SENATE TO RETHINK IMMIGRATION BILL

That’s the message Bill Frist is sending to the American people in this AP article.

Republicans moved Wednesday to have the Senate spend most of the next two weeks reconsidering an immigration bill that faltered just before Easter over whether to let millions of illegal immigrants remain in the United States. “We’re ready to start the process,” Sen. John McCain, (R-AZ), said Wednesday after emerging from a meeting with a few other Republicans in Majority Leader Bill Frist’s office. Frist, (R-TN), said he would continue talks with Minority Leader Harry Reid, (D-NV). He added, however, that debate would begin early next week on amendments even though he and Reid have no agreement on how to proceed with the bill.

It sounds like Frist got the message that border enforcement is the top priority with the GOP base. Appearing on Bill O’Reilly tonight, Frist said that there would be a strong enforcement component to the bill. I’m still skeptical at this point but I hope he’s serious.

O’Reilly told him that this single issue could sink the GOP this year and Frist quickly agreed. O’Reilly also told him that McCain-Kennedy was dead in the water until border security was fixed. I totally agree with O’Reilly on McCain-Kennedy.

Reid has insisted that once the bill is passed, those who support protecting illegal immigrants from deportation must control the Senate team that will negotiate with the House in conference in developing a final bill. “Unless there is agreement on conference, the bill will go nowhere. Nowhere,” Reid said Wednesday.

Think of how breathtaking that statement is. Reid will filibuster everything until he’s guaranteed that legislation will legalize illegal ‘immigrants’. So much for their “Real Security” campaign.

MORON EDUCATION OR HOW CALIFORNIA TEACHERS FAIL THEIR STUDENTS

I received this note from a former LAUSD teacher regarding Title I students. He didn’t know the source of this report but that his experience at LAUSD corroborates the comments.

In describing the waste of students who took advantage of the schools’ free breakfast and lunch:

These meals include cereal bars, fruits and juices that would make a Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten.(Teachers) estimate that well over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight. About 75% or more of them own cell phones.

Cell phones? — No wonder they can’t afford meals at school…

“Some of these schools provide day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids.”

“(The teacher) was ordered to spend $700,000 on her department or risk losing funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for anything; her budget was already substantial. She ended up buying new computers for their computer learning center; half of which, one month later, have been carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America.

“(The teacher) has had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the country less than three months who raised hell with the female teachers, calling them “putas” (whores) and throwing things (bringing many teachers to tears).

After stonewalling efforts to audit LAUSD incompetence, graft, and the serial retardation of millions of students since 1972, school board member Jon Lauritzen says that LAUSD’s charter schools need more oversight and that some may be closed down.

Talk about nerve…

As I wrote here and here, the reason charter schools and vouchers fail is because they are deliberately underfunded by school districts that oppose them. LAUSD’s $13.4 billion annual budget (not counting Title I and other funding) translates into $18,431/year per student, but only a fraction of that reaches classrooms.

If schools like Fenton Charter received the full $18,431 for each of their 1300 students, their $24 million annual budget would easily provide the resources necessary to educate their students. Lauritzen cuts these schools short and then complains that charters and vouchers are failing. And when we demand to know where the wasted funds go, the LAUSD board refuses to tell us.

Which brings us to Alameda County Superior Court Judge Robert B. Freedman, who seems to recognize the dysfunction.

In his tentative ruling this week, he has decided that 46,000 high school seniors who flunked the mandatory high school exit exams should get their diplomas anyway because, as Attorney Arturo Gonzalez says, If the state is going to deprive a student of a diploma based on a single test, then they must ensure that every student has an equal chance to prepare for it.

This is consistent with my arguments.

In affluent neighborhoods, parents and children served by public schools enjoy competition that low-income students do not. When public schools fail in affluent neighborhoods, parents can pull their children out and place them into private schools. LAUSD directs the best funding, teachers, and resources toward affluent neighborhoods and away from low-income parents who are stuck with what they have.

Fully funded charters and vouchers would level the playing field by providing opportunities that LAUSD and other monopolized union schools never will. Since 1972, the LAUSD has turned our public schools into drop-out factories, redirecting billions of dollars away from students toward unions and the politicians who support them.

After 34 years, its time that funding is assigned to students, not dysfunctional school boards.

–

Clark Baker is a senior contributor* to CaliforniaConservative.org. He is an author, a filmaker, a father and a retired LAPD officer. And he’s currently running for a seat on the California Assembly.

You may read more of Clark’s work here and regarding his campaign here (Scroll down). For more, visit JoinClark.com, the official campaign website.

GOVERNMENT EDUCATION AT WORK

The focus this time is on California. Six students in Oakland have filed a lawsuit challenging the requirement that California high school students pass an exam showing that they have gained a minimum amount of knowledge on certain core subjects like math and science before they can receive a high school diploma. These state-educated students get about 10 chances to take the test, and they get free remedial courses every time they fail. That's not enough for the six students who just, frankly speaking, weren't bright enough to pass --- even after being spoon fed.

Yesterday we had students protesting outside of the courthouse where the suit was being considered. They held signs reading "Stop the Exit Exam. Testing is not Teaching."

Sorry .. but they're wrong. Testing is most certainly teaching. It's teaching you what you haven't learned.

Anyway ... one student .. with a ring through her nose, by the way ... spoke for the CNN cameras. Here is what she had to say:

"So we want to show our support and to show the judge that we will not stand in silence and allow our students to be failed and denied the opportunities to equal education."

Well now, isn't that special? They aren't going to "allow" these students to "be failed." Not that it would do any good, but someone ought to try to explain to Ms. Government-educated Ring-through-my-nose" that these students aren't "failed." They fail. There's a difference, though you might not expect a government schooled teenager to understand it, between failing and being failed. And as for this "opportunities to equal education" nonsense. Again, maybe someone can explain to her that equal opportunities to education do not necessarily mean equal results from education.

None of this matters though. My guess is that this judge will kill off the exit exam in California. After all, who do these legislators think they are? How can you demand of students that they actually show that they have learned the material?

Listener John responds to Ken Mehlman and the RNC's request for money...

OUR BORDER PATROL.... OR MEXICO'S

By Michelle Malkin

Who does the U.S. Border Patrol work for? Apparently, not for us.

If you have high blood pressure, don't read on. The Daily Bulletin reports:

While Minuteman civilian patrols are keeping an eye out for illegal border crossers, the U.S. Border Patrol is keeping an eye out for Minutemen -- and telling the Mexican government where they are.

According to three documents on the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Web site, the U.S. Border Patrol is to notify the Mexican government as to the location of Minutemen and other civilian border patrol groups when they participate in apprehending illegal immigrants -- and if and when violence is used against border crossers.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman confirmed the notification process, describing it as a standard procedure meant to reassure the Mexican government that migrants' rights are being observed.

"It's not a secret where the Minuteman volunteers are going to be," Mario Martinez said Monday.

"This ... simply makes two basic statements -- that we will not allow any lawlessness of any type, and that if an alien is encountered by a Minuteman or arrested by the Minuteman, then we will allow that government to interview the person."

Minuteman members were not so sanguine about the arrangement, however, saying that reporting their location to Mexican officials nullifies their effectiveness along the border and could endanger their lives.

"Now we know why it seemed like Mexican officials knew where we were all the time," said Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. "It's unbelievable that our own government agency is sending intelligence to another country. They are sending intelligence to a nation where corruption runs rampant, and that could be getting into the hands of criminal cartels.

"They just basically endangered the lives of American people."

Officials with the Mexican consulate in Washington, D.C., could not be reached for comment Monday.

To top it all off, Border Patrol agents are reportedly being told to ignore reports of illegal alien sightings--or to omit credit to Minutemen when they file such reports with DHS:

TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union representing more than 10,000 Border Patrol agents, said agents have complained for years about the Mexican consulate's influence over the agency.

"It worries me (that the Mexican government) seems to be unduly influencing our enforcement policies. That's not a legitimate role for any foreign nation," Bonner said, though he added, "It doesn't surprise me."

Border Patrol agents interviewed by the Daily Bulletin said they have been asked to report to sector headquarters the location of all civilian volunteer groups, but to not file the groups' names in reports if they spot illegal immigrants.

"Last year an internal memo notified all agents not to give credit to Minuteman volunteers or others who call in sightings of illegal aliens," said one agent, who spoke on the condition he not be identified. "We were told to list it as a citizen call and leave it at that. Many times, we were told not to go out to Minuteman calls."

Not a surprise, of course, when the nation's own president considers overwhelmingly peaceful supporters of immigration enforcement "vigilantes."

SNITCHING & SPYING FOR MEXICO

By Michelle Malkin

I'll keep updating my first post on this subject with reader feedback. Meantime, the Minutemen Blog has details not reported by the Daily Bulletin:

Sara Carter, a reporter with the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, reports today that she found documentation on Mexican government websites that show higher ups in the United States Border Patrol have been tipping off the corrupt Mexican government as to the locations of the Minutemen along the border.

This article does not report information told to the MCDC media offices that the Border Patrol chiefs have also been passing along intelligence reports to the government of Mexico on the activities of Minutemen not only at the borders, but in locations such as Utah, Nevada, Illinois, Massachusetts and Tennessee. Perhaps a follow-up story is coming tomorrow or an over zealous editor took the info out?

Part of a report distributed last August to the Mexican government from Border Patrol bureaucrats read over the phone to the MCDC media offices contained not only numbers (estimated chapter membership) of Minutemen in Illinois, but a statement on their activities and that they didn't seem to know any politicians there, indicating that the Illinois Minutemen didn't yet have any political clout.

That is not a report on the location of Minutemen at the border, but political intelligence from our government to a foreign nation about the activities of American citizens petitioning our own government for redress of grievances.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps media offices will contact the reporter to inquire about copies of the documents and the timing on a follow-up story with the reports to the Mexican government of activities of Minutemen in INTERIOR states, as if reports of our locations in the border states weren't bad enough.

If the ACLU weren't so busy demonizing the Minutemen, you would think they might be on the side of law-abiding Americans being surveilled by their government. Where are the privocrats now?

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND THE CREATION OF A PERMANENT UNDERCLASS

There are myriad and escalating problems created by the arrivals of unbridled immigrants who are illegally entering the US, by the thousands, each and every day. These unlawful incursions, primarily breaches affected at the US’ Southern border, have instigated and are continuing to cause multitudinous more problems than those they, ostensibly, solve.

The problems inherent with this onslaught include the injuries to US states’ (predominantly the Southwestern states) healthcare systems, schools and the displacement of US citizen-workers [1]. Arizona, California and Texas have been hit the hardest, in regards to healthcare, and many hospitals have been forced to close due to the unpaid treatment of illegals. In California, a State audit uncovered “…the county [Los Angeles] treats five times as many undocumented immigrants as required by state law.” In regards to healthcare, schools and illegals immigrant prisoners in US jails, NewsMax reported that the Federation for American Immigration Reform found: “total uncompensated educational, health care and incarceration costs were estimated to be 10.5 billion.” However, one of the even more insidious consequences of the illegal aliens’ invasion is the apparent attempt to establish a permanent illegal Hispanic underclass in the US.

If the illegal immigrants become “legal”, they will no longer be constrained to accept low wages and, in turn, their employers will have to raise their compensation. If said compensation is raised to US citizen-standards, the use of illegal workers will no longer be a viable option to those now employing them. If wages are forced upward, there will be no incentive to US employers to hire legal Hispanics over US citizen-workers. But, that is not the way the issue is developing in the US Senate. Instead, this US governmental body appears to be bent upon maintaining the aliens’ illegal status—or at least to allow them to enter the country by maintaining the porous US-Mexico border.

Although the US House of Representatives passed a Border Protection and Immigration bill that is actually pro-US citizens, the US Senate (our version of the British “House of Lords”) along with interested employers of illegals are proceeding to gut the House version in favor of maintaining the status quo. The Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by sometimes-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, has even proposed a “virtual border fence”. A “virtual fence”, Senator? It either is a fence or it isn’t. In fact, the only group that is currently attempting to protect our Southern border is the US citizen Minuteman Project. The Minutemen (and women) are now “doing the job that the US government won’t do”.

So, the Republican-run House of Reps actually proposed a strong and viable bill (that would also protect the country from terrorists) but, the US Senate (both Democrats and Republicans) are proceeding to dismantle it.

Those who support the unchecked and predominantly Hispanic illegals’ ingress into the country include organizations that do not believe the United States should have any borders, various groups that are pushing the Communist agenda, anarchistic groups, the Mexican MEChA group which is becoming more militant in pushing its “Reconquista Movement” [2] and—of course—the employers in the United States who want workers who will labor for very low pay.

And let’s not forget the Mexican government, which continues to export its impoverished populations and criminals to the USA. For decades, Mexico has been able to avoid its own economic and corruption issues by shipping its problems to the US. When US Citizens have spoken out against Mexico’s policy, Mexican officials blame the US for not being more “compassionate” and then accuse US citizens of being “racist”—for not accepting [its] Mexican citizens; many of whom now want and have unequivocally stated that they want and plan to take over the United States!

But, our US Senators, forever short-sighted in wanting the enticements of the moment, continue to side with the illegals and against the US citizenry. The illegals’ employers lobbies, including the hopes for illegals’ votes, are now a much stronger incentive to “our” Senators that are the desires of the voters who placed them in office. If these Senators, who no longer listen to we-the-people, are allowed to generate their illegals-friendly bill, they will have effectively created a permanent Hispanic underclass and a class of people with whom US citizen-workers cannot economically compete. This underclass will, also, continue to drive our hospitals out of business and clog our prison system with their criminals.

Note: Members of the MS-13 Salvadoran gang, called to most dangerous and deadly gang in the US, enter the US via our open Southern border. There are also strong indications that MS-13 has ties to the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda.

So, the questions that remain are: “Do we want to continue to keep our border non-existent, thereby allowing terrorists to enter our country at will and assist our Senators in creating a permanent underclass? Or, do we-the-people want to stop the insanity?” If you, as do I, want to stop the lunatic-virus that has infected the US Senate, contact them and tell them. And please do it now—before it’s too late: Directory of U.S. Senate

References::

[1] http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060410-123506-1297r.htm
[2] “Latinos are now realizing that the power to control Aztlan may once again be in their hands.”:

http://www.americanpatrol.com/MECHA/AZTLAN.html
http://www.nshp.org/?q=node/717
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/12/26/170334.shtml
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2005/04/state_audit_sug.php
http://www.minutemanproject.com/default.asp?contentID=23
http://www.policemag.com/t_cipick.cfm?rank=90876
http://www.newschannel5.tv/2005/2/28/1671/MS-13-Al-Qaeda-Connection%7D

Read more by this author on our site here. (Scroll down)

Sher Zieve is a Staff Writer for The New Media Alliance. Columns by this author can be read regularly on TheRealityCheck.org.

THE EXECUTION OF ATWAR BAHJAT

“Part of me died when I saw this cruel killing,” reports Hala Jaber in the The Sunday Times (UK).

“EVEN by the stupefying standards of Iraq’s unspeakable violence, the murder of Atwar Bahjat, one of the country’s top television journalists, was an act of exceptional cruelty.

Nobody but her killers knew just how much she had suffered until a film showing her death on February 22 at the hands of two musclebound men in military uniforms emerged last week. Her family’s worst fears of what might have happened have been far exceeded by the reality.”

This news is a MUST READ. [Warning: Not on a full stomach]

And pass the story on to others. All those who need yet another example of the savage acts commited by Muslim terrorists in the name of Allah.

Her cries — “Ah, ah, ah” — can be heard above the “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) intoned by the holder of the mobile phone [which was used to film the butchery of her execution.].

For this, there can be no diplomacy. No reasoning or rationale. As Michelle Malkin concludes, “Insanely evil.”

It is the year 2006, and while the civilized world worries collectively about such things as the environment and the less fortunate, for many religious extremists in the Middle East, this Stone Age barbarism is considered acceptable if not even commonplace.

As Greyhawk observes in the Mudville Gazette, “the London Times reporter can’t resist a mild apology for their act:”

Just as Bahjat bore witness to countless atrocities that she covered for her television station, Al-Arabiya, during Iraq’s descent into sectarian conflict, so the recording of her execution embodies the depths of the country’s depravity after three years of war.

Greyhawk concludes:

In truth, it represents a depth of depravity achieved over centuries. From the description, her killers hadn’t just conceived or improvised their method of execution on the spot — they seem to have been well practiced. But such is the nature of the enemy in this war, and perhaps this is their most sacred and well honed knowledge: if a brutality can be inflicted that exceeds all human ability to comprehend, the humans will find a way to deny it.

Or excuse it.

Or simply look the other way.

We will never look away. And we will help others know the truth.

It’s what we’re fighting against: evil.