Tea Party
California Dream Act's opponents gather signatures
Monday, 19 December 2011 09:56
They want a November ballot initiative to repeal the Dream Act, which gives illegal immigrants access to state financial aid at public universities and community colleges. There is a January deadline.
By Paloma Esquivel, Los Angeles Times
December 18, 2011
In the parking lot of a closed Pasadena restaurant, a handful of tea party volunteers huddled under a tent to escape a sudden downpour of rain.
They were there to gather signatures to repeal AB 131, or the California Dream Act, which gives illegal immigrants access to state financial aid at public universities and community colleges. The rain smudged their signs, they were shouted at by a driver who called them racist, and the turnout was lower than they'd hoped.
But they were undaunted. On their side were a radio campaign and a small number of determined folks who arrived steadily despite the weather.
When the state Dream Act was signed into law in October, it was greeted with cheers by those who felt it would give undocumented youth a much needed opportunity to succeed. It has also inspired anger and dismay among many who believe that the state should not spend scarce resources on illegal immigrants.
"It's ironic they want to use education dollars for foreign nationals when they're raising tuitions for U.S. citizens," said volunteer Ernie Arnold of South Pasadena.
The effort to repeal AB 131 was launched almost immediately after Gov. Jerry Brown signed the legislation. Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-San Bernardino), who started the campaign, said his office received more than 20,000 emails requesting petitions and opportunities to volunteer in the first week and a half after the petition was filed.
Since then, the assemblyman has become a staple of conservative talk shows and a champion of those who seek repeal. He's traveled the state attending gatherings like the one in Pasadena, which have had mixed results.
In order to get an initiative on the November ballot, those opposed to the Dream Act must submit more than 500,000 valid signatures by the first week of January. Whether they'll meet that goal is unclear.
Their effort has been largely grass-roots, led by tea party groups and other volunteers and buoyed by some paid signature gatherers, Donnelly said. They've raised more than $100,000 and distributed thousands of petitions, but organizers are waiting until the petitions are returned until they will say how many signatures they have, he said.
California Supreme Court Nominee
Last Updated on Tuesday, 26 July 2011 08:52 Tuesday, 26 July 2011 08:47
President Obama nominated Gordon Liu twice as a U.S 9th Court of Appeals Federal judge, considered by the U.S. Senate to be too far left to be an objective force on the court. Result - Gordon Liu failed his nomination twice. But, Governor Moonbeam of braindead fame has now nominated the same Gordon Liu for the California Supreme Court. And people wonder why I'm proud to have been born and raised on the Communist Coast!
Ten Ways Progressive Policies Harm Society's Moral Character
Monday, 25 July 2011 16:19
Lesson in Socialism
Wednesday, 29 June 2011 13:31
I just received an e-mail that illustrates what is happening in our country today titled CATCHING WILD PIGS.
There was a chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab, the Professor noticed one young man, an exchange student, who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt.
The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist regime.
In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question He asked:
"Do you know how to catch wild pigs?" The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said that it was no joke.
"You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat that free corn again. You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity."
The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in America . The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms, just a little at a time.
One should always remember two truths:
1) There is no such thing as a free lunch, someone is paying for it and,
2) When you begin to think that having your government provide for you and make your decisions is OK, realize that you've also given up the freedom that goes with making your own choices.
If you see that all of this wonderful government 'help' is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you might want to have your friends read this.
If you think the "free ride" is essential to your way of life, keep it to yourself. But God help you when the gate slams shut!
George Tramples his Stephanopoulos
Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 June 2011 01:12 Wednesday, 29 June 2011 01:09
Listening to the Stephanopoulos interview of Michelle Bachmann, he really highlighted the comparison if his IQ with Biden.
I've been reading "The Making of America" which for me is a great book for trying to understand the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution because of it's use of quotes by the founders on so much of our two greatest documents.
On Jefferson, yes he was a slave owner, but one who would have liked to see the end of that deplorable practice. Here is a short passage from the book:
"When Jefferson was twenty-five years of age, he was elected to the Virginia legislature, and his first political act was to begin the elimination of slavery. Though unsuccessful in this first effort, he tried to further encourage the emancipation process by writing into the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." In his draft of a constitution for Virginia, he provided that all slaves would be emancipated in that state by 1800, and that any child born in Virginia after 1801 would be born free." (p.466). He actually wrote three drafts of a Virginia constitution in 5 weeks, prior to writing the Declaration of Independence, but none of his Virginia drafts were accepted.
Another seed to abolish slavery was sewn in Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution which gave the Southern Slave States until the year 1808 a chance to convert to a non-slave economy before Congress could pass legislation curtailing or prohibiting slavery.
And then there was the Northwest Ordinance passed in 1787 which prohibits slavery in new states admitted to the Union.
Back to the book, there are quotes from several of the Founders and early leaders showing their view that "this infernal traffic" (Mason) should be abolished:
Mason
Randolph
Madison
McKean
Backus
Sherman
Wilson
Heath
Neal
Ellsworth
C. Pickney
So it looks to me in his attempt to attack Michelle, George may have put both feet in his mouth without engaging his pea-sized brain when he says "it's just not true" that the Founder's worked tirelessly to end slavery.
The Founder's did a masterful job of compromising on some issues to be able to form a "United States" of all 13 colonies, instead of two or more countries, one of which may well have kept slavery for a much longer period of time.
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