Some people just can’t help being offended at every turn. The latest culprit? A Halloween costume that pokes fun at one of the left’s special victim groups:
“He didn’t just cross a border, he crossed a galaxy!” according to the costume’s description. “He’s got his green card, but it’s from another planet! Sure to get some laughs, the Illegal Alien Adult Costume includes an orange prison-style jumpsuit with ‘Illegal Alien’ printed on the front, an alien mask and a ‘green card.’”
But not everyone thinks the costume is sure to get some laughs.
It’s “distasteful, mean-spirited and ignorant of social stigmas and current debate on immigration reform,” says Angelica Salas.
Forgive me for not caring about the “social stigma” associated with being a criminal.
I did not expect you to raise my galactic green card with a race card
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In a slight twist to the “never let a crisis go to waste” motto on constant exhibit at the White House, prominent leftists have approached the recent string of high profile shootings with a resolve to not let the tragedies go to waste. The agenda? Hate crimes and gun control.
Hate Crimes
Explicitly citing the recent shootings as evidence, Attorney General Eric Holder called for new hate crimes laws as a way to stop “violence masquerading as political activism.” Although each incident involved the commission of acts which are already considered crimes, Holder says Congress needs to pass new legislation “to protect the rights ensured under our Constitution.” Senate Majority leader Harry Reid has said that he is committed to getting to hate crimes legislation before the August recess.
A particular pernicious aspect of the current hate-crimes push is the willingness of proponents to submit the accused to multiple trials, if necessary. Although the Constitutions prohibition against double-jeopardy has never applied cross-jurisdictions between states and the federal government, it has nevertheless long been seen as desirable to avoid the prospect of federal prosecutions following state acquittals for the same crime. Now, the ability to try acquitted individuals again using federal hate crimes laws is seen by liberal advocacy groups as a virtue.
It’s even being attempted to tie opponents of open immigration into the issue of hate crimes. Meanwhile, ceaseless race-baiter Jesse Jackson takes the well worn low road and blames the attacks on everything from conservative talk radio to “our obsession with guns.”
Gun Control
Perpetually displeased with the reality of living under the Second Amendment and its protections for individual gun rights, the left is forever looking for ways to undermine and destroy our deep historical and cultural beliefs in self-protection and personal freedom. Gun grabbers have a history of hijacking high profile tragedies in hopes of harnessing the emotions of the moment to enact far-reaching bans without any need for consideration of the merits. The most recent spat of shootings are no different.
The Washington Post’s Marie Cocco dramatically writes that we are “enduring a spring of slaughter.” And the cause of our present horror is that “we have decided to let just about anyone have a gun.” Cocco also offers the usual gun control lie, claiming that, “among the guns Poplawski reportedly used in his attack was an AK-47, a so-called “assault weapon” whose manufacture was banned in the 1990s, but is no longer.” Lying about the AWB has always been common place among its proponents. As reality would have it, Ak-47s were not simply banned by the bill, and many variants were legal to purchase, as the bill comically dealt more with what combination of cosmetic features a gun had rather than its functionality.
The various shootings over the last few weeks are deplorable. but so are the left’s efforts to stretch the facts in order to advance a radical agenda. Whether it be lying about the contents of past legislation and its impact, or pretending that a lunatic, jew-hating, 9/11 truther is “right-wing,” the left has demonstrated that they have no intention of getting tripped up over facts while pushing for greater government control.
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Sometimes it takes a crazy person to stumble upon the truth:
During one of Chavez’s customary lectures on the “curse” of capitalism and the bonanzas of socialism, the Venezuelan leader made reference to GM’s bankruptcy filing, which is expected to give the U.S. government a 60 percent stake in the 100-year-old former symbol of American might.
“Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right,” Chavez joked on a live television broadcast.
Hilarious.
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A lot of talk was given to foreign policy during the recent Presidential campaign. Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran dominated the debate, while little attention was given to the dangerous developments on the other side of our southern border, where both the number of incidents of drug-related violence and their severity have increased dramatically. Mexican military and law enforcement personnel find themselves out-gunned by traffickers and gangs, while corruption plagues all levels of public and private life. The country is on the brink of a complete collapse that would have profound implications for U.S. national security.
Violence is taking an increasingly heavy toll in Mexico. In 2005 there were more than 1,300 deaths to drug-related violence. By 2007 that figure had doubled. In 2008 it almost doubled again, with estimates of more than 4,500 deaths by mid-November. The cartels are also becoming increasing bold in their recruiting and tactics. One group hung a banner on a major thoroughfare offering “good salary, food and benefits for your family.” Several grenade attacks have also been directed at police in the last week. In one such attack, police attempted to apprehend several armed men spotted riding in a vehicle. After the men fled to a nearby residence, they engaged police with grenades and RPG’s.
Corruption is also undermining the legitimacy of the governing authorities. Drug cartels have subverted many local authorities and law enforcement, and public sentiment is becoming increasingly hostile toward authorities. Multiple protests have broken out on claims that soldiers have been robbing, raping and murdering civilians.
The nation’s escalating instability poses significant security implications for the United States. As the situation deteriorates, violence and fleeing civilians are likely to spread across the border. A failed state with a 2,000 mile border with the U.S. also poses a unique opportunity for well armed terrorists seeking to enter the U.S. As the flood of immigrants increases, it will become harder to protect from such breaches.
The underlying cause of the situation is clear. Our drug laws have created a lucrative black market that attracts the most ruthless criminal elements. Just as the violence in Chicago ended after the end of Prohibition, so to can the violence in Mexico. But so long as these powerful financial incentives remain, the violence and social collapse in Mexico will continue. In the short run, the situation may require a U.S. military presence on the border, but in the long run only a change in drug policy can allow Mexico to recover and protect America’s security interests on the southern border.
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At long last, Mexico is cracking down on those unscrupulous individuals who hop across the border intent on soaking up nanny-state benefits at taxpayer expense. Fox news reports:
A Mexican border city has begun fining U.S. drivers who cross the border to fill extra drums, tanks or barrels with government-subsidized Mexican fuel.
The city of Ciudad Acuna, across the border from Del Rio, Texas, said Friday that it fined four U.S. residents for carrying extra diesel and would impound their cars until they pay. The fines equal 70 percent of the value of the diesel confiscated.
U.S. drivers can fill up their own vehicles, but carrying extra fuel containers back across the border violates customs regulations and possibly safety rules, a report from the city said.
Mexico, one of the world’s top 10 oil producers, sells diesel fuel domestically at subsidized prices of about $2.25 per gallon, about half the U.S. price.
What, did you think I was talking about Mexicans coming into America? No doubt similar fines on illegals soaking up benefits in America would constitute a human rights violation.
What Mexico needs is comprehensive diesel reform. We need to get these diesel-moochers out of the shadows, not intimidate them by enforcing fines and seizures and whatnot. We must realize that we are not two separate nations, but one interconnected macro-economy, and thus this is not just their subsidized diesel, but the subsidized diesel of all North Americans. Furthermore, these diesel-moochers, who are the real victims here, should be issued Mexican driver’s licenses, to ease the transition into Mexican society for their brief jaunts south of the border. They’re just looking for a better life, and to fill the gas tanks that Mexicans won’t.
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Just in case we needed yet more evidence that illegal aliens will exit in droves if we remove their incentive to continue breaking the law:
According to Mexican consulate officials in Dallas, some 400 immigrant families have told them so far this year that they’re going back to Mexico and asked for transfer documents to enroll their children in Mexican schools.
Enrique Hubbard Urrea, Mexican consul general in Dallas, said it is impossible to track every Mexican who leaves the area. But he said the number asking for transfer documents at the consulate is on the rise.
In 2005, the consulate issued 162 such documents; in 2006 it was 199; and last year it was 270. At the current rate, more than twice as many people will leave this year as last, he said.
“There is no doubt the trend indicates that the number is growing,” Mr. Hubbard said.
And it isn’t happening only in Dallas. At the Mexican consulates in Chicago and Phoenix, too, the number of Mexican families applying for transfer documents for their children has increased.
So far in 2008, more people (752) have visited the Mexican consulate in Phoenix to apply for transfer documents than the total for 2006 (248) and 2007 (330) combined, according to officials there.
According to informal surveys by the Mexican consulate in Dallas, most of those wanting to return to Mexico cite the sudden scarcity of jobs, fear of deportation and uncertainty about obtaining legal resident status any time soon.
This is not the first time we’ve noted this behavior at the Compendium. The argument that “we can’t possibly round up and deport all the illegals” as a justification for supporting amnesty has always been a straw-man for just this reason.
We don’t need to round them up and deport them, we merely need to remove their access to jobs and social benefits that provide the incentive to migrate here illegally in the first place.
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In today’s culture everyone is victim. It doesn’t matter how responsible one is for getting themselves into a situation, the fault always lies elsewhere. The following WaPo article pulls out all the stops in trying to get readers to sympathize with the criminals (illegal aliens) instead of law enforcement.
Antonio Escobedo ran to get his wife Monday when he saw a helicopter circling overhead and immigration agents approaching the meatpacking plant where they both work. The couple hid for hours inside the plant before obtaining refuge in the pews and hall at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church, where hundreds of other Guatemalan and Mexican families gathered, hoping to avoid arrest.
What a terrible plight for this family man who, if this opening is anything to go by, is guilty of nothing more than trying to work in a country run by a bunch of fascists!
“I like my job. I like my work. I like it here in Iowa,” said Escobedo, 38, an illegal immigrant from Yescas, Mexico, who has raised his three children for 11 years in Postville. “Are they mad because I’m working?”
Yes, that’s exactly why they’re mad. Don’t ask me why they don’t arrest all those millions of people working while legally in the country, though. I’m sure that’s just coincidence.
Monday’s raid on the Agriprocessors plant, in which 389 immigrants were arrested and many held at a cattle exhibit hall, was the Bush administration’s largest crackdown on illegal workers at a single site. It has upended this tree-lined community, which calls itself “Hometown to the World.” Half of the school system’s 600 students were absent Tuesday, including 90 percent of Hispanic children, because their parents were arrested or in hiding.
Cry me a river.
Current and former officials of the Department of Homeland Security say its raid on the largest employer in northeast Iowa reflects the administration’s decision to put pressure on companies with large numbers of illegal immigrant workers, particularly in the meat industry. But its disruptive impact on the nation’s largest supplier of kosher beef and on the surrounding community has provoked renewed criticism that the administration is disproportionately targeting workers instead of employers, and that the resulting turmoil is worse than the underlying crimes.
“They don’t go after employers. They don’t put CEOs in jail,” complained the Postville Community Schools superintendent, David Strudthoff, 51, who said the sudden incarceration of more than 10 percent of the town’s population of 2,300 “is like a natural disaster — only this one is manmade.”
He added, “In the end, it is the greater population that will suffer and the workforce that will be held accountable.”
“Disproportionate” is a favorite cry of liberals when they want to try and evoke the issue of fairness in situations where it is entirely irrelevant. Criminals do not get to cry that it’s not fair that they got caught while other criminals did not. Yes, the administration should go harder after businesses that knowingly hire illegals, but those cases, due to the necessity of proving what they knew about their employees, are much more difficult to build than those against individuals illegals, whose very presence in the country is all the evidence necessary. That not enough effort is being put into going after these businesses is not a reason to sympathize with the criminal behavior of illegal aliens, as the author of this article so desperately wants the reader to conclude.
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Disappointed by Fred’s Iowa showing, my initial analysis following the Hawkeye cauci about his chances to win the nomination was rather pessimistic. Well, that’s an understatement. I gave him no chance. I still am pessimistic about his odds, but after watching the ABC New Hampshire debate I now see a path for him back to competitiveness.
It’s not yet clear whether Romney or McCain will come out ahead in New Hampshire, but it is all but certain that Huckabee will not have a strong showing. With a split in the early primary winners, no candidate will have control of the race heading into the next big momentum shifting state: South Carolina. The Thomspon campaign has made it clear they are targeting South Carolina and hope ride a “southern strategy” to the nomination.
In the ABC New Hampshire debate, Thompson dogged Guiliani on the issue of immigration (see video), asserting that if illegals receive any reward for their law-breaking is amnesty. Thompson’s lawyerly background is on evidence here as he first lays out a clear definition of amnesty for all to understand, and then proceeds to hold Rudy’s feet to the fire by repeatedly questioning if his plan would allow illegals to remain in the U.S.
Every single major candidate but Thompson has a weak record on immigration. South Carolinians rank immigration has their number one issue. If I’m Fred Thompson I’m saying one thing between now and January 19th: Immigration, immigration, immigration. If his campaign is on the ball they’ll continue to lay the groundwork on that issue in tonight’s Fox debate.
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Chalk another one up for common sense.
Illegal immigrants packing up and leaving Arizona
Illegal immigrants in Arizona, frustrated with a flagging economy and tough new legislation cracking down on their employers, are returning to their home countries or trying their luck in other states.
For months, immigrants have taken a wait-and-see attitude toward the state’s new employer-sanctions law, which takes effect January 1. The voter-approved legislation is an attempt to lessen the economic incentive for illegal immigrants in Arizona, the busiest crossing point along the U.S.-Mexico border.
And by all appearances, it’s starting to work.
“People are calling me telling me about their friend, their cousin, their neighbors — they’re moving back to Mexico,” said Magdalena Schwartz, an immigrant-rights activist and pastor at a Mesa church. “They don’t want to live in fear, in terror.”
Yes, what a “terror” it must be to have to follow the legal process to enter a new country. Oh the humanity. This just goes to show, once again, that incentives matter. Remove the benefits of being here illegally and they will stop being here illegally. This was never rocket science. But it’s good to see yet another blatant straw man – that the only way to remove illegals is to deport them all – shot down by empirical evidence. And to think, the law hasn’t even gone into effect yet!
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So we all know by now that one of the favorite tactics of the left, when they can’t get their way, is to accuse everyone else of being racists. This strategy has been used heavily over the many immigration debates. Irving, Texas, which has dared to enforce immigration laws, is now seeing just this sort of dishonest intimidation campaign being waged against its law enforcement officials.
Irving, TX Criminal Immigrant Program Called Racist – Corruption Chronicles
A Texas city?s program to get rid of criminal immigrants has led to more than 1,600 deportations and furious Latino rights advocates will rally at City Hall this weekend to block further implementation because they say the measure is racist and discriminatory.
Irving?s Criminal Alien Program simply checks the immigration status of anyone arrested within city limits. Those found to be in the country illegally are turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and eventually deported for violating federal immigration laws.
…Now illegal immigration advocates, who initially supported the effective program, are playing the race card. They claim that police officers are bigots who racially profile suspects and that all immigrants?legal and illegal alike?now live in fear.
So a program that targets all criminals for immigration status checks is racist. Logic is wasted on these people. One thing is clear though, if this program has them this upset it must be working. Every city should adopt this common sense strategy.
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science, but please don't hold that against me.
