TOM TANCREDO for PRESIDENT 2008: Our Last and Only Hope to Save America
How about we repeal the 16th amendment, so the entire economy is underground?
Then we kick out the UN.
Then we reduce federal functions to those authorized by the constitution.
Good grief.
And how many of these illegals are now members of terrorist cells? More than a few I would suspect.
*wave of the hand* These are not the illegal aliens you are looking for...*wave of the hand*
Neocons, 'These are not the illegal aliens we are looking for.'
*wave of the hand* These are hard working Americans looking to feed their families....*wave of the hand*
Neocon, 'They just want to feed their families...'
*wave of the hand* They have no terrorists with WMDs among them....*wave of the hand*
Neocon, 'They are free of any danger to us and have no WMDs.'
*wave of the hand* You may go back to work now...*wave of the hand*
Neocon, 'I can go back to work now.'
Neocon, 'Thank you.'
BTTT
Americans are afraid to ask, "What next?"
The Mexican government now publishes a book instructing its nationals on how to be an illegal.
Ironically, one of the big selling points of the NAFTA deal was that it would greatly alleviate illegal Mexican border-jumping......but since that time it has skyrocketed.
Adding insult to injury American taxpayers are subsidizing foreign aid transfers to Mexico.
The government of Mexico---with all of its oil revenue potential ----needs to be taking care of its own people, not "outsourcing' them as wards of American taxpayers.
Mexico can well-afford it. Mexico has more "Forbes" billionaires, 11, than all but eight other nations. It has more billionaires than Saudi Arabia, Switzerland or Taiwan. It also has more than 85,000 millionaires.
According to a CNN report, Mexico sits on oil reserves worth about $400 billion, but Mexico's state-owned oil company, Pemex, doesn't have the investment funds to tap those reserves, and Mexico's Congress refuses to allow foreign investment in Pemex.
American money sent South of the Border by illegals constitutes $38 BILLION this year alone constituting Mexico's second largest most profitable industry.
America needs to seal our borders and let Vincente Fox know that we will cut off every penny in aid he gets from the United States.
America should demand proof for all cash transfers out of the US and/or force all transferring agencies -- banks, credit unions, Amex, Western Union to collect a substantial withholding tax -- 50%, say -- on every unexplained foreign remittance.
ping
Parent Involvement
'¡Llámeme!'
Call me, says a family facilitator from a New Jersey elementary school. Surprisingly, parents do. "What did I miss last night?" Hermalinda Ribera asks anxiously, as she stands in the black asphalt yard of the Lincoln School Annex in New Brunswick, New Jersey, watching as her 6-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter skip to class.
Más información, she hears.
Nearly 70 other parents at this tiny schooljust 190 kindergartners through third-gradersjoined their full-time family liaison at their first monthly meeting of the school year. They heard about math and literacy nights (pajamas encouraged!), homework help sessions for both kids and adults, and the new Universidad de los Padres.
"You can always come here," family liaison Marlon Osuna assures Ribera.
It's an invitation that parents take seriously at the Lincoln School Annex, where the entire staff embarked last year on a five-year project to close the achievement gap that frustrates its mostly Hispanic student body. The Academy Project, jointly run by the New Jersey Education Association and the local board of education, relies on a few research-based reforms: smaller classes, more professional development, and a new resolve to involve parents.
Let's face it, Osuna told the packed gymnasium on family night, teachers have the children for just eight hours a day. "You are the most important people," he told them.
And he's not talking about bake sales.
Home Life
In 1999, 50 percent of parents who earned $50,000 or more volunteered or served on a committee at school, compared with 21 percent of those earning less than $10,000. Source: Education Testing Service
Study after study shows the most accurate predictor of a student's success is the extent to which his or her family can create an encouraging home environment, express high expectations, and be involved in his or her education.
But research also shows that superficial attendance at holiday pageants isn't the kind of "involvement" that makes a difference. Parents need to reinforce what's taught at school with home activities like reading before bed or checking homework, and they also should stay informed of decisions at the school about curriculum and management.
With that in mind, Osuna and his colleagues want parents to be full-time partnersbut that's not an easy task. Surrounded by sagging three-story houses, subdivided into tiny apartments with Mexican flags on front porches, the Annex serves many new immigrants. While many children know little English and attend bilingual classes, some parents know even less, make little money, lack health insurance, and in many cases, because they're not here legally, don't want to call attention to themselves.
It's not easy to make these parents feel comfortable in any government buildingeven a small school with a smiling staff. But it helps that Osuna, who is originally from Nicaragua, has lived in the community for more than a decade. Plus, he's persistent and empathetic, says Principal Mary Jane McDonald.
"Llámeme," he tells parentsCall me!
Before anything else, Osuna and his colleagues take care of their families' basic needs. Students can't learn when their teeth ache or they can't read their teacher's scrawl across the blackboard, notes nurse Marilyn Crawford, who often starts her mornings with a few parents at her dooras frequently seeking help for their own fevers and pains as for their children's.
The Basics First
At Lincoln School Annex, involving parents means stocking home freezers, negotiating with landlords and welfare officers, and arranging for doctor visits. (Osuna, who passes out his seven cell phone digits like a love-hungry teenager, will even chauffeur families to the hospital clinic.)
If I were in Charge
"Require parents and families to spend at least 30 minutes a day with their child or children to do literacy work."
Rhogenia McMillan, Grace Warner Elementary, Reno, Nevada
Then, when everyone is feeling full and well, the school turns to a more ambitious effortturning its hundreds of non-English-speaking parents into a force that can help them in the classroom.
Parents appreciate that their children are learning Englishexcept for one thing: Some say they can't keep up. So now, involving parents means offering English-language classesmorning and nightso they can read their children's books. It means buying calculators so that some parents, who arrived here from Mexico or Guatemala with less schooling than their 9-year-olds, can play "addition bingo" and check math homework.
It even means installing a new washer and dryer in the school's basement and inviting parents to do a load of wash while they volunteer in classrooms.
"You have to believe that parents are doing the best they can, and parents have to know you believe that. Then together, we can make a difference," says Susanne Clark, who serves as liaison between the school board and the union on this joint effort.
Adriana Herrera, the mother of a second-grader, has been taking English classes for more than a year and attends every family event. This year, she's enrolling in GED classes"I want to finish school, not for me, but for her," she says. "I want something better for my children."
Last year, the school tapped a $5,000 NEA Urban Grant, local business partners, and community volunteers to run evening programs. The tiny school sent three full buses to the Liberty Science Center in Jersey Cityincluding dozens of parents who had never reached inside a "touch tank" and stroked a live sea creature.
This year, it turned to Rutgers University and Dow Chemical to help staff a new Parent University, organized by teacher Barbara Collister. Parent Leticia Vivas is taking an evening computer class through the program, hoping that new skills can bring her a better job than delivering bagels, she says.
None of this is easy. Osuna, Clark, Collister, and their colleagues work long hourssometimes from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. "People keep asking me, 'Why are you doing this? It's so much time and effort,'" Collister says. "But I know it's going to be worth it for the families."
I just heard Liddy and Hill (KFYI-Phoenix) say that the Mexican Soccer team will be playing at Bank One Ballpark!!
Don't know when this event will take place and I don't know if they'll be playing an American team.
Start with a bttt, now to read
I suppose looking at historical tax rates vs. various measures (consumption, GDP, etc.) should be able to give you a good indicator of just how much is the IRS shortfall.
Let's see, if we substiture 'exacerbate the' for 'engender a' we get a truer statement of the current situation, for it's already happening.