Free Republic

In a little-noticed act of political faintheartedness, the Obama administration has pulled back from nominating Thomas Saenz, a highly regarded civil-rights lawyer and counsel to the mayor of Los Angeles, to run the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Saenz, the former top litigator in Los Angeles for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or Maldef...The floating of his name led to fierce outbursts from anti-immigrant groups and blogs, which detest him for being so good at what he does. He was a leader of the successful fight to block California’s Proposition 187...He has defended Latino day laborers who...

The man accused of arranging for the killing of 32 bison on a neighbor's property struck a deal this morning in which he'll face minimal or no jail time but will have to open his wallet wide. Jeffrey Scott Hawn, CEO of Seattle-based software firm Attachmate, pleaded guilty to a class 3 felony of criminal mischief and to a misdemeanor charge of cruelty to animals in Park County Court. At his Jan. 28 sentencing he could get up to two years of probation and up to 10 days in Park County Jail. Four generations of the Downare family, in cowboy...

A software CEO from Texas accused of allowing the killing of his neighbor's bison in South Park last winter is due in court. Forty-four-year-old Jeffrey Scott Hawn of Austin has been charged with 32 counts of animal cruelty, one count of theft of more than $20,000 and a one count of criminal mischief. Prosecutors allege that he "tortured, needlessly mutilated or needlessly killed" the bison, who belonged to another rancher.

A Park County rancher on Friday waived his right to a preliminary hearing and asked to enter a plea in the slaughter of 32 bison owned by his neighbor. It’s hard to find anyone here sympathetic to Hawn.

For a generation, Mexican intellectuals have pondered the possibility of a “Greater Mexico” – the idea that Mexican immigration to the United States was so persistent and sustainable, that Mexican culture could “re-settle” lands lost to the United States at the conclusion of the Mexican American War. Americans, clinging to the belief of a “melting pot,” dismissed that notion, arguing that Mexican immigrants would follow historical norms and assimilate into mainstream American life, as previous generations of newcomers did before them. A new study by the Institute of Mexicans Abroad (IME), part of Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Relations, offers insight...

Although the nation's largest Latino advocacy organization is a nonprofit that must remain nonpartisan because it gets millions of U.S. federal grant dollars, the group's president helped lead a Barack Obama pep rally during an annual conference. The extremist Mexican group National Council of La Raza clearly endorses Obama, which is why La Raza President Janet Marguia stood by as Los Angeles' renowned Chicano Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa praised Obama during the group's annual convention in San Diego. Villaraigosa assured the crowd that Obama is LATINOS' BEST HOPE for reforming the nation's immigration policies. If that's not an endorsement, then what...

Raza Studies. Like the rest of you, I’ve been wondering how the lead organization lobbying on behalf of special privileges for Mexicans in the U.S.A. manages to get away with calling itself “National Council of La Raza.” Those last two words, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, mean “the race.” The idea, as I had it explained to me, is that by blending the European race with the Mesoamerican, Mexico has brought forth a new race, the mestizo or bronze race, which is claimed to be superior to both the contributing races, I suppose by dint of hybrid...

Texas businessman Jeff Hawn was charged May 8 in the March slaying of 32 bison near Hartsel and faces one count of class 3 felony theft, one count of class 3 felony criminal mischief and 32 counts of aggravated cruelty to animals, each a class 6 felony. Hawn turned himself in to the Park County Jail on May 12 and bonded out... Kobe Bryant's attorney The arrest warrant affidavit indicates that the bison had been killed over the course of a number of weeks. For instance, it states that on April 1 officers "retrieved a spent bullet from one of...

I'm Absolut Swedish but NEVER EVER again will I buy Absolut Vodka and I will, at least, TRY to avoid other products of V&S Group (their repertoire is a pretty broad one though and I kinda party from time to time..), a former Swedish company which recently was sold to French Pernod Ricard (for the sum of €5,626 billion). I've also managed to convince my father and some of my friends to join my initiative and I'll continue to campaign! The background is, of course, the already infamous Absolut Vodka ad with the words "In an Absolut World" slapped over...

Moscow, March 18 (RIA Novosti) Russia has said that the recent violence in Tibet is linked with the recognition by some states of the independence of Serbia's breakaway province, Kosovo. In an interview published Tuesday in the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the recognition of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence by many countries, including the US and the majority of the European Union (EU) states, had 'already reverberated in many regions.' He said that the Kosovo issue was linked to recent riots in Tibet and demands for greater autonomy by ethnic Albanians in Macedonia. 'There are...

An anti-illegal immigration group's adopted stretch of highway near a Border Patrol checkpoint is being orphaned. The California Department of Transportation said the San Diego Minutemen's participation in an Adopt-A-Highway stretch of Interstate 5 poses "a significant safety risk." "The risk is in the potential for disruption to the operation of the state highway as well as public safety concerns for the traveling public and volunteers in the program," Caltrans district director Pedro Orso-Delgado said Monday. He did not elaborate. The Minutemen will get another stretch on State Route 52 in San Diego - far from the Border Patrol checkpoint...

Do you support the Lakota Freedom Delegation's declaration of sovereign-nation status? Yes No

Stating that "Al Qaeda's goal to collapse the US economy seems on track" on the front page of Aztlan.net, Ernesto Cienfuegos of La Voz de Aztlan brings us "Mexican insurgents cause record $80 per barrel crude oil price". In the article Cienfuegos states that: "In addition, the Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (Stratfor), through the US State Department, is now offering its services to President Felipe Calderon. Stratfor is supposedly a private intelligence agency founded in 1996 in Austin, Texas but insiders know the outfit as "The Shadow CIA". Stratfor analysts say that the EPR has "evolved greatly". They believe that the...

A recent proposal in Congress — H.R. 1999, which was cosponsored in April by Reps. Ruben Hinojosa of Texas and Rick Renzi of Arizona — would provide $10 million a year to a radical immigration group, the National Council of La Raza (meaning "the race"). It gets better. Have you heard of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, better known by its acronym MEChA? If you live in California, you have. This group's Web site states: "We are Chicanos and Chicanas of Aztlan reclaiming the land of out birth," which according to their revisionist history, includes areas of the Southwestern United...

Several high-profile Hispanic Bush supporters among those now behind Richardson Donors express loyalty to party as well as heritage By Ken Herman WASHINGTON BUREAU Tuesday, May 29, 2007 WASHINGTON — As a consultant in six Republican campaigns, dating back to Ronald Reagan in 1980, Texas ad man Lionel Sosa tried to persuade Hispanic Democrats to back non-Hispanic Republicans for president. This year, after serving as a Hispanic outreach consultant and high-dollar fundraiser in President Bush's national campaigns, Sosa is putting his money on a Hispanic Democrat. "Blood is thicker than party," Sosa said in explaining his support for New Mexico...

The Lone Star State has long welcomed Latino immigrants, no matter how they got across the state's 1200 mile border with Mexico. Back when California voted to cut public services to illegal immigrants, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush was preaching that illegal immigrants were equal players in the state's economy. But the atmosphere has changed markedly in Texas, home to about 10% of the nation's illegal immigrants. Now, a growing chorus of Republicans and some Democrats is pushing some of the harshest immigration-related measures in the United States -- laws that would not only deny public services to illegal immigrants...

Joyce Mucci, the Southern Field Representative for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is coming to Little Rock March 3rd -5th! Keeparkansaslegal has created some events for citizens who want to do something about illegal immigration can attend. Saturday March 3rd at 12:00pm Julie's, 110 South Shackleford Rd Little Rock, AR 72211-5721 (501) 224-4501 (just off I630 and I430) We will have a lunch/meeting at Julie’s where we will discuss legislation, the Mexican Consulate, banking, ballot initiatives, and other items concerning immigration in Arkansas. Monday March 5th at 2:30pm State Capitol (Exit 2B off I630) We will also have...

MISSION — A Mexican national accused of ramming his truck into a state trooper’s patrol vehicle and attacking a city police officer with a plank of wood was set to spend Tuesday night in the Hidalgo County jail after his first court appearance earlier that day. Jose Garcia Hernandez, 34, was formally charged with evading arrest and aggravated assault of a public servant during his arraignment in Mission municipal court.

A bill aimed at keeping illegal aliens out of Mississippi is working its way through the state legislature. It requires businesses verify their employees are here legally. Mexican immigrant Angel Palsencia works as a waiter to support his family on the Gulf Coast. He worries that could all change if businesses are forced to check employees' legal status. "I've lived in Mississippi for 7 years, and to make that bill into law, it would stop the future of me and my family," Palsencia said. Members of the immigrant rights group, MIRA, are trying to kill the bill that has passed...

CHICAGO, Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Mexican legislators have traveled to Chicago to meet with Elvira Arellano, an illegal alien who defied a U.S. government order that she turn herself in to the Department of Homeland Security for deportation. The 31-year-old woman was arrested in 2002 during an immigration sweep at O'Hare International Airport. U.S. officials noted that Arellano had already been deported once in 1997, and that she had a criminal conviction for Social Security fraud. Rosanna Pulido, Illinois spokesperson for You Don't Speak for Me, a national coalition of American Hispanics who oppose illegal immigration, states, "Actually Elvira Arellano...