Saturday, November 7, 2015

THE LAWLESS AND BORDERLESS POLICIES OF BARACK OBAMA: DICTATOR IN THE MAKING

We covered the story earlier this week of documents leaked from DHS showing the agency looking to circumvent the injunction issued by a federal judge in Texas that prohibited the federal government from implementing the president's immigration ex...

Senate demands answers from DHS on leaked docs that show administration defiance of amnesty ban

We covered the story earlier this week of documents leaked from DHS showing the agency looking to circumvent the injunction issued by a federal judge in Texas that prohibited the federal government from implementing the president's immigration executive orders.  The agency prepared several options, which included changing a regulation that would have allowed the president to issue millions of green cards.
That leak caught the attention of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who now want answers from DHS about what they're up to.

Washington Examiner:
The group, led by Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, called for DHS to explain the origin and status of internal memos publishedMonday.
"Granting employment authorization to illegal immigrants under the proposed scheme would accomplish, by different means, the de factolegalization of the population intended to be legalized by the enjoined DAPA program," Republicans charged.
The agency's proposed regulations would change immigration regulations to allow foreign workers in the U.S., potentially including illegal aliens, to get a green card if an employer sponsors him or her, even if the sponsorship has expired.
The move by DHS would circumvent a program to provide amnesty for illegal immigrants that was the subject of a lawsuit brought by 26 states this year.
Other senators on the letter were David Vitter, R-La., Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, John Cornyn, R-Texas, Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Mike Lee, R-Utah, David Perdue, R-Ga., Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Ted Cruz R-Texas.
The committee asked for a response by Nov. 12.
"We want assurances that the administration will refrain from moving forward with any such proposal that harms the integrity of our legal immigration system and violates the law," the letter concluded.
There has been no comment from the White House on the leaked memorandum, which isn't surprising, given that they've been caught red-handed trying to get around the ruling by a federal judge.  Neither has there been any response from the federal judge who issued the injunction.  As a rule, federal judges get angry when an administration tries to go behind their backs or pull the wool over their eyes.  I suspect that the judge is going to want an explanation also.
No doubt DHS will claim they were only examining "hypothetical" situations and had no intention of carrying out a plan to give green cards to millions of illegals.  But given the track record of this administration in obeying the basic laws of the land, it's doubtful that too many Republicans will believe them.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/11/senate_demands_answers_from_dhs_on_leaked_docs_that_show_administration_defiance_of_amnesty_ban.html#ixzz3qpmeo3y3
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U.S. Seals Another Deal to Protect Illegal Aliens’ “Workplace Rights”


Judicial Watch Corruption Chronicles, November 6, 2015

In a final push to ensure the “workplace rights” of illegal immigrants in the U.S., the Obama administration continues to sign pacts with foreign countries guaranteeing to protect their nationals from discrimination on the job.

This month its Ecuador’s turn and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination laws, is sealing the deal. In past years the Department of Labor (DOL) has executed similar agreements with an assortment of countries, including Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and India. In fact, under Obama’s first Labor Secretary, former California Congresswoman and influential La Raza figure Hilda Solis, the DOL signed a number of these “partnership agreements” vowing to protect illegal aliens working in the U.S.

Solis even created a special division at the DOL to enforce labor and wage laws in industries that typically hire illegal aliens without reporting anyone to federal immigration authorities. Protecting the workplace rights of “vulnerable” migrants was a big priority at the agency under her leadership. During a ceremony to celebrate pacts with several foreign countries Solis said that “migrant workers make important contributions to our economy,” and that the deals will “help ensure these workers are aware of the right to safe workplaces and to receive full payment of the wages owed to them under the laws of the United States.”

. . .
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/11/u-s-seals-another-deal-to-protect-illegal-aliens-workplace-rights/

“Positive” US jobs report belied by mass layoffs


"The decades-long stagnation of wages for US workers and the destruction of decent-paying jobs were reflected in a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences. According to the study, the mortality rate of white, middle-aged working-class Americans has dramatically increased since 1999, translating into nearly 100,000 more deaths than if it had remained flat over this period. This increase is largely due to drug overdoses, alcohol abuse and suicides, symptomatic of the social misery and distress that pervades the lives of a growing share of American workers."

“Positive” US jobs report belied by mass layoffs

By Josh Varlin
7 November 2015
The US economy added 271,000 jobs in October, according to the latest jobs report by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Media commentators hailed the jobs figure, which was higher than economists’ predictions of about 180,000 jobs, as “stellar,” “off the charts” and “sizzling.” Unemployment fell to 5 percent, the lowest level since April 2008.

October’s report comes following lackluster figures in September and August, in which the US economy added only 137,000 and 153,000 jobs, respectively. President Barack Obama praised the jobs report in a speech Friday, declaring “Our businesses created 268,000 new jobs last month. They’ve created 13.5 million new jobs over the past 68 straight months—the longest streak on record.”

A recent wave of mass layoff announcements, however, belies the official triumphalism by the media and political establishment. The Kraft Heinz Company announced on November 4 that it was closing 7 factories across the country, thereby axing 2,600 jobs over the next two years, in addition to 2,500 jobs that were cut in August. Oscar Mayer, a subsidiary of Kraft Heinz, will lose its Madison, Wisconsin plant in the layoffs, affecting 1,200 workers in a medium-sized city. The layoffs are the direct result of the Merger of Kraft and Heinz announced in March.

GE Transportation announced 1,500 layoffs at its Erie, Pennsylvania locomotive production facility on November 6, pointing to low locomotive demand and falling commodity prices. The layoffs will affect mostly skilled workers. Chevron announced layoffs totaling between 6,000 and 7,000 jobs, along with a “similar” number of contract workers, on October 30. This is in addition to plans to lay off 1,500 workers and 600 contractors announced in July.

On Wednesday, Sprint chairman Masayoshi Son announced that layoffs at the company would be “in the thousands.” Sprint plans to cut spending by $2 billion a year and already cut 3,700 jobs at the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015.

The recently announced mergers of pharmaceutical giants Allergan and Pfizer, pharmacy chains Walgreens and Rite Aid, and health insurers Cigna and Anthem will likely entail job losses down the line as well. These mergers and acquisitions, which result in massive payoffs to Wall Street investors and corporate investments, create the conditions for slashing workers’ wages and benefits, the closure of workplaces and mass layoffs.

Wal-Mart announced last month that its sales for the year would be flat and that earnings per share would decrease next year. Target, meanwhile, announced that it was closing 13 of its stores nationwide, in a move that will likely spell unemployment for most of the workers at the affected locations.

The poor sales figures for Wal-Mart and Target express the worsening financial position of working people amid the decades-long stagnation of wages and continued mass joblessness despite the headline unemployment figure.

Wall Street reacted to the jobs report with a mild selloff early in the day, reflecting fears that if the real economy or employment situation improved, the Federal Reserve would be more likely to raise interest rates in December. Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen said on Wednesday, before the jobs report, that a hike in the key interest rate that month is a “live possibility.”

Despite the better-than-expected jobs figures, the labor force participation rate, an important indicator of the actual job market, remained at its 38-year low of 62.4 percent. In other words, a whopping 37.6 percent of the population is neither employed nor actively seeking work, with many having simply given up on the prospect of finding a decent job.

The latest report comes in the context of a global economic slowdown and other figures pointing to deteriorating economic conditions in the United States. The US economy grew at a mere 1.5 percent annualized rate in the third fiscal quarter of 2015 after a 3.9 percent rate in the second quarter. The World Bank has projected that American GDP will grow 2.7 percent this year, but this has already been revised down from a January estimate of 3.2 percent.

When broken down by sector, the jobs report reveals much more than the headlines suggest. Manufacturing employment was unchanged in October at 12.3 million workers, compared to over 13 million before the financial crisis and recession. In other words, despite the “recovery,” relatively high-paying manufacturing jobs have failed to reach even pre-recession levels, let alone keep pace with population growth.

The positions added in October were overwhelmingly in the service industry, which is dominated by low-wage employment. The sector that hired the most workers was professional and business services, which added 78,000 jobs, followed by health care, which added 44,900, retail, which added 43,800 and leisure and hospitality, which added 41,000 jobs.

The professional and business services sector includes technical, management, administrative, support and waste management services, including custodial, clerical and security staff. Nearly one third of the jobs added in this sector were in temp agencies, which added 24,500 jobs.

The next-largest sector was health care, which includes home health aides in nursing homes, whose median hourly salary was $10.74 in 2014. The retail and leisure and hospitality sectors are notorious for their low wages. Cashiers at grocery stores had a median wage of $10.31 in 2014.

Leisure and hospitality workers made still less, with the median wage of nonsupervisory employees a mere $12.51 per hour and the median workweek only 25 hours. Fast-food cooks earned a median wage of only $9.13 per hour in 2014.

These industry sectors, staffed by underemployed and underpaid workers, represent the “new normal” of the American economy. The recession and subsequent “recovery” resulted in millions of formerly well-paying jobs being axed and replaced with poverty-wage employment. A 2014 report by the National Employment Law Project notes that while US businesses have added 1.85 million low-wage jobs over the past six years, they had eliminated 1.83 million medium-wage and high-wage jobs.

The decades-long stagnation of wages for US workers and the destruction of decent-paying jobs were reflected in a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences. According to the study, the mortality rate of white, middle-aged working-class Americans has dramatically increased since 1999, translating into nearly 100,000 more deaths than if it had remained flat over this period. This increase is largely due to drug overdoses, alcohol abuse and suicides, symptomatic of the social misery and distress that pervades the lives of a growing share of American workers.


Immigration Will be Our Downfall if We Don’t Change By Stan Gudmundson

 The Winona (MN) Post, November 4, 2015
. . .
We have not come to grips with reality. Both Europe and the United States are now being invaded. It is a creeping invasion whose long-term impact is every bit as threatening as a foreign army overrunning us.

Europe continues to bring in Muslims who will not assimilate. Consequently, they are signing a death warrant for European civilization. And so are we with an immigrant population far, far too large to assimilate.

Unless Europeans stop bringing in Muslims and unless they insist that Muslims already in Europe assimilate, Europe’s fall will be inevitable. It will be violent and bloody. Eventually there will be millions of additional refugees fleeing a continent taken over by the laws of Sharia and a primitive ideology almost 1,400 years old.

European countries must slam the door shut on more Muslim immigration. And it has to remain closed until the Muslim world can peacefully get along not only with us but also with each other.

We too have to slam the door shut on illegal immigration and significantly reduce legal immigration here in the United States. Moreover, we require the right to decide who we will take in as citizens.

That doesn’t mean we stop all immigration from Muslim countries. However, those immigrants must be Christians and non-Muslims who this administration seems to pretend don’t exist. These people are being persecuted and killed in extraordinarily vile ways that are virtually beyond comprehension. The survivors, fleeing from Muslim countries, should be welcomed here with open arms.
. . .
http://www.winonapost.com/Article/ArticleID/46418/Immigration-will-be-our-downfall-if-we-dont-change



Obama to Wannabe Illegals: Do as I Say, Not as I Do
By Mark Krikorian

 CIS Blog, October 30, 2015

http://cis.org/krikorian/obama-wannabe-illegals-do-i-say-not-i-do

In response the surge of Central Americans sneaking into Texas in the summer of 2014, the Obama administration launched an ad campaign in the sending countries earlier this year to stem the flow. The radio and TV spots assert that "there are no permits for the people trying to cross the border without papers" and promise "the immediate deportation of those trying to cross the border without documents."

None of it is true. There are permits for illegal-alien minors and families. Formally known as Notices to Appear but known colloquially in Spanish as permisos, they require the aliens to present themselves to immigration authorities by a certain date, until which they have temporary legal status. That gives them time enough to travel to join their relatives and disappear into the existing illegal population. And disappear they do, since, despite the tough promises, virtually none of them are deported, immediately or otherwise.

So it should come as no surprise to read today's AP report, which begins this way:




Once again, President Obama is looking to defy Congress in implementing its immigration reform proposals. This time, his administration is looking to also defy a federal court to achieve it. A judge sitting on the 5th Circuit in Texas issued an...

Obama set to defy federal court on amnesty

Once again, President Obama is looking to defy Congress in implementing its immigration reform proposals.
This time, his administration is looking to also defy a federal court to achieve it.

A judge sitting on the 5th Circuit in Texas issued an injunction last June against the administration's regulatory plans to legalize millions of aliens in the U.S. illegally.  The injunction was upheld by a federal appeals court in Louisiana, and the president's plan is now stalled while the administration works through the federal court system.
Except now there are plans afoot to change the regulations pertaining to green cards that would accomplish almost everything the president can't get from Congress or the courts.  A leaked memo from DHS outlines four plans the administration is considering.
Ian Smith of the Immigration Reform Law Institute:
The internal memo reveals four options of varying expansiveness, with option 1 providing EADs to “all individuals living in the United States”, including illegal aliens, visa-overstayers, and H-1B guest-workers, while option 4 provides EADsonly to those on certain unexpired non-immigrant visas. Giving EADs to any of the covered individuals, however, is in direct violation of Congress’s Immigration & Nationality Act and works to dramatically subvert our carefully wrought visa system. 
As mentioned, the first plan the memo discusses basically entails giving EADs to anyone physically present in the country who until now has been prohibited from getting one. A major positive to this option, the memo reads, is that it would “address the needs of some of the intended deferred action population.” Although DHS doesn’t say it expressly, included here would be those 4.3 million people covered by the president’s DAPA and Expanded DACA programs whose benefits were supposed to have been halted in the Hanen decision. On top of working around the Hanen injunction, this DHS plan would also dole out unrestricted EADs to those on temporary non-immigrant visas, such as H-1B-holders (their work authorizations being tied to their employers) and another 5 to 6 million illegal aliens thus far not covered by any of the President’s deferred action amnesty programs. By claiming absolute authority to grant work authorization to any alien, regardless of status, DHS is in effect claiming it can unilaterally de-couple the 1986 IRCA work authorization statutes from the main body of U.S. visa law. While DHS must still observe the statutory requirements for issuing visas, the emerging doctrine concedes, the administration now claims unprecedented discretionary power to permit anyone inside our borders to work. 
Get a load of what the DHS bureaucrats think about illegals working in the U.S.:
The anonymous DHS policymakers state that a positive for this option is that it “could cover a greater number of individuals.” In a strikingly conclusory bit of bureaucratese, they state that because illegal aliens working in the country “have already had the US labor market tested” it has been “demonstrat[ed] that their future employment won’t adversely affect US workers.” The labor market, in other words, has already been stress-tested through decades of foreign-labor dumping and the American working-class, which disproportionately includes minorities, working mothers, the elderly, and students, is doing just fine. Apparently, the fact that 66 million Americans and legal aliens are currently unemployed or out of the job-market was not a discussion point at the DHS “Retreat.” 
Smith concludes: "Bottom line: The memo foreshadows more tactical offensives in a giant administrative amnesty for all 12 million illegal aliens who’ve broken our immigration laws (and many other laws) that will emerge before the next inaugural in January 2016."
I'm not sure that judge in Texas will let the administration get away with this.  When the government began handing out green cards anyway in defiance of the injunction, the judge, Andrew Hanen, threatened to arrest the lot of them for contempt.  He forced the government to recall the green cards immediately.  There will be no circumventing the law in his court.
But the plans may be untouchable because they don't directly stem from the series of executive orders currently being adjudicated.  Of course, any plan to blanket the country in work permits for illegals will be challenged in court.  But eventually, the administration may find a friendly judge who gives it the go-ahead.
Once again, President Obama is looking to defy Congress in implementing its immigration reform proposals.
This time, his administration is looking to also defy a federal court to achieve it.
A judge sitting on the 5th Circuit in Texas issued an injunction last June against the administration's regulatory plans to legalize millions of aliens in the U.S. illegally.  The injunction was upheld by a federal appeals court in Louisiana, and the president's plan is now stalled while the administration works through the federal court system.
Except now there are plans afoot to change the regulations pertaining to green cards that would accomplish almost everything the president can't get from Congress or the courts.  A leaked memo from DHS outlines four plans the administration is considering.
Ian Smith of the Immigration Reform Law Institute:
The internal memo reveals four options of varying expansiveness, with option 1 providing EADs to “all individuals living in the United States”, including illegal aliens, visa-overstayers, and H-1B guest-workers, while option 4 provides EADsonly to those on certain unexpired non-immigrant visas. Giving EADs to any of the covered individuals, however, is in direct violation of Congress’s Immigration & Nationality Act and works to dramatically subvert our carefully wrought visa system. 
As mentioned, the first plan the memo discusses basically entails giving EADs to anyone physically present in the country who until now has been prohibited from getting one. A major positive to this option, the memo reads, is that it would “address the needs of some of the intended deferred action population.” Although DHS doesn’t say it expressly, included here would be those 4.3 million people covered by the president’s DAPA and Expanded DACA programs whose benefits were supposed to have been halted in the Hanen decision. On top of working around the Hanen injunction, this DHS plan would also dole out unrestricted EADs to those on temporary non-immigrant visas, such as H-1B-holders (their work authorizations being tied to their employers) and another 5 to 6 million illegal aliens thus far not covered by any of the President’s deferred action amnesty programs. By claiming absolute authority to grant work authorization to any alien, regardless of status, DHS is in effect claiming it can unilaterally de-couple the 1986 IRCA work authorization statutes from the main body of U.S. visa law. While DHS must still observe the statutory requirements for issuing visas, the emerging doctrine concedes, the administration now claims unprecedented discretionary power to permit anyone inside our borders to work. 
Get a load of what the DHS bureaucrats think about illegals working in the U.S.:
The anonymous DHS policymakers state that a positive for this option is that it “could cover a greater number of individuals.” In a strikingly conclusory bit of bureaucratese, they state that because illegal aliens working in the country “have already had the US labor market tested” it has been “demonstrat[ed] that their future employment won’t adversely affect US workers.” The labor market, in other words, has already been stress-tested through decades of foreign-labor dumping and the American working-class, which disproportionately includes minorities, working mothers, the elderly, and students, is doing just fine. Apparently, the fact that 66 million Americans and legal aliens are currently unemployed or out of the job-market was not a discussion point at the DHS “Retreat.” 
Smith concludes: "Bottom line: The memo foreshadows more tactical offensives in a giant administrative amnesty for all 12 million illegal aliens who’ve broken our immigration laws (and many other laws) that will emerge before the next inaugural in January 2016."
I'm not sure that judge in Texas will let the administration get away with this.  When the government began handing out green cards anyway in defiance of the injunction, the judge, Andrew Hanen, threatened to arrest the lot of them for contempt.  He forced the government to recall the green cards immediately.  There will be no circumventing the law in his court.
But the plans may be untouchable because they don't directly stem from the series of executive orders currently being adjudicated.  Of course, any plan to blanket the country in work permits for illegals will be challenged in court.  But eventually, the administration may find a friendly judge who gives it the go-ahead.


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/11/obama_set_to_defy_federal_court_on_amnesty.html#ixzz3qSG6XCr3
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TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND BUILD THEIR LA RAZA "The Race" MEXICAN ILLEGAL PARTY BASE, THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HAS RUTHLESSLY ASSAULTED THE AMERICAN WORKER, OUR LAWS ON HIRING ILLEGALS AND OUR BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED.



"The U.S. now ranks at, or near, the top of developed countries for income inequality. Job creation has lagged far behind population growth. Automation has erased some jobs, but corrupt, inept government leadership is responsible for the deplorable job- deficit-low wage situation." 

"The federal government encourages the massive illegal and legal immigration that plays a huge role in job scarcity and income suppression for American workers. To paraphrase Milton Friedman, a viable economy cannot exist with open borders and unrestricted immigration. An oversupply of workers willing to work for less pay, the outsourcing of jobs, and visa-immigrant hiring allow companies to replace American workers with immigrants for reduced labor and benefit costs."



Income inequality has risen during the last several decades to heights last seen in the 1920s. Most of the income growth has gone to a small fraction of the population, the ultra-rich elites, while real wages for the bottom 90 percent ...

The Causes of Income Inequality

Income inequality has risen during the last several decades to heights last seen in the 1920s. Most of the income growth has gone to a small fraction of the population, the ultra-rich elites, while real wages for the bottom 90 percent has been stagnant since the 1980s. The U.S. now ranks at, or near, the top of developed countries for income inequality. Job creation has lagged far behind population growth. Automation has erased some jobs, but corrupt, inept government leadership is responsible for the deplorable job- deficit-low wage situation.    

Trade agreements are one cause of job and wage reduction. Over the last twenty years, we’ve amassed $10 trillion in trade deficits and exported 12 million manufacturing jobs, forcing workers to move into lower-wage service jobs. Government brags about the free trade agreements, CAFTA, NAFTA, KORUS, and TPP. But the “free” applies only to the foreign trading partners, which manipulate their currencies, pay sweatshop workers low wages, manufacture under environmentally-toxic conditions, and restrict U.S. imports. We hand over our technology, good-paying jobs, product labeling, and safety guarantees -- all to enrich multinational corporations and foreign industry. Industrial research and development have been decimated as companies move overseas or outsource jobs, leaving the nation a future of little technological innovation. The U.S. is left with hollowed-out industries and service jobs. 

The federal government encourages the massive illegal and legal immigration that plays a huge role in job scarcity and income suppression for American workers. To paraphrase Milton Friedman, a viable economy cannot exist with open borders and unrestricted immigration. An oversupply of workers willing to work for less pay, the outsourcing of jobs, and visa-immigrant hiring allow companies to replace American workers with immigrants for reduced labor and benefit costs. A well-known example is that of Disney IT workers who were forced to train their cheaper immigrant replacements. It is no coincidence that the rise in immigration has occurred simultaneously with the rise of the welfare state. People unemployed, or in low-wage and part-time jobs, rely on government subsidies. The result is larger national debt, more corporate wealth, and declining wages.

ObamaCare influences, and will influence to greater degrees, the lowering of incomes for Americans as healthcare costs rise. Higher premiums and deductions for health insurance are being shifted to employees, reducing benefits and wages. Medical care costs already have risen much faster than wages, leaving many struggling to pay for necessities. Ever-higher deductions mean that people can’t afford to use the insurance they are forced to buy because they can’t even pay the deductions.        

Another contributor to job deficiency and wage stagnation is the increased regulation and taxation of small businesses instituted by Obama’s executive orders, EPA overreach, and ObamaCare. Small businesses traditionally have created two-thirds of new jobs annually. The bright spot in the economy, small businesses have created 78.7 percent of new jobs since the recession. Today, faced with these government anti-business policies, small businesses are closing their doors at a faster rate than new businesses are opening. The small businesses that remain open often don’t expand because of Obamacare and government regulations.

Income inequality is greatly impacted by the Federal Reserve’s policies of money-printing and zero interest rates, which have led to the funding of the financial and corporate markets while ignoring the needs of smaller businesses. The money supply and cheap lending has gone to the government, large corporations, and Wall Street, leaving the rest of the economy to sputter along with little capital and fewer jobs. The Fed’s policies of crony capitalism favor big business and big banks over that of smaller entities and are responsible for the increasing number of big business deals such as Walgreen's purchase of Rite Aid.


DEATH OF THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS

This government-driven, crony-capitalist economy defined by job scarcity and wage stagnation is the reason college graduates are burdened by $1.3 trillion debt, living with parents, can’t afford to marry or buy homes, and working as waitresses and bartenders. Job scarcity and low wages are the reasons we’re becoming a nation of renters rather than homeowners. They are the reasons that 51 percent of workers earn less than $30,000 a year. They are the reasons for the demise of the middle class and the burgeoning welfare rolls, the modern-day equivalent of slavery.    

Income inequality and its devastating consequences are seldom mentioned on the nightly news. The media and bogus government statistics paint rosy pictures about economic recovery, and government masks the bad economy with welfare so that we don’t see Great Depression bread lines. But the only recovery has been in the Federal Reserve’s inflated stock market, not in the main street economy, where 94 million working-age adults are unemployed and 47 million are on some welfare program. The “Made in America” displays weekly touted by ABC news are the few exceptions, rather than the rule, in an American economy of boarded-up stores and factories.    
The political implications of income inequality are most evident in the increasing rise and entrenchment of career politicians, supported by big donor funding and media favoritism. The integrity of the electoral process is endangered as election propaganda, funded by big money and hyped by corporate media bias, become more prominent in spreading lies, distortions, and innuendos to the voting public. Unrestricted campaign funding has given the moneyed elites first access to elected officials. At the same time, private-sector unions, small businesses, and citizens find their influence dwindling or irrelevant. This crony capitalism, resembling dictatorships and communist oligarchies, seriously threatens our democracy because money, power, and media control are consolidated in the hands of a few at the top. Voter apathy prevails, as voters feel increasingly powerless to change the course of events. 

The United States, a once great economic powerhouse and the largest creditor nation, has become the largest debtor nation, and is fast becoming a banana republic. Past and present elected authorities and public officials have stripped bare our industries, put the nation under a mountain of debt, and turned the U.S. into a welfare depository. Government leaders have intentionally failed to protect our borders, jobs, and freedoms. These public “servants” and the wealthy elites have garnered riches for themselves, and purposely impoverished citizens and future generations. The greatest threats to our economy and national security are not foreign countries or terrorists; they are the enemies inside, corrupt government leaders and the money masters they serve. 
Income inequality has risen during the last several decades to heights last seen in the 1920s. Most of the income growth has gone to a small fraction of the population, the ultra-rich elites, while real wages for the bottom 90 percent has been stagnant since the 1980s. The U.S. now ranks at, or near, the top of developed countries for income inequality. Job creation has lagged far behind population growth. Automation has erased some jobs, but corrupt, inept government leadership is responsible for the deplorable job- deficit-low wage situation.    

Trade agreements are one cause of job and wage reduction. Over the last twenty years, we’ve amassed $10 trillion in trade deficits and exported 12 million manufacturing jobs, forcing workers to move into lower-wage service jobs. Government brags about the free trade agreements, CAFTA, NAFTA, KORUS, and TPP. But the “free” applies only to the foreign trading partners, which manipulate their currencies, pay sweatshop workers low wages, manufacture under environmentally-toxic conditions, and restrict U.S. imports. We hand over our technology, good-paying jobs, product labeling, and safety guarantees -- all to enrich multinational corporations and foreign industry. Industrial research and development have been decimated as companies move overseas or outsource jobs, leaving the nation a future of little technological innovation. The U.S. is left with hollowed-out industries and service jobs. 
The federal government encourages the massive illegal and legal immigration that plays a huge role in job scarcity and income suppression for American workers. To paraphrase Milton Friedman, a viable economy cannot exist with open borders and unrestricted immigration. An oversupply of workers willing to work for less pay, the outsourcing of jobs, and visa-immigrant hiring allow companies to replace American workers with immigrants for reduced labor and benefit costs. A well-known example is that of Disney IT workers who were forced to train their cheaper immigrant replacements. It is no coincidence that the rise in immigration has occurred simultaneously with the rise of the welfare state. People unemployed, or in low-wage and part-time jobs, rely on government subsidies. The result is larger national debt, more corporate wealth, and declining wages.

ObamaCare influences, and will influence to greater degrees, the lowering of incomes for Americans as healthcare costs rise. Higher premiums and deductions for health insurance are being shifted to employees, reducing benefits and wages. Medical care costs already have risen much faster than wages, leaving many struggling to pay for necessities. Ever-higher deductions mean that people can’t afford to use the insurance they are forced to buy because they can’t even pay the deductions.        

Another contributor to job deficiency and wage stagnation is the increased regulation and taxation of small businesses instituted by Obama’s executive orders, EPA overreach, and ObamaCare. Small businesses traditionally have created two-thirds of new jobs annually. The bright spot in the economy, small businesses have created 78.7 percent of new jobs since the recession. Today, faced with these government anti-business policies, small businesses are closing their doors at a faster rate than new businesses are opening. The small businesses that remain open often don’t expand because of Obamacare and government regulations.

Income inequality is greatly impacted by the Federal Reserve’s policies of money-printing and zero interest rates, which have led to the funding of the financial and corporate markets while ignoring the needs of smaller businesses. The money supply and cheap lending has gone to the government, large corporations, and Wall Street, leaving the rest of the economy to sputter along with little capital and fewer jobs. The Fed’s policies of crony capitalism favor big business and big banks over that of smaller entities and are responsible for the increasing number of big business deals such as Walgreen's purchase of Rite Aid.

This government-driven, crony-capitalist economy defined by job scarcity and wage stagnation is the reason college graduates are burdened by $1.3 trillion debt, living with parents, can’t afford to marry or buy homes, and working as waitresses and bartenders. Job scarcity and low wages are the reasons we’re becoming a nation of renters rather than homeowners. They are the reasons that 51 percent of workers earn less than $30,000 a year. They are the reasons for the demise of the middle class and the burgeoning welfare rolls, the modern-day equivalent of slavery.    

Income inequality and its devastating consequences are seldom mentioned on the nightly news. The media and bogus government statistics paint rosy pictures about economic recovery, and government masks the bad economy with welfare so that we don’t see Great Depression bread lines. But the only recovery has been in the Federal Reserve’s inflated stock market, not in the main street economy, where 94 million working-age adults are unemployed and 47 million are on some welfare program. The “Made in America” displays weekly touted by ABC news are the few exceptions, rather than the rule, in an American economy of boarded-up stores and factories.    
The political implications of income inequality are most evident in the increasing rise and entrenchment of career politicians, supported by big donor funding and media favoritism. The integrity of the electoral process is endangered as election propaganda, funded by big money and hyped by corporate media bias, become more prominent in spreading lies, distortions, and innuendos to the voting public. Unrestricted campaign funding has given the moneyed elites first access to elected officials. At the same time, private-sector unions, small businesses, and citizens find their influence dwindling or irrelevant. This crony capitalism, resembling dictatorships and communist oligarchies, seriously threatens our democracy because money, power, and media control are consolidated in the hands of a few at the top. Voter apathy prevails, as voters feel increasingly powerless to change the course of events. 

The United States, a once great economic powerhouse and the largest creditor nation, has become the largest debtor nation, and is fast becoming a banana republic. Past and present elected authorities and public officials have stripped bare our industries, put the nation under a mountain of debt, and turned the U.S. into a welfare depository. Government leaders have intentionally failed to protect our borders, jobs, and freedoms. These public “servants” and the wealthy elites have garnered riches for themselves, and purposely impoverished citizens and future generations. The greatest threats to our economy and national security are not foreign countries or terrorists; they are the enemies inside, corrupt government leaders and the money masters they serve. 


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/11/the_causes_of_income_inequality.html#ixzz3qSBDYQVs
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook



Feds Lose Track of Most Border-Surge Teens After Release

By Jessica Vaughan

CIS Blog, November 5, 2015

http://cis.org/vaughan/feds-lose-track-most-border-surge-teens-after-release

Excerpt: New information from a variety of sources further demonstrates that the Obama administration's handling of the continuing influx of illegal Central American family and youth border-crossers has been nothing short of a disaster. Government agencies and NGO contractors have lost track of most of the youth who have been released (or escaped) from shelters. Immigration court records show that about half of the "unaccompanied" alien children (UACs) do not appear for immigration court hearings. A recent murder of one UAC in Virginia by three others is a reminder that some of the kids are involved in gangs. And, because we let them, they keep coming; the number of new arrivals spiked again at the end of the summer, with twice as many Central American youth and families arriving in September 2015 as arrived in September 2014.

No single government agency has been given the responsibility for tracking the UAC and family arrivals. As a result, the statistics that have been published by different sources may have slightly different numbers, depending on the time period covered and how they are counted.


Stopping the Flow of Illegal Immigrants

 National Review Online, November 13, 2015

 Estimates from the Center for Migration Studies and the Pew Research Center show that, of the 11 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States, approximately 2.5 million arrived after Barack Obama’s inauguration. Yet the overall number of illegal immigrants in the country has remained fairly static, meaning that illegal immigrants have been coming and going in about equal numbers. Why? Because, contrary to much political rhetoric, many illegal immigrants are not here to stay, and so are very sensitive to incentives: When the prospect of profitable work outweighs the risk of falling afoul of law enforcement, they come; when it doesn’t, they leave.
. . .
It is crucial, though, that we end the flow of illegal immigrants across our borders before dealing with those already here — otherwise, an amnesty will inevitably only draw the next population of illegal immigrants. To that end, a Republican administration should, among other things, seek to erect physical barriers along the southern border, end catch-and-release policies, and work with Congress to defund sanctuary cities.

Only after enforcement measures such as E-Verify are fully implemented and the illegal population has been actually declining should any other major measures be considered. We’re always told that it is urgent to bring illegal immigrants “out of the shadows.” But the plight of illegal immigrants is no more urgent now than it was a few years ago, or a few years before that.
. . .
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/427000/illegal-immigration-modest-but-comprehensive-solution-editors

BEN CARSON - MEXICO'S CHOICE AS SUCCESSOR TO BARACK OBAMA'S AMNESTY TO LEGALIZE MEXICO'S LOOTNG AND EXPAND THE LA RAZA "The Race" WELFARE STATE ON OUR BACKS

Carson’s Position on Illegals Looks Like They Are Due Citizenship as a “Tip” for Services Rendered

 By Kevin Collins

 CoachIsRight.com


November 6, 2015
. . .
In his campaign material Carson asks, “Is it moral for us, for example, to take advantage of cheap labor from illegal immigrants while denying them citizenship? I’m sure you can tell from the way I phrased the question that I believe we have taken the moral low road on this issue. Some segments of our economy would virtually collapse without these undocumented workers–we all know that–yet we continue to harass ILLEGALS AND BORDER and deport many individuals who are simply seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Is there a way to apply logic to this issue and arrive at an intelligent solution?

Taking a position like this is a strong indicator that Carson would be easily manipulated by the wolves in Washington who want no borders and all the cheap labor they can get regardless of what that will do to our country.
. . .
http://www.coachisright.com/carsons-position-on-illegals-looks-like-they-are-due-citizenship-as-a-tip-for-services-rendered/



Obama Continues To Rule By Executive Order, Will Bring Waves of Illegal into U.S.

By Suzanne Eovaldi

November 5, 2015

The way to the White House leads through Florida and with waves of illegal immigrants continuing to pour into the Sunshine State, Rubio and Bush will have a tough time garnering support from voters. The media was reported to have muted the favorable cheers for Trump at his Jacksonville rally while also refusing to display pics of the sizeable audience. But no matter how hard they try, they are unlikely to stop Trump because he knows THE PEOPLE; how to talk with them, what matters to them and how to address their likes and concerns.
. . .
http://www.coachisright.com/obama-continues-to-rule-by-executive-order-will-bring-waves-of-illegals-into-u-s/

U.S. Congress Filled With Corrupt Career Politicians


 By Frosty Wooldridge

NewsWithViews.com, November 6, 2015

 . . . Not in any particular order: U.S. Senator John McCain continues to serve in Congress for the citizens of Arizona for the past 30 years. He signed the 1986 Immigration Amnesty that allowed 4.3 million illegal aliens to gain citizenship. He promised it would never happen again. Twenty nine years later, we suffer from and pay for endless robberies, killings, drunken driving, ruined schools, anchor babies and medical care for 20 to 31 million illegal aliens and their families. McCain did nothing to stop the invasion. He voted to fund the bogus Iraq War, which the Military Industrial Complex along with bankers, created out of thin air. He watched Arizona’s borders become overrun with illegal migrants to the point that the governor called for a federal “state of emergency” to stop them. With over 240 “sanctuary cities” harboring illegal aliens against ICE officers, we American citizens can be killed while criminal aliens enjoy sanctuary. Kate Steinle died because San Francisco’s mayor and California’s two U.S. Senators Feinstein and Boxer support all illegal immigration and sanctuary cities. Let’s examine U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein of California. Both support illegal immigration. Both support sanctuary cities. Both support the war in Afghanistan for the past 14 years with NO results of stopping terrorism. Their state houses 3 to 4 million illegal aliens wreaking havoc in California’s schools, prisons, hospitals and communities. Gangs, drugs and killings grow as their numbers grow.

What do Boxer and Feinstein do? Answer: nothing for the past 20 years.

Let’s go to New York with U.S. Senator Charles Schumer. He voted for “free trade” that created our $1.3 trillion debt with China. He supported offshoring, insourcing and outsourcing of American jobs that created 10 million jobless Americans. He voted against mandating controls on illegal aliens which gave the 19 Muslim hijackers driver’s licenses that allowed them to train and walk onto our planes to create 9/11.


 . . .http://www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty1094.htm



Immigration Will be Our Downfall if We Don’t Change

 By Stan Gudmundson

 The Winona (MN) Post, November 4, 2015
. . .
We have not come to grips with reality. Both Europe and the United States are now being invaded. It is a creeping invasion whose long-term impact is every bit as threatening as a foreign army overrunning us.

Europe continues to bring in Muslims who will not assimilate. Consequently, they are signing a death warrant for European civilization. And so are we with an immigrant population far, far too large to assimilate.

Unless Europeans stop bringing in Muslims and unless they insist that Muslims already in Europe assimilate, Europe’s fall will be inevitable. It will be violent and bloody. Eventually there will be millions of additional refugees fleeing a continent taken over by the laws of Sharia and a primitive ideology almost 1,400 years old.

European countries must slam the door shut on more Muslim immigration. And it has to remain closed until the Muslim world can peacefully get along not only with us but also with each other.

We too have to slam the door shut on illegal immigration and significantly reduce legal immigration here in the United States. Moreover, we require the right to decide who we will take in as citizens.

That doesn’t mean we stop all immigration from Muslim countries. However, those immigrants must be Christians and non-Muslims who this administration seems to pretend don’t exist. These people are being persecuted and killed in extraordinarily vile ways that are virtually beyond comprehension. The survivors, fleeing from Muslim countries, should be welcomed here with open arms.
. . .
http://www.winonapost.com/Article/ArticleID/46418/Immigration-will-be-our-downfall-if-we-dont-change


U.S. Seals Another Deal to Protect Illegal Aliens’ “Workplace Rights”


Judicial Watch Corruption Chronicles, November 6, 2015

In a final push to ensure the “workplace rights” of illegal immigrants in the U.S., the Obama administration continues to sign pacts with foreign countries guaranteeing to protect their nationals from discrimination on the job.

This month its Ecuador’s turn and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination laws, is sealing the deal. In past years the Department of Labor (DOL) has executed similar agreements with an assortment of countries, including Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and India. In fact, under Obama’s first Labor Secretary, former California Congresswoman and influential La Raza figure Hilda Solis, the DOL signed a number of these “partnership agreements” vowing to protect illegal aliens working in the U.S.

Solis even created a special division at the DOL to enforce labor and wage laws in industries that typically hire illegal aliens without reporting anyone to federal immigration authorities. Protecting the workplace rights of “vulnerable” migrants was a big priority at the agency under her leadership. During a ceremony to celebrate pacts with several foreign countries Solis said that “migrant workers make important contributions to our economy,” and that the deals will “help ensure these workers are aware of the right to safe workplaces and to receive full payment of the wages owed to them under the laws of the United States.”

. . .
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/11/u-s-seals-another-deal-to-protect-illegal-aliens-workplace-rights/



“Positive” US jobs report belied by mass layoffs


"The decades-long stagnation of wages for US workers and the destruction of decent-paying jobs were reflected in a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences. According to the study, the mortality rate of white, middle-aged working-class Americans has dramatically increased since 1999, translating into nearly 100,000 more deaths than if it had remained flat over this period. This increase is largely due to drug overdoses, alcohol abuse and suicides, symptomatic of the social misery and distress that pervades the lives of a growing share of American workers."

“Positive” US jobs report belied by mass layoffs

By Josh Varlin
7 November 2015
The US economy added 271,000 jobs in October, according to the latest jobs report by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Media commentators hailed the jobs figure, which was higher than economists’ predictions of about 180,000 jobs, as “stellar,” “off the charts” and “sizzling.” Unemployment fell to 5 percent, the lowest level since April 2008.

October’s report comes following lackluster figures in September and August, in which the US economy added only 137,000 and 153,000 jobs, respectively. President Barack Obama praised the jobs report in a speech Friday, declaring “Our businesses created 268,000 new jobs last month. They’ve created 13.5 million new jobs over the past 68 straight months—the longest streak on record.”

A recent wave of mass layoff announcements, however, belies the official triumphalism by the media and political establishment. The Kraft Heinz Company announced on November 4 that it was closing 7 factories across the country, thereby axing 2,600 jobs over the next two years, in addition to 2,500 jobs that were cut in August. Oscar Mayer, a subsidiary of Kraft Heinz, will lose its Madison, Wisconsin plant in the layoffs, affecting 1,200 workers in a medium-sized city. The layoffs are the direct result of the Merger of Kraft and Heinz announced in March.

GE Transportation announced 1,500 layoffs at its Erie, Pennsylvania locomotive production facility on November 6, pointing to low locomotive demand and falling commodity prices. The layoffs will affect mostly skilled workers. Chevron announced layoffs totaling between 6,000 and 7,000 jobs, along with a “similar” number of contract workers, on October 30. This is in addition to plans to lay off 1,500 workers and 600 contractors announced in July.

On Wednesday, Sprint chairman Masayoshi Son announced that layoffs at the company would be “in the thousands.” Sprint plans to cut spending by $2 billion a year and already cut 3,700 jobs at the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015.

The recently announced mergers of pharmaceutical giants Allergan and Pfizer, pharmacy chains Walgreens and Rite Aid, and health insurers Cigna and Anthem will likely entail job losses down the line as well. These mergers and acquisitions, which result in massive payoffs to Wall Street investors and corporate investments, create the conditions for slashing workers’ wages and benefits, the closure of workplaces and mass layoffs.

Wal-Mart announced last month that its sales for the year would be flat and that earnings per share would decrease next year. Target, meanwhile, announced that it was closing 13 of its stores nationwide, in a move that will likely spell unemployment for most of the workers at the affected locations.

The poor sales figures for Wal-Mart and Target express the worsening financial position of working people amid the decades-long stagnation of wages and continued mass joblessness despite the headline unemployment figure.

Wall Street reacted to the jobs report with a mild selloff early in the day, reflecting fears that if the real economy or employment situation improved, the Federal Reserve would be more likely to raise interest rates in December. Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen said on Wednesday, before the jobs report, that a hike in the key interest rate that month is a “live possibility.”

Despite the better-than-expected jobs figures, the labor force participation rate, an important indicator of the actual job market, remained at its 38-year low of 62.4 percent. In other words, a whopping 37.6 percent of the population is neither employed nor actively seeking work, with many having simply given up on the prospect of finding a decent job.

The latest report comes in the context of a global economic slowdown and other figures pointing to deteriorating economic conditions in the United States. The US economy grew at a mere 1.5 percent annualized rate in the third fiscal quarter of 2015 after a 3.9 percent rate in the second quarter. The World Bank has projected that American GDP will grow 2.7 percent this year, but this has already been revised down from a January estimate of 3.2 percent.

When broken down by sector, the jobs report reveals much more than the headlines suggest. Manufacturing employment was unchanged in October at 12.3 million workers, compared to over 13 million before the financial crisis and recession. In other words, despite the “recovery,” relatively high-paying manufacturing jobs have failed to reach even pre-recession levels, let alone keep pace with population growth.

The positions added in October were overwhelmingly in the service industry, which is dominated by low-wage employment. The sector that hired the most workers was professional and business services, which added 78,000 jobs, followed by health care, which added 44,900, retail, which added 43,800 and leisure and hospitality, which added 41,000 jobs.

The professional and business services sector includes technical, management, administrative, support and waste management services, including custodial, clerical and security staff. Nearly one third of the jobs added in this sector were in temp agencies, which added 24,500 jobs.

The next-largest sector was health care, which includes home health aides in nursing homes, whose median hourly salary was $10.74 in 2014. The retail and leisure and hospitality sectors are notorious for their low wages. Cashiers at grocery stores had a median wage of $10.31 in 2014.

Leisure and hospitality workers made still less, with the median wage of nonsupervisory employees a mere $12.51 per hour and the median workweek only 25 hours. Fast-food cooks earned a median wage of only $9.13 per hour in 2014.

These industry sectors, staffed by underemployed and underpaid workers, represent the “new normal” of the American economy. The recession and subsequent “recovery” resulted in millions of formerly well-paying jobs being axed and replaced with poverty-wage employment. A 2014 report by the National Employment Law Project notes that while US businesses have added 1.85 million low-wage jobs over the past six years, they had eliminated 1.83 million medium-wage and high-wage jobs.

The decades-long stagnation of wages for US workers and the destruction of decent-paying jobs were reflected in a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences. According to the study, the mortality rate of white, middle-aged working-class Americans has dramatically increased since 1999, translating into nearly 100,000 more deaths than if it had remained flat over this period. This increase is largely due to drug overdoses, alcohol abuse and suicides, symptomatic of the social misery and distress that pervades the lives of a growing share of American workers.

FROSTY WOOLDRIDGE - HOUSE OF WHORES - HOW CORRUPT POLITICIANS LIKE SENS. JOHN McCAIN, FEINSTEIN and BOXER ARE DESTROYING AMERICA AND TURNING US INTO A LOOTED COLONY of MEXICO



U.S. Congress Filled With Corrupt Career Politicians


 By Frosty Wooldridge

NewsWithViews.com, November 6, 2015

 . . . Not in any particular order: U.S. Senator John McCain continues to serve in Congress for the citizens of Arizona for the past 30 years. He signed the 1986 Immigration Amnesty that allowed 4.3 million illegal aliens to gain citizenship. He promised it would never happen again. Twenty nine years later, we suffer from and pay for endless robberies, killings, drunken driving, ruined schools, anchor babies and medical care for 20 to 31 million illegal aliens and their families. McCain did nothing to stop the invasion. He voted to fund the bogus Iraq War, which the Military Industrial Complex along with bankers, created out of thin air. He watched Arizona’s borders become overrun with illegal migrants to the point that the governor called for a federal “state of emergency” to stop them. With over 240 “sanctuary cities” harboring illegal aliens against ICE officers, we American citizens can be killed while criminal aliens enjoy sanctuary. Kate Steinle died because San Francisco’s mayor and California’s two U.S. Senators Feinstein and Boxer support all illegal immigration and sanctuary cities. Let’s examine U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein of California. Both support illegal immigration. Both support sanctuary cities. Both support the war in Afghanistan for the past 14 years with NO results of stopping terrorism. Their state houses 3 to 4 million illegal aliens wreaking havoc in California’s schools, prisons, hospitals and communities. Gangs, drugs and killings grow as their numbers grow.

What do Boxer and Feinstein do? Answer: nothing for the past 20 years.

Let’s go to New York with U.S. Senator Charles Schumer. He voted for “free trade” that created our $1.3 trillion debt with China. He supported offshoring, insourcing and outsourcing of American jobs that created 10 million jobless Americans. He voted against mandating controls on illegal aliens which gave the 19 Muslim hijackers driver’s licenses that allowed them to train and walk onto our planes to create 9/11.


 . . .http://www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty1094.htm



Immigration Will be Our Downfall if We Don’t Change

 By Stan Gudmundson

 The Winona (MN) Post, November 4, 2015
. . .
We have not come to grips with reality. Both Europe and the United States are now being invaded. It is a creeping invasion whose long-term impact is every bit as threatening as a foreign army overrunning us.

Europe continues to bring in Muslims who will not assimilate. Consequently, they are signing a death warrant for European civilization. And so are we with an immigrant population far, far too large to assimilate.

Unless Europeans stop bringing in Muslims and unless they insist that Muslims already in Europe assimilate, Europe’s fall will be inevitable. It will be violent and bloody. Eventually there will be millions of additional refugees fleeing a continent taken over by the laws of Sharia and a primitive ideology almost 1,400 years old.

European countries must slam the door shut on more Muslim immigration. And it has to remain closed until the Muslim world can peacefully get along not only with us but also with each other.

We too have to slam the door shut on illegal immigration and significantly reduce legal immigration here in the United States. Moreover, we require the right to decide who we will take in as citizens.

That doesn’t mean we stop all immigration from Muslim countries. However, those immigrants must be Christians and non-Muslims who this administration seems to pretend don’t exist. These people are being persecuted and killed in extraordinarily vile ways that are virtually beyond comprehension. The survivors, fleeing from Muslim countries, should be welcomed here with open arms.
. . .
http://www.winonapost.com/Article/ArticleID/46418/Immigration-will-be-our-downfall-if-we-dont-change


U.S. Seals Another Deal to Protect Illegal Aliens’ “Workplace Rights”


Judicial Watch Corruption Chronicles, November 6, 2015

In a final push to ensure the “workplace rights” of illegal immigrants in the U.S., the Obama administration continues to sign pacts with foreign countries guaranteeing to protect their nationals from discrimination on the job.

This month its Ecuador’s turn and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination laws, is sealing the deal. In past years the Department of Labor (DOL) has executed similar agreements with an assortment of countries, including Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and India. In fact, under Obama’s first Labor Secretary, former California Congresswoman and influential La Raza figure Hilda Solis, the DOL signed a number of these “partnership agreements” vowing to protect illegal aliens working in the U.S.

Solis even created a special division at the DOL to enforce labor and wage laws in industries that typically hire illegal aliens without reporting anyone to federal immigration authorities. Protecting the workplace rights of “vulnerable” migrants was a big priority at the agency under her leadership. During a ceremony to celebrate pacts with several foreign countries Solis said that “migrant workers make important contributions to our economy,” and that the deals will “help ensure these workers are aware of the right to safe workplaces and to receive full payment of the wages owed to them under the laws of the United States.”

. . .
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/11/u-s-seals-another-deal-to-protect-illegal-aliens-workplace-rights/



“Positive” US jobs report belied by mass layoffs


"The decades-long stagnation of wages for US workers and the destruction of decent-paying jobs were reflected in a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences. According to the study, the mortality rate of white, middle-aged working-class Americans has dramatically increased since 1999, translating into nearly 100,000 more deaths than if it had remained flat over this period. This increase is largely due to drug overdoses, alcohol abuse and suicides, symptomatic of the social misery and distress that pervades the lives of a growing share of American workers."

“Positive” US jobs report belied by mass layoffs

By Josh Varlin
7 November 2015
The US economy added 271,000 jobs in October, according to the latest jobs report by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Media commentators hailed the jobs figure, which was higher than economists’ predictions of about 180,000 jobs, as “stellar,” “off the charts” and “sizzling.” Unemployment fell to 5 percent, the lowest level since April 2008.

October’s report comes following lackluster figures in September and August, in which the US economy added only 137,000 and 153,000 jobs, respectively. President Barack Obama praised the jobs report in a speech Friday, declaring “Our businesses created 268,000 new jobs last month. They’ve created 13.5 million new jobs over the past 68 straight months—the longest streak on record.”

A recent wave of mass layoff announcements, however, belies the official triumphalism by the media and political establishment. The Kraft Heinz Company announced on November 4 that it was closing 7 factories across the country, thereby axing 2,600 jobs over the next two years, in addition to 2,500 jobs that were cut in August. Oscar Mayer, a subsidiary of Kraft Heinz, will lose its Madison, Wisconsin plant in the layoffs, affecting 1,200 workers in a medium-sized city. The layoffs are the direct result of the Merger of Kraft and Heinz announced in March.

GE Transportation announced 1,500 layoffs at its Erie, Pennsylvania locomotive production facility on November 6, pointing to low locomotive demand and falling commodity prices. The layoffs will affect mostly skilled workers. Chevron announced layoffs totaling between 6,000 and 7,000 jobs, along with a “similar” number of contract workers, on October 30. This is in addition to plans to lay off 1,500 workers and 600 contractors announced in July.

On Wednesday, Sprint chairman Masayoshi Son announced that layoffs at the company would be “in the thousands.” Sprint plans to cut spending by $2 billion a year and already cut 3,700 jobs at the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015.

The recently announced mergers of pharmaceutical giants Allergan and Pfizer, pharmacy chains Walgreens and Rite Aid, and health insurers Cigna and Anthem will likely entail job losses down the line as well. These mergers and acquisitions, which result in massive payoffs to Wall Street investors and corporate investments, create the conditions for slashing workers’ wages and benefits, the closure of workplaces and mass layoffs.

Wal-Mart announced last month that its sales for the year would be flat and that earnings per share would decrease next year. Target, meanwhile, announced that it was closing 13 of its stores nationwide, in a move that will likely spell unemployment for most of the workers at the affected locations.

The poor sales figures for Wal-Mart and Target express the worsening financial position of working people amid the decades-long stagnation of wages and continued mass joblessness despite the headline unemployment figure.

Wall Street reacted to the jobs report with a mild selloff early in the day, reflecting fears that if the real economy or employment situation improved, the Federal Reserve would be more likely to raise interest rates in December. Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen said on Wednesday, before the jobs report, that a hike in the key interest rate that month is a “live possibility.”

Despite the better-than-expected jobs figures, the labor force participation rate, an important indicator of the actual job market, remained at its 38-year low of 62.4 percent. In other words, a whopping 37.6 percent of the population is neither employed nor actively seeking work, with many having simply given up on the prospect of finding a decent job.

The latest report comes in the context of a global economic slowdown and other figures pointing to deteriorating economic conditions in the United States. The US economy grew at a mere 1.5 percent annualized rate in the third fiscal quarter of 2015 after a 3.9 percent rate in the second quarter. The World Bank has projected that American GDP will grow 2.7 percent this year, but this has already been revised down from a January estimate of 3.2 percent.

When broken down by sector, the jobs report reveals much more than the headlines suggest. Manufacturing employment was unchanged in October at 12.3 million workers, compared to over 13 million before the financial crisis and recession. In other words, despite the “recovery,” relatively high-paying manufacturing jobs have failed to reach even pre-recession levels, let alone keep pace with population growth.

The positions added in October were overwhelmingly in the service industry, which is dominated by low-wage employment. The sector that hired the most workers was professional and business services, which added 78,000 jobs, followed by health care, which added 44,900, retail, which added 43,800 and leisure and hospitality, which added 41,000 jobs.

The professional and business services sector includes technical, management, administrative, support and waste management services, including custodial, clerical and security staff. Nearly one third of the jobs added in this sector were in temp agencies, which added 24,500 jobs.

The next-largest sector was health care, which includes home health aides in nursing homes, whose median hourly salary was $10.74 in 2014. The retail and leisure and hospitality sectors are notorious for their low wages. Cashiers at grocery stores had a median wage of $10.31 in 2014.

Leisure and hospitality workers made still less, with the median wage of nonsupervisory employees a mere $12.51 per hour and the median workweek only 25 hours. Fast-food cooks earned a median wage of only $9.13 per hour in 2014.

These industry sectors, staffed by underemployed and underpaid workers, represent the “new normal” of the American economy. The recession and subsequent “recovery” resulted in millions of formerly well-paying jobs being axed and replaced with poverty-wage employment. A 2014 report by the National Employment Law Project notes that while US businesses have added 1.85 million low-wage jobs over the past six years, they had eliminated 1.83 million medium-wage and high-wage jobs.

The decades-long stagnation of wages for US workers and the destruction of decent-paying jobs were reflected in a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences. According to the study, the mortality rate of white, middle-aged working-class Americans has dramatically increased since 1999, translating into nearly 100,000 more deaths than if it had remained flat over this period. This increase is largely due to drug overdoses, alcohol abuse and suicides, symptomatic of the social misery and distress that pervades the lives of a growing share of American workers.


Obama Continues To Rule By Executive Order, Will Bring Waves of Illegal into U.S.

By Suzanne Eovaldi

November 5, 2015

The way to the White House leads through Florida and with waves of illegal immigrants continuing to pour into the Sunshine State, Rubio and Bush will have a tough time garnering support from voters. The media was reported to have muted the favorable cheers for Trump at his Jacksonville rally while also refusing to display pics of the sizeable audience. But no matter how hard they try, they are unlikely to stop Trump because he knows THE PEOPLE; how to talk with them, what matters to them and how to address their likes and concerns.
. . .
http://www.coachisright.com/obama-continues-to-rule-by-executive-order-will-bring-waves-of-illegals-into-u-s/


Feds Lose Track of Most Border-Surge Teens After Release

By Jessica Vaughan

CIS Blog, November 5, 2015

http://cis.org/vaughan/feds-lose-track-most-border-surge-teens-after-release

Excerpt: New information from a variety of sources further demonstrates that the Obama administration's handling of the continuing influx of illegal Central American family and youth border-crossers has been nothing short of a disaster. Government agencies and NGO contractors have lost track of most of the youth who have been released (or escaped) from shelters. Immigration court records show that about half of the "unaccompanied" alien children (UACs) do not appear for immigration court hearings. A recent murder of one UAC in Virginia by three others is a reminder that some of the kids are involved in gangs. And, because we let them, they keep coming; the number of new arrivals spiked again at the end of the summer, with twice as many Central American youth and families arriving in September 2015 as arrived in September 2014.

No single government agency has been given the responsibility for tracking the UAC and family arrivals. As a result, the statistics that have been published by different sources may have slightly different numbers, depending on the time period covered and how they are counted.