Friday, February 26, 2010

Victory and the Celebration of Purim

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/brp to read if you are interested in the biblical Purim story. This follows another holiday analysis here and subscribe to this blog for more stories like this here.


Victory and the Celebration of Purim (Esther 9–10)
The day decreed for the attack on the Jews, and subsequently for the Jews to strike out against their enemies in self-defense—even preemptively if deemed necessary—finally arrives (9:1). The 13th day of the 12th month, Adar, corresponds to March of 473 B.C. This day had been determined by Haman's superstitious casting of lots, but it seems likely that God had interfered in the process—causing the date to be sufficiently late enough for the Jews to both determine who their enemies were and to make preparations against them. On this fateful day that the enemies of the Jews had hoped to prevail, the opposite happened.
Besides the general fear that had come on the people of the empire because of the Jews' apparent divine favor and help, we are told that the officials of the land helped the Jews on this occasion because of their particular fear of Mordecai's growing influence in the empire (verses 2-4). They may have been trying to garner political favor with the new prime minister, and at the very least were trying to secure themselves against any possible reprisal.
In verses 7-14 we see a return to the conflict with Haman in the killing of his 10 sons. "The patterns of reprisal and vengeance were so deeply ingrained in the cultures of the ancient Middle East that the survival of even one of these sons might mean trouble for the next generation of Jewish people. By listing each of the vanquished sons of their mortal enemy, the Jewish people celebrated the fact that the victory was complete" (Nelson Study Bible, note on verses 7-10). It could also be that these sons had taken or threatened action against the Jews at some point. Moreover, we may perhaps see in this a continuation of the carrying out of the ancient divine edict of destroying the Amalekites. King Ahasuerus granted Esther's request that the bodies of Haman's sons be publicly displayed on the gallows (verses 11-14). This was to serve as a deterrent against anyone contemplating harm against the Jews.
Having overcome their enemies on Haman's determined day, the Jews set aside the next day, the 14th of Adar, as a holiday for celebration. The Jews at Shushan, however, were granted permission to continue fighting through the 14th. So they set aside the 15th as the day to celebrate (verses 13-19). Mordecai sent a letter directing the Jews to observe both days annually from then on and this became an accepted custom (verses 20-25, 27). The days were referred to as Purim, named after the word pur, meaning "lot" (verse 26; see verse 24; 3:7). Purim is the plural.
At some point Esther sent out a second letter with Mordecai confirming the tradition of observing Purim (9:29-32). Though God had not established this feast in the law, it was appropriate for the Jews to commemorate God's intervention on their behalf in this annual celebration. Purim is similar in this respect to Hanukkah, which was instituted three centuries later to commemorate God's help and deliverance in the days of the Maccabees. Jesus Christ apparently went to Jerusalem for the observance of Hanukkah (see John 10:22-23). And as a Jew it is likely that He also observed Purim, especially as its institution is recorded in Scripture. Yet as Purim and Hanukkah are national celebrations not commanded in the law, it is not required that Christians observe them. Indeed, non-Jewish Christians would not be expected to, just as non-Americans are not expected to observe the American holidays of Thanksgiving and Independence Day.
What about the "fasting" in verse 31? "No date is assigned for this fast. Jews traditionally observe the 13th of Adar, Haman's propitious day (see 3:7, 13), as a fast ("the fast of Esther") before the celebration of Purim. These three days of victory celebration on the 13th-15th days of Adar rhetorically balance the three days of Esther's fasting prior to interceding with the king (4:16)" (NIV Study Bible, note on verse 31).
In the three verses that make up the short chapter of Esther 10, we see a final mention of Ahasuerus (Xerxes) and Mordecai. Xerxes reigned eight years beyond the events of chapter 9—dying by assassination in 465 B.C. We know nothing of what became of Esther and Mordecai. But they left an amazing legacy, having cooperated with Almighty God in His grand design to save His people.

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NAACP Awards Reading:Ethnic cleansing in South Central L.A.?


An interesting post from Steve Sailer about relations in Los Angeles, which follows this post here about a very intersting book review. You can continue to get interesting posts like this by subscribing here.



One of the more controversial LA area questions over the last decade was whether or not Latino and black gangs were fighting a low-level ethnic cleansing struggle in the mixed ethnicity slums, as blacks often alleged. Civic leaders, such as LAPD chief William Bratton vociferously denied it, as well they might considering potential repercussions.Slowly, the story is coming out in court cases. My guess is that the answer will turn out to be: Yes, but only in certain times and places, often depending upon the whim of local gang leaders.From the LA Times' ace crime reporter Sam Quinones:Six Florencia 13 gang members sentenced to life in prisonCourt action may close the door on a rampage that began in 2004 and evolved into what some residents saw as a race war.By Sam QuinonesThe sentencing of six Florencia 13 gang members to life in prison appears to bring to a close a prolonged and terrifying spate of violence in the Florence-Firestone district allegedly brought on by orders from a prison gang member in solitary confinement 700 miles away.Beginning in 2004, the unincorporated Los Angeles County area north of Watts [unincorporated parts of LA County are patrolled by LA Sheriffs rather than LAPD] was the site of one of the region's worst gang sieges since the early 1990s, evolving into what some residents felt was a race war.The violence left dozens of people dead, including many with no gang affiliation, and required enormous county resources to combat. ...U.S. District Judge David Carter sentenced Florencia member Francisco Flores, 24, to life in prison on Wednesday, saying that he "preyed on victims because they were black and for no other reason," according to a U.S. attorney's office news release. ..Their trial, which took place in federal court in Santa Ana in 2008, grew from an indictment of 104 Florencia gang members on charges that included racketeering, conspiracy to sell drugs and murder.Of those indicted, 94 have pleaded guilty or have been convicted. Four more await trial; two have died and four are fugitives.The case showed the remarkable power the Mexican Mafia prison gang holds over Southern California Latino street gangs. Prosecutors alleged that Mexican Mafia member Arturo "Tablas" Castellanos essentially created a crime wave in the Florence-Firestone district.Castellanos was not indicted because he is already serving a life prison term in a maximum security cell in Pelican Bay State Prison. He hasn't been on the streets since 1979.Yet he wrote letters, introduced as evidence at the trial, that presumed to control a street gang, most of whose members had never seen him.Castellanos ordered gang members to stop rampant infighting; to tax drug dealers in their neighborhoods, as well as prostitutes, fruit vendors and vendors of phony ID cards in nearby Huntington Park; and to funnel the proceeds to him and other mafia members. He also ordered the gang to attack the local Crips gang, whose members are black."The Mexican Mafia has a powerful grasp on these [Latino] gangs," said Peter Hernandez, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case."The prison system is a segregated place. Those rules and letters from Castellanos attempted to adhere those prison rules to the street," he said.As Castellanos' letters appeared on the street in the fall and winter of 2004, Florencia 13 erupted in a spate of violence against African Americans."They just went out and started shooting" at black people, Hernandez said.East Coast Crips responded with shootings of their own, often targeting Latinos who were not gang members.Few actual gang members died. Instead, residents said, they lived amid a race war.Tapped cellular phone calls introduced as evidence at the trial tracked Florencia members driving the streets looking for people to shoot.Black men, in particular, reported not walking to the store for groceries or riding bikes.Florence-Firestone, with a population of 60,000, had 43 homicides in 2005.In contrast, there have only been three homicides in Florence-Firestone neighborhood over the last seven months, so the situation there is much improved.And here's Quinones's latest, on the testimony of a different Mexican Mafia leader, one who must have watched The Godfather trilogy a lot. I bet he identified with Al Pacino's character:Real tried to break from his family and go straight, even receiving First Communion alone at 17, he said. But, "every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Divvying Us Up By Race - Native Hawaiian Style

This is a timely post from http://www.redstate.com/ about racism in Hawaii, which follows this previous post about Marcos Rubio and a racial slur against him. This shows the power of some in the racial grievance industry. For more posts like this click here.

Divvying Us Up By Race - Native Hawaiian Style

Posted by hogan (Profile)
Wednesday, February 24th
Chief Justice John Roberts once famously quipped, “it’s a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.” He did so in the context of the Supreme Court case LULAC v. Perry, and the application of the Voting Rights Act to carve up Congressional districts in Texas based heavily on racial composition - in which phrases like “majority-minority districts,” and “candidates of choice” are the operative phrases.
Yesterday, the Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives voted basically along party lines, 245 to 164, to divide Americans up by race even further, and design governments according to individual heritage.
Sound bizarre? It is, but it is indeed what is happening.
The House believes it is a priority for Americans to pass legislation that will create an unconstitutional, separate, race-based government for individuals who are descendants of native Hawaiians. Indeed, the bill defines the group that can qualify thusly: anyone who is “a direct lineal descendant of the aboriginal, native people who - resided in the islands that now comprise the State of Hawaii on or before January 1, 1893.”
There were, however, a few heroes in the debate. Steve King, from Iowa, pointed out the absurdity of looking backward over 100 years to balkanize our nation. He pointed out that the entire thrust of this bill is divisive and that we should be continuing to assimilate, not breaking us up by race. And others joined in the fight as well, such as Congressman Tom McClintock.
Most notably, an amendment was offered by Congressman Hastings that would have simply required that this bill pass through a referendum of the people of Hawaii and it was rejected, again, essentially along the same party lines. Yet, according to Zogby, while only 34% of Hawaiians support the federal bill, 58% of Hawaiians would like a referendum. And more, the Governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, has issued a statement in opposition to the bill.
This is not the first time this issue has been raised. I had the privilege of working with a merry band of brothers in a then Republican-led Senate back in 2006 to kill the Senate version of this bill promoted by Senator Akaka. The problems with the bill today are virtually identical as then.
For example, the United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) is opposed to the legislation. In August of 2009, it wrote a letter to Congressional leaders voicing that opposition, and in it, cited to its statement from 2006, in which the Commission wrote:
“The Commission recommends against passage of the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act … or any other legislation that would discriminate on the basis of race or national origin and further subdivide the American People into discrete subgroups accorded varying degrees of privilege.”
And, as Americans, this must be the analysis, no? Can it be any other way? Our nation’s greatness is measured in large part by its commitment to equality - that is, equality under the law, not guaranteed outcome. It is that we strive to see ourselves equally through the eyes of government - and because of that, we are left to rise and fall on our own merit. We have come a long way from a nation that while declaring all men to be created equal, embraced slavery. It has not been an easy road, but surely that road cannot included, in 2010 America, a federal law that would actually reach back to 1893 to carve out a group of people based on their race - their blood - to constitute them separately, and arguably unconstitutionally as a separate people?
As the USCCR noted in its 2009 letter:
In closing we would like to point out that in 1840, the Kingdom of Hawaii adopted a Constitution with a bicameral, multi-racial legislature. The Constitution was signed by two hands—that of Kamehameha’s son King Kamehameha III and that of the holder of the second-highest office in the nation, Keoni Ana, the son of the British-born Hawaiian Minister John Young. Its opening sentence, the substance of which was suggested by an American missionary, was based loosely on a Biblical verse:
“Ua hana mai ke Akua i na lahuikanaka a pau i ke koko hookahi, e noho like lakou ma ka honua nei me ke kuikahi, a me ka pomaikai.” Translated, the passage might read: “God has made of one blood all races of people to dwell upon this Earth in unity and blessedness.”

Marco Rubio, “Coconut” Or “Great White Hope”?

This is a timely post from http://www.vdare.com/ about Marco Rubio, which follows this previous post about him. He was called this for attempting to get along with people who are not Hispanic, specifically white people. This shows the power of some in the racial grievance industry. For more posts like this click here.


Marco Rubio, “Coconut” Or “Great White Hope”?
[James Fulford]
Kathy Shaidle writes
Everyone is upset over Donny Deutsch calling Rubio a “coconut,” and it IS incredibly stupid.But how much more fun is it that Deutsch had to catch himself before using the old school expression “great white hope” — and trying and failing to do the mental gymnastics needed to make that phrase work under the circumstances.Between the “you know” and the “hope,” you can just about hear his brain going “oh, wait…”Newsbusters reported “MSNBC and CNBC contributor — and professed Charlie Crist admirer — Donny Deutsch used racially charged language blah blah blah “–sorry, dozed off there for moment.Look, “Coconut” is a smear like Oreo, Apple, or Banana indicating that someone is one color on the outside, but white on the inside. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
This “Whiteness on the inside” frequently consists of loyalty to the United States of America, support for law and order, and not supporting socialism.
Michelle Malkin has been getting that kind of smear for years, and years, and years.In fact, Rubio is a Hispanic Republican who is a Cuban-American. And he is the great white hope of Hispanic Republicans. Look at pictures of him. (One is above right.) In Pondering Patterson [II]: OK, How White Are Hispanics?, Steve Sailer wrote
In fact, the only white Latin American population that has immigrated to the U.S. in large numbers are the Cubans. (Click here for a page of pictures of leading Miami Cuban citizens if you don’t believe that they are overwhelmingly white.) And that would never have happened except that a Communist dictator threw them out. Indeed, Miami’s Cubans have claimed vociferously that they can’t wait to get back to Cuba and take up the life they used to live. (Whether, post-Castro, the current inmates of Cuba will want their old masters back, is, however, very much unknown.)Cubans aren’t Spanish speaking members of ethnic minorities–they’re Spanish. The white Cubans tend to be Republicans, and anti-Communists. They were the productive class in Cuba–that’s why they had to leave.Mexican-Americans in the Southwest, on they other hand, are either Indians, or mestizos. They were the not-very-productive-class in Mexico–that’s why they had to leave.The GOP and National Review keep hoping the Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants will turn into Cubans. This is a delusion. In 2009, NR did a couple of articles about Ted Cruz, a Hispanic Republican in Texas. See Cruz Control A Republican star rises in Texas by Mark Hemingway. May 4, 2009 [Subscriber link] and A Great Reaganite Hope, &c., by Jay Nordlinger, May 12, 2009. I’m willing to accept that Ted Cruz is a great American, genuine conservative, great communicator, and so on. But he’s also a white Cuban-American, son of a white refugee from Batista.And it says something that the GOP’s Hispanic outreach in Texas has produced not a patriotic Tejano, but a Great White Hispanic.

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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

JD Hayworth for U.S. Senate‏ *UPDATED*

An interesting post from www.alipac.us about the John McCain's take on the Arizona senate race . This follows this previous post about their J.D. Hayworth endorsement. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

McCain Campaign Falters Using Offensive False Information‏
Press Release from Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC)
Contact: Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC)
www.alipac.us (866) 703-0864
The U.S. Senate campaign of John McCain made a critical error last night when campaign manager Brian Rogers sent out a press release attacking Americans for Legal Immigration PAC's (ALIPAC) endorsement of J.D. Hayworth using faulty information gleaned from a leftist website...

Read More at...
http://www.alipac.us/article-4959-thread-1-0.html

--------
McCain Labels All That Disagree With His Amnesty Racists, Hayworth Responds
Press Release from JD Hayworth for US Senate Campaign
Hayworth V. McCain
Arizona's 24-Year Senator Ridiculously Labels All Who Disagree With Him, Open Borders A Bunch of Brown Shirts; John, Let's Elevate The Debate
PHOENIX, ARIZONA. FEBRUARY 24, 2010.
Yesterday, the McCain campaign issued a sophomoric press release attempting to discredit conservative challenger J.D. Hayworth's endorsement from the Americans for Legal Immigration, a national leader in the fight against illegal immigration. The McCain campaign used sloppy research to suggest this group and anyone that disagrees with McCain or his amnesty plans is a hate monger. It was offensive not only to the Hayworth family but also should be to any American....

Read Full Release At...
http://www.alipac.us/article-4958-thread-1-0.html

Obamacare's Last Stand Or Launch? *BUMPED AND UPDATED*

An interesting post from www.hughhewitt.com about this week's "bipartisan" health care summit. The key point that Hugh Hewitt makes is about the special election to replace John Murtha and they are both fine candidates. For more posts like this click here.

Obamacare's Last Stand Or Launch?
Update: Hugh Hewitt has put a key link on contacting Congressmen here at the house switchboard 202-225-3121 The key ones include the "Blue Dogs" and the ones targeted at www.reversethevote.org
Posted by: Hugh Hewitt
This is the week when Obamacare makes either its comeback or its last stand.My Washington Examiner column suggests a couple of topics for the "summit."But the best message to send is a contribution to either Tim Burns or William Russell, the two candidates to replace Jack Murtha in Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District. (One or the other will be selected by local GOP officials in the coming weeks for the May 18th special election.)If the incumbent Democrats see a flood of money flowing to that race they will remember again the message from Massachusetts and balk at following the president, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid over the cliff.
Tim Burns' website is here.
William Russell's is here.

Marco Rubio called a Racial Slur for attempting to get along with Whites!

This is a timely post from www.redstate.com about Marco Rubio, a favorite of the Tea Party movement in Florida. He was called this for attempting to get along with people who are not Hispanic, specifically white people. This shows the power of some in the racial grievance industry. For more posts like this click here.


Racist Donny Deutsch slurs Marco Rubio (R CAND, FL-SEN).
Via Hot Air, check out the racial sensitivity of MSNBC/CNBC talking head Donnie Deutsch:
‘Coconut,’ for those lucky enough to have missed it up to this point, is a derogatory racial epithet hurled against dark-skinned individuals deemed insufficiently ‘authentic.’ It suggests that the individual in question is ‘brown on the outside, white on the inside.’ When used by someone of the same ethnic identity as the slurred individual, it takes on the additional connotation of ‘race traitor;’ when used by someone of Caucasian ancestry, it typically represents an opportunity to express racial hatreds in a socially acceptable manner. The Other Side has, shall we say, a history of such things; and if we ever have that full and frank discussion of race that’s been promised the first question that I plan to ask is going to be about precisely why this is acceptable behavior among them.
About the only thing mitigating this exercise in public racism is that it appeared on the Joy Behar show, which means that almost nobody saw it anyway.
Moe Lane
PS: Don’t get mad. Get even.
Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Religion of Peace . . . & Gubernatorial Candidates Who Diss White People, Dig 9/11 Trutherism

An interesting post from www.debbieschlussel.com about a candidate for Texas governor. This follows this previous post about Texas being likely lost to the GOP in the near future. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

Religion of Peace . . . & Gubernatorial Candidates Who Diss White People, Dig 9/11 Trutherism
By Debbie Schlussel
As readers know, I’ve been following the “candidacy” of Palestinian Muslim extremist haircare magnate and Texas Gubernatorial candidate Farouk Shami, who owns the Chi, BioSilk, and SunGlitz products through his Farouk Systems company. I’ve noted how Shami donned an anti-Israel “Jerusalem is Ours” keffiyeh at an MLK Day event, worked for the P.L.O., Yasser Arafat, and the Saudi Royal family and how his father–after whom he named his “charitable” foundation–bragged about killing innocent Jews in pogroms prior to Israel’s independence. And I’ve noted his activism and honors from the American Task Force on Palestine, a group that refuses to condemn HAMAS, Hezbollah, etc. and won’t recognize Israel’s existence, considering all of it to be “Palestine.”
I’ve been attacked by the Texas mainstream media for this, and that’s okay because, now, this magnificent specimen of extremism and Liberace clothes has demonstrated even more anti-Western hatred, announcing that White people don’t want to work and engaging in nutty 9/11 Trutherism conspiracy theories. Yup, not just a supporter of Islamic terrorism, but a racist AND a loon. Shocker. Get out your barf bag.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

JD Hayworth for U.S. Senate‏

An interesting post from www.alipac.us about the Arizona senate race . This follows this previous post about dangers in Texas. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC Endorses JD Hayworth for U.S. Senate‏
Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee (ALIPAC) is endorsing JD Hayworth for U.S. Senate today in the hopes Hayworth can defeat John McCain, who is a notorious supporter of Amnesty for illegal aliens. John McCain refused to listen to over 80% of his constituents and the American public by co-sponsoring Amnesty legislation with Senator Kennedy in 2007 which would have turned millions of illegal aliens into US voters. McCain's Amnesty legislation failed after the Capitol Hill phone system collapsed under the pressure of angry calls ranging 50-100 to 1 against his bill. McCain apologized to and misled Republican voters in the 2008 GOP primary for president by claiming he had changed his position on Amnesty and after winning the primary, he flip flopped and returned to his prior pro-Amnesty positions, which left many voters feeling they could not trust John McCain. JD Hayworth supports immigration enforcement and border security measures, instead of McCain's amnesty legislation which would politically destroy America's ability to enforce immigration laws in the future. Hayworth's prior voting records in Congress, position statements as a talk radio show host, and his campaign stances are aligned with ALIPAC's platform and the super majority of American voters who support more immigration enforcement. "JD Hayworth has taken sides with the 80% of Americans who want our borders secured and our existing immigration laws enforced," said William Gheen, president of ALIPAC. "By contrast, John McCain has clearly taken sides with the Open Borders Lobby which would wreck this nation by pursuing amnesty, instead of enforcement. It is clear that anyone in Arizona or any state in America, who is concerned about illegal immigration, should support JD Hayworth for US Senate." ALIPAC is making a $1,000 donation to JD Hayworth's campaign and intends to contribute the PAC a maximum of $5,000 by Election Day. The national organization is also encouraging their over 30,000 supporters and allies in the Tea Party Movement to donate to the Hayworth campaign and to consider volunteering to help the campaign via http://www.jdforsenate.com/
Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, founded on 9/11/2004, has worked extensively with the Tea Party movement by leading a coalition of over 20 groups across the nation in support of Tea Party and 9/12 events in 2010. ALIPAC also conducted Tea Parties Against Amnesty in over 50 cities last November. A recent online poll sponsored by one of the largest Tea Party groups showed 77% support for Hayworth over McCain by Tea Party activists. The ALIPAC endorsement is likely to help strengthen that coalescing support. "There is a popular and powerful political uprising in America today, comprised of many patriotic Americans who feel many incumbents like John McCain are not listening to the public on important issues like immigration," said Gheen. "JD Hayworth is the best choice for any American who wants the current reversal of illegal immigration to continue and increase." ALIPAC believes that JD Hayworth's bid to unseat John McCain is stopping the Amnesty legislation in Washington from moving forward in 2010 and that McCain is fearful to co-sign the Senate version of the bill, even though he promised Sen. Chuck Shumer (D-NY) and the Hispanic Caucus he would. ALIPAC believes that Hayworth is likely to unseat John McCain and if McCain signs the new Amnesty bill as promised, then Hayworth will certainly defeat McCain.
For more information or to view ALIPAC's growing list of endorsements for 2010, please visit www.alipac.us

Monday, February 22, 2010

Obamacare's Last Stand Or Launch?

An interesting post from www.hughhewitt.com about this week's "bipartisan" health care summit. The key point that Hugh Hewitt makes is about the special election to replace John Murtha of the two candidates he points about I have a slight preference for William Russell, although they are both fine candidates. For more posts like this click here



Obamacare's Last Stand Or Launch?
Posted by: Hugh Hewitt
This is the week when Obamacare makes either its comeback or its last stand.
My Washington Examiner column suggests a couple of topics for the "summit."
But the best message to send is a contribution to either Tim Burns or William Russell, the two candidates to replace Jack Murtha in Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District. (One or the other will be selected by local GOP officials in the coming weeks for the May 18th special election.)If the incumbent Democrats see a flood of money flowing to that race they will remember again the message from Massachusetts and balk at following the president, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid over the cliff.
Tim Burns' website is here.
William Russell's is here.

Without An Immigration Moratorium, How Long Can The GOP Hold Texas?

An interesting post fromSteve Sailer of www.vdare.com about the Texas . This follows this previous article about an anti-white statement by one of the candidates for governor of Texas. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

Without An Immigration Moratorium, How Long Can The GOP Hold Texas?
By Steve Sailer
The Conservative Action Political Conference has just concluded in D.C., with its Beltway Right management suppressing the immigration issue as usual, but amid another blaze of naive grass-roots enthusiasm.
Republican confidence heading toward the 2010 Congressional elections is, at the moment, high.
But the party’s long-term prospects rest upon demographic fundamentals that party strategists are afraid (see above) to discuss in public.
The most useful examples for thinking about the GOP’s future are the two superstates:
California (where Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state’s Congressional delegation 34-19);
Texas (where Republicans are on top 20-12).
The doomsday scenario for Republicans: losing their grip on Texas’s Electoral College votes (which will likely rise from 34 to 37 after the 2010 Census) because of immigration.
McCain beat Obama 55-44 in Texas, by winning 73-26 among white voters.
But Obama won 54-45 among 18-29 year olds—suggesting the Texas GOP’s future a couple of decades down the road is not bright.
Two new articles discuss immigration and elections, with particular relevance to Texas and California.
Republicans look to rebuild their traction with Hispanic voters [by Peter Slevin, Washington Post, February 21, 2010] just repeats the usual talking points from political consultants who make their living being Professional Hispanics.
Needless to say, they all agree that the GOP needs to let in more Hispanics for them to purport to represent.
In contrast, in the Center For Immigration Studies’ just-released study Immigration, Political Realignment, and the Demise of Republican Political Prospects (PDF), University of Maryland political scientist James G. Gimpel looks at the correlation between the collapse of the GOP in America’s biggest counties from 1980 to 2008 and each county’s percentage of foreign-born residents a.k.a. immigration.
For example, strange as it may seem now, Ronald Reagan won 50.2 percent in huge Los Angeles County in 1980 (versus 50.7 percent nationally in a three-man race with Jimmy Carter and John Anderson). Yet John McCain couldn’t reach 29 percent in a two-man contest in LA County—whose foreign-born percentage, not coincidentally, has increased over those years from 22 to 41 percent.
Even more worrisomely for GOP strategists should be their decline in Texas’s top two counties, from 58 percent for Reagan to 49 percent for McCain in Houston’s Harris County (now 25 percent immigrant) and from 59 percent to 42 percent in Dallas County (27 percent immigrant).
The Republican drop-offs were less precipitous in 13 percent foreign-born Tarrant County (Fort Worth) and in 11 percent immigrant Bexar County (San Antonio).
Nationally, Gimpel finds in large counties a 0.58 percentage point drop in Republican share of the vote for every point the foreign-born share of the populace goes up.
In Texas, the effect size is even bigger: a 0.67 point fall.
Compared to California, the large-scale immigrant influx into Texas is fairly recent. The 1980 Census found that while 22.3 percent of Los Angeles County’s residents were foreign-born, Texas’s four biggest urban counties ranged from only 3.6 percent in Tarrant to 8.4 percent in Harris.
If the GOP is in long-term decline in Dallas and Harris counties (which have 6.4 million residents between them), my hunch is that it’s in trouble all over Texas.
In 1980, I met on a train through Italy a couple of English soccer hooligans who were headed for a post-match riot in Turin. When they asked where I was from, I replied, “Houston”, where I had just graduated from college. They had never heard of Houston, so I suggested “Dallas” as a reasonable approximation.
“Who shot J.R.?” the yobs exclaimed in happy unison.
Although Southfork Ranch, the fictional abode of Television Texan J.R. Ewing, was set in Dallas, Houston was even more the capital of capitalist exuberance during the 1970s oil boom.
By 1980, Houston’s Harris County was the third most populous in America, and the downtown business district had sprouted the most outlandish skyline west of the Mississippi (although Dallas wasn’t far behind).
Unsurprisingly, except apparently to the banks, oil prices eventually came down and the Texas bubble popped. Yet the modern Republican Party’s state electorate was forged in the 1970s. In contrast to the housing boom of the last decade in California, in Texas back then construction wasn’t considered “a job Americans just wouldn’t [or shouldn’t] do.” Nor was it yet universally assumed by the Establishment that high wages for American workers were an evil to be fought at all cost.
Back in the 1970s, strong demand bid up workers’ wages in Texas. That lured in large numbers of American workers to Texas from the declining cities of the Rust Belt. Although American newcomers to Texas in the 1970s typically came from places where the Democrats had ruled at least since FDR, they joined with native Texans in trending Republican.
After voting for Carter in 1976, Texas went for Reagan in 1980 and hasn’t wavered since. Texas kept the GOP viable at the national level when California, which voted for nine out of ten Republican Presidential candidates from 1952-1988, flipped Democratic.
Gimpel offers three reasons for why heavily immigrant counties have almost uniformly gone Democratic since 1980:
Naturalized immigrants vote more Democratic. (The great majority are Hispanic, Asian, black, or Muslim, all groups that favor the Democrats. Moreover, illegal aliens’ American-born children are now automatically given the vote, so the effect in the next generation is even larger.)
An influx of Democratic-leaning immigrants into a county suggests to native voters that the Democrats are the Party of the Future so they better get on the Democratic bandwagon now.
Immigration drives out natives by lowering wages and raising land costs.
In the third quarter of the 20th Century, Southern California, with its ample room for development, had been the prime destination of Americans looking for a better life for their families. Strange as it seems now, Southern California became famous for its teeming hordes of white teenagers.
But as foreign immigration took off, Southern California began to fill up. Southern California housing prices surged from 1976 on and off for the next three decades.
Eastern Mexico had its own oil boom in the late 1970s. So back then there was, by recent standards, relatively limited illegal immigration into Texas (which had also long had a sizable Texican population, who appreciated the higher pay now available to them).
But by 1982, oil prices had tumbled, imposing a recession on Texas and a depression on Mexico. The 1980s flood of illegal aliens, and their subsequent post-Amnesty baby boom, focused upon California rather than Texas in the 1980s.
So Texas’s big counties are now about as foreign-born as Southern California’s were in the 1980s. And counting
Still, Texas’s suburbs are less hemmed in by oceans and mountains than California’s are, so a home and marriage are less likely to become as unaffordable so quickly.
I would add two more reasons to Gimpel’s list of why immigration to urban counties hurts the GOP.
As immigrants take over private sector jobs, the remaining American citizens become more concentrated in public sector jobs. Dependent upon taxes for their paychecks, civil servants lean Democratic.
By making housing less affordable for the prudent, immigration makes having a family less affordable. And that means Republican family values appeals are less appealing to family-less voters.
This suggests that immigration doesn’t just move Republicans around the landscape, it deters them from developing, or, in some cases, from even being born.
Nationally, the GOP used to do reasonably well in populous counties. Gimpel reports:
“In 1980 the largest counties, in the aggregate, gave about half of their two-party vote to the Republicans (ranging from 56 percent for the 10 largest counties, to 48 percent in the 100 larg­est). … By 2008, how­ever, the Republican two-party vote per­centages at these lo­cales hovered between 35 and 37 percent—in some cases a 20 percentage-point drop across the interven­ing election cycles.”
Republicans can bluster that they don’t need big counties and urban elites. But when driven out of urban areas by immigration, the GOP becomes less urbane. It loses role models. To be successful, a conservative party needs to appeal to people with the most to conserve.
Indeed, Columbia statistician Andrew Gelman pointed out in his 2008 book Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State that in Republican states, the GOP carries the people at the top of society. In Democratic states, that’s less true.
For example, in 2008’s Texas exit poll, McCain, a mediocre candidate at best, won 61 percent of those claiming postgraduate degrees, and 65 percent with six-figure incomes.
That’s the mark of a dominant party. Each party likes to claim it’s the party of the underdogs, but the truth is that voters in each state tend to take their lead, as is only natural, from their most successful fellow citizens.
In California, however, the GOP candidate garnered only 33 percent of those asserting an advanced degree and 42 percent of those making over $100,000.
The most populous counties are going to continue to be home to many of the most influential people. For Republican policy to be using mass immigration to make those places less congenial to Republicans—which is what it was during the Bush-McCain years—is, in a word, suicidal.
How long does the GOP have?
For several years, various Democrats have been predicting that demographic trends mean that Texas will flip Real Soon Now.
For example, Democratic consultant Michael Lux of Progressive Strategies noted in the Huffington Post:
“At the beginning, people in [Democratic] targeting meetings are always saying things like ‘If you look at the demographics in Texas, it ought to be winnable’ …
Anglos will be down to 52% of the adult population by 2010, and 49.99% – less than half – by 2012.
85% of the new adult citizens eligible to vote since 2002 are minorities, most of them Hispanics.
Barack Obama, who didn’t spend a dime targeting Texas in the 2008 general election, lost Texas by about 950,000 votes. Between 2008 and 2012, there are projected to be 1.2 million additional eligible minority voters added to the population of the state.”
But Democrats have a long history of being frustrated by erratic Hispanic turnout in Texas, especially in less glamorous midterm elections. Lux lamented:
“In 2008, Hispanics made up 32% of eligible voters in Texas, a number which will likely be about 35% by 2012, but they were only 20% of the electorate. In the 2006 off-year elections, while 45% of eligible Anglos voted, only 37% of African-Americans, 24% of Asian-Americans, and 25% of Hispanics voted.”
Why are Texas Hispanics somewhat less liberal and perhaps even less politicized than California Latinos?
First, Texas Hispanics tend to have roots in the more business-friendly northeast of Mexico.
But second, in contrast to California, Texas has a self-confident conservative white Establishment that draws respect from Latino voters. Hispanics aren’t oppositional blacks, whom Obama carried by a comic 98-2 margin in Texas, compared to 63-35 for Latinos. Black partisan voting behavior is often negatively correlated over time with trends among whites. But opportunistic Hispanics tend to follow the drifts of the white electorate, just much farther to the left on tax-and-spend issues.
Thirdly, white conservatives have done a decent job of running Texas. The cost of living and the cost of government remain relatively low, yet public school test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are typically better in Texas for each ethnic group than in expensive California.
Moreover, in former Congressman Tom Delay, the Texas GOP had a master of the arts of the gerrymander, and weren’t afraid to use his talents, even when his ploys annoyed Hispanic ethnic activists.
Finally, conservative voters placed a clever poison pill amendment in the Texas constitution in 1993 protecting the crown jewel of Texas policies, the absence of a state income tax. Even if the Democrats took control of the state legislature, an income tax would have to be approved by voters in an off-year referendum, when mostly whites show up to vote. That extra hurdle tends to discourage Democratic activists’ greed. What’s the point of going through all the toil of winning the legislature once, if the voters then have time to wake up and veto your handiwork?
This suggests that if Texas Republicans stay on top of their game, they can hold Texas for a few more election cycles.
In the long run, however, Texas is not at all immune from following California’s path.
At VDARE.COM, we’ve been writing about the consequences of immigration for party realignment since we began ten years ago. Indeed, VDARE.COM editor Peter Brimelow wrote the first analysis, Electing A New People, with our National Data columnist Edwin S. Rubenstein, in the pre-purge National Review back in 1997. (For their update after the 2000 election, click here.)
In a nutshell, our proposed solution:
Rally the white a.k.a. American electorate by proposing patriotic immigration reform (the “Sailer Strategy”);
Implement patriotic immigration reform, which at this point means an indefinite moratorium, thus (a) stopping the importation of more instant Democrats; and (b) giving the assimilation mechanism time to work.

In the case of Texas, I’ve suggested that the impact of immigration could be palliated, at the national level, by allowing Texas to exercise its arcane right to split into five states. (Sailermandering Texas: What to Do While We’re Waiting For Patriotic Immigration Reform, December 9, 2009)
In the long run, only an immigration moratorium can save Texas for the GOP —and for America.
[Steve Sailer (email him) is movie critic for The American Conservative. His website www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily blog. His new book, AMERICA’S HALF-BLOOD PRINCE: BARACK OBAMA’S "STORY OF RACE AND INHERITANCE", is available here.]

Friday, February 19, 2010

Sarah Palin's Controversial Call for Divine Intervention

An interesting post from www.ucg.org/commentary about Sarah Palin's speech at the Nashville Tea Party Convention, for more about this movement click here and for more posts like this click here.

Sarah Palin's Controversial Call for Divine Intervention
A commentary by John Foster
Posted February 18, 2010
Former U.S. vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin recently gave the keynote address at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. After her speech she was asked a number of questions, including what she thought the top three priorities of Congress should be. One was to stop spending, another was to develop an independent energy policy and the third was to seek divine intervention.
"I think, kind of tougher to put our arms around, but allowing America's spirit to rise again by not being afraid to kind of go back to some of our roots as a God-fearing nation where we're not afraid to say, especially in times of potential trouble in the future here, where we're not afraid to say, you know, we don't have all the answers as fallible men and women, so it would be wise of us to start seeking some divine intervention again in this country, so that we can be safe and secure and prosperous again. To have people involved in government who aren't afraid to go that route, not so afraid of the political correctness that, you know, they have to be afraid of what the media said about them if they were to proclaim their alliance to our Creator."
Her words are generating a lot of controversy. The liberal blogs have castigated her for her comments, and not all conservatives are happy with them either. But is it really wrong to admit "we don't have all the answers as fallible men and women, so it would be wise of us to start seeking some divine intervention again in this country"?
Isn't that what God wants us to do? Most Americans believe in God. If we want to please God, why not admit that we need His help?
Notice what God inspired the prophet Isaiah to write: "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. 'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' says the Lord. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts'" (Isaiah 55:6-9).
Throughout the Bible, God calls upon His people to repent, which means to turn away from sin, and return to Him. Jesus Christ Himself called upon the people of His day to "repent, and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:15).
Imagine what this nation would be like if we determined to follow just one or two of God's Ten Commandments. Take the command "You shall not steal" (Exodus 20:15). There would no longer be a need for locks on our doors, security programs for our computers or worries about abductions. There would no longer be embezzling or theft.
What about the command "You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14)? We would not have to see couples go down in flames over infidelities. There would no longer be child porn or striptease clubs. The family would be protected and, therefore, our nation would be stronger.
Why can't we "go back to some of our roots as a God-fearing nation"? Why can't we admit that we have problems and quit deviating from God's law of love? Remember what Jesus Christ told the young man in Matthew 19:17-19? Here, Jesus said, "But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments." When the young man asked Him which commandments, Jesus said, "'You shall not murder,' 'You shall not commit adultery,' 'You shall not steal,' 'You shall not bear false witness,' 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"
We don't have to wait for what Congress should do. We can start now in our personal lives to get back to God. God's commandments are for our good and for our benefit. The apostle John wrote in 1 John 5:3: "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome."
The United Church of God has prepared a booklet that details the need for all of us to keep God's commandments. The Ten Commandments reveals why God's law is still relevant for us today and why God wants us to turn back to Him. Let's forsake our wicked ways and seek the Lord while He may be found!



Related Resources
Who Determines Right From Wrong?It's ironic that while some Christians vehemently defend the posting of the Ten Commandments, many other Christians believe that these laws have no application to modern Christianity.
Is God's Law Bondage?Some theologians associate God's law with slavery. But the Bible presents it as the missing key to true freedom.
What Is a True Christian?What does it take to be a Christian? According to the Bible, there is much more to being a true follower of Jesus Christ than most people realize. How does God's Word define a true Christian?

Texas Pilot Stack's Communist Sympathies

This is a timely post from www.newsbusters.com that describes the pilot and his manifesto of the man who crashed into the building with the IRS in Austin Texas. He is not a Tea Party member as some are reporting, but someone from the opposite end of the spectrum with Communist sympathies. For more posts like this click here.

CNN's Sanchez and Velshi Omit Stack's Communist Sympathies

By Noel Sheppard (Bio Archive)Fri, 02/19/2010

A trend is beginning to develop in the media reports concerning Joe Stack, the man who allegedly smashed a plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas: his disgust for capitalism and support of communism must be ignored at all cost.
As NewsBusters previously reported, both Time.com and a blog posting at the Washington Post have conveniently skipped two crucial sentences at the end of Stack's suicide note:

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Clearly, Stack was no friend of capitalism. Yet, similar to other media members, CNN's Rich Sanchez and Ali Velshi addressed much of Stack's suicide note during "CNN Newsroom" Thursday EXCEPT for the part where he expressed his support for communism (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):
CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE

Cultural Challenge of the Week: Narcissism‏

This is a review from Rebecca Hagelin about the recent trend in Naricism in webpages such as Facebook. This follows this post about extreme anti-Ameriancism in movies.For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.



Cultural Challenge of the Week: Narcissism‏

"Love your neighbor as you love yourself" is a Biblical command with at least two very clear meanings.We are to love others, and we are to love ourselves.It's pretty basic, but incredibly powerful. Sadly, in our pop culture it seems that many of our young people are focused only on the "self love" part, and have even perverted that love into an obsession with themselves. And, when that happens, it's impossible to fulfill the first part of the command: to truly love others. Why? Because to love someone means you are willing to sacrifice for them. To consider their needs and desires before your own. But, if everything is "all about me," it's pretty difficult to see the hurt in someone else's eyes. It's up to us, as adults and parents, to stop and reflect on how we can save our own children from a life of selfishness and obsession with themselves. And, it starts with looking at what our own priorities are: How do we live? Do our children feel as if we as moms and dads are always focused on our own careers and desires at the expense of spending time with them? Do we hand the responsibility over to others to teach, entertain and take care of children while we work endless hours to have the life we want? If so, we're teaching them to do the very same thing. This is such a common problem in our materialistic, goal-driven world that it is the topic of the Culture Challenge of the Week.
Culture Challenge of the Week: Narcissism

Deeply embedded in today's culture, narcissism has crept into our children's mentality like a thief in the night, actually robbing them (and everyone around them) of much dignity and happiness.Young people spend hours every day updating their Facebook pages, post and e-mail countless pictures of themselves, and plug their ears with music to create a self-indulgent existence, shut-off from everyone around them. I recently went online and viewed the page of a friend-of a-friend-of a-friend-of my daughter's on Facebook and discovered literally hundreds of pictures of the girl posing like a super model.Where are our children learning to be so obsessed with self? From adults, of course.In 2006, Time Magazine voted "You" as the "Person of the Year." And, why not? Peruse the popular magazine covers and they are all about indulging in your own desires and fantasies. Just watch television for a couple of hours and you'll walk away feeling as if you owe it to yourself to have an affair, spend lavishly on yourself, and be your "own man" at the expense of everyone else. And then there's the American obsession with pornography -- the ultimate objectification and degradation of other human beings. Men, women girls and boys are all there for your personal pleasure in millions of websites, advertisements, shows and publications. The heaviest users of online porn are teenagers and young adults, and it is teaching them that people are objects to be used and discarded at will, and that the only thing that matters is indulging in fantasies. When our kids are consuming such raunchy material, how on Earth will they ever understand what it truly means to love someone, to be committed to another unconditionally, to even value human life?And, look at the economic mess we are in. Too many spent way beyond their means on trinkets and toys and demanded the best when their budgets could afford what was "only" good enough. They bought homes and cars and gadgets a plenty, with the swipe of an interest-only loan or a "special low introductory rate" credit card. America is largely an entitlement society where we demand that the government provide us with health-care, retirement, and a comfortable life, with no concern of who will pay for utopia.
Then there is the phenomenon of abortion on demand, without apology, through the ninth month of pregnancy. Have all the sex you want, with whomever you want; and, if you get pregnant, just "terminate" it regardless of how the father may feel. And the baby? What baby? It's just tissue, remember? How convenient.Our kids see our selfish, irresponsible ways and learn the lesson, 'It's all about me.'How to Save Your Family from, "Me, me, me!" When our culture is all about "My body, my career, my choice, my, my, my..." what is a parent to do?Thankfully, we've known the answer all along: Practice the Golden Rule."Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."The wisdom in this Biblical admonishment is so self-evident that it is universally admired, but tragically, rarely followed. It is the basic tenant for successful human relationships, the economy, personal finances, you name it. Imagine the good that could accomplished, the human suffering that would be replaced with human achievement, if we treated others with the dignity and thoughtfulness we ourselves crave. The two greatest gifts we can give our children are to teach them to love God with all that is within them, and to love their neighbors as they love themselves.Here are five easy ways to start:
Invest time in your kids rather than being obsessed with your own career and hobbies. If your kids see that you are not concerned about them enough to sacrifice your own desires and pour into their lives, how will they ever learn to pour into others? NOTE: This is not to be confused with indulging your children in their every whim. Quite the contrary: When you spend time with your children teaching them how to live well and thoughtfully, you are molding them into decent, loving human beings. It takes both time, attention and patience to raise children who are stable, mature, polite and considerate. These qualities do not develop by accident, or from part-time parenting.
Be a role model. Considerate, well-mannered, thoughtful children come from parents who exude those behaviors themselves. Evaluate the media you consume. Does it promote selfishness? If so, stop the magazine subscriptions, change the channel, and get an Internet filter! (By the way, check out http://www.mympowerbox.com/ for a soon-to-be released all-in-one tool to filter both the internet and television shows.)
Share stories of kindness. Start seeking movies, books and shows that teach what is highest and best; that glorify human decency instead of depravity.
Be generous. You may not be rich, but everyone can be generous with their time and talents. There's nothing more selfless than giving to someone who can't possibly ever repay you. Your kids are watching you all the time, and when you are generous, they learn to be generous too.
Practice "Random Acts of Kindness." Think of something nice to do for someone else every day, and then do it. Consistently.Narcissism eventually leads from self-love to self-loathing. But, living the Golden Rule is a powerful way to spread joy, improve the human condition, and develop true self-respect. Your children are waiting for you to show them the way.
My prayer for your family this week is that each member will practice kindness toward each other member in at least one tangible way. Why not issue the challenge over dinner tonight? You can get the ball rolling by explaining the need to practice thoughtfulness, and then saying one kind comment about each person around the table.As you consistently take deliberate steps to connect with your children, you each will experience the joy that families were created to know.

Have a great week! Warmly,Rebecca

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Palestinian Candidate For Governor Of Texas Says Whites Don’t Want To Work In Factories

An interesting post from www.vdare.com about the Texas governor's race. This follows this previous article him on MLK Jr. day. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.


Palestinian Candidate For Governor Of Texas Says Whites Don’t Want To Work In Factories
[James Fulford]
Farouk Shami is a candidate for governor of Texas. He’s from Ramallah, originally, rather than, say Palestine, Texas. His Wikipedia entry says that “His company, the Houston-based Farouk Systems, currently employs 2,000 Americans…“, but that’s Wikipedia for you. It should say that he employs 2000 people in America, but he hires as few Americans as possible, because they don’t want to work for what he’s paying them.While the story below says that “race became an issue” in the campaign with his anti-white remarks, the story doesn’t mention that he’s a Palestinian-American immigrant, and when they talk about 9/11, they don’t mention that he’s an Arab, or whether he’s a Muslim.
Democratic candidate for governor: ‘Whites don’t want to work in factories’by BRAD WATSON / WFAA-TVPosted on February 12, 2010 at 4:48 PMUpdated yesterday at 4:53 PM Race became an issue in the Democratic primary for governor today.Farouk Shami, the millionaire hair care products maker who’s running, said he doesn’t find many white people willing to work, so he says he hires Hispanics and blacks instead.He made the comments responding to a question about whether the state should crack down on employers hiring illegal immigrants.He also said he, too, would not disavow the conspiracy theory that the U.S. government was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.[More]

Mexico Meltdown: Ground Zero in Juarez

An interesting development from www.vdare.com about Mexico's drug wars and the President of Mexico going to Juarez. This follows this previous post about the latest big killing in Juarez, and for more interesting articles like this, subsribe to this blog here.

Mexico Meltdown: Ground Zero in Juarez
[Brenda Walker]
Mexico’s war on the powerful drug cartels is not going well. El Presidente Calderon (pictured in a controversial South Park episode) recently visited besieged Juarez to mend fences with the local citizens for the failure of his anti-cartel crackdown to work. The violence is so bad there that residents have been demanding United Nations peacekeepers.
Calderon visits Ciudad Juarez, By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times, February 12, 2010Facing intense political pressure and demands that he resign, President Felipe Calderon traveled Thursday to Mexico’s deadliest city to defend his troubled fight against drug cartels, which critics charge has only intensified the violence.Angry crowds greeted Calderon as he arrived in a heavily guarded Ciudad Juarez. The president said it was time to launch a much-discussed expansion of the drug war to include efforts aimed at tackling social issues, such as unemployment and addiction.“I am convinced we have to review what we are doing,” Calderon said. “We need a much more integrated approach . . . wider actions . . . of a social nature. Police and military action alone is not enough.”To underscore the point, Calderon took with him an unusually large contingent of Cabinet members, including the ministers of health, education and public security. However, he was short on details and, in initial remarks, did not earmark money for new programs.Calderon’s visit to Ciudad Juarez was prompted by the Jan. 31 massacre of at least 15 people, many of them youths, at a high school party, the latest in a spiral of increasingly gruesome bloodshed that has made the city across the border from El Paso a living hell.If Calderon can’t get a grip on the spiraling violence by drug gangs, the relative handful of people fleeing to the United States will turn into a flood. The article above noted the massacre of 15 young people in Juarez. Now their families want asylum in this country: Fearful Mexican families of teens slain in massacre seek refuge in Texas, Dallas Morning News, February 6, 2010.
Young people who survived the massacre are despondent, afraid to leave the house and have no plans to return to school any time soon, the family members said.“They not only killed my son,” one father said. “They killed off the entire neighborhood and whatever little faith we had in our government. By staying in Mexico, we feel like sitting ducks, afraid that sooner or later we’ll take another bullet.”As many as 10 other families plan to leave the neighborhood and seek shelter somewhere in Texas. Many have already abandoned their homes and are living with friends and relatives in other parts of Juárez.America may appear safe and law-abiding next to Mexico but that is hardly a worthy comparison. Our southern neighbor is turning into what Colombia was in the 1980s — a violence-riven narco-state, and that poison has infected this country as well.The Department of Justice reports cartel organizations exist in 230 American cities. The influx of Mexican criminals rapidly turned Phoenix into America’s kidnap capital. Mexican crime here is bad enough already, but it can get much worse. Welcoming more rotten apples does not support public safety in this country.Unfortunately, at least one judge is kindly disposed to the idea of asylum based on being a crime victim: Girl who fled Honduran gangs is granted asylum. There’s millions more where that one came from.

Bye-bye Bayh And Amnesty. Hello Hostettler And Immigration Moratorium?

An interesting post from http://www.vdare.com/ about a possible replacement for Evan Bayh of Indiana and follows this post about immigration's costs. This could be a huge swing in the nation's momentum. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog. To get more information on John Hostettler click here.

Bye-bye Bayh And Amnesty. Hello Hostettler And Immigration Moratorium?
By W. James Antle III
Indiana just became a battleground state in the politics of immigration. Senator Evan Bayh announced Monday that he would not be seeking reelection. He was a solid vote for amnesty—and the man most likely to keep that Senate seat in Democratic hands.
Republicans now have a prime pickup opportunity—and so does the movement for patriotic immigration reform. One of the GOP candidates, former Rep. John Hostettler, was among the leaders in the fight against amnesty in the House. He's also someone willing to openly mention the immigration dimension of the jobs crisis and contemplate bold new policies to address it.
Consider: Middle-class wages are stagnant and employment opportunities are gloomy. Although the official unemployment rate dipped below 10 percent last month, the real economy still shed more than 22,000 private-sector jobs.
Over the same period, however, the federal government added about 125,000 immigrants and foreign "temporary" workers to the labor force, a total that could reach 1.5 million this year despite the lingering economic malaise.
And even though some 15.3 million Americans remain unemployed, it is estimated that roughly 8 million illegal immigrants continue to hold jobs in this country.
In this political and economic climate, an immigration moratorium—a policy of zero net immigration, with admissions equaling departures—would seem to have obvious appeal. There's just one odd problem: no politician seems willing to campaign on such an idea. Most would simply prefer to appeal tacitly to voters concerned about immigration levels without actually doing anything about them.
Until now. John Hostettler concentrated on immigration policy during his six terms in Congress. He relished the opportunity to contrast his views with Bayh's in a general election—and may now get an even bigger opening with Bayh out of the race.
"Evan Bayh voted for amnesty in the Senate", Hostettler says of the "comprehensive immigration reform bill" (S. 2611) that passed the Senate in May 2006. "I stopped it in the House". Hostettler was chairman of the House Immigration, Border Security, and Claims Subcommittee when it refused to consider McCain-Kennedy-style machinations and instead took an enforcement-first position on illegal immigration.
As such, Hostettler was an underappreciated part of the team that killed amnesty in the House when it appeared to be hurtling toward bipartisan approval. Then-Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) led the troops in the href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site:vdare.com+" target="_blank" btng="Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi='">In the end, the Washington Post reported, 75 percent of the House Republican Conference opposed the "comprehensive" approach to illegal immigration. (Immigration Deal at Risk as House GOP Looks to Voters, By Jim VandeHei and Zachary A. Goldfarb, May 28, 2006). So the amnesty that late Ted Kennedy and his partner in crime John McCain pushed through the Senate—with President George W. Bush's blessing—died in the House.
Hostettler, by contrast, favors a strategy of enforcement through attrition. "The main thing to do is shut off the jobs magnet", he told me in an interview. "We are already seeing where that can work without any 'mass deportation'". While still in the House, Hostettler co-wrote an op-ed with his predecessor as House immigration subcommittee chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), showing that illegal immigrants are a distinct minority in virtually every occupation where they are presumed to be indispensable. [Illegals hurt Americans, By John Hostettler and Lamar Smith, Washington Times, December 2, 2005]
"These are not jobs Americans won't do", Hostettler maintains. "These are jobs Americans and Hoosiers can't do at the wage rates offered in a labor market distorted by illegal immigration."
Yet Hostettler goes beyond the standard Republican critique of illegal immigration. He supported the efforts of the late Rep. Barbara Jordan, the courageous black congresswoman who chaired the commission that nearly delivered meaningful immigration reform and reduction under the Clinton administration. And Hostettler supports an immigration moratorium today.
"That goes back even further than the Jordan Commission", Hostettler says. "The idea that a country cannot sustain indefinitely unlimited immigration was endorsed by the Hesburgh Commission. Father Hesburgh was no right-wing xenophobe."
Neither is Hostettler, although his opponents are likely to portray him as such. He is a measured and thoughtful voice for patriotic immigration reform, typically judicious in his rhetoric and impeccably "citizenist" in his motivations. But he's not an establishment favorite in either party.
Republican bigwigs first turned to Rep. Mike Pence, the conservative media-savvy chairman of the House Republican Conference. Overall, Americans for Better Immigration gives Pence a B + for his immigration-reform voting record. But his Pence plan on illegal immigration was essentially the Vernon Krieble Foundation's guest-worker proposal masquerading as a compromise to divide the House Republicans in their opposition to amnesty.
It didn't work. In 2006, the Hostettler enforcement-first position carried the day within the House Republican Conference. And Pence decided to take a pass on the Senate race, after a Rasmussen poll showed statistically about even with Hostettler in head-to-head match-ups against Bayh.
According to Rasmussen, Pence led Bayh by three points, 47 percent to 44 percent. Hostettler trailed Bayh by three, 44 percent to 41 percent. A third candidate, state Sen. Marlin Stutzman, was 12 points behind Bayh.
Pence thought it better to stay put in the House, where he is poised to continue rising up the Republican leadership ranks. Hostettler stayed in, looking forward to a race against Bayh.
Then the Republicans retrieved from the Washington lobbying business former Sen. Dan Coats—the same fellow who left his Senate seat because he didn't want to face Bayh in the 1998—for another go at it. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is reportedly going to help him get on the primary ballot (Hostettler is relying on grassroots supporters and Tea Party volunteers).
Americans for Better Immigration awarded Coats a D for his voting record on the issue—worse than Bayh's C+ and nowhere in the same league as Hostettler's A+. And a Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll, showed Bayh strong—and Coats running two points behind Hostettler in the general election.
Of course, the Daily Kos poll assumed that voter turnout would resemble the patterns of 2008. But those aren't the voters who turned out during the recent Republican triumphs in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.
Now Evan Bayh himself has seen the handwriting on the wall. Two years ago, Barack Obama carried Indiana. Now Bayh—the biggest name in state Democratic politics and a senator who won 62 percent of the vote in 2004—has opted to retire rather than face defeat.
The rap against Hostettler is that he doesn't raise enough money—he refuses PAC donations on principle—and will require too much help from a national party with resources it would prefer to commit to states of less reddish hue.
There is also the small matter of his independence, and not just on immigration. Hostettler was one of just six House Republicans to vote against the Iraq war in 2002. He hasn't backed down on the matter since.
But these "problems" may resolve one another. Ron Paul's Internet "money bombs" have been imitated by other antiwar Republicans and have been successful at bringing in large sums of money. In 2009, Peter Schiff raised nearly $1.5 million in Connecticut despite dismal poll numbers. Rand Paul brought in $1.8 million in Kentucky.
That's not enough money to keep pace with whomever the Democratic Party bosses pick to replace Bayh. But it's a good start—and the numbers are likely to get better this year as voters and activists become more engaged.
Without Evan Bayh in the race, moreover, the Democrats can no longer count on a candidate who has a $13 million campaign war chest.
Thanks to John Hostettler, patriots contemplating an immigration moratorium finally have their candidate.
And thanks to Evan Bayh, they may finally have their moment.
W. James Antle III (email him), associate editor of The American Spectator, writes from outside Washington D.C. He profiled Hostettler in the June 17, 2006 issue of The American Conservative. [PDF 1, 2, 3]