But that's anecdotal. It's not like Americans have a better track record of learning languages when they live in another country. Learning languages is hard for adults and if you're working, it's even more difficult.

The real point is that there's no difference between this generation of immigrants and previous generations. I have several students that have immigrant parents that don't speak much English, but the children and grandchildren are fluent.

A Hispanic Studies professor was telling me today that the timing of the speech was clearly intended to coincide with the Latin Grammys. Apparently they delayed starting until after the speech and then almost every winner spoke about the new policy. That's a pretty savvy way to reach one of the largest Latino TV audiences.

Do they at least make an effort to learn?

The burden of making a rightful claim rests with the citizen. Be sure before you fire. The plan is designed to curtail overzelous enforcement.


You'd be amazed how much thought has been put into this particular topic. We all have to have some sort of ideal to shoot for (no pun intended).

Oh, as for impeachment, it's allowed for ""treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors".

18 U.S. Code § 2381 - Treason
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

Failure to defend the borders IS treason as far as I'm concerned, and both Obama and all those who have participated (by giving aid & comfort) should be charged with such. We have been subjected to nothing short of an invasion, and both the perpetrators and their allies should face the harshest penalty available under the law.

Not even sure what to say here...

I've always thought there was some disconnect there somewhere too. It's one area where where it seems like the American left is actually more liberal than the European left. Well at least, there's similar general anti-immigration sentiment in both places (growing at the moment in Europe), but when you consider how much more liberal Europe is than the U.S. in most other areas, that stands out. Especially considering the differences in geography and illegal, undocumented immigration between the two places.

And the economic side is weird too. The left wants to raise the minimum wage, which just seems oddly in contrast with this system where so many American employers depend on paying even less than that. So you even sometimes hear this phrased as a positive contribution these people make to communities - how important that cheap labor is to our economy, etc, and that's why we shouldn't deport them.

And any good weirdo southern gay-hating god-fearing Republican of course thinks Obama is the devil for basically saying he'll use his executive powers less aggressively in deporting people, while at the same time, more people were deported during Obama's first term than in any other presidential term ever, and I believe that pace has continued this term (some of that might just have been the fact that there was more immigrants, but still, I wouldn't say the Obama's executive branch has been any less tough on immigration than any other president - he seems more right than his supporters on this, but of course, nobody can speak against him.). And even while making this speech and pushing forth this policy, which arguably goes against all his campaigning against bypassing congress - he still makes it clear that he wants to stop immigrants at the border, and has actually defended the border much more vigorously than previous presidents - even though fewer people are apparently trying to get in. I'm not sure if that's inconsistent or just pragmatic. I do agree though, that's it's not a clear left/right thing. There's a million different opinions you can have about this, and they're not necessarily tied to your views on anything else.

Except for the fact that they asked for and received Justice Department legal analysis ahead of time.

http://www.justice.gov/sites/default...ze-removal.pdf

Anyone who thinks the legal arguments behind Obama’s immigration order are radical hasn’t read them yet.


Just because you might believe it rises to "treason" doesn't mean that it actually does. You can stomp your feet and gnash your teeth all you want, but you don't have a legal leg to stand on. You're wrong. That's all there is to it.

There's more agents at the border than there's ever been. They're using technology that makes the border harder to cross than its ever been. The Obama executive branch as deported more people than any other president in history.

I won't even get into what the government has to actually prove to make a criminal treason charge stick.....suffice to say though, every prosecutor's office in America, including the DOJ, utilize discretion and prioritizes prosecutions. It's only when someone doesn't agree with the underlying reasons behind those decisions do all the abuse of power stuff start getting thrown around (and the left does this too).

And it's just ridiculous to hear you talking tough about all this stuff, pitchforks for everyone. When down deep, you're a coward, your hateful advocacy for anyone not straight and white and christian (well specifically, your distorted hateful version of Christianity) ends at your keyboard, which we're actually all pretty lucky for. Edit: Really,the amount of times you've advocated for actually killing or violently attacking people here is enough to put you on some list somewhere. You're lucky nobody takes you seriously and knows that you're just an insecure blowhard.

I can't believe you guys still take JIMG seriously and respond to him in any way other than mockingly. He never has and never will give you an honest debate. He just spews his outdated, racist views.

I don't take him seriously at all - I think I've made that pretty clear over the years. I just think (and I imagine others feel this way too) that it's important that he gets called out on it every so often, partly so that new posters don't get the wrong idea about this place and partly because ignorance and bigotry and hatred thrive in the shadows, thus its important to bring them into the light and confront them (although as I said I can only take the time on occasion).

Plus - when he starts going on about treason or unlawful actions or something - it's refreshing to throw facts back in his face and know that even as pigheaded and ignorant as he is, the facts are the facts and even though he won't admit it here because it would damage his "internet persona" he can't argue that 2+2=5 when someone sets 4 oranges in front of him.

He can and does. We saw that in the ebola thread.

I still maintain that he argues it here to preserve his "NO COMPROMISE/INTERNET TOUGH GUY" persona, but (and I'm sure he'll deny this until he's blue in the face) it gives me a little bit of joy to know that when he lays his head down to sleep at night he knows deep down inside (even if he won't admit it to himself) that he's full of shit.

I hope so. Otherwise he's a dangerous guy. Another reason to call him out here, so we don't look so bad on the subsequent NBC Dateline special after he finally snaps and acts out on his violent fantasies .

"I never saw it coming. He always seemed like a nice guy. Heck, he liked women's basketball."

The 2 groups I have dealt with here in SF, from working at Safeway to public schools, is Russian Jews and Chinese.

Both were very insulated and most of the adults never learned English, regardless of the amount of time here. Moreover, both groups had their children go to weekend Chinese/Hebrew language schools. Imagine if that were happening with Spanish children.

Chinese/Hebrew schools on weekend to balance the English schools on weekdays?

Maybe more of a random thought thread topic but how does an adult even go about learning another language? I've known very, very few people who have actually pulled this off. I know immersion helps a lot, but it's not so easy to immerse yourself when you don't, you know, know the language.

I traveled around the Balkans in the spring and I thought a lot about what it'd be like to live there. I'm sure I'd take in and participate in as much of the culture as I could, as I did in my short time there, but there's a pretty huge limit to that when you don't speak the language and are an outsider. What exactly would I do to learn say, Serbian if I was in Belgrade? I could hire a private tutor or take a class, but that would be very time consuming, and tough to do if I was working. And even with those efforts - I'd probably still suck for years and years at speaking and understanding the language. It's not like you can pick up a language by watching TV a lot or walking around town, or hanging out at the local bars instead of the bars frequented by Americans.

When I was learning Italian, I started with Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone. Those get you the basics. But you soon learn that regular people don't talk like they do in the lessons. You can gain an understanding of a language from classes/lessons/tutors, but to gain fluency immersion is by far the best option.

Do you think you could have done it with JUST immersion? Like if we just drop you off in Italy, would you eventually know Italian if you made the effort to immerse yourself? Just from day-to-day conversations you start with people around town? Different countries vary hugely on how receptive they are to even inviting you to immerse yourself - the Balkans I think are pretty unfriendly and closed off to foreigners, where as I'd imagine Italians to be more friendly. In the U.S. it probably varies a ton by geography.

A Romance language would probably have a better shot at immersion than another, since there are things to find in common. Whenever I was in Spain, Portugal, France, I didn't speak any of the languages, but there was enough in common that I could find something I could relate it to in English. But when I was in Poland or China, that was a whole other story. Having some lessons prior to immersion in any instance would be a great help.

No dunking, but good fundamentals. That's more fun to watch!

In NC, judicial elections are "non-partisan." But it is still easy to figure out the party affiliation of the judges if people care to know them. And the political parties still put of their preferred judges guides. And, of course, the politically-connected money still flows into those races.

But I do imagine that it has an effect on the uninformed voter. I imagine that there are some voters who would just vote based on the R or D next to the name. Maybe they leave the ballot blank in this case? Hard to know. Wonder if that's been studied.

Huh, who'd have expected that? Maybe the 8th or 9th investigation will come to a conclusion more to the Republican's liking.

House intel panel debunks many Benghazi theories - The Denver Post

What Jon would say if his issue was with the action taken and not, well...other things.

But again, it annoys me more there isn't an effort even made. I have people call my office all the time and ask if anyone speaks Spanish, now working for a huge company I can call a translator line, but how about you get someone who speaks English when you call, instead of the burden being on me?

I just find that sort of thing annoying. If you want to live here and gain the benefits at least attempt to assimilate.

From the summary of the House investigation:



Basically, the admin was telling the truth the whole time and every conspiracy theory is made up bullshit.

It doesn't really matter. The republicans are not going to talk about it or mention the report, but the dumb rednecks will listen to Rush and Fox News spout off about it as if the 20 investigations didn't occur. When Hillary is running, you will hear nothing but this, even though every investigation came up with the same conclusion: Nothing really could have prevented it, their response was appropriate, and the admin bungled the message.

But they were able to rile a base to the polls; that base will reflexively ignore the Republicans' own report as "we haven't found anything YET," and delivered them the Senate.

#winning

Rand Paul arguing that Congress should declare war on ISIS and actually limit the President's powers.

Our politics is better with Paul in it. The best way for Congress to keep the President from exercising Congressional powers is for Congress to actually exercise those powers. Of course, that would involve the members of Congress actually taking a vote on a controversial issue, which pretty much all of them except for Paul and a small handful of others refuse to do.

Fixed.

I'm with him on this, but his tendency to grandstand over actually doing the hard work to change things incrementally is maddening.

Fair enough.

Maybe what I meant to say was more along the lines of when you have a Congress as dysfunctional as ours, having a few Pauls around really helps. But a Congress with a majority of Pauls in it would create a dysfunction of a different type.

I just wonder if the Senate will let any of Obama's nominees for Secretary of Defense go through or if they'll obstruct as usual.

Surely we should have a SoD before going to war right?

I guess no one wants to get on the (possible?) sinking ship of Obama's foreign/military policy. Rumsfeld is having a good chuckle now.

Flournoy out as possible Hagel replacement - CNN.com

Or they don't want to go through the circus of the nomination process, which is going to be long, drawn out and contentious.

Just an additional perspective on Obama's "imperial" presidency. I support immigration reform, I'm not convinced how Obama went to it is the right way ... but I can see how he must have thought a worthless congress needed bypassing (the jab to have them pass a bill must have been infuriating).

On immigration, a tale of two presidents - CNN.com

She was generally expected to sail through confirmation relatively easily.

Who wants the job for the last two years of the term with zero chance of any meaningful policy changes getting through Congress?

Not if Ted Cruz is to be believed.

Ted Cruz: Refuse Obama's nominations until he changes immigration plans | MSNBC

I hate to break it to Cruz but he wasn't going to hold that one up.

Michèle Flournoy tops short list to replace Chuck Hagel - Austin Wright and Jeremy Herb and Jen Judson - POLITICO

edit to add: the story contains the impressions about her before she withdrew

Of course he is. He's the architect of much of the mess Obama inherited, including a vast and fumbled reworking of the DoD that is still being fixed today.

JOBS JOBS JOBS

Private Sector Job Creation After a Year to Enact Policy - aka "Once Mitt Romney says that the President should reasonably own the economy"



Monthly Jobs Created Since Obamacare Passed



BLS statistics, although I couldn't find a BLS-hosted version of the chart, so expect whining about the host of the charts.

Obama on Colbert.



Obama fills in for Stephen Colbert - CNN.com

Looks good.


Didn't you help set that standard?

Wasn't the issue typically that the data was crappily sourced?

SI

I honestly didn't feel his comment warranted a response, so thanks ;)

Obama was fantastic on Colbert. Just hilarious stuff all around!

The torture report is depressing as is Obama's failure to condemn the actions of those that took part. Here's Andrew Sullivan's live reaction to sections.

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/...orture-report/

God, that's sobering. :(

I mean there are references to some sadistic stuff there - stress positions for folks who had broken limbs, freezing folks to the point of hypothermia, having folks die during interrogation, unnecessary forceful rectal feeding (also known as rape)... and the CIA did their best to hide it. President Bush didn't even really know about the extent of waterboarding until 2006 and he was not comfortable with it.

This is worse than I thought :(.

Cue Jon: "The only thing shameful about it is that we didn't kill all those miserable sonsofbitches right away instead of wasting time torturing them."

Breaking a guy to the point where a couple of finger snaps led him to peacefully lie down on the waterboard. Waterboarding so extreme that the CIA professionals were crying. Paying countries secretly so we could torture in their facilities.

Cheney and his cohorts really deserve prison time. At least they can probably never travel abroad again.