At least 10 Mexican police officers killed in shootouts

Gunmen ambush the officers in Michoacan state. An unknown number of the assailants are slain, their bodies whisked away by survivors.

By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times

June 14, 2010

Reporting from Mexico City

Armed attacks on Mexican federal police Monday in violent Michoacan state sparked shootouts that killed at least 10 officers and an unknown number of gunmen, authorities said.

The twin ambushes in the city of Zitacuaro underscored anew the brazenness with which criminal groups have taken on Mexican security forces.

The federal public safety department said officers had finished patrol and were headed to Mexico City when they came under attack. The officers returned fire, killing some gunmen and wounding several. Authorities said surviving assailants escaped with the dead and injured, a tactic often used by drug gang hit men.

At least 15 officers were reported wounded. News reports said attackers parked vehicles across a road to enclose the police.

Michoacan, a rugged western state famous as a winter haven for migrating monarch butterflies, is home base of the La Familia drug-trafficking group and a crucial front in President Felipe Calderon's 3 1/2- year-old offensive against organized crime.

Michoacan is Calderon's home state and was the first place he sent federal troops after announcing the crackdown when he took office in December 2006.

Monday's attacks came as Calderon sought to explain his crime strategy to a public that has watched the drug war death toll soar to 23,000 since 2006. Most of the killings stem from feuding between traffickers.

In a message spanning two full pages in Monday's newspapers, Calderon blamed gang rivalries for the violence and defended the crackdown as needed to save Mexico from crime syndicates.

"If we do nothing, we will end up in the hands of organized crime, we'll live in constant fear, our children won't have a future, there will be more violence and we will lose our freedom," Calderon said.

Also on Monday, authorities in Sinaloa state said a prison disturbance left 20 inmates dead of gunshot wounds in the resort city of Mazatlan. The killings bore the markings of an organized-crime hit. The victims were being held on federal charges, such as drug trafficking and murder, and were to be transferred to federal prison. Officials said they recovered four firearms.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-shooting-20100615,0,2991806,print.story

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Border security trips up immigration debate

The dispute over border enforcement — just how much is enough? — threatens to derail Democrats' attempt to overhaul immigration laws.

By Ken Dilanian and Nicholas Riccardi

June 15, 2010

Reporting from Washington and Denver

The Republican governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, calls her state "the gateway to America for drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and crime." She blames the federal government for failing to secure the border with Mexico.

Her Democratic predecessor, Janet Napolitano, now the country's Homeland Security secretary, counters that the Southwestern border "is as secure now as it has ever been."

The dispute over just how much border security is enough looms as the biggest impediment to any attempt by the Obama administration and Congress to overhaul the nation's immigration laws.

Republicans say they can't support an immigration bill until the border is under control. The Obama administration points out that crime in U.S. border cities is down, as are illegal border crossings.

There should be room for compromise: One side would get more resources for border enforcement, and the other would get a program allowing migrants to cross the border to work and a path to legalization for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants residing in the U.S.

But so far, Washington is not even close.

Last month, President Obama nodded toward such an arrangement by agreeing to dispatch 1,200 National Guard troops to the Southwest border and seek half a billion dollars in additional funds for border enforcement.

That came after 18 months in which the Obama administration has outdone its predecessor on border enforcement spending and on deportations of illegal immigrants, all in an effort to build support for a comprehensive immigration overhaul.

None of it, however, has been enough for Republicans in Congress, including those, such as Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, who previously supported immigration changes.

McCain, facing a primary challenge, said Obama's plan was insufficient, and he tried unsuccessfully to pass an amendment in the Senate calling for 6,000 troops and $2 billion in spending.

Napolitano, in an interview, expressed frustration about the Republicans' singular focus on border security.

"Their position has evolved to be, 'We don't even want to talk about immigration reform unless you secure — read: seal — the border,' " she said. "And the definition of what securing the border means keeps changing, and that then becomes a reason not to address the real underlying issue, which is immigration reform."

The raw statistics don't support the notion, as Brewer put it in April, that the U.S. side of the Mexico border is awash in "uncontrolled … horrendous violence."

Mexico has seen a wave of killings and violence, but crime on the U.S. side is lower than it has been in previous years. In fact, the four largest American cities with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states, according to a new FBI report: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin, Texas.

Illegal immigration is also down significantly, partly because of the U.S. economic recession.

Still, recent high-profile incidents have fueled perceptions that the drug violence in Mexico is spilling over. They include the March killing of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz, shot on his property in what authorities suspect was an encounter with a drug smuggling scout.

There also has been a dramatic rise in home invasions in Arizona in which suspected gang members target drug stash houses — "mostly trafficker against trafficker," said Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney for Arizona.

But it's unclear whether border enforcement can have much effect on those trends. Experience has shown that fences, technology and patrols have slowed illegal crossings in some areas only to steer traffic to other, more remote stretches.

The projected cost of border fencing is about $5 million a mile. That would be a price tag of nearly $9 billion for the 1,700 miles of unfenced border.

With huge budget deficits looming, there is little appetite for such spending. But most political observers believe that for an immigration bill to stand any chance in Congress, the Obama administration is going to have to convince more Americans that violence and illegal immigration have been mostly quelled.

"It is impossible for me and any other serious Democrat to get this body to move forward until we prove to the American people we can secure our borders," Graham told Napolitano when she testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in April. "But once we get there, comprehensive reform should come up, will come up."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-border-security-20100615,0,1175194,print.story

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Sunday school teacher Melissa Huckaby gets life without parole in murder of 8-year-old girl

A Sunday school teacher from Northern California accused of murdering an 8-year-old girl whose body was found stuffed into a suitcase was sentenced Monday to life without parole.

Melissa Huckaby, 29 , pleaded guilty to kidnapping and murdering the child, Sandra Cantu of Tracy , in a plea deal that allowed the woman to avoid the death penalty.

The child, who was a playmate of the defendant's daughter, was found after the March 2009 killing stuffed into a suitcase that was pulled from an irrigation pond.

The woman offered an emotional apology to the girl's family before she was sentenced, according to the Associated Press.

"She did not suffer, and I did not sexually molest her," Huckaby said, mainly addressing the girl's mother.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/06/melissa-huckaby-gets-life-without-parole-in-murder-of-8yearold-girl-stuffed-in-suitcase.html#more

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The national security shell game

Deficit hawks are using national security as an excuse to seek cuts in Social Security in Medicare, but they're wrong.

James K. Galbraith

June 15, 2010

In American public discourse, national security is the first refuge of scoundrels. For six decades good and dreadful ideas alike have been buttressed by claims that they will help make us secure. President Eisenhower used the claim to promote spending on highways and education. President George W. Bush used it to justify wiretapping and torture.

Now deficit hysterics have started trilling the national security song to justify a coming attack on Social Security and Medicare.

In late May, the Obama administration released its National Security Strategy, a wide-ranging and broadly sensible 60-page document articulating a full menu of economic, human rights and environmental foundations of a strong security policy. A few lines make passing reference to "medium-term deficit reduction."

But when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared at the Washington-based Brookings Institution to discuss the National Security Strategy, three of the six questions she was asked harped on the deficit issue, with one questioner calling it "potentially, if not actually, the biggest single national security threat to the United States."

Clinton agreed, declaring that it is time to "make the national security case about reducing the deficit and getting the debt under control." She went on to explain: "We cannot sustain this level of deficit financing and debt without losing our influence, without being constrained in the tough decisions we have to make."

On this, she and the Brookings deficit hawks are wrong.

Was World War II, for example, won with balanced budgets? No. Deficits ran about 25% of GDP every year of the war, and the national debt had reached 121% of GDP by 1946. Was the United States weakened by this? Hardly. America had never been stronger than it was in 1946. And afterward, the economy didn't implode. The debt-to-GDP ratio merely declined, year after year, until it reached a low of about 33% of GDP in 1980.

Was America stronger in 1980 than in 1946? No again. That year we elected Ronald Reagan, who campaigned on a promise to restore the United States to a position of strength. To that end, he promptly cut taxes and boosted military spending, actions that pushed the deficit back up to about 50% of GDP even as the economy recovered.

It's true that nowadays China, Japan and other countries hold large piles of Treasury bonds. But why? Only because they run trade surpluses with the whole world and have chosen to stockpile those earnings in dollars. This is a sign of confidence in us. And reducing budget deficits wouldn't change anything about that, unless those Asian trade surpluses were also reversed. But the folks at Brookings weren't calling for a trade war with Asia, just about the only step (however unwise for other reasons) that might plausibly cut the surpluses.

Do China's debt holdings give China leverage over us? Not at all. Realistically, China can do nothing with its Treasuries except roll them over. China is not going to dump U.S. bonds in order to buy those of Spain or Greece. And paying interest on them is not, for us, a burden, since the money is never spent and probably never will be.

Speaking of interest, it's also obvious that the capital markets don't take the deficit scare-talk seriously; otherwise, they wouldn't be lending to Uncle Sam for 30 years at just over 4%. And the dollar wouldn't be rising, as investors seek safety from the European crisis in Treasury bonds — a sure sign that the world's wealthy don't find U.S. deficits all that worrisome.

The National Security Strategy doesn't mention either Medicare or Social Security by name. But the code words "medium-term deficit reduction" are there, and they are today's stand-in for cuts in those programs. "Everything must be on the table," we're told, as the Simpson-Bowles commission prepares to explain why Social Security and Medicare must be cut.

But why? Social Security and Medicare are not broken. They are successful, popular programs that protect America's elderly from poverty. Cutting them would be devastating. Today, at a time when people have lost jobs, investments and equity in their homes — the very things that an aging population counts on for economic stability — Social Security and Medicare are more important than ever. They are the most important bulwarks of middle-class life in America. And we can afford them. A rich nation can always afford modest retirement benefits and decent healthcare for its old. Cutting them would be, in fact, totally inconsistent with the spirit of the National Security Strategy, which correctly equates human security with national security around the world.

The real cause of our deficits and rising public debt is our broken banking system. The debts our economic leaders deplore were largely due to the collapse of private credit, and to the vast giveaways the federal government made to banks to prevent their failure when credit collapsed. Yet those rescues have failed to reanimate private credit markets and job creation, as the latest employment reports show. And so long as that failure persists, public deficits and rising public debt must remain facts of life.

Are broken banks a national security threat? Let's avoid going that far. But the only way to reduce public deficits eventually is to revive private credit, and the only way to do that is build a new financial system to replace the one that has failed. The "national security" case for cutting Social Security and Medicare is bogus. In economic terms, it's just a smokescreen for those who would like to transfer the cost of all those bank failures onto the elderly and the sick.

James K. Galbraith teaches at the University of Texas at Austin and is chair of Economists for Peace and Security, a professional organization.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-galbraith-deficit-20100615,0,6482412,print.story

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In America, Old Glory represents more than just patriotism

The ubiquitous, barely noticeable U.S. flags that appear on clothing, mattress ads and even NBA backboards, among other things, are a constant reminder of nationhood and national unity.

Gregory Rodriguez

June 14, 2010

Poor Flag Day. It has to be the single most ignored national holiday in an otherwise patriotic country that loves its holidays — and no, it's not just because we don't get the day off. Nor is it because Flag Day gets lost between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. The real reason that most Americans ignore the June 14 holiday is that it's utterly redundant. In the United States, every day is Flag Day.

That's right. In this flag-crazy world, Americans are arguably the most obsessed with our national banner. I'm not just talking about the obvious wartime or post- 9/11 flag waving. I'm referring to the everyday ubiquity of the Stars and Stripes. Have you been watching the NBA Championship Series? Did you notice that there's an image of the flag on the bottom right-hand corner of the glass backboard? Or how about the phalanx of flags you often encounter at random gas stations? What's with that?

Unlike other nations — India, for example — that discourage the rampant reproduction of their national banner, in the U.S. you can find the Stars and Stripes on everything from T-shirts to jeans, sports jerseys to mattress advertisements. British social psychologist Michael Billig calls this "banal" — as opposed to "hot" — nationalism. The ubiquitous, barely noticeable flag imagery, "which is so forgettable," he writes, " is at least as important as the memorable moments of flag waving."

"Mindless flags," as Billig calls them, are constant, largely unconscious "reminders of nationhood."

Not surprisingly, foreign observers have written most penetratingly about America's obsession with its flag. The late French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard suggested that the omnipresence of the U.S. flag bears witness to a society that is "endlessly concerned with vindicating itself, perpetually seeking to justify its own existence." As obnoxiously snarky and Euro as that sounds, there's a lot of truth to it.

The unusually abstract nature of our civic patrimony — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — coupled with the highly mobile character of our society has long made us hungrier than other nations for the constancy and comfort of national symbols. Historically, patriotism sprang directly from an ancestral love of place, the hills and valleys where you were rooted, from which you derived sustenance and family lore. But here in the U.S., "our ancient roots into the earth of America had … an anchorage less firm," as one historian put it. Both the continental breadth of our territory and the global reach of our power and culture make the warm embrace of the local less likely. So we seek meaning in tangible symbols, like the flag, say, or documents like the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, which are revered as objects as well as for what they say.

The inherent fractiousness that comes with a wildly heterogeneous society has also made Americans crave symbols of unity. While the cult of the Stars and Stripes is as old as the republic, it acquired a new intensity during the Civil War. According to Italian historian Arnaldo Testi, author of the recently published "Capture the Flag: The Stars and Stripes in American History," it was during the war that "the national flag established itself as a central pervasive icon of Northern public life" and earned the nickname "Old Glory."

But ultimately it was the massive immigration at the end of the 19th century that gave us the Pledge of Allegiance and the first celebrations of Flag Day, in the teeming immigrant cities of New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. Proponents of these rituals feared the centrifugal cultural pull of the newcomers and wanted to create common cause amid the cacophony. Mostly they were trying to win the hearts and minds of the children of immigrants.

Historically, flags have been primarily understood as outward signals of origin or loyalty. And that continues to explain at least some of our show-the-flag propensities. But in the end, our flag waving has less to do with our need to signal our presence to external friends and foes than it does to remind ourselves of the central unum in our wild and wooly pluribus . And for that, we still need a lot more than a single Flag Day a year.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rodriguez-flagday-20100614,0,599141,print.column

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Living wages are key to poverty eradication

The poor need not always be with us. That goal can be achieved if we ensure that workers are paid enough to feed their families.

Joyce Appleby

June 14, 2010

Advocates for the poor are pushing against the same obstacles that 18th century opponents of slavery confronted: acceptance of an evil because of its familiarity. It's hard to be outraged by a condition that's been around for millenniums. Even the Great Emancipator despaired of ending poverty.

Quoting Scripture, Abraham Lincoln said that the poor will always be with us. That attitude once applied to slavery. Then, with remarkable suddenness, the idea of abolition aroused a cadre of reformers who changed public perceptions in less than a century.

So do we really have to accept that poverty is too firmly entrenched to ever be dislodged?

A worldwide movement is gaining momentum to disrupt complacency about poverty, and one of its centers is right here in Los Angeles. For nearly two decades, a robust social movement has been devising creative solutions that meld progressive ideals with a pro-business approach to ensure that people with jobs can actually provide for their families.

Its first victory came when it guided through the L.A. City Council a living-wage ordinance in 1997. Today more than 100 municipalities from San Diego to New York have passed ordinances mandating living wages for city employees and those employed by companies doing business with the city. Wages vary depending on prevailing local rates and which benefits are included.

Like slavery, the issue the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy addresses is an old one. Two hundred years ago, the British radical William Cobbett denounced the cruelty of jobs that kept sober and industrious workers fully employed but did not pay them enough to feed their families.

Arguments against raising pay through legislation come up every time Congress tries to raise the minimum wage. At $7.25 today — even after the increase passed by Congress in 2007 — the purchasing power of the minimum wage is 17% lower than it was in 1968. Raising wages is clearly an uphill battle.

Negotiations to transform the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx into a shopping mall foundered recently when the developer refused to accept a provision that all tenants in the proposed mall pay their prospective employees a living wage of $10 an hour plus benefits. New York City's Bar Assn. urged the City Council to stop linking community benefits packages with zoning approvals for new developments. The bar report also asked Mayor Michael Bloomberg to rethink his support of the concept.

Opponents of living-wage ordinances and benefit packages have real concerns. In our highly competitive world economy, individual companies or nations are only going to get pounded if they let their labor costs get out of whack with their competitors'.

But paying a living wage can benefit businesses too. A study of L.A.'s 1997 living-wage law, for instance, funded by the Ford Foundation and undertaken by LAANE in conjunction with the University of California, discovered that the ordinance had increased pay for an estimated 10,000 jobs. Employment reductions amounted to 1%, or an estimated loss of 112 jobs. Most firms gained from reduced employee turnover, which can be costly and disruptive.

Findings from such follow-up studies have gone a long way toward mitigating worries about the downside of raising wages. Yet fear of pressure on wages with our present high unemployment has led reformers to stress the urgency of coming out of the recession with a stronger workforce.

More recently, a coalition of groups led by the Strategic Actions for a Just Economy and LAANE secured a groundbreaking community benefits agreement involving L.A. Live, one of the city's largest development projects in the last 20 years. The agreement guarantees living-wage jobs for the majority of the permanent employees in the project's two hotels, numerous restaurants and half a dozen theaters and clubs. It also secured affordable housing for local residents and a fund for neighborhood parks from this massive complex.

Taking a pro-development stance has aligned living-wage advocates with the most powerful anti-poverty force in the world today: capitalism. Market growth in Korea, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, Indonesia and India has lifted 300 million people out of poverty during the last 30 years. And though many of the world's most impoverished people still have no shot — yet — at any employment, much less something that pays a genuine living wage, we've seen remarkable progress.

There's even light at the end of the tunnel of capital flight to impoverished areas. The pools of cheap labor that have depressed wages for the last three decades are beginning to dwindle. Chinese workers are now gaining bargaining power, achieving substantial wage increases from major employers like Honda and Foxconn, and recently, the Beijing municipal government raised the minimum wage 20%. While some producers have moved factories to Vietnam and Bangladesh, it's only a matter of time before those places too start to understand the importance of living wages. Economic development raises expectations among workers.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, whose Grameen Bank began micro-lending, insists that one of the underpinnings of poverty is the widespread conviction that it is an ineradicable evil, like dying. "I firmly believe," he says, "that we can create a poverty-free world if we collectively believe in it." In a poverty-free world, Yunus has remarked wryly, "the only place that you would be able to see poverty is in a poverty museum."

When that happens, L.A.'s living-wage advocates can take some of the credit for convincing the public that the poor need not always be with us.

Joyce Appleby is professor of history emerita at UCLA and a member of the LAANE Resource Board. Her latest book is "The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism, 2010."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-appleby-20100614,0,2495195,print.story

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Preventive detention, with caveats

Holding detainees without trial is repugnant to American due process and should be reserved for extreme cases.

June 15, 2010

Even as it plans civilian trials for some detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the Obama administration has reserved the right to hold others without trial under the Authorization for Use of Military Force approved by Congress after 9/11. As President Obama put it: "I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people."

Imprisonment without trial violates the most fundamental principles of American due process and can be countenanced only under our traditionally accepted practice of holding enemy combatants as prisoners of war until a cessation of hostilities. Such cases should be exceedingly rare and subject to stringent outside review. The recommendations of an interagency task force convened by Obama that were recently made public fail to meet that standard.

The task force recommends that the administration detain 48 prisoners without trial. And although those inmates have the right to challenge their confinement in federal court, judges lack guidance about whether and on what grounds they should order any prisoner's release.

The task force's report confirms the popular assumption that some suspects can't be put on trial even if they have committed terrorist acts, because evidence was gathered on a battlefield and "was neither garnered nor preserved with an eye toward prosecuting them." Others, while active in Al Qaeda, couldn't be tied to specific plots. The report says that the principal obstacles to prosecution are not tainted evidence (presumably obtained by torture) or a desire to protect sources.

The report cites four grounds for holding a detainee without trial: a significant organizational role in Al Qaeda, the Taliban or "associated forces"; advanced training or combat experience with forces targeted by the Authorization for Use of Military Force; an expression by the prisoner of an intention to "reengage in extremist activity upon release"; and a history of association with extremist activity or "strong ties (either directly or through family members) to extremist organizations."

Of these criteria, only the first and second strike us as even vaguely justified by the fact that Congress has approved the equivalent of a declaration of war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. None of them, without further explanation, distinguishes between authentic preventive detention and imprisonment without trial for criminal punishment or political expediency. As the history of Guantanamo demonstrates, there is the possibility of error, exaggeration or mistaken identity. What's more, in a conflict that, unlike past wars, is open-ended, we're concerned that people could end up being held for years, theoretically even for life, under this plan. The task force notes that there will be periodic reviews by the executive branch, but we believe that there must be oversight of detention decisions by an independent body. And the burden should rest on the government to demonstrate that there is a high risk of imminent harm to Americans that the detention is meant to prevent.

The report notes that judicial review is already assured by a 2008 Supreme Court decision holding that Guantanamo inmates have a constitutional right to challenge their confinement by seeking writs of habeas corpus. But the justices didn't provide detailed guidance to lower courts about how to evaluate such claims. As a result, according to a Brookings Institution report , judges "disagree about what the government needs to prove to a court to sign off on a detention, about what evidence it may employ in doing so."

One remedy to that would be legislation providing guidance to the courts — including, perhaps, a new, specialized tribunal that, to the extent possible, would function in public while allowing judges to consider classified information when necessary. Alternatively, the Supreme Court could agree to review a case that would allow it to provide detailed instructions to lower courts about what level of threat justifies detention without trial and what showing the government must make. Either way, this and future administrations must be put on notice that they will be able to detain indefinitely only the "worst of the worst," and only if it's absolutely impossible to prosecute them for past acts. (Those standards should apply not only to inmates now held at Guantanamo but also to detainees captured away from a battlefield in the future.)

Obama's decision to hold some prisoners without trial creates a dilemma for those who oppose preventive detention: Allowing the status quo to continue is unsatisfactory, but action by Congress or the high court to provide judicial review would institutionalize a practice abhorrent to fundamental American principles. We uneasily would choose the second course, but only if the courts subject the executive branch's decisions to searching and sustained scrutiny.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-detainees-20100615,0,4047357,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Despite Killing, Mexican Backs Drug Policy

MEXICO CITY — Faced with a surge in drug-related killings in recent days, President Felipe Calderón on Monday offered a spirited defense of his government's antidrug offensive.

On Thursday night and Friday morning, attacks between rival drug trafficking organizations left 85 people dead in states across Mexico , according to newspaper tallies, making it the bloodiest 24-hour period in Mr. Calderón's three-year-old presidency.

Mr. Calderón responded with his most extensive defense of his administration's drug war, a 5,000-word missive published on the presidential Web site and in local newspapers that shifted some blame for violence to previous administrations and to the United States and insisted that backing down was not an option.

“If we remain with our arms crossed, we will remain in the hands of organized crime, we will always live in fear, our children will not have a future, violence will increase and we'll lose our freedom,” Mr. Calderón wrote.

On Monday, as television and radio commentators analyzed the president's statement, authorities announced another bad day, with 10 federal police officers killed and more than a dozen others wounded in a clash with traffickers in Zitácuaro, a town in the central state of Michoacán. The gunmen, some of whom died as well, used buses to close off major highways and obstruct reinforcements by the authorities, an increasingly common tactic employed by Mexico's drug cartels.

In another episode on Monday, 28 inmates were killed and 3 guards were wounded in an uprising led by detained traffickers in a prison in Mazatlán, in the Pacific state of Sinaloa, authorities said.

The president, elected in 2006 to a six-year term, also condemned the huge demand for drugs and the easy availability of guns in the United States.

“It is as though we have a neighbor next door who is the biggest addict in the world, with the added fact that everyone wants to sell drugs through our house,” Mr. Calderón said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/world/americas/15mexico.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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From Google News

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American hunting Osama bin Laden with a gun and sword detained in northern Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — An American armed with a pistol and a 40-inch sword was detained in northern Pakistan and told investigators he was on a solo mission to kill Osama bin Laden, a police officer said Tuesday.

The man was identified as 52-year-old Californian construction worker Gary Brooks Faulkner, said officer Mumtaz Ahmad Khan.

He was picked up in a forest in the Chitral region late on Sunday, he said.

"We initially laughed when he told us that he wanted to kill Osama bin Laden," said Khan. But he said when officers seized the pistol, the sword and night-vision equipment, "our suspicion grew."

He was questioned Tuesday by intelligence officials in Peshawar, the main northwestern city.

Faulkner told police he visited Pakistan seven times, and this was his third trip to Chitral.

Police alleged the American intended to travel to the eastern Afghan region of Nuristan, just across the border from Chitral.

The area is among several rumored hiding places for the al-Qaida leader, who has evaded a massive U.S. effort to capture him since 2001. Bin Laden is accused of being behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, as well other terrorist acts.

Khan said Faulkner was also carrying a book containing Christian verses and teachings.

When asked why he thought he had a chance of tracing bin Laden, Faulkner replied, "God is with me, and I am confident I will be successful in killing him," said Khan.

Faulkner arrived in the Chitrali town of Bumburate on June 3 and stayed in a hotel there.

He was assigned a police guard, as is quite common for foreigners visiting remote parts of Pakistan. When he checked out without informing police, officers began hunting for him, said Khan.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire said the mission had received notification from Pakistani officials that an American citizen had been arrested. He said embassy officials were trying to meet the man and confirm his identity.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/15/american-hunting-osama-bin-laden-gun-detained-northern-pakistan/print

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Arizona bill would deny citizenship to children of illegal immigrants

(CNN) -- A proposed Arizona law would deny birth certificates to children born in the United States to illegal immigrant parents.

The bill comes on the heels of Arizona passing the nation's toughest immigration law.

John Kavanagh, a Republican state representative from Arizona who supports the proposed law aimed at so-called "anchor babies," said that the concept does not conflict with the U.S. Constitution.

"If you go back to the original intent of the drafters ... it was never intended to bestow citizenship upon (illegal) aliens," said Kavanagh, who also supported Senate Bill 1070 -- the law that gave Arizona authorities expanded immigration enforcement powers.

Under federal law, children born in the United States are automatically granted citizenship, regardless of their parents' residency status.

Kyrsten Sinema, a Democratic state representative, strongly opposes the bill.

"Unlike (Senate Bill) 1070, it is clear this bill runs immediately afoul of the U.S. Constitution," she said.

"While I understand that folks in Arizona and across the country support S.B. 1070, they do so because we have seen no action from the federal government," said Sinema. "Unfortunately, the so-called 'anchor baby' bill does nothing to solve the real problems we are facing in Arizona."

Arizona Republicans are expected to introduce the legislation this fall.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/15/arizona.immigration.children/?hpt=C1

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No automatic deportation of immigrants for minor drug offenses, justices rule

By Robert Barnes

Washington Post

June 15, 2010; A05

Immigrants convicted of minor drug offenses should not face automatic deportation, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday, a decision that could allow thousands of legal immigrants the chance to argue for leniency from immigration judges.

The court overruled the legal interpretations of the federal government and a lower appeals court in saying that Jose Angel Carachuri-Rosendo should have had a chance to make his case for staying in the country.

Carachuri-Rosendo, a legal resident who had lived in the United States since he was 5, was deported to his native Mexico after being convicted of possessing a single tablet of Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, and serving a 10-day sentence. He had been convicted of possessing a small amount of marijuana a year earlier and received a 20-day sentence.

In an opinion by Justice John Paul Stevens, the court said that was not what Congress had in mind when it mandated automatic deportation for any immigrant convicted of an aggravated felony. The government had said that Carachuri-Rosendo's second conviction put him in that category, even though local prosecutors did not increase the second offense to a drug-trafficking charge.

"We do not usually think of a 10-day sentence for the unauthorized possession of a trivial amount of a prescription drug as an 'aggravated felony,' " Stevens wrote. Immigrants who break the law should receive the chance to plead their case before an immigration judge rather than face automatic deportation, he said.

Manuel Vargas, senior counsel for the Immigrant Defense Project, said that would mean immigrants could ask a judge to consider factors such as their length of time in the United States, military service, and family and community ties. Illegal immigrants would still face virtually automatic deportation, he said.

Carachuri-Rosendo, who is in his early 30s, was deported even though his common-law wife, four children and other family members are U.S. citizens.

The case is Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder .

The court also dealt second chances in another case.

It said a death-row inmate from Florida deserves another opportunity to have federal courts review his sentence because his lawyer did not meet a filing deadline.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta had ruled that even if Albert Holland's attorney Bradley M. Collins was "grossly negligent" in missing the deadline, the law didn't afford Holland, who was convicted of killing a police officer, another chance. Federal law requires that the lawyer must have exhibited "bad faith, dishonesty, divided loyalty, mental impairment or so forth" to file a petition after the deadline.

"In our view, this standard is too rigid," Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote in the court's 7-2 opinion .

Breyer noted numerous examples of Holland's efforts to get the lawyer to file by the deadline and pointed out that in some cases, Holland's legal interpretations were right and Collins's were wrong. "The case before us does not involve, and we are not considering, a 'garden-variety claim' of attorney negligence," Breyer wrote.

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. Scalia said that although the court's "impulse to intervene when a litigant's lawyer had made mistakes is understandable," precedent demands a finding that the petitioner is "out of luck."

The case is Holland v. Florida .

The court also accepted California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger 's challenge of a special federal judicial panel's decision that the state must reduce its prison population by 46,000 inmates over the next two years. The court will hear the case in the term that begins in the fall, and the order is on hold until the justices decide the issue. The case is Schwarzenegger v. Plata.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/14/AR2010061405031_pf.html

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National Mayors Group Condemns 'Un-American' Arizona Immigration Law

June 14, 2010

FOXNews.com

America's mayors on Monday went on record in opposition to Arizona's immigration law , voting for a pair of resolutions that would amount to one of the broadest condemnations to date of the policy. 

The resolutions approved by voice vote from Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon were among dozens considered at the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Oklahoma City. 

Villaraigosa's resolution condemns the Arizona law as "unconstitutional and un-American" and calls for its immediate repeal. The other puts the Conference of Mayors in support of lawsuits challenging the policy and in opposition to the enactment of any laws "similar" to Arizona's. Both measures call on Washington to pass comprehensive immigration reform. 

Gordon told FoxNews.com after the vote that it was important to get the organization on record so that the conference as a whole can advocate for these positions. He said the conference would push for immigration reform in Washington but also actively oppose any effort to pass a "copycat" Arizona law in other states. 

"That's not only a powerful message, but it's a powerful lobbying group now," Gordon said. He said big-city mayors like Michael Bloomberg in New York and Richard M. Daley in Chicago were supportive of his resolution. 

Elena Temple, spokeswoman for the Conference of Mayors, said the statements would become the "official policy" of the organization. 

Close to 200 mayors were in attendance to vote on the measures brought by Villaraigosa and Gordon, two of the Arizona law's toughest critics. Temple said only a handful of mayors spoke out against the nonbinding measures.

The law has drawn a sharply divided response from jurisdictions across the country. In Arizona alone, several cities have signed onto a federal lawsuit -- which Gov. Jan Brewer has sought to dismiss -- challenging the policy. Los Angeles and a number of other cities have also imposed economic "boycotts" on Arizona to register their disapproval of the law, though the Conference of Mayors resolutions provide a more unified statement. 

But lawmakers in other states have drawn inspiration from the law, pursuing legislation that mirrors the controversial policy for their constituents. 

Texas Republicans at their state convention over the weekend made pushing for a law like Arizona's part of their official party agenda. 

The Arizona law would make illegal immigration a state crime. It requires local law enforcement to try to determine the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant provided they don't stop and question them for that reason alone. 

The law is scheduled to take effect July 29.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/14/national-mayors-group-condemns-american-arizona-immigration-law/?test=latestnews

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From the White House

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Keeping the Plan You Like

Throughout the health reform debate, the President has been clear that we should build on the insurance system we have, keeping the parts that work and gradually fixing the parts that don't.

The Affordable Care Act is designed to let Americans keep their health insurance if they like it while adding important consumer benefits to give businesses, families and individuals higher quality care at lower prices and more control over their own care.

Later today, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and I will announce the latest step we're taking to implement the Affordable Care Act with the announcement of a new regulation that is a key part of this approach. 

The new regulation will expand new consumer protections to all Americans with health insurance, moving us toward the competitive, patient-centered market of the future.  This rule reflects the President's policy that Americans should be able to keep their health plan and doctor if they want.

Here's how the new rule will work:

• Starting with health plan or policy years beginning on or after September 23, Americans with private health insurance plans will get some new consumer protections.  For example, insurance companies will be prohibited from putting lifetime limits on your coverage.  And they'll no longer be able to cancel your insurance when you get sick just by finding an error in your paperwork.
  
  
• Health coverage that was in effect when the Affordable Care Act was enacted will be exempt from some provisions in the Act if they remain “grandfathered” under a provision in the law.  Under the rule issued today, employers or issuers offering such coverage will have the flexibility of making reasonable changes without losing their “grandfathered” status.  For example, employers will be able to make some changes to the benefits their plans offer, raise premiums or change employee cost-sharing to keep pace with health costs within some limits, and continue to enroll new employees and their families.
  
  
• However, if health plans significantly raise co-payments or deductibles, or if they significantly reduce benefits – for example, if they stop covering treatment for a disease like HIV/AIDS or cystic fibrosis – they'll lose their grandfathered status and their customers will get the same full set of consumer protections as new plans.

The bottom line is that under the Affordable Care Act, if you like your doctor and plan, you can keep them.  But if you aren't satisfied with your insurance options today, the Affordable Care Act provides for better, more affordable health care choices through new consumer protections.  And beginning in 2014, it creates health insurance exchanges that will offer individuals and small businesses better, more affordable choices.

For more information about this rule, read the fact sheet  and the Q&A . 

To learn more about the Affordable Care Act, visit www.healthreform.gov .

Kathleen Sebelius is Secretary of Health and Human Services

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/14/keeping-plan-you

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FAA Uses Recovery Act Tools to Enhance Safety, Improve Facilities at U.S. Airports

Cross posted from the Department of Transportation blog .

"Without the Recovery Act, we would not be here."

Those words were spoken by California Senator Barbara Boxer earlier this month as we broke ground for a new control tower at Palm Springs International Airport. The tower, which will improve safety considerably for the 71,000 takeoffs and landings each year, is one more good airport project made possible by funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The new tower will replace a 60-foot tower built in 1967 with a 150-foot tower. Solar panels will be installed atop the structure to provide power. With an unobstructed view of the entire airport, five controllers will be able to provide safe separation for aircraft and vehicle traffic on the tarmac and in airspace within a 5-mile radius and up to 3,000 feet.

Senator Boxer said that, thanks to the Obama Administration and Congress, "We did something very important here for our community, for safety, and for jobs."

Now, the proliferation of orange cones on our nation's highways this summer are visible signs of the Recovery Act working for America . But people might not be aware of the tremendous work the Federal Aviation Administration has done through the Recovery Act to improve our nation's airports.

From March 23, 2009, the date FAA awarded its first ARRA grant , through last week, FAA has awarded 100% of its $1.1 billion in airport improvement funds. Construction is underway on all 362 airport improvement projects , and 239 of those projects are already substantially complete.

That means improved safety in airports across America. It also means over 3,000 jobs created or retained because of FAA-issued Recovery Act grants.

As California Representative George Miller noted recently, "Before this Congress and President Obama took decisive action, our nation was losing more than 750,000 jobs a month. It is clear that without the Recovery Act, our nation would be still dealing with an economic catastrophe."

The Recovery Act has enabled the FAA to improve runways, taxiways , aprons, terminals, aircraft rescue and firefighting buildings, airport equipment, noise mitigation, runway safety areas, and security.
These projects have not only meant jobs for thousands; they have also improved service and safety at US airports for everyone.

But there's more in the Recovery Act for airports than just grants. A 2-year Alternative Minimum Tax exemption for airport bonds made these bonds more attractive to investors and reduced the interest rate paid by airports. The reduced financing costs for large airport capital improvement projects means airport sponsors now have more capital to invest in good infrastructure projects.

The Recovery Act also includes provisions for Build America Bonds. These bonds provide funding for state and local governments to complete capital projects at lower borrowing costs through a federal subsidy equal to 35% of interest paid. Again, airports are using reduced interest payments on bonds to extend the improvement power of their capital investments.

Many airports are issuing taxable Build America Bonds instead of traditional municipal tax-free bonds to reduce their debt payments. Between March 2009 and June 2010, 43 airport sponsors issued approximately $14 billion in bonds, and 75% of those bonds benefit from Recovery Act provisions.

For example, Charlotte, North Carolina issued a $130 million bond in January 2010 for improvements at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Because of the ARRA Alternative Minimum Tax exemption, the bond avoided the tax penalty usually applied to such bonds. Charlotte is using the proceeds to finance Phase II construction of its third parallel runway and associated taxiway bridges.

And, across the country from Charlotte, Los Angeles issued four bonds for Los Angeles International Airport in November 2009. Three of these bonds use the tax exemption in the Recovery Act to raise $310 million in Airport Revenue Bonds, and one of the four bonds is a $307 million Build America Bond. The proceeds from these bonds will fund terminal, airfield, apron, and parking projects.

The terminal improvements include an in-line baggage screening system, and the airfield projects include new cross-field taxiways and an important new Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting Station.
You know, when Senator Boxer spoke about the Recovery Act, she was talking about the new Palm Springs control tower. But her words ring true for FAA projects across the country.As we look at the airport projects completed over the last 16 months and those that are still underway, I think it's safe to say, "Without the Recovery Act, we wouldn't be here."

And, thanks to the Obama Administration, Congress, and the FAA's good stewardship, "here" means increased safety, improved facilities, and good construction jobs at America's airports.

Ray LaHood is Secretary of Transportation.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/14/faa-uses-recovery-act-tools-enhance-safety-improve-facilities-us-airports

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