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- from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!
Shoot, I'm surprised the Democrats in Sacramento aren't requiring mandatory Spanish and Chinese immersion courses for all English speakers. Either that, or you'll spend the rest of your days in a camp.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Going through a divorce has been difficult for Sepideh Saeedi. Not understanding what's happening in court because she isn't proficient in English has made the process even harder.
"When you don't understand what the judge is saying, what the other side's attorney is saying, it's very stressful," Saeedi, 33, who speaks Farsi, said after a recent court hearing in Redwood City
Legal advocates say throughout the state, litigants in divorce, child custody, eviction and other civil cases who have difficulty with English are going into court without qualified interpreters. Instead, many are forced to turn to friends or family members -- or worse yet, the opposing party -- for translation.
That's because California only guarantees access to an interpreter in criminal cases, not civil cases.
But the state is looking to change that. Under pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, California's Judicial Council this year approved a plan to extend free interpretation services to all cases by 2017.
"You can't have a court hearing without having your client understand it correctly," said Protima Pandey, a staff attorney with Bay Area Legal Aid.
Pandey said she always makes sure an interpreter is available for her clients, but many litigants in family court don't have attorneys to do that for them.
alifornia court officials say extending interpreter services to all cases won't be easy. California has the nation's largest court system spread out over a vast area with many rural counties. The state has about 7 million residents with limited English proficiency who speak over 200 languages.
The courts have also faced funding cuts in recent years that have seen courthouses close and staffs cut. There is no estimate yet on how much it would cost to provide interpreters in all cases, but the plan approved by the judicial council said the courts would need more than the $92 million they were spending.
"California's judiciary is committed to language access and eager to work out the best way to get that done," said state Supreme Court Associate Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, who heads the group in charge of implementing the state's language-access goals.
Anyone with half a brain saw this stuff coming. Businesses will do what they need to do to stay in business. At big corporate chains like McDonald's you'll see increasing use of self-serve kiosks, and then of course robots.
Naturally, these moves will be attacked as "racist," but then everything's racist if it goes against the prevailing ideology of unicorns and rainbows.
The death toll in China from explosions at a warehouse storing hazardous materials rose to 112 Sunday, as authorities worked to remove chemical contamination.
Some 95 people, including 85 firefighters, remain missing following the blasts Wednesday night in the port city of Tianjin, 75 miles east of Beijing, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
State-run news publications The Paper and the Southern Metropolis reported that the warehouse was storing 700 tons of sodium cyanide — 70 times more than it should have been.
Sodium cyanide is a toxic chemical that can form a flammable gas upon contact with water, and several hundred tons would be a clear violation of rules cited by state media that the warehouse could store no more than 10 tons at a time, the Associated Press reported.
China's top prosecuting office announced Sunday that it was setting up a team to investigate possible offenses related to the massive blasts, including dereliction of duty.
Zhi Feng, general manager of the warehouse’s operator, Ruihai International Logistics, has been under police watch while he receives medical treatment to ensure he does not flee during an investigation, state media reported, without giving further details. Zhi was hospitalized after being injured in the disaster.
Meanwhile, a task force has been sent to find and measure the area contaminated by the toxic chemical and prevent its spread in sewage, and hydrogen peroxide has been used to reduce the level of sodium cyanide, Xinhua reported Sunday. No rescuers been made ill by chemical contamination, officials told the news agency. Used commercially for fumigation and extracting gold and silver from rock, exposure to sodium cyanide can be fatal...
Sometime back I notice Noah Rothman really going after Donald Trump on Twitter. And I like Noah. It's just, as I've said before, some journalists on the right are really invested in this campaign, to the extent that they appear like GOP operatives rather than reporters. And hey, it's not like I don't want Republicans to win. It's more like I want a conservative to win, and a lot of Republicans aren't very conservative. That's not to say that Donald Trump is, but genuinely hardcore conservatives at the grassroots are falling in love with this guy because he's the only one to give full-throated assertiveness to their positions on illegal immigration. This is the debate we've needed to have. That is, this is the debate the nation needs to be having, because we're definitely at the tipping point of preserving a lot of basic American values. And frankly, that's what's intrigued me about Donald Trump, despite the fact that he's got a long record of supporting left-wing positions. Shoot, Trump has long been boon coons with Bill and Hillary Clinton. In that sense, he's the consummate politician, jettisoning political incorrect associations when the times demand it.
Trump’s “plan” is an assault on not merely the illegal immigrants who have violated American laws, but those who have played by the existing rules to come to the United States. The proposal amounts to a declaration of war on America’s immigrant community, an attack on the foundational nature of America’s character as a melting pot for all the peoples of the world, and the inception of a police state that is incompatible with a free republican democracy.
Hyperbole isn't a strong enough word, but then, you have to read Trump's proposal.
Rothman, for one thing, argues that building a complete border wall all the way to Matamoros "is infeasible; the geography of the border simply does not allow for one unbroken wall." Okay, then build the wall where it is feasible and then beef up human security checkpoints where it's not. The main reason that Arizona and Texas have become the battlegrounds against illegal immigration in recent years is because California essentially militarized its border in the 1990s, and illegals simply moved to entry points further east. This has long been documented, and indeed, the Los Angeles Times has written about it frequently. Border walls work. If you build them, they don't come.
Rothman also complains about how much of Trump's plan, like "E-Verify," has been a staple of Republican reform proposals for like forever. The problem, of course, is that workplace eligibility regulations like this simply aren't enforced, even in red states like Texas. Indeed, sanctuary states like California actively prohibit enforcement of E-Verify regulations. Maybe Trump's plan can turn things around. Lord know there's room for improvement there. (And I don't buy the argument that rigorous enforcement alienates and thus hinders the cooperation of illegal immigrants. These criminals have no reason to cooperate with immigration enforcement to begin with. We need to get real about how we're going to follow through with enforcing policies already on the books. Local law enforcement has already abandoned any pretense of cooperation with federal authorities. As the Kathryn Steinle and Marilyn Pharis cases sadly prove just how true this is in California.)
I agree with Rothman about "birthright citizenship," however. Talk of reforming automatic citizenship for illegal alien children is mostly a sop to the nativist right, because frankly, birthright is strongly embedded in the Constitution and it'll take a constitutional amendment to change it, and that ain't happening. Better to keep illegals out of here in the first place.
And I can't comment knowledgeably on reform of the H1B visas program, and the related ins and outs of workplace-sponsored immigration programs (it's complicated, sheesh). I do know that they're abused to high heaven, and countries like China know are gaming the system like crazy. See Michelle Malkin on that, "The Big, Fat 'American Worker Recruitment First'- Lie of H-1B."
And Trump's plan sounds like a home run to me, in any case:
We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program. More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program's lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.
Finally, how much of Trump's plan is genuinely unworkable? Well, beyond birthright citizenship, hardly any of it at all. It's simply going to take someone's who's not afraid of the massive backlash of political correctness, and unending charges of racism. And as we've seen so far, not only is Trump unfazed by such criticism, he's also not been penalized politically for speaking out forthrightly on the crisis.
As I always say, let's see how it all shakes out. We're having another GOP debate on September 16th. Frankly, I can't wait to see how Trump does, and it should be especially interesting because Carly Fiorina's expected to be on the stage. This should be an extremely informative event, all the better because it's going to be held here in California, at the Reagan Library. CNN's putting it on too, so if Megyn Kelly's left-wing talking points weren't enough, I'm sure CNN's moderator Jake Tapper (formerly of far left-wing Salon) will pick up the pace.
The explosive first Republican debate has shaken up the 2016 GOP presidential race....
Businessman Donald Trump still leads the field for the Republican nomination. He gets 25 percent among GOP primary voters. He was at 26 percent before the debate. Trump’s support among women went from 24 percent two weeks ago to 21 percent now. He mostly held steady among men (28 percent).
The real-estate mogul maintains his first-place status despite also being judged in the poll as having the worst debate performance and being considered the least likeable Republican candidate. More on that later.
The August 6 Republican presidential debate was hosted by Fox News Channel in Cleveland. Several of the exchanges at the debate remained in the news for days after.
Trump's lead is no fluke. Let's see how long he can hold it. So far nothing --- no so-called "gaffes" or controversies --- seem to be slowing him down.
It was supposed to be different this time. After the wounds of 2008, many of them self-inflicted, Hillary Rodham Clinton rebooted for 2016 with a new message, new advisers and new energy.
But two dynamics have crystallized this month, suggesting the New Hillary is hobbled by old weaknesses. Once again, worried supporters see signs of a bunker mentality in response to bad news about her e-mail server and other controversies, and they see a candidate who can seem strangely blinkered to the threat posed by a lesser-known challenger.
“A lot of the people who were hired by the campaign were new to the Clintons,” said a prominent Democrat who counts both Hillary Clinton and former president Bill Clinton as friends. “I kind of assumed it would be different. But it hasn’t changed.”
That Democrat and other supporters requested anonymity in order to discuss the shortcomings of a candidate whom they still overwhelmingly support and think can win the White House. Several supporters said that while no one is pulling the fire alarm, they see worrisome patterns emerging.
Among them: insularity, rigidity and a sense that the operation is tone-deaf to changes happening around it...
Authorities in Yosemite National Forest were trying to determine why a large tree limb fell early Friday, killing two children sleeping in their tents.
Park officials released few details about the accident, which occurred about 5 a.m. in the Upper Pines Campground in Yosemite Valley.
But witnesses described a grim scene at the campgrounds when the branch fell.
“I heard this loud bang and then a woman screaming at the top of her lungs,” camper Daniel Moore, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I knew something was not right. I stepped outside to see what was going on and saw a lot of people clustered around their campground. It made me sick to my stomach when I figured out what had happened.”
Authorities described the victims as minors but did not disclose their identities or any other personal information...
It turns out that the flick's getting so-so reviews. Mostly, the films starts out strong, then sputters with plodding scenes of the band's infighting and black-ho "bacchanalia." Kenneth Turan, at the Los Angeles Times, is particularly bored by it, "NWA film 'Straight Outta Compton' starts fast but runs out of gas."
“Straight Outta Compton” celebrates N.W.A. as poster men for free speech in their perennial disputes with would-be censors. That’s an appropriate part of the equation, but the movie declines to discuss the group’s hate speech—the violence, misogyny, antigay views and scattershot racism that pervade its songs. (Anti-Semitism comes up only because Heller is outraged by Ice Cube’s attacks on him, as well as on N.W.A., the rapper’s former group, in his notorious song “No Vaseline.”)
DES MOINES — There in the center of the sweaty, frothing mob of bodies and cameras and microphones, reaching and shoving and snapping away as state troopers guided the mass along the concourse, was the blonde-haired billionaire, his ruddy, sunken face shaded under the brim of a bright-red ballcap.
For the 45 minutes it took him to walk from Gate 8 to the Iowa Pork Tent, onlookers stood agape, corndogs in one hand and smartphones in the other, shouting, pleading for a handshake, taking it in.
We love you Donald.”
“Give ‘em hell!”
“Kick Hillary’s ass!”
He’d landed several blocks away in a $7 million helicopter bearing his name. As he braved the sizzling midday heat, walking along in a navy blazer, khakis and shiny white spats, the chopper, still giving rides to groups of fawning children, swirled overhead.
Donald Trump, currently leading the polls for the Republican nomination and ready to spend $1 billion to win it all, was a long way from the gold-plated interior of New York City’s Trump Tower. But as a man who loves nothing more than to bask in the public’s adulation, he had come to the perfect place.
“My crowd is 10 times Hillary’s,” Trump gloated as he walked, having just been told the Democratic frontrunner, also campaigning at the fair Saturday, had taken note of his helicopter flying above...
One of the best things about Fiorina is she's an attractive and very feminine woman, unlike Hillary Clinton. Of course, being so articulate and knowledgeable on the issues doesn't hurt.
And you know, it's totally understandable. Might as well take a few lumps to the head rather than be fired for defending yourself. That's how fucked up we are right now, man.
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