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Border Agents Dispute Claim That
Illegal Immigrant Tide Is Slowing
The Washington Examiner
The once red-hot issue of illegal immigration has cooled considerably in recent months, in large part because of studies like one from the Pew Hispanic Center that said the flood of people entering the US from across the Mexican border has slowed, and that the number actually returning to Mexico from the US has increased, reversing a decades-long trend. But federal law enforcement agents on the border are skeptical that the illegal immigrant tide is slowing. And new information from the US financial sector shows that more money is flowing from American cities to Mexico in the form of remittances from immigrants than last year. Federal law enforcement officials security is being compromised as the government seeks to keep a lid on the border as a campaign issue during the presidential election cycle.
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Brown Proposes Tough Cuts,
Taxes to Close $16B Gap in California
AP/The Washington Times
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on Monday proposed more than $8 billion in cuts to close a widening California budget deficit but also said public schools will receive more money if voters approve his tax-increase initiative in November. The governor wants public employees to take a 5 percent pay cut and also seeks cuts to health care and social services. Mr. Brown released his revised spending plan for the fiscal year starting July 1, saying the state now faces a $15.7 billion deficit. That is roughly 17 percent of its $91 billion general fund, California’s main checkbook for day-to-day operations. The deficit also is far higher than the $9.2 billion gap Mr. Brown anticipated in January. The anticipated deficit for the coming fiscal year marks a continuation of California’s ongoing budget problems.
Florida Moves to Purge 180,000
Non-Citizens from Voting Rolls
The Miami Herald
Hispanic, Democrat and independent-minded voters are the most likely to be targeted in a state hunt to remove thousands of non-citizens from Florida’s voting rolls, a Miami Herald computer analysis of 2,600 elections records has found, with Whites and Republicans disproportionately the least-likely to face the threat of removal. The list was first compiled by the state and furnished to county election supervisors and then The Herald. The numbers change by the day. The state’s Division of Elections says it initially identified roughly 180,000 potential non-citizens by performing a search of a computer database that doesn’t have the most-updated information. About 58% of those identified as potential non-citizens are Hispanics, Florida’s largest ethnic immigrant population, the analysis of the list shows.
National Curriculum Plan May Face Challenge
The Washington Times
An influential group of conservative state lawmakers is on the verge of proposing model legislation to block the Common Core national education standards that have been heavily promoted by the Obama administration. The American Legislative Exchange Council’s board of directors, made up of two dozen state legislators from across the nation, will vote Friday on whether to recommend that states withdraw from the program, which for the first time would establish a nationwide system of academic benchmarks in mathematics and English-language arts. The Obama administration has pushed the Common Core curriculum, as part of its own education reform agenda. The legislative exchange council’s vote could provide a gauge of rising conservative sentiment against the Common Core curriculum idea.
Christie Vetoes Obamacare ‘Health Exchange’ Bill
The New Jersey Star-Ledger
Insisting the state should wait until the US Supreme Court decides whether federal healthcare reform is constitutional, Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a bill today that would form a "health exchange," an online marketplace small employers and uninsured people would use to shop for low-cost coverage. The veto does not come as a surprise. The health exchange is a key component of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which requires everyone to carry health insurance or pay a fine, and Christie has delayed implementing aspects of the federal law before the nation’s highest court announces its decision in June. Twelve states and Washington, DC, have enacted laws creating a health exchange. Some business groups praised Christie’s action while sparking criticism from Democrat lawmakers.
Number of Women Not in
Labor Force Hits Historic High
CNS News
324,000 women dropped out of the nation’s civilian labor force in March and April as the number of women not in the labor force hit an all-time historical high of 53,321,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The civilian labor force consists of all people in the United States 16 years or older who are not in the military, a prison, or another institution such as a nursing home or mental hospital and who either have a job or are unemployed but have actively sought work in the previous four weeks and are currently available to work. For both males and females combined, the rate of participation in the labor force dropped to 63.6 percent in April -- the lowest rate since December 1981. Recently, however, women have been leaving the labor force in larger numbers than men.
Florida Investigating Potential Non-Citizen Voters
CBS News
In a new crackdown, Florida officials are investigating the citizenship of thousands of registered voters. CBS4 News has learned 2,000 of those potential non-citizen voters are registered in Miami-Dade County. At least one person on the list has had the opportunity to vote for the past 40 years. “These are the people that we have to notify by mail that we have a reason to believe that they’re a non-citizen,” said Christina White, Deputy Supervisor of Elections. Miami-Dade is not alone. Broward is looking at 260 registered voters and Monroe is investigating four. A CBS4/Miami Herald analysis of a partial list provided by Miami-Dade shows a large number of the suspect voters have cast ballots in the past. The party affiliations seem evenly split. The analysis of 350 people shows one person voted at least 30 times.
SEC Sues Ex-Detroit Mayor for Influence Peddling
AP/The Washington Times
Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is facing federal civil charges of taking part in an influence-peddling scheme involving the city’s public-employee pension funds. The Securities and Exchange Commission says Kilpatrick and ex-city treasurer Jeffrey Beasley received $125,000 in private jet travel and other perks from an investment firm. The SEC says that was in exchange for getting the city’s pension fund to make an investment favoring the firm. Kilpatrick and Beasley violated federal securities laws, the SEC alleged in a civil lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Detroit. MayfieldGentry Realty Advisors, the investment firm, asked the pension funds’ trustees to invest $117 million in a real estate investment trust controlled by the firm, the SEC said.
Reuters Poll Over-Samples Democrats by 9%
The Daily Caller
A Reuters poll released Tuesday bucked recent trends and showed President Barack Obama ahead of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by seven points. The poll, however, appears to have over-sampled Democrats by a wide margin, skewing the results in the president’s favor. Though a January Gallup poll found that Democrats outnumber Republicans in the United States by only 4 percent, an April Rasmussen poll showed a 35.1 percent to 33.1 percent split in favor of self-identified Republicans. Still, the Americans polled by Reuters were 47 percent Democrats, 38 percent Republicans and 15 percent independents -- a nine-point difference in favor of voters likely to support President Obama’s re-election effort. A spread compiled by Real Clear Politics averaging those six polls put Obama ahead by .2 points.
Landmark Lawsuit Against Mortgage
Bank Servicers, Offshore Havens
MarketWatch.com
Home owners across the country have sued every major bank servicer and their subsidiaries -- formed in countries known as havens for money laundering such as the Cayman Islands, the Isle of Man, Luxembourg and Malaysia -- alleging that while the Obama Administration was publicly encouraging loan modifications for home owners, it was privately ratifying the formation of these shell companies in violation of the United States Patriot Act, and State and Federal law. The case further alleges that through these obscure foreign companies, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo Bank, Citibank, Citigroup, One West Bank, and numerous other federally chartered banks stole hundreds of millions of dollars of home owners' money during the last decade and then laundered it through offshore companies.
Video:Tax Loophole Allows
Illegals to Glean Millions in Refunds
NBC News
The IRS says everyone who is employed in the US -- even those who are working here illegally -- must report income and pay taxes. Of course, undocumented workers are not supposed to have a social security number. So for them to pay taxes, the IRS created what's called an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number. A 9-digit ITIN number issued by the IRS provides both resident and nonresident aliens with a unique identification number that allows them to file tax returns. But it's now backfiring in a big way. Each spring, at tax preparation offices all across the nation, many illegal immigrants are now eagerly filing tax returns to take advantage of a tax loophole, using their ITIN numbers to get huge refunds from the IRS. The loophole is called the Additional Child Tax Credit.
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