The Glade 4.0

Quote from our esteemed CiC at a joint meeting with the Mexican president..

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

Power Play Over Immigration Law
By Jonathan Lloyd and Robert Kovacik

An Arizona utility commissioner said he's willing to pull the plug on Los Angeles if the city goes through with a boycott of his state.

In a letter to the city of LA, a member of Arizona's power commission said he would ask Arizona utility companies to cut off the power supply to Los Angeles. LA gets about 25 percent of its power from Arizona.

"That is one commissioner who has that idea -- whether he can do that or not is another idea," said LA Councilman Dennis Zine. "They are the ones who have to make the move, not us."

The commissioner's power grid play is in response to the city's approval of a resolution directing city staff to consider which contracts with Arizona can be terminated.

Here's part Arizona Corporation Commission member Gary Pierce's letter to the mayor:

If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation.

I am confident that Arizona’s utilities would be happy to take those electrons off your hands. If, however, you find that the City Council lacks the strength of its convictions to turn off the lights in Los Angeles and boycott Arizona power, please reconsider the wisdom of attempting to harm Arizona’s economy.

The full text was sent to the blog Hot Air.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is in Washington D.C., meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, but his deputy chief of staff issued the following statement: "The mayor stands strongly behind the city council and he will not respond to threats from the state that has isolated itself from an America that values freedom, liberty and basic civil rights."

Councilmember Tom LaBonge said he'd like to talk with Pierce. LaBonge said the city needs to look into its long standing utility agreements with Arizona.

LaBonge met Wednesday morning with LA Department of Water and Power officials.

"We have right of ownership of the power plants," LaBonge told NBCLA. "We partially own them."

Other California cities, including Oakland and San Francisco, have passed similar measures.

On Tuesday, Berkeley became the latest California city to boycott Arizona. The City Council voted unanimously to restrict staff from traveling to the state on city business.

SB 1070 -- here's the text of the law -- empowers local law enforcement to check the immigration status of suspects they have stopped for other reasons if there is a reasonable suspicion they are in the country illegally. The law specifically bars police from racial profiling.

The Arizona Republic newspaper recently asked a panel of experts to outline how the law would work in real-world situations. The experts' interpretations varied when it came to what happens at the point a law encforcement officer can or should ask about a person's status.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Does this really merit a new thread?

Eh, it's just grandstanding all around. How are so many people upset at Arizona for enforcing the federal immigration rules because the feds won't? I don't see how this is really an issue at all.

Coleman bans city-funded travel to Arizona
Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman has banned city-worker travel to Arizona because of that state's new law allowing police to demand documentation from anyone they suspect is in the country illegally.

"The mayor will not be approving any travel to Arizona," spokesman Dan Williamson said this morning.

"He agrees with those who want to send a message to the state of Arizona that this is not the American way."

Already, he has rejected a request from the city's technology director to attend a seminar in Phoenix, Williamson said.

The order was issued in a recent meeting with city department heads.

But as Columbus joins a growing number of U.S. cities protesting the Arizona law, Williamson said the mayor has no plans to propose that the city stop doing business entirely with companies based there.

Seattle took that step on Monday.

In Columbus, contracts will be decided on a case-by-case basis, Williamson said.

Columbus recently extended its agreement with Phoenix-based Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., which owns and operates the city's 20 red-light cameras. The new contract will double the number of cameras posted at Columbus intersections to issue tickets to red-light-runners.

Rescinding that program "wouldn't make sense to the taxpayers," Williamson said.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin