Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks Hispanic immigrants should stop watching Spanish-speaking media to learn English. “You’ve got to turn off the Spanish television set,” he said last week at the annual convention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. “You’re just forced to speak English, and that just makes you learn the language faster.” Schwarzenegger is correct that immersion can speed up learning a language. But the bigger barrier likely is the three-year waiting period to get into many English language classes.
Posted by Andie Clum
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Bush Family Evil Empire: Scandal Du Jour–
White House aides’ e-mail records gone
Posted July 19WASHINGTON (AP) — E-mail records are missing for 51 of the 88 White House officials who had electronic message accounts with the Republican National Committee, the House Oversight Committee said Monday.
The Bush administration may have committed “extensive” violations of a law requiring that certain records be preserved, said the committee’s Democratic chairman, adding that the panel will deepen its probe into the use of political e-mail accounts.
The committee’s interim report said the number of White House officials who had RNC e-mail accounts, and the number of messages they sent and received, were more extensive than previously realized.
The administration has said that about 50 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts during Bush’s presidency. But the House committee found at least 88.
“Given the heavy reliance by White House officials on RNC e-mail accounts, the high rank of the White House officials involved, and the large quantity of missing e-mails,” the report said, “the potential violation of the Presidential Records Act may be extensive.”
The records act requires presidents to assure that “the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance” of their duties are “adequately documented … and maintained,” the report said.http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-06-18-white-house-emails_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
*****
Why is this a big deal?
Because a law was passed to ensure that presidents (even pResidents) have to keep their correspondence open and above-board.
Since Worst President Ever and his staff are the very epitome of behind-closed-doors and under-the-table, they of course ignore the law and actively set up e-mail addresses to skirt the law.
This has been another–and they just keep coming, don’t they, folks?–Bush Family Evil Empire: Scandal Du Jour.
CapnAmerican -Have you gone bonkers?What does Bush’s BS got to do with English classes.
Oh, my, gosh!
I HAVE gone bonkers. Now I finally know what my problem is.
Thanks, Wiseman.
(In the voice of Paul Harvey) “You truly are (long pause) a (pause) wise man.”
Actually, I posted here because the topic is just a waste of bandwidth.
Hispanics will learn English at the same rate as other recent immigrants–having the Governator lecture them (in English no less) will make exactly zero difference.
The big problem for recent immigrants is having their kids learn their parents’ language. Usually the kids want to blend in by refusing to speak the “foreign” language of their parents.
This is all basic DUH knowledge to anyone who sat through the first six weeks of a linguistics class, but we, being ethnocentric Americans, don’t find language study important.
You speak a lot of truth there Cap.But we have to keep enforcing or it will fall to waste side and be right back to the beginning.
Learning to speak English doesn’t help with the illegal immigration problem at all. It more than likely prolongs the problem.
I guess all those alarmist yelling about jobs being sent to Mexico by major companies was just, well alarmism. It hasn’t affected millions still coming across our border.
How would I handle it? Tariffs on all Mexican goods. Total blockage of any goods or services from Mexico. A no vote on any aid to Mexico. The calling back of all our loans to Mexico and seizure of all moneys held in banks and investements made by Mexico.
That would just be to get their attention.
Then I would place 50,000 troops on the border with an ample supply of trucks and buses. Every few feet a Marine or Army armed military person that would seize and arrest anyone crossing the border. A wall of military if you will.
Then I would start with the second coming of the Panama Canal Project, except that it would be a 1800 mile long double wall with space between the walls.
I would enforce Visa admittance into the U.S. with great scrutiny. Each Visa would be examined and could be seized and held if one mistake is found.
I would greatly enhance local police to enforce immigration laws by passing legislation that give police the total authority to act as agents of the INS. That is, to seize, detain and extradite any illegal alien found anywhere on U.S. soil.
I would deny sanctuary citizens any Federal funds or assistance if found complicit in direct violation of immigration policies.
I would make it a felony and make mandatory sentences and fines for any employer found hiring illegal aliens.
I would enact legislation to deny the use of anchor babies for parents to stay in the U.S. by having the applicant prove that they were under duress or in danger of their life or seeking political asylum.
Unless the government of Mexico gets serious about their part in this illegal immigrant problem, I would continue to put intense pressure on them. They need to counter our border security with one of their own that prevents their citizens and their own immigrants from other countries from gaining access to their borders.
I would also seek and apply UN sanctions against Mexico if they continued to allow illegal immigrants from their own country to enter our country, who are classified as hostiles (drug dealers, terrorists.)
If you want to get serious about the issue, this one way of doing it. There is no pussyfooting around when it comes to border security.
In college I knew many foreign students that had came to KS to attend intensive-English programs.
It was very observable that the ones that only hung around their countrymen, spoke their native language, and did not immerse themselves in out-of-classroom activities in English did not learn the language well.
Schwarzenegger was exactly right about how to facilitate learning a language. Those that want to learn English, must immerse themselves in it, and practice as much as they can, whether it is at work, with friends, or watching TV in English (subtitles help a lot with this).
We have enabled them to not speak English. With spanish language programming, phone systems that speak spanish, and so on. We need to force them to learn, it is the only way to make them. Don’t give into the pressure to put spanish language stuff on your menu/business/signs/
“We need to force them to learn”
oh my
“We have enabled them to…”"We need to force them to learn…”
Who, exactly is we?
I would greatly enhance local police to enforce immigration laws by passing legislation that give police the total authority to act as agents of the INS. That is, to seize, detain and extradite any illegal alien found anywhere on U.S. soil.
Republican | June 19, 2007 at 08:36 AM
I like your ideas Republican, except for the one I copied and added to this post. I just have a visual of a bunch of hicks with badges having way too much authority over the illegal immigrants, and cringe at the civil rights that would, or could be, stomped on.
There is nothing wrong with learning another language.If I were going to live in a foreign country, yeah – you can bet that I would be trying to learn their language.I think that I would be lost if I did not besides you can get yourself unknowingly in trouble if you did not know their language and their ways.
“I like your ideas Republican, except for the one I copied and added to this post. I just have a visual of a bunch of hicks with badges having way too much authority over the illegal immigrants, and cringe at the civil rights that would, or could be, stomped on.”
Posted by: TDT | June 19, 2007 at 02:25 PM
That may be true in a very few cases TDT. However, illegal immigrants gave up any rights of protection under the law, when they crossed the border illegally.
They doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be treated inhumanely. And of course making such a law such as I suggested doesn’t mean the law shouldn’t be made just because of worst case scenarios.
If we used “worst case scenarios” as a means to make laws, then no law would ever get passed.
Any police officer violating the law while acting as an agent of the INS would be under the Federal Laws for Law Enforcement behavior and would receive harsher punishment.
That realization of being under Federal Law would do a couple of things.
(1) Would make local police aware of their duties and responsibilities as it pertains to illegal immigrants.(2) It would allow local police agencies to become eligible for federal assistance in the form of direct grants or temporary appropriations.
“However, illegal immigrants gave up any rights of protection under the law, when they crossed the border illegally.”
Which laws exactly must be broken for someone to give up their ‘rights of protection under the law’?
Should there be a trial and conviction first or should the go straight to Gitmo?
come on Republican, at least attempt an answer.
Instead of just bashing the Mexicans we should be helping them assimilate.
We would be the businesses of the USA.
how about instead of asking the question “how about more English classes?” we ask “how about enforcing immigration law so we have fewer ILLEGALS?”
why isn’t that a solution to our language issue?