Comprehensive Immigration Reform Would Hurt Economy, Lower Wages

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: APAdding millions of workers through comprehensive immigration reform would have a devastating impact to an already poor economy, according to a growing number of Republicans in Congress.

Analyses of the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” bill show that the legislation would add 30 million additional immigrants to the United States over the next decade, at a time when the number of Americans not in the labor force has reached record highs.

“Granting amnesty to untold millions of illegal immigrants will flood our job markets and reduce wages and employment for those hard-working immigrants and lower-income workers who have followed our laws,” Rep. Lou Barletta (R., Pa.) told the Washington Free Beacon.

One of the major reasons Rep. Walter Jones (R., N.C.) opposes the Senate bill is the impact it would have on the economy.

“Congressman Jones has consistently expressed his staunch opposition to the Senate bill—and any other legislation that provides a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants—for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that amnesty would allow individuals who have cheated the system and entered the country illegally to take jobs that could otherwise be filled by lawful citizens,” his spokesperson Sarah Howard said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Typhoon Haiyan: 600,000 Believed Homeless; Desperate Survivors Wait in the Open for Aid as Rains Return

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: EPA/FRANCIS R. MALASIGHundreds of thousands of people were spending their fifth night sleeping in the open in the Philippines last night as soldiers and aid workers struggled to deliver help to the victims of Typhoon Haiyan.

Almost half of the estimated 660,000 people left homeless by its devastating wind and waves were still without shelter as tropical weather brought more heavy and forecasters warned of the risk of a second typhoon later this week.

Anger across the Philippines was continuing to rise at what seemed to be the slow response to the crisis, with many areas yet to receive aid on the scale needed.

The number killed remains unclear, with the United Nations estimating at least 10,000.

Benigno Aquino, the Philippines’ president, said yesterday that he believed that the true figure was lower – saying only between 2,000 and 2,500 had perished – but many of the worst-affected towns and islands have yet to provide reliable death tolls.

Read more from this story HERE.

Barack Obama is No John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan

/4 Comments/in , /by

Two presidents during the last 50 years captured the hearts and imagination of the American people like no others: John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Their rhetoric and their vision stirred people to believe and to act; they helped define the eras in which they lived.

In 2008, then candidate Barack Obama identified both as presidents worthy of his emulation in terms of changing the “trajectory” and the atmosphere of the country. After five years, he has failed to capture the magic of our 35th and 40th Presidents and the reason is becoming perfectly clear. Though he is a gifted orator, the vision he has offered does not comport with reality, nor resonate with the true American spirit.

Some of the most memorable phrases of Kennedy’s and Reagan’s presidencies capture the essence of the vision each cast.

Of course Kennedy’s most famous words were his summoning call from his Inaugural Address, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” The vision Kennedy offered was primarily focused on a belief in the American people as the source of change and hope and strength, and not the government.

The Kennedy Administration became known as the “New Frontier,” a phrase taken from his speech accepting the Democratic nomination in 1960. “The New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises, it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them. It appeals to their pride, not to their pocketbook…My call is to the young in heart, regardless of age – to all who respond to the Scriptural call: “Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Churches Post ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ Billboards Around Detroit

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News A wave of gun violence in Detroit has prompted local church leaders to inundate the city with “Thou shalt not kill” posters and billboards in hopes of quelling the violence.

A coalition of clergy leaders held an emergency meeting on Nov. 7 to develop a plan to promote the message of the Sixth Commandment in the community, WWJ-TV reported.

“We all have to do what we can do, and right now we don’t have a respect in our communities for life; we don’t have a respect for many things,” a local minister, Ovella Andreas, told the station. “But we still have to create a standard to hopefully have a consciousness about God …. because even our people have become apathetic.”

The group, which spearheaded efforts to get the city to designate the 22nd day of each month as “Stop the Violence Day,” hopes to saturate the community with the campaign by placing posters on the sides of buses, billboards and at area businesses.

Read more from this story HERE.

North Korea Publicly Executes 80, Some for Watching South Korean Videos or Owning Bibles

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APAs many as 80 people were publicly executed in North Korea earlier this month, some for offenses as minor as watching South Korean movies or possessing a Bible.

South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported that the so-called criminals were put to death in seven cities across North Korea on Nov. 3, in the first known large-scale public executions by the Kim Jong-un regime.

A source, who is familiar with internal affairs in the North and who recently visited the country, told the paper that about 10 people were killed in each city.

Eight people — their heads covered with white bags — were tied to stakes at a local stadium in the city of Wonsan, before authorities shot them with a machine gun, according to the source.

Wonsan authorities gathered a crowd of 10,000 people, including children, at Shinpoong Stadium and forced them to watch the killings.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democrat Senators Co-Sponsoring Bill To ‘Keep Your Healthcare Plan’

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: KAREN BLEIER/AFP/GettyBy CBS Sacramento/AP.

Health insurer Anthem Blue Cross of California has agreed to a two-month extension of about 104,000 individual policies after failing to give the required 90-day cancellation notice, state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced Tuesday.

The policies had been set to expire on Dec. 31 but will be extended until Feb. 28 for those who choose to re-enroll. Notices informing customers of the extension will be sent out this week, Anthem said.

Read more from this story HERE.

________________________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: APDianne Feinstein joins push to keep health plans

By Seung Min Kim.

It’s not just red-state Democrats who want to take aggressive steps to mend controversial provisions in Obamacare.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that she will co-sponsor a bill by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) to require insurance companies to continue offering their existing health care plans — a way to make good on President Barack Obama’s promise that consumers can keep their current coverage if they like it.

“This bill provides a simple fix to a complex problem,” Feinstein said in a statement Tuesday, calling Landrieu’s proposal a “commonsense fix” and urged Congress to pass it “quickly.”

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has no plans to bring Obamacare delay bills to the floor, and most Senate Democrats appear to be waiting until the end of the month — the date by which the administration has promised to fix the problematic health care website — to demand major delays to the law’s implementation.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mother Reunites With Son 35 Years After His Abduction (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Kathy AmayaA Wisconsin mother whose 2-year-old son was abducted by her estranged husband 35 years ago recently received a life-changing phone call with the news she’d been waiting to hear for decades: Her son had been found.

In 1977, Kathy Amaya left her husband of several years and took their 1-year-old son, David, with her. She and David moved from their house in Chicago to her sister’s nearby home, and Kathy allowed her ex-husband to periodically visit the boy. The following year, when David was 2, the boy’s father picked him up so the two could spend the day together. “That was the last time I saw my son,” Amaya, now 60 and an assistant head housekeeper at a Holiday Inn Express in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, tells Yahoo Shine.

A few days later, her ex-husband called Amaya from Mexico and said he had taken David there on a one-month permit to live with his grandparents, but promised to bring the boy home after that. After the month came and went without David’s return and her ex-husband cutting off contact, she filed a police report. “The police couldn’t help because it was out of their jurisdiction,” she recounts. “It was infuriating.”

Over the next three and a half decades, Amaya tried to move on with her life, bearing four more children (three sons, now ages 34, 30, and 23; and a 25-year-old daughter) and later getting engaged. In more recent years, she began searching for David online. “As my other children grew older, I explained that they also had a brother who was taken by my ex-husband,” says Amaya. “I couldn’t hide the truth from them.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Military Members, Veterans Missing Out on Key ObamaCare Provision

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox NewsOne of the most touted benefits of President Obama’s health care overhaul law is the provision allows parents to keep their adult children on their health insurance until age 26.

However, Trace Gallagher reported on “The Kelly File” Monday, this benefit is not being extended to a significant group of Americans: members of the U.S. military.

TRICARE, the Department of Defense program that provides health coverage to active duty and retired military members and their families, only covers young adult dependents up until age 21, or age 23 if they are enrolled full-time in college.

TRICARE recipients can then purchase a plan for their young adult dependents, according to their website.

Read more from this story HERE.

‘Gays’ Admit ENDA Game: Outlaw Christian Morality

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Western Journalism The religious liberty death spiral continues.

One of the most dangerous and discriminatory pieces of legislation in modern times – the ironically tagged “Employment Non-Discrimination Act,” or ENDA – passed the U.S. Senate on Thursday by a vote of 64-32. Ten Republicans disgracefully joined liberal Democrats in this effort to ultimately outlaw the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic.

According to its leftist proponents, ENDA would merely insulate people who choose to engage in homosexual conduct (sexual orientation) or those who suffer from gender confusion (gender identity) against employment intolerance. In truth, however, this legislation effectively would codify the very thing it purports to combat: workplace discrimination.

Writing in the Huffington Post, popular homosexual radio personality Michelangelo Signorile confessed that, of any potential ENDA legislation that might reach President Obama’s desk for his pledged signature, “none should include any religious exemptions” whatsoever.

If Signorile and other “LGBT” activists get their way, this would mean that churches, mosques, synagogues, religious schools, Bible bookstores, and any and every other business in America with 15 or more employees, would be forced, under penalty of law, to abandon the biblical and traditional-values viewpoint on human sexuality and hire (and otherwise not offend) those who openly flaunt expressly sinful and demonstrably self-destructive sexual behaviors.

Read more from this story HERE.

Americans’ Participation in Labor Force Hits Low Not Seen Since Carter Administration

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APThe percentage of American civilians 16 or older who have a job or are actively seeking one dropped to a 35-year low in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In September, the labor force participation rate was 63.2 percent, but in October it dropped to 62.8 percent—the lowest it has been since February 1978, when Jimmy Carter was president.

The labor force, according to BLS, is that part of the civilian noninstitutional population that either has a job or has actively sought one in the last four weeks. The civilian noninstitutional population consists of people 16 or older, who are not on active-duty in the military or in an institution.

At no time during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, did such a small percentage of the civilian non-institutional population either hold a job or at least actively seek one.

The BLS has been calculating the national labor force participation rate since 1948. From that year until 2000, when labor force participation peaked at 67.3 percent, the percentage of the civilian noninstitutional population that either held a job or was seeking one generally was on the rise. Since 2000, the percentage has been trending down.

Read more from this story HERE.