August 18, 2008
Speaking at a high school in New Mexico, Barack Obama was asked about immigration and, according to
this liveblog of the event, said:
"We are a nation of immigrants," Obama answers.
"The only people can say that they aren't immigrants are the people sitting right here," the Presidential candidate says and points to the tribal leaders.
"There are some families who have been here for 4 or 500 years. They didn't cross the border, the border crossed them."
Certainly, he's somewhat factually correct: there are old Spanish origin families who are recipients of land grants from hundreds of years ago; they were there before New Mexico was part of the U.S.
However, he's coming at this from their side, which is in conflict with our - the U.S.'s - side. In fact, his quotes are straight out of Reconquista 101, and trying to find loopholes in and complaining about the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is a favorite pasttime of hundreds of minor extremists, with the TGH forming a major part of their lore. Sentiments like his are rarely expressed by those considered mainstream; the closest I'm aware of are
Dolores Huerta and a
LULAC official, and both of them aren't that mainstream at all.
As for the bit about Indians not being immigrants, one wonders at which point BHO would draw the line. Most of their ancestors came over thousands of years ago, but Mayflower descendents have ancestors who were here before 150 years before this was the U.S. and some European origin peoples' ancestors were here before then. Why is BHO differentiating between those who arrived from Europe and those who arrived from Asia? Why give so much weight to thousands versus hundreds of years? Assuming for the moment he wasn't just offering a dangerous pander, why not differentiate between those whose ancestors came here ten thousand years ago and those whose ancestors came here twenty thousand? Taken one step further, would Obama be like those who think that anyone with enough native blood - presumably more than one drop - can move anywhere within the Americas at will?
And, of course, the only people who are actually immigrants are those who are legal immigrants under our set of laws; those who were born here are not immigrants even if their ancestors were.
An open question is, other than pandering, what exactly BHO would have us do about all this? Should Mayflower descendents be considered among those who've had our borders cross over them? Is it good public policy to encourage U.S. citizens to think that our borders crossed over them? Would he give those who've been crossed over by our borders something? Would he support allowing anyone with the right amount of native blood to come here at will?
The rest of that section of his comments is his standard blather about this issue; the problems with that can be found
here,
here, and through a search. Discussing all the other reasons BHO's statements above are wrong is left as an exercise.
Note: I've confirmed BHO's statements with the author of the linked post.
UPDATE: Please Digg this here:
digg.com/2008_us_elections/BHO_goes_reconquista_The_border_crossed_them
Posted to Immigration2008a
at 09:35 PM
Barack Obama claims that former terrorist Bill Ayers is little more than a "guy who lives in my neighborhood", but in fact they both worked on education matters for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in the 90s. Some details on this are here and here.
Stanley Kurtz tried to gain access to the voluminous records about the CAC, which are stored, ironically enough, at the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He exchanged emails with various staffers there and arranged a flight to review the records, but at the last moment he was told he'd been denied access and generally given the run-around. Details here; contact information for the president of UIC here.
Posted to Politics
at 01:27 PM
Barack Obama appears to be lying again, this time about a 2003 Illinois state bill that mirrored the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. The latter passed the Senate unanimously and then was signed by George Bush. Obama's contention in a recent interview with David Brody of CBN (and now CNN) and, IIRC, in the recent Saddleback Forum, was that the bill would have impacted Roe v. Wade. However, contemporaneous documents show that not to be the case. Perhaps Rick Warren should have pressed him on that point at the Forum.
Posted to Politics
at 01:20 PM
August 17, 2008
Libby Copeland of the Washington Post offers "
Bob Barr, the Master of a Curious Universe" (
link), and it's both incredibly lightweight and incredibly stupid. First, a preface: while they have a few worthy ideas, libertarians and (especially) Libertarians are generally divorced from the reality that the rest of us share. Despite that, one might expect someone who's doing a profile on a candidate to have some passing acquaintance with their party and its issues. Instead, we're featured to a "libertarians in the mist"-style treatment, and she even misses Barr bringing up one of the things that some libertarians hold against him, his erstwhile
opposition to Wiccans joining the military:
"I have a question for you," [his wife Jeri Barr] says. "I have an opportunity to get reasonably priced tickets to 'Wicked.' "
"To what?" Bob asks.
" 'Wicked.' "
"Oh, I thought you said 'Wicca,' " Barr says, chuckling. Look! Bob Barr's dimples.
That's it: she doesn't realize that he left himself open to being asked about that topic.
The rest of it is equally lightweight, as her attempts to discuss policy run aground on the shoals of inaccuracy:
And, because the United States is not a "charity," Bob Barr as president would attempt to stop the practices of hospitals offering medical care to illegal immigrants and schools educating illegal immigrants' children. Most of all, he'd shrink government and taxes.
In fact, he only supports ending non-emergency medical care to illegal aliens. And, as has been seen before, the MSM just doesn't realize that that parents and children might have different statuses. Barr wants to end K-12 education for illegal aliens who are children, irrespective of the status(es) of their parents.
All five pages could have used
Barr's immigration position to show that he's simply a fake, but doing real reporting is beyond the Washington Post's grasp.
Posted to Politics
at 10:09 PM
August 16, 2008
"Yes, Guillaume, I am Lonewacko," I informed the key member of Team Lonewacko, now known as Team 24Ahead, who had rushed into my office in a tizzy. "I am simply in a new guise."
"Bbbbut... the sign on our building has been changed! I thought that you had 'flown the coop' as they say! What has happened? Why didn't you tell me?"
"It was a surprise. The 'lacrosse practice' I told you about does not exist. I knew you would drive past our building, see that the signage had changed, and do what you're doing now. I planned all this, as a surprise."
"But, '24ahead'? What does that mean, in English?"
"Yes, I imagine many people - not just speakers of foreign languages - will wonder about that. Then, they'll realize this is a news and politics site. Then - in a flash - they'll realize it means we're at least 24 hours ahead of other sites in reporting on things. And - due to that flash - this site will be seared in their memory forever. It is psychology, mon ami. Also, everyone thinks about time zones when traveling or contacting persons in other states, and they know that, for instance, the East Coast is three hours ahead. Every time they think of such things, the neurons in their brains will associate those thoughts with this site and they will come back to check on what's new!"
"You are clever... like a fiend! But, if I may, the name it is five syllables!"
"It's also only seven letters. Plus, it passes my Hillary Test."
"Oh, you and your Hillary Test. You will never..."
"Yes, I will. One day, I will get to ask Hillary Clinton a question. If I said I was from 'lonewacko.com', the best that would happen is I'd get laughs from the audience and a nervous twitter from Hillary. With this new name, Hillary would assuredly pretend she's been to the site. Her reaction matters to me."
"But, the Team! What will become of the Team?"
We're still Team!" I assured him, "Dale is still Research Director. Gwendolynne Fritz-Ruffalla is still our intern. The Team is still strong. It is just Team 24Ahead now."
"But, will there be changes?"
"Nothing major. Over time, certain things such as the tagline will change. But, we'll still be covering immigration and politics, plus occasional forays into sports, celebrities, and music."
"That's it?"
"Well, eventually there are going to be blocks."
"Blocks?"
"Yes, Guillaume, blocks! Sidebar blocks. Drupal blocks, made with PHP so they're dynamic!"
"Oh!!!"
"And, that's not all! Eventually," I painted the picture for him, "perhaps tomorrow but more likely months from now, there will be effects!"
"You mean, Javascript effects?" Guillaume was hooked.
"Yes, that's what I mean! In fact, I might make things fly across the screen at some point in time! Now," I joked, "get out of here and get back to work!"
Posted to Bloggage
at 11:16 AM
August 14, 2008
The Barack Obama campaign is promulgating to their followers and others a PDF about Jerome Corsi's latest book "Obama Nation"; you can download it here: my.barackobama.com/page/invite/corsi
Some of their debunking in parts of it may be accurate or not, etc. However, in one section they've "creatively edited" Corsi. From the section called "CONSIDER THE SOURCE: CORSI HOLDS WIDELY DISCREDITED BELIEFS":
CORSI IS A 9/11 TRUTH BELIEVER—THAT AIRPLANES WERE NOT TRULY TO BLAME FOR DESTRUCTION OF WORLD TRADE TOWERS
Corsi is a 9/11 Truther. In a radio interview, Corsi said, “I’m gonna come out with a story, I think is gonna be earth-shaking, and that is from Steven Jones, the physicist from BYU who’s been dismissed. Well, he’s now gotten samples of the World Trade Center dust, and he’s demonstrated the dust has formed these spheres, these iron spheres, that can only be formed under extremely high temperatures. And I know enough about the science to know he’s right. The fire, from jet fuel, does not burn hot enough to produce the physical evidence that he’s produced. so when you’ve got science that the hypothesis doesn’t explain--evidence--then the hypothesis doesn’t stand anymore. It just means the government’s explanation of the jet fuel fire is not a sufficient explanation to explain the evidence of these spheres--these microcopic spheres--that Steven Jones has proved existed within the WTC dust...In attacking these things, first scientifically...for me, what tips the scales is when you’ve got science that the conventional hypothesis doesn’t explain.” [Alex Jones show, 1/29/08]
Oddly enough, the BHO campaign left out part of that quote without providing ellipses. In fact, they left out a whole sentence. Here's the relevant part, with the omitted sentence in bold (source: NYT):
So when you’ve got science that the hypothesis doesn’t explain–evidence–then the hypothesis doesn’t stand anymore. It doesn’t mean there’s a new hypothesis you’ve validated. It just means the government’s explanation of the jet fuel fire is not a sufficient explanation...
With that sentence, his statements take on a more balanced tone; he appears to be calling for real press coverage instead of simply accepting everything the government has said at face value. While some MSM sources have been in the former camp, most have been in the latter. In the NYT's words, "he was planning [on] exposing what he calls the government’s inadequate explanations about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center". There's a huge difference between the wild-eyed truthers who claim for a fact that Bush/Cheney/etc. knew about or planned the attacks and those who rightly question some government explanations that don't add up.
Another entry in that section concerns the North American Union; see the post about Kenneth Vogel for an answer to that. Their entry also quotes Hawkins. They also discuss the NAFTA Superhighway. Apparently their followers are expected to think both are myths and they correctly assume that most of their followers won't know that Obama has come out for Bush's SPP.gov and appears to have confirmed the NAFTA Superhighway.
Posted to Politics
at 09:13 PM
The American Medical Association operates "Voices for the Uninsured" (voicefortheuninsured.org), a website designed to promote their proposal of some form of universal healthcare coverage.
On their homepage and elsewhere, they falsely state "47 million Americans are uninsured". In fact, around 10 million of that number are citizens of other countries, and millions of that 10 million are probably here illegally. They don't appear to be making a related false claim similar to that made by the DNC, but that might be on one of their unindexed pages or in a graphic.
An email sent earlier today pointing this out has not been replied to at post time.
Posted to Politics
at 02:29 PM
John Kerry's "Campaign for Our Country" has started a new website called Truth Fights Back (truthfightsback.com), and it's pretty bad. For instance, consider the post "Barack Obama is not aligned with Weather Underground", which combines 3rd-grade-level writing with 3rd-grade-level thinking. This is the "smear" (truthfightsback.com/site/smear/200):
Republicans have repeatedly pushed a bogus story about William Ayers, a member of the 60s-era Weather Underground. They make all sorts of bogus claims about his association with Barack Obama and repeatedly try to make the connection between the two stronger.
And, this is the supposed counterattack:
Barack Obama has very little connection to William Ayers. Barack Obama served on the board of a non-profit in Chicago. This non-profit also asked Ayers, now a professor at the University of Chicago, to serve on the board. Obama had nothing to do with his inclusion on the board. Very early in his career, Barack Obama attended one event at Ayer's house, organized for Obama. This was over a decade ago.
Needless to say, there's more to it: link, link.
They also discuss the recent Jerome Corsi book (truthfightsback.com/site/smear/236), linking to Media Matter's supposed debunking article (mediamatters.org/items/200808040005). While some of the points MMFA makes are worrisome, most are indeed rather trivial.
Their entry on Obama's Global Poverty Act combines some debunking with a lot of disingenuousness (truthfightsback.com/site/smear/230). The RNC sent out a fundraising letter which is apparently excerpted at crooksandliars.com/2008/08/07/the-lunatics-are-running-the-rncs-asylum:
A bill he has sponsored in the U.S. Senate, the so-called Global Poverty Act
(S. 2433), would raise the amount of American tax dollars allocated to United Nations’ redistribution efforts to $845 billion.
FTS correctly points out that that's not accurate: the bill would only spend $1 million. But, they're disingenuous in pretending that that's all it would do:
Obama does sponsor the Global Poverty Act (S. 2433), an attempt to focus on one of the largest contributors to global instability. However, it simply asks for a refocusing of resources toward this goal, not new spending, essentially mandating more efficiency and focus in meeting this huge problem. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that "implementing S. 2433 would cost less than $1 million per year." It would, therefore, take 8,450 years for the Global Poverty Act to spend the money the RNC claims it would spend.
The DNC (draft) position is to support those MDGs, and Obama wants to meet those goals as well. That is going to require an outlay of billions of dollars, even if only $1 million is spent on the study and the like initially.
FTS also has a rather interesting commenting policy, straight outta Moscow:
TruthFightsBack.com has a strict commenting policy. This is a site for debunking false attacks and misleading smears against Democrats. If you are not interested in that goal, please feel free to comment elsewhere. And due to the emotional nature of the subject matter, we have a few rules that go farther than we would on a normal blog to try to keep the vitriol lower than otherwise possible. We have a goal of finding and spreading the truth, not in attacking others. To further that goal, these behaviors will not be tolerated in comments:
* furthering and amplifying the smears against Democrats
* attacking other posters
* profanity directed at any other poster
* smears against Republicans
* off-topic remarks for their own sake
Posted to Politics
at 01:54 PM
Anna Gorman of the Los Angeles Times offers "L.A. adopts day laborer rules for home improvement stores" (
link):
The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved an ordinance Wednesday requiring certain home improvement stores to develop plans for dealing with day laborers who congregate nearby in search of jobs.
The ordinance mandates that proposed big-box stores obtain conditional-use permits, which could then require them to build day-labor centers with shelter, drinking water, bathrooms and trash cans.
Councilman Bernard C. Parks, who first proposed the ordinance four years ago, said that this was just the first phase and that he planned to address existing home improvement stores next. He said the businesses needed to be held accountable for their role in attracting dayworkers.
Eric Garcetti - as well as day laborers who were in the Council that day - are happy.
Home Depot says they aren't happy, but that's probably only because the city (probably) won't be picking up the tab for building the day laborer centers. The
City of Los Angeles is/was directly enabling illegal immigration by leasing a section of a Home Depot's parking lot to run a center. And,
Home Depot was paying a lobbyist $10,000 a month to lobby the L.A. City Council on the wider issue.
See also an
attempt to claim that opposition to a Home Depot store was racism - run by someone who previously had worked for one of their PR companies. Surely it was just a coincidence.
Posted to Immigration2008a
at 01:15 PM
August 13, 2008
Jerome Corsi has recently released a book highly critical of BHO called "Obama Nation". Needless to say, the usual suspects are up in arms. But, representing perhaps more the corrupt establishment in general than BHO fans in particular, Kenneth Vogel of The Politico offers the smear piece "Wild theories of 'Obama Nation' author" (politico.com/news/stories/0808/12526.html). Needless to say, many since-proved theories were derided as wild. And, some of the Corsi claims Vogel discusses aren't that wild. Investigating all the statements Vogel attributes to Corsi - some aren't so good but might be less bad in context - is left as an exercise, but here's a couple from his (per Vogel) "trail of wild theories" and "fringe theories":
[Those] include allegations that President Bush worked to eliminate the borders with Mexico and Canada
Pretty much everything Bush has done has worked towards that goal. That includes allowing 14% of Mexico's working age population to move to the U.S., pushing through Mexican trucks on U.S. roads, allowing the FDIC to give home loans to illegal aliens and collaborate with the Mexican government to do so, giving benefits to Mexican citizens, and making a pledge to the Mexican government to push to allow even more Mexicans to come to the U.S. Only hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens flooding Congress with their opposition to immigration "reform" prevented Bush from further weakening the border with Mexico.
The idea that there is a secretive plan for a North American Union is a favorite bogeyman for small-government conservatives but has been derided as baseless by mainstream thinkers and officials.
Many of those "mainstream thinkers and officials" are on record as supporting such a plan; see this category for some of them. For one example:
A powerful think tank chaired by former Sen. Sam Nunn and guided by trustees including Richard Armitage, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Harold Brown, William Cohen and Henry Kissinger, is in the final stages of preparing a report to the White House and U.S. Congress on the benefits of integrating the U.S., Mexico and Canada into one political, economic and security bloc.
The article ends with this:
In blasting Corsi and the theory, a columnist at the influential conservative blog Human Events wrote [humanevents.com/article.php?id=18859], "I don't think Corsi is any more worthy of being taken seriously than those who think Jews rule the world or the 'Truthers' who think President Bush is responsible for 9/11."
The "columnist" in question is actually John Hawkins, someone who's better known as a blogger (rightwingnews.com). Since its publication, Hawkins has taken a lot of heat for it from his commenters who've pointed out how he's wrong.
Do the same with Kenneth Vogel: politico.com/aboutus/feedback.html
Posted to Politics
at 07:40 PM
