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April 25, 2006
9:13 pm

"We Can Make Them Go Home On Their Own!

Neal Boortz, a Libertarian usually comes up with some good workable logical solutions based on law since he is an attorney. From my perspective these sound pretty good especially to force registration compliance for visting worker programs which in NO WAY amounts to amnesty.

Live embedded links.

"WE CAN MAKE THEM GO HOME ON THEIR OWN!

Source Boortz.com

"President Bush is now on record as saying that a massive deportation of illegal aliens in this country just wouldn't work. OK, so he didn't call them "illegal aliens." He used the "immigrant" word. That doesn't work for me. Immigration is a legal procedure. Rushing across the border without permission is not immigration. It's trespassing at best, an invasion at worse. But .. we digress. Bush has now told Republicans that "massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic. It's just not going to work."

He may be right. I've said it before right here. If we started loading these criminals onto busses and airplanes and tried sending them back to Mexico, the Mexican government would simply deny permission for those busses to cross the border and for those airplanes to fly into Mexican airspace. The United Nations would then immediately start screaming about massive human rights abuses on the part of the U.S. Forced repatriation with Mexico for the invaders is simply not going to work.

Before we get to a plan that would work, let's review the problem.

Since 1990 an estimated 25 million Latinos have crossed the Mexican - American border .... northbound. The reason you keep hearing the 11 million figure is because the other 13 to 14 million were given amnesty during the mid-1990s.

Mexicans have come to view crossing the border into the United States in order to work and send money back home as a way of life. According to an AP article by Mark Stevenson (4/23/06) "Mexico's economy, society and political system are built around the assumption that migration and amnesties for undocumented migrants will continue -- and that the $20 billion they send home every year will keep coming, and almost certainly grow."

Stevenson also reports that Mexicans -- the ones actually living in Mexico -- are giving their babies American names like Johnny and Leslie so that they will fit in better once they've moved to the United States.

Vicente Fox, Mexico's president, considers the illegal aliens to be "heroes." Why? Because they send those tens of millions of dollars back to their families, thus, at least to some extent, relieving Fox of the necessity of tackling corruption in the Mexican government and reforming the Mexican economy so that these people can earn that money there instead of invading the United States to get work.

And please don't forget our friend, Professor Charles Truxillo of the University of New Mexico. Professor Truxillo says that there will be a new, sovereign Hispanic nation formed within the United States and northern Mexico in the not-too-distant future. The good professor says that this new nation, called "Republica del Norte" will take in all of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and southern Colorado, as well as several northern Mexican states. How will this all happen? Truxillo says it will come as a result of electoral pressure of the "future majority Hispanic population in the region."

You think it can't happen? Well, could you please tell me, then, why Mexican magazines are publishing articles praising the exploits of the "reconquistadors" while politely informing American citizens "with all due respect, Los Angeles is ours?"

Now, back to the president's remarks. As it happens, I agree. We aren't prepared to handle the reaction from Latin America and the howls of protest from the United Nations if we actually try to gather up these invaders and send them back from whence they came. There is, however, another way. Let me lay it out for you step-by-step.

1. Close the borders. Not next month. Now. Send the National Guard. Send American troops. What are they for if not to defend the borders of this country? Start stringing the barbed wire. Patrol with dogs. Do whatever needs to be done, but shut the border down. Let the rest of the world scream, but we have every right to defend our borders against invaders.
2. Immediately pass legislation providing for harsh penalties for any and all businesses and individuals who hire illegal aliens. No half-measures. Make it hurt. Last week immigration officials arrested over 1000 illegal aliens working for one company that makes pallets and shipping crates. The officers of that company should be headed to jail, and the company should be seized by the government and sold at auction with the proceeds being used to pay for securing our border. Put employers in jail --- take their stuff. Let them know that this is serious and that hiring illegal aliens is tantamount to giving aid and comfort to the enemy. The hell with their campaign contributions. Fine them and jail them. Make 'em scream. As for getting these jobs done? Pay a wage that will attract Americans. It won't hurt. The majority of people working in agriculture and construction in this country are citizens. They'll do the work. Spreading pine straw may be a problem.
3. Heavily tax all wire and other transfers of money from illegal aliens to their homelands. If Mexico is getting $20 billion a year from illegal aliens in the U.S., seize about 30% of it. Call it a fine. That $7 billion could also be spent on border and immigration control.
4. Change the law so that any child born to a person in this country illegally does not automatically become an American citizen. That child will adopt the citizenship of its mother.
5. Put an end to providing all but emergency social services to illegal aliens. No food stamps, no welfare benefits, no access to taxpayer-funded government schools ... no taxpayer-funded government services except for life saving medical care.

Enact those proposals, and what would we have? Those who have already illegally crossed the border will have one helluva time finding work in this country. No trabajo, no dinero. If they do find work they'll have another problem sending the money they earned back home. So .. they're here with no job, no prospect of finding a job, and no way to send their money back to Mexico without a heavy fine if they do happen to find work. Plus, they can't tap into the great American welfare state. What is there left to do? Go home! That's about it! And please notice that this is all accomplished without passing any laws making the illegals felons or threatening to deport them or put them in jail.

I heard of one other possible solution recently ... one that is apparently being given some consideration in Washington. Simply pass a law about illegal immigration that matches, word-for-word, the law in Mexico. Being in Mexico illegally is a crime, yet Mexico screams when we try to criminalize illegal aliens in this country. If our law read exactly the same as does theirs, what are they going to say? "

http://boortz.com/nuze/200604/04252006.html#aliens

2 Comments

Entry #276

April 25, 2006
11:51 am

.... Spiritual Information from Hopi Indians

This is strictly metaphysical information so if you have an aversion to that type thing please skip over it.

I found this article to provide a very clear synopsis of earth changes we've been going through the past few years based on ancient timetables and tribal predictioins. At the very least it provides some interesting things to ponder, and as always good information is about claiming your own power to decide what is the truth for yourself.

Since the concept of time as we know it is measured by a series of events I've been aware for a number of years it has sped up, but this is the first article I've read stating just how much.

"Hopi Elders Say Earth Changes Are Upon Us
"A BIT OF SPIRITUAL INFORMATION FROM THE HOPI INDIANS

by Simon Hunt

Source Kryon In The Spirit Magazine March 20, 2006

"During the past week there have been a few events that deserve our attention, thought, and examination.

In an unprecedented and totally unexpected way, Hopi Elders for the first time in history have openly shared their sacred, and heretofore secret prophecies with the world. Robert Ghost Wolf, noted Native American Prophet and author arranged for two Hopi Elders to appear for three hours on the nationally aired Art Bell show (out of Pahrump, NV) and freely discuss their sacred, and heretofore secret prophecies.
It has been said by many who have had limited access to the prophecies in the past, that the Hopi prophecies of the coming earth changes are among the most ancient and accurate available.

The Elders have come forth at this time because they believe that we have passed the point of no return and major changes are imminent, beginning within the next few months.

It is their hope to "soften" the effects by appealing to all to return to a simpler, more spiritual way of life.

Last month at Spiritual Endeavors (and returning again this coming month) noted author, environmentalist, and channeler, Rev. Fred Sterling carried much the same message. Rev. Sterling emphasized that "The Great Shift" has already begun.

It is happening now. In other related recent events, Gordon Michael Scallion, Robert Ghost Wolf, and other modern day prophets began predicting major Earth Changes, especially noticeable in the state of California among other places, beginning this summer. And now the Hopi Elders have gone on national radio with the same message.

So, the Earth is changing? The Great Shift is upon us? What is one to do? I offer the following in reply.

First of all, if you are in denial - get over it. Open up your eyes. Take a look around.

How's the weather in your neck of the woods?

Perhaps it's a little different than it's ever been for your locality?

Try to find out what's really going on. You won't find out by watching Hard Copy, or even the Evening News. Try Nexus magazine at your newsagent. Read back copies.

You'll have to get away from the latest political scandal of who is sleeping with whom and dig just a little deeper to find the things of real importance.

Did you know that tornadoes have been spotted, for the first time in history, that are spinning the wrong way?

Did you know that there are places in Mexico where the ground temperature is heating up in excess of 200 degrees?

Did you know that during a seven day period in early June there were 772 earthquakes recorded on the California - Nevada border near Mammoth Lake? (Gordon Michele Scallion and others are predicting a volcanic eruption there this summer.)

Did you know that on May 31st, the jet stream (an extremely fast wind current that flows through the upper atmosphere) touched ground for the first time in recorded history?

Did you know that all over North America, migratory birds have stopped returning to their nesting grounds? And that salmon are no longer returning to their spawning grounds? And indigenous tribes throughout the world have stopped having children?

OK, so much for denial.

Once you accept that change is happening, LET GO OF FEAR.

Realize that it is a time of change and not necessarily a time of fear. Fear clouds good judgement and put heavy blocks between the inner intuition, which will be so important during this time, and your conscious mind. The earth changing will not kill you; it changes all the time! But fear, denial, and not being open to your Inner -Self and your intuition may.

Once accepted, and FEAR IS NOT AN ISSUE, investigate.

Learn all you can about what is happening. The Internet can be an invaluable tool here. Through the Internet, you'll be able to discover what you'll never hear on the six o'clock news. You will no longer be at the mercy of news programs governed and determined by entertainment ratings.

When one steps out from under the umbrella of mainstream media and begins to learn what is really happening in the world, there is often the tendency towards anger.

"Why hasn't anyone told me this before?"
"Why isn't this on the News?"
"There's a conspiracy going on to keep us in the dark!"

My advice here is to let it pass. Finding out who's responsible and the inner workings of the government or large conglomerations is a tangent that will not only waste your time, but probably lead you into deeper anger and fear and further away from love and truth.

Instead, take the path advised by the Hopi Elders and offered to the world on June 15 over national radio.

Rediscover your spirituality! "If you change now, and change your life around, it will help in the alleviation of much of the terrible outcome from the cataclysms. There is a lot in store for all of us. And the intensity of this will be a lot less if we can all settle down and behave, and not be in the actions that we are right now."

The Hopi Elder went on to explain that it makes no difference whether your spirituality falls in line with an organized philosophy or religion, or if it is something that you have come up with and practice on your own.
"Practice your spirituality, whatever it may be, like you have never practiced it before." And realize that your consciousness affects the outcome.

Your consciousness effects everything.

Realize that your thoughts, words and actions of today contribute to what the world will be like tomorrow. There you have it.

Four easy steps to surviving the earth changes and all the prophecies.
1. Keep your eyes open.
2. Let go of fear.
3. Learn all you can.
4. Live your spirituality.
It all sounds pretty simple. It almost sounds like it could even be fun. And that's a very important point to keep in mind. Fun. True spirituality is fun. Very big fun. Joy is probably a better word; bliss perhaps even better. If your spiritual path is not leading you on a path of joy, I would suggest that it's perhaps time to start shopping around. I have come to the understanding (and it has taken a lot of sorrow to get here) that experiencing joy is the most spiritual thing that one can do in the course of their day.

Joy is infectious. It changes and charges the very air that you walk through. It lightens the hearts of those around you. And in these troubled times I can think of no better healing energy to saturate the Earth with. Joy! Why not take a few moments during each day just to pause and think of something that makes you very happy? Try it. You'll like it.

It might even become a habit.

Well, I guess there's only one more point that need to be addressed here. It's usually the position adopted by most skeptics and those in denial as a justification for their position.

"What if the Hopi Elders are wrong?" "What if Gordon Michael Scallion, Robert Ghost Wolf, Edgar Cayce, and all those other modern day prophets are wrong?"

"What if the weather changes back to the way it has been in the past?"

"What if the birds, and the fish and babies come back?"

"What if there are no big earth changes?"

"What if absolutely nothing happens at all?"

To this I can only reply, "Wouldn't that be nice?"

We'd all be able to breathe a collective sigh of relief and joy, take a look around at the Heaven we've created here on Earth, and take great satisfaction in the fact that we didn't have to go through Hell to get there.

Yes indeed, "WOULDN'T THAT BE NICE?"

2012 Unlimited philosophy

1. Humanity and Planet Earth are currently going through a huge change shift in consciousness and reality perception.

2. The Mayan civilization of Central America was and is the most advanced in relation to time-science knowledge. Their main calendar is the most accurate on the planet. It has never erred. They actually have 22 calendars in total, covering the many timing cycles in the Universe and Solar System. Some of these calendars are yet to be revealed.

3. The Mayan fifth world finished in 1987. The sixth world starts in 2012.
So we are currently "between worlds". This time is called the "Apocalypse" or revealing. This means the real truth will be revealed. It is also the time for us to work through "our stuff" individually and collectively.

4. The Mayan sixth world is actually blank. This means it is up to us, as
co-creators, to start creating the new world and civilization we want now.

5. The Mayans also say that by 2012- we will have gone beyond technology, as we know it. We will have gone beyond time and money. We will have entered the fifth dimension after passing through the fourth dimension Planet Earth and the Solar System will come into galactic synchronization with the rest of the Universe. Our DNA will be "upgraded" (or reprogrammed) from the centre of our galaxy. (Hunab Ku) "Everbody on this planet is mutating. Some are more conscious of it than others. But everyone is doing it" -

6. In 2012 the plane of our Solar System will line up exactly with the plane of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. This cycle has taken 26,000 years to complete. Virgil Armstrong also says that two other galaxies will line up with ours at the same time. A cosmic event!

7. Time is actually speeding up (or collapsing). For thousands of years the Schumann Resonance or pulse (heartbeat) of Earth has been 7.83 cycles per second, The military have used this as a very reliable reference. However, since 1980 this resonance has been slowly rising. It is now over 12 cycles per second! This mean there is the equivalent of less than 16 hours per day instead of the old 24 hours. Another interpretation is, we, or rather Consciousness have been down this same road seven times before over the last 16 billion years. Each of these cycles of Creation runs 20 times faster than the last one. The same amount of Creation is paced 20 times tighter. This is why time seems to be going so fast. It is not "time" but Creation itself that is accelerating.

8. During the Apocalypse or the time "between worlds" many people will be going through many personal changes. The changes will be many and varied. It is all part of what we came here to learn or experience. Examples of change could be- relationships coming to an end, change of residence or location, change of job or work, shift in attitude or thinking etc.

9. Remember, in any given moment we are making small and large decisions. Each decision is based on LOVE or FEAR. Choose love, follow your intuition, not intellect and follow your passion or "burning inner desire." Go with the flow.

10. Thought forms are very important and affect our everyday life. We create our reality with thought forms. If we think negative thoughts of others this is what we attract. If we think positive thoughts, we will attract positive people and events.
So be aware of your thoughts and eliminate the unnecessary negative or judgmental ones.

11. Be aware that most of the media is controlled by just a few. Use discernment! Look for the hidden agendas. Why is this information being presented to you? What is "their" real agenda? Is it a case of problem reaction solution? Do "they" create a problem so that "we" react and ask for a fix, then "they" offer their solution? The "solution is what "they" really wanted in the first place.

12. Remember , almost nothing happens by accident. Almost all "events" are planned by some agency or other. Despite this, it is a very exciting time to be alive!"

http://www.kryon.com/inspiritmag/articles/index.html

6 Comments

Entry #275

April 25, 2006
10:46 am

"Climate Change's Gravy Train

"Climate Change's Gravy Train

By Peter C. Glover

Source Tech Central Station Daily

"In an open letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, 60 leading scientists called upon him to "re-visit the science on global warming and review the policies inherited from his leftwing predecessor." Referring to Kyoto as "pointless," the letter not only questioned the science of climate change, it also cites as a greater threat the billions of dollars that are to be wasted on associated research and development -- an outgrowth of that self-same science.

Questioning the justification for this R&D will not only attract the ire of researchers on the gravy train, it threatens the sources of fodder for scare-mongers in the mainstream media. Indeed, had 60 scientists written urging almost anything else, it would have, no doubt, received widespread coverage. But this open letter was marked by an almost deafening media silence in the US, UK and elsewhere.

Richard Lindzen, Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) asks a pertinent question: "How can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into claims about future catastrophes? The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism."

Lindzen goes on to identify how the doom-mongers in both the science research community and media have a "vested interest" in "hyping" the "political stakes for policymakers who provide more funds for more science research to feed more alarm. "After all", Lindzen wonders, "who puts money into science -- whether for AIDS, or space, or climate -- where there is nothing really alarming"?

Lindzen himself knows a thing or two about science research funding. The faculty at MIT has recently suffered cuts. The physics department was only able to accept 25 students this year -- down from 50 last year. And two MIT contracts with NASA -- which PhD candidates rely on to pay for their work -- have been trimmed by 91 percent. During 2005 two research workers turned down funding at MIT to work in Europe where funding is currently less of struggle. But he plainly does not allow this to cloud his opinion on the science.

Even though the US still spends more than any other country on scientific research, federal research funds more generally are currently flat or declining in many areas. But the National Institutes of Health saw its budget double between 1998 and 2003. Still, this year saw the Congress approve the first NIH budget cut since 1970. The National Science Foundation received only a modest increase to its massive $5.6 billion budget. (The usual response from science advocates squaring up to warn of the US 'losing its competitive edge' duly followed.)

The Bush-led government duly felt the full force of the "anti-science" accusation as a result. The notion that there are issues of more immediate financial need, like Homeland Security, cuts no arctic ice with funding ideologues, however.

Lindzen points to how the successes of climate alarmism are directly reflected "in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today." But he notes a "more sinister side to this feeding frenzy." It's that "scientists who dissent from alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and libelled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse." The result? "Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis."

Dr. Roy Spencer recently warned that the current global warming hysteria could be assuaged if "more scientists who don't believe in predictions of climate catastrophe...rise above their fears of losing funding and speak out."

In the UK, the trade union Prospect -- which represents 68,000 scientists -- issued a report in March called 'Who's looking after British science?' The report complained bitterly that recent government cuts have "damaged the UK's core science capability." Once again, we are talking about public funding in the public sector. Prospect's real concern was that funding would be switched to "fund research that would only benefit private companies, which could switch the focus of research according to commercial demand."

In response to the publication of 2006 Climate Change Programme, Tomorrow's climate, today's challenge, the chair of the British Local Government Association's Board David Sparks has recently demanded that local government "needs £28 million to meet climate change challenges."

Perhaps never, in the annals of scientific research, has Mark Twain's observation about science been so apt: "One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact." And the fact is, billions in special interests are now controlling the debate. "

Peter C Glover is the author of The Politics of Faith. He also edits the blog Wires From The Bunker. "

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=042506A

Comments

Entry #274

April 24, 2006
5:30 pm

"The Immigration Wars

This article lives up to Front Page Magazine's excellent, well researched, articulately stated journalistic ability to go right to the heart of the matter, exposing motivations behind demonstrations and honey dripping offers of amnesty from bleeding hearts.

When my intuition says there's a hidden agenda, I hammer an issue home and in this case there are two just below the radar, and both aimed at sending our standard of living down the toilet.

Businesses are NOT one of those hidden agendas but are taking advantage of cheap labor in the short haul.

Well worth the time to read!!

"The Immigration Wars

By William R. Hawkins

Source FrontPageMagazine.com

"Conservative talk radio made much of all the foreign flags being waved during the first round of pro-illegal alien demonstrations in March. So when protests were staged in Washington April 10, organizers distributed thousands of American flags and warned activists not to wave the standards of Mexico or El Salvador. CASA of Maryland distributed many of these new false flags. CASA was founded in 1985 by mostly El Salvadoran leftists fleeing from the anti-communist government supported by the Reagan administration during the civil wars in Central America.

The effort to change the image of the April protest was only partially successful. The first demonstrator I encountered outside my office was holding an American flag, but was wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt. Since he had presumably dressed himself, his decision to glorify the communist revolutionary was more indicative of his outlook than the flag given to him for PR purposes.

Some demonstrators have raised the issue of "La Reconquista" of the American Southwest by Mexican immigrants. This is most often expressed in signs that read "we didn't cross the border, the border crossed us." It is taught in Mexican schools that what are now the states of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California , and Utah, along with parts of Colorado and Wyoming, were "stolen" from Mexico between 1836 and 1848 by American imperialists and will one day be regained. Ironically, the revolt that won Texas independence was staged by colonists and "guest workers" originally invited into the territory by the Mexican government. But the threat to American independence is not limited to the Southwest, as illegals do not all stay in the border areas. They spread out across the United States. Thus, the political aim of those mobilizing the immigrants is to take national power in Washington and change the course of American destiny.

The march down 16th Street to Lafayette Park, across from the White House, passed in front of my office building. There were still plenty of Mexican and other Latin flags being waved, as well as signs written in Spanish. There were also many placards from the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism), the leading leftist antiwar group that was one of the main organizers of the march. On their website, the column demanding "amnesty and full rights for immigrants" sits next to the column boosting of the protests in March marking the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and above the articles condemning anti-terrorist operations in Gaza and the Philippines.

Casting its propaganda in terms of halting U.S. imperialism, A.N.S.W.E.R. wants to change the direction of American politics by enfranchising a Third World electorate. Its efforts should be considered a companion tactic to that of the International Endowment for Democracy (IED) which was founded in March at about the same time the marches started. Its board of directors includes Ramsey Clark, Gore Vidal and Howard Zinn, all of whom have ties to A.N.S.W.E.R. as well as a gaggle of Marxist professors who specialize in anti-imperialist studies. The aim of the IED is to help finance "progressive" politics throughout the United States with foreign money. In its "Urgent Appeal to the People of the World," IED asked for "donations, no matter how small, from all those victimized by our government's actions." The IED hopes "to use foreign monies to help build a real democracy in the country that needs it most, the U.S.A." A democracy expanded by the influx of alien– and alienated, voters. This leftist strategy of using foreign funders and immigrants to take over American government amounts to an invasion plot.

Some proponents of amnesty argue that to oppose open borders is to retreat into isolationism. Yet, it is the left-wing groups organizing the "open border" rallies who desire to see a withdrawal of U.S. power from the outside world and a collapse of America's global influence, which they consider to be the manifestations of an evil empire.

My favorite banner was a large one carried by six marchers which read, in both English and Spanish, "For A World Without Borders And Law." It is commonly heard that "9/11 changed everything." For the large and well-organized immigrant rights community, which is heavily funded by left-wing foundations like Ford, Soros and MacArthur, this has meant a more active drive to keep the borders open, if not disappear all together. Their aim is not just to legalize the "undocumented" horde that is already here, but to make sure the flow continues.

The march went past the headquarters of the AFL-CIO. Some unions have endorsed immigrant rights in an attempt to find new recruits, and the AFL-CIO supported the cross country "freedom ride" conducted on behalf of illegals in 2003. However, the AFL-CIO's arch rival, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been the more active force behind the current wave of nation-wide protests. The SEIU, which claims to be the country's largest immigrant union with 1.8 million members, led several other unions in a walk out from the AFL-CIO in July 2005 on the grounds that the traditional unions were not playing an active enough role in politics.

The SEIU endorsed Howard Dean for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, and at its national convention voted to end the U.S. "occupation of Iraq" and withdraw all U.S. troops, putting the union firmly in the "anti-imperialist" camp. The SEIU has called for "the redirecting of the nation's resources from inflated military spending to meeting the needs of working families for health care, education, a clean environment, housing and a decent standard of living."

In the U.S., leftists have long believed that importing a new proletariat is the quickest way to build a mass movement to challenge a middle America that has been trending towards the right. Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy understands this, and wants illegals rushed into the voting booths via an amnesty program. This is much more radical than President Bush's original guest worker plan, which envisioned immigrants staying only a few years to work before going back home. Senators John McCain, Chuck Hagel and other Republicans supporting rapid "citizenship" seem ignorant of this larger left-wing agenda.

The April 11 front page color photo in the Express tabloid, distributed by the Washington Post to commuters, should awaken all Republicans and conservatives to the danger. The photo centered on a demonstrator holding a sign that read "Today We March, Tomorrow We Vote."

In an odd alliance with radical labor and antiwar groups, major business organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable have endorsed amnesty programs for illegal workers to insure a pool of "cheap labor." But what may be "cheap" for a company can be very expensive for society. After generations of trying to alleviate poverty and expand the middle class, we are now being told that poverty is so critical to the economy that more of it must be imported.

Yet, polls consistently show that the vast majority of Americans do not want to see their tax dollars used to subsidize "cheap labor" with the welfare checks, remedial education programs, health care benefits and larger prisons that come with any expansion of a destitute Marxist-style "working class" favored in some dim-witted business circles. I say dim-witted because the business community will be the first to suffer if there is a demographic shift to the left in American politics. For business leaders to advocate the enfranchisement of millions of illegal aliens would be the perfect example of the old adage "penny wise, but pound foolish."

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=22156

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Entry #273

April 24, 2006
4:21 pm

"Is it Bin Laden or Another Angry Democrat?

"Is it Bin Laden or Another Angry Democrat?

by Sher Zieve

Source New Media Alliance

"No, I’m not trying to unjustly accuse Democrat leaders of terrorism—although, with some of their ongoing and recent comments one does have to wonder. I must say that I do find Osama bin-Laden’s comments eerily similar to those I’ve heard from the mouths of Democrats. And Al-Jazeera’s Sunday release of a new audio tape, recorded by its leader Osama, brought many Democrats’ comments and positions flooding back. So, I have to question if this most-recent Osama tape was actually made by the “man himself” or some enraged Democrat. Hmmm.

In his latest tirade, Osama blames the West (naturally—he predominantly condemns the US and the Muslims’ long-standing purported nemesis Israel) for “waging war on Islam”. Never mind that it is Islam that started and continues these latest debacles and if the terrorists would simply stop committing terrorist acts, we would not have the need to retaliate. Self-preservation and survival are, after all, strong driving forces.

But, Osama is counting on the fact that Americans have, at last, completely forgotten those Islamic-caused “minor incidents”; the ones that included commandeering 4 planes and crashing them—3 of which made it to their intended targets—that used to be known as the “9/11 disaster and catastrophic event”. This was, of course, caused by radical Islam and an Act of War waged against the US but, no matter. As Senate Minority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) obstructed any and all votes on the Border Security and Immigration bill, before the Senators scurried off to their 2-week Easter vacation, I guess he and the rest of the Dem Senators have followed bin-Laden’s lead and implied command. They have forgotten—or are working very hard to forget (or at least want the American public to forget)—what actually occurred on 9/11/2001. Senators, let me help: “We were attacked!”

Note: Working toward forgetting 9/11, or “assisting” the rest of us to forget, may be the only work they’ve actually done, recently.

Both Senator Kerry (D-MA) and Osama bin-Laden have verbally beaten up President Bus—on the same topic. On 22 April, failed presidential candidate Kerry said before an enthusiastic liberal and leftist crowd at Faneuil Hall, that President Bush sacrificing lives at the '”altar of stubborn pride”. Osama has said on numerous occasions that President Bush is “stubborn”. Note: Whether I agree with President Bush on his entire agenda or not, I personally want a president who is stubborn with respect towards defeating the enemies of our country.

Then we have the much-reported story of President Bush reading to children just before he was advised that the first 9/11 plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. Osama said: “He was more interested in listening to the child's story about the goat rather than worry about what was happening to the towers. So, we had three times the time necessary to accomplish the events.” Three times the time? Give us all a break, Osama. But—then we had Sen. Kerry (who confidently says he will probably run for POTUS—again—in 2008—can you believe it?) saying, in his own inimitable monotone: “Had I been reading to children and had my top aide whisper in my ear that America is under attack, I would have told those kids very nicely and politely that the president of the United States has something that he needs to attend to.” These comments from both Osama “the-Islamic-menace” and Sen. John “I-fought-the-US-when-I-returned-from-Viet-Nam” Kerry are a bit to similar for any semblance of comfort. Note: Considering Mr. Kerry’s natural inclinations, in most things, I imagine he would have run sweating and screaming from the classroom and out of the school doors yelling to the Secret Service “Get me outta’ here to someplace safe! Aaarrgh!!!”

Today’s tape, in which Osama makes no apologies for al-Qaeda’s indiscriminate bombings, dismembering and murder of fellow Muslims around the world says: “While the war continues, the people renew their allegiance to their rulers and politicians and continue to send their sons to our countries to fight us” and then continues saying that the war is “a Zionist [Jewish] and crusaders [Christian] war on Islam”. We had to know that was coming. Guess that pretty much cover the 2 major religious groups and the populations that have had the audacious arrogance to fight back against a war that radical Islam brought to us. Naturally, liberals and leftists within the US and elsewhere also want us to stop fighting. Just as the French, the Left is committed to surrender—even before any fight is imminent. That’s what Osama, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah and all the rest of the myriad terrorist groups want. It’s what they are counting on. It’s also what US Democrat Senators Kennedy, Kerry, Durbin, Schumer and on—and on—want too!

From my perspective, I hear Osama speak and then I hear and see the Democrat leaders use what he says to continue to trash the president. Do the Democrats and Osama have the same speech writers? One has to wonder. And what is the recently announced “Democrat national security plan”? Oh, yeah—to “get bin-Laden”. I have to doubt that. If they really have a plan, why haven’t they shared it with the White House? Or is it the same plan Kerry had when he was running for president? You remember, don’t you? Kerry said that he’d share his plan with “the people” AFTER he was elected. Yeah—right. Democrat plan to “get bin-Laden”? Nah—won’t happen. If they do, they’ll lose one of their biggest supporters.

However, the Democrats are mad at Osama for one thing. Every time one of his tapes is released, it reminds the people who really have forgotten 9/11 that the massive carnage and destruction really occurred and that radical Islam actually does plan to destroy and kill all of those who disagree with its barbaric agenda. That’s the only reason the Democrats would want him caught—to shut him up."

http://www.therealitycheck.org/StaffWriter/szieve_NMA042406.html

4 Comments

Entry #272

April 24, 2006
10:55 am

"we are never reminded more clearly how blessed we

"we are never reminded more clearly how blessed we
are till we see those with so little "

http://www.stevequayle.com/News.alert/06_Photo_of_Day/060424.photo.of.day.html

2 Comments

Entry #271

April 24, 2006
10:29 am

"America Losing Its Faith in Itself

"America Losing Its Faith in Itself"

By Warner Todd Huston

Source Chronwatch.com

“Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.” --Samuel Adams

“The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind...” --Thomas Paine

“...t is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.” --Benjamin Franklin

Americans are losing their faith. Not their faith in God or religion, though that is slackening as well, but their faith in the essential rightness of America itself. Until recently Americans were quite sure of the basic truths upon which we are formed and the basic righteousness of those truths. Unfortunately, many of us are no longer sure of our “givenness,” as Daniel Boorstin so famously termed it.

It’s easy to peg the degradation of that surety to the counter culture of the 1960’s, of course. The Sixties was a watershed decade for self-doubt, but the doubting began decades before, during the great age of socialist theorizing that swept the world in the early 1900’s. Though seemingly immune from socialist practice and politics, we Americans none-the-less fostered reflection on such ideas in our Universities and from the realm of philosophy, history and art our educated elite accepted the concept of relative thinking--perhaps we weren’t really so good after all. By mid century, when William F. Buckley wrote his famous lament about Yale, it seemed that those educators sanguine of American exceptionalism were far and few between. It has gotten no better by the start of this new century as anyone who knows of David Horowitz’s work could easily realize.

There was a time not long ago when, to European eyes, both major American political Parties seemed nearly indistinguishable one from the other. There was a reason for that, too. It was because both parties agreed that America was a righteous place differing only on the various technical means to sustain that righteousness. They agreed that our basic ideals were good and both believed that the U.S. Constitution was to be interpreted conservatively as opposed to loosely. Not only were our principles, conventions, and procedures good but they were the best ever conceived by the mind of man. Perhaps even the best that ever could be imagined.

Today, Europeans would find one party, the Democratic Party, to seem far more like a party they would be familiar with in their own country. The Democratic Party has, since the McGovern nomination for his party’s candidacy in 1974, been drifting from a belief in American exceptionalism to one doubting such assuredness. The party does not believe that America is good, but that it must be remade into a new nation, one governed by early 20th century European sensibilities instead of the ideas of our founding fathers.

Of course, this isn’t a sentiment shared by every--maybe not even most--rank and file Democrats yet today. However, it is one sponsored by party leadership and party theorists. But that it has gotten to nearly every last party bigwig and policy wonk is indicative of the distance to which this self-doubt has crept into the American mainstream. A proof of this is the way conservative former-Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) was treated as a pariah by the his party. This is not to say that such self-doubt doesn’t exist at all outside of Democratic Party operatives, a notion that will easily be disabused by a glimpse at the many leftist websites. But it is certainly spreading.

Of course, that spreading cancer in the American heart is what so many conservatives are responding to. And that is why the conflict has escalated so loudly since Reagan arrived to infuse the conservative movement with purpose and legitimacy. Naturally, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and American conservatism is a vital and strong reaction to American doubt coming from the left. We can only hope that conservatism is a surgeon with a deft enough scalpel to remove that cancer.

Unfortunately, though, that cancer has metastasized in many areas of American life. It has infected our schools, our entertainment--from movies to literature and poetry--our news providers and even our religious community in many ways. It will take more than one surgeon for the task, to say the least.

So, what, then, do we do? How can we return to a belief in ourselves?

Because of the diversity that has always been America, it is harder to identify how to fix it than it is to identify what is going wrong. After all, that diversity is one of the things that made this country the juggernaut that it is. But, even with the diversity we have always so valued, there have been things that remained constant contributing to our greatness across this land.

English

Certainly there are and have been many regions of this country where one would find a foreign language in great abundance. Cincinnati, Ohio, saw a large German community in the mid-to-late 1800’s. Texas and points southwest always embraced Spanish. The Swedes were plentiful in Minnesota. Creole was heard as much as English in Louisiana and Alabama. Chicago, Illinois, has claimed the largest Polish community outside of the country of Poland itself. But, none of these languages were expected to supplant or take higher importance to English. English was the de facto American language. Today, however, we have allowed that supremacy to be eroded by including other languages on official documentation, and by foisting so-called “bi-lingual” education upon our children in our grade schools.

A reliance on English as the national language will re-focus immigrants and residents alike on being American. Proficiency in English will again become a badge of citizenship and will foster a feeling of unity and homogeneity, as well it should. There is nothing wrong with speaking more than one language, but since we are that famous “melting-pot” by design using English as a common tongue is all the more important. It serves as a glue holding us together, a common bond.
Religion
Ben Franklin said: “History will afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion, from its usefulness to the public; the advantages of a religious character among private persons; the mischiefs of superstition, etc., and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others ancient or modern.”

Religion underlies nearly every aspect of America and its history. Every founder can be quoted to present religion, belief in God, and the moral precepts of Christianity as essential to the American way of life and the pursuit of virtue. Even the founders that many today call Deists can be so quoted, though they may have eschewed organized religion.
If we are to continue down the road of excising religion from American life, we will undermine the basic ideas of our laws and society. Excising religion from our schools is a dangerous game and will do nothing but end up teaching our children that only men should be relied on in life, that there is nothing greater than themselves. And that is a nihilist notion that this country will not long survive.
Of course, we are also a land of tolerance toward multiple religions. We do not have to focus solely on the Christian religion, but it is a grave mistake to attack it above all others. It informs our culture, not just American but all of western society.
Citizenship
Today, fewer and fewer Americans understand how our civil government works. Too many citizens lack even a basic understanding of the Constitution and the history that led to our country’s founding. This must be reversed and we must return to teaching such things in our schools.
Americans are jealous of their rights, and that is as it should be. But, John Milton said: ”None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license.” Yet, just what is “liberty,” or “freedom,” or our “rights”? It is what our rights really entail that is so often misunderstood by the clenched fisted, caterwauling, yahoo braying, by a person that others are violating his “rights.” Usually, he is utterly ignorant that he is actually violating the rights of everyone around him, not to mention being a societal nuisance.

We must return to teaching our children what their “rights” entail, what they mean, and where those rights come from. Children must be taught that their own rights end where other’s rights begin. So should everyone else, for that matter.
Great Men of History
Ralph Waldo Emerson is quoted as saying, “There is properly no history; only biography,” and nothing could be truer of the history of the United States. We are absolute proof of the “Great man” theory of history; that every time hinges on the actions of great men.
This trend of moving away from teaching our young about our great national heroes and personages is a huge mistake especially when replaced by lesser individuals or foreigners. Without a feeling for what we have done as a people, we cannot expect our citizens to have a feeling for where we are headed … or should be headed.
We don’t have to settle for the “dead white man’s club” of history, but to turn away from those same “white men” is a slight to our national struggle and the character it built. We have a whole array of great people in our rich American history so there is no need to sanitize or employ “equal opportunity” for a program on U.S. history.
We should not deny our children the example that these great people of history offer us, to inspire as well as teach.
Education
While we are discussing educating ourselves about our great national heroes--and I mean real heroes, not sports stars and movie actors--we need to revamp our educational system otherwise, as well. Math, economics, science, classic literature, history, writing, and reading, these are the subjects we need to impart to our nation’s students. “Women’s studies,” “minority studies,” or “gay studies” are fine for specialty research for extremely small and focused groups of people, but to have them as highly funded departments, or worse yet, required courses, is simply an absurd waste of money and the valuable learning time of our students..
While we are patting ourselves on the back with such wastes of time, other countries are graduating students with high degrees in the sciences, engineering, and mathematics. All the while, our students fall farther and farther behind. This is a crime of education and we will deserve our second-class status if we allow this to continue.
Charity
Even as far as we have slid as a country, we are still the most generous people on earth. But our government is beginning to put a major crimp in that generosity. Until the last 30 years, America grew strong by local communities gathering to build their community through donation of time and money of the locals. People raised schools, churches, and libraries by urging their citizens and neighbors to join the community in the effort to improve for the good of all.
Culture was spread by thousands of small clubs and gatherings in every last community across the country. Famed reformer, Jane Addams, of Chicago’s Hull-House, spent her days in the early 1900’s helping poor young women engage in self-improvement through work, literature and fellowship. She did so through all private donation and volunteerism. But, today, fewer and fewer people engage in such community conscious activities. It has become a venue only for the rich or the highly religious.
Too many citizens look to their own selfish desires because, after all, what are they paying the government all those taxes for? Americans today feel that all schools or community organizations should be sponsored and paid for by the government. This is destroying the sense of community we once had and should have still.
Government is too involved in our everyday lives. It is removing our sense of responsibility past paying taxes. We need to rekindle a sense of camaraderie with our neighbors and take such responsibilities back from government.
In closing, I should like to urge every American to cast away that self-doubt. Yes, we have been responsible for perpetrating some bad things; we will probably make a few more mistakes yet. But when comparing all the good that we have done in this world to that of any other people, one can easily see that we have far outshone the rest. When discovering the “bad” that we have done in the last 200 and more years, a little perspective is warranted lest you think we come out the worse for comparison.
We are “that shinning city on a hill” of Reagan and Witherspoon’s vision. Never forget it and never let anyone say different without challenge. "
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=20759

2 Comments
Entry #270

April 24, 2006
10:10 am
"It's the border, stupid

Thanks to RightNation.US for the link to this.
<excerpt>
"It's the border, stupid
By Salena Zito
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, April 23, 2006

"LAREDO, Texas
There is no homeland security without border security.

Americans sitting in the heartland may not be sweating over border issues but Webb County, Texas, Sheriff Rick Flores thinks they should be.

"Any sheriff, whether they are in Dallas, Iowa or even Nebraska, would much prefer that we squash a threat at the border than force them to deal with it after it gets through us," the sheriff told me in his office here.

"Smugglers have a ready-made infrastructure in place ... and they are just waiting to substitute terrorists and their cargoes for drugs if the price is right."

Flores and 15 other Lone Star sheriffs along the Mexican border banded together in May 2005 to address drug cartels warring over the control of narcotics, human smuggling and a natural offshoot -- the likelihood of a terrorist migration into the United States.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has taken the lead in funding border security, is impressed with the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition, "first, by how they identified the scope and magnitude of the growing threat ... then by how they delivered a coordinated strategy to address those risks and threats."

It's intel-led policing at its best.

Talk of a terrorist pipeline is not paranoia. If criminals can smuggle drugs, gang members and illegals, what would stop them from importing members of al-Qaida or Hezbollah?

I recently got an on-the-ground look at what happens along the border. Armed with bulletproof vests, night-vision goggles and M-4s, Webb County deputies showed me the night life along the great divide.".......

........"Washington needs to take the racism card off the table so our leaders can have a reasonable debate about security. This is not about "economic refugees" crossing our borders. This is not an anti-Hispanic issue. It's not an anti-immigrant issue.

It's the border, stupid. "
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/zito/s_446141.html

Comments
Entry #269

April 23, 2006
11:41 am
"Evidence of work fraud untapped

"The incorrect worker files mushroomed during the 1990s as immigrants poured into the United States. Almost half the inaccurate reports come from industries such as agriculture, construction and restaurants. "
The current administration has been cleaning up the mess left by the previous one which precipitated 9-11, the organization of Homeland Security, the un-hobbling of national intelligence which was tied into a pretzel druing the Clinton years, a catastropic hurrricanes and unprecedented other events .... all the while dealing with obstructionist Democrats and national intelligence leaks now being revealed.
Hopfully with Homeland Security getting a grip on the problem we'll see more investigations, deportations, penalizing employers to put the invasion put into perspective and do something real about it.
"Evidence of work fraud untapped
By LIz Chandler
Source StarTelegram.com
"WASHINGTON -- Two federal agencies are refusing to turn over a mountain of evidence that investigators could use to indict the nation's burgeoning work force of illegal immigrants and the firms that employ them.
Last week, immigration authorities trumpeted the arrests of nearly 1,200 illegal workers in a massive sting on a single company, but they acknowledge that they relied on confidential informants and an unsolicited tip.
It didn't have to be that hard.
The Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration routinely collect strong evidence of potential workplace crimes, including the names and addresses of millions of people who are using bogus Social Security numbers, their wage records and the identities of those who hire them.
But they keep those facts secret.
"If the government bothered to look, it could find abundant evidence of illegal aliens gaming our system and the unscrupulous employers who are aiding and abetting them," said Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz.
The two agencies don't analyze their data to root out likely immigration fraud -- and law enforcement authorities can't do so because the agencies won't share their data.
Privacy laws prohibit that, they say.
The agencies also don't use the power that they have.
The IRS doesn't fine employers who repeatedly submit inaccurate data on workers. Social Security does virtually nothing to alert citizens whose Social Security numbers are being used by others.
Evidence abounds within their files, according to an analysis by Knight Ridder Newspapers and The Charlotte Observer.
One internal study found that a restaurant company had submitted 4,100 duplicate Social Security numbers for workers. Other firms submit inaccurate names or numbers for nearly all their employees. One child's Social Security number was used 742 times by workers in 42 states.
"That's the kind of evidence we want," says Paul Charlton, the U.S. attorney in Arizona. "If you see the same Social Security number a thousand times, it's kind of hard for them to argue they didn't know."
The potential crimes are so obvious that the failure to provide such information to investigators raises questions about Washington's determination to end the widespread hiring of illegal immigrants.
An estimated 7 million unauthorized workers are employed in the United States. They're picking crops, building homes and tending yards. In some cases, they work for the government on public projects that pay them with taxpayer money.
They've built roads in North Carolina and military housing in California and even helped rebuild the Pentagon after 9-11, until law enforcement found out.
They also work at airports, seaports and nuclear plants.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has asked Congress for access to earnings reports, sent by employers with money withheld for taxes and Social Security.
The reports contain workers' names and Social Security numbers, and when they don't match Social Security records, the information is set aside in what's called the Earnings Suspense File.
Created in 1937, the file contains about 255 million unmatched wage reports representing $520 billion paid to workers but not credited to their Social Security earnings records.
The incorrect worker files mushroomed during the 1990s as immigrants poured into the United States. Almost half the inaccurate reports come from industries such as agriculture, construction and restaurants.
"We believe the chief cause of [unmatched] wage items ... is unauthorized work by noncitizens," Social Security Inspector General Patrick O'Carroll told Congress in February.
The IRS also receives the mismatch information.
Particularly disturbing is that possibly millions of the Social Security numbers belong to other people.
In Utah, after Social Security provided data for one criminal inquiry, investigators discovered that the Social Security numbers of 2,000 children were being used by other people.
"What do you think we'd find if we had the ability to analyze all of their information?" said Kirk Torgensen, Utah's chief deputy attorney general. "It would be invaluable. How shortsighted is it that the government doesn't follow this trail?" "
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/14411281.htm

2 Comments
Entry #268

April 23, 2006
9:53 am
"Overqualified Immigrant

Looks like our bleeding heart legislators are missing something very important here by restricting educated, upwardly mobile ..... and allowing uneducated, unskilled to invade at will.
However it seems the Socialist left (which is most of the Democratic party whether in stealth or out in the open) is taking a cue from their joined at the hip Marxist communist philosophy of allowing the coarser societal groups to run roughshod over law abiding members of society to purposefully throw things into chaos. For them it is a matter of asset redistribution ..... seizing your money and distributing it to whoever will vote to keep them in office.
I am not in favor of placing them on a fast track ahead of those who have gone through the arduous legal process of applying for legal citizenship status.
To do so is to ignore more laws and send a message to immigrants and citizens alike that laws can be twisted at will and may not apply to all.
We had ENOUGH of that during the Clinton years and WILL BE PAYING FOR IT IN THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE!! He sold us out to China for illegal foreign campaign contributions so we're seeing that come back around biting deeply economically, did not extradite bin Laden when offered him by the Sudan so directly precipitated 9-11, did squat for illegal alien invasion which is taking another firm bite ...... leaving it for President Bush to pick up the pieces.

"Overqualified Immigrant
By Ilya Shapiro
Source Tech Central Station Daily
"If the federal government ever gets its act together and passes a much-needed immigration reform, I'm giving up my legal career and taking up a profession that will actually allow me to become a U.S. citizen. Like gardening. Or construction. Or anything else that counts as "unskilled."

And maybe I'll also fly to Cancun for some sun-and-fun. And come back illegally. (I'm tan and speak fluent Spanish; think I could pass?) Or I'll have a Miami friend take me out on a boat -- so I can come back on a raft.

Because I sure ain't gonna get a green card the way I'm going: English-speaking, highly educated, law-abiding, and patriotic. I'm precisely the type of person Uncle Sam would never dream of inviting to be a permanent resident. Unless I got married -- which'll happen sooner or later, right?

You see, as I follow the overheated rhetoric about guest-workers and homeland security, legal versus illegal immigrants, and the needs of American business and American labor, I can't help but smile and shake my head. And then go home and cry.

Because no matter how hard I work, how good I am at my job (my day job or this writing thing), how brilliant (and sincere) a personal statement I write espousing my love for this country, its people and values, I will never be able to achieve that which is being offered to certain classes of "undocumented" aliens under any of the proposals being batted around Congressional water coolers. That is, every plan under consideration -- save the "enforcement only" ones that don't even attempt to deal with the reality of 12 million illegal aliens -- contains a measure that allows unskilled foreign workers to be put "on the path to citizenship." This path is simply unavailable to skilled workers like me.

I'm not trying to be cute here: from President Bush to Kennedy-McCain to Kyl-Cornyn, every immigration policy proposal would allow a certain number of unskilled laborers to obtain legitimate work visas for a number of years. As one or two terms of such a visa run out, those who are still gainfully employed would be able to apply to convert their work visas into permanent resident (green card) status -- holders of which can apply for citizenship five years later.

This seems to me a perfectly reasonable reform -- even if you don't grant any amnesty whatsoever for existing illegals; and if these visas are only available to people applying from outside the United States -- there should be some mechanism for importing workers for jobs that can't be filled by Americans at prices Americans employers want to pay (because of limits to what American consumers want to pay). And if these "guest-workers" prove themselves to be good citizens, they should be able to become, well, citizens.

The problem for me -- and for the mere tens of thousands of professionals like me -- is that our visas don't work that way. Under an H1-B -- of which only 55,000 new ones are statutorily authorized for each year -- a highly skilled individual (like a software engineer from Bangalore) can work for a particular American employer for six years (two three-year periods). At the end of that time, unless the employer is willing to begin the arduous process of green card sponsorship and can convince the Labor Department that no American possesses even the minimal qualifications for that job -- it is irrelevant if that hypothetical American is far less qualified than the non-American -- the foreign professional has to leave the country. No exceptions.

For those of us who are that special brand of foreign professionals known as Canadians, there's also the option of a TN (NAFTA-created) visa. (A TN differs from an H1-B only in that it lasts one year instead of three, and can theoretically be renewed an infinite number of times instead of once.) Either way, there is no "path to citizenship" -- and thus, for me, no way to fulfill the higher purpose that has long been my dream: the service of my adopted country.

Despite living here my entire adult life and career, despite my fancy degrees, I cannot work in the State or Defense Departments, in the challenging and critical Justice Department jobs for which I am otherwise qualified, in Executive Office positions, or in any other legal or policy-making posts for which this country has trained me. I cannot even "put my money where my mouth is" (in terms of my support of our engagement in Iraq) by serving in the military JAG Corps -- or even enlisting as a simple infantryman.

Nothing in any proposed immigration reform changes any of this.

Which is why my resolution to come in on the ground floor of the landscaping industry is only partially in jest. After all, America is worth spending time on your knees in the dirt for. But, really, why have such perverse incentives in the first place?

Ilya Shapiro, whose parents took a wrong turn at the St. Lawrence Seaway when immigrating from the Soviet Union, is a Washington lawyer who writes "Dispatches from Purple America.""
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=042106A

Comments
Entry #267

April 22, 2006
11:21 am
CIA leaker identified, bio

From the Strata-Sphere blog news about who is the first CIA leaker to be nabbed. They also add ... "Also, the Department of Justice said they have DOZENS of leak investigations ongoing. This number is much larger than than any I have heard to date, and is, sadly, stunning." .....
It's about time!!!
"NSA Leak Investigation Nabs First Criminal
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/1665

Comments
Entry #266

April 21, 2006
12:22 pm
How Chinese goods remain cheap

A lightbulb moment understanding US China trade imbalances based on Chinese currency exchange rates being kept from floating on world money market exchange rates.

Currency exchange calculator http://www.xe.com/ucc/
1.00 CNY China Yuan Renminbi = 0.124774 USD United States Dollars
"How Great Powers Become Great
By Pat Buchanan
Source Townhall.com
"The economic growth of 10 percent recorded by China in 2005 would seem to contradict a tenet of faith of all good democratic capitalists.

China's performance tells us that, contrary to the teachings of free-trade liberals, dictatorship and protectionism do not necessarily ensure stagnation. For China is a one-party state and the most protectionist great nation on earth. Yet, her growth has been unequaled by any free-market rival nation for 15 years.
How does China achieve her success? By keeping her currency cheap -- refusing to let it float against the dollar -- China is able to offer Chinese goods at fire-sale prices to U.S. consumers, while the cheapness of her currency keeps U.S. goods priced out of China's market.
Despite blustery U.S. protests, the arrangement continues, because both nations see their interests served.
America's consumers want quality goods at the cheapest price. American businesses want to maximize profit by producing at the lowest cost. China accommodates both, by providing efficient and reliable workers at a tenth of the wages an American needs to support his family.
The plaque inside our Statue of Liberty reads, "Send us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free." Beijing says: "Send us your jobs, factories and technology, and we will produce your goods at a far lower price than your own people."
What the U.S. transnational corporation seeks is to retain its privileged access to American consumers, while getting rid of its American workers. China is delighted to accommodate.
Thus, it was our capitalists who were the first and most enthusiastic hosts of Chinese President Hu Jintao on his visit to America. But what does Beijing want?
In China the consumer does not come first. Nor do the voters decide policy, for there are no voters. The regime, state and nation come first. China's leaders want to make her first in manufacturing and high-technology, to become the primary producers for the world, and to displace the United States as the dominant power in Asia and the world.
The story of China and America is the story of the ants and the grasshopper. We spend every dime we earn. The Chinese are forced by the regime to sacrifice the present for a future their leaders envision.
In 2005, China ran up a $203 million trade surplus with us, selling us seven times as much as she bought from us. That trade surplus with America is responsible for 100 percent of her economic growth. China literally produces for the American market. As a result, her dollar reserves are the largest on earth, approaching $1 trillion.
What does Beijing use the money for?
First, she uses the dollars to create ties of dependency in Free Asia by buying more from these nations than she sells to them. Australia, whose natural resources are pouring into China, is becoming dependent for her prosperity on China.
Second, she invests her dollars strategically in energy projects outside of China and in nations America has declared off-limits: Sudan, Iran, Burma.
Third, she buys weapons and weapons technology from Russia, Israel and Europe to modernize her armed forces. And while her GDP growth was 10 percent last year, her defense budget has been steadily rising by more than 10 percent a year.
"Since no nation threatens China, one wonders: Why this growing investment (in her military)?" asks Donald Rumsfeld.
Good question. The configuration of China's forces gives us the answer. China has implanted 600 missiles opposite Taiwan, which can have only two plausible purposes: to intimidate Taiwan, or to attack Taiwan.
China is also investing in warships, submarines, modern fighter-bombers and space technology. As there is only one great air and sea power out there, there is no doubt at whom this buildup is directed.
Diplomatically, Beijing is drawing to her side all the nations that are on the outs with George Bush's America -- from Russia to Burma to Iran to Sudan to Venezuela to the new nations of Central Asia.
China today calls to mind the Kaiser's Germany. As the Kaiser's Germany built a High Seas Fleet to rival the Royal Navy, so China builds up a military to rival ours in Asia. As the Kaiser saw British-backed plots to isolate and surround her, so China sees the United States organizing Japan, Taiwan, Australia, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the old Russian provinces of Central Asia against her. Encirclement -- in her eyes.
There is no greater work for today's statesmen than ensuring that what happened to Germany and Britain in the first half of the 20th century is not replicated by America and China in the first half of the 21st. "
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/patbuchanan/2006/04/21/194568.html

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Entry #265

April 20, 2006
9:20 am
"Give Peaceniks a Chance?

My feelings are that if an competent adult knowingly places themselves in a battle zone protesting the war and is kidnapped, then they did so knowing that was a real possibility and a consequence of the actions they undertook. Great if they can be rescued in the NORMAL course of military operations, but otherwise hope they manage to convince their captors to spare them until the end of the war. Life's tough sometimes.
"Give Peaceniks a Chance?
By Val MacQueen
Source Tech Central Station Daily
"In what must be one of the most extraordinary military rescues in history, the British SAS and the Canadian special forces recovered 74-old-British peace activist Norman Kember and his two co-hostages by warning the kidnappers that they would be coming by to effect a rescue and it would be a good idea if they weren't there. Once the "several million pound" ultra sophisticated surveillance operation was ready to activate, the SAS detained a man they were certain was one of the kidnap leaders, persuaded him to cooperate with details of where the hostages were held and ordered him to warn his cohorts to vacate the premises.

By the time the British and Canadians blew the door off the house, 118 days after the kidnapping, it was empty except for the three hostages lying on the floor, bound but unguarded. As Glasgow Sunday Herald writer Torcuil Crighton wrote, "With the names of the executed Britons Margaret Hassan and Ken Bigley haunting the Foreign Office, there was never any question of the British government not going after the gang that kidnapped the 74-year-old peace activist Kember."

Norman Kember doesn't approve of the war in Iraq.

He had made his feelings known to the government, which had inexplicably failed to heed his insights, thus leaving Kember, a retired physics professor, no choice but to go to Iraq to try to organize things himself. He and three others, including 54-year-old American Tom Fox, under the aegis of Christian Peacemaker Teams, went to Iraq with the specific aim of helping Iraqis opposed to the war to file grievance suits against the Coalition of the Willing.

On November 26 last year, they were kidnapped by the Swords of Truth Brigade, an outfit that specializes in ransom demands, and on November 30, the now traditional video footage of pleas made its traditional appearance on al-Jazeera. The choreography creaked along, with a second al-Jazeera video of threats made by the hostage-takers a few days later, followed by a video-ed plea from Kember's wife a few days after that.

Meanwhile, Kember called, in yet another video, for British troops to be pulled out of Iraq, apparently unaware that his kidnappers had little interest in the war one way or the other. They kidnap people for money. A day or two after that, Abu Qatada, a terrorist suspect -- so someone with street cred in the hood -- made a guest appearance video pleading for their release. Two days later, another terrorist suspect, British-born ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg, made his own video pleading for their lives.

Then, the deadline passed and all went quiet on the video front. Suddenly, at the end of January, production picked up again, with a video showing the four hostages alive. Two days after that, another video was released, this one showing only three of the hostages. Missing was American Tom Fox. Three days later the Americans confirmed that a body found in Iraq was that of Fox. There has been no explanation of why he was murdered

Thirteen days later, the three remaining hostages were rescued in the massive, "several million pounds" operation.

On arrival at London's Heathrow, his face churlishly free of gratitude, Kember allowed as how he was fairly pleased to be home.

The Christian Peacemaker Team put out a press release advising that the three had "been released", which was a lie, of course. Kember and his two fellow hostages had been rescued in one of the most sophisticated operations ever mounted. Besides the "several million pounds", the massive three months of meticulous and sophisticated information-gathering and planning had involved cooperation between Coalition forces, the SAS, the Joint Communications Headquarters at Cheltenham, MI5 and MI6, with both the armed forces and ordinary Iraqis taking tremendous risks.

The British press and the public were quick to pick up on, and condemn, Kember's self-righteous omission of a single word of gratitude that he was back in Britain with his head was still firmly attached to his rigid, disapproving neck, thanks to the action of British military forces. According to Oliver Poole reporting from Baghdad for Britain's The Telegraph, the three rescued hostages also refused to cooperate in their debriefing. Britain's Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Mike Jackson appeared in television studios with a face like thunder.

Although Kember was eventually persuaded to make a faintly more gracious statement, this begs the question: should someone who has demonstrated disloyalty to his own country and has deliberately placed himself in harm's way be the subject of massive public expenditure and risk of the lives of professional soldiers, and ordinary citizens on the ground, when his foolish and willful behavior leads him to be kidnapped? If the citizen shows no loyalty to his country, what does his country owe him?
Val MacQueen is a TCS contributing writer."
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=041906C

2 Comments
Entry #264

April 19, 2006
9:01 pm
"Is there a federal deficit?

"Is there a federal deficit?
By Walter E. Williams
Townhall.com
"Let's push back the frontiers of ignorance about the federal deficit. To simplify things, I'll use round numbers that are fairly close to the actual numbers.
The nation's 2005 gross domestic product (GDP), what the American people produced, totaled $13 trillion. The federal government consumed $2.4 trillion, but it only received $2 trillion in tax revenues, leaving us with what's said to be a $.4 trillion budget deficit.
By the way, it's sheer constitutional ignorance to say that President Bush spends or lowers taxes. Article I, Sections 7 and 8, of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress authority to spend and tax. The president only has veto power that Congress can override.
Getting back to deficits, my question to you is this: Is there truly a deficit? The short answer is yes, but only in an accounting sense -- not in any meaningful economic sense. Let's look at it. If Congress spends $2.4 trillion but only takes in $2 trillion in taxes, who makes up that $.4 trillion shortfall that we call the budget deficit? Neither the Tooth Fairy, Santa nor the Easter Bunny makes up the difference between what's spent in 2005 and what's taxed in 2005.
Some might be tempted to answer that it's future generations who will pay. That's untrue. If the federal government consumes $2.4 trillion of what Americans produced in 2005, it must find ways to force us to spend $2.4 trillion less privately in 2005. In other words, the federal government can't spend today what's going to be produced in the future.
One method to force us to spend less privately is through taxation, but that's not the only way. Another way is to enter the bond market. Government borrowing drives the interest rate to a level that it otherwise wouldn't be without government borrowing. That higher interest puts the squeeze on private investment in homes and businesses, thereby forcing us to spend less privately.
Another way to force us to spend less privately is to inflate the currency. Theoretically, Congress can consume what we produce without enacting a single tax law; they could simply print money. The rising prices, which would curtail our real spending, would act as a tax. Of course, an important side effect of doing so would be economic havoc.
Some Americans have called for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution as a method to rein in a prolific Congress. A balanced budget is no panacea. For example, suppose Congress spent $6 trillion and taxed us $6 trillion. We'd have a balanced budget, but we'd be far freer with today's unbalanced budget. The fact of business is that the true measure of the impact of government on our lives is not the taxes we pay but the level of spending.
The founders of our nation would be horrified by today's level of American servitude to their government. From 1787 to the Roaring '20s, federal government spending, as a percentage of GDP, never exceeded 4 percent, except in wartime, compared to today's 20 percent.
The average taxpayer, depending on the state in which he lives, works from Jan. 1 to May 3 to pay federal, state and local taxes. That means someone else decides how four months' worth of the fruits of the average taxpayer's labor will be spent. The taxpayer is forcibly used to serve the purposes of others -- whether it's farm or business handouts, food stamps or other government programs where the earnings of one American are taken and given to another.
This situation differs only in degree, but not in kind, from slavery. After all, a working description of slavery is the process where one person is forcibly used to serve the purposes of another. The difference is a slave has no rights to what he produces each year, instead of just four months.

Since 1980, Dr. Williams has served on the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, VA as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics. "
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/walterwilliams/2006/04/19/193985.html

Comments
Entry #263

April 19, 2006
5:12 pm
....must think I'm a moron .....

If you get one of these, this is where to forward them if you don't hit the delete button first. Same category as the ones that tell you you've won something in a foreign lottery you didn't enter.
419.fcd@usss.treas.gov
uce@ftc.gov
SPAM@UCE.GOV
My name is Mr. Johnson Akuomas, I am a senior partner (Attorney) in the firm of Akuomas Consults Inc: Private Investigators, Security Consultants and Financial Managers. We are conducting a standard process investigation/Recommendation on behalf of African Development Bank (ADB), The African Continental Banking Conglomerate.

This investigation involves a client who shares the same surname with you and also the circumstances surrounding investments made by this client at ADB Gold Account, the Private Banking arm of ADB. The ADB Private Banking client died intestate and nominated no successor in title over the investments made with the bank amounting to over US9Million (Nine Million Dollars). The essence of this communication with you is to request that you provide us information/comments on any or all of the four issues as regards nominating you to inherit the fund left behind by this client.

You are therefore being contacted to be legally nominated as next of kin (inheritor) to this client after all enquiries and investigation has yielded results showing that there is no known next of kin. You are required therefore to answer this questions to enable us make our recommendation.

1-Are you aware of any relative/relation born on the 2nd of February 1951, who shares your same name whose last known contact address was West Africa?

2-Are you aware of any investment of considerable value made by such a person at the Private Banking Division of ADB Bank PLC?

3-Can you confirm your willingness to accept this inheritance if you are legally and legitimately nominated and approved to stand as inheritor to this huge investment in regards to the bank account with ADB?

4-Would you agree to donate part of this inheritance to charity if you are officially approved to stand as the inheritor?

It is pertinent that you inform us ASAP whether or not you are familiar with this personality or and your interest towards the issues mentioned.

You must appreciate that we are constrained from providing you with more detailed information at this point. Please respond to this mail as soon as possible to afford us the opportunity to provide you with more information on this investigation and recommendation.

Thank you for accommodating our enquiry.

Mr. Johnson Akuomas
For: Akuomas Consults Inc.
977 Winners Avenue
Abuja
West Africa
Tel: +234-804-3419724

Comments
Entry #262

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