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"Dreier targeted on immigration"
From the WashTimes:House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier is waging a furious re-election battle after he was targeted by a Los Angeles radio talk show as a "political human sacrifice" for his record on illegal immigration.If you want to complain to the NRCC about what appears to be an attempt to infringe on free speech rights, click here.
In the past month, Mr. Dreier and Republicans have spent an estimated $1 million to blanket his district with fliers and radio ads aimed at countering the massive "Fire Dreier" campaign led by "The John and Ken Show" on KFI-AM in Los Angeles.
Last week, Mr. Dreier, California Republican, and the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) filed a Federal Elections Commission complaint (the-lonewacko-blog.redstate.org/story/2004/10/29/193325/19) against Clear Channel Inc., which owns KFI-AM...
On Monday November 1, John & Ken will be conducting a rally in front of Dreier's office in Glendora. I'd imagine it will be interesting to say the least. The rally runs from 3pm to 7pm.
They're asking their listeners to vote for Cynthia Matthews and Ed Laning instead of their opponents. This blog echoes those endorsements.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 08:15 PM | Comments (4)
Some endorsements
As readers might have figured out by now, I'm endorsing John Kerry to be president. I strongly urge all readers to consider the past four years, use that as a key to understanding what the next four years would be like under George Bush, and put their faith in divided government. I'll have more to say about this in a day or two, but I'll add that I don't think Kerry will be that bad as a president, and he will definitely by orders of magnitude better than what we've had.
I suggest voting for Republicans for most other offices.
However, I strongly urge all readers to vote for the following Democrats:
Beau Babka's opponent is Chris Cannon, who's been featured in several posts here.
Cynthia Matthews is, of course, running against David Dreier.
I'll compile a list of California propositions in a day or two.
I note also that blogdom's own Dave Winer is conducting a google bomb endorsement contest. Thus, this link.
Posted to Politics at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)
What country is this again?
From One Nation Under Bush:
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.—"I want you to stand, raise your right hands," and recite "the Bush Pledge," said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: "I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States."
Seriously, you gotta wonder what's at work here. Mass psychosis? Some kinda weird personality cult kinda thing? Reciting the Bush Pledge is not a "red state" thing. It's an un-American thing.
Posted to Politics at 11:29 PM | Comments (0)
Welcome to the new, improved GOP
You know those wacky fun posts containing quotes from democraticunderground.com moonbats?For balance, I present the following (redstate.org/story/2004/10/29/163222/68). Unfortunately, I think this type of "thinking" represents a larger slice of the GOP than the DU does of the left.
Bin LadenYes, my thoughts exactly. Except, the sadness part just saps all the funny away.
Well folks, John Kerry has just gotten his most important endorsement yet. None other than Osama Bin Laden has just publicly joined his team. Can't wait to see what this does to his poll numbers in the morning.
jfk is right about one thing, Americans do need to "get their heads out of the sand" and "wake up to reality". Let me make it clear to all dems visiting this site:
THE TERRORISTS ARE ON KERRY'S TEAM!!!!! WHY ARE YOU???
Posted to Politics at 03:09 PM | Comments (0)
New surveillance cameras to keep you safe, secure
From the LAT:
In a new step for crime fighting in Los Angeles, the Police Department plans to start installing surveillance cameras on city streets, beginning with Hollywood Boulevard.
Five video cameras will train their electronic eyes on one of the world's most famous — and infamous — streets as early as January. And if all goes according to plan, there eventually will be 64 cameras on Hollywood, Santa Monica and Sunset boulevards and Western Avenue...
On Wednesday, Councilman Eric Garcetti introduced a motion calling on the city to accept a donation to pay for the Hollywood cameras.
The city is embarking on the effort with little public debate over which streets and neighborhoods warrant cameras, how the LAPD will find the personnel to watch the cameras, and how the city will ensure that the sophisticated devices are not used to peer into the homes of residents...
[LAPD Capt. Michael] Downing, who spoke from Warsaw, where he is advising Polish police on human rights, stressed that the LAPD would never use the cameras "in any place where there is an expectation of privacy."
"We wouldn't look inside an apartment window or a backyard," he said.
Although city officials and privacy advocates have objected in the past to police proposals to use cameras, Downing said he believes "people are ready to feel more secure in their communities. I think they are willing to give up a little bit ... for more security."
If you've read my Privacy category, you know this particular drill. There's always an Intrusion Pimp in these types of stories explaining how its painless, or the citizens have nothing to worry about, or all the rest.
For those outside the area, let me explain those strange names above.
"Hollywood Blvd." is where German tourists go to experience "Hollywood." What they find instead are roving packs of street urchins, urine covering the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and free personality tests.
The other streets mentioned are, on the sides of Hollywood I assume would be covered, higher- to high-crime areas with a good number of prostitutes. Male prostitutes mainly on Santa Monica, female on the other streets, with sudden gusts of she-males.
Eric Garcetti is a "progressive," and in one way one might think he'd support privacy, but perhaps he's a bit more "orthodox" "progressive" than originally suspected.
I made fun of his Slate diary here. I was appalled by his support of (largely) illegal immigration here. And, he was one of the guiding lights behind the L.A. City Council issuing its anti-Iraq war proclamation. A joke organization I formed got mentioned in one of his newsletters once (in an in-the-know kind of way), but AFAIK there's no permalink for that. While I haven't spoken to him personally, he doesn't come off as a bad person, just someone with occasionally really bad ideas.
Posted to Los_Angeles at 10:19 PM | Comments (0)
The David Dreier epistles
Two letters from the 10/21/04 La Canada Daily Sun discuss Political Human Sacrifice's David Dreier.
David Dreier got $3 billion passed through Congress to help keep emergency rooms open in Southern California. As bad as the situation is now, imagine how much worse it would be if we hadn't gotten that money. Cynthia Matthews opposes the bill that provided that money.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there's some serious spin in that letter. And, I wonder if Patrick J. Wade is a former Dreier intern as another letter writer was? He might be for real, but he sure doesn't sound like it.
The other letter makes more sense.
For the first time in 44 years of voting I'll be casting my ballot for a Democrat this November, for Cynthia Matthews rather than David Dreier.
Mr. Dreier has consistently voted in favor of granting amnesty, social security, welfare, driver's licenses and all the benefits of citizenship to illegal immigrants. His record is even worse in this regard than John Kerry's, Diane Feinstein's, Hillary Clinton's, and even Teddy Kennedy's. I just wonder what part of "illegal" he doesn't understand?
I have a brother-in-law who's here, legally, from the Netherlands. He's educated, speaks English, is working and contributing to society, and has been here for 10 years. And for 10 years he's jumped through all the hoops to become a citizen. He's taken all the classes, filled out all the forms, showed up at the interviews, and waited his turn. Yet Mr. Dreier would have those who have broken our laws by illegally entering our country be granted amnesty and all the benefits of citizenship ahead of him...
(Note for those out of the area: it's pronounced "lah cuh NYAH duh", not as in "O Canada")
Posted to Immigration2004 at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)
"Al-Qaida recruiting Central American gang members?"
From the AP:
It's a U.S. Homeland Security Department nightmare, and Honduras' most outspoken Cabinet member says it's happening: Al-Qaida operatives recruiting Central American gang members... to carry out regional attacks and slip terrorists into the United States...
[...some are skeptical...]
...A spokesman for Mexico's National Immigration Institute said officials have caught "a significant number" of people from the Middle East trying to sneak into the United States from Mexico, although he refused to release exact numbers. One smuggler was arrested recently for allegedly moving Iranians and Iraqis into the United States.
There has been at least one confirmed report of a suspected terrorist in Central America. U.S. and Panamanian officials say Saudi native and alleged al-Qaida leader Adnan G. El Shukrijumah stayed in Panama for 10 days in April 2001, five months before the Sept. 11 attacks.
There also are fears El Salvador could be hit by terrorists for supporting the U.S.-led mission in Iraq.
Recent reports of possible terror activity in the region have been more questionable.
In May, here in Tegucigalpa, the hilly Honduran capital, two witnesses said they saw El Shukrijumah at an Internet cafe downtown, sparking rumors he was recruiting gang members.
U.S. officials have been scouring the globe for the 29-year-old Shukrijumah, and have offered up to $5 million for his capture. But a senior U.S. official in Central America, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was no evidence he was ever here.
Alvarez, a former private security consultant educated at Texas A&M, acknowledges he sometimes releases information that isn't confirmed, saying the reports keep Honduras' population alert to potential threats...
The last bit does indeed tend to cast a bit of doubt on his assertions.
However, one might then wonder why the DHS and L.A. County both have compiled lengthy and secret reports on just this happening...
Posted to Immigration_terror at 11:26 PM | Comments (1)
"The Last Straw - Carl Worden Makes His Vote Official"
Yeah, I don't know who Carl Worden is either, but this anti-Bush essay does have a few interesting ideas, not all of which you or I will agree with. Nonetheless:
That's it, I've had it.
I've been a registered Republican since I pulled my first lever in a voting booth, and I've voted as a loyal Republican for Republican candidates consistently every year. I am 55 years of age. I am considered a right-wing Christian conservative and strict constitutionist who knows the Framers of the Constitution expected strict adherence to that original document unless and until it is amended...
[describes going to a Bush rally]
... Three local teachers got tickets to the Bush rally, passed all the security checkpoints and scrutiny and got in. They never created or caused a disturbance, and they were perfectly peaceful members of the audience waiting to hear Bush speak. But before they got to hear Bush, they were expelled from the rally by Bush rally staff who objected to the words printed on the T-shirts they were wearing.
No, the words on the T-shirts the ladies were wearing did not disparage Bush, nor did they suggest support for Kerry or any other candidate. The words did not condemn or support the war in Iraq, nor did they slam any Administration policy. No, the T-shirts the three women wore showed an American flag, and under it the words, "Protect Our Civil Liberties". That was all -- I kid you not.
That was it. That was the last straw for me. That was the defining moment I'll never forget. That was my epiphany.
Bryan Platt, Chairman of the Jackson County Republican Central Committee, said he stood 100 percent behind the person who made the decision to exclude the women, removing any doubt that one or two individuals exceeded their authority and blew it. No, it was solid, Republican neo-conservative fascist policy on open display, and the Brown Shirts weren't about to apologize for it. No way...
OK, so he invokes Gibson's Law a few times. But, I have had a similar but less intense shiver run up and down my spine as I watched the chants of "Viva Bush!" or as I read my way through the "conservative" fever swamps.
Posted to Politics at 11:17 PM | Comments (0)
Who's behind the smears?
As you may recall, earlier this year a group of pro-borders challengers were trying to be elected to the board of the Sierra Club. For many years the Club had favored reduced immigration, but that policy was reversed several years ago. And, Carl Pope, the head of the Club mounted a vigorous and sleazy smear campaign against the challengers. Despite it somewhat backfiring (one of the challengers who'd been called a white supremacist or similar turned out to be black), the members of the Club bought the lies.
Now, the not-so-shocking truth that there was money at the root of Carl Pope's smears can be revealed. From the L.A. Times' "The Man Behind the Land":
In manner and appearance, David Gelbaum has maintained a low profile for someone who can afford to give away hundreds of millions of dollars...
In 2001, Gelbaum branched out with two back-to-back anonymous gifts to the Sierra Club Foundation that dwarfed all previous individual contributions to the club. The $101.5 million in donations led to a 10-fold increase in the club's Youth in Wilderness programs and expansion of many other club activities.
But the windfall caused a stir internally. Gelbaum's identity, known only to a few Sierra Club officials, became an issue in a bitter struggle for control of the club's board of directors.
A slate of candidates, which wanted the club to call for tighter controls on immigration to stabilize the U.S. population and its impact on the environment, demanded to know the source of the donations. The candidates contended that the club's leadership opposed their election partly because of pressure brought by the secret donor.
"Is this foreign money? Is it money that comes with special obligations? I would want to know I'm not running a laundry or being a front group for an entity that doesn't have the best interests of the United States at heart," said former Colorado Gov. David Lamm.
Lamm and other like-minded candidates were soundly defeated in a vote of club members last April, and the source of the money was not revealed...
...information led The Times to Gelbaum, who, with his brother, Daniel, sat on the Wildlands Conservancy's board of directors, along with Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope.
David Gelbaum insisted that he played no role in the election. He dismissed allegations that he is calling the shots at the club in any other way.
"None of that is true," he said. "I'm not some Svengali. I'm not that engaged."
But he said Pope long had known where he stood on the contentious issue. "I did tell Carl Pope in 1994 or 1995 that if they ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get a dollar from me..."
And there you have it. I would hope - but I rather doubt - that this will lead to Pope resigning.
Previous coverage of the challenge in these links:
Guilty "liberals" at Sierra Club choose smears over fact has the results of the election.
"Sierra Club must save its soul" discusses Carl Pope's sleazy smear attempts on the challengers.
Truth must be ultimate weapon for Sierra Club calls the Sierra Club to task for its Open Borders policies.
"Anti-Immigration Candidates Sue Sierra Club Over Board Election" discusses the start of the challenge and the LAT's own smear attempt against it.
And, for a satire on the club's policies, see sierraclubbed.com.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 10:41 PM | Comments (2)
Irony in Wisconsin
From this:
An immigration reform organization recently conducted an investigation into possible voter fraud in Wisconsin. The probe revealed that non-citizens of the United States could decide the 2004 presidential election.
Susan Tully, the Midwest field director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), says she became concerned about possible voter fraud in the Badger State when an admitted illegal alien suddenly was named a deputy registrar of voters in Racine, Wisconsin...
...So the FAIR Midwest field director sent one of her activists to take the class in Racine to become a deputy voter registrar. What Tully discovered concerns her.
"At no time was asked to show identification; at no time was she asked for her Social Security number; and at no time was she asked if she was a citizen of the United States," she says...
...Suspecting voter fraud, FAIR sent two activists from another state to the office of the former illegal alien who is not only a deputy registrar of voters in Racine but also the leader of a Hispanic organization. Tully gave the activists specific instructions.
"I wanted them to specifically tell this person they were illegal aliens, but that they wanted to register to vote -- and she registered them both," she says. The two activists received a similar response at the Milwaukee office of the Hispanic group. "This time one of the men in the office at least said it's a felony to register someone who's not a citizen to vote -- but the office manager went ahead and registered them..."
Unfortunately, the report Group sent couple to 'test' voter registration sites contains a quote from a District Attorney in which he says that not only will he not pursue this case, but "Anyone who tries to test the system from now on will be criminally prosecuted no matter who they claim they are working for or what they're testing."
However, another District Attorney says they are investigating this case of voter fraud, for what it's worth.
This incident is also mentioned in Michelle Malkin's column The illegal alien swing vote.
So, where's the irony here? One of the things that makes living here illegally much easier is the widespread acceptance of Mexican ID cards, called "Matricula Consular" cards. Those cards are only of use to illegal aliens.
Banks are allowed to accept those cards, including, as detailed here and here, banks in Wisconsin. If banks, local governments, and other companies, organizations, and agencies didn't accept those cards it would serve as a disincentive to live here illegally; as it is now, it serves as an incentive to live here illegally. And, the Bush administration supports the use of those cards.
Thus the irony, as I'd imagine very few of the recipients of the Bush administration's "largesse" will be returning the favor.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 10:23 PM | Comments (2)
J.R.R. Tolkein was right!
From this:
On an isolated islet of Indonesia, scientists have discovered skeletons of a previously unknown human species — tiny, hobbit-sized figures who lived among dwarf elephants and giant lizards as recently as 12,000 years ago when modern humans already thrived worldwide.
Startled experts in human origins called the discovery — made public today — of a contemporary human species barely 3 feet tall the most important — and surprising — human find in the past 50 years...
Posted to Miscellania at 10:01 PM | Comments (0)
"Off-Duty [El Paso] Officers to Patrol 24-7 against Terrorists"
The Federal Government calls on El Paso Police to help keep the country safe during the election and through early 2005. Beginning Wednesday, off-duty El Paso Police Officers will patrol potential terrorist sites around the clock.
The US Department of Homeland security has given the El Paso Police Department a $400,000 grant...
El Paso Police worked with Homeland Security officials to determine potentially terrorist sensitive areas along the border. Police will assign up to 200 off-duty officers to patrol those areas...
Posted to Immigration_terror at 09:56 PM | Comments (0)
It's all about the pork. And, the guest workers
As previously discussed, Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) is scheduled to be "sacrificed" as part of the Political Human Sacrifice campaign by SoCal talk jocks John & Ken.
And, he has the support of a local newspaper chain. Supposedly reporters at that chain are given "hands off Dreier" orders. The newspapers in that chain include:
- L.A. Daily News
- Pasadena Star News
- Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
- Redlands Daily Facts
- San Bernardino County Sun
Here's a roundup of recent Dreier coverage in those papers. Coverage of Rep. Joe Baca will be featured in a future post.
DailyNews' "No upsets expected in state House races" only has one paragraph on Dreier: "In the 26th District, Rep. David Dreier, R-Glendora, is challenged by Democrat Cynthia Matthews, an environmental safety worker. Dreier had about $2.7 million on hand while Matthews had about $8,800."
The SB Sun's 10/24/04 "Races rarely won by rookies" has a similar report.
10/24/04's "Dreier facing unusual battle" in the Pasadena Star News covers Political Human Sacrifice. It's somewhat balanced, except for this bit:
...Dreier admits the 'Fire Dreier' campaign has hurt, saying he has been told by a few longtime supporters that they can no longer vote for him because of his immigration policies. However, he blames a few virulent anti- immigrant foes for distorting his record on legal immigration and free trade to smear him...
It also indicates that "As of the last reporting period, he had taken in almost $1 million, even as John and Ken tossed their 'Fire Dreier' bombs his way. As of Oct. 13, Dreier had spent $920,000 and had $2.6 million left over. Matthews has taken in $31,500 and has $8,800 on hand."
Pasadena Star News' "Return Miller to 42nd District" mentions Dreier, and not in such a good way:
...When it comes to illegal immigration, Rep. Miller is in direct opposition to his fellow GOP stalwart, Rep. David Dreier's proposal to offer worker identification cards. Don't reward illegal behavior, he says. However he does want increased border patrols and has worked to make funding available to close the 11-mile gap in the border fence between Mexico and the United States. He, like many in Congress, is worried about terrorists, not day laborers, jumping the border from Mexico into the United States...
October 27's Daily Bulletin's Letters Page has eight letters; five are pro-Dreier/anti-Matthews. None of the opposite kind are provided. However, the previous day's page contains one anti-Dreier letter.
In the same paper, October 21's letter page contained one pro-Dreier letter entitled "Sick of hate-filled attacks on Dreier". It's from Dean Waddell, former Dreier intern. However, it also includes this anti-Dreier letter:
Dreier doesn’t listen to constituents
David Dreier’s column in the Sunday paper had a lot of spin in it. First of all, he says that matricula consular cards are not available to illegal immigrants. Who else would need them but illegals? Legal immigrants can get green cards, visas, etc.
Secondly, I don’t believe that 750,000 soldiers are needed to seal our borders unless they were holding hands. If Congress believed that figure, then why was there the Goode Amendment to HR4200 which would authorize the use of the military to assist in border control functions? Why does Dreier believe that 14,000 Border Patrol personnel can beef up the border but it would take 750,000 soldiers?
In 1996, Dreier voted to prohibit illegal immigrants from being allowed to pay discounted in-state tuition rates. What he fails to mention is that he co-sponsored HR1684 which would reward illegal aliens with in-state tuition rates and amnesty in 2003-2004...
Last but not least, we come to the editorial that explains the title of this post. 10/21/04's "Dreier merits another term" in the Pasadena Star News has several paragraphs describing how much pork Dreier has brought home to his district. Then, it says this:
... His plan for curbing illegal immigration, which includes funding for more border guards, goes beyond interdiction. He supports the president's proposed bracero program, which would allow immigrant laborers to go back and forth over the border. His proposal for a new Social Security card with picture I.D. and a magnetic strip that would give employers access to a potential employee's status has merit, but is not without controversy.
Dreier comprehends both local and global issues and his work in these areas are a benefit to the San Gabriel Valley, the state and the nation. In the 26th Congressional District, David Dreier is the right choice.
I don't know whether to laugh or be worried that they would call Bush's guest worker plan the bracero program. That was the name of a program in the 50s, and I don't know if Bush would like it applied to his plan.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 09:43 PM | Comments (0)
Political Human Sacrifice
[Cross-posted to the-lonewacko-blog.redstate.org/story/2004/10/27/155338/04 and the Command Post]
If you live in Southern California, you've probably heard about Political Human Sacrifice by now. That's the attempt by KFI AM 640 talk jocks John & Ken to unseat two Congressmen who refuse to do anything about our incredible problem with illegal immigration. These are the same talk jocks who played a major role in getting former governor Gray Davis recalled.
The goal is to send the message to politicians in Washington: either do something about massive illegal immigration, or lose your job.
If you aren't familiar with how much illegal immigration is a hot button issue in SoCal, I'd suggest listening to their show. You can listen live over the internet here; they're on from 3pm to 7pm Pacific time M-F. They have a segment on Political Human Sacrifice every day at 5pm Pacific time. And, they freely admit they're doing this for ratings: their ratings have gone up since starting the sacrifice.
This effort is controversial and has national implications because one of the Congressmen is David Dreier, the third most powerful Republican in the House. The other Congressman selected to be "sacrificed" is Joe Baca, a Democrat.
John & Ken are encouraging their million-plus listeners to vote for their challengers.
In Dreier's case that's Cynthia Matthews, and in Baca's case it's Ed Laning.
Dreier appears to be worried. He's spent around a million dollars on the campaign so far, and he's even gotten Arnold Schwarzenegger to record a message that's being phoned to his district. Dreier claims that his record on illegal immigration has been misrepresented, but a little research shows that's not the case.
Dreier also has the assistance of a local newspaper chain that's going to bat for him. Details here, including an example of a blatant lie by Dreier. As for Baca, read more about him here. The Washington Times offers older coverage here and here, and this has received national coverage in other papers as well. See also this site from a supporter of the effort. KFI producer and blogger Justin Levine has posts about this here and here.
To see what prompted Political Human Sacrifice and how angry many citizens are about this issue, read about the Temecula townhall meeting. And, to read about the administration's heavy-handed tactics to influence John & Ken's coverage of illegal immigration, click here.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)
"Quite a window display at boot shop"
If there was ever a story that required fisking, it's this one:
It was an awkward way for a cop to meet two burglary suspects.
Phwoar!
The naked man and woman were having sex in the front display window of Hacienda Western Wear on Chester Avenue.
Phwoar!
The police officer was outside, tapping on the locked glass door.
Yes, it was awkward. But there was no reason to be rude. The man covered himself with one hand.
With the other, he waved hello...
Etc. etc. Registration-free story here.
Posted to WackyHumor at 12:51 AM | Comments (0)
Bush and Nordic myth
One of the contributors at PoliPundit posted the following:
It appears that John Kerry is working overtime to do or say anything to convince voters that he is a man. This week alone he (supposedly) killed a goose, in order to be seen as a he-man hunter... Does he not realize when he says things like this and when he dresses up in costume for a photo op, that at least half of America just laughs because he is so obviously phony? Even those who plan to vote for him can’t believe for one second that he would be tougher on terrorism than George Bush has been...
In a last desperate attempt to save putative conservatives from looking like absolutely foolish, childish, braindead, authoritarian cult members, I posted the following comment:
Bush is the real man in this race! Remember, he’s the one that slayed the evil dragon of Aragnook!
Bush is the one that stared The Evil One in the eye at the battle of Treshtorg!
Bush is our exalted, manly leader! All hail Bush, the exalted one!
Oh, sorry, got carried away with mythologizing there.
Now, the genesis of this comment - if I may mix my religious metaphors - was partially brought about by the urban legend posted elsewhere on that fine site:
Hat tip to Kitty who posted this interesting tidbit from FrontPageMag.com.
Why is our vaccine made in the UK and not the US? The major pharmaceutical companies in the US provided almost 90% of the nations flu vaccine at one time. They did this despite a very low profit margin for the product. Basically, they were doing us a favor...
Since UK and Canadian laws prohibit such frivolous law suits UK and Canadian companies began selling the vaccine in the US. By the way…the lawyer that represented the man in the flu shot lawsuit was a young ambulance chaser by the name of John Edwards.
Urban Legend UPDATE: Smart reader, Myria, provided this link indicating that the story posted at FrontPageMag in their “Front Page Articles” section is most likely an urban legend.
UPDATE II: More on that here, including what Snopes got wrong.
Of course, what Snopes didn't get wrong was that John Edwards was never involved in this; if he had been, we would have heard about it well before now and Snopes research failed to provide any indication of his involvement.
It's a shame to see David Horowitz engaging in spreading urban legends. Whoever posts the entries for their "War Blog" page, it's still his site, and it's his responsibility. Yet, as of post time the entry is still there and without a link to Snopes.
With others this mythologizing and spreading of urban legends is not so much of a surprise.
And, of course, urban legends and mythology are about the only way Bush can campaign, as campaigning on his actual record doesn't seem like such a wise strategery.
(Note that despite the possibility that the VICP doesn't cover the flu vaccine, the Snopes article does have some interesting links.)
Posted to Politics at 10:46 PM | Comments (3)
Six charged with supplying fake ids to immigrants
CHICAGO (AP) -- Six men of Middle Eastern descent from the Chicago area were charged with helping illegal immigrants trying to conceal their legal status obtain fraudulent Social Security cards and Illinois driver's licenses, prosecutors said.
Hundreds of people used addresses associated with the defendants to secure the fake documents, according to a criminal complaint made public Tuesday in U.S. District Court...
Those arrested were from Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait. They're still looking for two more, from Egypt and Morocco. Despite the category, no suggestion that they were linked to terrorists is provided in the article.
Posted to Immigration_terror at 10:20 PM | Comments (1)
"Immigration? Oh, That."
The L.A. Times has a kinda blah editorial suggesting that the candidates at least speak about immigration matters. It somewhat gives the false impression that we need some kind of guest worker program, which is not entirely clear. Points in its favor: one sentence is about enforcing the laws against employers of illegal aliens, and the word "undocumented" appears nowhere in the editorial.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 10:15 PM | Comments (1)
U.S. code 18 U.S.C. 953
Remember the post "California legislators ask Mexican Senate to intervene [in driver's licenses for illegal aliens]"?I don't know if those requests crossed the line. Perhaps they were legal, or perhaps not. From the U.S. Code:
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.This page talks about citizen diplomacy when normal talks have broken down, but I don't think that applies in this case.
This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply, himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents thereof for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 10:11 PM | Comments (1)
"The Principles of Immigration"
Edwin Meese III and Matthew Spalding of the Heritage Foundation have a long piece on immigration policy here. I only briefly scanned it, but it seems like it gets most things right.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 01:16 PM | Comments (1)
"Nebraska gov.: Migrant I.D.s pose security risk"
It looks like Vicente Fox has lost a round:
LINCOLN, Nebraska Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns said Wednesday during a visit to Mexico that he would not support recognition of Mexican consular identity cards for migrants because they pose a security threat.
Johanns discussed use of the cards during a meeting Monday with President Vicente Fox, who has been pushing for the United States to allow the cards. But during a telephone interview from Guadalajara, Mexico on Wednesday, Johanns said such cards could be used to circumvent immigration laws...
Posted to Immigration2004 at 01:11 PM | Comments (1)
The war against WorldNetDaily
If you go to this entry at another blog, you'll find no less than two instances of "Deleted - Off topic Moderator" replacing comments I left. That's certainly their right, but for the sake of my readers who might be wondering, "would our own Lonewacko leave off-topic comments, or is there something else involved?", the answer is indeed that something else.
Namely, I was providing some backstory and contrary information to the complaint that "[Kerry] Alleged that the Bush administration is somehow in the pocket of the Saudi royal family."
Herewith the first comment I left:
I note the NewsMax article doesn't mention Prince Bandar or Wahabbism.
For the latter, we'll have to turn to WorldNetDaily: "Saudis eliminate al-Qaida at home, fund abroad"
Also from WND: A top textbook consultant shaping classroom education on Islam in American public schools recently worked for a school funded and controlled by the Saudi government...
Now, see SCHUMER: SAUDIS PLAYING ROLE IN SPREADING MAIN TERROR INFLUENCE IN UNITED STATES or Is 'Bandar Bush' above the law?.
For Kerry's position on the Saudis, see Kerry would fight terrorism better.
Checking later, I found that had been deleted, so, dickens that I am, I left another comment:
I've included my original comment below; it might have appeared off-topic except it was addressing the bit above about the Saudi royal family. In case the problem was the link to Kerry's positions on the Saudis and the Schumer link, I took those out. Hopefully linking to articles in World Net Daily and a piece by well-known journalist Matt Welch won't prove controversial.
---
I note the NewsMax article doesn't mention Prince Bandar or Wahabbism.
For the latter, we'll have to turn to WorldNetDaily: "Saudis eliminate al-Qaida at home, fund abroad"
Also from WND:: A top textbook consultant shaping classroom education on Islam in American public schools recently worked for a school funded and controlled by the Saudi government.... See also Is Is 'Bandar Bush' above the law?
Heh indeed.
Posted to Politics at 12:20 PM | Comments (1)
"Rewriting History Before the Ink is Dry"
(Washington, DC—October 18, 2004) In what must be a new world's record for historical revisionism, open border lobbyists from both the political left and right are fighting to remove critical immigration policy reforms from the final version of a bill that would implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. The House version of the legislation, H.R. 10, includes numerous provisions designed to minimize the possibility of terrorists taking advantage of loopholes in U.S. immigration law. Open border lobbyists are vigorously fighting to strip these provisions from the final draft as the House-Senate conference committee is meeting this week to hammer out the differences between their respective bills...
Posted to Immigration2004 at 01:03 PM | Comments (5)
Irony on the Border, Part 2
From Prop. 200-style system already law in Mexico:
MEXICO CITY - The provisions of Proposition 200 have stirred up a storm of debate in Arizona. But here in Mexico, they're already the law.
Arizona's contentious ballot proposal would require voters to show proof of their U.S. citizenship when registering to vote and proof of their legal residency when applying for government benefits.
In Mexico, it has been that way for years. Only in hospitals are Mexico's laws more lenient about checking immigration documents.
To see if the requirements are being enforced, a Republic reporter (a U.S. citizen with legal residency in Mexico), went to six public agencies and two schools in Mexico City to inquire about services and registering to vote.
Almost every official asked to see proof of Mexican citizenship or an FM3 visa, the document that allows a person to live in Mexico. Often, it was the first question asked...
The previous installment of Irony on the Border discussed how Mexicans in Zacatecas don't cotton to immigrants coming from other parts of Mexico.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 12:27 PM | Comments (2)
Gutting of H.R. 10 under way
From NumbersUSA:
Our Capitol Hill team has learned that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, chief sponsor of H.R. 10, is under tremendous pressure from the White House to back down from his current position supporting the immigration provisions of H.R. 10 so that a final bill can be agreed upon and delivered to President Bush for his signature before the election. Your phone calls will help give Speaker Hastert the support he needs to stand firm and support the immigration provisions of H.R. 10...
Rep. Hastert, Dennis
27 North River Street,
Batavia, IL 605102666
(630-406-1114)
2369 RHOB,
Washington, DC 20515
(202-225-2976)
And, from FAIR:
House and Senate conferees are scheduled to meet this Wednesday, Oct. 20, to begin working on the final version of the 9/11 Recommendation Implementation Act. They are under pressure from the White House to drop the important identification security and immigration enforcement provisions from the House bill and reach a conclusion by this Friday, Oct. 22.
Help us pound their offices with faxes and phone calls insisting the immigration-security reforms in the House version of the bill remain part of the final package. Time is of the essence so act now.
You can send free FAXes here.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 11:52 PM | Comments (2)
Fox of Mexico to get tough with the U.S.A.
More threats from our friends to the south:
In recent days Mexican President Vicente Fox and his Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Luis Ernesto Derbez, have sent barbed messages to the U.S.A. The main message — Mexico plans to get tough with the U.S.A. regarding the treatment of migrant workers in this country and the services they should receive...
During a speech in Leon, Guanajuato, Fox said that he would absolutely defend the matrícula consular... The president told the audience, that included U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson: “The matrícula consular (cards) are again being questioned, however we will defend them with tooth and nail because our fellow countrymen are neither criminals nor terrorists. They are people with dignity and workers who contribute a great deal to the North American economy.”
...Meeting with reporters in Mexico City, Foreign Minister Derbez said that after the November elections Fox would visit California — and Derbez pointed a finger directly at Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Derbez said that the Mexican president would have a “very tough talk” with the governor...
...Noting that Schwarzenegger recently vetoed the bill to allow the issuance of driver’s licenses to immigrants, Derbez secondly said that the matrícula consular “should be sufficient in order to obtain a driver’s license.”
...[a quote from Gil Cedillo is provided as background:] “We are not terrorists…. The governor is an immigrant like we are immigrants, and because of that we insist that the governor honor his word and give us the same license he has."
...“I believe that the Mexican community must send the message that it is sending, which is we represent (something) positive for the state and the country, therefore we ask we be treated like we should be treated … and if migrants decide to conduct a peaceful boycott, so that their positive side is taken into account, it is proper,” [Derbez] told the Mexico City daily Reforma...
During all of this the Mexican Senate is reaching across the northern border in ways it would quickly condemn if done the other way around. In late September senators unanimously approved sending a letter to Schwarzenegger to express concern over his veto of the driver’s license bill. (It is currently taking similar actions with Arizona and Proposition 200.)
Actually the Mexican intervention in California was done at the request of state legislators, members of the California Latino Legislative Caucus who had met with the senators during a visit to Mexico City, this according to Assemblyman Marco Antonio Firebaugh who chairs the caucus...
...In an interview with the Mexican magazine Proceso, [recently replaced Mexican consul general to San Francisco Georgina Lagos] noted the important role she and five other consul generals in California had played in the growing acceptance of the matrícula consular. She was especially critical of the timing, saying the assignment changes should not have been made at the very time the Mexican consuls had California state legislators eating out of their hands.
The whole article should set off alarm bells in the minds of those who don't already hear those bells. While it's but a sidenote, the reader will note Gil Cedillo's use of the word "we" when referring to illegal aliens. I don't think he's calling himself an illegal alien. Rather, he thinks of himself first and foremost as a Mexican and not a Mexican-American.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 11:30 PM | Comments (2)
Fire Dreier the outright Liar
As previously described, KFI talk jocks John & Ken are conducting a "Political Human Sacrifice" designed to fire a local congressman who's extremely weak on illegal immigration, Rep. David Dreier.
Said Rep. has a guest column published in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin entitled "Immigration must play by rules." OK, so they flubbed the title. And, that newspaper is published by someone who, rumor has it, has a close relationship with Dreier including a "hands-off-Dreier" instruction to the reporters for his chain of local newspapers.
That's interesting, but what's especially shocking is that in the editorial Dreier clearly and unequivocally lies:
[I voted to allow banks to accept Mexican ID cards called "Matricula Consular" cards]...It should also be recognized that Matricula Consular cards have been issued by the Mexican government since 1871, are not available to illegal immigrants, and are not accepted by any federal benefit program...
The whole editorial is probably riddled with lies, but the part about those ID cards not being available to illegal immigrants is a complete, unequivocal lie.
I provide a few examples of Mexican consuls passing out those ID cards to illegal aliens here. In fact, here's a quote from one of those consuls:
[when you get your Matricula Consular card we] don’t care if you are documented or undocumented
So, Dreier is a liar.
He's also apparently quite afraid of Political Human Sacrifice succeeding. To help judge how scared he is, tomorrow Dreier will begin running commercials on KFI, the same station with John & Ken. He has not appeared on their show despite continued requests.
And, there are some astroturf letters from his supporters here. Apparently at least three of those people are associated with Dreier in some way. I don't know how much of an association there is between two of those three, but note that one of the authors is Dean Waddell. This Dean Waddell:
An internship with one's very own congressman is something that most political science majors only dream of.
But that is exactly what happened to Dean Waddell, 18, now in his second semester at Citrus College.
Waddell applied for an internship at Congressman David Dreier's district office in Glendora on August 2003...
Apparently that chain of newspapers has not published any anti-Dreier letters, although I'd imagine they've received a good quantity of that kind.
For more on Matricula Consular cards, see also 222 House Members Put Interests of Banking Lobby Ahead of Homeland Security and the extensive backgrounder "IDs for Illegals: The 'Matricula Consular' Advances Mexico's Immigration Agenda".
Posted to Immigration2004 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)
Pooty-poot supports Bush, why don't you?
VLAH-duh-mir Putin:
"I consider the activities of terrorists in Iraq are not as much aimed at coalition forces but more personally against President Bush... International terrorism has as its goal to prevent the election of President Bush to a second term... If they achieve that goal, then that will give international terrorism a new impulse and extra power... We unconditionally respect any choice of the American people... I don't want to spoil relations with either candidate."
I’d be very careful about statements like this, suggesting that you think this through before considering it a good thing for America long-term.
If he’s saying that we should vote for Bush because the terrorists don’t want us to, then haven’t the terrorists won in a way? Given an unprincipled candidate for president - not Bush or Kerry - could we imagine a scenario where that president might invent a terrorist threat or even a terrorist attack as a way to cement a victory? Not a good thought to put in the minds of our future prospective leaders.
Separate from that, there’s also of course the fact that Putin is the (former) head of the (now-disbanded) KGB. There’s what he’s saying, and what we’ll take from it. And, he has an idea what we’ll take from it, which might be different from what he’s saying. And, of course, there might be reasons why he would want Bush that correspond to his ulterior motives rather than a high-minded attempt to join in our WOT.
Posted to Politics at 09:58 PM | Comments (0)
The Messianic President
NYT magazine offers "Without a Doubt", a ten-screen discussion of Bush and how his faith motivates his decisions. It's from Ron Suskind, the author of "The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill". Suskind was the senior national-affairs reporter for The Wall Street Journal from 1993 to 2000.
Some will denounce this as a liberal NYT hit piece. Others - those wouldn't mind seeing, say, Pat Robertson as president - will find comfort in parts of the article. And others will find partial confirmation for what they already suspected.
Excerpts:
''Just in the past few months,'' [Bruce] Bartlett said, ''I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.'' Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: ''This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . .
''This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,'' Bartlett went on to say. ''He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.'' Bartlett paused, then said, ''But you can't run the world on faith.''
...
''When I was first with Bush in Austin, what I saw was a self-help Methodist, very open, seeking,'' [Jim Wallis of the Sojourners] says now. ''What I started to see at this point was the man that would emerge over the next year -- a messianic American Calvinist. He doesn't want to hear from anyone who doubts him.''
...Every few months, a report surfaces of the president using strikingly Messianic language, only to be dismissed by the White House. Three months ago, for instance, in a private meeting with Amish farmers in Lancaster County, Pa., Bush was reported to have said, ''I trust God speaks through me.'' In this ongoing game of winks and nods, a White House spokesman denied the president had specifically spoken those words, but noted that ''his faith helps him in his service to people.''
...Talk of the faith-based initiative, [Joseph Gildenhorn, a top contributor] said, makes him ''a little uneasy.'' Many conservative evangelicals ''feel they have a direct line from God,'' he said, and feel Bush is divinely chosen.
''I think he's religious, I think he's a born-again, I don't think, though, that he feels that he's been ordained by God to serve the country.'' Gildenhorn paused, then said, ''But you know, I really haven't discussed it with him.''
A regent I spoke to later and who asked not to be identified told me: ''I'm happy he's certain of victory and that he's ready to burst forth into his second term, but it all makes me a little nervous. There are a lot of big things that he's planning to do domestically, and who knows what countries we might invade or what might happen in Iraq. But when it gets complex, he seems to turn to prayer or God rather than digging in and thinking things through. What's that line? -- the devil's in the details. If you don't go after that devil, he'll come after you.''
...Can the unfinished American experiment in self-governance -- sputtering on the watery fuel of illusion and assertion -- deal with something as nuanced as the subtleties of one man's faith? What, after all, is the nature of the particular conversation the president feels he has with God -- a colloquy upon which the world now precariously turns?
That very issue is what Jim Wallis wishes he could sit and talk about with George W. Bush. That's impossible now, he says. He is no longer invited to the White House.
''Faith can cut in so many ways,'' he said. ''If you're penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King did. But when it's designed to certify our righteousness -- that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self-criticism aside. There's no reflection.
''Where people often get lost is on this very point,'' he said after a moment of thought. ''Real faith, you see, leads us to deeper reflection and not -- not ever -- to the thing we as humans so very much want.''
And what is that?
''Easy certainty.''
Posted to Politics at 01:27 PM | Comments (2)
"Why I can't vote for Bush."
From Robert A. George of the New York Post:
Sixteen years ago, just out of college, I volunteered at the Republican National Convention as a man named George Bush prepared to begin a fall campaign that would see him defeat a Democrat from Massachusetts. The sparkling words of an acceptance speech crafted by Peggy Noonan--and delivered almost flawlessly--helped him inspire his party and a country that saw him as an extension of Ronald Reagan. It fell to that George Bush to "close out" the cold war and launch a different one in the Persian Gulf.
Now, sixteen years later, after tenures working for the party and a couple of Republican members on Capitol Hill (including a speaker named Newt Gingrich) and becoming an earnest fellow traveler of the conservative movement, I find it impossible to support the current George Bush--whom his party sees as the ideological extension of Ronald Reagan--as he faces his own showdown with a Democrat from Massachusetts and oversees a war centered in the Middle East...
...this administration shows little inclination to demand accountability from those who serve within it. In turn, the Republican Congress--ignoring its 1994 vow to "restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives"--appears disinclined to check the powers of the executive. Together, these factors endanger the long-term health of the republic...
The past four decades have seen "wars" on social conditions ("poverty"), inanimate objects ("drugs"), and physical states ("teenage pregnancy"). (Each has met with limited, if any, success.) What is different now is that, this time, a president has asserted that we are in an actual war that must be fought with the full wartime powers of the presidency. With vague congressional approval, this assertion grants the president--and, more importantly, the presidency--powers deeply disturbing from a civil liberties perspective. Indeed, this expansion of presidential prerogative is anathema to the conservative belief in limited government...
...Ultimately, on both foreign and domestic policy, the public's trust has been betrayed. Why should the public trust its leaders with future policy if those leaders deceive and manipulate the people's elected representatives to get a favored policy passed? If the American public and the world at large now react skeptically to future presidential claims that the United States faces a foreign threat, who can blame them?
...No, a Kerry administration would not be any conservative's ideal. But, on limited government, a Democratic president would, arguably, force a Republican Congress to act like a Republican Congress. The last such combination produced some form of fiscal sanity. And, when it comes to accountability, one could hardly do worse...
Posted to Politics at 11:00 AM | Comments (2)
The Big Show on the Border
From the 10/13 debate, President Bush:
...I believe there ought to be a temporary worker card that allows a willing worker and a willing employer to mate up, so long as there's not an American willing to do the job...
I wonder how many nurses, teachers, or high-tech workers would work for $8 an hour. Wait, you didn't know that Bush's "guest worker" plan would be open to those people too?
That's what they have in mind. And, there would be no wage-related restrictions on it other than the minimum wage. So, employers could offer a teaching job for $8 an hour. American teachers would either take that rate or, more likely, they wouldn't. So, the employer could hire that "guest" worker from Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi would consider that a king's ransom. All the requirements of Bush's plan had been met: there wasn't an American willing to do the job.
Bush's plan would force millions of previously higher-wage jobs down near the minimum wage. What phrase would most Americans use to describe such a plan?
See Analysis: Bush temp worker plan open-ended and Bush "guest worker" program to be "open to any type of employee". Also, "Hutchinson’s Remarks Indicate Cheap Labor Bias of Administration" and the links here.
...they're able to go back and forth to see their families... See, the card will have a period of time attached to it.
What exactly does he mean by "families"? Will their immediate family come with them or not? If not, are we going to be able to split up families? Not all people coming here would be Mexicans or from the parts of Mexico near the border. Is Bush going to require men to travel hundreds of miles to see their immediate family?
If, however, they're bringing their immediate family with them, there will no doubt be hundreds of thousands of children born, and those children will be U.S. citizens. Who's going to be able to make them go home after they've had a U.S. citizen child? And, won't most "guest" workers intentionally have children here so it will be harder to make them go home?
And, given that, doesn't this plan consist not just of an amnesty, but as a massive incentive for a huge chunk of Mexico's population to come here? Was any thought put into the consequences of this plan at all?
A Bush assistant addresses those questions in Bush "guest worker" program to be "open to any type of employee". No change to the 14th Amendment is expected to accomodate the "guest worker" plan.
If somebody is coming here to work with a card, it means they're not going to have to sneak across the border.
No, it doesn't. People will sneak across the border for many reasons, but primarily for employment. And, if employers are willing to employ people illegally - under any guest worker plan - people will keep coming here illegally. People don't hire illegals primarily because of a lack of legal workers. They hire illegals because of the cost or to avoid paperwork or safety laws. If those who currently employ illegals want to continue to do so, they will under any guest worker program unless they're stopped. If Bush won't enforce the laws against hiring illegal aliens now, what makes anyone think he'd enforce the laws under his plan? And, note that under the last guest worker program (the Bracero program) illegal immigration went up during and after that program.
See "Employer fines plummet for hiring illegals" and "The Mirage of Mexican Guest Workers".
...I don't believe we ought to have amnesty. I don't think we ought to reward illegal behavior...
His plan is perceived as an amnesty, and it's caused an uptick in those coming here expecting to take part in the amnesty. Whether it's truly an amnesty hinges on how exactly we define amnesty. And, when you get down to the level of minute differences in definition, you might as well be Bill Clinton.
See "Border Agents Warn of Influx" and "[Bush] Immigration plan envisions 'incentives' to illegal aliens".
Well, to say that the borders are not as protected as they were prior to September the 11th shows he doesn't know the borders. They're much better protected today than they were when I was the governor of Texas... We have much more manpower and much more equipment there.
Bush was governor of Texas before 9/11. I'd hope the borders are better protected now than they were before that date. But, are they? What of all the chatter about terrorists attempting to infiltrate the U.S. via Mexico? What of the report of 25 Chechen terrorists possibily having succeeded in that effort?
Once again Bush's rhetoric just doesn't match up to reality. If the administration would take the novel approach of fining those companies that employ illegal aliens, all that manpower and equipment would have a much greater impact. As it is, to a certain extent they're just there for show.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 10:58 PM | Comments (11)
"Candidates evade immigration issue"
This article from Oregon was written before the debates. It doesn't have much more than the title tells you and it falsely states that the country is divided on immigration. No, the great majority of Americans favor an end to illegal immigration. On the other side are the elites. Numerically that's not a divide, and in terms of power it's not a divide either.
The article does, however, have some interesting statistics:
Oregon was home to about 90,000 illegal immigrants in 2000, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). That’s almost triple the previous government estimate in 1996 and 333 percent higher than the estimate for 1990, giving Oregon the 14th largest illegal immigrant population in the country, according to FAIR...
In March, the Department of Homeland Security launched its most intense effort to control the U.S.-Mexico border.
Millions of dollars were spent on electronic ground sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles, special air operations and more than 2,000 Border Patrol agents along the busiest and deadliest stretch of the Arizona-Sonora desert.
A total of 1,158,802 people were caught by the U.S. Border Patrol trying to get into the United States during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, said Border Patrol spokeswoman Gloria Chavez.
Of those, 75,371 were from countries other than Mexico.
Robert Bonner, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection said that between Oct. 1, 2003 and Aug. 31, the arrest of illegal immigrants by U.S. Border Patrol agents included: 138 homicide suspects; 67 kidnapping suspects; 226 sexual assault suspects; 431 robbery suspects; 2,342 suspects for assaults of other types; and 4,801 involved with dangerous narcotics.
Federal agents also tallied 325 deaths along the southwest border, said Chavez...
Posted to Immigration2004 at 10:08 PM | Comments (1)
"Report Finds Lavish Spending at TSA"
From AP:
The government agency in charge of airport security spent nearly a half-million dollars on an awards ceremony at a lavish hotel, including $81,000 for plaques and $500 for cheese displays, according to an internal report obtained by The Associated Press.
Awards were presented to 543 Transportation Security Administration employees and 30 organizations, including a "lifetime achievement award" for one worker with the 2-year-old agency. Almost $200,000 was spent on travel and lodging for attendees...
The TSA is part of DHS. See also "D.C. hamstrings border officers" and Border Patrol agents fear coming retribution. On a somewhat related note, see Ridge: no sign of terrorists trying to cross border and "Tancredo presses White House on control of border".
Posted to Immigration2004 at 09:59 PM | Comments (0)
" FBI says al-Qaida scout used N.J. as base"
From this:
A senior al-Qaida operative lived in New Jersey and posed as a student to disguise his surveillance of financial institutions as possible terror targets, officials said Wednesday.
The FBI's top agent in New Jersey, Joseph Billy Jr., confirmed that the operative led an al-Qaida mission to survey the physical layout and assess weaknesses of the Prudential Financial Inc. building in downtown Newark.
While carrying out this reconnaissance operation - which included surveys of the New York Stock Exchange building on Wall Street and Citigroup's headquarters in midtown Manhattan - the man attended several institutions of higher learning in New Jersey, Billy said. He did not identify the schools...
...Discovery of those surveys led U.S. Homeland Security officials to declare an orange alert Aug. 1 for America's financial sector...
...[the reports were detailed...] ...One notation said that using the PATH train system was an option, but pointed out that exact fare should be carried for use at its automated turnstiles to speed a getaway, the official said...
...The documents describe surveillance operations at U.S. financial buildings during 2000 and 2001...
In case that link doesn't work, try the AP reports here or here.
The last link says those sites were surveilled in 2001 and 2002, but the first two say it was in 2000 and 2001. That would seem to be a crucial bit of information. Since the first link is from the reporter who interviewed the FBI agent directly, 2000 and 2001 are probably the accurate dates.
This abuse of our immigration system is, of course, a key way terrorists have entered and stayed in the U.S. See Chapter 3 of the 9/11 Commission Staff Report.
Posted to Immigration_terror at 09:54 PM | Comments (1)
Bob Shieffer's softball team?
A completely unverified comment left here would seem to explain a lot of things if true:
Yeah, right, Schieffer is anti-Bush. Perhaps you didn't know that Schieffer's brother is a former business partner of George W. Bush, and was appointed by Bush to be an ambassador. Perhaps you also are unaware of this quote by Schieffer:
"But where I am kind of prejudiced is I always pull for people, in a funny kind of way, from my part of the country. I am not one of those who believes that every bit of wisdom somehow originates in the northeastern part of the United States. So when somebody comes out of the South, I'm always kind of secretly pulling for them."
Posted to Politics at 09:43 PM | Comments (1)
Another slimy voice
The Houston Chronicle's "Another Voice" section reprints an article from Mexico's El Universal newspaper entitled "Politics of immigration":
The complicated U.S. electoral climate has caused a proliferation of opportunistic proposals by politicians looking for the support of a sector of the U.S. electorate that is very conservative and even racist. That is why they have proposed measures against Mexican immigrants, as is the case with banning identity cards issued by Mexican consulates... [etc. etc. etc.]
Rather than respond to this drivel directly, let's ask why they would write it. The answer - like many other answers - involves money and power. Mexican citizens working illegally in the U.S. send billions of dollars home each year, and there's that little matter of Mexico's lost territories. From a 1982 editorial in another Mexican newspaper (excerpted here):
The territory lost in the 19th century by...Mexico...seems to be restoring itself through a humble people who go on settling various zones that once were ours on the old maps. Land, under any concept of possession, ends up in the hands of those who deserve it.... [The result of this migration is to return the land] to the jurisdiction of Mexico without the firing of a single shot.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 09:39 PM | Comments (1)
Class in class
Kids in some town in Iowa simulated a 1907 voyage to Ellis Island by dressing up in period costumes, going through inspections, etc. etc.
On the MultiCultiCult danger scale this is pretty low, but nonetheless some of it is a little revealing:
[A student] said he learned during the unit on Ellis Island that first-class passengers were usually treated better than the poorer immigrants...
Students also learned how the lives of present-day immigrants mirror the struggles of new Americans from 100 years ago, he said...
"In first class we've got good food," [a student] said. "It just shows the difference between first class and third class."
...Chris Long, 13, played Jose, a poor man from Portugal. In accordance with what some immigrants experienced at Ellis Island, an official said Jose did not pass one of the exams and marked his coat with chalk...
[A teacher name of] Yager explained to Chris and other marked students how Ellis Island procedures were similar to security checks made today at airports and other public locations.
American officials then worried immigrants might bring disease into the country, Yager said. Now, she said, they are concerned about terrorism and weapons.
"We didn't want to degrade people (then), but we were scared," Yager said...
Any lessons relating to present day immigrants is not described. However, one will note that someone named Jose was singled out to be rejected. Gosh, you think the teachers could have been sending a message? Where we just "scared" about disease then? Wouldn't "rightfully very concerned" be the better choice of words?
Posted to Immigration2004 at 09:25 PM | Comments (2)
Bill's Big Falafel Balls
From the O'Reilly complaint:
You would basically be in the shower and then I would come in and I'd join you and you would have your back to me and I would take that little loofa thing and kinda' soap up your back... rub it all over you, get you to relax, hot water... and um... you know, you'd feel the tension drain out of you and uh you still would be with your back to me then I would kinda' put my arm - it's one of those mitts, those loofa mitts you know, so I got my hands in it... [etc. etc.]...
...So anyway I'd be rubbing your big boobs and getting your nipples really hard, kinda' kissing your neck from behind... and then I would take the other hand with the falafel (sic) thing and I'd, put it on your [...oops! this is where it gets really naughty...]
UPDATE: Mmmmm... falafel. I'm going to try these lines on the gals at Zankou.
Posted to WackyHumor at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)
"Republicans and the Politics of the Latino Vote"
From the report "Losing Ground or Staying Even: Republicans and the Politics of the Latino Vote" by University of Maryland Professor of Government James Gimpel:
...continued at the link...
Posted to Immigration2004 at 12:17 PM | Comments (1)
"Addicted to 9/11"
I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear the president and vice president slamming John Kerry for saying that he hopes America can eventually get back to a place where "terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance." The idea that President Bush and Mr. Cheney would declare such a statement to be proof that Mr. Kerry is unfit to lead actually says more about them than Mr. Kerry. Excuse me, I don't know about you, but I dream of going back to the days when terrorism was just a nuisance in our lives...
Perhaps Friedman did flip-flop, or perhaps he's just allergic to four more years of the same. He's still right.
Posted to Iraq at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)
"High schoolers fall short, CSU learns"
Nearly six months after giving the first statewide exam to identify students who aren't prepared for university-level course work, California State University officials found that nearly 80 percent of high school juniors they tested are not ready for college English.
The same test - called the Early Assessment Program - dealt better results in math, with 45 percent of participating juniors posting scores too low to prove they are ready for college-level math...
As with other tests, there are questions about the methodology, etc. that only education specialists could answer. The results are pretty shocking nonetheless. The article says the results weren't broken down by ethnicity, but I'd imagine that a good percentage of those who took this test were illegal immigrants or the citizen children of illegal immigrants.
Posted to California at 11:06 AM | Comments (2)
10/13 debate thread
K: r we as safe as we ought 2 b? still w/ homeland sec, but not border... yet
b: did rght thng bout flu... we relied on english co.
q: y b rely on english co?
being lectured by prez on fiscal resp is like soprano...
kerry caught bush on a possible lie about the pell grants, tripped up bush for a second...
bs: bush refuses to fine companies that hire illegals
illegal immigration is his fault
now he's repeating the AILA crap he told o'reilly
shieffer's q was extremely weak
bush lying about not supporting amnesty. His plan is amnesty.
boy did kerry flub
the borders aren't protected, bush.
BIG point to Kerry, mentioning people from the middle east coming across the border. But, too little.
He should have mentioned that just 1 company was fined for immigration violations in the first five months of this year.
Compare that stat to Bush's happy talk.
-----
OK, here's what happened. About a half an hour before the debate, I cut my left index finger. Blood was flowing out of the cut, and it took an hour for it to finally stop.
So, I was typing one-handed for a while. And, the fact that rebuilds were taking too long meant I was forced to leave comments on the debate elsewhere. I'll get those together and post them above later.
Posted to Politics at 04:53 PM | Comments (4)
"Immigration overshadowed on presidential campaign trail"
From the AP:
Neither President Bush nor Sen. John Kerry has devoted much attention lately to his plan for fixing America's failed immigration policies – a sticking point for states paying the financial and human costs of the thousands of workers who sneak into the country each year.
While the candidates laid out plans for confronting the problem earlier in the race, illegal immigration has been overshadowed by Iraq, the war on terror and the economy in the final weeks of the campaign...
Given the report about 25 Chechen terrorists possibly entering from Mexico, that might change soon. Especially if Bob Schieffer asks a tough question at the final debate.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)
What is voteplan.org?
I saw this site in comments somewhere, but I don't know anything about them. They've got a petition encouraging politicians to put their various plans on video tapes, which could then be shown on TV or download on the internet. In the video the candidate can't mention their opponent.
I haven't signed the petition because it's a little late and there doesn't seem to be a way to get the list of current signers and thereby get an idea this is legit and at least a little popular.
Posted to Politics at 11:49 PM | Comments (0)
"Jones Seeks to Curb Immigration by Expanding Economy in Mexico"
From the LAT:
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bill Jones proposed federal incentives Monday to create jobs in Mexico and help reduce the economic motive propelling illegal immigration.
Jones, revisiting a theme of his campaign, argued that a porous border with Mexico threatens national security and called for a sharp increase in the number of border patrol agents, completion of a stalled border fence project north of Tijuana and creation of a guest-worker program for U.S. industries facing labor shortages...
He kinda lost me at the end there. The other proposals might have some merit, but how about Mexico reforming its system a bit? When it has more millionaires than Germany and a vastly lower standard of living, one might assume there's something a bit wrong.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 11:45 PM | Comments (0)
Are you sure Bush is keeping you safe?
From Bill Gertz in the Washington Times comes "Chechen terrorists probed":
U.S. security officials are investigating a recent intelligence report that a group of 25 Chechen terrorists illegally entered the United States from Mexico in July.
The Chechen group is suspected of having links to Islamist terrorists seeking to separate the southern enclave of Chechnya from Russia, according to officials familiar with intelligence reports.
Members of the group, said to be wearing backpacks, secretly traveled to northern Mexico and crossed into a mountainous part of Arizona that is difficult for U.S. border security agents to monitor, said officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The intelligence report was supplied to the U.S. government in late August or early September and was based on information from an intelligence source that has been proved reliable in other instances, one official said.
A second U.S. official said the report is being investigated, but said it could not be determined whether the group of Chechens actually entered the country, as the intelligence source reported.
"We don't know whether or not that report is true," this official said.
A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed that the intelligence report was provided by another government agency, but said Border Patrol agents were unable to verify its accuracy...
Up to three million people will cross our southern border this year.
If only a few people were crossing, groups like that above would stand out. But, we aren't ever going to be able to reduce the flow that sharply. However, we could reduce it as much as possible in order to make the job of the Border Patrol that much easier and to make those trying to cross stand out as much as possible.
The way to do that is to start fining those employers who are putting the rest of us at risk and to reduce the other incentives to being here illegally, such as free healthcare and driver's licenses. However, because of Bush and many others that is not being done.
If terrorists do attack the homeland after coming over the border, look through my immigration categories for the companies, groups, and politicians that are to blame.
Posted to Immigration_terror at 09:02 PM | Comments (3)
14% of U.S. population eligible to be card-carrying dual citizens
CNN/Money has a borderline wacky happyfun report on dual citizenship. When one passport won't do: An estimated 40 million Americans are eligible for citizenship in another country. Any takers?
Here's a product of globalization that isn't as easy to spot: the dual citizen.
He's the guy on the plane who was born and raised in Akron but flashes his Indian passport at customs in Mumbai. She's the lucky college grad who gets a trip to Europe and an EU passport to boot. They are the retirees who relocate to Ireland to trace family histories and receive national health benefits...
Just how many of them are card-carrying (make that passport-carrying) dual citizens [wacky! --LW] is virtually impossible to estimate. But many immigration experts have a hunch the number is increasing...
Etc. etc. The bad news - what little of it that's given - is given at the end of the article. Before we get to the bad news, we learn that 40 million Americans, or about 14% of our population are eligible to have what amount to divided loyalties. And, we learn that those dual citizens don't have to inform the U.S. government that they're now citizens of another country as well.
This post discussed how dual citizenship is part of Mexico's plan to meddle in our internal politics.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 07:27 PM | Comments (1)
Bob Schieffer: "There should be a question about illegal immigration"
According to an unconfirmed report from a TV viewer:
Just saw Bob Schieffer, moderator of tomorrow nights debate, on Hannity and Colmes and he mentioned a "probable" question about illegal immigration.
Let's hope this comes to pass, and he's able to ask tougher questions than Bill O'Reilly.
If you'd like to suggest something, this email might work: ftn@cbsnews.com (stands for "Face The Nation")
Posted to Immigration2004 at 07:04 PM | Comments (0)
"The two faces of Arnold - a Mexican's viewpoint"
Mexican newspaper Reforma published an editorial back on October 3 calling our own Arnold Schwarzenegger a hypocrite for opposing driver's licenses for illegal aliens.
The editorial is basically only of use to see what the elites of Mexico think. Other than that it's basically just a good opportunity to laugh out loud.
Rather than excerpt the editorial, here's the footnote:
The author [of the editorial] omitted the concluding two sentences of this paragraph in Schwarzenegger's speech, an apparent convenience in support of his contention that Schwarzenegger is a hypocrite. For proper context, the following is the paragraph in full: "To my fellow immigrants listening tonight, I want you to know how welcome you are in this party. We Republicans admire your ambition. We encourage your dreams. We believe in your future. One thing I learned about America is that if you work hard and play by the rules, this country is truly open to you. You can achieve anything." (BBC News, September 1, 2004) [emphasis added -- LW]
MexiData received a few letters about the editorial, all of which pointed out that Arnold was a legal and not an illegal immigrant.
Posted to Immigration_dls at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)
NYC non-NYT PIIPP spotted
A PIIPP ("pro-illegal immigration puff piece") has been spotted in NYC, but for a change it's not from the NYT.
From NY Newsday's "Driven by DMV alert" by Robert Polner:
When Jose, a house painter, got the letter at his Brooklyn home this summer, he panicked. He was among 600,000 people notified by the state Department of Motor Vehicles that they had 15 days to produce a valid Social Security number or face the loss of their driver's licenses.
Without a license to operate his company van, the immigrant from Mexico says he has no legitimate way to support his wife and American-born son. And without legal residency, Jose cannot get a Social Security number.
The first sentence qualifies this as a PIIPP; the second paragraph qualifies this as Kafkaesque.
The readers of NY Newsday are going to be awfully confused by this article. If you think this newspaper should do their job and disclose that Jose is an illegal alien (not an "immigrant") and therefore he's ineligible to be working here in the first place, please send a short, polite email to nyc@newsday.com. These addresses might work as well: deborah.barfield@newsday.com, ken.fireman@newsday.com
Posted to Immigration_piipps at 07:55 PM | Comments (1)
"The Changing Face of Poverty"
From Newsweek:
The census bureau's annual figures on family incomes and poverty were bound to become familiar factoids in the Bush-Kerry combat. The numbers seem to confirm what many people feel: the middle class is squeezed; poverty's worsening. In 2003 the median household income dropped for the fourth consecutive year, to $43,318; the official poverty rate rose for the third year, to 12.5 percent of the population; and the number of people without health insurance increased for the third year to 45 million, or 16 percent of the population. But the debate you're hearing is not the real deal. What ought to be the debate is shunned by both candidates because it touches a politically explosive subject: immigration...
See also Michelle Malkin's "The elephant in the room".
Posted to Immigration2004 at 07:37 PM | Comments (1)
"Mexican president vows to fight for continued U.S. acceptance of matricula identity cards"
No surprises in the headline or the story. The only question is: "how many hours until the administration caves in to his demands?"
...Fox appeared to play on his name -- which in Spanish would be "Zorro," the legendary masked sword fighter -- saying he would defend the so-called matricula cards "with a cape and a sword."
"The Matricula Consular cards are again being questioned, but we will defend them with a cape and a sword, because our countrymen who live up there are neither criminals nor terrorists," Fox said...
Posted to Immigration_consul at 07:18 PM | Comments (2)
"Libertarians Win a Hearing in Debate Case"
From this:
The third and final debate between President Bush and Senator Kerry has been thrown into doubt after a state judge in Arizona ordered a hearing on whether the event, scheduled for Wednesday, should be halted because the Libertarian Party's nominee for president has not been invited.
Judge F. Pendleton Gaines III instructed the debate's hosts, Arizona State University and the Commission on Presidential Debates, to appear in his courtroom in Phoenix tomorrow [i.e., Tuesday 10/12] to respond to a lawsuit filed last week by the Libertarians.
Posted to Politics at 07:14 PM | Comments (0)
The recipe for perpetual war
Responding to Kerry's "nuisance" comment from the NYT, President Bush said the following today in Hobbs, NM:
Just this weekend, we saw new evidence that Senator Kerry fundamentally misunderstands the war on terror. Earlier he questioned whether it was really a war at all, describing it as primarily a law enforcement and intelligence-gathering operation instead of a threat that demands the full use of American power.
Now, just this weekend, Senator Kerry talked of reducing terrorism to, quote, "nuisance," end quote, and compared it to prostitution and illegal gambling.
See, I couldn't disagree more. Our goal is not to reduce terror to some acceptable level of nuisance. Our goal is to defeat terror by staying on the offensive, destroying terrorist networks, and spreading freedom and liberty around the world!(Cheers, applause.)
Even if we destroyed a thousand terrorist networks and spread freedom and liberty around the world one country after another, wouldn't there always be new terrorist networks somewhere out on the horizon?
Will we know when we've finally defeated the abstract notion called "terror," or will this be a perpetual war?
Posted to Politics at 06:59 PM | Comments (0)
"Governor right to veto driver's license bill"
From an editorial by Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy printed in the L.A. Times:
Arnold Schwarzenegger did the right thing when he immigrated to America from Austria as a young man — he came here legally. As governor, he did the right thing [recently] when he vetoed the bill that would have given California driver's licenses to immigrants who, unlike the governor, entered this country illegally.
The backers of this legislation say they are concerned only about traffic safety and auto insurance. That's simply not true, and they know it. Their hidden agenda is to blur the distinction between legal immigrants — like Gov. Schwarzenegger and millions of other immigrants who have played by the rules when they came to America — and illegal immigrants, who have broken our laws...
Posted to Immigration_dls at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)
"A horrible nuisance"
"There will not be a treaty signed aboard the battleship Missouri, but we can break [terrorism's] back so that it is only a horrible nuisance and not a paralyzing influence on our societies."-- Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser under George H.W. Bush
Posted to Politics at 10:09 AM | Comments (1)
Simplistic thinking for complicated times
Let's say you see the following on a test:
Q. Given a barometer, how would you measure the height of a building?
The obvious answer is, of course:
Measure the barometric pressure between the ground and the top, and do the math.
What if a student thinks or pretends to think that that's the only answer? What if the teacher declares that that's the only answer? They're obviously wrong, aren't they?
Here are three alternate answers I can think of:
1. Drop the barometer from the top of the building, record how long it takes to hit the ground, and do the math.
2. Sell the barometer on eBay and hire a surveying team to find out how high the building is. Alternatively, hire a surveying student to do the work for experience. Give him some of the money and spend the rest at McDonald's.
3. Call up the building's architect and ask him.
Obviously, real-life experience teaches us that there are many answers to questions, that things aren't always as they appear, and that sometimes test questions are stacked against you or you otherwise need to do some creative thinking to solve difficult problems.
Unfortunately, some people - including our leaders - seem to favor simplistic thinking or at least pretend that they do.
With that in mind, consider this question from an Instapundit reader concerning the global test, which was also featured here:
"So how do you pass the Global Test when those marking the test have been bribed to give you a failing mark?"
Do we storm out of the classroom? Do we drop out of school or go start our own college?
Or, do we put on our nuanced-thinking caps and come up with an effective solution:
Take the test and get the failing grade. Afterwards, compile documentary and testimonial evididence showing that either you were singled out or showing that the teacher engages in such activity.
Sue the school, collect a nice judgment, get to take the test again and get the proper grade.
There are, of course, many other ways to pass that particular test.
If someone fails to see all the ways to solve a problem, or uses the stacked test as an excuse, perhaps that means that person just doesn't have what it takes.
See also "How you fail the global test".
Posted to Politics at 01:40 PM | Comments (0)
"Red Alert"
Mother Jones (yeah, I know) excerpts their subscriber-only article "Red Alert" here. It looks at how the DHS is protecting us, and whether they're doing the acceptable job everyone has been told they're doing:
...Defending America has been a pillar of President Bush's reelection campaign. Only the president, argue his backers, has the resolve and strength of leadership to prevent another 9/11. This campaign tactic has proved surprisingly effective. Even as public opinion polls show that increasing numbers of Americans are wondering whether the White House has been fighting the right battle in Baghdad, many remain convinced that President Bush will be tougher on terror than his Democratic opponent. This view has been a mainstay of Republican campaign commercials, conservative talk radio shows, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, and, of course, the folks at Fox. Unfortunately, like a lot of "popular" notions generated by concerted public relations drives, it's a myth not rooted in reality...
Posted to Immigration2004 at 01:29 PM | Comments (1)
Joe Baca vs. John & Ken
U.S. Rep Joe Baca is striking back at John & Ken's Political Human Sacrifice (see this for a summary of Political Human Sacrifice).
He's sent a letter to other congressmen complaining that his record has been distorted by the "anti-immigrant" group BetterImmigration.com (His letter is in this PDF file).
Not only that, but in his letter he plays the race card, including this incredible bit:
They also cite a speech I made while serving in the California State Legislature urging Latinos to vote and describe me as "racist" for it...
You can watch him making the speech in question here. Let's just say that any allusions I could make to the contents of his speech might violate Godwin's Rule.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 01:09 PM | Comments (1)
"U.S. Examines Chance of Mexico Terror Link"
From the AP:
Terrorists might try to use existing criminal networks on the border to slip operatives into the United States, but so far there is no evidence any have tried to do so, a high-ranking U.S. official told The Associated Press.
The comments by Michael Garcia, assistant secretary of Homeland Security, come amid concerns international terrorists might be trying to infiltrate organized crime in Mexico and Central America.
"I personally don't know ... (of an) al-Qaida known terrorist trying to come through Mexico into the United States," Garcia said. "What I do know is that obviously there are smuggling organizations very active along the border, and they present a risk."
Garcia spoke in an interview Wednesday during a convention of the global police agency Interpol. In addition to serving as Interpol's vice president for the Americas, he is assistant secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement...
The rest of the article has quotes from other Interpol officials attempting to downplay the chatter about terrorists coming over the border.
See also Ridge: no sign of terrorists trying to cross border, which links to some of that chatter.
Posted to Immigration_terror at 11:51 PM | Comments (1)
"Need some wood?"
I'm sure all America got quite a laugh out of that Bush line in last night's debate. Unfortunately:
...Kerry startled Bush by saying that the president is counted as a small business for tax purposes because he once earned $84 from a timber company he owns.
"I own a timber company?" Bush asked. "That's news to me." Then he paused and added, "Need some wood?
That baffling exchange arises from an analysis by the Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org debunking Bush's claims that Kerry's plans to raise taxes on the richest Americans would increase the tax burden on 900,000 small businesses.
The analysis found that the Bush campaign is counting every rich person who has even $1 of outside business income as a small business owner, even if they have no employees.
The analysis said even Bush qualifies under that definition because he reported $84 in income from his part-ownership of a timber enterprise on his 2001 federal tax return...
Posted to Politics at 09:57 PM | Comments (3)
10/8 Debate thread
Sheryl, I'd like to thank Charlie for throwing me a puffball question via you. Thank you Charlie.
Bush is launching into his standard flip-flop speech. No earpiece needed here!
Audience member Robin: "Boxers or briefs?" But seriously, can't these people ask a tough question that can't be answered by one of Bush or Kerry's standard spiels?
Gaming the system is... part of the system. The gaming should have been taken into consideration; there were other solutions to it.
Kerry: "I would have used the power to go to war *wisely*"
Bush isn't laughing now; Kerry quoting Luger must have sunk in.
Who is American going to believe? Richard Luger and King Abdullah, or the supposed statements of Iraq's finance minister?
Kerry bringing up Tora Bora again... Stressing that he's consistent...
Nikki is calling Bush on some countries disliking America and our lack of diplomacy
Bush: "I've made some decisions that have caused people not to understand our values"
LW comments: you can make unpopular decisions but still be popular. But, when you're consistently unpopular maybe you're doing something wrong.
Bush is giving America a false choice.
Kerry is occasionally staring at Bush as he proceeds with his indictment...
Kerry brings up Bush promising to go into Iraq with enough troops and then breaking that promise...
However, he brings up Shinseki, which might have been disproved...
Now, Bush is blaming too few troops on the generals. LW notes: Bush is Commander in Chief...
Kerry: Bush didn't have enough troops to win the peace, which was his job and he didn't do it... "DID NOT CLOSE OFF THE BORDERS" unfortunately, he was talking about Iraq's borders...
Kerry brings up NoK going from one bomb to four and Bush not engaging them for two years...
Kerry: we have to join with Brits, French, etc. to get loose nukes...
Kerry brings up bunker busters again, not a good move
Kerry: "If we have to get tough with Iran, we will get tough."
Bush fully understands the threat from Iran, says he's already joined with the Brits and the French...
Now Bush going into the bilateral NoK talks. As before, people won't understand...
Bush is scoring some points here, Kerry has to come back strong...
Bush: "I hear there are rumors on the Internets [about a draft]... We will not have a draft" he says emphatically...
Bush: "[this way] we'll be more likely to keep people in the all-volunteer army" And, what if that doesn't work?
Kerry: those generals support me because they know our military is overextended, stop loss orders, etc.
Kerry: brings up how Reagan and Eisenhower ran the military and the country...
Bush rudely interrupts Charlie's attempt to ask the next question...
Bush goes into what about England, what about Italy?
Kerry discusses how the "coalition" is basically in name only
My god these questions are horribly weak. Please, they should have had an all-lawyer audience...
Kerry brings up homeland security, but only mentions 5% cargo and baggage checks, NOT BORDER CONTROL
Kerry brings up bridges, tunnels, chemical plants, how Bush said in the previous debate "how can we pay for all that homeland security?"
Bush: "If you lose in Iraq it's going to be a haven for terrorists" What of the absolutely brilliant "flypaper" plan?
discussion of prescription drugs from Canada, Kerry saying everything Bush just said was wrong: the president blocked it, we're talking about American drugs in American bottles with American labels. Kerry: Bush sides with the power companies, the oil companies, the pharm companies.
Bush: "If they're safe, they're coming" Isn't that what Kerry said Bush promised four years ago?
Bush: "National Journal named Kerry most liberal senator of all" Did Bush not mention that was for one year, or was it for all time?
Questioner: "in your time, you haven't vetoed one single spending bill"
Bush: "we have a deficit [blames it on depression]" what about your... spending?
So, why didn't you veto any of those spending bills, anyway?
Bush admits he wants to spend money, but give tax relief at the same time...
Oh man, that's a classic. Bush doesn't want to cut the deficits "for the troops"
Kerry, as before, talks about the biggest deficit turnaround in the history of the country
Kerry: "the president thinks it's more important to fight for that top 1% than for you"
Bush, once again, blaming things on other people
Let's just start calling him "George it's not my fault Bush"
Enron mention! Take a sip!
Kerry dared to look into the camera, complies...
ASK A FRIGGING SERIOUS QUESTION, PEOPLE! THIS ISN'T THE JERRY SPRINGER SHOW!
Bush: "when he talks about being fiscally conservative, it's not credible"
What a foolish thing to say. Bush is demonstrably not fiscally conservative. How could Kerry do worse?
Bush is starting to look like Richard III...
Kerry yet again invokes supposed conservative John McCain...
Bush once again brings up Kerry's twenty years. Let's talk about your four years...
America will believe Kerry looking into the camera...
My god these questions are weak...
Bush discussing how he's the environmental president, expect him to be sharply undercut by Kerry...
The audience didn't get and/or enjoy Kerry's Redsox reference...
Kerry: "When it comes to the environment, this is one of the worst administration in history"
Kerry, as expected, is delivering it to Bush on the environment...
Bush demagoging Europe/freedom fries. What a [prat]...
Kerry: "The truth is, the Kyoto treaty was flawed. I was in Kyoto" Kerry brings up previous questioner Nikki. Good move.
Kerry, faced with yet another crappy question, discusses tax loophole for those who offshore...
Kerry needs to crank it up and indict Bush... talking about the borders and immigration would be a sure-fire way to do that... Bush would not have a response...
Kerry: "The WSJ says 96% of business aren't covered by my plan"
Bush: tries to make a funny, gets some laughs... [check into that timber company thing unless Kerry explains it]
Bush doesn't think the Patriot Acts I and II waters down American's rights... after all, he wouldn't support it if it did... blogger doubts that...
Kerry: brings up the constitution, implies that Bush is infringing on that document...
Kerry, asked about embryonic stem cells, commits a major stumble, but brings it back a bit by talking about American sweethearts Nancy Reagan, Michael J. Fox (Canuck?), and Chris Reeve...
Kerry: says those embryos would otherwise be destroyed or kept frozen, tries to spin it as "respecting life". Not going to sit well with very conservative Christians...
Bush shakes his head: "we have to be careful balancing the ethics and the science... to destroy life to save life is one of the ethical dilemmas we face..."
Kerry calls Bush a waffling flip-flopper on stem cells... shows his pseudo-scientific knowledge...
Bush, asked about who he'd appoint to Supremes, says "strict constructionist"
Kerry responds with Bush saying we need "more conservative judges"
Kerry should not have mentioned a woman's "right" to choose, now he's being questioned about abortion by blonde waif...
Kerry was an altar boy... [5 million Americans: papist!]
Kerry trying to encourage overseas abortions...
Yet again, Bush doesn't understand what America understood...
Bush scoring points in MidAm with his "culture of life"...
Kerry scores with his discussion of Bush's simplisme...
Bush is not going to admit to three mistakes...
Bush, paraphrased: I was right on everything that matters...
Bush continues to not admit his mistakes...
Kerry: the president made a huge mistake, a catastrophic mistake, not given inspectors enough time
Kerry: gut check time, Kerry is reaming Bush on his mistakes...
Kerry: ammo not guarded, Humvees not armored...
Bush brings up $87 billion supplemental, Kerry HAS TO COUNTERACT voted for it before voted against it, etc.
Kerry has strong, question-answering final statement...
Bush brings up corporate scandals...
Bush brings up 9/11, commission report. He doesn't bring up how he wanted to gut the House bill of 9/11 commission recommendations...
-----
Charlie Gibson and the audience should be sent to Siberia. What an incredibly horrible bunch of non-questions.
Slight advantage to Kerry. Bush scored some points, but Kerry somewhat indicted Bush for his failures. The religious-oriented questions will no doubt hurt Kerry. But, the incredible failures pointed out by Kerry will hurt Bush.
If it helps the BushBots, Bush wasn't incoherent like he was before.
Past coverage: 10/5 VP debate and 9/30 presidential debate.
Posted to Politics at 04:34 PM | Comments (0)
Poll: Stricter immigration laws wanted [in NC and SC]
From this:
Most Carolinians believe it should be harder for people to immigrate to the United States, according to the 2004 Carolinas Poll.
About 80 percent of those surveyed said they oppose loosening restrictions for America's newest arrivals...
The article closes with the thoughts of a cheap labor pimp:
"If these people do not come in, we would all be hurting. Houses would not be built as inexpensively as they are," and restaurants and hotels would not be properly staffed, [Ana Flynn] said.
In her quote, the word "inexpensively" means "on your dime." As we know, that cheap labor is only cheap for their employers, not for the rest of us: "Study Says Illegal Migrants Cost U.S. $10 Billion a Year"
Posted to Immigration2004 at 02:40 PM | Comments (2)
Action needed on the House 9/11 bill
Some congressmen are trying to gut the House 9/11 bill of its most vital provisions: ending driver's licenses for illegal aliens and preventing the acceptance of foreign ID cards that the FBI and the DOJ call a security threat. Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers had a combined total of 63 separate drivers licenses issued by Virginia, Florida and New Jersey.
There are three amendments under consideration that would remove those vital provisions, and you can quickly send free FAXes opposing those amendments here.
That page also has a phone number you can use to call your representative. Please send the free FAXes and urge your representative to support H.R. 10 in its current version.
Information on this bill is here.
UPDATE: H.R. 10 has passed the house in its original form. But, now it goes to a committee who will try to iron out the differences between the two House and Senate 9/11 bills. So, please keep calling your representative and your senators and tell them to leave the immigration-related provisions in the final bill.
I called and stressed the driver's license and foreign ID card-related provisions. If they want to keep those but remove or weaken the deportation-related provisions, that's a compromise I would be willing to make.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 12:11 AM | Comments (1)
Everything's going to be just fine, authorities say
From the 9/30 San Diego Union-Tribune story "No threat seen to district; children are safe, police say":
A man arrested by U.S. authorities in Iraq had a computer disk in his possession containing a public report downloaded from a U.S. Department of Education Web site on crisis planning in school districts, including San Diego Unified...
That report has a few quote from authorities saying there's no danger, San Diego wasn't specifically targeted, etc. etc.
Now, from ABC's 10/7 report "School Warning":
Schools in six states in particular are being watched closely based on information uncovered by the U.S. military in Baghdad this summer, law enforcement and education officials told ABC News.
A man described as an Iraqi insurgent involved in anti-coalition activities had downloaded school floor plans and safety and security information about elementary and high schools in the six states, according to officials...
There's nothing in that report where authorities downplay the risk as in the first report. The ABC report names six specific towns in FL, OR, GA, MI, and NJ, but they fail to name the two towns in California.
Nevertheless, if this really happened, they would seem to refer to the same computer disk. In the first report the disk just contains a generic report, in the second it contains floor plans for specific schools. The discrepancies between the two reports are certainly curious.
UPDATE: As pointed out here, today's CNN report ("Disks in Iraq hold details about U.S. schools") says this: "the material was associated with a person in Iraq, and it could not be established that this person had any ties to terrorism. He did have a connection to civic groups doing planning for schools in Iraq." Further, TPM says that the states involved are swing states, which isn't correct for all of them.
UPDATE 2: Here's a Boston Globe report with the school details of the ABC report and the assurances that nothing's wrong of the SDUT report.
Posted to Terrorism at 10:29 PM | Comments (1)
"ACLU, Open Borders Advocates, Attempt to Rewrite 9/11 Commission Report"
From FAIR:
The American Civil Liberties Union and other open border advocacy groups are attempting to rewrite the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, leaving out important sections dealing with immigration policy, charged the Federation for American Immigration Reform. In assessing the situation that led to the attacks of 9/11, the Commission pointed to glaring weaknesses in U.S. immigration policy and made concrete recommendations for reform...
"Just two months after it was published, the ACLU and other open border advocates are mounting a campaign intended to convince Congress and the American public that the 9/11 Commission report called only for reform of our intelligence agencies," said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "In the annals of historical revisionism, the ACLU has set a new speed record for distorting the truth. The Commission's report clearly spells out a variety of immigration-related policy failures that contributed directly to the events of September 11, 2001, and is equally clear about the policy changes they believe are necessary to avert future attacks..."
Since they wrote that, amendments have been proposed to gut the House bill.
Please go here and quickly send a free FAX or call your representatives using the phone number provided at that link. Please take action now.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 10:16 PM | Comments (2)
"Bush is beginning to sound desperate"
From Howard Fineman of Newsweek:
...The second and third presidential debates will shift the focus — the second, part way to domestic matters; the third, all the way. Bush's aim will be to paint Kerry as an unpalatable liberal who accumulated nothing but bad Big Government ideas during his 19 years in the Senate. Kerry will answer, essentially, "I'm a Democrat." In normal times that would not be a good enough answer, but if the tide of dissatisfaction with Bush as commander-in-chief rises high enough, being a Democrat — in other words not George Bush — may be good enough.
Posted to Politics at 10:07 PM | Comments (1)
Irony on the Border
From the CSMonitor's "Mexico's other migrant wave":
...Upwards of 1 million Mexicans are successfully crossing into the US each year, leaving behind a dearth of laborers. Increasingly, that void is being filled by... poor Indians from remote villages throughout Mexico.
..."Our workforce has left," says Tomas Torres, the general secretary of Zacatecas. "So these other people come here, lured by the high demand for seasonal labor. But then they decide to stay."
...[Zacatecas] has the highest per-capita emigration rate of any Mexican state - an astounding 1 of every 2 Zacatecans are estimated to reside in the US. That opens the door to migrants who come from poor Indian towns in states like Veracruz, Hidalgo Durango, Jalisco, and San Luis Potosi.
...Here in Chaparrosas, workers are welcome and generally unobtrusive. But elsewhere in Zacatecas, it's a different story. "In the last six years, many more people have come from other states to work here," says Laura Macias, a radio reporter in Tlatenango, in the fertile south of Zacatecas. "They come to work, but they stay and cause problems."
...According to Ms. Macias, the laborers, largely Huichol Indians from neighboring states Jalisco and Nayarit, have increasingly been accused of thefts, assaults, and even murders in the normally quiet community. The accusations have led to hard feelings toward the newcomers, and tensions in Tlaltenango are on the rise. But, Macias admits, it's proven hard to link crimes directly to any of the Huichols, and she wonders if part of the problem isn't that "locals are resentful that outsiders are earning money in their town."
Does that make those complaining about this XRM-SBAHs*, or is that possible in this case?
*xenophobic racist mean-spirited bigoted anti-humans
Posted to Immigration2004 at 10:02 PM | Comments (0)
I found this on my server
Natalie Merchant.
I heard a rumor that after the photo was taken she had the photographer fired for being a meat-eating, smoking, conservative chauvinistic pig. Nevertheless, quite a loverly photo.
Posted to WackyHumor at 09:46 PM | Comments (0)
Guess the publication
Can you guess which publication this excerpt is from?
Was President Bush literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry? That's the latest rumor flooding the Internet, unleashed last week in the wake of an image caught by a television camera during the Miami debate. The image shows a large solid object between Bush's shoulder blades as he leans over the lectern and faces moderator Jim Lehrer.
The president is not known to wear a back brace, and it's safe to say he wasn't packing. So was the bulge under his well-tailored jacket a hidden receiver, picking up transmissions from someone offstage feeding the president answers through a hidden earpiece? Did the device explain why the normally ramrod-straight president seemed hunched over during much of the debate?
OK, here are your five hints: The National Enquirer, Rense.com, Salon.com, Slate.com, or the L.A. Times. Which is it?
[spoiler space]
[spoiler space]
[spoiler space]
[spoiler space]
OK, here are your final hints: their stock price is currently one-eigth of a cent, and they think you're going to sit through an ad to read the rest of their article.
Posted to Politics at 09:40 PM | Comments (0)
New categories
Due to problems rebuilding this site, I've split the Immigration category into a main category, and some subcategories:
- lonewacko.com/blog/archives/cat_immigration_consul.html: Posts specifically about Mexican ID cards (Matricula Consular cards) and the actions of consul officials in the U.S.
- lonewacko.com/blog/archives/cat_immigration_dls.html: Posts specifically about driver's licenses for illegal aliens.
- lonewacko.com/blog/archives/cat_immigration_euro.html: Immigration issues in other countries, mostly European.
- lonewacko.com/blog/archives/cat_immigration_piipps.html: Examples of "pro-illegal immigration puff pieces" that have appeared in various newspapers.
- lonewacko.com/blog/archives/cat_immigration_terror.html: Immigration and terrorism.
- lonewacko.com/blog/archives/cat_immigration.html: The main category, still containing hundreds of posts.
The contents of these categories might change, but the URLs will probably stay the same. If those URLs are changed I'll provide a redirect.
These new subcategories aren't in the category listing in the sidebar, and links to the subcategories aren't in the main category, but that will be provided in the near future.
Comments are now enabled.
Posted to Bloggage at 09:59 AM | Comments (2)
Let's all go to FactCheck.org
From FactCheck.org (watch that TLD!):
Edwards said Halliburton "did business with Libya and Iran, two sworn enemies of the United States" and is now "under investigation for having bribed foreign officials" while Cheney was CEO.
- Iran: Indeed, Halliburton has said it does about $30 million to $40 million in oilfield service business in Iran annually through a subsidiary, Halliburton Products and Services Ltd. The company says that the subsidiary fully complies with US sanctions laws, but the matter currently is under investigation by a federal grand jury in Houston.
- Bribery Investigation: U.S. and French authorities currently are investigating whether a joint venture whose partners included a Halliburton subsidiary paid bribes or kickbacks to win a $12 billion construction project in Nigeria.
- Libya: Edwards was wrong to include Libya, however. In 1995, before Cheney joined the company, Halliburton pled guilty to criminal charges that it violated the U.S. ban on exports to Libya and said it would pay $3.81 million in fines. Those violations dated back to 1987 and 1990.
For more on Iran, see this 60 Minutes piece: "Doing Business with the Enemy".
Posted to Politics at 08:02 PM | Comments (1)
Jimmy McNulty, is that you?
On this old post about Starved Rock State Park in Illinois, someone left the following comment:
piss off ya fuggin wanka, yeh got tu go off the trails lassie are are you afraid of gettin yer pretty little dress all dirty "perhaps an arboretum would be a better term" you fuckin faggot!
Did I receive a visit from cyberspace personality Jimmy McNulty?
Posted to WackyHumor at 07:50 PM | Comments (0)
"Playing politics with your safety"
I added a few explanatory links to the last post ("House GOP firm on 9/11 bill") and posted it at RedState (redstate.org/story/2004/10/6/203334/979) and the Command Post. If you've read the previous post, and especially if you've already sent a FAX, no need to visit those two fine sites just for that post.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 07:38 PM | Comments (0)
"House GOP firm on 9/11 bill"
From the WashTimes:
House Republican leaders say the immigration reforms in their intelligence overhaul bill will remain, despite prodding by Senate Republicans and the White House to delete the provisions.
The bill calls for a crackdown on driver's licenses for illegal aliens, easier deportations and limits on the use of foreign consular identification cards. The White House initially signed off on these provisions, which House leaders and some September 11 family members endorsed.
"This bill will make the American people safer," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican. "In order for anything to be added or taken out of this bill, you have to show how it makes America safer."
Unfortunately, the Bush administration is up to their pandering tricks again, pandering to both "immigrants" and the cheap labor lobby. And, it looks like this might be a political attempt to get Democrats to vote against the House bill to show that they're weak on homeland security.
Whether the immigration-related provisions of the House bill are a political ploy or a political football or whatever the case, it's important the America speaks out and demands that we have real homeland security.
You can quickly send free FAXes about this bill here.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)
"Limit on H1-B visa hurts India"
Maybe it is a zero sum game:
National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), India's top association for IT firms, has said new and start-up software firms will be affected in a major way due to filling up of the annual limit for the controversial guest worker programme through the H1-B visas.
However, the Nasscom expects the new administration in the US to immediately relax the H1-B visa norms, allowing more IT professionals to fly to the US, Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said...
That's a relief!
Posted to Immigration2004 at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)
KCStar: Americans should keep eating cake
The Kansas City Star has an editorial "Keep tuition law for immigrants" that starts its lies with title. The law in question deals with illegal aliens, not "immigrants." It allows those illegal aliens to get a better deal on college tuition than U.S. citizens or legal immigrants.
The lies continue throughout:
Opponents argued last spring that it would allow immigrant children to take college slots from native-born Americans. That isn't happening. There's room for both native-born and immigrant children in the state's colleges and universities.
Others contend the law is unfair and discriminates against out-of-state students, who cannot get the lower rates for attending Kansas colleges. But those students can pay in-state tuition if they attend colleges in their home state.
As pointed out above, using the phrase "immigrant" is a lie; they're illegal aliens.
The use of the phrase "native-born Americans" is a lie also. Those negatively impacted include native-born Americans, naturalized citizens, and legal immigrants. This is clearly a subliminal attempt to make the reader think of the scare word "nativist."
Whether there's room for both groups isn't the question; is there money for both groups? Shouldn't we give money to our own citizens and legal immigrants before we give it to those who are here illegally?
Apparently, the Kansas City Star thinks so.
See also the discussion of one of their similar editorials in "Kansas City Star: Let U.S. citizens eat cake". That post has several other links, including this contact information for the KCStar:
letters@kcstar.com
Editorial Page Editor
Miriam Pepper:
mpepper@kcstar.com
Posted to Immigration2004 at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)
Where do PIIPPs come from?
Education Week inadvertently lets us know how PIIPPs ("pro-illegal immigration puff pieces") are born. The piece "Immigrant Grads Get Charter’s Help" contains the following:
Educators at a charter school in California have gone to extra lengths to make sure that undocumented immigrant students who graduate from the school receive financial support to go to college...
[Mara Simmons, the vice president of education for the school] noted that passage of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act by the U.S. Congress would enable many undocumented youths to attend college. The bill, which hasn’t yet been approved by the Senate, would permit such youths who have succeeded in U.S. high schools to gain legal residency and qualify for in-state tuition.
I have a feeling that many of the PIIPPs you see are started by people like Simmons who contact "news" sources with heart-warming tales of immigrants who just happen to be here illegally. Some are made into PIIPPs, some are made into the one-sided reports like that above.
I suggest we all send Education Week a link to this:
[With the DREAM Act, Orrin Hatch] and his colleagues are literally taking opportunities and tuition assistance away from the children of citizens and giving them to illegal aliens... Supporters of this bill are unabashedly placing the interests of illegal aliens above American families who have paid taxes and played by the rules..."
Contact Education Week's managing editor Gregory Chronister at gchron@epe.org
Posted to Immigration_piipps at 11:37 AM | Comments (1)
"Immigrants find a friend in The Governator"
From Ruben Navarrette of the Dallas Morning News:
...Americans shouldn’t be going out of their way to accommodate illegal immigrants — or when you really get down to it, those Americans who employ them — by making life in the United States comfortable for people who shouldn’t be here.
I’m not sure all immigrants get that. After Schwarzenegger’s veto, a television news crew for a Spanish-language network descended on the streets of Los Angeles to gauge public reaction. A Latina, identified as undocumented, said she thought the governor had done a terrible thing and that she felt discriminated against.
Bingo, senora. You are being discriminated against. You’re being singled out because you came here illegally. And when you decided to do so, you accepted — whether you realized it or not — the likelihood that you wouldn’t experience all the privileges enjoyed by native-born Americans, legal residents and naturalized U.S. citizens. In this case, that includes the right to drive legally on U.S. roadways.
Immigrants living in America used to think in terms of opportunities.
Now, more and more, they think in terms of entitlements.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)
10/5 VP Debate thread
Just answer the question, please... What about what Bremer said? Two minutes later, Cheney had not only not answered her question, he said he'd do it all over again. He might have left some wiggle room there; perhaps he wouldn't have done it exactly the same way...
Edwards is stressing that he and Kerry support the troops... Edwards is bringing up Tora Bora just like Kerry did...
Cheney is bringing up Kerry's U.N. comments... from the 70s...
They're both furiously writing notes...
Cheney: "we've never left up on OBL since day one..."
Cheney is in full attack mode, orders of magnitude better than Bush. Whether America will consider his slightly Dr. Strangelove aura a benefit or not is an open question...
Edwards says "global test" is "clear as day." Edwards is stressing Kerry will keep America safe, and won't give veto power to other countries over the U.S. safety...
Edwards: "Afghanistan providing 75% of world's opium, big parts of country insecure, under warlords..."
Ifell asks Edwards about the global test. Edwards replies: "we'll tell America and the world the truth..."
Edwards: other countries won't follow us if we aren't credible... brings up 90% casualties/90% cost as did Kerry...
Edwards: JK will never give
Cheney inserts: "you probably won't there to vote for that" Red meat, but doesn't make him look good... This guy is looking really nasty, if I might use the vernacular...
Cheney: "Wanna go outside?" Oh, wait, he didn't really say that...
Cheney is calling Edwards a paper tiger, talking tough just for the election...
Cheney emphatically says he hasn't questioned Kerry's patriotism...
Edwards really needs to move this around to the Bush administration's many incompetent actions...
Edwards: "a long resume doesn't equal good judgment."
Halliburton mention! Gotta take a swig of Pabst Blue Ribbon Light! Edwards zinged Cheney by mentioning that Cheney voted against the weapon systems Cheney chided Kerry for voting against. Then, zinged him again mentioning the $7 billion no-bid Halliburton contracts in the fabled $87 billion...
Edwards brings up Bush not allowing other countries to take part in Iraq reconstruction...
Edwards brings up not taking Iraqis out of Iraq to train them for military/police... Brings up U.N. only have 35 people in Iraq for elections, "you need more people than that to hold elections in Cleveland..."
Cheney on attack: brings up "coerced and bribed", says troops wouldn't have equipment if K-E had had their way...
Cheney brings up Allawi, expect Edwards to respond in kind...
Edwards should have discussed Allawi a bit...
Cheney: "classic example, he won't count our Iraqi allies" accuses Edwards of not supporting our Iraqi allies...
Note to self: they're both basically calling each other liars...
Edwards: admin. opposed DHS ("then they were for it"). K-E will implement *all* recommendations of 9/11 commission (unlike Bush)
Cheney brings up Kermal: was Saddam in charge there? (must check)
Gwen: she brings up Halliburton, and sanctions against Iran... (insert 60 Minutes story here)
Cheney: A.Q. Khan has been "shut down"
Edwards: "Iran has moved forward with their nuke program... on their watch"
Edwards brings up 60 Minutes story...
Four Halliburton references and one Enron...
'Net head Cheney recommends we go to factcheck.com (correct URL?)
Cheney bringing up Edwards not attending senate meetings... Cheney playing "I'm the head of the Senate" card...
Cheney brings up Iraq paying suicide bombers, what about Saudis? Edwards must make that point again...
Cheney just sat there and smirked while Edwards played the race card and other cards via Cheney voting against MLK bday, head start, Dept of Edu., etc. etc...
Edwards: 1.6 mil priv sector jobs lost, 2.7 manufacturing, etc. (check these stats)
Edwards: admininstration says over and over that outsourcing millions of jobs is a good thing...
Cheney is a bit out of his depth on domestic issues...
Edwards shouldn't have discussed medical costs going up higher than other costs...
Edwards: deficits are biggest turnaround in U.S. history... J-E believe they have a "moral responsibility" not to leave a big deficit...
Edwards: we'll reduce the deficit by half and bring U.S. "back to fiscal responsibility"...
Cheney promise "fiscal restraint", blogger says B.S.
Edwards: Kerry has voted for tax cuts 600 times...
Cheney explains his gay marriage nuance, says it's states' rights... (quick, check Sully!)
Edwards brings up coupon clippers paying less tax than soldiers...
Edwards says he doesn't doubt that Cheney loves his gay daughter....
Edwards says Cheney probably supports the same gay marriage position as K-E... Says gay marriage is just for political purposes...
Cheney thanks Edwards for the kind words...
Edwards is talking about reforming his lucrative profession, now bringing up one of his compelling cases... They just needed a 2 cent screw to fix the problem...
Edwards puts medical law suits into context...
Edwards: "Medicare premiums up 17% on their watch", administration unwilling to crack down on pharm companies...
Cheney says 17% increase is due to something Kerry voted for... brings up Subchapter S just like Rush did earlier today, perhaps they're working off the same chief...
Edwards: yet another Halliburton ref, this time off-shore shelters...
Cheney has trouble discussing AIDS in America rather than around the world, says he wasn't aware of Gwen's statistic...
Edwards won't discuss AIDS in America either, preferring to talk about Africa. Now he switches to America, but brings it to health care coverage, says needs to be preventative care. Neither really answered Gwen's question...
Edwards: "I don't have the long resume that Cheney has, that's the truth..." Edwards tries to answer doubts about his experience to possibly be president...
Cheney is muffling his mic, not a smart move, brings up Bush choosing him for his experience, says he doesn't have a hidden agenda (i.e. becoming president)
Cheney: "GWB would be the better president, he's done it for four years". Yes, we know. We know. "I'm not at all his opponent [is qualified]"
Cheney now bringing up his hardscrabble beginnings, putting a human face over the Darth Vader mask. Unfortunately, he's muzzling his mic again, making it a bit less effective...
Edwards: three years after 9/11, we still don't have a unified watch list, we don't screen cargo
LW: Bring up border security, I command you!
Edwards: brings up Bremer's recent comments. Now, discussing Bush's flip-flops...
Edwards keeps hammering on Bush's flip-flops, brings up Patient's Bill of Rights that he and John McCain wrote...
Cheney brings up Kerry voting for/against $87 billion, but people will remember what Edwards said about Halliburton's slice...
Cheney slags off Massachusetts...
Cheney is engaging in wonk-speak during his final comments. America sleeps...
Edwards: says Bush is a divider, not a uniter and that he's been creating divisions... Brings up healthcare...
Edwards continues his healthcare coverage... He'll stand up to the drug companies and their out of control TV advertising...
Cheney, once again, doesn't know where to start...
Edwards: Canadian drugs, "they were with the drug companies", repeated a few times now
Edwards brings up his hardscrabble beginnings, America is the greatest country in the world, etc... BUT: the light of America is flickering because of Bush-Cheney. "What they're going to give you is four more years of the same." Give tax cuts to companies that don't outsource... "JK and I are asking you to give us the power to help you."
Will Darth be able to counter that?
Cheney is flubbing his final comment a bit, spewing facts that are in dispute because of Edwards' previous comments...
Cheney playing the terrorism card...
Boy, this sounds like a rehearsed speech. It's going in America's left ear and flowing right out the right one...
----------
Holy God!
Please, bring Bush back! I was able to blog during his sputtering.
I'm going to score this slight advantage to Edwards. Cheney scored on several points, but so did Edwards. And, Edwards got several points in that cast doubts on the things that Cheney was saying. He didn't get enough in; if he'd indicted the Bush administration for their failures he could have cleaned up.
Edwards and Cheney both have red state appeal; Cheney has zero blue state appeal.
Edwards made a major mistake by humanizing Cheney by talking about his daughter (who's gay, by the way). After that, Cheney softened a bit into a kindler, gentler Darth Vader.
So, Cheney became less scary for some people, but might have become a bit pathetic as well.
On the other hand, I think many people might have been assured that Edwards would tell them the truth, unlike perhaps the current administration.
------
I feel strangely disconnected from NBC interviewing Wonkette and PowerLine. They don't represent blogdom, Tom.
-----
Here's a question. Does Cheney saying that he'd do the "same course of action" regarding Iraq mean that he would send too few troops the second time?
Does that mean the second time he'd leave the spy headquarters unguarded? ("Press and looters vie for Saddam's secrets")
The second time, would it take days to shut down the propaganda from Iraqi TV?
Does that mean that the second time around he'd let people walk off with 1/5 of the nuclear material from al Tuwaitha?
Posted to Politics at 03:41 PM | Comments (5)
"Bremer says not enough U.S. troops in Iraq"
From the AP:
The United States did not have enough troops in Iraq after ousting Saddam Hussein and "paid a big price" for it, says the former head of the U.S. occupation there.
L. Paul Bremer said Monday that he arrived in Iraq on May 6, 2003 to find "horrid" looting and a very unstable situation.
"We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness..."
In later remarks he appears to backpeddle a bit and complain that his comments were meant to be kept private.
See also "How you fail the global test".
Posted to Iraq at 12:19 AM | Comments (0)
Today's compendium of Prop. 200 links
Dan Stein of FAIR offers said compendium about Arizona's Prop. 200. It shouldn't come as a surprise that some of the same scare tactics that were tried against California's Prop. 187 are now being repurposed in Arizona.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 12:12 AM | Comments (0)
That's an awful lot of straw you've got there, Clay
Clay Robison - chief of the Houston Chronicle's Austin Bureau - offers us an editorial entitled Our reality: Immigrants always part of Texas' 'picture'. It starts out like this:
Almost every time I write about the deficiencies of state government — a practice akin to shooting fish in a barrel — I receive messages from readers who blame Texas' problems in education funding, health care or whatever on immigrants from the south and/or their offspring.
Some of the responses are tinged with racism and fear, while others simply ignore the reality of Texas' changing face...
After the false choice, things go downhill from there as he heaps up big piles of straw and builds up giant strawmen that he deftly demolishes. The editorial is pretty worthless, just something to keep in mind as you read some of the Houston Chronicle's less worthy news articles.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 11:42 PM | Comments (1)
"Border War in Arizona"
Time Magazine has a somewhat biased blurb about Arizona's Prop. 200. They even use the phrase "anti-immigrant", just like the Arizona Republic. Nevertheless, it contains this interesting bit:
...The measure could affect the presidential race in a state where Bush and Kerry are running neck and neck. Some opponents hope it will galvanize Hispanic voters, which could boost Kerry's chances. Yet the Hispanic vote is hardly monolithic. Many of Arizona's Latino families — one-quarter of the state's population — have lived there for generations and are unhappy with undocumented workers who drive down wages. Democratic canvassers in Latino neighborhoods have been told to stress jobs, education and health care — and not to discuss the initiative unless asked.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 11:32 PM | Comments (1)
"Paraguay Tri-Border Area Is Terror Haven"
Here's an AP backgrounder on the tri-border area in South America:
...Such chaotic scenes give life to the city's reputation of lawlessness and U.S. officials' description of the tri-border area where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet as a key South American point for Islamic terrorist fund raising to the tune of $100 million a year. Yet few arrests have been made or assets frozen, and local officials told The Associated Press they are ill-prepared to fully track financial movements and they discount terror links...
The tri-border area - also known as the "Muslim Triangle" - was last mentioned in "Illegals from terrorist nations are crossing the border into Arizona."
Posted to Terrorism at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo "stunned" by administration being weak on homeland security
From the press release "Tancredo Stunned by White House Maneuver to Exclude Key Immigration Component of Intelligence Bill":
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Tom Tancredo (CO-06) was shocked to learn of the White House’s demand of House Republicans to exclude portions of the House Intelligence Bill which would prevent those who are in the United States illegally from obtaining drivers licenses, speed up the deportation process, and bar the use of the Matricula Consular card, which the FBI has already testified before Congress as being too susceptible to fraud for official use.
"This last minute switch by the White House now puts in jeopardy the most significant border security enhancements we’ve seen in years," said Tancredo, chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus. "I sincerely hope that the White House is not seriously thinking about walking away from this effort in the interest of political expediency in a few states..."
I'm certainly not "stunned." I know exactly what to expect.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 11:19 PM | Comments (2)
Orrin Hatch's anti-American DREAM Act gets closer to passing
From "Hatch's bill for tuition breaks for undocumented immigrants bypasses floor vote":
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has inserted his "DREAM Act" into the budget authorization for the Justice Department, bypassing opposition from Republican leaders who have refused to schedule a floor vote on the measure to permit states to give college tuition breaks to illegal immigrants.
The move could mean the bill benefiting undocumented alien children eventually becomes law as part of the larger two-year spending blueprint for the Justice Department, rather than trying to survive a contentious vote as a stand-alone measure...
This legislation is explicitly anti-American. From this:
[With the DREAM Act, Orrin Hatch] and his colleagues are literally taking opportunities and tuition assistance away from the children of citizens and giving them to illegal aliens... Supporters of this bill are unabashedly placing the interests of illegal aliens above American families who have paid taxes and played by the rules..."
You can send a free FAX about this here.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 11:07 PM | Comments (11)
"Conservative group targets Bush over immigration"
From this:
Fed up with what they say is the Bush administration's failure to address a growing illegal immigration problem, a small group of conservatives has launched a series of radio ads seeking to convince voters to oust President Bush from office.
Last week, a group called Friends of the Border Patrol began a series of ads on KABC-AM in Los Angeles blasting Bush for "playing politics with national security."
The group plans on running the same ads in Arizona starting this week, before the Oct. 13 presidential debate in Phoenix, and in the following weeks in Nevada and New Mexico, a spokesman for the group said.
...Ron Prince, the chairman of Friends of the Border Patrol, said that he believes that Bush could lose Arizona as well [as NM and NV].
...[sources say] the impetus for forming the group and airing the radio ads came during a July 24 rally at the Temecula Border Patrol station...
Ramirez said he and Prince "just looked at each other and realized ... we've got to do something about this."
Posted to Immigration2004 at 10:48 PM | Comments (1)
[UK] Immigration warning 'vindicated'
From this:
Immigration will add six million to Britain's population over the next three decades, according to new figures. The estimate, by the think tank Migrationwatch UK, is based on the latest forecasts from the Government Actuary's Department (GAD).
They appear to confirm claims made by Migrationwatch two years ago, when the group first sprang to prominence by calling for a debate on immigration.
It was accused of scaremongering and ministers cast doubt on the accuracy of its figures...
Migrationwatch's research has opened up the debate on immigration for the first time since the late 1960s. The huge increase over the past five years has forced the big political parties to address the consequences of a rising population.
Opinion polls show that immigration has emerged as the voters' biggest concern, and Migrationwatch accuses other pressure groups of deliberately wanting to withhold the true facts from the public.
Internal Home Office memos obtained by Migrationwatch using data access laws have shown how Whitehall officials objected to the way the organisation's research was being traduced. One e-mail said: "Can we stop saying that Migrationwatch forecasts are wrong . . . Migrationwatch assumptions are often below the Government Actuary's Department high migration variant."
Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of the group, said: "The Government should explain why they have stimulated massive levels of immigration without consulting the British people and how and when they propose to bring it to an end."
Posted to Immigration_euro at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)
A tale of two countries
From Another [L.A. County] Emergency Room Closes its Doors:
It is official the emergency room at Northridge Hospital Medical Center in Van Nuys closed its doors today. The hospital was reportedly losing $1-million each month. This closing leaves only 13 trauma centers in operation in the county, down from 26 in 1980's...In August, hospital officials said the emergency room would close by year's end, mainly due to the cost of treating the indigent and uninsured, according to Tracey Veal of Northridge Hospital, a unit of Catholic Healthcare West.
"indigent and uninsured" is, of course, a euphemism for "mostly illegal aliens."
Now, read this:
After a fall of more than 40-feet, Mexican medical teams refuse to help a Kansas man. It was a trip to discover his heritage but instead turns tragic.The 23-year-old was going to Mexico to meet his birth father for the first time. He had been living with his adopted parents his entire life in Newton.
Many people take for granted the quality of emergency medical care in the United States. It’s one mistake a Newton family will never make again.
It’s a lesson about health care that 21-year-old Olivia Sanchez learned the hard way. Olivia and her 23-year-old brother Ricardo recently traveled to Mexico to meet their biological family. A Newton family adopted them at the ages of 6 and 8.
During the trip, the brother and sister went swimming at the family’s ranch. That’s when Ricardo started climbing a cliff. [continued...]
If what had happened in the last story had happened to a Mexican citizen in the U.S. the Mexican consuls would immediately have swung into action. They would have filed a formal complaint with the State Department, contacted our putative American legislators, contacted the media, arranged marches, and all the rest. And, of course, the media would have immediately swung into action right alongside them. What's the response from our side? Nada.
Perhaps one day we'll stop being the sucker for a foreign country and those corrupt businesses that hire illegal workers.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 09:11 PM | Comments (0)
"Al-Qaida infiltrated U.S. military meal company?"
Relax! They're just here to poison the MREs Americans won't poison:
U.S. officials are probing the possibility the al-Qaida terrorist network sought to infiltrate a Texas company in order to contaminate ready-to-eat meals designated for the military.
A high-ranking al-Qaida operative provided information leading authorities to nearly a dozen illegal immigrants working for the McAllen, Texas-based Wornick Co., the largest supplier of the meals, according to McAllen's The Monitor newspaper.
The firm that places the workers at Wornick has been charged with conspiring to make and use false employment eligibility verification forms.
U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby explained, "Immediately after the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban in 2002, U.S. forces on the ground received specific information that links McAllen, Texas, by name and the Wornick facility by name to information within al-Qaida's possession..."
Posted to Immigration_terror at 01:36 PM | Comments (1)
"FAIR to Bush: Stop Undercutting Homeland Security"
(Washington, D.C.—October 4, 2004) In last week's debate with John Kerry, President Bush said he will never subordinate U.S. national security decision-making to international pressure. Instead, he apparently has his own litmus test for deciding what is needed to protect homeland security. Sadly, the President is again unwilling to take vital security steps if they offend the cheap labor lobby or impinge on the open borders policies of Mexican President Vicente Fox. This position is confirmed today in the Washington Times, ("House Told to Alter Intelligence Bill," A-11, October 4, 2004)...
..."The House leadership including Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) and Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX) have assembled a sound bill that will implement most of the 9/11 commission recommendations, including those required to modify the immigration policies that led to the attacks of 9/11, and that continue to leave the nation vulnerable to attack. The President and those in congress who oppose including these immigration provisions are deluding themselves if they believe the only threat facing Americans is the threat faced by American military personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are a nation at war and our enemies will have no compunction about attacking us here in the United States, where we are the least prepared, if we allow them to do so" said FAIR's Stein.
Posted to Immigration_terror at 01:20 PM | Comments (1)
"House told to alter intelligence bill" [immigration, the administration, 'nuff said]
From the WashTimes:
The White House has told House Republicans that it wants them to remove provisions in their intelligence-overhaul bill that would crack down on illegal aliens' obtaining drivers' licenses, allow easier deportation and limit the use of foreign consular ID cards...
The Bush administration originally signed off on the immigration-related parts of the bill, but now they've... flip-flopped.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 01:12 PM | Comments (0)
"Republicans Rewarding Illegal Aliens"
From Human Events:
AgJobs is legislation only a liberal could love. Yet, conservative Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) its sponsor, has now moved to take his bill straight to the floor.
This bill to legalize illegal aliens working in American agriculture helped to stall much-needed class action reform from coming before the Senate in July. Craig tried to attach AGJOBS to the legal reform bill. He has vowed to offer this legislation to every bill the Senate moves the rest of the session, despite Bush administration opposition.
Craig brokered the bill-writing among agriculture lobbyists, immigration lawyers and the ethnic identity lobby...
AGJOBS adds insult to the injury of amnesty. The bill forces American taxpayers to pick up the tab for Legal Services lawyers. The activist lawyers will aid legalizing aliens at each step of the amnesty path to citizenship...
Two-thirds of special agricultural worker applications for a 1986 amnesty were fraudulent. Terrorist Mohammed Abouhalima was one such fraud. He secured legal status, then got involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Abouhalima was a New York cabbie who never worked in agriculture... [Chapter 3 of the 9/11 Commission Staff Report says he was granted temporary status but then later his application was denied, but I don't know if that was before or after being indicated for WTC1 --LW]
The Bush administration, which advocates its own amnesty, opposes AGJOBS. So should thinking lawmakers, agricultural special interests and those who truly have America’s best interests at heart.
The only apparent reason the Bush administration is opposed to AgJobs is because of their alternative program, so I wouldn't get my hopes up about them coming to their senses about amnesty.
As far as the immigration lawyer-friendly provision above is concerned, consider the following story about the finances of Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT), one of the original authors of AgJobs:
A close look at who is giving also shows a sudden jump in contributions from immigration attorneys - 23 of whom have poured $20,900 into Cannon's war chest... At least five of the attorneys serve on the executive committee of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which helped Cannon draft the "AgJobs" bill...
And, from "Immigration lawyer industry funding Tancredo's opponent" (Despite the title, there's only a teaser about that funding, most of that article is about AgJobs):
In the case of the immigration lawyer industry and AgJOBS, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) actually got to be in on the drafting of the bill. There is even an audio recording of Cannon publicly admitting to it...
You wouldn't know it, but it is still illegal to solicit and accept political contributions in return for official action. As spelled out above, this is precisely what Congressman Cannon has done, and the audio recording of his public acknowledgement that AILA helped draft AgJOBS is the smoking gun that nails him...
Can they prove that Cannon allowed AILA to help draft AgJobs as a direct consequence of receiving contributions? Or, is no specific proof needed to bring some form of charges against him? I don't know.
For more on AgJobs, see Guest Worker Residency Bill Is Taking Root in the Senate and "Miami Herald "endorses indentured servitude". The second has a list of the 400 business, legal, grower's, and Race Industry organizations that support this horrible bill.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 10:41 PM | Comments (1)
"Dual nationalities only double a family's pride"
I'm all for family pride, but this guest editorial might be going just a tad too far. Is there a way to support family pride without also supporting divided loyalties? Yes, I know he proudly mentions in there his uncles who fought in WWII. What if WWII had involved Mexico? Would they still have fought on our side if they were dual citizens? Or, would they have fought on the other side?
The article itself is fairly insignificant; what's more significant is that it's being published in the anti-Proposition 200 Arizona Republic and it's from José A.Cárdenas... host of KAET-TV Channel 8's "Horizonte: Arizona Issues Through a Hispanic Lens."
I watched one of their shows once and they incessantly confused legal and illegal immigration. I meant to write a complaint letter to ASU and their sponsor Bank of America, but I guess I never got around to it. If you're in the area, and you spot an error on that program, you might consider writing Bank of America and ASU: kaet@asu.edu
Posted to Immigration2004 at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)
How you fail the global test
Bush, from the 9/30 debate:And secondly, to think that another round of resolutions would have caused Saddam Hussein to disarm, disclose, is ludicrous, in my judgment. It just shows a significant difference of opinion.
We tried diplomacy. We did our best. He was hoping to turn a blind eye. And, yes, he would have been stronger had we not dealt with him. He had the capability of making weapons, and he would have made weapons.
Would a second round of resolutions have caused Saddam to disarm? Perhaps not. Here are just some of the upsides and downsides:
Upsides:
- The U.S. could show that it was doing its best to try diplomacy first rather than just rushing to war...
- The U.S. could use evidence that Iraq was preventing the inspectors from doing their job against Iraq...
- Those organizations and countries that were arguing for more inspections would have lost some credibility if inspections could be shown to have failed...
- It would have given us more time to bribe other countries into supporting us...
Downsides:
- Iraq would perhaps be stronger...
- Iraq could destroy or move its WMD to other countries...
- The U.S. or the world might lose interest in the time it took to complete more inspections...
Even if more inspections had failed, our case against Iraq would have been much stronger. We could point to recent evidence that inspections had failed. We could say we've done everything we could have done.
If we had then gone to war, France and Germany might have disagreed with our decision, but they couldn't disagree that we had no other option. If they tried to present yet another round of inspections as a possibility, we could reference our earlier comments: "we tried it your way and it didn't work, so now we're going to do it our way."
Pre-war articles about inspections here and here; I'm sure there are many more and also many from recently.
Other ways to fail the global test include:
- Using the aluminum tubes as evidence (in the debate, Kerry noted Powell having to apologize for his U.N. speech)
- failing to secure the nuke sites in Iraq after the invasion
- failing to secure the hdqtrs of Iraq's spy agency... (see also "Press and looters vie for Saddam's secrets")
- failing to secure Iraq's national library...
- failing to keep tap water and electricity flowing...
- failing to protect the Iraqi national museum...
Some of those - such as the museum - might have been beyond our control or too costly to prevent. However, with a plan that had covered all contingencies - including what happened after Shock & Awe - they could have either been prevented or - once again how we look is important - we could provide proof that we had done what we had to do.
I might update this post with other examples later.
Previous discussion of the global test here. I've left comments about the test here, here, here, here. --- A previous comment was at redstate.org/story/2004/10/2/151528/353
Posted to Politics at 02:59 PM | Comments (3)
"[Charlotte NC] Police: Immigration crackdown has reduced violent gang crime"
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A yearlong crackdown on immigration violations has led to a drop in gang-related violence in the Charlotte area, according to police...
At least one gang member arrested in the original roundup and then deported has returned to Charlotte and been arrested again...
Latino gang members are among the hardest to keep track of, police say, because many are here illegally...
See also Heather MacDonald's "Ignored In Open-Borders Debate: Rising Cost Of Second Underclass" (the condensed version of her previous article "The Immigrant Gang Plague"), "The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave" and "Hillbangers".
Posted to Immigration2004 at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)
"Few immigrants use tuition law"
From the KCStar:
When Kansas passed a law in May allowing certain noncitizen immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates at state colleges, critics envisioned a flood of those students.
Now that the fall semester is under way, the flood looks more like a trickle...
"This law is new to Kansas and we didn't know what to expect," said Kip Peterson, a Regents spokesman. "Looking at the numbers now, there are 30 students in Kansas pursuing higher education that otherwise might not have had the opportunity."
And, there are millions of people around the world who now see that they can get a discounted college education even if they come here illegally. No doubt that will serve as yet another incentive to many of those people.
And, of course, the money spent on those 30 students could have been spent on our own citizens rather than citizens of other countries.
The article also mentions that Kansas is being sued by FAIR over their explicitly anti-American law.
(This is a KCStar report that the AP picked up under their byline and reprints here and here.)
See also "Kansas City Star: Let U.S. citizens eat cake".
Posted to Immigration2004 at 01:59 PM | Comments (1)
"State Is Sailing Toward a Crisis on Immigration"
The LAT prints a column from regular citizen Beverly Antel of Torrance. She goes a bit "overboard" on the Titanic references, but nevertheless:
I am an African American woman of mixed ethnic ancestry whose parents encouraged her to embrace diversity from a very early age. I attended integrated schools in the San Fernando Valley. I have friends of every color and stripe. My deceased husband was Caucasian. My mother is married to a man from the Philippines. And my brother's girlfriend is a Latina.
This issue is not about race; it's about fairness.
For years, liberal policy wonks have told us that illegal immigration is good for our economy. They sit in their high-rise think tanks in Brentwood and Century City and pontificate that the benefits of immigrants' cheap labor outweigh the price we pay to have these people here...
And I refuse to stand by and watch my beloved California go the way of the Titanic. Everyone wanted to sail on that mighty vessel. But when it got in trouble, no one seemed to notice at first or grasp the seriousness of the situation. Then the ship started to sink, and the commoners below were the first to drown.
That's us, people. The ultra-wealthy Westsiders, the corporate moguls and the special- interest politicians don't care about the hoi polloi on the lower decks...
Posted to Immigration2004 at 03:01 PM | Comments (8)
Back to Floriduh
From "Voter Registrations Hit Snag Over Citizenship Check Box":
A tiny check box about citizenship on voter registration forms has touched off the latest battle over voting rights in Florida, where Gov. Jeb Bush's administration has advised election supervisors to reject applications on which the box is blank...
Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Florida's secretary of state, Glenda E. Hood, said the problem had arisen mainly on forms filed by third parties on behalf of potential voters. Dozens of groups have crisscrossed Florida this election year, registering record numbers of new voters, many of them in minority and low-income neighborhoods...
A law suit from the comfortably-named organization America's Families United designed to get the list of those forms rejected was thrown out.
From this:
Perhaps no one better illustrates the host of interlocking roles than Carl Pope, one of the most influential operatives on the Democratic side in the 2004 election. As executive director of the Sierra Club, a major 501c (4) environmental lobby, Pope also controls the Sierra Club Voter Education Fund, a 527. The Voter Education Fund 527 has raised $3.4 million this election cycle, with $2.4 million of that amount coming from the Sierra Club. A third group, the Sierra Club PAC, has since 1980 given $3.9 million to Democratic candidates and $173,602 to GOP candidates.
These activities just touch the surface of Pope's political involvement. In 2002-03, Pope helped found two major 527 groups: America Votes, which has raised $1.9 million to coordinate the election activities of 32 liberal groups, and America Coming Together (ACT), which has a goal of raising more than $100 million to mobilize voters to cast ballots against Bush. Finally, Pope is treasurer of a new 501c (3) foundation, America's Families United, which reportedly has $15 million to distribute to voter mobilization groups.
In the NYT article, AFU is described as "a nonpartisan civil rights group", which might be true. Or, it might just be an inside joke.
Posted to Politics at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)
NYT on The Tubes
The NYT has 15-screenfuls on the aluminum tubes which were supposed to prove that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program.
I didn't read the whole thing, but from "How the White House Embraced Disputed Iraqi Arms Intelligence":
In 2002, at a crucial juncture on the path to war, senior members of the Bush administration gave a series of speeches and interviews in which they asserted that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program...
Ms. Rice's alarming description on CNN was in keeping with the administration's overall treatment of the tubes. Senior administration officials repeatedly failed to fully disclose the contrary views of America's leading nuclear scientists, The Times found. They sometimes overstated even the most dire intelligence assessments of the tubes, yet minimized or rejected the strong doubts of their own experts. They worried privately that the nuclear case was weak, but expressed sober certitude in public...
"It is most disturbing that Winpac is essentially directing foreign policy in this matter," one Energy Department official wrote in an e-mail message. "There are some very strong points to be made in respect to Iraq's arrogant noncompliance with U.N. sanctions. However, when individuals attempt to convert those 'strong statements' into the 'knock out' punch, the Administration will ultimately look foolish - i.e., the tubes and Niger!"
On this matter, the administration seems to have failed the "global test." Perhaps we could have made our case without at the same time lowering America's credibility throughout the world.
Posted to Iraq at 02:45 PM | Comments (0)
Have you heard about the Global Test yet?
As expected, misconstruing "Global Test" is the main BushBot talking point. Here's what Kerry said last night:
Kerry: No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America.
But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.
Here we have our own secretary of state who has had to apologize to the world for the presentation he made to the United Nations...
Bush: ...I'm not exactly sure what you mean, passes the global test, you take preemptive action if you pass a global test.
My attitude is you take preemptive action in order to protect the American people, that you act in order to make this country secure...
So, Kerry is saying that if we preemptively strike, we need to first make sure that we can justify our strike to the world.
Does that mean that Kerry would not preemptively strike if France were opposed to the strike? No, he says specifically that he would not.
He's saying that we shouldn't preemptively strike if we can't prove that it was the right thing to do, and gives Colin Powell having to apologize for his speech as a counterexample.
Is that really so hard for Bush to understand? Shouldn't we care about world opinion and our own credibility? Or, does Bush not care if America's credibility around the world is reduced? Should America be known as the country that fibs?
UPDATE: Bush misrepresents Kerry's point in today's speech in Allentown, PA:
"One other point I want to make about the debate last night. Senator Kerry last night said that America has to pass some sort of global test before we can use American troops to defend ourselves. He wants our national security decisions subject to the approval of a foreign government. [not supported by Kerry's statement --LW] Listen, I'll continue to work with our allies and the international community, but I will never submit America's national security to an international test. The use of troops to defend America must never be subject to a veto by countries like France. [falsely implies that's what Kerry said --LW] The president's job is not to take an international poll. The president's job is to defend America."
The president has many jobs, two of which are defending America and making sure that we look good around the world.
No lie like a Big Lie.
UPDATE 2: From March 19, 2004, here's something that caring about America's credibility could have prevented:
WARSAW President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland said Thursday that he had been "deceived" by information on weapons of mass destruction before the Iraq war and that Poland might pull some troops out of Iraq earlier than planned...
UPDATE 3: "looking good around the world" doesn't necessarily mean that we're trying to get people to like us or that many or most will like us. It means we get respect not just because a country knows we could flatten them tomorrow, but because we're "tough but just."
See also the more recent post "How you fail the global test".
UPDATE 4: Prof. Juan Cole - who has neither trackback nor comments - offers his own explanation here. He makes a good point about the tenses Kerry used: "proving to the world" is in the past tense and we might be able to assume that Kerry meant that that came after having done the preemptive strike. However, he also thinks - like one of the commentors here - that Kerry used "global" in the "comprehensive" or "thoroughgoing" sense. I don't think so, I'm pretty sure he meant it in the "worldwide" sense. Here's what came right after Kerry said "global test":
How many leaders in the world today would respond to us, as a result of what we've done, in that way? So what is at test here is the credibility of the United States of America and how we lead the world.
And, recall that "global test" came just minutes after Kerry said things like this:
...But you've also got to show that you are prepared to bring the rest of the world in and share the stakes...
...If the president had shown the patience to go through another round of resolution, to sit down with those leaders, say, What do you need, what do you need now, how much more will it take to get you to join us?...
UPDATE 5: This post says the "global test" is similar to the Powell Doctrine.
UPDATE 6: In my attempt to spread sanity throughout blogdom, I've left more comments here and here.
In the article "Kerry dismisses criticism of 'global test' remark as 'pathetic'", Kerry discusses what else he said in that same response and how his opponents have twisted and misrepresented it. Unlike the last link and the next link attempt to say, he wasn't flailing about the remark and neither was he backpeddling.
I note also that Blogs for Bush has a recent entry on the global test, but as there are already 44 comments I'm just sending a trackback on its mission.
Posted to Politics at 12:04 PM | Comments (11)
How today's immigration is not like yesterday's
From the NY Post:
Scores of non-English speaking parents gathered at City Hall yesterday, calling for reforms to make the school system more immigrant-friendly...
[other demands deleted...]
The demonstrators yesterday demanded passage of a bill that would require report card translations and interpreters at parent-teacher conferences.
The chances of this being a spontaneous demonstration are about nil. No doubt they were even bussed there and provided with talking points by one or more "immigrants rights" organizations. And, some of those organizations probably have some ties to the Ford Foundation.
An earlier example of how today's immigration is not like yesterday's is in 2 + 2 = separatism.
Posted to Immigration2004 at 11:22 AM | Comments (3)
James Bond turned, now double agent
Brosnan officially an American citizen: Pierce Brosnan decided to become an American because he wants the right to vote for John Kerry in the upcoming presidential election...
Brosnan, who will retain dual citizenship, add: "I found a whole new life and identity in America. (But) my heart and soul will forever be Irish."
Posted to Celebrities at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)
