CP: Answers and Genesis has declared a major victory in its legal case against the state of Kentucky after a federal judge ruled Monday that officials violated the group’s First Amendment rights by denying it participation in a sales tax incentive worth millions.
The Miami Held reported that U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove ruled in his decision that Kentucky’s Tourism Cabinet cannot exclude the Ark Encounter from the tax incentive because of its “religious purpose and message.”
Following the decision, AiG CEO and President Ken Ham declared “victory for the free exercise of religion in this country.”
“Atheist organizations and other secular groups have been falsely claiming that AiG/Ark Encounter should not receive a facially neutral tax incentive in Kentucky because of our Christian message,” Ham said in a follow up message on Facebook.
“They have also been wrongly stating that AiG would be breaking the law if we used a religious preference in our hiring at the future Ark. AiG has responded many times to their bogus claims, charges which are nothing more than the secularists’ blatant desire to see religious discrimination be practiced against AiG. Such discrimination against Christianity is growing across America,” he added, directing readers to more information about the issue on the AiG website.
The Ark Encounter, which is a life-sized Noah’s Ark theme park, is set to open July 7 in Williamstown, and cost nearly $90 million to construct.
AiG sued Kentucky in February 2015 after state officials denied it participation in the sales tax tourism incentive that could have been worth up to $18 million, arguing that the Ark Encounter would be an extension of AiG’s Creationist ministry.
Van Tatenhove explained in his decision that the tourism incentive “is neutral, has a secular purpose, and does not grant preferential treatment to anyone based on religion, allowing (Answers in Genesis) to participate along with the secular applicants cannot be viewed as acting with the predominant purpose of advancing religion.”
Ham, who is also the CEO and President of the Creation Museum in Kentucky, said that his organization took the state to court “for the sake of Christian freedom in the nation.”
“AiG wanted to ensure that the U.S. Constitution and its First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion would be upheld. The federal judge ruled late Monday, and it’s a victory for AiG. Really, this court decision is precedent-setting and a triumph for the First Amendment’s promise of the free exercise of religion in America,” he added.
Groups such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State put pressure on the state last year to keep denying the Ark Encounter the tax incentives, arguing that it wants to “prevent taxpayer dollars from being used to unconstitutionally finance a religious ministry.”
Ham has denied those suggestions as well, insisting that “absolutely no unwilling taxpayers will see a single penny of their tax dollars go toward the Ark Encounter.”
Category Archives: Industry Jobs Oil Economics
Gag Order: Fired Employees vs. Foreign Workers
Laid-off IT workers muzzled as H-1B debate heats up
ComputerWorld: IT workers are challenging the replacement of U.S. employees with foreign visa holders. Lawsuits are on the rise and workers are contacting lawmakers. Disney workers who lost their jobs on Jan. 30, 2015, are especially aggressive.
There’s a reason for this.
The Disney severance package offered to them did not include a non-disparagement clause, making it easier for laid-off workers to speak out. This is in contrast to the severance offered to Northeast Utility workers.
The utility, now known as Eversource Energy and based in Connecticut and Massachusetts, laid off approximately 200 IT employees in 2014 after contracting with two India-based offshore outsourcing firms. The employees contacted local media and lawmakers to pressure the utility to abandon its outsourcing plan.
Some of the utility’s IT employees had to train their foreign replacements. Failure to do so meant loss of severance. But an idea emerged to show workers’ disdain for what was happening: Small American flags were placed in cubicles and along the hallway in silent protest — flags that disappeared as the workers were terminated.
The utility employees left their jobs with a severance package that included this sentence: “Employee agrees that he/she shall make no statements to anyone, spoken or written, that would tend to disparage or discredit the Company or any of the Company’s officers, directors, employees, or agents.”
That clause has kept former Eversource employees from speaking out because of fears the utility will sue them if they say anything about their experience. The IT firms that Eversource uses, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, are major users of the H-1B visa.
But staying silent is difficult, especially after Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) co-sponsored legislation in January 2015 that would hike the 65,000 H-1B base cap hike to as high as 195,000. The measure, known as the I-Squared Act, left some of the former utility IT employees incredulous. They were far from alone.
The 200,000-member engineering association, IEEE-USA, said the I-Squared bill would “help destroy” the IT workforce with a flood of lower paid foreign workers.
Eventually, Blumenthal’s staff did learn, confidentially, about the experiences of former Eversource IT workers.
In November, Blumenthal co-sponsored new H-1B legislation by longtime program critics, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), designed to prevent the replacement of U.S. workers by H-1B visa holders.
Nonetheless, Blumenthal remains a co-sponsor of the I-Squared Act, which raised questions among those laid off about his intentions.
“He is still co-sponsoring everything,” one former Connecticut utility worker said about Blumenthal. The worker asked not to be identified because of severance package limitations. “He is totally unbelievable.” Blumenthal was not immediately available for comment.
Leo Perrero, an IT worker at Disney who was laid off after training his foreign replacement, says non-disparagement agreements hinder the debate over the H-1B visa. Without such agreements, “you would have a lot more people speaking out – real human beings with real stories, not just anonymous persons speaking out,” said Perrero.
“Their freedom of speech is being taken away from them with the non-disparagement agreements,” he said.
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee wanted to hear, last year, from IT employees who had been displaced by H-1B workers. It also wanted them to testify. It reached out nationally to affected employees, but had to settle for written testimony that was kept anonymous by the committee. The workers were too afraid to speak publicly.
In December, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who is also the chairman of the Immigration subcommittee, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), introduced an H-1B reform bill that includes a prohibition against non-disparagement clauses.
The bill “would prevent employers who seek access to the (H-1B) program from requiring American employees to sign so-called non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements.” The agreements can prevent “American employees from discussing potential misuse of the program publicly.”
Non-disparagement clauses are common in severance agreements. But the Disney severance did not have one, and had no prohibition against any claims or lawsuits, said Sara Blackwell, an attorney representing former Disney IT workers. It is unclear why the company went this route.
Fear of jeopardizing new employment also keeps many displaced IT workers quiet. But lawsuits alleging discrimination and racketeering are being filed on behalf of displaced IT workers.
Brian Buchanan, a former Southern California Edison IT worker, is another who trained his foreign replacements. He is now part of a lawsuit alleging discrimination by Tata Consultancy Services, one of the IT services firms used by Edison. He is also included in a lawsuit challenging the U.S. government’s decision to allow spouses of some H-1B workers to seek employment. That lawsuit argues that the added workers will hurt the job market for U.S. workers.
Buchanan, who has contacted lawmakers about the impact of the H-1B programs, sees “little progress” in the past year. “Americans are going to have to act and they are going to have to act in mass, because we are fighting a huge, unseen force,” said Buchanan.
Eversource was asked about the non-disparagement agreement, and had this response: “These are private arrangements between affected employees and our company that were made more than two years ago during a period of transition and change in support of our merger. We have successfully moved on to form a new organization focused on providing superior service and value to our customers.”
But many IT workers hurt by offshore outsourcing have not been able to move on.
Former employees at Disney, Edison and Eversource tell of financial strains, tapped retirement funds and an inability to find a job, or to find one that pays close to what they once made.
Workers will say, anecdotally, that they know of many former co-workers who are now struggling. The H-1B workers tend to be younger, and the displaced ones, older, they say.
“It’s hard to start over at 50 when no one wants you,” said one former Edison IT worker. That worker is still searching for a job.
Major Gang Arrests in Boston, Immigrant MS-13
Gangs like the MS13 and Barrio 18 in El Salvador are rigid about enforcing the boundaries of their territory. This has dramatic repercussions for both the bus drivers who drive and the students who walk across these borders.
“This street is the limit — look. The frontline of the war is right here. Here there are gunshots every so often. Down there are MS13. Up there are Barrio 18 Revolucionarios. It is an L. And we are in the middle.”
So says a middle-aged man. He is the extortion negotiator for a bus and minibus route. That is his job. In a country where even Coca Cola or Tigo pay extortion, in El Salvador there are architects, street vendors, shoemakers, teachers, and extortion negotiators. The country’s reality creates jobs. More details here.
Dozens said to be linked to El Salvador gang indicted in Boston area
Dozens of Boston-area residents linked to the Central American-based MS-13 street gang were being rounded up by law enforcement authorities on Friday after their indictments on racketeering conspiracy charges related to murders and other crimes, federal prosecutors said.
The indictment of 56 members, leaders and associates of “one of the largest criminal organizations in the United States” alleges that several of the accused played a role in the murders of at least five people since 2014 in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and East Boston, as well as at least 14 attempted murders.
In Massachusetts, MS-13 is largely composed of immigrants and descendants of immigrants from El Salvador, recruited through intimidation in local high schools in towns with heavy concentrations of residents with ties to Central America, prosecutors said.
“Violence is a central tenet of MS-13, as evidenced by its core motto – ‘mata, viola, control,’ translated as, ‘kill, rape, control,'” the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Massachusetts said in a statement.
The indictment also accuses Massachusetts-based members of MS-13, also known as “La Mara Salvatrucha,” of selling narcotics and committing robberies to raise money to send to leaders of the gang jailed in El Salvador.
It was not immediately clear how many of the 56 people indicted were under arrest on Friday afternoon. The statement said that 15 of the accused were already in custody on federal, state or immigration charges.
A representative of the U.S. attorney’s office could not be reached immediately for comment.
The racketeering conspiracy charge – under the federal law known as RICO – alone carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, or even life if the underlying criminal activity carries the maximum penalty of life imprisonment, prosecutors said.
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There is more to the story and here are some other chilling facts:
CIS.org: Since the recent surge in Central American immigrants crossing the southern border illegally, many have had questions about the Central American community in the United States. News accounts indicate that, in recent months, some 290,000 illegal immigrants (primarily from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) have been settled, or will soon be settled, by the federal government.1 Listed below are some basic socio-demographic statistics for immigrants in the United States from these countries.
The figures below are for both legal and illegal immigrants from the public-use files of the 2012 American Community Survey, collected by the Census Bureau:
- Population Totals: In 2012 there were 2.7 million immigrants from El Salvador (1.3 million), Guatemala (880,000), and Honduras (536,000) in the United States. Combined, the immigrant population from these three countries has grown 234 percent since 1990.
- The Top-10 States of Settlement: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Georgia.
- Illegal Immigrants: Department of Homeland Security estimates indicate that about 60 percent of immigrants from these three countries (1.6 million) are in the United States illegally.2
- Language: Of immigrants from El Salvador, 70 percent report they speak English less than very well; for immigrants from Guatemala, it is 72 percent; and for immigrants from Honduras, it is 69 percent.
- Home-ownership: Of households headed by Salvadoran immigrants, 41 percent are owner-occupied, as are 28 percent of Guatemalan households, and 29 percent of Honduran immigrant households. The corresponding figure for natives is 66 percent.
The figures below are for both legal and illegal immigrants from the public-use files of the March 2013 Current Population Survey, collected by the Census Bureau:
- Educational Attainment: 54 percent of Guatemalan immigrants (ages 25 to 65) have not graduated high school. The figure for Salvadorans is 53 percent, and for Hondurans, 44 percent. The corresponding figure for native-born Americans is 7 percent.
- Welfare Use: 57 percent of households headed by immigrants from El Salvador use at least one major welfare program, as do 54 percent of Honduran households, and 49 percent of Guatemalan immigrant households. Among native households it is 24 percent.3
- Poverty: 65 percent of Honduran immigrants and their young children (under 18) live in or near poverty (under 200 percent of the poverty threshold). For Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants and their children, it is 61 percent. The corresponding figure for natives and their children is 31 percent.4
- Health Insurance: 47 percent of Guatemalan immigrants and their young children (under 18) do not have health insurance. The figure for both Salvadoran and Honduran immigrants and their young children is 41 percent. The corresponding figure for natives and their children is 13 percent.5
- Share Working: 77 percent of immigrants from El Salvador (ages 25 to 54) have a job, as do 74 percent of Guatemalan immigrants and 73 percent of Honduran immigrants. The corresponding figure for natives is 76 percent.
Brazil, What the Heck, Has Most Dangerous Cities
The 50 most violent cities in the world are revealed, with 21 of them in Brazil… but Venezuela’s capital Caracas is named the most deadly
- Latin America is home to 41 of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world
- Caracas in Venezuela is now the most violent, according to homicide rate
- Took the top spot from San Pedro Sula, in Honduras, now in second place
- Drug trafficking, gang wars, political instability and corruption are blamed
- U.S. cities St Louis, Baltimore, Detroit and New Orleans are also named
DailyMail: The 50 most dangerous cities in the world have been named and shamed, and an astonishing 21 of them are in Brazil.
Latin America features highly in the ranking, released by Mexico’s Citizens’ Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, as it is home to some 41 of the cities listed.
Drug trafficking, gang wars, political instability, corruption and poverty are to blame for the high homicide rates across the region, which has just 8 per cent of the world’s population, according to UN data.
But the list doesn’t just include Latin America, with U.S. cities St Louis, Baltimore, Detroit and New Orleans also featuring.
Venezuela’s capital city Caracas has taken the top spot for the ranking – which is based on the number of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants of the city in 2015, and doesn’t take war zones into account.
Just this month, Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores insisted that two of her nephews have been kidnapped by the U.S. authorities, after they were indicted on drug trafficking charges. Franqui Flores de Freitas, 30, and Efrain Campo Flores, 29, sparked a public scandal when they were arrested in Haiti in November in an operation involving the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Caracas snatched the Number One place from San Pedro Sula, in Honduras, which had been in first place for the past four years. Venezuela’s increasingly volatile political and economic situation has been blamed for the spike in violent crime.
The notoriously dangerous city of San Pedro Sula dropped to second place, after slashing its homicide rate from 171.20 to 111.03.
Honduras hit headlines last month after the violent killing of Rangers football star Arnold Peralta at the hands of gangsters.
He was gunned down in broad daylight while sitting in his car at a shopping mall in La Ceiba.
Journalist Sonia Nazari told the U.S. Congress last year how ‘people are found hacked apart, heads cut off, skinned alive’, and described hijackers who thought little of slaughtering a bus full of people if they didn’t hand over their money quick enough.
El Salvador’s San Salvador, Acapulco in Mexico and Maturin in Venezuela make up the rest of the top five.
Although the list is almost entirely made up of cities in Latin America, it also features Cape Town, in South Africa, in ninth place; St Louis, in Missouri, in 15th; Baltimore, Maryland, in 19th; Detroit, Michigan, in 28th; New Orleans, in Louisiana, in 32nd; Kingston in Jamaica in 33rd; Durban, South Africa, in 41st; Nelson Mandela Bay, in South Africa, in 42nd; and Johannesburg, South Africa, in 47th.
‘We make this ranking with the political objective of calling attention to the violence in the cities, particularly in Latin America, so that their governments are under pressure to improve their obligation to protect their citizens, to guarantee their right to public security,’ said Citizens’ Council in the report.
Mexico is home to the most number of cities which dropped off the list this year, with five cities no longer featuring. The cities of Chihuahua, Cuernavaca, Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and Torreon are no longer included on the list, thanks to significant decreases in their homicide rates.
Meanwhile, Palmira in Colombia saw the most dramatic increase, rising from 32nd place in last year’s list to eighth. Its homicide rate almost doubled in 2015, rising from 37.66 to 70.88.
The ranking only takes into account cities with a population of more than 300,000, and doesn’t include deaths in combat zones or cities with unavailable data – this explains why some cities that would be expected on the list don’t feature.
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THE 50 MOST DANGEROUS CITIES IN THE WORLD – BY HOMICIDES PER 100,000 INHABITANTS IN 2015
1. Caracas, Venezuela – 119.87
2. San Pedro Sula, Honduras – 111.03
3. San Salvador, El Salvador – 108.54
4. Acapulco, Mexico – 104.73
5. Maturin, Venezuela – 86.45
6. Distrito Central, Honduras – 73.51
7. Valencia, Venezuela – 72.31
8. Palmira, Colombia – 70.88
9. Cape Town, South Africa – 65.53
10. Cali, Colombia – 64.27
11. Cuidad Guayana, Venezuela – 62.33
12. Fortaleza, Brazil – 60.77
13. Natal, Brazil – 60.66
14. Salvador, Brazil – 60.63
15. St Louis, Missouri, U.S. – 59.23
16. Joao Pessoa, Brazil – 58.40
17. Culiacan, Mexico – 56.09
18. Maceio, Brazil – 55.63
19. Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. – 54.98
20. Barquisimeto, Venezuela – 54.96
21. Sao Luis, Brazil – 53.05
22. Cuiaba, Brazil – 48.52
23. Manaus, Brazil – 47.87
24. Cumana, Venezuela – 47.77
25. Guatemala City, Guatemala – 47.17
26. Belem, Brazil – 45.83
27. Feira de Santana, Brazil – 45.5
28. Detroit, Michigan, U.S. – 43.89
29. Goiania, Brazil – 43.38
30. Teresina, Brazil – 42.64
31. Vitoria, Brazil – 41.99
32. New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. – 41.44
33. Kingston, Jamaica – 41.14
34. Gran Barcelona, Venezuela – 40.08
35. Tijuana, Mexico – 39.09
36. Vitoria da Conquista, Brazil – 38.46
37. Recife, Brazil – 38.12
38. Aracaju. Brazil – 37.7
39. Campos dos Goytacazes, Brazil – 36.16
40. Campina Grande, Brazil – 36.04
41. Durban, South Africa – 35.93
42. Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa – 35.85
43. Porto Alegre, Brazil – 34.73
44. Curitiba, Brazil – 34.71
45. Pereira, Colombia – 32.58
46. Victoria, Mexico – 30.50
47. Johannesburg, South Africa – 30.31
48. Macapa, Brazil – 30.25
49. Maracaibo, Venezuela – 28.85
50. Obregon, Mexico – 28.29
Militia, Burns, Oregon: Several Arrested, One Dead
LaVoy Finicum Dead: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
Heavy: Arizona rancher LaVoy Finicum was killed on the night of January 26 as the militia standoff near Burns, Oregon, appeared to come to an end. Famously, Finicum, 55, had told the media on January 6 that he would choose death over surrender in the case. His death was confirmed by Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore. She wrote on Twitter:
My heart & prays go out to LaVoy Finicum’s family he was just murdered with his hands up in Burns OR.Ryan Bundy has been shot in the arm
— Michele Fiore (@VoteFiore) January 27, 2016
Finicum was killed during a traffic stop, reports CNN. He died one day before his 56th birthday.
Oregon Public Radio reports that Finicum and some of his comrades were pulled over between the towns of Burns and John Day at around 4:30 p.m. local time.
Since January 2, activists have been occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Those armed protesters, led in-part by Ammon Bundy, were protesting the sentence of Dwight and Steve Hammond. They were found guilty of committing arson on federal land.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Cliven Bundy Said Finicum Was Sacrificed ‘For a Good Purpose’
His full name was Robert LaVoy Finicum. He was a neighbor of Cliven Bundy’s ranch, where the infamous 2014 ranch standoff occurred. They were neighbors despite Finicum living in Arizona and Bundy living in Nevada. On January 5, 2016, Finicum told NBC News that he may want to go home to Arizona soon saying, “I need to get home. I got cows that are scattered and lost.”
When he heard about the arrests and death, Cliven Bundy told Los Angeles Times reporter Matt Pearce, “Isn’t this a wonderful country we live in?” He added, “We believe those federal people shouldn’t even be there in that state, and be in that county and have anything to do with This issue. … I have some sons and other people there trying to protect our rights and liberties and freedoms, and now we’ve got one killed, and I can say is, he’s sacrificed for a good purpose.”
(Getty)
Bundy later confirmed Finicum’s death to CBS Las Vegas reporter Patranya Bhoolsuwan. In a statement on his Facebook page, Bundy wrote:
The resolve for principled liberty must go on. It appears that America was fired upon by our government. One of liberty’s finest patriots is fallen. He will not go silent into eternity. Our appeal is to heaven.
2. During the Standoff in Oregon, He Had Become Known as ‘Tarp Man’
During his involvement in the Malheur standoff, the 11 foster children that were in the care of Finicum have been taken away. Finicum complained that those children were he and his wife’s major source of labor and money on their ranch, reported Time Magazine. An MSNBC report on the standoff dubbed Finicum “Tarp Man” as he could be seen covered in a blue tarp with a rocking chair during the incident.
When asked by NBC News why he chose to sit out in such a visible position, he said that he wanted officers to be able to find him. Finicum said, “I do not want the FBI federal agents to have to go running around in the dark, kicking in doors looking for me, OK? I want them to know exactly where I’m at.” He added, chillingly, “I’m telling them right now — don’t point guns at me.”
3. He Posted a Video of His Family Singing ‘Amazing Grace’ Just Hours Before His Death
On his Twitter page, Finicum goes by the moniker “@OneCowboysStand.” His bio on the page reads, “Rancher, Loves Freedom and willing to fight and die defending it.” His last post on the site was a video of a group of children singing “Amazing Grace.” His Twitter pseudonym is taken from his book title, One Cowboy’s Last Stand for Freedom. In an interview with NBC News, Finicum said that he would rather be killed than arrested saying, “I have no intention of spending any of my days in a concrete box. There are things more important than your life and freedom is one of them. I’m prepared to defend freedom.”
According to Mormon tradition, cremation is not encourage and a proper funeral burial is preferred.
4. He Was a Man Who Loved ‘Nothing More in Life Than God, Family & Freedom’
(Getty)
On his official website, Finicum wrote:
As he has watched the ever increasing encroachment of government into the lives of the American people he has felt to make a stand for freedom. He has drawn a line in the sand and that line is the Constitution in its original intent.
The Constitution of the United States of America is a charter to protect the freedom of man by putting strict limits on government. We are living in a day when that supreme law of the land has been shredded by the very government that took an oath to uphold it. By their actions the Federal Government has become lawless and stalks the liberties of this land under the guise of social justice.
Shown below are LaVoy and Jeanette’s 11 children. This is why freedom is so important!
He also describes himself as a rancher who “loves nothing more in life than God, family, and freedom.”
Meanwhile on his wife, Jeanette’s LinkedIn page, she lists foster care provider as her full time job.
One of the couple’s daughters, Arianna Finicum Brown, 26, told the Oregonian that she wasn’t worried for her father’s safety during the standoff. She said, “I talked to him, and he said they were telling people to go if they weren’t there for the right reasons, they didn’t want anyone there who could make everything go bad. He had no plans to be violent. My dad was a really good guy.”
5. Ammon Bundy Has Been Arrested in Oregon
Ammon Bundy pictured on his Facebook page.
KATU reports that Ammon Bundy and other members of the militia, including Ryan Payne, were arrested by the FBI and Oregon State Police on the night of January 26 during the traffic stop where Finicum was killed.
It’s unclear who shot first but one person was taken to a nearby hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Michele Fiore said that person was Ryan Bundy, another son of Cliven, who was shot in the arm.
