American Patriot Journal

By Gene Nelson

Wealthy advocates of H-1B visas have industriously worked to keep this employer-designed program hidden from middle-class Americans, who are outraged when they learn how it harms them.

In 2002, Nobel economics laureate Milton Friedman correctly identified the 1990 H-1B visa program as a “government subsidy” because it allows employers access to imported, highly skilled labor at below-market wages.

False allegations of worker shortages have been a popular approach. But American colleges and universities graduate four to six times the number of students needed to fill openings in technology fields that are generated by retirements and business expansion.

Consequently, since 1960, there have been more than 30 million graduates with bachelor’s degrees who are qualified to work as scientists, engineers, computer programmers and mathematicians (the STEM fields) pursuing approximately 8 million “high tech” positions requiring this level of training. The importation of foreign technical professionals further swells the job-seeker ranks.

Between 1975 and 2005, more than 25 million admissions were approved in just five highly skilled visa programs.

Former Microsoft lobbyist Jack Abramoff helped direct $100 million in political expenditures between 1995 and 2000, enabling Microsoft and other employers to procure employer-friendly changes to H-1B visa legislation in 1996, 1998 and 2000. As a result of this work force glut, real wages in STEM fields have remained flat since at least 2000.

Contrary to Stuart Anderson’s claim, this program prevents innovation since American citizens are typically discarded by employers by age 35 — before their inventions can be turned into practical revenue generators.

It facilitates hiring discrimination against Americans. In the April 15, 2007, edition of the New York Times, Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath called H-1B the “outsourcing visa.”

This program also undermines national security, as 200,000 U.S. science and engineering jobs have already been lost to communist China.

In the late 1980s, bureaucrats at the National Science Foundation found that they could increase the supply of technical professionals by importing them — offering foreign nationals the prospect of remaining in the United States.

This increase in supply depresses wages — an important policy objective.

One measure showing that this government intervention was successful (at least from the employers’ perspective) is that a typical postdoctoral research or teaching position in a STEM field (requiring 12 years of education after high school) offers pay and benefits comparable to what a high school graduate earns managing a fast-food restaurant.

University of California at Davis computer science professor Norm Matloff recommends sharply diminishing the size of the H-1B program to about 15,000 admissions annually so that it is only used to import “the best and brightest” — rather than the “fresh [inexpensive] young blood” of average talent currently imported from the developing world.

In a 1993 article in the American Scholar, CalTech Vice Provost David Goodstein pointed out that the American taxpayer is forced to support extremely expensive research universities whose main purpose is to train students from abroad who will stay here and take jobs that could have gone to Americans, or go home and take our knowledge and technology with them.

We are ignoring our own students and using our money to train our economic competitors.

Gene Nelson is an information technology professional at NumbersUSA

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) - Nine-year-old Jericho Scott is a good baseball player - too good, it turns out.

The right-hander has a fastball that tops out at about 40 mph. He throws so hard that the Youth Baseball League of New Haven told his coach that the boy could not pitch any more. When Jericho took the mound anyway last week, the opposing team forfeited the game, packed its gear and left, his coach said.

Officials for the three-year-old league, which has eight teams and about 100 players, said they will disband Jericho’s team, redistributing its players among other squads, and offered to refund $50 sign-up fees to anyone who asks for it. They say Jericho’s coach, Wilfred Vidro, has resigned.

But Vidro says he didn’t quit and the team refuses to disband. Players and parents held a protest at the league’s field on Saturday urging the league to let Jericho pitch.

“He’s never hurt any one,” Vidro said. “He’s on target all the time. How can you punish a kid for being too good?”

The controversy bothers Jericho, who says he misses pitching.

“I feel sad,” he said. “I feel like it’s all my fault nobody could play.”

Jericho’s coach and parents say the boy is being unfairly targeted because he turned down an invitation to join the defending league champion, which is sponsored by an employer of one of the league’s administrators.

Jericho instead joined a team sponsored by Will Power Fitness. The team was 8-0 and on its way to the playoffs when Jericho was banned from pitching.

“I think it’s discouraging when you’re telling a 9-year-old you’re too good at something,” said his mother, Nicole Scott. “The whole objective in life is to find something you’re good at and stick with it. I’d rather he spend all his time on the baseball field than idolizing someone standing on the street corner.”

League attorney Peter Noble says the only factor in banning Jericho from the mound is his pitches are just too fast.

“He is a very skilled player, a very hard thrower,” Noble said. “There are a lot of beginners. This is not a high-powered league. This is a developmental league whose main purpose is to promote the sport.”

Noble acknowledged that Jericho had not beaned any batters in the co-ed league of 8- to 10-year-olds, but say parents expressed safety concerns.

“Facing that kind of speed” is frightening for beginning players, Noble said.

League officials say they first told Vidro that the boy could not pitch after a game on Aug. 13. Jericho played second base the next game on Aug. 16. But when he took the mound Wednesday, the other team walked off and a forfeit was called.

League officials say Jericho’s mother became irate, threatening them and vowing to get the league shut down.

“I have never seen behavior of a parent like the behavior Jericho’s mother exhibited Wednesday night,” Noble said.

Scott denies threatening any one, but said she did call the police.

League officials suggested that Jericho play other positions, or pitch against older players or in a different league.

Local attorney John Williams was planning to meet with Jericho’s parents Monday to discuss legal options.

“You don’t have to be learned in the law to know in your heart that it’s wrong,” he said. “Now you have to be punished because you excel at something?”

(Time) - For a second straight year, SAT scores for the most recent high school graduating class remained at the lowest level in nearly a decade, a trend attributed to a record number of students now taking the test.

The 1.52 million students who took the test is a slight increase from last year but a jump of nearly 30 percent over the past decade. Minority students accounted for 40 percent of test-takers, and 36 percent were the first in their families to attend college. Nearly one in seven had a low enough family income to take the test for free.

“More than ever, the SAT reflects the face of education in this country,” said Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, which owns the test and released the results Tuesday.

The class of 2008 scored an average of 515 out of a possible 800 points on the math section of the college entrance exam, a performance identical to graduating seniors in the previous year.

Scores in the critical reading component among last spring’s high school seniors also held steady at 502, but the decline over time has been more dramatic: the past two years represent the lowest reading average since 1994, when graduating seniors scored 499.

By comparison, the highest average reading score in recent decades was 530 by the class of 1972, although that score dropped dramatically within five years to near present levels. The latest math average is just five points below the 35-year high of 520, reached three years ago.

Those historical highs are tempered by the test’s more selective reach a generation ago, said Jim Hull, a policy analyst for the Center for Public Education, which is affiliated with the National School Boards Association.

“You only had the best of the best taking the test,” he said. “The SAT has become far more inclusive.”

Average scores also remained constant on the writing portion of the SAT, which was added to the entrance exam in 2006. For the second year in a row, the average score was 494 — a three-point drop from its debut year.

The writing test is still a work in progress, with many colleges waiting for several years of data before factoring that portion into admissions decisions.

But the College Board released data Tuesday suggesting that scores on the newest portion of the exam are the most accurate gauge of first-year success in college. Studies by the University of Georgia and the University of California support the group’s findings, it reported.

Males on average scored four points higher than females on the reading section (504 vs. 500) and 33 points higher on the math test (533 vs. 500), but females on average outscored their counterparts on the writing test, 501 to 488.

Average ACT scores released earlier this month showed a slight decrease, for the class of 2008 — 21.1 compared to 21.2 a year ago, on a scale of 1 to 36. With 1.42 million test-takers, the rival exam still lags behind the more-entrenched SAT, but is growing at a faster rate.

That trend is only likely to continue, said SAT critic Bob Schaeffer of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, who called the new three-part SAT a “flop.” Nearly 800 colleges now consider the SAT an optional test for admissions, according to the group.

(newsbusters.org) - Tensions are running high at MSNBC, at least surrounding veteran host Joe Scarborough who seems to be increasingly discontented at his network’s decision to market itself as the cable net of choice for Bush haters. That hasn’t sat well with the likes of the far left Keith Olbermann who has played a large role in getting MSNBC to pursue this strategy

The Democratic convention seems to have only exacerbated those tensions. Last night saw Olbermann caught on an open mic blurting out profane disgust at Scarborough, prompting the latter to verbally call him out while fellow MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews sat back mortified at the intra-family dispute.

Things don’t appear to have been smoothed over either as Scarborough was involved in another altercation this morning with liberal correspondent David Shuster on today’s “Morning Joe.” Scarborough ultimately accused Shuster and his MSNBC colleagues of being Democrats, their independent political registrations notwithstanding. (Exchange happens at 2:15 in video below.)

A news segment about Iraqi President al-Maliki’s call for the withdrawal of US troops set off the skirmish. Shuster snidely suggested to Joe that “your party, the Republican party” mocks those who call for withdrawal. All hell ensued. The entire seven-minute exchange is worth viewing, but the highlight was Scarborough’s challenge to Shuster and MSNBC at large over their independence.

(Washington Post) - Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl and several other U.S. bishops are disputing statements by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a “Meet the Press” appearance about the Catholic Church’s teachings on abortion. They say she misrepresented the church’s longstanding opposition to the procedure and twisted some church teachings.

On the news show on Sunday, Pelosi (D-Calif.), a Catholic who supports abortion rights, said that the question of when life begins has been a subject of controversy in the church and that over the centuries, “the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition.”

But Wuerl and the other bishops swiftly responded, saying that the church has opposed abortion since the first century.

“Abortion is evil,” Wuerl said in an interview yesterday. “It’s the destruction of a human life . . . this teaching has not changed and remains unchanged.”

Wuerl’s objections were echoed by two representatives from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as well as by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver, where the Democratic National Convention is being held. Pelosi’s speech to the convention Monday made no mention of abortion.

Chaput and Denver Auxiliary Bishop James D. Conley called Pelosi “a gifted public servant of strong convictions and many professional skills,” in a statement posted on the Denver archdiocese’s Web site.

“Regrettably,” they added, “knowledge of Catholic history and teaching does not seem to be one of them. . . . [Abortion] is always gravely evil, and so are the evasions employed to justify it.”

Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on pro-life activities, and Bishop William E. Lori, chairman of the bishops’ doctrine committee, noted in a statement yesterday that in the Middle Ages, the church distinguished between penalties for very early and later abortions. Yet they said its teachings “never justified or permitted abortion at any stage of development.”

But Pelosi refused to back down yesterday. A spokesman said she has studied the matter closely and her views have been influenced by St. Augustine, a leading 4th century theologian, who wrote that “the law does not provide that the act [abortion] pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation . . . ”

Observers say the controversy over Pelosi’s statement is nowhere near the furor that erupted in 2004 when a dozen bishops threatened to withhold Communion from then-presidential candidate John F. Kerry and other Catholic officials who voted for abortion rights.

Nonetheless, the bishops’ emphatic response to Pelosi’s statements this week shows that they are willing to speak out when the church’s teachings are challenged publicly by high-profile Catholics, according to the very Rev. David M. O’Connell, president of Catholic University of America.

“We’re seeing more of that in recent years than perhaps we saw in the past,” O’Connell said. “When you have very prominent individuals in the public square who are eager to identify themselves as Catholics . . . the bishops want to make sure that the people understand that quote unquote celebrities don’t get a pass when it comes to the teachings or the practices of the church.”

For conservative Catholic groups, the fact that Wuerl weighed in on the controversy was welcome news.

He angered some conservatives for refusing to discipline Pelosi and other pro-abortion rights politicians after they received Communion at the Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI in the District in April. Wuerl has said that he believes those decisions should be made by the politicians’ own bishops.

“We’re very, very encouraged by his statements” on Pelosi, said Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, a Catholic organization opposed to abortion that is based in Stafford. “He is her shepherd when she is in Washington, and for him to speak out that way is very meaningful for all of us.”

The Obama Campaign has sent a “banning order” to major news outlets forbidding them from airing an ad showing the connection between Barrack Obama and a domestic terrorist and founder of the radical group Weather Underground William Ayers who bombed the Pentagon and the Capital and is still proud of it and is quoted as saying he wished they had done more.

This is America where free speech is a guaranteed right. How is it that a candidate for the office of President of the United States can order something guaranteed under the Constituion of the United States to be banned, especially since the information is in fact true?

Is this part of the “change” in America that Obama is promising?

(FoxNews) - Documents released Tuesday by the University of Illinois at Chicago shed some light on Barack Obama’s relationship with William Ayers, a founding member of the 1960s and 1970s radical group the Weather Underground.

Obama’s association with Ayers, who now teaches at the university, has become an issue in the Illinois senator’s presidential campaign. The Weather Underground took credit for several nonfatal bombings on targets that included the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, and critics accuse Obama of rubbing elbows with an unabashed 1960s radical.

Obama has said that, although he knew Ayers as a professor involved in community outreach efforts in Chicago, he doesn’t share Ayers’ extreme views.

The massive collection of newly released documents — 140 boxes full of them — includes agendas that clearly put Obama and Ayers in the same room for meetings of Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an educational initiative that Ayers was instrumental in starting and that Obama chaired in the 1990s.

Ayers Unrepentant for Weather Underground’s Violence in 1960s, 1970s

The initiative was funded by $49.2 million from the Annenberg Foundation with the intention of establishing community partnerships that would improve schools.

FOX News was among several news organizations that reviewed the university’s records by appointment. In one agenda, a March 15, 1995, meeting featured Obama making introductions and Ayers giving a briefing.

But more than a year later, Obama pushed the group to be bolder in its reforms, according to the Associated Press, which also reviewed the documents. Minutes from an October 1996 gathering show that Obama, a guest at a meeting of the collaborative, raised questions about what the group should be doing.

The AP reports the minutes characterized Obama’s concerns as twofold: Whether the group was raising additional money and whether money was being used “to prop up existing organizations as opposed to creating fresh educational practices in the schools?”

“At the end of five years, will we have broken the mold? Not much seems to be bubbling up that is inspiring or substantive,” the minutes say, paraphrasing Obama.

Even so, Stanley Kurtz, a contributing editor for the conservative magazine National Review, thinks Obama’s association with Ayers should raise questions in the minds of voters who wonder of Obama is as mainstream as he claims to be.

“The fact that Obama and Ayers were working together stems from the pretty sharp left-leaning ideology that both of them shared to some extent,” Kurtz said.

Ayers did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment.

The Obama campaign, meanwhile, is fighting a conservative group called the American Issues Project over a TV commercial that links Obama to Ayers. The campaign argues that the nonprofit group is violating federal laws regulating political ads by nonprofits.

The group filed a document with the Federal Election Commission last week identifying Texas billionaire Harold Simmons as the lone financier of the ad, contributing nearly $2.9 million to produce and air it. Simmons is a fundraiser for John McCain and was one of the major contributors to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which aired ads in 2004 against John Kerry.

The Obama campaign issued a response ad to the group’s ad, which says, “With all our problems why is John McCain talking about the ’60s trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers? McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers’ crimes committed when Obama was just eight years old. Let’s talk about standing up for America today.”

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said if “McCain’s consultants are going to go out and make ads that are misleading about Barack Obama, we are going to make sure that they are answered we have to make sure that the truth is out there and that we are answering with force.”

McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers released a statement responding to Burton that said, “It’s absurd and disingenuous for the Obama campaign to say we are running this ad. They are trying to blame us and use a straw man to take this issue off the table. If he thinks having a relationship with an unrepentant terrorist is not an issue that concerns the American people, he is deluding himself or being naive.”

Laurel, Miss. (AP) - Federal immigration agents arrested some 350 suspected undocumented workers in a raid on a Mississippi electrical equipment plant Monday, authorities announced, hours after sealing all entrances amid reports their sweep had idled normal operations.

Barbara Gonzalez, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman, confirmed the arrests in the raid that she said targeted Howard Industries Inc. of Laurel. Authorities said more people could be arrested.

The company produces dozens of products ranging from electrical transformers to medical supplies, according to the company’s Web site.

“This is a targeted enforcement operation that is part of an ongoing ICE investigation that has revealed that illegal aliens are employed at Howard Industries,” Gonzalez said, adding late Monday that agents were still interviewing plant workers.

She declined to say how many federal agents were involved in the raid, but said they acted on a tip provided by a union worker.

Another agency spokesman, Brandon Montgomery, told The Associated Press outside the plant Monday afternoon that agents were talking with everyone who worked at the sprawling plant to determine their residency status.

He said that 50 of those suspected of being illegal workers were eligible for some form of “alternative to detention” - a concession that could allow them to be placed on a monitoring device while awaiting a caseworker for “humanitarian reasons” such as children in their care.

All plant entrances were blocked, with tents set up at some ICE checkpoints to keep agents out of a steady rain. Motorists traveling on roads behind the plant were stopped by officers in unmarked vehicles and told to leave.

People leaving the plant told The Hattiesburg American newspaper that so many illegal immigrants were arrested that operations were shut down. It wasn’t clear how many workers the plant employed.

A recording at Howard Industries plant on Monday said the telephone switchboard was closed.

Billy Howard, the company’s chief executive officer, did not immediately respond to a message left by The AP. A man who answered a phone call at the company’s security station said reporters would have to call back Tuesday.

Howard Industries was founded in the 1960s. In 2002, state lawmakers approved a $31.5 million, taxpayer-backed incentive plan aimed at helping to expand its operations.

The raid is one of several nationwide in recent years.

On May 12, federal immigration officials swept into Agriprocessors, the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant, in Iowa. Nearly 400 workers were detained and dozens of fraudulent permanent resident alien cards were seized from the plant’s human resources department, court records showed.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (news4jax.com) — Some are questioning whether a top city leader showed favoritism when he ordered crews to help a “single woman” cope during the storm. That single woman was U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D- Jacksonville.

During the height of Tropical Storm Fay, when many Jacksonville residents were trying to keep rising water out of their homes or dealing with fallen trees and power lines, the city sent a public works crew to put sandbags around the Brown’s home along the Trout River.

Brown denied getting special treatment, telling Channel 4 that she’s like any other citizen who had an emergency. She said that when her roof caved in and water flooded her home, she called the city for help.

“I had to call and call and call, just like anybody else,” Brown told Channel 4’s Diane Cho. “I had to call several times before I got anybody.”

Neighbor Joe Deloach lives one door down from Brown and he too has rising waters flooding the foundation of his home. He said when he saw the city with prisoners sandbagging the congresswoman’s home, he naturally asked for the same help but didn’t get the same response.

“I’m glad she got help to save her house. I’m not mad at that. I’m upset that the same people wouldn’t help me and they denied it was going on,” Deloach said. “I had prisoners laughing at me when I approached them about it. They knew what was going on. It was hilarious to them.”

Adam Hollingsworth, chief of staff for Mayor John Peyton, told Channel 4 he authorized city crews to go help Brown when she reached him on Friday. He said he helped because she’s “a single woman who lives in her own house” and he could hear the panic in her voice.

“We had a resource that we could help somebody with, I made a judgment that it was the right thing to do,” Hollingsworth said.

Hollingsworth told Channel 4 he also sent a crew to City Councilwoman Denise Lee’s home, but Lee later determined she did not need their help.

Hollingsworth said he knows he is a steward of taxpayer dollars, but he is also a human being. He said if he went beyond standard protocol, he apologizes.

“I am prepared to pay for any services I receive, just like any other citizen,” Brown.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Mexican national wanted in connection with the 1998 drug-related massacre of 19 people in the Baja California resort town of Ensenada has been captured and turned over to Mexican authorities, U.S. immigration officials said Sunday.

Officers confronted Jesus Ruben Moncada, 33, at his Los Angeles home Thursday night as he took out the garbage.

Moncada, who did not resist arrest, was taken into custody on administrative immigration violations and was returned under heavy security Friday to Mexico where he faces first degree murder, attempted murder and kidnapping charges.

Moncada told officers he fled to the United States in 1998, illegally crossing the border near San Ysidro, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“This man is suspected of being involved in one of the most heinous mass killings in recent times,” Brian DeMore, a field office director for ICE, said in a statement.

Authorities believe Moncada was among several gunmen who raided the compound of an alleged drug trafficker near the Baja California beach resort of Ensenada in 1998. They lined the alleged trafficker and 18 members of his family up against a wall and shot them. Eight children were among those killed.

Prosecutors contend Moncada was a high-ranking member of a Felix Arellano gang, which carried out the killings to prevent the rival gang’s marijuana-smuggling operation from becoming too competitive with theirs.

Moncada had been using his real name while living in the U.S., DeMore said.