The new "pathway to citizenship" is profoundly unfair!

“Profoundly unfair,” was the description Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz offered for the pathway to citizenship a bipartisan “gang of eight” senators unveiled Monday in their immigration reform proposal. I was struck by his words knowing he is of Latin decent and his family were, at one time, immigrates to this country. I thought, "Why wouldn't he above all appreciate helping so many obtain legal status"?

So with that question in mind I let Google do the searching and found  gov't. document M-565, "How Do I Apply for U.S. Citizenship?" Seems the requirements for folks "legally" living in the United States and seeking to become citizens are pretty tough.

Generally, to be eligible for naturalization you must:

•           Be age 18 or older; 

•           Be a permanent resident for a certain amount of time (usually 5 years but less     for some individuals)

•           Be a person of good moral character;     

•           Have a basic knowledge of U.S. history and government;       

•           Have a period of continuous residence and physical presence in the United States

•           Be able to read, write, and speak  basic English. There are exceptions to this rule           

           for someone who:

- Is 55 years old and has been a permanent resident for at least 15  years; or        

- Is 50 years old and has been a permanent resident for at least 20  years; or        

-Has a permanent  physical or mental impairment that makes the individual unable to   

  fulfill these requirements.

After reading what Sen. Cruz's family went through to LEGALLY come to our country and become LEGAL citizens I can completely understand his statement now. I myself wonder how you could give a person a pass on the requirement "Be a good person of moral character" after they ILLEGALLY crossed our boarder, ILLEGALLY worked here, and ILLEGALLY lived here? The fact they have done it for a number of years doesn't suddenly change the fact that it's ILLEGAL.

Easy for me to agree the new "pathway to citizenship" is profoundly unfair!

"You are to do as I say not as I do"

I remember very vividly when I was young my mother slapping me upside the head for repeating something I had heard her say, often I wasn't quite sure what is was it meant, but it made me feel more grown up repeating her. More times than not she'd give me a surprised look followed closely by "the slap" and say, "You are to do as I say not as I do". My response was more like why did she do that, rather worrying about being slapped.

 

Now as an adult the familiar experience of being told, "You are to do as I say not as I do", but this time it's not my mother, it's congress. Recently Sen. Feinstein proposed  sweeping new gun restrictions limiting more of my 2nd amendment rights. Reading through the proposal it I started to get that familiar feeling as I read that all these new restrictions would not apply to any former or current law enforcement officers, nor any federal officials, including of course Sen. Feinstein.

 

Clear as day I could hear my mother saying, "You are to do as I say not as I do", and half expecting the feel of the follow up slap upside my head by Sen. Feinstein.

A Republics Last Stand?

I have been in a bit of a funk the last few days as the pending start President Obama's second term drew close, and now in fact has begun. During the first inauguration it was hard to not be proud as the most powerful nation in the world peacefully and happily changed leadership. In many countries this is only after violence and bloodshed.  

Swearing in our first black president promising "Hope and Change", although I personally could not bring myself to vote for a total unknown inexperienced man myself, I at least admired his accomplishment in being elected.This week the feeling in the pit of my stomach only increased as his swearing in drew nearer. 

The Examiner.com reported 10 major problems with this past presidential election.

10) In a brief "follow-the-paper trail" experiment by a local news team in Florida, at least 94 non-citizens were immediately and effortlessly caught illegally voting.

9) Barack Obama lost every single state that requires voter ID.

8) Numerous reports of Romney voters being turned away at the polls due to someone already having voted with their name, and of Democrats publicly bragging about voting multiple times and about criminallysabotaging electronic GOP get-out-the-vote systems...and an overwhelming number of poll watchers reporting widespread fraud.

Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office under scrutiny for handling of Allen West ballots

7) Philadelphia polling stations where Republican inspectors were kicked out (like the one with the giant tyrant-worshiping mural to Obama on the wall and Black Panthers posted out front) had ridiculous Third World dictatorship-type results: 90% voter turnout, 99% of which went for the president.

6) At least 70,000 voters, almost entirely in swing states,reported significant problems casting their ballot correctly (imagine how many didn't file a complaint) and voting machines in Pennsylvania were found consistently switching votes from Romney to Obama.

5) At least 52 Democrats were caught committing voter fraud, and one poll worker in New York was even caught telling people they had to vote for Obama.

4) In Ohio, where at least hundreds of fraudulent voter registration cards have already beenidentified and one out of every five voters turned out to be bogus, Democrats were caughtshipping in bus loads of Somalian voters who couldn't speak English and "helping" them vote.

3) In scores of precincts all across Pennsylvania and Ohio, Mitt Romney got literally zero votes--a virtual statistical impossibility for a major party candidate in any precinct, let alone over sixty of them.

2) Ten counties in Colorado went from around 50-60% voter turnout in 2008 (about average) to 104-140% in 2012.

1) The numbers just don't add up. Extensive surveys from mainstream, reputable organizations like Gallup, Pew and Rasmussen all demonstrated a huge party identification advantage for Republicans, and the only polls that suggested an Obama win (the only ones the news media would talk about) were ones that wildly over-sampled registered Democrats.

The inner sickness I was feeling was fueled by the memories or all of these occurrences, as well as many others reported by other sites. Questions like how can this be without anyone in the Republican party questioning them. How is it our own government allowed them to happen, and why isn't the media exposing them?

Was this inauguration a celebration of our republic in action, or was it the dying quiver of a republics last stand?

What isn't politically charged in our news these days?

A friend recently commented to me that I had become so political these days that it seemed I had changed so much over the past few months. I asked, “How so”? He told me that I seemed to have a political spin on virtually any story on the news, that I wasn't so much focused say on being anti- abortion or anti-anything specific, but seemed to have an opinion on everything.  

 

My response was simple, “What news worthy story in the news doesn't have a political spin”? Are we talking about our loss of rights to not be arrested and detained without do cause or process through the NDAA, the controversies over just what is in our vaccinations, our massive government over spending, the loss of our constitutional rights to like legal gun ownership or privacy issues, voting fraud at unprecedented levels, a president that goes around congress and the constitution, not have a federal budget in over 4 years, our foreign diplomats being kills by terrorist with the weapons we gave them, heck hundreds of Mexicans and Americans being killed by weapon our country gave the drug cartels.  

 

 I really could go on and on this line of thought as there really doesn't seem to be an end to what our government isn't trying to manipulate, transform, alter, and CHANGE. I ask you what isn't politically charged in our news these days?

It's Virtually A Certainty

Clicking through the net we are bombarded by endless commentaries concerning “gun rights”, both in support and against. The bigger issue I see in the argument is not whether we “should” pass gun laws but more “can” we, legally? The second amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, just what is the Bill of Rights and how did they come to be?

During the debates in congress in writing a final draft of the Constitution many felt that there multiple loops holes were the government they were creating could someday grow to be so powerful as to be as bad, or worse, than the very government they were attempting to over throw. To appease these concerns and get the Constitution signed by all it was agreed that they would amend it to address everyone’s concerns at a later date.

They set about to close these loop holes and finalized twelve amendments to the Constitution that were to be sent out and ratified at the state level before being added to the Constitution.  After going through each states ratifying procedures ten of the twelve were agreed to by all and made part of the final draft.

So this brings us to present day, the very part of our greatest document, possibly the greatest government document ever written, is now being threaten by the very government it sought to limit. How is it that we can put into place a document to limit the power of government and then turn around and feel it is acceptable for that government to demand we weaken that document, and in a sense, gain it more power over us? How does that even make sense?

If that doesn't mess with your head enough wrap your brain around this one. If we make it ok to change the laws restricting the power of government at its request because it “makes us safer”, then what would stop them from going after ANY part of the Constitution in the future using the same argument?

You may personally have never owned a gun, nor intend to, but at some point if we allow this to happen they WILL seek to limit something you do care about, it’s virtually a certainty.

If it works for Louisiana why not have it work for all of us?

reported in theweeklyStandard

 BY DANIEL HALPER

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican, wants to reform his state's tax code. Jindal announced today that his "goal is to eliminate all personal income tax and all corporate income tax."

"We are meeting with every legislator over the coming weeks to discuss the details of the tax reform plan. Our goal is to eliminate all personal income tax and all corporate income tax in a revenue neutral manner. We want to keep the sales tax as low and flat as possible," says Jindal in a statement provided by the Louisiana governor's office.

"Eliminating personal income taxes will put more money back into the pockets of Louisiana families and will change a complex tax code into a more simple system that will make Louisiana more attractive to companies who want to invest here and create jobs.

"Tax reform will remove administrative burdens from families and small businesses and improve Louisiana’s business prospects; create more business investment opportunities with increased job growth; and raise the state’s profile in national business rankings.

"The bottom line is that for too long, Louisiana’s workers and small businesses have suffered from having a state tax structure that is too complex and that holds back economic prosperity.  It’s time to change that so people can keep more of their own money and foster an environment where businesses want to invest and create good-paying jobs."

Currently seven states have no state income tax Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. Apparently it works just fine for them and honestly seems the most fair to me. By relying on a state sales tax for revenue you are , in a sense, taxing the rich at a higher level since they typically buy more "things". While people that make less money spend less money, and would pay less yearly in taxes.

With 47% of the people in the country paying no federal taxes at all, and many of those people receiving checks for more than they paid in, doing something on a national level like what Gov. Jindal is proposing makes all the sense in the world to me. For one thing we'd ALL have "skin in the game" everyone pays something. When you have 47% of the people that don't pay taxes government spending just doesn't hit home for many, and they seem to not see the dangers of out of control government debt. Anyway it's nice to see someone out there in government trying something new and if it works for Louisiana why not have it work for all of us?

It won't make a bit of difference to the criminals anyway

I watched the interview, if you can call it that, of Alex Jones by Piers Morgan on CNN. I respect the effort that Jones puts in to defend our constitutional rights and the fight against the big banks, but I was a bit disappointed that he lost his cool, and the opportunity, to make some really strong points.

When Jones pushed the issue of the sky rocketing violent crime rate in the UK since their gun band versus the steady decline of violent crime in the US Morgan wanted to talk numbers. He asked, "how many murders with guns were committed in the UK last year"? Jones not knowing the answer off hand was informed by Piers that only 34 people had been killed by gun in the UK last year.

Jones then went off on a rant about manipulating numbers and such and it was kind of hard to follow at times. A better response have been to point out that violent crime in the UK, including murders, were up and have been climbing every since their gun ban. Taking the guns from law abiding citizens only empowered the criminals to commit MORE crimes since no one could defend themselves, they simply switched away from guns to more convenient weapons.

A recent story from the UK noted that emergency room doctors were seeing a sharp rise in stabbings with a particular size of kitchen knife. what was their suggestion, ban that size of kitchen knife, like someone bent on violence won't simply grab the next available weapon or knife.

The frustration over mast killings is understandable and looking for an answer is certainly appropriate. Anyone with trouble shooting skills knows when addressing a problem you don't so much address the result of the problem but look one step in front of it and look into what caused the issue. Some people, with more level heads, are trying this approach to this problem by looking into the mental health issues involved, violent video games and movies,  and other things possibly "outside the box" of our usual approaches. 

  

The approach that troubles me most, and should everyone, is the approach that has failed in every case. That is to simply look past the causes and try to take away as many options as possible from the criminal mind. This simply denies law abiding, and mentally stable, people their rights to these items. I'm not prepared to give one single constitutional right to appease these irrational people that I believe are simply exploiting these tragedies the promote their own agenda, especially since it won't make a bit of deference to the criminals anyway.