If you receive this and you hate it and you don’t want to ever read it no matter what...that is fine; email me back and you will be deleted from my list (which is almost at the maximum anyway).

I attempt to post a new issue each Sunday by 2 or 3 pm central standard time (I sometimes fail at this attempt).

I try to include factual material only, along with my opinions (it should be clear which is which). I make an attempt to include as much of this week’s news as I possibly can. The first set of columns are intentionally designed for a quick read.

I do not accept any advertising nor do I charge for this publication. I write this principally to blow off steam in a nation where its people seemed have collectively lost their minds.

And if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, always remember: We do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12).

The President and several of his cabinet members have decided to look into this oil spill in the gulf.

Charlie Crist in Florida, abandons the Republican party to run as an independent.

Al and Tipper Gore purchase a $8,875,000 ocean-view villa on 1.5 acres with a swimming pool, spa and fountains in Montecito, California. The Italian-style house has six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms. No matter what you think about climate change and Al Gore’s movie, this cause has been very good to the Gore’s.

Over a week before the healthcare vote, HHS sent a cost report to health secretary Kathleen Sebelius, which report reveal that Obama's health care "reform" law would actually increase the cost of health care and impose higher costs on consumers. According to career HHS sources, Sebelius's staff refused to review the document before the vote was taken. "The reason we were given was that they did not want to influence the vote," says an HHS source. "Which is actually the point of having a review like this, you would think."

We find out in an interview that Osama Bin Laden did not expect the United States to respond so dramatically to 9/11.

File this news item under, watched too many episodes of “V”: Stephen Hawkins, the world renown math genius, warns that we ought not to try to contact aliens.

The President on a video message concerning the upcoming 2010 elections: "It will be up to each of you to make sure that the young people, African Americans, Latinos and women, who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again."

President Obama (off teleprompter?): “We're not, we're not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money.”

President Obama (on teleprompter): “We also have clearly seen the dangers of too little government; like when a lack of accountability on Wall Street leads to the collapse of our entire economy.”

Perhaps Reagan would have addressed this problem differently: “We also have clearly seen the dangers of too much government; like when a lack of accountability at government institutions FNMA and FHLMC leads to the collapse of our entire economy. Furthermore, the government watchdog of Wall Street, the SEC, surfs porn instead of doing its job.”

Democrat Rep. Jared Polis to Politico about the Arizona Immigration law: "It is absolutely reminiscent of second class status of Jews in Germany prior to World War II when they had to have their papers with them at all times and were subject to routine inspections at the suspicion of being Jewish."

A nominee for the power authority, who is black, questioned by Republican Senator John DeFrancisco, who is white, and Senator Kevin Parker did not like the tone of the questioning, so he first said, "I've never seen a white appointee be treated like this, in such a rude fashion." Later, on a radio program, when referring back to this incident, Parker further asserted, "These long-term white supremacist Republican senators, we've been the majority for a long time, they've lost the majority;" and, later, "There's only one kind of racism, and that's the white supremacists, and a lot of the Republicans are."

Bill Mahr: "You know what Rush, how many pills is your maid giving you?...Congratulations, Rush Limbaugh, you are now officially the Louis Farrakhan of white people"

On the other hand, Mahr surprised me with this quote: "Why Isn't Barack Obama Getting More s*..." for his comments on the safety of oil drilling rigs?

Joy Behar, when talking with Phil Donahue, said, "But remember, George Bush is the one who said that God told him to go into Iraq. The same as that terrorists say that Allah tells them. And what's the difference between them and Bush I'd like to know." Just in case you did not know, Bush never said that God told him to go into Iraq.

After watching a video of Carl Levin questioning a Goldman-Sachs executive about selling a s* deal to his clients (as a pat of the Senate questioning of Goldman-Sachs), Charles Krauthammer remarked, “When the Incas had a crop failure they would take someone up on the hill and they would execute them. This process is the same expect it has a little less dignity. I'm sure the language was cleaner in the Inca process.”

Dennis Praeger, on one of his shows, said, “The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.” Republican Tim Pawlenty quoted him a few days later. At least 100 times, I heard my pastor, in the 60's, 70's and 80's say, “Big government, small people; small government, big people.”

Rush, in reference to Arizona’s governor Jan Brewer: “I think what your brave and courageous governor, Ms. Brewer, ought to do is have a press conference and start singing the praises of the welfare state in San Francisco. She ought to get charts and graphs showing where to go in San Francisco for this meal, for that house, for this protest, where to go in San Francisco to vote, and then she ought to get them one-way travel vouchers on either Greyhound Buses or Amtrak, and after this press conference where she shows the illegals where all the goodies are in San Francisco, then give them each a voucher, one way to San Francisco. And let Gavin Newsom, that smug little mayor, deal with it.”

Pakistan Taliban takes responsibility for Time Square Bomb (remember that Pakistan is unstable and they have the bomb).

This is a must see: Beck’s Thursday show concerning Cap and Trade, Goldman-Sachs, the Chicago Climate Exchange (give it some time, including the Ocean’s10 footage—it is all related). This is part of Monday’s show and all of Thursday’s show. Start at clip #4 if you have no time. By the way, be forewarned that this can be very disconcerting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP8FicD76y4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHA5xyp66xo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsmzvXF4OZk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAhNqFOdhvM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZItyPbrhzg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M96RzXeKiZ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY9Rb5P7BNE

I haven’t seen this full show yet, but this is about Puerto Rico potentially becoming our 51^st state (on the front page of your paper?). Links to show are at the very bottom of the page.

Paul Ryan explains the false claims of GM that they have paid back the taxpayer:

In case you did not understand how GM paid back its loans so quickly, Reason TV explains; and it is simple to understand (in case you want to explain it to someone else):

File this under, they repealed “don’t ask don’t tell” and didn’t tell me; American soldiers in Afghanistan do video of Lady Gaga’s Telephone:

This is from a few years ago, but over 300,000 people watched this video on YouTube (it has been removed). It is a debate between an Arab-American psychologist Wafa Sultan and an Islamist Cleric on Al Jazeera TV on February 21, 2006 (she ate his lunch).

I need to find out about these things on a more timely basis. Many women from around the United States actually did dress immodestly to increase earthquakes (or to prove the Muslim cleric wrong):

1) John Fund, on FoxNews, pointed out that we have an immigration problem in the 40's, which resulted in a bracero program in 1950, which allowed many more temporary immigrant workers into the United States. This reduced illegal immigration considerably (it reduced illegal immigration by 2/3^rds, if memory serves). However, this also kept the unions out of the farms and fields, as the Department of Labor simply refused to meet with any bracero group organized into a union. This brought a united opposition to this worker program, and the bracero program was ended in 1964, at which time, illegal immigration began to increase once again (apparently with a little help from LBJ).

2) Although I have not come to a conclusion yet about the new Arizona immigration law, it appears as though much of the terminology found in the bill was standard and already defined by Arizona case law. It also appears as though, the police cannot simply stop a person who is Hispanic and ask for their papers (and in case critics of this law don’t get it, there is simply not enough manpower to do this regularly). Finally—and this is a call Arizonans must make—do they trust their police force? If their policemen have been fair and restrained in the past, one might reasonably assume that will be how they behave in the future. If Arizonan police typically push the boundaries of the law in order to make arrests on small matters, then one would assume they would use this law to do the same. Another consideration is, how many Hispanics are in the various police organizations. Although I do not have the stats here, I would assume that they have a reasonably high percentage of Hispanic policemen. For that reason, one ought to expect that they are not going to be hassled simply for driving around while brown.

General Motors Co. announces that it will invest $890 million at five factories to upgrade its V-8 engines to make them more fuel efficient, saving or creating roughly 1,600 jobs. That is $556,250/job. Who can argue that GM does not stand for Government Motors?

The news has consistently pointed to the TEA party movement as white, using questionable language which could explode into violence, and they often highlight the craziest people who show up there, or are confrontational to the normal ones who are there. This is despite the fact that these people love the police and they actually pick up after themselves when they demonstrate.

However, on the other hand, those who demonstrated against the new Arizona Immigration law were quite a different matter. They cussed and threw bottles, and this was caught on cam (unlike the TEA party protestors). How did your news service report on this demonstration? If you watch FoxNews, you probably got a fair and balanced report.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMNjWz1BCBc (notice that there are a lot of companion videos)

Here is a local FoxReport of this (and it is pretty good):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7SSYQCOyLc

Here is Anderson Cooper:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa6bTrk6fd8 (Even though there was a discussion between talking heads, note that there was absolutely no footage presented of the demonstrations and no surveys mentioned, except by one of the talking heads; you could walk away from this report thinking that Arizona was split 50-50 on this issue).

The media hammered George Bush for not getting on Katrina fast enough, even though there were boots on the ground within 24 hours of the storm, and despite the fact that there was a lot of city/state/federal government haggling which went on behind the scenes, which slowed the federal response. However, the Obama administration essentially did nothing about the gulf oil gusher for over a week (he sent out his talking heads with a unified message about 8 days later). Even though these are very different sorts of crises, both were large and require a federal response.

I watched David Gregory talk to Senators Chris Dodd and Richard Shelby on the financial reform bill. Not one question about why the financial regulatory bill ignores FNMA and FHLMC.

Obama giving a speech, listing all of the laws of the various states which he likes and dislikes. He starts with the Arizona immigration law, which he dislikes, using his exact remarks, and then proceeds from there. Since there are a lot of goofy but real laws passed in each state, there would be a goldmine of material for this.

The president made no independent assessment of the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico until the oil was coming close to land (about 8 days after the fire on the oil well). I don’t know if this is incompetence or if the President is looking to dramatically excoriate BP for a greater disaster, and therefor, be able to appease his green base and reduce oil drilling off the coast of the United States. My understanding here—and I could be wrong—is that we (the US government) have resources which could be used to suck up the oil from the surface of the ocean. Why were these not deployed immediately? Again, is the intention to make BP look bad?

Is it the job of the president to tell states which laws he approves of and which one he dislikes?

I don’t know if this is intentional or not, but the President ignored this oil spill for over a week.

If you do not see a relationship between Obama’s slow response to the gulf spill and how well Obamacare is going to work.

If you think some new federal agency is going to monitor financial institutions any better than the SEC (which is the poster boy of government failure).

Rush predicts that the Democratic push for immigration reform is just for show; they will get no immigration reform and they do not expect to get any reform. The idea is to get their base to rally to them.

The Republicans have found that they need to coordinate their message and repeat it. Meg Whitman, running for California governor, related this to being the CEO of a large company. Sarah Palin used this same expression (I think in reference to the president of the US). Expect Republicans in 2012 to refer to the presidency as a CEO position.

Apparently, there are an increasing number of people who look for our economy to crash again (something I have been predicting for a year or so, based upon Obama’s legislation):

I have said that George W. Bush is going to be remembered as an average to good president (not a very difficult prediction). We aren’t there yet, but his book and his wife’s book are coming out, and that is going to begin to turn things around:

Whether Democrat or Republican, most of our political representatives are hungry for power. Perhaps the Republicans are going to quietly, or in small numbers, support Democratic legislation, since they expect to be in charge after the 2010 elections. That will give them more power to wield. That is one of the things which concerns me greatly with this financial regulatory bill making its way through Congress right now. No matter which side you are on, money and power has a tremendous draw for some people.

The Recession is Over!! [3 quarters of growth, yet no one shouts this to the rooftops]

President Obama yesterday hailed the first quarter growth rate of 3.2% as "an important milepost on the road to recovery," and let's hope he's right. From our own current vantage point, the first quarter numbers reveal a respectable cyclical recovery, though one that is so far less robust than we'd expect after an especially deep recession.

Which is not to say the growth isn't welcome. The quarter is the third in a row in which the national supply of goods and services expanded, after an entire year of contraction, and the report contained some good news. The American consumer, who was supposed to have gone on strike, increased spending by 3.6%, the most in three years. Americans are recovering their spending confidence. Inventories also continued to rebound, accounting for 1.57% of the 3.2% growth total, another sign of a normal upward turn in the business cycle.

On the down side, fixed investment in the likes of capital goods and buildings added little to growth. This is surprising given buoyant corporate profits, though perhaps investment will pick up as residential housing and commercial real estate recover later in the year. This all means the economy is growing but still not firing on all cylinders. Consumer spending will only remain brisk if the economy starts to create more new jobs than it has so far.

We expect better job creation this year than many economists are predicting, but it's notable that White House economist Larry Summers warned yesterday that joblessness is likely to be an enduring problem even as the economy grows. White House aides don't tend to broadcast such pessimistic thoughts in an election year without cause.

One way to judge the strength of a recovery is to compare it to the growth after downturns of similar severity. The best recent comparison to the recession of 2008-2009 would be that of 1981-1982. They had different causes-interest rate increases in 1981 and a financial shock in 2008-but both periods had steep declines in output and jobless rates that hit 10%.

The 1982 recession officially ended in November, and the recovery came roaring out of that year, gaining momentum throughout 1983 and carrying 8% growth into 1984 with an expansion that lasted six more years. The nearby table shows the growth rates in the first four full quarters after the recession ended.

By comparison to that boom, the current recovery has been about half as strong. The arbiters of the business cycle at the National Bureau of Economic Research still haven't officially called the end of the 2008-2009 recession, though the economy has been growing for at least 10 months. Considering how far the economy fell in 2008 and 2009, and considering Washington's extraordinary monetary and fiscal reflation, this recovery is much less impressive than that of 1983.

The stock market has been signaling more growth ahead, and the last two recoveries-after the mild recessions of 1991 and 2002-also started slowly but eventually gained steam. Perhaps that will happen again. One advantage this time over 1983 is that the emerging economies-China, India and Brazil-are now so much larger and are growing much more rapidly.

But it's also worth noting another less than favorable contrast with the recovery of 1983: government policy. The full incentive-enhancing impact of the 25% Reagan reduction in marginal tax rates finally kicked in on January 1, 1983, and Paul Volcker's Federal Reserve was starting to cut interest rates from the record highs that broke the back of inflation while causing the recession. At the same time, an era of deregulation was lowering costs across most industries. The groundwork for a durable expansion had been laid in lower taxes, lower inflation and lower business costs.

In the current recovery, the policy headwinds are very different. Taxes are set to rise significantly on January 1, 2011, and the political class is signaling the need for still more taxes to pay for the costs of stimulus and the expanding entitlement state.

As for monetary policy, the Fed has held short-term interest rates at close to zero for 16 months. The only question is how soon and how high rates will rise. Meanwhile, Washington is raising costs for business by expanding its regulatory reach via tougher antitrust enforcement, mandates on health care and energy, more political limits on telecom investment, restrictions on bank lending, and much more.

The White House bet is that the Great Reflation that began in December 2008 has ignited a recovery that is strong enough to blow through these obstacles and become another long-lived expansion. We certainly have a decent recovery. Regarding its strength and duration, the jury is still out.

This past week, Beck was particularly good, and especially on Thursdays show (links on this week’s Must Watch Media).

First of all, despite Congress’s grilling of Goldman Sachs (notice, no grilling of FNMA or FHLMC executives), Goldman Sachs people are found throughout the executive branch of government. Hank Paulson, Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury who engineered TARP, came from Goldman Sachs. Glenn names several of these people:

• William C. Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; was a partner and managing director at Goldman

• Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; spent 18 years at Goldman

• Philip Murphy; nominated for ambassador to Germany; former Goldman executive

• Diana Farrell; deputy director of the National Economic Council; formerly with Goldman

Then Glenn began to talk about the Chicago Climate Exchange, along with Cap and Trade:

In case you didn't know the Chicago Climate Exchange existed — it does and it started trading in 2003. It's billed as: "North America's only cap-and-trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects worldwide." Members agree to a voluntary but legally binding agreement to "meet annual Green House Gas emission reduction targets."

What's cap-and-trade? A scheme designed to transfer wealth from the companies that have to the companies that have not through the regulation of invisible gases. Remember, it was ENRON who lobbied heavily for this type of system, because they knew how to swindle a profit out of it.

Environmentalists like Obama want this system because it will make prices skyrocket and people will be forced to use less energy. But I don't want to put words in his mouth, I'll let him say it:

THEN-PRESIDENTIAL CANIDATE BARACK OBAMA: Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.

Got it? So the main beneficiaries will be big corporations and proponents of the redistribution of wealth. You are the loser here because you pay more for energy. But you can feel good because you saved the planet.

Not to mention, other places — like Europe — who have tried to implement green initiatives (like Spain) and then base markets on it are suffering the consequences. Because, as Time unwittingly described the creation of Chicago Climate Exchange, it "creates something out of nothing." There is no value behind the market; it's like Pets.com except now its solar panels.

In 2000 and 2001, Chicago Climate Exchange received start-up grants from the Joyce Foundation. The Joyce Foundation is like the George Soros' TIDES Foundation. In fact, it's actually bigger than TIDES and even funds TIDES. Think of it as a place where uber-rich and powerful liberals like to dump their money into, so the cash can be spread around to their pet projects without a direct link.

The Joyce Foundation supports such luminaries as John Ayers (William Ayers' brother).

There was one influential member on the board of the Joyce Foundation at the time the Chicago Climate Exchange got its seed money; someone instrumental in steering the funds towards the creation of the Chicago Climate Exchange. They were on the board from 1994-2002. The founder of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Richard Sandor, said that he "knew (this person) well," which is perhaps how the money was awarded to the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, where Sandor was a research professor. I'll get back to that person in a minute.

RICHARD SANDOR, CHICAGO CLIMATE EXCHANGE: I think it's a $10 trillion a year market.

A $10 trillion a year market? That's a lot to go around. In comparison, the value of U.S. company shares on major U.S. and foreign stock exchanges equities market was $15 trillion in 2009. There's a lot of money riding on this climate legislation. But remember: It's all about saving the Earth.

London-based Generation Investment Management sees the earning potential as well. That's why they purchased a stake in Chicago Climate Exchange and are the fifth largest shareholder. The cofounder of the London-based firm? Former Vice President Al Gore. I say cofounder because some of the other founders include David Blood (former Goldman executive), Mark Ferguson (Goldman) and Peter Harris (Goldman).

In 2006, the Chicago Climate Exchange got a nice boost of confidence when an investor stepped to the plate and ponied up to purchase 10 percent of the combined company. Cofounder of the Chicago Exchange said the investment was big and welcome news. The investor? Goldman Sachs.

Oh and I almost forgot: The person at the beginning of it all? The one on the board of the Joyce Foundation that secured the initial funding for this project? Barack Obama.

This is so weird. It's almost like those our government says are responsible for the financial collapse are the ones directly involved in the "solutions." So much for "changing the locks," Chris.

OK, now let's look at this. What you have is a structure. This is the building: the Exchange. You've got the structure, all the players.

So what are we missing? Well, we're missing the bill and the technology to make it happen; the machinery to make it happen.

You are trading air; it's hard to keep track of air. The good news is, the bill is being worked on by Republicans and Democrats. That's cap-and-trade.

The machinery, the device? A patent for such a device was worked on by CO2e.com CEO Carlton Bartels. Shortly after he filed for the patent on his system to trade residential carbon credits, he was killed in the 9/11 attacks. Bartels wife then shopped the idea around and was able to find a buyer. The buyer ended up being a guy who wasn't really a good guy, he committed massive accounting fraud and manipulated earnings in his company in order to make huge bonuses.

That person was Franklin Raines, who just happened to be the CEO of Fannie Mae at the time. The patent was eventually approved by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office on Nov. 7, 2006 — coincidentally the day after Democrats took control of Congress. Thanks to Barbara Hollingsworth of the Washington Examiner for pointing this out to us.

So now, Fannie Mae, who is congressionally mandated to "make housing more affordable," is poised to reap billions on a system that has nothing to do with housing except for that it would make housing costs go up.

Remember when Fannie purchased risky mortgages from banks, bundled them together and sold to investors as mortgage-backed securities? And then the housing market was absolutely destroyed? Well, former Fannie VP Scott Lesmes was responsible for that bundling.

Well, here's the good news: Not only will this new carbon trading "system" try the exact same bundling method (except with air); they are using the exact same guy: Scott Lesmes.

But, please, don't worry. The only ones involved in this are the corrupt Franklin Raines, Mr. redistribution of wealth Barack Obama, and all the people who the House and Senate are currently saying are the bad guys. Other than that, this should work out great.

It's almost like Goldman is willing to take a little heat now, in order to get a little piece of the $10 trillion green pie later. I challenge the media: Will anyone pick this story up? Will anyone question this and the timing of it all?

All of a sudden illegal immigration has leap-frogged global warming? Is it because Goldman has to take hits to get the global government structure done? And then they get the payoff? Or will you continue to say oh, he's crazy and not talk about the facts.

As the Obama administration enters its second year, I -- and undoubtedly millions of others -- have struggled to develop a shorthand term that captures our emotional unease. Defining this discomfort is tricky. I reject nearly the entire Obama agenda, but the term "being opposed" lacks an emotional punch. Nor do terms like "worried" or "anxious" apply. I was more worried about America's future during the Johnson or Carter years, so it's not that dictionary, either. Nor, for that matter, is this about backroom odious deal-making and pork, which are endemic in American politics.

After auditioning countless political terms, I finally realized that the Obama administration and its congressional collaborators almost resemble a foreign occupying force, a coterie of politically and culturally non-indigenous leaders whose rule contravenes local values rooted in our national tradition. It is as if the United States has been occupied by a foreign power, and this transcends policy objections. It is not about Obama's birthplace. It is not about race, either; millions of white Americans have had black mayors and black governors, and this unease about out-of-synch values never surfaced.

The term I settled on is "alien rule" -- based on outsider values, regardless of policy benefits -- that generates agitation. This is what bloody anti-colonial strife was all about. No doubt, millions of Indians and Africans probably grasped that expelling the British guaranteed economic ruin and even worse governance, but at least the mess would be their mess. Just travel to Afghanistan and witness American military commanders' efforts to enlist tribal elders with promises of roads, clean water, dental clinics, and all else that America can freely provide. Many of these elders probably privately prefer abject poverty to foreign occupation since it would be their poverty, run by their people, according to their sensibilities.

This disquiet was a slow realization. Awareness began with Obama's odd pre-presidency associations, decades of being oblivious to Rev. Wright's anti-American ranting, his enduring friendship with the terrorist guy-in-the-neighborhood Bill Ayers, and the Saul Alinsky-flavored anti-capitalist community activism. Further add a hazy personal background -- an Indonesian childhood, shifting official names, and a paperless-trail climb through elite educational institutions.

None of this disqualified Obama from the presidency; rather, this background just doesn't fit with the conventional political résumé. It is just the "outsider?" quality that alarms. For all the yammering about George W. Bush's privileged background, his made-in-the-USA persona was absolutely indisputable. John McCain might be embarrassed about his Naval Academy class rank and iffy combat performance, but there was never any doubt of his authenticity. Countless conservatives despised Bill Clinton, but nobody ever, ever doubted his good-old-boy American bonafides.

The suspicion that Obama is an outsider, a figure who really doesn't "get" America, grew clearer from his initial appointments. What "native" would appoint Kevin Jennings, a militant gay activist, to oversee school safety? Or permit a Marxist rabble-rouser to be a "green jobs czar"? How about an Attorney General who began by accusing Americans of cowardice when it comes to discussing race? And who can forget Obama's weird defense of his pal Louis Henry Gates from "racist" Cambridge, Massachusetts cops? If the American Revolution had never occurred and the Queen had appointed Obama Royal Governor (after his distinguished service in Kenya), a trusted locally attuned aide would have first whispered in his ear, "Mr. Governor General, here in America, we do not automatically assume that the police were at fault," and the day would have been saved.

And then there's the "we are sorry, we'll never be arrogant again" rhetoric seemingly designed for a future President of the World election campaign. What made Obama's Cairo utterances so distressing was how they grated on American cultural sensibilities. And he just doesn't notice, perhaps akin to never hearing Rev. Wright anti-American diatribes. An American president does not pander to third-world audiences by lying about the Muslim contribution to America. Imagine Ronald Reagan, or any past American president, trying to win friends by apologizing. This appeal contravenes our national character and far exceeds a momentary embarrassment about garbled syntax or poor delivery. Then there's Obama's bizarre, totally unnecessary deep bowing to foreign potentates. Americans look foreign leaders squarely in the eye and firmly shake hands; we don't bow.

But far worse is Obama's tone-deafness about American government. How can any ordinary American, even a traditional liberal, believe that jamming through unpopular, debt-expanding legislation that consumes one-sixth of our GDP, sometimes with sly side-payments and with a thin majority, will eventually be judged legitimate? This is third-world, maximum-leader-style politics. That the legislation was barely understood even by its defenders and vehemently championed by a representative of that typical American city, San Francisco, only exacerbates the strangeness. And now President Obama sides with illegal aliens over the State of Arizona, which seeks to enforce the federal immigration law to protect American citizens from marauding drug gangs and other miscreants streaming in across the Mexican border.

Reciprocal public disengagement from President Obama is strongly suggested by recent poll data on public trust in government. According to a recent Pew report, only 22% of those asked trust the government always or most of the time, among the lowest figures in half a century. And while pro-government support has been slipping for decades, the Obama presidency has sharply exacerbated this drop. To be sure, many factors (in particular the economic downturn) contribute to this decline, but remember that Obama was recently elected by an often wildly enthusiastic popular majority. The collapse of trust undoubtedly transcends policy quibbles or a sluggish economy -- it is far more consistent with a deeper alienation.

Perhaps the clearest evidence for this "foreigner in our midst" mentality is the name given our resistance -- tea parties, an image that instantly invokes the American struggle against George III, a clueless foreign ruler from central casting. This history-laden label was hardly predetermined,

but it instantly stuck (as did the election of Sen. Scott Brown as "the shot heard around the world" and tea partiers dressing up in colonial-era costumes). Perhaps subconsciously, Obama does remind Americans of when the U.S. was really occupied by a foreign power. A Declaration of Independence passage may still resonate: "HE [George III] has erected a Multitude of new Offices [Czars], and sent hither Swarms of Officers [recently hired IRS agents] to harass our People, and eat out the Substance." What's next?

Really, where is Bill Clinton? Wasn't he lecturing us just a week ago that protests could lead to violence? Where are all the media talking heads who echoed Clinton's absurd attempt to link the Tea Partiers to violence? Yet, here's a riot started by protesters against the new law in Arizona to toughen up enforcement on illegal immigration in Phoenix on April 23. Bottles were hurled at police and threats of violence that make even the rowdiest Tea Party look like a church picnic.

You'll see the bottles thrown here, striking police officers who try to usher a lone anti-illegal immigration protester from the scene for his own safety:

Let me add to Mike’s article here: President Clinton will be interviewed in the near future, but will any reporter ask him about these riots? Will they ask him about these sorts of protests? Of course not, unless the reporter is from Fox.

Romeo13

Supposed "N" word thown by a Tea Partyer? National News.

Bottles thrown at Police by Illegals? . crickets.

Jaws and legs broken as Repubs leave a Political Rally?. crickets.

Black Man beaten by SEIU thugs????. more crickets.

Its all in the pattern.

Reaganite Republican

They are covering up all they can negative, re. Mexico and Mexican immigration while they attempt to ram-though a liberal immigration bill. and get Obama re-elected.

The Mexican drug war has killed over 22,000 people. FIVE times US deaths in Iraq!

You don't hear much about that, either.

http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/2010/04/mexican-drug-war-deaths-now-outnumber.html

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signs the illegal-immigration bill - which will go into effect this summer - at the Arizona Department of Transportation in Phoenix on Friday. (David Wallace, The Arizona Republic/AP)

The chattering class is aghast at Arizona's new immigration law. "Harkens back to apartheid," says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker. "Shameful," says the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne. "Terrible.an invitation to abuse," says the New York Times' David Brooks.

For his part, President Obama calls the law "misguided" and says it "threaten[s] to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans." Obama has ordered the Justice Department to "closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation."

Has anyone actually read the law? Contrary to the talk, it is a reasonable, limited, carefully-crafted measure designed to help law enforcement deal with a serious problem in Arizona. Its authors anticipated criticism and went to great lengths to make sure it is constitutional and will hold up in court. It is the criticism of the law that is over the top, not the law itself.

The law requires police to check with federal authorities on a person's immigration status, if officers have stopped that person for some legitimate reason and come to suspect that he or she might be in the U.S. illegally. The heart of the law is this provision: "For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency.where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person."

Critics have focused on the term "reasonable suspicion" to suggest that the law would give police the power to pick anyone out of a crowd for any reason and force them to prove they are in the U.S. legally. Some foresee mass civil rights violations targeting Hispanics.

What fewer people have noticed is the phrase "lawful contact," which defines what must be going on before police even think about checking immigration status. "That means the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because he's violated some other law," says Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri Kansas City Law School professor who helped draft the measure. "The most likely context where this law would come into play is a traffic stop."

As far as "reasonable suspicion" is concerned, there is a great deal of case law dealing with the idea, but in immigration matters, it means a combination of circumstances that, taken together, cause the officer to suspect lawbreaking. It's not race -- Arizona's new law specifically says race and ethnicity cannot be the sole factors in determining a reasonable suspicion.

For example: "Arizona already has a state law on human smuggling," says Kobach. "An officer stops a group of people in a car that is speeding. The car is overloaded. Nobody had identification. The driver acts evasively. They are on a known smuggling corridor." That is a not uncommon occurrence in Arizona, and any officer would reasonably suspect that the people in the car were illegal. Under the new law, the officer would get in touch with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to check on their status.

But what if the driver of the car had shown the officer his driver's license? The law clearly says that if someone produces a valid Arizona driver's license, or other state-issued identification, they are presumed to be here legally. There's no reasonable suspicion.

Is having to produce a driver's license too burdensome? These days, natural-born U.S. citizens, and everybody else, too, are required to show a driver's license to get on an airplane, to check into a hotel, even to purchase some over-the-counter allergy medicines. If it's a burden, it's a burden on everyone.

Still, critics worry the law would force some people to carry their papers, just like in an old movie. The fact is, since the 1940s, federal law has required non-citizens in this country to carry, on their person, the documentation proving they are here legally -- green card, work visa, etc. That hasn't changed.

Kobach, a Republican who is now running for Kansas Secretary of State, was the chief adviser to Attorney General John Ashcroft on immigration issues from 2001 to 2003. He has successfully defended Arizona immigration laws in the past. "The bill was drafted in expectation that the open-borders crowd would almost certainly bring a lawsuit," he says. "It's drafted to withstand judicial scrutiny."

The bottom line is, it's a good law, sensibly written and rigorously focused -- no matter what the critics say.

One pen stroke from Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has given her state a no-nonsense immigration policy and given America yet another opportunity to see the full face of leftist hypocrisy.

As shown in the picture above (featuring MSNBC's poster child of intelligence, Contessa Brewer) this bill essentially says illegal means illegal. If you are in the state of Arizona illegally you are guilty of trespassing (page 2 line 44), and if you are caught trespassing you will be transferred immediately to the custody of the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). I will address the profiling allegations later.

This bill has teeth, and it puts the screws to employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants (page 6 line 7). The burden of proof of work eligibility is now on the employer since this bill officially makes it illegal for an undocumented alien to "apply for work, solicit work in a public place, or perform work as an employee or independent contractor in this state."

Complaints can now be filed with the Attorney General of Arizona or with a county attorney when a business is suspected of employing illegal aliens. After an investigation, if a business is found to be employing illegal workers charges are brought upon the business, and expedited court status is given to the case.

* 3 year probationary period for the specific business location (5 years if the employer intentionally hired illegal employees)

* Employer must file a signed sworn affidavit with the county attorney within 3 business days stating that all illegal employees have been terminated and that the hiring of unauthorized aliens will never happen again. If this is not filed in 3 business days all licenses for that business location are suspended until filed

* Quarterly reports must be submitted documenting each new employee hired for 3 years

* Permanent revocation of all licenses held by the specific business location which hired the employee

With a system like e-verify available to employers there is no reason that the 2nd offense shouldn't mean jail time, assuming the empl. Maybe next session.

As expected and as usual, the left is crying foul at the top of their lungs and accusations of racism are flying aimlessly. What is being largely - if not completely - ignored by leftist media outlets and especially by President Clinton is the nearly immediate turn to violence by those protesting the legislation.

Unlike the reason based protests by tea partiers, the Arizona protesters are acting solely on emotions stirred by a constant barrage of leftist demagoguery. No civil rights have been violated, no racial profiling has taken place, and the motivation for this law was not racism. The motivation is completely founded in reason which is backed by facts and by a definitive understanding of the word `illegal'.

For example: A recent study by the Pew Research center shows that in 2008, 10% of the Arizona labor force was made up by unauthorized aliens. At that very time the unemployment rate in the state of Arizona was approaching the same 10% mark.

Couple those statistics with an increase in innocent lives being lost due to drug cartel violence and a federal government who refuses to adhere to the constitution and you have a $1 billion crisis. The Arizona people knew something had to be done which is why a recent Rasmussen poll shows that 70% of Arizona citizens approve of the new law.

As for the unfounded accusations of racial profiling, the sponsor of the bill Rep. John Kavanagh sums it up best:

"This provision merely extends to immigration offenses a half-century-old tool called "stop and question," created by the U.S. Supreme Court. To prevent racial profiling, the law states that in constructing "reasonable suspicion," police officers "may not solely consider race, color or national origin.""

To understand the full extent of hypocrisy you must to understand that liberals are not subject to reality.

For example: think back to the liberal argument for Affirmative Action. Liberals argued that the American people were inherently racist, bigoted, and oppressive towards minorities, and due to that fact, laws must be passed to give certain ethnic groups preferential treatment over others. In their `reality' this was `righting a wrong'. In actual reality this was and is a flagrant abuse of the law which encourages racial profiling and discrimination.

In fact, the very tenants which serve as the enforcement mechanisms for Affirmative Action: racial profiling, discrimination, and one big equal protection violation, are the sole misnomers driving the left's demonization of the Arizona Immigration bill - which contains none of these mechanisms. Without the slightest clue, the left is demonizing Affirmative Action.

So before you think the immigration rallies scheduled for May 1st are a bad thing, remember - protesters will literally be screaming their admission of the unconstitutionality and purposeful racism which has been brought upon the American people through Affirmative Action.

In WH meeting, 'Only two of the elected officials in the room had never filibustered a Supreme Court nominee'

When Senate leaders went to the White House Wednesday morning to discuss the Supreme Court opening, the meeting was attended by President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and ranking member Patrick Leahy and Jeff Sessions, and Senate majority and minority leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell.

There has been some talk of a possible Republican filibuster of Obama's choice, although Obama hasn't yet actually made the choice. Be that as it may, Republicans well remember that there was an attempted filibuster of the last Republican Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, and 25 Democrats supported it. And among those 25 who voted to filibuster Alito were all the Democrats present at Wednesday's meeting -- Obama, Biden, Reid, and Leahy.

"It didn't go without being noticed that only two of the elected officials in the room had never filibustered a Supreme Court nominee," says one Republican Senate aide. Those two, of course, were McConnell and Sessions. So at the moment, the only lawmakers who are being criticized for even being open to the possibility of a filibuster are the ones who have never, in fact, taken part in one. "It's kind of challenging for Democrats now to make the case that Republicans ought to be helpful and speed things up when they not only tried to slow Alito down but voted against cloture," says the Senate aide.

By the way, Democrats not only tried to filibuster Alito, they began threatening a filibuster before the nomination was made. "If it's going to be a nominee who is way, way out of the mainstream.there's the possibility of a filibuster," said Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer on CBS on October 30, 2005. "But it's much too early to judge." That's precisely what some Republicans are saying now.

The last few days have seen an extraordinary outburst of criticism of Arizona's new immigration law. In the nation's elite media outlets, its most respected commentators are portraying the law as an act of police-state repression. Many, if not all, of the specific criticisms can be refuted simply by reading the law itself, but others are more generalized criticisms of immigration enforcement. In any event, it's hard to choose the most over-the-top and wrongheaded commentary on the law, but here are ten choices, in no particular order. (If you don't know why a particular statement is wrong, you can check here, and here, and here, and here.)

1. "The statute requires police officers to stop and question anyone who looks like an illegal immigrant."

2. "As the Arizona abomination makes clear, there is a desperate need for federal immigration action to stop the country from turning into a nation of vigilantes suspicious of anybody with dark skin."

3. "I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation."

4. "This law creates a suspect class, based in part on ethnicity, considered guilty until they prove themselves innocent. It makes it harder for illegal immigrants to live without scrutiny - but it also makes it harder for some American citizens to live without suspicion and humiliation. Americans are not accustomed to the command `Your papers, please,' however politely delivered. The distinctly American response to such a request would be `Go to hell,' and then `See you in court.'"

5. "In case the phrase `lawful contact' makes it appear as if the police are authorized to act only if they observe an undocumented-looking person actually committing a crime, another section strips the statute of even that fig leaf of reassurance. `A person is guilty of trespassing,' the law provides, by being `present on any public or private land in this state' while lacking authorization to be in the United States - a new crime of breathing while undocumented."

(Greenhouse's "trespassing" allegation was based on an early version of the Arizona bill that was not the bill that became law. Her mistake was later removed from the Times site, but you can see original version here.)

6. "Federal law treats illegal immigration as a civil violation; Arizona law criminalizes it by using the legally dubious mechanism of equating the mere presence of undocumented immigrants with trespassing."

(This editorial makes the same mistake as Linda Greenhouse's "trespassing" column above.)

7. "I am saddened today at the prospect of a young Hispanic immigrant in Arizona going to the grocery store and forgetting to bring her passport and immigration documents with her. I cannot be dispassionate about the fact that the very act of her being in the grocery store will soon be a crime in the state she lives in.An immigrant who is charged with the crime of trespassing for simply being in a community without his papers on him is being told he is committing a crime by simply being."

(Tutu is perhaps relying on the erroneous information in the New York Times and Washington Post above.)

8. "It harkens back to apartheid where all black people in South Africa were required to carry documents in order to move from one part of town to another."

9. "You can imagine, if you are a Hispanic American in Arizona.suddenly, if you don't have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you're going to be harassed."

10. "This week, Arizona signed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country which will allow police to demand identification papers from anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. I know there's some people in Arizona worried that Obama is acting like Hitler, but could we all agree that there's nothing more Nazi than saying `Show me your papers?' There's never been a World War II movie that didn't include the line 'show me your papers.' It's their catchphrase. Every time someone says 'show me your papers,' Hitler's family gets a residual check. So heads up, Arizona; that's fascism. I know, I know, it's a dry fascism, but it's still fascism."

Democrats have decided that in order to prevent Wall Street from starting more financial meltdowns, wrecking the economy and leaving the American taxpayer holding the bag, we need to give more oversight authority to the same government employees who were busy surfing Internet porn as private investors frantically tried to warn them about Bernie Madoff.

The Democrats' financial "reform" bill also includes a $50 billion bailout fund -- that's million with a "B" -- that will save the Democrats from the unpleasant task of having to go on record voting for another Wall Street bailout.

Under the Democrats' bill, the FDIC will distribute the bailout money to Wall Street bankers without Congress having to take any action at all. (In the House version, the slush fund for the Democrats' Wall Street friends is $150 billion.)

True, the billions of dollars will be doled out to banks for the purpose of "dissolving" them. So what? They'll come back under a new name. But the guilty parties will lose no money for making bad bets -- although if the bets paid off, they'd take all the profits. That's what Democrats mean by "accountability."

Not surprisingly, the only politicians opposed to a permanent bailout fund for bankers are the politicians not owned by Wall Street -- that is, most Republicans, and one socialist, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

The Democrats' defense of Wall Street's golden parachute is to say Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell used a "talking point" formulated for him by pollster Frank Luntz in opposing the bailout fund.

As Frank Rich explained in The New York Times, the bailout fund is not a bailout fund because "Sen. Mitch McConnell went on CNN to flog his big lie that the Senate reform bill somehow guaranteed bank bailouts -- a talking point long ago concocted for the GOP by its favorite spin strategist, Frank Luntz."

In other words, it must be a lie because ... because Frank Luntz told McConnell what to say and then McConnell said it on CNN!

Sen. McConnell doesn't need Frank Luntz to explain anything to him, least of all the financial reform bill. A fifth-grader could find out about the permanent bailout fund simply by reading the bill.

You will notice that neither Rich nor any of Wall Street's defenders specifically deny the existence of a permanent bank bailout fund in the Democrats' bill. They just say McConnell used a "talking point" to denounce it. (You might say this has become a "talking point" for Democrats defending the bill.)

Wall Street's defenders also crow that the money in the bailout fund won't come from taxpayers! (There's a newfound sympathy.) No sir, it will come from "the banks."

That's like saying that the original bailout money didn't come from the taxpayers -- it came from the government! Where do Democrats imagine banks and the government get their money?

Banks, like the government, are entities that spend money they collect from human beings. We'll all be charged up front to cover Gordon Gekko's future bad bets.

In other words, the Wall Street slush fund will be paid for by a group of despicable fat cats recently discovered by the Democrats known as People Who Have Bank Accounts. Damn them!

Another idea, based on the ancient concept of personal responsibility, comes from financial writer James Grant. He proposes that the bankers -- are you sitting down? -- take their own losses.

Let them keep their humongous salaries, Grant writes, but if their bank fails, "let the bankers themselves fail. Let the value of their houses, cars, yachts, paintings, etc. be assigned to the firm's creditors."

There's nothing wrong with speculation, creating derivatives or selling them, especially to sophisticated investors. The problem is that when the bets go bad, the speculators keep being back-stopped by the government -- i.e., "by me and people like me."

Strangely enough -- for a bill that allegedly sticks it to Wall Street -- during the Senate Banking Committee hearing this week, Goldman Sachs chairman Lloyd Blankfein endorsed the Dodd bill. Someone should have asked him who from Goldman wrote it.

In 2008, Goldman employees gave a record-breaking $1,007,370 to the Obama campaign.

This year, the "securities and investment" industry has already given twice as much money to the Democrats as to the Republicans.

ABC News reports that "the five biggest hedge fund donors all gave almost all their donations to Democrats." Among the biggest recipients of hedge fund money were Senators Harry Reid (Democrat), Chris Dodd (Democrat) and Charles Schumer (Democrat).

Even with the evidence right in front of their eyes, people still believe that it's the Republicans who are in Wall Street's pocket.

How out of touch with reality would a comedy writer have to be to write the following joke for Jay Leno this week: "The head of Goldman Sachs was going through security and was asked to empty his pockets -- and five Republican senators fell out."

Why didn't Barack Obama or Chuck Schumer fall out? Why not Rahm Emanuel, who worked for Goldman? Or Greg Craig, who used to work for Obama but just took a job with Goldman?

The fact that anyone laughed at that joke proves that Republicans have a serious PR problem.

On Friday, Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed a law - SB 1070 - that prohibits the harboring of illegal aliens and makes it a state crime for an alien to commit certain federal immigration crimes. It also requires police officers who, in the course of a traffic stop or other law-enforcement action, come to a "reasonable suspicion" that a person is an illegal alien verify the person's immigration status with the federal government.

Predictably, groups that favor relaxed enforcement of immigration laws, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, insist the law is unconstitutional. Less predictably, President Obama declared it "misguided" and said the Justice Department would take a look.

Presumably, the government lawyers who do so will actually read the law, something its critics don't seem to have done. The arguments we've heard against it either misrepresent its text or are otherwise inaccurate. As someone who helped draft the statute, I will rebut the major criticisms individually:

It is unfair to demand that aliens carry their documents with them. It is true that the Arizona law makes it a misdemeanor for an alien to fail to carry certain documents. "Now, suddenly, if you don't have your papers ... you're going to be harassed," the president said. "That's not the right way to go." But since 1940, it has been a federal crime for aliens to fail to keep such registration documents with them. The Arizona law simply adds a state penalty to what was already a federal crime. Moreover, as anyone who has traveled abroad knows, other nations have similar documentation requirements.

"Reasonable suspicion" is a meaningless term that will permit police misconduct. Over the past four decades, federal courts have issued hundreds of opinions defining those two words. The Arizona law didn't invent the concept: Precedents list the factors that can contribute to reasonable suspicion; when several are combined, the "totality of circumstances" that results may create reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.

For example, the Arizona law is most likely to come into play after a traffic stop. A police officer pulls a minivan over for speeding. A dozen passengers are crammed in. None has identification. The highway is a known alien-smuggling corridor. The driver is acting evasively. Those factors combine to create reasonable suspicion that the occupants are not in the country legally.

The law will allow police to engage in racial profiling. Actually, Section 2 provides that a law enforcement official "may not solely consider race, color or national origin" in making any stops or determining immigration status. In addition, all normal Fourth Amendment protections against profiling will continue to apply. In fact, the Arizona law actually reduces the likelihood of race-based harassment by compelling police officers to contact the federal government as soon as is practicable when they suspect a person is an illegal alien, as opposed to letting them make arrests on their own assessment.

It is unfair to demand that people carry a driver's license. Arizona's law does not require anyone, alien or otherwise, to carry a driver's license. Rather, it gives any alien with a license a free pass if his immigration status is in doubt. Because Arizona allows only lawful residents to obtain licenses, an officer must presume that someone who produces one is legally in the country.

State governments aren't allowed to get involved in immigration, which is a federal matter. While it is true that Washington holds primary authority in immigration, the Supreme Court since 1976 has recognized that states may enact laws to discourage illegal immigration without being pre-empted by federal law. As long as Congress hasn't expressly forbidden the state law in question, the statute doesn't conflict with federal law and Congress has not displaced all state laws from the field, it is permitted. That's why Arizona's 2007 law making it illegal to knowingly employ unauthorized aliens was sustained by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In sum, the Arizona law hardly creates a police state. It takes a measured, reasonable step to give Arizona police officers another tool when they come into contact with illegal aliens during their normal law enforcement duties.

And it's very necessary: Arizona is the ground zero of illegal immigration. Phoenix is the hub of human smuggling and the kidnapping capital of America, with more than 240 incidents reported in 2008. It's no surprise that Arizona's police associations favored the bill, along with 70 percent of Arizonans.

President Obama and the Beltway crowd feel these problems can be taken care of with "comprehensive immigration reform" - meaning amnesty and a few other new laws. But we already have plenty of federal immigration laws on the books, and the typical illegal alien is guilty of breaking many of them. What we need is for the executive branch to enforce the laws that we already have.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration has scaled back work-site enforcement and otherwise shown it does not consider immigration laws to be a high priority. Is it any wonder the Arizona Legislature, at the front line of the immigration issue, sees things differently?

The Senate is expected to take up a proposal, originally authored by Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), to reform the financial regulatory system in the U.S. The goal is clear: to minimize the chances that another financial crisis-and bailouts-will arise again.

The objective is a good one. Unfortunately, the 1,408-page bill includes numerous provisions that would hurt-not help-consumers and the economy. It would even make another financial crisis or bailout more likely to occur.

1. Creates a protected class of "too big to fail" firms. Section 113 of the bill establishes a "Financial Stability Oversight Council," charged with identifying firms that would "pose a threat to the financial security of the United States if they encounter "material financial distress." These firms would be subject to enhanced regulation. However, such a designation would also signal to the marketplace that these firms are too important to be allowed to fail and, perversely, allow them to take on undue risk. As American Enterprise Institute scholar Peter Wallison wrote, "Designating large non-bank financial companies as too big to fail will be like creating Fannies and Freddies in every area of the economy."[1]

2. Provides for seizure of private property without meaningful judicial review. The bill, in Section 203(b), authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to order the seizure of any financial firm that he finds is "in danger of default" and whose failure would have "serious adverse effects on financial stability." This determination is subject to review in the courts only on a "substantial evidence" standard of review, meaning that the seizure must be upheld if the government produces any evidence in favor of its action. This makes reversal extremely difficult.

3. Creates permanent bailout authority. Section 204 of the bill authorizes the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to "make available . funds for the orderly liquidation of [a] covered financial institution." Although no funds could be provided to compensate a firm's shareholders, the firm's other creditors would be eligible for a cash bailout. The situation is much like the scheme implemented for AIG in 2008, in which the largest beneficiaries were not stockholders but rather other creditors, such as Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs[2]-hardly a model to be emulated.

4. Establishes a $50 billion fund to pay for bailouts. Funding for bailouts is to come from a $50 billion "Orderly Resolution Fund" created within the U.S. Treasury in Section 210(n)(1), funded by taxes on financial firms. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the ultimate cost of bank taxes will fall on the customers, employees, and investors of each firm.[3]

5. Opens a "line of credit" to the Treasury for additional government funding. Under Section 210(n)(9), the FDIC is effectively granted a line of credit to the Treasury Department that is secured by the value of failing firms in its control, providing another taxpayer financial support.

6. Authorizes regulators to guarantee the debt of solvent banks. Bailout authority is not limited to debt of failing institutions. Under Section 1155, the FDIC is authorized to guarantee the debt of "solvent depository institutions" if regulators declare that a liquidity crisis ("event") exists.

7. Limits financial choices of American consumers. The bill contains a new "Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection" with broad powers to limit what financial products and services can be offered to consumers. The intended purpose is to protect consumers from unfair practices. But the effect would be to reduce available choices, even in cases where a consumer fully understands and accepts the costs and risks. For many consumers, this will make credit more expensive and harder to get.[4]

8. Undermines safety and soundness regulation. The proposed Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection would nominally be part of the Federal Reserve System, but it would have substantial autonomy. Decisions of the new bureau would not be subject to approval by the Fed. New rules could be stopped only through a cumbersome, after-the-fact review process involving a council of all the major regulatory agencies. This could impede efforts of economic (or "safety and soundness") regulators to ensure the financial stability of regulated firms, as the new, independent "consumer" regulator would establish rules that conflict with that goal.

9. Enriches trial lawyers by authorizing consumer regulators to ban arbitration agreements. Section 1028 specifically authorizes the new consumer regulatory agency to ban arbitration agreements between consumers and financial firms. By reducing the use of streamlined dispute resolution procedures, more consumers and businesses would be forced to pay the costs of litigation-to the benefit of trial lawyers.

10. Subjects firms to hundreds of varying state and local rules. Section 1044 limits pre-emption of state and local rules, subjecting banks and their customers to confusing, costly, and inconsistent red tape imposed by regulators in jurisdictions across the country.

11. Subjects non-financial firms to financial regulation. Regulation under this legislation would extend far beyond banks. Many firms largely outside the financial industry would find themselves caught in the regulatory net. Section 102(B)(ii) of the bill defines a "nonbank financial company"" as a company "substantially engaged in activities . that are financial in nature." The phrase "financial in nature" is defined in existing law quite broadly. According to former Treasury official Gregory Zerzan, it includes things such as "holding assets of others in trust, investing in securities . or even leasing real estate and offering certain consulting services."[5] As a result, a broad swath of private industry may find itself ensnared in the financial regulatory net. As Zerzan explains: "An airplane manufacturer that holds customer down payments for future delivery, a large home improvement chain that invests its profits as part of a plan to increase revenues, and an energy firm that makes markets in derivatives are all engaged in `financial activities' and potentially subject to systemic risk regulation."

12. Imposes one-size-fits-all reform in derivative markets. The bill would subject derivatives now traded over-the-counter by banks and other financial institutions to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and/or the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It would require most derivative contracts to be settled through a clearinghouse rather than directly between the parties. Yet derivatives are already increasingly being traded on clearinghouses thanks to private efforts coordinated by the New York Fed.[6] The Senate's bill, however, would require virtually all derivatives to be so traded. Applying such ill-designed blanket regulation would make financial derivatives more costly, more difficult to customize, and, consequently, less widely used-which would increase overall risk in the economy.[7]

13. Allows activist groups to use the corporate governance process for issues unrelated to the corporation or its shareholders. Section 972 of the bill authorizes the SEC to require firms to allow shareholders to nominate directors in proxy statement. Such proxy access turns corporate board elections from a process designed to ensure that each board has a good mix of skills and experience into a popularity contest where the long-term interests of the stockholders become secondary to political agendas or corporate raiders. The process can also be used by labor unions, politicians who manage public pension funds, and others to force corporations to respond to pet social or political causes.

14. Does nothing to address problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These two government-sponsored housing giants helped fuel the housing bubble. When it popped, taxpayers-because of an implicit guarantee by the U.S. Treasury-found themselves on the hook for some $125 billion in bailout money. Not only has little of this amount been paid back, but the Treasury Department recently eliminated the cap on how much more Fannie and Freddie can receive. Yet the bill does nothing to resolve the problem or reform these government-run enterprises.

As the Senate moves forward to consider this proposal, it should give careful consideration to these potentially fatal flaws. The crisis of 2008, with its bailouts and government takeovers must not be repeated. Americans deserve reform that makes crises and bailouts less likely, not more likely.

Speaking to an audience of big business and big labor executives (including Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein, Bank of America's Bruce Thompson and SEIU's Andy Stern) at New York's Cooper Union, President Barack Obama noted "the furious efforts of industry lobbyists to shape" the financial regulation bill "to their special interests." Obama then admitted, "I am sure that many of those lobbyists work for some of you. But I am here today because I want to urge you to join us, instead of fighting us in this effort." Obama should have saved his breath. Wall Street and big labor lobbyists have already joined forces to make sure the current Senate legislation has become a Wall Street Bailout Bill.

Big labor's ties to this White House are already well documented. Less known is just how close Obama administration interests align with the big firms that benefit most from the TARP bailout. The Washington Examiner reports that at Goldman Sachs, the nation's largest investment bank, four of the five in-house lobbyists were Democratic Capitol Hill staffers - the remaining one gave $1,000 to Hillary Clinton last election. And USA Today notes that Goldman Sachs alone has given nearly $900,000 since January 2009 to congressional candidates, with 69% of that cash lining Democrat pockets. Finally, then-candidate Obama collected almost $1 million from Goldman executives and employees in 2008, more than the combined Goldman haul of every Republican running for president, Senate and the House.

So what have Wall Street lobbyists bought with their campaign cash and high priced lobbyists? A bill that gives permanent TARP-like authority to Washington regulators, thus enshrining Washington as a permanent bailout machine. Specifically, the bill:

Creates a protected class of too big to fail firms. Section 113 of the bill establishes a "Financial Stability Oversight Council," charged with identifying firms that would "pose a threat to the financial security of the United States" if they encounter "material financial distress." While these firms would be subject to enhanced regulation, such a designation would also signal to the marketplace that these firms are too important to be allowed to fail and, perversely, allow them to take on undue risk.

Creates permanent bailout authority. Section 204 of the bill authorizes the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to "make available . funds for the orderly liquidation of [a] covered financial institution." Although no funds could be provided to compensate a firm's shareholders, the firm's other creditors would be eligible for a cash bailout. The situation is much like the bailout AIG in 2008, in which the largest beneficiaries were not stockholders but rather other creditors, such as Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs.

Provides for seizure of private property without meaningful judicial review. The bill, in Section 203(b), authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to order the seizure of any financial firm that he finds is "in danger of default" and whose failure would have "serious adverse effects on financial stability." This determination would be virtually irreversible in court.

Establishes a $50 billion fund to pay for bailouts. Funding for bailouts is to come from a $50 billion "Orderly Resolution Fund" created within the U.S. Treasury in Section 210(n)(1), funded by taxes on financial firms. However, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the ultimate cost of bank taxes will fall on the customers, employees and investors of each firm.

Opens a "line of credit" to the Treasury for additional government funding. Under Section 210(n)(9), the FDIC is effectively granted a line of credit to the Treasury Department that is secured by the value of failing firms in its control, providing another taxpayer financial support.

Authorizes regulators to guarantee the debt of solvent banks. Bailout authority is not limited to debt of failing institutions. Under Section 1155, the FDIC is authorized to guarantee the debt of "solvent depository institutions" if regulators declare that a liquidity crisis ("event") exists.

Imposes one-size-fits-all reform in derivative markets. Derivatives are already increasingly being traded on clearinghouses thanks to private efforts coordinated by the New York Fed. But the Senate bill would require virtually all derivative contracts to be settled through a clearinghouse rather than directly between the parties. Applying such ill-designed blanket regulation would make financial derivatives more costly, more difficult to customize, and, consequently, less widely used-which would increase overall risk in the economy.

According to Rasmussen Reports, 64% of Americans are not confident that policymakers in Washington know what they're doing with regards to Wall Street. They have every reason to be concerned. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) tells National Review: "From the beginning, I've thought that the deal Goldman Sachs got via Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on their bad bets through AIG kind of stunk. They got $13 billion from AIG last year." DeFazio doesn't seem to realize that the bill Obama is pushing would empower Secretary Geithner to repeat the AIG bailout ad infinitum. No need to ever go back to Congress for a new TARP. The Senate bill is a permanent TARP. Which is exactly what Goldman Sachs and the rest of their Wall Street lobbyists wanted all along.

Goldman Sachs endorses Trojan horse financial 'reform' bill; Bill has payoffs for special interests

The CEO of Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street firm accused of fraud by the SEC, has endorsed the so-called financial "reform" bill backed by Obama and Congressional leaders.

The bill would enrich Goldman Sachs at the expense of taxpayers and smaller competitors. While the bill contains lots of red tape and fees that will harm insurance policyholders and Main Street, it also eliminates basic safeguards aimed at protecting consumers from fraud by real estate agents and others. It contains selective "carve-outs" for cronies of Senator Chris Dodd. Dodd recently attracted criticism for financial and ethical lapses, such as his receiving "a sweetheart deal on an Irish "cottage" from a crooked stock-trader" and "two preferential discount mortgage interest deals from the now-bankrupt Countrywide." Goldman Sachs is the fourth-largest donor to Democratic campaigns, ranking just below public-employee unions and trial lawyers in its massive support for liberal politicians.

The financial bill contains goodies for Big Labor and "too big to fail" banks and financial institutions, at the expense of taxpayers and competing firms.

As journalist Matt Welch notes, Obama "is lying his face off about financial reform."

Obama has collected millions from Wall Street special interests, his Administration contains many Wall Street lobbyists, and he supported the unnecessary $700 billion bank bailout. But now, he's pushing a deceptive financial regulation bill with phony rhetoric about "reform," claiming it is "not legitimate" to point out that the bill could lead to yet more bailouts and government takeovers.

Obama's legislation would do nothing to rein in the worst offenders behind the mortgage crisis, the government-subsidized mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whil enriching left-wing lobbying groups and community organizers, and giving the government the permanent ability to bail out and take over Wall Street firms.

Obama's proposed financial rules overhaul does absolutely nothing about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, admits Obama's Treasury Secretary, tax cheat Timothy Geithner, even though he admits that "Fannie and Freddie were a core part of what went wrong in our system." Worse, the Obama Administration lifted the $400 billion limit on bailouts for Fannie and Freddie, so that they could continue to buy up junky mortgages at taxpayer expense, and showered their executives with $42 million in compensation. The Obama Administration is now expanding the bailouts of these mortgage giants so that they can lavish pay on their CEOs and reduce the payments of deadbeat mortgage borrowers. (At the direction of the Obama administration, Freddie Mac is now running up $30 billion in losses to bail out mortgage borrowers, some of whom have high incomes. Federal regulators sought to make Freddie Mac hide the resulting losses from the SEC and the public).

Fannie and Freddie helped spawn the mortgage crisis by acting as loan toilets, buying up risky mortgages and thus creating an artificial market for junk. "From the time Fannie and Freddie began buying risky loans as early as 1993, they routinely misrepresented the mortgages they were acquiring, reporting them as prime when they had characteristics that made them clearly subprime."

Why did they buy these risky loans? They put up with Clinton-era affordable-housing regulations that required them to buy up lots of risky loans, in order to curry favor on Capitol Hill and thus retain their annual $10 billion in tax and other special privileges (which they possessed owing to their status as "Government-Sponsored Enterprises" or GSEs). They paid their CEOs millions in the process, and engaged in massive accounting fraud - $6.3 billion at Fannie Mae alone - to increase the size of their managers' bonuses. As GSEs, they were exempt from the capital requirements that apply to private banks, so they did not have enough reserves to cover their losses when their mortgages started defaulting.

Banking expert Peter J. Wallison, who prophetically warned against the risky practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for years, says that Obama's proposals will lead to "bailouts forever" and give big, politically-connected banks that are "too big to fail" the ability to drive smaller rivals out of business at the expense of consumers and taxpayers. His colleague Alex Pollock notes that Obama has not lived up his Administration's claims that it would back reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Obama claims that it will not lead to more bailouts, but even Congressional Democrats admit that it will. As Congressman Brad Sherman (D-Cal.) admitted, the "bill has unlimited executive bailout authority. . .The bill contains permanent, unlimited bailout authority."

Government pressure on banks to make loans in economically-depressed neighborhoods was another key reason for the mortgage meltdown and the financial crisis. If Obama has his way, that pressure will increase. The House earlier approved Obama's proposal to create a politically-correct entity called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. "The agency would be in charge of enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act, a law that prods banks to make loans in low-income communities." It would do so without regard for banks' financial safety and soundness, even though the Community Reinvestment Act was a key contributor to the financial crisis.

Obama's proposed financial regulations would also harm retail banking operations used by middle-class people and small businesses.

Arizona Hispanic Republicans React To SB 1070 And We View It As An Attack Against Our Civil Rights

Phoenix, AZ - Arizona Hispanic Republicans believe that it is unfortunate for Jan Brewer to support Pearce's bill. The greatest leaders in our nation had courage, and we believe that Brewer made her decision in an effort to save her political career. Jan Brewer's decision will mark today as the day in which Hispanic Americans will follow the footsteps of the Great Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Pearce and Brewer do not see the unintended consequences of their actions, and it appears that they were willing to make decisions that affect us at the cost of trampling on our Constitutional Rights.

We believe this party was founded by Abraham Lincoln, a man who was instrumental in doing away with evils towards people of color. We must never forget the price Abraham paid with his own life, and for that we at least owe a fight to bring this party back to our true roots. Later, the Republican Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. picked up Abe's mantle and helped fight the injustice of racism. Republicans in that era fought to free blacks from slavery, which gave people of color freedoms and citizenship.

It is unfortunate that our own members of the Republican Party believe that we have to trample on our Constitution in order to "enforce our laws." We believe that Pearce is easing the requirements for "probable cause" and his attempt in expanding our government. What Pearce's bill proves is that he does not have the answer for illegal immigration within the confines of the American Constitution, and in fact he is not solving the problem by creating more problems.

We believe United States Hispanic citizens have a right to be safe in their person from illegal searches and seizures, and we believe Pearce's efforts are violating that. SB 1070 is a direct slap in the face to Hispanic Americans who have fought and died for several American wars because this new law can be abused by authorities to pull us over with mere "reasonable suspicion".

That said, and even though we are taking a stance against Jan Brewer and Russell Pearce's law, we are ultimately holding President Obama accountable. Obama promised Hispanics that he would pass immigration reform within 90 days of his Presidency. Had Obama carried out his promises to Hispanics last year, the Hispanic community would not be experiencing the crisis we are experiencing right now. There has been recent criticism over our Senator John McCain because John McCain probably feels he cannot win the primary elections due to his previous stances on championing immigration reform and the consistent untrue attacks by Hayworth. It is understandable on why McCain believes he is in the fight of his life. For the record, Senator McCain has taken action in the past while Obama has not. McCain's valuable experience contributed to Americans winning the Iraq war. The problem is this: There are more Latinos registered as Democrats in the State of Arizona that cannot vote for McCain in the primary elections and McCain wants to win. How can these hypocritical democrat leaders lay blame to the McCain when at the very least McCain has action to back his words? Why aren't Democrat leaders holding Obama's feet to the fire? Hispanics are more aligned with Republican values because of our social conservative values and our belief in the Creator; and if Hispanics want to make a real change to help change the face of our Party to bring it back to the Party of Abraham Lincoln, then I call upon all Latinos (Democrat and Independent) to register themselves as Republicans in order to bring it back to those roots.

Hispanic families are agonizing over this issue. Russell Pearce has not articulated a proactive approach to what will happen to American born children and their welfare as they are ripped apart from their parents. In fact, Russell Pearce believes that children born of illegal immigrants should not be declared as citizens.

Arizona Hispanic Republicans will not vote for Jan Brewer this year because we are holding her accountable for supporting a bill that violates the Constitution and our Civil Rights. I have sounded the alarm to all Republicans in this state that the passing of this bill is political suicide.

The State of Arizona already has a blemish because we were the last state of the Union to recognize Martin Luther King as an official holiday. Arizona Hispanic Republicans will write an open letter to our RNC Chair, Michael Steele, as he continues to consider where to hold our next 2011 GOP convention. We will caution our RNC Chair to consider the consequences of that because then it could be perceived as rewarding the state that implemented strong anti-Hispanic laws that has rattled our community and our Civil Rights.

Arizona's newly passed law requiring police to determine the immigration status of persons suspected of being in the country illegally has created a firestorm of controversy in all the usual quarters on the left. Democrats and liberal pundits decry the state's attempt to get a handle on its burgeoning illegal immigration problem as heavy-handed, inherently discriminatory, and racist. President Obama calls the law "misguided," Rev. Al Sharpton promises "freedom walk" marches in the state if the law is not rescinded within 90 days, and San Francisco-the nation's pre-eminent "sanctuary city"-has called for a boycott. This criticism is as expected as it is wrong.

But there are some on the right as well who are critical of Arizona's actions, if not its intent. Among those critics is Matt Lewis, who penned an op-ed that appeared here in The Daily Caller yesterday. In his piece, "Avoiding hypocrisy on immigration," Lewis argues that conservatives should be skeptical of the new law on the grounds that it gives too much power to government. Lewis is concerned about discrimination against people of color, too. But primarily he thinks that conservatives are principle-bound to oppose the law.

"I can't help but find the willingness of many conservatives to grant the police unprecedented power to question U.S. citizens in Arizona as somewhat ironic," Lewis writes. "Conservative activist Grover Norquist has dubbed the conservative movement the "leave us alone coalition," and as Justice Brandeis might have said, this law infringes Arizonans' "right to be left alone"-free from government intrusion. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer should have vetoed it."

First, let's establish what Arizona's law does and does not do. It does not empower police to stop random people on the street and demand their papers, Gestapo-style, as many on the left have claimed. The law quite simply requires police to check immigration status with reasonable suspicion only after they have made "lawful contact." In other words, the police have to have good reason to stop someone for some other reason before even getting to the immigration check. This power is not unprecedented. In fact, police in all 50 states already check immigration status in this way every time they ask for a driver's license, since in most states, illegals cannot obtain one. Furthermore, the law specifically prohibits racial profiling as a tool. So the worries about discrimination seem themselves to be an emotional overreaction.

The charge of hypocrisy leveled here from the right echoes an argument that liberals and Democrats have used, to great effect, against Republican and tea party activists on the issue of government spending and deficits. Namely, that conservative criticism of the Obama administration's profligate spending habits should be dismissed because Republicans ran up deficits when they were in charge. Proponents of this rationale often cite the Bush Administration's "unfunded wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other things, to make their case.

What these arguments have in common, and where they go wrong, is that they treat all government actions as inherently the same, without regard to whether or not they spring from a proper role for government as defined by the Constitution. Therefore, spending on a war in Iraq is equal to spending on welfare programs. And government "intrusion" to check immigration status is the same as government restrictions on gun ownership. But this equivalence of government actions is a false one. All government spending is not the same, and neither are all enforcement actions.

Conservatives argue that the government should spend whatever money is necessary to protect the nation from attack, whatever the deficit implications. Defense is a basic responsibility of the federal government, and few but the most ardent liberals would argue that the US should not pay any price in its own defense. Conservative acceptance of deficit spending in this context does not preclude them from arguing that the government should not spend exorbitant sums to provide universal health care, for instance. Despite the Obama Administration's insistence, health care is not constitutionally mandated. Therefore, conservative criticism of its deficit implications is justified.

Similarly, on immigration, conservatives may rightly argue that Arizona can have its police check the immigration status of people stopped for lawful reasons, while at the same time arguing that the government has no right to intrude somewhere else, as in private health care decisions. One is justified, while the other is not. There is no hypocrisy in expecting the government to enforce its immigration laws and to "leave us alone" when it comes to buying health insurance.

But critics of the Arizona law, left and right, have a bigger problem to contend with. Federal law already requires all resident aliens-i.e. green card holders-to carry their identification papers on them at all times. Arizona, then, has done no more with this law than the federal government itself.

Lewis is right to say that immigration is a touchy subject that is fraught with emotion on all sides. Indeed, many of the nation's political issues are. But in the case of Arizona's new law, all of the emotional arguments appear to be coming from those who oppose the state's actions. Conservative supporters of the law need not be reminded to make their arguments on principle. They already are.

The legislature finds that there is a compelling interest in the cooperative enforcement of federal immigration laws throughout all of Arizona. The legislature declares that the intent of this act is to make attrition through enforcement the public policy of all state and local government agencies in Arizona. The provisions of this act are intended to work together to discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States.

Sec. 2. Title 11, chapter 7, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by adding article 8, to read:

START_STATUTE11-1051. Cooperation and assistance in enforcement of immigration laws; indemnification

A. No official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may limit or restrict the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law.

B. For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of this state or a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation. Any person who is arrested shall have the person's immigration status determined before the person is released. The person's immigration status shall be verified with the federal government pursuant to 8 United States code section 1373(c). A law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may not solely consider race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements of this subsection except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution. A person is presumed to not be an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States if the person provides to the law enforcement officer or agency any of the following:

4. If the entity requires proof of legal presence in the United States before issuance, any valid United States federal, state or local government issued identification.

C. If an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States is convicted of a violation of state or local law, on discharge from imprisonment or on the assessment of any monetary obligation that is imposed, the United States immigration and customs enforcement or the United States customs and border protection shall be immediately notified.

D. Notwithstanding any other law, a law enforcement agency may securely transport an alien who the agency has received verification is unlawfully present in the united states and who is in the agency's custody to a federal facility in this state or to any other point of transfer into federal custody that is outside the jurisdiction of the law enforcement agency. a law enforcement agency shall obtain judicial authorization before securely transporting an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States to a point of transfer that is outside of this state.

E. Except as provided in federal law, officials or agencies of this state and counties, cities, towns and other political subdivisions of this state may not be prohibited or in any way be restricted from sending, receiving or maintaining information relating to the immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual or exchanging that information with any other federal, state or local governmental entity for the following official purposes:

1. Determining eligibility for any public benefit, service or license provided by any federal, state, local or other political subdivision of this state.

2. Verifying any claim of residence or domicile if determination of residence or domicile is required under the laws of this state or a judicial order issued pursuant to a civil or criminal proceeding in this state.

3. If the person is an alien, determining whether the person is in compliance with the federal registration laws prescribed by title II, chapter 7 of the federal immigration and Nationality act.

4. Pursuant to 8 United States Code section 1373 and 8 United States Code section 1644.

F. This section does not implement, authorize or establish and shall not be construed to implement, authorize or establish the REAL ID act of 2005 (P.L. 109-13, division B; 119 Stat. 302), including the use of a radio frequency identification chip.

G. A person who is a legal resident of this state may bring an action in superior court to challenge any official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state that adopts or implements a policy or practice that limits or restricts the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law. If there is a judicial finding that an entity has violated this section, the court shall order that the entity pay a civil penalty of not less than one thousand dollars and not more than five thousand dollars for each day that the policy has remained in effect after the filing of an action pursuant to this subsection.

H. A court shall collect the civil penalty prescribed in subsection G of this section and remit the civil penalty to the state treasurer for deposit in the gang and immigration intelligence team enforcement mission fund established by section 41-1724.

I. The court may award court costs and reasonable attorney fees to any person or any official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state that prevails by an adjudication on the merits in a proceeding brought pursuant to this section.

J. Except in relation to matters in which the officer is adjudged to have acted in bad faith, a law enforcement officer is indemnified by the law enforcement officer's agency against reasonable costs and expenses, including attorney fees, incurred by the officer in connection with any action, suit or proceeding brought pursuant to this section in which the officer may be a defendant by reason of the officer being or having been a member of the law enforcement agency.

K. This section shall be implemented in a manner consistent with federal laws regulating immigration, protecting the civil rights of all persons and respecting the privileges and immunities of United States citizens. END_STATUTE

Sec. 3. Title 13, chapter 15, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by adding section 13-1509, to read:

START_STATUTE13-1509. Willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document; assessment; exception; authenticated records; classification

A. In addition to any violation of federal law, a person is guilty of willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document if the person is in violation of 8 United States Code section 1304(e) or 1306(a).

B. In the enforcement of this section, an alien's immigration status may be determined by:

1. A law enforcement officer who is authorized by the federal government to verify or ascertain an alien's immigration status.

2. The United States immigration and customs enforcement or the United States customs and border protection pursuant to 8 United States Code section 1373(c).

C. A person who is sentenced pursuant to this section is not eligible for suspension of sentence, probation, pardon, commutation of sentence, or release from confinement on any basis except as authorized by section 31-233, subsection A or B until the sentence imposed by the court has been served or the person is eligible for release pursuant to section 41-1604.07.

D. In addition to any other penalty prescribed by law, the court shall order the person to pay jail costs and an additional assessment in the following amounts:

2. Twice the amount specified in paragraph 1 of this subsection if the person was previously subject to an assessment pursuant to this subsection.

E. A court shall collect the assessments prescribed in subsection D of this section and remit the assessments to the department of public safety, which shall establish a special subaccount for the monies in the account established for the gang and immigration intelligence team enforcement mission appropriation. Monies in the special subaccount are subject to legislative appropriation for distribution for gang and immigration enforcement and for county jail reimbursement costs relating to illegal immigration.

F. This section does not apply to a person who maintains authorization from the federal government to remain in the United States.

G. Any record that relates to the immigration status of a person is admissible in any court without further foundation or testimony from a custodian of records if the record is certified as authentic by the government agency that is responsible for maintaining the record.

H. A violation of this section is a class 1 misdemeanor, except that a violation of this section is:

1. A class 3 felony if the person violates this section while in possession of any of the following:

(b) Precursor chemicals that are used in the manufacturing of methamphetamine in violation of section 13-3404.01.

(d) Property that is used for the purpose of committing an act of terrorism as prescribed in section 13-2308.01.

(b) Within sixty months before the violation, has been removed from the United States pursuant to 8 United States Code section 1229a or has accepted a voluntary removal from the United States pursuant to 8 United States Code section 1229c. END_STATUTE

A. It is unlawful for a person to intentionally engage in the smuggling of human beings for profit or commercial purpose.

1. Is a class 2 felony if the human being who is smuggled is under eighteen years of age and is not accompanied by a family member over eighteen years of age or the offense involved the use of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument.

2. Is a class 3 felony if the offense involves the use or threatened use of deadly physical force and the person is not eligible for suspension of sentence, probation, pardon or release from confinement on any other basis except pursuant to section 31-233, subsection A or B until the sentence imposed by the court is served, the person is eligible for release pursuant to section 41-1604.07 or the sentence is commuted.

D. Chapter 10 of this title does not apply to a violation of subsection C, paragraph 1 of this section.

E. Notwithstanding any other law, in the enforcement of this section a peace officer may lawfully stop any person who is operating a motor vehicle if the officer has reasonable suspicion to believe the person is in violation of any civil traffic law.

1. "Family member" means the person's parent, grandparent, sibling or any other person who is related to the person by consanguinity or affinity to the second degree.

2. "Procurement of transportation" means any participation in or facilitation of transportation and includes:

(a) Providing services that facilitate transportation including travel arrangement services or money transmission services.

(b) Providing property that facilitates transportation, including a weapon, a vehicle or other means of transportation or false identification, or selling, leasing, renting or otherwise making available a drop house as defined in section 13-2322.

3. "Smuggling of human beings" means the transportation, procurement of transportation or use of property or real property by a person or an entity that knows or has reason to know that the person or persons transported or to be transported are not United States citizens, permanent resident aliens or persons otherwise lawfully in this state or have attempted to enter, entered or remained in the United States in violation of law. END_STATUTE

Sec. 5. Title 13, chapter 29, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by adding sections 13-2928 and 13-2929, to read:

START_STATUTE13-2928. Unlawful stopping to hire and pick up passengers for work; unlawful application, solicitation or employment; classification; definitions

A. It is unlawful for an occupant of a motor vehicle that is stopped on a street, roadway or highway to attempt to hire or hire and pick up passengers for work at a different location if the motor vehicle blocks or impedes the normal movement of traffic.

B. It is unlawful for a person to enter a motor vehicle that is stopped on a street, roadway or highway in order to be hired by an occupant of the motor vehicle and to be transported to work at a different location if the motor vehicle blocks or impedes the normal movement of traffic.

C. It is unlawful for a person who is unlawfully present in the United States and who is an unauthorized alien to knowingly apply for work, solicit work in a public place or perform work as an employee or independent contractor in this state.

1. "Solicit" means verbal or nonverbal communication by a gesture or a nod that would indicate to a reasonable person that a person is willing to be employed.

2. "Unauthorized alien" means an alien who does not have the legal right or authorization under federal law to work in the United States as described in 8 United States Code section 1324a(h)(3). END_STATUTE

START_STATUTE13-2929. Unlawful transporting, moving, concealing, harboring or shielding of unlawful aliens; vehicle impoundment; exception; classification

1. Transport or move or attempt to transport or move an alien in this state, in furtherance of the illegal presence of the alien in the United States, in a means of transportation if the person knows or recklessly disregards the fact that the alien has come to, has entered or remains in the United States in violation of law.

2. Conceal, harbor or shield or attempt to conceal, harbor or shield an alien from detection in any place in this state, including any building or any means of transportation, if the person knows or recklessly disregards the fact that the alien has come to, has entered or remains in the United States in violation of law.

3. Encourage or induce an alien to come to or reside in this state if the person knows or recklessly disregards the fact that such coming to, entering or residing in this state is or will be in violation of law.

B. A means of transportation that is used in the commission of a violation of this section is subject to mandatory vehicle immobilization or impoundment pursuant to section 28-3511.

C. This section does not apply to a child protective services worker acting in the worker's official capacity or a person who is acting in the capacity of a first responder, an ambulance attendant or an emergency medical technician and who is transporting or moving an alien in this state pursuant to title 36, chapter 21.1.

D. A person who violates this section is guilty of a class 1 misdemeanor and is subject to a fine of at least one thousand dollars, except that a violation of this section that involves ten or more illegal aliens is a class 6 felony and the person is subject to a fine of at least one thousand dollars for each alien who is involved. END_STATUTE

A. A peace officer may, without a warrant, may arrest a person if he the officer has probable cause to believe:

1. A felony has been committed and probable cause to believe the person to be arrested has committed the felony.

2. A misdemeanor has been committed in his the officer's presence and probable cause to believe the person to be arrested has committed the offense.

3. The person to be arrested has been involved in a traffic accident and violated any criminal section of title 28, and that such violation occurred prior to or immediately following such traffic accident.

4. A misdemeanor or a petty offense has been committed and probable cause to believe the person to be arrested has committed the offense. A person arrested under this paragraph is eligible for release under section 13-3903.

5. The person to be arrested has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States.

B. A peace officer may stop and detain a person as is reasonably necessary to investigate an actual or suspected violation of any traffic law committed in the officer's presence and may serve a copy of the traffic complaint for any alleged civil or criminal traffic violation. A peace officer who serves a copy of the traffic complaint shall do so within a reasonable time of the alleged criminal or civil traffic violation.

START_STATUTE23-212. Knowingly employing unauthorized aliens; prohibition; false and frivolous complaints; violation; classification; license suspension and revocation; affirmative defense

A. An employer shall not knowingly employ an unauthorized alien. If, in the case when an employer uses a contract, subcontract or other independent contractor agreement to obtain the labor of an alien in this state, the employer knowingly contracts with an unauthorized alien or with a person who employs or contracts with an unauthorized alien to perform the labor, the employer violates this subsection.

B. The attorney general shall prescribe a complaint form for a person to allege a violation of subsection A of this section. The complainant shall not be required to list the complainant's social security number on the complaint form or to have the complaint form notarized. On receipt of a complaint on a prescribed complaint form that an employer allegedly knowingly employs an unauthorized alien, the attorney general or county attorney shall investigate whether the employer has violated subsection A of this section. If a complaint is received but is not submitted on a prescribed complaint form, the attorney general or county attorney may investigate whether the employer has violated subsection A of this section. This subsection shall not be construed to prohibit the filing of anonymous complaints that are not submitted on a prescribed complaint form. The attorney general or county attorney shall not investigate complaints that are based solely on race, color or national origin. A complaint that is submitted to a county attorney shall be submitted to the county attorney in the county in which the alleged unauthorized alien is or was employed by the employer. The county sheriff or any other local law enforcement agency may assist in investigating a complaint. When investigating a complaint, the attorney general or county attorney shall verify the work authorization of the alleged unauthorized alien with the federal government pursuant to 8 United States Code section 1373(c). A state, county or local official shall not attempt to independently make a final determination on whether an alien is authorized to work in the United States. An alien's immigration status or work authorization status shall be verified with the federal government pursuant to 8 United States Code section 1373(c). A person who knowingly files a false and frivolous complaint under this subsection is guilty of a class 3 misdemeanor.

C. If, after an investigation, the attorney general or county attorney determines that the complaint is not false and frivolous:

1. The attorney general or county attorney shall notify the United States immigration and customs enforcement of the unauthorized alien.

2. The attorney general or county attorney shall notify the local law enforcement agency of the unauthorized alien.

3. The attorney general shall notify the appropriate county attorney to bring an action pursuant to subsection D of this section if the complaint was originally filed with the attorney general.

D. An action for a violation of subsection A of this section shall be brought against the employer by the county attorney in the county where the unauthorized alien employee is or was employed by the employer. The county attorney shall not bring an action against any employer for any violation of subsection A of this section that occurs before January 1, 2008. A second violation of this section shall be based only on an unauthorized alien who is or was employed by the employer after an action has been brought for a violation of subsection A of this section or section 23-212.01, subsection A.

E. For any action in superior court under this section, the court shall expedite the action, including assigning the hearing at the earliest practicable date.

1. For a first violation, as described in paragraph 3 of this subsection, the court:

(a) Shall order the employer to terminate the employment of all unauthorized aliens.

(b) Shall order the employer to be subject to a three year probationary period for the business location where the unauthorized alien performed work. During the probationary period the employer shall file quarterly reports in the form provided in section 23-722.01 with the county attorney of each new employee who is hired by the employer at the business location where the unauthorized alien performed work.

(c) Shall order the employer to file a signed sworn affidavit with the county attorney within three business days after the order is issued. The affidavit shall state that the employer has terminated the employment of all unauthorized aliens in this state and that the employer will not intentionally or knowingly employ an unauthorized alien in this state. The court shall order the appropriate agencies to suspend all licenses subject to this subdivision that are held by the employer if the employer fails to file a signed sworn affidavit with the county attorney within three business days after the order is issued. All licenses that are suspended under this subdivision shall remain suspended until the employer files a signed sworn affidavit with the county attorney. Notwithstanding any other law, on filing of the affidavit the suspended licenses shall be reinstated immediately by the appropriate agencies. For the purposes of this subdivision, the licenses that are subject to suspension under this subdivision are all licenses that are held by the employer specific to the business location where the unauthorized alien performed work. If the employer does not hold a license specific to the business location where the unauthorized alien performed work, but a license is necessary to operate the employer's business in general, the licenses that are subject to suspension under this subdivision are all licenses that are held by the employer at the employer's primary place of business. On receipt of the court's order and notwithstanding any other law, the appropriate agencies shall suspend the licenses according to the court's order. The court shall send a copy of the court's order to the attorney general and the attorney general shall maintain the copy pursuant to subsection G of this section.

(d) May order the appropriate agencies to suspend all licenses described in subdivision (c) of this paragraph that are held by the employer for not to exceed ten business days. The court shall base its decision to suspend under this subdivision on any evidence or information submitted to it during the action for a violation of this subsection and shall consider the following factors, if relevant:

(iv) Whether the employer made good faith efforts to comply with any applicable requirements.

(vi) The role of the directors, officers or principals of the employer in the violation.

2. For a second violation, as described in paragraph 3 of this subsection, the court shall order the appropriate agencies to permanently revoke all licenses that are held by the employer specific to the business location where the unauthorized alien performed work. If the employer does not hold a license specific to the business location where the unauthorized alien performed work, but a license is necessary to operate the employer's business in general, the court shall order the appropriate agencies to permanently revoke all licenses that are held by the employer at the employer's primary place of business. On receipt of the order and notwithstanding any other law, the appropriate agencies shall immediately revoke the licenses.

(a) A first violation by an employer at a business location if the violation did not occur during a probationary period ordered by the court under this subsection or section 23-212.01, subsection F for that employer's business location.

(b) A second violation by an employer at a business location if the violation occurred during a probationary period ordered by the court under this subsection or section 23-212.01, subsection F for that employer's business location.

G. The attorney general shall maintain copies of court orders that are received pursuant to subsection F of this section and shall maintain a database of the employers and business locations that have a first violation of subsection A of this section and make the court orders available on the attorney general's website.

H. On determining whether an employee is an unauthorized alien, the court shall consider only the federal government's determination pursuant to 8 United States Code section 1373(c). The federal government's determination creates a rebuttable presumption of the employee's lawful status. The court may take judicial notice of the federal government's determination and may request the federal government to provide automated or testimonial verification pursuant to 8 United States Code section 1373(c).

I. For the purposes of this section, proof of verifying the employment authorization of an employee through the e-verify program creates a rebuttable presumption that an employer did not knowingly employ an unauthorized alien.

J. For the purposes of this section, an employer that establishes that it has complied in good faith with the requirements of 8 United States Code section 1324a(b) establishes an affirmative defense that the employer did not knowingly employ an unauthorized alien. An employer is considered to have complied with the requirements of 8 United States Code section 1324a(b), notwithstanding an isolated, sporadic or accidental technical or procedural failure to meet the requirements, if there is a good faith attempt to comply with the requirements.

K. It is an affirmative defense to a violation of subsection A of this section that the employer was entrapped. To claim entrapment, the employer must admit by the employer's testimony or other evidence the substantial elements of the violation. An employer who asserts an entrapment defense has the burden of proving the following by a preponderance of the evidence:

1. The idea of committing the violation started with law enforcement officers or their agents rather than with the employer.

2. The law enforcement officers or their agents urged and induced the employer to commit the violation.

3. The employer was not predisposed to commit the violation before the law enforcement officers or their agents urged and induced the employer to commit the violation.

L. An employer does not establish entrapment if the employer was predisposed to violate subsection A of this section and the law enforcement officers or their agents merely provided the employer with an opportunity to commit the violation. It is not entrapment for law enforcement officers or their agents merely to use a ruse or to conceal their identity. The conduct of law enforcement officers and their agents may be considered in determining if an employer has proven entrapment. END_STATUTE

START_STATUTE23-212.01. Intentionally employing unauthorized aliens; prohibition; false and frivolous complaints; violation; classification; license suspension and revocation; affirmative defense

A. An employer shall not intentionally employ an unauthorized alien. If, in the case when an employer uses a contract, subcontract or other independent contractor agreement to obtain the labor of an alien in this state, the employer intentionally contracts with an unauthorized alien or with a person who employs or contracts with an unauthorized alien to perform the labor, the employer violates this subsection.

B. The attorney general shall prescribe a complaint form for a person to allege a violation of subsection A of this section. The complainant shall not be required to list the complainant's social security number on the complaint form or to have the complaint form notarized. On receipt of a complaint on a prescribed complaint form that an employer allegedly intentionally employs an unauthorized alien, the attorney general or county attorney shall investigate whether the employer has violated subsection A of this section. If a complaint is received but is not submitted on a prescribed complaint form, the attorney general or county attorney may investigate whether the employer has violated subsection A of this section. This subsection shall not be construed to prohibit the filing of anonymous complaints that are not submitted on a prescribed complaint form. The attorney general or county attorney shall not investigate complaints that are based solely on race, color or national origin. A complaint that is submitted to a county attorney shall be submitted to the county attorney in the county in which the alleged unauthorized alien is or was employed by the employer. The county sheriff or any other local law enforcement agency may assist in investigating a complaint. When investigating a complaint, the attorney general or county attorney shall verify the work authorization of the alleged unauthorized alien with the federal government pursuant to 8 United States Code section 1373(c). A state, county or local official shall not attempt to independently make a final determination on whether an alien is authorized to work in the United States. An alien's immigration status or work authorization status shall be verified with the federal government pursuant to 8 United States Code section 1373(c). A person who knowingly files a false and frivolous complaint under this subsection is guilty of a class 3 misdemeanor.

C. If, after an investigation, the attorney general or county attorney determines that the complaint is not false and frivolous:

1. The attorney general or county attorney shall notify the United States immigration and customs enforcement of the unauthorized alien.

2. The attorney general or county attorney shall notify the local law enforcement agency of the unauthorized alien.

3. The attorney general shall notify the appropriate county attorney to bring an action pursuant to subsection D of this section if the complaint was originally filed with the attorney general.

E. For any action in superior court under this section, the court shall expedite the action, including assigning the hearing at the earliest practicable date.

1. For a first violation, as described in paragraph 3 of this subsection, the court shall:

(b) Order the employer to be subject to a five year probationary period for the business location where the unauthorized alien performed work. During the probationary period the employer shall file quarterly reports in the form provided in section 23-722.01 with the county attorney of each new employee who is hired by the employer at the business location where the unauthorized alien performed work.

(c) Order the appropriate agencies to suspend all licenses described in subdivision (d) of this paragraph that are held by the employer for a minimum of ten days. The court shall base its decision on the length of the suspension under this subdivision on any evidence or information submitted to it during the action for a violation of this subsection and shall consider the following factors, if relevant:

(iv) Whether the employer made good faith efforts to comply with any applicable requirements.

(vi) The role of the directors, officers or principals of the employer in the violation.

(d) Order the employer to file a signed sworn affidavit with the county attorney. The affidavit shall state that the employer has terminated the employment of all unauthorized aliens in this state and that the employer will not intentionally or knowingly employ an unauthorized alien in this state. The court shall order the appropriate agencies to suspend all licenses subject to this subdivision that are held by the employer if the employer fails to file a signed sworn affidavit with the county attorney within three business days after the order is issued. All licenses that are suspended under this subdivision for failing to file a signed sworn affidavit shall remain suspended until the employer files a signed sworn affidavit with the county attorney. For the purposes of this subdivision, the licenses that are subject to suspension under this subdivision are all licenses that are held by the employer specific to the business location where the unauthorized alien performed work. If the employer does not hold a license specific to the business location where the unauthorized alien performed work, but a license is necessary to operate the employer's business in general, the licenses that are subject to suspension under this subdivision are all licenses that are held by the employer at the employer's primary place of business. On receipt of the court's order and notwithstanding any other law, the appropriate agencies shall suspend the licenses according to the court's order. The court shall send a copy of the court's order to the attorney general and the attorney general shall maintain the copy pursuant to subsection G of this section.

(a) A first violation by an employer at a business location if the violation did not occur during a probationary period ordered by the court under this subsection or section 23-212, subsection F for that employer's business location.

(b) A second violation by an employer at a business location if the violation occurred during a probationary period ordered by the court under this subsection or section 23-212, subsection F for that employer's business location.

J. For the purposes of this section, an employer that establishes that it has complied in good faith with the requirements of 8 United States Code section 1324a(b) establishes an affirmative defense that the employer did not intentionally employ an unauthorized alien. An employer is considered to have complied with the requirements of 8 United States Code section 1324a(b), notwithstanding an isolated, sporadic or accidental technical or procedural failure to meet the requirements, if there is a good faith attempt to comply with the requirements.

1. The idea of committing the violation started with law enforcement officers or their agents rather than with the employer.

2. The law enforcement officers or their agents urged and induced the employer to commit the violation.

3. The employer was not predisposed to commit the violation before the law enforcement officers or their agents urged and induced the employer to commit the violation.

START_STATUTE23-214. Verification of employment eligibility; e-verify program; economic development incentives; list of registered employers

A. After December 31, 2007, every employer, after hiring an employee, shall verify the employment eligibility of the employee through the e-verify program and shall keep a record of the verification for the duration of the employee's employment or at least three years, whichever is longer.

B. In addition to any other requirement for an employer to receive an economic development incentive from a government entity, the employer shall register with and participate in the e-verify program. Before receiving the economic development incentive, the employer shall provide proof to the government entity that the employer is registered with and is participating in the e-verify program. If the government entity determines that the employer is not complying with this subsection, the government entity shall notify the employer by certified mail of the government entity's determination of noncompliance and the employer's right to appeal the determination. On a final determination of noncompliance, the employer shall repay all monies received as an economic development incentive to the government entity within thirty days of the final determination. For the purposes of this subsection:

1. "Economic development incentive" means any grant, loan or performance-based incentive from any government entity that is awarded after September 30, 2008. Economic development incentive does not include any tax provision under title 42 or 43.

2. "Government entity" means this state and any political subdivision of this state that receives and uses tax revenues.

C. Every three months the attorney general shall request from the United States department of homeland security a list of employers from this state that are registered with the e-verify program. On receipt of the list of employers, the attorney general shall make the list available on the attorney general's website. END_STATUTE

A. A peace officer shall cause the removal and either immobilization or impoundment of a vehicle if the peace officer determines that a person is driving the vehicle while any of the following applies:

2. The person has not ever been issued a valid driver license or permit by this state and the person does not produce evidence of ever having a valid driver license or permit issued by another jurisdiction. This paragraph does not apply to the operation of an implement of husbandry.

3. The person is subject to an ignition interlock device requirement pursuant to chapter 4 of this title and the person is operating a vehicle without a functioning certified ignition interlock device. This paragraph does not apply to a person operating an employer's vehicle or the operation of a vehicle due to a substantial emergency as defined in section 28-1464.

4. In furtherance of the illegal presence of an alien in the United States and in violation of a criminal offense, the person is transporting or moving or attempting to transport or move an alien in this state in a vehicle if the person knows or recklessly disregards the fact that the alien has come to, has entered or remains in the United States in violation of law.

5. The person is concealing, harboring or shielding or attempting to conceal, harbor or shield from detection an alien in this state in a vehicle if the person knows or recklessly disregards the fact that the alien has come to, entered or remains in the United States in violation of law.

B. A peace officer shall cause the removal and impoundment of a vehicle if the peace officer determines that a person is driving the vehicle and if all of the following apply:

1. The person's driving privilege is canceled, suspended or revoked for any reason or the person has not ever been issued a driver license or permit by this state and the person does not produce evidence of ever having a driver license or permit issued by another jurisdiction.

2. The person is not in compliance with the financial responsibility requirements of chapter 9, article 4 of this title.

3. The person is driving a vehicle that is involved in an accident that results in either property damage or injury to or death of another person.

C. Except as provided in subsection D of this section, while a peace officer has control of the vehicle the peace officer shall cause the removal and either immobilization or impoundment of the vehicle if the peace officer has probable cause to arrest the driver of the vehicle for a violation of section 4-244, paragraph 34 or section 28-1382 or 28-1383.

D. A peace officer shall not cause the removal and either the immobilization or impoundment of a vehicle pursuant to subsection C of this section if all of the following apply:

1. The peace officer determines that the vehicle is currently registered and that the driver or the vehicle is in compliance with the financial responsibility requirements of chapter 9, article 4 of this title.

3. The peace officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the spouse of the driver:

(b) Is not impaired by intoxicating liquor, any drug, a vapor releasing substance containing a toxic substance or any combination of liquor, drugs or vapor releasing substances.

4. The spouse notifies the peace officer that the spouse will drive the vehicle from the place of arrest to the driver's home or other place of safety.

5. The spouse drives the vehicle as prescribed by paragraph 4 of this subsection.

E. Except as otherwise provided in this article, a vehicle that is removed and either immobilized or impounded pursuant to subsection A, B or C of this section shall be immobilized or impounded for thirty days. An insurance company does not have a duty to pay any benefits for charges or fees for immobilization or impoundment.

F. The owner of a vehicle that is removed and either immobilized or impounded pursuant to subsection A, B or C of this section, the spouse of the owner and each person identified on the department's record with an interest in the vehicle shall be provided with an opportunity for an immobilization or poststorage hearing pursuant to section 28-3514.END_STATUTE

Sec. 11. Title 41, chapter 12, article 2, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by adding section 41-1724, to read:

START_STATUTE41-1724. Gang and immigration intelligence team enforcement mission fund

The gang and immigration intelligence team enforcement mission fund is established consisting of monies deposited pursuant to section 11-1051 and monies appropriated by the legislature. The department shall administer the fund. Monies in the fund are subject to legislative appropriation and shall be used for gang and immigration enforcement and for county jail reimbursement costs relating to illegal immigration. END_STATUTE

A. If a provision of this act or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the invalidity does not affect other provisions or applications of the act that can be given effect without the invalid provision or application, and to this end the provisions of this act are severable.

B. The terms of this act regarding immigration shall be construed to have the meanings given to them under federal immigration law.

C. This act shall be implemented in a manner consistent with federal laws regulating immigration, protecting the civil rights of all persons and respecting the privileges and immunities of United States citizens.

D. Nothing in this act shall implement or shall be construed or interpreted to implement or establish the REAL ID act of 2005 (P.L. 109-13, division B; 119 Stat. 302) including the use of a radio frequency identification chip.

This act may be cited as the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act".

Personally, I was against a government partnership with churches when it came to various relief causes and reimbursing the churches for their actions. That was Bush and it was a bad alliance. In March, there was another report issued to the President about a similar partnership with faith-based organization and the green movement, and how they can work hand-in-hand with our government on a variety of green projects. Here’s the report:

President Obama suggests that Rush and Beck fans read a few Huffington post columns:

White supremacist lawyer and leader of the Nationalist Movement, Richard Barrett, was allegedly stabbed and beaten to death by a black neighbor who did yard work for him.

President Obama makes an early appeal to Latinos, African-Americans, Women and Youth

FoxNews is #1 cable news station for 100 months in a row. 9 of the top 10 shows are FoxNews shows. If you are not watching FoxNews, then this ought to make no sense to you:

Did the Obama administration cover up the HHS report and the true cost of Obamacare?

RUSH: Byron York today has an opinion piece that is excellent in the DC Examiner, and it's a takeoff, it's a reaction to a Michael Gerson column that ran in the Washington Post. Here's Byron York: "In the Washington Post, columnist and former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson pronounces the new Arizona immigration law 'understandable -- and dreadful.' Gerson says states do not have the authority 'to take control of American immigration policy -- an authority that Arizona has seized in order to abuse.' The effect of the new law, he argues, will be bad for everybody: It makes it harder for illegal immigrants to live without scrutiny -- but it also makes it harder for some American citizens to live without suspicion and humiliation. Americans are not accustomed to the command 'Your papers, please,' however politely delivered. The distinctly American response to such a request would be 'Go to hell,' and then 'See you in court.'

"Which leads to the question: What America is Gerson living in? No, we are not confronted by actors with heavy German accents demanding our papers. We are instead confronted routinely by people of all stripes asking to see our driver's license. When we board an airplane, we are asked to produce a government-issued photo ID, usually a driver's license. When we make some credit- or debit-card purchases in department stores, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we enter many office buildings, both private and government, security guards often ask us to produce a driver's license. When we go to doctors' offices and hospitals, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we check into hotels, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we purchase some over-the-counter drugs, we are asked to produce a driver's license. If we go to a bar or nightclub, anyone who looks at all young is asked to produce a driver's license. And needless to say, if we have any encounter with police or other authorities, we are asked to produce a driver's license. Some situations involve an even higher level of scrutiny. When we get a new job, we are asked to provide not a driver's license but a passport or birth certificate to prove citizenship. In other situations, too: When I renewed my District of Columbia driver's license last year, I had to produce a passport to prove citizenship, even though it was a valid, unexpired license I was renewing. And in many places, buying a gun -- a constitutionally-protected right -- involves enormous scrutiny."

By the way, I can personally attest to this driver's license business. I had to go get mine renewed. There were three forms of documentation required. A tax return, a passport, I forget what the other one was, and without all three you didn't get your renewal, even though mine had not expired, my picture was on the expiring license. It was a level of scrutiny I have never faced in getting a driver's license before. (interruption) Well, yeah, I was upset by it, of course I was upset by it because it was silly. And yet it was there. "Has Michael Gerson never experienced any of those situations? And by the way, has he read the Arizona law? Does he know that it specifically states that in any encounter with police, when a person produces a valid Arizona driver's license (or, for non-drivers, other forms of ID listed in the law), that person is immediately presumed to be in the United States legally? Given all the situations listed above, can anyone argue that being asked to produce a driver's license, if one is in some sort of encounter with police in which police are acting lawfully (that is also specified by the new law) is overly burdensome? Being asked to produce identification is a burden that falls on everyone," and now all of a sudden it's racist.

It is racist to ask people who may be here illegally to prove that they are here legally? We have to produce a lot of this identification, by the way, especially when we get a job because of illegal aliens. Can I be clear about this? You go apply for a job and you have to prove that you're a citizen because of the influx of illegals. We aren't used to being asked for our papers? "Our papers, please." About the only time we aren't asked for identification, my friends -- I've gone through everything Byron York said here, I agree with it -- about the only time we're not asked for ID is when we vote. We are asked for our papers. We are asked to prove who we are constantly, multiple times a day, and yet somehow it is racist to do this in Arizona. And the president of the United States may move to undo the immigration law. This is how the regime does things.

RUSH: Okay, I'm going to play this question and sound bite again, because it just... I don't know. It is infuriating, the use of the word "papers." I mean ,Obama I can understand, but why Gerson, a former Bush speechwriter, is falling into this trap. This is a George Lakoff (rhymes with) situation.

(German accent) "Your papers, please!" It equals Nazi. That's why Obama's using the term. I can understand Obama being touchy on the subject of producing your papers. Maybe he's afraid somebody's going to ask him for his! So here's the question. "I was wondering what your plan was, [Mr. Regime Leader], for our undocumented workers who helped establish our country."

OBAMA: This law that just passed in Arizona, which I think is a poorly conceived law, you can imagine if you are a Hispanic-American in Arizona, your great grandparents may have been there before Arizona was even a state. But now suddenly if you don't have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you're going to be harassed, that's something that could potentially happen, I -- that's not the right way to go.

RUSH: Right. Well, you know, I have friends who have great-great-grandparents who were in England before England had any laws about immigration. My friends, can I live in England and enjoy their services 'cause my great-great-grandparents were there before there were any immigration laws? Get this. Try this. So we have illegal aliens here who we can't ask them for their papers like every other citizen has to provide ID. We can't ask them. The Jews, however, have to stop building in Jerusalem when they were there thousands of years before there was a Muslim religion or a Christian religion. So by Obama's own logic, he trips himself up. Anybody whose great-grandparents were in Arizona before it was a state has a right to walk on in there, and yet the Jews were there before any other religion thousands of years ago in Jerusalem, and Obama wants to deny them the right to do...? It's dangerous what's happening here, ladies and gentlemen. This use of this word "papers" is not by accident. Here. He said some more in answer to this student.

OBAMA: This is such a volatile issue. It will bring the majority of Democrats to the table in getting this done. But I've gotta have some help from the other side. I've gotta have some help from the other side because we're not gonna solve this problem. It could be exploited for political purposes, and the only way to rise above the politics and actually solve the problem once and for all is to make sure that it's a bipartisan effort, and that's what we're pushin' for. I hope that we can get it done, uhh, sometime soon. And I'm, uhh, going to continue to advocate on behalf of finally fixing this system so that we don't have either the kind of bad laws that we've seen in Arizona -- or, alternatively, we've got half a million illegal folks coming into Arizona without any control.

RUSH: Well, what the hell's happening now? Bad laws that we've seen in Arizona. He can't get amnesty without bipartisanship. Why can't you just jam it down our throats like you did health care? Why can't you just overrule Arizona? Why can't you just, as a leader of the regime, tell 'em that their law no longer stands? And, by the way, the DC Examiner White House correspondent, headline: "Obama May Move to Undo Arizona Immigration Law -- Arizona's tough new immigration laws may prompt the White House to intervene, potentially igniting a divisive election-year battle. President Obama has spoken in favor of a comprehensive immigration plan, but so far has put forth no policy guidelines or proposals, hoping instead that Congress would take the lead as in the early days of health care reform.

"But pressure from immigration reform advocates and the seriousness of Arizona's new law may force Obama to act. Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department may pursue legal action. 'I'm very concerned about the wedge that [the new law] could drive between communities that law enforcement is supposed to serve and those of us in law enforcement,' Holder said at a news conference." Now, Eric Holder and Barack Obama don't give a damn about the New Black Panthers intimidating voters and violating their civil rights in Philadelphia. They got off scot-free, thanks to Eric Holder. When it comes to civil rights violations, what do we call voter intimidation, which was caught on tape? Obama and Holder have no standing or credibility when it comes to civil rights at all, especially after that.

They have ignored and stonewalled investigations and inquiries about the New Black Panthers who were caught on tape violating American citizens' civil rights at the voting booth. It's absurd to listen to these two people talk about civil rights and Arizona's immigration law -- and then demanding or suggesting that we overturn it from the highest levels of the regime. So basically what we have here is we have a federal government that refuses to enforce federal immigration law. We have a state that is enforcing federal immigration law. You know what the president ought to say? He ought to say, "Look, even though I took an oath to uphold the Constitution and the law of the land, I'm not going to," because that's what he's doing. Just come out, Mr. President, be truthful. You did take an oath to uphold the Constitution and the law of the land. But you're not. So just tell people that you don't care a whit about the citizens of Arizona or the people in any of the Border States.

RUSH: As always with the left and with the regime, you have to look beneath the surface. You've heard the old story about a duck. It looks like it's so smooth gliding across the water, but underneath the duck's going nuts, paddling furiously to get where it's going. So why? Why this furious reaction to the Arizona immigration law? I'll tell you why. That's why I am here and you are there. The left, the Democrats, Obama, recognize that this notion of proving one's identity is a lethal blow to their agenda. (interruption) You know how, Snerdley? (interruption) Exactly right. It's regarding the vote. Illegal voters are the only hope the Democrats have of retaining power. Why do you think this push, all of a sudden leapfrogging immigration over cap and trade and whatever else?

They're even admitting, Dingy Harry needs to jack up his Hispanic voter base out in Nevada. They don't really intend to pass anything right now because it would rip the country apart. They just want the Democrats and the Hispanic population to think they're working on it. You see, the Democrats are betting everything on their ability to maintain vote fraud. Ask John Fund about this. Read anything John Fund has written about this in the Wall Street Journal on Democrat vote fraud. That's why they are having a conniption fit over this law in Arizona. The Democrats know that their agenda would barely garner 30% of the vote if it were public. If they were honest from top to bottom about that they intend to do, Obama himself would barely have gotten 30% of the vote. They can see the polling data.

They know the vast majority of the country is center-right. They know that on issue after issue after issue Obama is losing. A vast majority of Americans disapprove of agenda item after agenda item. They know they cannot win in policy debates. They cannot win in the arena of ideas. They must use thuggery as they did in health care, or bribes or what have you. I'm telling you, my friends, this whole notion of opposing this racist bigotry in Arizona is based simply on one thing: The fact that having to prove your identity is a lethal blow to their agenda. As I made mention in the first half hour of this program, the only place you don't have to prove ID is when you vote. You have to show a voter registration card where I vote, but the Democrats have fought in every state efforts to produce photo ID to vote, to prove that you are registered, to prove that you are a citizen.

They have fought it, and this is why. If this Arizona law stands -- and there is a representative in the state of Texas, a member of their legislature who wants to adopt this law now.

"A Republican Texas lawmaker plans to introduce a tough immigration measure similar to the new law in Arizona, a move state Democrats say would be a mistake. Rep. Debbie Riddle of Tomball said she will push for the law in the January legislative session, according to Wednesday's editions of the San Antonio Express-News and Houston Chronicle. 'The first priority for any elected official is to make sure that the safety and security of Texans is well-established,' said Riddle... 'If our federal government did their job, then Arizona wouldn't have to take this action, and neither would Texas.'" Amen. It's also the first responsibility of the federal government. They have rejected that responsibility. That's why Arizona has acted. So make no mistake what this is really all about. They have been trying to demonize and even criminalize providing your ID, especially when you vote. They cannot win without vote fraud. They cannot win without illegals voting.

They cannot win unless they round up a bunch of people in buses provided by unions or whoever and put people on board those buses who have no idea where they're going. While they're en route, they're told what to do when they get there, and then they do it and they take 'em back home. Very simple. Very, very simple. Where is President Obama reaching out to the people who oppose amnesty? How is he trying to listen to them? This was going to be a transparent administration. He was going to unify us. He was going to bring us all together. Instead he's throwing the race card out there! He's dividing us by race and ethnicity. Where is the empathy for the people who oppose amnesty? At the very least, isn't the Arizona immigration law what they always say: A desperate cry for help? It's a desperate cry for help.

Obama is known to have only worked on two cases as a lawyer: Redlining in the case of loans as a precursor to the subprime mortgage business, and the Motor Voter Bill. Those are the two cases that Obama as a lawyer has worked on. Make no mistake: The Democrats know that you are not them. They know that they do not represent a majority of the thinking in this country. They know they have to govern against you. They have to govern against the will of the people. They know that you know that the way they're doing things is not the way things get done in this country. They know that if producing your papers when it comes to time to vote ever happens in one state, then they have a big, big problem. They're betting everything in their future on their ability to maintain vote fraud. Let's go to the audio sound bites, this whole "produce your papers thing"? Nazi! Lakoff. So last Friday-Saturday-Sunday-Monday, we have a montage of all kinds of media people talking about this...

MARTHA MACCALLUM: Critics have said that it's akin to the Nazis, in terms of demanding people's papers.

F. CHUCK TODD: ...The party of "show me your papers."

KEITH OLBERDORK: ...the "show us your papers act."

CAMPBELL BROWN: Show us your papers.

RACHEL MADDOW: Papers, please.

LESLIE SANCHEZ: Stop and show us your papers.

HOWARD FINEMAN: Let's see your papers.

RICH SANCHEZ: ...to show papers...

PHIL DONAHUE: We're walking up to people and saying, "Let me see your papers."

"MAUDE" BEHAR: This very much smells of, "May I see your papers?"

PAUL KRUGMAN: ...apocryphal regimes where the police are always saying, "Hand over your papers."

ELEANOR PELTA: A let-me-see-your-papers environment.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Can he stop the car and say, "Let's see your papers"?

GERALDO RIVERA: Can you say, "Papers, please."

SETH MEYERS: Can we all agree there's nothing more Nazi than saying, "Show me your papers"?

RUSH: So there you have it. So now the Arizona legislature, the governor, are a bunch of Nazis. Michael Gerson, Washington Post, former speechwriter George W. Bush, was right in on the action, referring to all of this as Nazi-like. "Produce your papers." In the meantime let me ask you something, folks: What really is more Nazi-like. Is it more Nazi-like to produce your ID when you check into a hotel or cash a check or what have you, or when you take over two automobile companies? Which is more Nazi-like? What is more Nazi-like: Demanding that you prove that you are a legal citizen if you are in a situation where you may have committed a crime, or is it more Nazi-like to commandeer and take over one-sixth of the US private sector and run health care from the headquarters of the regime?

Which is more Nazi-like? What is more Nazi-like: Asking people for IDs when they get on airplanes, buy an airplane ticket or what have you, or cash a check, or when American businesses follow the law and say, "You know what? You just passed the health care bill. I gotta take a one-million-dollar from my bottom line according to the law," and then Henry Waxman sends you essentially a subpoena and says, "You can't embarrass our president like that! Everybody knows this health care bill's going to reduce costs! You bring yourself up here and bring your papers, you bring your e-mails, and you bring your books." What is more Nazi-like than the regime coming after you even after you've obeyed the law? All of a sudden -- and you will not find "Produce your papers" anywhere in the law. It has been totally created and been picked up by government-run media. Now that's Nazi-like. My friends, this regime, in its day-to-day actions, is far more Nazi-like than any identification law that is enforced anywhere in this country.

RUSH: Let me ask you something, if you're in California, if you're in New York or Florida, if you're driving around anywhere in this country and you are pulled over and you can't produce documentation, if you don't have a driver's license, what happens to you? Well, not necessarily jail, but you get a ticket. You get cited. If you have an expired license, if you can't prove the car is yours, what happens to you? What's different about this than anything happening in Arizona? Not a damn thing. These people, folks, you know, you try going to Mexico without proper documentation. You want to talk about some tough immigration law, you want to talk about violation of civil rights, try moving to Mexico and find out what you can't do when you get there.

Funny how the left only mentions the Nazis asking for papers. In the Soviet Union, if you move to another town, why, you had to go to the local police and give them your papers just to move from one town to another. Anybody ever heard of the Brandenburg Gate? Anybody ever heard of the Berlin Wall? The Soviet communists were far more frequently using "Produce your papers, please" than even the Nazis. And of course the American left idolized the Soviet Union. The American left dreams of its rebirth to this day in this country. The Soviet Union popularized this whole notion of, "Produce your papers." Their ID requirements in the Soviet Union were far more extreme in times of peace than the Nazis were at the height of war. Don't doubt me.

RUSH: Just to reiterate, ladies and gentlemen -- it's a very important point, perhaps a theme of today's program concerning illegal immigration -- why the regime and the media and all of its supporters are just in a tizzy about the new Arizona immigration law: It is all about voting. If papers (ahem) are required to vote, the Democrats are finished. It's their only hope. I mean, look, they're the radicals. They are siding against the American people. This regime is siding against the American people. The only hope they have is for fraud and illegals voting, and you can't really get away with that if everybody has to have a photo ID and legal proof (i.e., papers) that they are citizens. So under the heading of why this is so important to the Democrats: "A federal immigration probe in 1996 into alleged Motor Voter fraud..." By the way, do you know what the first real act of legislation of Bill Clinton was in '93? Motor Voter. Motor Voter: Register when you get your driver's license.

Bill Clinton. Democrats. Anyway: "A Federal immigration probe in 1996 into alleged motor vote fraud in California's Orange County revealed that 4,023 illegal voters possibly cast ballots in the disputed election between Robert Dornan and Loretta Sanchez for Congress." Dornan lost that race by fewer than one thousand votes, and there were alleged to be 4,000 illegal votes. That is the point.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Listen, just a comment on the immigration problem. A US citizen cannot leave the US and enter another country without a US passport or you're asked by the other country what your business is in their country. Yet these illegals walk in the US by the thousands, they trespass on our goodwill and our laws without punity. They receive the financial benefits and profit from American bounty, paid for, I might add, by our tax-paying, law-abiding citizens.

RUSH: I know. I made this point earlier in the program. Why do we even have embassies? You know, if the American embassy in Great Britain or France or wherever, if you are not a citizen you have to get a visa to come here. Why have diplomats? Why not just get rid of passports? Why not just get rid of them, folks? The guy has an excellent point, 'cause I made it earlier, that's why I know it's an excellent point. We can fight this on logic grounds every sentence, and we can smear 'em, we can cream 'em. But the big thing, the reason why they are so nervous is that this threatens nationwide voter fraud. That's what they're concerned about, the vote, pure and simple.

RUSH: You remember, folks, what Obama's first organizing job in Chicago was? It was Project Vote, which was about getting new votes for Carol Moseley Braun, and is the same Project Vote got him elected a couple years later. Project Vote. It's a local version of Rock the Vote. It was an ACORN type thing, Project Vote. New votes, quote, unquote, new votes. So amnesty is simply the next Project Vote for Barack Obama.

Byron York’s article: “What America is Michael Gerson living in?” (Byron was on fire this past week):

RUSH: I want to know where all the stories are in the Drive-By Media about the violence about, "Hey, let's not encourage violence at the protests in Arizona. Let's be civil." I want to know where all the scrutiny from the media is on the anti-Arizona immigration law crowd. The tea parties were ridiculed and accused of things that they had not even done by President Clinton and President Obama. I have a picture I'm holding in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers of a pinata with the face of Jan Brewer, the Arizona governor on it, who, by the way, has seen a huge poll bounce ever since she signed the law, more on that. You got some little kid beating the hell out of a pinata with the face of the governor on it. Where are all the stories of the violence? It's a little kid beating up on this pinata. Get this. A bunch of namby-pamby bleeding hearts are now advocating a boycott against the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team not only when they play at home, but when they play on the road. Man, oh, man. The leftists are just worked up into a tizzy about this.

And, of course, San Francisco employees, public city employees who earn over a hundred grand a year have been told not to travel to Arizona. They have been warned by the mayor out there, do not, you cannot, you will not go to Arizona. Here's what I think Jan Brewer ought to do. Jan Brewer, the governor of Arizona, should hold a press conference this afternoon. She should explain all of the great welfare programs the city of San Francisco offers illegal aliens and the homeless and everybody else, and then she should offer to issue one-way travel vouchers on greyhound or Amtrak to any illegal alien in Arizona who wishes to go to San Francisco. Let that smug Gavin Newsom find the money to pay for all these limousine liberal compassion programs that they've got up there. You want to keep your city employees from going into Arizona, fine, you're a sanctuary city, I think the governor of Arizona ought to offer one-way travel vouchers to illegal aliens who now find it just so dangerous and so horrible to live in the state of Arizona.

"Governor Jan Brewer signed an immigration law that launched a national debate. It has also at least temporarily helped her own chances of remaining Arizona's governor. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state shows that 56% now approve of the way Brewer is performing her role as governor. Two weeks ago, just 40% offered their approval." She has had a bounce of 16% since she signed the immigration law into effect. Now, this Rasmussen poll, this is huge. This is speaking truth to propaganda because, remember, Obama and his regime govern against the will of the people, and Obama got no health care bounce. We were told by the regime's media that there was going to be a huge bounce in Obama's polling data after he signed the health care law, but it didn't happen. And yet the governor of Arizona gets a 16-point bounce, boost, from her own people, her own voters, and even people that didn't vote for her in the state of Arizona.

Barack Obama, ladies and gentlemen, he's got something in for the cops, there's no question. You go back to Cambridge. This guy's got some problem with police officers. Here's Obama last night in Ottumwa, Iowa, Indian Hills Community College, he held a town meeting. During the Q&A the student, Julie Morales, says, "I was wondering what your plan was for our undocumented workers who helped establish our country." Do you hear that question? Julie Morales, a student at Indian Hills Community College asks the president, "I was wondering what your plan was for our undocumented workers who helped establish our country." What is this woman being taught? Undocumented workers helped establish the country? I didn't have that chapter in my history book in junior high or high school. What in the world has this poor student been taught? Undocumented workers built and established the United States? Of course it's the kind of question the regime loves. Here is Obama's answer.

RUSH: He hasn't read the bill. He obviously hasn't read the bill. So now people have more of a right to be there because they were there before Arizona was even a state. So that's his argument, to create a phony hypothetical where families getting ice cream are hassled by stupid, bigoted policemen. This is gonna require a massive tequila summit before this is all over. We had a beer summit up in Cambridge. So Obama's now not satisfied with just attacking a state. He has to attack their police as well. I'll tell you what's poorly conceived here, is Obama's views on the cops. He thinks all these cops are going to act stupidly. This is an outrageous answer, this is an outrageous thing. Here, listen to this again. First the question, the question is absolutely baseless and ignorant. "What is your plan, Mr. President, for our undocumented workers who helped establish our country?"

RUSH: Oh, not the right way to go. Your great-grandparents may have been in Arizona before Arizona was even a state, but now suddenly if you don't have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream you're going to get harassed. So once again, this is a shot, make no mistake about it, ladies and gentlemen, at the cops.

RUSH: Where are we? We have a federal government that refuses to enforce federal immigration law and a state that is. The president ought to just come out and say right now, "Look, even though I took an oath to uphold the Constitution and the law of the land, I'm not going to. I don't give a damn about the people of Arizona or the people in any of the border states. I don't give a damn about the people of this country generally. I'm on a worldwide stage now. My number one job's to impress other governments and other people, not to look out for the best interests of the American people." This is what Obama ought to say because this is what he's doing. He could also say this. He hasn't done a press conference in a long time, but he could call a national address to the nation to help quell all of this unrest. President Obama could honestly say to the people of this country, "I can bully, I can smear, I can abuse the citizens of this country by going overseas and denouncing them, their parents and their grandparents, calling them imperialist, in essence, capitalist pigs, in essence. I can pass laws that force American citizens to do what I tell 'em to do whether they like it or not," such as this insurance mandate, which is wholly unconstitutional.

"I can raise your taxes as much as I want. I can deny you energy to heat your home and run your car. I can tell you what to eat. I can kick Americans to the curb or make them wards of the state. I, Barack Obama, in 16 short months have done that and more. But when it actually comes to protecting you from alien criminals, protecting you from aliens coming into your town and state by the millions who use your services and who are here illegally, well, I'm going to side with the illegal aliens every time. I, President Obama, think the cops are stupid. I am going to oppose cops every chance I get. I am going to side with illegal aliens every time." In fact, what President Obama is doing, if you want to get down to brass tacks here, is siding against Americans. And this is the argument we need to universalize, I'm telling you, from the health care bill to whatever other piece of legislation he has planned or has passed -- TARP, stimulus -- Barack Obama is siding against Americans. A better way of saying he's governing against the will of the people.

Barack Obama is siding against us. He does not stand up for the law-abiding citizens of this country. He does not stand up for the legal immigrants in this country. He goes to bat for the illegals, the malcontents, the lawbreakers. Because it is their votes he needs. And he can't get those votes if we ever get to a point where voter photo ID is required at the polling place. That's what's undergirding all this. Look at the war on terrorism, my friends. Obama and his attorney general have spent months trying to insure that terrorists receive constitutional rights. No president before has ever conferred on this kind of an enemy. It's suicidal. But he does it. He doesn't care about the American citizen. He doesn't care about the dire consequences of his actions. He is reckless. He borders on lawless. Here's the thing, the people of Arizona and their state government are not acting in a radical way. The president and his regime are. The radicals in this argument are the pro-amnesty, pro-illegal alien people, the Democrat Party, the government-run media, and everybody in this regime. The people of Arizona are the epitome of reasonable, they are the epitome of controlled but at their wits' end. The president and his administration and his regime, they are the radicals.

RUSH: When a president, by his actions and words, makes clear that he is not going to protect the citizens of a state, it is the duty of that state to step up and protect its citizens when the president of the country refuses to do so. And that's all that is happening here.

RUSH: This is this morning on Imus on WABC in New York. Imus: "I don't think it's fair for these senators to suggest that Goldman was taking advantage of a bunch of innocent people who didn't know what they were doing."

KERRY: I think people really just sense that there's a lack of, uh, patriotism in it. There's a lack of concern about the country. It's just, "Hey, let's make our money and run, and devil be damned what the implications are."

RUSH: And here we go. So Wall Street officials suffered from a lack of patriotism in their practices during the financial crisis, according to Senator Kerry (who, by the way, served in Vietnam) and, of course, the Democrats in Congress that caused this crisis are what? "Kerry suggested that Wall Street showed a disregard for the public good during the run-up for the financial crisis in the fall of 2008," and Chris Dodd and Barney Frank were showing a disregard to whom, Senator Kerry? Kerry said, "I think people really just sense there's a lack of patriotism in it. There's a lack of concern about the country. 'Hey, let's just make our money and run, devil be damned what the implications are.'" The exact same thing coulda come out of Barney Frank's mouth. (sigh)

"Dingy Harry has accused Republicans of being 'anti-American' for blocking a Wall Street regulation bill from coming to the Senate floor." "Standard & Poor's cut its ratings on Spain by one notch to AA from AA-plus Wednesday saying that a longer than expected period of low growth could undermine resorts efforts to cut the budget deficit." Actually two jobs here. The second one: "Green stimulus money costs more jobs than it creates, according to a study." We've had this before: "Every green job created with government money in Spain over the last eight years came at the cost of 2.2 regular jobs." So Spain has been downgraded. Guess what? Spain is California because Spain is the capital of green jobs, which are a net job loser! You have to remember the factors that have driven Spain into the toilet. It's called liberalism, and the face of their liberalism has been green jobs.

REID: All the talk of the Republicans about wanting to do something about this bill before it gets on the floor is really anti-Senate, anti-American. They keep stalling and they keep stalling, and it appears that they're more concerned about taking care of the fat cats in Wall Street than they are the people who aren't so fat, the people have been hit so hard, the consumers of America.

RUSH: Not a single word of truth from these people. But here we go. They can call Republicans anti-American, but we can't call a genuine phony soldier a phony soldier. Republicans, anti-Senate, anti-American. They keep stalling. Let me tell you why. The financial regulatory reform bill is 1,336 pages long. It's said to be far more convoluted than the health care bill. When are we going to find out what's really in the financial regulatory reform bill? Byron Dorgan: "If the disclosures at these hearings are not the final nail that persuades the American people to demand this be done now, I don't know what would be." Big problem, though, for the leftist majorities in Congress. The American people just don't believe Washington has any idea about why the financial crisis happened or how to regulate it. Rasmussen: "64% of Americans are not confident that policy makers in Washington know what they are doing when addressing the current economic problems on Wall Street." I don't care where you look, folks, the Democrats are on the losing side of every poll. There is no confidence in them or Obama on any issue.

Obama didn't get a bounce out of health care. The governor of Arizona got a 16-point bounce when the immigration law there was passed. Obama has yet to get a bounce from his health care bill. Nobody has any faith in the Democrats to do anything, because they own everything now. The Heritage Foundation asks, "Does Byron Dorgan really believe that anyone who did not blindly keep inflating the housing bubble was 'betting against your country'? Is it now unpatriotic to believe that housing prices cannot infinitely rise?" By the same token is it unpatriotic to aggressively go after profits, which is what the Democrats seem hell-bent on. Profits are unpatriotic now. Wall Street is unpatriotic. Republicans are unpatriotic and un-American, all from this bunch of people who say we shouldn't be demonizing people in government, we shouldn't be criticizing elected officials and what's Dingy Harry doing, but calling them un-American, and Kerry is challenging Wall Street's lack of patriotism. We're not supposed to talk that way, I thought.

Make no mistake. One of the main reasons for yesterday's hearing, the Goldman hearing, was to deflect attention away from Washington's role in creating the 2008 financial crisis. It was the government-created and subsidized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that played leading roles in the markets at the center of the housing storm. But the left prioritized their political goals over financial reality. So once again, they're passing the buck. They get to act like spectators.

RUSH: Some interesting things are being gleaned from the financial regulatory reform bill. The Washington Times has an editorial today, and I'm waiting for the liberals in this country, when they find out about this, to start screaming fascist like they did at Bush over the Patriot Act. Remember, they hated Bush because they were going to spy on them, they're gonna monitor their phone calls out there. Why, why, that's a civil rights violation, human rights violation, fascism, they were just in sheer panic. "The next time you make a withdrawal from an automated teller machine, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner might be watching over your shoulder. Boosted by the sweeping, 1,400-page financial regulatory proposal currently making its way through the Senate, Mr. Geithner would have unprecedented, real-time access to a wealth of personal and corporate financial data -- all in the name of protecting the public." This is the Chris Dodd legislation.

"It would create the innocuously named Office of Financial Research as a central repository for transaction-related records held by financial companies. According to proponents, 'decision-makers' like Mr. Geithner need up-to-the-minute information to act in order to prevent what they refer to as another Wall Street meltdown. The proposed agency would also provide statistical analysis and research, purportedly to monitor systemic risk to the financial system. The idea raises a number of red flags, not least of which is the plan's fundamentally flawed premise that a central committee of unelected bureaucrats would be qualified to judge what's right and what's wrong for the economy. ... Yet the details of the proposal show that this new agency's mission is not meant to be limited to improving the quality of financial data. Mr. Dodd's legislation would grant the agency director the coercive power of subpoena to obtain records and rulemaking authority to force private-sector firms to maintain their internal financial records in a format acceptable to the government. The legislation also grants sweeping authority to maintain a data center that would collect and maintain 'all data necessary' to carry out the director's wishes."

"Subtitle G of the Dodd discussion draft bill requires that records be maintained and reported 'for each branch, automated teller machine at which deposits are accepted, and other deposit taking service facility with respect to any financial institution, the financial institution shall maintain a record of the number and dollar amounts of deposit accounts of customers,'" and the director can ask to see anybody's account data at any time, yours, mine, Warren Buffett's, Barack Obama's. "Banks will be required to submit these records to the new super regulatory agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (page 1041). The CFPA will be allowed to use this information for any purpose 'as permitted by law' under CFPA rules -- rules set by CFPA themselves." The CFPA is the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and they get to set their own rules by virtue of the legislation.

"So, the law requires banks to snoop on its customers' most personal information and submit it to another government agency so it can be used any way the Consumer Financial Protection Agency sees fit. So, if the CFPA Czar see's fit, information about your deposit account activity could be shared with the IRS, immigration officials, state officials, or any other entity that the Administration and their various Czar's think beneficial. But CFPA will impact your life even before they give away your personal data. Remember that part of the excuse for including this authority is to make policy recommendations. So, be careful not to run your credit limit too high above the amount of money you are depositing in the bank or the CFPA will know you can't pay your bills and make the appropriate 'policy recommendations.'"

Now, this, this is from the Big Government website. "This is exactly why conservatives have fought so hard against things like national ID cards -- if the government is authorized to collect and utilize data, there is no way to prevent the government as a whole or certain individuals within the government from using the information against the citizens." And nobody's screaming about this like they screamed about the Patriot Act. A question is, will they, when all of this is discovered by all of these huge civil libertarians from the ACLU to whoever the hell else is out there on the left. Because the Patriot Act, that was poof, folks, that Bush and Cheney were fascist dictators. There were books written. There were diatribes on cable television. The left wanted Bush impeached over the Patriot Act. So I'm sitting here still waiting for the right-to-privacy left to speak out about this.

RUSH: Here's the economic news. This is first from Reuters: "The US economy grew at a slightly slower-than-expected pace in the first quarter, held back by inventories and exports..." Now, that's key, held back by inventories and exports. "... but resurgent consumer spending offered evidence of a sustainable recovery. Gross domestic product expanded at a 3.2 percent pace, the Commerce Department. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast GDP, which measures total goods and services output within US borders, growing at a 3.4% rate," so they were shocked and surprised and stunned and disappointed that the growth rate was not what they had forecast. "Despite the slowdown from the prior quarter, details of the report were fairly upbeat, with consumer spending accelerating at a 3.6 percent rate, more than double the 1.6 percent pace in the fourth quarter. ... When businesses slow the rate at which they are liquidating inventories, manufacturers raise production and this boosts GDP."

So here's the real nut of this. "Excluding inventories the economy expanded at a 1.6 percent rate following a 1.7 percent pace in the fourth quarter." So there was no economic growth. If you take the census workers out of this, if you take the federal spending out -- I mean look at the anemic economic growth that we have bought with a $787 billion stimulus package. That's what he's trying to claim here, the stimulus did it. So it was just inventory adjustments, not real growth. One-point-six percent is nothing to write home about. Still, this is the way CNN writes it up, and, by the way, folks, I'm not trying to be anything but honest here. I'm not happy reporting to you the truth about economic growth. You know me. I'm Mr. Optimism, but it's gotta be based in fact and truth and reality. Phony optimism is unkind to people. It's like John Edwards saying, "If you elect John Kerry, Christopher Reeve will be walking next week." That's a very cruel thing to say to people who have spinal cord problems. So to sit here and be phony about the economy, that's what Obama's trying to do, creating an image and a template, I just have to tell you, it isn't happening, and the reason it's not happening is because of his policies. They continue to deplete resources from the private sector.

Here's how CNN says it: "Still, while there may be signs of greater strength, the report also detailed some of the headwinds facing the economy. Investment in residential real estate fell nearly 11%, ending a two-quarter rebound in that battered sector and subtracting from overall growth. And commercial real estate investment dropped at a 14% rate." Now, my friends, if residential real estate and commercial real estate are dropping at 11% and 14%, pretty much tells you what's happening out there. There is no growth. Commercial real estate, there's no expansion taking place. "While federal government spending increased 1.4%, that was outweighed by a 3.8% spending cut by state and local governments dealing with budget crises." Now, we went back, we got a 3.2% economic growth rate, right? Yep, yep, yep, there it is. And hey, you know what? "It's a recovery, it's really happening, it's going to be slow, a tough slog, but it's really happening." They're doing everything they can to shape and spin this as good news.

CNBC, August 28, 2008. The GDP, August 2008, was 3.3%. The media was reporting it felt like a recession. "Despite the surprising growth in the US economy in the second quarter, many economists and average Americans aren't convinced that the country has avoided a recession. 'The reason this feels like a recession is from the standpoint of the consumer it basically is,' said David Resler, the chief economist at Nomura Securities. 'Consumer spending is very weak. It isn't going to get any stronger at any time soon, and that's with the benefit of the economic stimulus.' The Commerce Department attributed the unexpected 3.3% jump." It went up. They were stunned, and they still called it a recession in 2008 because, of course, this is right before the election. This was still a Bush economy. So the Commerce Department attributed the unexpected 3.3% jump in the GDP to stronger than expected consumer spending and exports. So today we've got 3.2%, and, boy, are they doing everything they can to tug that number across the finish line, "We're coming back." They still, later in their story, have to be honest. Most of this is inventory manipulation. "Still, a growing number of analysts fear the country will hit another economic pothole in the third and fourth quarters."

So they're claiming the recession began in December 2007, which it hadn't. Here we have 3.3% growth in August of '08. It was up. Everybody was shocked, and yet they still wrote about it in doom and gloom terms. It's a teachable moment here, folks, to give you evidence of how economic news is treated depending on who's in the White House. Now, we gotta be fair to the media here, we have to be fair to the media because it was an election year and the Democrats needed a bad economy and so the media was chipping in trying to create the image or the notion in people's minds that we were headed for a rotten economy. Now, here is the Reuters story, and their story is noncelebratory. It makes me ask, "Why hasn't somebody officially declared the recession over?" "The US economy grew at a slightly slower-than-expected pace in the first quarter, held back by inventories and exports, but resurgent consumer spending offered evidence of a sustainable recovery, a government report showed on Friday."

RUSH: What's striking about the economic report on the GDP today versus the one in 2008, back in 2008, they were surprised at how big the economy grew, and they sort of downplayed the fact that it was all related to consumer spending. Sort of downplayed that. Now consumer spending's everything in the economy, when the economy is rolling: "Look it! Consumers are starting to spend again!" So it's. Folks, it is no longer arguable that the Drive-By Media, the State-Controlled Media, reports economic news entirely differently, on purpose, depending on who is in the White House.

RUSH: We'll start in San Diego this hour with Tim. Great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hello there, Rush. You know, I think a great way to answer the argument that only Nazis ask "show me your papers" is just to agree with them, because liberals love asking people to show their papers. Remember, it was just last summer that the Democrats in Congress made US citizens show their residency papers before they were allowed into the town hall meetings. You remember that?

RUSH: I had forgotten that. That is exactly right! You had to prove that you were a US resident to get into a town hall.

CALLER: Exactly. Not just a resident of the US, you had to be a resident of that congressional district.

CALLER: Right. And they were claiming it was a matter of national security to even allow them into the building.

CALLER: You remember when Joe the Plumber questioned Obama, what's the first thing that happened to him? They went through his papers to find any dirt on him that they could.

RUSH: That's exactly right. Some state official in Ohio went digging deep to find out what they -- and they put out the information!

CALLER: You remember when filmmaker James O'Keefe, he's the guy who dressed up like a pimp and got ACORN busted, when he went into Mary Landrieu's office, they said he was allegedly tampering with her phone. The first thing they did when they arrested him was demand to see his papers. And isn't Aunt Zeituni being deported underneath the watchful eye of the Obama administration because her papers aren't in order? So I think that the libs just love asking people for their papers.

RUSH: "If you're going to compare it to Nazis, fine. We think of you that way, too."

CALLER: You're right. Only Nazis ask "show me your papers." In fact, ironically, remember when the White House gate crashers got into the White House without showing their papers, Obama fired the woman who let them in. So, you see, asking for papers under Obama is something that is, you know, a crucial thing --

RUSH: You are -- this is a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant point, and you have reminded me of something here.

RUSH: Well, when you bring up Aunt Zeituni, Aunt Zeituni and her papers, and she's living in veritable squalor wherever while her deportation case is being decided, and then you have Obama's brother living in a hut, a six-by-nine-foot hut, even after, you know, one and a half years of Obama heading up the regime, and then we learn the other day that Bill Clinton's niece, Roger Clinton's daughter, is on food stamps. And these are the people that supposedly have all of this compassion and understanding for the downtrodden. (interruption) Yeah, Roger Clinton's daughter's on food stamps. What is it about Social Democrat Worker Party people that their family members live in destitution and they don't do anything about it? While preaching to the rest of us about how we are heartless and have no compassion?

Anyway, I like this notion: "Oh, yeah. Okay. If you think demanding to show papers is Nazi, fine. Heh-heh-heh! That's how we look at you anyway." You have to show your papers to get a book out of the library. The only place you don't have to show your papers is when you go in to vote. Or when they put you on the union bus to take you to vote.

RUSH: Jeff in Thailand on the EIB Network. Welcome, sir, nice to have you with us.

CALLER: Can you hear me? I'm calling on my Magic Jack computer. And I'm calling because I am a teacher here in Thailand. I've been working here for three years, and every year I have to renew my visa, I have to renew my work permit, and I have to provide all sorts of documentation just to meet the criteria to be a teacher here in Thailand. Every time when I have to leave the city -- I'm in Hat Yai. Hat Yai is 12 hours off of Bangkok near the Malaysian border.

CALLER: Yes! I have to have my papers with me at all times. If I overstay my visa, I get fined. I can go to prison, or I could get deported. If I break my work permit, I have to leave the country. So I mean here we have Thailand, a Second World country at best, more likely a Third World country, with what you see in Bangkok with the red shirts and the yellow shirts, has more control on immigration, more policies in regards to immigrant workers than America?

RUSH: Yeah, but the reason for this, Jeff, is that whoever is running Thailand is not interested in your vote.

RUSH: The people here in the United States in our government are interested solely in these people's votes down the road. That's why they're not enforcing the law, and that's why they're not securing the border.

CALLER: Exactly right. But I mean it's so frustrating because I see America going down the race drain here in Thailand. I mean I'm glad to be here because at least I have a job, I mean my wife and I, who's a Filipino, who is also a teacher here in Thailand, I don't want to go back to America with 13% unemployment. I'm glad to be here.

RUSH: Yeah. Interesting. So he's an expat over there, 12 hours south of Bangkok which is where the action is in Thailand. That's quite interesting, all the hoops he has to go through just to stay there and just to stay legal. Jeff, thanks very much for calling. It's amazing that he got through in his crackerjack computer there all the way from Thailand. I should have asked him what time it is but I can go look on my own computer and find out. Anyway, we are always told that prejudices like racism, sexism, homophobia, are so terrible, it's just terrible. And those are associated with the way we deal with illegal aliens, that we're being racist or sexist or what you have. Well, illegal aliens, there's nothing racist or sexist about this at all. It's a behavior. They're not born that way. They're not born illegal aliens. It's a behavior. How can there be racism or sexism or any kind of bigotry tied to it? It's just another way the left is using their crackerjack shifting of language here to try to plaster people who support US law as somehow, sexist, bigot homophobes.

RUSH: Here's Marie in New Iberia, Louisiana. Nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: To finally get through. I have two points. One, in the state of Louisiana, when you go to vote you have to show your driver's license, or sign an affidavit that you are saying who you say you are. So they do want to see your papers when you vote here.

CALLER: Right. And the second thing is, our economy has taken a downturn just like the rest of the country. If they stop drilling and stop allowing us to produce oil, Louisiana could be in a worse problem than California because our budget is based on oil. The price of oil is one of the major factors that affects the Louisiana state budget, and some people don't realize that. It's very important that we continue to drill and we need to drill, and we need to be a self-sufficient country.

RUSH: Of course we do. No reasonable person disagrees with you at all. The reality we're all facing is, as this guy in the American Thinker said today, we're trying to figure out what is it about this Obama guy that doesn't like -- feels like we're being ruled by, being occupied by a foreign bunch of people. It's a foreign occupation. Nothing that's happening here is the way things get done in America. Part of that is we know, most of Americans agree wholeheartedly what you just said, but we know that we've got people running the country who want to get rid of our use of oil, who want to stop drilling for it, who for whatever reason think that it is worse than hell.

CALLER: Exactly. You know, what is worse, not being able to put food on the table or drilling for oil, having money, and being able to put food on your table? There's no comparison.

RUSH: Wait a second, no, no, no, that's a good question. It depends on the perspective of who's asking it. From the regime standpoint, it's perfectly fine if you have no money because that means you need them for money.

CALLER: Exactly. Exactly. And I have something to say. Then they are going to run out of money. 'Cause when the people run out of money, then where is the government going to get their money?

RUSH: They don't have any money now. I hate to tell you out there, Marie, but they're printing it, they're borrowing it from the ChiComs, we don't have any money now.

RUSH: We literally don't have any money. National debt around $14 trillion, the sum total of all of our deficits, the deficit this year is $1.4 to $1.5 trillion. We don't have any money. We're borrowing it or we're printing it. It's not real. None of this is real. Except, sadly, it is. But it's all built on false assumptions. And look at this. Marie, thanks for the call. I appreciate it. We sympathize with everybody in Louisiana over this 'cause you're about to get double dipped here, you really are. There's nothing funny about it, and you have Obama demonstrating he's not interested in being a chief executive or managing the affairs of this country, he's not running the bureaucracy. This job to him, this is all about finally getting even with this country, advancing this transformational agenda that he's got, and he's moving full speed ahead at it.

Since there are some links you may want to go back to from time-to-time, I am going to begin a list of them here. This will be a list to which I will add links each week.

Conservative New Media (it is so-so; I must admit to getting tired of seeing the interviewer high-fiving Carly Fiorina 3 or 4 times during an interview):

Army Ranger Michael Behenna sentenced to 25 years in prison for 25 years for shooting Al Qaeda operative

Maybe the White House does not need to hold press conferences? It releases exclusive articles daily right here:

This is quite helpful; it is a list of all leftist groups, with links to background information on each of these groups (when I checked, 879 groups were listed). This is a fantastic resource.

One of the more radical people from the right, calling for the impeachment of Obama:

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a free enterprise site (there are several videos on the flat tax):

This is a pretty radical site which alleges that Obama is a Marxist hell-bent in taking over our country:

1982 interview with Larry Grathwohl on Ayers' plan for American re-education camps and the need to kill millions

This is an interesting site; it seems to be devoted to the debate of climate change:

This is a news site which I just discovered; they gave 3 minute coverage to Obama’s healthcare summit and seemed to give a pretty decent overall view of it, without slanting one way or the other:

I have glanced through their website and it seems to be quite professional and reasonable. They have apparently been around since 1942.

This is fantastic; Florida (the Sunshine State) is now putting its state budget online:

Suzanne Somers s supposed to be older than Bill O’Reilly? He interviewed her this week, and she looked, well, hot. She is big into vitamins and human growth hormones.

The National Journal, which is a political journal (which, at first glance, seems to be pretty even-handed):

And I am hoping that most people see this as non-partisan: Citizens Against Government Waste:

This website reveals a lot of information about politicians and their relationship to money. You can find out, among other things, how many earmarks that Harry Reid has been responsible for in any given year; or how much an individual Congressman’s wealth has increased or decreased since taking office.

This is an outstanding website which tells the truth about Obama-care and about what the mainstream media is hiding from you:

Politico.com is a fairly neutral site (or, at the very worst, just a little left of center). They have very good informative videos at:

On Obama (if you have not visited this site, you need to check it out). He is selling a DVD on this site as well called Media Malpractice; I have not viewed it yet, except pieces which I have seen played on tv and on the internet. It looks pretty good to me.

This is quite helpful; it is a list of all leftist groups, with links to background information on each of these groups (when I checked, 879 groups were listed). This is a fantastic resource.

One of the more radical people from the right, calling for the impeachment of Obama:

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a free enterprise site (there are several videos on the flat tax):