I'm a specialist doctor in respiratory diseases and intensive care at the Mexican National Institute of Health. There is a severe emergency over the swine flu here. More and more patients are being admitted to the intensive care unit. Despite the heroic efforts of all staff (doctors, nurses, specialists, etc) patients continue to inevitably die. The truth is that anti-viral treatments and vaccines are not expected to have any effect, even at high doses. It is a great fear among the staff. The infection risk is very high among the doctors and health staff.
    There is a sense of chaos in the other hospitals and we do not know what to do. Staff are starting to leave and many are opting to retire or apply for holidays. The truth is that mortality is even higher than what is being reported by the authorities, at least in the hospital where I work it. It is killing three to four patients daily, and it has been going on for more than three weeks. It is a shame and there is great fear here. Increasingly younger patients aged 20 to 30 years are dying before our helpless eyes and there is great sadness among health professionals here.
Antonio Chavez, Mexico City

I work as a resident doctor in one of the biggest hospitals in Mexico City and sadly, the situation is far from "under control". As a doctor, I realise that the media does not report the truth. Authorities distributed vaccines among all the medical personnel with no results, because two of my partners who worked in this hospital (interns) were killed by this new virus in less than six days even though they were vaccinated as all of us were. The official number of deaths is 20, nevertheless, the true number of victims are more than 200. I understand that we must avoid to panic, but telling the truth it might be better now to prevent and avoid more deaths.
Yeny Gregorio Dávila, Mexico City

•   •   •  

$26 million marijuana operation busted near New Cuyama   [4/25/09]
Last fall, I wrote Mexican Gangsters Converting America's National Parks Into Gigantic Marijuana Patches to warn about the dangerous situation developing in some public lands . Washington has refused to go after foreign narco-thugs pro-actively, meaning before a season's crop has poisoned large areas of supposedly pristine land, rather than during harvest.
    Even though the growers try to stay out of the popular areas, a deadly confrontation may be inevitable if campers wander into a little piece Mexico.
    A recent confrontation in Los Padres National Forest was a close call for two California campers.

The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department says they have arrested two men in connection with a marijuana operation worth $26 million.
    The sheriff's department says Javier Barragan and Jose Lopez were arrested after two campers ran across a marijuana garden they were cultivating in the Los Padres National Forest near New Cuyama. The arrests came after the two suspects allegedly chased the campers down the mountain in their truck.
    Following is a press release from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department.

PRESS RELEASE from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department
    New Cuyama - On Friday, 04-17-09, at approximately 11:30 a.m., two adults, who had been camping in the Aliso Park area west of New Cuyama, came across an active marijuana garden. While in the area, the campers were approached by two Hispanic male adult subjects who were tending to the marijuana garden.
    The subjects attempted to converse with the campers, however due to a language barrier, they were unsuccessful. The subjects requested that the campers remain in the area, until the arrival of the "boss" who spoke English. The campers became fearful and packed up their gear and left the area. While the campers were driving down the dirt road, they were approached by a pick up truck traveling the opposite direction. As they passed the truck, they noticed the occupants seemed very interested in them. The truck stopped and the driver exited and waived for the campers to come back. They ignored his request and kept driving, believing he was the "boss" that the two subjects had referred to earlier. The driver returned to his truck and began chasing the campers down the mountain. During the chase, the truck came dangerously close to the campers' vehicle several times.
    Once the campers reached the paved road, they were able to distance themselves from the truck and contact law enforcement. A Santa Barbara County Deputy Sheriff obtained the information from the campers and quickly disseminated it to local agencies. A short time later, a Taft Police Officer spotted a truck, matching the description provided by the campers. A traffic stop was conducted and as a result Javier Barragan (DOB 1/31/69) and Jose Lopez (DOB 5/3/71) were contacted. Both subjects were positively identified by the campers, as the persons who chased them down the mountains. The two were taken into custody and a search of the vehicle was conducted. During the search, five high powered rifles, equipped with rifle scopes and numerous rounds of ammunition were found.

•   •   •  

U.S. plans to accept several Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo   [4/25/09]
According to the LA Times, "resettlement" of the Gitmo Uighurs is a done deal. They were picked up in Pakistan and admitted to being trained as jihadis.
    Of course, this is the predictable consequence of Bush caving in to calls to close Guantanamo with no idea of what to do with the dangerous inmates.

Reporting from Washington -- The Obama administration is preparing to admit into the United States as many as seven Chinese Muslims who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in the first release of any of the detainees into this country, according to current and former U.S. officials.
    Their release is seen as a crucial step to plans, announced by President Obama during his first week in office, to close the prison and relocate the detainees. Administration officials also believe that settling some of them in American communities will set an example, helping to persuade other nations to accept Guantanamo detainees too.

Will the Obama adminstration create a new terrorist visa category? Are there any letters left? "T" is already taken, as in the T-Visa.

•   •   •  

Heirs to Fortuyn?   [4/24/09]
Dutch politician and friend of western civilization Pim Fortuyn was assassinated in 2002 by leftist Volkert van der Graaf who admitted he had killed "to protect Muslims." Fortuyn had displeased many in the hidebound Dutch poltical establishment for his honest discussion of how Muslim immigration presented a threat to values of liberty, gender equity and public safety.
    As a high-style gay man (with a chauffeured Daimler and a pair of King Charles spaniels), he nevertheless left the liberal box of being a Marxist professor and spoke the truth as he saw it. Still the press and political elites tried to characterize him as a jack-booted right winger. They convinced Van der Graaf well enough to kill.
    Author Bruce Bawer reflects on the Fortuyn murder as the beginning of a realization of what Muslim immigration has brought to the home of western civilization. And unlike the United States, Europe has been becoming more conservative, albeit at a terrible cost in terms of how much of European culture has been lost because of the failed ideology of multiculturalism.

Yet instead of encouraging these immigrants to integrate and become part of their new societies, Western Europe's governments have allowed them to form self-segregating parallel societies run more or less according to Shariah. Many of the residents of these patriarchal enclaves subsist on government benefits, speak the language of their adopted country poorly or not at all, despise pluralistic democracy, look forward to Europe's incorporation into the House of Islam, and support—at least in spirit—terrorism against the West. A 2006 Sunday Telegraph poll, for example, showed that 40% of British Muslims wanted Shariah in Britain, 14% approved of attacks on Danish embassies in retribution for the famous Mohammed cartoons, 13% supported violence against those who insulted Islam, and 20% sympathized with the July 2005 London bombers.
    Too often, such attitudes find their way into practice. Ubiquitous youth gangs, contemptuous of infidels, have made European cities increasingly dangerous for non-Muslims—especially women, Jews and gays. In 2001, 65% of rapes in Norway were committed by what the country's police call "non-Western" men—a category consisting overwhelmingly of Muslims, who make up just 2% of that country's population. In 2005, 82% of crimes in Copenhagen were committed by members of immigrant groups, the majority of them Muslims. [...]
    The past few decades in Europe have made three things crystal-clear. First, social-democratic welfare systems work best, to the extent they do work, in ethnically and culturally homogeneous (and preferably small) nations whose citizens, viewing one another as members of an extended family, are loath to exploit government provisions for the needy. Second, the best way to destroy such welfare systems is to take in large numbers of immigrants from poor, oppressive and corruption-ridden societies, whose rule of the road is to grab everything you can get your hands on. And third, the system will be wiped out even faster if many of those immigrants are fundamentalist Muslims who view bankrupting the West as a contribution to jihad. Add to all this the growing power of an unelected European Union bureaucracy that has encouraged Muslim immigration and taken steps to punish criticism of it—criminalizing "incitement of racism, xenophobia or hatred against a racial, ethnic or religious group" in 2007, for example—and you can start to understand why Western Europeans who prize their freedoms are resisting the so-called leadership of their see-no-evil elites.

Bruce Bawer's new book "Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom" is scheduled for publication in May.

•   •   •  

Sensenbrenner Statement Responding to DHS Secretary Napolitano's Comments about Repealing REAL ID   [4/23/09]
Obama's new DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has been a regular gaffapalooza, spewing idiocies on a near daily basis, like saying that the 911 hijackers entered through Canada, which didn't please Canadians. That followed her suggestion that veterans and other traditional Americans were likely fodder for right wing extremism. She does not believe that crossing the border illegally is a crime, which it most certainly is, according to Section 8, Title 1325 of he U.S. Code.
    She is also full of terrible policy ideas, like dismantling REAL ID, a reform idea that was designed to keep the nation safe from foreign terrorists. Rep Jim Sensenbrenner released a statement reflecting his concern.

"I am angered to hear Secretary Napolitano's comments today about repealing the REAL ID Act.  REAL ID is a necessary program for keeping America safe, it is the will of Congress and also a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.
    "Four years ago, I shepherded this bill through Congress to protect our nation from another 9/11 type attack.  The bill enhances our border security while disrupting terrorist travel.  Additionally, REAL ID makes it more difficult for terrorists and criminals to alter their identity by counterfeiting documents, such as a birth certificate, or using a false social security number to legally obtain a valid ID.  Without being able to change their identity, terrorists are easier to detect and their plans easier for law enforcement to thwart – making everyone safer. 
    "The REAL ID Act was recommended by the 9/11 Commission as a necessary component to keeping America safe.  As the Commission said in its report, 'fraud in identification documents is no longer just a problem of theft.'  We learned in 2001, that the 9/11 plane hijackers each had multiple forms of ID from various states.  In the hands of a terrorist, a U.S. driver's license, or other form of valid ID, proves just as dangerous as a bomb.
    "We absolutely cannot just hand out state drivers' licenses to anyone, whether they are here legally or illegally.  Mandating proof of legally living in the U.S. for anyone seeking to obtain a driver's license is a critical and necessary step to preserving the safety of our citizens and protecting our country from terrorists looking to exploit our system.... 

Bottom line, we cannot have national security without unassailable identification.

Secretary Napolitano remarked that she wanted to "repeal REAL ID" at a recent meeting of the Anti-Defamation League in answer to a question from the audience [Remarks by Secretary Napolitano at the Anti-Defamation League National Leadership Conference].
    But she revealed her animus toward secure identification at the time of her nomination, noted in a New York Times article (Dec 1, 2008), Nominee Would Lead ID Program She Opposed.

As governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for homeland security secretary, pledged that her state would not cooperate with a major domestic security initiative, the Real ID drivers' license program.
    The program, which she would direct if confirmed as secretary, imposes stringent requirements on states for confirming the identity and legal residency of people who want drivers' licenses. Ms. Napolitano said the law would impose huge costs on the states without reimbursement from Washington.
    In June, she signed into law a bill that forbids Arizona from cooperating with the federal requirements. The state law had no immediate effect, because Arizona already had a federal waiver allowing it to delay enactment until 2009.

The Rasmussen Poll found that her antics have gotten negative attention: 45% View Homeland Security’s Napolitano Unfavorably.

Forty-five percent (45%) of U.S. voters now have an unfavorable opinion of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano following her department's release of a controversial report on right-wing extremist groups last week. Twenty-three percent (23%) say their view of her is Very Unfavorable.
    Thirty percent (30%) have a favorable view of the former Arizona governor, with eight percent (8%) Very Favorable, in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
    However, one-out-of-four voters (25%) do not know enough about Napolitano to have an opinion about her one way or the other.

•   •   •  

Somali 'pirate' appears in court   [4/22/09]
The Somali pirate landed the other day and blubbered his way through a preliminary hearing.
    And it didn't take long for Pirate Mom to pipe up.

She told the BBC's Somali service: "I am requesting the American government, I am requesting President Obama to release my child. He has got nothing to do with the pirates' crime.
    "He is a minor. He is under-age and he has been used for this crime. I also request from the US, if they choose to put him on trial, I want them to invite me there."

Obama apparently wants to have a warm and cuddly trial to show the world the superiority of the liberal way of law enforcement compared to the meanie Bush waterboarding and such.
    So Pirate Mom will arrive to hold Junior's hand and will never leave, just like Aunt Z.

•   •   •  

51% View Tea Parties Favorably, Political Class Strongly Disagrees   [4/21/09]
When the dinosaur media didn't ignore the April 15 tea parties it was trashing them, but even so, just over half of citizens thought they were a good thing.

Fifty-one percent (51%) of Americans have a favorable view of the 'tea parties" held nationwide last week, including 32% who say their view of the events is Very favorable.
    Thirty-three percent (33%) hold an unfavorable opinion of the tea parties according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure.
    While half the nation has a favorable opinion of last Wednesday’s events, the nation’s Political Class has a much dimmer view—just 13% of the political elite offered even a somewhat favorable assessment while 81% said the opposite. Among the Political Class, not a single survey respondent said they had a Very Favorable opinion of the events while 60% shared a Very Unfavorable assessment.

I attended the Sacramento Tea Party, and took a few pictues, including the one below of my friend and colleague Rick Oltman of CAPS holding the sign we made.

In addition, I thought the following YouTube was a good representation of what went on there.

•   •   •  

Peter King remarks about mosques draw Muslim ire   [4/21/09]
Other than Tom Tancredo, there are few elected officials who don't pussy-foot around Muslims -- in particular the hostility of some to American values. Rep Peter King of New York has been forthright about the dangers of hostile Muslims residing in our midst.

Muslim leaders Saturday attacked as "bigoted" comments made by Rep. Peter King involving mosques and terrorism, although King shot back that he believes there is a "real problem" involving some mosques on Long Island.
    In response to a recent Department of Homeland Security report about right-wing extremism, King told MSNBC Friday the department "has never put out a report talking about look out for mosques. Look out for Islamic terrorists in our country. Look out for the fact that very few Muslims come forward to cooperate with the police. If they sent out a report saying that, there would be hell to pay."

Here is the quote in question.

Some Muslims have been up in arms about the FBI surveilling mosques, even though it is common knowledge that mosques are a major jihad recruiting ground from here to Europe. If the FBI wasn't watching mosques, it would show them to be deluded fools. CAIR (the Council on American Islamic Relations, an unindicted co-conspirator as named in the Holy Land trial around Hamas funding) apparently hoped that its "diversity training" would brainwash FBI agents.

King said Saturday, "I stand by everything I said. I consider any attack by CAIR to be a badge of honor."

Absolutely right.
    Furthermore, why should any non-Jihadist, non-caliphate Muslims residing in America object to the FBI keeping an eye out for the bad guys in the Islam tribe? But they do, which should be a cause for alarm.
    The Muslims have the America-hating ACLU lawyering up their side and have won a round: FBI ordered to turn over surveillance of Muslims.

•   •   •  

Obama Orders Cabinet to Cut $100 Million From Budgets   [4/20/09]
This miniscule amount would be hilarious if the guy weren't driving the country off a cliff.

President Obama convened his Cabinet for the first time today and instructed department heads to trim their budgets by a combined $100 million over the next 90 days.

Meanwhile in Sacramento, the Governator declared that $6 billion in illegal alien costs was too insignificant to consider: Schwarzenegger: Immigrants not cause of budget woe.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday that health care and other services for illegal immigrants cost California taxpayers as much as $6 billion a year, but that's not the reason for the state's financial mess.
    While acknowledging the huge burden that comes with millions of illegal residents, the governor said the source of a $42 billion budget hole is a broken system in Sacramento. He urged voters to support six ballot proposals in next month's special election that he says will repair it.

A more realistic estimate of the cost is $13 billion.

•   •   •  

High Tech Worker Debate   [4/20/09]
Rick Oltman appeared on Fox & Friends this morning to discuss whether more H-1b visa foreign workers should be permitted in this terrible economy. Too brief, but the point was made that if there were a tech employee shortage, salaries would be going up, and they are not.

•   •   •  

And still, Mexicans come   [4/20/09]
Yep, they keep coming all right because no matter how bad the economy is here, the situation in Mexico is worse. It can't help border security for Obama to continue yammering about an amnesty in the pipeline for the near future.
    Furthermore, most invasive Mexicans care only about getting an American job and making lots of dollars, and a piece of paper putting them on the "path to citizenship" is not very important. Even without a formal amnesty, the new administration sent a strong message of non-enforcement recently when it decided to end job site enforcement. The DHS went so far as to completely reverse a workplace raid: Homeland Security Frees 27 Illegal Immigrants, Sends Them Back to Work. Below is the news report on that outrageous rollback of law enforcement.

So despite the cratering economy, the government is sending no message of immigration enforcement -- quite the opposite, in fact. Why would Mexicans think they shouldn't enter illegally and steal a job?
    Anyway, back to the border.

"If the economy is bad in the United States, it's worse in Mexico," said Cuba, who was in Nogales last week after being caught by the Border Patrol on his first try. "The economy in the U.S. is always better."
    A host of indicators show that the flow of illegal immigration across the Southwest border has slowed to decade-low levels, but there are still thousands trying to cross each day, especially in Arizona.
    Not even the worst U.S. recession in a quarter century has brought the flow of illegal immigrants to a halt. The pull of jobs in the United States may have weakened, but the push from Latin America remains fairly strong.
    "In Mexico, they are always in crisis," said Faustino Gonzalez, who provides assistance at the Aid Center for Deported Migrants in Nogales, which provides food and medical services to illegal immigrants. "The Mexican never loses hope that crossing over to live in the United States will work out."
    Whether it's deported illegal immigrants trying to get back to their families in the U.S. or people leaving countries with economies even worse than ours, there are still enough people to keep coyotes, or guides, in business.
    U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions along the Southwest border and in the Tucson Sector have dropped by 37 percent in the last two years, but agents in the 262-mile Tucson Sector still made more than 1,000 apprehensions a day in March.

Another reason why Mexicans continue to come is that the border remains unpatrolled. At least that's what ranchers who live in Cochise County said at a recent meeting with federal representatives. Ranchers: Put agents on border

"The border is unpatrolled," said veterinarian Dr. Gary Thrasher.
    When it comes to the much-touted border fence, he said, "I see more welders repairing the border fence than I see Border Patrol agents patrolling."
    Rancher Derek Garland echoed that message.
    "My house is situated closer to the border than the agents are," he said.

•   •   •  

Norway: "Norwegian culture threatened by Muslims"   [4/19/09]
In Norway, a few brave souls are speaking out against Islamic immigration, which has inserted a culture hostile to western values of individual liberty, constitutional law and gender equality. Environmentalist Steinar Lem is warning against the influx of Muslims to his country to protect Norwegian society.

"Oslo will soon have a majority of non-Western background, at a steady rate the same could happen all over the country during this century.  Most non-Westerners will have a Muslim background. The consequences will be dramatic."
    This is Steinar Lem (57), the famous environmentalist and author who writes this on the Human Right Services site.
    In the past Lem criticized Norwegian immigration policies on Aftenposten, now he goes further.
    The environmentalist compares Norwegian culture with the Tibetan and thinks that over time it will be threatened by immigration.
    "The Norwegian culture is just as worthy of preservation as the Tibetan culture," writes Lem and says that therefore non-Western immigration should be strictly restricted.  Lem thinks Norwegian culture should be setting the tone in Norway.
    "Norwegian culture is threatened.  In the next 50 years we will see great changes related to that we steadily have a larger non-Western population.  Our values will be placed under much pressure," says Lem to Dagbladet.no. [...]
    "In the 80s good people wrote in the paper that immigration was so little that it won't majorly affect Norwegian lifestyle and character.  So there was a bit of silence until the same good people wrote in the 90s triumphantly that Norway was already a multicultural society where Norwegian culture couldn't demand any special position.  Norwegian has no special position in Norway?  Many of the same people are concerned that China will erase Tibetan culture and that Indian tribes in South America will be victims of timber production and will be forced to move to the nearest big city."
    "I use Tibet as an example because everybody agrees that it's a great and intelligent culture who require protection.  There must be legislation to see Norway the same way.  It's completely legitimate to wish for a multicultural Norway and a social experiment, but it's must also be completely legitimate to think the opposite," says Lem.

In other Norway culture news, there's this: Immigrants behind most cases of aggravated sexual assault.

The Oslo Police have over the past three years investigated 41 cases of aggravated sexual assault, which resulted in rape. All of them were carried out by non-western immigrants to Norway.
    The police now urge that more efforts be put into preventive measures among men with immigrant background.
    The police have investigated all reported cases of aggravated sexual assault over the past three years, and have gained a clear imprssion of the offenders:
    Most of the rapists have a Kurdish or African background, NRK reports. The cases of aggravated sexual assults all have one thing in common, namely the use of gross violence. 

For another example of how not all diversity is equal, see Muslim Rape Wave in Sweden.

Also this video from Norway (mostly in English).

•   •   •  

Jobless Rate Climbs in 46 States, With California at 11.2%   [4/19/09]
America has unemployment numbers worsening every month, with no bottom in sight.

California and North Carolina in March posted their highest jobless rates in at least three decades, as unemployment increased in all but a handful of states during the month, the Labor Department said Friday.
    California's unemployment rate jumped to 11.2% in March, while North Carolina rose to 10.8%, the highest for both since the U.S. government began a comprehensive tally of state joblessness in 1976.
    The state-by-state employment figures showed only a few states avoiding the deterioration seen nationwide. Unemployment rose in 46 states during the month, and 12 states plus the District of Columbia posted unemployment rates in March that were significantly higher than the 8.5% nationwide figure the government released earlier this month.

The employment situation is dire, yet the President and other Democrats are making determined noises about an amnesty: Obama to Push Immigration Reform Bill ...

President Obama is gearing up for yet another legislative battle, this time over the contentious issue of immigration, according to a New York Times report that says one of the goals will be to a create a path for illegal immigrants to become legal.
    The push for immigration reform would echo one of Obama's campaign pledges, though its success is uncertain in a tough economic climate. Administration officials told the Times that Obama plans to speak publicly about the issue in May and will press lawmakers from both parties to begin discussing legislation by the fall.  
    But the White House downplayed the report, with a spokesman telling FOX News the president consistently said the debate over immigration reform would start this year. The spokesman said nobody is claiming the problem will be fixed this year. 

It's popular among some pundits to say that BHO is just going through the motions for his Mexican constituents, or to keep the welcome mat looking fluffed up to entice more cheap workers.
    Maybe. Or perhaps Washington has become so arrogant that it doesn't feel it has to pretend to represent the people any more.
    Other nations still act on behalf of their own citizens. Israel plans to deport 100,000 illegal workers this year. Britain announced last fall that its immigration numbers would be reduced because of unemployment. In March, Australia said it would decrease immigrants by around 14 percent: Immigration Minister Chris Evans noted, "We don't want people coming in who are going to compete with Australians for limited jobs."
    Can you imagine anyone in the Obama administration making a declaration like that?
    Washington can't be bothered with concern for the taxpaying citizens. The government denizens are so busy acting like the Masters of the Universe that they has forgotten what their job is.

•   •   •  

Hundreds Protest Cuts in Water in California   [4/18/09]
In California, hispanic field workers took to the roads recently to complain about cutbacks in water allotment, which causes diminished employment among their ranks. (Even the leftist Public Policy Institute of California admits that "a majority of farm workers in California are illegal immigrants.")

Hundreds of farmers, farm workers and local elected officials walked along dusty roads in the Central Valley on Thursday, part of a four-day march to protest federal cutbacks in water supplies.
    "No Water, No Jobs, No Food," read one sign held above the crowd, expressing the frustration of many in a region battered by a three-year drought, the national recession and surging unemployment.
    "This is ground zero," said Mario Santoyo, an adviser to the California Latino Water Coalition, which organized the 30-mile hike. "There’s a human tragedy going on here, and we need water."
    The march, the largest of several held this year, will end Friday at the San Luis Reservoir, one of many in the area that are well below normal levels.
    With below-normal precipitation, many in the Central Valley have let their fields go fallow this spring. In March, the state projected that because of the drought as many as 23,700 full-time workers would go without jobs, and farmers would lose up to $477 million in revenue.

Department of Interior Secretary Salazar took a swing through the state on Wednesday on a money disbursement tour, offering $260 million for water infrastructure improvement. In addition, he noted, "Our hope is that some of this money can help farm workers."
    Here's more on the hispanic gimme brigade... Latino Water Coalition March from Mendota to Firebaugh, CA, April 14 2009

In other water news, the salmon season was a bust for the second year in a row (4/9/09): U.S. to ban commercial salmon season. As a result of last year's ban, 2,200 fishermen and fishing industry workers lost their jobs, but they get almost no attention from the media.

A study last month by federal, state and academic scientists blamed the collapse of the fishery on poor conditions in both the ocean and river.
    Destruction of river habitat, water diversions and dams in the Central Valley so weakened the fall run that it couldn't withstand two recent years of scanty food supply in the warming Pacific Ocean, according to the study commissioned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

There's not enough water for all the users signed up: farmers, fishermen, environmentalists and California residents, and the fishermen are at the end of the line.

•   •   •  

Mexicans total 32% of immigrants   [4/17/09]
More bad news. The world's worst possible immigrants (other than Muslims of course) are coming here in record numbers and infecting America with their toxic culture of crime, sexism, bribery, educational apathy, animal cruelty and general corruption.

President Obama arrived in Mexico for a visit Thursday but he could have stayed home if he was looking for a Mexican audience.
    A record 12.7 million Mexican immigrants lived in the U.S. in 2008, a 17-fold increase since 1970, according to a study released Thursday by the Pew Hispanic Center.
    "About 11 percent of everyone born in Mexico is currently living in the U.S.," the study said.
    Mexicans now account for 32 percent of all immigrants living in this country - which continues to be a haven for the world's tired, huddled masses.
    "No other country in the world has as many total immigrants from all countries as the United States has immigrants from Mexico alone. Other than the United States, the country that hosts the largest number of immigrants is Russia, with 12 million foreign born," the study said.
    The majority of Mexican citizens in the U.S. - 55 percent - are here illegally. And Mexicans comprise a majority (59 percent) of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now within our borders.

Let's review a few relevant points about the values of the newbies.
    Mexican men are so crudely sexist that the capital city has had to provide women-only buses so there would be a grope-free transport venue.
    At least one indigenous tribe, the Triqui from the Oaxaca region, practices the bride price form of arranged marriage, as we learned in the case earlier this year of the illegal alien father residing in Greenfield, California, who sold his 14-year-old daughter to a neighbor for beer and cash. The Triqui tribe also engages in marriage by kidnapping and polygamy with up to seven wives.
    Mexican apathy toward education is apparently deeply rooted. Even decades of exposure to American society have not convinced most that education is the key to success: only 9.6 percent of fourth-generation Mexican-Americans have a post-high-school degree, compared with 45.1 percent of Americans as a whole
    Mexican corruption is accepted as a normal part of life. Kid bribe their teachers to get better grades, and 87 percent of Mexicans have paid some sort of bribe in their lives.
    And of course, the narco-culture has permeated every aspect of society and has taken over broad swaths of the Mexican territory. In Sinaloa for example, 32 towns are run by drug cartels.
    Millions of Mexicans come to the United States for the money only and many don't like us or our values. As a result, they resist the traditional assimilation that Americans still want of "immigrants."
    Yet the elites continue to keep their cheap-labor firehose wide open, despite the disapproval of the American people who want their laws and borders enforced.

•   •   •  

Rasmussen Poll: On Immigration, Large Gap Remains Between Mainstream America and Political Class   [4/16/09]
This split between elites and main street Americans has been long standing. Of course. The rich get richer by hiring exploitable illegal aliens and we taxpayers are stuck with the tab.

Sixty-six percent (66%) of likely voters nationwide say it is Very Important for the government to improve its enforcement of the borders and reduce illegal immigration. However, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 32% of America's Political Class agrees.
    An even more dramatic gap appears on the question of legalizing the status of those immigrants now in the country illegally. Voters nationwide are evenly divided on the question of whether it is even somewhat important: 48% say it’s important, and 45% say it’s not.
    However, among the Political Class, 74% say legalizing the status of these residents is important, and only 17% disagree.

•   •   •  

Schwarzenegger: Immigrants not cause of budget woe   [4/16/09]
No one in the immigration control movement has ever said that that illegals are the only cause of Sacramento's financial meltdown. It's a straw man.
    California has made a string of bad budget decisions, including (but not limited to) insanely profligate pensions for state employees, the highest-paid teachers in the nation and useless boards with huge salaries for washed up pols. An example of the last item was Gov Schwarzenegger's appointment of defeated San Francisco Assembly Member Carole Migden to the Integrated Waste Management Board for a salary of $132,000.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday that health care and other services for illegal immigrants cost California taxpayers as much as $6 billion a year, but that's not the reason for the state's financial mess.
    While acknowledging the huge burden that comes with millions of illegal residents, the governor said the source of a $42 billion budget hole is a broken system in Sacramento. He urged voters to support six ballot proposals in next month's special election that he says will repair it.

The remarks show how unserious the governor is. Even if the cost were only $6 billion annually, why wouldn't he act to cut that substantial amount? When a government has a budget deficit, responsible legislators must reduce all unnecessary or illegal costs.
    The state government has removed exactly zero benefits for illegal aliens, in particular the taxpayer subsidized tuition that cost over $100 million/annually.
    One recent estimate is that California spends $13 billion annually on illegal immigrants, so the amount is not inconsequential, as Schwarzenegger crudely pretends.

For a strong analysis of the governor's remarks, listen to this clip from the John and Ken radio show.

•   •   •  

Mexico slams Burger King for 'whopper' of insult   [4/15/09]
Mexicans are nearly as touchy as Mooslims about their feelings, and take umbrages at the slightest little thing. Remember the Frito Bandito? When was the last time you saw a Speedy Gonzalez cartoon?

Mexico is protesting what it says is a whopper of an insult.
    An advertisement for Burger King's chili-flavored "Texican" burger that has run in Europe shows a small wrestler dressed in a cape resembling a Mexican flag. The wrestler teams up with a lanky American cowboy twice his height to illustrate the cross-border blend of flavors.
    "The taste of Texas with a little spicy Mexican," a narrator's voice says. [...]
    One of the things that most angered Mexican officials was a print edition of the ad showing the wrestler wearing what appear to be a Mexican flag as a cloak.
    "We have to tell these people that in Mexico we have a great deal of respect for our flag," Zermeno said.

The ad also might suggest a gay subtext. Or maybe not...

•   •   •  

A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States   [4/14/09]
There's a new report from Pew Hispanic, done in warm earth tones (brown is beautiful!). Many illegal aliens may be uneducated, but they are smart enough to pop out jackpot babies who can eventually legalize the parents and all the other relatives through the magic of chain migration.

Unauthorized immigrants living in the United States are more geographically dispersed than in the past and are more likely than either U.S. born residents or legal immigrants to live in a household with a spouse and children. In addition, a growing share of the children of unauthorized immigrant parents--73%--were born in this country and are U.S. citizens.
    These are among the key findings of a new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center, which builds on previous work estimating the size and growth of the U.S. unauthorized immigrant population. A 2008 report by the Center estimated that 11.9 million unauthorized immigrants lived in the United States; it concluded that the undocumented immigrant population grew rapidly from 1990 to 2006 but has since stabilized. In this new analysis, the Center estimates that the rapid growth of unauthorized immigrant workers also has halted; it finds that there were 8.3 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. labor force in March 2008.

Furthermore, Washington is allowing poverty to import itself by immigration permissiveness, which has been festering for decades. From AP, Report: Illegal immigrants having more kids in US:

• One-third of the children of illegal immigrants live in poverty, nearly double the rate for children of U.S.-born parents.
• Illegal immigrants' share of low-wage jobs has grown in recent years, from 10 percent of construction jobs in 2003 to 17 percent in 2008. They also make up 25 percent of workers in farming and 19 percent in building maintenance.
• The 2007 median household income of illegal immigrants was $36,000, compared with $50,000 for U.S.-born residents. In contrast to other immigrants, illegal immigrants do not earn markedly higher incomes the longer they live in the United States.
• About 47 percent of illegal immigrant households have children, compared with 21 percent for U.S.-born residents and 35 percent for legal immigrants.
• About three-quarters, or 76 percent, of illegal immigrants in the U.S. are Hispanic. The majority came from Mexico (59 percent), numbering 7 million. Other regions included Asia (11 percent), Central America (11 percent), South America (7 percent), the Caribbean (4 percent) and the Middle East (2 percent).

•   •   •  

Google's 'Immigration Fixer'   [4/14/09]
This New York Times blog item puts a face on the people whose job it is to reject Americans and import non-citizens. At Google headquarters in Mountain View, half of the workers are foreign born, and the company employs a staff to faciltate their entry. It's not cheap, but the company is saving a bundle in the long run.

[Matt Richtel's] article in Sunday's New York Times on immigration and the tech industry left out a central character, Google's immigration fixer. Her name is Christine Doyle and her job is to help Google employees who are seeking visas, or caught in limbo with the U.S. government, or facing other problems.
    She's a key part of the $4.5 million Google spends each year on visa administration. For a variety of reasons, we didn’t include Ms. Doyle in the story. However, some of the hundreds of people who have written e-mails or sent comments about the story asked about Google's infrastructure for dealing with its immigrant workers -– including Sanjay Mavinkurve, the engineer who was the focus of Sunday's story.
    Below is a scene I observed last September at Google’s headquarters that highlights the role of Ms. Doyle and some of her co-workers:
    It is Monday, Sept. 8. For Ms. Doyle, whose title is "immigration specialist," it's a typical day. That means urgent crisis is around the corner -– literally -– but Ms. Doyle just doesn’t know what it is yet.
    Google hired Ms. Doyle in November 2007 to guide employees through Byzantine immigration rules. Her job is an exercise in banal administrative work like processing visa forms, punctuated by crises and the counseling of frustrated workers.
    She and three colleagues specializing in employee location call themselves the “global mobility team.” Outside their office are eight, five-foot-high locked filing cabinets containing files of foreign workers on whose behalf they have worked.
    To attract and retain foreigners, the tech industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually on lobbying, administrative and legal fees, and overseas offices for those who can't get visas. It is working not just for a class of skilled workers, but on behalf of individuals, making companies veritable valet services for skilled engineers.

•   •   •  

Wardens reel in poaching suspects   [4/13/09]
A couple years ago I wrote that immigrants are overrepresented among poachers because many cultures do not value species protection. In contrast, American hunters and fishermen are some of our best conservationists because they want their sports to continue [Diversity Is Strength! It's Also Poaching].
    Russians are known to fancy sturgeon, and fish eggs of the species (aka caviar) can bring a poacher $150-200/jar on the black market particularly among immigrants from eastern Europe. A whole fish can be worth $2000 to $4000. Seven men with Russian names residing near Sacramento were arrested April 10 in Colusa County. (Around 75,000 to 100,000 recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union live in the area.)

Those arrested used juvenile salmon as bait for sturgeon and sold the illegal catches for profit, the state Department of Fish and Game said in a prepared statement. Most of the fish were taken from the Sacramento River in Colusa County, according to the department.

Sturgeon were quite plentiful in northern California a century ago, but now have been fished pretty low. In addition, the poachers caught juvenile salmon in the Sacramento River and used the endangered fish as bait.

The fish were sold illegally in Sacramento County, Laughlin said. "Sturgeon are on the verge of being listed as a protected species by the federal government," Laughlin said. "The commercialization of wildlife could lead to the end of sturgeon in my lifetime, unless people like this are stopped."

Sadly, California has only one game warden for each 198,000 residents, the lowest proportion in the United States, so the bad guys have a big advantage.
    The arrested men's mug shots are below.

Top row, left to right, Andrey Bukaty, Serhiy V. Omelchuck, Sergey Sokalskiy; bottom row, left to right, Yevgeniy Leontyuki, Ivan Banatskyi 

•   •   •  

China's birth limits create dangerous gender gap   [4/12/09]
This demographic trend is dangerous as well as unfortunate for the generation of bachelors. Millions of unattached young men pose a danger for the Beijing government, in terms of civil unrest, even revolution. The global recession has made many of those men unemployed -- not a good recipe for the harmony which Chinese culture reveres.
    If the domestic realm becomes too unsettled, the China government may decide to refocus attention using the spector of a foreign foe -- likely the United States.

China has 32 million more young men than young women — a gender gap that could lead to increasing crime — because parents facing strict birth limits abort female fetuses to have a son, a study released Friday said.
    The imbalance is expected to steadily worsen among people of childbearing age over the next two decades and could trigger a slew of social problems, including a possible spike in crime by young men unable to find female partners, said an author of the report published in the BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal.

•   •   •  

Jesus as a migrant in Mexico City pro-immigration street theater   [4/11/09]
For Mexicans stuck on open-borders, no topic is out of bounds for use in their ceaseless, shameless drumbeat of victimhood. So a vile depiction of Jesus as a "migrant" for political purposes is just another day on the streets of Mexico City during Easter week.
    For the occasion, a gaggle of amnesty-obsessed Mexicans concocted a tacky bit of street theater, based on the Passion of Christ. A Mexican playing Jesus carried a cross and led a throng past the United States Embassy on the way to Calvary.
    Yep, the suffering of Jesus for the sins of the world was deemed a dandy plot device to depict Mexicans as Christ-like sufferers at the hands of cruel Americans. Scourging Roman centurions were transposed into ICE agents.

Organized by pro-immigration activists, the street performance depicted Jesus as a Mexican migrant, and as the actor walked around dragging his cross, others wearing T-shirts emblazoned with ICE (U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and INM (Instituto Nacional de Migracion, Mexico's national migration agency) flogged him from behind shouting, "Walk, wretch, walk!"
    One of the organizers was Elvira Arellano, who shot into the spotlight in both the United States and Mexico in 2006 after she took refuge in a Chicago church to avoid being deported back to Mexico.

Elvira! The convicted felon was finally deported back to Mexico after much drama, but still manages to complain long-distance about her treatment. How can we miss her when she won't go away?

For the Christmas version of Mexes with similarly inflated views of themselves (often comparing their lawbreaking to the struggles of "migrants" Mary and Joseph), see Mexicans' Merry Posadas from last December.

•   •   •  

Officials: Pirates, terrorists not linked directly   [4/11/09]
Say, those Somali pirates are better at budgeting than the current crop of elected officials in both Washington and Sacramento.

It is very much a business. According to the memo, one captured pirate explained how the ransom — on average $1 million to $2 million per boat — is divided among participants. Twenty percent goes to the bosses of the group, 20 percent is capital investment, to include guns, ammunition, fuel, food, cigarettes and other provisions for future missions, 30 percent to the pirates, and 30 percent in bribes to government officials.

They allocate funds for supplies to pursue "future missions"? Planning -- what a concept!

•   •   •  

Poll: Americans support sending troops to the Mexican border   [4/11/09]
Another indication that citizens want their laws and sovereignty enforced and protected...

Congress has appropriated $700 million in aid to Mexico to help that country battle drug violence, and more may be on the way. A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll suggests Americans may strongly support a response that goes beyond money: three in four favor sending U.S. troops to the border to deal with the crisis. [...]
    "Sending U.S. troops to the border with Mexico is a popular suggestion," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Six in ten liberals support that move, along with more than eight in ten conservatives."

•   •   •  

Sabotage attacks knock out phone service   [4/10/09]
San Jose had a case of domestic terrorism, or at least an infrastructure attack on Thursday. It's alarming that someone who knew where the fiberoptic cables ran could cause so much damage with just a few snips. Around 50,000 customers lost phone and internet service, including 911.

Ten fiber-optic cables carrying were cut at four locations in the predawn darkness. Residential and business customers quickly found that telephone service was perhaps more laced into their everyday needs than they thought. Suddenly they couldn't draw out money, send text messages, check e-mail or Web sites, call anyone for help, or even check on friends or relatives down the road.
    Several people had to be driven to hospitals because they were unable to summon ambulances. Many businesses lapsed into idleness for hours, without the ability to contact associates or customers.
    More than 50,000 landline customers lost service - some were residential, others were business lines that needed the connections for ATMs, Internet and bank card transactions. One line alone could affect hundreds of users.

The damage could have been caused by an angry employee, but since it occurred in the Silicon Valley, that category includes foreigners possibly hacked off at America. (Like the Indian H-1b computer worker who was caught sabotaging the Fannie Mae system earlier this year.) The sabotage could have been a small-scale trial run as part of a larger attack. Knocking out communications would be useful to worsen the effects of a dirty bomb, for example.
    The incident underlines how vulnerable our infrastructure is to the bad guys. A recent Senate report warned of cyber-attack. Apparently the low-tech tool of wire cutters works pretty well, if one knows where the wires are.
    The reward was upped to a quarter million dollars in recent hours.

•   •   •  

Obama Economy: 'GLIMMERS OF HOPE' Still Under 'SEVERE STRESS'   [4/10/09]
In the clip below from earlier today, the current occupant of the White House talks specifically about employment, noting "Whatever we do ultimately has to translate into economic growth and jobs."

In that case, why not lead on the policy of universal E-verify rather than sabotaging it? As Roy Beck observed recently, an estimated six million non-agricultural jobs are held by illegal aliens. If those jobs were freed up for unemployed citizens and legal workers, a substantial chunk of the unemployment crisis would be solved instantly.

•   •   •  

Failed States: After a long spending binge, governors go begging for a handout.   [4/10/09]
I usually don't care much for the open-borders libertarianism of Reason magazine, but this article about states at the federal trough makes good points, and totally nails the Sacramento syndrome, at least as far as the financial malfeasance goes.

But does California, or any other state, really “need” federal money during this economic downturn? Only if you accept the premise that state budgets should roughly double every decade.
    When Gray Davis, a Democrat, became California’s governor in 1999, the state’s budget was $75 billion. Tempted by dot-com windfalls and beholden to public-sector unions, Davis bumped that number to $104 billion in four short years of boom and bust, after which he was bounced out of office for his fiscal irresponsibility and replaced by a Milton Friedman–quoting action hero who promised to bring “fiscal sanity” back to Sacramento. Five years later, after facing another boom, another bust, and a series of bruising political defeats at the hands of public-sector unions, Schwarzenegger had hiked the budget to an astonishing $145 billion. In 10 years, state spending in nominal terms increased 92 percent.
    One good way to measure fiscal stewardship is to see whether state spending growth exceeds the rate of population growth plus inflation. Under Davis, budgets rose an average of 6.7 percent a year, as opposed to a population/California price index growth rate of 4.8 percent. Under Schwarzenegger, spending has increased 6.8 percent annually, compared to a population/inflation rate of just under 5 percent. A governor who was swept into office by damning Davis’ $38 billion budget deficit, vowing not to raise taxes, and mocking his predecessor’s vehicle license fee hikes announced on February 20 that he would address his own $42 billion budget deficit by raising taxes and doubling those same fees.
    Asked to explain the contradictions on This Week, Schwarzenegger praised the federal stimulus ("a terrific package"), urged Republicans to be "team players" for Obama (who, he said, was doing a "great job"), and unleashed a spectacular metaphor in favor of abandoning a limited-government philosophy. “You’ve got to go beyond just the principles," he said. "You've got to go and say, 'What is right for the country right now?' I mean, I see that as kind of like, you go to a doctor, the doctor's office, and say, 'Look, can you examine me?' The doctor says, 'You have cancer.' What you want to do at that point is you want to see this team of doctors around you have their act together, be very clear, and say, 'This is what we need to do,' rather than see a bunch of doctors fighting in front of you and arguing about the treatment. I mean, that is the worst thing. It creates insecurity in the patient. The same is with the people in America."

Schwarzenegger is spinning himself into irrelevance, going from a movie-created figure of strength to a spineless pol. He wants to be like by the capitol Democrats (many of whom are strongly Mexophilic) and has yet to provide leadership on anything consequential. For more on the ground activities, see California may face tax revolt.

Taking inspiration from a landmark 1970s tax revolt, a determined group of activists say the moment is right for another voter uprising in California, where recession-battered residents have been hit with the highest income and sales tax rates in the US. [...]
    California already had the highest income tax rates of any state in the country when the legislature raised them in February to help close a $42 billion deficit that also required deep spending cuts and additional borrowing.
    The state's top income tax rate is now 10.425 percent, which is 1.5 percentage points higher than second-place Rhode Island and rises to 10.55 percent if certain economic triggers are hit. Most U.S. states have a top rate of less than 7 percent, and seven collect no income tax at all.
    California lawmakers also boosted the state's sales tax to 8.25 percent, nearly doubled the vehicle license fee and sharply reduced the tax credit for dependents.

•   •   •  

Father Accused Of Selling Daughter Takes Deal   [4/09/09]
The father who sold his 14-year-old daughter for a pile of beer and cokes has taken a very lenient plea bargain. Marcelino de Jesus Martinez (shown) got a hand-slap deal and may be deported at the end of his dinky little jail sentence in a month or so.

A Greenfield father accused of selling his daughter for money, beer and other items accepted a plea bargain that could shorten his time in jail to a month.
    District Attorney Christina Johnson said that Marcelino de Jesus Martinez, 36, pled guilty to one count of felony child endangerment charges.
    The deal will have Martinez, who has been in prison since his arrest in January, serving an additional one to four months.
    Martinez had originally refused a plea offer from prosecutors, and a trial was set to start Monday.

Another report [Plea deal for dad in arranged marriage, Monterey Herald, 4/7] sounded like the perp got a full-court press with all concerned parties to accept the plea deal...

Martinez had first accepted, then rejected the plea agreement last month. Jury questionnaires were distributed early Monday to more than 100 potential jurors for a trial that was expected to last three to four weeks. But, after hours of discussions between Martinez, his attorneys, representatives of the Mexican Consulate, Johnson and Judge Larry Hayes, he accepted the deal.

I wrote about this cultural atrocity in Diversity Is Strength! It’s Also... Selling Your 14-Year Old Daughter?.
    A major part of the defense's case was that in the perp's Triqui tribe in Oaxaca, it is both normal and legal for girls of 12 or 13 to be married off. In America, we want children of that age to go to school, and we want girls to grow up into self-determining individual women.
    Interestingly, the local Raza types complained that the arrest and prosecution would make illegal Mexicans fearful of the police, but the whole reason the situation came to light was bad dad Martinez going to law enforcement to complain he didn't get his beer, etc. in payment for the daughter.

•   •   •  

Man hoping to be deported streaks down Fla. street   [4/08/09]
Illegal aliens! They do the darndest things!

Authorities said a man claiming to be an illegal immigrant ran naked down a Port St. Lucie street so that he would be sent back to Mexico. Police responded to a home Saturday night where they found a 28-year-old man arguing with his boyfriend.
    Officers told the man, who appeared to be intoxicated, that he should go home for the evening, but he told them he wanted to go to jail because he was an illegal immigrant and wanted to go back to Mexico. He then said he planned to punch an officer to get arrested but decided not to after police told him it wouldn't be in his best interest to do that.
    That's when the man took off his clothes and ran down the street.
    He was charged with indecent exposure and being held for immigration officials.

•   •   •  

San Francisco Sued Over Sanctuary Policy   [4/08/09]
The wheels of the court system are slowly moving along, hopefully toward some measure of justice for the Bologna family.

The family of a father and his two sons who were gunned down last year have filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco, claiming its sanctuary policy contributed to their deaths.
    Anthony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, were gunned down in the Excelsior District on June 16 after possibly being mistaken for rival gang members, according to police.
    Edwin Ramos, 22, a suspected member of the MS-13 gang, has been charged with their murders.
    The Bologna family lawsuit alleges that the city's sanctuary policy shielding illegal immigrants - even those charged with a crime - allowed Ramos to stay in this country illegally. Ramos had a history of violence and several prior contacts with San Francisco police as a minor. But city policy prevented officers from turning him over to federal immigration authorities for deportation.
    "What we're saying is that the city adopted and enforced a policy that was actually inconsistent with and prohibited by federal law," Michael Kelly, an attorney for the Bologna family, said Tuesday.
    Kelly said if the case goes to trial, a jury would decide to what extent the city was culpable for the deaths. [...]
    Ramos faces three counts of murder and multiple special allegations involving gang membership, firearm use and multiple murders that could result in life in prison without parole. He is still awaiting trial.
    A preliminary hearing in the criminal case is scheduled for May.

If I were the attorney, I would start my case against San Francisco by showing the city's own sanctuary advertising, inviting illegal persons to use taxpayer-funded social services:

In other recent sanctuary news, the city did a count of how many criminal juvies have been protected by the misguided policy since 2005: San Francisco Shielded 185 Juvenile Illegals.

•   •   •  

Lou Dobbs Tonight, Monday April 6   [4/07/09]
LDT had a good segment yesterday on California's budget mess, with a lot of useful facts presented compactly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): California's unemployment rate in February was 10.5 percent. The governor says help for the jobless is on the way.
    GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA: There's this $8 billion that is coming from the federal government is very welcome, it's specifically designed for the unemployed and for those most in need.
    WIAN: But working Californians are suffering as well, from an increasingly heavy tax burden. During the past decade, California's per capita state and local tax burden has averaged about 10.5 percent. However, California workers are paying a bigger share as unemployment has soared for more than 5.5 percent a decade ago to double digits today.
    LOU DOBBS TONIGHT calculates the average California worker paid just under $7,000 in state and local taxes in 1998. Now it's more than $11,000. And that doesn't account for $7.5 billion in new state sales and income taxes to close California's budget deficit.
    JEAN ROSS, CALIFORNIA BUDGET PROJECT: The taxes that were part of the recent budget agreement will fall disproportionately on low to middle income Californians.
    WIAN: California has resorted to tax hikes and spending cuts because according to the state's own auditor, revenue grew by just one percent last year, while state government spending swelled more than eight percent.
    KRIS VOSBURGH, HOWARD JARVIS TAXPAYERS ASSN.: They're bankrupting working Californians with this constant spending and taxing.
    WIAN: While California's private sector has lost all the new jobs created since 2005, state government has gained 124,000 jobs since then.
    (on camera): California ranks sixth in per capita tax burden. According to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, it's likely to jump to first this year because of the recently enacted tax increases.

One sign of the times is how the state sales tax was "temporarilry" increased by one percent on April 1.

A temporary, statewide, 1 percent sales tax increase goes into effect on Wednesday. It is designed to add revenue to California's coffers, but could worsen what is already a tough time for consumers and retailers in a recessionary economy.
    The new sales tax is set to expire July 1, 2011, or July 1, 2012, depending on whether voters approve a constitutional amendment, Proposition 1A or the Budget Stabilization Act, in a statewide election to be held May 19.

(Remember, a vote FOR 1A will increase taxes for an extra two years, despite the lies of both parties.)
    The updated sales tax in various California cities...

-- Pico Rivera (Los Angeles County): 10.25 percent
-- South Gate (Los Angeles County): 10.25 percent
-- Oakland: proposed 10-10.25 percent (now 9.75 percent)
-- Berkeley: 9.75 percent
-- San Francisco: 9.5 percent
-- San Rafael: 9.5 percent
-- Los Angeles: 9.25 percent
-- Palo Alto: 9.25 percent
-- Fresno: 8.975 percent
-- Sacramento: 8.75 percent
-- Fairfield: 8.375 percent
Sources: California State Board of Equalization; City of Oakland

Another analysis noted the enormous growth in the size of California government under a Republican Governor [Where does all that state money go? by Prof. John G. Matsusaka of USC, LA Times, July 17, 2008]

California state government spent $145 billion last fiscal year, $41 billion more than four years ago when Gov. Gray Davis got recalled by voters. With all that new spending -- a whopping 40% increase -- we ought to be in a golden age of government with abundant public services for all. [...]
    Legislators, pundits and interest groups warn of dire consequences if state spending is slowed or cut. But if most Californians haven't detected a significant change from the last $41 billion, including 40% more on schools, will they notice if some of that spending disappears?

California has the highest-paid teachers in the nation ($64,424 average annual salary in 2007-08) yet one in four high school students statewide drops out before graduation (one in three in diverse Los Angeles).
    We are paying a lot of money to live in an increasingly dysfunctional. Immigration anarchy is a big part of the problem, but not the only bad thing by a long shot. The crazed spending by Sacto Democrats is completely off the charts.

•   •   •  

U.S. Muslims debate how much to help FBI   [4/06/09]
Muslims residing in the United States have expressed disapproval of the FBI finally ending its cozy relationship to the terrorist front group, CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations).
    For plenty of background, see Amti-CAIR, which has been blowing the whistle on CAIR for years.

A petition organized by a Newark nonprofit urging Muslims to limit social outreach with the FBI has provoked a national debate within the Muslim community about how to deal with law enforcement.
    The curb proposed by the petitioners - eliminating joint FBI town halls and other meet-and-greet events - is largely a response to the FBI's restricting its work with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights group.
    The petitioners say their stand on behalf of CAIR, which has an extensive presence around the country and in the Bay Area, has larger meaning for all Muslim institutions.
    "We're fighting against being relegated to second-class citizenship," said Agha Saeed, chairman of the Newark-based American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, the coalition of national Muslim organizations that issued the March 17 petition.

A long overdue realization of how dirty CAIR is came from the information disclosed during the Holy Land Foundation trial last year.

The current situation has its origin in the 2008 trial and convictions of five leaders of a Texas charity, Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. The men were convicted in November of 108 criminal counts, including support of terrorism, money laundering and tax fraud. The group was accused of funneling millions of dollars to Hamas, which the government declared a terrorist group in 1995.
    As part of the trial, the government labeled roughly 300 different individuals and groups as "unindicted co-conspirators." The label does not affect anyone's rights, but Muslims complain it functions as a public smear. A federal official speaking on condition of anonymity told The Chronicle that the FBI is limiting its contact with CAIR because one of its founders was named as an "unindicted co-conspirator."

Was the FBI really so naive to think that CAIR could be tamed? Or were they doing a little tapdance with evil in an attempt to extract information? Information about mosques diseminating anti-American propaganda has been around for years, particularly the 2005 Freedom House report Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Invade American Mosques. It's hard to know, since political correctness has gained enormous influence.

•   •   •  

State and Local Enforcement of Immigration Laws   [4/05/09]
The link above leads to a C-SPAN video of a 3-hour Congressional hearing in which immigration law enforcement came in for a lot of criticism from the Democrats. According to them, officers are not professional or judicious in their treatment of minorities, particularly hispanics. Attorney Kris Kobach who was testifying and long a target of bogus accusations by the SPLC was slammed by a crude letter from them via Chair Lofgren's introduction. She was quite rude to make such calumnies and not allow Kobach to respond immediately.
    A major theme was racial profiling in arrests and traffic stops, as if white people don't get stopped for not wearing seatbelts. The piling on was thick. I can understand why Sheriff Arpaio's deputies were furious (see the video which is briefly excerpted in the clip below). No one from his office was invited, yet his policies of lawful immigration enforcement came in for a bruising.
    Since the Democrats are in the majority in the House, they get to set the agenda and choose 3 out of every 4 hearing panelists. While there are elected Democrats who favor immigration enforcement (like Heath Shuler and Jon Tester) but the Immigration Subcommittee does not have any Dems like those virtuous ones.

•   •   •  

75% Oppose Release of Guantanamo Inmates in the United States   [4/04/09]
The great majority of Americans don't want terrorists turned loose in the country. Citizens don't believe terrorism should be the newest visa category.
    Job #1 of the federal government is national security and to protect us from enemies abroad. Washington is failing miserably, to the point of now importing foreign enemies into our communities.

President Obama’s intelligence chief said last week that some inmates at the Guantanamo terrorist prison camp may be released in the United States, but just 13% of U.S. voters think that should be allowed.
    Seventy-five percent (75%) say Guantanamo inmates should not be released in this country, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Twelve percent (12%) are not sure.
    For 75% of voters, safety is more important than fairness in determining where terrorist suspects are released. Only 17% say fairness is more important.

Actually, I'm suprised the anti-release number isn't higher.

•   •   •  

S.F. sanctuary policy shielded up to 185 youths   [4/04/09]
It has been a rolling scandal even in ultra-liberal San Franciso how the city protected illegal alien criminals, even to the point of spending $2.3 million since 2005 to place young offenders in cushy housing. In addition, about 30 percent of those "juveniles" were actually adults, who had been posing as kids with IDs to match to get better treatment if busted.

As many as 185 undocumented youths held on felony criminal charges in San Francisco were shielded from deportation between 2005 and last summer, when the controversial policy came to light, according to juvenile probation statistics obtained by The Chronicle.
    City officials had previously said they had no way of telling how many youths had benefited from the policy. But a new preliminary report prepared by the Juvenile Probation Department at the request of Supervisor David Campos shows the number is much higher than previously suspected.
    The report shows that between Jan. 1, 2005, and Feb. 28 of this year, 252 undocumented youths had cases in the juvenile probation system.

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Drastic water cuts expected for the Bay Area   [4/03/09]
Spring is welcome here in the beautiful Bay Area, but another dry winter has put us water users deeper in a hole. While it's true that a lot of the water goes to agriculture (somewhere between 40 and 80 percent), it is unreasonable to keep welcoming foreigners like there are no limits on the state's environmental carrying capacity.

"Right now, we're looking at the water we're going to have to work with for the year, and it's all below normal," said Elissa Lynn, chief meteorologist with the state Department of Water Resources. "Conservation is going to be critical."
    The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which provides about one-third of the state's water supply, stood at 81 percent of normal Thursday; runoff, the amount of meltwater that flows into rivers and reservoirs, is projected at just 70 percent.
    Officials said snowpack would have to be at 120 percent of normal or more to replenish many of the state's reservoirs, some of which hover at just 50 percent of capacity.

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Binghamton shooting wounds at least four; dozens held hostage   [4/03/09]
Reports are still coming in about a mass shooting in Binghamton New York at a building that holds civics classes for immigrants. The initial account was of an Asian male as the shooter, including this item...

A gunman shot at least four people and held dozens more hostage today in the American Civic Association building in Binghamton, NY, according to the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin.
    Police were in the building on Front Street, releasing people in small groups after clearing them. Two were taken out with their hands cuffed behind their backs. The American Civic Association provides counseling, translators and other services for immigrants and refugees. Citizenship classes were scheduled today.
    An assistant professor at Broome Community College who is fluent in Vietnamese was asked to help police communicate with the shooter, described as an Asian male in his 20s.

Numbers of dead go up to 15 (13 being a common number), including the gunman. If so, police won't need that translator.

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English-only driver's tests proposed in Georgia   [4/03/09]
The fact that English-only drivers exams could be at all controversial just shows how far down the road to hell we have gone as a nation.

Georgia would require that new drivers take a written license test in English under a bill being considered by state lawmakers, and the proposal has some employers and immigrant advocates worried it would keep people unfamiliar with the language from being able to work.
    The measure is the latest in a series of English-only legislation around the country, but Georgia is believed to be the only state that would have a law requiring that drivers take the written test in English without a translator or other aid. Versions of the bill have passed both chambers of the Legislature, and lawmakers are trying to hash out differences before the session ends Friday.
    Supporters say it is a public safety measure because drivers need to be able to read English to understand roadside signs and warnings. Opponents argue that the measure unfairly targets immigrants and may violate the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They also say it could discourage foreign companies from making investments in the state and affect local companies who hire foreign workers.

The issue is all about public safety. Imagine driving a car in a foreign country where you couldn't understand the traffic signs -- it's crazy to encourage people not to learn English.

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Facing worst, Fargo's refugees turn to each other   [4/02/09]
Talk about an obnoxious sob story. The Americans who live in Fargo and along the Red River (North Dakota, not Texas) fought for many days in sub-zero blizzards to keep their communities from being destroyed by a huge flood.
    But for the sniffle-sensitive press, the reaction of the diverse new refugees to the disaster swirling around them is deeply fascinating. In addition, emotion-laden articles of this sort are much easier to write than pieces requiring research to dig up facts.

For some transplants to this quiet Plains city, last week's feverish rush to hold back a historic flood threat carried reminders of the chaos that forced them from their old lives.
    The National Guard troops and the constant humming of military vehicles along the Red River made Amar Hussein a little nervous. He came to Fargo from Iraq after a bomb blew up his vehicle and left his arms and leg deeply scarred.
    "We see the military trucks, I see people making sandbags to protect the town, I think something happened," he said.
    Hussein is among more than 6,000 refugees brought to Fargo and its across-the-river neighbor, Moorhead, Minn., over the last 15 years by a Lutheran group's resettlement program. Their home countries come straight from the headlines, representing major world conflicts over the past decade: Iraq, Somalia, Liberia, Bhutan.
    The flood threat has passed, the area was largely spared and life was slowly getting back to normal Thursday. But the anxiety of the last several days took a unique toll on refugees: Many of them know all about losing everything they own, and some lacked the English skills to get flood information immediately.

Check out the Fargo flooding slideshow from the Boston Globe to see the incredible struggle waged by the people to save their communities. There's not much diversity evident for some reason, unless you consider the variety of ages. Little kids and rather old people all pitched in to fill sandbags and help in whatever way was needed.

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The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.   [4/02/09]
Fox News has a good report on the lie that Mexican violence is fueled by American weapons.

EXCLUSIVE: You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States. [...]
    There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:
    It's just not true.
    In fact, it's not even close. By all accounts, it's probably around 17 percent.
    What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."
    But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.
    "Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

Of course, the lie has been very useful for the gun-grabbers in the Obama administration, in particular AG Eric Holder [Gun Advocates Ready for Battle on Federal Assault Weapons Ban]:

"As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to re-institute the ban on the sale of assault weapons," Holder said. "I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum."
    Holder said reinstating the ban would decrease the flow of guns from the U.S. into Mexico. He declined to offer a timeframe for any re-implementation; Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller also declined comment on Tuesday.
    But Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, told FOXNews.com that Holder's "argument in general is bizarre."
    "It's a delusion to say that diminishing the Second Amendment in America is somehow going to stop these ruthless drug cartels in Mexico."

The controversy reminds me of the Mark Twain quote, "A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on."

Here's a Tube of the Fox report...

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10 terms not to use with Muslims   [4/01/09]
A column in the Christian Science Monitor informs us little infidels of how not to speak with famously sensitive Muslims, who are known to go headchoppy at the drop of a noun, or cartoon.
    And why would any newspaper support censorship when their business is founded on free speech?

As President Obama considers his first speech in a Muslim majority country (he visits Turkey April 6-7), and as the US national security establishment reviews its foreign policy and public diplomacy, I want to share the advice given to me from dear Muslim friends worldwide regarding words and concepts that are not useful in building relationships with them. Obviously, we are not going to throw out all of these terms, nor should we. But we do need to be very careful about how we use them, and in what context.

1. "The Clash of Civilizations." Invariably, this kind of discussion ends up with us as the good guy and them as the bad guy. There is no clash of civilizations, only a clash between those who are for civilization, and those who are against it. Civilization has many characteristics but two are foundational: 1) It has no place for those who encourage, invite, and/or commit the murder of innocent civilians; and 2) It is defined by institutions that protect and promote both the minority and the transparent rule of law.
2. "Secular." The Muslim ear tends to hear "godless" with the pronunciation of this word. And a godless society is simply inconceivable to the vast majority of Muslims worldwide. Pluralism – which encourages those with (and those without) a God-based worldview to have a welcomed and equal place in the public square – is a much better word.
3. "Assimilation." This word suggests that the minority Muslim groups in North America and Europe need to look like the majority, Christian culture. Integration, on the other hand, suggests that all views, majority and minority, deserve equal respect as long as each is willing to be civil with one another amid the public square of a shared society.

Polling has shown that the majority of American people still believe in traditional assimilation: A 2005 Rasmussen survey found that "Two-thirds (67%) of Americans say that those who move to the USA should "adopt America's culture, language, and heritage." People who want to live in a Muslim culture have numerous choices, from Pakistan to Turkey to Indonesia. America is not a place for Muslims to live because our values are entirely different.

4. "Reformation." Muslims know quite well, and have an opinion about, the battle taking place within Islam and what it means to be an orthodox and devout Muslim. They don't need to be insulted by suggesting they follow the Christian example of Martin Luther. Instead, ask how Muslims understand ijtihad, or reinterpretation, within their faith traditions and cultural communities.
5. "Jihadi." The jihad is an internal struggle first, a process of improving one's spiritual self-discipline and getting closer to God. The lesser jihad is external, validating "just war" when necessary. By calling the groups we are fighting "jihadis," we confirm their own – and the worldwide Muslim public's – perception that they are religious. They are not. They are terrorists, hirabists, who consistently violate the most fundamental teachings of the Holy Koran and mainstream Islamic scholars and imams.

There are five more self-censorship items, but you get the idea: we should cower before Muslims because we shouldn't speak ill of Islam. Screw that. If you can't critize Islam, there is no justice left on earth.
    Furthermore, it's curious how these discussions of hurt feelings never broach how we of the West regard the culture of Muslim immigrants and how it insults our core beliefs.
    As a feminist, I am outraged by the growing presence of Islamic women self-imprisoned with their faces covered in identity-obliterating burqa. The sight of them invariably brings angry thoughts of the sacrifice of heroines like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton: I'm quite sure the suffragists did not work their entire lives for women's equal rights to see the female slaves of Allah walking our streets and rejecting hard-won freedoms.
    Worse, elites appear more than willing to throw women's rights under the bus to conform to the false ideology of multiculturalism, which says that all cultures are equal and worthy of respect. A visit to Saudi Arabia or other bastions of Islamic totalitarianism should disabuse that idiocy.
    The experience of Europe shows that women's rights and safety are lost as Muslim immigration increases. There should be no censorship of that fact.

In addition, Winston Churchill wrote in 1899 about Islam, saying "No stronger retrograde force exists in the world."

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