CONGRESS KEEPS ADDING BENEFITS FOR IMMIGRANTS

A timely update on the Health Care Bill from www.fairus.org Click the links in the article for more info!!

THE COST TO TAXPAYERS IS STAGGERING AS CONGRESS KEEPS ADDING BENEFITS FOR IMMIGRANTS . . . ONE PROVISION COULD COST UP TO $30 BILLION ANNUALLY!
The price tag for proposed health care reform just keeps going up... as Congress packs in provisions to America's Affordable Health Choices Act (H.R. 3200), to allow both legal immigrants and illegal aliens to receive health care benefits that will place a heavy burden on American taxpayers.
FAIR WANTS ALL AMERICANS TO BE INFORMED ABOUT THESE PROVISIONS:
SECTION 246: The Loophole for Illegal Aliens . . .
The estimated cost of the loophole in the House bill, H.R. 3200, which will allow illegal aliens to receive taxpayer-funded health benefits, could cost $30 BILLION ANNUALLY, according to a study from the Center for Immigration Studies. Read the details

SECTION 246(d): An Overlooked-and Expensive-Provision . . .
Overlooked in the current debate, however, is another provision in the House bill that reverses an important policy regarding legal immigrants. Section 242(d) of the House bill will cost the American taxpayers at least $33.8 BILLION during the 2014-2019 budget period. Accordingly, the thirty-six words of Section 242(d) will cost the American taxpayers nearly $1 BILLION PER WORD! Read the report.

This provision waives the current 5-year waiting period for health care services for legal immigrants, the greatest number of which are admitted as lawful permanent residents. This means that legal immigrants can, rather than waiting to apply for public benefits, begin collecting the affordability credit immediately upon their arrival in the U.S. This provision will be costly to the American people and undoes one of the major reforms contained in the Welfare Reform law enacted in 1996. Read the details in FAIR's Legislative Analysis.

New Provisions: Why Not Give Illegal Aliens Access to Health Coverage?
But some members of Congress aren't satisfied yet . . . They want to add provisions THAT SPECIFICALLY GUARANTEE ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE COVERAGE FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS!

Health Care for Illegal Aliens?
VIEW THIS INTERVIEW WITH REP. SHIELA JACKSON LEE
The House health care bill contains a number of provisions that significantly impact immigration policy at a considerable cost to the American people. Make sure you take action as soon as possible because we can't afford to wait until these provisions become a permanent part of legislation that Congress could pass this year!

CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES
Thank you for making a difference!

iPod & Ethics *BUMPED*

iPod & Ethics
I wanted to send this article below which talks about how flippant some people are about stealing from others. In our own magazine, Vertical Thought http://www.verticalthought.org/issues/vt19/music_legal.htm , this issue came up and shows that the commandment against stealing applies to this topic and yet a significant amount of iPod users are either ignorant or don't care about this issue. Anyway, I hope you find this interesting.
See also here

Average teenager's iPod has 800 illegal music tracks
Dan Sabbagh, Media Editor.
Teenagers and students have an average of more than 800 illegally copied songs each on their digital music players, the largest academic survey of young people's music ownership has found. The research also showed that half of 14 to 24-year-olds were happy to share all the music on their hard drive, enabling others to copy hundreds, or thousands, of songs at any one time. Although illegal copying has become widespread, the scale of the problem uncovered by the University of Hertfordshire left the music industry surprised. On average every iPod or digital music player contained 842 illegally copied songs. Fergal Sharkey, former lead singer of the Undertones and now chief executive of British Music Rights, said: “I was one of those people who went around the back of the bike shed with songs I had taped off the radio the night before. But this totally dwarfs that, and anything we expected.”
Related Links
Buyers rush for the iPod of ebooks
U2 boss: cut off illegal downloaders from web
The average digital music player carries 1,770 songs, meaning that 48 per cent of the collection is copied illegally. The proportion of illegally downloaded tracks rises to 61 per cent among 14 to 17-year-olds. In addition, 14 per cent of CDs (one in seven) in a young person's collection are copied. Illegal copying in some form is undertaken by 96 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds surveyed, falling to 89 per cent of those aged 14-17. Nearly two thirds copy CDs from friends, and similar proportions share songs by e-mail and copy all the music held on another person's hard drive, acquiring up to 10,000 songs in one go. British Music Rights argues that the solution partly lies in developing new legal services that make breaking copyright unappealing. Mr Sharkey said: “The positive message is that 80 per cent of downloaders said they would pay for a legal subscription-based service, and they told us they would be willing to pay more than a few pounds a month.” British Music Rights declined to release the exact amount but it is believed to be about £10 a month. The organisation is trying to help the record companies to persuade internet service providers to sign up to a new type of music service, in which vast catalogues of songs are available for an add-on fee to a broadband package. Agreements with providers such as Virgin Media are expected in the next few weeks. In France last week, Orange, France Telecom's mobile arm, reached agreement with all four main record companies to provide downloads of more than a million songs to mobile phones and home computers for €12 (£9.40) a month. Music sales have been falling steadily and the big companies are desperate to strike subscription-based agreements rather than rely on one-off CD and download sales. http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/article4144585.ece

The Obama Appeasement Policy Rollout

A timely analysis from www.hughhewitt.com about the foreign policy decisions of the current administration including references to Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Al-Qaeda!


The Obama Appeasement Policy Rollout
Posted by: Hugh Hewitt

The Washington Post's Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus bring us a story this morning about the great success America is having against al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2009.This would be great news, of course, and I hope it is true. But the timing of this sudden burst of optimism about our troops' increased ability to suppress bin Laden's fanatics is just too convenient for those urging the president to reject General McChyrstal's recommendations concerning more troops for the Afghan theater.If al Qaeda is truly on its back and unable to regroup, then the case for abandoning Afghanistan to the Taliban gets easier for the president to make. If, on the other hand and as almost everyone prior to today has stated, the return of the Taliban to power in Kabul or even to unmolested authority in other areas of the country will increase the ability of al Qaeda to organize and launch attacks against the U.S., then the McChyrstal recommendations should be adopted and quickly.We know the president has embraced appeasement in all but name vis-a-vis Iran and its nuclear ambitions. The New York Times' John Burns worries that the U.S. policy in Iraq is leading to growing instability there, which is another example of the roll out of an appeasement policy towards any force hostile to the U.S. And now today's WaPo story suggests others are pushing the president towards a three-front appeasement policy, which would mean the gradual abandonment of the battle for Afghanistan in addition to withdrawal from Iraq and surrender to Iran's ambitions. Make that a four-front appeasement policy, given the president's abandonment of missile defense plans in Poland and the Czech Republic in an attempt to please Vladimir Putin.Back to the '90s' "holiday from history," which of course led to 9/11.

Southern Poverty Law Center Smears Immigration Patriots—And Lord Of The Rings!

An interesting analysis from Tom Tancredo and reported at www.vdare.com about the SPLC and Lord of the Rings!

Southern Poverty Law Center Smears Immigration Patriots—And Lord Of The Rings!
By Tom Tancredo
Recently I spoke at a college in New York State. After my speech, a student handed me one of his text books entitled Understanding Human Differences: Multicultural Education in a Diverse America.
Given the title, I didn’t expect sympathetic treatment. However, I was still shocked to see myself quoted as saying, "illegal immigrants were 'coming to kill you and kill me and our families.'" While illegal aliens disproportionately commit violent crimes, I would never make such a blanket assertion.
I contacted the publisher who gave the source as the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hysterical smear piece against the immigration control movement creatively titled "The Nativists." The SPLC purported that I said this at a 2004 speech in Illinois.
What I actually said was that our open borders policies allow terrorists to sneak into our country. And yes, terrorists want to "kill you and kill me and our families." But the SPLC’s intentional misrepresentation is now repeated across the internet and even in college textbooks. (To their credit, the publisher will eliminate the quote in future editions.)
The SPLC describes itself merely as a civil rights organization that tracks hate groups. They made a name for themselves by suing the Ku Klux Klan, and raised hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. With the Klan virtually non-existent, they raise money by tarring opponents of illegal immigration as the second coming of the Klan.
The anti-amnesty organization The Federation for American Immigration Reform recently released "A Guide to Understanding the Tactics of the Southern Poverty Law Center in the Immigration Debate" that exposes this strategy.
According to FAIR:
"While disavowing any position on immigration policy, the SPLC has for nearly a decade targeted organizations and individuals who support immigration enforcement…The SPLC concluded that just about everyone actively opposed to amnesty and mass immigration was a "nativist" a "white supremacist," or had ties to such groups and individuals."[PDF]
The SPLC calls FAIR a "hate group." They don’t try to debunk any of FAIR’s studies or point to racist statements made by its staff. Instead they smear FAIR by accusing them of being linked to supposed racists. This guilt by association is so tenuous that they attack FAIR for receiving contributions from someone whose deceased father was allegedly a "white supremacist."
If the attacks on opponents of illegal immigration are not absurd enough, their website reprinted an article that attacked The Lord of the Rings movies as "Eurocentric" and likened them to "promotional ads for those tired old race and gender paradigms."
FAIR’s report also notes that the SPLC is the origin of a number of anti-immigration enforcement myths that are spread through the media. One is the claim that there is an explosion of so called "hate crimes" against Hispanics due to the rhetoric of opponents of amnesty.
Deciding whether or not an act is a "hate crime" is subjective. In fact, when Hispanics are attacked by whites, they are listed as victims. However Hispanics are listed as Whites when they commit anti-Black hate crimes!
Even if you take the federal government’s statistics at face value, FAIR notes that hate crimes against Hispanics decreased over the last decade if you account for the fact that their population is rapidly increasing due to the open borders policies that the SPLC promotes.
The SPLC spreads this falsehood to suggest we need to silence opponents of illegal immigration because they will commit violence against Hispanics. Barack Obama repeated this phony claim and blamed Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs for the non-existent trend.
The Department of Homeland Security’s now infamous report on "Right-wing Extremism," relies heavily on the SPLC. In addition to repeating the Hate Crimes myth, it also slandered our troops by warning that "disgruntled" veterans returning from overseas are potential terrorists.
They backed up this up by quoting a SPLC report entitled "A Few Bad Men" that claims racists are infiltrating the military. Coincidentally, "A Few Bad Men" appeared as the SPLC attacked American Legion for its support immigration enforcement, which they called "Legionnaires' Disease."
While veterans’ organizations are tarred for their supposed links to extremists, the SPLC promotes left wing terrorists. Their newsletter published an ingratiating interview with unrepentant Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers who they described merely as a "civil rights organizer, radical anti-Vietnam War activist, teacher and author" who "has developed a rich vision of teaching that interweaves passion, responsibility and self-reflection."
Why a group that aligns itself with terrorists, but opposes The Lord of the Rings is taken seriously by anyone is beyond me.
Unfortunately, it is not beyond the Obama administration and the liberal media who take their smears at face value.
Polls show that Americans overwhelmingly oppose amnesty and want our borders secured. Obama and the SPLC know that the only way they can win is by silencing their opponents with lies and anti-free speech measures such as Hate Crimes legislation and the Fairness Doctrine.
Conservatives need to expose the SPLC as the left wing hate group that it is while it’s still legal.

Tom Tancredo represented Colorado’s 6th Congressional District from 1999 until 2009 where he chaired the 100+ member bipartisan Immigration Reform Caucus. He currently serves as co-chairman of Team America PAC and president of the Rocky Mountain Foundation. He authored In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security.

Occupied America: Tim Wise, Affirmative Action, And Disparate Impact In Tucson

Click through on this phrase Graphic From Tucson, Occupied Arizona to see a very interesting picture about what is going on in Tucson Arizona Note especially Tim Wise [Email him]– and his actions in this.

Graphic From Tucson, Occupied Arizona
[James Fulford]
The Doug MacEachern column mentioned below says
As always, the annual Institute for Transformative Education summer seminar, hosted by TUSD’s amply funded Mexican/American raza-studies program, was fun. So much racial bitterness to obsess over.
Here’s the publicly funded web page from that publicly funded program. For those of you in Rio Linda, those are American public funds. (Amazingly, Rio Linda itself is still over 80 percent white. Perhaps the invaders don’t want it.)

11th Annual

Co-Sponsored by
Occupied America: Tim Wise, Affirmative Action, And Disparate Impact In Tucson
Steve Sailer coined the phrase “an Uncle Tim” to describe activists like Tim Wise [Email him]–white people who hate other white people, and blame racism for what’s wrong with minority communities. He’s mentioned in a column by Doug MacEachern in the The Arizona Republic which describes what’s going on Tucson’s Unified School Districts:
As always, the annual Institute for Transformative Education summer seminar, hosted by TUSD’s amply funded Mexican/American raza-studies program, was fun. So much racial bitterness to obsess over.
Tim Wise, the ultra-angry Tulane University poli-sci grad who has made a great living finding racism under every doormat, was the featured speaker. Everyone was wowed. [MacEachern: Tucson schools create race-based system of discipline, September 19, 2009]
This is not a good sign. Here’s what it’s a sign of:
In a year in which hundreds of district teachers received pink slips, meanwhile, TUSD spent thousands on recruiting teachers from out of state.
And it hired a coordinator at $80,000 per annum to lead the effort.
The recruiting was prompted by what is fast becoming the consuming passion of the TUSD governing board and its allies - to establish a corps of teachers that precisely mirrors the racial make-up of its heavily minority student population.
Tucson has a “heavily minority student population” largely because of Mexican immigration, mostly illegal. (Tucson is only 5% black.) So they are letting white teachers go and replacing them with minorities, partly due to Your Helpful Federal Government:
This summer, the TUSD board adopted a “Post-Unitary Status Plan” that it expects will help the district escape a decades-old federal desegregation order.
The plan includes increasing the number of minority teachers - per the summer hiring spree, which netted 14 special-education teachers and one math-science teacher.
It also includes a vast expansion of the district’s controversial Mexican-American studies program.
“Controversial” because it’s propagandizing for reconquista, which seems to be proceeding nicely in Arizona. But there’s more. School discipline in Tucson has had “disparate impact,” presumably because the minority students have been disparately offensive. At least, that’s my guess. School administrators seem to think that it must be because of racism:
But consider one significant part of the plan for “improving” the academic status of TUSD’s Black and Hispanic students:
The board is calling for a two-tiered form of student discipline. One for Black and Hispanic students; one for everyone else.
With the goal of creating a “restorative school culture and climate” that conveys a “sense of belonging to all students,” the board is insisting that its schools reduce its suspensions and/or expulsions of minority students to the point that the data reflect “no ethnic/racial disparities.”
From the section of the 52-page plan titled “Restorative School Culture and Climate,” subhead, “Discipline”:
“School data that show disparities in suspension/expulsion rates will be examined in detail for root causes. Special attention will be dedicated to data regarding African-American and Hispanic students.”
The board approved creating an “Equity Team” that will oversee the plan to ensure “a commitment to social justice for all students.”
Would social justice for all students include actual justice for white kids who are victimized by minorities? No, it wouldn’t.(Congratulate MacEachern.)

Dual Discipline Systems In Tucson Public Schools

An interesting article from Steve Sailer of www.vdare.com about how the School Systems in the Southwestern United States are being run. Note especially the link about Uncle Tim.


Dual Discipline Systems In Tucson Public Schools
[Steve Sailer]
Columnist Doug MacEachern writes in the Arizona Republic:
Tucson schools create race-based system of disciplineIt has been a busy summer for our friends running the Tucson Unified School District.
As always, the annual Institute for Transformative Education summer seminar, hosted by TUSD’s amply funded Mexican/American raza-studies program, was fun. So much racial bitterness to obsess over.
Tim Wise, the ultra-angry Tulane University poli-sci grad who has made a great living finding racism under every doormat, was the featured speaker. Everyone was wowed.

Tim Wise is America’s foremost Uncle Tim.
In a year in which hundreds of district teachers received pink slips, meanwhile, TUSD spent thousands on recruiting teachers from out of state. And it hired a coordinator at $80,000 per annum to lead the effort.
The recruiting was prompted by what is fast becoming the consuming passion of the TUSD governing board and its allies - to establish a corps of teachers that precisely mirrors the racial make-up of its heavily minority student population.
… This summer, the TUSD board adopted a “Post-Unitary Status Plan” that it expects will help the district escape a decades-old federal desegregation order. The plan includes increasing the number of minority teachers - per the summer hiring spree, which netted 14 special-education teachers and one math-science teacher.It also includes a vast expansion of the district’s controversial Mexican-American studies program. Despite the budget-enforced closing of school libraries, the shuttering of arts and music programs and the layoff of teachers and counselors in other disciplines, the Post-Unitary Status Plan calls for a vigorous expansion of the program run by TUSD’s happy band of unrepentant political leftists.
The board’s plan also calls for changes intended (however counterproductive those plans may be) to improving the lot of minority students.
It wants to see more minority students enrolled in advanced-placement programs, for example - a laudable goal, certainly. But consider one significant part of the plan for “improving” the academic status of TUSD’s Black and Hispanic students:
The board is calling for a two-tiered form of student discipline. One for Black and Hispanic students; one for everyone else.
With the goal of creating a “restorative school culture and climate” that conveys a “sense of belonging to all students,” the board is insisting that its schools reduce its suspensions and/or expulsions of minority students to the point that the data reflect “no ethnic/racial disparities.”
From the section of the 52-page plan titled “Restorative School Culture and Climate,” subhead, “Discipline”: “School data that show disparities in suspension/expulsion rates will be examined in detail for root causes. Special attention will be dedicated to data regarding African-American and Hispanic students.”

… Offenses by students will be judged, and penalties meted out, depending on the student’s hue. … Some behavior will be met with strict penalties; some will not. It all depends on the color of the student’s skin.
It is an invitation to chaos.

The funny thing is that after a number of years of disparate impact-based discipline, there won’t be anybody except blacks and Hispanics left in the Tucson Unified School District.
Don’t we need to de-unify school districts? Look how the San Gabriel Valley east of LA has prospered in recent decades because it has its own small school districts, while the more conveniently located San Fernando Valley has floundered under the control of the LAUSD.
One noteworthy feature of the Los Angeles Unified School District is that you can look up online every single school’s suspension and expulsion statistics by race. For example, here is Canoga Park HS in the west San Fernando Valley. I wonder if this feature was dreamed up a discrimination lawyer and imposed as part of the settlement of a discrimination suit to make it easier to troll for more lawsuits? (The extremely deep pockets of LA’s huge public institutions such as the LAUSD and the LAPD, combined with LA’s many legally favored minorities and LA’s swarms of LA Law-style Arnie Beckerish sleazy attorneys, such as the late Johnny Cochran, has made suing for discrimination a favorite retirement plan out here.)
Does anybody know whether charter schools are less attractive targets for discrimination lawsuits because they have shallower pockets?

Can Halloween Be Christianized?

An interesting post from www.gnmagazine.com about this holiday. For more information click here for a more thorough book which covers this topic in depth.

Can Halloween Be Christianized?

Finding the shadows of the evil customs of Halloween abhorrent, many Christians have sought to sanitize the holiday by integrating religious symbols with which they are more familiar and comfortable (this process is called syncretism). Some, for example, carve the name Jesus onto pumpkins and add religious phrases in the hopes of evangelizing those who go trick-or-treating.
Others have undertaken a more elaborate revision of the holiday, attempting to turn it into a harvest festival interwoven with Christian themes and devoid of its more obvious pagan overtones. Church basements are turned into carnivals featuring games, contests and, of course, candy.
What should you do in deciding how you will approach this hotly debated issue?
The fundamental argument in favor of mixing ancient pagan customs and practices with the worship of God is that some believe it is an effective way to gradually win people over to Christian understanding. (Of course, in the present world we should ask ourselves why people who already see themselves as Christian would find any need to continue associations with pagan religious customs.)

This is sometimes a hotly disputed subject, and sincere people have concluded it indeed is useful to integrate the practices of ancient religious customs with the worship of God.
But perhaps we should address a fundamental question: What does God advise?
There is a scriptural precedent that offers guidance and direction for those who accept the Bible's instruction. The Israelites were confronted with these issues as they settled and built a new nation in the Promised Land. They encountered many worshipers of pagan deities as they entered the land and for centuries faced the problem as they dealt with neighboring peoples.
Even before they entered the land, God revealed His thinking and told them how to handle this challenge. His directions were explicit: "When the LORD your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed that you are not ensnared to follow them ... Do not inquire after their gods, saying, 'How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.' You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way; for every abomination to the LORD which He hates they have done to their gods ... Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it" (Deuteronomy 12:29-32).

God's instructions are crystal clear. He refuses to accept worship that is compromised and tainted by customs used in the worship of fraudulent religion. He expects His worshipers to revere Him in accordance with His commands, not their own imaginings.

Many centuries later the apostle Paul expressed a similar thought when correcting some in the church in Corinth for their poor judgment. "What partnership can righteousness have with wickedness?" he asked. "Can light associate with darkness? Can Christ agree with [the devil] ...? Can there be a compact between the temple of God and idols? And the temple of the living God is what we are" (2 Corinthians 6:14-16, Revised English Bible).

The modern debate over Christianizing pagan worship customs could be resolved simply by reading and heeding God's plainly expressed will. GN

http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn30/halloween_christian.htm

Why Are 15 Million Americans Unemployed When 8.3 Million Illegals Have Jobs? Immigration Moratorium Now!

An interesting analysis from Brenda Walker of www.VDare.com! For further info on a political strategy click here

Why Are 15 Million Americans Unemployed When 8.3 Million Illegals Have Jobs? Immigration Moratorium Now!
By Brenda Walker
President Obama still plans an amnesty in the near, though unspecific, future, according to threats continuing to burble out of the White House.
That’s despite record unemployment and widespread misery throughout the land.
Obama's Treason Lobby supporters nag him constantly that he promised to reward illegal alien lawbreakers. So there's no danger he will be allowed to forget.
We have become so desensitized to Washington's daily cruelty to average Americans that the systematic displacement of citizens in the workplace is accepted as the norm. Plus, not only is the White House guaranteeing to reward millions of aliens for violating U.S. sovereignty, but legal immigration on auto-pilot continues to dump 125,000 new workers per month into America's already flooded labor market.
In boom times, captains of industry demanded additional foreign workers and got them. But now, when 15 million Americans are jobless, there is no corresponding reduction.
Why is that? Is there no OFF switch anywhere in Washington? An immigration moratorium, a time-out , would be sensible public policy and would relieve a lot of pain among citizens.
But there is no such legislation in Congress.
Has America drifted into an alternative universe where evil rules? Perhaps traditional citizens have been a little late in finding their voice in townhalls and tea parties.
Interestingly, President Obama understands something of the principle of supply and demand regarding employment—as he demonstrated in his CNN interview broadcast September 20:
"I think we'll be adding jobs, but you need 150,000 additional jobs each month just to keep pace with a growing population," the president said. "So if we're only adding 50,000 jobs, that's a great reversal from losing 700,000 jobs [a month] early this year—but, you know, it means that we've still got a ways to go." [Obama: Economy probably won't produce enough jobs until 2010]
Among Americans, the economy is the top concern. An August Gallup poll found that 31 percent of workers personally feared losing their job, a new high and double the rate of a year ago. A Harris Poll taken in early September noted that 60 percent of Americans polled gave the President a negative rating on handling the economy.
Yet Washington and the elite media are stuck on healthcare. It’s certainly important and needs fixing. But unemployment is worsening (now at 9.7 percent nationally), and badly so in many regions and job sectors.
In August, 42 states lost jobs (an increase of 29 states from July) with a nationwide total of 216,000 persons laid off.
The average time which people remain unemployed has lengthened to 25 weeks, the longest since the end of WWII, and 5 million Americans have been jobless for more than six months.
The numbers are worse for black Americans, where 15.1 percent of those over 16 are jobless.

An article last spring examined A Job Crisis for Young Black Men:
"The relative size of this loss in employment among black men was the highest in any of the 11 post-World War II recessions in the United States. It is ironic that at the same time that the nation was electing its first African-American president, it was displacing record numbers of black men from the ranks of the employed.
Similar to the case for male workers generally, the employment declines among black men have been concentrated among the youngest workers (ages 16-24), among those with limited formal schooling, and among blue-collar workers. The lack of adequate employment opportunities among these young black men contributes to a lack of hope and an increase in despair, which often leads to rising delinquency, crime, and incarceration. In recent months, only one in six black teen males has worked, and only 52 percent of 20- to 24-year-old black men held any type of job. Another new record employment low is being established for these young men. "
(by Ron Marlow and Andrew Sum, Boston Globe, April 22, 2009).
The U.S. teen jobless rate recently reached 25.5 percent. Young people as a whole have suffered from displacement, as reported by McClatchy in June, Older workers muscling out teens for summer jobs:
"Last year, only 32.7 percent of U.S. teens ages 16 through 19 held summer jobs, the lowest level since the government started tracking the data in 1948, said Andrew Sum, the director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.
“With jobs still scarce, the teen employment rate probably will hit a new low of about 30 percent this summer, Sum said."
“That figure doesn't include some 400,000 to 500,000 low-income teens who are expected to get summer jobs thanks to $1.2 billion in stimulus funds for youth job programs.
“However, Sum said that these jobs—some of which will go to adults ages 20 to 24—will boost teen summer-employment rates only by another 1 to 1.5 percent, which, if accurate, would still be a 61-year low.”
Another group that has been smacked down is the recent college grad cohort. During the first four months of 2009, less than half of the country's 4 million college graduates age 25 and under were working in jobs that required a college degree.
That career obstruction is a bitter disappointment for young people who would like to get going on their adult lives—and is extra bad news for those with large college loans to pay off.
In immigration-crippled California, the jobless rate reached 12.2 percent in August, and nearly 2.25 million state residents searched unsuccessfully for work. In August 2008, the state's jobless rate was 7.7 percent.
The Central Valley has been particularly hard hit. (See the Sacramento Bee's helpful interactive map of unemployment by county and by month since January 2008.)
The Bakersfield Homeless Center reported a 34 percent increase in homeless families since last year. Director Louis Gill remarked, "They're like folks you know and that you've worked with... We're seeing individuals come in that have never had to access the safety net before." [More Families Are Becoming Homeless, By Alexi Mostrous, Washington Post, July 12, 2009].
Fresno has struggled with tent cities that have appeared. In March, Sacramento was reported to have a homeless encampment numbering 1200.
Behind these numbers are Americans who have used up their savings, lost their homes, moved in with relatives, needed food banks and become traumatized and depressed by long-term joblessness. Many millions are working part-time, meaning they are scraping by but don't make enough money to fulfill their dreams of a good college education for the kids and a comfortable retirement.
One of the President's campaign promises, made often in the Midwestern Rustbelt, was to renegotiate NAFTA. It was a popular policy among hard-hit workers who understand how globalized trade has directly harmed them, since NAFTA sent thousands of jobs to Mexico and turned a moderate trade surplus into a loss. Senator Sherrod Brown estimated that NAFTA caused the loss of 200,000 manufacturing jobs in Ohio alone.
“‘Obama not only verbally promised voters there a NAFTA re-do, he did it in writing. ‘Bad Trade Deals Hit Ohio Harder Than Most States and Only Barack Obama Consistently Opposed NAFTA,’ declared an Obama campaign leaflet picturing a shuttered factory.
“‘He made those statements in the Youngstown area,’ [Rep. Marcy] Kaptur recalled. ‘And when these words are heard, they mean something. Now people are waiting for the results of that. ‘" [Obama backs away from reforming free trade deal, Washington Examiner, By Susan Ferrechio, May 18, 2009]
Many blue collar workers certainly voted for Obama believing that he would be the champion of reviving American manufacturing and was someone who cared about working people.
But that was not the “Change” that Obama had in mind. He is a globalist, just like all the rest of America's elites.
The President has been oddly uninterested in the employment crisis. He promised that the stimulus would save and create jobs. But when it didn't work, he became passive, remarking in his weekend CNN interview: "I want to be clear, that probably the jobs picture is not going to improve considerably—and it could even get a little bit worse—over the next couple of months."

Meanwhile Obama has been focused like a laser beam on healthcare—a policy revolution that would take years to implement, even if he can ram through a bill. But the worst job loss in generations has become a snoozer at the White House.
Obama’s apparent indifference may stem from the fact that the easy, obvious solutions are politically distasteful. His kowtowing to Hispanics shows he regards them as a vital part of his coalition. He may not be prepared to miff Mexicans to help Americans. There's no question that many Democrat honchos believe a massive amnesty for nanny-state-friendly immigrants will produce a permanent Democrat majority for decades, if not forever.
There are two common-sense solutions involving immigration, both legal and illegal.
As mentioned earlier, an immigration moratorium for the duration of the jobs recession would be entirely reasonable. Simply stop the annual inflow of 1.5 million legal immigrants until the national unemployment rate gets back down to a normal level.
Such a policy would be kind to citizen workers and would take the edge off the left's self-serving belief that immigration to America is a universal human right.
Wasn't immigration supposed to be a benefit for the country and its citizens? That idea has gone down the memory hole, along with the notion that the purpose of the American government is to protect the freedoms of the American people, not provide a planetary social services and wealth redistribution center.

The other solution is to make the SAVE Act the law of the land. SAVE stands for Secure America through Verification and Enforcement and has a strong section on workplace enforcement.
Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR) posted a press release at the time of announcing his co-sponsorship of the bill, July 23.
"Second, the SAVE Act expands and mandates use of the E-verify program—a free and effective program that allows employers to verify the individuals they hire are legally allowed to work in the U.S. The program will phase-in over four years, beginning with the federal government, federal contractors, and employers with over 250 employees. Smaller businesses would begin using the system in a graduated manner. The Obama Administration recently announced that all federal contractors and subcontractors must use the E-verify program starting September 8, 2009. "
The Pew Hispanic Center estimated last spring that 8.3 million illegal workers were occupying American jobs as of March 2008. Even allowing for a little shrinkage because of the recession, removing those unlawful workers would free up positions for nearly half of the 15 million American jobless.
Many of those liberated jobs would be low-skilled, but so are many unemployed Americans. In earlier times of economic difficulty, people of various talents could easily pick up a part-time or service industry gig. It wasn't great, but a survival job (as they are now called) kept food on the table and the wolf from the door.
Recent workplace raids which have removed illegal workers have been followed by Americans lining up for employment, thereby disproving the Open-Borders lobby's much-used lie, that spoiled, lazy citizens won't do "those" jobs.
Americans did those jobs 30 years ago—before business became addicted to cheap and exploitable illegal workers.
The question for President Obama and Congress is this: "In this time of great misery, will you open up 8 million jobs for unemployed Americans and stop the flow of unnecessary foreign workers who compete against citizens?"
And why isn't that question being asked by sovereignty enthusiasts—and the conservative media?

Brenda Walker (email her) lives in Northern California and publishes two websites, LimitsToGrowth.org and ImmigrationsHumanCost.org. She reflects often on the idea that 600,000 Americans were killed in the War Over Free Labor (aka the Civil War), and business will not easily abandon illegal alien workers who essentially insert their own hands into chains.

Obama's U.N. Speech

A great analysis by www.hughhewitt.com on Barack Obama's U.N. speech. For information on the country that was NOT invited to the U.N. click here .

Barack Obama's U.N. Speech Analyzed
by Hugh Hewitt
You can get your own free subscription by clicking here.

The worst of many awful parts of the president’s UN Assembly speech is that the president engages in Israel-bashing before a group that includes many of the worst sort of thugs and dictators. President Obama missed the opportunity to remind the world that Israel has an absolute right to exist, and that no serious negotiation can begin until that right is recognized by all the powers in the Palestinian territories. The president's slam on the legitimacy of Israeli settlements is a red herring, and everyone knows it. The obstacle to peace is Hamas and every other extremist who wants Israel destroyed, not construction within previously established lines of construction.
The second worst part of the speech was the studied refusal bluntly to name Iran as an oppressor of its own people and an exporter of terror and breaker of international rules. Part of the essence of appeasement is the refusal by free states to speak bluntly about their fascist counterparts. The president's meaningless rhetoric about "certain truths which are self-evident" must be a very bitter pill for the dissidents of Iran in prison, and their families and friends, who were looking for a statement of solidarity, not an invitation for the fanatics to continue their repression under the guise of each country pursuing "a path rooted in the culture of its people and its past traditions."
What an embarrassment, but also how predictable given the president's long standing hostility to Israel and his reflexive desire to not offend our enemies.

GOP Strategy?

Here is a potential strategy for the GOP proposed by Steve Sailer of www.vdare.com! Comment if you'd like!!

Even If Immigration Continues, The Sailer Strategy Could Still Win It For The GOP In 2050
By Steve Sailer
The central question about the long-term future of the Republican Party is—does the Republican Party have a future?
The demographic changes unleashed by post-1965 immigration policies inexorably work to benefit Democrats, as Peter Brimelow and Ed Rubenstein pointed out in their National Review cover story Electing a New People back in1997. (Those were the days! After William F. Buckley purged the magazine of patriotic immigration reformers, Brimelow and Rubenstein updated their analysis in the Hudson Institute’s magazine American Outlook in 2000.)
Brimelow and Rubenstein made three points:
a static point: in American politics, race is destiny—the races vote systematically differently and these differences are very slow to change;
a dynamic point: the major parties’ share of the overall vote sways back and forth according to political conditions, and the proportion they get of each race’s vote sways back and forth in parallel (but the differences between the races remain roughly the same);
an immigration point: immigration policy is shifting America’s racial balance toward minorities, and therefore the ability of the Republican Party to win national elections is being steadily reduced.
Brimelow and Rubenstein’s conclusion in 1997: the GOP should move to cut off immigration.
Instead, under George W. Bush, the GOP did exactly the opposite, although Bush’s amnesty efforts ultimately failed.
Nevertheless, the trend that Brimelow and Rubenstein identified was undeniable. Thus, according to the gold standard Census Bureau survey of more than 50,000 households immediately after each election, the non-Hispanic white share of the vote declined slowly from 84.9 percent in 1988 to 79.2 percent in 2004.
Then the white share fell off a cliff, down to 76.3 percent in 2008.
The reason for this sudden slump: turnout. In 2008, minorities surged to the polls to vote for Obama. Simultaneously, white turnout as a share of white adult citizens was down from the level of 2004.
Not surprisingly, the black turnout rate as a share of eligible black voters was up from 60 to 65 percent. But even more interestingly, other minorities, who are less politicized than blacks, were excited by Obama’s candidacy too. Among citizens, Asian turnout was up from 45 to 47 percent of eligible Asian voters, and Hispanic turnout increased from 47 to 50 percent of eligible Hispanic voters.
The more marginal white voters tend to vote Republican if they get motivated enough to show up at the polls. The opposite is true for the more marginal minority voters—they tend to vote Democratic.
At a conceptual level, there are two ways the GOP can stay alive:

The conventional wisdom says that the GOP must start converting a fast-growing immigrant group, such as Hispanics—by, say, promoting amnesty for illegal immigrants and zero down payment mortgages to boost minority homeownership.
Oh, wait, that has been the strategy of George W. Bush, Karl Rove and John McCain. How’s that working out, by the way?

But there is an alternative, more obvious strategy that hasn’t been widely discussed:
The GOP could raise white turnout and win a larger share of the white vote.
Of course this means the GOP would have to advocate (and then perhaps actually implement) policies that, you know, do something for its natural (white) base.
The obvious example: cutting immigration. This would not merely benefit whites by, for example, reducing workplace competition, but it would also (whaddya know) halt the immigration-driven demographic deterioration in the GOP’s electoral position.
It’s so rational that it apparently can’t be discussed in respectable Beltway circles.

VDARE.COM calls strategy #2 the “Sailer Strategy”.
How The Sailer Strategy Could Win California
GOP Wins With Sailer Strategy!
GOP’s Southern (=Sailer) Strategy Rises Again. Actually, It’s Never Been Down.
Sailer 1, Stupid Party Strategists 0
Jesse Helms: The Sailer Strategy Victorious

Even before the Supreme Court handed George W. Bush the 2000 election, I pointed out in VDARE.com: GOP Future Depends on Winning Larger Share of the White Vote.
“If Dubya had garnered 57% instead of just 54% of whites, he would have cruised to an Electoral College landslide of 367 to 171.”
Despite all the subsequent hogwash from Karl Rove about his minority outreach strategy, the plain albeit unreported fact was that the GOP triumphs in 2002 and 2004 followed this game plan. GOP House candidates won 59 percent of the white vote in the 2002 off year election and Bush took 58 percent in the Presidential election of 2004.
However, the Republicans' relatively strong showings among whites in those two elections were driven much less by any coherent platform intended to benefit the base than by post-9/11 appeals to their patriotism. My analysis of the lost 2002 exit poll results showed that:
“Whites were more interested in foreign-affairs issues than blacks or Hispanics. One out of five whites said the issue that mattered most in determining their votes was either terrorism or Iraq, compared to one out of ten Hispanics, and one out of 25 blacks.”

By 2006, though, the Bush-Rove-McCain Grand Strategy of
Invite the World
Invade the World
In Hock to the World

was running out of gas. And, in 2008, the Housing Bubble inflated by Bush’s 2002 plan to win over Hispanic voters by creating 5.5 million more minority homeowners via debauching traditional credit standards backfired catastrophically.
In 2006 in California, 56 percent of all home purchase mortgage dollars had gone to minorities. And in the subsequent mortgage meltdown, minorities accounted for the great bulk of defaulted dollars in California. A study by economists at the San Francisco Federal Reserve of 239,101 mortgages issued in California during the Housing Bubble reported:
“We also find that race has an independent effect on foreclosure even after controlling for borrower income and credit score. In particular, African American borrowers were 3.3 times as likely as white borrowers to be in foreclosure, whereas Latino and Asian borrowers were 2.5 and 1.6 times respectively more likely to be in foreclosure as white borrowers.”[ Lending in Low- and Moderate-Income Neighborhoods in California:The Performance of CRA Lending During the Subprime Meltdown,by Elizabeth Laderman and Carolina Reid, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, November 26, 2008]
In other words, the Republican Establishment wasted eight years, while the party’s position was deteriorating demographically because of mass immigration, on minority outreach programs like tacitly encouraging illegal immigration and bad borrowing.
The result of all this cleverness was that the GOP was in even worse shape going into the 2008 election. Add in well-deserved blame for economic collapse and McCain’s themeless and politically correct campaigning, and Obama unsurprisingly won 365-173 in the Electoral College.
As I’ve shown above, McCain’s share of the white vote, 55 percent, was relatively weak, and white turnout was down.
Worse, in terms of the Electoral College, white Republican voters were over-concentrated in Great Plains, Great Basin, and Southern states.
But I’ve built the same kind of Electoral College model as I did in 2000. This time, it shows McCain could have eked out a 271-267 victory if he had gotten just five more percentage points of the white vote in each state—and if whites had showed up at the polls at the same rate as in 2004.

With just those two changes, McCain would have picked up Florida, Indiana, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia.
It’s striking that one can even dream up a path to victory for a candidate as feckless as John McCain was in 2008!

Recently, the bloggers Cold Equations and One STDV looked at the Census Bureau’s 2050 population projections, and in effect tried to update the 1997 Brimelow-Rubenstein forecast of the partisan tilt of the playing field in the 2048 and 2052 Presidential elections, assuming the GOP garners the same share of the vote within each race as in this decade. Upon that base, I built a model with a few more factors, such as age and citizenship differences.
The result: If—as in some time-loop nightmare—we just refought the 2008 election over and over, mere demographic change alone would propel the Democrats from 53 percent last year to 59 percent by mid-century.
That is, if the GOP keeps doing what it did in 2008, the country will become a more or less one-party regime—just like the President’s chosen hometown of Chicago. And that might be the best case scenario. Think Detroit. Or New Orleans.
And yet the GOP’s plight is not hopeless. Looking at my statistical model of the 2048-2052 elections: if
the GOP’s share of the white vote grows from 55 percent to 70 percent; and
white turnout returns to the level seen in 1992 (during Ross Perot’s insurgent run),
then, all else being equal, GOP candidates would still win in the middle of the 21st century. The party would get a 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent majority in the popular vote in 2052.

To put that in current perspective, about one third of Obama’s white voters would have had to switch to Republican by 2052.
That certainly wouldn’t be easy.
But does anybody have a better plan? (Other than an immigration moratorium NOW?)
In future columns, I will examine how it can be done.

[Steve Sailer (email him) is movie critic for The American Conservative. His website www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily blog. His new book, AMERICA’S HALF-BLOOD PRINCE: BARACK OBAMA’S "STORY OF RACE AND INHERITANCE", is available here.]

UPDATED: Honduran coup may be imminent, abetted by Obama administration

An update from www.redstate.com to a previous post about Hondorus here . Of course, this is on the heels of abandoning Poland and the Czech Republic to Vladmir Putin on missle defense!!

UPDATED: Honduran coup may be imminent, abetted by Obama administration

Once again, Obama siding with tyrants
Posted by E Pluribus Unum (Profile)

[UPDATE 6:30 EDT : the government has imposed a curfew from 4pm today till 6am tomorrow]
Multiple sources (Reuters) (AP) report that ousted and exiled former president Manuel Zelaya is back in Honduras, hidden for the moment in somebody’s embassy and therefore out of the reach of authorities, who have promised to arrest him and try him for treason if he re-appears on sovereign Honduran soil.
By the way, when you hear the name Manuel Zelaya, you should think pal and disciple of Venezuelan thug dictator Hugo Chavez.
Zelaya was ousted in what has widely been reported in the American press as a “coup” on June 28. The United Nations, the Obama administration, the OAS and other dubious characters like Hugo Chavez have roundly condemned the constitutional government in Honduras and have worked diligently to bring pressure to bear to reverse events in Honduras. The Reuters link above includes the assertion that “Soldiers toppled Zelaya”.
The truth is quite the opposite. Honduran officials acted perfectly according to their own constitution and within their authority in removing from office a president who was attempting to install himself as the permanent ruler similarly to how Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela. Take your time reading the sources. The facts of the matter are widely available, yet the Obama administration has led the way in applying pressure to Honduras, invoking economic sanctions and going so far as to revoke the visas of most high Honduran officials in order to block their attendance at this month’s United Nations General Assembly.
You don’t want to know who all *did* make the cut and will attend. OK, yes you do: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Muammar Gaddafi.

So far today:Details are conflicting as to Zelaya’s actual location — he’s been reported as at the UN compound, at the Brazilian Embassy, NOT at the US Embassy (although his wife is apparently there). The more authoritative reports place him in the Brazilian Embassy. He apparently gave an address on Honduran television that was audio-only, in which he called his supporters to show up at the UN compound, where several thousand people have now gathered.
There are various reports as to how he arrived, and nobody seems to know much more than is being reported. Will there be an armed uprising? Rioting? Will foreign governments intervene? One thing is clear. The Obama administration has steadfastly applied pressure to force the constitutional government of Honduras to accept a return of the deposed president. They may be about to get their wish.
And it’s about as evil, cruel, and criminal a turn of events as can be imagined for a nation whose people only want to be free to be governed at their own consent, by their own constitution

Tea Party Express: On the road again! October 25 – November 11

The Tea Party Express is On the Road Again! Read about part of their last trip here


Tea Party Express – Official Tour Blog
Front Page

On the road again! October 25 – November 11
September 21, 2009
All throughout the recent Tea Party Express national tour we kept receiving emails and phone calls from people around the nation who lived far away from the route our buses took across America. We vowed at the time to keep the Tea Party Express effort alive – and that’s exactly what we are doing.
It is our pleasure to announce the “Tea Party Express: Countdown to Judgment Day” which will cross the nation from coast-to-coast, border-to-border October 25th – November 11th — 1 year ahead of the November 2010 congressional elections… or as our Czarina of the tea party movement, Amy Kremer, likes to refer to as “Judgment Day.” The Tea Party Express will kick-off the tour with a rally in San Diego, California on October 25th and wind up the tour with a rally in Orlando, Florida on November 11th (Veteran’s Day).
This won’t just be a continuation of the tour we just completed. We will be having a lot of special surprises and additions as we grow this effort — and continue the fight against government-run healthcare, Cap & Trade, bailouts, out-of-control deficit spending and the growth in the size and intrusiveness of government.
We’ll be publishing the specific itinerary and schedule in the coming days at our website: www.TeaPartyExpress.org

For now, here’s the route we’ve planned out – so mark your calendars, spread the news to your friends, and get ready to rock America! If Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid thought that after 9/12 we’d just go away and give up well then we have some bad news for them. We’re back, better than ever, and determined to TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!

Meet the Cry-Wolf Racists: Dowd, Garofalo, Carter

Below is an interesting article from www.bighollywood.com about "racist" being an overthrown-around word. It does get to the point where if someone is losing an argument, they will bring out this charge. For more on recent consequences of this read this about ACORN and Kanye West.



Meet the Cry-Wolf Racists: Dowd, Garofalo, Carter
by Alan Nathan
What do actor/comic Janeane Garofalo, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and former President Jimmy Carter all have in common? They commit racism in the name of fighting it, but still expect to be taken seriously. In short, their grasp of self-awareness has the finely tuned grip of a yak opening a jar of jelly.

Our health care debate has fortunately exposed much ugliness too long ignored. Like most political animals (elephants or donkeys), these three give a pass to their own for that which they never tolerate from others. They’re the kind of individuals rightly scorned by Shakespeare’s Antonio in The Merchant of Venice when he said, “Oh what a goodly outside falsehood hath,” Act I, Scene iii. More specifically, Garofalo, Dowd and Carter have morphed into the very beings most of us loathe – those who accuse others of the very evil they have done themselves. They are cry-wolf racists.
During her routine at the 9:30 Club in DC on August 21, Janeane Garofalo referred to health care opponents as simply exhibiting “emotion over being angry that there’s a black guy in office.” In true dissenter-phobic zeal (pardon the neologism), she called them “functionally retarded” and “racist.” She speculated that, “You know what they’re really saying is, ‘I want my white guy back.’”
Maureen Dowd offers similar guessing in her New York Times column on September 12:
Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled ‘You lie!’ at a president who didn’t. But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!
Finally, on September 15, President Carter theorizes on NBC Nightly News:
I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African-American.
Garofalo’s “what they’re really saying,” Dowd’s “unspoken word in the air” and Carter’s “I think…animosity… is based on the fact that he is a black man” share a common denominating theme – they’re supported by zero facts relevant to the specific people getting tarred as racist.
The moment they predicate assertions of racism on grounds that are devoid of any corresponding foundation, they become guilty of using race to marginalize otherwise innocent folks. Whenever you leverage skin color to intimidate opposing speech, BINGO, you’re actually implementing the very racism you claim to despise.
By their measure, no person of color should ever have to defend his or her politics. Are they genuinely unable to discern the difference between issues relevant to racial conflict versus conflict transpiring between those who are simply not of the same race? A Black guy and a White guy can disagree over the same things that might be the case for two Blacks, two Whites, two Hispanics, two Asians or two Semitics. But according to these abridged thinkers, if they’re not of the same race, it’s a racial conflict. This is inexcusably and embarrassingly unevolved.
In the interest of fair disclosure, I’m an aggressive centrist. For example, I concur with most conservatives in my support for the war in Iraq, the war against fanatical jihadists, smaller government, lower taxes, originalist judges and the genuine belief that health care reform should be more targeted and less all-encompassing. However, I’m also a social progressive who’s pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-gay marriage and pro-reparations for African-Americans. I’m additionally of the view that both conservatives and liberals have been responsible for our current health care challenges.
Republicans claim that health insurance out of the workplace would lower costs, but still take funds from HMO lobbyists who want the opposite. Democrats argue that health insurance devoid of waste would cut prices, but continue banking the bucks from trial lawyers opposing the very malpractice reform necessary to make it happen. Consequently, both parties ensure that their moneyed constituents trump their voting constituents.
There are plenty of grounds for legitimate debate. However, fringe folks like Garofalo, Dowd and Carter must learn that invectives without premise are masturbatory. Given their volume, not even a Sham Wow! could clean up their mess.

New Report Shows Schools Increasingly Hiring Foreign Teachers Over Americans

An interesting, timely post from www.fairus.us as we start the school year. For more on this topic, click here to view a story about how this is affecting the health care debate.


New Report Shows Schools Increasingly Hiring Foreign Teachers Over Americans
A report released last week by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) entitled "Importing Educators: Causes and Consequences of International Teacher Recruitment" has revealed that "some American school districts have turned increasingly to overseas recruiting to find teachers" to fill teaching vacancies. The findings in the new report raise questions regarding proper levels of legal immigration and, in particular, the H-1B visa program. (AFT Report; The New York Times, September 15, 2009).
According to the report, nearly 20,000 teachers were working in the United States on temporary visas in 2007, and that number is increasing steadily. The report contains a case study of the Baltimore Public School District and notes that the city had hired 108 teachers from the Philippines in 2005. Just two years later, more than 600 Filipino teachers are now working in Baltimore classrooms, comprising more than 10% of the district's teaching workforce. The report went on to assert that Baltimore school officials were leaning so heavily on these foreign teachers to fill job vacancies in their district that they were recruiting less aggressively in the United States: "Rather than attending job fairs throughout the Mid-Atlantic, trying to persuade reluctant American teachers to accept positions in troubled inner-city schools, HR officials can meet all their hiring needs in one trip. At a single career fair in Manila, they can interview hundreds of pre-screened applicants, each of whom is eager to pay for the opportunity to work in Baltimore city schools." (Id.).
The AFT's findings imply that international teacher recruitment is displacing American teachers. Amid the current economic recession, declining tax revenues have forced many state and local governments to lay off teachers. (The Wall Street Journal, February 3, 2009). Why, then, are school districts across the country increasingly recruiting foreign teachers to come to the United States to fill teaching vacancies? The AFT report suggests a possible answer: in one school district, foreign born teachers were "paid only $18,000 per teacher for their services, well below prevailing wage." (AFT Report).
The AFT report also points out that many foreign teachers are being brought to the United States on H-1B visas. The H-1B visa program allows employers to bring foreign workers to the United States to work in specialty occupations that require "the theoretical and practical application of a body of specialized knowledge and a bachelor's degree or the equivalent in the specific specialty." (Department of Labor). However, some — most notably Bill Gates of Microsoft — have put forth the misconception that the H-1B program exists primarily to bring foreign workers to the United States to work in technology-related fields. Gates has then leveraged this misconception to lobby Congress to increase the H-1B visa cap so that companies such as Microsoft can have access to more cheap foreign labor. (See FAIR's Legislative Update, March 24, 2008).

IS THIS FAIR? Massachusetts House OKs Senate Succession Change

As the article below shows, Massachusettes may allow the current governor to give a replacement to Ted Kennedy in the Senate. Is this fair that they wouldn't let a Republican governor do the same?
For more about Ted Kennedy's Senate stint, click here and here . (h/t www.TexasInsider.org/ CQ Staff)


Massachusetts House OKs Senate Succession Change
By Emily Cadei, CQ Staff

Massachusetts is well on its way to having a second senator.
After a long day of often spirited debate, the state House on Thursday voted 95-58 to pass legislation that would give Gov. Deval Patrick the power to appoint an interim senator to fill the seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy .
As it stands now, the seat would remain vacant until the Jan. 19 special election.
“This bill will give us full representation today and the people of Massachusetts will have their second voice in the U.S. Senate,” Democratic state Rep. Michael Moran, co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Election Laws, told the Boston Globe. “My overriding concern is making sure the people of Massachusetts are fully represented in the U.S. Congress.”
The state Senate is expected to pass the bill as well, but Republican stalling tactics could delay that until the middle of next week.
State Sen. Stephen J. Buoniconti predicted to CQ Politics this week that “it will take several sessions to pass the bill.”
“The hopeful time frame” for passage “is Thursday next week,” said Buoniconti, who sits on the joint Election Laws Committee.
Patrick has indicated he would move immediately to name an interim appointment once the law is changed.
Among the names being floated as possible appointees are Michael Dukakis, the former Democratic governor and the party’s 1988 presidential nominee; former state Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, who lost a race for governor in 1998; Peter Meade, the new president of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate at the University of Massachusetts in Boston; and Robert Reich, former U.S. secretary of labor and a professor at University of California, Berkeley.
The statutory change was requested by Kennedy, himself, days before he died of brain cancer.
The small Republican minority in the legislature has balked however, calling the move a partisan ploy. They have pointed to the fact that Democrats changed the law governing Senate succession just five years ago, in what was interpreted as a move to prevent Republican Gov. Mitt Romney tapping a replacement for Sen. John F. Kerry if Kerry had won the presidential election.
And they say the Democratic push to change the law smacks of hypocrisy and is nothing more than an attempt to ensure a 60th Democratic vote for the health care overhaul bill currently pending in the Senate.
“I hope that works out,” U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said earlier in the day. “It would be nice to have 60, of course.”
That’s not the uniform opinion in the majority party on Capitol Hill.

“I don’t agree with them changing the law,” said Sen. Russ Feingold , D-Wis. “I think they did it right when they gave it to the people of Massachusetts.”

In the Massachusetts Senate, members have the ability to stand up and object during the first, second and third readings of the bill, which delays the debate, he said.

— Bart Jansen and Kathleen Hunter contributed to this story.

Britney's Crotch-Kicking Return

I wanted to let you know about this article since this artist is so popular in the entertainment culture and we come in contact with people who have been exposed to this. As you can see, the author points out some of the ways that she has been covered, in a business way. See also here here, here, and here for more comments on similar articles!

GMA Celebrates Britney's Crotch-Kicking Return

By Mark Finkelstein (Bio Archive)
If Britney Spears wants to launch her grand return with a trite and tacky rough-sex pantomime, I suppose that's her business. She's not known as a pop tart for nothing. What I do find noteworthy is the way GMA celebrated that bit of rough stuff, featuring it in its opening minutes. Even there, it's not ABC's descent into schlock that jumps out so much as the double standard. Can you imagine the dutifully feminist ABC applauding such junk if the gender tables had been turned? Me neither.
Diane Sawyer, uh, teased things during the show opening.
DIANE SAWYER: The concert event of the season: Britney Spears turns 27 today, and performs live under the Big Top, live, only on GMA!A bit later, it was Robin Roberts's turn to enthuse.
ROBIN ROBERTS: And it's big, big, big, big: huge! It is B-Day! Britney Spears, live, this morning, and so we're going to start our countdown clock to her concert at the Big Top at the Big Apple Circus. Her new CD out today is entitled "Circus."
As Roberts spoke, a clip rolled of Spears's shtick: rubbing her shoulders provocatively, shaking her hair, crawling across the floor to grab, in a bit of hackneyed symbolism, the guy by his tie. She turns him on his back and proceeds to administer a lusty below-the-belt kick worthy of Adam Vinatieri. Close-ups of guy grimacing in agony as he tumbles down the stairs.Cut to crowd of mainly young girls laughing and applauding. Yes, we know it's all in good dirty fun. No harm no foul. But we also know ABC would never have aired this in a million years had the sex roles had been reversed—unless it was to launch an investigation into misogyny and violence against women. But consciously or not, we all—even the good feminists of the MSM—realize there are differences.
Note: NewsBuster Noel Sheppard notes that the clip comes from the video of Britney's hit song, "Womanizer." The guy is getting his comeuppance for his roving ways.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/12/02/gma-celebrates-britneys-crotch-kicking-return

A national disgrace : Obama’s harrassment of freedom-loving Honduras

A timely article from www.redstate.com! about our friends in Hondorus! See here for more in addition to the article below!


A national disgrace : Obama’s harrassment of freedom-loving Honduras
Supports ousted president who *actually* tried to stage a coup
Posted by E Pluribus Unum
You may have missed this crisis if you get your news from the alphabet soup partisan media, who have mostly failed to cover it except to misrepresent it in favor of Obama.
You are probably not surprised to find that Poland and the Czech Republic are not the only loyal and faithful American allies getting screwed by the Obama Administration these days. The ongoing drama in Honduras is an outrage and a disgrace, but not because the Hondurans have done anything wrong. It’s because the Obama administration is actively intervening on behalf of a thug would-be dictator whom the Hondurans properly and legally drove from power.
Shame on you, Barack.
.Follow closely, because this is an extremely important and telling example of the kind of foreign policy we are getting from Barack Obama. Let’s review what’s been going on in Honduras this year, and how the Obama administration has come down completely on the side of tyrants, cheaters, and marxists They’ve done it deliberately, and in keeping with their overall global policy of rejecting freedom and snuggling up to the thugs and bandits of the world [remember Iranian protesters after the fraud election? remember soldiers shooting them? remember Obama's reaction?].

The Scene
Honduras is one of the most impoverished countries in central America, but it has been and remains a democratic republic in a region currently overshadowed by several evil dictators who are intent on spreading the evils of drug-money fueled marxism and tyranny to the entire region: Fidel & Raul Castro of Cuba, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, and most of all, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. [a cynic like me might add Daniel Ortega in neighboring Nicaragua to the list, as he's lobbying to change their constitution to allow him to run for president again]
Morales, Correa, and Chavez were ALL elected in free elections, then seized power by one means or another, and turned republics into their personal tin-pot dictatorships. In the crisis currently underway, Zelaya tried to do the same thing.
Manuel Zelaya ran for president as a left-centrist in 2005, but once elected, his friendship and alliances with Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro and signing Honduras onto the Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA, aka, “we hate the US club”) along with clashes with the business sector, rising violent crime rates, and a seeming lack of a coherent domestic policy led to 25% approval ratings by 2008.

The Rules
The Honduran Constitution, ratified in 1982, is the latest in a series (common among nations not named “The United States”). This one appears to have improved on previous ones, and one notable character of it is that it strives to guard against tyranny.
Article 4 (translated)
The form of government is republican, democratic and representative. Is exercised by three branches: legislative, executive and judicial, and independent and complementary relationship of subordination..Alternation in the presidency of the Republic is required..Violation of this rule constitutes the crime of treason.
Article 239 (translated)
The citizen that has been the head of the Execut[ive] Branch cannot be President or Vice-President (again). Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform, as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.
Article 272 (translated)
The Armed Forces of Honduras, are a National Institution of a permanent basis, essentially professional, apolitical, obedient and non-deliberative..They are set to defend the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Republic, maintain peace, public order and the rule of the Constitution , the principles of free suffrage and alternation in the exercise of the Presidency of the Republic..Cooperate with the National Police in the maintenance of public order ..In order to ensure the free exercise of the vote, the custody, transport and surveillance of electoral materials and other aspects of the security of the process, the President of the Republic, put the Armed Forces available to the National Elections Tribunal, from a month before the elections, until the final declaration of the same.
.The Constitution is straightfoward enough:
It is a crime of treason to even propose to change the constitution to allow a president to have a second consecutive term. That may be a little strict or strange to you, but its intended purpose seems to have been to keep a person like Zelaya from following his baser instincts.
The duties of the military include enforcing the constitution, mentioning in particular the maintenance of the alternation of the presidency.

According to Miguel Estrada — yes, THAT Miguel Estrada, born in Honduras, educated at Columbia and Harvard Law school, apprenticed under Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, and argued cases in front of the Supreme Court as Assistant Solicitor General; the one the Democrats filibustered to keep from becoming an appellate judge purely because he was Hispanic; THAT Miguel Estrada — there are only three unamendable provisions in the Honduran Constitution:
the country’s borders
the rules that limit a president to a single four-year term
the requirement that presidential administrations must “succeed one another” in a “republican form of government.”

The Crime
As I mentioned above, Zelaya ’s been hanging around with dictators while crime rates have gone up and his popularity has gone down. Early this year, with his term winding to a close, he called a referendum for June 28, which if approved, would call a constitutional convention for the purpose of replacing the current constitution with a brand new one.
Given Zelaya ’s leanings, track record, and his waning presidency, there could be only one reason to scrap the constitution: to, in effect, amend the unamendable portions. This move was widely viewed in that light. A referendum requires a 2/3 vote of Congress to even propose to the people, and the Congress voted it down, saying it was illegal. Yet the referendum was proceeding.
Attorney General Alberto Rubi filed suit to stop the referendum, and a court order made it so. Zelaya declared the referendum would proceed, but called it an “opinion survey” . This was also halted but the courts. Nevertheless he persisted. No printer in Honduras would print ballots in defiance of the courts, so he had the ballots printed in Venezuela and flown in.
Persistent cuss, ain’t he? He wasn’t done yet.
He ordered the military to dispense the ballots to polling stations. He was refused, so he fired General Romeo Basquez, leader of the military. The Supreme Court re-instated him. Since the military was not going to dispense the ballots, on June 25, a group of Zelaya supporters marched into the Air Force installation where they were sequestered, stole them, and began distributing them.

The Consequence
At this point, AG Rubi asked for an arrest warrant from the Supreme Court on grounds of treason for violation of Article 239. He also asked the Congress to impeach Zelaya . In response, the Supreme Court, ordered the military, per Article 272, to arrest Zelaya , which was done June 28, the day the referendum had been scheduled. In a breach of protocol, the military exiled Zelaya to Costa Rica instead of placing him in custody in Honduras to face trial for treason.
So far, it would seem the Supreme Court and the military acted within their authority in enforcing the Constitution. The Congress, dominated by Zelaya’s party, voted 122-6 to remove him from office (I presume this is the impeachment Rubi asked for). Since the Vice President had quit earlier (to run for President) and had not been replaced, next in the line of succession was Roberto Micheletti, leader of Congress (analogous to our Speaker of the House, who is also 3rd in line), also of Zelaya’s party. He was appointed to complete Zelaya’s term, which expires next January. He cannot run for re-election, and has experssed no interest in doing so.

A coup?
Estrada sums it up:
It cannot be right to call this a “coup.”
Micheletti was lawfully made president by the country’s elected Congress.
The president is a civilian.
The Honduran Congress and courts continue to function as before.
The armed forces are under civilian control.
The elections scheduled for November are still scheduled for November.
.Indeed, after reviewing the Constitution and consulting with the Supreme Court, the Congress and the electoral tribunal, respected Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga recently stated that the only possible conclusion is that Zelaya had lawfully been ousted under Article 239 before he was arrested, and that democracy in Honduras continues fully to operate in accordance with law. All Honduran bishops joined Rodriguez in this pronouncement.

Yet Obama called it a ‘coup’, and continues to do so.
President Obama said yesterday that the military ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and could set a “terrible precedent,”.(snip).Obama repeated yesterday that the United States viewed Zelaya as Honduras’s president and that “the coup was not legal.”

The Meddling Outsiders - ‘it was a coup’
Since claiming from the start that it was a coup, Obama has directed broadside after broadside at the poor but courageous nation of Honduras. From the beginning, he along with OAS has called for the unconditional re-instatement of Zelaya. On July 2, he suspended military and non-humanitarian aid, and on Sept 3, that was made permanent, and apparently all aid, including humanitarian, agricultural and other, is threatened. The State Department also threatened to not recognize the results of the upcoming November election:
“Based on conditions as they currently exist, we cannot recognize the results of this election. So for the de facto regime, they’re now in a box,” said State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley. “And they will have to sign on to the San Jose accords to get out of the box.” He was referring to the plan for Zelaya’s return, which was negotiated in the Costa Rican capital.
Further insulting Honduras, the administration has revoked the visas of Interim President Micheletti 14 members of the Supreme court, and Foreign Minister Carlos Lopez, ahead of the upcoming UN General Assembly. Oh, did I mention, the UN condemned the ouster of Zelaya?
So while Obama is putting the screws to Honduras and refusing their proper authorities entry into America for the UN summit this month, here’s a short list of despots, tyrants, dictators, and blood-soaked murders who will be welcomed onto American soil to attend the General Assembly:.Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez, Muammar Gaddafi..I don’t know whether that’s hope or change. I lose track.

The Conclusion
The Honduran people strongly desire freedom while their nation, as a primary corridor of drug traffic between Columbia and the United States, is racked with murder and violent crime not of their making. They have ousted, by perfectly legal means, a president who tried to overthrow their constitution.
In response, Obama and his administration have acted in the most vile and disgraceful way possible, acting against the best interests of not only a staunch ally in Honduras, but against the obvious interests of United States.
Honduras deserves a chance.
.
Honduras deserves our support.
.
And no pony for you, Barack!