Cesar Chavez and his United Farm Workers were adamantly against illegal immigration.

César Chávez – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....h%C3%A1vez

GM makes speedy exit from bankruptcy; CEO says automaker will make money, repay gov’t loans

By Tom Krisher and Ken Thomas

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors completed an unusually quick exit from bankruptcy protection on Friday with ambitions of making money and building cars people are eager to buy. Once the world’s largest and most powerful automaker, new GM is now leaner, cleansed of massive debt and burdensome contracts that would have sunk it without federal loans.

But GM, whose 40 days under court supervision was far shorter than anyone predicted, faces the worst auto sales slump in a quarter-century.

At a news conference, CEO Fritz Henderson said the revamped automaker will be faster and more responsive to customers than the old one. It will generate cash and repay billions in government loans ahead of a 2015 deadline.

The new company will build more cars and trucks that consumers want and launch them faster than in the past, the CEO said. GM also announced a partnership with eBay Inc. to test auctioning vehicles online.

“We recognize that we’ve been given a rare second chance at GM, and we are very grateful for that. And we appreciate the fact that we now have the tools to get the job done,” he said.

Known for its sluggish decision-making process and bloated management ranks, GM will create a single, eight-member executive committee to speed up day-to-day decision-making, replacing two senior leadership forums.

Henderson, 50, said General Motors Corp. will streamline its bureaucratic management structure, cutting U.S. salaried employment by 20 percent, or 6,150 positions, by the end of 2009. The cuts include 450 executive jobs.

Henderson, who was promoted to chief executive in March, will run the global company and oversee its North American operations. GM’s former chief operating officer, Henderson was chosen when President Barack Obama said former CEO Rick Wagoner’s restructuring plans didn’t go far enough.

Top executives at the new company will focus on business results, new vehicles, brands and consumers.

Bob Lutz, a legendary industry executive, was “unretiring” to become a vice chairman responsible for creative elements of products, marketing and customer relationships, Henderson said. Lutz, 77, had previously planned to retire at the end of the year after more than four decades in the auto business.

Nick Reilly, who has served as GM’s Asia-Pacific president, will become executive vice president of GM’s international operations based in Shanghai, China.

The new company will focus on customers, cars and culture.

“If we don’t get this right, nothing else is going to work,” Henderson said at GM’s Downtown Detroit headquarters. “Business as usual is over at General Motors.”

The automaker is launching a “Tell Fritz” Web site to allow owners and the public to share their concerns with senior management, and Henderson plans to go out on the road every month.

He said >b?GM will partner with eBay in California to allow consumers to bid on vehicles just as they would in a typical eBay auction. They could also choose a “Buy it Now” option in an experiment to make car shopping easier. Dealers would still distribute the cars.

“As a culture, General Motors needs to be prepared to experiment and adjust,” he said. …

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s.....BANKRUPTCY

Aside from the eBay route putting a knife through the heart of already bleeding GM dealers, there’s lots of talk here of making profitable vehicles that consumers want to buy.

Currently that would mean vehicles such as the new Chevrolet Camaro and the Silverado pickup truck.

But that would slam head-on into the Chosen One’s new CAFE rules and cap and trade.

After all, consumers have yet to express a desire to buy vehicles like the Volt, and the Feds’ own analysis shows GM is likely to be able to make a profit off His favorite vehicle.

But all those heavy Suburbans federal agencies like that get 8 MPG? People and the Feds love them.

So in summary, GM will make the cars their owners allow them to make – consumers will take a back seat, as always.

Just in case you’ve forgotten who will be calling the shots:

Besides the U.S. government’s 61 percent controlling interest, the United Auto Workers union gets a 17.5 percent stake of the company through its retiree health care trust, and the Canadian government will control 11.7 percent. The remaining shares went to bondholders of the old company.

That means private investors – you know, the ones who got hosed in bankruptcy court – own a whole 9.8% of Government Motors, with Governments owning 72.7% and Unions 17.5%.

Like that will ever be weaned from the Government teat?

This lie alone shows how hard AP is spinning things:

Concessions made by the United Auto Workers union just before the company entered bankruptcy protection have brought GM’s labor costs down to where they are fully competitive with Toyota Motor Corp., Henderson said.

But what about their policies?

Somehow I suspect if a worker at GM is asked to perform a task that might infringe on another Union member’s, GM is going to find out the difference between “competitive labor costs” and the other legacy costs the UAW imposes upon them.

God this story alone should be the reason to null and void the Generational Theft Act, the TARPs and to say not No, but Hell No to C(r)ap and Trade(off) and of course the Kennedy Free (wink, wink) Healthcare for All, Illegals First bill.

This is the second such story I’ve read in the past couple of weeks about raids – that involved ‘being afraid of the weapons the person might or might not have.’

Wow – I’d get myself a good lawyer and not for the felony issue (as if the BLM gives two hoots about pots) – but for the lawsuit lottery – as the Sheriff said – I could have carried summons out there – one would think middle of the night raids should be restricted to drug dealers, convicted criminals on the lamb and of course small Cuban boys being hidden in closets.

Wow – talk about out-of-control government. Scary.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Nonprofit must pay property tax, judge rules

By Scott Williams

City of Pewaukee — In a case that could affect other nonprofit groups, a judge has ruled that ProHealth Care must pay property taxes for desks, office equipment and other furnishings inside its corporate headquarters.

Culminating a three-year court fight in Waukesha County, the ruling means that the health care provider faces a tax bill of more than $12,000 a year despite its status as a tax-exempt nonprofit corporation.

Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael O. Bohren determined that ProHealth Care could be taxed on its headquarters because the corporation supports many for-profit ventures and because it does not pass a litmus test as a “benevolent” organization.

The leader of a statewide coalition of 170 nonprofit groups said the case appears to represent the latest example of government tax collectors turning to nonprofit entities to replenish depleted tax coffers.

“That’s a topic that’s rising,” said Deborah Blanks, president of the Wisconsin Nonprofits Association. “That’s something that a lot of nonprofits are going to have to look at.”

Attorney Stan Riffle, who represented the City of Pewaukee in the case, said he suspects ProHealth Care hoped to establish a precedent in Pewaukee that could be used later to seek property tax exemptions in other communities where the company has property.

Instead, Riffle said, the ruling likely will embolden other municipal tax assessors faced with nonprofit property owners trying to avoid paying taxes.

“Obviously assessors talk to one another,” he said. “The word of this decision will get around.”

ProHealth Care spokeswoman Sandra Peterson said the company would not appeal the ruling.

The company owns Waukesha Memorial Hospital and Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital, neither of which pays property taxes or is directly affected by the court case.

Peterson said she disagreed that the case had any implications beyond ProHealth Care’s own tax obligation on its headquarters, which is at N17-W24100 Riverwood Drive in Pewaukee.

Asked why the company litigated the issue for three years, Peterson said, “There are times when you have to take a stand.”

ProHealth Care was established in 1998 through the merger of the Waukesha and Oconomowoc hospitals. The corporation moved its headquarters to the Pewaukee site in 2002.

At issue was the City of Pewaukee’s refusal to grant ProHealth Care a property tax exemption on $1 million worth of interior office furnishings at the company’s headquarters. From 2004 to 2007, the tax bills ranged from $12,687 to $28,378, with a total of $68,000 paid over four years.

Taxes on the real estate itself were not an issue because ProHealth Care leases the Riverwood Drive property.

ProHealth Care filed suit against the city in February 2006, arguing that the exemption should be granted because the vast majority of administrative functions in the corporate headquarters support the operations of the company’s two tax-exempt hospitals.

Departments inside the location include accounting, purchasing, human resources, public relations, patient scheduling and information technology services.

In his July 1 ruling, Bohren found that the corporate offices support several for-profit ProHealth Care ventures as well, including the West Wood Health & Fitness Center in Pewaukee. He also ruled that qualifying as nonprofit was not sufficient to justify a property tax exemption.

“Though organizations do not have to be charities to qualify as benevolent, they must serve a public purpose in order to be relieved of their tax burden,” he wrote. …

http://www.jsonline.com/news/w.....15217.html

Ah, and providing health care services is not a public purpose.

Not when the Obama Administration will soon be doing that for all…

Bill to replace unpretty rocks could fall on taxpayers

Officials not sure of seawall redo cost

By Scott Williams

Village of Pewaukee — When is a rock not just a rock?

When the state Department of Natural Resources says it fails to meet the standards for a high-profile public location in Waukesha County.

Village officials have ordered a contractor to disassemble a new seawall on Pewaukee Lake because the ordinary quarry rocks lack the aesthetics and other qualities sought by the DNR.

And taxpayers here could get stuck paying the bill.

At issue is several tons of boulders that Savoy Marine Construction Inc. installed this spring along a 200-foot stretch of Pewaukee Lake shoreline battered by flooding.

The Village of Pewaukee paid $18,500 to fortify the shore, which is near a public beach in the village’s downtown area.

But when the DNR determined that the contractor should have used field stones rather than quarry rocks, the contractor returned to take down the nearly 400-ton seawall – one boulder at a time.

Field stones are generally rounder than jagged quarry rocks, and they often come in more natural-looking colors than the white limestone material blasted out of area quarries.

The village’s application for a DNR permit to stabilize the shoreline specifically said that field stones would be used.

Savoy Marine President Jack Straehler called the situation “a little odd,” especially because he has seen quarry rocks used elsewhere under similar circumstances.

Straehler, however, said he would not try to second-guess the DNR.

“We’re just trying to make everyone happy,” he said. “They like their round rocks, and so we’re going to give them their round rocks.”

Savoy Marine crews returned to Pewaukee Lake on Monday with three weeks to redo the shoreline.

Village Administrator Scott Gosse said he had no idea how much the make-up job would cost or whether Savoy Marine would send the village another bill.

Saying that the initial foul-up was caused by both the village and the contractor, Gosse said he was concerned immediately with correcting the problem – not figuring out who would foot the bill.

“I haven’t gotten to those details with the contractor yet,” he said. “It’s got to be done one way or another.”

In addition to looking different, field stone is generally more expensive than quarry rock.

Straehler said it would take more than 100 tons of field stones to bring the Pewaukee Lake shoreline up to DNR standards. Asked who would be paying the tab, he replied, “Good question.” …

http://www.jsonline.com/news/w.....16167.html

The answer, of course, is the local taxpayers.

The Village Administrator’s attitude:

Gosse said he was concerned immediately with correcting the problem – not figuring out who would foot the bill.

shows how the total disregard for taxpayers’ money starts at the lowest levels and works its way up.

Perhaps they can figure out a way to use Federal funds for this, as it’s obviously a “shovel ready” project…

URL: http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=380

Teachers, Students Enthusiastic About New Teaching Kit

Immigrants have become the target of choice for many hate groups, and anti-immigrant rhetoric in the mainstream media isn’t helping.
Thanks to the newest teaching kit from the SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance program, an estimated 2 million high school students saw a more accurate portrayal of America’s immigrant history in the 2008-09 school year.

Kits in hands of 16,000 teachers
More than 16,000 teachers have used “Viva La Causa,” a teaching kit about Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and the 1960s California farmworker strike and grape boycott. ….

Teachers wrote to thank SPLC, reporting that the film made their Latino students feel proud and opened the door to classroom discussion of Latino history. Many teachers said their students gained an understanding of the connections between the farmworker strike and other movements for social justice.

I’m confused again. Why is there an assumption that all illegal immigrants are Latino and all Latinos are immigrants?

Also, can’t I feel proud of being Latino without having to identify with leftist social agitation?

URL http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=375

SPLC Report Finds Low-Income Latinos in South Targeted for Abuse, Discrimination

Under Siege is based on a survey of 500 low-income Latinos — including legal residents, undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens — at five locations in the South. The locations were Nashville, Charlotte, New Orleans, rural southern Georgia, and several towns and cities in northern Alabama.

The survey findings, coupled with accounts from in-depth interviews, depict a region where Latinos are routinely cheated out of wages by employers and denied basic health and safety protections. They are racially profiled by overzealous law enforcement agents and victimized by criminals who know they are reluctant to report crime to these same authorities. Even legal residents and U.S. citizens of Latino descent said racial profiling, bigotry and other forms of discrimination are staples of their daily lives.

A number of immigrants in the survey described the South as a “war zone.”

“The assumption is that every Latino possibly is undocumented,” Angeles Ortega-Moore, an immigrant advocate in North Carolina, told SPLC researchers. “So it [discrimination] has spread over into the legal population.”

Somehow I doubt the South is any crueler to poor Latinos than other parts of the country. Having lived in NY, NJ, and California, I can attest to the fact that when you’re poor, Latino, or poor AND Latino, people give you a hard time, largely because there are buttheads everywhere. I don’t think it’s a Southern thing. And some of the “abuse” here seems to result from people trying to enforce immigration laws without clear mandates from the US government about how they can go about it.

The SPLC letter notes that since 1994 the military has discharged more than 12,500 servicemembers simply because of their homosexuality. “It seems quite anomalous that the Pentagon would consider homosexuals more of a threat to the good order of the military than neo-Nazis and other white supremacists who reject our Constitution’s most cherished principles,” said Mark Potok, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, which monitors extremist activity.

The letter also says that “the overwhelming majority of U.S. servicemembers reject extremism and are dedicated to serving and protecting the highest ideals of our country” and notes that there will never be a fail-safe system to weed out all extremists. “But we owe it to our courageous men and women in uniform, and the American public, to remain vigilant to ensure that the ranks are as free of extremists as possible,” Dees wrote.

Wow, that last paragraph really makes me feel like these folks at SLPC care about me as a Soldier. They called us “courageous.” Isn’t that sweet? [Bite me.]

URL: http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=384

SPLC Urges Congress to Investigate Extremism in the Military

“Evidence continues to mount that current Pentagon policies are inadequate to prevent racial extremists from joining and serving in the armed forces,” SPLC founder Morris Dees wrote. He added, “Because the presence of extremists in the armed forces is a serious threat to the safety of the American public, we believe Congressional action is warranted.”

The letter was sent to the chairmen of the House and Senate committees on Homeland Security and Armed Services. The SPLC has raised its concerns with Pentagon officials since publishing a report in 2006, but no apparent action has been taken.

In recent months, SPLC investigators found approximately 40 personal profiles that listed “military” as an occupation on the Internet forum New Saxon, which is operated by the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement. One individual, who claims to be serving in Afghanistan, lists as his favorite book The Turner Diaries, which was written by neo-Nazi leader William Pierce. The book served as a blueprint for the Oklahoma City bombing by Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh. Another individual said he was about to be deployed overseas and was looking forward to “killing all the bloody sand niggers.” Still another spoke of his hatred for undocumented immigrants.

Sounds to me like a few bored Internet hounds spent too much time surfing on a wacko website and started spinning wild fantasies out of nothing. Why don’t they come down to our military bases and see how we get along? Isn’t it sort of uncool to republish photos of people on their site, saying that all the people photographed are white supremacists?

And if membership in other organizations reflects badly on someone’s status as public servant, then why isn’t SPLC investigating Sotomayor’s memberships?

url: http://townhall.com/news/polit.....n_military

From a very soft-spoken Townhall:

Congress asked to investigate racism in military
By KIMBERLY HEFLING

One of the country’s main monitors of hate groups is asking Congress to investigate possible racial extremism in the military, after finding service members on a social networking Web site advertised as being for whites only.

Morris Dees, the founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, says researchers have identified 40 personal profiles of people who list the military as their occupation on the Web site New Saxon.

Mind you, this is the Southern Poverty Law Center, which apparently pays people to troll the Internet looking for signs of bigotry. What a useless bunch of parasites. (Oh wait! Is someone from SLPC monitoring me? Will I be under investigation for writing that?)

To imply that the military is racist is beyond insulting. There were 40 people who “claim” to be military on a white supremacist website, and this is grounds to insinuate that the whole armed forces are full of racists? Why aren’t other occupations — like Hollywood TV producers, Wall St. bankers, or professors at universities — copiously scrutinized in search of any signs of prejudice?

And why is the Southern Poverty Law Center constantly investigating the KKK, anti-Semitism among servicemen in Iraq, or websites that agitate against Barack Obama? What do these things have to do with Southern poverty? Or the law?

Someone, please explain this to me!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah well, I hope the other military people on this site have something to say about this nonsense. I haven’t seen any racism in the Army. On the contrary, there is far more racial cooperation there than in the academy, where I spend a lot of my day.

Iran is driving to produce up to 1,000 long-range ballistic missiles with a range of 1,550 miles, as well as 500 mobile launchers, over the next six years, according to Israeli military experts.

“The Iranians are making great efforts to obtains a significant number of missiles,” according to Tal Inbar, head of the Space Research Center near Tel Aviv.

“They already talk of how one of the ways they will overcome (Israel’s) missile defense systems is by firing salvoes of missiles.”

The Israelis, who see Iran’s nuclear and missile programs as an existential threat, claim that Iran’s missile development is more advanced than the West believes.

At present, the liquid-fueled Shehab is the mainstay of the Islamic Republic’s strategic missile forces. Tehran is believed to have deployed 100-200 of these weapons, which have an estimated range of 1,250 miles.

But with the successful May 20 launch of a new ballistic missile, the solid-fuel Sajjil-2, with a reported range of 1,200 miles,

A third ballistic missile, the Ashura, also solid-fueled, was unveiled in 2007 and test-fired in 2008. The Jerusalem Post reported on May 18 that the two-stage Ashura was believed to have entered production, possibly to replace the Shaheb-3.

However, some Western experts believe that the two-stage Sajjil-2 — Sajjil-1 was test-fired in November 2008 — may be another name for the Ashura, intended to confuse the United States and Israel about Iran’s missile program.

The EastWest Institute in New York, a non-partisan organization that focuses on global challenges, said Iran would not have a long-range weapon capable of delivering nuclear warheads for many years.

The six U.S. and six Russian scientists who authored the report released May 19 said that Iran might develop a missile with a nuclear warhead and a 1,200-mile range in six to eight years.

But they concluded that it was “virtually impossible” to predict how long it would take to produce a modern intercontinental ballistic missile.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies in London noted that with the Sajjil launch, “Iran appears to have established the industrial infrastructure and technological foundation to begin efforts, on its own, to support the eventual development, design and production of much larger, more powerful rocket motors.

http://www.upi.com/Emerging_Th.....246901438/