Note: This really motivates me!
Blowing by the Babe
Bonds blasts 715th homer, trails only Aaron
By Matthew Barrows — Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:01 am PDT Monday, May 29, 2006
Story appeared on Page A1 of The Bee
Barry Bonds launches his historic 715th career homer in the fourth inning Sunday against Colorado Rockies’ pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim, sending Giants fans at AT&T Park into a frenzy.
Immigration Bills Increasing In Sacramento
Friday, March 31, 2006 - 07:20 AM
Sacramento, CA — Immigration reform is definitely on the front burner these days … especially in California.
Sacramento legislators have now introduced 25 immigration bills. One Republican sponsored bill would deny state-funded health care, welfare and unemployment benefits to illegal immigrants while still another would require illegals to pay higher college tuition fees.
Senator Dennis Mountjoy of Monrovia has commented, “We don’t need more laws … we just need to enforce the laws we already have.”
Nation20-20Immigration20bill20expands20-20sacbee.com
WASHINGTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday approved a comprehensive immigration overhaul that includes new guest-worker programs and the prospect of legal status for up to 12 million illegal immigrants already in this country.By emphatic bipartisan margins, the committee went way beyond the border-security priorities favored by hard-line conservatives. The bill calls for more fences and Border Patrol agents - but also opens the door for hundreds of thousands of foreign guest workers. Those guest workers, as well as illegal immigrants already in the United States, eventually could find the path to U.S. citizenship under the bill approved Monday.
“I think, considering all of the hurdles and pitfalls, that it’s a good result,” said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Judiciary Committee. “I think we’re making the best of a difficult situation.”
The political difficulties will continue this week as the full Senate kicks off a two-week immigration debate. The bill will change. It also faces a very difficult confrontation with a competing House bill, which focuses solely on border protections and stringent law-and-order measures.
The Senate bill, by contrast, represents a triumph for Democrats, big-business Republicans and self-styled compassionate conservatives including President Bush, who spent Monday presiding over a naturalization ceremony.
Senators removed provisions making “illegal presence” a new misdemeanor. They added provisions allowing 400,000 non-farm guest workers a year to enter the United States, and during a six-year stay, to apply for permanent residency. Most dramatically, the committee would permit the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now here to secure permanent residency after jumping through some hurdles that don’t include returning to their native country.
“I have grave concerns,” Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn said. “I have a concern that this will be interpreted by my constituents as an amnesty program.”
“Some folks should be able to stay here,” said Arizona Republican Sen. John Kyl, “and others should not.”
California agribusiness and farmworkers alike hailed the committee’s approval of the immigration bill on a 12-6 vote, with four Republicans supporting it. In particular, the strange-bedfellows alliance rallied behind an agricultural worker provision offered by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Once a skeptic, Feinstein on Monday won committee approval for a provision offering legal status to up to 1.5 million agricultural workers. Illegal immigrants who could prove they had worked in agriculture at least 150 days in the past two years could obtain a new blue card permitting U.S. residency.