The Blue State

Immigration Issue Commentary/Discussion

Here at The Blue State when itcomes to the immigration situation, we don't post or discuss the issue all thatmuch, and this post is to start a discussion about it and see how our visitorsfeel (both new as well as the veterans).

I think the one commonality we all have is "something needs to be doneabout immigration". Whether you're on the far right that feels "theyshould all go", or the far left "they should all stay", I thinkwe all agree "something" needs to be done to coincide with yourargument.

I'll start: With the estimation at 12-20 million illegal immigrants in theU.S. (I went with the high and low #'s and don't want to start putting links inthis post), let's face it...we do not have the resources to "kick themout", and even if we could, getting rid of that many people would disruptthe country's economy. Most towns in the U.S. have illegal multi-familydwellings, or dwellings that house a number of illegal immigrants. Taking the"immigrant" part of this equation out, I personally don't want 10-20men, ages 17-35 living illegally next to me in a single dwelling, or 3-5families living in a 2 family home next door either. On the other hand (andunder the current circumstances) I don't want to see a family (orindividual) that have been here; working hard; living responsibly, andcontributing in a positive way to our society, to be uprooted and deported.

(Loosely) The new bill has the illegal immigrants paying $1000 to stay, workfor a couple of years then return to their homeland and remain for a year, thencome back. For starters, this isn't going to expose the terrorists or thecriminal element, and I'm not sure how many would have an extra $Grand floatingaround, which would keep them (non criminal element) in the shadows as well.Maybe this fine should be lowered? As far as the reality of people packing upand leaving their homes, jobs, friends etc. after 2 years doesn't seem very realisticto me either.

I do think that when someone is arrested on felony charges, they be tried andif convicted, serve their time and then be deported. If arrested on misdemeanorcharges, once processed, they need to be handed the paperwork for citizenshipand registered. There are way more issues than I have mentioned, and I'm noteven sure if my ideas are realistic, but I do know one thing, somethingneeds to be done. 

In my opinion the ideas from the far left and right are mainly based onpersonal feelings rather than reason or common sense..."get rid of em"no "keep em" just doesn't make sense and wouldn't work. We do as anation have a right to know who is here.

Chime in and be heard.

Lies and Corruption and We're Paying for it

A year after the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (Gen.Stuart Bowen Jr.) reporteda $186 million construction project was a failure, where 150 health carecenters were supposed to be completed and only 6 had been, and the exposure thatKBR(Kellog, Brown & Root) wascharging $28 per empty Styrofoam dining plate for our troops, now more ofour taxmoney is being thrown away?

A severe lack of maintenance appears to be threatening the future usefulness ofsome of the facilities renovated during the effort to rebuild Iraq, says a newreport from the U.S. inspector general monitoring reconstruction.

Inspectors from the Office of the Special Inspector General for IraqReconstruction, which is charged with reviewing Iraqi reconstruction projectsthat are financed by the U.S., visited eight facilities throughout the country,to determine whether the buildings were operating at full capacity.

What the inspectors discovered is that, even though those facilities had beencompleted and declared to be successes, and subsequently met the stated"objectives" of reconstruction, they were not functioning properly.

Sites suffered from deterioration, poor or no maintenance, or were not evenbeing used by the people for whom they were built, at a cost to U.S. taxpayersof approximately $150 million.

And these were sites that the United States had previously declared to besigns of Iraq's rebirth: police stations, a military base, a maternityhospital, a recruiting center.

I was wondering what "successes" LauraBush was talking about in an interview Dec. 2006,  (with video)

It is not encouraging coverage for sure. There’s no doubt about it. But I doknow that there are a lot of good things that are happening that aren’tcovered. And I think that the drum beat in the country from the media, from theonly way people know what is happening unless they happened to have a loved onedeployed there, is discouraging.

And this was at the same timethe ISG (Iraq Study Group) Report stated the Bush administration is "significantlyunderreporting the violence in Iraq."  And now theadministration isn't including the deathsthat result from car bombings.

This always brings me back to the White House's FactSheet: Rebuilding Iraq, and the NationalStrategy for Victory in Iraq.

Victory in Iraq is Defined in Stages 

          Short term, Iraq is making steady progress in fighting terrorists, meeting political milestones, building democratic institutions, and standing up security forces.

Medium term, Iraq is in the lead defeating terrorists and providing its own security, with a fully constitutional government in place, and on its way to achieving its economic potential.

Longer term, Iraq is peaceful, united, stable, and secure, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism.

I don't understand the reasoning behind the continued support for this war bythe few "holdouts"

Post Bonus: Listof Bush Lies, and Top 1020 Bush Lies.

Post Rerun: Oh Those Pesky Bees

I thought this would be a worthy re-post and to piggy-back on Todd's Earth Day Message.

Back on April 4th The Blue State had a post relating to the bee issue Oh Those Pesky Bees. This is a real issue, and any non-believers should at least chip through that layer of doubt, and take a few minutes to look into this. Do not become discouraged at the first conservative site that says "Nut-job liberals now want us to believe the bees are dying"

                                                 For the non-believers ->

For Fun:TVs Through History

It's Saturday 6:00 AM EST and I came across this article on TVHistory at Wired Website. There are 42 images of TV's through history. Justa quick post for fun.

Oh Those Pesky Bees

When a friend of mine told me a few days ago that Honey Bees weredisappearing, like most people I wasn't very alarmed and because I hadn't heardabout it before, figured this isn't such a bad thing for picnicker's and anyone allergicto bee stings. Until I saw the mention of  it in TheNews Hounds FOX Report Slips in a Slap at Bee Concerns , apparently in Fox's"Around the World in 80 Seconds", the Disappearing Bee's got a fewseconds.

I decided to do a little looking into this to see what it means. Wellapparently it isn't a pretty site. In short there are a couple of parasites the trachealand varroa mites which are the culprits. One might think "I like honey,but I could do without it"...however, Honey Bees are responsible for onethird of the U.S. food supply. That sheds a different light on the issue.This is just another issue that may arise in a congressional bill that might be laughedat and dismissed as "pork Spending".

Here are a few links that explain this situation more in detail and worthreading (at least 1 or 2). NationalGeographic, TheNew York Times, PBS,SunHerald,ZMAG

I am sure that once this becomes more of an issue on the Hill, it will belumped in with the Tree Hugging Global Warming Kooks by the Republicans, but I am partial towards MY one third of the food supply.

Another Reason Co2 Standards are Important

This is just another reason for the importance to lower Co2 emissions,especially in the auto industry. U.S. auto sales are down while Toyota is makingrecord sales.

Reuters: U.S.Automakers Could See National C02 Standard.

Honda on Tuesday topped a Union of Concerned Scientists ranking of thenation's automakers whose fleets had the lowest emissions. Toyota Motor Corp.,maker of the iconic Prius gasoline-electric hybrid, ranked second.

Honda is rated as one of the top 10Green Giants

Fox Noise misquotes Obama on economic opportunity

On the Fox News Saturday show "Bulls and Bears", four of the five commentators criticized Barack Obama for accusing the Administration of social Darwinism.  And a few of them completely distorted what Obama said (via Newshounds):

SCOTT BLEIE: But it's not the government's job to make everyone prosperous, whether he said that or not.  The government's job is to create a foundation of opportunity to let people succeed.

Actually, Barack Obama never said the government was supposed to make everyone prosperous.  Instead, Obama said the government should make America prosperous for all people:

OBAMA: It's a strategy that we've seen this Administration pursue over the last six years -- that basically says government has no role to play in making sure that America is prosperous for all people and not just some.

It goes back to the two-Americas theme.  Look at the manufacturing sector in 2002, for example.  You had hard-working people in Ohio that got laid off as some of their positions were outsourced overseas.  Today, someone in the manufacturing sector would be less likely to say that America is prosperous than someone who works as a government contractor.  There is a reason for that.  They don't live in the same America.

What is wrong with saying that government should try to make America prosperous for its citizens?  That's why the President has economic advisers.  It's why we have a Federal Reserve.

Who owns your economy, stupid

The Black Tuesday stock market slide really shows how big of a hand China has in the U.S. economy.  For starters, how about stop borrowing money from Chinese banks to finance our debt, which my generation will eventually pay interest on.

The slide could have been worse had it not been for those technical glitches near the end of trading.  The glitches led to booing chants by the traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

UNICEF report shows U.S. lags in children's services

Among the 21 countries in the industrialized world, the United States is ranked as the second worst country for children, according to a report from UNICEF.  The lowest-rated country was Great Britain.  NPR reported on the details of the findings:

A new report from the U.N. Children's Fund says the United Statesand Britain are the worst countries in the industrialized world inwhich to be a child. UNICEF says an examination of 40 factors, such aspoverty, deprivation, happiness, relationships, and risky or badbehavior puts the United States and Britain at the bottom of a list of21 economically developed nations.                         

TheUNICEF report sought to assess children's well-being in developedcountries by measuring a number of factors, including health,education, poverty, family relationships, and bad or risky behavior.Children were also asked to say whether they were happy.

                        

Inthe overall table of children's well-being, the Netherlands comes outon top, followed closely by the Scandinavian countries, which also havehighly developed welfare systems. At the bottom are the United Statesat No. 20, and Britain at No. 21.

Part of the reason why we lag so far behind other industrialized countries in children's services is because we allow snappy Reaganomic one-liners to out-weigh importance of objective thoughtfulness.  Anytime we ask for single-payer health care, that automatically is socialist.  Anytime we call for more investments in science education, that gets equated with atheism.  Anytime we demand a renewed effort by lawmakers to fight poverty, we are accused of trying to destroy capitalism.  Better yet, anytime we are even remotely critical of our own country on anything, we get told to move to Canada.

A surplus in 2012? Depends on which projection you use

Last week the White House touted to the news media its new budget projection that forecasts a surplus by the year 2012 -- that is if Congress enacts exactly the same budget proposals that President Bush wants.  Of course, we have been through this before.  Bush explains the situation and Congress follows in lockstep, only to find that what was promised did not work out the way everyone thought.  This has happened with Iraq, health care costs and yes, the deficit.  So maybe this time it might be prudent to compare what the White House promises to a non-partisan projection.

Thankfully, with the release of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office's latest deficit analysis, we now have the opportunity to compare the White House data with another projection.  The results are in.  If the tax cuts were to be extended beyond 2010, the year they are set to expire, the CBO and the White House are worlds apart in their deficit estimates for 2012:

• White House 2012 Estimate: $61 Billion Surplus
• CBO 2012 Estimate: $146 Billion Deficit

So who are you going to believe?  Again, we have been through this before.

Even more fascinating is the CBO's other conclusion: if the tax cuts are not renewed in 2010, we will have a $170 billion surplus in 2012.