Texas Tea Party takes on red light cameras, and $18-an-hour 'supporters'

The fight over traffic cameras in one Texas city has both sides seeing red - and hired protesters making $18 an hour.
Voters in Arlington, Texas, will head to the polls Saturday to decide whether red light cameras should stay or go, after a charter amendment was placed on the ballot that, if passed, would ban them. Tea Party leader Kelly Canon and another woman, Faith Bussey, spearheaded a petition drive last year to eliminate the cameras, claiming they are money-making machines that do little to deter drivers from running red lights.
Meanwhile, city officials, police officers and the camera company, American Traffic Solutions (ATS), argue the cameras are essential live-saving tools required at traffic spots.While the debate over red light cameras is an old one that spans several states, the situation in Arlington has taken a unusual twist.
A political action committee called, "Save Lives, Save the Cameras," hired a Cleveland, Ohio-based marketing firm to pay people $18 an hour to act as protesters against the amendment, according to Canon and others, including Arlington City Councilman Robert Rivera.
While the firm, Extreme Marketing and Promotions, declined to comment on their involvement, FoxNews.com obtained emails and archived Facebook posts from a firm employee, recruiting "sign holders" and "brand ambassadors" to get "a certain message across with holding signs, during the voting process."
The advertisement calls for candidates who are "outgoing and have high energy" and requires they wear khakis and a "solid nice white top."
"The marketing firm is trying to create an illusion of local support for the cameras," said Canon, who is vice president of the Arlington Tea Party. "You basically have a camera company trying to save their monetary hide. They are creating fake groups that they hide behind."
"This is a corporate money making enterprise trying to influence a campaign," added Rivera, who said he advocates more effective ways to ensure safety at intersections.
Canon, who said she received her first citation in January 2014 after making a right turn on red, claims the fines from the cameras do nothing to stop people from running red lights.
"We don't see it as a safety measure," said Canon. "The cameras can't prove who is driving and the cameras can’t stop an accident from happening."

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Kelly Canon, above, vice president of the Arlington Tea Party, spearheaded a petition drive along with friend Faith Bussey to ban red light cameras from the city.

During the midterm elections last year, Canon and Bussey set up their petition drive outside voting precincts and collected 11,405 signatures -- well over the 9,300 needed to get their charter amendment on the ballot.Canon said her initiative was given momentum by activists successful in banning the red light cameras in other Texas cities, like Conroe, Dayton, Houston, Baytown, League City and College Station. She and Bussey are now part of a PAC, "Citizens For a Better Arlington," that formed late last year.

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Email on right provided instructions to those willing to protest in favor of red light cameras, say Tea Party activists.

Under the traffic camera system in Texas, drivers who run a red light are fined $75 for the initial infraction and then a $25 late fee if the money is not paid within 30 days.
"On the copy of the late notice it says, 'If you don’t pay it, we will turn it over to a collection agency,'" claimed Canon. "But we came to find out -- by looking at state law -- that a credit agency cannot touch your credit report for the failure of your payment for a civil penalty."
The address for the "Save Lives, Same the Cameras" PAC is a UPS storefront in north Arlington. Canon and others said the PAC missed the deadline to report its finances, making it difficult to confirm who is funding it.
ATS spokesman Charles Territo said in an e-mail the company supports the efforts of "Save Lives, Save the Cameras," but directed questions about the campaign and its activities to the PAC itself.
Jody Weiderman, spokesman for Save Lives, Save the Cameras, told FoxNews.com, "All too often in these debates those who get tickets for red-light running act like they are the victims. The real victims of red-light running are the families and loved ones of those injured or killed in red-light running related collisions.
"The fact of the matter is that there have been zero fatalities at any of the intersections with cameras in Arlington since red-light safety cameras have been deployed."
Police officers in Arlington say they are opposed to the removal of the red light cameras.
The cameras have reduced accidents up to 75 percent at some intersections and revenue from the cameras heavily funds the city's DWI unit, according to ABC affiliate WFAA.
If the cameras were removed, "It would be a huge impact on the Arlington police department," Arlington Police Sgt. Becki Brandenburg told the station. "We would no longer have a DWI unit."
"I think we'll have an increase in DWI's, DWI accidents, and DWI fatalities," said Brandenburg, who is president of the Arlington Police Association.
ATS states on its website that, "A crash caused by a driver who runs a red light is more likely to result in serious injury or death."

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Voters in Arlington are seen signing the anti-camera petition started by Canon and Bussey.

The site also posts testimonials from law enforcement officials around the country touting the effectiveness of red light cameras.
"When asked if we still need this program, the majority of people still said yes. And I notice when I am on the road that, even at the intersections where there are no cameras, more people are approaching those intersections more cautiously," the site quotes a Florida sheriff as saying.
Still, Canon claims the system is flawed and designed to rake in as much revenue as possible.
"I’m very confident this amendment is going to pass," she said.

Aide to California AG, 2 others accused of running 'masonic' police force

An aide to California Attorney General Kamala Harris has been arrested along with two others for allegedly operating an illegitimate "police department" that traces its origins to the Knights Templar.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department announced that the three suspects were taken into custody last week on suspicion of impersonating police officers through their roles in the so-called Masonic Fraternal Police Department.
Among them is Brandon Kiel, 36, who has worked as deputy director of community affairs at the California Department of Justice -- which is led by Harris, also a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. Kiel was arrested on suspicion of misusing his government ID.
A spokeswoman at the department told FoxNews.com on Wednesday that Kiel is now on administrative leave.
"We cannot comment on the ongoing personnel matter or criminal investigation," the spokeswoman said in an email.
The Masonic Fraternal Police Department, while not a recognized law enforcement arm, maintains it has existed for 3,000 years and claims jurisdiction in 33 states and Mexico.
The Los Angeles Times reported that suspicions about the group's presence in California were aroused when local police chiefs got a letter in January announcing its new leadership. A man claiming to be Kiel reportedly called law enforcement agencies to schedule meetings.
According to the Times, investigators found badges, weapons and other law enforcement materials when they searched two sites. Also arrested were Tonette Hayes, 56, and David Henry, 46.
The group's website claims it is linked to the ancient Knights Templar.
The site says: "When asked what is the difference between The Masonic Fraternal Police Department and other Police Departments the answer is simple for us. We were here first!" It claims to be part of a special jurisdiction located with Santa Clarita, Calif. -- while stressing they are not part of the "sovereign citizens" movement.

At least 12 injured in Oklahoma City as tornadoes sweep through Plains

OKLAHOMA CITY –  Authorities are set to survey the damage that was left behind after tornadoes swept through the southern plains, overturning cars and destroying dozens of homes near Oklahoma City Wednesday night.
At least 12 people were injured, but no deaths were immediately reported from the twisters that also whipped through rural parts of Texas, Kansas and Nebraska. 
"We'll have much better picture of how widespread the damage is when the sun comes up tomorrow," meteorologist Forrest Mitchell with the National Weather Service in Norman said.
The Oklahoma City area seemed to be the hardest hit. A twister destroyed homes in Grady County and it appeared another tornado touched down in the area later Wednesday when a second storm came through.
"We do strongly think there was a tornado on the south side of Oklahoma City," meteorologist Michael Scotten said after the second storm that hit around 8:40 p.m.
The stormed flipped vehicles over vehicles on Interstate 35 and left power lines strewn across the roadway, Scrotten said.
Lara O’Leary, a spokeswoman for Emergency Medical Services Authority, said late Wednesday that the company transported 12 patients from a trailer park in south Oklahoma City to local hospitals. She did not give further details about the extent of the patients’ injuries.
Grady County Emergency Management Director Dale Thompson said about 10 homes were destroyed in Amber and 25 were destroyed in Bridge Creek. As the storm moved to the east, forecasters declared a tornado emergency for Moore, where seven children were among 24 people killed in a tornado disaster two years ago. When the first storm hit Wednesday, school districts held their pupils in safe places.
At Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, people were twice evacuated into a tunnel outside the security zone. Flights were canceled for the rest of Wednesday evening shortly after 10 p.m. local time.

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Clinton calls for path to 'full and equal citizenship' for illegal immigrants

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LAS VEGAS –  Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that any immigration overhaul must include a path to "full and equal citizenship," drawing a sharp contrast with Republicans who have promoted providing a legal status or blocked efforts in Congress to address the nation's immigration system.
"This is where I differ with everybody on the Republican side. Make no mistake, not a single Republican ... is clearly and consistently supporting a path to citizenship. Not one," Clinton said, adding, "When they talk about legal status, that is code for second-class status."
Clinton's remarks during her first campaign stop in Nevada underscored Democrats' efforts to box-in Republican presidential candidates who have opposed a comprehensive bill including a pathway to citizenship. Congressional Republicans have said the changes must be made incrementally, beginning with stronger border security.
The issue of immigration resonates with many Hispanic Americans, who backed President Barack Obama by wide margins over Republican Mitt Romney in 2012 and helped the president's re-election campaign capture several hard-fought swing states, including Florida, Colorado and Nevada.
Clinton's pitch to Latino voters came as two of her potential Republican rivals, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, have courted Hispanics and talked about ways to overhaul the immigration system while opposing Obama's executive actions last year to shield millions of immigrants from deportation.
Obama's executive actions loom large in the immigration debate. The orders included the expansion of a program protecting young immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Another provision extended deportation protections to parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have been in the country for several years.
Twenty-six states, including Nevada, have sued to block the plan, and a New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals panel heard arguments on the challenges last month. A ruling is pending.
Clinton, the leading Democrat in the presidential race, said she supported Obama's executive actions and said she would "defend" them against Republican opposition while seeking ways to expand them if elected president. Her message was aimed at so-called Dreamers, young people who have been protected from deportation by Obama's executive actions.
"I don't understand how anyone can look at these young people and think that we should break up more families or turn away young people with talent," she said. "So I will fight for comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship."
Clinton also said she was worried about the use of family detention centers to hold women and children caught up in the immigration system, which activists have said is inhumane.
Her framing of the immigration debate has been closely watched by Latinos and immigration advocates as Obama has struggled to pass reform legislation through Congress.
For Clinton, "the $64 million question is will she continue the executive actions," said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.
Clinton has been tripped up by immigration policy before. During the 2008 primaries, she initially vacillated on and then opposed allowing immigrants living in the U.S. illegally to obtain driver's licenses. Her campaign said last month she now supports state policies that allow driver's licenses under those circumstances. Last fall, some young Hispanics heckled her at a few campaign events, urging her to pressure Obama to issue the executive orders.
Preparing for a debate over immigration, Republicans have sought to portray Clinton as opportunistic on the issue.
"Obviously she's pretty good at pandering and flipping and flopping and doing and saying anything she needs to say," Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said during an event with Hispanic Republicans in Denver.
After campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire, Clinton made her first visit to Nevada since announcing her campaign last month. The state holds an early contest on the Democratic primary calendar and is expected to be a general election battleground with Republicans. Clinton won the 2008 Democratic caucuses there, but Obama came away with a slight edge in the number of delegates because of his strength in rural areas.
Later Tuesday, Clinton attended a suburban Las Vegas fundraiser hosted by Brian Greenspun, a college classmate of her husband, former President Bill Clinton. He also is the chairman of Greenspun Media, which publishes the Las Vegas Sun.
Clinton is scheduled to spend the rest of the week in California at fundraisers in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.

Huckabee announces 2016 White House bid, with focus on economy and security

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee announced Tuesday he is running for president, delivering an economy- and security-centered message that he hopes will appeal to everyday Americans and distinguish him from the already-crowded Republican field.
Huckabee, who is embarking on his second presidential run, made the announcement in his hometown of Hope, Ark. In a 30-minute speech that focused on his humble beginnings, Huckabee vowed to end “stagnant wages,” protect Medicare and defeat radical Islamic terrorism.
“Folks cannot seem to get ahead or even stay even,” he said.
Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, ran for president in 2008, winning eight states including the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses before running out of money and exiting the race.
“Folks, it’s a long way from a little brick rented house on Second Street in Hope, Arkansas, to the White House,” he said. "But here in this small town called Hope, I was raised to believe where a person started didn't mean that is where he had to stop. I always believed that kid could go from hope to higher ground."
The 59-year-old Huckabee has a strong following among the party’s evangelical Christian base but this time will face stiff competition for that vote from such primary candidates as Dr. Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas.
He frequently repeated the phrase, “Hope to higher ground,” which appears to be a slogan of sorts for his 2016 campaign.
He also took a swipe at President Obama for declining to recognize the Islamic State group as radical Islamic terrorists and vowed to stop them.
"I wonder if he can watch a Western from the '50s and be able to figure out who the good guy and the bad guys really are," Huckabee said. "As president, I promise you, we will no longer try to contain Jihadism. We will conquer it.”
He also vowed to protect Medicare and give states more of a say in government and education.
Huckabee, who left his job as a Fox News host earlier this year in preparation for a potential 2016 run, was Arkansas governor from 1996 to 2007, serving after Bill Clinton, who also is from Hope. And he was the state’s lieutenant governor from 1993 to 1996.
Even before the speech, Huckabee was trying to position himself as the GOP candidate best equipped to defeat Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner.
In a recent campaign video, Huckabee argued that in his more than 10 years as governor, he took on Democrats in "Bill Clinton's Arkansas" after then-candidate Bill Clinton won election to the White House in 1992.
"Every day in my life in politics was a fight," Huckabee says in the video, released as a preview of his Tuesday announcement. "But any drunken redneck can walk into a bar and start a fight. A leader only starts a fight he's prepared to finish."
The field of confirmed and potential GOP presidential candidates includes more than a dozen people.
A new NBC/ Wall Street Journal poll of GOP primary voters shows 23 percent picked former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as their first choice.
Bush is followed in the poll by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio with 18 percent, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker with 14 percent, Cruz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul with 11 percent, Carson with 7 percent, Huckabee and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 5 percent, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry at 2 percent and former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina at 1 percent.
Huckabee is the third Republican this week to announce a 2016 White House bid, following Fiorina and Carson, a retired neurosurgeon They join Cruz, Paul and Rubio.
Campaign aides say Huckabee’s path to winning the party nomination this time will be to appeal to working-class cultural conservatives, pitching their candidate as an economic populist and foreign affairs hawk who holds deeply conservative views on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage.
Huckabee advocates a national consumption tax, which is similar to a sales tax, to replace the existing federal taxes on personal income and payrolls. He rejects calls for a minimum wage hike, saying his proposals will yield a "maximum wage" for workers.
On immigration, he insists on a secure border and bemoans the presence of millions of people who are living in the country illegally, though he favors a creating a path to citizenship for children of immigrant parents who brought them to the U.S. illegally.
Like other Republican White House hopefuls, Huckabee is sharply critical of Obama's foreign policy. He has called for "bombing the daylights" out of Islamic State targets in the Middle East, though he says American troops should be deployed to the region only as part of an international coalition that includes nations such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
But whatever the issue, Huckabee, also an author, wraps his appeal as a pitch to everyday Americans who he says "don't feel like anybody understands or knows who they are, much less cares what's happening to them."
Evangelical Christian voters helped Huckabee win the Iowa caucuses in 2008 and finish a strong second in South Carolina, the largest of the early-voting states.
He would need to replicate that early success to create an opening to build a wider coalition and compete deep into the primary schedule.

California regulators approve unprecedented water cutbacks to combat drought

California regulators approved sweeping, unprecedented restrictions Tuesday on how people, governments and businesses can use water amid the state’s ongoing drought in the hope of enticing residents to conserve more water.
The State Water Resources Control Board approved rules forcing cities to limit watering on public property, encouraging homeowners to let their lawns die and imposing mandatory water-savings targets for hundreds of local agencies and cities that supply water to California customers.
Gov. Jerry Brown sought to tighten the already strict regulations, arguing that voluntary conservation efforts have not yielded the water savings needed amid a four-year drought. Brown ordered water agencies to cut urban water use by 25 percent from levels in 2013, the year before the drought emergency was declared.
"It is better to prepare now than face much more painful cuts should it not rain in the fall," board Chairwoman Felicia Marcus said Tuesday as the panel voted 5-0 to approve the new rules
Although the rules are called mandatory, it’s still unclear what punishment the state water board and local agencies will impose for those who do not meet the targets. Board officials expect dramatic water savings as soon as June and are willing to add even more penalties for those who do not meet the targets.
However, the board lacks the staff to oversee each of the hundreds of water agencies, which range dramatically in size and scope. Some local agencies tasked with achieving savings do not have the resources to issue tickets to waste water.
It is also unclear whether Californians have grasped the seriousness of the state’s drought situation and the need for conservation. Data released by the board Tuesday showed that Californians conserved little water in March, and local officials were not aggressive in cracking down on waste.
Under the new rules, each city must cut water use by as much as 36 percent compared with 2013. Some local water departments have called the proposal unrealistic and unfair, arguing that achieving steep cuts could cause higher water bills and declining property values. Critics also say it could dissuade projects to develop drought-proof water technology.
Representatives of San Diego-area water agencies have been especially critical of the water targets, noting that the region has slashed consumption and agencies have spent $3.5 billion to prepare for dry periods after facing severe cuts in earlier droughts.
"San Diego has lived the horror of what the state is going through right now," Mark Weston, the board chairman of the San Diego County Water Authority, told state regulators Tuesday.
After a 10-hour hearing that included more than 5 hours of public testimony, the water board again on Tuesday rejected calls to create easier targets for communities in drier areas or for cities that have been conserving since before the drought.
Private water utilities and local water departments would lose a total of about $1 billion in revenue through lost water sales if they failed to meet the set goals, an economic analysis of the water board’s proposal estimated.
Residents and businesses use less than a fifth of the water withdrawn from the state's surface and groundwater supplies. Farms in the state's agricultural heartland have had deliveries from government reservoir systems slashed and some have been ordered to stop diverting water that is normally available to them from streams and rivers.
Brown said last week he would push for legislation boosting authorizing fines of up to $10,000 for extreme wasters of water, but he needs legislative approval to do so, and no bill has been introduced. Another tool -- tiered pricing, in which the price rises as water use goes up -- is in question after a court struck down water rates designed to encourage conservation in San Juan Capistrano in Orange County.

Feds were investigating Texas gunman at time of cartoon contest attack

Federal authorities were investigating one of the gunmen involved in Sunday's attack on a Texas cartoon contest featuring images of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, as counterterrorism investigators worked to determine whether the men had any formal ties to the Islamic State terror group.
A federal law enforcement official told the Associated Press that authorities had an open investigation into Elton Simpson at the time of the shooting, in which Simpson and his roommate Nadir Soofi wounded a security guard before being killed by a Garland, Texas police officer. The official was not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
It has previously been reported that Simpson was on investigators' radar because of his social media presence. A final tweet from an account linked to Simpson was posted about 20 minutes before the attack and said: "May Allah accept us as mujahideen," or holy warriors. Among the hashtags used by the account was "#texasattack."
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Tuesday that authorities had been tracking that Twitter account. He also said that the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI had issued a joint intelligence bulletin to local law enforcement April 20 warning that the Garland event was a possible target for a terrorist attack. The bulletin said that social media accounts linked to extremists had been focusing on the contest.
McCaul said that the bulletin had resulted in increased security around the event. According to mainstream Islamic tradition, any physical depiction of the Prophet Muhammad — even a respectful one — is considered blasphemous.
The Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, claimed responsibility for the attack in an audio statement Tuesday. The statement on the extremist group's Syria-based Al Bayan radio station called the men "two soldiers of the caliphate."
McCaul said Tuesday that the evidence does not indicate the attack was directed by the Islamic State group, "but rather inspired by them ... This is the textbook case of what we're most concerned about."
However, a counterterrorism source told Fox News Tuesday that data mining in the wake of the Texas attack has revealed a striking connection between at least one of the gunmen and established twitter handled overseas, suggesting that ISIS operatives had knowledge of the attack beforehand, and that the same fighters mentored or encouraged at least one of the shooters.  
Within several hours of the attack, the source said, established ISIS twitter handles had "timely knowledge of the attack," suggesting foreknowledge of the plot. Those handles included a British jihadi in Syria who does not tweet on a regular basis, yet praised both gunmen within an hour of the shooting.
A second established ISIS Twitter handle suggested he had been in contact with one of the shooters prior to the attack, using phrases suggesting that he tried to reach the attacker but just missed him. The source said the social media appeared to show encouragement and mentoring.
The law enforcement official told AP investigators will be studying the contacts Simpson and Soofi had prior to the shooting, both with associates in the U.S. and abroad, to determine any terror-related ties.
The families of Simpson and Soofi say they were shocked by what happened and never saw any signs that either of them was capable of such violence.
Simpson, who was born in Illinois, was arrested in 2010 after being the focus of a four-year terror investigation. But despite amassing more than 1,500 hours of recorded conversations, including Simpson's discussions about fighting nonbelievers for Allah and plans to link up with "brothers" in Somalia, the government prosecuted him on only one minor charge — lying to a federal agent. He was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay $600 in fines and court fees.
It's unclear at what point in his life Simpson turned radical, nor was it immediately clear when or how he met Soofi.
Soofi did not appear to leave as big an online footprint as Simpson. However, , according to a Facebook account that has now been disabled, the 34-year-old had a longstanding hatred of police and had studied overseas in Pakistan.
Soofi, who was born in the Dallas area, was an undergraduate pre-medicine major at the University of Utah from fall of 1998 to the summer of 2003, said university spokeswoman Maria O'Mara. She said he did not earn a degree.
Utah court records show Soofi had several brushes with police during his time in the state. He pleaded to possession of alcohol by a minor, alcohol-related reckless driving and driving on a suspended license in 2001, court records show, and misdemeanor assault the following year.