for Medicaid and other services, assists more than 700 pregnant women a year.

Typically, it's difficult to get Arab women into neonatal and birthing care in the United States because they prefer the midwifery and all-female care they are used to at home, which makes abuse of the Medicaid system rare.

"Sometimes women have babies here, but not usually intentionally, no more than any other women who come here," said Dr. Adnan Hammad, ACCESS director of the Community Health and Research Center.

"Maybe their husband is here, or their family is here, and while they are here they give birth. But I'm not aware it exists as a behavior. That's a misperception of the media."
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[From CNN 11 August 2010:]

From CNN 11 August 2010:
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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We begin, though, tonight with keeping them honest. We always do on one of the most stunning claims made in the battle of illegal immigration. The claim made by Texas Republican lawmakers that illegal immigrants are having babies here, then raising them overseas as terrorists so that they can then return here 20 years from now and attack them. Call it the terror baby conspiracy.

In a moment, you'll hear from a former high-ranking FBI official about this idea, but first let's just show you where we think this thing started. This is Congressman Gohmert, and here is what he said on the floor of the United States Congress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LOUIE GOHMERT, (R) TEXAS: I talked to a retired FBI agent who said that one of the things that we're looking at were terror cells overseas who had figured out how to game our system, and it appeared they would have young women who became pregnant, would get them into the United States to have a baby. They wouldn't even have to pay anything for the baby, and then they would return back where they could be raised and coddled as future terrorists, and then one day, 20, 30 years down the road, they could be sent in to help destroy our way of life because they figured out how stupid we are being in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: He said that on the floor of the House. Congressman Gohmert said the source was a former FBI agent. He offered no proof, no evidence, and he later changed some of the details in the story actually and went on TV saying, he first learned about this from a Hamas-loving grandmother he met on a plane in the Middle East. Today, we called the congressman's office asking for information and back up his claim, the name of the alleged former FBI agent, for instance, or any evidence whatsoever that this actually is happening or something the FBI is looking into, as he claimed the former FBI agent said.

We also invited him on program. His press secretary told us he was unavailable and could not be reached for comment. The invitation stands. He's not the only Texas lawmaker, though, making this argument. We were surprised last night on "360" when a Republican state representative, Debby Riddle, came on the program to debate the topic of immigration in general and talked about, basically, the exact same thing.

She was joined by one of her colleagues on the Democratic side who didn't believe it. Take a look what she said about this terror baby idea.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Representative Riddle, you told my producer that pregnant woman are coming here as tourists, having babies and then going back home, quote, "with a nefarious purpose of turning them into little terrorists who will then come back to the U.S. and do us harm." You said it's part of an organized terror element and could cost us lives. Where did you hear that?

DEBBIE RIDDLE, (R) TEXAS STATE HOUSE: That is information that is coming to my office from former FBI officials.

COOPER: What former FBI officials ‚ I mean, what evidence is there of some sort of long-term plot to have American babies born here and then raised as terrorists overseas and then come back here?

RIDDLE: Well, at this point, I don't have the hard evidence right here in front of me. However, this is something that is being talked about by various members of Congress. This is being looked into. This is an issue with not only folks coming across our southern border, with what is called anchor babies and coming over for the entitlement programs, and for that sort of thing, but I think that this is a lot more sinister issue. All of these issues we need to look at because this is a critical, critical issue for all of the American public.

COOPER: But you have no actual evidence?

RIDDLE: Other than that coming from former FBI folks.

COOPER: Can you tell us who these former FBI folks are? What evidence they have or what evidence they've shown you?

RIDDLE: At this point, I'm not going to reveal that.

COOPER: I mean, if this is a real threat to the security of the United States, why wouldn't current FBI people be worried about it as well? I mean, why wouldn't this actually be...

RIDDLE: You know what? That is a really good question because right now, we have serious current threat that the government seems to be ignoring, and ignoring on our southern border.

COOPER: But they haven't told you any actual evidence, right? So,  it's you say some former FBI agents have talked to your office. Have they given your office actual facts or proof?

RIDDLE: That information we are still gathering.

COOPER: I mean, you've made statements about these basically terror babies that are being raised overseas to be brought back here. I'm just asking for proof. You say you‚ you are still gathering it from‚ from unnamed former FBI people.

RIDDLE: Well, actually when your folks called me in the preliminary, that was part of the conversation. They did not tell me that you were going to grill me for the specific information that I was not ready to give to you tonight. They did not tell me that, sir.

COOPER: OK. Well, if you do have follow-up information, we'd love to get it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: I don't really consider that a grilling, by the way. I thought that was more of a conversation. When someone gets grilled, they tend to know it. Again, no proof offered. Keeping them honest. We called Representative Riddle's office today for more details on her claims about the alleged former FBI source or any shred of evidence at all. We were told someone from Riddle's staff would call us back. They have not. Now, of course, we welcome the call any time in the future.

You may think that politicians who are concerned about this over national security, as I'm sure they are and say they're being tipped off by former FBI agents, you would think that they would actually contact the FBI to check on this. Apparently, they have not, because we did check with the FBI today, and they completely knocked the claim down. An official told us the agency does not have any credible evidence that this is happening. So, all right then.

We thought, well maybe, maybe they just don't want to tell us because they're currently FBI officials, and since this information is allegedly coming from former FBI agents, we should be checking with them, and that, we're happy to say has worked out pretty well because CNN contributor, Tom Fuentes, is the FBI's former assistant director in the office of international operations from 2004 to 2008. He joins me now.

Tom, you oversaw FBI offices in some of the biggest terror hot spots. Have you ever come across any evidence of these terror babies or anything like this?

THOMAS V. FUENTES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: No, Anderson, never. That includes the FBI has 75 offices overseas, including offices in Jordan, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan. There was never a credible report or any report, for that matter, coming across through all the various mechanisms of communication to indicate that there was such a plan for these terror babies to be born.

Also, I'd like to add, there seems to be a lot of former FBI agents lurking in the halls of Congress and in the legislature in the state of Texas, so I'm kind of curious about that issue as well.

COOPER: Yes, I mean, is there any likelihood that this could have actually happened? I mean, does it make any sense whatsoever, the idea that 20 years from now, they have some sort of plan to get kids in? I mean, frankly, it's not that hard to get U.S. citizens to attack the United States, it appears.

FUENTES: That's exactly right. It's not hard to get U.S. citizens. Not only that, Director Muller has spoken out many times publicly against the visa waiver program which means that anyone holding a European passport can come to the United States. They're six hours away by air from New York or Washington and do not require a U.S. visa. So, they not only can recruit U.S. citizens as we've seen in plot after plot or people that are already in the United States like Zazi, Shahzad, the times Square bomber, many of these other groups, Abdulmutallab who came here on a U.S. visa from Nigeria, but also any of these European radicalized terrorists can fly here without a visa any time.

So, the idea that they would somehow grow terrorist babies from the ground up is ludicrous. And not only that, but I think you'd have the FBI pushing to create some type of a no pre-school list or something to address these terrible babies.

COOPER: No pre-school list, yes. Do you think if a member of Congress is really — really believes this, you would assume that they would call the FBI. If a member of Congress called the FBI with this theory saying they'd heard this from a former FBI agent, would the FBI inform that Congress person that they knew nothing about it or they don't think there's any legitimacy to that?

FUENTES: I think so. In this case, I think the FBI has knocked this story down completely, officially, unofficially. I think at first they didn't want to comment on it just because they didn't want to lend any credence to the people spreading it, but realized that there has to be some comment or else the no comment, you know, means there might be some secret classified information out there, but there is no credible information about this particular aspect.

And something else I caught in your interview of Debbie Riddle where she says a former FBI agent informed her office. What does that mean? They talked to a receptionist? They talked to the janitor? You don't talk to an office. If an FBI agent was going to brief someone that's public official about a sensitive matter of potential terrorism, they're not going to talk to anybody but the elected official himself or herself. Just that statement that somehow this was reported to the office, you know, is suspicious to me.

COOPER: The other thing that she says is that she's still gathering information, that her office is still gathering information on the facts behind it. You would think the first place they would gather information was at the actual FBI, and as you said, if they actually do call the FBI, they would be told this is absolutely completely not true so...

FUENTES: Last I checked the FBI is in the phone book, so I think she could get a hold of them.

COOPER: All right. Hopefully, they will call the FBI if they're not willing to call us. Tom Fuentes, appreciate your expertise. Thanks.

FUENTES: Sure, Anderson. Thank you.
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[August Surprise?]

August Surprise?

A reprieve maybe?

Article

And why not?  If the IMF does it, why not US?

http://tinyurl.com/2b99pek


.

As each day passes without any abatement in the increasingly surreal hysteria over the Arizona immigration law, the ground for that opposition becomes ever clearer: The real problem with the Arizona law is that it threatens to make immigration enforcement a reality. Every other argument against it is a smoke screen.

The two main lines of attack against SB 1070 — that it is preempted by federal immigration laws and that it will lead to racial profiling — make sense only if you believe that we should not be enforcing our immigration laws.

Gov. Brewer vs Robert Sarver

Dave Hodges

Date: 07-24-2010

Subject: Immigration



The owner of the Phoenix Suns basketball team, Robert Sarver, opposes AZ's new immigration laws. 

Arizona's Governor, Jan Brewer, released the following statement in response to Sarver's criticism of the new law:     

"What if the owners of the Suns discovered that hordes of people were sneaking into games without paying?

 What if they had a good idea who the gate-crashers are, but the ushers and security personnel were not allowed to ask these folks to produce their ticket stubs, thus non-paying attendees couldn't be ejected.
Furthermore, what if Suns' ownership was expected to provide those who sneaked in with complimentary eats and drink?

And what if, on those days when a gate-crasher became ill or injured, the Suns had to provide free medical care and shelter?"

-Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Feature-Article.htm?Info=0107451

[Journalist John Schwartz wrote for The New York Times 2 August 2010:]

Journalist John Schwartz wrote for The New York Times 2 August 2010:
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation has taken on everyone from Al Capone to John Dillinger to the Unabomber. Its latest adversary: Wikipedia.

The bureau wrote a letter in July to the Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organization of Wikipedia, demanding that it take down an image of the F.B.I. seal accompanying an article on the bureau, and threatened litigation: "Failure to comply may result in further legal action. We appreciate your timely attention to this matter."

The problem, those at Wikipedia say, is that the law cited in the F.B.I.'s letter is largely about keeping people from flashing fake badges or profiting from the use of the seal, and not about posting images on noncommercial Web sites. Many sites, including the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, display the seal.

Other organizations might simply back down. But Wikipedia sent back a politely feisty response, stating that the bureau's lawyers had misquoted the law. "While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version" that the F.B.I. had provided.

Michael Godwin, the general counsel of the Wikimedia Foundation, wrote, "we are prepared to argue our view in court." He signed off, "with all appropriate respect."

An F.B.I. spokesman, William Carter, said that such letters go out "from time to time" from the office of general counsel.

"You can't use the F.B.I. seal, by law, unless you have the permission of the F.B.I. director," he said.

Cindy Cohn, the legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, called the dust-up both "silly" and "troubling"; Wikipedia has a First Amendment right to display the seal, she said.

"Really," she added, "I have to believe the F.B.I. has better things to do than this."
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