Blog: Krikorian: Trump throws American workers under the bus
March 5, 2016
Mark Krikorian: Trump throws American workers under the bus
By Rick Moran
Immigration expert Mark Krikorian dissects Donald Trump's ever changing, always evolving positions on immigration. At first, Trump explained that by using foreign labor, he was only being a smart businessman. But now he says that his hard and fast position taken since running for president that he would eliminate the visa program that brings in foreign workers at the expense of American workers, his position is "softening."
Just what does Donald Trump believe?
Any time Donald Trump has to talk about any aspect of immigration other than his border wall – the one Mexico’s going to pay for, in case you hadn’t heard – he falls back on his donor-class, crony-corporatist instincts. In the October CNBC debate, he essentially embraced Marco Rubio’s support for increased “skilled” worker visas and praised Mark Zuckerberg, both positions diametrically opposed to his published immigration platform.
Then in the debate late last month, he embraced the Chuck Schumer/Marco Rubio position that there are Jobs Americans Won’t Do, specifically low-skilled jobs at his club in Palm Beach, and that foreigners have to be imported to do them.
In Thursday’s debate, he reiterated both anti-American-worker positions, favoring the importation of more high-skilled and low-skilled foreign workers. “I’m changing,” Trump said, regarding his views on skilled visas. “I’m changing it and I’m softening the position because we have to have talented people in this country.” True enough, except that we already have twice as many technical degree holders as there are tech jobs.
What made Trump’s “I’m changing” comment even more shameless than usual for him is that just on Sunday he held a rally featuring former Disney employees who were replaced by the very foreign worker program he’s now praising.
And just as happened in October, his appalled staff quickly fired off a press release this morning essentially saying “Never mind.” It ends, “I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions.” At least until the next time he’s asked about it.
Trump also reiterated his position that he has no choice but to hire foreign workers to make beds and the like at his Florida resorts. His defense is they’re seasonal jobs: “It’s a few months, five months at the most. People don’t want a short-term job.
Trump fails to mention that he has continously applied for extensions of those "seasonable jobs":
The work period for Mar-a-Lago’s guest workers, according to the petitions, is nearly always October 1 to May 31, which is 8 months. On other occasions, his company petitioned for even longer periods. For example, in 2009, the Trump National Golf Club petitioned for guest workers for the period January 26 through November 20.
Is Trump unaware of his own policies or is he lying? Given the statement from his staff repudiating what he had just said about visas in the debates, you have to think The Donald is ignorant of the policies of his own companies.
Yes...a great businessman.
I guess if Trump is elected president, we'll all have to wait and see what his immigration policies will actually be.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/krikorian_trump_throws_american_workers_under_the_bus.html#ixzz423TP9oAT
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US employment report: Payrolls rise, wages fall
AMERICA: NO LEGAL NEED APPLY!
"These statistics point to the fact that the American ruling class, through its instrument, the Obama administration, has utilized the financial crash of 2008, for which it was responsible, to fundamentally reorganize the US economy, transforming it into a low-wage system. The millions of decent-paying jobs that were destroyed have been largely replaced by poverty-wage, part-time and temporary jobs."
US employment report: Payrolls rise, wages fall
By Barry Grey
5 March 2016
President Barack Obama seized on the February employment report, released Friday morning by the Labor Department, to tout the supposed “success” of his economic policies and paint a picture of a thriving US economy. The report, which showed a larger-than-predicted growth in private nonfarm payrolls of 242,000 jobs, confirmed that the US economy was “the envy of the world,” Obama told reporters at a White House appearance.
“The fact of the matter is that the plans that we have put in place to grow the economy have worked,” he boasted.” He derided “an alternative reality out there from some of the political folks that America is down in the dumps.” He countered, “America is pretty darn great right now.”
BLOG: BOTH OF OBAMA'S SEC. of (ILLEGAL) LABOR HAVE BEEN LA RAZA SUPREMACIST. THE DEM PARTY HAS SABOTAGED E-VERIFY AND VOTING WITH NO IDs TO EASE MORE MEXICANS INTO OUR JOBS, AND VOTING BOOTHS!
He did not attempt to explain why the “alternative reality,” which his labor secretary, Thomas Perez, attributed to “fear-mongers and fact-deniers,” is believed by tens of millions of Americans, whose anger over economic injustice is dramatically reflected in the current election campaign.
One does not have to look too closely at the Labor Department’s report, however, to get an idea of what is fueling the social indignation of working people in the eighth and final year of the Obama administration. Behind the top-line number for new jobs and the quasi-fictional official unemployment rate of only 4.9 percent, ongoing trends with disastrous consequences for the working class are evident. They account for two other important indices in the report: a decline in average earnings from the previous month of 3 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $25.35, bringing the increase for the year down to just 2.2 percent, and a fall in the average private-sector workweek of 0.2 hours to 34.4 hours, a two-year low.
These two figures arise from the fact that the vast bulk of new jobs created in February were low-wage and a huge percentage were part-time. The low-paying service sector—retail, bars and restaurants, health care—accounted for 245,000 jobs. The reality of recession in basic production was reflected in a 16,000 decline in manufacturing and the loss of another 19,000 mining jobs, bringing to 171,000 the total decline in mining since September 2014. The only better-paying industrial sector that saw an increase was construction, which recorded a gain of 19,000.
Another figure highlights the hollow and socially regressive character of Obama’s so-called “recovery.” The financial cable network CNBC pointed out that according to the Labor Department’s household survey, which is the basis for the unemployment rate figure (the figure on payroll growth is derived from a separate survey of business establishments), full-time jobs increased in February by only 65,000, while part-time positions increased by 489,000. This means that a mere 11.7 percent of new jobs in February were full-time!
These statistics point to the fact that the American ruling class, through its instrument, the Obama administration, has utilized the financial crash of 2008, for which it was responsible, to fundamentally reorganize the US economy, transforming it into a low-wage system. The millions of decent-paying jobs that were destroyed have been largely replaced by poverty-wage, part-time and temporary jobs.
The median household income has fallen sharply. Pensions and health benefits have been gutted, schools closed by the thousands, teachers and other public workers laid off by the millions. At the other end, the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury have pumped trillions of dollars into the financial markets, driving up the stock market and bringing the concentration of wealth at the very top to unprecedented levels. This is what Obama lauds as “success.”
Meanwhile, millions of Americans remain mired in long-term unemployment. The number of long-term unemployed, defined as without work for 27 weeks or more, was essentially unchanged at 2.2 million in February. This number has not shifted significantly since last June. The long-term jobless accounted last month for 27.7 percent of the unemployed, a far higher percentage than in any previous period categorized as an economic recovery.
A broader measure of unemployment that includes people working part-time but wanting full-time work and those too discouraged to seek employment registered 9.7 percent last month, nearly double the official jobless rate. There are, in addition, millions of people who have dropped out of the labor market and are not even counted in government employment reports.
While the employment-to-population ratio edged up to 59.8 percent and the labor force participation rate rose slightly to 62.9 percent, both measures remain extraordinarily low by historical standards.
The impact of soaring social inequality and falling living standards for broad sections of the population is reflected in a growing crisis in the retail sector. This week, sporting goods chain The Sports Authority filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced it was closing at least 140 of its 463 stores and laying off 3,400 of its 13,000 employees. This follows recent announcements by Walmart, Sears/Kmart and Macy’s of hundreds of store closures and thousands of layoffs.
TVA pension cuts: A new stage in the assault on American workers
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS: SERVE THE 1%, ILLEGALS AND HAND THE TAX BILLS FOR THEIR CRIMES TO THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS!
Millions of workers had their retirement savings wiped out as result of the collapse of the stock market in 2008 and most have never recovered. On average, workers between the ages of 56 and 61 saw their retirement savings fall by 23 percent between 2007 and 2013. Millions more, without any retirement benefits or savings, are entirely dependent on meager Social Security payments.
TVA pension cuts: A new stage in the assault on American workers
5 March 2016
The announcement this week of cuts to the pensions of the employees of the federally-owned Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) marks a new stage in the drive by the ruling class, overseen by the Obama administration, to take back all of the social gains won by the working class over the course of a century of struggle.
The TVA, the largest public utility company in the US, employs 10,000 people and provides electricity and other services to 9 million residents in an 80,000 square mile area covering significant portions of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.
As was noted in Friday’s New York Times, the TVA cuts will breach the “firewall” that up to now has protected federal employee pensions, marking the first time that the federal government makes significant moves against defined benefit obligations. The underfunding of the pension plan by an estimated $6 billion is being used to justify the cuts.
The Tennessee Valley Authority Retirement System (TVARS) board approved a plan on Thursday that would shift workers hired since 2006 from a defined-benefit plan to a defined-contribution 401(k) investment plan. Those hired since 1996 with more than 10 years on the job would see their pensions split between the current plan and the 401(k). This scheme, which still has to be approved by the overall board of directors of the TVA, is slated to take effect in October.
While the plan maintains defined benefit pensions for current retirees, a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) on benefits will be capped at 6 percent. For current employees and retirees under 50, the COLA will not kick in until they turn 65.
The plan approved by TVARS is a slight modification of a proposal put forward by the CEO of the utility, William D. Johnson, to cut $700 million from pension obligations over 20 years. The cuts would not impact a special executive retirement plan that supplements the pensions of those who sit on the TVA’s executive board, including the multi-millionaire Johnson.
Johnson, the former CEO of Progress Energy, received total compensation of $6.4 million in 2015, making him the highest paid federal employee. Expressing his contempt for TVA workers, Johnson told the New York Times that cutting his own pay would not make a dent in the pension system’s liabilities and that maintaining executive pensions was necessary to “attract talent.”
The attack on the pensions of TVA employees is a warning that no section of the working class is exempt from the social counterrevolution being carried out in the interests of the financial aristocracy. The TVA is seen as low-hanging fruit in the public sector since it is exempt from federal regulations that guarantee pension benefits and penalize companies for underfunding pension plans.
The imposition of cuts there will set a precedent for overriding pension guarantees for other federal employees, just as the Detroit bankruptcy, backed by the Obama administration, became the model for gutting public-sector pensions in other cities and states across the country, as well as for attacks in the private sector.
Over the past 35 years, the percentage of workers receiving pensions has been vastly reduced. The share of private-sector workers with a pension has fallen to less than 3 percent from close to 30 percent in 1980. Millions have been pushed into 401(k) investment plans, which funnel retirement funds into the hands Wall Street speculators.
The announcement of the assault on the TVA pension fund follows the Obama administration’s recent gutting of benefits for hundreds of thousands of retired truck drivers, package handlers and other workers covered by the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund.
In a country where 400 billionaires control more wealth than the bottom half of the population and the top 1 percent captures more than 21 percent of all income, it has become a mantra that there is “no money” for pensions, health care or any other social program. Yet hundreds of billions of dollars continue to be paid out in executive compensation.
Millions of workers had their retirement savings wiped out as result of the collapse of the stock market in 2008 and most have never recovered. On average, workers between the ages of 56 and 61 saw their retirement savings fall by 23 percent between 2007 and 2013. Millions more, without any retirement benefits or savings, are entirely dependent on meager Social Security payments.
The assault by the Obama administration on the TVA has a symbolic significance, underscoring the utter hostility of the Democratic Party today to the social reforms carried out decades ago by Democratic Party administrations. The utility was created by the federal government in 1933, marking a high point in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal public works program aimed at heading off a socialist revolution in the depths of the Great Depression.
Modeled to a certain extent on the central planning employed by the workers state in the Soviet Union, the TVA brought electricity and modern farming techniques to a section of the country that had remained mired in poverty and backwardness.
The attack on TVA pensions is the spearhead of a broader attack directed ultimately at the dismantling of the utility as a government-owned entity and its carve-up among corporations looking for new sources of profit. This is but the latest indication of the mortal crisis of American capitalism, which poses the necessity for a mass political and revolutionary response by the working class.
Niles Williamson
March 3, 2016
Romney to give 'major speech' trashing Trump
By Rick Moran
Mitt Romney will give what his camp is calling a "major speech" today, commenting on the GOP nomination fight. Specifically, Ronney will bash frontrunner Donald Trump for being a "phony" and a "fraud."
CNN:
Former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romneythinks "Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud" and that he's "playing the American public for suckers," according to prepared remarks provided by Romney to CNN.
Romney, the party's nominee in 2012, will urge Americans "to make the right choices" and not support the GOP front runner during a speech he'll give today at 11:30 a.m. ET at the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics Forum.
With Dr. Ben Carson bowing out of tonight's Republican presidential debate, Romney will promote the remaining candidates. According to the former Massachusetts governor, "the only serious policy proposals that deal with the broad range of national challenges we confront have come from Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich."
Romney is expected to remark on some what-ifs about Trump becoming president. "His domestic policies would lead to recession. His foreign policies would make America and the world less safe. He has neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president," Romney is expected to say.
Romney will also touch on a "twisted example of evil trumping good: "Trump's claims that he admires Russian President Vladimir Putin while calling "George W. Bush a liar."
It is clear that Romney thinks a Trump nomination istroublesome for both the Republican Party and the country.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/romney_to_give_major_speech_trashing_trump.html#ixzz41rwn9eTL
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EXCLUSIVE – Insider at Mitt Romney Speech: ‘This Is Just Act One’
by Joel B. Pollak3 Mar 2016917
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — The host of Mitt Romney’s speech attacking Republican frontrunner Donald Trump on Thursday at the University of Utah told Breitbart News: “This is just Act One” for Mitt Romney.
Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, told Breitbart News that he expected Romney’s speech would be the first in a series of steps in an attempt to derail Trump’s progress to the GOP nomination.
He predicted that Romney would take other actions leading up to the key winner-take-all primaries on March 15, such as Florida.
“When Mitt Romney does something, he never just does one thing,” said Perry, citing Romney’s reputation for thoroughness and preparation.
He added that while Romney had given him “no indication” that he intends to become a candidate for the presidency himself, “A lot of people in Salt Lake City and Utah are urging [Romney] to get into the race.”
Asked by Breitbart News whether failing to endorse a single alternative to Trump made it easier for Trump to divide the field and win, Perry merely agreed with the observation.
In his speech, Romney explicitly said that he was not announcing his candidacy, but encouraged voters to back whichever alternative to Trump was most popular in their particular state.
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Big Government, 2016 Presidential Race, Breitbart California, Mitt Romney, david perry, hinckley institute
Romney excoriates Trump, says he's led nation to 'abyss'
By Jonathan Easley - 03/03/16
Mitt Romney on Thursday sought to embarrass and humiliate Donald Trump in a blistering speech meant to buttress the growing movement of conservatives desperate to stop the Republican presidential front-runner at any cost.
Speaking at the University of Utah in a much-anticipated address on the state of the 2016 presidential race, Romney tore into Trump on every front.
The 2012 GOP nominee framed Trump as a vain loser – two insults directed at the heart of Trump’s appeal – who would get crushed by Hillary Clinton in the general election if he wins the party’s nomination.
Romney went after one of Trump’s biggest selling points, diminishing his success as businessman by saying the billionaire real estate mogul had been born into privilege and squandered his inheritance through a series of frivolous investments.
“He inherited his business, he didn't create it,” said Romney, himself a wealthy entrepreneur. “And what ever happened to Trump Airlines? How about Trump University? And then there's Trump Magazine and Trump Vodka and Trump Steaks, and Trump Mortgage? A business genius he is not.”
The former Massachusetts governor repeatedly called into question Trump’s temperament, condemning the GOP front-runner for “the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third grade theatrics,” and accusing him of creating “scapegoats” out of minority groups.
“The audio and video of the infamous Tapper-Trump exchange on the Ku Klux Klan will play a hundred thousand times on cable and who knows how many million times on social media,” Romney warned.
Romney went after Trump’s economic policies, saying they would cause the nation to “sink into a prolonged recession,” and said his foreign policy would “make America and the world less safe.”
“He calls for the use of torture and for killing the innocent children and family members of terrorists,” Romney said. “He cheers assaults on protesters. He applauds the prospect of twisting the Constitution to limit first amendment freedom of the press.”
And he joined Marco Rubio in describing Trump as a con-man who is fleecing voters by taking advantage of their anger at Washington.
“Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud,” Romney declared. “His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He's playing the American public for suckers. He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat.”
Romney sought to paint a bleak picture of the nation’s future with Trump in the White House.
“Mr. Trump is directing our anger for less than noble purposes,” Romney said. “This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss.”
Trump knew the attack was coming, and set out on a media blitz before the speech to preempt the attacks.
“Mitt Romney was a failed candidate; should have beaten Barack Obama easily," Trump said on ABC’s Good Morning America.
Tweeting to his 6.6 million followers, Trump ticked through a point-by-point rebuttal, arguing that “Hillary wants no part” of him in a general election, and saying he’s uniting the party and bringing scores of new Republicans into the fold.
At a campaign rally in Portland, Maine, Trump kicked back hard at Romney, calling him a “disaster” as a candidate and a “choke artist.”
Trump said Romney “demeaned 47 percent of the country” with his infamous remarks on poverty.
He said Romney thought about running for president again in 2016, but “chickened out because of me,” and claimed the 2012 nominee “begged” him for an endorsement.
“I could’ve just said, Mitt, drop to your knees, he would’ve dropped to his knees,” Trump said.
Romney has a complicated history with Trump. He sought out and ultimately won Trump’s endorsement in 2012.
At the time, Romney said of Trump's endorsement, "There are some things you just can't imagine happening in your life — this is one of them."
He praised Trump's "extraordinary ability to understand how our economy works to create jobs for the American people." Pointing to Trump, Romney said that while he had spent his life in the private sector, he said he was "not quite as successful as this guy."
He concluded that he appreciated the endorsement of Trump and "people across this country who care about the future of America."
Romney defended his past statements later Thursday, tweeting: "If Trump had said 4 years ago the things he says today about the KKK, Muslims, Mexicans, disabled, I would NOT have accepted his endorsement."
Now, Romney’s vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, is Speaker of the House and chairman of the Republican convention.
Ryan this week condemned Trump’s initial refusal to disavow white supremacist David Duke, but he has reached out to Trump’s campaign in an attempt to forge a working relationship with him.
On Thursday, Ryan dodged a series of questions about Romney's attack, saying only that "everything is fair game" until a nominee is chosen.
"I know Mitt feels strongly about this election and he's going to speak his mind," Ryan said on "Fox and Friends," adding that Romney is a party leader who's "worried about the future of the party."
Romney and Ryan attended a fundraiser together in Utah in late February, and ABC News is reporting that the two met privately at Romney’s home over the weekend.
While Romney’s insults were directed at Trump, his speech was meant to light a fire under the growing anti-Trump movement within the party.
Many mainstream Republicans are going public in their efforts to block Trump from the nomination by any means possible and are vowing not to support him if he makes it to the general election.
Dozens of high-profile conservatives, from Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) to conservative media personality Erick Erickson, are using their platforms to make the case against Trump.
And top GOP donors are scrambling to fund super-PACs that produce anti-Trump advertisements nationally and in critical primary states.
Romney’s speech could give direction to a faction of the party that appears panicked and flailing over what to do about Trump.
He has been venerated in conservative circles, as many Republicans believe the 2012 nominee, for all his faults as a candidate, has been proven right on a host of issues he ran on in 2012.
Romney has a has sought to use his influence in the 2016 cycle by refereeing from the sidelines, weighing in to influence the direction of discourse and connecting his network of fundraisers with the candidates they might support.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Trump’s rival for the GOP nomination who has largely steered clear of conflict with the front-runner, tweeted: “Well said.”
And John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee who has previously stated he would support Trump if he wins the nomination, also voiced his support for Romney’s remarks.
“I share the concerns about Donald Trump that my friend and former Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, described in his speech today,” McCain said in a statement.
In July, Trump came under fire for denigrating McCain’s military service.
The Arizona Republican and entrenched establishment figure is up for reelection in 2016 and his rival, Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, has sought to tie him to Trump.
“Voters should ask McCain why he is still planning to support Trump if he truly believes Trump would be a bad president,” she said in a statement on Thursday.
Many Republicans will view Romney’s remarks as a declaration of war by the establishment against grassroots conservatives.
Some believe Romney is merely adding fuel to the Trump movement, which is driven by a fierce anti-establishment streak.
“Mitt Romney with an incredible endorsement for Donald Trump,” Trump adviser Dan Scavino tweeted sarcastically on Thursday.
Some establishment Republicans, led by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Jeff Sessions, are beginning to line up behind Trump, seeking to build on the wave of enthusiasm surrounding his campaign.
They argue that Trump has galvanized grassroots conservatives who are frustrated with Washington and turned out millions to the polls – many of whom are participating for the first time, or formerly identified as Democrats or independents.
"I brought millions of millions people into the Republican Party over the last very short period of time,” Trump said Thursday. “It's the biggest story in politics, how many people are flocking into the Republican Party.”
“They're leaving the Democrats. They're leaving the independents. And they're with me 100 percent. There's great enthusiasm in the Republican Party except in the establishment.”
- Updated at 2:25 p.m.
LA RAZA HILLARY CLINTON'S PROMISE TO THE MEX OCCUPIERS: OBAMA'S AMNESTY TO LEGALIZE MEXICO'S LOOTING!!!
AMNESTY: IT'S ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED AND THERE'S NO DEM POLITICIAN OR FREAKING BILLIONAIRE THAT DOESN'T WANT OBAMA'S AMNESTY HOAX TO LEGALIZE MEXICO'S LOOTING!!!
Think Trump Will be Tough on Immigration? Consider His Company's Use of Guestworkers
By David Seminara
CIS Immigration Blog, February 26, 2016
. . .
I combed through the government databases detailing H-2B petitions and here are some observations regarding the Trump Organization's use of H-2B guest workers:
* In petitioning for workers, employers are supposed to prove that their hiring need is "seasonal" and "temporary", yet Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club has sought to import guest workers year after year, including right now. (Their most recent petition was filed in July 2015 and the workers are on contract at the resort until May 31, 2016.)
* Trump maintained at the debate on Thursday night that the jobs he had filled with guest workers were hard to fill because they were only for 90 or 120 days. But in fact, the duration of the petitions was never just three months. The work period for Mar-a-Lago's guest workers, according to the petitions, is nearly always October 1 to May 31, which is 8 months. On other occasions, his company petitioned for even longer periods. For example, in 2009, the Trump National Golf Club petitioned for guest workers for the period January 26 through November 20.
* I note that even during the height of the recession, this and other Trump properties were petitioning for workers.
* In 2009, again, during the height of the recession, the Trump Organization used an H-2B broker called Más Labor to import workers. Más Labor extols the benefits of Mexican workers on their website, which allows employers to add guest workers to their online shopping carts. "You'll never wonder if your workers are going to show up on Monday morning and make it through a full work week," it reads. "MAS H2 workers are dedicated to their families, their work and their employers. They'll be there, ready to work hard for you. ... The only thing an H2 worker can do legally in the U.S. is work for their specified employer. ... For Mexican workers, seven to nine dollars an hour is about ten times what could be earned in most jobs at home."
. . .
http://www.cis.org/seminara/think-trump-will-be-tough-immigration-consider-his-companys-use-guestworkers
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Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified information by using her private, unsecured server to store sensitive documents makes it look more and more as though a criminal case is being developed against her by the FBI. One by one, her campai...
Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton may be the most pathetic presidential nominee of any major political party in our nation's history.
March 1, 2016
Just How Bad a Candidate Will Hillary Be?
I asked last March, "Just How Bad a Candidate Would Hillary Be?" As Hillary locks up the Democrat nomination, the question is "Just How Bad a Candidate Will Hillary Be?" Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton may be the most p...
By Bruce Walker
I asked last March, "Just How Bad a Candidate Would Hillary Be?" As Hillary locks up the Democrat
nomination, the question is "Just How Bad a Candidate Will Hillary Be?" Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton may be the most pathetic presidential nominee of any major political party in our nation's history.
First dispel the myth of her husband as a consummate politician. Bill was a flop as governor of Arkansas and as president of the United States. Bill managed to be the only Democrat in Arkansas state history to lose re-election as governor and won two presidential elections with a minority of the popular vote. He entered the White House with huge Democrat majorities at every level of government and left with Democrats in the minority at every level of government.
Bill Clinton was impeached, disbarred, and found in contempt of court while president, which was a worse record of determined malfeasance than any president in history. As an ex-president, Clinton seems frail, dull, and testy – as evidenced most recently by his snapping angrily at a veteran in South Carolina asking about Hillary ending corruption in the Veterans Administration.
Since my article last March, the women who have been harassed, threatened, and raped by Clinton have served notice that they will not be quiet while his wife, Hillary, ignores and dismisses them. This is a problem Hillary has never addressed but cannot ignore, as Republican candidates have made clear, in a presidential election.
The hideous behavior of Hillary towards these women brutalized by her husband is one problem. A related problem is the limp appeal of "women's issues" in electoral campaigns. Consider the utter failure in the 2014 election cycle of every candidate who based a campaign on "women's issues." Further, the failure of Hillary to attract young
women in primaries against an ancient Vermont Socialist shows how little she appeals to female voters.
If there is an issue that motivates Americans across the spectrum, it is trust, because we have been lied to so often and so cavalierly by Washington politicians. No sane person trusts Hillary. She not only lies even when the truth would serve as well, but she lies about telling the truth, as in her recent CBS interview. She lies almost as much as her husband.
Compounding this pathological dishonesty are the natural consequences of aging, obesity, and health problems that strongly suggest a slowing down of her mental processes. The ravages of immoral life and old age clearly have
reduced her husband into a very dull mind, and it is likely that many of the same abuses of youth harrowing her husband are affecting her, too.
There is another aspect to her lying. Hillary has a very ordinary brain, artificially inflated by the left because leftists always consider those who agree with them "smart." In college she followed the familiar path of lackey to leftism. Hillary failed the District of Columbia Bar Examination; nearly everyone who takes it passes. Her legal career was
constructed around her husband's political success.
Hillary has for decades been surrounded by flacks and toadies whose work is making Hillary seem and feel intelligent. Some of the emails released from her server note that these minions, among themselves, note that she
is often confused. The numerous unforced errors in her campaign also suggest a rather mean old lady used to bullying rather than reasoning. This, too, becomes over time a mental limp, a cognitive sloth, an atrophied intellect.
The stench of criminal conspiracy follows Hillary, and that is because Hillary is so utterly conspiratorial in nature, but these crimes are also so frequent that if the FBI and Justice Department does nothing, then the Justice Department itself may face future investigation – indeed, some of us may ask why we even need a department to protect criminals like Hillary.
Finally, Hillary cannot embrace that "change" Americans want when she has been a Washington insider so long. How can Hillary campaign for those goals in a general election when the only real selling point she has is
"experience"? There is nothing Hillary says that is not hopelessly tired and hackneyed rhetoric, and nothing that inspires hope.
Forget the fact that she is finally dispatching the non-Democrat running against her for the Democrat nomination, and ignore the general polls today, which mean nothing. Hillary will be swamped this November.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/just_how_bad_a_candidate_will_hillary_be.html#ixzz41gVqacHm
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Romney unloads on Trump: Con man, fake, phony, fraud:
Mitt Romney warned Thursday that picking Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for the presidency would doom Republicans and greatly reduce the chances of American prosperity in the future. Let me put in very plainly, he said in a much-touted and stinging public speech at the University of Utah. If we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished. There is plenty of evidence that Mr. Trump is a con man, a fake, he said. Mr. Trump has changed his positions not just over the years, but over the course of the campaign. Romney, speaking for the GOP establishment, tore apart Trump's character, and said voters should watch to see how Trump reacts to his speech as proof. Will he talk about our policy differences, or will he attack me with every imaginable low-road insult? Romney asked as the audience laughed. This may tell you what you need to know about his temperament, his stability, and his suitability to be president.
AMNESTY: IT'S ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED AND THERE'S NO DEM POLITICIAN OR FREAKING BILLIONAIRE THAT DOESN'T WANT OBAMA'S AMNESTY HOAX TO LEGALIZE MEXICO'S LOOTING!!!
Think Trump Will be Tough on Immigration? Consider His Company's Use of Guestworkers
By David Seminara
CIS Immigration Blog, February 26, 2016
. . .
I combed through the government databases detailing H-2B petitions and here are some observations regarding the Trump Organization's use of H-2B guest workers:
* In petitioning for workers, employers are supposed to prove that their hiring need is "seasonal" and "temporary", yet Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club has sought to import guest workers year after year, including right now. (Their most recent petition was filed in July 2015 and the workers are on contract at the resort until May 31, 2016.)
* Trump maintained at the debate on Thursday night that the jobs he had filled with guest workers were hard to fill because they were only for 90 or 120 days. But in fact, the duration of the petitions was never just three months. The work period for Mar-a-Lago's guest workers, according to the petitions, is nearly always October 1 to May 31, which is 8 months. On other occasions, his company petitioned for even longer periods. For example, in 2009, the Trump National Golf Club petitioned for guest workers for the period January 26 through November 20.
* I note that even during the height of the recession, this and other Trump properties were petitioning for workers.
* In 2009, again, during the height of the recession, the Trump Organization used an H-2B broker called Más Labor to import workers. Más Labor extols the benefits of Mexican workers on their website, which allows employers to add guest workers to their online shopping carts. "You'll never wonder if your workers are going to show up on Monday morning and make it through a full work week," it reads. "MAS H2 workers are dedicated to their families, their work and their employers. They'll be there, ready to work hard for you. ... The only thing an H2 worker can do legally in the U.S. is work for their specified employer. ... For Mexican workers, seven to nine dollars an hour is about ten times what could be earned in most jobs at home."
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http://www.cis.org/seminara/think-trump-will-be-tough-immigration-consider-his-companys-use-guestworkers
Aliens and Money: Let's Look at the Big Picture
By David North
CIS Immigration Blog, February 26, 2016
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The other stack of money, some $50 billion-plus, is the sum of all the remittances currently flowing out of our country every year. Much of this is untaxed earnings. With some rather minor public policy adjustments, a significant fraction of those funds, say $5-10 billion, could be caused to stay in America.
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Virtually all the attention paid to these two topics is focused on the little EB-5 program — including two congressional hearings in the last few weeks.
BLOG: THE LA RAZA MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS HAUL BACK FROM THEIR HEROIN SALES TO MEXICO FROM $45- $65 BILLION DOLLARS! NOW THAT OBAMA'S CRONY BANKSTERS HAVE BEEN FORCED TO STOP BEING BANKSTERS TO THE CARTELS, THIS MONEY IS FINDING ITS WAY BACK TON NARCOMEX SOMEHOW. AND THAT SOMEHOW IS SMALL DENOMINATIONS SENT BY ILLEGALS WHO HAVE NO PROBLEM IN OPENING BANKS ACCOUNTS WITH THEIR PHONY MEX CONSULATE IDS!
Meanwhile, we can be grateful to Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) for calling our attention to the huge outflow of remittances. Most of these person-to-person transfers of money are from migrants, legal or illegal, to relatives in the homeland. There are also transfers of criminal moneys mixed in with these remittance flows. The latter angle is an important public policy subject, but one I leave to others.
I wrote recently about the isthmus in southern Mexico through which virtually all the Central American illegal migrants flow and which offers enforcement opportunities. There is a similarly narrow channel for the outward flow of remittances; it is through controllable bank and wire transfers. The relatively tiny sums that can be carried, or mailed, in cash or jewels or gold can be safely be ignored in a conversation about remittances.
There are two obvious ways to reduce the outflow of tens of billions of dollars from our economy, but the administration has no interest in reducing remittances by shrinking the size of the illegal alien population. The other way to reduce remittances is to use the wire and banking systems to discourage them and to tax them. But before we discuss the mechanics of such a program, let's return to Sen. Vitter's contribution.
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http://www.cis.org/north/aliens-and-money-lets-look-big-picture
How About a Wall in Mexico That We Pay For?
By David North
CIS Immigration Blog, February 24, 2016
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The suggestion is to construct a fence along an existing railroad, now nearly abandoned, built by dreamers a little more than 100 years ago who thought that they could entice ocean-to-ocean traffic away from the about-to-be built Panama Canal and across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec instead. The dream became a nightmare when it became apparent that using the canal was cheaper and faster than unloading freight at the Gulf of Mexico end of the little railway, shipping it by rail, and then re-loading it on ships at the Pacific end of the line. One website calls it the "UnPanama".
The railway bears the Spanish initials FIT (Ferrocarril del Istmo de Tehuantepec). It runs from sea to sea in a seamless line, though not in a straight line, so it's about 190 miles long. There is a gap in the mountains at this point, which made the rail line easier to build and to maintain. Since the Isthmus is running east and west at this point, the railroad runs roughly north (the Gulf of Mexico) to south (the Pacific).
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The relative ease of the construction of a fence along the FIT railway, as opposed to along the U.S. southern border, is hard to overemphasize. Here is a relatively level land route in which the railway already owns all the real estate needed for the fence. The railway itself gives instant access to the area where the fence is to be built. Construction costs in Mexico are much lower in Mexico than in the States. There would be not be ranches along the border, as there are on some segments of our southern border, where part of the land would be one side of the fence, and part on the other. The railway follows a much straighter line than the Rio Grande, and so forth.
Above all, the total length would be just one-tenth the length of our border with Mexico. This is not to suggest that we abandon efforts to strengthen our own southern border, but the FIT fence would be an extremely valuable tool in the American enforcement arsenal.
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http://www.cis.org/north/how-about-wall-mexico-we-pay-for
BLOG: CAN'T AFFORD TO EDUCATE YOUR KIDS? JUST CLAIM THEY'RE ILLEGALS!!!
Court: DACA Aliens Can't Sue Georgia for In-State Tuition
By David North
CIS Immigration Blog, February 24, 2016
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According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, several DACA beneficiaries sued the board of regents of Georgia's state university system over this issue. They were turned down by the board, by the trial court, by the appeals court, and ultimately by the state's supreme court.
The supreme court said, unanimously, that the DACA beneficiaries could not sue the sovereign state of Georgia without its own consent, deciding the case on that issue, rather than on the legal status of the aliens.
According to the NCSL this is the current status of in-state tuition for illegals:
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http://www.cis.org/north/georgia-court-rules-out-state-tuition-daca-aliens
CBP Pressies Would Rather Talk about Hoverboards Than Illegal Aliens
By David North
CIS Immigration Blog, February 22, 2016
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The hoverboard incident was one of many noted in CBP releases, and the news of drug seizures seems to account for a large majority of these press items. If you read the whole set of them you will find that there are many different ways to try to smuggle drugs into the country, such as hiding them in the panels of trucks, putting them in tightly sealed bags within gas tanks or inside spare tires, and tucking them into clothing. If is often the drug-sniffing dogs that get the credit for the seizure.
Sometimes when an illegal alien who has also committed a violent crime is located CBP writes about it, but rarely the significant work it does in apprehending and/or turning back illegal aliens at the border.
From my experience I know that when a government agency releases a news item, it is something that the political leadership wants discussed. So it is clear that the DHS leadership is not interested in the detection of illegal immigration — otherwise its pressies would tell us about it.
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http://www.cis.org/north/cbp-pressies-would-rather-talk-about-hoverboards-illegal-aliens
Ambassador: U.S. Paying to Support Cuban Illegals in Costa Rica
By Kausha Luna
CIS Immigration Blog, February 24, 2016
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How much is the monetary contribution being made by the U.S. government for the attention of Cubans who have not yet left Costa Rica?
I would say it is significant.
So, while the Cuban illegal aliens themselves had to pay for