Roy Herron is a Democrat running for Congress in Tennessee. Glenn Reynolds reprints an email he received from Herron (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/95867):
My top three priorities in Washington will be fiscal responsibility, fiscal responsibility, and fiscal responsibility... ...I drive a 12-year-old truck with 375,000 miles on it. My sons call me cheap, but Washington needs more of us with 375,000-mile pickups who’ll spend your money like our own.
To which Reynolds says, "Sounding more like Scott Brown than Barack Obama... And who’s this “Washington” he’s running against, exactly?..."
Where does one begin?
1. Using a truck as a prop is a sure-fire sign that someone thinks you're stupid: they're trying to pretend to be Everyman when they aren't. Scott Brown isn't Everyman, and neither is Fred Thompson (whose truck was taken to his campaign appearances on a trailer). Needless to say, Glenn Reynolds is helping Herron with his hunt for useful idiots rather than calling Herron on it.
2. A 1998/99 truck isn't that old, but 375,000 is a lot of miles. You never know, but there's a very good chance that at least the engine is a rebuilt and doesn't have that many miles.
3. While automobiles aren't like, say, computers, and there are many factors involved, a newer vehicle will probably have better mileage, better emissions, better safety, and be more reliable. All of those are costs, both to Herron and to others. He's probably very slightly raising the risks for himself and others, probably very slightly having an even more negative impact on others' health, and increasing the chances that he'd be stranded somewhere thus raising costs for himself and possibly for others (police, etc.) Those are all trade-offs, but if he can afford it (and he probably can), perhaps he should scrap the junker and get a better truck. Unless, of course, it's just a prop. (Whether it's fair to call him penny-wise-pound-foolish depends on the condition of the truck, but it's probably getting to that point.)
4. And, of course, Herron is concentrating (or pretending to concentrate) on what is basically a symptom of a deeper problem. There's not a single instance of immigration on his site (royherron.com) which obviously isn't such a good sign about his claim to reduce spending.
Wed, 03/17/2010 - 19:43 ·
Andrew Rosenthal - editorial page editor of the New York Times - has no concept of shame, willing to bend any and all subjects to his favorite: supporting massive and illegal immigration. Just the latest instance comes in "San Patricio" (nytimes.com/2010/03/17/opinion/17wed4.html):
On this day of all days in the Irish-American calendar, when ethnic pride swells, let’s raise a toast: Here’s to the Irish, and here’s to the rest of us. May we never forget where we came from. Nearly all of us were Mexicans once. That is: the new immigrants, poor and reviled, propelled by hope and hunger into America’s prickly embrace.
Please see the immigration tradition fallacy page for why that's wrong.
What brings this juxtaposition to mind is “San Patricio,” a new album from Paddy Moloney of the great Irish traditionalist band the Chieftains. It commemorates a historical footnote: the San Patricio battalion of Irish-immigrant soldiers who deserted the United States Army and fought for Mexico in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. They picked the losing side, were captured, executed or branded as traitors, and then forgotten, except by Mexicans... ...[promotes a song] sung in Spanish by the Mexican supergroup Los Tigres del Norte...
1. I'm not familiar with that historical event and knowing more might change my mind, but the idea of deserters doesn't exactly reflexively fill me with ethnic pride.
2. In a war of some kind with Mexico - not necessarily involving declared hostilities - one wonders whose side many U.S. citizens of Mexican origin would decide to be on. It's difficult to imagine many Mexican citizens in the U.S. - whether legally or not - siding with the U.S. And, the other things that the establishment isn't in favor of - such as assimilation - isn't exactly helping that. Rosenthal probably didn't intend to raise such questions in peoples' minds, but hopefully he did.
3. In addition to thinking that his readers are useful idiots, Rosenthal is himself a useful idiot. Do a find here for Tigres del Norte to read about another of their songs, which includes:
Let me remind the Gringo
That I didn’t cross the border, the border crossed me
America was born free – man divided her
They drew the line so we had to jump it
And they call me the invader
Based on my long experience with people like Rosenthal, they don't consider statements like that to be hostile but rather just a charming expression of "ethnic pride".
Wed, 03/17/2010 - 15:19 ·
It's Sunshine Week - a celebration of access to government records (sunshineweek.org) - and some in Hawaii want to go the other way: their state House Judiciary Committee was presented with a proposed bill that would allow state officials to ignore requests about the Obama citizenship issue. Needless to say, such a move would be cheered by plenty of borderline fascists on the mainland too; they'd like nothing more than for everyone to accept the official story, stop asking questions, and just move on. Such a desire shows, among other things, how incompetent they are.
From this:
"Sometimes we may be dealing with a cohort of people who believe lack of evidence is evidence of a conspiracy," said Lorrin Kim, chief of the Hawaii Department of Health's Office of Planning, Policy and Program Development.
So-called "birthers" claim Obama is ineligible to be president because, they argue, he was actually born outside the United States, and therefore doesn't meet a constitutional requirement for being president.
Hawaii Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino issued statements last year and in October 2008 saying that she's seen vital records that prove Obama is a natural-born American citizen.
But the state still gets between 10 and 20 e-mails seeking verification of Obama's birth each week, most of them from outside Hawaii, Kim said Tuesday.
A few of these requesters continue to pepper the Health Department with the same letters seeking the same information, even after they're told state law bars release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible interest. Responding wastes time and money, Kim said.
Note also that Mark Niesse of the Associated Press may have either lied or at least been unclear above: only the second Fukino statement said that he was a "natural-born American citizen", not the first. And, she's not qualified to make such a judgment, although her statement was approved by Hawaii's AG. To those who want to sweep this under the rug, an AP reporter lying and an AG making a legal determination behind closed doors doesn't matter.
Wed, 03/17/2010 - 14:25 ·
Discussing March 21's big illegal immigration march, Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson says (link):
And so, the immigrant leaders called a march on Washington that, as Gutierrez says, "is primarily directed at President Obama and his administration." In that sense, the march comes straight out of the A. Philip Randolph playbook. Randolph, the president of the old Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, called the first March on Washington in 1941 to pressure Franklin Roosevelt to issue an executive order desegregating defense factories. When Roosevelt issued the order, Randolph agreed to call off the march. But he called for such a march again in 1948 to pressure Harry Truman to desegregate the armed forces -- and when Truman issued that order, Randolph again called off the march. The third such march he called -- in the summer of 1963, to demand the passage of civil rights legislation -- famously and gloriously took place.
...And if the president doesn't agree? "We will go into the field," says (Luis Gutierrez), "like the civil rights movement and the suffragists did." "We will escalate," says Gustavo Torres of Casa de Maryland, "to civil disobedience."
1. See the Hispanic civil rights page for a brief discussion of how giving rights to American blacks who were citizens isn't the same as what Gutierrez and Torres want to do: give U.S. civic rights to citizens of foreign countries.
2. The fact that a Washington Post columnist would print Torres' comment without asking him about it or commenting on it is a bit shocking. Not that it would do much good, you can complain to ombudsman *at* washpost.com
3. If someone else has pointed this out in a better fashion let me know, but Meyerson's issues seem to relate less to standard pathologies (bleeding heart "liberalism", guilt, etc.) and more to the fact that he's not that bright and he's also a bit of a clueless "wannabe".
Wed, 03/17/2010 - 14:11 ·
The latest cheap, ineffective stunt from the tea parties is a recall effort against New Jersey senator Bob Menendez. A state appeals court has ruled that the recall effort can proceed, but it will probably go to a higher court (link).
So, the partiers are going to be faced with a long legal challenge and in addition are going to have to get hundreds of thousands of signatures. The latter is exceedingly difficult and in almost all cases getting that many signatures would require hundreds of thousands of dollars to be spent on paid signature gatherers, not to mention the process of checking that there are enough valid signatures. Their chances of succeeding are extremely slim. And, the whole effort by those who pretend to hold the Constitution in highest regard might be unconstitutional. And, all for what?
NJ Tea Parties United and the Sussex County Tea Party say they want Menendez removed because he votes for too much government spending.
The much smarter (and much more inexpensive) thing to do is discredit Menendez over his very strong support for illegal immigration; see his name's link above for some of our coverage and see the question authority page for an action plan.
Menendez is extremely vulnerable on that issue, and the reason he supports it is because he wants to obtain more power. He'll then be able to use that additional power to push for additional spending. Yet - despite how vital it is and how it can be used to discredit him and reduce his power - the tea partiers have no interest in even discussing that side of things. Some of them are on Menendez' side when it comes to immigration, others of them are on the take, but most of them are just complete idiots.
Tue, 03/16/2010 - 14:50 ·
On March 12, Rick Sanchez of CNN offered a video segment about the anti-American DREAM Act, a bill that would let foreign citizens who are here illegally take college educations away from U.S. citizens (video link).
I don't need to tell anyone that Sanchez only offered a sales job for that anti-American bill, without telling his viewers any of the negative effects it would have. He didn't question any of the four guests (who are walking from Miami to Washington DC as a protest) about those downsides. In case there's anyone who trusts Sanchez' reporting, ask yourself why he only presented a sales job instead of exploring the downsides.
Not only that, but at around 1:25, Sanchez says to one of the students, "so you're like a little Gringo, an American". In the U.S., that's either a slur against Americans (when said of those not originally from the U.S.) or an ethnic slur. The reader is urged to contact Jon Klein of CNN with your thoughts: @JonKleinCNN.
Tue, 03/16/2010 - 13:53 ·
Glenn Reynolds says [1] "FREE TRADE: A jobs program that works", which links to "Trade is a jobs program that works" [2] from the site "Bankrupting America". That's run by an organization called "Public Notice", and the person behind both is Gretchen Hamel who was formerly part of the U.S. Trade Representative's office in the George W Bush administration [3]. Yes, all of the above are big clues to what's coming:
Opponents of trade liberalization claim that jobs are lost as a result of increased competition with foreign producers. Additional competition can result in some job loss, which can be acute in certain sectors and painful for those involved. Yet those costs are dwarfed by the benefits free trade creates.
Free trade improves our standard of living by giving millions of Americans access to higher quality, lower priced, and more diverse goods. U.S. businesses also benefit from access to lower cost imports, which reduces their input costs, enabling them to produce more, hire more, and compete in the world market.
1. Can someone provide a trustworthy study showing the supposed benefits from free trade? Does that study take into account all of the massive impacts, such as hollowing out the manufacturing infrastructure in the U.S.? From this (which was linked from here):
Since 2000, the U.S. has lost 5.5 million manufacturing jobs, with 2.1 million of those jobs being lost in the last two years alone. Since 2001, over 42,400 factories have closed in the U.S., and another 90,000 are considered at severe risk of closing. The last time so few were employed in manufacturing was in 1941, before World War II spending pulled that sector out of its Great Depression slump.
2. The claim about "higher quality, lower priced, and more diverse goods" is more or less specious. If one U.S. company produces a low-quality product, other factors excluded, another U.S. company will compete with them by producing a higher-quality product. Of course, due to things such as slave and child labor, people living on a dollar a day, and so on other countries are able to produce comparable items at a lower price than U.S. producers, but the "higher quality" claim is bogus. The only products that the U.S. can't produce at any price are certain luxury goods and foreign innovations, but those will command a premium price. There's no "diversity" in free trade, since that almost completely deals in commodity items. None of that means we should wall off the U.S. (a strawman argument that "free" trade supporters like to make), however there's really no national interest in opening our markets even more to countries like China.
3. And, of course, Reynolds is just one cog in the long line of those - including the tea parties which he constantly promotes - who've refused to support immigration enforcement as a way to free up jobs for their fellow Americans.
[1] pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/95747
[2] bankruptingamerica.org/2010/03/15/trade-is-a-jobs-program-that-works
[3] From this:
Former Capitol Hill staffers Nathan Imperiale, Gretchen Hamel, and Sean Spicer are joining forces to launch a public relations and strategy firm, Endeavour Global Strategies. "We all enjoyed working together before and wanted to create a firm of our own that utilizes our unique nexus of experience -- international, policy, political and new media," Hamel said. Spicer and Hamel served as assistant and deputy assistant in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative media affairs office in the Bush administration. Hamel has worked for former House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, and Rep. John Carter (R-TX). Spicer has worked for the House Republican Conference, House Budget Committee, House Government Reform Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee. Imperiale is a former aide for the House Republican Conference.
Tue, 03/16/2010 - 13:07 ·
Walmart is a strong supporter of comprehensive immigration reform, aka amnesty and probably wouldn't cooperate on immigration raids with the Department of Homeland Security. Why bother? Back in 2005, after they were caught using illegal labor, they got a slap on the wrist: a fine equivalent to their revenue in a fifteen minute period.
Despite that, one or more groups - perhaps originating with the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights have sent viral text messages urging a boycott of Wal Mart, even claiming that they'd let ICE into their stores to arrest illegal aliens on March 20, the day before yet another illegal immigration march (Snopes, snopes.com/politics/immigration/walmart.asp). The company, of course, claims that this isn't true. And, the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce weighs in on their side, "Laud[ing] Walmart's Collaborative Approach in Support of Comprehensive Immigration Reform" (link).
Tue, 03/16/2010 - 10:52 ·
The libertarian (or "libertarian" to some) Reason Magazine has launched a six-part video series called "Reason Saves Cleveland With Drew Carey", featuring that washed-up TV comic. On the series they'll outline some of the ways they think that city could be saved. The problem, of course, is that libertarian ideology has either played a major role in or offers no guidance on various aspects of the decline of the Rust Belt. The first video is at http://peekURL.com/vfpi1s7 and introduces some of the problems they face:
* Outsourcing and "free" trade is a core libertarian belief, and both have had a disastrous impact on the Rust Belt. Libertarians couldn't care less: any sense of nationalism in even the best of senses is abhorrent to them. Libertarians have little or no loyalty to their countrymen: to them a job is a job, whether it's done by an American or someone in a forced labor reeducation camp in China doesn't matter if the latter costs less. Further, Reason Magazine is a key part of the "Kochtopus", and the Koch family strongly supports "free" trade schemes such as NAFTA (link). Don't expect Reason to do anything but support "free" trade.
* The issue of busing, race riots, white flight, and so on was briefly touched on in this recent post. The Great Society has had disastrous impacts, but the libertarian alternative would be even worse. Libertarian is amoral when it isn't immoral; they have no guidance to offer on these type of social issues. And, Reason's raison d'etre - perhaps even more important than helping their benefactors - appears to be to get invitations to Beltway cocktail parties. Don't expect them to look at issues like these with a clear eye but with one clouded by the desire to be the frat boy safe bad boys for the DC circuit.
* On the video, Nick Gillespie refers to the "nation developing an environmentalist sensibility" in 1969. Let's just say that many libertarians know that environmentalism isn't popular with their corporate benefactors. So, if you want the Cuyahoga River to take fire again, the libertarians are willing to help.
* The video refers to "lavish public spending on sports stadiums" and on the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, and to a good degree such public spending is wasteful and a massive boondoggle for those who are politically connected. However, one wonders what the libertarian alternative would be: a city like Los Angeles that, despite being the second largest city in the U.S., doesn't have its own NFL football team? Without sports and the Hall of Fame, what exactly would Cleveland be famous for and inviting to guests?
* The video twice references Cleveland losing population so - you heard it here first - expect one of the upcoming videos to be supportive of massive immigration. Also expect that video to not mention even a single downside, because you just can't trust Reason Magazine.
UPDATE: In case anyone thinks I'm being hyperbolic in my claim that libertarians have little national loyalty, the third video from Reason promotes privitazation (peekURL.com/vnfz5rb). On a segment based in Chicago, they promote someone who helps sell off public assets, and he promotes the privatization of the Chicago Skyway. What Reason fails to tell their viewers is that the companies involved in purchasing that toll road are Cintra SA and Macquarie Infrastructure Group (link). The first is Spanish, the second is Australian. To those like Reason that doesn't matter: all that counts is that they've got the money and concerns about foreign countries controlling vital infrastructure are completely unimportant.
Note also that both companies were involved in the TransTexas Corridor, with Cintra being linked to Rudy Giuliani and Macquarie buying a Texas newspaper chain in an apparent attempt to spread the good news about the TTC. Once again: none of that matters to libertarians.
Mon, 03/15/2010 - 21:21 ·
Someone I've never heard of before and know little about - California state senator Sam Aanestad - might be the best choice (so far) for Lt. Governor. Based only on a quick glance, his immigration position seems acceptable [1], but the much more important factor is who else is vying for the job:
* Fellow Republican Abel Maldonado is his opponent in the primary. Maldonado is who Arnold Schwarzenegger wants for current Lt. Gov., which pretty much disqualifies him from consideration.
* One of the Democrats in the running is Los Angeles City councilwoman Janice Hahn. Back in 2004 she responded to a raid of an illegal alien drop house raid by saying, "The federal government is turning a blind eye to what's happening at the border". However, I suspect she's not on this site's side for the most part.
* Even worse than the other two, Gavin Newsom has thrown his hat into the ring. The only good thing that can be said about him is that he isn't as strong a supporter of illegal immigration as some of those on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, but that's not saying much.
[1] Per this, he opposed the 2006 decision by some of his colleagues to support the "Great American Boycott", an immigration march. And, per this from 2008:
Senator Samuel Aanestad voted NO to passed Bill SB 1160, Driver's Licenses for Undocumented Immigrants, a bill that requires the Department of Motor Vehicles to issue driver's licenses to individuals allowing them to drive legally although it does not prove legal residence or citizenship. The bill specifies that the Department of Motor Vehicles cannot begin issuing these licenses until the Secretary of Homeland Security approves California's plan. This bill requires California to comply with the requirements of the federal Real ID Act of 2005 for the issuance of drivers licenses and identification (ID) cards by May 12, 2008. The Real ID Act authorizes the issuance of driver's licenses and ID cards to undocumented immigrants, but the license or ID card may not be used for any other official purpose, and must be a unique color or design.
Mon, 03/15/2010 - 13:10 ·
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".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.
Sun, 03/14/2010 - 20:54 ·
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.
Sat, 03/13/2010 - 14:35 ·
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.
Fri, 03/12/2010 - 12:47 ·
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 ·
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 ·
Independent, in-depth coverage of immigration, politics, and media bias since 2002. Also: multiculturalism, Los Angeles, California, privacy, and occasionally celebrities and wacky humor...
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44 min ago #Texas governor Rick Perry sends TX National Guard helicopters to the border; they join choppers from TX Dep't of Public Safety. |
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46 min ago America cheers as it learns that PeekURL.com wasn't down, it was just a problem with the IP I used. Celebrate! peekURL.com/vkvu24q |
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4 hours ago Christiane Amanpour ditches sinking @CNN for ABC. @JonKleinCNN dumped Dobbs, hired Erick "Pulp" Erickson. Does Klein own Fox stock? |
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6 hours ago Sleazy @JimWallis: "pray [amnesty] into passage": bit.ly/dymuRm Discredit him on video: 24ahead.com/s/false-compassion #sgp |
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7 hours ago PeekURL.com shared server is down, and so too is host's sites: tronictech.com and ion-web.com. I should just move peek, others to ASO too. |
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8 hours ago 88% of machinists agree: "The Democratic Party doesn't represent working people as strongly as they used to." bit.ly/b99wkg #tlot #p2 |
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8 hours ago @PJTV: Brandi Milloy's reporting might have more credibility if she dressed "smarter". Like in a schoolgirl outfit or like a librarian. |
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22 hours ago While I start on my 3rd 40 of green-colored SteelReserve, you watch the Pogues: peekurl.com/vp9cvpe #Irish #StPatricks St Patty's Day |
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1 day ago I need to keep track of all the dumb things Glenn Reynolds & #teaparty say. Is there a database that can hold a yottabyte of data? #sgp #tpp |
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1 day ago Compare instapundit.com/95843 to 24ahead.com/n/8865 or 24ahead.com/n/9114 Need help summarizing how dumb he is. #teaparty #sgp |
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1 day ago O'Reilly interview w/ Janet Napolitano = puffball. If anyone wants to do a public service, ask her this on video: 24ahead.com/n/9616 |
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1 day ago "DHS worksite enforcement against illegal aliens plummeted under Obama, Napolitano": 24ahead.com/n/9638 (other stats show diff pictr) |
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1 day ago "All of the [things she says BHO admin is doing] are acting as a deterrent". You betcha, like this: 24ahead.com/n/9312 |
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1 day ago Big Sister Janet Napolitano on O'Reilly discussing "virtual border" being halted. The "numbers are all going in the right direction"... |
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1 day ago Lots and lots of #Irish Music Videos in this feed: twitter.com/IrishMusicVids #StPatricksDay #Ireland #NowPlaying |
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)
Let's go to Utah Zion, Bryce, and Grand Canyon (August 14, 2000)
Your host, climbing Monkey Face (5.14d)
Your host's arm (circled)
Your host's hopelessly outdated conditioning progress
