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Subscribe to RSSSunday’s New York Times: “President Obama plans to push Congress to move quickly in the coming months on an ambitious overhaul of the immigration system that would include a path to citizenship for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, senior administration officials and lawmakers said last week.”
More: “Mr. Obama is expected to lay out his plan in the coming weeks, perhaps in his State of the Union address early next month, administration officials said. The White House will argue that its solution for illegal immigrants is not an amnesty, as many critics insist, because it would include fines, the payment of back taxes and other hurdles for illegal immigrants who would obtain legal status, the officials said. The president’s plan would also impose nationwide verification of legal status for all newly hired workers; add visas to relieve backlogs and allow highly skilled immigrants to stay; and create some form of guest-worker program to bring in low-wage immigrants in the future.”
By the way, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villraiagosa will speak on immigration at the National Press Club at 1:00 pm ET.
Well, that’s that… Treasury spokesman Saturday: "Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit."
“In what could be a crucial moment in the Obama administration’s efforts to advance the nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, he will meet this week with Senator Charles E. Schumer, the most influential Jewish member of the Senate, who is expected to press Mr. Hagel on issues concerning Iran and Israel,” the New York Times says.
The AP looks at the relationship between Obama and Israel’s Netanyahu, which one former American ambassador calls “troubled” and “the greatest dysfunction between leaders” that he’s seen. “Netanyahu likely will win re-election on Jan. 22, two days after Obama is sworn in for a second term,” the AP writes, adding, “A further complication is Obama’s nomination of former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel as defense secretary.”
Gallup: “In the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., school shootings, and as Vice President Joe Biden leads a federal task force that will recommend ways to curb gun violence in the U.S., 38% of Americans are dissatisfied with the nation's gun laws and want them strengthened. This is up from 25% who held this set of views a year ago, and is the highest since 2001. Still, more Americans are either satisfied with current gun laws, 43%, or think they should be loosened, 5%.”
USA Today: “Vice President Biden, poised to propose new gun violence legislation this week, meets Monday morning with Democratic lawmakers who will consider the administration's plans.” Biden will deliver his recommendations to the president tomorrow.
The Washington Post: “Opposing forces in the debate over the nation’s gun laws staked out starkly different positions Sunday, with the head of the largest gun rights group declaring confidence that a ban on assault weapons would not win passage from lawmakers, while advocates of tightening restrictions on guns said such measures can be approved.”
The NRA says it has the support to block another assault-weapons ban. The group’s president: “You don’t want to bet your house on the outcome. But I would say that the likelihood is that they are not going to be able to get an assault weapons ban through this Congress.”
The New York Times goes to Colorado for the gun debate.
Funny… worth the read… the White House’s response to the petition to create a Death Star: “This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For.”
There could be more health care mandate penalties – “mandate plus” – in the first two years because insurance companies fear there won’t be enough young, healthy people signing up for insurance when penalties are lower to offset those with preexisting conditions they already have to take on.
Michael Hirsch: “Despite the hopeful talk that came out of his summit in Washington with Afghan President Hamid Karzai last week, President Obama is in danger of losing control of south-central Asia entirely, sacrificing a decade’s worth of blood and treasure as he begins his second term. Most of the focus now is on how rapid the U.S. troop drawdown will be. But the bigger problem for Obama is the absence of a U.S. diplomatic vision for the region—and a diplomat to execute it.”
Transformational president? Perhaps… George Packer: “Every President elected between 1976 and 2004 was, by birth or by choice, a Southerner, except Ronald Reagan, who enjoyed a sort of honorary status. (When he began the 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, scene of the murder, in 1964, of three civil-rights workers, many Southerners heard it as a dog whistle.) A Southern accent, once thought quaint or even backward, became an emblem of American authenticity, a political trump card. It was a truism that no Democrat could win the White House unless he spoke with a drawl. Now the South is becoming isolated again. Every demographic and political trend that helped to reëlect Barack Obama runs counter to the region’s self-definition: the emergence of a younger, more diverse, more secular electorate, with a libertarian bias on social issues and immigration; the decline of the exurban life style, following the housing bust; the class politics, anathema to pro-business Southerners, that rose with the recession; the end of America’s protracted wars, with cuts in military spending bound to come. The Solid South speaks less and less for America and more and more for itself alone.”
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I see we're not the only ones that double post.
After President Reagan gave amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants signalling that it is okay to come here illegally we have seen a steady increase in people crossing our Southern border. While the number has significantly slowed largely because of the efforts of the G.W. Bush and Obama Administrations beefing up border security and barriers those already here aren't going to "self deport" or do anything to call attention to themselvs so as to cause deportation. A sensible and sensitive policy is in order that will levy fines on those who are here illegally, they did commit the crime of coming illegally and need to be punished some way, and to those who employ them. We must be mindful of the fact that they provide cheap labor so you and I don't have to pay $5 a head for iceberg lettuce or $10 for a 3oz box of strawberries. By allowing them to remain we don't upset the communities, work places where they are nor the families themselves where many of the children grow up knowing only the Untited States as their country having been brought here as infants or who were born here to illegal parents. They are learning to be productive members of our community. Many go to college and are providing needed businesses and services. I am glad that President Obama is tackling this issue head on and hope the Congress will follow his lead in sensible and sensitive immigration reform.
YOUR TAXES AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
It don’t matter which group of politicians you vote for, as the cost for another Path to Citizenship is prohibitive for all Americans. Speaking for myself, as an Independent and probably a good half of America just surfing the web and not hand tied by the Liberal press and their leftists editorial staff, I believe that in heavily Liberal strongholds that unknown numbers of non-citizens voted in the presidential election. With Obama pushing even more taxes, he wants another Amnesty and hundreds of billions of people throughout the world is avidly listening? The unconstructive word is going out and all these uncountable numbers of foreign nationals are going to sweep down on the poorly guarded borders of Mexico and Canada. Then with this well publicized scenario that entries as a tourist is not tracked, a good course of action will bring unfettered numbers of visitors to our door, that are of no mind to return home.
All we going to gain from Obama’s immigration venture is more poverty, more illiterate and uneducated who we the taxpayer will eventually have to cover their bills. Another multi-trillion dollar amnesty is a catastrophe waiting to happen, so says the Heritage Foundation. Have you noticed that you already paying for every smuggled child of illegal aliens, who have reached sovereign America? The “Anchor Baby” is the real thing, as once settled here under a fabricated misuse law, they get automatic citizenship and YOU PAY, and YOU KEEP PAYING from delivery to grave. UNLESS WE ADD AN AMENDMENT TO THE 14th AMENDMENT, CHANGE WILL NEVER COME AND FOREVER WE WILL BE PAYING FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS CHILDREN WHO CLAIM CITIZENSHIP, WHICH WAS STRINGENTLY APPLIED TO ONLY SLAVES? Their parents have that foothold and are able to collect every citizen benefit, without even spending one penny. No wonder Medicade is out the window in entitlements that should be going to citizens, real citizens.
Obama is showing his true Socialist true self, especially when he declares we must pay our bills? Can anybody tell me that his spending isn’t extravagant, when every prior and post administration we are paying for every foreign child; overloading our schools with non English speaking illegal children and the consequences to Americans who taxes are riding sky high. The newspapers and Lib-Democrats always broadcast about entitlements for low income families, when millions of these families are here illegally? One member slips across the borders, fly here and the rest relatives follow, and collect ample amounts of cash payments and citizen benefits for every infant.
Two laws could send illegal aliens packing and you can read about the Legal Workforce Bill, which detects illegal aliens stealing jobs from Americans Mandatory E-Verify is the way to go and it enforces strict regulations on unconcerned business owners. What manner of persons would insist of passage for illegal aliens when an estimated 24 million Americans are jobless? The Birthright Citizenship Bill will stop children of millions of illegal aliens from legal theft of citizenship, thus discouraging the never ending stream of illegal aliens arriving here. These people disrespect our laws and come here to pilfer citizen’s rights. It can be guaranteed that if you read about passing these two laws, our government could save hundreds of billions of dollars each year, which would certainly help to relieve the pressure on the amount of money being spent on entitlements on foreign nationals. Don’t listen to the ravings of the open border zealots, who have infiltrated the Obama Administration. In addition ignore what you read in the national press, as they are tainted with the Liberal Progressives, who think America should have an open door policy with no borders. Investigate your States costs and the federal government and then contact you’re Congressman and those in Congress and stop this invasion for good?
I really could care less that comes here legally, as they have not broken the law and waited patiently for a visa. I just don’t want to financially support them with my taxes, specifically illegal aliens and their extended families. Foreign nationals are so pampered that Congress do not judge this bad behavior and disrespect for our policies deserving punishment as a class 1 felony. We have our own mess of “freeloaders” who prefer to leech of the rest of us taxpayers, but the U.S government seems to think we should offer even more taxes to support the United Nations and all the parasites that arrive here with their smuggled children.