Free Republic

I have been engaged in a little high-low reading in the past several months, alternating one highbrow work (e.g., Outer Dark) with one less exalted work (e.g. Lonesome Dove). My most recent pairing was the short stories of Raymond Carver, which I had not read, and Stephen King’s The Stand, which I had read as a youngster and wanted to revisit to see whether it retained any of the fascination it had on first encounter. There is a great deal going on in these works, though a great deal less going on in Mr. Carver’s stories than in Mr. King’s....

109TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION H. R. To provide for a federally sanctioned self-determination process for the people of Puerto Rico. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Mr. Fortuño introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on .......................... A BILL To provide for a federally sanctioned self-determination process for the people of Puerto Rico. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS. (a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2006’’. (b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The...

German public sector workers fighting plans to extend their working hours have widened their strike action to cover most of the country. An estimated 20,000 local and regional authority staff including nurses, cooks and cleaners have joined the largest public sector strike in 14 years. They are protesting against plans to extend weekly working hours by 90 minutes, from 38.5 to 40 hours a week. The industrial action...has now spread to 10 of Germany's 16 states... Leaders at Verdi - Germany's biggest union with 2.4 million members - have warned that the strikes could last for up to six weeks.

In a case that could bolster a long-running federal grand jury probe into Northeast Florida's construction industry, an undocumented Mexican worker permanently paralyzed on a job site is filing suit today in Jacksonville against homebuilding giant D.R. Horton. Jorge Gomez, 23, was injured Nov. 11 when a large beam fell on him and broke his neck at a D.R. Horton site in a Julington Creek subdivision, according to the lawsuit. The accident left him a quadriplegic. As an illegal alien, Gomez has no workers compensation insurance and has run up $500,000 in medical bills at Jacksonville's Memorial Hospital, which continues...

America the Unfree Paul Craig Roberts Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2004 The Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal's 10th annual Index of Economic Freedom pulls the wool over our eyes. The deception is unintentional and arises from a fatal flaw in the index. The index delivers the comforting conclusion that the United States is the 10th-most free country, far ahead of 155th-ranked North Korea. However, the index ignores the simple truth that people who do not own the product of their labor are not free. People subject to an income tax do not own the product of their labor. Our Founding...

I am beginning to think John McCain actually won the presidency in 2000. Conservatives were relieved when the Straight Talk Express petered out during the 2000 primary season. John McCain, although tough on national security and runaway spending, was hardly a conservative on major issues such as campaign finance, healthcare reform and immigration. Yet this is exactly where we find President Bush today (except unlike McCain, Bush doesn’t seem to have much of a problem with runaway spending). Last year President George Bush signed the McCain-Feingold bill into law, which is one of the worst assaults on political speech this...

Bush's Ridiculous Speech About Immigration Reform I just want to comment on a few of the things that jumped out at me as I read the text of Bush's speech about the horrendous new immigration legislation he is going to propose. To begin with, this line just chaps me..."As a nation that values immigration and depends on immigration, we should have immigration laws that work and make us proud. Yet today we do not."No, our immigration laws don't work or make us proud. You know why? Because we don't make an effort to enforce them. It's like telling your kid...

President Bush's immigration reform plan, delayed three years because of Sept. 11, is a politically expedient confession of the massive failure of U.S. immigration policy for two decades. Bush's plan would legalize 8 million to 9 million people in this country illegally, and does nothing to shut off the flow of more illegal immigrants. In fact, it will encourage more to come. Bush is not solely to blame for this misguided policy. He has simply signed on to policy Congress has followed since the last so-called reforms, in 1986, 1990 and 1996, from which our government has apparently learned nothing....

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- President Vicente Fox on Thursday praised the immigration reform proposed by President Bush and claimed it as an achievement for his own administration.But Fox and other Mexican officials indicated the new American proposal did not meet all their goals. ``We're going for more. We're going for more,'' he told reporters during a visit to a shelter for street children.Fox has repeatedly urged Bush to legalize the millions of Mexicans who cross the border illegally to work in the United States. The money they send home is Mexico's second-largest source of foreign income, behind oil.Bush's plan, unveiled...

Contact Tom Tancredo (R-Co), Chirman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus (HIRC). He's one of the few elected republicans with his head on straight. Here's their platform: Rep. Tom Tancredo’s Four-Point Plan for Immigration Control The United States has lost control over its immigration policy. Over one million persons enter our nation illegally each year and we have antiquated and error-prone systems for knowing who our legal visitors are and for enforcing their visa time limits. Every poll shows that over 75% of citizens support border security and strict enforcement of our immigration laws. They want our immigration policies fixed....

President Bush's proposal has thrust Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., back into the national spotlight as one of the most outspoken advocates of tougher measures against illegal immigration. On Wednesday, Tancredo appeared on numerous national network telecasts, and press secretary Carlos Espinoza said he had the busiest day of his career fielding interview requests. Tancredo condemned the proposal as dangerous for national security. And he publicly cast doubt on the sincerity of his own party's president: He believes Bush's package may be just an election year ploy to win Hispanic votes. In Tancredo's view, the measures would reward illegal immigration and...

Well Freepers our President has sold us up the river and hopefully this is a wake up call to conservatives. The guest worker program is a DISASTER waiting to happen. One of President Reagan's mistakes in 1986 was to give blanket amnesty to illegals prior to sealing up the border and overhauling INS. It was stated that by doing this it would curb and put an end to illegal immigration. Since then it has doubled. Now we are seeing the same thing all over again. O'Reilly pulled current numbers from the census bureau and foun the following. It costs this...

In politics, it’s good to be up for grabs. And it’s miserable to be a sure thing. As President Bush will prove today. In an expected announcement of sweeping amnesty and Social Security benefits for illegal Mexican aliens, the president will kick conservatives in the teeth in order to woo Latino voters. It’s clear proof that the adage “Dance with the one what brung ya” doesn’t apply in the GOP. In the GOP, conservatives exist to donate money and vote a straight ticket, and then be ignored. At least in this Administration and by this Congress. Time after time, the...

WND BOOKS America's fate in hands of illegal aliens? New WND book shows immgration issue could determine future of U.S. Posted: January 7, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com With the U.S. government poised to make sweeping changes to immigration laws critics say amount to de facto mass amnesty, WorldNetDaily's publishing division, WND Books, announces a powerful new book destined to supercharge the debate over illegal immigration. In "Illegals: The Imminent Threat Posed by Our Unsecured U.S.-Mexico Border," veteran journalist Jon E. Dougherty documents the hard truth that both major political parties have missed – namely, that sustained high immigration levels...

Court: N.C. must broaden its Medicaid coverage for illegal immigrants RALEIGH (AP) — North Carolina must broaden its Medicaid coverage for illegal immigrants to allow for longer-term treatment of serious health problems, the state Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday. The ruling could expand the kinds of medical treatment that illegal immigrants receive under the Medicaid program. For hospitals that are already treating illegal immigrants, the decision could also mean more Medicaid reimbursements.

Legend has long held that illegal aliens give American citizens cheap lettuce and cheap child care. Excepting for agribusiness and the upper classes, that legend is, in reality, a nightmare, in which the American middle and working classes pay and pay and pay for illegal immigration, and get nothing but grief in return. In states with heavy illegal alien populations, the budget of a middle-class family is full of hidden illegal alien surcharges. As a result, today’s middle-class American family with two full-time working parents has less discretionary income than its traditional forebear, in which the father alone was...

Bush to Propose Broad Amnesty Tell Congress to Say No! We regret having to interrupt your holiday season with bad news on the immigration reform front, but the Washington Post reports this morning that President Bush and Karl Rove-in order to appeal to Hispanic voters-are poised to announce a sweeping amnesty plan during the second week of January. If you like amnesty, mass legal immigration, and the continued unprecedented decline in the American economic standard of living, you'll love President Bush's proposal. While the details of the plan remain unclear, President Bush is expected to propose an outline modeled after...

<p>HARRISBURG - The state Senate approved a $1.3 billion tax increase shortly after dawn today- including a 10 percent income-tax hike - but was unable to fashion a deal that would have brought slot machines to the state's racetracks, big cities and resorts.</p>

Freeloading on the Taxpayer’s Dime By: Andy Obermann 14 December 2003 The other day I was at the grocery store doing some shopping. I patiently waited in line to purchase a few miscellaneous items. In front of me, a woman, no older than forty, was buying two sodas, two packs of gum, and a personal size bag of potato chips—trivial purchases, a snack perhaps. She proceeded to pull out what appeared to be a credit or debit card to pay for the goods. An unnecessary step for such a menial purchase, I thought. Much to my surprise, however, she was...

Pell grants aid confined sex offenders A stretched grant program is giving college money to offenders who served their time but are deemed unfit to rejoin society. By LEONORA LaPETER, Times Staff Writer Published October 27, 2003 David Depuy is a twice-convicted rapist who has been behind bars all but two of the last 31 years. In prison, he turned to education, and the government helped. He began taking classes in 1973 and continued on and off until 1994, when politicians decided that giving criminals financial aid grants for college wasn't a good idea. Then in 1999, Depuy finished his...