JohnSmith2007

What about La Raza?

Just as I thought. It is only extremism when you don't agree with it.

Gary, our own Right Wing Nut who hides behind a fake account.

Yeah, guess again. This is my one and only account.

I've argued over the merits of the law here and at great length. I did not know that one of FAIR's lawyers helped draft the piece of legislation. It is only over the last few days that after reading an article from my hometown newspaper (the Arizona Republic) that I started to realize who is behind these movements.

And yes, it is relevant to know who is pushing the emotional buttons of Americans on immigration views, particularly at a time where many are suffering economically. A movement that plays into people's fears should be scrutinized.

Does it bother you that La Raza is behind the pro-illegal movement? Does it bother you that that group wants to take back SW America for their own? If it works one way it must work the other way.

Steve, our own left wingnut.

Wrong. I'm just exposing who is behind the anti-immigration movement in this country. Several decades ago, leaders of the KKK like David Duke, realized that the organization could not further its agenda under that name so they've come up with new organizations like the Pioneer Fund or Stormfront, funding anti-immigration groups like FAIR. They're being very effective this way by showing that many Americans who would normally not want to have anything to do with the people behind these groups, are agreeing with some of their nativist beliefs and ideas.

As for this post from this guy's blog site - he points out that both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have done extension research into FAIR and its racist ties. It is these groups that have been behind the anti-immigration movement. Does that mean everyone in favor of their ideas is racist? No. But people should be aware who is behind this movement, particularly when many of their specific ideas and rhetoric get repeated. I've seen plenty of posts here on VJ that echo that and I've seen plenty of emotional reactions over illegal immigrations that is unfounded.

Behind the anti-immigration movement???

Thank you for proving me right. The entire anti-ILLEGAL-immigration movement is, in your mind, a bunch of Nazi's. You make no distinction between legal and illegal immigration. Your mind is a really strange place Steve.

National Enquirer, need we say more?

Even if it is true an affair is a resume enhancer for a democrat.

ITA

Make it impossible for an illegal to find work and they will just go home. I realize that they just want to earn a living and take care of their family just like us but the way they are being treated is less than the American way. I would love to see the penalties for hiring an illegal to be so harsh for the employer it isn't worth the risk. I would then like to see a visa class for unskilled workers that the migrant workers could qualify for. Regulate and inspect the work sites, make them pay taxes and give them the same protections that all other workers get.

As pieces of "journalism" or "journo-commentary" these blogs are shockingly awful.

Why do you guys bother with them?

Because it mirrors the posters mindset. Case in point, Steve thinks that anyone that doesn't like an open border is a Nazi. All it does is show his own radical thought process.

I see Steve is given to wild hysterics when it comes to anything he disagrees with. When it comes to something he should be concerned about like the mess of a health care bill its other people that are the hysterical ones. Irony and hypocrisy all rolled up into one.

It would open up all kinds of problems. Imagine if your wallet gets stolen. What about children? What happens if you don't have it with you?

We could have a national database for everyone legally living in the US. Take a thumbprint of each of them. Issue cops a print reader that is tied into the database. No ID needed, just a quick thumb scan.

Somehow I knew this would end up about Fox News and not the story. The FLWN just love to bash Fox.

U.N. Elects Iran to Commission on Women's Rights

NEW YORK — Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest."

Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women," according to its website.

Buried 2,000 words deep in a U.N. press release distributed Wednesday on the filling of "vacancies in subsidiary bodies," was the stark announcement: Iran, along with representatives from 10 other nations, was "elected by acclamation," meaning that no open vote was requested or required by any member states — including the United States.

The U.S. currently holds one of the 45 seats on the body, a position set to expire in 2012. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. did not return requests for comment on whether it actively opposed elevating Iran to the women's commission.

Iran's election comes just a week after one of its senior clerics declared that women who wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes, a statement that created an international uproar — but little affected their bid to become an international arbiter of women's rights.

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," said the respected cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi.

As word of Iran's intention to join the women's commission came out, a group of Iranian activists circulated a petition to the U.N. asking that member states oppose its election.

"Iran's discriminatory laws demonstrate that the Islamic Republic does not believe in gender equality," reads the letter, signed by 214 activists and endorsed by over a dozen human rights bodies.

The letter draws a dark picture of the status of women in Iran: "women lack the ability to choose their husbands, have no independent right to education after marriage, no right to divorce, no right to child custody, have no protection from violent treatment in public spaces, are restricted by quotas for women's admission at universities, and are arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for peacefully seeking change of such laws."

The Commission on the Status of Women is supposed to conduct review of nations that violate women's rights, issue reports detailing their failings, and monitor their success in improving women's equality.

Yet critics of Iran's human rights record say the country has taken "every conceivable step" to deter women's equality.

"In the past year, it has arrested and jailed mothers of peaceful civil rights protesters," wrote three prominent democracy and human rights activists in an op-ed published online Tuesday by Foreign Policy Magazine.

"It has charged women who were seeking equality in the social sphere — as wives, daughters and mothers — with threatening national security, subjecting many to hours of harrowing interrogation. Its prison guards have beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted and raped female and male civil rights protesters."

Iran's elevation to the commission comes as a black eye just days after the U.S. helped lead a successful effort to keep Iran off the Human Rights Council, which is already dominated by nations that are judged by human rights advocates as chronic violators of essential freedoms. The current membership of the women's commission is little different.

Though it touts itself as "the principal global policy-making body" on women's rights, the makeup of the commission is mostly determined by geography and its membership is a hodge-podge of some human rights advocates (including the U.S., Japan, and Germany) and other nations with stark histories of rights violations.

The number of seats on the commission is based on the number of countries in a region, no matter how small their populations or how scant their respect for rights. The commission is currently made up of 13 members from Africa, 11 from Asia, nine from Latin America and the Caribbean, eight from Western Europe and North America, and four from Eastern Europe.

During this round of "elections," which were not competitive and in which no real votes were cast, two seats opened up for the Asian bloc for the 2011-2015 period. Only two nations put forward candidates to fill empty spots — Iran and Thailand. As at most such commissions in the U.N., backroom deals determined who would gain new seats at the women's rights body.

The activists' letter sent to the U.N. Tuesday argued that it would be better if the Asian countries proffered only one candidate, instead of elevating Iran to the commission.

"We, a group of gender-equality activists, believe that for the sake of women's rights globally, an empty seat for the Asia group on (the commission) is much preferable to Iran's membership. We are writing to alert you to the highly negative ramifications of Iran’s membership in this international body."

A spokeswoman for the U.N.'s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which oversees the commission, did not return phone calls or e-mails seeking comment.

When its term begins in 2011, Iran will be joined by 10 other countries: Belgium, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Estonia, Georgia, Jamaica, Iran, Liberia, the Netherlands, Spain, Thailand and Zimbabwe.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/29/elects-iran-commission-womens-rights/

If you're employed with a company with that policy. Just follow the friggen policy and don't be a hero.

Yep, they were told of company policy and they violated it.

NY Senator: 'You Racist People In Here'

Sen. Kevin Parker Hurls Racism Accusations At Colleagues In Albany, Calls Republicans 'White Supremacists'

Marcia Kramer ALBANY (CBS) ― (10/16/2008)

It looks like the circus and childish antics are rearing their ugly head once again in Albany.

It started as an angry blow-up, and then it escalated. A state senator with a history of anger management issues says his race-based rant was part of his fight against the "evil of white supremacy."

Brooklyn State Senator Kevin Parker is a well-documented hothead, and on Wednesday he took to the airwaves to unapologetically defend his latest shouting match.

"It's par for the course for what we have to do in Albany – fighting the forces of evil," Senator Parker said.

Parker shockingly identified the "enemies" he's fighting as other senators.

"These long-term, white supremacist, you know, Republican senators," he said.

That followed a free-for-all shouting match in Albany Tuesday where Parker heatedly objected to the questions asked by a white senator, John DeFrancisco of Syracuse, of a black nominee to the New York State Power Authority.

"John, you are totally out of order, you are out of order," Parker shouted. "How dare you? You racist people in here."

Committee Chair Carl Kruger tried in vain to get Parker to calm down.

"You're out of order – why don't you step outside," he told Parker. "You're disrespecting me as chairman. One more outburst like that and I'll ask you to be removed."

Parker didn't like that one bit.

"Okay, then get somebody to remove me. Bring people though," Parker said.

There have been other temper tantrums involving the senator. Last year he was accused of felony assault after doing $1,000 in damage to the car of New York Post photographer William Lopez and smashing his camera after he snapped Parker's picture.

Two years ago, an aide filed charges against Parker, claiming he pushed her during an argument and smashed her glasses. In 2005, Parker was accused of punching a traffic agent in the face. The charges were dropped after parker agreed to take anger management classes.

Senator Parker is due in court next month on the assault case. Sources tell CBS 2 his attorney is trying to cut a no-jail deal, but the district attorney isn't buying it.

The Brooklyn district attorney would like to try the assault case this summer, before Parker has to stand for reelection in a September primary.

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/kevin.parker.outburst.2.1660854.html

Wanna refute anything I said or just brush a little? I don't care either way.

No, keep on with the talking points. I actually like seeing it. It will make the spanking the liberals get in November so much better.

Ah yes, like when the legal congressional tactic of reconciliation was used not that long ago. There was no howling coming from the G "NO" P - the party on record having used this particular maneuver the most. No, the G "NO" P was readily conceding that reconciliation is a legitimate way to pass the legislation as they have done more often than the other party in the past. No complaints from any of them. Ever.

How's life in that bubble of yours?

I see you have your latest left wing nut talking points. Pretty catchy little phrase there, the "G "no" P". Must have taken the left a lot of brain power to think that little gem up.

My God, why the big argument? It is so simple.

1. Institute a national ID card. Don't give me the "this will turn us to a "papers please" type of police state. We all have government issue ID's already. What is one more?

2. Make it a law that everyone carries it.

3. Deport anyone that doesn't have one.

Problem solved.

AP-GfK poll: Recession helps GOP against Democrats

AP

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer Alan Fram, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 50 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Notch one more victim of the recession: With crucial midterm elections nearing, Democrats have lost the advantage they've held for years as the party the public trusts to steer the economy.

The timing could be fortunate for the Republicans. With jobs and the economy dominating voters' concerns, the GOP will wield the issue as a cudgel in the battle to grab control of at least one chamber of Congress this November and weaken President Barack Obama.

"The number one question on voters' minds is, 'Where are the jobs?'" said Ken Spain, spokesman for the House Republican campaign organization. "Republican candidates on the campaign trail will ask one very simple question: 'Are you better off today that you were two years ago?'"

Misty McMahon, 30, a teacher from Vancleave, Miss., knows her answer. "I feel like it's so bad right now that it will be hard to climb out," said McMahon, who voted for Obama but now trusts Republicans more on the economy. "I'm kind of disappointed in the stuff he's done."

Each party now has the confidence of 44 percent of people for handling the economy, according to an Associated Press-GfK Poll conducted this month. The Democrats had a nine-point advantage just four months ago, and have held an edge since AP polls began asking about the issue in 2006. In longer-running polling by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, the last time the two parties were even on the economy was 2002.

Pollsters, analysts and politicians across party lines agree the Democrats have lost their grip on the issue chiefly due to unemployment rates that have stuck near 10 percent since last summer, an ongoing foreclosure crisis and the recession that began in December 2007. Despite signals the economy has begun to heal — such as last week's reports of growing new home sales and rising orders for manufactured products — the improvements have been too subtle for many people to notice.

While the November elections are a long way off, most economists believe unemployment will still be high by Election Day, and improvements in the economy are likely to be modest.

Aware that the party in power is commonly punished for a weak economy, Democrats hope to persuade voters to view the elections as a choice between their party's recovery efforts and what they call the GOP's preferences to reward corporations and wealthy taxpayers.

"It will be the job of members of Congress and the president and our candidates to make it clear that these elections are not just a referendum on the state of the economy; it will be a choice between two different paths," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who heads the House Democratic campaign operation.

The Democrats also may have hurt their image as effective custodians of the economy by spending more than a year pushing Obama's near $1 trillion health care overhaul through Congress. It was enacted last month to mixed public reviews and after many people — including Democrats — complained that stronger congressional efforts on jobs were overdue.

"It created the impression that Democrats were not focusing enough on jobs and getting people back to work," said Geoffrey Garin, a Democratic pollster and strategist, adding, "But health care is now behind us."

Some of Obama's top economic initiatives have also failed to deliver political dividends because, economists say, they have largely prevented the recession from worsening rather than sparking immediate improvements.

As a result, many people have come to view those measures as symbols of excessive federal spending. They include the $787 billion stimulus package and the $80 billion rescue of automakers General Motors and Chrysler, to which the public often adds the $700 billion financial industry bailout enacted in late 2008 under President George W. Bush.

"Politically, it's often hard to show a negative, a what-if-we-hadn't-stepped-in," said Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster and strategist.

Details from the AP-GfK poll show perils and opportunities for both parties.

Three-quarters of those surveyed said the economy is still in poor condition. Of that group, fewer than four in 10 said they trust Democrats to do a better job on the economy, and about the same number said they want Democrats to win control of Congress in November.

In contrast, among the people who say the economy is doing well, two-thirds trust Democrats to handle the issue and nearly as many want them to control Congress.

Supporters of a party in power tend to view the economy more positively than members of the party out of power.

Two other groups in the poll could be pivotal in November.

Among people who say the economy is bad, those who believe things improved in the past month are far likelier to support Democrats than those who've not seen recent gains. Growth in optimism could help Democrats retain their congressional majorities.

On the other hand, nearly two-thirds in the poll say they know a non-relative who has recently lost a job. This group, whose size has remained steady for more than a year, is likelier to back Republicans.

"That's the circle that becomes problematic for any incumbent administration," said GOP pollster David Winston.

The AP-GfK Poll was conducted April 7-12 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media and involved interviews with 1,001 adults nationwide on landline and cellular telephones. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

___

Associated Press Polling Director Trevor Tompson, AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius and AP Economics Writer Jeannine Aversa contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100426/ap_on_bi_ge/us_ap_poll_voters__trust

Insurance companies can keep raising rates, and for the most part companies will pay it. There is little price competition in the industry.

Short of a public option, the only way we can force price control in the industry is to regulate it. Sort of what countries like Switzerland does (Private Health Insurance, but rates for basic coverage are controlled by the government).

I know, and anyone that stops and thinks about it would understand also. I just find it disgusting that Obama would promise that this mess of a health care bill would lower costs. It will do no such thing. He just said it to get his "legacy" passed.

When President Obama signed his health-care reform last month, he declared it will "lower costs for families and for businesses and for the federal government." So why, barely a month later, are Democrats scrambling to pass a new bill that would impose price controls on insurance?

In now-they-tell-us hearings on Tuesday, the Senate health committee debated a bill that would give states the power to reject premium increases that state regulators determine are "unreasonable." The White House proposed this just before the final Obama- Care scramble, but it couldn't be included because it violated the procedural rules that Democrats abused to pass the bill.

Some 27 states currently have some form of rate review in the individual and small-business markets, but they generally don't leverage it in a political way because insolvent insurers are expensive for states and bankruptcies limit consumer choices. One exception is Massachusetts: Governor Deval Patrick is now using this regulatory power to create de facto price controls and assail the state's insurers as cover for the explosive costs resulting from the ObamaCare prototype the Bay State passed in 2006.

National Democrats now want the power to do the same across the country, because they know how unrealistic their cost-control claims really are. Democrats are petrified they'll get the blame they deserve when insurance costs inevitably spike. So the purpose of this latest Senate bill is to have a pre-emptive political response on hand.

ObamaCare includes several new cost-driving mandates that take effect immediately, including expanding family coverage for children as old as 26 and banning consumer co-payments for preventive care. Democrats are bragging about these "benefits," but they aren't free and their cost will be built into premiums. And those are merely teasers for the many Washington-created dysfunctions that will soon distort insurance markets.

In Massachusetts, Mr. Patrick says his price-control sally will be followed by reviewing what doctors and hospitals charge—or in other words for price controls on the medical services that make up most health spending. ObamaCare will gradually move in the same direction.

Or maybe not so gradually, judging by the study released last last week by Richard Foster, the Obama Administration's Medicare actuary. Mr. Foster predicts net national health spending will increase by about 1% annually above the status quo that is already estimated to be $4.7 trillion in 2019. This is one more rebuke to the White House fantasy that a new entitlement will lower health costs.

"Although several provisions would help to reduce health care cost growth, their impact would be more than offset through 2019 by the higher health expenditures resulting from the coverage expansions," Mr. Foster writes—and that's assuming everything goes according to plan. He considers it "plausible and even probable" that prices in the private market will rise as greater demand due to subsidized coverage runs into the relatively fixed supply of doctors and hospitals.

Most of ObamaCare's unrealistic "savings" come from cranking down the way Medicare calculates its price controls, and Mr. Foster writes that they'll grow "more slowly than, and in a way that was unrelated to, the providers' costs of furnishing services to beneficiaries." He expects that 15% of hospital budgets may be driven into deficits, thus "possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries." Isn't reform grand?

The official who will preside over this fiscal trainwreck is Donald Berwick, the Harvard professor and chief of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement who the White House has nominated to run Medicare. Dr. Berwick explained in an interview last year that the British National Health Service has "developed very good and very disciplined, scientifically grounded, policy-connected models for the evaluation of medical treatments from which we ought to learn." He added that "The decision is not whether or not we will ration care—the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open. And right now, we are doing it blindly."

In fact, the real choice with medical care, as with any good or service, is between rationing via politics and bureaucratic lines or via a competitive market and prices. As Democrats are showing by trying to pass a new insurance bill, they want all U.S. health care to function like price-controlled Medicare. Dr. Berwick's job as the country's largest purchaser of health care will be to find ways to offset the higher insurance and medical costs that ObamaCare's subsidies and mandates will cause, which will inevitably mean political rationing of care.

In a 17-minute, 2,600-word answer to a question about tax increases in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this month, Mr. Obama mentioned that "what we've done is we've embedded in how Medicare reimburses, how Medicaid reimburses, all these ideas to actually reduce the costs of care." The embedding via price controls is already underway.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704133804575198322718759844.html

It was $825 billion, not a trillian. A third of it went to tax cuts ($275 billion), and about $318 billion went to cash strapped states. Ask the states who received the stimulus money if it wasn't really needed. The Stimulus Bill spared us from having another Great Depression.

Right...

So your OK with spending almost a trillion dollars to make 1.2 million jobs? As far as stopping another "great depression", haha!! Talk about fear mongering! We were no where near a great depression.

from the USA Today article:

Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services, is relatively optimistic. He sees unemployment falling to 8.9% by the fourth quarter of this year. Cheney says other economists are "nervous Nellies," shell-shocked by the length and depth of this downturn. They've forgotten that "the deeper the recession, the faster you come out of it."

But Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial, says creating jobs is tougher than it was the last time unemployment passed 10% in the early '80s. The reason: The 1981-82 recession was engineered by the Federal Reserve to tame inflation through high interest rates. The Fed brought the economy back simply by reversing course and cutting rates.

This time, the Fed has pushed short-term rates to near zero and has flooded markets with money. But the financial system is so damaged by the Wall Street meltdown that it isn't converting easy money into loans and economic growth: "It's like the Fed is dropping money from a helicopter and it's getting caught in the trees," Swonk says.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-01-25-usa-today-economic-survey-obama-stimulus_N.htm

Your point is? The trillion dollars we pissed away did nothing but increase the size of our debt and the government. We could have done nothing and the economy would have done the same thing and we would have saved ourselves a trillion dollars.

:rofl: :rofl: Wow we are gettin alot a bang for our buck! :rofl: :rofl:

787 billion divided by 1.2 million = 655 833.333

For once Col. Lingus makes a real point. That is an awful high price to pay per job. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to just give those 1.2 million people each $75,000. and call it even? Shoot, for that kind of money you could have retired 1.2 million older people. We just blew almost a trillion dollars on nothing.

Economists: The stimulus didn't help

By Hibah Yousuf, staff reporterApril 26, 2010: 3:56 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The recovery is picking up steam as employers boost payrolls, but economists think the government's stimulus package and jobs bill had little to do with the rebound, according to a survey released Monday.

In latest quarterly survey by the National Association for Business Economics, the index that measures employment showed job growth for the first time in two years -- but a majority of respondents felt the fiscal stimulus had no impact.

NABE conducted the study by polling 68 of its members who work in economic roles at private-sector firms. About 73% of those surveyed said employment at their company is neither higher nor lower as a result of the $787 billion Recovery Act, which the White House's Council of Economic Advisers says is on track to create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of the year.

That sentiment is shared for the recently passed $17.7 billion jobs bill that calls for tax breaks for businesses that hire and additional infrastructure spending. More than two-thirds of those polled believe the measure won't affect payrolls, while 30% expect it to boost hiring "moderately."

But the economists see conditions improving. More than half of respondents -- 57% -- say industrial demand is rising, while just 6% see it declining. A growing number also said their firms are increasing spending and profit margins are widening.

Nearly a quarter of those surveyed forecast that gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, will grow more than 3% in 2010, and 70% of NABE's respondents expect it to grow more than 2%.

Still, the survey suggested that tight lending conditions remain a concern. Almost half of those polled said the credit crunch hurts their business.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/26/news/economy/NABE_survey/