tagged w/ Utah
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Consider it a taste of the future: the fire, smoke, drought, dust, and heat that have made life unpleasant, if not dangerous, from Louisiana to Los Angeles. New records tell the tale: biggest wildfire ever recorded in Arizona (538,049 acres), biggest fire ever in New Mexico (156,600 acres), all-time worst fire year in Texas history (3,697,000 acres).
The fires were a function of drought. As of summer’s end, 2011 was the driest year in 117 years of record keeping for New Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana, and the second driest for Oklahoma. Those fires also resulted from record heat. It was the hottest summer ever recorded for New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, as well as the hottest August ever for those states, plus Arizona and Colorado.
Virtually every city in the region experienced unprecedented temperatures, with Phoenix, as usual, leading the march toward unlivability. This past summer, the so-called Valley of the Sun set a new record of 33 days when the mercury reached a shoe-melting 110º F or higher. (The previous record of 32 days was set in 2007.)
And here’s the bad news in a nutshell: if you live in the Southwest or just about anywhere in the American West, you or your children and grandchildren could soon enough be facing the Age of Thirst, which may also prove to be the greatest water crisis in the history of civilization. No kidding.
If that gets you down, here’s a little cheer-up note: the end is not yet nigh.
In fact, this year the weather elsewhere rode to the rescue, and the news for the Southwest was good where it really mattered. Since January, the biggest reservoir in the United States, Lake Mead, backed up by the Hoover Dam and just 30 miles southwest of Las Vegas, has risen almost 40 feet. That lake is crucial when it comes to watering lawns or taking showers from Arizona to California. And the near 40-foot surge of extra water offered a significant upward nudge to the Southwest’s water reserves.
The Colorado River, which the reservoir impounds, supplies all or part of the water on which nearly 30 million people depend, most of them living downstream of Lake Mead in Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, Tijuana, and scores of smaller communities in the United States and Mexico.
Back in 1999, the lake was full. Patricia Mulroy, who heads the water utility serving Las Vegas, rues the optimism of those bygone days. “We had a fifty-year, reliable water supply,” she says. “By 2002, we had no water supply. We were out. We were done. I swore to myself we’d never do that again.”
In 2000, the lake began to fall -- like a boulder off a cliff, bouncing a couple of times on the way down. Its water level dropped a staggering 130 feet, stopping less than seven feet above the stage that would have triggered reductions in downstream deliveries. Then -- and here’s the good news, just in case you were wondering -- last winter, it snowed prodigiously up north in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.
The spring and summer run-off from those snowpacks brought enormous relief. It renewed what we in the Southwest like to call the Hydro-Illogic cycle: when drought comes, everybody wrings their hands and promises to institute needed reform, if only it would rain a little. Then the drought breaks or eases and we all return to business as usual, until the cycle comes around to drought again.
So don’t be fooled. One day, perhaps soon, Lake Mead will renew its downward plunge. That’s a certainty, the experts tell us. And here’s the thing: the next time, a sudden rescue by heavy snows in the northern Rockies might not come. If the snowpacks of the future are merely ordinary, let alone puny, then you’ll know that we really are entering a new age.
And climate change will be a major reason, but we’ll have done a good job of aiding and abetting it. The states of the so-called Lower Basin of the Colorado River -- California, Arizona, and Nevada -- have been living beyond their water means for years. Any departure from recent decades of hydrological abundance, even a return to long-term average flows in the Colorado River, would produce a painful reckoning for the Lower Basin states. And even worse is surely on the way.
Just think of the coming Age of Thirst in the American Southwest and West as a three-act tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions.
snip
We have already experienced close to 1º C of that increase, which accounts, at least in part, for last summer’s colossal fires and record-setting temperatures -- and it’s now clear that we’re just getting started.
The simple rule of thumb for climate change is that wet places will get wetter and dry places drier. One reason the dry places will dry is that higher temperatures mean more evaporation. In other words, there will be ever less water in the rivers that keep the region’s cities (and much else) alive. Modeling already suggests that by mid-century surface stream-flow will decline by 10% to 30%.
Independent studies at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute in California and the University of Colorado evaluated the viability of Lake Mead and eventually arrived at similar conclusions: after about 2026, the risk of “failure” at Lake Mead, according to a member of the Colorado group, “just skyrockets.” Failure in this context would mean water levels lower than the dam’s lowest intake, no water heading downstream, and the lake becoming a “dead pool.”
more at the linkConsider it a taste of the future: the fire, smoke, drought, dust, and heat that have... more
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SALT LAKE CITY—
In years past, federal agents have raided businesses and rounded up suspected illegal immigrants into buses and hauled them off to detention centers. But in the latest employment enforcement action at Salt Lake City's Grand America Hotel, Latino community activists say they focused on paperwork.
"I don't think it would look good to have ICE agents and Homeland Security buses in front of the Grand America, saying 'Let's round 'em up,' " said Tony Yapias, the director of Proyecto Latino de Utah.
The immigration audit that wrapped up Wednesday at the hotel focused on I-9s, forms that every employee has to fill out. In a statement, the hotel said that those who provided sufficient identification to the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security were able to continue their employment. Those who could not provide documentation of their right to work in the U.S. could no longer be employed after Wednesday, hotel representatives said.
Yapias said he estimated about 120 people lost their jobs. He said over the past couple of years, he has observed federal immigration agents no longer conducting workplace raids but quietly conducting paper audits.
"They have moved into the electronic raids, basically is what this is," Yapias told Fox 13.
Tim Wheelwright, an immigration and employment attorney, said he has also seen a similar practice.
"Anytime something like this happens, it's a wake-up call for the business community," he said in an interview Thursday with Fox 13.
Wheelwright chairs an immigration subcommittee with the Davis Chamber of Commerce and sits on an immigration task force for the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce. He said employers can only do so much with the documentation and identification that they are given. However, should a business become the subject of an immigration audit, an employer can show a good faith effort was made.
"Make sure they have a properly completed I-9 form for every current employee," Wheelwright said. "There's nothing more important for any employer to do, large or small, than to make sure they have that current I-9 form."
Wheelwright said the government offers other federal programs like e-Verify and a Social Security number verification, but emphasized keeping I-9 forms current for every employee.
For small business owner Jessica McCleary, she hopes that she is complying with employment laws. McCleary employs about 10 people at the Mountain Town Olive Oil Co. in Park City and at Salt Lake City's Gateway mall. She said she tries to make sure the paperwork is filled out completely and she has accurate documentation.
"Whether somebody comes into the store and they're so qualified, but you're not sure if they're going to ultimately be legal or illegal," she said. "It's always a worry."
http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-grand-america-immigration-audit-a-trend-of-eraids-20110901,0,2694800.storySALT LAKE CITY—
In years past, federal agents have raided businesses and... more
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Tim DeChristopher is scheduled to be sentenced in a Salt Lake City courtroom by U.S. District Judge Dee Benson on July 26. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $750,000 fine for fraudulently bidding in December 2008 on parcels of land, including areas around eastern Utah’s national parks, which were being sold off by the Bush administration to the oil and natural gas industry. As Bidder No. 70, he drove up the prices of some of the bids and won more than a dozen other parcels for $1.8 million. The government is asking Judge Benson to send DeChristopher to prison for four and a half years.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/this_hero_didnt_stand_a_chance_20110620/Tim DeChristopher is scheduled to be sentenced in a Salt Lake City courtroom by U.S.... more
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On April 27, Greg Mello--a tall, intense man whose natural state is vague dishevelment--was in court, watching his witness annihilate (at least in Mello’s view) the US Department of Energy’s case.
Mello is the Harvard-educated co-founder and executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nuclear disarmament advocacy organization based in Albuquerque, but with a concerted focus on the activities of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Last year, LASG sued to stop the construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) project, a new facility at LANL designed to process--and possibly produce--plutonium-based nuclear warheads.
On this particular Wednesday, Mello’s lawyer had called Frank von Hippel, a nuclear physicist and Princeton professor, to testify against the facility--essentially a costly, heavily fortified nuclear warhead processing facility situated over a geologic fault zone (see sidebar: “Price Point”).
In his prepared testimony, Von Hippel argued the need for new warheads “has vanished”; the earthquake hazard is now “much larger” than previously thought; the last full environmental assessment of the project--completed eight years ago--is insufficient for a project whose cost has swollen from $350 million to more than $3 billion.
All of this, Von Hippel says, amounts to a more fundamental question: Does New Mexico really need to be researching and building new nuclear weapons?
Mello doesn’t think so--but says the political momentum isn’t on his side.
“New Mexico is viewed as a place with a compliant government, where nuclear contractors can get federal money,” Mello explains. “There’s no private sector demand for most of this stuff, and a great deal of it could never be licensed or permitted.”
Even so, the CMRR facility--along with its budget--has expanded virtually unheeded since it was first proposed in 1999.
“It’s terrifying,” Mello says. “It’s frightening for New Mexico, both in itself and because of what it’s not: renewable energy; investment in our housing and building stock, our infrastructure, our schools. A very tiny group of people have captured an outsize amount of attention from a political elite and are setting far too much of our agenda.”
Greg Mello of Los Alamos Study Group is challenging the lab's new plutonium facility.
Within Santa Fe, Mello’s view is relatively common. At the LASG meetings and study sessions he hosts in the basement of a local church, attendees are routinely knowledgeable to the point of expertise. And in addition to various environmental protection and renewable energy groups, Santa Fe also hosts two other nuclear disarmament organizations, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety and Nuclear Watch of New Mexico.
Southern New Mexico, though, is a different story. There, lawmakers and academics extol the virtues not only of nuclear research and development, but they also court uranium processing plants and waste disposal facilities with gusto--and, in some cases, financial incentives.
In fact, the morning of Von Hippel’s testimony, a collection of public officials, scientists and executives had gathered in a conference room in Hobbs, some 350 miles south of Santa Fe. They were discussing New Mexico’s future as a focal point for the new nuclear age, in which economies rely increasingly on nuclear power and entire processing industries spring up around the “uranium fuel cycle,” which begins with mining and ends with waste disposal. Every stage of that process can be monetized--and nearly every stage has commercial operations in New Mexico.
“The state currently has a stake in a lot of aspects of this cycle--the mining, the enrichment, the storage,” Mat Lueras, vice president for corporate development at Uranium Resources Inc., a mining outfit that owns 183,000 acres of uranium mineral rights in New Mexico, tells SFR. Because of that, Lueras says, URI has “seen widespread local and state support from New Mexico politicians” for its efforts to restart uranium mining.
To Daniel Fine, a research associate at New Mexico Tech and at the Center for Energy Policy in Hobbs,
such enthusiasm is simply an acknowledgment of the inevitable.
“Nuclear energy, worldwide and in the United States, has a very strong future,” Fine says. “Twenty percent of our electricity is nuclear. There’s potential planning for 50 percent more.”
In Fine’s view, New Mexico’s role in that future remains to be determined. But given what’s already here, and the gradual buildup of a nuclear fuel cycle complex in the state’s southeastern counties, a nuclear future may indeed be unavoidable. Take the beginning of the fuel cycle, for instance.
“New Mexico,” Fine says, “is the Saudi Arabia of uranium.”
Daniel Fine of New Mexico Tech predicts a bright future for nuclear energy.
New Mexico had its first exposure to the nuclear industry in 1943, with the founding of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Two years later, near Alamogordo, LANL scientists conducted the Trinity test with a prototype of the atomic bombs that, less than a month later, would raze Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sandia National Laboratories, the Albuquerque lab charged with turning LANL’s nuclear weapons concepts into deployable missiles, was founded in 1949.
While the labs were located near northern New Mexico’s population centers, less populous areas of the state became nuclear hubs in their own right. In southern New Mexico, a huge swath of desert scrubland became the White Sands Proving Groundsnow the White Sands Missile Rangefor nuclear weapons testing. In far western New Mexico, on the outskirts of the Navajo Nation, uranium mines sprang up in the 1950s.
Since the US government promised to buy all mined uranium, it was good business, and northwest New Mexico’s mining industry boomed for close to two decades with relatively little oversight. But in the 1970s, reports of elevated levels of radon, a radioactive element that can cause cancer, began to surface and so began what Fine calls “the sad chapter” of widespread radioactive contamination from New Mexico’s uranium mines.
“[Uranium] mining, from the 1950s to the early 1970s, was very high risk, and the methods then did expose uranium miners to radioactivity,” Fine says.On April 27, Greg Mello--a tall, intense man whose natural state is vague... more
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MC Pigpen and Pat Maine featuring Amber Lees bring a hard hitting performance at Urban Lounge during the Ugly Duckling Tour.MC Pigpen and Pat Maine featuring Amber Lees bring a hard hitting performance at Urban... more
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In August 1953, renowned American photographer Dorothea Lange traveled to southern Utah where she met up with her long-time friend Ansel Adams. The two photographers spent three weeks photographing the landscape and people of Toquerville, Gunlock and St. George. Lange’s enthusiasm for her subject yielded hundreds of photographs. Thirty-five of those photographs were published as “Three Mormon Towns” in the September 6, 1954 issue of Life Magazine.
Dorothea Lange’s “Three Mormon Towns” was recently displayed in exhibition at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art. “Three Mormon Towns” represents a bridge between Lange’s famous Depression Era photographs and her later detailed photographic essays of the 1950s. Known for her candid and sympathetic depiction of people, “Three Mormon Towns” presents a study of contrasts: of old and new, of quiet villages and a growing city, of deep roots and transient highways. In this series of photographs, Lange memorialized the dignity and simplicity of agrarian life in light of post-war urbanization.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution vintage black-and-white photographs, a slide show and a documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/dorothea-lange-three-mormon-towns/In August 1953, renowned American photographer Dorothea Lange traveled to southern... more
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All main stream media organizations, have been secretly staging the events you believe to be real. These scripted events are shot just like you would shoot a Hollywood movie. This event in particular we actually have a date where a person on the actors Face book page asked him if they found him guilty or not. he replied Yep, and look at the date when it was posted. These scripted little made for tv mini dramas are edited and sit on a shelf just waiting for the executive producer to make the call for it to air. Then you think its a real event happening right now. But its not. Its all a lie, for what reason? Just pick one, civil liberties, funding for TSA porn scanners, GE, or GoldmanSucks needing more bonus money, what ever the reason, really is not the issue. The issue is the fact that they are doing this and decieving you and your loved ones into thinking the world is a place that it is not. A place where dictators kill their own people, a place where people light their underwear or shoes on fire to detonate explosives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi6-XJ4ZARA&feature=player_embeddedAll main stream media organizations, have been secretly staging the events you believe... more
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HOBBS, N.M., April 18, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Former Senator Pete V. Domenici will be the key note speaker at the Uranium Fuel Cycle Conference, April 27 in Hobbs, N.M.
The N.M. Center for Energy Policy, which is a division of New Mexico Tech, in partnership with the Economic Development Corporation of Lea County and New Mexico Junior College, is organizing the conference to bring together leaders in nuclear-related mining, energy and waste management. Domenici has long been considered one of the most consistent and forceful national advocates of the nuclear industry.
The six-term senator from New Mexico is a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, a panel formed by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2009 and tasked by Secretary Steven Chu to study options for the disposal of nuclear waste.
New Mexico Tech Vice President Dr. Van Romero, a speaker at the event, said Domenici is expected to deliver remarks relative the uranium fuel cycle, with special attention to environmental issues related to disposal of spent fuel.
A special session will address the crisis at the Fukushima reactor in Japan.
"As we understand more and more about what is happening and what has happened in Fukushima, it becomes more obvious that spent fuel pools are a major contributor to environmental issues," Romero said.
"This will be the first public forum to review public safety issues in the nuclear energy industry since the incident in Japan," conference organizer Dr. Daniel Fine said. "This is terribly important because of the potential loss of public confidence in nuclear energy."
Fine said that public polls showed that 60 percent of Americans opposed nuclear energy after the Three Mile Island incident. Public sentiment did not begin to improve until 2005 and we would like to avoid a decrease in public confidence because of the accident in Japan, he said.
The conference takes place in Lea County, which is known as the EnergyPlex of Eastern New Mexico with capital investment in uranium enrichment and waste/storage and with uranium tailings recovery potential.
To learn more about the conference or register, please visit www.energyplexnm.com or call 575-397-2039.
©2011 PR Newswire. All Rights Reserved.HOBBS, N.M., April 18, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Former Senator Pete V. Domenici... more
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A slew of recent bills would expand the ability to deny services based on personal religious or moral beliefs
Energized by the health care debate and fueled by Congress's recent pro-life fervor, state legislators have been dreaming up numerous ways to restrict women's access to abortion and other reproductive health services. One tactic they've resorted to is ramping up on conscience protection laws. The laws shields employees from punishment for refusing to perform certain job duties based on their religion or morals. This would allow government-funded health workers, pharmacists, and insurance companies to refuse to inform someone about care options, give out Plan B contraceptives, or refer a patient to a pro-choice physician, all without retribution.
These "religious refusal" laws, as they are also called, are by no means new, explains Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute. Many states have conscience laws, she says, and they exist at the federal level too. But recently, observes Brigitte Amiri, a senior attorney for the ACLU, "we've seen an onslaught of bills restricting access to abortion at a level we have not seen in the past." The inclusion of insurance companies and pharmacies in the list of those protected by new conscience laws make Amiri particularly concerned.
Certain lawmakers have tried to use religious refusal laws to preserve discrimination in other industries and organizations. Take Iowa, for example, where a recent measure would have allowed small business owners to refuse to sell anything to a gay couple if that businessman felt homosexuality was against his religion. (Luckily, that law "appears dead," but similar bills previously popped up in Louisiana, Kentucky, and Colorado, and more could be on the way.)
Besides further restricting access to women's health care services, broader conscience protection laws could also mean greater opportunities for protected discrimination: not just against women, but against gays and lesbians and anyone else a particular employee feels "violates" his or her personal beliefs. We've rounded up five of the worst offenders, below.
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1. Alabama
Legislation: House Bill 178 (PDF)/ Senate Bill 46, the "Health Care Rights of Conscience Act," gives "health care providers, institutions, and payers right to decline to perform any health care service that violate their consciences." This is one of the most sweeping conscience laws currently on the table, allowing any health care provider or insurance company to refuse to provide referrals, procedures, or payments. If a doctor was working with a woman seeking sterilization for family planning reasons, for instance, he could refuse to treat her, decline to inform her of her options, and refuse to refer her to anyone else if sterilization was against his own beliefs.
Because the term "ethical principle" also appears in the bill's definition of "conscience," explains Nash of the Guttermacher Institute, "you could imagine a scenario where a doctor could say 'I don't want to give you your heart medicine because I think you should lose thirty pounds.'"
Status: Pending committee action in House
2. Arizona
Legislation: HB 2565 would add a "Students' Rights" section to the Arizona Revised Statutes that would prohibit a university from punishing a student in counseling or social work who refuses to counsel another student on a topic that's against her "sincerely held religious belief or moral convictions."
This bill probably arose in reaction to a recent incident in Michigan, when a grad student filed a lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University claiming it had discriminated against her based on her religion. EMU dismissed Julea Ward from its school counseling program after she refused to work with gay or lesbian students because she said homosexuality went against her Christian beliefs. The university argued that she violated American Counseling Association's Code of Ethics, but many have spoken out in Ward's defense, including Michigan's Attorney General (PDF).
Status: Passed through the House and the Senate, but because the bill was amended, it has to come back to the House for the final vote
3. Iowa
Legislation: HSB 50 (PDF), or "The Religious Conscience Protection Act." A reaction to Iowa's legalization of gay marriage, this bill would protect individuals and small businesses from having to "provide goods or services that assist or promote the solemnization or celebration of a marriage," "provide housing to a married couple," or "provide adoption or reproductive services" if doing so went against religious beliefs.
Critics worry that in addition to encouraging discrimination against gay couples, the bill is written in such a vague way that it could have broader implications. "This bill would not just affect LGBT couples, but opens the door to discrimination against interracial and interfaith couples," Troy Price of One Iowa told The Iowa Independent.
Status: The bill is basically dead after a subcommittee meeting drew crowds protesting the legislation. But sponsor Representative Rich Anderson, who earlier this year nominated himself for a seat on the Iowa Supreme Court, told SourceMedia News "we are just going to have to continue to work on it." A month later, Anderson's spokesperson told me that the legislature was not planning to make any amendments to the bill or move it forward.
4. South Carolina
Legislation: HB 3408, the "Freedom of Conscience Act," aims at protecting health care providers who do not want to be involved with or talk about abortion or certain types of stem-cell procedures. Bills like this—aimed at doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies—"allow patients to access religious care providers who share their values," writes pro-lifer and Alliance Defense Fund legal counselor Matt Bowman. Allowing women to have unlimited access to abortions, continues Bowman, would drive "all pro-life health care providers out of business."
But the director of the ACLU's Center for Liberty, Louise Melling, believes a bill like this—which allows doctors with objections to abortion to refuse to even give out information—violates a person's basic rights. "There are certain core things that you absolutely have to get which are emergency care, information, and referrals," argues Melling. "Because with information and referrals, then at least the patient knows other options exist and they have a chance to go seek services somewhere else."
Status: Currently residing in the House
5. Utah
Legislation: HB 353 replaces Utah's freedom of conscience law with a "new and expanded freedom of conscience law." As the Deseret News reports, State Representative Rebecca Chavez-Houck (D) doesn't think this bill is necessary, and finds it "very disconcerting."
The bill's sponsor, Representative Carl Wimmer (R), also engineered a bill that charges a woman who has a miscarriage caused by an "intentional or knowing act" as a murderer. Wimmer isn't exactly covert about his intentions; as he told Alternet: "The goal is to overturn Roe v. Wade, which would allow states more authority to make a decision on abortion."
Status: Signed into law on March 23
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/5-scary-religious-refusal-billsA slew of recent bills would expand the ability to deny services based on personal... more
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Utah's state house took a step toward allowing gold and silver to be accepted as cash, passing a bill that would recognize government-issued gold and silver coins for not only their face value, but the value given to the items by collectors. If the bill passes, the state would study the idea of establishing an alternative form of currency backed by silver and gold.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports the bill wouldn't require people to accept gold and silver coins as money, and it would also exempt the sale of the coins from state sales tax as well as capital gains taxes.
A lawmaker who supported the bill did so out of fear that the dollar will collapse:
"This is a step in preparedness, a step in security," Galvez said, "that allows us to be able to help hold up our economy as the dollar continues to shrink."
The U.S. abandoned the gold standard in 1933.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/51364301-76/silver-gold-legal-tender.html.cspUtah's state house took a step toward allowing gold and silver to be accepted as... more
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By Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Arizona’s business leaders, frustrated by the deep financial fallout of increasingly radical immigration proposals, successfully swayed state lawmakers into defeating five extremist anti-immigrant bills.
New America Media’s Valeria Fernández reports that 60 executives from the likes of WellsFargo bank and U.S. Airways penned an open letter to state Senate President Russell Pearce last week, urging him to leave immigration policy to federal government. Julianne Hing at Colorlines.com has posted the letter in full, but here’s the gist:
Last year, boycotts were called against our state’s business community, adversely impacting our already-struggling economy and costing us jobs. Arizona-based businesses saw contracts cancelled or were turned away from bidding. Sales outside of the state declined … It is an undeniable fact that each of our companies and our employees were impacted by the boycotts and the coincident negative image […] Arizona is looking like a nativist, restrictive and intolerant place, and that’s bad for business.
The legislature subsequently voted down five controversial measures that sought to redefine citizenship and ban undocumented immigrants from hospitals and public schools, among other provisions.
Pearce, whose behind-the-scenes maneuvering repeatedly saved the contentious bills from dying much sooner, has vowed to continue pushing his agenda by voter referendum, if necessary. If he does, he may have more success. Arizonans have repeatedly voted in favor of harsh anti-immigrant proposals, including measures that stripped undocumented college students of financial assistance, banned ethnic studies, and ended equal opportunity programs.
Arizona’s business leaders overlook immigrant workers
It’s worth noting, though, that while the letter’s signatories handily criticized the legislature’s immigration agenda for negatively impacting the state’s economy, they had almost nothing to say about its detrimental impact on the state’s workers—a considerable proportion of whom are immigrants. Instead, they urge “market driven immigration policies” that will “preserve our ability to compete in the global economy“ — language that is more evocative of labor-exploitative capitalism than worker solidarity.
Their calls for “the creation of a meaningful guest worker program” are similarly suspect. While the notion of a “meaningful guest worker program” that would legalize certain undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. may, on the surface, seem like a sympathetic solution—particularly in light of the federal government’s failure to move forward with any kind of comprehensive immigration reform—it nevertheless poses dire implications for undocumented workers.
Utah’s guest worker proposal evokes Bracero program abuses
As David Bacon at In These Times posits, “guest workers” whose legal status is contingent on their employment situation are uniquely vulnerable to workplace abuse and exploitation, and could face labor conditions “close to slavery.” The Bracero Program, a guest worker initiative which imported Mexican laborers primarily for work in agriculture between 1942 and 1964, stands out as stark example of the dark side of guest worker programs. Bacon explains:
Braceros were treated as disposable, dirty and cheap. Herminio Quezada Durán, who came to Utah from Chihuahua, says ranchers often had agreements between each other to exchange or trade braceros as necessary for work. Jose Ezequiel Acevedo Perez, who came from Jerez, Zacatecas, remembers the humiliation of physical exams that treated Mexicans as louse-ridden.
“We were stripped naked in front of everyone,” he remembers, and sprayed with DDT, now an outlawed pesticide. Men in some camps were victims of criminals and pimps.
Arizona isn’t the only state to toy with the idea of establishing a guest worker program. In an effort to distance itself from Arizona’s contentious and economically disastrous immigration agenda, Utah—a fiercely red state and Arizona’s northern neighbor—is considering creating its own guest worker program, according to the Texas Observer’s Victor Landa. The law would grant legal residency to working, undocumented residents who do not commit serious crimes.
While Landa notes that the purportedly progressive measure nevertheless runs afoul of federal immigration laws (only the federal government can grant immigration status), the bill presents other issues. One must stay employed or lose residency—a circumstance that would strip employees of bargaining power while granting their employers an inordinate amount of license in the workplace. In practical terms, that doesn’t much change the existing workplace dynamics of undocumented immigrants, who frequently endure exploitation and abuse without recourse.
Labor unions vs. worksite immigration enforcement
What’s more: Exploitative employers generally get off scot free even when targeted by employer sanctions efforts; it’s the workers, not employers, who bear the brunt of the federal government’s worksite immigration enforcement. For this reason, a Services Employees International Union (SEIU) leader, Javier Morillo, has condemned the Department of Homeland Security’s emhasis on workplace raids and employer verification, according to Nicolas Mendoza at Campus Progress.
Responding to the termination of 250 unionized janitors in Minnesota following an I-9 audit—a verification process through which the federal government can ask businesses to check the immigration statuses of their employees—Morillo said:
Under the leadership of Secretary Napolitano the federal government has become an employment agency for the country’s worst employers. With each I-9 audit, the government is systematically pushing hardworking people into the underground economy where they face exploitation… Let’s be clear: I-9 audits, by definition, do not go after egregious employers who break immigration laws because many of them do not use I-9 forms. Human traffickers do not ask their victims for their social security cards. [emphasis added]
Mendoza notes that the federal government’s employer verification programs rely on the honesty of employers and rewards them for firing undocumented workers, rather than sanctioning businesses for hiring them. Workers pay the price, while employers get off.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Arizona’s business... more
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By Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Stricter immigration enforcement and reduced economic opportunities in Arizona has pushed many undocumented immigrants out of the state to look for work.
While restrictionist lawmakers, whose stated objective over the last year has been to drive attrition through enforcement, are satisfied, it’s not exactly the outcome they’ve been waiting for. Rather than return to their home countries, most immigrants are instead relocating to surrounding states — a trend that’s prompting legislators in other states to approach immigration reform in radically different ways.
Oklahoma Absorbs Arizona Emigrants
Oklahama is experiencing a considerable influx of undocumented immigrants fleeing Arizona, according to Kari Lydersen at Working In These Times. The rising immigrant population has created friction among residents, some of whom believe that undocumented migrants are taking jobs away from Oklahomans. In response, state lawmakers have introduced a bill known as “Arizona Plus,” which incorporates many of Arizona’s more controversial laws, in an effort to expel immigrants in much the same way that Arizona’s existing immigrations laws attempt to do. Lydersen explains:
State Senator Ralph Shortey (R) and Shannon Clark, a Tulsa police officer in charge of enforcing the city’s 287(g) immigration program, said workers including masons and tile workers have been greatly affected by the influx of immigrant workers from Arizona. Employers and civil rights leaders have decried the proposed Arizona Plus measure and other recently introduced anti-immigrant laws, saying that immigrants provide a crucial part of the state’s workforce, especially in areas with otherwise aging and declining populations.
There remains disagreement about the actual economic impacts of unauthorized immigration. As state Senator Andrew Rice (D) told Lydersen, many of Oklahoma’s incoming immigrants are assuming low-wage jobs that citizens are not even bothering to apply for.
Immigrants are an economic boon
Of course, numerous studies demonstrate that immigration actually bolsters economies rather than depressing them, effectively driving wages up and creating opportunities for American workers to move into more highly skilled fields, as Mikhail Zinshteyn of Campus Progress explains:
A study co-authored by George Borjas…shows without new waves of immigration, legal or otherwise, there would be far fewer businesses operating today because of an inadequate labor market. His partner on the paper, Lawrence F. Katz, co-authored another study that showed income inequality in the bottom half of the economic ladder has not increased since the 1980s—meaning the huge spike in undocumented immigrants since 1990 has had no statistical effect on the economic fortunes of the Americans they allegedly affect.
Facts notwithstanding, pitting undocumented laborers against low-income American workers is a time-tested tactic of anti-immigrant politicos. It’s effective too, even though — as Zinshteyn notes — many of its proponents also support myriad other policies that directly hurt low-income American laborers.
Utah proposes guest worker program for undocumented migrants
Meanwhile Utah’s legislature is proposing to handle unauthorized immigration rather differently. New America Media reports that state lawmakers passed a bill last week that seeks to legalize and integrate undocumented laborers into the state’s workforce. The measure would create two-year work visas for undocumented Mexican immigrants without a criminal record and their families, for fees ranging from $1,000-$2,500. Lawmakers hope to demonstrate that Utah, which is home to 110,000 undocumented immigrants, is a safer place for migrants than Arizona.
Immigrant rights advocates are not as enthusiastic, however. Colorlines.com’s Julianne Hing notes that the Utah legislature also passed enforcement and employer sanctions measures last week, which — while less draconian than Arizona’s — nevertheless do their part to marginalize and oppress undocumented immigrants. Hing adds:
[Activists] argue that the benefits of the guest worker program will not be enough to mitigate the harm of harsh enforcement measures that will almost certainly lead to more exploitation and deportation.
Regardless, many others are lauding Utah’s efforts to implement some kind of reform that legalizes undocumented immigrants living in the United States — particularly as Congress has yet to move forward with any attempt at comprehensive immigration reform.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The PulseBy Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Stricter immigration enforcement... more
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Brandon Davies is a basketball player of Birmingham Young University. His girlfriend has been revealed recently. RadarOnline has reported that the girlfriend of Brandon Davies is Danica Mendivil. She plays on behalf of Arizona State University. Her specialization of games is volleyball.
Charges were put on Brandon Davies from his school administration due to which he was kicked off from the team of his school for the rest of this season. It was told that Brandon Davies and Danica Mendivil had conducted sex.Brandon Davies is a basketball player of Birmingham Young University. His girlfriend... more
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In the Salt Lake City of California, Brigham Young had dreams of deeply penetration into the NCAA tournament. These dreams have been blown away because on this Tuesday Cougars, are third ranked, have sacked Brandon Davies; Brandon Davies is their starting forward. His dismissal has taken place for the whole remaining season of NCAA. He had made a violation in honour code of his school according to University officials’ announcements what were made in evening of Tuesday.In the Salt Lake City of California, Brigham Young had dreams of deeply penetration... more
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The process has begun to recall eight of the 14 "missing" Democratic state senators, including Dave Hansen of Green Bay.
American Recall Coalition, a group based in Utah, filed paperwork Tuesday with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board.
The group has 60 days to collect the required signatures -- about 16,000 for each senator -- to force a recall vote.
The Government Accountability Board says there has been no formal filing to recall any Republican lawmakers but it has been contacted about a gubernatorial recall.
That, however, cannot happen until Governor Walker has been in office for a full year.The process has begun to recall eight of the 14 "missing" Democratic state... more
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While several states in the U.S. are considering bills to crack down on illegal immigrants and kick them out, a pair of bipartisan lawmakers in Utah are proposing a different plan -- one that they say could generate millions in revenue for the state.
The Utah Pilot Accountability Permit Program bill, backed by Democratic State Sen. Luz Robles and Republican State Rep. Jeremy Peterson, would allow illegal immigrants to work in the state, so long as they had a state-issued work permit. It would require them to undergo criminal background checks, take English classes and pay taxes. The workers would be forced to leave the state if they lost their jobs, and the state would report illegal immigrants who commit major crimes to federal immigration authorities.
The tax revenues from those workers would generate more than $11 million for Utah within six months and $20 million the following year, according to a fiscal note Robles presented yesterday, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. The fiscal note also estimates the state could generate an additional $18 million from charging immigrants for their work permit cards.
The legislation faces an uphill fight and would without doubt draw legal scrutiny, since regulating immigration falls within the purview of the federal government. Robles has said her bill would require a federal waiver to be enacted. However, she's confident it could survive constitutional challenges since Utah has had no problem issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, USA Today reports.http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20032906-503544.htmlWhile several states in the U.S. are considering bills to crack down on illegal... more
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We bring you Arhythmatik a true hip hop artist. Created of Life Elevated Hip Hop- a local monthly Hip Hop Show held in Provo, Utah.We bring you Arhythmatik a true hip hop artist. Created of Life Elevated Hip Hop- a... more
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We bring you DJ Electronic Battleship winner of the Life Elevated Hip Hop DJ Battle. Battleship has DJed for Bone Thugs & Harmony, Chino XL, and Joell Ortiz.We bring you DJ Electronic Battleship winner of the Life Elevated Hip Hop DJ Battle.... more
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A day once existed in America when a woman like Dena Long-Christensen, 44, would have been celebrated, admired for her “can-do” spirit, and held up as a role model for others.
That day is sadly past. Now Long-Christensen—and others like her—are treated by the new America as criminals to be fined and jailed.
Her crime?
Dena Long-Christensen was discovered selling flowers from her home.
A struggling entrepreneur, Long-Christensen was unceremoniously trundled off to jail over a dispute with authorities who accused her of not having acquired the proper permits to start and operate her small business.
In other words, she didn’t obtain the government’s permission to have her own business—any kind of business—in the first place.
Land of the free
Long-Christensen case is just one of the latest in a long string of cases of attacks on liberty and an oppressive government that is hamstringing people and eliminating choices until a once-free society will be bound within a straitjacket of rules, regulations, laws meant to limit instead of protect, social engineering schemes and a burgeoning, mindless bureaucracy that has become so overbearing that Franz Kafka himself would be shocked.
Over the past decade outrageous episodes of innocent citizens’ encounters with authorities have filled daily newspapers. The 12-year old girl who was handcuffed because of eating a candy bar comes to mind, and so do dozens of other similar cases across the country.
Justice in America is fast vanishing replaced by civil courts that have become adept at interpreting laws in such a way to mutate them to their own advantage. Many of the legal machinations churned out by the people running such state-sponsored entities—such as the notorious “justice courts” in Utah—seem to exist mainly to confiscate, intimidate and generate as much cash as possible through fines and fees.
Real justice and common sense—if any—are side-effects.
Wild, wild injustice
“Unfortunately, the ‘wild, wild West’ is alive and well in justice courts,” Kent Hart admitted to Utah’s KSL-TV. Hart is the executive director of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. He was one of the few the TV station news team could get a comment from as most were afraid of retribution or a political backlash from the authorities.
That’s how bad it’s become as the system of legal justice in the U.S. continues to slowly creep towards the type of justice meted out in the old Soviet Union.
Hart agrees that some cities and counties priorities are to generate revenue rather than concern themselves about defendants’ rights.
“Without checks and balances, we’re going to have abuses,” he told KSL-TV.
There’s something wrong with our country
Dena Long-Christensen knows all about abuses. After being tossed into jail for selling flower baskets she shared a cell with career criminals. One cellmate of hers was charged with aggravated assault.
“Instead of being further in shock, it was like, there’s something wrong with our country,” she told the TV news crew.
“Fighting the city got me put in jail,” Long-Christensen asserted. “We were doing everything we could to comply with what we were told by planning and zoning.”
The small business woman and her husband were careful to conduct their growing business according to the dictates laid out by the West Jordan Planning & Zoning board in Salt Lake City, Utah. The board is another typical, top-heavy government entity designed to inhibit the creation of businesses and then make the ones that do overcome all the bureaucratic hurdles pay a price to stay in business.
In years past it was known as graft and blackmail. Mafia thugs were prosecuted for such behavior. Now such activities have been re-named “government.”
“We were not allowed to sell anything other than what we grew, except for once a month as a garage sale or bazaar,” she said.
How did America, who’s citizens built the country through innovation, risk-taking and starting small businesses, reach the point where the government decides who can and cannot have a business and how what the current rate is for the legal bribe to be “allowed” to start a business?
The bureaucrat who testified against Long-Christensen via an affidavit—the West Jordan business license coordinator Marsha Lancaster—testified she “personally observed the defendant selling hanging baskets out of her home.”
Mafia vigorish
Such government malfeasance would have precluded some giant companies today from ever having existed. Many entrepreneurs decades ago literally started in kitchens and garages—Microsoft, for one and the telecommunications giant of the 1970s and 1980s, MCI.
None needed any government’s permission. Nor did they have to pay a Mafia-style “vigorish” to fend off the bureaucratic parasites.
When asked how it can be that a couple that was only making and selling legal products from their own property call fall into the categories of criminals—and worse, a 44-year old American who committed no serious crime could be locked up with dangerous felons—Hart responded, “The judges have basically unfettered use of the jails,” Hart said. “In other words, nonviolent people are being sent to jail where there are many violent people.”
The astonished investigative reporters from KSL-TV took it upon themselves to go back and dig up all the Salt Lake County Jail records for every individual incarcerated from 2004 through 2010. What they found was deeply disturbing.
Walk a dog, go to jail
They report that although “…the vast majority of defendants who are sent to jail from municipal courts commit drug-related crimes, there are others who do go to jail for business license violations as well as other petty crimes such as jaywalking, lack of a dog license or having tinted windows.”
So the moral of the story is don’t get caught selling flowers while walking an unlicensed dog outside of a cross-walk after stepping out of your vehicle with tinted windows.
If you do, the justice system may well sentence you to life imprisonment.
http://island-adv.com/2011/02/utah-woman-jailed-for-selling-flowers-from-her-home/A day once existed in America when a woman like Dena Long-Christensen, 44, would have... more
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