REGANCOUNTRY.COM

IMMIGRATION - A MATTER OF LIFE

2010-07-28T07:55:00.000-07:00

IMMIGRATION - A MATTER OF LIFE
PART 1

Immigration has historically been an engine of California's economic prosperity and the core of our cultural richness. Almost 9 million plus Californians based on the 2000 US Census were born in a foreign country. (Possibly more if the undocumented could ever be tallied accurately.) (http://www.stanford.edu/dept/csre/reports/report_15.pdf)

Nearly @ 40% of all households in our state speak a second language in addition to English. We have a long and proud tradition of being the most ethnically diverse Country and State in the world.

Spanish is the second most common language in the country, and is spoken by over 12% of the population. The United States holds the world's fifth largest Spanish-speaking population, outnumbered only by: Mexico, Spain, Argentina, and Columbia.
("Selected Social Characteristics in the United States: 2007". United States Census Bureau. http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2007_1YR_G00_DP2&-context=adp&-ds_name=ACS_2007_1YR_G00_&-tree_id=306&-_lang=en&-redoLog=false&-format=. Retrieved 2008-10-09.)

We all only need look across our own family dinner tables to know and feel this wondrous weaving of familial dynamic diversity.

It is therefore important to all of us to ensure that any and all new immigrants enter our communities within a resuscitated economically rationale humane immigration policy, which demands an equitable systematic efficient and compassionate process. A policy which firmly assures all that immigrants who apply and are accepted can then be on a reliable, secured, safe and expeditious path toward full legal participation, and maximum productivity and thus contributing to our mutual prosperity and ongoing national acculturation.

We must make sure that our Nation and States’ immigration policies are structured and responsible for equally responsible immigrants seeking responsible citizenship, and without undermining equitable and efficient queuing, and equally important national security and human rights protections.

I, as I believe do many, remain greatly disturbed by the apparent ease with which many immigrants have been illegally encouraged to cross our borders (north, south, east and west), and remain thereafter within the United States typically undetected.

Additionally, it is certainly true and well documented that the vast majority of well intentioned immigrants (both legal and undocumented) are neither terrorists nor victimizers, but rather fearful, tired, persistent and to often deadly victims of a needlessly inefficient, laborious, timeless, prejudicial, inequitable and intentionally blind racist bureaucratic merry-go-round, while disagreeably playing on the worst xenophobic vanities of our national citizenry.

It is now, in contemporaneous hindsight, apparent the September 11th terrorists took advantage of our lax and vulnerable immigration policies using our borders like the menacing swinging door it has been, and despite the horrendous nature of that indefensible act, it continues unabatedly to be so.

“The number of undocumented immigrants in the United States was at @ 10.8 million in 2009; a drop from 11.6 million in 2008. Of which @2.6 million reside in California. The costs of providing social services to these individuals and incarcerating illegal immigrants convicted of all sundry of crimes are staggering - easily exceeding $3 billion a year.

California's illegal immigrant population, still the largest in the nation, declined this year by 250,000 to 2.6 million. The state now accounts for just one-quarter of the nation's total illegal migrant population, compared with 30% in 2000.

Homeland Security department spokesman Matthew Chandler attributed the decline both to the weak economy and what he called the deployment of "unprecedented resources" in stopping illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border and throughout the country.

Immigration control advocates pounced on the report as evidence that illegal immigration can be reduced by restricting job opportunities and that legalization is not necessary to solve the problem. Giving a pathway to citizenship to qualified illegal immigrants has long been the most controversial element in congressional proposals for comprehensive immigration reform.”
(http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/11/local/la-me-immig11-2010feb11)

Clearly, the federal government must rationally and effectively enforce the security of all of our borders, and interiors, especially in the aftermath of 9/11. Washington must also provide more money to every State and clearly in greater proportion to northern and southern border States like California, New Mexico, Arizona Texas, etc., which ultimately shoulder the major burden and the continuing escalating economic and social costs associated with undocumented immigration.

We may all shutter when we hear the recent methods adopted by Arizona (Arizona SB1070), but in a vacuum of responsible Federal legislative action, what do we expect?

More to the point what is the media (our infamous hyperbolic fourth Estate); political (e.g. 2nd Estate – our ruling Oligarchical class), and public reaction (3rd Estate -- we common folk) doing about it? Do these folks individually or together loudly exhort and encourage the needful unification and correction of all Federal immigration regulations and laws?

No ... Sadly in the now more typical me first and only mania excoriating us 24 hours per day, prefer to publicly condemn the laws not favorable to their favored personal interest and then morph these distorted personal interests into convenient public pronouncements, while ignoring and denying the enduring and extensive irresponsible bureaucratic and economic influences which led to these extremely dangerous and embarrassing swings of the erratic ill advised politically motivated legislative pendulum.

This, persistent seeming conspiracy of the 4th and 3rd Estates, as they and the Feds have historically demonstrated, persist in bamboozling the 3rd Estate, while obscuring this clear and intentional lack of responsible governmental legislative and enforcement action. One can only conclude that it is only a mess because our government wants it that way.

Leaving your only reasonable remaining question to be: Why? Why is this their idea of the best way? Why, when it is so clearly wrong on every humane, ethical economic and moral level? Why?

They publicly play blame the victims; continuously argue inanely over what they believe is best; indict other governments, and embarrassingly imprison our own National enforcement and border employees.

Clearly someone has determined that it is better economically and efficient politically to ignore this issue, rather than to correct a decidedly unjust antiquated inept 1st order needful regulatory body shepherding, protecting and safeguarding the gateways to our wondrous Nation.

This is clearly not a new problem, but a sickening persistent non-enforceable moral and ethical dilemma, which has unimaginably run amuck and unabated for decades, escalating worse each day and every week in which responsible action for judicial equitable and economically viable improvement is shelved and shoved under their self serving xenophobic National table.

Certainly, there is a significant danger from evasive unmonitored swinging door policies created with under funded security, enforcement and regulatory programs. We must correct this by assuring an ever effective job of humanely and responsibly protecting our interior, and all of our borders.

We must have a moral, realistic, achievable practical legal and enforceable immigration policy.

I, as well as most, believe that our country should continue to welcome and facilitate legally documented immigration, and provide them the same opportunities our parents and grandparents earned and worked for -- to provide for themselves and their families in a democratic, free enterprise system -- as our welcomed neighbors and naturalized citizens.

Washington must pursue a responsible immigration and economic intra and international policy, which offers and provides immigrants “a path -- not a pardon” to permanent legal citizenship status.

Such a renewed policy must be the center piece of any responsible National Immigration Policy and it must have reasonably defined well regulated rules, with enforceable consequences, and not just insidious and deadly consequences so onerously broadcast as news night after night, day after day in prime time for media ratings, without taking any responsibility to encourage and create a fair, efficient and enforceable National Immigration Policy.

FOURTH OF JULY 2010

2010-07-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

When I ran for Congress, those now not so few years ago, across the self enlightening years in which I ran, I believed then and said:

“I was running for Congress in the 23rd Coastal Congressional District because of my
then and now continuing passionate belief that it was long past time to re-insert fairness and reason into our political and governance process.

The purpose of a representative and impartial government is to authentically respond to the practical needs and will of the people ... All the People.

Our personal prosperity, safety, and liberty and that of our children, and our children’s children depend upon it.

Then, as now, the broad comparably indistinguishable paramount issues remain today as
ever: the Economy, Environment, Energy, Education and Ethics.”

In spite of all the world changes I can see nothing in these thoughts or words, which remain less true or necessary historically since 1776, or today, and must remain the guiding responsibilities of our national identity, our self governance today and
through all the tomorrows of our future. Within this, there is nothing more stunning to
feel than the honest reading and earnest belief of our wondrous
Declaration of Independence.

SMILING DOGS

2010-06-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

Smiling Dogs

I heard from my Boston cousin Luca in regard to my discussion on the people in one’s tummy. Our Jiminy Cricket internal governor. He wanted me to know that while loneliness and paranoia is seemingly endemic; that rather than me offering cliché’d advice that it is sufficient if not better to encourage, empathize, and affirm your family, friends and lovers every day ... imbuing them with confidence to push on, look up and smile at the sun daily.

I told him, that is why we have smiling dogs, they’re typically a more dependable agent for such empowering emotional support, and on top of that ... they growl for us when threatened.

TEA PARTY DUMMIES VIDEO

2010-06-06T06:42:00.000-07:00

YOU GOTTA WATCH IT!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiaI63pBmLs&feature=youtube_gdata

Listen to the People in Your Tummy...

2010-06-01T14:29:00.000-07:00

Listen to the people in your tummy...

Men live in fantasy and denial, and while I often wonder where women live (having helped to raise 3 ... or they raised me), I suspect that they live in the same place we all live, just in a different albeit better upscale neighborhood, with bright shiny thriving flowers and living grass, rather than noisy cold sharp hard pointy things.

Building oneself into a good productive person with empathetic authenticity, first daily requires exceeding one’s own expectations in all things big or little; and then equally importantly not letting your brain rationally get in the way of one’s involuntary intuition, and / or its more daily pragmatic referee, common sense.

Men analyze a thing with vacuous strategy and accompanying unequivocal tactics tinged with desire until their half empty glass disappears into a typically extraordinary blast of flying glass and drowning blood soaked shirts; while women let it go, preferring to protect and nurture what they have, rather than to lose what little they may really have.

Neither postulate in its purity is exceptionally always nurturing or constructive to the self. But then finding the balance point on the seesaw of life is the trick, isn’t it? Remembering that it is a dynamic moving point (i.e. an infinite line) requiring active constant participation and vigilance, and therefore is never a static immobile equilibrium to be targeted; can often help and reduce the irrational guilt ridden, self criticizing, and hauntingly doubtful grinding mind from consuming the intuitively driven nurturing rational consequential mind.

When a thing is too good to be true, breeding urgency to your moment, smacking of hidden doubt; then most likely it is one’s imagination and/or wishful thinking, which is surely counterintuitive and counterproductive. One can hear the referee’s whistle blow, and with experience common sense will allow you to stop, look and listen to the people in your tummy and not the echoic cackle of your brain. The answer is never the I only, but the We. Self first is never selfish.

But then, if any of us knew what we were talking about, this all would have been resolved in the philosophical nadir of the 19th century, and not still a daily struggle to be the Best that we can be.

Ahh ... the ever persistent perplexing irony of it all. Our world of cultural incongruity, where human nature (i.e. instinct) irrespectively weightingly trumps intuition and their mutual ombudsman common sense

Harmonic balance. Calmado, Tranquillo!!!

Colo-rectal Theology

2010-05-26T19:51:00.000-07:00

In these deeply succinct words and implied thoughts of author Anne Lamott, she proffers this her theory on page 102, and then just a bit later in her book, entitled: "bird by bird" (copyright 1994) she suggests that perhaps the words solution and moral back then shared a similar problem.

No different it seems to me to today's daily rude cultural awakenings, as we schlep along from the latter 20th century to now the end of our first decade in this our disillusioning new and presumptively improved 21st century. Huh?????

All our improved and new technology and practice just don’t seem to be enough. We are all still hungry if not starved for valid meaning; for authentic affection, and personal security.

Anne states and I quote (Pg 107) "... It (i.e. referring to solution) sounds so fixative, and maybe we have gone beyond fixing. Maybe all we can do is to make our remaining time here full of gentleness and good humor." ...

Before you say no, remember Katrina; look at the too big to fail absurdity of our failed exploitive financial system, and if that were not enough now we can look hourly at the morally reprehensible pictures of the same Gulf waters today, as we watch it disintegrate ebbing and flowing in front of our very bloodshot TV eyes, drained hearts and numbed minds. While for the more and very unlucky souls it is literally in front of their very eyes, noses; their penniless wallets and skeletal dinner tables. It is not TV, it is life. All of which is extraordinarily disastrous, so much (too much) of what we see and hear daily is not nice.

Perhaps in our shrinking and slinking we are now to big, perhaps the bigger the balloon, the smaller we dots become as our universal surface ever expands. We sense our perceived inescapable disappearance of self and our resultant progressive societal invisibility.

We're all pretty sure government is too big, (at least to big to care for us, and our families), but then who do we turn to for help, not corporate America, who is also really just another miserable metaphor for big government and uncaring 800 number bureaucracies, all which seem to swallow us whole ever greater every sunrise, every annoying tick of our relentless unenthusiastic clock.

Solutions can there be any? Morality what is it, and if we knew that, then where has it gone? Where to find the it of it?

Neither construct seems to exist within our proverbial societal villains or private and public bureaucratic oxi morons, while despondently we wearily find it ever more difficult to locate either value within our very selves.

To offset our physical anxiety we inhabit the pseudo sanctified regions of counterfeit simplicity and race headlong ever faster forward back into what we perceive were the fundamentals of the good old days. Which were neither so good nor so old, or so fundamental?

So, as my dear old dad said often to me ... "son, it is a good day ... my feet touched the floor, and my name is not in the news paper". OMG is there still a "news" paper??

What is happening to our world, and why-OH-why do I feel that while everyone knows, no one cares, and nothing is changing for the better? All I see around me is conceit, manifested thru unrequited priggishness and personal agendas. Now what?

Farmville here I come.

The Root of the Problem

2010-05-16T06:09:00.000-07:00

I keep coming back to Mr. Reese's profound words, and what is the most effective way of changing our governmental processes, so that governance, politics, and particularly elected officials, and their appointed employees are directly accountable to, and chosen by we the people, and taxpayers of this State and Country.

While I do not pretend to have all the answers, nor even the best, I am emotionally directly in the maelstrom of the problem, as are we all. This is personal for all of us, not just politically convenient and excusable outside of ourselves.

I believe first and foremost we must be sure that the gerrymandered Districts which we have now, and sadly which pass for democracy are reconstructed so that individuals running for office are forced to campaign, and not depend on a legislatively locked outcome of 60% for the party who now legally dominates a particular District to the 40%or generally less for the parties who do not dominate that District. No more pre-proportioned legislated outcomes!!

OMG Yes, a real election. Not an anointment. There is not a Federal Congressman, State Senator or Assembly person in California who has been truly elected in the past 10 years. They pretend they are our representatives, but clearly they were not elected, but rather have joyfully joined the "good old boys and girls Fixed club" willfully destroying our democratic way of life, while they enjoy the benefits of their politically saved seats, permanent public employment, and tax payer funded health and other social benefits. Socialized Plutocracy.

We are appalled at and fear other personal and physical cancers, this is no less lethal. It has been diagnosed over and over again, with no committed treatment. We the citizens are dying as is our Representational Democracy. We Must Not Let this Go On!

So as a first step -- Make it your business to personally know what our new California Citizens Redistricting Commission is doing, how they are doing it and when. All the WH questions, who, what, where, when, why, and how.

Keeping them accountable, keeps we the voters accountable, and perhaps this first step will put us back onto the right path of credible Representational Democracy.

This is step one, there are more to come. But this we must do first, without failing.
It is a simple thing. We blessedly established this Commission with our votes, now lets help and make sure it represents our wallets; our best hopes and dreams, and that of our children and grandchildren.

don
________________________________

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.
“545 PEOPLE”
By: Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million that are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army and Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ .

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone, are responsible.

They and they alone, have the power.

They and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it.......... It’s up to you.

This might be funny if it weren't so true.
Be sure to read all the way to the end:

Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table
At which he's fed.

Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.

Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for peanuts Anyway!
Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.
Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.

Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries
Tax his tears.

Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass.

Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won't be done
Till he has no dough.

When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He's good and sore.
Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in which he's laid.

Put these words
Upon his tomb,
Taxes drove me
to my doom...'

When he's gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.

And. More!!!
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges. IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Sales Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge=2 0Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What happened? Can you spell 'politicians?'
And I still have to 'press 1' for English!?

I hope this goes around THE USA at least 100 times!!! YOU can help it get there!!!
GO AHEAD - - - BE AN AMERICAN!!!

INCLUSION NOT EXCLUSION

2010-03-06T19:30:00.000-08:00

Regan for Congress

2005-02-23T15:52:00.000-08:00

Regan for Congress

What is wrong here? Them or Us?

2005-02-23T06:11:00.000-08:00

Is there a disconnect between what you want from your elected representatives?