Category: Uncategorized

By Greg Moses

With worrying economic news we continue to explore Civil Rights in an economic context. What does it mean when Texas leaders point to jobs growth in Texas?

In October 2008, the actual Nonfarm Employment in Texas (not seasonally adjusted) increased by 43,600 jobs for a total of 10.7 million Texas jobs. It was the Service Providing Sector that kept Texas in the job-growth zone after the Goods Producing Sector lost a total of 3,000 jobs.

Of the 46,900 new Service Producing jobs in Texas, a hefty 33,700 came from the Government sector, especially from Local Government Educational Services, which added 26,200 jobs. This, my friend, is your local property tax at work, providing an equivalent of half the actual Nonfarm job growth in Texas for October 2008.

Goods Producing

The Goods Producing Sector offered 1.8 million jobs in Texas during October after losing 3,300 jobs. Within the Goods Producing sector, Natural Resources and Mining was up 1,500 jobs while Construction was down 700.

Within Construction, Heavy and Civil Engineering was down 1,100, and Specialty Trade Contractors were down 800. Building Equipment Contractors and other specialty trades decreased by 1,700. On the positive tick in Construction, Building Construction was up 1,200, thanks to an increase of 900 jobs in Building Finishing, Foundation, Structure, and Building Exterior Contractors.

Texas Manufacturing slipped to 926,800 jobs after losing 4,100.

Durable Goods

The Manufacturing Durable goods sector lost 2,500 jobs, with biggest hits coming from Transportation Equipment Manufacturing (-900 jobs); Wood Product Manufacturing (-600 jobs); Agriculture, Construction, and Mining Machinery Manufacturing (-600 jobs); Computer and Peripheral Equipment Manufacturing (-500 jobs); and Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing (-500 jobs).

Bright spots in Texas Durable Goods Manufacturing came in two sectors. The Machinery Manufacturing Sector increased to a total of 97,900 jobs after adding 300 jobs in October. And the Aerospace Product and Parts Manufacturing sector grew to 47,600 jobs after adding 200 jobs in October.

Non-Durable Goods

In Non-Durable Good Manufacturing a total of 1,600 jobs were lost, with the biggest loss coming from Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing (-400 jobs).

The Chemical Manufacturing Sector still reports a total of 74,300 jobs after losing 100 jobs in October.

The largest sector in Texas Non-Durable Goods Manufacturing is Food Manufacturing, which grew to a total of 90,800 jobs after adding 600 jobs in October. Animal slaughtering also added 300 jobs in October for a total of 39,600 jobs.

Service Providing

The Service Providing Sector in Texas grew to nearly 8.9 million jobs after adding 46,900 jobs in October. Of those new service jobs, 33,700 came from the government sector of nearly 1.8 million jobs. And of the new government jobs, 26,200 came from Local Government Educational Services.

In the Private Service Providing Sector of nearly 7.1 million jobs, there were 13,200 new jobs added in October.

Retail

Retail employment grew by 5,700 jobs to nearly 1.2 million. Retail sector leaders were Clothing Stores (+1,700 jobs); Electronics and Appliance Stores (+1,500 jobs); General Merchandise (+1,400); Miscellaneous Store Retailers (+1,300 jobs); and Office Supplies, Stationery, and Gift Stores (+1,100).

Retail sector losses were felt by Automotive Dealers (-1,400 jobs); Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers (-800 jobs), Gasoline Stations (-700 jobs), and Automotive Parts, Accessories, and Tire Stores (-300 jobs).

Transportation

Also in the Private Service Providing Sector, the Transportation, Warehousing, and Utilities sector was able to add 1,800 jobs, bringing total employment in that sector to 442,400. Sector leaders were Support Activities for Transportation (+1,800 jobs); Transportation and Warehousing (+1,100 jobs); Utilities (+700 jobs); Warehousing and Storage (+500 jobs); and Courriers and Messengers (+300 jobs).

Truck Transportation on the other hand was down by 1,100 jobs to 119,300. Air Transportation was down by 200 jobs to 63,100.

Information

The Information sector was able to add 700 jobs, 200 of them from Data processing, hosting and related services. Telecommunications fell to a total of 94,800 after losing 500 jobs. And publishers of Newspapers, Periodicals, Books, and Directories fell to a total of 31,100 after losing 100 jobs.

Financial Activities

Financial Activities lost 1,600 jobs, bringing the sector to a total of 653,900 in October. While Depository Credit Intermediation services lost 500 jobs, another 900 jobs were added for Nondepository Credit Intermediation.

Rental and Leasing Services lost 700 jobs.

Professional and Business

Professional and Business Services added 14,200 jobs in October bringing the sector to a total of nearly 1.4 million jobs. Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services added 7,000 jobs. Administrative and Support Services added 7,400 jobs.

Educational and Health

Educational and Health Services added 6,100 jobs in about equal parts Health and Education for a sector total of 1.3 million jobs.

Leisure and Hospitality

Leisure and Hospitality employment fell by 9,800 jobs, with heaviest losses coming from Accommodation and Food Services (-5,700 jobs); Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation (-4,100 jobs); Accommodation (-3,800 jobs); and Amusement, Gambling, and Recreation Industries (-3,800 jobs).

Other Services

In the “other services” sector, Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations lost 1,700 jobs.

Priorities

Something needs to be said after comparing the fastest growing sector in October — Office Supplies, Stationery, and Gift Stores (+4.3 percent) — to the fastest declining sector, Amusement, Gambling, and Recreation Industries (-4.6 percent). As global economic news turned from bad to worse, Texans left the casinos for office supply stores, assisted in some part by renewed government employment in state and local education. If this is how Texas continues to meet the hard times, you gotta believe karma will return good things.

Note: numbers taken from actual Nonfarm employment figures (not seasonally adjusted). Get the spreadsheet directly in xls format, or find the link at Texas Tracer.

Attorney Goes Looking, after Client Goes Missing during Bathroom Break

By Greg Moses

DALLAS — An asylum seeker from Kosovo faces deportation this evening after Federal agents arrested him during a bathroom break this morning in a building where he was participating in court-ordered mediation.

Bujar Osmani, an ethnic “gypsy” in his mid-twenties was in the process of suing the persons who had represented him during a failed asylum plea.

“During mediation, Bujar went to the bathroom,” explains his Dallas attorney John Wheat Gibson. “He was gone a long time. I went to look for him and could not find him.”

Gibson says a short time later he was told by a secretary “that a couple of men had tied Bujar’s hands behind his back and taken him away after he came out of the bathroom.” The arrest occurred at about 10:30 a.m. Gibson has since requested his client’s release.

“Bujar’s car is still in the parking lot of the mediator’s office,” explains Gibson in an email to the Texas Civil Rights Review. “The Gestapo did not even permit him to tell me or anybody else that they were taking him away. I found out about the abduction a few hours later when Bujar called me.”

Osmani is being detained at the immigration enforcement center at 8101 N. Stemmons Freeway, says Gibson.

Bujar Osmani describes his reasons for leaving Kosovo in a 2007 affidavit::

I left Kosovo in March 2004 escape certain death at the hands of Albanian extremists, who hate gypsies. Several negative events that took place in Kosovo have impacted my life since I was very young. The Serbian military tried to recruit my father forcibly to fight against the Albanian militias and the only reason he managed to escape was that he moved in with my uncle in a different municipality.

After the war ended my father came home but we were attacked by racist Albanians. After the war, many Ashkalis were killed by Albanian extremists. They set our house on fire on February 13, 2000 while my father and I were beaten in front of the family. After the assailants left we went to the local hospital but they refused to treat us there because we were Ashkali. The only place the doctors would treat us was at a humanitarian organization in Prishtina, “Medicines sans Frontiers.”

Since my family could not afford to rebuild our house, we moved in with my paternal uncle. I was taunted and attacked by Albanian extremists on various occasions, because of my Ashkali origin and the membership in the Ashkali Party, which was established to promote the Ashkalis’ rights. On March 19, 2004 during the worst riots by ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, my uncle’s house was attacked and set on fire. I left with my uncle’s wife and five children in their car, through the back gate of the house. I traveled to Bari, Montenegro and since then have had no news about my family.

I went to Genoa in Italy, and applied for asylum using a false name, to conceal my Ashkali identity. Racist prejudice against gypsies is predominant in Italy, as well as among Albanians. The Italians denied me asylum, however, after they found out I was Ashkali. In August therefore I left Genoa to come to the US. I traveled through Mexico and entered the US on September 3, 2004.

When I came to US I did not have any relatives and the only language I could speak fluently was Albanian, so I approached the Albanian community for help. [A person] who happened to be living in Dallas as a refugee and was born in the same municipality as I, provided for me until I could support myself. He helped me with food, clothes, and money, and at the same time he went around to find legal counsel for me, since he could speak English. He said friends suggested he take me to [a person], who, we believed, was a lawyer.

The affidavit goes on to describe how Osmani met with the alleged lawyer and made preparations for an asylum hearing on April 4, 2005. But outside the hearing room, Osmani was approached by a new person who introduced himself as the attorney who would represent him.

After a series of hearings resulted in a “ruined” asylum claim, Osmani sued the pair of persons in a Texas District Court for “negligence, breach of contract, fraud, and civil conspiracy.” It was during court-ordered mediation for the lawsuit that Osmani was arrested and detained by immigration authorities.

“Jury trial is scheduled for 27 October 2008,” says Gibson. “The trial may be delayed by the events today, but it will happen if Osmani is not deported before the trial.”

“The judge we have now is fair and reasonable as far as I can tell,” says attorney Gibson. “But if Bujar is deported to Kosovo he
will have a hard time testifying in the district court in Dallas.”

“I asked DHS District Counsel Paul Hunker to obtain Osmani’s release from detention on an order of supervision on whatever terms DHS think best, until after the jury delivers its verdict,” writes Gibson. “It will be interesting to see what DHS District Director Nuria Prendes decides to do.”

Update: when I called the Gov’s office at 2:28 pm the receptionist said that “the Federal District Court has issued a stay”–gm

Reposted from OpEdNews. Get more info and link to contact the Governor at: savejeffwood.com–gm

TODAY, JEFF WOOD will take his place beside my mentally ill brother, who is no. 26 on the home page of this prisoner genocide website:

geocities.com/prisonmurder

On August 21, Texas is poised to do the unthinkable: execute a mentally ill young man who the state knows killed no one. In fact, Jeff is facing execution for a murder that he was not even present to witness. He was found guilty of a murder committed by David Reneau. David killed Kriss Keeran while robbing a Texaco convenience store in Kerrville, Texas.

It happened on January 2, 1992, when Jeff was 22 years old, a mentally challenged young man. It is sad that mental patients and people with learning disabilities like Jeff are often easily led like little children. Jeff was abused during his early childhood, leaving him with a submissive personality. How hard was it for Daniel Reneau to get Jeff to accompany him to a robbery?

Wood’s defense attorneys stated in a clemency brief early this month, “Reneau — the only person inside the store and who carried a weapon — alone made the decision to take Keeran’s life. Mr. Wood was outside the store in his brother’s truck.” Daniel Reneau carried a gun that Jeff never knew he had and committed a murder that Jeff didn’t see occur.

Although Daniel Reneau has already been executed for murdering Keeran, today Jeff will also be executed. Initially, Jeff was found not mentally fit to stand trial. He was admitted into a mental hospital and a couple of weeks later was found ‘trial ready’. But one could argue whether Jeff was really competent at his trial, considering the way he tied his lawyers’ hands as they tried to defend him.

“Bowing to Mr. Wood’s emotional and irrational insistence, Mr. Wood’s appointed lawyers declined to cross-examine any witnesses or present any evidence on Mr. Wood’s behalf,” his appeals attorneys argue. “Mr. Wood’s trial attorneys called Mr. Wood’s actions a ‘gesture of suicide.’” (Quote source: Alternet )

I received a message a couple of days ago from a man who identified himself as Daniel Reneau’s brother, Ben Reneau. He implored us to save Jeff, saying Jeff’s execution is wrong. He expressed regret that his brother, Daniel Reneau, did not make a statement to clear Jeff of the murder.

The truth is that a statement from Daniel probably would not matter to Texas, as the state acknowledges that Jeff actually killed no one. Jeff was sentenced to die under the Law of Parties, which makes all parties to a crime equally guilty of the crime. Perhaps they are like the people in this satire and believe it is simply time for Texas to have another execution, because executions are fun for some folks:

Texas Pardons and Parole Board decided not to grant clemency. The fate of this condemned mental patient is now up to Governor Rick Perry. August 21 is a sad day for justice if Jeff Wood is executed.

Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
P.O. Box 7222, Atlanta, GA 30357

The combination of racism and warmongering are perfectly encapsulated in “gook,” a racist term formed during numerous U.S. wars, from the invasion of the Philippines (1898-1902) to the occupation of Haiti in 1920, to the Korean and Vietnam Wars. John McCain used this anti-Asian slur freely and casually until he was forced to for fear of sabotaging his own presidential ambitions.

The portrait of John McCain painted in “Gook: John McCain’s Racism and Why It Matters” is far more disturbing than any racial epithet. A central thesis of Gook: war fertilizes racism, and racism justifies wars and the killing of civilians. This dynamic thrives within the most dangerous leaders of the world. Is John McCain one of them?

Irwin A. Tang holds an M.A. in Asian Studies. He is the co-author of Asian Texans and When Invisible Children Sing.