Arizona | Fausta's Blog

June 3, 2014 By Fausta

Democrat Chavista for Congress!

A political whore is someone who would do anything to get elected, and now Arizona’s 7th Congressional District has its own.

Meet Scott Fistler:

Scott Fistler didn’t have much luck as a Republican candidate. He lost a 2012 write-in campaign against U.S. Rep. Ed Pastor, then lost a 2013 bid for a Phoenix city council seat now held by Laura Pastor, Ed’s daughter.
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After petitioning a state superior court last November and paying $319, Fistler now legally shares the name of the celebrated labor movement icon, Cesar Chavez. Earlier this year, Chavez (formerly Fistler) became a Democrat, and – before Ed Pastor announced his retirement from Congress – filed to run in the heavily Hispanic 7th Congressional District.

The original union activist Cesar Chavez opposed illegal immigration. Makes ou wonder how that would go over in his district, doesn’t it?

But don’t fret. Fistler/Chavez is not taking questions:

Chavez did lay out some ground rules for media questions, should he be able to get to them. Questions must be screened, no more than five questions, no question longer than five words and Chavez will not discuss his name change, he explained in the email.

Not stepping in enough doo-doo as it is, Fistler/Chavez crowns his campaign by using photographs of Chavista demonstrations in Caracas, which had been carefully staged for deceased dictator Hugo Chavez as the crowds were bussed in and paid.

Meanwhile, in Venezuela, Hugo’s legacy lives on.

July 20, 2011 By Fausta

Build the fence!

Arizona Border Fence Website Launches To Raise Cash Donations

Arizona launched a website Wednesday to accept donations to pay for fencing along the Mexico border, and a supporter says the $3.8 million people donated to defend the state’s 2010 immigration enforcement law could be just a taste of what to expect.

Gov. Jan Brewer’s legal-defense site for the law known as SB1070 raised money for “an intangible service – you’re paying for a lawyer,” said state Sen. Steve Smith. “This, you can taste and smell what you’re getting – you’re paying for a secure border.”

The launch of buildtheborderfence.com was keyed to Wednesday being the date most new laws passed during the Legislature’s 2011 regular session go into effect.

Smith, who sponsored the legislation authorizing the fence project, said Tuesday that his initial goal is $50 million.

“It’s not my end goal. If we can raise $50 million, we’re off to a fabulous start,” the first-term Republican said.

What the money will actually buy has yet to be determined. A border security advisory committee consisting of legislators, state agency directors and county sheriffs will make recommendations to the Legislature on how and where to spend the money.

The website is Build the border fence

The constitutional duty of the Federal Government is to protect “We the People of the United States.” However, you should know that:

According to a February 2011 report by Congress’ chief watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, just 44 percent of the nearly 2,000 mile-long border is under operational control, and just 15 percent is totally controlled.

The border fence constructed in Yuma, Arizona successfully thwarted 93 percent of all illegal crossings in that area. This proves that fences do in fact work!

There have been over 35,000 deaths and murders along the U.S. Mexican border since 2006.

According to an investigation by the House Committee on Homeland Security, intelligence officials have determined members of the terrorist group Hezbollah have already infiltrated the U.S. by crossing at the southern border. Border Patrol agents recovered military-style patches on clothing near the border—one patch contained the word “martyr” in Arabic and another depicted a plane appearing to fly into sky scrapers.

In 2009, according to Homeland Security documents, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officials detained 45,279 illegal aliens classified as OTM (Other Than Mexican), many of whom were from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Pakistan.

Additionally, FBI Director Robert Mueller testified before the House Appropriations Committee stating that these OTMs “are individuals from countries with known Al Qaeda connections who are changing their Islamic surnames to Hispanic-sounding names and obtaining false Hispanic identities, learning to speak Spanish and pretending to be Hispanic.”

One hundred thirteen Border Patrol officers have been killed in the line of duty according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Estimates show that the United States spent over $100 billion on services for illegal aliens in 2010.

Currently, the immigrants trying to cross the border into the US are in the hands of the cartels that control northern Mexico. Having an unguarded, unprotected border is not in the US’s best interest: Border security is national security.

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March 23, 2011 By Fausta

Islamist terrorists crossing the border,

while the Obama administration sues Arizona for enforcing Federal immigration law:
Patrick Poole writes,
DOJ Memo Confirms Terrorists Have Crossed the Border
PJM reveals a court filing showing that federal prosecutors have admitted a terror threat involving an Al-Shabaab human smuggler who claimed asylum. (h/t Instapundit).
While many Latin American observers have been writing about this issue, what is significant is that this time the Department of Justice is documenting it a court filing in the pending sentencing of convicted Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane in a San Antonio federal court:

In this court filing, provided exclusively here at Pajamas Media, prosecutors admit that Dhakane, who ran a human smuggling ring based in Brazil for the Somali Al-Shabaab terrorist group, transported “violent jihadists” into the country. He stated that “he believed they would fight against the U.S. if the jihad moved from overseas locations to the U.S. mainland.” (p. 7)
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Dhakane was charged in March 2010 with lying about his terror ties when he applied for asylum in 2008, specifically omitting information that he had worked for two specially designated global terrorist entities (SDGT). He pleaded guilty earlier this year to lying to the FBI and awaits sentencing next month. Rather than trying him on terror charges, federal prosecutors are asking for terror enhancements on the sentence for lying to the FBI.

Poole, who is scheduled to testify today before the Arizona House Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee on the topic of “Cross-border Terror Threats and Islamic Radicalization in Arizona,” correctly points out

This is far from the first time that Islamic terrorists are known to have attempted to enter the U.S, or actually succeeded. Just last year Homeland Security authorities put out an alert concerning a group of terror-tied Somalis who were attempting to enter the country through Mexico. Then last May anotherterror alert was issued for a known Al-Shabaab official, Mohamed Ali, who was suspected of trying to cross the border from Mexico. And in February 2010, a Virginia convert to Islam who was in contact with Al-Shabaab officials, Anthony Joseph Tracy, was charged for his role in an international smuggling ring that brought at least 200 Somalis into the U.S. on Cuban travel documents.

Other terrorist operatives are known to have successfully crossed the border:

In February 2001, Mahmoud Kourani crossed the border from Tijuana in the trunk of a car, eventually settling in Dearborn, Michigan. Kourani, who federal prosecutors claimed had received training in weapons, intelligence, and spy craft in Iran, bribed a Mexican embassy official in Beirut to obtain a visa. Kourani’s brother is known to be Hezbollah’s security chief in southern Lebanon.

In December 2002, Salim Boughader was arrested for smuggling 200 Lebanese, including Hezbollah operatives, across the border. Boughader had previously worked for Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV satellite network.

In July 2004, Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed was arrested at a Texas airport boarding a flight to New York. According to the Washington Post, she was connected to a Pakistani terrorist group. Believed to be ferrying instructions to U.S.-based al-Qaeda operatives, authorities issued a terror alert for Washington D.C., New York, and New Jersey.

In January 2005, two Hamas operatives, Mahmoud Khalil and Ziad Saleh, were arrested as part of a criminal enterprise in Los Angeles. Both had entered the U.S. after paying a smuggler $10,000 each to take them across the border.

Rep. John Culberson said in November 2005 that an Iraqi al-Qaeda operative on the terror watch list was captured living near the Mexico-Texas border.

At least they weren’t named Perez.

Long-term regular readers of this blog know that I have been asserting that border security is a national security issue.

When will the Obama administration realize that?

UPDATE
Welcome, The Other McCaine readers!

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January 27, 2011 By Fausta

Muslim cleric catapults to fame by crossing the border

First the drugs, now the Muslim cleric. It’s starting to look like Border Day here at Fausta’s blog:
Surprise! Radical Islamist smuggled across US-Mexico border

Almost seven years ago, the 9/11 Commission warned Congress about the security risk the nation runs against terrorist infiltration over the US-Mexico border (as wel as the US-Canadian border). Specifically, they recommended heightened security along both borders to ensure that terrorists could not cross over from either Canada or Mexico undetected, and that “[i]t is elemental to border security to know who is coming into the country” [page 407]. Since then, conservatives have demanded border security and immigration enforcement as part of a rational national-security strategy. Opponents to this approach argue that conservatives blow this out of proportion, that there is no evidence of such infiltration, and the argument only serves to feed xenophobia.

Said Jaziri, an imam advocating Sharia law in Canada, was smuggled into the US hidden inside a car after paying Tijuana coyotes $5,000. He was found after the car was pulled over by Border Patrol agents near San Diego.

Video:

Ed also posted a link to a report about that book celebrating Iranian suicide bombers that was found in Arizona, just north of the border.

How many times have I said that securing the border is a matter of national security?

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January 14, 2011 By Fausta

Where did that “Together we thrive” slogan come from?

Judi McLeod has the answer,
Theme of “Together We Thrive” T-shirt came from Obama’s Organizing for America

In the controversy of the pep rally/rock concert style Memorial for those who lost their lives in Saturday’s Arizona tragedy, the mainstream media reported that the “Together We Thrive: Tucson & America” T-shirt given to mourners as they entered McKate Center was the idea of University of Arizona brass, not the Obama administration.

Yet the “Together We Thrive” slogan dates back to a post to Obama’s own Organizing for America in a Feb. 11, 2008 post by self-described “globalist” John Berry IV.

More than passing strange that the Obama campaign message of civility was the same on Feb. 11, 2008 as it was in his Wednesday Memorial speech, and the same one, too carried by the mainstream media in coverage of the Memorial. 

“For too long Americans have been set one against the other. It is a side affect of a free market society,” Berry IV posted. “How can profits be maximized, how can I get the work down for the lowest possible costs. This continually sets one group against the other, especially in the blue collar sectors of America. It has become part of the American Business model, whether it was indentured servants, slaves picking cotton, sharecroppers, the industrious people that built the railroads or today’s migrant workers. As long as we remain divided, fighting for the scraps that America has to offer it will be one group against the other.

“What I see in Obama is a chance for revolution. (Italics CFP’s). A chance for every group to be heard; A chance to live the American dream that has been denied to so many…

“In a previous career, I was the global leader of Diversity for a global fortune 500 corporation. I have studied the affects of diverse groups working together and the results can not be denied. Together we Thrive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

University of Arizona brass did not originate the “Together We Thrive” T-shirt. They merely recycled it for Obama—and recycled it in time for what should have been a dignified Memorial for the dead.

If you were a mourner who took home a “Together We Thrive” T-shirt have a look at the bottom of your shirt. “Rocking America and Rocking the Vote” is a common theme of the DNC, and it’s right there on your Memorial T-shirt memento.

Check out the screen cap here.

Again, was that a memorial, or a campaign rally?

(h/t Joe Lima)

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January 13, 2011 By Fausta

Inappropriate UPDATED

I watched the so-called memorial for the victims of the deranged man last night.

It was an embarrassing and shameful spectacle.

For starters, no memorial or commemoration of a tragedy is the occasion to hand out t-shirts.

What is wrong with a simple, non-denominational prayer? There are thousands of those. However, no one could be bothered to find one; instead we had an invocation.

The invocation was downright bizarre, with mumbo-jumbo about female and male energy. Paul Mirengoff calls it “ugly“,

It was apparently was some sort of Yaqui Indian tribal thing, with lots of references to “the creator” but no mention of God. Several of the victims were, as I understand it, quite religious in that quaint Christian kind of way (none, to my knowledge, was a Yaqui). They (and their families) likely would have appreciated a prayer more closely aligned with their religious beliefs.

But it wasn’t just Gonzales’s prayer that was “ugly” under the circumstances. Before he ever got to the prayer, Gonzales provided us with a mini-auto biography and made several references to Mexico, the country from which (he informed us) his family came to Arizona in the mid 19th century. I’m not sure why Gonzales felt that Mexico needed to intrude into this service, but I have an idea.

The audience, and I don’t care how young they are, reacted abhorrently throughout. Cheers? Catcalls? Laughter? Whoops? After the Secretary of Homeland Security reads Isaiah 40?

The First Lady shows up in a skirt and a too-small sweater. Can’t someone find her a somber suit that she could deign herself to wear in such occasions?

The President’s speech used muddled terms, such as “moral imaginations”,

Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.

And couldn’t spare the miracle that was timed to coincide with his presence,

And I want to tell you — her husband Mark is here and he allows me to share this with you — right after we went to visit, a few minutes after we left her room and some of her colleagues in Congress were in the room, Gabby opened her eyes for the first time. (Applause.) Gabby opened her eyes for the first time. (Applause.)

Gabby opened her eyes. Gabby opened her eyes, so I can tell you she knows we are here.

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” as he once said.

The President also couldn’t resist dipping into maudlin sentimentality and exploiting the image of a dead child,

If there are rain puddles in Heaven, Christina is jumping in them today.

Rain puddles in heaven. What a contemptible, exploitive use of a child whose life was bracketed by tragedy.

The President posed a question

It raises a question of what, beyond prayers and expressions of concern, is required of us going forward. How can we honor the fallen? How can we be true to their memory?

And where will we be wearing our t-shirts?

A a shameful charade, inappropriate from the get-go.

UPDATE
Follow-up post, Where did that “Together we thrive” slogan come from?

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January 9, 2011 By Fausta

The Giffords shooting

I haven’t posted on the shooting in Arizona by a crazed young man that killed Judge John Roll ,63; Dorthy Murray, 76; Dorwin Stoddard, 76; Christina Greene, 9; Phyllis Scheck, 79; and Gabriel Zimmerman, 30, and has Rep. Gabrielle Giffords critically wounded in intensive care.

I find the story profoundly depressing.

Depressing not only because of the victims, but particularly because of the politization that has ensued, where even faded celebrities with exercise videos to sell have jumped into the fray.

Let’s lift Congresswoman Gifford, the other victims, and all their loved ones in our prayers.

For full roundup of the news and blog stories, go to Memeorandum.

UPDATE
Roger Kimball has more on How to turn a tragedy into an emetic, and John Hinderaker deplores The Contemptible Krugman.

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August 23, 2010 By Fausta

The live Chilean miners Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean VIDEO

LatinAmer Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean.

This week’s big story is that all 33 Chilean miners trapped by a cave-in 18 days ago are alive.

Chile’s trapped miners could be stuck until Christmas
Thirty-three miners trapped underground in Chile for the past 17 days are alive, but rescue workers may not be able to reach them before Christmas, officials said

Chile secures lifeline to trapped miners

Rescuing 33 miners trapped in Chile ‘to take months’

I’ll be talking about this in this morning’s podcast at 11AM Eastern.

You can watch another video report at the end of this post – below the fold since it starts automotically.

Another big story:
Police Held in Mexico Mayor’s Death
Authorities Say Officers Confessed; Vow Reforms of Law Enforcement

Seven police officers were arrested Friday for allegedly helping assassinate a Mexican mayor.

The arrests came a day after Edelmiro Cavazos, 38, the mayor of Santiago, was buried. His body—gagged, blindfolded, and showing signs of torture—had been found on the side of the road after he was kidnapped.

“They have confessed,” Alejandro Garza y Garza, the attorney general of Nuevo Leon state, said at a news conference.

Six of the arrested police officers, including Mr. Cavazos’s bodyguard, were displayed to reporters. A seventh police officer was detained later Friday.

Mr. Garza y Garza said other arrests were imminent as well.

An eyewitness said a group of at least 15 gunmen, dressed in the uniforms of a defunct Mexican police force, drove up to Mr. Cavazos’ Santiago home in a convoy of SUVs.

Adrian de la Garza, head of the Nuevo Leon State Investigations Agency, said four of the arrested officers had guarded the highway while a group of kidnappers including one of the arrested officers grabbed Mr. Cavazos.

The mayor’s bodyguard, Jose Alberto Rodriguez, who was also arrested, was allegedly grabbed with Mr. Cavazos by the kidnappers, but released unharmed shortly afterward.

During the news conference, Mr. Rodriguez said he was innocent.

The alleged involvement of so many local police in the kidnapping and killing of Mr. Cavazos goes to the heart of Mexico’s security problem, analysts say.

Corruption is deeply entrenched among Mexico’s more than 2,000 municipal and state police forces, as well as in its relatively small federal police force.