Friday, October 25, 2024
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Rival immigration reform plans could ignite Capitol Hill fireworks

by Basilisa Alonso

The comprehensive immigration reform proposal spread out Jan. 29 in Las Vegas by President Obama could eventually put as many as 11 million undocumented immigrants, about 80 percent of whom are Hispanic, on a path to U.S. citizenship.

It is could also light up the sky with an awesome display of political fireworks by the Fourth of July.

While Obama’s 25-minute televised speech was seen and heard by millions and then regurgitated and analyzed for days by print as well as broadcast media, its message was clearly directed to those 535 members of Congress who must sign off before it reaches his desk for signature.

The stakes — the President’s reputation, the future viability of the Republican Party and the welfare of the Hispanic community — are enormous.

Obama’s plan came a day after “the gang of eight” senators — Democrats Charles Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Robert Menéndez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Coloradoand Republicans Marco Rubio of Florida, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and John McCain and Jeff Flake, both of Arizona — introduced theirs. In the president’s framework, a path to citizenship not tied to border enforcement would be included. It would also afford petitioning rights to same-sex couples.

The president offered extra considerations for agribusiness and family reunification, easing sponsorship regulations and raising the annual cap from seven to 15 percent. It would provide an expedited path to “innocent” young people who commit to serve in the military or pursue higher education. The Senate’s plan would do the same for undocumented youth and agricultural workers.

Both proposals emphasize border and workplace security, but the senators make citizenship contingent on stronger border enforcement measures. Immigrants in STEM fields would have an easier visa path. Both plans call for stricter criteria that would include background checks, paying any due taxes and penalties, and learning English for permanent residency.

At a Jan. 30 news conference called by Senate Democratic leadership in which only Senators Schumer and Durbin, along with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid participated, Schumer responded to a reporter’s question whether citizenship is tied to verification of a “secure border.” He said a “metric” system would be established by the Department of Homeland Security to ascertain when border security guidelines have been met. He added, “Dick and I, and Bob as well as our … Republican friends want to make sure the border is secured but not to use it as a barrier to prevent 11 million from eventually gaining path to citizenship.”

For immigrants who pass initial background checks and pay fines, the Senate’s proposal would grant “lawful probationary status.” Only after those who are “in line” are processed and the border is secure, will immigrants be able to apply for residency. The President’s plan would also provide provisional status, and only after backlogged cases have been processed, could an immigrant apply for permanent residency.

A mandated national employment verification system and more funding of anti-fraud agencies and technology along with exclusion of public benefits while under lawful status are called for in both packages.

Agri-jobs receive priority in both plans, with big business and labor expressing support. U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donohue unveiled the “Republicans for immigration” super-pac at the National Press Club earlier this month, stressing that the U.S. economy cannot run without immigrants. “Businesses have millions of job openings that go unfilled,” he said.

At the same news conference, Citigroup chairman Carlos Gutiérrez, who served as Secretary of the Interior under President George W. Bush, pointed out that many U.S. family farms have shut down and some have moved to Mexico because of a shortage of workers.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka shared later that a few dozen of the nation’s unions “are undertaking a national campaign to support the 11 million undocumented immigrants. The Senate plan would make visas accessible for immigrants who commit to agricultural jobs.

United Farm Workers president Arturo Rodríguez called both proposals encouraging. He said they recognize the need for agricultural workers, who “sacrifice so much to bring the harvest to our table.”UFW members “are prepared to go out and do the work necessary to ensure a fair and decent process,” he promised.

Obama lauded most elements of the senators’ plan, saying its principles “are very much in agreement with the principles I campaigned on for the last few yeas”

Both packages underscore the importance for citizenship, reforming the current legal immigration system and border and workplace security.

Julieta Garibay, the United We Dream Educational Empowerment Program coordinator and a DACA recipient says the plans are basically the same, but “we don’t want words. We want actions.”

Many pro-immigrant groups are left wanting for more information after both presentations. Garibey says “we are still waiting on the details of the President’s plan such as how to deal with families being separated and those currently in deportation proceedings.

The time for rigorous debate will come, but what is important is that “the foundation for bipartisan action is already in place,” Obama emphasizes. Wade Henderson, president of The Leadership Conference, acknowledges that there are dozens of concerns still to be addressed “but the president let the people know “the time for reform has come. It set the tone for future discourse.”

The President has clearly warned Congress that if it fails to act in a timely fashion and “vote the right away,” his next step will be to draft a bill himself.

That’s when, for certain, firecrackers will pop all over Capitol Hill and partisan political rockets will ascend and explode across Washington’s sky.

(Basilisa Alonso is a reporter with Hispanic Link News Service in Washington, D.C. Reach her at basilisaalonso@yahoo.com.)

A once undocumented immigrant reflects upon Obama’s plan

First Person, Adrian Avila
New America Media

In a packed high school gym in Las Vegas, Nevada, President Barack Obama calmly spoke on the real possibility of comprehensive immigration reform. As I sat in my chair just 15 feet away from the president, I was trying to understand what was going on in front of me. As an individual that was undocumented for 22 years here in the United States, I couldn’t believe that I was about to hear a speech that I have dreamed of my entire adult life.

Only four months prior, I would have not been allowed in to this event since I wouldn’t have been able to provide proper identification. Back then, I was an undocumented immigrant with very little opportunity in this country.

Words can’t and never will truly explain what it means to be undocumented. It would be like describing what a marathon feels like to someone who has never planran more than a mile. But as someone who has seen both side of the undocumented line, I am hopeful that, this time, change will come.

After surviving as an undocumented immigrant since the age of six, I am now a current U-Visa holder, which grants me legal status in this country for four years. I also now have a path to permanent residency and one day citizenship.

I am following the path that millions of hopefuls would walk if the plan Obama proposed on January 29th passes. That plan includes a background check with biometrics, and penalty fees for entering the country illegal — all things I was more than willing to partake in.

As the president gave his speech recounting stories as to why reform is needed, I thought of some of my older relatives who raised me, as they worked and lived with little hope that their status would ever change. I had images of them driving to their jobs, better new jobs, with a new drivers license they always needed but were always denied. That ability of being able to share the road with all the other citizens of this country, without the fear of prosecution, is a freedom that really feels life-changing.

What some – even advocates for immigration reform – may not know is that legalization is not only about basic privileges, like being able to drive and work legally, but that it relieves the unbelievable, and at times debilitating, stress of being undocumented. Becoming legal transforms a person’s being. I know because I’m experiencing those feelings now. I can have moments now that I’ve always dreamed of — being able to drive my wife around, being able to present proper identification when asked, and being seen as a human being while doing so, and not some kind of Mexican boogie monster.

Now imagine the 11 million undocumented immigrants who will be given the same opportunity – it will change this country in ways that are practically unimaginable. You will have millions of individuals that are willing to work harder than ever before. It would be one of the best investments that this country could make for its people.

When the president introduced deferred action this past June of 2012, it was a small step toward achieving this long awaited aspiration. That policy allowed qualifying undocumented youth who came here before the age of 16, and are under the age of 31, to get a work permit. But the change it brought is small compared to what we have on our hands — a broken immigration system that is a big problem needing big solutions. We need to fix the old broken down laws that govern our immigration system and allow access to individuals of all ages that meet the requirements to be Americans. One never knows at what age they will achieve greatness. So to say, through the deferred action, that America only validates young smart people, is wrong.

I know that the road to victory is a long one, one that will have to travel through the craziness that is the U.S. legislative process, but I hope and pray that the same opportunity that was afforded to me will be given to those individuals wanting to be a positive part in this nation. One thing that many forget is that not all of the 11 million want to be citizens in this country. But for those persons willing to go through the process, whatever it may be, I know that the rewards will be more than worth it. You can’t benefit from anything you don’t put work into, and compared to what immigrants face on the daily, this battle should be a walk in the park.

It’s just a magic place to visit in Nicaragua: Ometepe and Rivas

by the El Reportero’s wire services

Wonderful, wild, OmetepeWonderful, wild, Ometepe. (PHOTO BY TIM ROGERS)

South of Managua, the land crumples into high cloudy ridges and the windblown peak of Las Nubes (934 meters), then falls off slowly until it spills into southwestern Nicaragua’s plains.

Here Lake Cocibolca presses the land into a narrow belt that barely separates the lake from the Pacific Ocean. In fact, geological evidence suggests at one point, it didn’t separate them at all, and Lake Cocibolca once flowed across this slim margin of land to the west, draining into the Pacific near the fishing community of Brito rather than down the Río San Juan into the Atlantic Ocean, as it does today.

The isthmus of Rivas is replete with history. Although known as the land of Nicarao, the area was first inhabited by the Kiribisis tribe, whom the more powerful Chorotegas pushed aside. The Nicaraos came afterward, and by the time the Spanish “discovered” the region, had been residents here for at least seven generations.

Rivas, a languorous colonial town of traders and farmers, watched hundreds of thousands of passengers traveling between New York and California pass through its streets in horse-drawn carts between San Jorge and San Juan del Sur; this was the only dry land crossing of the entire gold rush journey. At about the same time, one of filibuster William Walker’s first military defeats took place here.

These days, Rivas draws less attention than the coastal communities of San Juan del Sur and La Isla de Ometepe, but retains a colonial charm appreciated by many.

But it’s hard to compete with La Isla de Ometepe for attention. As of June 2010, Ometepe was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Preserve.

The magnificent twin-peaked Ometepe rises like a crown from the center of Lake Cocibolca. An intensely volcanic island steeped in tradition and mystery, Ometepe was the ancestral home of the Nahuatl people and today is an alluring destination for travelers, with its sandy beaches, swimming holes, hiking trails, and of course, two breathtaking volcanoes: one hot, one cold (the former remains quite active).

Southwestern Nicaragua does not suffer the same intense, grinding poverty prevalent in the drier lands of the north and west. It rains more in the south, and the rivers flow nearly year-round. The volcanic soils on Lake Cocibolca’s western shore are rich and productive. Cattle graze lazily in immense, lucrative ranches and sugarcane fields drape the valleys south of the foot of Mombacho, one of Nicaragua’s most picturesque peaks.

The island first became inhabited in the Dinarte phase (ca 2000–500 BC), although evidence is questionable. The first known inhabitants were Nahua Indians from Mexico. In their footsteps came the Niquirano Indians, who established an important settlement on the island. Traces of this past can still be found in petroglyphs and stone idols on the northern slopes of Maderas volcano. The oldest date from 300 BC.

After the Spaniards conquered the Central American region in the 16th century, pirates began prowling Lake Nicaragua. They came in from the Caribbean Sea via the San Juan River. The inhabitants of Ometepe were hard hit. The pirates stole the inhabitants’ women, animals, possessions and harvest; and erected settlements on the shore, making it their refuge.

This made the local population, seeking shelter, move to higher grounds on the volcanoes. The island was finally settled by the Spanish conquistadors at the end of the 16th century.

Songwriters Hall of Fame

by Luis Carlos López
Hispanic Link

José FelicianoJosé Feliciano

SONGWRITERS HALL OF FAME: Longtime composers Desmond Child and Rudy Pérez are launching a center that pays historic tribute to Hispanic composers by opening the Latino Songwriters Hall of Fame in Miami Beach April 23.

John Leguizamo hosts its inaugural “La Musa” induction and awards ceremony at the New World Center.

First inductees are José Feliciano of Puerto Rico, Concha Valdez Miranda of Cuba, Armando Manzanero and José Ángel Espinoza “Ferrusquilla” of Mexico and Julio Iglesias and Manuel Alejandro of Spain.

For addional information you may visit www.latinsonghall.org.

MOTIVATED SPEAKER: Business motivational speaker Michelle Villalobos is featured in the January/February edition of Speaker Magazine, alongside Jessica Kizorek. Villalobos was named by The Miami Herald as one of Miami’s “Top 20 Influencers Under 40,” Villalobos founded Miami’s largest business conference for women, drawing over 700 women over 2 days, twice a year.

For more information on the conferences visit www.MichelleVillalobos.com
Hosting them were chapter president/ WCR-TV4 newsman Brandon Benavides and PBS NewsHour senior correspondent Ray Suárez.

IMPACT AWARDS: The National Hispanic Media Coalition will host its 16th annual Impact awards gala Feb. 22 in Beverly Hills.

This year’s event will honor on-screen talents Mario López, Morena Baccarín, Lana Parrilla and Gina Torres.

The NHMC gala recognizes contributions to the positive portrayal of Latinos in media.

GRANTS AVAILABLE: The International Reporting Project is offering two religion grants for international and U.S. journalists. They are supported by a new grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.

Topics “include tensions or conflict between communities of different faiths, as well as the intersection of religion and politics, economics, access to health, housing, water, the impact of religion on arts and culture, religion and human rights, treatment of minorities and other issues,” says a press release by the organization.

The deadline for the nine-month fellowship is March 8.

All candidates must fill out an application form on which they should describe in detail (at least 1,000 words) the stories they would produce during the nine-month fellowship.

NEW NETWORK: America CV Network, which owns and operates America TeVe in Miami, New York and Puerto Rico, launched a new Spanish-language station under the name Miami TeVe Jan. 28, together with its new branding identity and programming.

In other related music news:

Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz celebrate 50 years of making music together

Puerto Rican salsa legends Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz celebrated Saturday their 50th year of making music together by recalling their greatest hits and giving thanks they’re still alive after their bouts with drugs and alcohol.

Ray, a virtuoso pianist who studied music in New York, and Cruz, who grew up tending goats in the western Puerto Rican district of Hormigueros, told Efe in an interview of their satisfaction at making so many thousands of people happy who have danced to their music. Richard Maldonado Morales, the real name of Richie Ray, called it “a privilege” to complete half a century of an artistic career with Cruz, a kid he met 55 years ago at school.

Both began composing tunes inspired by Puerto Rican singer Ramito and influenced by such Latin American song styles as the guaguanco, the cha cha cha, the boogaloo and the mambo, and even by classical music at times.

Carlos Pérez Macías, brother of Bianca Jagger, passed away in L.A

by Marvin Ramírez

Carlos Pérez MacíaCarlos Pérez Macía

The Nicaraguan community abroad is mourning the departure of one of its distinguished members.

Carlos Pérez Macías, born in Managua in 1950, was a well-known painter and respected intellectual during the days of La Tortuga Morada nightclub in Managua, Nicaragua in the early 70s, before the devastating earthquake of Dec. 23, 1972, destroyed the capital.

He was known for his exquisite taste for the arts, especially poetry, painting and photography, which took him to freelance for the New York Times and Elle Magazine up to 1981.

Some of his many accomplishments include doing his early studies in Catholic school and studied law at the Jesuit Catholic University of Nicaragua.

In a biography, he is described as an independent, which leading him far away from main street and taking the lonely road of the innovators, far from pleasing the art market plagued with repetition and common places.

Between 1974-1978 he studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, in Paris, France. He moved to New York in 1979, to Nicaragua during the Revolution in 1981, and to Los Angeles in 1983, where he entered the City College of Los Angeles to study Cinema and graduated in 1989.

Bianca JaggerBianca Jagger

El Reportero was not able to locate his older sister, Bianca Jagger at press time to gather more information about his death; however, the célèbre UN human and animal rights leader, and first wife of Rolling Stone singer Mick Jagger, expressed her mourn and the place of burial in her tweeter site.

“I am grieving the loss of my beloved brother Carlos Pérez-Macías. I will miss his indomitable spirit, courage, joie de vivre and sense of humor,” wrote Mrs. Jagger.

For Adrián Bermudez, a long-time Nicaraguan living in SF, Perez-Macías, was someone exceptional.

Nicaraguan Adrián Bermúdez, an old-time SF resident, who first reported the news to El Reportero about his death, recounted the days of his high school years when both graduated from the most prestigious school in Nicaragua. They graduated together from Instituto Pedagógico de Managua – La Salle, in January of 1968, the same year, but 10 months later, that Anastacio Somoza Portocarrero also graduated – in the same school.

Five years ago, Bermúdez saw him by chance at the SF’s popular La Boheme Café on 24th Street, where they exchanged impressions and talked about the old days, (Pérez-Macías) was an intelligent man, progressist in his way of thinking, and a great artist who painted in the style of Pablo Picasso, Bermúdez said.

“He used to publish his painting in facebook… he had a strong conviction about himself that when he had a conversation, and you didn’t agree with his ideas, he would cut you off,” Bermúdez said.

Pérez-Macías funeral services were held in his town of domicile in Los Ángeles, California, on Jan. 27 at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Santa Monica Blvd.

Following is a list of the many personal exhibitions of his art during his lifetime:

La Galerie de Lille, Paris, France (1977); Les Sorcieres Mecaniques, La Galerie de Lille, Paris, France (1978); La Galerie de Lille, Paris, France (1979); Erickson Gallery, New York, NY (1981); Spanish Culture Institute, Managua, Nicaragua (1981); Mechanical Sorceries and Clowns, New Directions Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (1984); Woods of Holly Gallery, Hermosa Beach, CA (1993); Uforum, Mayhood Center, Santa Monica, CA (1993); Galerie Seraqui, Paris, France (1993); and Images from Zakhar, Cobalt, Los Angeles, CA (1994). He has also taken part in many group exhibitions, such as at The June Group, Leslie Lohman Gallery, NY (1981); Galerie Seraqui, Paris, France (1982); Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (1989); Glendale Public Library, Glendale, CA (1991); Armand Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (1991); Onyx Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (1991, 1992); Galeria Otra Vez, Self Help Graphics, Los Angeles CA (1993); Galeria Victor Navarro, Mexico City, Mexico (1993); Galeria Lourdez Chumacero, Mexico City, Mexico (1993); Onyx Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (1993); UFO Expo West National Convention, Los Angeles, CA (1993); Tann Gallery, Taos, New Mexico (1993); Downtown Lives 94, DADA, Los Angeles, CA (1994); LA Rhythms, Spring Street Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (1994); Galeria Las Americas, Los Angeles, CA (1994); Montebello City Hall, CA (1994); UFO Expo West National Convention, Los Angeles, CA (1994); Celebrate Dance, Arts Center, Juried Exhibit, Santa Barbara, CA (1994); Creativity and Peace in Nicaragua, Casa Cultural Nicaraguense, Los Angeles, CA (1994); Carlin G. Smith Center, Los Angeles, CA (1994); Discovery Tour, Random Gallery, Los Angeles,CA (1994); Andres Art Gallery, Breda, The Netherlands (1994); Downtown Lives 94, DADA, Los Angeles, CA (1994); LA Rhythms, Spring Street Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (1994); Jacobo Karpio Atma Gallery, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela (1994-5); Galeria Praxis International, Mexico City, Mexico (1995); and Pallete des Artists, Pasadena, CA (1995).

Boxing

Friday, Feb. 8, 2013 Montreal (ESPN2/ESPN3)

David Lemieux vs. Jose Miguel Torres 12 rounds – Middleweight division.

Kevin Bizier vs. Samuel Vargas10 rounds – Welterweight division.

Saturday, Feb. 9, 2013 Brooklyn, N.Y. (Showtime)

Danny Garcia (C) vs. Zab Judah (No. 3) 12 rounds – Junior welterweight division (for Garcia’s RING, WBA, WBC titles)

Peter Quillin (No. 7) vs. Fernando Guerrero 12 rounds – Middleweight division (for Quillin’s WBO title)

Danny Jacobs vs. TBA10 rounds – Middleweight division.

Dmitry Salita vs. Hector Camacho Jr.TBA

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Kiko Martinez vs. Carl Frampton (No. 6) 12 rounds – Junior featherweight division.

FCC says cost of prison phone calls too high

Telephones used by prisoners and their families during vists a the jail separated by a glass.

by Candace Bagwelli

Experiencing life while a loved one is imprisoned can strain your emotions and relationships, but it shouldn’t strain your pocketbook. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) found that the cost of phone calls from incarcerated friends and family members is at an all-time high, and they are committed to changing that. In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the FCC brought the issue to light, finding that most inmate calls are nearly 15 times more expensive than regular phone calls.
The problem initially came to the agency’s attention after Martha Wright complained about her $200 a month phone bill in 2003. The Washington D.C. woman talked to her grandson who is in prison for 15-minutes on a weekly basis and became fed up with the costs.
Several civil rights groups joined together to back Wright’s complaints by filing a civil-action lawsuit on her behalf. However, a judge dismissed the case and referred Wright to the FCC.

FCC Commissioner Mignon L. Clyburn says that since then, “tens of thousands of consumers” have “written, emailed, and yes, phoned the commission, pleading for relief on interstate long distance rates from correctional facilities.”

Although unfamiliar to most phone users, Global Tel*Link and Securus Technologies Inc. are the two companies responsible for the majority of prison phone calls.

Steven Renderos, a national organizer for the Center for Media Justice says that the companies attribute their high rates to “the security features their technology has” including monitoring calls and blocking phone numbers.

However he believes that the technology alone is not enough to add up to $15 for a 15-minute call.

The Center for Media Justice reports that the rates for prison phone calls vary from state to state.

“For example, in Alabama the commission rate is 61.5 percent, and this translates to families having to pay 89 cents a minute on top of a $3.95 connection fee every time a family member receives a call,” Rederos explained.

“Eight states have banned these commissions-California, South Carolina, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Michigan and Missouri-and in those states you see some of the lowest rates for phone calls. For example Missouri charges ten cents a minute for a long-distance phone call with a $1 connection fee. The average commission rate in states that haven’t banned these commissions is 43 percent.”

The FCC suggests that a “monopoly” is created when correctional institutions partner with ICS providers in an exclusive contract rather than offering traditional payphone services. In their notice, the agency also added that while most people can choose among multiple calling services, inmates are limited to phones operated by the contracted provider of the facility.

Clyburn suggests that the public should rally behind the FCC’s action to lower rates for inmate calls in an effort to strengthen our community.

“Maintaining contact with family and friends during incarceration not only helps the inmate, but it is beneficial to our society as a whole. There are well over two million children with at least one parent behind bars and regardless of their circumstances, both children and parents gain from regular contact with one another. Studies also show that those released are less likely to reoffend if they are able to maintain relationships with their loved ones while they are in prison.”

The FCC will receive responses about their proposal from the public for two months.

 

18 facts that prove that Piers Morgan (CNN) is flat out lying about gun control

by Michael Snyder

Piers Morgan is getting on television every night and flat out lying to the American people about gun control. Nearly every statistic that he quotes is inaccurate and he fails to acknowledge a whole host of statistics that would instantly invalidate the arguments that he is trying to make.

Yes, the UK has a lower gun murder rate than the United States does, but what Piers Morgan fails to tell you is that the overall rate of violent crime in the UK is about 4 times higher than it is in the United States. A woman in the UK is not allowed pull out a gun to protect herself against a gang of potential rapists. So perhaps that explains why the UK has about 125 percent more rape victims per 100,000 people than the United States does.

While UK newspapers are declaring that the UK has become the “violent crime capital of Europe”, crime rates in the United States have actually fallen dramatically over the past 20 years.

This was also a time period during which gun laws became much less restrictive in the United States. Today, murder rates in the U.S. are generally far higher in cities that have very strict gun control laws (such as Chicago) than they are for the general population.

The cold, hard numbers make it clear that when there are more guns there is less crime, but hardcore leftists such as Piers Morgan are absolutely obsessed with gun control and Morgan continues to relentlessly attack the 2nd Amendment night after night. We need to start pointing out that he is not telling the truth.

The following are 18 facts that prove that Piers Morgan is flat out lying about gun control…

#1 The UK has approximately 125 percent more rape victims per 100,000 people each year than the United States does.

#2 The UK has approximately 133 percent more assault victims per 100,000 people each year than the United States does.

#3 Piers Morgan continues to insist that there are more than 11,000 gun murders in the United States every year. But that is flat out wrong.

According to the FBI, there were 8,583 gun murders in the United States during 2011. And as Ben Swann recently pointed out, 400 of those were justifiable homicides by law enforcement and 260 of those were justifiable homicides by private citizens.

#4 The United States is #1 in the world in gun ownership, and yet it is only 28thin the world in gun murders per 100,000 people.

#5 The violent crime rate in the United States actually fell from 757.7 per 100,000 in 1992 to 386.3 per 100,000 in 2011. During that same time period, the murder rate fell from 9.3 per 100,000 to 4.7 per 100,000. This was during an era when gun laws in the United States generally became much less restrictive.

#6 The city of Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the United States. So has this reduced crime? Of course not. As I wrote about the other day, the murder rate in Chicago was about 17 percent higher in 2012 than it was in 2011, and Chicago is now considered to be “the deadliest global city“. If you can believe it, there were about as many murders in Chicago during 2012 as there was in the entire nation of Japan.

#7 After the city of Kennesaw, Georgia passed a law requiring every home to have a gun, the crime rate dropped by more than 50 percent over the course of the next 23 years.

#8 Approximately 200,000 women in the United States use guns to protect themselves against sexual crime every single year.

#9 Overall, guns in the United States are used 80 times more often to prevent crime than they are to take lives.

#10 Only about 3.5 percent of the gun murders in the United States are caused by rifles.

#11 According to Gallup, an all-time record 74 percent of all Americans are against a total handgun ban in the United States.

#12 Down in Australia, gun murders increased by about 19 percent and armed robberies increased by about 69 percent after a gun ban was instituted.

#13 When Piers Morgan claims that there are only 35 gun murders in the UK per year, he isn’t exactly being accurate. According to official statistics, there were59 gun murders in the UK in 2011. It is also important to keep in mind that gun crime was already super low even before the gun ban in the UK was instituted, and that a 2009 article in The Telegraph declared that gun crime had doubled over the past decade even though it is widely acknowledged that crime statistics in the UK are massively underreported.

#14 The UK has the fourth highest burglary rate in the EU.

#15 The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.

#16 A 2009 article in The Telegraph had this stunning headline: “UK is violent crime capital of Europe“.

#17 Despite the very strict ban on guns in the UK, the truth is that the UK is a far more violent society than the United States is. In one recent year, there were2,034 violent crimes per 100,000 people in the UK. In the United States, there were only 466 violent crimes per 100,000 people during that same year. Do we really want to be more like the UK?

#18 According to Gun Owners of America, the governments of the world slaughtered more than 170 million of their own people during the 20th century. The vast majority of those people had been disarmed by their own governments prior to being slaughtered.

But you won’t hear many of these statistics on the mainstream news, will you?

This article was cut due lack of space. Please see the complete article at: http://www.infowars.com/18-facts-that-prove-that-piers-morgan-is-flat-out-lying-about-gun-control/.

How’s Central America’s poorest country became one of its safest

A surprising safe haven

by The Economist

flag

LYING between Colombia’s coca bushes and Mexico’s cocaine traffickers, Central America is a choke point on the drugs trail. In 2010 the smugglers ensured that Honduras, El Salvador, Belize and Guatemala were among the world’s seven most violent countries. Costa Rica and Panama are richer and safer. But since 2007 their murder rates have respectively risen by a third and nearly doubled.

Amid this inferno Nicaragua, the poorest country in mainland Latin America, is remarkably safe. Whereas Honduras’s murder rate in 2010 was 82 per 100,000 people, the world’s highest in over a decade, Nicaragua’s was just 13, unchanged in five years. That means it is now less violent than booming Panama, and may soon be safer than Costa Rica, a tourist haven. What explains the relative peace?

Spending is not the answer. With a GDP per head of $1,100, Nicaragua can afford only 18 policemen for every 10,000 people, the lowest ratio in the region. (Panama has 50.) Earning $120 per month, its officers are also the worstpaid.

Nor does Nicaragua spend much on prisons: it jails just 120 people per 100,000, compared with 390 in El Salvador. This may work in its favour: El Salvador’s violent mara gangs look for recruits in the country’s packed prisons.

In this section:

Nicaragua’s distaste for its neighbors’ mano dura (“iron fist”) policies grew out of the 1979 revolt against the Somoza dictatorship. “We didn’t know how to be police.

We only knew we didn’t want to be like the Somozan Guard,” says Aminta Granera, a former nun and guerrilla who leads the force. Officers are aided by 100,000 volunteers. They include law and psychology students; 10,000 former gang members, who mentor youths via baseball in the barrios; and nearly 4,000 domestic-violence victims, who persuade women to speak out. Amnesty International, an NGO, highlights the frequency of rape, which is made worse by a blanket ban on abortion: last year a 12-year-old was forced to give birth to her stepfather’s baby. Still, confidence in the police is the highest in Latin America after Chile.

The drug war could yet reach Nicaragua. The country’s low wages may
attract kingpins just as they have wooed legitimate investment: smugglers charge under $500 to drive a car of cocaine from Managua to Mexico. The gangs may only have been kept out by the country’s ropy ports. The police say they broke up 14 drug-trafficking cells in the first half of 2011 alone, up from 16 in all of 2010 and one or two a year until 2005. Ms Granera says that such plots often include Mexicans. The Zetas, a brutal Mexican mob, could easily ignite more violence if they move in.

A cloud hangs over the police’s leadership. Ms Granera is justly popular. But like many officials in Daniel Ortega’s government, she has ignored the limit on her five-year term. That deadline passed in September, only for Mr Ortega—who himself began an unconstitutional third term this month—to reappoint her. The opposition complains that the police do little to stop the periodic rampages of mobs loyal to Mr Ortega: in 2010 a Holiday Inn was attacked with makeshift mortars while the opposition held a meeting there. Mr Ortega has already hollowed out most Nicaraguan institutions. It would be a crime if the country’s police suffer the same fate.

(this article was first published in Jan. 28, 2012 at The Economist).

Survey: Vaccinated children five time prone to desease than unvaccinated children

by Ethan A. Huff

An ongoing study out of Germany comparing disease rates among vaccinated and unvaccinated children points to a pretty clear disparity between the two groups as far as illness rates are concerned. As reported by the group Health Freedom Alliance, children who have been vaccinated according to official government schedules are up to five times more likely to contract a preventable disease than children who developed their own immune systems naturally without vaccines.

Released as its own preliminary study back in September 2011, the survey includes data on 8,000 unvaccinated children whose overall disease rates were compared to disease rates among the general population, the vast majority of which has been vaccinated.

And in every single disease category, unvaccinated children fared far better than vaccinated children in terms of both disease prevalence and severity. In other words, the evidence suggests that vaccines are neither effective nor safe.

“No study of health outcomes of vaccinated people versus unvaccinated has ever been conducted in the U.S. by CDC or any other agency in the 50 years or more of an accelerating schedule of vaccinations (now over 50 doses of 14 vaccines given before kindergarten, 26 doses in the first year),” wrote Louis Rain back in 2011 for Health Freedom Alliance about the survey.

As disclosed at VaccineInjury.info, vaccinated children are nearly twice as likely as unvaccinated children to develop neurodermatitis, for instance, a skin disorder marked by chronic itching and scratching.

Similarly, vaccinated children are about twoand-a-half times as likely, based on current data, to develop a pattern of migraine headaches compared to unvaccinated children.

The numbers are even more divergent for asthma and chronic bronchitis, where vaccinated children are about eight times more likely than unvaccinated children to develop such respiratory problems.

Vaccinated children are also far more likely to develop hyperactivity, hayfever, and thyroid disease, with their likelihood three times, four times, and a shocking 17 times higher, respectively, compared to unvaccinated children.

You can view the complete data, as it currently exists, here: http://journal.livingfood.us.

Autism extremely rare among un-vaccinated children

Where the gloves really come off on the issue, however, is with autism, the long-held point of contention in the vaccine safety debate. According to the data, only four of the 8,000 unvaccinated children that were included in the 2011 release of the study responded as having severe autism, which is a mere half of one percent of the overall population. Meanwhile the autism rate among the general population, as tabulated in the German KiGGS study used for comparison, is about 1.1 percent.

This means that vaccinated children are about 2.5 times more likely to develop severe autism compared to unvaccinated children, a shocking find when considering the medical establishment vehemently denies any link whatsoever between vaccines and autism. And as it turns out, the four unvaccinated children who reported severe autism all tested high for heavy metals, including mercury, which further indicts vaccines and their
disease-causing adjuvants.

Though this correlation does not necessarily conclude causation, the overall disparity of disease rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated children at the very least points to a very strong connection that cannot be denied or dismissed. Even after accounting for bias, as the survey’s authors have tried to do over the years, the data continues to show much higher disease rates among vaccinated children compared to unvaccinated children.

In a similar but unrelated study conducted back in the 1990s, researchers found that the death rate among vaccinated children for infection with diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough (pertussis) is also twice as high, on average, compared to unvaccinated children.

Sources for this article include: http://journal.livingfood.us, http://mnhopkins.blogspot.se.

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