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The police chief in Peoria, Arizona has launched an investigation into what activists are calling a "de facto immigration checkpoint" that nabbed young immigrants attending a speech President Barack Obama delivered on immigration reform last month.

"It was a de facto immigration checkpoint," Respeto executive director Lydia Guzman recently explained to KPNX.

According to police, the checkpoint began as an effort to inspect commercial vehicles, but Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) officers showed up voluntarily.

"We have an email list and that goes out to all the agencies -- law enforcement, different agencies," police spokesperson Amanda Jacinto said. "ICE happens to be one of the people on that list."

ICE, however, insisted that its agents attended the checkpoint at the request of the Arizona Department of Transportation, which had partnered with Peoria police.

Authorities said that 11 undocumented immigrants were detained during the three-day checkpoint operation. Ten of those detainees had been released by Tuesday.

Lino Garcia Paulino was detained as he was driving back from Phoenix with his pregnant wife. He spent a week in jail before a friend was able to pay the $3,000 for his bail. Paulino's wife was released after telling officers she was in the process of applying for citizenship.

Coincidentally, the checkpoint kicked off on Jan. 29, the same day that President Obama was speaking about immigration reform in nearby Las Vegas, and some of the young immigrants -- or DREAMers -- who attended his speech were also caught up in the operation.

"We thought the timing of this was very suspicious," Guzman observed. "We thought that maybe this was some sort of way to antagonize the activist groups that went out to the president's speech."

For its part, the Peoria Police Department almost immediately denied allegations of racial profiling, but hours later promised to review activists' complaints.

"It was in no way ever intended to be, set up to be or in any way was a immigration check point," Jacinto declared. "At no point were our officers involved in any sort of racial profiling."

Peoria Police Chief Roy Minter on Monday announced that the department would conduct an official inquiry to find out why officers decided to stop private motorists during a checkpoint that was set up to inspect commercial vehicles.

"That operations plan did not state anything about a vehicle registration compliance checkpoint," he noted.

Police said that the 17 vehicles impounded during the operation would be given back to the owners and all fees would be waived as a "gesture of good will."

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A business owner in Las Vegas on Wednesday told a CBS radio station that he had fired 22 of his 114 "mostly Hispanic" employees because President Barack Obama had won re-election.

"I've done my share of educating my employees," business owner "David," who refused to use his real name on air, told KSNT radio host Kevin Wall. "I never tell them which way to vote. I believe in the free system that we have. I believe in everybody having their right to choose who they want to be president."

"And I explained that I always put them first and, unfortunately, I'm at a point now -- and am being forced to -- that I have to worry about me and my family now," he continued. "I explained to them a month ago, if Obama gets in office, the regulations for Obamacare are going to hurt our business, and I am going to have to make provision to make sure that I have enough money to cover payroll taxes, the additional health care I'm going to have to do. And I explained that to them, and I said, 'You do what you feel you need to do, but I'm just letting you know this as a warning that this is things I have to think of as a business owner.'"

David noted that he had "mostly Hispanic" employees and some had come to work wearing Obama shirts on election day.

"I have to build up that nest egg now for the taxes and regulations that are coming my way," he explained. "Elections do have consequences, but so do choices."

"I don't need the labor force coming down saying I laid people off because they are Hispanic, I don't need the headache. We are in a right-to-work state, but I did inform people that I would possibly had to be making layoffs. I did make the notification 30 days ago. I followed the laws."

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Former President Bill Clinton literally jumped up and down on Tuesday while jabbing Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for appearing to move to the center after months of campaigning as a "severe conservative."

During a campaign appearance for President Barack Obama in Las Vegas, Clinton noted that he had a different reaction to last week's debate, which many thought that Romney had won.

"I thought, 'Wow, here's old moderate Mitt. Where ya been, boy? I missed ya all these last two years,'" the former president quipped.

"Now, the problem with this deal is the deal was made by severe conservative Mitt," Clinton continued. "That was how he described himself for two whole years, until three or four days before the debate -- they all got together and said, 'Hey, man, this ship is sinking faster than the Titanic... so just show up with a sunny face and say, I didn't say all that stuff I said in the last two years. You gonna believe me or your lying eyes here? Come on.'"

"And if I had been the president, I might have said, 'I hate to get in the way of this, I miss you,'" he added.

In an interview with the Des Moines Register on Tuesday, Romney continued softening his positions, claiming that he had no intentions to restrict abortion rights.

"There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda," he told the paper's editorial board.

Romney's website, however, promises that the former Massachusetts governor would appoint Supreme Court justices to reverse Rov. v. Wade and eliminate all federal funding for Planned Parenthood. In 2007, Romney said that he would be "delighted" to sign a bill banning all abortions nationwide because it would be "terrific."

(h/t: The Daily Beast)

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While going after Herman Cain for his 9-9-9 tax plan and the fact that it would raise taxes on the middle class and the poor, Mitt Romney touted his own economic plan during the CNN debate in Las Vegas. Romney claimed he wanted to lower taxes on the middle class, but as Think Progress noted in their live blog of the debate, "It’s really a $6.6 trillion regressive giveaway to the rich and corporations."

Romney’s ‘Middle Class Tax Cut’ Would Provide No Benefits To Most Of The Middle Class:

During this week’s GOP primary debate, Newt Gingrich asked Mitt Romney why he has proposed eliminating capital gains taxes for only those making less than $200,000 annually (which is a key component of Romney’s economic plan). “If I’m going to use precious dollars to reduce taxes, I want to focus on where the people are hurting the most, and that’s the middle class,” Romney said. “The people in the middle, the hard-working Americans, are the people who need a break, and that is why I focused my tax cut right there.”

Romney may think he focused his tax cut on the middle-class, but according to a ThinkProgress analysis of Tax Policy Center data*, nearly three-fourths of households that make $200,000 or less annually would get literally nothing from Romney’s tax cut, due to the simple fact that most of those households have no capital gains income

To be exact, 73.9 percent of the households upon which Romney “focused” his tax cut will see zero benefit from it. The table below shows how few households in each income bracket would be affected by Romney’s cut:

More details there, so go read the rest.

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Just before the start if GOP presidential debate in Nevada, Erin Burnett and her panel had a little bit of trouble broadcasting from their outdoor studio as they were drowned out by the Occupy Wall Street protesters and chants of "Banks got bailed out! We got sold out!"

After TeaNN's relentless promotion of the AstroTurf "tea party" and Burnett's derisive treatment of the protesters during her opening show, I can't think of a more fitting bunch to have to put up with this, other than anyone from Fox "News."

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While discussing whether or not the United States should be cutting aid to Israel during the CNN, Las Vegas GOP debate, Michele Bachmann was adamant in her defense of continuing to send Israel money, but she didn't share that same sentiment when it came to our occupation of Iraq or intervention in Libya.

COOPER: Time. Congresswoman Bachmann... [...] Should we cut foreign aid to Israel?

BACHMANN: No, we should not be cutting foreign aid to Israel. Israel is our greatest ally. The biggest problem is the fact... that the president -- the biggest problem with this administration in foreign policy is that President Obama is the first president since Israel declared her sovereignty put daylight between the United States and Israel. That heavily contributed to the current hostilities that we see in the Middle East region.

Cutting back on foreign aid is one thing. Being reimbursed by nations that we have liberated is another. We should look to Iraq and Libya to reimburse us for part of what we have done to liberate these nations.

Now, I need to add something on this issue of negotiating for hostages. This is a very serious issue. For any candidate to say that they would release the prisoners at Guantanamo in exchange for a hostage would be absolutely contrary to the historical nature of the United States and what we do in our policy. That's naive; we cannot do that. The United States has done well because we have an absolute policy: We don't negotiate.

After which she was roundly debunked by Ron Paul on that whole "we don't negotiate for hostages" issue.

It seems Bachmann was parroting her friend from Fox, Sean Hannity, with her remarks about Iraq -- Hannity's 'little idea': 'The Iraqis ... need to pay us back for their liberation. Every single solitary penny' . As Dave noted in his post:

Yeah, I bet the families of the estimated 100,000-plus innocent civilians who we "liberated" from their existence on the planet would be more than happy to "pay us back."

Especially considering that no one in Iraq asked for us to liberate them -- we just did it on our own, illegally and under false pretenses.

Slightly earlier in the debate, Bachmann also said this:

COOPER: So defense spending would be on the table, should be?

BACHMANN: Defense spending is on the table, but again, Anderson, now with the president, he put us in Libya. He is now putting us in Africa. We already were stretched too thin, and he put our Special Operations Forces in Africa.

Note to Michele Bachmann:

ADD: (Nicole) While the main point of this post is the lovely bit of idiocy that Bachmann thinks that Iraqis should be so grateful for being invaded and occupied under false pretenses, seen more than four million citizens displaced, over 100,000 civilians dead and the country destroyed that they should be willing to pay us back for our troubles, I can't let this little bit of flaming pile of bovine excrement go unchallenged.

The biggest problem is the fact... that the president -- the biggest problem with this administration in foreign policy is that President Obama is the first president since Israel declared her sovereignty put daylight between the United States and Israel. That heavily contributed to the current hostilities that we see in the Middle East region.

Maybe Bachmann would be surprised to hear that it was not all peace and rainbows in the Middle East region prior to the Obama administration taking office. In fact, I'd say that the hostilities in that region have existed for quite some time--generations even--before Obama set foot in the Oval Office. And if Avigdor Lieberman, Bibi Netanyahu, and Tzipi Livni have no complaints about the relationship they have with Obama, what's Michele's beef? Maybe I'm just too tied to that whole reality sphere.

From the Senate Democrats:

Goldman Sachs executives were not received with a warm welcome by the members of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. At a hearing to discuss whether or not Goldman defrauded investors, McCaskill had strong words for the four witnesses: "You are the bookie. You are the house. You have less oversight and less regulation as you all began this Wild, Wild West of tranches, waterfalls, residual warehousing...You had less oversight than a pit boss in Las Vegas."

Oh, isn't this special? The woman who was screaming "Heil Hitler" to a Jewish man at a Nevada Town hall apparently isn't camera shy, and says she's a good Christian woman. This was filmed just before her incredibly ugly outburst. Hey lady, who would Jesus shout down at a town hall meeting and mock after you deeply insulted them? Just wondering.

From LasVegasNOW.com

-- the health care debate gets ugly in Las Vegas when a woman shouts "Heil Hitler" to an Israeli Jew who supports health care reform.

November 03, 2008 C-SPAN

Michelle Obama spoke at a campaign rally at the Cheyenne Campus of the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas