truesee's Blog

http://news.yahoo.com/s//newsnet5/20100714/ts_newsnet5/newsnet5_ts3110

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39708.html

Critics slam Reid immigration remark
Scott Wong
July 14, 2010 08:23 AM

Immigration reform critics are seizing on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's comments this week that seemed to downplay the number of illegal immigrants working construction jobs in Nevada, even though a recent study found that his home state had the largest percentage of undocumented workers in the country.

When a reporter from KLAS-TV in Las Vegas told Reid a 2009 Pew Hispanic Center report found 17 percent of the nation’s construction workers were undocumented, the Nevada Democrat replied: “That may be some place, but it’s not here in Nevada.” 

Political opponents have tried to twist Reid’s words, saying he believes there are no illegal workers in Nevada. But Reid spokesman Jim Manley on Wednesday clarified his boss’ comments, saying the majority leader was simply disputing the reporter’s statistic and did not say the state has zero illegal workers.

In the interview, Reid was also asked why he blocked an amendment introduced last year by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) that would have required all construction firms working on economic stimulus projects to use E-Verify, the federal online system that allows employers to check whether someone is eligible to work in the country.

“That’s the reason we need to do comprehensive immigration reform,” Reid said. “We cannot do it piecemeal.”

Manley said Reid supports E-Verify and has worked to ensure the program does not expire. But Reid believes the current system is flawed because it sometimes penalizes American workers and can be susceptible to identity fraud.

"Improving our employment verification system is only a partial solution, however, to the exploitation of illegal labor and the undercutting of American wages,” Manley said in a statement to POLITICO. “Our broken immigration system can be fixed only through comprehensive immigration reform.”

Facing a tough challenge this fall from tea party darling Sharron Angle, Reid has been touting the success of the Democrat-backed stimulus plan, saying it has created jobs and helped repair the nation’s battered economy.

But Reid’s remarks on immigration have provided ammunition for opponents, who have tried to paint him as out of touch with average Americans.

“When you consider that Harry Reid has been splitting his time lately between his Ritz-Carlton condo in Washington and high-dollar fundraisers with trial lawyers in Canada, it’s easy to understand why he honestly may not believe that there are illegal workers in Nevada.,” said Brian Walsh, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “But for those who live and work in the real world, and particularly for his constituents in Nevada, America’s broken borders and the lack of enforcement at construction sites is a very serious problem that is hurting American jobs.”

Stand With Arizona, a group backing the state’s tough new immigration law, uploaded the KLAS-TV interview on YouTube and posted a link on its website, standwitharizona.com. The site links to its Facebook page, which has more than 321,000 fans.

“Just when you thought the open borders crowd could not possibly be more out of touch with American workers, comes this gem,” the group posted on its website. “Sen. Maj. Leader Reid (D-NV), even when confronted with multiple sources of data, denies both that illegal aliens work on construction jobs in his state at ALL (they do), or that E-Verify is effective in weeding out illegals from jobs in the first place (it is). … As usual with his ilk, he repeats the phony mantra of ‘comprehensive reform’ again and again like a malfunctioning robot on Star Trek.”

According to the Pew report, “A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States,” Nevada had 170,000 illegal immigrants in its labor force in 2008, or 12.2 percent, more than twice the national rate of 5.4 percent. California was next with 1,850,000 illegal immigrants, representing 9.9 percent of its labor pool. Arizona had about 300,000, or 9.8 percent.

http://www.politico.com/singletitlevideo.html?bcpid=19407224001&bctid=114750622001

Bubba's back

Clinton joins W.H. business meeting

 MATT NEGRIN | 07/14/10 3:04 PM

Former President Clinton (right) will meet with President Obama Wednesday. AP 

Former President Clinton returned to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. on Wednesday to meet with President Obama, Vice President Biden and business leaders, the White House announced. They were scheduled to "discuss new ways to create jobs in the private sector and strengthen the partnership between the public and private sectors to make new investments in the clean energy industry," according to White House guidance.

The meeting, at 2:35 p.m., was closed press.

In Wednesday's White House briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs denied that Clinton was called because Obama needed extra support. Rather, Gibbs said, the Clinton Global Initiative is particularly engaged with one of the topics of discussion: making buildings more energy efficient.

Gibbs added that the opportunity for Obama to meet with Clinton was too great to be turned down, and he said of the former president's relationship with the current White House generally, "I think it would be crazy not to have a real popular former president out campaigning as he has."

Tom Abate

Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco Chronicle

July 14, 2010 04:00 AM

For the first time on record, senior citizens outnumber teens in the labor force as the Great Recession accentuates trends that make it harder for young people to find jobs and more likely for older workers to delay retirement. 

This historic crossover is revealed in data compiled by Bloomberg News showing that 6.6 million people over age 65 worked or looked for work in the first six months of the year, versus 5.9 million 16- to 19-year-olds. 

That analysis is based on federal records that started in 1948 when there were 4.4 million teens in the labor force compared with 2.9 million people over age 65. 

Experts say that over the past decade older workers have tended to hang on to their paychecks longer, owing to sagging stock portfolios and falling home prices. 

This shift toward an aging workforce has been disastrous for 16- to 19-year-olds, who face unemployment rates of 25 percent nationwide and 34 percent in California, similar to the Great Depression. 

"It's killing kids," said Andrew Sum, director of the center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. "We're tossing our future into the trash bin."

Economists agree that youngsters, especially those who lack college degrees, need entry-level jobs to help them acquire the discipline, confidence and motivation they need to succeed later in life. 

Slammed hard

The recession hurts. 

"Young people, as is always the case, get slammed hard because they are last hired, first fired," said Heidi Shierholz with the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

Some economists argue that high rates of teen unemployment make it time to rethink minimum-wage laws that put youngsters at a disadvantage compared with older workers who may compete for the same jobs.

For instance, the Bloomberg data cited a Labor Department report on employment trends in food preparation and serving - a strong teen job sector. From 2000 through 2009, the report found that employment among 16- to 19-year-olds fell by 242,000 jobs while the number of workers 55 and older increased by 128,000. 

"We need to create a lower minimum wage for teens to lower the cost of hiring and training entry-level employees," said Michael Saltsman, a research fellow at the conservative Employment Policies Institute. "What we would get for this is more jobs for our teens to learn career skills." 

Such a policy is anathema to Shierholz, who thinks a better way to improve job prospects for younger workers is to make Medicare and full Social Security benefits available at age 64 for the next two years to coax more older workers into retirement. 

Sum, the academic expert, argued for wage subsidies for employers who hire teens and better school-based programs to help young people find jobs. 

Young people at work

Some Bay Area youths have already benefited from such efforts. 

Sierra Faulkner, a 17-year-old student at Albany High School, parlayed a job-shadowing day at Chez Panisse in Berkeley into an unpaid internship at the internationally renowned restaurant. "I get paid in knowledge," said Faulkner, who said her once-a-week restaurant gig has taught her how to work at a fast pace. 

Cherisha Leung, a 20-year-old resident of Noe Valley in San Francisco, said she went looking for her first job at age 15 and ever since has worked through programs like Enterprise for High School Students and the United Way to find everything from odd jobs to career-track training.

This summer she is working as a paid intern at a real estate firm where she's getting exposure to her planned career in design and communications. 

"Little things here and there have built me into a pretty well-rounded individual," she said.

Forty-year McDonald's employee Ray Aronson was in the teen demographic when he started in food service. He's now in the fast-growing over-55 worker crowd.

Photo: Michael Andrews MICHAEL McANDREW / Hartford Courant TPN 

 

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/14/MN7K1EDSTA.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0tfp7nd8I

 Nicola Paginton

The ecstasy - and the agony.

A 30-year-old British woman's death, when using a sex toy while watching a porn movie, was probably caused by her state of arousal, officials said. 

Nicola Paginton, a children's nanny, was found dead in bed - naked from the waist down - in October as the porn movie played on her laptop, according to the Daily Mail.

A pathologist and coroner said during an inquest that Paginton died from a sudden heart arrhythmia, likely caused by "her activity before death." the paper reported.

Police had been called to Paginton's home after her employer, Sarah Griffths, went to her house when she failed to show up for work. She and a neighbor saw Paginton lying on her bed with her cat sitting on her chest, the newspaper said.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/07/09/2010-07-09_coroner_says_uk_nanny_loved_herself_to_death.html#ixzz0tfIaQGrd

Barack Obama compared to Hitler and Lenin in Tea Party billboard

A roadside billboard created by a branch of the Tea Party in Iowa comparing President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin has been condemned by other groups in the movement.

Tue Jul 13, 6:30 PM ET

North Iowa Tea Party co-founder Bob Johnson said the sign highlighted what the group argues is Mr Obama's support for socialism Photo: AP

The words "Democratic Socialism" are featured over Mr Obama's picture, over Hitler's photo is "National Socialism" and over Lenin's head is "Marxist Socialism." The word "Change" – Mr Obama's campaign slogan – is included on each photo. 

Placards with similar messages have been discouraged from tea party events after drawing negative publicity. Pictures of the president daubed with a Hitler moustache were commonly seen during the early days of the movement in protest at his health care reform.

Shelby Blakely, a spokesman for the national Tea Party Patriots, said the sign was not appropriate. She said her group opposed any such comparisons.

John White, state coordinator of the Iowa Tea Party movement, said such signs were distasteful. But he told Radio Iowa that he believed that everything Mr Obama had done was in "lock-step" with what Hitler did in his day.

The White House declined to comment.

http://www.usatoday.com/video/index.htm?bctid=111981312001#/News/Officers%20charged%20in%20post%2DKatrina%20bridge%20shooting/42804638001/40264770001/111981312001

http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/07/13/2332430/4-time-texas-lotto-winner-rich.html

ANDY BARR | 7/13/10 3:37 PM EDT

Tea party activists are pushing back against a resolution by the NAACP that asserts tea partiers have engaged in 'explicitly racist behavior.' AP

POLITICO 44

A spokesman for a group of tea party activists on Tuesday said that they are taking offense to a resolution the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is set to approve that condemns the grassroots movement as “racist.” 

“For the NAACP to accuse the tea parties of racism is insulting to the great patriots who have participated in this movement, and sadly shows just how out of touch that group is with the American people,” Tea Party Express spokesman Levi Russell told POLITICO. 

The NAACP is expected to vote at its annual conference as soon as Tuesday on a resolution that accuses tea Party activists of having used racial epithets in denouncing the policies of President Barack Obama and of having verbally and physically abused members of Congress. 

The resolution asserts that tea partiers have engaged in “explicitly racist behavior” and asks NAACP members to “stand in opposition” to the conservative group’s “drive to push our country back to the pre-civil rights era.” 

In response, Russell said the resolution fails to recognize minorities’ contributions to the grassroots movement and attacked the NAACP for lobbing racism charges without evidence to back them. 

“Some of the most compelling leaders of this movement are of many different races — men and women such as William and Selena Owens, Lloyd Marcus, Kevin Jackson and others,” Russell said. 

“The racism accusation by the likes of the NAACP has been proved false time and again. Earlier this year, Democrats smeared tea party activists by claiming members of the Black Caucus were spit on and called the n-word as they paraded through a crowd of tea partiers,” he added. “Their blatant lie was proved false by overwhelming evidence from multiple video cameras that recorded the event.” 

Russell contended the NAACP is guilty of overstepping its bounds and of acting juvenile. 

“As the tea party movement has gained political momentum, groups or individuals still playing the race card look like a foolish embarrassment to their own party,” he said. “It’s time for the NAACP to grow up and stop hiding behind hypocritical race-baiting politics.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39673.html#ixzz0tc0BV0iy

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1294373/The-incredible-story-paralysed-man-blinked-stay-alive-life-support-machine-turned-off.html

NAACP to vote on controversial resolution condemning 'tea party' supporters

Krissah Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 13, 2010; 4:09 PM

Members of the NAACP will vote Tuesday on a resolution that condemns what the group calls "explicitly racist behavior" by supporters of the "tea party" movement. 

The resolution, which is expected to pass, pits the civil rights group against the conservative grass-roots movement, which has repeatedly denied allegations of racism. 

NAACP president Benjamin Jealous told members of his group that he wants to put the tea party "on ice." 

The resolution has drawn scorn from some conservatives. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin became the latest to denounce it on Tuesday, tweeting: "I'm busy today so notify me asap when NAACP renders verdict: are liberty-loving, equality-respecting patriots racist? Bated breath, waiting . . . " 

The tea party statement is one of many actions the NAACP has taken this week during its annual convention, which kicked off Saturday in Kansas City, Mo. The group has also requested a meeting with oil company BP to discuss the effect that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is having on minority workers. Meanwhile, one of the NAACP's local chapters has persuaded Alvin Greene, South Carolina's surprise Democratic Senate nominee, to speak at a meeting Sunday. 

The tea party resolution, which was submitted by the NAACP's Kansas City branch and was first reported by the Kansas City Star, has sparked a hot debate. It says members of the movement have "displayed signs and posters intended to degrade people of color generally and President Barack Obama specifically" and calls "the racist elements" within the tea party "a threat to progress." 

As an example, authors of the statement point to reports by black members of Congress that they endured spitting and racial epithets before voting for the health-care overhaul. (No charges were filed, and some tea party supporters have denied the claims.) 

The resolution also calls on "the leadership and members of the tea party to recognize the historic and present racist factions within it and to repudiate those factions," and says the movement has opposed government programs that help working people and people of color, according to NAACP spokeswoman Leila McDowell. 

Many members of the loose affiliation of groups that make up the tea party have roundly condemned the resolution. 

"Some of these charges have been going on for a while," said Brendan Steinhauser, director of campaigns for FreedomWorks, which organizes tea party groups. "I think there's been a concerted effort to make us look like were are extreme. . . . We're a very mainstream movement that talks about the debt, the bailouts, the spending." 

Steinhauser said he is "inspired by the American civil rights movement" and considered the 1963 March on Washington a model for the tea party's anti-tax march on the Mall last fall. 

Gina Loudon, one of the founders of the St. Louis Tea Party, told Fox News that the NAACP's charges are untrue and called the resolution a "shame." 

"I can't believe that the tea party is even going to be put in a position of dignifying something like that," she said. "This is sad, because this established organization is being used by the left." 

She said the tea party groups have tried to give minority conservatives a platform. 

A simple majority of the more than 2,000 NAACP voting delegates will have to approve the resolution at a business meeting Tuesday. 

The NAACP has also become the first group to get a meeting with Greene, the South Carolina Senate candidate who was a virtual unknown before winning the Democratic primary in June. Greene, who is from Manning, S.C., told the Associated Press that he has accepted an invitation from that city's NAACP chapter to speak at its regular monthly meeting Sunday at Ebenezer Baptist Church. 

Greene will give a 20 to 30 minute speech, said chapter President Robert Fleming. Greene also asked for a space to hold a news conference after his speech, said Fleming, whose family has known Greene's for years. (Fleming's family operates the local funeral home, and Greene's mother runs the town's flower shop.) 

"We presented the invitation to him as an opportunity for him to allow the citizens of South Carolina to know why he is running," Fleming said. 

When asked what he planned to discuss, Greene told the AP that he would talk about "jobs, education and justice, the campaign for the general election." 

Back in Kansas City, the first days of the NAACP's weeklong meeting have focused on the oil spill in the gulf and its impact on minorities. NAACP President Ben Jealous sent a letter Saturday to BP saying that minority and local workers are not getting a fair shot at contracts for cleanup work and that the jobs they have gotten are low-paying. 

McDowell said company officials responded quickly. "They will meet with us," she said.

'Worth it?' Tiger Woods fumes at personal questions in Ireland

Tiger Woods met with reporters in Ireland on Tuesday.

When asked whether his liaisons with other women had been "worth it" since it cost him his marriage and commercial endorsements, Woods replied, "I think you're looking too deep into this." He torpedoed the follow-up question with an icily firm "Thank you." 

Faced with questions about why he was returning immediately to his Florida home rather than heading to Scotland to prepare for next week's British Open at St. Andrews, one of his favorite courses where he's won two previous Opens in 2000 and 2005, the previously easy-speaking Woods flipped a switch into staccato half-sentences. 

How will you prepare? "Practicing." 

Where? "Home."

Why not try and play some links golf in Scotland beforehand? "I need to get home." Silence. 

Why? "See my kids." Silence. 

Throughout the 15-minute press conference journalists attempted various angles to coax and comment on how Woods' marital implosion was affecting his game. 

"There are times in one's life when things get put in perspective, one being when my father passed, and obviously what I've been going through lately," he said in his most expansive reply. 

But when asked again whether he was finding personal worries overshadowing his game, Woods had clearly had enough. 

"Everything's working itself out," was all he would say. 

When asked if that meant his troubles were still undermining his golf, Woods descended into glum-eyed silence, offering only an expression somewhere between a grimace and a frown. 

Out on the Adare Manor Golf Course, Woods felt nothing but love and admiration from the more than 20,000 fans who lined the 7,453-yard course five-deep to watch his every drive, approach shot and putt. 

Armed with a full night's sleep, Woods breezed through a course that had befuddled him on Monday, when he shot a 7-over-par 79 to fall near the bottom of the field of 54 professionals. 

Woods' Irish caddie, silver-haired Tipperary car dealer Arthur Pierse, said Woods was exhausted on Monday after flying overnight from the conclusion of the AT&T National in Pennsylvania, where he finished a distant 46th. 

He climbed back into the middle of the pack with Tuesday's performance, though the score didn't matter because the pros at the McManus Invitational typically give their prize money to Irish charities, and the event is not U.S. PGA-ranked. 

Every five years, Irish billionaire McManus persuades many of the world's top golfers to join his charity event in Adare, where three-member teams of amateurs pay —125,000 ($155,000) for the chance to play alongside the pros. 

Tuesday's rested Woods attacked the outward nine, birdieing three holes and narrowly missing others when putts clipped the hole. He missed an eagle on the 7th, the first par-5 target, by barely an inch. The day before, the same hole produced a double bogey into a pond. 

Woods' game suffered once the weather took a decidedly Irish turn at the 10th hole. Drab gray skies that previously offered softly spitting rain deteriorated into an in-your-face icy shower. Woods, setting aside his umbrella for rushed shots, underhit his approach into a bunker, then shanked the following chip shot 8 feet right of the hole. Woods slapped his wedge into the sand and groaned before two-putting for his day's first bogey. 

Woods dallied at a gourmet sausage vendor — where he inquired about what a Cumberland sausage was before opting instead for a bunless burger — until the rain eased. At the 11th, a par-3 230-yarder offering a straight shot across the River Maigue to the green, Woods planted the ball 8 feet from the hole, then nailed the putt for another birdie. 

Woods did it again on the par-4 14th, covering most of the 444 yards on his drive, then planting the ball 2 feet from the cup for another birdie. 

But just like Monday, Woods couldn't conjure any magic in his approach to the par-5, 548-yard 18th in front of the fans' main stands. He tried again to cross the river in two shots but once again put the ball into the water for his final bogey. 

One of the thousands who came specifically to Adare to see Tiger, 32-year-old high school teacher Marie O'Sullivan, snapped off pictures rapid-fire as he passed by on the 18th fairway. 

She told a reporter of her County Kerry village's recent dramatization of Woods' personal troubles, an earthy variety show called "Pride of the Parish" featuring Tiger Woods and wife Elin Nordegren in marriage counseling. In the show, she said, the couple mended their troubles with the help of a counselor. 

"If only life imitated art," said O'Sullivan, who played the role of Nordegren in the revue.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2010/07/13/2010-07-13_yankees_owner_george_steinbrenner_suffers_a_massive_heart_reports.html