Bush speech to set election-year agenda
President George W. Bush will look to his State of the Union address on Tuesday to lift his political fortunes and those of his Republican allies in a high stakes election-year with control of Congress up for grabs.
The president’s speech will be delivered to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, where Democrats have been criticizing Bush on a range of issues that include the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina relief and a domestic spying program.
Coming off one of the toughest stretches of his presidency and as his job approval ratings hover in the high 30s to low 40s in most polls, Bush is expected to highlight domestic priorities like energy, health care and economic growth.
He will also express optimism on Iraq, support for Iranians who want greater freedom and his views about the need for spreading democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere.
KFI will broadcast President Bush’s State Of The Union Address today at 6p !
Former priest, convicted child molester, placed in hotel
A convicted child molester and former priest released from prison last week has been moved into a downtown motel, prompting some to question why a high-risk sex offender isn’t living in supervised housing.
Edward Anthony Rodrigue, 69, registered his new address Monday morning with the San Bernardino Police Department as the Sahara/Paradise Motel at Fifth and H Streets.
A top state parole official said Rodrigue was moved to the motel because it was the “best possible location,” although he could not say why. But neighbors, city leaders and Rodrigue’s brother said they hope the arrangement is temporary.
Tom Rodrigue said the motel will offer little supervision for his brother. He’s also concerned that vigilantes will have easy access to him in such a public place.
“I was told (by parole officials) he was going to go into a group home. When there were no rooms available, the only place that would take him was the place where he’s at,” Tom Rodrigue said. “Apparently, it’s extremely hard to place pedophiles.”
On Monday, investigators with the city attorney’s office took fliers with Rodrigue’s information door-to-door at the Sahara and also posted them at other motels and homes in the neighborhood.
Rodrigue did not answer a knock at his door. No one answered a knock at the Sahara office.
Forget smog, secondhand smoke a pollutant in California
California became the first state to declare secondhand smoke a toxic air pollutant Thursday, putting tobacco fumes in the same category as diesel exhaust, arsenic and benzene because of its link to breast cancer.
The unanimous decision by the state Air Resources Board relied on a September report that found a sharply increased risk of breast cancer in young women exposed to secondhand smoke. It also links drifting smoke to premature births, asthma and heart disease, as well as other cancers and numerous health problems in children.
“If people are serious about breast cancer, they have to deal with secondhand smoke. That’s what this is all about,” said Dr. Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control, Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco.
“This is a seminal, international document,” Glantz said. “It’s impossible to underestimate what a big deal this is.”
The report by scientists at California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment drew on more than 1,000 other studies of secondhand smoke and blamed the fumes for 4,000 deaths each year in California from lung cancer or heart disease alone
Accuser Says He Hid Abuse by Priest
The man whose accusations could finally land admitted molester Michael Edwin Wempe in jail took the witness stand Monday and testified that he hid his abuse by the priest from everybody, even his mother.
The 26-year-old man, identified in court only as Jayson B., said that, at first, he thought it was normal that the priest touched his genitals. “It was Father Mike,” he testified. “It was really difficult to think that anything he did could be wrong.”
But he became disturbed when the abuse escalated to oral copulation, said Jayson B., who wept through most of his testimony.
“I said, ‘What are you doing?’ ” Jayson B. testified. “And he said that I was a special boy and he loves me.”
Wempe is accused of molesting Jayson B. from 1990 to 1995, beginning when Jayson B. was 11, while the priest was working as a chaplain at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Cardinal Roger M. Mahony assigned Wempe to the hospital after sending him to residential therapy for treatment of pedophilia.
Wempe originally faced criminal charges for molesting Jayson’s two brothers, but he walked out of jail a free man when the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 barred retroactive prosecution of decades-old abuse allegations. Weeks later, Jayson B. came forward with his allegations. Wempe subsequently admitted molesting the brothers, but he denies touching Jayson B
Monday, January 30th, 2006
Bill O’Reilly hasn’t suggested blowing up Assemblyman Mark Leno like he did Coit Tower—at least not yet.
A partisan brawl in Sacramento over cracking down on sex offenders has spawned a conservative attack, notable for its vitriol, on the San Francisco lawmaker.
Leno, author of an alternative to a “Jessica’s Law” ballot initiative backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has been called a danger to society and a friend of child pornography during the past week. It was also suggested in a political newsletter that he may be brain damaged after inhaling all of that secondhand marijuana smoke wafting through the streets of his hometown.
“Don’t let Leno and his San Francisco friends ruin our children,’’ wrote Steve Frank, who disseminated the rightward-leaning memo, as he urged his readers to write letters to the editor and call talk shows to oppose Leno’s legislation.
Department of Homeland Security document reveals MS-13 plan
Members of a violent international gang working for drug cartels in Central and South America are planning coordinated attacks along the U.S. border with Mexico, according to a Department of Homeland Security document obtained by the Daily Bulletin.
Detailed inside a Jan. 20 officer safety alert, the plot’s ultimate goal is to “begin gaining control of areas, cities and regions within the U.S.”
The information comes from the interrogation of a captured member of Mara Savatrucha, or MS-13, a transnational criminal syndicate born from displaced El Salvadoran death squads from the 1980s.
The MS-13 member, who claimed to have smuggled cocaine for the Gulf Cartel, explained a plan to amass MS-13 members in Mexican border towns such as Nuevo Laredo, Acuna, Ojinaga and Juarez. The Gulf Cartel runs its drug smuggling operations from Del Rio, Texas, to south of Matamoros, Mexico.
Local Radio Skit Sparks Muslim Controversy
A local radio personality and a group that says it is fighting to empower American Muslims have squared off over a provocative skit that featured a make-believe traffic reporter covering the hajj, where hundreds of pilgrims were crushed to death.
Bill Handel, the morning radio personality for KFI-AM (640), set off the furor when he broadcast the skit about a traffic reporter in a helicopter hovering over the hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, that attracts about 3 million faithful each year.
Al-Zawahri Calls Bush a ‘Butcher’ in Video
Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri said in a videotape aired Monday that President Bush was a “butcher” and a “failure” because of a deadly U.S. airstrike in Pakistan targeting the bin Laden deputy, and he threatened a new attack on the United States.
Al-Zawahri, shown in the video wearing white robes and a white turban, said a Jan. 13 airstrike in the eastern village of Damadola killed “innocents,” and he said the United States had ignored an offer from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden for a truce.
“Butcher of Washington, you are not only defeated and a liar, but also a failure. You are a curse on your own nation and you have brought and will bring them only catastrophes and tragedies,” he said, referring to Bush. “Bush, do you know where I am? I am among the Muslim masses.”
The airstrike hit a building in Damadola, where U.S. intelligence believed al-Zawahri had been attending an Islamic holiday dinner. The strike killed four al-Qaida leaders — including a man believed to be al-Zawahri’s son-in-law — but intelligence officials said later they believe al-Zawahri sent his aides to the dinner in his place.
Thirteen villagers also were killed in the strike, angering many Pakistanis.
Friday, January 27th, 2006
HAVING CHILD PORN IS NO BIG DEAL?!?!?
Assemblyman Mark Leno of the 13th State Assembly District
Contact information…
Assemblymember.Leno@assembly.ca.gov
Capitol Office
State Capitol
P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA
94249-0013
Fax (916) 319-2113
Phone (916) 319-2013
District Office
455 Golden Gate Ave.
Suite 14300
San Francisco, CA
94102
Fax (415) 557-3015
Phone (415) 557-3013
Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez (D-Los Angeles)
Contact information…
Assemblymember.Nunez@assembly.ca.gov
Capitol Office:
State Capitol
P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA
94249-0046
(916) 319-2046
Fax: (916) 319-2146
District Office:
320 West Fourth Street #1050
Los Angeles, CA
90013
(213) 620-4646
Fax (213) 620-6319
Calif. Labels Secondhand Smoke Toxic
California became the first state to declare secondhand smoke a toxic air pollutant Thursday, putting tobacco fumes in the same category as diesel exhaust, arsenic and benzene because of its link to breast cancer.
It could lead to a ban on smoking in private autos, “particularly cars where children are passengers,” Jerry Martin of the California Air Resources Board as well as public beaches and parks.
“We must now go back and try and find ways to reduce or eliminate the public exposure,” Martin said.
Not cars, said one woman.
“There are some places that are sacred, and my car is one of them,” she said.
The unanimous decision by the Air Resources Board relied on a September report that found a sharply increased risk of breast cancer in young women exposed to secondhand smoke. It also links drifting smoke to premature births, asthma and heart disease, as well as other cancers and numerous health problems in children.
“If people are serious about breast cancer, they have to deal with secondhand smoke. That’s what this is all about,” said Dr. Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control, Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco.
Republicans: Sex-crime bill is ‘sham’
ASSEMBLY: They block a measure that was seen as an alternative to the proposed Jessica’s Law.
Assembly Republicans on Thursday blocked a sex-crime bill pushed by Democrats as an alternative to a proposed ballot measure backed by Gov. Schwarzenegger and GOP lawmakers.Republicans criticized the bill by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, as a “sham” meant to undermine the initiative dubbed Jessica’s Law.
Related
Zoning out sex offenders
Proposal would ban them from living in many urban areas
“This is not a sincere effort at reform,” said Assemblyman John J. Benoit, R-Palm Desert, who has contributed $10,000 to the Jessica’s Law campaign.
Contentious Prohibitions
Democrats countered that the bill would toughen penalties against sex offenders. They criticized parts of Jessica’s Law as impractical, such as requiring more than 85,000 registered sex offenders to wear satellite-tracking devices and prohibiting them from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park.
An analysis earlier this month found that at least half of the state’s urban area would covered by the exclusion zones.
“Ours is a much more thoughtful approach and a much more fiscally responsible approach,” Leno said.
Earlier this month, Democrat-controlled public safety committees in the Assembly and Senate blocked Jessica’s Law bills.
Supporters said they are close to gathering enough signatures to bypass the Legislature and put Jessica’s Law on the November ballot
CALIFORNIA
UC study examines preschool benefits
By third grade, no difference shown among students
As proponents of universal preschool in California kicked off their campaign with news of an upbeat poll, a study on the lasting effects of preschool indicates many of its benefits may wear off by the time students reach third grade.
The University of California study, parts of which will be released today at a Sacramento conference, focuses on non-English-speaking children who went to preschool. Students who had gone to preschool gained a head start on literacy and language skills that gave them a leg up through third grade, according to the study by UC Santa Barbara professor Russell Rumberger, director of the UC Linguistic Minority Research Institute.
Rumberger’s national study comes as the universal preschool camp, led by Hollywood movie director Rob Reiner, campaigns to convince voters that all 4-year-olds would benefit from a year of free preschool and that every public dollar spent on universal preschool would result in future savings on education, crime reduction and social services.
Other studies, among numerous attempts to assess the impact of preschool in general, have established that universal preschool gives children a boost in kindergarten and beyond.
THE NEW WORLD
Here’s the story of Captain John Smith and Pocahontas as you have never seen or heard it before – and may never want to again. Ever heard of Director Terrence Malick? No? – Anyway, suffice it to say he likes to take it slow and easy. Very slow and easy. Forget the “two D’s” – detail and dialogue. There is little of either – people appear and are not introduced, dialogue, when it occurs, is often in such Old English it is hard to understand. Or it is obliterated by a very loud soundtrack. Very loud – in fact, I can still hear it in my head. Which is, by the way, the best way to pick up any dialogue in this movie – the main characters talking to themselves in their heads. If you really want to know what Pocahontas and John Smith are thinking, you’re going to have to wait for their narratives. (more…)
Thursday, January 26th, 2006
Minutemen Intend To Sue Laguna Parade Committee
Jim Gilchrist, a co-founder of the Minutemen Project—a citizen border patrol group, announced to members of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform that he will file a discrimination lawsuit against the organizers of the Laguna Beach Patriots Day Parade on Friday. He contends that he was unfairly prohibited entry to the 2006 parade, which will be held March 5th.
According to Gilchrist’s representative, Tim Bueler, the parade committee denied entry to the Minutemen Project because of Gilchrist’s prior run for Congress and announced intention to run again. The group’s denial was also due to its controversial nature.
The treasurer of the parade committee, in notifying Gilchrist of his ineligibility, also mentioned that he had been involved in protests against a day labor site in Laguna Beach. However, Bueler said, groups that have been active in the day labor center will be allowed to march, as will the anti-war group Laguna Beach Vigil for Peach—which holds weekly demonstrations in downtown Laguna Beach.
Reports Cite Incursions on U.S. Border
Armed Mexican government personnel made unauthorized incursions into the United States five times in the last three months of 2005, including one incident last month in Southern California, according to confidential Department of Homeland Security records.
The crossings involved police officers or soldiers in military vehicles and were among 231 such incidents recorded by the U.S. Border Patrol in the last 10 years.
The records obtained by The Times provide new details on more than a dozen incursions into the U.S., including the five most recent ones.
Details of the incidents emerged as authorities on both sides of the border scrambled to investigate a dangerous confrontation Monday in Texas.
Heavily armed personnel in a military-style Humvee from Mexico helped drug smugglers fleeing police to escape back across the border, according to authorities. An internal Border Patrol summary of the incident said the Humvee was equipped with a .50-caliber machine gun.
It was the second such incident in three months in the same rural county southeast of El Paso.
Council Addresses SCV Illegal Workers
Santa Clarita City Council meetings typically open with reports and updates from each member on pet projects, community events attended and other run-of-the-mill items.
