Thursday, June 13, 2013

Rialto Unified Superintendent Target of Death Threats, Racist Fliers.. By Beau Yarbrough

Rialto Unified superintendent target of death threats, racist fliers

Posted:   05/31/2013 12:26:09 PM PDT



RIALTO -- Harold Cebrun, the superintendent of Rialto Unified, has been receiving death threats and racist fliers, police officials said.
Capt. Randy DeAnda, spokesman for the Rialto Police Department, said the department is investigating both death threats and racist literature left for Cebrun, who is black, to find.
"During the layoffs, hang-up calls and name-calling come with the territory, since emotions and tensions run high," district spokeswoman Syeda Jafri said. "But after recognizing that these were blatant racist fliers, bigoted words were being printed to describe his specific ethnic origin, the superintendent found it increasingly difficult to brush it off. It is inappropriate, inexcusable and it has become quite obvious that the direction of this action is resulting from pure hate."
Rialto Unified pink-slipped 101 teachers and 124 nonteacher employees in March.
"There are still elements in the community that are back with racial hatred. They're back decades," school board member Joe Martinez said. "Now, it's rearing its ugly head."
The fliers, which started being sent in April, include pictures of gorillas with messages written on them like "you people are trained to run, so run" and "(racial epithet) go home." The literature has been mailed to Cebrun and dropped through an open car window. His car has also been keyed, and a Mexican flag has been mailed to him.
"The board saw what it was, and they're things that are just horrible," Martinez said. "I wouldn't want to say those (things) to anybody. I wouldn't want to hear them."
Although DeAnda would not provide details, he said the department was working on the case, which they're investigating as a hate crime, "very aggressively."
"Hate should have no place at our schools or, quite frankly, in our world," Jafri said. "Hate and bigotry are often actions that are learned behaviors. We recognize it, are deeply disappointed by it and will work with the authorities any way we can to assist with the investigation."
According to Rialto Unified's 2011-12 District Accountability Report Card, the then 26,764 student body was 13.7 percent black, 78.7 percent Hispanic and 4.6 percent white.
"We believe that, in Rialto, everybody's important," school board President Joe Ayala said. "We don't discount people: We give them opportunities. These people who are lashing out, (and) we'd like to tell them there are better ways to communicate."
This isn't the first time racial tensions have reared their head in Rialto Unified:
Earlier this spring, a girls' bathroom at Rialto High School was also covered with graffiti attacking black students, Jafri said. San Bernardino City police investigated the incident. The school is 75 percent Latino, according to the California Department of Education's most recent Academic Performance Index data.
In 2010, self-proclaimed white supremacist Dan Schruender sought a seat on the Rialto Unified school board. He ended up coming in last place, garnering only 9.64 percent of the vote, with voters instead choosing a black woman and Hispanic man.
"In education, we constantly deal with gray matter," Martinez said. "That's the color that we work with; it's not any other color."
Staff writer Doug Saunders contributed to this story.

SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY: Hundreds swap guns for gift cards...

SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY: Hundreds swap guns for gift cards


JAVIER CABRERA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Eloise Tankersley, right, forensics officer for Redlands Police, helps officers file serial numbers of guns that were traded for gift cards on Saturday morning, June 1, in Redlands.
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STAFF WRITER
June 01, 2013; 03:51 PM
Hundreds of people took advantage of a gun-buyback program in San Bernardino County Saturday, June 1, swapping weapons for Stater Bros. gift cards.
So many people came to the first county-wide gun-buyback in San Bernardino County that police in Redlands had to obtain more gift cards from the grocery chain and Rialto police shut down nearly three hours early when their $18,000 supply of cards was exhausted.
In all, police collected 1,424 weapons, including 23 assault weapons. Gun owners received Stater gift cards of at least $50 for inoperable weapons, $100 for handguns, shotguns and rifles, and $200 for assault weapons.
San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said at a news conference Friday that the guns will be melted down and used to make reinforcing bars used in construction.
"This is an opportunity for people to turn in guns that may end up being stolen," he said. "All of the weapons will be run through the stolen weapons (computer) system and any that are determined to be stolen weapons will eventually be returned to their rightful owners."
He said the weapons were being taken with no questions asked and sees the effort as a way to get guns off the street.
Gun swaps for everything from turkeys to gift baskets have been staged in Riverside County, including Riverside and Hemet, but it is not clear whether there has ever been a countywide buyback there.
DIFFERENT VIEWPOINT
A gun manufacturer teamed up with a 2nd Amendment rights group, Inland Police Officers Coalition, to set up shop outside the Stater Bros. parking lot in Redlands, offering cash in similar amounts to the gift cards in exchange for guns.
David Ives, who owns Nemesis Arms in Calimesa, would not say how many guns he purchased. He said he would be refurbishing them and re-selling them legally.
"Our taxpayer money is being wasted" in the gun-buyback program," Ives said. "They are over here buying firearms and destroying perfectly good firearms that under the 2nd Amendment can be owned and operated by legal citizens."
Bill Rhetts, a retired Los Angeles policeman, used a speaker to plead to gun owners in line at the Redlands buyback station not to turn them over to police.
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Police from 11 San Bernardino county agencies traded gift cards for guns. What is the best way to get guns off the street?
"This is a counter-productive agenda that doesn't work," he argued. "In 30 years of law enforcement … experience I've worked thousands of investigations where criminals did, in fact, use firearms. Not in any of those cases did the suspect lawfully own the firearm.
"Gun restrictions and gun laws don't work," he said, "because the criminals don't play by the rules."
BRISK BUSINESS
San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies and officers from 10 police departments across the county operated gun-buyback stations Saturday at six locations: Redlands, San Bernardino, Rialto, Upland, Victorville and Barstow.
In Victorville, so many people turned out that sheriff's deputies opened their station an hour and 45 minutes early. By 11 a.m. they had to open a second lane to accommodate traffic.
Deputies there traded gift cards for 379 weapons, including 135 rifles and two assault weapons, according to department spokeswoman Jodi Miller.
Redlands police opened their station half an hour before the official 10 a.m. start when they found a line of cars waiting. By 10:30 they had used up all 350 of their $100 gift cards – to be traded for operable handguns, rifles and shotguns.
Redlands city spokesman Carl Baker said police obtained at least $2,000 more from Stater Bros. and re-opened at 11:30 a.m. By the end of the day, Baker said police in Redlands had collected 308 guns and handed out at least $30,000 worth of gift cards.
'ENOUGH IS ENOUGH'
Carl Christopher, 29, off San Bernardino, brought in 10 shotguns and hunting rifles that had belonged to his 75-year-old grandfather.
"He doesn't need them any more," he said. "We'd rather get them off the street. At least we know they'll be destroyed and won't be used in a crime."
Joyce Christopher, Carl's 55-year-old mother, said she saw a flier advertising the buyback at an Arco gas station in Redlands, where she lives.
"My nephew was killed with a handgun three years ago," she said. "He pulled up to a stop sign and a somebody rode up on a bicycle and shot him three times. He lived (five weeks) and died on Christmas Day. It was the worst Christmas of my life.
"Get them all off the street," she said of guns. "Enough is enough. Anybody who has guns, turn them in."
Elvin and Paula Lightcap, drove 50 miles from Yucca Valley to exchange two shotguns and seven handguns they acquired when they handled the estate of a distant relative five years ago.
"We've been waiting since we cleared up the estate for a gun-buyback," Paula Lightcap said. "They never have them in Yucca Valley. I didn't know what else to do with them."
In Rialto, a line of cars stretched four blocks in 98-degree heat as gun owners waited to swap weapons for the gift cards. They turned in 180 guns, including 32 shotguns and 68 rifles, including four assault rifles that fetched $200 gift cards for each.
Rialto police Capt. Randy De Anda said officers also took in four specially modified weapons and three replica handguns.
"I don't know if they were movie props, but we took them anyway," he said. "They look real and they could be used in a robbery."
Freddie Lewis, 62, of Rialto, traded in a rifle and a semi-automatic Tec-9 pistol, which he said is illegal in California.
"I got two sons, 25 and 30 years old, living in the house now, so I wanted to get the guns out of the house," he said.
Martin Villegas, of Colton, got $100 for the sawed-off shotgun he traded in.
"I had the gun for a year," he said. "I didn't have kids with me, but I became the legal guardian of these (three school-age) kids. I feel good about getting rid of the gun."
Asked what he would do with the gift card, he said, "Like the man suggested, let's have a barbecue."
Follow Darrell R. Santschi on Twitter @DarrellSantschi and online at blog.pe.com/crime-blotter

The Sequester and Oil Prices.. by Steve Austin for Oil-Price.com.

BS.Ranch Perspective:

With the Sequester might come the Lower prices for Fuel in this country!!  The reason that you ask is simple, the supply will go up, as the governments needs for Fuel goes down in the time that they are forced to cut their budget, all because of a move that was done by the Republicans during the last Ceiling raise of the Governments Credit Ceiling.. 

The good of this is that the price of Gas/Diesel can and will drop a little... I don't know where you are with fuel prices but for me it is killer... IF I can find fuel below $4.00 I feel like it is gold found in the bottom of a creek bed!!  Gold there for the panning, but if this fuel goes down to say $2.00 I might be able to do more with my life since I can possibly pay for the bills that I carry across from one month to the next via credit cards.. sad but true.. 

Lets hope for a minute that there will be the lower fuel costs as called for in this article.. 

BSRancher

The Sequester and Oil Prices By STEVE AUSTIN for OIL-PRICE.NET, 2013/03/18


Well, March arrived with 'the sequester,' didn't it? As you heard, on March 1, 'the sequester' swung into action with President Barack Obama signing an order to bump away $85 billion from the budget of Government agencies between March 1 and October 1, 2013. If there lurked some hope of a different budget plan with last-minute resolutions, what a pipe dream it turned out to be. Truth be told, the cuts in spending can axe away almost 0.5 percent from the economic growth of the months leading to October, according to the International monetary fund. To put things in perspective, unemployment figures have just showed signs of recovery. Nailed is the word. 

Faith Under Fire... Christians on Trial.. By Michael Carl

FAITH UNDER FIRE

Christians on trial for 'action against national security'

'Government is looking to stop the spread of Christianity'

Published: 1 day ago
author-imageby Michael Carl Email | Archive
Michael Carl is a veteran journalist with overseas military experience and experience as a political consultant. He also has two Master's Degrees, is a bi-vocational pastor and lives with his family in the Northeast United States.More ↓Less ↑
crucifixionz
Iran is now putting five Christians arrested in October on trial for "action against national security" in what some say is the Islamic republic's all-out effort to stop the spread of Christianity.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported that Church of Iran members Mohammad Roghangir, Surush Saraie, Eskandar Rezaie, Shahin Lahooti and Massoud Rezaie will stand trial before the Revolutionary Court for disturbing public order, evangelizing, action against national security and Internet activity against the system.
The Iranian Christian news site Mohabat News reported that in addition to the five arrested in October, four other Christian believers arrested more than a year ago are still being held in the Revolutionary Guard prison in Shiraz.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide spokesman Kiri Kankhwende said his organization stands by the Iranian Christians.
"We continue to advocate in the international arena for these and many other prisoners in Iran. The prisoners may well be imprisoned for longer, though they have already been detained for some time," Kankhwende said.
He said the Iranian government has one simple goal.
"By sentencing Christians such as these, the Iranian government is looking to stop the spread of Christianity," Kankhwende said.
In a statement to the press, CSW Advocacy Director Andrew Johnston said by persecuting these Christians, Iran is violating its own law.
"Once again Iranian Christians face charges couched in political terms that in reality stem from their choice of faith and desire to exercise the right to worship in community with others, as guaranteed in article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is party," Johnston said.
ACLJ International Director Tiffany Barrans said this aggressive act of jailing and trying Christian leaders reflects the regime's desperation in dealing with Christianity in advance of the approaching election.
"In the lead up the Iranian elections, scheduled for June 14, 2013, it is abundantly clear that the Iranian Regime is terrorizing the Christian community and other minorities in an attempt to force Iranians into submission," she said.
The Iranian government has the wrong idea about Iranian Christians, Barrans argued.
"What Iran does not realize with the Christian community is that the exercise of their faith is not based on politics or an attempt to undermine the government," she said.
Iran's treatment of American pastor Saeed Abedini is an example of the regime's anti-Christian hysteria, according to Barrans.
At the same time, Iran is planning to put nine Church of Iran members on trial, American Center for Law and Justice spokesman Gene Kapp said his group presented pastor Abedini's human rights case before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
"In the oral presentation before the Human Rights Council, our attorney told the U.N. that the imprisonment of pastor Saeed, a U.S. citizen, is a violation of international law and called on Iran to release him," Kapp said.
"At the same time, the U.S. State Department expressed its concern again about the imprisonment of pastor Saeed and called for his release," he said.
Kapp noted that there is growing support for Abedini from the American public.
"More than 420,000 people have signed on to a petition demanding his release," Kapp said.
Reports on the nine Church of Iran believers and Pastor Abedini are consistent with a recent trend in Iran toward more persecution of all religious minorities.
International Christian Concern documents the plight of three other Christians who have been arrested and put on trial in the past three months.
Charisma News confirms ICC's reports. Charisma News reported in November that there is a wave of anti-Christian activity.
"Reports of Iranian authorities arresting Christians for their faith are pouring in, indicating that the Islamic nation is running a massive campaign targeting house churches," Charisma News reported.
Also, a report from Iran claimed Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani had been executed.
Assist News Service reported an Anglican cleric in Iraq said an Iranian news report claimed Nadarkhani had been put to death.
Barrans said the report was an Internet rumor, and "several of our sources today talked directly with pastor Youcef himself."
In further confirmation, Islam activist Walid Shoebat said the rumor started from an Arabic source.
"I can say that pastor Youcef is not dead," Shoebat said. "All the Arabic sources I researched say that Nadarkhani is still alive."
However, Shoebat added, another man wasn't so fortunate.
"The man who was hanged is a Sunni dissident and not Nadarkhani," he said.
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Da'Buck
BS.Ranch
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Obama, Holder Called Out for Not Enforceing Existing Gun Laws... NewsMax 02232013

Tags: guns | laws | obama | chicago


Obama, Holder Called Out for Not Enforcing Existing Gun Laws

Friday, 22 Feb 2013 07:06 PM
By Cyrus Afzali
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Image: Obama, Holder Called Out for Not Enforcing Existing Gun Laws
Guns confiscated recently in crime-torn Chicago. (AP Photo)
A group of 23 Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee Friday sent letters to President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder demanding existing gun laws be enforced before additional limitations are passed.

The committee, which has held hearings in recent weeks on ways to prevent gun violence, again called into focus statistics that show a dramatic drop in federal weapons prosecutions over the past decade.

The letters cite a Syracuse University study that show firearms prosecutions under  President George W. Bush peaked at 11,015 in 2004 while the Obama administration has prosecuted about 7,774 firearms cases in 2012.

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"A prosecution rate this low is not indicative of a Department of Justice that takes the act of illegally attempting to acquire a firearm seriously," Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said in a statement accompanying the letters.

"We must all be looking for ways to prevent senseless acts of violence and the taking of innocent life but the best place to start would be enforcing the laws that Congress has already enacted."

Highlighting the crime rise in Chicago, the president's hometown, the lawmakers pointed out that the Northern District of Illinois, which includes Chicago, is ranked the lowest of all federal court districts in firearms prosecutions despite a surge in gun-related violence.

"In a city like Chicago, which saw 506 murders last year, it is appalling that the U.S. attorney's office in that jurisdiction only prosecuted 25 federal firearms cases during 2011," the group wrote.

The letter also points out that of the 76,142 gun permit requests that were denied following background checks by federally-licensed firearms dealers, only 4,732 were referred for prosecution. Of that total, only 62 prosecutions resulted.

In addition to Goodlatte, the letters were signed by Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (Wis.), Trent Franks (Ariz.), Howard Coble (N.C.), Lamar Smith (Texas), Steve Chabot (Ohio), Spencer Bachus (Ala.), Darrell Issa (Calif.), Randy Forbes (Va.), Steve King (Iowa), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Ted Poe (Texas), Jason Chaffetz (Utah), Steve Marino (Pa.), Trey Gowdy (S.C.), Mark Amodei (Nev.), Raul Labrador (Idaho), Blake Farenthold (Texas), George Holding (N.C.), Doug Collins (Ga.), Ron DeSantis (Fla.) and Keith Rothfus (Pa.).

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