September 19, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/leslie-allen-merritt-jr-suspect-phoenix-arizona-freeway-shootings-family/

New details about suspect in Phoenix freeway shootings
CBS/AP
September 19, 2015

Photograph -- Authorities take freeway shooting suspect Leslie Allen Merritt, 21, into custody after his arrest Sept. 18, 2015. JONATHAN LOWE/KPHO/KTVK


PHOENIX -- Police arrested a man Friday for a string of seemingly random freeway shootings in Phoenix, adding that they had linked the man's gun to four of the 11 cars hit.

Leslie Allen Merritt Jr., 21, was arrested at a Walmart in Glendale, a suburb west of Phoenix at about 7 p.m., said Daniel Scarpinato, a spokesman for Gov. Doug Ducey.

Department of Public Safety Director Frank Milstead, announcing the arrest at a news conference two hours later, said Merritt had not been formally charged yet.

Milstead said the suspect was arrested in the first four shootings, which took place on Aug. 29 and 30. The agency says the suspect faces a range of charges that include criminal endangerment, assault and unlawful discharge of a firearm.

The four shootings that police say he committed hit a tour bus, SUV and two cars, all of them on Interstate 10. No one was injured.

In an interview with CBS Phoenix affiliate KPHO-TV, the suspect's father was adamant that his son had nothing to do with the shootings and that anyone who says he was involved is a "moron."

Leslie Merritt Sr. told The Associated Press he believes his son is being made a scapegoat by police who were desperate to make an arrest under immense public pressure.

"He has way too much value for human life to even take the slightest or remotest risk of actually injuring someone," he said of his son.

The suspect's mother-in-law, Cynthia Sauceda, agreed.

"Leslie is not like that," she told KPHO. "That's not Leslie. Leslie has a big heart. He would not do this, especially when he's working hard to support his two kids ... He goes to work, and he does everything that he's supposed to be doing."

Leslie Allen Merritt Jr.'s Facebook page, confirmed by his father, indicated he worked as a landscaper and was a gun enthusiast, but there was no indication as to why he might have been shooting at cars on the freeways.

The Facebook page shows a video of the suspect firing a rifle with a young boy at his side. The page also contains a series of pro-gun and anti-government posts.

It wasn't clear who was responsible for the other shootings.

"Are there others out there? Are there copycats? That is possible," Milstead said, adding that the investigation continues.

Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio, who received updates about the arrest from the police department, said the suspect tried to pawn the gun used in the shootings

Ducey tweeted the news of the arrest.

Brandon Copeland said he witnessed the arrest of the suspect as he did some Friday night shopping at the Walmart. He was struck at the military-style response as officers stormed the crowded store with semiautomatic weapons and came out with the man in handcuffs.

"My girl goes maybe we should leave, and I'm thinking we should leave. And as soon as she says that, like five, six unmarked units just rolled up with blue and reds flashing everywhere," he said.

Since Aug. 29, there have been 11 confirmed shootings of vehicles in the Phoenix area involving bullets or other projectiles. Most occurred along Interstate 10, a major route through the city. The Walmart where the suspect was arrested is 6 miles north of where some of the shootings on I-10 occurred.

There have been no serious injuries, although a 13-year-old girl's ear was cut by glass after a bullet shattered a car window.

There has not been a confirmed shooting in the case since Sept. 10.

The shootings have prompted several school districts to keep their buses off freeways, and some motorists have altered their commutes to avoid driving I-10.

Authorities offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case. They distributed thousands of fliers in neighborhoods along the freeway this week to raise awareness about the shootings and the reward, and electronic billboards along the highways have urged drivers to phone in tips.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety said state troopers have stepped up patrols, while other agencies assisting in the investigation have included Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa police as well as the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

"I think it's fair to say since a week ago, we've made headway in this case," Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves said earlier Friday.

Meanwhile Friday, a judge ordered the release of a 19-year-old man who was detained at a convenience store on Sept. 11 and questioned regarding the shootings. Authorities have declined to explain why the man was questioned about the shootings, but they have said he was not a prime suspect.

He was arrested on an alleged probation violation stemming from marijuana found in the man's house during a Sept. 11 search. The search was based on a tip that he was violating probation by possessing a gun. The man had been sentenced to probation for excessive speeding and fleeing from police.

Three young men were arrested and accused of hurling rocks at cars with slingshots in a case that authorities called a copycat to the shootings, but one of the young men denied in jail interviews that was the case.




“The Facebook page shows a video of the suspect firing a rifle with a young boy at his side. The page also contains a series of pro-gun and anti-government posts.” There is a certain turn of mind that is all too common in this country under the heavy influence of the NRA and the Tea Party, who hold gun worship and radical anti-government stances. Go to the Southern Poverty Law website to get an overview of them. Despite both his parents’ testimony that he is “too big hearted” to harm a human, I tend to view anyone who believes this kind of thing to be “fringe” and mentally unsound. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. The police, the ATF and the FBI who were all investigating this case agree with me, too.

Parents will always claim that their son is entirely gentle and harmless. As likely as not they may even agree with his right wing views, but haven’t said so. The whole family should be investigated, perhaps. The range of “conservatives” in this country include everyone from Jeb Bush who is a conservative, but sensible human being to Aryan Nation. We need a new label for legitimate Republicans that creates a clear delineation between the various “conservative” groups. Some of these people are extremely dangerous and essentially “outlaws.”





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-it-time-for-the-u-s-to-rethink-nonintervention-in-syria/

Is it time for the U.S. to consider intervention in Syria?
By REBECCA KAPLAN CBS NEWS
September 18, 2015

Play VIDEO -- Death toll rises, Germany tightens borders, and migrant crisis worsens
20 PHOTOS -- European migrant crisis
Play VIDEO -- Pentagon: U.S. plan to train Syrian opposition forces not working
Play VIDEO -- How will the U.S. react to Russian forces in Syria?


As the war in Syria wears on, it has scattered millions of refugees into other countries, with many trying to find safe harbor in an overwhelmed Europe. It's part of the rising pressure on the U.S. and its European allies to re-evaluate what has been a hands-off policy in Syria.

"There's no question that you have to take a look at our policy," said CBS News Senior National Security Analyst Juan Zarate. "This is not a crisis that is episodic. It's not going to go away. You're going to see a flow of these refugees continue to come out of Syria as well as other places like Libya and Afghanistan and Iraq."

Instability in Syria is driving the mass exodus. Syrians are squeezed between the regime of their president, Bashar al-Assad, who has committed atrocities against civilians, and the militant Islamic groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which are destroying cities and communities.

"You're going to see more and more refugees leaving Syria unless there's a solution on the ground," Zarate said. There is no simple answer, though.

Countries have been wary of taking action that might help the Assad regime stay in power. But Assad presents far less of a threat to the West than to ISIS.

"Though the president says he wants to do certain things, the administration is really hedging here. They don't want to get caught in the quagmire of Syria," Zarate said. "They realize that the Assad regime has to go, but if the Assad regime goes, you've got Islamic marauders and extremists potentially taking advantage. And so we're at a loss for what our strategy is, and that's reflected on the ground."

Though Australia is insulated from the migrant flow, it's offered help, launching airstrikes that started earlier this week against ISIS targets. In Britain, lawmakers appear to be rethinking a 2013 vote blocking Prime Minister David Cameron's request for military action in Syria. France is also set to begin airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, a practice it had previously avoided because it would benefit Assad's regime.

"Nothing should be done to consolidate or keep Assad in power in Syria," French President Francois Hollande said Monday.

For the past year, the U.S. and five Arab allies have been bombing ISIS positions in Syria, but the insurgency has proven difficult to disrupt. Mr. Obama also signed legislation to arm and train 12,000 Syrian rebels to fight ISIS on the ground, but the program has been strikingly ineffective.

A top U.S. commander in the Middle East admitted Wednesday that only four or five moderate Syrian fighters the U.S. trained still remained on the battlefield.

"At the pace we're going we won't reach the goal that we had initially established for ourselves," Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of the war in Iraq and Syria, told a Senate panel.

After the first group of 54 fighters went into Syria in late July, they came under attack by a Syrian affiliate of al Qaeda which killed or captured several of the fighters.

"That is unbelievably paltry, and to a certain extent, ridiculous and embarrassing," Zarate said. "Obviously this is difficult. It's difficult to find the right allies on the ground who we're going to train. But I think it's endemic of a broader problem, the vagaries of what U.S. policy really is in Syria."

"Frankly that's embarrassing for the world's superpower and the president of the United States having committed to this to say that's where we are three plus almost four years after this conflict has begun," he added.

The Obama administration has also said it will not send ground troops into Syria.

And with Russia, which supports Assad, building up its military presence in Syria, the U.S. and Europe risk ceding their leading role on the international stage.




“It's part of the rising pressure on the U.S. and its European allies to re-evaluate what has been a hands-off policy in Syria. "There's no question that you have to take a look at our policy," said CBS News Senior National Security Analyst Juan Zarate. "This is not a crisis that is episodic. It's not going to go away. You're going to see a flow of these refugees continue to come out of Syria as well as other places like Libya and Afghanistan and Iraq." …. Countries have been wary of taking action that might help the Assad regime stay in power. But Assad presents far less of a threat to the West than to ISIS.
"Though the president says he wants to do certain things, the administration is really hedging here. They don't want to get caught in the quagmire of Syria," Zarate said. "They realize that the Assad regime has to go, but if the Assad regime goes, you've got Islamic marauders and extremists potentially taking advantage. And so we're at a loss for what our strategy is, and that's reflected on the ground." …. For the past year, the U.S. and five Arab allies have been bombing ISIS positions in Syria, but the insurgency has proven difficult to disrupt. Mr. Obama also signed legislation to arm and train 12,000 Syrian rebels to fight ISIS on the ground, but the program has been strikingly ineffective. …. After the first group of 54 fighters went into Syria in late July, they came under attack by a Syrian affiliate of al Qaeda which killed or captured several of the fighters. "That is unbelievably paltry, and to a certain extent, ridiculous and embarrassing," Zarate said. "Obviously this is difficult. It's difficult to find the right allies on the ground who we're going to train. But I think it's endemic of a broader problem, the vagaries of what U.S. policy really is in Syria." …. The Obama administration has also said it will not send ground troops into Syria. And with Russia, which supports Assad, building up its military presence in Syria, the U.S. and Europe risk ceding their leading role on the international stage.”

The true American position against Assad is convoluted. We have been helping rebel groups who are fighting Assad, while trying at the same time to arouse them to fight against ISIS. That isn’t easy, as nearly every group except the Kurds and the Quds Force are too afraid of the nearly demonic ISIS fighters to stand their ground against them. Whatever the American view of Assad is, ISIS is the most important enemy of all Europe and of more liberal Islamic nations as well. Helping the non-ISIS groups in Syria and other areas with light arms and air strikes is not as effective as sending in ground troops, and it is obvious to me that we need the aid of other countries to do that effectively. For that reason I am relieved that the US is talking with Russia about collaboration against ISIS. Unfortunately, we are on different sides politically. Russia is openly backing Assad. Assad, like so many dictators, keeps order in his society, which is good, but does it by total domination and by truly brutal means, such as mustard gas.

Russia is too often of the same turn of mind as Assad. I’m sure they also are in pursuit of military bases and oil in their move last week to set up a base in Syria, however, but power is everything with Putin. I won’t say that “Russia,” is always totalitarian, because Mikhail Gorbachev was in my view a benign leader. Of course the hard liners knocked him down from power. Russia is a place where “the people” don’t and probably never have actually ruled, even under the Communist revolution. The czars were not gentle rulers, either, and the Communists did raise the common man over the level of a peasant. We don’t talk about serfs much anymore, but the very poor in Europe of the Middle Ages were “bound to the land” that they tilled. They were simply slaves. They did have a right to a share of the crops they grew for their own livelihood, but not much more. Under the Communists the life of ordinary Russians has improved, but they still have little say in what goes on there.

The US is more like Europeans in our societal views, and therefore we are in a somewhat uncomfortable position in most of the Middle East, where despotism and very conservative social views rule. Keeping women down and Islam on top will probably not be dislodged any time soon. Certain countries there do have some women’s rights, but not all. Saudi Arabian women don’t have to wear a burqa, but they are not allowed to drive a car. A great article on this subject is found at this website: http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/09/world/meast/religion-women-clothing/index.html. No matter what Islamic country is mentioned, however, including India, I would never date a man from those countries, though they can be very handsome to look at, and I would never live there or ally myself with them.

Our Western freedoms may at some point be challenged, however. Many Americans fear the Islamic immigrants who are setting up outdoor prayer services on the open streets in places like Chicago around a few mosques and who in some cases are calling for a US recognition of Sharia Law. Some Islamic men have been arrested for “honor killings.” That kind of thing simply won’t be tolerated here. This has been in the news a number of times and is causing a strong recoil from the equally fundamentalist Christians here. I fear a “white backlash” of a religious nature over that. Our lower Middle Class and poor whites are leaning perilously close to a radical right takeover here already, and groups like Islamic worshipers may become physically threatened in the future. They may do better for themselves to stay in the Middle East and put up a fight against ISIS, unless they start “blending in” here in a more quiet way. The government probably won’t “crack down on them,” but the local citizens may. There is one thing I know about group violence when racial or religious issues are involved – it is heartless and brutal.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kentucky-clerk-kim-davis-interfered-with-judges-order-attorney-says/

Is Kentucky clerk Kim Davis back in hot water?
CBS/AP
September 18, 2015

Photograph -- Rowan County Deputy Clerk Brian Mason works the marriage license counter Sept. 9, 2015, at the Rowan County Clerk's office in Morehead, Ky. AP


OWENSBORO, Ky. -- The attorney for one of the deputy clerks in Kim Davis' office says Davis disobeyed a federal judge's order when she altered marriage license forms for same-sex couples.

In a separate filing Friday, attorneys for the gay couples who sued Davis appear to agree.

Deputy Clerk Brian Mason has been issuing marriage licenses in Rowan County over the objections of Davis, the elected county clerk who believes same-sex marriage is a sin. Davis spent five days in jail for refusing to obey a federal judge's order that she issue the licenses.

The judge released Davis from jail but warned her not to interfere as her deputies issue licenses. Davis removed her name and the name of the county from the forms.

On Friday, Mason's attorney, Richard Hughes, said the altered forms would not be valid and thus constitute an attempt to violate the judge's order.

Davis became a hero to many conservative Christians when she stopped issuing the licenses after the Supreme Court effectively legalized same-sex marriage. Her profile reached a fever pitch when she was jailed, as protesters, presidential candidates and news crews from across the county descended on the small town of Morehead.

Davis lost another legal bid to delay issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Thursday, marking the latest in a mounting stack of rejected appeals.

Davis, who returned to work this week after five days in jail for defying a federal court order, had again tried to persuade the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to delay a judge's mandate that she issue marriage licenses to all couples.

Davis said on Monday she is being "forced to disobey her God" by allowing her office to issue licenses to gay couples.

The first couple to apply for a license Monday was Shannon Wampler and Carmen Collins. They stood at the counter for a half-hour, dozens of reporters gathering behind them and microphones bobbing above their heads.

Deputy Clerk Brian Mason -- sitting behind a sign that reads "marriage license deputy" -- gave them a license despite his boss's objections and after a delay because of a printer problem. Protesters in the back heckled Mason, but he ignored them, initialed the license and shook the couple's hands.

He remained calm, scrolling on his computer and chewing gum, despite the surreal scene unfolding before him.

Speaking outside the Rowan County Courthouse as she returned to work, Davis announced that any licenses issued by her office, with or without her name on the form, would be "unauthorized."

"I want the whole world to know ... If any [deputy clerk] feels that they must issue an unauthorized license to avoid being thrown in jail, I understand their tough choice, and I will take no action against them. However, any unauthorized license that they issue will not have my name, my title or my authority on it. Instead, the license will state that they are issued pursuant to a federal court order."




“The attorney for one of the deputy clerks in Kim Davis' office says Davis disobeyed a federal judge's order when she altered marriage license forms for same-sex couples. In a separate filing Friday, attorneys for the gay couples who sued Davis appear to agree. …. On Friday, Mason's attorney, Richard Hughes, said the altered forms would not be valid and thus constitute an attempt to violate the judge's order. …. Davis, who returned to work this week after five days in jail for defying a federal court order, had again tried to persuade the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to delay a judge's mandate that she issue marriage licenses to all couples. Davis said on Monday she is being "forced to disobey her God" by allowing her office to issue licenses to gay couples. …. Protesters in the back heckled Mason, but he ignored them, initialed the license and shook the couple's hands. He remained calm, scrolling on his computer and chewing gum, despite the surreal scene unfolding before him.”

“Mason's attorney, Richard Hughes, said the altered forms would not be valid and thus constitute an attempt to violate the judge's order.” It really is a shame for couples to receive licenses that may be contested at a later date after they have married, so I hope this attorney is incorrect in his view. More is involved here than just the rightist attempt to prevent the Supreme Court ruling from taking effect. People are being abused. Of course that gives them a grievance to sue over if Davis actually does win in this situation. I don’t believe she will. The Supreme Court rarely backs down from one of their rulings, and their rulings are based on the letter of the law rather than a political viewpoint like this one. There is no law requiring Christians no matter how adamantly they feel about a matter to take on a position for pay that goes against their view. She can and should quit that job, and go to something that doesn’t violate her viewpoint, perhaps something that is church related – there are women pastors now, for instance.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/muslim-boy-14-arrested-in-texas-after-teacher-mistakes-his-clock-for-bomb/

Muslim boy arrested after teacher mistakes his clock for bomb
CBS/AP
September 16, 2015



IRVING, Texas -- Police detained a 14-year-old Muslim boy after a teacher at his North Texas high school decided that a homemade clock he proudly brought to class looked like a bomb, according to school and police officials.

The family of Ahmed Mohamed said the boy was suspended for three days from MacArthur High School in the Dallas suburb of Irving after taking the clock to class on Monday.

The boy makes his own radios, repairs his own go-kart and on Sunday spent about 20 minutes before bedtime assembling a clock using a circuit board, power supply wired to a digital display and other items, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Irving police Chief Larry Boyd said Wednesday that Mohamed will not be charged with possessing a hoax bomb because there's no evidence that he meant to cause any harm. Boyd said the clock that Ahmed built looked "suspicious in nature."

Authorities released an image of the device:


On Monday, Ahmed showed the clock to his engineering teacher and then another teacher after the clock, which was in his backpack, beeped during class. That teacher told him that it looked like a bomb, the newspaper reported.

Ahmed was later pulled from class and brought before the principal and Irving police officers for questioning.

Soon after the incident, #IStandWithAhmed was trending on Twitter:

Even President Barack Obama weighed in on Twitter, inviting the 14-year-old student to the White House:

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton also chimed in on Twitter:


"He just wants to invent good things for mankind," Ahmed's father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, told the Morning News. "But because his name is Mohamed and because of Sept. 11, I think my son got mistreated."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is reviewing the matter.

"This all raises a red flag for us: how Irving's government entities are operating in the current climate," said Alia Salem, executive director of the council's North Texas chapter.

Twitter Comments:

Follow

Ahmed MohamedVerified account
‏@IStandWithAhmed
Thank you fellow supporters. We can ban together to stop this racial inequality and prevent this from happening again

Brad Panovich ‏@wxbrad Sep 16
@NSIMONEFAN1 @IStandWithAhmed no, that doesn't work because it was clearly a clock & that should be the end of it.

Dr. Freeze ‏@jimfreeze Sep 16
@istandwithahmed @raganwald Not sure what level of racial inequality was involved, but certain there was a fair amount of tech illiteracy.

Jackie James ‏@50nsexy2014 Sep 16
@jimfreeze @IStandWithAhmed @raganwald Dr. Freeze, respectfully, that statement is part of the problem w/racism: PPL refuse to call it out!

Dr. Freeze ‏@jimfreeze Sep 16
@50nsexy2014 Thank you for your comment. I believe there was some of both. As a white guy, I've been in similar troubles with tech dummies.

Dr. Freeze ‏@jimfreeze Sep 16
@50nsexy2014 Agreed. I was only protected b/c my parents were in school administration. Handcuffing Ahmed was from ignorance on many levels.

Jackie James ‏@50nsexy2014 Sep 16
@jimfreeze I'm sure ur parent's presence helped but it didn't trump ur whiteness. While privilege is NEVER having to think about race.

Holly ‏@absolutspacegrl Sep 16
@IStandWithAhmed I'm a NASA engineer and #IStandWithAhmed !

Lauren ローレン ‏@LozzimusPrime Sep 16
@IStandWithAhmed Stay awesome Ahmed! Keep being creative and dont stop loving science!

thepoliticalcat ‏@thepoliticalcat Sep 16
Wow. Sounds like a super-smart kid. He might get a scholarship to a cool school outa this, which is my hope! :) @LowkeyTwits

Lowkey ‏@LowkeyTwits Sep 16
@thepoliticalcat in addition to the White House and the Clinton campaign, Google and Zuckerberg sent encouragement to him, too


“Police detained a 14-year-old Muslim boy after a teacher at his North Texas high school decided that a homemade clock he proudly brought to class looked like a bomb, according to school and police officials. The family of Ahmed Mohamed said the boy was suspended for three days from MacArthur High School in the Dallas suburb of Irving after taking the clock to class on Monday. …. Irving police Chief Larry Boyd said Wednesday that Mohamed will not be charged with possessing a hoax bomb because there's no evidence that he meant to cause any harm. Boyd said the clock that Ahmed built looked "suspicious in nature." …. Soon after the incident, #IStandWithAhmed was trending on Twitter. Even President Barack Obama weighed in on Twitter, inviting the 14-year-old student to the White House. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton also chimed in on Twitter.”

The People have spoken. Nearly everybody agrees that the kneejerk anti-“Other” reaction in this country is damaging in general and could become a matter of violent attacks in some cases if we aren’t careful. The schools have been accused of this kind of thing before in several news reports, though more often in the case of black students. Islamic people may become the hated minority of choice soon, though. Schools, unfortunately, don’t even require a Bachelor’s degree or a teaching certificate in many cases for their substitutes, so they aren’t all “well educated” at all. They’re just out of work and sign on as a substitute to get some income. The school wants them to stand in front of the class and talk as well as they can, giving out some busy work and keeping order. And just because all teachers are supposed to be relatively well educated – a four year degree and a state issued teaching certificate -- that doesn’t mean they will all be “enlightened.” That’s a matter of attitude, upbringing and effort. It’s the goal of Common Core to improve the literacy, science and general cultural levels in this country, and many on the right do hate that. They want to feel free to keep calling black people “coons,” “spooks” and yes, “ni---rs.” See the article below on that subject:


http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Substitute-Teacher-Accused-of-Using-Racial-Slur-in-Classroom-280717172.html

Substitute Teacher Accused of Using Racial Slur in Classroom
A teacher in suburban Carol Stream is accused of racist behavior in a middle school classroom. NBC's Nesita Kwan reports. (Published Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014)


A substitute teacher in a Chicago suburb is being accused of using a racial slur when speaking to a group of eighth graders.

Four 13-year-old students at Jay Stream Middle School in Carol Stream say they were in a social studies class working on a project about the Cold War last Wednesday when a substitute teacher approached them and called them "African American." But what she allegedly said after that brought some of the students to tears.

"All four of us that were sitting there got offended because none of us are from Africa. I’m Jamaican. So we said, 'Can you please not call us that?” said student Mea Thompson. “She continued to call us that and said, 'It’s the politically correct term.' Then she said, 'Well, back then you guys would be considered the N-word."

The students said they were appalled to hear the teacher use the racial slur in the classroom.

"We were so shocked and we were like, 'What? Excuse me?'" said Thompson. "She was like, 'Well, back then that’s what African Americans were called.'"

The students said the teacher used the slur repeatedly over the 80-minute class period, also referring to them as slaves. One student threw down her books and others started crying, the students claim.

"I just want people to know how much it affected us and I don’t want this to happen to anybody else," said student Zaria Daniel.

On Tuesday afternoon, the school district confirmed the teacher had been interviewed and corroborated the girls’ description of what happened. A district spokesperson said the substitute teacher will not be asked back to the school.

But Thompson’s mother, Shayna Thompson, says the punishment isn’t enough.

"After the shock and hurt, I’m angry," she said. "It’s a new world, and the people of the past that still hang onto hatred and bigotry don’t belong in this world anymore."

She said she is looking into whether the teacher can be charged with disorderly conduct or if the incident may be considered a hate crime.

Carol Stream Police also said they are aware of the incident and are investigating.

Published at 6:53 PM CDT on Oct 28, 2014


Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Substitute-Teacher-Accused-of-Using-Racial-Slur-in-Classroom-280717172.html#ixzz3mCKPaGcU
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http://www.npr.org/2015/09/19/441459110/set-in-stone-but-ever-changing-sculptures-reshaped-by-the-tides

Set In Stone But Ever-Changing: Sculptures Reshaped By The Tides
NPR Staff
SEPTEMBER 19, 2015

Photograph -- Taylor's Vicissitudes, after it began to accumulate coral.
Jason deCaires Taylor
Photograph -- One of the suited men at the heart of Taylor's The Rising Tide — within feet of being subsumed.
Courtesy of Jason deCaires Taylor
10 Photographs by Taylor displayed in a gallery.


You probably never will see most of Jason deCaires Taylor's public art projects firsthand — at least, not without goggles and fins.

Most of his sculptures stand at the bottom of the sea. His life-size statues — ghostly figures of men, women and children — seem to walk the ocean floor as they hold hands, huddle, even watch TV.

But his latest art installation is an exception: You can fully see it (if only twice a day). The Rising Tide, a set of four horseback riders standing in the river Thames in London, is completely visible only at low tide, when the water recedes.

As he tells NPR's Scott Simon, his style gives rise to a curious fact: Between the elements, the tides and the life that grows up all around them, his works are never quite the same from one moment to the next.

Interview Highlights

On The Rising Tide, his newest work

These four horses, they're all based on the foreshore of the River Thames, just next to Vauxhall Bridge in central London. And it depicts four large-scale horses, based on the London working horse, or the Shire horse. And each one of them has a rider on top, and also is a kind of hybrid structure — so it's half horse and half oil pump. ...

They're also in a very tidal zone, so there's 7 meters of tidal water that rises and falls twice a day. And so, depending on what time of day you visit them, sometimes almost concealed, and sometimes they're completely revealed by the water.

On how he casts sculptures in what amounts to an underwater gallery

It's very different, obviously, from normal public sculpture. I have to use materials which obviously don't pollute in any way, that are friendly to the marine life.

They're also durable. The idea, especially with a lot of the tropical pieces that make artificial reefs, is that they're going to be around for a very long time. Obviously corals, hard corals, can take ages to really get established. So all the materials are very much with that in mind. And they're very much permanent, and very much fixed in place.

On the role of the elements in his work

It works in both ways. I mean, obviously they're all designed to change and evolve in the ecosystem where they're placed. And sometimes that provides spectacular results. You know, we get sort of pink and purple corals and sponges and fire coral and tunicate — all these amazing things growing on them, morphing them. That only adds to them: They really sort of then become alive.

But also, you're in this really kind of difficult environment; you're in the sea. So, in tropical areas you get big hurricanes, you get surges of waves. And so with that in mind, you really have to sort of program them so they're fixed and stable, and that can be a challenge.

On the difficulties of seeing his pieces — and why he likes it that way

I think you have to make a conscious effort, obviously, to go there. I mean, part of my challenge, and one of the things I'm most interested in showing is, you know, to most people the sea is this sort of hidden, concealed world that, when they look at, they just see a blue horizon, whereas it's actually a spectacular place underwater — it's this marvelous world that we have on our doorsteps. And I don't think that's fully understood or appreciated.

I want my work to be a kind of portal or an entrance for people to get to know more about the sea, and obviously it's in peril from many different threats at the moment. And I really want to draw attention to that.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancun_Underwater_Museum

Cancun Underwater Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Jason DeCaires Taylor)

Cancun Underwater Museum MUSA It is a Non-Profit Organization based in Cancun México devoted to the Art of Conservation. This museum has a total of 500 sculptures with three different galleries submerged between three and six meters started in 2009 and completed at the end of 2013. A series of sculptures by Jason deCaires Taylor and five other Mexican sculptors [1] of the Cancún National Marine Park. The museum was thought up by Marine Park Director Jaime Gonzalez Canto with the help of sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor.[2]

History[edit]

At the beginning of 2008 Jaime Gonzalez Canto and Jason deCaires Taylor began to create the plans for an Underwater Museum, which would be formed by nature into a coral reef. [3]

Dr. Jaime González Miki, the Director of the National Park Costa Occidental Isla Mujeres, Punta Cancun y Punta Nizuc, saw that the natural coral reefs were being damaged by tourist, anchors, and divers. He began to see that the largest coral reef in Cancun, Mexico Manchones reef was becoming the most damaged because it is the most visited by divers and snorkelers [4]

The number of visitors that come by the thousands to Cancún every year to swim and dive in the natural reefs will have a new coral reef to explore and begin to help the reefs that have been damaged. Dr. González Canto suggested to the President of the Cancun Nautical Association, at the time Roberto Díaz Abraham, the idea of taking snorkelers and divers to an area where there concrete reefs with some corals had been placed at the beginning of 2005 to begin directing snorkelers and divers away from Manchones reef. By January of 2008 Roberto believed that it would take many more years for these artificial gardens to flourish and become an attraction, making him walk away from this project. Dr. González Canto Knew there was a way to protect the coral reefs and build an artificial reef in which would also attract tourist away from damaged reefs. Has Dr. Gonzalez Canto began doing more research on how to build an artificial reef he came across British sculpture Jason deCaires Taylor. At the time Jason deCaires Taylor was working on an underwater sculpture in the Canary Islands which are meant to attract plant life and sea life can grow in and feed off of. [5]

He was also a diving instructor at the time in the Caribbean, which also allowed him to see art in a different way. [6]

The Nautical Association President, Roberto Diaz Abraham, agreed to the plan for Jason deCaires Taylor to create an underwater sculpture museum. As Abraham, Canto, and Taylor met MUSA was created and Jason deCaires was contracted to do the initial work, as well as other Mexican sculptors.After Five years of MUSA foundation, six artists have their work placed at the bottom of the ocean. At the end of 2013, a total of 500 concrete sculptures comprise the MUSA collection. In Manchones exhibit room the Museum gathers 477 elements while in Nizuc there are 23. Another 26 replicas have been located at a Visitor Center at Kukulcan Mall in the Hotel Zone.More than 100,000 visitors visited MUSA during 2013 out of 500,000 that visit the Government Protected Area.

The “Silent Evolution”[edit]

Jason deCaires Taylor’s installment of sculptures is a collection he calls the “Silent Evolution.” The statues of this collection are to show humans interacting with the environment around them. It is both in a positive and negative impact. He shows how humans can live with nature and make a workable future between the two. The negative is showing how humans have damaged nature, the coral reefs, and show no sympathy. [7]

Each statue was made to resemble members of a local fishing community where Jason deCaires Taylor lives. Each statue has its own personality and features. DeCaires Taylor made sure every detail from the hair to the clothes of the statues had to be perfect. The statues are aiming towards conserving the reef. Some of the statues include a little girl with a faint smile on her face looking up to the surface. Another is of six business men with their heads in the sand not paying attention to their surroundings. DeCaires Taylor even includes a man behind a desk with his dog laying down behind them, but looking tired and uninvolved in the environment. All the statue in the “Silent Evolution” is showing how some humans see their surrounding and embrace them while others hide their faces. They are created above ground and cleaned before taking them down underwater so they do not have any harmful chemicals on them they may harm the water, animals, or reef. [8]

It took Jason deCaiers Taylor 18 months, 120 tons of concrete, sand, and gravel. There was 3,8000m of fiberglass, 400kg of silicone, and 120 hours of working underwater to create the museum. [9] The artist planned for the sculptures to become an artificial reefs. The sculptures are created with pH-neutral marine concrete, that was constructed with help from the help of some marine park officials and the Cancun Nautical Association. Some corals (such as fire coral) was planted on and near the initial sculptures. The “Silent Evolution” has two parts to it. The first part are the sculptures themselves underwater. The second part is to what nature does to them and how the coral will grow and a new reef will form. [10]

The Museum[edit]

Three galleries have been created, two underwater and one on the land. MUSA obtained a permit to sink 1,200 structures in 10 different areas within the National Marine Park. So far only two have been developed, Manchones reef with 477 sculptures and Punta Nizuc with 23 beautiful structures.

To get the statues underwater Jason deCaires Taylor had a special lift made for the statues so none would be damaged during the move. Once the statues are brought to the sea and to where they will be placed a forty-ton crane was placed on a commercial ferry. Some statues were so heavy they had to be lifted into the water using lift bags, which are bags of air to help control the position of the statue in the right spot. [11] The third exhibit room is in a Mall, Plaza Kukulcán, with 26 replicas and original. You may find the original ceramic sculpture by Roberto Díaz Abraham named The Ocean Muse. Roberto Díaz Abraham is Co-founder of MUSA together with Dr. Jaime González Cano, the Director of the Marine Park.

A total of about 500 sculptures were planned, to be installed by the end of 2010.[12][13] Snorkelers, scuba divers, and tourists can visit this Underwater Museum via a glass-bottom boat. A new installation is coming this summer by the Cuban sculptor Elier Amado Gil under the name of Blessings. This new installation will be placed in a new Galerie: Chitales.

The Benefits[edit]

The underwater museum is to benefit the protection of the coral reefs. Artificial reefs are usually created by sunken ships and other objects that have fallen to the bottom of the ocean floor. The statues are a new technique and material for coral to grow and collect. [14] Art was seen as saving the oceans.

As each statue was made with PH-neutral cement, coral, seaweed, and algae are able to grow and develop better than on an old ship. Stable structures with a stable base have been known to be the perfect surface for an artificial reefs to form. The statues also feature holes in them, which allow marine wildlife to colonize and feed off the coral. Coral reefs will increase, but so will marine life. After only a short time under the water, the statues began to change and nature started to do its part in growing with the help of humans. In time, all the statues will be covered and their figures will barely be visible [15]

The museum also benefits the community. With the new installment, more tourists are coming and new tours are being created for them. A Cancun tour guide and diver, Juan Carlos Garrido worries the museum will not last. The museum is good for his touring and diving business, but he is concerned that the statues and coral reefs may become ruined or even more damaged by a storm or the numbers of tourist that will come. These statues are meant to keep coral developing and if some get damaged the statues are able to continue that growth. [16]

More Underwater Statues[edit]

Jason deCaires Taylor has more underwater sculptures that tourist can visit. He has exhibits near the Manchones reef and Punta Nizuc in Cancun, Mexico. There is one off the coast of Grenada by Molinere. Also an exhibit in Musha Cay in the Bahamas. [17]




Please go to the websites referenced above and view the images. The sculptures are not only perfectly executed and lovely, they look just like real people with each one having a different facial expression and set of features. They also are majestic. In a few hundred years – if there are any people left here by that time – I think people will travel to see them like those of the ancient world did to the Seven Wonders. It’s in a way a tourist site, but one that will be in the category with the Pyramids rather than Myrtle Beach. Those that are built into the coral reef will be exceptionally beautiful, I think.





http://news.yahoo.com/republicans-jockey-conservative-credibility-221447740--election.html

Republicans jockey for conservative credibility
AP By STEVE PEOPLES and BILL BARROW
September 18, 2015

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Setting aside personality clashes for a night, the Republican Party's 2016 contest shifted to substance Friday as a slate of White House hopefuls vowed to steer the nation sharply to the right as they courted conservatives in battleground South Carolina.

They promised to eliminate federal departments that regulate education and environmental protection, called on congressional leaders to block federal funding from Planned Parenthood even if it triggers a government shutdown, and endorsed policies that reduce the number of unwed mothers.

"Just once, Republicans should nominate someone who is as committed to conservative principles as Barack Obama is committed to liberal principles," Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told a crowd of thousands gathered in a South Carolina arena.

Ten candidates were featured at the event just two days after the GOP's 2016 class met for its second debate, a California faceoff that exposed deep rifts between the candidates on immigration, foreign policy and the Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage. Yet the debate, like much of the early 2016 primary season, devolved at many times to a battle of personalities — with brash billionaire Donald Trump the leading antagonist.

Trump was a late scratch for Friday's presidential forum, hosted by Heritage Action for America, the political arm of a Washington-based conservative think.

Even among a friendly crowd, there were tense moments.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush triggered boos when he defended his early support for the Common Core education standards, a policy developed by state leaders in both parties that has become a target of tea party ire.

"I'm for higher standards, and Common Core standards are higher than the standards that exist," Bush said before being interrupted by boos. "If South Carolina wants to be without Common Core standards, great, just make sure the standards that you apply are higher than the ones before you had Common Core. Standards matter. Accountability matters."

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who previously supported Common Core himself, promised that he'd "take all the education money out of Washington" and send it to individual states. In addition to closing the federal education department, he called for the same shifts in federal funding for transportation, the environment, workforce development and Medicaid, the health-care program for the poor.

Walker also called for congressional Republicans to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood even if it causes a government shutdown. He suggested that Senate Republicans use the so-called "nuclear option" to bypass filibuster rules that often require 60 votes to proceed on contentious issues.

"We don't have to play by those rules," Walker said.

The event also featured retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former technology executive Carly Fiorina, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Immigration emerged as a focus for many candidates, who took turns answering questions on the main stage for roughly 20 minutes each.

Rubio, who supports a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally, said decisions about permanent status should ultimately be based on what they could contribute to the nation and "whether they want to live in America or whether they want to be American."

Carson cited his recent proposal for a guest worker program for such immigrants to perform "work that Americans won't do." He mentioned agricultural workers.

But he avoided a question about whether those workers would have permanent legal status and be eligible for various federal benefits. "Guest workers are not eligible for anything unless we, the American people, decide" they are, he said.

Santorum, who wants to reduce legal immigration, railed against President Barack Obama's call to bring at least 10,000 Syrian refugees to the U.S. He said that previously resettled Syrian immigrants were all Muslims and offered a direct message to the president about the incoming refugees.

"You tell us what the breakdown is of religions," Santorum declared. "There are a lot of religions that are being persecuted in Syria, and they should have a home here in the United States just like everybody else."

The event was awash in fiery rhetoric, but no candidate has struggled more with his party's conservative base than Bush.

"He could perform like Superman in the debates, but he's dead in the water with the tea party and the base generally," said tea party movement co-founder Mark Meckler. "He's the only candidate they absolutely loathe."

South Carolina's Feb. 20 primary shapes up as a critical bridge between the traditional opening states of Iowa and New Hampshire and a March 1 "Super Tuesday" that features a gaggle of Southern states, from Virginia to Texas.

Notably absent from Friday's affair was the state's senior senator and presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham, who finds himself languishing at the bottom of the polls nationally.

Graham is a strong figure politically in South Carolina, but most conservative activists in the Republican Party view him as too moderate and too willing to negotiate with Democrats.

Fiorina doesn't have such a reputation. The former Hewlett-Packard CEO earned an ovation Friday by lashing out at Planned Parenthood, a women's health organization that, among other things, performs abortions.

"We cannot be a nation that funds this kind of barbarity," Fiorina said.


Related Stories:

U.S. candidates slam Common Core, but education standards take root Reuters
The Latest: Fiorina, Trump clash on immigration Associated Press
The Latest: Fiorina punts on if Trump should have nuke codes Associated Press
The Latest: GOP candidates pick code names Associated Press
Judge rejects Jindal injunction request in Common Core suit Associated Press




“They promised to eliminate federal departments that regulate education and environmental protection, called on congressional leaders to block federal funding from Planned Parenthood even if it triggers a government shutdown, and endorsed policies that reduce the number of unwed mothers. …. Even among a friendly crowd, there were tense moments. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush triggered boos when he defended his early support for the Common Core education standards, a policy developed by state leaders in both parties that has become a target of tea party ire. "I'm for higher standards, and Common Core standards are higher than the standards that exist," Bush said before being interrupted by boos. "If South Carolina wants to be without Common Core standards, great, just make sure the standards that you apply are higher than the ones before you had Common Core. Standards matter. Accountability matters." …. In addition to closing the federal education department, he called for the same shifts in federal funding for transportation, the environment, workforce development and Medicaid, the health-care program for the poor. Walker also called for congressional Republicans to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood even if it causes a government shutdown. …. Immigration emerged as a focus for many candidates, who took turns answering questions on the main stage for roughly 20 minutes each. Rubio, who supports a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally, said decisions about permanent status should ultimately be based on what they could contribute to the nation and "whether they want to live in America or whether they want to be American." …. He said that previously resettled Syrian immigrants were all Muslims and offered a direct message to the president about the incoming refugees. "You tell us what the breakdown is of religions," Santorum declared. "There are a lot of religions that are being persecuted in Syria, and they should have a home here in the United States just like everybody else." …. Graham is a strong figure politically in South Carolina, but most conservative activists in the Republican Party view him as too moderate and too willing to negotiate with Democrats.”

The phrase “eliminate federal departments” alone makes me furious, and then when education and environmental protection are mentioned I feel fearful. They are trying to make this country a place like my mother was born into. She had to quit school at the end of the sixth grade because the Christian school in her area charged more money than her father could afford to pay, and there were no public schools yet. She was a good student, however, and continued to read everything she could find. There were few books in the hands of poor people in those days, and in that rural community in general I suspect. They had a Farmer’s Almanac every year, some newspapers, and some magazines. They also had their old schoolbooks, which all kids had to buy in those days. They weren’t owned by the school.

Poverty level standards of living were as bad in those days as they are now, if not worse. She was born in 1916. These rightists that we have now in the Republican Party are against federal influence, much less control, of schools, hate speech, work places, medical facilities, housing, racial matters, voting, and more. They want to bring back Jim Crow rules and union free workplaces, and if we keep the same Supreme Court that we have now, they may get away with it.

They are villains in my view, and idiots at the same time. Unfortunately it’s not surprising that so many of them are wild about that other idiot Donald Trump. Senator Lindsey Graham is “… too moderate and too willing to negotiate with Democrats” – and of course, that’s why he’s one of my favorite Republicans. He isn’t an inhumane individual and a monkey wrench in the works of the legislature. He’s one of the Gang of Eight who came from different parties and crafted legislation together. I tend to call such legislators “statesmen.”





http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/18/441392494/croatias-army-on-alert-as-it-tries-to-slow-border-crossings

Croatia's Army On Alert As It Tries To Slow Border Crossings
Bill Chappell
September 18, 2015

Photograph -- Refugees and other migrants wait to board buses at Tovarnik railway station in Croatia after crossing from Serbia on Friday. Officials say they were forced to close eight road border crossings Thursday after thousands of people entered the country when Hungary fenced off its border with Serbia earlier this week.
Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Map -- Refugees and other migrants are heading to Croatia in an attempt to travel into other European Union countries.
Google Maps


After nearly 10,000 refugees and migrants entered Croatia in the past two days, the country has placed its army on alert to deploy on the country's border with Serbia. People who were turned away by Hungary now see Croatia as an alternate route into European Union countries.

Reporting from the Croatia-Serbia border, Lauren Frayer spoke to Jamal al-Shahoud, a refugee from Syria, who told her, "Here no food, no water. No buses, no trains. Nothing here. Just tired."

Lauren reports for our Newscast unit:

Refugees and other migrants are heading to Croatia in an attempt to travel into other European Union countries.

"Migrants and refugees keep streaming into Croatia after Hungary closed its borders. People broke through police lines and ran into the countryside.

"Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic visited the melee.

" 'Croatia is under big pressure,' he said. 'This is extraordinary situation. In this moment I have to be on the front line.'

"Croatia has closed highways leading in from Serbia. And Hungary has started building a fence on its border with Croatia, in addition to two others along its borders with Serbia and Romania."

The new developments come as Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic says that his country will not and cannot seal its border entirely. Instead, the country plans to try to usher people along to neighboring countries.

"What else can we do?" Milanovic said, according to The Associated Press. "You are welcome in Croatia and you can pass through Croatia. But, go on. Not because we don't like you but because this is not your final destination."

EU member nations are expected to meet next week to discuss their response to a crisis in which more than 440,000 refugees and other migrants have reached Europe this year. More than half of them have come from Syria, fleeing that country's civil war.

On Wednesday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees urged Europe to make changes, such as establishing reception centers in Greece (where more than 300,000 people have made their first landfall). The centers could register and screen those arriving, the U.N. agency said. It added that similar centers could be set up in Serbia to register and relocate the new arrivals.

The U.N. agency also called for each EU member nation to accept 40,000 refugees, in addition to the voluntary amounts to which they've already committed.




“Officials say they were forced to close eight road border crossings Thursday after thousands of people entered the country when Hungary fenced off its border with Serbia earlier this week. …. After nearly 10,000 refugees and migrants entered Croatia in the past two days, the country has placed its army on alert to deploy on the country's border with Serbia. People who were turned away by Hungary now see Croatia as an alternate route into European Union countries. Reporting from the Croatia-Serbia border, Lauren Frayer spoke to Jamal al-Shahoud, a refugee from Syria, who told her, "Here no food, no water. No buses, no trains. Nothing here. Just tired." …. Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic says that his country will not and cannot seal its border entirely. Instead, the country plans to try to usher people along to neighboring countries. "What else can we do?" Milanovic said, according to The Associated Press. "You are welcome in Croatia and you can pass through Croatia. But, go on. Not because we don't like you but because this is not your final destination." …. On Wednesday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees urged Europe to make changes, such as establishing reception centers in Greece (where more than 300,000 people have made their first landfall). The centers could register and screen those arriving, the U.N. agency said. It added that similar centers could be set up in Serbia to register and relocate the new arrivals. The U.N. agency also called for each EU member nation to accept 40,000 refugees, in addition to the voluntary amounts to which they've already committed.”

“People broke through police lines and ran into the countryside. "Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic visited the melee. " 'Croatia is under big pressure,' he said. 'This is extraordinary situation. In this moment I have to be on the front line.' "Croatia has closed highways leading in from Serbia. And Hungary has started building a fence on its border with Croatia, in addition to two others along its borders with Serbia and Romania."

I hope this isn’t the early days of a new war of immense proportions. One thing that needs to happen soon is for armies with “boots on the ground” to be sent into Syria and Iraq, and wherever else ISIS exists and multiplies. They’re not unlike a massive growth of black mold that appears out of thin air after a flood. ISIS is made up of formerly more reasonable young ultra-religious men and women, especially if they live in a home with a lack of parental closeness and gentle order. Radical ideas that infect their imaginations with what I can only call evil arrive over the Internet -- which the whole world has welcomed freely into our homes – and give the young people something “important” to do rather than just being a good student and helping out at home. Then the teenaged children of the family watch the ISIS propaganda and take off for Syria. I wonder if there is any way at all to stop this process. Maybe the Internet service providers could block the originators of that kind of material like they have sometimes at least with Kiddie Porn sites. Evil should not be propagated, no matter what kind it is.





http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/09/08/437579834/mass-deportation-may-sound-unlikely-but-its-happened-before

Mass Deportation May Sound Unlikely, But It's Happened Before
Adrian Florido
SEPTEMBER 08, 2015

Photograph -- Mexican and Mexican-American families wait to board Mexico-bound trains in Los Angeles on March 8, 1932. County officials arranged these mass departures as part of "repatriation campaigns," fueled by fears that Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were taking scarce jobs and government assistance during the Great Depression.
Los Angeles Public Library/Herald Examiner Collection
Photograph -- In the mid 1930s, when Esteban Torres was 3, his father was rounded up and deported to Mexico while working at a mine in Arizona. Torres, who would become a U.S. congressman, never saw his father again.
Adrian Florido/NPR
Photograph -- A memorial in downtown Los Angeles commemorates the mass expulsion of Mexican-Americans during the Great Depression.
Adrian Florido/NPR


Presidential candidate Donald Trump's proposal to deport all 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally, along with their U.S.-born children, sounds far-fetched. But something similar happened before.

During the 1930s and into the 1940s, up to 2 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were deported or expelled from cities and towns across the U.S. and shipped to Mexico. According to some estimates, more than half of these people were U.S. citizens, born in the United States.

It's a largely forgotten chapter in history that Francisco Balderrama, a California State University historian, documented in Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s. He co-wrote that book with the late historian Raymond Rodriguez.

"There was a perception in the United States that Mexicans are Mexicans," Balderrama said. "Whether they were American citizens, or whether they were Mexican nationals, in the American mind — that is, in the mind of government officials, in the mind of industry leaders — they're all Mexicans. So ship them home."

It was the Great Depression, when up to a quarter of Americans were unemployed and many believed that Mexicans were taking scarce jobs. In response, federal, state and local officials launched so-called "repatriation" campaigns. They held raids in workplaces and in public places, rounded up Mexicans and Mexican-Americans alike, and deported them. The most famous of these was in downtown Los Angeles' Placita Olvera in 1931.

A memorial in downtown Los Angeles commemorates the mass expulsion of Mexican-Americans during the Great Depression.i
A memorial in downtown Los Angeles commemorates the mass expulsion of Mexican-Americans during the Great Depression.
Adrian Florido/NPR
Balderrama says these raids were intended to spread fear throughout Mexican barrios and pressure Mexicans and Mexican-Americans to leave on their own. In many cases, they succeeded.

Where they didn't, government officials often used coercion to get rid of Mexican-Americans who were U.S. citizens. In Los Angeles, it was standard practice for county social workers to tell those receiving public assistance that they would lose it, and that they would be better off in Mexico. Those social workers would then get tickets for families to travel to Mexico. According to Balderrama's research, one-third of LA's Mexican population was expelled between 1929 and 1944 as a result of these practices.

That's what happened to Emilia Castañeda and her family.

Castañeda was born in Los Angeles in 1926 to immigrant parents. Her mother died while she was growing up, and her father struggled to get work during the Depression. When Castañeda was nine, Los Angeles County paid to put the family on a southbound train to Mexico. They lived with relatives, but often had to sleep outdoors for lack of space.

"The oldest of the boys, he used to call me a repatriada," Castañeda remembered in a 1971 interview, using the Spanish word for a repatriate. "And I don't think I felt that I was a repatriada, because I was an American citizen." Castañeda didn't return to the U.S. until she was 17, by which point she had lost much of her English. Her father never returned.

In the mid 1930s, when Esteban Torres was 3, his father was rounded up and deported to Mexico while working at a mine in Arizona. Torres, who would become a U.S. congressman, never saw his father again.i
In the mid 1930s, when Esteban Torres was 3, his father was rounded up and deported to Mexico while working at a mine in Arizona. Torres, who would become a U.S. congressman, never saw his father again.
Adrian Florido/NPR
Balderrama says these family separations remain a lasting legacy of the mass deportations of that era. Despite claims by officials at the time that deporting U.S.-born children — along with their immigrant parents — would keep families together, many families were destroyed.

Esteban Torres was a toddler when his father, a Mexican immigrant, was caught up in a workplace roundup at an Arizona copper mine in the mid-1930s. "My mother, like other wives, waited for the husbands to come home from the mine. But he didn't come home," Torres recalled in a recent interview. He now lives east of Los Angeles. "I was 3 years old. My brother was 2 years old. And we never saw my father again."

Torres' mother suspected that his father had been targeted because of his efforts to organize miners. That led Esteban Torres to a lifelong involvement with organized labor. He was eventually elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and served there from 1983 to 1999.

Today, Torres serves on the board of La Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Los Angeles, a Mexican-American cultural center. In front of it stands a memorial that the state of California dedicated in 2012, apologizing to the hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens who were illegally deported or expelled during the Depression.

"It was a sorrowful step that this country took," Torres said. "It was a mistake. And for Trump to suggest that we should do it again is ludicrous, stupid and incomprehensible."



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation

Mexican Repatriation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Mexican Repatriation refers to a forced return to Mexico of people of Mexican descent from the United States between 1929 and 1936.[1][2] The mandate, carried out by American authorities, took place without due process.[3] The Immigration and Naturalization Service targeted Mexicans in California, Texas, and Colorado because of "the proximity of the Mexican border, the physical distinctiveness of mestizos, and easily identifiable barrios."[4] Studies have provided conflicting numbers for how many Mexicans were repatriated during the Great Depression, but estimates range from 500,000 to 2 million.[5][6] In 2005, the State of California passed an official "Apology Act" to those forced to relocate to Mexico, an estimated 1.2 million of whom were United States citizens.[7][8]

Historical background[edit]

“Even immigration scholars have frequently labeled Mexicans as part of a ‘new immigrant’ grouping in comparison to Europeans such as the Irish and Italians and Germans,”.[9] Mexicans have been immigrating to the United States for more than a century in response to U.S. labor demands and have been citizens of the United States in the Southwestern states since the Mexican-American war in the mid-1800s.[citation needed]

Mexicans in the U.S. 1848-1920s[edit]

With the U.S. victory in the Mexican American War, territory that had been part of Mexico was ceded to the U.S., comprising the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of Texas, Colorado, and Wyoming to the United States under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The United States paid $15 million for the land that reduced Mexican territory to 55 percent of what it was before the war.[10] The 80,000 Mexican citizens in this newly acquired U.S. territory were promised U.S. citizenship, although Native Americans were excluded.[11][12] About 2,000 of the total 80,000 decided to move to Mexican territory. Mexicans who remained in the U.S. were considered U.S. citizens and counted as white on the U.S. census until 1930; however, the majority European population treated them as foreigners.[13]

During the California Gold Rush of 1849, many Mexicans had immigrated to the California gold fields or to work for wages building the railroad system. Following the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Mexican immigrants began to increase in numbers in order to fill the labor demand that had previously been held mainly by Chinese immigrants. At the onset of the 20th century, “U.S. employers went so far as to make request directly to the president of Mexico to send more labor into the United States” and hired “aggressive labor recruiters who work outside the parameters of the U.S.” in order to recruit Mexican labor for jobs in industry, railroads, meatpacking, steel mills, and agriculture.[9] “By 1900 approximately 500,000 people of Mexican ancestry lived in the United States. Roughly 100,000 of these residents were born in Mexico; the remainder were second-generation inhabitants . . . and their offspring.”[11]

U.S. Citizenship and immigration law prior to World War II[edit]

In 1924, the U.S. Border Patrol was established on the Mexico–U.S. border. Prior to this date, Mexican immigration was relatively easy. "A Mexican caught crossing the border illegally was told that if he wished to enter the U.S., he had to do so at a regular station and pay the fees.”[17] Immigration from the Western Hemisphere had remained unrestricted until 1965 with the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act.[18]

Due to the lax immigration enforcement, many citizens, legal residents, and immigrants did not have the official documentation proving their citizenship, had lost their documents, or just never applied for citizenship.[19] For many Mexicans, “the privileges of American citizenship offered little of substance to the Mexican national who knew that if he became a citizen he would still be, in the eyes of the Anglos, a Mexican.”.[20] For these reasons, and because there was a feeling of protection by remaining a Mexican citizen and a sense of group pressure not to apply for citizenship by other Mexicans,[21] many Mexicans did not have the documentation to prove their legal status in the United States, or the citizenship in order to secure them the rights provided to American citizens.[22]

The Great Depression[edit]

Following the Stock Market Crash of 1929 in the United States, the U.S. economy began to crumble, and the ensuing devastation quickly reverberated throughout the world. As a result of the Great Depression, thousands of banks closed, international trade plummeted, and hundreds of thousands of Americans were consumed by the depression and lost everything, including their homes, their jobs, and many could not even afford to feed their families.[23] United States unemployment jumped from a low of 4.2 percent in 1928 to a high of 25 percent in 1933, the highest unemployment rate in U.S. history. By 1938, unemployment remained high at 19 percent and did not fall below 10 percent until 1941.[24] The Hoover administration’s inability to curtail the disintegrating economy during the initial, and worst, years of the depression led many to despise President Hoover. The perceived lack of assistance from the federal government upset many citizens and organized labor, and, in order to improve “organized labor’s hostile attitude toward his administration,” President Hoover used immigrants in the country as a scapegoat to divert criticism.[25]

Federal government action[edit]

As the effects of the Great Depression worsened and affected larger amounts of people, feelings of hostility toward immigrants increased rapidly, and the Mexican community as a whole suffered as a result. States began passing laws that required all public employees to be American citizens and employers were subject to harsh penalties such as a five hundred dollar fine or six months in jail if they hired immigrants.

The federal government imposed restrictions for immigrant labor as well, requiring firms that supply the government with goods and services refrain from hiring immigrants and, as a result, most larger corporations followed suit, and as a result, many employers fired their Mexican employees and few hired new Mexican workers causing unemployment to increase among the Mexican population.[34]

President Hoover publicly endorsed Secretary of Labor William N. Doak and his campaign to add “245 more agents to assist in the deportation of 500,000 foreigners.”[35] Doak’s endeavors to expel Mexican immigrants has been described as unscrupulous.[citation needed] His measures included monitoring labor protests or farm strikes and labeling protesters and protest leaders as possible subversives, communists, or radicals. “Strike leaders and picketers would be arrested, charged with being illegal aliens or engaging in illegal activities, and thus be subject to arbitrary deportation.”[36] Labeling Mexican activists in this way was a way to garner public support for actions taken by the immigration agents and federal government such as mass raids, arbitrary arrests, and deportation campaigns.

Local actions in Los Angeles[edit]

“From 1931 on, cities and counties across the country intensified and embarked upon repatriation programs, conducted under the auspices of either local welfare bureaus or private charitable agencies.”[37] Los Angeles chairman of the board of supervisors‘ charities and public welfare committee, Frank L. Shaw had researched about the legality of deportation but was advised by legal counsel that only the federal government was legally allowed to engage in deportation proceedings.[5] As a result, the county decided that their campaign would be called “repatriation,” a euphemism for deportation.[citation needed]

C.P. Visel, the spokesman for Los Angeles Citizens Committee for Coordination of Unemployment Relief began his “unemployment relief measure” that would create a “psychological gesture” intended to “scarehead” Mexicans out of the United States.[citation needed] His idea was to have a series of “publicity releases announcing the deportation campaign, a few arrests would be made “with all publicity possible and pictures,” and both police and deputy sheriffs would assist” (Balderrama 2). Watkins, Supervisor of the Bureau of Immigration, and his agents were responsible for many mass raids and deportations. Local government was responsible for the media attention that was given to these raids in order to “scarehead” immigrants, specifically Mexicans. There were also repeated press releases from LA city officials that asserted Mexicans were not being targeted.[citation needed] Actions taken by immigration officials proved otherwise, provoking many vociferous complaints and criticisms from the Mexican Consulate and Spanish language publication, La Opinión.[38]

Raids and legal proceedings[edit]

The streets of East Los Angeles, a heavily populated Mexican area, were deserted only after the first few days that raids had been conducted.[5] Local merchants complained to investigators that the raids were bad for their businesses. According to Balderrama, “Raids assumed the logistics of full-scale paramilitary operations. Federal officials, country deputy sheriffs, and city police cooperated in local roundups in order to assure maximum success.”[39] Sheriff Traeger and his deputies' tactics included large round ups of Mexicans who were arbitrarily arrested and taken to jail without checking whether or not the people were carrying legal documentation.[5] Jose David Orozco described on his local radio station the ““women crying in the streets when not finding their husbands” after deportation sweeps had occurred.”[40] Mexican Consulates across the country were receiving complaints of “harassment, beatings, heavy-handed tactics, and verbal abuse” (Balderrama 79).

These raids include the San Fernando Raid, La Placita Raid, and El Monte Raid. The San Fernando Raid took place on Ash Wednesday.[year missing] Immigration agents and deputies blocked off all exits to the Mexican neighborhood and “rode around the neighborhood with their sirens wailing and advising people to surrender themselves to the authorities.”[41] The La Placita Raid occurred on February 26, 1931. Led by Watkins, immigration officers enclosed a park with 400 Mexicans. Everyone in the park was made to line up and show evidence of legal entry into the United States before they could leave.[6] In the El Monte Raid, 300 people were stopped and questioned, 13 were jailed, and of the 13 jailed, 12 were Mexican.[5]

Most people were unconstitutionally denied their legal rights of due process and equal protection under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. When it came to federal deportation proceedings, undocumented immigrants, once apprehended, had two options: they could either ask for a hearing or “voluntarily” return to their native country. The benefit of asking for a hearing was the potential to persuade the immigration officer that if they were returned to their home country they would be placed in a life-threatening situation (which was the case for those who had fled the war or were escaping religious persecution) and would be able to stay under the current immigration law as refugees. If the immigrant lost the hearing, they would be barred from ever returning to the United States. Although requesting a hearing was a possibility, immigration officers rarely informed undocumented immigrants of their rights, and the hearings were “official but informal,” in that immigration inspectors “acted as interpreter, accuser, judge, and jury.”.[42] Moreover, the deportee was seldom represented by a lawyer, a privilege that could only be granted at the discretion of the immigration officer.[38] The second option, which was to voluntarily deport themselves from the US, would allow these individuals to reenter the US legally at a later date because “no arrest warrant was issued and no legal record or judicial transcript of the incident was kept.”.[43] However, many were being misled and enticed to leave the country by county officials who told Mexicans if they left now they would be able to return later. But many were given a “stamp on their card by the Department of Charities/County Welfare Department which makes it impossible for any of the Mexican born to return, since it shows that they have been county charities. All that the American officials had to do was invoke the “liable to become a public charge” clause of the 1917 Immigration Act and deny readmission.”[44] Many were also threatened by county officials that insisted individuals and their family members would be removed from relief rolls if they did not accept the county’s offer to pay for their return to Mexico.[6] In this way, individuals were simultaneously threatened and enticed by the offer for a free trip to Mexico. The Mexican Consulate during these repatriation campaigns was also promulgating and sponsoring campaigns to repatriate Mexicans - the expenses would be paid and some would even be repatriated to a job in Mexico, although these sort of programs could not be sponsored throughout the entire repatriation campaign.[6]

Since the 1930s many Mexican-American families have had to face the unbearable decisions on how to proceed after a loved one is repatriated. Repatriation can challenge Mexican-American families facing deportation financially and emotionally. Families facing the dilemma of forced deportation must decide how to overcome the financial burden of travel, and/or costly attorney fees for the legal proceedings to obtain a visa. One must also consider the financial burden of downsizing to one income when one parent must repatriate. There is an emotional devastation that the children (who are legal United States citizens) can suffer when their parents repatriate. The alternative option, which would be relocating the American born children to their parent’s homeland,also brings many difficult challenges for the children.

Apologies[edit]

The federal government has not apologized for the repatriations. In 2006, representatives Hilda Solis and Luis Gutiérrez introduced a bill calling for a commission to study the issue, and called for an apology.[7]

The state of California was the first state to apologize when it passed the "Apology Act for the 1930s Mexican Repatriation Program" in 2005, officially recognizing the "unconstitutional removal and coerced emigration of United States citizens and legal residents of Mexican descent" and apologizing to residents of California "for the fundamental violations of their basic civil liberties and constitutional rights committed during the period of illegal deportation and coerced emigration."[7][8]

The Repatriation is not widely discussed in U.S. history textbooks;[45] in a 2006 survey of the nine most commonly used American history textbooks in the United States, four did not mention the Repatriation, and only one devoted more than half a page to the topic.[45] Nevertheless, many mainstream textbooks now carry this topic. In total, they devoted four pages to the Repatriation, compared with eighteen pages for the Japanese American internment[45] which, though also a gross violation of the rights of citizens, affected a much smaller number of people, even by the more conservative estimates for the Mexican deportations.[2]

Operation Wetback[edit]

The federal government responded to the increased levels of immigration that began during the war years with the official 1954 INS program called Operation Wetback in which an estimated one million persons, the majority of which were Mexican nationals and undocumented immigrants but some were also US citizens, were deported to Mexico.[46][47]




NPR -- “During the 1930s and into the 1940s, up to 2 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were deported or expelled from cities and towns across the U.S. and shipped to Mexico. According to some estimates, more than half of these people were U.S. citizens, born in the United States. …. "There was a perception in the United States that Mexicans are Mexicans," Balderrama said. "Whether they were American citizens, or whether they were Mexican nationals, in the American mind — that is, in the mind of government officials, in the mind of industry leaders — they're all Mexicans. So ship them home." It was the Great Depression, when up to a quarter of Americans were unemployed and many believed that Mexicans were taking scarce jobs. In response, federal, state and local officials launched so-called "repatriation" campaigns. They held raids in workplaces and in public places, rounded up Mexicans and Mexican-Americans alike, and deported them. The most famous of these was in downtown Los Angeles' Placita Olvera in 1931. …. Torres' mother suspected that his father had been targeted because of his efforts to organize miners. That led Esteban Torres to a lifelong involvement with organized labor. He was eventually elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and served there from 1983 to 1999. Today, Torres serves on the board of La Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Los Angeles, a Mexican-American cultural center. In front of it stands a memorial that the state of California dedicated in 2012, apologizing to the hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens who were illegally deported or expelled during the Depression. "It was a sorrowful step that this country took," Torres said. "It was a mistake. And for Trump to suggest that we should do it again is ludicrous, stupid and incomprehensible."

WIKIPEDIA -- The perceived lack of assistance from the federal government upset many citizens and organized labor, and, in order to improve “organized labor’s hostile attitude toward his administration,” President Hoover used immigrants in the country as a scapegoat to divert criticism.[25] Federal government action[edit] As the effects of the Great Depression worsened and affected larger amounts of people, feelings of hostility toward immigrants increased rapidly, and the Mexican community as a whole suffered as a result. States began passing laws that required all public employees to be American citizens and employers were subject to harsh penalties such as a five hundred dollar fine or six months in jail if they hired immigrants. …. President Hoover publicly endorsed Secretary of Labor William N. Doak and his campaign to add “245 more agents to assist in the deportation of 500,000 foreigners.”[35] Doak’s endeavors to expel Mexican immigrants has been described as unscrupulous.[citation needed] His measures included monitoring labor protests or farm strikes and labeling protesters and protest leaders as possible subversives, communists, or radicals. “ …. “From 1931 on, cities and counties across the country intensified and embarked upon repatriation programs, conducted under the auspices of either local welfare bureaus or private charitable agencies.”[37] Los Angeles chairman of the board of supervisors‘ charities and public welfare committee, Frank L. Shaw had researched about the legality of deportation but was advised by legal counsel that only the federal government was legally allowed to engage in deportation proceedings.[5] As a result, the county decided that their campaign would be called “repatriation,” a euphemism for deportation.[citation needed] …. His idea was to have a series of “publicity releases announcing the deportation campaign, a few arrests would be made “with all publicity possible and pictures,” and both police and deputy sheriffs would assist” (Balderrama 2). Watkins, Supervisor of the Bureau of Immigration, and his agents were responsible for many mass raids and deportations. Local government was responsible for the media attention that was given to these raids in order to “scarehead” immigrants, specifically Mexicans. There were also repeated press releases from LA city officials that asserted Mexicans were not being targeted.[citation needed] Actions taken by immigration officials proved otherwise, provoking many vociferous complaints and criticisms from the Mexican Consulate and Spanish language publication, La Opinión.[38]”

These events began under Herbert Hoover in 1929, which is “par for the course,” but it continued under the Democratic hero FDR. A quotation from NPR above states baldly, "There was a perception in the United States that Mexicans are Mexicans." The US public at that time simply didn’t care that those Mexicans were around 50% American citizens, and not “wet backs.” Along with the deportation of Mexicans for largely economic reasons, including that fact that they sometimes were labor organizers, the imprisonment of Japanese citizens occurred under FDR. That, of course, was because they joined Hitler in WWII after actually attacking the US at Pearl Harbor. Germans and Italians were also interned on US soil until the end of the war.

Of course, WWII was a frightening time for the Western world. A great old mystery book called The Eagle Has Landed, by Jack Higgins is about a German spy living in a small coastal English town and how he was identified and caught, was intensely suspenseful, and of course German bombs fell often on London. Many British men sent their women and children out of London to live in suburban or rural settings around the country. I do hope that we are not going to get involved in something similar to the internments of WWII now, with these hundreds of thousands of immigrants pouring into Western areas, including the US. It is difficult to feed, house, protect, and welcome so many aliens of a religious group that is very often hostile to us. I am growing more and more concerned about the future now. Times like these are likely to produce major wars.