senators agree on principles of immigration reform

[5/21/13] The most far-reaching US immigration legislation in about two decades moved forward on a solid bipartisan vote in the Senate judiciary committee after supporters avoided a controversy over the rights of gay spouses.

The 13-5 vote cleared the way for a full Senate showdown on one of President Barack Obama's top domestic priorities and gives the opposition Republican party a chance to recast itself as more appealing to minorities.

"Yes, we can! Sí, se puede," immigration activists shouted after the vote, reprising Obama's campaign cry in his historic run for the White House in 2008.

In addition to creating a pathway to citizenship for 11.5 million immigrants living illegally in the country, the legislation creates a new program for low-skilled foreign labour and would permit highly skilled workers into the country at far higher levels. At the same time it requires the government to take costly new steps to guard against future illegal immigration.

Obama said the legislation was "largely consistent with the principles of common-sense reform I have proposed and meets the challenge of fixing our broken immigration system".

Republicans have embraced the idea of immigration reform after a large majority of Hispanic voters supporters Obama in the 2012 election, leading to concerns that the party was out of touch with a younger, more diverse country.

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[1/17/13] A bipartisan group of eight senators plans to announce they have agreed on a set of principles for comprehensive immigration reform.

The deal, which will be announced at a news conference Monday afternoon, covers border security, guest workers and employer verification, as well as a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants already in this country.

The eight senators expected to endorse the new principles are Democrats Charles Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado; and Republicans John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

According to documents released early Monday, the senators will call for accomplishing four main goals:

--Creating a path to citizenship for the estimated illegal immigrants already in the U.S., contingent upon securing the border and better tracking of people here on visas.

--Reforming the legal immigration system, including awarding green cards to immigrants who obtain advanced degrees in science, math, technology or engineering from an American university.

--Creating an effective employment verification system to ensure that employers do not hire illegal immigrants.

--Allowing more low-skill workers into the country and allowing employers to hire immigrants if they can demonstrate they couldn't recruit a U.S. citizen; and establishing an agricultural worker program.

The principles being released Monday are outlined on just over four pages, leaving plenty of details left to fill in.

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[4/16/13] (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday embraced a sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration system put forward by a bipartisan group of senators, saying it was "largely consistent" with his own principles for immigration reform.

The Democratic president, who had said previously that he would submit his own bill if he was not satisfied with the Senate proposal, urged Congress to "quickly move" the bill forward and pledged to do "whatever it takes" to help.

He spoke after meeting with two of the measure's chief sponsors, Senators John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, and Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York.

Obama's endorsement and the bipartisan support for the bill improves its chances for passage but by no means ensures it.

The four Democrats and four Republicans sponsoring the bill likely face a months-long battle, with the biggest challenge expected in the Republican-led House of Representatives.


McCain, who lost the 2008 presidential election to Obama, warned that the defeat of any one of the key provisions of the complex legislation could jeopardize the whole effort.

He told reporters that it was "carefully crafted" to keep Republicans, Democrats and different interest groups on board and that if "certain things" were changed, "we would lose one side or the other."

For this and other reasons, Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, another of the bill's sponsors, said the group planned on taking its time with the legislation.

"It's a complicated issue and I think people want to learn more about it," the Cuban-American lawmaker told reporters. "This will be a while. This is not going to be done in a week or quite frankly in a month."

Rubio's comment underscored the delicate construction of the proposal, which would create a new legal status for millions of undocumented immigrants, as urged by immigrant advocacy groups and large segments of the Democratic party.

But to lure Republican support, it conditions a path to permanent legal status - and ultimately a chance for citizenship - on the success of a multibillion-dollar effort to make U.S. borders less porous, using unmanned aerial surveillance, the construction of double and triple lawyers of fencing and the deployment of thousands of additional border patrol officers along with the National Guard.

To get business support, the bill would create a new system of visas for temporary agricultural workers and low-skilled laborers as well as expand the number of specialized, highly-trained foreigners allowed to enter the country to work for technology companies.

To avoid alienating fiscal conservatives in both parties, the proposal denies most federal benefits to the immigrants until they achieve permanent status in the United States, which could take 10 years.
Supporters insist that the bill would not provide an amnesty to illegal immigrants.

The eight senators are trying to pull together broad Republican and Democratic support in hopes that doing so will save the legislation from the fate of failed efforts to comprehensively reform immigration over the past three decades.

That strategy began to pay off Tuesday, even before the bill had been formally introduced.

Conservative anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, was among those who praised the immigration reform effort. He said he would attend a news conference later this week sponsored by the bipartisan group of senators backing the bill.

"They are doing serious border security. They are making sure that the 10 or 11 million who are here without papers can stay and work as long they are not criminals as long as they're working. So you're weeding out bad guys and allowing people who are good and decent and hard-working to be able to stay and work and get in line in questions of citizenship ..."

Rather than being a cost to the country, the bill would be a "boon" to the economy and would save taxpayers money because those with the provisional visas won't be eligible for federal benefits, Norquist said.

The Senate proposal has been embraced by a range of groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO labor organization and immigrants rights activists.

The argument that the new law would be too costly has struck a chord with Tea Party conservatives and could become a central theme of opposition in the House.

"America's entitlement system is already on a sinking ship and it would be fiscally irresponsible to add another 10 million people to the public assistance rolls," said Debbie Dooley, co-founder of the Atlanta Tea Party.

Inside Obama's Presidency

is a Frontline episode playing on PBS.

To me, it seems pro-Obama.  Democrats might think it's balanced.  Republicans would say it doesn't look at things from their viewpoint.

And maybe that's why the Republicans want to get rid of PBS, or at least the government subsidy of it (which is 15% according to this article).

the smallest government spender?

It’s enough to make even the most ardent Obama cynic scratch his head in confusion.

Amidst all the cries of Barack Obama being the most prolific big government spender the nation has ever suffered, Marketwatch is reporting that our president has actually been tighter with a buck than any United States president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Who knew?

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Or not

not just compassion?

Some of today’s money blandishments – unemployment compensation, food stamps, general welfare vouchers – are not just about compassion. They also are about keeping the 99 percent from confronting the 1 percent. We’re buying off people who might otherwise get very unruly.

Coxey’s huge army of the unemployed marched on D.C. in 1894 and almost brought down the government. The Bonus Army march of veterans in 1932 required troops to put it down.

Now, as we know from the Watts and Detroit riots, it doesn’t take much to get cities burning.

-- Bob Jones, September 12, 2012

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Entitlements -- including Social Security, Medicare and safety net programs such as Medicaid and food stamps -- don't just benefit the poor and unemployed. More than 90% of the benefits go toward working families, the disabled and the elderly. And more than half of all entitlement spending helps middle class Americans.

In 2010, those age 65 and older collected 53% of the dollars, while the non-elderly disabled received 20%, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning group. And folks in working families collected 18%.

As for income levels, those in the middle -- earning between $30,000 and $120,000 -- received 58% of all entitlement dollars in 2010.

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Just call me old-fashioned, or even that nasty “C” word conservative, in my thinking. I’m of the same era as Bob Jones and marvel that I could have grown up with such a different perspective on life. I grew up believing that you actually wanted to gain success in life, gained through your own hard work, and through that success, wealth and perhaps even community status. It was not considered to be something so abominable to become a solid business owner and/or to prosper from that business. If you failed at an endeavor, that failure was yours, not to be blamed on someone or something else. You took responsibility for you and yours.

I find most entitlement programs are based on political points rather than need – I live in a low income area and I see many folks working hard to survive. At the same time, I go into a local grocery store and see a young, seeming able-bodied young lady, gold bracelets up to her elbow, three children under the age of 8 and paying for a cart full of high-priced groceries with an EBT card, while her “boyfriend” brings the SUV around to pick them all up. I, meanwhile, am waiting my turn with a package of hot dogs and a can of beans because that’s what our budget allows this week. No complaints, we like canned beans, but simply an observation.

Nancy Calhoun, Waianae

Lex Brodie

Former businessman Lex Brodie, perhaps best known for his tire commercials ending with the catch phrase, “Thank you, very much,” died today at the age of 98.

Alexander “Lex” Hofgaard Brodie was born in Kekaha, Kauai.

Brodie retired in 1991 from his Lex Brodie's Tire Co., which still operates under his name. He is also a former president of Small Business Hawaii and a former member of the Board of Education.

He is survived by his wife, Evelyn; children, Wendy Pelligrini, Sandy Brodie, Robert Brodie, Janet Teves; seven grandchildren, five great-granddaughters and one great-great grandson.

Private services are planned through the Kauai Memorial Gardens & Funeral Home.

Here's a vintage Lex Brodie tire commercial from the Lex Brodie's YouTube channel.

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HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - He was known for ending his commercials by saying, "Thank you...very much." Lex Brodie, longtime businessman and former member of the state Board of Education, died Friday morning on Kauai. He was 98.

Brodie has been an icon in Hawaii for decades, beginning in 1958 when he moved from managing the Dole Pineapple Cannery to owning a Chevron station in Kaneohe, on Kaneohe Bay Drive, where he started Lex Brodie's Tire Company in 1961.

He moved the company to its current location on 701 Queen Street in 1964. Some photos of Brodie, along with some of the business awards he won, were placed on his original office desk, along with lei, when news came of his passing.

Brodie retired from Lex Brodie's Tire Company in 1991. Brodie was also the campaign manager for Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris and served on the Board of Education from 1992-2003. He moved to Kauai after leaving the board.

Alexander Brodie was born on Kauai in 1914. According to his company, Brodie moved to Oahu and was in the first graduating class of Roosevelt High School. In 1933, he was one of the first Waikiki Beach Boys and was in business with Sam Kahanamoku, Duke's brother, giving canoe rides and surf lessons.

Brodie's phrase, "Thank you, very much," is still featured in the commercials and on several signs in the shop on Queen Street. "We can say it our own way, but only Mr. Brodie can say 'thank you very much' like he did. So we don't even try to copy that," said Williams. "We just try to emulate the high level of customer service that he laid for us."