Report: U.S. Controls Only 10 Percent Of Its Border
October 19, 2009
by Personal Liberty News Desk
The Department of Homeland Security’s Annual Performance Report suggests that out of 8,607 miles of America’s land borders, the government effectively controls only 894 miles, which is a bit more than 10 percent. As a result, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has blasted the government for its failure to increase control of U.S. borders and suggested the report boosts the case against the administration’s plans to promote an illegal alien amnesty in 2010, which FAIR calls " ill-conceived."
"The DHS report makes it very clear that another divisive debate about granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens must be scrapped," says the organization’s president Dan Stein."The federal government must set meaningful standards for securing our borders … and devote the resources and manpower necessary to keep our nation safe and achieve dramatic reduction in illegal immigration," he adds.
Earlier this month, FAIR has also criticized the administration and congressional leaders for their failure to permanently reauthorize the E-Verify program. The program is a worksite verification tool that allows employers to voluntarily determine whether workers are legally authorized to work in the U.S. by electronically checking their Social Security numbers.
Over the objections of immigration reform advocates, a House-Senate conference committee had voted to extend E-Verify for only three years.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
FEAR AND FURY OVER SIGN POSTED IN LAKEWOOD
Fear and fury over sign posted in Lakewood
By ZACH PATBERG • TOMS RIVER BUREAU •
October 30, 2009
LAKEWOOD — An obscure sign on a dilapidated Second Street house has spread fear and fury over one business owner's threat to start a volunteer immigration watchdog group in an effort to clean up the downtown commercial district.
Day laborers waiting for work Thursday morning could not help but notice the sign hanging between boarded-up windows across the street: "Coming Soon To This Location ICE: Immigration & Customs Enforcement Volunteer Corps."
One laborer said he was worried 'they were going to pick up the people' like himself who were undocumented immigrants.
But Hershel Herskowitz, owner of Toys For Thought, who put up the sign, said the message was not intended for day laborers but for downtown Hispanic-owned storefronts that he accused of engaging in criminal activity such as drugs and money laundering.
"I'm hoping that this will be a wake-up call for our town to our landlords that have allowed a certain element to come into the downtown," Herskowitz said in a video posted on The Lakewood Scoop blog site as well as YouTube. "I hope no one misunderstands this as anti-Hispanic or any way a racist statement. We are merely trying to point out that we have businesses in downtown that are not legitimate businesses."
Immigrant advocates, however, failed to see the sign as anything but an intimidation tactic for undocumented Hispanics.
"It's unthinkable that in Lakewood, where we're supposed to be building tolerance and respect, we'd find a something like this," said Lydia Valencia, CEO of Puerto Rican Congress of New Jersey, based in Lakewood.
She said she has received several calls and emails from those concerned about the sign since it went up over the weekend. Yet it's unclear whether such an immigration group would be valid. I.C.E. Spokesman Harold Ort said no volunteer corps' exist within the agency. And, while he has included the I.C.E. name and seal on the sign, Herskowitz said the group would have no affiliation with I.C.E. He added he plans to renovate the site of the rundown house into a four-story office and retail building. A volunteer immigration enforcement office will likely never be part of the plans, Herskowitz admitted, calling the sign more of a warning.
"We're not quite sure what he's trying to accomplish," Mayor Robert Singer said. "But we can't stop someone from doing something like this if it's legal."
Zach Patberg: (732) 557-5739 or zpatberg@app.com
THESE ADVOCATES FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS MUST BE HIGH!!! ARE THEY SERIOUSLY TRYING TO CLAIM THAT LAKEWOOD IS ENGAGING IN FORCING THE RESIDENTS OF LAKEWOOD TO BE "TOLERANT" OF ILLEGAL ALIEN ACTIVITY????!!!
GOOD FOR THIS STORE OWNER!!!!!!!
WHEN HE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERS ASKING FOR VOLUNTEERS FOR HIS IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENTS MEMBERS COUNT ME IN!!!!!! HECK I'LL BE THE FIRST TO SIGN UP FOLKS!
IF THE ILLEGAL ALIEN DAY LABORERS, WHO ARE NOT PAYING A DIME IN LABOR TAXES OR STATE TAXES; BUT ARE MAGICALLY RECEIVING FREE EDUCATION FOR THEIR ILLEGAL CHILDREN; AND FREE HEALTH CARE FOR THEIR ENTIRE FAMILIES AND ALL THE BABIES THEY ARE BRINGING INTO LAKEWOOD; DON'T LIKE THE FACT THAT THERE ARE ACTUALLY SOME TRUE BLUE AMERICAN CITIZENS, WHO DO PAY TAXES; THAT OBJECT TO LAW BREAKERS!!!
YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW - DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND WHY AMERICANS ARE ANGRY? WHY AMERICANS ARE RESENTFUL OF YOUR FREE; FREE; FREE; MENTALITY; OFF THE BACKS OF HARD WORKING AMERICANS?!!!
YOU ARE NOT LEGALLY ALLOWED TO WORK IN THIS COUNTRY IF YOU ARE HERE ILLEGALLY IN THIS COUNTRY. IF YOU NEED HELP UNDERSTANDING THIS CONCEPT PLEASE LOOK TO YOUR OWN COUNTRY AND TELL ME WHAT "THEY" DO WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS!!!!!!!!!!!
I DON'T HAVE AN OUNCE OF PITY FOR ANY OF YOU - YOU HAVE THROWN IN OUR COLLECTIVE FACES THAT YOU DON'T GIVE A RATS ASS ABOUT OUR LAWS; YOU BREAK THEM AT WILL. YOU DON'T LIKE IT; YOU BREAK IT. AND YOU FEEL YOUR SOMEHOW JUSTIFIED IN DOING SO!!!!!! WELL, YOUR NOT!!
GOD BLESS AMERICA - THE GREATEST, MOST TOLERATE, COUNTRY AND ILLEGAL ALIENS KNOW IT AND TAKE GREAT ADVANTAGE OF IT. MEN AND WOMEN SHED THEIR BLOOD FOR OUR FREEDOMS EVERY SINGLE DAY - YET YOU WALTZ INTO OUR NATION ON THEIR BLOOD AND TRULY BELIEVE WE WOULD HAVE OPEN ARMS FOR ANY OF YOU???!!!! THINK AGAIN!!
WORK YOUR WAY THROUGH THE SYSTEM LIKE EVERY ONE OF MY ANCESTORS DID! THEN I'LL HAVE RESPECT FOR YOU. UNTIL THEN YOUR NOTHING BUT A LAW BREAKING ILLEGAL ALIEN WHO IS TAKING AWAY FROM MINE AND MY GRANDCHILDREN WHO HAVE A RIGHT TO WHAT YOU ARE STEALING!!!
A PISTED OFF AMERICAN !!
By ZACH PATBERG • TOMS RIVER BUREAU •
October 30, 2009
LAKEWOOD — An obscure sign on a dilapidated Second Street house has spread fear and fury over one business owner's threat to start a volunteer immigration watchdog group in an effort to clean up the downtown commercial district.
Day laborers waiting for work Thursday morning could not help but notice the sign hanging between boarded-up windows across the street: "Coming Soon To This Location ICE: Immigration & Customs Enforcement Volunteer Corps."
One laborer said he was worried 'they were going to pick up the people' like himself who were undocumented immigrants.
But Hershel Herskowitz, owner of Toys For Thought, who put up the sign, said the message was not intended for day laborers but for downtown Hispanic-owned storefronts that he accused of engaging in criminal activity such as drugs and money laundering.
"I'm hoping that this will be a wake-up call for our town to our landlords that have allowed a certain element to come into the downtown," Herskowitz said in a video posted on The Lakewood Scoop blog site as well as YouTube. "I hope no one misunderstands this as anti-Hispanic or any way a racist statement. We are merely trying to point out that we have businesses in downtown that are not legitimate businesses."
Immigrant advocates, however, failed to see the sign as anything but an intimidation tactic for undocumented Hispanics.
"It's unthinkable that in Lakewood, where we're supposed to be building tolerance and respect, we'd find a something like this," said Lydia Valencia, CEO of Puerto Rican Congress of New Jersey, based in Lakewood.
She said she has received several calls and emails from those concerned about the sign since it went up over the weekend. Yet it's unclear whether such an immigration group would be valid. I.C.E. Spokesman Harold Ort said no volunteer corps' exist within the agency. And, while he has included the I.C.E. name and seal on the sign, Herskowitz said the group would have no affiliation with I.C.E. He added he plans to renovate the site of the rundown house into a four-story office and retail building. A volunteer immigration enforcement office will likely never be part of the plans, Herskowitz admitted, calling the sign more of a warning.
"We're not quite sure what he's trying to accomplish," Mayor Robert Singer said. "But we can't stop someone from doing something like this if it's legal."
Zach Patberg: (732) 557-5739 or zpatberg@app.com
THESE ADVOCATES FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS MUST BE HIGH!!! ARE THEY SERIOUSLY TRYING TO CLAIM THAT LAKEWOOD IS ENGAGING IN FORCING THE RESIDENTS OF LAKEWOOD TO BE "TOLERANT" OF ILLEGAL ALIEN ACTIVITY????!!!
GOOD FOR THIS STORE OWNER!!!!!!!
WHEN HE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERS ASKING FOR VOLUNTEERS FOR HIS IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENTS MEMBERS COUNT ME IN!!!!!! HECK I'LL BE THE FIRST TO SIGN UP FOLKS!
IF THE ILLEGAL ALIEN DAY LABORERS, WHO ARE NOT PAYING A DIME IN LABOR TAXES OR STATE TAXES; BUT ARE MAGICALLY RECEIVING FREE EDUCATION FOR THEIR ILLEGAL CHILDREN; AND FREE HEALTH CARE FOR THEIR ENTIRE FAMILIES AND ALL THE BABIES THEY ARE BRINGING INTO LAKEWOOD; DON'T LIKE THE FACT THAT THERE ARE ACTUALLY SOME TRUE BLUE AMERICAN CITIZENS, WHO DO PAY TAXES; THAT OBJECT TO LAW BREAKERS!!!
YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW - DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND WHY AMERICANS ARE ANGRY? WHY AMERICANS ARE RESENTFUL OF YOUR FREE; FREE; FREE; MENTALITY; OFF THE BACKS OF HARD WORKING AMERICANS?!!!
YOU ARE NOT LEGALLY ALLOWED TO WORK IN THIS COUNTRY IF YOU ARE HERE ILLEGALLY IN THIS COUNTRY. IF YOU NEED HELP UNDERSTANDING THIS CONCEPT PLEASE LOOK TO YOUR OWN COUNTRY AND TELL ME WHAT "THEY" DO WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS!!!!!!!!!!!
I DON'T HAVE AN OUNCE OF PITY FOR ANY OF YOU - YOU HAVE THROWN IN OUR COLLECTIVE FACES THAT YOU DON'T GIVE A RATS ASS ABOUT OUR LAWS; YOU BREAK THEM AT WILL. YOU DON'T LIKE IT; YOU BREAK IT. AND YOU FEEL YOUR SOMEHOW JUSTIFIED IN DOING SO!!!!!! WELL, YOUR NOT!!
GOD BLESS AMERICA - THE GREATEST, MOST TOLERATE, COUNTRY AND ILLEGAL ALIENS KNOW IT AND TAKE GREAT ADVANTAGE OF IT. MEN AND WOMEN SHED THEIR BLOOD FOR OUR FREEDOMS EVERY SINGLE DAY - YET YOU WALTZ INTO OUR NATION ON THEIR BLOOD AND TRULY BELIEVE WE WOULD HAVE OPEN ARMS FOR ANY OF YOU???!!!! THINK AGAIN!!
WORK YOUR WAY THROUGH THE SYSTEM LIKE EVERY ONE OF MY ANCESTORS DID! THEN I'LL HAVE RESPECT FOR YOU. UNTIL THEN YOUR NOTHING BUT A LAW BREAKING ILLEGAL ALIEN WHO IS TAKING AWAY FROM MINE AND MY GRANDCHILDREN WHO HAVE A RIGHT TO WHAT YOU ARE STEALING!!!
A PISTED OFF AMERICAN !!
Monday, October 26, 2009
HOTEL OWNER TO WORKERS: NO SPANISH!!! THIS GUY NEEDS OUR SUPPORT!!!
Hotel Owner to Workers: No Spanish!
By MELANIE DABOVICH,
AP
TAOS, N.M. (Oct. 26) -- Larry Whitten marched into this northern New Mexico town in late July on a mission: resurrect a failing hotel.
The tough-talking former Marine immediately laid down some new rules. Among them, he forbade the Hispanic workers at the run-down, Southwestern adobe-style hotel from speaking Spanish in his presence (he thought they'd be talking about him), and ordered some to Anglicize their names.
Protesters urge customers to boycott the Whitten Inn in Taos, N.M., after the hotel's new owner told some employees to Anglicize their Spanish first names, ordered them not to speak Spanish when he was around and fired some Hispanic workers.
Protesters urge customers to boycott the Whitten Inn in Taos, N.M., after the hotel's new owner told some employees to Anglicanize their Spanish first names, ordered them not to speak Spanish when he was around and fired some Hispanic workers.
No more Martin (Mahr-TEEN). It was plain-old Martin. No more Marcos. Now it would be Mark.
Whitten's management style had worked for him as he's turned around other distressed hotels he bought in recent years across the country.
The 63-year-old Texan, however, wasn't prepared for what followed.
His rules and his firing of several Hispanic employees angered his employees and many in this liberal enclave of 5,000 residents at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, where the most alternative of lifestyles can find a home and where Spanish language, culture and traditions have a long and revered history.
"I came into this landmine of Anglos versus Spanish versus Mexicans versus Indians versus everybody up here. I'm just doing what I've always done," he says.
Former workers, their relatives and some town residents picketed across the street from the hotel.
"I do feel he's a racist, but he's a racist out of ignorance. He doesn't know that what he's doing is wrong," says protester Juanito Burns Jr., who identified himself as prime minister of an activist group called Los Brown Berets de Nuevo Mexico.
The Virginia-born Whitten had spent 40 years in the hotel business, turning around more than 20 hotels in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and South Carolina, before moving with his wife to Taos from Abilene, Texas. He had visited Taos before and liked its beauty. When Whitten saw that the Paragon Inn was up for sale, he jumped at it.
The hotel sits along narrow, two-lane Paseo del Pueblo, where souped-up lowriders radiate a just-waxed gleam in the soft sunshine as they cruise past centuries-old adobe buildings. One recent afternoon, a woman slowly rode her fat-tire bicycle along a cracked sidewalk, oversized purple butterfly wings on her back and a breeze blowing her long, blonde dreadlocks.
The community includes Taos Pueblo, an American Indian dwelling inhabited for over 1,000 years, and an adobe Catholic church made famous in a Georgia O'Keeffe painting.
After he arrived, Whitten met with the employees. He says he immediately noticed that they were hostile to his management style and worried they might start talking about him in Spanish.
"Because of that, I asked the people in my presence to speak only English because I do not understand Spanish," Whitten says. "I've been working 24 years in Texas and we have a lot of Spanish people there. I've never had to ask anyone to speak only English in front of me because I've never had a reason to."
Some employees were fired, Whitten says, because they were hostile and insubordinate. He says they called him "a white (N-word)."
Fired hotel manager Kathy Archuleta says the workers initially tried to adjust to his style. "We had already gone through four or five owners before him, so we knew what to expect," Archuleta says. "I told (the workers) we needed to give him a chance."
Then Whitten told some employees he was changing their Spanish first names. Whitten says it's a routine practice at his hotels to change first names of employees who work the front desk phones or deal directly with guests if their names are difficult to understand or pronounce.
"It has nothing to do with racism. I'm not doing it for any reason other than for the satisfaction of my guests, because people calling from all over America don't know the Spanish accents or the Spanish culture or Spanish anything," Whitten says.
Martin Gutierrez, another fired employee, says he felt disrespected when he was told to use the unaccented Martin as his name. He says he told Whitten that Spanish was spoken in New Mexico before English. "He told me he didn't care what I thought because this was his business," Gutierrez says.
"I don't have to change my name and language or heritage," he says. "I'm professional the way I am."
After the firings, the New Mexico chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a national civil rights group, sent Whitten a letter, raising concerns about treatment of Hispanic workers. Whitten says he sent them a letter and posted messages on the hotel marquee, alleging that the group referred to him with a racial slur. LULAC denied the charge.
The messages and comments he made in interviews with local media, including referring to townsfolk as "mountain people" and "potheads who escaped society," further enflamed tensions.
Taos Mayor Darren Cordova says Whitten wasn't doing anything illegal. But he says Whitten failed to better familiarize himself with the town and its culture before deciding to buy the hotel for $2 million. "Taos is so unique that you would not do anything in Taos that you would do elsewhere," he says.
Whitten grew subdued as a two-hour interview with The Associated Press progressed. He said he was sorry for the misunderstanding and insisted he has never been against any culture.
"What kind of fool or idiot or poor businessman would I be to orchestrate this whole crazy thing that's costed me a lot of time, money and aggravation?" Whitten said.
Whitten should have dealt with the situation differently, especially in a majority Hispanic town, said 71-year-old Taos artist Ken O'Neil, while sipping his afternoon coffee on the town's historic plaza.
"To make demands like he did just seems over the top," he says. "Nobody won here. It's not always about winning. Sometimes, it's about what you learn."
GET INVOLVED!!!
By MELANIE DABOVICH,
AP
TAOS, N.M. (Oct. 26) -- Larry Whitten marched into this northern New Mexico town in late July on a mission: resurrect a failing hotel.
The tough-talking former Marine immediately laid down some new rules. Among them, he forbade the Hispanic workers at the run-down, Southwestern adobe-style hotel from speaking Spanish in his presence (he thought they'd be talking about him), and ordered some to Anglicize their names.
Protesters urge customers to boycott the Whitten Inn in Taos, N.M., after the hotel's new owner told some employees to Anglicize their Spanish first names, ordered them not to speak Spanish when he was around and fired some Hispanic workers.
Protesters urge customers to boycott the Whitten Inn in Taos, N.M., after the hotel's new owner told some employees to Anglicanize their Spanish first names, ordered them not to speak Spanish when he was around and fired some Hispanic workers.
No more Martin (Mahr-TEEN). It was plain-old Martin. No more Marcos. Now it would be Mark.
Whitten's management style had worked for him as he's turned around other distressed hotels he bought in recent years across the country.
The 63-year-old Texan, however, wasn't prepared for what followed.
His rules and his firing of several Hispanic employees angered his employees and many in this liberal enclave of 5,000 residents at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, where the most alternative of lifestyles can find a home and where Spanish language, culture and traditions have a long and revered history.
"I came into this landmine of Anglos versus Spanish versus Mexicans versus Indians versus everybody up here. I'm just doing what I've always done," he says.
Former workers, their relatives and some town residents picketed across the street from the hotel.
"I do feel he's a racist, but he's a racist out of ignorance. He doesn't know that what he's doing is wrong," says protester Juanito Burns Jr., who identified himself as prime minister of an activist group called Los Brown Berets de Nuevo Mexico.
The Virginia-born Whitten had spent 40 years in the hotel business, turning around more than 20 hotels in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and South Carolina, before moving with his wife to Taos from Abilene, Texas. He had visited Taos before and liked its beauty. When Whitten saw that the Paragon Inn was up for sale, he jumped at it.
The hotel sits along narrow, two-lane Paseo del Pueblo, where souped-up lowriders radiate a just-waxed gleam in the soft sunshine as they cruise past centuries-old adobe buildings. One recent afternoon, a woman slowly rode her fat-tire bicycle along a cracked sidewalk, oversized purple butterfly wings on her back and a breeze blowing her long, blonde dreadlocks.
The community includes Taos Pueblo, an American Indian dwelling inhabited for over 1,000 years, and an adobe Catholic church made famous in a Georgia O'Keeffe painting.
After he arrived, Whitten met with the employees. He says he immediately noticed that they were hostile to his management style and worried they might start talking about him in Spanish.
"Because of that, I asked the people in my presence to speak only English because I do not understand Spanish," Whitten says. "I've been working 24 years in Texas and we have a lot of Spanish people there. I've never had to ask anyone to speak only English in front of me because I've never had a reason to."
Some employees were fired, Whitten says, because they were hostile and insubordinate. He says they called him "a white (N-word)."
Fired hotel manager Kathy Archuleta says the workers initially tried to adjust to his style. "We had already gone through four or five owners before him, so we knew what to expect," Archuleta says. "I told (the workers) we needed to give him a chance."
Then Whitten told some employees he was changing their Spanish first names. Whitten says it's a routine practice at his hotels to change first names of employees who work the front desk phones or deal directly with guests if their names are difficult to understand or pronounce.
"It has nothing to do with racism. I'm not doing it for any reason other than for the satisfaction of my guests, because people calling from all over America don't know the Spanish accents or the Spanish culture or Spanish anything," Whitten says.
Martin Gutierrez, another fired employee, says he felt disrespected when he was told to use the unaccented Martin as his name. He says he told Whitten that Spanish was spoken in New Mexico before English. "He told me he didn't care what I thought because this was his business," Gutierrez says.
"I don't have to change my name and language or heritage," he says. "I'm professional the way I am."
After the firings, the New Mexico chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a national civil rights group, sent Whitten a letter, raising concerns about treatment of Hispanic workers. Whitten says he sent them a letter and posted messages on the hotel marquee, alleging that the group referred to him with a racial slur. LULAC denied the charge.
The messages and comments he made in interviews with local media, including referring to townsfolk as "mountain people" and "potheads who escaped society," further enflamed tensions.
Taos Mayor Darren Cordova says Whitten wasn't doing anything illegal. But he says Whitten failed to better familiarize himself with the town and its culture before deciding to buy the hotel for $2 million. "Taos is so unique that you would not do anything in Taos that you would do elsewhere," he says.
Whitten grew subdued as a two-hour interview with The Associated Press progressed. He said he was sorry for the misunderstanding and insisted he has never been against any culture.
"What kind of fool or idiot or poor businessman would I be to orchestrate this whole crazy thing that's costed me a lot of time, money and aggravation?" Whitten said.
Whitten should have dealt with the situation differently, especially in a majority Hispanic town, said 71-year-old Taos artist Ken O'Neil, while sipping his afternoon coffee on the town's historic plaza.
"To make demands like he did just seems over the top," he says. "Nobody won here. It's not always about winning. Sometimes, it's about what you learn."
GET INVOLVED!!!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
ILLEGALS WELCOME?????
Monday, October 19, 2009
Illegals: Welcome! [Heather Mac Donald]
The United States is apparently facing a critical shortage of illegal aliens.
If you’ve spent any time in Tucson or Los Angeles, you might not recognize this emergency situation. But the illegal-alien deficit is so dire that special accommodations must be given to petty criminals, to make sure that they don’t depart our shores.
Acceding to pressure from illegal-alien advocates, the Obama administration has clarified that local law-enforcement agencies that have been deputized to enforce immigration law (this enforcement power is known as 287(g) authority) should focus on so-called “dangerous” illegals “who are a threat to local communities” — and not, by implication, on illegals who disobey misdemeanor and public-order laws.
Who are these precious assets who must be reassured of their secure place in American communities?
The Los Angeles Times has dug up some victims of local immigration enforcement that it considers particularly sympathetic. They are people like Diana and Yolanda Diaz, arrested for assault and disorderly conduct during a high-school fight in Raleigh, N.C. When officials at the Wake County jail learned that the Diaz sisters were illegal, they handed the brawlers over to federal immigration authorities. The Diaz sisters are incensed that their right to live illegally in the United States has been disrupted. “It's not fair,” the 16-year-old Diana told the Times.
And indeed, American high schools are far too quiet and disciplined. We need girls like the Diaz sisters to liven things up.
Other victims include people like Luis Cruz Millan, who blasted his car stereo at high decibels in the middle of the night while parked on a residential street in Raleigh, prompting a neighbor to call the police. Millan’s illegal status having thus come to the attention of the authorities, he is now facing deportation, to the undoubted consternation of his neighbors, who won’t want to lose such a pillar of respectability.
Further potential victims include the tens of thousands of illegals who drive drunk, drink in public, drive without licenses, and shoplift, and who, the illegal-alien advocates tell us, must be shielded from the immigration laws.
Illegals, of course, have no valid argument against deportation in any circumstance — they chose to enter the country illegally and assumed the risk that their law-breaking would be punished. But illegals who continue to break the law once here should be doubly inhibited from protesting against deportation. Moreover, it is precisely such “petty” crimes and quality-of-life offenses — school violence, litter, public urination, drunk driving — that most upset neighborhood stability and trigger resentment against illegals, as Peter Skerry has observed.
The breakthrough insight of 1990s policing was that lower-level offenses against public order create a sense of fear and civic disengagement that breeds further crime.
The perpetrators of such lower-level crimes often are engaged in more serious offenses as well.
The illegal-alien advocates could take a different tack in their campaign to guarantee that no illegal ever get deported: Instruct illegals to scrupulously obey the domestic laws so as not to come to the attention of the police. But such advice never issues from La Raza or the phalanx of immigration attorneys who howl at every deportation of an illegal criminal.
Though this tightening of 287(g) authority comes under the Obama administration, the Bush administration was no fan of the statute, either, and resisted allowing sheriff’s deputies to enforce immigration law on the streets against gangbangers. The trend is clear.
When amnesty finally rolls around, among those millions of illegals allowed to jump the queue ahead of people who intend to be legal immigrants will be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of criminals whose residency in the U.S. has been carefully protected to guarantee their ability to take advantage of the inevitable amnesty. — Heather Mac Donald
Illegals: Welcome! [Heather Mac Donald]
The United States is apparently facing a critical shortage of illegal aliens.
If you’ve spent any time in Tucson or Los Angeles, you might not recognize this emergency situation. But the illegal-alien deficit is so dire that special accommodations must be given to petty criminals, to make sure that they don’t depart our shores.
Acceding to pressure from illegal-alien advocates, the Obama administration has clarified that local law-enforcement agencies that have been deputized to enforce immigration law (this enforcement power is known as 287(g) authority) should focus on so-called “dangerous” illegals “who are a threat to local communities” — and not, by implication, on illegals who disobey misdemeanor and public-order laws.
Who are these precious assets who must be reassured of their secure place in American communities?
The Los Angeles Times has dug up some victims of local immigration enforcement that it considers particularly sympathetic. They are people like Diana and Yolanda Diaz, arrested for assault and disorderly conduct during a high-school fight in Raleigh, N.C. When officials at the Wake County jail learned that the Diaz sisters were illegal, they handed the brawlers over to federal immigration authorities. The Diaz sisters are incensed that their right to live illegally in the United States has been disrupted. “It's not fair,” the 16-year-old Diana told the Times.
And indeed, American high schools are far too quiet and disciplined. We need girls like the Diaz sisters to liven things up.
Other victims include people like Luis Cruz Millan, who blasted his car stereo at high decibels in the middle of the night while parked on a residential street in Raleigh, prompting a neighbor to call the police. Millan’s illegal status having thus come to the attention of the authorities, he is now facing deportation, to the undoubted consternation of his neighbors, who won’t want to lose such a pillar of respectability.
Further potential victims include the tens of thousands of illegals who drive drunk, drink in public, drive without licenses, and shoplift, and who, the illegal-alien advocates tell us, must be shielded from the immigration laws.
Illegals, of course, have no valid argument against deportation in any circumstance — they chose to enter the country illegally and assumed the risk that their law-breaking would be punished. But illegals who continue to break the law once here should be doubly inhibited from protesting against deportation. Moreover, it is precisely such “petty” crimes and quality-of-life offenses — school violence, litter, public urination, drunk driving — that most upset neighborhood stability and trigger resentment against illegals, as Peter Skerry has observed.
The breakthrough insight of 1990s policing was that lower-level offenses against public order create a sense of fear and civic disengagement that breeds further crime.
The perpetrators of such lower-level crimes often are engaged in more serious offenses as well.
The illegal-alien advocates could take a different tack in their campaign to guarantee that no illegal ever get deported: Instruct illegals to scrupulously obey the domestic laws so as not to come to the attention of the police. But such advice never issues from La Raza or the phalanx of immigration attorneys who howl at every deportation of an illegal criminal.
Though this tightening of 287(g) authority comes under the Obama administration, the Bush administration was no fan of the statute, either, and resisted allowing sheriff’s deputies to enforce immigration law on the streets against gangbangers. The trend is clear.
When amnesty finally rolls around, among those millions of illegals allowed to jump the queue ahead of people who intend to be legal immigrants will be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of criminals whose residency in the U.S. has been carefully protected to guarantee their ability to take advantage of the inevitable amnesty. — Heather Mac Donald
INSPECTOR ASSAULTS HOMEOWNER AND THE JUDGE DOESN'T EVEN VIEW THE EVIDENCE!! WHAT GIVES?!!
IF YOU READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE YOU WILL HAVE TO WONDER, AS I DO, WHY THIS JUDGE DID NOTHING TO FURTHER INVESTIGATE THIS HARASSMENT. IS THE INSPECTION DEPARTMENT OF LAKEWOOD NOW ABLE TO BECOME PHYSICAL WHEN CONDUCTING AN INSPECTION?!!
DON'T SIT BACK AND TELL ME THAT THIS KIND OF ASSAULT IS NOW GOING TO BE VIEWED AS JUST ANOTHER DAY IN LAKEWOOD.
I'M DISTURBED THAT THIS IS BEING ALLOWED TO TAKE PLACE.
Go to www.lakewoodshopper.com and turn to pages 50-51.
You will find an article about our Department. Mr. Canfield has informed the Township attorney about this matter and MAY sue for libel. Since this is on the Internet, it is no longer confidential.
DON'T SIT BACK AND TELL ME THAT THIS KIND OF ASSAULT IS NOW GOING TO BE VIEWED AS JUST ANOTHER DAY IN LAKEWOOD.
I'M DISTURBED THAT THIS IS BEING ALLOWED TO TAKE PLACE.
Go to www.lakewoodshopper.com and turn to pages 50-51.
You will find an article about our Department. Mr. Canfield has informed the Township attorney about this matter and MAY sue for libel. Since this is on the Internet, it is no longer confidential.
Monday, October 19, 2009
CANCELED MEETING HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED; PLEASE ATTEND FOLKS!!!
COMMUNITY VISIONING PUBLIC HEARINGS
The Township of Lakewood Township Committee’s will continue its community visioning public hearings to discuss the Township’s Lakewood Smart Growth Plan on Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 6:00 pm.
This public hearing will be held at the Lakewood High School Commons located at 855 Somerset Avenue in Lakewood.
The Township Committee will consider adoption of the draft Lakewood Smart Growth Plan.The Lakewood Township Committee is actively seeking public input regarding the Township’s draft Lakewood Smart Growth Plan. The publics invited to provide oral comments at the public hearing or submit written comments.
WRITTEN COMMENTS related to the draft Lakewood Smart Growth Plan will be accepted at the public hearing and may be submitted to the Township Clerk by October 30, 2009.
The draft Lakewood Smart Growth Plan is available for public inspection in the Township Clerk’s office located at the Lakewood Township Municipal Building, 231 Third Street, Lakewood, New Jersey 08701 and the document can be viewed between the hours of 9:00 am to 5:00 pm,Monday through Friday.
The plan will be made available on the Township’s web site at http://twp.lakewood.nj.us/ prior to the public hearing as well as at the Ocean County Library, Lakewood Branch.
The Ocean County Library, Lakewood Branch is located at 301 Lexington Avenue, Lakewood, New Jersey 08701. The library is open from Monday to Thursday from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, on Friday and Saturday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm and on Sunday 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm.
Posted October 16, 2009
GET INVOLVED!!!
The Township of Lakewood Township Committee’s will continue its community visioning public hearings to discuss the Township’s Lakewood Smart Growth Plan on Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 6:00 pm.
This public hearing will be held at the Lakewood High School Commons located at 855 Somerset Avenue in Lakewood.
The Township Committee will consider adoption of the draft Lakewood Smart Growth Plan.The Lakewood Township Committee is actively seeking public input regarding the Township’s draft Lakewood Smart Growth Plan. The publics invited to provide oral comments at the public hearing or submit written comments.
WRITTEN COMMENTS related to the draft Lakewood Smart Growth Plan will be accepted at the public hearing and may be submitted to the Township Clerk by October 30, 2009.
The draft Lakewood Smart Growth Plan is available for public inspection in the Township Clerk’s office located at the Lakewood Township Municipal Building, 231 Third Street, Lakewood, New Jersey 08701 and the document can be viewed between the hours of 9:00 am to 5:00 pm,Monday through Friday.
The plan will be made available on the Township’s web site at http://twp.lakewood.nj.us/ prior to the public hearing as well as at the Ocean County Library, Lakewood Branch.
The Ocean County Library, Lakewood Branch is located at 301 Lexington Avenue, Lakewood, New Jersey 08701. The library is open from Monday to Thursday from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, on Friday and Saturday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm and on Sunday 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm.
Posted October 16, 2009
GET INVOLVED!!!
TEA PARTY PSALM
PSALM 2009 - 2012
FIRST BOOK OF DEMOCRAT
OBAMA IS A SHEPHERD,
I SHALL NOT WANT.
HE LEADETH ME BESIDE STILL FACTORIES.
HE RESTORETH MY FAITH IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
HE GUIDETH ME IN THE PATH OF UNEMPLOYMENT..
YEA, THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE BREAD LINE,
I SHALL NOT GO HUNGRY.
OBAMA HAS ANOINTED MY INCOME WITH TAXES,
MY EXPENSES RUNNETH OVER MY INCOME,
SURELY, POVERTY AND HARD LIVING WILL FOLLOW ME
ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE.
AND I WILL LIVE FOREVER
IN A RENTED HOME.
BUT I AM GLAD I AM AN AMERICAN,
I AM GLAD THAT I AM FREE.
FIRST BOOK OF DEMOCRAT
OBAMA IS A SHEPHERD,
I SHALL NOT WANT.
HE LEADETH ME BESIDE STILL FACTORIES.
HE RESTORETH MY FAITH IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
HE GUIDETH ME IN THE PATH OF UNEMPLOYMENT..
YEA, THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE BREAD LINE,
I SHALL NOT GO HUNGRY.
OBAMA HAS ANOINTED MY INCOME WITH TAXES,
MY EXPENSES RUNNETH OVER MY INCOME,
SURELY, POVERTY AND HARD LIVING WILL FOLLOW ME
ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE.
AND I WILL LIVE FOREVER
IN A RENTED HOME.
BUT I AM GLAD I AM AN AMERICAN,
I AM GLAD THAT I AM FREE.
THIS SHOULD REALLY BOIL YOUR WATER!!!!
WHAT BETTER REASON DO WE HAVE TO VOTE OUT OF OFFICE ANY AND
ALL INCUMBENT POLITICIANS WHO CREATED SUCH A STUPID SITUATION.
WHY ARE OUR SOCIAL SECURITY PENSIONERS PUTTING UP WITH THIS CRAP ?
WHY HAS NOT ANYONE YET FILED A CLASS ACTION DISCRIMINATION SUIT ?
REMEMBER---IN NOVEMBER 2010 WE HAVE
A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY TO CLEAN OUT
THE ENTIRE HOUSE AND ONE-THIRD OF THE SENATE.
This is an insult and a kick in the butt to all of us...
Get mad and pass it on - I don't know how, but maybe some good will come of this travesty.
If the immigrant is over 65, they can apply for SSI and Medicaid and get more than a woman on Social Security, who worked from 1944 until 2004.
She is only getting $791 per month because she was born in 1924 and there's a 'catch 22'.
It is interesting that the federal government provides a single refugee with a monthly allowance of $1,890. Each can also obtain an additional $580 in social assistance, for a total of $2,470 a month.
This compares to a single pensioner, who after contributing to the growth and development of America for 40 to 50 years, can only receive a monthly maximum of $1,012 in old age pension and Guaranteed Income Supplement.
Maybe our pensioners should apply as refugees!
Consider sending this to all your American friends, so we can all be ticked off and maybe get the refugees cut back to $1,012 and the pensioners up to $2,470. Then we can enjoy some of the money we were forced to submit to the Government over the last 40 or 50 or 60 years.
Please forward to every American to expose what our elected politicians
have been doing the past 11 years to over-taxed Americans.
SEND THIS TO EVERY AMERICAN TAXPAYER YOU KNOW.
This is your Country. Go to a Tea Party.
ALL INCUMBENT POLITICIANS WHO CREATED SUCH A STUPID SITUATION.
WHY ARE OUR SOCIAL SECURITY PENSIONERS PUTTING UP WITH THIS CRAP ?
WHY HAS NOT ANYONE YET FILED A CLASS ACTION DISCRIMINATION SUIT ?
REMEMBER---IN NOVEMBER 2010 WE HAVE
A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY TO CLEAN OUT
THE ENTIRE HOUSE AND ONE-THIRD OF THE SENATE.
This is an insult and a kick in the butt to all of us...
Get mad and pass it on - I don't know how, but maybe some good will come of this travesty.
If the immigrant is over 65, they can apply for SSI and Medicaid and get more than a woman on Social Security, who worked from 1944 until 2004.
She is only getting $791 per month because she was born in 1924 and there's a 'catch 22'.
It is interesting that the federal government provides a single refugee with a monthly allowance of $1,890. Each can also obtain an additional $580 in social assistance, for a total of $2,470 a month.
This compares to a single pensioner, who after contributing to the growth and development of America for 40 to 50 years, can only receive a monthly maximum of $1,012 in old age pension and Guaranteed Income Supplement.
Maybe our pensioners should apply as refugees!
Consider sending this to all your American friends, so we can all be ticked off and maybe get the refugees cut back to $1,012 and the pensioners up to $2,470. Then we can enjoy some of the money we were forced to submit to the Government over the last 40 or 50 or 60 years.
Please forward to every American to expose what our elected politicians
have been doing the past 11 years to over-taxed Americans.
SEND THIS TO EVERY AMERICAN TAXPAYER YOU KNOW.
This is your Country. Go to a Tea Party.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
HUNDREDS LEAVE TOWN HALL AFTER HEARING CANCELLED
JUST IN: Hundreds Leave Town Hall After Hearing Cancelled
Oct 15 2009 5:38 pm
JUST IN: An overcrowded Town Hall overreacted in disappointment moments ago after Senator and Mayor Bob Singer announced that the hearing for the SmartGrowth Plan will be cancelled due to a broken microphone system. Hundreds of Yungerleit and seniors packed Town Hall for the scheduled 5:00 p.m. hearing which had to be rescheduled to a later date, being that the hearing had to legally be recorded and notes wouldn’t suffice. Photos and video will be posted shortly. (Mobile users click here for photos and here to view video on youtube).
Oct 15 2009 5:38 pm
JUST IN: An overcrowded Town Hall overreacted in disappointment moments ago after Senator and Mayor Bob Singer announced that the hearing for the SmartGrowth Plan will be cancelled due to a broken microphone system. Hundreds of Yungerleit and seniors packed Town Hall for the scheduled 5:00 p.m. hearing which had to be rescheduled to a later date, being that the hearing had to legally be recorded and notes wouldn’t suffice. Photos and video will be posted shortly. (Mobile users click here for photos and here to view video on youtube).
JUST IN: Hundreds Leave Town Hall After Hearing Cancelled
COMMENTS:
markevin says:
October 16, 2009 at 5:22 pm
look to all you who are protesting . the lakewood cheder is one of lakewoods best and largest schools with over two thousand legal tax paying citizens . lcs owns a very large piece of property and would like to build a well deserved campus that these children so desperatly need . were not asking for money just zoning approval . please come by and see for yourself the wonderful children who work so hard and have to learn under the most deplorable conditions with barely any playspace or anmenties . stop by before you protest. only somebody without a heart ( or a true antisemite would vote against a school for these kids. shame on you people . you’ve built and lived a life for yourselves, why can’t we do so on our dollar . you’re worries about congestion ( a ligit. concern) well, work in out in a pieceful and amicable way . we are all in these worldto help each other and live in piece . go visti. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised and may even shed a tear that in 2009 there exists such pure chidren who don’t even know who michael jackson is .
lac member says:
October 16, 2009 at 3:31 pm
we will be there with the asbury park press and channel 7 news. and the local propoganda mags will not help you this time.
anony says:
October 16, 2009 at 3:26 pm
i’ll be there too .showing support for those who really want what is good for everyone,even the people that are ruining the town.
anonymous says:
October 16, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Hey hershel what are you so mad about ? More houses more families more kids equals more toys for you to sell. You can even open another toy store near the blue claus stadium. Chill out man and have a great shabbos.
i will be there says:
October 16, 2009 at 11:11 am
Iknow I’m definitely going iyh on october 29th. Scoop please post schedule and updates. I like to think of myself as a pretty kavuahdik guy when it comes to learning and I am not bored. I figure I will save myself much more time if I waste a little now on this than all the hours I will be sitting in trafic in an overcrowded little town
not bored ppl says:
October 16, 2009 at 10:25 am
To the person who wrote that only bored people attended: You can’t be more off from the truth!! I saw the oilam there & they are far from bored people. The people that I saw there – hard-working Baalai Batim & Choshuve Yungerleit – had plenty of other things to do besides being crowded into a standing-room only hall. You need to ask them mechillah!!
anonymous says:
October 16, 2009 at 10:17 am
Who has time for all this shtis?they will get theire way whatever we do. Go work or learn and forget about it.what do we need some guy to tell us what to do now?
hershel herskowitz says:
October 16, 2009 at 10:11 am
To those who feel that only bored people that have nothing better to do complain.The people of this town are not complaining we are taking much needed action in matters that have been too long ignored.The attitude that “I don’t wabt to seem like I have sour grapes”or “everybody else seems to be fine with it”,”who am I to complain” has to end.we can no longer bury our heads in the ground and hope all will be fine.Believe me,I would much rather be learning or ordering toys for my store,but I realized long ago that our town is being mismanaged to a point where we will wake up soon and say how did. This happen?and there will be no turning back.the small favors that well connected individuals are receiving on our account pale in comaprison to the loss it causes the entire town.This is not about taxes or services.This is about the overall attitude that we all are being told to help a cause that benefits a few people with questionable motives that hide behind the guise of caring about all of us.Oh and just to clarify.Many of the people I saw in the video have a seder kavuah and learn every extra minute they can find.I hope it makes you feel better about your life to put down people that want to make sure their town is not destroyed by a few (hopefully) well meaning individuals.do you criticize askanim for helping get boys into school as well for wasting their time?or are you one of them yourself?see you oct 29th iy”h hopefully at the strand theatre,how ironic will that be?
unity says:
To those who feel that only bored people that have nothing better to do complain.The people of this town are not complaining we are taking much needed action in matters that have been too long ignored.The attitude that “I don’t wabt to seem like I have sour grapes”or “everybody else seems to be fine with it”,”who am I to complain” has to end.we can no longer bury our heads in the ground and hope all will be fine.Believe me,I would much rather be learning or ordering toys for my store,but I realized long ago that our town is being mismanaged to a point where we will wake up soon and say how did. This happen?and there will be no turning back.the small favors that well connected individuals are receiving on our account pale in comaprison to the loss it causes the entire town.This is not about taxes or services.This is about the overall attitude that we all are being told to help a cause that benefits a few people with questionable motives that hide behind the guise of caring about all of us.Oh and just to clarify.Many of the people I saw in the video have a seder kavuah and learn every extra minute they can find.I hope it makes you feel better about your life to put down people that want to make sure their town is not destroyed by a few (hopefully) well meaning individuals.do you criticize askanim for helping get boys into school as well for wasting their time?or are you one of them yourself?see you oct 29th iy”h hopefully at the strand theatre,how ironic will that be?
unity says:
October 16, 2009 at 9:07 am
This is the time for all residents of Lakewood to unite for a better Lakewood. Rapid development without infrastructure leads to more and even deeper problems. Understand that all of this cost taxpayers money. The question is “What can we afford to pay or are we willing to pay for rapid development.
The devil is in the details regarding zoning, utilities, transportation, infrastructure, state plans for Rt 9, county roads, schools, emergency services, etc. Let us be careful about what we wish for. We might get it.
There are smarter ways to manage growth without giving away the quality of life.
its bored ppl. go learn, i did says:
October 16, 2009 at 7:56 am
looking at the picture i see most if those poeple that showed up, are the ones that bored, and always complaining… so for all you poeple that ask how do u know this? the answer is very simple. whem ever you walk into any store or even ask some of the employees who complain the most and dont buy anything and they’ll be able to point them out to you….ppl find something better to do with your bored lives oh wait dont worry u have another meeting to attened
theFixIsIn says:
October 16, 2009 at 1:53 am
It will be rezoned. 15 houses per acre with basement apartments. The planning and zoning boards and committee do what the developers, some property owners and certain attorneys want them to do. That is why they are moving the meeting to the Strand or school auditorium. Puppets give a better performance on stage. Look up to see who is pulling the strings. Lakewood is almost bankrupt.
October 16, 2009 at 12:08 am
well first of all it is very sad that we have the largest boys elementary school in the most deplorable condition.and you will be hearing that by expanding with smart growth we will get a new cheder.yes we need a new cheder ,but at what price?and we will need another one soon after all our smart growing starts.
anonymous says:
October 15, 2009 at 11:55 pm
i would think these guys are alot smarter or they would never have gotten where they are.let them do there jobs.
hershel herskowitz says:
October 15, 2009 at 11:31 pm
So sad to hear about the cancellation. Funny though because I was running late and had a whole speech prepared.I hope now we will have more time to finally join together all the dissenfranchised people of this town,whether from the senior community,ex-yeshivalite,alte lakewooders,kollel families ,angry townhouse owners, rabbonim,storeowners ,hispanics,african americans,and new residents.we have all been misrepresented all these years.the planning board and township committee has never voted with their conscience. They only vote with the side that will get them reelected. If enough of us show up on oct. 29th maybe the committee will realize this time they may have chosen the wrong side.I hate to be contrarian,but I,and many of my fellow lakewood residents feel that growth of this magnitude,is not what one can call smart. It is no smarter than proposing a seven story parking garage in downtown when there is nothing to park for.sometimes truly bad ideas just keep blossoming until they take on a life of their own.this is one of them.for real smart growth we need to sit back,discuss the problems and needs of the town,let it swirl around our brains a little and choose our best options.not follow blindly and do as we are told so a few people can get what they want at everyones expense. Yes we need a new cheder. We need decent housing,recreation,and jobs.but all these things need to be planned without anyones personal agendas.these are all important issues and they should be addressed in the future but without using it as an excuse to trample on the quality of life that we have all come to expect from the town that we ALL helped create. October 29th. I will be there will you?please RSVP on the scoop let us all see the power we have.
Baloney Story says:
October 15, 2009 at 10:33 pm
we should fire them all, the MICs were working fine yesterday when the lakewood tenant organization.
Anonymous says:
October 15, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Taxes go up, that’s the nature of things – wages, fuel, real estate, supplies, professional services, etc. escalate year over year. Developing the land broadens the tax base such that taxes don’t go up as quickly as they otherwise would.
Your wages aren’t what they were 10 years ago, the cost of a gallon of gas or a loaf of bread isn’t either – it’s simple-minded to think that the cost of running the Township should remain the same.
gbigblackdog says:
October 15, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Supposedly, the court was having trouble with the sound system earlier today, and failed to tell the township committee, which resulted in the cancellation of the hearing at the very last minute, due to it having to be legally recorded.
It has been moved to Oct. 29, time and place to be announced, from what I heard. Possible locations include The Strand or the public high school.
The presentation from the DOT was interesting regarding Rt. 9, and more people should have stayed to hear that.
To anonymous at 7:49 says:
October 15, 2009 at 7:57 pm
I am still waiting for my taxes to go down since all the new developments went up. As the previous fellow stated let’s discuss this issue reasonably. Your taxes will not go down if the land is developedBeen there. Done that. It don’t work. Sorry.
Not everything is a conspiracy says:
October 15, 2009 at 7:42 pm
This is not a us versus them issue. And don’t let anyone tell you that it is. Many in the yeshiva community agree that Lakewood should plan better. Overcrowded townhomes is not feasable. There must be serious attention given to growth issues b”h. Proper respect should be given to those that bring up viable remedies. Let’s stop the rhetoric on both sides. It is an achrayus of the Commitee to the entire tzibbur for health and safety reasonsLet’s discuss this issue as mentchen. Let the dialouge begin. Let’s be heard (without the usual rhetoric)
hertz says:
October 15, 2009 at 6:45 pm
The yeshiva will like to build homes on the cederbridge corprate park. Do we want more townhouses and congestion? This might be the major decision that will change the face of lakewood for the next 50 years. Is lakewood overcrowed already? Should we slow devolpment and that will forcePeople to move into new areas.
ab says:
October 15, 2009 at 6:25 pm
I was not there. But something sounds fishy. Can someone fill me in on the truth ??
OLD GOYIM BILLY says:
October 15, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Maybe the town fathers can get some of the land back and sell it for fair value to buy a working sound system and lower my taxes. Oh I forgot- if the town tax goes down the school tax will go up-LOL
THE WAY FORWARD ON DEFEATING OBAMACARE!!! MUST READ FOLKS
Read and heed.
Very important, we are losing ground.
The only thing evil needs to Triumph, is that good men do nothing.- E. Burke
The following are posts from a friend on Tea Party Patriots:
It's a long read, but it can make a difference if everyone participates.
It's Time To Focus:
The Way Forward On Defeating ObamaCare
Posted by Gerald Merits on October 14, 2009 at 5:26pmHere is the most important link in the fight against ObamaCare: But don't go there yet. I need your attention.
It is good to be a part of such a passionate group of people. I know I risk stepping out of line and that certainly is not my intention, but events dictate my actions.I am reading a great deal of posts from people quoting the constitution or talking about items that won't have an immediate impact on the current drama unfolding in the Senate - namely healthcare.
I read of people in a state of panic about the dreaded Vapor Bill, or talking about nullification and the 10th amendment.Let's take the Vapor Bill as an example. What many, including myself until recently, don't realize is the Vapor Bill is something Harry Reid will be forced to do from a parliamentary point of view - the same thing happened with the Reagan tax cuts being placed into the excise tax on fishing tackle.
Or how about the 10th amendment? Talking about it and daydreaming about defeating ObamaCare using the 10th amendment is fun - I won't deny that as I have spent a great deal of time talking about it, blogging about it, commenting about it, and reading about it.
But none of these has any bearing on how to stop ObamaCare NOW.
We are allowing ourselves to get distracted; to dissipate unnecessary energy instead of directing it like a laser to destroy once and for all the possibility of ObamaCare.
How do we do that?
How do we tackle this monumental undertaking?
I mean look at what we have to accomplish. First, stop 60 votes and then stop reconciliation.
These two tasks alone should be taking up all our attention and seem so daunting I think it makes us leave our comfort zones and want to talk about other ways of defeating ObamaCare in a sort of escapism from the harsh reality facing us. I've been there, done that. It's not easy to face the challenges we are up against. But we are the descendants of men and women who did the hard things necessary to secure the liberties we enjoy so much today but risk losing. I know that each of you have these same tendencies and these same passions.
I include myself among you and I am proud to be a member of the Tea Party. The question that needs asking though is what do we focus on and when we figure that out, how do we go about refocusing?The first question has an answer. Dr. Larry Hunter, former policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan and head of the Social Security Institute has taken the time to write an excellent strategy to defeat ObamaCare.
If you would enjoy waking up one day and reading about the defeat of ObamaCare on your favorite website or hearing it on the TV, then I highly recommend reading his strategy memo.
As before, don't go there yet. I still need you to read on.After reading the memo, make it your mission to follow it and get the word out. When laid out this way, it does not seem so daunting and gives each of us an understanding of what it is we should be doing. By providing direction it allows us to focus, and focus is what we need.
This is our center of the storm, the calm place that guides us and allows us to ignore the whipping winds and enormous waves around us (Vapor bills, 10th amendments, media filler that hits us hourly or by the minute). Stick to the memo and ignore the media filler and speculations that eat up so much of our time.
I am sure the Tea Party leaders can give me a lesson in how hard it is to get so many people that are so spread out to pull together, but we did it on 9/12 and in a big way.I state the above not with the intent to offend anyone, but with the heartfelt intention of defeating Obama, first on healthcare and then on every other issue. I used to talk and write on many of the same things I am reading in many of these emails so trust me, I am not judging. I am just trying to contribute my two cents while desperately attempting to get us to focus.
Here's the site to visit:
http://socialsecurityinstitute.com/join-the-fight/memorandum-to-the
Memorandum To The Grass Roots*Third Update* October 15, 2009I was going to update the Strategy Memo but saw that Gerald Merits already had done a better job at it than I could so I am posting his email to the Grass Roots in lieu of my own update.
Memorandum To The Grass RootsFrom Gerald Merits (webmaster@lumponablog.com)Date Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 10:19 AMSubject Tea Party Patriots - Relevant, Then Irrelevant And How To Stay RelevantWhen it comes to a winning strategy to pressure Senators to act a certain way it helps to think of it like pain.
If you have pain for only 1/2 an hour you won't be thinking about six hours later. If the pain is unrelenting, you are going to pay it a great deal of attention and possibly make an appointment with your doctor.
In short, you will probably do something about it instead of ignore it.The news from Senate insiders (Senators and their staff) concerning the 9/12 movement is now one of disappointment and a feeling of helplessness about three weeks after 9/12. I am not talking about the effect of 9/12, but rather the lack of effect just a few short weeks after 9/12.The general feeling in the Senate was dismissive of the movement.
This is real intelligence and very solid. I am afraid the October surprise will have the same effect as the 9/12 march and that without sustained and merciless pressure the Tea Party will be relevant for a couple of weeks again and then disappear off the radar.
Recall this link in my previous email to all of you (http://bit.ly/oHMZa) concerning a real strategy we can all march to to defeat ObamaCare. This is referred to as the strategy memo and I urge you to check it out.Also check out this link about the real habits of Senators and how often they are actually in Washington and how often they are in their states (http://tinyurl.com/yjjyts7) and follow the link to the Politico report for additional details.
What this translates to is that we can demand a townhall of our Senators every single weekend, hunt them down and find out where they will be during their often repeated self-imposed recesses, and barring that protest in front of their offices and across the state every single weekend until the recess.
This is for those states with Senators listed in the strategy memo as "gettable" Dems and squishy RINOs. And send hand-written faxes to keep the fax machines running day in and day out for the previous listed Senators and for every Senator not listed in the memo, those Tea Party leaders and their workers can concentrate on the reconciliation killing strategy that references the Jim DeMint amendments.Lastly, I am concerned that protesting local television stations is counter productive. I am referring to the "can you hear us now" campaign.
In my home town of Austin, a gathering of 14 of us in front of Whole Foods made the evening news. Street theater, especially large street theater, makes the evening news, and all local stations are hungry for anything interesting. This helps our cause and gets us much needed attention and keeps on everyone's radar. If anybody should be protested it is the national offices of CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC news.
Folks in those towns can take care of that, but local news stations are our friends and should be courted. Let them know when an event is to be held and work with them, not against them.
Should the coverage be unflattering, then take the gloves off and give them hell.With targeted and unrelenting pressure with boots on the grounds every weekend and constantly running fax machines around the clock the Tea Party will be relevant ALL the time and not just for a few weeks surrounding an event. This is how you kill healthcare. It is a strategy, much like a battle plan. I have yet to see its equal or anything equivalent, and given the information coming from inside the Senate, we need to stop thinking that a single nationwide event will translate to long-term results in our favor. This is not going to be easy, but then anything worth it is never easy, is it?
The pressure must be sustained.
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson
GET INVOLVED!!!
Very important, we are losing ground.
The only thing evil needs to Triumph, is that good men do nothing.- E. Burke
The following are posts from a friend on Tea Party Patriots:
It's a long read, but it can make a difference if everyone participates.
It's Time To Focus:
The Way Forward On Defeating ObamaCare
Posted by Gerald Merits on October 14, 2009 at 5:26pmHere is the most important link in the fight against ObamaCare: But don't go there yet. I need your attention.
It is good to be a part of such a passionate group of people. I know I risk stepping out of line and that certainly is not my intention, but events dictate my actions.I am reading a great deal of posts from people quoting the constitution or talking about items that won't have an immediate impact on the current drama unfolding in the Senate - namely healthcare.
I read of people in a state of panic about the dreaded Vapor Bill, or talking about nullification and the 10th amendment.Let's take the Vapor Bill as an example. What many, including myself until recently, don't realize is the Vapor Bill is something Harry Reid will be forced to do from a parliamentary point of view - the same thing happened with the Reagan tax cuts being placed into the excise tax on fishing tackle.
Or how about the 10th amendment? Talking about it and daydreaming about defeating ObamaCare using the 10th amendment is fun - I won't deny that as I have spent a great deal of time talking about it, blogging about it, commenting about it, and reading about it.
But none of these has any bearing on how to stop ObamaCare NOW.
We are allowing ourselves to get distracted; to dissipate unnecessary energy instead of directing it like a laser to destroy once and for all the possibility of ObamaCare.
How do we do that?
How do we tackle this monumental undertaking?
I mean look at what we have to accomplish. First, stop 60 votes and then stop reconciliation.
These two tasks alone should be taking up all our attention and seem so daunting I think it makes us leave our comfort zones and want to talk about other ways of defeating ObamaCare in a sort of escapism from the harsh reality facing us. I've been there, done that. It's not easy to face the challenges we are up against. But we are the descendants of men and women who did the hard things necessary to secure the liberties we enjoy so much today but risk losing. I know that each of you have these same tendencies and these same passions.
I include myself among you and I am proud to be a member of the Tea Party. The question that needs asking though is what do we focus on and when we figure that out, how do we go about refocusing?The first question has an answer. Dr. Larry Hunter, former policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan and head of the Social Security Institute has taken the time to write an excellent strategy to defeat ObamaCare.
If you would enjoy waking up one day and reading about the defeat of ObamaCare on your favorite website or hearing it on the TV, then I highly recommend reading his strategy memo.
As before, don't go there yet. I still need you to read on.After reading the memo, make it your mission to follow it and get the word out. When laid out this way, it does not seem so daunting and gives each of us an understanding of what it is we should be doing. By providing direction it allows us to focus, and focus is what we need.
This is our center of the storm, the calm place that guides us and allows us to ignore the whipping winds and enormous waves around us (Vapor bills, 10th amendments, media filler that hits us hourly or by the minute). Stick to the memo and ignore the media filler and speculations that eat up so much of our time.
I am sure the Tea Party leaders can give me a lesson in how hard it is to get so many people that are so spread out to pull together, but we did it on 9/12 and in a big way.I state the above not with the intent to offend anyone, but with the heartfelt intention of defeating Obama, first on healthcare and then on every other issue. I used to talk and write on many of the same things I am reading in many of these emails so trust me, I am not judging. I am just trying to contribute my two cents while desperately attempting to get us to focus.
Here's the site to visit:
http://socialsecurityinstitute.com/join-the-fight/memorandum-to-the
Memorandum To The Grass Roots*Third Update* October 15, 2009I was going to update the Strategy Memo but saw that Gerald Merits already had done a better job at it than I could so I am posting his email to the Grass Roots in lieu of my own update.
Memorandum To The Grass RootsFrom Gerald Merits (webmaster@lumponablog.com)Date Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 10:19 AMSubject Tea Party Patriots - Relevant, Then Irrelevant And How To Stay RelevantWhen it comes to a winning strategy to pressure Senators to act a certain way it helps to think of it like pain.
If you have pain for only 1/2 an hour you won't be thinking about six hours later. If the pain is unrelenting, you are going to pay it a great deal of attention and possibly make an appointment with your doctor.
In short, you will probably do something about it instead of ignore it.The news from Senate insiders (Senators and their staff) concerning the 9/12 movement is now one of disappointment and a feeling of helplessness about three weeks after 9/12. I am not talking about the effect of 9/12, but rather the lack of effect just a few short weeks after 9/12.The general feeling in the Senate was dismissive of the movement.
This is real intelligence and very solid. I am afraid the October surprise will have the same effect as the 9/12 march and that without sustained and merciless pressure the Tea Party will be relevant for a couple of weeks again and then disappear off the radar.
Recall this link in my previous email to all of you (http://bit.ly/oHMZa) concerning a real strategy we can all march to to defeat ObamaCare. This is referred to as the strategy memo and I urge you to check it out.Also check out this link about the real habits of Senators and how often they are actually in Washington and how often they are in their states (http://tinyurl.com/yjjyts7) and follow the link to the Politico report for additional details.
What this translates to is that we can demand a townhall of our Senators every single weekend, hunt them down and find out where they will be during their often repeated self-imposed recesses, and barring that protest in front of their offices and across the state every single weekend until the recess.
This is for those states with Senators listed in the strategy memo as "gettable" Dems and squishy RINOs. And send hand-written faxes to keep the fax machines running day in and day out for the previous listed Senators and for every Senator not listed in the memo, those Tea Party leaders and their workers can concentrate on the reconciliation killing strategy that references the Jim DeMint amendments.Lastly, I am concerned that protesting local television stations is counter productive. I am referring to the "can you hear us now" campaign.
In my home town of Austin, a gathering of 14 of us in front of Whole Foods made the evening news. Street theater, especially large street theater, makes the evening news, and all local stations are hungry for anything interesting. This helps our cause and gets us much needed attention and keeps on everyone's radar. If anybody should be protested it is the national offices of CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC news.
Folks in those towns can take care of that, but local news stations are our friends and should be courted. Let them know when an event is to be held and work with them, not against them.
Should the coverage be unflattering, then take the gloves off and give them hell.With targeted and unrelenting pressure with boots on the grounds every weekend and constantly running fax machines around the clock the Tea Party will be relevant ALL the time and not just for a few weeks surrounding an event. This is how you kill healthcare. It is a strategy, much like a battle plan. I have yet to see its equal or anything equivalent, and given the information coming from inside the Senate, we need to stop thinking that a single nationwide event will translate to long-term results in our favor. This is not going to be easy, but then anything worth it is never easy, is it?
The pressure must be sustained.
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson
GET INVOLVED!!!
Friday, October 16, 2009
ONE LIGHT BULB AT A TIME...
ONE LIGHT BULB AT A TIME
A physics teacher in high school, once told the students that while one grasshopper on the railroad tracks wouldn't slow a train very much, a billion of them would.
With that thought in mind, read the following, obviously written by a good American .
Good idea . . . one light bulb at a time . . . .Check this out . I can verify this because I was in Lowes the other day for some reason and just for the heck of it I was looking at the hose attachments .
They were all made in China .
The next day I was in Ace Hardware and just for the heck of it I checked the hose attachments there.
They were made in USA .
Start looking
In our current economic situation, every little thing we buy or do affects someone else - even their job .
So, after reading this, I think this lady is on the right track . Let's get behind her!
My grandson likes Hershey's candy . I noticed, though, that it is marked made in Mexico now . I do not buy it any more . My favorite toothpaste Colgate is made in Mexico now .
I have switched to Crest . You have to read the labels on everything . This past weekend I was at Kroger. (Can be true for any store.) I needed 60W light bulbs and Bounce dryer sheets . I was in the light bulb aisle, and right next to the GE brand I normally buy was an off brand labeled, "Everyday Value . " I picked up both types of bulbs and compared the stats - they were the same except for the price . The GE bulbs were more money than the Everyday Value brand but the thing that surprised me the most was the fact that GE was made in MEXICO and the Everyday Value brand was made in - get ready for this - the USA in a company in Cleveland , Ohio .
So on to another aisle - Bounce Dryer Sheets . . yep, you guessed it, Bounce cost more money and is made in Canada . The Everyday Value brand was less money and MADE IN THE USA!
I did laundry yesterday and the dryer sheets performed just like the Bounce Free I have been using for years and at almost half the price!
My challenge to you is to start reading the labels when you shop for everyday things and see what you can find that is made in the USA - the job you save may be your own or your neighbors!
If you accept the challenge, pass this on to others in your address book so we can all start buying American, one light bulb at a time! Stop buying from overseas companies!
Let's get with the program . . . . help our fellow Americans keep their jobs and create more jobs here in the U . S . A .
GET INVOLVED!!!
A physics teacher in high school, once told the students that while one grasshopper on the railroad tracks wouldn't slow a train very much, a billion of them would.
With that thought in mind, read the following, obviously written by a good American .
Good idea . . . one light bulb at a time . . . .Check this out . I can verify this because I was in Lowes the other day for some reason and just for the heck of it I was looking at the hose attachments .
They were all made in China .
The next day I was in Ace Hardware and just for the heck of it I checked the hose attachments there.
They were made in USA .
Start looking
In our current economic situation, every little thing we buy or do affects someone else - even their job .
So, after reading this, I think this lady is on the right track . Let's get behind her!
My grandson likes Hershey's candy . I noticed, though, that it is marked made in Mexico now . I do not buy it any more . My favorite toothpaste Colgate is made in Mexico now .
I have switched to Crest . You have to read the labels on everything . This past weekend I was at Kroger. (Can be true for any store.) I needed 60W light bulbs and Bounce dryer sheets . I was in the light bulb aisle, and right next to the GE brand I normally buy was an off brand labeled, "Everyday Value . " I picked up both types of bulbs and compared the stats - they were the same except for the price . The GE bulbs were more money than the Everyday Value brand but the thing that surprised me the most was the fact that GE was made in MEXICO and the Everyday Value brand was made in - get ready for this - the USA in a company in Cleveland , Ohio .
So on to another aisle - Bounce Dryer Sheets . . yep, you guessed it, Bounce cost more money and is made in Canada . The Everyday Value brand was less money and MADE IN THE USA!
I did laundry yesterday and the dryer sheets performed just like the Bounce Free I have been using for years and at almost half the price!
My challenge to you is to start reading the labels when you shop for everyday things and see what you can find that is made in the USA - the job you save may be your own or your neighbors!
If you accept the challenge, pass this on to others in your address book so we can all start buying American, one light bulb at a time! Stop buying from overseas companies!
Let's get with the program . . . . help our fellow Americans keep their jobs and create more jobs here in the U . S . A .
GET INVOLVED!!!
10,000 APPLY FOR 90 FACTORY JOBS!!!
10,000 apply for 90 factory jobs
By Jere Downs • jdowns@courier-journal.com
• October 8, 2009
In the latest sign of weakness in Louisville-area employment, about 10,000 people applied over three days for 90 jobs building washing machines at General Electric for about $27,000 per year and hefty benefits.
The jobs dangle medical, eye care, prescription and dental benefit packages, as well as pension, disability, tuition assistance and more, said GE spokeswoman Kim Freeman. And despite the recession, no union workers have been laid off from Appliance Park since the company negotiated lower wages with workers in 2005.
“There are no jobs out there paying these kinds of wages that also offer these kind of benefits,” said Jerry Carney, president of IUE-CWA Local 761 at Appliance Park.
Just four years ago, the same jobs paid $19 per hour. But that was before Local 761 approved wage cuts for new workers aimed at preventing the closure of Appliance Park.
“People still value these jobs,” Freeman said.
With the Jefferson County unemployment rate at 10.6 percent in August and more than 38,000 unemployed people looking for work, the opportunity for moderate pay and health care was an attractive lure.
“In this recession, there are lot of people who are just about to run out of unemployment benefits,” said Richard Hurd, a labor relations professor at Cornell University. The national average of time unemployment benefits collected now stands at 26 weeks, Indiana University Southeast Professor of Business Uric Dufrene said.
That’s about a third of the maximum that can currently be collected.
Larissa Roos, 38, never worked in a factory, but was one of the thousands who bid on jobs assembling appliances.
Until she was laid off from Bank of America in February, Roos said she made $18 per hour fielding calls, often from irritated merchants, about credit card glitches. Roos took that job just out of high school. But severance payments end this month, and Roos said she is looking everywhere to try to replace the income.
“I need something so I can live day to day. The job market is horrible,” Roos said Thursday, adding the family relies on her husband’s job as a printer to pay the mortgage on their Fern Creek home as well as utility, fuel and other bills.
With 10,000 vying for GE line jobs, “I am sure my application won’t even get looked at,” she added.
The rush of applicants came as no surprise to Carney, who noted that another recent GE advertisement for 13 maintenance workers, who are paid a union skilled trades rate of $23 hourly, drew 700 job seekers.
Carney credited GE’s reputation for union job security and blue chip benefits as a powerful lure.
GE announced the new jobs last week and started accepting applications through a website Monday. Wednesday was the deadline. The jobs are being added to a new second shift early next month to assemble Energy Star washing machines in Building 1 at the historic Louisville complex.
Roughly 80 percent of applicants report factory experience, Freeman said. That is not surprising, given the recession so far has slashed 8,000 manufacturing jobs from the region’s economy, Dufrene said.
“There is an abundance of potential employees with manufacturing-related skills,” Dufrene said.
The rough profile of applicants, most of them former factory workers, suggests many lack sufficient education to apply for more than minimum wage jobs in the current job market.
Half lacked a high school diploma. Just 5 percent of the applicants said they had a bachelor’s degree or higher.
GE employs roughly 2,100 hourly and 2,000 white collar workers at Appliance Park. Now, about 440 workers labor on the first shift making washing machines in Building 1.
Applicant Shane Hopkins, 48, hopes his factory experience provides an edge.
Until mid-August, he said he maintained presses at a plastics factory. Now, Hopkins said he picks up occasional work as a flooring contractor for a cousin.
He still pays $300 per month to keep health care benefits for himself and his wife, an independent contractor for a Ford Motor Co. parts supplier at the Louisville Assembly Plant. Hopkins anticipates she’ll be out of work next year, when the plant closes for retooling.
A year from now, “her job ain’t going to be there,” Hopkins said. “I am thinking seriously about going to McDonalds, just for the benefits if nothing else.”
By Jere Downs • jdowns@courier-journal.com
• October 8, 2009
In the latest sign of weakness in Louisville-area employment, about 10,000 people applied over three days for 90 jobs building washing machines at General Electric for about $27,000 per year and hefty benefits.
The jobs dangle medical, eye care, prescription and dental benefit packages, as well as pension, disability, tuition assistance and more, said GE spokeswoman Kim Freeman. And despite the recession, no union workers have been laid off from Appliance Park since the company negotiated lower wages with workers in 2005.
“There are no jobs out there paying these kinds of wages that also offer these kind of benefits,” said Jerry Carney, president of IUE-CWA Local 761 at Appliance Park.
Just four years ago, the same jobs paid $19 per hour. But that was before Local 761 approved wage cuts for new workers aimed at preventing the closure of Appliance Park.
“People still value these jobs,” Freeman said.
With the Jefferson County unemployment rate at 10.6 percent in August and more than 38,000 unemployed people looking for work, the opportunity for moderate pay and health care was an attractive lure.
“In this recession, there are lot of people who are just about to run out of unemployment benefits,” said Richard Hurd, a labor relations professor at Cornell University. The national average of time unemployment benefits collected now stands at 26 weeks, Indiana University Southeast Professor of Business Uric Dufrene said.
That’s about a third of the maximum that can currently be collected.
Larissa Roos, 38, never worked in a factory, but was one of the thousands who bid on jobs assembling appliances.
Until she was laid off from Bank of America in February, Roos said she made $18 per hour fielding calls, often from irritated merchants, about credit card glitches. Roos took that job just out of high school. But severance payments end this month, and Roos said she is looking everywhere to try to replace the income.
“I need something so I can live day to day. The job market is horrible,” Roos said Thursday, adding the family relies on her husband’s job as a printer to pay the mortgage on their Fern Creek home as well as utility, fuel and other bills.
With 10,000 vying for GE line jobs, “I am sure my application won’t even get looked at,” she added.
The rush of applicants came as no surprise to Carney, who noted that another recent GE advertisement for 13 maintenance workers, who are paid a union skilled trades rate of $23 hourly, drew 700 job seekers.
Carney credited GE’s reputation for union job security and blue chip benefits as a powerful lure.
GE announced the new jobs last week and started accepting applications through a website Monday. Wednesday was the deadline. The jobs are being added to a new second shift early next month to assemble Energy Star washing machines in Building 1 at the historic Louisville complex.
Roughly 80 percent of applicants report factory experience, Freeman said. That is not surprising, given the recession so far has slashed 8,000 manufacturing jobs from the region’s economy, Dufrene said.
“There is an abundance of potential employees with manufacturing-related skills,” Dufrene said.
The rough profile of applicants, most of them former factory workers, suggests many lack sufficient education to apply for more than minimum wage jobs in the current job market.
Half lacked a high school diploma. Just 5 percent of the applicants said they had a bachelor’s degree or higher.
GE employs roughly 2,100 hourly and 2,000 white collar workers at Appliance Park. Now, about 440 workers labor on the first shift making washing machines in Building 1.
Applicant Shane Hopkins, 48, hopes his factory experience provides an edge.
Until mid-August, he said he maintained presses at a plastics factory. Now, Hopkins said he picks up occasional work as a flooring contractor for a cousin.
He still pays $300 per month to keep health care benefits for himself and his wife, an independent contractor for a Ford Motor Co. parts supplier at the Louisville Assembly Plant. Hopkins anticipates she’ll be out of work next year, when the plant closes for retooling.
A year from now, “her job ain’t going to be there,” Hopkins said. “I am thinking seriously about going to McDonalds, just for the benefits if nothing else.”
Thursday, October 15, 2009
AMERICAN TAXPAYERS BEING FORCED TO SUPPORT LATINO SEPARATIST GROUP!!!!
American taxpayers being forced to support Latino separatist group
October 13, 2009
In 2006 and again in 2008, the Latino group known as La Raza (The Race) was given $15 million in U.S. federal grants. La Raza also received an additional $4 million in so-called 'earmarks' tucked into the 2005 Housing Bill, which our Congress passed and President Bush signed.
Considering the ethnocentric agenda of La Raza, in giving federal funds to this group, the American taxpayer is being forced to support a race-based separatist organization.La Raza openly supports pushing all but Latino Americans out of a portion of the United States (i.e. ethnic cleansing), they call for 'Reconquista' or the re-conquest of the American Southwest by Mexico, and the establishment of 'Atzlan' which is the utopian all-Latino version of the American Southwestern states.
La Razas motto is:“For the Race, everything, outside the Race!…Nothing!”
Past keynote speakers at the annual National Council of La Raza Conference have included George Bush, Karl Rove, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Bill Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama. The fact that U.S. Senators and Presidents have addressed the group, is a strong indication that this nation is being subverted at the very highest levels.
If La Raza was a white supremacist group with equally deep pockets, the U.S. government would place them on a terrorist watch list, infiltrate them with undercover FBI agents, and subject them to constant harassment by the IRS. Eventually, the group's leaders would be jailed and the group itself would be rendered irrelevant. However, because La Raza is a Latino supremacist group, Congress offers them financial support.
One of La Raza's biggest supporters is Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV). In 2001, Reid asked the Senate Appropriations Committee for $5 million to help further their goals. That same year, La Raza gave Sen. Reid their Capital Award for "his commitment to advance legislation priorities of the Latino community." Reid in turn praised La Raza by saying: "La Raza is like the biblical David, fighting all these Goliaths."Taxpayer funds are also funneled to La Raza through the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, and even NASA.
Tax dollars are hidden in these government agencies, earmarked to be specifically given away to La Raza. Inside the halls of Congress, the practice is known as discretionary funding...In the real world it is known as money laundering.In 2008, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) earmarked an additional $20 million for La Raza. He hid the appropriation in the FHA Housing Stabilization and Homeowners Retentions Act of 2008.In 2005, $7.9 million was stolen from the American taxpayers and given out to Latino-only charter schools in the form of U.S. Department of Education grants. La Raza operates 100 such schools across the country. The following is a list of a few of those schools:
-La Academia Semillas del Pueblo (Los Angeles)-Aztlan Academy (Tucson, AZ)-Mexicayotl Academy (Nogales, AZ)-The Dolores Huerta Prepatory High School (Pueblo, CO)-Academia Cesar Chavez Charter School (St. Paul, MN)These schools teach Latino culture only, the Spanish language, the re-conquest of the American Southwest, ethnic cleansing and the establishment of the mythical Aztlan, and even Aztec math...Again, all taught on your dime!
According to the Capital Research Center, La Raza has assets well in excess of $50 million. This same group reports that La Raza spends about $1 million annually on lobbying and fundraising.Can you imagine the Congress appropriating money to the Ku Klux Klan?
While those scenarios both sound absurd, the support that our elected officials are giving to the racist group known as La Raza is no different.One has to wonder, if the KKK offered extremely cheap labor to unscrupulous American businesses and potential votes to equally unscrupulous politicians...
Would Congress fund whites-only charter schools?
GET INVOLVED!!!
October 13, 2009
In 2006 and again in 2008, the Latino group known as La Raza (The Race) was given $15 million in U.S. federal grants. La Raza also received an additional $4 million in so-called 'earmarks' tucked into the 2005 Housing Bill, which our Congress passed and President Bush signed.
Considering the ethnocentric agenda of La Raza, in giving federal funds to this group, the American taxpayer is being forced to support a race-based separatist organization.La Raza openly supports pushing all but Latino Americans out of a portion of the United States (i.e. ethnic cleansing), they call for 'Reconquista' or the re-conquest of the American Southwest by Mexico, and the establishment of 'Atzlan' which is the utopian all-Latino version of the American Southwestern states.
La Razas motto is:“For the Race, everything, outside the Race!…Nothing!”
Past keynote speakers at the annual National Council of La Raza Conference have included George Bush, Karl Rove, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Bill Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama. The fact that U.S. Senators and Presidents have addressed the group, is a strong indication that this nation is being subverted at the very highest levels.
If La Raza was a white supremacist group with equally deep pockets, the U.S. government would place them on a terrorist watch list, infiltrate them with undercover FBI agents, and subject them to constant harassment by the IRS. Eventually, the group's leaders would be jailed and the group itself would be rendered irrelevant. However, because La Raza is a Latino supremacist group, Congress offers them financial support.
One of La Raza's biggest supporters is Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV). In 2001, Reid asked the Senate Appropriations Committee for $5 million to help further their goals. That same year, La Raza gave Sen. Reid their Capital Award for "his commitment to advance legislation priorities of the Latino community." Reid in turn praised La Raza by saying: "La Raza is like the biblical David, fighting all these Goliaths."Taxpayer funds are also funneled to La Raza through the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, and even NASA.
Tax dollars are hidden in these government agencies, earmarked to be specifically given away to La Raza. Inside the halls of Congress, the practice is known as discretionary funding...In the real world it is known as money laundering.In 2008, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) earmarked an additional $20 million for La Raza. He hid the appropriation in the FHA Housing Stabilization and Homeowners Retentions Act of 2008.In 2005, $7.9 million was stolen from the American taxpayers and given out to Latino-only charter schools in the form of U.S. Department of Education grants. La Raza operates 100 such schools across the country. The following is a list of a few of those schools:
-La Academia Semillas del Pueblo (Los Angeles)-Aztlan Academy (Tucson, AZ)-Mexicayotl Academy (Nogales, AZ)-The Dolores Huerta Prepatory High School (Pueblo, CO)-Academia Cesar Chavez Charter School (St. Paul, MN)These schools teach Latino culture only, the Spanish language, the re-conquest of the American Southwest, ethnic cleansing and the establishment of the mythical Aztlan, and even Aztec math...Again, all taught on your dime!
According to the Capital Research Center, La Raza has assets well in excess of $50 million. This same group reports that La Raza spends about $1 million annually on lobbying and fundraising.Can you imagine the Congress appropriating money to the Ku Klux Klan?
While those scenarios both sound absurd, the support that our elected officials are giving to the racist group known as La Raza is no different.One has to wonder, if the KKK offered extremely cheap labor to unscrupulous American businesses and potential votes to equally unscrupulous politicians...
Would Congress fund whites-only charter schools?
GET INVOLVED!!!
NEW PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION
NEW PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION
The following has been attributed to State Representative Mitchell Kaye from GA.
This guy should run for President one day...
"We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other liberal bed-wetters.
We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim they require a Bill of NON-Rights."
ARTICLE I:
You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.
ARTICLE II:
You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc; but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.
ARTICLE III:
You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful; do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.
ARTICLE IV:
You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes ...
ARTICLE V:
You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.
ARTICLE VI:
You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.
ARTICLE VII:
You do not have the right to the possessions of others.. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.
ARTICLE VIII:
You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful. (AMEN!)
ARTICLE IX:
You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were con fused by the Bill of Rights.
ARTICLE X:
This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came from! (Lastly....)
ARTICLE XI:
You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage.. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution.
The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH! --
“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."* *Adrian Rogers, 1931*
The following has been attributed to State Representative Mitchell Kaye from GA.
This guy should run for President one day...
"We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other liberal bed-wetters.
We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim they require a Bill of NON-Rights."
ARTICLE I:
You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.
ARTICLE II:
You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc; but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.
ARTICLE III:
You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful; do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.
ARTICLE IV:
You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes ...
ARTICLE V:
You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.
ARTICLE VI:
You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.
ARTICLE VII:
You do not have the right to the possessions of others.. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.
ARTICLE VIII:
You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful. (AMEN!)
ARTICLE IX:
You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were con fused by the Bill of Rights.
ARTICLE X:
This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came from! (Lastly....)
ARTICLE XI:
You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage.. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution.
The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH! --
“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."* *Adrian Rogers, 1931*
TELL YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REP NO TO BLANKET AMNESTY!!!!
Alert!
Tell your Congressional Representative to reject the blanket amnesty proposal from Gutierrez!
Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), chairperson of the Immigration Task Force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, has outlined his immigration amnesty plan at a rally in Washington.He proposed granting legal status to illegal aliens, increasing the number of immigrant visas, and reducing wait times for family members of previously admitted immigrants to gain U.S. residency. Gutierrez mentioned border control, but offered no details on any measures to restrict the influx of illegal immigrants, in an immigration bill he plans to introduce this fall.
CLICK HERE to learn more and to take action.(If above link does not work, go to http://capwiz.com/caps/issues/alert/?alertid=14183536&type=CO)
Tell your Congressional Representative to reject the blanket amnesty proposal from Gutierrez!
Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), chairperson of the Immigration Task Force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, has outlined his immigration amnesty plan at a rally in Washington.He proposed granting legal status to illegal aliens, increasing the number of immigrant visas, and reducing wait times for family members of previously admitted immigrants to gain U.S. residency. Gutierrez mentioned border control, but offered no details on any measures to restrict the influx of illegal immigrants, in an immigration bill he plans to introduce this fall.
CLICK HERE to learn more and to take action.(If above link does not work, go to http://capwiz.com/caps/issues/alert/?alertid=14183536&type=CO)
OKAY, REMIND ME FOLKS, WHAT YEAR ARE WE CURRENTLY LIVING IN??!!! NO MARRIAGE LICENSE FOR INTERRACIAL COUPLE
No Marriage License for Interracial Couple
By MARY FOSTER,
AP
posted: 1 HOUR 24 MINUTES AGO
comments: 1103
filed under: National News
PRINTE-MAILMORE
HAMMOND, La. (Oct. 15) - A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.
Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.
"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told The Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."
Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.
Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.
"There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage," Bardwell said. "I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it."
If he did an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all, he said.
"I try to treat everyone equally," he said.
Bardwell estimates that he has refused to marry about four couples during his career, all in the past 2½ years.
Beth Humphrey, 30, and 32-year-old Terence McKay, both of Hammond, say they will consult the U.S. Justice Department about filing a discrimination complaint.
Humphrey, an account manager for a marketing firm, said she and McKay, a welder, just returned to Louisiana. She is white and he is black. She plans to enroll in the University of New Orleans to pursue a masters degree in minority politics.
"That was one thing that made this so unbelievable," she said. "It's not something you expect in this day and age."
Humphrey said she called Bardwell on Oct. 6 to inquire about getting a marriage license signed. She says Bardwell's wife told her that Bardwell will not sign marriage licenses for interracial couples. Bardwell suggested the couple go to another justice of the peace in the parish who agreed to marry them.
"We are looking forward to having children," Humphrey said. "And all our friends and co-workers have been very supportive. Except for this, we're typical happy newlyweds."
"It is really astonishing and disappointing to see this come up in 2009," said American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana attorney Katie Schwartzmann. She said the Supreme Court ruled in 1967 "that the government cannot tell people who they can and cannot marry."
The ACLU sent a letter to the Louisiana Judiciary Committee, which oversees the state justices of the peace, asking them to investigate Bardwell and recommending "the most severe sanctions available, because such blatant bigotry poses a substantial threat of serious harm to the administration of justice."
"He knew he was breaking the law, but continued to do it," Schwartzmann said.
According to the clerk of court's office, application for a marriage license must be made three days before the ceremony because there is a 72-hour waiting period. The applicants are asked if they have previously been married. If so, they must show how the marriage ended, such as divorce.
Other than that, all they need is a birth certificate and Social Security card.
The license fee is $35, and the license must be signed by a Louisiana minister, justice of the peace or judge. The original is returned to the clerk's office.
"I've been a justice of the peace for 34 years and I don't think I've mistreated anybody," Bardwell said. "I've made some mistakes, but you have too. I didn't tell this couple they couldn't get married. I just told them I wouldn't do it."
By MARY FOSTER,
AP
posted: 1 HOUR 24 MINUTES AGO
comments: 1103
filed under: National News
PRINTE-MAILMORE
HAMMOND, La. (Oct. 15) - A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.
Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.
"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told The Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."
Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.
Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.
"There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage," Bardwell said. "I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it."
If he did an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all, he said.
"I try to treat everyone equally," he said.
Bardwell estimates that he has refused to marry about four couples during his career, all in the past 2½ years.
Beth Humphrey, 30, and 32-year-old Terence McKay, both of Hammond, say they will consult the U.S. Justice Department about filing a discrimination complaint.
Humphrey, an account manager for a marketing firm, said she and McKay, a welder, just returned to Louisiana. She is white and he is black. She plans to enroll in the University of New Orleans to pursue a masters degree in minority politics.
"That was one thing that made this so unbelievable," she said. "It's not something you expect in this day and age."
Humphrey said she called Bardwell on Oct. 6 to inquire about getting a marriage license signed. She says Bardwell's wife told her that Bardwell will not sign marriage licenses for interracial couples. Bardwell suggested the couple go to another justice of the peace in the parish who agreed to marry them.
"We are looking forward to having children," Humphrey said. "And all our friends and co-workers have been very supportive. Except for this, we're typical happy newlyweds."
"It is really astonishing and disappointing to see this come up in 2009," said American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana attorney Katie Schwartzmann. She said the Supreme Court ruled in 1967 "that the government cannot tell people who they can and cannot marry."
The ACLU sent a letter to the Louisiana Judiciary Committee, which oversees the state justices of the peace, asking them to investigate Bardwell and recommending "the most severe sanctions available, because such blatant bigotry poses a substantial threat of serious harm to the administration of justice."
"He knew he was breaking the law, but continued to do it," Schwartzmann said.
According to the clerk of court's office, application for a marriage license must be made three days before the ceremony because there is a 72-hour waiting period. The applicants are asked if they have previously been married. If so, they must show how the marriage ended, such as divorce.
Other than that, all they need is a birth certificate and Social Security card.
The license fee is $35, and the license must be signed by a Louisiana minister, justice of the peace or judge. The original is returned to the clerk's office.
"I've been a justice of the peace for 34 years and I don't think I've mistreated anybody," Bardwell said. "I've made some mistakes, but you have too. I didn't tell this couple they couldn't get married. I just told them I wouldn't do it."
PUBLIC OPINION IN MEXICO ON U.S. IMMIGRATION - ZOGBY POLL EXAMINES ATTITUDES
Steven A. Camarota is the Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies.
A new survey by Zogby International finds that people in Mexico think that granting legal status to illegal immigrants in the United States would encourage more illegal immigration to the United States. As the top immigrant-sending country for both legal and illegal immigrants, views on immigration in Mexico can provide insight into the likely impact of an amnesty, as well as other questions related to immigration.
Among the findings:
A clear majority of people in Mexico, 56 percent, thought giving legal status to illegal immigrants in the United States would make it more likely that people they know would go to the United States illegally. Just 17 percent thought it would make Mexicans less likely to go illegally. The rest were unsure or thought it would make no difference.
Of Mexicans with a member of their immediate household in the United States, 65 percent said a legalization program would make people they know more likely to go to America illegally.
Two-thirds of Mexicans know someone living in the United States; one-third said an immediate member of their household was living in the United States.
Interest in going to the United States remains strong even in the current recession, with 36 percent of Mexicans (39 million people) saying they would move to the United States if they could. At present, 12 to 13 million Mexico-born people live in the United States.
A new Pew Research Center poll also found that about one-third of Mexicans would go to the United States if they could.
An overwhelming majority (69 percent) of people in Mexico thought that the primary loyalty of Mexican-Americans (Mexico- and U.S.-born) should be to Mexico. Just 20 percent said it should be to the United States. The rest were unsure.
Also, 69 percent of people in Mexico felt that the Mexican government should represent the interests of Mexican-Americans (Mexico- and U.S.-born) in the United States.
A plurality, 39 percent, of Mexicans thought that in the last year fewer people they know had gone to the United States as illegal immigrants compared to previous years. Only 27 percent thought more had gone. The rest thought it had stayed the same or were unsure.
A plurality, 40 percent, also thought that in the last year more of the illegal immigrants they know had returned to Mexico compared to previous years. Only 25 percent thought the number returning had fallen. The rest thought it had stayed the same or were unsure.
Both the bad economy and increased immigration enforcement were cited as reasons fewer people were going to America as illegal immigrants and more were coming back to Mexico.
Introduction
As the nation debates the issue of immigration, the perspective of people in Mexico is important because Mexico is the top sending country for both legal and illegal immigrants. In 2008, one of six new legal immigrants was from Mexico and, according to the Department of Homeland Security, six out of 10 illegal immigrants come from that country.1 Asking people in Mexico their views on immigration can provide insight into the likely impact of an amnesty for illegal immigrants and other questions related to immigration.
The survey reported in this Backgrounder is the first to ask people in Mexico if they think legalizing illegal immigrants in the United States would encourage more illegal immigration. The survey was conducted in August and September 2009 and consisted of 1,004 in-person interviews of adults throughout Mexico. The findings show that a majority of people in Mexico think an amnesty would make it more likely that people in Mexico would come to the United States illegally. This is especially true for people who have a member of their household living in the United States. It is important to note that respondents were asked specifically about whether an amnesty would make illegal immigration more likely, not just immigration generally.
Other questions in the survey explored attitudes about migration to the United States generally, recent trends in migration, and loyalty to the United States.
A new survey by Zogby International finds that people in Mexico think that granting legal status to illegal immigrants in the United States would encourage more illegal immigration to the United States. As the top immigrant-sending country for both legal and illegal immigrants, views on immigration in Mexico can provide insight into the likely impact of an amnesty, as well as other questions related to immigration.
Among the findings:
A clear majority of people in Mexico, 56 percent, thought giving legal status to illegal immigrants in the United States would make it more likely that people they know would go to the United States illegally. Just 17 percent thought it would make Mexicans less likely to go illegally. The rest were unsure or thought it would make no difference.
Of Mexicans with a member of their immediate household in the United States, 65 percent said a legalization program would make people they know more likely to go to America illegally.
Two-thirds of Mexicans know someone living in the United States; one-third said an immediate member of their household was living in the United States.
Interest in going to the United States remains strong even in the current recession, with 36 percent of Mexicans (39 million people) saying they would move to the United States if they could. At present, 12 to 13 million Mexico-born people live in the United States.
A new Pew Research Center poll also found that about one-third of Mexicans would go to the United States if they could.
An overwhelming majority (69 percent) of people in Mexico thought that the primary loyalty of Mexican-Americans (Mexico- and U.S.-born) should be to Mexico. Just 20 percent said it should be to the United States. The rest were unsure.
Also, 69 percent of people in Mexico felt that the Mexican government should represent the interests of Mexican-Americans (Mexico- and U.S.-born) in the United States.
A plurality, 39 percent, of Mexicans thought that in the last year fewer people they know had gone to the United States as illegal immigrants compared to previous years. Only 27 percent thought more had gone. The rest thought it had stayed the same or were unsure.
A plurality, 40 percent, also thought that in the last year more of the illegal immigrants they know had returned to Mexico compared to previous years. Only 25 percent thought the number returning had fallen. The rest thought it had stayed the same or were unsure.
Both the bad economy and increased immigration enforcement were cited as reasons fewer people were going to America as illegal immigrants and more were coming back to Mexico.
Introduction
As the nation debates the issue of immigration, the perspective of people in Mexico is important because Mexico is the top sending country for both legal and illegal immigrants. In 2008, one of six new legal immigrants was from Mexico and, according to the Department of Homeland Security, six out of 10 illegal immigrants come from that country.1 Asking people in Mexico their views on immigration can provide insight into the likely impact of an amnesty for illegal immigrants and other questions related to immigration.
The survey reported in this Backgrounder is the first to ask people in Mexico if they think legalizing illegal immigrants in the United States would encourage more illegal immigration. The survey was conducted in August and September 2009 and consisted of 1,004 in-person interviews of adults throughout Mexico. The findings show that a majority of people in Mexico think an amnesty would make it more likely that people in Mexico would come to the United States illegally. This is especially true for people who have a member of their household living in the United States. It is important to note that respondents were asked specifically about whether an amnesty would make illegal immigration more likely, not just immigration generally.
Other questions in the survey explored attitudes about migration to the United States generally, recent trends in migration, and loyalty to the United States.
LAKEWOOD CHALLENGED BY GROWING POPULATION
October 14, 2009
Lakewood challenged by growing population Birthrate
By MATTHEW McGRATHTOMS RIVER BUREAU
If projections are correct, the township will have a population of at least 90,000 people by 2010 — 30,000 more people than 10 years ago.
The population growth is fueled by relocations to the township and an explosive birth rate, said Stanley C. Slachetka, a town planner with Middletown-based T&M Associates. "By all empirical measures, you've had significant growth," he said.
For every 1,000 people there were more than 44 births in 2005, which is the latest state data available. The birth rate is about four times the state average, and it is the highest birthrate in the Garden State. The births added more than 2,000 people to the town in 2005. More than 86,770 of Ocean County's estimated 565,493 people live here.
To meet the demand of a ballooning population, township officials are considering a plan that would spell out how the town will grow over the coming decades. It focuses on making redevelopment easier for private property owners and mixed-use developments, which allow for several types of property uses — residential, retail and office space, for example — to be placed on a single piece of property.
Slachetka presented that Smart Growth plan Tuesday night before the Planning Board during the first of two "community visioning" public hearings. A second hearing is scheduled for 5 p.m. today before the Township Committee.
Support and opposition are divided along a tight demographic line. Representatives from the Orthodox Jewish community were overwhelmingly in favor of the plan, and representatives from the adult communities were typically opposed.
Lakewood's sprawling development has been "random and disjointed," said Rabbi Moshe Weinberg, chairman of the Lakewood Development Corp.
Weinberg said the plan would provide the "unified vision" the town has lacked. The development corporation supports the adoption of the plan, he said.
Targeted areas include a tract of land on Cedarbridge Avenue near the Lakewood Blueclaws baseball park, the downtown, land on either side of Oak Street and land west of Massachusetts Avenue. Schools and transportation hubs would link the neighborhood cores and the township's center.
"We came here to get away from the noise, bus depots and multifamily housing," said David Ransom, a resident in one of the township's adult communities.
The adult community residents and other senior citizens wanted the plan to address growing traffic problems, and to slow the growth of the town. On the other side of the argument is Yanky Braunstein, the owner of ClearPoint Services LLC land surveyors, who sees the plan as a means to expand businesses.
Lakewood challenged by growing population Birthrate
By MATTHEW McGRATHTOMS RIVER BUREAU
If projections are correct, the township will have a population of at least 90,000 people by 2010 — 30,000 more people than 10 years ago.
The population growth is fueled by relocations to the township and an explosive birth rate, said Stanley C. Slachetka, a town planner with Middletown-based T&M Associates. "By all empirical measures, you've had significant growth," he said.
For every 1,000 people there were more than 44 births in 2005, which is the latest state data available. The birth rate is about four times the state average, and it is the highest birthrate in the Garden State. The births added more than 2,000 people to the town in 2005. More than 86,770 of Ocean County's estimated 565,493 people live here.
To meet the demand of a ballooning population, township officials are considering a plan that would spell out how the town will grow over the coming decades. It focuses on making redevelopment easier for private property owners and mixed-use developments, which allow for several types of property uses — residential, retail and office space, for example — to be placed on a single piece of property.
Slachetka presented that Smart Growth plan Tuesday night before the Planning Board during the first of two "community visioning" public hearings. A second hearing is scheduled for 5 p.m. today before the Township Committee.
Support and opposition are divided along a tight demographic line. Representatives from the Orthodox Jewish community were overwhelmingly in favor of the plan, and representatives from the adult communities were typically opposed.
Lakewood's sprawling development has been "random and disjointed," said Rabbi Moshe Weinberg, chairman of the Lakewood Development Corp.
Weinberg said the plan would provide the "unified vision" the town has lacked. The development corporation supports the adoption of the plan, he said.
Targeted areas include a tract of land on Cedarbridge Avenue near the Lakewood Blueclaws baseball park, the downtown, land on either side of Oak Street and land west of Massachusetts Avenue. Schools and transportation hubs would link the neighborhood cores and the township's center.
"We came here to get away from the noise, bus depots and multifamily housing," said David Ransom, a resident in one of the township's adult communities.
The adult community residents and other senior citizens wanted the plan to address growing traffic problems, and to slow the growth of the town. On the other side of the argument is Yanky Braunstein, the owner of ClearPoint Services LLC land surveyors, who sees the plan as a means to expand businesses.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
INTERVIEW WITH A TEACHER...
After being interviewed by the school administration, the prospective teacher said: 'Let me see if I've got this right. 'You want me to go into that room with all those kids, correct their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse, monitor their dress habits, censor their T-shirt messages, and instill in them a love for learning. 'You want me to check their backpacks for weapons, wage war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, and raise their sense of self esteem and personal pride. 'You want me to teach them patriotism and good citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play, and how to register to vote, balance a checkbook, and apply for a job. 'You want me to check their heads for lice, recognize signs of antisocial behavior, and make sure that they all pass the final exams. 'You also want me to provide them with an equal education regardless of their handicaps, and communicate regularly with their parents in English, Spanish or any other language, by letter, telephone, newsletter, and report card. 'You want me to do all this with a piece of chalk, a blackboard, a bulletin board, a few books, a big smile, and a starting salary that qualifies me for food stamps. 'You want me to do all this and then you tell me. . . I CAN'T PRAY?HOW TO FIGHT RELIGIOUS LEADERS WHO SUPPORT LAWBREAKERS(ILLEGAL ALIENS)
Yesterday, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) held a mass rally on the Capitol's West Lawn to present the outline of his new mass amnesty / weak enforcement bill. Of course, his proposed legislation includes a path to citizenship for most of the illegal aliens currently in the U.S. Earlier this year, Gutierrez barnstormed the country, speaking to dozens of churches, arguing for more immigration and amnesty.
According to Gutierrez, granting amnesty to illegal aliens is the righteous, merciful, and just thing to do. To hear it from Gutierrez, entering America illegally is practically a civil right!
What about America's tens of millions of unemployed, who must compete with illegal aliens for jobs and scarce social services? Where's the compassion for these people? Hundreds of NumbersUSA members have written to me recently telling me they've been laid off. Anyone care about them?
You probably already know that many American church groups have recently been stampeded into endorsing a mass illegal alien amnesty. National church leaders are in near unanimous agreement that amnesty is wonderful. However, most rank-and-file church members seem strongly opposed to amnesty.
Why do I say that most church members oppose amnesty? Because about 85% of Americans are either actual church members or identify with an organized religion. That's the bulk of all Americans. But polls show that only 26% of Americans favor amnesty. So as you can see, most church members must actually oppose amnesty.
Even without their members support, last week the National Association of Evangelicals climbed on the amnesty bandwagon. Lots of churches belong to NAE, including the Assemblies of God, the Church of the Nazarene, and the Salvation Army. (Not on board are the Southern Baptists, Mormons, and various independent churches.) The Catholic Bishops had earlier endorsed amnesty, followed by various Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Episcopal groups. Most major Jewish groups have also jumped on the amnesty bandwagon.
Last week, these religious groups testified before a Senate committee asking for a "comprehensive" immigration bill with a mass amnesty and weak enforcement.
Like many (but certainly not all) of you receiving this email, I am a church member. I'm taking it very seriously. But we Americans generally dislike religious leaders dictating political issues to us, especially when we're not consulted. We like it even less when church leaders troop up to Capitol Hill, stating or implying that they are speaking on behalf of their members.
Aren't you glad that NumbersUSA is here to warn the country when Open Borders people try something like this? Without NumbersUSA, the churches may have misrepresented their churches without too much opposition from their own members. NumbersUSA made sure the phones at churches' headquarters are ringing off the hook.
GET INVOLVED!!!!
According to Gutierrez, granting amnesty to illegal aliens is the righteous, merciful, and just thing to do. To hear it from Gutierrez, entering America illegally is practically a civil right!
What about America's tens of millions of unemployed, who must compete with illegal aliens for jobs and scarce social services? Where's the compassion for these people? Hundreds of NumbersUSA members have written to me recently telling me they've been laid off. Anyone care about them?
You probably already know that many American church groups have recently been stampeded into endorsing a mass illegal alien amnesty. National church leaders are in near unanimous agreement that amnesty is wonderful. However, most rank-and-file church members seem strongly opposed to amnesty.
Why do I say that most church members oppose amnesty? Because about 85% of Americans are either actual church members or identify with an organized religion. That's the bulk of all Americans. But polls show that only 26% of Americans favor amnesty. So as you can see, most church members must actually oppose amnesty.
Even without their members support, last week the National Association of Evangelicals climbed on the amnesty bandwagon. Lots of churches belong to NAE, including the Assemblies of God, the Church of the Nazarene, and the Salvation Army. (Not on board are the Southern Baptists, Mormons, and various independent churches.) The Catholic Bishops had earlier endorsed amnesty, followed by various Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Episcopal groups. Most major Jewish groups have also jumped on the amnesty bandwagon.
Last week, these religious groups testified before a Senate committee asking for a "comprehensive" immigration bill with a mass amnesty and weak enforcement.
Like many (but certainly not all) of you receiving this email, I am a church member. I'm taking it very seriously. But we Americans generally dislike religious leaders dictating political issues to us, especially when we're not consulted. We like it even less when church leaders troop up to Capitol Hill, stating or implying that they are speaking on behalf of their members.
Aren't you glad that NumbersUSA is here to warn the country when Open Borders people try something like this? Without NumbersUSA, the churches may have misrepresented their churches without too much opposition from their own members. NumbersUSA made sure the phones at churches' headquarters are ringing off the hook.
GET INVOLVED!!!!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
AN INTERVIEW WITH JANET NAPOLITANO....
Napolitano's tone was conversational and light through most of the interview, although there was an audible edge to her voice when she thought she was being accused of slackening on immigration enforcement.
Q: You were on the short list for the Supreme Court. How does the president of the United States tell someone they are not going to be a Supreme Court justice?
A: (Laughter). You know, let's just say that I love being the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Q: But Obama did call you to let you know that he was going in a different artistic direction with the Supreme Court choice?
A: Sure, yes.
Q: The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union has just put out a report about how its members were affected by the Army-style immigration raids in the prior administration. It contains stories about American citizens being detained for up to eight hours by immigration agents. Knowing that you suspended these workplace raids back in March...
A: I did not suspend them.
Q: Correct me. Where are we with Army-style immigration raids?
A: I don't know what you mean by Army-style raids.
Q: Hundreds of federal agents descending on a workplace and locking it down.
(Note to readers: A prime example – highlighted in the UFCW report – were a series of headline-making immigration raids in late 2006 on meat processing facilities owned by Swift & Company.)
A: We continue to do worksite enforcement; it's important. Unless you enforce the immigration law on the demand side, which is primarily the employment side, you can't say that you have a handle on the entire immigration problem. So you have to do worksite enforcement.
The question is: How do you do it? One of the changes we have made is a reemphasis on actually going after and developing cases against the actual employers who profit from going intentionally into the illegal labor market. So, we have sent out refined guidance or amended guidance to our field for that. In the whole universe of illegal immigration, we want to focus on criminal fugitives, those who are already incarcerated in state prisons and county jails around the country. (We want) to make sure that those individuals, who when they are released from their sentences, are not released back into the public, but are immediately put into deportation. So, in my view, you have to have strong enforcement of the nation's immigration laws. And the issue is: What are you focusing on to get the strongest possible enforcement?
Q: My question was about a certain style of enforcement. For the most part, are you going to continue with these high-profile major workplace raids that characterized the last years of your predecessor, Michael Chertoff?
A: Our focus is whatever is the most effective worksite enforcement mechanism. Many times that is not the raid. The raid gives you numbers, but it doesn't give you much else. We're looking for anything that shuts off that particular demand. And that's why you have to have an emphasis on the employer. But there is no moratorium, per se. So there have been enforcement actions since I've been secretary.
Q: Let me switch to legislation. How involved are you in this planned White House meeting for next Thursday with members of Congress to discuss strategies for passing immigration reform?
A: I will be there. The Department will be there. And I look forward to it. Immigration is an important issue. I know health care is the top priority right now. But some of these other issues benefit from discussion and being worked on even while on Capitol Hill right now (the legislative emphasis is) on the health-care side.
Q: Senator Chuck Schumer, who is taking the lead on immigration reform in the Senate from Ted Kennedy, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times calling for a national worker identity card. It would get around the question of who is a citizen and who is here legally and who isn't. Do you think we need a national identity card?
A: I think on the employment side, as I said before, we want to go after employers. The flip side of that is that we want to make it easier for employers to comply with the law. (And they need to know) that if somebody possesses a photo ID, they have somebody who is lawfully in the United States...We look forward to working with Senator Schumer and others who want to engage on immigration at the right time.
Q: Do you have an open mind on a national ID card or do you have a position on it right now?
A: Let me not comment on it right now because you say national ID card and it comes down to a heated national reaction...So let me express no opinion on this because we have to get beyond shorthand labels to see what we're actually talking about.
Q: Is there a hope of getting comprehensive immigration reform through Congress this year?
A: I think there's a hope. I think that certainly serious discussions can begin this year. I think the president wants to begin this year...
Q: Is this an issue where you know in your mind – based on prior legislation – 90 percent of what should be in the legislation and the real issue is putting together a political coalition to make it happen? Or is it more amorphous?
A: I would say that we can identify big elements that need to be looked at in terms of the legislation. What coalitions there are, how that forms, that's a bit amorphous right now -- obviously because there's no bill.
Q: Let's go back to enforcement for a moment. I believe that Border Patrol told the Schumer subcommittee last month that apprehensions on the Mexican border are down by 27 percent. This was interpreted by many as indicating that -- partly because of the economy – attempted border crossings are down by a similar number. Do you buy that correlation?
A: Yes, I do. That's my own experience from being a U.S. attorney, AG (attorney general) and governor out in Arizona, a border state. It is legitimate to derive from apprehensions that crossings are down. It makes sense since the number of jobs up here has gone down as well as all the additional enforcement measures are really beginning to have an impact.
Q: How do you measure what is successful enforcement given the fact that no one – aside from maybe Lou Dobbs – believes that we can deport 11 million people and no one believes that illegal border crossings can ever be reduced to zero? So how do you measure what is success in enforcement versus what is a lot of noise in enforcement that may not change anything?
A: I think a couple of ways. One is do you have operational control of the border...Operational control does not mean building a wall. It means having a system that combines manpower and technology with interior enforcement. So you don't have a system where if you run the gauntlet at the border, you're home free.
Q: Or if you come in on a visa at Kennedy Airport . . .
A: And overstay. And the overstay issue is one of the more difficult to deal with because that's a significant portion of those in the country illegally. Now they came in legally. But we have no way of tracking where they are. And that's something we'd like to be able to change as we're moving forward.
(What we need) is a strong sense and confidence among the American people that the rule of law is being applied, that immigration laws are being enforced – and that they're fair laws and that they recognize the need for immigration. Our country has had a healthy history of immigration and it bolsters our economy if done in the right way. It brings in talents that we need and labor that we need. So if done the right way, it really strengthens the country.
(So success) is the sense that the rule of law is being applied; that the right amount of immigration is occurring; and that we have operational control of the borders.
Q: How much assurance do the voters need that immigration is being handled effectively before we can pass immigration reform? Is a good six months all that's required?
A: I want to send a very clear message. We are enforcing this nation's immigration laws. Period. Illegal immigration is illegal immigration. And the emphasis is on what parts of enforcement I think will have the most impact, just as you do in any crime area. You have to prioritize within an area and so forth. That enforcement philosophy underlies what we're doing. At the same time, however, I think the American people understand that the status quo on the immigration law – without reform of the underlying law – is in itself a way of amnesty. So you've got to have an underlying law that is a better match for today's circumstances.
Q: Earlier this month, you announced a decision to suspend for two years deportation proceedings against that very small category of widows whose husbands died before they could obtain permanent residency. How hard a decision was this to make? And was this all dictated by humanitarian concerns?
A: It was really an issue that had been brought to my attention because it was, in a way, such an anomaly. That people who were entitled to apply for immigration lost that status because of a grave misfortune. And that's the way the law reads, so I can't by myself change the law. But we can defer action, which enables people who find themselves in this situation to have the hope that there will be a change in the underlying law or that they will be able to get their own green card.
Q: Back in April, the group Human Rights First issued a report about what they called the abuse of detainees seeking political asylum in this country. This is obviously a small category of people in immigration detention facilities. But these asylum seekers are people who have violated no laws at all – they are just waiting for their claims to be heard. At the same time, they are incarcerated, often manacled, forced to wear prison uniforms, often put in detention facilities far from any legal representation. Are you changing any of this?
A: I have not seen that particular report. But if we are detaining people by force under the rule of law, we have an obligation to do so in a humane way. One of the things that I did do was to bring in a person who is an expert on detention and incarceration facilities to really increase that issue within the department and to raise its level. And to go facility by facility, contract by contract. And when particular problems are raised to our attention to act as a troubleshooter to see what's going on.
Q: You mentioned this last month when you met with a group of reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. In the month since then, do you have any changes to report?
A: She's been on the job for a couple of months. She may have some things to report. I don't have any right now.
Q: Shifting topics to something really important, what are the two books you're reading right now?
A: (Laughter).
Q: And is it always one piece of non-fiction and one novel?
A: It is. Indeed. I am reading a book called "The Wise Men." (Note to readers: The 1986 book by Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas is a group portrait of six men who shaped American foreign policy in the early days of the Cold War).
I was at a dinner that (Isaacson) was at a couple of weeks ago. I had read his biography of Ben Franklin. I had "The Wise Men" but I hadn't actually read it. I had dinner with him and I just pulled it off (the shelf) and that's an excellent book.
And then I'm reading novel called "A Person of Interest," which is set against the backdrop of 9/11. It's by Susan Choi. And I'm just about 40 pages in so I'll let you know how it is. (Note to readers: According to reviews, the central character of this 2008 novel is reminiscent of both the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, and Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was wrongly suspected of espionage.).
Q: In terms of reading in general, had you known, say, two years ago that you were going to get this job, are there things that you wished that you had immersed yourself in?
A: Absolutely. I think the one thing that is apparent to me is that we can call it Homeland Security, but it is inextricably linked with international security and, to an extent, with international relations. So the real focus on the international aspects of this job has come as a surprise. And I wish I had done some more reading in that regard.
Q: Another hard-hitting reportorial question: Is there are story that goes with the large pumpkin painting behind your desk? I guess it is pumpkins, squashes and other gourds.
A: I call it "The Attack of the Killer Pumpkins."
When I came here, you know NAC is so fancy. (Note to readers: NAC is an acronym that refers to the Nebraska Avenue Complex of ancient brick former Navy buildings that is the headquarters for Homeland Security). I said, "Isn't there some art?" They said, "You're a Cabinet member. You get five pieces of art from this inventory in the basement of the National Gallery." I brought over a notebook and I picked up five pieces. But I didn't really pay attention to them. And then I came back from a trip and there they were. The others are scattered around.
(Napolitano then pointed to a decorative saddle in the corner). The saddle was a gift to me from the governor of Sonora, Mexico, commemorating a ride that I've done a couple of times with him called the "Cabalgata," which is about a seven-hour horseback ride across Sonora usually with about 4,000 riders. It's a big deal. And I was the first governor from the U.S. to actually do one. The saddle is padded however.
Q: Do you ride at all in Washington?
A: I rode one afternoon at Rock Creek Park stable. But I don't ride regularly. I haven't done much regularly, actually.
Q: Growing up, when you were handed your Crayola crayons, did anyone tell you that orange is a more alarming color than yellow? (Note to Readers: This was a reference to the DHS threat advisory system in which orange is "high" while yellow is merely "elevated").
A: [Laughter] I think it was called Burnt Sienna. Often times, when people think of this department, they think of the color-coding. It's much more than that. But there is an important point to make. We are doing some thinking in the department about how do we get every individual American to understand their own role in our nation's security? And to do so in a way that if somebody spies an unattended package on a bus platform, they will know to get in touch with somebody in the authorities. It's a greater sense of awareness and watching out for each other. We don't have a big PR plan to announce. But it's something we have been doing some thinking about.
Q: But the colors are a part of our lives for a long time to come?
A: No comment on the colors.
Q: No comment? I wasn't asking about changing the ranking of the colors.
A: For the time being, the colors are with us, no doubt.
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