Tag Archives: Tom Delay

Saipan abuses impervious to outrage?

Posted on by
Reply

A 2006 article in MS Magazine exposed labor abuse in the US territories of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Have conditions changed since protectors Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff were dislodged? Consider that US Senator Daniel Kahikina delivered this condemnation of human exploitation in the Saipan in 1998.

The Commonwealth shares our American flag, but it does not share the American system of immigration.

There is something fundamentally wrong with a CNMI immigration system that issues permits to recruiters, who in turn promise well-paying American jobs to foreigners in exchange for a $6,000 recruitment fee. When the workers arrive in Saipan, they find their recruiter has vanished and there are no jobs in sight. Hundreds of these destitute workers roam the streets of Saipan with little or no chance of employment and no hope of returning to their homeland.

The State Department has confirmed that the government of China is an active participant in the CNMI immigration system. There is something fundamentally wrong with an immigration system that allows the government of China to prohibit Chinese workers from exercising political or religious freedom while employed in United States.

Something is fundamentally wrong with a CNMI immigration system that issues entry permits for 12- and 13-year-old girls from the Philippines and other Asian nations, and allows their employers to use them for live sex shows and prostitution.

Finally, something is fundamentally wrong when a Chinese construction worker asks if he can sell one of his kidneys for enough money to return to China and escape the deplorable working conditions in the Commonwealth and the immigration system that brought him there.

There are voices in the CNMI telling us that the cases of worker abuse we keep hearing about are isolated examples, that the system is improving, and that worker abuse is a thing of the past. These are the same voices that reap the economic benefits of a system of indentured labor that enslaves thousands of foreign workers — a system described in a bi-partisan study as “an unsustainable economic, social and political system that is antithetical to most American values.”

There is overwhelming evidence that abuse in the CNMI occurs on a grand scale and the problems are far from isolated.

Activists not arrested for trying to get into the State Democratic Convention

Posted on by
Reply

The mugshot photographer forbid me making a toothy smileTO CORRECT POLICE BLOTTER DISINFO
(A friend asked me casually “how far did you get?” I was disappointed to admit that Peter and I were not arrested trying to get into the convention.)
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
The police team coordinating security at the Colorado Democratic State Convention used confusion and unreasonable exertion of authority to curtail public participation. Officers broke protest signs over their knees and used arrest, detention and relocation to keep dissenting voices from the public eye until the opportunity to demonstrate had passed.

The two protesters arrested on May 17 had posed no security threat. Neither were their voices disruptive of the convention goers. Their banner which read “Democrats please stop funding the war” elicited support from the attendees. Many delegates began booing the police actions as the two men were being arrested for questioning police directives which seemed to contradict previously negotiated access.

As the convention check-in began at 7AM, the two men entered the “Free Speech Zone,” walked to the edge of the police tape and unfurled their banner. The two were immediately informed by police officers that where they were standing was reserved for “boosters” only and that they must move back a considerable distance. A supervisor was called to the scene who simply commanded the activists to move. After declining to explain himself, he grabbed one activist by the wrist while SWAT officers subdued the other, grabbing his banner and peace flag and breaking the bamboo poles before throwing them to the ground.

Eric Verlo and Peter Sprunger-Froese were handcuffed and driven to an El Paso County sheriff’s station across the street, charged with trespassing, photographed, fingerprinted, and after a delay, driven 15 miles to a distant city police substation before being released in the parking lot and given back their phone. By the time the two were able to get a ride back to the convention grounds, it was after 10AM and all the delegates had entered the convention.

ABOUT THE MUGSHOT:
Perhaps you knew this already but you are forbidden to smile by the police photographer. In application this just means you can’t show your teeth. I couldn’t help but think of Tom Delay’s beaming mugshot head-shot, but I pursed my lips because I did not intend to let the CSPD portray me as a forlorn felon. When I learned that the mugshot had been published online by Denver’s 9NEWS, I asked a friend about the attitude I’d projected. in his words: “demented.”)

Pelosi sinks all hope of any change with Reyes appointment

Posted on by
2

It’s been almost a month since the election, and the liberal Democrats that celebrated what they thought was some sort of grand victory are just left looking foolish. What did they expect? The Democratic Party is a war party, it is a party of corporate corruption, it is a party that seeks to bury all hope of change being possible. So why on earth would you vote for them? Let’s take a peek at Nancy for a second. Nancy, it’s such a gentle name, isn’t it? Reminds me of the witch that Ronald was married to. But this Nancy is Nancy Pelosi, so she must be much sweeter. Right? Wrong.

So what is it about Nancy Pelosi that has me so disgusted? It’s her latest action, pointing the absolutely hideous Silvestre Reyes to the House Intelligence Committee. Talk about destroying all hope here. What next, appointing Janet Reno and Madelyn Albright to posts? Nothing has changed from this last election, that’s for damn sure!

Reyes is the guy that Clinton and Mr Environmental, Al Gore, went to to militarize the US-Mexican Border. We wouldn’t be pushing towards rebuilding the Berlin Wall on our southern border without this pig having done his dirty work. And I mean he really looks what I just called him, a pig. After all, he is a pig’s pig. What do you think La Migra is made of anyway? They are cops, aren’t they? And some of the sorriest since they run after people all day and night, people just trying to find work to support themselves and family.

So Tom DeLay move over. Sorry Newt. Silvestre has you beat on the pig farm by miles. He is cochino marrano in spades. And he’s a Democrat. Yes, just about like Joe Lieberman is. Not much difference between Republican, and Republican lite. Right, Salazar?

Federal investigations, American innocence

Posted on by
Reply

U.S. Attorney General Albert Gonzales has just called for another Justice Department investigation. This time they want to know what government official leaked the story that President Bush has been conducting illegal surveillance upon U.S. citizens without the proper warrants.
 
Does this recall the investigation prompted by the revelation that our CIA has been using secret prisons in Europe to detain people illegally? They’re against European law and against American law. But Gonzales wanted to know the same thing: who told.
 
Soviet era prisonKiejkuty- a Soviet era prison in Poland, revealed to be one of the “black sites,” the secret network of CIA prisons for keeping ghost detainees from domestic scrutiny.

Remember the indignant reaction in 2004 to the suggestion that America was operating “gulags?”

Illegal activity on the part of the president. Illegal activity on the part of the CIA. Where is the investigation into the members of this government who failed to leak these stories?

Not only are there laws which protect whistleblowers, there are laws which punish people who keep mum about wrong-doings which they’ve witnessed. Is Alberto Gonzales interested in any of those laws?

Perhaps Gonzales authored another position paper advising Bush administration officials that they needn’t worry themselves with notions of personal responsibility in this the shiny age of Neocon omnipotence.

Need for warrants
President Bush claims that he ordered this domestic spying to protect our nation against terrorists. Since the warrants he would have needed are practically rubber stamped anyway, why would he need to act without having obtained them, in accordance to the law?

A leader elected in a democracy is not supposed to be able to declare all by himself who is an enemy of the state, just as a police commissioner is not supposed to be able to pick on whatever neighboor’s household he wishes. That’s what judicial review is for. “Got a warrant?” We all know our right. It’s in the Constitution. We put it there.

Freedom of Information Act requests have shown that Bush’s surveillance extends beyond looking for Taliban suicidal hijacker suspects. Perhaps Bush feared that the judicial oversight which comes with having to apply for a warrant might preclude those other categories. That’s what the oversight is for, to prevent a dictator from usurping a democracy.

Because someone is a particular religion is not a probable cause which would justify spying on them. No, George, because someone is protesting for peace, this is not a cause to spy on them.

A judicial review board trying to uphold the constitution will not issue a warrant because someone is blowing the whistle on a major energy company, or because they are making a competitive bid against Halliburton, or trying to organize a union against Wal-mart, or trying to expose the Bush family financial ties, or challenging Tom Delay’s redistricting. Those are not illegal activities and thus do not justify law-enforcement attention.

And what are you trying to learn from eavesdropping? What they are up to? What they are up to is generally known, that’s how you became worried about them in the first place.

Instead, are you looking for a vice, or a family secret, or some vulnerability which you can exploit, either through blackmail, coercion, brute force, or by sudden secret unconstitutional detention, to stop their activities which you say are a threat to your America?