Croom Station Signal

A Hard Working Immigrant Speaks Truth to the Cheap Foreign Labor Lobby

From the ABA Journal Magazine, August 2011:

"I was once an immigrant from a third-world country, where corruption is widespread in all levels of the government.

"Although our constitution guaranteed us freedom of speech, in reality one can easily be executed for saying something inimical to the greedy government officials’ interest.

"The influx of immigrants here from my country of origin greatly boosts that country’s economy. And here is why. Roughly 140,000 employment visas are issued to aliens to work here as skilled and non-skilled worker every year. For skilled worker, one is required to possess a bachelor’s degree.

"However, a degree in a third world country isn't remotely comparable to a bachelor’s degree here because of disparity in quality of education. In a third world country, one is guaranteed a degree by merely paying all the tuition fees and 90% class attendance. The educational institutions there are primarily motivated solely by generating revenue rather than providing quality education.

"Despite the disparity, US is giving equivalent credits to those degrees resulting in employing alien graduates here mostly as teachers and health personnel.

"Now once this alien worker obtains a green card, they will petition for their alien relatives. Most of the petitioned relatives specially the parents will not find a job. After these relatives obtained citizenship in five years, they will put them on welfare—a preconceived intent formulated since the petition was filed. Entitling to benefits can easily be achieved because most foreigners have a tight-knit family and usually live under one roof hence will show no assets at all.

"My country of origin produces a lot of graduates who are employed all over the world despite of our no-quality education. Because part of our culture is to help our relatives back in our country of origin, we send “remittances” out of our monthly pay to that country which is indubit-ably a great boost to their economy and blissfully, to the corrupt government officials."

Read the article (OK, its shamelessly about me), where this revealing story is posted as comment number 5 by "Sam."

GOP Politics of Illegal Alien College Tuition

The thoughtful Americans at the Center for Immigration Studies have one of the more observant (and yet so disappointing) insights into the feckless electoral campaign of Texas Gov. Rick Perry:

The heated exchange between Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry over the issue of in-state college tuition for illegal aliens illustrates how different candidates might approach a policy problem for which there's no easy answer. Where they come down on this issue shows whether a candidate is able to make tough but right decisions that best serve the national interest.

Rick Perry has been defending Texas's DREAM Act Amnesty Lite.

At the September 22 Florida debate, Texas Gov.Perry defended his support for a Texas law giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens.

"If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they have been brought there by no fault of their own, I don't think you have a heart," Perry said. "I still support it greatly."

Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney replied, "I think if you're opposed to illegal immigration, it doesn't mean you don't have a heart, it means you have a heart and a brain."

Perry's snarky soundbite reveals a lot about him. Some 32,000 illegal aliens already received taxpayer subsidies of $40,000 or more for a Texas undergraduate degree course, in place of lawfully resident Texans, citizens and legal immigrants alike. So why does he come down on the side of lawbreaking illegals, and against lawful state residents?

Emotion.  Perry lets his heartstrings be his guide. He feels sorry for illegal aliens who purportedly were brought to this country as minors. Those matters of fact are hardly proven in each case, but Perry substitutes his sympathetic urges for the sort of toughness of thought and steely reasoning necessary to serving as the leader of the free world.

That's not good enough. Candidates who can't resist putting their personal feelings ahead of clearer, though tougher reasoning and allegiance to the requirements of justice are unfit to hold office. In-state tuition for illegals encourages and rewards more illegal immigration. It misallocates limited public resources, which the public has entrusted to officials. It cheats legal residents.

 

Obamanomics Hurts the American Working Man-- Bad

As President Barack Obama puts together yet another “new” jobs plan, he is up against a powerful and dangerous trend:  A smaller share of men have jobs today than at any time since World War II.**

If that sounds bleak, it is. The portion of men who work and their median wages have been eroding since the early 1970s. For decades the impact of this fact was softened in many families by the number of women going back to work. The housing bubble helped mask it by artificially stoking the male-dominated construction trades. But when real estate crashed, the portion of men holding a job—any job, full- or part-time—fell to 63.5 percent in July 2011— just a hair above the December 2009 low point of 63.3 percent.

These are the worst numbers since 1948. Among the critical category of prime working-age men between 25 and 54, only 81.2 percent held jobs. In the current recession, 80 percent of all jobs lost were held by men. In perspective, in 1969 95 percent of men in their prime working years had a job.

Men who do have jobs are getting paid less. Adjusted for inflation, median wages for men aged 30 to 50 dropped 27 percent—to $33K a year— from 1969 to 2009, according to an analysis by MIT economics professor Michael Greenstone, who was chief economist for Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. "That takes men and puts them back at their earnings capacity of the 1950s. That has staggering implications."

Moderately skilled men without a college education have taken direct hits to their employment prospects.  But even those with bachelor's degrees from less selective schools are seeing their economic worth erode. The middle is crumbling, with elites doing better while more male citizens are being pushed down the compensation scale.

What is wrong?

Lowlights of Maryland Budget Deficit Crisis from our State Budget Analyst

The General Assembly’s own Office of Policy Analysis has now pegged the 2011 state budget deficit at a crushing $1.6 BILLION.  Senate President-for-Life Mike “V.” Miller says addressing the budget black hole “is going to be very, very, difficult.”  Of course the “non-partisan” OPA was considerate enough to wait until AFTER November 2 to release the bad news, presumably with the humanitarian intention of avoiding fear-mongering among the peasants.  In Naptown, “V” stands for Venal. 

But a read though the charts prepared by OPA Director Warren Deschenaux show the fiscal outlook is much worse than the MSM have reported.

The OPA “Spending Affordability Briefing” is a shocking data-dump for the numerate. 

 

 I’ll try to share some of the most appalling “lowlights” here on the mighty Signal.

But you can also download the charts and tables and see for yourself at:

http://mlis.state.md.us/other/spending_affordability/briefing_111010.pdf . 

Lowlight:  The Dixiecrats claim that the last thing to be cut will be state aid for public education. But the biggest percentage increase in public education support between 2011 and 2012 will be subsidies for the schools with the highest numbers of illegal aliens, where state subsides for “limited English proficiency” payments will go up a hefty 7.7%.  The relative increase from 2010 is even higher, 9.5%, but OPC chief Warren Deschenaux conveniently omitted that figure from the briefing, which you have to calculate for yourself.  See Briefing page 14.

By contrast, funding for community colleges will rise a measley 1.9%, and supplemental state education grants, designed to improve programs for the poorest American public school students, will drop by 9.2% from 2010 to 2012.  Again, the budget analyst only provides the percent for the 2011-12 projected change, to make it look like there is no real drop at all.

Lowlight:   The worst fiscal situation in Maryland’s history since the end of federal occupation after the Civil War is barely reflected in the Dixiecrats’ suicidal entitlements for votes agenda.  Projected general fund spending on direct welfare payments is projected to metastasize 113.3 % between FY 2011 and 2012, while state medical assistance programs, which include massive subsidies for uncompensated medical care for illegal aliens, will surge 66% next fiscal year, an increase of  $1.15 BILLION DOLLARS in just 12 months!  See Briefing page 39. 

Lowlight:   While the “magic” press conference budget deficit is pegged at $1.6 BILLION, the structural deficit – that’s the “real” 2012 budget deficit of ongoing revenues less operating costs—is a staggering $2.1 BILLION.  See Briefing page 16. 

Lowlight:   The General Assembly spent like drunken sailors and stole grandma’s savings to fool the public with the 2011 budget.  Buried on the last page of the briefing is a chart innocently labeled the “Fund Transfers and Multiyear General Obligations Bond Repayment Plan.”  An inquiring taxpayer will see that the Dixiecrats “transferred” $444 MILLION for 18 key special trust funds (a total of 57 funds in all were raided) to pay the bills this year.

The “repayment plan,” to be spread over the coming four years, is of course a fantasy. Briefing page 51. Even more shocking is the $350 MILLION taken in 2011 from the Local Income Tax Reserve— income taxes collected by the state for county governments— and used instead to paper over the shortfall in funding for the soon-to-be bankrupt state teachers pension funds.  Briefing page 11. 

Lowlight:  In 2012, the state will somehow have to come up with $1.21 BILLION in new state taxes to replace one-time federal stimulus funds used to paper over the 2011 deficit.  Briefing page 11. 

Lowlight:  We're starting to pay out-of pocket for Obamacare madness in 2012.  Since BS&N (Barak, Steney and Nancy) slashed reimbursement for over-the-counter medications from the federal health savings programs starting on January 1, 2011, the state will have to pay $5.1 million just to fund the difference for state Medicaid recipients.  Briefing page 8. 

Lowlight:  The state is planning on a nearly 450% increase in video lottery terminal revenues between now and 2015 just to keep the “magic” deficit figure below its unsustainable 2011 level.  This “stupid poor people’s tax” scheme is a fiscal fantasy and a social abomination.  Briefing page 22. 

Lowlight:  Maryland has reached its maximum sustainable level for general obligation bond borrowing, which is calculated as a ceiling of 8% on state general revenues used to pay GO bond interest payments. Briefing page 26.  

The outlook for the Transportation Trust Fund is even worse.  They apparently have exceeded their sustainable borrowing limits by projecting unreal revenue levels over the next five years from vehicle titling and fuel taxes.  BOTTOM LINE:  Even if O’Malley imposes draconian taxes, Maryland’s capital spending programs, particularly for roads and public transportation, are going to take a massive hit.  Crumbling infrastructure will then takes its inevitable toll on state economic activity and the tax base it can generate.  It’s called the race to the bottom. Briefing page 23-24.

Obamacare Strips OTC Medications from Taxpayers' Health Savings Plans

Here it comes... 

In one of the first cuts in what will soon become a healthcare massacre, the Washington Examiner, in an Oct. 28, 2010 story, reports that, beginning on January 1, 2011, our flexible savings plans (FSPs) and health savings plans (HSPs) can no longer be used to claim reimbursement for over-the-counter medications, unless you get a doctor's prescription! 

Yes, I know it's nuts. 

A national law that supposedly reforms our healthcare system instead forces you to go to the doctor to get a prescription for cold medicine, band aids, or poison ivy cream before you can use the money you saved to pay for these basic healthcare items. 

The Examiner cites an online provider that says it will no longer allow you to use your FSA savings to pay for, "acid controllers, allergy and sinus medication... anti-gas... baby rash creams... respiratory treatments, cough, cold and flu remedies... stomach remedies.... feminine anti-fungal treatments.... or pain relief."

According to the Examiner:

"The new provision guarantees that patients will either pay more for the same drugs, clog doctors' offices with expensive and unneeded appointments, or a combination of both, defeating the entire stated purpose of Obamacare." 

"With each new revelation, it looks less like a fix for the health care system, and more like a recipe for increased state control of Americans' financial and health choices."

 

 

That Glorious Song of Old...

 

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen! 

May nothing you dismay. 

Remember... Christ our Savior

Was born on Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas 2009 to All 

from your neighbors and friends at Croom Station. 

The Political Fantasy of ObamaCare

Economist Robert J. Samuelson has concluded that the claims about health care reform made by the Obama administration and its allies on Capital Hill are "self-serving exaggerations and politicial fantasies."   The federal government "cannot both insure the uninsured and rein in health spending," he writes.

Samuelson's explanation? "  It is a myth that the "uninsured" get little or no care. They currently get two thirds as much health care as the insured, who pay for premiums and services themselves. 

If the "uninsured" become insured through taxpayer subsidies, there is no reason they will not begin to consume as much health care as insured taxpayers. 

"Judged objectively, 'reform' may do exactly the opposite of what Obama says." 

Mr. Samuelson attributes the irrational momentum on Obamacare legislation to date to the President's "ability to make misleading statements sound reasonable or sophisticated."  Tellingly, he notes that "the administration can't logically argue that much health care is wasteful and also that the uninsured will automatically benefit from more of it." 

Doc Samuelson's diagnosis is fortunately gaining increasing public attention: The President "offers the illusion of reform while perpetuating the status quo of four decades."

What the President Remembered ...

Obama met with Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin in the White House on July 20 to commemorate the first lunar landing forty years earlier.  He praised the men for their "heroism, calm under pressure" and "grace." 

 

"I think that all of us recall the moment in which mankind finally was untethered from this planet and was able to explore the stars; the moment in which we had one of our own step on the moon and leave that imprint that is there to this day," the President said.

During his White House ceremony honoring the Apollo 11 crew, the President told the astronauts, “The country continues to draw inspiration from what you've done."

 

"I should note just personally", he explained, "I grew up in Hawaii, as many of you know, and I still recall sitting on my grandfather's shoulders when those capsules would land in the middle of the Pacific and they'd get brought back and we'd go out and we'd pretend like they could see us as we were waving at folks coming home."

 

"And I remember waving American flags and my grandfather telling me that the Apollo mission was an example of how Americans can do anything they put their minds to.”

However, as reporter Chelsea Schilling of WorldNet online news service pointed out, there is something wrong with this picture. 

 

The Apollo 11 splashdown took place in the Pacific Ocean south of Johnston Island on July 24, 1969, just before Obama's eighth birthday. Obama, then called Barry Soetoro, lived in Indonesia as a child with his mother and stepfather  from 1967 to 1971 – and not in Hawaii with his maternal grandfather and grandmother, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham.  It was not until Obama turned ten that he moved to Honolulu to live with his grandparents.

 

 

26th Anniversary of the Disappearance of Kim Mileo

June marks the 26th anniversary of Maryland’s only unsolved murder case where no body has ever been found.

 

Kimberly “Kim” Christine Mileo, born June 12, 1962, was last seen alive in Croom, Maryland on June 9, 1983. She was the daughter of Michael Mileo, and at the time lived with him and her step mother in Kettering, Maryland.  Kim had previously lived in Croom through Middle School.

 

Kim was white, 4 feet 11 inches tall, 98 pounds and slender build, and had light brown shoulder length hair. She was last seen wearing a white tube top, black shorts, white sandals, and was carrying a white wind breaker jacket.

Kim had spent Wednesday, June 8, 1983 at the home of her girl friend, Kim Easley, also 20 years old. The two girls had known each other since early childhood. The Easley family had obtained tickets to the upcoming Beach Boys Concert on the Fourth of July, and they planned to give them to Kim Mileo as a 21st birthday present at a party planned for the following weekend.

With them that early summer day was Kim Mileo's boyfriend, Dana Hudson, age 24, who lived with his parents only a mile up the road. The three of them spent part of the day sitting around the Easley pool and later all three went for a drive in the rural setting of Croom, all arriving back at the Easley home later that afternoon.

Easley remembered that Kim "had been fighting with Dana a little, but it was nothing serious." At 11:00 PM, Kim left with Dana to go to his parents' horse farm at 16411 Mount Calvert Road, in Croom.

 

Kim's last words to her friend Easley were, "Call me in the morning."

 

But when Easley called the Mileo home the next morning and asked for Kim, she was informed that Kim had not returned from her trip to Croom. Kim's father, Michael called the Hudson home and spoke with Dana Hudson. Dana claimed to have no knowledge of Kim's whereabouts, but did offer that she "seemed suicidal" to him the day before. Kim's parents reported her as missing to Prince George’s County Police later that same day, Thursday June 9, 1983.  Kim was never seen or heard from again.

Members of the Hudson family later stated that Kim was in their house with Dana that evening, and that she left for home at 2:30 AM. Dana's father, Mr. Donald Hudson, said that he was awakened at that time by the sound of her car's broken muffler. A search and investigation was begun.

On Friday June 10, Dana Hudson was questioned by police. Later that day, Dana and a friend left town without telling anyone where they were going. When Dana returned two days later, he claimed to have driven to Ocean City, Maryland to look for Kim.

On Saturday May 11, Kim's car, a gray 1972 Chevrolet Vega, was found abandoned near 16301 Croom Road by Dana Hudson's brother Greg and/or a friend. That address is 9 miles south of the intersection of Croom Road and Mount Calvert Road - in the opposite direction that Kim would have taken to drive home.

When police began to question why the car had gone unnoticed for two days before Greg Hudson found it, another friend of the Hudson family came forth to state that he had seen it at 3:15 AM Thursday in the same place where it was later found by Greg Hudson. The car, when checked by police, was found to be locked. Kim's purse was inside and there were no apparent signs of a struggle or injury. It was in a working condition.

Police conducted a large scale search for the missing young woman in the area where the car was found, but it turned up no trace of Kim.

On Sunday, June 12, 1983, Dana Hudson was given a lie detector test, which he failed. He was then aggressively interrogated, but would not admit any guilt or responsibility in Kim's disappearance.

The Hudson family had initially responded helpfully toward the police, but as soon as Dana Hudson became a chief suspect, they ceased cooperation entirely.  On June 30, 1983, Dana's younger brother, Todd was picked up by police and interrogated for several hours before being released at 4:00 AM on July 1. Since that day, the Hudson family has refused any interviews or assistance in the case. The family hired a lawyer and refused to speak to any police investigators, with the exception of an interview with a local reporter in which they criticized the county police and their investigation.

 

Kim Mileo's disappearance was officially classified as a homicide. But without a body, or other physical evidence, no one was charged and the case remains unsolved. 

 

''No, I don't think she's alive. She just wouldn't do this. It wasn't like her. She would never go anywhere by herself. She wouldn't even go to Ocean City by herself,'' said Louise Mileo, Kim's stepmother to the PG Journal newspaper in 1988. '' We just want to find her. We just want to know where she is.'' But Mileo's disappearance is the only one of its kind in the county; a presumed murder where no body has ever been found.

 

Kim Mileo disappeared about one year after another young woman from Croom, Stephanie Roper, was abducted, raped, tortured, murdered and mutilated. The men who had killed her were arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to several life prison terms. But at sentencing, the Prince George’s County judge allowed the prison terms to run concurrently instead of consecutively. This mistake made the killers eligible for parole in as little as twelve years. However, St. Marys County prosecutors then charged the two with similar crimes in that jurisdiction, and this time the life sentences were set to run consecutively, effectively eliminating the possibility of parole.

The victims advocacy group called the Stephanie Roper Committee was founded after Stephanie's death and was in existence when Kim disappeared. Dana Hudson’s parents were reported to have been among the earliest supporters of that organization. 

 

The NCIC file number for Kimberley Christine Mileo is M-102855308.

The Elevation of Perversion as Presidential Policy

On June 2, President Obama signed a White House proclamation to officially designate June as "Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transvestite Pride Month."  President Bush had refused to dance in that gutter, saying repeatedly that the White House shouldn't "politicize people's sexual orientation." But his successor makes no secret about the elevation of perversion as Presidential policy:

"I have joined efforts at the United Nations to decriminalize homo-sexuality around the world. Here at home, I continue to support measures to bring the full spectrum of equal rights to LGBT Americans. These measures include enhancing hate crimes laws, supporting civil unions, and ending the existing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.”

LGBT-American. That degenerate hyphenism means that in the govern ment's view of civil rights, practicing sodomy is equivalent to being African-American.

The Administration is promoting the infusion of therapeutic child molestation into public school curricula. At Obama's urging, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has nominated Kevin Jennings, the  creepy founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), to be Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools despite his endorsement of the book "Queering Elementary Education" (Jennings wrote the foreword.)

"Queering" focuses on "re-educating parents" who object to teaching children about homosexual families, "affirming 'sissy boys,'" and barring schools from recognizing Mother's Day and Father's Day, presumably as dangerous vestiges of Christian civilization.  According to the Family Research Council, other chapters encourage the use of music to indoctrinate kids (with pro-homosexual songs like "Mama, What's a Dyke?"), and the drive to include gay-friendly literature in grade school, particularly the type that "affirms the comfortable friendships between young boys and adult homosexual men."

Mark my words – in the brave new world of 2010, they will make defending the sanctity of the family a hate crime, and defending the privileges of citizenship will expose you to suspicion as a domestic terrorist.