As BP gets ready for the latest attempt to, in the words of a frustrated President Obama, “plug the damn hole,” more details are emerging about the seemingly impossible mission to stem the gushing oil from the Deepwater Horizon well and the litany of mistakes and lapses in oversight that led up to this environmental disaster. The “top kill” strategy that BP was planning to employ, which would pump heavy drilling mud into the damaged well, was supposed to get underway today but instead will be delayed until at least tomorrow. President Obama has sent a panel of problem solving experts to come up with new solutions to a vexing problem, but so far no one seems to have the answer for stopping the spewing oil well. Meanwhile political fallout from the Gulf oil spill is everywhere, as Republicans direct criticism at the Obama Administration’s handling of the disaster and Democrats redirect blame back toward Republicans for years of loose regulations of the offshore oil industry. Can anyone stop the bleeding?
Bush’s brand of immigration enforcement focused on deporting undocumented workers. Obama’s approach targets the business owners who hire undocumented immigrants. Just such thing happened to Michel Malecot, the owner of a popular San Diego restaurant, French Gourmet. After federal agents raided his business and discovered undocumented immigrants working in the kitchen, they indicted him on 12 felony counts of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, which could lead to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine per count. On top of the charges, the government is trying to seize Malecot’s restaurant. The community has sent an outpouring of support, flooding his restaurant with customers and letters of encouragement. So what is the best approach to fixing the immigration problem? Is it going after the undocumented workers or going after the men and women who knowingly employ them?
Question: What country has the highest percentage of its people imprisoned? Answer: The United States of America. For those paying attention, the answer shouldn’t be surprising. A staggering 1 out of every 100 adults, about 2.4 million people are behind bars. But if America has turned incarceration into an art form, then the state of Texas is Picasso. In <i>Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison System</i>, Robert Perkinson covers 150 years of American history told through the experience of the country’s most locked-down state, Texas. With racially mixed demographics mixed with Texas’ own unique history, Texas was the epicenter of the prison revolution. They are credited with the evolutions of the assembly-line executions, isolation based supermaxes, private prisons, executing the disables, to sentencing juveniles as adults. Patt talks to Robert Perkinson about how Texas’ profit-driven plantation-based penal system became the template for the nation.
2010 will be a huge year in California politics—a U.S. Senate seat and the Governor’s office are both up for grabs as the state grapples with a slumping economy, record budget deficits, groundbreaking environmental regulations and constant demographic changes. Minority voters, heretofore almost seen as a special interest group that needed to be courted by major candidates, will soon constitute an actual majority of voters in California with major weight to throw around in an election year. What are the priorities, hopes and aspirations of California’s Asian, Latino, black and other ethnic minority voters?
Patt Morrison is known for its innovative discussions of local politics and culture, as well as its presentation of the effects of national and world news on Southern California.
