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01/14/2010
Government Labor Protections And Welfare Policies Keeping French Youths Jobless, Alienated | Mere Rhetoric
CNSNews.com - Catholic Bishops Launch New Push for Immigration Reform, Pathway to Citizenship
(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will push to get immigration-reform legislation enacted in 2010. The group has voiced support for one Democrat-sponsored bill that grants a pathway to citizenship for people who came to this country illegally. In a conference call Wednesday with reporters, Salt Lake City Bishop John C. Wester said, “It is our view, and that of others, that the American public, including the Catholic and other faith communities, want a humane and comprehensive solution to the problems which beset our immigration system, and they want Congress to address this issue.” Wester, who chairs the USCCB Committee on Migration, said the church will prod lawmakers take action on the issue, beginning with a postcard campaign to members of Congress and prayer vigils across the country. On Dec. 23, the Catholic bishops also wrote a letter of support to Rep. Luiz Gutierrez (D-Ill.) for a bill he co-sponsored -- the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 (H.R. 4321). The bishops called the bill “an important first step in the legislative process.” The nearly-700-page bill includes an “earned legalization” program, more often referred to as a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. It would allow about 100,000 unemployed immigrants into the country each year in an attempt to reduce the backlog of visa applications. It also would exempt immediate relatives from the annual cap on visas. Gutierrez said immigrants have born the brunt of blame for various domestic problems, especially unemployment, and he quoted the Bible to describe their plight. “In fact,” Rep. Gutierrez said on Dec. 15 when he introduced his bill, “we all have learned something from our religious leaders, who have reminded us of these words from the good book: ‘You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’; but I say unto you, whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’” The quotation, which varies slightly by translation, appears in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. “I believe our immigrant community has turned so many cheeks that our heads are spinning like tops,” Gutierrez concluded. Despite the religious bent to the latest immigration-reform push, a recent poll from Zogby International shows that Catholics are largely out of step with the views of their leaders on the issue. Conducted in the last two weeks of November 2009 and released in December, the Zogby poll shows that Catholics believe there are too many illegal immigrants in the United States and oppose a pathway to citizenship. Zogby asked: “Which approach do you prefer to deal with illegal immigrants in this country? Statement A: Enforcing the law and causing them to return home over time. Statement B: Granting legal status and a pathway to citizenship to most illegal immigrants.” A majority – 64 percent – of Catholic respondents preferred statement A, compared with the 24 percent who chose statement B. In the same poll, Catholics were asked whether the 38 million legal and illegal immigrants and the 1.5 million more entering the U.S. were “too high, too low, or just right?” Sixty-nine percent said too high, while just 4 percent said too low, and 14 percent said just right. Kevin Appleby, director of migration and refugee policy at USCCB, confirmed that the bishops thought the Gutierrez bill was a “good blueprint”--and they took issue with Zogby’s methodology. “Well, I mean, we think it’s a good blueprint for moving forward. It has all the elements that we think are needed in any bill--a legalization piece, a family piece, and a worker program piece,” Appleby told CNSNews.com. He said the Zogby poll had flaws, and pointed to other numbers that would support the position of the bishops. “First of all, their poll is a Web-based poll, so many statisticians will tell you that it’s already skewed. Secondly, the questions are framed in a way that leads to a certain answer—it pitches it in a way that someone’s going to answer it that way,” he said. “If you look at the American National Election (Study), which would be an honest in-the-middle, I would think, it says that 61 percent of Catholics believe that there could be increased immigration or immigration would be at normal levels, and that 56 percent of Catholics would support a path to citizenship.” The American National Election Study, based at the University of Michigan, conducted its survey in 2008. The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a non-partisan policy group, contends that the Gutierrez bill is out of touch with prevailing public sentiment: Asked where the bill in question fell on the political spectrum, CIS Director of Policy Studies Jessica Vaughan said, “I don’t think it even falls on the spectrum of bills that Americans would consider to be reasonable immigration reform. “It is a massive expansion of immigration--an amnesty for just about everyone, a decimation of immigration law enforcement, and creation of unnecessary temporary worker programs—um—did I miss anything? “The reality is that this is not something that most Americans would support.” Vaughan said the disparity was no surprise. “Some other studies in the past have shown that the leadership of not just the Catholic church but all the other mainstream religious groups hold very different views on immigration from those in the pews.” That’s true, she said, “not only in big religion but also in academia, in the business world, and other sectors of American society -- there is a huge gap between the way elites view this issue and the way regular Americans view it.” Her colleague, CIS Director of Research Stephen Camarota, has examined contrasting views on immigration between religious leaders and their congregations. He said Catholic bishops and their followers are just interpreting the faith differently. “I think that what it represents is kind of different perspectives on Christian teaching,” he told CNSNews.com. “For the bishops and the leaders, they tend to have a lot of empathy for illegal immigrants here and people who want to come in the future,” Camarota said. “That’s where their humanitarian concerns are. The concerns of the people in the pews are much more in their community-- fellow Americans who face the job competition, who have to send their kids to overcrowded schools and so-forth. “Each probably feels their position is consistent with Christian thought and their religious belief.” Gutierrez, meanwhile, sided with the bishops, saying that illegal immigrants have waited years for reform, which stalled under the Bush administration. “We’ve waited long enough,” he said. “Just because we turn our cheek, doesn’t mean we should turn away from what’s right.” See Earlier Stories:Hispanic Congressional Caucus Starts Petition Urging Obama to Enact Amnesty (Feb. 5, 2009)Hispanic Caucus Calls for Ending Program That Identified 100,000 Illegal Aliens, Many With Criminal Records (Friday, October 2, 2009)
via www.cnsnews.com
01/11/2010
Rabbi Aryeh Spero: President Obama Must Choose Sides | Islam | FaithFreedom
There appears to be a battle raging within Barack Obama. How this war is resolved will decide how we fight the war on terror and determine if we win it at all. In his speech last spring in Cairo, Mr. Obama said, "I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." Defending the honor of Islam and protecting Muslims is one of the goals that Barack Obama has set for himself. It constitutes a personal definition of his presidency. But is he doing so to the point of misleading the public in general, and at the risk of jeopardizing the American people in particular?
Why the Rich Muslim Boy Became a Terrorist – by Jamie Glazov | FrontPage Magazine
All one can be sure of is that an adversarial culture or ideology must not be blamed and that America, somewhere, somehow, must definitely be at fault.
via frontpagemag.com
01/10/2010
RubinReports: Why is the West So Easily Fooled by Middle East Dictators? Case in Point: Syria's "Independent" Media is Owned by the Regime
No country in the world has more political battles, military conflicts, and ethnic complexity per person and per square mile than does Lebanon. Continually for fifty years, it has seen crisis after crisis, often drawing in direct U.S. and international involvement. Most recently, Lebanon has been the scene of a civil war, wars with Israel, a popular mass movement that expelled Syrian occupation, terror, hostage-taking, assassination, and the struggle between allies of Iran and the West. This book explains the issues, events, and personalities involved in one of the globe’s most dramatic and important stories.
Mitchell fails to understand Palestinian goals « FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו
George Mitchell: …Israel annexed Jerusalem in 1980….for the Israelis, what they’re building in, is in part of Israel. Now, the others don’t see it that way. So you have these widely divergent perspectives on the subject. …The Israelis are not going to stop settlements in or construction in East Jerusalem. They don’t regard that as a settlement because they think it’s part of Israel….
War on Hate: UK to ban Devout Muslim Groups - Atlas Shrugs
ouncement was made fresh on the heels of this latest outrage by devout Muslims: England: Outrage as Brit Hating Islamic Group Vows to March Through Patriotc Town ...
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'Bout Time!
EDITORIAL: Obama's havoc to the intel system - Washington Times
President Obama blamed "the system" for failing to stop al Qaeda's Christmas Day bombing plot. The weakness with that excuse is that Mr. Obama fails to connect the dots between the systemic failure and his administration's year-long record of destroying the morale of the intelligence community.
The intelligence process works in large part because of trust. A reliable sense of confidence must exist between superiors and subordinates, agents and sources, and the intelligence community and policy makers. Without trust, people will not take the risks needed to do their jobs successfully.
Mr. Obama has destroyed this sense of trust. On his watch, the intelligence community has suffered a year of body blows. He made great theater of signing an executive order closing the terrorist detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In April, the president authorized the release of the so-called "torture memos" on enhanced interrogation techniques used against detainees, and suggested that Congress establish a bipartisan review panel to look into the authorization of extraordinary interrogation methods.
U.S. Shows Europe How Democracy Works
LISBON -- Whatever the merits or otherwise of the "comprehensive" immigration reform that foundered in the Senate last week, its defeat was undeniably a victory for democracy. All the crack regiments of the establishment -- the White House, congressional leaders in both Houses, the establishment media, the "mainstream churches," the major charitable foundations, Corporate America, and Big Labor itself -- were solidly in favor of it. Its opponents were a handful of determined, well-informed legislators -- applause, please, for Senators Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.) and Jim DeMint (R.-S.C.) -- immigration reform groups such as Numbers USA, talk radio hosts including Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, bloggers like Mickey Kaus and Kathryn Lopez of National Review Online, and individual researchers (notably Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation and my Hudson Institute colleague, John Fonte). This was David vs. Goliath. David won. The informal media of talk radio and Internet bloggers organized this popular opposition, spread the facts about the bill, and threatened reluctant senators with an election defeat down the line. The bill failed, the people prevailed, democracy triumphed. Now, as Hamlet says: "Look here, upon this picture, and on this, The counterfeit presentment of two brothers." Voters in France and Holland rejected a proposed constitution for the European Union in 2005. They were the only countries at that point to have submitted the Euro-Constitution to the test of a referendum. Unanimous consent of member-states is legally required for ratification. So a single defeat should have doomed it. Instead, Europe's leaders canceled the process of ratifying the constitution while extending the deadline for ratification indefinitely. They privately reached a more profound decision: not to make the mistake of consulting the voters a second time if they could avoid it. Ten days ago a European Council -- the heads of European governments acting together and so known to the media as a European "summit" -- took the next step. They laid down a "mandate" for a new European treaty that would contain almost all the provisions of the previous constitution in a cosmetic version. The cosmetics include: removing the fact that EU law has primacy over national laws from the main body of the treaty but including it in a footnote; replacing the office of European foreign minister with that of "High Representative for Foreign Affairs and National Security" which has the same duties and the same large diplomatic staff; and, of course, calling a constitution that transfers 40 areas of government, including immigration and crime, from national to EU control a mere "reform treaty." There is method in this madness. If the constitution is a mere treaty, it need not be submitted to a referendum. Neither the Dutch nor the French governments intend to do so. Tony Blair's last service to Brussels was to assure his successor, Gordon Brown, that he could now ignore their joint election pledge to hold a referendum.None of this is, alas, unusual. The EU has bullied the voters into ignoring or reversing unfavorable referendums several times before. What is new is that Brussels is now bullying national governments, too. Polish leaders at the "summit" were pressured and even insulted to secure their agreement. They claim persuasively that promises made to them do not appear in the treaty's text. But official EU spokesmen declare that the "mandate" cannot be amended in any way. It must be passed in its present form by a so-called "Inter-Governmental Council." Until then discussions to iron out any "misunderstandings" will be held in secret. All this may be illegal. Under current European treaties, a European Council has no power to issue binding instructions either to national governments or to an IGC. It is the creature, not the creator, of treaties and constitutions. Any single European country can veto the mandate. Polls suggest that Britain and perhaps other countries would do so if referendums were held. But Europe's temporary governing elites have decided. The fix is in. America's open debate over immigration demonstrates that the United States is a democracy by any standard. The EU's false prospectus, secret deliberations, closed circle of decision-makers, and contempt for the voters make equally clear that "Europe" is anything but a democracy. If it turns out to be merely a ramshackle, bureaucratic, multinational empire like the Hapsburg one, we'll be lucky.
via www.hudson.org
And in the process the left in power learns some dirty tricks to try on America.
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