Central Scrutinizer

'Kill the Irishman'. Good flic. Worth a look. Based on a true story. Watched it today.

 

Texas House Bans Offensive Security Pat-Downs

 

 

 

AUSTIN (AP) - The Texas House passed a bill that would make it a criminal offense for public servants to inappropriately touch travelers during airport security pat-downs.

 

Approved late Thursday night, the measure makes it illegal for anyone conducting searches to touch “the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of another person†including through clothing.

 

It also prohibits searches “that would be offensive to a reasonable person.â€

 

The bill’s chief sponsor, Republican Rep. David Simpson, said, “this has to do with dignity and travel, and prohibiting indecent, groping searches.â€

 

He believes it will keep Transportation Security Administration officials from treating travelers like criminals, though the measure may be superseded by federal law.

 

After a brief but raucous debate, lawmakers approved the measure with little opposition — drawing applause from supporters.

 

 

 

Link

About time this stuff was stopped (Feds will not though). Good to see these legislators taking on the Homeland Security gestapo and standing up for the citizens. With all they have to check a person for weapons and bombs there really is no need for these degrading grope fests at the security checkpoints. Sniffer dogs, xray machines, sniffer machines, full body scanners, metal detectors, bomb material detecting swabs, etc etc etc. WTF? With all that they still need to feel up your stuff and stick a finger in your ass? I don't think so. They've gone completely nuts. I'll take the radiation from the full body scanner rather than get felt up by these overpaid goon squads.

>>

 

Have they pursued the birth certificates of McCain and Palin with the same over exuberant enthusiam?

 

.... I wonder why not? Wouldn't be anything to do with the colour of their skin I suppose.

 

 

 

Ah' date=' it is so easy to calls anyone who disagrees with you a racist. You don't have to prove it, just say it.

 

BTW John McCain was required to provide his full birth certificate, since he was born in Panama. It was irrelevant anyway, since both of his parents were US citizens,but he was required to show it and did so promptly. As to Pailin, I don't think she has ever set foot outside the USA, even if she can see Russia from her window.

 

I remember a fuss years ago, when George Romney decided to seek the presidency. Romney was born in Mexio in a colony of ploygamous Mormons who had left the US rather than give up their "extra" wives. The US courts ruled than hisforeign birth did not exclude him, since both of his parents were US citizens (if lawbreakers). This made the questions about McCain's birth odd, since the courts had already ruled there was no problem.

 

[/quote']

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wouldn't the fact when McCain was born that Panama was a US possession make a difference? US parents, born on what could be seen as US soil? Was Panama still then a US possession, like the the Phils and PR were at one time? Gotta Google that.

I read a very good biography on Washington a decade or so ago. Wish I could remember the author's name now. Excellent book on the man.

@CS,

From a religious perspective, George Washington was a controversial figure. Like many of the founding fathers, he was a Deist – believing in God, but not believing that God intervenes on a day to day basis. Before the Revolution, he served as a member of the laity of two Episcopal churches in Virginia.

Many of Washington’s talks and personal affairs had to do with his deeply engrained religious and Masonic beliefs. Most of “Washington’s Prayers†are regarded by historians as having been edited or written by other authors entirely.

Washington was an early supporter of religious pluralism. In 1775 he ordered that his troops not burn in the Pope in effigy on Guy Fawkes night. In 1790 he wrote that he envisioned a country "which gives bigotry no sanction...persecution no assistance.... May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid." This letter was seen by the Jewish community as a significant event; they felt that for the first time in millennia Jews would enjoy full human and political rights.

4 Flash,

Surprising Facts About George Washington

--Washington was the only major founder who lacked a college education. John Adams went to Harvard, James Madison to Princeton, and Alexander Hamilton to Columbia, making Washington self-conscious about what he called his “defective education.â€

--Washington never had wooden teeth. He wore dentures that were made of either walrus or elephant ivory and were fitted with real human teeth. Over time, as the ivory got cracked and stained, it resembled the grain of wood. Washington may have purchased some of his teeth from his own slaves.

--Washington had a strangely cool and distant relationship with his mother. During the Revolutionary War and her son’s presidency, she never uttered a word of praise about him and she may even have been a Tory. No evidence exists that she ever visited George and Martha Washington at Mount Vernon. Late in the Revolutionary War, Mary Washington petitioned the Virginia legislature for financial relief, pleading poverty—and, by implication, neglect by her son. Washington, who had been extremely generous to his mother, was justly indignant.

--Even as a young man, Washington seemed to possess a magical immunity to bullets. In one early encounter in the French and Indian War, he absorbed four bullets in his coat and hat and had two horses shot from under him yet emerged unscathed. This led one Indian chief to predict that some higher power was guiding him to great events in the future.

--By age 30 Washington had survived smallpox, malaria, dysentery, and other diseases. Although he came from a family of short-lived men, he had an iron constitution and weathered many illnesses that would have killed a less robust man. He lived to the age of 67.

--While the Washingtons were childless—it has always been thought that George Washington was sterile—they presided over a household teeming with children. Martha had two children from her previous marriage and she and George later brought up two grandchildren as well, not to mention countless nieces and nephews.

--That Washington was childless proved a great boon to his career. Because he had no heirs, Americans didn’t worry that he might be tempted to establish a hereditary monarchy. And many religious Americans believed that God had deliberately deprived Washington of children so that he might serve as Father of His Country.

--Though he tried hard to be fair and took excellent medical care of his slaves, Washington could be a severe master. His diaries reveal that during one of the worst cold snaps on record in Virginia—when Washington himself found it too cold to ride outside—he had his field slaves out draining swamps and performing other arduous tasks.

--For all her anxiety about being constantly in a battle zone, Martha Washington spent a full half of the Revolutionary War with her husband—a major act of courage that has largely gone unnoticed.

--Washington was obsessed with his personal appearance, which extended to his personal guard during the war. Despite wartime austerity and a constant shortage of soldiers, he demanded that all members of his personal guard be between 5'8" and 5'10"; a year later, he narrowed the range to 5'9" to 5'10."

--While Washington lost more battles than he won, he still ranks as a great general. His greatness lay less in his battlefield brilliance—he committed some major strategic blunders—than in his ability to hold his ragged army intact for more than eight years, keeping the flame of revolution alive.

--Washington ran his own spy network during the war and was often the only one privy to the full scope of secret operations against the British. He anticipated many techniques of modern espionage, including the use of misinformation and double agents.

--Washington tended his place in history with extreme care. Even amid wartime stringency, he got Congress to appropriate special funds for a full-time team of secretaries who spent two years copying his wartime papers into beautiful ledgers.

--For thirty years, Washington maintained an extraordinary relationship with his slave and personal manservant William Lee, who accompanied him throughout the Revolutionary War and later worked in the presidential mansion. Lee was freed upon Washington’s death and given a special lifetime annuity.

--The battle of Yorktown proved the climactic battle of the revolution and the capstone of Washington’s military career, but he initially opposed this Franco-American operation against the British—a fact he later found hard to admit.

--Self-conscious about his dental problems, Washington maintained an air of extreme secrecy when corresponding with his dentist and never used such incriminating words as ‘teeth’ or ‘dentures.’ By the time he became president, Washington had only a single tooth left—a lonely lower left bicuspid that held his dentures in place.

--Washington always displayed extremely ambivalence about his fame. Very often, when he was traveling, he would rise early to sneak out of a town or enter it before he could be escorted by local dignitaries. He felt beleaguered by the social demands of his own renown.

--At Mount Vernon, Washington functioned as his own architect—and an extremely original one at that. All of the major features that we associate with the house—the wide piazza and colonnade overlooking the Potomac, the steeple and the weathervane with the dove of peace—were personally designed by Washington himself.

--A master showman with a brilliant sense of political stagecraft, Washington would disembark from his coach when he was about to enter a town then mount a white parade horse for maximum effect. It is not coincidental that there are so many fine equestrian statues of him.

--Land-rich and cash-poor, Washington had to borrow money to attend his own inauguration in New York City in 1789. He then had to borrow money again when he moved back to Virginia after two terms as president. His public life took a terrible toll on his finances.

--Martha Washington was never happy as First Lady—a term not yet in use—and wrote with regret after just six months of the experience: “I think I am more like a state prisoner than anything else...And as I cannot do as I like, I am obstinate and stay home a great deal.â€

--When the temporary capital moved to Philadelphia in 1790, Washington brought six or seven slaves to the new presidential mansion. Under a Pennsylvania abolitionist law, slaves who stayed continuously in the state for six months were automatically free. To prevent this, Washington, secretly coached by his Attorney General, rotated his slaves in and out of the state without telling them the real reason for his actions.

--Washington nearly died twice during his first term in office, the first time from a tumor on his thigh that may have been from anthrax or an infection, the second time from pneumonia. Many associates blamed his sedentary life as president for the sudden decline in his formerly robust health and he began to exercise daily.

--Tired of the demands of public life, Washington never expected to serve even one term as president, much less two. He originally planned to serve for only a year or two, establish the legitimacy of the new government, then resign as president. Because of one crisis after another, however, he felt a hostage to the office and ended up serving two full terms. For all his success as president, Washington frequently felt trapped in the office.

--Exempt from attacks at the start of his presidency, Washington was viciously attacked in the press by his second term. His opponents accused him of everything from being an inept general to wanting to establish a monarchy. At one point, he said that not a single day had gone by that he hadn’t regretted staying on as president.

--Washington has the distinction of being the only president ever to lead an army in battle as commander-in-chief. During the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, he personally journeyed to western Pennsylvania to take command of a large army raised to put down the protest against the excise tax on distilled spirits.

--Two of the favorite slaves of George and Martha Washington—Martha’s personal servant, Ona Judge and their chef Hercules—escaped to freedom at the end of Washington’s presidency. Washington employed the resources of the federal government to try to entrap Ona Judge in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and return her forcibly to Virginia. His efforts failed.

--Washington stands out as the only founder who freed his slaves, at least the 124 who were under his personal control. (He couldn’t free the so-called ‘dower slaves’ who came with his marriage to Martha.) In his will, he stipulated that the action was to take effect only after Martha died so that she could still enjoy the income from those slaves.

--After her husband died, Martha grew terrified at the prospect that the 124 slaves scheduled to be freed after her death might try to speed up the timetable by killing her. Unnerved by the situation, she decided to free those slaves ahead of schedule only a year after her husband died.

--Like her husband, Martha Washington ended up with a deep dislike of Thomas Jefferson, whom she called “one of the most detestable of mankind.†When Jefferson visited her at Mount Vernon before he became president, Martha said that it was the second worst day of her life—the first being the day her husband died.

"Too many voters would not vote for an admitted atheist."

 

Yup. I believe many politicians just do lip service to religion for the votes it will bring them from the brainwashed religious 'believers'.

 

Saw some articles recently on Abe Lincoln's religious beliefs/nonbeliefs. A letter from an old lawyer friend/partner of Abe's before he went to the White House was brought up that showed Abe had a lot of misgivings about religion, but Abe always played the religion card. An interesting article. I'll see if I can find the links.

Ran across the story. Here's the link on Abe's religious beliefs:

http://news.discovery.com/history/president-abraham-lincoln-religion-god-110415.html

"Too many voters would not vote for an admitted atheist."

Yup. I believe many politicians just do lip service to religion for the votes it will bring them from the brainwashed religious 'believers'.

Saw some articles recently on Abe Lincoln's religious beliefs/nonbeliefs. A letter from an old lawyer friend/partner of Abe's before he went to the White House was brought up that showed Abe had a lot of misgivings about religion, but Abe always played the religion card. An interesting article. I'll see if I can find the links.

To tell the truth Hugh, I don't think many of us who voted for Obama thought he would be able to do much his first term after what he was left by W and his motley crew to deal with. The country is fucked not because of Obama's shortcomings, but because the Repubs had 8 years to totally destroy the country. Hard to fix in just 2 years or so what the W krew fucked up totally in 8.

In fact it will probably take the Dems three more administrations to fix what the Repbufoons wrought in 8 years. Why so long? Because your guys truly screwed the pooch and drove the economy to the brink and over playing their war games for profit and fun and other assorted crimes for financial gain, to the severe detriment of the country and the American people.

If the Repubs were in again it would be just as bad, or worse for the majority of Americans.

Please do tell us what the Repubs could/would have done that would have us doing better. I'd love to hear it. Share your solutions. Tell us what platforms you would endorse that would save the country now after W's Follies of the 8 years he was in office.

What? No Easter Greeting?

 

by Keith Koffler

April 25, 2011

 

 

 

Just when I thought the current team running the White House might have used up all its allotted mistakes comes word that President Obama failed to issue either an Easter or a Good Friday greeting to the nation.

 

Now, let’s forget for a moment that these greetings, which presidents issue on many holidays and commemorations of events, are largely perfunctory and symbolic gestures that nobody much cares about.

 

Until there’s a problem with them.

 

[color:red]Fox News first caught the blunder and put it into context that makes the omission insulting to Christians. The mistake is odd enough to call into question just what Obama’s priorities are.

 

By comparison, the White House has released statements recognizing the observance of major Muslim holidays and released statements in 2010 on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha.[/color]

 

The White House . . . did release an eight-paragraph statement heralding Earth Day. Likewise, the president’s weekend address mentioned neither Good Friday or Easter.

 

Obama, Fox notes, did head out to church yesterday and held an Easter prayer breakfast at the White House last week.

 

Obama is on a roll for religious holiday greeting screw ups. Fox News writes:

 

In 2010, Obama was criticized for releasing an all-inclusive Easter greeting. He reached out to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and people of no faith at all in a statement about a holiday that is uniquely Christian.

 

And as I noted last week, the president released a Passover greeting this month that compared the ancient Jewish exodus from Egypt to the Arab political awakening this year, which would be a beautiful thing if most Arabs didn’t seek Israel’s destruction.

 

The president is, of course, hosting the Easter Egg Roll at the White House today. But Easter isn’t really about rolling eggs on a manicured lawn, now is it?

 

 

Does this guy really want to be reelected?

"The mistake is odd enough to call into question just what Obama’s priorities are."

Not really. Just a mistake of some staffer who is supposed to be on top of the voodoo religious shit and PC stuff. I'd say OB's priorities are tilted toward much more important things than the Great Pumpkin and it may have slipped his mind, but it was the responsibility of a staffer who fucked up I would think. But, yeah, let's use this silliness to bash the man some more and try to prove he is a muslim radical cunt and not a 'true' Xtian fruitcake full of nuts. The press is full of wankers who need to make some more news. Good catch Faux News. Christ these people are such dipshits. Anything to bash the man with. Truly pathetic.

(Not aimed at you, Flasher. Just the faux news people and others who try to use this sort of cock up against the man. Jeezus.)

Shame on the government and school officials for even thinking of prosecuting the poor woman. 20 years and thousands in fines. She would be given less for killing someone for chrissakes. It's enough to make you

Bring him some paper PJs like they give you in some of the hospitals these days. No need for him to be sleeping naked. And, he can't hang himself with the paper PJs (likely the excuse for him being kept naked at night).

Steve,

The thing is, if the dollar goes kaput, and supposedly the Chinese and others are trying to get the dollar no longer to be the world currency petro exchange... when the dollar collapses who will buy the Chinese products when we can no longer afford to?

You mean we can print our own currency too? How about Cavs and Flashers?

 

They'll be redemable in gold coins ... filled with chocolate.

 

 

All right. Now those are worth something! Love those gold covered chocolate coins! Can I trade in baht for them?

Cav,

Yes, they are doing this. 2.7 million so far used.

Here: Berkshares

stop flying in gas guzzling jet aircraft LK!!!....no thought not. Walk, not take a taxi?....no, thought not. Fan instead of A/C, no thought not.....WHAT are YOU doing to reduce climate change?....pass the buck lol

So, Phil, how the hell did you get to Thailand when you went there? On a banana boat? As crew?

That old Roman SCOTUS has ALWAYS been politicised. Never heard of the Dred Scott Decision?

 

------------------------------

 

News alert: Supreme Court decisions are inherently political

 

 

 

Did you watch the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Elena Kagan to be the newest Supreme Court justice? If you did, you may well have experienced déjà vu.

 

About the only thing that changes in these hearing is the nominee. The questions are all eerily familiar, as are most of the faces on the committee, which do not change a lot. Senators ask lots of probing questions that the nominee will tend to dodge. Most of them will be about controversial issues like gun control and abortion. The president’s party will generally throw softballs and be effusive with their praise for the nominee. The nominee will dodge most questions saying of course they cannot say how they will rule on hypothetical future cases. They will say that they will weigh the issues that come before them fair and impartially. Then, the Senators will generally vote the way their party leaders want them to vote because they are not jurists, they are politicians. This time around, since every Republican senator is scared that a vote for Kagan will inflame the Tea Party, only one or two Republicans will be brave enough to break ranks. The only real question is whether there is something about the nominee controversial enough for the opposition to attempt a filibuster.

 

The president and his staff are painfully aware of all this, which is why finding the right nominee is important. Diane Wood, for example, was probably crossed off because she was just a tad too liberal to escape a Republican filibuster. Kagan though was unusual because she had never been a judge. Her lack of a record was something of an asset. Senators were left to fume about minor actions she took while dean of the Harvard Law School. With Democrats in the majority and little in Kagan’s record to get bent out of shape over, Kagan seems likely to be confirmed by the Senate in about a month. But that’s okay. Obama was replacing a liberal justice with another liberal justice. Overall, the balance of power on the court was unlikely to change, with conservatives on the court tending to win most decisions. Expect a real brouhaha if a conservative justice retires and we have a liberal president, or visa versa.

 

What really annoys me is the elaborate pretense from both senators and the nominee that they will be impartial. What else is the nominee going to say, really? If a nominee were honest, they would admit that virtually all of the Supreme Court’s decisions are political. Senators claim they want impartiality when it is clear they really want a judge that will rule in a partisan matter aligned with their political ideology. When Chief Justice Roberts underwent his confirmation hearings, he went so far as to say that he saw the role of the justice to look at the law and the particulars of the case and then rule whether the case amounted to a ball or a strike. He seemed to be implying that any case could be rendered as either black or white.

 

As if it is ever that simple at the level of cases the Supreme Court deals with. If a case were easy to decide, it would not have gone through district and appellate courts first, nor would the Supreme Court have bothered to even hear the case. Any case the court agrees to take is going to be inherently squishy and political in nature. While everyone seems to understand this truth, no one will acknowledge it.

 

The reason you know I speak the truth is that everyone is deeply concerned about the nominee’s record of dealing with controversial or squishy cases. Why? Because these cases help disclose their tendency to apply their political ideology to actual cases. In Kagan’s case, along with many other nominees, their political ideology is hardly a secret. No president is going to nominate someone they think will be at odds with their ideology. Sometimes they don’t get the nominee they expected. Both recently retired justices Stevens and Souter were nominated by Republican presidents, but turned more liberal as they aged. Subsequent nominees have been much more ideological, as presidents worked hard to make sure their ideology rippled through the court long after their terms expired.

 

The result is a court that now renders a lot of near split decisions, generally on the most controversial political cases. Particularly with controversial cases, it’s not hard to figure out how justices will rule. While the rationale will differ, they will generally line up along their political ideology. Justice Kennedy is usually the only swing vote, and lately he has been trending more conservative. He may be the only impartial justice on the court.

 

Of course, justices will be influenced at least to some extent based on their feelings and the way they were raised. When there is ambiguity and you have to make a decision, where else will you turn? At the Supreme Court’s level, where cases are inherently squishy, of course those factors are going to weigh more heavily than they will at a state or county court. In the lower courts, the judge is often required to interpret the law a certain way. At the level of the Supreme Court, as much as some on the court would say otherwise, they make the law by deciding the case.

 

The Second Amendment, for example, was genuinely ambiguous. Did it mean that everyone has a right to own a gun, or did it mean that people had the right to own a gun only because they might need to help support a militia someday? The Supreme Court in a number of recent rulings seems to be saying that the part of the amendment dealing with militias is interesting background history but irrelevant. Everyone has the right to own a gun. The court parsed the arguments and history of the Second Amendment and there was evidence of original intent in both directions. The court, based on its ideological leanings, made the political decision to interpret the amendment (yes) liberally. It could have said it was so ambiguous that Congress needed to pass a clarifying law. It did not.

 

[color:red]Often the Supreme Court will, by the narrowest of margins, overturn a ruling by an appeals court that was also decided on the narrowest of margins. That so many different “impartial†judges can see these murky cases in so many different ways and come to so many different conclusions just goes to prove that Robert’s “balls and strikes†argument is hollow.[/color]

 

[color:red]Everyone understands the reality, which is why the president is so careful not just with Supreme Court picks but also with picks for district and appellate courts. The more judges he can get confirmed that align with his ideology, the better the odds are that over time these jurists will issue rulings that also align with his ideology. This is also why senators, through the use of dubious tactics like secret holds, try to bottle up nominees for lower court judges that are the least bit controversial.[/color]

 

[color:red]At the federal level, all but the lowest courts decide cases that are inherently political. That’s the way it has been since the birth of our republic and the way it will be while our country exists.

 

It would be nice if we would stop pretending it is otherwise.

[/color]

 

 

Link

These people are not true unbiased judges. They are political appointees who owe their political bosses their jobs and vote the party line for the most part. Few actually vote and find as a real judge should. It is disgusting really. Bring back Solomon. There was a real judge.

"As soon as the U.S. Supreme Court invalidates Obamacare, the GOP will be offering a better law."

55555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555

Damn it. I think I hurt myself from laughing so hard.

Does he have a problem with states requiring us to buy car insurance? There are a ton of things we have to buy as mandated by the government that would meet the same test as health insurance.

 

 

Actually next to nothing does. As to your example' date=' you have to own or drive a car to "have" to have ins., so there are millions of people that are exempt from it.

 

[b']With the new health care law.... you just have to be alive to have to buy insurance.[/b]

Exactly the same thing. If you have a car, you must buy insurance.

 

If you get sick, then you must buy insurance. Don't want to? Then prove to me you are not even going to get sick. No, your word is not good enough.

 

If we had the public option like most of us wanted, we would not be having this discussion. But the righties didn't like that, and wrote this mess instead (reference Heritage, Bob Dole, 1994) which the Dems picked up complete to pacify the GOP.

 

And there is precedent too: waaaayyyy back in 1798!

Excellent, and an interesting read. Seems even way back then the founders and others saw a need to have healthy citizens covered by a mandated tax and health coverage to have a healthy economy and a tax which made it possible to care for these citizens who for whatever reason became ill or injured in that job. Thanks for that link.

Yup, the rest of the first world can do these things, but the states can't because it has too many brain washed Fucked News righties that think it is a communist plot to take over the country.

Ah, the one world, one government theory? Unworkable for the foreseeable future I think. As nice as it sounds, and I do feel it would be a wonderful thing if we were all one big happy world human family, all paying taxes to help our children have a bright future, no more wars over silly boundaries (much like this stupid horseshit the Thai Yellows are stirring up with Cambodia at the moment), free education at the lowest to highest levels for all, etc, etc. I just do not see this becoming even close to a reality in even my grandkids lifetimes.

..one more thing..lol...so, if we accept this children of illegal thingy not being American then the 3rd and 4th generation of latinos who have entered illegally decades ago and are also not citizens? Sort of like the legal 'fruit of the poison tree' saying? In theory then someone who's grandparens were illegals 50, 60 years ago is now illegal? Would it also apply only to one parent? If someone had a baby with an illegal immigrant then the baby is illegal? Or not? Related to my first point, you have someone who is the offspring of illegals and they're adults, who have mortgage, kids, etc. They are not American?

 

slipery slope time.

55555. Well, those children of the illegals from previous administrations and from years gone by would have grandfathered rights, and as said, once born on US soil they were, and are, legal US citizens, but... laws can be changed, and are all the time if they are found to be no longer desirable or workable. No?

Steve,

Well, maybe to some it is an Hispanic issue, but to me it is not. As long as they come in in a legal fashion I have no issues with their being in the country. I do truly believe immigration and the melting pot (supposedly, slowly, over time) is one of the things that does make the US a great place. And, over the past couple of centuries there were always certain immigrants that were considered more desirable than others (yes, some having to do with racism and anti-catholic and anti-semite sentiments in previous decades/centuries). There still are quotas in place I believe. At one point more recently I do believe, if my memory serves, they tried to 'even the playing field' and stopped giving so many visas to the Irish and Italians, and started giving more to other nationalities.

The thing is most all countries have quotas and limits for immigration. Most immigration policies these days are well thought out and planned and limited immigration is an intelligent way to go about it. Illegal immigrants are a severe burden to many countries in the world that people wish to immigrate to. Illegals stress the resources of many a western country and bring down the quality of life for all (except maybe the rich and/or those that take advantage of the illegals). I sympathize with their plight and their desire to make a better life for themselves.

But really, most illegals should stay in their country and try to change THEIR country for the better, by trying to fight the rampant corruption or repressive governments they are trying to flee from that cripples their own economies and takes away their personal freedoms. They need to fight to make their place and governments better and their lives and their childrens lives better, for a better future for them. The US and other countries that have this problem just cannot let in all the people wanting to go where the economy is better (or was better), and the freedoms of the people are more firmly established. It is unsustainable. No country can afford to leave this unchecked, and the US can no longer afford to let this continue unabated.

JMHO.

P.S. Hell, I think there should be a moratorium on all immigration as long as the states has so many people unemployed and underemployed.

"One of our founders, Alexander Hamilton was not born in the U.S."

Er, well, he came into the country before there actually was a country didn't he? We were still colonies I believe then? And, did he arrive in the colonies legally? Big difference between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants anyway. Many legal immigrants/citizens were not born in the USA. It is part of what/who we are, a nation of immigrants, especially the early years. My grandparents were immigrants, 'legal' immigrants. Irish, French, and Swedish. All became citizens with all the rights that entitled them.

You need to differentiate between the legal immigrants, who come to the US looking for a better life for themselves and their children/families, and the illegal ones (looking for the same thing for themselves and family granted, usually), but they cheated, and so, should get nothing of these same rights granted legal immigrants who work hard to become citizens and Americans.