28 responses so far ↓

• 1 HispanicPundit // Dec 15, 2008 at 7:15 pm

  Salazar is a much better pick, IMHO, than the horrible Raul Grijalva.

• 2 Michaelr // Dec 15, 2008 at 8:03 pm

  This is a terrible choice. Ken Salazar is a bagman for Exxon-Mobil and Chevron, and he voted against increasing fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. He also supported Alberto Gonzales during his tenure as AG. He is likely to emulate James Watt, catering to the oil industry, and wholesaling leases to mining interests. And also Hispanic Pundit prefers him to Raul Grijalva.

• 3 DfD // Dec 15, 2008 at 10:26 pm

  Judge gets glowing letters on Núñez son
  By Kim Minugh
  kminugh@sacbee.com
  Published: Sunday, Dec. 14, 2008 | Page 1A
  Los Angeles Democratic Assemblyman Kevin de León characterized Esteban Núñez as “considerate, gentle and well-mannered.” Former family friend Jennifer Sweeney described him as “an adoring, respectful, hard-working son and protective brother.”

  “I have had the opportunity to watch him grow and develop into a decent and responsible young man,” wrote Mayor Villaraigosa, who said he has known the younger Núñez 10 years. “In my heart, I know Esteban Núñez as a young man of good and upright character.”

  Garcia a ‘good, caring young man’

  Garcia’s attorney, Paul Pfingst, argued in his plea for bail reduction that no eyewitnesses or co-defendants put Garcia at the scene of the stabbing. Additionally, Pfingst wrote, Jett’s girlfriend told police she recalled Jett saying Garcia ran from the fight.

  The letters submitted on his behalf describe a hard-working teen who visits his grandmother several times a week. His arrest has shocked his large Catholic family.

  “We are not only devastated and anguished by this incident, but know in our hearts and without a doubt that Rafael is incapable of committing these acts,” wrote Rebeca Hidalgo, Garcia’s aunt.

  Garcia attended parochial schools and was a third-generation graduate of Christian Brothers. He is enrolled in college – the letters don’t specify where – and working at Caltrans, where his mother, Olga, is employed. She is undergoing treatment for breast cancer, wrote Pfingst, a former San Diego County district attorney.

  Garcia’s father, Daniel Garcia Sr., is an administrative law judge at the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.

  The Garcia family has deep roots in the Sacramento area and the local Catholic community, family and friends wrote. Rafael was raised in the spirit of service, with strong morals, they said.

  “We can attest to the true core of this young man,” wrote his aunt, Norma Hidalgo-Minas, and his uncle, Phillip Harold Minas. “Rafael is a good, caring young man who has donated time and money to feed the hungry, participated in cancer awareness walks and other community service.”

  Derek Norris, Garcia’s coach on a Land Park soccer team for three years, said Garcia set an example for players, keeping a level head even when teams clashed physically.

  “I hope some day to have a son of my own with the same compassionate heart, strong work ethic and genuine loving spirit as Rafael Garcia,” he wrote.

  Thomas’ former coach a fan

  Thomas knew Núñez from CSU Los Angeles, according to attorney John Patrick Murphy, but had not met Garcia or Jett before the trip to San Diego.

  Growing up in Elk Grove, Thomas attended Harriet Eddy Middle School and Sheldon High for a year before transferring to Laguna Creek High. He earned his diploma in 2007.

  Jim Stephens’ first memories of the teen are of a gifted but lazy athlete. Stephens was the basketball coach at Laguna Creek High at the time, and recalls discouraging Thomas – known by friends as “LT” – from coming out for the varsity team because of his weak work ethic.

  A week into tryouts, Thomas asked Stephens for another chance. The coach let him practice with the team, but told Thomas he would have to wait for a spot to open up before he could get a uniform.

  “He was also told that he would have to work his way up from the bottom, something someone of his athletic ability had probably never done before,” Stephens wrote to the court. “From that point forward, I NEVER regretted giving LT that chance.”

  He said Thomas became one of his favorite players and among the most committed he’s coached.

  In an interview, Stephens – now girls basketball coach at Vista del Lago High in Folsom – said he was stunned by news of the charges.

  “I have so many visual pictures of LT and they all involve his gentleness,” Stephens said. He remembers one tournament when Thomas sat with his younger brothers between games, feeding them grapes.

  Other letters depict Thomas as a protective older brother, sometimes left to care for his siblings while his father, an Air Force veteran, worked at PG&E.

  ——————————————————————————–

  Call The Bee’s Kim Minugh, (916) 321-1038. Bee researcher Sheila A. Kern contributed to this report.

• 4 theKaiser // Dec 16, 2008 at 11:15 am

  Obama has made his first blunder. Ken Salazar has nothing to bring to the table of change. This is the Alberto Gonzales from Colorado.

• 5 Anna // Dec 16, 2008 at 12:43 pm

  He’s not Alberto Gonzalez. Why can’t you disagree with somebody’s politics without resorting to lies? Salazar and Gonzales have nothing in common professionally except Spanish origin surnames.

  Salazar is on the conservative side, but those seem to be the kind of Democrats Obama likes. So far, he hasn’t appointed any progressives to his Cabinet. All that stuff during the primary was BS. Obama and Hillary have the same positions on the issues.

  Why is Linda Ruttlen still free?

• 6 DfD // Dec 16, 2008 at 4:18 pm

  Today the Washington Times reports: “One of President-elect Barack Obama’s top immigration advisers [T. Alexander Aleinikoff] oversaw a Clinton-era program that awarded citizenship to thousands of convicted criminals…”
  That’s not the half of it. Citizenship USA, the program in question, was rooted in the Industrial Areas Foundation, a Saul Alinsky group.
  Appearing on his radio show in 2000, David P. Schippers Former Chief Counsel, House Judiciary Committee, told Glenn Spencer, that, had he more time, the corruption of Citizenship USA would have been an added article of impeachment of Bill Clinton.
  Add to that Obama’s close ties to the subversive SEIU (see last night’s Dobbs report) and we have a picture of the Obama administration as one prepared to make a frontal assault on the sovereignty of the United States. “Barack Obama represents the greatest threat to the United States of America since the Civil War,” said Glenn Spencer of APR. “Brainwashed Americans have just voted to commit national suicide,” he added.
  Official: Emanuel fast-tracked immigrants to get votes

• 7 webmaster // Dec 16, 2008 at 4:21 pm

  DfD,

  There is no need to post the same article on multiple blog posts. Please don’t do this!

• 8 theKaiser // Dec 16, 2008 at 5:03 pm

  Isn’t lies your middle name Anna?

• 9 webmaster // Dec 16, 2008 at 5:17 pm

  I think that theKaiser was simply making an analogy. Analogy – comparison based upon similarities.

  Roberto Lovato just wrote this, which is pretty interesting:

  http://ofamerica.wordpress.com/2008/12/17/newly-proposed-interior-secretary-salazar-already-obamas-most-controversial-cabinet-choice/

• 10 Anna // Dec 16, 2008 at 5:29 pm

  It wasn’t an analogy. It was a calumny.

  And Lovato’s thinking is muddled. Again, Salazar and Gonzalez have nothing in common except a Spanish surname. Supporting Salazar’s nomination is not comparable to supporting Gonzalez when he was nominated.

  One sign of intelligence is being able to tell people and things apart. The finer the distinction, the higher the intelligence. Lump thinking is a sign of low intelligence.

  Some of you need to stop your lump thinking.

• 11 DfD // Dec 16, 2008 at 9:07 pm

  Anna lies all the time. She’s a Democratic Dali Bama cultist…

• 12 DoctorH // Dec 17, 2008 at 8:56 am

  And I agree with theKaiser. Ken Salazar’s behavior does resemble Alberto Gonzales. They’re both attorneys. They were both AG. They were both legal counsels to executive politicians. They both received large contributions from the oil industry. And they both love to wear shitkicker clothes and boots. Since they are very friendly with each other, and birds of a feather usually flock together, it can be readily assumed that Ken Salazar is as duplicitous as Alberto Gonzales. One thing is for sure they are two of the most monotonous men walking on this planet. So Anna, you can continue to keep your head in the sand. This move by the Obama Administration has obvious political maneuvering that is not readable yet. Because Raul Grijalva and Mike Thompson are both way more qualified to be Secretary of the Interior, and both of them have public careers that directly and indirectly follow Obama’s. Ken Salazar does not. And I agree with Michaelr in defining Ken Salazar as a bagman for Exxon-Mobil.

• 13 stlgtchitnrboots // Dec 17, 2008 at 3:11 pm

  Obama will not appoint a conservative and I even doubt a moderate. And Exxon and Mobil are good strong companies that employ alot of people and provide a much needed commodity.

• 14 Anna // Dec 17, 2008 at 4:11 pm

  Re: “Because Raul Grijalva and Mike Thompson are both way more qualified to be Secretary of the Interior, and both of them have public careers that directly and indirectly follow Obama’s. ”

  That follow Obama’s? LOLOL

  Don’t insult Raul Grijalva, a true progressive.

• 15 DfD // Dec 17, 2008 at 4:27 pm

  It is now impossible to deny that Mexico is doing
  everything it can to create an Illegal Mexican Nation
  within the borders of the USA! By aiding,abetting and
  even urging its people to illegally emigrate to the USA
  calling them “heroes” and “those who will think
  MEXICO FIRST into the 7th generation”*!
  * Juan Hernandez- Mexico’s minister of Mexicans Abroad.

• 16 DfD // Dec 17, 2008 at 6:02 pm

  Rep. Grijalva cosponsored H.R. 1275, the “American Dream Act.” This bill would make illegal aliens eligible for in-state tuition and would allow DHS to grant illegal college students legal status. This bill would encourage illegal immigration and reward illegal immigrants, as well as harming legal students.

• 17 DfD // Dec 17, 2008 at 6:19 pm

  Voted on Senate floor in favor of guestworker-amnesty bill by voting in favor of cloture motion to end debate and bring bill to a vote in 2007
  Sen. Salazar voted in favor of a motion to invoke cloture and limit debate on S. 1639, thereby preventing it from moving toward a final vote. S. 1639 is the “corrected and updated” version of S. 1348, the guestworker-amnesty bill that would: grant an amnesty; authorize the importation of millions of new foreign workers; and do little to curb our illegal immigration crisis. Two days prior to this vote, the Senate had voted to invoke cloture and move forward with the debate on S. 1639, outside normal channels and bypassing the committee process. Two weeks prior to this vote, the Senate rejected cloture on the “grand bargain” substitute amendment to S. 1348 by a 45-50 margin, thus halting – for the time being – the bill’s progress toward final passage. President Bush then stepped in to plead with Senate Republicans to give the “compromise” another look. Senate Majority Leader Reid chose to bring the proposal back to the Senate as a new bill, S. 1369. This motion to invoke cloture on S. 1639 (the second motion) failed by a vote of 46 to 53.

• 18 Michaelr // Dec 17, 2008 at 6:47 pm

  So what does this have to do with Ken Salazar being nominated to be the Secretary of the Interior DfD? Write what you want to say instead of copying and pasting commentary from some other blog.

• 19 DoctorH // Dec 17, 2008 at 7:37 pm

  Webmaster: Maybe you should write a post about Mexico’s law-enforcement community and so much of its old political establishment attempting to compete with remnants of Oliver North’s NSA/CIA/Contra cocaine importing hub still actively in business. You can refer to documentation from Senator John Kerry’s Committee Report, which identified the cocaine related illegal activities of Oliver North and its connection to the U.S. State Departments distribution of funds to the cocaine trafficking Contras. You can also utilize Gary Webb’s “Dark Alliance” series which ran in the San Jose Mercury News. The U.S. taxpayer funding for the “War on Drugs,” has shifted its focus and is directly financing the federal government of Mexico’s attempts to eliminate its drug cartels which are all closely imbedded and related to that same Mexican government. This is undermining law and order in Mexico, and that same federal government is now on the verge of imploding. And all this has been directly influencing mass illegally and legal migration into the United States. This would show how the U.S. government from the Reagan Administration onto the George W. Bush Administration has played a huge role in forcing illegal immigration into this country, and using that labor to populate the manufacturing hub to undermine the unions and drive down real wages for American blue collar workers. This could also allow some of your commentators to properly list their comments under the correct posting, since illegal immigration seems to be the root of so much hatred between WASPs and people of color. Just a thought.

• 20 DfD // Dec 17, 2008 at 10:41 pm

  Secrecy Rules in L.A.’s $24 Million Gang Program
  Carr and Villaraigosa use 50 anonymous people to decide who gets the money
  By Daniel Heimpel
  Published on December 17, 2008 at 6:24pm
  LOS ANGELES CITY GOVERNMENT, long unable to keep kids from joining gangs, is in the early stages of a program spearheaded by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa that he says will make a dent in gang-related violence and murder.
  A few days ago, though, inside a crowded room at Los Angeles City Hall, it became clear that City Council members who have touted the mayor’s plan are in the dark, and the entire extremely unusual process for spending $24 million in taxpayer funds annually is emerging as one of the most secretive in modern city history.

  Seated at a long conference table with maps showing the 12 city “zones” that the Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD) task force plans to focus on, task force director the Rev. Jeff Carr explains that the new, $24 million program will differ from the L.A. Bridges program, into which City Hall poured millions of dollars before admitting that it was not closely tracking the children and could not prove that children were prevented from joining gangs.

  The dismantled L.A. Bridges, designed by a squabbling City Council during the 1990s, badly failed. As L.A. Weekly reported in a December 14, 2006, article, “Broken Bridges,” City Hall ineptly funneled taxpayer money into the hands of a now-imprisoned gunrunner who claimed to have gone straight and peddled himself as a gang “expert.”

  Carr, a “social-justice” advocate and evangelical minister whose past efforts to deal with gangbangers have been mixed, promises major differences this time. He is limiting the youths reached through prevention programs to 100 children per zone. They will be chosen through a 53-question assessment tool Carr says was formulated by experts to single out kids actually at risk of joining a gang — not simply perceived to be. Outreach agencies hired by the city must meet with their young clients three times a week, and with the significant adult in each child’s life once a month.

  Despite these structural changes, GRYD is already showing similarities to L.A. Bridges: Eight of 12 nonprofits selected are former recipients of Bridges money. Moreover, Carr and Villaraigosa insist on keeping anonymous the names of the roughly 50 people appointed by Villaraigosa to hand-select those 12 nonprofits, and even the names of the six Villaraigosa insiders who chose the secret group of 50 are secret.

  The secrecy is not only bizarre — Carr could name no other city doing it — but may itself create serious image problems if publicly funded GRYD runs into trouble. Carr says Deputy City Attorney Richard Bobb, who died recently, advised that anonymity be used so as “not to compromise the process.”

  Carr concedes that not even the City Council knows the names of the 50 anonymous private citizens now telling the mayor where to award $24 million in antigang funds. “That is the one place where we are not being completely transparent,” Carr says. “Fair enough.”

  Carr insists that nonprofit groups that apply for GRYD’s $500,000 “prevention grants” and $250,000 “intervention grants” faced a process so stringent that it eliminated “backroom deals.”

  The process is based upon awarding “points” to nonprofits identified by the anonymous private citizens who are assembled, roughly, into five-or-six-person teams in each of the 12 citywide “zones.”

  For example, in Watts, the final contenders were the L.A. Conservation Corps and the Watts Labor Community Action Committee. Those two groups’ grant applications were reviewed by the five anonymous committee members, who in turn had been recruited by Villaraigosa’s anonymous task-force recruiters. According to Carr, sufficient knowledge of the gang problem earns applicants 10 points. Organizational capability, which includes adequate staffing and a history of financial stability, earns 20 points. An operational plan, including prevention services and a way to evaluate effectiveness, is worth 50 points. A well-presented budget earns 20 points.

  In Watts, L.A. Conservation Corps earned 84.25 points compared with Watts Labor Community Action Committee’s 82.75 points. In a second round, worth 50 points, both groups were inspected and interviewed by two members from Villaraigosa’s secret selection committee and one member of his anonymous six-person oversight committee. Carr says L.A. Conservation Corps won 33.5 points to the other group’s 32.83, so L.A. Conservation Corps got the city contract.

  Social worker Reginald Quinn and consultant Bill Burgess, both connected with the Asian American Drug Abuse Program, praised the mayor’s secretive selection process. After all, the Asian American Drug Abuse Program had just secured $500,000 in gang-prevention money and is putting in for another $250,000. Says Burgess: “This is the mayor’s baby.”

• 21 webmaster // Dec 18, 2008 at 7:34 am

  DfD,

  Please do not post complete articles as comments. You did not write them, you are not adding any commentary. If you want to post an article, just submit the link (url).

• 22 Anna // Dec 18, 2008 at 9:12 am

  If he posted the links, we would see what kind of websites these bogus articles come from. They are all off topic, so you should just delete them. They add nothing to the discussion.

• 23 jammer // Dec 18, 2008 at 2:20 pm

  The Ken Salazar I know is a good person who is extremely proud of his Hispanic heritage, I have heard him refer to himself as a Chicano. Not that it means a thing. I am proud to see a San Luis Vato on the Presidents cabinet. I also know he will do an excellent job. I for one am going to give him a shot at doing that job before I jump to conclusions. Ok so Obama didn’t select Grijalva. Get over it. We may not agree with all his choices for the cabinet, BUT if we voted for him then we put our trust in him. Let him pick his team without second guessing every move by tearing down his choices whenever he doesn’t pick one of our favorites.

• 24 DfD // Dec 18, 2008 at 7:43 pm

  Okay. Anna, truthful articles are not bogus!

• 25 Michaelr // Dec 19, 2008 at 10:35 am

  Ken Salazar is a bagman for ExxonMobil…and a boring one at that, plus he’s anti-Gay which should openly convey a lot of things about him. This bagman supported George W. Bush, and hopefully this choice is a political cause and effect maneuver meant to open up his Senatorial spot in Colorado.

• 26 jammer // Dec 19, 2008 at 11:41 am

  How do you know he is a “bagman” for ExxonMobil and anti gay? Never knew that about him. I’ll bet he would be surprised to know that about himself.

• 27 Omar Torres from San Jose // Dec 20, 2008 at 11:04 am

  Uhm I worked for Ken Salazar for his run in the US Senate…though he is not as progressive as I would like him to be, I respect him for being a very smart and capable individual. When he did an event in Pueblo, Colorado, he attracted thousands of Latinos. He is pragmatic and his qaulifications are amazing. Oh by the way, the Governor of CO is Bill Ritter a very moderate Democrat. He will not appoint a progressive. CO is not CA or Minn…its a very purple state. He will appoint Romanoff or Hickenlopper, not progressive but pretty liberal politicians for a moderate state. Great site by the way!

• 28 Should President Obama Fire Secretary Salazar? // May 30, 2010 at 5:09 pm

  [...] handle on this disaster, I felt compelled to comment about Secretary of Interior Salazar. Back in December of 2008, I had blogged about Secretary Salazar shortly after he accepted the cabinet position to head up [...]

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