The Human Face of the Immigration Fight, Part I

Defending the Empire

Rattlesnakes Are Smarter Than 16% Of U.S. High-School Biology Teachers

It turns out that rattlesnakes in Arizona are starting to lose their rattles, apparently in reaction to human encroachment of their habitats. As people build houses in the desert, trample the earth to build golf courses, and roll their RVs into previously virgin territory, banging smack into wildlife, they – we - have a tendency to react badly to nature, which results in a lot of dead rattlesnakes. A handful of the rattlesnakes that haven’t ended up deceased are those that manage to keep quiet and slide on by – in other words, the rattlers that can’t rattle.

Spanish Spoken Here

The U.S. Census Bureau recently coughed up a bunch of fascinating statistics, and not only fascinating, but also depending on how your mind words, frightening, depressing, and/or mind-boggling.

And we’ll start with one little fact: Nearly three quarters of the 727,070 residents of El Paso, Texas speak Spanish at home, even if they are fluent in English. The numbers also show that 1 of every 5 living in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and California, use Spanish, not English, at home.

Think about that.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Sarah

John McCain will lose come November, and he will lose by a lot. That’s the way it has been for a long time now, and nothing’s going to change it. And when John McCain loses, he will fade from the national scene, and not long after, disappear from the Arizona political landscape as well. And that will be that.

And then we will be left with Sarah.

Dear God, Not Sarah Palin

Let us bow our heads, my friends, and make short work of Sarah Palin: I won’t bother to repeat the details of her “unusual” family history, which promises to dip into the truly bizarre and probably unpleasant before long. Nor will I raise her dubious political story, from her duplicitous tale about the Bridge to Nowhere, and her attempted banning of books, on and on; rest assured all that will be thoroughly vacuumed in short order.

No, my issue is simple enough, and it is this: The United States of America cannot have a vice president who believes in creationism, intelligent design, or anything other than basic science.

Hilary Clinton gave her speech at the convention and she said everybody should vote for Barack Obama. Okay, she said a little more than that, she said, I did this, I stand for that, I’m really terrific…and the other guy is okay, too – but that just about summed it up.

The reaction from the media was predictable. CNN loved it, MSNBC practically swooned, and Fox thought otherwise. (Actually, if Abraham Lincoln himself had been reanimated to say something nice, a Fox host would have dismissed him, claiming the Great Emancipator maybe wasn’t a real Republican, as he hadn’t been around to vote for Reagan.)

Syndicate

The Human Face of the Immigration Fight, Part I

Written by Len Sherman
Friday, 30 May 2008
Every war has its human face, its human cost, and the battle over immigration is no different. To deny that, and simply wrap this issue in political terms, or in spare, simplistic notions of right and wrong, black and white, is to consciously not confront its hard reality. From The San Francisco Chronicle: Federal immigration officers arrested more than 900 people in California on immigration violations this month, almost half of them in Northern California, officials said Friday. Fugitive operations teams with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement made 441 arrests in the northern part of the state. Of those, 178 were targeted individuals who had either ignored final orders of deportation or who returned to the United States illegally after being deported. The other 263 were people encountered in the course of making the arrests who did not have legal authorization to be in the country, ICE officials said. This country will be significantly better off without some of those people. Roughly 1 in 5 of the people arrested had felony or misdemeanor criminal convictions, according to the agency. They included a 31-year-old Sacramento man with a record of transporting and selling heroin and a 41-year-old man from Watsonville with convictions for spousal rape and burglary. Both men had been previously deported and had returned to the United States. Other arrests led to other results: Among those arrested in the Bay Area were 17 people in San Rafael taken into custody at their homes early Thursday, of whom four were targeted by immigration officials, said ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice. The San Rafael arrests sent fear through Mexican and Central American communities, which include many undocumented immigrants. Three San Rafael schools reported scores of student absences Thursday, including San Pedro Elementary School, which canceled its open house Thursday night because families were afraid to attend, district officials said.San Pedro's principal, Kathryn Gibney, had testified before Congress two days earlier at a hearing on the emotional impact of immigration raids on children. The situation apparently did not sit comfortably with even those charged with enforcing the law. Kice emphasized that ICE did not make any arrests at schools. "Our goal in making all these arrests is to involve as few third parties as possible," she said. "That's one reason we endeavor to make these arrests at residences." If a crime is a crime is a crime, and the same applies to those committing those crimes, ICE would not hesitate to enter a school, a hospital, or a nunnery. Clearly, the bar here is set a bit differently, a difference the government acknowledges by its actions and its words.
Last Updated ( Friday, 20 June 2008 )

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Border/Immigration

Mexico Finally Seals Border, Stops Americans From Buying Cheap Gas, Keeps Lanes Open For Drugs

Whoever said Mexicans couldn’t or wouldn’t control their border has just been proved wrong. Yes, our friends and allies to the south have finally stepped up and shut down traffic…traffic, that is, bearing U.S. plates and carrying containers fuel, looking to save a few bucks with cheap Mexican gas.
Read more...

Mexico Invades America – Again

Mexican soldiers on Arizona soil held a U.S. Border Patrol agent at gunpoint Sunday night. The Mexicans retreated after backup agents responded.

This is far from the first time the Mexican military, and/or those wearing Mexican uniforms, most likely members of Los Zetas, have crossed over the border, in support of drug and illegal immigration operations. Though both governments have sought to downplay such incidents, the increasing number of these sometimes violent incursions – over 200 confirmed incursions since 1996 - makes the situation difficult to sweep under the rug.

Mexico is finding that dealing with the devil is not a deal without consequences. And those consequences are coming home to roost in a most horrific way.

Not long ago, the Mexican government maintained an “understanding” with the drug traffickers: Don’t cause problems in Mexico, and roll your drugs into the United States without too many hassles. Oh, and don’t forget the payoffs.

Whichever side you’re on in the immigration debate, the landmark raid at the Iowa meatpacking plant back in May, which rounded up 389 illegals, proves that this is an issue that demands action and resolution. The political void has resulted in a situation that is simply intolerable in a nation of laws and liberty.

To begin the abuses: More than 20 of those arrested were underage workers, some as young as 13, forced to work shifts of 12 hours or more in dangerous conditions, sometimes through the night, six nights a week, using razor-edged knives and saws to divide up freshly slaughtered beef.

The Fence Cuts Both Ways

The fence, any fence, hasa certain basic appeal: separate Us from Them, the latter consisting of the bogeymen of your choice. With the immigration crisis in full bloom, the idea ofa fence sounded as simple and as direct as a solution could be. Stop them from coming by stopping them from coming.

Ah, if reality was so black and white. Or, in the case, so American and Mexican.