Failed Amnesty Legislation of 1986 Haunts the Current Immigration Bills in Congress

The New York Times

May 23, 2006

By RACHELL L. SWARNS

WASHINGTON, May 22 — Day in and day out, as the immigration debate boils, the halls of Congress are haunted by the specter of Senate Bill 1200, the failed amnesty legislation of 1986.

President Ronald Reagan signed that bill into law with great fanfare amid promises that it would grant legal status to illegal immigrants, crack down on employers who hired illegal workers and secure the border once and for all. Instead, fraudulent applications tainted the process, many employers continued their illicit hiring practices, and illegal immigration surged. …

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/washington/23amnesty.html

Was the Reagan signed bill on illegal immigration OK for Arizona throughout the twenty-some-odd years of neocon rule of America? If Arizona was quiet about the illegal immigration bill  all during the time that the neocons ruled, does it now look like “political opportunity”is driving Arizona’s actions against illegal immigration?

The Reagan signed  bill on illegal immigration  has been called a failure but most of what the neocons “accomplished” could be placed in that category.

Could political opportunity be the reason why Arizona is now making noise over a bill that was signed off on twenty-some-odd years ago by President Ronald Reagan. Why was Arizona quiet for twenty-some-odd years?

Could this be a reminder of the neocons view of the filibuster? How the neocons felt about the filibuster depended on where their political opportunities lay. They could either use or kill the filibuster. It just depended upon where the political opportunities lay. If the neocons were in the majority, they had one view of the filibuster. In the minority, they had a different view of the filibuster. It just depended on where their political opportunities lay.

Immigration seems to be in the same category. When the neocons were in power, there was one “take” on illegal immigration. But after they lost power, there is a different “take” on illegal immigration. Whatever serves the political cause?

Strange.

GOP-backed health care amendment removed from Florida ballot

McCLATCHY

By Lee Logan | The Miami Herald

Calling the wording of a Republican-backed constitutional amendment on health care “manifestly misleading,” a Circuit Court judge in Leon County has tossed it off the November ballot.

The proposal had been drafted and put forward by the GOP-led state legislature as a counter to the new federal health care plan. It would prohibit the state from participating in any health insurance exchange that compels people to buy insurance….

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/30/98370/gop-backed-health-care-amendment.html

While the neocons are still called GOP, their contributions to America pales when compared to GOP President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It is difficult to understand how such diametrical political  behaviors could share the same party acronym.

Gates Says Pentagon to Help Death-Benefits Inquiry

Bloomberg

By Andrew Frye and David Evans

Jul 29, 2010

Defense Secretary Robert Gates pledged to help the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs probe how insurers reap profits from death benefits retained for the families of deceased military personnel.

“I will be very interested in the outcome of the VA investigation,” Gates told a Pentagon press briefing. “We will do everything we can to help.”

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has begun a fraud probe into the life insurance industry and subpoenaed MetLife Inc. and Prudential Financial Inc. and, according to a person briefed on the action, six other companies for information about profits on the retained death benefits.

The investigations, along with a review by the New York State Insurance Department, were prompted by a Bloomberg Markets magazine report that more than 100 carriers earn investment income on $28 billion owed to life insurance beneficiaries. New York-based MetLife, the biggest U.S. life insurer, and No. 2 Prudential are among the firms that administer the so-called retained-asset accounts.

“Until today I actually believed that the families of our fallen heroes got a check for the full amount of their benefits,” Gates said. “This came as news to me.” …

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-29/cuomo-probes-insurers-secret-profits-on-death-benefits-of-u-s-soldiers.html

TJH Responded to: “Global warming: NASA says it’s the hottest year on record”

Thanks for your response TJH.

TJH Said: Visit http://www.wattsupwiththat.com for a rude awakening on the bias that NASA has and have another view on the so called “global warming”.

Joejolly says: I did visit that website and was re-introduced to the “climategate” scandal that TJH spoke of. Unethical behavior was not confined to the neocons – although their unethical behavior had little competition.

But what I was really looking for on that site was the acronym NASA. My post centered on NASA – but I did not see a single reference to NASA in the post on the “climategate” scandal. There was an organization mentioned but I could not connect that organization to NASA.

TJH said: “…so called global warming…”.

Joejolly responds: The subject of global warming IS what NASA commented on. Is that how NASA became related to “climategate”?

Is TJH saying that NASA’s assertion of a warming climate shares the same ‘truth value’ as President Bush’s assertion of a Niger-Iraq uranium connection?

TJH mentioned mistakes being made by weather scientists. Is the path from the unknown to the known devoid of mistakes? And do weather mistakes forever condemn the search for weather truth?

Should the itsy-bitsy spider have given up after the first rain?

The itsy-bitsy spider
Climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain
And washed the spider out
Out came the sun
And dried up all the rain
And the itsy-bitsy spider
Climbed up the spout again

http://www.romantic-lyrics.com/lullabylyrics/itsy-bitsy-spider.shtml

Thanks again for your response TJH. I was introduced to a well anointed website displaying well respected references.

Global warming: NASA says it’s the hottest year on record

McClatchy

By LuLu Liu | Sacramento Bee

Worldwide, 2010 is on track to become the warmest year on record.

Scientists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies reported recently that the average global temperature was higher over the past 12 months than during any other 12-month period in history. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released corroborating data, adding that the past four months, including June, have each individually been the hottest on record as well….

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/27/98203/earth-bakes-worldwide.html#storylink=omni_popular#ixzz0v6XwUna7

Things sure seems to have changed at NASA.

Some years ago, the strongest man on earth, President George W. Bush, opposed “hot weather” headlines from NASA. Direct political intervention into scientific findings was rare until the advent of the neocons. Generally, scientists would expose their findings to the scientific world in order to test the validity of their findings. But President Bush had a business interest in findings relating to changing weather patterns. And what NASA was whispering could have a negative influence on the bottom line of BIG BUSINESS.

The Bush team got their man a job at NASA. America discovered the Bush appointee when news accounts were made public. And here is one of them:

A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA

The New York Times

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

February 8, 2006

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters’ access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word “theory” at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.

Mr. Deutsch’s resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.

Officials at NASA headquarters declined to discuss the reason for the resignation.

“Under NASA policy, it is inappropriate to discuss personnel matters,” said Dean Acosta, the deputy assistant administrator for public affairs and Mr. Deutsch’s boss.

The resignation came as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was preparing to review its policies for communicating science to the public. The review was ordered Friday by Michael D. Griffin, the NASA administrator, after a week in which many agency scientists and midlevel public affairs officials described to The New York Times instances in which they said political pressure was applied to limit or flavor discussions of topics uncomfortable to the Bush administration, particularly global warming. …

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/politics/08nasa.html?_r=2

Perhaps the neocons wanted proof that the world was getting warmer. Nobody had an equation that data could be plugged into that proved there was a climate change. But still, some human beings liked to know what was coming before it arrived.

Evidence of a warming trend would be undeniable if one morning you awoke, looked out your window and saw an iceberg from the North Pole. One would know that warm weather was here and perhaps there was time to prepare for the warm weather. But perhaps by then “REACT to the warm weather” might better qualify.

It is nice to see the “muzzle” has been removed from NASA. NASA is doing a better scientific job than the neocons did a political job.

Fired USDA employee Sherrod to sue conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart

USA TODAY

Jul 29, 2010

Ousted USDA employee Shirley Sherrod says she will sue conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, the Associated Press reports.

Sherrod made the announcement Thursday in San Diego at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention.

Breitbart posted a heavily edited video of Sherrod on his website, BigGovernment.com, speaking to an NAACP group and appearing to admit that she had deliberately refrained from giving full assistance to a farmer because he was white.

She is referred to on the site as a “racist govt employee.”

The political fallout from the posting prompted the Agriculture Department to force Sherrod to resign.

A full version of the speech, released later, shows that she was referring to an incident that occurred more than two decades earlier and lessons she learned after initially hesitating to help a white farmer save his home.

Update at 11:48 a.m. ET: “It wasn’t all media. It was Fox,” Sherrod says in commenting on President Obama’s remarks on The View blaming the media in part for the story. She says she continues to get a few harassing phone calls over the incident. Sherrod says she has not heard from Cheryl Cook, the USDA official who called her and pressed her to resign. She says that she would like to hear from Cook and that there are many problems at the agency that need to be addressed that people of color there have brought to her attention.

(Posted by Doug Stanglin)

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/07/ap-fired-usda-employee-sherrod-will-sue-conservative-blogger-andrew-breitbart/1

I wonder if professional neocon bloggers and professional neocon news sources “got it right” if recreational blogging(of the political type) might then decrease?

The name “FOX”  appears in the above post.

If that is FOX News, then the news business has some work to do. Earlier there was the “cheer-leading” for a political party. America’s press, to some extent, spoke against that activity.

If “FOX” is now a part of presenting false or miss-leading information for political reasons,  then the news business should say and do something about it.

“Scandal Sheets” have been a part of America’s history for quite some time. There is no law against “Scandal Sheets”. America can chose to read them or not read them. But if a Scandal Sheet masquerades as news one might think that the news industry, or what’s left of it, would be interested in protecting its image by disavowing those hideous activities that have “strangled” Kipling’s six honest serving men.

Home Vacancies Rise as U.S. Ownership Falls to Lowest in Decade

About 18.9 million homes in the U.S. stood empty during the second quarter as surging foreclosures helped push ownership to the lowest level in a decade.

Bloomberg

By Kathleen M. Howley

Jul 27, 2010

The number of vacant properties, including foreclosures, residences for sale and vacation homes, rose from 18.6 million in the year-earlier quarter, the U.S. Census Bureau said in a report today. The ownership rate, meaning households that own their own residence, was 66.9 percent, the lowest since 1999.

Lenders are accelerating foreclosures as borrowers fall behind in mortgage payments after the worst housing crash since the Great Depression. A record 269,962 U.S. homes were seized in the second quarter, according to RealtyTrac Inc. Foreclosures probably will top 1 million this year, the Irvine, California- based data company said in a July 15 report.

“There are a lot of people losing their homes and either moving in with family or renting places to live,” said Patrick Newport, an economist with IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts. “Foreclosures are still going up.” …

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-27/vacancies-climb-as-u-s-home-ownership-falls-to-lowest-level-in-a-decade.html

Will the neocons start to ratchet-up their lies, damn lies and propaganda against the Obama Administration to off-set the continuous revelations about how they managed the country of America?

Home ownership used to be a prized American dream and was achievable until the 1980’s neocons applied their “VOODOO ECONOMICS” as the economic “engine” driving America’s economy.

An early “face” of the neocons’ voodoo economics showed up in a post on BBC’s website:

The end of the American dream?

BBC NEWS

Analysis

By Steve Schifferes

Economics reporter, BBC News Website

Sept 4, 2006

The US economy has been generating strong economic growth over the past few years as it has come out of recession.

After growing at more than 3% a year in 2004 and 2005, the pace picked up to a blistering 5.6% annual rate in the first quarter of this year – although the pace has since then slipped back to 2.9%.

So far, though, little of that growth has translated into the hands of the average worker, according to new research from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).…

Click here for a graph of wages vs. productivity

For real household incomes, the median point – the level at which half of households earn more and half less – has actually fallen over the past five years.

That marks a notable contrast with the 1990s, when the economic boom boosted both jobs and incomes.

The puzzle of economic expansion without significant job or wage growth has been troubling US economists and commentators of all political persuasions.

You might note the date on Steve Schifferes analysis. Do you remember the history making political event that happened in 2006?

Yes, you are correct if you said America’s ombudsmen(voters) replaced a substantial count of neocon congressmen. That could have been the “jumping off point” for America to further remove or at least investigate the executive branch of America’s government but that did not happen. And because that did not happen, America is stuck with an impeachment double-standard. And America, apparently lost its ability to tell “right from wrong”.

For the “joe the plumber types” and the rest of America who might embrace the neocons’ racism, take another look at the map whose link was shown above:

By 2001, you see a striking change in map data. By 2001, the neocons had the traction to stop wage growth while allowing productivity to continue growing. The additional money from productivity growth had to go to human beings since monkeys, our nearest relatives(?), have no use for money.

Perhaps the productivity money had a choice between a $9 million dollar bonus and payment on a variable rate home mortgage note. It looks like the home mortgage note was not the item of choice.

US ‘fails to account’ for Iraq reconstruction billions

A US federal watchdog has criticised the US military for failing to account properly for billions of dollars it received to help rebuild Iraq.

BBC News

By Gabriel Gatehouse

BBC News, Baghdad

July 27, 2010

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction says the US Department of Defence is unable to account properly for 96% of the money.

Out of just over $9bn (£5.8bn), $8.7bn is unaccounted for, the inspector says.

The US military said the funds were not necessarily missing, but that spending records might have been archived.

In a response attached to the report, it said attempting to account for the money might require “significant archival retrieval efforts”.

Reconstruction money

Much of the money came from the sale of Iraqi oil and gas.

Some frozen Saddam Hussein-era assets were also sold off.

The funds in question were administered by the US Department of Defence between 2004 and 2007, and were earmarked for reconstruction projects. …

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10774002

Just why did President George W. Bush attack Iraq? He said Iraq posed a threat to the world – but it is open to question as to who really posed a threat to the world and why that threat was posed.

Saddam Hussein may not have liked the United Nations, but there was little he could do that could cause the United Nations to become “impotent”.

During the Gulf War the United Nations proved a formidable obstruction to Saddam’s expansion into Kuwait. But when it came to the Bush team’s desire to attack Iraq – the United Nations could not prevent that. The United Nations turned “thumbs down” on attacking Iraq – but the United Nations was unable and/or unwilling to attempt to stop the strongest man on earth.

Although the neocons, in attacking Iraq, talked a lot about democracy and Saddam Hussein – it was what they didn’t talk about that may have been major factors in making Iraq a prime candidate for neocon aggression(renamed, “pre-emptive self-defense”).

The Iraq war was the neocons’ first wholly owned war, so the neocons could claim the “spoils of war” for themselves. The neocons were aware that they could claim the world’s second largest known  oil reserves.

The nations’ “purse strings” were open to the neocons in their Iraq war effort. Both the massive oil reserves and the nations’ “purse strings” made the Iraq war attractive to the war-mongering neocons. And the neocon “conservatives” were anything but “conservative”.

Prior to the nations’ 1980 venture into neocon politics, conservatives had a reputation for being driven by an urge to control America’s spending. The word ‘conservative’ needed no adjectives in front of it  to “drill down” to its real meaning.

Prior to 1980, a conservative Republican politician from Illinois said: “A million here, a million there and pretty soon, we talkin real money”. The post-1980’s neocons aren’t that kind of conservative even though the neocon press allows America to retain that notion.

The neocons “raided” America’s treasury. The surplus left by the Bill Clinton administration  was soon depleted. And the neocons “didn’t cotton to” nobody trying to “micromanage” their use of America’s treasury in the Iraq war theater. And if auditors, during the neocon era, discovered mismanagement of America’s funds and publicly announced it, they might find themselves out of  a job.

Companies, with close political ties to the Bush government did very well. And for BIG OIL, it was heaven to have both a President  and a Vice President come from the ranks of BIG OIL.

At this time there is little “data” supporting the neocons “democracy reason” for attacking Iraq. The “Two Shoe award” received by President Bush when he visited Iraq was indicative of how the Iraqis felt about President Bush’s Iraq version of democracy.

But for some, the Iraq war and its reconstruction has been quite profitable. And the “accounting paper trail” may never reveal just how profitable the neocons’ Iraq war was. Perhaps the neocons considered paper trails as “micromanaging”.

Industries Find Surging Profits in Deeper Cuts

The New York Times

By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ

July 25, 2010

By most measures, Harley-Davidson has been having a rough ride.

Motorcycle sales are falling in 2010, as they have for each of the last three years. The company does not expect a turnaround anytime soon.

But despite that drought, Harley’s profits are rising — soaring, in fact. Last week, Harley reported a $71 million profit in the second quarter, more than triple what it earned a year ago.

This seeming contradiction — falling sales and rising profits — is one reason the mood on Wall Street is so much more buoyant than in households, where pessimism runs deep and joblessness shows few signs of easing. …

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/business/economy/26earnings.html?_r=1&hp

In spite of the reality of businesses’ “bottom-line” behavior, some Americans hold to the thought that business is a better provider of jobs than government. Business does provide jobs, of course, but jobs are not businesses’ “strong suit”. Never has been. Not in the 30’s. and not today.

Business is focused on its bottom-line and that is by design. Government is focused on un-employment. And reality does show this.

But reality is constantly doing battle with alcohol, recreational drugs and neocon IN-DENIAL. Those products or conditions could persuade those who partake to observe “incorrectly”. And if politics is a factor – that could be an added obstacle to the natural order of hiring.

BP chief Tony Hayward ‘negotiating exit deal’

BP’s chief executive Tony Hayward has been negotiating the terms of his exit, with a formal announcement likely withing 24 hours, the BBC has learned.

Mr Hayward has been widely criticised over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

BBC business editor Robert Peston said it was likely he would be replaced by his US colleague Bob Dudley, now in charge of the clean-up operation.

BP said Mr Hayward “remains our chief executive and has the full support of the board and senior management”.

Our correspondent added that while BP had been preparing for a change at the top for some time, the company was waiting until progress had been made on stemming the leak and until it was possible to quantify the financial costs of the disaster….

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10753573

And bp seems to have left a trail of “bad behaviors” in its wake. Just how did bp relate to America’s Federal Minerals Management Service(FMMS)?

U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits – New York Times

By IAN URBINA

May 13, 2010

WASHINGTON — The federal Minerals Management Service gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits from another agency that assesses threats to endangered species — and despite strong warnings from that agency about the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf….

And will the bp business be fighting its bottom-line war on several fronts? What role, if any, did bp play in the release of the man accused and convicted of the deaths of 270 people, most of them Americans, over Lockerbie Scotland?

America sure dropped from civilization’s radar during the brief period that Libya’s head of state visited America as a guest of an international organization known as the United Nations.

And not too long ago Russia had a problem with BIG OIL:

Jailed Russian oil boss may challenge Putin

And again we see a close relationship between BIG OIL and BIG POLITICS. Business wants to run business and government.