Category: Monetary Policy


 

New Drug Called Sisa Is Killing Austerity-Hit Greek Youths

 

 

” A new and very cheap drug is killing Greek youth who no longer can see a future for themselves. Sisa is a form of crystal meth being mixed with filler ingredients such as battery acid and engine oil. It makes users violent and kills within six months.

 
Ever since the austerity crisis has hit Greece, drug use and alcohol abuse have been rising sharply, as have suicides. The larger cities, and especially Athens, are filled with homeless and impoverished people who often seek to escape their misery by taking refuge in drug induced stupor.

 

Enter the relatively new drug called sisa (pronounced as shisha) that arrived on the scene about two years ago and soon became the drug of choice because it’s the cheapest of them all — a hit costs less than 2 Euro ($2.50).

 

Easy to make at home, sisa is a deadly mix of crystal methamphetamine filled with the most weird and dangerous ingredients: battery acid, engine oil, shampoo and cooking salt. The Greek independent press eNet English has called it “cocaine of the poor” and the UK edition of Vice says its the “the epitome of an austerity drug.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE LOSS OF TRUST

 

 

 

 

” Leaving aside the seriousness of lawlessness, and the corruption of our civic culture by the professionally pious, this past week has been amusing. There was the spectacle of advocates of an ever-larger regulatory government expressing shock about such government’s large capacity for misbehavior. And, entertainingly, the answer to the question “Will Barack Obama’s scandals derail his second-term agenda?” was a question: What agenda?

The scandals are interlocking and overlapping in ways that drain his authority. Everything he advocates requires Americans to lavish on government something his administration, and big government generally, undermines — trust.

Obama’s supposed “trifecta” of scandals — Benghazi, the IRS, and the seizure of Associated Press phone records — neglects some. A fourth scandal is power being wielded by executive branch officials (at the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) illegally installed in office by presidential recess appointments made when the Senate was not in recess.

A fifth might be Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius soliciting, from corporations in industries HHS regulates, funds to replace some that Congress refused to appropriate. The money is to be spent by nonprofit — which does not mean nonpolitical — entities. The funds are to educate Americans about, which might mean (consider the administration’s Benghazi and IRS behaviors) propagandize in favor of, Obamacare and to enroll people in its provisions. The experienced (former governor, former secretary of education, 10 years in the Senate) and temperate Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., compares this to the Iran-contra scandal, wherein the Reagan administration raised private funds to do what Congress had refused to do — finance the insurgency against Nicaragua’s government.

Obama’s incredibly shrinking presidency is a reminder that politics is a transactional business, trust is the currency of the transactions, and the currency has been debased. For example:”

 

 

Read The Whole Sordid Thing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ObamaCare Side-Effect: Fewer Hours, More Gov’t Aid

 

 

 

 

” ObamaCare was sold as a way to achieve several goals: affordable care, guaranteed coverage, protections against bankruptcy.

But before such promises have a chance of being realized, the health reform appears to be delivering something else: Germany-style work-sharing.

Economists hailed Germany’s work-sharing for reducing unemployment during the recession. ObamaCare may be having a similar effect. But there are differences that make the health reform’s labor side-effects much more questionable.

Over the past year, retailers have cut average weekly hours for nonsupervisory workers by 2%, the sharpest such decline in more than three decades. Meanwhile, rank-and-file employment is up 132,000, or 1%, over the same period.

Some 2.3 million workers might have their hours cut due to ObamaCare’s employer mandates, even if there’s no negative impact on total hours worked, a recent study from the University of California at Berkeley Labor Center estimated.

The other part of the equation involves more government benefits for those facing shorter hours. This will come starting in 2014 from ObamaCare health subsidies. Households working less may also get additional benefits, such as food stamps.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IRS Tax Exemption/Obamacare Exec Got $103,390 In Bonuses

 

 

 

 

” Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 when it began targeting conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harrassment, got more than $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012.

More recently, Ingram was promoted to serve as director of the tax agency’s Obamacare program office, a position that put her in charge of the vast expansion of the IRS’ regulatory power and staffing in connection with federal health care, ABC reported earlier today.

Ingram received a $7,000 bonus in 2009, according to data obtained by The Washington Examiner from the IRS, then a $34,440 bonus in 2010, $35,400 in 2011 and $26,550 last year, for a total of $103,390. Her annual salary went from $172,500 to $177,000 during the same period.

Go here for a spreadsheet of the salary and bonus data for IRS employees getting bonuses between 2009 and 2012.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lax State Rules Provide Cover For Sponsors Of Attack Ads

 

State_Money_Politics

 

 

” While much criticism has been lobbed at the federal system for failing to adequately identify who is spending money to influence campaigns, 35 states have independent spending disclosure laws that are less stringent than federal election law.

In fact, in 30 states it’s impossible to total how much money outside groups are spending on campaigns, information that is mostly available when it comes to federal contests.

That’s according to a new 50-state analysis by the National Institute on Money in State Politics, which graded the states on disclosure requirements for super PACs, nonprofits and other outside spending groups.”

 

 

    To see in detail how your state ranks in the battle against soft money click Report Card .

 

 

Report Card

” The National Institute on Money In State Politics graded each state by the strength of their independent spending disclosure laws through April 2013. It looked at:

  • Does the state require reporting of independent expenditures, political spending that urges voters to support or oppose a candidate but is not coordinated with the campaign?
  • Does the state require reporting of the target, the identity of the candidate who is the subject of the independent spending?
  • Does the state require reporting of position, whether the spending supports or opposes the target
  • How does the state monitor “electioneering communications” — advertising that airs close to an election that names a candidate but does not urge viewers to vote for or against the candidate?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did The IRS Give Mitt Romney’s Tax Returns To Harry Reid?

 

 

 

 

” During the 2012 presidential campaign, Harry Reid claimed to have intimate knowledge of what was secretly inside Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s tax returns.

As President Obama’s campaign slammed Romney nearly every day for not releasing more tax returns, the Senate majority leader repeatedly made the unsubstantiated claim that, at one point in his life, Romney hadn’t paid taxes for almost a decade.

He even did so from the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Since the new IRS scandal broke, Republicans have found the question of who Reid got his information from — and from where — intriguing.

“We all wondered how Harry Reid had Mitt Romney’s taxes,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski told The Daily Caller. “The question is, will he call for a full investigation into the IRS?” “

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The I.R.S. Abusing Americans Is Nothing New

Published on May 15, 2013

” The I.R.S. targeting of tea party groups in the United States is par for the course. It’s not the first time the agency has been used for partisan political ends. Whether or not the targeting was undertaken as a directive from the White House, the agency’s broad latitude in determining what constitutes partisan political activity is very problematic. The solutions offered by campaign finance reformers would unfortunately only give the agency more power.

Featuring: David Keating, President of the Center for Competitive Politics / Michael W. MacLeod-Ball, Chief Legislative and Policy Counsel, ACLU / John Samples, Director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Representative Government / Gene Healy, Vice-President, Cato Institute

Related podcast/video with David Keating:http://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-… /http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8V_9c…
Related podcast with Michael MacLeod-Ball:http://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-…

Video produced by Caleb O. Brown and Austin Bragg. Additional footage gathered by Lester Romero.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lawyers: Targeting Of Conservatives More Vast Than Just Cincinnati, Also Involved DC Office

 

 

” “We’ve dealt with two offices in California, the one in Cincinnati of course , and one in Washington, D.C. So when that story came out on Friday, we knew instantaneously it was false, because we had personal dealings with four different IRS offices from coast to coast and that was in connection with our representing 27 Tea Party groups and conservative groups in 19 states,“ French said, adding that the two California offices were located in Laguna Niguel and El Monte.

“We knew from the beginning that this was not just a low-level Cincinnati employee operation,” French said.

Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP who represents conservative groups, echoed French’s concerns and experience.

“That’s a cover-up,” she told TheDC of the IRS’ claim Friday that the practice was initiated by the Cincinnati unit of the IRS.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How To Beat A Photo-Enforced Speeding Ticket (Or Red Light Ticket)

 

IMG 0003 1024x885 How to Beat a Photo Enforced Speeding Ticket (or Red Light Ticket)

 

” Last year I received a letter in the mail from the Washington D.C DMV claiming I was speeding. As you can see it was one of those Photo-Enforced Speeding Tickets and they had multiple pictures of my CAR. I knew better to just submit and pay a fine like the majority of people do in this country, unfortunately. I am in the habit of not taking “plea deals”, and I am always in the habit of fighting my tickets and NOT pre-paying them so I don’t have to go to court – like many folks do. I just about always record my interactions with the police, whether it’s a traffic stop or not, that way it keeps the entire situation objective, transparent and I can hold the public servant accountable if he/ she violates my rights.”

Read more:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pelosi Can’t Thank Troops On Mother’s Day Because Of Sequestration

 

 

 

 

” The inimitable Nancy Pelosi has added yet another casualty of sequestration to the ridiculous list of “forced cuts” created by the Democrats in their continuing effort to blame Republicans for the budget impasse.

She can’t travel to Iraq on Mother’s Day to thank America’s moms and grandmothers for their service to our country:

“Every year for the past few years on Mother’s Day I’ve taken a delegation to Afghanistan – or Iraq – to say thank you to our moms – and by the way, our grandmothers – who are serving there – to also thank all of our troops for what they do to protect America’s families. I won’t be going this particular weekend because we don’t have – you know, under sequestration – we don’t have (inaudible).” “

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Should Be Abolished

 


” If the American people truly understood how the Federal Reserve system works and what it has done to us, they would be screaming for it to be abolished immediately.  It is a system that was designed by international bankers for the benefit of international bankers, and it is systematically impoverishing the American people.  The Federal Reserve system is the primary reason why our currency has declined in value by well over 95 percent and our national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger over the past 100 years. 

The Fed creates our “booms” and our “busts”, and they have done an absolutely miserable job of managing our economy.  But why do we need a bunch of unelected private bankers to manage our economy and print our money for us in the first place?  Wouldn’t our economy function much more efficiently if we allowed the free market to set interest rates?  And according to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Congress is the one that is supposed to have the authority to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”. 

So why is the Federal Reserve doing it?  Sadly, this is the way it works all over the globe today.  In fact, all 187 nations that belong to the IMF have a central bank.  But the truth is that there are much better alternatives.  We just need to get people educated.

The following are 11 reasons why the Federal Reserve should be abolished…

 

 

#2 The Federal Reserve Is Systematically Destroying The Value Of The U.S. Dollar

 

The United States never had a persistent, ongoing problem with inflation until the Federal Reserve was created in 1913.

If you do not believe this, just check out the inflation chart in this article.

The Federal Reserve systematically penalizes those that try to save their money.  Inflation is a tax, and the value of each one of our dollars goes down a little bit more every single day.

But over time, it really adds up.  In fact, the value of the U.S. dollar has fallen by 83 percent since 1970.

Anyone that goes to the grocery store on a regular basis knows how painful inflation can be.  The following is a list that shows how prices for many of the things that we buy on a regular basis absolutely skyrocketed between 2002 and 2012

Eggs: 73%

Coffee: 90%

Peanut Butter: 40%

Milk: 26%

A Loaf Of White Bread: 39%

Spaghetti And Macaroni: 44%

Orange Juice: 46%

Red Delicious Apples: 43%

Beer: 25%

Wine: 60%

Electricity: 42%

Margarine: 143%

Tomatoes: 22%

Turkey: 56%

Ground Beef: 61%

Chocolate Chip Cookies: 39%

Gasoline: 158%

Even the price of water has absolutely soared in recent years.  According to USA Today, water bills have actually tripled over the past 12 years in some areas of the country.

So how can the Federal Reserve get away with claiming that we are in a “low inflation” environment?

Well, what Ben Bernanke never tells you is that the way that the government calculates inflation has changed more than 20 times since 1978.

The truth is that the real rate of inflation is somewhere between five and ten percent right now, but you will never hear about this on the mainstream news.” 

 

 

Read them all

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FreedomWorks On Tap “The Truth Behind The Farm Bill”

” This week’s episode of FreedomWorks On Tap “The Truth Behind The Farm Bill” Featured Austin Petersen (FreedomWorks Director of Productions & Editor of TheLibertarianRepublic.com), Josh Sewell (Senior Policy Analyst for Taxpayers for Common Sense), Drew White (Government Relations Deputy for Heritage Action for America), & Josh Withrow (FreedomWorks Legislative Affairs Manager).”

 

Do You Live In A High Beer Tax State ?

 

 

 

 

 

HT/Reason

 

Map Courtesy Of / Tax Foundation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GLOBAL NETWORK OF HACKERS STEAL $45M FROM ATMS

 

 

” The sophistication of a global network of thieves who drained cash machines around the globe of an astonishing $45 million in mere hours sent ripples through the security world, not merely for the size of the operation and ease with which it was carried out, but also for the threat that more such thefts may be in store.

Seven people were arrested in the U.S., accused of operating the New York cell of what prosecutors said was a network that carried out thefts at ATMs in 27 countries from Canada to Russia. Law enforcement agencies from more than a dozen nations were involved in the investigation, U.S. prosecutors in New York said Thursday.

It appears no individuals lost money. The thieves plundered funds held by the banks that back up prepaid credit cards, not individual or business accounts, Lynch said.

There were two separate attacks in this case, one in December that reaped $5 million worldwide and one in February that snared about $40 million in 10 hours with about 36,000 transactions. The scheme involved attacks on two banks, Rakbank in the United Arab Emirates and the Bank of Muscat in Oman, prosecutors said.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OBAMA SPENT $11.45 MILLION PER ‘GREEN JOB’ CREATED

 

 

” In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama promised to create 5 million “green jobs” if elected president. However, an analysis by the Institute for Energy Research (IER) finds that since 2009, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) $26 billion loan program created just 2,298 permanent jobs, at a cost of $11.45 million per job created.

In his New York Times bestselling book Throw Them All Out, Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer revealed that 80% of Department of Energy loans went to companies owned by or connected to President Barack Obama’s top campaign fundraisers.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bouncing Ball Politics

 

 

 

 

 

” For years, home ownership was a big “good thing” among both liberal Democrats like Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Christopher Dodd, on the one hand, and moderate Republicans like President George W. Bush on the other hand.

Raising the rate of home ownership was the big red bouncing ball that they pursued out into the street, in utter disregard of the dangers.

A political myth has been created that no one warned of those dangers. But among the many who did warn were yours truly in 2005, Fortune and Barron’s magazines in 2004 and Britain’s The Economist magazine in 2003. Warnings specifically about the dangerous roles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were made by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in 2005 and by Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snow in 2003.

In pursuit of those higher home ownership rates, especially among low-income people and minorities, the many vast powers of the federal government — from the Federal Reserve to bank regulatory agencies and even the Department of Justice, which issued threats of anti-discrimination lawsuits — were used to force banks and other lenders to lower their standards for making mortgage loans.

What makes all this painfully ironic is that the latest data show that the rate of home ownership today is lower than it has been in 18 years. There was a rise of a few percentage points during the housing boom, but that was completely erased during the housing bust. Housing has been just one area where the bouncing ball approach to political decision-making has led the country into one disaster after another.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boston One Fund Hits $29 Million, But Can’t Make Victims ‘Whole’

 

 

 

 

” The administrator of a fund for victims of the Boston Marathon bombings is warning that, although One Fund Boston is generously endowed, it doesn’t appear set to cover all the costs for those who were injured or lost loved ones in the tragedy.

Kenneth Feinberg, the attorney who is administering the account, met with victims Monday and Tuesday after releasing a draft proposal for how the funds should be distributed.

So far One Fund Boston has raised $29 million.

“I’ve learned over the years … [that] money is a pretty poor substitute for what you are going through,” Feinberg told scores of victims and family members who gathered for the hearing Monday night. “If you had a billion dollars you could not have enough money to deal with all of the problems that ought to be addressed by these attacks.” “

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday FA von Hayek

 

 

 

Wiki Bio

 

” Friedrich August Hayek ; 8 May 1899 – 23 March 1992), born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek and frequently known as F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian, later turned British,[1] economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism. In 1974, Hayek shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (with Gunnar Myrdal) for his “pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and … penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena”.[2]

Hayek is an economist[3] and major political thinker of the twentieth century.[4] Hayek’s account of how changing prices communicate information which enables individuals to coordinate their plans is widely regarded as an important achievement in economics.[5] He also contributed to the fields of systems thinkingjurisprudenceneuroscience, and the history of ideas.[6]

Hayek served in World War I and said that his experience in the war and his desire to help avoid the mistakes that had led to the war led him to his career. Hayek lived in Austria, Great Britain, the United States and Germany, and became a British subject in 1938. He spent most of his academic life at the London School of Economics (LSE), the University of Chicago, and the University of Freiburg.

In 1984, he was appointed as a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour by Queen Elizabeth II on the advice of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for his “services to the study of economics”.[7] He was the first recipient of the Hanns Martin Schleyer Prizein 1984.[8] He also received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991 from president George H. W. Bush.[9] In 2011, his articleThe Use of Knowledge in Society was selected as one of the top 20 articles published in the American Economic Review during its first 100 years.[10]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Concise Encyclopedia Of Economics:

 

” If any twentieth-century economist was a Renaissance man, it was Friedrich Hayek. He made fundamental contributions in political theory, psychology, and economics. In a field in which the relevance of ideas often is eclipsed by expansions on an initial theory, many of his contributions are so remarkable that people still read them more than fifty years after they were written. Many graduate economics students today, for example, study his articles from the 1930s and 1940s on economics and knowledge, deriving insights that some of their elders in the economics profession still do not totally understand. It would not be surprising if a substantial minority of economists still read and learn from his articles in the year 2050. In his book Commanding Heights, Daniel Yergin called Hayek the “preeminent” economist of the last half of the twentieth century.”

 

 

 

 

 

Further Reading

 

The Friedrich Hayek Quote Page

Biography of F. A. Hayek (1899-1992)Mises.org

Friedrich Hayek (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

F. A. Hayek | Libertarianism.org

BBC News – Masters of Money: Friedrich Hayek

F.A. Hayek - Encyclopedia Britannica

BBC News – Keynes v Hayek: Two economic giants go head to head

Friedrich von Hayek Nobel Prize Winner

VIDEOS

 

 

Bibliography

 

1920–1929

  • Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle (1929) [1]

1930–1939

  • Prices and Production (1931) [2]
  • Monetary Nationalism and International Stability (1937) [3]
  • Profits, Interest and Investment (1939) [4]

1940–1949

1950–1959

  • “The Transmission of the Ideals of Economic Freedom,” (1951) Full Article
  • John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor: Their Friendship and Subsequent Marriage (1951) ISBN 978-0-678-06504-4
  • The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason (1952) ISBN 978-0-913966-67-9
  • The Sensory Order: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology (1952) ISBN 978-0-226-32094-6
  • The Political Ideal of the Rule of Law (1955)

1960–1969

1970–1979

1980–1989

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Come To This: Solar Installer Now Suing The Government For More Money

 

 

 

 

 

” Last December, the Inspector General of the Treasury launched a probe of the three largest providers of solar panel installation companies that received funds from the much-vaunted 1603 Program — “Payments-In-Lieu-Of-Tax-Credits,” part of President Obama’s stimulus law meant to help the residential market make a switch to more renewable-energy use — as part of an ongoing investigation into whether the companies received excessive government grants via inflating their reported work costs.

One of the companies in question, SolarCity (several of whose executives and venture capital firm backers, you might remember, were generous Obama donors), is now countering with their own lawsuit against the federal government, demanding that they haven’t been paid enough money because their payouts were actually smaller than promised. From the WSJ:

The suit, filed quietly in February in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, comes as SolarCity and other industry players are defending solar-friendly government policies, and it could undermine the industry’s message that solar power will soon be viable without government help. …”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heritage Foundation Responds To Rubio Criticism Of Amnesty Cost Study

 

 

 

” The Heritage Foundation late Tuesday responded to Sen. Marco Rubio’s criticisms of a foundation study that shows the steep cost of providing a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants.

Rubio, R-Fla., called the study “flawed” and suggested it maligned immigrants who are not highly educated. Rubio’s parents, who arrived from Cuba in the 1950′s without high school diplomas, are exactly the kind of immigrants the study recommends should not be allowed to enter the country.

“The folks described in the report are my family,” Rubio said.”

 

 

 

Heritage’s response:

 

 

“Sen. Rubio’s parents came here in 1956, almost a decade before the introduction of the Great Society programs that laid the foundation of the modern welfare state. Over the following four and a half decades, our government has added layer upon layer of government involvement in our lives, creating a dependency that undermines self-respect and self-reliance.

“That dependency has been devastating to our society; it has shattered communities, families and individuals. It is now threatening the American Dream. This is true for all—native and immigrant alike, legal or illegal. We do not blame immigrants for being entrapped by that system; we blame the people who created that system. We especially blame people who now seek to expand it.”

 

 

 

 

Illustration By : ?

Does Anyone Know The Artist ?

Credit Where Due If Someone Can Provide A Link

 

 

 

 

 

Study Pegs Cost Of Immigration Bill’s Mass Legalization At $6.3 Trillion

 

 

” The comprehensive immigration overhaul being taken up in the Senate this week could cost taxpayers $6.3 trillion if 11 million illegal immigrants are granted legal status, according to a long-awaited estimate by the conservative Heritage Foundation. 

The cost would arise from illegal immigrants tapping into the government’s vast network of benefits and services, many of which are currently unavailable to them. This includes everything from standard benefits like Social Security and Medicare to dozens of welfare programs ranging from housing assistance to food stamps.

“No matter how you slice it, amnesty will add a tremendous amount of pressure on America’s already strained public purse,” Robert Rector, the Heritage scholar who prepared the report, said in a statement. 

On an annual basis, the report estimates the cost will be $106 billion after the interim phase is over. In the course of their lifetime, the report estimates that illegal immigrant households would receive an average of $592,000 in government benefits. “

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rubio Amnesty

 

 

 

 

” When Mitt Romney lost last November, the Republican establishment decided that his moderately hawkish stance on immigration had been a major cause of his defeat. Never mind that his share of the Hispanic vote was within the margin of error of McCain’s 2008 share. Never mind the significant drop in white turnout. There is little elite constituency for a hawkish approach to immigration, and much elite support for lax enforcement and increased legal immigration (Romney actually supported the latter).

So the Republican establishment turns its hopeful eyes, once again, to so-called comprehensive immigration reform. The same senators who pushed such a bill in 2007, prominently including Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham and Democrat Chuck Schumer, are at it again. They have devised a plan that would ease the path to legality for illegal immigrants while making some gestures toward enforcement. But a new element this time around is Marco Rubio.

A tea-party favorite (and a favorite of this magazine) who wrested the senatorial nomination from GOP-establishment pick (now Democrat) Charlie Crist, he’s young, telegenic, and the son of Cuban immigrants. Rubio became part of the “Gang of Eight,” four Democrats and four Republicans negotiating a deal that sought to placate a dizzying array of interests, all seeking de facto unlimited immigration but each with a different set of specific concerns. The result of all this is S.744, a sprawling, 844-page measure legalizes most of the illegal population (plus many who were deported and are currently living abroad), promises tougher enforcement in the future, and hugely increases all forms of legal immigration, low- and high-skilled, temporary and permanent.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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