It's Not Amnesty!

One thing you hear a lot from "comprehensive immigration reform" advocates is that their proposed bill is "NOT amnesty!!!!!!!" even though Ronald Reagan described the very-similar intended results of the 1986 reform as "amnesty in exchange for border security." I guess I could take their word for it, but Marco Rubio, et al. might want to know how immigration law is being marketed - in English! - by attorneys catering to the immigrant population here in San Mateo County:

(This, btw, is a rare example of Free Will shoe-leather reporting as the FW Cub Reporter and I traveled a mile down the road from our HQ to snap these dramatic photos).

The fact is that, regardless of what the old white guys in the Senate might say, the immigrant community and those who advocate for it, are telling themselves that DC's efforts to "normalize" the illegal population is amnesty, whether through the DREAM Act or through the Senate's comprehensive reform bill. That's certainly what Marco Rubio has been saying in Spanish to Spanish-speaking audiences. (if the guy doesn't like getting booed at Tea Party allies, he might want to cut down on repeated use of this Arafat-style of political persuasion). And that's certainly why we are being treated to an incomprehensible 1,000 page bill intended to mask its true effects, both intended and unintended.

Even if amnesty is not the result, we know what will happen: more masses chanting "Si Se Puede," more quavering-voiced news stories about people living in the "shadows," and an effort in the courts to obtain amnesty through judicial fiat with border security thrown to the wayside. Some form of amnesty seems inevitable, whether through legislation, judicial intervention, or pseudo-revolution. Choose your poison, I guess.

Baby, I'm A Star: Marco Rubio's Push For Immigration Reform

Hard to believe just a few months ago that Marco Rubio was the Tea Party's "New Reagan" (like the Boss used to be the "New Dylan," I guess). Now he's working with the despicable likes of Chuck Schumer and Dick Durban to pass left-wing legislation, making major policy pronouncements in Spanish, and creating an atmosphere where his aides feel comfortable dumping on American workers:

“There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it. There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it. And so you can’t obviously discuss that publicly.”

That crack might make some sense - not everyone can be Steve Jobs, after all - if the Schumer-Rubio bill sought to address this alleged shortfall in "star performers," but it doesn't. Instead, the emphasis is on the mass migration of low-skill, low-wage, low-education laborers, and their extended families. Maybe there's a Mexican Sergey Brin mixed in among these huddled masses, but I doubt it. Mexico's idea of a "star performer" is Carlos Slim. With the exception of an increased number of tech viasas, there is nothing in the bill that would encourage the sort of high-skilled, well educated entrepreneurial people to emigrate to the United States. Instead, we will continue the depressing, dysfunctional status quo: millions of marginal types either entering illegally or staying after their tourist visa expires get all the political attention, while immigrants educated up to the Phd level languish on waiting lists or give up and go home. 

This "star performer" stuff is a crock anyway. Since when are Americans expected to be "stars?" The expectation is that you work hard and are productive. That's all you can expect from the mass of humanity. And who are the star performers among the current population of illegals? Is there a star performer in the lettuce patch looking to pivot to avocados? 

As bad as this is, Rubio's apparent tendency to say "security first!" in English, while promising "legalization first!" in Spanish is worse. It's the old Arafat trick of saying something moderate to an English-speaking audience while saying the opposite in another language. It's the perfect tool of the demagogue, and something even Obama has not dared to do. I know, I know. George Bush used to speak Spanish to crowds too. (Bush did it! is a bi-partisan "get out of jail" card), but there is a vast difference between throwing in a sentence or two of Spanish lingo, and actually making political promises in Spanish to a Spanish-speaking audience. 

Our only hope, I guess, is that it's the Spanish speakers who are being lied to by the cynical border-firsters in the Gang of 8 (hah!), but we all know what's really going on. Rubio is the front for an obfuscatory effort to pass dubious legislation that won't even accomplish its stated goals. 

It could be that Rubio knows something the rest of us don't know about the electorate a la Obama circa 2007, and this effort will strengthen his aspirations while giving us a chance to rationalize our immigration system, but, after seeing Rubio's performance over the last few weeks I kind of doubt it. 

Spit Take: Local Pol Busted In Stamp Licking Scandal

Disgraced former Santa Clara County Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr., who has already resigned his seat and plead guilty to misappropriating campaign funds, has been arrested again for his role in sending out an "illegal" campaign mailer on behalf of his former chief of staff. The evidence? A match between genetic material found in the spittle on the mailings and a DNA swab taken during the Supe's arrest earlier this year: 

In an extraordinary DNA match, saliva left on the stamp of a scandalous and illegal San Jose political campaign mailer three years ago led to the arrest of a disgraced former Santa Clara County supervisor, prosecutors said. 

George Shirakawa Jr. was arrested Wednesday on charges of impersonating City Council candidate Magdalena Carrasco in May 2010 by sending mailers that linked her to the communist government in Vietnam, said Jeff Rosen, the Santa Clara County district attorney. 

"What is offensive about the flyer," Rosen said, "is that this is a photo of Magdalena Carrasco right across from the flag of North Vietnam." 

The hit piece - whose origin has long been a mystery - was sent to residents of a district with a large population of Vietnamese Americans, and it may have affected the outcome of a tight council race. 

Carrasco finished second in the June 2010 primary by 20 votes, then lost a November runoff election against a former Shirakawa aide, Xavier Campos, by just 400 votes.
Neither Carrasco nor Campos returned calls seeking comment. Prosecutors would not say if Campos was cooperating with investigators.

Now, there's a lot of material to unpack from such a frankly absurd story, it's hard to know where to start:

1. Shirakawa is, needless to say, a Democrat. Not only that, he's the scion of a Democrat family with a long-standing history in South Bay politics. 

2. While it's amusing to think of the grossly obese Shirakawa hunched over his kitchen table licking stamps and stuffing envelopes with a bizarre graphic tying a Hispanic woman to the Commie North Viet Namese, we are also getting a not-so-funny glimpse into the world of, if not voter fraud, certainly voter misdirection. If it's hard to find the sort of shadowy figures who practice this sort of stuff, it might be because the politicos themselves, and maybe their immediate families, are the ones doing it. 

3. If I were Xavier Campos, the "beneficiary" of this dodge, I wouldn't be feeling very appreciative right now. 

4. Note that all of this "DNA-swab-taken-at-his-arrest" stuff is coming just two days after the Supreme Court ruled that such swabs do not violate the Fourth Amendment. It's almost as if the DA was patiently waiting to spring this charge on Shirakawa. 

5. The timing of this has drawn the ire of Shirakawa's attorneys, and rightly so. They negotiated an elaborate "resignation/guilty plea" resolution to his other crimes, and the DA pops up with this the day before the ex-Supe was to be sentenced. Defense counsel is crying foul saying they had agreed to a global settlement of all of Shirakawa's crimes. The DA was clearly holding this back for later. 

6. The mailer has been called every word in the book: "libelous," "scandalous," "scurrilious," etc. But what made it "illegal?" Apparently because Shirakawa included Carrasco's campaign ID number on it, thus making it look like an official Carrasco campaign document. But, read the DA's comments in the story; he seems to think the flyer itself was illegal for combining Carrasco's face with the Viet Namese flag. That's illegal???? 

7. It's hard to believe anyone's vote could be swayed by Shirakawa's flyer - it's incredibly primitive, not to mention stupid - but Carrasco lost by a whisker-thin margin. I am unable to resist that "surrounded by idiots" feeling, even if we're talking about Democrats here. 

8. Note that the offending mailer was targeted at an immigrant community, and was calculated in its ham-fisted way, to offend its political sensitivities. And it worked! This doesn't speak well for the assimilation and sophistication of our treasured immigrant brethren. In fact, it raises the question once again whether there are people voting in American elections who are citizens and actually have the franchise.  

9. Shirakawa is obviously a classic example of the gutter level corruption you can find in any municipality. One imagines a lot of cash-in-envelopes have passed through his hands over the years.

10. But at least he never led a "war on women!"

Non-controversial: Obvious Conclusions About the Boston Bombers

I'm not in the mood for stirring up trouble, so I'll just jot down some of the obvious truths we can agree have grown out of the Boston Marathon bombing:

We got some Mighty Warriors For Allah out there: a couple yokels from Chechnya on welfare (and look like were drug dealers, too) who blew up women and children wearing jogging clothes.

Sure the mom is nuts, but she's also an instigator and as much a jihadi as her kids. That's how the dynamic works with the Palestinians - the young men do the killing, but the moms and sisters are back at home barking at them to kill more Jews.

That aunt in Toronto is something else, too. I assume she's the mom's sister.

Really, if we're going to have chain migration, we need to have chain deportation too. (except for the uncle. He's cool.)

Seeing these Muslim women's finger-jabbing, self-justifying rants, I'm reminded of what they used to say about New Dealers like Alger Hiss who were really secret Communists - the wives were more left-wing than the hubbies.

American Moms & Dads, if your cute daughter who wants to "work for the Peace Corps" ends up in an abusive relationship with a swarthy foreigner and walks around wearing one of those stupid hijab-things - she has emotional problems.

The political refugee segment of immigration law is a relic of WW2 and the Cold War. Where we once welcomed hard-working, brilliant refugees from Eastern Europe, Cuba, and Viet Nam; now we're bringing in Somalis and Chechans who are likely not even our allies in whatever political fight they are supposedly leaving behind.

There are people out there who have been educated in US schools up to the PhD level - and they have no real ability to remain in the US once their student visas are tapped out. Meanwhile the mom and younger brother seem to have been on the citizenship fast-track. That's is stupid, dysfunctional, indefensible, etc. And there is no sign that this is going to change through the immigration reform being touted by the "progressive" crowd. (unless you are an illegal immigrant DREAM-er, of course)

I'm guessing the mom and younger bro did not read the brochures they received at their citizenship ceremony.

Remember how the symbol of our pre-9/11 fecklessness was how we were giving visas to Arabs seeking flying lessons, but who didn't want to learn to take-off or land? Now we've got Tamerlan Tsarnaev: the political "refugee" (who took lengthy vacations in his land of oppression) drug dealer on welfare who was investigated by the FBI and KGB, and who was arrested for domestic violence in this country - and all we were doing was "slow walking" his application for citizenship.

I'm sure one of the reasons US Intelligence (oxymoron alert) blew off the Russians' multiple warnings about Chechan terrorists in the US is because the Russkies are viewed as the "bad guys" in the Chechan Wars. The way things have been working out, I'm thinking the Russians had the right idea from the beginning.

I don't have access to any special knowledge, and have no real specialty in foreign affairs. All I do is read the newspapers. But, even I knew the following about Chechan terrorism pre-Boston Marathon:

1. Muslim 

2. blew up some Russian airliners using female suicide bombers 

3. attacked an elementary school and killed hundreds of children. (it was Newtown x 20).  

4. took a theater full of the Muscovite equivalent of New York Times readers - with dozens killed as a result.  

5. no direct connection to the US

Is it unfair for me to say that no one in the US government, at least at the FBI, DHS or ICE knows any of the above?

UPDATE: this doesn't really fit the "non-controversial" theme, but...remember the Rand Paul question to Eric Holder? (can you use a drone on a US citizen sitting in a café in the United States?) Remember how Holder hemmed and hawed? Everyone thought the AG was being obtuse, but in retrospect, doesn't it seem likely that Holder knew that there were US citizens out there (like Bro. #2) who were connected to Muslim terrorism and wanted to keep his options open? (and didn't want to admit that the gov't is granting citizenship to terrorists or people connected to terrorists).

Blame Game: Will Dastardly Chechan Terrorists Derail Obama's Second-Term?

4 dead, scores injured, a major American city in lock-down, a splashy explosion at one of America's premier public events; but let's focus on what's really in danger: Obama's second-term agenda. 

The Boston Marathon terrorist attack allegedly hatched by two brothers from Chechnya is threatening to disrupt President Obama’s second-term agenda. 

Opponents of immigration reform — the most promising priority of Obama’s second term remaining after the defeat of gun control — are already using the attack to try to slow progress on a bipartisan Senate bill. 

More broadly, the attack is raising questions about how the administration should deal with 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was captured Friday after an exhaustive manhunt in Boston, and concerns over whether the FBI was too complacent in letting his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev out of its sight after interviewing him in 2011. 

The issues are expected to create political problems and distractions for Obama, whose fight against terrorism has largely been a political success highlighted by the killing of Osama bin Laden.

There's a more fundamental reason why Obama's "second-term agenda" is in trouble: it's incredibly stupid and poorly thought out; built on a "mandate" from an election won by demonizing the opposition, splashing gov't $$ on his constituents, and promising to raise taxes. 

Let's look at the numbers:

There was the afore-mentioned tax increase - hey! promise kept! - that hit the economy just in time to slow down growth once again. 

There's the apparently botched effort to prepare for the implementation of Obamacare. Regardless of your thoughts on socialized medicine, this is sheer political malpractice. 

There's the immigration reform effort that is custom-designed to maximize border crossing while minimizing border security. It's also set up to continue the dysfunctions of a system that allows automatic entry to political refugees from sh*t-holes like Somalia and Chechnya, while American-educated Phd's languish on 10-year waitlists. 

There's the "crafty" effort to blame sequestration on every conceivable social ill even though (1) the numbers were pitifully small (2) Obama's guys were the ones who conceived sequestration and (3) these geniuses broadcast far and wide that they were going to use sequestration as a wedge against the GOP, who unsurprisingly didn't line up for their usual turn as whipping boy. Bill Clinton must slap his forehead watching this ham-handedness. 

And there was gun control - what was dumber, the executive orders, (including one from Obama directing Obama to nominate a new ATF chief)? Or the legislation that would have done nothing to stop mass murderers? Or the "women's magazine"-style politicking by which Americans were emotionally blackmailed? 

And great job unifying the country this week, Healer-in-Chief. The Boston Marathon was on Monday. We heard the usual/expected blather about "coming together" and how there are "no Republicans or Democrats," but on Wednesday Obama gave an angry speech denouncing his opponents in the gun control debate as liars (that's what he said!) interested in preserving the right to massacre children. Unity! 

And, don't ever forget that he's the smartest guy to ever hold the office of President of the United States!

Sorry, but if Obama's second-term agenda fails - and I hope that's what happens - it will be his own damn fault. 

Data Point: How Many DREAM'ers Are There?

Buried in this eye-roll inducing story about the proto-typical "illegal immigrant college kid whose parents brought him to the US and is now threatened with deportation," (by the Big Bad Obama Administration!) is an interesting data point on Obama's much-hyped DREAM Act: there's actually not a lot of DREAM'ers out there eager to change their status:

The California Dream Act, passed in 2011, allows undocumented students who were brought to the United States when they were under 16 to apply for state aid at public universities and community colleges. President Obama enacted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in June. That program provides temporary, renewable work permits for unauthorized immigrants who are 30 years old or younger and were brought to the United States before age 16.

Through Oct. 10, nearly 180,000 people had applied for coverage under the federal program, and 4,591 had been approved, federal figures show. (emph. added).

 The immigrants advocates say that the small number of applications is due to young immigrants' "fears" of a possible Romney Administration which they thought would not only withdraw the program, but also deport everyone who came forward. Is there any seemingly baffling phenomenon that can't be explained by Evil Republican Racism?

Maybe DREAM'ers are just as wary of Pres. Obama, who could rescind his executive order just as easily as the never-neverland Pres. Romney, and had taken note of his chest-beating on the increase in deportations under his watch.

Less likely, but still plausible, maybe the DREAM'ers are budding constitutional scholars who suspect that Obama overstepped his bounds, and his executive order is vulnerable to a constitutional challenge. They may even be aware of Justice Jackson's levels of presidential power whereby the president's power is at its weakest when he acts without the support of, and in opposition against, Congress. Either way, it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of DREAM'ers suspect that Obama's executive order is not on very firm legal footing.

Maybe the numbers of potential DREAM'ers are not as great as we've lead ourselves to believe. After all, the sort of aspiring middle class types who would send their kids to college, or urge their kids to join the military - both DREAM requirements - are not as likely to be undocumented, but would make sure their immigration status was secure.

Maybe DREAM'ers are typical of the low-information voters in their cohort, and were only vaguely aware of the DREAM Act. Who says immigrants aren't assimilating?

Or, maybe the DREAM'ers recognized that the DREAM Act was less about them, and more about the activitsts and leftists who wanted Obama to have an applause line (Obama: "We have brought millions of DREAM'ers out of the shadows and into college and the workplace!" Assembled multitudes: "Yayyyyyy!") without accomplising all that much.

DREAM'ers are the low-hanging fruit of the immigration debate: photogenic, sympathetic people who just want to go to college and get ahead. They have little in common with the literally millions of uneducated, unassimilated people - most of them from a single country for no better reason than it shares our southern border - and who are the true source of America's immigration angst.

MS-13 3000: Edwin Ramos Judged Guilty of Murder

It's the end of the line for MS-13 member, and illegal alien, Edwin Ramos, as a SF jury found him guilty of murdering a man and two of his three teen-aged sons:

A man with a long gang history was convicted Wednesday of the mistaken-identity murders of a San Francisco father and his two sons, the culmination of one of the most notorious crimes in the city in recent years. 

Edwin Ramos, 25, at first was still as the San Francisco Superior Court jury returned guilty verdicts on three first-degree murder counts in the killings of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16. Soon, however, he began to cry.

Ramos was the beneficiary of one of the dumbest "only in San Francisco" initiatives ever: the practice of intentionally refusing to notify the Feds whenever a juvenile illegal alien was arrested. Here's how Ramos used his multiple second chances:

Ramos was not in the United States legally at the time he was identified as one of three alleged MS-13 members who beat up a man on a Muni bus in the Mission District in 2003. Prosecutors told the jury that Ramos and his colleagues had been "checking" passengers to determine what gang they were affiliated with. 

Instead of referring him to federal authorities for possible deportation, San Francisco juvenile authorities placed Ramos in a shelter and later released him to his mother in April 2004. 

Four days after his release, he assaulted a pregnant woman and her brother, and was sentenced to the city's Log Cabin Ranch for felony attempted robbery. He was released in February 2005, again without city juvenile authorities reporting him to federal immigration officials. 

The Juvenile Probation Department had ordered employees not to report minors to immigration officials under the agency's interpretation of San Francisco's sanctuary policy, which barred city officials from cooperating with deportations.

The widow Bologna tried and failed to sue the City, so this guilty verdict will have to do. Reading her reaction only hints at the shattered lives in the wake, not only of Ramos's violence, but also of the destruction that results from the dangerous policy preferences of liberals

Tony Bologna's widow, Danielle, who was in court for most of the trial, wept throughout the session and sobbed hardest when the court clerk read the names of her husband and sons. 

"Yes, yes, God," she cried as she heard the verdicts. 

Her son, Andrew Bologna, now 21, was the only survivor of the shootings in the Excelsior neighborhood on a bright Sunday afternoon, June 22, 2008. Tony Bologna was driving his sons home from a family gathering in Fairfield when, prosecutors said, Ramos mistook at least one of the young men for a Mission District gang rival and fired from another car. 

"He didn't get me," Andrew Bologna whispered to his mother in consolation Wednesday. 

Several members of the Bologna family, including Danielle and Andrew, wore white T-shirts with "Finally justice is served" on the front and the victims' names on the back. 

Outside court, Tony Bologna's mother, Lena Bologna, cried as she said, "All I kiss at night are the pictures of my son and my two grandsons."

"He didn't get me." There's a lot of pain and absence in those words. Oh, and the surviving members of the Bologna family are now in the witness protection program. The City did a lot more for Ramos than they ever did for innocents like the Bolognas.


I wish I could say the architects of this fiasco are out of office, but instead former DA Kamala Harris is now the State Attorney General, while Mayor Newsome is Lieutenant Governor. They were running against the sort of Republicans who don't like "negative" campaigning, so the Ramos scandal never came up. Great job. 

Sanctuary City: Another Illegal Immigrant Mass Murderer In San Francisco

The last big San Francisco mass murder was the Bolagna murders, where a local butcher and his teenage sons were murdered by Edwin Ramos, a MS-13 thug who also turned out to have been an illegal immigrant protected by the District Attorney's office. 


Now, there's been another spectacular act of mass murder - five Asian-Americans brutally murdered in their home with some sort of blunt instrument - and you'll never guess the immigration status of the accused murderer: 

The suspect in last week's slayings of five people in San Francisco was ordered deported in 2006 after he served a prison term for robbery and assault, but immigration authorities had to let him go free because his native Vietnam would not take him back, officials said Monday. 

Binh Thai Luc, 35, of San Francisco was released under the terms of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said undocumented immigrants must be released after six months if their country of origin won't allow them to return, according to officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. 

Luc is the only suspect to have been arrested in the killings in a home near City College of San Francisco. A source familiar with the investigation said authorities suspect the killer or killers may have been trying to collect on a gambling debt.

"Incredibly" (scoff) Luc had repeated run-ins with the law, but no one could quite figure out how to keep him separated from law-abiding folk.

Immigration officials had been eager to deport Luc after he was sentenced to an 11-year, 4-month term at San Quentin State Prison for a 1998 conviction for robbing a Chinese restaurant in San Jose at gunpoint, according to agency spokeswoman Gillian Christensen. 

Federal agents took him into custody when he was released from prison on Aug. 2, 2006, after serving eight years, and a judge ordered him deported a month later. 

"However, because Vietnamese authorities declined to provide appropriate travel documents, Luc ultimately had to be released because of the Supreme Court's ruling" in a 2001 case, Zadvydas vs. Davis, Christensen said. 

Officials at the Vietnam Consulate in San Francisco could not be reached for comment.

I guess this isn't San Francisco's fault, per se, as it was loser federal immigration officials who let Luc go (and the smarter-than-they-look Viet Namese who refused to take him back). Still, you have  to ask yourself what grand principle is being upheld when an obvious member of the criminal element is allowed to remain in the US indefinitely. I note that Luc's status is that of "undocumented" so it's not like he needed to kill someone to be deported. 


Oh, and I'm sure Luc won't be getting the death penalty either...because SF is special that way.

You Can't Say That: Pat Buchanan Out At MSBNC

The oddly unpublicized suspension of Pat Buchanan from MSNBC - odd because there was no triumphalist chest thumping from the Pat H8'ers or quisling press releases from the suits - has turned in to an out and out termination, all because the contents of his new book were just too much to handle. As you would expect, Pat went out with dignity and with guns blazing:

My days as a political analyst at MSNBC have come to an end.   

After 10 enjoyable years, I am departing, after an incessant clamor from the left that to permit me continued access to the microphones of MSNBC would be an outrage against decency, and dangerous.    

 The calls for my firing began almost immediately with the Oct. 18 publication of "Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?"     A group called Color of Change, whose mission statement says that it "exists to strengthen Black America's political voice," claimed that my book espouses a "white supremacist ideology." Color of Change took particular umbrage at the title of Chapter 4, "The End of White America." 

... 

Consider what it is these people are saying.    

 They are saying that a respected publisher, St. Martin's, colluded with me to produce a racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic book, and CNN, Fox News, C-SPAN, Fox Business News and the 150 radio shows on which I appeared failed to detect its evil and helped to promote a moral atrocity. 

If my book is racist and anti-Semitic, how did Sean Hannity, Erin Burnett, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Megyn Kelly, Lou Dobbs and Ralph Nader miss that? How did Charles Payne, African-American host on Fox radio, who has interviewed me three times, fail to detect its racism? 

How did Michael Medved miss its anti-Semitism? 

In a 2009 cover story in the Atlantic, "The End of White America?" from which my chapter title was taken, professor Hua Hsu revels in the passing of America's white majority. At Portland State, President Clinton got a huge ovation when he told students that white Americans will be a minority in 2050. 

Is this writer alone forbidden to broach the subject? 

That homosexual acts are unnatural and immoral has been doctrine in the Catholic Church for 2,000 years. 

Is it now hate speech to restate traditional Catholic beliefs? 

First off, I wasn't planning to read Suicide of a Superpower, but I am now!


Second, can we please take a moment to note that Color of Change is a group founded by the redoubtable self-avowed communist Van Jones? Nice to see what sort of people are now able to impact the public debate, such as it is, as it plays out in the mainstream media.


And, third, this is really a new low. Normally, media figures lose their jobs for making crass jokes at an unguarded moment. I can't recall the last time someone lost their political analyst job over a book, especially a book that, as Pat notes, was published by a major publishing house. 


Pat appears to have lost his job over commentary made about illegal aliens and homosexuals. His comments were, essentially, that the promotion of the interests of these groups at the expense of others - often in the face of popular opposition - will have a negative impact. I think a lot of folks silently agree with Pat on this, but we apparently are not allowed to discuss such things. 


One of Pat's overarching themes the last 20 years has been that we are making a mistake by allowing in millions of illegal immigrants who do not assimilate and do not participate in society. (that's the root of his "notorious" comment about comparing the problems of assimilating 1 million Zulus to that of 1 million Englishmen). Experience, especially here in California, is teaching us in real time that Pat has a point. This is nothing new. Pat's been talking about it a long time. But now, in 2012, we cannot discuss this any more. 


Another of Pat's overarching themes is that we are being morally weakened by a decadent approach to sexuality, an approach where among other things liberal elites are making every effort to promote a "right" for men to marry one another (and where the majesty of the office of the president is now being used to promote condom use).  Pat has argued, as has the Catholic Church (and Jews, and Muslims, and Buddhists, &c) that homosexual sex is unnatural and against God and not deserving of any sort of special legal privileges. Again, there is nothing new here. But, as of February 2012, we can no longer discuss these things. 


We can't talk about these things, but that doesn't mean folks don't talk about them. Here in California, there isn't any wide ranging anti-immigrant sentiment. But, it's not hard to hear people speak sotto voce about how they are reluctant to put their kids in the formerly high performing local high school because the student population has suddenly become 30/40/50% Mexican. And, it's certainly not hard to find people who voted for Prop. 8 while simultaneously voting for Barack Obama. The conversations are happening, even if we can't talk about it. 


What's even stranger is that there was little talk of Pat's suspension and termination. I'll bet most people didn't know there was a movement to remove Pat until they noticed he hadn't been on the air for a few weeks. MSNBC issued some terse statements, but these weren't heavily publicized. It wasn't until now, when Pat published his column, that there has been any sort of response to an alleged controversy so awful that a man must lose his position. 


There was no great popular clamor to have Pat removed from MSBNC. Instead, it all played out behind closed doors. If the ideas Pat attacked were so wonderful, they wouldn't need to be defended with the rhetorical equivalent of a knife in the back in a dark alley.

All You Have to Do Is DREAM

The DREAM Act, like Godwin Liu, may have failed at the federal level, but that doesn't mean it won't find a willing audience in California. State lawmakers have just passed part two of a law that will allow illegal aliens to obtain college grants, regardless of their immigration status.

The college dreams of thousands of students who are illegal immigrants moved closer to fulfillment Wednesday after the state Senate approved a bill that for the first time would give them access to public financial aid.

Part of a two-bill package known as the California Dream Act, the measure would allow undocumented students who qualify for reduced in-state tuition to apply for Cal Grants, community college waivers and other public aid programs. To be eligible, they must be California high school graduates who attended schools in the state at least three years, and demonstrate financial need and academic merit.

Back in my college days, these sort of grants simply weren't available to regular middle class people, but apparently it's roll-out-the-carpet time if you have absolutely no legal right to be in the United States. My memory of financial aid planning was that you had to fill out some federal forms and give your social security number, among other things. Will the California DREAM Act also provide undocumented kids with fake SSN's?

The linked article quotes a couple of kids who say they have to work at the classic "two jobs to make ends meet" as if that is some unique experience. The fact is that they would probably have to work those jobs anyway, given how much college costs thanks to this sort of meddling. By the way, one of things that Everybody Knows in California is that classes, especially in community college, are packed to the gills in the first week - and then empty out as soon as everyone gets their grant money. You see, you don't have to pay back the grants so once people get their money, they're outta there.

The DREAM Act is almost a perfect storm of progressive governance: undermine immigration laws? Check. Dumping more money into higher education? Check. Reckless social engineering? Check. Disregard for cost? Can I hear a "Check?" Sadly, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of popular outrage against this sort of thing.

Car Wash: LA's "Pop-Up" Used Car Lots

The NY Times looks at a phenomenon that is sweeping LA: pop-up used car lots, where someone will gather some vehicles together along the sidewalk and boldly sell his wares without regard for zoning laws, parking regulations, or - I assume - sales tax. Would it surprise you to learn that these fences, er, dealers have a distinctly Latino flavor?

They show up bright and early on Saturday mornings, parking cars and trucks along the side of Pacific Boulevard and polishing them inside and out. Once they have chalked prices onto the windshields (an old Honda Civic for $1,900) they are open for business: a pop-up used car lot on the side of the road.

But like so many other pop-up markets in Southern California, the dealerships are unlicensed, unregulated and, according to public officials, illegal.

Now, local governments are trying to curb the unlicensed dealers by making it illegal to park any car with a “For Sale” sign in the areas where these markets proliferate. TheCity of Los Angeles has already enacted a ban on two major streets, and the county is set to add Pacific Boulevard and many more roads to that list after a final vote Tuesday.

“This attempt to use the street as a place of business creates a hazard for businesses and residents who pay taxes to maintain those streets,” a Los Angeles County supervisor, Gloria Molina, said. “We are trying to correct a public nuisance.”

These used car markets have appeared all over Los Angeles County in the past 15 years, especially in the largely Latino communities southeast of Los Angeles like Walnut Park, where they conduct business entirely in Spanish.

The Times notes that unlicensed businesses are common in the area (No! You don't say!) with everything from bicycles to fruit to women for sale at different times of the day. Why it's almost as if, having broken the law to come to the US - why, yes, I am assuming that most of these unlicensed businessmen are illegal aliens - they don't feel constrained by any other laws we have here. Btw, I love how these are called "pop-up" used car lots, which gives them a hip, H&M sort of flair.

LA is trying to figure out how to crack down on these clowns, as if no zoning laws exist regarding where vehicles can or can't be sold. You want a crack down? Ask Crazy Juan how many of his vehicles are stolen. But, instead, city officials proclaim the problem to be intractable and "impossible" to eradicate.

Though it is illegal to operate a car sale business without a license in California, county officials call the law almost impossible to enforce.

The dealers hang around in a nearby park, playing cards or lying on park benches, waiting for customers to call. County officials say they bring the cars in from mechanic shops and nearby dealerships, in hopes of moving vehicles that have not sold. Many of the cars have the same phone numbers listed on them. Mr. Carvajal said sellers sometimes dropped cars off on tow trucks, two or three at a time.

When the dealers saw a photographer snapping pictures of the chalked windows, they quickly wiped the prices off all the windshields. They all denied they were selling cars — one man polishing a car ran away when a reporter approached him, and five others in the park said they were waiting around for a party that would start later. One pointed to a man sleeping on a bench and said, “It’s his birthday.”

Yeah, that's a real gathering of criminal masterminds there. You can see why they're untouchable. All I know is that, if I tried to pull this sort of stunt in my neighborhood, I would be ticketed into penury in short order. It's "impossible" to stop someone from operating an unlicensed used car business? Has anyone asked any of these guys for, you know, their license? Better yet, has anyone checked the VIN numbers for these vehicles? Works in the rest of the city, I'm sure, but not in the barrio, it seems.

Brown on Black: Hispanic Gangs Target Black Americans

Federal prosecutors have charged an LA-based Latino street gang with a conspiracy to drive African-Americans from the town of Azusa. Among other things, the gang targeted blacks (who were about 4% of the town's population) for robberies, beatings, and property crimes. Things were so bad that Azusas was known as the "hate capital of the valley." How long did this conspiracy last? 20 years! I've heard justice moves slowly, but come on!

Members of a Latino gang affiliated with the Mexican Mafia conspired for nearly 20 years to drive African-Americans out of the Southern California city of Azusa through violence and intimidation, federal authorities alleged Tuesday.

Fifty-one alleged members of the Azusa 13 gang were indicted on racketeering and conspiracy charges; six were accused of conspiring to violate the civil rights of African-Americans. The case marks the second time federal civil-rights laws have been used against a gang, authorities said.

"The Azusa 13 gang waged a campaign of hate during a two-decade crime spree in which African-Americans were harassed and attacked," U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr. said in a written statement Tuesday. "We hope that this federal case will signal the end of this racist behavior and will help vindicate all of the victims who have suffered over the years."

Thirty-nine of the defendants were in custody Tuesday. Authorities were still searching for 12 other suspects. Lawyers for some of the defendants couldn't immediately be reached.

While racial tensions among gangs have long been a part of turf wars in Southern California, none of the victims of the Azusa gang's alleged racial harassment were part of any rival gangs or criminal enterprise, authorities said. They were targeted simply because they were black, authorities said.

Unbelievable stuff. What were bedwetting liberals saying about white Tea Partiers? That we were one-sheet removed from a Klan rally? Meanwhile, African-Americans are actually targets of violence by one racial group because they are black, and it takes 20 years (!) to do anything about it? Do I have that straight?

It's a cruel world, but I honestly believe that America has made great strides in racial matters since the 1960's. But just as we are emerging from one font of injustice, we seem to have imported a new group of racist a**holes who are even worse. (can we all assume that a bunch of gang members with ties to the Mexican mafia may not be native-born Americans?) But, even though the victims were American citizens targeted over a period of decades, no one seems to have been spurred to quick action, no doubt because the perpetrators were another minority, rather than part of the supposed "oppressor" class of whites.

Conservatives are at least in favor of enforcing the law and treating everybody equally under the law. It's liberals who are soft on crime, and reluctant to acknowledge the racist behaviors of "oppressed" minorities, not to mention the criminal element among the immigrant community. Yet we are the ones who are labeled as racist. If black Americans ever realize how much they have been abused by their liberal protectors, they will be on the path to true freedom.

MS-13 Mystery Theater: Gang Member Murders Baby in

The most disgusting thing to happen in the last 24 hours was not the dissemination of a picture of a shirtless Anthony Weiner. (my eyes!) It was this case, supposedly of "mistaken identity," in East Palo Alto where gang member shot a baby in the head:

East Palo Alto police have arrested a 17-year-old boy in the fatal shooting of a 3-month-old baby, a killing that investigators said stemmed from a case of mistaken identity.

The teenager was out for revenge after being beaten up May 31 by Sureño gang members in Redwood City, police said at a news conference today. At about 1 a.m. Sunday, he thought he saw one of the gang members getting into a car on the 400 block of Wisteria Drive in East Palo Alto, said acting police Capt. Jeff Liu.

In the car, however, was a family of four leaving a baby shower, not the gang members who had fought with the teenager. The suspect opened fire, killing 3-month-old Izak Jesus Garcia-Lopez and wounding the boy's parents.

Izak's mother, Ivonne Garcia-Lopez, was shot in the leg as she threw her body in front of her 4-year-old son, Isaiah. When the shooting stopped, she saw that her baby had been shot in the head.

"He was such a precious angel," Garcia-Lopez, 28, said at the news conference, sobbing. "He is my everything. I was making my own little family and we were happy, and this person came into my life and destroyed it. They killed my baby and they destroyed my soul, too."

Mistaken identity?? A husband and wife and their two little kids? Maybe his gun was hacked.

The shooter is only identified as a "teenager" because, naturally, we can't identify juveniles as being criminal suspects. I'm sure his immigration status, or lack there of, will also be a jealously guarded secret.

Ol' Fuss & Feathers: Cock Fight Turns Deadly

We now have a definitive answer to the question: who is the cock of the walk? Turns out, it is not man:

A California man attending a cockfight has died after being stabbed in the leg by a bird that had a knife attached to its limb.

The Kern County coroner says 35-year-old Jose Luis Ochoa was declared dead at a hospital about two hours after he suffered the injury in neighboring Tulare County on Jan. 30.

An autopsy concluded Ochoa died of an accidental "sharp force injury" to his right calf.

Sheriff's spokesman Ray Pruitt says it's unclear if a delay in seeking medical attention contributed to Ochoa's death. Tulare officials are investigating, and no arrests were made at the cockfight.

Fighting Cock wrangling is much more dangerous than I realized. Must be one of those jobs that Americans won't do.

UPDATE: oh, and note that "no arrests were made at the cockfight."

Union Dues: CA Nurses Union Admits To Setting Up Whitman's Illegal Alien Maid

The Media-approved story: "brave" illegal immigrant confronts fat-cat billionaire Republican trying to "buy" a political office with the selfless assistance of a womens' rights advocate and is a factor in said fat-cat's election loss. When asked how an unemployed high school drop out can afford to pay the attorneys fees for one of the most expensive lawyers in the state, the response is the inevitable "attorney-client privilege."

The amazing reality: illegal immigrant maid to moderate Republican candidate for governor, who was fired after revealing she had lied about her immigration status for 10 years, links up with a media-savvy leftist with a JD and a bar card. Who made the introductions between an obscure Northern Californian maid and a celebrity litigator in LA? The CA Nurses Union, of course:

In early September, Diaz turned to a friend who knew a member of the powerful, Oakland-based California Nurses Association, The Chronicle has learned.

The union called in two lawyers for Diaz: Marc Van Der Hout, a longtime immigration attorney in San Francisco, and celebrity feminist attorney Gloria Allred, a fierce workplace rights litigator who arranged for Diaz to tell her story in a live-webcast news conference.

Asked to confirm her organization's role in Diaz's case, Rose Ann DeMoro, the nurses union executive director, said Monday, "I won't deny it, but I prefer not to comment directly on the case."

Whitman, a former eBay CEO, has alleged that Diaz was used by unions backing her Democratic opponent, Jerry Brown, and engaged in "the politics of personal destruction." Her campaign said the California Nurses Association's role was suspected after its spokesman, Chuck Idelson, turned up at a widely watched Diaz news conference - and refused comment on the matter.

But several sources close to the matter, speaking on condition that they not be named, have now confirmed the union's role in Diaz's emergence, a moment labor leaders hailed as a watershed in the immigrant-rights movement - and political opponents have called a classic campaign dirty trick.

The Nurses Union was also one of the forces behind the defeat of The Governator's 2005 reform propositions. Something to keep in mind next time you hear about how Big Business is trying to buy democracy. It's obvious they've already been outbid.

Just A DREAM

I can't improve on Kaus' analysis of the upcoming Senate vote on the amnesty-lite DREAM Act. This isn't exactly striking while the iron is hot, more like striking before the creditors foreclose on the ironworks:

In the post-election "lame duck" session of Congress, Obama and the Democrats will focus on jobs, jobs, jobs. ... Oh, wait, no. They'll focus on passing a big amnesty for illegal immigrants, in order to reward their Latino "base"--which was only 8 percent of the national vote but supposedly cares with something approaching monomania about amnesty (despite evidence that Hispanic American opinion is shifting against illegal immigrantion). ... When did the Democrats' African-American base--11 percent of the vote--get that kind of service? ...

This is really how liberals and liberalism have been able to persist. I mean, they just lost an election by historic margins. There are people in the Capitol Building today, planning on voting on this thing, who will not be in office in five weeks. But, it's full speed ahead. I can understand that there might be Republican Senators who are sympathetic to the idea of the DREAM Act, but I'm not sure how they can justify letting a bill like this pass under these circumstances.

UPDATE: Sandy Levinson is no conservative (far from it), but he's been banging the the drum on weaknesses in our constitutional order for quite some time. Lame-duck sessions - along with their executive brother the three-month presidential transition - have long been a target of his ire for being unnecessarily long and leading to too much mischief.

Just this week, we have the DREAM Act.

We have the president suddenly waking up and demanding the the Senate pass the START Treaty, despite its being pending quietly for months.

We have Jay Rockefeller calling for the FCC to "ban" Fox News (without mentioning that his wife is a big wig at PBS).

And so on. It's like the election never happened.

UPDATE: the Senate is also scheduled to vote on some kind of crazy "food safety" bill (sponsored by urban farmer, Dick Durbin):

S510 puts all U.S. food production under the control of the Department of Homeland Security. And the Department of Defense. We lose not only private-citizen control of our food supply, but sovereignty as well. The bill sets in motion standardization of the food animal supply chain, focusing on eliminating biodiversity in food animal genetic stocks. It further mandates that the federal government control and empower hormonal, genetic, and antibiotic additions to our food supply while postponing most definitions of what will constitute "food crimes" under the bill's sweeping and generalized powers.

They're calling it the food version of Obamacare.

At Whit's End: The Last Word on the Gloria Allred Smear

Looks like people have concluded that Meg Whitman's "illegal alien maid" scandal will blow over, not least because of Gloria Allred's overwrought advocacy on behalf of her client, Jerry Brown, er, Nicki Diaz. Before we go, here's video of Allred on Greta Van Sustern's show last night. Allred probably thought this was a safe haven, since Greta is always willing to showcase Allred's battery of sleazy mistresses on the make, but not this time:

It’s every bit as good as rumored from the Twitter stream. Greta van Susteren calls Gloria Allred “insane” and “delusional,” and even gets Allred to admit at one point that her client, illegal immigrant Nicki Santillan, won’t ever end up in court on this complaint. Susteren calls Allred’s ethics into question for exposing the woman and her children — “putting a big neon sign” on them, in van Susteren’s words — for a case that Allred not only admits she can’t win but won’t even survive to an actual trial. Meanwhile, Allred keeps insisting that Meg Whitman lied about the letter that her husband saw seven years ago, and van Susteren keeps insisting that any judge or jury would laugh her out of court for that assertion on the basis of a quick note scribbled on the letter by her spouse:

Now, credit where credit's due: in pushing this story, Allred dove headfirst into some hostile media interviews, including Hugh Hewitt's and, especially, Mark Levin. She could have as easily gone the safe route: softball interviews with the LA Times, plus sob sister TV appearances on MSNBC. But Allred went toe-to-toe with the best the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy could throw at her. She might be wrong, but she's also a warrior. That's something you can't say about Jerry Brown, and the other male politicians for whom Allred is working so hard.

Witless Over Whitman: The Meg Whitman Maid Story Falls To Pieces

The San Francisco Chronicle is a typical liberal newspaper in one of the most liberal cities in the US. Immigration attorneys, as a group, tend to be leftist in their politics. So what do you suppose happened when the Chron called a bunch of immigration attorneys to ask if Meg Whitman had broken the law?

Whether or not Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman received a letter from the Social Security Administration saying her former housekeeper's false documents did not match its records, Whitman did not act unlawfully by keeping the housekeeper employed, immigration lawyers said Thursday.

In fact, had she gone ahead and fired Nicandra Diaz Santillan based on such a letter, she would have exposed herself to potential anti-discrimination violations, lawyers said.

Whitman says she wasn't aware of receiving a "no-match" letter.

Lawyers said an employer's obligation upon receiving a no-match letter from the Social Security Administration is to check their own records for typographical or other errors, inform the employee that the records do not match and tell the employee to correct them.

"There is no additional legal obligation for an employer to follow up or respond to SSA with new information," said Gening Liao, a labor and employment attorney at the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles, which defends immigrants.

Liao added that it is "very important that the employer does not take adverse action against the employee" merely based on a letter from Social Security.

I'm sure it kills Liao to have to say that, but that's the legal situation that immigration rights advocates have helped create.

That's really the problem with this October Surprise: Whitman hasn't done anything wrong, except maybe that she made Nicki Diaz cry. In fact, Whitman's case is an example of how horribly the politics of immigration has screwed up America's immigration laws.

I keep hearing that this story will hurt because Latino voters will be turned off by Whitman's treatment of her housekeeper. Could be, but I don't see how it could hurt within the illegal immigrant community since they're not *supposed* to be voting in the first place. As for eligible Hispanic voters, Democrats appear to be hoping to whip up a combination of class resentment, anti-white bias, and soap opera tears to cause the "community" to turn decisively against Whitman. Just what you would expect from the party of the "scary smart" Jerry Brown.

September Surprise: Meg Whitman's Illegal Alien Maid

Meg Whitman's campaign came under its first sustained media/political (but I repeat myself) attack yesterday, as Gloria Allred produced an illegal immigrant who said she had worked for Whitman for years before being abruptly fired. A wealthy Californian hiring undocumented household help?? Say it ain't so!

The latest chapter in California's gubernatorial race unfolded live on TMZ.com, just hours after Whitman finished her first televised debate with her November opponent, Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown, a debate in which she argued that California employers must be held accountable for hiring undocumented workers.

It starred Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred, a Democratic donor who is a controversial veteran of many highly publicized cases, surrounded by a battery of cameras in her office.

Seated beside her was Mexican-born Nicandra Diaz Santillan - Whitman's nanny and housekeeper from 2000 to 2009 - who charged that Whitman had mistreated her and failed to pay her for all the hours she worked.

Allred alleged that Whitman "never asked if Nicky were here legally" when she hired her to work 15 hours a week as a $23-an-hour housekeeper in Whitman's 15,000-square-foot home, then upped her workload and responsibilities. The attorney said she would file a lawsuit demanding back wages for hours she said Diaz worked and for which she was never paid, and for years of unspecified "abuse" she took at her employer's hands.

But Whitman said she had no way of knowing Diaz was in the country illegally because the housekeeper had provided her with a phony Social Security number and signed a required statement stating that she was a legal resident of the country.

Allred charged that Whitman ignored a 2003 letter the Social Security Administration sent to her home, informing her that Diaz's Social Security number did not match her name - a red flag for an undocumented worker. She said the agency asked Whitman to provide proper documentation, and Whitman never responded. But Allred did not show such a document Wednesday to back up that claim.

The Whitman campaign's story is that the maid provided fake documentation and a false social security number at the time she applied for work. As soon as Whitman found out about Diaz's true status, she fired the lady. Sounds good, but I'm still willing to bet that Whitman learned the truth about Diaz only after someone took a second look at Diaz's papers while Whitman was preparing to run for governor. Still, Whitman was in a damned if you do, damned if you don't position here. If she fires the maid, she could end up with a Gloria Allred-fueled media frenzy. Retain the maid, and God knows when the bubble might burst.

As for Allred, she took time out to go on Hugh Hewitt's show yesterday, where legal eagle Allred failed to cite the law - immigration or employment - that Whitman had broken. In fact, Allred admitted to not knowing the relevant immigration law (!), but also claimed that Whitman's real scandal lay in her acts as Diaz's employer. Wake me up when this starts to make sense:

GA: This is not about whether she should have terminated the housekeeper or not terminated the housekeeper.

HH: Well, what should she have done?

GA: This is about her treatment of the housekeeper.

HH: I know that, but I’m asking what you would do if you had a housekeeper who had defrauded you and then came forward and said I’m not in the country legally, Gloria. Would you keep them? Would you keep employing them?

GA: This isn’t about what I would do. It’s about what Meg Whitman would, and did do.

HH: But I know, but my audience…

GA: …and what those facts are. And apparently, you want to talk about everything except the facts of what Meg Whitman did.

HH: No, I think this is what everyone would like to know, is what to do in that situation.

GA: Okay, well I’m not here to give you legal advice.

HH: What would you advise your clients?

GA: Okay, Hugh, I’m not, nor do I pretend to be, although maybe you feel that you are, an expert on immigration law. That’s not my area. I am, what we do, our main focus, is employment, plaintiffs employment cases. And you know, the Daily Journal, which is a legal newspaper, had selected us a few years ago as the number one plaintiffs employment law firm in Southern California. So I need to talk about the employment issues…

HH: Gloria, I gave you your plug. I just let you get the publicity that you crave, and that you die for, and for which reason you bring stunts like this every time a campaign comes up. But just for the benefit of the audience, is it wrong to fire someone who has defrauded you under the law? Do you have a choice? Because I don’t think you have a choice. I think you have to fire them.

GA: Okay, Hugh, you, just like Meg Whitman, you, just like the rich and the powerful person that you are defending, can only engage in personal attacks. And the reason is you cannot defend against the facts which we set forth in six pages at our statement at the news conference today. You cannot defend her conduct…

HH: Actually, I’m not trying to defend anything.

GA: …that we laid out. Instead…

HH: …I’m asking you as a lawyer who brought these allegations to just state the law.

GA: …I’m telling, no, I’m telling you…

HH: Can you state the law, Gloria?

GA: Now for example, let me just tell you this.

HH: I mean, just state the law, then I’ll give you the rest of the time.

GA: No, I’m not. I’m not. No, if you want to go state the law, you can feel free to contact an immigration lawyer to do that.

At this point, we can only hope that Whitman didn't hire Simon LeGree to supervise the cleaning staff, and that everything Whitman has said is the truth.

But, the bigger problem is this: we all know of some (admittedly minor) political careers that were derailed by these sorts of "nanny problems" as the elites like to delicately put it. But, that was back in the days when there was still a recognizable federal enforcement of the immigration laws. Now? Give me a break. There are millions of illegal immigrants, hundreds of thousands of whom live in California alone. They are all working for somebody, but it only becomes a problem when a Republican runs a competitive race for governor. This makes a mockery of the law that Gloria Allred is pompously "enforcing."

Whitman is caught in the crosshairs of two mutually exclusive legal regimes. On the one hand, it is theoretically illegal to hire undocumented employees, yet these laws are selectively enforced, mostly to satisfy election year whims. On the other hand, there is a very real sense out there that - if someone of Mexican descent presents you with seemingly proper documents - that your verification work is done, and to question that person's legality further is to invite a civil rights claim from the Gloria Allred's of the world.

I know that the Left thinks a billionaire Republican like Whitman is inherently dumb and evil; but, still, if you have situation where a person like her cannot comply with the law, then the law is no longer working.