The crackdown on illegal immigration, combined with an economic downturn in housing and construction, appear to be reducing the numbers of Mexican immigrants entering this country, according to a Los Angeles Times article.
Among the many signs cited of a slowdown: According to a recent survey of Mexicans, about one-third fewer than a year before said they planned to seek work abroad. And in fiscal 2007, which ended in September, U.S. border officials apprehended some 877,000 illegal border crossers — down about 20 percent from the year before.
T ougher border and workplace enforcement seems to be having an impact, but some experts insist the slowdown follows a familiar pattern and is mainly about the sluggish economy.
Moreover, there are still an estimated 12 million illegals living and working here, many in complicated mixed families, with some children born here and legally U.S. citizens.
Is America willing to balance enforcement with pragmatism and compassion?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Like a growing number of Christian leaders, Pope Benedict XVI is concerned about our stewardship of the Earth. At Christmas Mass, the pope spoke of our “ill-treated world†and “the abuse of energy and its selfish and reckless exploitation.†The Vatican also recently started purchasing carbon credits to offset its energy use.
Meanwhile, some conservatives, such as Brit Hume of Fox News, have claimed that the text of the pope’s World Day of Peace message, to be delivered Tuesday, shows that the pope is a global warming skeptic. Hardly. The pope appropriately warns against drawing hasty conclusions on how to find an ecological balance. But he also says that “prudence does not mean failing to accept responsibilities and postponing decisions†and that technologically advanced countries need to reassess their high level of energy consumption and “search for alternative sources of energy and for greater energy efficiency.â€
Posted by Kristin Mehler
President Bush is planning to travel widely in 2008 to improve America’s image abroad.
He might do more good by staying home. Bush has cratered America’s standing abroad, even among our closest allies. Consider a recent Pew Center study of attitudes in 47 nations that found “extensive†anti-Americanism. The perception that America acts unilaterally is shared by 89 percent of the French, 83 percent of Canadians and 74 percent of Britons. In the Middle East, America’s reputation is at rock-bottom.
America’s tarnished image is partly caused by the “arrogant bunker mentality†(in Mike Huckabee’s words) Team Bush has shown in its post-Sept. 11 foreign policy.
Bush is going to turn that around in a few trips? Good luck.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Saturday’s snowstorm provided an interesting postscript to Wichita’s debate over Sunday liquor sales and the City Council’s April approval of such sales. Because the blizzard largely wiped out Saturday shopping, Sunday sales “basically saved my Christmas holiday,†Anton Kowalski, owner of Anton’s Vintage Wine & Spirits, told The Eagle. Sounds like an affirmation of the council’s wise move to let businesses decide which days of the week to open.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
“While most people who come out to see him are willing to endure some delays, his habit of lateness has alienated others, some of whom say it is just plain rude,†the New York Times reported about Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards’ habit of being late to campaign events.
Bill Clinton may have been able to get away with routine tardiness, but it’s not smart campaigning for Edwards.
Posted by Kristin Mehler
Texas accounted for 62 percent of all executions in America this year — up from its typical average of about 37 percent. The reason for the increase isn’t that Texas is doing more executions. Rather, it’s that the rest of the country is doing fewer. As a result, of the nation’s 42 executions in the past year, 26 were in Texas. The remaining 16 were spread across nine other states, none of which executed more than three people, the New York Times reported.
The Texas judicial system apparently does not share in the rest of the country’s growing concern about the biased and possibly incorrect application of the death penalty. On the contrary, what separates Texas from other states is its aggressiveness in carrying out executions once a death sentence is imposed.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
When American generals have success in war, somebody inevitably asks whether they want to try politics. But Army Gen. David Petraeus showed zero interest in going the way of Dwight Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant and George Washington in a “Fox News Sunday†interview. “I have great respect for those who do choose to serve our country in that way. I’ve chosen to serve our country in uniform,†Petraeus said from Baghdad. He went so far as to refer to Gen. William Sherman’s famous telegram to the 1884 GOP convention: “I will not accept if nominated, and I will not serve if elected.â€
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The Christmas season illuminated the jarring contrast between the public piety of some conservative Christians and their intense anger toward illegal immigrants, noted Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker. “After all,†she wrote, “the Bible, which conservative Christians hold out as the inerrant word of God, includes several admonitions to practice kindness toward ‘strangers.’â€
Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, said: “We welcome the stranger because the Savior himself was not welcomed in mainstream society. The whole teaching of ‘no room in the inn’ was about someone poor and marginalized and pushed off to a stable.â€
Posted by Kristin Mehler
The “Awakening†militias flourishing among Iraq’s Sunni population — and organized and bankrolled by the U.S. military to fight al-Qaida insurgents — are largely credited with the striking security gains made in the past year.
But the groups are fighting among themselves, too, over tribal loyalties and territory. And they could at some point pose a potent threat to the central Shiite-led government, which refuses to recognize them.
According to a New York Times article: “The Americans are haunted by the possibility that Iraq could go the way of Afghanistan, where Americans initially bought the loyalty of tribal leaders only to have some of them gravitate back to the Taliban when the money stopped.â€
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The recent federal indictment against a local doctor for allegedly dispensing medicine illegally, and the sluggish response of the Kansas Board of Healing Arts to the case, has revived questions about the willingness of the medical profession to police its own.
Nationally, a recent survey of 1,700 doctors by Massachusetts General Hospital gives some cause for concern. Most doctors — 93 percent — agreed that physicians should report all serious medical errors and incompetent colleagues to authorities. But when it came to their own experience, almost half of the doctors said that they had direct knowledge of medical mistakes and bad doctors that they had not reported.
“The vast majority believe in the tenets of professionalism, and the majority of physicians observe those tenets in most respects,†said David Blumenthal, lead author of the report. “There are significant and worrisome departures that need attention from the profession and regulatory authorities.â€
Posted by Randy Scholfield
“This guy’s a legitimate war hero, the most qualified person to be president. He’s ideologically acceptable; he’s electable. And I think those are the two doors our candidate has to get through.†— Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who is urging primary voters in Iowa and New Hampshire to give Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., another look
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Having seen the wish for a white Christmas come true, many south-central Kansans will do their part today to make the holiday merry and bright.
May those aching from the absence of loved ones who are among the courageous men and women in our military know their families are in the community’s prayers and hearts.
May those who have lost relatives and friends this year to illness, accidents, homicide and suicide feel their grief eased by the season’s joy.
May the other challenges of this year — whether as shared as Greensburg’s devastation or as singular as a lost job or broken heart — lead to better days.
With aircraft plants hiring and agriculture and energy surging, the region has every reason to be optimistic about the gifts that 2008 may bring.
In the meantime, merry Christmas to all.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Crime legislation is easier to pass with a victim’s name attached. Maybe that’s what the health care crisis needs. If so, Nataline Sarkisyan (in photo) may provide the name. She was the 17-year-old who died Thursday at UCLA Medical Center just hours after her insurer, Cigna HealthCare, did an about-face and decided to fund her liver transplant after all. Litigation will follow. So should legislation tackling the entire problem of the uninsured and underinsured.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Interesting conclusion to a positive column about Barack Obama by the New York Times’ David Brooks: “The presidency is a bacterium. It finds the open wounds in the people who hold it. It infects them, and the resulting scandals infect the presidency and the country. The person with the fewest wounds usually does best in the White House, and is best for the country.â€
Posted by Rhonda Holman
An integral part of the American dream for many is the hope that their children will have an even more prosperous life than they themselves enjoyed. A recent Pew study, however, found that the dream is fading. On the backs of bloated credit card bills and rising costs of living, many families are dancing with the breaking point. Meanwhile, the rich keep getting richer. Bob Herbert of the New York Times blames the growing inequality on the system.
"We’re running out of smoke and mirrors," he wrote. "The fundamental problem, the problem that is destroying the dream, is the extreme inequality pounded into the system by the corporate crowd and its handmaidens in government. . . . When such an overwhelming portion of the economic benefits are skewed toward a tiny portion of the population — as has happened in the U.S. over the past few decades — it’s impossible for the society as a whole not to suffer."
Posted by Kristin Mehler
Still looking for Christmas presents for that politically minded certain someone? The New York Times political blog made a top 10 list of gifts for political geeks. It included a voting machine from Palm Beach County, Fla., which is for sale for $219.95 on a Web site run by Dennis Kucinich’s campaign; an instructional judo video done by Russian President and Time magazine Person of the Year Vladimir Putin; and a commemorative Ron Paul liberty dollar.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
The legal challenge to the 2004 law allowing some illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at Kansas public universities and colleges hit the wall last week when the federal appeals court in Denver denied a request that the full court rehear the case. This decision again hinges on the lack of legal standing of the out-of-state plaintiffs to challenge the law because they didn’t face “concrete and imminent†injury.
But the law remains a modest and humane recognition that capable illegal immigrant kids — brought to this state by their parents — ought to have the same shot at college as their fellow Kansas high school graduates. When they better themselves by going to college, Kansas benefits, too.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
It’s the Republican establishment that is most concerned about the rise of GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. That’s because Huckabee’s surge “represents a break with what has been standard operating procedure within the GOP for more than a generation,†wrote Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne. Huckabee’s evangelical supporters are bucking the marching orders of entrenched religious right leaders, Dionne said, and his economic populism has Wall Street worried.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
2007 has not been kind to poor college students on birth control pills. Since the Deficit Reduction Act took effect in January, the price of birth control for college students has gone from pennies a day to around $50 a month. That may not seem like much, but for a student sans steady income, it makes the pill a luxury. The American College Health Association reports that as pill prices rise, so do student visits for emergency contraception and pregnancy tests.
The solution is simple: Change the language of a few bills to include college health providers on the list of discount-eligible pharmaceutical providers, at no expense to the taxpayer. Supporters include Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.
It should be noted by those blocking such action that women at that age are prescribed birth control to regulate a wide array of medical issues aside from pregnancy prevention.
Posted by Kristin Mehler
Wichitans know that payday loan stores have multiplied like rabbits locally. Well, Kansas Action for Children counted 436 payday and car-title lenders in the state this year, up from a mere 53 in 1993. But with the hired help of such heavyweights as former Kansas House Speaker Doug Mays and former Attorney General Bob Stephan, the industry has done an effective job so far of persuading state legislators that when it comes to such lenders, the more, the merrier. State Rep. Melody McCray-Miller, D-Wichita, plans another push to cap title-loan interest rates at 36 percent and help limit an individual’s total loans. People being preyed upon by such lenders must better plead their case in Topeka. “It’s harmful to families. It’s harmful to children. They prey upon elderly,†McCray-Miller told The Eagle editorial board. One source of hope, she said, is that credit unions and some banks are offering responsible alternatives. “That cuts through the heart of the argument that says, ‘We’re the only players on the block.’â€
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The optimism and enthusiasm shown last week in Greensburg was an inspiration. Despite the destruction of their town by a tornado on May 4, residents and city leaders spoke during a community meeting about opportunities — to make Greensburg a model community by rebuilding using environmentally friendly standards, to improve city infrastructure, to equip public school classrooms with state-of-the-art technology. The road to full recovery will be long and frustrating at times. But Greensburg residents are demonstrating the power of hope.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
