…the Hondurans, Cubans, and Venezuelans:

As you most know, my family escaped from Cuba in 1967 to escape a communist regime and start a new life in freedom in the United States. Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans were among the first Latinos to thrive in the United States. Today we see Latinos of all walks of life from all different countries from all over Latin America. Why should we as Americans care? Simple….Latinos number in the millions here in the United States and invest billions of dollars in our economy. Also, and most importantly; we have Latinos participating in policies in the U.S. government that shape our nation. That translates into millions of votes and citizens involved in shaping our society.

We must watch our neighbors. For example, Venezuela and Hugo Chavez who constantly try to provoke the United States. Honduras with Zelaya who wanted to change the Honduran Constitution so he could rule indefinitely so, Micheletti took power. What is our government doing? Turning a blind eye and not supporting Micheletti and continuing to allow Chavez to disrespect, berrate and bully the United States.

Another case in point…look what happened in Cuba 1961. The Bay of Pigs was a total disaster and fiasco of the Kennedy administration turning his back on Cuba. The result? Thousands of Cubans murdered by a weak Cuban airforce thanks to John F. Kennedy leaving them out alone to dry after promising to back up those valiant freedom fighters and then going back on that promise…thereby missing our window of opportunity to remove Castro from power without threat from the Russians. Cuba is only 90 miles away! We must worry because many people are coming from these places and that means they are also bringing their political ideas. The White House now has a site in Spanish to indoctrinate and bring in Latinos. We must get these important voters on our side…the side of freedom. Why? Because they come to this country,then become American citizens who vote and shape our agendas and have American children who are the future of this country and it won’t be long before we have the first Latino president. And God help us that his or her policy isn’t the same as Barrack Hussein Obama. We must attract these minority groups who, just like us, share in family values and have high morals but, bought the promise of immigration reform which will never be delivered. How does the White House respond? They shut up the Latino minority group by buying us off with Sonya Sotomayor no less! Wake up America! Sotomayor is the daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants with a leftist agenda who sees the Constitution as something to be changed and amended. So me must care about the Latino group and care about what is going on in our backyard to avoid anymore “change” from what our Founding Fathers intended.

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Chuckie Schumer (D-NY) says the Immigration (Amnesty) bill will be ready by Labor Day.  This bill would ensure that amnesty would be granted to nearly 12 million illegal aliens, who never thought twice about doing the right thing; America will reward bad behavior.  I have a serious issue when it comes to morals and standards – any immigrant who wants to come to the USA should show they care enough about the country.  This means they follow the rules and show respect to the millions of citizens already residing here legally, paying taxes, and working, by doing the same.

And what about the immigrants who came here legally and have been living in this country for years?  I am friends with many from Asia, especially Vietnam – they came here to be free and enjoy democracy after the Vietnam War.  One of the ladies I know wrote a wonderful short story about her escape from Vietnam.  She fled to Europe, where she became a Dutch citizen, until she made enough money to come to America.  She took her citizenship test and took all the steps required to be a productive, tax-paying member of society.  She now owns her own business and does quite well for herself.  She is a conservative because she remembers the horrors of where she came from and has never let one day pass where she took this country for granted… Maybe more, besides illegal aliens, should do the same.

“I think we’ll have a good bill by Labor Day,” said Schumer, D-N.Y. “I think the fundamental building blocks are in place to do comprehensive immigration reform.”

Schumer said the way to get the bill done is to be very tough on future waves of illegal immigration. He declared himself pro-immigration and said the U.S. should encourage legal immigration and find some kind of path for people now here to find a way to legal citizenship.

“We have a shortage maybe of engineers here or Ph.D’s in physics, but we probably don’t have a shortage of people who can do construction work,” Schumer said.

If you read between the lines, Schumer wants to pass amnesty and give a free pass to the millions of illegals already in the country.  He then says he will be harder on future generations coming into the country.  Chock this up to more empty words from the Dems – fooling the masses but making it appear as though things will be ok; if we pass this bill now, we can resolve the other issues later.  However, they never resolve the  other issues!  They try to pass legislation that only cures the symptoms, but never fix the underlying disease!  Congress-critters are too concerned about their own pockets and power, to ever go back and fix policies, although they promised they would.  Most are just lying, corrupt thieves. 

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Does anybody recall when George Bush created the Patriot Act and began wire-tapping practices?  Do you remember Democrats screaming about the right to privacy and how that wasn’t constitutional?  Well, it wasn’t constitutional and it did give the government a lot of control into our lives.  The Liberal rantings of “Big Brother is out to get me,” could be heard far and wide and the media certainly wouldn’t let us forget it.  So where is the media now?  They would be investigating… but they haven’t found time to clean their noses after being so close to Obama’s rear.

I didn’t mind the Patriot Act that much only because I was still in shock and appalled by the actions of radical Islamic terrorists on 9/11.  I knew I had nothing to hide and had no problem if they in fact wanted to tap my phone.  However, I now understand that this is not constitutional, and see why there was such a big deal made about this piece of legislation.  So why aren’t the liberals out in full force now that Obama has expanded upon the Patriot Act and is also considering to let the United Nations become the new global IRS?  We may be paying global taxes this time next year.  Why are the liberals, given that several Democratic Senators were against extending the E-Verify program for illegals, all of the sudden supporting eye scans and biometrics to check for citizenship?

Eye scans and United Nations control seems more Big Brother-like to me than the Patriot Act.  If you are going to be upset about the actions of one then be upset about the actions of another, if they are the same.  Ann Coulter completely nailed her evaluation of liberals when she said: “If liberals didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all.”  You would think that there would be no surprise to any of this, but I guess I am just hoping that Democrats and Progressives alike, wake up and actually stand on principle for once – and call a spade a spade.

The Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development that begins on Wednesday will consider adoption of a document calling for “new voluntary and innovative sources of financing initiatives to provide additional stable sources of development finance…” This is U.N.-speak for global taxes. They are anything but “voluntary” for the people forced to pay them.

The most “popular” proposals, which could generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue for global purposes, involve taxes on greenhouse gas emissions and financial transactions such as stock trades.

The document was agreed to at an informal meeting of expert “facilitators” and was made available on Monday afternoon at 3 p.m. It is doubtful that any changes will be made to it.

The conference was postponed from June 1-3 and will now take place June 24-26 at the U.N. in New York. While the “outcome document” has been watered downsomewhat from the previous version, it still reaffirms attainment of the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals, which would require the payment of $845 billion from U.S. taxpayers. A commitment to the MDGs was a stated objective of the Global Poverty Act, which Barack Obama had introduced as a U.S. senator. It requires the U.S. to devote 0.7 percent of Gross National Income to foreign aid.

And what about those lovely little eye scans proposed by Schumer?

Senate Democrats outlined plans yesterday to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, including a requirement that all U.S. workers verify their identity through fingerprints or an eye scan.

Speaking on the eve of a White House summit with congressional leaders on immigration,  Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) said a national system to verify work documents is necessary because Congress has failed to crack down on unscrupulous employers and illegal immigrants with fake documents.

“I’m sure the civil libertarians will object to some kind of biometric card — although . . . there’ll be all kinds of protections — but we’re going to have to do it. It’s the only way,” Schumer said. “The American people will never accept immigration reform unless they truly believe their government is committed to ending future illegal immigration.”

By announcing his plans, Schumer, who chairs the Senate’s main immigration subcommittee, ushered in what President Obama has signaled will be his next major legislative campaign, after the economic stimulus plan, health care and energy.

I am utterly speechless - Is it just me or are we living in an Orwell novel?

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Just when you think things couldn’t get worse.  We have an impending Cap and Tax vote sitting in the House for tomorrow.  Obamacare is coming down the pike and the administration is using every means possible, such as state-run media, to hock this idea to the public.  The next item for the administration is Immigration Reform, otherwise known as Amnesty.

Amnesty would potentially destroy the economy as would the other pieces of legislation mentioned above.  America’s unemployment rate continues to increase and it doesn’t show signs of stopping.  Given the fact that the United States and it’s LEGAL citizens are experiencing massive amounts of unemployment, the likes of which have not been seen for over 20 years, Amnesty would allow more citizens to enter the United States taking away more jobs from the American public and only increasing the unemployment rate.  If we already don’t have enough jobs for our own, how can we possibly support more 12 million more?  Jobs are only one aspect of this precarious bill. Many of us would also be paying for more entitlement programs, health-care benefits, unemployment benefits etc., for the millions who would be allowed to enter our country.  We will be told that it is our duty to help these new citizens assimilate into society so we will prop them up until they can get their feet on the ground, if that ever happens… Unfortunately, this is not the American thing to do.  When my ancestors arrived from overseas they worked hard, made their way and built themselves up from nothing.  They entered Ellis Island legally and through immigration lines as was the proper way of doing things.  My friend who is Vietnamese escaped communism and the war to come to the United States.  She entered legally, took her citizenship test, saved her money, and started a business.  She has a serious problem with those who think they are entitled, owed, and come here illegally.  I don’t blame her.

What’s worse though, is the fact that this isn’t just a one-sided issue.  Many Republicans are also on the side of Amnesty and due to the minority status in both the House and the Senate, Republicans who oppose Amnesty may find a very tough go of it.

President Obama is meeting today with a bipartisan committee to discuss this other priority of his, and La Raza’s.  He hopes to create a new bill with lawmakers that would include new language/clauses to reform immigration.  Ultimately, this is again, fancy rhetoric and wording, coded to mask the true intention to allow amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.

The White House meeting will bring together lawmakers who were involved in the failed immigration fights of the George W. Bush years, but who weren’t the central stars. Gone will be Sen. Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.), suffering from a brain tumor. His Republican partner, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, will be at the White House Thursday. But bearing scars from his presidential battle with Mr. Obama and from his own party over his pro-immigration stand, Mr. McCain says he won’t lead the fight this time.

Instead, it would be up to a new cast, including Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) and opponents of the last immigration-overhaul efforts, such as Sens. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) and John Cornyn (R., Texas), to forge any bipartisan compromise, lawmakers say.

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The stimulus package was one of the biggest crises driven, pay-to-play politics schemes in the history of this nation.  Our country already has an example of what works and what does not during a recession.  We can look back at the Great Depression and see that FDR’s actions of more government control/intervention and spending didn’t even begin to work until we began WWII, ramping up production of military equipment for other countries who were overspent.  Nothing that FDR did directly stimulated the economy and it took 8-9 years to get there.  Reagan, on the other hand, who was elected during another time of tremendous economic turmoil cut taxes, cut the size of government, and curtailed spending until we were out of the inflationary recession.  His actions even took time, but not as long as 9 years – more like 1-2.  This is what I do not understand?  Why do liberals think you can resolve your debt problems by spending more money that you don’t have – where is the common sense?

The same thing is bound to happen in this scenario once deflation runs its course.  There will be inflation and there is still the very real possibility that it could be hyperinflation – maybe not as high of a chance but still feasible given the volatility.  There are several estimates that the bond market is on the brink of imploding; if that happens it will take everything else down with it!  Sorry to be a negative Nancy but take a look at the below video clip – this guy is very intelligent:

Of course the administration wants to sell their little (and by little I mean massive) piece of legislation to the public to make it appear as though it’s working and that they didn’t just pay off their cronies for last year’s campaign contributions, ensuring more votes the next election cycle.  So the administration puts out a booklet marking the 100th day anniversary of the dreaded (to us fiscal conservatives) stimulus.  He of course touts it as the best thing since sliced bread, so whatever is stated as fact in that booklet should be checked and double checked.  Propaganda abounds in the Democrat party, that’s not to say that it doesn’t in the Republican party either, but I have not seen the likes of the indoctrination or the Pravda media campaign for the Dems since I was eligible to vote!

Without question the book lists many projects that are having an impact of one way or another on the economy.

But the first one of the projects featured in “100 Days, 100 Projects”  doesn’t seem to withstand the scrutiny of its description.

The project is described by the Obama administration this way:

“Using $27 million of Recovery Act funding, a public housing development in Washington, D.C., the Regency House, has undergone a green retrofit. As part of this upgrade, the building installed solar panels, a ‘green’ roof, a rainwater collection system, energy-efficient lighting as well as water conserving toilets, showerheads, and faucets. The greening of this building will allow the Regency House to save money in energy costs, while lessening their impact on the environment.”

In reality, the work done on the Regency House that was funded by the stimulus package amounted to $59,000 in parts and labor, according to Dena Michaelson, director of public affairs for the Washington DC Housing Authority.

The $27 million is the total amount given by the stimulus act to the Washington DC Housing Authority, the vast majority of which hasn’t been spent.

In addition, though the White House’s “100 Days, 100 Projects” entry for the Regency House work lists “solar panels, a ‘green’ roof, a rainwater collection system, energy-efficient lighting as well as water conserving toilets, showerheads, and faucets” as what was done as “part of the upgrade,” the only parts funded by the stimulus were the solar panels, at a cost of $45,000, and the rainwater collection system, at a cost of $14,000.

The response of the White House to questions about the claim in the book evoked a critique of journalists.

Liz Oxhorn, Recovery Act Press Secretary, said in a statement that the Regency House work is “one of thousands of targeted investments we’re making nationwide to jumpstart new and ongoing energy efficiency renovations to public housing units and we only wish the same amount of time and energy that has gone into dissecting the structure of three sentences had gone into exploring the billions of dollars in new job-creating projects like this one now underway thanks to the Recovery Act.”

Michaelson said that installation of the solar panels necessitated 330 total man hours: 202 man hours for plumbers and helpers, 40 man hours for electricians, 50 man hours for welders, 30 man hours for superintendents, and eight man hours for a crane operator.

The booklet also mentions the “police academy graduates in Ohio” whose graduation ceremony President Obama attended in March, heralding how the stimulus enabled the city of Columbus to hire 25 cadets.

But this week Police Chief Walter Distelzweig told the Columbus Dispatch that unless residents approve a tax increase, those 25 cadets face the real possibility of layoffs.

And what good does the stimulus have on jobs if they are willing to, in the future, tear down other sectors of the economy like energy/coal production, the auto industry, the financials, health care, etc.  Or what if they pass amnesty for 12 million illegal aliens in the fall – how much stimulus will we really have if we already have double digit unemployment, but we allow more in?  There is something inherentlywrong with the logic of all of this.

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If there was one thing you could always say about President Bush, it is that he always stood on his principles and values.  He had an enormous amount of integrity and did not compromise any of those things for political expediency.   He firmly believed every move and decision he made was based on what was best for the American people.  He did not rely on polling data or popularity statistics.  President Bush’s firmly held beliefs in a post 9/11 world are what guided him.

Now President Obama, on the other hand, stands on his teleprompter.  As he has “navigated” his way through the first 100 days in the Oval Office, we have yet to really see the characteristics of integrity or doing what is right by the American People.   At least two of his cabinet members should have been tossed; Turbo Tax Tim Geithner and Secretary Napolitano, both of whom have embarrassed the Oval Office and outraged the American people.  If he really stood on principle and integrity they would have been gone.

President Obama showed signs of this early in the election cycle when he said he would accept public financing of the campaign, but when the primary season was over and he was the nominee, he opted out of the system and continued to collect just shy of 3/4 of a billion dollars, most of which is untraceable.  That in itself goes against the Open Government Act by fully disclosing all donors.

President Bush walked his talk after the campaign.  He worked with the Democratic leadership, showing bipartisanship on the budget, FISA, immigration and other issues.  The only thing he would not compromise on (thank goodness) was a troop withdrawal time table.  Democrats tried in vain to force his hand as the Obama backing MSM flooded the evening news night after night with each road side bomb image they could find.  Very little attention was paid to the success we were having, only the carnage.  This unwavering stance against a timed withdrawal was significant because he did not want give the emboldened insurgency a window in which to “wait it out”, and to prevent these politicians from micromanaging commanders in the field.  True, there was pressures to change strategies in order to combat this issue, and the administration did just that; they initiated the “surge”.  And guess what, it worked!  Now Mr. Obama on the other hand has shown about as much bipartisanship as Iran has shown cooperation with the UN….Uh that would be none!  The GOP has been completely shut out of the administration, being told to basically shut up and sit down because “we” (the Dems) won.  So much for a new era of cooperation and open government.

What people fail to realize in Iraq, is that not only did we rid the world of a very evil dictator, who’s atrocities are well documented (so in fact there is you weapon of mass destruction), shut down Dr. Germ Rihab Taha (who was identified by UN weapon inspectors specifically), the mission also brought stability to the region as a whole.

If you look back, Moamar Kadafi quickly and quietly ended their rebellious ways and cracked down on terrorists in Libya.  Syria also became much more user friendly, and cooperative.  So there were broader positive effects.

Mr. Obama who was not a Senator when the Congress initially authorized action in Iraq, on the campaign trail he waved the “No More War” flag like the checker flag at the end of a car race.  The election was soundly anti-Bush, and all the rhetoric that goes with that.  ‘When he is elected president, we will be out of Iraq in 16 months at the most. There should be no confusion about that’.

Well as you all know, the mission (and I am not complaining about this) remains on target and is, in fact, in a winding down phase.  We have consolidated much of our operations to specific areas in Iraq, handed over control and security operations to the Iraqi Army and Police force in many areas, continue to train and equip those forces so when we do leave, there will be stability and peace inside the borders.  Mr. Obama’s rhetoric got him into the White House, but the reality of the situation on the ground in Iraq dictated his actions.  And if the people who were so hell bent on completely ditching the quote “Bush Doctrine” (as Charlie Gibson tried to nail Sarah Palin with) they would have realized that this notion of up and run out of Iraq was not plausible in the least.

President Bush was thrust into a situation that day in September, unbeknown to America or our intelligence agencies.  We went from a 20 plus year time of relative peace and suddenly thrust into war, against an enemy that does not belong to a nation or state, but operates in the shadows among innocent people whom they will sacrifice without any hesitation.  Yes, mistakes were made.  But this nation was kept safe, and still is, by those policies President Bush put into place.

Now we have a floppy fish in the White House.  Yes he was thrust into an economic situation that has not been pretty.  However, Mr. Teleprompter as not shown us anything except he is bent on a socialistic agenda and that he changes his word like we change underwear.

Now Mr. Obama wants to openly (yes there is that word open again) and without preconditions, have talks with these nations that simply hate the United States.  Iran, who is pursuing nuclear weapons and calling for the destruction of Israel,  North Korea, who has nuclear material but can not build a delivery vehicle,  Venezuela, who just yesterday seized American Owned and Operated energy sites and equipment, and Cuba, where money can now flow freely without using a 3rd and 4th party intermediary.  Oh yes lets not forget Mexico.  Yet, another apology from Mr. Obama and Secretary Clinton for causing the drug war along the boarder.

Mr. Obama and his economic team have showered the coffers with billions and billions of dollars in order to prop up the economy.  Thus far, nothing.  New jobless filings hover around 600K and overall, 6.5 million people are out of work, and counting.  Now that Chrysler and GM are making significant cuts, that is going to go up more this year. Not only does that effect line workers in the auto plants, but spills out to the suppliers and peripheral businesses that support them.

Mr. Obama, first week in office broke the most basic of his campaign pledges, saying that the practice of earmarks and pork spending would immediately come to and end.  Say what?  The first two things he signs into law are pork laden wasteful bills that did nothing.  The Stimulus package, which failed to stimulate the American people, was shoved through the congress by the new Dem Majority in the middle of the night in which no one was even able to read.  And what was in there (Mr.  Dodd)?  Bonuses for the executives at AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac!!!  Next he signed an Omnibus bill that contained over 9000 earmarks, again pushed through on a Dem freight train in the middle of the night.

Now the administration continues to politicize national security doctrine as the administration stammers on what our evil interrogators did to terror suspects.  This emboldens the enemy, teaches them our techniques so now they can prepare for what little we actually do.   The September 10th mentality of the administration puts us in jeopardy. Many of the policies that Mr. Obama so vehemently touted against remain in effect. The naval prison at Guantanamo Bay was ordered closed yet remains open as Obama plans where to send its inmates; the president has yet to establish a coherent policy on Iran — following in the Bush administration’s footsteps and while American troops are being removed from Iraq, most will stay in place until 2010.

It is important to note that all the enhanced interrogation tactics that we used actually yielded crucially important intelligence that helped keep this country safe,”  with the eight years of safety on the home front since Sept. 11, 2001.  Even though congressional leaders claimed to be left out of the loop on these techniques, it was revealed that the same Dem leaders, who bewitched President Bush, were duly informed of those methods.  But as Dems, true to color, they pretended to take the moral high road, and were thus outed as hypocrites using this issue for political expediency.
Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, wrote an internal memo last week citing the “high value” information about Al Qaeda’s operations yielded by tactics such as water boarding, but its morality has been called into question by human rights monitors and many others both in and out of the Obama administration.

So therein lays the conflict with this administration. Integrity, direction, political expediency, governing by polling data, and letting Nancy Pelosi write its budget a mere 3 Trillion and some change.
So we as Americans have to wonder, where the transparency, openness, and new era of cooperation is.  Yeah, that is right, so sorry, we lost.

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President Obama voted in the Senate to provide additional funding for a program targeted for elimination by his budget that provides states a federal subsidy to offset the costs of jailing illegal immigrants.

Killing the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAPP) would save $400 million, according to Obama’s budget for fiscal 2010 released Thursday. It’s one of the largest non-defense discretionary cuts proposed in the president’s budget.

Think along with me here folks… Each illegal immigrants, studies show, cost Americans roughly $1 million dollars.  Democrats are trying to push through a new Amnesty bill for nearly 12 million illegal immigrants.  $1M x $12M = More than $400M! The logic of Democrats make absolutely no sense at all.  They never plan ahead or measure the possible long-term repercussions of their actions.  Obama sees money that can be cut now – so he doesn’t, or can’t, look beyond that.  This action will actually cost us more money in the end.

Obama cuts abstinence-only programsout of the budget as well.  Many argue that abstinence is not realistic in today’s society, but that has become more the norm due to Hollyweird and others advocating sex on a regular basis. Sex sells and sex is becoming the norm.  My personal belief is to teach both and emphasize that the only sure fire way to avoid getting pregnant and contracting an STD is abstinence.  What doesn’t make sense to me is the budget cut for this.

The White House wants to get out of the business of telling youngsters “Just Say No to Sex.”

President Obama is putting his own ideological stamp on federal spending in his proposed 2010 budget by cutting cash for abstinence-only sex ed programs.

He’s taken a scalpel to a pair of $100 million George W. Bush-era programs that exclusively preached abstinence. Obama is replacing them with $110 million for comprehensive teen pregnancy prevention.

“It’s about time that evidence-based management – and sanity – return to family planning programs,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan).

Think along with me again.  The more young unwed mothers you create, the more welfare recipients you create. The more welfare recipients you create, the more loyal Democrat voters you create.

Thus, Democrat sex-education must always focus on getting teenagers to have more sex, not less.

Another important point to note – see what I bolded above?  How is this a tax cut?  If he is replacing the PAIR of programs that each equaled $100 million with only one program worth $110 million then it is, but the writing is very vague and misleading here… the question is if he is going to replace both programs with two other programs worth more money than the previous ones…

A picture of what his budget cuts really look like in the scheme of things:

Dumping the say-no-to-sex programs were a tiny fraction of the $17 billion Team Obama trimmed from its $3.4 trillion funding budget request.Overall, New Yorkers say Obama’s budget helps the city – but raised several red flags.

One is Obama’s plan to cut $600 million from the federal terrorism insurance program.

Maybe that’s what New Yorkers should be focusing on – not sex! Wake up!

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Ok – I just felt like being sarcastic and reporting on some “non” news… Looks like the Supreme Court and the rest of the government is really busy working on things that really make a difference!

The Supreme Court is ordering a federal appeals court to re-examine its ruling in favor of CBS Corp. over Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction.

The court Monday directed the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to consider reinstating the $550,000 fine that the Federal Communications Commission imposed on CBS over Ms. Jackson’s breast-baring performance at the 2004 Super Bowl.

Last year, the appeals court threw out the fine against CBS, saying the FCC strayed from its long-held approach of applying identical standards to words and images when reviewing complaints of indecency.

The appellate court said the incident lasted nine-sixteenths of one second and should have been regarded as “fleeting.”

But last week, the Supreme Court narrowly upheld the FCC’s policy threatening fines on so-called fleeting expletives on live television.

(FCC v. CBS Corp.)

However, this next ruling that recently took place at the Supreme Court is not so positive and is important.  The court’s ruling in identity theft for illegal or undocumented workers gives them more protection.  They are not held accountable for identity theft if there is no proof that they knew they were using somebody’s social security number… I’m not sure how there wouldn’t be proof – if you are an illegal immigrant you should know that you do not have a social security number and therefore, you are aware that you are stealing someone else’s identity.

Also on Monday, the Supreme Court limited federal prosecutors’ use of an identity-theft law against undocumented workers with phony identification numbers, including many who had been picked up in immigration raids.

A unanimous court said the law that Congress adopted in 2004 to crack down on identity thieves requires that prosecutors be able to prove that defendants knew they were using ID numbers that belonged to real people.

Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the court, said intent is often easy to prove in what he called classic identity theft: “Where a defendant has used another person’s information to get access to that person’s bank account, the government can prove knowledge with little difficulty,” Justice Breyer said.

But, as in the case decided Monday, prosecutors have been using the law against workers who needed false documents to obtain employment. The government argued that prosecutors do not have to offer any proof that a defendant knew the identification belonged to someone else and wasn’t simply made up. The high court rejected that argument.

There was no evidence that Ignacio Carlos Flores-Figueroa, an undocumented worker from Mexico, knew that he was using Social Security and alien registration numbers that belonged to others when he was arrested in 2006. Mr. Flores-Figueroa, while acknowledging he used false documents, appealed his conviction on the identity-theft charge.

(Flores-Figueroa v. U.S.)

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Active or Passive – which one is it?

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is asserting that the description she initially gave of the border swine-flu monitoring effort no longer applies.

Appearing Wednesday before a Senate panel, Napolitano said that “passive surveillance” is “not an accurate picture of what is going on” at U.S. entry points. She had used that term Tuesday morning to describe the nature of the monitoring for illness.

On Wednesday, Napolitano said that U.S. officials are “actively” questioning visitors at the border, asking questions about “whether they are ill, their travel history and the like.”

She also discounted turning to thermal meters to gauge whether people are carrying a fever, and Napolitano also said she does not believe the facts of the current situation would merit closing the borders.

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Good!  Let’s get a true conservative/libertarian leaning politician in the Senate.  It’s time to take back America and kick the bums out!

Social conservatives tolerated John McCain as the party’s nominee, but never trusted him, and he now appears to be facing a serious primary from the right in Arizona next year.

Chris Simcox, the founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and a prominent figure in the movement to clamp down on illegal immigration, will be announcing tomorrow at an event on the Mexican border that he’s resigned from the group to run in the 2010 Senate primary.

From a forthcoming release:

“John McCain has failed miserably in his duty to secure this nation’s borders and protect the people of Arizona from the escalating violence and lawlessness,” Simcox said. “He has fought real efforts over the years at every turn, opting to hold our nation’s border security hostage to his amnesty schemes. Coupled with his votes for reckless bailout spending and big government solutions to our nation’s problems, John McCain is out of touch with everyday Arizonans. Enough is enough.”

McCain was forced to abandon his own immigration reform legislation during last year’s Republican Primary, a move that may have cost him substantial Hispanic support to which his record could have given him access.

So he’s basically getting it from both sides on this one.

Simcox, with a national base and a high profile on the right, is well positioned to give McCain a serious local headache. He’ll find some allies among the conservatives who recently took over the Arizona Republican Party from McCain’s allies, and he has a national fundraising base.

UPDATE: Here’s his campaign website, which includes a clear effort not to be a single-issue immigration candidate.

And just for the record Politico – it wasn’t just social conservatives who didn’t find McCain palatable, but it was those who believed in the constitution, true Federalism, limited government and weren’t pro-amnesty.

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