Issues
Arizona has taken the problem of illegal immigration seriously. Like several other states, Arizona has not just focused on the illegal immigrants themselves. Those who profit by hiring illegal immigrants also face more rigorous state actions for their misconduct. In 2007, Arizona passed LAWA or the “Legal Arizona Workers Act,” which provided for escalating legal sanctions up to the revocation of an employer’s right to do business if the employer knowingly hired illegal immigrants.
The law was not punitive against immigrants. It did not treat legal immigrants any differently than American citizens. State governments have, and do, restricted employment for different classes of citizens. Sex offenders, for example, are often barred from working in schools or daycare facilities. Drunk drivers lose their license to drive and, by that restriction, their ability to work at many jobs.
Now that the Kabuki theatre, also known as the debt ceiling negotiations, is over, what really happened? And, who voted for the debt deal?
Lobbyists will be busier than ever in the next weeks and months ahead, trying to influence both the makeup and the recommendations of the new "supercommittee" that is supposed to recommend $1.2 trillion in deficit reductions over the next ten years. Under the terms of Budget Control Act of 2011 passed by the Congress and signed by President Obama on Tuesday, mandatory budget cuts will take effect if Congress cannot agree on the committee recommendations or some other plan to reduce the amounts being added annually to the nation's debt. The prospect of mandatory cuts has alarmed and aroused lobbyists and trade groups, especially those in the powerful defense and health care industries.
The disciples of communism claim that their ideological system is the cure for colonialism and imperialism. All the proletariats (working-class people) of the world, according to the prescriptions of Marx, are brothers. However, analysts observe that communism scarcely worked that way even in theory. Marx was a German nationalist who called for the extermination of Croats, Pandurs, and “similar scum.” He sneered at Danish culture as purely copied from Germany and rejoiced at the Prussia victory over France in 1871 because it would lead to the triumph of German, rather than French, socialism. He loathed Judaism and Jewish society, as well as Christians.
The Bolshevik junta in late 1918, followed four years later by the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), presented itself to the world as anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist.
Texas Congressman and GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul continues to champion constitutional rights. His latest endeavor is a bill that would abolish “gun-free zones,” ultimately permitting teachers to carry firearms on school grounds. Predictably, anti-gun groups are calling the legislation “extremist.”
CNS News reports, “H.R. 2613, the Citizens Protection Act of 2011, would repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 and remove all federally created criminal safety zones.”
The Gun-Free School Zones Act was first enacted as section 1702 of the Crime Control Act of 1990. The text of the act reads, “It shall be unlawful for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm that has moved in or that otherwise affects interstate or foreign commerce at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone.”
A number of constitutionalists have warned that the new "Super Congress" — technically a joint committee of Congress — may be unconstitutional. The new entity will be created out of the Obama-Boehner debt limit deal. "It smells," Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) told Fox News August 1. "I just don't understand why Congress is so willing to give up its responsibilities to 12 people.... It's a reflection that they don't have answers."
Former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano told Fox News August 1 that he thinks the law may be unconstitutional:
If you are as confused as I am about this new bill that increases our debt ceiling and is supposed to save the country from defaulting on its debts, it’s probably because we are getting conflicting reports about what’s in it. And if you scan down the text of the bill, you can see that it was not written so that the average individual could understand it. Indeed, I wish that all such laws passed by Congress would be accompanied by a simplified translation into plain English that the average citizen could understand.
Like so many of these laws crafted by congressional staffers, they are written in a kind of Washington legalese meant to make it impossible for ordinary folk to know what’s in them. For example, Nancy Pelosi said that they had to pass the Obama healthcare bill so that we could find out what was in it. Well, I have news. It’s just as impossible to know what’s in it after it’s been passed. Even the title of the law is meant to deceive the average citizen. Its official title is: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Of course it’s nothing of the kind. It is the Federal Takeover of Healthcare Act. It passed the Democrat-controlled Senate on December 24, 2009. The Democrat-controlled House passed it on March 21, 2010, and our Socialist-in-Chief signed it into law on March 23, 2010. The first task of a new Tea Party Congress and White House in 2012 must be to repeal it.
Republican-led state legislatures have stirred more school choice debates this year than ever before, as Republicans seek to reform state budgets and rekindle student achievement. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 30 states have introduced bills this year which would use government funding to send poor and special needs children to private schools. Nine voucher bills were proposed in 2010, of which the sole survivor was a special needs voucher program in Oklahoma. Six states have passed some form of school choice program this year, including both voucher and tax credit legislation. Progress in educational reform has developed largely in the aftermath of the 2010 elections. "I think that there’s long been an interest among Republican legislators, but this year is the first time they’ve gained so many seats in so many states and gained majorities," asserted Josh Cunningham, a member of the state legislatures group. "There was a window of opportunity to get these bills passed. It was kind of the perfect timing."
Pro-homosexual groups have targeted a Minnesota school district just outside of Minneapolis for its unwillingness to discuss homosexuality in the classroom. The groups point to seven suicides within two years at the school district as proof that the subject should be addressed by the schools, since parents and friends say that four of those students were either "gay," perceived to be "gay," or questioning their own sexuality. A number of groups have filed a lawsuit against the school district, and the federal government has indicated it will perform a formal investigation into the district’s policy.
In 2009, the Anoka-Hennepin School District adopted a policy that indicates staff must “remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation” and that “such matters are best addressed within individual family homes, churches, or community organizations.”
American education has seen one “reform” movement after another. The most recent incarnation, “Race to the Top,” was initiated in 2009 by the Obama Administration. It is structured around a serious-sounding program called the “Common Core of State Standards Initiative Project,” or CCS for short, which is set for implementation in 46 states, at last count, in 2012.
Most people alive today actually remember “reform” measures that date only from around 1970, even though many of these originated much earlier, sometimes reappearing under new names: the Effective Schools Movement; Mastery Learning, revived around 1980; America 2000 in 1992; Goals 2000, built around a program called Outcome-Based Education in 1993; and No Child Left Behind in 2002, which, in turn, promoted a curricular program called the International Baccalaureate, which people mistook for its pre-War European counterpart.
