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Politics : Leftwing Agenda to Destroy the US -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: AK2004 who wrote (135)	4/5/2006 7:53:20 PM
From: paret	Respond to of 908

Western Union new force in migrant debate Its parent firm creates a $10 million fund to promote immigration reform. The Arizona Republic Monday, March 20, 2006 tucsoncitizen.com Western Union, the world's biggest money-transfer company, and its parent firm, First Data Corp., are quietly becoming a force in the debate over illegal immigration. In recent years, Denver-based First Data has openly campaigned for immigration reform and created a $10 million "Empowerment Fund" for the same purpose. It has held seminars on migration law, published how-to guides for migrants, sponsored English classes, given money to a charity that helps Mexican women whose husbands are in the United States, and showered immigrant-sending communities with aid. It also fought Arizona's Proposition 200, an initiative to limit public services to illegal immigrants that voters approved last year, a First Data official told the Mexican Senate. In Tucson, there are roughly 200 Western Union outlets. Critics accuse the company of encouraging immigrants, both legal and illegal. Supporters say the company is just trying to connect with customers, and that its actions have little effect on migration. "The economic forces that are driving immigration were not created by First Data," said David Landsman, executive director of the National Money Transmitters Association, which represents wire-transfer companies. Either way, both sides admit Western Union's fate is intimately tied to immigrants and likely will become more so after First Data spins off Western Union into an independent company later this year. First Data currently makes about half of its profits from money transfers, with the rest coming from its other financial services: credit-card processing, ATM networks and moving money between banks. But an independent Western Union will be entirely dependent on money transfers and on the migrants who send them. Other wire-transfer companies have ramped up their migrant outreach efforts, too. But none has invested as much money and energy as First Data, or taken as direct a role in the immigration debate. "They do support immigration reform for instrumental reasons - or you can use a more crude word, for opportunistic reasons," said Manuel Orozco, an expert on remittances at the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank. "But there is also a genuine reality: The money-transfer companies work face to face with migrants, and they understand their needs. (First Data feels) that they have to have a position on this, and it would be hypocritical to stay quiet and let things happen."

To: AK2004 who wrote (135)	4/5/2006 8:15:27 PM
From: paret	Respond to of 908

• Schumergate: The illegal purloining of Lt. Gov. Michael Steele's credit report by staffers on Sen. Chuck Schumer's Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee certainly seemed like a ripe topic for some congressional oversight. But like the Bergergate case, it appears that Bush Justice will let the guilty parties off with a slap on the wrist - without fingering any higher ups. In fact, Schumer's committee is now insisting that it acted in an "exemplary manner" by not using the illegal info against Steele. GOP interest in further investigation? Bubkiss. newsmax.com

To: AK2004 who wrote (135)	4/5/2006 8:17:02 PM
From: paret	Respond to of 908

Others deserving mention: the suppression of the Barrett Report, media leaks by anti-Bush CIA insiders and a probe into Sen. Robert Byrd's activities while he was a leader in the Ku Klux Klan. newsmax.com

To: AK2004 who wrote (135)	4/8/2006 7:08:37 PM
From: paret	Respond to of 908

US leak of Zarqawi letter riles Israelis The Sunday Times April 09, 2006 ISRAELI military intelligence officials have accused President George W Bush’s administration of undermining their attempts to infiltrate Al-Qaeda’s operations in Iraq by revealing the contents of a secret letter written by Osama Bin Laden’s second-in-command, writes Uzi Mahnaimi. Israel passed the letter — in which Ayman al-Zawahiri outlined his Middle East strategy to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq — to Washington last October on condition of strict anonymity. Israeli officials were dismayed, however, when John Negroponte, the US director of national intelligence, made it available in both English and its original Arabic on his office web site. Bush then referred to it during his weekly address. “The Al-Qaeda letter points to Vietnam as a model,” the president declared. “Al-Qaeda believes that America can be made to run again. They are gravely mistaken. America will not run and we will not forget our responsibilities.” Israeli intelligence sources said officials who had worked on “Operation Tiramisu” inside Iraq took emergency steps to protect their sources, but it was not clear how successful they had been in averting the damage to their intelligence network. They said Bush’s indiscretion had undone months of painstaking effort.