Right Minded Online

There is a movement afoot to try and convince President Bush to grant pardons to two border patrol agents who were wrongly prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned.

Mr. President Free Ramos and Compean.

The nation of Mexico, our good friends to the south, are against the death penalty in the U.S., and also support illegal immigration into the U.S. However, they are considering re-instating the death penalty in their own country, and are also cracking down on illegal immigration — in their own country.

The hellish conditions have prompted some Mexican lawmakers to revisit the country’s ban on capital punishment. That’s right. Members of the same foreign government that took America to court over our death penalty laws– and tried to block the state of Texas from executing illegal alien Death Row murderers — are now open to the idea of imposing the death penalty on the thugs on their own soil.

Michelle Malkin » Isn’t it ironic: Mexico lawmakers want to reinstate death penalty; Plus: Mexico cracks down on illegal aliens.

I came across an interesting article in the July edition of The Limbaugh Letter on the just-failed amnesty bill (”Amnesty 101: The Simpson-Mazzoli Effect,” p. 14). At the bottom of the page are three quotes from Ted Kennedy, each separated by 21 years.

1965: “The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. it will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission.”

1986: “This amnesty will give citizenship to only 1.1 to 1.3 million illegal aliens. We will secure the borders henceforth. We will never again bring forward another amnesty bill like this.”

2007: “Now it is time for action. 2007 is the year we must fix our broken system.”

Of course, the U.S. Congress passed immigration reform in 1965, the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill in 1986, and tried to pass an amnesty bill in 2007. In 2000, the Center for Immigration Studies reported to Congress that Simpson-Mazzoli had ended up granting amnesty to 2.7 million illegals — not the 1.1 to 1.3 million that Senator Kennedy had claimed in 1986. It’s a good thing the American people wised up and defeated this latest amnesty sham. The third time was the charm.

The U.S. Senate, at the behest of the American people, defeated the amnesty bill for the second time yesterday. Only 46 senators voted to end debate on the legislation — fourteen short of the 60 votes that are required.

Already, the mainstream press is characterizing the amnesty bill’s failure exclusively as a defeat for President Bush. Granted, what happened in the Senate yesterday was a defeat for President Bush, but it is also a defeat for the Democrats, who are the majority party in the Senate now. Indeed, it was Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid who twice tried to run this legislation through, and twice failed. It is also a defeat for Senator Ted Kennedy, who was more or less the Democrat Party’s leading spokesman in favor of amnesty.

Harry Reid blames talk radio. As a member of the talk radio audience, I’ll gladly take my share of the credit.

By the way, the roll call vote is here.

Dear Senator Harkin,

As a native Iowan and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Department of Homeland Security in and effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you.

My primary reason for wishing to change my status from U.S. Citizen to illegal alien stems from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted. If my understanding of this bill’s provisions is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for five years, all I need to do to become a citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for three of the last five years. I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone figures it out.

Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay taxes every year so I’m excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine. Is there any way that I can apply to be illegal retroactively? This would yield and excellent result for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in 2004 and 2005.

Additionally, as an illegal alien I could begin using the local emergency room as my primary health care provider. Once I have stopped paying premiums for medical insurance, my accountant figures I could save almost $10,000 a year.

Another benefit in gaining illegal status would be that my daughter would receive preferential treatment relative to her law school applications, as well as “in state” tuition rates for many colleges throughout the United States for my son.

Lastly, I understand that illegal status would relieve me of the burden of renewing my driver’s license and making those burdensome car insurance premiums. This is very important to me given that I still have college age children driving my car.

If you would provide me with an outline of the process to become illegal [retroactively if possible] and copies of the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative. Thank you for your assistance.

Your Loyal Constituent,
Donald Ruppert
Burlington, IA

A couple of weeks ago, I made phone calls to Senators Alexander and Corker and Congressman Jim Cooper regarding my opposition to the amnesty bill currently before Congress. On Monday, I received a form letter from Mr. Cooper stating his position on this legislation. He didn’t come right out and state his position on the bill, but there was one curious item in his letter that pretty much tells us everything we need to know about Congressman Cooper and illegal immigration:

My approach to comprehensive immigration reform legislation is rooted in two firm beliefs. The first of these is that it is absolutely crucial that we tighten security at our borders. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the recent plots against JFK Airport and Fort Dix, the U.S. government must do a better job of controlling the flow of people and goods into the country. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security was an important attempt to coordinate the disparate agencies that control our border security, including the Customs service, Border Patrol, and the Coast Guard. However, even with this increased coordination, our immigration laws have too often gone unenforced at the border and in the heartland. Our first priority in Congress should be improving the strength, training, and equipment of our front line of domestic security control.

However, with more than 12 million people here illegally, enforcement alone will not solve the problem. We must induce people to come out of the shadows by giving them a path to legal residency provided they pay a penalty, are members of their community in good standing, and are willing to work to gain good standing with the American government. While it’s not an ideal situation by any means, the scope of the problem demands that we find practical solutions. Amnesty is not a solution, but the combination of strong border security, reasonable financial penalties and a path to legal residency will allow us to regain our territorial sovereignty.

While I agree with Mr. Cooper on the need for stricter border control, he and I differ on the definition of amnesty. So much of liberalism relies on the redefinition of words, and with respect to illegal immigration, the left is trying to change the meaning of “amnesty.” Congressman Cooper states he is against amnesty, but favors providing illegals with a path to legal residency. Well, that’s amnesty.

And it really bothers him. Senator Lott, who supports the amnesty legislation the U.S. Senate plans to revive, lashed out at conservatives who have made their feelings known to elected representatives en masse, and took his frustration out on talk radio.

Comments by Republican senators on Thursday suggested that they were feeling the heat from conservative critics of the bill, who object to provisions offering legal status. The Republican whip, Trent Lott of Mississippi, who supports the bill, said: “Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.”

At some point, Mr. Lott said, Senate Republican leaders may try to rein in “younger guys who are huffing and puffing against the bill.”

By “talk radio,” one assumes Senator Lott refers to conservative talk radio, which pretty much dominates talk radio on the national level. I only listen to one talk radio program, Rush Limbaugh, so I cannot speak for all of talk radio, but the Maha Rushie has been passionate and consistent in pointing out what the amnesty bill REALLY says compared to what the pro-amnesty politicians say it says. I would assume that Rush Limbaugh has been responsible for a few hundred thousand phone calls being made to the Capitol switchboard, which has made it really hard for pro-amnesty types to run this legislation through without being exposed.

Let’s look at the phrase “Talk radio is running America.” First, what is talk radio? Is talk radio simply Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, etc., pulling the strings of the American electorate in a form of dictatorship? Not at all, although that’s what a lot of non-listeners would like to believe. At least in the case of Limbaugh, it’s a host plus 22,000,000 listeners who tune in voluntarily because we like to be informed, and Rush Limbaugh is a valuable source of news and analysis that one cannot find from the mainstream press. That’s why he has become so popular.

So, when Senator Lott refers to “talk radio,” he might think of Rush Limbaugh being a thorn in the side of arrogant politicians who want to jam through a horrible piece of legislation without being called on the carpet. However, when I hear “talk radio,” I think of 22,000,000 people who are engaged in American politics, and who care deeply about the United States of America. In that sense, talk radio (i.e., the people) SHOULD be running America. After all, ours is a government (at least in theory) of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Unfortunately, politicians such as Trent Lott have been in Washington for so long, far removed from the people who keep electing them, that the concept of a government of, by, and for the people is completely lost on them. They are infuriated that the truth about the amnesty bill has been so widely disseminated, and that the dastardly taxpayers who vote and pay the bills via taxes would dare to challenge the authority of those who, in their own insulated minds, know better than us what’s best for us.

The Maha Rushie gave extensive coverage Friday to the immigration bill being rushed through the U.S. Congress.

Do you know that the Democrats had La Raza and other activist organizations in the negotiations with Republican senators to put this bill together? In other words, they let activist illegal immigration organizations craft the legislation. Can you imagine if Dick Cheney…? Well, he wasn’t in the Senate. Pick a senator. Let’s say Mitch McConnell, putting together a new energy bill, and in there writing it is Big Oil, the CEOs of ExxonMobil and Shell, wherever. Can you imagine? That’s exactly what happened here. So Kennedy knows what’s up here. The ethnic groups that had veto power, if they didn’t like something that they heard, they had the right to veto it, in the negotiations between House and Republican senators. In addition, they plan to allow 400,000 new aliens to come to this country every year who will be on a fast track to legalization. We are not just talking here about legalizing the 12 million or 15 million or whatever the number is. We’re going to now add 400,000 more per year on a fast track, in addition to that number — and each one of them, the 12 million, 15 million who are here, the 400,000 who come each year legally can bring certain members of the family with them, on average at least four.

It’s predictable that Democrats and moderate Republicans would claim to be doing the will of the American people by pushing their amnesty bill through Congress, but it telling that, as The Washington Times points out, “The president’s ratings have tumbled each time immigration reform dominates the news.”

Mr. Rasmussen said that his polling last year, after Mr. Bush gave an Oval Office address laying out his plans for more border enforcement and giving illegal aliens a path to citizenship, found only 39 percent supported the president’s position.

So, I decided to call my two senators and congressman this morning to voice my disapproval of the immigration bill. I don’t do this often, but this bill is so important that our elected representatives deserve to hear from their constituents. Senator Corker’s office told me that he has such great reservations about this bill that he is considering voting against even allowing it to proceed. Perhaps the GOP can muster 41 votes to block this thing in the Senate.

Related links:
Terry Frank
Michelle Malkin
Redstate

The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets are declaring a state of civil war in Iraq. What do they know that the rest of us don’t?

Meanwhile, World Net Daily has put together a thorough report on the proliferation of terror-threat illegals in the United States, noting that “This news hits following WND’s report yesterday that 12 Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens, according to statistics released by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. If those numbers are correct, it translates to 4,380 Americans murdered annually by illegal aliens. That’s 21,900 since Sept. 11, 2001.”

That number far exceeds the number of U.S. servicemen who are killed fighting a war on terrorists in Iraq. So if we can declare a state of civil war in Iraq, then what do call the violence that is being perpetrated against American civilians right here in the U.S.?

State Representative Susan Lynn has been kind enough to send me some information regarding the driver’s certificates the Tennessee General Assembly extended to illegal immigrants two years ago, given that it has become an issue here in Wilson County. She writes:

The legislation took driver’s licenses away from illegal aliens and created a driving certificate. The alternative, voting no, would have allowed illegal aliens to keep their driver’s license. I think I can speak for all of my Republican colleagues accurately when I state that none of us wanted a driving certificate. However, this was our one and only chance in three years to take driver’s licenses away from illegal aliens. We’d tried to do it before but our bills had all been killed – now the Governor thought it was a good idea…with a twist.

Here is the full slate of information:

Attachment 1. Chronology of HB2903/SB3123 (2006), by Donna Rowland and Bill Ketron, that would have abolished the driver’s certificates altogether. The bill was passed in the Senate, but deferred in the House until 2007, which, according to Representative Lynn, is a nice way of killing the bill.

Attachment 2. A roll call vote of the 2004 bill (HB3486/SB3430) that replaced driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants with certificates.

Attachment 3. Summary of HB3486/SB3430 from 2004.

Attachment 4. Links and explanations to the Senate and House Journals with respect to HB3486/SB3430 from 2004.

(By the way, motions on amendments can be difficult to understand. For instance, a vote in support of passage of an amendment is a vote of AYE. However, if an attempt is made to table the amendment — or rather to kill it — a vote of support for the amendment will be a NO vote. That is because you are voting NOT to kill the amendment but to keep it alive so that a vote for passage of the amendment can be taken.)

Attachment 5. Letter of explanation from Representative Lynn. This is infuriating (the Democrats, I mean), and really gives Republicans something to run on this fall.

Thank you, Susan Lynn, for clearing this matter up.

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From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

The city’s Commission on Human Relations yesterday filed a discrimination complaint against Geno’s Steaks over signs that read: “This is AMERICA … WHEN ORDERING SPEAK ENGLISH.”

Owner Joey Vento has become a mini-celebrity over the issue and has steadfastly refused to pull down the signs despite the growing legal brouhaha. His son, Geno, said his father would not comment on the matter to The Inquirer.

Reached at his home yesterday evening, the Rev. James S. Allen Sr., commission chairman, said it was incumbent on the commission to get the sign removed.

“We think it is discriminatory, and we are concerned about the image of Philadelphia,” he said.

This leads to the quote of the day: “It’s not mean and nasty to insist that immigrants in this country should learn our language. Without doing so, they’re never going to realize their full potential in this country. It’s just axiomatic.” — Rush Limbaugh

There’s going to be a Spanish Star Spangled Banner, and not merely a translation of the English version, but one with a political message, of course.

A remix to be released in June will contain several lines in English that condemn U.S. immigration laws. Among them: “These kids have no parents, cause all of these mean laws … let’s not start a war with all these hard workers, they can’t help where they were born.”

The following Tennessean headline had my liberal bias detector whizzing: “Crackdown on illegal workers hits state plants.” I thought, “Aha! I’ll bet the Tennessean is trying to stir up sympathy for those illegals.” Sure enough, it only took five paragraphs for my assumption to be validated.

Dozens of Nashville area employees were among more than 1,100 undocumented workers arrested this week in what was described as the opening salvo of a U.S. crackdown on employers who hire illegal immigrants.

The raids at more than 40 locations of IFCO Systems North American Inc., in 26 states also netted nine current and former managers of the company, which manufactures wooden crates and pallets.

Nearly 100 undocumented workers were arrested through the ICE’s local offices, including 34 in Nashville.

One of those arrested locally was Santos Rosales Gomez, his fiancee said yesterday. Gomez, 35, was working at IFCO’s Foster Street facility on Wednesday when agents raided the business, said Nicole Maxey of Madison.

“It was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ I was crying. We just bought a house,” she said.

…

Maxey insists that Gomez is in the country legally.

“He has a residential card,” she said. “I wish somebody would help me and listen. He’s not a bad person. He works. He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t smoke. He’s never been arrested. I mean, he’s a hard-working person.”

Okay, maybe he is here legally and law enforcement made a mistake in his case. Maybe it didn’t. At any rate, nobody I know is saying the illegal aliens are bad people, and nobody I know is disclaiming their work ethic. But remember my analogy from a few days ago:

A person breaks into your home. You discover him in your back yard mowing the lawn, trimming the shrubs, and tidying up. He is working very hard. But he is still there illegally. He takes down your American flag and replaces it with a Mexican flag. He demands that you pay him benefits. He demands that you learn Spanish so you can adapt to him. When you call the police to have him removed, he calls you a racist. He then organizes a protest in your front yard to vocalize his demands, saying he is only there to make a better life for himself. Some Democrats show up and sympathize with him. They say they cannot criminalize him for breaking into your home illegally. Your property line, after all, is just some arbitrary border, and you, too, are there illegally, because the Indians owned that parcel of land way back when. Your property, therefore, belongs to anyone who wants to come there to work hard and make a better life for himself. You, therefore, are the bad guy.

No, Tennessean, I don’t feel sorry for those illegal aliens who were arrested, nor do I feel sorry for the companies that employed them. Nice try, though.

Those Democrats don’t miss a trick.

The Rocky Mountain Blogger put me onto a research paper by Aaron Krowne who has an economic solution to illegal immigration. Here’s an excerpt:

Sometimes it’s eerie how spot-on the founding fathers of the United States were. Though they made direct taxes explicitly illegal, later governments couldn’t figure out why (and couldn’t help themselves), so they simply erased that pesky little clause of the Constitution. As argued above, the income tax is basically a huge bulls-eye painted on the United States that says “exploit me.” It sets up a scenario whereby those who wish to opt out of the citizenship system, and indeed, the core of our social fabric, are actually rewarded.

We will not successfully prevent illegal immigration by “watching our borders more closely.” The cost of doing such a thing perfectly will be astronomical, and even then, still susceptible to false positives that would be a civil liberties nightmare. The cheap, easy, elegant, and humane solution to illegal immigration is simply to do away with the income tax system. If you do this, the 20-30% wage advantage of illegals vanishes instantly.

By the way, the Rocky Mountain Blogger makes a point of his own regarding illegal immigration.

The Arizona-Mexico line is considered the most vulnerable of the 2,000-mile southern border. Of the 1.1 million apprehensions made by the Border Patrol last year, 51% occurred in Arizona. That’s a lot of apprehensions, but immigration sources estimate that for every one capture, five illegals slip through undetected.

Said Mr. Fox of the Minutemen, “We totally reject the idea of these migrant-hunting groups. We will use the law, international law and even U.S. law to make sure that these types of groups, which are a minority…will not have any opportunity to progress.” Boy, that’ll sure scare ‘em.

Co-organizer Chris Simcox shot back “Vicente Fox can rant and rave all he wants, but he obviously doesn’t understand what a democracy means. We have been working within the law.”

Like the Mexican president, the Arizona chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is a little uneasy. They want to head to the border to monitor not illegal crossings, but the Minutemen who want to stop them. “We will be there to make sure they’re not abusing anybody’s rights,” said the ACLU’s Ray Ybarra.

Far from abusing the rights of illegal aliens, Minutemen spokesman Mike McGarry described their role as “You observe them, report them and get out of the way.” Minutemen gather in groups of three or four spaced out about every quarter mile. Some sit in lawn chairs, while others stand scanning the desert with binoculars. Before the project began, law enforcement agencies were concerned that the Minutemen Project would lead to vigilantism, but the Minutemen are working in close coordination with the Border Control.

One news account from April 1, before the project officially got started, reported that an illegal alien had wandered inadvertently into a group of Minutemen. Fred Elbel, another Minuteman spokesman, claimed that “…it turned out to be his lucky day. He was tired and dehydrated and we gave him medical attention, food and drink before handing him over to the Border Patrol.”

Even in the early days of the project, the Minutemen were producing results, not only leading to more captures, but causing the Mexicans to begin patrolling their own side of the border.

Enrique Enriques Palafox, a Grupo Beta commander in Agua Prieta, said of prospective border jumpers “We are very crude with them; we tell them they may be shot, that there’s rancheros out to stop them and hurt them.” The point is to terrify the migrants from the area so they won’t cross illegally and encounter Minutemen volunteers.

Crude treatment, however, hasn’t raised the hackles of the ACLU in their effort to protect what they see as the constitutional right of Mexicans to cross into the United States illegally. (Come to think of it, about the only way the ACLU would get worked up would be if the Mexican guards started passing out Bibles.)

Still, the U.S. government, including the Bush Administration and Congress, have given every appearance that they couldn’t care less about the flood of illegal aliens pouring into the United States. Even President Bush has referred to the Minutemen as “vigilantes.” This is especially ironic given the threat still posed to Americans by terrorists, and that honest citizens are concerned enough that they would donate their own time and resources to do what the U.S. government was supposed to be doing all along — provide adequate patrol of our borders.

Granted, the Minutemen Project, numbering several hundred volunteers, won’t produce a sizeable decrease in the number of illegal aliens pouring into the United States. But the activities of this grassroots organization have already served to get the attention of Washington, D.C. by identifying what has turned out to be the elephant in the living room: the porosity of our national borders and our government’s indifference to it.