Posts Tagged ‘Arizona’
Written on July 10th, 2010 by jo4 shouts
Howie Carr
Welcome to Boston this weekend, Gov. Jan Brewer.
Pay no attention to any rabble loitering out in the street, jabbering in some strange foreign tongue. It’s funny how we’re always told how they have to live in the shadows, but they always seem to find the time to emerge long enough to throw beer bottles at the police.
But don’t sweat it, Gov. Brewer. The majority – the vast majority – of Americans are on your side.
We are all Arizonans now. We all live in border states. We are all overwhelmed by this invasion, even in here in Massachusetts, where the illegals take time out from rioting after the World Cup games to converge on the State House on an almost weekly basis. Each time they’re brazenly demanding some new handout – more medical care, additional translators, free college tuition, drivers’ licenses.
The demonstrations always take place during business hours, even though I thought they were only here to do the jobs Americans won’t do – like driving drunk in their unregistered, unlicensed, uninspected, uninsured vehicles.
It’s not about immigration. It’s about illegal immigration. You cannot have a society where one group is expected to obey the laws, play by the rules, pay taxes and speak a common language, and another group sneaking in and not asking, but demanding, to be given everything, for free, with no consequences whatsoever for any crimes they commit.
Out of control? Last week the feds arrested two Russian spies in Cambridge. They were of course registered to vote. Nobody bothered to inquire about their “papers,” because that wouldn’t be Politically Correct.
Then a drunk Mexican illegal dressed up in a meringue costume rear-ended a state rep in Brighton. Happy Cinco de Mayo, amigo!
The month before, we celebrated diversity by having a roundup of some illegal Pakistanis who were somehow connected to the would-be Times Square bomber. One of those alleged terror-connected Pakistani cabbies was busted in Boston, home of the meatheads known as the Boston City Council. They passed a resolution demanding a boycott of Arizona.
I guess the Boston City Council is boycotting Boston now that the cabbie was lugged in Allston.
Gov. Brewer, we in Massachusetts support you and Arizona – more than 80 percent on some issues in recent polls. This is why even the Democrat legislature is finally starting to get the message. We can’t take care of every foreign layabout who sneaks into this country and either drops an anchor baby or declares himself a political refugee.
Even further north, in New Hampshire, they’re being overwhelmed. Somehow the illegals have misinterpreted the state motto. It’s “Live Free or Die,” not “Live for Free or Die.”
Oh, yes, we all live in border states now – all 57 of them, by Obama’s count. Our PC fool of a governor tells us with a straight face that what he calls “undocumented workers” can’t get state benefits. But Auntie Zeituni, President Obama’s aunt, squats in public housing, “retired” at age 57.
Every few years we check the tax filings of state legislators, and along with the usual collection of U.S. deadbeats, just about everybody who came over from the Third World doesn’t pay taxes. Where would the likes of Marie St. Fleur and Antonio Cabral ever get the idea that paying taxes is only for the stupid gringos?
We know what you’re going through because we’re going through it, only it’s not as bad – yet. That’s why we paraphrase President Kennedy:
I am an Arizonan.
Read the original article BostonHerald
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Filed under illegal immigrants
Tags:Arizona, Auntie Zeituni, Boston, boycott of Arizona, Gov. Jan Brewer, illegal immigration, Inthrutheoutdoor, President Obama’s aunt, state legislators, U.S. deadbeats, uninspected, uninsured vehicles, unlicensed, unregistered
Written on July 7th, 2010 by jo13 shouts
Kris W. Kobach
It is becoming increasingly clear that, when it comes to illegal immigration, the Obama Administration has a disturbingly cavalier approach to what the law requires. Three recent examples illustrate his disdain for the plain meaning of the law.
First, during an interview in Ecuador, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton let the cat out of the bag about the Obama Administration’s plan to sue Arizona. In so doing, she revealed who was sitting in the driver’s seat when it came to the Justice Department’s decision: “President Obama has spoken out against the law because he thinks that the federal government should be determining immigration policy. And the Justice Department, under his direction, will be bringing a lawsuit against the act.”
Clinton was correct in her prediction. On Tuesday, the Obama Justice Department filed suit against the Arizona law, calling the measure “invalid” and saying it interfered with federal immigration responsibilities.
In other words, the same political calculations that drove President Obama to criticize (and mischaracterize) the Arizona law, now drove the Justice Department to bring the suit. Not to mention the potential embarrassment that would result if the Justice Department came to an independent conclusion that Arizona’s law is on solid ground. Barack Obama-constitutional scholar that his fans make him out to be — can’t say one thing and have the Justice Department say another.
The problem with Obama’s strategy is that the federal judges will actually read the Arizona law and they will find that there is precious little for the Justice Department to attack. Put simply, there is no federal statute that Arizona’s law conflicts with. The opinions of the Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits of the U.S. Court of Appeals (which are all of the circuits that have addressed the issue) support the authority of Arizona to enact its law. Another obstacle for the Obama Administration is the fact that the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in 2002 authored an opinion holding that state police officers have the authority to arrest illegal aliens-the same authority underlying the Arizona law. In short, the Obama Administration’s suit is on very thin ice.
But even if one were to imagine that the administration had a strong legal argument, there would have been yet another reason not to file the lawsuit: It is completely unnecessary. Five suits have already been filed by the ACLU and its fellow travelers The issue is already teed up for the federal courts to decide. The administration achieves nothing by launching its own litigation, except for rallying the Democrats’ open-borders base before the 2010 elections. The Justice Department should never be abused in this blatantly-political manner.
Case No. 2: According to Arizona Sen. John Kyl, Obama told him in a one-on-one conversation that the administration was not going to secure the border until Republicans agreed to go along with an amnesty for illegal aliens. In other words, enforcing the law is optional in the eyes of the President-just another bargaining chip for him to use in order to get what he wants. The White House (not Obama himself) now claims that Sen. Kyl is lying. But given Kyl’s reputation for honesty, and the fact that the Obama Administration has radically reduced immigration enforcement since taking office, Kyl’s account of the conversation has more credibility.
Obama’s statement reveals that he has very little regard for his obligation under Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” He may not like federal immigration laws, but that does not entitle him to suspend them.
Case No. 3: According to eight Republican senators, the Obama Administration is now contemplating the possibility of unilaterally granting an amnesty to illegal aliens by executive action. How would the administration pull this off? Apparently by granting “parole” to millions of illegal aliens, en masse.
The problem with this scheme is that federal law doesn’t allow it. The avenue of granting an illegal alien parole-and lawful presence in the United States-was created by Congress to be used on a case-by-case basis. If, for “urgent humanitarian reasons” or “significant public benefits,” a particular alien needed to be allowed to remain in the United States, then the executive branch has the authority grant that alien parole.
The meaning of the law has been clear for decades. But now Obama is considering changing it to give himself unprecedented power to grant amnesty to millions with the wave of his hand. Never mind that the granting of a mass amnesty is plainly a legislative action-altering the legal rights of millions-and the Constitution reserves such legislative powers to Congress.
Taken together, these three episodes paint a picture of lawlessness. The Obama Administration seems to believe that the President has the authority to set aside a state law because it is contrary to his political agenda, suspend the enforcement of federal laws for political reasons, and seize from Congress the legislative power to grant an amnesty. So much for a country governed by the rule of law, not the rule of man.
Read the original article HumanEvents
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Filed under illegal immigrants
Tags:Arizona, constitution, federal immigration laws, Holder, illegal alien parole, Illegal Aliens, Inthrutheoutdoor, Justice Department, Obama administration, Republican Senators, Sen. Kyl, U.S. Court of Appeals
Written on May 26th, 2010 by JoStepno shouts
“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all…Theodore Roosevelt 1907
The Three Amigos, Obama, Pelosi and Reid, allowed Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon to appear before Congress and hypocritically lecture us on how we should treat illegal immigrants. Listening to this browbeating while VP Joe “Plugs” Biden and “Nanny” Pelosi sat motionless in the background (and I don’t think it was just Nancy’s Botox this time), I thought we had been invaded by Mexico and that our government was surrendering a ceremonial sword in defeat. I have long feared Mexico could stage a 200,000-man invasion of the U.S. (300,000 if they can round up three more utility vans).
Mexico’s immigration laws are archaic, Draconian, and much tougher than ours. You have to prove you can pay your own way and support your family to move there— basically, just the opposite of what it takes to be a Democrat here.
It does not matter what Mexico’s immigration laws are anyway. They are unevenly applied and designed only to extort money or to intimidate political adversaries. Hey, Wall Street, AMA, and the Cambridge Police Department – sound familiar?
Obama lashed out against Arizona’s new immigration law, which basically says the state can do what the federal government is unwilling to do: round up illegals and deport them. His Attorney General indicated he would sue Arizona over the 16-page law, which he later admitted he had not read. You know, the same way Congress passed health care.
Might I suggest some summer beach reading for the Attorney General—the Constitution of the United States?
From what I can tell, Obama opposes Arizona’s law mainly in hopes of gaining more victim-class votes from the growing Hispanic community. With his agenda, to get reelected he must manufacture votes and voters–like he did with ACORN. Obama says this law is racist because it will round up Mexicans. Wrong – it will round up illegal Guatemalans too.
It has gotten bad in Arizona. I think the last straw was when citizens called the cable company for information and had to “press dos for English.” And when the Los Angeles City Council voted to boycott Arizona businesses, Arizona responded by saying it would cut off the 25% of the power it supplies to LA. It turns out, upon further review, that the only product L.A. exports is arrogance.
The Arizona law is so popular (70% national approval rating) that Senator John McCain finds himself in a tough re-election battle because of his seemingly “Inside the Beltway” indifference on illegal immigration. In fairness to McCain, he might not understand the problem. When he was first elected, the only immigrants were white Protestants getting off the Mayflower. Things have changed; now we cannot even find a Protestant on the Supreme Court.
If the Arizona police suspect you of being illegal, they give you a simple test. They ask you to identify the last three winners of “America Idol” and the contents of a supersized McDonald’s meal.
As I have long said, I am all for legal immigrants who want to come here and be productive citizens. This law is about illegal aliens, not legal ones.
Arizona’s immigration bill might serve all concerned well if it drives moocher illegal immigrants out of Arizona and back to their native California. We already have enough freeloaders in this country: 53% of the population, based on the November 2008 election. It seems we need to be reminded every twelve years or so why liberals cannot govern.
With Obama’s regulations and union thuggery on the rise in the USA, Mexicans need not worry about employment. They can just go back to Mexico if they want jobs from all the American companies that will soon be moving there.
Read the original article Daily Caller
Written on May 21st, 2010 by jo3 shouts
The “most open and transparent” president in American history is still playing hide-and-seek with the press, and even the liberal New York Times has begun to notice it, as indicated by this headline: “Obama Turns His Back On the Press.”
If the mainstream media were not so ideologically wedded to Obama’s big-government agenda, they would be doing more than pointing out his secrecy and hypocrisy with the occasional headline. They’d be skewering him daily for his marked inaccessibility. Not having a genuine news conference since July would be remarkable for the least transparent administration, let alone one that made openness a signature campaign issue.
But not everyone in the leftist press is exercising such restraint about Obama’s media blackout. CBS News’ Chip Reid decided to ask Obama a question following his signing of the Freedom of the Press Act. Doing his best Hugo Chavez, Obama said, “I’m not doing a press conference today, but we’ll be seeing you guys during the course of this week.”
HotAirPundit posted a video of Reid explaining that he asked the question because the irony of Obama’s signing the Freedom of the Press Act while rarely fielding questions “in impromptu situations” was “too rich to resist.” Reid asked, “Mr. President, in the interest of press freedom, might you consider a couple of questions on BP?”
When Reid took Obama up on his noncommittal pledge and tried to ask him a question at the Rose Garden “news conference” with the president of Mexico a few days later, Obama ignored him.
This should surprise no one. A case could be made that Obama’s never had a news conference that he hasn’t largely controlled. He and his handlers, from David Axelrod to Rahm Emanuel, understand the importance of managing the press to control the message in the interest of advancing the leftist agenda.
They know that their statist goal of greatly expanding government depends on Obama’s not revealing any more than necessary how radical to the core he actually is because true transparency about his real agenda would be suicidal.
But his handlers also realize, even if Obama doesn’t, that the less scripted he is the more difficult it is to manage the message. And they understand that he ought not be allowed to venture too far from the teleprompter very often, lest he demonstrate that his manufactured reputation both for eloquence and wisdom are, well, manufactured.
Oh, yes, and don’t let me forget those manufactured bipartisan myths, but surely no one is clueless enough to pay any attention to those anymore.
There’s just no telling what he might say off the cuff, whether it’s an awkwardly inappropriate “shout-out” to Dr. Joe Medicine Crow before delivering curiously disconnected remarks on the Fort Hood massacre or telling Joe the Plumber we need to spread the wealth around a little or saying, “At a certain point, you’ve made enough money.”
But Obama’s repeated gaffes tell me that he’s too narcissistic to fully grasp that he often undermines his own cause when off-script because he can’t refrain from playing his hand.
But I would bet that in their inner-circle huddles, Obama’s handlers have somehow persuaded him — because he always must be the boss — to studiously avoid unscripted moments like the plague, leave the message scripting to the choreographers, and deal with any press blowback through damage control. That’s a much lesser evil than getting off-message.
In one of his extemporaneous moments at Hampton University, he unwittingly disclosed the administration’s MO, not that discerning observers didn’t already know it. He openly lamented the advent of the “24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter.”
He might as well have just directly said it: “I don’t like the free flow of information in the new media, which tends to impede the advancement of my agenda, which depends on keeping the public in the dark.”
That is exactly the philosophy of his appointed “diversity czar,” Mark Lloyd, who idolizes Hugo Chavez and believes freedom of speech must be subordinated to the left’s “greater” societal goals, and of his Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, who complained about the “overabundance” of ideas that might require government action to “un-skew.”
Think about it: Without Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the new media shining the light of truth daily, populist lies, such as that the Arizona law is racist and discriminatory, might go unchallenged.
We are dealing with a totalitarian mindset in this administration, and it might sound more civil to candy coat that fact, but it doesn’t serve the interests of truth or of the nation.
Read the original article Creators.com
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Filed under Obama
Tags:Arizona, Axelrod, diversity czar, Elena Kagan, Fort Hood massacre, Freedom of the Press Act, Hampton University, Hugo Chávez, Inthrutheoutdoor, news conference, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Reid, Rush Limbaugh, Supreme Court nominee, totalitarian mindset, transparent administration
Written on May 3rd, 2010 by jono shouts
Brent Baker
Comments on two Sunday shows reflected an emerging new liberal line of reasoning, which uses the lack of opposition to Arizona’s new immigration enforcement law, as a means to discredit conservatives and Tea Party activists as hypocrites and/or racists. HBO’s Bill Maher on ABC’s This Week:
Government intrusion, government power is something that really bothers conservatives, unless it’s directed toward people who aren’t white, you know, I mean it does seem like there’s some of that going on there.
Chrystia Freeland of Reuters on the McLaughlin Group:
What I think is really important to notice here is the hypocrisy, the intellectual hypocrisy because we have…a lot of the same people who are very exercised right now…about big government and pointing out the American tradition of liberty, of individual rights, are also the people who are on the side of allowing the government to intrude much more into individuals’ lives on immigration.
There’s nothing insistent, however, since while some conservatives do oppose the Arizona law (host Jake Tapper quoted Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, for example) conservatives aren’t against all government authority; they just think it should be limited to that delineated in the Constitution – and that would include defense of the borders and a recognition those here illegally should not enjoy the same rights as those who are citizens.
Maher, regurgitating a line from his HBO show, soon slimed Republicans as racists when it is liberals and Democrats who advocate a racial spoils system and race-based college admission policies (and as Maher spoke he was sitting beside long-time race hustler Al Sharpton):
I would never say, and I have never said because it’s not true, that Republicans, all Republicans are racist. That would be silly and wrong. But nowadays, if you are racist you’re probably a Republican. [scoffing laughter from Matthew Dowd and George Will] That is quite different.
(Earlier in the show, Tapper asked Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, who was on to discuss the oil spill: “Your family has been in this country since the 1500s, from Spain originally, I believe. Do you worry that as a Hispanic-American that if you went to Arizona you might be racially-profiled because of this law?”
The reasoning from Freeland, formerly of the Financial Times, in full (and gives me space to place a screen shot of her):
What I think is really important to notice here is the hypocrisy, the intellectual hypocrisy because we have, as Eleanor [Clift] was pointing out, a lot of the same people who are very exercised right now – I think quite rightly about big government and pointing out the American tradition of liberty, of individual rights – are also the people who are on the side of allowing the government to intrude much more into individuals’ lives on immigration.
Read the original article Media Research Center
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Filed under Tea Party movement
Tags:American tradition of liberty, Arizona, big government, Democrats, Eleanor Clift, Freeland, Hispanic American, hypocrisy, immigration, individual rights, Inthrutheoutdoor, Ken Salazar, liberals, Media Resource Center, Tapper
Written on May 1st, 2010 by joone shout
BOB CHRISTIE
PHOENIX (AP) — Authorities have captured 17 suspected illegal immigrants in southern Arizona as they continued their manhunt Saturday for smugglers who they say shot and wounded a sheriff’s deputy in a remote desert area 50 miles south of Phoenix.
Three of those captured overnight Friday matched descriptions from the wounded Pinal County deputy and were being questioned Saturday, sheriff’s Lt. Tamatha Villar said. The deputy was released from the hospital, and was recovering at home.
The shooting came amid a growing national debate over the state’s new law cracking down on illegal immigration. A backlash over the law has erupted, with civil rights activists, concerned it will lead to racial profiling, calling for protests and boycotts.
Criticism of the law was sure to figure prominently at dozens of immigrants rights marches and rallies planned for Saturday across the nation, including one set for the grounds of the Arizona state Capitol.
The new law’s passage came amid increasing anger in Arizona about violence, drug smugglers and illegal immigration drop houses. The issue gained renewed attention a month ago when a southern Arizona rancher was shot and killed by a suspected illegal border crosser.
Arizona politicians called Friday’s shooting an outrage and urged the federal government to do more to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.
The violence “should show the rest of the country what we Arizonans have known for too long — the unsecured border poses a very real and very immediate danger,” said U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, a Democrat whose district includes part of Pinal County.
On Friday afternoon, Deputy Louie Puroll, 53, was patrolling near Interstate 8 when he came upon a stash of marijuana bales and five suspected smugglers. At least one of the suspects opened fire on him, tearing a chunk of skin from his back.
Puroll radioed in that he was shot, setting off a frantic hourlong search for the deputy in the remote desert, Villar said.
The area is a well-known smuggling corridor for drugs and illegal immigrants headed from Mexico to Phoenix and the U.S. interior.
State and federal law enforcement agencies deployed helicopters and scores of officers to search a 100-square-mile zone for the suspects. The Arizona Republic reported that officials said more than one of the choppers came under fire during the manhunt on Friday.
Puroll, a 15-year department veteran, had been on the lookout for smugglers when he discovered the suspected smugglers, two armed with rifles, authorities said.
Read the original article Daily Caller
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Filed under illegal immigrants
Tags:Arizona, Arizona rancher, Deputy Louie Puroll, drug smugglers, illegal immigrants, illegal immigration drop houses, Inthru, manhunt, Pinal County deputy, racial profiling, U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, U.S.-Mexico border
Written on May 1st, 2010 by jo3 shouts
Byron York
Top 10 dumbest things said about the Arizona immigration law
The last few days have seen an extraordinary outburst of criticism of Arizona’s new immigration law. In the nation’s elite media outlets, its most respected commentators are portraying the law as an act of police-state repression. Many, if not all, of the specific criticisms can be refuted simply by reading the law itself, but others are more generalized criticisms of immigration enforcement. In any event, it’s hard to choose the most over-the-top and wrongheaded commentary on the law, but here are ten choices, in no particular order. (If you don’t know why a particular statement is wrong, you can check here, and here, and here, and here.)
1. “The statute requires police officers to stop and question anyone who looks like an illegal immigrant.”
– New York Times editorial
2. “As the Arizona abomination makes clear, there is a desperate need for federal immigration action to stop the country from turning into a nation of vigilantes suspicious of anybody with dark skin.”
– Dana Milbank, Washington Post
3. “I can’t imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation.”
– Cardinal Roger Mahony
4. “This law creates a suspect class, based in part on ethnicity, considered guilty until they prove themselves innocent. It makes it harder for illegal immigrants to live without scrutiny — but it also makes it harder for some American citizens to live without suspicion and humiliation. Americans are not accustomed to the command ‘Your papers, please,’ however politely delivered. The distinctly American response to such a request would be ‘Go to hell,’ and then ‘See you in court.’”
– Michael Gerson, Washington Post
5. “In case the phrase ‘lawful contact’ makes it appear as if the police are authorized to act only if they observe an undocumented-looking person actually committing a crime, another section strips the statute of even that fig leaf of reassurance. ‘A person is guilty of trespassing,’ the law provides, by being ‘present on any public or private land in this state’ while lacking authorization to be in the United States — a new crime of breathing while undocumented.”
– Linda Greenhouse, New York Times
(Greenhouse’s “trespassing” allegation was based on an early version of the Arizona bill that was not the bill that became law. Her mistake was later removed from the Times site, but you can see original version here.)
6. “Federal law treats illegal immigration as a civil violation; Arizona law criminalizes it by using the legally dubious mechanism of equating the mere presence of undocumented immigrants with trespassing.”
– Washington Post editorial
(This editorial makes the same mistake as Linda Greenhouse’s “trespassing” column above.)
7. “I am saddened today at the prospect of a young Hispanic immigrant in Arizona going to the grocery store and forgetting to bring her passport and immigration documents with her. I cannot be dispassionate about the fact that the very act of her being in the grocery store will soon be a crime in the state she lives in…An immigrant who is charged with the crime of trespassing for simply being in a community without his papers on him is being told he is committing a crime by simply being.”
– Bishop Desmond Tutu, Huffington Post
(Tutu is perhaps relying on the erroneous information in the New York Times and Washington Post above.)
8. “It harkens back to apartheid where all black people in South Africa were required to carry documents in order to move from one part of town to another.”
– Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, on ABC’s “This Week”
9. “You can imagine, if you are a Hispanic American in Arizona…suddenly, if you don’t have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you’re going to be harassed.”
– President Barack Obama
10. “This week, Arizona signed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country which will allow police to demand identification papers from anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. I know there’s some people in Arizona worried that Obama is acting like Hitler, but could we all agree that there’s nothing more Nazi than saying ‘Show me your papers?’ There’s never been a World War II movie that didn’t include the line ’show me your papers.’ It’s their catchphrase. Every time someone says ’show me your papers,’ Hitler’s family gets a residual check. So heads up, Arizona; that’s fascism. I know, I know, it’s a dry fascism, but it’s still fascism.”
– Seth Myers, “Saturday Night Live”
Read more at the Washington Examiner:
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Filed under illegal immigrants
Tags:’show me your papers, Arizona, authorization, Hispanic American, illegal immigration, illegal immigration law, immigration, Inthrutheoutdoor, Obama, passport, that’s fascism, trespassing, undocumented
Written on April 27th, 2010 by jono shouts
Judson Berger
Harry Reid’s campaign rivals are accusing the Senate majority leader of pivoting toward immigration legislation in Washington in order to save his political hide back home in Nevada.
All three of Reid’s top Republican challengers accused him on Monday of having an ulterior political motive in pulling immigration to the front-burner. With polls showing the Nevada Democrat trailing in his race for re-election this November, challengers said Reid is trying to shore up his Latino voter base — while dragging all of Washington along with him.
“He’s seeing that his voting base is waning and he’s getting desperate to try to do something and turn it around,” Danny Tarkanian, a former college basketball star and local businessman vying for the GOP nomination, told FoxNews.com.
The accusations come on top of concerns from several congressional Republicans who have questioned the timing of Reid’s move to tackle immigration while Congress simultaneously pushes a Wall Street regulation bill and figures out what to do with a major climate bill.
Though violence is raging along the U.S.-Mexico border, and the tough-on-immigrants law passed last week in Arizona has led Democrats to call for Congress to act on the issue, Reid’s political opponents say his push for a federal overhaul is firmly rooted in local politics.
“His thinking is that if he offers amnesty, somehow that will ingratiate him with the populace here in Nevada,” said Sharron Angle, a former Nevada state assemblywoman who also is seeking the Republican nomination to face Reid in the November. “For Reid, it’s always about Reid. … He’s always working toward his next election.”
Reid’s campaign rejected the charges, saying the senator’s commitment to securing the border and bringing illegal immigrants “out of the shadows” is “nothing new.” The campaign described Reid’s work on immigration reform as something that has spanned administrations — not popped up in the middle of the election season.
”No senator has worked harder both with current and previous administrations to strengthen our immigration laws and ensure that earned legal status means going to the back of the line, paying a fine and learning English,” the campaign said in a statement to FoxNews.com. “Instead of playing political games to shore up the Republican primary vote, the GOP Senate field should help Senator Reid fix our broken system that is undermining both our national and economic security.”
Right now, Reid’s re-election prospects aren’t looking so good. The latest Las Vegas Review-Journal poll, conducted by Mason-Dixon, showed GOP frontrunner Sue Lowden leading Reid by 10 points, 47 percent to 37 percent, in a hypothetical match-up.
Nevada’s Latino base is nothing to dismiss — Latinos make up 25 percent of the state’s population — but voters in the state are split on the idea of legislation that would give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. A separate Review-Journal poll conducted April 13-14 found more people oppose the idea than support it.
It’s not clear how hard Democratic leaders will push for an immigration bill this year. Movement on the issue has taken place more in the forums of rallies and Sunday talk shows than it has in back-door meetings on Capitol Hill. Senior Senate Democratic leadership aides told Fox News that leaders are months away from making substantive progress on the issue, despite the public bluster.
But the bluster sounds convincing.
Reid first shifted public attention away from health care and financial regulation during a rally in Las Vegas two weeks ago when he said Congress would “do immigration reform just like we did health care reform” and pledged to tackle it this year.
The issue rose in prominence as President Obama started calling Republican lawmakers to discuss the topic and other Democrats started using the Arizona law as a rallying cry for federal action.
The sudden push led to a political standoff over the weekend, as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a key GOP supporter in the push for climate change legislation, threatened to walk away from the energy bill if Congress tackles immigration first.
In a letter to Senate leaders, he called the move a “phony, political effort on immigration” and said it “demonstrates the raw political calculations at work here.”
A spokeswoman for Lowden, the former Nevada Republican Party chairwoman who polls show leading the GOP primary pack against Reid, echoed that statement.
”Harry Reid has put immigration reform on the backburner for years, only choosing to address the subject during an election year when his re-election is in grave jeopardy,” spokeswoman Crystal Feldman said in an e-mail to FoxNews.com, calling the timing “suspicious.”
But Reid and other Democrats say Congress can handle more than one big issue at once. In a statement Saturday responding to Graham, Reid said immigration and energy legislation are “vital” to the country’s economy and national security.
”(The American people) expect us to do both, and they will not accept the notion that trying to act on one is an excuse for not acting on the other,” he said.
Read the original article FOXNews
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Filed under Elections
Tags:Arizona, Congress, Crystal Feldman, Democrats, energy bill, financial regulation, FOXNews.com, GOP primary, Graham, immigration, immigration reform, Inthrutheoutdoor, Las Vegas, Latinos, Lowden, Mason-Dixon, Nevada Republican Party, re-election, Reid
Written on April 18th, 2010 by joone shout
Oh my: McCain 47, Hayworth 42
McCain has been losing ground since January when he picked up 53% of the potential GOP Primary vote and Hayworth had only 31% support. Last month, the longtime senator and 2008 GOP presidential candidate earned 48% of the vote, while 41% of likely primary voters supported his challenger.
Eighty-six percent (86%) of GOP Primary voters in Arizona think the recently-passed national health care bill should be repealed, with 78% who strongly favor repeal. Fifty percent (50%) of those who strongly favor repeal support Hayworth; 41% of those voters support McCain.
Eighty percent (80%) of primary voters say their own views on the major issues of the day are closer to the views of the average Tea Party member than to those of President Obama. Forty-two percent (42%) of those voters back McCain, while 49% support Hayworth. Among the 10% of primary voters who say their views are closer to the president’s, McCain earns 68% of the vote, Hayworth 16%.
Interestingly, only nine percent of primary voters view McCain “very unfavorably” compared to 18 percent who feel that way about Hayworth; you’d think ol’ Mav would be at least equal in that category given how the base loathes him. I’m not sure how to reconcile these results with dKos’s poll from a few weeks ago showing McCain with a comfortable 15-point lead, though. Could be simple error on Kos’s part, or it could be that McCain caught a bounce from Palin’s appearances on the trail which Kos was able to measure but which dissipated by the time Rasmussen conducted this latest survey. (Both polls were of likely voters.) Either way, barring some catastrophic screw-up by Hayworth, looks like this’ll be a race to the bitter end, which means we can expect plenty more cynically delicious red meat like this from Maverick all the way up to the primary. Why, by the time August rolls around, I wouldn’t be surprised to find him voting to the right of Jim DeMint.
Exit question: None of us wants to contemplate it, but contemplate it we must. If McCain loses a squeaker to Hayworth, does he borrow a page from his pal Joe Liebs and run in the general election as an independent? Arizona’s a photo negative of Connecticut: The Democratic opposition will be largely token (both McCain and Hayworth lead Rodney Glassman by 20 points in hypothetical match-ups), so if Maverick runs as an indie, Democratic voters may have to make a hard choice and shift to supporting him in the interest of defeating Hayworth. The one big difference between that scenario and Lieberman’s run, of course, is that McCain was the other party’s presidential nominee. Can Arizona Dems put aside ill will from the 2008 election in order to stop J.D.? And will Sarahcuda hit the trail for an independent Maverick if he follows Joementum’s lead? Can’t wait to blog all this.
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Filed under Elections
Tags:2008 GOP, Arizona, election, GOP Primary vote, Hayworth, Inthrutheoutdoor, Jim DeMint, Lieberman, Maverick, McCain, Palin, President Obama, Rasmussen, tea party
Written on March 28th, 2010 by jo7 shouts
RUSSELL GOLDMAN
A bill empowering police to arrest illegal immigrants and charge them with trespassing for simply being in the state of Arizona, is likely just weeks away from becoming the toughest law of its kind anywhere in the country.
Already passed by the state’s Senate and currently being reconciled with a similar version in the House, the bill would essentially criminalize the presence of the 460,000 illegal immigrants living in the state.
The measure allows police to detain people on the suspicion that they are illegal immigrants, outlaws citizens from employing day laborers, and makes it illegal for anyone to transport an illegal immigrant, even a family member, anywhere in the state.
The bill’s supporters say a local crackdown has become a necessity because the federal government has failed to adequately seal the borders or actively enforce its laws. They blame Arizona’s spiraling crime and unemployment rates on its large population of illegal immigrants.
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