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updated: 2021-10-08
 

"To understand how [Red Chinese] counterfeiting and piracy help contribute to the USA trade deficit, it is critical to first note that such intellectual property theft extends far beyond Hollywood movies and fashion items such as Louis Vuitton bags.   As the US Trade Representative notes, affected industries include 'software, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, information technology, apparel, athletic foot-wear, textile fabrics and floor coverings, consumer goods, food and beverages, electrical equipment, automotive parts and industrial products, [defense systems] among many others'." --- Glenn Hubbard & Peter Navarro 2011 _Seeds of Destruction: Why the Path to Economic Ruin Runs Through Washington, and How To Reclaim American Prosperity_ pg115

 
 

2013 July

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"In fact, between 1999 and 2008, according to Tax Notes, the definitive tax publication, foreign affiliates of US parent corporations increased their employment abroad by 2.4M jobs, or 30%. During the same period, they slashed their employent in the [United States of America] by 1.9M." --- Donald L. Barlett & James B. Steele 2011 _Betrayal of the American Dream_ pg xii

 
 
 

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Montag	Dienstag	Mittwoch	Donnerstag	Freitag	Samstag	Sonntag
Lunedi	Martedi	Mercoledi	Giovedi	Venerdi	Sabato	Domenica
Latest

captain William Scott's flag for the Republic of Texas.

2013-07-01

2013-07-01
David North _Center for Immigration Studies_
House Judiciary committee voted to give out more guest-work visas and green cards for cheap, young, low-skilled foreign labor with flexible ethics
Hill
gov track
House Judiciary committee (pdf)
"[HR2131 as amended in committee and passed onto the House floor would] allow as many as 55K green cards to be issued annually to aliens with advanced science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) degrees from American universities.   It also voted to increase the existing H-1B quota for such workers (again those with STEM master's degrees or doctorates from U.S. institutions) from the current 20K to 40K.   That's a total of 95K visas for each and every year, from here to eternity.   One problem is that 95K is more than double the total number of aliens who get such degrees each year, according to the most recent statistics from the National Science Foundation."
Grant Gross: Computerworld/IDG
And, of the several visa/immigration bills pending in the House, of course this one they rushed to push through is the worst, the one that will do the most harm to US citizens...jgo

2013-07-01
Jim Steele
heat waves not connected with "global warming"

2013-07-01
Nate Rau _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
tax-victim funding not resulting in promised jobs
Tennessean
Eastman has promised 300 new jobs, which comes out to $100K in [tax-victim] incentives per anticipated job.   During his first two years in office, the Haslam administration has spent an average of $3,104 in incentives per new job, a statistic the Department of Economic and Community Development has highlighted in its annual reports as evidence the program is being run more efficiently than in the past...   Angelos Angelou, principal executive officer and chief strategist at Angelou Economics, an Austin, TX, consulting firm for economic development, said the $30M public sector investment was actually a fraction of what Eastman could have garnered from another state government.   He said chemical manufacturing projects are typically more capital-intensive than labor-intensive, meaning the investment is more in machinery and infrastructure than people and jobs.   Angelou said in his opinion such a project has a more positive impact on a community than one that invests less capital but brings more jobs."

2013-07-01
Goesta Pettersson
Carbon 14 from nuclear tests indicate that UN IPCC's Bern model is inconsistent with empirical data

2013-07-01
_Billings MT Gazette_/_AP_
Obummer regime continuing to attack coal use and mining
"The Colstrip [generating] plant, which dominates the sky-line of a 2,200-person coal-centered town by the same name, burns about 10M tons of coal a year from a nearby mine and provides power to customers as far away as Seattle.   It also churns out an estimated 17M tons of carbon dioxide a year.   That's roughly equivalent to the emissions from 3M cars running for a year...   Colstrip is among those plants that remained open, in part due to heavy capital investments.   That includes $88M spent on air pollution controls since 2000, according to PPL Montana, which co-owns the 388-employee plant and operates it on behalf of five other utilities.   Carbon dioxide controls would cost far more: $430M to install the equipment, plus annual operating and maintenance costs of $900M because the plant would need to devote 30% of its energy to run the carbon-capture equipment, according to a PPL study from several years ago.   That would equate to $53 for every ton of coal burned, the company said.   That's about five times the price of the fuel itself in the nearby Powder River Basin, according to pricing information from the Energy Information Administration."

2013-07-01
Dan Gearino _Columbus OH Dispatch_
legislature approved state budget bill provisions that would allow natural-gas utilities to charge customers for a potentially wide array of environmental clean-up expenses
"Natural-gas utilities initially asked for the proposal because they want the law to clearly allow the companies to charge customers for clean-up of certain polluted sites, subject to a case-by-case review by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.   The companies say the law is not clear enough on this point.   Specifically, Duke Energy wants to charge customers $65.3M to clean up two 'manufactured gas' plants.   The gas plants are a remnant of a time when companies would make natural gas from coal and use it to produce electricity.   The plants date back to the 1800s and have long since stopped being used.   Various companies left behind about 90 polluted sites across the state."

2013-07-01
_Investor's Business Daily_
pres. Obummer attacks/marginalizes Judaism and Christianity, promotes Islam
"Worried the FBI's 'Most Wanted Terrorists' ads offend Muslims, the [Obummer regime] is taking them down.   Yet it has no qualms offending Christians or their faith."

2013-07-01
Patrick J. Buchanan _V Dare_
GOP support for excessive immigration, globalization, and corporatism -- why the Reagan democratics departed
"In [today's] GOP the corporate conservative rides up front; the social, cultural and patriotic conservatives in the back of the bus...   Marco Rubio today leads Senate Republicans in doing the bidding of corporate America, which, in payback for its campaign contributions, wants amnesty for 12M illegal aliens.   Agribusinesses need more peons.   Restaurant chains want more waitresses, dishwashers, busboys.   Construction companies want more ditch-diggers.   Silicon Valley demands hundreds of thousands more H-1Bs -- foreign graduate students who can be hired for half what an American engineer might need to support his family."

2013-07-01
_Polling Report_
congress-critters job rating

2013-07-01 (5773 Tamuz 23)
Mark Steyn _Jewish World Review_
the princess and the Brotherhood
"After midday prayers on Wednesday, just about the time the army were heading over to the presidential palace to evict Mohammed Morsi, the last king of Egypt was laying to rest his aunt, Princess Fawzia, who died in Alexandria on Tuesday at the grand old age of 91.   She was born in 1921, a few months before the imperial civil servants of London and Paris invented the modern Middle East and the British protectorate of Egypt was upgraded to a kingdom, and 7 years before Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood.   A long life reminds us of how short history is: Princess Fawzia outlived the Egyptian monarchy, and the Nasserist fascism and pan-Arabism that succeeded it, and the doomed 'United Arab Republic' of Egypt and Syria, and the fetid third-of-a-century 'stability' of the Mubarak kleptocracy.   And she came within 24 hours of outliving the Muslim Brotherhood's brief, disastrous grip on power.   In the days before her death, it was reported that 14M people took to the streets of Egypt's cities to protest against Morsi (and Obama and his ambassador Anne Paterson).   If so, that's more than the population of the entire country in the year Princess Fawzia was born.   The Mubarak era alone saw the citizenry double from 40M to 80M, a majority of which live on less than two dollars a day.   The old pharaoh was toppled by his own baby boom, most of whom went for Morsi.   The new pharaoh was toppled by his own stupidity.   The Muslim Brotherhood waited 85 years for their moment and then blew it in nothing flat."
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-02

2013-07-02
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
an analysis of a paper by Kerr, Kerr and Lincoln
 
Earlier this year I noted the release of a working paper by Kerr, Kerr and Lincoln (KKL), "Skilled Immigration and the Employment Structures of U.S. Firms" (pdf). &nbps; [Unfortunately, their report is irrelevant because H-1B visas are not restricted to the skilled...jgo]
 
I stated that I would prepare a detailed analysis of the paper, then run it by Bill Kerr for comments, then post a revised version of my analysis here in this e-news-letter.   I am now finally carrying out this plan, and it is a pleasure to do so.   Bill is one of the nicest people I've met on either side of the H-1B issue, and I highly appreciate his willingness to take part here.
 
You can read Bill's rejoinder (pdf).   [What is it with some government agencies and others' fixation with pdfs?!?...jgo]
 
My posting below consists of remarks I originally made in a draft I sent to Bill on Sunday night, but now with some modifications in response to Bill's rejoinder, and some new material here and there.   My comments follow below.   The most important are those labeled 3 and 4, but 1 and 2 set the stage.
 
Note by the way that my comments also apply, along with additional criticisms, to the recent paper by my UC Davis colleague Giovanni Peri, which has gotten a lot of attention in the press: "STEMWorkers, H1B Visas and Productivity in US Cities" (pdf).
 
One technical issue: The terms "immigrant" and "native" arise a lot below.   In my own papers (with the exception of my EPI paper, for reasons explained there), I try to avoid comparisons of natives to others.   However, that is KKL's setting, and the term will arise frequently here.
 
Preamble: Even though the KKL paper is easily available on the web at the URL given above, Bill felt it would be useful for me to begin with a summary of the paper, say by posting the abstract here amid my comments.   I think it is more helpful to post the paper's Conclusions section (though I will excise some material I don't think important to the discussion here):
 
"In summary, the results of this study provide a multi-faceted view of the impact of young skilled immigrants on the employment structures outcomes of U.S. firms.   We find consistent evidence linking the hiring of young skilled immigrants to greater employment of skilled workers by the firm, a greater share of the firm's work-force being skilled, a higher share of skilled workers being immigrants, and a lower share of skilled workers being over the age of 40.   Results on whether total firm size increases or not are mixed.   There is also consistent evidence in our IV specifications that older native employment expands very little, which is different from the other employment groups.   Unlike this lack of growth, however, there is limited evidence connecting actual departures of workers to the hiring of young skilled immigrants.   The closest connection is a relative statement across occupations within a firm that suggests that departure rates for older STEM occupations may be higher.
 
"...substantial portions of the U.S. immigration framework like the H-1B visa program have been designed to allow U.S. firms to choose the immigrants that they want to hire.   Given this system and the fact that the size of the program is determined by legislation, it is imperative to understand the motivations of the firm and the economics of skilled immigration within the firm.   Our results have important implications for the competitiveness of U.S. firms, the job opportunities of natives and immigrants employed by the firm, our larger national innovative capacity (e.g., Furman et al. 2002), and much beyond.   We hope that future work continues in this vein.
 
Rough translation: (a) Skilled immigrants in a firm create jobs in that firm.   (b) Those jobs tend not to go to older natives, and may even result to a mild degree in pushing the older natives out.   (c) The positive effects of the skilled immigrants have important implications for congress to consider.
 
Here is my critique:
 
1.   Problems with breadth of scope.
 
I have long stated my reservations about the very broad scope of many of the papers of this type.   See for instance my review of the otherwise-excellent work by professor Jenny Hunt.
 
Mixing together lots of different occupations can mask some effects, dilute others and produce contradictory results.   I've mentioned before the famous Simpson's Paradox (regression version), under which the algebraic sign of a relationship can change when data is amalgamated.
 
This problem was once neatly summarized in the clever title of a medical research paper, "Good for Men, Good for Women, Bad for People".   There a certain medical treatment was seen to have a beneficial effect within each gender group, but to have a negative impact once the male and female data were combined.
 
KKL's scope is especially broad.   Not only does it combine lots of occupations, but also defines "skilled" and "immigrant" extremely broadly: KKL define "skilled" to mean any worker making over $50K in 2008 dollars.   They define "immigrant" to simply be non-native.
 
KKL do make appropriate disclaimers, yes, but since their paper bills itself as aimed at informing public policy, especially on H-1B and related visas, I consider the paper's disclaimers to be woefully inadequate.   The public debate concerns foreign nationals on work visas, NOT workers who came to the U.S. as children and are now either permanent residents or naturalized U.S. citizens.   And the public debate primarily concerns tech workers, NOT marketing executives or financial analysts.
 
Congress and the press will take their research to have implications specific to the hiring of engineers on temporary work visas -- even though KKL's work does NOT do this.   People in Congress and the press are not going to read the disclaimers in the paper.
 
Even more importantly, KKL omit what should be an obvious analysis.   They spend 46 pages measuring what they claim to be the effect of hiring immigrants is on a firm's subsequent hiring.   The obvious question is then what the effect of hiring NATIVES is, compared to hiring immigrants.   If, for example, the native impact on hiring is greater than the immigrant one, then policy-makers would be reluctant to expand foreign skilled immigration in any long-term sense.
 
I asked Bill about this omission back in May.   He replied, "The main rationale for pursuing the immigrant hiring calculation [but not] the native hiring is that the former is more proximate to a policy action and its consequences than the latter is.   Given that the 'creates 4 jobs' statements are at the center of the policy debate, they will tend to get the most attention from economists."
 
Proximate, schmoximate, I strongly disagree.   The policy debate focuses in large part on the industry lobbyists' claim that the foreign workers are especially innovative, "the best and the brightest", and thus have special job-creating powers.   It would thus be natural, indeed imperative, to compare the job-creating powers of the immigrants to the job-creating powers of the natives.   Arguably, KKL's failure to do so suggests an unconscious bias on their part.
 
2.   Fragility of the models.
 
I am a former statistics professor, and though I haven't been a member of a Statistics Department for a long time, I continue to teach and do methodological research in the field.   My specialty is regression analysis, a tool that pervades the entire KKL paper.
 
I use regression analysis in my own research on H-1B, but I know that it is a very fragile tool, as Simpson's Paradox often vividly shows.   Part of KKL's paper uses a particularly fragile form of regression analysis, using something called "instrumental variables".   IVs are quite popular among economists, but are rarely used elsewhere.   Even among economists IVs are controversial.   See this Wall Street Journal article for a popular account of the controversy, and this technical one by the late David Freedman of UCB (pdf).
 
At least the IVs enable KKL to attempt to narrow the definition of "immigrant" to H-1Bs, but again, the methodology is questionable.   I won't critique KKL's choice of IV here, but just point out the fragility.
 
Personally I've always been skeptical of IVs, but again, even ordinary regression is fragile.   Thus, I always apply multiple approaches in my work on H-1B, rather than relying only on regression.
 
This is exemplified in my recent paper in the academic journal Migration Letters (pdf), in which among other things I adddress the question of whether H-1Bs are under-paid.   I use several approaches to that issue, and in fact none of them use regression.   In my recent EPI paper, I do use regression but again do a number of non-regression analyses as well.
 
Given that KKL's implied policy recommendations are at odds with other research (see below), I think the fragility of the models is a major problem with the KKL paper.
 
3.   Lack of integration with other research.
 
I teach my students and my consulting clients that regression analysis is most useful if its results jibe with other information one has.   For instance, my research findings have shown that the former foreign students now working in the computer science field in the U.S.A. are on average of somewhat lower quality than their U.S. native peers.   That jibes with the fact that many of the foreign students come from Asian cultures that emphasize rote memory, thus impeding insight and innovation.   (The governments of China, Japan, Korea and so on have all worried about this.)
 
Unfortunately, KKL do not attempt to perform such a check, which in this case would mean attempting to reconcile their findings with the research on the "hot button" questions in H-1B: Are H-1Bs paid fairly, relative to their market worth?   Is there a tech labor shortage, the putative raison detre for H-1B?   Are the H-1Bs typically "the best and the brightest", as claimed by the lobbyists?   There is quite strongly negative research regarding all 3 of these questions, so KKL's up-beat evaluation of H-1B produces a disconnect.   KKL should have addressed that disconnect.
 
For concreteness, let's focus the underpayment issue.   This is the clearest, as it can be essentially settled by a "thought experiment".   As I've pointed out before (and conceded even by some strong advocates of the H-1B program), H-1B recipients who are being sponsored for green cards (and to some extent many others) are de facto immobile, and immobility means they can't get the best deal out there in the labor market.   Therefore, on average they are under-paid relative to their true market value.
 
So basic economic theory, not to mention plain common sense, establishes the under-payment issue.   And I believe KKL, as economists, would agree with this analysis.   Then how would they reconcile this with their paper's findings?
 
Of course, there is no direct contradiction between this and KKL's findings.   Nowhere in their paper do they claim the H-1Bs are paid fairly.   However, again, the takeaway from KKL's paper by congress and the press will be that "H-1B is good, they create jobs etc. so the nay-sayers are wrong e.g. in claiming the H-1Bs are underpaid".   Bill's comment to the NYT last week, "People take an extremely one-sided view of this stuff and dismiss any evidence to the contrary.", didn't help in this regard. :-)
 
More subtly on this same topic, KKL's findings on job creation, coupled with their presumed agreement that there is an under-payment problem, would seem to imply that they believe cheap is good!   Employers get more bang for the buck!   But that implies that the workers are mere commodities, no variation in quality, starkly contradictory to KKL's own claim (and Bill's claim in his paper on H-1B patenting) that H-1Bs are major contributors to innovation.
 
One cannot optimize two variables at once.   The more weight an employer puts on cheapness in hiring, the less weight it puts on quality.
 
Of course, this also relates back to KKL's failure to compare job-creation powers of immigrants and natives.   This is absolutely crucial.
 
Similarly, if H-1B is such a boon to native skilled workers, why have their wages been flat for the last 10+ years, as shown by other research?   KKL need to face this issue.
 
In Bill's rejoinder, he dismisses these things as being beyond the scope of his paper.   I disagree.   The questions I'm raising here could (and should) arise in the peer reviewing process for the paper, and once again, a paper that is aimed at informing policymakers is not very helpful if it doesn't address these questions.   Mind you, I'm not saying that KKL should perform additional analysis; but they should at least include a section that brings up the apparent disconnect, with a bit of discussion.
 
4.   Failure to capture long-term structural effects.
 
One big point that KKL miss is the fact that H-1B and similar programs have, in the last two decades or so, dramatically changed the way tech employers hire -- and even the way they THINK about hiring, their basic premises.
 
I mentioned this in my analysis of Jenny Hunt's paper cited above, I stressed that there has been a gradual decline in the number of American students pursuing graduate study in STEM due to displacement by foreign students, who brought down wages [and career prospects; why kill yourself studying for a career that's cut off after 15 years?...jgo] and thus made graduate work unattractive to Americans.   (This was forecast, if not actually advocated, by our federal government's National Science Foundation.)
 
Jenny had written, "...economists have an as yet incomplete picture of the aggregate benefits to natives of skilled immigration.   In this paper, I address this by providing evidence not merely on skilled immigrants' private productivity, as measured by their wage, but also on their success in creating, disseminating and commercializing knowledge, activities with public benefits likely to increase U.S. total factor productivity...   [The sub-analyses here in different visa categories make] the results directly informative to policy-makers, who can use them to influence their decisions about which visa classes to expand or shrink and which transitions to legal permanent residence to facilitate."
 
I continue to regard the Hunt paper as one of the best that has been written on the subject, but look at the mindset above -- that immigration can only produce positive results, the only question being the degree of positiveness.   My objection was that one can't measure the impact of skilled immigrants without taking into account the DISPLACEMENT of Americans from STEM, such as that correctly forecast by the NSF.
 
Indeed, I've argued, e.g. in my EPI paper that at least in the field of computer science, the average quality of the immigrants (former foreign students) is lower than that of their American counterparts -- so that the displacement means a NET LOSS to the U.S. economy.   So displacement MATTERS.
 
Again, the NSF position paper in 1989 correctly forecast that H-1B (then on the drawing board) would result in fewer Americans going to grad school in STEM.   Many companies now take it for granted, without realizing it, that they are going to hire many or most of their R&D workers from the foreign student pool.   This is a major structural change, but it occurred gradually, so it would have been difficult or impossible for Jenny's analysis to detect the impact.
 
And the impact is definitely there.   Since many companies tend to assign those with grad degrees to R&D work, and since the latter produces new jobs, patents and so on, the failure to account for this structural change greatly reduces the value of the research.   And it certainly reduces the validity of the claims, such as quoted above, that the research should be useful for policy-makers.
 
The same thing is true for age.   I applaud KKL for investigating the connection between hiring of immigrants and reduced job opportunities for older (age 35+) Americans.   KKL found some tentative indications of an adverse impact, but nothing big, whereas I claim the real impact is indeed large.   Why didn't KKL pick that up?
 
Part of the reason is likely related to the methodological flaws I cited earlier.   But there is a much more important reason, similar to the grad-school displacement I mentioned above: Over the years, the use of H-1Bs to avoid hiring older American workers has become entrenched, indeed institutionalized in the tech industry.   HR departments routinely ear-mark positions with labels New College Graduate and Recent College Graduate.   Though of course there sometimes are exceptions, basically the fundamental hiring structure is now set for the young.   You may recall a MSFT quote stating this, that I cite often.   If employers run out of young Americans to hire and run out of H-1B visa allotments, they do not resort to hiring the older Americans.   This is quite a contrast to the old days, in which experience was highly valued.
 
Accordingly, the short-term demand for older workers is rather inelastic with respect to the number of H-1Bs, even though the long-term impact has been severe.   So of course KKL won't detect much in their relatively short-term study.   (BTW, KKL didn't cite any of the statistical studies that show the problems older engineers face in the job market.)
 
Just as the industry has gotten into the habit of hiring the young, it has over the years also gotten into the habit of hiring Americans mainly at the bachelor's level.   As I've mentioned before, staunch H-1B supporter Texas Instruments has publicly stated this.
 
But this aspect works in ways one might not first think of.   During good times for a firm, they greatly raise starting salaries for the new bachelor's graduates -- giving the latter a great incentive to NOT pursue graduate study.   Then if the firm concentrates its R&D on those with graduate degrees, it would appear in analyses like KKL's patents, job creation etc. would not have occurred if there had been no H-1B program.   Again, I assert the opposite -- that we would have a stronger tech industry today without H-1B.   [Without H-1B, with better career opportunities, more US citizens would pursue graduate study, more would take grad school while working, more would be hired into R&D projects, and thus get their names on more patent applications...jgo]
 
In short, KKL's paper does not/cannot detect harmful aspects of H-1B that have built up gradually over the years, via changes in hiring patterns related to H-1B.   Again, I'm not saying KKL should have done more analysis in this regard, but they should have recognized it.
 
Bill did use the qualifier "short term" in his remarks to the NYT.   But the public policy changes being considered will be LONG-TERM if enacted.   Again, since the takeaway from KKL's paper by congress and the press as giving the green light to those long-term changes as being beneficial.   Given that the paper explicitly bills itself as being aimed at informing public debate, KKL should have discussed potential long-term negative effects.   I'm sorry for harping on this point, but clearly it's important.   (Note similar phrasing in the Hunt quote above.)
 
5.   Conclusion.
 
KKL's paper makes a contribution in that it is focused on the firm level.   (Some of my analyses have been on that level too.)   It makes interesting use of a new data set, and is to be lauded for attempting to confirm the adverse impact of H-1B on older American workers.
 
However, the paper uses just one methodology that even advocates concede can be misleading.   The paper's rosy implications do not jibe with a number of other statistical research papers, and KKL make no attempt to reconcile, or even recognize, such clashes.   IMO, KKL substantially over-state the relevance of their findings to formulation of public policy.
 
Norm
---30---

2013-07-02
Kenneth T. Walsh _US News & World Report_
left waging insane war on coal as part of warmist hysteria, GOP rallying to the defense
Trip Gabriel: NYTimes

2013-07-02
Eric Markowitz _Inc._
H-1B visas are a clever trick for getting flood of cheap, young, pliant, low-skilled foreign labor with flexible ethics

2013-07-02
Bridget Johnson _PJMedia_
Argentina blocks their prosecutor from telling US Congress about Iran's troubling terror network in the Western Hemisphere
"just leads to suspicion over president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's true intentions in keeping Nisman bottled up.   Her husband, late president Nestor Kirchner, admitted in 2005 that the government covered up evidence to stymie the investigation into the attack.   After that apology came Nisman's first accusation pointing toward Hezbollah and Iran, eventually naming the shot-callers as Mohsen Rabbani, Iran's cultural attaché to Buenos Aires at the time of the bombing and the alleged coordinator of Iranian cells across the continent; Mohsen Rezai, currently Iran's secretary of the Expediency Council; Ali Akbar Velayati, minister of foreign affairs at the time of the attack; then-President Hashemi Rafsanjani; then-Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian; and, as the final stamp of approval, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.   Interpol red alert notices are active for Rabbani, Fallahian and Rezai.   Upon protest from Iran in 2007, Interpol's executive committee agreed not to issue red notices for Rafsanjani and Velayati."

2013-07-02
_KGO San Francisco CA_
2.5M Californians exposed in data breaches

2013-07-02
_MarketWatch_
most only have a 50% chance of saving enough for retirement

2013-07-02
Eli Stokols _KDVR Denver CO_
US senator Mark Udall being challenged for re-election
"state senator Owen Hill (R-Colorado Springs)... Other current and former law-makers have expressed interest in the race, from former congressman and gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez to state senator Randy Baumgardner (R-Hot Sulphur Springs), and representative Amy Stephens (R-Monument)...   Hill [voted] earlier this year for the ASSET bill, which gives undocumented immigrants in-state college tuition...   With Udall last weekend touting the senate's passage of a [reprehensible immigration law perversion] bill [S744] along with Gang of 8 member, Democratic senator Michael Bennet...   Hill said: 'I like some aspects of the bill, like lifting the cap on STEM visas and moving DREAMers to the front of the line...   There's a special section in the bill for ski instructors here.   That's ridiculous.   We can't do this comprehensively.   We need to start with the low-hanging fruit: secure the border, implement E-Verify and remove those caps on STEM visas.'"

2013-07-02
Patrick J. Buchanan
why the Reagan Dems departed
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-03

2013-07-03 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT) (14:30 Jerusalem)
Tom Stengle & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
DoL regulations
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 333,920 in the week ending June 29, a decrease of 2,595 from the previous week.   There were 369,826 initial claims in the comparable week in 2012.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.1% during the week ending June 22, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week's unrevised rate.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 2,766,055, a decrease of 42,033 from the preceding week's revised level of 2,808,088.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.5% and the volume was 3,145,031.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending June 15 was 4,557,765, an increase of 1,059 from the previous week.   There were 5,857,081 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2012.   Extended Benefits were not available in any state during the week ending June 15...   States reported 1,667,864 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending June 15, a decrease of 39,245 from the prior week.   There were 2,616,147 persons claiming EUC in the comparable week in 2012.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" (the divisor) changes roughly quarterly:
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03;
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25;
to 125,560,066 beginning 2011-01-15;
to 125,572,661 beginning 2011-04-02;
to 125,807,389 beginning 2011-07-02;
to 126,188,733 beginning 2011-10-01;
to 126,579,970 beginning 2012-01-01;
to 127,048,587 beginning 2012-04-07;
to 127,495,952 beginning 2012-07-14;
to 128,066,082 beginning 2012-10-06;
to 128,613,913 beginning 2013-01-05;
to 129,204,324 beginning 2013-04-06.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2013-07-03
Jim Steele
Inuits' vs. "scientists'" counts of polar bears, whales, etc.
"The Inuit claim 'it is the time of the most polar bears'.   By synthesizing their community’s observations they have demonstrated a greater accuracy counting Bowhead whales and polar bears than the models of credentialed scientists...   A study of radio-collared female bears denning on Wrangel Island determined that after the bears left the island they travelled an average distance of about 3,700 miles.   Although much of their travel is confined within a less extensive region, one radio-collared female was observed in Alaska in late May and tracked to Greenland by early October.   Such wide-ranging movements allow rapid adjustments to the Arctic's annually varying food supplies."

2013-07-03
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
"Grace"
"Today marks the fourth and final day for my Gettysburg Sesqui experience.   I've seen many sites, making a point of it, to the best of my ability, to be at sites where my kin were involved in the horrors of the battle.   For example, last night, I stood on East Cemetery Hill, where my kin in the 7th West Virginia helped to repel the assault of the Louisiana Tigers..."

2013-07-03
Patrick J. Michaels
great news from Greenland's Jokabshavn glacier

2013-07-03
Thomas E. Brewton
Obummer removes the dictatorial mask, leftists are thrilled
"President Obama seems to be motivated in all his actions by a relentless drive to diminish the national security of the United States in world political and military affairs.   Touring Africa, he tells audiences not to trust the United States.   In Berlin recently he spoke of arms reduction in the face of Russia's moving naval squadrons into the Mediterranean and [Red China's] growing naval provocations of Japan that threaten to fuel a new world military conflict.   Meanwhile he has taken not a single effective action to prevent Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.   At home, he is proposing to reduce energy supplies and to raise their cost to consumers and business in the name of discredited, criminal schemes to promote the social-engineering implicit in so-called global warming.   He continues to champion failing green energy companies, wasting billions of [tax-victims'] dollars.   Further evidence that all of this is driven by the Godless religion of socialism, and not by true scientific rationality, is sketched in this Investor's Business Daily editorial.   Obama vows to destroy the coal mining industry, to hinder drilling for new petroleum deposits, to forestall the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, and to block expansion of fracking for oil and natural gas.   All of these punitive measures he proposes to implement via executive orders and regulatory actions by agencies such as the EPA.   Doing so means neutering the checks and balances structured by our Constitution.   The effect is to bypass Congress and the voters and to consolidate legislative, executive, and judicial powers in one person, His Exalted Excellency Hussein Obama.   As those who wrote the Constitution in 1787 repeatedly noted, while granting sufficient power to the Federal government to protect citizens, avoiding collectivization of power in one individual or one small group of people is essential to preservation of political and economic liberties.   Hence the checks of states' right under the 10th Amendment, along with the separation of powers among congress, the presidency, and the judiciary, all of which Obama has publicly lamented and is apparently determined to subvert."

2013-07-03
Todd Starnes _Town Hall_
corrupt Obummer/Holder DoJ claims "tolerance" trumps right to educate your own children

2013-07-03
Aaron Klein _World Net Daily_
Muslim Brotherhood plots to form new terrorist group
"The official said the possibilities the Muslim Brotherhood members were discussing include formally renouncing membership in the Muslim Brotherhood so they can direct attacks, including against tourist sites in Egypt.   The Brotherhood's proposed military wing would model itself after Al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya, a notorious Egyptian terror group founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, the official said."
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2013-07-03
Ben Popper & Carl Franzen _Verge_
Sili Valley execs' agenda is gutting STEM industries' middle class?
"'The workers are being completely ignored.'   As it turns out, the tech community is anything but united on this issue.   And the push for new reforms has highlighted the divide between Silicon Valley elite who want access to talent and middle class American IT workers who feel threatened by foreign competition.   'What is happening is that the people who run this industry are getting everything they want, and the workers are being completely ignored.', said Kim Berry, a coder for the California Department of Public Health and a spokesman for the Programmer's Guild.   'American workers are being passed over in favor of foreign workers who make far less money, and politicians seem oblivious to our plight.'...   Along with paying these foreign workers less, says Berry, tech companies believe they can get more out of them.   'If a company is holding the reins to the process of getting a green card, and they ask them to come in on the weekends, what do you think they're going to say?   These tech companies want people who will work 80 hours a week without complaining.   It's basically a form of indentured servitude.'...   But the claim that tech companies can't find enough qualified US candidates to hire, and need more foreign workers to fill positions instead, is hotly contested.   '[200K to 330K] Americans graduate with STEM degrees every year.', says Kim Berry, citing figures from the US Department of Education [from 1982 through 2011], the latest years for which data is available on-line.   'We don't have a shortage of native workers.   We have an industry looking to cut costs.'...   Morgan Missen, one of Silicon Valley's top tech recruiters, who worked to find engineers for Google, Twitter, and Foursquare and now runs her own talent agency.   'For the people who live in the bubble of the Valley, and consider themselves politically engaged, there is a lot of cognitive dissonance around immigration.'   Morgan says that the foreign nationals she recruits are being paid just as well as their American counterparts.   'But once you get away from the top-tier engineers, I think that there are a lot of temporary foreign workers who are being exploited, and who are putting the squeeze on Americans.', says Missen.   'When it comes to immigration reform, the tech middle class is not being represented, and they are losing out.'"
Studies by Norm Matloff at UC Davis have shown that even the best of H-1B recipients are paid barely above the average.   Several other studies have shown that H-1B grantees tend to be paid 10%-35% below comparable US citizens.   In addition, executives of foreign-based cross-border bodyshops have bragged that they can pay the guest-workers 25%-35% below US compensation.   Dozens of scholarly studies over the last 23 years have concluded that there is sufficient US STEM talent, and several such studies over the last decade concluded that we've been producing 2 to 3 times as many degreed US citizen STEM workers as we've been employing to do STEM work...jgo

2013-07-03
Steve Sailer
a 4th of July spit in Americans' faces from Slate
V Dare

2013-07-03
Steve Sailer _V Dare_
has a single billionaire criticized S744?
"According to Forbes, there are a little over 400 billionaires in the U.S.A...   Here's a question -- in the latest round of controversy over immigration, has a single billionaire spoken up publicly against expanding [already orders of magnitude excessive] immigration?"

2013-07-03
Jennifer Harper _Washington DC Times_
Libertarian Gary Johnson thinks "this Independence Day is different"
".This Independence Day feels a little different.', he says.   'The news in recent weeks about the IRS using its force against certain targeted groups has reminded us that, absent vigilance on our part, the government will abuse the power it has accumulated.   Likewise, as we learn more about the massive surveillance being conducted by the NSA and the FBI, a lot of Americans are today thinking and talking about the 4th Amendment and its intended protections against unreasonable searches.'   Mr. Johnson continues, 'These revelations are bringing long-overdue attention to the liberties the Founding Fathers worked so hard and sacrificed so much to provide and protect.   It is more than a little ironic that the Revolution was prompted, in part, by abusive tax policies and unreasonable searches -- on the part of tyrants.'   He concludes, Regardless of our plans for this Independence Day, I hope they include remembering that the battle for freedom never ends, and dedicating ourselves to restoring the liberty on which our great nation was founded.   That is the most patriotic thing we can do on the Fourth, and in all the days that follow.'"

2013-07-03 (5773 Tamuz 25)
R' Mark Miller & Harold Berman _Jewish World Review_
Why American Judaism is self-destructing and what to do about it

2013-07-03 (5773 Tamuz 25)
Greg Gordon _Jewish World Review_
NSA adding to massive, pervasive surveillance

2013-07-03 (5773 Tamuz 25)
Ryan Lenora Brown _Jewish World Review_
un-paid internships spawn suits
"at least 500K students (and perhaps more than 1M) take jobs each year that offer no pay.   Those numbers have been on a steady upward march over the past two decades, as internships have crowded out entry-level jobs as the starting point in many career fields.   But now the system is being challenged in court, which may signal that the heyday of the unpaid internship is coming to an end."

2013-07-03 (5773 Tamuz 25)
Michelle Malkin _Jewish World Review_
rescuing citizenship and civic virtue
Town Hall
"But Thomas Jefferson said it well: 'No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and...their minds are to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and to be deterred from those of vice...   These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure and order of government.'   John Adams said it better: 'Liberty can no more exist without virtue...than the body can live and move without a soul.'   And Thomas Paine said it best: "When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.'   Civic virtue cannot be purchased with token gestures or passed down in perfect form like a complete set of family china.   A life of honor, honesty, integrity, self-improvement and self-discipline is something you strive ever to attain.   Being American is a habit of mind, but also a habit of heart and soul.   Abraham Lincoln spoke of the 'electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world'.   Calvin Coolidge, profiled in _Why Coolidge Matters_, a terrific new book by Charles C. Johnson, echoed the Founding Fathers' emphasis on virtue, restraint and work ethic. 'If people can't support themselves', he concluded, 'we'll have to give up self-government.'"

2013-07-03 (5773 Tamuz 25)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
distrusting government
Town Hall

2013-07-03 (5773 Tamuz 25)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
the mind-set of the left, part2 of 4
Town Hall
"If you use a bureaucratic definition of poverty as including all individuals or families below some arbitrary income level set by the government, then it is easy to get the kinds of statistics about 'the poor' that are thrown around in the media and in politics.   But do those statistics have much relationship to reality?   'Poverty' once had some concrete meaning -- not enough food to eat or not enough clothing or shelter to protect you from the elements, for example.   Today it means whatever the government bureaucrats, who set up the statistical criteria, choose to make it mean.   And they have every incentive to define poverty in a way that includes enough people to justify [illfare] state spending...   If our goal is for people to get out of poverty, there are plenty of heartening examples of individuals and groups who have done that, in countries around the world.   Millions of 'over-seas Chinese' emigrated from China destitute and often illiterate in centuries past.   Whether they settled in Southeast Asian countries or in the United States, they began at the bottom, taking hard, dirty and sometimes dangerous jobs.   Even though the overseas Chinese were usually paid little, they saved out of that little, and many eventually opened tiny businesses.   By working long hours and living frugally, they were able to turn tiny businesses into larger and more prosperous businesses.   Then they saw to it that their children got the education that they themselves often lacked.   By 1994, the 57M over-seas Chinese created as much wealth as the 1G people living in China.   Variations on this social pattern can be found in the histories of Jewish, Armenian, Lebanese and other emigrants who settled in many countries around the world -- initially poor, but rising over the generations to prosperity.   Seldom did they rely on government, and they usually avoided politics on their way up...   Such groups concentrated on developing what economists call 'human capital' -- their skills, talents, knowledge and self discipline.   Their success has usually been based on that one four-letter word that the left seldom uses in polite society: 'work'.   There are individuals in virtually every group who follow similar patterns to rise from poverty to prosperity."
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-04: Independence Day

2013-07-04
Willis Eschenbach
the high cost of government-controlled energy

2013-07-04
Guy Benson _Town Hall_
California beach-goers are embarrassingly clueless about American history (video)

2013-07-04
Larry Elder _Town Hall_
Obummer is causing more blacks to vote Republican

2013-07-04
Cal Thomas _Town Hall_
"Posterity!   You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom.   I hope you will make good use of it." -- John Quincy Adams

2013-07-04
John Ransom _Town Hall_
the dictatorship has arrived in the USA

2013-07-04
Emmett Tyrrell _Town Hall_
Ted Kennedy, the USA's insane immigration laws, the senate's efforts to make them worse, and selective prohibition
"From his earliest days in the Senate until his last, he kept struggling for an ever changing, usually worsening, set of policies toward relaxing our immigration laws...   We had a workable system for immigration in the early 1960s.   By the time Teddy turned up his toes immigration was practically hopeless...   the left have always been devoted to only one unchanging principle, disturbing one's neighbor.   They are not for freedom.   They are not for order.   The left is for disturbing the peace, and Teddy did a lot of hell-raising in his day...   Why then are [they] in a mad dash to legalize marijuana and to proscribe tobacco and booze."

2013-07-04
Paul Kengor _Town Hall_
celebrating natural law and independence
"They were not only declaring their independence from the British Crown (itself a huge deal); they were asserting self-evident truths and claiming certain unalienable rights that were theirs not only as Americans but as humans...   'There can be no doubt that those delegates in Philadelphia who adopted that Declaration believed in, and based the nation's independence on, the Natural Law.', states Robert Barker, professor emeritus of law at Duquesne University, and an eloquent expert on the subject.   Addressing the American Founders Lecture Series, held quarterly at Pittsburgh's Rivers Club by the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College, Barker defines Natural Law thusly: 'God, in creating the universe, implanted in the nature of man a body of law to which all human beings are subject, which is superior to man-made law, and which is knowable by human reason.'"

2013-07-04
David Stokes _Town Hall_
Lexington, Concord and the crypt in the basement
"Long before men named Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hancock, and Franklin became notable and influential, there were a few clergymen—yes, preachers—who meteorically blazed across the colonial sky...   In September of 1775...some Continental Army volunteers gathered at a church in the small coastal Massachusetts town of Newburyport, located almost 30 miles northeast of Boston.   They were about to go to battle—an initiative led by, of all people, Benedict Arnold.   The men decided that a little prayer accompanied by an extemporaneous sermon might be a good idea.   The town's Old South Church had found a bit of recent fame as people proudly pointed out that the bell in its clock tower had been cast by a fellow named Paul Revere, who had just months before made a name for himself on horseback.   Revere, of course, is better known for his connection to a certain Old North Church.   But some of the citizen-soldiers listening to Chaplain Samuel Spring's challenge that day knew that they were also in the presence of another important bit of history—something they saw as very relevant to the emerging War of Independence.   As they listened to the sermon that day, many of them couldn't help but be preoccupied with the pulpit itself.   On the Sunday immediately following the battles of Lexington and Concord, the local minister, Dr. Jonathan Parsons, spoke fervently about liberty.   His passion prompted a man named Ezra Hunt to step into the church's aisle to form a company of 60 fighting men on the spot—said to be the first such group to attach itself to the fledgling Continental Army...   Five years earlier, a famous preacher had been scheduled to speak at the Old South Church in Newburyport.   He was America's most famous clergyman, although his preferred appellation was -- 'revivalist'.   His name was George Whitefield.   He died that morning in 1770.   A few days later, with much grief and ceremony, he was buried in a crypt directly beneath the church's pulpit -- where his crypt remains to this day...   Many...were restless... they just wanted him to be done with his remarks so they could see Whitefield's tomb...   Ordained in the Church of England at the tender age of 22 in 1736, he quickly became well known for his voice—it was loud and commanding, but never shrill and off-putting.   It was said that he could speak to 30K people (Benjamin Franklin counted them once) and that all could hear him, even in the open air.   His diction and flair for dramatics had audiences hanging on every word...   The chronological locus for the Great Awakening was the period of 1740-1742, but the residual and enduring effects lasted into the revolutionary period.   And this is where the history being taught in schools today -- and that most of us grew up hearing—misses the boat..."

2013-07-04
Douglas MacKinnon _Town Hall_
Rush Limbaugh criticized Fox for their opposition to immigration reform
"Fox News [told] him to avoid talking about immigration...   go back and watch the June 20th airing of The O'Reilly Factor, where radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham absolutely eviscerated host Bill O'Reilly over his misguided support of this highly-flawed and incredibly damaging piece of legislation...   Ms. Ingraham easily knocked down earlier in the segment when she pointed out: 'The Republican Party will win more support in the Latino, Black, female, young-people sector if they start putting forth a pro-growth agenda for the middle-class instead of touting legislation that is going to hammer the middle class.'"

2013-07-04
_World Net Daily_/_Fox_
Muslim Brother leader, Mohammed Badie, arrested

2013-07-04
Aaron Klein _World Net Daily_
7 Hamas operatives arrested in Cairo
"7 members of Hamas were arrested in Cairo after being caught with explosive-laden cars meant to be used in a series of attacks in Egypt, according to a senior Egyptian intelligence official."

2013-07-04
Aaron Klein _World Net Daily_
Soros's partner, Mohamed El Baradei, favored for interim president of Egypt

2013-07-04
_Fox_
Egypt's chief justice Adly Mansour sworn in as interim president
Des Moines IA Register
CNN
Hamza Hendawi & Maggie Michael: Stars & Stripes/AP

2013-07-04
Chelsea Schilling _World Net Daily_
USA explodes with 100 anti-NSA protests

2013-07-04
Willis Eschenbach
cooking grandma: artificially high electricity and natural gas prices

2013-07-04
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
Will Oremus web log on Slate
 
A number of people have brought to my attention the Will Oremus column on Slate, "The Real Reason Silicon Valley Tech Workers Are Fighting Immigration Reform".
 
Normally, I would not mention such a column here, as it is 100% invective, not reasoning.   It accuses anti-H-1B tech workers of being xenophobes who simply don't like "furriners".   Other than to point out that many of those who are most opposed to expansion of H-1B are foreign-born themselves (one does reach one's 35th birthday regardless of where one is born, and then becomes vulnerable to being shunned by employers who younger H-1B), I would normally have no comment.
 
However, several people have asked me to comment on this passage in Oremus' screed: "...a Brookings 'study' found that H1-B workers in the tech industry make 26% more than their American counterparts."
 
Note to my valued readers: I ALREADY COMMENTED ON THE BROOKINGS "STUDY".   I pointed out the severe flaws in the Brookings study.   (Turns out that there are even more, discovered later by Hal Salzman.)   These are not subtleties or issues on which reasonable people might disagree; on the contrary, they are points that any solid researcher, regardless of ideology, would agree are serious errors.
 
I urge you to keep this in mind, because Brookings, with its prominence, will have its badly flawed findings repeated again and again.   Indeed, even the blog by Ben Popper, which Oremus contemptuously considers overly pro-tech worker, cites the Brookings study too.
 
Well, it's partly my own fault.   In my posting at the above URL, I decided to make it a combination research critique cum statistics lesson.   I was taught long ago the first rule of journalism -- "Don't bury your lead" -- and by mixing in material on statistics (the most hated topic in all of college curricula, a guaranteed turn-off), I did dilute the material on the Brookings study.
 
If you want to see why the Brookings research was so flawed, I refer you to the above [link].   I also urge you to read that post again because I state there, as elsewhere, a central point: the issue of underpayment of foreign workers has already been settled, by simple economic theory (or common sense) applied to the immobility of many of the foreign workers.   (Basically, all the ones being sponsored for a green card, as well as the ones hoping for sponsorship etc.)   People who are immobile can't move in the labor market to swing the best salary deal.   Therefore, on average, they will be under-paid relative to their true market worth.
 
Norm
---30---

2013-07-04
Tom Piatak _Chronicles_
they don't like hot dogs, and they don't like us

2013-07-04
Steve Sailer _V Dare_
La Liberte Eclairant Le Monde (Liberty Enlightening the Wrold), NOT "the statue of immigration"

2013-07-04 (5773 Tamuz 26)
Victor Davis Hanson _Jewish World Review_
the press and Dr. Faustus
Town Hall
St. Augustine FL
"Sometimes the media and Obama were one big happy family -- literally.   The siblings of the presidents of ABC an CBS News both are higher-ups in the [Obummer regime].   The White House press secretary's wife is a correspondent for ABC's 'Good Morning America'.   When Obama's chief political aide, David Axelrod, went to work for MSNBC, Obama joked, '...a nice change of pace, because MSNBC used to work for David Axelrod'."

2013-07-04 (5773 Tamuz 26)
judge Andrew P. Napolitano _Jewish World Review_
Jefferson weeping
"We can consent to the powers necessary to protect us from force and fraud, and to the means of revenue to pay for a government to exercise those powers.   But no one can consent to the diminution of anyone else's natural rights, because, as Jefferson wrote and the Congress enacted, they are inalienable.   Just as I cannot morally consent to give the government the power to take your freedom of speech or travel or privacy, you cannot consent to give the government the power to take mine.   This is the principle of the natural law: We all have areas of human behavior in which each of us is sovereign and for the exercise of which we do not need the government's permission.   Those areas are immune from government interference.   That is at least the theory of the Declaration of Independence, and that is the basis for our 237-year-old American experiment in limited government, and it is the system to which everyone who works for the government today pledges fidelity.   Regrettably, today we have the opposite of what the Framers gave us."

2013-07-04 (5773 Tamuz 26)
Ann Coulter _Jewish World Review_
I got 30M reasons
Town Hall
"Sorry to sound legalistic, illegal aliens, but you broke the law and -- look me in the eye -- you know you broke the law...   If illegals were Republicans, Chuck Schumer would be a 'Minuteman', patrolling the Mexican border 24-7...   And by the way, polluters are also hard workers.   They love their families and want the best for them, too.   I bet illegal aliens who rape women and kill people in drunk-driving accidents love their families.   Members of MS-13 work very hard at gang activities, such as, for example, when you cross them, they are very dogged about having you killed in a drive-by shooting.   That shows a real stick-to-itiveness.   But weirdly, Democrats are obsessed with amnesty only for the law-breakers that will get them 30M new voters.   (Violent felons come next.)   Republicans don't have to be brave to vote against amnesty.   They need to not be idiots."

2013-07-04 (5773 Tamuz 26)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
the mind-set of the left, part3 of 4
Town Hall
"The fundamental problem of the political left seems to be that the real world does not fit their preconceptions.   Therefore they see the real world as what is wrong, and what needs to be changed, since apparently their preconceptions cannot be wrong."

2013-07-04
_Top Talk Radio_
TSL top 25 streaming programs
Talkers
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-05

2013-07-05
_Youngstown OH Vindicator_
YWCA STEM workshop targets girls
"The program targeting girls seeks to provide an introduction to manufacturing careers available."

2013-07-05
Mike Flynn _Breitbart_
only 47% of working age people in USA have a full-time job
"those who don't are finding it increasingly out of reach.   Of the 144M Americans employed last month, only 116M were working full-time.   Friday's report showed that 58.7% of the civilian adult population of 245M was working last month.   Only 47% of Americans, however, had a full-time job.   The market's positive reaction to Friday's report is another sign of how far our economic expectations have fallen.   If today the same proportion of Americans worked as just a decade ago, there would be almost 9M more people working.   Just in the last year, almost 2M Americans have left the labor force."

2013-07-05
Jennifer Waters _MarketWatch_
BLS jobs report under-estimates under-employed: growth in the wrong places
Heather Boushey: a long way from full employment
recovery only for part-time temps
Investor's Business Daily
Mike Shedlock: Town Hall
MarketWatch graphs
graphs

2013-07-05
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
June jobs: record displacement of American workers by immigrants (with tables & graphs)
"nearly half of the June job gains are needed just to absorb the 90K legal immigrants that arrive in the U.S. every month.   It's why VDARE.com keeps saying there should be an immigration moratorium...   the job market is fairly strong—but for immigrant workers only.   Native-born Americans continue to lose jobs, exit the labor force, and retire earlier than planned...   The Household Survey now reports place of birth (but not legal status—it includes illegals).   This allows us to see that behind the job growth lie two disparate job markets: Total employment rose by 160K, or by 0.11%; Native-born employment fell by 84K, or by -0.07%; Foreign-born employment rose by 244K, or by 1.05%.   Immigrant job growth north of 1.0% per month is particularly noteworthy.   If that rate persists, immigrant employment will double within 72 months—or by 2019 June.   That surely rivals (exceeds?) immigrant job growth in any comparable period of U.S. history...   the immigrant share of total U.S. employment in June—16.34%—was higher than in any other June during the [Obummer regime]...   Since 2009 January: Foreign-born employment rose by 1.895M, or by 8.8%.   The immigrant employment index rose from 100.0 to 108.8.   Native-born American employment declined by 58K or by -0.05%.   The native-born American employment index in 2013 June was a tad below 100.0—actually below the level of 2009 January.   IOW, NVDAWDI (the ratio of immigrant to native-born employment growth indexes) rose from 100.0 to a record 108.8 (100X(108.8/100.0)...   Over the past 12 months: Immigrants gained 685K jobs, a 3.0% increase; native-born workers gained 955K positions, a 0.8% increase.   ADVANTAGE (RELATIVELY SPEAKING) IMMIGRANTS.   The immigrant unemployment rate fell by 1.6 percentage points -- or by 19.8%; native-born unemployment fell by 0.4 percentage points -- a 4.7% decline.   ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS; IN ADDITION: The labor force participation rate—a measure of worker confidence—increased for immigrants but declined for the native-born Americans.   At 67.2%, the immigrant participation rate in June was 3.8% points above the native-born American rate.   ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS."
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-06

2013-07-06
Richard Lynn _V Dare_/_Salisbury Review_
a century of iq in Britain and the USA
"The intelligence quotient or, to give its popular acronym, IQ, has now achieved its centenary.   This measure of our thinking, problem-solving, learning and memory abilities was devised in 1912 by Wilhelm Stern, a professor of psychology at the University of Breslau, now Wroclaw in Poland.   Stern's IQ scale was constructed with the average set at 100, and with a range from 0 to about 200.   Approximately 96% of people have IQs between 70 and 130, with about 2% below 70 and 2% above 130.   People with IQs below 70 have some degree of learning difficulty, but most of these have IQs between 50 and 70 and function reasonably well performing undemanding jobs.   About 1 person per 1K has an IQ of 145 and above, and IQs higher than 160 are possessed by only approximately 1 person in 30K.   An IQ of 200 is about the highest ever recorded and is very rare.   It has been estimated that this IQ was possessed by Francis Galton, Blaise Pascal and John Stuart Mill [and Marilyn Vos Savant]."

2013-07-06
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
no hope on the jobs front
"Do you remember the promise of the New Economy that was going to replace the lost 'dirty fingernail' manufacturing jobs with innovative highly paid New Economy jobs?   Well, the promise was just another deception from the elites who have stolen Americans' future.   For the umpteenth consecutive month and year, the June BLS pay-roll jobs report (released on July 5) shows that the US economy has created no such jobs.   The same old tired categories account for the same old lowly paid new domestic service jobs.   Of the 195K new private sector jobs alleged to have been created, 75K or 38% are accounted for by the category 'leisure and hospitality'.   Within this category there were 52K new waitresses and bartenders, and 19K jobs in 'amusements gambling, and recreation'.   Retail trade added 37K employees.   Is your local shopping center that busy? Wholesale trade added 11K...   Professional and business services added, allegedly, 53K jobs, which are largely building management services, janitors, employment services, and temporary help."

2013-07-06 (5773 Tamuz 27)
Mark Morris _Jewish World Review_
terrorist fell prey to fraud scheme
"In a recent letter to a New York federal judge, the lawyer representing cell member Sabirhan Hasanoff acknowledged that his client once had dreamed of jihad glory, only to get rolled by a Yemeni bunco terrorist...   Members of this cell preferred consensus to rigid military discipline.   And they were squeamish about suicide missions.   All naturalized American citizens, they were: Khalid Ouazzani, a Kansas City used auto parts salesman who had gone broke investing in local real estate.   Wesam El-Hanafi, a Brooklyn information technology security specialist who had worked at Lehman Brothers investment bank before taking his family to Dubai about 2005.   Sabirhan Hasanoff, a Brooklyn accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers who also relocated to Dubai, in 2007.   All are married and all have children."

2013-07-06 (5773 Tamuz 27)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
clueless about Cairo coup

2013-07-06 (5773 Tamuz 27)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
the mind-set of the left, part4 of 4
"At the heart of the left's vision of the world is the implicit assumption that high-minded third parties like themselves can make better decisions for other people than those people can make for themselves...   As someone who left home at the age of 17, with no high school diploma, no job experience and no skills, I spent several years learning the hard way what poverty is like.   One of the happier times during those years was a brief period when I worked 60 hours a week -- 40 hours delivering telegrams during the day and 20 hours working part-time in a machine shop at night.   Why was I happy? Because, before finding these jobs, I had spent weeks desperately looking for any job, while my meager savings dwindled down to literally my last dollar, before finally finding the part-time job at night in a machine shop.   I had to walk several miles from the rooming house where I lived in Harlem to the machine shop located just below the Brooklyn Bridge, in order to save that last dollar to buy bread until I got a pay-day.   When I then found a full-time job delivering telegrams during the day, the money from the two jobs combined was more than I had ever made before.   I could pay the back rent I owed on my room and both eat and ride the subways back and forth to work.   I could even put aside some money for a rainy day.   It was the closest thing to nirvana for me.   Thank heaven there were no busybodies to prevent me from working more hours than they thought I should...   As the morally anointed busybodies raised the minimum wage rate, beginning in the 1950s, black teenage unemployment skyrocketed...   The prosperous busybodies of the left are constantly promoting policies which reduce the existing options of poor people even more.   It would never occur to the busybodies that multi-national corporations are expanding the options of the poor in third world countries, while busybody policies are contracting their options.   Wages paid by multi-national corporations in poor countries are typically much higher than wages paid by local employers.   Moreover, the experience that employees get working in modern companies make them more valuable workers and have led in China, for example, to wages rising by double-digit percentages annually.   Nothing is easier for people with degrees to imagine that they know better than the poor and uneducated.   But, as someone once said, 'A fool can put on his coat better than a wise man can put it on for him.'"
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-07

2013-07-07
Peter H. Milliken _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Confederates made 1 "major" attack in Ohio
"John Hunt Morgan... Having left Tennessee on June 11, some 2,200 soldiers and horses participating in Morgan's raid crossed the Ohio River in two stolen steamboats from Kentucky to Indiana on July 8.   Morgan's Raiders entered Ohio on July 13, and Ohio's only Civil War battle occurred July 19 at Buffington Island, where Morgan's troops clashed with Union forces while Morgan was trying to get his raiders back across the Ohio River into West Virginia.   Fewer than 200 of Morgan's troops were able to cross the river, and an additional 700 of them were captured."

2013-07-07
Charles Krauthammer
the costs of pres. Obummer's warmist hysteria power-play

2013-07-07
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
White House farm and the death of captain Summers

2013-07-07
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
a hiring manager speaks
 
Last Sunday I posted a message here, with the permission of the sender, who had found a good job with an electronics firm, after having applied 50 times for jobs at Intel, all with rejection.   A hiring manager who subscribes to this e-news-letter replied to me with the message enclosed below, again posted here with the permission of the sender.
 
Well, you all know the term "gatekeeper", and of course that describes the hiring policies that this manager cites to a T.   (Not the manager's fault of course, as he is just the messenger here.)
 
I can understand how applying for 50 positions might raise a red flag to some degree.   But Intel is a huge company, with lots of openings (as their lobbyists keep telling us).   Why shouldn't someone seeking work apply for all the jobs the person is qualified for?
 
At any rate, if Intel does have such a policy, it is completely at odds with their claim to have a "chronic shortage" (Intel's frequent phrasing) of engineers.
 
But let's put that 50X thing aside.   The really troubling passage in the manager's message is, "Next, we don't know if he was employed at the time he applied to Intel.   Some companies prefer to hire people who are currently employed."   Ah, now the truth comes out!   It is a truth that many job seekers have long suspected, of course, and a central tenet in advice I myself give, but it is a remarkable confession.
 
Here I must interject my usual disclaimer: No employer should be forced to hire a weak worker.   And there are lots of weak workers out there (whether American or H-1B).   But to automatically reject a candidate out of hand, sight unseen, because he is unemployed and thus MAY be "suspect", is (a) again completely at odds with the industry's "shortage" claims, and (b) contrary to the employers' own interests.
 
Unemployment happens.   A company hits hard times, and lays people off.   A worker has to make a move to another state, say due to family reasons.   Whatever.   Being unemployed doesn't mean there is "something wrong" with the person.
 
And then the mother of all causes of unemployment: aging.   The 27-year-old who has just been laid off will like find a new job very soon.   Not true for the 37-year-old, whom employers will consider too expensive.
 
I've mentioned many times my former student of about 15 years ago, who did all the right things.   He earned a bachelor's in EE and master's in CS, and then did such outstanding innovative work at a major firm that he was personally written up in the Wall Street Journal.   But then a merger came, followed by a huge lay-off.   After that, a repeating cycle of unemployment, lowered pay and further lay-offs.   The guy whose work had been lauded in the WSJ eventually bit the bullet and left the field.
 
That incident illustrates a point I've often made: Aside from the human cost of all this, the nation as a whole is the real loser.   We not only lose when good people are forced out, but even more so when poor career prospects dissuade talented students from pursuing a tech career in the first place.   The president can incant the magic word "innovation" all he wants, but the sad truth is that the industry's policies are achieving the opposite of the stated goals.
 
So, you ask me, what should Intel do to deal with the mountain of applications it receives, if not use filters like those above?   That so-called "problem" is actually one of an embarrassment of riches.   It is disingenuous, to say the least, for Intel to claim a "shortage" while spending more effort on gatekeeping than on filling jobs.
 
Norm
 
On Sun, 2013 Jun 30, at 18:28:27 -0700, xxx wrote:
 
Norm,
 
I love your news-letter, but publishing this letter is unfortunate.   There are two sides to the story.   I'm a 60 year old manager in Silicon Valley and I've suffered what I believe to be age discrimination for at least the past 5 years.   However, if I take a hiring manager's perspective of this letter, I can see many reasons why the applicant wasn't interviewed by Intel.   Just the fact that he sent 50 resumes to the same company is a red flag.   Most companies the size of Intel having automated tracking systems for resume.   Once you've been passed-over for one job, sending your resume again for another, and another, raises a red flag.   I don't know the circumstances of this candidate, but sending 50 resumes sounds excessive.   If I were a hiring manager seeing his resume repeatedly, I'd be suspicious: is this guy "desperate"?   I don't want to hire people who are desperate.   I want people who want to work for me and my company.
 
I know this is true for other companies, as I've been advised when I've been an applicant that I shouldn't send my resume repeatedly.
 
Next, we don't know if he was employed at the time he applied to Intel.   Some companies prefer to hire people who are currently employed.   It's just another one of their subjective filters.   This could be the case for Intel.   If they receive hundreds of resumes for a job (happens often), they may filter down using this criteria.
 
Finally, we don't even know what his resume looks like.   Hiring managers make an assessment on the contents of the resume.   Even a well-written resume may be ignored because of statements made somewhere in the description, or for the tone.   It's totally subjective, and there's no way around it.
 
I'm not taking sides.   But I feel we should remain objective on this very important issue.   I don't feel this letter is a good example of age discrimination.
 
Hope this helps.
 
So, if you don't apply, you can't get the job and there's a turrrible shortage.   If you apply for more than one job that looks interesting and appropriate, you're "desperate" and won't get a job.   If you send a periodic (quarterly, annual) update, you're "desperate" and won't be considered.   If you're unemployed for more than a few weeks (in this time when the average duration of unemployment is up near 30 weeks), you must not be any good, and because we're inundated with applicants, we won't bother to find out whether you really are any good or not, and we certainly aren't willing to invest in 2-12 weeks of new-hire training, so you won't get a job for more weeks and months.   The only way to restore full employment is to break this dysfunctional thinking, cause each hiring manager to conscientiously consider each applicant and select the best.   And the only way to do that is to actually reduce the excess of job applicants, by, e.g. reducing the numbers of work visas...jgo

2013-07-07
"Soulskill" _SlashDot_
Sili Valley in 2013 resembles Logan's Run
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-08

2013-07-08
_Investor's Business Daily_
Obummer regime's Fast and Furious claims life of Mexican police chief

2013-07-08
Andrew C. McCarthy _PJ Media_
our "friends" the Saudis and their "moderate" sharia decapitations

2013-07-08
Guy Benson _Town Hall_
suspicious break-in at law office representing State Dept. whistle-blower
"Burglars stole 3 computers and broke into the firm's file cabinets.   But silver bars, video equipment and other valuables were left untouched...   The firm...represents...a former investigator at the State Department's Office of the Inspector General.   In recent weeks, she raised a slew of explosive allegations against the department and its contractors ranging from illicit drug use, soliciting sexual favors from minors and prostitutes and sexual harassment...   the firm was the only suite burglarized in the high-rise office building and an unlocked office adjacent was left untouched."

2013-07-08
_FAIR US_
mass immigration worsens the plight of American workers
UBM/PR NewsWire
Nation's Restaurant News
Finanz Nachrichten (Finance News)
News Blaze
Sacramento CA Bee
Auto-Mobi
iStockAnalyst
Financial Content
The Street
"As Congress debates legislation that would grant amnesty to 12M illegal aliens, dramatically increase the number of new immigrants to the United States, and give businesses easier access to foreign guest workers, a new report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) concludes that already excessive levels of immigration — legal and illegal — have contributed to higher unemployment and wage stagnation for American workers.
 
As Congress debates legislation that would grant amnesty to 12M illegal aliens, dramatically increase the number of new immigrants to the United States, and give businesses easier access to foreign guest workers, a new report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) concludes that already excessive levels of immigration — legal and illegal — have contributed to higher unemployment and wage stagnation for American workers.
 
Out of the Shadows: Shining a Light on Immigration and the Plight of the American Worker examines the impact of 40 years of historically high levels of immigration, and decades-long failure to control illegal immigration, on American workers. According to the report, easy access to immigrant labor — including an estimated 8M illegal aliens who are in our labor market — has helped businesses to boost their profit margins by tamping down wages. Even as the productivity of American workers has increased dramatically over the past 40 years, most workers have not seen a corresponding increase in their wages.
 
"The Congressional Budget Office confirmed the effect that mass immigration has on jobs and wages, projecting that the Gang of Eight bill would further increase unemployment and depress wages for at least a decade.  Nevertheless, the politicians and special interests who negotiated the bill behind closed doors continue to turn a blind eye to the gravely serious situation facing tens of millions of Americans.  It’s as if the American worker has become totally irrelevant to the immigration debate," said Dan Stein, president of FAIR.
 
"While other factors have contributed to the plight of American workers — most notably globalization, out-sourcing, and technology — flooding our labor market with tens of millions of immigrant workers has compounded the misery. Common sense might have dictated that we limit immigration to offset the impact of these other phenomena. However, our elected representatives have chosen to do precisely the opposite.", continued Stein.
 
The distinct advantage that mass immigration provides to employers is evident in the role these interests have played in lobbying for an illegal alien amnesty, higher levels of immigration, and greater access to guest workers. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business associations have poured more than $1G into lobbying for legislation along the lines of the Gang of Eight bill that was approved by the Senate [S744].
 
Among the key findings of Out of the Shadows:

• Wages in occupations that have high concentrations of illegal alien workers have remained stagnant or decreased, despite increased worker productivity and huge gains in corporate profits.
• Economic gains from immigration are almost entirely shared by immigrants and the employers of immigrants, while the costs of immigration are passed onto the American [tax-victim].
• Minorities and younger workers are disproportionately affected by competition from illegal aliens. The unemployment rate for teenagers in 2013 May was 24.5%. The unemployment rate for blacks was 13.5%, 78% higher than the national average.
• In 2007 May, the working-age population was 231M and 153M persons were employed. In 2013 May, 6 years later, the working-age population had increased by 14M while the number of employed had decreased by 2M.

2013-07-08
Jennifer Harper _Washington DC Times_
21% of young American veterans are unemployed
"'The nation's youngest veterans, ages 20-24, are experiencing one of the highest unemployment rates at 21%.', the research says.   It notes the rate is 7 percentage points higher than that of non-veteran peers of the same age, adding, 'Approximately 68% of post-2001/09/11 veterans ages 20-24 have been unemployed for more than five weeks.'"

2013-07-08
_NumbersUSA_
only 47% of working-age people in USA have a full-time job

2013-07-08
Deirdre Shesgreen & Carl Weiser _Cincinnati OH Enquirer_
John Boehner being pushed both ways on immigration

2013-07-08
Keith Wagstaff _The Week_
yes, employed tech workers are still mostly young and male: Over 35? That makes you an old-timer at many top tech firms
"The median age for FB workers is a spry 28 years old, according to a new survey of 32 top tech firms by Seattle-based PayScale.   That puts the company's workers at about the same level as those at Google (median age 29), as well as AOL, Blizzard Entertainment, and Monster.com, which all had median ages of 30.   Only 6 companies in the study had a median age higher than 35 -- well below the national median age for workers, 42.3.   Not only are most tech workers young, they are also overwhelmingly male.   The study found that women made up only 30% of the surveyed companies, despite the fact that they make up half of the U.S. work-force...   Young start-ups tend to hire people with less experience, who usually happen to be younger, writes Quentin Hardy at The New York Times.   He also pointed out that it's not a coincidence that the companies that have been around for a while -- MSFT, Cisco Systems, etc. -- are the ones hiring relatively older workers...   'You can be an exact fit but if you're 35, you're probably not going to even get a phone call.', Norman Matloff, a computer science professor at U.C. Davis, told NPR earlier this year.   'And meanwhile, the company is going to tell the press that there's just not any qualified people.'"

2013-07-08 (5773 Menachem-Ab 01)
Edmund Sanders _Jewish World Review_
Obummer supports terrorism

2013-07-08 (5773 Menachem-Ab 01)
MItchell Prothero _Jewish World Review_
violent Islamics see Egypt as proof that violence is the only way to power over others

2013-07-08 (5773 Menachem-Ab 01)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Who is racist?
Town Hall
"I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.   Apparently other Americans also recognize that the sources of racism are different today from what they were in the past.   According to a recent Rasmussen poll, 31% of blacks think that most blacks are racists, while 24% of blacks think that most whites are racist...   Among whites, according to the same Rasmussen poll, 38% consider most blacks racist and 10% consider most whites racist.   Broken down by politics, the same poll showed that 49% of Republicans consider most blacks racist, as do 36% of independents and 29% of Democrats.   Perhaps most disturbing of all, just 29% of Americans as a whole think race relations are getting better, while 32% think race relations are getting worse.   The difference is too close to call, but the fact that it is so close is itself painful -- and perhaps a warning sign for where we are heading.   Is this what so many Americans, both black and white, struggled for, over the decades and generations, to try to put the curse of racism behind us -- only to reach a point where retrogression in race relations now seems at least equally likely as progress?"
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-09

2013-07-09
Leah Barkoukis _Town Hall_
Obummer supporters sign petition to repeal Bill of Rights (video)

2013-07-09
Chuck Norris _Town Hall_
12 little-known facts about the Declaration of Independence, part 3

2013-07-09
Kurt Schlichter _Town Hall_
it's time to throw out all of the Dem and Rep senators who don't measure up
"The NYTimes hailed him as 'a studious, low-key legislator who worked well with senator Edward M. Kennedy', and Enzi probably thinks that's a compliment.   For that reason alone he needs to go...   We want Ted Cruzes and Rand Pauls, not Lindsey Grahams (BTW, South Carolina, somebody needs to get busy primarying Chuck Schumer's best buddy)."

2013-07-09
John Ransom _Town Hall_
our Declaration of Independence vs. housing perversion

2013-07-09
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
Who was this captain Summers who fell at White House farm?

2013-07-09
Steve Sailer _V Dare_
GOP got rolled on "path to citizenship": another example of why words matter

2013-07-09
Willis Eschenbach
pump price, miles driven, energy taxes: fun with graphs and statistics

2013-07-09
Jan Falstad _Billings MT Gazette_
extortion payment delays low, protests rising in Yellowstone county

2013-07-09
_Investor's Business Daily_
Obummer's "smart" government and cheap, young guest-workers in action

2013-07-09 (5773 Menachem-Ab 02)
Mona Charen _Jewish World Review_
racial morality play
"In Chicago alone, more than 200 people (mostly black) have been killed in just the past 6 months."

2013-07-09 (5773 Menachem-Ab 02)
Matthew Boyle _Breitbart_
McLaughlin poll: 60% of Hispanic voters favor reducing illegal immigration by 90% before considering easing the way for illegal aliens already here; 55% of registered voters backed increased border-security measures (fencing, drones, police, etc.)
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-10

2013-07-10
Russell Berman _Hill_
House Republicans set for critical meeting on immigration reform/perversion
Emma Dumain & Meredith Shiner: Roll Call

2013-07-10
Neil Munro _Daily Caller_
Congressional Leftist Black Caucus opposes immigration reform despite the on-going hit to black employment
"The CBC's passivity is 'egregious political malpractice', said Peter Kirsanow, a labor-lawyer and a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.   Many African-Americans oppose the proposed amnesty of 11M immigrants which they see as threat to their jobs and wages, Kirsanow said.   On talk-radio, 'the number of calls that come in are overwhelming and they are stridently opposed', he said.   'The folks on the ground get it… they see the adverse effects, and they don't want it doubled by another immigration bill.', he said.   On July 15, numerous African-American leaders are expected to lead a Washington DC rally against the immigration bill.   The event, dubbed 'DC March for Jobs', is being organized by the Black American Leadership Alliance.   More than 20 members of the 41-member black caucus met Tuesday with [pres. Obummer] at the White House."

2013-07-10
Lee Crognate _Town Hall_
run-away federal government spending is harming economic and military strength

2013-07-10
Matt Towery _Town Hall_
Tea Party movement must stay on course
"When it first came to life, the tea party movement burst on the scene with energy and pure direction that seared many a mind with images of huge crowds waving the red, white and blue.   It was all about taxes, and curtailing government spending, and liberty.   And it worked.   The crowds at tea party movement protests grew month-by-month in 2009 and became larger in 2010.   The GOP establishment slowly started to get the message that it was time to put the foot down on the ways of Washington and start speaking up for the conservative movement."

2013-07-10
Patrick Howley _Daily Caller_
corrupt Obummer/Holder DoJ drove anti-Zimmerman protests in 2012
Daily Mail
"The Community Relations Service (CRS), a unit of DoJ, reported expenses related to its deployment in Sanford to help manage protests between March and April 2012, according to documents obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch.   CRS spent $674.14 between March 25-27 related to having been 'deployed to Sanford, FL, to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an African-American teen by a neighborhood watch captain'.   CRS spent another $1,142.84 for the same purpose between March 25-28.   CRS spent $892.55 'to provide support for protest deployment in Florida' between March 30-April 1, and $751.60 'to provide technical assistance to the City of Sanford, event organizers, and law enforcement agencies for the march and rally on March 31'...   CRS expenditures related to the anti-Zimmerman protests continued through mid-April.   Between April 11 and April 12, CRS spent $552.35 'to provide technical assistance for the preparation of possible marches and rallies related to the fatal shooting of a 17 year old African American male'."

2013-07-10
John Ransom _Town Hall_
the ingenious stupidity of pres. Barack Hussein Obummer
"at some point the American people need to hear directly from Obama himself, so that he can answer the questions that reside in the back of all of our consciousness.   And the questions are these: Are you really this stupid or is this part of some devious plan?   I've never before seen the opposition so paralyzed before missteps, blunders, gaffes, scandals, admitted incompetency, greed, overreach, mismanagement, lies, outrageous crimes and...did I say greed?"

2013-07-10
Katie Pavlich _Town Hall_
after coup Obummer regime is still sending more F-16s to Egypt

2013-07-10
Terry Jeffrey _Town Hall_
Obummer is violating oath of office and US constitution

2013-07-10
Bob Barr _Town Hall_
the 21st century "know nothing" president
"For a few years during the middle of the 19th Century, a secretive political party rose to prominence in American politics, spurred by a cultural fear of new immigrants from Europe.   Membership in the party was tightly limited, and when members were questioned about the party's activity, they were only to respond: 'I know nothing.'   Today, more than a century and a half later, we have an adherent of this 'know nothing' political philosophy in the White House.   [President Barack Obummer's] standard response to questions about key problems facing his Administration is, 'I know nothing.'"

2013-07-10
Todd Starnes _Town Hall_
YWCA kicks pro-life students out

2013-07-10
Katie Pavlich _Town Hall_
$70M in bonuses to corrupt federal extortionoists might yet be put on hold

2013-07-10
Will Coggin _Town Hall_
putting meat myths to the fire

2013-07-10
Daniel J. Mitchell _Town Hall_
pick your favorite example of government thuggery and incompetence

2013-07-10
Anthony Watts
O.A. Denton quietly recorded the Death Vally record temperature of 134℉ back in 1913, but why are there 2 forms, with different hand-writing? And why is the government making such a propaganda event, now?

2013-07-10
_Christian Science Monitor_
more people around the world object to corruption

2013-07-10
Helen Collis _Daily Mail_
at Tel Hazor site in northern Israel archaeologists found what may be c. 300BCE Egyptian sphinx parts, inscriptions
"Amnon Ben-Tor, an archaeology professor at the Hebrew University in charge of the Tel Hazor dig, told AFP that the sphinx would have originally been placed by the temple of Mycerinus.   His is the smallest of the 3 great pyramids at Giza [near] Cairo...   Mr. Ben-Tor believes the sphinx was brought to Tel Hazor 3K years ago, either as war booty or as a gift to the then ruler of Hazor by an ancient Egyptian king.   He said: 'That it arrived in the days of Mycerinus himself is unlikely, since there were absolutely no relations between Egypt and this part of the world then.   'Egypt maintained relations with Lebanon, especially via the ancient port of Byblos, to import cedar wood via the Mediterranean, so they skipped' today's northern Israel, he said.   Another option is that the statue was part of the plunders of the Canaanites, who in the late 17th and early 16th century BCE ruled lower Egypt, the expert said...   'The third option is that it arrived in Hazor some time after the New Kingdom started in 1,550 BCE, during which Egypt ruled Canaan, and maintained close relations with the local rulers, who were left on their thrones,' he said."

2013-07-10
Laura Ingraham
USA birth rate hits all-time low
Alex Greig: Daily Mail (with graph)
"According to a recent analysis by the Pew Institute, since 2007 when there were a record 4,316,233 births, the number of births has been steadily declining, with 4.007M births in 2012 -- the lowest number since 1998...   There were 63.2 births per 1K women aged 15 to 44 in 2012, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, down from 69.3 births per 1K women in that age bracket in 2007...   The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that a middle-income two-parent family will spend $234,900 raising a child -- not including college...   The birth-rate among single women dropped substantially, as did the rate for young women in their teens and early 20s.   However, the birth-rate actually increased slightly for older women in their early 40s, and remained the same for women in their 30s."

2013-07-10
David Middleton
EPA sues Oklahoma utility... for obeying the law by changes to reduce emissions before EPA changed the rules out from under them (ex post facto)

2013-07-10
Thomas E. Brewton
Byron Wien says "monetary expansion is a very inefficient way to stimulate the economy"

2013-07-10
Bridget Johnson _PJ Media_
customs deal gives UAE big advantage over USA
"Despite an effort last month in the House to block it, the U.S.A. and the United Arab Emirates moved forward with a security-data exchange deal last week to pave the way for [insane, irresponsible] U.S. Customs and Border Protection pre-clearance for passengers flying to America from Abu Dhabi International Airport."

2013-07-10
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_
discontent over agriculture bills
"Daines told The Billings Gazette that the bill wasn't perfect, but it moved the debate forward on farm policy crucial to Montana's $3G-a-year agriculture economy.   Two other House attempts to pass a farm bill failed, with the latest stall occurring just 3 weeks ago.   It wasn't until Republicans stripped food stamps and other nutrition programs from the bill that enough GOP votes emerged to pass the legislation without support from minority Democrats."

2013-07-10
Sara Bibel _TV by the Numbers_
cable news ratings for Saturday-Sunday 2013-07-06 and 2013-07-07
most popular TV shows
worst cable TV shows and graph of dropping TV ratings
top talk radio audiences
(approximate minimum weekly cumulative)

1. Limbaugh 14M+
2. Hannity 13.23M+
3. Ramsey 7.75M+
4. Beck, Doyle, Levin 7.5M+
5. Bohannon, Gallagher, Medved, Savage, Stephan 3.5+
6. Bennett, Howard, Humphries, Noory 3.25+
7. Colmes, Hartmann, D. Miller, S. Miller, Schultz 2.75+
8. Imus, Komando, Smerconish 1.75M+
9. Mancow, Prager, Schnitt 1.5M+
10. Cain, Hewitt, Larson 1.25M+
11. Browne, Deal, Dean, Handel, Harley, McNamara, Hedgecock, Huckabee, John & Ken, McCullough, Sharpton 1M+

2013-07-10 (5773 Menachem-Ab 03)
Howard LaFranchi _Jewish World Review_
US-Red China cyber-security talks
"the hacking of US corporations to steal their industrial secrets and product innovations 'strikes right at the core of American economic interests'..."

2013-07-10 (5773 Menachem-Ab 03)
Danny Heitman _Jewish World Review_
letters and life
"When we write, we're making pictures of words."

2013-07-10 (5773 Menachem-Ab 03)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
black education tragedy
Town Hall
"She responded that she doesn't read cursive, and that's in addition to her poor grammar, syntax and communication skills.   Jeantel is a senior at Miami Norland Senior High School.   How in the world did she manage to become a 12th-grader without being able to read cursive writing?   That's a skill one would expect from a fourth-grader.   Jeantel is by no means an exception at her school.   Here are a few achievement scores from her school: 39% of the students score basic for reading, and 38% score below basic.   In math, 37% score basic, and 50% score below basic.   Below basic is the score when a student is unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at his grade level.   Basic indicates only partial mastery.   Few Americans, particularly black Americans, have any idea of the true magnitude of the black education tragedy.   The education establishment might claim that it's not their fault.   They're not responsible for the devastation caused by female-headed families, drugs, violence and the culture of dependency.   But they are totally responsible for committing gross educational fraud.   It's educators who graduated Jeantel from elementary and middle school and continued to pass her along in high school.   It's educators who [most likely] will, in 2014 June, confer upon her a high-school diploma...   According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, nationally most black 12th-graders test either basic or below basic in reading, writing, math and science.   Drs. Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom wrote in their 2004 book, _No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning_, 'Blacks nearing the end of their high school education perform a little worse than white eighth-graders in both reading and U.S. history, and a lot worse in math and geography.'   Little has changed since the book's publication...   Whether a student is black or white, poor or rich, there are some minimum requirements that must be met in order to do well in school.   Someone must make the student do his homework, see to it that he gets a good night's sleep, fix a breakfast, make sure he gets to school on time and make sure he respects and obeys his teachers."
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-11

2013-07-11 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT) (14:30 Jerusalem)
Tom Stengle & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
DoL regulations
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 384,829 in the week ending July 6, an increase of 49,778 from the previous week.   There were 442,192 initial claims in the comparable week in 2012.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.1% during the week ending June 29, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week's revised rate.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 2,768,879, a decrease of 16,079 from the preceding week's revised level of 2,784,958.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.4% and the volume was 3,112,199.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending June 22 was 4,505,508, a decrease of 52,257 from the previous week.   There were 5,874,101 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2012.   Extended Benefits were not available in any state during the week ending June 22...   States reported 1,644,987 persons claiming Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) benefits for the week ending June 22, a decrease of 22,877 from the prior week.   There were 2,606,287 persons claiming EUC in the comparable week in 2012.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" (the divisor) changes roughly quarterly:
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03;
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25;
to 125,560,066 beginning 2011-01-15;
to 125,572,661 beginning 2011-04-02;
to 125,807,389 beginning 2011-07-02;
to 126,188,733 beginning 2011-10-01;
to 126,579,970 beginning 2012-01-01;
to 127,048,587 beginning 2012-04-07;
to 127,495,952 beginning 2012-07-14;
to 128,066,082 beginning 2012-10-06;
to 128,613,913 beginning 2013-01-05;
to 129,204,324 beginning 2013-04-06;
to 129,827,178 beginning 2013-07-06.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2013-07-11
Anthony Watts
solar activity cycle still slumping

2013-07-11
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_
cattle raisers & meat-packers object to honest COOL
"The federal government wants to give consumers more information about where their meat comes from, but the U.S. meat industry is crying bull.   Livestock groups and meat-packers are suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture over Country of Origin Labeling, or COOL rules, arguing that 'consumer curiosity' isn't reason enough to disclose where an animal was born, raised and slaughtered.   Forcing the industry to do so is a violation of free speech, they say...   Probably the consumers who most want to know where their food comes from are those in their 20s and 30s.   They're also the consumers who have tighter budgets, said Bill Honaker, owner of Walkers American Grill in Billings.   For 20 years, Walkers has been telling customers where their food was raised.   Honaker sources everything from steaks to tomatoes all the way back to the farm from which it came.   Sometimes it's easy, but Montana's short growing season means Honaker searches far for ingredients during the long winter when the only thing growing on Montana stalks is hoarfrost...   If a COOL label causes the Mazatlan steak not to sell or drives down its price, the plaintiffs argued, that's wrong.   Bill Bullard disagrees.   If a consumer chooses a Mexican steak over an American one, that's competition, said Bullard, CEO of the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America.   Billings-based R-CALF USA has argued for years that consumers are willing to pay more for American beef than they are for beef from Canada or Mexico.   By not disclosing where the meat originated, the meat industry is selling foreign meat under the cloak of America's good beef reputation, R-CALF argues.   When the USDA unveiled its new COOL rules in May, giving the meat industry six months to switch to more detailed labels, R-CALF wanted more information than what the new labels offered, not less.   The meat industry has used labels to promote certain types of beef over others for years, Bullard said.   Its own marketing suggests not all cattle are the same."

2013-07-11
Anthony Watts
Harvard: higher CO₂ results in plants using water more efficiently

2013-07-11
Anthony Watts
from U of Liverpool: earth core affects lengths of days
"A year, 300M years ago, lasted about 450 days and a day would last about 21 hours.   As a result of the slowing down of the Earth's rotation, the length of day has increased."

2013-07-11
Patrick Thibodeau _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
electrical engineering employment trending down
"Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates, a research firm that analyzes IT wage and employment trends, said the labor pool decline means that people are leaving the job market.   Some are leaving labor market because they can't find the right jobs, or are retiring, said Janulaitis.   A declining labor pool is something to be very concerned about, he said.   'Not only is it a shrinking labor pool, but a shrinking tax base, a shrinking retail base.', said Janulaitis.   One electrical engineer, who has been out of work and is seeking a job, was asked what his experience is.   He offered this view, on agreement to withhold his name: 'It's an employers market out there.   I am getting interviews but, they have numerous candidates to choose from.   The employers are very fussy.   They are really only interested in a perfect match to their needs.   They don't want the cost to develop talent internally.   They are even trying to combine positions to save money.   I came across one employer trying to combine a mechanical and electrical engineer.', he said.   '[Employers] don't seem to like older employees or the long term unemployed.   The H1-B program just adds insult to injury.   It would be nice to know how many electrical engineers lost their jobs in the last year and how many H1-Bs and L-1s (jobs) went to electrical engineers during the same period.', he said.   'We electrical engineers are kind of the canary in the coal mind.   What's happening to us now, may happen to other STEM fields when the number of visas are increased.'"

2013-07-11
Margaret Heffernan _CBS_
surge in bodyshopping may hinder economic recovery
"According to a new survey conducted for job search site CareerBuilder, 44% of U.S. employers intend to hire full-time workers in the second half of 2013, while 25% will hire part-timers and 31% will hire temporary employees...   The U.S. now has 2.7M temporary workers [bodies shopped] -- more than ever before in its history.   These are people who typically lack health care benefits and any paid sick leave or time off.   Meanwhile, those who work in construction and manufacturing are twice as likely to be injured as permanent employees and, of course, when they're off work they aren't being paid at all.   In retail, temp jobs don't produce a living wage, especially in the big expensive metropolitan areas where they're largely concentrated.   Yet this represents the growth sector in American employment, with temp jobs growing faster than any other kind of paid work...   They are treated like machines...   of the army of temp workers, roughly 16% work in HR.   In other words, the very people who are supposed to understand how to get the best out of employees are treated in ways that ensure their companies will get the least from them.   This merely guarantees that an intelligent, informed debate about how best to treat a work-force cannot and will not occur."

2013-07-11 (5773 Menachem-Ab 04)
judge Andrew P. Napolitano _Jewish World Review_
above the law?
"the president cannot make up his own version of the law as a substitute for what the Constitution commands or Congress has written.   In the modern era, presidents have rejected the value of the rule of law and instead followed their own political interests.   President George W. Bush, for example, while signing into law a federal statute prohibiting the government from reading your mail without a search warrant, boasted that he had no intention of enforcing that law -- and we know that he famously did not enforce it.   But no modern president has picked and chosen which laws to enforce and which to ignore and which to rewrite to the extremes of president Obama.   His radical rejection of the rule of law, which presents a clear and present danger to the freedom of us all, has had fatal consequences."
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-12

2013-07-12
David Nakamura _Litchfield county CT Register Citizen_
tech execs whine that excessive H-1B "limits" on top of already orders of magnitude excessive hold-riddled "limits" won't satisfy their desire for cheap, young, pliant, low-skilled STEM labor with flexible ethics (with graph)
"Under the plan, out-sourcing firms [bodyshops] with more than 15% of their [STEM] employees on H-1B visas must wait a year before replacing an American worker with a foreigner and pay that worker higher wages, and they are forbidden from placing such workers with U.S. employers.   A Democratic aide said senator Richard Durbin, D-IL, led the fight for the restrictions because he believes the visa program has been exploited for years by some U.S. out-sourcing firms.   Although many Indian workers remain in the United States to work at client sites, many others are sent back to their home country after receiving training on temporary visas and open satellite offices that handle operations from afar.   Durbin's position is that 'H-1B visas have been, and still are, [off-shore] out-sourcing visas.', said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the legislation. 'India officials have bragged that these are [off-shohre] out-sourcing visas with limited oversight and limited transparency.'... 'These provisions undermine the ability of U.S. companies to compete in the global economy.', said John Procter, a spokesman for Cognizant, a leading [USA- & India-based cross-border bodyshop and off-shoring] firm with 157K employees, 1K clients worldwide and an annual revenue of $7.4G."

2013-07-12
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
rolling the clock back just a little further

2013-07-12
Kathleen Madigan _Wall Street Journal_
UMich consumer sentiment index changed from 82.7 in mid-June to 84.1 in late June to 83.9 in mid-July
St. Louis Fed graph

2013-07-12
Dan Stein _Federation for American Immigration Reform US_/_PR News Wire_/_UBM_
Janet Napolitano's resignation may be an opportunity for accountability on border security and immigration law enforcement
"Over the past 4 and a half years, [DHS secretary] Napolitano has served the Obama administration's political objective of dismantling U.S. immigration enforcement at the expense of her sworn obligation to carry out the laws of this nation and protect the security of the homeland.   Under her watch, the Obama administration's policy of selective enforcement not only undermined the integrity of our immigration laws, but the Legislative Branch's constitutional authority to make our laws.   Sec. Napolitano's refusal to enforce numerous immigration laws undermined the very premise of the agency she headed.   Just 18 months into her tenure, she lost the confidence of the career law enforcement professionals serving in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bureau who openly criticized policies that prevented them from enforcing the nation's immigration laws...   It is now up to the United States senate to dutifully exercise its constitutional role of advice and consent [for a change] to ensure that whoever is appointed to replace her is committed to carrying out the laws enacted by congress.   The confirmation process for secretary Napolitano's successor must include explicit commitments that all immigration laws will be faithfully, fairly, and uniformly applied, not just those that suit the administration's political aims."

2013-07-12
Peter Wehner _Commentary_
pres. Barack H. Obummer's lawlessness

2013-07-12 (5773 Menachem-Ab 05)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
there are too many Jews in name only (JINOs)
"Last month, we learned that in addition to targeting groups that that oppose abortion and that support limited government and lower taxes, the Obama administration' s Internal Revenue Service has also apparently been singling out non-leftist pro-Israel groups.   According to numerous media investigations, beginning as early as 2009 March, a consortium of powerful forces including the Palestinian Authority, the New York Times, columnists in the Washington Post, administration-allied anti-Israel groups including J Street and the Arab American anti-Discrimination Committee, and the State Department lobbied the IRS to discriminate against these pro-Israel groups.   They alleged that since these groups opposed the administration's policy of coercing Israel to vacate Judea, Samaria and northern, southern and eastern Jerusalem, they had no right to receive tax-breaks as non-profit groups.   There is no legal basis for the claim that US groups which lawfully oppose government policy should be barred from receiving non-profit status.   Since Israel's presence and the presence of Jewish civilians in Judea and Samaria is completely legal, there is also no justification for vilifying those in the US or in Israel who support and work to expand that presence."

2013-07-12 (5773 Menachem-Ab 05)
Michelle Malkin _Jewish World Review_
women's sociopath fetish
"Lesson learned: You can indoctrinate generations of American women in the ways of gender empowerment, but you can't make a goodly portion of them think straight.   Hormones trump basic human decency and good judgment in the crowded coven of sociopaths."
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-13

2013-07-13
Ilyce Glink _CBS_
10 priciest USA cities to rent an apartment
"Although the average rent across the U.S. is $1,231 per month, in certain areas it can be triple that number...   In 2009, the vacancy rate was 12.3%, but it fell this past year to 9.3%, according to the National Multi Housing Council...   Of the 10 cities on the list, 6 are located on the West Coast, while the other 4 are on the opposite side of the country on the East Coast.   Of the 6 out west, 5 are located in California, with 3 of those clustered in the northern end of the state [which have notorious building restrictions]."

2013-07-13
James Kirkpatrick _V Dare_
NJ's Steve Lonegan and immigration reform

2013-07-13
Alison Doyle _About_
Too old to get hired?
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-14

2013-07-14
Jerry Kammer _Center for Immigration Studies_
Frank Morris calls representative Conyers blind to the negative effects of excessive immigration
"Morris, who made the comments in an interview posted at the CIS website (view the video on the right), has had a long and distinguished career.   He has served as a senior Foreign Service officer, executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, president of the Council of Historically Black Graduate Schools, and member of the NAACP National Educational Advisory Board...   'Congressman Conyers, I think, is blind to the fact that his own constituents, especially his African-American constituents, are suffering from unfair competition with immigrants.   Labor is not exempt from the law of supply and demand...   There is a political correctness on the so-called progressive side that doesn't want to acknowledge that they have been on the side of immigrants with the assumption that it is immigrants who are really the most vulnerable when in reality they have bought up the argument that any American, including less-skilled, less-educated Americans are not successful because something is wrong with them.   The Conyers of the world, and it's sad to say on this issue, ignore the structural barriers that have been tremendous impediments and are becoming increasingly greater impediments...   Americans have always given and proffered benefits to immigrants over some of our own, especially our African Americans.   We have done studies that go all the way back to the 1890s.   We have Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, lamenting this fact.   The tragedy is that young people, when they see negative differentials between the African-American community and the rest, have no idea that these have been strongly influenced by policy.'"

2013-07-14
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
labor's share of national income falls as immigrant work-force rises -- so why do the left support the amnesty/immigration surge act (S744)?

2013-07-14
Pierre Gosselin
Fritz Vahrenholt & Sebastian Luening's _Die Kalte Sonne_/_The Neglected Sun_ due out in September
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-15

2013-07-15
_Before It's News_/_Black American Leadership Alliance_
DC March for Jobs 09:30 at Freedom Plaza
New Boston Tea Party
US Message Board
NA Patriot web log
DC March for Jobs
map/direstons to Freedom Plaza
Leah Durant
Tony Lee: Breitbart

2013-06-15
David Sherfinski _Washington DC Times_
senate immigration perversion bill S744 will cost Americans jobs
US News & World Report
NYTimes
Montgomery AL Advertiser
Please, note the divergent spin...jgo

2013-07-15
Matt Ridley
warming, change, disruption, extreme weather... just another scare tactic

2013-07-15
Joseph Lawler _Washington DC Examiner_
ObummerDoesn'tCare will reduce employment

2013-07-15
Sol W. Sanders _World Tribune_
immigration reform could start by admitting we don't even know what is going on
"virtually all the problems I had been chasing for years as a reporter in Asia existed in Mexico.   And because of the only land border between what was then called the first and the third worlds, one day it might constitute a security threat for the U.S.A. [_Mexico: Chaos on our doorstep_, Madison Books, 1989, 'The Invisible Invasion', documentary, Coalition for Freedom, some PBS stations, 1990]...   It all begins and ends with numbers, of course.   But nobody knows how many illegal migrants are in the U.S.A., although the conventional wisdom holds that the vast majority are from Mexico.   Even that may not be true, as over-staying visas has long been virtually unpoliced.   Among other migrants, for example, the Irish who once again are fleeing a deteriorating economy are among the worst offenders.   Note that the mainstream media -- never having done its homework on this as increasingly other issues -- has recently reduced the estimate of 12M to 11M, apparently at official Washington's suggestion...   Recently, the Puerto Rican government invalidated all birth certificates issued before 2010 and demanded new applications for that proof of citizenship.   That was after the State Department's Passport Office reported 40% of all identified American fraudulent passports were based on forged PR birth certificates.   The recent deterioration of the Island's economy has increased migration to the Continental U.S.A...   Border crossing statistics...were often notional...   how do we know what is the numerical relationship between apprehensions and illegals crossing the border? And if expulsions are up, could it simply because the number of illegals inside the country is greater than ever before?...   All of this arithmetic is bogus, of course, because again, we simply have lost control of the whole migratory process and do not know what is really going on...   the U.S.A. still faces the threat of domestic terrorism -- as the recent Boston Massacre demonstrated.   Who comes across the borders is critical...   Not long after my book appeared, a major smuggling ring among the Indian Sikh community was unearthed in New Delhi using the Mexican crossing points.   Because of increased surveillance of student and other temporary visa applicants in the New Delhi U.S. embassy, more Indians have turned to crossing the border illegally.   Between 2009 October and 2011 March, official figures from South Asian illegals attempting to cross rose to 2,600 a month, a dramatic increase over the earlier typical 150 to 300 arrests.   Does one have to remind the reader of the bloody Bombay Massacre of 2008 or that India's huge Muslim populations along with Pakistan and Bangladesh represent the majority of the world's Islamic pool from where the terrorists are drawn?...   I found Rice University in Houston was in its third generation of illegal gardeners from the same Mexican villages.   A Mormon farmers network I found funneling illegal Mexican fruit and vegetable pickers into the mountain states may still be in business."

2013-07-15
Dennis Sellers _Mac Daily News_
should Apple support Blu-Ray?
Why Apple was wrong

2013-07-15
Robert Stacy McCain _American Spectator_
school/police policy covers up crime, distorts crime statistics, fails to stop criminal activity
"Krop High School in Miami-Dade county... Chief Charles Hurley of the Miami-Dade School Police Department (MDSPD) in 2010 had implemented a policy that reduced the number of criiminal reports, manipulating statistics to create the appearance of a reduction in crime within the school system.   Less than two weeks before Martin's death, the school system commended Chief Hurley for 'decreasing school-related juvenile delinquency by an impressive 60% for the last six months of 2011'.   What was actually happening was that crimes were not being reported as crimes, but instead treated as disciplinary infractions."

2013-07-15
Mridu Khullar Relph _Chronicle of Higher Education_
profs in India want to cheat, too: publishers & profs battling it out over massive copyright violations

2013-07-15 (5773 Menachem-Ab 08)
Geoffrey Mohan _Jewish World Review_
maternal auto-anti-body related (MAR) autism
"An immune system that ensures survival is one of the earliest gifts from a mother to her child.   But sometimes, that gift can be a Trojan horse, sending soldiers that are programmed to attack the body's own antigens into the fetus, where they interfere with brain development.   The result is maternal auto-anti-body related (MAR) autism, which may account for as much as 23% of the cases of that spectrum of brain disorders.   Now UC Davis researchers believe they have found the targets of these maternal auto-anti-bodies...   Though the effects of these immunoglobulin-G compounds on animal and human brains have become more clear in recent years, why they arise in the first place remains a mystery...   But through a complex series of lock-and-key experiments, the team identified 7 fetal antigens that were attacked by the maternal auto-anti-bodies.   All but one have been linked with the creation and development of neurons, particularly in the hippocampus.   That region, associated with memory and learning, has been tied to autism in numerous studies.   The neurological role of one antigen, however, known as LDH, remains somewhat mysterious.   Although LDH has been found in rodent fetal brains, where it is associated with cellular metabolism, the auto-anti-bodies that attack it have not been shown to have a direct role in interfering with neurological development, according to the researchers.   Nonetheless, levels of LDH often are used to measure cell damage after exposure to toxins, such as the industrial solvent trichloro-ethylene -- an intriguing hint, perhaps, of an environmental factor in the rise of auto-anti-bodies, the study suggested...   Examination of the brains of these exposed monkeys showed that the volume of the male brains was far greater than that of normally developing monkeys -- another parallel with human brain development among male autistics, who out-number female autistics more than 4 to 1."
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-16

2013-07-16
Jerry Kammer _Center for Immigration Studies_
black leaders at DC March for Jobs invoke civil rights struggle and the 1963 march led by MLK ii
"young blacks have been especially affected by job displacement as employers have hired millions of illegal immigrants...   Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his 'I Have a Dream' speech.   The 1963 march, taking place on the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, was a powerful appeal to the nation's conscience that helped produce landmark civil rights legislation the following year.   Said Butler, 'I find it so ironic 50 years later that I'm standing here, speaking at this event, a march for jobs again...   The statistics are that by 2040 foreign-born workers will out-number native-born workers...   Native-born workers have been demolished -- in terms of getting jobs -- by foreign workers...   Whose country is this at the end of the day?   So when we say we want to take our country back, people say we're racist, we're this, we're that.   But we're really not.'   Frank Morris, former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and member of the Center for Immigration Studies Board, decried the 'devaluation of American citizenship and the racism of American immigration policy'."

2013-07-16
Anthony Watts
Obummer EPA shut down HAARP due to diesel generators

2013-07-16
Emily Pierce & Niels Lesniewski _Roll Call_
how Richard Cordray got approval votes from 17 RINOs
"In addition to [Rob Portman of OH], [John McCain of AZ], [Bob Corker of TN] and [Lindsey Graham of SC], the other Republicans who voted with senate Democrats to advance Cordray's nomination were: Kelly Ayotte of NH, Dan Coats of IN, Roy Blunt of MO, Saxby Chambliss of GA, Susan Collins of ME, Jeff Flake of AZ, Orrin G. Hatch of UT, John Hoeven of ND, Johnny Isakson of GA, Mike Johanns of NB, Mark S. Kirk of IL, Lisa Murkowski of AK, and Roger Wicker of MS [many of whom joined the left in approval of the abominable S744 and a few of them backed other immigration law perversion bills in the past]."

2013-07-16
Nick de Santis _Chronicle of Higher Education_
USA's research universities seeing increase in cyber-attacks apparently from Red China
"detection is a key concern for institutions in trying to thwart the attacks because many hackers are adept at routing their efforts though computers and countries around the world.   William S. Mellon, associate dean for research policy at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told the newspaper that his institution's system is besieged by 90K to 100K hacking attempts per day from [Red China] alone, with many others coming from Russia and VietNam."

2013-07-16
Jill Langlois _Global Post_
22 children killed, dozens hospitalized by contaminated school lunch in Masrakh, Bihar, India
"The children, all under the age of 12, had been served a meal of rice and lentils cooked at their school in Masrakh village in Bihar state, according to the BBC."

2013-07-16
Tanya Roscorla _Government Technology_
STEM talent glut or shortage: myths vs. reality

2013-07-16
Robert L. Mitchell _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
What "IT" recruiters know about you: crawling the web, buying data from gov't and others: job market dysfunctionality is spreading

2013-07-16
Jeff Poor _Daily Caller_
on Laura Ingraham's program Thomas Sowell blasted Paul Ryan's argument for immigration law perversion as "utter non-sense"
"During a June appearance on Ingraham's show, Ryan had said the USA might face labor shortages unless immigration policy is overhauled.   'That's incredible.', Sowell said.   'I mean, first of all to an economist, it is incredible to speak about shortages without talking about prices, in this case wages...   You know there, there have been so many predictions of shortages of so many occupations and the shortages don't materialize.   And why not?   Because if there is a shortage, the wage rate goes up.   That attracts in more people and lo and behold, the jobs are filled...   'In agriculture, the farmers would obviously prefer to get workers who get low pay rather than workers they have to pay a higher wage.', he continued.   'And as long as there are an unlimited supply of farm workers coming in from Mexico, they will never have to raise the wages very much.   They say Americans won't do these jobs.   These are jobs Americans have done for generations, if not centuries.   And it's a time when millions of Americans are out of work, and are looking for any kind of work.   And so this is utter non-sense.'   Sowell also argued for a rational immigration policy that would take an immigrant's nationality into account.   'They constantly talk about immigrants in the abstract.', he said.   'You know, there are no such thing as abstract immigrants.   There are immigrants from country a, b, c, d.   They are radically different.   People coming in from some countries almost never go on welfare.   Immigrants coming in from other countries go on welfare to a great extent.   If we're going to have a rational immigration policy, then we have to be able to decide what people, what countries, what occupations -- things like that, instead of rushing everything through.   The other main thing though is that if we don't control the borders, we don't have an immigration policy because regardless of what policy you put on paper, if people can just walk across the border when they darn well please, then your policy means nothing.   The other thing that bothers me is the Republicans seem to think we will give -- illegal immigrants citizenship if they do a, b or c.   Democrats say x, y and z.   I don't know why we need promise anybody citizenship before we get control of the borders and have time to sit down and think and look at the facts, and then try to draw up some rational policy.'"

2013-07-16
Katie Pavlich _Town Hall_
brutal cross-border drug cartels still being ignored in DC's illegal alien debate
"cartel violence is spilling over our borders and running rampant in states across America.   'The partial unsealing of a criminal complaint by the U.S. Attorney's Office reveals a Mexican man legally living in the U.S.A. was kidnapped on U.S. soil by the Mexican Gulf cartel, illegally brought across the U.S. southern border back into Mexico, and allegedly executed.'   'Mexican drug cartels whose operatives once rarely ventured beyond the U.S. border are dispatching some of their most trusted agents to live and work deep inside the United States -- an emboldened presence that experts believe is meant to tighten their grip on the world's most lucrative narcotics market and maximize profits.'...   'We aren't even scratching the surface on the criminal illegal alien problem in the United States.', [President of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Union Chris Crane] said.   'That part [cartels] is absent from this discussion as are many parts of this...   we know that the drug cartels, that the lieutenants and the troops, the soldiers, they're all within the interior of United States and they're all conducting business as are many other criminal elements and criminal individuals...'"

2013-07-16 (5773 Menachem-Ab 09)
Mona Charen _Jewish World Review_
incitement to racial violence in the Internet age

2013-07-16 (5773 Menachem-Ab 09)
Michelle Malkin _Jewish World Review_
Eric Holder's stand your ground... squirrel!
Town Hall
"On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder continued stoking the fires of racial resentment... He then baselessly claimed that such laws are creating 'more violence than they prevent' [the data show the opposite] and used his platform to promote citizens' 'duty to retreat' [in the face of initiators of force and fraud]."

2013-07-16 (5773 Menachem-Ab 09)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Is this still the USA?
Town Hall
"More important...is the fate of the American justice system and of the public's faith in that system and in their country."
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-17

2013-07-17
Kellie Fiedorek _Town Hall_
tolerance: the right to disagree without initiating force or fraud

2013-07-17
Anthony Watts
sea-wall built 150 years ago protected NJ homes from hurricane Sandy
But if storms are supposedly worse than ever now, why did they build that sea-wall 150 years ago, and why was it not maintained in the mean time?
"A forgotten, 1,260-meter sea-wall buried beneath the beach helped Bay Head weather Sandy's record storm surges and large waves over multiple high tides, according to a team of engineers and geoscientists led by Jennifer L. Irish, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech and an authority on storm surge, tsunami inundation, and erosion.   The stone structure dates back to 1882.   Its reappearance surprised many area residents, underscoring the difficulties transient communities have in planning for future threats at their shores, the researchers said.   'It's amazing that a seawall built nearly 150 years ago, naturally hidden under beach sands, and forgotten, should have a major positive effect under the conditions in which it was originally designed to perform.', said H. Richard Lane, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research.   'This finding should have major implications for planning, as sea level rises and storms increase in intensity in response to global warming.'   The discovery, now on-line in the journal Coastal Engineering and slated for the October print edition, illustrates the need for multi-levels of beach protection in oceanfront communities, the researchers said."

2013-07-17
_Global Post_/_Agence France-Presse_
Cuban weapons destined for North Korea confiscated at Panama Canal
"Cuba, one of North Korea's few allies, claimed the shipment as its own, with the foreign ministry listing 240 metric tons of 'obsolete defensive weapons', including two anti-aircraft missile systems as being on board.   There were also '9 missiles in parts and spares' various Mig-21 aircraft parts and 15 plane [engines]...   Panama President Ricardo Martinelli tweeted a photo of the haul, which experts earlier Tuesday identified as an ageing Soviet-built radar control system for surface-to-air missiles.   Martinelli's government said the munitions were hidden in a shipment of 220K pounds (100 megagrams) of bagged sugar aboard the North Korean-flagged Chong Chon Gang... The magazine IHS Jane's Defence Weekly said Tuesday that the photo tweeted by Martinelli appeared to show an 'RSN-75 Fan Song fire-control radar system'."

2013-07-17
Bill Straub _PJ Media_
House GOP is resisting pressure to ram through an immigration bill
"President Obama, they said, 'has also demonstrated he is willing to unilaterally delay or ignore significant portions of laws he himself has signed, raising concerns among Americans that this administration cannot be trusted to deliver on its promises to secure the border and enforce laws as part of a single, massive bill like the one passed by the Senate'...   Representative Steve King (R-IA), one of the leading critics of the Senate bill, asserted that it provides 'absolutely no benefits for Americans'.   He added that there is 'no momentum for amnesty in the House'."

2013-07-17
Katie Pavlich _Town Hall_
National Association of Leftist Colored People excludes black conservatives from national conference

2013-07-17
Terry Jeffrey _Town Hall_
federal extortionists gave $14G in refundable tax credits to illegal aliens
"Senator Charles Schumer, D-NY, and senator Marco Rubio, R-FL, both said the immigration bill they helped push through the Senate was designed to 'bring people out of the shadows'.   Yet, if illegal aliens are truly in the shadows, why has the Internal Revenue Service been able to find enough of them to pay them more than $14G in refundable tax credits?   For well over a decade, the treasury inspector general for tax administration (TIGTA) has been pointing to the numerous problems the IRS caused when it made a bureaucratic decision to essentially amnesty illegal aliens for tax purposes and to decline to provide information it has about illegal aliens to federal immigration authorities.   In 1996, President Clinton signed a law requiring federal agencies to share information about illegal aliens with federal immigration authorities.   'The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 (the Illegal Immigration Reform Act), states that information concerning illegal alien status should be provided to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) notwithstanding any other law.', TIGTA explained in a 1999 audit report...   that same year, the IRS issued a new regulation creating what it called Individual [Tax-Victim] Identification Numbers (ITINs).   The IRS would issue ITINs to two classes of people not qualified to receive Social Security Numbers: 1) aliens living outside the United States who nonetheless had a U.S. 'tax liability' and 2) aliens living inside the United States who were not authorized to work here but who nonetheless 'owed U.S. taxes'...   The IRS said ITINs would be covered by Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, which requires the IRS to maintain the confidentiality of tax return information.   'The IRS provides disclosure protection to illegal alien applicants.', explained the IG, who determined that conflicted with the immigration law Clinton had signed...   'the IRS intentionally will not provide the information to the INS', said the IG...   In 2000, according to the IG, the IRS paid $62M to 62K illegal aliens; in 2001, it paid $161M to 203K illegal aliens; in 2004, it paid $778M to 626K illegal aliens; in 2005, it paid $1.063G to 810K illegal aliens; in 2006, it paid $1.407G to 1.016M illegal aliens; and in 2007, it paid $1.777G to 1.22M illegal aliens...   In 2008, this report revealed, the IRS paid $2.14G in ACTC money to 1.53M illegal aliens; in 2009, it paid $2.86G to 1.85M illegal aliens; and in 2010, it paid $4G to 2.18M illegal aliens.   Over all 9 years the IG audited, the IRS paid $14.228G in ACTC money to illegal aliens."

2013-07-17
Katie Pavlich _Town Hall_
NRA responds to Eric Holder's watered-down notion of self-defense
"'self-defense is not a concept, it's a fundamental human right'... 'To send a message that legitimate self-defense is to blame is unconscionable, and demonstrates once again that this administration will exploit tragedies to push their political agenda.'   According to Florida State University Criminologist Gary Kleck, Americans use firearms in self-defense 2.1M-2.5M times annually. In the majority of those cases, a victim simply presenting the firearm was enough to scare off the attacker, hence the reason why the simple possible presence of a firearm acts as a deterrent. 'Only 24% of the gun defenders in the present study reported firing the gun, and only 8% report wounding an adversary.'"

2013-07-17
Rich Galen _Town Hall_
politicians undermine USA's "greatest deliberative body"

2013-07-17
Charles Payne _Town Hall_
I... think... I... can: USA's economy struggling
"Shaken and tested since [1987], the economy continues to find ways not to implode."

2013-07-17
Christa Huff _Town Hall_
4 senior Chinese executives arrested in GlaxoSmithKline bribery, prostitution investigation
"Four senior Chinese executives have been arrested in a criminal investigation against healthcare company GlaxoSmithKline, after Glaxo allegedly used extensive bribery to increase sales.   Bribes allegedly totalled $489M, and were spent on fraudulent travel and meeting expenses, and sexual favors, to 700 companies, doctors and officials.   A separate Chinese pricing investigation could potentially cause greater harm to pharmaceutical companies, as it did with Mead Johnson and other baby formula manufacturers earlier this month."

2013-07-17
Pradeesh Chandran _Business Standard_
Gartner: worldwide IT bodyshopping to reach $288G in 2013

2013-07-17
Stephen de Maura _Town Hall_
Ex-Im Bank is great bastion of government-corporate cronyism

2013-07-17
Anthony Watts
National Weather Service says claimed record Death Valley 1913 record of 134 degrees F is a fake

2013-07-17
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
Legacy lost -- Shenandoah Valley men of the 54th Massachusetts at Ft. Wagner
"there were men of the Shenandoah Valley in the ranks of the 54th Massachusetts.   They did not earn any medals; they did not receive praise in the after action reports... but they were there.   They remain little more than names on the roster… and each man, whether killed or wounded... or not... requires time to be found.   I've spent time looking for them and others in the USCT, who claimed counties of the Shenandoah Valley as their place of birth.   Regretfully, we can't tell the previous status of all of these men from the Valley.   Some may have been freed before the war... some, perhaps, during... and others either escaped slaves, refugees, or... contraband.   What, however, inspired these men to fight?   Freedom of self... freedom of loved ones... or simply the very basic idea of moving forward toward the concept of a 'freedom for all'?   Yet, despite these noble and praise-worthy reasons, they are not represented here, in the Shenandoah Valley... in our histories, on our monuments, or in historical markers.   We can see the names of different men in gray from the Valley at many a different place... but these other men are absent... just as if they did not exist."

2013-07-17
Nicholas Ballasy _PJ Media_
Tea Partiers announce they will strive to remove Boehner if he supports amnesty for illegal aliens
"Conservative activists from across the country told Congress that supporting amnesty [for illegal aliens] hurts American workers and the unemployed during a 'March for Jobs' in Washington.   'Why do they get the priority from the Congress over the interests of American workers?   About 7M of these illegal workers hold American jobs.', said Frank Morris of the Black American Leadership Alliance, who organized the event."

2013-07-17
Luca Gattoni-Celli _American Spectator_
House Judiciary committee criticized intelligence officials
"Congressmen objected that they never envisioned this type of surveillance when they passed the laws used to justify it.   Recalling his role in enacting the PATRIOT Act and FAA, ranking member John Conyers (D-MI) said, 'We never, at any point during this debate, approved the type of unchecked, sweeping surveillance of United States citizens employed by our government in the name of fighting the war on terrorism.'   Before the hearing Conyers told me he is not satisfied with the FISA Court's oversight or non-adversarial process and called for the NSA to justify such mass collection of data.   But when asked to do so, the witnesses struggled to move beyond careful talking points.   In general, they broke little ground beyond what was covered during a June 18 House Intelligence Committee hearing."

2013-07-17
M. Stanton Evans _Investor's Business Daily_
National Council of La Racists aim to pocket immigration perversion bill's (S744's) slush funds
"Once enacted, the slush funds would total almost $300M over 3 years and grow over time...   Within this thicket of new 'rights' are features that would vastly increase the flow of immigrants to perhaps 30M or 40M over the next decade.   One is a set of chain immigration clauses, legalizing the spouses and children of illegals...   La Raza is already a recipient of federal grants and contracts -- running at $8M to $10M per year -- and would arguably be at the head of the line to receive new funding...   MALDEF says it receives no federal money but would likely qualify for subsidies under this legislation...   The sanctuary part (Section 3721) says immigration officers may not conduct 'enforcement actions' at 'sensitive locations', except in the emergency circumstances, or with written advance permission from higher levels.   These no-enforcement zones are hospitals, health clinics, schools (vocational schools, universities and others are included), organizations helping children, pregnant women or people with disabilities, churches, synagogues and mosques -- and any other 'sensitive location' later designated by the federal bureaucracy."

2013-07-17
_DoJ_
IT bodyshops paid over $2.3M in bribes and kick-backs to secure business from executives of a Manhattan-based medical cost management company
"The defendants charged with paying the bribes and kickbacks are Sarvesh Dharayan, Sanjay Gupta, Venkata Atluri, Rangarajan Kumar, Vadan Kumar Kopalle, and Darren Siriani. The defendants charged with receiving the bribes and kick-backs are Anil Singh and Keith Bush. Dharayan, Gupta, Koppalle, and Siriani were arrested this morning at their homes in New Jersey, and were presented in Manhattan federal court this afternoon before U.S. magistrate-judge James L. Cott. [Anil Singh], who was previously arrested in 2013 April, pled guilty to honest services fraud and other charges before U.S. District judge Denise L. Cote on 2013 July 11. [Keith Bush], who was also arrested previously on 2013 July 12, is next scheduled to appear in court for a pre-trial conference on 2013 August 15. Atluri and Kumar are not yet in custody... the defendants achieved their years-long fraud through fake companies, sham invoices and made-up consulting services... Singh and Bush had considerable influence over the selection of vendors, specifically vendors of data-base administrators (DBAs), hired..."

2013-07-17
_Carrying Capacity Network_
S744 would devastate US economy and job markets: Is House GOP losership selling out?
"In an Analysis just released, Highly Respected Economic Analyst, John Williams, of Shadowstats has concluded that the Senate bill [S744], if enacted, would Devastate the Economy and Employment.   (Thus the House of Representatives is the only institution which stands between us and this Impending Catastrophe...and its Leadership is waffling!) Consider Shadowstats: 'Pending Immigration Legislation Is on Track to Damage the U.S. Economy and to Increase Domestic Poverty, Unemployment and the GAAP-Based Federal Deficit.   Given current U.S. economic and unemployment reality, and mounting global concerns as to the long-term solvency issues of the United States, enactment of the immigration legislation—currently passed by the U.S. Senate—would mean intensified domestic economic and solvency disasters...   In the current circumstance, the proposed immigration bill could not possibly perform as advertised, given the current state of the U.S. economy, U.S. unemployment and the uncontained U.S. GAAP-based (generally accepted accounting principles-based) federal deficit.   The GAAP-based deficit hit $6.6T in 2012 (including the annual deterioration in the net present value of unfunded liabilities tied to programs such as [Socialist Insecurity] and Medicare).   Contrary to the popular hype out of Wall Street and Washington, the U.S. economy remains in its deepest and most-protracted contraction since the Great Depression, with broad-based unemployment at a post-Great Depression high.   Real (adjusted for inflation) median household income collapsed along with the economy in 2008, but as official economic recovery took hold in 2009, household income continued to tumble and now is bottoming-bouncing at a multi-decade low.   These structural income problems impair personal consumption—broad-based economic activity—preventing a sustainable economic expansion.   One goal of the immigration-legislation backers is to keep downside pressure on domestic wages and salaries.   While that may be fine from the standpoint of employers, continued household income constraint means ongoing stagnant-to-contracting business activity—a continued lack of economic recovery.   Considering the large number of long-term discouraged workers, who are not counted in the official government unemployment measures, broad unemployment is running about 23%.   That compares with the government's headline unemployment rate of 7.6% and its broadest unemployment measure at 14.3%, including short-term discouraged workers.   This is not a circumstance conducive to the system happily absorbing a large influx of immigrants, legal or otherwise.   Where economic forces could moderate some of the demand for skilled legal immigrants, a large influx of low-skilled legal immigrants (allowed by the legislation), as well forcing the illegal immigrants into the legal system, quickly would increase government spending on financial-support programs, and spike unfunded liabilities for programs such as Social Security and Medicare.   Despite repeated promises to the contrary, the U.S. government has demonstrated an inability and unwillingness to control the influx of illegal workers and to enforce existing laws as to the behavior of employers.   Despite new legislation, given the politically-powerful special interests pushing the new law, the chances of those issues actually being resolved remain nil.   Accordingly, some of the proposed influx of low-skilled legal immigrants, and accommodation of current illegal immigrants, would push the immigrants into the already bloated, broad-based unemployment universe, into official poverty and into government support programs, as the low-skilled workers are displaced by an influx of new, even lower-cost undocumented workers.   If the immigration package were not enacted, although domestic conditions still would be beset with horrendous difficulties—on which the Congress might consider working -- the U.S. economy would be relatively stronger, the long-term fiscal condition of the United States would be relatively better and the long-term discouraged unemployed would have relatively better prospects for finding gainful employment.'"

2013-07-17
Matt Hadro _Media Research Center_
CNN host marches with illegal alien activists, opposes immigration reform

2013-07-17 (5773 Menachem-Ab 10)
Barnard Goldberg _Jewish World Review_
do we need affirmative action for conservative journalists?

2013-07-17 (5773 Menachem-Ab 10)
John Stossel _Jewish World Review_
strangling life
Town Hall
"There are now 175K pages' worth of federal laws.   Local governments add more...   Yet lawyers like George Washington Law professor John Banzhaf want more rules.   Banzhaf requires his law students to sue people, just for practice...   But his legal 'victories' hardly benefit the public.   He and his students have sued Washington, DC, hair-dressers and dry cleaners for 'discrimination' because they charge women more.   Of course, they charge women more for a reason.   Women's hair-cuts [and washings and conditionings and dryings and bleachings and dyings and curlings and straightenings] take longer.   'Women get pampered.', said hair-dresser Carolyn Carter.   'Men just get a hair-cut.'   Women's clothing is more varied and doesn't always fit dry-cleaning machines.   The market sorts out these differences through differing prices.   But intrusive Washington, DC, politicians write laws that say, 'Discrimination...cannot be justified by...comparative characteristics of one group as opposed to another.'...   Tibor Machan, professor of business ethics at Chapman University, told me we should object to Banzhaf on principle...   Machan echoes writer C.S. Lewis' point that well-meaning tyrants are even more dangerous than purely selfish ones...   The conceit of politicians and lawyers is that they think they can manage life through rules.   So they keep adding more.   They don't see that these rules gradually wreck life...   Drug companies invented a vaccine against Lyme disease, but they won't sell it, because they're scared of lawyers.   Fearful medical device makers often stick to old technologies because trying something new, even if it's better, risks a suit.   Monsanto developed a substitute for asbestos, a fire-resistant insulation that might save thousands of lives, but decided not to sell it because the company feared it might be sued."

2013-07-17 (5773 Menachem-Ab 10)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
random thoughts
Town Hall
"We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish." -- Friedrich A. Hayek
"Many respectable writers agree that if a man reasonably believes that he is in immediate danger of death or grievous bodily harm from his assailant he may stand his ground and that if he kills him he has not exceeded the bounds of lawful self-defense.   That has been the decision of this court." --- justice Oliver Wendell Holmes ii 1921 Brown v. United States
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --- John Adams
"A human group transforms itself into a crowd when it suddenly responds to a suggestion rather than to reasoning, to an image rather than an idea, to an affirmation rather than to proof, to the repetition of a phrase rather than to arguments, to prestige rather than to competence." --- Jean-Francois Revel
"The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie." --- Joseph A. Schumpeter
"Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.   They don't mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them.   Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves." --- T.S. Eliot
"The study of human institutions is always a search for the most tolerable imperfections." --- Richard A. Epstein
"There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief." --- Edmund Burke
"We do not live in the past, but the past in us." --- U.B. Phillips
"It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow." --- James Madison
"A society that puts equality -- in the sense of equality of outcome — ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.   The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests." --- Milton Friedman
"...leniency toward criminals contrasted starkly with severity toward the law-abiding citizen's right to defend himself or herself." ---Joyce Lee Malcolm
"Criticism is easy; achievement is more difficult." --- sir Winston Churchill
"Everybody has asked the question... 'What shall we do with the Negro?'   I have had but one answer from the beginning.   Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us.   Do nothing with us!" --- Frederick Douglass
"The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance.   It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false." --- Paul Johnson
"It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion.   They are always surrounded by worshipers.   They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their greatness.   They live in an artificial atmosphere of adulation and exaltation which sooner or later impairs their judgment.   They are in grave danger of becoming careless and arrogant." -- president Calvin Coolidge

2013-07-17 (5773 Menachem-Ab 10)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
what Egyptians (and other non-Western citizens need
Town Hall
"What Egyptian citizens must recognize is that political liberty thrives best where there's a large measure of economic liberty.   The Egyptian people are not the problem; it's the environment they're forced to live in.   Why is it that Egyptians do well in the U.S. but not Egypt?   We could make the same observation about Nigerians, Cambodians, Jamaicans and many other people who leave their homeland and immigrate to the U.S.A.   For example, Indians in India suffer great poverty.   But that's not true of Indians who immigrate to the U.S.A.   They manage to start more Silicon Valley companies than any other immigrant group, and they do the same in Massachusetts, Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey.   According to various reports, about 50% of Egypt's 83M people live on or below the $2-per-day poverty line set by the World Bank.   Overall, unemployment is 13%, and among youths, it's 25%.   Those are the official numbers.   The true rates are estimated to be twice as high...   In most countries in the Arab world, what we know as personal liberty is virtually non-existent.   Freedom House's 2011 'Freedom in the World' survey and Amnesty International's annual report for 2011 labeled most North African and Middle Eastern countries as either 'repressive' or 'not free'.   These nations do not share the philosophical foundations that delivered the West from its history of barbarism, such as the Magna Carta (1215) and later the teachings of such philosophers as Francis Bacon, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, [Edward Coke, Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, Henry Home lord Kames, William Blackstone], David Hume, Montesquieu [Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams] and Voltaire."
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-18

1969-07-18: Ted Kennedy, after party on Chappaquiddick island, drove off Dike bridge, and his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne drowned

2013-07-18 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT) (14:30 Jerusalem)
Tom Stengle & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
DoL regulations
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 408,710 in the week ending July 13, an increase of 25,350 from the previous week.   There were 455,260 initial claims in the comparable week in 2012.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.4% during the week ending July 6, an increase of 0.2 percentage point from the prior week's revised rate.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,144,838, an increase of 333,812 from the preceding week's revised level of 2,811,026.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.6% and the volume was 3,360,067...   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending June 29 was 4,519,501, a decrease of 1,903 from the previous week.   There were 5,753,820 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2012.   Extended Benefits were not available in any state during the week ending June 29...   States reported 1,636,731 persons claiming Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) benefits for the week ending June 29, a decrease of 24,152 from the prior week.   There were 2,524,363 persons claiming EUC in the comparable week in 2012.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" (the divisor) changes roughly quarterly:
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03;
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25;
to 125,560,066 beginning 2011-01-15;
to 125,572,661 beginning 2011-04-02;
to 125,807,389 beginning 2011-07-02;
to 126,188,733 beginning 2011-10-01;
to 126,579,970 beginning 2012-01-01;
to 127,048,587 beginning 2012-04-07;
to 127,495,952 beginning 2012-07-14;
to 128,066,082 beginning 2012-10-06;
to 128,613,913 beginning 2013-01-05;
to 129,204,324 beginning 2013-04-06;
to 129,827,178 beginning 2013-07-06.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2013-07-18
Robert X. Cringely _Beta News_
How H-1B fraud is carried out
I, Cringely
"The lawyer under indictment is Marijan Cvjeticanin.   Please understand that this is just an indictment (pdf), not a conviction.   I'm not saying this guy is guilty of anything.   My point here is to describe the crime of which he is accused, which I find very interesting.   He could be innocent for all I know, but the crime, itself, is I think fairly common and worth understanding.   The gist of the crime has 2 parts.   First Mr. Cvjeticanin's law firm reportedly represented technology companies seeking 'IT' job candidates and he is accused of having run on the side an advertising agency that placed employment ads for those companies.   That could appear to be a conflict of interest, or at least did to the DoJ.   But then there's the other part, in which most of the ads -- mainly in ComputerWorld -- seem never to have been placed at all!   Client companies paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for employment ads in ComputerWorld that never even ran!   The contention of the DoJ in this indictment appears to be that Mr. Cvjeticanin was defrauding companies seeking to hire 'IT' personnel, yet for all those hundreds of ads -- ads that for the most part never ran and therefore could never yield job applications -- nobody complained!   The deeper question here is whether they paid for the ads or just for documentation that they had paid for the ads?   This is alleged H-1B visa fraud, remember...   It helps, of course, if nobody actually sees the ads -- in this case reportedly hundreds of them.   When Mr. Cvjeticanin was confronted with his alleged fraudulent behavior, his defense (according to the indictment) was, 'So let them litigate, I'll show everyone how bogus their immigration applications really are.'   Nice.   If we follow the logic here it suggests that his belief is that the client companies' probable H-1B fraud is so much worse than the shenanigans Mr. Cvjeticanin is accused of that those companies won't dare assist Homeland Security or the DoJ in this case.   Who am I to say he's wrong in that?"

2013-07-18
Denise Dick _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
state government grades career and technical centers

2013-07-18
Myles Snyder _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
P&G says they plan to bring 1K jobs to Shippensburg PA area
"a new warehouse and distribution center near Shippensburg. The company has started construction on the 1.7M square-foot facility in Southampton Township, Franklin county... when fully operational the facility is expected to have four to 6 Procter & Gamble employees and at least 960 contractors."

2013-07-18
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
15 execs in 11 companies bargaining over price-fixing charges
"$56.5M in criminal fines. Panasonic's guilty plea involves prices for auto parts sold to Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Company Ltd., Mazda Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Company Ltd. in the U.S.A. and elsewhere... SANYO... LG Chem..."

2013-07-18
Shelley Phillips Kimel _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
list of Knoxville software design and IT firms
"Claris Networks... Last month Claris announced the acquisition of MindLinx, a Nashville-based health care...   SRC Technology Solutions in Chattanooga.   Gallaher & Associates, Personal Computer Systems and QRS...   ModemTech...3D technology products including design, modeling, printing and prototyping...   MCH...data storage...   Strata-G and Information International Associates...   Cadre5...   QRS specializes in health-care software including [privacy violation]..."

2013-07-18
Anthony Watts, Knud Lassen & Peter Thejll
remarkable correlation between Arctic sea ice and length of solar cycle

2013-07-18
Bridget Johnson _PJ Media_
State Dept. responding to attack on Benghazi consulate by sinking a huge amount into security at facilities in Netherlands and Norway
"The high-threat list includes 27 countries, and the department has known for some time that the ability to withstand an attack in many of these locations wasn't up to snuff...   But ranking member Bob Corker (R-TN) noted that 'a huge amount of money' out of the department's $1.4G construction and enhancement budget, with $800M more requested, is slated for facilities at The Hague and in Oslo.   'This is a lot of money that's being spent in places that, candidly, the security issues are not necessarily urgent like we have in some of the places I mentioned earlier -- in Pakistan and Sudan...', Corker said.   'From the standpoint of the immediate security issues that our personnel has, and all of us, including you, wanting them to be safe, our priorities are not aligned with what it is we're hoping to do for our outstanding foreign service officers.'"

2013-07-18
_BBC_
top 10 wikipedia edit wars
Fox
"Articles about former-US President George W. Bush and anarchism are the most hotly contested on Wikipedia's English-language edition, research suggests...   The most controversial topics across all the 10 editions analysed were: Israel; Adolf Hitler; The Holocaust; God...   Among French editors, the page about French politician Segolene Royal was the one contributors fought over the most...   10 Touchy Topics: George W. Bush; Anarchism; The Prophet Muhammad; World Wrestling Entertainment employees; Global warming; Circumcision; The United States; Jesus; Race and intelligence; Christianity."

2013-07-18 (5773 Menachem-Ab 11)
Ann Coulter _Jewish World Review_
initiation of force or fraud vs. defense against them

2013-07-18 (5773 Menachem-Ab 11)
Victor Davis Hanson _Jewish World Review_
the strange case of Mexican emigration
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-19

2013-07-19
Brian Hughes _Washington DC Examiner_
corrupt congress-critters plan to increase H-1B visas

2013-07-19
Anthony Watts
Pielke and Spencer show down warmist hysterics in yesterday's senate climate hearing
Willis Eschenbach

2013-07-19
Mathew J. Schwartz _InformationWeek_/_UBM_
in an echo of Ed Snowden's revelation that the US government was spying on citizens' communications, Michael Hayden, former NSA & CIA chief, tells us what we knew all along: Huawei spies for the Red Chinese government

2013-07-19
Anthony Watts
image of Saturn, Earth, Moon taken by Cassini space-craft

2013-07-19
Donald Lambro _Town Hall_
ObummerDoesn'tCare's cruel legacy: fewer jobs, fewer hours of gainful employment, and a lot fewer employers

2013-07-19
Rick Enneking _Cincinnati OH Enquirer_
IRS abuses should result in impeachment, not lame-stream media defense of abusers
"Can we finally admit that the lame-stream media has dropped the ball and let this administration get away with anything they wanted?   The IRS scandal appears to originate from somewhere in Washington, DC, not some 'rogue employees' in Cincinnati.   It even appears to originate from the office of an Obama appointee.   Imagine that.   If the press were actually doing their job, this should have been published a year ago.   Would Obama be in a second term today if this and all the other revelations been made public before 2012 November?   It is time for the media giants to investigate this administration as if it were Nixon in office, but I won't hold my breath waiting.   Do I hear impeachment proceedings coming?"

2013-07-19
Phillip Molnar _Monterey county CA Herald_/_San Jose CA Mercury News_
Monterey county home prices up
"Kim DiBenedetto, a Coldwell Banker Del Monte Realty agent who sells homes all over the county, said houses costing $500K or less will likely stay on the market a maximum of just 10 days.   'The inventory is almost nonexistent in those price ranges.', she said.   For example, she said, the only reason a house valued at $300K in Seaside would stay on the market for more than 3 to 5 days would be because of the time it takes to go through all the offers.   Adam Moniz, a real estate agent specializing in Carmel housing, said he got 12 offers after 10 days on a home on Carmelo Street in March.   He said it was a $995K 'fixer-upper' that ended up selling for $1.25M."

2013-07-19 (5773 Menachem-Ab 12)
Keith Ervin _Jewish World Review_
boundaries of Israel/Palestine being disputed on ads on the sides of buses in King county, WA, USA

2013-07-19 (5773 Menachem-Ab 12)
David Limbaugh _Jewish World Review_
opposing "extremism" is not "extremism"
"The Times' take on this is to be expected.   But shame on the [RINOs] Edsall quotes to denigrate the Republican Party from the left and slander conservatives as bigots and rubes.   The irony [the problem] is that the Republican Party has become less conservative over the years.   The party's presidential difficulties can just as convincingly be attributed to its failure to articulate a principled, inspiring conservative message.   Over the past decades, we've witnessed a steady, incremental advancement of [leftism] and statism -- a steady centralization of power in the federal government and a consequent erosion of our individual liberties.   It is [leftists] and their Democratic Party that have become increasingly extreme -- especially since Obama's election.   If anything, the Republican Party has become too tolerant of these alarming changes.   Have any conservatives advocated 'fundamental transformation' of America? No, we merely want to restore the principles and policies that made America great, the abandonment of which are leading to its destruction.   We are advocating, essentially, the same principles we were during the Reagan years, not because we're stuck in the past but because these principles are timeless and historically validated as effective to produce the greatest liberty, prosperity and national security...   Conservatives, on the other hand, want the border actually to be enforced; market forces to be restored; protection of the unborn; reasonable restraints, far from extreme, on federal spending; a fair, simple and less corrupt tax code; racial colorblindness; essential structural entitlement reform; serious reductions in the administrative and bureaucratic branch of government; to remove burdens to economic growth; unemployment at historically acceptable levels; a restoration of the separation of powers; a judiciary that will honor its duty to interpret and not make laws; the unshackling of coal, oil, natural gas and other reliable energy sources; market reforms for health care; peace-through-strength national security and defense policies; and counterterrorism policies based on reality, not rooted in fantasy idealism, pacifism, appeasement or a negative view of America.   People who still love America as founded are horrified with the ongoing destruction of this country."

2013-07-19 (5773 Menachem-Ab 12)
Michelle Malkin _Jewish World Review_
slavery in the USA, Saudi-style
Town Hall
"Meet Meshael Alayban of Saudi Arabia, wife of Abdulrahman bin Nasser bin Abdulaziz al-Saud.   She apparently thought we Americans would look the other way at human trafficking and abuse of domestic workers -- you know, the way they do in her misogyny-infested home country.   The wealthy Meshael Alayban thought wrong...   While many Saudi enslavers and abusers have been charged, untold cases are abandoned.   Brandon Darby, who worked with the FBI in an under-cover capacity on anti-human trafficking efforts in 2011-2012, told me that 'the Justice Department, specifically the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office, have backed away from aggressively pursuing human trafficking cases'."
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-20

Tanganyika became British protectorate 1922-07-20, officially banning slavery

2013-07-20
Ed Feulner _Town Hall_
amnesty for illegal aliens: let's skip the 6th sequel
"It was sold as 'border security in exchange for amnesty'.   Except that the promised border security never materialized.   'Amnesty first, border security second' may have sounded good in theory, but it worked out to be nothing but amnesty.   It also was presented as a 'one time only' deal...   'Since the 1986 amnesty, the number of illegal immigrants has quadrupled.', Meese recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal.   'That should teach Congress a very important lesson: Amnesty bends the rule of law.   And bending the rule of law to reach a comprehensive deal winds up provoking wholesale breaking of the law.   Ultimately, it encourages millions more to risk entering the country illegally in the hope that one day they, too, might receive amnesty.'...   What does granting amnesty tell the more than 4.4M people now waiting to immigrate to the U.S. lawfully?   Some of them have been in the queue for two decades."
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-21

2013-07-21
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
Many of us need to get out more

2013-07-21
Christopher Monckton
climate data says... Obummer is wrong again
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-22

2013-07-22
Patrick Thibodeau & Sharon Machlis _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
employment in some STEM fields is better than in others (with table)
InfoWorld
"Engineering is connected to manufacturing, and 'manufacturing is shrinking as a fraction of our economy, as work moves off-shore', said Stan Sorscher, labor representative at the Society for Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), a union representing more than 24K scientists, engineers, technical and professional employees in the aerospace industry.   'Engineering work follows manufacturing.', said Sorscher, who has a Ph.D. in physics.   'As low-tech suppliers take on more complex work, they will necessarily develop their own capacity for manufacturing R&D.', said Sorscher.   'As part of the off-shoring business model, U.S.-based manufacturers transfer manufacturing technology to foreign suppliers and often integrate the off-shore manufacturing into the overall design process.', he said...   [Darin Wedel] has found new work.   He has been employed for about a year as a quality engineer [which, as I understand it, is typically a kind of low-paid position held by newbies] for a large eye care/pharma company.   Asked about out-sourcing, Wedel said it has 'affected just about anyone with a technical degree -- it's purely business getting its way [certain business executives getting their way] with government.   Lobbyists have bamboozled our politicians into thinking we have a shortage of 'qualified' engineers and that we need to import more via the H-1B -- simply not true.   For electrical engineers, unless you are in the actual design of circuits, then you're not in demand.', said Wedel, arguing that much of the job loss in the field is due to the closing of fabrication facilities...   In 2001, there were more than 200K people working in the semi-conductor industry.   That number was less than 100K by 2010, according to a recent Economic Policy Institute study on guest workers by Hal Salzman, a public policy professor at Rutgers; Daniel Kuehn, an economics doctoral candidate at American University; and Lindsay Lowell, director of Policy Studies at the Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University."

2013-07-22
Matthew Boyle _Breitbart_
former Soros chief strategist Stanley Druckenmiller joins Mark Zuckerberg efforts against immigration reform

2013-07-22
Jim Steele
Antarctic sea ice as climate indicator

2013-07-22
Harold Vick _Cincinnati OH Enquirer_
stop foreign aid and limit federal government spending
"Here's my program for America: No millions, no billions, no trillions in foreign aid for people who danced in the streets when our towers fell.   No federal spending for non-essential or private interest programs.   People in power who advocate giving away our stuff should be terminated with prejudice.   We have only 2 major political parties.   No more grousing.   If you don't vote for the party which most nearly represents your interest, the other party will win."

2013-07-22
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
Darin Wedel update
 
Here are some comments on today's Computerworld article, "Software employment rises 45% in 10 years, as angst in engineering grows" (above).
 
Last year President Obama had an on-line town-hall meeting.   The first question floored those of us with keen interest in the foreign tech worker issue.   Jennifer Wedel of Texas asked why the government continues "to issue and extend H-1B visas when there are tons of Americans just like my husband with no job?"   Mrs. Wedel's husband Darin, a semiconductor engineer, had been laid off by Texas Instruments some time ago, and he had been unable to find engineering work in the Dallas area since that time.
 
Obama looked startled, remarking "the word we're getting is that somebody like that should be getting work right away".   Obama promised to look into it, but nothing came from it, as far as I know.
 
Nothing even came of it politically, in spite of speculation that it would become an election issue (see "Obama's H-1B answer in forum may haunt him", Computerworld, 2012 Feb. 8).   In retrospect, it's clear why it didn't factor in the election -- both major political parties strongly support H-1B and employer-sponsored green cards.   IOW, no one wanted to touch the issue.   And sadly, the press never asked Obama or Romney about this during the election campaign.
 
Pat Thibodeau's article today, at the above URL, brings up a very important point: For all the hoopla on an alleged STEM labor shortage, the only real job growth as been in software development.   There actually is no software engineer shortage either; just look at the wage growth, which is very mild, countering the claims of a shortage, or look at the really sharp people I know who can't get work.   In any event there sure isn't a general STEM shortage, but the industry lobbyists are shrewd, and they call it a general STEM shortage, as that gives them much more leverage.
 
These guys have no conscience.   Their false claims are causing lots of college kids to go into electrical engineering, only to find 10 years from now that they suffer Darin Wedel's fate, more than a year of unemployment.
 
The article reports that Wedel has now found a job.   It's apparently not electrical engineering, but at least it is using the quality assurance skills he had used at TI.
 
I'm glad to hear that, but it -- the article -- misses the point in terms of unemployment.   As I've mentioned before, unemployment rates don't tell the real story, because people are forced to leave the field.   They then become UNDER-employed.   As Gene Nelson once put it (with a slight modification from me), the former electrical engineer who is now a sales clerk at Radio Shack counts as an EMPLOYED sales person, not as an UNEMPLOYED engineer.
 
The article's main point misses the boat too: Yes, Stan Sorscher's statement that "Engineering work follows manufacturing", and Wedel's own remark in the article, are quite true.   And it makes for a good hook for the article, "Ah, we can't just keep engineering but let manufacturing go over-seas."   HOWEVER, that all misses the central point, in my view, which is that Dallas-area tech employers such as TI have been hiring H-1Bs for work that Wedel could do.
 
In my 2012 Feb. 2 posting here on J. Wedel vs. B. Obama, I noted that in one of Vivek Wadhwa's statements extolling the virtues of H-1Bs, he had pointed to a foreign student TI had hired as a Test Engineer.   I countered that Darin Wedel could do that job.   I am sure that TI has hired a number of H-1Bs for jobs, in Dallas, that Wedel could have done well.
 
Norm
2012-01-30: Jennifer Wedel vs. Obama
Matloff: Jennifer Wedel vs. Obama
Old Techies Never Die; They Just Can't Get Hired
Neil Munro: Daily Caller: Obummer still touting H-1B visas after being informed of the devastation they wreak
Wedel video
2012-01-31: White House briefing (video)
2012-02-01: Matloff: more on the Wedel case
the Wedel piece in abc News
Jennifer Epstein: Politico
Steve Camarota & Roy Beck: Center for Immigration Studies: nearly 2M US engineers unemployed or under-employed
Joe Guzzardi: Californians for Population Stabilization
Anna M. Tinsley: Fort Worth TX Star-Telegram
Patrick Thibodeau: ComputerWorld/IDG
SlashDot discussion of EE Darin Wedel
Mark Karlin: BuzzFlash
2012-02-01: Josh Hicks: Washington Post: Obummer's claims about demand for engineers National Review
Dice
Beryl Lieff Benderly: AAAS Science: more on Obummer and Mrs. Wedel
Beryl Lieff Benderly: AAAS Science: Even more on Obummer and Mrs. Wedel
2012-02-07: Matloff: Obama still insists we have a tech labor shortage
Matloff: Obama still insists we have a tech labor shortage Superb letter from senator Grassley to president Obama Breitbart: Carney cornered on Obummer's "send me your resume" offer

2013-07-22
Mike Shedlock _Town Hall_
more idiocy in Detroit

2013-07-22 (5773 Menachem-Ab 15)
Mark Steyn _Jewish World Review_
Detroit surrenders, as if it had been invaded
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-23

2013-07-23
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
recruiting firm says shortage claims exaggerated
 
A number of people drew my attention to today's NYT blog, Big Data Analysis Adds to Guest-Worker Debate
 
It fits well with the ComputerWorld article I reported on yesterday.   One major theme of that article was that in spite of all the hoopla about a general STEM labor shortage, presumably including all of engineering, the only engineering job title to have substantial growth in recent years is Software Engineer.   Of course, even that narrowly-focused job growth doesn't imply a shortage of software engineers -- again, wage growth has only been mild, counter-indicating a shortage -- but at the very least the government data indicate that we don't have a shortage of electrical engineers, for instance.
 
A study by Bright, a company that aims to connect job seekers with suitable job openings, carries this theme further, by actually trying to estimate how many well-qualified ("good fit", in their words) candidates there are.   They then present the results in a handy table (pdf).
 
The bottom line, from the above document:
 
"Within the top 10 jobs, there are an estimated 134% [as many] candidates nationwide than there were positions requested.   Additionally, we found that domestic student enrollment in computer and mathematical graduate programs has grown 88% in the last decade, while foreign student enrollment has dwindled 13%.   There does not appear to be a sudden mass shortage of educated domestic workers, rather a handful of out-sourcing firms who file a majority of the LCAs and are uninterested in domestic candidates.   82% of the positions requested by the top 20 companies were requested by out-sourcing firms."
 
In particular job categories, the Bright analyst found a huge "shortage" for the Computer Systems Analyst title.   As the NYT blog points out, this type of job is considered to be at the far low end in terms of skill level, and in fact is an anachronism.   As (I hope) you know, I hate the scape-goating of the Indian bodyshops, because abuse of H-1B pervades the entire industry, but I wish the analyst had done a cross-tab here, factoring in the type of employer.   I suspect that the cases for this job title were disproportionately from the bodyshops.
 
Whether that is the case or not, the fact remains that Bright's findings are dramatically at odds with the industry lobbyists' claims to be using the H-1B visa to hire "game changing innovators".   On the contrary, the category the innovators would typically fall in would be "Software Developers, Applications" and "Software Developers, Systems Software", 2 categories in which Bright finds no shortage.
 
The other apparent "shortage" category was a catchall one, "Computer Occupations, All Other".   These include a number of decidedly non-innovator job titles, such as "Software Quality Assurance Engineers and Testers: and "Web Administrators".
 
Interesting exercise -- but does it show anything?   There are some serious problems with the analysis.   First, it uses LCAs, the forms employers use to apply for permission to hire an H-1B worker.   As Bright's paper points out, "An LCA is not an actual H1-B application, rather an intent to hire an H1-B worker after an unsuccessful domestic search."   As many of you know, the latter statement is incorrect; other than a small exceptional category, there is no general requirement that employers give hiring priority to U.S. workers.   But the fact remains that the LCAs are merely requests to hire an H-1B, without necessarily having a specific foreign worker in hand -- and without necessarily have a JOB OPENING [and one LCA can be for multiple job openings].
 
IOW, the LCA numbers tend to be quite inflated.   Meanwhile, I suspect that the numbers of "good fit" applicants are underestimates.   There are so many synonyms among computer skills that it's hard to believe the analysis factored in all, or even most of them.   OTOH, just having the right words on a CV doesn't necessarily imply a good fit; as I've often said, for instance, a key issue is quality, as for example studies show a 10-to-1 range in productivity between the best and the worst programmers.
 
Giovanni Peri points out in the web log article that there may be lots of job openings for which companies don't file LCAs.   I agree in general, but not for the types of jobs being discussed.   All the big tech companies have Immigration Departments that make sure they get LCAs in, even if they are not sure a job will materialize.
 
Bright, of course, has a vested interest in showing that the claimed tech labor shortage is bogus; it prospers if it can match U.S. citizens and permanent residents to employers.   But it may not fully realize yet (though mentioned in the article) that a lot of the genuine good fits are unacceptable to employers, as they are over age 35 and thus cost more than the employers are willing to pay.   I wonder whether Bright will start factoring this into their model.
 
The Bright paper is important for a different reason, in that it brings up a point known to very few people interested in the H-1B issue: The H-1B visa, as Brights say, is often "used by hiring companies to save search time..."   This is very, very common, in my experience.   So, rather than remedying a shortage, H-1B is used simply for convenience.   Should government policy be subsidizing that?   I hope not.   (Leave aside the other reasons many firms hire H-1Bs, for cheap and immobile labor.)
 
By the way, an interesting example of the convenience factor was mentioned to me a couple of years ago.   An engineer I know told me that when he attended a fund-raiser for former EBay CEO Meg Whitman (who was running for California governor at the time), he asked her why EBay hires so many H-1Bs, and she replied, "They're great, because after we hire them they bring in all their friends."   Bright apparently succumbed to that itself,
 
In summary, the Bright analysis is a little squishy (but hey, many analyses by academic researchers in this field are REALLY squishy), but of interest nonetheless.   And the quote by the Bright CEO is priceless: "We're Silicon Valley people, we just assumed the shortage was true.   It turns out there is a little Silicon Valley group-think going on about this, though it's not comfortable to say that."
 
Norm
computer- and math-related occupations

2013-07-23
Victor Davis Hanson _PJ Media_
dishonesty in the age of Obummer

2013-07-23
Anthony Watts/CSIRO
earth's homeostasis

2013-07-23
Kate Andrews _Town Hall_
completion of culvert grates would reduce deaths & injuries from planted bombs in Afghanistan

2013-07-23
Katie Pavlich _Town Hall_
draconian central government socialist micro-management
Susan Jones: Cybercast News Service
"With the recent bankruptcy filing by Detroit, you'd think governments everywhere would take a step back a re-evaluate central planning.   Instead, the federal government is doing the opposite through a new social engineering program that will map every community in the country, all in the name of 'diversity'...   The American Dream doesn't exist in big government and bureaucratically bloated cities and communities because it doesn't have an opportunity to exist.   This regulation will make it worse.   The only thing that public housing has done for poor urban communities in the past 50 years is keep them poor.   There's nothing 'fair' about it.   Bringing new ideas and the free market into communities and neighborhood improves them, not central HUD planning and government funding from Washington."

2013-07-23
Harry R. Jackson ii _Town Hall_
nightmare on immigration street

2013-07-23
Brett Bogus _Town Hall_
unemployed, under-employed... and disgruntled
"there's a permanent loss to the labor market that's never going to return.   Unemployment will be down, but so will actual employment; this is a long term concern that's potentially only going to get more attention in the coming years.   Just as concerning is the effect of long term wage stagnation on the American worker -- even though the average hourly income of workers has increased 0.4% over the last 12 months, this hasn't been enough to keep up with CPI adjusted inflation, still leaving workers shy of breaking even with their purchasing power since the beginning of the recession.   This is particularly troubling for the economy for a few reasons.   First, because it demonstrates that for the $85G a month in bond buying the Federal Reserve is doing, that hasn't translated into any sort of real palpable relief for the people at the ground level who are struggling.   Second, in combination with the earlier report, it paints a grim future: lowered purchasing power will mean less goods being bought while less people in the labor force will mean fewer people with money to spend -- again, less goods being bought.   This will in turn force employment rates to be lower as there won't be as many people needed to fill orders...   polls from the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with the Brookings Institution showing that America is deeply divided on the direction of the country, with 58% of Americans aged 18 to 33 believing they're worse off than their parent's generation and 54% of people polled saying that they no longer believe that hard work will and determination will guarantee any sort of success.   Even more concerning is that a huge percentage of the population, 62%, say that the government should be helping to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor while also taking care of those who can't take care of themselves (though 'can't' seems to be left vague); but 93% of Americans think that the government is being run poorly or not running at all."

2013-07-23
Phyllis Schlafly _Town Hall_
lies about trade "agreements"
"When will Republicans wake up to the way U.S. jobs are betrayed by Barack Obama [George W. Bush before him,] and the [executives] that hide under the moniker 'free trade'?   It's an embarrassment that Republican powers-that-be have joined with the Obama Democrats to push the new Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement.   We should have recognized free trade as bad news when Obama hammered on it in his State of the Union message.   He probably looks upon it as another strategy to redistribute the wealth of our country, which is a major goal of his administration.   In 2012 when Congress was passing the Korea-U.S. Trade Agreement (KORUS), Obama predicted that it would create 70K U.S. jobs for Americans who would then pay taxes and not need food stamps.   He even predicted, 'soon, there will be new cars on the streets of Seoul imported from Detroit'.   The bad effect was immediate.   In the first year after KORUS took effect, the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea increased by $5.8G, costing 40K jobs, mostly in manufacturing, according to the Economic Policy Institute.   KORUS was really good in creating jobs in Korea but caused a big loss of American jobs.   While the U.S. trade deficit with the world increased 21%, our trade deficit with Korea jumped 81%...   The year before NAFTA, the U.S. ran a $1.6G trade surplus with Mexico.   Last year, the U.S. ran a $64G deficit.   NAFTA was predicted to create 20K new U.S. jobs by increasing our exports to Mexico.   That turned out to be another pipe dream; by 2010, NAFTA had eliminated 682,900 U.S. jobs, some in every state."

2013-07-23
Tony Romm _Politico_
STEM executives paid small price to buy S744
"Google, FB, Oracle and a full slate of companies and executives showered the senate's Gang of 8 with a series of donations just before the chamber passed a bill that included [their] most prized [immigration law perversions] -- including more H-1B visas. Google and MSFT donated to senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) while Facebook backed the lawmaker’s leadership PAC called Common Sense Colorado, according to recent federal campaign filings. Meanwhile, top Silicon Valley investors -- like Ron Conway and John Doerr -- contributed big to senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). And tech companies and executives offered similar support to senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), John McCain (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Only senators Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the final members of the group, didn’t draw serious cash from tech company campaign coffers during the immigration battle — but they don’t face reelection until 2018. Tech [executives] long have sought access to a larger pool of [cheap, young, pliant, low-skilled workers with flexible ethics], both by way of temporary H-1B visas as well as green cards for immigrants with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and math fields. And the Gang of 8 bill [S744], which the Senate advanced in June, largely delivered... Bennet's re-election coffers benefited from a $5K check from Google and a $1K check from Intel. FB also donated $5K to the senator’s leadership PAC, and MSFT contributed $2,500. For Graham, Cisco CEO John Chambers provided about $5K in support, with smaller sums coming from venture capitalist Doerr and his wife, as well as Conway; Joel Kaplan, a leading lobbyist for FB in Washington; and Oracle's political action committee. Oracle also shelled out $2,500 to Rubio, who will be up for reelection in 2016, while Google, MSFT and FB each donated $5K to the senator's leadership PAC, called Reclaim America."

2013-07-23
Valeria Fernandez _Albuquerque NM Journal_/_AP_
illegal aliens test US borders by leaving USA and then openly returning, demanding re-entry on "humanitarian" grounds
"On the U.S.A. side of the border, about 60 people waiting for the activists chanted in Spanish, 'No papers, no fear.'"

2013-07-23
Chad Groening _One News Now_
ALIPAC says GOP losership is ready to cave on S744

2013-07-23
Justin Sink _Hill_
Nasty Pelosi leading discharge petition effort to ram through S744

2013-07-23
David North _Center for Immigration Studies_
clash between 2 DHS officials may shed light on EB-5 visas
"[Alejandro Mayorkas] is under investigation for his role in helping a company secure an international investor visa for a Chinese executive, The Associated Press has learned.'   All this is perfectly true -- and the international investor program (EB-5) is a continuing disgrace, a congressionally created way for aliens to buy legal status in the United States with as little as half a million dollars for a batch of visas for the whole family.   Mayorkas runs the program and it is possible that the investigation will complicate his life.   The investigation is by the DHS Inspector General's Office...   The other main player, not mentioned by name in the AP story I read is Charles K. Edwards, the acting inspector general of the department, a civil servant.   He is on a downward path and Mayorkas is no friend of his.   Edwards, frankly, has a mixed record.   OT1H, he led the IG's office when it issued a scathing report on the tendency of USCIS, under Mayorkas, to stretch toward [approving] questionable immigration applications as described in this CIS web log.   I found his report both commendable and gutsy.   OTOH, as this CNN report indicates, Edwards has been accused of nepotism for hiring his own wife to work at the IG's office, for having his staff write his PhD dissertation for him, and for using federal travel funds to attend the PhD classes while claiming to be visiting IG field offices.   There is an ongoing senate committee investigation of these matters.   As CNN did not report, Edwards was (and may still be) seeking a PhD in information management from an academic program at Nova Southeastern University in Florida, which had such a low ranking in the US News and World Report survey of educational institutions that the score was not published...   Mayorkas has been a cheer-leader for the [EB-5] program and has made substantive changes in the decision-making process to make it easier for investors, generally, to get their visas."
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-24

2013-07-24
Emmalee C. Torisk _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
"innovative", "entrepreneurial" 6th grader launches Just Stick With Me

2013-07-24
Daiel Pipes _Commentary_
Can Islam be reformed?

2013-07-24
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
Ward Hill Lamon, his brother, Robert Lamon... and Christian F. Laise
"My objective was simple... find the grave of Christian F. Laise.   As some might recall, Laise was one of the presidents of the war-time Union League, in Berkeley county, West Virginia.   I started, knowing that Laise was buried in the Gerrardstown Presbyterian Cemetery..."

2013-07-24
John Ransom _Town Hall_
Obummer's revolting bankers

2013-07-24
Guy Benson _Town Hall_
UK's NHS caused up to 13K needless deaths since 2005

2013-07-24
Ralph Benko _Town Hall_
Paul Krugman

2013-07-24
L. Brent Bozell iii _Town Hall_
insulating pres. Obummer from his more corrupt than usual extortionists
Cybercast News Service

2013-07-24
Bob Barr _Town Hall_
opposers of self-defence personify European monarchism and pacifism, not American values

2013-07-24
Michael Schaus _Town Hall_
Nancy Pelosi's precarious grasp of the English language

2013-07-24
Cheryl K. Chumley _Washington DC Times_
petition demanding answers on attack of US consulate at Benghazi unfurled on Capitol Hill
"Specifically, Special Operations Veterans is asking for more House members to sign on to HR36, a bill that would establish the congressional Select Committee on Benghazi, WND reported."

2013-07-24
Mark R. Levin _Cybercast News Service_
did John Boehner cut some kind of deal with pres. Obummer on Benghazi? (video)

2013-07-24
Paul Solman, Hal Salzman, B. Lindsay Lowell & David Kuehn _National Socialist Television_
the bogus claims of high-tech talent shortage and how guest-workers lower US wages
"165,893 new-hires in IT in 2011, 106,013 new IT guest-workers were brought in in 2011, and S744 would encourage bringing in 179,451 IT guest-workers per year... H-1B guest workers are concentrated in computer programmer and system analyst jobs; in fact, they fill 85% of them.   But most of these are commodity-like production jobs in IT services, doing back office programming for companies.   A disproportionate number of H-1Bs provide on-shore customer management for off-shore programming teams.   Ironically, without the visas, much of the programming work couldn't have been off-shored in the first place."
Why Good People Can't Get Jobs (go here to down-load free chapter of book)

2013-07-24
Thomas E. Brewton
Can political liberty survive the aggressive growth of collectivist government?
"a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by James Taranto regarding the IRS's actions aimed at blocking conservative groups' applications for tax-exempt status.   Mr. Taranto concludes: 'Abolishing direct taxation [as a way to curb IRS aggression] sounds good to us.   But how does one pay for a vast (or even only half-vast) [illfare] state without it?'...   expansion of the Federal bureaucracy inescapably means diminution of individuals' political, economic, and social liberties.   People don't get [illfare]-state entitlements without paying higher taxes and surrendering some of their freedoms."

2013-07-24
Shilpa Phadnis _Times of India_
Indian IT firms create more jobs for Indians in USA than American firms do
"In the last 7 years, Indian IT companies are estimated to have added 30K-40K jobs in the US, excluding green card holders...   IBM's US head-count [was] estimated at 91K for 2012, down sharply from 133,789 in 2005...   In contrast, IBM added 100K people in the last 7 years, but all of it over-seas.   Its head-count in India rose from 36K in 2005 to an estimated 135K in 2012.   Some believe it might be closer to 150K now...   Accenture's US head-count grew from 32,318 in FY2008 to just 38K in FY2012.   The percentage of the company's US head-count as part of the total head-count declined from 18.6% to 14.8% during the same period.   However, between fiscal 2006 and fiscal 2013, [Viju K George & Amit Sharma of] JP Morgan estimates that Indian IT added 38K locals to its US work-force."

2013-07-24
Ray Hennessey _Entrepreneur_
Are US executives too hungry for cheap, young, pliant, low-skilled foreign workers with flexible ethics?
"There are 1.34 qualified domestic workers for every one position where a company has indicated an intent to hire a foreign worker through the H-1B visa program, according to data from employment site Bright.com.   In some fields, like financial analysis, there are as many as 12 qualified American candidates for every job a company claims they need to fill with an H-1B worker...   Bright used its data-base of roughly a million active resumes over the past 45 days and created dummy job descriptions based on so-called labor condition applications, or LCAs, filed by companies in the second quarter.   LCAs aren't actually H-1B visa applications, but they indicate an intention on the part of a company to fill an opening with a foreign worker.   Then Bright matched its candidate pool with available jobs.   What's more, it looked at the matching geographically.   So, if a company in Troy, MI, posted a position for a computer programmer, Bright only found qualified candidates in that geographic area.   For management-analyst positions, Bright had 56,460 candidates for 8,683 LCAs.   There were 4.08 American job candidates for every one electronics-engineering job listed as an H-1B position.   But financial analysts take the cake, according to the data.   Bright found 89,280 'good-fit' candidates in its data-base to fill the 7,186 jobs companies listed as H-1B positions...   the Bright study showed that there are enough [local] domestic candidates for software-development jobs (31,560) for the number of H-1B proposals (30,915) listed...   The number of U.S. citizens in computer and mathematical graduate programs has grown 88% over the last decade, he said."

2013-07-24
Moe Lane
how Alejandro Mayorkas, Anthony Rodham, Greentech, Terry McAuliffe, and Hillary Clinton are linked in EB-5 visa abuse scheme
Washington DC Times
Fox
WatchDog
"Via Instapundit comes this report from Reuters that 'USCIS director Alejandro Mayorkas, who has been nominated to be the deputy secretary of Homeland Security -- and who could soon run the department -- is under investigation by the department's inspector general'.   Why is Mayorkas being investigated? Because he allegedly broke ethics rule by arranging for an 'investor visa' for Gulf Coast Funds Management.   Gulf Coast Funds Management is run by Hillary Clinton's brother Anthony Rodham.   This is where we have to leave Reuters, because Reuters -- accidentally or deliberately -- decided to stop telling the story.   An 'investor visa' means an EB-5 visa… and this is where we get deep into the weeds.   EB-5 visas are pretty much designed to trade green cards for significant foreign investment, thus making them very very valuable things indeed.   There have been allegations -- vehemently denied (which is to say, lawsuits are involved) -- that Gulf Coast operated the 'green car' Greentech Automotive company as essentially a pay-for-visa program.   This is important partially because Gulf Coast is run by Anthony Rodham, who is the brother of Hillary Clinton, who is the political patron of Terry McAuliffe, who ran Greentech up to the point where doing so became a political liability for his Virginia gubernatorial campaign.   And, for the absolute cherry on this particular case: McAuliffe actively pushed Homeland Security director Janet Napolitano for movement on EB-5 visas for Greentech.   Did it work? Well, apparently there was some movement on this by January.   Hey! Didn't Janet Napolitano suddenly announce that she was quitting, 2 weeks ago?"

2013-07-24
W.D. Reasoner _Center for Immigration Studies_
keeping the home-land SAFE and secure (HR2278)

2013-07-24
_UK Daily Mail_/_Reuters_
Mexican officials found 94 illegal aliens crammed in truck headed for USA-Mexico border (with X-ray image)
"A truck packed with 94 illegal migrants was detained in Chiapas, Mexico, as it headed for the U.S. border.   Among the 94 were 10 Bangladeshis and nine Nepalese who paid up to $8K for the journey...   Mexican officials have detained 94 illegal immigrants, including 19 from the Indian subcontinent...   found near the southern city of Tuxtla Gutierrez, capital of Chiapas state...   Apprehensions of Asians immigrating illegally to the United States have increased sharply in recent years, according to the U.S. DHS."

2013-07-24 (5773 Menachem-Ab 17)
Alexei Koseff _Jewish World Review_
schizophrenic/corrupt US federal appeals judges declare contrary to federal law that US citizens born in Jerusalem, were not born in Israel
"In 2002 Congress passed a law allowing U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem to list Israel as their birth-place.   [Wow! Reality; what a concept.]   Ari and Naomi Zivotofsky, whose son Menachem was born in the Holy City, filed a law-suit in 2003 demanding enforcement.   A three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously declared unconstitutional a 2002 law that required the State Department to record Israel as the birth-place of Jerusalem-born citizens despite a long-standing position in the executive branch of strict neutrality toward sovereignty of the disputed city...   Though the United States has recognized the sovereignty of Israel since it declared independence in 1948, no president has ever taken a position on Jerusalem.   Israel considers the city its political and spiritual capital, and Palestinians seek to make east Jerusalem the capital of a newly formed country [as well as their own, Palestine, a.k.a. the Gaza strip]...   Congress has long demanded recognition of Israel's sovereign control over Jerusalem.   In 1995, it passed a law requiring that the United States move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, an act that has since been suspended on a semi-annual basis by the president 'for national security reasons'."

2013-07-24 (5773 Menachem-Ab 17)
Jeremiah Hall _Jewish World Review_
both major political parties are seriously considering killing the charitable tax deductions for donors
"Individual donations certainly account for a significant part of charity revenues.   According to Giving USA, donors gave $217G to charities last year.   But when it comes to legislative lobbying, charities may have to move beyond their 'shrinking violet' reputation...   Non-profits [of all kinds] employed 13.5M individuals, approximately 10% of the nation's work-force, in 2009, according to the Charitable Giving Coalition.   Those workers in the charity sector earned roughly 9% of wages paid in the USA, or about $668G...   Battered by years of slumping donations and sky-rocketing demand for their services, the country's top 400 charities saw donations increase 7.5% in 2011."

2013-07-24 (5773 Menachem-Ab 17)
judge Andrew P. Napolitano _Jewish World Review_
liberty and safety
"When Edward Snowden revealed that the federal government, in direct defiance of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, was unlawfully and unconstitutionally spying on all Americans who use telephones, text messaging or emails to communicate with other persons, he opened a Pandora's box of allegations and recriminations.   The allegations he unleashed are that Americans have a government that assaults our personal freedoms, operates in secrecy and violates the Constitution and the values upon which it is based.   The recriminations are that safety is a greater good than liberty..."

2013-07-24 (5773 Menachem-Ab 17)
Michelle Malkin _Jewish World Review_
Nancy Pelosi, enabler of misogynic/misanthropic creeps
Town Hall
Cybercast News Service

2013-07-24 (5773 Menachem-Ab 17)
John Stossel _Jewish World Review_
stalled Motor City
Town Hall
"Detroit has been a model city for big-government!   All Detroit's mayors since 1962 were Democrats who were eager to micromanage.   And spend.   Detroit has the only utility tax in Michigan, and its income tax is the third-highest of any big city in America (only Philadelphia and Louisville take more, and they aren't doing great, either).   Detroit's auto-makers got billions in federal bail-outs.   The Detroit News revealed that Detroit in 2011 had around twice as many municipal employees per capita as cities with comparable populations.   The city water and sewer department employed a 'horse-shoer' even though it keeps no horses...   Politicians think they know best, but they can't alter the laws of economics.   They can't make mismanaged industries, constant government meddling, welfare and bureaucratic labor union rules (Detroit has 47 unions) into a formula for success...   Politicians on Detroit's city council aren't even willing to sell off vacant lots that the city owns, or even a portion of the billions of dollars in art in its government-subsidized museum (including the original 'Howdy Doody' puppet).   On my TV show, I confronted the council's second in command about his refusal to let Detroit sell land.   He says he voted against it 'because the developer wants to grow trees.   We don't need any more new trees in our city.'   The politicians micromanaged themselves into bankruptcy, and they want to keep digging.   A member of the British Parliament writes that Detroit is like the fictional city of Starnesville in Ayn Rand's 1957 novel _Atlas Shrugged_ -- a car-manufacturing city that became a ghost town after experimenting with socialism.   In the novel, Starnesville's demise is the first sign that the entire society is approaching collapse.   Detroit is already there.   911 calls sometimes go unanswered.   Two-thirds of the population left town.   As usual, the politicians want to try more of the same.   They constantly come up with plans, but the plans are always big, simple-minded ones that run rough-shod over the thousands of little plans made by ordinary citizens."

2013-07-24 (5773 Menachem-Ab 17)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
profiling
Town Hall
Cybercast News Service
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-25

2013-07-25
Denise Dick _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
learning about STEM jobs

2013-07-25
Mike McNally _PJ Media_
UK's single-payer horror show

2013-07-25
Jonathan Abbott
my personal path to questioning catastrophic anthropogenic global warming

2013-07-25 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT) (14:30 Jerusalem)
Tom Stengle & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
DoL regulations
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 338,140 in the week ending July 20, a decrease of 71,879 from the previous week.   There were 340,780 initial claims in the comparable week in 2012.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.3% during the week ending July 13, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week's unrevised rate.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,047,802, a decrease of 98,920 from the preceding week's revised level of 3,146,722.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.6% and the volume was 3,336,728.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending July 6 was 4,840,609, an increase of 317,403 from the previous week.   There were 6,034,225 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2012.   Extended Benefits were not available in any state during the week ending July 6...   States reported 1,612,242 persons claiming Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) benefits for the week ending July 6, a decrease of 24,489 from the prior week.   There were 2,556,456 persons claiming EUC in the comparable week in 2012.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" (the divisor) changes roughly quarterly:
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03;
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25;
to 125,560,066 beginning 2011-01-15;
to 125,572,661 beginning 2011-04-02;
to 125,807,389 beginning 2011-07-02;
to 126,188,733 beginning 2011-10-01;
to 126,579,970 beginning 2012-01-01;
to 127,048,587 beginning 2012-04-07;
to 127,495,952 beginning 2012-07-14;
to 128,066,082 beginning 2012-10-06;
to 128,613,913 beginning 2013-01-05;
to 129,204,324 beginning 2013-04-06;
to 129,827,178 beginning 2013-07-06.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2013-07-25
_YouTube_
illegal aliens caught in border tunnel near San Diego
more video

2013-07-25
Alan Bjerga _BusinessWeek_/_Bloomberg_
S722 may bar South African farm-workers: The wheat industry fears Congress will cut its high-skilled labor supply
"Although only a little more than 1,100 South Africans worked on U.S. farms last year, they are coveted by employers because they speak English and have the skills to run high-tech machinery, learned on farms back home."
Peter Coy & Elizabeth Dwoskin: green cards may be even worse way to flood USA with cheap, young, pliant labor with flexible ethics

2013-07-25
Quentin Fottrell _MarketWatch_
18-34 year olds are not buying homes because they can't afford them

2013-07-25
Carolyn Mathas _EE Times_/_UBM_
Why aren't our STEM grads being hired?

2013-07-25
David North _Center for Immigration Studies_
further examination of the consequences of proposals to give out green cards to foreign STEM grads
"S744...and HR2131, as approved by the House Judiciary Committee, differ in detail, both would provide automatic green cards to such graduates...   In addition to flooding high-tech labor markets with needless extra workers, these provisions would reduce the average quality of such workers, and would encourage enrollment in third- and-fourth-rate U.S. educational institutions...   most of the PhDs stay here under current law.   After these 2 sortings, there remain a large number of persons with STEM master's degrees; the best of these are hired in the United States and many eventually get green cards, though after years of waiting; most of the lesser ones go home or on to third countries...   there would be no competition to get H-1B visas or green cards, as everyone would get the green card automatically.   This would, in turn, mean two things: the less talented people who currently are not staying because they have not impressed an employer, would probably stay anyway, and further, more people with enough money to cover tuition, room, and board for two years would come to the United States for master's degrees and the sure green card.   The average level of quality would fall..."

2013-07-25 (5773 Menachem-Ab 18)
judge Andrew P. Napolitano _Jewish World Review_
liberty and safety
"When Edward Snowden revealed that the federal government, in direct defiance of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, was unlawfully and unconstitutionally spying on all Americans who use telephones, text messaging or emails to communicate with other persons, he opened a Pandora's box of allegations and recriminations.   The allegations he unleashed are that Americans have a government that assaults our personal freedoms, operates in secrecy and violates the Constitution and the values upon which it is based.   The recriminations are that safety is a greater good than liberty, and Snowden interfered with the ability of the government to keep us safe by exposing its secrets, and so he should be silenced and punished.   In the course of this debate, you have heard the argument that we all need to sacrifice some liberty in order to assure our safety, that liberty and safety are in equipoise, and when they clash, it is the government that should balance one against the other and decide which shall prevail.   This is, of course, an argument the government loves, as it presupposes that the government has the moral, legal and constitutional power to make this satanic bargain.   It doesn't.   Roman emperors and tribal chieftains, King George iii and French revolutionaries, 20th-century dictators and 21st-century American presidents all have asserted that their first job is to keep us safe, and in doing so, they are somehow entitled to take away our liberties, whether it be the speech they hate or fear, the privacy they capriciously love to invade or the private property and wealth they salaciously covet."

2013-07-25 (5773 Menachem-Ab 18)
Ann Coulter _Jewish World Review_
unsung black people

2013-07-25 (5773 Menachem-Ab 18)
Victor Davis Hanson _Jewish World Review_
back to our 20th century future
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-26

2013-07-26
_BALA_
DC March for Jobs video

2013-07-26
_Carrying Capacity Network_
danger from any House immigration bill
"Former congressman Tom Tancredo puts his finger on the danger coming in to the House of Representatives.   They will pass some rather decent immigration law.   It will go to Conference Committee to be reconciled with the horrendous senate-passed S744.   Conference Committee will 'compromise' on something that enacts the worst provisions of S744.   Don't let that happen."

2013-07-26
Mike Shedlock _Global Economic Analysis_
climate craziness of the week: Spain levies consumption tax on sun-light
Watts Up With That

2013-07-26
Andrea Coombes _MarketWatch_
salary/compensation web-sites
Salary.com
GlassDoor
PayScale
Indeed

2013-07-26
Thomas Claburn _InformationWeek_/_UBM_
160M credit card account numbers nabbed
"Businesses aren't doing enough to defend their systems against hackers, like the 5 men charged Thursday by the Justice Department with conspiring to steal data from corporate databases over a 7-year period, according to a San Diego State MIS professor...   4 Russians and a Ukrainian, are said to have stolen more than 160M card numbers and to have inflicted hundreds of millions of dollars in financial harm to more than a dozen major companies...   The men are alleged to have targeted corporate financial transaction data from 7-Eleven, Carrefour, Commidea, Dexia, Diners Singapore, Dow Jones, Euronet, Global Payment, Hannaford, Heartland, Ingenicard, JCP, JetBlue, NASDAQ, Visa Jordan and Wet Seal."

2013-07-26
Steven A. Camarota & Karen Zeigler _Center for Immigration Studies_
immigrant gains and native losses in US job markets 2000 to 2013 (with graphs)
35% of population growth were immigrants while 100% of job growth were immigrants. 1.3% fewer of the natives are working.

2013-07-26
Glenn Beck
5 job statistics pres. Obummer won't tell you about
1.   Over 69% of the jobs created in 2013Q2 and over 57% of all the jobs created in the first half of 2013 were created in the three lowest wage sub-sectors of the economy, Retail Trade, Administrative and Waste Services, and Leisure and Hospitality, that otherwise account for an aggregate of only 33% of all private sector jobs.
2.   These jobs, in the aggregate, pay an average of only $15.80 per hour, compared with the other two-thirds of private sector jobs, which pay $27.16 per hour.   Relative to unemployment benefits and other assistance, jobs at $15.80 per hour put less than $3.00/hour more in the pockets of a newly working consumer.
3.   About half of the jobs created during the first half of 2013, and a large majority of the jobs created in 2013Q2, appear to have been part-time jobsthat offer employees as little as one hour of work per week, and up to 35 hours of work.
4.   After falling from a recession high of 9.2M to a post-recession low of 7.6M at the end of 2013Q1, the number of people saying they are working part time because they can’t find full time work (part time for economic reasons) crept back up to 8.2M, double pre-recession levels.
5.   Nearly 100$ of the decline in the U-3 unemployment rate has been the result of there being fewer workers in the labor force as a percentage of the employable population.   If the Labor Force Participation Rate had not fallen from 2009 October, when unemployment hit its Great Recession peak of 10%, unemployment would today still be around 10%.   Moreover, if the LFPR were held constant from its highest pre-recession level of 66.40% in 2007 January (when unemployment was 4.6%), the U-3 unemployment rate would be nearly 12% today.

2013-07-26
David North _Center for Immigration Studies_
Alejandro Mayorkas approved as deputy secretary at DHS as GOP senators don't participate
"senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), the ranking minority member of the committee, had called for the postponement of the hearing until an on-going investigation of Mayorkas by the Acting Inspector General of DHS could be completed...   Meanwhile, senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), a critic of the immigration policy of the administration generally, and of Mayorkas, specifically, has released a collection of documents on USCIS and the EB-5 program (pdf).   It is an interesting, mixed bag, including some senatorial letters to Mayorkas and others asking a series of pointed questions, as well as partially redacted government memoranda on the EB-5 program."
W.D. Reasoner: Mayorkas controversy redux
"According to a Detroit News on-line article, the DHS Inspector General's Office '[started] investigating the EB-5 visa program last year based on a referral from an FBI analyst in the counter intelligence unit in Washington'.   The article quotes an unnamed FBI official as stating, 'Let's just say that we have a significant issue that my higher ups are really concerned about and this may be addressed way above my pay grade', and goes on to speak in great detail about the concerns of the FBI, the State Department, and other officials that the investor visa program has been thoroughly penetrated by [Red Chinese] government proxies who are extensively coached in how to mask their government's involvement."
Detroit MI News

2013-07-26
Jerry Kammer _Center for Immigration Studies_
former GAO official talks straight on finding balance between border and interior security

2013-07-26
Beryl Lieff Benderly _AAAS Science Careers_
Darin Wedel employed, but not in his field of micro-chip design

2013-07-26
_Fox_/_MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index up from 84.1 in late June to 83.9 in early July to 85.1 in late July
RTT News
CNBC/Reuters
Texarkana Gazette
Federal Reserve Board St. Louis

2013-07-26
Jeremy Beck _Numbers USA_
August recess may be key to stopping amnesty for illegal aliens and immigration expansion

2013-07-26
Steve Goldstein _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index changed from 84.1 in late June to 83.9 in early July to 85.1 in late July
Federal Reserve Board St. Louis

2013-07-26
Judith Curry, Ph.D.
the bogus, anti-science, meaningless "97% consensus" poll: obscures the complexities, delineating tribes, messy wickedness, glosses over or ignores important details of data acquisition, adjustment, aggregation
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-27

2013-07-27
Paul B. Farrell _MarketWatch_
bubbles and crashes forever is the Keynesian way

2013-08-27
Anthony Watts
president of American Academy of Arts and Sciences asked to resign for false NYU doctorate claim
SlashDot

2013-07-27
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
surprise speaker at Zuckerberg event
 
As most of you know, a major point I make about the H-1B work visa program is that employers use H-1B to avoid hiring older (cut-off point only age 35!) Americans.   Younger workers are cheaper, not only in salary but in benefits (less likely to have a family, etc.).   The vast majority of H-1Bs are young.
 
This topic came up by surprise in a "forum" on immigration yesterday, reported in "Andrew Mason Talks Immigration Reform at Zuckerberg Forum in Chicago", Chicago Tribune, July 27.
 
Of course, the panel at a real forum would have speakers from both sides of the issue, certainly not the case here.   But someone from the audience spoke briefly during the Q&A, countering what the "united" panel said:
 
"When an audience member, who identified himself as a University of Chicago-educated network engineer who's looking for work and frustrated because 'Silicon Valley millionaires' are biased toward young workers, none of the speakers volunteered a response.
 
On the side-lines of the event, however, [representative Bill Foster] addressed the issue of competition between foreign and domestic workers, saying the creation of high-tech jobs for 'skilled' immigrants tends to beget more such positions.   He also urged tech start-ups to examine ageism, which he described as 'a continual worry'."
 
It's not surprisng that none of the speakers responded.   They undoubtedly know the problem, and are, as the old saying goes, PART of the problem.
 
I doubt that Foster would support the provision that was originally in the senate bill but shot down after heavy industry lobbying.   It would have required employers to give hiring priority to Americans of equal OR GREATER qualifications as the foreign applicant.   That "equal or greater" clause would have helped a lot with the age aspect of H-1B.
 
Meanwhile, of course, the senate bill [S744] retained a provision that in essence give automatic green cards to huge numbers of new foreign graduates in STEM -- almost all of whom will be young, thus making the age problem even worse.
 
Unfortunately, the unjustified scape-goating of the Indian [cross-border bodyshopping and off-shoring firms which get a very large fraction of guest-work visas] has clouded the issue regarding H-1B.   The problems -- cheap labor, exploitation of immobile labor, etc. -- pervade the entire industry, not just the Indian firms.   In the cheap labor category, yes, H-1Bs are on average paid less than U.S. citizens and permanent residents of the same age, skill sets and so on, but the big savings comes from hiring young H-1Bs instead of older Americans.   This point is rarely covered by the press, let alone members of Congress.
 
Norm
---30---

2013-07-27
Eddie Gregg _Billings MT Gazette_
60th Mexican fiesta
Susan Olp: Renaissance Faire and Highland Games

2013-07-27
Jessica Vaughan _Center for Immigration Studies_
more evidence of enforcement stagnation
"According to the data provided to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a government watchdog project of Syracuse University, this fiscal year ICE is issuing 19% fewer detainers than last year.   Detainers are formal requests from ICE to another law enforcement agency, usually a local jail, not to release an alien...   TRAC reports that in the first 4 months of FY2013, ICE issued an average of 18,427 detainers per month.   In the first 4 months of FY2012, ICE issued an average of 22,832 detainers per month.   The total number of detainers issued by ICE in 2012 was 273,982.   So far in 2013, ICE has issued 73,709 detainers.   At that pace, ICE is on track to issue 220,027 detainers this year; that is, ICE is on track to remove nearly 54K fewer criminal aliens than last year...   As of 2013 March, total removals were down 40%, removals of criminals were down 36%, and interior removals were down 50% since 2011 May.   In contrast, identifications of criminal aliens though ICE's new Secure Communities program were up 24% over the same time period...   DHS reported that more than 409,849 aliens were removed in 2012, an increase over 2011, when 396,906 were reported removed.   So how is it that DHS was able to report nearly 410K removals in 2012 when ICE issued fewer than 274K detainers?"

2013-07-27
David North _Center for Immigration Studies_
EB-5 slaughter-house project in SD declared bankruptcy
"A large EB-5 project in Aberdeen, SD, Northern Beef Packers Limited Partnership (NBP), has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, probably leaving some 160 alien investors (mostly Chinese) with little or no financial return for their 160 half-million-dollar investments, according to local reports...   It is a rule of thumb, though one rarely acknowledged by EB-5 advocates, that the EB-5 investments are by definition sub-par in nature.   Promoters who cannot secure funding through the normal channels turn to EB-5 only as the last resort...   As I recall from reading about NBP in the past, it was, in addition to its other problems, deeply involved in court cases fought by two rival factions of Hutterites, both of which have deep roots in the cattle and packing businesses.   Hutterites are members of a deeply conservative Protestant sect, formed in Germany centuries ago, that make the Amish look like hippies.   They are a significant force in Dakotas farming...   In this case, as was reported in the Madville Times, an alternative publication, the first 70 EB-5 investors bought stock in the company, in keeping with the rules; then the promoters sold the next 90 investors stakes in a corporation whose main business was to lend money to NBP, making those investments appear to be closer to loans than to common stock in the packing plant.   The EB-5 program is full of such shenanigans...   The statute stipulates that no immigration benefit can be extended to an alien investor unless the investment produces 10 jobs, other than any to the investor's family.   In the case of the Dakota meat packing plans there were 160 alien investors -- and they probably were not the only investors.   That means that the project should have produced at least 1,600 new jobs.   According to the Madville Times, NBP had laid off 108 workers in April and still had 300 on its shaky pay-roll when it filed for bankruptcy, for a total of 408."
KELO: beef-packers plant files for bankruptcy
KELO: plant dumps more than 250 more workers
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-28

2013-07-28
Quentin Fottrell _MartketWatch_
job markets: the kids are not doing alright

2013-07-28
W.D. Reasoner _Center for Immigration Studies_
HR2278: restoring the parameters of the US constitution

2013-07-28
Jon Feere _Center for Immigration Studies_
pollsters and media are still trying to mislead the public about back-tax provision of S744

2013-07-28
David Archibald
update on solar cycle 24, "weakest in almost 200 years"

2013-07-28
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
Where does the sesquicentennial go from here?

2013-07-28
Thomas E. Brewton
Obummer's continuation of the attack on the American idea

2013-07-28
Dennis Michael Lynch _YouTube_
the bottom line on the H-1B visa program is that they want cheap labor

2013-07-28
Stephen Frank
technology undermines "need" as excuse for using illegal aliens for farm labor

2013-07-28
Mike Shedlock _Town Hall_
fewer full-time jobs, fewer long-term jobs, more class warfare

2013-07-28
Mark Baisley _Town Hall_
IRS joins government health/medical privacy violations
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

2013-07-29

2013-07-29
Benny Peiser
Siemens board asking Peter Loescher to resign as CEO, after "green energy" losses
"Siemens, Europe's largest engineering company, has lost patience with its CEO after Peter Loescher's expansion into green energy and expensive acquisitions led to a fifth profit-forecast cut. Supervisory board officials have asked for the 55-year-old Austrian native to be ousted."

2013-07-29
Anthony Watts
a map for warmist hysterics who have misplaced the north pole

2013-07-29
Patrick Thibodeau _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
federal prosecutors say $2.3M in bribes were paid to CIO and DBA of MultiPlan Inc.: 8 charged
DoJ press release

2013-07-29
Victor Davis Hanson _PJ Media_
life in the twilight
"America is in great shape energy-wise.   We have more gas and oil reserves than ever before.   Indeed, the United States could shortly become the world's largest exporter of coal.   Our cheaper power rates may bring energy-intensive industry back from Europe and Asia.   If America's small colleges are nearly broke and our public schools failing, nonetheless our blue-chip universities' math, science, and engineering departments, and professional schools, remain the best in the world.   California alone has more centers of higher learning rated among the world's top 20 universities than does any other single nation save the United States itself.   Agriculture is booming.   Net food exports are at record levels.   Our military, despite the sequestration cuts, stays preeminent.   We are not witnessing the sort of social unrest that is now common from Greece to the Middle East to Brazil, thanks to the Founders' brilliant Constitution and a popular culture that is still more inclusive than tribal...   Yet most Americans remain politically unhappy.   Polls show record dislike of the Congress.   There is growing irritation with Barack Obama, and a general sense that the country is moving in the wrong direction...   mounting debt, the chronic deficits, the serially high unemployment...   In some sense, our whole way of life is changing.   Wide-open, upbeat America is turning into a neurotic, look-over-your-shoulder society.   Kids stay home until 30.   Part-time work is OK.   Having one child in your late 30s is a burden -- all papered over by a veneer of iPhones, latte, and nice-looking imported cars...   Then there are the lies of our age all put to the purpose of egalitarian 'fairness', but they are lies nonetheless.   Of course, this is not entirely new: the Rosenbergs were really guilty of selling us out.   So was Alger Hiss.   Mumia Abu-Jamal was a cop killer.   Che was a sadist.   Castro killed more than did Pinochet.   Woodrow Wilson was a classic racist at a time many of his background were not anymore.   I could go on, but the legendary and politically exempt icons the left [pushed on] us were mostly lies."

2013-07-29
Lou Barletta _Washington DC Times_
no border security, no amnesty
"I have proposed The Visa Overstay Enforcement Act of 2013 (HR2631), which applies to those who do not make a good-faith effort to leave the United States by the expiration dates of their visas.   Upon a first offense, the bill creates a felony punishable by a $10K fine and 1 year in jail.   The illegal immigrant may not be legally admitted to the United States for five years from the date of conviction and may not apply for a visa for 10 years from the date of conviction.   A second offense also would be a felony, punishable by fine of $15K and up to 5 years in prison.   The illegal immigrant would be banned from entering the United States for life...   A second bill, The 1986 Amnesty Transparency Act (HR2630), aims to learn lessons from our failed amnesty experiment in 1986."

2013-07-29
Shawn Mitchell _Town Hall_
a few questions for abc, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, NPR, AP, NYT, LAT...

2013-07-29
_Town Hall_
comparing compensation of federal government employees with private sector employees
"Congressional Budget Office in 2012. They found that: 'On average for workers at all education levels, benefits for federal employees cost about $20 per hour worked, whereas benefits for private-sector employees cost $14, CBO estimates. Thus, benefits for federal workers cost 48% more per hour worked, on average, than benefits for private sector workers with similar attributes. Benefits also constituted a larger share of compensation for federal workers, accounting for 39% of the cost of total compensation, compared with 30% in the private sector.'"

2013-07-29
Jed Babbin _American Spectator_
Boehner's next retreat
"Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) is leading an effort to block any spending measure that funds [ObummerDoesn'tCare], regardless of the danger of Republicans being blamed for shutting down the government.   Some 64 Republicans have signed a letter to House speaker John Boehner asking him not to bring any funding bill to the floor that includes [ObummerDoesn'tCare].   That letter, circulated by representative Mark Meadows (R-NC), doesn't include a promise of the signers to vote against any such bill, which deprives the letter of any significance...   [Boehner] also said that the right path for the House to follow was the so-called 'Boehner rule', which requires any debt limit hike to be offset by spending cuts in an equal amount.   The problem with the 'Boehner rule' is that it's never been followed.   Time after time, the Republicans have been bullied into passing measures that have -- again and again -- increased the debt ceiling, raised taxes, increased the size of government, and hiked spending into the exoatmosphere [and increased already vastly excessive visa programs]...   Last year, [pres. Obummer] repeatedly threatened to veto any bill that hiked spending above sequestration levels.   Now, as one congressional wag put it, he's threatening to veto any bill that doesn't raise spending above the sequester's limits.   And let's not forget that for all its evils, the 2012 Budget Control Act -- along with increases to the debt ceiling, 'continuing resolutions' authorizing spending to avoid a government shut-down, and whatever other non-sense that's happened since 2010 -- was entered into by Boehner, senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, and the other Republican [losers] in Congress open-eyed and apparently without remorse [and in opposition to the Republican base]...   [The Republican losership] have apparently lost the ability to make a stand...   Why did we elect people who are giving every indication that they'll cave in on amnesty for illegal aliens [and increase already vastly excessive student, guest-work and green card program] this Fall?"
Jeffrey Lord: Reagan and Thatcher on GOP rabbits vs. tigers
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

Latest

2013-07-30

2013-07-30
Irwin Kellner _MarketWatch_
inflation is rotten to the core

2013-07-30
Irwin Kellner _News.com_
illegal alien Christopher Nicholas Bertke/Pogo arrested, banned from re-entering USA until 2021 for working without work visa

2013-07-30
Anthony Watts
"One must say clearly that we redistribute the world's wealth by climate policy." --- Ottmar Edenhover, UN IPCC

2013-07-30
_UPI_
Conference Board: consumer confidence fell in July
Daily Record/AP
Oregon Live
Tyler Durden: Zero Hedge
Jeffry Bartash: MarketWatch
"the index dropped from revised 82.1 in June to 80.3 in July...   In July, the Conference Board's Present Situation Index rose from 68.7 to 73.6, but the Expectations Index fell from 91.1 to 84.7 in the month, the research firm said...   Those claiming jobs are 'plentiful' increased to 12.2% from 11.3%, while those claiming jobs are 'hard to get' declined to 35.5% from 37.1%."

2013-07-30
Sara Sjolin _MarketWatch_
consumer sentiment up in Germany
"The pan-European index opened in positive territory on Tuesday, after research institute GfK said German consumers are the most optimistic they have been in 6 years.   The forward-looking consumer-sentiment indicator rose for the seventh straight month, to 7.0 points in August from 6.8 points in July, hitting its highest level since 2007 September and beating economists' forecast of a smaller increase to 6.9 points."

2013-07-30
Matthew Boyle _Breitbart_
USCIS union grilled House on proposed NIGHTMARE act
Stephen Dinan: Washington DC Times
"In a letter sent to those 4 law-makers Tuesday afternoon, USCIS National Council president Kenneth Palinkas wrote that that he wanted to 'share several security questions and concerns regarding your drafting of a DREAM Act proposal, as well as the difficulties plaguing USCIS that must be addressed.   As you know, the [Obummer regime] has already bypassed congress to implement a version of the proposal you are now considering.', Palinkas wrote.   'Of course, to do so, the administration also had to simultaneously suspend laws previously passed by Congress.   My first question, therefore, as a representative of those tasked with following the law, is how you intend to prevent this administration from simply implementing your proposal in a fashion of its own choosing with no regard for Congress' authority?'   Since Cantor, Ryan, Goodlatte, and Gowdy have put this debate off until after August recess, Palinkas laid out a hypothetical provision for what may become their DREAM Act.   'Let's say you establish in your law that illegal immigrants must be 30 years of age or younger at the time of application, must have entered illegally (or illegally overstayed a visa) at the age of 16 [or better, 7] or before, and must have resided in the U.S.A. for at least 5 years (it's only 18 months for the Senate bill).', Palinkas wrote.   'Let's also assume that, unlike the Schumer-Rubio-Corker-Hoeven bill [S744], you do not extend amnesty to those with violent criminal records and gang affiliations...   What is to stop the administration from simply issuing another round of non-enforcement orders (written or oral) that would eviscerate any attempted limitations in your bill?   For instance, the ICE Council reports that the administration's [NIGHTMARE act] is not being applied by ICE to children in schools, but instead to adult inmates in jails.   Gang members and other criminal offenders all take advantage of the administration's [NIGHTMARE Act] orders to evade arrest and deportation.'...   Palinkas added in his letter that USCIS agents have lots of concerns at their agency and said that the agency's 'myriad problems are being widely overlooked'.   He said the agency is in 'dire need of reform' because 99% of applications to president Obama's [NIGHTMARE Act] are automatically approved without scrutiny and that agents are prohibited from actually conducting in-person interviews with applicants for the program [let alone genuine investigations].   He said agents lack the 'resources, staffing and office space to fulfill our agency's mission'.   Palinkas, like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) National Council president Chris Crane, called on Cantor, Ryan, Goodlatte and Gowdy to work with law enforcement officials while drafting their legislation, unlike the senate bill [drafters], who ignored law enforcement input."

2013-07-30
Tony Lee _Breitbart_
House GOP losership timed consideration of immigration perversion bills to defer voter backlash until after August recess
National Journal
"'August was a central part of our discussions.   People don't want to go home and get screamed at.', a House GOP losership aide said...   After a special conference meeting on immigration July 10, Boehner, [majority loser] Eric Cantor, and majority whip Kevin McCarthy realized there was only enough support to pass tougher border security and, maybe, beefed up stateside enforcement before August...   Boehner, Cantor, and McCarthy have privately discussed holding off on immigration until October.   (September has only 9 legislative days that will be jammed with fiscal negotiations as House Republicans and Senate Democrats scramble to fund the government after the fiscal year ends Sept. 30.)   The August break gives Republicans time to chart a course on immigration ahead of a packed [Autumn] schedule that leaves little time for strategizing...   'Our members fundamentally don't believe that this administration will enforce the parts of the bill that they don't like.', the aide said.   Republicans also believe that Democrats' unwillingness to work with them on a piecemeal approach is proof that they are more interested in scoring a political victory than a policy win."

2013-07-30
Christopher S. Rugaber _Breitbart_
unemployment rates rose in 90% of US cities in June
"The city with the nation's lowest unemployment rate was Bismarck, ND, where the rate was 2.8%.   Yuma, AZ, reported the highest rate at 31.8%.   Yuma has a heavy population of migrant farm workers.   Among the 49 cities with more than 1M in population, Detroit had the highest unemployment rate at 10.3%."
graphs of a sampling of states, counties, cities

2013-07-30
Tony Lee _Breitbart_
Numbers USA: immigration debate pits citizenry against "unpatriotic billionaires"
"Roy Beck, the Executive Director of Numbers USA, claimed the immigration fight is ultimately one between grass-roots, working class Americans and unpatriotic billionaires that simply want to increase the labor supply to reduce wages across all income levels.   Appearing on Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot channel 125, Beck said the 'biggest impact' of the Senate's bill, if it becomes law, will be to 'double importation of foreign workers' and decrease wages in professions across the economic spectrum.   This is because the bill would allow for, in some medical and high-tech fields, an unlimited number of immigrants.   Beck said the bill would close 'up opportunity for American kids to go into these fields' while driving up the 'deficit and debt while not stopping illegal immigration'...   Beck claimed that 'incredible profits' can be made if wages are lowered in certain industries by just 'a nickel an hour'...   'To say numbers don't matter is to say Americans don't matter.', Beck declared.   He said Silicon Valley [executives] want a narrow part of the bill but have been convinced they have to push for the whole bill in order to get their piece, and that is why they are pouring nearly $100M into marketing campaigns to get [reprehensible immigration law perversion] passed.   Beck said he was extremely pleased to see working class Americans of all races rally at the Black American Leadership Alliance's 'DC March for Jobs' and hoped it was the beginning of 'what has to happen' to unite working class people of every ethnicity.   Beck said supporters of the comprehensive immigration bill often want to divide and conquer the working class.   For instance, Beck said that if working class black Americans complain about the immigration bill, supporters of the bill imply that they are anti-Hispanic...   Representatives should be told that they will be voted out of office if they support the bill because self-preservation is the only thing they know.   'Let them know if they vote for this, they are signing their political death warrant.', Bannon said.   'That's all they are gonna understand.   These guys don't understand anything but their self-preservation.   There can't be any nuance about this.   We're beyond nuance.   If you vote for it, you're gone.'   Beck agreed, warning against a potential conference that will try to find a middle ground between the 'bad' House bills [e.g. HR459, HR633, HR714, HR803, HR2131] and the 'end of America' senate [bills: S169, S293, S310, S518, S703, S744]."

2013-07-30
Christian Toto _Breitbart_
Red China seeking to tax Hollywood profits beyond WTO rules
"Hollywood swallowed hard -- very, very hard -- when deciding to enter into the movie business with [Red China].   The industry looked past the country's human rights abuses and its willingness to censor the arts in order to turn a bigger profit.   If they made a Hollywood movie out of the partnership, the show business types would be the greedy bad guys who get their comeuppance in the end.   Now, industry executives are learning it's not so easy to play nice with the Communist country.   Seems [Red China] isn't giving movie studios their recent profits, claiming it wishes to impose a new, 2% tax on them above and beyond existing tax structures.   The China Film Group is withholding payments following disagreements over a new 2% VAT-style tax that Beijing expects US studios to pay.   The American studios say the tax violates World Trade Organisation rules but so far have failed to make an official complaint or withdraw their films from cinemas.   All 6 major US studios are reportedly involved in the impasse...   Hollywood has been playing nice with [Red Chinese] movie officials for months now, creating special content engineered to delight Chinese audiences, snipping out story lines the [Red Chinese ruling thugs] might find offensive and casting Chinese actors in lucrative franchises like the fourth installment of the Transformers series."

2013-07-30
_Washington DC Compost_
Do we need more humanities majors?
Edward Conard: no
Christian Madsbjerg & Mikkel B. Rasmussen: yes

2013-07-30
Phyllis Schlafly _Town Hall_
House immigration bill is just as bad as S744
"Article 1, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution gives the sole power to the House to originate all bills for raising revenue, known as the Origination Clause.   If the senate over-steps and includes a provision to raise some revenue (which it did in the Gang's amnesty bill), the House can reject the bill and send it back to the senate for correction in what is known as a 'blue slip' procedure.   The devious Ryan plan to circumvent this rule is for the House to pass 5 or 6 bills on various aspects of amnesty and then use that bunch of bills to call for a conference committee with the senate.   Ryan let the cat out of the bag when he told a constituent audience in Racine, WI.   on July 26 that his revised plan now calls for a House vote, not before the August recess as originally expected but in October.   There is no indication that the Ryan amnesty is any better for Americans than the Rubio amnesty.   Amnesty is still a bad deal for all, whether it comes in 1 package or in 6.   The former New York lieutenant-governor, Dr. Betsy McCaughey, [one of the few] to have actually read the 1,200-page senate bill, says that the bill's text is loaded with 'slippery' words (such as 'emergency', 'comprehensive', 'plan' ['discretion', 'waive'] and 'reform') that create loop-holes giving Barack Obama the opportunity to refuse to enforce any provisions he doesn't like, including border security that the public is demanding."

2013-07-30
Stephen Dinan _Washington DC Times_
DHS lost track of 1M foreigners
"The Homeland Security Department has lost track of more than 1M people who it knows arrived in the U.S.A. but who it cannot prove left the country, according to [a GAO] audit Tuesday that also found the department probably won't meet its own goals for deploying an entry-exit system... 'DHS has not yet fulfilled the 2004 statutory requirement to implement a biometric exit capability, but has planning efforts under way to report to Congress in time for the fiscal year 2016 budget cycle on the costs and benefits of such a capability at airports and seaports.', GAO investigators wrote... The GAO said most of the over-stays came by airplane, but 32% came through land ports of entry, and 4% came by sea. The average length of overstay was 2.7 years."

2013-07-30
Anthony Watts
weather/climate Hot Sheet inaugural edition

2013-07-30
Anthony Watts
NOAA forecast shows July ending on a frigid note

2013-07-30
"Soulskill" & Dawn Kawamoto _Slash Dot_
Alcatel-Lucent cuts go deeper than announced earlier -- 7,500 dumped this year

2013-07-30
Katie Pavlich _Town Hall_
survivor of Benghazi attack waited on roof-top 20 hours for rescue

2013-07-30
John Hawkins _Town Hall_
5 ways leftism destroyed Detroit

2013-07-30
Guy Benson _Town Hall_
Chicago's debt tripled, credit down-graded

2013-07-30
Ken Blackwell & Bob Morrison _Town Hall_
welcoming jihadis, booting Christians

2013-07-30
Scottie Hughes _Town Hall_
justice for each

2013-07-30
Aaron Klein _World Net Daily_
devious Soros-Obummer plot would bypass US constitution, let people in 14 states control elections for presidents
"The National Popular Vote effort, which could see only 14 states -- those with the largest populations -- decide the presidency for voters in all 50 states, is fully partnered with a George Soros-funded election group.   The group, the Center for Voting and Democracy, received original seed money in 1997 from the Joyce Foundation, a non-profit that boasted president Obama served on its board at the time of the grant.   Obama was a board member from 1994 July until 2002 December."

2013-07-30
_World Net Daily_
CDCP says men nearly 6 times as likely to be struck by lightning
Terry Jeffrey: Cybercast News Service (with graph)
"The CDC looked at deaths by lightning in the 43 years from 1968 through 2010.   It found that during that period the annual number of Americans killed by lightning was on a downward trend, with the annual number of men being killed declining 78.6% and the annual number of women being killed declining 70.6%."

2013-07-30
Alissa Tabirian _Cybercast News Service_
OPM: federal employees paid $155M in tax-victim funds... to do work for labor unions
"Federal employees were paid more than $155M of [tax-victim] dollars in 2011 for spending more than 3.4M hours of 'official time' on labor union activities that fell outside their assigned government duties, according to a survey by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)."

2013-07-30
Steve Deace
ObummerDoesn'tCare and the Republican losership
"[ObummerDoesn'tCare] -- If you fund it, that means you're for it.   Constitution Weekly looks at Republican losership's repeated lies (like they’re powerless to stop Obamacare because Romney lost the election), with special guest, Dr. Herb Titus.   Hour 2: Rand Paul's wonderfully mysterious incumbency protection program for Ditch McConnell."

2013-07-30
Anne Hobson _American Spectator_
honesty is dead in DC
"The Honest Tea study found that 100% of people in Alabama and Hawaii paid for their tea, whereas 85% paid in West Virginia and only 80% of people paid in DC...   To add insult to injustice, Seth Goldman, the co-founder of Honest Tea, reported his bike stolen from the DC location last week.   Goldman reported leaving the bike locked at the Bethesda Metro stop, which is technically in Maryland, but is part of the DC metro area.   The author of this post had her bike seat stolen in Alexandria at the King Street Metro stop, another characteristic site of the DC sprawl.   It seems that discourteousness does not stop at the city border."

2013-07-30
Kathleen Marquardt & Tommy Helms
how local officials are using stealth to implement the unconstitutional UN agenda 21 & ICLEI, part 2
"Mark Donaldson, named above as one of the members of this Program, is also listed as one of the people who produced 'The Denton Plan 1999-2020' for Denton, TX.   If you read planET and read the Denton Plan, you will see that the planning for a town in Texas and one in Tennessee somehow have the exact same needs, desires and problems.   Of course you can do that for Missoula, MT and Albany, NY.   You will find that not only does every place have those same needs, desires and problems but that the answers are also exactly the same, down to the density of housing and the eradication of the automobile...   Everything is pointing to 2015 as their deadline to fundamentally change America to the globalist Utopia which is hell on earth."
Plan for Eastern TN

2013-07-30 (5773 Menachem-Ab 23)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
the tragedy of isolation
Town Hall
"Among American soldiers given mental tests during the First World War, for example, white soldiers from Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Mississippi scored lower on mental tests than black soldiers from Ohio, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania.   Among other groups of whites, those with average mental test scores no higher than the average mental test scores among blacks included those in various isolated mountain communities in the United States, those living in the Hebrides Islands off Scotland and those in isolated canal boat communities in Britain...   Cultural isolation can also be due to government decisions, as when the governments of 15th century China and 17th century Japan deliberately isolated their peoples from the outside world.   At that time, China was the leading nation in the world.   But it lost that lead during centuries of isolation.   Sometimes isolation is due to a culture that resists learning from other cultures.   The Arab Middle East was once more advanced than Europe but, while Europe learned much from the Middle East, the Arab Middle East has not translated as many books from other languages into Arabic in a thousand years as Spain alone translates into Spanish annually.   Against this background, racial and ethnic leaders around the world who promote a separate cultural 'identity' are inflicting a handicap on their own people.   Isolation has held back many peoples in many lands, for centuries.   But such social and cultural isolation serves the interests of today's ethnic leaders.   They have every incentive to promote a breast-beating isolation.   It is a sweet-tasting poison."
 
Proposed Bills 2013
 
 

 
 

Wednesday

Mittwoch

Yom R'vi'i

Mercoledi

2013-07-31

2013-07-31
Patrick Thibodeau _CIO_/_IDG_
What's coming next in the STEM immigration battle
"There is [irrational] support in both chambers for increasing H-1B visas for the tech industry as well as making STEM green cards available to U.S. university graduates.   But the pivotal issue in the reform fight isn't tech; it's resolving the issue of legalization for 11M [illegal aliens] already in the U.S.A.   If law-makers don't resolve their differences on that issue, the visa [perversions] sought by the tech [executives] will fail...   If the Republicans take up a [low-skill] bill, it will likely be the Skills Visa Act [HR2131], sponsored by representative Darrell Issa (R-CA).   It raises the H-1B cap from 65K to 155K, and doubles the number of H-1B visas set aside for U.S. STEM grads to 40K."

2013-07-31
Tim Ball & Tim Harris
the age of hyperbole: how normal weather became "extreme"

2013-07-31
Bob Barr _Town Hall_
NSA domestic snooping may not last for long

2013-07-31
Terry Jeffrey _Town Hall_
Mike Lee leads; John Boehner cowers

2013-07-31
"AllahPundit" _Hot Air_
CNN's 2 hour interview with a leading Benhgazi attack suspect... whom the federal government apparently can't or doesn't wat to find

2013-07-31
_Town Hall_/_Fox_
SEAL team 6 families urge congress to investigate helicopter crash
Fox video

2013-07-31
Bridget Johnson _PJ Media_
B. Todd Jones, who helped stifle investigation of illicit "Fast and Furious" operation... confirmed as director of BATFE as Republicans cave again
"senator John Cornyn (R-TX) said the confirmation of the man named interim director after the Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal is a stain on the administration.   'What could have been an opportunity for the President to bring competent leadership to a department wrought with mismanagement is instead a signal from the top that reckless behavior is not only permissible in his administration, but rewarded.', Cornyn said.   'Mr. Jones' nomination is an insult to the memory and families of those who fell victim to the botched Fast and Furious program.   While I'm deeply disappointed this nomination is going forward, I will continue to push for answers for these families and hold this Administration accountable.'   House Oversight and Government Reform committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) noted after Jones' nomination that the U.S. attorney hasn't held key personnel accountable for Operation Fast and Furious and never publicly defended the whistle-blowers in the scandal who faced retaliation for their actions.   Jones even taped a video for [BATFE] employees to discourage whistleblowing, gave special treatment to a supervisor cited for negligence in Fast and Furious, and hasn't been willing to engage with Congress in the Fast and Furious investigation, Issa said.   'Jones was first brought into the job of [BATFE] acting director in the middle of the Fast and Furious scandal after Justice Department officials had falsely denied reckless conduct and allegations by his predecessor that there was an effort underway to shield the Department's senior political appointees from the scandal.', he said.   'Because of the numerous [BATFE] mistakes during his tenure as Acting Director pertaining to Fast and Furious, his nomination is a slap in the face to the family of fallen Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, Mexican citizens whose murder has been linked to Fast and Furious weapons, and [BATFE] whistle-blowers whom he failed to support.'"

2013-07-31 (5773 Menachem-Ab 24)
Michelle Malkin _Jewish World Review_
vacationer Obummer's favorite Vineyard Vulture
Town Hall
"It's good to be the king...of class warfare hypocrisy.   While he lectures his political opponents about their neglect of middle-class America, president Obama is headed to Martha's Vineyard.   Again.   Because nothing spells populist like a $7.6M, 9.5-acre estate owned by one of Chicago's wealthiest corporate financiers."

2013-07-31
_News Max_
IRS and elections commission conspired against non-leftists

2013-07-31
_World Net Daily_
illegal alien from China charged for vandalism of Lincoln memorial, other sites

2013-07-31
Anthony Watts
WUWT climate/weather hot sheet

2013-07-31
Richard A. McCormack _Manufacturing & Technology News_
USA's biggest firms continue to move factories off-shore and eliminate thousands of jobs in the USA
"off-shore out-sourcing of manufacturing and service-sector jobs to foreign nations continues to plague the American economy.   Hundreds of major American corporations are shipping thousands of jobs overseas, according to an analysis of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) filings made to the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration on behalf of the displaced workers...   during the first three weeks of July...77 petitions were filed on behalf of American workers, from companies such as IBM, Walgreens, International Paper, Sanmina Corp., Chicago Bridge and Iron, NCR, AT&T, Tenneco Automotive, Micron Technology and Honeywell, among others...   Flextronics Americas in Stafford, TX, will lay off 147 workers because their jobs 'are being transferred to Juarez, Mexico', writes Chrystal Broussard Johnson, a Workforce Account Executive at a TAA 'One-Stop Operator/Partner'.   Jabil of Tempe, AZ, will lay off more than 500 workers making printed circuit boards and box-build assemblies for the medical, industrial and aerospace sectors.   'We are in the process of moving several assemblies to other Jabil facilities in Mexico and Asia in order to reduce labor costs and meet our customers' pricing expectations', writes Jabil HR Manager Dawn Tabelak in a July 15 TAA petition.   Joy Global of Franklin, PA, will lay off 245 workers making underground mining equipment because production is 'being shifted to a foreign location, out-sourcing increased imports, articles and services', writes Timothy Buck, a union official in York, PA.   Phillips Lighting Company's Bath, NY, factory making finished lamps will lay off 265 workers because 'production is being shifted to a foreign country', writes Amy Heysham, Director of Human Resources for Phillips.   Hewlett Packard will lay off 500 employees working in customer service and technical support in Conway, AR, due to 'global restructuring', according to Mazen Alkhamis, Business Solutions Analyst for the state of Arkansas in Little Rock.   DAK Americas of Leland, NC, is laying off 340 full-time workers and 264 contract workers because it closed its entire production facility at its Cape Fear site due to dumped imports of competing products, according to Stephen Seals, DAK Americas' Senior Director of Human Resources...   Eli Lilly will lose nearly 1K sales representatives nationwide 'as a result of the loss of patent protection from two of its best-selling drugs: Cymbalta and Evista', writes Susan Fracasso, Rapid Response Coordinator for the state of Connecticut in Wethersfield...   Staples' Columbia, SC, accounts payable team will lose up to 20 jobs because its 'processes are being shifted to India', write workers filing on their own behalf.   'Accenture representatives have been trained at our shared service center as well as in India.   The knowledge transfer will continue through the end of our term.   On 2013 April 2, our management team announced the elimination of our positions to Accenture.'   Here are other TAA petitions that were being considered by the Labor Department during the month of July: IBM in Montpelier, VT, will lay off 500 workers involved in design and manufacture of computer chips and hardware.   'We have received information from IBM displaced workers and others that design, production and logistical operations are being out-sourced to foreign facilities.', writes Rose Lucenti, Director of Workforce Development in the Vermont State Workforce Office.   IBM will lay off 747 workers involved in computer manufacturing at three sites in New York, according to Susan Serviss, State TAA Coordinator in the NY State Department of Labor in Albany.   Serviss writes: 'The company has contracted to support the development and application of hardware and software for IBM's mainframes.   [IBM employees have] been training workers in China during the last few months of the worker's employment to perform the contractor's responsibilities using the procedures that the contractor had created.   [M]ost of the operations at the Poughkeepsie site are gone to Brazil, India and now China.'...   Boeing Company will lay off at least 1K workers..."

2013-07-31 (5773 Menachem-Ab 24)
John Stossel _Jewish World Review_
Are we Rome yet?
Town Hall
"A group of libertarians gathered in Las Vegas recently for an event called 'FreedomFest'.   We debated whether America will soon fall, as Rome did.   Historian Carl Richard said that today's America resembles Rome.   The Roman Republic had a constitution, but Roman leaders often ignored it.   'Marius was elected consul 6 years in a row, even though under the constitution (he) was term-limited to one year.'   Sounds like New York City's Mayor Bloomberg...   'We have presidents of both parties legislating by executive order, saying I'm not going to enforce certain laws because I don't like them...   That open flouting of the law is dangerous because law ceases to have meaning...   I see that today...   Congress passes huge laws they haven't even read (as well as) over-spending, over-taxing and devaluing the currency.'...   To pay for their excesses, emperors devalued the currency.   (Doesn't our Fed do that by buying $2T of government debt?)   Nero reduced the silver content of coins to 95%.   Then Trajan reduced it to 85% and so on.   By the year 300, wheat that once cost 8 Roman dollars cost 120K Roman dollars.   The president the Foundation for Economic Education, Lawrence Reed, warned that Rome, like America, had an expanding welfare state.   It started with "subsidized grain.   The government gave it away at half price.   But the problem was that they couldn't stop there...   a man named Claudius ran for Tribune on a platform of free wheat for the masses.   And won.   It was downhill from there.'   Soon, to appease angry voters, emperors gave away or subsidized olive oil, salt and pork.   People lined up to get free stuff."

2013-07-31 (5773 Menachem-Ab 24)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
black self-sabotage
Town Hall

2013 July
Paul Osterman _Industrial & Labor Relations Review_/_Cornell_/_MIT_
introduction to special issue on job quality: what doesit mean and how might we think about it?: real jobs disappearing, bodyshopping spreading and expanding
Handle.net
doi.org
 
Proposed Bills 13
 
 

"The Scottish school-master was a revered and familiar figure in America and in Great Britain throughout these years.   Known as 'dominie' (from the Latin dominus), he did not hesitate to inflict bodily punishment on miscreant students.   Such a school-master was the reverend Samuel Doak, a graduate of Augusta Academy who founded 2 schools in the territory of TN (and reportedly a great-uncle of Doak S. Campbell).   This stern old classicist transported his library by pack-horse and at commencement presided in the classic garb of the colonial clergyman: powdered wig, long black coat, short breeches with white stockings, and broad-toed shoes with shining buckles.   As they spread southward, the Scotch-Irish ministers planted their schools.   From such beginnings in VA grew Hampden-Sydney and Mary Baldwin colleges.   Further south, in NC, Davidson was begun in 1836.   In Georgia, Franklin College, begun about 1800, grew into the University of Georgia.   Similarly, in the Appalachian territories which they settled after the Revolution, the Scotch-Irish launched Transylvania and Centre colleges in KY and the predecessors of the U of TN, and George Peabody College for Teachers in TN." --- Parke S. Rouse ii 1973 _The Great Wagon Road_ pp62-63

 
 

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Proposed Bills 2013

Congressional candidate fund-raising, expenditures, and debt
 

USA Over-Population Clock
World + USA Over-Population Clocks
Jimbo Wales's WikiPedia on World Over-Population
 

'In his journal, the reverend John Cuthbertson, who came to PA in 1751 as the first American missionary of the Reformed Presbyterian church, described grueling travels on horse-back in his 39-year ministry amounting to 60K miles.   He preached on 2,400 days, and baptized 1,800 children.   Cuthbertson's energies knew no bounds.   'After being 46 days at sea from Derry Loch [his journal begins], landed safely at New Castle, Delaware, 1751 August 5th...   In good health, laus Deus [praise God].   Then...at 4, after noon, took horse and rode 20 miles to Moses Andrews.'   Shortly after his arrival in PA, Cuthbertson rode down the Appalachian corridor as far south as Opequon and Winchester in VA, preaching and baptizing as he went.   Such mission journeys were frequent on the Wagon Road." --- Parke S. Rouse ii 1973 _The Great Wagon Road_ pg63

Movies Coming Soon
 

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