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Is present-day Detroit partly the result of large-scale "ethnic cleansing" inside the U.S.? (of "Ethnic-Americans")

This is just the latest in a long line of articles pointing out how Detroit is, in a manner of speaking, returning to nature. Their population has shrunk by half since the 50s, leaving large areas of that city abandoned and reverting to a somewhat natural state. And - since they don't have much money of their own - they want federal money to raze buildings and relocate residents.

Certainly, a major part of their problems is due to how globalism scum (why mince words?) helped damage the manufacturing base inside the U.S. in their quest for a flattened world. However, there might be even more to it, and that leads us into the book "The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal As Ethnic Cleansing " (link). Per a review:
The high-rise "projects" may have been a dismal failure, it is said, but urban renewal was done with good intentions. Not so, [author E. Michael Jones] argues in this immense volume that spans from the World War I era to the 1993 death of Philadelphian Dennis Clark, whose urban renewal career led him from Catholicism through Quakerism to agnostic Irish nationalism and whom Jones makes a touchstone of urban renewal's moral quality. The redlining, condemning, bulldozing, race riots, white flight, and aggrandizement of federal authority at the expense of cities and states that accompanied urban renewal were, Jones says, the consequences of WASP elites fighting to keep hold of the reins of power. Those elites saw the potentially powerful Catholic ethnic neighborhoods, with the church's influence animating them, as their primary political enemies. Armed with social engineering techniques, abetted by the subversive skills of Quaker do-gooders and military intelligence, and further empowered by fellow WASP jurists, they devastated Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, and Boston generally and the welfare of blacks in particular. But they maintained power, having gutted the Catholic ethnics, who fell into the trap of overt racism, and driven them into socially atomizing suburbia. Incorporating all the details into his sweeping narrative (the notes just refer to his sources), Jones makes gripping drama out of urban development. Unfortunately, the epic it recounts is tragic.
At least one of those major groups is still active, the American Friends Service Committee, and note also the effort from the Barack Obama campaign to reach out to "Ethnic-Americans".
Other tags: multiculturalism

Sun, 03/14/2010 - 20:54 ·

NCLR blocked me on Twitter

The National Council of La Raza has blocked me from following them on Twitter. This is, obviously, a trivial matter and it's not like I wanted to follow them, but it goes to character.

Other tags: deleted comments

Sat, 03/13/2010 - 14:35 ·

"People's Surge Against Obamacare 2.0": another ineffective Freedomworks scheme (Brendan Steinhauser)

On Tuesday, March 16 FreedomWorks plans a "People's Surge Against Obamacare 2.0" in Washington DC at which they expect "1,000 if not more people" to be "bused in from various parts of the country" in order to protest Obama healthcare. They'll then be sent out on a fool's errand (link):

[FreedomWorks' director of federal and state campaigns, Brendan Steinhauser says:] "We're telling people to go right into the three House office buildings: Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn. Find your congressmen, whether they are in the cafeteria, their offices, in the halls or hiding under their desks, and tell them to vote no. It's very simple." ...He added, "We'll help direct traffic. Come and deliver your message to Congress."

I've already seen this movie, and it doesn't have a happy ending. The attached video is from the February 2009 post entitled Melanie Morgan "storms" Arlen Specter's office over stimulus bill, does nothing useful. This latest Freedomworks scheme will be just like that, but without the addition of a low-level radio personality.

The much smarter and much more effective thing to do would be for them to use the question authority plan. In this case, that would involve Freedomworks finding those who are experienced with "cross-examining" people and who are familiar with specific topics to question politicians on video. Presumably, Freedomworks has logical reasons why they oppose Obamacare. Thus, they should be able to make their case and try to show how they think those opposite them are wrong.

Instead of doing things the smart and effective way, Freedomworks is just using an angry mob. Ask them why they keep doing things in showy but stupid ways instead of doing things that are smart and effective.

Other tags: tea parties

Fri, 03/12/2010 - 12:47 ·

Why Andrea Quarantillo of USCIS should be fired (misleads about TPS, remittances; Haiti; 100,000 expected to apply)

Andrea Quarantillo is the District Director for New York of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and if that agency had serving U.S. interests as its first priority she'd be out of a job. From this:

[Quarantillo] expects that about 110,000 Haitians will have applied for TPS by the July deadline.

She says that after the earthquake, Haiti could not support any Haitians returning to the country. The reasoning behind the policy, she explains, was to take some of the pressure off Haiti.

"It also allows Haitian nationals in the US to work and live legally here and perhaps send remittances back home which helps the economy and helps the recovery," she adds.

First, does anyone in their right mind think Haitians living illegally in the U.S. were going to rush to return home after the earthquake? Does anyone in their right mind think that the Department of Homeland Security was going to deport people there right after the earthquake? Does anyone in their right mind think that the DHS was going to conduct large-scale enforcement actions against Haitian illegal aliens? Quarantillo is selling a fantasy world, and the BBC is buying into it instead of calling her on it.

Second, for the reasons outlined here and here, the policies she's promoting will have the opposite effect to that which she claims to want. Those policies will make things worse both here and in Haiti. Remittances won't help Haiti in the long-term, they'll just make them even more dependent on us and less likely to enact reforms.

The best solution to deal with this issue would be to do what the DHS already does: don't enforce the laws. Those Haitians already in DHS's custody could remain there for a while or in some cases could be released with electronic monitoring. A more ambitious plan would involve some form of rebuilding corps in which we'd pay qualified Haitian illegal aliens to return home and help their country. That obviously could be abused but if most of our leaders weren't completely corrupt safeguards could be put into place.

Then, there's this curious bit, bolding added:

Ms Quarantillo says TPS can open up enormous opportunities.

"In eight years you could certainly get yourself a college education, you could probably get a job that might have a skill for which your employer could ask that you be given a green card, and even in that amount of time you would be very close to being able to apply for citizenship," she says.

TPS is supposedly for just 18 months, so where she's getting the eight years isn't clear. Whatever it is, I don't think there's an innocent explanation.

Ms Quarantillo's response [to those who say TPS is permanent] is firm. "It is not an amnesty, absolutely not. Temporary Protected Status is a benefit", she says.

People with a criminal record cannot apply, she stresses.

Nothing in those two sentences makes sense. The stock response to someone saying something is an amnesty is to talk about how it has to be earned; she's saying instead it's a "benefit". Maybe she should check with Frank Sharry or Tamar Jacoby first. The second sentence is a non sequitur: the issue of whether something is an amnesty or not is entirely separate from the issue of whether criminals can apply for the program. Criminals were able to apply to past comprehensive immigration reform bills, but they were amnesties because that's how they would be perceived, not because of who could apply. Does she even understand what people mean by amnesty?

To answer the last question, here's the kicker:

I ask Andrea Quarantillo what happens to the Haitians like Ms Semplice if their temporary work permits are not extended at the end of 18 months.

"When TPS expires, US citizenship and immigration service does not take all those TPS files and turn them over to immigration customs and enforcement and ask them to remove people from the US," she tells me.

"We simply shelve those files. If one of the enforcement agencies needs them because they have an issue with that person, they will call for a file specifically, but we do not just line them up and process them for deportation."

She's at least honest about one thing: TPS is a sham.

Contacting the DHS and suggesting that Quarantillo be fired over her comments would be worthless, since she's doing what the Obama administration wants. However, if you have a minute, please contact your representatives with the link to the BBC article and suggest that they contact DHS with their concerns.

Fri, 03/12/2010 - 11:43 ·

Whatever else, Steve Poizner is better than Meg Whitman on immigration (California Republican governor candidates)

Back in October, California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman visited the border and spouted a series of "business-friendly" immigration talking points; it was like if you could find a Tamar Jacoby talking doll on eBay, but without the latter's self-awareness. Then, last month she gave in to the far-left and turned her back on a supporter who'd inartfully complained about being called a racist. So, if you care about the issues we cover here, she's not an option (unless she wins the primary and, say, her Democratic opponent is Nativo Lopez).

Whitman is competing with California insurance commissioner Steve Poizner, whose position on the immigration issue seems to be a bit better. On the video at peekURL.com/vd7u7dn (attached right or below) he sounds a bit "business-friendly" also, and he harps on secure the border. The latter is sometime a sign that someone isn't serious, but Poizner gets points for bringing up immigration terrorism. In his case - unlike Whitman and most leading Republicans and Democrats - he might actually be mostly serious about securing the border. However, he's also in the "illegal bad, legal good" orbit, extolling the virtues of legal immigration. He's probably not quite in the Carly Fiorina "flood the U.S. with H1Bs" camp, but then again he probably wouldn't serve as an effective counterweight to those like her.

And, from [1]:

At a Republican dinner in Yolo County, in Northern California, Poizner tried to distinguish himself from Whitman by saying that "only one of us thinks of the immigration issue as a state issue and not just a federal one. There is a lot we can do here in California."

In another meeting with activists, Poizner said, “One of my key issues will be illegal immigration and stopping it once and for all; if I have to send the National Guard to the border, I’ll do it.”

Poizner has also said publicly that "illegal immigrants are overwhelming our education, health care and public benefits systems."

The last, fact-based statement is one you'll never hear from cowards like Whitman or Arnold Schwarzenegger, so he at least deserves some degree of support, even if only in a strategic sense. I.e., using him to oppose those who support illegal immigration or at least defending him against them.

[1] news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?
article_id=3e3f4cf7466906da6e930d76d8648a68

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 20:45 ·

Obama meets with black leaders on unemployment, Hispanic leaders on amnesty (+Graham, Schumer)

Barack Obama met earlier today with two groups with competing interests, even if neither he nor most of the rest of the political establishment would even hint at that (link):

[At a White House meeting earlier today] African-American members of Congress said they told the president that job creation is critical to their communities and that federal resources should be directed toward workforce training, specifically for infrastructure projects.

Unemployment among black Americans was 15.8 percent in February, compared to the overall jobless rate of 9.7 percent nationally.

"We talked about the desperation that we're feeling in our communities throughout the country," Democratic Representative Barbara Lee, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, said on the White House driveway with a phalanx of other lawmakers beside her...

[At a different meeting also earlier today,] Obama spent an hour meeting with officials from immigration advocacy groups who pressed him on an issue that did not feature highly in the president's first year, which was dominated by fixing the economy and healthcare.

"We leave the meeting today feeling hopeful," said Clarissa Martinez de Castro of the National Council of La Raza. "The president took an hour of his time to have a conversation, not to give a speech and that is significant."

She said that "there were commitments made about truly seeing this issue moving forward and the White House getting engaged to help in that process."

As if that wasn't enough, Obama also discussed amnesty plans with Sens. Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham.

UPDATE: Per Peter Nicholas of the Los Angeles Times (link), the latter two gave Obama a three-page "blueprint":

Although details of their blueprint were not released, Graham said the elements included tougher border security, a program to admit temporary immigrant workers and a biometric Social Security card that would prevent people here illegally from getting jobs.

Graham also said the proposal included "a rational plan to deal with the millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States." He did not elaborate on what the plan would be. But in a recent interview, he suggested that onerous measures were unrealistic.

"We're not going to mass-deport people and put them in jail, nor should we," Graham said. "But we need a system so they don't get an advantage over others for citizenship."

1. The national/biometric ID part in relation to amnesty is probably news to many commentators, but it's been discussed here for years: here, here, here, here, and so on.

2. The last quote from Graham combines two misleading talking points: deportations false choice and immigration line.

Other tags: obama immigration

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 16:26 ·

Teaparty apparently denied access to location of Obama visit (Arcadia University)

Barack Obama will be speaking at Arcadia University (Philadelphia) on Monday, March 8. And, it looks like he and his supporters are doing to the tea parties what George W Bush and Dick Cheney did to some of those supporters. From a press release from the "Independence Hall Tea Party Association" (independencehalltpa.com, in full here):

A least a few hundred Tea Partiers are expected to descend on the sidewalks surrounding Arcadia University, tomorrow, to voice their opposition to Obamacare after having been denied a request to hold a Press Conference/Rally on Campus.

An Arcadia University official, Laurie Bauer, denied the group access to the Campus after conferring with other University officials and, allegedly, the White House.

"We had hoped to be given space on campus so that we could better facilitate a Press Conference," said Organizer Don Adams. "We spoke with University Administrator, Laurie Bauer, around 3 PM on Friday. Ms. Bauer said she would check with unnamed University Officials and the White House. I was told to call her back in an hour.

"When I did so, she replied that the answer was "no." When I pressed her for permission to hold the conference on various campus parking lots, she again said, "no."

1. One wonders where the tea partier types were when Bush and Cheney were doing the exact same thing. I know where I was: complaining about such actions over five years ago. Can even a single tea partier provide evidence of them speaking out against "free speech zones" and the like during the eight glorious Bush years?

2. Obama's made dozens of appearances both before and after the election where he could be "cross-examined" over his policies. I tried to ask him a question at one such event over three years ago, I've spent countless hours promoting the question authority plan (such as trying to get people to attend his events and ask good questions instead of bad questions), and I've gotten almost zero help with it. The tea partiers are so incredibly stupid that they think waving loopy signs and acting like little kids is more effective than trying to engage Obama intellectually and show how he's wrong. It's still not a good thing that they'd be blocked from campus: let America see just how ineffective and foolish they are.

Sun, 03/07/2010 - 18:19 ·

Andrew Marcus and Andrew Breitbart support the DREAM Act (through their own stupidity)

I used to think that Andrew Breitbart was a bright guy who was laughing behind the backs of the absolute idiots that he publishes at BigGovernment, BigHollywood, and his other sites. Now, I'm not so sure.

A recent post from Andrew Marcus (link at [1], bio at [2], linked by Glenn Reynolds [3]) has BigGovernment acting like the far-left and racial power groups when it comes to concerns about illegal aliens being able to attend colleges at the in-state rate. And, unlike the far-left, they don't know what they're doing: they're helping the far-left because they're absolute idiots.

At the post, Marcus quotes a student who's been protesting fee increases as saying:

Well um in the fall the UC regents voted in a %32 fee increase to over 10000 a year for in-state tuition. This at a time that they are cutting classes, letting in fewer student from in-state and more students from out of state. Um, so effectively we are closing off the campus, making it less accessible to people, and those who are here are getting less out of their education.

He then goes on to accuse the student of hypocrisy and says:

That complaint doesn’t sound too immigrant friendly. Is she saying that Berkeley students only want immigrants from other states and countries just as long as they go to private schools?

Now, I'd like you the reader to please go take a look at the DREAM Act page, which is about an anti-American bill that would let current or former illegal aliens attend college at the in-state rate. Please go take a look; it'll just take you a minute to get the gist.

As you can see, this site has been opposed to that bill for several years, and on the PIIPP page we've collected a large number of examples of the mainstream media printing cookie-cutter propaganda articles promoting that anti-American bill.

Did Andrew Brietbart and Andrew Marcus come out against that bill and support those - like to a certain extent the student - who realize that we only have limited resources?

No, Breitbart and Marcus did the exact opposite, playing little games like little children and acting just like the far-left, but without knowing what they're doing.

Memo to Andrew Breitbart: grow up and try to raise yourself above Glenn Reynolds' level.

[1] biggovernment.com/amarcus/2010/03/05/
video-liberal-hypocrisy-on-display-in-berkeley-as-
student-defends-riots-against-education-immigration

[2] From biggovernment.com/author/amarcus

Andrew Marcus is an independent video and multimedia producer based in the Midwest. For the past several years his work www.andrewmarcus.com has focused heavily on web distributed political stories in video and blog format.

Early examples of his work include first-person coverage of the Camp Cindy protests in Crawford, Texas, as presented on his blog, Lights, Camera, Protest! In 2005, Andrew produced the video blog, The Mental Ward, to cover the Ward Churchill visit to DePaul University. In 2006, Andrew led a team of bloggers to produce ground-breaking video coverage of the congressional mid-term elections from Lieberman HQ. In 2007, Andrew produced the video blog, Incorrect University, to document politically incorrect actions on campus, beginning with the Terrorism Awareness Project’s Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. Recently, Andrew has been working closely with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) to produce web videos documenting stories of injustice on college campuses. Most recently, Andrew has devoted his energies to producing Founding Bloggers, his current political blogging project.

[3] pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/95116 says "AT BIG GOVERNMENT, a look at Berkeley Riot Hypocrisy. Who knew those rioters were immigrant-haters?"

Fri, 03/05/2010 - 21:37 ·

Obama meets with Lindsey Graham, Chuck Schumer, wants amnesty bill

Peter Nicholas of the Los Angeles Times offers "Obama looking to give new life to immigration reform" (link):

[At a meeting on Monday], Obama and members of his Domestic Policy Council outlined ways to resuscitate the (comprehensive immigration reform aka amnesty) effort in a White House meeting with two senators -- Democrat (Charles Schumer) of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- who have spent months trying to craft a bill.

According to a person familiar with the meeting, the White House may ask Schumer and Graham to at least produce a blueprint that could be turned into legislative language.

The basis of a bill would include a path toward citizenship for the 10.8 million people living in the U.S. illegally. Citizenship would not be granted lightly, the White House said. Undocumented workers would need to register, pay taxes and pay a penalty for violating the law. Failure to comply might result in deportation.

Nick Shapiro, a White House spokesman, said the president's support for an immigration bill, which would also include improved border security, was "unwavering."

Participants in the White House gathering also pointed to an immigration rally set for March 21 in Washington as a way to spotlight the issue and build needed momentum.

1. The "lightly" part is bogus; "register, pay taxes and pay a penalty for violating the law" is stock boilerplate and doesn't represent anything tougher than all the other bogus plans put forth in the past. Note also that those who didn't step easily through their big hoop "might" be deported. They might as well just come right out and say this is a sham that would encourage more illegal immigration and with little intent of enforcement.

2. This could be (and probably is) just an attempt by the Obama admin to placate Hispanic leaders.

3. Schumer says he has trouble finding Republicans to support him other than Graham; he met with Janet Napolitano yesterday to seek her help and afterwards in a statement said, "We just need a second Republican."

4. There are probably a good number more illegal aliens in the U.S. than the figure given as a fact by Nicholas.

5. The March 21 event will feature foreign citizens who are here illegally marching through our streets in a show of force, demanding that we change our laws to suit them. And, all those referenced above are supporting that.

Other tags: obama immigration

Fri, 03/05/2010 - 10:46 ·

Obama admin to close office that tracks jobs lost to outsourcing

Via "Obama Solution to Stop Outsourcing: Stop Counting Jobs Outsourced (No, Seriously!)" (link) comes this:

Like a scorekeeper for the world, a tiny unit within the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks globalization's winners and losers, and the results are not always pretty for the United States. Manufacturing jobs here, for example, have fallen faster since 1979 than in Canada, Germany or Japan. Compensation for those jobs dropped here in 2008 but jumped in South Korea and Australia.

Soon, however, Americans may be spared the demoralization in these numbers: The White House wants to shutter the unit that produces them.

President Obama's budget would eliminate the International Labor Comparisons office and transfer its 16 economists to expand the bureau's work tracking inflation and occupational trends. The White House says the cut, estimated to save $2 million, is one of many difficult decisions the president was forced to make to control spending.

Somehow their explanation doesn't wash, especially since at least their economists are just being transferred instead of their jobs being eliminated completely. The first-linked article's take is probably correct: this is designed to hide just how dramatically our manufacturing base has been devastated by globalism.

Thu, 03/04/2010 - 16:36 ·

Andrea Nill promotes false Obama claim in smear of Lou Dobbs

In May, 2008, Barack Obama smeared Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh, falsely claiming that hate crimes against Hispanics had "doubled" the year before. In fact, they only went up 7.8%. Not only that, but they've decreased as a percentage of the Hispanic population between 1995 and 2006.

Given that, you might not expect Andrea Nill of ThinkProgress to write the following, unless you were familiar with that site and her work. In that case, you - like me - would realize just how truth-challenged both she and the others associated with that site are. Referring to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (perhaps more on that later), she writes (thinkprogress.org/2010/03/03/dobbs-splc-hate-groups):

While campaigning in 2008, Obama himself accused Dobbs of "ginning things up" to such an extent that hate crimes against Latinos soared.

The last sentence links links to the contemporaneous Huffington Post report at huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/23/
obama-rush-limbaugh-lou-d_n_103315.html which, of course, doesn't even hint at how much Obama was lying.

If Nill had even a smidgen of intellectual honesty she would note that Obama lied. As it is, I strongly suspect that her use of "soared" instead of what Obama said ("doubled") is an outright attempt to deceive her readers but at the same time not raise red flags by repeating something so obviously false.

Wed, 03/03/2010 - 21:38 ·

Three-quarters in Tea Party think immigration "very important"; their leaders think otherwise

The Sam Adams Alliance conducted a survey of some in the tea parties, and the results are at samadamsalliance.org/learn/activist-insights.aspx

The study suffers from a very small sample size, and whatever their methodology that means that the study is just for entertainment purposes only. However, it does show that fully 3/4 of respondents think immigration is "very important".

The problem, of course, is that the real leaders of the tea parties are on the other side.

Wed, 03/03/2010 - 12:56 ·

What Dan Riehl doesn't want you to know

This site is about compiling information, and I'm willing to reference a wide range of sources as long as they've got something useful. I might not link to them directly, but I'm never going to hide things from my readers just because I don't like the source for one reason or other.

Dan Riehl isn't like that. He recently deleted a comment I left at his site that provided background information that his readers would probably find useful. That comment, and a previous one that was silently edited, is below. And, the first comment - while anti-Riehl - was also generally supportive of his position. In my case, if someone left a comment here along the same lines, I'd swallow my pride and put getting you information (far) ahead of trying to save face.

In Dan Riehl's case, his ego is apparently more important to him than getting information to his readers. And, because he's willing to delete comments that provide additional information, you can't trust anything he writes. He could post something false or incomplete, and then simply delete comments pointing out how he's wrong or not providing the full picture. He has, in effect, disabled fact-checking on his posts. That means that you'll need to fact-check every single thing he writes yourself, and you'll also need to research the topics about which he writes to make sure that he's giving you the full picture.

Other tags: deleted comments

Wed, 03/03/2010 - 12:36 ·

With millions unemployed, Arnold Schwarzenegger calls for more foreign workers (construction, farmworkers, academic)

Millions of Americans are unemployed, including large numbers of construction workers. So, what does Arnold Schwarzenegger - one of the most corrupt governors in the country - do? He goes on the Greta van Susteren show on Fox News on February 23 (link) and says this:

...I've said this many times, that we need (comprehensive immigration reform)... ...because to solve this problem -- well, we've got to go and make a decision so that people can come to this country legitimately, rather than having quotas there, so that -- because we need the farm workers. We need the construction workers. We need to have people do certain jobs that maybe that we cannot fill otherwise.

The last is a variant of the jobs Americans wont do canard. He also supported skilled immigration, advocating to give visas to foreigners attending U.S. colleges after they've finished their studies.

If you'd like to do something about this, make sure that as many construction workers as possible know how little concern Schwarzenegger has for them, and suggest they contact his office with their brief, polite thoughts: gov.ca.gov/interact

UPDATE: I sent twitter.com/24AheadDotCom/status/9911608546 to him (or whichever intern handles his Twitter account):

@Schwarzenegger: Millions of Americans are unemployed & you want more foreign workers? Please take advantage of your Austrian citizenship.

That references something that probably few know: he has dual U.S.-Austrian citizenship. The issue of his corruption is due to divided loyalties between American citizens and the "global elite", so to speak. Very little or none is due to divided loyalties between the U.S. and Austria. However, because he's an Austrian citizen and that gives him an out: if things get really bad in the U.S. he has another country he can move to. It'd be nice if he decided to do that now.

Tue, 03/02/2010 - 22:33 ·

Gerald Seib of WSJ misleads about Tea Partiers and immigration

Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal offers the misleading "Tea Party Holds Risks for GOP" (link) in which he refers to the "close-the-borders rhetoric common within the Tea Party movement" [1].

In fact, the opposite of what Gerald Seib says is true: the tea parties have almost completely ignored immigration, and some of their leaders strongly support massive or illegal immigration. For instance, their leaders such as Dick Armey from FreedomWorks, Grover Norquist, and groups linked to the Koch family are about as far from "close-the-borders" types as you can get. The "Tea Party Declaration of Independence" completely ignored immigration, as did the "Tea Party Contract From America". And, by ignoring that issue, they're depriving themselves of a perfect way to oppose the corrupt DC establishment and in effect helping the Democrats costs them money and reduce their power. One of the dirty little secrets of the tea parties is how they're a Trojan Horse for libertarianism, an ideology that the vast majority of adherents think must involve a "free movement of people", i.e., open or loose borders. Certainly, some in the tea parties might support border enforcement, but they're very, very quiet about it; no actual leaders of the movement have highlighted that issue despite how fundamental it is. ALIPAC held some anti-illegal immigration "tea parties", but they were never supported by the leaders of the movement.

The only example of tea partiers supporting border enforcement that Gerry Sieb can provide comes from Tom Tancredo, someone who's not only not a leader of their movement, but who's been smeared by those in the tea parties orbit such as Reason Magazine. Tancredo spoke at the National Tea Party Convention, which was covered by PajamasMedia and others in the vanguard of the actual movement, but that doesn't make him a leader of the movement. About the speech, Gerald Sieb says:

Mr. Tancredo declared that if Republican nominee McCain had won last year's presidential election, he and Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, "would have been posing in the Rose Garden with big smiles as they received accolades from (the National Council of La Raza) for having finally passed an amnesty" for illegal immigrants. Moreover, he added, Mr. McCain and Mexican President Felipe Calderon "would be toasting the elimination of those pesky things called borders and major steps taken toward creation of a North American Union." ...That is cringe-producing rhetoric for Republicans who are straining to show they are, simultaneously, tough on illegal immigration yet empathetic with the nation's growing bloc of Hispanic voters.

That rhetoric is certainly hyperbolic, but one wonders why Gerrald Seibe would think that Hispanics would be in favor of a NAU or are fans of a foreign leader? They're Americans, right? If Hispanics respond negatively to criticisms of a far-left fringe character like Gutierrez, where does the problem lie? Clearly, Seibe isn't honest enough to consider whether him cringing is correct or not.

[1] Very few people want to "close the borders", which would involve blocking all traffic both legal and illegal; Seib is just trying to smear his opponents.

Tue, 03/02/2010 - 14:53 ·


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2 hours ago

Is present-day Detroit partly result of large-scale "ethnic cleansing" inside the U.S.? (of "Ethnic-Americans") 24ahead.com/n/9851

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@KarlRove caught in Iraq lie: peekURL.com/zkts2pp

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1 day ago

SWM seeks SF (any race) in #teaparty for "Patriot games". **Please no Communists.** Must have Betsy Ross outfit. Contact: @TomPaine4U269XXX

1 day ago

Autogenerated spam posts at Amazon Askville? peekURL.com/zjsv1xh To drive traffic to that link? Also: peekURL.com/zzb5qky ???

1 day ago

@NCLR blocked me on #Twitter: 24ahead.com/n/9850 (Very trivial matter, but goes to character. They probably aren't alone.)

1 day ago

#Teaparty Patriot (n.): One who turns their back on unemployed Americans in order to do the bidding of Dick Armey & the Kochtopus. #sgp #tpp

1 day ago

"Tea Partiers distribute signs paid for by RNC": peekURL.com/zrga4yd @michaelpleahy #teaparty #sgp #tcot #tpp #glennbeck

1 day ago

Quiet++ (n.): Very quiet; as quiet as #Teaparty "patriots" about unemployment and massive and illegal immigration. #sgp #tpp #glennbeck

1 day ago

#Teaparty: we all know that John Podesta's secret plan is to leech copper from our bodies and then sell the copper to China. But: ionically?

1 day ago

Lady Gaga Telephone video: peekURL.com/v4wv473 I am deeply troubled and offended by this mix of high art and low commercialism.

2 days ago

@NumbersUSA has "Stop amnesty in four days": peekURL.com/zja846c Smarter, easier way: 24ahead.com/s/question-authority

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My trip to Alpine County What not to do, again (September 1-2, 2002)

Boston Market Cornbread Temperatures Please help contribute to this important study (August 28, 2002)

Did The Gap Put Celebrities at Risk? An Open Web Letter to The Gap (May 20, 2002)

Humphreys Peak Arizona's highest point (May 19, 2001)

Go Heavy, Go Slow, Get Lost Bay Area highpoints (December 14, 2000)

Hubris in New England The highpoints of RI, CT, and MA (October 8, 2000)

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