Lansing center of progressive activism broken into
All that remains of three computers at the Xicano Development Center in Lansing are cables apparently cut with bolt cutters during a break-in.
LANSING — A Lansing office space shared by a host of progressive activist groups was broken into sometime between 8 p.m. Monday night and 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. The window in the front door of the office was smashed out, officials say.
The only thing taken from the office space, which is shared by the Xicano Development Center, Northstar Center, the Lansing Worker’s Council and others were three computers, says Louie Moreno, media specialist and board member for the Xicano Center. The computers were unplugged, and disconnected from printers, and thick cables holding the computers in place were cut with what appears to bolt cutters. A flat screen television was left hanging on the wall — police say it appeared the thieves may have attempted to steal it — and an older computer and all the printers in the office were left untouched.
“They held things like organizing strategies and guidelines for organizing,” Moreno said of the computers’ contents. The computers also contained an estimated 15 years worth of Xicano community archives as well as databases from the greater Lansing area.
“It could have been a political act,” Moreno said.
The office space has played host to a series of controversial groups and activities over the years. Most notably, the office space served as a launching pad for activists from the group Bash Back! Lansing. The group staged a protest in which they unfurled a banner, tossed around fliers and kissed each other to protest what they said was the anti-gay attitude of Lansing’s Mount Hope Church. The church, known as “the church with all the flags,” is a fundamentalist church which says homosexuality is sinful.
Earlier this year, the space played host to immigration reform advocates pushing for passage of the DREAM Act. That law would allow undocumented youth, brought into the United States by their parents before they were 15, to develop a path to citizenship. Only those youth with no criminal background would be allowed to enter that path, which would also include a mandatory two years of higher education at a college or university or two years of service in the military. The DREAM Act activism is in part spurred by the activism of Mohammad Abdollahi, an Ann Arbor area youth who is undocumented.
On Thursday Nov. 11, the office space played host to two Arizona teachers — Sean Arce and Rene Martinez — who discussed the move by Arizona lawmakers to attempt to eliminate the Mexican American studies programs in Arizona schools. Those programs have been widely credited with keeping Latino students in school, as well as increasing a variety of educational success measures.
The offices also share space with a worker’s organizing group and the Northstar Center itself has been working with homeless people through the office space.
Ernesto Todd Mireles, director of the Xicano Development Center, said Tuesday night that the computers contained all his research and papers related to his Ph.D. studies. His particular area of study is reviewing models of insurgency and guerrilla warfare and applying those organizing techniques to community organizing.
Mireles says the group’s political enemies have ample motivation to want to sabotage them.
“We create programs at the Xicano Development Center and take stands that a lot of people would consider controversial,” he said. “There are some groups of people in this community, and the country, that might feel that they are in contention with what we do, or what they perceive we do.”
He said it was too early to rule out any possibility in the break in, but said a political motivation, particularly after the high profile visit from the Arizona activists, raised concern that this was a political issue.
Lansing Police confirm there was a break-in at the offices, and that the investigation has been turned over to detectives.
Lt. Noel Garcia, spokesman of the LPD, said police did not have an initial indication of a political motive in the case, but it would certainly be reviewed as part of the detectives’ investigation.
ADL is Showing its Progressive Junk Again, Issues Statement Supporting START
I am of the opinion that the START treaty is bad for America. It takes what is an American advantage in weaponry and gives it away, something that no other country in the history of the world has ever done successfully. As John Podhoretz said last week, the proposed treaty creates “a parallelism between American strength and Russian strength that is a very, very bad precedent in terms of how we ourselves think about American power.”
But putting aside these and other problems with the treaty for a minute, I object just as vehemently to the fact that the Anti-Defamation League has once again thrown aside its mission to become a mouth-piece for the progressive agenda of the George Soros and the Obama administration.
In a letter sent on Friday to all members of the Senate, the ADL urged Senators to put aside reservations about the treaty or its protocol in the interest of the greater goal of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. NO KIDDING! Foxman is either under the delusion that if we pass this treaty, Iran is going to throw down its weapons and beat its bombs into plowshares. Well either that or once again he is trying to become a big-shot in progressive politics instead of spending time on the ADL mission.
The Anti-Defamation League was founded in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Now the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency, ADL fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all.
Do you see the part about getting involved in other things like nuclear treaties? How bout pushing late-term abortions or supporting people who have broken the law by coming into the country? Yeah, Me neither:
Robert G. Sugarman, ADL National Chair, and Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:
We are deeply concerned that failure to ratify the New START treaty will have national security consequences far beyond the subject of the treaty itself. The U.S. diplomatic strategy to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons requires a U.S.-Russia relationship of trust and cooperation. The severe damage that could be inflicted on that relationship by failing to ratify the treaty would inevitably hamper effective American international leadership to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
The Iranian nuclear threat is the most serious national security issue facing the United States, Israel, and other allies in the Middle East. While some Senators may have legitimate reservations about the New START treaty or its protocol, we believe the interest of our greater and common goal of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons must take precedence.
Last time the ADL played progressive mouth piece they looked stupid when the day after they bashed Glenn Beck for his series on George Soros (most certainly at the bidding of the Puppet Master himself), it was revealed that he recently had sent Beck a letter calling him a true friend of the Jewish people.
Now the very naivete’ of the Foxman letter casts doubt on his ability to be anything but a progressive mouthpiece. Unfortunately the Jewish people who need a real ADL deserve better than that. If you agree that the ADL should stick to their mission and stay out of progressive politics, give them a call or write them. Their information is below.
605 3rd Ave
Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round Up Nov 22, 2010
Off the Kuff examined the effect of straight ticket voting on the city of Houston’s ballot propositions as well as the partisan breakdown of those propositions.
Letters From Texas temporarily abandoned Texas politics in favor of seeking answers to the important questions surrounding the Transportation Safety Administration’s touching of our junk.
CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders how the Cameron County Judge’s race can get any weirder. Who won and how did things get so messed up?
This week on Left of College Station, Teddy takes a look at the bills concerning immigration that have been pre-filled in the Texas House of Representatives and the Texas Senate. Left of College Station also covers the week in headlines.
WhosPlayin posted a two-part series following air quality complaints in a neighborhood in North Texas near Barnett Shale gas wells and facilities.
Bay Area Houston wonders if Harris County Commissioner Jerry Eversole reported his free money to the IRS as income.
At TexasKaos, liberal texan looks at what the prefiled bills tell us about the Texas Legislatures will try to do about the trumphed up problem of illegal immigration. Check it out : Texas Legislative Watch: Pre-Filed Immigration Bills (Part I).
Snapshots from the Conservative Freak Show: Bristol Palin and voter fraud, Louie Gohmert and the SFA instructor he got fired, and John Ensign’s million-dollar earmark.
A new contributor to Texas Liberal, a woolly mammoth named Extinct, noted that Just Kids by Patti Smith was the winner of the National Book Award for 2010. Just Kids an account of Ms. Smith’s youthful relationship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. As a woolly mammoth, Extinct has a long experience with both life and loss.
©2010 BlueBloggin. All Rights Reserved.
ADL is Showing its Progressive Junk Again, Issues Statement Supporting START
I am of the opinion that the START treaty is bad for America. It takes what is an American advantage in weaponry and gives it away, something that no other country in the history of the world has ever done successfully. As John Podhoretz said last week, the proposed treaty creates “a parallelism between American strength and Russian strength that is a very, very bad precedent in terms of how we ourselves think about American power.”
But putting aside these and other problems with the treaty for a minute, I object just as vehemently to the fact that the Anti-Defamation League has once again thrown aside its mission to become a mouth-piece for the progressive agenda of the George Soros and the Obama administration.
In a letter sent on Friday to all members of the Senate, the ADL urged Senators to put aside reservations about the treaty or its protocol in the interest of the greater goal of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. NO KIDDING! Foxman is either under the delusion that if we pass this treaty, Iran is going to throw down its weapons and beat its bombs into plowshares. Well either that or once again he is trying to become a big-shot in progressive politics instead of spending time on the ADL mission.
The Anti-Defamation League was founded in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Now the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency, ADL fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all.
Do you see the part about getting involved in other things like nuclear treaties? How bout pushing late-term abortions or supporting people who have broken the law by coming into the country? Yeah, Me neither:
Robert G. Sugarman, ADL National Chair, and Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:
We are deeply concerned that failure to ratify the New START treaty will have national security consequences far beyond the subject of the treaty itself. The U.S. diplomatic strategy to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons requires a U.S.-Russia relationship of trust and cooperation. The severe damage that could be inflicted on that relationship by failing to ratify the treaty would inevitably hamper effective American international leadership to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
The Iranian nuclear threat is the most serious national security issue facing the United States, Israel, and other allies in the Middle East. While some Senators may have legitimate reservations about the New START treaty or its protocol, we believe the interest of our greater and common goal of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons must take precedence.
Last time the ADL played progressive mouth piece they looked stupid when the day after they bashed Glenn Beck for his series on George Soros (most certainly at the bidding of the Puppet Master himself), it was revealed that he recently had sent Beck a letter calling him a true friend of the Jewish people.
Now the very naivete’ of the Foxman letter casts doubt on his ability to be anything but a progressive mouthpiece. Unfortunately the Jewish people who need a real ADL deserve better than that. If you agree that the ADL should stick to their mission and stay out of progressive politics, give them a call or write them. Their information is below.
605 3rd Ave
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The Progressive Cure Will Kill You
The Fed is playing politics by monetizing the debt.
American Thinker Blog
The progressive case for Social Security reform
Kevin Drum notes that the strategy to privatize Social Security has always relied on conflating privatization with solvency (the two are not related, and privatization actually worsens the immediate shortfall), and that progressives might want to think about cutting that off at the knees by dealing with Social Security’s solvency at a moment when privatization is decidedly not on the table:
Right now, we have multiple deficit reduction plans on the table that provide reasonable starting points for discussion; none of the plans involve privatization, and a bipartisan deal would put a stake through privatization for good; it would remove a distraction and allow us to devote our attention to more important things; and it would be good for the country and good for Social Security beneficiaries to shore up the program permanently and put the doom mongers out of business. Better now than when President Palin is in office.
I’m not against that, though the devil is obviously in the details when it comes to how you do it. As an aside, President Mitch Daniels or President Chris Christie would both stand a much greater chance of privatizing Social Security than President Palin.
The Rivlin-Domenici Deficit Reduction Plan Is Not As Progressive As It Appears
Our guest blogger is Michael Linden, Associate Director for Tax and Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait writes this morning about how he might have been a little too quick to jump into the seemingly open arms of Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the co-chairmen of President Obama’s deficit commission. But now there is a new bipartisan deficit reduction plan out from Commission member Alice Rivlin and Pete Domenici at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and Chait thinks this could be the one. He seems to especially like Rivlin and Domenici’s approach to the tax code, saying, “the tax reform, while lowering the corporate and top income tax rates to 27%…also makes the overall burden more progressive.”
Well, I take no pleasure in being the bearer of bad news. The Tax Policy Center’s analysis of the BPC plan does suggest that their reforms would result in a more progressive system, but there is one really big problem –- the VAT. Rivlin and Domenici rely on a 6.5 percent value-added tax which they call a “debt reduction sales tax.”
Now, generally speaking, VATs are thought to be very regressive –- that is poorer people pay more in taxes, as a proportion of their income, than rich people do. The reason is simple. Poor people tend to spend all of their income in any given year, whereas rich people do not. If you pay a 6.5 percent tax on every dollar you spend, and poor people spend every dollar they earn, then they are paying the tax on 100 percent of their income.
Rich people, by contrast, only spend a portion of what they earn, and so they only pay the tax on a fraction of their income. But, that’s not how the Tax Policy Center models value-added taxes.
Instead of treating a VAT as a tax that is paid as income is spent, they treat it as a tax that is paid as income is earned (technically, they treat it as a tax on wages and existing capital). The idea here is that, after the VAT is introduced, every new dollar you earn will be worth a little less, because the consumption that you’ll eventually use that dollar for is going to be 6.5 percent more expensive. In other words, economically speaking, the VAT reduces the value of income at the time of earnings, because eventually those earnings will be used to pay the VAT.
The consequence of treating the VAT this way is a much less regressive-looking distributional analysis. Instead of showing poor people paying the tax on all their income, and rich people paying the tax on just some of their income, the burden of the VAT essentially falls on everyone’s total income each year.
To see what a huge difference this makes in terms of distributional analysis, take a look at this chart from a paper by Len Burman (who’s on the Rivlin/Domenici commission), Jane Gravelle and Jeff Rohaly (who actually helped produce TPC’s estimate of the commission’s plan):
The chart shows the average tax rate, by income percentile, of a 20 percent VAT, but using several different distributional methodologies. The first column, titled “Consumption” is how people usually think about a VAT, and the second column, “Wages and Equity” is essentially how TPC models a VAT. Under the first method, the VAT looks really regressive, with tax rates declining precipitously as income rises. But the second method makes the VAT actually look a little bit progressive! Big big difference.
The problem is that while the TPC method is may make sense academically, that is not how people will actually experience the VAT. That’s not to say that the consumption method is perfect, but the fact is that in any given year, poorer and middle class people will be paying a much higher average tax rate than rich people will. True, over the course of a lifetime, things may even out somewhat, but that is very cold comfort to those who will be paying the tax year-to-year.
The bottom line is that the way people will actually experience the effects of the Rivilin/Domenici plan in any particular year is very different from that suggested by TPC’s distributional analysis. My suspicion is that if they produced an analysis in which they treated the VAT as a tax on consumption rather than as a tax on income, the overall skew would be much less progressive.
Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round Up Nov. 15, 2010
Off the Kuff discusses the issue of Latino turnout in the wake of last Tuesday’s elections.
This week on Left of College Station, Teddy takes in the landscape after the storm and presents a way forward for Texas Democrats. Left of College Station also begins the Texas Legislature Watch by looking at the bills that Representative Fred Brown has pre-filed. Left of College Station also covers the week in headlines.
Letters From Texas explained a fundamental truth to state Senator Dan Patrick: democracy is about more than two wolves and one sheep voting on what’s for dinner.
Killing medicaid and CHIP along with Grandma and the kids will devastate the Texas economy. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders why the evil Heritage Foundation wants to hurt the Texas economy.
Mean Rachel wondered when the Democratic Party decided to become the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Republican Party.
Bay Area Houston says the GOP is giving poor Hispanic kids the bird.
Over at TexasKaos, libby shaw gives her take on “Fixing the Federal Deficit” or rather how NOT to do it while distracting a nation. Check it out : Fixing the Federal Deficit.
Neil at Texas Liberal says that where there is smoke you will not inherently find fire. Yet the smoke alone may be enough to do a great deal of damage.
This week at McBlogger, Captain Kroc takes a look at one of the newest members of the Texas Legislature.
©2010 BlueBloggin. All Rights Reserved.
Coming Soon: A New Party Of Progressive Conservatives
A great blues lyric goes: “He was a good old wagon but he done broke down.” That’s a pretty good description of both the Democrats and Republicans today — two good old political parties that have both broken down to such an extent that neither any longer is configured to meet our country’s strained and painful domestic realities, or the challenges of our fast eroding position in the world.
We have a weak and vacillating Democratic President. We’ve had weak presidents before, however. The problem today is not one highly malleable chief executive, but a Democratic president whose behavior is a fair reflection of his party’s present state — a party devoid of coherent solutions much less a viable future vision. A fractured party divided between ‘liberals’ who haven’t had a fresh idea since the 1930s, and ‘moderates’ whose own one fresh idea was to fuse with Wall Street interests in the 1990s.
The Republican Party is even more broken and lost. It’s a party that once had a strong commitment to fiscal responsibility, but now taps its heels, eyes tightly shut, and hopes to pay the country’s debts by reducing taxes. A party that once fought against intrusions into individual rights that now panders to religious groups that want to take away rights that offend their own beliefs. A party that once had a restrained approach to foreign policy that now plays footsie with an ‘exceptonalist’ fringe that sees aggressive aberrations abroad as expressions of God’s will.
Thankfully, there are many within both of these outmoded, ideologically skewed parties that understand a need for real change, along with an even greater number of Americans who no longer have a Democratic or Republican party affiliation who feel the same way. Thus, while the pundit class is busily dissecting Democratic and Republican entrails in search of solutions to the nation’s problems, the times appear perfect for a new party that might actually provide them. A new party whose platform might be summed up in a name such as ‘Progressive Conservatives.’
There actually was a party of that name in Canada until 2003, but it isn’t the model for this new grouping. The U.S. newcomer would more closely resemble (though differ in some important ways) the current coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in the U.K., two previously opposed parties that came together to advance real change.
The basic goals of a future Progressive Conservative Party on these shores are easy to state: To bring about needed deficit reduction through an austerity shared by all income groups; to invest in the young and the future (through education and alternative energy infrastructure) even though it brings some pain to past generations (entitlement program caps and cutbacks); to generate the potential for economy-animating spending via tax changes that spread income more reasonably and fairly; to revamp Wall Street so it refocuses on its traditional role of allocating capital to growing the economy, not using OPM (other people’s money, our money) to puff up its own compensation; to reorient our international policies in ways that recognize our economic limitations.
New third parties in this country are supposed to be short-lived, and have a worth that’s only related to how they change the priorities of the two major existing parties. That’s usually true. But not always. On rare occasions crises bring about more dramatic party arrangements.
The Whigs couldn’t address the issue of slavery in the 1850s. The new Republican Party came forward to do so. The Whigs broke up and disappeared. The Republicans became the party that would confront the Democrats for the next 150 years.
America is ready for real change today. Neither major political party can bring it about. Both are too focused on satisfying their own internal cliques and supporting interests. That’s very clear. So another entity must come into being to do the job.
Watch for some variant of an American Progressive Conservatives Party. It will be coming to a local voting station near your home very soon.
More from this writer at wallstreetpoet.com
ADL Goes After Beck-More Proof That It’s Just Another Progressive Spin Machine
The Anti-Defamation League has taken up the Media Matters’ cause by attacking Glenn Beck’s series against George Soros:
Glenn Beck’s description of George Soros’ actions during the Holocaust is completely inappropriate, offensive and over the top. For a political commentator or entertainer to have the audacity to say – inaccurately – that there’s a Jewish boy sending Jews to death camps, as part of a broader assault on Mr. Soros, that’s horrific.
….The Holocaust was a horrific time, and many people had to make excruciating choices to ensure their survival. George Soros has been forthright about his childhood experiences and his family’s history, and there the matter should rest.
Its true, Soros was forthright but there is nothing wrong with someone talking about what Mr. Soros described as the best time in his life.
The ADL started with great intentions
The Anti-Defamation League was founded in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Now the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency, ADL fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all.
“Stopping the defamation of the Jewish People” has nothing to do with the ADL’s criticism of Beck. During the tenure of its current National Director Abe Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League transformed itself from an organization protecting Jewish civil rights to a group dedicated simply to selling America on the progressive movement (and Abe Foxman). For example here are some of the ADL’s position papers supporting the progressive agenda:
- Supporting Partial Birth Abortion ADL Disappointed With Supreme Court Ruling On Partial Birth Abortion Act
- Bashing Terrorist Fighter Geert Wilders
- Fighting the Arizona Law against Illegal Immigration (I wonder what other crimes they support)
The ADL has even written a white paper trashing the Tea Party Movement. Calling it part of the “New Rage in America”.
A quick read of this White Paper show the group has totally abandoned its mission to fight anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, and is using its donated tax-free funds to concentrate on a political agenda, the President’s mission to silence all dissent to his policy. Here are some examples:
- In the section about Tea Parties, the ADL uses the MSNBC-party line by seeking to minimalize the movement by branding the protesters as people misusing the Holocaust, Nazi imagery or simply that they are White Supremacists. At the Tea Party protest I attended, my head was covered by a yarmulke, which of those categories would they put me in?
- The ADL Claimed that the Tea Party movement was created by Fox News or other conservative outlet, playing up the “AstroTurf” propaganda pushed by the progressives at the time:
The Tea Party movement is made up of individuals and groups, at the grass-roots level and from established conservative organizations, who plan and attend rallies around the country to express their anger at the government. Some conservative media outlets, such as the FOX News Network, have also played a role in promoting Tea Parties.
- Then they return to the right wing crazy argument. Notice how the describe the “over the top incidents as one lady or one report? That’s because they were few and far between but you wouldn’t know it based on their report.
A local Republican Party chairwoman at the event described participants as “people standing up for their Constitution…They’re ready to fight for their country. Socialism is being pushed and we don’t want any part of it.” At a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, one woman reportedly even had a sign comparing President Obama to the anti-Christ.
- According to the ADL White Paper the tea party movement morphed into a conspiracy following, group of crazies.They use the example that a few protesters were “birthers.” They know very well that the “birther” movement is outside the mainstream of the tea party movement, that it started with Hillary Clinton supporters, and has been discredited by the vast majority of conservatives.
Maybe Big Abe should mention that the POTUS appointed Van Jones, a 9/11 truther. Using the logic of his ADL, that would make the entire Obama Administration a bunch of truthers.
The ADL should be identifying itself as a political organization, it certainly doesn’t have its mission of protecting Jews as it’s priority. For example, three years ago I was working on the case of Laurie Richter, who at the time was Ft. Lauderdale resident. Laurie’s condo wanted to start fining Ms Richter because the management of the Condo had a ban on displaying objects on “public space.” The ban applied to Mezuzahs, Jewish religious symbols, but not Christmas wreaths. See Jew Hatred in Our (other) Ancestral Homeland: Florida. When the ADL was called to help Ms Richter out they refused to help out even though it was a clear case of bias against a Jew. It was only after I contacted Florida’s Attorney General and Senior Legislators were Ms. Richter’s problems solved.
The ADL continues to ignore its mission so its leadership can become leaders in the Progressive Movement. That is what is behind its attack on Glenn Beck.
If you wish to comment on the ADL’s subjugation of its mission to become an arm of the political progressive movement, Click Here and you will arrive at its comments page.
For those of you who donate to the Anti-Defamation League allow me to remind you that there are many other worthy Jewish charities where you can donate your hard earned money. I strongly urge you to consider moving your money to one of those other organizations. Perhaps one that puts its mission to help Jews in front of its leader’s desire to become a “big shot” in progressive politics.
Need more proof that Abe Foxman’s ADL is nothing than a partisan progressive spin machine? Check this letter written from Abe Foxman to Glenn Beck calling the broadcaster a friend of the Jews and Israel (double click on it to make it larger).
