There’s yet another left-wing witch hunt, against hedge fund principal Peter Thiel, who may or may not have given $1 million (wow!) to our friends at NumbersUSA (see here and here). What gets me about this is that NumbersUSA is actually a boringly bland Beltway operation, shrinking from any mention of immigration’s impact on racial balance, always ready to settle for half a loaf (or a whole Huckabee). As I write, its webpage is dominated by a handwringing headline Horrendous Murder of Ecuadorian Man on Long Island Reminds Why We Say NO TO IMMIGRANT-BASHING Language. This is not quite the line we take here at VDARE.COM.

Don’t get me wrong - no doubt this type of grovelling gets you into the game in Washington. But the point is that, out here in America, NumbersUSA is still denounced as an “anti-immigrant” group guilty of “nativism”, which the loonies obviously confuse with naziism. (For our view of “nativism”, see here.) The Wages of Moderation turn out to be worthless. Peter Thiel could not have gotten into more trouble if he’d given to us.

While I was editing last night’s letter, it struck me that a growing and extremely frightening trend is upon us–loss of Freedom of Speech that, if left unchecked, could morph into a more aggressive campaign under the Barack Obama administration of robbing us of our Constitutional rights.

In his op-ed piece, Michael Meyers, former assistant director of the NAACP, warned against denying Suffolk County executive Steve Levy his right to hold and express an immigration view different from his own and ethnic identity groups like the New York-based Hispanic Across America. [Don’t Rush to Judgment, By Michael Meyers, Newsday, November 14, 2008] 

But the case is growing more out of control. According to Newsday, Hispanics Across America may sue the parents of the accused killers of citing lack of

“moral responsibility.”

“Parents that teach their children hate are just as responsible as the kids who commit the crimes,”

said Fernando Mateo, president of Hispanics Across America. [Latino Group May Sue Parents of Hate Crime Suspects, by Sophia Chang, Newsday, November 11, 2008]

Even a shred of success in such a lawsuit would further squash free speech–you’ll have to rear your children according to the Hispanic Across America guidelines.

Forget that the “suspects” haven’t been convicted of anything. In fact, they haven’t even gone to trail.

And it is, at this moment at least, totally unknown to anyone involved in the case what parental role anyone may have played in bring up the children.

What’s alarming is this incident comes on top of the item in James Fulford’s blog of two days ago pointing out that a  University of Texas football player was suspended for what were deemed inappropriate comments.

It’s maddening to see how the police and criminal justice system have completely forgotten their mission to protect the public from dangerous people. Even men who rape children are released with no punishment.

Bayron Orlando Euceda, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, did not serve a day in prison for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old Houston girl.

Instead, a Harris County judge sentenced the 21-year-old to eight years deferred adjudication, a form of probation. A sticky note on his plea agreement reads, “Best interest of victim.”

“That’s incredible,” said Andy Kahan, director of the Houston Mayor’s Crime Victims Office and a former probation officer, after thumbing through Euceda’s court paperwork. “The best interest of the victim would have been to have that guy locked up.” [Probation, instead of deportation, By Susan Carroll, Houston Chronicle, November 18, 2008]

Juan Quintero, the convicted killer of Houston PD Officer Rodney Johnson, also got treated with kid gloves.

The twin photos show the killer at an early court appearance and later when he was cleaned up for trial.

The practice of sentencing illegal immigrants to probation attracted sharp criticism after an illegal immigrant from Mexico killed Houston police officer Rodney Johnson.

Juan Quintero, who is serving a life sentence for the murder, had several DWI convictions and was sentenced to deferred adjudication for indecency with a 12-year-old girl in 1999. Quintero was deported but returned to Houston illegally and shot Johnson on Sept. 21, 2006.

Johnson’s widow, Houston police Sgt. Joslyn Johnson, said she hopes for a policy change that would stop illegal immigrants from ending up on probation, saying prison time would be more of a deterrent to coming back to the U.S. illegally.

“They broke the law when they came into the country illegally, and if they’ve committed another crime on top of that, I think they should be automatically deported,” she said. “They should not be allowed to stay in the country on probation.”

One bit of good news: Cornyn wants investigation into immigrant inmates: Lawmaker’s call for action follows Chronicle’s series on the release of violent criminals who admitted to jailers they were in the U.S. illegally

The Texas Republican said on Monday that the Chronicle’s investigation “raised some very serious concerns.” He said he requested information from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, and was particularly concerned about the finding that suspected illegal immigrants had posted bail and absconded on criminal charges, including murder, aggravated sexual assault of a child and drug trafficking.

In addition, the Texas Governor was also displeased to to learn the extent of immigration crime anarchy detailed in the Houston Chronicle series: Perry outraged that criminal immigrants aren’t being deported.

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry demanded Tuesday that the federal government take steps to help state and local officials ensure that unauthorized immigrants who commit crimes in Texas remain in custody until they are deported.

In a strongly worded letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Perry said he was “outraged” to learn that many convicted immigrants in Texas jails were released after they completed their jail sentences instead of being deported.

“Texas has spent the last four years investing unprecedented amounts of state resources to secure our border with Mexico. To now learn that criminal aliens who have been jailed are being released back into our communities by federal authorities who have neglected to secure our border is infuriating and unconscionable,” he said.

Spokeswoman Allison Castle said the governor was reacting, in part, to a series of stories in the Houston Chronicle, reporting how federal immigration officials have allowed scores of violent criminals to be freed despite the inmates’ admission to jailers that they were in the United States illegally.

“We knew there was a problem, but we didn’t know the scope and magnitude of it,” Castle said. In his letter, Perry noted that some of the released immigrants were later charged with felonies, including capital murder, rape, robbery and child molestation. [Emphasis added]

I would assume that Sarah Palin about as smart as her erstwhile opponent, Vice President-Elect Joe Biden, a man who has gone through life with a giant chip on his shoulder about his IQ. Whether that’s smart enough to be President, I’ll leave up to you.

On the other hand, I’m sure Biden would beat Palin if they took a current events quiz on foreign affairs.

Why?

The chief answer is obvious, which means that the mainstream discourse is oblivious to it. Governor Palin is a lady. Specifically, she’s a mom, a mom with a whole bunch of kids. If you aren’t a mom, it’s hard to grasp just how much more interesting your family, and the community they live in, is than the Law of the Sea Conference or the Tbilisi pipeline. In contrast, Mr. Biden, who isn’t a mom, has time on his hands for paying attention to stuff like that because Mrs. Biden worries about the important things for him.

We recently noted the disgraceful attack by administrators at Baltimore’s Loyola College on libertarian economist Walter Block, who had dared to mention IQ and race in a Q&A after a lecture he gave there. Walter, whom I have known for 30 years, has now posted a long and careful analysis of this scandal on LewRockwell.com. It’s a disgusting insight into the soft totalitarianism now apparently endemic in academe, which will unquestionably now be spreading throughout American life under the Obama Administration. (Thanks a lot, Establishment Right.)

Last week Arizona State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor made the immigration news with reports of her partial capitulation to the Phoenix-based Los Abogados Hispanic Bar Association’s September 12 request that she forbid the use of terms such as “illegals,” “aliens,” and “illegal immigrants” in Arizona courtrooms. McGregor apparently didn’t lay down the law, so to speak, but she did forward the request–wink, wink, nudge, nudge–to lower courts across Arizona, and, according to the [Tucson] Arizona Daily Star:

McGregor’s written response Oct. 2 thanked the association’s officials for “asking that our judges and employees refrain from using certain derogatory terms in court documents and proceedings. I have taken several steps to notify our judges of your concerns.”
(Hispanic lawyers ask curbs on words, by Arthur H. Rotstein, November 11, 2008)

The Los Abogados Hispanic Bar Association’s aversion to straightforward terminology makes for a current illustration of a famous line from George Orwell’s essay, Politics and the English Language:

Political language (…) is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

The group is also treading the lexical frontiers mapped out last year by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Further, their request that Chief Justice McGregor define deviancy not merely down, but away, is consistent with Hispanics’ across-the-board disdain for immigration law enforcement documented here.

Meanwhile, Chief Justice McGregor may have interesting times ahead. Sandy Miller, one of Arizona’s irreplaceable activists — for Sandy’s classic 2006 tango with her beloved Senator John McCain, see here — has set up a website to keep things bubbling. She reports:

When the September 12 and October 2 letters were aired on a KFYI [Phoenix] talk show on Tuesday afternoon, October 28, a judge called the broadcast to report that although Justice McGregor’s letter was a “suggestion,” there was no doubt of her intent to implement new policy with this “trial balloon” (i.e. the “suggestion” would become court policy if no judge demurred. And what judge would dare object to a “suggestion” from Arizona’s Chief Judicial Officer?).

The November 10 KFYI appearance of Court Communications director Cari Gerchick was an obvious and clumsy attempt at damage control with her claims that “no ban has been enacted.” Only very naïve listeners failed to “listen between the lines” and realize that the ban was canceled only because of citizens’ outrage when the letters were publicly disclosed.

Her claim that the Los Abogados letter was no different from dozens routinely circulated by Justice McGregor to all Arizona judges was ludicrous. That Ms. Gerchick expected listeners to believe that Justice McGregor circulates every incoming letter on policy to every upper court judge as well as the many superior court judges in each of 15 Arizona counties was an insult to our intelligence.

Thankfully KFYI host J.D. Hayworth practiced “analytical listening” by replying that based on her claim, anyone (attorneys, judges, groups or individuals) would be welcome to write Chief Justice McGregor with their requests for preferential treatment disguised as “concerns” whereupon their letters shall be given “equal time” and circulated to every Arizona judge as the Los Abogados letter.

That tongue-in-cheek “conclusion” isn’t even remotely credible but Ms. Gerchick was in no position to object. She realized she’d painted herself into a corner because she hadn’t expected to encounter analytical thinking from those without law school training. [Gerchick is an attorney.]

Hurray for Sandy Miller! And hurray for [former Congressman] J. D. Hayworth!

Now, would you like to channel your outrage at the “Judge Ruths” of the world? Sandy has cooked up an essentially painless way for you to help. She’d like patriotic citizens from all over the country to sign on to her formal complaint to Arizona’s Commission on Judicial Conduct regarding Chief Justice McGregor’s “malfeasance and unethical conduct.” See all the details at her site. The deadline to sign on is this Friday, November 21, 2008.

(Although I spoke directly with Sandy on Monday evening, November 17, I didn’t get it clear as to whether the actual language of the formal complaint against McGregor is posted at the site. It doesn’t appear to be.)

As Sandy says of her beloved Chief Justice, “She wants to ban words in court that are used in federal law!” Let’s give Judge Ruth something to remember!

Here’s an National Public Radio article about one of the folks Congress voted $700 billion to bailout:

Emmanuel Njoku thought he was living the American dream. The immigrant from Nigeria invested in real estate and rode the housing boom to great heights.

At the peak, Njoku owned 16 properties in Prince George’s County, Md., just outside Washington, D.C. But with the housing bubble now burst, Njoku is living a nightmare.

Basically every other home in the upscale Promise neighborhood near Bowie, Md., is in foreclosure, says Njoku. He says one potential buyer took a look at the neighborhood, where Njoku once owned property, and decided it must be cursed.

(more…)

The Democrats want to bailout the Big 3 car companies with taxpayer dollars in order to keep the United Auto Workers union going, while the Republicans seem to want the firms to go into bankruptcy so a judge can rewrite their ruinous UAW contracts.

The funny thing is that white Republicans are a lot more likely to buy Detroit cars than are white Democrats.

The Detroit manufacturers’ basic problem is that the kind of white people who voted for Obama will no way, no how buy cars built by UAW workers in the Detroit area. If SWPLs can’t afford cars built by Japanese, German, or Swedish workers, then they will overwhelmingly prefer Japanese brand cars built by white hillbillies in places like Tennessee, Kentucky, and southern Ohio to anything built by UAW members anywhere near Detroit. (Blacks still buy Detroit cars, so this doesn’t apply to them.)

So, the solution seems obvious. President-Elect Obama should use his vast network to get 10 million of his wildly enthusiastic white supporters to sign legally-binding contracts to buy, within the next three years, American-brand cars built by UAW workers. With that collateral, the Big 3 could then borrow enough money to get by.

Surely, the SWPLs would follow their leader in doing this, right?

You don’t think so? You think that voting for Obama was just a fashion gesture, and doing something so unfashionable as buying a piece-of-crap UAW-built car is something they would never do?

From the Department of Housing and Urban Development:

BUSH ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCES NEW HUD “ZERO DOWN PAYMENT” MORTGAGE:
Initiative Aimed at Removing Major Barrier to Homeownership

LAS VEGAS - As part of President Bush’s ongoing effort to help American families achieve the dream of homeownership, Federal Housing Commissioner John C. Weicher today announced that HUD is proposing to offer a “zero down payment” mortgage, the most significant initiative by the Federal Housing Administration in over a decade. This action would help remove the greatest barrier facing first-time homebuyers - the lack of funds for a down payment on a mortgage.

Speaking at the National Association of Home Builders’ annual convention, Commissioner Weicher indicated that the proposal, part of HUD’s Fiscal Year 2005 budget request, would eliminate the statutory requirement of a minimum three percent down payment for FHA-insured single-family mortgages for first-time homebuyers.

“Offering FHA mortgages with no down payment will unlock the door to homeownership for hundreds of thousands of American families, particularly minorities,” said HUD’s Acting Secretary Alphonso Jackson. “President Bush has pledged to create 5.5 million new minority homeowners this decade, and this historic initiative will help meet this goal.”

Preliminary projections indicate that the new FHA mortgage product would generate about 150,000 homebuyers in the first year alone.

“This initiative would not only address a major hurdle to homeownership and allow many renters to afford their own home, it would help these families build wealth and become true stakeholders in their communities,” said Commissioner Weicher. “In addition, it would help spur the production of new housing in this country.”

For those that choose to participate in the Zero Down Payment program, HUD would charge a modestly higher insurance premium, which would be phased down over several years, and would also require families to undergo pre-purchase housing counseling.

HUD is the nation’s housing agency committed to increasing homeownership, particularly among minorities; creating affordable housing opportunities for low-income Americans; and supporting the homeless, elderly, people with disabilities and people living with AIDS. The Department also promotes economic and community development as well as enforces the nation’s fair housing laws. More information about HUD and its programs is available on the Internet at www.hud.gov and espanol.hud.gov.

Good for the State Department running DNA tests.

Shelbyville Times-Gazette: Story: Refugee program stayed after feds confirm fraud

Sunday, November 16, 2008
By Brian Mosely

A fact sheet released this week from the U.S. State Department reported widespread fraud in the refugee program that has brought tens of thousands of people from Somalia and other African nations to the United States.

The reported fraud spurred the State Department to suspend a humanitarian program in August which was supposed to reunite African “anchor” refugees already in the states with their family members who are still overseas.

DNA testing conducted earlier this year by the government to verify blood ties between anchor refugees and their supposed family members revealed that fewer than 20 percent of those checked could confirm their biological relationships, the fact sheet stated.[more]

One problem is that Somalia is a pre-modern society, with no way of proving who’s related to who. You don’t get biometric ID in society where many people have never seen a doorknob. The other problem seems to be that they lie a lot, according to State Department tests. But DNA testing seems to be a way around that problem–President Sarkozy also introduced it in France.

A previous story about Somalis in Shelbyville is here.