Showing posts with label Corporate Colonalism. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Quadriplegic Undocumented Immigrant Dies In Mexico After Being Deported From His Hospital Bed

n August 2010, Quelino Ojeda Jimenez, an undocumented construction worker in Chicago, fell 20 feet off a building while on the job and was paralyzed from the neck down. Unable to pay his own medical expenses, he was deported back to Mexico on December 22, 2010.

But he never made it home. Instead, he was left to languish at a small Mexican hospital that was unequipped to handle his needs. UPI reports that Ojeda died on New Year’s Day:

A young man returned to Mexico by a Chicago-area hospital after a construction injury that paralyzed him from the neck down has died, officials say.

Advocates say Quelino Ojeda Jimenez, 21, spent months in a small hospital in Mexico that did not have the facilities to care for a quadriplegic, the Chicago Tribune reported. [...]
“He never even made it to his home,” said Jesus Vargas, a friend in Chicago. “He was always in the hospital stuck to the machine that helped him breathe.”

Ojeda, who was working illegally in the United States, was treated at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Ill., after a 20-foot fall paralyzed him. The hospital transferred him to Mexico three days before Christmas in 2010.

Ojeda’s deportation followed a heated battle between the hospital and immigration advocates. He was transferred to a Mexican hospital in an air ambulance despite protests from Ojeda and his family that the move would jeopardize his health.

In light of his death, the Chicago hospital that treated him has said it will reexamine its policies for treating international patients.

Ojeda told the Chicago Tribune last February that he feared returning to Mexico because he “need[ed] a lot of things they don’t have.” Tragically, his fears turned out to be all too real.

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Quadriplegic Undocumented Immigrant Dies In Mexico After Being Deported From His Hospital Bed

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Seven Awful Things Ann Coulter Just Said About Occupy Wall Street

Occupy

Seven Awful Things Ann Coulter Just Said About Occupy Wall Street

By Alan Scherstuhl Thu., Nov. 17 2011 at 5:00 PM

Comments (116)

Categories: Occupy

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The world does not exist unless Ann Coulter coats it in awfulness.

Ann Coulter's job is to say as many awful things as she can in the increasingly tiny slices of media time that she is afforded. Currently, she's peddling her book on talk radio stations around the country and probably wishing the folks at Fox would call her more often.

This morning, she telephoned Bryan Sussman at KSFO, San Francisco's official media home for people who complain all day that their views have no media home. As you might expect, they talked about her book (SPOILER: The villain is liberals!) as well as the Occupy movement. A total pro, she managed to say at least seven awful things in her twenty minutes:

1. "I knew there would be mob uprisings again. They are demonic."

2. "What I like most about them is that they have no point."

3. "At the protest in Tel Aviv in Israel, they set up guillotines in the square. And you have the computer-generated voice speaking on behalf of Occupy Wall Street saying 'The voice of the people is anonymous. We are legion, for we are many' - directly from the demon in scripture."

4. "I guess it's fun to destroy stuff. As they found out during the French Revolution, it's lots of fun to just start randomly murdering people - this is the way it always is with mobs."

5. "Maybe it will take down a government, but it will be Obama's government."

6. "Remember the lesson from my book: It just took a few shootings at Kent State to shutthat down for good."

7. After Sussman declared that he wished that the arrested Bank of America occupiers had been thrown in with the general population of prisoners, and then admitted that he did not know whether or not they had, Coulter compared the "special treatment" the protesters receive at the hands of police to that of French aristocrats who brought along servants when imprisoned. NOTE: This is too stupid to transcribe.

Also, when mentioning Bill Ayers's "homosexual lover," Coulter said "homosexual" with the same sneering disbelief that cowboys in picante sauce commercials apply to "New York City." And mentioning Bill Ayers's "homosexual lover" during a conversation about Occupy Wall Street is just as relevant as me right now mentioning, say, that chunky kid from The Bad News Bears -- the original, not the remake. What ever happened to him?

(HE WAS PROBABLY GUILLOTINED BY OCCUPY WALL STREET.)

Finally, because she's a pro, Coulter laughed politely at the morning-talk dumbassery of Sussman and company, who made a game of coining new names for the Occupy crowd: "Occu-peers," "defocrats," "Communist Republic of American People."

This proves yet again that outrage is easier than comedy.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

The 2012 Election And The Ten Most Powerful States

With just less than a year to go until the 2012 election and most states having wrapped up their once-a-decade redistricting process, we’re starting to get a good sense about where the key House battles will take place.
A combination of an unpopular Congress, a volatile electorate, and changes resulting from redistricting mean there could be dozens of competitive races in just a handful of states.
But which states?
Today we look at 10 states that could determine whether Democrats retake the House or the GOP holds its majority next year.
To the Line!
10. New Hampshire: This state isn’t on the Line because of anything having to do with redistricting since it only has two congressional seats. Recent history has shown the state to be a central national battleground, however. Both New Hampshire seats went Democratic in 2006 when the party won the majority and then flipped to Republican when the GOP retook the House in 2010. And both will remain competitive next year, no matter how they are drawn. If Democrats win one of them, they’ve had a good night. If they win both, they’ve probably reclaimed the House again.
9. Ohio/Pennsylvania (tie): These states are really pretty similar so we’re lumping them together. In both states, the GOP is drawing the lines, but the current delegation is so heavily Republican that it’s hard to both add new opportunities and shore up their current members. Both states feature about five Republicans in swing districts that need to be strengthened. If the GOP can hold most or all of those seats on Election Day, they have probably done enough to hold the House.
8. North Carolina: The GOP targeted four – count ‘em, four – Tarheel State Democrats in redistricting and has a good chance against each. Here’s how the hierarchy goes: Republicans should be able to take Rep. Brad Miller’s seat, barring a real disaster. They also have a great chance to take Rep. Larry Kissell out. If the GOP can also beat Democratic Reps. Heath Shuler and Mike McIntyre, they have probably held the House with ease.
7. Texas: Democrats got a huge break here when a Washington, D.C., court declined to pre-clear the Texas GOP’s aggressive redistricting map last week. The ensuing court battle means a San Antonio-based panel of judges will draw an interim map for 2012 – a map that is expected to move this from a state where the GOP would have gained three seats and Democrats one (the state is adding four new seats) to one where Democrats could gain four seats. Four seats would be huge for Democrats, given that they only need 25 nationally to retake the majority. At the same time, we have no idea what kind of map the judges will draw, and they may protect incumbents.
6. Colorado: A Denver judge last week picked a map that had been drafted by Democrats, which means this is a big opportunity for the party. Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) is newly imperiled, and freshman Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.) got a tougher district as well. Beating Coffman would be a particularly good sign since Democrats are trying to make the 2010 election about the extremeness of GOP incumbents. Coffman is very conservative but he’s also a proven campaigner with three statewide wins under his belt. If he loses in a district that still has a slight conservative lean that bodes poorly for GOP freshmen without such a track record in sometimes tougher districts.
5. Arizona: Guess what? Another break for Democrats here, after the state Supreme Court on Thursdayreinstated the chairwoman of the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission. Gov. Jan Brewer (R) and the GOP-led state Senate had removed the chairwoman because they saw the map the commission drafted as favoring Democrats. And indeed, Democrats will have chances. The map makes the state’s new district a Democratic-leaning one, endangers freshman Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and makes Rep.Gabrielle Giffords’ (D-Ariz.) district safer in case she can’t run for reelection. If Democrats can win all three of those seats, it’s going to go a long ways toward regaining the majority.
4. New York: Three people have complicated the Empire State’s redistricting process: Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and special election winners Kathy Hochul (D) and Bob Turner (R). Cuomo has suggested he might veto a partisan-drawn map, which could throw many seats up for grabs. The wins by Hochul and Turner earlier this year, meanwhile, complicated the calculus for which two seats will be eliminated. (The state is losing two seats due to population growth that lagged the national average.) But at the very least, plenty of Upstate districts have changed hands in recent years and many of them will continue to be competitive regardless of how the map is drawn.
3. Illinois: Democrats really reshuffled the map here and could win three, four or even five new seats. Democrats should be able to take seats left behind by Reps. Joe Walsh (R) and Adam Kinzinger (R), who are running in primaries against other GOP incumbents. They should also be able to beat Rep. Bob Dold (R) in the new 10th district. Beyond that, if they beat Rep. Bobby Schilling (R) they’re having a good night, and if they beat Rep. Tim Johnson (R) they may be able to win the House.
2. California: The nation’s biggest state has been an electoral afterthought for some time, going a nearly a decade with only one congressional seat changing hands between 2002 and 2010. That won’t happen again. At least three GOP-held seats are likely to go Democratic in the newly reshuffled map crafted by the state’s new citizen’s redistricting commission. But Democrats think they can run up the score even more, while the GOP strategists believe they can win Democratic-held seats elsewhere to even the score. We could see the results spanning from a total wash to Democrats gaining eight seats. Anything on the top end of that scale would be a major Democratic win.
1. Florida: This remains the biggest question mark still left in redistricting: Just how potent are Florida’s new redistricting standards? The constitutional amendments passed by voters last year try to rein in partisan gerrymandering. Republicans insist they will still be able to add two GOP-leaning seats on top of their 19-to-6 advantage in the state’s delegation. But if the amendments have teeth, Democrats could gain back a handful of seats – as many as five or six, according to their estimates. That’s a big swing. Of course, it all depends on what the courts do and so far the courts have been pretty good to Democrats.

Van Jones Reveals Future Of Occupy Wall Street

VAN JONES REVEALS FUTURE OF OCCUPY WALL ST: ‘YOU HAVEN’T SEEN ANYTHING YET’

Posted on November 17, 2011 at 12:51pm by Madeleine Morgenstern
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Van Jones said Occupy Wall Street is going to be recruiting 2,000 candidates to run for office for "phase two" of the movement. (AP File Photo)

Van Jones offered a prediction Wednesday for those who have been watching the Occupy Wall Street movement: “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

The former Obama administration “green jobs czar” — an ardent supporter of the Occupy movement since its inception — said in an interview with CNN that the movement is ready to evolve into the areas of politics and policy-making, much like the Tea Party did in 2010.

“You’re going to see an evolution now as you go from protests, keep the protests, but now expand into politics,” Jones said. “And if you thought there was an earthquake in 2010 when the Tea Party moved into politics, wait until this 99 percent movement moves over into politics. You haven’t seen anything yet.”

Jones said the movement is “going to be recruiting 2,000 candidates to run for office now under this 99 percent banner“ as Occupy Wall Street enters ”phase two.”

“Phase two, you move from anger to answers. You move from pointing out the problem to pointing out the solutions,” Jones said. “What you’re going to see now is you have the Occupy movement at the center, that’s the beating heart.”

Friday, October 21, 2011

Obama All US Troops Out Of Iraq By The End Of Year

NBC, msnbc.com and news services

updated 15 minutes ago

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday declared an end to the Iraq war, one of the longest and most divisive conflicts in U.S. history, announcing that all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from the country by year's end.

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“As promised the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over,” Obama

said.

Live vote: Was Iraq war worth the human, financial costs?

"Today I can say that troops in Iraq will be home for the holidays."

Image: U.S. soldiers take a rest in the shade of armoured vehicles at Camp Liberty in Baghdad

Mohammed Ameen / Reuters

U.S. soldiers take a rest in the shade of armoured vehicles at a courtyard at Camp Liberty in Baghdad. U.S troops are scheduled to pull out of the country by the end of this year, according to President Barack Obama.

The president made the announcement at a White House briefing following a private video conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki

. Obama said the two were in full agreement about how to move forward.

The withdrawal of American troops marks a major milestone in the war that started in 2003 and resulted in the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. More than 4,400 American military members have been killed, and another 2,000 wounded since the U.S. invasion.

"Over the next two months, our troops in Iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home,'' Obama said.

Republicans criticize Obama over Iraq withdrawal

"The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops,'' Obama said. "That is how America's military efforts in Iraq will end.''

The U.S. military role in Iraq has been mostly reduced to advising the security forces in a country where levels of violence had declined sharply from a peak of sectarian strife in 2006-2007, but attacks remain a daily occurrence.

The U.S. has been withdrawing about 520 military personnel every day in accordance with the mission set by Obama in early 2009, sources told NBC News.

Denis McDonough, the White House's deputy national security adviser, said that in addition to the standard Marine security detail, the U.S. will also have 4,000 to 5,000 contractors to provide security for U.S. diplomats, including at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and U.S. consulates in Basra and Erbil.

US troops in Iraq

WAR PRICE TAG FOR U.S. (as of Oct. 1, 2011) Iraq cost to date: $712.2 billion
(Current cost: $3.8 billion per month)
TOTAL TROOPS DEPLOYED TODAY
Iraq: About 39,000 U.S. troops
CASUALTIES Total U.S. military killed in Iraq: 4,469
U.S. military killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom: 4,408
U.S. military killed in Operation New Dawn: 61
Total U.S. military wounded in Iraq: 32,213
U.S. military wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom: 31,921
U.S. military killed in Operation New Dawn: 292
AMPUTEES (as of August 2011):
Iraq: 1,146
Source: NBC News

The American withdrawal by the end of 2011 was sealed in a deal between the two countries when George W. Bush was president. Obama declared the end of the combat mission earlier this year. The main sticking point has been legal immunity for any U.S. forces that remain.

Negotiations on troop status In recent months, Washington had been discussing with Iraqi leaders the possibility of several thousand American troops remaining to continue training Iraqi security forces.

Slideshow: US troops leave Iraq (on this page)

Throughout the discussions, Iraqi leaders refused to give U.S. troops immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, and the Americans refused to stay without that guarantee.

Moreover, Iraq's leadership has been split on whether it wanted American forces to stay.

Senior Iraqis say in private they would like a U.S. troop presence to keep the peace between Iraqi Arabs and Kurds in a dispute over who controls oil-rich areas in the north of Iraq.

Obama keeps campaign promise with Iraq

When the 2008 agreement requiring all U.S. forces to leave Iraq was passed, many U.S. officials assumed it would inevitably be renegotiated so that Americans could stay longer.

The U.S. said repeatedly this year it would entertain an offer from the Iraqis to have a small force stay behind, and the Iraqis said they would like American military help. But as the year wore on and the number of American troops that Washington was suggesting could stay behind dropped, it became increasingly clear that a U.S. troop presence was not a sure thing.

The issue of legal protection for the Americans was the deal-breaker.

But administration officials said they feel confident that the Iraqi security forces are well prepared to take the lead in their country. McDonough said assessment after assessment of the preparedness of Iraqi forces concluded that "these guys are ready; these guys are capable; these guys are proven; importantly, they're proven because they've been tested in a lot of the kinds of threats that they're going to see going forward.

"So we feel very good about that."

Video: End of an era as US troops withdraw from Iraq (on this page)

Pulling troops out by the end of this year allows both al-Maliki and Obama to claim victory.

Obama kept a campaign promise to end the war, and al-Maliki will have ended the American presence and restored Iraqi sovereignty.

The president used the war statement to once again turn attention back to the economy, the domestic concern that is expected to determine whether he wins re-election next year.

"After a decade of war the nation that we need to build and the nation that we will build is our own, an America that sees its economic strength restored just as we've restored our leadership around the globe."

NBC's Chuck Todd, Kristin Welker, and Jim Miklaszewski along with the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Photos: 2010 drawdown

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U.S. Army Stryker armored vehicles cross the border from Iraq into Kuwait on Wednesday, Aug. 18. The U.S. Army's 4th Stryker Brigade is the last combat unit to leave Iraq as part of the drawdown of U.S. forces. President Barack Obama had set a goal of reducing the number of American troops in Iraq to 50,000 troops by Sept. 1. (Maya Alleruzzo / AP) Share
Related videoRichard Engel rides with combat troops leaving Iraq
Related videoLast U.S. combat troops leave Iraq
A U.S. soldier waves from his Stryker armored vehicle after crossing the border into Kuwait. (Maya Alleruzzo / AP) Share
A soldier dismantles a machine gun mounted on his Stryker immediately after crossing the border on Aug. 16. (Maya Alleruzzo / AP)Share
U.S. Army soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade race toward the border on Aug. 18. (Maya Alleruzzo / AP)Share
Stryker armored vehicles through southern Iraq en route to Kuwait on Aug. 15. (Maya Alleruzzo / AP) Share
Soldiers from C Company, 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division gather before the convoy to Kuwait. (Maya Alleruzzo / AP) Share
Related video
A member of the U.S. Army's 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, carries an American flag after a departure ceremony at Forward Operating Base Constitution in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, on Aug. 7. (Moises Saman / The New York Times via Redux Pictures) Share
The U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division band plays during a ceremony marking the formal withdrawal from the last checkpoints they helped staff in the Green Zone of Baghdad on June 1.(Holly Pickett / Redux Pictures) Share
U.S. military Humvees are ready to be shipped out of Iraq at a staging yard at Camp Victory on July 6 in Baghdad. Everything from helicopters to printer cartridges are being wrapped and stamped and shipped out of Iraq in one of the most monumental withdrawal operations the American military has ever carried out. (Maya Alleruzzo / AP) Share
Workers sort through broken computer equipment that will be destroyed at a demilitarizing facility for unusable, un-transportable U.S. military equipment at Camp Victory on June 24 in Baghdad.(Maya Alleruzzo / AP) Share
Workers operate machinery that destroys damaged concrete blast walls at the U.S. Joint Base Balad, north of Baghdad, on July 3.(Maya Alleruzzo / AP) Share
Soldiers from 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, clear their weapons before boarding a military aircraft in Baghdad, as they begin their journey home on Aug. 13. (Maya Alleruzzo / AP) Share
Soldiers from 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, board a military aircraft in Baghdad on Aug 13. (Maya Alleruzzo / AP) Share
An Air Force airman talks on a radio as Army soldiers from 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division prepare to board a military aircraft in Baghdad on Aug 13. (Maya Alleruzzo / AP) Share
Soldiers from 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, are seen on board a military aircraft in Baghdad on Aug. 13, as they begin their journey home. (Maya Alleruzzo / AP) Share
U.S. Army soldiers carry the flag-draped transfer case containing the remains of a U.S. soldier out of a C-17 during a dignified transfer on the tarmac at Dover Air Force Base on Aug. 17 in Dover, Del.(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)Share
A U.S. Army soldier walks past a "closed" sign outside a base exchange at Camp Victory Base Complex in Baghdad on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011.President Barack Obama said Oct. 21 that he would bring all U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of the year. (Khalid Mohammed / AP) Share

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Discuss: Obama: All US troops out of Iraq by end of year

1933 total comments

‘Today I can say that troops in Iraq will be home for the holidays,’ president says

Right on schedule. Well done.

Expand

WMG-21, with 135

Pulling out of Iraq, Osama dead, Gaddafi out without us putting troops in. If we can get the obstructionist out of Congress maybe we can have some success at home too.

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Anthony-934314, with 56

I'll take it. We should NEVER have been there in the first place---a waste of lives and treasure.

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Larry-554572, with 38

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Progressive Justice

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