•   •   •  

North American Union Powerpoint Presentation   [2/7/07]
Click to watch a 22-minute overview of the North American Union, its background in NAFTA and other trade agreements, the structure as envisioned by Council for Foreign Relation honcho Robert Pastor and the cost to Americans in terms of sovereignty lost and citizen control transferred to unelected bureaucrats.

•   •   •  

Lou Dobbs Transcript February 5, 2007   [2/6/07]
Yesterday's Los Angeles Times article (Deportation cases soar as L.A. jails screen more) about the number of illegal aliens in the city and county jails was remarkably sketchy: the article emphasized the numerical increase from 2005 to 2006, for example, rather than explain straight out the percentage of prisoners who were unlawful foreigners.
    Lou Dobbs reporting was far more clear.

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): More than 25 percent of the inmates in Los Angeles County's jail system are illegal aliens. Last year, Sheriff Lee Baca decided to do something about that. He deployed eight screeners to determine the legal status of prisoners in L.A. County jails.
    In the first year, the number of criminals referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation has nearly doubled to 5,829. Another thousand were sent to deportation proceedings before being convicted of a crime.
    SHERIFF LEE BACA, LOS ANGELES COUNTY: I believe it's making the streets safer, because we have a lot of crime here. And we're not only the illegal capital -- illegal immigrant capital of the nation, we're also the crime capital of the nation. [EDITOR: Funny how that works!] And we have over 500 gang members. And many of the gang members are illegal immigrants.
    WIAN: Neighboring Orange County expects to transfer about 10,000 criminal illegal aliens to federal authorities for deportation this year. Sheriff Mike Carona scoffs at claims by so-called immigrant rights groups that helping ICE deport criminals will cause otherwise law-abiding illegal aliens to fear cooperating with local law enforcement.
    SHERIFF MIKE CARONA, ORANGE COUNTY, CALIF.: The undocumented community is preyed upon the career criminals who are also undocumented. They know that they're not going to report crimes. I can't imagine anybody, whether you're a foreign national or you're an American citizen, that wants criminals in their community.
    WIAN: In Harris County Texas, the murder of a Houston police officer allegedly by an illegal alien was a new factor in a new sheriff's department policy adopted four months ago. Deputies now ask inmates a simple question: "Are you in the United States illegally?" More than 2,000 have answered yes.
    JOHN MARTIN, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS, SHERIFF'S DEPT.: We've not been surprised at the numbers of illegal immigrants in the area. However, we have been somewhat surprised at the number that readily admit, yes, they're in the country illegally.
    WIAN: It's a question a growing number of local law enforcement are willing to ask.
    (END VIDEOTAPE)
    WIAN: And it's one reason Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 190,000 illegal aliens last year, a 12 percent jump from the year before. Nearly half of those illegal aliens, Lou, were convicted criminals.
    DOBBS: And the idea that we're starting to see local law enforcement begin to ask a very simple, straightforward question, "Are you illegal," something that others have suggested is a violation of their rights.
    WIAN: Absolutely. Local law enforcement agencies are tired of paying for the cost of jailing these illegal aliens. It's a job the federal government has been unable to do to keep them off of local community streets. So local law enforcement is going to cooperate with ICE and try to get them out of the country any way they can, Lou. And sometimes all it takes is asking a simple question.
    DOBBS: And we should point out the number of illegal aliens in our jails, estimated anywhere from 20 to 30 percent, are prisons, both state and federal. These are only estimates because -- and this is correct, Casey -- they do not ask that simple question.

•   •   •  

Appeasement takes hold again in Europe   [2/5/07]
In Europe, free speech is fine except when it is used to be critical of Muslims. Then the infidels are required to be deferential to the fe-e-e-elings of sensitive (yet murderous) Muslims. Remember the Danish cartoon episode in which over a hundred were killed? Enraged sons of Allah, furious over a few drawings considered rude toward Mohammed, rioted around the world over the scribbles.
    Take the case of Robert Redeker, a French philosopher, whose life has been turned upside down for observing that the Koran is filled with exhortations of violence against infidels. (Muslims never seem to get the irony that results when they threaten to kill someone who says their religion promotes violence.)

Last September Robert Redeker, a French high-school philosophy teacher and author of several scholarly books, published an opinion piece in Le Figaro entitled "What should the free world do in the face of Islamist intimidation?" [Translated here.]
    His piece concluded that while Judaism and Christianity are religions whose rites reject and delegitimise violence, Islam is a religion that, in its own sacred text, as well as in its everyday rites, exalts violence and hatred.

Did the academy and leftist establishment of France spring to Redeker's defense? Certainly not. The socialist teachers unions condemned him, as did the communist mayor of his home town. Left-wing human rights organizations denounced his opinions and the editorial board of Le Monde considered his op-ed to be blasphemous. As a result of the threats from Islamists, Redeker and his family have lived in hiding for five months in fear for their lives.
    Somali refugee and former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi brought a clarity to the larger Muslim debate in Europe, which is why she was made to leave. Her opinions of Europe's weakness in the face of Muslim immigration remain critical and she considers the Redeker affair to be another symptom of a larger social illness:

"It is the working-class communities who were the first to experience the realities of immigration and cultural differences. When there were the first protests in these communities about problems with immigration, and about problems with how immigrant women were being treated, the elite immediately turned on them by calling them 'racists'.
    "Instead of facing up to this new face of misogyny, the elites pretended it was because of discrimination. The immigrants became the new working class. The proletariat was reinvented ..."

•   •   •  

Mexifornia, Five Years Later   [2/5/07]
Has it really been five years since Mexifornia was published and that word became a milestone for the state's rapid descent into demographic chaos? Time flies when you're trying to save the country.
    In the original book, Victor Davis Hanson used observations of the local symptoms of demographic change to make his point, and he does here as well. He concludes, "The flood of illegal immigrants into California has made things worse than I foresaw."

But the downside surely is apparent. Truck drivers, carpenters, janitors, and gardeners— unlike lawyers, doctors, actors, writers, and professors—correctly feel that their jobs are threatened, or at least their wages lowered, by cheaper rival workers from Oaxaca or Jalisco. And Americans who live in communities where thousands of illegal aliens have arrived en masse more likely lack the money to move when Spanish-speaking students flood the schools and gangs proliferate. Poorer Americans of all ethnic backgrounds take for granted that poverty provides no exemption from mastering English, so they wonder why the same is not true for incoming Mexican nationals. Less than a mile from my home is a former farmhouse whose new owner moved in several stationary Winnebagos, propane tanks, and outdoor cooking facilities—and apparently four or five entire families rent such facilities right outside his back door. Dozens live where a single family used to—a common sight in rural California that reifies illegal immigration in a way that books and essays do not.
    The problem with all this is that our now-spurned laws were originally intended to ensure an (admittedly thin) veneer of civilization over innate chaos—roads full of drivers who have passed a minimum test to ensure that they are not a threat to others; single-family residence zoning to ensure that there are adequate sewer, garbage, and water services for all; periodic county inspections to ensure that untethered dogs are licensed and free of disease and that housing is wired and plumbed properly to prevent mayhem; and a consensus on school taxes to ensure that there are enough teachers and classrooms for such sudden spikes in student populations.

In addition, VDH notes the increasing danger from Latin American politics, particularly the radical socialism of Venezuela and Oaxaca now being imported to our cities by illegal aliens demanding nonexistent rights.

Turmoil in areas of Mexico that send many illegal aliens to the United States is especially worrisome. Recently, for example, almost the entire state of Oaxaca was in near-open revolt over efforts to force the resignation of provincial governor Ulises Ruiz. There was widespread lawlessness, vigilantism, and at times the complete breakdown of order. All this feeds the growing perception that illegal aliens increasingly are arriving not merely as economic refugees but as political dissidents who don't hesitate to take to the streets here to demand social justice, as they did back home.
    More important still, Oaxaca's troubles cast doubt on the conventional wisdom that illegal immigration is a safety valve that allows Mexico critical time to get its house in order. Perhaps the opposite is true: some of the areas, like Oaxaca, that send the most illegal aliens to the United States, still experience the greatest social tensions—in part because of the familial disruption and social chaos that results when adult males flee and depopulated communities consequently become captive to foreign remittances.

•   •   •  

Iraq's Shadow Widens Sunni-Shiite Split in U.S.   [2/4/07]
The New York Times has noticed that sectarian violence has come to America — and manages to use the "i" word only once in 1400. (See my Jan 9 blog item, Importing Sectarian Warfare?.)
    Earlier, when there were fewer Muslim immigrants in the US, there would be one mosque in a city and they would have to get along. Now that there are many more sons of Allah, multiple mosques can be supported, leading to an unfortunate diversity of views and inevitable conflict. How long will it be until the first religiously based intramural murder among Muslims in Dearbornistan?

Escalating tensions between Sunnis and Shiites across the Middle East are rippling through some American Muslim communities, and have been blamed for events including vandalism and student confrontations. Political splits between those for and against the American invasion of Iraq fuel some of the animosity, but it is also a fight among Muslims about who represents Islam.
    Long before the vandalism in Dearborn and Detroit, feuds had been simmering on some college campuses. Some Shiite students said they had faced repeated discrimination, like being formally barred by the Sunni-dominated Muslim Student Association from leading prayers. At numerous universities, Shiite students have broken away from the association, which has dozens of chapters nationwide, to form their own groups.

Why does America continue to welcome Islamic immigrants, when we are at war with various Muslims around the world? There is no excuse for Muslim immigration to be increasing in these dangerous times. Washington pretends that religion is not the prime factor in the terrorism and wars, thereby endangering us all. The correct response is not more multiculturalism, but a gradual strategy of quarantine and isolation of the poison of Islam to its own geographically large area.
    Demographic warfare, delivered by immigration, has been far more successful than any conflict of the old fashioned kind, largely because Washington refuses to defend the national interest. It's long past time that our political leaders recognize immigration as a weapon of war.

•   •   •  

Behind the Super city's glitz and glitter   [2/4/07]
Here's a less-than-laudatory Superbowl Sunday overview of this year's hosting city, Miami, home to the largest foreign-born population in the country. The columnist uses Rep Tom Tancredo's criticisms of a few months back as a starting point.

The NFL Network has been running a great series on the history of the Super Bowl called "America's Game," which will be played today in a city that, some say, no longer resembles America. [...]
    [Tancredo] noted the rate of violent crime in Miami is triple the national average, while the murder rate was 2.5 times as great. He also quoted the U.S. Department of Justice, which labeled South Florida the "public corruption capital of the nation," as almost 600 people were prosecuted on corruption charges between 1996 and 2005. I'm really envious of that. Rampant, relentless malfeasance by the government stooges there has made Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen a millionaire author.
    In his Herald piece, Tancredo added that since 2002 "a net of 151,000 Miami residents, most of them middle class, have left Miami," which is in a county with a 51 percent foreign-born population, the highest in America. On TV today, the setting will depict the city as glitzy, glamorous, exotic and sexy. Yet behind the cameras, as the numbers indicate, Miami is violent, corrupt, poor and, in many respects, alien to the rest of America.

•   •   •  

Drop the Gloves   [2/3/07]
Investor's Business Daily has consistently fine editorials discussing the deep flaws in the multicultural worldview. Like LTG, IBD is alarmed at the politically correct coverage by the press, like it's business as usual when we have an Islamic monster in our midst.

Global Jihad: The ghastly plot by Muslim terrorists in Britain to kidnap and behead a British soldier to blackmail the U.K. into leaving Iraq is a grim reminder of the enemy we're fighting. And sadly, we need reminding.
    While the bare-knuckled British press condemned the "evil Muslim terrorists," our media by and large shrugged, preoccupied as they've been with more important news, such as the sandbox spat between Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump. You'd never know we were at war with a barbarian culture bent on destroying our way of life.
    Though we've so far avoided another attack here in America, there's been no shortage of terrorism around the world. You might say there's been a silent rampage. The thwarted British plot coincides with no fewer than 655 Islamic terror attacks across the globe in just the past three months. The full list appears on the Web site thereligionofpeace.com.

While the British press can get rightly alarmed about the threat of totalitarian Islam advanced mainly through immigration (see Sleepwalking with the enemy), the political class there remains under anesthesia and the general objection to telling the truth is apparently widespread: e.g. a teacher was recently fired for observing that most suicide bombers are sons of Allah.

•   •   •  

Cultures Are Not Equal   [2/2/07]
Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been fairly quiet since she moved to the United States last year and became a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, but now that her new book Infidel has been published, she is appearing more often in public.

Earlier this month she was the speaker at CORE's Martin Luther King Jr. dinner in New York City. Her basic theme went against the multiculturalism of our times. All cultures are not equal, she told the audience. Human beings are equal. Cultures are not.
    "A culture that spends millions on saving a baby girl's life is not equal to one that uses its first encounter with natal technology to undertake mass abortion simply because girls are not welcome," she said.
    Before she fled to Holland, she lived in three African countries and saw brutality and oppression in all of them.
    While some critics object to calling terrorists Islamic-fascists, Ms. Ali doesn't hesitate to compare radical Muslims to Nazis. Both want a Holocaust, she notes, Ms. Ali has dubbed our benign culture as "ladies first" because she had never heard those words until she came to a Western nation. She warns however that it is "this culture that is under threat today. Many of those born into it take it for granted or, worse, apologize for it."

Ayaan's AEI webpage has a version of her speech at CORE, Ladies First...

I am being acknowledged here today because CORE wants to take Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream beyond racial inequality. CORE wants to be a platform from where the greatest inequality of our time, perhaps of all time, can be battled.
    This is gender inequality: an inequality most obscene, expressed through acts such as mutilation, beatings, rape and murder--and almost all this aggression is justified in the name of culture and creed. Atrocities committed against girls and women in the most intimate setting of all: in the home; by dad or mom; by a brother or a sister; by a husband or his mother. The sort of persecution I talk about is one in which the religious leaders, the politicians, aunts and uncles, fathers and mothers, all share the staunch belief that girls--that women--are born of a lesser god.
    I was born into this culture. And I stress my emphasis on the word "culture".
    When I first came to a Western country, I was astonished to find men who said, "Ladies first"--yes, ladies first. I was amazed because I was born and raised in a culture that put me last because I was born a girl; where I was confined, because of my gender; where all the burden of what is considered good sexual conduct was for me to bear because I am female.

See also an excerpt from her new book, Cruellest cut in the name of Islam, plus a rather brief interview in the New York Times.

•   •   •  

After 200 years, fight to end slavery goes on   [2/2/07]
This article purports to describe the continuation of slavery around the world, but it is mostly about the persistent cruelty to women and girls in the third world as their lives are used as bargaining chips by men. But the word "slavery" has more currency these days than "women's rights."

But hundreds of Ghanaian girls the same age as those on their school trip to Cape Coast still live in conditions echoing the 18th century plantations in the Americas.
    An ancient practice still strong in the country's north and east allows mystic priests to demand virgin brides as servants as atonement from families deemed to have offended ancestral gods.
    Wrenched from their parents, the girls are kept captive in the priest's shrine and, even as children, are forced to work in his fields and clean his compound. When they reach puberty, they become his trokosi, or wife. Most are raped or sexually abused, many are beaten, campaigners have discovered.
    "I was no better than an animal, working all day for the priest and I got nothing," said Enyonam Tordzro, 36, who spent 15 years as a trokosi after her grandfather had an affair with a neighbour's wife.

•   •   •  

Dude, like, send Borat packing   [2/2/07]
Here's one of the faces behind the Boston terror scare yesterday, an asylee from Belarus who thinks it is a big yuck to put a police force on high alert and frighten and incovenience thousands. He is one of the dim bulbs from the Cartoon Network who concocted the poorly considered marketing stunt.

What exactly does a noncitizen have to do to get deported around here?
    I guess Peter "Borat" Berdovsky, native of Belarus, won't answer that because it's not a hair question. And the Russky Rastaman is now officially a victim - a victim of Chernobyl, as his lawyer/foster father put it in court yesterday, before they went out outside to discuss his hair, which he doesn't appear to have washed since leaving his native Third World hellhole.
    The subcontractor on the moronic Turner Broadcasting terror stunt arrived here as an exchange student, then sought asylum as a political refugee - stop me if you've heard this one before.
    Borat is a refugee all right - from a "Beavis and Butthead" episode. He's the full slacker package: Mass. College of Art, a goatee, dreadlocks - a self-described performance artist with his own crappy avant-garde rock band.
    Yesterday morning at Charlestown District Court, Borat Berdovsky's fellow artists, the synonym for which is unemployed, protested the Russky's overnight incarceration, holding signs that said "Never Forget."

It's sad to see this country become the flophouse for the riff-raff of the world.

•   •   •  

New RNC chief backs bill with guest-worker plan   [2/2/07]
As expected, Sen Mel Martinez, recently installed as the Chair of the Republican National Committee, favors a massive amnesty, starting with "guest workers" who will never leave.

Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, the Republican National Committee's new general chairman, wants Congress to pass an immigration bill this year that will include a guest-worker program with "earned citizenship" requirements for illegal aliens.
    Mr. Martinez, whose election encountered sharp opposition from some RNC members who think his support for giving illegal aliens a path to citizenship is a thinly veiled form of amnesty, said, "I don't support deporting these people because I don't believe that's a realistic approach."
    In an interview with The Washington Times, his first since taking the helm of the RNC, he acknowledged the opposition to his election and his support for the Kennedy-McCain bill that called for a multistep process of earned amnesty for all but the most recent illegals. But he said, "My views on immigration are not well understood."

Last year, hundreds of constituents and other citizens sent bricks to Sen. Martinez (in support of The Fence) to show their opposition to the bill he sponsored which is one of the most destructive and radically anti-American pieces of legislation ever written. But Martinez is not interested in what constituents want.

•   •   •  

Rep. Loretta Sanchez quits Congressional Hispanic Caucus   [2/1/07]
A Washington contrversy today has been the evidence of sexism in the Hispanic Caucus, in particular that Chairman Joe Baca called Rep Sanchez a "whore."

Rep. Loretta Sanchez has quit the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the culmination of a several-month feud over Rialto Rep. Joe Baca's leadership of the organization and in the wake of disparaging comments she said he made about her.
    Sanchez, D-Garden Grove, said in an interview this morning that not only does she believe Baca's chairmanship election was not proper, but that he has disrespected her and other women in the group.
    Sanchez said she was told by several people that at a meeting months ago in Sacramento, Baca called her a whore.

Other women have noticed piggyman behavior among the Democrats' Mexican leadership: Two More Reps. Complain About Treatment of Women in Hispanic Caucus

Two Democratic congresswomen released statements supporting a complaint that the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus called Rep. Loretta Sanchez a "whore."
    Said Rep. Hilda L. Solis, of California, about this rapidly developing story:
    "I share Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez's sentiment about the lack of respect afforded to women members of the Hispanic Caucus. If the Hispanic Caucus is to be truly representative of the Latino community, it must give equal treatment to all its members, regardless of gender or seniority.

•   •   •  

Welcome! Leave your customs at the door   [2/1/07]
In Canada, the small Quebec town of Herouxville has made it clear that any immigrant settling there will be expected to behave like a normal western person. The town has asked federal authorities to inform prospective immigrants of a code of conduct including the following:

•   It is forbidden to stone women, burn them alive, throw acid on them or circumcise girls.
•   Consumption of alcohol is common in Herouxville, as is dancing. "At the end of every year, we decorate a tree with balls and tinsel and some lights. This is normally called 'Christmas decorations' or also 'Christmas tree.' "
•   Boys and girls swim together in public pools.
•   Veils are not welcome. "The only time you may mask or cover your face is during Halloween."

•   •   •  

Anger in Holland over 'apartheid' Islamic hospital   [1/31/07]
It's painful to see Europe turn Islamic day by day, with hardly an objection raised. The latest is a gender-segregated hospital in the Islam style. This is how fools imagine Muslims will be included in western society, even though such pandering reverses the ancient form of assimilation: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Of course, Muslims take great pleasure in the stupidity of the spineless infidels and how the Dutch have been made to serve Islam.

Plans for a Muslim-only hospital in Holland have sparked a heated debate over its separate all-male and all-female wings, halal food and roster of duty imams.
    A populist Right-wing party described the plan for the clinic in south Rotterdam as "a step backwards to the Middle Ages".
    There will be segregation between the sexes, with male patients treated by an exclusively male nursing and medical staff and similar arrangements for females. [...]
    It has also been dubbed "apartheid" by a prominent nationalist MP, Geert Wilders. But construction work on the clinic is about to start and it aims to open by 2008.

In some British hospitals, Muslim women can wear a dhimmified medical gown modelled after the Islamic sack, as shown here.

•   •   •  

State's condition not what it seems   [1/31/07]
State Senator Tom McClintock, one of the few fiscal conservatives left in Sacramexico, lays out how badly California is being run by the Spendinator and his Democratic pals in the legislature. Gov. Schwarzenegger promised to be the "people's governor" along with his Hollywood razz-ma-tazz back in the recall election in 2003.
    The previous governor Gray Davis was run out of office for fiscal mismanagement, particularly in regard to the electricity crisis, and for giving state drivers licenses to illegal aliens.

ACCORDING to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's financial condition is "fantastic." Spending has been brought under control, the budget has been balanced, and our debt is being paid down. To the governor's credit, he has proposed some long-overdue spending reforms, most notably conforming state welfare eligibility standards to federal law. But there's very little else to praise.
    The state Finance Department reports a $7.6 billion shortfall in the 2006 budget. That's $1 billion worse than Davis' worst year in 2000. And Schwarzenegger's proposed 2007 budget adds $1.9 billion more to the state's ocean of red ink. [...]
    Meanwhile, borrowing is now completely out of control. When Schwarzenegger took office, 3 percent of the general fund was required for debt service. Since then, that burden has doubled to 6 percent and will exceed 8 percent next year.

Sen McClintock didn't venture into the specifics of the costs, one of which is providing an array of goodies for illegal aliens, including education for millions of illegal aliens children, free healthcare and other social services, plus the tab for incarceration of criminal aliens to the tune of an estimated $10 billion annually. The feds require free education for foreign kiddies, but there's a lot that could be cut. However, even non-hispanic Democrats in Sacto are unduly deferential to the desires of Mexico City so any improvement in that area is unlikely.
    For more on California's money trouble, see my blog from last summer, A Billion Here, A Billion There

•   •   •  

Rainy season falls short so far   [1/30/07]
In California, this has been a very dry winter after a wet one last year. It has been a while since the state has had a drought, and the population growth has been explosive in the last few decades because of legal and illegal immigration.

But the lack of rainfall nevertheless evokes memories of relatively recent droughts, including a six-year one in the late 1980s and early 1990s and a two-year episode in the late 1970s that threatened to dry up state reservoirs before conditions improved with a "March Miracle" of heavy rain.
    The state's population is much larger now and would be harder-hit by a severe drought, experts said.
    "We have far greater water demands than we did 30 years ago," Gudgel said. "We don't have the leeway we had in 1977."

In 1977, one year in a major drought, California's population was fewer than 23 million. Today, the state is home to over 36.5 million residents.
    Speaking of environmental and natural resource concerns, check out this brief YouTube video from Minnesota Population Balance.

•   •   •  

Jail loos turned from East   [1/30/07]
Another sign of Britain's early surrender to Islam: today's example is the remodeling of a jail so toilets don't face Mecca.

JAIL bosses are rebuilding toilets so Muslim inmates don't have to use them while facing Mecca.
    Thousands of pounds of taxpayers money are being spent to ensure lags are not offended.
    The Islamic religion prohibits Muslims from facing or turning their backs on the Kiblah — the direction of prayer — when they visit the lav.
    Muslim lags claimed they have had to sit sideways on prison WCs.
    But after pressure from faith leaders the Home Office has agreed to turn the existing toilets 90 degrees at HMP Brixton in London.
    The Home Office refused to reveal the cost of the new facilities — part of an "on-going refurbishment".
    One Muslim former inmate said: "The least the Prison Service can do is make sure people can practise their religion correctly in prison."
    But a Brixton jail officer said: "If they didn¹t get locked up for committing crime they would not have this problem. Yet we have to sort out their loos. If we weren't paying for it as taxpayers I'd laugh my socks off."

•   •   •  

Elites to Anti-Affirmative-Action Voters: Drop Dead   [1/29/07]
Here in California, voters clearly stated at the ballot box in 1996 they wanted academic achievement to be deciding factor in college admissions. But elites believe that diversity perfection requires a quota system to create an idealized variety of skin colors and ethnic backgrounds (although not a divergence of opinions) on campus and elsewhere. Heather MacDonald has more...

In 1996, Californians voted to ban race and gender preferences in government and education. Ten years later, the chancellor of the state-funded University of California at Berkeley, Robert Birgeneau, announced a new Vice Chancellorship for Equity and Inclusion, charged with making Berkeley more "inclusive" and "less hostile" to "underrepresented minority . . . groups." This move is just the latest expression of the University of California's unrelenting resistance to the 1996 voter initiative, in every way possible short of patent violation. Stasi apparatchiks disappeared more meekly after the Soviet Empire's collapse than California's race commissars have retreated after voters tried to oust their preference regime.
    The last decade in California shows the power, and the limitations, of the crusade for a colorblind America led by Ward Connerly, architect of the 1996 anti-preference initiative. Without a doubt, Proposition 209, as that measure is called, has cut the use of race quotas in the Golden State's government. But it has also exposed the contempt of the elites, above all in education, for the popular will. "Diversity"—meaning socially engineered racial proportionality—is now the only official ideology of the education behemoth, and California shows what happens when that ideology comes into conflict with the law.

As noted here previously, no less an authority than the New York Times has described UC Berkeley as "overwhelmingly Asian," but Chancellor Birgeneau disregards Asian success. (See my 2005 LTE.)

•   •   •  

Landscape changes for illegal alien jobs   [1/29/07]
In the suburbs surrounding the District of Columbia, the illegal alien population has exploded. Businesses have become dependent on their exploitable near-slaves and don't want things to change.
    Salvadorans, not Mexicans, make up the largest group of illegal aliens, and every couple years the corrupt Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program is rubber stamped again, so illegals can become more entrenched. Furthermore, the TPS has become even more perverted by the quid pro quo with El Salvador by which that country keeps 380 troops in Iraq in return for the US not deporting their citizens. Such a deal.

Pinpointing with any certainty the number of illegal aliens in the region, where they live and where they work is impossible. But with census figures putting the Washington metropolitan area's foreign-born population at more than 1 million, some analysts say as many as one-third are here unlawfully.
    Mr. Passel estimates that 300,000 illegal aliens live in the area -- an increase of about 100,000 since 2000. [...]
    Finding and deporting foreign nationals who have overstayed visas isn't easy. Because so many communities, including Washington, rely heavily on cheap immigrant labor, authorities often are reluctant to hunt down illegal aliens, Mr. [William] McDonald said.
    "Internal enforcement is a joke. Nobody really takes immigration law that seriously," he said.

•   •   •  

On Fascism and Islamophobia   [1/29/07]
Fjordman, our favorite Norwegian essayist, gives a look at undemocratic attitudes on the rise in Europe. The socialist nanny state encourages conformity above all, and if you don't agree with the official social paradigm, then self-appointed enforcers of virtue may beat the crap out of you.

I have written about one such attack, which extreme Leftists later openly bragged about on the Internet, around 30 members of the Sweden Democrats were attending a private party outside the town of Vaxjo. "To clearly demonstrate that the Sweden Democrats are not welcome in our area, about 20 anti-Fascists chose to attack the party. The Sweden Democrats were attacked with knives, axes, iron bars and other weapons. After that, their cars were destroyed." The brave Leftists then smashed the windows and threw tear gas into the building, forcing people outside, where they were again attacked and beaten with iron bars and axes. Several of the people were hospitalized after the attack. This was a peaceful, private party by unarmed members of a perfectly legal political party that just happens to be critical of the country's immigration policies. These brave Leftists or "anti-Fascists" do, for some curious reason, seem to behave pretty much like, well, Fascists, a bit like the Brown Shirts in the 1930s, physically assaulting political opponents to silence them.

•   •   •  

A generation of outsiders   [1/28/07]
How much worse can immigration get when the younger generation is not only less assimilated than their parents, they are actively hostile and want to blow the place up? That's the situation where Britain finds itself today.

The doctrine of multi-culturalism has alienated an entire generation of young Muslims and made them increasingly radical, a report has found.
    In stark contrast with their parents, growing numbers sympathise with extreme teachings of Islam, with almost four in ten wanting to live under Sharia law in Britain.
    The study identifies significant support for wearing the veil in public, Islamic schools and even punishment by death for Muslims who convert to another religion.
    Most alarmingly, 13 per cent of young Muslims said they "admired" organisations such as Al Qaeda which are prepared to "fight the West".

Here's another article about the survey showing hostile young Muslims.
    Elsewhere in Britain, public health is endangered by arrogant Islamic persons: Muslim urged to shun 'unholy' vaccines

A MUSLIM doctors' leader has provoked an outcry by urging British Muslims not to vaccinate their children against diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella because it is "un-Islamic".
    Dr Abdul Majid Katme, head of the Islamic Medical Association, is telling Muslims that almost all vaccines contain products derived from animal and human tissue, which make them "haram", or unlawful for Muslims to take.
    Islam permits only the consumption of halal products, where the animal has had its throat cut and bled to death while God's name is invoked.
    Islam also forbids the eating of any pig meat, which Katme says is another reason why vaccines should be avoided, as some contain or have been made using pork-based gelatine.

•   •   •  

Tijuana -- Growing drug abuse   [1/28/07]
One of the biggest problems facing Mexico is not a leftist revolution (it's pretty Marxican anyway), but the criminal gangs which bring enormous firepower and nearly unlimited funds. Swaths of territory have been taken over by the drug cartels, a reason why new Presidente Calderon has sent the army out to crack down.

Drug trafficking and violence are not new to this teeming maze of 1.5 million residents. What is new is that more cartels are vying for control of trade routes for U.S.-bound drugs, and rising drug addiction rates have created a thriving local market and boosted street crime.
    Police who are getting killed often have ties to the rival cartels, said Bruce Bagley, an expert on the drug trade at the University of Miami. Many officers, he said, were killed by one cartel because they had done work for another or by a cartel member unsatisfied with the protection the officer was providing.
    "I can't do my job right because if I do, they'll kill me," said one Tijuana officer, who like five other officers interviewed for this story, would not give his name because he feared for his life.
    The officer said in December that corruption was worse than he had seen in 26 years on the city police force and had permeated the department's highest level.

The cartels are so powerful in comparison to the state that the crackdown, including the extradition of major drug criminals to the US for prosecution, may mean more bloodshed in the short run: Mexican troops in Monterrey as violence soars

MONTERREY, Mexico, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Mexican soldiers manned road blocks in the northern industrial city of Monterrey on Friday as part of a nationwide crackdown by President Felipe Calderon against rampant organized crime.
    Troops armed with assault rifles set up temporary checkpoints overnight across the city in Nuevo Leon state, including the San Pedro business district. Soldiers stopped and searched vehicles but made no arrests.
    "Violence and organized crime is at critical levels in Nuevo Leon and it is a key objective to contain this and make the necessary arrests," state Attorney General Luis Carlos Trevino told a news conference.

•   •   •  

Links between illegal immigration, terrorism, drug trade worry U.S officials   [1/28/07]
Take a Muslim terrorist, teach him Mexican-accented Spanish and dress him up in trans-border attire, and you have a dangerous man who can easily slip into America along with the other thousands who cross the open border daily.

Alfonso Salinas was not who he seemed, according to U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security documents. He lied to the agents about who he was, where he came from and what he was doing.
    It would take nearly a week of interviews with federal agents before Alfonso Salinas would give his real name: Ayman Sulmane Kamal, a Muslim born in Egypt - a country designated as "special-interest" by the United States for sponsoring terrorism.
    Kamal's case is not an isolated one.
    Evidence of "special-interest aliens" using the Mexican border to gain entry to the United States has been kept secret from the American public, according to federal law enforcement agents, terrorism experts and critics of U.S. foreign policy with Mexico.
    In 2005, the Border Patrol apprehended approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. illegally. Of those, 165,000 were from countries other than Mexico, and roughly 650 were, like Kamal, from special-interest countries, according to the Border Patrol.

No surprise here. There have been news stories and government studies before indicating the same Achilles heel.
    The danger from terrorists is the prime reason why we must have border security. If the only problem was Mexican job thieves, then workplace enforcement would suffice.
    Apparently Presidente Bush regards the cheap labor provided by open borders as worth the real risk to the nation's security. If the next attack comes from terrorists crossing the Mexican border, Benedict Arnold will no longer be the measure of perfidy in this country.

•   •   •  

Wisconsin proposes teaching Hmong history   [1/27/07]
No wonder American students are at the bottom of any international ranking: they spend entirely too much time immersed in diversity propaganda.

MADISON — Wisconsin lawmakers on Thursday proposed requiring schools to teach about the Hmong people, saying suspicion of the community could be eased by an understanding of their past as U.S. allies in the Vietnam War.
    The bill, backed by a group of state Assembly Democrats, is identical to one proposed in April 2005 that died when lawmakers adjourned last year. Sponsors said racial tensions rekindled by this month's homicide of a Hmong hunter could build support for passage this year.
    More than 600 Hmong residents packed the Assembly parlor to support the bill, having arrived in eight busloads from as far away as Green Bay and Eau Claire.
    "All of the difficulties that the Hmong face and experience in the U.S. are due to the fact that there is no formal teaching about the Hmong to the general public," said Za Blong Vang, president of the Hmong Community of Wisconsin. He spoke in Hmong but provided an English translation of his remarks.

Horse pucky. Hmong "face difficulties" because they refuse to assimilate to American values, such as learning English. They are famous for poaching. Many practice polygamy, opium use and animal cruelty in performing shamanism. Some Hmong immigrants remain in poverty, are prone to gang behavior and retain their misogynist cultural practices, such as marriage by kidnapping. They are among the highest users of welfare. They have brought inter-tribal violence with them.
    When a Chai Vang, a Hmong immigrant, mass murdered six people, four of whom were shot in the back, other Hmong defended his actions and blamed the victims. His sister had the effrontery to say that "he did it with pride" referring to the cold-blooded killings. The press was particularly odious in this case, portraying the killer as a fine fellow and leader in his community. Vang even testified in court that several he killed "deserved to die" because they were rude to him.

•   •   •  

Build Roads, Not Walls   [1/26/07]
The German magazine Der Spiegel recently interviewed Mexican Presidente Felipe Calderon, and the results were not encouraging.

SPIEGEL: Almost half of the 105 million Mexicans live in poverty, and 11 million have no steady employment. How do you intend to create jobs for them?
Calderon: That will only be possible if we attract investors to Mexico. Experts assume that Mexico can rise to the status of the fourth-largest national economy in the world by 2050. But before we can achieve that, we must first lower our production costs. Energy is too expensive, and the tax burden is too great. But above all we have to create legal certainty and curb crime. That's why I'm planning to increase public spending for combating crime by 25 percent.
SPIEGEL: The World Bank claims a group of 20 families rules Mexico.
Calderon: Sure, we have a high concentration of economic power in Mexico. In the future we want to ensure that private persons or groups of companies enjoy no illicit privileges. We need a policy that is beholden to free-market competition and limits monopolies. [...]
SPIEGEL: About a half-million Mexicans migrate to the United States every year in order to try their luck there. Now the Bush administration wants to build a 1,100 kilometer (684 mile) barrier along the border.
Calderon: It's hard to believe that a wall is now being built in Arizona and Texas only 17 years after the world celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall. There are social and economic reasons for migration to the United States. It is a natural consequence of globalization. What is more, the North American and the Mexican economies complement each other in an ideal way: The United States has the capital, and we have the labor force.

SPIEGEL: Immigrants currently transfer about $24 billion per year from the United States to Mexico. This is Mexico's second-largest source of currency, after petroleum. Can the exodus still be stopped?
Calderon: If the Americans would invest more here, the Mexican workers would stay at home. I told the American president that it makes more sense to build a single kilometer of road in a poorly developed Mexican state than to build 10 kilometers of his wall.

Funny how the Mexico Presidente says his country's success or failure depends on Americans — isn't that the perfect illustration of a national parasite?
    Why can't Mexicans invest in Mexico? It is home to ten billionaires, the third richest man on earth is a Mexican (Carlos Slim), and the country's economy is the world's 10th largest.

•   •   •  

House resolution opposes North American Union   [1/26/07]
Rep. Virgil Goode has drawn a legislative line in the sand against the merger with Mexico.

Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., has introduced a House resolution expressing congressional opposition to construction of a NAFTA Super Highway System or entry into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada.
    Goode said the goal behind House Concurrent Resolution 40, introduced Monday, is "to block a NAFTA Superhighway System and to indicate the opposition of the Congress to the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America that was declared by President Bush, Mexico's then-President Vicente Fox, and Canada's then-Prime Minister Paul Martin, at the conclusion of their summit meeting in Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005."
    The preamble of HCR 40 refers to the Trans-Texas Corridor being built by the Texas Department of Transportation, noting "a NAFTA Super Highway System from the west coast of Mexico through the United States and into Canada has been suggested as part of a North American Union to facilitate trade between the SPP countries."

Last night, Lou Dobbs interviewed CFR member Robert Pastor, considered by many the architect of the North American Union:

DOBBS: Two years ago the Council on Foreign Relations published a report titled "Building a North America Community." among the goals expressed, to break down trade regulations between the United States and Canada. Between Canada and Mexico and of course, then the United States. But without congressional approval or certainly without congressional oversight or voter approval.
    Critics call the plan the North America Union. And many say that it would ultimately destroy U.S. sovereignty.
    Robert Pastor is a member of the group that broke the original report. He joins us tonight. It's good to have you with us.
    ROBERT PASTOR, CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN STUDIES: Thank you very much.
    DOBBS: Robert Pastor, you were co-chairman of an independent task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, and in this report titled "Building a North American Community" the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass states, "The Task Force's central recommendation is establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security of community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter."
    At this point what is the basis for moving forward on that?
    PASTOR: Well, the United States, Canada and Mexico now are already the largest free trade area in the world. We have $800 billion worth of trade. This is a source of comparative advantage for the United States. But the council report feels that we could take greater advantage if we were deepen economic integration, if we can secure ourselves better, not only at our borders, but also by thinking about continental security perimeter as well.
    DOBBS: Why would you think about, just out of curiosity, a common security perimeter when the United States does not have secure ports nor does it have anything approaching secure borders?
    PASTOR: Well, it's precisely because our ports are not secure and our borders are not secure that we need to find not only better ways to do that but also better ways to turn our two neighbors into partners to enhance our security and to enhance our prosperity as well.

How will outsourcing our national security to Mexico serve to "enhance" it — and what does that mean anyway? What doubletalk. There have been numerous news reports of terrorists using Mexico as an easy gateway to the US, and Mexico cannot be considered a friend in any way.

•   •   •  

Alien hiring fine fails on Hill   [1/26/07]
Weren't the Democrats supposed to be friend of the American worker, who were going to protect employee rights from the powerful business interests? So far, not so good, as evidenced by the refusal of the Senate to raise the fines for employers who hire illegal aliens.

Senate Democrats quashed a proposal yesterday that would have dramatically increased civil fines on employers who hire illegal aliens.
    Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican, offered the amendment to the bill now being debated that would increase the federal minimum wage.
    Ridding the economy of illegal aliens, he argued, would do far more to help low-income wage earners than simply raising the minimum wage. Not only do aliens displace U.S. citizens in the work force, he said, they also artificially suppress wages.
    "Our whole purpose of the minimum-wage act is to increase the wages of working Americans, particularly low-skilled workers," Mr. Sessions said. "That's a noble goal."
    One of the reasons "that those salaries have lagged behind is because of a large influx of illegal immigrant labor," he said. "That is indisputable, and it's not been discussed much here. People apparently don't want to talk about it, but we're going to talk about it."
    But Democratic leaders refused to let Mr. Sessions' alien amendment reach the Senate floor yesterday, and they accused him and other Republicans of offering amendments unrelated to the minimum-wage increase in order to stall passage of the bill.

•   •   •  

Laredo Texas: Daring program would force English, Spanish   [1/25/07]
This is how America is being coerced to become a bilingual, Spanish-speaking country, one school district at a time. They will start with kindergarten children and call the Dual Language instruction a "benefit" -- only a racist could object to that, right?

The program, known as Dual Language, would be implemented at all 26 UISD elementary schools. It would begin with kindergarten and progress to the next grade level, each year thereafter until 12th grade.
    Language arts would be taught in the student's primary language, as required by state law.
    By the time students reach second grade, UISD hopes to have 50 percent of all classroom instruction in English and 50 percent in Spanish, said Pamela R. Juarez, UISD associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction. [...]
    Most UISD elementary students — nearly 65 percent, or more than three out of every five — are Spanish dominant, according to district data, and the district receives a significant amount of revenue for bilingual education.
    UISD gets roughly $18.5 million each year from the state and federal governments to educate its limited English proficient, or LEP, students, according to district data.
    Some researchers and bilingual education experts, such as Wayne P. Thomas and Virginia P. Collier, say Dual Language is the model that school districts with large numbers of Spanish dominant students should adopt.
    For the past 10 years, the effectiveness of Dual Language has been tracked at several school districts on the Texas-Mexico border, namely Ysleta ISD near El Paso and Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD in the Rio Grande Valley.

Meanwhile on other fronts, grassroots Texans are fighting back against the merger with Mexico.

•   •   •  

Tax to fight gangs set for ballot   [1/25/07]
In Los Angeles, gang violence has gotten so bad that the city council wants to raise taxes in order to fight it. Overall, the crime rate is down, but LA suffered 267 gang-related homicides last year and a 14% increase in gang crime citywide. Councilwoman Janice Hahn advocates a $72 annual parcel tax to raise $50 million to fund more social intervention programs. The city already spends $82 million on gang outreach, with little result.
    Much of the recent outrage comes from the December 15 murder of Cheryl Green, a 14-year-old black girl who was killed simply for being present on Hispanic turf, just a block from her apartment. The photo shows mother Charlene Lovett holding a picture of Cheryl.

Desperate to stem the rise of gang violence in Los Angeles, the City Council agreed Tuesday to draft a ballot measure that would impose a parcel tax to raise $50 million or more annually for intervention and prevention programs.
    However, council members said it was unlikely the proposal would go onto the ballot until next year, skipping the municipal election in May.
    Also Tuesday, City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo released his plan for reducing gangs, which includes a call for school uniforms to be required for all Los Angeles Unified School District students, legal action to shut down the headquarters of the 10 worst gangs, and expanding his assignment of prosecutors to every police station and to neighborhoods around gang-plagued schools.

LA's gang violence has a strong racial component. Of an estimated 39,000 gang members, about 56 percent are in Latino gangs and 40 percent are in black gangs. Many hispanic gang-bangers are illegal aliens. Increasingly, hispanic gang members kill random blacks to drive them out of the area -- ethnic cleansing, in other words. Interestingly, even the hacks at the Southern Poverty Law Center, who have attacked the Minutemen and other friends of borders, have noticed the purposeful, racist attacks on black Americans.
    Instead of enacting another immigration tax, the city should end Special Order 40, the sanctuary law that protects illegal aliens from normal police inquiries and is quite a boon to gang members.

•   •   •  

Islam flexes its muscles   [1/24/07]
Scary stuff going on in Britain, according to columnist Peter Hitchens. Talk about surrender without a fight...

The real menace to this country does not come from terrorist bombs, which a calm, resolute people can cope with. It comes from the liberal elite's decision to appease Islam.
    The louder the Blairites talk about the 'threat to our way of life' from Muslim extremists, the more they themselves increase that threat.
    Criticism of Islam, jokes about Islam, are rapidly becoming taboo, even legally restricted. Yet Muslims have total freedom to say what they like about the rest of us.
    Quietly, the Civil Service, the police and the education system (and many big companies) have already begun to adapt themselves to the idea of an Islamised Britain.

•   •   •  

Sound File of Tom Tancredo's Response to State of the Union Speech   [1/24/07]
Just over a minute in length, this sound clip notes Rep Tancredo's disappointment with the continuing state of the border, our "Achilles heel."

•   •   •  

Democrats' silence on jihad is deadly   [1/24/07]
What's with Democrats and their inability to grasp reality? Their minds reside in a pre-9/11 state of denial, still in snooze mode about the clearly established intention of Muslim jihadists to destroy western civilization and institute a fascist state under sharia law.

Sounding nearly as resolute is former governor Mitt Romney, whose campaign website puts "Defeating the Jihadists" first in its list of key campaign issues. "The jihadists are waging a global war against the United States and its allies," Romney is quoted as saying, "with the ambition of replacing legitimate governments with a caliphate -- a theocracy." Speaking in Israel yesterday, Romney asserted that "a central purpose of NATO should be to defeat radical Islam," through means both military and ideological.
    The Democratic candidates, by contrast, are virtually silent on the subject.
    Barack Obama launched his exploratory committee with an online video that mentioned the economy, healthcare, vanishing pensions, college costs, and the fractiousness of partisan politics. His only nod to national security was a passing reference to the war in Iraq, which he opposes. But 9/11 and its aftermath? The worldwide jihad? The global conflict between democratic freedom and Taliban-style repression? Not a word.
    Hillary Clinton's highly praised kickoff video likewise included nothing about the overriding threat of our time. Her website does contain a speech she gave at the Council on Foreign Relations last October, but it is filled with vague rhetoric about diplomacy and international conferences and how we must address the "troubled conditions terrorists seek out." New Yorkers don't need to be told "that we are in a war against terrorists who seek to do us harm," Clinton says. But if she recognizes that the future of the civilized world depends on winning that war, she shows little sign of it.
    What is true of Obama and Clinton is more or less true of Edwards, Richardson, and the others. The Democrats seem prepared to emulate John Kerry, who insisted in 2004 that "we have to get back to the place we were" before 9/11. Back, that is, to treating Islamist terrorism not as "the focus of our lives," but merely as "a nuisance" that we need "to reduce" -- like gambling, he said, or prostitution.

Right on cue, here's Jimmy Carter, who seems increasingly out of touch (i.e. the accusations of anti-semitism that caused 14 board members to resign from the Carter Center and his dependence on questionable Middle Eastern money):