Food for Thought - Food Safety

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - March 23, 2009
In the 2006 Texas Agriculture Commissioner's race, Hank Gilbert warned eveyone who would listen that lax inspections (responsiblity of the Texas Agriculture Commission) endangered the nation's foodchain. The US has stricter rules regarding pesticides and food production than do other countries who import food through the US/Texas border.

Little has improved in the Texas Agriculture Commission since Todd Staples became Agriculture Commissioner in 2007. Instead, the international spotlight has watched as the peanut industry tanked following contamination of peanuts processed in Texas and sold to industrial clients who manufactured many of the nations grocery products containing peanuts!

In Washington, the Obama administration is attempting to address some food safety issues. A Federal approach, without effective efforts on the state level on border states will not solve the problem. Hopefully, the Federal Food Safety taskforce, is a much over-due start.

Washington Post Editorial - Monday, March 23, 2009

The president appoints a working group to improve food safety.
SINCE 2006, the concept of food safety, as practiced by the federal government, has seemed oxymoronic. The recent concern about contaminated peanuts is but the latest in a series of food scares that included salmonella outbreaks involving tomatoes, peppers and spinach. With each occurrence, Congress thundered about the need to fix the way the nation safeguards its food supply, but little was done. Maybe more will happen now that President Obama has formed a Food Safety Working Group and selected a top-notch team to lead the Food and Drug Administration.

A congressional hearing on tainted peanuts last week unearthed more reasons for queasiness. The private inspection company hired by Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) warned it of impending visits, giving the company plenty of time to tidy up what federal inspectors and others found during unannounced inspections: rat droppings, dead insects and rodents, and other unsanitary conditions. The troubles at PCA are symptoms of larger problems that need to be addressed.

Aside from increasing the number of federal inspectors and the frequency of visits they make to the country's nearly 150,000 food facilities, a number of good ideas are kicking around the Capitol. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) would give the FDA authority to issue mandatory recalls for contaminated food -- no more relying on the goodwill of businesses that might be tempted to put the bottom line above the public health -- and would require it to devise a system to trace food and produce from the farm to the dinner table. Legislation from Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) would require companies to test for the hazards that are most likely to occur in their products and then have the federal government devise standards for what constitutes a hazard.

The Food Safety Working Group will include Margaret A. Hamburg and Joshua Sharfstein. Dr. Hamburg, a highly regarded former New York City health commissioner and assistant secretary for health and human services under President Bill Clinton, was tapped by Mr. Obama to be the next FDA commissioner. The president nominated Dr. Sharfstein, Baltimore's health commissioner, to be the FDA's principal deputy commissioner. Congress should move quickly to confirm them so they can get to work.

Read more in the Washington Post

Federal Inspectors Often Difficult to Reach, Group Says

By Ed O'Keefe - Washington Post Staff Writer - March 23, 2009

Federal inspectors general too often ignore or discount the complaints of whistleblowers, and concerned citizens attempting to report government waste or mismanagement may face difficulty making even basic contact with the offices via telephone or the Internet, according to a new report from a government watchdog group.

The report, released late last week by the independent Project on Government Oversight (POGO), revealed vast inconsistencies in the accessibility, design and ease of use of the Web sites of the inspector general offices. "Some of the largest departments have only the tiniest, faintest link to their IG's home page, while several very small and frankly obscure agencies have easily found links that jump off the agency home page," according to the report.

Many offices of the inspector general outsource their telephone hotlines, forfeiting a good deal of control over operators and the complaints they compile. When POGO staffers called the inspector general hotlines for the departments of Defense and Transportation, the same operator at a third-party call center answered the phone. "The hotline operators -- local college students, according to one IG who uses the service -- also simultaneously handle the hotlines for several private companies."

David Colapinto, general counsel with the National Whistleblowers Center, agreed with the report's findings and suggested lawmakers need to pay closer attention to the process.

"I think that when Congress appropriates more money and they hear these reports from the IGs, they think they're supporting whistleblowers and addressing the problem when they're really not," Colapinto said. "A lot more needs to be done in this area."

Many inspector general offices may have difficulty identifying serious hotline reports of waste, fraud and abuse because they are also alerted to minor complaints they cannot address. Kenneth Mead, who served as the Transportation Department inspector general from 1997 to 2006, recalled getting calls to his office about potholes in Maine.

"It's important that people have some place to vent, but you don't want real senior-level people handling calls like that," he said, adding that hotlines need better-trained staff members to effectively process legitimate, serious complaints.
ad_icon

The expanding workload of watchdogs at larger agencies may also be to blame for the short-shrifting of complaints. In addition to overseeing the work of tens of thousands of federal employees, some inspectors general are now responsible for tracking the distribution of billions of dollars in federal funding from the economic recovery package.

This is the second annual report on inspectors general from POGO, and it includes feedback from most of the federal government's 64 investigative offices. Despite its criticisms, POGO gives generally favorable reviews to their overall mission and culture.

"This is not a broken system, but we do think there are new ways of thinking about IGs," said POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian. "Everyone recognizes the importance of the job."
Read more in the Washington Post

Macquarie Public Infrastructure model bleeding red ink on US Toll projects

Brisbane Times - Feb. 27, 2009
http://business.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/battered-n-bruised-20090227-8kbl.html

Battered 'n' bruised
While no one is game enough to predict Macquarie's demise, the global economic downturn is forcing the group to rethink its famed business model, writes Lisa Murray.
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels basked in the applause as he entered a room full of state officials and reporters to officially announce the close of the state's $US3.8 billion toll road privatisation.

It was June 29, 2006, and Daniels had received the final payment from Macquarie Infrastructure Group and its Spanish partner, Cintra, which had taken over a 75-year lease on the Indiana Toll Road, the so-called "Main street of the Midwest".
Daniels was confident the deal would turn around the state's financial fortunes and he had big plans for the proceeds.

But he was not the only one celebrating.
In Sydney, Macquarie Group executives were riding high. Not only did its investment bankers just rake in $US32.6 million in fees but the group had also officially cracked the elusive US infrastructure market. The Indiana transaction followed deals to buy Virginia's Dulles Greenway and the Chicago Skyway, which was the first US road privatisation.

Together, the three infrastructure plays had netted Macquarie $US74.7 million in advisory and debt arrangement fees and had substantially boosted the assets under management of its biggest fund, MIG. That meant higher management and performance fees for Macquarie.
The stage was set for more deals to come. Despite a public backlash against selling off state assets, Daniels's counterparts, from New York to Alaska, were lining up to flog their roads and bridges to the highest bidder. What had started with a small motorway in north-western Sydney was working its way across the world's biggest economy. The "Macquarie Model" had arrived in the US.

It's a well-told story. Macquarie became a global brand buying up toll roads, ports, airports, car parks and water companies around the world, at times paying over a billion dollars more than the next bidder. The assets were piled with debt, often up to 85 per cent of the purchase price, and then rolled into listed and unlisted funds, which paid Macquarie advisory, management and performance fees. Yes, the group still had its traditional trading, funds management and banking businesses but it was the specialist infrastructure funds which put it on the map and drove earnings growth to dizzying levels.

However, the world changed in September last year, with the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers, which ended any hopes that the subprime mortgage crisis would blow over.
Funding dried up, asset valuations started plummeting and debt became a dirty word, leaving the "Macquarie Model" all but dead and its management team scrambling to avoid disaster.
The US roads, a cause of so much celebration 2½ years ago, are struggling to repay their debts and Macquarie's share price, held hostage to a market awash with capital raising rumours, slumped this week to its lowest level since June 1999.

It is not just day traders and rumour mongers selling the stock; long-term investors, including its biggest US shareholder, Capital Group, have been abandoning ship. The shine has well and truly come off the silver doughnut.

"The strategy of buying an asset and gearing it up to generate returns - that game is clearly up," says Perpetual Investment's head of equities, John Sevior. Perpetual does not own any shares in Macquarie or its satellite funds. "It's an opaque business and it's very hard to understand the level of gearing. The gearing in the group is above our level of tolerance."
Copycats Babcock & Brown and Allco have already disappeared under a mountain of debts. While Macquarie's balance sheet is strong - thanks to a government guarantee on wholesale funding for banks, which has allowed it to raise a whopping $12 billion in offshore markets in just over two months - its satellite funds are struggling. Macquarie's Australian-listed infrastructure funds have had more than $12 billion wiped off
their market value since the start of last year. The local real estate funds have lost a further $5.6 billion.

Total losses for shareholders in the funds over the past 12 months range from 52 to 91 per cent, compared to a 37 per cent drop in the market's main index.
MIG's chairman, Mark Johnson, a former senior executive and deputy chairman of the group, says he "can't understand why prices have been marked down so savagely".
But he acknowledges the "Macquarie Model" will need to change. "Inevitably it must change quite radically because we are seeing the biggest crisis in credit markets since the 1930s," he told the Herald.

"Investors want certainty of survival. Anything that has high leverage is seen as risky and not what investors want. The flagship funds are under great pressure to adapt and to convince investors that their survival is assured and they are appropriate investments."

It was a bad news week for Macquarie. MIG announced that traffic had slumped on the Indiana Toll Road and Dulles Greenway in the US and they were using all available cash to pay back debt. It also wrote down its investment in the San Diego South Bay Expressway from $133 million to $11.6 million.

Macquarie Airports, meanwhile, was forced to dump a share buyback so that it could tip equity into Sydney Airport for the second time in three months to ease its debt burden and Macquarie's media fund, MMG, wrote down the value of its US community newspaper group, American Consolidated Media, by $127 million. Macquarie CountryWide and Macquarie Office Trust have sold US properties to pay down debts, MIG sold part of its stake in the M7 tollway to prove to the market how much it was worth and shore up its balance sheet and MMG slashed its dividend by more than three-quarters.

All of this means fewer fees for Macquarie and more write-downs on its stakes in the funds. The group has already announced an estimated $2 billion of total write-downs for the year to March 31 and it expects to report that profit has halved to $900 million. That is not a bad result given that almost no other investment bank in the world is in the black.
Even so, these debt issues hang over Macquarie as does the March 6 deadline for Australia's short-selling ban, which many believe kept the hedge fund managers at bay at a crucial time for the group. Those same hedge fund managers will no doubt be furiously running the numbers over Macquarie in the coming weeks, ready to pounce on any signs of weakness should the ban be lifted. Even with the ban in place, Macquarie was bruised and battered this week and forced to deny it had any plans for a capital raising.

But the problem for Macquarie is that varying degrees of disclosure among its many funds make it difficult for the market to understand the businesses and their debt positions and how they relate to the group.

That allows rumours to run wild. No one really knows how much debt is held across the group, but some analysts estimate it is more than $160 billion.

Jim Chanos, the president of the US hedge fund Kynikos Associates - who became famous for his early warnings on Enron - has been a vocal critic of the Macquarie Model. He says the model gave the group incentive to overpay for assets because the shareholders in the funds picked up the tab while Macquarie's fees were based on the size of assets under management. The higher the price, the bigger the assets under management, the more lucrative the fees.

Macquarie funds and their co-investors paid over $1 billion more than the next bidder for both Sydney Airport and the Chicago Skyway.

While assets in its funds are struggling with debt payments, there is no doubt Macquarie has always been very good at protecting the bank. Debt is held at the asset level. That means it is non-recourse to the funds, let alone to Macquarie, a clever strategy that essentially ring-fences any problems.

But it is not that simple. As one insider says, if an asset were to fail, while Macquarie may not be obligated to come to the rescue, the reputation risk would be "enormous". Taking action, on the other hand, could spook investors and affect its credit rating.

"At some stage, if a significant fund was in major strife, Macquarie might take the view that they need to protect the franchise," says Sharad Jain, a credit analyst at Standard & Poor's. "That would be a change in financial policy and we would need to consider that at the time as it is outside our expectations."

Macquarie says that will not need to happen as none of its funds is in "major strife". It has already managed $3 billion of refinancing since September. And in terms of its four main listed infrastructure funds, there is no outstanding refinancing for this year and only 12 per cent of debt needs to be refinanced over the next three years. But there are clearly some assets that are stretched.

MIG said at its results this week that the Indiana Toll Road had a debt service coverage ratio of just 1 times. That means that all of its operating income is being swallowed up by debt payments and is a concern given that traffic on the road, a mostly commercial toll road that runs 253 kilometres across northern Indiana, fell nearly 15 per cent in the last half. The ratio for Virginia's Dulles Greenway is 1.1 times.

Chicago Skyway's debt service coverage ratio was a more encouraging 2.1 times. However, a look at its 2007 full-year accounts, the latest available, shows the asset had total long-term debt of $US1.55 billion.

It reported revenues from its toll roads of $US53 million for the year, operating income of $US18 million, while its interest expense was $US95 million.

MIG argues that the US roads make up just 11 per cent of its portfolio by valuation. And it is important when looking at a single asset to keep it in perspective in terms of the size of the fund and the overall group.

"A number of these roads either have already, or will shortly, introduce scheduled toll increases which will see continued revenue grow and the debt service coverage position improve," an MIG spokeswoman said.

Andrew Chambers, from Austock Broking, is less optimistic. But he says the US roads are a small part of MIG's business.

"The US assets are clearly struggling and the outlook is not good but you don't own MIG for the US roads, you own it for its toll roads in Canada and France, which are very good assets."

In the past, sceptics of the "Macquarie Model" said higher interest rates would bring it undone. But the group argued that interest rates typically rose in line with inflation and higher inflation would mean increased tolls on its roads, airport charges and parking fees. As such, the higher revenue would be a natural hedge against rate increases.
But the current situation is different.

Debt is more expensive not because of interest rates, which are falling, but because people are placing a higher value on risk. So the margin that lenders are charging on top of the cash rate, to make it worthwhile for them to take on the risk, has increased.

At the same time, the slump in economic growth means it is harder for Macquarie to raise tolls, water rates and airport charges to offset the increased cost of its debt.

MIG's Johnson says there are no "life-threatening problems" in the funds or at group level.

"Macquarie's balance sheet is very, very sound," he says.
"The question mark is over the earnings trend for the next two or three years, but I think they are very well placed to benefit from the recovery."

Macquarie plays down the significance of the specialist funds business. But it still accounted for 20 per cent of Macquarie's income in the year to March 31, 2008, and just over a quarter of total advisory fee income came from work on the funds, according to its results presentation. Some analysts claim that number might be higher, depending on what you include.
The corporate governance group RiskMetrics calculated that in the three years to 2006, Macquarie's three biggest Australian-listed infrastructure funds - Macquarie Airports, Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group and Macquarie Infrastructure Group - handed over more than $1.15 billion in fees to the group.
So there will clearly be earnings pressure as those fees drop and in some cases disappear. Despite these concerns, no one is game enough to predict Macquarie's demise. And in fact some even expect the group will thrive in a market where almost every company in the world will go through a restructure.

They've done it before.
Two of the group's business-transforming transactions took place after times of crisis. Macquarie bought its fiercest local competitor, BT Australia, in 1999 after the Russian debt crisis. And in 2004, as Asia was recovering from its financial crisis, it picked up the ING cash equities business in the region.

"Investors will make a fortune out of the recovery and Macquarie is best positioned to do that," one former executive says.
"They have lots of capital, they're smart and they still have a very diverse business. They will ride this out."

While Macquarie's business will change dramatically, Perpetual's Sevior says the bank is unlikely to go the way of its imitators. "They have shown an ability to remake themselves in different cycles in the past but it will be a very difficult environment this time around."
Rob Patterson, the managing director of Argo Investments, a top 20 shareholder in Macquarie, says the group has "done exceptionally well relative to all of their peers in a very difficult environment".
He dismissed any comparisons with Babcock & Brown, noting that Macquarie was a more diversified business, with well-established stockbroking, funds management and private banking arms.
Macquarie's debt is also less concentrated and longer dated (Babcock was mainly relying on one single $3.1 billion debt facility.) And it is widely regarded to have better risk management processes in place.
"B&B is a one-dimensional fund manager and a very different organisation," says one former executive director. "It's like comparing a pushbike to a Rolls-Royce."
Another important distinction between the two is that Macquarie owns a bank.
That means its banking arm is regulated by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and it has minimum capital requirements. It also means that the bank has access to funds that other investment houses never had because of the government guarantee scheme introduced in November.
Basically, the Government is handing out its AAA credit rating to Australian banks in return for a fee, allowing them to raise long-term money offshore. Macquarie has raised $12 billion since mid-December in Japan, the US, New Zealand and Australia.
"Macquarie has been one of the most active users of that scheme," said S&P's Jain, adding that the raisings had allayed some concerns the agency had about Macquarie, when it slapped a negative outlook on the group's rating last September.
Macquarie's retail deposits have also benefited from the government guarantee, rising to $18.1 billion at the end of last year, from $13.2 billion at the end of March.
Macquarie executives, including the chief executive, Nicholas Moore, declined to be interviewed.
In response to emailed questions, a spokeswoman for the group said it was "well-funded before the guarantee and has continued to improve its funding position".
She also denied speculation that the group was looking at selling its underperforming property business and talked up potential acquisition opportunities, noting Macquarie's recent acquisition of the US gas trading business Constellation Energy. On the infrastructure side, Macquarie sees more growth in unlisted funds and says governments are likely to turn to the private sector for infrastructure investment in the downturn.
If Macquarie wants to get retail investors interested in listed infrastructure funds again, they would have to be radically different to the funds of old, with reasonable fee structures and transparent corporate governance guidelines.
"It's a new era where investors are much more fee conscious and much more cost conscious," says Hugh Giddy, the managing director of the fund manager Cannae Capital Partners.
"There's a revulsion against greed. The social mood has changed. Investors are saying we need independent directors to say that Macquarie doesn't get to do all of the debt arranging and corporate advice.
"This is more than a cyclical change; it's a structural change in terms of their ability to run their model."

Immigration Priorities Questioned Report Says Focus on Deporting Criminals Apparently Shifted

By Spencer S. Hsu - Washington Post Staff Writer - Thursday, February 5, 2009

As the Obama administration vows to re-engineer immigration policy to target criminals, a new report says that in recent years, a high-profile federal program shifted its focus away from catching the most dangerous illegal immigrants who were evading deportation orders.

Between 2003 and 2008, 27 percent of the more than 96,000 illegal immigrants arrested under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's National Fugitive Operations Program had criminal convictions. And in 2007, 9 percent of those arrested were fugitives from deportation orders who were criminals or were considered dangerous. That same year, the share of arrests of illegal immigrants not facing deportation orders grew to 40 percent.

The findings come as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has ordered a review of which immigrants are targeted for arrest and as a Democratic Congress has shifted ICE money toward pursuing criminals.

Under President George W. Bush, immigrant advocates complained that armed ICE agents conducted harsh and indiscriminate raids at homes and in neighborhoods, and advocates accused the government of racial profiling, illegal searches, false arrests, family separations and other humanitarian abuses.

Authors of the report, issued by the Immigration Legal Clinic at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City and the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, said that despite assurances to Congress, Bush administration officials changed course from trying to capture the most dangerous illegal immigrants to boosting arrest totals.

Peter L. Markowitz, a Cardozo law professor, said Bush officials approved such tactics because they were "facing political pressure to look tough on immigration enforcement." ICE, he said, "created tremendous bureaucratic incentives" for fugitive operations teams to adopt "a shotgun approach of undisciplined home raids."

In January 2006, ICE raised arrest quotas for each team in the program from 125 to 1,000 and ended a requirement that 75 percent of those arrested be criminals. Later, ICE let teams count non-fugitives toward their numerical goal. The Cardozo-MPI findings were first reported yesterday by the New York Times.

Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee for homeland security, said he was "discouraged that ICE's previous leadership misrepresented the goals of the expanded Fugitive Operations Program and chose not to use its additional resources as Congress instructed."

Spending on the program grew from $9 million in 2003 to $219 million in 2008, and the number of fugitive operations teams grew from eight to 104.

Julie L. Myers, ICE director from 2006 until last year, called the report "a work of fiction with a thinly veiled agenda" that "unfairly maligns the work Congress asked the agency to do."

Congress has mandated "that all fugitives must be identified, arrested and removed," current ICE spokeswoman Kelly A. Nantel said, not just those with prior criminal convictions.

Nantel added that ICE arrested more than 250,000 other criminal illegal immigrants last year through different programs and that so far in fiscal 2009, it has picked up 179 percent more than in the same period a year earlier.

For the first time, she said, the number of immigrants evading deportation orders fell sharply, from 634,000 in 2007 to 554,000 currently, in part through a purge of outdated records.

"To give non-criminal fugitives a pass is to send the message that a judge's deportation order doesn't matter. It is a message of amnesty for lawbreakers," said Rep. Lamar Smith (Tex.), the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration.

Napolitano called that message a "false dichotomy," saying, "No, it's a matter of where you put your emphasis. . . . It doesn't mean that you give a blank check to everybody else."

For example, ICE estimates that as many as 450,000 criminals being held in federal, state and local U.S. detention are illegal immigrants. The agency deported about 113,000 criminals last year.
ad_icon

This year and last, congressional Democrats gave ICE $350 million and told the agency to redirect an additional $850 million to catch and deport criminals, leading to a rebound in arrests.
Read more in the Washington Post

How would you like to have this pipeline in your yard?

A 10 inch pipeline ruptured in Franklin County, MO yesterday. The pipelines running through front yards in Fort Worth are 16 inch gas gathering lines carrying raw, wet natural gas at about 200 psi..

KTVI Fox
Part of Highway 100 reopened this morning after a propane pipeline breaks. Families evacuated can move back into their homes today The gas leak started yesterday afternoon along Highway 100 between Pacific and Washington.

Here is a list of a few pipeline explosions.

There are many, many examples of explosions and fires occurring in conjunction with natural gas pipeline ruptures. For example, the Pecos River explosion near Carlsbad, NM in 2000 created a large crater, killed 12 people, and blew a large section of the pipe 287 ft away from the crater.

An email from a resident of Missouri:

From what I have been able to gather, this is a 10 inch Conoco Propane Pipeline that was struck while workers were widening Highway 100. They did shut off the pipeline at the valves on each side of the line but it is expected that it will take all night for the broken section to empty. This is a heavy gas and settles near the ground so there is a chance of ignition if the gas comes in contact with an ignition source.
Please monitor the local news coverage of this rupture and when you watch the video of the propane spewing into the air PLEASE consider what this would do if it were in our backyards. Also keep in mind that the pipeline that sits 16 feet from my home is a 24 inch line. Just imagine!
There is more work to be done here in St. Peters. Those of us who are already within 16 to 50 feet from these pipelines need help.
Please help us! Get us out of here before an unimaginable grotesque tragedy occurs here in St. Peters.

Target of Immigrant Raids Shifted

By NINA BERNSTEIN - New York Times - February 3, 2009

The raids on homes around the country were billed as carefully planned hunts for dangerous immigrant fugitives, and given catchy names like Operation Return to Sender.

And they garnered bigger increases in money and staff from Congress than any other program run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even as complaints grew that teams of armed agents were entering homes indiscriminately.

But in fact, beginning in 2006, the program was no longer what was being advertised. Federal immigration officials had repeatedly told Congress that among more than half a million immigrants with outstanding deportation orders, they would concentrate on rounding up the most threatening — criminals and terrorism suspects.

Instead, newly available documents show, the agency changed the rules, and the program increasingly went after easier targets. A vast majority of those arrested had no criminal record, and many had no deportation orders against them, either.

Internal directives by immigration officials in 2006 raised arrest quotas for each team in the National Fugitive Operations Program, eliminated a requirement that 75 percent of those arrested be criminals, and then allowed the teams to include nonfugitives in their count.

In the next year, fugitives with criminal records dropped to 9 percent of those arrested, and nonfugitives picked up by chance — without a deportation order — rose to 40 percent. Many were sent to detention centers far from their homes, and deported.

The impact of the internal directives, obtained by a professor and students at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law through a Freedom of Information lawsuit and shared with The New York Times, shows the power of administrative memos to significantly alter immigration enforcement policy without any legislative change.

The memos also help explain the pattern of arrests documented in a report, criticizing the fugitive operations program, to be released on Wednesday by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington.

Analyzing more than five years of arrest data supplied to the institute last year by Julie Myers, who was then chief of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the report found that over all, as the program spent a total of $625 million, nearly three-quarters of the 96,000 people it apprehended had no criminal convictions.

Without consulting Congress, the report concluded, the program shifted to picking up “the easiest targets, not the most dangerous fugitives.”

It noted, however, that the most recent figures available indicate an increase in arrests of those with a criminal background last year, though it was unclear whether that resulted from a policy change.

The increased public attention comes as the new secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, has ordered a review of the fugitive teams operation, which was set up in 2002 to find and deport noncitizens with outstanding orders of deportation, then rapidly expanded after 2003 with the mission of focusing on the most dangerous criminals.

Peter L. Markowitz, who teaches immigration law at Cardozo and directs its immigration legal clinic, said the memos obtained in its lawsuit reflected the Bush administration’s effort to appear tough on immigration enforcement during the unsuccessful push to pass comprehensive immigration legislation in 2006, and amid rising anger over illegal immigration.

“It looks like what happened here is that the law enforcement strategy was hijacked by the political agenda of the administration,” he said.

Kelly A. Nantel, a spokeswoman for the immigration agency, defended the program. “For the first time in history, we continue to reduce the number of immigration fugitive cases,” she said, noting that the number of noncitizens at large with outstanding deportation orders, which peaked at 634,000 in the 2007 fiscal year, is now down to about 554,000. “These results speak for themselves and they are consistent with Congress’s mandate: locate and remove immigration absconders.”

Ms. Nantel said the number of fugitives with criminal backgrounds arrested in the 2008 fiscal year rose to 5,652, or 16 percent of 34,000 arrests, and nonfugitives fell to 8,062, or 23 percent.

Many Americans have welcomed roundups of what the agency calls “ordinary status violators” — noncitizens who have no outstanding order of deportation, but are suspected of being in the country unlawfully, either because they overstayed a visa or entered without one.

But Michael Wishnie, one of the authors of the report, who teaches law at Yale, said that random arrests of low-level violators in residential raids not only raised a new set of legal and humanitarian issues, including allegations of entering private homes without warrants or consent and separating children from their caretakers, but was “dramatically different from how ICE has sold this program to Congress.”

“If we just want to arrest undocumented people,” he said, “we can do it much more cheaply.”

Congressional financing for the fugitive operations program rose to $218 million in the 2008 fiscal year, from $9 million in 2003, as the number of seven-member teams multiplied to 104 from 8.

In Congressional briefings and public statements since 2003, agency officials have repeatedly said that given the vast number of immigrants with outstanding deportation orders, the program will focus its resources on the roughly 20 percent with a criminal background.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo dated Jan. 22, 2004, underscored that commitment: “Effective immediately, no less than 75 percent of all fugitive operations targets will be those classified as criminal aliens” — noncitizens with a criminal record as well as an order of deportation. It added that “collateral apprehensions” — immigration violators encountered by chance during an operation — would not be counted in that percentage.

But on Jan. 31, 2006, a new memo changed the rules. The directive, from John P. Torres, acting director of the agency, raised each team’s “target goal” to 1,000 a year, from 125.

And it removed the requirement that at least 75 percent of those sought out for arrest be criminals. Instead, it told the teams to prioritize cases according to the threat posed by the fugitive, with noncriminals in the lowest of five categories. And it repeated that “collateral apprehensions will not count” toward the 1,000 arrest quota.

But that standard, too, was dropped nine months later. A new memo from Mr. Torres said “nonfugitive arrests may now be included” to reach the required 1,000 arrests. On average, however, it said at least half of those arrested by each team should be fugitives. It also promised to “ensure the maximum availability of detention space for fugitive arrest operations.”

One result was an increase in noncriminals held in immigration detention. Another, the Migration Policy Institute report concluded, was that the percentage of criminal fugitives arrested plummeted, to 9 percent in the year that ended Sept. 30, 2007, from 39 percent in the 2004 fiscal year.

That same year, 15,646, or 51 percent of those arrested, had an outstanding deportation order, but no criminal record, and 12,084, or 40 percent, were termed “ordinary status violators” who did not fit any of the program’s priority categories.

The report said the program relied on a database riddled with errors, and that many deportation orders were issued without the subject in court, sometimes because of faulty addresses.

The looser rules were reflected in sweeps like one conducted in New Haven in June 2007. During the raid, lawyers at Yale’s immigration law center said, agents who found no one home at an address specified in a deportation order simply knocked on other doors until one opened, pushed their way in, and arrested residents who acknowledged that they lacked legal status.

Of the 32 arrested and scattered to jails around New England, only 5 had outstanding deportation orders, and only 1 or 2 had criminal records.
Read More in the New York Times

A Warm and Fuzzy Day in Austin

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - Jan. 14, 2009
Yesterday was a rare day in Texas History. The opening day of the 81st Texas Legislaturerare day of amiability in the Texas Legislature was exceptionally warm and fuzzy as Democrat after Democrat seconded the nomination of Rep. Joe Strauss of Bexar County for Speaker of the Texas House. Voted Speaker by Acclaimation, Strauss, a two-term representative (R) is heralded as the conciliator, listener, get things done for the people guy for the job. His election was greeted with a standing ovation with everyone in the house on their feet. There were more "hold outs" when the crowd was urged to thank outgoing Speaker Tom Craddick and his wife for their service to the State of Texas!

Today the real work begins. As the House and Senate begin debating what laws need to be repealed and what needs to be passes, much of the warmth will probably fade. The Trans Texas Corridor has merely been rebranded -- not killed. Years of special interest bought and paid for private public partnership toll road legislation needs to be wiped from the books. Statutes which allows TxDOT or contractors on the TTC who contaminate Texas property in planning or constructing the Trans Texas Corridor to 1. perform their own environmental studies 2. condemn contaminated property and adjacent property must be wiped from the books.

Texas needs to repeal Perry's substitute for the Texas Toll Road Moratorium which requires market pricing on Texas toll roads. Hopefully, the Obama administration will repeal George W. Bush's outgoing gift to the American people - requirements of market valuation aka congestion pricing on Federal toll roads and HOV lanes. Congestion pricing does not clean up the air. It merely fleeces the least able to pay of more dollars when they have to commute during rush hour while allowing those with discretionary income or able to pass along the cost to clients, employers or the american public through expense accounts to utilize the fast lane while the rest are left in their exhaust fumes in traffic gridlock. Local townships, cities and counties eat the fruit of so-called congestion pricing as they scramble to maintain and expand local roadways to accommodate the cars which seek other routes home and to work.

Another hot topic this session is education financing. School funding has not been indexed to meet inflation. Cuts in education funding in the prior session is resulting in cuts in programs, staffing.

Jim Mattox's last public remarks: "In Texas we did not win the election."

Filmed by Scott Cobb -
Austin, Texas - West Caucus Advisory Committee Meeting - Nov. 2008

PART 1


PART 2 - History and purpose to restrict voter participation with specific directions on how to organize to win "the election".

Message from Tom Love

Posted by Faith for Tom Love for U.S. Congress District 24 Campaign - Nov. 4, 2008
As we enter the final stretch of this incredible race, I want to take a minute to thank you.

This nation is built on the hard work and "elbow grease" of the American people. I have traveled District 24, meeting my neighbors. I've seen the dedication of North Texans. Despite personal struggles, I've witnessed neighborhoods and communities come together to help neighbors and strangers. You solve problems, care for your families, and work for a living, while serving others - like those who had to evacuate the Texas Gulf Coast. For some this would seem heroic, but for the "extraordinary people here in North Texas, "it's normal -- it's what we do."

It is my honor to be the Democratic nominee for U.S. Congress for the 24th District. I have grown as I've traveled and listened and learned from you.

I give each voter, encourager, volunteer, and donor my heartfelt thanks. If the voters decide to send me to Washington, I will continue listening to you. Our nation is especially challenged right now but I am confident that the spirit which exists here in North Texas and the ingenuity and dedication of the people will prevail.

The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today. If you have not voted yet, PLEASE GO VOTE TODAY.

If you send me to Washington, I promise that I'll be the working man on the hill fighting for the good of the folks here in North Texas.

Thomas P. Love
Democratic Candidate for U.S. Congress District 24

Democratic fundraiser and famed lawyer Fred Baron dies of cancer

By JOE SIMNACHER - The Dallas Morning News - Thursday, October 30, 2008


Frederick M. “Fred” Baron, a plaintiff’s lawyer who amassed a fortune that he used to rejuvenate the Democratic Party in Texas, died Thursday afternoon of complications from cancer.

Mr. Baron, 61, catapulted into the national political limelight in August, when it was revealed he had paid to move a woman who had had an affair with former presidential hopeful Sen. John Edwards. Mr. Baron, who had been Mr. Edwards’ top fundraiser, said at the time that he did it only to help the woman.

In his last battle with a corporation, Mr. Baron got permission to use the drug Tysabri in an experimental treatment to try to save his life. His doctors at Mayo Clinic worked with the Federal Drug Administration to find a legal basis for using Tysabri to treat his final stage multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow.

The drug company, Biogen Idec Inc., argued that the experimental use of the drug — approved to treat multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease — might jeopardize it future use in chemotherapy.

Mr. Baron’s son, Andrew, detailed his father’s fight to get Tysabri in letters posted on his personal blog. That lobbying effort was joined by a host of prominent backers, including Lance Armstrong, the bicyclist and cancer survivor; Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton; Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass; and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who has brain cancer.

Mr. Baron was known in legal circles as the “King of the Toxic Torts” for his success in representing thousands of people injured by toxic substances, beginning with asbestos.

Selected as one of the nation’s 100 most influential lawyers in 2000 and 2006, Mr. Baron had become more widely known as a Democratic fundraiser and donor, having given nearly $3.5 million to the party.

Mr. Baron, who was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, moved to Smithville, Texas, with his mother, when he was 15. He was educated at the University of Texas at Austin, where he received a bachelor’s degree 1968, and a doctor of law degree in 1971.

Mr. Baron said a 1970 Ralph Nader speech in Austin influenced him to use the law to regulate business conduct in ways that government could not.

In 1977, after winning his first asbestos case, Mr. Baron founded his Dallas firm, Baron & Budd, with his wife, Lisa Blue.

He was highly successful litigating for plaintiffs injured by substances including asbestos, pesticides and lead. But he was criticized for operating a legal assembly line, and his detractors charged that he coached witnesses how to testify.

In 2002, he became president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. He sold his firm and moved to Washington D.C.

In 2003, Mr. Baron stopped practicing law and became the lead fundraiser for Sen. Edwards. The next year, he headed the Kerry-Edwards general election finance team.

In 2005, Mr. Baron established the Texas Democratic Trust, to booster the party on the verge of extinction as a state-wide political factor.

Mr. Baron’s political fundraising efforts are said to have been a major factor in the Democratic Party’s Dallas County sweep in the 2006 off-year election.

Mr. Baron lived in Dallas with his wife and three young children.

Read more in the Dallas Morning News

Middle-aged white women are this year's prized voting bloc

By TREVOR TOMPSON and ALAN FRAM - The Associated Press - Sun, Oct. 19, 2008
WASHINGTON — In past presidential elections, Veronica Deveso could have told you by now who she was backing and why. Not this time.

All the former taxi dispatcher from Hamburg, N.Y., wants is a candidate "with a solid plan to do something, almost anything," to bolster the economy and end the Iraq war. Dissatisfied with the campaign rhetoric she’s heard so far, Deveso, 56, remains "right at the top of that wall and could fall either way."

The wall she’s perched on is crowded. White women age 45 to 64, like Deveso, are one of this year’s most hotly contested voting blocs. They’re evenly divided between Barack Obama and John McCain and wide open to being pulled either way, according to a recent Associated Press-GfK Poll.

There are plenty of them, too, prompting both presidential campaigns to woo them vigorously. About 1 in 6 voters in the 2004 presidential election was a white woman in that age range, exit polls showed.

These are the boomer women — middle-aged daughters of the post-World War II generation. Many have long balanced jobs with households, and often they’re acutely aware of their families’ economic pressures because they write the checks, buy the groceries and fill the gas tank.

Feisty, demanding

They’re women used to demanding answers and making choices. With a worldwide economy that’s lurching toward recession, they’re demanding that the presidential candidates show them concrete solutions to the financial crisis and other problems.

"There’s a sense of precariousness" among these women, said Frederick Lynch, a government professor at California’s Claremont McKenna College who is researching a book on baby boomers. Women of this generation "are a little more savvy: 'Hey, bad things can happen, people can get sick, people can get laid off, and it doesn’t hurt my macho to admit that.’ "

As a group, these middle-aged white women have not yet been swayed by either contender — in contrast to black and Hispanic women, who back Obama by the same heavy proportions that minority men do. The women are split between McCain and Obama, and identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans in about equal numbers, the AP-GfK poll showed.

"If they came up with something about the economy that really made me feel like they have a really good handle on it," it would help, said Rae Ann Priester, 52, of Fresno, Calif., who is leaning toward Obama but could switch. "They’re sort of dancing around the issue."

Still persuadable

Forty-four percent of them remain persuadable — that is, either completely undecided or favoring one candidate while conceding that they may change their minds. That’s bigger than the 33 percent of all voters who are still persuadable.

"If you’re aged right in the middle like me, it’s hard to decide," said Deborah Nance, 56, of Wilmington, Del. "Go with the seasoned guy who might get in there and die the next day, or go with the young guy who you really don’t know all that much about."

The evenly divided boomer women stand in contrast to voters overall, who polls show have leaned toward Obama since the financial crisis intensified in recent weeks. And while voters overall trust Obama more than McCain on the economy, boomer women in the AP-GfK poll are about equally split over which candidate they prefer on the issue. They narrowly say Obama better understands how the financial crisis affects them.

The poll was conducted late last month, before the candidates released economic plans.

Challenge for Obama

Persuadable boomer women have two characteristics that have made things tougher for Obama.

Most don’t have college degrees. Less-educated whites have long been a difficult group for Obama.

And, most persuadable white, middle-aged women who are Democrats supported Hillary Clinton during the primaries, according to AP-Yahoo News polls.

"A lot of them, like me, might be Hillary supporters and were shocked to find out she didn’t get the nomination," Deveso said of white, middle-aged women.

Still, there are signs Obama is faring relatively well with boomer women.

His neck-and-neck showing with McCain among them is better than the 2004 performance by John Kerry. White women age 45 to 64 favored President Bush that year by 12 percentage points.

In the recent AP-GfK survey, more boomer women said Obama understands people like them. On the other hand, more said McCain has the right experience to be president.

McCain targets women

With so much at stake, McCain has targeted middle-aged white women with TV ads, direct mail and phone calls, using a message that focuses on economic concerns, said Sarah Simmons, the campaign’s director of strategy. That message is reinforced by running mate Sarah Palin, who "speaks to them in a very profound way," Simmons said.

The Obama campaign has run roundtables, blogs and house parties for women, and it has broadcast ads on equal pay and other issues on television shows that attract female viewers. Campaign spokeswoman Moira Mack said women will play "a hugely important role in this year’s election."

The AP-GfK Poll was conducted Sept. 27-30 and included cell and landline telephone interviews with 808 likely voters, for whom the margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. Included were interviews with 135 likely white female voters age 45-64, for whom the margin of sampling error was plus or minus 8.4 points.
Read more in the

Fort Worth Star Telegram

Obama's Voting Record

By Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff - Sunday, August 31, 2008
His eloquent words alone cannot be allowed to define Barack Hussein Obama.


However thin the Democratic presidential nominee's resume, his record is worth exploring. It's the best way to know what he's likely to do if elected.

The conclusion of those who have researched his record: He's vastly more liberal than his image.

How liberal? He's ranked as the most liberal U.S. senator -- to the left, even, of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who calls himself a socialist.

In Citizens Against Government Waste's 100-point rating of senators and congressman on fiscal responsibility, Obama got a mere 10.

And a Washington Times investigation of Obama's eight-year record in the Illinois state Senate finds that Obama was so far to the left on many votes that he made his liberal Democratic colleagues look like Rush Limbaugh.

Some examples of Obama's extremism in the Illinois Senate, as provided by The Washington Times :

- Obama was the only senator not to support a bill "to report suspected child abuse while protecting the identity of the facility or person providing the information." The bill passed 54-0-1 -- the one being Obama, who voted "present." It passed the Illinois House 117-0.

- Obama voted present "on a bill in committee requiring criminals to serve consecutive sentences for separate crimes involving convictions for severe bodily harm or sexual assault, but didn't vote at all when the measure came to the floor." The bill passed the Senate 54-0 and the House 118-0.

- Obama voted present on a bill "making it harder for abusive and neglectful parents to regain custody of their children." The Senate vote was 57-0-1, with the lone wolf being Obama.

- Obama skipped a vote on a bill "to prohibit convicted sex offenders from serving on school boards." It passed without him, 58-0 in the Senate and 106-0 in the House.

Adds the Times : "The records also show Mr. Obama voted 'no' on a bill allowing police officers to execute warrants and enter buildings without knocking if there was a reasonable belief a weapon would be used against them;

voted "present" on legislation requiring that minors who commit gun crimes on or near a school be prosecuted as adults; and did not vote on a bill requiring fingerprint background checks on school bus drivers.

"Mr. Obama was the only member of the state Senate to vote against a bill to prohibit the early release of convicted criminal sexual abusers; and was among only four who voted against bills to toughen criminal sentences, increase penalties for criminals whose offenses were committed in the furtherance of gang activities, and increase penalties for the delivery of Ecstasy and other designer drugs."

Obama also voted "present" in 2001 on three bills that required medical help for babies accidentally born in botched abortions. In 2002 he had another chance -- and actually voted against helping the survivors of failed abortions.

In 2003, as chairman he helped kill a similar bill in committee.

Meanwhile, as stories come out about his having learned at the feet of socialists and even a communist, Obama has tried to downplay his connections to admitted domestic terrorist William Ayers ('a guy who lives in my neighborhood,' Obama said in a primary debate). But in papers from Ayers' "Chicago Annenberg Challenge" released just this past week after a long battle, it appears the association between Obama and Ayers was much deeper. Obama served on the organization's board for years, for a time as chairman. And Ayers hosted Obama's first campaign fund-raiser.

"They in fact were partners in various entities and regularly exchanged ideas," writes Investor's Business Daily , "including on how to turn Chicago schools into re-education camps to create a generation of social revolutionaries."

Obama isn't just ignoring or running from his past. He's actively trying to cover over it: His campaign has threatened TV stations with their broadcast licenses for running ads noting Obama's link to Ayers.

Obama's record and his associations, past and present, define him, much more so than his lofty rhetoric. And he is the definition of an extremist far out of step with mainstream American values.

By every expert's assessment, this presidential election was the Democrats' to lose. And they very well may do that. In their zeal for change, and in succumbing to the cult of celebrity without asking questions first, they have chosen a nominee who is extreme in the extreme. His record, and his views, are only now coming out.

The Democrats may have fallen in love with someone they barely knew.

That hardly ever ends well.
Read more in the

Augusta Chronicle

Campaign cash cows are put out to pasture

By DENNIS CONRAD - Associated Press Writer - Sept. 19, 2008

WASHINGTON - This fall, many members of Congress will see a major source of campaign contributions disappear, possibly never to return.

Political action committees affiliated with mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are now banned from engaging in lobbying activities, including making donations. They were ordered to cease when the Bush administration engineered a government takeover of the quasi-governmental companies and put them under a conservatorship in an effort to help reverse a housing and credit crisis.

Whether the PACS come back in some form is likely to depend on the next Congress, says Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who, as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, says he will be open minded about it.

PACS, committees formed by business, labor, or other special-interest groups, raise money from their members or employees and make contributions to the campaigns of political candidates whom they support.

Both men seeking the presidency, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., agree on the need to monitor the federal takeover of the two mortgage concerns, but hold different views on what the PACS' ultimate fate should be.

Obama would make it more difficult for Freddie and Fannie to have PACS, saying he wants to reduce the influence of money over the political process. Obama's presidential campaign has raised more private money than any in history, but he doesn't accept PAC dollars. He opposes allowing Fannie and Freddie to be returned as profit-making enterprises whose possible losses are guaranteed by the government.

McCain favors taking both companies fully private and letting them determine whether they want PACS.

Ultimately, it may not matter what the next president thinks about the PACS. Neither McCain nor Obama is likely to veto a bill over whether it allows for PACS. And Congress will likely be under pressure to keep the campaign contribution spigot from those PACS turned off.

That pressure is likely to come from other parts of the finance industry, says Jonathan Koppell, a professor of political science at Yale University's School of Management. He noted that Fannie and Freddie's competitors have long believed the two had an unfair advantage that stemmed from cozy relations with Capitol Hill.

A spokesman for the American Bankers Association declined comment.

Since 2003, Democrats and Republicans have collected $2.3 million from the two PACs. That could sway some lawmakers to insist that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be reshaped as purely private businesses, which would allow them to revive their PACs.

The contributions are part of a lobbying arsenal that has invested $80 million over the past five years to win hearts and minds in the capital. Fannie and Freddie have spent big on hiring former White House officials and lawmakers. Some members of Congress have received tens of thousands of dollars from the PACS, especially those on committees with jurisdiction over the companies, including Frank.

"They had huge armies of lobbyists that were tripping over each other, so they developed friends on both sides of the aisle over the years," said Peter Fitzgerald, a Virginia banker and former Republican senator from Illinois. "Republicans got very tight with them over the years and they got very powerful."

Stephen Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based watchdog group, said the PACs' campaign cash to Congress has helped insulate Fannie and Freddie from oversight.

"The fundamental lack of rigorous accounting and adult supervision is one of the major reasons that taxpayers have had to take over these companies that are drowning in red ink," Ellis said.

The companies hold or guarantee some $5 trillion in outstanding mortgages, more than half the nation's total. It is unclear, experts say, what the taxpayers' responsibility will become. The future of the PACs may depend on how Fannie and Freddie are changed and whether they continue the affordable housing component that Congress has been required.

"If taxpayers continue to have any degree of involvement with these companies they should not be allowed to lavish campaign cash on their elected representatives," Ellis said. "Fannie and Freddie benefited from their close association with the federal government. They can't have it both ways again."

Fully privatized, the companies could have PACS, because corporations have the right to have them as a matter of free speech. On the other hand, the creation of fully governmental replacements would eliminate the possibility of PACS, as government agencies cannot lobby.

"I hope next year we will have a long and serious set of very inclusive discussions" on the issue," said Frank. "I don't want to prejudge that."

DFW area receives Gustav Evacuees

DISASTER RELIEF

The Volunteer Center of North Texas is working in collaboration with the American Red Cross, the North Texas Food Bank and The Salvation Army to prepare for a possible mass evacuation as a result of Hurricane Gustav.

As of Saturday, August 30, it has been announced that 4,100 individuals will be evacuated to our area. However, depending on where the hurricane makes landfall, it has been projected that 45,000 people, or more, could evacuate to the DFW Metroplex. Here's how the four organizations will coordinate the response:

• The American Red Cross will manage and oversee shelter operations.

• The Salvation Army will provide meals at all mass shelter locations.

• North Texas Food Bank will provide food for meal preparation.

If you wish to sign up to volunteer as needs arise, please download and fill out an application and email to volunteerme@volunteernorthtexas.org. You will be contacted and scheduled, as needed. For more information, call 1-866-797-8268.

URGENT NEED!

The Volunteer Center is in immediate need of volunteers to help serve meals at shelters that are already open for Hurricane Gustav evacuees. As the evacuation continues, volunteers will be needed for other roles as well. All volunteers must complete a volunteer application form. Volunteers SHOULD NOT go to a shelter expecting to volunteer without prior approval, as every volunteer must pass a criminal background check in order to serve. If you have any questions, please contact the Volunteer Center at 866-797-8268.


The Volunteers of North Texas web site for updates as they become available.

NOTE: The American Red Cross will hold volunteer training this weekend in Dallas and Fort Worth. The trainings will be offered 9:00 am - 5:00 pm at chapter headquarters in both cities. For more information, please visit http://www.redcrossdallas.org/ or call (214.678.4800) OR http://chisholmtrail.redcross.org/ or call (817) 336-8718).






By WFAA - Aug. 31, 2008

FORT WORTH — The City of Fort Worth is preparing to open three more shelters for guests leaving the Gulf Coast as Hurricane Gustav approaches, bringing the total to eight.

Ten buses with evacuees from the New Orleans area were expected to arrive at the Wilkerson-Greines Activity Center, 5201 C.A. Roberson Boulevard, by 7:30 p.m. From there, they will be dispatched to the following shelter sites:

• Worth Heights, 3551 New York Ave.
• Highland Hills, 1600 Glasgow Road
• Greenbriar, 5200 Hemphill St.
• Handley/Meadowbrook, 6201 Beaty St.
• Eugene McCray, 4932 Wilbarger St.
• Martin Luther King Community Center, 5565 Truman Drive
• North Tri-Ethnic Community Center, 2950 Roosevelt Ave.
• Fire Station Community Center, 1501 Lipscomb.

Pets will be housed at the Fort Worth Animal Care and Control Division, 4900 Martin St. Guests can call 817-392-3737 to make sheltering arrangements for their pets. All pets will be microchipped to ensure they are returned to their owners.

Want to help? Contact the Volunteer Center of North Texas at 817-335-9137.

The American Red Cross is welcoming cash donations at this time.

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - Aug. 31, 2008
In Arlington Davis Street Church of Christ and the Salvation Army expected the arrival of several hundred evacuees Sunday night. A few had arrived at the Salvation Army shelter in Arlington by mid day Sunday.

Obama Needs More Than Change
By Philip Klein - The American Spectator - Aug. 27, 2008

DENVER -- Tuesday was a great night -- for Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately for the Democrats, the evening didn't do much to advance the candidacy of the man who will actually be their party's nominee.

It's true that Clinton helped to unify the party after a protracted primary by declaring herself "a proud supporter of Barack Obama" and saying, in as many ways as she could, that "he must be our President." But her speech was weak in explaining why Obama must be elected.

This was not an isolated example. Throughout the night, one after the other, Democratic speakers came on stage and made a case for Obama that could have been made for any generic Democrat

.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer ... fired up the crowd with a rousing call for change, but when it came to pitching the man who will be the party's nominee, he couldn't do much better than, "Can we afford four more years? Is it time for a change? When do we need it? And who do we need as the next President of the United States of America? That's right. Barack Obama is the change we need!"

Mark Warner, former Virginia governor ....

His meandering speech talked about "the race to future" and declared that, "we need a president who understands the world today, the future we seek and the change we need. We need Barack Obama as the next President of the United States." The argument for why we specifically need Obama never got more substantive than that.

It's true that this is a change election and that an overwhelming majority of Americans disapprove of President Bush -- which is why Democrats went into this year as the favorites to win the White House.

Obama's challenge is not to convince Americans that they need change, but to overcome the public's reservations about whether he is the man to deliver it. The Democratic National Convention could have been a four-day infomercial to convince skeptics why Barack Obama is ready to be president. So far, other than a successful speech by Michelle Obama, the convention has largely failed to present a case that will sway undecided voters

...

The fact that Democrats are having such a difficult time making the case for Obama without attacking President Bush cuts to the underlying problem facing Obama's candidacy -- that he's a freshman Senator who hasn't accomplished anything of significance.

In the Democratic primaries, the tale of how Obama gave up a high-paying Wall Street job to become a community organizer in Chicago made liberal audiences swoon, but it doesn't resonate as deeply among the general electorate.

Next week, by contrast, Republicans in Minneapolis will have four days to highlight McCain's character, heroic war record, and decades of experience.

Read more in the American Spectator
Philip Klein is a reporter for The American Spectator.

Credentialing process amok. So what else is new?

Chaos on the Convention Floor
By Paul Kane - Washington Post - Aug. 26, 2008
DENVER -- The convention floor has turned into an overstuffed pinata, as staff have told delegates the floor is essentially shut down.

Staff are informing delegates no one else is allowed on the floor, meaning no one will leave the floor and risk losing their place.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) had to beg to be allowed to cut across the floor to find the Maryland delegation. "Jesus Christ," Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) just yelled, denied access to finding the delegates from the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

Police yelled at delegates behind the New York section to move in one direction, only to have security on the other end send them back the way they came.

Hundreds of delegates are cordoned off under the stands, denied entry into the hall.

The confusion comes on the heels of a day's worth of complaints from delegates and party insiders about a credentialing process run amok.
Read more in the Washington Post

Democratic Convention Monday Night Links

Democraitc Convention - LOGISTICS - SET AND PODIUM

CREDENTIALS COMMITTEE by Eliseo Roqaues=Arroyo, Co Chiar Credentials Committee, Former Executive Director, Democratic Party of Puerto Rico

CREDENTIALS COMMITTEE by James Roosevelt Jr. Co Chair Credentials Committee Announces full voting status for MI and FL delegates.

CREDENTIALS COMMITTEE by the Hon. Alexis Hermann, Credentials Committee Co-Chair and Former Secretary of Labor

RULES COMMITTEE by Sunita Leeds Announces appointment of Democratic Change Commission to address role of unpledged delegates in future nomination process.

RULES COMMITTEE by Mary Rose Oakar Salute to Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones and nomination of permanent officers of convention.

RULES COMMITTEE by David Walters

Today in Denver from Carol Alvarado

Posted by Carl Whitmarsh for Carol Alvarado - Sun Aug 24, 2008 1:32 pm (PDT)
Convention Report from Carol Alvarado from the Democratic National Convention, a member of the Convention's Rules Committee:

Today the Rules Committee (one of one only 3 standing committees of the convention), approved a resolution establishing The Democratic Change Commission. In no later than 60 days after the November election, the DNC will establish the commission to review:

1. Timing of the Primaries and Caucuses (for 2012 presidential election)- possibly requiring that all caucuses/ primaries will be held prior to first Tuesday in March of the election year and that no caucus /primary will be held before Feb 1st of the calendar year. The commission will also review the sequence and scheduling of primaries/ caucuses. This year we had 22 primaries on the same day!

2. Delegates- possibly reducing the number of unpledged party leader and elected official delegates in order to enlarge the role and influence of primary and caucus voters in the presidential nominating process.

3. Caucuses- the use of caucus/convention system for any stage of the delegate selection process by any State Democratic Party shall be approved by the DNC Rules & Bylaws Cmte. The goal is to ensure that at each stage, any caucus or convention will be adequately planned, organized and staffed!

The commission will consist of 35 members and 2 co-chairs, Membership will be divided equally between men and women and shall be geographically and demographically diverse. Members will be appointed by the Chair of the DNC.

We approved the permanent officers of the convention:

Permanent Chair: Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Co-Chairs:
Governor Kathleen Sebelius
State Senator Leticia Van de Putte (a Tejana!)
Mayor Shirley Franklin

Vice Co-Chairs;
Governor Christine Gregoire
Congressman Robert Wexler
Mayor Michael Coleman
Maria Elena Durazo

Secretary:
Alice Travis Germond

We also approved the rules for the convention. No controversy, just a lot of unity.

Carol Alvarado, a former Houston City Council Member, the Democratic nominee for State Representative, District 145 in Harris County, and a National Delegate is one of 25 members that are appointed to the Rules Committee by the Chairman, Governor Dean. Each standing committee of the convention consists of 186 members. (25 appt by chair and the remainder come from states and Dems Abroad).

One of the most despicable alliances this election cycle: Obama defends Swift Boat financier

Obama on Sunday met with and defended a primary financier of the group that helped sink Kerry’s 2004 bid.
Photo: AP


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12591.html

Update in a slightly related news - Obama met and praised an actual swiftboater




By KENNETH P. VOGEL Politico - 8/17/08
RENO, Nev. — Barack Obama on Sunday met with — and defended — one of the primary financers of the group that was perhaps most responsible for sinking Sen. John F. Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid.

Obama huddled privately with T. Boone Pickens in a small conference room in the bowels of a casino hotel to discuss the legendary Texas energy trader’s much-publicized energy policy proposal.

But while the two men posed for pictures before the meeting, Obama was asked how it felt to be meeting with the man “who tore down” Kerry’s campaign.

Pickens, who gave $3 million to the anti-Kerry 527 group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, smiled awkwardly as Obama fielded the question.

Obama was asked how it felt to be meeting with the man “who tore down” Kerry’s campaign.:

“Ah, you know, he’s got a lot longer track record than that,” Obama said. “He’s been doing, ah, he’s a legendary entrepreneur and you know, one of the things that I think we have to unify the country around is having an intelligent energy policy.”

But Pickens is more than just a Republican activist. He was among the most generous donors to the outside groups colloquially known as 527s that both Obama and McCain have decried as exploiting a major loophole in campaign finance laws.

In addition to his contributions to Swift Boat Veterans, Pickens gave $2.5 million to the Karl Rove-linked 527 group Progress for America and also has been a major bundler for Republican candidates.

Read AP Story story on Politico

All Votes Aren’t Equal: Texas Credentials Report Cites Evidence of Procedural Irregularities

This is part of a multi-part series. See Daily Kos and Texas Campaign 2008 for the first part of the series.Crossposted on DAILY KOS
By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - August 12, 2008
I just received a copy of the 2008 Texas Democratic Convention Credentials Committee's report from TDP Staffer Jim Boyton. The summary is below:

STATEMENT ON RULES AND PROCEDURES
The Committee heard heart-felt, dispiriting testimony from witnesses representing hundreds of challengers about improprieties at many county/senatorial district conventions. Even though the Committee could not always ascertain the factual predicate necessary to divine a remedy that would deny the fruits of the wrongdoing to the violators without harming the effort of welcoming participation by tens of thousands of new Democrats and beginning the healing process, the Committee implores the Party to take stringent steps to prevent recurrence of the following types of infractions:
• Abandoning the convention leadership’s responsibility to ensure credentials go only to those properly elected at the precinct conventions below as properly reflected on the precinct convention minutes returned in a timely manner;

• Allowing participation by alternates or visitors in the voting in precinct caucuses or the voting on the floor of the convention;

• Not recognizing delegates on the floor to challenge the approval of the nominating committee’s nominees for4 delegate-at-large without allowing individual challenges;

• Having one person serving in multiple positions, e.g. Chair of the Tabulations Committee, Rules Committee and Credentials Committee simultaneously as well as adopting and enforcing special rules;

• Claiming to suspend the rules or adopting special rules under the rubric of Robert’s Rules of Order in order to operate in direct violation of the Rules of the Texas Democratic Party;

• Holding joint conventions of different senatorial districts within a county, including joint Nominations or other committees;

• Not appointing members of the Credentials or other committees at the time and in the manner prescribed in the rules, including not in open meetings or not properly balanced;

• Ordering precinct conventions to be ignored and to be reheld without proper factual basis found by the appropriate authorities and without opportunity for sufficient notice to all potential precinct voters;

• Not having the precinct convention minutes and all exhibits made available in a timely manner to anyone wanting to use those materials for supporting any Democratic candidates;

• Not addressing the time frame for the credential verification and challenge processes so that those matters can be resolved sufficiently in advance of the opening of the conventions to avoid long delays in the convention before conducting their other business.

The Preamble of the 2008 Credentials Committee Report to the SDEC and Texas Democratic State Convention addresses the expectations of the 2.8 million Texas primary voters:

PREAMBLE
On March 4, 2008, some 2.8 million Texans exuberantly turned out to select the leaders that they wanted to carry forward the Democratic banner in the fall election. These people cast their votes to restore the levers of government in our county and state to those dedicated to implementing policies and democratic values in the best interest of all Americans.

An unprecedented million or so of those voters also participated in their precinct conventions in hopes of helping the presidential candidate of their choice obtain the Democratic nomination to lead that campaign in the fall. Those Democrats rightfully expected the convention process at both the precinct and the county/senatorial district convention levels to be conducted fairly and openly in accordance with the rules and laws applicable to the most important of all rights – the right to vote.

Acknowleding that many of the conventions were conducted fairly, they stated:

For the most part, the conventions were able to conduct their important business with due respect for the rules and the rights for all involved. The conventions did so in spite of the unprecedented numbers of participants, the vast majority of whom had never participated in their conventions beforehand, and cumbersome or arcane rules and procedures. The amazing success of the conventions is due to the dedication, patience and good faith of the scores of thousands involved.

They attributed some of the problems to:

However, constraints of time or facilities, misunderstanding of the rules, miscommunication between the people involved, or occasionally excess zeal in trying to advance the cause of a particular presidential candidate, caused improprieties or mistakes to be made in the process.

The Preamble explains the importance of the Challenge Process:

The Democratic Party devised the rules after decades of experience where those in positions of power often overrode the rights of others, sometimes even of the majority. The rules are designed to give everyone a fair opportunity to participate and any transgression of those rights, regardless of how well intentioned or innocent the cause of the transgression, is a serious matter. For that reason the Party has established the challenge process over which this Committee has been deliberating these past three weeks.

The committee acknowledged that they did not remedy all the challenges they affirmed and they did not enforce the rules to the fullest extent:

This report contains the recommendations of the committee to the SDEC as how to resolve all of the challenges that came before the Committee. The Committee recognizes that these recommendations do not always enforce the letter of the rules to the fullest. This is done consciously and advisedly.

Apportioning presidential delegates at the convention creates disunity:

In the heat of the convention process, where those supporting competing candidates vie for delegates, passions run high and feelings are often injured.

This year the high turn-out of convention attendees further exacerbated the divisions among Texas Democrats:

The unique obstacles created by trying to accommodate such unprecedented participation in inadequate facilities in such a short time for planning often exacerbated the sense of injury.

The Challenge Process is designed to facilitate healing among Democratic Convention participants:

The Committee strongly believes that it is crucial to our common pursuit of success in the fall elections to use the resolution of these challenges to commence the healing of those bruised feelings and the coming-back together of the factions. For that reason, the Committee suggested that the local participants involved always try to reach a mutual accommodation amongst themselves before forcing the Committee to rule on certain challenges. The Committee appreciates and commends those challengers and respondents in many senate districts that did so. The Committee has recommended approval of those agreements.

The Committee stated that they decided in some instances not to require full compliance with the rules, attempting "to balance" opposing sides and hopefully create ways for participants to work together in the future:

In other instances, the Committee has recommended resolution of challenges that balance the competing interests of not discouraging participation by those new to the process and insisting on full compliance with rules. In these instances, the Committee chose not apply the harshest relief available for these violations. These decisions are not made lightly and do not reflect in any regard a derogation of the good faith and hard effort of those bringing those challenges, often in the face of powerful interests or community pressures not to do so. The balanced resolutions are recommended not only because the available data is sometimes insufficient to tie a particular remedy to the appropriate person or the remedy may harm the potential participation in the state convention of those not involved in the violation of the rules; but also because the Committee feels these resolutions are appropriate to encourage those involved to look beyond their arguments for or against the particular challenge to see how they can begin working in harmony again for our common purpose in the fall.

The Committee urges the Party to Reform and Modernize the Infrastructure of the Convention Process:

That said, the Committee .. encourages the Party as a whole to reform and modernize the infrastructure for the convention process at all levels. The specifics of those reforms are beyond the purview of this Committee but we have heard the testimony of so many people that believe the processes to be inadequate that we feel compelled to express that on their behalf.

The report contains summaries of challenges they reviewed. They did not accept for review all the challenges presented to them.

The Committee makes specific comment on certain egregious violations

In the Credentials Committee Report Summary of Challenges they frequently affirm the challenge and state that they have no appropriate remedy.

This report is released long after the deadline for filing National Challenges. Ironically, the report acknowledges the failure of precinct, county and senatorial district officials to provide records and minutes for review and utilization by those wishing to file challenges, yet the Credentials Committee of the 2008 Democratic State Convention missed the deadline themselves. The report was not "written" when presented to the Convention. Mr. Boyton had to compile the report from sources which included video tape and other convention/committee records. I am aware of several people who have been requesting this report repeatedly since the close of the 2008 Convention. I am thankful that it is now available. It is a tool for use in refining the process to ensure that future conventions are not as divisive and detrimental to the purposes most Democrats hold in common.