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Monday's intriguing people
Otis McDonald
The 76-year-old retired custodian asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a 1982 municipal handgun ban so that he can protect himself in his inner-city Chicago home. On Monday, the high court ruled unconstitutional the Illinois city's ban on handgun
ownership, a potentially far-reaching case over the ability of state and local governments to enforce limits on weapons.
McDonald told the Chicago Tribune that he has lived in the same area of Chicago for 38 years. After thugs broke into his house three times, McDonald said he used his own hunting rifle to chase them away. In 2005, when Illinois lawmakers considered an assault-rifle ban, McDonald attended a gun rally.
"I was the only black guy that I saw," McDonald told the AARP Bulletin.
At the rally, he met Alan Gura, the attorney who helped to overturn Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban. Gura persuaded McDonald to become the main face of the Chicago lawsuit.
"It doesn't matter what anyone's motives were for picking me for this," McDonald told AARP. "I have my own motives, and they are so compelling and so heavy that to me this is worthy of my effort."
The Chicago law has been shown to reduce crime, according to gun-control advocates. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is a powerful supporter of the ban.
"Maybe he could come there and spend the night, especially during the summer, and listen to what I listen to out my window," McDonald said. "Maybe he would understand where I'm coming from."
CNN: High court strikes down Chicago handgun ban
Chicago Tribune: The public face of gun rights
AARP: Chicago man stands up for right to bear arms
Vincent Warren
While top White House officials have expressed confidence that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan will earn the respect and votes of senators during her confirmation hearings, which begin Monday, President Obama's choice for the highest court faces skepticism from both conservatives and liberals.
Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, issued a statement in May explaining that his nonprofit organization has fought "the dangerous growth of executive power, particularly as it concerns torture, detention, surveillance and racial profiling, areas where the government has flouted the law most blatantly over the last decade. I am sad to say that Solicitor General Elena Kagan's record indicates a troubling support for expanding presidential powers, something we must be vigilant about at this time. President Obama would appear to be seeking to appoint a Supreme Court judge who will endorse his policies and appease conservatives."
For seven years, Warren was a national senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. He is known as a leading African-American voice for affirmative action.
CNN: White House confident of high court nominee days before hearings
Center for Constitutional Rights: Executive director critical of Kagan's nomination
Jessica Stern
One of the world's foremost experts on terrorism and post-traumatic stress disorder says one of the reasons she has succeeded in her field is because of a sexual assault that she faced as an adolescent.
"Why was I so interested in violence?" Stern says. "I realize now that I was trying to understand violent men, because I had been a victim of violence."
A Harvard-trained former National Security Council policy director, Stern told the Chronicle of Higher Education that she began confronting her own painful past in 2006 when she requested a copy of her 33-year-old police file.
On the night of October 1, 1973, Stern - 15 at the time - and her 14-year-old sister were home alone in Concord, Massachusetts, when a man armed with a gun raped them. Stern's investigation into what happened to the serial child rapist and the impact that the crime had on her life is the subject of her new book, "Denial, A Memoir of Terror."
Stern, who has traveled the world interviewing terrorists, was the model for the title character played by Nicole Kidman in the 1997 movie, "The Peacemaker."
Chronicle of Higher Education: A terrorism expert turns her gaze inward
Arturo Rodriguez
The president of the United Farm Workers of America is challenging people who complain that undocumented immigrants are taking jobs away from U.S. citizens to do something about it.
The Texas Tribune reports that the UFW is launching a "Take Our Jobs" campaign, inviting citizens and legal residents to replace immigrants in the field. The campaign is encouraging members of Congress to refer their constituents to vacant farm worker positions in locations across the country. The union promises that experienced farm workers will train new recruits.
Rodriguez told the newspaper that he doesn't expect many citizens to take the offer seriously, because many workers earn about half of what nonfarm jobs pay. Instead, Rodriguez says, the UFW is more focused on drawing attention away from a deportation-only approach to immigration, which he said would decimate the agriculture industry.
"Somehow, undocumented workers are getting as much blame for our economic troubles as Wall Street, but missing from the immigration debate is an honest recognition that the food we all eat at home, in restaurants and workplace cafeterias, including those in the Capitol, comes to us from the labor of undocumented workers," Rodriguez said.
The Texas Tribune: UFW launches 'Take Our Jobs' initiative
Tim Scott
The 44-year-old candidate for South Carolina's 1st Congressional District, who defeated the son of the late Sen, Strom Thurmond in last Tuesday's GOP primary, could become the only African-American Republican on Capitol Hill.
The New York Times reports that Scott, a businessman who served 14 years in county government, was a poor high school student. But a man named John Moniz, the owner of the Chick-fil-A restaurant next to the movie theater where Scott sold popcorn, introduced him to what he describes as a conservative, Christian point of view.
After his mentor died at age 38, the newspaper reports, Scott, then 17, created a "mission statement" for his life: Before he dies, he would have a positive effect on the lives of 1 billion people.
"To know my story is to understand that there were people who had no reason to step up to the plate and help me, but who did," Scott said. "I want to serve the community because the community helped me."
According to the Times, Scott believes that President Obama is driving the country toward bankruptcy and socialism.
The New York Times: South Carolina candidate shrugs off history's lure
@cnnbrk on Twitter
@whatsinaname – That is the biggest load of liberal racist garbage. I grew up woking on my grandparents farm, unloaded medical waste at an inceneration plant to earn money for college, and have also worked in landscaping/construction. After college, I worked six days a week waiting tables. When was the last time you did any physical labor? Cutting your own grass does not count you typical liberal free loading bum.
I'm seriously challenged when it comes to manual labor (motorcycle accident left me partially paralyzed...), but I've always thought that the real challenge is not that the illegals are doing jobs that citizens won't – it's that the illegals will do these jobs for less than the citizens will. The bottom line is that we need to adjust the costs of our products so that they reflect the actual costs. When the jobs pays enough and adds health benefits to the laborers then the citizens will gladly do the job.
I dont think thats correct, wages would have to be pretty high for people to take those jobs. As it is right now, many people wont even take a fast food job for $9/hr. And that work is WAY easier than farm work. How many people do you think are sitting on unemployment right now – who've passed up jobs because they wont make what they used to make? And we just keep extending the benefits.
I don't want their jobs – but what I do want is for them to work in this country LEGALLY. I want them to follow the same laws and rules that we all do, that other immigrants to this country had to follow. Pay your taxes and cover your own health care.
Unfortunately you cant have both – you cant have suppressed labor wages and expect them to be able to payfor taxes and health care. Welcome to reality. So what you are really saying is that you want to pay more for fruits, vegetables and meat – so that all the workers can be legit?
We WERE doing immigrants (Illegals) jobs before they came here. They just came and took them all away so we have none to do now!
oh really???? and what jobs were those??? Americans are too spoiled to take their grandpa's janitor job....
Your right, lets not fix the problem because its been broken for so long. This is Americas excuse for EVERYTHING. I'm fed up.
When Europeans FORCED their way into AMERICA taking the American Indians land, THERE WERE NO IMMIGRATION LAWS then....but I would bet if the Indians knew then what they would now, that LAW would be in effect at that time, forcing EUROPEANS to 1. come over ILLEGALLY or 2. wait the many months possibly YEARS before they can obtain a work visa... BACK TO THE POINT OF THE ARTICLE, HALF OF YOU SO NEGATIVELY OPINIONATED ON THIS POST WOULD NOT WORK THE FIELDS.....MANY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WORK AT BELOW MINIMUM WAGE...YOU CAN THANK YOUR AMERICAN COMPANIES FOR HIRING THEM SO THAT THEY DON'T HAVE TO PAY EXTRA FOR HEALTH INSURANCE AND IT KEEPS THEIR OWN PROFIT IN CHECK..DON'T YOU PEOPLE EVER THINK THAT IF EVERY SINGLE WORKER WERE AMERICANS, AMERICANS WOULD DEMAND $40 AN HOUR AND WE'D END UP PAYING $10 A POUND FOR APPLES????? JUST LIKE DRUGS, IF AMERICANS WEREN'T SO SELF-LOATHING AND SPOILED, WE WOULDN'T BE SO ADDICTED, THUS CAUSING THE DRUG MESS AND CRIME.
Wrong argument.
No one believes illegals are trying to take over the country.
There ARE laws now and that is what we are discussing.
Your argument and ours are apples and oranges. Both fruit, different type. Try to stay on topic.
No one believes illegals are "trying to take over our country"...then what are all the slogans "take our country back" about? Who you taking it back from, if no one is trying to take it away?
I say give the American back his guns and his jobs. Americans need to support and protect their family. Whats so hard to understand about. Grampa America is not the one shooting people at ice cream stores for $37. We need to clean up our country and take out the garbage. The Arizona law needs to be tougher and become the American law. There was a time that Americans had rights in this country. Grampa America is not the guy driving the truck loaded with $45 million dollars of illegal drugs from Mexico. Its wrong what is happening here, all civilizations fall, Is it our turn already?
All this bruhaha over illegals, but what about the issue of LEGAL immigrants being brought here by employers of large corporations, because they'll work for significantly less? Pretty soon those workers will be demanding "better wages" and they'll be dumped for even cheaper workers from the next batch of even more desperate workers. Anyone have any guesses about what's going to happen when we turn that page? A bunch of disgruntled semi-foreigners who left everything behind for the "good life" only to find out, its not so great after all.
Why not figure out why farm jobs (some of the hardest labor in the country) are paid so little. Why not pay our farmers for their produce for what its REALLY worth? Thats right, instead of paying $0.99 cents for a dozen ears of corn, you might have to pay $1.99, or even $2.99 for that dozen ears of corn. Guess what? Thats how much the stuff is worth. Instead, we as the f'ing Walmart loving country we are, need to have everything NOW, and for near NOTHING in cost. THATS why there are so many FAT people. THATS why kids are spoiled and LAZY. THATS why things get worst, NOT better here.
WE CAN BAIL OUT THE BANKS OVER AND OVER AGAIN WITH BILLIONS IF NOT TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS BECAUSE "THEY CONTROL OUR ECONOMY" BUT WE CANT TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN FARMERS WHO PROVIDE THE F'ING FOOD WE EAT!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY????
Prices for agricultural goods are basically determined by the MARKET, i.e. supply and demand. Agricultural products are seen as basically the same by consumers so no one farmer sets price. The MARKET does. Lots of a product offered means prices go down. Cut back on the supply and prices go up. (Think what happens when there's a shortage, say, due to a freeze in the Florida orange groves. Or what's likely to happen to shrimp prices sue to the Gulf oil spilll.)
If farmers want higher prices, they need to product less or find some way to distinguish their product from others. Dole and Chiquita have done this pretty well.
On that note, you are right, they need to produce less, and the answer is better quality product. Stop pumping all of our foods with hormones and insecticides and produce more natural produce. Same with livestock. We have so many new diseases and health problems these days. I am no conspiracy theorist but you have to wonder what all of these chemicals are doing to us. We could be eating fruit and veggies that have been treated, that we might know for another 10-20 years was all along very bad for us.
We need a wake-up call, and I don't really know what that would entail. 9-11 opened our eyes to terrorism. What do we need, some type of large scale food related epidemic of sickness or worst to open our eyes and say enough is enough.
I speak for myself when I say I would love to live the life of a farm owner if I felt I could make a good life at it. It is clean living. Its very hard work. It built this country. It is our life blood.
We are getting lazy as Americans. We feel we are too good for manual labor.
oo bad the article about the jobs illegal aliens do doesn't mention that the ad should be testing out various WAGE RATES to gauge how sensitive Americans would be to wages for working in the fields. That would be a true test, not just advertising some job at whatever rate the farmer wants to pay. Using different wage rates ("prices") would be how a company tests price sensitivity of consumers to a product's price. Same idea applies to the price of labor. And while they're at it, how about mentioning some pertinent facts:
1. Only about 1.5 million people are employed in agriculture yet we have upwards of 20 million illegal aliens.
2. Wages in agriculture have declined in real terms (NOT an indication of a shortage) AND farmworkers on average live below the poverty level.
3. We have guest worker programs for seasonal agricultural workers and other unskilled workers (H2-A and B) which farmers choose not to use because they can get illegal aliens more cheaply.
4. Most illegal aliens work in jobs that citizens and legal workers dominate in, such as construction, cleaning, retail, etc. Heck, citizens and legal immigrants have filled the jobs vacated by illegal aliens after raids at companies such as Tysons and Target. Illegal aliens clearly displace legal workers.
I *did* do an "immigrants job" to help pay for graduate school. I worked 16-hour days (overtime every week) and was paid very low wages. To all the Americans complaining about "illegals" taking jobs: you do not want those jobs. No benefits, no breaks to eat, no days off.
Companies that employ illegal immigrants are taking advantage of them because they know they will work for less than a legal citizen. They need to be fined HEAVILY to deter this type of behavior, and once discovered, required to pay at least minimum wage, give breaks, and days off, to only people here legally. I believe if there are no companies to supply jobs, illegal immigrants will stop coming.
SILFER
oh really???? and what jobs were those??? Americans are too spoiled to take their grandpa's janitor job....
----
A year or so, a school district advertised a janitor's job paying $15 an hour and got over 400 responses. Americans are NOT too proud to do janitorial work especially when it pays fairly well. Most janitorial work is STILL done by legal workers. And note that the SEIU, comprised heavily of illegal aliens working in the service industries such as janitorial, are working to increase pay for their members. Illegal aliens don't want low wages either, once they find out what it costs to live here.
The difference between illegal and legal immigrants? The illegal immigrants are working right now. The descendants of legal immigrants are wasting time posting comments on CNN... Folks that talk about immigrants need to come here legally because just like their ancestors obviously are part of the huge under-educated (and most likely lazy and unemployed) population that has dragged the USA from the #1 super power position. There was no such thing as "illegal" immigration until we formed the IRS.
Some of us work nights. Some of us are semi- or totally retired, after working long and hard. And some of us just plain work smart. If illegal aliens are such hard workers, then how come their home countries are such sh-tholes? Fact is, illegal aliens would remain part of the working poor even if legalized because they haven't the smarts to move upward. AFter the 1986 amnesty, the increase in poverty was largely due to the addition of 3 million Hispanics to those living in poverty, according to Census figures.
BRAVO,
The 2nd Amendment is one of our fundamental rights, and now our US Supreme Court has articulated that right, to be fully incorporated across this nation, into the States and within local jurisdictions.
Charley Miller
Unaffiliated for US Senate
charleymiller2010
we still have one thing the Mexicans don't (yet anyway) THE VOTE