Tough Phoenix sheriff may have new foe: George Soros

By JACQUES BILLEAUD
Associated Press
PHOENIX (AP) - Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America who could face criminal charges for ignoring a judge's order to stop targeting Latinos in anti-immigration roundups, may now have a new foe as he seeks re-election - George Soros, the billionaire liberal hedge fund tycoon.

The Republican sheriff already was battered politically and support for him had been slipping when a group linked to Soros mounted an anti-Arpaio attack in an attempt to weaken his bid for a seventh straight term.

The group started sending fliers to Phoenix-area voters two weeks ago, and a mailing last week accuses Arpaio of separating a mother from her child because of an unpaid traffic ticket, botching hundreds of sex crimes investigations and scaring immigrants so much that that they don't report crime.

Arpaio denies the claims and is easily capable of striking back with a formidable $2.9 million still available for campaign spending ahead of the Nov. 8 vote, dwarfing the total $326,000 raised by his challenger, Democrat Paul Penzone, a former Phoenix police sergeant who lost to Arpaio by 6 percentage points in 2012.

But the entry of a Soros-linked group is a gift for Penzone, who acknowledges he'll never come close to matching Arpaio's campaign spending.

Over the last year, Soros contributed $3.9 million to Democrats in law enforcement political races in Chicago, St. Louis, Orlando, Houston, Albuquerque, Lowndes County in Mississippi and Caddo Parish in Louisiana, according to campaign finance records.

Of the seven district attorney candidates Soros-linked groups have backed, two have already been elected and four won primaries. Only one lost.

In New Mexico, Soros gave $107,000 to Raul Torrez, the winner of the Democrat primary in June for the county that encompasses Albuquerque - prompting Republican Simon Kubiak to drop out.

Kubiak said he guaranteed Torrez victory because he could not raise the money he would have needed to counterattack and because he feared a barrage of negative ads.

"I would have accepted it, too," Kubiak said of Soros' donation to Torrez.
Officials with the billionaire's Soros Fund Management referred comment on Soros' political donations to Michael Vachon, a top Soros adviser who serves as his personal spokesman. Vachon did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

The new anti-Arpaio group, Maricopa Strong, registered in Arizona on Aug. 29, the day before Arpaio won his Republican primary against three opponents. It is not required to file a report detailing who made donations and spending until Sept. 29.

But county records state Maricopa Strong's chairwoman is Whitney Tymas, a former public defense attorney in New York and Virginia prosecutor who serves as treasurer for the Soros-funded Safety & Justice national political committee and groups with similar names in Illinois, Florida, Texas and New Mexico.

Tymas did not respond to repeated phone and email messages seeking comment, and Maricopa Strong spokeswoman Tania Torres did not respond when asked by telephone and email if Soros had provided the group with funding.

The tenor of the ads shown for various local races and past positions by Soros-backed groups indicate he's focused on reducing perceived racial disparities within the criminal justice system. His super political action committee gave more than $14 million from 2015-16, including big sums to organizations trying to elect Hillary Clinton.

The anti-Arpaio flier accuses him of being "obsessed with immigrants at the expense of his job" and of making "immigrant communities scared to report crime for fear they will be harassed by the Sheriff's Office."

The 84-year-old Arpaio has denied he is anti-immigrant and that his unfinished business includes an overhaul of his office after his officers were found by a federal judge to have racially profiled Latinos in traffic patrols that made him a national figure in the immigration debate.

Arpaio was found in civil contempt for failing to stop the patrols after the judge ordered them halted in December 2011. Federal prosecutors are deciding whether to file a criminal contempt-of-court case against him punishable by up to six months of jail time if classified as a misdemeanor and an unspecified sentencing range if deemed a felony.

The list of local law and order campaigns Soros has bankrolled have targeted other incumbents criticized for decisions involving race. They include a $408,000 donation to a first-time candidate for prosecutor in Chicago who won the Democratic primary in March against an incumbent criticized for charging a white police officer a full year after the officer shot a black teenager dead.

In Florida, the incumbent prosecutor for the Orlando area known for prosecuting the Casey Anthony case attributed Soros' money to tipping voters against him during the last month of his campaign before the Aug. 30 primary.

Jeff Ashton said opponent Aramis Alaya gained momentum after a Soros-funded group started running a TV spot on alleged legal system racial disparities.

"She was done," Ashton said. "And then the huge amount of money started pouring in."

Funding by the new anti-Arpaio group could also impact the presidential race because Arpaio is a strident Donald Trump supporter. Democrats hope to rally Arizona's Latinos - a voting bloc including many who have long reviled the sheriff - to show up to vote for Clinton in November.

Chad Willems, the sheriff's campaign manager, said he suspected a well-funded anti-Arpaio group from outside Arizona would get involved in the campaign but doubted it would prevent Arpaio from winning.

"He is a known commodity here. The voters do still like him," Willems said.

Penzone said in an interview that he has had no contact with Maricopa Strong or Soros and doubted money funneled into the race would level the playing field because Arpaio has so much. He has spent $8.9 million on his campaign so far.

The development does show that some people outside Arizona want Arpaio out, Penzone said.

"With his name recognition and tenure in office and all that money, he is still falling short of expectations," Penzone said.

Follow Jacques Billeaud at twitter.com/jacquesbilleaud. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/jacques-billeaud.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Univision Anchor’s Electioneering Sparks 'Ramos Must Go' Drive

By MRC Latino Staff
In reaction to Univision chief news anchor Jorge Ramos’ repeated statements in the media opposing the election of Donald Trump, an effort is underway to both highlight Ramos’ compromised coverage of the election, as well as bring pressure to bear on Univision to remove Ramos from the network’s news anchor desk between now and Election Day.

The Media Research Center (MRC)-led campaign, titled Ramos Must Go! includes both grasstops and grassroots components. At the grasstops level, the MRC announced that over 15 respected Latino community figures in public policy and journalism have issued a joint “Call for Corrective Action at Univision.”

The statement faults Ramos for crossing “a significant line in his coverage” of the presidential campaign by his decision to break with established journalistic election coverage norms and openly oppose the election of Trump.

“The issue created by Ramos’ action as Univision’s lead news anchor has nothing to do with the relative merits of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate,” say the statement’s signers. When it comes to elections, the group of Latino leaders holds that “journalists have a responsibility to report on them with as much impartiality, independence and fairness as they can possibly muster…it is certainly not the job of journalists to tell citizens either who to vote against or who to vote for.”

The signers go on to invoke “the interests of both Univision’s audience and the capacity of the network itself to serve as an impartial and credible source of news” in calling on Univision to remove Ramos from his duties as the network's nightly news anchor until after Election Day.

The statement’s initial signers include:
Richard Aguilar, Publisher, Latino American Today
Bertica Cabrera Morris, Former Administrator, Orange County, Florida Public Schools
Adolfo Castaneda, Director of Hispanic Education, Human Life International
Sergio de la Peña, Ret. Col., U.S. Army and political analyst
A.J. Delgado, Conservative commentator, columnist, attorney
Mario Díaz, General Counsel, Concerned Women for America
Rey Flores, Grassroots Programs Coordinator, The Leadership Institute
Irene García, Editor, Judicial Watch
J.D. Gordon, Executive Director, Protect America Today
Luis Hernández, Former News Director, Noticias Mundo Fox
Maricruz MaGowan, Former Vice President, National Economists Club
Ken Oliver-Méndez, Director, MRC Latino
Yuri Pérez, Latin American analyst, Freedom House
Miguel Prado, Former Candidate for Congress in New York
Genaro Pedroarias, Environmental Policy Expert
Gus Portela, Executive Director, College Republican National Committee
Camille Solberg, Former Federal Drug Free Communities Commissioner

In addition to the grasstops petition, the www.ramosmustgo.com website includes an online grassroots petition page where the public can register their agreement that “Ramos has rendered himself incapable of serving as a credible, impartial news anchor for Univision’s millions of viewers.”

The grassroots effort also includes a phone-in campaign to Univision President Randy Falco, to tell him that “Ramos must go!”

The website also features a video in which MRC President Brent Bozell issues an as yet unanswered challenge to Ramos to a debate about the “role of journalists in a free society.” “His abuse of journalism is flat out indefensible,” Bozell says in the video.  Previously, Bozell stated “If Jorge Ramos has any sense left of professional integrity, he should tender his resignation and pursue his new passion, as an anti-Trump, pro-Clinton political activist.”

Ramos recently called the prospect of Trump’s election “a bad dream” and has unequivocally declared that “America is facing a serious threat in Trump.” He also called the first general election television ad of the Republican presidential candidate a “xenophobic and anti-immigrant ad.”
Earlier in the election cycle, Ramos also told his viewers that “Cruz and Rubio had a chance to be our community’s heroes, but instead they decided they wanted to be like the villain.”

Mexico builds its own wall against migrants

Pressure builds for measures to stem flow of refugees from the south heading for US

by: James Fredrick and Jude Webber in Mexico City

Donald Trump wants a wall on America’s southern border to keep illegal immigrants out. But for people such as Rosa, whose husband, mother, sister, brother-in-law and two nephews were murdered in her native Honduras by gangs who then tried to recruit her 14-year-old son, Mexico already acts as a formidable barrier.

Rosa, who asked for her full name not to be used, fled with her two teenage sons only to find herself trapped in a political controversy that the US Republican candidate has put at the heart of his campaign.

Zero net immigration of Mexicans into the US and an 82 per cent fall in people caught trying to cross the US-Mexico border in the past 10 years means that most would-be immigrants detained there are Central Americans. Even without Mr Trump’s fortress frontier, Mexico finds itself under increasing pressure to stem the migrant tide near its source — its own southern border.

“Mexico has become a wall for migrants,” said Sister Magdalena Silva, co-ordinator of Cafemin, a privately run shelter in Mexico City that takes in refugee families, including Rosa’s. “The current policy is to arrest migrants to stop them from getting to the US border.”

The UN estimates 400,000 Central Americans cross illegally into Mexico each year and as many as half of those are fleeing violence. The majority are quickly deported back to dangerous homes.

Unlike in the US, Mexico has broadened asylum laws to recognise that fleeing violence of the kind practised by the street gangs of Honduras and El Salvador can classify someone as a refugee. But the odds are still stacked against asylum seekers: Mexico deported a record 175,000 Central Americans last year, up 68 per cent from the previous year and nearly two-and-a-half times the number deported by the US.

The US is coy about its role in Mexico’s crackdown but is sending $75m in equipment and training to help stop Central Americans from crossing illegally into Mexico. Hosting Mr Trump two weeks ago, President Enrique Peña Nieto said that “making Mexico’s border with our friends and neighbours in Central America more secure is of vital importance for Mexico and the US”.

Rosa left Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, with her two teenage sons in January 2016 after a gang tried to recruit one of them on his way home from school. “We know when a gang targets someone, they don’t leave them alone and they follow through on their threats,” she said.

The family asked for help on arrival in Mexico and was channelled into official asylum procedures.

That is where things started to sour.

First Rosa and her sons were shipped to a detention centre on the outskirts of Mexico City. There they were assigned different cellblocks and limited to three half-hour visits per week for three months.

After months in detention, Rosa and her sons were denied asylum. No official reason was given and Mexico’s refugee authorities did not respond to interview requests.

Trade and trafficking on the US-Mexico border

“It was like getting a bucket of cold water thrown on me. I told them: ‘Please, please, we can’t go back’,” she says. She appealed, but held out little hope.

Eventually, the family was let out of detention to wait at Cafemin, one of only a handful of places in Mexico caring specifically for the refugee families who keep on coming.

The refugee crisis first hit the headlines in the summer of 2014 when thousands of Central American children arrived alone at the US border. Those numbers have dropped but the US Customs and Border Protection still notes that, overall, arrests in the fiscal year to date — since October 1 — remain “somewhat higher” than in the previous fiscal year.

“By the end of the year we estimate we could have as many as 8,100 individuals seeking asylum in Mexico,” almost all from Central America, says José Sieber, the head of protection in Mexico for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. That is more than double last year’s number.

Despite the rising number of deportations from Mexico, so far this year, 62 per cent of applications have been accepted compared with 45 per cent in 2015.

Although Mexico grants asylum to more Central Americans than does the US, Sister Magdalena estimates about seven out of 10 people who stay in her shelter still end up heading north.

Rosa and her sons just joined that count: after weeks in limbo waiting on the appeal, they finally threw in the towel after the youths witnessed a woman lying in a pool of blood just blocks away from the shelter.

“I don’t want them growing up thinking this is normal and happens everywhere,” says Rosa. The family travelled to the US, turning themselves in at the US border to ask for asylum. After a few weeks in detention, Rosa and her 14-year-old son were released to live with a family in Baltimore pending a decision. As an adult, her 19-year-old son is still in detention and could get deported.

“We didn’t ever want to leave,” says Rosa. “My sons and I want to be in our country. But we just can’t.”

 
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016. All rights reserved.

Ford shifting all U.S. small-car production to Mexico

by Greg Gardner and Brent Snavely, Detroit Free Press

CEO Mark Fields told investors the move is part of plans to make production simpler and less expensive

Ford is shifting all North American small-car production from the U.S. to Mexico, CEO Mark Fields told investors today in Dearborn, even though its plans to invest in Mexico have become a lightening rod for controversy in this year's presidential election.

"Over the next two to three years, we will have migrated all of our small-car production to Mexico and out of the United States," Fields said.

Ford isn't the first automaker move small car production out of the U.S. as Mexico has become a mecca for new automotive industry investment and has surpassed Canada in annual automotive production.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said earlier this year it will end production of all cars in the U.S. by the end of this year as it discontinues production of the Dodge Dart in Belvidere, Ill. and the Chrysler 200 in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

The industry has known for decades that domestic manufacturers struggle to make a profit on small cars in the U.S.

In recent years, automakers that include General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Mazda, Toyota and Volkswagen have all announced plans to either expand existing plants or build new ones in Mexico. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles also has said it is considering an expansion of its production there.

Mexico has seen a 40% increase in auto jobs since 2008 to 675,000 last year while the U.S. saw only a 15% increase in the same period to more than 900,000, according to the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.

While the North American Free Trade Agreement has been a factor for automotive investment in Mexico there are other factors as well. Mexico has trade agreements with 44 other countries, a robust rail and shipping infrastructure, lower wages and now workforce that has proven it can make high-quality cars.

Ford's decision to shift the assembly of small cars to Mexico can reduce costs to a point. But some of these cars are over-engineered.

For example, Fields said the current Ford Focus can be ordered in 300 different configurations of options and colors. Ford wants to reduce that to 30, which will make the production process simpler and less expensive.

But Americans prefer larger vehicles, especially pickups and higher-riding SUVs and crossover vehicles for their personal use.

Fields' statement isn't much of a surprise. Ford said in April it would invest $1.6 billion to build a new plant in Mexico and create 2,800 jobs so it can build small cars there. Ford also said in 2015 that it planned to move production of its Ford Focus and C-Max hybrids cars from a plant in Wayne,  to another country by 2018.

It's an ironic twist for Ford's plant in Wayne, Michigan. Ford spent $550 million in 2010 to convert from the aging plant from a big SUV factory to one that could build the efficient Focus compact car. 

The impact on Ford's U.S. employment will be minimal in the near-term. Ford already builds the Fiesta subcompact and the Fusion mid-size sedan in Mexico. There is an expectation that Ford will build a new Ranger mid-size pickup truck in Wayne and possibly a new Bronco compact sport-utility.

The automaker also still will make the Ford Mustang at its plant in Flat Rock, Michigan and will begin making the full-size Lincoln Continental there later this year. It also makes the full-size Ford Taurus in Chicago.

Still, Ford is reassessing much of its business to prepare for a future where it needs to make cars for new modes of transport, to generate money from shared use, all without jeopardizing profits still generated by many of its cars and trucks.

Ford's decision to build a new plant in Mexico has made it a target for Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump who said in April "these ridiculous, job-crushing transactions will not happen when I am president."

UAW President Dennis Williams also has repeatedly blasted Ford and other automakers for investing so much money in Mexico.

There is no reason, mathematically, to go ahead and run to countries like Mexico, Thailand and Taiwan," Williams said earlier this year. "We all recognize there is a huge problem in Mexico. So we have to address it as a nation. The UAW cannot do it alone. We are not naive."

Unifor, the Canadian union that represents automakers, also is struggling to hold onto its automotive industry. It is currently in contract negotiations with the Detroit Three on a contract that expires on Monday and is worried that three plants could close in the coming years if automakers refuse to commit to new investments.

Ford has said it continues to invest heavily in its U.S. plants and isn't cutting jobs here. Last fall, the automaker made a commitment to invest $9 billion in U.S. plants and create or retains more than 8,500 jobs as part of a new four-year contract with the UAW. Of that, $4.8 billion goes to 11 facilities in Michigan.

The future of smaller cars in the U.S. may depend on the ability to electrify their powertrains and introduce them to ride-sharing fleets where they can generate revenue from fares paid by multiple riders.

Along those lines, Fields and other Ford executives Wednesday outlined an aggressive plan to invest $4.5 billion over the next four years in new battery-powered models in such segments as commercial vehicles, trucks, SUVs and performance vehicles.

Ford also reiterated its commitment to developing an autonomous vehicle by 2021 for use in a ride-hailing service. The company believes that autonomous vehicles could account for up to 20% of vehicle sales by 2030.

Ford continues to present its corporate strategy to more than 100 analyst and investors throughout the day. The meeting comes as the U.S. auto industry's six-year recovery is cooling, while the U.K.'s exit from the European Union has presented a new challenge to Ford's rebound in Europe.

Investors didn't reward Ford or other U.S. automakers when they posted record profits last year and early this year. Now that U.S. sales are leveling off Wall Street is even less enthusiastic about the sector. Ford shares have fallen 12% from the beginning of the year from $14.09 to Tuesday's closing price of $12.38.

Fields spent the first half of his 45-minute presentation assuring analysts that Ford's core business remains strong, especially in its most profitable segments such as full-size pickup trucks, commercial vans and its resurgent Lincoln luxury brand.

But he also said the company must respond to a global shift away from personal vehicle ownership to one in which personal ownership will be challenged by on-demand shared mobility.

"This is very different thinking for us," Fields said. "For most of our history we have thought about the thing and how many of the things we have sold."

In exploring how a traditional manufacturer can profit in a market where the vehicle becomes a service platform, Fields said the first question he and fellow executives had to define is "What’s our point of view on autonomy?"

"We see huge social economic and environmental benefits. We’re focused on usage where miles traveled are as important as the number of units sold," he said. "Autonomous vehicles will account for one of every 10 miles traveled by 2030, and will grow from 5% of all vehicles sold in U.S. in 2025 to 20% in 2030."

Contact Greg Gardner: 313-222-8762 or ggardner@freepress.com.

 

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Why did Hillary Clinton lie about her health?

 Getty Images

by Damon Linker
Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign just made a massive error. We'll know within the next few weeks if the error will prove to be catastrophic.

On Sunday, Clinton abruptly left a Manhattan ceremony marking the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A video shows her shakily stumbling while trying to get into a van to leave. The candidate's physician later offered this explanation: Clinton has had an allergy-related cough for some time, and during an examination on Friday, the Democratic nominee was diagnosed with pneumonia, put on antibiotics, and told to take time out to rest. She became overheated and dehydrated during Sunday morning's event, which led her to collapse. She's now home in Chappaqua and on the road to recovery.

Compare this timeline to details from Hillary Clinton's public schedule and behavior over these same two days.

After Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia and put on antibiotics, she did not, as her physician recommended, take time out to rest. Instead, she attended a fundraiser featuring Barbra Streisand. 

Then on Sunday morning, she attended the 9/11 commemoration, became "overheated," and woozily wobbled rather dramatically. Ninety minutes later she exited her daughter Chelsea's apartment building to tell the press she was "feeling great." The Secret Service permitted a young girl to come over to give the candidate a hug.

It was only a few hours later when her campaign finally announced that she has pneumonia and is recovering.

The most charitable reading of this timeline is that her campaign — presumably with the blessing and perhaps insistence of the candidate — fully intended to keep her illness a secret from the public. Let's be clear about what this means: Her campaign intended to lie. Even though doing so would require her to keep up a public schedule that might well make her condition worse and require ever-more elaborate forms of concealment. Because, of course, to curtail her schedule would raise questions that might reveal the truth.

So even after she collapsed, the campaign decided the ruse would continue. It arranged for the candidate to make her curbside declaration of wellness, even bringing on the girl to give her a "spontaneous" hug. (Clinton's protection detail would never have permitted a genuinely spontaneous embrace on the street, even by a child.)

It's easy to understand why the Clinton campaign would want to keep this kind of news a secret. The candidate doesn't trust the media. The right has been hitting her over supposed health issues for months (and even years), and the assault has picked up in intensity over the past week or so — since Clinton found herself in the midst of an extended coughing fit at a campaign event in Cleveland. Then there's the gender dynamic. Donald Trump presents himself as a hyper-masculine tough guy, while Clinton is the first female presidential nominee. The Clinton camp is probably twice as terrified of their candidate looking frail as a less path-breaking campaign would be.

So the campaign chose to lie. The potential reward was considerable: namely, an absence of politically damaging news stories about Clinton's medical condition. But the risk was enormous — and it's blown up in their faces. Because now the story isn't just that Clinton is ill. It's that, once again, she's untrustworthy — and this time about her own health.

That's why the announcement that she has pneumonia will only fuel more speculation about Clinton's physical condition, with potentially no end in sight. The world saw her collapse, and 90 minutes later, the candidate looked America in the eye and proclaimed that she was feeling great. Except now we know that she wasn't.

Not long after this charade, someone on the campaign staff made the call to come clean. But it may well have been too late.

The best the campaign can hope for now is that Clinton recovers quickly and soon looks healthy in her public appearances. Then maybe the topic will recede into the background of the campaign. The candidate got sick, but then she got better. End of story.

But if she doesn't recover quickly? If she appears weak and frail for more than a few days? Then, yes, she'll face perfectly reasonable questions about whether she's physically up to serving as president. 

But worse, she'll confront lingering doubts about what, precisely, is ailing her. "It's pneumonia," the campaign will proclaim over and over again. To which a skeptical America will justifiably reply, "Yes, we can tell that you'd like us to think so. But we have no reason to trust that's true."

Political trust is a fragile thing. Once it's gone, it's exceedingly difficult to get back — and without it, there's no basis on which to dismiss conspiracy theories that even normally level-headed observers will begin, for perfectly understandable reasons, to entertain.

Like so many of the scandals and pseudo-scandals that have dogged Hillary Clinton and her husband through the years, this one needs to be recognized as entirely self-inflicted. The campaign now has to live with the consequences of having chosen to lie to get out of a problem.