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Mexico to fight the Minuteman Project

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico will pursue legal action against plans by a U.S. citizens' group to patrol the U.S.-Mexican border in search of illegal immigrants, the country's foreign minister said on Monday.

Luis Ernesto Derbez said he asked lawyers in Los Angeles to draw up a legal strategy to fight the Arizona-based initiative called "the MinuteMan Project" that has signed up hundreds of volunteers for border patrols.

"We are going to attack by all legal means," Derbez told a news conference. "We are presenting the reasons why we consider this action to be incorrect and illegal from the point of view not only of our government but also under U.S. law..."

It should be interesting to find out who the lawyers are...

See also "Mexico plans to step up immigration-policy pressure in 2005": Mexico plans to hire lobbyists and to work closely with leading U.S. think tanks and universities to promote its national interests, the Mexican official said...

What would you call a U.S. citizen who helps a foreign country that doesn't have the U.S.'s best interests at heart? At what point do we start using the "T" word?

Posted to Immigration2005a at 08:34 PM | Comments (2)

"Do Asian Americans Count in L.A.?"

Raphael J. Sonenshein, "a political scientist at Cal State Fullerton", suggests ways that Asians can achieve the wonders of corporate pluralism in L.A. in "Do Asian Americans Count in L.A.?":

..One way to jump-start Asian American electoral success in L.A. would be to create smaller City Council districts or separate boroughs, with their own elected councils, but such ideas may never materialize. More immediately, the city's new neighborhood councils provide leadership opportunities with a real electoral future, and these positions could supplement current Asian American civic participation as public employees, community activists and members of city boards and commissions...

Perhaps Sonenshein should take a field trip up north to find out how they're doing it: "Oakland's Bilingualism - No Americans Need Apply".

Posted to MultiCultiCult at 08:25 PM | Comments (0)

Providence Journal: "Costs of immigration"

The RI Providence Journal has a very clear-headed editorial on illegal immigration: "Costs of immigration":

...Illegal immigration is no free lunch, and it's time we had an honest discussion of the matter...

...Four of America's 10 poorest metropolitan regions lie along the Texas-Mexico border...

...Brownsville, for example, is a stroll across a bridge from Matamoros, Mexico. The population of the once sleepy Texas town grew 41 percent in the 1990s and continues to explode. An amazing 40 percent of the total is under age 19. Imagine a city of only 140,000 trying to support a school system with 40,000 students!

Some 400,000 people live in what are called colonias along the border in Texas. These unincorporated shantytowns often lack water, sewer systems, electricity and paved roads. The colonias residents pay little if any taxes but use the schools and other public services.

Brownsville is the poorest medium-sized American city; a third of its families live in poverty, according to federal guidelines. It's important to recognize that the illegal residents don't just add to the numbers of poor; they also bring down the wages and economic opportunities of the legal residents.

While America's problems caused by illegal immigration are most evident at the Mexican border, the solution lies elsewhere. No number of U.S. Border Patrol jeeps can stop the flow of poor people seeking jobs in the United States. Only penalties for the U.S. employers can do this...

Posted to Immigration2005a at 04:42 PM | Comments (0)

I stopped at "Gestapo tactics"

The Naples Daily News' Dianna Smith violates Godwin's Law and just about every acceptable journalistic practice in the article "Haitians targeted unfairly in immigration sweeps, advocates say". It reads like a parody of biased, weepy "reporting":

The sky was still dark the morning the women heard knocks on their doors. The noises came from husky men dressed in black, pointing flashlights into the windows like burglars, holding them like guns...

...The wives and children were left helpless with hurting hearts, pleading so desperately it was like they thought the drivers would somehow hear them and turn around...

...Collier County is one of several Florida counties where officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, quietly appear during odd hours of the night, sometimes at places of employment, to capture people they call fugitives...

...But not all are crimes like most would think.

Some of those picked up by the task force are people with families, full-time jobs and homes. But, for one reason or another, they were found ineligible by an immigration judge to live in America and they later ignored deportation notices, which is a felony, Pruneda said.

[Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami] said there are 400,000 undocumented immigrants living in the United States...

"The strategy is - simply throw them out, ask questions later," [Casey Wolff, an immigration attorney in Collier County] said. "Most people caught in the web of immigration rules ignore them until something happens or are not aware of them. Congress has not fixed a broken system and they continue to use Gestapo tactics..."

Not only is Casey Wolff a member of the AILA, he's written at least one article for this same paper.

And, of course, the 400,000 number is off by 20 to 40 times. The source was probably referring to those who have received final deportation orders.

It probably won't do any good, but the Naples News' Editor is pplewis *at* naplesnews.com and their Managing Editor is whblanton *at* naplesnews.com

Posted to Immigration2005a at 04:15 PM | Comments (1)

Debbie Schlussel and Deep Throat

It's not so much a dream I had, as her latest column describing the new movie "Inside 'Deep Throat'". The column is, frankly, a bit on the bitter side.

For something sweeter, here are some pictures of Debbie Schlussel. Before clicking that link, hold up a piece of cardboard so you can block out Sean Hannity who's unfortunately in both of them.

Posted to MultiCultiCult at 01:38 PM | Comments (0)

"Collar-bomb victim's family seeking help through Web site"

ERIE, Pa. - Frustrated by a lack of progress in the FBI and state police investigation into the death of their brother, the siblings of a pizza delivery man killed by a bomb locked around his neck have taken to the Internet to ask the public to help.

The Web site, www.brianwells.net, is named for Brian Wells, 46, of Erie, who died as he sat handcuffed in a parking lot on Aug. 28, 2003 - when the bomb he was wearing exploded as state police waited for a bomb squad to arrive...

The website is poorly written and, in an undiplomatic move, calls the investigating officers incompetent. However, it does have scans of the many letters involved as well as pictures of the cane gun that was used. That alone should be rare enough to be a very valuable clue.

This case might have spawned a copycat case involving a Memphis medical examiner. See "The Microbiologist Mystery gets weirder and weirder".

Posted to Miscellania at 01:32 PM | Comments (1)

Purported John Kerry mistress Alexandra Polier gets married

See the previous Alexandra Polier coverage. On a wacky note, see "Women interns are our future!"

Posted to Politics at 10:35 AM | Comments (0)

"Outgoing envoy to U.S. cites problems getting Americans to notice Canada"

That's the actual headline of this article. I'd read it, except, like you, I don't really care.

Posted to WackyHumor at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

"Ward Churchill may not be one of you but he's definitely one of me."

There are so many entertaining Democratic Underground threads I posted all of them over in today's DU entry at BigMediaBlog. The titular comment about Ward Churchill, the DUmmies trying to portray the BTK killer as a Republican, a fun poll, and even a call to remove "hate speech" (such as that from Ann Coulter) from First Amendment protection. Have fun!

In other BigMediaBlog news, Rob wonders whether Condi is indeed a lesbian.

By the way, BigMediaBlog is for your comments. Most of the big blogs don't have comments, and when they make a mistake it's a bit difficult to get the word out. BigMediaBlog attempts to keep those big bloggers honest, but it needs your help.

If you see a post at Insty, DailyKos, DU, TalkLeft, BlogsForBush, Kausfiles, Sully, or Josh, and the post is wrong or misleading, head on over to BigMediaBlog and leave a comment about it. Each day there's a new set of threads for those big blogs and even the MSM.

Posted to Bloggage at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)

Has the Springfield Republican been radicalized?

You've probably never heard of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican newspaper, but the article "Hispanics get call to political action" from Natalia Munoz seems of interest:

...A far-reaching campaign to stir political action by [Western Mass.] immigrants with and without legal papers was ignited yesterday with a talk by representatives from the Cambridge-based Centro Presente, which works with the Central American community in the state.

"There is an anti-immigrant environment here," said executive director María Elena Letona. "The hypocrisy of this country is that it denies immigrants rights and at the same time exploits their labor in below-minimum wage jobs."

More than a dozen people from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and El Salvador attended the talk, given in Spanish. It also addressed concerns over La migra, as Latinos call the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service...

Thanks for the translation. Perhaps when they start getting bigger crowds you could give us some background information on Centro Presente. From Mark Krikorian's "Strange Bedfellows: Left and right on immigration":

And then there's the National Immigration Forum, the umbrella organization for high-immigration political advocacy, which works closely with sympathetic Republicans. But NIF is not like the conventional lobbying coalitions that exist on numerous issues. It was cofounded by the National Lawyers Guild in the 1980s, back when the Guild was a Soviet front group. The group's first head was Rick Swartz, a leftist attorney who cut his teeth advocating for Haitian illegal aliens and who, during a 1981 Senate hearing, likened the United States to Nazi Germany.

Like many lobbying coalitions, the NIF board includes representatives of Republican stalwarts like the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Restaurant Association, and used to include Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute, now head of the Club for Growth. Whatever his libertarian views on immigration, I imagine Steve hightailed it out of there after he realized what he'd gotten into, because the people sitting around the conference table at NIF board meetings include some decidedly unsavory characters. In addition to the usual leftist suspects — the ACLU, the Service Employees Union, Jim Zogby of the Arab American Institute — the NIF board includes the head of the immigration lawyers' association, one Jeanne Butterfield, who used to be executive director of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, identified by the Anti-Defamation League as an alliance between members of the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine and the Workers World party (the Trotskyites behind the Iraq War protests). As David Horowitz observed in National Review in 1991, Butterfield's organization was "one of the few groups in the world supporting Saddam's rape of Kuwait." Butterfield was later litigation director for Centro Presente, a Cambridge, Mass., outfit which provided aid to Central American illegals and was headed at the time by Frank Sharry, who is now, not coincidentally, head of NIF.

Also on the NIF board is the head of the L.A. branch of CARECEN, which backed the Communists in El Salvador's civil war and which helped pioneer the "sanctuary" movement to subvert U.S. immigration law. And, like the rest of the high-immigration Left that Chris Cannon has embraced, NIF's biggest funders include the Ford Foundation and George Soros's Open Society Institute...

The Springfield Republican's Executive Editor is Wayne E. Phaneuf. Please send him an email suggesting that his paper lays off the anti-Americanism and provides background information on the groups they discuss: wphaneuf *at* repub.com

Posted to Immigration2005a at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)

Does Walter Moore stand a chance?

Despite an all-out attempt by the Los Angeles media to deny that he exists, does Republican candidate for mayor of L.A. Walter Moore stand a chance of getting into the run-off? See "Will Los Angeles Choose Moore... or Opt for More of the Same?" for the wishful thinking. If someone has independent indication that Walter Moore is about to stage an upset, please post it in the comments. Otherwise, I will continue lending my very influential vote to Jim Hahn, the only one in the race who stands a chance and who isn't a member of the board of MALDEF or a former member of a racial separatist organization.

Posted to Los_Angeles at 02:46 PM | Comments (1)

Who do they think they are, USA Today?

The Columbian Missourian has a splashy article entitled "Pursuing the American Dream" complete with three custom, USA Today-style graphics. Exactly how many readers can there be in Columbia, MO? Are they trying to sell this to other papers? Trying for a Pulitzer? Keep trying.

Posted to Immigration_piipps at 02:43 PM | Comments (0)

"Forced to a country she never knew"

Nothing like a New Jersey PIIPP:

Source: Trenton Times
URL: this
Date: Saturday, February 26, 2005
"Reporter": Eva Loayza

TRENTON - Mayra Ovalle's words are heavy with resignation and defeat.

Her husband was arrested in the couple's home almost two weeks ago by federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on a deportation order, and she is being shipped back to Guatemala, too.

But it's not her plight or her husband's that saddens her the most. It is that of their 11-year-old daughter, who will be forced to leave the country where she was born and holds citizenship.

[She and her husband entered illegally...] he applied for political asylum and was able to get a work permit. Ovalle said Jovany, who worked as a cook, received seven extensions on his work permit.

[...applied for and denied political asylum, they applied for yet another amnesty program, that was denied too...] She said the judge told them they could either leave voluntarily or have him sign deportation orders for them.

The Ovalles chose voluntary departure, but never left.

Attorney Joseph Asir, who is currently representing Ovalle...

Lesson: don't have kids here while your immigration status is up in the air expecting them or soft-brained liberals to be able to bail you out. And, when you say you're going to leave, do so.

Posted to Immigration_piipps at 02:31 PM | Comments (1)

Keeping comment spam under control with MovableType

Other than resource issues related to DOS-style spam attacks, comment spam isn't that big of a problem around here because:

1. I've installed MT-Blacklist.

2. I use MySQL to quickly delete large numbers of spam comments.

Regarding #2, here are some common commands. You'll need to connect to your server using SSH, login to your account, and then login to MySQL by typing something like:

mysql -u [your MySQL user name] -p [the name of your MT database]

So, if your MySQL username is 'fred', and you keep your MT information in the database 'mydatabase', you'd enter:

mysql -u fred -p mydatabase

Then, at the prompt you'd enter your MySQL password.

To see a list of all the distinct URLs used in trackback pings you've been sent, type:

select distinct tbping_source_url from mt_tbping;

To delete all trackback pings that link to a specific URL, replace http://spammername.com in the following with the bad URL; be very careful:

delete from mt_tbping where tbping_source_url = 'http://spammername.com';

The following is similar to the last, except it uses a substring instead of a complete URL. Be very careful since this uses just part of the URL, not the whole URL. So, if you replaced 'spammername' with 'a' you'd delete all trackbacks that contain the letter 'a' in their URL, which is probably something you don't want to do:

delete from mt_tbping where LOCATE('spammername', tbping_source_url) > 0;

The following is untested, but might turn off trackbacks on all posts. Change the 1 to 0 to turn them back on:

update mt_trackback set trackback_is_disabled = 1;

The commands dealing with comments are similar:

select distinct comment_url from mt_comment;

delete from mt_comment where comment_url='http://spammername.com/';

delete from mt_comment where LOCATE('spammername', comment_url) > 0;

Use these commands at your own risk. Backup your database before using them.

Posted to Bloggage at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)

We knew this day would come

L.A. City Councilman Eric Garcetti has a blog.

Previous coverage of Garcetti in "To protect, serve, and constantly monitor", "Los Angeles is the Ellis Island of the West Coast", and "An excerpt from Eric Garcetti's diary".

Posted to Los_Angeles at 12:31 PM | Comments (1)

Hats off to the New York Immigration Coalition

The New York DMV is trying to prevent illegal aliens from getting New York driver's licenses. If you've been reading the New York Times or the New York Daily News or press releases from various organizations, you might have been confused into thinking that they're trying to prevent all immigrants from getting licenses, but that's not true.

For instance, the far-left New York Immigration Coalition has a page discussing this issue. Only one sentence on that page makes an oblique reference to this being an issue of legal vs. illegal: The law does NOT say that immigration status is a requirement for drivers' licenses. Everywhere else on that page it just uses some variant of "immigrant" to describe those affected by the DMV's new rule.

One of the contact persons listed at that page is Amy Sugimori of the National Employment Law Project. Another group attempting to keep driver's licenses in the hands of illegal aliens is the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, or PRLDEF. (Puerto Ricans, as U.S. citizens, shouldn't have any problem getting a New York driver's license.) Both the NELP and the PRLDEF are funded in part by the Ford Foundation; PRLDEF has received $2 million from Ford over the years. That foundation is also the major funder of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, or MALDEF: $25 million over the years. While MALDEF has not taken part in the New York case, it opposed anti-illegal-immigration laws in California and Arizona.

All of the foregoing is to be expected from far-left, Ford Foundation-funded organizations. However, their attempts to blur the line between legal and illegal immigration seems to have infected other sources that should know better.

The NYIC co-sponsored a November 2, 2004 exit poll, the results of which were released just last week (PDF file). Bearing in mind that all of the respondents should have been either native-born or naturalized citizens, one of the poll questions asked:

Support Driver's Licenses for Non-citizen Residents of New York State (Yes, No, Don't Know)

At the best that question is meaningless and at the worst it's intentionally misleading. To repeat, no one is trying to prevent all non-citizen residents from getting driver's licenses, just illegal aliens.

The principal investigator of the poll was Lorraine C. Minnite, an Assistant Professor at Barnard College:

"Funding and support provided by the New York Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, Barnard College, the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York Graduate Center, and The New York Immigration Coalition"

Please send an email to her and the dean of Barnard College suggesting that they avoid such sloppy advocacy scholarship in the future: lcm25 *at* columbia.edu, eboylan *at* barnard.edu

The poll was the subject of a 2/20/05 article in the NY Daily News by Albor Ruiz: "Pol: Immigrants elect to vote". He repeats the poll's misleading question without attempting to put it into its proper context. Emails: editor *at* nydailynews.com, aruiz *at* edit.nydailynews.com

The New York Times' coverage of this issue has been similar, although there may or may not be such a direct link between the NYIC or other organizations and the NYT's reporters. Most of the NYT's coverage comes from Nina Bernstein. For the most part her coverage reads like an NYIC press release, slightly edited for accuracy. While Bernstein does occasionally use the word "illegal", she more frequently uses misleading euphemisms: "immigrants who cannot prove that they are here legally", "newcomers", or just plain "immigrants." She also used as a quote source someone who's an immigration lawyer and a member of the AILA without revealing that affiliation. Her 02/18/05 piece "License Denials for Immigrants Are Blocked" took nine paragraphs to disclose that she was talking about illegal immigrants. Her latest piece on this issue is "Albany Tries to Restore Limits on Licenses for Immigrants", which is only slightly less misleading than her previous advocacy journalism pieces.

Please contact public *at* nytimes.com and suggest they stop trying to mislead their readers.

Posted to Immigration_dls at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)

Have you seen Kevin Shelley's PDA?

Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's state-issued PDA was recently stolen from his house in 'Frisco. He had left the window partly open, but he says it was opened even further. He also wiped a smudge off the window before filing the police report. Nothing else of note appears to have been stolen.

If you spot his missing PDA, please contact your local bloggers, newspaper, or the AP.

Details here: "Secretary of state says state-issued PDA stolen from home"

Posted to California at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

All blogs are now at a new host

If you're reading this, you're at the right location. Those who are accessing this blog as tolstoy.com/lonewacko will be forever stuck in time. The correct address is just lonewacko.com. The tolstoy.com/lonewacko pages will stay as a backup, but they won't be updated.

Likewise, BigMediaBlog is just BigMediaBlog.com and BoreAmerica.com is just BoreAmerica.com.

Strangely enough, when I type 'lonewacko.com' into Firefox, it leads me to the tolstoy.com/lonewacko page, but it doesn't do that with individual entries. Both IE and lynx on the tolstoy.com server do the right thing. Perhaps Firefox is caching the old address because of a redirect I used to redirect tolstoy.com/lonewacko/index.html to tolstoy.com/lonewacko/blog/index.html.

Please report any problems in the comments. Since I always linked using the short form, this shouldn't be a problem for most people.

Posted to Bloggage at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)

A DU-friendly reporter is seeking Gannon info. Help needed to identify the reporter

My research network is plugging away, but they need your help. Which reporter from a well-known media outfit supposedly has a working relationship with a DU poster concerning Gannongate? Now, the DU poster could be lying, or a brief exchange of emails in the night could have been misconstrued as a "working relationship," or the reporter might actually be using DU as a research tool. Nothing wrong with that, but just for my own curiosity I'd like to know.

Possible names bandied about include:

* Howard Kurtz

* Jennifer Brooks of the Delaware News Journal (2/10/05's "White House reporter quits under scrutiny")

* Charlie Savage or Alan Wirzbicki of the Boston Globe (2/2/05's "White House-friendly reporter under scrutiny")

* Mike Hudson from the Niagara Falls Reporter (Reply from the Niagra Falls Reporter!!!!!!!)

Other possibilities might be found in this article.

Posted to Politics at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)

"Federal Training Set for [L.A.] Sheriff's Employees"

From this:

Federal officials announced Thursday that they had reached final agreement on a six-month program to train Los Angeles County sheriff's employees to identify jail inmates who are in the country illegally.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security program, the first of its kind in the nation, was narrowly approved by county supervisors last month...

Previous coverage in "Zev Yaroslavsky goes semi-sane".

Posted to Immigration2005a at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

"Undocumented Immigrants Buying Homes With Fake IDs"

From this:

...How is it that an undocumented immigrant can use a phony Social Security number to get a government-backed loan to buy property in Colorado? 7NEWS Investigator John Ferrugia has been tracking cases involving Federal Housing Administration loans and said the homeland security implications are dramatic...

"To have a false number -- a Social Security number -- and have the realtor be able to take them all the way through the application process, there has to be something that that realtor or the mortgage company is doing to doctor those documents to show this is a legitimate Social Security number," [Jeff Copp, the regional special agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE] said...

7NEWS wanted to talk to the people who issue the FHA loans at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD officials were clearly concerned about our findings and refused an on-camera interview. Officials wouldn't answer our questions but in a written statement, they said in part, "FHA loans are originated and processed by FHA-approved lenders who certify that the mortgage is eligible for FHA mortgage insurance ... If irregularities are revealed, appropriate action is taken..."

That illegal aliens are able to sail through the process shouldn't come as much of a surprise. See, for instance, "Who is the FDIC? And, why are they working with a foreign government to subvert our laws?", "Tax-number loans help immigrants buy homes", "Their money or your safety", or "Mexican Consulate helps locals with their papers".

Posted to Immigration2005a at 11:52 AM | Comments (1)

Like Michael Myers, AgJobs is back

"Bill to support farmworkers reintroduced":

This year it could be different as support has grown for the Agricultural Job, Opportunity, Benefits and Security (AgJobs) Act.

The legislation has been reintroduced in Washington, by Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Reps. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, and How ard Berman, D-Calif. The bill would overhaul the H-2A guest worker program and give experienced undocumented farmworkers the chance to become legal residents in the United States... [...BS from Ted Kennedy and growers...]

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson [says] "We can't find people who will do (hand-picking) anymore in the United States..."

Bronson should take a look at "In Florida Groves, Cheap Labor Means Machines". Some Florida orange growers are getting smart and using machinery instead of serf labor. That article also describes how political forces have prevented some farm mechanization.

Regarding guest worker programs in general, see "The Mirage of Mexican Guest Workers"

Regarding AgJobs, see this. Rep. Cannon received thousands of dollars from AILA lawyers, and that organization also helped Cannon draft AgJobs.

The other Naples News article Farm union, religious leaders laud federal farmworker bill has the details on the bill. As you read it, you will probably get the feeling that its requirements sound an awful lot like indentured servitude. You aren't alone: see Miami Herald "endorses indentured servitude". That post also contains a list of the organizations that support AgJobs.

And, to those who complain that lettuce would go to $10 a head without serf labor, see "How Much Is that Tomato in the Window?"

Posted to Immigration2005a at 12:14 AM | Comments (1)

How liberal of you!

Some of the DUmmies are voluntarily shipping themselves off to the gulags: "I'm kind of sick of this homophobia on DU" and "How I know Ann Coulter is not a man"

Posted to Bloggage at 12:05 AM | Comments (1)

"Unlikely activist a lifeline for immigrants"

Now here's a bit of strange article. It describes a driver's licenses for illegal aliens advocate and it also describes two separate occasions where that advocate was driving like a nut. Drive from L.A. to San Jose on two hours of sleep? Anyone who's familiar with the 5 knows that's a crazy idea.

In addition, it also describes as "recent" a protest that took place almost a year ago: Gil Cedillo: using a horrible crime for political purposes.

Was the SJMerc just digging around in their rummage bin and found a space-filler?

Posted to Immigration2005a at 12:02 AM | Comments (1)

"Arizona wants feds to deport criminals"

From this:

Arizona prison officials say taxpayers are paying more than $28,000 a day to incarcerate hundreds of undocumented immigrants because the federal government hasn't filed the paperwork necessary to deport them to Mexico.

Arizona Department of Corrections Director Dora Schriro said deporting such criminals should be a "no-brainer" given the money that could be saved and the beds that could be freed in the state's overcrowded prison system.

Formal deportation orders for 46 of the 526 eligible inmates have been on file for several months, but state prison officials can't get Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pick them up, Schriro said.

Posted to Immigration2005a at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)

Su piel es su vota

The LAT wonders why more Latinos are vibed up about the L.A. Mayor's race. After all, aren't not one but two of their own in the race?

Mayor's Race Registers a Big Nada ends with this:

"Villaraigosa is a man of the community, he's one of us," said the 33-year-old laborer. "When he lost, I felt that we as Latinos let him down, because we should have elected him. This time, he is going to win."

Translating that quote into white, black or asian, and dealing with the shitstorm that would follow, is left as an exercise.

Posted to MultiCultiCult at 11:34 PM | Comments (1)

Johnnie! is back to save Los Angeles

Johnnie! Cochran's firm is suing the City of L.A. over case of 13-year-old Devin Brown who was recently shot by the LAPD. AP report: "Johnnie Cochran's firm files claim over LAPD shooting of teen".

See also this commentary on the case: "Commentary: Slain Teen Didn’t Just Die at Cop’s Hands, but by Those of L.A.’s Black Community".

And, from 2002 but quite apt, see "Murder in L.A." by Larry Elder.

Posted to Los_Angeles at 11:34 PM | Comments (0)

Tom Ridge and... home improvement?

Ridge to join Home Depot board:

..."We are honored to have [Ridge] join our board, where we expect that his unique global experience and perspective will make a profound contribution to our company and our shareholders," said Home Depot Chief Executive Bob Nardelli...

As covered here in the past (1 2 3 4 5...), Ridge was not exactly a good friend to those who believe that the U.S. has borders.

For its part, Home Depot has helped create several day laborer centers near its locations and, of course, many or most of those day laborers are illegal aliens.

Here's just one example:

The Home Depot contacted Catholic Charities and other social service nonprofits, the local police department, and city leaders, asking them to work together to create a solution that each part of the community felt good about and that included getting services to people who needed work. As a result, the group worked together to plan a new day laborer center, to be operated by Catholic Charities in conjunction with several social service and employment agencies. The store donated land across the street for the center and helped provide start-up funding. The city helped put up fencing and spread leaflets to day laborers throughout the area. The company, nonprofit, and city worked together to create a win-win solution for everyone...

Now, maybe this is not a payoff for his support of wide-open borders. Perhaps, as the first article discusses, it has something to do with the run on duct tape that Ridge caused...

Posted to Immigration2005a at 05:58 PM | Comments (0)

"I was a Paris tart, says Labour candidate"

Cor! Blimey! Phwoar!

Labour has dropped a prospective MP after she confessed to having worked as a prostitute in Paris in the Seventies.

Christine Wheatley, who was on the shortlist of prospective parliamentary candidates for Copeland, in Cumbria, said: "Yes, I worked as a tart. I'm not ashamed.

"It was before I found proper work. I hit Paris with £300, I didn't have much to spend, I had to find money."

The 53-year-old, a former Oxford student, is now training to become a lawyer at the Inner Temple in London...

Tart, lawyer, what's the difference?

And, why, you might ask, is there not a picture? Well, you might not want to see the picture. But, if you're prepared, there's a picture of the "tart" here and here.

Posted to WackyHumor at 11:54 AM | Comments (1)

BigMediaBlog, BoreAmerica currently unavailable

I'm moving both sites to another host, and it will take 24 to 48 hours for the new DNS information to propagate. If you can reach them and they don't look normal, that's because they haven't been setup yet. They both should be back online Friday or Saturday.

This blog will be moved over the weekend. Further instructions will be provided in a future post pertaining to what you can do during the period that this blog is not available.

Posted to Bloggage at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)

Guest Commentary: RedAmerika responds to the Koufax Awards

[The following is a guest commentary from guest blogger "RedAmerika"]

First, I'd like to thank Lonewacko for allowing me here, reactionary running dog that he is. Now, to the subject of my post.

I see that the corporate lackey bourgeoisie at "Wampum" have selected the winners of the Koufax Awards for best "left" blog. Koufax - left, get it?

The awards are about as original as their humor.

Of particular note, only one or two out of a dozen or more blogs are from Bloggers of Color.

And, even though as Chairman Mao said "Women hold up half the sky", only a few of the awarded bloggers are women.

The Patriarchy wins again, and the Struggle continues.

Posted to Bloggage at 09:06 PM | Comments (0)

Today in low hanging fruit news: "liberal" hate edition

"Sabra", a 1000+ poster over at DU, asks "Has Gannon found a date yet for this years WHCA Dinner?" To their slight credit, the "liberals" don't join in on a jolly good round of Gannon jokes: the thread only got one reply.

That reply suggests Ann Coulter as a potential date. She's also mentioned in the longer thread "Today I perused Man Coulter's book..." That include a comment from a 1000+ poster: "Ann Coulter is not a Man! She was born with "ambiguous genitalia", a birth defect, and was surgically assigned to be female at age nine months. Calling her a man is unfair. It is sufficient to call her a Nazi." Those wacky, non-hate-filled "liberals!"

In slightly more important news, "liberal" paranoia is on display in the thread Why should I trust John Aravosis and "America Blog?" Trusted comrades vouch for him.

In the Gramscian category, we have "In honor of Black History Month - I apologize as a white American". The poster has 1000+ posts, so I'm almost certain he's not a VRWC member in disguise:

Well, I have been sorry 3 times for something my race did.

As a white American I am sorry for slavery and our 100 years of White shame where lynching, segregation and other mistreatment of people of color suffered, and still continue to suffer in many cases.

As a German American I am deeply ashamed of my German ancestry due to Hitler. Luckily, my people had been in the US since the 1700's, so my shame is more for my ethnic group than my direct ancestors.

Because I am a white American with some Native American blood, I am extremely sick over what our country did to Native People.

But it is Black History Month. I would like Black DUers to know I am sorry, and please share your heroes from black history. I know there are a lot of people who have been overlooked in "white history books"...

And, in the perhaps-even-important news category:

We have a "friendly" MSM reporter who is seeking Guckert news.

I've established a working relationship with a reporter for a major newspaper that all would recognize. He wrote two of the first Guckert articles well before anyone else in MSM. If you're familiar with my posts, you can figure out who it is.

He is willing to receive more information (nothing basic, he has already covered this aspect). Here is how you can help:

Apend to this thread "bite-sized" pieces of information. In the subject line, classify what the "bit" is. In the body write a brief description with supporting links.

I in turn will spoon feed the information to the reporter.

The poster's screenname is "paineinthearse", so if anyone wants to look through his past messages and figure out whether he's blowing smoke and, if not, who he's referring to, please drop a dime in the comments. We can discuss the irony of a "friendly-to-DU" reporter uncovering dirt on Gannon later.

Posted to Bloggage at 09:06 PM | Comments (0)

Dutch to deport three imams

AMSTERDAM — Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk is moving to deport three Muslim clerics because of accusations they represent a threat to public order and national security.

The three imams will be declared undesirable aliens and two of them will have their residence permits cancelled, the first such action has been taken against clerics.

In the third imam's case, an application for an extension of a residence permit will be refused.

The Dutch security service AIVD said one of the imams originates from Bosnia and a second comes from Kenya. The origin of the third imam was not released, newspaper De Volkskrant reported...

Posted to Immigration_euro at 09:05 PM | Comments (1)

Storm Watch 2005: Cleaning the L.A. River with a wash-backwash cycle type of scheme

The majestic L.A. River was running fast earlier today. The water was a few feet above normal, with some whitecaps caused by the wind and various obstructions. However, the water level was falling since the latest storm appears to have abated.

Whilst a-biking riverside, I thought of at least two things:

1. Wouldn't it be nice if no one else has thought of the slogan "Musty TV" as a play on "must-see TV"? It appears I was wrong.

2. Continuously confronted by various large clumps of garbage on the river side and stuck in the branches of the trees in the middle of the river, I pondered ways to clean up the mess. A large wire net could be suspended between two trucks on opposite sides of the river. The trucks would slowly drive up-river, and the net would shake the garbage loose and leave it to flow downstream. Alternatively, arrows with attached wires could be shot at the trees. The wire would be pulled back and forth to shake out the garbage, and then the arrow could be pulled free.

However, the best idea would be to install large cement locks at various spots on the river. During a storm, the locks would be closed, forcing the river water to flow back upstream. Then, the locks would be opened to let the water flow back to sea. Repeated enough times, this might create a wash-backwash type of cycle somewhat similar to that in agitator-driven washing machines.

Posted to Los_Angeles at 06:13 PM | Comments (0)

First time caller, long time dummy

In today's wacky news:

CHICAGO (AP) - Federal officials say they have finally solved a bank robbery because a suspect bragged about the crime on a radio talk show.

A caller boasted on WKSC-FM that he and five others tied up employees at a TCF Bank branch in South Chicago Heights in April, took $81,000 and spent some of the money at expensive stores...

...The FBI says Washington denies any involvement in the robbery, claiming he called the radio station to win a prize.

WKSC's format came in a big cardboard box stamped only with the block-printed word "TOP40". Compare their picture page with that from the L.A. station that also calls itself KISS. "Free Gas, Full Service Friday at Citgo in Bensenville" vs. "Free Gas Friday with JoJo".

(Similar report here.)

Posted to WackyHumor at 01:48 PM | Comments (1)

"US anti-war movement looking for second wind"

AFP:

The US anti-war movement is looking for ways to revive itself, following President George W. Bush's reelection and in the face of divided public opinion, to see US troops out of Iraq.

Some 500 representatives of pacifist organizations, former combatants, soldiers' families, as well as actor and activist Danny Glover, met last weekend in Saint Louis, Missouri, for the first time since the start of Bush's second term, seeking a united strategy for their efforts.

"United For Peace and Justice" the name of the coalition seeking to set its strategy in the coming months, organized the big February 2003 and August 2004 marches in New York, and said demos will be held on March 19 -- the second anniversary of the launch of the US war in Iraq...

Posted to ThePeaceMovement at 01:18 PM | Comments (5)

"No whites need apply"

From the "liberals" in the frozen north:

CRITICS ARE calling it "craziness" that the Correctional Service of Canada is disqualifying candidates for parole officer jobs because they're white. An Ontario job-seeker received a rejection letter recently, advising that only aboriginals and visible minorities need apply.

"Please be advised that effective immediately the Ontario region of the Correctional Service of Canada is no longer maintaining an inventory for parole officer applications from the general public," the Feb. 19 letter reads.

"Due to staffing resources we will continue to accept applications from aboriginal and visible-minority candidates only."

CSC is committed to having a "skilled, diversified workforce reflective of Canadian society," the letter continues, adding that future vacancies may be posted that are open to the "general public..."

Posted to MultiCultiCult at 01:13 PM | Comments (0)

"Conservatives, GOP Split on Illegal Workers"

Fox has a roundup of immigration-related opinion at CPAC. Summary: almost everyone on the ground level was opposed to Bush's guest worker plan except... the Libertarians. They're just .0005% of the electorate, but they're an influential .0005%.

Posted to Immigration2005a at 01:13 PM | Comments (1)

More straw, Tamar?

Cheap labor cheerleader Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute - last discussed in "Tamar Jacoby, CPAC, immigration, and not yet clued-in bloggers" - now offers us "Law and Borders":

[BP Agent Lee Morgan] criticizes the apprehensions as a waste of time and resources. "They're just poor people trying to feed their families," he shrugs... "What if the bastards come across here in Arizona and I don't catch them because I'm so busy chasing a busboy or a gardener that I don't have time to do my job--my real job--catching terrorists?..."

Morgan's personal nightmare is one urgent reason why all Americans, no matter what their politics, should support President Bush's plan to retake control of our southern border. The White House proposal, introduced in early 2004 and allowed to drop from sight during the election year, is back on the table. The president laid out his ideas again in the State of the Union and is reportedly planning a major initiative to take the issue to the public later this spring...

Let's pause here and examine Morgan's choice of words. Don't they sound a bit familiar? What he says sounds an awful lot like what Bush has said on several occasions, and consider this bit from a Wall Street Journal editorial:

"Somehow draining the terror swamp in the Middle East seems a lot more vital to U.S. security than stopping busboys from crossing the Rio Grande."

And, this bit from Bush ("Bush now self-parody"):

I want to remind people that family values do not stop at the Rio Grande river. People are coming to our country to do jobs that Americans won't do, to be able to feed their families.

Is it just a coincidence that Morgan spouts the administration's lines and uses the same examples as the WSJ? He's a frequent quote source for reporters, but, not to impugn his credibility, I suspect there's something we're not being told. Note also that this bit about Morgan was repurposed from an earlier Jacoby speech.

Continuing on:

...But the question is what to do about this other, illegal America--and the fact is that the president has the best idea, arguably the only idea that can possibly work. Many of his critics believe that the answer is to turn off the immigrant influx. We should, they say, make the necessary economic adjustments and do without the imported labor. It's an option; with enough resources, we probably could stop the flow. But are the American people prepared for the changes that would come with that decision? The likely economic sacrifice is incalculable: not just a few extra pennies on the cost of lettuce, but forfeited growth all across the economy, on a vast scale. In many industries today, growth depends on foreign laborers, who filled one in every two new jobs created in recent years. Then there would be the cost of enforcement--a cost in dollars but also in the way we live. Just ask experienced agents like Lee Morgan: Cutting off illegal immigration would require thousands more men on the border, routine sweeps in every city, roadblocks, roundups, massive deportations, a national ID card, and more...

Whoa! That's a lot of straw you've got there. Most of those wouldn't be needed if we'd just enforce the laws against hiring illegal aliens. As pointed out many times, if there were no jobs (and perhaps no public services) for them, most illegal aliens would simply self-deport. Those in the same class as Tamar can hire citizen or legal immigrant nannies, busboys, and gardeners.

Fisking the rest of Jacoby's piece is left as an exercise. Dan Stein of FAIR offers this:

(FAIR comment: The difference between rum smuggling and alien smuggling is that the latter involves people rather than a commodity. These are people whose effects on our society may last for the rest of their lives and represent a major cost to the nation's taxpayers, distorted labor market conditions that harm the poorest Americans, a drain on the economy because of money sent home as remittances, deterioration of services and unsustainable population increase. It is also important to recognize that, unlike with prohibition, there has been no real effort to enforce our immigration law since it was made unlawful to hire illegal aliens in 1986.)

Posted to Immigration2005a at 12:34 PM | Comments (1)

Scott Ritter says...

Mark Jensen of United for Peace of Pierce County reports:

Scott Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail yesterday [Friday 2/18/05] in Washington State, dropped two shocking bombshells in a talk delivered to a packed house in Olympia’s Capitol Theater. The ex-Marine turned UNSCOM weapons inspector said that George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and claimed the U.S. manipulated the results of the recent Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.

Olympians like to call the Capitol Theater "historic," but it's doubtful whether the eighty-year-old edifice has ever been the scene of more portentous revelations... [truly portentous verbage there, Mark --LW]

...On Iran, Ritter said that President George W. Bush has received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June 2005. Its purported goal is the destruction of Iran’s alleged program to develop nuclear weapons, but Ritter said neoconservatives in the administration also expected that the attack would set in motion a chain of events leading to regime change in the oil-rich nation of 70 million -- a possibility Ritter regards with the greatest skepticism.

The former Marine also said that the Jan. 30 elections, which George W. Bush has called "a turning point in the history of Iraq, a milestone in the advance of freedom," were not so free after all. Ritter said that U.S. authorities in Iraq had manipulated the results in order to reduce the percentage of the vote received by the United Iraqi Alliance from 56% to 48%.

Asked by UFPPC's Ted Nation about this shocker, Ritter said an official involved in the manipulation was the source, and that this would soon be reported by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist in a major metropolitan magazine -- an obvious allusion to New Yorker reporter Seymour M. Hersh...

Posted to Iraq at 12:44 AM | Comments (0)

"Who in the World is George Washington?"

(CBN News) - As the nation observes the 273rd anniversary of George Washington's birth, our first president's accomplishments are fading from the nation's consciousness. Many public school children no longer learn about President Washington in the classroom.

Some states have even removed required teaching about Washington from their standards of learning (SOLs), saying specific instruction about Washington is not needed...

A recent survey conducted by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni shows that four out of five seniors from the top 55 colleges and universities received a grade of "D" or "F" on their knowledge of American history. They could not identify Valley Forge, famous words from the Gettysburg Address, or even the basic principles of the Constitution.

Why don't they know the basics of American history? Part of the reason may be because students can now graduate from 100 percent of the top colleges in the United States without taking a single course in American history.

And 78 percent of colleges and universities do not require students to take any history at all...

Posted to MultiCultiCult at 12:42 AM | Comments (2)

"English-immersion foes hold children back"

Jill Stewart:

... Under Proposition 227, immigrant children were only supposed to stay in special immersion for a year or so, then go to mainstream class. But [California Superintendent of Schools Jack O'Connell] has refused to credit English immersion for soaring English literacy rates. His silence emboldens the anti-English ideologues who still strive to keep Latino kids in a separate world.

Again this month, O'Connell refused to credit English immersion, telling The San Francisco Chronicle he won't guess why kids are learning English so well...

...The State Board of Education finally ordered O'Connell to produce a study with that in mind. While we wait, I did my own study. I found that school districts like Los Angeles Unified -- where moderate Democrats stamped out failing "bilingual" education amidst fierce lefty resistance -- are producing big, lasting gains in English literacy.

By contrast, districts controlled by left-wing Democrats with an attitude of "they won't be able to talk to grandma!" are producing smaller gains...

Posted to Immigration2005a at 12:24 AM | Comments (2)

"Tulsa Senator Proposes Immigration Reform Legislation"

TULSA, Okla. -- A Tulsa senator is sponsoring what proponents are calling a groundbreaking approach to a dire economic problem by penalizing employers who hire illegal immigrants.

The Oklahoma Fair Employment Act, by Sen. Tom Adelson, would penalize employers who hire illegal aliens and give employees who are displaced because of those hirings legal status to sue.

Since appearing on Lou Dobbs "Moneyline" on CNN, Adelson has been drawing praise from national immigration reform groups, who contend the influx of illegal immigrants is suppressing wages and threatening the American middle class.

"This is first-of-its kind legislation in the country. It is a bellwether and I am sure we will see similar bills like this," said Dan Stein, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, known as FAIR...

Posted to Immigration2005a at 08:53 PM | Comments (2)

Give it up for Koko

...Their lawsuit said: "Through sign language, as interpreted by Patterson, Koko 'demanded' plaintiffs remove their clothing and show Koko their breasts."

It went on: "On one such occasion, Patterson said, 'Koko, you see my nipples all the time. You are probably bored with my nipples. You need to see new nipples. I will turn my back so Kendra can show you her nipples'."

The women, sacked in August last year, say they never followed the requests to undress for Koko...

(The picture - which might be fake - has nothing to do with the suit described at the link.)

Posted to WackyHumor at 08:46 PM | Comments (0)

Well, Mike Farrell maybe

From the leftie wall of shame at DiscoverTheNetwork:

(Note that the top and bottom halves are from different sections of the wall, and that Horowitz responds to critics of the wall here. Berresford is the head of the Ford Foundation, so maybe in her case as well.)

Posted to Bloggage at 03:37 PM | Comments (2)

"[Maryland] delegates seek cost of illegals"

ANNAPOLIS -- Maryland taxpayers deserve to know how much the state is paying to subsidize education, housing and health care for illegal aliens before it breaks the budget, two Republican delegates from Baltimore County say...

What's more, Mr. McDonough and Delegate Richard K. Impallaria said, they agree with immigrant-advocacy group CASA of Maryland's claim that Illegal aliens are being exploited by local employers, but said the problem goes deeper...

Earlier this month, CASA asked the Montgomery County Council to crack down on people who neglect the immigrants they hire by establishing a living wage of at least $10.50 an hour. The group also is requesting paid holidays, sick leave, vacation time and family and medical leave.

The delegates, who are co-sponsoring legislation for a study on illegal immigration for the second year, said last year CASA fought their bill, which would have provided basic numbers and exposed the economic impact and the exploitation of illegal immigrants.

"It seems like they wanted to cover up the problem that many of these people are illegals," Mr. McDonough said.

CASA officials did not return repeated calls to comment...

CASA was last discussed in this post, and there's more on them here.

Posted to Immigration2005a at 01:37 PM | Comments (1)

KoolAid Clear?

FYI: KoolAidCentral is no longer blueberry flavor, it now comes in the KoolAid Clear variety.

Posted to Bloggage at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

"Job data should give pause to immigration advocates"

From Steven A. Camarota of CIS:

The recovery from the recession of 2001 is often described as "jobless." But this is not entirely correct. My analysis of Census Bureau data shows that between March 2000 and 2004, the number of adults working in United States actually increased.

What's interesting, however, is that all the net growth in jobs went to immigrant workers. In fact, while the number of unemployed adult native-born workers increased by 2.3 million over this time, the number of employed immigrants rose by 2.3 million.

Significantly, about half the growth in immigrant employment was from illegal immigration.

It would be a mistake to assume that each job taken by an immigrant is a job lost by a native. Still, such statistics should give pause to those who want to legalize illegal aliens and increase immigration still further...

Posted to Immigration2005a at 11:23 AM | Comments (1)

Today in low hanging fruit news

10 out of 17 DUmmies expressing an opinion want a Spanish-language section of their website. One wonders why they would want such a section.

In other DU poll news, 126 DUmmies voted on the question "Is the b**sh administration fascist?" The results were quite surprising: ten of those voted "no." Of course, they've since been purged.

And, finally, the DUmmies help us understand why Utah is the reddest state in the union in the thread "How can I tactfully say no to a Mormon". Does Karl Rove have an account there?

Posted to Bloggage at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)

Jennings Explores ABCs of UFOs

From this:

Flying saucers and strange beings who have visited Earth aren't the typical topics reported by Peter Jennings, anchor of ABC's "World News Tonight." Jennings, whose new two-hour special tackles the subject of UFOs, admits he and his production team began the project with doubts and a dose of curiosity...

Segments include visits to the Center for UFO Studies outside Chicago, where files bulge with reports of sightings, and to a radio talk show on "UFOlogy." That show's host, Art Bell, cites among his 18 million weekly listeners "the most informed UFOlogists, the best scientists and some of the craziest people you'll ever meet."

The show will be broadcast this Thursday, on both sides of the Rockies at the same time.

Posted to Miscellania at 12:22 AM | Comments (0)

'Minutemen' to Patrol Arizona Border; DUmmies to support corrupt big corporations

The DUmmies have a thread on the ABC report "'Minutemen' to Patrol Arizona Border". Quite suprisingly, there are a few posters who agree with the idea that illegal immigration is a bad thing. However, as can be expected, there are also a few explicitly anti-American posters, and there's even someone named "Redstone" whose arguments sound very similar to those from FreeRepublic's own bayourod.

For your entertainment, here's the most explicitly anti-American comment:

37. What you call "Arizona" should rightfully be called Mexican soil Edited on Mon Feb-21-05 09:51 PM by wuushew So one could argue that a certain poetic justice exists when our southern brothers reclaim their birthright.

1840's Amerika could easily be compared to the to the tendencies of our modern hegemonic empire. Oil and Israel replaced gold and slavery with the meaningless label of Manifest Destiny serving as that century's terrorism buzzword.

Posted to Immigration2005a at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)

But... they're just here to do the jobs illegal aliens won't do

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) -- Importing workers from Asia to help harvest state fruit is a new trend based on a decades-old federal program -- and it's growing.

Last season, 170 Thai workers were imported to harvest Yakima Valley apples and cherries. This year, there could be at least 1,000...

Global said 95 percent of the local workers it hired in Washington last year didn't show up for a second day.

Several of them, represented by Columbia Legal Services, are seeking to intervene against Global to stop further use of H-2A workers in the Yakima Valley...

One man, a farm laborer for 20 years who was employed briefly by Global, said the company imposed unrealistic standards to get rid of local workers.

"The company wanted us to prune 100 to 150 trees a day and do a good job," he said, asking that his name not be used. "A worker could do that many trees, but not do them well."

Erik Nicholson, United Farm Workers' Pacific Northwest regional director, believes the Asian workers are the latest part of a historic cycle in farm labor.

"There's a subtle race card being played here, which is the legacy of agriculture. One hundred years ago, we were bringing Chinese workers onto our farms. They were replaced by the Japanese, who were considered harder workers. Then it was the Filipinos and then the Mexicans," Nicholson said.

"We have a similar trajectory here. As Mexican workers become more organized, one of the responses is to replace them with workers from Thailand."

Posted to Immigration2005a at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)

I think she's got "issues"

SAN FRANCISCO -- Could Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have another "woman problem" on his hands?

He has made headlines in recent months by deriding political opponents as "girlie men" and publicly ridiculing a group of nurses at a state women's conference.

His latest effort to paint the state's teachers as little more than a balky special interest group has angered many critics, who have begun to question why constituencies dominated by women have been singled out for such tough talk.

"He behaves like an arrogant patriarch with respect to women's occupations," said Rose Ann De Moro, executive director of the California Nurses Association. "Nurses, teachers, home health workers -- it's vulgar how he's run roughshod over them. He's arrogant, and he's a bully."

Read on for the other kindergarten-level "actions" the CNA and CTA are engaged in against Arnold.

Posted to California at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)

"Fat police lock up Chris"

From this:

SOBBING 31-stone [~420 lbs.] Chris Leppard was dragged off to a mental hospital against his will by meddling social workers and police.

Chris, 23, has been forcibly detained for a month because he cannot stop eating [due to a physical, not mental disorder --LW]...

She said: “Four people turned up and after some questions, said they were taking him away. Chris was really upset, crying, saying he didn’t want to go and that he wasn’t mental.

“We didn’t know they were coming to take him. He is being punished for being ill. He has a physical problem. He was working well towards losing weight...

...the authorities shipped him off to a specialist eating disorder unit at the Eastbourne Clinic where he will be assessed for up to 28 days...

...East Sussex County Council said “all proper procedures have been followed” — and such orders were “in the interests of that person’s health or safety or to protect other people”.

At this point you're perhaps thinking of an amalgamation between Orwell and the Simpson's:

Burns: But, where are you taking me? What's happening?

Wiggum: Relax. You've gone off your nut, so we're stuffing you
into an old folks' home. Those, uh, store guys signed the
commitment papers.

UPDATE: He's was released yesterday, and he's going to sue.

Posted to Privacy at 01:38 PM | Comments (1)

"Gingrich urges action against illegals"

WashTimes:

Newt Gingrich is demanding that the Bush administration get serious about stopping illegal immigration.

The former House speaker wants the United States to completely seal off its border along Mexico and Canada, deport illegal aliens within 72 hours of their arrest and exclude U.S. courts from reviewing such deportations.

"Let's be serious about sealing off our borders or [else] have open borders," Mr. Gingrich told more than 1,000 cheering conservatives on Saturday...

...Some skeptical conservative leaders interviewed after his speech noted that Mr. Gingrich did not explain how the "open green-card" program would work, or what more the administration should do to seal thousands of miles of border to the south and north.

Nor did Mr. Gingrich say whether he backed some form of President Bush's guest-worker program to allow illegal aliens holding jobs in the United States to remain � or whether such aliens eventually could apply for citizenship.

Many in the audience booed and hissed Manhattan Institute analyst Tamar Jacoby's defense of the guest-worker proposal. In a panel titled "Immigration Reform: Recognizing Reality or Surrendering Principles?" she clashed with Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly...

Posted to Immigration2005a at 12:41 PM | Comments (0)

"[NE Gov.] Heineman Says No To Illegal Immigrant Bill"

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- Gov. Dave Heineman rejected a call Saturday to publicly support a bill that would offer in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants.

Heineman's decision came during his first meeting with the Mexican American Commission... Commission director Cecilia Olivarez Huerta [supports the bill]... [...bill was sponsored by Lincoln Sen. DiAnna Schimek...]

The backstory about Nebraska seems to focus on meat packers and other large employers of illegal aliens. See Ag Sec'y nominee "Fought to Protect Giant Meatpackers from Immigration Law Enforcement" and Bush's Open-Borders nominees, which are about former NE Gov. and current U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns' efforts on behalf of those employers:

...The president's choice for Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Johanns, while Governor of Nebraska, used the power of his office to protect large meatpacking and agricultural interests in his state who employ thousands of illegal aliens and violate countless other labor and occupational safety regulations.

During 1998 and 1999, the Immigration and Naturalization Service launched a campaign known as Operation Vanguard in which they conducted audits of Nebraska meatpacking plant personnel files. The operation successfully drove-off many illegal aliens who were employed in these processing plants. Gov. Johanns, who has accepted large campaign contributions from large agri-businesses (2002 Campaign Finance Statement), stepped in on behalf of these contributors and pressured the U.S. Department of Justice to end these enforcement efforts...

There's more about Huerta, Johanns, and Operation Vanguard in February 1, 2000's Immigration Overload, this October, 1999 report, and, from the far-left side of things comes late last year's hysterically titled The Nightmare Continues and a 1999 report from the same author with a slightly less hysterical title: INS Declares War on Labor.

Posted to Immigration2005a at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)

"Hertzberg vs. Villaraigosa"

In a Sunday editorial, the L.A. Times says, "...the people of Los Angeles would be well served by a runoff election between Bob Hertzberg and Antonio Villaraigosa...",

Yes, indeed.

The former president of the UCLA chapter of the racial separatist organization MEChA facing off against a current board member of MALDEF. In the wacky world of the L.A. Times, that would indeed be a good thing.

On a humorous note, the LAT also mentions that Bob Hertzberg wants to build a tunnel under the San Gabriels, and that appears to be one of his less loony ideas.

No matter his faults, Jim Hahn is the only real choice in this election. Walter Moore can't win, and Bob Hertzberg or Antonio Villaraigosa would be devastating for the city and the state.

Posted to Los_Angeles at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)

I'm embarrased for both UPI and the Middle East North Africa Financial Network

Date: Saturday, February 19, 2005 12:21:44 PM EST

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Film star, movie director and businessman Jackie Chan has put his Beverly Hills, Calif., home on the market for $6.7 million...

The actor's 7,600-square-foot Los Angeles home has five bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms and three fireplaces, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday...

Sources say UPI and Middle East North Africa Financial Network should be embarrased for paying any attention to the LAT's Hot Properties column.

In other worthless news, "Scarlett Johansson complains about LA". You can read an older satire about a commercial she did here.

Posted to Celebrities at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)

"Anti-illegal immigrant column stirs up college"

*Sigh* If you've visited this blog before, you probably know the drill. If you're a newbie, keep reading.

So, anyway, here's a scan of the "controversial" essay, which was printed in a San Diego-area college newspaper. (Another scan is here.)

The SDUT's story on this is "Anti-illegal immigrant column stirs up college", also discussed here.

While there are a few problems with the essay, especially the part about the leeches, almost every American citizen would consider it well within the bounds of polite discourse. Despite that, one can imagine how this all played out. The race pimps didn't just whine:

[...someone saw] MEChA members crying and angrily denouncing the piece as they read it. MEChA called for a meeting with both the Sun staff and the college administration.

"We made it clear at that meeting that it was an individual opinion," said Sun faculty adviser Max Branscomb. "It was on the Viewpoints page, and it did not come close to reflecting the point of view of the staff as a whole..."

Robin McCubbin, a faculty adviser for Students For Community Action, attended the meeting. He later wrote in a statement to the college's faculty that the piece was "a racist attack and call for violence (How else should the recommendation of the application of fire to the body of a living organism be characterized?)."

In an interview, McCubbin said, "Even if it's legal, is there any justification for it appearing in a newspaper for our campus?"

But MEChA faculty adviser Margarita Andrade-Robledo was won over by Branscomb's defense of freedom of the press.

"I don't like the article, but the First Amendment gives them that right" to publish it, she concluded.

Because Andrade-Robledo would not support the club in continuing to call for a retraction and an apology, the MEChA board ousted her as adviser...

(Please note the link to discoverthenetwork.com. If you're a blogger or similar, I suggest you link to such organizations using a similar construct so that they can be easily found by those searching with google. Here's an alternate link for that organization. Or, use this.)

Posted to Immigration2005a at 08:57 PM | Comments (0)

Tamar Jacoby, CPAC, immigration, and not yet clued-in bloggers

There was an immigration panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference over the weekend, and a few bloggers have reports. Unfortunately, none of those bloggers have yet seen the light, but that might change.

First up we have "Anti-Immigration = Anti-Capitalist" from Ryan Sager. His bio:

...a member of the editorial board of The New York Post... worked and written for the Cato Institute, Reason magazine, The Wall Street Journal [,...less objectionable outfits...]

At his post I left the following comment:

There's so much in this post that's incorrect, so it's difficult to know where to begin.

Let's start with those quotes and them not being taken out of context. They were indeed taken out of context: the context being these are the same AILA slogans that Bush keeps repeating over and over.

Your concept of what constitutes a "labor market" is skewed as well. Illegal labor is also massively subsidized labor. If you support illegal labor, you also support subsidies to those who employ that labor. How much would companies have to pay their workers if those workers didn't have access to free schooling, free (emergency room) healthcare, discounted college educations, etc. etc.

The final comment is "liberal"-level race-baiting. We already admit 800,000 legal immigrants per year, many or most of whom are like "them."

For more on Tamar Jacoby and Bush's bracero program, see this.

You can hear an interview with her here. Let's just say she didn't win the argument. ;)

Moving on, we come to "CPAC Shadow Blogging*, Part I: Immigration". It quotes from Sager's post and offers a few misconceptions of its own. PrestoPundit leaves a comment, and this is the one I left:

...[Sager's] quotes were indeed taken out of context: the larger context of those being the same AILA slogans Bush repeats on the rare occasions when immigration is discussed...

In addition to PrestoPundit's argument, let's consider your quote about "entice Americans to do the back-breaking work involved in strawberry picking".

Let's think about what that means for a moment. What you're suggesting is that we can either give up strawberry production, or we can invite in a foreign serf class to do our nasty jobs. Isn't that the way they do things in Saudi Arabia and Japan? And, hasn't America already been down this road before a few times? Slavery, indentured servitude, coolies, etc. etc. Is that really the model we should follow in the future?

How about we either mechanize strawberry production, or we let it die. I'm sure it could be mechanized if necessary. Plenty of other crops are, and in some cases mechanization has been hindered for political reasons. Isn't that the better way to do things?

Other less worthy and virtually content-free posts about the immigration panel are here, here, and here.

Posted to Immigration2005a at 02:48 PM | Comments (0)

Tamar Jacoby gets her arguments shredded into tiny bits of straw

A couple weeks ago, John & Ken of KFI 640am interviewed cheap labor cheerleader Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute. I just noticed that audio of that interview is available here. Let's just say she didn't come off too well.

Posted to Immigration2005a at 02:46 PM | Comments (0)

I can't believe it's not a free weekly

Andrew McCarthy in NRO brings our attention to the latest open borders screed in the Wall Street Journal. In the WSJ editorial, they complain about the Real ID Act and say the following: "The last thing a terrorist would want to do is apply for asylum."

McCarthy provides his own examples of past terrorists doing just that. For other examples, see "Reading the 9/11 Commission Staff Reports: Chapter 3".

Posted to Immigration2005a at 08:00 PM | Comments (2)

Because... she's special

She's a special dog, and you love her. That's why her jewelry is important. Sure, you could buy cheap costume jewelry, but what if it causes all her hair to fall off or something?

No, what you want is the "Small Crystal Dog Collar, 15" by Paris Hilton". This is part of the Paris Hilton collection of dog collars inspired by the very ones worn by Paris Hilton's special little Tinkerbell.

Because the bitch is worth it.

Posted to Bloggage at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

Arizona legislators move to cut off funding to day laborer centers

From this:

Eleven Republican state lawmakers want to ban Arizona cities and counties from spending tax money on undocumented immigrants who line the streets waiting for jobs.

The legislators say day-labor centers are a failure and encourage illegal immigration. Rep. Colette Rosati, a Scottsdale Republican and main sponsor of House Bill 2592, said Arizonans are clamoring to curb illegal immigration, not to encourage it...

Posted to Immigration2005a at 07:43 PM | Comments (0)

Citizens United for Bush and... for American sovereignty?

The Citizens United billboards showing Our Leader President Bush vanquishing his enemies high above the Sunset Strip in Hollywood have been vandalized. But, that's not why we're here.

Instead, I invite you to visit Citizen United's website and find out more about their "American Sovereignty Project". All I found was this blurb:

American Sovereignty Project ("ASP") is the grass-roots lobbying arm of Citizens United that works to protect American sovereignty and security. ASP's major objectives include complete U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations, defeat of the treaty to establish a permanent U.N.-controlled International Criminal Court, and rejection of one-world government.

If they really mean that, why do they support Our Leader? President Bush and the Bush family are definitely part of the global elite, or they're at least very high-level employees of that global elite. Now, perhaps Bush doesn't want a One World Government, maybe the hemisphere will do. Bush is certainly working on bringing North and South America very close together, perhaps to include an America-wide government. See the various trade pacts Bush supports (FTAA, CAFTA), Bush's friendship with open borders advocate Vicente Fox, and, of course, Bush's guest worker plan.

For more, try Which candidate is less "American"?, An NWO flashback, the comments at the end of this post, and "Stealth Invasion".

If Citizens United really cared about U.S. sovereignty, they'd oppose Bush instead of putting up creepy billboards supporting him.

Posted to Politics at 10:25 AM | Comments (2)

Three suspects in the Geetha Angara (NJ chemist) murder?

February 18, 2005 -- Investigators yesterday identified three suspects in the drowning murder of a New Jersey water-treatment chemist, with roughly 40 of the woman's co-workers left to be interviewed...

The Prosecutor's Office has also accused Totowa cops of compromising the evidence. They say evidence such as a smashed beaker apparently held by Angara shortly before her death was swept up off the floor.

Investigators are also furious cops allowed the victim's brother-in-law to drive her car home from the plant before they searched it for evidence. "The crime scene was destroyed," one investigator raged...

The source for the news of there being three suspects? A "law-enforcement source". The three suspects are not named either. So, if we can trust the NY Post (definitely an arguable point), we need to trust the unnamed source. Even with that chain of trust satisfied, we then need to imagine this not being more than a blatant attempt to get the perpetrator(s) to do something stupid.

UPDATE: In addition to the titular topic, "TV crime show shot scene similar to chemist's death" has this:

...Avigliano would neither confirm nor deny a published report that investigators had identified three plant employees who "could have had the opportunity to commit the crime."

"The people in my office deny telling anyone that there were three suspects, and I certainly didn't say it," Avigliano said. "If somebody gave out that information, they would certainly be subject to disciplinary proceedings."

Totowa Police Chief Robert Coyle said he knew nothing about such a suspect list. Avigliano said he saw no need for further questioning of his own detectives...

(Via this. "Enlighten New Jersey"???)

Posted to Miscellania at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)

"[Mexican Interior Secretary] Creel lashes out after CIA report"

I don't know whether to put this in the Immigration or WackyHumor category. Here's what their Interior Secretary had to say:

"The CIA analysis is wrong, it's erroneous and it's false... It's also reprehensible for an agency of a foreign government to be expressing opinions about Mexican affairs... I reject interference in affairs of an internal character ... in which the CIA has no reason to be making opinions... We know that (the CIA) frequently is mistaken and makes erroneous decisions..."

Posted to Immigration2005a at 12:28 AM | Comments (1)

"U.S. Aides Cite Worry on Qaeda Infiltration From Mexico"

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 - ...Intelligence that "strongly suggests" that Al Qaeda operatives have considered using the Mexican border as an entry point was cited in written testimony [before Congress on Wednesday] by Adm. James M. Loy, the deputy secretary of homeland security. But he wrote that there was "currently no conclusive evidence" that this had succeeded.

In the past, law enforcement officials have said Al Qaeda might try to use the Mexican border, but the testimony on Wednesday seemed to suggest increasing concern. In response to questions from the senators, Admiral Loy described it as a "very serious situation,"...

In his written testimony, Admiral Loy cited recent information from investigations and detentions as the basis for his concern about the Mexican border. He added, "Several Al Qaeda leaders believe operatives can pay their way into the country through Mexico and also believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry for operational security reasons."

Posted to Immigration_terror at 12:22 AM | Comments (0)

[audio] The latest L.A. Mayoral debate

You can listen to the latest Los Angeles mayoral debate here. That debate was held on the Doug McIntyre show on KABC radio.

Posted to Los_Angeles at 12:20 AM | Comments (0)

"Liberals" get "liberalism" fed back to them by the shovelful

The previous post "PBS's Hypocrisy Revealed: PBS station opposes day-laborer center" discussed WETA's reaction to a day-laborer center that was located near their headquarters in Shirlington in Arlington County, Virginia.

There have been several reports on this center and on WETA's reaction to it. See also "Heights of hypocrisy" and this bit of socialist indoctrination as part of a class from George Mason University.

The center is partially paid for by taxpayers, and partially by unnamed foundations. Whether the Rockefeller Foundation is one of those benefactors is unknown. From August 2003:

WETA chief executive officer Sharon Percy Rockefeller attended Tuesday night�s board meeting, and was deeply critical of the final decision.

�It would absolutely complicate our lives,� said Rockefeller, who noted that the new facility is to be located adjacent to WETA�s broadcast center.

Rockefeller predicted that a �pretty hostile environment� would quickly develop between her employees, who now walk between the various facilities, and the day laborers. �I don�t want the incidents to happen,� she said.

Rockefeller also complained that the location of a day-laborer camp would complicate security around the studios of the �NewsHour,� public broadcasting�s signature daily news program. High-profile guests begin arriving at the studios shortly after noon each day, Rockefeller said, and would likely be met by the day laborers who did not find work that day.

�She�s part of the liberal establishment that created the mess, now she wants to protect elite liberals from it,� [Republican-leaning activist Robert Molleur] said. "Liberal hipocrisy at its best..."

The latest report about the center contains more about what happens when "liberals" get "liberalism" fed back to them:

..."I almost hit somebody again yesterday," [Jeff Rathner, a cameraman for WETA but who was only speaking for himself] said. "You have to slow down to turn onto that street, and they'll sprint after any car that comes by."

..."The very first day it was opened, some guy who was obviously drunk ran out in front of my car,� Rathner said. �When I stopped, he blurted something at me in Spanish."

..."Trash is left all over the place,� he said. �It has become a haven for scavenger birds and the most ungodly amount of bird poop that you'll see all over your car if you happen to park near there. It also brings rats."

..."People from our building will be walking by the job site, and they'll verbally harassed in Spanish,� he said. �Of course, some of us can understand it. We know what's being said."

..."Whenever anybody cries foul, they're told this they have some 'not in my backyard' attitude, but that's just not the case,� Rathner said.

..."We're working hard here with SEEC to find a solution that is good for the community,� said Pat Williamson, director of the station's administration, who declined further comment.

Build a few of those centers in the Capitol area of DC and see how fast the laws and the enforcement of them start changing.

Posted to Immigration2005a at 08:28 PM | Comments (2)

Save Our License failed to get enough signatures

The Save Our License initiative - which would have permanently prevented illegal aliens from getting California driver's licenses - fell 150,000 signatures short of getting on the ballot.

They made a few mistakes, but they also apparently didn't get the help they were promised from Rep. Darrell Issa and others.

As far as I know, only this blog and three others discussed this initiative. While other blogs have been more than willing to complain about illegal immigration in the past, they didn't want to help promote this initiative for one reason or another.

The blogs that covered the initiative are:

DiggersRealm

Res Ipsa Loquitur

XRLQ

UPDATE: I found one more blogger that covered this. That makes five!

Posted to Immigration2005a at 05:53 PM | Comments (2)

Guide for the Yucatecan Migrant

First there was news about the Guide for the Mexican Migrant. Then, there was news of Colorado's guide for illegal aliens.

The latest guide comes from the Mexican state of Yucatan:

The Guide for the Yucatecan Migrant, published by the southeastern state of Yucat�n, comes with an accompanying DVD in Spanish and Mayan. It tells migrants how to apply for U.S. work visas but also gives detailed safety advice for crossing illegally, including where to find water in the desert and how to avoid the most dangerous areas. The guide includes a section specifically about Arizona...

The Yucat�n government plans to show the DVD and distribute the books at community centers across the state...

The guide warns repeatedly that undocumented migration is a crime and that migrants routinely die crossing the border...

The state sends few migrants to the United States. Most of them, about 50,000, live in the Los Angeles area.

But the number has been rising, and the amount of money migrants sent back to Yucat�n doubled in 2001-04 to about $9 million. On Dec. 28, the government held its first Day of the Yucatecan Migrant ceremony to honor expatriates...

The Guide for the Yucatecan Migrant is filled with photographs and maps, and the cover shows a man in traditional Yucatecan dress standing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco...

It devotes 11 pages to U.S. visas and how to apply for them. The guide published by the Foreign Ministry in December contained none of that information and was widely criticized for it.

An additional 21 pages are about crossing the border illegally, including descriptions meant to help migrants avoid the most dangerous routes through Arizona, California and Texas.

Eight pages deal with crossing the Arizona desert...

"After passing through Lukeville, you will cross through a national park where you will find tanks of water," one section says. "If the smuggler decides to walk beyond the park, you will travel on paths where there is no Border Patrol but in places where military exercises are conducted."

...The rest of the book is devoted to life in the United States: how to send money home, where to find health care, differences in U.S. and Mexican laws and driving tips...

"There is an agreement between the governments of Mexico and the United States so that, no matter your migration status, you can study in elementary, secondary and preparatory schools," it says. "Don't stop studying; there is always an option..."

UPDATE: The 7Meg PDF of the guide is available here.

Posted to Immigration2005a at 02:35 PM | Comments (0)

"License Denials for Immigrants Are Blocked"

The NYT's Nina Bernstein is back with another misleading advocacy piece masquerading as a "news" report.

From "License Denials for Immigrants Are Blocked":

A judge ordered yesterday that the state stop taking away the driver's licenses of immigrants in New York who do not have Social Security cards, saying that the Department of Motor Vehicles is not authorized to enforce immigration law or to make new rules without public notice...

[seven paragraphs deleted]

...Most are in the country without legal authorization, the court