Obama Continues To Play Games With Arizona

There's some very interesting news on this already touch subject. Check it out:

The White House released a statement yesterday following their decision to deploy 1,200 National Guard troops to the border to target illicit trafficking networks:

The President is committed to a strategic approach, consisting of a requirements-based, temporary utilization of up to 1,200 additional National Guard troops to bridge to longer-term enhancements in border protection and law enforcement personnel from the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice to target illicit networks’ trafficking in people, drugs, illegal weapons, money, and the violence associated with these illegal activities.

Later in the day Mexican President Calderon set the rules for the troops.
From the Mexican Foreign Ministry, via Michelle Malkin:

Regarding the Administration’s decision to send 1,200 National Guard servicemen to the US Southern border, the Government of Mexico trusts that this decision will help to channel additional US resources to enhance efforts to prevent the illegal flows of weapons and bulk cash into Mexico, which provide organized crime with its firepower and its ability to corrupt.

Additionally, the Government of Mexico expects that National Guard personnel will strengthen US operations in the fight against transnational organized crime that operates on both sides of our common border and that it will not, in accordance to its legal obligations, conduct activities directly linked to the enforcement of immigration laws.

At least we know who the boss is.

Um...is anyone else thinking this is mighty strange? Why should the President of Mexico dictate what our troops are and are not allowed to do?

Well, maybe we're just misunderstanding things. Let's see what President Obama says about the matter:

The AFP reported:

US National Guard troops being sent to the Mexican border will be used to stem the flow of guns and drugs across the frontier and not to enforce US immigration laws, the State Department said Wednesday.

The clarification came after the Mexican government urged Washington not to use the additional troops to go after illegal immigrants.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday authorized the deployment of up to 1,200 additional troops to border areas but State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters, “It’s not about immigration.”

He said the move was “fully consistent with our efforts to do our part to stem, you know, violence, to interdict the flow of dangerous people and dangerous goods — drugs, guns, people.”

He said the extra troops would be used to free up civilians engaged in support functions so that law enforcement personnel can be increased along the 2,000-mile-long (3,200 kilometer) border.

Aw, damn.

On a related note, the federal government has issued a warning of terrorist activity on the U.S.-Mexico border. Oh, and these National Guard troops will be unarmed.

But other than that, yeah, this is a tremendously great move on Obama's part. He's really cracking down and helping out the American people, especially in the state of Arizona. Whew, now we're saved!

There's my two cents.

Fun And Frivolity: Bordering On The Absurd

This Arizona illegal immigration thing has really stoked the flames of political humor, and I just couldn't resist. Hat tips to Patriot Post and Melekiop for all of this. Enjoy!

If you cross the North Korean border illegally you get 12 years hard labor.

If you cross the Iranian border illegally you are detained indefinitely.

If you cross the Afghan border illegally, you get shot.

If you cross the Saudi Arabian border illegally you will be jailed.

If you cross the Chinese border illegally you may never be heard from again.

If you cross the Venezuelan border illegally you will be branded a spy and your fate will be sealed.

If you cross the Cuban border illegally you will be thrown into political prison to rot.

If you cross the U.S. border illegally you get:

• a job,
• a drivers license,
• social security card,
• welfare,
• food stamps,
• credit cards,
• subsidized rent or a loan to buy a house,
• free education,
• free health care,
• a lobbyist in washington
• billions of dollars worth of public documents printed in your language
• the right to carry your country's flag while you protest that you don't get enough respect and, in many instances, you can vote.
  

Okay, I guess that one wasn't very funny because it's so true. The rest of these are good, though.






Have a great weekend!

Idiots From Mexico And Future Blindness

When I say, "you just can't make this stuff up", I really mean it. The latest example is a brilliant juxtaposition by Rush Limbaugh, as reported by Gateway Pundit:

To recap Calderon's position: when it comes to Arizona, legally requiring 'papers' is racist, and enforcing one's borders is inherently anti-civil rights. When it comes to Mexico, it's obvious that one needs to require 'papers', and if someone is found to be present illegally, it's equally obvious that they should be sent home.

"Live from New York...it's Saturday Night!!!"

No, just kidding about that last part. But, is this not the most bald-faced hypocritical thing you've ever heard? And this is all in the same interview!

When Arizona passed their law, 64% of the American people supported it. In the time since then, that support has increased significantly, to 71%. Of course, not everyone agrees:

I'm sorry, but there is something fundamentally wrong with one of the two primary political parties in this country when they give a standing ovation to a foreign dignitary who decries a law legitimately passed by one of our states to protect its citizens from economic, criminal, and health dangers because the federal government has failed to do so.

Am I wrong here?

The problem is the Blame America First mentality, and the Obama administration is steeped in it, as are all dedicated liberals. I wonder if these people even have the brains to realize what would happen if they get their way? No borders, free handouts for all (until the tax revenue dried up), no law other than what is most politically correct at the moment, no freedom to choose their own car or TV or food, no ability to criticize anyone in a position of power... Is this really the kind of place they want to live in? Do these people not understand that if they succeed, the very same freedoms and prosperity they are using to attack America will evaporate? Are they really that blind to the logical conclusion of their efforts?

I can't decide if it's better or worse if they really are. Regardless, this is the battle we face, and it's one that will have dramatic consequences for this country and the whole world. We must not fail.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
Liberal outraged that Arizona also bans classes that teach how to overthrow America
Awesome: In response to LA mayor's suggestion that they boycott Arizona, Arizona power company 'boycotts' sending power to LA

Racial Profiling? Yeah, I Wish They'd Actually Do That...

Here's why:

Anyone who thinks that the illegal immigration problem is just about anti-Mexican sentiment is either a complete idiot, completely uninformed, or both. It's an issue with many components. The economic impacts are huge, as many illegal immigrants suck resources (food stamps, health care, etc.) out of the American economy without putting anything back in through taxation. A disproportionately high number of illegal immigrants commit violent crimes against innocent Americans. A disproportionately high number of illegal immigrants come from third world countries (not just Mexico) where diseases are untreated and rampant, thus introducing additional risk to Americans. And since when is simply ignoring the law for political purposes a good thing?? This should be the most obvious, and should be a deal breaker all by itself. It is for the American people...it's only those who (ironically) write the laws that want to ignore those laws.

And, finally, it's terrorism thing. As the video above indicated, terrorists have been using our porous southern border as an entry point for years. What's interesting about the report above is that this TV station pulled this information from Congressional reports. That means Congress knows exactly what these terrorists are doing, even to the point of knowing their most common routes across the border!

Remind me again why we can't shut this down...!

This is an unconscionable failure of the political class in Washington. They have completely failed the American people, allowing this huge vulnerability for decades. Especially after the most recent attacks on American soil, starting with the WTC bombing in 1993, this should have been one of the first things to be fixed. The fact that they haven't done it should tell you just how important Washington thinks national security is. I wonder if their actions would be any different if they were assured that it was their own homes and cities that would be the target of the next successful 9/11-style attack rather than anonymous American families living outside the Beltway?

I think the answer to that goes a long way toward explaining who should be re-elected and who should not.

There's my two cents.

Speaking Of 'Fringe'...

This is almost getting comical:

Barack Obama and the Democrats keep trying to paint the new law in Arizona on immigration as some sort of misguided effort by a frustrated fringe.  Unfortunately for them, a new poll from Pew Research shows that they're the fringe — even in their own party.  Almost three-quarters of Americans support Arizona's new law, and almost two-thirds of Democrats support the already-law requirement for immigrants to carry ID:

The public broadly supports a new Arizona law aimed at dealing with illegal immigration and the law's provisions giving police increased powers to stop and detain people who are suspected of being in the country illegally.

Fully 73% say they approve of requiring people to produce documents verifying their legal status if police ask for them. Two-thirds (67%) approve of allowing police to detain anyone who cannot verify their legal status, while 62% approve of allowing police to question people they think may be in the country illegally.

But that's just those nutty Republicans, right?  Wrong.  While Democrats split evenly on the law itself, the two provisions that caused the most controversy get broad support from Obama's own party:

However, majorities of Democrats approve of two of the law's principal provisions: requiring people to produce documents verifying legal status (65%) and allowing police to detain anyone unable to verify their legal status (55%).

That's not the only bad news for Obama from Pew.  While they have his overall job approval at a perhaps-generous 47%, his numbers on immigration have tanked over the last six months.  They started off badly in November, at 31/48, making immigration one of his weakest policy areas, but he's managed to lose 12 points in the gap since.  He's now at 25/54, down from 29/47 a month ago.  His dismissive attitude towards Arizona's law has damaged him.

Of course, it's not just his remarks about the law that's the problem.  The federal government all but forced Arizona to act after its inaction allowed Phoenix to become the kidnapping capital of the world.  Violence plagues Arizonans, natural-born citizens and legal immigrants alike, and they're tired of getting no response from Washington.  They want a common-sense approach to law enforcement, such as actually enforcing the law.  If Obama won't do it, they will.

The AZ immigration law is only getting more popular, not less.  It's making Obama look more and more like an ivory-tower elitist and less every day like someone who understands the problems of people in the country he leads.  With numbers like these, don't expect a push on amnesty any time soon, or perhaps ever.  This appears to have become a big game-changer.

The big problem here, of course, is the fact that Obama and his Democrat Congress have so far shown zero hesitation to govern against the will of the American people.  Through all of the takeovers, bailouts, legislative abuses, and unconstitutional expansions of government, vast majorities of opposition have existed in poll after poll after poll...but they did it anyway.  I sincerely hope the next amnesty doesn't come up between now and November, but I'm not counting it out.

By all means, let's keep fighting them, every step of the way.  But let's also look at the bigger picture - it is not so much Obama and this specific Congress that is the true problem.  Although they are problematic, they are merely the logical manifestations of the real problem: the liberal philosophy that drives them.  That is what we must focus on in the long-term, firmly anchoring the destructive actions of today's liberals on the philosophy which berthed them.  If we can do that, we will then lay the foundation for avoiding the entire philosophy, thus we will also avoid all future liberals, and the damage they invariably cause to the American way of life.

While it's understandable that the Left wants to spin the story that it's only a 'fringe' of America that agrees with this Arizona law, reality proves otherwise.  Don't get suckered by it.

There's my two cents.

Illegal Immigration: Where There Be Madness

Here's why normal, hard-working, law-abiding American citizens really don't appreciate the idea of amnesty or handing out goodies to people who have entered the U.S. illegally:

These are high schoolers, by the way.

I simply don't understand how these people think this helps their cause. Imagine, if you will, that I came over to your house. I sneak in through your back door, help myself to whatever I find in the fridge, and plop down on the couch to watch TV. You come home and ask me what in the world I'm doing and demand I get out, and I get up in your face screaming some nonsense about how it's MY HOUSE, and how you need to RESPECT me.

Comprende?

It's literal insanity. And yet, these people seem to think that this is gaining them support for measures like amnesty, path to citizenship, and so on. I'm sorry, but boasting about how you're Mexican -- not Mexican-Americans even, but just Mexican -- and this is your country really doesn't sit well with most Americans. Uh, no. Keep pushing like this, and you're going to get such a massive backlash that you'll wish the American people would go back to ignoring you!

And did you notice how they were chanting 'Si, se puede!'? Remember what that means?

Yes, we can!

They know Barack Obama is on their side. Once again, Obama is against the majority of the American people, and supporting causes that damage the sovereignty of this nation.

But this madness doesn't just wander the streets. It's a liberal infection that has spread to that most trusted of liberal establishments: schools. Observe...

This is an issue that will not go away, and unfortunately the radical Left is pushing harder and harder. They know that they've got a rapidly closing window of time in which this radical Leftist Congress and White House are friendly to their goals, so they're attempting to force the issue now.

Push back. Gracefully and calmly, but don't give in.

There's my two cents.

Cinco De Madness

Each year, Mexicans celebrate Cinco de Mayo, which commemorates the Mexican victory over the superior French forces at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Pro-immigration liberals have turned a great, patriotic Mexican holiday into a pseudo-declaration of conquest against the United States. And don't you dare side with the Americans on this one...uh-uh!

Michelle Malkin illustrates:

A group of California students who dared to wear the American flag on Cinco de Mayo learned a hard lesson about the corruption of citizenship and sovereignty this week.

They were sent home for their show of U.S. patriotism.

Because while flying the colors of reconquista is perfectly acceptable, flying Old Glory is practically a hate crime. KTVU reports:

Five students at a South Bay high school stirred up some controversy Wednesday for wearing t-shirts depicting red, white and blue American flags on Cinco de Mayo.

School officials at Live Oak High in Morgan Hill told the students they had to go home if they wouldn’t turn the shirts inside out.

One of the students said it appeared school administrators were worried the patriotic shirts could trigger fights.

Some students at Live Oak High in Morgan Hill said others were planning to come to school Thursday wearing red, white and blue.

Four of the five students who wore American flags or patriotic colors on campus walked into a meeting with the superintendent of the Morgan Hill unified school district Wednesday night.

They were facing unexcused absences because they chose to go home early rather than take off what they were wearing.

…Some Mexican-American students KTVU spoke with said they thought wearing red, white and blue on Cinco de Mayo was disrespectful.

“It’s just kinda disrespectful that they would do that on this day,” said student Victoria Wright. “I mean, we don’t go around on 4th of July wearing red white and green and saying ‘Viva Mexico,’ because that’s disrespectful.”

Reason number 10,999,976 to home school.

Amen to that! She also links to some comments by another blogger by the name of Zombie:

NBC quotes a fellow student:

“I think they should apologize cause it is a Mexican Heritage Day,” Annicia Nunez, a Live Oak High student, said. “We don’t deserve to be get disrespected like that. We wouldn’t do that on Fourth of July.”

Disrespected? I’m confused. Aren’t all the students Americans? Who is being disrespected by the display of our shared national flag?

Let’s pause for a moment and peel back the layers. It seems that many of the Hispanic students at Live Oak High (and probably innumerable other high schools across the country) have been so inculcated with an “identity politics” curriculum that, under the rubric of instilling pride and self-esteem, they have been convinced that they are somehow distinct from and separate from the other American students; that “we” feel disrespected when forced to perceive an American flag.

The school administration then stirs in their own toxic contribution: An assumption (typical of the “soft racism” of leftist ideology) that Hispanic students will respond with violence when they feel disrespected (“the patriotic shirts could trigger fights” is the euphemism they used). Even worse, fearing violence from Hispanic students, the administrators solve the crisis by banishing the “offensive” items, rather than warning students that any violence will be severely punished. In other words, the racist administrators insultingly assumed that their Hispanic students would erupt in violence at the sight of an American flag, and the only way to prevent this is to cower at the presumptive violence and preemptively cave in to the mob’s demands that American flags be banned from campus.

Are the United States and Mexico at war? Is May 5 some kind of “Hate America Day”? What the hell is going on here? Aren’t the U.S. and Mexico allies? Aren’t we friendly neighbors? What is the source of the friction? Isn’t the United States a melting pot where people of every ethnic heritage all live together in harmony as Americans — rather than being a collection of self-segregated ethnic enclaves seething with mutual hostility?

Well said! One more addition, this time from Pundette: "Now, if the kids had wanted to burn the flag, that might have been an entirely different story."

Sad but true. She goes on:

Flag burning, that cherished right of the Left, is what you might expect in a story that pairs “incendiary” with “flag.” But in this case, no matches are needed. The flag image itself is viewed as a sort of desecration. ...

We’ve entered a pretty strange world when the image of an American flag is considered “incendiary” – in America.

Oh, wait a minute — this happened in the San Francisco area. Never mind.

New title: Four patriotic high school boys discovered in Bay area; baffled administrators resign in disgrace.

Edited to add this damning self-indictment from one of the boys:

Student Anthony Caravalho was also sent home for not turning his shirt inside out. “They said we had to wear our t-shirts inside out and then we could go back to class and we said no,” said Caravalho. “It would be disrespectful to the flag by hiding it.”

These four students should be given some sort of award for patriotism in the face of extreme hardship, I think.

And the rest of us need to take this report for exactly what it is: a manifestation of the Left's bass-ackwards radical ideology that is utterly, blatantly anti-American. Point blank: the Left hates America. Doesn't matter that they live here, and that their right to dissent and speak freely about any issue they want is only available to them in a place like America. Doesn't matter that their position is insane, irrational, and grossly offensive to most of the rest of the country. Doesn't matter that if they got their way, all the things they say they want most would disappear, leaving them far worse off -- say, like in a third world country more closely resembling a poverty-stricken war zone than the most free and prosperous nation on the face of the planet? -- than they are right now. None of that matters.

This. Is. Who. They. Are.

This is who they will always be. The sooner the rest of America realizes this and rejects this ideology and these tactics, the better off we'll be.

There's my two cents.

A Calm, Reasonable, And Devastating Response To Critics

UMKC law professor Kris Kobach:

The arguments we've heard against [the recently passed Arizona illegal immigration law] either misrepresent its text or are otherwise inaccurate. As someone who helped draft the statute, I will rebut the major criticisms individually:

It is unfair to demand that aliens carry their documents with them. It is true that the Arizona law makes it a misdemeanor for an alien to fail to carry certain documents. "Now, suddenly, if you don't have your papers ... you're going to be harassed," the president said. "That's not the right way to go." But since 1940, it has been a federal crime for aliens to fail to keep such registration documents with them. The Arizona law simply adds a state penalty to what was already a federal crime. Moreover, as anyone who has traveled abroad knows, other nations have similar documentation requirements.

"Reasonable suspicion" is a meaningless term that will permit police misconduct. Over the past four decades, federal courts have issued hundreds of opinions defining those two words. The Arizona law didn't invent the concept: Precedents list the factors that can contribute to reasonable suspicion; when several are combined, the "totality of circumstances" that results may create reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.

For example, the Arizona law is most likely to come into play after a traffic stop. A police officer pulls a minivan over for speeding. A dozen passengers are crammed in. None has identification. The highway is a known alien-smuggling corridor. The driver is acting evasively. Those factors combine to create reasonable suspicion that the occupants are not in the country legally.

The law will allow police to engage in racial profiling. Actually, Section 2 provides that a law enforcement official "may not solely consider race, color or national origin" in making any stops or determining immigration status. In addition, all normal Fourth Amendment protections against profiling will continue to apply. In fact, the Arizona law actually reduces the likelihood of race-based harassment by compelling police officers to contact the federal government as soon as is practicable when they suspect a person is an illegal alien, as opposed to letting them make arrests on their own assessment.

It is unfair to demand that people carry a driver's license. Arizona's law does not require anyone, alien or otherwise, to carry a driver's license. Rather, it gives any alien with a license a free pass if his immigration status is in doubt. Because Arizona allows only lawful residents to obtain licenses, an officer must presume that someone who produces one is legally in the country.

State governments aren't allowed to get involved in immigration, which is a federal matter. While it is true that Washington holds primary authority in immigration, the Supreme Court since 1976 has recognized that states may enact laws to discourage illegal immigration without being pre-empted by federal law. As long as Congress hasn't expressly forbidden the state law in question, the statute doesn't conflict with federal law and Congress has not displaced all state laws from the field, it is permitted. That's why Arizona's 2007 law making it illegal to knowingly employ unauthorized aliens was sustained by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In sum, the Arizona law hardly creates a police state. It takes a measured, reasonable step to give Arizona police officers another tool when they come into contact with illegal aliens during their normal law enforcement duties.

And it's very necessary: Arizona is the ground zero of illegal immigration. Phoenix is the hub of human smuggling and the kidnapping capital of America, with more than 240 incidents reported in 2008. It's no surprise that Arizona's police associations favored the bill, along with 70 percent of Arizonans.

It's hard to get more clear than that.

And, while we're on the subject, don't be fooled by talk of 'comprehensive immigration reform' - that's nothing more than a code phrase for amnesty, which will only make the problem worse by rewarding with citizenship and sanctuary those who are causing these problems in the first place.  Tolerating lawlessness, corruption, and violence is not compassionate, and if you want to talk about 'fairness', let's talk about how 'fair' all this is to those who are suffering the effects of these problems: law-abiding American citizens.

What we have here is a systemic incursion of non-Americans who are forcing their way onto American soil and unleashing violence on innocent American citizens, and Barack Obama is taking their side.  Sounds like he's cranking up the war against a free and prosperous America to a whole new level, doesn't it?

There's my two cents.

Obama Uses Outright Racism To Shill For Immigration Reform

Wow, this is pretty audacious, even for the one who spent more in his first year than all 43 presidents before him. You can check out the video at the link, but it's so filled with the same old lies and campaign slogans that it kinda makes me sick, so I'm not going to post it here. The key section is this, according to Politico:

The Democratic National Committee this morning released this clip of the president rallying the troops, if rather coolly, for 2010. Obama's express goal: "reconnecting" with the voters who voted for the first time in 2008, but who may not plan to vote in the lower-profile Congressional elections this year.

Obama speaks with unusual demographic frankness about his coalition in his appeal to "young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women who powered our victory in 2008 [to] stand together once again."

What??  He only wants these people to help him out?  What's he got against Americans of the Asian, European, or male persuasion?  By the way, this is the most post-racial President ever.  Forgot that little detail.

There's my two cents.

Your Papers And Other Nonsense

The opposition has reached a fever pitch on the Arizona law now, with media outlets readily parroting the notion of 'showing your papers' and extreme racial profiling being the result. Why? Because that phrase conjures up all the scariest images of Nazi Germany or the Communist Soviet Union. We've already talked a lot about this, but it appears that this issue isn't going away any time soon. There's a really good reason for that, but we'll get to that in a moment. First, let's take a look at a bit more commentary.

First, it's interesting to note that the Governor of Arizona has seen a HUGE leap in the polls -- 16 points -- since signing this bill into law. Though a couple of Arizona cities are planning to fight the law, other states seem to be taking Arizona's actions as an example, too. Lawmakers in Texas are planning to bring forward a bill much like Arizona's. In California, lawmakers are talking about the inherent problems of anchor baby citizenship:

Representative Duncan Hunter wants to deport the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.

Hunter, who spoke at a tea party gathering in Ramona Saturday, said he does not believe children born to illegal immigrant parents should get automatic U.S. citizenship.

“We’re not being mean,” he told the crowd. “We’re just saying it takes more than just walking across the border to become an American citizen.”

Our media partner the North County Times confirmed the statements when a reporter spoke with Hunter Tuesday.

The congressman, whose district includes parts of Poway and Ramona in North County, told the paper that it makes sense that if the parents of illegal immigrant children are deported, that their children go with them. Hunter said he also supports a bill, House Resolution 1868, that would eliminate automatic citizenship for those children.

Amen to that! There are other states looking at similar measures, too.

Ironically, the AP is now reporting that angry illegal immigrants are pledging to leave Arizona. My first thought: cool, it worked immediately! If all 50 states passed a law like this, we would apparently resolve 100% of illegal immigration instantly and without having to deport a single person! My second thought: how is it that the Left insists that we cannot possibly even consider mass deportations because we couldn't possibly even find all these illegal immigrants...and yet, that same Left is always -- ALWAYS -- able to dig up an illegal or two every time they want to write an article about how horrible it is that American citizens think that the laws of America should be obeyed. Just sayin' you can't have it both ways...

Anyway, Byron York knocks it out of the park with a blistering critique of a Washington Post columnist's whine-fest (emphasis mine):

In the Washington Post, columnist and former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson pronounces the new Arizona immigration law "understandable -- and dreadful." Gerson says states do not have the authority "to take control of American immigration policy -- an authority that Arizona has seized in order to abuse." The effect of the new law, he argues, will be bad for everybody:

It makes it harder for illegal immigrants to live without scrutiny -- but it also makes it harder for some American citizens to live without suspicion and humiliation. Americans are not accustomed to the command "Your papers, please," however politely delivered. The distinctly American response to such a request would be "Go to hell," and then "See you in court."

Which leads to the question: What America is Gerson living in? No, we are not confronted by actors with heavy German accents demanding our papers. We are instead confronted routinely by people of all stripes asking to see our driver's license. When we board an airplane, we are asked to produce a government-issued photo ID, usually a driver's license. When we make some credit- or debit-card purchases in department stores, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we enter many office buildings, both private and government, security guards often ask us to produce a driver's license. When we go to doctors' offices and hospitals, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we check into hotels, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we purchase some over-the-counter drugs, we are asked to produce a driver's license. If we go to a bar or nightclub, anyone who looks at all young is asked to produce a driver's license. And needless to say, if we have any encounter with police or other authorities, we are asked to produce a driver's license.

Some situations involve an even higher level of scrutiny. When we get a new job, we are asked to provide not a driver's license but a passport or birth certificate to prove citizenship. In other situations, too: When I renewed my District of Columbia driver's license last year, I had to produce a passport to prove citizenship, even though it was a valid, unexpired license I was renewing. And in many places, buying a gun -- a constitutionally-protected right -- involves enormous scrutiny.

Has Michael Gerson never experienced any of those situations? And by the way, has he read the Arizona law? Does he know that it specifically states that in any encounter with police, when a person produces a valid Arizona driver's license (or, for non-drivers, other forms of ID listed in the law), that person is immediately presumed to be in the United States legally? Given all the situations listed above, can anyone argue that being asked to produce a driver's license, if one is in some sort of encounter with police in which police are acting lawfully (that is also specified by the new law) is overly burdensome? Being asked to produce identification is a burden that falls on everyone.

That is simply a fact of life today. Many of the situations in which we are asked to produce ID are the result of laws passed by our representatives, Democrats and Republicans, that are, overall, good things. But they require Americans to produce their papers, in the form of a driver's license, quite frequently. If Americans responded with "Go to hell" and "See you in court" each time they were asked to produce their license, both hell and court would be very crowded.

P.S. -- All the discussion above relates to people who are American citizens. In addition to the situations requiring a driver's license, some people might not know that since the 1940s, federal law has required non-citizens who are in the United States permanently to carry on their person, at all times, the official documents proving that they are here legally -- green card, work visa, etc. That has been the law for 70 years, and the new Arizona law does not change it.

So can we please drop the scary images of Nazis and Communists? Rush Limbaugh suggested on his radio program that the behavior of the Obama administration has been far more thuggish and Nazi/Communist-like over the past year, what with the takeover of private car and insurance companies, unconstitutional brute force legislative tactics to confiscate 17% of the American economy and 100% of the American health care system, anti-transparency on all manner of issues, the generation of crisis after crisis simply to expand government power, governing against the will of the people on most of the major issues, and so on. It's a good point, if we're going to be discussing Nazi/Communist behavior, I think.

And how about that lame argument about 'fairness'? It's hogwash:

Democrats say that they're in favor of everything being fair. Let me ask this. How is it fair to legal immigrants that have taken all the necessary steps to become legal citizens for years to grant everybody legal benefits even if they aren't legal and have cheated the system? What is fair? If we're going to use fairness let's throw it right back in their face. What about any of this is fair? Isn't it funny, ladies and gentlemen? Isn't it funny how much we heard about the need to cut our health care spending? But neither Obama nor any of the Democrats ever suggested that providing health care services for millions of noncitizens was ever once mentioned as part of the problem. In fact, wouldn't part of our new era of fiscal responsibility notice how many billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent on illegal aliens who are getting costly services that they are not paying for? We've got this big blue ribbon commission with Irksome Bowles and Alan Simpson. They're going to recommend all these Draconian steps, we've gotta get the deficit under control.

We never, ever hear anybody say, in this era of fiscal responsibility, about all the billions of taxpayer dollars that are being spent on illegals. And, of course, ladies and gentlemen, wouldn't anybody who is turning his laser-like focus on providing jobs for Americans, wouldn't that person notice that there would be a lot more jobs available for our citizens if there were not so many noncitizens here illegally? Obama loves to talk about the need for people to have skin in the game, doesn't he? How do illegal aliens have skin in the game? They don't. That's social injustice.

And we can't have social injustice, you know. Damn the consequences, we CANNOT HAVE SOCIAL INJUSTICE!!!

Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin's site observes an interesting contradiction:

Obama has blasted the new Arizona illegal alien law that 70% of Arizona votors favor as “poorly conceived” before his justice has even finished its review (a “poorly conceived” law to the Obama administration being one that the signatory actually took the time to read). But in the same speech, Obama also said that illegals shouldn’t be harrassed with requests for papers, but rather the US should “make them register, make them pay a fine, make them learn English.”

And exactly how do we know who needs to register without checking IDs? Naturally, Obama doesn’t mean any of it — except maybe the “register” part. I have no doubt the goal is to get illegals to register… as Democrat voters.

As a Senator, Obama voted “no” on making English the official language for the US government. If Obama doesn’t care if I can understand what the clerk at the DMV is saying when I’m trying to renew my driver’s license (which I have to produce papers for, by the way), I seriously doubt he cares if a construction worker in Tuscon can speak English.

The “wink, nudge” factor from this speech yesterday in Iowa is enough to knock you off your chair — and if that doesn’t do it, you’ll fall off the chair laughing

That really brings us to the core of the issue: why do the Democrats insist with an almost religious zeal that we allow unchecked and rampant illegal immigration, even at the expense of our own safety, security, and economic health?

Because this is their only hope for winning elections.

If Democrats were completely honest about their beliefs, intentions, and plans for governing America, they would never win. As usual, Rush Limbaugh explains it best:

Drop.io

And just to clarify...

Drop.io

Bingo. Need a real-world example of how this affects you? Rush supplies again:

"A Federal immigration probe in 1996 into alleged motor vote fraud in California's Orange County revealed that 4,023 illegal voters possibly cast ballots in the disputed election between Robert Dornan and Loretta Sanchez for Congress." Dornan lost that race by fewer than one thousand votes, and there were alleged to be 4,000 illegal votes. That is the point.

So there you have it. But, if you're a long-time reader of this blog, you knew that already.

The icing on the cake, of course, is that under the new DemCare regime, everyone will be required to 'show their papers' to prove they have insurance and avoid the insurance enforcement tax and legal prosecution by the IRS...everyone except illegal immigrants, that is.

Go figure.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
Deconstructing the outrage
Brilliant liberals boycott Arizona brand drink products...without realizing it's based in New York

Arizona Follow Up

Some pretty major developments have prompted another update. The Governor of Arizona signed into law the stringent new illegal immigration law we discussed earlier in the week. Obama promptly criticized everything about the law and called for it to be rolled back. His people are still whining and grumbling about it being really, really unfair. Obama mouthpiece MSNBC was SHOCKED that the Arizona law would actually make being an illegal immigrant illegal!

Indignant Mexicans and illegal immigrants took to the streets to protest:

I especially like how they throw stuff at the cops, don't you? Cassy Fiano points out the obvious:

Frankly, the rioting seems to do nothing except bolster the argument for why this bill was needed. The federal government has failed Arizona residents. Despite growing numbers of crime — drug smuggling, assault, rape, kidnapping, murder — nothing has been done to secure the borders or crack down on illegal immigration. While not all illegal immigrants are violent criminals or drug smugglers, they are all criminals. Even if our borders aren’t well-enforced, it is still a crime to cross them illegally. The federal government has just sat back and let it happen. The state of Arizona responded to the overwhelming crime… and the protestors of this bill responded to the state with violence.

Kind of just proves the whole point of why this bill was needed, doesn’t it?

The point is that if it weren't for the frequent (and violent) crimes committed by a disproportionally high number of illegal immigrants, the state government would probably ignore them just like the federal government has done since 1986. But, with real safety concerns and violent crime escalating against its local citizens, the Arizona government cannot ignore this problem any longer.

This isn't a sudden development, though. For a stroll down memory lane of past violent protests by illegal immigration supporters, go here. Now, for an ironic look at the other side of the coin, Mexico's immigration policy, go here. It's amazing how much gall these people have to caterwaul and bellyache about America's policy!

Regardless, a close look at the actual bill reveals there really is no cause for concern...for anyone who wants to preserve American sovereignty and uphold American law, that is.

Far from authorizing local police officers to pull Hispanics from crowds at random and demand to see proof of legal residency, the law requires a prior "legal contact" -- that is, there needs to already be something going on, like an arrest or a traffic stop. The law specifically bans race and ethnicity as the sole grounds for a "reasonable suspicion" of illegal presence in the United States. Noncitizens have been legally required to carry proof of legal residence on their persons for 70 years.

As Byron York points out, this was actually a law that was carefully crafted to withstand both political objections and legal challenges. Rich Lowry has more on the hysterical reaction to Arizonans wanting some protection from federal non-enforcement of the laws safeguarding their borders.

This situation is very informative for many reasons. To watch Obama and the Left fight so hard to defend illegal law-breaking criminals from the ravages of legal American citizens trying to protect their families should be an eye-opening experience. To see them generate hysteria at the enactment of legislation that is widely supported in a state, and to misrepresent the ramifications of that legislation should be, as well.

Once again, we see the core of the tension: it is Barack Obama and the American Left versus the American people, and it is war.

There's my two cents.

Immigration Follow-Up

By the way, as a follow up to that last post, I just came across some numbers on what Americans outside of Arizona think of the new law:

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer last week signed a new law into effect that authorizes local police to stop and verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 60% of voters nationwide favor such a law, while 31% are opposed.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Republicans support the law along with 62% of voters not affiliated with either major party. Democratic voters are evenly divided on the measure.

There is some significant concern about abuses of this authorization, but that's to be expected, and also warranted.  Still, should we let the perfect get in the way of the good?  I think not, especially when it comes to safety and the sovereignty of American law.  Also, a sharp-eyed Hot Air reader offers this interesting observation:

The big concern here, of course, is that police will stop people on the street and demand to see evidence of their citizenship, without any probable cause to question them in the first place. That threat may or may not be overblown ... [but] it would hardly be the first such precedent. Obama himself just signed a bill last month that would force Americans to carry papers — health insurance papers — whenever the IRS demands them, whether there be any probable cause of a crime or not. Indeed, the only probable cause would be claiming to be American in the first place.

So which of these represents the biggest threat to the "fairness we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities"?

Which indeed...?

There's my two cents.

Obama Takes Aim At Arizona

Not only is he bashing the new Arizona illegal immigration law, but he's described it as 'misguided' and has already called for scrapping it:

President Barack Obama called anew for overhauling the nation’s immigration laws, saying a failure to do so will lead to “misguided” efforts such as legislation passed in Arizona.

“Our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others,” Obama said at a Rose Garden naturalization ceremony for 24 members of the U.S. military. “That includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona.”

The actions by the Arizona legislature threaten “to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans,” Obama said. It also may hamper trust between residents and law enforcement authorities, he said.

He said he has instructed U.S. authorities to monitor the state’s actions and to “examine the civil rights and other implications” of the legislation.

Oh, and the other thing that's typical Obama about this? 70% of Arizona likely voters disagree with him.

Aside from the issues regarding the illegal immigration, this should also provoke a very interesting and informative legal battle between the federal and state levels. Can the federal government overrule a state's laws? Can a state enact a law that exempts it from legally marginal federal dictates?

This debate is critical a whole slew of current issues, as I'm sure you have already figured out.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
The great Arizona shoot-out

Obama Scolds Americans Who Would Uphold American Law (For The Sake Of Safety)

To me, this has to be awfully close to the top of the list of the most irresponsible actions and words yet on the part of Barack Obama:

Border states have become frustrated beyond all patience with the federal government's inability — and reluctance — to enforce immigration laws.  In Arizona, voters passed a law authorizing local and state police to investigate potential immigration violations, a measure that had overwhelming and bipartisan support in the state.   Instead of acknowledging the failure of several administrations to deal with immigration violations, including his own, Barack Obama lashed out at the state's voters instead — and threatened to pursue civil-rights legal actions against them:

President Barack Obama criticized Arizona's tough immigration bill as irresponsible Friday and said his administration is examining whether it would violate civil rights.

Obama said the federal government must act responsibly to reform national immigration law — or "open the door to irresponsibility by others."

"That includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona, which threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe," Obama said.

...

Obama instructed the Justice Department to examine the bill to see if it would violate civil rights.

What?!  He's more concerned about the civil rights of non-citizens than about the existing laws of America and the safety of American citizens??  Hot Air points out the blistering irony of the remarks:

Obama made his remarks in front of dozens of people who had just been naturalized after serving in the US armed forces.  Presumably, these new citizens wound up in the Rose Garden because they followed the law in coming to the US.  Instead of supporting compliance with the law, Obama attacked those who would secure the rights of others to immigrate legally by cracking down on those who don't.

Furthermore, the duh factor is pretty high here:

Arizonans didn't pass this law because Congress hasn't enacted comprehensive immigration reform, as Obama insisted at the White House today. They passed this law because the federal government has abdicated its responsibilities to enforce existing immigration law. We don't need a comprehensive immigration reform bill to resolve that — we just need the Department of Homeland Security and Barack Obama to do their jobs.

And that doesn't include fretting over non-existent civil rights of non-citizens.  Last time I checked, the Constitution was silent on that point.

Cassy Fiano piles on, addressing some of the wailing complaints already floating out of the liberal Left:

Arizona is on the brink of passing a tough new immigration law that some are calling racial profiling. The bill would give police the right to arrest anyone they suspect to be an illegal immigrant if they are unable to produce a driver's license or identity papers.

Naturally, this has the liberals and Latino lobbyists in an uproar. Cries of RAAAAACISM!!! are already begininng. Total ignorance of the ongoing, overwhelming crime due to illegal immigrant is, as usual, being ignored.

Over at the Huffington Post Miguel Guadalupe (who identifies himself as a Latino progressive American) calls this a "Gestapo law".

"Show me your papers, are your papers in order?" This phrase was made famous, or rather infamous, by the Gestapo, and will soon be heard throughout the state of Arizona, should their Governor sign into law SB1070, a vague and broad law giving law enforcement the unprecedented power to stop and check the documentation of any individual where "reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the U.S.."

There are no guidelines as to what "reasonable suspicion" is, but knowing the reality on the ground, it is obvious to all that "reasonable suspicion" means those looking like, sounding like, or acting like general stereotypes of undocumented immigrants coming from Latin America. In short — this is a bill that allows police to suspect all Latinos of being undocumented, and gives them the right to question their status at any time, for any reason.

He bleats on with some more Nazi rhetoric and right-wing bashing, but never once admits to the obvious. Illegal immigration is a crime. And even legal immigrants — non-US citizens — are here only at our pleasure. It's a harsh truth, but no immigrant has a right to be here. Coming here through legal channels means you won't be arrested, but if you come here illegally then you can and should be arrested if you are discovered. Liberals may not like it that Latinos will have to prove they are not here illegally, but I think that what really makes them so angry is the thought of our immigration laws actually being, you know, enforced.

As for the Nazi rhetoric, let's bring Mr. Guadalupe back to reality. In Nazi Germany, the Gestapo was looking for Jews so that they could be shipped to concentration camps and murdered. There's kind of a big difference between the murders of innocent people and the arrest of a criminal, but apparently, Mr. Guadalupe can't comprehend the difference.

She blows apart a number of other embittered accusations and straw men in quite spectacular and humorous fashion, so I'd encourage you to check out the whole thing.  The bottom line is that these are criminals who are sucking the resources out of the state of Arizona (and the country in general), while simultaneously ramping up the violent crime, even to the point of murdering an American rancher for standing up to them.  Mexican drug cartels and other thugs -- and don't forget terrorists, too -- have taken advantage of the porous borders and chronic non-enforcement to make the U.S.-Mexican border a war zone, and the residents of Arizona are sick and tired of our government failing to protect them.  But, the liberal Left is getting its panties in a bunch over the fear of ***GASP*** racial profiling that apparently might offend the Hispanic drug lord/murderer demographic.  Here's Fiano's conclusion:

The violence and crime that have washed over our country due to our open borders and lax immigration policies cannot be dismissed anymore. And if racial profiling is what's needed to stem the bleeding, so to speak, then that is what needs to be done. Liberals like to pretend that they can hold hands with dictators, terrorists, and illegal immigrants alike and sing Kumbaya to make everything all better. Saying over and over again that they're just trying to do jobs that Americans won't do won't stop the crime. The truth is, the amount of crime that has flooded into Arizona has given lawmakers no choice but to take harsher measures to protect Americans. Liberals and lobbyists want to stand in the way of that, making people like the Arizona ranchers further susceptible to become victims of these criminals. They try to stop the effort to stop the flow of crime by making accusations of racism and by marginalizing the amount of criminal activity that has been happening in Arizona.

Arizona lawmakers are responding to what has become a legitimate crisis in Arizona, yet liberals are siding with criminals, drug dealers, murders, and the like. You tell me who is more un-American.

Hm.  Barack Obama is on the same side of this argument as 'criminals, drug dealers, murderers, and the like', to the detriment of honest, law-abiding citizens simply trying to protect their families and property.  Now that's a liberal's liberal!  Hope-n-change, baby!

There's my two cents.

Mish-Mash Roundup

Once again, I've collected a big bunch of stuff that really deserves more than a simple link, but not quite an entire post.  This is all great stuff.  Enjoy!

Iranian missiles could reach U.S. in just 5 years
While the Obama administration is simultaneously dismantling our nuclear arsenal (which has provided an effective deterrent against attacks for over half a century) and killing our proven and operational missile defense systems, Iran continues to improve both their nuclear program and their missile delivery systems.  They're likely to have nukes in the next year, and the missiles to deliver them onto our soil in just 5 years.  Obama's policies are so grossly incompetent and inadequate that I can't come to any other conclusion than that he'll be single-handedly responsible for thousands of American deaths in the next few years.  I really, really hope I'm wrong on this!  In the meantime, the Obama administration is scurrying around trying to explain why it has no coherent Iran strategy.

Census boondoggle(s)
Wow, where to begin?  In recent weeks, we've seen admissions of corruption from census workers, useless wastes of money, multiple forms being sent to some households (and they're not households with white middle-class folks, either), and -- amazingly, incredibly -- demands for illegals to work on the census.  This is just about the most blindingly obvious example of how incompetent, corrupt, and wasteful our federal government has become.  Too bad it's going to determine so many critically important things for the next decade.

The Goldman Sachs mess
Wow, this one is just huge, but it just doesn't really inspire me, so I don't want to do a whole post on it.  The nutshell is that the Obama administration is trying to cement its takeover of the financial industry (see the bailout reference above), and is using Goldman Sachs to try to do it.  This is one of the biggest and most politically-connected (with millions in donations to Dems) firms on Wall Street, and a bunch of Treasury officials are former GSers.  To try to strong-arm this 'reform' bill into law, the Obama administration is doing what it's always done: generate a crisis to mislead the American public into playing along.  It's amazing that at the very time when the Senate takes up the 'reform' bill, GS comes out and admits what appears to be some improper dealings, thus allowing Obama and Congress to point the finger and caterwaul about how necessary this 'reform' is to 'reign in Wall Street'.  The SEC sued GS, but the suit is so flimsy that it makes wet noodles look like titanium.  For the price of a small bit of bad press and a tiny fine, GS becomes a very favored firm, and will reap substantial rewards in the future.  Oh, and no Democrat is returning any of the money GS employees have donated.  Hope!  Change!  The GOP is calling for more investigation, but since the Dems control Congress, it's likely to go precisely nowhere.  [links here, here, here, here, here, here, here]

Navy SEAL not guilty!
I blogged about this a while back - a group of Navy SEALs successfully captured a terrorist leader who had tortured, burned, and murdered some American security contractors and left their bodies hanging on a bridge in Iraq.  In an alternate universe sort of way, these SEALs were accused of abuse because they gave the terrorist a bloody nose and a couple bruises during the capture.  A military jury has now cleared one of those SEALs of any wrongdoing.  I trust the others will be found not guilty, as well.  Still, it astounds me that our own elite soldiers would be put on trial in a foreign country for giving a captured terrorist a bloody nose (during the capture), while at the same time our government hands out undeserved protections and a domestic trial for those very same murdering terrorists.  There is something fundamentally wrong with anyone who thinks that's justice.

Netanyahu tells Obama to go away
As a part of Obama's crusade to alienate our long-time ally Israel, he has repeatedly demanded that the Israeli government stop construction in Jerusalem.  Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu just announced that this construction would continue without interruption.  Good for him!  Hot Air summarizes it this way:

Netanyahu just taught Obama a lesson, which is that a nation that has been surrounded by terrorists and other enemies for decades isn't going to be intimidated by an Ivory Tower academic, even if he sits in the Oval Office.  After Obama's shameful treatment of Netanyahu on his visit to Washington DC, he could hardly have expected any better response.  Instead of cowing Netanyahu into submission, Obama has alienated him — and as a side effect, made Netanyahu more popular at home because of it.

I fear the rift opening between the U.S. and Israel will only get wider, and it's going to be largely because of Obama's anti-Israeli policies and actions.  God help us...

Lies, deception, and fingers crossed that you're as gullible as they think you are
This week the CEO of GM paid a visit to KC.  At a speech to the big GM plant here in town, one of his claims was that GM had 'paid back' all of the bailout money that it had taken because of improved car sales.  The national headlines dutifully followed the storyline, pushing the narrative that GM was now in the clear and humming right along.  This is, however, completely false.  In reality, GM has 'paid back' about $8 billion of bailout money by tapping into a different pool of bailout money: TARP.  GM hasn't actually paid back anything, it's merely shuffled money from one U.S. Treasury-controlled bailout account to another U.S. Treasury-controlled bailout account.  They still owe tens of billions of dollars to U.S. taxpayers.  And yes, you are correct if you are remembering that TARP was supposed to be for banks.

How are you liking the Hope-n-change, now that we're seeing it becoming reality on so many fronts?

There's my two cents.