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Black Mob Attack on Matthew Owens Caused by Theft, Not Basketball

April 26, 2012 - Matthew Owens was savagely attacked and nearly killed by a group of about 20 black people on Saturday, April 21 in Mobile, Alabama. Previous reports said that Owens, 40, was targeted for brutality after he asked some neighbor kids to keep the noise down as they played basketball around 8:30 p.m. However, a report today on dailycaller.com says that Owens's sister tells a different story.

Owens suffered severe head trauma and remains in the hospital. His sister, Ashley Parker, told Daily Caller that one of her own kids saw something being stolen from a neighbor's porch on Delmar Drive. Ms. Parker says that the alleged thief was also one of the people who attacked her brother moments later. From Daily Caller:
Ashley Parker, whose brother Matthew Owens is clinging to life after the assault, said Owens was attacked after her 21-year-old daughter witnessed a group of African-American youth moving from yard to yard in the neighborhood and taking something that didn’t belong to them. She told Owens, who confronted the youths. She “saw one of them take something off a porch,” Parker said, “and that is when Matthew approached them and told them they need to go home.”
Terry Rawls on April 25, 2012. Rawls was arrested for
taking part in the beating of Matthews Owens.
(Press-Register/Victor Calhoun)
After they beat the living hell out Matthew Owens, the mob walked away. One of them called back, "That's justice for Trayvon," a reference to Florida teen Trayvon Martin, fatally shot by George Zimmerman in February. The Owens beating is just one of many vicious and hateful attacks by blacks against non-blacks in the wake of the ongoing Martin-Zimmerman case.

One arrest was made in the case. Terry Rawls, 44, surrendered to Mobile police on Wednesday and was charged with first-degree assault. His bail was set at the remarkably low amount $7,500. Alabama Live reports that "records indicate" that "Rawls is scheduled for a May 10 court appearance."

As noted in our previous report about the Matthew Owens beating, no civil rights "leaders" have bothered to speak out against the obviously racist attacks by blacks. Jonathan Capehart has a short roundup of some of the more notable black-on-white attacks in his column at the Washington Post today.
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Hot Video Attacks Obama's Celebrity Status. Cool? Fool.

Video by AmericanCrossroads; Frame art by T.Mannis
April 26, 2012 - A new video asks, "After four years of a celebrity president, is your life any better?" The answer is clearly "No."

The video (see below) is from the American Crossroads, a conservative super-PAC. In a fast moving montage of images, the video asks young voters if they think their lives are better today after three years of having the "biggest celebrity" as our President.

The sad truth is, points out American Crossroads, is that today half of recent college grads are jobless or underemployed, 85% of them are moving back in with their parents, and the student loan debt is today more than one Trillion dollars.
Got it? Great. Now watch another cool video from American Crossroads...

White Guy Savagely Beaten by Crazed Democrat Voters

Matthew Owens, Beating Victim
April 24, 2012 - A crazed mob of 10-15 vicious racists in Mobile, Alabama beat a man to within inches of his life last Saturday night.

The victim, Matthew Owens, is white. The attackers are all black. The motivation was clearly racial, but reports now say that the brutality is not being investigated as a hate crime.

Owens, 40, was brutally beaten after he asked some neighbor kids playing basketball to keep the noise down (see Update here). A report at Fox News sums it up:

Matthew Owens, of Mobile, Ala., was assaulted with baseball bats, paint cans and other weapons at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday after telling a group of children to stop playing basketball in the middle of Delmar Drive, according to Ashley Rains, public information officer for the Mobile Police Department. After the children left the area, a group of adults armed with weapons returned and confronted Owens, 40, in his front yard, where he was assaulted. Owens' sister, Ashley Parker, told WKRG she witnessed the attack and that there were as many as 20 assailants. Parker said she overheard one of them say, "Now that's justice for Trayvon." More at Fox News...

"That's justice for Trayvon" can mean only one thing: The mob felt that beating the crap out of a white guy was - in their sick and feeble minds - "justice" for the killing of Trayvon Martin, who was black, by George Zimmerman. Zimmerman is Hispanic, not Caucasian, but apparently beating up anybody who is not black is "justice" to Owens's attackers.

Owens’ sister told WKRG-TV that about 20 black people attacked him on his own front porchusing “brass buckles, paint cans and anything they could get their hands on.” Parker says as the attackers walked away, leaving Owens bleeding on the ground, one of them said “Now, thats justice for Trayvon.”  One witness who wants to remain anonymous said: ”I saw about 10 to 15 people from little kids and women with dresses to adult men, just flooding onto the property, surrounding the car, hollering and screaming." More at OpposingViews.com...

The insane attack on Matthew Owens comes in the wake of thousands of Democrat voters publicly advocating the murder of George Zimmerman, as noted previously on Chicago News Bench.

Yes, those calling for "justice for Trayvon" by means of killing a man, Zimmerman, without even a trial, are Democrat voters - if they vote at all, that is. Matthew Owens last Saturday, too. What, you thought they might be Republicans?

"A growing digital lynch mob of Twitter users," reports The Daily Mail (UK), "is calling for street justice against George Zimmerman and advocating he be murdered since his release from jail on $150,000 bail early this morning. Some have even threatened to kill the neighborhood watch volunteer themselves." 

Again, how many of those rabid tweeters do you think are registered Republicans?

With all of this violent hate and calls to vigilantism, we've heard not a peep from the likes of Jesse Jackson, Sr. or Al Sharpton or any other "black leader."  We've heard nothing from Barack Obama. In fact, we've heard nothing from any Republican leaders either, for that matter. As noted, the Matthew Owens beating is not being looked at by authorities as a hate crime. But what if Matthew Owens had been a black man, and his attackers had been white?  Do you think this would be a hate crime investigation?  See "Black Mob Attack on Matthew Owens Caused by Theft, Not Basketball."

No, Really, Pat Quinn Still Sucks More Than Scott Walker. Really.

April 20, 2012 - There are a lot of news reports out there today claiming that the jobs and unemployment situation in Illinois is better than Wisconsin. Nearly all of them are wrong.

That's not my opinion, it's fact. The numbers in the table below prove it. In what seems to be a conspiratorial attempt by the leftist mainstream media to discredit Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker, a Republican, the employment numbers released today are being spun so much that heads are spinning.

Two quick examples of the liberal media's spin come from NBC Chicago and Bloomberg News.

NBC's Edward McClelland wrote an op-ed piece published today titled "Illinois Beats Wisconsin In Job Creation." McClelland quoted Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (a Democrat) as saying earlier this week that “Since Governor Walker took office, Wisconsin is dead last among the 50 states in job growth.”

Bloomberg's headline today, "Republican Whipping-Boy Illinois Beats Wisconsin on Jobs," caps a piece written by Tim Jones. Jones quoted Quinn as saying this about Wisconsin and Gov. Walker:  "“They have the worst job record in the whole country, dead last,” and  “We certainly don’t want to follow his [Walker's] prescriptions when it comes to economic growth.”

Both Jones and McClelland were, of course, referring to today's jobs numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But let's look at those numbers. They are not difficult to understand, unless you're a liberal buying into the lies of the Democrats and their allies in the media. Here are the unemployment rates (as percentages) for Illinois and Wisconsin for March 2012, February 2012 and March of last year:
Illinois
March 2012 .... 8.8
Feb. 2012 ....... 9.1
March 2011 ....9.3
Wisconsin
March 2012 .... 6.8
Feb. 2012 ....... 6.9
March 2011 .... 7.6
Look at the numbers. Both states have had a decrease in unemployment. Illinois went from a nightmarish 9.3 percent a year ago down to a still-nightmarish 8.8 percent, a decrease of 0.5 percent. In the same period, Wisconsin went from an awful 7.6 percent down to a still-bad 6.8 percent. 

Compare Wisconsin's lowered unemployment drop of 0.8 to that of 0.5 percent in Illinois and you have to wonder what the hell the media - and geniuses like Gov. Quinn - are talking about when they say that Wisconsin is sucking tailpipes. Wisconsin's drop in its unemployment rate has been, over the past 12 months, faster that in Illinois (0.8% versus 0.5% as shown above). The latest numbers show that Wisconsin's unemployment rate is a full two points lower than in Illinois.  Illinois is called "the Greece next door" by it's neighboring states. Nobody is comparing to Wisconsin to Greece. Not yet anyway.

BLR Does Joe Biden - New From Bad Lip Reading!

April 16, 2012 - Hot off the press, it's the newest political hit video from Bad Lip Reading (BLR). This time, they hit Vice President Joe Biden.

BLR hit Biden good, just below his IQ, which is not easy. Biden is a natural moron, so saying stupid stuff is just his way. BLR ingeniously managed to make our dumbest VP ever sound even dumber than he really is.

Exclusive "Arizona Gadsden" Flag Design

Get yours today at Zazzle.com
We're proud of our newly designed "Arizona Gadsden" flag!

We took the snake from the historic "Dont Tread On Me" Gadsden Flag and put it onto the beautiful state flag of Arizona.

Are you cool enough to wear one?

OneSight's Vision For The World

The gift of sight is precious indeed, but many people around the world, including North America, do not have access to eye clinics or to needed glasses. In some countries, a pair of eyewear costs more than a month’s salary. 

OneSight has helped more than seven million people on five continents and in hundreds of communities across North America see clearly." A friend of mine is an optometrist in Chicago. His name is Time, and he will travel to India this month to join with others in his profession to help people in a remote area with free eye exams and eye glasses.

Tim and other eye care professionals are trying to raise funds for the trip (see the handy donation widget, left, or go Tim's donation page). "Your support," says OneSight, "helps us deliver clear vision. Ninety-two cents of every dollar you donate goes directly to delivering glasses to those in need."

You can see what OneSight's "Team India" did in February of this year at their blog. Check in after April 15 to see what Tim's group is up to.

More about OneSight:

OneSight, a Luxottica Foundation, is a family of vision care charities dedicated to providing healthy vision, eyewear and sun protection to those in need worldwide. Since 1988, these charitable efforts have provided free vision care and eyewear to more than eight million people and have granted millions of dollars towards optical research and education. Please read more at OneSight.org...

Why I Removed Intense Debate Comments From This Blog

April 8, 2012 - The website of IntenseDebate is down today with no explanation. IntenseDebate is a widely used commenting system used by many websites and blogs. It was working for me last night, but tonight neither their login page and home page are not reachable. Although other parts of the website are available, bloggers who use IntenseDebate cannot log in to repond to, or moderate, comments on their own sites.

There is no message about this from IntenseDebate anywhere on their website, not even on their own blog, where the last post was on February 23. As of 11:00 PM CDT tonight, their most recent post on Twitter was made on February 22.
Chicago News Bench has been using it for a couple of years instead of Blogger's own commenting system. There are a number of reasons why some bloggers choose third-party commenting systems, which I am not going to go into here except to say that they all offer more control and information about comments than does Blogger's own system.

However, because IntenseDebate has shown itself to be unreliable, I felt there was no choice but to uninstall it. I don't know why IntenseDebate's website is having problems, but this seems like the tip of the iceberg. I have had IntenseDebate on another blog, Homeless Patriot, but will remove it from that as well.

Consider this: No tweets on Twitter since February 22. No post on their blog since February 23. This says to me that they are either not aware of the problem with their own website, or they don't care enough to communicate with people who use their commenting system. Or, both may be true. This is not acceptable. Some blogs have IntenseDebate installed as a simple widget, as do I on some of my blogs.

On Chicago News Bench, though, I had it integrated in the html code of the template. The current problems that IntenseDebate is having were causing the load time of this website to be annoyingly slow. "Waiting for IntenseDebate" was the message. Fortunately, IntenseDebate's instructions for a manual uninstall were still online. Unfortunately, they were not completely accurate and it took me more than an hour of editing and testing to fully delete their code from mine. However, as soon as I successfully cleaned out all remnants of IntenseDebate, this blog loaded normally.

Another blogger posted briefly about earlier problems with IntenseDebate.

"Once again," wrote IslamInEurope on March 22, "IntenseDebate, my comment system, is acting up. This includes comments disappearing, or appearing only when the posts are viewed from the comment link. I'm debating what to do about this. Meanwhile, I have notified IntenseDebate and am waiting for their fix. Please let me know if you see any problems."

I noticed that IslamInEurope dropped IntenseDebate since that post and is now using Disqus, another third-party commenting system. By the time you read this, Chicago News Bench might have done that too. Then again, I'm in no hurry.

Web Site Helps Students Find Study Partners For College Entrance Exams

Knowledge is good
This is a great idea, and a clever use of the Internet: MyStudyPartner.com is a new website (still in Beta) for students and professionals looking to communicate with those in similar situations.

For a student, it's a virtual group study session for those trying to quality for college admission. They have a good Facebook page, too, where people can further enhance their cooperative efforts.  "We are 100% free to use," says the MyStudyPartner FAQ, "No strings attached."

By the way, this is NOT an ad for MyStudyPartner. Really. I stumbled across them while searching for something else, and I was impressed.

MyStudyPartner.com says that they "cater to individuals who are trying to pass college admission exams including GMAT, SAT, GRE, ACT, LSAT, TOEFL, MCAT, IELTS, USMLE, SAT - SUBJECT and PLAB."

You are not alone
That's a lot of tests - and a lot of pressure for anyone studying for any of them. A service like MyStudyPartner makes it possible for somebody to reach out at any time and find someone who is studying for the same test.

"After studying with your partners for however long it takes," says MyStudyPartner's website, "you’ll find that the exam you were once worried about taking is no longer a threat. Studying in groups of 2 or more has proven to increase your odds of success while taking any type of test or exam."

Misery loves company, after all, but commiseration - and the sharing of knowledge and common goals - can make a task less miserable.
The Princeton Review
"It also helps professionals," MyStudyPartner says of its website,  "aiming to excel in Microsoft, CISCO, CPA, PMP, ITIL, CompTIA, IIBA and Red Hat Certifications. Studies show that professionals who obtain additional certification or continuing education courses typically increase the number of opportunities available for career advancement." Source: PRWeb.com

If you're facing the grind of prepping for a college entrance exam, and you cannot find a study partner nearby, try MyStudyPartner.com. They serve students all over the world, not just the U.S. Who knows? After you've aced that exam, you might find yourself with a bevy of new pen pals.

The Meaning of Easter

Happy Easter to you! Do you know what that really means?

Dr. Samuel Blumenthal explains it for us:

The American holiday calendar commemorates religious, patriotic and secular events. The year starts with New Year's Day and ends in a blaze of light and music with Christmas, celebrating the birth of the most important person in history, Jesus Christ. 

Indeed, the religious holidays memorialize the life of Jesus, which is honored differently by Protestants and Catholics. Actually, there are three calendars intertwined in the American calendar: the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish.

But there is one holiday in which the three calendars converge: Easter. The Jewish holiday of Passover is an important part of the life of Jesus Christ, whose momentous Last Supper was a celebration of Passover. From there the Son of God went to His crucifixion, and from there He was laid in a tomb where he was resurrected. At Easter, we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and His Ascension to heaven. Full Article at WorldNetDaily.com...

Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld has written eight books about education.

Will Twitter Be An Accomplice To Murder?

"KillZimmerman" profile
picture on Twitter
April 6, 2012 - Incredibly, Twitter has not yet taken down an account that calls itself "@KillZimmerman." The name is inspired by the account holder's call for the death of George Zimmerman, the man accused of killing Trayvon Martin in February. Now two weeks old, the account is still up and has produced 459 "tweets" (posts) as of this writing. Where are the calls from Liberals, Leftists and Democrats for "civility," and why are they not expressing outrage and disgust at this?

When I wrote about "@Kill Zimmerman" on March 29, it was already five days old.  It was created on March 24. I was amazed that Twitter allowed an open call for violence to remain for so long, and I thought that Twitter would certainly squash the offensive account. To everyone's amazement, they have not.

An open call to murder on Twitter (click to enlarge)
If @KillZimmerman inspires someone to commit murder, would Twitter be an accomplice to the crime? Ask yourself this: If a newspaper published over 400 letters to the editor that advocated the killing of somebody, and if that person was killed, would the newspaper be held responsible? When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz) was shot in the head, the Liberal Media quickly accused conservatives as inspiring the shooting. The Left, wrong as usual, said that the shooter was pushed over the edge by their "heated rhetoric."

Well, what is @KillZimmerman, if not super heated rhetoric? I don't recall any Republican candidates calling for the death of anybody, yet here is a Leftist with a photo of George Zimmerman in a crosshairs. The open call for his murder has not elicited a call by Leftists or Democrat leaders for "more civility" in public discourse.

Not to be outdone, another leftist loon created an equally disgusting Twitter account called "@BeheadZimmerman."

WARNING: Yes, that's the "C" word
"Progressives are getting so much like terrorist Muslims it’s amazing," wrote fireandreamitchell.com on March 29. "Obama, Spike Lee, Roseanne Barr, the Congressional Black Caucus, and all the pathetic pink slime media hacks trying to gin up some sort of race war should be very proud of themselves." The @BeheadZimmerman account describes itself this way: "This page is dedicated to the arrest and jail gang rape of George Zimmerman. Pissing on Zimmerman’s lawn."  Isn't that nice?

These Twitter accounts, @KillZimmerman and @BeheadZimmerman, are but two of thousands of examples of liberals openly calling for murder to be committed. It's a nationwide, digital vigilante party, salivating at the prospect of a man being killed before he's even been proven guilty in a court of law. It shows the mindset of so many liberals (what, you think these nutjobs are conservatives?!?), who care nothing about legality, civility or decency.

"It is alarming how easy it is for social media to stir the public into a mob-like frenzy," wrote Chris Dunn at Collegiate Times on April 4. "On Facebook, groups are calling for the death of Zimmerman. 'I want George Zimmerman dead,' 'Kill George Zimmerman,' and 'Kill Zimmerman' have appeared over the past few weeks. On Twitter, the user @KillZimmerman and the users interacting with the account have called for a modern day lynching. Comments include 'We should just get up and #killzimmerman ourselves,' and 'I think they should shoot Zimmerman dead in his head in jail'.”

Plenty of people are disgusted by all of this, including John Romano. He is the publisher and editor of "Yes, But However!" website. On March 30, Romano wrote this:

Empty promise: John Romano is still on Twitter
"I have no problem with people tweeting all day long calling for Mr. Zimmerman’s arrest, that kind of activism is as American as apple pie, but creating a page devoted solely to inciting violence is too much for me.  If Twitter allows it to stand I’ll do what small thing I can and stop using the service.  Life is too short and Twitter should know better." 

Just moments ago, a week after Romano vowed to "stop using" Twitter, I tweeted this to Romano's still active account:

@yesbuthowever On March 30 you said 'If Twitter allows' @KillZimmerman 'to stand' you would leave Twitter. Changed your mind?

John Romano's hypocrisy is almost as disturbing as the vile hate rhetoric that he claims he cannot tolerate. Perhaps he won't be able to respond to me on Twitter, because I'm sure my little reminder will spur him to immediately cancel his Twitter account.

Related:

Elitist Liar Obama Takes On Romney In Video Wars

source: sodahead.com
March 5, 2012 - No surprise: The presidential election just keeps getting uglier --  and funnier. A new video from Comrade Barack Obama attacks Republican nominee hopeful Mitt Romney. Romney fires back with his own attack video.

This is particularly true when it comes to Obama's statements about energy prices. Whenever he says that he is trying to lower gas prices or any other fuel prices, know this: Obama is not telling the truth, and his own words prove it.
The first video here, "Mitt Romney Versus Reality," is from the Obama campaign. It uses clips from President Obama's speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors earlier this week, says Real Clear Politics, "to respond to charges made by Mitt Romney in his victory speech after winning primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington D.C."

Obama's speech to the editors was an amazing spew of Marxist babble. It was, honest-to-God, baffling. Robert Lenzner of Forbes thinks so too. He wrote a piece for Forbes today with the no-holds-barred headline, "Inept, Elitist Obama Speech Rotten Political Warfare." Wow.

"Your talk to the Society of Newspaper Editors," wrote Lenzner, "was more  Political Warfare  than a primer in  Math or  or an effective attack on Class Warfare, Mr. President. You lost me and most of America with all your talk about Trojan Horses and Social Darwinism, as I thought I was back in John Finley’s  Course on Classics or Arthur Schlesinger’s course on American Intellectual history at Harvard in the 1950s." Wow. Confused? We all were, weren't we?

The second video is from the Romney camp and was released yesterday on YouTube by mittromney. "President Obama is attacking Mitt Romney because his energy policies have failed," says the video's posted description. "In states across the country, gas prices have roughly doubled since President Obama took office. Mitt Romney will offer solutions to our energy problem instead of excuses."

The third video is Obama speaking to The San Francisco Chronicle in January, 2008.

In that interview, he told the Chronicle that he wants energy prices to rise. "Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." 

This is a painful video for Obama supporters to watch. A warning to liberals: Obama's words are so unambiguous that only a hypnotized Obamabot could possibly deny the fact that the Obama Administration's energy policy is to encourage higher energy prices.

Department of Defense Visits Chicago News Bench and Moonbattery

April 3, 2012 - I just wanted say a quick "Thank you" to the hard working employees at the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for visiting Chicago News Bench. Seems one of their urgent national defense tasks is to investigate my post about the  "Arrest Eric Holder" t-shirts.

Yep, someone at the DOD Network Information Center (IP 207.132.245.129) at 7:36 a.m. today, and someone else at the Department of Defense Network (140.194.140.55) at 5:57 a.m. visite Chicago News Bench.

Both visitors found that post via Moonbattery, where they linked to me. The first DOD employee, at 5:57 a.m. was using Internet Explorer 8.0 in Windows XP. The second one, at 7:36 a.m., was using Internet Explorer 7.0 on Windows XP.

This raises questions:

  • Why are DOD employees using the outdated Windows XP?
  • Although Moonbattery is a fine blog, why are DOD employees surfing the web on company time?
  • If these employees were on break, and not on company time, were they using the company's laptops? Or using DOD computers? 
  • If they used personal laptops, why are they allowed to use the DOD's connection to surf the Internet if it is not work related?
  • Suppose their web surfing was work related: Why is the DOD busy surfing conservative blog sites?
  • If the DOD is monitoring conservative bloggers (they are, of course), is it a neutral kind of observation or something nefarious?
  • Will these employees buy an Arrest Eric Holder t-shirt, or the new Arrest Eric Holder coffee mug?
I hope the DOD employees bookmarked Moonbattery and Chicago News Bench. Hopefully, too, did they tweet our posts, or recommend them to Facebook?

This Porcupine Has Rabbit Ears!

Okay, I don't normally post videos like this, but I cannot resist in the case of "Teddy Bear," the talking porcupine. Look at him, with his rabbit ears on, all dressed up for Easter! The title of the video is "Teddy the Porcupine's Easter treat," and it's bound to go viral. You can see more of this cute little guy at facebook.com/TeddyPorcupine, twitter.com/TeddyPorcupine, zooniversity.org and facebook.com/zooniversity.

Obama Admin Ordered To Pay $120K To Pro-Life Sidewalk Counselor Susan Pine

April 2, 2012 - Sometimes, justice is served. And sometimes, Justice gets served -- and loses.

LifeNews.com
"The Obama administration has been forced to pay a pro-life advocate it targeted with a lawsuit $120,000," reports LifeNews.com, "and it has dropped its case against the Florida woman helping women find abortion alternatives." The pro-life advocate is Mary Susan Pine, who counsels women against abortion and steers them to non-abortion alternatives.

The Obama Administration did not like that, and Attorney General Eric Holder charged Pine with blocking an abortion clinic entrance. That, said Holder's Justice Department, was a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (“FACE”).

In late 2010, Holder went for an injunction to keep Pine and anyone with her off of the driveways of the Presidential Women's Center in West Palm Beach. A lawsuit filed in August 2012 in U.S. District Court was  "the first time anyone in Florida has been charged under the 16-year-old Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act," according to Sharon Levin, vice president and general counsel of the National Abortion Federation as quoted by the Sun-Sentinel.

This is only the first round of the Obama court battle against a pro-life advocate in Florida. It's "a battle that saw the administration unfairly seek to punish a peaceful sidewalk counselor under a law meant to stop violence and intimidation," says LifeNews. See the full story: "Obama Admin Forced to Pay $120K After Targeting Pro-Lifer."

ICE Arrests Over 3,100 Aliens in Massive Sweep of US and Territories

April 2, 2012 - A huge, 6-day nationwide operation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) netted 3,168 "criminal aliens." ICE's "Operation Cross-Check" was conducted in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. Note, however, that the Department of Homeland Security estimated in 2011 that there are about  10.8 million aliens in the U.S. without lawfulimmigration status.

Operation Cross Check – Dallas, March 2012
The massive law enforcement effort, reports ABC OTUS News, "included more than 2,834 individuals who had prior criminal convictions. ICE officials noted that 50 gang members and 149 convicted sex offenders were nabbed. Although ICE has run similar operations called 'Cross-Check,' ICE Director John Morton said this was the largest to date."

KLTV reports that Operation Cross-Check "involved the collaboration of more than 1,900 ICE officers and agents from all of ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations' (ERO) 24 field offices, assistance from ICE Homeland Security Investigations as well as coordination with our federal, state and local law enforcement partners throughout the United States. Arrests occurred in all 50 states, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, three U.S. territories and the District of Columbia."

ICE reports on its website that arrests were made "in all 50 states, the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, three Territories (Virgin Islands, N. Mariana Islands and Guam) and the District of Columbia."

Operation Cross Check – September 2011 (ICE website)
ICE says that this most recent operation is the third nationwide "Cross Check operation" in its history. "The first nationwide Cross Check operation occurred at the end of May 2011 and resulted in the arrest of 2,442 convicted criminal aliens. The last Cross Check operation in September 2011 resulted in the arrest of 2,901 convicted criminal aliens."

To put those numbers in some perspective, we looked at the Government Accounting Office (GAO) website for information about "criminal aliens." We found a March, 2011 document titled "CRIMINAL ALIEN STATISTICS:Information on Incarcerations, Arrests, and Costs." On page two of that document (see the pdf) it says, "The number of criminal aliens in federal prisons in fiscal year 2010 was about 55,000, and the number of SCAAP criminal alien incarcerations in state prison systems and local jails was about 296,000 in fiscal year 2009 (the most recent data available)."

Even more telling, however, is an explanation (also on page two) of "Why GAO Did This Study." The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), it says, "estimated that as of fiscal year 2009 the total alien — nonU.S.-citizen — population was about 25.3 million, including about 10.8 million aliens without lawful immigration status."

In other words, the 3,168 criminal aliens arrested last week is a mere drop in the bucket of the total still at large, walking the streets of America.