konane's Blog

"al Qaida says US winning in Iraq

From Powerlineblog.com.  Good news from Iraq totally ignored by Democrats and MSM per usual .... the truth is not on their agenda. 


......"CENTCOM announced today that they had captured al-Qaeda correspondence in Iraq that discusses the state of the insurgency, especially around Baghdad but also around the entire country. Far from optimistic, the documents captured in an April 16th raid reveal frustration and desperation, as the terrorists acknowledge the superior position of American and free Iraqi forces and their ability to quickly adapt to new tactics." ...........

......"So, put it all together: al Qaeda in Iraq is failing. It has little military strength, and the Iraqi people "do not support its cause." It has succeeded in one arena only: the American media. Yet, despite the despair manifested by the authors of the captured documents, that one success may be all that al Qaeda needs. Because the perverse negativity of the American press is the only view that most Americans get of the conflict's progress. And, because of their shoddy coverage of the war, our reporters and editors provide the terrorists with their only gleam of hope."

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014021.php 

Entry #300

"Forgers are making tens of millions .......

"Cashing in on illegal immigration

By Dave Montgomery

KNIGHT RIDDER

WASHINGTON - Forgers are making tens of millions, and possibly billions, of dollars selling counterfeit Social Security cards, driver's licenses, immigrant registration cards and other papers to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

The dominant forgery-and-distribution network in the United States allegedly is controlled by the Castorena family, say U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Its members emigrated from Mexico in the late 1980s and have used their printing skills and business acumen to capture a big piece of the booming industry.

Only trained experts can distinguish its fake identity documents from real ones, and the Castorena Family Organization, or CFO, as immigration officials call it, has spread to at least 50 cities in 33 states.

At a sentencing hearing for one family member in December, U.S. District Judge Lewis Bab of Denver said that the CFO's criminal reach is "simply breathtaking" and strikes "at the heart of the sovereignty of the United States of America."

The threat of terrorism has made document forgers even more menacing since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers used fraudulent notarized forms to obtain valid Virginia ID cards, which enabled them to board the two airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center.

Julie Myers, assistant secretary for ICE, calls document forging an "epidemic."

Her agency, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, is waging a nationwide crackdown on forgery rings and has formed multiagency task forces in 10 cities, including Dallas, Philadelphia, Atlanta and St. Paul, Minn. ".....

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/14527391.htm

Entry #299

Roses

A couple of roses before the rain got them.  They're nothing fancy but in my opinon pretty.  Photoshopped picture frame only, flowers unaltered.  Enjoy!!

 

 

 

 

Entry #298

463 immigration bills have been introduced just this year in 43 states

Heartfelt thanks to all readers who take the time to read my blog posts!!  I'm not a writer so can't entertain ... but have always been an information gatherer.  Probably inherited that trait from my grandmother who read and listened to what was network news not agenda, well up into her 80's and was one of the most "with it" persons I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.


To anyone who does not like the content or frequency of my blog posts, I simply invite you to be an adult and skip over it.  I care more about this nation than opinion about me.


Some of the posted immigration articles are redundant but I believe those that are do sufficiently contain a kernel of different thought worthy of posting.

It appears that this issue is not going to start and end in Washington but is becoming a groundswell at the ballot box felt all the way from local through national offices as has already begun.  I personally believe the immigration issue is going to be a uniting force for America, much to the chagrin of leftists who have worked diligently for the past 40 years to divide us as a nation.

Again, thank you very much for taking time to read!!


"Fighting back
By Diana West
May 5, 2006
......."According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 463 immigration bills have been introduced just this year in 43 states, "the biggest crop of state immigration proposals ever recorded," The Post writes. Most of the measures, the newspaper continues, "are designed to get tough on illegal immigrants, on employers who give them jobs and on state officials who give them benefits" — in other words, to fill the breach left by Congress ever since a patriot-lite Senate failed to pass Rep. Tom Tancredo's eminently sensible immigration bill (complete with border fence) that came out of the House last year.
Will these get-tough — or, at least, get-tougher — state measures pass? The answer will tell us a lot about whether what we're witnessing is a passing "backlash," or a durable national movement, kicked off by the Minutemen Project, that has emerged from the vaccuum on border protection and national preservation left by our leaders in Washington.  "......
Entry #296

"Amnesty is not the solution to problem of illegal immigration

 

"Amnesty is not the solution to problem of illegal immigration
Leo Sears

Source Times-Standard.com

"Let's cut past all the hype and spin of Monday's hoopla. Illegal aliens are just that, so let's call them what they really are -- illegal aliens. They have no right to work in this country -- they have no right to even be here.

Under current federal law, any person, business or organization is subject to civil penalties up to $10,000 and 10 years in prison if they:

* Assist aliens whom they should reasonably know are illegal or who lack employment authorization,

* encourage those aliens to remain in the United States, by transporting, sheltering, or assisting them to obtain employment, or

* knowingly assist illegal aliens due to personal convictions.

Illegals do not make a net contribution to our economy. The National Academy of Sciences found that the taxes they paid do not cover the cost of services they received. We are footing huge costs so that large companies can profit by employing illegals in low-wage positions. While we struggle to provide the high quality education, health care, and retirement security that our citizens deserve and carry the burden of illegal immigration, Mexican national policy promotes it, because the billions of dollars in remittances supports their failing economy.

Businesses are eager to hire cheap, compliant labor -- ever actively recruiting illegals. This serves as an irresistible attraction to the flow of illegals that are willing to work at substandard wages and working conditions and depress the wages for all workers. The U.S. Council of Economic Advisors says, the effect of immigration on low-skilled Americans is profound and widens the gap between rich and poor. Our fiscal well-being and the health of our labor market are in jeopardy.

Amnesty isn't the answer. In 1986, amnesty was granted to all illegal aliens who had evaded deportation for four years, or were illegally working in agriculture. Instead of stemming the flow of illegal aliens, the numbers have swollen upwards of 12 billion.

We also became fully responsible for the welfare of the 2.8 million illegals granted amnesty -- plus the family members they brought in later. A study by the Center for Immigration Studies of the first 10 years shows the net costs of the 1986 amnesty (direct and indirect costs of services and benefits to the ex-illegal aliens, minus their tax contributions) at over $78 billion. The costs of a new amnesty would be astronomical, and it would do nothing to stem the debilitating flow of illegal aliens.

By simply enforcing our current laws, deportation of our illegal population would become a non-issue. If illegal aliens were denied employment, public assistance benefits, public education, public housing, or other taxpayer-funded benefits there would be no reason for them to come -- or stay. There would also be no need for the billions we are spending at the border to keep them out. For those already here, we should provide any assistance they need -- to leave. It's the only rational solution. As long as we reward illegals they will continue to come.

 

The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the editorial viewpoint of the Times-Standard. "

http://www.times-standard.com/opinion/ci_3793163

Entry #295

Laws they're violating

Laying it out in simple terms this article states current laws illegal aliens are violating. 


"We Don't Need No Stinkin' Reform

by Bob Parks

Source TheRealityCheck.Org

 

"  Well, those wacky illegals are at it again, and our politicians are taking the bait. Although our laws are quite clear on how to legally enter the United States, apply for work, as well as what's expected of immigrants once they get here, hundreds of thousands of lawbreakers have once again been allowed to protest en masse in our streets demanding we change those laws in order to forgive their transgressions.

I wish it were that easy.

What exactly are our lawmakers going to reform? It would seem as a starting point, that they should enforce the law already written, because as I've read them, they are reasonable, there are no gray areas, and they debunk the slogans carried by illegals that they are not criminals.

Yes, they are.

Let's take a look at the laws on the books, as documented by the Department of Justice....

1911 8 U.S.C. ¤ 1325 -- Unlawful Entry, Failure to Depart, Fleeing Immigration Checkpoints, Marriage Fraud, Commercial Enterprise Fraud

Section 1325 sets forth criminal offenses relating to (1) improper entry into the United States by an alien, (2) entry into marriage for the purpose of evading immigration laws, and (3) establishing a commercial enterprise for the purpose of evading immigration laws. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) amended 8 U.S.C. ¤ 1325 to provide that an alien apprehended while entering or attempting to enter the United States at a time or place other than as designated by immigration officers shall be subject to a civil penalty.

Comment: Further discussion of these offenses is set forth in Chapter 4 of Immigration Law, published as part of the Office of Legal Education's Litigation Series, and as part of the USABook computer library.

This appears to be fairly cut-and-dry. Section 1325 clearly reads that coming into the country without the proper paperwork, thus permission, is a crime. So, if you cross our border illegally, hide out as to avoid arrest, detention, and removal from the U.S., you are breaking the law.

It doesn't make exceptions for those wanting a better life for their families. Lots of people around the world want a better life for their families. Bank robbers want to buy a new home for their mother. No one is going to forgive their breaking of the law. What makes these illegals think their special?

Section 1325 also covers people who get married just to get into the country. Network news magazines cover this issue periodically, but unfortunately it becomes more of a love lost issue than that of law enforcement. The section also covers those who profit from the importation of illegals into the United States. "Coyotes" are breaking the law, not providing a service. Lawyers providing "Immigration Assistance" are finding ways around the law. That, too, is wrong.

What needs to be "reformed" as far as the present law is concerned? Most of the people who've immigrated to this country had to play by those rules. Nothing in this section need be "reformed."

1908 Unlawful Employment of Aliens -- Criminal Penalties

Title 8 U.S.C. ¤ 1324a(a)(1)(A) makes it unlawful for any person or other entity to hire, recruit, or refer for a fee, for employment in the United States an alien knowing the alien is an unauthorized alien, as defined in subsection 1324a(h)(3).

Subsection 1324a(2) makes it unlawful for any person or entity, after hiring an alien for employment, to continue to employ the alien in the United States knowing the alien is or has become an unauthorized alien with respect to such employment.

Subsection 1324a(f) provides that any person or entity that engages in a "pattern or practice" of violations of subsection (a)(1)(A) or (a)(2) shall be fined not more than $3000 for each unauthorized alien with respect to whom such a violation occurs, imprisoned for not more than six months for the entire pattern or practice, or both. The legislative history indicates that "a pattern or practice" of violations is to be given a commonsense rather than overly technical meaning, and must evidence regular, repeated and intentional activities, but does not include isolated, sporadic or accidental acts. H.R.Rep. No. 99-682, Part 3, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. (1986), p. 59. See 8 C.F.R. ¤ 274a.1(k).A scheme for civil enforcement of the requirements of ¤ 1324a through injunctions and monetary penalties is set forth in ¤ 1324a(e) and ¤ 1324a(f)(2).

In addition, 18 U.S.C. ¤ 1546(b) makes it a felony offense to use a false identification document, or misuse a real one, for the purpose of satisfying the employment verification provisions in 8 U.S.C. ¤ 1324a(b).

Let's be clear on this. It's illegal to hire a person you know is an illegal alien. That also means that any illegal who asks you for work doesn't give a damn about you or your business, as they are putting you in legal jeopardy. I'll take it for granted these illegals are intelligent.

This means whether you employ illegal aliens to work in a factory or trim your hedges, employing these people puts the person(s) who hire them at further risk as false documents are sometimes accepted to verify employment eligibility.

What needs to be "reformed" as far as this present law is concerned? Most of the people who've immigrated to this country had to play by these rules. Nothing in this section need be "reformed."

1942 18 U.S.C. ¤ ¤ 1541 to 1546 -- Passports and Other Entry Documents

Title 18 U.S.C. ¤¤ 1541 to 1546, provide criminal penalties for offenses related to passports, visas, and related documents. Sections 1541 to 1544 exclusively concern passports. Section 1545 deals with safe conducts as well as passports. 18 U.S.C. ¤ 1546 deals with visas, permits, and related documents. See 3 A.L.R.Fed. 623.

A passport is defined at 8 U.S.C. ¤ 1101(a)(30) as "any travel document issued by competent authority showing the bearer's origin, identity, and nationality, if any, which is valid for the entry of the bearer into a foreign country." The Supreme Court has stated "[a passport] is a document, which, from its nature and object, is addressed to foreign powers; purporting only to be a request, that the bearer of it may pass safely and freely; and is to be considered rather in the character of a political document, by which the bearer is recognized, in foreign countries, as an American citizen; and which, by usage and the law of nations, is received as evidence of the fact." See Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280, 292 (1981).

Title 8 U.S.C. ¤ 1104 entrusts control of passport and visa matters to the Department of State, and establishes a Passport Office and a Visa Office. Title 8 U.S.C. ¤ 1185(b) makes it unlawful for a United States citizen to attempt to depart from or enter the United States without a valid passport, except as authorized by the President.

Section 211a of Title 22 authorizes the Secretary of State to issue United States passports in foreign countries. Title 22 U.S.C. ¤ 212 limits issuance of United States passports to United States nationals only. Section 213 prescribes the method of applying for a passport, Title 22 U.S.C. ¤¤. 213, 214a, and 215 control the fees for passports, 22 U.S.C. ¤ 217a limits the temporal validity of passports to no more than 10 years. State Department regulations governing passports appear at 22 C.F.R. Part 51. See 59A Am.Jur.2d "Passports" for a general discussion of the law of passports.

The statutory maximum term of imprisonment for violations of 18 U.S.C. ¤¤ 1541 - 1546 is 10 years. However, 18 U.S.C. ¤ 1547 provides that notwithstanding any other provision of title 18, the maximum term of imprisonment that may be imposed for passport and visa violations (except violations under 18 U.S.C. ¤ 1545) if committed to facilitate a drug trafficking crime is 15 years; and if committed to facilitate an act of international terrorism is 20 years.

The statute of limitations for violations of 18 U.S.C. ¤¤ 1541 to 1544 is 10 years. See 18 U.S.C. ¤ 3291.

Now while I can understand how easily one can be fooled by a false document nowadays, especially if you are in a border state, care should be taken and checks should be conducted to assure that the person you are hiring is not only an illegal, but whom he/she says they are. The current concerns on national security dictate additional vigilance regarding the verification of documents.

What needs to be "reformed" as far as this law on false documents? Most of the people who've immigrated to this country had to play by these rules. Nothing in this section need be "reformed."

1945 18 U.S.C. ¤ 1543 -- Making or Using a Forged Passport

Section 1543 of Title 18 proscribes the forgery, alteration, etc., of passports or the use of or furnishing to another of a forged, altered, void, etc., passport or purported passport. It applies to instruments issued or purportedly issued by foreign governments as well as by the United States. See United States v. Dangdee, 616 F.2d 1118 (9th Cir. 1980).

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) amended this statute to provide for enhanced penalties if the offense was committed to facilitate an act of international terrorism or a drug trafficking crime.

Heads up for the criminal free-lance enterprises going on around Alvarado Street in Los Angeles. Making or using a forged passport, no matter what country is on the cover, is illegal. The only possible use of such a forged document is for deception of one's identity. It doesn't matter what immigrant rights groups or the clergy says. When you make or use a false passport to obtain anything, you are trying to pull the wool over someone's eyes. You are attempting to bamboozle someone. You are attempting to make someone think you are someone else. You are being dishonest from the very first time someone meets you.

There is nothing in Section 1543 that needs to be reformed, that is unless you wish to make all persons who provide passports suspect as to their true identity. Also, the financial ramifications of such deception is obvious.

Federal, state, and local social service benefits can be improperly obtained using such documents. That, by all definitions, could be considered fraud. And who usually ends up paying for fraud, waste, and abuse...?

1943 18 U.S.C. ¤ 1541 -- Issuance of Passports Without Authority

Section 1541 of Title 18 makes it a crime to issue or verify a passport, or other instrument in the nature of a passport, without authority to do so. For example, state and local governments may not issue documents designed to facilitate overseas travel of their residents. 17 Op.Att.Gen. 674 (1884). Similarly, forgery of a document purporting to be such a travel document issued by a state or local government would also violate 18 U.S.C. ¤ 1541. 9 Op.Att.Gen. 350 (1859). 18 U.S.C. ¤ 1541 also makes it a crime for consular officers to verify passports for persons not owing allegiance to the United States, even if they are citizens.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) amended this statute to provide for enhanced penalties if the offense was committed to facilitate an act of international terrorism or a drug trafficking crime.

Simply stated, Section 1541 makes it illegal to "issue" a United States passport for the purpose of misleading an employer or government entity as to the false identity of a bearer. Section 1541 says nothing about use of such a false document to provide for anyone's family. Giving out a passport is clearly done to make someone appear as someone else.

There is nothing in Section 1541 that needs to be reformed. Distribution of a false document for the purpose of creating a false identity is not a humane act. It is deception, pure and simple.

1947 18 U.S.C. ¤ 1546 -- Fraud and Misuse of Visas, Permits, and Related Documents, and False Personation

The first paragraph of 18 U.S.C. ¤ 1546(a) proscribes the forging, counterfeiting, altering or falsely making of certain immigration documents or their use, possession, or receipt. The second paragraph proscribes the possession, or bringing into the United States of plates or distinctive papers used for the printing of entry documents. The third paragraph makes it a crime, when applying for an entry document or admission into the United States, to personate another or appear under a false name. The fourth paragraph makes it a crime to give a false statement under oath in any document required by the immigration laws or regulations.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) amended subsection 1546(a) to provide for enhanced penalties if the offense was committed to facilitate an act of international terrorism or a drug trafficking crime.

Subsection 1546(b) makes it a felony offense to use a false identification document, or misuses a real one, for the purpose of satisfying the employment verification provisions in 8 U.S.C. ¤ 1324a(b).

COMMENT: Further discussion of offenses defined in 18 U.S.C. ¤ 1546 is set forth in Chapter 7 of Immigration Law, published as part of the Office of Legal Education's Litigation Series, and as part of the USABook computer library.

As I mentioned above, the only reason one would obtain falsified passports or other documents of identification, is for receiving employment or social benefits while being in the country illegally. There is no social good that can be had for allowing anyone to use a bootleg visa or Social Security card. In essence, those using false documents are also stealing.

They are stealing jobs from someone who is legally eligible to obtain one in America. They are stealing food stamps, WIC benefits, Section 8 housing, thus they are stealing taxpayer money from every citizen in the United States. For every activist who claims that illegals pay taxes, the amount we have to pay in services for those who deem themselves victims, thus worthy of our charity, dwarfs whatever taxes they "pay."

The bottom line is this:

The laws currently on the books are straightforward, non-discriminatory, and fair. They clearly define what is bad behavior. There are no exceptions to ignoring these laws so people can provide better lives for their loved ones. In every case, a person who violates these rules does no service to the United States or her citizens. The violators are attempting to deceive others and extract benefits from taxpayers. They are thieves; they are criminals. They are not undocumented, especially when they use false ones.

The only thing reforming the current laws will do is invite more to break them because it will be easier. Reforming our current immigration procedures will provide a victory to the millions who came here illegally and the millions who are coming to take advantage of reforms, should they occur.

I say should, because I believe this is not a done deal. I hope that the politicians in Washington understand that they are trying to make 11 million or so people who have broken many of the laws stated above legit, at the expense of the 300-plus million of us who pay all the bills. Hopefully, they'll get their minds right and realize that it's not the United States and her immigration laws that need reforming. It's the behavior of those who have no problem breaking our laws and soaking us all in the process.

Reform? We don't need no stinkin' reform.  "

Bob Parks is a former Republican congressional candidate (California 24th District), Navy veteran, single father, member/writer for the National Advisory Council of Project 21, and is a Staff Writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc.

The opinions expressed in this column represent those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, or philosophy of TheRealityCheck.org  "

 

http://www.therealitycheck.org/StaffWriter/bparks050306.htm

Entry #293

"When Exploitation is Mutually Beneficial

"When Exploitation is Mutually Beneficial

By Matt McIntosh

Source Tech Central Station Daily  

"Exploitation is a word often used but rarely defined. In its most literal meaning -- I 'exploit' you if I in some way benefit from your existence -- it is the reason human society exists. We all benefit from one another's existence. We all exploit each other."
-- David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom

 

Let us say that I am poor and you are wealthy. I live a harsh life of bare subsistence farming, while you make several thousand dollars per day as a business owner in the widget industry. One day you hire me to make widgets for you at a rate of $1 per widget, which you then sell to make a profit of $2 per widget. Which of us has benefited the most from this exchange?

 

If you answered that it must be you, this is wrong. It's true that you are still much, much better off than I am in absolute terms, and that in dollars, you have gained more than I have. But considering our relative starting points and the basic fact of diminishing marginal utility, this transaction has benefited me more than it has benefited you. Simply put, the principle of diminishing marginal utility states that each extra unit of a good provides less subjective benefit to an individual than the last one did: an extra dollar means much, much more to a pauper than to a millionaire. Thus I get much more subjective utility from the extra dollars I now have than you do from the extra dollars you have.

 

This is a straightforward lesson in basic economics, and yet it's constantly overlooked in discussions about trade with people of developing nations. The image presented to the public is one of transnational corporations benefiting disproportionately from the exploitation of cheap labor. A recent article on Indian sweatshops in the UK Observer, for example, the author discusses the "disturbing consequences" of "soaring sales" by the multinational Austrian firm Daniel Swarovski. The article quotes a charity representative who says that "the firm has created a life of servitude" for young, third-world laborers. Yet what is going on here is basically our little economics lesson writ large. Trade between rich and poor countries almost invariably benefits the poor more than the rich.

 

The skeptical reader may well say that this theory is all a little too neat, and that reality is not always like that. So, let us set theory aside for the moment and ask whether or not multinational companies really do make poor countries demonstrably wealthier. When we repair to the data, we find consistently that they do. In Fighting the Wrong Enemy, Columbia University economist Edward Graham reports that, on average, total workers' compensation offered by U.S.-owned manufacturing companies is 80 percent higher than the average compensation offered by domestically-owned manufacturing companies in middle-income developing countries; in low-income developing countries this figure is even higher, at fully 100 percent more than the average for domestically-owned manufacturing.

 

Moving from the general to the slightly more specific, a particularly reviled example of the activities of multinational corporations are Export Processing Zones (EPZs) -- special areas with greatly decreased taxes and labour regulations, whose main purpose is to attract multinationals in order to build up export industries. Often these will focus on single industries: there is a jewelry zone in Thailand, a leather zone in Turkey, a tea zone in Zimbabwe, and so forth. As of 2002, there were approximately 43 million people working in around 3000 EPZs spanning 116 countries, producing clothing, footwear, electronics, toys, and other consumer goods. The products of EPZs are familiar to anyone who's noticed the "Made in China" or "Made in Taiwan" seals on cheap consumer products. The factories in these areas are colloquially referred to as "sweatshops." Surely one could find no greater whipping boy of the anti-globalization movement.

 

However, the data paint a significantly less damning picture. In Beyond Sweatshops, Theodore Moran of the Brookings Institution reports on surveys conducted by the International Labor Organization (a UN agency which "seeks the promotion of social justice and internationally recognized human and labour rights" -- no lackeys of capital, they). The ILO's surveys "have regularly found that the pay for workers in EPZs . . . is higher than what would be available in the villages from which the workers come." He then reports on studies by the U.S. Department of Labor which find that "firms producing footwear and apparel generally pay more than the minimum wage and offer significantly better working conditions than those in agriculture."

 

We can drill down further into three particular case studies, to illustrate the general point:

 

  • Graham reports that the areas along the Mexican border populated with maquiladoras -- U.S.-owned factories for assembling products for reimportation to the U.S. -- have the highest wages in Mexico.

 

  • Economists Robert Lipsey and Fredrik Sjöholm, in a paper titled "Foreign Direct Investment and Wages in Indonesian Manufacturing", report the results of an empirical study of 20,000 Indonesian manufacturing plants. They found that the average wage was 50 percent higher in foreign-owned plants than private domestic-owned ones, and that total compensation was 60 percent higher. Even after controlling for education, location, plant size, and capital- and energy-intensity, wages were still 12 percent higher for manual labour and 22 percent higher for "white collar" work.

 

  • Moran explains how women in Bangladesh were forbidden from working in factories before the advent of its clothing industry; now 95 percent of the 1.4 million clothing factory workers in Bangladesh are women, and 70 percent of the women working in the private sector work in such factories. As a result of the wages now earned by Bangladeshi women, family incomes are higher and a higher proportion of that income is spent to obtain better nutrition, health, and education.

 

That last case is worth dwelling on as an exemplar of a sad trend: as a rule, the poorer a country is the more dependent women are on their fathers, brothers and husbands. It would be unnecessary to go over the well-known details of how women are generally treated in such societies, but suffice it to say that the autonomy granted by wages earned in factories has disproportionately benefited women at the expense of patriarchal social systems. As they gain modest wealth of their own, women attain the leverage to postpone marriage and motherhood, and are better prepared financially for it when the day does come.

 

Also, Lipsey and Sjöholm explain that the presence of foreign-owned factories tends to drag up wages in domestically-owned factories due to increased labor demand, spillover effects from technological capital, training of workers and managers with basic skills that make them more productive, and so forth. Even here in the poorer countries, competition truly does raise the tide which raises all boats. The recent success stories of countries like China, India and Taiwan are remarkable examples of this. And this is exactly what one would expect given an understanding of basic economic theory.

 

None of this is to downplay the fact that conditions of life in poor countries are positively awful compared to our own. The point is to emphasize that the surest way to bring these countries up to more tolerable standards of living is through free trade, the process by which the capitalist exploits the worker and the worker exploits the capitalist. To the extent that poverty still exists on our planet, it is due to insufficient exploitation. The only way to defeat absolute poverty is by greater productivity, and that means leaving people free to engage in mutually beneficial exploitation. More, and faster please.  "

 

Matt McIntosh is a blogger at Catallarchy  "

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=050506G

Entry #292

Short film

A friend sent me this in email along with their explanation about ANSWER which was covered indepth in one of my previous blog entries.


"  In this short film El Uno De Mayo, filmmaker Stuart Browning casts a light on the left-wing totalitarian groups behind the May Day marches ostensibly aimed at "defending the rights of illegal aliens" in the US

 


...when the Stalinist androids of International "ANSWER" are the organizers of immigration marches, the mainstream media is "curiously" uninterested.

 

 


http://www.onthefencefilms.com/video/unodemayo/

 

(Allows for Windows Media or Quick Time.....)

 

VERY eye opening.  "

Entry #291

Protest signs you didn't see on the evening news

I don't like the signs mentioning blood and war.... gives me a real creepy feeling for US citizens to be threatened on their own soil.  Mad   

In the second link of gallery photos they're registering them to vote..... so sitting here in Georgia with our new voter law requiring a state issued photo ID I guess each state gets exactly what it has allowed its legislators to pass.


"Borders, What Borders?"

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/005114.htm

 

There is also a link to a photo gallery of the May 1 illegals protests.

http://www.creativeflashes.com/Politics

Entry #290

"No Smog for the Fear Factory

Due to the amount of embedded links this article will not cut and past correctly for me ... who does not know HTML well enough to solve the problem. 

Very worthwhile article, very worth your time to read. 

Shows why the media is hanging its rating$$$$$$ and revenue$$$$$$ on 'greenhou$$$$e ga$$$$$es."


"No Smog for the Fear Factory
By Joel Schwartz
Source Tech Central Station Daily

"Ozone smog levels have plummeted during the last three years. Between 2003 and 2005, the fraction of the nation's ozone monitors violating the federal 8-hour ozone standard plunged from 43 percent down to a record-low 18 percent.[1] The last three years were the three lowest-ozone years on record. "............

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=050306F

Entry #289

"No Money, No Problem

Great article as are the overwhelming majority from this site.     


"No Money, No Problem
By Duane D. Freese
Source Tech Central Station Daily

"Everyone is looking for a solution to illegal immigration.

 

Big Labor fears immigrants will take away jobs from union workers. Big Environmentalism fears immigrants as they grow wealthier will increase their fossil fuel use, heating the globe. Big Nutrition fears immigrants will simply fuel themselves more, feeding the obesity epidemic

 

Many simply fear immigrants are undermining American values. After all, look what the great waves of European immigration did to Native American culture.

 

And worst of all, Republicans fear immigrants will vote for Democrats, while Democrats fear immigrants will become capitalists, get rich, and support Republicans.

 

It has become obvious to all these fearful folk that current protections against immigration don't work. When millions of illegal immigrants join rallies, smile for the cameras and declare "we've decided not to be invisible anymore," you begin to suspect that Homeland Security is oxymoronic.

 

So what to do? Grant those here five years amnesty! What a great ad for document forgers. Wall off our borders! How far out to sea? Provide a guest worker program! Look out for gate crashers. Punish employers who hire them! Right. The French have accomplished wonders by discouraging employers to hire new workers of any kind.

 

So, what really can be done about illegal immigration? Well, maybe we need to do what Time magazine said we should do about another problem -- global warming. The writers and editors there suggested at the end of their Global Warming Report: "Maybe we can begin by living a bit more like the average Chinese or Indian -- before they start living like us."

 

There you have it: The only way to turn the corner on energy use, and thus greenhouse gas emissions, at least in the short run, is to make us all poorer - a lot poorer.

 

Currently, after all, per capita income in the United States is $41,400. To live more like China and India, we will need to lower our energy usage, and thus incomes, down to their levels -- $1,300 and $650 per capita. Take it from Time - Poverty is the answer.

 

And as it turns out, it is the perfect answer to the problem of illegal immigration... and much, much more.

 

Think about it. Why have Mexicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Colombians, Vietnamese, Thai, Sudanese, Ethiopians and others decided to break our laws by breaching our borders? Opportunity, of course. What does opportunity represent? The chance to make a better living for yourself -- to make more money; to trade muscle power for horsepower.

 

If we impoverish ourselves as a nation and individually, why would they want to come here? No money? No immigration problem.

 

The job security issues labor is concerned about? No one wants a job that doesn't pay. So, no one will want to take anyone's job. No money, no job security problem.

 

Our obesity problem would fade away as well. It takes money to buy food, or else you have to grow it and breed it yourself. Doing that burns calories. No money, no obesity problem.

 

What about gasoline price-gouging. You only need gasoline to drive cars, right? No money, no cars, no gasoline price-gouging.

 

The same goes for the housing bubble. No money, puff, the housing bubble disappears.

 

As for the rancorous relations between Democrats and Republicans in Congress. No money, no problems. No rich, no tax cuts for the rich; no rich, no taxes to spend. As a nation, we would all be in the same boat, so a lowering tide would sink all of us together. Hallelujah!

 

And as for our overseas relations? You don't see a lot of protestors in foreign lands burning the flags of Burundi and Bangladesh, do you? No money, no problem. Heck, we might even wangle some foreign aid -- as long as it left us poor.

 

Prescription drug benefits? Die young and you don't need it. Same for Social Security.

 

What all this will do for global warming, we don't know. If other countries don't join us in our race to the economic bottom, then they will produce the greenhouse gases Time claims are going to destroy the planet.

 

And, of course, they and no doubt tens of millions of other Americans might decide to leave here for greener economic fields abroad. But, hey, then we'd be other nations' illegal immigration problem. No money, their problem. Sweet revenge, eh?  "

 

Duane Freese is Deputy Editor of TCS Daily.  "

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=050306E
Entry #288

"We're here and we're not leaving."

Hmmmmm protestors at the Capital building in Atlanta are reported by the news to be chanting "We're here and we're not leaving." 

Certainly does NOT gve me the warm fuzzies no matter how they try to shove it.  Mad


Discover the Networks (dot org) gives background and funding information about many organizations steering politics today.  Excellent reference.

http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/default.asp 


International ANSWER         http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6147

  • Anti-war front group for the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party
  • Founded after the 9/11 attacks to oppose the War on Terror
  • A major organizer of the massive anti-Iraq war rallies of 2002 and 2003
  • Opposes embargo against Communist Cuba
  • Supports convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal

 

International A.N.S.W.E.R. (often, simply ANSWER) is a front group for the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party (WWP), which uses the anti-war movement as the vehicle by which it promotes Communist ideals and condemns American society, American foreign policy, and capitalism. "..................

 

 

 

 


"Uno de Mayo
By Lowell Ponte
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 1, 2006

"“We’re going to close down Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Tucson, Phoenix, Fresno” on May Day this Monday, labor organizer Jorge Rodriquez told the British wire service Reuters.

 

“We want full amnesty, full legalization for anybody who is here [illegally],” said Rodriquez, organizer for one of the unions of AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees of the AFL-CIO. “That is the message that is going to be played out across the country on May 1.”

 

Listen to the cynicism behind Rodriquez’s arrogant statement. Government workers who belong to AFSCME unions will not see their jobs taken or wages depressed by illegal aliens, as will poor and undereducated American citizens. On the contrary, illegal aliens will generate more government jobs – the one sector where unionization is growing – with their demand for more taxpayer-funded services (read: welfare).

 

By one estimate, every illegal alien household in America on average consumes at least $2,736 more in taxpayer-funded services than it pays in taxes each year. This adds a total burden that could exceed $27 billion on American citizen taxpayers.

 

Six decades have passed since the last large organized labor protest in the United States staged on May Day, the traditional date of the Soviet Union’s annual parade of its latest weapons through Moscow’s Red Square and holiday for its Euro-socialist fellow-travelers.

 

The radicals have insisted on May Day for “Day Without Immigrants” nationwide Hispanic rallies and “Buy Nothing Gringo business boycotts, as well as work and school walkouts, and planned disruptions of major American cities (including cities such as New York and Chicago that historically were never “Mexican” territory).

 

The radicals behind this protest chose May first, rather than Cinco de Mayo, for a reason – and their allies in the Democratic Party, the racist Hispanic reconquista movement, and the Mexican government are behind them all the way.

 

The most vocal of these radicals, who also set last month’s nationwide pro-amnesty immigration protests that blocked Los Angeles streets with half a million Mexican flag-waving marchers, are activists with International ANSWER, a front group for the avowedly Marxist Workers World Party.

 

Do not be surprised on Monday if ANSWER activists in one guise or another try to cause violent confrontations with police, property damage or other violence. A longstanding radical tactic, such confrontations are intended to produce overreactions that polarize an issue and force those involved to “choose sides.” Confrontations on May Day would be calculated to produce a public backlash and to push otherwise-culturally conservative Hispanics into the arms of the Left.

 

This prospect has troubled even fellow leftists. Some of these graying comrades worry the backlash would stiffen the spines of politicians of both major parties who until now have been more than willing and eager to grant amnesty to America’s 12 million or more illegal aliens, despite overwhelming public opinion against doing so.

 

“It’s no accident that those pushing hardest for the May 1 boycott,” wrote Marc Cooper of the far-Left Nation Magazine and host of its tax-exempt foundation’s Radio Nation, “…have never shown much concern for real-world results, preferring to act out their ideological impulses.”

 

May Day was chosen for this mass demonstration as a “conscious nod” to the class confrontation traditions of this day, wrote the Socialist Worker. This journal proudly describes itself as standing “in the tradition in the Marxist tradition, founded by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and continued by V.I. Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky.”

 

May Day, traditionally a spring day of pagan fertility rites, May Poles, and sprinklings for the May Queen (as celebrated in a song by Led Zeppelin), was expropriated in the 1880s to become the holiday of European and North American labor radicals, socialists, and Marxists.

 

Democrats, who dominate the California legislature, voted last week along party lines to endorse May Day’s protests in resolutions describing the school, worker and buyer walkouts as the “Great American Boycott 2006.”

 

“American wouldn’t have been created without illegal action,” said State Senator Richard Alarcon and Democratic Senate Whip of the Los Angeles suburb Van Nuys. “They dumped a bunch of tea in Boston harbor, illegally.”

 

And where does Senator Alarcon fit on the ideological spectrum? His sister Evelina has been Vice Chair of the Communist Party USA and chair of the Southern California District of the Communist Party USA as well as a “state coordinator” for the United Farm Worker union. Senator Alarcon has been featured speaker at a banquet for the People’s Weekly World, the newspaper of the Communist Party USA.

 

In voicing his support for the May Day protests, Democratic State Senator Gil Cedillo of Los Angeles “likened the debate over immigrant rights to the fights over slavery, women’s suffrage, the internment of Japanese during World War II, and the Vietnam War.”

 

Senator Cedillo has relentless authored bills to provide valid California Driver Licenses to illegal aliens, a legal document for the undocumented. He refuses to acknowledge that Mexicans in the United States can use a Mexican driver’s license. Cedillo has rejected Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s request that any such California license carry a distinguishing mark so it could not be used as ID to register a voter or for other privileges requiring American citizenship.

 

As a student at the University of California Los Angeles in the 1970s, Cedillo was an activist in the racist Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan, MEChA, dedicated to reclaiming the southwestern United States for Mexico.

 

The head of UCLA’s incendiary MEChA chapter in that era was Antonio Villaraigosa, later to become Speaker of the lower house of the California legislature, later Los Angeles City Councilman, and current Mayor of Los Angeles. As documented in this column, both Cedillo and Villaraigosa attended and became lawyers with the help of the People’s Law School, a factory for the manufacture of radical left-wing lawyers.

 

Another close Villaraigosa friend and ally has been Mario Obledo, co-founder of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), who was awarded the 1998 Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bill Clinton.

“California is going to be a Hispanic state,” Mario Obledo has proclaimed, “and anyone who doesn’t like it should leave. They should go back to Europe.” (Does this refer to the Europe that includes Spain and the Spanish language?)

This kind of racist MEChA-like thinking has largely taken control of California’s Democratic Party, whose longtime chairman has been veteran politician Esteban “Art” Torres.

“Power is not given to you. You have to take it,” said Torres at a January 1995 Hispanic gathering to discuss non-compliance with ballot Proposition 187 at the University of California Riverside. “Remember, 187 is the last gasp of White America in California!” (For audio of Torres’ statement, check out this website.)

Proposition 187 would have denied taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal aliens. It passed with the support of 60 percent of California voters, including 30 percent of Hispanics. Recalled Democratic Governor Gray Davis refused to defend it in court. A federal judge set most of its provisions aside, her entire declared legal rationale for doing so being that “it would hurt people.”

This same Art Torres, Chairman of the California Democratic Party, who thrilled at “the last gasp of White America in California,” has attacked Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for having spent many years on the advisory board of U.S. English. This organization advocates English as the common language for all Americans. (English is now also the world language of diplomacy, science and business, as Latin and French were in previous centuries.)

U.S. English “has used its English-first message,” charged Torres, “to hide a more racially divisive agenda.” But America’s shared language, English, is a bridge that ends division and opens opportunities to members of all races. By contrast, leftists such as Torres have tried by hook and crook to keep Hispanics chained inside a Spanish language ghetto.

 

Research studies have found that when Hispanics learn to speak English and move from the barrio into the larger society, they start voting Republican in roughly the same proportion as other Americans. If this continues to happen with America’s fastest-growing minority, it would mean demographic doom for the Democratic Party. No wonder its members in California want to deny opportunity and education to young Hispanics, as will happen during Monday May Day – when Hispanics will walk out of school and work.

 

More evidence of the left-wing divide-and-conquer effort to drive wedges that split Americans apart came this past week in what purported to be a Spanish language version of America’s National Anthem, the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

 

As this columnist has noted, it’s odd to have a National Anthem that would get you arrested for speaking its lyrics about “bombs bursting in air” at a public airport or school. But the remixed Spanish version changes our anthem’s lyrics to say such things as “These kids have no parents, cause all of these mean laws…let’s not start a war with all these hard workers; they can’t help where they were born.” These new lyrics pervert America’s anthem into doublespeak making morality appear immoral and illegality appear legal.

 

The man who conceived this distortion is British music producer Adam Kidron, who will market it on the album Somos Americanos, “We Are Americans.” One dollar of the album’s $10 price, he said, will go to the National Capital Immigration Coalition (NCIC) in Washington, D.C.

 

No leftist mainstream media reporter pressed Kidron on what this organization is. NCIC is a front group for the radical Service Employees International Union (SEIU) that twisted arms to install Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. A majority of SEIU members are government employees, so it shares the same cynical politics against working Americans and in favor of higher taxes and bigger government as AFSCME. It is one of America’s biggest and richest labor unions. SEIU also played a major role in organizing the massive illegal immigration rallies throughout the Southwest.

 

The president of the newly-formed NCIC is Jaime Contreras, who arrived from his native El Salvador in 1988 and worked his way up from an SEIU janitor’s union to become one of the leaders of SEIU. No wonder he has been featured on every left-wing media outlet from National Public Radio (NPR), to Pacifica Radio, to Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now!” These outlets know how to build up and promote their own, although few bother to tell their audience of Contreras’ union background or extremist connections.

 

Unlike many other unions, SEIU retains the old radical dream of concentrating all union power in a few hands able to shut down all of America at the snap of a union boss’s fingers. It has welcomed illegal immigrants as a source of new membership to save the dying labor movement. SEIU has promoted the use of mass walkouts and disruption of entire cities to intimidate and force itself on employers and politicians.

 

It should not surprise us that this new anti-American anthem in Spanish is being used not only to advance radicalism but also to help fund the activities of a radical labor union disguised as a neutral-sounding immigration coalition.

 

“I think the National Anthem ought to be sung in English,” said President George W. Bush (who grew up in Texas, speaking both English and Spanish). “And I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to
sing the National Anthem in English.”

 

As we debate this issue, said President Bush, we should take care “not to lose our national soul.” Unlike other nations rooted in a single religion, race, culture, or history, the United States has gathered its people from throughout the world; Americans are held together by our ideals, our laws, our shared language English and our Manifest Destiny. The radicals behind Monday’s May Day demonstration advocate immigration that breaks our laws, rejects assimilation into America and insists on using Spanish as a language to keep it apart from the rest of America.

 

If illegal immigrants, most of whom are Mexican, in America want a day of protest, why not Cinco de Mayo, the Fifth of May, that arrives this coming Friday?

 

This is already a Mexican and Latino day of pride, the anniversary of Mexican forces in 1862 defeating a slightly larger French force in that first Battle of Puebla? In fact, during that battle, French troops were surprised to hear their opponents singing “La Marseillaise,” the revolutionary French national anthem, in Spanish.

 

Cinco de Mayo is already widely celebrated in the southwestern United States. But just as Hanukkah is celebrated more in the United States than in Israel, Cinco de Mayo is more of a holiday in the U.S. than in Mexico. Mexicans know that in the second Battle of Puebla in 1863, French troops crushed the Mexican army, days later occupied Mexico City, and continued to rule Mexico for the following four years.

 

The French Emperor Napoleon III dared to send troops to occupy Mexico only because the United States was preoccupied with its own War Between the States, a.k.a. our Civil War. When our war ended, we massed a huge American army on the Texas border with Mexico and informed the French Emperor that under the Monroe Doctrine we would not tolerate European control of Mexico.

 

Napoleon III beat a hasty retreat, leaving his installed “liberal” Hapsburg puppet “Emperor of Mexico” Maximilian I to be overthrown and executed by the locals in 1867. But drinking their beer each Cinco de Mayo, educated Mexicans bitterly remember that it was pressure from the United States that liberated their country from French colonial rule. The cultural residue of French influence in Mexico remains in many odd ways, e.g., the hired singers called Mariachis, whose name (despite frantic Mexican nationalist denials) was first used in 1852 and probably derives from the French word for marriage that arrived via the surreal 1838 French incursion known as “the Pastry War.”

 

France could also be blamed for Mexico’s loss of what is now the western United States. Napoleon I sold the U.S. the Louisiana Territory, which created a potential legal claim to a large, poorly-defined share of the wild West. Napoleon I also overthrew the government of Spain and put his own brother on the Spanish throne, which plunged Spain’s colonies such as Mexico into political chaos. The resulting uprisings in Mexico ousted Spain and installed a domestic revolutionary government that could not control the centrifugal forces that broke apart Spain’s old North American empire in Mexico (as well as South America with the uprisings of Simon Bolivar and Jose San Martin).

 

Many who stayed in the New World remained loyal to Spain. Mexico thus sent troops three times into California to suppress revolutionary Californios who did not want to be ruled by newly independent Mexico. The lands now part of the western United States were slipping free from Mexico’s tenuous, anti-democratic control even before America moved to secure them (preemptively, as it were, before Great Britain attempted to do so).

 

When American forces arrived in California in 1846, half the Californios greeted the Trailblazer John C. Fremont (in 1856 to become the first Republican presidential candidate) and his men as liberators freeing them from Mexican tyranny. President Abraham Lincoln returned to the Roman Catholic Church the Spanish missions that the greedy and corrupt Mexican government had expropriated.

 

Spain might have a weak historic claim to the southwestern United States. But post-revolutionary Mexico has virtually no legitimate claim whatsoever, contrary to the propaganda of racist groups such as MEChA. Since such groups speak of a mythical land they call Aztlan that they aim to restore, were the Aztecs ever here? Apparently not, except for rare raiding parties to attack tribes near today’s Mexican border in search of fresh victims for its pagan human sacrifices. What sane person would embrace such a flimsy territorial claim? And, as mentioned earlier, Monday’s May Day protests have targeted New York City and Chicago, both many hundreds of miles beyond any imaginable historic Mexican lands.

 

These protests will exploit innocent Hispanic children and fearful Hispanic adults to create hostility between Latinos and American citizens. This advances the anti-American radicals’ agenda, and that is why the radicals behind this protest selected May Day.

 

A backlash against the May Day protests is almost inevitable. In this, as Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle recognized, American citizens will see students who refuse to go to school, workers refusing to be reliable, and illegal aliens thumbing their noses at the law.

 

In the wake of such protests more than a month ago, the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute did polling in one state. The mass demonstrations made 17 percent of citizens more sympathetic to the immigrants’ cause, but they made 38 percent – more than twice as many – less sympathetic. The demands of these illegal aliens produced alienation.

 

…And Americans do not want to become an illegal aliens’ nation. As Quinnipiac’s assistant director Peter A. Brown observed, Americans are likely to respond negatively, not only to Monday’s protests but also to its deliberately having been set on May Day, a day associated with Communist nations. “The symbolism of [May Day’s] choice for the immigration economic boycott,” said Brown, “may not go down well in much of the country.” Moreover, wrote Brown, “American history is not one in which change has occurred in the streets. General strikes are not a U.S. tradition, as in many other countries in Latin America and Europe.”

 

The very nature of this style of mass protest, designed to show a group’s power by its ability to disrupt the lives and businesses of the rest of us, seems alien, threatening and un-American to most of us. We expect such things to be decided in the polling place, not on the streets.

 

Down on the border, meanwhile, the Minutemen have been constructing their own six-foot barbed wire fence 50 miles east of San Diego. They may be hoping that some illegals knock it down, thereby providing another polarizing issue for the other extreme of this debate. Even many leftists, from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Washington Post’s columnist Robert J. Samuelson, now agree a border fence is necessary.

 

And the pro-illegal immigrants protestors have painted themselves into a corner. By making May Day a “Day Without Immigrants,” they must either demonstrate major social and economic disruption or become an example that America can, indeed, live happily without its illegal immigrant workers. If they “go on strike” and nobody notices, their political and economic clout will evaporate.

 

But if they “go on strike” and cause massive social disruption, this will make millions of Americans afraid, angry, and unhappy at the actions of these foreign bullies. Either way, the politicians in this election year might suddenly realign on the side of those demanding a crackdown on illegals. President Bush, who grew up among Latinos and won 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, last Monday declared that the “massive deportation” of 12 million Latinos living in the United States is “unrealistic.” The Tonight Show’s liberal comic host Jay Leno, who lives with a wetted finger in the air to sense the shifting winds of public opinion, had a pointed rejoinder to the President. “We’re not able to send 12 million Mexicans out of our country?” said Leno. “Mexico did.”

 

To offset the economic impact of Monday’s boycott, radio talk show hosts across the nation have variously urged Americans to turn May Day into a “buycott,” spending as much as possible to erase any sign that a Hispanic boycott is effective.

 

One such radio host is Los Angeles radio station KFI’s Bill Handel. “Have you noticed,” he says, “that the politicians and activists talk about how important ‘immigrants’ are to American but never use the word ‘illegal’? What you won’t be shown on Monday,” said Handel last Friday, “is what illegals cost us in public services, in taxpayer dollars. That won’t be shown by the media.”

 

“Don’t want to pay $10 a head for lettuce?” say other opponents of illegal immigration. You already are in the form of overcrowded and dangerous public schools for your kids, hundreds of closed hospital emergency rooms where illegals broke the bank by demanding and getting free treatment, and in a thousand other burdens they impose on society that increase your taxes. This “cheap labor” already costs you a fortune and is on the verge of costing you your country.

 

South of the Border, meanwhile, the Mexican government is maintaining unconvincing official neutrality about Monday’s May Day boycott. It will be keeping its consulates and embassy open. Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez describes the boycott as “a strategy that is being defined by them [U.S. activists], not us.” But Mexican radicals in sympathy are staging a “Buy nothing Gringo” day to punish the Mexican owners of franchises such as McDonald’s. Approximately 40 percent of employed Mexicans in Mexico who do not work for government, work for American companies.

 

In Mexico, polls now show leftist candidate Manuel Lopez Obrador ahead for that nation’s July 2nd presidential election. This veteran of Mexico’s long-ruling revolutionary and corrupt PRI party cheers on illegals in the United States who send back $20 billion each year to relatives in Mexico, making them its most lucrative export. Obrador’s cultural advisor Elena Poniatowska openly advocates the reconquista, “reconquest,” of the United States. And he proposes to create a new electoral super-district which he calls the Sexta Circunscripcion for Mexican citizens. This Sixth Electoral District of Mexico would be the United States. Aztlan, anyone?

If Obrador becomes Mexico’s president, get ready for a very strange Fourth of July in the United States with lots of fireworks. "

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=22275

Entry #286