Recently, a Democrat was announced the winner in the Senate race there. The Minnesota race is too close to call, but according to Intrade there is a 61-63% chance Democrat Al Franken, will win. If that happens, Democrats will have 57 seats in the Senate and will include Independents Lieberman and Saunders in their Senate caucus. If the Democrats can get 60 seats, they will have a “super majority“, which places extreme importance on the outcome of the Senate race in Georgia, which will be decided in December by special election. Intrade suggests, there is an 82.7%-83% chance that Republican Saxby Chambliss will win re-election. However, that race is still very much in play-and it is clear many in the Democratic Party would mobilize considerable resources to win it.

Immigration is a key factor in the election. From the website of the Democratic challenger, James Martin:

“Under the Bush Administration, four million new people have entered our country illegally. Saxby Chambliss has voted four times against increased funding for border security and has taken millions of dollars from the business interests that benefit from the broken Bush system. When he was Chair of the Immigration Subcommittee, Chambliss should have been holding the Administration accountable, not toeing the line for special interests.”

Martin is working real hard to make Chambliss sound lax on immigration. However, according to Americans for Better Immigration, Saxby Chambliss’s voting record earned him an A rating. Chambliss was given a perfect record on Border Security by ABI. The only areas in which that voting record is somewhat lax is in interior enforcement where Chambliss earned an A instead of an A+–and guest worker visas, where Chambliss earned a B. The only major vote of interior enforcement ABI took issue with Chambliss on was a 1996 vote that would have mandated better worker verification. However, on the issue of Guest Worker Visas like H-1b, Chambliss has a record of often supporting corporate interests over American workers.

I’m rather puzzled. There may be some limitations on the ABI ratings. However, it looks like James Martin’s staff are trying to play games. They know the public in Georgia wants less immigration-+and they are trying to convince Georgia voters that they will be better than Chambliss on the immigration issue. Martin specifically talks tough on the area of employment sanctions–and promises he will work on their enforcement.

However, Martin rules out any possibility of significant deportations and completely sidesteps the issue of H-1b/Guest worker visas–which could be a significant issue in Georgia, because that state has a significant IT industry, and H-1b expansion is an important enough issue that IT workers who have traditionally voted Republican will switch party affiliation to get action on that issue because they know their livelihoods and economic security are on the line. Such voters might make up less than 1% of the electorate, but in a close election, every vote counts, and it would be possible to target advertising to that group. Most importantly: Martin’s staff don’t show Martin will really be able to stand up to his own party leaders on the issue of immigration-which he will need to do since expansion of immigration emerged under Democratic rule and so many Democratic leaders want expanded immigration. Martin’s rhetoric sounds remarkably like other major national figures going for big campaign donations-and he does little to differentiate himself from the Democratic establishment-or show how his election would really improve the situation relative to Chambliss.

I actually agree with Martin on many issues. However, I doubt the entire Democrat platform means anything if US immigration is not contained and properly managed. Since the massive immigration expansion of the 1960’s, the US has moved towards greater inequality of wealth and income, to the point by some important measures, the US is nearing the level of economic inequality we see in countries like Mexico.

I don’t think most Democratic leaders wanted this to happen. Some like Eugene McCarthy had the integrity to admit they had made a horrible mistake-and actively worked to correct that mistake. The important leaders of the left wing congress, including figures like Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders and Peter DeFazio, have come to admit expansion of H-1b was a horrible mistake-though they are sometimes unsure what really ought to be done to correct the situation. Clearly Martin could take a strong stand on this issue if he had the will to do so-and the backing of his party leaders.

It comes down to a question of just how badly does the Democratic party want to win? Democrats clearly have the money it would take for Martin to run a credible race the next few weeks. I’m amazed the Democratic leadership let Martin be outspent 4-1, and it is a credit to Martin, and Obama’s coat tails, that Martin did was well as he did. However, it will take more than money for Martin to win. He will have to also look truly carefully at the issues.

I would love to see both candidates seriously debate immigration policy. On immigration, we know quite a lot about Saxby Chambliss. However, I would like him to explain just why he continued to vote for expansion of H-1b visas even after US workers were being edged out of technical occupations and US students were seeking other educational options based on the changing market conditions. How does this relate to his overall pattern of seeking less immigration?

I would like James Martin to explain just what the votes are he’s referring to suggesting that Chambliss is not tough on illegal immigration. More importantly, Martin needs to explain just what kind of immigration policy he wants for the United States: How many immigrants should the US admit each year?

How should the US select from its over 10 million applicants for immigration each year?

How stiff does Martin think penalties on employers must be to be effective-and how far is he willing to go?

Under what conditions should these policies be changed? What protections does Martin propose for American workers and just how will he change his proposed policies if the US continues to move towards greater inequality of wealth and income?

This is also a case where small groups like the Programmers Guild just might force themselves to be heard. Just a few radio ads detailing the key issues-and challenging both candidates to start answering questions could force some issues in a race where this much is at stake. Neither Chambliss or Martin are clearly a friend of American tech workers. Let them explain why they are the lessor evil. Of course, there is a good chance they will lie–just like Lamar Alexander did, but let them lie blatantly in ways that will show their true character.

If Democrats win this race, they have no excuses if their program fails to help the American workers. If their program is tried with real integrity, failure to advance their position in congress and the senate in 2010 will be a horrible humiliation. We might also see a breakdown of party discipline with more independents like Bernie Sanders having electoral success. James Carville may be right yet–and we could see collapse of the GOP and emergence of a party that takes US worker’s interests seriously.

Michael Kinsley writes about something the press studiously ignored during our recent campaign, which sure seemed more like an extended coronation ceremony than an actual contest: although he claimed he was quitting, Obama still smokes.

One way he avoided press scrutiny in general was by not traveling by bus to campaign events with the press on-board. Instead, he’s grabbed a ride with a campaign staffer and light up a cigarette.

With Obama’s high-strung, sensitive personality, it’s likely a good thing that he self-medicates with cigarettes. The odds of him coming down with lung cancer and making Joe Biden President are not infinitesimal, but they aren’t so high that we’d want Obama to be himself with no nicotine in his system to calm him down.

It’s interesting that there is no press interest in whatever else he might be medicated with. Obama released a brief, unrevealing letter from his doctor awhile back, but it didn’t mention what prescription drugs he has taken.

I would guess that Obama has been on anti-depressants at least once in his life, and probably tranquilizers as well. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! The number of people who have benefited from these kind of drugs must be in the scores of millions by now. For example, I had prescriptions for both anti-depressants and tranquilizers for about six weeks after being diagnosed with cancer in 1996. In particular, the tranquilizers were effective in fending off panic attacks. I was prone to having a panic attack not only over fear of dying but, more debilitatingly, I would get a panic attack over fear that I would have a panic attack–a rather nasty vicious circle. After a couple of weeks, just having the bottle of Xanax in my pocket was reassuring enough that if I started having a panic attack, I could quell it, so I didn’t even have to take Xanax any more–just carry it around like a good luck charm for another month.

Finally, a reader who lives in the same apartment complex as Obama’s mystery man Mike Signator offers a plausible explanation of why Obama often briefly visits Signator’s apartment after working out in the apartment building’s gym: to take a private shower. In an age of cellphone cameras, the last thing we need on the Internet are pictures of the President-Elect in the health club shower.

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?