News 8 has recently revealed serious flaws in the way the FAA licenses mechanics who fix planes.

There is evidence of years of problems in testing these mechanics. There is also evidence that hundreds of mechanics with questionable licenses are working on aircraft in Texas.

Now there is evidence of repair facilities hiring low-wage mechanics who can’t read…

… There are more than 236 FAA-certified aircraft repair stations in Texas, according to the FAA’s Web site. News 8 has learned that hundreds of the mechanics working in those shops do not speak English and are unable to read repair manuals for today’s sophisticated aircraft.

Former FAA inspector Bill McNease told News 8 he regularly encountered applicants for pilots’ licenses who tried to pretend they could speak English — but could not.

“When I was based in Dallas, I had that happen every week,” McNease said. “It was not uncommon at all to have foreign flight students. We had mechanics, but I handled the pilot end of it…. and I turned down people every week because they couldn’t speak English.”

“There are people [where I work] who do not know how to read a maintenance manual as they are spelled out, because they don’t have a clue,” said one certified aircraft mechanic who works at a Texas aircraft repair station. He wished to remain anonymous to protect his employment.

To certify a part for flight or repair an engine, a mechanic must be licensed by the FAA as an Airframe and Powerplant mechanic, known in the business as an “A&P.”

News 8 discovered that mechanics at one licensing center in San Antonio were being tested in Spanish as late as last fall. The FAA ultimately shut the facility down.

Celebrate diversity!

In case you hadn’t noticed, Mexico is in chaos. Beheaded and bullet-ridden bodies are turning up left and right along the southern border. Drug traffickers are running rampant in Sinaloa. Corruptocrats are letting gangs take over their cities. In Tijuana, 200 people were killed in a month. The CSM reports: “Last weekend turned into one of the city’s deadliest: nearly 40 were killed, four of whom were children, and nine of them beheaded.”

The hellish conditions have prompted some Mexican lawmakers to revisit the country’s ban on capital punishment. That’s right. Members of the same foreign government that took America to court over our death penalty laws– and tried to block the state of Texas from executing illegal alien Death Row murderers — are now open to the idea of imposing the death penalty on the thugs on their own soil.

Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think? A little too ironic:

Anger and frustration over rampant killings and kidnappings have ignited an improbable debate here over legalizing the death penalty, a punishment that has been effectively banned in Mexico for nearly half a century.

Lawmakers agreed Thursday to hear arguments next week on a proposal to amend the Mexican Constitution to allow for capital punishment in a narrow number of cases.

The initiative from Humberto Moreira, governor of the northern border state of Coahuila, would allow the death penalty for convicted kidnappers who killed or mutilated their victims. He said as far as the people of his state were concerned, the only issue was how to execute convicts, not whether to do so.

It is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that the death penalty could be reinstated because of legal obstacles, experts said. But that is almost beside the point. Moreira has tapped into public panic over soaring crime, a climate of fear that has made law and order the country’s No. 1 worry.

Hey, how’s that Merida Initiative working out?

***

And now…Mexico gets tough(er) on illegal aliens in their homeland:

Mexico sent home the first group of illegal Cuban migrants under a new accord aimed at cutting off an increasingly violent human-trafficking route to the United States, the government said Thursday.

The 41 migrants left the resort city of Cancun aboard a Mexican navy ship taking them back to Cuba, a statement from the navy and the Interior Department said.

Before Mexico signed the agreement with Cuba in October, authorities rarely sent migrants back to the communist island.

Until now, Cubans were detained briefly in Mexico, then given 10- to 30-day exit orders. That allowed them to continue on to Texas, where all that is required of Cuban migrants are identity documents and medical and background checks before they are welcomed to America.

As it became harder to dodge U.S. Coast Guard vessels and reach Florida by sea to qualify for U.S. residency, Cuban migrants in recent years have increasingly chosen Mexico — often heading to the coast near Cancun — as their route to the United States.

But Mexico has become frustrated with the migrations as violent traffickers increasingly got involved in moving them across the country. Several Cuban-Americans believed to be involved in smuggling have been killed in recent years in or around Cancun, about 120 miles (195 kilometers) southwest of Cuba.

In June, gunmen snatched 33 Cubans off a government bus headed to an immigration station in southern Mexico, possibly to extort money from them or their smugglers. Many of those migrants later turned up in the U.S.

But wait. That’s RAAAACIST!

Yesterday, Obama named Hispanic Bill Richardson his Commerce Secretary nominee. He has also placed La Raza biggie Cecilia Munoz in a key White House office.

But it’s not enough.

For racial/ethnic grievance-mongers, it’s never enough:

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus delivered a letter Tuesday to Obama’s transition office recommending a slate of 14 Hispanics for the remaining eight Cabinet slots. “We understand that the incoming administration will have a vast pool of talent from which to choose,” the letter said. “The individuals we have endorsed constitute the best talent while reflecting the diversity that is so valued by President-elect Obama.”

The group’s chairman, Representative Joe Baca of California, warned that Obama’s agenda could be jeopardized if he doesn’t nominate more Latinos. “If it’s just one, he’s going to have to answer to a lot of the issues that come before us,” Baca told Bloomberg.

Barack Obama has appointed senior VP of The National Council of La Raza (The Race) Cecilia Munoz to “oversee the White House office responsible for relations between the administration and state and local governments.”

Via WaPo:

Munoz, meanwhile, will oversee the White House office responsible for relations between the administration and state and local governments. The 2000 MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” winner is a senior vice president at the National Council of La Raza, a leading Hispanic civil rights group. There, she has spearheaded many of the organization’s immigration initiatives. Currently, she is in charge of the group’s entire advocacy and legislative agenda.

“We’re continuing to build a White House team that can rise to the challenges facing this country — and I couldn’t be more excited to announce Jon and Cecilia,” Obama said. “I’m confident that at a critical time in our history, this White House will restore openness and accountability to our executive branch and help to put government back in the hands of the people it serves.”

McCain open-borders advisor Juan Hernandez is bummed, but you never know. If Hillary can be Obama’s Secretary of State, why can’t Juan serve as Obama’s ICE chief?

Hope lives.

***

Here’s Hernandez’s Youtube resume:

***

Also in line for an Obama slot: Former MEChA member and radical open-borders congressman Raul Grijalva.

***

Flashback: 15 things you should know about “The Race”

Previous La Raza blogging.

Democracia USA is a partner of open-borders La Raza (The Race) in an aggressive, nationwide Hispanic voter registration drive.

George Moneo at Babalu Blog reports that canvassers for Democracia USA have been caught on tape sabotaging electoral integrity.

Watch the video here.

Don’t expect the La Raza Twins to complain.

Three items to dampen your convention enthusiasm:

1) Stacy McCain reports on the McCain camp’s dissing of stalwart conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly.

What the hell are they thinking?

2) One of the speakers on stage tonight was Tommy Espinoza of the RAZA (Race) Development Fund, the open-borders, tax-subsidized group, ethnic supremacist that encourages illegal immigration. (Via Lonewacko).

Juan Hernandez approves.

3) And speaking of Juan Hernandez, he’s quoted here in La Opinion busily lobbying for McCain:

El representante de McCain, Juan Hernández, dijo a los pastores reunidos en Vanguard que el republicano no sólo está alineado con ellos en los valores de aborto, matrimonio gay y el nombramiento de jueces conservadores a la Suprema Corte de Justicia.

“Él, McCain, estuvo con nosotros cuando era necesario”, dijo Hernández, refiriéndose repetidamente al liderazgo del republicano en 2006 al copatrocinar un proyecto de reforma migratoria junto al senador demócrata Ted Kennedy. “Yo sé cómo es su corazón y lo que siente sobre los hispanos y los inmigrantes”.

I’ll let you translate.

Original post here. Story on the ruling here.

Now, if only the Catholic hierarchy would wake up and stop pandering to the anti-assimilationists.

Isn’t this special? Cash-strapped Los Angeles, which struggles to keep its own libraries afloat, is planning to set aside nearly $2 million in federal grants from the NEA to build and operate a pavilion at a book fair…

…in Mexico.

Via Mayor Sam’s Sister City blog:

When the City of Los Angeles was struggling to balance its budget on the backs of local libraries, most of whom do not have enough books for local children, a little known plan was hatched within the bowels of the City’s Cultural Affairs Department to spend up to $2 million in Federal grant money on the City’s participation in a book fair in Jalisco, Mexico, including the construction of a pavilion for the event.

You may remember back in May significant cuts for the library were proposed including a fee charged on children who borrowed books from other branches across the city through an inter-library exchange. Citizens banded together to save library funding while librarians were instructed to shake down Neighborhood Councils for book funding. Indeed, the Mid-Town North Hollywood Neighborhood Council voted to forgo an election mailer in order to fund the library (at a vote taken literally minutes before an announcement from Councilmember Wendy Greuel that funding had been restored). At the Neighborhood Council elections about a month later, turnout was about 100 voters in a community of 95,000.

The proposed cuts and fees never happened and $2 million was restored to the library budget as Council Member “Sleepy” Greig “Good Deal” Smith gleefully boasted to CityWatch.

Tuesday the Council will vote on a motion by Councilmembers LaBonge and Huizar to approve the $1.6 million in funding for the book fair.

The public funds will also be used for security required by the Mexican book fair operators and includes a requirement to “subcontract with a Mexican
construction firm to build and install the showcase pavilion in Guadalajara, as
recommended by the NEA.”

The proposal is here.

Maybe I should donate copies of Invasion to sell at the book fair.

Update: Phew..Just in…”The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Mexican-born condemned prisoner Jose Medellin’s request for a reprieve. The court denied the request late Tuesday, more than three hours after Medellin’s execution was to take place. The death warrant remains in effect until midnight CDT.”

***
Original post 10:27pm Eastern…
After backing the sovereignty of the state of Texas and rejecting international meddling, the US Supreme Court’s consideration of a last-ditch appeal has put illegal alien rapist/double murderer Jose Medellin’s scheduled execution tonight on hold.

Reader Sean O’Brien clarifies: “Texas chose to wait for the Supreme Court to actually rule–it could have, in the absence of a stay, carried out the execution.”

Stay tuned for late-breaking developments.

Blood pressure alert squared:

Injecting last-minute uncertainty into a case that has garnered international attention, the U.S. Supreme Court considered a late-hour appeal by Texas death row inmate Jose Ernesto Medellin on Tuesday night, disrupting the timetable for his scheduled execution in the 1993 rape and murder of two Houston teenagers.

The 33-year-old Mexican national, the center of an international dispute over U.S. treaty obligations, was scheduled to die by injection shortly after 6 p.m. Texas time. But the execution remained on hold nearly two hours later as justices considered his request for reprieve.

“We’re waiting for a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court,” said prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons in explaining the delay.

The case became entangled in international politics over Medellin’s assertion that he was denied his right to contact the Mexican consulate after his arrest. Under a 1963 treaty signed by the United States and 165 other countries, citizens from any of the participating nations are entitled to contact a consular official “without delay” if they are arrested overseas.

An unlikely cast of legal allies, including the Bush administration and much of the world’s diplomatic community, embraced Medellin’s position, warning that the United States will be accused of violating the treaty if Medellin is executed without a hearing on his consular access claim. The case pitted President Bush against his home state of Texas.

Medellin and five other members of a gang called the Black and Whites were convicted of raping and killing Jennifer Lee Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16, after the two girls stumbled into a gang initiation while hurrying home from a party.

Witnesses said Medellin later bragged about the assault and described using a shoelace to strangle one of the girls because he didn’t have a gun. Medellin, then 19, also “put his foot on her throat because she would not die,” according to a state legal brief.

Texas told ‘em to bug off–and the Supreme Court backed Texas.

Medellin faces execution tomorrow. The U.N. and the international meddlers are whining. Now, Medellin’s lawyers have filed one last-ditch appeal to subvert our national sovereignty and delay justice:

“Texas. It’s like a whole other country.”

Coined to promote tourism, that wry verbal wink at the state’s mythic image has assumed a literal meaning as Texas finds itself in defiance of the United Nations, the Organization of American States and national leaders in its planned Tuesday execution of Mexican citizen Jose Medellin.

Unless the U.S. Supreme Court or Gov. Rick Perry acts in his favor, Medellin, 33, will die for the 1993 rape-strangulation of two teenage Houston girls, Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peña.

Jennifer’s father, Randy Ertman, dismissed international opposition to the execution.

“It’s just a last-ditch effort to keep the scumbag breathing,” Ertman said. “He never should have been breathing in the first place. I don’t care, I really don’t care what anyone thinks about this except Texas. I love Texas. Texas is in my blood.”

At issue is Texas’ refusal to hold a hearing to determine whether Medellin’s defense was harmed by his inability to confer with Mexican consular officials at the time of his arrest. A suspect’s right to talk with his consulate is guaranteed by the United Nations’ Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which the United States is a party.

Medellin insists he told both Houston police and Harris County officers that he is a Mexican citizen. Prosecutors say the killer never informed authorities of his nationality.

In a sworn statement, Medellin said he learned that the Mexican Consulate could possibly help him in 1997, four years after his arrest. He unsuccessfully petitioned the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on the issue in 1998.

In 2004, the U.N.’s world court, responding to a Mexican lawsuit against the United States, ordered that hearings be held for Medellin and dozens of other inmates denied their consular rights. In 2005, President Bush called for the hearings to be held. Texas challenged the decision, and the Supreme Court determined that only Congress could mandate such action. In July, the world court ordered Medellin’s execution be stayed.

The proper response? Murder victim Jennifer Ertman’s father, Randy, says its all:

“The world court don’t mean diddly. This business belongs in the state of Texas … the rest of them can go to hell.”

Workers at Tyson Foods’ poultry processing plant in Shelbyville will no longer have a paid day off on Labor Day, but will instead take the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr in the fall.

A recent press release from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) stated that a new contract at the Shelbyville facility “implements a new holiday to accommodate the … Muslim workers at the plant.”

The RWDSU stated that “the five-year contract creates an additional paid holiday, Iidal Fitil, a Muslim holiday that occurs toward the end of Ramadan.”

Eid al-Fitr falls on Oct. 1 this year.

…The press release stated there are approximatly 700 Muslims working at Tyson, but Mickelson said that Somalis only represent approximately 250 of the 1,200 employed at the plant, a little over 20 percent of the workforce.

“All Team Members who have completed their probationary period are eligible for all eight paid holidays including Eid al-Fitr,” the Tyson spokeman said.

The union also claimed that in addition to the observance of the Muslim holiday, “two prayer rooms have been created to allow Muslim workers to pray twice a day and return to work without leaving the plant.”

Check out the comments section at the end of the article for a taste of the local (and growing) backlash against Tyson.

The Times-Gazette reporter, Brian Moseley, has a background piece on his story that’s worth reading. After noting how quickly the story has spread across the wires and the Internet, he writes:

So what do I think about all this?

Clearly, the accommodations given to the Muslims have upset a great many people here and across the county, especially if they believe, as many apparently do, that their traditional values are being suppressed in the name of cultural diversity and political correctness. More than one person has told me that their tolerance only goes so far, and this is obviously one of those times.

I have stated my opinions about the refugee issue itself before. It is my personal opinion that the drive to bring so many refugees to America are not prompted by just good will or concern for the plight of these poor people, but instead for the millions of dollars in federal grants that are available for settling them in this country. According to Chris Coen, who is trying to help out refugees of all nationalities, there is a lot of money to be made in this “profession.”

I also need point out that it would appear that some of these refugees are being used for other reasons. I find some of the allegations about these employment arrangements to be awfully similar to this sort of thing, and it should not be tolerated.

I also have to say that I do not feel that I am “obsessed” or “fixated” with the topic of Somalis living here, as one blogger believes. The refugees have lived in Shelbyville for the past four years, and no one has even addressed the issue until the T-G published the series in December of last year.

I would also have to suggest that the blogger’s opinion is quite possibly influenced by the fact that she makes her living by working with the Nashville refugee community, as she states on one of her other websites.

I am simply reporting on what happens when hundreds of people from a totally alien culture suddenly move to a small town in the rural south — both the good and the bad. I can not control how people are going to react to my stories.

In closing, I’ll just say that I’m going to continue to keep looking into the various issues surrounding our new neighbors so that our community can stay informed. That’s what we’re here for. And that’s what I’m going to do.

I have a feeling it won’t be long before CAIR comes knocking on his paper’s door.

Apparently some illegal alien criminals showed up for their work-release program, after being sentenced for committing misdemeanors in California, and found the federales waiting for them:

The 32 men arrested Saturday morning at the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center were participating in a county work release program as an alternative to serving time in jail.

The illegal immigrants were previously convicted of misdemeanor offenses in the United States, including driving under the influence, driving without a license, reckless driving and possession of drugs for sale, federal officials said.

Their arrests come as a result of a sweeping program in which local and federal authorities work together to find, apprehend and deport illegal immigrant criminals.

As in the case below, we know this is working because it’s getting a squawk out of the “Immigrant-rights advocates” criminal illegal alien advocates, who claim these folks weren’t violent.

It’s the way these things go–when an effective policy crops up the open borders lobby huffs and snorts. After the Agriprocessors raid in Iowa, the WSJ asked rhetorically whether we felt any safer.

They won’t dare ask that in: with illegal drunk drivers and drug dealers shipped out the door, of course we’re safer. Here’s ICE spokesman Virginia Kice, who sounds like she gets it:

“Someone may say that misdemeanor violations should not be a priority, but there is a very real possibility they could go out and commit a more serious offense that has heartbreaking consequences for the community,” Kice said. “What if a person who has a DUI conviction gets behind the wheel several months from now and has an accident that claims the life of several innocent victims? Why would we allow that to happen?”

Why, indeed? Cheap lettuce? The criminal illegal alien advocacy lobby is going to need to come up with a better rejoinder than that. These are not sympathetic characters they’re defending. It’s one thing to post a tearjerking photo-op of a deportee who had been working quietly and staying out of trouble, but when illegal alien advocates defend drunk drivers and dope dealers their support may start to erode.

After all, that might have been the next Edwin Ramos they just deported.

______________

{Post by See-Dubya}

Though I believe enforcement is effective, I don’t believe that change is conclusive proof of its effectiveness. After all, the voluntary self-deportations might have occurred mainly for economic reasons instead of the fear of enforcement. Still, I’m sure it played some part.

Actually, I thought this idea was the most interesting part of the article:

ICE announced a pilot program to allow hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who are defying deportation orders to come forward and set up a schedule for leaving. The voluntary program would allow the immigrants not to be detained in the interim, would remove some penalties and would give them time to get their affairs in order.

ICE portrayed the move as a chance for immigrant-rights groups, who have criticized the agency for its fugitive raids, to “step up to the table” and prove they want an orderly system.

“One of the criticisms we face though, from immigrant advocacy groups and from faith-based organizations and community groups, is there’s a better way to do this – if we just gave people an opportunity to turn themselves in, they would do so,” said Jim Hayes, acting director of ICE’s Office of Detention and Removal.

You know, I’m fine with that, though I expect many of this blog’s readers may consider it too accommodating. I’m all for assisting with an orderly exit for people who come forward voluntarily and who haven’t committed any crimes (more about that in Part II of this post). It gets them out of the country, and it gets them into the system.

But whether you agree with me that this is good policy or not, I think most of you can appreciate the politics involved here. ICE just called these “immigrant rights groups’” bluff. Oh, you say illegals will self-deport voluntarily if we give them a chance? Great, let’s give them a chance!

If the amnesty activists are right, we should see thousands and thousands of aliens taking advantage of this chance to turn themselves in and deport themselves. So the country wins.

But if those hordes of grateful-but-homesick border-jumpers don’t materialize, then the open-borders crowd has major egg on its face as one of their talking points dissolves. And ICE has an excuse to get tougher on enforcement. So the country wins that way, too.

If you click through to the article, you’ll see that those “immigrant rights groups” are extremely dismissive of this idea. They did not enjoy having their bluff called, not one bit.

_________________

{Post by See-Dubya}

Just saying:

Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee are setting aside $20 million to target and mobilize Hispanic voters in the presidential election this fall, the Obama campaign said Tuesday.

The campaign plans to spread the money in all 50 states but will emphasize their efforts in swing states such as Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Florida, Temo Figueroa, the Latino vote director for the Obama campaign, said at a news conference.

Figueroa said the four states were picked based on their Hispanic electorate, the closeness of the states in previous elections and the operations the campaign has put together in each.
During the last presidential election, Hispanics in key swing states such as these represented anywhere from 8 percent to more than 30 percent of voters, according to exit polls, and their numbers are expected to grow this year.

The campaign said the $20 million will be spent on registering and mobilizing voters, advertisements and online organizing.

It also plans to put additional staff in the four states and aims to train about 500 Latino organizers.
Democratic lawmakers at the news conference applauded the effort.

(hat tip – William Amos)

Well, it looks like the McCain campaign is really getting their money’s worth from him:

Democrat Barack Obama has opened a big lead among Hispanic voters, winning support from the vast majority of those who had voted for rival Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries, according to a poll released Thursday.

____________

{Post by See-Dubya}