April 2010

Yesterday the Democrats released the outline for immigration reform, but there is something missing. The issue, which goes to the heart of the matter, is the hiring of illegal immigrants. Under current laws the fines for businesses that hire illegals is laughable. It’s such a small amount that the fines actually becoming nothing more than the “cost of doing business”.

Let me go back to an example I have cited here before. A Krispy Kreme factory here in southwest Ohio was busted for hiring illegals back in 2006. At the time they found 25 undocumented workers employed by the diabetes factory. In 2009 they finally settled for $40,000. If we now do some simple math we can quickly see how this was a really good deal for Krispy Kreme.

• 2080 – Average number of hours worked per year per employee
• 52,000 – The number of hours for 25 full time employees in a year.

Even if Krispy Kreme decided to pay this people $1.00 less per hour since they are illegal, they still came out $12,000 ahead in just one year. Who wouldn’t turn down an extra $12,000 a year? Not to mention that this also takes away from jobs for citizens in an area with extra-high unemployment, and even drives down the wages for those “legal” workers.

When immigration reform came up a couple of years ago the Democrats did try to increase the penalties to companies hiring illegals. That was quickly defeated by the Republicans, who decried the move as “unfair” to business. Instead they chose to keep everything at the status quo and businesses continue to do the practice to this very day.

Our own version of Sheriff Joe Arpaio is suffering from penis envy over Arizona’s new immigration laws:

In response to the Ohio governor’s vow to veto any Arizona-like immigration legislation, Butler County’s sheriff and a local lawmaker say they’ll take the issue directly to voters.

Sheriff Richard K. Jones announced today, April 29, he will spearhead efforts to have a statewide “citizens initiative” placed on the ballot for Ohio immigration reform.

Fearing recent letters he sent jointly with state Rep. Courtney Combs, R-Hamilton, to Ohio leaders won’t be enough to get immigration reform on the “fast track” for Ohio, Jones said he wants the voters to decide the issue in November.

Recently Jones made other immigration news:

An undocumented immigrant worker who sued Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones for violating his constitutional rights has been awarded $100,000 in a settlement agreement.

The settlement filed in U.S. District Court stems from the 2007 arrest of Luis Rodriguez, 44, formerly of Lebanon, when he and others were rounded by at a Port Union Road construction site by Butler County deputies and a former immigration specialist hired by Jones.

Officials said they were at the site to talk to a supervisor about undocumented workers, but Rodriguez and more than 20 others were interrogated and asked to provide identification, according to Rodriguez’s attorney, Al Gerhardstein, who posted the settlement Tuesday, April 20 on his firm’s website.

BAM:

The Austin appeals court erred in deciding that the state’s money-laundering statute - used to prosecute associates of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay - did not apply to transfers made via checks, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled today.

The court’s 9-0 decision also upheld the state’s election laws prohibiting corporations from making political contributions to candidates. DeLay’s associates - John Colyandro and Jim Ellis - had challenged the law as an unconstitutional infringement on First Amendment rights.

In 2002, the Public Integrity Section of the Travis County District charged Colyandro - working on behalf of Texans for a Republican Majority PAC - with accepting political contributions from corporations.

Colyandro and Ellis also were charged with money laundering by transferring $190,000 in corporate contributions to the Republican National Committee by a check, with a similar amount later returned to the state organization.

They have found a boat! A really old boat that is and once again we hear claims that it is Noah’s ark:

From the article:

A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers say wooden remains they have discovered on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey are the remains of Noah's Ark.

The group claims that carbon dating proves the relics are 4,800 years old, meaning they date to around the same time the ark was said to be afloat. Mt. Ararat has long been suspected as the final resting place of the craft by evangelicals and literalists hoping to validate biblical stories.

Yeung Wing-Cheung, from the Noah's Ark Ministries International research team that made the discovery, said: "It's not 100 percent that it is Noah's Ark, but we think it is 99.9 percent that this is it."

Wait…

They used carbon dating to figure out how old it is? Would this be the same carbon dating that proves caveman lived tens of thousands of years before God created Adam and Eve? I thought that kind of witchcraft was frowned upon by the church!