In Defiance, Governors Issues Pardons to Deportees

Posted on January 4, 2018January 4, 2018 by Denise Simon

It is argued that the Democrats want the illegals to stay in country due in part to gaining their vote. There is truth to that for sure, yet advocacy organizations raise a LOT of money which is in the end more important to the Democrat base for campaign contributions.

For a list of pro-amnesty groups covering all industry and social classifications, go here.

Perhaps as a reminder it is prudent to mention that Obama led the charge for clemency and pardons as noted here.

President Obama offered clemency to seven Iranians charged with violating U.S. trade sanctions against Iran as part of a historic prisoner agreement with Iran that freed four Americans Saturday, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian.

The Iranians, six of whom are dual U.S.-Iranian citizens, were imprisoned or were pending trial in the United States. The U.S. government dismissed charges against 14 other Iranians, all outside the United States, after assessing that extradition requests were unlikely to be successful, according to a U.S. official. More here.

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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo mimicked California Gov. Jerry Brown’s approach to immigration, pardoning 18 convicted illegal immigrants who faced deportation.

Cuomo, a Democrat, praised himself on Twitter for his compassion Thursday before linking to a New York Times article supporting the move.

Defying Trump again, Jerry Brown pardons immigrants about to be deported

Escalating the state’s showdown with the Trump administration over illegal immigration, California Gov. Jerry Brown used a Christmas holiday tradition to grant pardons Saturday to two men who were on the verge of being deported for committing crimes while in the U.S.

Brown, pairing his state’s combative approach to federal immigration authorities with his belief in the power of redemption, characterized the pardons as acts of mercy.

The Democratic governor moved as federal officials in recent months have detained and deported immigrants with felony convictions that resulted in the loss of their legal residency status, including many with nonviolent offenses that occurred years ago.

With the pardons, the reason for applicants’ deportations may be eliminated, said attorney Kevin Lo of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus, which represented some of the men in a recent class-action lawsuit.

The pardoned immigrants will still need to ask immigration courts to reopen their cases, he said.The detentions of felons has focused on specific ethnic groups in past months, including Cambodians and Vietnamese, according to immigration lawyers handling the cases. Cambodia has been reluctant to repatriate former felons, but acquiesced to accepting more after the State Department stopped issuing visas in September to a small group of top Cambodian officials and their families.

Two of Brown’s pardons are Northern California Cambodian men picked up in October in those immigration sweeps, Mony Neth of Modesto and Rottanak Kong of Davis.

Kong was convicted on felony joyriding in 2003 in Stanislaus County at age 25 and sentenced to a year in jail. Neth was convicted on a felony weapons charge with a gang enhancement and a misdemeanor charge of receiving stolen property with a value of $400 or less in 1995 in Stanislaus County.

Both men came to the United States as children after their families fled the Khmer Rouge regime, and neither has engaged in criminal activity since being released from prison.

Kong and Neth were scheduled to be deported Monday, but a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order last week in the lawsuit filed by Lo’s team, delaying their departure.

Neth, 42, was unexpectedly released from Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center on Friday, said his wife, Cat Khamvongsa, and is back home with his family – albeit with an ankle monitor.

“We gave him a big hug,” she said of herself and her 16-year-old daughter. “We’re so happy.”

In a phone interview Friday night while on his way to Costco, Neth said he was asleep Friday morning when a guard at the detention facility near Elk Grove called his name.

“I knew right then I was coming home,” Neth said. “It’s the best Christmas gift ever. … I don’t want to be anywhere else in the world.”

Despite the governor’s pardon, Neth still faces legal hurdles, Lo said.

What Goes on in Sanctuary California Wont Stay in California

Posted on January 3, 2018January 3, 2018 by Denise Simon

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Federal dollars going to California could or should be considered foreign aid. Why? Read on…

The federal government spends some $367.8 billion a year on California. That’s an average of about $9,500 for every woman, man and child in the state.

In truth, the money isn’t spread out evenly. About 56 cents of every federal dollar spent in California, according to the analysis, goes to health or retirement benefits — Social Security, Medicare and money for low-income residents’ health care through the Medi-Cal program.

Defense contracts are the next biggest slice of the pie, followed by paychecks to military and civilian government employees. From there, federal spending gets sprinkled among a number of programs run by the state government. Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent budget plan pegged those funds at a total of $105 billion, equivalent to about 58% of state taxpayer dollars to be spent in the fiscal year that begins on July 1.

A detailed report is here.

So, now that California is officially a sanctuary state under SB54, effective January1, 2018, those illegals, felons and those plotting threats with regard to national security can freely travel anywhere, this is not just a California problem.

Last year, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order to cut funding from counties that limit cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities, Santa Clara County stood to lose $1.7 billion in federal funding. After fighting the order, a federal judge ruled in favor of the county. Now that the entire state is following the same guidelines, some leaders argue it could strengthen their position in future legal battles.

Not everyone is onboard, however. Some California sheriff’s departments have criticized the new sanctuary state law, saying it will lead to broad roundups that could lead to collateral arrests. More here.

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There is a key word in this new law, it is ‘prohibits’.

BILL SUMMARY

Prohibits state and local law enforcement from holding illegal aliens on the basis of federal immigration detainers, or transferring them into federal custody, unless they’ve been convicted in the last 15 years for one of a list of 31 crimes, or are a registered sex offender: if not, they may only be held with a warrant from a federal judge.

Prohibits state and local law enforcement from asking anyone about their immigration status.

Prohibits state and local law enforcement from sharing any information with federal immigration authorities that is not available to the general public.

Prohibits state and local law enforcement from using any of their money or personnel to “investigate, interrogate, detain, detect, or arrest persons for immigration enforcement purposes”.

Prohibits state and local law enforcement from allowing federal immigration authorities to use space in their facilities.

Limits how and when state and local law enforcement can contract with federal immigration authorities.

Grants discretion to state and local law enforcement to cooperate even less with federal immigration authorities than the bill authorizes them to, but not more

Is near-universally recognized and described by both its supporters and opponents as a sanctuary state bill: protects illegal aliens at the expense of citizens, will increase illegal immigration to California, and sends the message that illegal aliens are welcome everywhere in the state.

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State Senate Leader Kevin de Leon, the author of the bill, has argued that public safety will be undermined if the law isn’t passed. It is estimated that more than 2 million undocumented people live in California — with hundreds of thousands from Asia as well as Latin America — and advocates say many will be scared to interact with official institutions if they fear that will put them on federal immigration agents’ radar. They say individuals might not report violent crimes to police, might not send their kids to school or might not seek medical care at the local hospital. And there is some evidence to back that up: Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Police Department said that Latino communities were reporting fewer instances of sexual assault and domestic violence because of concerns about deportation under Trump. More here.

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California Democratic state Senate president Kevin de León intends to enter California’s 2018 Senate race against Sen. Dianne Feinstein, three sources with knowledge of his plans say.

De León has begun calling labor leaders and elected officials to inform them of his plans, the sources said, and is expected to soon announce his campaign against Feinstein, a giant of California Democratic politics who has held the office since 1992.

The 50-year-old de León, who represents Los Angeles and is seen as a leading Latino voice in Democratic politics, is likely to campaign aggressively against President Donald Trump. He began signaling he could oppose Feinstein in late August, after she said Trump could “be a good president” and that he “can learn and change.” Feinstein later clarified that she is “under no illusion that it’s likely to happen and will continue to oppose his policies.” More here.

So who is this de Leon character? That is a challenge to determine and he has not been fully forthcoming on his own history. Check it out here.

We also had this sexual harassment case, where de Leon was the roommate. Hummm. He was also a college dropout.

De León was the first and only person in his family to graduate from high school and attend college. He started out at the University of California Santa Barbara, but it was a challenge. He had moxie but no organizational skills, no practice at taking notes or studying for a test. He didn’t last long.

He couldn’t go back home and tell his mother of his failure. Instead, he went to work for One Stop Immigration Center, a nonprofit in Los Angeles that helps undocumented immigrants fill out paperwork and teaches them English, history and organizing.

Then, the Attorney General for California is Javier Beccera. He is a loyal and dedicated supported of the Dream Act and will defend all cases against California becoming a sanctuary state. Meanwhile, remember that whole Pakistani IT case in Congress under Debbie Wasserman Schultz?

Enter again Javier Beccera.

Now-indicted former congressional IT aide Imran Awan allegedly routed data from numerous House Democrats to a secret server. Police grew suspicious and requested a copy of the server early this year, but they were provided with an elaborate falsified image designed to hide the massive violations. The falsified image is what ultimately triggered their ban from the House network Feb. 2, according to a senior House official with direct knowledge of the investigation.

The secret server was connected to the House Democratic Caucus, an organization chaired by then-Rep. Xavier Becerra. Police informed Becerra that the server was the subject of an investigation and requested a copy of it. Authorities considered the false image they received to be interference in a criminal investigation, the senior official said.

On Jan. 24, 2017, Becerra vacated his congressional seat to become California’s attorney general. “He wanted to wipe his server, and we brought to his attention it was under investigation. The light-off was we asked for an image of the server, and they deliberately turned over a fake server,” the senior official said.

“They were using the House Democratic Caucus as their central service warehouse … It was a breach. The data was completely out of [the members’] possession. Does it mean it was sold to the Russians? I don’t know,” the senior official said.

Capitol Police considered the image a sign that the Awans knew exactly what they were doing and were going to great lengths to try to cover it up, the senior official said. The House Sergeant-at-Arms banned them from the network as a result.

The senior official said the data was also funneled offsite via a Dropbox account, from which copies could easily be downloaded. Authorities could not immediately shut down the account when the Awans were banned from the network because it was not an official account. More here.

One last item…don’t forget to keep Eric Holder in the whole mix regarding California.

Former U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder files brief on behalf of California Senate in Chicago’s ‘sanctuary city’ lawsuit

The California Senate is throwing its support behind Chicago in a lawsuit against the Justice Department over its plan to withhold federal money from “sanctuary cities,” which limit collaboration between state and local authorities with federal immigration agents.

Former U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. and his firm, Covington & Burling, on Thursday filed a friend-of the-court brief on behalf of the state Senate in the federal case, saying sanctuary jurisdictions have policies consistent with federal law.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, Holder says, does not have the constitutional authority to mandate that cities, counties or states participate in federal immigration efforts as a condition to receive their federal public safety awards.

The lawsuit, filed last month by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and city officials, asks a judge to block the Trump administration from enforcing three new conditions it included in petitions for Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant money. The city uses the grant to buy police cars and other equipment, and to fund an anti-violence program.

Holder, who was said to have filed the brief pro-bono, was temporarily hired by the Senate and Assembly to serve as outside counsel to offer advice on the state’s legal strategy against the incoming administration. On Friday, a Covington & Burling spokeswoman said the firm remains “engaged with the California Senate on an ongoing basis.”

In the brief, Holder said the California Legislature has a particular interest in the Chicago case as it weighs Senate Bill 54, which seeks to limit state and local law enforcement agencies from using resources to question, detain and provide information on immigrants illegally in the country.

Covington & Burling analyzed the legislation this year and concluded that “states have the power over the health and safety of their residents and allocation of state resources.”

Cottage Industry in U.S. for Refugee Resettlement

Posted on November 27, 2017November 27, 2017 by Denise Simon

There was a time when the U.S. State Department along with associated agencies including USAID and the CIA would work to migrate countries from communism to democracies. After the rise of militant Islam and terror attacks around the world, countless gestures have been launched to destroy terror including of course war. Stable countries are now vulnerable and susceptible to radical migrant refugees and migrants.

Europe is in the worst condition and the United States is functioning in much the same manner. We constantly hear that the United States was built on immigrants and we invite legal immigration. Few conceive the notion that immigrants would not seek out America if there home countries were stable, democratic and functioning especially when the United States sends billions each year offshore for assistance and stability.

Meanwhile, America continues to budget and appropriate funds for migrants and refugees in the United States and more coming.

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For an exact sample on how the states operate, this site provided some great insight using Michigan.

Do you wonder what the total and comprehensive costs are for refugee resettlement? Well, the General Accounting Office is to report those costs, yet there seems to be no recent report. Meanwhile see pages 8-9 for the resettlement numbers by state by clicking here.

FY 2017 Notice of Funding Opportunity for Reception and Placement Program

Funding Procedures

Under current funding procedures, each agency with which the Bureau enters into a Cooperative Agreement (CA) is provided $2,025 for each refugee it sponsors who arrives in the United States during the period of the CA and is verified to have been placed and assisted by the agency. The funding is intended to supplement private resources available to the applicant and may be used at the local affiliates at which refugees are resettled and only for the direct benefit of refugees and for the delivery of services to refugees in accordance with program requirements as described in the CA. In addition, the Bureau funds national R&P Program management costs according to separately negotiated and approved budgets based on the applicant’s sponsorship capacity.

The annual ceiling for refugee admissions will be established by the President following consultations with the Congress towards the end of FY 2016. The FY 2017 appropriation and refugee ceiling have not yet been determined. For planning purposes, applicants should use the following refugee admissions projections as a baseline, although they may not necessarily be the regional or total ceilings that will be set by the President for FY 2017. Projections by region are as follows:

Africa — 30,000

East Asia — 12,000

Europe and Central Asia — 5,000

Latin America and the Caribbean — 5,000

Near East and South Asia — 44,000

Unallocated Reserve — 4,000

In addition, applicants should include 7,000 Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) recipients in their planning.

As in previous years, applicants should base their placement plans provided to PRM in response to this notice of funding opportunity on the capacity of their network of local affiliates, which will have consulted with resettlement partners in their communities in order to ensure that the placement plans are reasonable and appropriate. Should the FY 2017 Presidential Determination and appropriation processes result in ceilings that are different from the total capacity that has been proposed by all approved applicants, the Bureau will work with approved applicants, as necessary, to develop a revised plan, as it has in previous years. If you can stand it, continue the stipulations and grant procedures here.

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It has become a cottage industry with almost zero checks and balances and your tax dollars? Well glad you asked. Check it:

Requirements to resettle refugees
To be selected as an R&P program agency, a non-governmental organization must apply to the PRM, which stipulates they meet three requirements:
1. Applicants must be “well-established social service providers with demonstrated case management expertise and experience managing a network of affiliates that provide reception and placement or similar services to refugees or other migrant populations in the United States;
2. (they must) have been in operation for at least three full years in non-profit status;
3. and document the availability of private financial resources to contribute to the program” (FY 2012 Funding Opportunity Announcement for Reception and Placement Program).

How it works
Each agency enters into a Cooperative Agreement (CA) with the PRM and is provided $1800 per refugee it sponsors who arrives in the U.S. during the period of the CA. Resettlement agencies have voluntary agreements with the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (US DHHS). The resettlement agencies generally receive seven to ten days notice prior to the arrival of a refugee so that they can assign a case manager, find housing, furniture, and purchase necessary household items. If the refugee has a relative or other tie already living in the U.S. (called an “anchor”), the resettlement agency usually establishes an agreement before the refugees arrive to determine the role the relative or tie will have in assisting the newly arrived refugee in accessing core services.

Service period & basic services
The R&P service period is thirty days long, but can be extended to up to ninety days if more time is necessary to complete delivery of R&P services, although some service agencies allow extensions of assistance based on a client’s needs. Basic support consists of the provision of:
1. Decent, safe, sanitary, and affordable housing
2. Essential furnishings
3. Appropriate food and food allowances
4. Necessary clothing
5. Assistance in applying for social security cards
6. Assistance in registering children in school
7. Transportation to job interviews and job training
8. At least two home visits
9. An initial housing orientation visit by a designated R&P representative or case manager
10. Assistance in obtaining health screening and mental health services
11. Obtaining employment services
12. Obtaining appropriate benefits
13. Referrals to social service programs
14. Enrollment in English as a Second Language instruction.
15. Pre-arrival processing & reception planning
16. Airport pickup
17. Hot meal on night of arrival
18. General case management
19. Development and implementation of a resettlement plan
20. Cultural orientation classes
21. Employment assessment and possible enrollment in UST’s employment program
22. Referrals to UST internal programs
23. Advocacy within government and social services agencies
24. Coordination of community volunteers that provide additional adjustment assistance
25. Follow up and basic needs support

If refugees are still in need of assistance after this 30-90 day period, they can seek aid from public benefit programs for up to seven years. Refugees retain their status as such for one year, and then are considered permanent residents for four years. After that, they can apply for U.S. citizenship.

Other services listed on our website are also accessible to our clients. Some services are subject to office location.

Top Progressives/Dark Money Meeting at Cali Resort

Posted on November 17, 2017November 17, 2017 by Denise Simon

Beyond Resistance it is called….watch that hashtag through 2020. Meanwhile, if Kamala Harris is there with Van Jones and George Soros with Nancy Pelosi, you know the agenda is being crafted.

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Resistance Royalty: Pelosi, Soros Headline Left’s Biggest Dark Money Conference

Private memo gives inside look at Democracy Alliance’s latest secret donor meeting

CARLSBAD, Calif.—A secretive three-day conference where big money liberal donors are plotting the next steps of the “resistance” will be headlined by Friday speeches by billionaire George Soros and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, according to internal documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The Democracy Alliance, a donor club of deep-pocketed liberal donors that each pledge to direct hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding to approved left-wing groups, descended on California’s posh La Costa Resort on Wednesday morning for its fall donor summit. The group continued its tradition of secrecy, promising all members and guests of the summit their participation would “remain confidential.”

The 38 page conference program is found here.

The first page of the conference agenda, which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon and can be viewed in its entirety below, lays out “participation guidelines,” explaining that the Democracy Alliance is a “safe place” for donors and activists to meet. Guests are instructed not to share members’ names with the press and not to post to any social media sites, to contact Democracy Alliance if “the media or a blogger” contacts them, and to “refrain from leaving sensitive materials out where others may find them.”

This latter directive was ignored.

The agenda for the meeting, titled “Beyond #Resistance: Reclaiming our Progressive Future,” lays out three full days of events culminating in a Friday night dinner headlined by Pelosi.

A few hours earlier guests can attend “A Talk with George Soros,” who will be introduced with a “special videotaped message” by Democratic senator Kamala Harris (Calif.).

All of the events are scheduled to take place at the La Costa Resort, which features 17 tennis courts of both clay and hard surfaces including one with 1,000 seats for spectators, 36 holes of golf on the Legends Course and the Champions Course, an array of pools including three hot tubs that overlook said golf courses, a spa building, and the Deepak Chopra Center, where guests can do yoga or receive mind-body medical consultations.

Pelosi and Harris are not the only two politicians to have a presence at the swanky conference—Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf (D.) held a Thursday event on his reelection efforts, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) will speak on Friday about “Russian interference in the 2016 election,” and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D., Minn.), who chairs the DCCC, will attend a “festive brunch” on Saturday morning. Also making a “special appearance” on Friday will be Virginia’s governor-elect Ralph Northam.

The agenda also lists “special guests” at the conference, some more famous than others. Attendees showcased in the agenda range from failed California politician Sandra Fluke to liberal CNN contributor Van Jones to Center for American Progress CEO Neera Tanden.

Jones was headlining a Thursday dinner on “going outside the bubble” and learning from Trump voters.

Not all events and prominent guests are listed in the conference agenda.

Not listed, for example, was a Thursday night happy hour hosted by Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, who was spotted in attendance.

Also not listed as a special guest at the conference was David Brock, who checked in early Wednesday afternoon and has made himself highly visible at La Costa—slowly strolling around the sprawling property and staying up at the hotel bar till past midnight.

Brock is not a “partner” of Democracy Alliance—in fact, he has worked to create his own liberal donor network—but groups he controls, such as Media Matters for America, are among the many groups Democracy Alliance directs funding to.

Not listed in the agenda or spotted at the resort has been billionaire Tom Steyer, one of Democracy Alliance’s most prominent members in the past. Pelosi publicly reprimanded Steyer earlier this month for running a $10 million ad calling for President Trump’s impeachment.

Also not listed in the Democracy Alliance program was a meeting held by Patriotic Millionaires, who gave a Thursday morning briefing on the “tax fight” and “what is at stake.” The briefing was delivered by Larry Mishel of Americans for Tax Fairness, Thea Lee of Economic Policy Institute, and Jacob Leibenluft, a member of the Obama administration’s National Economic Council who is now with the Centeron Budget and Policy Priorities.

Not all meetings at the conference are open to all guests. Some meetings are “by invitation only,” “for prospective partners only,” or for “partners only.”

Right before Pelosi’s speech, for example, will be a “Partners only” forum dedicated to “committing resources.” The Democracy Alliance has never made its commitment decisions available to the public.

Democracy Alliance president Gara LaMarche wrote in a letter to attendees included in the agenda that President Trump’s November victory was “the most cataclysmic election of modern history.”

They are show a film by Heather Booth….the founding director of Midwest Academy. Just a few minutes into this video, you can see that child care is a social issue….other people need to pay for it…setting the table as child care turned into political power.

The Midwest Academy has been the go-to training school for turning social justice organizing into practical lessons for social justice organizers. Trainers from the Academy will join CTCP-funded staff for a three-day training that will cover the essentials of community organizing and developing strategies to build organizational power.

In the 1980s, MA was indirectly responsible for funding Barack Obama’s early organizing work, which began in June of 1985 in Chicago. At the time, Obama received key support from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) and the Woods Fund of Chicago. In both cases, Ken Rolling — who was a high official with the Midwest Academy, a Woods Fund board member, and a longtime member of CCHD’s national committee — likely played a major role in dispensing this money.

To this day, MA continues to indoctrinate its students in “us-versus-them” ideology, thereby producing an ever-growing cadre of radicalized activists. One prominent MA graduate is Service Employees International Union (SEIU) president Andrew Stern.

MA’s training sessions — titled “Organizing for Social Change” — are typically five days long. They teach techniques of “direct-action organizing,” whereby people are made “aware of their own power” to “take collective action on their own behalf” and address such societal issues as “rising inequalty in income and wealth.” MA’s openly confrontational modus operandi is reflected in a quote, attributed to Frederick Douglass, which appeared on the Academy website’s homepage as of January 2011: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will.” The chief objectives of MA’s tactics are interrelated: “electing our people to office” and “changing laws and regulations.”

MA training sessions cover such topics as “choosing problems and issues” on which to focus, “understanding preconditions for social change movements,” and obtaining “good media coverage.” Role-play techniques are used in order to help students determine what tactics work best in various situations: e.g., “stand or sit, shout or remain calm, make threats or try to reach consensus.”

An inviolable core principle undergirding all of MA’s tactics is that in every case, activists must “target” a “decision maker”; i.e., a “person or persons” who can be “forced” to “give you what you want.” Observing a central tenet of Saul Alinsky’s community-organizing doctrines, MA emphasizes: “The decision maker is always a person, never as institution.” (Alinsky taught that the people’s discontent must be directed, without exception, at an identifiable face — “a personification, not something general and abstract like a corporation or City Hall.”)

Toward this end, MA activists commonly employ a technique known as the “accountability session,” whereby they target a specific person — e.g., a government official or corporate CEO who possesses the authority necessary to make a decision vis a vis a matter of concern to MA. The activists arrange to meet with this person, telling him or her that they merely wish to have a certain existing policy or plan explained to them. At the meeting, however, the official is confronted by a large number of angry protesters; their activities are directed by an experienced organizer who has analyzed the official’s personal and family life, political connections, and career to find vulnerabilities where pressure can be applied.

To provide an overall structure for its training programs, MA has produced a 425-page manual titled Organizing for Social Change, co-authored by former MA trainer Kim Bobo, MA co-founder Steve Max, and current MA executive director Jackie Kendall. This publication is widely used by radicals and community organizations around the world as a textbook on how to conduct direct-action organizing. Such groups as the Children’s Defense Fund, NARAL, the Sierra Club, and the United States Student Organization have used the manual for training purposes. The AFL-CIO has incorporated the manual’s teachings into its “Union Summer” training camp for labor organizers. Former AFL-CIO president John Sweeney and the Rev. Jesse Jackson have highly encouraged their supporters to read it.

In December 2005, MA announced its establishment of an annual “Heather Award,” in honor of Heather Booth’s decades of work as an activist leader.
To view a list of this award’s past recipients, click here.

In 2008, MA executive director Jackie Kendall served on the team that developed the first volunteer-training program for “Camp Obama,” a two-to-four day intensive course — run in conjunction with Barack Obama’s presidential campaign — designed to cultivate political activists who could help the Illinois senator win the White House.

MA endorsed the October 2, 2010 “March on Washington” organized by One Nation Working Together, an event whose purpose was to inspire “an intensive voter-mobilization program for Election Day 2010.”
For a list of other notable endorsers, click here.

DoJ Investigates Harvard U, How About other Universities?

Posted on October 6, 2017October 6, 2017 by Denise Simon

We keep hearing the term ‘class warfare’ meaning the population in the United States has been officially divided into groups where the left has applied labels. This essentially translates to breaking down the profiles of people into segmented minority groups such as LGBT, color, religion, culture, country of origin and economic status. Hence the divisions manifest.

College campuses are the incubation hubs for where the defined groups are most notable and Harvard is being investigated by the Department of Justice on the matter of admissions related to exacerbating division and class warfare.

Investigating Harvard is a good start and may provide a model for what is occurring at other universities such as Berkeley, Columbia, Georgetown and hundreds more.

Harvard’s Affirmative Action Program is Now the Subject of a DOJ Investigation

The Trump administration is investigating Harvard University over whether the elite university is favoring particular racial groups in its admissions policies — a probe that critics say is an attack on affirmative action on campus.

The Department of Justice confirmed its investigation, which follows reports that the agency was hiring lawyers to begin a probe into whether Harvard was exercising “intentional race-based discrimination” to pick its student body, the New York Times reported in August.

Supporters of affirmative action, which allows colleges to use race as a factor in their selection process, said such an investigation would undermine educational opportunities for students of color.

“The Department of Justice has launched an unprecedented assault on efforts to promote racial diversity in higher education,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a national watchdog group.

The Justice Department has not outlined which racial groups it believes are being favored at Harvard or, potentially, other universities. But the department’s actions under Attorney General Jeff Sessions are aligning with an argument popular in right-wing circles that affirmative action is reverse discrimination that hurts white students. Critics say the Justice Department investigation is a big by the Trump administration to energize its base.

The Justice Department’s move arrives when for the first time the majority of Harvard’s incoming class was made up of minorities, with 50.8 percent of the Class of 2021 from racial minorities, up from 47.3 percent last year.

“When you think about what the top priorities for the Department of Justice should be at this time when it comes to civil rights, I can’t imagine that chiming in for the first time against affirmative action policies should be at the top of the list,” Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, told Newsweek.

Evers’s group had filed a freedom-of-information request that led to the Justice Department revelation that it was indeed investigating Harvard.

Officially, the Justice Department has it was following up on a 2015 federal complaint filed by more than 60 Asian-American associations.

Harvard officials declined to comment on the investigation.

The alleged attack on affirmative action comes after Eric Dreiband, Trump’s pick to lead the Civil Rights Division, once defended the University of North Carolina when it was accused of discriminating against transgender people. Civil rights group protested his nomination to the position.

“The fact that Mr. Dreiband failed to separate himself from or condemn the politically charged investigations into affirmative action policies at colleges and universities makes his nomination even more concerning in light of this new information regarding the Department’s efforts,” Clarke said.

In 2016, the Supreme Court upheld the basic ideals of affirmative action, asserting that race could remain a factor considering a student’s admittance into a university. The court also cautioned universities to continually review their affirmative action programs and suggested that not all programs could stand up against “reverse racism” challenges. Supporters of affirmative action were frustrated that the High Court did not use the case to end all challenges to using race as a factor in selecting students.

Indeed, Harvard’s frustration was apparent in a statement issued to Newsweek with its no comment on Thursday: “To become leaders in our diverse society, students must have the ability to work with people from different backgrounds, life experiences and perspectives,” the school said. “Harvard remains committed to enrolling diverse classes of students. Harvard’s admissions process considers each applicant as a whole person, and we review many factors, consistent with the legal standards established by the U.S. Supreme Court.”