Thank you so much for the honor of the Athlete Of The Year selection and certificate. It is such a privilege to be honored by our Hometown Paper. For all the athletes that I represent, I wanted you to know that your time and attention is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Colby Thomas, Mountain View Soccer Player and Roger and Robin Thomas (parents)

The Heritage Foundation and scores of conservative groups across the country have been working feverishly to get out the hidden truths tucked away in the almost one thousand page Senate immigration reform bill. On June 27th, the Senate approved a very flawed, massive amnesty bill. On Wednesday, July 10, the House of Representatives was to take up immigration reform, and it is up to us, the electorate, to let our representatives know how much we disapprove of the Senate amnesty bill. The Senate’s attempt, spearheaded by Senators Chuck Schumer and Marco Rubio, is so flawed, in fact, that it simply cannot be fixed.

The Heritage Foundation, among other conservative groups, spells it out as follows.

The Senate-passed bill doesn’t stop the flow of illegal immigrants.

S.744, throws tens of billions of dollars at the problem and calls for meeting arbitrary security standards, but it doesn’t guarantee that illegal immigration will stop. Many of the bill’s “requirements,” such as 700 miles of border fencing and new border patrol agents, would not commence immediately, but over time. As with current immigration laws, some provisions would end up being ignored or waived. S.744 contains no guarantee that the government would keep its promises of more security and enforcement. Even if it did, it wouldn’t even come close to stopping illegal immigration. We’d revisit this debate again within 20 years.??The Senate-passed bill requires the U.S. government to manage many more visas, even though it doesn’t do a good job with today’s smaller work load. How will it ‘fix’ our legal immigration system?

It doesn’t. The bill makes some changes to various types of visas but does little to fix the broken bureaucracy in charge of the legal immigration system. Without significant changes, new requirements and more responsibilities would only make the system worse.

?The Senate-passed bill puts the federal government in charge of enforcing immigration laws, even though state and local governments want to help and would be good partners.

Giving the federal government all the responsibility is the wrong approach. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has fewer than 6,000 agents, and S.744 does little to augment that. Putting all the authority in federal hands is a surefire way to hamstring enforcement, simply because the federal government can’t do it all.

Since the Senate-passed bill would add huge costs and likely depress wages for many current Americans, is it really good for our citizens??The fact is, this approach costs too much, and hurts current citizens. The bill is loaded with wasteful pork and kickbacks, such as $1.5 billion for a mini-stimulus “jobs for youth” program. What’s more, the bill would harm the nation’s long-term fiscal health. After amnesty, illegal immigrants on average would receive more in government benefits, such as welfare and entitlements, than they pay in taxes. The total cost of amnesty to taxpayers could be $6.3 trillion or more. In addition, the bill would lower the wages of current citizens as they compete for jobs with illegal immigrants who get amnesty. By introducing millions of newly legalized workers to the market, the bill would drive down wages.

In 1986, when Congress last passed amnesty, the sponsors said it was a “one-time” thing. The Senate-passed bill follows the same “amnesty first, security and enforcement later” approach. Why are we doing that again. There is no reason to make the same mistake twice. The U.S. government gave out amnesty and legal permanent residency to at least 2.7 million illegal immigrants as a result of the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986. That amnesty didn’t stop illegal immigration, because the government didn’t (and still doesn’t) want to tackle border security or enforcement of immigration laws. In fact, amnesty only encourages more illegal immigration by sending the message that once enough illegal residents are here, the government will hand out amnesty again. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), when running for office in 2010, said “an earned path to citizenship is basically code for amnesty.” He was right. S.744 allows illegal immigrants, including many criminal aliens, to remain here legally and even become citizens. It rewards those who broke the law, even as millions legally wait in line. This is amnesty, and this is unfair.

Its impact on entitlements: The bill fails to close the loopholes that allow legal immigrants (and their dependents) as well as illegal immigrants to access the myriad tax credits, welfare programs and other public assistance programs (despite requirements under the Welfare Reform Act of 1996).

Its impact on state and local budgets: The bill will impose significant burdens on state and local governments that will bear the burden of delivering certain legally required benefits, including in our local schools.

Obamacare should have taught us the dangers of passing sweeping “comprehensive” legislation. Congress should not pass legislation that is written by special interests and opposed by the American public. In addition, Congress should not pass legislation that is too large and complex for anyone to read and comprehend. Finally, Congress should take its legislative responsibilities and Constitutional duties seriously and not hand over significant policy-making decision and discretion to unelected bureaucrats without any real oversight or accountability.

It’s time for us to let our representatives know that the Senate bill should be completely discarded. Let’s build the fence, secure the borders and enforce the current laws already on the books!

Please call your Congressman and tell him what you think about this immigration amnesty abomination.

Sincerely,

Bruce & Edna Paskoff

Montrose, PA.

Seventeen month ago in Stanford, Florida, a young black man, Travon Martin, was shot and killed by a white Hispanic, George Zimmerman. The shooting ripped Stanford apart along racial lines. The 55 percent that makes up Stanford’s white population sided with Zimmerman believing he acted in self-defense, while the 45 percent that comprises the city’s black population believe he is guilty as charged in the press.

It was a made-to-order story for the liberal media: armed white vigilante kills unarmed black youth was the tenor of many reports. Predictably, like a story-hungry reporter chasing an ambulance, Jesse Jackson raced to the scene to assure an aroused black population that “justice” would be done.

“Blacks are under attack,” said Jackson. Martin was “shot down in cold blood by a vigilante . . . murdered and martyred.”

The trial of George Zimmerman that sowed turmoil in Stanford now threatens to spill over nationwide. A look at a similar race-based trial that sent shock waves through the country 20 years ago shows what may lie ahead.

In 1991, Rodney King, on parole for robbery, was apprehended after a high-speed chase for a traffic violation. Officers tased the drunken man twice but he refused to stay on the ground as ordered. The police then beat him with batons until he submitted. The entire incident was video taped and played over and over again on national TV.

The arresting officers were tried and acquitted and that sparked the Los Angeles riots. The uproar left 55 dead, 2,383 injured, 8,000 arrested, and caused an estimated loss of $1 billion in property damage.

Can the Zimmerman case ignite a replay of the Rodney King riots? Indeed it can if Zimmerman is found not guilty and the evidence is pointing that way.

Two eyewitnesses reported seeing Martin on top of Zimmerman punching him and banging his head against the concrete sidewalk. They heard someone yelling repeatedly for help, ( Martin’s father listened to a 911 recording of the pleas and denied it was his son’s voice.)

During the struggle Zimmerman fired the fatal shot.

Immediately after the shooting, Zimmerman was interrogated by the police for hours. He never asked for an attorney, never wavered in his account of the incident, and was completely cooperative.

The following day he retraced the fateful event step-by-step with a detective. His reenactment coincided with his previous testimony and with the physical evidence.

Grass strains on the back of Zimmerman’s shirt, wounds on the back of his head, bruises on Martin’s knuckles (his only injury), and powder burns on Martin’s outer garment proving that the weapon was discharged while pressed against Martin’s clothing, all corroborated Zimmerman’s narrative.

There is something else we have today that didn’t exist in the King trial. And that something could add exponentially to the potential for violence in the Zimmerman trial; it’s called connectedness.

There are dozens of social networking sites with more than 1.5 billion users. Facebook has 750 million subscribers, Twitter boasts 250 million, and YouTube has 30 million logons every day. These and similar sites enable people to form mega-groups, organize massive demonstrations, and generate publicity. Witness the Arab Spring.

In countries like Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen, internet plans for protests, which brought people together in their hundreds of thousands, were orchestrated through Facebook and Twitter. “We use Facebook to schedule the protests,” said an activist, “and we use Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.”

This can happen here as well and it could get ugly.

One more telling incident. Between 1979 to 1981, 28 black children were murdered in Atlanta, Georgia. It was widely assumed that the serial killer was white. The city was primed to explode. But when the killer was found to be black, the situation was immediately defused.

Let’s not kid ourselves. The Atlanta trial, the King trial, and now the Zimmerman show trial, is not about the black or white of being guilty or innocent. It is about blacks and whites. It is a courtroom confrontation that is not so much about justice as it is about race.

Soon we’ll know if Zimmerman walks. We’ll also know just how hot the summer will be.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA