Wednesday, April 6, 2011

New Jersey Gov. Christie calls teachers union ‘political thugs’

By Eric W. Dolan
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011 -- 7:16 pm

New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie had harsh words for the state's largest teacher's union on Wednesday.

In an interview Wednesday night, the governor told ABC's World News host Diane Sawyer that New Jersey teachers were wonderful public servants but that the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) was a "group of political thugs."

"Governor Christie’s name-calling is a tired attempt to draw attention away from the fact that he chose to cut taxes for millionaires, rather than fund the state’s public schools," NJEA President Barbara Keshishian responded in a statement.

Christie blamed the union for the 10,000 teachers and school staff who he laid off, claiming they should have accepted a salary freeze he proposed.

"They should have taken the salary freeze," he said. "They didn't and now, you know, we had to lay teachers off."

Christie also said he plans to reform teachers' tenure program to make it easier to remove teachers from tenure if they're found to be ineffective. The governor has already cut pension benefits for teachers and proposed they pay for more of their health care.

"Once again, Christie is resorting to name-calling because he’s ducking responsibility for his own misguided priorities," Keshishian said. "His cuts to education were so deep – and so harmful to the futures of New Jersey’s students – that a state judge found they failed to meet the requirements of the state constitution. The state Supreme Court is now poised to rule on their constitutionality."

Christie told Sawyer he didn't think the Supreme Court should be able to rule on the issue.

"It seems to me under the constitution that that's what you elect a governor and a legislature for," he said. "But we'll see what happens."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/06/new-jersey-gov-christie-calls-teachers-union-political-thugs/

Analysis: CEO pay soars while workers face layoffs, stalled pay

By David Edwards
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011 -- 10:35 am

CEOs are getting even richer while workers are hit with stagnate pay and even layoffs.

A recent USA Today analysis of data from GovernanceMetrics International showed that CEO pay jumped 27 percent last year, nearly reaching pre-recession levels.

Workers, however, saw their pay rise at a paltry 2.1 percent in 2010, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data from the bureau also showed that the overall inflation rate was 1.64 percent during the same period.

That means working people in America barely kept on level with the rate of inflation, while their employers saw their pay soar.

The analysis of 158 Standard & Poor's 500 index companies with the same CEO serving all of 2009 and 2010 found that median CEO pay in 2010 was $9.0 million, the most CEOs have made since a median of $9.2 million in 2007.

"We have the recipe for controversy over CEO pay: big increases in CEO pay that show up following run-ups in stock prices coupled with high unemployment rates," Kevin Murphy, professor of finance at the University of Southern California, told USA Today.

William Lazonick, professor at the University of Massachusetts, explained to the paper that much of the 47 percent increase in profit S&P 500 companies saw last year was due to cost cutting and layoffs. Revenue, on the other hand, grew at only 7 percent in 2010.

"So in other words, a 7 percent pay hike for CEOs might have been fair; a 27 percent raise looks a lot more like profiting off the misery of the people who once worked for you," Mother Jones Josh Harkinson noted.

The unemployment rate fell to a two-year low of 8.8 percent in March.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/06/analysis-ceo-pay-soars-while-workers-face-layoffs-stalled-pay/

Fifty days of Wisconsin labor solidarity have changed my life

Jenni Dye on Tuesday 04/05/2011 4:18 pm

Monday, April 4, marked the 50th day since protests started at the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison over a bill that would gut public employees' collective bargaining rights. Fifty days of Wisconsinites standing up and making their voices heard. Through hearing testimony, through meetings with their elected officials, through letters and emails to the governor's office. Through protests, through where they chose to sleep, through signs, through chants. Through showing up and taking part. Through recall canvassing and through adding their signatures to recall petitions. Fifty days.

When the protests started, I didn't know enough about the bill to know what its impact would be. I just knew that I was opposed to the idea of a budget repair bill that substantially changed workers' rights being rammed through the Legislature in a week, which was the reported Republican plan. I thought that, at the very least, it was an issue that deserved more time for the public to gather information and participate in the debate. So I showed up at the Capitol to make sure my voice was heard. My dad showed up. My friends showed up. People who I never even knew were interested in politics showed up. And it became something a lot bigger than any of us.

On February 16, when I stood in the stairwell leading to the room in which the Joint Finance Committee was about to vote, I yelled with the crowd "The people united will never be defeated," and I knew that this was different than anything I'd seen before and, possibly, anything I'll ever see again. As that first week unfolded, I educated myself about the contents of the bill and found I didn't at all like what it contained. My motivations changed from merely procedural to substantive -- I wanted to stop that proposal in its tracks. I wanted compromise. I wanted our elected officials to sit at a table and talk.

During that first week, which I mostly spent protesting with my dad, my former teachers and a few close friends, I felt a sort of hope that had been dormant for years. Hope that people joining forces really can make a difference. On Day 50, I stood on the State Street steps to the Capitol and listened as Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke about Dr. Martin Luther King's legacy on the anniversary of his assassination.

Jackson told the crowd that it was our responsibility to ensure that Dr. King lived on through us, that his dream was not ended with a single bullet. As Jackson spoke, I stood next to a fellow protester whom I had never met 50 days ago, but now consider a friend. Behind me, two protesters held a sign bearing the Martin Luther King quote: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

Our voices have been largely ignored by Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Scott, Rep. Jeff Fitzgerald and their allies. They tried to trample our hope by locking us out of the Capitol. But we brought our sleeping bags and blankets and showed them that it didn't matter if we slept inside or out, our opposition remained steady.

They held public meetings with minimal notice, trying to cut us out of the process. But we showed up in force anyway, and we refused to allow violations of Wisconsin's open meetings law to go unchallenged. They tried to make us go away by "passing" the legislation, but that night, we filled the streets surrounding the Capitol and continued our protest. And now, seven weeks after we started, we are still standing up and making our voices heard. Letting them know we don't like their budget repair bill, their infringement of our constitutional rights, or their way of "opening" Wisconsin for business by closing our open government.

We may not have gotten through to Gov. Walker or the Fitzgeralds or their friends yet. But those of you who have also devoted your time and your energy to this movement have gotten through to me in a way that is permanent and life-changing. For every moment in my past where I have questioned whether there are good people out there, the compassion and commitment of those raising their voices at our Capitol have proved 10 times over that there are people who care about each other. Care about perfect strangers. Care about Wisconsin. Care about democracy and open government. Care that things are done the right way, even when the proposal itself is abhorrent.

There have been days when my voice is not strong, but I've found that I can rely on others to carry the load. There have been days when I literally might have collapsed into a sobbing heap on the Capitol floor were it not for the kindness of friends and perfect strangers. There are days when a hug is an absolute lifeline to maintaining any sanity at all. Sometimes relief and renewal have come in the form of inspiration from the words of speakers at a rally and sometimes from perfect strangers who are also dedicating their time to the cause. I'll never be able to thank you all individually. I'll never be able to thank you all enough.

It's not enough, but I will forever be grateful for what the individuals involved in this movement have given me. And I plan to keep giving it my all until we take Wisconsin back.

http://www.isthmus.com/daily/article.php?article=33032

Brisenia Flores murderer given death penalty: AZ Daily Star needs to stop with the “border activist”

by Three Sonorans on Apr. 06, 2011, under Headline news

Jason Bush is a white supremacist.

That is no secret.

Jason Bush was part of the Minuteman faction led by Shawna Forde (who was also given the death penalty) that entered the Flores home and shot Brisenia’s parents.

Brisenia Flores, 9 year-old murdered in Southern Arizona by Minutemen and white supremacists.

Brisenia was sleeping on the couch with her puppy and woke up to find her parents shot. Her mom was shot but lived; listen to her 911 call in the video above.

Brisenia asked Bush why he shot her mommy and daddy.

Bush’s response? He reloaded his gun and pointed it at 9 year old Brisenia’s face.

Her last words were “Please don’t shoot me.”

He shot her twice, sending her fragile body flying across the room.

Jason Bush is a scumbag, a hateful white supremacist and part of the evil virus that is infecting our state, from neo-Nazis, Minutemen, NSM, and even Russell Pearce who attends neo-Nazi rallies and forwards emails from white supremacist groups, and who sponsors legislation from the known hate group FAIR.

There is a lot of hate in this state.

And yet the local paper wants to call Jason Bush, an evil and guilty man, a white supremacist, and a murderer a “border activist?”

What the heck is a “border activist?”

I would love to see the definition of “border activism.” Seriously.

A white supremacist busts into a house and kills brown people… where is the “border activism” in that action? What does one do to be a “border activist?”

Are Border Patrol “border activists?”

Why are our local media, the TV news included, afraid of using terms such as racist and white supremacists? They have no problem bashing others with accusations against the Mexican-American studies and children, for example spreading Tom Horne’s description of peaceful protesters as a “thuggish mob.”

Are we in fantasy land and there is no racism in Tucson and Arizona? Actually, it’s worse than ever and this summer is going to be one for the history books.

I wonder how the local media will whitewash this dark history.

The Pima County jury sentenced Bush to die after deliberating nearly four hours over two days. Bush showed no reaction at sentencing this morning.

Bush, 36, was convicted of first-degree murder last month in the May 30, 2009, deaths of Arivaca residents Raul Junior Flores, 29, and his daughter Brisenia Flores, 9.

Bush was part of Minutemen American Defense founder Shawna Forde’s plan to rob and kill drug smugglers to fund her organization, prosecutors say. Forde, 43, was convicted and sentenced to death in February.

Bush shot Junior Flores multiple times in the neck and torso and he shot Brisenia Flores twice in the face at point blank range as the girl begged for her life, according to Gina Gonzalez, 32, the sole survivor in the attack that killed her husband and daughter.

via Second border activist sentenced to death in Arivaca double-killing case.


http://networkedblogs.com/glg3u

US atom smasher may have found new force of nature

by Kerry Sheridan

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Data from a major US atom smasher lab may have revealed a new elementary particle, or potentially a new force of nature, one of the physicists involved in the discovery told AFP on Wednesday.

The physics world was abuzz with excitement over the findings, which could offer clues to the persistent riddle of mass and how objects obtain it -- one of the most sought-after answers in all of physics.

But experts cautioned that more analysis was needed over the next several months to uncover the true nature of the discovery, which comes as part of an ongoing experiment with proton and antiproton collisions to understand the workings of the universe.

"There could be some new force beyond the force that we know," said Giovanni Punzi, a physicist with the international research team that is analyzing the data from the US Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

"If it is confirmed, it could point to a whole new world of interactions," he told AFP.

While much remains a mystery, researchers agree that this is not the "God Particle," or the Higgs-boson, a hypothetical elementary particle which has long eluded physicists who believe it could explain why objects have mass.

"The Higgs-boson is a piece that goes into the puzzle that we already have," said Punzi. "Whereas this is something that goes a little bit beyond that -- a new interaction, a new force."

Punzi said the new observation behaves differently than the Higgs-boson, which would be decaying into heavy quarks, or particles.

The new discovery "is decaying in normal quarks," Punzi said. "It has different features," he added.

"One thing we know for sure -- it is not the Higgs-boson. That is the only thing we know for sure."

Physicists were to discuss their findings further in a meeting to be webcast at 2100 GMT.

For more than a year physicists have been studying what appears to be a "bump" in the data from the Illinois-based Fermi lab, which operates the powerful particle accelerator, or atom-smasher, Tevatron.

The Tevatron was once the most powerful machine in the world for such purposes until 2008 when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) became operational at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which goes by the acronym CERN.

The US machine began its work in the mid 1980s, and is scheduled for shutdown later this year when its funding runs dry.

"These results are certainly tantalizing," said Nigel Lockyer, director of Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, TRIUMF.

"It is too early to say for sure what the Fermilab team has observed," he added in an email to AFP.

"On the one hand, there is clear evidence for something unexplained, and on the other, there is a long list of alternative explanations for what might be causing this subtle observation," he said.

"My personal judgment is that this excitement is adding fuel to the fire for the next generation of results and discoveries that will be made at the LHC (in Europe) and elsewhere. We are so close to learning something profound."

Lockyer, a former spokesman for the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF), which made the announcement, said there is another major experiment going on at Tevatron, a sister project known as D-Zero, which could help confirm the data in the coming months.

"They are both multipurpose detectors. They both have the capability of seeing this," he said, predicting a rush of opinions by theoretical physicists in the coming days, and more data that could shed more light on the finding by summer.

"It will become very much clearer in the next few months. You won't have to wait years."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110406/ts_afp/scienceusphysics;_ylt=ApPS2vIBEVhuhKMe1EkFaUlH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTM1NmppYXF2BGFzc2V0A2FmcC8yMDExMDQwNi9zY2llbmNldXNwaHlzaWNzBGNjb2RlA21wX2VjXzhfMTAEY3BvcwM3BHBvcwM3BHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDdXNhdG9tc21hc2hl

Mike Pence Says He'd Shut Down the Government to Defund Planned Parenthood

By Heather
April 05, 2011 05:57 PM

Mike Pence made no secret of where his priorities are when it comes to governing. Pandering to the extremists in the religious right comes before the reproductive health of women, especially poor women and he'd prefer to shut down the government to funding Planned Parenthood. Just shameless.

Media Matters Political Correction has more -- Would Rep. Pence Shut Down The Government Over Planned Parenthood Funding? "Of Course":

This morning on MSNBC, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) restated his commitment to his moral crusade against Planned Parenthood, once again letting down the Americans who voted for Republicans in hopes they would focus on job creation. There's no clearer evidence of the GOP's misplaced priorities than Pence's declaration today that "of course" he would be willing to "hold up this entire budget" — which would result in a government shutdown — over the defunding of Planned Parenthood.

WILLIE GEIST (CO-HOST): Are you willing to hold up this entire budget over defunding Planned Parenthood?

PENCE: Well— well of course I am. I think the American people have begun to learn that the largest abortion provider in the country is also the largest recipient of federal funding under Title X, and they want to see that come to an end. I think there's a broad consensus in this country, regardless of where you stand on the subject of abortion, there's a broad consensus for decades now opposing public funding of abortion and abortion providers. ... We're going to dig in and we're going to fight for the principle that taxpayers should not have to subsidize the largest abortion provider in the country, namely Planned Parenthood of America.

And as they noted, or course Mike Pence is lying here:

The funds Planned Parenthood receives through Title X go to family planning and health services other than abortion — things like pap smears and birth control. Pence's defunding efforts have nothing to do with separating federal tax dollars from abortion funding, since they're already separate; his amendment will undermine the ability of Planned Parenthood to provide any services because they also provide abortions — a much more radical objective.

Perhaps that's why he's had to manufacture the "broad consensus" he claims support him; in fact, a majority of voters oppose cutting off federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Being willing to shut down the government in the name of a rather meaningless moral crusade is such an extreme position that co-host Joe Scarborough (a former Republican congressman) incredulously asked Pence to clarify — twice.


http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/mike-pence-says-hed-shut-down-government-d

VIDEO: 'This Is Not America': SWAT Team Evicts Grandmother, Community Fights Back

By Van Jones and Marianne Manilov
April 1st, 2011 11:01 PM

Day after day, the media and government ignore an ongoing national tragedy: a tsunami of foreclosures is still sweeping millions of Americans out of their homes. As many as three million American families this year will hear a terrifying knock on the door: a law enforcement officer will tell them to get out, because a bank won't work out a fair deal and allow them to stay.

But one remarkable grandmother this month refused to go quietly.

And her brave example -- including her willingness to stand up, along with her neighbors, to a SWAT team -- finally got elected officials to intervene.

A modern day Rosa Parks, her courage may well spark a national movement.

Grandmother and longtime Rochester resident Catherine Lennon was evicted from her home on March 28.

It was a moving scene captured on the video below.


But Ms. Lennon should never have been booted out. Her problem was simple enough to solve: her husband died in January of 2008, leaving her with no will and her home ownership in legal limbo. She acknowledges missing some payments. But then, because her name was not on the house's official mortgage paperwork, she says her bank refused her checks and returned them to her. She says she has the ability to make her payments.

But believe it or not: Fannie and Freddie wouldn't accept her money.

Fannie Mae, which now owns Lennon's home, received $90 billion in bailout money. According to Max Rameau of Take Back the Land, "In order for banks to get their mortgage insurance money, they must evict the families. Instead of a system or laws that try to keep families in their homes, banks have a perverse incentive to evict them. We should be rewarding banks that keep people in their homes, not the ones that kick people out."

Instead, according to Ms. Lennon, the bank called in the police. A SWAT team came to evict her and her 11 children and grandchildren. Neighbors stood with Ms. Lennon throughout the ordeal.

"This is not America," said one shocked neighbor.

Take Back The Land Rochester, a local group providing eviction defense, attempted to stop the eviction. Seven people were arrested, including a 70-year-old neighbor, still in her pajamas. Take Back the Land Rochester is a part of an impressive national network of volunteers who are standing on the frontlines and helping those facing eviction and foreclosure.

After Lennon's eviction, Rochester residents increased their calls and letters to their elected representatives and the media.

Congresswoman Louise Slaughter intervened and got Lennon on the phone with Fannie and Freddie to begin negotiations on the mortgage. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York also called Take Back the Land Rochester to offer their support.

Lennon's story is both a light of hope and a warning. In the next week or two, Lennon may get her home back. We hope to see a video of the celebration as Ms. Lennon and her family are allowed back into their family home.

But tonight Lennon and her family are in a homeless shelter. And today across the United States, more than 8,000 people will lose their home to foreclosure. They are grandmothers, husbands, sisters and aunts. They are the fabric of our community: the teachers, the janitors -- the same workers who are under attack in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and elsewhere.

The time has come in the United States where we all must be brave like the volunteers of Take Back the Land, where we all must be eviction defenders. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were originally established to help US citizens fulfill the dream of owning our homes. In a time when communities are hurting, we must stand together and demand policies that will save American families from losing their homes. We must stand together to protect and rebuild the American dream.

UPDATE:
Bank of America today said that Ms. Lennon had fallen behind on her payments.

In response to the Bank of America statement, Ryan Acuff (an organizer with Take Back the Land- Rochester, the community group supporting Ms. Lennon) released the following statement:

After Catherine Lennon's husband died of brain and lung cancer in 2008, the Lennon family, understandably, experienced the same financial harship many people are facing today. As a result, Catherine did miss some mortgage payments to Countrywide/Bank of America, just as we have stated in our press releases and public statements. However, Catherine not only met with the Housing Council, the local HUD approved mortgage counselors, but attempted to engage with Bank of America. In fact, Catherine sent a payment to the bank, but the bank returned the check and refused to negotiate with her because the mortgage was in the name of her deceased husband, who did not leave a will. While Catherine was, indeed, delinquent, the fact remains that Bank of America refused her attempts to pay and efforts to negotiate modifications to her mortgage for the reasons stated above.

http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/81-81/5493-video-swat-team-evicts-grandmother

Johnston and Gerard on the Devastating Effects of Ryan's Budget on the Elderly, the Disabled and Children

By Heather
April 05, 2011 08:30 PM

Ed Schultz talked to Tax.com's David Cay Johnston and The United Steelworkers Leo Gerard about just how devastating Paul Ryan and the Republicans new budget proposal would be to the disabled, the elderly and children. Remember when everyone on the right and much of our beltway media was criticizing Alan Grayson for saying the Republicans' health care plan was not to get sick, and if you do get sick, "die quickly?" I think Paul Ryan just proved him right this week.

As David Cay Johnston pointed out during this segment, that's exactly what Ryan's budget proposals will do; assure that more people die because they can't afford to get the treatment they need as his vouchers become increasingly worthless as the cost of care continues to go up and gets pushed back onto the consumer.

And as Leo Gerard made clear, Ryan's claims that giving huge tax cuts to the rich will create jobs is a farce. As he noted, if that were true, we'd have been at full employment while Bush was in office.

Johnston also expressed his frustration with a lack of a plan to get our budget under control that doesn't balance it on the backs of the working class from the Democrats and I couldn't agree with him more. Since any talk of raising taxes seems to be taboo among our political class, I don't know what it's going to take to finally see that happen.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/johnston-and-gerard-devastating-effects-ry

Wisconsin Supreme Court challenger Kloppenburg declares victory

By Reuters
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011 -- 4:59 pm

MADISON, Wis - The challenger backed by Democrats and labor unions in a closely-watched Wisconsin election for a Supreme Court judge seat declared victory on Wednesday over a veteran judge backed by Republicans.

But a recount is virtually certain in the race that became a referendum on Republican Governor Scott Walker's plan to curb the power of public sector unions.

With 100 percent of the state's precincts reporting, JoAnne Kloppenburg edged out incumbent Justice David Prosser by a little over 200 votes, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel newspaper and WTMJ-TV.

Kloppenburg, who garnered 740,090 votes to Prosser's 739,886, claimed victory on Wednesday afternoon.

"We owe Justice Prosser our gratitude for his more than 30 years of public service," Kloppenburg said. "Wisconsin voters have spoken and I am grateful for, and humbled by, their confidence and trust. I will be independent and impartial and I will decide cases based on the facts and the law."

Prosser's campaign director Brian Nemoir did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment. He has already said the campaign is preparing for a recount.

(Writing by James Kelleher; Additional reporting by Jeff Mayers and David Bailey; Editing by Greg McCune)

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/06/wisconsin-supreme-court-challenger-kloppenburg-declares-victory/

Kloppenburg's Win Bodes Well for Recall of Wisconsin GOP Lawmakers

By Adele M. Stan
Posted at April 6, 2011, 1:12 pm

Against all odds, Democrat JoAnne Kloppenburg appears to have unseated the incumbent Republican Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Paul Prosser, by a margin of just 204 votes:

Supreme Court

All precincts reporting

Candidate Votes Percent
David Prosser (I) 739,886 49.99%
JoAnne Kloppenburg 740,090 50.01%

Yes, there will likely be a recount. But when you consider that Kloppenburg wasn't supposed to have had a prayer, this bodes very well for Democrats in their bid to recall eight Republican state lawmakers. Word from the field is the recall effort is doing much better on the Dem side than it is for the Republicans, who are trying to recall an equal number of Democrats.

With a turnout of more than 1.4 million voters, this Supreme Court race is seen as reflective of a backlash against the antics of Wisconsin Republicans who, through trickery, bullying and sleight-of-hand, rammed through a bill in the state legislature that would repeal the collective bargaining rights of state employees, and gut the public health-care program for the poor. The bill was shepherded by Gov. Scott Walker, who was elected in 2010 with the support of Charles and David Koch, and the latter's front group, Americans For Prosperity.

Adam Green, whose group, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, was deeply involved in running television ads and organizing voters for the Supreme Court race, released the following statement, along with an appeal for donations for a television ad campaign focused on the recall campaign:

"Now we have to finish the job," Green wrote to supporters. "When we win the upcoming recall elections against Republicans in Wisconsin it will have ripple effects across the nation -- showing that working families will hold Republicans accountable for their war on the middle class."

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/552072/kloppenburg%27s_win_bodes_well_for_recall_of_wisconsin_gop_lawmakers/

Tea Parties to the Elderly



https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=200968806600257&set=a.104419349588537.8042.104200886277050&ref=nf

Second border activist sentenced to death in Arivaca double-killing case

By Kim Smith, Arizona Daily Star Arizona Daily Star
Posted: Wednesday, April 6, 2011 11:15 am

Defense attorney Richard Parrish tried to convince the jurors to spare Jason Bush’s life Tuesday afternoon by questioning the state’s motives, hammering on his client’s mental illness and quoting from both the Old and the New Testaments.

He failed.

The Pima County jury sentenced Bush to die after deliberating nearly four hours over two days. Bush showed no reaction at sentencing this morning.

Bush, 36, was convicted of first-degree murder last month in the May 30, 2009, deaths of Arivaca residents Raul Junior Flores, 29, and his daughter Brisenia Flores, 9.

Bush was part of Minutemen American Defense founder Shawna Forde's plan to rob and kill drug smugglers to fund her organization, prosecutors say. Forde, 43, was convicted and sentenced to death in February.

Bush shot Junior Flores multiple times in the neck and torso and he shot Brisenia Flores twice in the face at point blank range as the girl begged for her life, according to Gina Gonzalez, 32, the sole survivor in the attack that killed her husband and daughter.

Parrish told jurors prosecutors showed gruesome photos of every wound inflicted, not to prove Bush’s guilt, but to get them to hate Bush enough to kill him.

In 1500 BC the Old Testament spoke of an eye for an eye, but the New Testament talks about turning the other cheek, Parrish said.

Prosecutors wanted jurors to go back 3,000 years and “murder” Bush for killing Brisenia “despite overwhelming evidence this is a very sick guy,” Parrish told the jurors.

“If this was only the murder of a drug dealer, we wouldn’t be sitting here,” the defense attorney said.

Parrish warned jurors what he had to say might seem “distasteful and cruel,” but he had to question Gonzalez’s statement that she went to bed May 30 “in heaven and woke up in hell.” Gonzalez was living on several acres of land with a drug dealing husband, a $60,000 Hummer in the front yard and with loaded weapons in the house she clearly knew how to use and were easily assessable to her young daughters, Parrish said.

“I don’t get it. That’s heaven?” Parrish told jurors.

Bush has a documented history of mental illness going back to when he was 10 years old and his parents put him into a mental institution for criminal behavior, Parrish reminded jurors. Bush was eventually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

Parrish and co-counsel Chris Kimminau did not give opening statements or closing arguments in the guilt and innocence phase of the trial, but jurors were not told why until the punishment phase began.

Parrish told jurors he and Kimminau never lied to them about Bush’s guilt knowing that if they did, the jurors would not believe the mitigation evidence they presented.

“They want you to think that the Flores and Gonzalez family simply isn’t worth your trouble,” Deputy Pima County Attorney Rick Unklesbay told jurors in his closing argument Tuesday.

The fact the defense attorneys don’t think the victims are worthy of having the law applied equally to them is “astonishing in it’s offensiveness,” Unklesbay said.

The prosecutor told jurors he and co-counsel Kellie Johnson had an obligation to prove their case; they didn’t set out to make anyone hate Bush.

Unklesbay called into question the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, noting two sets of prison doctors decided Bush was faking symptoms of mental illness in 1998.

However, even if Bush does suffer from that ailment, it didn’t cause him to paint his face black, don a tactical vest, drive to the Flores house and open fire, Unklesbay said. It wasn’t paranoid schizophrenia that made him try to shoot Gonzalez again upon learning she was alive.

“He made choices. He made choices every step of the way,” Unklesbay said.

Bush showed off one of the bullets Gonzalez fired at him the day after the slayings, Unklesbay reminded jurors.

That “tells us so much more about Jason Bush than any of the people who have come in here the past few days,” Unklesbay said.

Bush was also found guilty of attempted first-degree murder, first-degree burglary and multiple counts of robbery and aggravated assault. He will be sentenced on those counts May 13.

Co-defendant Albert Gaxiola, who could also face the death penalty, is scheduled to go to trial June 1.

Contact reporter Kim Smith at 573-4241 or kimsmith@azstarnet.com

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/article_9921e9f6-6077-11e0-a904-001cc4c03286.html

CEO Pay Shoots Up At Expense of Workers

By Josh Harkinson
Tue Apr. 5, 2011 3:00 PM PDT

Here's the latest on how much richer the rich have gotten: Last year, according to a USA Today analysis of corporate filings, median CEO pay jumped 27 percent. Compare this to the paltry 2.1 percent pay raise earned by the typical American worker.

Stock options have rewarded CEOs for layoffs instead of growth.

In general, CEOs did so much better than everyone else due to their generous stock options, which surged in concert with last year's bull market. Wall Street argues that there's nothing wrong with such incentive-based pay; it alignes the interests of corporate execs with their companies' shareholders.  But is that all that matters? UMass economics professor William Lazonick notes that a huge chunk of corporate profits last year came not from legitimate gains, but from downsizing:

The fact that CEOs’ pay is rising along with stock prices underscores the disconnect between pay and companies’ true underlying performance, Lazonick says. While companies in the S&P 500 boosted profit 47% last year, much of that was due to cost-cutting and layoffs, not from the creation of businesses and growth, Lazonick says. Revenue, a gauge of the money flowing into businesses for selling goods and services, grew at a much slower pace than profit — and ended the year up just 7%.

So in other words, a 7 percent pay hike for CEOs might have been fair; a 27 percent raise looks a lot more like profiting off the misery of the people who once worked for you.


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