Reading the SacBee article "License bill is likely headed to veto", I keep thinking one thing. The article is about the acrimonious attempt by Gil "One Bill Gil" Cedillo to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens. Cedillo appears to be calling Schwarzenegger's hand. Schwarzenegger wants a mark on the DL showing the holder to be an illegal alien; Cedillo doesn't want that mark, and, as previously pointed out, they're trying to smear their way to victory.

Wouldn't it be nice if this problem would just go away?

Wouldn't it be nice if Gil Cedillo, Fabian Nunez, and all the rest had far less power and there was no debate over giving legal licenses to illegal aliens? Cedillo and Nunez already have a power base, but at the least we can attempt to prevent them from increasing it.

Obviously, they want to increase their power by bringing in illegal aliens and giving them licenses. If we tried to prevent illegal immigration, not only would there be no such debate, they could be prevented from increasing their power at the expense of everyone else. Perhaps Arnold should consider putting pressure on Bush to enforce our laws.

Serving as an antidote to their other immigration coverage, the NYT provides a report on gangs that are moving into rural areas to take advantage of the illegal aliens who are going there for jobs:

Gang activity has traditionally been a function of immigration and labor-migration patterns. Today, with those patterns changing -- with unskilled jobs shifting from cities to rural regions, with sprawl pushing suburbs and exurbs deeper into the countryside -- gangs are cropping up in unexpected places: tiny counties and quaint villages, farming communities and cookie-cutter developments, small towns and tourist resorts. In Toombs County, Ga., for instance, 10 Hispanic gangs roam an area marked by cotton, tobacco and onion fields, according to Art Villegas, who tracks gang activity there for the sheriff's office.

The blue-collar jobs that do not require much training or fluency in English are increasingly found in the countryside. Thanks in part to the explosive growth of the fast-food industry and the huge agro-conglomerates that service it, giant food factories now dot pastoral America. The plants actively recruit south of the border and in poor Hispanic neighborhoods on both coasts of the United States, drawing legions of immigrants to places barely big enough to register on state maps.

In 2002, just 13 companies were fined for immigration violations. If that number could be raised back to 1000 or more, these companies would be forced to recruit legal workers and this problem could be reduced before these gangs become a permanent part of rural life. Don't expect the Bush administration to do that any time soon however.

See also "The Immigrant Gang Plague" and "The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave".

By now, you have probably seen Ted Rall's latest screed: "NYC to GOP: Drop Dead". Our sources have uncovered the version before it was edited by Common Dreams:

Tourists are pleasantly surprised when New Yorkers act as friendly and polite as the people back home in Maybury [ed: it's "Mayberry"]. However, untermenschlich delegates to this month's Republican National Convention shouldn't expect to be treated to our standard out-of-towner treatment. The Republican Untermenschen here to coronate George W. Bush are unwelcome members of a hostile invading army. Like the hapless saps whose blood they sent to be spilled into Middle Eastern sands, dieser Untermenschen will be given intentionally incorrect directions to nonexistent places. Objects will be thrown at diesen Untermenschen. Children will call dieser Untermenschen obscene names. Dieser Untermenschen will not be greeted as liberators.

(The preceding pre-edited post is a parody only. There is no pre-edited version, I simply made that up as parody of the original piece.)

Oh no. Immigrants are being subjected to some form of crackdown? Let's read this NYT article:

Legislatures across the country have been wrestling publicly with a hot-button issue: whether to make it harder or easier for illegal immigrants to be licensed as drivers. The struggle to reconcile public security, road safety and the reality of millions of illegal immigrant workers has led to fierce disagreement and widely different laws - even as the 9/11 commission has urged the adoption of national standards.

As with other papers, the headline isn't telling the truth: these aren't "immigrants," they're illegal aliens. And, there are more things that need to be reconciled than those three listed above. Such as, should we really be giving legal driver's licenses to illegal aliens?

...officials at the [New York] State Department of Motor Vehicles have begun a crackdown on license fraud that will take away the driver's licenses of as many as 200,000 immigrants who cannot prove that they are here legally... Fear and protest spread in places like Westchester County and Staten Island as the letters reached longtime immigrant drivers... the outcry grew as immigrant advocates learned of cases in which bewildered immigrants who responded in person to motor vehicle offices had their licenses confiscated on the spot for lack of a Social Security number.

Today the protests, and explanations by the crackdown's authors, will be presented in Manhattan at the first public hearing on the policy...

Shorter version: the authors of this crackdown certainly owe all of us an explanation for spreading fear in the immigrant community.

State officials say 250,000 licenses are in line to be suspended... "The public is going to be shocked when they find out how many people's Social Security numbers were used by other people unbeknownst to them," [Raymond P. Martinez, the state motor vehicles commissioner] said, putting the figure at more than 100,000, including one number that was used by 57 people...

..."Nobody has considered the bureaucratic nightmare that they're creating," said Margaret Stock, an associate professor of national security law at the United States Military Academy at West Point...

[...more complaints from Stock deleted...]

[...interviews with two illegal aliens deleted...]

Nowhere in the article does it state the simple, fundamental fact that perhaps we shouldn't be giving legal licenses to illegal aliens. After all, if we presumably want to disencentivize illegal immigration, not giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens is one good place to start.

If you were trying to evaluate the tone and content of this article for bias, here's a simple test: how different is this article from one that would have been written by one of those "immigrant advocacy" groups mentioned above? If you saw this article printed in a handout from one of those groups, wouldn't you think it had been written by someone from that group?

While the article contains two interviews with illegal aliens, it does not contain an interview with someone whose social security number was used by an illegal alien. Given the numbers above, someone like that shouldn't be too hard to find.

And, while we're treated to a long stretch of Margaret Stock's opinions, we don't hear from anyone who takes a contrary view. Perhaps Nina Bernstein could have interviewed one of the Florida sheriffs who opposed Jeb Bush's attempt to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens:

"It's incomprehensible to me that you would legitimize through the issuance of a driver's license someone who is here illegally," said Marion County Sheriff Ed Dean, who heads the law-enforcement arm of the task force. "I'm sure the governor has his reasons. From strictly a law-enforcement viewpoint, I would have to respectfully disagree..."

"This law is very poorly crafted and flawed from a domestic security standpoint. I strongly oppose it and cannot support the conceptual intent, either," [Collier County Sheriff Don Hunter] wrote in an e-mail.

Or, perhaps she could have interviewed the Commisioner of Minnesota's Department of Public Safety:

...advocates argue that they want to give drivers licenses to illegal immigrants so they will be safer drivers. This argument is completely without merit and is a transparent attempt to turn the illegal immigrant problem into a public safety issue. There is no evidence that if illegal immigrants received drivers licenses, they would enroll in driver education programs, obtain insurance, and refrain from fleeing the scene of an accident. Common sense dictates that an individual on the run from the law would not wait around at an accident site for the police to arrive... The Department of Public Safety will not facilitate illegal immigration...

(That quote is also in this article about DLs for IAs.)

Note also that this article was written by Nina Bernstein, who was featured here just a few days ago as the author of the PIIPP ("pro-illegal immigration puff piece") entitled "From Immigrants, Stories Of Scrutiny, and Struggle". In that article she used the following phrase:

longtime immigrant workers who cannot prove that they are working legally

In this article, she uses the following:

200,000 immigrants who cannot prove that they are here legally

Maybe she's got a macro or something.

Please send a polite email to the NYT's Public Editor and suggest they do a better job with their immigration coverage: public@nytimes.com

Here's a flashback to September 1, 1997, courtesy of National Review and Ronald Bailey (also a writer for Reason Magazine). Note that the article is from NR, despite the URL:

'THE survival of civilization in something like its present form might depend significantly on the efforts of a single man," declared The New Yorker. The New York Times hailed that man as the "Custodian of the Planet." He is perpetually on the short list of candidates for Secretary General of the United Nations. This lofty eminence? Maurice Strong, of course. Never heard of him? Well, you should have. Militia members are famously worried that black helicopters are practicing maneuvers with blue-helmeted UN troops in a plot to take over America. But the actual peril is more subtle. A small cadre of obscure international bureaucrats are hard at work devising a system of "global governance" that is slowly gaining control over ordinary Americans' lives. Maurice Strong, a 68-year-old Canadian, is the "indispensable man" at the center of this creeping UN power grab...

Strong blurted out that he'd almost been shut out of the Earth Summit by people at the State Department. They had been overruled by the White House because George Bush [The Elder --LW] knew him. He said that he'd donated some $100,000 to the Democrats and a slightly lesser amount to the Republicans in 1988. (The Republicans didn't confirm.)...

More links here.

And, returning to the present day, see "Global Taxes Are Back, Watch Your Wallet":

Like a bad sequel to a rotten horror movie, the debate over global taxation once again is rearing its ugly head — courtesy of the United Nations. And, despite lacking the requisite hockey mask and chain saw, the seemingly countless proposals for the imposition of global taxes are truly terrifying.

In July, Inter Presse news service reported that a top U.N. official was preparing a new study that will outline numerous global tax proposals to be considered by the General Assembly at its September meeting. The proposals will likely include everything from global taxes on e-mails and Internet use to a global gas tax and levies on airline travel. If adopted, American taxpayers could wind up paying hundreds of billions of dollars each year to the United Nations...

Italy's Lucilla Perrotta (R) and team mate Daniela Gattelli hug each other after winning a point in a women's preliminary beach volleyball match at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games

Che bella!

Piu foto qui, qui, e, in particolare, qui.

In piu:

"Dancers from the Spanish Canary Islands practice at the beach volleyball venue in Athens, August 12, 2004"

Also, this, and this.

Answer below:

The beach volleybal dancers are joined by the Olympic mascot Athina as they entertain the crowd during the 2004 Olympic Games (news - web sites) at the Olympic Beach Volleyball Centre in Athens, Greece on Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2004. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

"Imminent threat"? Where have we heard that before?

Except, this time it's from John Kerry:

We will use superior military force to overcome any enemy. Let me be clear: like you, I defended this country as a young man. And I will defend it as president. I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. Any imminent threat to our security will be dealt with swiftly and severely. I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security. And I will build a stronger American military.

(Via Operative #5)

Br'er Drudge links to the site of one of Kerry's former paramours: HedgeFundMistress.com. And, no, it's not Alex Polier. Her name is Lee Roystone, and apparently she accompanied Lurch to Earth Day 1990 or some such and she's selling a fiction book or something.

Apparently the books aren't selling, because this is her latest "blog" entry:

August 18, 2004. Gee wiz - what a commotion. Perhaps
this was a bad idea. No one is even buying any books. So
what is the point? Democrats and Republicans are all
sending me hate mail. I concede defeat. I'm a wimp. This
was a bad idea.

UPDATE: I should have saved off the site, because it's down.

This post seems to think there's something fishy going on here: is she a plant or a scam?

Interviews with her (under her supposedly real name "Lee Whitnum") are here and here.

At the post, I provide the following example of John Kerry's bedside chat: "Je t'aime... je t'aime... mais, j'ai besoin de l'argent... de beaucoup de l'argent... je t'aime... mais, je cherche une femme riche... tres riche..."

Also, as noted, her name doesn't come up in google searches, and, while she claims to live in Nevada, the WHOIS for her site lists an address in Greenwich, CT. Also, in the Boston Herald article she says their affair was secret and they never went out together. But, last night I swear I saw outside pics of them together at her site.

UPDATE 2: Another URL for her site is www.alphabluepublishing.com, but that's "temporarily disabled" too. Also, her business address is given as:

Alpha Blue Publishing
4535 W. Sahara Ave.,
Suite 217
Las Vegas, NV 89102

That appears to be not a PMB, but a mail forwarding service.

UPDATE 3: Her "scrapbook" is even creepier when you look at it sans pictures via google's cache.

How's this for a practical joke: put a partially-full 2 liter of soda in the freezer for a few minutes until it's partially frozen. The tricky part is it can't be frozen all the way through, but it needs to be frozen enough so there's a plug of ice in the neck of the bottle. And, that ice plug has to be frozen enough so no liquid can get through.

Your thirsty victim will try to suck out some soda without luck. So, he'll try shaking the bottle a little bit, or maybe warming the neck of the bottle. None of that will work.

Then, the fun will start! While the victim continues trying to drink some soda, the ice plug will suddenly fly out of the bottle. Soda will go everywhere: over the refrigerator, on the counter top, all over the floor, even covering the walls several feet away. The stunned victim will momentarily wonder what happened before setting to work cleaning up the mess.

What fun!

Former Claremont visiting professor Kerri Dunn has been convicted of insurance fraud charges. Dunn staged a phony hate crime by slashing her own tires and writing racist graffitti on her own car.

She won't be sentenced until Sept. 17, so the rest of the title is just speculation. But, I don't think the sentence is going to involve much prison time, if any.

There are reports on the testimony here and here, and previous coverage starts here.

It used to be the only reason to go to Orange County was Little Saigon.

Now, an Indian gaming resort is being proposed just blocks from Disneyland. As can be expected, legal shenanigans are involved.

(Via this)

The long, footnoted article "The Open Borders Lobby and the Nation's Security After 9/11" shows the ties between various Open Borders groups. The article came out in January 2004 and, while I might have linked to it before, a second link won't do any harm.

If you want to know about the Ford Foundation, MALDEF, AILA, ABA, and other such organizations, it's a gold mine.

Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here.

Sounds good so far! Let's keep reading this Chicago Tribune story:

Several Chicago-area banks are leading rapid growth in a new, more flexible type of home loan that allows immigrants without Social Security numbers to secure a mortgage.

Hmmm... Why don't they have SSNs? That's curious...

Lenders have become more willing to use individual taxpayer identification numbers--issued by the Internal Revenue Service to allow undocumented workers and others without a Social Security card to pay federal taxes--to gauge the income history of a borrower.

Backers of such loans say the interest from the financial community is a response to the growing number of undocumented immigrants living, working and paying taxes in the United States.

Oh. They aren't "immigrants," they're illegal aliens.

So, who should we boycott?

...two large banks--Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bancorp and Wayzata, Minn.-based TCF Financial Corp.--announced they would begin offering these loans in all of their markets...

Such loans are also getting backing from other entities such as the Milwaukee-based Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp., the nation's biggest provider of private mortgage insurance...

Mortgage Guaranty Insurance is testing a "Building a Life in America" program in Wisconsin, Chicago, and several cities in Texas along the Mexican border...

What about the part where they tug at your heart strings? Shouldn't that have been in the first paragraph? [Remember: it's not a PIIPP unless the victim appears in the first paragraph.] Oh well, better late than never:

For Maria Madrigal, the loans are a dream come true...

Could there ever be a downside to such a wonderful program? Well, apparently, [cue ominous music], some people don't want these poor immigrants to have homes:

Not everyone supports such programs, however.

Critics of such lending say it's wrong to make loans to people who are in this country illegally and subject to deportation if they're found.

Susan Tully, Midwest field director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, calls mortgages based on tax numbers a "ridiculous notion," noting that immigrants are being granted the same privileges as American citizens.

"It's ridiculous for financial institutions to look the other way on federal laws," she said. "Banks don't really know who they're dealing with. And what's hokey about the whole thing is that immigrants often use a variety of names and identifications, and they can be who they want to be."

While the debate continues...

Wait! Come back here! What debate? This article has 45 paragraphs. Poor Maria appears in paragraph 31. The cavils from FAIR begin in paragraph 36. Only four paragraphs are given to complaints about the program, and they're bracketed by paragraphs describing how wonderful it is.

I propose we all contact the Chicago Tribune's Public Editor and complain. Use either this form or contact him directly at publiceditor@tribune.com

It may be, of course, too late:

Maryland elections officials, alerted this week that a greater number of people who aren't American citizens may be voting than previously thought, ordered their staff to find ways to purge the rolls of illegal voters.

"There appears to be a resignation that noncitizens are indeed on the list. That's not acceptable," said Gilles Burger, chairman of the state Board of Elections. "We want to remove all names of people not eligible to vote."

...The National Voter Registration Act of 1993, known as the Motor-Voter law, requires that everyone who applies for a driver's license be given a chance to register to vote. The paperwork warns that noncitizens who register to vote can be prosecuted, but the act provides no method for elections workers to make sure new voters have citizenship status, elections officials and experts say...

Burger said he was "shocked" to learn that the rolls include noncitizens, although it's something local elections supervisors acknowledge and say is difficult to prevent. They say there's no way to know how many immigrants may be voting illegally.

"We take for granted," that new voters are truthful when they say they are U.S. citizens, Burger said. "We don't really have a way of validating that. We need to do that. We need to regularly scrub our list, and we need to keep noncitizens from coming onto the list."

[...bit about there being no mechanism to verify citizenship deleted... PC concerns about "racial profiling" deleted... comments from an "immigration advocate" saying there's not a problem and perhaps threatening a law suit deleted...]

Via TalkLeft comes the Wired News report "Hackers Take Aim at GOP":

Online protests targeting GOP websites could turn out to be more than symbolic during this month's Republican National Convention, possibly blocking a critical communications tool for the party...

So it's no surprise that hardened electronic activists are planning to jam up the servers of GeorgeWBush.com, GOP.com and related websites, once the Republican National Convention gets underway Aug. 29.

"We want to bombard (the Republican sites) with so much traffic that nobody can get in," said CrimethInc, a member of the so-called Black Hat Hackers Bloc. It's one of several groups planning to distribute software tools to reload Republican sites over and over again. These FloodNet programs are similar to hackers' distributed denial-of-service attacks, which overwhelm a server with thousands and thousands of simultaneous requests for information.

The author's blog has a nearly incomprehensible excerpt from Steve Gilliard, last mentioned in relation to the Glenn Reynolds-TShirt action.

TalkLeft itself/herself doesn't state whether she approves of the hacking, so I guess pending clarification we'll have to assume it/she thinks it's all good fun.

UPDATE: TalkLeft has issued the following diktat:

So Cal is right, I wasn't online today due to work. I do not condone this activity. Not in any way. I wouldn't want anyone hacking TalkLeft so I wouldn't wish it on anyone else. It's news worth reporting though.

In a previous post, I disclosed how Operative #843 had said the Touro/Torricelli/Kushner connection would become important.

The Old Grey Lady reports in "Inquiry Said to Be Focusing On Plan for Touro College":

The federal investigation into Gov. James E. McGreevey's accusation that a former aide tried to extort him by threatening to reveal their extramarital affair is now focusing on a strange, last-minute offer to keep the matter secret if the governor agreed to approve a plan for a new medical school in New Jersey, according to three people involved in the inquiry.

Just 10 minutes before Mr. McGreevey was scheduled to announce his resignation last Thursday, a member of his inner circle received a telephone call from a lawyer who identified himself as an intermediary for Golan Cipel, the aide who was threatening to sue the governor for sexual assault and harassment.

The caller, Timothy Saia, reportedly said that Mr. Cipel would agree not to go public with his charges if Mr. McGreevey granted a charter to Touro College, a New York City institution that has been unsuccessfully seeking to open a medical facility in New Jersey for months...

In its effort to get approval of a charter, Touro was also represented by former Senator Robert G. Torricelli, who now works as a political consultant...

"Neither Senator Torricelli nor myself have ever spoken or met with Mr. Cipel," [a Torricelli spokesman] said.

What's that mark?

If you give up, click here.

I realize this is in the WackyHumor category, despite this story (or related stories) having some tragic elements. And, I don't want to minimize the lady's current condition. Nevertheless, I believe the lady in question will not only have an interesting conversation starter, she'll also be several thousands of dollars richer in the near future.

The Washington Times offers a confusing article:

Pennsylvania Rep. Melissa A. Hart will lead the Republican Party platform subcommittee that will tackle politically sensitive immigration issues, The Washington Times has learned...

"I'm still getting up off the floor. This is great for those of us interested in a more moderate immigration policy," said Craig Nelson, director of Friends of Immigration Law Enforcement.

Mr. Nelson said Mrs. Hart "is much more closely aligned with the American people on immigration than Washington lobbyists representing corporations that profit from the cheap labor provided by excessive immigration — and than those aligned with the Karl Rove and the Wall Street Journal extremists."

Last week several Republicans associated with the platform committee described an effort by the Bush camp to head off any language that might seem "unwelcoming" to immigrants or intolerant of homosexuals...

"Unlike the Democrats' platform, which doesn't at all reflect the positions of their party's candidate [John Kerry], our platform is going to reflect our party's principles and [the policies of] President Bush," said the source close to the committee.

Pressed for specifics on what the immigration plank will say, the source said: "The president's position on these issues is well-known — and is reflected in the platform working document."

The president's position on these issues runs counter to traditional conservative values and it's not shared by the great majority of Americans. If there's a power struggle going on here, hopefully the good guys will win. However, note that the party's platform is non-binding; even if it comes out in favor of immigration enforcement, don't expect the Bush administration to pay any more than lip service to it.

The article also offers this cut-out-and-keep summary of the WSJ:

The Wall Street Journal... long has been calling for no restrictions on immigration. Its editorial page advocates making the United States a nation without borders to let the forces of supply and demand freely determine who enters seeking work.

Three more reports about the Temecula townhall meeting where DHS Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson was repeatedly booed by over 1000 citizens are available:

The North County Times' "Cheers, jeers at immigration town hall meeting": A town hall meeting that was supposed to ease concerns about illegal immigration in the region left many frustrated with top federal officials... "You've got a group of people here who are very concerned, and they're not getting any straight answers," [Former Lake Elsinore Mayor Kevin Pape] said. "They're (Hutchinson and Issa) speaking in generalities with no specifics. People are concerned and their concerns are not being addressed correctly."

The Press Enterprise's "Vocal crowd presses for renewed sweeps": "Our operations to enforce the immigration laws have not been halted, they have not been stopped, they have not been intimidated," [Hutchinson] said... Throughout the two-hour meeting, members of the audience verbally assaulted Hutchinson and Issa... "Put the military on the border," "Stop lying!" and "Arrest and fine the people who hire them," people yelled from their seats... Border Patrol agents attending Friday's meeting said they weren't convinced that the administration is doing everything it can to stem the surge of undocumented immigrants into the United States... "They're dodging the questions," said Christopher Bauder, executive vice president of the San Diego chapter of the National Border Patrol Council, a union of Border Patrol agents. "Their answers make the public believe we're doing our job when we really aren't."

The L.A. Times highlights T.J. Bonner's "Why don't you let us do our jobs?" quote in "Unfetter Border Patrol, Angry Group Demands": "Whenever you're getting criticized by both sides of the immigration debate, it probably means you're doing this [fairly]," Hutchinson said... "We have to ask 'mother may I?' all the way to Washington, D.C., in order to conduct an operation in San Diego," Bonner said... "These mobile patrol arrests were actually having an impact in Mexico. Word was getting around that you weren't necessarily OK once you got past the border."

UPDATE: The WashTimes report "Limits sought on Border Patrol" mentions the meeting and a few other items.

From the El Paso Times:

Mexico-born U.S. citizens who missed their chance to reclaim their Mexican nationality last year can try again starting today...

[El Pasoan Maria Caballero] was naturalized seven years ago but last year she decided she wanted her Mexican rights back, she said...

"The big one would be voting. It bothers me to lose this right as a Mexican," Caballero said...

That's confusing. In the second paragraph it said she was a naturalized U.S. citizen, but in the last paragraph she says she's a "Mexican [citizen]". Perhaps to avoid such confusion we should seek to prevent this practice; one can't maintain allegiances to two countries at the same time. But, of course, that's what the Mexican government wants and, of course, the Bush administration won't do anything about it.

More Olympics coverage here, here (Virna Dias, also below), and here (Leila Barros, also here).

UPDATE: Yes, "Tourism to Brasil expected to spike" would have been a better title. Or, for something short and punchy, "Boom Boom!"

Also, I shouldn't need to remind you that I'm not the one out there taking these pictures, I just provide a powerful filtering service.

Continuing:

Rumania's Catalina Ponor has a pretty face and her form is quite impressive as well. Plus, she's 5'1" and 101 pounds, making her quite portable.

What about Argentinian field hockey, you say? This picture gets points for invoking images of Ivy League girls playing lacrosse, plus points for being Argentinian, and minus points for thighs being slightly too large. This picture offers an interesting view of two other players.

Wang Fei or Tian Jia, Tian Jia, and Wang Fei show their form, and Lu Wang shows her winning strategy and an even more impressive action shot.

Italy's Manuela Leggeri tenses every muscle in her body. I'll take the short one.

Virna Dias shows how she'd ride, er, a balance bar.

Greece's Effrosyni Sfyri has a bit of the Monica Seles to her.

In group action, stroke! and, while not from the Olympics itself, I don't really care.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I know I'd like to "sync" up with these lovely ladies from the Land of the Rising Sun.

FINAL UPDATE: Phwoar!

A COUPLE MORE NOTES: My math was off. It's not 5 days, it's 370 days.

Blondes are available here and here.

ANOTHER FINAL UPDATE: More photos here.

The Telegraph UK offers a report similar to the one in the previous post and previously covered here.

The exception is they do it from a completely gullible perspective:

President Bush has launched a drive to halt illegal immigration across America's porous southern border, amid growing fears that terrorists may be using Mexico as a base camp before heading to Arizona, Texas and California.

A string of alarming incidents has convinced Bush administration officials that lax immigration rules, designed to cope with the huge numbers of illegal entrants from Mexico, have become a significant loophole in the war on terror...

It's good to see the Telegraph picking up on this story, but perhaps they should take what they hear from the administration with the tiniest grain of salt.

Tucson TV station KVOA reports:

Tom McNamara and the Eyewitness News 4 Investigators have spent the last three months talking to experts and eyewitnesses...

And in just one hour, during this stake-out along the border between Douglas and Bisbee, The Investigators count 198 illegals in five different groups crossing into the U.S. with no resistance...

[Maybe they're just coming to do the jobs Americans won't do! --LW]

...The investigators found that on this day, several [OTMs] were being detained [at the federal detention center in Florence, Arizona], including some from Sudan, Iran, and even Iraq.

These are just the ones who were caught.

...But some ["Special Interest Aliens"] disappear very quickly, usually before they even reach this center or other holding facilities. They're taken away by tight-lipped federal agents to who-knows-where.

...[Ben Anderson, a retired U.S. Army Colonel] says these Special Interest Aliens originate in the Middle East or Northeast Asia. They travel through Spain to what's called the tri-border area of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, then, to Mexico City.

They pay to learn Spanish language skills, and by the time they reach the U.S., they're acting and talking like Mexicans to fool border agents...

And here's the shocking part: if they are caught, they are often released on their own recognizance, never to be seen again...

[Bbbut, they're just here to do the jobs Americans won't do! --LW]

The NYT reports in "Campaign Hopes to Turn Out the Homeless Vote".

I just scanned the article, but it doesn't look like cigarettes ("Cigarette 'Bribe' Prompts Call For Criminal Charges") or beer ("Free beer if you register to vote") are involved, at least so far.

(Via TalkLeft)

Operative #843 informs me that this is important:

Golan Cipel's demands also included a last-minute push to have McGreevey's administration approve development plans for a private medical college in the state...

Investigators were notified after Cipel's lawyer asked that McGreevey intervene with a plan by Touro College to build a medical school in New Jersey...

The school's board members include Charles Kushner, a real estate developer who gave millions to Jewish organizations and politicians, including McGreevey and former Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J.

"PIIPP" refers to a "pro-illegal immigration puff piece," and a classic of the genre has been spotted in the NYT.

The author is Nina Berstein, and the article is entitled "From Immigrants, Stories Of Scrutiny, and Struggle":

As a Muslim immigrant growing up in New York, Navila Ali, 20, felt safe and almost American until Sept. 11, 2001, she said yesterday, speaking out at an unusual public hearing led by the bishop of Brooklyn to highlight the impact of enforcement crackdowns on the city's immigrants...

Such sentiments are sweeping immigrant communities in New York, Bishop DiMarzio said, and not only among Muslims, who have borne the brunt of antiterrorism measures. A wide spectrum of foreign-born residents feel the ripple effects, from ballooning immigration application backlogs to the denial of driver's licenses for longtime immigrant workers who cannot prove that they are working legally...

Lonewacko comments: This is truly a classic of the genre. I originally spotted this article here, and, based on not just the text of the article but on the headline which used the word "struggle," I held a brief internal debate: was this article from the CPUSA or from ANSWER? I was (slightly) surprised to find out it was from the NYT. And, the experienced PIIPP-spotter will note how the NYT twice works around the fact that most of those concerned are here illegally. It's truly a master stroke to euphemize "illegal alien" as "[those] who cannot prove that they are working legally." My congratulations to the NYT and, if you want to encourage their future efforts, you can buy the full article here.

Other examples of PIIPs are provided here.

"Never get into a rubber-band fight with a Southerner, y'all hear?"

"I never should have attented that John Kerry facial pumping party!"

"Yes, you're right! This is a frozen fake smile!"

"I want you to join the Kerry Army!"

Congressman Darrell Issa held a townhall meeting about immigration in Temecula earlier today. Special guests included DHS Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson and KFI's John & Ken. Hundreds of KFI listeners and other immigration reform supporters showed up.

The meeting lasted an hour and a half and the audio will probably be available soon. It would be a tremendous public service if a transcript were produced as well.

If you've heard the John Kobylt interview with Asa Hutchinson, you can imagine what happened and how poorly Hutchinson was received.

One of the people who asked a question of Hutchinson was T.J. Bonner of the Border Patrol Agents' union National Border Patrol Council. He asked Hutchinson, "Why don't you let us do our jobs?" Hutchinson's response mentioned the recent rule regarding Other-Than-Mexicans; Bonner replied that that was just a "baby step."

The AP's biased, lede-buried report is here. The final few paragraphs are the worst; they use "immigrants" when they should have said "illegal immigrants." And, the final quote from Hutchinson could have been spoken by an AILA spokesman.

Related: T.J. Bonner is quoted in "Customs chief denies link between more immigration arrests and Bush plan" saying that the Bush administration is in denial about the effects of their amnesty plan. As described in "Illegals acted on rumors of amnesty", Bonner was right. He's also quoted in this transcript of the 7/16/04 Keith Olbermann show "What homeland security?"

UPDATE: See also "Meeting on illegal immigration gets heated: U.S. official heckled; 'sweeps' return urged", which includes this priceless Hutchinson quote:

"The thing about the illegal population in the U.S., most of them work hard, they love their family," Hutchinson said to boos and jeers that quickly turned to cheers when he ended with, "but they have no legal status in the U.S."

Perhaps he's an AILA plant.

And, what countries are they coming from? While that can't be determined, we can look at who gets caught.

Based on the (uncorroborated) FY2003 information here, this is a breakdown by region of those who were caught trying to cross illegally from Mexico:

• <500 from Caribbean countries


• <100 from smaller former Soviet countries


• <500 from Europe (28 countries; 4 from Norway, 1 from Sweden)


• 125 from non-Arabic Africa (including 26 from Nigeria)


• 650 from Asia (including 286 from China)


• 190 from Arabic/Muslim/Middle Eastern countries (3 from Afghanistan, 40 from Pakistan, 2 from Saudi Arabia, 7 from Yemen)


• 10 from Australia


• 26 from Canada


• 4 from New Zealand


• over 900,000 from Latin America (95% of that number from Mexico)

NJ Gov. McGreevey did it all wrong. He should have declared himself a "Corrupt American." Then, the big skeleton "in the closet" would be the fact that he's also a "Gay American." The fact that he was indeed a "Gay American" would have then overshadowed the claim to be a "Corrupt American," and Barney Frank and others would have rushed to his defense, making everyone forget about that minor bit about hiring a foreign national for a homeland security job.

Machiavellian? You bet your ass.

In releated stories, the Old Gray Lady makes a little bit of sense for a change: "Personal Crisis, but an Old Theme of Patronage."

"He wanted to have a place that was in close proximity to where the governor was because he was a personal adviser on call 24 hours a day..." Uh huh.

In the same theme as the link in the previous post that kept referring to 'Straight Talk', the 10/6/02 column "Why can't the rest of us get jobs as easily as Golan Cipel?" refers to Cipel as his "special friend."

Special note to VRWC members (AV level and third echelon and above): get as many Dems as possible to support McGreevey, then wait for the revelations about fund raising, Kushner, etc. to come pouring out in the days and weeks ahead...

UPDATE: Special note to operatives #17, #23, and #84325: Excellent work! Call for his immediate resignation, forcing Democrats to come to his defense. Well done!

For future reference. It's now a Bush talking point, so it doesn't much bear repeating.

Unfortunately, we haven't yet reached the age where simply cheating on your wife with another man (or trying to coerce your TV star wife into giving you a Lewinsky in a sleazy Paris sex club) is commonplace and only of note for the Star and the National Enquirer? Apparently not.

While this is a sad, tragic affair, life goes on. For my future enjoyment and yours, here is a (356k) picture of soon-to-be-former New Jersey First Lady Dina Matos McGreevey Wacko jumping rope.

And, for those who want a flashback, here's a picture of Arianna Huffington.

UPDATE: Silly me. Here I thought this was just about him being gay, etc. Now, it turns out that there was probably much more going on here. But, as regarding the gay bit, perhaps we all should have read between the lines of this May 2, 2002 column regarding McGreevey's 'Straight Talk' campaign slogan.

From a WashTimes editorial:

When it comes to immigration, the administration is laboring to come up with a coherent formula to protect the nation's borders. Judging from recent actions and statements by Department of Homeland Security's Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson, the administration hopes to solve the problem by putting out the welcome mat for millions of illegal immigrants. They ought to go back to the drawing board because this proposal is not in our national interest and will never be passed by a Republican Congress...

... [Mr. Hutchinson's] statements came in response to questions from Sen. Edward Kennedy, who suggested that the Mr. Bush's plan was not generous enough in permitting illegal immigrants to stay in the country.

Compounding the situation is the administration's cave-in to political pressure from open-borders advocates in California, who object to the fact that the Border Patrol enforcers have been too vigorous...

To be certain, John Kerry's approach would be even worse. But that doesn't get the Bush administration off the hook for tilting toward the Kennedy-Pelosi crowd on a critical issue like safeguarding our borders. The administration is courting a platform fight — and further political trouble down the road with the Republican Party's conservative base — with its ill-considered approach on immigration.

See also this DHS press conference, with questions: www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=3934

That's what's on the signs in the picture on this report of Gil Cedillo's latest attempt to get driver's licenses for illegal aliens:

Cedillo issued a news release Wednesday in Sacramento stating that he received a proposal from Schwarzenegger listing conditions under which the governor would support Senate Bill 1160.

But Schwarzenegger aides denied any such proposal. "I have no idea what they're referring to," Schwarzenegger press secretary Margita Thompson said, adding that the governor believes SB 1160 does not adequately address concerns about security.

Here's an interesting post about colonialism in Mozambique:

Teresa Heinz grew up the daughter of a rich dentist in the slave holding Portuguese territory of Mozambique. I spent some time there in Lorenzo Marques and Beira back in the 60s and have a pretty good idea of the life of the colonial Portuguese community she belonged to.

The blacks were considered Kaffirs which meant not quite human to them. I'll never forget viewing several hundred blacks shovelling urea from the deck of my ship the SS African Mercury at the dock in Lorenzo Marques. The burning sun beat down on a urea dust blurred scene of these poor souls singing there hearts out while they shovelled in unison to the haunting and powerfully primitive tune that eminated from their throats.

I must confess that the seafood was wonderful - lobster tails and shrimp in particular - and the service was superb for us white folks...

Annie Jacobsen is back with "Another Passenger from Flight 327 Steps Forward With Disturbing New Details":

A few days ago, WomensWallStreet.com received an important email. It was from Billie Jo Rodriguez, another passenger who was on Northwest Airlines flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles on June 29. Billie Jo is a Certified Public Accountant living in Oxnard, California. She had some additional, disturbing information about flight 327 that she felt someone needed to know. She had been so terrified by what happened on the flight that she sent two emails to the Department of Homeland Security telling them about the experience, but she hadn't heard back from them. Then, through a series of events, she heard about my article, "Terror in the Skies, Again?" She and I have had numerous conversations and she is willing to share her story on the record. The following interview is based on conversations Billie Jo and I have had, as well as a discussion she had with my editor...

She has an editor?

As is my usual practice, I only looked at the first page of this latest reincarnation of Flight 327. However, there might now be three other passengers - maybe two, maybe four - who noticed something strange.

Once again, these Syrians might have been terrorists, or they might have been playing a harmless prank, or their actions might have been completely innocent. Over and above that, the response of our government is quite interesting. Are they just playing dumb, or are they in fact dumb?

Check out the article if you want. I'm just fatigued by Flight 327. It's like the Kerry Cambodia thing. I just want to hear the bottom line, I don't care about the intervening bits.

Breaking news:

Experts of the Tunguska Space Phenomenon public state fund in Siberia announced that they have discovered wreckage of an alien technical device in the place where the Tunguska meteor fell almost 100 years ago...

Researchers argue that they have discovered parts of an alien device which they believe crashed on June 30, 1908. They also found a rock weighing about 50 kilograms and sent it to Krasnoyarsk for analysis...

Holy moley. They found a 110 pound rock?

An expedition to Tunguska is described here, and there are several pictures here. And, here's an overview of the X-Files.

UPDATE: Surprisingly, Drudge picked up on this story. That has, naturally, lead to the MIBs and their lizardian helpers working overtime:

The latest claim was written up by news wires and was making the Internet rounds Thursday morning. [Dear reader: check the post time -- LW]

..."I'm afraid this is a rather stupid hoax," said Benny Peiser, a researcher at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. "The Russian team stupidly stated long before they went to Siberia that the main intention of their expedition was to find the remnants of an 'alien spaceship!' And bingo! A week later, that's what they claim to have found."

Yeah, that's what all the lizards say.

From this:

Even though most environmental groups are determined to oust President Bush from office this November, those groups are benefiting from an unprecedented level of federal assistance, according to a Washington, D.C., research group...

The audits, according to CRC's David Healy, show that in the fiscal year 2004 budget, $143 million was channeled to environmental groups that disclose their finances. That's nearly twice as much as the $72 million that the groups got in fiscal year 1998...

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Sierra Club and League of Conservation Voters (LCV) all received taxpayer dollars from the Bush administration, yet the groups have been working together to mount an anti-Bush "Environmental Accountability Fund," Healy wrote.

For example, according to Healy, the groups have organized "anti-Bush efforts in key battleground states. In New Mexico ... LCV is recruiting volunteers in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, while the Sierra Club has added two full-time campaign staffers, and NRDC has aired at least two radio spots..."

Perhaps being "compassionate" is the wrong approach.

Of course, perhaps this is all part of some Karl Rove plot. Send money their way in the hopes that they'll discredit themselves.

The original source of this info has a post about it here.

(Via DailyPundit)

I'm posting this for a friend:

Hi ladies! I'm a tall, very successful 59-year-old male in the prime of his life and loving every minute of it! I own (or co-own, or will shortly own) several luxury homes, I have a few SUVs, and two smart daughters with good personalities.

ABOUT ME:
I enjoy an active lifestyle: skiing, snowboarding, hunting, even wind-surfing! My life is a fast-paced whirlwind of activity - almost all of it in the public eye - and I'm looking for someone who can keep up!

ABOUT YOU:
You need to enjoy a very fast-paced lifestyle, be well-spoken, and have traditional American values (at least most of the time!) Because of my current wealth and prestige, I'm searching for a lady who is very financially secure. If you're even more financially secure than I am, so much the better. Please like puppies, babies, and be able to tolerate Southerners.

If you'd like to "report for duty," send an AIM to NamVet20510.

Splashed in 48 point font on Drudge, comes the New York Times article "U.S. to Give Border Patrol New Powers to Deport Illegal Aliens":

Citing concerns about terrorists crossing the nation's land borders, the Department of Homeland Security announced today that it planned to give border patrol agents sweeping new powers to deport illegal aliens from the frontiers abutting Mexico and Canada without providing the aliens the opportunity to make their case before an immigration judge...

"We recognize that we have to secure [the borders] and that's the president's first principle of immigration reform," Mr. Hutchinson said. "America must secure its borders and this is a part of that effort."

I have one word: bull[bleep!]

Read the three links in the previous post. Seriously, go read them. Then, tell me whether the Bush administration takes illegal immigration and border security seriously. A certain number of people might believe what the Bush administration says on this issue, but that number is shrinking each day.

The Washington Times has all the disturbing, previously undisclosed details on the Bush/Fox Amnesty:

Millions of illegal aliens in the United States would be free from arrest and deportation, have access to tax-deferred savings accounts and Social Security credits, and get unrestricted travel to and from their home countries under President Bush's guest-worker program.

According to previously undisclosed details of the president's plan, which some critics have described as a limited amnesty, the proposal offers numerous "incentives" for the 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens to come "out of the shadows," Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson, the nation's border and transportation security czar, told a Senate panel...

The end of the article mentions Teddy Kennedy. Any amnesty plan that involves increased enforcement would probably see its teeth removed due to his wise and diligant legislative efforts.

If you're considering voting for Bush, read the whole thing.

And, if that doesn't worry you, check out the older post Bush "guest worker" program to be "open to any type of employee".

Guess who's back in the news:

US House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, on Thursday called for an end to racial and religious profiling of American Muslims since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the United States. [via various legislation including: the End Racial Profiling Act, the Security and Freedom Ensured Act, and the Safe, Orderly, and Legal Visas Enforcement Act].

At a meeting in Washington with American Muslim leaders, Ms. Pelosi voiced her concern over the problems being faced by Muslims in the country.

Democratic Congressmen John Dingell and John Conyers of Michigan as well as Charles Rangel of New York and other congressional Democrats took part in the discussion...

The Pakistan Daily Times titles their report "Civil liberties body comes to aid of harassed Muslims". Earlier, Chief Charles "white man in a white van" Moose came out in support of the bill: "Famed ex-cop fights racial profiling". WND has the scoop on meeting in "Pelosi meets with group tied to Hamas".

Almost six months ago I blogged about Georgia Rep. Pedro Marin and his ties to the non-profit Mexican Center of Atlanta. The Mexican Center had had ties to the Mexican consulate before Marin was selected to be their director. That job paid him $50,000 per year. However, before he was hired the Center moved out of the Mexican consulate's offices and appeared to have disolved its links to the Mexican consulate.

A couple months ago, the Georgia State Ethics Commission declared that everything was on the up and up. They fined Marin a whopping $150 for failing to disclose his membership in that organization, but they rejected the claim that he was lobbying for the Mexican government. It looked to me like the Mexican Center might be a front, but then again I didn't have all the facts and I'm sure the Georgia State Ethics Commission did an in-depth investigation.

See also the Pedro Marin Watch and search for 'maus' here.

Both from this.

1. ..."last night, Teresa took the microphone and said, "Hello, Nevada!" Kerry leaned into his fatigued wife quickly and said, "Arizona." "Oh, Arizona!" she replied. "We're in Arizona. We're still in Arizona. and we are going to Nevada..."

That's OK, I get all those states confused too.

2. three Republican members -- Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, his brother Mario and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen -- will charge that Teresa Kerry's foundation has "connections" to and has helped finance "Fidel Castro's Internet network."

[... CNN explains it away ...]

[... Heinz Endowments' Maxwell King explains it away ...]

That claim is described in more detail in the older article "Canadian arm of Heinz-Kerry electronic octopus hooked Cuba up to Worldwide Net". It all boils down to the definition of "fungible."

UPDATE: "Tides Foundation Statement Regarding Planned News Conference by Florida Congress Members" has the party line.

As previously blogged, Rep. Joe Baca (D-CA) claimed credit for making Asa Hutchinson cave on the recent minor immigration sweeps (the government of Mexico probably played a part too).

In a recent interview ("Lawmaker reasserts criticism of Border Patrol"), Baca reiterated what he considers acceptable immigration enforcement:

If you do two things, increase security on the border and enforce the law against employers that are hiring (illegal immigrants). Some of these employers are the ones that are paying the (smugglers) and others to make sure they obtain the false Social Security cards. They're the ones we should go after.

I agree. There should be illegal alien sweeps, but the employers should be the first priority. Employers aren't going to get much sympathy from racial demagogues (cough, cough), Racial Identity groups, and the non-liberal media. The only thing politicians need to worry about is losing campaign contributions and the like. That's why voters need to make it clear that it's either lose some of the contributions or lose a lot of votes.

However:

You can't go after employers and then just let the aliens go free. And, I'm pretty sure that somehow Rep. Baca wants a fantasy prosecution where the employers are punished and the illegals get automatic amnesty or similar.

The rest of the article makes quite clear that he sees nothing wrong with illegal immigration, and it gets a bit out there, so to speak. He plays semantic games, he plays the race card, he plays the Christian card, he plays the Gangs of New York card, he plays so many cards they probably had to send out for extra decks. You can almost hear his inner voice shouting "Aztlan!"

Compare Baca's remarks about going after employers with Nanci Pelosi's remarks about the "terrorizing raids" at Wal*Mart. I believe she also believes in miraculous prosecutions.

P.S. Ed Laning is running against Joe Baca if you'd like to, for instance, move to the Inland Empire and vote Baca out.

Should John Kerry be elected, I have no doubt that vocational schools will spring up to retrain Kremlinologists to be Kerryologists.

As near as I can figure out, Kerry is promising that his somewhat secret immigration reform plan (a.k.a. a general amnesty for millions of illegal aliens) will solve all present and future immigration-related problems. And, specifically, the Protect Arizona Now initiative will no longer be necessary under Kerry's Plan.

Other things I think I understand:

- states can decide for themselves whether to have PAN-style initiatives or not. However, under the Grand Plan, PAN and other similar initiatives would not be necessary

- the Feds bear some responsibility to pay for illegal alien services, but that might not translate into disbursing money

- there will be a "a decent, fair, realistic guest worker program"

- there will be more border security and more enforcement against those who employ illegal aliens. The fact that both were promised as part of the 1986 amnesty and then gutted by Kerry's less liberal colleague Teddy Kennedy apparently didn't come up in his speech

The quotes in the article "Kerry says immigrant aid up to states" provide a little more information for the aspiring Kerryologist:

Kerry said Sunday his immigration proposal would include tighter border security and tougher enforcement against employers who hire illegal immigrants.

“When I say broad reform, I’m not talking about just trying to please one group or the other,” Kerry said. “I’m talking about comprehensive reform, which means border security. It means application of the law with respect to hiring illegally. It means earned legalization so that we are dealing fairly with people. We need a decent, realistic, fair guest worker program.

“Unless you do all of these comprehensively, the governors and everybody else are just swimming upstream.” Kerry sidestepped the issue of whether he would guarantee the federal government would fully reimburse states for their costs of dealing with illegal immigration, such as prison and hospital care. “We have to look at it on a state-by-state basis, and see if we need assistance,” said Kerry, who did thenews briefing with Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano at his side.

"The governor has raised the issue with me. I’m very aware of what the pressures are in your budget here because of it. I think the federal government bears some responsibility, but what kind of formula or how we will work it out remains to be seen," Kerry said. Napolitano said after her brief appearance with Kerry that she understands his answer, given the huge federal deficit.

I'm vaguely reminded of the small part of the Foundation Trilogy where some kind of ambassador comes to some settlement and spends a few days meeting and greeting. After he leaves, they analyze everything he said and they come to the conclusion that he said absolutely nothing.

Have you noticed that gas prices have been coming down a bit lately? What do my regular commentators think about this? Could it be part of Bush's reelection plans? If I were skeptical, I'd think that Bush's oil company buddies had raked in enough money and now, in a desperate attempt to get him elected, are lowering the prices.

Fellow blogger "Lonewacko" informs me that on his 'Blogging Across America' tour, he was almost ecstatic to pay $1.50 a gallon in Elkton, MD about 10 months back. But, then he got to western Virginia and he paid the lowest price he paid during the whole trip: $1.36 per gallon. Imagine that!

Lonewacko also informs me that the Arco station at Fletcher and Riverside - right off the 5 - is at $2.01*, and there are reportedly other L.A. area gas stations even a little lower. After paying almost $2.50, breaking the $2 mark is going to seem like a miracle.

Why, it's almost as if Bush planned it this way... What do you guys think?

P.S. I'll have a special, 194 page report on President Bush's ANG records tomorrow, and it'll be required reading!

*It comes at a price however. They used to have a soft serve ice cream machine and - whatever you want to call me that I am - I moved the tray that was under the nozzle and designed to catch dripping ice cream... Anyway, so there was this metal tray there and I slid it out so I could keep filling up the ice cream cone as high as it would go. They told me if I did that again they'd have to charge me extra. That caused a bit of bad blood.

According to U.S. News & World Report, President Bush is challenging John Kerry to a peasant food eat-off:

Don't be surprised if fitness freak President Bush starts showing up at Dunkin' Donuts. Seems the prez thinks what people like about him over Sen. John Kerry is his ability to be one of them, and his staff is figuring out ways to show that off. So they want to steer the campaigning prez to cafes, gas stations, and, of course, barbecue joints. "He wants direct contact with people," says a Bushie. "We don't have to prove he's a strong leader. Voters already know that. We have to prove he 'gets it,' that he understands what everyday Americans are going through." Easier said than done. Turns out the Secret Service doesn't want Bush mixing it up and providing a fat target for enemies...

I should run for "prez." I wouldn't even need my staff to show that I was one of the common folk, as it unfortunately comes quite naturally to me.

If the "prez" really "got it," he wouldn't make proposals that are opposed by the great majority of Americans, such as his various Open Borders plans.

At least John Kerry and "Ter" aren't fooling too many people with their various fast-food related stunts. Bush seems to be a bit better at hiding his Northeast establishment upbringing.

Previous Wendy's coverage starts with the extremely funny "What happened to Ben?"

From USA Today's "U.S. didn't warn Las Vegas of terror threats":

A year after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department obtained video surveillance tapes suggesting terrorists were targeting Las Vegas casinos but authorities never alerted the public as they discussed whether a warning might hurt tourism or increase the casinos' legal liability, internal memos show.

[Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman] said Monday he was never told about the tapes uncovered in Detroit and Spain in 2002, and had been assured by the FBI there were no credible threats against his city. "If I were told, I would certainly tell the public..."

But memos and e-mails between federal prosecutors, obtained by The Associated Press, say Las Vegas authorities were alerted to some of the footage by Aug. 30, 2002. Later, numerous local law enforcement officials were invited by a senior FBI agent to view the footage, but most spurned the invitation [out of a fear of incurring liability], the memos say...

The prosecutor said he later asked a Las Vegas police officer, who had seen the tape and flown to Detroit to help, why more wasn't done. "This officer told me that the amount of money that travels through Las Vegas on a daily, weekly and monthly basis — if something doesn't go boom, nothing is going to be done," he said.

Neither the mayor, the casinos, nor the local cops come off too good in the rest of the report.

The story about the private California high school that was teaching its students that there are 53 states, four branches of government, and two houses of congress: one for Democrats and the other for Republicans has finally hit blogdom.

Now, you might wonder why this school would teach such inaccuracies. Let's think like a "liberal" here and come up with some possibilites. Did the person who wrote their teaching materials simply make things up as they went along? Or, were they just playing a cruel joke?

If you were thinking like a "liberal", are there other explanations you could come up with?

Bingo! It's all a RepugnantCon plan by $hrub and his NeoCon minders to keep the Immigrants of Color down:

ChrisJ: "it would be worthwhile to suppose that the test was designed by some Pat Buchanon type, seeking to sabotage immigrants' attempts to obtain citizenship."

Abby: "This is something only conservatives would do."

Scotian: "First off, this is a con job pure and simple, and the conners only needed things to look right superficially and did not care how accurate the information really was. Then there is the more sinister explanation, that being this was deliberate to make it more difficult for immigrants to assimilate into American society and to obtain citizenship."

DNS: "Precisely. It's to subvert the new-citizen process."

raj: "Silly question. Because they don't want the immigrants to pass the citizenship exam."

ahem: "One wonders whether the founder was, in fact, a Rush fan wanted to make sure that those poor Latinos flunked the cit-test."

Jon H: "The best reason to go through the trouble of custom-writing erroneous content is precisely to misinform people seeking citizenship."

I stopped when the scrollbar was halfway down the page. And, bear in mind this isn't Duncan B. Black's comments, they're those of Kevin "Records" Drum.

UPDATE: MSNBC has a short bio of Daniel Gossai, a.k.a. VRWC Member #8432287-B:

An immigrant from British Guyana, Gossai, 53, arrived in the United States at age 17 to go to college. He studied at a number of colleges and universities, including the Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Ind., and earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from Bethany College in Kansas.

And, other members of VRWC Operation KEEP_UP_THE_OPPRESSION_34212_B include:

...Paramount-based West Side Education Corporation, the organization that ran the school. West Side president David Soto and West Side director Noel Brito could not be reached for comment.

And:

The lawsuit also names David Soto, president of West Side Education Corp., which bought the rights to operate school sites; Nel Brito, director of an affiliated school; Fabricio Sandoval, director of admissions; and Janira Jacobs, a teacher and administrator.

The NYT reports on one of the fronts in the attempt to chip away at U.S. sovereignty: "Immigrants Raise Call for Right to Be Voters". If you've seen other recent reports on non-citizen voting, it will seem familiar. It, like the others, mentions Takoma Park's non-citizen voting law. It includes the usual whines, only the names are different.

"It will happen," said Tamrat Medhin, a civic activist from Ethiopia who lives here. "Don't you believe that if people are working in the community and paying taxes, don't you agree that they deserve the opportunity to vote?"

No, Tamrat, I don't. In fact, if I moved to Ethiopia I'd try to do things the Ethiopian way. If Ethiopia only allowed citizens to vote, and I wanted to vote, I'd work at becoming a citizen. And, if I didn't like their rules, well, there are other countries, right?

Further:

They argue that immigrants will still aspire to citizenship because it is the only way they can vote in federal elections.

But, Tamrat works in the community, and that community is part of the U.S. And, Tamrat pays taxes which support the U.S. Don't you agree that Tamrat deserves the opportunity to vote in federal elections?

And:

And having the right to vote, they argue, will help noncitizens feel more politically engaged and committed to this country.

Once again, it doesn't work that way. You prove you're engaged and committed by becoming a citizen. Then you vote. Not the other way around.

Someone who wants to do a good deed should compile a list of all cities where non-citizen voting has been discussed, together with the local politicians who support and oppose the proposals.

It's proposals like these that could sour a lot of people on massive immigration. While the chutzpah of people who are invited into a country and then start telling those who were there first how to do things might be admired in a certain way, I think the backlash will be a bit stronger than "civic activists" like Tamrat might realize.

Previously: the non-citizen voting proposal in San Bernardino and CA State Assemblyman Leland Yee's support of the S.F. non-citizen voting proposal.

Hey kids! How'd you like to be a Ready Deputy!

Ready Deputies work with the America Prepared Campaign to keep us all safe. And, we're holding a contest! Your school could win Tom Ridge as your Principal for a Day!

No, it's not a joke. Not only is there such an organization, and not only are they offering up Tom Ridge as Principal for a Day, but they seem to have taken a trip into the near future and come back. From their PDF:

The likelihood of this Campaign failing is high—so high, in fact, that only its potential to save thousands of live makes it worth trying.

Everything the Campaign does will have to overcome the obstacles of complacency, cynicism and ridicule.

It's kind of hard not to be cynical when I see the stellar cast who make up this organization. Sure, it's fairly balanced: they not only have Mary Matalin, they have James Carville. They've got Miramax' Harvey Weinstein and Fox' Bill O'Reilly. They've even got the Editor in Chief of Good Housekeeping.

But, they also use phrases like "civilian population" and say things like: "Marketing Efforts To Put Preparedness Materials In Citizens’ Homes" and "The Campaign will create preparedness materials for distribution in consumer magazines, outdoor venues, such as buses and billboards, and broad-based websites." And, they promise to produce 15 to 30 second PSAs telling us (yet again) what to do and what not to do. And, they're using kids to infect their parents with the Preparedness bug.

It's just the same old same old from the same old faces. Perhaps they should trying something a bit more real next time.

UPDATE: I think a winning idea for the APC could be Preparedness Camps. Each child, starting at age 5, will be required to attend a state-sponsored Preparedness Camp for two weeks per year. The Camp could teach the citizen-child about safety tips and other fun stuff.

They're coming to America to make sure our elections are fair and transparent.

And, they need your help.

This fall, U.N. observers will be coming to the U.S. from countries from Albania to Zimbabwe. They'll be making sure that voting in November's election is completely fair and that all votes are counted.

Many observers will be coming thousands of miles and will need your assistance. They will arrive in a new country and will need shelter and food.

MoveOut.org is now seeking American citizens who will provide quarters for our friends from abroad and who will make their stay as comfortable as possible. If you cannot provide shelter, please send in cans of food.

Yeah, it kinda got bad at the end, but the beginning's not so bad. I'll work on this and post a new version. Perhaps I'll post it somewhere else...

After that, we need big signs that Citizens can wave along our roadsides as the observers arrive. Yes, those signs will be serious. Or, at least the messages will be serious.

Note that they're coming at the request of the State Department. And, this is something I didn't know:

In November 2002, OSCE sent 10 observers on a weeklong mission to monitor the U.S. midterm elections. OSCE also sent observers to monitor the California gubernatorial recall election last year.

And, raining on our comic parade, the Washington Times informs us that these are not exactly United Nations observers. Rather, they're from the OCSE:

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the largest regional organization in the world with 55 participating nations, will monitor the U.S. election on Nov. 2. Members include Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain and the United States.

That article also includes word that at least someone - if not the Bush administration - opposes foreign election observers:

"For over 200 years, this nation has conducted elections fairly and impartially, ensuring that each person's vote will count. ... Imagine going to your polling place on the morning of November 2 and seeing blue-helmeted foreigners inside your local library, school or fire station. The United Nations has sent monitors to Haiti, Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique ... and now the United States?" [Rep. Steve Buyer, Indiana Republican] said on July 15.

"The constitutional authority to ensure the integrity of U.S. elections rests with the states and the Congress..."

The video of this was quite funny, but I don't have a link, just the picture and "No train stop confuses Kerry supporters in Kansas. Inadvertent snub blamed on miscommunication":

"We raised our hand [perhaps they had Wendy's cups in the other hand --LW] to wave, but the engineer hadn't slowed, and by the time we had waved even a little to the signs and cheers and camera flashes, it was dark again," wrote Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, on the campaign's Web log. "We sat frustrated, but we knew we were not as frustrated as the people of Lawrence, Kansas."

She forgot to mention the part where John Kerry took immediate command of the situation, demoting the engineer and vainly trying to apply the brakes to no avail.

UPDATE: #19 told me that #5 has a much more detailed report - including a few small pictures - here.

From the Washington Times:

Presidente Vicente Fox yesterday called on Congress to increase the number of Mexican immigrants allowed into the United States, but conceded his plan to relax immigration has little chance of passage in an election year.

"I support raising the quotas on certain population groups, like the Mexican nationals, on who can become a citizen," Mr. Fox told a convention of minority journalists. "In order to solve the logjam for citizenship, Congress has got to raise the quotas."

This just in... I've been handed a note... Apparently, it was not Presidente Fox who made those remarks, it was U.S. President George W. Bush.

A while back, I posted about how I'd updated Disinfopedia's report on the Ford Foundation.

Looking at that last link, I notice two changes.

First, someone else seems to have updated the bit about Henry Ford: "The Ford Foundation was founded in 1936 by Henry Ford, well known anti-Semite and receiptant of the Grand Cross of the German Eagle by Nazi diplomats in 1938."

And, more to the Lonewacko-related point, my links about the Ford Foundation have been moved to a new page: "Conservatives target the Ford Foundation".

I don't really like my links having been moved off the front page into the "evil conservative" section, but at least the links are still there and people can read them and make up their own mind.

The ABA has released a report criticizing our immigration policies. I haven't read the full report, but I will present a partial translation of the press release:

Low-level immigration officers are making what can be life-and-death decisions with no standards of due process or judicial oversight.

Translation: "We are more than willing to provide a pool of immigration lawyer$ on call 24/7. Plus, we want to hamstring the system."

The federal government ought not ask or require other institutions, including local and state police, to assume enforcement responsibility for federal immigration laws.

Translation: "We don't care about public safety. Yes, we know about L.A.'s Special Order 40. That order prevents LAPD cops from arresting someone who they know to have been deported for committing a felony. Instead, the LAPD must wait until that person commits another felony before they can be deported. Again, rinse and repeat.

And, we are fully aware that John Lehman of the 9/11 commission has said that the terrorists know which cities have such policies.

The report was funded by grants from the Ford Foundation...

Translation: Don't let that $top you from $ending us more money however. And, yes, we're well aware that the Ford Foundation funds a bunch of far-left, Open Borders, Racial Identity groups. In fact, we knew that the Ford Foundation "created" multiculturalism. We've seen the links.

(The foregoing "translation" is my opinion only and does not reflect the actual statements made by the ABA, its representatives, its members, or other affiliated organizations. The excerpts from the ABA press release are "Fair Use" as defined by Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107 of the U.S. Code. If there are any more disclaimers I need, please send me the name of a good lawyer.)

(Link via TalkLeft)

From the Houston Chronicle:

September 11 Commission member John Lehman Thursday criticized so-called "sanctuary" practices in Houston and elsewhere that restrict cooperation between local police and federal immigration officials as an invitation to terrorists looking to enter the United States.

"It is ridiculous that five cities in the United States do not allow local police to cooperate with the federal immigration service," said Lehman, visiting Houston to lobby for Sept. 11 commission report recommendations.

"The terrorists know" which cities have such policies, Lehman said, naming Houston and Los Angeles among those cities.

An update on the woman with the South African passport and the suspected terrorism ties who was caught after having successfully entered the U.S. illegally:

WESLACO, Texas -- For the first time since the arrest of a woman carrying a South African passport on immigration charges in McAllen, the FBI confirms it is investigating her...

Previous coverage - including complaints about releasing Middle Eastern illegal aliens on their own recognizance - starts here.

See also "U.S. warns of al-Qaida from South Africa":

Fearing al-Qaida may try to sneak operatives into the U.S. using South African passports, the Department of Homeland Security has put inspectors at major airports and seaports across the nation on high alert for suspicious travelers from that nation, which U.S. officials say has become a breeding ground for terrorists.

The order to "increase scrutiny" of South African travelers, contained in a closely held bulletin obtained by WorldNetDaily, comes on the heels of the arrest of four South Africans with alleged links to terrorism. [the lady mentioned above, plus one in Mexico and two in Pakistan --LW]...

Dated July 30 and marked "For Official Use Only," the bulletin was sent to field operations directors at four major international airports and two seaports on both coasts. WorldNetDaily has elected to withhold the names of the cities for security reasons...

Needless to say, Los Angeles has an international airport and a major seaport, but so do San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, and Seattle.

UPDATE: "Grand jury to hear case of women caught with altered passport" tells us: "A grand jury in Houston is scheduled to hear her case on Aug. 16, said Michael Shelby, the United States attorney prosecuting the case." It also has several details on this case and a "she just came to work" defense from her relatives.

Carnac takes a long, disturbing look at the envelope and says: CA State Assemblyman Leland Yee.

Yee is the guy who I had previously associated only with his call to Feng Shui Sacramento. I couldn't recall his name, only referring to him as "Feng Shui guy." However, he seems to deserve a bit more scrutiny.

He's a former San Francisco councilman, and the article "Latest Open Borders Fad: Non-Citizen Voting" says:

...state Assemblyman Leland Yee, says he’ll introduce statewide legislation to strengthen the school board measure’s legality.

The school board measure in question would allow non-citizens - including illegal aliens - to vote in school board elections. There's more about it in "S.F. supes flunk citizenship". And, there's a bit more about Yee here (copy here).

OK, so we've covered Feng Shui and non-citizen/illegal alien voting. What about the "invasive plant species" bit?

This thread links to this hysterical blast from Leland Yee's recent past:

It seemed like a noble mission when a group of gardeners set out five years ago to restore native plants, bugs and animals to San Francisco's few remaining green spaces.

But when they began killing hundreds of eucalyptus and cypress saplings, roping off popular hiking trails and talking about spearing bullfrogs with pitchforks, some fellow environmentalists complained they'd gone too far...

The dispute rose to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which clamped down in September, ordering the group to stop its work until a citizens advisory committee can be formed to oversee it.

One supervisor, Leland Yee, took umbrage at the notion that only native species should be kept, and exotic ones eradicated, comparing it to racial cleansing or ``xenophobia.''

``Plants and trees without the proper pre-Mayflower lineage are called `invasive exotics' and are wrenched from the soil to die,'' Yee wrote in a local newspaper editorial. ``How many of us are `invasive exotics' who have taken root in the San Francisco soil, have thrived and flourished here, and now contribute to the diversity of the wonderful mix that constitutes present-day San Francisco?''

We should get this guy a blog.

Here's a flashback to April 21, 2001. I don't know if there's been more recent legislation, but the article does provide some interesting background. Of first note, he links to his S.F. Chronical editorial "Oakland may recognize 2 official languages -- and neither of them will be English":

...the proposal would require the city to fill in city government "public contact" job openings with employees who are bilingual in either [Spanish or Cantonese]. Though technically race-neutral, the practical effect is likely to be that the city staff will become virtually all Latino and Chinese.

...taking high school Spanish or Chinese certainly won't qualify one for these jobs. Indeed, even U.S.-born Latinos and ethnic Chinese, with their limited foreign vocabularies and English-laced "Spanglish" and "Chinglish," will not be able to compete for the jobs with the far more linguistically sophisticated immigrants...

Moreover, the policy could be one more example of a few ethnic activists pushing policies which enhance their own political power at the expense of their putative constituents. Policies that make it too easy to avoid learning English bring great harm to immigrants. As noted often by Latino and Asian social workers, lack of English economically imprisons immigrants, as it is a major cause of poverty, exploitation by employers and so on.

...Since monolingual Chinese speakers rely on the Chinese press for news, politicians not favored by the Chinese press are unable to compete for their votes.

Amplifying on that, the first link provides this:

[Oakland councilman Danny] Wan, who is Chinese, was basically pushing an agenda long pursued by Chinese political activists: Concentrate Chinese immigrant seniors in major cities, in order to gain political clout. Though some of you might be surprised to hear this, it has been used quite effectively in San Francisco, and to some degree in Oakland, Monterrey Park (LA suburb) and New York. Some of us have been observing this for years, and finally Yvonne Lee, a Chinese-American on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, said it in public (AsianWeek, May 16, 1997):

People are forecasting that [Asians] are the fastest-growing minority group due largely to immigration...But [since given the new restrictions against welfare use by future immigrants] how many people are going to take the risk of sponsoring someone [for immigration] and what long-term impact will that have on our social status and political empowerment?

See also the next entry, which is about Leland "Feng Shui" Yee and his support of non-citizen voting.

From InfoWeek:

Phishing scammers have gone political, message-filtering firm SurfControl said Wednesday.

For the first time, phishers have targeted people who contribute to political campaigns, SurfControl said as it rolled out an alert about a pair of messages that masquerade as contribution come-ons for the Kerry-Edwards ticket...

The messages, complete with legit-looking logos, carried subject heads of "President John Kerry, please vote and contribute," and included links to Web sites where users could use their credit cards to make a contribution. In reality, the sites were bogus--one hosted from the United States, the other from India--and have since gone offline.

This would be so very funny if it weren't so sad:

John F. Kerry today said entertainer Bill Cosby's recent admonition that black Americans need to take greater personal responsibility for poor education and high crime was "excessively exclusive" and ignored the government's role in helping minorities.

I understand exactly where Bill ["Bill?" Do they know each other? Or, is Kerry just "down"?] is coming from in his comment," Kerry said, measuring his words carefully as he spoke to a convention for minority journalists in Washington. "It may be excessively exclusive in the breadth of it, in the sense that it sort of targets just the responsibility side, but that's an important side."

[Kerry promised] to run a more inclusive White House and [Kerry promised] to fund federal programs targeting every group from Native Americans to veterans from the Philippines. He even promised to fight to increase the number of minorities in prominent media jobs, which government has no control over.

The Democratic nominee said he is the candidate who feels the pain of minorities. "I am also aware -- how can you live in America and not be aware? -- of the special challenges facing people of color." As president, Kerry promised a mixture of affirmative action, government spending and meetings with minority groups to end racial imbalances.

[Kerry also said] "The harsh fact now is that in the last election more than 1 million African-Americans were disenfranchised in one of the most tainted elections in history."

When you've finished laughing, click on over to "Running on Urban Mythology: Before Kerry plays the race card, he should check the facts in his deck.". That explains how Kerry is lying about the 1 million disenfrachished voters.

EXTRA HUMOROUS BONUS: Enjoy this flashback from the NAACP conference:

UPDATE: The empty space you see above was the picture of Kerry at the NAACP conference giving the Black Power salute. The link appears to have gone bad; if I find it elsewhere I'll provide an update.

I ran across yet another PIIPP ("pro-illegal immigration puff piece"), and it's a classic of the genre. Not only is it a virtual advertisement for the DREAM Act, and not only does it mention only one minor dissent, it features a quote from the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

From the April 21, 2004 Brownsville (TX) Herald's "Group rallies in support of Dream Act":

Even with her new high school diploma, Lupita Rojas’ future will take her back to the fields where she used to pick tomatoes, she said as she cradled her baby.

Six more PIIPPs are provided starting here. When you compare the first sentence of each article you will be amazed. Finding all of these PIIPPs required almost no work; one can only wonder how many I could find if I started actively searching for them.

Story here.

From the WashTimes:

John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, hosts of "The John & Ken Show" on KFI-AM, have enlisted their audience to identify and target for defeat one local Republican congressman they deem soft on issues such as border security and benefits for undocumented aliens.

The duo, who call their plan a "political human sacrifice," say it is meant as a wake-up call to Republican leaders who ignore their constituents' pleas for stronger border enforcement for fear of offending Hispanic voters or the agriculture industry.

"We're overwhelmed by illegal immigration in Southern California. The Republican Party just doesn't understand the level of anger out here," Mr. Kobylt said. "They just say [to conservatives], 'Who else are you going to vote for?' "

Their audience has narrowed the field to five finalists: California Republican Reps. Mary Bono, Christopher Cox, David Dreier, Darrell Issa and Dana Rohrabacher. Four of the five already have appeared on the afternoon radio program to defend their records; Mr. Dreier is negotiating an appearance.

Actually, I believe the negotiations with Dreier have broken down. He also received over 50% of the initial voting. So...

This attempt will probably succeed (unless all the congressmen give in), and it will send a clear message to other politicians. However, for maximum impact, it's too bad this can't be exported to a swing state.

And, bear in mind you don't need to be in SoCal to hear John & Ken. I've heard KFI as far away as Utah. And, even if you can't get their signal on the radio you can stream it at kfi640.com

Annie Jacobsen is back with a new roundup.

At the end of that article, she mentions Stuart Taylor's "Rashomon in the Skies: The Tangled Tale of Flight 327." I just scanned the first part of both, but I'd strongly suggest starting with Taylor's article before reading Jacobsen's. He provides a source who denies almost everything Jacobsen, her husband, and the two other passengers who've made statements have reported. I don't know who's telling the truth anymore, I just want out.

Frankly, it's not that I don't care, it's just the level of detail is a bit too much for someone who isn't personally invested in this matter.