Today Pres. Obama gave a major speech where he defended his handling of the economy. And there were tons of people in the audience, you know, since nobody had to work...Fallon
- In the last few days since Pres. Obama proclaimed the United States will not enforce immigration laws against young illegal immigrants, I've read a plethora of articles regarding the legality or illegality of his order. Since I'm not an attorney in Constitutional Law; I'm still confused. But one fact is clear: he did this for political reasons. Why did he wait three and one-half years to order this mandate? When he was campaigning in 2008, he promised the Latino community he would target immigration issues as soon as he became president. He didn't do that. In fact, he didn't do much when it came to the issue of illegal immigration.
- Many critics, including many on the Left, are concerned and disturbed Obama bypassed Congress. To those critics, he's expanded the power of the executive branch. For example, professor Jonathan Turley, a progressive, told Politico, "This is a President who is now functioning as a super legislator...effectively negating parts of the criminal code because he disagrees with them. That goes beyond the pale." Does it also show Obama's contempt for the legislative process? In fact, on several occasions before he instituted this new policy, he actually said only Congress had the power to do it.
- I'm an immigrant myself so perhaps I'm a tad bias when it comes to the issue of children who are brought to this country by their parents who entered the country illegally. I came in legally (my father was an American citizen). Yet, I can't help but empathize with those young people who really had no choice and have spent their entire young lives in America. Because of this, I support "some" aspects of the Dream Act. As I've written on a number of occasions, if a young immigrant joins the military (he/she must have a green card) and takes the oath to defend our country, I would like to see that immigrant become a citizen (according to the president's order, immigrants qualify for his program if they were honorably discharged from the Armed Forces. Some of the other parts of the president's policy: the child must have come to the U.S. before age 16, is under 30 years of age and must have resided in the U.S. for at least five years prior to this new directive).
- And while I support some aspects of the Dream Act, I also want to see it legislated. I don't like the way the president skirted Congress on this new policy. To me and many critics, this smells of back-door amnesty (Yes, Ronald Reagan granted amnesty but he did by the rule of law, the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act)
- There's another important issue with this order that has me (and many Americans) concerned. It is estimated that there are approximately 800,000 illegals that meet this criteria (that means there's over a million knowing the way the government underestimates numbers). There are now well over 15 million Americans unemployed. By allowing over 800,000 illegal immigrants between the ages of 16 and 30 to remain in the country---that means they can now compete for scarce jobs with unemployed American citizens. So has the president pandered to his base at the expense of creating jobs for American citizens?
- In addition to the millions of unemployed Americans, a report was issued last week that 8 in 10 students are unable to find a summer job. Guess who these students will be competing against for jobs starting this week?
- Regarding the leaks of sensitive intelligence from somewhere in the White House, Peggy Noonan said it best: "What are they thinking? That in the age of Wikileaks the White House itself should be one big Wikileak."
- I follow the History Channel on Twitter, and I often send off a Tweet criticizing them for not televising any history anymore. And to make my point. Did you know that on the anniversary of D-Day, the History Channel failed to do any programming about D-Day? Who did they promote?---"Cajun Pawn Stars." By the way, the Biography Channel also failed to do anything on Memorial Day. But they certainly ran a lot of programming about celebrities.
- Speaking of networks, you may have heard that HBO used the head of George W. Bush in a grisly decapitation scene for the show, "Game of Thrones." HBO apologized. HBO said it was not a political statement. "We just had to use the heads we had around." As Michael Goodwin in the NY Post observed, "Sure, totally understandable. Heads of presidents are lying around and just end up on stakes. Happens all the time." Bunch of knuckleheads. Can you imagine the outrage if they showed the head of Pres. Obama on a stake?
- But then again, HBO is the network that still employes an avowed bigot, Bill Maher. One observer remarked, at 5'2' tall, Maher can stack sh!t pretty high.
