Arizona's new immigration law is an act of vengeance
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, April 27, 2010Arizona's draconian new immigration law is an abomination -- racist, arbitrary, oppressive, mean-spirited, unjust. About the only hopeful thing that can be said is that the legislation, which Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed Friday, goes so outrageously far that it may well be unconstitutional. Brewer, who caved to xenophobic pressures that previous governors had the backbone to resist, should be ashamed of herself. The law requires police to question anyone they "reasonably suspect" of being an undocumented immigrant -- a mandate for racial profiling on a massive scale. Legal immigrants will be required to carry papers proving that they have a right to be in the United States. Those without documentation can be charged with the crime of trespassing and jailed for up to six months. Activists for Latino and immigrant rights -- and supporters of sane governance -- held weekend rallies denouncing the new law and vowing to do everything they can to overturn it. But where was the Tea Party crowd? Isn't the whole premise of the Tea Party movement that overreaching government poses a grave threat to individual freedom? It seems to me that a law allowing individuals to be detained and interrogated on a whim -- and requiring legal residents to carry identification documents, as in a police state -- would send the Tea Partyers into apoplexy. Or is there some kind of exception if the people whose freedoms are being taken away happen to have brown skin and might speak Spanish? And what is the deal with Sen. John McCain? The self-proclaimed practitioner of "straight talk" was once a passionate advocate of sensible, moderate immigration reform. Now, facing a primary challenge from the right, he has praised the new law, which is as far from sensible and moderate as it could possibly be. Are six more years in the Senate really worth abandoning what seemed like bedrock principles? Or were those principles always situational? Let me interrupt this tirade to point out that while Arizona has unquestionably done the wrong thing, it is understandable that exasperated officials believed they had to do something. Immigration policy and border security are federal responsibilities, and Washington has failed miserably to address what Arizonans legitimately see as a crisis. Arizona has become the preferred point of entry for undocumented workers, and an estimated 460,000 are in the state -- settling down, or just passing through -- at any given time. I have driven down to the border and watched as authorities tried to pick out trucks and vans that might be transporting people without papers. I've spent a morning at the Mexican consulate in Phoenix, which is usually crowded with recent immigrants; only the most naive observer would think that all or even most of them were in the country legally. The influx imposes an unfair burden on the state, and for years Arizonans have implored federal officials to do…

 Blagojevich Lines Up Two More Defense Lawyers Lynne Marek
The National Law Journal
  Former Ill. Governor Rod Blagojevich  Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat who was ousted from office after federal corruption charges were lodged against him, has lined up two more of his three allotted attorneys and may seek approval of a fourth at next month's hearing before Judge James Zagel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

The ex-governor has hired the Chicago criminal defense lawyers Samuel F. Adam and his son Samuel E. Adam, said attorney Sheldon Sorosky, who has served as Blagojevich's lead attorney since the federal complaint was filed in December. U.S. v. Blagojevich, No. 08-888. The father-son team will count this as the first federal case they've worked on together, the younger Adam said. Last June, they won an acquittal for rhythm and blues singer R. Kelly, who was indicted in Cook County Circuit Court on 14 counts of producing child pornography.

Zagel ruled earlier this month that Blagojevich could use money from his frozen campaign fund to hire three defense attorneys, not the seven lawyers that he requested. The team will also hire Allan Ackerman if Zagel allows a fourth attorney, Sorosky and Adam said. Zagel suggested at the May hearing that he might allow for a fourth lawyer to oversee contract attorneys working on the evidence-heavy case. The judge said he wanted to know by June 1 who Blagojevich's lawyers would be.

Blagojevich, who was indicted in April on 16 counts of racketeering, fraud and other criminal acts, needs the court's approval on hiring lawyers because he doesn't have personal funds to pay for his defense. U.S. prosecutors earlier sought and were granted a court freeze on the $2.5 million in campaign funds that they allege are linked to the corruption scheme, but Zagel allowed the funds to be used to pay for the defense lawyers at the government-mandated $110 hourly rate because taxpayers would otherwise fund the lawyers anyway.

The biggest difficulty in attracting lawyers for the team has been in finding those who are willing to devote two years of full-time attention to this single case, Sorosky said. The junior Adam said he has started to wade through the 260 discs of information, each with about 45,000 pages, that the prosecutors have turned over. Adam will be full-time on the Blagojevich case after he wraps up two murder cases this summer, he said.

The other complication for the defense attorneys is footing the bill for the office and other administrative expenses tied to the case, Sorosky said. For now, the team will make its office in Chicago's Lawndale neighborhood on the third floor of a building the Adam attorneys own, above their two-floor office space. The case is not about money, but…

 Google boss: 50% of ads will go onlineAs business leaders gather ahead of the internet giant's Zeitgeist conference, Nikesh Arora speculates about the next 'big wave' in digital advertising  Nikesh Arora believes that the move online is a global trend  The amount of global advertising revenue spent online will increase by up to 50pc in the next five years, according to Nikesh Arora, Google's president of global sales and one of the most influential executives at the technology company.In a bullish interview ahead of the US company's annual Zeitgeist conference at The Grove, Hertfordshire, starting this evening, Mr Arora said the move online by consumers was the "major trend" that all companies had to understand.He also warned that many businesses were being left behind by the speed of change and that the $450bn (£309bn) advertising industry did not "fully understand" how to use the technological changes to their advantage."People are shifting their spending dollars more and more to the online world – whether it be direct marketing, or advertising, or branding. And that follows industrial marketing logic which is that you have to go where the eyeballs are, where the customers are."The next big wave will be consumers consuming more and more video on the web, and you will see more and more brand advertising and display advertising move to the web. "I personally expect in the next five to eight years 30pc to 50pc of advertising will be digital."That is a bold claim, but in the UK it is already over 20pc. In the US it is over 10pc. This video wave is going to tip the balance."Mr Arora will be hosting Zeitgeist, a conference which looks at the main trends in business. Speakers include Marcus Agius, chairman of Barclays; Dennis Turner, chief economist, HSBC; Howard Schultz, chairman and chief executive of Starbucks; and Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London.Larry Page, the founder of Google, and Eric Schmidt, the chief executive, will also speak.Mr Arora said that across the globe, businesses are "cautiously" looking towards growth after the financial collapse of 2008."In the last few months the panic and fear has subsided and people are moving towards business as usual, but they are somewhat cautious – they don't want to be caught," he said."We are seeing more and more economic activity spurred by technology. People are getting more global."Emerging markets in particular will see huge growth, he argues."The balance of trade is changing around the world," he said."The markets which used to be high-producing markets are now becoming both high-producing and consuming markets, which is a big shift. Technology will have a very important role to play in that development."It creates more and more equal access to information – both personal and commercial. Every time you have better information, you can make better decisions and make better judgments. Information is power."Mr Arora gave the example of fishermen in India who can now get SMS information on market prices while at sea and then decide which port to return…