Andrea Nill /ThinkProgress misleads about California immigration (Micheal Savage)

Andrea Nill of ThinkProgress offers a discussion of Michael Savage using hyperbole and, rather than admitting that he's correct to a good extent she makes several misleading statements (wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/06/23/california-immigration-michael-savage).

1. She says "Savage, whose inflammatory rhetoric recently got him banned from entering the U.K.", without providing any context or mentioning that he was lumped in with terrorists and the like. Many "liberals" (i.e., the current variety) have a problem with free speech and are more than willing to try to silence their opponents. I don't think it's unfair to assume that Nill wouldn't mind silencing Savage; the organization she works for certainly wouldn't. See the Fairness Doctrine summary for background information.
2. Savage wasn't "victimiz[ing] California white males"; he was more or less claiming they were being scapegoated when other groups should be held responsible for California's problems.
3. She says, "Immigrants have been called the “super-stars” of California’s profitable high-tech industry. Google, Ebay, and Intel were all started by California’s immigrants." Seriously, even the worst Center for American Progress intern must be able to distinguish between the relatively low number of highly-skilled immigrants in Silicon Valley and the very large number of low-skilled immigrants from Latin America, primarily Mexico. Is Nill that dumb, or does she just expect her readers to not be able to figure that out?
4. She says "immigrants - both legal and illegal - make up more than 1/3 of California’s labor force". Whether her figure is correct or not, perhaps it's bad public policy to promote profiting from illegal labor, whether by private companies or the government.
5. She says "according to economist Giovanni Peri of the University of California, immigrant workers complement native-born California workers and most native-born Californians have experienced wage gains as a result". More on his study here and here.
6. She says "While there is a cost associated with immigrants and their children - as there is with any individual who lives and goes to school in the United States - California’s immigrants pay roughly $30 billion in federal taxes, $5.2 billion in state income taxes, and $4.6 billion in sales taxes each year." Even if those figures are correct, they probably fail to take into account the different types of immigrants, and she's not mentioning the obvious fact that very large numbers of low-wage illegal aliens are being subsidized by others.

It would be nice if someone would start a "ThinkProgress watch" site of some kind. Virtually every post from them is full of holes like those above and, considering their links to the Obama administration, discrediting them could have a beneficial impact.

UPDATE: I added the first item, moving the rest down.

Tue, 06/23/2009 - 14:08 · · Importance: 4