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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (59198)	5/21/2007 10:20:18 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

DON'T LAUGH TOO HARD By F.I.R.E. NEW YORK POST Opinion May 21, 2007 -- HOW would you feel if you got in trouble not for telling an off-color joke, but simply for laughing at one? Sounds inconceivable, right? Not at Drexel University in Philadelphia, where school policy prohibits not only "inconsiderate jokes" but also "inappropriately directed laughter." Not only won't they let you tell certain jokes, they promise to punish you for finding them funny. Drexel is not alone in its prohibition of what can only be described as typical college student interaction. Northeastern University in Boston, apparently the self-appointed arbiter of good taste, prohibits sending any e-mail message "which in the sole judgment of the University is offensive." Attention Northeastern students: before you forward that e-mail to your friends, you had better try to discern whether "the University" might deem it offensive. Johns Hopkins University prohibits any "rude, disrespectful behavior"-a regulation that sounds more suited to Victorian-era England than it does to a major institution of higher learning in 2007. Speech codes on campus are laughably ridiculous until you realize they have a very serious side. They are so broad that they cannot possibly be enforced across the board - imagine the resources it would take to punish every instance of "inappropriately directed laughter" on campus. And they are incredibly common: between September 2005 and September 2006, we surveyed over 330 schools and found that an overwhelming majority of them - 69 percent - explicitly prohibit speech that, outside the borders of campus, is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Speech codes are completely inconsistent with the role of the university as a "marketplace of ideas," and are often used to stifle speech that the university or students simply dislike. Campus speech codes place a stranglehold on campus dissent and should be put to rest. Authored by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (thefire.org). nypost.com laugh_too_hard_opedcolumnists_f_i_r_e_.htm

To: Sully- who wrote (59198)	5/21/2007 12:21:17 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Right Direction The immigration deal strikes me as progress. By Michael Barone National Review Online I confess that I haven't read the text of the compromise immigration bill agreed to by Sens. Edward Kennedy and Jon Kyl, and I request the right to, in congressional language, revise and extend my remarks. But at this writing, apparently nobody has read it — the final text is still not available. Many Americans have been complaining that the Iraqi parliament has been taking too long to come to agreement on sharing oil revenues and other big issues. But the same thing happens in the United States Congress. Members mull important issues and seem to do nothing for long periods of time and then are stirred into sudden action — so sudden it's hard to keep up with it — when a deadline looms. This is the way of representative democracy, which as Winston Churchill remarked, is the worst system of government except for all the others that have been tried over time. This strikes me as a long step forward. We have long needed to regularize the flow of immigrants into this country — it is a failure of government to have some 11 million or 12 million people illegally here. To regularize the flow, we need to do several things that it appears this compromise bill attempts to do. We need to have a form of tamper-proof identification for immigrants, as obnoxious as it seems to those of us who have long flinched at the idea of a national identity card. With modern technology, this should not be impossible — Mexico has come up with a reliable voter registration card. With a tamper-proof identity card, sanctions on employers of illegal immigrants could be enforced, as they are not at present. An identity card has this additional advantage: In a time when we are threatened by vicious terrorists, it makes it much easier for the government to keep track of foreigners within our borders. To regularize the flow, we also have to do something about the illegal immigrants already here. The bill, as I understand it, would provide them immediately with a chance to regularize their status without putting them on the road to citizenship. They would have to pay a fine and would be subject to deportation for criminal offenses, but if employer sanctions were known to be enforceable they would have an incentive to regularize. Also, to get in line for a green card and citizenship, the head of household would have to return to the country of origin — a "touchback" provision that was not in the bill passed by the Senate last May. In addition, we must do a better job of securing the border. Some opponents of this bill fasten on the provision that commits to building only 370 miles of the 700-mile border fence that Congress approved last year. But almost no one calls for a fence along all of the 2,000-plus mile border. I should think that the length of the fence to be built is negotiable. The bill also contains a guest-worker program that is being attacked by immigration proponents as ungenerous. The provision would allow guest workers to work here two years — then they would have to return to their country of origin for one year before they could come back for another two-year stint. This seems designed to create a program in which guest workers would indeed be temporary. You couldn't make a life's career of such work — it would tend to be a stopgap. Another feature of the bill is that in certain cases it bases eligibility for citizenship less on family ties and more on skills. Uncles, aunts, grandmothers, and cousins would no longer get as much preference as they've had — people with high skills would get more. This seems like a step in the right direction. In his negotiations with Kennedy, Kyl has secured many provisions that make this bill more stringent than the one that passed the Senate last May by a vote of 62 to 36. That's a significant accomplishment. Changing U.S. public policy is like steering a giant ship — it's impossible to sharply reverse course, but you can change the direction in a way that will make a significant difference over time. That's what I think the Bush administration and House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas accomplished in the 2003 Medicare prescription-drug bill, much criticized by many conservatives. They sent the health-care ship moving in the direction of market mechanisms and away from government ukase. The Kennedy-Kyl immigration compromise, now under attack from many conservatives and some liberals, attempts to steer the immigration ship in the direction of regularization, enforcement that actually works, and toward skill-based rather than family-based immigration. At least if they get the details right. © CREATORS SYNDICATE INC. article.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (59198)	5/21/2007 12:26:19 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Comprehensive or Incomprehensible? By Fred Thompson National Review Online Editor's note: Click the link below to listen to the original radio commentary this transcript is based on. Most Americans know that we have an illegal immigration problem in this country, with perhaps as many as 20 million people residing here unlawfully. And I think most Americans have a pretty good idea about how to at least start solving the problem – secure our nation’s borders. But there’s an old saying in Washington that, in dealing with any tough issue, half the politicians hope that citizens don’t understand it while the other half fear that people actually do. This kind of thinking was apparent with the “comprehensive” immigration reform bill that the U.S. Senate and the White House negotiated yesterday. I’d tell you what was in the legislation, but 24 hours after the politicians agreed the bill looked good, the Senate lawyers were still writing what may turn out to be a one thousand page document. In fact, a final version of the bill most likely will not be made available to the public until after the legislation is passed. That may come five days from now. That’s like trying to digest an eight-course meal on a 15-minute lunch break. We’ve tried the “comprehensive” route before to solve the illegal immigration problem with a bit more care and deliberation, and the results haven’t been good. Back in May 1985, Congress promised us that it would come up with a comprehensive plan to solve the problem of illegal immigration and our porous borders. Eighteen months later, in November 1986, that comprehensive plan was signed into law. Twenty-two years and millions of illegal immigrants later, that comprehensive plan hasn’t done what most Americans wanted it to do — secure America’s borders. Now Washington says the new “comprehensive” plan will solve the problem that the last comprehensive plan didn’t. The fact is our border and immigration systems are still badly broken. We were reminded of this when Newsweek reported that the family of three of the men, arrested last week for allegedly plotting to kill American military personnel at Fort Dix, New Jersey, entered the U.S. illegally more than 20 years ago; filed for asylum back in 1989, but fell off the government’s radar screen when federal bureaucrats essentially lost track of the paperwork. Wonder how many times that’s been replicated? Is it any wonder that a lot of folks today feel like they’re being sold a phony bill of goods on border security? A “comprehensive” plan doesn’t mean much if the government can’t accomplish one of its most basic responsibilities for its citizens — securing its borders. A nation without secure borders will not long be a sovereign nation. No matter how much lipstick Washington tries to slap onto this legislative pig, it’s not going to win any beauty contests. In fact, given Congress’s track record, the bill will probably get a lot uglier — at least from the public’s point of view. And agreeing to policies before actually seeing what the policies are is a heck of a way to do business. We should scrap this “comprehensive” immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders — or at least made great headway. That would give proponents of the bill a chance to explain why putting illegals in a more favorable position than those who play by the rules is not really amnesty. — Fred Thompson is an actor and former United States senator from Tennessee. © PAUL HARVEY SHOW, ABC RADIO NETWORKS article.nationalreview.com www2.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (59198)	5/21/2007 12:53:05 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Getting It Right By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Friday, May 18, 2007 4:20 PM PT Immigration: Like many, we're not entirely happy with the deal crafted by Congress last week. But that said, let's not hyperventilate in our anger. The bill is a compromise and, even now, still a work in progress. This is, after all, a Senate compromise, and it's clear it won't pass the House as now written. So there's still time to change the things we don't like, and improve the things we do. As President Reagan used to say, sometimes half a loaf is better than none. And stepping back from the rhetoric that has marked this topic for years, there are positive things to say about this measure and even ways to make it acceptable. To begin with: What's the big hurry? The bill hasn't even been printed yet. No one has read the whole thing. Yet, Senate leaders wants a vote early this week on the 740-page package. Not exactly the best way to handle "comprehensive" reform, if you ask us, and a big reason why so many people are panicked. Before anything passes into law, hearings should be held and cost estimates provided. This measure is monumental and far-reaching, but crafted in a backroom by a cadre of pols working in secret. Now it's time to ask the people what they want. When they do, politicians are likely to find that what Americans want most is secure borders. Indeed, a Rasmussen survey earlier this month found 56% prefer an enforcement-only approach to immigration reform. Last year's Secure Fence Act was supposed to do just that — by erecting a 750-mile fence along our 2,000-mile border with Mexico. It hasn't happened yet. Given how people feel, any bill that doesn't fully take into account border security is dead on arrival. That's not to say Americans' feelings have blinded them to the fact that we are an immigrant nation, peopled literally by every country on Earth. But the 9/11 attacks drove home to many the importance of secure borders. Others see the 12 million to 20 million illegals already here as a massive failure of our justice system. This is an extraordinarily large bloc of people to assimilate, and the welfare costs are enormous. As budget analyst Robert Rector recently told Congress, the social costs of low-wage illegals will exceed their benefits by about $1 trillion more over the next decade. In any bill, the devil's in the details. We see the devil here clearly. Under the compromise, 400,000 guest workers each year will get special visas that could be renewed up to three times for two years. Four million more would be allowed to come in under generous family provisions. So there will be a big jump in newcomers. Troubling, too, are the so-called Z-Visas for which those now here illegally will be eligible. This document will give those here illegally access to driver's licenses and Social Security numbers. If that's not amnesty, nothing is. That said, the bill has some positive features. For example, it starts to move us away from an immigration system based on family ties to one based on merit and skills. This is important. It also seems to commit the government to securing the border before the rest of the provisions take effect. If security isn't first, it will fail. Further negotiation is no doubt on the way. A common-sense starting point might be Rudy Giuliani's idea of securing the border first, then making sure all who come are fingerprinted and have tamper-proof IDs. So let the negotiating begin. ibdeditorials.com More on Immigration ibdeditorials.com