I recently read an opinion piece in the Star about illegal immigration, written by Thomas Elias, that left me scratching my head.

As Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer last spring signed her state's landmark bill cracking down on illegal immigration, she listed crime as her biggest reason.

Her signature, she said, aimed to solve a "crisis (of) border-related violence and crime due to illegal immigration."

If she'd gone to the one Arizona city that confronts Mexico most directly -- Nogales, where the border separates the town into American and Mexican components -- she'd have discovered the connection she claimed simply does not exist.

So much for the immigration-created crime wave.

"Cities that experienced greater growth in immigrant or new-immigrant populations between 1990 and 2000 (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Fresno and San Diego were among those with the greatest rise in migrant populations) tended to demonstrate sharper decreases in homicide and robbery. The suggestion that high levels of immigration may have been partially responsible for the drop in crime during the 1990s seems plausible."

It's difficult to keep up with the shifting Tea Party groups--the players, alliances, aims and factions. That's part of the charm--this is a leaderless grassroots, bottom-up national movement, after all. It's expected that there would be overlapping territories, redundant organizations, and confusion over names.

A day after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill to honor Ronald Reagan, President Obama signed sweeping financial overhaul legislation in a way that thumbed his noise at the conservative icon.

On Monday the governor approved of the bill authored by State Senator George Runner, whose district includes parts of Ventura County, that establishes a statewide Ronald Reagan Day.

Then on Tuesday, President Obama increased power in the executive branch even more by signing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C.

The legislation creates more financial regulations than any bill since FDR's reign, and it was enacted in a place meant to honor a champion of deregulation.

It's almost as if the president is showing conservatives that the big-government progressives have won.

I didn't intend to write so many "biased media" posts so close together, but there's just so much of it.

The documents offer evidence to conservative critics who have long held that the mainstream media were in the tank for Obama, and bolsters the argument that reporters with major news outlets are biased in their coverage.

Journalists working for Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic expressed outrage over the tough questioning Obama received from ABC anchors Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos at a debate and some of them plotted to protect Obama from the swirling controversy, according to the Daily Caller.

What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger's [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.

And I think this threads the needle. If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they've put upon us. Instead, take one of them -- Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares -- and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction.

Oh dear me, it seems the Washington Post's ombudsman isn't happy that his paper is "virtually silent" about the Black Panther voter intimidation case.

The Post didn't cover it. Indeed, until Thursday's story, The Post had written no news stories about the controversy this year. In 2009, there were passing references to it in only three stories. 

Citizens of Bell, California are outraged to learn in a Los Angeles Times expose that their city officials make up to $800,000 annually.

The city, which is about 10 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, is among the poorest in the state.

The city manager, Robert Rizzo, makes $787,637 and his assistant rakes in almost $400,000, to run services for the 37,000 residents of Bell. The two men's contracts call for an amazing 12 percent annual raise.

The Los Angeles District Attorney is investigating Bell for the six-figure salaries it pays to its part-time city council. [continue reading]

What Black Panther voter intimidation case? That was San Fernando Valley's Congressman Brad Sherman's reaction when asked about it at a town hall meeting in Reseda earlier this week.

Opponents of universal single-payer healthcare, a system in which only the government pays its citizens medical bills--and which Barack Obama advocated--are often accused of ignoring the needs of the poor. They oppose the socialization of healthcare because they understand where it can lead.  Take North Korea, for example.

The country's full name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. As Jon Stewart notes, there is a direct correlation to the number of "happy" words in a country's name and the suffering of its people (see the People's Republic of China). Stewart fails to note that "democrat" and "people's" are often euphemisms for communism--don't think too hard about that right now.

A clearer delineation of free-market capitalism and communism does not exist when you contrast the two Koreas (except possibly Berlin when it was divided between east and west). A sociologist couldn't dream up a better experiment. Take a group of people that share the same ancestry, traditions, and culture. Arbitrarily divide them geographically and then give the southern group capitalism and the northern group communism.

Result?

South Korea enjoys unprecedented economic prosperity while the citizens of North Korea eat grass, tree bark and roots, according to Amnesty International. [continue reading]

In the 18 months since the Tea Parties rose up against the elite and unresponsive political class, we've seen a string of viral videos catching their representatives on tape demonstrating their arrogance. We've seen an out-of-touch Arlen Specter, a clueless and apathetic Phil Hare, a pushy Bob Etheridge, a condescending Pete Stark, and a confused Lois Capps.

"Ma'am, don't accuse me of not saying the truth," the congressman demands, taking a few steps toward his accuser.

Someone nearby says something off-camera about his behavior not being appropriate. That seems to make Rodriguez even angrier. He slaps the table with papers in his hand, then quickly steps back. Not exactly menacing behavior, but not a picture of self-control, either.

"I hate black people! All of them! Every last iota of a n****r; I hate him! You want freedom? You're going to have to kill some n****rs! You're going to have to kill some n****r babies!"

"I hate white people! All of them! Every last iota of a cracker; I hate him! You want freedom? You're going to have to kill some crackers! You're going to have to kill some cracker babies!"

It's not a Republican saying it. It's not a Fox News pundit or a Tea Party leader saying that debt is going to destroy the country, although each of those sources has each said that very thing--in some cases years ago.

The city council of cash-strapped Santa Paula is considering privatizing trash-pickup services. If they went that route, they'd sell their trucks and equipment, sell franchise rights to a private garbage company, and lay off six workers--part of a growing trend in the city.

The city is moving away from using city employees for municipal services to hiring outside private contractors who will do the work for less money.

"Why would the city be putting so much at stake including workers' jobs, money that would stay in the local economy, a system that works like it's supposed to, and even supports other city services?" asked Danny Carrillo, work site organizer for Service Employees International Union Local 721. "What is the motive? The quality of services only goes down and you lose control."

Carrillo and city workers don't understand the reason for gutting the refuse division. The division is a self-sustaining, enterprise fund -- separate from the general fund, where the city is facing the massive deficit.

"There are better options than just outsourcing," Carrillo said. "You are risking people's livelihood. There's no need to do this."

Steven Hintz led the seven candidates running for treasurer-tax collector, but because nobody finished with more than 50 percent a runoff is scheduled for the November election.

Today's great news is that JEFF WALKER of Camarillo has endorsed me. Jeff brings supporters with him who wanted vigorous young-minded leadership and sound financial experience. Jeff had great ideas for bringing the TTC into the 21st century. He was very close to making the runoff. I WELCOME HIS SUPPORT.

Oxnard's Commission on Community Relations wants the city to take action against Arizona for enacting the controversial 1070 illegal immigration law.

"This law declares an open hunting season on Hispanics," said Rabbi John Sherwood, one of the seven -appointed commissioners. Sherwood compared the law to anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany.

"Racism is blatantly clear in Arizona's 1070 law," he said.

Commissioner Margaret Reyes, a naturalized citizen, said, "I'm afraid I would be stopped because I'm a brown skinned person."

One commissioner, noting that the panel exists to evaluate local community issues--not those of other states--suggested that the matter is a federal issue.

"I don't see why we should be spinning our wheels and wasting our time on this motion."

President Obama met with twenty senators Tuesday night to discuss the heightened urgency of cap-and-trade legislation in light of the largest environmental disaster in American history. While the oil spill has dominated headlines for two months, very little attention is paid to the history of the idea of cap-and-trade and who would stand to benefit from putting the force of government behind it. Before we can examine the players in the lucrative climate change industry, we must first understand the game.

How the game of cap-and-trade is played

Climate change is a man-made event caused by high quantities of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere by people, cars, industry, and so forth, according to environmentalists and many scientists. It will lead to climactic catastrophes if something isn't done and done soon, say people like Al Gore.

Whether Al Gore and the environmentalists are correct or not is outside the scope of this article. Just go along with it for now.

Carbon emissions from the biggest polluters--industries--need to be measured by independent auditors and then capped at some arbitrary amount to limit their impact on the environment. However, rather than a hard cap, which many companies would have a difficult time complying with, this is a soft cap. Companies would be able to exceed the limit provided they pay some sort of penance.

Companies that come in under the limit could sell that penance to them. The exact amount a company goes under would be quantified as a number of carbon credits. The "green" company could then sell the credits to the polluting company.

Cap, the arbitrary pollution limit, and trade, the act of one company getting its pollution "forgiven" by transferring its money to a redeemed company, acts as a carrot/stick stimulus for all participating companies. With this cap-and-trade legislation, the Democrats hope to compel companies to reduce global emissions.

Cap-and-trade is already a reality

While we're sitting around waiting to see if President Obama has enough Senators to pass cap-and-trade legislation, it's easy to forget that it's already going on in Europe and the U.S.

While European nations are complying with the Kyoto Protocol, some American companies are participating in cap-and-trade on a purely voluntary basis--for now.

They trade carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the United States' only 

carbon credit trading system.  The CCX is the stadium in which the game of cap-and-trade is played. Right now it's a minor-league sport, but it has some real superstars behind it.

How the players stand to benefit

For the sake of argument, let's assume that the plan is economically sound--that it won't raise consumer prices or put companies out of business. Let's say it works great--there are still some glaring conflicts of interest that we must examine.

At the beginning of the decade, a promising Chicago-area state senator named Barack Obama sat on the board of directors of the Joyce Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to Progressive causes such as gun control and the environment. The group contributed money to a research program at the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University. In this program worked Richard Sandor, an economist known as "the father of financial futures."

Sandor's research would lead directly to the creation of the Chicago Climate Exchange.

Time Magazine would later call him "the father of carbon trading" and a "hero of the planet" for founding CCX and its European counterpart. Dozens of companies signed up for the privilege to buy carbon credits, either by altruism or so they can brag to their customers that they went green. CCX makes money each time a firm is audited to measure their carbon footprint and each time a carbon credit is sold on the exchange.

A "socially conscious" investment firm saw the potential in CCX and bought a stake in it. That firm was Generation Investment Management (GIM). GIM makes money every time CCX makes money, which again is every time a company buys a carbon credit. Who founded and currently presides over GIM?

None other than Al Gore, Mr. Climate Change himself.

It would seem Mr. Gore--along with co-investor Goldman Sachs--has a hefty financial stake in convincing companies to go green for the sake of the environment. So far he's been successful at it--GIM is worth $2.5 billion.

For their part, Goldman Sachs was the second biggest contributor to Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and 75 percent of its campaign contributions go to Democrats.

Al Gore, Barack Obama, Richard Sandor and Goldman Sachs aren't the only players in this game. Would you believe Fannie Mae, the GSE that is in the home mortgage industry, also plays a prominent role?

On November 7, 2006--24 hours after the Democrats retook control of Congress--Patent No. 6904336 was approved by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office. That patent, which governs the software used to power the Chicago Climate Exchange, is owned by Fannie Mae even though it has nothing to do with its charter--giving the mortgage company proprietary control over the automated trading system in the CCX.

If you're keeping score: Barack Obama helped create the Chicago Climate Exchange--the "trade" in cap-and-trade--Fannie Mae (along with Obama fundraiser Kenneth Berlin) controls it, and Al Gore and Goldman Sachs stand to benefit from every transaction that occurs on it.

And they're all pushing to make their system the law of the land. Where is the media on this?