But It Looked Good On Paper

Charlie Sykes has spent weeks going on and on and on about the racial profiling law passed in Arizona. The meme has been the usual "but they didn't read it" line of garbage.

Like when you look at the roster of a sports team, what looks good on paper, and those in charge say that it is good, the reality is often very different.

To find out how the law is really working, you need to talk to those that actually have to enforce it. All of a sudden, you might find that the law isn't what it would seem to be:

Today, Cuentame — a project of Brave New Films — posted a video interview with Phoenix police officer Paul Dobson’s reaction to Arizona’s new immigration law, SB-1070. Though the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association (the union representing Phoenix officers) “lobbied aggressively for the law,” not all of its members think it’s a good idea. In Cuentame’s video, Dobson expresses his own opposition to the law and how he believes it will affect his ability to fulfill his duties:

This [SB-1070] law will make me feel like a Nazi out there. [...] How I feel about SB-1070 is I have a great deal of contempt for it, I am very emotional about it. This law is pure and simple a racist law. It is focused on Latinos. I would not be able to show any discretion whatsoever under SB-1070. I am required to arrest that person and take them to jail. As a law enforcement officer I am required to serve and protect. Under SB-1070, I know that people will not call officers in case of a real emergency. [...] It violates our calling to serve and protect.

Of course, a police state for anyone who is not an older, white conservative is one of the main planks of any good conservative's platform, even if they were against it before they were for it.

Shepherding McBride

From the Shepherd Express's Expresso section:

McBride Continues Irrational Crusade: Former reporter and right-wing radio host Jessica McBride, never known for her deep sensitivity—she was one of the few hardhearted souls who mocked Parkinson’s-afflicted Michael J. Fox—is continuing her irrational crusade against illegal immigrants. But this time she’s using her UW- Milwaukee students as her trusty assistants.

McBride has been bashing immigrants for years now, knowing that she can inflame both sides of the political spectrum with her over-the-top attacks. First she used her blog. Then she was going to research illegal immigrants in the corrections system for the conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. Just after she announced her project, her husband, former Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher, started quoting stats on the very same topic during his failed campaign for state attorney general. Cory Liebmann, then blogging independently, pointed out the coincidence, and McBride dropped her project. Bucher lost in the primary to J.B. Van Hollen.

But the crusading McBride hasn’t given up on her misguided dream of demonizing immigrants—she’s just using her students at a public, state-funded university to advance her agenda. This past week, Frontpage Milwaukee, an online student publication, published an investigative piece on illegal immigrants in the corrections system. The paper’s faculty supervisor is—you guessed it—Jessica McBride.

You've Got Mail

Note: The following is a compilation of various contributors in an effort to translate McBride's most recent column in GMToday. Our translation and observations are in italics.

Dear District Attorney Brad Schimel,

My husband won’t be thrilled that I wrote this column. It deals with his old office, so it’s awkward. He thinks you’re a good guy. I do, too. (That will make him feel etter.) Please don’t assume my opinions reflect his. My opinions are my own only. (Too easy to start a firestorm hear-think Eugene Kane and female robots.)

I once saw you at a cop’s retirement party. You seemed comfortable there. You were the law enforcement candidate in the district attorney’s race, not the glib politician. I like that about you. I think you’ve got the potential to be an excellent DA because you’ve got a lot of integrity. (She is amazing. She picked all that up from one retirement party. I wonder what she could have learned if she had paid attention during the 16 years he worked in the DA's office.)

However, it’s my job to write about the goings-on in Waukesha County. So, I
must ask: What’s going on? (If it's her job to write what's going on, why is she asking him?)

I recognize that the media will praise you for not doing things conservatives like. I also recognize it’s not your job to do things conservatives like. (Does this mean conservatives are against upholiding the law?)

However, I was hoping you wouldn’t go easy on illegal immigrant criminals, drug offenders and sneaky Jim Doyle campaign attorneys, while suddenly getting all bothered by Scott Jensen. I didn’t expect pro-marijuana Web sites would heap praise on you during your first year in office.

I know you’re bound by the law, not politics. Even so, some of your decisions baffle me. (Is she inferring that Paul would put politics before the law?)

You were quoted in the newspaper recently pushing for Jensen’s criminal case to remain in Dane County (he’s filed a court motion seeking to change the venue to Waukesha County.) The Capital Times subsequently praised you. You stated you were working with the attorney general’s office to keep the trial in Dane. Shouldn’t you guys be working together to make sure Jensen gets a fair trial, which - news flash - is not going to happen in Dane? You might as well advocate that Ahab rosecute Moby Dick. (Is she insisting that all the judges in Dane County are corrupt, or that upholding the law is unfair?)

You told the Madison reporters that you knew little about the case except what was in the newspaper, so why weigh in now? Please read the investigative documents that came out during Jensen’s first trial (Don’t go by what you read in most ewspapers. They barely covered them). After plowing through the actual reports (and having Paul explain them), I came to believe that the Jensen prosecution was selective and unfair (Republicans are above the law, dammit!). The Democratic DA’s own investigative reports show he had the goods on numerous Democrats, yet he didn’t charge them. And that’s just for starters. (Tell that to all the legislators that have done time for their convictions.)

If you don’t like political prosecutions - and you haven’t been a very political DA so far - then you shouldn’t be OK with what happened to Jensen because it was the personification of a political prosecution. I’m not asking that you, ironically, make a political decision here yourself. I just wish that, if given the chance, you’d embrace the opportunity to review this case with a fresh eye and, if you see evidence of unfairness, you’d correct it. This is a case crying out for another prosecutor’s eye.

You also withdrew Waukesha County’s request to get federal immigration enforcement authority, even though your support for the request remains on your campaign Web site. The program would have made Waukesha County a nationwide model for dealing with illegal immigrants who commit crimes. (Yeah, by spending county dollars to do a federal job.)(And what is up with her obsession with illegal immigrants. She is fixated with them as much as she is with iT.)

I acknowledge the sheriff and police chief pulled their support first, and federal immigration officials promised to move faster to detain illegal immigrants suspected of committing crimes. The problem is that no one - including the feds - is systematically tracking which criminal defendants in our county are illegal immigrants. (And if Paul and I think it is important, you'd better do it!)

There was no reason to rescind this - pleasing the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board doesn’t count (pleasing me does count) - and every reason to do it. The head of the top Latino social service agency in town even supported the plan (a fact the media largely ignored). The authority would have been narrowly tailored to empower local cops to detain and identify illegal immigrants WHO COMMIT CRIMES. (Uh oh, now she's channeling her inner John.)

How many illegal immigrants are in the criminal justice system right now? If you can answer that question, call me. I’ll run the number next week. (Didn't her students do a study of this? Couldn't they figure it out?)

If you can’t, please reconsider. This is about public safety. For those who think illegal immigration is only a national issue, I have three words: Frame Park rapist. (See! There's one name! It's an epidemic. Just like voter fraud.)

You also took a pass at making a case against Michael Maistelman, the governor’s campaign attorney who was shamelessly firing off e-mails to the state Elections Board before it destroyed Mark Green’s campaign. (Again, there you go Brad, putting the law before politics. Now knock it off!)

Aggressive prosecutors can go down in flames occasionally (Georgia Thompson) (Georgia Thompson was a prosecutor? I thought she was the one that got railroaded.), but they also uphold an important societal line by taking tough cases. Give me the principled, aggressive prosecutor (like my hunky hubby) any day over the too-cautious one (McCann).

You next advocated for decriminalizing marijuana. This got you praised on the Madison Web site of a group advocating against "marijuana prohibition." You were quoted as saying lots of people have tried marijuana and "times have changed."

That’s why we shouldn’t decriminalize the drug. (Change is not good. It's too much like progression. And that's too much like progressive. And that's too much like liberal. And that's too much like change. And that's not good.)

Soon after, it was reported that authorities seized more marijuana in Waukesha County than the previous eight years combined, a record.

DA Schimel, I want you to succeed. This is constructive criticism, not a personal attack. (Just a warning.)

But I feel like Cher in "Moonstruck" right now: "Snap out of it"!

Sincerely,

Jessica McBride

Here are two other observations that have been mailed to me about this column (with slight editing for grammar and/or appropriateness):

What's the subliminal message here? “Call Paul before you do something stupid Brad. He'll point you in the right direction and then you can make it up to him when he needs a favor”? Maybe he already does and that's why he's getting in trouble? Or maybe he wants to be something other than a DA someday and realizes he needs a better role model than Paul "Not One Day As A Judge" Bucher?

Stay tuned for next week for Jessica’s thrilling column, “Dear diary, this one is so secret, even I don’t know I’m writing it.”

Where In The World Is Jessica McBride?

There has been a lot of speculation surrounding the sudden, drastic, and thus far, unexplained slow down by Jessica McBride.

So far, the only definitive word has been from McBride, who in a comment thread, said that she's been "real busy".

Many of the readers of Whallah! have offered their opinions. A commenter on McBride's post even speculated that Mr. McBride, Paul Bucher, was applying for the new opening in the Attorney General's office. Even looking past the animosity between Bucher/McBride and Van Hollen, Grumps points out that Bucher is not likely to give up on the gravy train.

Whallah! may have found her. It is reasonable to believe she is leading the charge described in this AP article:

Paper blasted for 'Texan of the Year'

By Annabelle Garay
Associated Press Writer

DALLAS (AP) -- When editorial writers at The Dallas Morning News chose the illegal immigrant as the newspaper's Texan of the Year, they expected some criticism. But not this: 800 blog postings and more than 150 letters to the editor blasting the decision.

Some of the critics threatened to cancel subscriptions or pressure advertisers to stop doing business with the paper.

"What an asinine article!!!" exclaimed one reader.

"What part of stupid are you guys that support illegal aliens? This puts us ALL in danger," another wrote.

Editorial writer Rodger Jones said he was "surprised at the nastiness" of the backlash, some of which came from readers who had only seen the editorial's headline.

Christians Of Convenience

We all know how Sykes, McBride, McIlheran and the rest like to consider themselves as a great bastion of defenders of Christianity. We also are aware that their defense of Christianity is only when they find it convenient. (No we won't get into the adultery stuff, so stop thinking about it. Besides, we've done that already.)

This time we are talking about their stance about illegal immigration. Other Side Of My Mouth has found an interesting post regarding the Christian right and immigration, among other things. Other Side has already highlighted some of the key points, so make sure to read his post, but here are some excerpts that we agree are important:

But it's on their policies concerning immigrants where Republicans -- candidates and voters alike -- really run afoul of biblical writ. Not on immigration as such but on the treatment of immigrants who are already here. Consider: Christmas, after all, celebrates not just Jesus's birth but his family's flight from Herod's wrath into Egypt, a journey obviously undertaken without benefit of legal documentation. The Bible isn't big on immigrant documentation. "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him," Exodus says the Lord told Moses on Mount Sinai, "for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."

*********
We've seen this kind of Christianity before in America. It's more tribal than religious, and it surges at those times when our country is growing more diverse and economic opportunity is not abounding. At its height in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was chiefly the political expression of nativist Protestants upset by the growing ranks of Catholics in their midst.

It's difficult today to imagine KKKers thinking of their mission as Christian, but millions of them did.

Today's Republican values voters don't really conflate their rage with their faith. Lou Dobbs is a purely secular figure. But nativist bigotry is strongest in the Old Time Religion precincts of the Republican Party, and woe betide the Republican candidate who doesn't embrace it, as John McCain, to his credit and his political misfortune, can attest.

SIDENOTE TO OTHER SIDE: Have you seen Tim Rock? I'm trying to find him.

The Hope of Audacity

By Keith Schmitz

Never one to let reality get in the way of a dubious story, today Charlie Sykes looks to bring some holiday (oops Christmas) cheer to his despondent readers. They may not recognize the looming environmental crisis, the possible collapse of the economy, or that the better late than never surge in Iraq may not hold. No, he has to keep up the spirits of his audience in the face of a Republican rout promising to roll over the party in 2008.

What cheers Charlie is the results of special election this week held in a Congressional district in suburban Dayton, OH district. Republican Bob Latta won that one by 14 points and was sworn in a few days later.

Charlie quotes the typically unreliable Jim Vandehai at the politico.com website. The Dailyhowler.com chronicles a bunch of Google pages full of Vandehai reporting miscues.

As usual Charlie rips and reads the piece with the terse comment "The Politico is reporting that the immigration issue has reshaped politics -- and poses a real threat to the Democrats." He goes on to quote the piece which relates that Latta beat his Democratic opponent by 14 points. Vandehai credits Latta and the Republicans working the immigration issue.

Notable was Vandehai's clowning through the Social Security issue a few years ago and fumbling reporting about the Plame case.

So let's be the Grinch that steals Charlie's Christmas.

What Vandehai and  Charlie fail to credit is that the Ohio 5th is in actuality a rather strong Republican district. Democrats haven't won there since the days of FDR and in fact Latta's father held the district for many years. 

Sure Paul Gillmor, the guy who died to open the seat, beat the Democrat by just 10 points in 2004. But like many Republicans a cloud of scandal was starting to form over his head. Rewind a bit to 2002 when he handily pounded his opponent 2 to 1. 

Kind of reminds you of our 5th district. Ask Bryan Kennedy about a Democrat's chances in this area which wraps around Milwaukee and is home to some of the state's biggest reactionaries.

 

That immigration issue also had a little help in the form of cash. Latta outspent his opponent by 2 to 1. 

This can't be good news for the GOP no matter how they fluff it up. If the Republicans have to spend their depleting coffers lustily to hold a pretty safe seat; they can huff, and puff and not blow the Democratic House down.

 

Tell Us Something We Didn't Know

Remember when Mark Bellowing used his ethnic slur against Mexicans. It took a lot of pressure to just get the radio station to acknowledge it was inappropriate and suspend Bellowing for a week. And there is the obvious current issues regarding the COEXIST bumper sticker, which turns out to be based on artwork in a museum in Jerusalem.

This type of vitriol appears to be an unfortunate trend going on across the country. In this morning's MSJ, there is a story regarding illegal immigrants and the way the pundits are treating this issue. Here are a few excerpts from the article:

The Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center has produced reports on anti-Latino rhetoric, and the Anti-Defamation League, founded to expose anti-Semitism, issued a report in October called, "Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves Into the Mainstream."

Rational debate over immigration has been drowned out by the noise of unfounded accusations that illegal immigrants are the driving force behind problems such as identity theft and rising health insurance costs.

and a little closer to home:

Mark Potok, a lead researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said, "One of the most obnoxious elements out there are mainstream media talk show hosts perfectly willing to popularize ideas that have no basis in reality."

One could hope that are local right-wing media pundits would read this and reflect how their behaviors fit this report, and forgo their childish rants. But the sad reality, unfortunately, is they'll just turn around and attack the report and the people that produced it.

UPDATE: Milwaukee Rising offers their own take on this issue as well.

She Doesn't Like Fox Commentary

One could only hope that it was commentary on Fox News that she opposed, but alas, McBride is upset with the commentary by former Mexican President Vicente Fox. She offers the first two paragraphs of an Associated Press article in which Mr. Fox is promoting his new book, and tells Mr. Fox to worry about his own country. What she doesn't tell you is that he is worried about his country, which is probably why she doesn't provide a link to the article. But, Whallah, here it is.

One cannot be sure, but the part of the article that probably upset her the most was when President Fox is quoted:

"To be so repressive isn't democratic or free ... to be putting up fences, chasing Mexicans, that isn't right," Fox said. "The U.S. needs better answers than repression, weapons and violence."

That counters all of her favorite talking points, and would leave her nothing to say. No wonder she is so angry with him.

SIDENOTE: In the comment threads, a McBride fan (and/or possible student) carries on in the proud McBride tradition of making wild accusations that are nowhere near being based in fact, nor to be found in the article.

Which Came First, The Chicken Or The Egg?

Or another way to phrase that question would be: Which came first, McBride's bitterness towards MSJ, or her xenophobic paranoia regarding illegal aliens?

In a posting titled "What today's slanted Journal Sentinel story on illegal immigration didn't tell you", McBride goes to town about an article reporting that Milwaukee Police have a policy in place that basically states that a federal civil offense is not a high priority for the police, who have other things to worry about.

The title of her posting alone would make you wonder why Jessica apparently feels that she is 'fair and balanced' when a more accurate description would be 'fairly unbalanced'. She even gets into the habit of spastic capitalizations and bold typing which seems to be common among the more loosely-wrapped right-wing bloggers. The only things she's missing is the changing colors throughout the post.

But then she gets really irate when the article quotes Hispanic social advocate Anselmo Villarreal, who supports MPD's approach. McBride claims:

This is a misrepresentation of Villarreal's past stand on this issue.

Unfortunately for McBride, the reporter isn't reporting on what Mr. Villarreal's position was in the past, or whether or not he was duped into making a commercial for her husband's unsuccessful attempt at the Attorney General position. The reporter is quoting Mr. Villarreal's opinion at the present time, on this specific subject.

Either McBride is still stuck in the past, or her hatred of immigrants is so strong, that she cannot accept what is in front of her.

McBride: New voice of the left

The crusade continues, as Jessica McBride tries to convince us that there is an illegal immigrant crime wave sweeping the nation (or at least Sheboygan). McBride:

Another illegal immigrant arrested for molesting Sheboygan child

And I'm not talking about the vigilante case.

Story here from the Sheboygan Press.

And the response from the left? Not a problem...No big deal... not worth talking about... Tell that to the mother of the kid.

We at Whallah! don't claim to speak for the left. Apparently the left's spokeswoman is Jessica McBride. People in her house are used to talking out of both sides of their mouths, so she probably doesn't see a contradiction.

For the record, we don't condone child molestation (Ridiculous to say that, but otherwise she'll probably claim we do.) But there is no reason to comment on every arrest -- unless you have another agenda.

The Sheboygan Press apparently is on the McBride program: Every time an illegal immigrant is charged with a crime, let's do a story and a wrapup that includes every other illegal immigrant who's been charged with anything.

What, exactly, is the point?

She writes about one Sheboygan case, but not about the hundreds of arrests every day in Wisconsin of non-immigrants charged with crimes as bad or worse. [UPDATE: Here's one involving a home-grown Waukesha County youth.]

There is too much crime in Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, in Sheboygan, and even in Waukesha County. But trying to pin the blame on illegal immigrants does nothing to solve the problem.

Why are we not surprised?

What part of 'no amnesty' doesn't she understand?

I stand accused of putting words into Jessica McBride's mouth, and not for the first time.

Love the way she responds with personal attacks, don't you?

Here's the thing:

She says immigrants who haven't committed crimes are not her "priority." She says:

Illegal immigrants should be kicked out of the country the first time they offend. Focus on the criminals first.

Who, you might ask, would we focus on second?

She's been on a campaign to frighten people into thinking there's a big crime wave caused by illegal immigrants. (Lack of evidence notwithtanding.)

The way to prevent that alleged crime wave, of course, is to deport illegal immigrants BEFORE they commit crimes. She is part of the "What part of illegal don't you understand?" crowd.

And, as Jay Bullock pointed out awhile back, McBride is clearly in the "no amnesty" camp.

If there's no "amnesty," what's her alternative? Logic would tell you it is deportation.

But logic does not seem to enter the picture.

I rest my case.

No statistics? Well, tell a scary story

Vintage McBride. Priceless.

She complains that those awful liberals complain about people like her, who inflame anti-immigrant sentiment by trying to find an illegal immigrant behind every crime.

It's not fair that liberals complain about that, she says.

Her "evidence" is an article describing the backlash against illegal immigration: The crux of her objection to the article is this sentence:

The [Newark triple murder] case revitalized an argument made during the congressional debate that the flow of illegal immigrants, though predominated by job-seekers lured by the prospect of higher wages and better conditions, includes a menacing criminal element.

It's not just an "argument," McBride says. It's a fact that illegals are committing lots of crimes and terrorizing American citizens.

Why, McBride asks, doesn't the writer offer some statistics:

Why not just look up the known numbers, Mr. Montgomery? (of course, in many states, like ours, no one really knows how many illegal immigrant criminals there are). Or why not just mention Newark again? Or the man who allegedly shot the cop in Kenosha?

Classic. The thrust of the whole article is the backlash since the Newark killings. There is hardly a need to mention it again.

No statistics for Wisconsin? Well, just throw out one horrible example where an illegal immigrant is charged with a murder, she says. That's exactly how she operates.

To some degree, that's what the article is all about. McBride is already on record calling for the deportation of all 12 million illegal aliens now in the country. McBride and hubby/demagogue Paul Bucher would like to frighten people into believing there is a crime wave caused by illegal immigrants.

All they are missing is the proof.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Did I forget to mention she teaches college journalism?

Deport all 12 million!

Jessica McBride's obsession with illegal immigration, and her attempts to frighten people by linking immigrants to crime, has put her in the vanguard of immigrant bashers.

But this appears to represent a new, even harder line.

Caught up in a back and forth over the "50+ Things You Won't Learn From Talk Radio," she says:

Not a single illegal immigrant criminal should remain in this country.

Apparently, extremism in the attack on immigrants is no vice. McBride is clearly on the lunatic fringe on this issue.

Forunately, the American public is more rational, as an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in June illustrated. It asked:

"Regardless of how you feel about it personally, do you think that deporting all illegal immigrants who are currently in the United States back to their native countries is a realistic and achievable goal, or not?"

The response was: 13% is achievable, 85% is not achievable, 2% unsure.

UPDATE: James Harris, the newest dim bulb in the conservative talk radio galaxy, goes McBride one better. He wants to deport a US citizen, born in this country.

This just in: US citizen accused of crime!

The Nutosphere continues its crusade to report every crime that involves an illegal immigrant.

They've been at it for a long time, starting with a Memorial Day shooting in 2006 that was commited by someone who turned out to be here legally. It was truly an Emily Litella moment, Jessica McBride blamed the police for providing the wrong info, but she had been claiming, long before any police announcement, that the shooter must have been an illegal.

McBride challenges the news media every time an illegal is found to have committed a crime or even been accused.

Her mentor, Charlie Sykes, does the same.

It seems less about crime than about looking for one more way to fuel anti-immigrant sentiment, using fear. Mr. McBride, Paul Bucher, tried to demagog the issue to victory in his failed race for attorney general, but he couldn't even sell the idea to the conservatives voting in the GOP primary. We are not experiencing an illegal immigrant crime wave. Our guess is that illegals commit fewer violent crimes than US citizens, although we haven't seen any statistics.

Here's a modest proposal:

If the right wing thinks it is so important, and so relevant, for the media to report it every time an illegal immigrant is accused of a crime, let's be fair about it. Crime stories could all include information that identifies the suspect as (a) an illegal immigrant, (b) an alien living here legally, or (c) a US citizen.

The media doesn't single out and identify suspects by race only when they are black. Why should it single out illegal immigrants, unless it is to promote another agenda?

Bucher 's bad idea laid to rest

It's hard to know who likes immigrants less, Paul Bucher or wife Jessica McBride.

Bucher, trying to cash in on anti-immigrant sentiment during his failed campaign for attorney general last year, decided the Waukesha County DA was the logical person to crack down on illegal immigration.

Fortunately, cooler heads have prevailed in Waukesha, now that Bucher's out of office. Jim Rowen has more.

Immigrants make her so angry she can't read

There appears to be something about reading about immigrants -- legal or illegal -- that makes Jessica McBride so upset she can't read straight, let alone write about them.

Earlier, she went on a tirade about the city of Santa Fe wanting to hire some Mexican nationals -- legal immigrants -- for the police force. But she was so blinded by her bias that she thought they were illegal immigrants.

Now, closer to home, Waukesha builders, the technical school and a Latino group have joined efforts to offer Spanish-English classes and try to bridge the language gap that exists on many construction sites. McBride asks:

Why don't they just teach the workers how to speak English? Wouldn't that solve everything?

If you moved to, say, Japan, to find work, would your Japanese bosses learn English or would they expect you to learn Japanese if you wanted employment? Wouldn't they expect you to respect the fact that, in Japan, Japanese is the language of business?

Had she read the Journal Sentinel story on which her post is based -- and some of which she reprinted -- she would have learned that the program is "to teach those in the construction industry to communicate with Spanish- or English-only speaking co-workers."

"Latinos are sweeping the nation in construction jobs," said Hortensia Washington, director of operations at La Casa de Esperanza and instructor for the new language course. "This is about us respecting everyone no matter how limited their English is and cutting out the middle person."

She said the program, named after Waukesha County builder Bryce Styza, aims to teach supervisors, workers and contractors basic Spanish and English terms and phrases used in construction work to improve safety and work efficiency in the field.

So it's a two-way street. The goal is to have the Spanish speakers learn more English, and for the English speakers to learn some Spanish.

The first class was made up of all English-speakers. The story says: "The second session is likely to include Spanish-only speakers."

And what, exactly, is wrong with that?

UPDATE: Robert Miranda bids McBride adios on Hispanic Vista.com.

We've seen Lou Dobbs from both sides now

Apologies to Joni Mitchell.

Jessica McBride sings the praises of the courageous Lou Dobbs, one of the few in the mainstream media who, in her view, tells it like it is on immigration:

Have you been listening to Lou Dobbs on illegal immigration lately? He's been speaking out about it for some time, but I flipped on CNN the other day, and I couldn't believe how much sense he was making. He was cutting through all of the rhetoric, and he was asking the tough questions most in the media won't touch, namely focusing on the economic cost of illegal immigration.

The same day, David Leonhardt of that disreputable New York Times says this about her hero:

For one thing, Mr. Dobbs has a somewhat flexible relationship with reality. He has said, for example, that one-third of the inmates in the federal prison system are illegal immigrants. That’s wrong, too. According to the Justice Department, 6 percent of prisoners in this country are noncitizens (compared with 7 percent of the population). For a variety of reasons, the crime rate is actually lower among immigrants than natives.

Second, Mr. Dobbs really does give airtime to white supremacy sympathizers. Ms. Cosman, who is now deceased, was a lawyer and Renaissance studies scholar, never a medical doctor or a leprosy expert. She gave speeches in which she said that Mexican immigrants had a habit of molesting children. Back in their home villages, she would explain, rape was not as serious a crime as cow stealing. The Southern Poverty Law Center keeps a list of other such guests from “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”

Finally, Mr. Dobbs is fond of darkly hinting that this country is under attack. He suggested last week that the new immigration bill in Congress could be the first step toward a new nation — a “North American union” — that combines the United States, Canada and Mexico. On other occasions, his program has described a supposed Mexican plot to reclaim the Southwest. In one such report, one of his correspondents referred to a Utah visit by Vicente Fox, then Mexico’s president, as a “Mexican military incursion.”

When I asked Mr. Dobbs about this yesterday, he said, “You’ve raised this to a level that frankly I find offensive.”

The most common complaint about him, at least from other journalists, is that his program combines factual reporting with editorializing. But I think this misses the point. Americans, as a rule, are smart enough to handle a program that mixes opinion and facts. The problem with Mr. Dobbs is that he mixes opinion and untruths. He is the heir to the nativist tradition that has long used fiction and conspiracy theories as a weapon against the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Jews and, now, the Mexicans.

There is no denying that this country’s immigration system is broken. But it defies belief — and a whole lot of economic research — to suggest that the problems of the middle class stem from illegal immigrants. Those immigrants, remember, are largely non-English speakers without a high school diploma. They have probably hurt the wages of native-born high school dropouts and made everyone else better off.

More to the point, if Mr. Dobbs’s arguments were really so good, don’t you think he would be able to stick to the facts? And if CNN were serious about being “the most trusted name in news,” as it claims to be, don’t you think it would be big enough to issue an actual correction?

Missing the mainstream

Ms. McBride would have us believe that she and her cohort of right-wing bloggers represent some "mainstream" majority views on issues of the day, while the loony lefties are baying at the moon.

Jay "folkbum" Bullock takes issue with her latest declaration on immigration, and finds that it is McBride & Co. who are out of the mainstream and off in some tributary.

Facts Wrong, Again

Even when McBride tries to act journalistic, she still gets the facts wrong. The first part of this post is incoherent, then this:

I have no idea the immigration status of Lopez. Because of the fact he had several aliases and social security numbers, I called Kenosha SD today to ask if he is in this country legally. They referred me to DCI. I will try them tomorrow.

But I will say this: There is a reason for cops to ask people they pull over in traffic stops or their social security numbers.

Uh, not sure what the point of this post is because no one is required to carry a social security card. In fact, it is strongly recommended that social security cards not be carried to reduce the chances they will become lost, and consequently, reduce the risk of identity theft. Therefore, Lopez was under no obligation to show one.

McBride's obsession with illegal aliens makes me thankful I was not a Jew born in Nazi Germany and hiding from the Gestapo. With my luck, McBride would have been the German neighbor who blew the whistle.

Are all foreigners 'illegal immigrants?'

In McBride's world, the answer is yes.

Or maybe it's just all Mexicans who are illegal immigrants.

Today's piece of bigotry from Ms. Jessica:

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU'D HEARD IT ALL

Santa Fe police want to hire illegal immigrants..... as cops.

Because the Mexican police force is one we want to emulate, right?

What are the chances the cops would look the other way if they ran across illegal immigrants on the job? (100%)

One would think we would want people to serve as police officers only if they demonstrate they are respectful of the law.

What's next? Illegal immigrant border patrol agents?

Thing is, when you read the story she's linked to, it says:

The Santa Fe Police Department is considering the possibility of recruiting Mexican nationals to fill vacant police jobs.

Legal immigrants, it specifically says.

Remind us, why is this woman teaching journalism?