Mexico’s illegals laws tougher than Arizona’s

Mexican President Felipe Calderon denounced as “racial discrimination” an Arizona law giving state and local police the authority to arrest suspected illegal immigrants and vowed to use all means at his disposal to defend Mexican nationals against a law he called a “violation of human rights.”

But the legislation, signed April 23 by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, is similar to Reglamento de la Ley General de Poblacion — the General Law on Population enacted in Mexico in April 2000, which mandates that federal, local and municipal police cooperate with federal immigration authorities in that country in the arrests of illegal immigrants.

Under the Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison. Immigrants who are deported and attempt to re-enter can be imprisoned for 10 years. Visa violators can be sentenced to six-year terms. Mexicans who help illegal immigrants are considered criminals.

The law also says Mexico can deport foreigners who are deemed detrimental to “economic or national interests,” violate Mexican law, are not “physically or mentally healthy” or lack the “necessary funds for their sustenance” and for their dependents.

"This sounds like the kind of law that a rational nation would have to protect itself against illegal immigrants — that would stop and punish the very people who are violating the law," said Rep. Steve King of Iowa, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, citizenship, refugees, border security and international law.

"Why would Mr. Calderon have any objections to an Arizona law that is less draconian than his own, one he has pledged to enforce?" Mr. King said.

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on terrorism and homeland security, described Mr. Calderon's comments as "hypocritical to say the least."

"I would have expected more from Mr. Calderon," said Mr. Kyl, who serves as the Senate minority whip. "We are spending millions of dollars to help Mexico fight the drug cartels that pose a threat to his government, and he doesn't seem to recognize our concerns. He ought to be apologizing to us instead of condemning us."

Mr. Kyl, along with fellow Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, has introduced a 10-point comprehensive border security plan to combat illegal immigration, drug and human smuggling, and violent crime along the southwestern border. It includes the deployment of National Guard troops, an increase in U.S. Border Patrol agents and 700 miles of fencing, along with other equipment and funding upgrades.

He said skyrocketing violence on the border, including the recent killing of an Arizona rancher by an illegal immigrant he had gone to assist, has not gone unnoticed by the public, adding that until the federal government provides the necessary funding and manpower to adequately secure the southwestern border, Arizona will not long remain the only state to pass legislation to do it on its own.

Exclusive: Oath Keepers founder slams conservative media ‘hypocrisy’

In a time of crisis, who can the people trust? Their political leadership, or fellow citizens?

Concerned the answer to that question might be turning into “neither,” Yale-educated ex-soldier and former Ron Paul organizer Stewart Rhodes hatched an idea that’s grown beyond his wildest imagination.

Now a darling of the conservative media for his military and law enforcement activist group “Oath Keepers,” Rhodes is pursued by fawning tea party organizers and promoted by people like Glenn Beck, Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan and even Watergate burglary planner G. Gordon Liddy.

Though the newfound love from right-leaning pundits is certainly not lost on him, it’s not reciprocated. For as much as they laud Rhodes, push stories about Oath Keepers and link their materials, he just sees “hypocrisy” — and was not ashamed to tear down his recent promoters in an interview with RAW STORY.

Take, for example, Glenn Beck, who eagerly followed Matt Drudge in promoting Oath Keepers late last year for their pledge to “prevent dictatorship.” Though Oath Keepers is cosponsoring a Beck-organized 9/12 rally in Washington, D.C. later this year, that doesn’t mean Rhodes agrees with or even likes the flamboyant Fox TV star.

“I’m not sure where he’s at, he kinda jumps around,” Rhodes said of Beck. “He was, early on during the Ron Paul campaign, horrible to Ron Paul. He even suggested that some of his followers were potential domestic terrorists and wanted to use the military against them. So, he seems kind of erratic.”

http://www.prisonplanet.com/exclusive-oath-keepers-founder-slams-conservative-media-‘hypocrisy’.html

Bloomberg Smears Anti-Obamacare Activists As Terrorists

Despite the arrest of a Pakistani-American who authorities have been trailing for two days as the prime suspect behind the botched Times Square car bombing, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wasted little time in smearing anti-Obamacare activists as terrorists during an appearance on CBS News last night, implying that the attack was the work of a Tea Party activist.

“If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that, somebody who’s homegrown, maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something, it could be anything,” Bloomberg told Katie Couric.

Without knowing the full explanation behind the motivations of the man arrested in connection with the bombing, it seems unlikely to us that a man of Pakistani origin named Faisal Shahzad would have much to do with conservatives or Tea Party activists, which makes Bloomberg’s smear all the more insidious.

Authorities had been tracking Shahzad as the prime suspect for two days before his arrest at JFK Airport, after they discovered it was he who bought the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder from a Connecticut man about three weeks ago.

Bloomberg had to be aware of the fact that the prime suspect was a Pakistani and not a stereotypical white American anti-Obamacare activist, so why even invoke health care as a potential motivating factor behind the botched attack?

As Kurt Nimmo reported yesterday, before the identity of the culprit behind the bombing had even been hinted at, so-called “progressive” blogs and statist news websites staunchly pushed the explanation that the attack was planned by Tea Party conservatives and opponents of big government.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/bloomberg-smears-anti-obamacare-activists-as-terrorists.html

Economy To Collapse Due To Oil Spill?

NOTE: Map of closed fishing area (left)
David Kotok of Cumberland Advisors is out with some very gloomy comments about the economic ramifications of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and what it will cost. First he notes the ugliest case scenario:

This spew stoppage takes longer to reach a full closure; the subsequent cleanup may take a decade. The Gulf becomes a damaged sea for a generation. The oil slick leaks beyond the western Florida coast, enters the Gulfstream and reaches the eastern coast of the United States and beyond. Use your imagination for the rest of the damage. Monetary cost is now measured in the many hundreds of billions of dollars.

As for numbers:

Usually, the first estimates in any crises are too low. That is true here. 1000 barrels a day is now 5000, and some estimates of spillage are trending higher. No one knows exactly. The containment and boom mechanism is subject to weather cooperation as we can see this weekend. Soon we are entering the hurricane season. The thoughts of a storm stirring up the Gulf, hampering any cleanup or remediation drilling effort and creating a huge 10,000 square mile black stew is frightening to every professional in the business.

This will be a financial
calamity for many firms, not just BP and its partners and service providers. Their liabilities are immense and must not be underestimated. The first estimate of $12.5 billion is only a starter.

As for the economy beyond BP...

Thousands of small and independent businesses as well as larger public companies in tourism are hurt here. This is not just about the source of half the nation’s shrimp. That is already a casualty. It’s also about the bank loans for the $200,000 shrimp boat and the house the boat owner and/or his employees live in and the fact that this shock piles on a fragile financial systemthat is trying to recover from a three-year financial crisis. Case study, my fishing guide in the Everglades splits his time between Florida and Louisiana. His May bookings in LA have cancelled. His colleagues lost theirs and their lodge will be empty. They are busy trying to find work in the clean up. For him, his wife and eleven year old daughter, his $600 a day guide fees just went “poof”. When I asked him if he thought he had a legal claim on BP, he said he hadn’t thought about it yet but it gave him pause. As we suggested above, the $12.5 billion loss estimate is only a starter.

And the taxpayer...

Federal deficit spending will certainly rise by tens, and maybe hundreds, of billions as emergency appropriations are directed at larger and larger efforts to clean up this mess. At the same time, federal and state revenues tied to Gulf-region businesses will fall. My colleague John Mousseau will be discussing the impact on state and local government debt in a separate research commentary.

We expect that the Federal Reserve will extend the timeframe that we have come to know as the “extended period” in the making of its monetary policy. We do not expect the Fed to raise interest rates at all for the rest of this year, and maybe well into next year. We expect to see the deterioration of the economic statistics for the US to reveal the onset of this oil-slick crisis in May, and the negative impact will intensify during the summer months. A “double-dip” recession probably has been made more likely by this tragedy.

Find Out How Much The Greek Bailout Is Costing The World

The Greek bailout has yet to be approved by the government's involved, but the costs for the citizens of each country are starting to settle.

Spoiler alert: Germans get a bargain, but a debt-ridden Ireland has to face heavy per household costs.

Households across the globe are going to have to help with the Greek bailout over the next three years, and through the IMF portion of the deal, some of those costs will be passed on to Americans as well.

United States (IMF Stake): $345.82 per U.S. household
Slovakia: $617.99 per household
Slovenia: $684.17 per household
Portugal: $707.33 per household
Germany: $745.19 per household
Malta: $769.54 per household
Spain: $776.03 per household
Finland: $776.95 per household
Cyprus: $789.92 per household
Italy: $803.16 per household
France: $877.02 per household
Belgium: $845.40 per household
Austria: $861.13 per household
Netherlands: $866.96 per household
Ireland: $1084.69 per household
Luxembourg: $1675.41 per household

http://www.businessinsider.com/greek-bailout-per-household-2010-5

Hotel Industry: Worst Decline Since the 1930's

ATLANTA, May 3 /PRNewswire/ -- According to survey results in the recently released Trends® in the Hotel Industry report issued by PKF Hospitality Research (PKF-HR), the average U.S. hotel suffered a 35.4 decline in profits in 2009. This is the greatest annual fall-off in the bottom line since PKF-HR began tracking the industry in the 1930s.

"Declines in revenues make the headlines, but the bottom line is where the rubber meets the road for owners," said R. Mark Woodworth, president of PKF-HR. "The 35.4 percent decline in profits realized in 2009 has severely stressed borrower/lender relationships throughout the country as delinquencies, defaults, foreclosures, and bankruptcies continue to escalate."

"2009 was such a singular year in terms of hotel expenses and profits," he added. "As the industry approaches a turn, all parties with a vested interest in the bottom line should be measuring their performance against that of comparable facilities to insure that optimum operational efficiency is being realized. Because of these extraordinary times, the detailed 2010 Trends®data is more valuable than ever."

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bottoms-down-hotel-profits-decline-record-354-percent-according-to-pkf-report-92662089.html

Dollar Inevitable Demise: US Government Needs 117 Trillion

Consider these figures. The current size of the American economy is roughly $14 trillion. As of this writing, the federal government's total public debt stands at nearly $13 trillion.

In its first midsession review, the White House Office of Management and Budget estimated that at the end of 2010, the national debt will breach the $14-trillion mark. This means that America's sovereign debt will be soon equal to the annual output of our economy. In other words, our national debt will shortly reach 100 percent of GDP. History and experience show that most governments that assume such levels of debt are ultimately not able to contain them. In most cases, this kind of situation eventually leads to the disintegration of the country's monetary regime and the collapse of its currency.

This outcome is not inevitable, given that -- in theory, at least -- a debt of 100 percent of GDP is still manageable. But to bring things under control would require strict fiscal discipline. Unfortunately, there no indication that our federal government can muster any. Quite the contrary. Last year the federal budget deficit reached a record $1.4 trillion. At nearly 10 percent of GDP, this was the highest peacetime deficit in history. Despite the numerous assurances that the 2009 shortfall was a one-off event brought on by the financial crisis, this year's deficit will go even higher. According to theanalysis submitted by the Congressional Budget Office last month, it will climb to $1.5 trillion. This will amount to 10.3 percent of GDP.

There is every reason to believe that the deficit will grow even faster in the years to come, as the federal government further increases its involvement in health care. The estimates by the Office of the Management and Budget which we quoted above do not factor in the costs associated with the recently passed health care reform. Even the more conservative estimates project that the legislation will cost well over one trillion during the program's first ten years. It is almost certain, however, that this figure is grossly understated, as government programs have a tendency to exceed their initial cost projections by grotesque multiples.

This, however, is not the worst of it, because the national debt represents only a relatively small portion of our government's total financial obligations. The far greater bulk is made up of long-term liabilities inherent in entitlement programs. According to the latest estimates by the Dallas Federal Reserve, the combined liabilities of Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid amount to an astounding $104 trillion.

When we add the national debt and entitlements together, we get a figure of some $117 trillion. This figure represents the amount of money the federal government will have to come up with in the years ahead in order to discharge its obligations.