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Category Archives: Immigration

Fox & Friends Distorts the President’s Record On Border Security?

12 May

According to the stellar reporting at Fox & Friends, the Huns – or somebody – is threatening at the border, and President Obama is not taking the situation very “seriously”, and it won’t be long before we’re all eating Mexican food for breakfast and that dogs and cats are living together (can’t use that line too much).

In a recent early morning gabfest, the shows happy trio repeatedly suggested that because of a joke the President made during a recent speech about immigration, he is not taking border security “seriously”. But of course what the intellectual triumvirate at Fox & Friends completely ignored were the facts deportations of illegal immigrants have increased under President Obama, and the number of border patrol agents and funding for border security projects have also increased.

But the issue here is that facts don’t matter to conservatives, it’s all about feelings. The fact the number of border guards has increased, or that the number of deportations had increased, or that there is more fence now doesn’t matter. If Steve Doocy says it isn’t so, well, then, it isn’t so.

During his 10 May speech in El Paso, Texas, about immigration reform, President Obama said, “So here’s the point.  I want everybody to listen carefully to this.  We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement.  All the stuff they asked for, we’ve done.  But even though we’ve answered these concerns, I’ve got to say I suspect there are still going to be some who are trying to move the goal posts on us one more time.

“You know, they said we needed to triple the Border Patrol.  Or now they’re going to say we need to quadruple the Border Patrol.  Or they’ll want a higher fence.  Maybe they’ll need a moat.  (Laughter.)  Maybe they want alligators in the moat.  (Laughter.)  They’ll never be satisfied.  And I understand that.  That’s politics.”

That’s exactly right Mr. President. It doesn’t matter what you do, because the right-wing crazies at FOX, and their viewers, are never going to say it’s enough. Case in point was just this last few weeks, the President gets Bin Laden, but the right-wingers all want to claim it was because of George Bush, or it was because of torture, or because Dick Cheney shot a friend in the face while duck hunting …

What was Doocy’s reaction to the President’s joke?

“Just days after a dozen people were massacred near the United States- Mexican border, the president made fun of the fence,” the Doocy said. “Can he keep us safe without securing the border?”

Of course what Steve failed to tell his viewers was he was referring to a raid at Falcon Lake, on the border between Texas and Mexico, conducted by Mexican officials in which – reportedly – one Mexican Marine and 12 suspected drug cartel members were killed.

So, Doocy spins the attack on a Cartel, and the killing of 12 suspected cartel members, “a massacre” on the border? Were there beheadings there too Steve? You know, like Arizona Governor Jan Brewer claims are going on all the time? This is the kind of far right-wing spin that passes for news at FOX PAC.

Not to be out done however, a few moments later, co-host Gretchen Carlson – the brains of the outfit – interviewed Rep. Ted Poe (GOTP-TX). During the “interview”, Carlson repeatedly invited Poe to criticize the Obama administration’s record on border security and like the top notch FOX PAC journalist she is did not push back against Poe’s suggestion the President has made the U.S.-Mexican border less secure.

“So in that little clip that we just played [from Obama’s May 10 speech], the president said that you guys got all the stuff that you asked for. Is that true?” Gretchen asked.

To which the man from Texas replied, “No, that’s completely not true. I have asked the president to put more National Guard troops on the board — 10,000 National Guard troops. That hasn’t happened. So the president is misinformed when he says that he is — we have — he has done everything we’ve asked him to do. The border is not secure. His own agency — inspector general says that only 44 percent of the border is secure. That means 56 percent of the border is controlled by somebody else. And that’s not Mexico, and that’s not the United States. So, I’ve been to the border numerous times, been to Arizona. And the president is incorrect when he tries to mislead the American public, especially people who aren’t on the border, that the border is secure. It is not.”

And because her role on the show is to be the pretty dumb blonde, and not to in any way be a journalist, Gretchen sets the ball up for Poe to spike at the net, “See, here’s what I don’t understand, congressman, because it would seem to me that most Americans would be in favor of securing our border. Just that fact alone. Then it gets dicey. I mean, then it gets dicey — what do you do with all the people who are already here? What do you do with the rest of the family members who still want to come? But am I missing something here? I don’t really understand who’s against securing the border?”

“There are different political entities who actually believe in open borders,” the Congressman replied. “We want people to come here the right way. If you can’t come here legally, don’t come. And that includes everybody. And we have to make sure that we secure that southern border, especially. Third World countries secure their borders better than we do. We protect the borders of other nations, Afghanistan, Iraq, but we don’t protect ours. It is — it is just a song and dance to try mislead folks that the border is secure. The border patrol does as best job as they can, but they need more reinforcements. Everybody knows that drug cartels cross back and forth into the United States every day. They bring people, they bring drugs. And it’s very disheartening to find Americans throughout the country who don’t live there that don’t want the borders secure.”

Later during the show, Carlson teased an upcoming segment by playing the Doocy massacre card, including a short clip of the President’s joke, “Days after a massacre on the Mexican border, President Obama made fun, then, of the fence.

Video clip of the President, “Maybe they’ll need a moat, maybe they’ll want alligators in the moat. They’ll never be satisfied.”

“He was talking about Republicans,” Gretchen said. “So will Republicans get the last laugh? Well, Karl Rove is here next to let us know his thoughts.”

Yes, when FOX PAC wants to talk about criminals in our country, who better than a criminal to comment, and so they bring on Karl Rove. But can you see how distorted FOX plays things up? Twelve members of a cartel are killed by Mexican Marines, and it’s very nearly played as a massacre at a Church picnic by the cartel.

Now, what about the claims FOX & FRIENDS is trying to implant into the mushy grey matter of its dedicated fans?

PolitiFact has rated as “true” President Obama’s statement that “the Border Patrol has 20,000 agents — more than twice as many as there were in 2004.”

PolitiFact stated, “In a speech on immigration reform in El Paso, Texas, President Barack Obama boasted about an unprecedented number of border security agents along the U.S. border with Mexico, but he said critics probably still won’t be satisfied.

‘Under Secretary Napolitano’s leadership, we have strengthened border security beyond what many believed was possible,” Obama said in his May 10, 2011, speech. “They wanted more agents on the border. Well, we now have more boots on the ground on the southwest border than at any time in our history. The Border Patrol has 20,000 agents — more than twice as many as there were in 2004, a buildup that began under President Bush and that we have continued.’

“In March 2011, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report, ‘Border Security: DHS Progress and Challenges in Securing the U.S. Southwest and Northern Borders,’ in conjunction with testimony from GAO Director Richard Stana.

“The report confirmed that personnel and other resources to stop illegal crossings of the U.S.-Mexico border have increased dramatically in recent years. In 2004, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was created, reorganizing several federal agencies under a single roof. That year, the agency had 10,500 agents to patrol land borders.  That number now stands at nearly 21,000.

“In other words, manpower has roughly doubled since 2004, as Obama said in his speech in El Paso. Again, that trend began under President Bush, whom Obama credited, but it continued under Obama. We rate Obama’s statement True.”

A 23 June 2010, Associated Press article noted: “You wouldn’t know it from the public debate, but the U.S.-Mexico border is more fortified now than it was even five years ago. Far more agents patrol it, more fences, barriers and technology protect it and taxpayers are spending billions more to reinforce it.”

Based on Department of Homeland Security data, The Arizona Republic created the following chart showing the increase in border patrol agents since 2001.

According to  13 August 2010 Reuters article, President Obama signed a $600 million border security bill to “fund some 1,500 new border patrol agents, customs inspectors and other law enforcement officials along the border, as well as two more unmanned aerial ‘drones’ to monitor border activities.”

According to data reported by USA Today in February of this year, “[w]eapons seizures rose 28% and illicit-currency seizures were up 35% in fiscal 2009 and 2010.”

According to 14 February 2011 data from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), nearly 100,000 more people were deported by ICE in both 2009 and 2010 than in 2007.

As is often said, “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own set of facts”. FOX PAC – and particularly the folks at FOX & FRIENDS – just doesn’t seem to care. Why mess with facts? They just get in the way. “You’re watching FOX PAC, we report what we think, you decide”. But when a so-called “news” organization deals more with opinion than journalism the line becomes so blurred its viewers can’t tell the difference. Hence you end up with a number of people dissatisfied with the President’s job approval matching the percentage of daily viewers to FOX. When the only news you ever watch isn’t news, what exactly are you basing your opinion on? That’s right, you’re basing it on what FOX thinks it should be, and that’s not called news, its called propaganda.

Truth – as in facts – is the border is far safer now than it was under BUSH & FRIENDS, and the conservatives can’t take it! They can’t take it that a progressive President got Bin Laden, and they can’t take it that a progressive President is making the borders safer either.

(thank you Media Matters for the facts shown here today)

 
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Posted by on May 12, 2011 in Immigration, President Obama

 

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Arpaio Misspent $99 million dollars?

14 Apr

A six month investigation into the Maricopa County sheriff’s office has discovered that Sheriff Joe Arpaio has inappropriately spent $99.5 million from two jail funds over the last eight years to pay for other law enforcement operations—including immigration patrols.


Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox has told the Washington Post, USA Today and the Phoenix New Times blog, “This is really a disaster for the county … Taxpayers are looking at us and saying, ‘How in the hell did it happen?’…For eight years, [Arpaio has] been signing paperwork that says the budget is balanced, but it’s not.”

The investigation began, after budget officials and members of the county Board of Supervisors suspected that “America’s Toughest Sheriff” was using jail tax money to fund pet projects, such as rounding up undocumented immigrants at places like the Burlington Coat Factory and Pei Wei restaurants, or following county supervisors and judges around in failed public-corruption stings.

The budget paper was quoted in USA Today, “Discrepancies existed for years between sheriff’s employees’ actual duties and the duties reported in county payroll records. As sheriff’s employees were transferred around the agency, the payroll records were not always updated, creating a massive financial problem that will have to be confronted in coming years.”

OK everyone, can you say, “Cover up”?

Interim Chief Deputy Sheriff Jerry Sheridan said there was nothing criminal about the misplaced funds, which he blamed on an outdated payroll system that failed to track when jail duty officers were transferred to regular patrol.

Yeah, right, just a small clerical error; just a small $99 million dollar error; just how stupid do you think people are? Well, wait a tick, that’s not exactly a fair question, after all almost all of your most ardent supporters spend their days listening to Rush, Hannity, et al, and watching FOX PAC the rest of the day. But, how stupid do you think everyone else is?

It’s clear Arpaio manipulated funds to pay for numerous highly questionable operations against immigrants and anyone who opposed him. Yes, the noble sheriff of Maricopa County has used public monies to fund private little witch hunts against county and state officials who questioned his tactics. Where have we seen a person in power going after anyone who questioned him? Well, besides in any number of Steven Seagal movies? Nazi Germany? Soviet Russia? Sarah Palin’s Alaska?

Arpaio is punk thug, and a bully. He’s not the ideal law man. He’s as crooked as a $3 dollar bill. He’s not a hero, he’s a corrupt little fascist and it’s time for him to step down and turn over the keys to his private little Bastille. But please little Tea Party folk, don’t cry for your hero, he’ll be just fine, I hear Hollywood might be thinking about another Duke’s of Hazard movie – he’d make a perfect Boss Hog.

 
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Posted by on April 14, 2011 in Immigration, Politics, Right Wing Crazies, Tea Party

 

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GOTP presidential hopefuls hammer health care, have nothing new to offer? Nope not one new idea, just more of the same old tripe they’re always scooping out …

26 Mar

And so, it’s 20 some odd months until Election Day 2012 and a very small group of potentially high-profile Grand Old Tea Party (or the group formerly known as Republican) candidates show up like the early spring honey bee hoping to impress the equally small hundred or so conservative activists Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa that most Americans (that would be GOTP, Independent and the very small smattering of Democratic voters) agree with their particularly odd variation of “values”, and opposition to all and everything President Obama represents, but mostly his socialistic health care overhaul; and that all of this could somehow magically help the GOTP make historic gains in 2012.

One of the most incredible long shots in political history, except for possibly with this year’s gathering of right-wing odd balls and fruit cakes is Michigan Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who not surprisingly is a huge a tea party favorite, and who – also not surprisingly – got the noisiest reception when she told the “huge” hundred plus crowd gathered that voters are ready to overturn the federal health care law and oust President Barack Obama during next year’s election.

“The ultimate arrogance, in my opinion, is Obama-care,” Bachman said. “That’s why I am so absolutely confident in 2012. Americans have made the decision that we’re going to take our country back.”

Ah yes, the perennial GOTP favorite line, “we’re going to take our country back.” But to where do you want to take it, and for whom Congresswoman? Are we going back to 2008? Back to those happy carefree days of Bush/Cheney when habeas corpus was suspended on a whim if your name had Mohamed in it, or before our military was free from Gays and Lesbos? Or back to the pre-Camelot days before all those pesky Black people dared to eat at the same lunch counter?

Of course the Newt was there, and the deep south’s Haley Barbour and even former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain spoke to add a splash color to the Midwest white bread event as the token conservative African-American, since Justice Clarence Thomas was unable to attend due not being sure how to bill the gathering and still at least try to appear impartial on the bench.

But why Iowa you ask? Is it because it’s a field of dreams, and hopefully Newt, Barbour and company will all walk into the corn and finally fade away? Or is it simply because event organizer, Iowa Congressman Steve King, believes that his home state, the state where the nation’s first presidential caucus will take place, is the proper venue to help conservatives shape the debate as members of the GOTP begin looking for a candidate to run against Obama.

“We need to take this nation to the next level of its destiny,” King told the crowd. “You can shape that destiny.”

Of course with Bachman, Newt and Barbour that “next level of its destiny” can only mean backwards or farther off the cliff of economic collapse started during the last administration.

While Iowa is the traditional launch pad for the presidential nominating season, when one sees the sharply conservative rhetoric from Saturday’s little rally, allegedly reflecting an Iowa GOTP that’s drifted not just to the right, but to the far right, coupled with some polling data from last year showing more than 60 percent of GOTP caucus-goers there are identifying themselves as not only Christians but evangelicals, you have the makings of a gold old fashioned revival meeting, the type where Mormons – such as Mitt Romney – need not apply; of course it’s also then going to be an evangelical crowd that’s going to have a hard time getting its arms around a two time adulterer, or a deep south nominee, which leaves the nomination wide open for Huckleberry, Bachman and Palin. How wonderful.

Interestingly enough Newt insisted that most Americans agree with his conservative values, with the Newtster actually saying the 2012 election would provide a chance to end the “domination of the left and move this country back to the center-right.”

That would be the center right where family values stands for cheating on not just one but two spouses, marrying each mistress in turn and then claiming you couldn’t control your hormones because of your deep seated love of country?

Haley said the GOTP can win next year if their candidates stay focused on key issues — health care and balancing the federal budget — without getting distracted by arguments about personality. Of course by balancing the budget he means zeroing out any progressive programs, while continuing to cut taxes to the top 2% of the nation’s population and allowing defense spending to maintain its unabashed feeding frenzy.

“What is important to us is to have a new president,” Barbour said. “This election needs to be about policy.”

That’s right. It’s all about the policy of taking our country back to a time when uppity folks like foreign born blacks knew their place, isn’t that right Governor? It’s about an America where homos and lesbians weren’t allowed in polite society, and it’s about the America where the term foreign policy meant telling our allies to shut up, sit down and do what we told them to do.

During the “event”, the speakers all focused on criticizing President Obama and the Democratic Party, and the Newter even took the time to say how he “helped balance a budget for four straight years” while House speaker. That of course was due more largely to the efforts to his fellow philanderer President Clinton, than for anything he himself managed to do, between his own affairs while impeaching the President for his infidelity.

But of course, Newty also took the opportunity to attack – yet again – President Obama’s handling of the air strikes in Libya. He ridiculed Obama for consulting the Arab League and the United Nations, but not Congress, before getting involved. The Newt said he wouldn’t have approved the air strikes, even though he pushed for air strikes and a no-fly zone just a week or two before the President implemented that very policy, but said Newt, “once you get involved, you put on the pressure and you win quickly.” As compared to becoming bogged down in not one but two wars with absolutely any exit policy, clear cut goals or objectives.

Cain, who decided to be the one speaker not talking about the federal health care law, said the conservative movement is gaining strength and will help the GOTP “take back the government”.

He does understand that the GOTP’s version of “taking back” the government would mean he’d be serving them the pizza, and driving Miss Daisy around town, doesn’t he? Taking the country back doesn’t mean equality for Blacks, Hispanics, Gays or Lesbians. It’s taking the country back to the happier times of Herbert Hoover before Labor Unions and desegregated class rooms.

Seeming to be oblivious to all of this, and believing the fact that since he’s a wealthy black man meant he shared in the GOTP dream, he said the U.S. has “an entitlement spending crisis” that must be reformed in order to solve the nation’s financial woes. Being the GOTP code for throwing the poor and the elderly out on the street where they belong. Cutting social security benefits to the disabled, cutting WIC and women’s pre-natal and health care, slashing college loan programs to the poor and zeroing public broadcasting, and arts programs.

“We don’t like the radical socialist agenda that is being shoved down our throats,” he said.

And what he wanted to say is we don’t like the idea that the poor can have free health care, and have their standard of living increased, and that we have a minimum wage and child labor laws and the like, and that he could’ve made much higher profits if only he could’ve paid lower salaries or could’ve had five and six your olds slaving away in his pizza kitchens.

Meanwhile, Bach on the farm, the Congresswoman from Michigan steered things back onto the effort to repeal the health care reform law and said that American’s bad feelings for the law had created a strong tide of support for the GOTP positioning itself for next year’s election.

“It’s never gone below a majority of Americans who want to see Obama-care repealed,” Bachmann said. “This is, I believe, the greatest power grab that I have ever seen.”

Really, “it’s never gone below a majority of Americans who want to see Obama-care repealed”? While that might be true of any Rasmussen poll, in the world outside of the FOC PAC bubble the clear majority doesn’t want it repealed, and is happy with the law. And are you really serious when you claim this is the greatest power grab you’ve ever seen Congresswoman? So, one can only assume you either haven’t paid any attention to the whole political coup thing in Wisconsin? Or, you wholeheartedly agree with it?

Bachman exhorted the hundred or so listeners that the stakes in next year’s election are enormous, and that “what we are going to determine together, here in Iowa, is quite frankly whether we will pass the American Dream on to the next generation.”

Of course that’s the American dream of white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian evangelicals. Not the one that includes people of color – except to clean the house, repair the roof, pick the vegetables and maybe collect your garbage. It’s also not the American Dream of any of those darned Muslims and their Mohamed; it’s not the American Dream of religious freedom, unless you strictly uphold to the idea that America is a Christian nation; of course it’s a Christian nation that is largely denying the Christ, and his teachings regarding caring for the poor and the sick among us, and of brotherly love etc. It’s the Evangelical Christian American Dream of the Old Testament where Gays are stoned to death, and only white people get to be President. It’s the American Dream of preemptive warfare and unending tax cuts and never having to pay the bill for the Wild West diplomacy.

 
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Posted by on March 26, 2011 in 2012 Election, Health Care, Immigration, Libya, Middle East, Politics, Right Wing Crazies, Tea Party

 

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Kansas State Representative Comes up with a Final Solution to Illegal Immigrants, Shoot Them Down Like Hogs?

15 Mar

Virgil Peck, a Kansas State Representative suggested yesterday during a House Appropriations Committee meeting that undocumented immigrants should be hunted down and shot, and yes he’s a Republican.


The Lawrence Journal World reports that during a debate on appropriations for controlling Kansas’ feral swine problem Peck suggested the problem could be handled by shooting them from helicopters.

But wait, there’s more, Peck continued his observation on shooting wild pigs – adding how he would solve the state’s illegal immigration problem too, “It looks like to me if shooting these immigrating feral hogs works, maybe we have found a [solution] to our illegal immigration problem.”

Of course Peck – in good old fashioned GOTP manner – has refused to acknowledge he might have spoken inappropriately, saying he was “just speaking like a southeast Kansas person” and that he expected no further controversy over his comment.

Is this yokel for real? He was speaking like a “southwest Kansas person”? So, by his comment we can assume people from southwest Kansas are racists?

Somos Republicanos, a national Hispanic Republican organization, has called for an apology saying, “We are sick and tired of the bigotry from state legislators who would rather advocate for violence and shooting people than to focus on reasonable solutions.  Hasn’t Mr. Peck learned from the mistakes of Sarah Palin when she put what appeared to be gun sight crosshairs over our Congresswoman, Gabby Gifford’s district?…In a time of extreme tension and occasional violence over illegal immigration, such as the slaughter of a Mexican-American family in Arizona including a nine-year old girl, allegedly by Minutemen, elected officials should refrain from the use of violent metaphors.”

Peck attempted to back pedal his way out by saying he was merely voicing the frustration his constituents feel about the lack of governmental response to illegal immigration.

So, when he said he was speaking as a “southwest Kansas person”, he was speaking as his constituents would speak? So, he was saying people from southwest Kansas were racists?

Of course, why should this surprise anyone? Kansas is, after all, the home of the Westboro Baptist Church, those fine upstanding Christian folks who protest military funerals claiming “God hates America” and he allows soldiers to be killed because “God hates faggots”.

Ah yes, the many faces of today’s Republican Party, the many faces of the conservative Midwest. Enjoy.

 
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Posted by on March 15, 2011 in Immigration, Lunatics, Politics, Right Wing Crazies, Tea Party

 

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There’s no tie to right wing rhetoric and violence in America?

12 Jan

In 2007, Lou Dobbs – then at CNN – prominently backed a sweeping law against undocumented immigrants in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.


Fourteen months later, and just 20 miles from Hazleton, Luis Ramirez, a 25-year-old Mexican, was murdered by teenagers yelling racial slurs and “this is America, go back to Mexico” as they kicked him to death.

According to a New York Times report, “Many people believe the debate fueled by Hazleton’s actions helped create the environment that led to Mr. Ramirez’s death.”

 
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Posted by on January 12, 2011 in Immigration, Lunatics, Right Wing Crazies

 

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President Obama More Conservative than Ronald Reagan?

17 Dec

Yes Virginia it’s true.

When confronted with the impossible solution of how to deal with millions of illegal aliens President Reagan waved his magic pen and pardoned them.

When confronted with the impossible solution of how to deal with millions of illegal aliens President Obama has put forward the Dream Act requiring children of illegal aliens to obtain a college degree or perform service to the country before being allowed to obtain citizenship.

Now, I ask you, who is more conservative?

 
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Posted by on December 17, 2010 in Immigration

 

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Immigration — Threats Flood Into Arizona Judge’s Office After SB-1070 Ruling?

11 Aug

Within hours of blocking key provisions of Arizona’s controversial immigration law, federal district court judge Susan Bolton received hundreds of threats at her court offices.

U.S. Marshal David Gonzales said the judge has been “inundated” with the threats.

“About 99.9% of the inappropriate comments are people venting. They are exercising their First Amendment rights, and a lot of it is perverted. But it’s that 0.1 percent that goes over the line that we are taking extra seriously.” He added, “It is policy at a juncture like this to increase security at the courthouse.”

The Marshall’s office would not say if any threats were coming from recognized hate groups, or if Bolton had received threats at her home. Nor would they discuss any extra security measures, which U.S. marshals routinely provide federal judges.

“It is policy at a juncture like this to increase security at the courthouse. Beyond that, I cannot discuss security matters,” Gonzales said.

Bolton is not the only official facing hostility following Wednesday’s ruling. On Thursday, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) was forced to close his district office in Yuma, AZ, after “finding a window shattered and a bullet inside.”

In April, on the same day SB-1070 was signed into law, Grijalva — an outspoken opponent of the legislation who had called for boycotting the state — closed two district offices “after a man called the Tucson office twice threatening to ‘come in there and blow everybody’s head off,’ and then go to the U.S.-Mexico border to ‘shoot any Mexicans that try to come across.'”

Local militiamen have organized “combat veterans, with kill records, to camp out and patrol” the U.S.-Mexico border, and Neo-Nazis in Arizona now “patrol the border” aiming to “kill or capture immigrants.” Besides immigration-related violence, “threats of violence against lawmakers” also “spiked in the immediate aftermath of the healthcare reform battle in Congress,” when vandals targeted the offices of pro-reform members and threatened to “assassinate” the lawmakers’ children.

Last year, The Arizona Republic reported that the number of threats nationwide against federal judges and prosecutors, plus jurors and witnesses, more than doubled in the past six years, from 592 to nearly 1,300. Gonzales indicated at the time the federal judges in Arizona get three to four threats a week. One federal prosecutor in Tucson revealed she had round-the-clock protection for 10 days after one threat. Federal judges reported that some threat-makers posted personal information about them on websites.

Gonzales said the increase in threats coincides with more online use and the proliferation of blogs. On Thursday he said his agents were aware of hateful threats made about Bolton online since her ruling against the Arizona law. A quick scan shows numerous sites and discussion forums where Bolton is called traitor or other unprintable names.

“I talk with her every day. She’s tough as nails. She takes this as all part of her job,” Gonzales said.

What a wonderful country we live in where citizens can threaten the life of a federal judge for ruling in favor of the Constitution they claim to love, where Neo-Nazis can “patrol” the state’s border with Mexico, and where “militia” groups can recruit former members of our military with “kill records” to “guard” their state’s border. What a wonderful country indeed. Something tells me there’s a lot more to the right’s desire to overturn the Fourteenth Amendment than just immigrant’s kids.

 
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Posted by on August 11, 2010 in Immigration, Lunatics, Racism

 

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Does Glenn Beck support the slave trade or is he just an “idiot”?

03 Oct

beck-glenn8

In a chapter in his new book in which Beck attempts to explain to “idiots” what “our Founding Fathers really intended,” Glenn Beck appears to praise an obsolete provision of the U.S. Constitution which prohibited Congress from outlawing the slave trade before 1808 and capped taxes on the slave trade at $10 per slave. In his explanation of the provision, Beck does not mention slavery, saying instead that the provision means that the Founders apparently “felt like there was a value to being able to live here” and lamenting: “Not anymore. These days we can’t ask anything of immigrants — including that they abide by our laws.” The curious thing here is that while the section does talk about migration, it is very clear that Section 9 is referencing the slave trade. In fact, the addition of the word “migration” was to soften the repugnancy of the importation of human beings as salves into the newly created Republic. A Republic based on the inalienable truth “that all men are created equal”.

In the introduction to a chapter titled, “The U.S. Constitution: Lost in Translation,” Beck mocks “idiots” who don’t share his interpretation of the Constitution:

“How many times have you argued with your idiot friends about what’s constitutional and what isn’t? You may even show them the Constitution, but the disagreement continues. That made me think that maybe the problem is that the entire Constitution is written in English — a language that is very difficult for the average idiot to comprehend. In addition, there are several words in the document longer than three letters, making it a tougher read than the “Dick and Jane” books they normally struggle through.”

So, according to the enlightened perspective of Glenn Beck, if you disagree with his ideas, then you’re an idiot? And what if he’s wrong in his perspective? The problem with Beck is that he some how really believes that he is an equal to men the likes of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. Beck, for all of his desires to be on equal footing with these men, has exactly three things in common with the Founding Fathers, he’s white; he’s a man; and he’s wealthy. That’s it.

In his book, Beck reprints and then praises Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 of the Constitution. Beck specifically highlights in yellow the phrase “ten dollars for each person”:

Section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

“That’s right,” Beck claims, “the Founders actually put a price tag on coming to this country: $10 per person. Apparently they felt like there was a value to being able to live here. Not anymore. These days we can’t ask anything of immigrants — including that they abide by our laws.” [Arguing with Idiots, Page 278]

Glenn, the founders weren’t imposing an immigration fee on people immigrating to America, they were attempting to collect an import tax on slaves. This is not rocket science. In fact Glenn, according to the “father of the Constitution”, James Madison, in his notes from the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Connecticut delegate Roger Sherman — who supported the 1808 clause and other efforts by the South to protect slavery in the Constitution — recognized that the $10 tax limit that Beck highlighted prevented Congress from taxing the slave trade out of existence. According to Madison, Sherman “observed that the smallness of the duty shewed revenue to be the object, not the discouragement of the importation.”

Does Glenn Beck support the slave trade? Probably not. Is he just an idiot? Well, when you start quoting sections of the Constitution that were used to protect the importation of slavery, in an attempt to attack immigrants to our country, then yes, you’re an idiot.

 
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Posted by on October 3, 2009 in Immigration

 

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Mexican Immigration Numbers Drop to Ten Year Low?

03 Aug

The number of Mexican immigrants who crossed the border dropped sharply in the past year to the lowest level in a decade, even while undocumented workers already here are opting to stay.

A study, released recently by the Pew Hispanic Center, found that immigrants arriving from Mexico fell by 249,000 from March 2008 to March 2009, down nearly 60 percent from the previous year. But wait, how is this possible? How is it possible that the number of illegal immigrants entering the United States has fallen by the sharpest amounts in a decade during the Presidency of Barrack Obama? Wasn’t it George W. Bush who was supposed to be protecting our Southern Boarder with his wonderful fence?

The annual inflow of immigrants is now 175,000, having steadily decreased from a peak of 653,000 in 2005, during the beginning of the second term of Bush/Cheney.

The total population of Mexican-born immigrants in the U.S. also edged lower in the past year, from 11.6 million to 11.5 million, according to the study by Pew, an independent research group. Up to 85 percent of immigrants are believed to be in the country illegally. Another drop? How can illegal immigration be turning around under a Democratic President?

Among Pew’s other findings:

• In 2008, the number of Mexicans apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol — 662,000 — was 40 percent below the peak of 1.1 million in 2004, reflecting in part the sharp decline in the number of new immigrants arriving into the U.S. Why are fewer people trying to come into the U.S. after Bush/Cheney left office? Perhaps the whole “tough on illegal immigration” talk was simply a smoke screen? Perhaps the administration dedicated to making America safer was in reality a sieve through which hundreds of thousands of illegals poured through?

• Mexico is by far the origin of most U.S. immigrants, accounting for one-third of foreign-born residents and two-thirds of Hispanic immigrants. About one in 10 people born in Mexico now live in the U.S.

• The total number of apprehensions by the Border Patrol in 2008 — 724,000 — was at the lowest level since 1973. More than 90 percent of people detained by Border Patrol are Mexican. So? Is it possible that President Obama’s Administration is tougher than Bush/Cheney’s?

The findings come as the Obama administration has pledged to take up immigration law this year. A key Democrat in the effort, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer has said he hopes to have a bill ready by Labor Day and that the way to get it passed is to be tough on future waves of illegal immigration.

Steven Camarota, a demographer at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington research group which calls for reduced immigration, said the findings demonstrate that tougher law enforcement can make a difference. Still, he said it will take a lot more than tighter border security to get comprehensive reform passed.

So, the Obama Administration is tougher on illegal immigration than Bush/Cheney? But we’ve heard virtually nothing about this from Limbaugh, Hannity, et al? Aren’t they supposedly dedicated to telling us what no one else wants us to know? Aren’t they the true protectors of America and our way of life? Or, are they simply never going to admit that President Obama could be doing anything right?

 
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Posted by on August 3, 2009 in Immigration

 

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Lou Dobbs Video is OLD News

25 Feb

My grandmotherly friend sent a “must see” video designed to stir everyone up into thinking immigration is going to take a seriously flawed and harmful turn under President Obama. It’s too bad the video is from 2007, and is referring to immigration under the Bush Administration. Nice try though my conservative friends. It’s almost as though they – the conservatives in America – believe we went straight from Bill Clinton to Barrack Obama, and some how there was no George W. Bush. I don’t blame them for wishing this, but wishing it don’t make it so.

If you’re interested in seeing this “must see” video, you may see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP1UQMd7VMw.

Remember this is from June of 2007, not February of 2009.

 
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Posted by on February 25, 2009 in Immigration, Lunatics

 

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