Illegal Immigration

            Illegal immigration is a huge problem in the United States that needs to be fixed. Over the last few decades illegal immigration has had a huge impact on American society, and most if not all of it has been a bad impact. Illegal immigration has kept jobs from being given to people living legally in the United States, all the way to violence, and drug trafficking in the United States from the Mexican border. Nearly one in three immigrants is illegal, and immigrants count for 1 in 8 residents for the United States.

            Most illegal immigrants come, but not solely, from Mexico or South America and Central America. They get into the United States by illegally crossing the border from Mexico to the United States. Many Illegal immigrants pay people to sneak them across the border, and others try to sneak themselves across with no help. A problem is that many of the people that sneak the illegal immigrants across the border are Americans, or legal immigrants in the United States. Crossing into the United States Illegally is not the only way to become an illegal immigrant. Hundreds    of thousands of legal immigrants become illegal immigrants by overstaying the authorized amount of time, or by violating terms of being legal in America, and also by falsifying a visa to get into the country. There are an estimated 500,000 illegal entries in the United States a year.

                        A Pew Hispanic Center statistic says that in October 2008 there were 11.9 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. This should not be happening. Illegal immigrants are taking up jobs that are hard enough to find as it is in the hard economic times, and are bringing the violence rate up in the United States. California has the largest population of illegal immigrants living in the United States, with about 2.9 million living there. Texas is second with 1.7 million living there.

            NumbersUSA states that illegal aliens are taking up more than 7.7 million jobs in the United States. We need to start cracking down on illegal immigrants now, in order to give millions of jobs to people who live in America legally. Not only are millions of Americans losing jobs to illegal immigrants, but wages have also dropped for employees. Wages have dropped because illegal immigrants are willing to work for the cheapest wages out there. Wages were reduced 4% from 2000 to 2004 because of illegal immigration. Also from 2000 to 2004 2.3 million more Americans lost their jobs to illegal immigrants that were willing to work harder for cheaper wages.

                Large and small companies alike want the government to make immigration laws very loose, so that the companies can hire illegal immigrants for cheaper wages, and illegal immigrants don't mind near as much as Americans how they are treated while working. If companies were to speak out against illegal immigration, then a lot more work and laws would be set up against illegal immigrants.

         Illegal immigrants are living in our country for free, so therefore their cost of living is cheap and they don't have to have the higher wages. They do not pay for any taxes, and so they basically use Americans money without losing any of their own to help out America. These illegal immigrants are hurting our economy more than the American public really realize.

         The United States Government needs to start making laws against illegal immigration stricter, and not only on the borders. The United States government really needs to crack down hard on the large and small corporations and companies that are hiring these illegal immigrants. The only way to really bring down illegal immigration is taking away the reason why most illegal immigrants are there, which is the companies that are willing to hire them. If the United States government does that, then the illegal immigrants will have no reason to come into to America because no one would be able to hire them. The punishments for illegal immigration also need to be harsher, because thousands of illegal immigrants find their way across the border multiple times. The United States Government should do more than just deport the immigrants back to their original countries.

                     The point is that illegal immigration needs to stop. Its cons way outweigh the pros. In fact there really are not any pros about illegal immigrants living in the United States that I can find. These illegal immigrants are taking away jobs, lowering wages, raising violence and drug trade. If the United States government takes the opportunity away from

illegal immigrants to get money by making background checks mandatory, and by making laws a lot stricter against illegal immigrates working in companies, then illegal immigrants will have a much harder time surviving in the United States

Works Cited

How to reverse illegal immigration. Americans for illegal immigration, 9 Sept. 2009. Web.            15 Sept. 2009. <http://www.alipac.us/article1111-thread-1-0.html>.

Illegal immigration crimes. 1 May 2008. Web. 15 Sept. 2009.

         <http;//www.rasmusen.org/x/2007/06/29/illegal-immigrants-cause-21-of-crime>.

Illegal immigration facts. 22 July 2008. Web. 15 Sept. 2009.

         <http://www.endillegalimmigration.com/illegal_immigration_Facts_&_Statistics/index.shtml>.

Illegal immigration. Steven A. Camarota, 5 May 2005. Web. 115 Sept. 2009.

<http://www.cis.org/articles/2005/sactestimony050405.html>.

Urban America

Urban America

On a Sunday morning, I wake up around ten in the morning and I begin to get ready for work. I climb the stairs to the kitchen and pour myself a bowl of cereal that my mother has purchased at the store. After breakfast, I put on my uniform which was bought at a JC Penny. I grab my keys to our fully paid off 2001 Ford F-150 and make my way towards my job. As I head down 84th Street, I see the Midlands Hospital on my right. I pass the new Shadow Lake shopping center, which consistently gets customers of every age and demographic. I turn onto 36th Street and head for Omaha. About the time I hit Q Street, the streets and sidewalks look significantly dingy and broken apart in comparison to their Papillion counterparts. Conditions don't improve as I push on towards L Street and turn into the parking lot of the Stockyards Plaza Hy-Vee.

What is it that makes these two communities so different? The answer to that question is very complex, for it has many contributing factors. The average person in South Omaha's salary is much less than that of the Papillion area is. The percent of families below the poverty level is much higher than the state's average. Businesses in the area make less money than those of other parts of the state as well.

Crime problems in the urban South Omaha community are undoubtedly linked to poor education. According to CityData.com, school enrollment by grade level takes a drop in the 5th to 8th grade range and again in the 9th to 12th grade range. This essentially means that middle and high school dropouts are common within this community. The educational attainment is also much less than that of the Papillion community; in Papillion, the number of people earning some sort of college degree is much higher than the Nebraska state average. Not only is the number of people achieving collegiately in Omaha much less than the state average, but its number of people with less than a high school education is far, far above the state average.

Another factor contributing to crime in Omaha is the heightened number of broken homes in comparison to rural communities. Approximately 17.3 percent of people of parental age (30 years to 55 years old) are divorced. This number is staggering in comparison to Papillion, in which, 7.3 percent of parental aged people are divorced. Broken homes contribute to crime because the children of divorce are more likely to drop out of school, join gangs, or embark on a drug addiction. Parents DO have to set a good example, and that clearly seems to be a problem within the Omaha community. All of these problems are clearly linked together and affect one another. Fixing some of them but not all of them would not result in the improvement of the community, but would take it back down to what it was before. This is true because the problems I have listed above that are left unfixed would rub off on the ones that are fixed and make them a problem again. For this reason, any community reform plan should cover all of these problems rather than just simply covering one of them at a time.

The most important part of any reform plan put into place would undoubtedly be education reform. Students with a more satisfying academic experience would be less likely to drop out of school, and therefore, less vulnerable to joining a gang. Less gang members means fewer gangs, and fewer gangs means less crime.

In order to hire more adequate teachers, government funding should be increased in these problem areas to increase teacher salaries so that better teachers are more inclined to get a job in these schools. Along with acquitting better educators, the added government funding would provide improvements to the schools themselves. It would buy them better books, better computers, and would help to improve facilities to make the students more proud of their school. Pride in the schools would also increase pride in the students' education. Included in this reform program, I would use funding to create a program similar to the health program in Papillion's middle schools. I feel that this program would teach the students more about how to deal with problems, and how to avoid early pregnancy. The reason for this program is not just to create more aware people, but to create more able parents. With a stronger health program, there would be fewer divorces in the future.Overall, education reform would eventually improve the area's average family income, because a educated worker is going to make more money than an uneducated worker.

One problem not addressed by education is unemployment due to less jobs being available in the city. The city government should take advantage of the unemployed and help them at the same time by creating jobs for them. These jobs could benefit both the unemployed and the community. These jobs would include rebuilding the city's roads, rebuilding the schools, and other construction projects to improve the city.

The problems that I have discussed are not just true for Omaha, but for most of the urban areas across the country. The majority of these problems could be solved by using increased government funding to improve education, create jobs, and build a better community. An expensive solution? Yes. Is it worth it? I believe it is, because reform in cities across America will increase the output of a great nation.

Taliban pay vs. Afghan forces pay

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/09/taliban-pay-vs-afghan-forces-pay/

 

PRO'S: Remember September 11, 2001. Afghanistan under the Taliban provided the al-Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

Today, the al-Qaeda and its associates have found room for manoeuvre in the tribal areas of Pakistan. For Nato to withdraw from Afghanistan would expose the West to further acts of mass murder.

If the Taliban seized power again, a newly liberal society would once again have to obey their values. Women would have a lower quality of life.

Barack Obama has made Afghanistan a priority and promises a better approach than his predecessor, notably in treating Pakistan as an integral part of the problem.

Improvements in military technology, from communications satellites to pilot-less drones, have made the targeting of an enemy easier.

The increasing size and effectiveness of the Afghan army is encouraging.

CON'S: The continued military mission is costing billions at a time when Western economies are suffering. We simply can't afford to remain fighting in Afghanistan. Pakistan's northern border has become a launching-pad for terrorism.President Hamid Karzai has proved a weak ruler far too tolerant of corruption in his country

House BCS Bill Gets Subcommittee Approval

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer Frederic J. Frommer, Associated Press Writer – Wed Dec 9, 4:36 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Dismissing complaints from some members that Congress had more pressing matters, a House subcommittee approved legislation Wednesday aimed at forcing college football to switch to a playoff system to determine its national champion.

"We can walk across the street and chew gum at the same time," said the subcommittee chairman, Illinois Democrat Bobby Rush, one of the bill's co-sponsors. "We can do a number of things at the same time."

The legislation, which still faces steep odds, would ban the promotion of a postseason NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision game as a national championship unless it results from a playoff. The measure passed by voice vote in the House Energy and Commerce Committee's commerce, trade and consumer protection subcommittee, with one audible "no," from Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga.

"With all due respect, I really think we have more important things to spend our time on," Barrow said before the vote, although he stressed he didn't like the current Bowl Championship Series, either.

The BCS selections announced last weekend pit two unbeaten teams, No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Texas, in the Jan. 7 national title game. Three other undefeated teams — TCU, Cincinnati and Boise State — will play in a BCS bowl game, but not for the championship.

"What can we say — it's December and the BCS is in chaos again," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He said the BCS system is unfair and won't change unless prompted by Congress.

The legislation, which goes to the full committee, would make it illegal to promote a national championship game "or make a similar representation," unless it results from a playoff.

There is no Senate version, although Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has pressed for a Justice Department antitrust investigation into the BCS.

Shortly after his election last year, Barack Obama said there should be a playoff system.

In a statement before the vote, BCS executive director Bill Hancock said, "With all the serious matters facing our country, surely Congress has more important issues than spending taxpayer money to dictate how college football is played."

Yet Barrow wasn't alone in criticizing his colleagues' priorities; Reps. Zach Space, D-Ohio, and Bart Stupak, D-Mich., made similar arguments. Space said that with people facing tough times, the decision to focus on college football sends the "wrong message."

The legislation has a tough road ahead, given the wide geographic representation and political clout of schools in the six conferences that have automatic BCS bowl bids — the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10 and SEC.

The current college bowl system features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer rankings. Eight other schools play in the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta and Rose bowls.

Under the BCS, the champions of those six big conference have automatic bids, while other conferences don't. Those six conferences also receive far more money than the other conferences.

___

On the Net:

Information on the bill, H.R. 390, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov

Bowl Championship Series: http://www.bcsfootball.org

House Energy and Commerce Committee: http://energycommerce.house.gov

'Hannity' With Cheney

'Hannity' Exclusive

U.S. history is littered with war blunders

President Obama would be wise to note that bad advice often precedes momentous wartime decisions.

By Robert Dallek

As President Obama moves ahead with his expansion of the war in Afghanistan, history suggests that he has a better chance of being wrong than right.

Judging from the experience of Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, miscalculations about war and peace are all too common. Despite receiving counsel from the best and the brightest in each of their generations, these presidents received poor advice that each should have resisted.


Wilson's Fourteen Points of January 1918, which were an amalgam of high-minded progressive thinking, described a postwar world that was beyond reach: a peace without victors, disarmament, self-determination for nationalities, a world safe for democracy, and an end to war through collective security provided by a league of nations. It was a mirage that did nothing to prevent the rise of Nazism and the onset of another world war.

A costly mistake in Korea

Truman's miscalculation followed a series of wise steps between 1945 and 1950 in the emerging Cold War. The fact that realistic good sense — containment as played out in the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan — characterized his initial Cold War decisions was no assurance that he would get things right in the Korean conflict. His decision to beat back North Korea's attack on South Korea in June 1950 now enjoys almost universal approval as a sensible extension of the containment response to communist aggression.

Yet the decision to cross the 38th parallel in order to unify Korea under a representative government was a blunder that cost the United States, Koreans and Chinese considerable blood and treasure. Gen. Douglas MacArthur's advice that the Chinese would not enter the fighting if we crossed the parallel and that they would suffer a great defeat if they did, with American troops returning home in a matter of weeks, was the greatest miscalculation of his military career. Moreover, it destroyed Truman's presidency: Unable to end the war or put across the domestic reforms promised in his 1948 election campaign, his approval rating fell to 23%.

Kennedy's decision to accept the judgment of CIA and military advisers that Cuban exiles could topple Fidel Castro's Cuban government was a failure he could never forget. "How could I have been so stupid?" Kennedy repeatedly asked himself later.

No president stands out more for poor judgment in fighting a war than Johnson. His beliefs that he could defeat a communist insurgency in South Vietnam, that this could be done quickly and that it was vital to the national security in the larger Cold War struggle all proved to be wrong. Two of the principal architects of the war — Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy later acknowledged how unwise they had been in pressing the case for a war they retrospectively saw as unwinnable. Their views reinforced Johnson's mistaken assumptions and made it easier for him to push ahead on a policy that was a disaster, costing more than 50,000 American lives and even greater Vietnamese losses.

Nixon, who was burdened with ending U.S. involvement in Vietnam, mistakenly drew out American withdrawal over four years on the conviction that Vietnamization — the training of South Vietnamese forces to replace U.S. troops — was a viable option suggested by his military chiefs that would produce "peace with honor." Nixon would have done well to recall the Herculean efforts to supply and train Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist armies, who never performed effectively against either the Japanese or the communists during and after World War II. Vietnamization was another miscalculation in the miserable history of American involvement in Vietnam.

Recent missteps in Iraq

Bush's misadventures in Iraq are a familiar tale that is so fresh in American minds, it hardly needs repeating. Nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, more than 4,300 U.S. dead as well as tens of thousands of Iraqis, and a Middle East no more stable or inclined to embrace democracy are not the legacies that Bush, Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld intended.

By promising an early exit from Afghanistan, President Obama might be trying to avoid the catalogue of blunders that beset these predecessors. If pressure mounts to extend his withdrawal deadline, he would do well to remember JFK's refusal to take the advice of his military during the Cuban missile crisis, when Pentagon officials urged him to bomb Soviet missile installations on the island and some of them favored a follow-up invasion that would oust Castro.

Kennedy told his aide, Kenneth O'Donnell, "These brass hats have one great advantage in their favor. If we listen to them ... none of us will be alive later to tell them that they were wrong."

President Obama could rue the day he listened to his military chiefs instead of the many Americans who doubt that an expanded war in Afghanistan is worth the cost in lives and dollars. As in past wars, should guns and butter prove to be incompatible, playing havoc with commitments to national health insurance, rigorous financial regulations and environmental protections, it could wreck his administration.

Presidential historian Robert Dallek's new book, The Lost Peace: Leadership in a Time of Horror and Hope, will be published next year.


(1963: President Johnson confers with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on Vietnam./AP file photo.)

Should the Drinking Age be Lowered?

    The debate between lowering the drinking age to 18 or keeping it at 21 is a very hot topic for high school and college students nation wide. I'm in favor with lowering the drinking age but not by any means because I want to be able to drink sooner. At the age of 18 you are considered a legal adult in most states and you are finally able to vote, sign up for the military, sign legal contracts on your own, and even adopt a child. To me those seem to be very mature decisions, so whats making drinking alcohol a more mature responsibility then let's say, adopting a child?

    The United States is one of the countries with the highest drinking age besides New Zealand where you have to be 21 to drink on your own but are still allowed to drink at the age of 18 with an adult. Mexico, France, Canada, and Australia are all countries with drinking ages of 18. In Germany you can start drinking at the age of 5 if its at dinner time, at 16 you can buy your own alcohol for meals, and once you hit 18 you are able to drink for what ever reason (shea). One of the biggest arguments of lowering the drinking age is that there will be more traffic accidents caused by drunk drivers. But according to ProCon.org, even with the United States increasing the minimum legal drinking age to 21, its rate of traffic fatalities in the 1980s decreased less than that of European countries whose legal drinking ages are lower than 21. Regardless the drinking age, there are still going to be people out there that will choose to make stupid decisions and drive while intoxicated. Just because you are 21 doesn't mean that your brain won't be affected any differently then that of an 18 year old who is just as drunk.

    Because drinking is prohibited to anyone below the age of 21, it provides more a of thrill to minors to drink. If The drinking age was lowered, people wouldn't see it as another rule that they can try and break. Usually when a teenager is told no, they have more of a desire to break that rule because it's off limits to them. Along with the drinking age being at 21, it causes a barrier when someone has over-drank and is in a serious health condition and could possibly die. They are afraid to seek help because they might get in trouble with either their parents or even the law because they have been participating in underage drinking.

    Enforcing the law of underage drinking takes a lot of time and money. Instead of wasting the money on trying to reinforce the law that is just going to continually get broken, the money should be spent on educational programs that teach children and young adults about the dangers of drinking and how to drink responsibly. If children are taught how to drink responsibly and its not something that they are forbidden to do, they are more then likely to take it more seriously and drink more responsible. Also, alcohol has been proven to be good for your health, but only in moderate amounts. So if the drinking age is at 21, 21-year-olds and higher are the only ones that can use that type of medical treatment so to say.

    Just because the drinking age should be lowered, doesn't mean that people are just going to be able to get drunk at an earlier age. It could potentially reduce binge drinking and deaths caused by alcohol poisoning if people aren't afraid to get help and money is spent on the education of alcohol and it isn't just another law that young adults are trying to sneak behind. Also, what makes having the choice to drink alcohol any different from selecting the next president, having a child, or joining the military?

 

-Germ-x

 

Sites used:

 

http://drinkingage.procon.org/

 

Lisa Shea -> http://www.wineintro.com/wineries/drinkingages.html