Phil Gordon: Travelin’ in style, taking ego along for the ride

From the United Arab Emirates port of Dubai to Toronto and points in between, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon is on the go.  He even works in a few trips to Washington D.C. to rail against those who oppose his Sanctuary City  policies.

As to his global jetsetting, Philly says:

“When developing new economic opportunities, you have to do things face to face. I believe to create jobs, to help our city, to keep people safe, the mayor of Phoenix should be leading, not following, and risking that Phoenix will be passed by others cities in the country.

And I’m good at it. I’ve got the energy, I’ve got the background, and I’m representing the state of Arizona when I’m doing this.”

A suggestion you might want to consider regarding keeping the people of the city of Phoenix safe, Mr. Mayor: How about discarding the policies that provide safe haven to lawbreakers and reward criminality?

The article in the daily can be read here.

Another on Hizzoner’s globetrotting includes this portion: Gordon may be all over the map, literally and figuratively, as his critics allege. A more focused approach might make more sense.

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Just a few more good people coming to do the work Americans refuse to do

illegal aliens selling pirated movies still in theaters

Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Karina Romero-Figueroa, 24, and Judith Romero-Figueroa, 27, on two counts of pirating movies and music, a class-three felony.

The two suspects are being held in the county jail without bond, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

One suspect who fled deputies, leaving two teenagers behind, is still at large. Those children are currently with Child Protective Services. The two suspects in custody have admitted to selling these pirated movies and music titles for the past year at a Mercado for five dollars apiece.

“We have received intelligence indicating that illegal aliens are believed to be heavily involved in this type of activity locally and I will be working closely with these companies to crack down on the problem” Sheriff Joe Arpaio said.

Sheriff’s officials were contacted with the information leading to the arrests by a local private investigation firm that is working for the Recording Industry of America. During the raid, deputies recovered 1,252 movies and over 1,800 music CD’s and MP3’s. Some of the movie titles included Transformers, Ice Age, and Up, all of which are currently in theaters.

 The early morning raid comes just hours after a news conference where Sheriff Arpaio and his attorneys announced their disappointment in the way that the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil investigation is being conducted.

 “I will say it again; I am not going to be deterred by the Justice Department’s attempt to intimidate me from doing my job” Arpaio says.

Since the civil investigation was launched by the Justice Department in March of this year, the Sheriff’s Office has arrested and booked over 4,000 illegal aliens.

Decline in Mexican tourism? It’s not the lack of passports

The daily bemoans a new law requiring Americans to have a passport in order to visit Mexico, calling this June 1 prerequisite for crossing the Mexican border the latest in a series of problems plaguing the Mexico travel industry. Beside the need for passports when visiting Mexico or Canada, Valley travel businesses also lay blame on the recession for dampening travel south of the border.

While those may be contributing factors, the fact is, Mexico now ranks as one of the world’s most dangerous nations, with drug cartels reigning bloody terror over Mexicans and visitors alike. It also has among the most elevated rates of swine flu worldwide — a disease now being called a “pandemic.”

The U.S. Department of State travel alerts list cautionary information for those traveling to Mexico.  Here is a sample:

CRIME: Crime in Mexico continues to occur at a high rate, and it can often be violent, especially in Mexico City, Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Acapulco, and the states of Sinaloa and Durango. Other metropolitan areas have lower, but still serious, levels of crime. The low rates of apprehension and conviction of criminals also contribute to Mexico’s high crime rate

THREATS TO SAFETY AND SECURITY: Violence by criminal elements affects many parts of the country, including urban and rural areas, visitors should remain alert and be aware of their surroundings at all times. In its efforts to combat violence, the Government of Mexico has deployed military troops to various parts of the country. Military checkpoints increased in border areas in early 2008.

Visitors are also warned of armed robbery and rape, while kidnappings of non-Mexicans, which are described on the site as a “lucrative business,” continue to occur at alarming rates.

Mexican authorities have failed to prosecute numerous crimes committed against U.S. citizens, including murders and kidnappings. Local police forces suffer from a lack of funds and training, and the judicial system is weak, overworked, and inefficient. Criminals, armed with an impressive array of weapons, know there is little chance they will be caught and punished. In some cases, assailants were wearing full or partial police uniforms and have vehicles that resemble police vehicles, indicating that some elements of the police may have been involved.

Blaming the decline in tourism on passport requirements is akin to blaming the hot summer temperatures in Phoenix on the lack of shade trees.

Illegal Update

Just a few more good people coming to do the work Americans refuse to do

 Alfonso Valdez-Cota, 24, and Kaven Alfonso Chavez-Aguirre, 25, both “citizens of Mexico,” were sentenced on June 29, 2009, by U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake to five years in federal prison after both defendants pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Possess With the Intent to Distribute Heroin. A third co-defendant, Jesus Amaral-Samaniego, pleaded guilty to the same charge and is scheduled for sentencing on July 29, 2009.

Based on an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the three defendants were stopped by Glendale Police officers in November 2008. A search of the passenger compartment of their vehicle revealed a firearm concealed in the rear passenger seat area and two firearms in the trunk. Also found in the trunk were 10 small plastic wrapped ball shaped packages containing a total of 251.2 grams of a substance containing heroin.

Sanctuary City San Francisco: A perfect fit for George Gascon

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris has defended the Back on Track jobs program in which participating illegal alien felons are able to have their criminal records cleared. The program trains drug offenders for jobs that those in this country unlawfully would legally be prevented from holding.

Departing Mesa Police Chief George Gascon who has advocated limp enforcement policies for illegals should fit right in, as he assumes his new duties in San Francisco.

The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this week that illegals are enrolled in the program and that Harris’ office had let several graduate early, have their criminal records expunged,  and go free even after learning of their deportable status.

Kamala Harris, like Gascon, has said that enforcing federal immigration law is not the job of local authorities. And like Phoenix, San Francisco has the misfortune of having a mayor — Gavin Newsom, now running for governor — who supports sanctuary city polices.

The Times notes that Kamala Harris’ liberal San Francisco pedigree will pose challenges in her statewide race for Attorney General. In 2004 she vowed to “never charge the death penalty.” That pledge will be put to the test in the upcoming murder trial of Edwin Ramos, the illegal immigrant previously convicted of two gang-related felonies, and now accused in the shooting deaths of a man and his two sons, ages 20 and 16,  returning home from a Sunday afternoon picnic.

San Francisco’s 1989 “City of Refuge” ordinance prohibits city agencies from contacting the feds on immigration matters.

Still the open-borders and amnesty-committed Arizona Republic gives Gascon high praise today as they bid him adios.

Read more on Gascon here and here

Tucson area Superintendent of Schools arrested as child sexual predator

The Superintendent of the Tanque Verde Unified School District in Tucson has been arrested by federal authorities on charges related to the sexual exploitation of children.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said 51-year-old Albert Thomas Rogers was arrested Friday when he arrived for a “tour” in Mexico allegedly including “relaxation intimacy” with a 13- to 14-year-old boy. He had submitted a $50 deposit and reservation form in February.

ICE says that Rogers had contacted an undercover special agent a month earlier. The undercover operation based in Yuma seeks to catch adults looking to tour foreign countries to sexually exploit children. The investigation is part of Operation Predator, an ongoing agency initiative to protect children from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex with minors, Internet child pornographers, criminal alien sex offenders, and child sex traffickers.

Since starting its undercover sex tourism operation in Yuma in 1997, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have arrested 43 suspects, including Rogers.

The Arizona Daily Star carries the descriptive article, including a photo of this child predator. Last November, Rogers was the Libertarian candidate for Pima County Superintendent of Schools. The Star has a copy of the questionnaire Rogers submitted at the time.

UPDATE:

The governing board of the Tanque Verde Unified School District has acknowledged that District Superintendent Albert Thomas “Tom” Rogers has submitted a handwritten letter of resignation.

ICE spokesman Vincent Picard said Rogers was charged with one count of travel with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.  If convicted, Rogers could face a sentence of up to 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Just when we think we’ve seen the worst of Linda Valdez….

….comes clean with desire that  GOP hold “permanent minority status”

Beginning her absurd column “Mexicans today are the Irish of yesterday,” by telling us more than we want to imagine about her unusual romantic life and subsequent marriage to a Mexican immigrant, Valdez pounds her pro-illegal immigration drum more ferociously than ever.

Ina an argument that doesn’t fly, she likens illegal Mexicans who are flooding into the United States in violation of our law and national sovereignty, to the Irish who came through Ellis Island to be lawfully processed after arriving via an ocean voyage. 

Then she dives into a tirade — hurling brickbats at Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne, who stands in opposition to La Raza (The Race) studies in the Tucson Unified School District.  Horne exposes the Reconquista instruction as “ethnic chauvinism.” The program teaches students in American schools that the American Southwest belongs to Mexico and should be reclaimed.

Valdez contends this instills a “sense of pride and political savvy in Latino kids.”

After recounting her attendance at a seminar put on by Humane Borders, a group that places water stations in the desert to aid illegal crossers, she lays blame for heat-related deaths on those who believe a nation’s borders are legitimate and should be respected. She calls them “Demagogues, mean-spirited politicians and other blowhards spewing corrosive blather.”

Then she makes a not-so-startling admission. 

“Horne and the GOP-led Legislature,” Valdez opines, “have attracted the attention of teenagers who usually have better things to do than watch politicians make fools of themselves. What those kids learn from this assault on their education will shape their political views — and help relegate the Republican Party to permanent minority status. This should trouble the mainstream Republicans who used to bring something to the political debate besides ideology and intolerance.

But it doesn’t bother this wife of an immigrant one little bit.”

Finally, she confesses to what we have long ago figured out.

Searching for the Mexican Mafia connection

Obscured in newspaper article

An article in the daily details the joint efforts of Valley law enforcement agencies including the Maricopa County Sheriff and County Attorney’s offices, Phoenix, Chandler, Glendale and Tempe police departments, and the U.S. Postal Service — in breaking up an identity-theft ring that stole mail to pass fraudulent checks and withdraw money from victims’ bank accounts.

Warrants were served on five Phoenix locations and one in Mesa resulting in the arrest of 17. The indictment charges 42 felony counts, including identity theft, conspiracy, money laundering, forgery, fraud, misconduct involving weapons and trafficking in the identity of another.

But the fact that those charged were part of a criminal syndicate linked to funding the Mexican Mafia, is exposed only by continuing further into the article and then reading this quote from Maricopa County Attorney, Andrew Thomas:

“These indictments and arrests are the result of a united effort by law enforcement to tackle gangs and identity theft,” County Attorney Andrew Thomas said. “The goal is to break this criminal syndicate, which stole thousands of dollars from victims in order to fund the Mexican Mafia.”

The Arizona Republic has a new ploy in reporting news they really don’t want the readers to see.  We provided an example in this post earlier in the week, when the headline had no connection to the real story about Mayor Phil Gordon’s relatives receiving lucrative city contracts.

Staying home a definite guarantee to keep these crime stats down

Almost 10,000 migrants passing through Mexico enroute to U.S. kidnapped in 6 months

An AP report out of Mexico City, tells of a survey by Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission which claims that thousands of mainly Central American “migrants” crossing the country to reach the United States are kidnapped for ransom every year.

Notice the terminology used? Central American “migrants” are merely migrating — like swallows to Capistrano — through Mexico, enroute to slipping illegally into the United States.

The commission says an estimated 9,758 migrants were kidnapped in Mexico between September and February, mainly by drug gangs, although some illegal aliens reported that authorities were involved. They were held for ransom and  then released in exchange for payments ranging from $1,500 to $5,000. The ransom payments made over that time are estimated to be approximately $25 million over that six months

To give you an idea of the liberal bent of this group, the report also “examines the commission’s role in addressing abusive laws, including restrictions on freedom of expression, and responding to important reforms, such as the Mexico City abortion law passed in 2007.”  This is another example, as is this. But, this one is the icing on the proverbial cake, as Human Rights Watch presumes to dictate legal policy to the United States as it relates to prisoner lawsuits.

Once again Seeing Red AZ is happy to provide our helpful glossary to assist in navigating the journalistic minefield of unintelligible language as it relates to illegals entering our sovereign nation in violation of our borders and laws.

One billion robocalls net $10 million in telemarketing scam

The perpetrators of a mega telemarketing scheme many of us have been exposed to, have been identified and targeted by the Federal Trade Commission ((FTC) in a suit filed in in federal court.

Four people are alleged to be responsible for more than $10 million in telemarketing scams. The deceptive “robocalls” are part of an effort aimed at consumers to sell them vehicle service contracts for between $2,000 and $3,000, under the guise that they are extensions of original warranties, which are falsely portrayed as “about to expire.”

Court documents name Christopher Cowart, James and Maureen Dunne, and Damian Kohlfield as those responsible for the automated “robocall” schemes that have sent out more than 1 billion telephone calls since 2007, according to a FOX News report.

“This is one of the most aggressive telemarketing schemes the FTC has ever encountered,” said Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz. “I’m not sure which is worse, the abusive telemarketing tactics of these companies, or the way they try to deceive people once they get them on the phone. Either way, we intend to shut them down.”