Postcards - and video - from the edge

forthecause.us

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CNN Lou Dobbs - video: Arizona Businesses Sue for the Right to Hire Illegal Aliens

The business lobby in Arizona is fighting for the right to hire illegal aliens against the wishes of the people in that state. That puts Arizona's business elite on a direct collision course with local law enforcement and the state government -- all trying to stop the impact of illegal immigration. Starting next January 1st, companies that knowingly hire illegal aliens could lose their license to do business in Arizona. Business elites are suing to overturn the voter approved measure, claiming their constitutional rights are being violated. Julie Pace, an attorney for these businesses, said: "We want to get through the constitutional issues so as lawyers, we can give advice as to clients and employers as to how to comply with the law." One of their complaints is a shortage of workers, even though Arizona's unemployment rate is just 3.4 percent. Governor Napolitano says she signed the nation's toughest employer sanction law because Congress has failed to address the issue and because illegal immigration in Arizona is the result of employer demand for cheap, undocumented labor.

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CNN Lou Dobbs - video:Globalization Diminishes Middle Class in U.S. and Europe

A new poll shows large majorities of people in developed nations are simply fed up with globalization and so-called free trade policies, many people responding they believe that trade liberalization, as "The Financial Times" defines it, with countries such as communist China is hurting middle-class Americans and Europeans. An FT/Harris poll finds a popular backlash against globalization and against the leaders of the world's biggest companies. An overwhelming majority says globalization has a negative effect. Fewer than 5 percent surveyed have great admiration for the heads of large companies. Globalization, instead, has become synonymous with rising inequality, outsourcing, and collapsing job security for the middle class. Labor economist Peter Morici of the University of Maryland said: "Globalization isn't treating people equally. In the process, it's weakening the very fiber of our economy. Folks can't afford to educate their children properly anymore. They can't afford to give them proper health care. Down the road, that leads to a labor force that isn't as well-equipped for the future." Morici says American trade policy with communist China in particular endangers true capitalism by rewarding one-party rule, suppression of the media, subsidized factories, and currency manipulation.

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CNN Lou Dobbs - video: Meat Treated with Carbon Monoxide is 'Safe' FDA Says

The federal government is once again being accused of failing to protect this nation's food supplies. There are rising concerns over the use of carbon monoxide to keep meat looking fresh, and for a long time. It's a common practice in the meat industry. In a congressional hearing, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) noted: "Treating meat with carbon monoxide allows the meat to keep its freshly-ground red color, even though the meat may have spoiled." Food experts say a pound of ground beef cut by a butcher goes brown in four to five days. But meat treated with carbon monoxide by a meat packer can stay looking fresh for weeks. It's the same with imported seafood. Congressman Stupak says his subcommittee tested seafood from China and Vietnam treated with carbon monoxide; 20 percent turned out to be bad and was refused. The FDA has declared the meat treated with carbon monoxide is safe, so the use of carbon monoxide is not banned in the United States -- even though its purpose is solely to fool consumers. Three years ago, the European Parliament's Environmental Committee outlawed this process because consumers could be misled about the freshness of the meat.

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Peter Gadiel - Family Security Matters:

Insecure Borders: Let’s Give Blame Where Blame Is Due

For five years, members of 9/11 Families for a Secure America have lobbied in Washington and in many state capitols for immigration law enforcement and secure borders. The opponents of our goals are many throughout Congress and elsewhere, but during this period the most powerful of them has been that individual with the sole authority to require the federal government to enforce these laws and who, by his refusal to do so, has made that government a co-conspirator in undermining the security of this Nation. That person is of course, George Bush. As chief of the Executive Branch he has under the Constitution not only the sole power but the duty to enforce the laws of our country, a duty he refuses to honor. He thumbs his nose at the obligations imposed on him by the Constitution, which, in the name of the God he claims to worship, he has sworn to uphold. Since the people of the United States have no recourse through the court system to make him enforce the law, he alone has the power to decide that illegal aliens will be permitted to prey on Americans, and he has made that decision.

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Forthecause.us:

Verizon Foundation Awards $1 Million Grant to the National Council of La Raza

Verizon's foundation has just handed over $1 million to the National Council of La Raza, ostensibly to fund a program to build early literacy skills among Latino children. The award was announced during a luncheon at La Raza's annual conference in Miami. The program, Lee y seras, empowers families and communities to foster literacy development in children from birth to 8 years old. The program provides research-based, culturally sensitive resources to help parents in their role as their child's first teacher. "In today's workforce, and for the high-tech workforce of tomorrow, a greater level of literacy is demanded than ever before," said Verizon Foundation President Patrick Gaston. "Lee y seras is having a profound effect on Hispanic children and their families by providing the tools they need today to lead and succeed tomorrow," Gaston said. But the main theme of this year's La Raza gathering has been to portray the failure of the Senate's amnesty bill as due to a wave of hatred that is sweeping the country. Featured speakers at the La Raza event, Democratic front-runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, agreed that racial hatred, rather than the will of the people to control our borders, was the main reason for the amnesty bill's defeat. Companies like Verizon continue to ingratiate themselves to the ethno-centic La Raza by giving big donations. Without such corporate contributors -- the very businesses that exploit cheap illegal alien labor -- groups like La Raza would barely exist.

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The Washington Times: Obama Solicits La Raza Backing

Sen. Barack Obama told the nation's largest Hispanic advocacy group that he earned their support for his presidential campaign by marching in last year's May 1 immigrant rallies and challenged them to learn whether others met that standard. "Find out how many senators appeared before an immigration rally last year. Who was talking the talk, and who walked the walk — because I walked," Mr. Obama said at the National Council of La Raza's annual convention in Miami Beach. "I didn't run away from the issue, and I didn't just talk about it in front of Latino audiences." The Illinois Democrat said the recent Senate immigration debate "was both ugly and racist in a way we haven't see since the struggle for civil rights." The immigration bill failed late last month when a majority of senators, including 16 members of the Democratic caucus joined most Republicans in a filibuster. It would have combined more border-security spending and new workplace-enforcement rules with a guest-worker program for future workers and a path to citizenship for most illegal aliens. The bill's collapse galvanized Hispanic voters and advocacy groups, who say it exposed an anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic strain among American voters. The groups are vowing to fight back by pointing out when they think the debate turns hateful and are promising to register Hispanic voters so they can show their displeasure at the polls.
[Our take: If any lesson should be learned by politicians in the debate about open borders, amnesty and expanded guest worker programs it is that playing the race card never works. When politicians start blaming their illegal immigration defeats on "racism" you know they are setting themselves up for defeat at the polls. For this reason, we hope Hillary and Obama never tire of brow beating American citizens as "racists." The more we hear this kind of clueless talk, the more we like it. Quite simply, it means the stench of defeat is in the air!]