Texsox

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 10:06 PM) I think we all can agree that voicing dissent is one thing, to completely piss on the soldier and thier family is absolutely intolerable.

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 09:07 PM) Well move it if you don't want it hear. You never know though. I wrote that wrong, this is probably the correct forum, I'm just thinking there can't be any controversy here.

This is so wrong on so many levels. Let's start with simple human decency, compassion, and empathy. I saw the protestors on TV and was ashamed that we are from the same species. I appreciate the ACLU fighting this on freedom of speech grounds, I hope they lose, and the resulting law is iron clad. And I can't believe this needs to be in the "buster". How anyone could possibly defend these "protesters" is beyond me.

From the million year old ice thread QUOTE(thedoctor @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 07:43 PM) now they just need to find some million-year-old scotch to go with it.

QUOTE(thedoctor @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 07:43 PM) now they just need to find some million-year-old scotch to go with it. POTM Nominee

Damn, I thought it said lice

Dear YASNY, When Governor Dean was elected chairman of our party, he promised to transform the way we do business. On April 29th, thousands of Democrats across the country will be part of the next big step in our drive to build the party infrastructure and bring new people into the political process. At Neighbor-to-Neighbor Organizing Day events in all 50 states, people like you will be making the contacts and getting the experience that will build our organization and bring us closer to victory not only this November, but in 2008 and beyond. Chances are there's an event near you where folks will be knocking on doors and having conversations with neighbors about the future of our country -- will you join them? You can find an event near you here: http://www.democrats.org/50statecanvass/find Most of the door-hangers have already arrived at various state party headquarters around the country for distribution to people hosting canvassing events in their communities. We also received a large shipment here at national headquarters this morning, which we will be distributing directly to the events in and around Washington. I've included a few photos on the right. Whether you're a seasoned campaign volunteer or you've never knocked on a door in your life, this canvass will be a fun and important opportunity to reach out in your community. If you haven't yet found your nearest canvass, you can search for one now: http://www.democrats.org/50statecanvass/find This 50-state canvass is only possible because ordinary people decided to make it happen. You funded the door-hangers and you will be having the conversations with your neighbors on April 29th. If you want to change this country, it's up to you to take the next step. Please get involved and spread the word! Thank you, Tom Tom McMahon Executive Director Democratic National Committee P.S. -- For more about the Neighbor-to-Neighbor Organizing Day, including online resources like canvassing tips and flyers you can download, visit: http://www.democrats.org/50statecanvass

QUOTE(WhiteSoxfan1986 @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 02:12 PM) How do you get a picture from the internet in your sig? I'm trying to get a Broadway one, I thought copying and pasting would work. Do you want to take a pic and *add* it to a sig, or do you just want to use it exactly how it appears.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 01:21 PM) You know, I don't know. I think they are saving it all so that they can get him back over here, which is quite expensive from what I understand. I assume he must be looking for an H1B Tech Visa.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 01:26 PM) Not really concerned with how things look from Kerry's eyes. He lost. I am still interested in what Bush Sr has to say and he lost as well. Dan Quayle also has some interesting insights as did Newt this week. I don't believe losing an election necessarily should eliminate you from discussions. But then, I enjoy all sorts of opinions.

Couple things from that article. It's a pdf and I can't just cut and paste Americans are Mexico's biggest investors. This number is for all immigration, not just the illegals. I would imagine that legal migrants, who are generally better educated and earning more in the US, may be a bigger source. Interesting, regardless, that is a big number. BTW, a common phrase to describe how closely tied the two economies are is "When the US sneezes. Mexico catches a cold." Kap, the Kenyans you are working with, do you think they are sending money back to Kenya?

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 12:56 PM) $1000x12,000,000=$12,000,000,000.00 Stuff like that is why you see extended families all living together in one home. I forget where I saw the specific number, but I did a quick google and I found amounts from $10 billion annually to the NYT supposedly saying $17 billion, and BancoMex saids $16 billion. Regardless of which number you believe, its significant. No doubt they are way better savers than Americans who savings rate is something like 0.5%. Plus, assuming that some illegals are living together, that could be $5000 or $6000 per family. And Americans are struggling to save for retirement. :headshake

Does the DA have a moral or ethical responsibility to do what the public wants even if he knows it is wrong? I don't think so, but I'm wondering how we view elected officials and following what the people who elected them want.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 12:24 PM) Thats what the government is trying to do but people still want to protest and wave mexican flags and demand that their criminal activity be forgotten. Thats wrong. If it is in our nation's best interest to forget their criminal history, then I agree, we should. I don't think we should spend billions of dollars to deport them, which is what our laws call for. And that is the slope we are on. Only the most extreme claim that rounding them up and deporting is the thing to do. So we start from a premise that we should ignore our law and modify it after the fact. Let's never get in this position again. I think everyone can agree on that. SS, over what time period and how did they determine that number? Was that legal and illegal Mexican nationals? Does that also include Americans living in Mexico? Like everyone here, all these numbers seem suspect to me. How much could you save on $12,000 per year income? Remember illegals shop in the same stores as you and I. If they could still save and send home even a $1000, that's pretty amazing. JimH and I just kicked around people not being able to save that without having the IRS hold it for us. Yet they are able to? They are far better money managers than most Americans.

Anytime you hold someone against their will it would be kidnapping. If you walked into a store and the owner locked you into a changing room and didn't let you out, they could and probably would be charged with kidnapping. At least that's the explaination I heard earlier on Fox.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 11:59 AM) You bastard. glad you caught that . . .

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 12:11 PM) Guest worker program. Do it legally and people like me no longer have a problem with it. I don't either. And while we are at it, put together an immigration program that works for American business, clearly this one hasn't.

Deporting? It depends on where they are caught. They sometimes are released with a court date. After all, we are innocent until proven guilty in this country. That is another fatal flaw in our system. I believe in throwing the book at anyone who has a court date and doesn't show up in an attempt to avoid deportation. A little taxpayer funded jail time, then a trip home.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 11:57 AM) I can agree with that much - the thing is though, is that all the "proposals" currently on the table doesn't do that. If they correct the real problem, and that is the people hiring these people, and not the people themselves, then we're getting somewhere. No one wants to look at it like that. Let's look at that. Starting tomorrow, no one hires an illegal. What will change? Will someone suddenly apply for that carwash job? Will a high school student suddenly decide he wants to work in farm fields? Will unemployment go even lower? What will happen to millions of unemployed illegals? Tell me who will be the next generation of Americans to work as migrants in the fields. Of course if you are going to propose legal immigration, I'll agree. But if you are going to try and convince me we will have millions of kids ready to take these jobs, I just do not see it.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 11:50 AM) Spending will rise, but with the amount of money that is sent back to Mexico, it stands to reason that a much larger amount of dollars would be getting sent back to Mexico (meaning they won't be spent in the US), which could very well outpace the increased spending in the US when balanced out against the inflationary pressures associated with the much higher wages would create. I've been looking but can't find any hard numbers. So I'm wondering what percentage of wages could be sent back? By the time food, raiment, and shelter is factored into a near minimum wage job, I suspect not that much can really be sent back. I can see where doing anything is going to cost money. It is cheaper to keep things the way they are, which is why for thirty years we haven't done anything.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 11:28 AM) If there were no illegal immigrants receiving social services, healthcare, schooling and the like then those services wouldn't have such a big workload and we would indeed pay less in taxes. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalrelease.html According to this there is a net negative of 10.4 billion in 2002 and I think its safe to say that has grown since then. Wouldn't legal workers demand the services, and still not pay much taxes? Illegals are less likely to apply for benefits than legal workers. And a few posts back SS made a brilliant comment about people looking at the costs. It is brilliant in that it clarifies something in this debate. In our society, when someone is wronged, they make noise, lots of noise. When something is not working for our greater good, we take action. Why hasn't there been any uprising in thirty years? Because 99.9% of Americans are not losing jobs they want to a Spanish speaking, illiterate, uneducated, illegal immigrant who snuck into this country. Consumers enjoy the lower prices on groceries, at restaurants, and for the yard service. Businesses enjoy having cheaper labor, illegals were enjoying a standard of living above their homeland. The only people losing were the illegals in that they did not have the dignity and benefits of citizenship. They lived in fear of being caught. Now, who will probably win in all this? The people who were losing, who will now, in some form, be allowed here. Perhaps there is some justice in our world.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 11:06 AM) I believe Bush has acted with decisiveness. He's decided to keep Rummy on board. Which is not the decisiveness the situation demands, at least in Kerry's eyes. I think the Dems are trying, after blaming the entire admnistration, to find a poster child and are attempting to make that Rummy. I can't see that getting much traction. I actually find him pleasant, even though I don't agree with him all the time. If they can't convince me he's evil personified, I don't think they will get the rest of America to.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 11:11 AM) Out of curiousity has anyone done a study for how much it would cost to add 12 million people to our social entitlement programs and the subtraction from the tax base it would result in? Not to mention adding in the lost purchasing power from the resulting wage inflation price increases for industries that take up a higher percentage of income of the poor, such as food stuffs? I suspect this is why our government has looked the other way while illegals were being hired. For decades, we enjoyed the best of all worlds. High employment rates, low wages for manual labor, no government benefits being paid out, some taxes being paid in. Now we are faced with what to do. Whether it is newly legal or always legal workers doing these jobs, the social cost will be the same. Has anyone thought about the national security issues of forcing more and more agriculture outside our country? That is my biggest worry in all this. Mow your own yard and cook your own meals, but we need agriculture. Ancient wars were won by cutting off food and water, and we are slowly making it easier and easier to cut ourselves off from our food production.

Dear Bob and Mike, One general after another demanding Rumsfeld's resignation. More citizens every day joining in support of our May 15 deadline for Iraqi leaders to stop their squabbling and form a government. In these and many other ways, because of citizens like you, the wheel is slowly, but surely, turning on the question of Iraq. Over the next ten days, we're going to give it another huge push. But, before I tell you more, please take a moment right now to sign in support of the Kerry Iraq plan: Sign our Out of Iraq in 2006 petition now. It's time for Iraq's leaders to seize the opportunity for democracy in Iraq that our troops are sacrificing every day to create. If Iraq's leaders can't move past their infighting and endless delays to form a new government by May 15, we should immediately withdraw all of our troops. If they meet the May 15 deadline, we'll bring America's combat troops home by the end of the year and put the future of democracy in Iraq where it belongs -- in the hands of the Iraqi people. The clarity and precision of our plan stand in sharp contrast to the aimless approach of the architects of this war -- Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. All across America, people are strongly dissenting from the Bush administration's "stay for as long as it takes" policy -- and, just as important, standing up to the administration's attempts to vilify and question the patriotism of those who dare to speak out. Decades ago I stood up to the Nixon administration and spoke out for a change of course in Vietnam. Four days from now, I will be delivering a speech at Boston's Faneuil Hall on the critically important topic of war and dissent. It's time to remind America that, when a stubborn president has America headed profoundly in the wrong direction, only citizen action can change our country's course. The fight is just beginning. I recognize the importance of the United States Senate as an institution that can help change America's course. And I know that we can't force George W. Bush to confront reality in Iraq until we force the Senate to do the same. Sign our Out of Iraq in 2006 petition now. I will be acting in the Senate to bring change beginning when the current congressional recess ends on Monday. And I will be needing your help to move the Senate to action. Working together, we can make the next 10 days an important turning point on Iraq -- and we can build momentum as our May 15 deadline approaches. You can help right now in three important ways. First, sign the Out of Iraq in 2006 petition. Second, forward this email to as many people as possible. And third, pay special attention to your email over the next 10 days. Events could move quickly -- and you may need to act in a matter of hours. Sincerely, John Kerry P.S. Some of America's most respected retired generals have called on Donald Rumsfeld to resign. We've long ago demanded the Secretary of Defense's resignation. Clearly, if President Bush acted with the decisiveness this moment demands, America could have a new Secretary of Defense in place by our May 15 deadline. And that would add much-needed impetus to the drive to successfully end America's military engagement in Iraq.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Apr 18, 2006 -> 09:11 AM) Um, I hate to break it to you, again, but passing the guest worker program will have the same effect on agricultural industries. The same effect as deporting the trained, willing, workers and hoping to replace them? I don't think so. The reason illegals did not protest, is the same as why they do not report crimes against them, they do not want to be discovered and deported.