assignment

The Assignment Desk

I do so much, but I can't do everything. That's where you come in: choose one of these entries and get answers or write up a report and then post it somewhere. If you can move people to help out, post a thread to a forum looking for research assistance.

Last modified Feb 1, 2009
Discussed in (click each link for the full post):

How to use Obama's lower deportations to discredit amnesty supporters - 09/12/14

As the AP reports, Obama is on track to deport fewer illegal aliens than since 2007. This post describes how to use that to discredit some of those who support amnesty.

The Youtube Sockpuppets Project - 08/05/12

The Youtube Sockpuppets Project seeks to find out if politicians and other groups are using fake accounts to comment on that site's videos. The term "sockpuppets" (see the link) refers to fake user accounts designed to mask someone's affiliation, promote something as if it's more popular than it is, and so on. I've long suspected that some comments left on certain political videos were from one person or group controlling several fake accounts.

Challenge: get Ted Cruz to oppose Comprehensive Immigration Reform and describe his legalization and guest worker stance - 07/27/12

As detailed here and here, Senate contender from Texas Ted Cruz keeps repeating the same basic speech on immigration and doesn't disclose whether he would support some form of

PNAE claims immigrants involved in 76% of *some* patents; let's show them wrong (Mike Bloomberg) - 06/26/12

Michael Bloomberg's "Partnership for a New American Economy" is a coalition of billionaires and big city mayors that promotes massive immigration, especially skilled immigration. See those links for the details.

Ask Tim Fernholz of GOOD why he'd harm the Third World (braindrain, skilled immigration) - 01/09/12

Last month, Tim Fernholz of GOOD Magazine offered the misleading "Immigrants Don't Take Jobs, They Create Them: Why We Need More Immigration" [1]. It's wrong on several points, but one in particular will be of interest to the readers of that "philanthropic" publication: Fernholz and GOOD are promoting braindraining the Third World and depriving poor countries of the smart people they desperately need.

Media misleads: Rick Perry's in-state tuition for "children of illegal immigrants" was for illegal aliens *themselves* - 10/02/11

It's an extremely rare occurrence when the mainstream media doesn't mislead about immigration. An example in the news lately is the misleading claim that Rick Perry signed a bill that gives in-state tuition to the "children of illegal immigrants" [1]. In fact, the bill was for those who are themselves illegal aliens, irrespective of their parents' status(es). Parents and children can have different immigration statuses.

How are Anthony Weiner's ideas wrong? A Weinergate challenge - 06/03/11

Over the past week, the internet has been polluted with the "Weinergate" scandal involving Rep. Anthony Weiner. It's a further indictment of rightwing bloggers that they'd spend so much time on this issue rather than on things that actually matter: the policies that Weiner and those like him support. The scandal probably isn't going to affect his career, and at the same time legislation supported by Weiner might end up affecting millions of people.

Activism Clinic: show Cenk Uygur's viewers how he's misleading (DREAM Act, Dana Rohrabacher) - 05/21/11

The December 16, 2010 video below shows Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks misleading about a point that Rep. Dana Rohrabacher made about the anti-American DREAM Act.

Bell, California: see who isn't telling you the whole truth (hint: libertarians) - 08/25/10

The city of Bell, California has been in the news lately due to exorbitant salaries that city officials voted to give themselves. Most of those using Bell as an example of failed policies have failed to note that they themselves support failed policies, and those failed policies have played a role in Bell's situation. Two examples will be provided below, and the reader is encouraged to add more in comments.

Meissner wants your immigration questions (Monday, May 3, 2010, 11 AM Eastern) - 05/02/10

Here's an assignment: submit immigration questions for Doris Meissner, formerly INS commissioner and now with the Migration Policy Institute. She'll be answering questions in a live chat tomorrow, Monday May 3, 2010 at 11 Eastern.

New Jersey state "Commission on New Americans" will enable illegal immigration - 01/12/10

New Jersey governor Jon Corzine today signed an executive order creating a "Commission on New Americans", a sort of far-left welcome wagon for both legal and illegal immigrants. News report here, order at [1]. This follows last year's recommendation from another panel that advocated for benefits such as in-state tuition (see the DREAM Act) and drivers licenses for illegal aliens. The current order doesn't say anything about immigration status and doesn't include any variants of "illegal" or "undocumented", meaning that it also includes illegal aliens. The Commission will end up enabling and...

Obama pledges to do everything he can to create jobs; use leverage to get him asked why he won't enforce immigration laws - 10/14/09

Per this: Standing at the site of a highway project funded by his economic stimulus plan, President Barack Obama said Wednesday he is committed to exploring all avenues to create jobs. Obama said his administration is going to keep going until "every single American in this country who's looking for work is going to be able to get the kind of well-paying job that supports their families." Obama spoke from the top of a large mound of dirt and gravel... "We're going to continue to explore each and every avenue that I can think of that will lead to job creation and economic growth," he said...

Serge Kovaleski, Jim Rutenberg, William Yardley of NYT lie about Sarah Palin hair thinning (per hairdresser) - 07/19/09

Ask not why I'm writing a post about Sarah Palin's hair thinning.

People for the American Way, TPM begin personal destruction campaign against Frank Ricci (what you can do) - 07/11/09

McClatchy reports that People for the American Way and perhaps other groups are "quietly" beginning a "politics of personal destruction"/"Joe the Plumber"-style campaign against Frank Ricci, the firefighter who'll be testifying at the Sonia Sotomayor confirmati

FightTheSmears is offline for an unknown reason - 07/09/09

FightTheSmears.com - the debunking site that's home to a picture of what is supposedly Barack Obama's COLB as well as the home of at least a couple of lies - is currently offline. The last homepage in Google's cache was from July 7, so it's not clear whether this is just a temporary issue or something permanent. A look through the same cache shows that they were hacked by spammers and those pages were there in May to the end of June, so that might have something to do with it.

Andrea Nill /ThinkProgress misleads about California immigration (Micheal Savage) - 06/23/09

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

Sonia Sotomayor admits she was an "affirmative action baby"; said it's "critical that we promote diversity"; there are "cultural biases built into testing" - 06/11/09

If we could replace the GOP leadership with the Washington Post and the New York Times, we might be able to block Sonia Sotomayor.

Chuck Schumer: Sotomayor is "within the judicial mainstream" on immigration cases; how far off is he? - 06/08/09

From this: Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of Judiciary’s immigration subcommittee, assigned his staff to analyze how (Sonia Sotomayor) voted in 955 immigration cases in which she has participated throughout her judicial career, with a special focus on cases that involved foreigners trying to win asylum claims in order to remain in the United States. Of the 848 asylum cases in which Sotomayor has taken part, Schumer’s aides say, she sided with the foreigner over the government in 144 of them, or 17 percent of the time. That percentage, the aides point out, is virtually identical to...

Low-wattage radio, TV hosts say dumb things about Mexicans and swine flu; leftwing attacks in order to support illegal activity - 04/30/09

Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post offers "Swine Flu A Mexican Immigrant Conspiracy: Conservative Media (VIDEO)" (huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/30/swine-flu-a-mexican-immig_n_193707.html), linking to a Media Matters for America video apparently containing instances of conservative radio and TV hosts discussing the issue of Mexicans - speci

Gordon Crovitz /WSJ: millions of Americans are unemployed, so let's ramp up immigration - 04/27/09

Former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz offers "We Need an Immigration Stimulus/A recession is exactly when we want innovative outsiders" (link). Bracketed by various absurdities, he offers the following stats: Companies founded by immigrants include Yahoo, eBay and Google. Half of Silicon Valley start-ups were founded by immigrants, up from 25% a decade ago. Some 40% of patents in the U.S. are awarded to immigrants. A recent study by the Kauffman Foundation found that immigrants are 50% likelier to start businesses than natives. Someone who supports Americans (in Crovitz' words,...

America.gov promotes Canada-style multiculturalism (from a melting pot to a "patchwork of cultures") - 04/22/09

While you weren't watching, Barack Obama's State Department has changed us from a melting pot into a Canadian-style multicultural society. Apparently some time around April 1 of this year, the section "A Patchwork Culture" was added to america dot gov at america.gov/identity.html

ACLU controlling Obama policy? ("Transition Recommendations" wants most immigration enforcement halted, + much more) - 03/17/09

In November, the American Civil Liberties Union released "Actions For Restoring America: Transition Recommendations for President‐Elect Barack Obama" (aclu.org/transition) listing things they wanted him to do the first day, within the first 100 days, and within the first year. Several of their proposals would halt immigration enforcement to a great extent, pending "review".

Condi Rice promotes immigration "reform", bad policy (why?) - 03/16/09

Juliana Barbassa of the Associated Press informs us that Condoleezza Rice spoke at Stanford University on Friday and said the following (link):

Colorado: discredit Peter Groff over in-state tuition for illegal aliens (bill passes Senate committee) - 03/06/09

Colorado state senator Chris Romer is pushing for that state to give in-state tuition to illegal aliens, and yesterday his bill passed a state senate committee (link). CO senate president Peter Groff is quoted as saying: "For me, this is a moral issue, that we should not shackle the future of children because of the sins of their fathers." If you oppose this bill, one of the best ways to fight it is to have an impact on the career of one of the politicians who supports it. And, you can do that by asking either Romer or Groff a very tough question - not a rant - designed to show that they're...

Assignment: is Daniel de Vise/WaPo telling the truth about "ESOL Students in Md., Va. Leaping Ahead of U.S. Peers"? - 03/01/09

Daniel de Vise of the Washington Post offers "ESOL Students in Md., Va. Leaping Ahead of U.S. Peers" (link), which is the latest in a sub-genre of American-demoting, immigration/illegal alien-promoting articles from the mainstream media.

Luis Gutierrez' "National Family Unity Tour" to pull heartstrings in support of illegal immigration; ask him a question - 02/25/09

Rep. Luis Gutierrez is conducting a nationwide tour where he and his friends will be visiting churches and conducting townhall meetings from coast to coast to push for comprehensive immigration reform.

Who or what precipitated the financial crisis? (Soros? China? a setup to elect Obama? Did it just happen?) - 02/10/09

Someone needs to snug their tinfoil hat down tight and try to figure out who or what got us into this financial mess. Did it just happen, or was it a deliberate plan in order to make money or help Obama get elected? Consider the attached video featuring Rep. Paul Kanjorski saying the following:

Congressional Research Service reports publicly released (immigration, etc.) - 02/08/09

Wikileaks has obtained hundreds of previously unreleased reports from the Congressional Research Service, Congress' think tank: wikileaks.org/wiki/CRS_reports_by_date

Cement: another way stimulus money will flow to China (and Mexico, Canada, Korea...) - 02/08/09

A large part of the stimulus bill will go towards "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects involving heavy construction. And, that's going to require a lot of cement. In 2007, it looks like the U.S. used about 110 million metric tons of portland cement, at the same time as importing almost 23 million metric tons of cement and clinker (Portland Cement Association, link): About 83% of cement and clinker imported in 2007 came from five major countries: China, Canada, Columbia, Mexico, and the Republic of Korea. Imports from China in 2007 declined to 7.5 million metric tons down 41.0% from 2006...

Assignment: document Obama, FEMA, MSM response to ice storms in Kentucky - 02/02/09

As of last week, hundreds of thousands in Kentucky and others in Arkansas were without power due to ice storms, and dozens have died. While not as major a disaster as Katrina, some have called into question the mainstream media's coverage of the response, wondering whether they would have approached it differently if it had happened during the Bush administration. Your assignment: compare the government response to past incidents, and compare the MSM's coverage to how they covered past incidents including Katrina and others. And, find out whether Barack Obama has paid as much attention to...

Is Youtube banning conservative videos without cause? - 01/24/09

There's a discussion of that here, including two videos side-by-side: one from the rightwing side that was deleted by Youtube, and an apparently similar one from the other side that was not. I haven't looked into it, but there are also a series of videos here, some of which may have been deleted by Youtube.

Challenge: get Hawaii to clarify their 10/31 statement - 01/23/09

This post assumes you're already thoroughly familiar with the Obama citizenship summary, so please read that through first if you haven't already. If you believe that FactCheck is telling the truth, here's what you need to do: get the state of Hawaii to clarify their 10/31 statement and/or obtain clarification from a recognized legal scholar. For instance, you can call Janice Okubo from the Hawaii Department of Health at (808) 586-4442 and ask her one of these: 1. Did the 10/31 statement (or any other official statement from the state government) confirm that Obama was born in Hawaii, as...

Obama will become less popular, and we need to be prepared - 01/20/09

Barack Obama will probably never reach a George W Bush level of unpopularity, but at some point during his presidency his star will fade. And, that will be an absolutely terrific chance to discredit his current cult-like supporters.

Assignment: did an employee of an Obama-linked firm "cauterize" Obama's passport file? - 01/15/09

From this: Obama's top terrorism and intelligence adviser, John O. Brennan, heads a firm (The Analysis Corp) that was cited in March for breaching sensitive files in the State Department's passport office, according to a State Department Inspector General's report released this past July. ...During a State Department briefing on March 21, 2008, McCormack confirmed that the contractor had accessed the passport files of presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and John McCain, and that the inspector general had launched an investigation. Sources who tracked the...