A new backdoor amnesty plan from the 0bumhole administration?

[Apparition]

Obama Wants Change to Allow Thousands of Illegals to Stay in US
Friday, 27 Aug 2010 06:38 PM

PHOENIX – A shake-up in immigration policy may lead to deportation proceedings being dropped for thousands of aliens who entered the United States illegally but are applying to stay in the country, officials said on Friday.

They said the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) seeks to end deportation proceedings against detained illegal immigrants who have applications pending to become legal U.S. residents, if agents determine they have no criminal history and do not present a security threat.

The policy shift emerged from an internal memorandum ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton sent last week to the agency's principal legal adviser and a director of enforcement and removal operations.

The memo was published by the New York Times on Friday and confirmed to Reuters by officials.

Morton said the policy aimed to reduce the backlog in immigration courts, where authorities identified some 17,000 cases last year that could be eliminated if ICE dropped removal proceedings against illegal immigrants who had applied for legal status and were very likely to get it.

The issue of what to do with nearly 11 million illegal immigrants living and working in the shadows in the United States has become an increasingly hot topic in the run up to the midterm elections in November, where Democratic control of Congress is on the line.

President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats back a comprehensive reform of immigration policy to tighten border security, while allowing illegal immigrants in good standing the chance to learn English, pay a fine and get on a path to citizenship.

Republicans say that policy is effectively "amnesty" and likely to encourage more illegal entrants.

The Obama administration has made a priority of arresting and deporting illegal immigrants convicted of crimes, more than 167,00 of whom have been removed so far this year.

ICE spokesman Richard Rocha said the policy shift outlined in the memorandum sought to enable the agency to prioritize "the arrest and removal of criminal aliens and those who pose a danger to national security."

"ICE is not engaged in a 'backdoor' amnesty and has placed more people in immigration proceedings this year than ever before," he added.

Americans are most concerned about a stuttering economy and high unemployment in the run up to the November 2 midterm elections, when voters will elect 435 members of the House of Representatives and fill 37 of the 100 seats in the Senate.

But illegal immigration has also been a contentious issue.

The Obama administration last month successfully sued to block key parts of a tough state law in Arizona requiring state and local police during the course of an arrest to investigate the immigration status of people they suspected were in the state illegally.

The measure, which sought to curb illegal immigration and smuggling-related crime in the state bordering Mexico, was backed by a solid majority of voters both in Arizona and across the United States.

But it came under heavy fire from civil rights and Latino groups concerned that in practice it would lead to profiling, and in court the administration said it intruded on what should be a matter of federal policy.

© 2010 Reuters. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

Source: http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/illegal-immigration-policy-change/2010/08/27/id/368614


I'm so surprised. :sarc:

[wildcard]

Ironically, the guy they based the Crocodile Dundee character on was killed in a shoot out with the police not too far back.


Paul Hogan vows to fight Australian tax office



http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100901/people_nm/us_hogan%3B_ylt%3DApwuJvrb47K2SvPLTO1SJgZzfNdF

By Pauline Askin Pauline Askin – Wed Sep 1, 4:16 am ET

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Actor Paul Hogan, star of the "Crocodile Dundee" movies, has vowed to continue fighting the Australian tax office which has barred him from leaving Australia until he pays a massive bill, saying he's victim of a witch hunt.

Hogan, 70, was served with a departure prohibition order 10 days ago while in Australia to attend his 101-year-old mother's funeral which has prevented him from leaving to return to Los Angeles where he lives with his wife and son.

The Australian Tax Office refused to comment on reports of seeking tax on A$38 million ($34 million) of allegedly undeclared income from Hogan, saying it cannot give details of individual taxpayers.

But the actor went public in the Australian media this week to put forward his side in his five-year row with the tax office, saying he had done nothing wrong and the tax office was on a witch hunt for a high-profile case.

"I can't pay 10 percent of what they're asking.... bugger 'em!" the actor told Australian television Nine Network's "A Current Affair" program broadcast late Tuesday.

"If I was a tax evader, which I'm not, I must be the dumbest one in the world to keep coming back here instead of fleeing to a tax haven ... I know they're absolutely desperate to nail some high-profile character with money to justify the expense to the taxpayer."

Hogan, who was once a painter on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, is under investigation as part of Australia's biggest probe into offshore tax evasion, Operation Wickenby.

The operation is budgeted to cost at least $300 million.

The tax office has claimed he put tens of millions of dollars in film royalties in offshore tax havens, a claim that he has denied. He has never been charged with tax evasion.

A popular Australian TV comedian, Hogan hit international fame as Mick "Crocodile" Dundee in the 1986 film "Crocodile Dundee" which went on to become Australia's most successful film ever and won Hogan a Golden Globe for best actor.

Two sequels followed and Hogan married his Dundee co-star Linda Kozlowski which was his second marriage.

Hogan has repeatedly said that if anything he has paid too much tax in Australia.

"I've paid more than a wise businessman would have," he said. "I don't have and never had the money people think I got ... and it's none of their business," he added.

(Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

[mamboni]

Spot Gold Surges, UniCredit Sets New 2012 Price Target Of $1,600

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/07/2010 07:50 -0500

Dennis Gartman India Reality


Gold is rapidly approaching its all time high intraday high (and someone please inform Dennis Gartman that Gold in euro terms is close to its record again), as spot has surged $12 in a few minutes and is now near $1,260 (record intraday was $1,265 set back in June). In addition to the CHF and the JPY, gold is once again the safety trade. This comes hot on the heels of the recent report issued by UniCredit SpA’s Jochen Hitzfeld, the most accurate gold forecaster tracked by Bloomberg in the last three quarters, in which the analyst raised his estimate for the metal’s average price next year by 12 percent to $1,400 an ounce, and for 2012 to $1,600. As the full report below indicates, the surge will be helped by concern about the effect of government economic- stimulus plans and speculation about increased demand in China, the world’s second-largest buyer after India. Hitzfeld also is so daring as to think what will happen when actual demand, and not central bank interventions, sets the price of gold: "gold supply will increasingly be determined by investors. Twenty years from now, investors will probably find it hard to imagine that there was once a time when jewelry demand determined one of the world’s most important asset classes. If investors were to switch only 1% of the global market capitalization of equities and bonds into gold, at the current gold price of around USD 1,250 per troy ounce, this would translate into demand of 36,000 tons. According to the US Geological Survey, this is roughly equivalent to the known gold reserves. In reality, however, there will be a mix of gold purchases and increases in gold prices. At a gold price of USD 2,500, only 18,000 tons of gold would be required to reach a share of 1%." But you still can't eat the damn thing!

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/spot-gold-surges-unicredit-sets-new-2012-price-target-1600

[mick silver]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129415988 ... ., reviled in the U.S. for its role in the financial crisis, is now getting hammered in the world's No. 2 economy with a sensationalist new book accusing the investment bank of trying to destroy China.

The "Goldman Sachs Conspiracy," which has sold over 100,000 copies since it was released in June, reaching popular website Sina.com's top-10 list, follows another by author Li Delin, "Eliminate All Competitors — How Goldman Sachs Wins Over the World," published last year.

Li, a financial journalist, appears to have hit pay dirt among Chinese readers with an appetite for the would-be exposes that get prominent display in downtown bookstores, such as "Who Killed Toyota: the Truth of America's Attack" and "Currency War."

The nearly 300-page, highly dramatized account covers much of the same ground as a widely cited piece by Matt Taibbi last year in the Rolling Stone magazine that portrayed the Wall Street institution as a "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."

Li's book takes ample license in its attacks on Goldman Sachs. The company's ultimate goal, he says in the first chapter, is to "kill China."

"Like a fox chewing a bone, Goldman Sachs knows the rules of the game and when to go for your neck," it says.

With the "cruel character of a Manchurian tiger, the group creeps around the world, like a veteran hunter stalking its prey, when it smells blood it pounces!" the chapter says.

Goldman Sachs' office in Beijing refused to comment on the book and on others of its ilk.

The financial cataclysm of 2008 and ensuing global recession has resulted in a profusion of books dissecting the role of global investment banks including Goldman Sachs.

"It reads like a novel, rather than a real story," said Peng Yunliang, a securities analyst.

"Goldman Sachs has been at the eye of the storm and is seen as the culprit behind the mess. That's clearly the most popular topic on the market," he said.

Goldman was sharply criticized, especially in the U.S., for its high executive pay after it accepted a $10 billion government bailout during the financial crisis. It also received $13 billion from insurer American International Group Inc. after the government bailed that company out. The bank recently agreed to a record settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over civil fraud charges.

In China, the company's business appears to have weathered well the market chaos elsewhere. The investment bank was an underwriter in the recent record-breaking $22.1 billion initial public offering by the Agricultural Bank of China, among other big deals.

Goldman also saw handsome gains from a $4.9 million investment in 2007 in a 12.5 percent stake in drug maker Shenzhen Hepalink, which later raised about $864 million in an IPO that catapulted the company's little-known founders to become, at least on paper, the richest couple in China.

Li, in an online chat, said the book was no exaggeration.

"The real financial battle is even more dramatic than my book, according to my knowledge of the markets," he said. "Goldman Sachs is the hand behind the financial crisis, maybe even its cause." He soon plans to publish a third book about the company.

The conspiracy genre and dramatized accounts of scandals are popular in China, as in many markets. China's government exerts strong control over the news media and broadcasters, but the book publishing industry has a bit freer leeway for commentary, particularly when the targets are not Communist Party officials.

The Chinese-language book also accuses Goldman Sachs of involvement in the recent Dubai and Greek debt debacles and the wider European financial and fiscal crises.

To buttress its myriad allegations, the book notes well-known links between former top Goldman Sachs executives, such as former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and government officials in America and other countries.

It also includes copies of what appear to be U.S. court documents. They include a complaint against Goldman Sachs and Fabrice Tourre, a Goldman vice president accused of shepherding a deal at the center of SEC charges that the company sold mortgage securities without telling buyers that they had been created with input from a client that was betting on them to fail.

Last month, a U.S. federal judge approved a settlement calling for Goldman Sachs & Co. to pay $550 million to settle civil fraud charges that the Wall Street giant misled buyers of mortgage-related investments. In the settlement, Goldman acknowledged that its marketing materials for the deal omitted important information for buyers.

The penalty was the largest against a Wall Street firm in SEC history. But the settlement amounts to less than 5 percent of Goldman's 2009 net income of $12.2 billion after payment of dividends to preferred shareholders — or a little more than two weeks of net income.

———

Associated Press researcher Ji Chen contributed to this report.

[Gaillo]

For those who have seen this, my apologies...
For those who haven't yet, prepare yourselves - for THE ASTOUNDING WORLD OF THE FUTURE!!!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJjUVIIYptE