GOP targets child tax break for illegal immigrants

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are looking to deny child tax credits to illegal immigrants, refund checks averaging $1,800 a family, in an effort that has roused anger among Hispanics and some Democratic lawmakers.

The proposal, which would require people who claim the federal credit to have Social Security numbers to prove they are working legally, is being offered as a way to help pay for extending theSocial Security tax cut for most American wage-earners. It would trim federal spending by about $10 billion over a decade.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the proposal unfairly goes after the children of poor Hispanic workers. Such kids often are U.S. citizens, even when their parents are not, because they were born in this country.

Says Leticia Miranda, senior policy adviser of the Latino rights organization National Council of La Raza: “People who are making close to the minimum wage and are raising children in this country — and we’re asking them to pay for the payroll tax cut?” She says, “It’s outrageous and it’s crazy.”

Illegal immigrants have been barred from other refundable tax credits — in which low-income workers not only don’t owe income taxes but receive payments from the government — such as the earned income tax credit. Such credits are a popular anti-poverty tool in part because a recipient has to hold a job to receive the benefit.

Illegal Aliens Eligible for Social Security Benefits

 Published February 20, 2003
SSI, or Supplemental Security Income, is a federal cash benefit program for persons 65 or older, or those who are blind or have a disability. SSI payments are generally unavailable to most people already receiving Social Security benefits, though an individual may be able to receive both if combined household income and resources fall within the SSI limits. Besides cash payments, persons who are eligible for SSI are automatically eligible for most state-administered Medicaid programs. 

SSI is funded through the payroll taxes of Americans. But you don’t have to be an American to receive SSI payments. Like food stamps, Medicaid and almost every other form of social insurance that America has developed to help its citizens, SSI is targeted by people from other countries as a tool to materially improve their lives without work. 

The 1996 Welfare Reform Act may have erected barriers to a non-citizen’s eligibility for SSI, but it did not come close to ending it. The very group Congress sought to make ineligible for SSI, people who may have entered the U.S. illegally but through a series of happy accidents permanently reside here under color of law (“PRUCOL” aliens), has been able to hold on to SSI eligibility through a combination of lawyering and lobbying. 

“PRUCOL” aliens are people who have either entered the U.S. illegally or who have overstayed their visa, but who the INS has decided not to remove from the U.S. One may wonder how it is possible for the INS to know that an alien is in the U.S. illegally and make an affirmative decision to not remove that person, but built into the Immigration and Nationality Act is an “escape hatch” that permits any immigration judge to indefinitely withhold an order of removal for any alien whose removal from the U.S. would create great hardship. Though that person will probably never have legal immigration status, he is entitled to several forms of public assistance.The Earned Income Tax Credit and Illegal Immigration

“We have rules about tax credits and benefits, and it seems to me they need to be applied fairly and across the board,” said Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill, who is facing a difficult re-election bid in Missouri. “If there are rules, they need to be enforced. I think it’s just that simple. I don’t think it’s complicated.”

“Although the law prohibits aliens residing without authorization in the United States from receiving most federal public benefits, an increasing number of these individuals are filing tax returns claiming this refundable credit,” Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, said when the House debated the payroll tax cut measure in December. “Illegal immigrants bilked $4.2 billion from the U.S. taxpayers (in 2010). I think that it’s time that we fixed it.”see source for more

thank you battleskin88

Поджигателям мостов - посвящение.

5th Annual Label56 (Maryland) St. Patty's Acoustic Show

The 5th Annual Maryland Acoustic St Patty`s Show will be held March 10th, 2012 in Baltimore, Maryland  from 5-9 pm. We hope to see you all there!

www.label56.com

Think what you will about Muslims, but every good red blooded American needs to see this squirrel’s shirt.

Look close at the picture. Now what do you think ?

High Fashion in the Mosque

We’re constantly clubbed on the head with the claim that the Muslim world condemns 9/11, abhors 9/11, etc. – Yet every day shirts like this are mass produced, marketed, and sold by street venders thru out the Middle East and it’s simply OK. 
Now a few of our guys, after months of sleeping on the cold ground, eating MREs, not having a good hot shower, and away from their love ones, get caught piss’n on a couple of dead rag head Al Qada types and they are condemned by the world.

thank you Rebel Carrie

Wonderful now we have to watch out for Suicidal Frakenskeeters

Genetically Modified Pests The Controversial Release of Suicide Mosquitoes 

A British biotech lab has released huge numbers of genetically modified mosquitoes in an effort to combat dengue fever. But locals, some say, were not adequately informed of the experiment -- and now a debate has erupted over the potential dangers to humans.

Insectophiles might find these animals pretty because of the white markings on their dark bodies. Only the dried drops of blood -- horse blood -- on the gauze lining of their cages reveal how these animals feed.

The insects in question are female yellow-fever mosquitoes, some of the most dangerous animals on the planet. In addition to the illness after which they were named, they also transmit the dengue virus.

Dengue fever is on the rise worldwide and spreading faster than any other insect-borne viral disease. Every year, female mosquitoes infect at least 50 million people in tropical and subtropical regions (the males don't bite). More than 20,000 of their victims -- most of them children -- succumb to their illness.

The mosquitoes at the lab near Oxford serve a rather different purpose: To save human lives. 

Not Exactly a Villain

Yet something of a scientific thriller has developed around these designer animals. Were anyone to turn it into a horror movie, the story would go something like this: At the heart of the tale there are the managers and scientists at a British biotech firm. These are the bad guys. Their crime: Secretly exposing the unsuspecting inhabitants of a faraway Caribbean island to mutant mosquitoes; a flying army of horrific creatures hungry for people to prey upon. The company -- of course -- is only interested in the huge profits it hopes to make. And then there are the good guys; upstanding researchers and idealistic activists determined to ruin the bad guys' evil plans.

thank you Devil Dog

British Teen Brutally Battered by Muslims..

Police hunting a gang of Asian youths who battered a Caucasian teenager and left him for dead were treating the savage beating as a ‘hate crime’ last night.

Trainee chef Dan Stringer, 17, was repeatedly kicked and punched by a mob of up to eight people after he fell over as they were chasing him down the street near Manchester.

The victim and his best friend Kavan Brown, also 17, were walking down Market Street, Hyde, Saturday evening when they passed by a takeaway shop.

Before the attack: Trainee chef Dan Stringer, 17, was repeatedly kicked and punched by a mob of up to eight people after he fell over as they were chasing him down the street

Inside were a group of Asian “muslim” men and a woman, one of whom banged on the window, produced a knife and made a threatening gesture suggesting they were going to cut their throats.

The victims ignored the gang and walked on, but moments later the group spilled outside and ran after them.

They tried to flee, but Dan fell over and was attacked by the gang.

Greater Manchester Police said he was repeatedly punched and kicked as he lay on the ground, suffering two fractured eye sockets.

He underwent surgery in hospital and is now in a stable condition. His mother Cheryl Stringer, 44, a care home supervisor from Stockport, Greater Manchester, posted a message on Facebook: ‘Been at Manchester Eye hospital all day.

Dan Stringer, 17

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Short URL: http://www.newsnet14.com/?p=94516

‘Some say the next big frontier in Holocaust education is the Arab world’

Shulamit Imber of the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem faces a gargantuan challenge when she goes to work.  As the pedagogical head of the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, she plays an important part in determining how future generations in Israel and around the world learn about the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis and their allies during World War II.

What are Pedagogical Patterns

Patterns are designed to capture best practice in a specific domain. Pedagogical patterns try to capture expert knowledge of the practice of teaching and learning. The intent is to capture the essence of the practice in a compact form that can be easily communicated to those who need the knowledge. Presenting this information in a coherent and accessible form can mean the difference between every new instructor needing to relearn what is known by senior faculty and easy transference of knowledge of teaching within the community.

In essence a pattern solves a problem. This problem should be one that recurs in different contexts. In teaching we have many problems such as motivating students, choosing and sequencing materials, evaluating students, and the like.

These problems do recur and in slightly different form each time. Each time a problem pops up there are considerations that must be taken into account that influence our choice of solution. These forces push us toward or away from any given solution to a problem. A pattern is supposed to present a problem and a solution. The problem together with the forces must apply to make that solution beneficial to the problem.

“Historians tell us about the past,” Imber told a group of reporters on a tour of the museum on Monday. “The educator tries to give it meaning.”

MOVING FROM PEDAGOGY TO ANDRAGOGY

The pedagogical model of instruction was originally developed in the monastic schools of Europe in the Middle Ages. Young boys were received into the monasteries and taught by monks according to a system of instruction that required these children to be obedient, faithful, and efficient servants of the church (Knowles, 1984). From this origin developed the tradition of pedagogy, which later spread to the secular schools of Europe and America and became and remains the dominant form of instruction.

Pedagogy is derived from the Greek word “paid,” meaning child plus “agogos,” meaning leading. Thus, pedagogy has been defined as the art and science of teaching children. In the pedagogical model, the teacher has full responsibility for making decisions about what will be learned, how it will be learned, when it will be learned, and if the material has been learned. Pedagogy, or teacher-directed instruction as it is commonly known, places the student in a submissive role requiring obedience to the teacher’s instructions. It is based on the assumption that learners need to know only what the teacher teaches them. The result is a teaching and learning situation that actively promotes dependency on the instructor (Knowles, 1984).

The first use of the term “andragogy” to catch the widespread attention of adult educators was in 1968, when Knowles, then a professor of adult education at Boston University, introduced the term (then spelled “androgogy”) through a journal article. In a 1970 book (a second edition was published in 1980) he defined the term as the art and science of helping adults learn. His thinking had changed to the point that in the 1980 edition he suggested the following: “. . . andragogy is simply another model of assumptions about adult learners to be used alongside the pedagogical model of assumptions, thereby providing two alternative models for testing out the assumptions as to their ‘fit’ with particular situations. Furthermore, the models are probably most useful when seen not as dichotomous but rather as two ends of a spectrum , with a realistic assumption (about learners) in a given situation falling in between the two ends” (Knowles, 1980, p. 43 ).

The andragogical model as conceived by Knowles is predicated on four basic assumptions about learners, all of which have some relationship to our notions about a learner’s ability, need, and desire to take responsibility for learning:

1. Their self-concept moves from dependency to independency or self-directedness.
2. They accumulate a reservoir of experiences that can be used as a basis on which to build learning.
3. Their readiness to learn becomes increasingly associated with the developmental tasks of social roles.
4. Their time and curricular perspectives change from postponed to immediacy of application and from subject-centeredness to performance-centeredness (1980, pp. 44-45).

Throughout her career, the 56-year-old educator – who comes from a family of survivors – has taught countless teachers and students about the persecution of Jews before and during the war. Last year 1,400 educators came to Jerusalem to take part in seminars she helped put together with other museum officials, and she thinks their hard work is paying off.

History: all secondary schools to have a Holocaust expert

 300 schools to become Holocaust specialists

News | Published in TES Newspaper on 10 July, 2009 | By: Adi Bloom

£1.5m national programme will train a teacher from every secondary school in England

Hundreds of schools across the country are to become specialist centres of Holocaust education under a national scheme launched today.

The plan, which will be rolled out in 300 schools, forms part of the new £1.5 million Holocaust education programme run by London University’s Institute of Education.

As The TES revealed in November, the Holocaust Education Development Programme will provide extensive specialist training for 3,500 teachers – one from every secondary in England.

The first cohort of 150 will attend a one-day workshop in London at the beginning of November and a second workshop three weeks later. This will be followed by similar sessions in Liverpool. The training will then be introduced across the country over the next two years.

Students around the world are more knowledgeable about the Holocaust than when she joined the museum in 1986, she said.

“We asked students in America, together with the Anti-Defamation League, to say what they knew about the Holocaust and the lessons they learned from it and we saw there was a rise their knowledge,” she said.

She attributes this rise in part to formal education but also to the place of prominence the Holocaust has in popular culture.

Some say the next big frontier in Holocaust education is the Arab world, an issue Imber said was extremely sensitive.

“The conflict raises many things, it touches directly on many emotions, and some are quick to draw comparisons [between the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Holocaust],” she said. “Some people think Israel became a state because of the Holocaust.”See JP for more

Short URL: http://www.newsnet14.com/?p=94433