Latin America Jumps Aboard The Litigation Bandwagon

Seven Latin American nations want to join Mexico in suing Arizona for Arizona's recent immigration law.

From Weasel Zippers, citing this source:

Seven other Latin American countries want to join Mexico in supporting a lawsuit challenging Arizona’s immigration enforcement law.

Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Peru filed separate, nearly identical motions to join Mexico’s legal brief supporting the lawsuit filed by U.S. civil rights and other advocacy groups.

A federal judge formally accepted Mexico’s filing July 1 but did not immediately rule on the latest motions filed late last week.

How about we countersue Latin America because of the drug cartels?

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FEATURED QUESTION: U.S. Constitution

(This FEATURED QUESTION stuck here for few days. Please scroll down for other postings)

The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 as one of the Reconstruction Amendments, is the Constitutional basis of "anchor babies," particularly Section 1, which reads as follows:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Recently, in light of this from an Arizona lawmaker, Texas Fred commented as follows about the amendment:

The original intent of the 14th Amendment was to offer protection to the recently freed slaves and their children. It was NOT written with the express intent of giving citizenship to the offspring of illegal aliens.

In his essay, Texas Fred cites the following about the original intent of the 14th Amendment (Senator Jacob Howard, 1866):

“Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country.”

According to the source cited for the above quotation from Senator Howard:

The United States did not limit immigration in 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. Thus there were, by definition, no illegal immigrants and the issue of citizenship for children of those here in violation of the law was nonexistent. Granting of automatic citizenship to children of illegal alien mothers is a recent and totally inadvertent and unforeseen result of the amendment and the Reconstructionist period in which it was ratified.

Furthermore,

Current estimates indicate there may be between 300,000 and 700,000 anchor babies born each year in the U.S., thus causing illegal alien mothers to add more to the U.S. population each year than immigration from all sources in an average year before 1965. (See consequences.)

Also,

Births to illegal alien mothers are adding more to the U.S. population each year than did immigration from all sources in an average year prior to 1965.

Read more at The 14th Amendment.

See "The 1965 Immigration Act: Anatomy of a Disaster." The 1965 Immigration Act accomplished the following:

...[U]nder the 1965 immigration Act, [anchor babies] act as an anchor that pulls the illegal alien mother and eventually a host of other relatives into permanent U.S. residency.

Video on the topic:




FEATURED QUESTION: Should immigration reform include the repeal of the 1965 Immigration Act, or is it too late for any such step?

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Check Out This Idiot!

Normally, I'd save a posting such as this for weekend humor. Of course, what you're about to watch in the video isn't really funny in a light-hearted sense.

Democrat Peggy West, the 12th District Supervisor for south Milwaukee, doesn't know that Mexico borders Arizona (hat tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance):


Apparently, the following map is a stranger to her:


Below the fold, additional information about the idiot in the video.

Read about Peggy West HERE. Excerpt:

Peggy West was elected 12th District Supervisor in 2004 and, after being reelected in 2008, is serving her second term representing 50,000 residents on Milwaukee's south side. She currently serves as 2nd Vice-Chair on the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors. Supervisor West also has the unique distinction of being the first Latino/Hispanic American to be elected to the Milwaukee County Board.

[...]

A committed believer in community service, Supervisor West volunteers for UMOS, Inc. and Mexican Fiesta and serves as a mentor at Notre Dame Middle School.

[...]

...She also serves on the Executive Committee of the Milwaukee Democratic Party.

Is she also an Obamabot?

Regardless, as the saying goes, "We surrounded by idiots," many of them our so-called elected public servants.

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How BHO Defines Foreign Relations

(Note to readers: Two posts today. Please scroll down)


What else is defined by bonds and not by borders? The ummah, of course.

And also the following (Turn the page, and click directly on the image to enlarge):

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L.A. TEACHER CALLS FOR MEXICAN REVOLT IN THE U.S.

(crossposted from THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, where I'm privileged to have access to posting)

Note the ranting about the "global struggle against imperialism and capitalism." Much more leftist ranting below from Sanchee High School's history teacher Ron Gochez, paid on the taxpayers' dime:



The above consumer of taxpayer dollars spoke at the UCLA La Raza rally.

UPDATE (RELIAPUNDIT) FROM DONALD DOUGLAS/AMERICAN POWER:

Ron Gochez, Anti-Semitic Social Justice Teacher and Reconquista Activist, Connects With Underage Student Hotties on MySpace

There's a little buzz tonight surrounding a three year-old protest video featuring Los Angeles revolutionary/reconquista activist Ron Gochez -- who's listed as a Social Studies Teacher in the School of Public Service and Social Justice at Los Angeles' Santee High School.

Here's this from Gochez's speech at UCLA in 2007:

We are revolutionary Mexican organization here. We understand that this is not just about Mexico. It’s about a global struggle against imperialism and capitalism… At the forefront of this revolutionary movement is La Raza. We will no longer fall for these lies called borders. We see America as a northern front of a revolutionary movement… Our enemy is capitalism and imperialism.

Well, we find more on Ron Gochez with a little digging.

USE THIS LINK TO FIND OUT MORE. NOW!

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The Idiocy Of Political Correctness

Note to family and friends: Updates on Mr. AOW are being added to this post, last updated on October 23.

With a hat tip to Duncan of And Rightly So, from Fox News:

LOS ANGELES — A Southern California immigrant rights group on Friday asked the Target store chain and a costume company to stop selling an "illegal alien" Halloween costume it said is offensive to immigrants.

[...]

Target is removing the costume from the site after receiving several complaints, company spokesman Joshua Thomas said Friday. The store never intended to sell the outfit but included it in its online offerings by mistake, he said.

See the offending costume below the fold:


Actually, I find the costume rather amusing. Perhaps I have a warped sense of humor.

This costume, on the other hand, hasn't caused a flap. Yet. Why not?

Besides, I thought that Halloween was supposed to be FUN.

I recall the family story about when my uncle somehow got the cow upstairs to the principal's office and left her there overnight. This prank was played in the 1930s, and my uncle's punishment was the cleanup, which took him an entire day. No suspension from school was imposed. I guess that those days are gone forever.

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The Growth Of Conversion To Islam

Hat tip to Ekawaaz, who emailed me the link for the following video:



I referred the above video to my friend Dr. Paul L. Williams, expert on terrorism and author of numerous books, including The Al Qaeda Connection, Day of Islam, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Crusades. Dr. Williams posted this related information at his web site The Last Crusade. The full article is below the fold (emphases mine).

AMERICAN PRISONS NOW HOTHOUSES FOR ISLAM

Jumping Jailhouse Jihad!!!

90% of U. S. Converts Are African Americans – - 60% Converted in Prison Cells


CNN reports that more than 25% of the Muslims in America are converts who have embraced Islam in the wake of 9/11.

The report conveys the impression that Islam now attracts adherents from all religious, social, economic and racial backgrounds through interviews with recent converts – - both white women – - Allison Poole, formerly a Southern Baptist, and Barbara Cartokuke, a lapsed Roman Catholic.

Ms. Poole claims that Islam has heightened her religious awareness since she now prays five times a day, and Barbara Cartokuke says that Islam has brought her a “one-on-one relationship with God” that she was unable to establish by reciting Hail Marys.

While it is true that Islam is the fastest growing religion in America with over 1.5 million new converts, the development is far from multicultural or multiracial.

The CNN news clip fails to point out that 90% of the 1.5 million new converts are African Americans, and that 60% become Muslims while serving time in prison.

Prison – - not the college campus, the workplace, or the neighborhood mosque – - has become the breeding ground for wholesale conversions of blacks.

The appeal of Islam to inmates is not difficult to explain.

Muslim prisoners demand and receive the right to observe congregational salat not only in the mosque but also the exercise yard, to a separate kitchen for the preparation of separate halal meals, to separate hours for showers and toilets to ensure their privacy, and to sadaqa (financial autonomy for their prison business endeavors, including the sale of incense, aromatic oils, and personal toiletries). They refuse to submit to strip-searching and frisking, claiming that such practices violated the Islamic code of wuduzu. These concessions grant Muslims the ability to corner the drug trade within the prison system.

As a privileged class within the system, Muslims also offer new black inmates offer protection to other black inmates from Hispanic street gangs and white supremacists.

By 2005, approximately 350,000 Muslims occupied prison cells, and 80% of inmates who found faith in prison converted to Islam. By 2008, such conversions were taking place at the astonishing clip of 40,000 a year. African Americans were being converted by the cellblock, causing FBI officials to speculate that this segment of the population represents the force from which the next 9/11 will originate.

The Muslim prison ministry is funded by the Saudi government through the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an influential front for the promotion of the Wahhabi political, ideological, and theological infrastructure in the United States and Canada. This finding is supported by Abdel al-Jubeir, foreign policy spokesman for Saudi King Abdullah, who told the Wall Street Journal: “The Saudi government pays for prison chaplains, along with many other American Muslims, to travel to Saudi Arabia for worship and study during the hajj. . . The trips typically cost $3,000 a person and last several weeks.”

Warith Deen Umar, founder of the National Association of Muslim Chaplains, serves as a prototype for his fellow clerics. In one of his sermons at the Otisville Federal Facility, Umar informed his prison flock that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were justified, and that the 19 hijackers should be remembered as Allah’s “martyrs.”

The situation within the prison system cries out for attention. Edward Caden, a retired prison administrator in California, recently told ABC News: “Prisons are a prime, prime target for terror recruiting. It is a ripe population.”

Proof of the problem with the new converts comes from the following incidents in the wake of 9/11:

* A group of black Muslim converts in Miami who allegedly conspired to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago (some had rap sheets).

* A Chicago black Muslim, Derrick Shareef, who allegedly plotted to blow up a local shopping mall.

* A black U.S. soldier, Hassan Abujihaad, who allegedly fed terrorists classified information about U.S. battleship movements in the Strait of Hormuz.

* Jose Padilla (a.k.a. Abdullah al-Muhajir), who planned to set off a dirty bomb in midtown Manhattan, became an Islamist during one of his many stints in the slammer.

* Aqil Collins converted to Islam while serving time in a California detention facility. He went on to an Afghan training camp with one of the jihadis accused of killing Wall Street correspondent Daniel Pearl.

* Black ex-con Muslims at the New Folson State Prison, a maximum security facility near Sacramento, California, who planned to attack military recruiting stations, the Israeli consulate, and several synagogues in the state on the fourth anniversary of 9/11. The plot was hatched on the cellblock.

* In February 2009, Rasheed Scrugs (a.k.a. Rasheed Abdulahaffer) murdered Philadelphia Police Officer John Pawloski, 25, with a .367 Magnum. Scrugs had converted to Islam while serving time for armed robbery.

* In May 2009, four Muslim prison converts were collared while plotting to bomb synagogues to shoot down a military transport.

* Pakistani religious leaders Sami ul-Haq and Fazrul Rehman predict that “in the next 10 years, Americans will wake up to the existence of an Islamic army in their midst—an army of jihadis who will force America to abandon imperialism and listen to the voice of Allah.”

That army is being formed within the prison system.

Also of interest along these same lines is this posting by Dr. Williams: "U.S. LATINOS MELD INTO MUSLIMS." Brief excerpt:

Islam represents the fastest-growing religion in the United States and Latinos represent one of the fastest-growing minorities. Increasingly, the two trends are coinciding in the form of Hispanic converts to Islam.

In 2004, the Christian Science Monitor placed the number of Muslim Latinos in the U.S. at 15,000.

Five years later, New York University and Newsweek sets this figure at 200,000. Seven percent of the Latinos in America are now Muslims. No other religion has shown such dramatic gains within a short span of time....

Read the rest HERE.

I suppose that the up side of all this conversion to Islam is that CAIR won't be able to whine so much about Arab profiling as more and more non-Arabs are converting to Islam. Furthermore, many mosques all over America and Europe are filling up with blue-eyed blondes as well as blacks while, at the same time, the pews of the churches are emptying.

As cited earlier in this posting, Dr. Williams has explained why the prisons are breeding grounds for conversion to Islam. But why do we see conversions to Islam in free societies? I have some ideas as to the reasons, but I want to hear your ideas first in the comments section to this post.

Note: If you haven't read my post about Rifka Bary, please do so!

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$20.3 Million for the Resettlement of Radical Muslims (with addendum & bumped)

PRESIDENT OBAMA INVITES HAMAS TERRORISTS TO AMERICA
by
Paul L. Williams, Bos Smith, and
Michael Travis

By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in migration assistance to the Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza.

The "presidential determination" which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States was signed on January 27 and appeared in the Federal Register on February 4.

President Obama's decision, according to the Register, was necessitated by "the urgent refugee and migration needs" of the "victims."

Few on Capital Hill took note that the order provides a free ticket replete with housing and food allowances to individuals who have displayed their overwhelming support of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the parliamentary election of January 2006.

The charter for Hamas calls for the replacement of the nation of Israel with a Palestinian Islamic state.

Since its formation in 1994, Hamas has been responsible for hundreds of terrorist attacks, including the 2002 Passover suicide bombing. The leaders of the movement signed the World Islamic Statement of 1998 - - a document, penned by Osama bin Laden, which declared war on America and Israel.

President Obama's executive order is expected to bring hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, many with ties to radical Islam, to our shores, furthering a process that was inaugurated in 1995 by Senator Ted Kennedy and the Cedar-Hart bill.


THE OPEN GATE

In 1965, Allah in His mercy raised up Senators Ted Kennedy and Edward Celler to initiate changes in the immigration law that made it possible for millions of Muslims to make their way to the New World - - as the Christian Europeans had done in the early years of the 20th Century. The Cedar-Hart bill, which was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on October 3, 1965, abolished the national-origin quotas that had been in effect since 1924. In the spirit of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it barred discrimination on the basis of race, creed, religion, or national origin. America, by fiat of liberal secular humanists, was to be become a multicultural country - - a country severed from its Judeo-Christian roots.

Remaining cognizant of the common roots as the American people, our legislative had enacted stringent laws pertaining to immigration and naturalization. The Naturalization Act of 1790 stipulated that "any alien, being a free white person, may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States" The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited Chinese families from immigrating to the United States. The Immigration Act of 1907 reorganized the states bordering Mexico (Arizona, New Mexico and a large part of Texas) into Mexican Border District to stem the flow of immigrants into the U.S.

The Immigration Act of 1924 further limited the number of new immigrants by the establishment of a stringent quota system. The number of newcomers was now limited to 2 percent of each nationality who lived in the country not in 1924 but in 1890. The reliance of this legislation on the ethnic composition of the country before the turn of the century guaranteed that the majority of new arrivals would be from Northern Europe. Since few Italians and Eastern Europeans lived in the U. S. in 1890, the quotas for these nationalities became fixed at marginal rates and the number of new immigrants from "undesirable" regions greatly reduced. The following chart shows the effects of this legislation:


Immigration Statistics, 1920-1926 — Year Total — (Entering U.S. Country of Origin)

1920 — 430,001 — 38,471 (Great Britain) — 3,913 (Eastern Europe) — 95,145 (Italy)

1921 — 805,228 — 51,142 (Great Britain) — 32,793 (Eastern Europe) — 222,260 (Italy)

1922 — 309,556 — 25,153 (Great Britain) — 12,244 (Eastern Europe) — 40,319 (Italy)

1923 — 522,919 — 45,759 (Great Britain) — 16,082 (Eastern Europe) — 46,674 (Italy)

1924 — 706,896 — 59,490 (Great Britain) — 13,173 (Eastern Europe) — 56,246 (Italy)

1925 — 294,314 — 27,172 (Great Britain) — 1,566 (Eastern Europe) — 6,203 (Italy)

1926 — 304,488 — 25,528 (Great Britain) — 1,596 (Eastern Europe) — 8,253 (Italy)

It is hard to conceive of an act of Congress that could be more culturally biased than the Immigration Act of 1954 and yet it received nearly unchallenged bipartisan support. Yet The New York Times editorialized: "The country has a right to say who shall and who shall not come in. . . . The basis of restriction must be chosen with a view not to the interest of any group or groups in this country . . . but rather with a view to the country's best interests as a whole." (1)

In 1952, The McCarran Walter Immigration Act affirmed the national-origins quota system of 1924 and limited total annual immigration to one-sixth of one percent of the population of the continental United States in 1920, or 175,455. The act exempted spouses and children of U.S. citizens and people born in the Western Hemisphere from the quota.


THE KENNEDY PROMISE

But, in 1965, Kennedy and company viewed such legislation as pig-headed and prejudicial. Few elected officials, Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina - - being one of the exceptions, dared to disagree with them. Championing the Celler-Hart bill, which called for the abolished all quotas, Kennedy, being far from prescient, said: "Contrary to the charges in some quarters, S500 will not inundate America with immigrants from any other country or area, or the most populated and economically deprived nations of Africa and Asia. . . The charges I have mentioned are highly emotional, irrational, and with little foundation in fact. They are out of line with the obligation of responsible citizenship. They breed hate of our heritage." (2)

Forty years after Senator Kennedy made this pledge, Dean Steven Gillon of the Honors College at Oklahoma University assessed the results of the 1965 Immigration Act by noting: "The U. S. added at least 40 million immigrants after 1965. Before 1965, 95 percent of the new immigrants had come from Europe. After 1965, 95 percent came from the Third World. The 1965 act has transformed American society and had consequences exactly the opposite of what we were promised." (3)

In his speech before Congress, Senator Kennedy had said; "Our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually." The level of immigration, he swore, would remain substantially same as it was in 1965 - -156,700. This, too, proved to be woefully incorrect. The present immigrant rate exceeds 1.5 million annually. Noting this, Pat Buchanan writes:

The 1965 Cedar-Hart bill was the greatest bait-and-switch in history. Americans were promised one result, and got the opposite result that they had been promised would never happen. They were misled. They were deceived. They were swindled. They were told immigration levels would remain roughly the same and the ethnic composition of their country would not change. What they got was a Third World invasion that is converting America into another country. (4)

From 1965 to the present, more than half of all the immigrants to America from the Middle East and Asia have been Muslim with radical ideologies. (5) Malcolm is surely smiling in his grave, for he had written:

As the Christian Crusade once went East, now the Islamic Crusade is going West. With the East - - Asia - - closed to Christianity, with Africa rapidly becoming converted to Islam, with Europe rapidly becoming un-Christian, generally today it is accepted that the 'Christian' civilization of America - - which is propping up the white race around the world - - is Christianity's remaining strongest bastion.

Well, if this is so - - if the so called 'Christianity' now being practiced in America displays the best that the world Christianity has to offer - - no one in his right mind should need any much greater proof that very close at hand is the end of Christianity.

Are you aware that some Protestant theologians, in their writings, are using the phrase "post-Christian" era - - and they mean now? (6)

1. New York Times editorial cited in Otis J. Graham, Unguarded Gates: A History of America's Immigration Crisis (Lanham, Maryland: Rowan & Littlefield, 2004), p. 50.

2. Senator Edward Kennedy, quoted in Patrick J. Buchanan's State of Emergency (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2006), pp. 238-239.

3. Steven Gillon quoted in Georgie Anne Geyer's "Immigration: The Elephant in America's Room," Universal Press Syndicate, October 2005, www:uexpress.com

4. Patrick J. Buchanan, p. 239.

5. Jane I. Smith, "Patterns of Muslim Immigration," International Information Program, U. S. Department of State, 2002.

6. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, pp. 376-377.

------------------------------------

Addendum: Proof of this executive order, about which the media are remaining silent.

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MS-13 Desecrates War Memorial?

Hat-tip to The Amboy Times, where I found this article (emphases mine) about vandalism of a war memorial in *Connecticut:

Vandals deface Vietnam war memorial

by News Channel 8's Carolee Salerno
Posted Dec. 30, 2007
Updated 9:20 AM

New Haven (WTNH) _ Veterans are outraged that a war memorial in New Haven has been vandalized.

The Vietnam War Memorial at Long Wharf was spray painted with the threatening words "Kill whites MS 13."

Seeing this just crushed the veterans we spoke to. The names on that wall that are covered in paint, are the names of those who fought and died for this country in the Vietnam War. Tonight, police are investigating whether this is the work of a violent street gang, but the veterans we spoke to, say whoever they are, aren't as tough as they might think.

"This irks me. This hurts me deep to my heart," Vietnam Veteran Emery Linton Sr. said.

Linton looked in disgust at the graffiti covering New Haven County's Vietnam War Memorial at Long Wharf.

Linton, who served in the Army, fought in Vietnam from 1969 to 1972. He lost friends there and he says the mess, on a memorial to honor veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, is a slap in the face.

"People here respect these names. They gave their lives for everything, for the freedoms they have," Linton said.

Whoever did it sprayed "MS-13" all over the place. According to law enforcement, MS 13 is a violent international gang with roots in El Salvador. Members are involved in drug trafficking, weapons trafficking and even human trafficking and their presence is growing in the U-S. Just this summer, police in the Boston area did a big round-up of MS 13 gang members.

That said, New Haven police say there hasn't been any documented MS-13 activity so far in the city. But they are investigating this incident.

"I don't know who would want to do this," said Lori Grenfell, another veteran who is heart broken over the vandalism. "They have the right to say what they want to say. They can thank these guys for that right."

While it's unclear if these are true gang markings, Linton has a message for those responsible. "If it is a gang related thing and if you guys really think you're bad, join the service, get in the action and see what it's really like," Linton said.

It's unclear how much money it will cost to get rid of this paint, but members of the New Haven County Vietnam Veterans Group vow they will have it cleaned up.

In my view, desecrating any memorial to our veterans is one of the lowest kinds of acts, MS-13's doing or not.

*Correction, with a hat-tip to Raven.

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The British Exodus

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

According to this article in the Telegraph UK, Britain is undergoing an exodus on the scale of one British citizen emigrating every three minutes (some 400,000 annually) at the same time that more than half a million foreigners arrive in a single year. Such a large exodus of British citizens has not occurred there in almost fifty years.

Are these emigrants fleeing? If so, from what?
-----------
My UK friends are increasingly telling me, "Britain doesn't feel like home any more." Some might write off their comments as racism. But is the basis of my friends' concerns racism? Maybe, but I don't perceive my British friends as racists. Instead, their concerns seem rooted in the concern that they are losing their British culture.

According to the article, despite the increased rate of emigration, the population of Britain is increasing every year, to the tune of the size of the city of Bristol.

Furthermore, as the population grows, pressures on the UK system of public services are increasing:

In a bid to deflect criticism and fulfill Gordon Brown's controversial conference pledge to create "British jobs for British workers", the Government will today announce plans to create millions more adult training places to ensure that people living in Britain have the skills to compete for jobs with immigrants.

Read the entire article.

Recently, this article appeared in the Evening Standard. Excerpt:

Women are being given controversial "virginity repair" operations on the NHS [National Health Services], it emerged last night.

[...]

Doctors said most patients are immigrants or British of ethnic origin.

The trend has been condemned by critics as a sign of social regression driven by Islamic fundamentalists.

Apparently, this surgical procedure is gaining in popularity (connection to the above-cited figures on immigration?), even though, so far, such surgeries remain small:

...Dr Hend [a gynecologist at the Regency Clinic in London] said he was surprised by the "very good response" to the service and said there is "big competition on the market".

"They might be British of ethnic background, they might be immigrants, or some people come from abroad, Asia, Middle East, the Gulf, and they don't want to have it done back home," he added.

Dr Hend said demand is increasing, particularly from UK residents....

Labour MP Ann Cryer stated the following:

"It is a form of abuse of women and it may be that the woman who is asking for the operation to be done does not recognise the abuse that is taking place against her, but in later life she certainly will.

"We have to also ask whether our National Health Service should be providing this sort of facility. I don't think it should be available on the NHS."

Tory health spokesman Mike Penning also weighed in:

"If there is any cultural or other pressure being put on the women from any source to have this done, that would be a very retrograde step.

"If a woman has been violated or raped and lost her virginity, clearly everything possible should be done to assist her.

"But what nobody would understand is if taxpayers' money is being used to fund operations of this kind for cultural or cosmetic reasons."

Read the entire article. Talk about a bizarre procedure, with even more bizarre motivation!

In a posting entitled "Hip or Hymen: Let the NHS Decide," Raven contrasts the virginity-repair surgeries with NHS's denial of surgery to Mrs. Kinley-Manton, a British woman who needed hip-replacement surgery:

What should concern people is the stark reality of a culture that disregards a real medical condition vs. a politically correct and religiously based “demand”.

Muslim non-virgin women should be the ones going to other countries and paying for their own non essential surgeries with their own money; not slightly to moderately overweight women who could very well end up living in nursing homes for the lack of a simple and very effective surgery. Of course Mrs. Kinley-Manton could claim herself a Muslim, demand a hymen repair and perhaps as an added benefit ask for the hip replacement surgery: She would probably have a good chance of getting both.

As the demographics of the UK undergoes more changes, as mentioned in the first-cited article here, will the NHS be required to adapt to the religious demands of Muslims? And will similar adaptations occur here the United States?

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Demographic Change In China?

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

Photo credit
Excerpt from "Chasing the Chinese Dream: A Growing Number of the World's Emigrants Are Heading East, Rather Than West, in Search of Safety, Tolerance and Opportunity", an article in the October 21, 2007 edition of the Washington Post:

...In Yiwu, a city in the eastern province of Zhejiang that is the home of the world's largest wholesale market, "Exotic Street" lights up at night with stands filled with smoking kebabs, colorful hookahs and strong sugared tea for the almost exclusively Arab clientele.

Communist China's first attempt to make friends with outsiders and encourage cultural exchange came during the 1960s and '70s, as part of a campaign for ideological leadership in the developing world. China sought to spread socialism and unite the farmers of the world.

Today, its efforts to woo developing countries are driven by more calculated, strategic goals, most notably its need to secure long-term contracts for oil, gas and minerals to fuel its booming economy.

As part of this campaign, China has sought to portray itself as more open to Islam than other non-Muslim nations.

Over the past 20 years, the government has gradually allowed its own Muslim minority to rebuild institutions that were devastated by state-sponsored attacks on Islam during the Cultural Revolution. Islamic schools have opened, and scholars of Islam are being encouraged to go abroad to pursue their studies. Unlike Christians, China's estimated 20 million Muslims are considered an ethnic minority, a status that confers certain protections and privileges.

"In America, for people with my religion there can be a lot of problems," said Adamou Salissou, 25, from Niger. "The image they have of Muslims is that they are terrorists. Chinese don't have a problem with religion. They think, 'It's your religion and it's okay.' "

With funds from a Chinese government scholarship, Salissou is pursuing a master's degree in biochemistry and molecular biology at Xiamen University in Fujian province, where a community of Arab traders thrived in the 7th and 8th centuries. Salissou's brother Nour Mahamane, 23, joined him this fall and is studying for a master's degree in petrochemistry in Shanghai.

Mosques in areas such as Yiwu, where foreigners are concentrated, have been given more freedom than some others, which are under strict state control. Officials at the mosque here estimate that more than 20,000 Muslim immigrants, about 1,000 of them from Iraq, have settled in the area over the past five years....

The camel's nose in the tent. China is not welcoming these Muslim immigrants with open arms, however:

...But there are limits to China's welcome.

It's nearly impossible for foreigners who don't have Chinese ancestry to obtain citizenship, and like anywhere else, China has had its share of racial misunderstandings and clashes with foreigners....

The article concludes as follows:

In Yiwu, there was anger in the Iraqi community after an Iraqi man, Mostafa Ahmed Alazawi, was found dead in his rented home on March 30. His family wanted him to be buried in China and applied to the city for a piece of land. The city ruled that foreigners could not be buried in China, forcing the family to ship the body back to Iraq. The decision fueled outrage among the Iraqis. Through a friend, the family declined to be interviewed.

Anwar said that despite the tensions he's happier to be in China than elsewhere in the world.

"My brother lived in the Netherlands for nine years," he said. "There, if you are a foreigner, you are below them. When he came to China, everything was different. Here, if you are a foreigner, you are treated better than Chinese."

You can read the entire WaPo article HERE.

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Blinded By The Light

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

We're hearing more and more about the bad driving-skills and the behind-the-wheel antics of illegal immigrants. I predict that sooner or later you or someone you know will be directly and adversely affected by the hordes of illegals on our highways and byways. I hope that your or your friends' encounters will not be as bad as what happened the other day to a group of al fresco diners in the Midwest.From this September 19, 2007 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

A driver whose SUV plowed into a crowd of lunchtime diners outside a restaurant in downtown Clayton on Tuesday told police he had been blinded by a bright light.

Clayton police Capt. Steve Grenier said police cited the driver, who lost control while making a left turn from westbound Maryland Avenue onto southbound Central Avenue just before noon.

The vehicle, a white Ford Expedition, crossed the sidewalk and ended up in a sunken outdoor dining area at Il Vicino, pinning two diners beneath it and injuring a third, said Clayton Fire Chief Mark Thorp.

[...]

The driver, Sergio Lopez, 23, who has a post office address in Collinsville, is an illegal immigrant from Mexico, said Clayton Police Chief Thomas Byrne. Lopez suffered minor injuries in the crash.

Lopez, who spoke little English and did not have a valid U.S. drivers license, told police he was blinded by a bright light as he attempted to turn.

He was cited for operating a vehicle with no license, having no proof of insurance and making an improper turn.

Immigration Customs Enforcement has issued a federal detainment order on Lopez, and he was to be held at the St. Louis County Justice Center upon his release from the hospital.

Lopez owns the SUV...

Check out his vehicle:



As Bob McCarty mentioned at his site, the above is a fine-looking vehicle, complete with that expensive etching or custom decal on the front windshield.

As is the case in so many stories like this one, the driver who lost control of his vehicle is a repeat offender, with more than the above-mentioned incident on his driving record. From this article in the September 20, 2007 in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

The illegal immigrant whose SUV ran into diners outside a Clayton eatery this week had been involved in a crash in St. Louis less than two months ago.

City police records indicate that the driver, Sergio Lopez, 23, caused a collision July 26 on South Kingshighway near Southwest Avenue while driving the same SUV.

Eleanor Sanford, 80, said Wednesday that an SUV had turned in front of her from a gas station parking lot, hitting her car and sending it spinning. She was shaken but not seriously hurt.

The driver sped off, Sanford said, and police tracked him through a license plate that fell off. "He just hit us and took off," she said.

She said she did not connect her wreck with Tuesday's high-profile Clayton incident until reporters called her about it Wednesday.

[,,,]

Lopez was cited in her case for driving with no driver's license, improper license plates, no insurance and failing to yield to an emergency vehicle.

The report does not indicate any police awareness that Lopez was in the United States improperly....

The police had no awareness of Lopez's immigration status? Isn't it time to give local law enforcement the power to enforce our immigration laws? Instead, the governor of New York has proposed the following:

From this article in the September 22, 2007 edition of the Washington Times:

New York's governor announced yesterday that illegal aliens will soon be able to get state driver's licenses, drawing a strong rebuke from families of victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks who said he is opening a window to another attack.

The new rules reverse a 2002 policy designed to correct one of the flaws identified after the terrorist attacks — easy access to driver's licenses, which allowed illegal aliens to blend into society and would-be terrorists to avoid detection. But Gov. Eliot Spitzer said he thinks the state can have both secure driver's licenses and a system that draws illegal aliens into the system rather than punishing them.

The governor expects the plan to reduce insurance costs, and he said the reality is that illegal aliens are already here and that "allowing them the opportunity to obtain driver's licenses in a responsible and secure manner will help increase public safety."...

I don't quite follow that bit about reducing insurance costs. If any reader here can explain how that aspect works I'd appreciate being enlightened. Returning now to the article,

Backers of the new rules said they are designed to make illegal aliens' lives easier while weeding out fraudulent driver's license requests.

The new policy will apply only to those with a valid foreign passport, which officials hope will cut down on fraud. Machine-readable passports can be scanned at the Department of Motor Vehicles once the policy goes into effect, but non-readable passports will be sent to a central processing office to be checked.

Applicants will also have to show other documents, though the state is not yet releasing a full list of the 14 documents that will be accepted. A combination of documents will be required to prove identity.

And just how accurate will the vetting of these identities be? Record-keeping in a lot of countries, including those south of our border, isn't terribly accurate. Doesn't matter, I suppose, because

New York first will invite more than 150,000 people to reapply who used to have licenses but had to give them up because they no longer qualified under the 2002 policy. Months later, other New Yorkers who never had a license and don't qualify under the current rules will be allowed to apply.

Toward the end of the article in the Washington Times, a retired INS official makes the case as to how difficult the New York proposal is going to be in practical application:

...Michael W. Cutler, a retired Immigration and Naturalization Service agent, said it opens a loophole for fraud and that it's tough enough to verify U.S.-issued birth certificates, much less foreign documents.

Over at his blog and on the telephone with me on the air on the radio, Beak has mentioned the difficulty in dealing with paperwork from a foreign country. Maybe the governor of New York should do some research on the web.

The problem with issuing licenses to illegals goes further:

[Cutler] also said a driver's license is the key to being able to live undetected in the U.S. and that Mr. Spitzer's new rules will aid illegal aliens trying to do that.

"It's almost a de facto sanctuary," Mr. Cutler said. "Driver's licenses enable people to do more than drive. They establish people's identity when they write a check, do banking, get on airplanes."

As I see it, licensing illegals threatens both our personal safety and our national security. Doesn't the governor of New York understand the can of worms he proposes to open?

Now, I admit that I may have a personal stake in my position. I myself was rear-ended by an immigrant driver behind the wheel and, as a result, have suffered a permanent disability, albeit a minor one compared to other disabilities out there. Was that driver who ran up my tail pipe an illegal? Possibly, because he got his driver's license before 9/11, before the state of Virginia cracked down on illegals' ability to get driver's licenses. He also behaved peculiarly at the scene of the accident. I can't provide more details because the law suit and any possible settlement are pending.

In part because of what happened to me and in part because of stories such as those in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other similar stories I hear on the nightly news, I have to wonder if any group is keeping statistics on the damage which illegal immigrants behind the wheel are doing to citizens and to those who are legally present in our nation. I'm guessing that those statistics would be revealing as to another cost tied to illegal immigration.

[Hat-tip to Bob McCarty Writes, where I found the articles from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

Turn the page ....

The Muslim Vote

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

From this August 24, 2007 article in the Washington Post:

More than 50 candidates in this fall's elections are expected to appear in Reston tomorrow [August 25] at a political picnic organized by a group of Northern Virginia mosques, and organizers say the heavy turnout underscores the growing influence of Muslim voters in local politics.

The event, the group's seventh annual "family and civic picnic," has a dual purpose, organizers say. Through a voter registration drive, they hope to persuade more Muslims to become involved in local elections. In addition, they hope to show the candidates that "we're here, we care, and we do vote," said Shirin Elkoshairi, a spokesman for the Sterling-based All Dulles Area Muslim Society, which has more than 5,000 members.

"[The turnout] definitely shows that candidates feel that Muslims are voting and are a force at the polls," Elkoshairi said.

So far, nothing remarkable in the article.

Then comes the mention of Mukit Hossain, about whom I have blogged on more than one occasion. An index to those postings is HERE.



According to the following information in my first posting on Hossain back in August of 2005,

For Hossain, helping immigrants, most from Central and South America, is a Muslim issue. Charity is one of the five pillars of Islam. So he raised money from Muslim businessmen in Herndon to buy 400 winter coats for the laborers, brought them food through another charity he started, called Food Source, and even rounded up day laborers to attend a Thanksgiving dinner at an Iraqi restaurant where falafel, not turkey, was served.

"I consider them my neighbors," said Hossain...

[...]

Hossain has not only parlayed giving food and coats to illegal migrants into a federally funded exercise in Da'wa (Islamic propagation), he has assisted those who broke the law with legal aid to help them fight to stay in the US. Hossain exploits his 'charitable' work for furthering his Islamist agenda,and openly proclaims this to be his political mission as well.... Hossain is also active in MAS, the Muslim American Society, the group which is in the forefront of campaiging for the release of jailed presidental assassin wannabe Omar Abu Ali. MAS also lauded Hossain as a 'supporter' of their organisation which is directly linked to ICNA and by extension Al Qaeda. The trustee of MAS's Islamic American University is Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi who proclaimed that Muslim women have an Islamic duty to become suicide bombers.

Apparently, Hossain is quite the advocate for immigration, and it doesn't matter to him whether those immigrants are illegal or not because he ties his advocacy with his Muslim duty.

Returning now to the first-cited link in this posting,

There are about 64,000 Muslims registered to vote in Virginia, with the vast majority of them in the outskirts of Washington, said Mukit Hossain, president of the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee, which tracks trends and endorses candidates in many local elections.

[...]

Organizers also expect candidates from Loudoun and Prince William counties, which last month approved resolutions aimed at cracking down on illegal immigrants. Although the actions were seen as primarily affecting Hispanics, they have sparked concern among Muslims because of fears that the actions could increase racial profiling and curb civil liberties, Hossain said.

"I think since 9/11, the Muslim community has learned that any community can be attacked," he said. "When someone is attacked unfairly, we have to stand in solidarity with them."

As we approach the sixth anniversary of 9/11, here is Hossain whining about Muslims being targeted.

Excuse me, Mr. Hossain, but nearly 3000 innocent people died during those horrific attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon as well as those stop-the-hijackers patriots about Flight 93, which went down in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Have you forgotten about those who perished on 9/11? Do you consider the very few verified cases of post-9/11 persecution of Muslims to be more significant than Islamic terrorist attacks? Also, Mr. Hossain, I remind you that Muslim is not a race.

And here is a bit more from Hossain:

Hossain, who has been organizing opposition to the Loudoun and Prince William votes [against illegal immigration], said his group conducted a survey of Virginia Muslims and found that immigration was their top local concern. Education was second, he said, and respect for diversity was third.

Muslims respect diversity? Really? Oh, that's right, Saudi Arabia is one respect-for-diversity country. **snerk**

The article also states the following:

Although Muslims represent a tiny part of the electorate, candidates are beginning to see the value of courting Islamic voters, because small but motivated groups can have a big impact at the polls, he said. That's especially true for off-year elections, which tend to have lower voter turnout. Last fall, more than 86 percent of registered Muslim voters turned out to vote, he said, compared with about 53 percent of the general population.

That has not gone unnoticed among political activists, said Brian Roherty, campaign manager for Michael Firetti, who is running for chairman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors.

"Every single vote counts, and smart politicians know that," Roherty said.

Ah, the dhimmitude of politicians, as they cater to the whim of a "tiny part of the electorate"! Somehow, that phrase is reminiscent of another few words: "a tiny portion of extremists," often used to refer to Islamic terrorists.

Even a champion of the battle against illegal immigration in Northern Virginia, Loudoun Supervisor Eugene A. Delgaudio is attending the picnic:

Loudoun Supervisor Eugene A. Delgaudio (R-Sterling), the main sponsor of Loudoun's resolution, said he plans to attend tomorrow's event, partly because the Muslim community reflects his values of being "extremely moral and religious." His district's demographics are among the most rapidly changing in Northern Virginia. For example, Sterling's Park View High School was two-thirds white in 2000; last year, whites made up less than half the school.

"We have a lot of ethnic groups represented here," he said. "Sterling is like the United Nations. It's a very diverse neighborhood."

Oh, yes, Mr. Delgaudio, Muslims are extremely moral. Why don't you do a little reading on the topic? You can start by reading Western Resistance and Dr. Homa Darabi Foundation. Those sites might open your eyes as to certain barbaric customs in Islamic culture.

According to the August 24, 2007 Washington Post article, a good turnout is expected for the pandering to Muslim voters:

Picnic organizers are expecting a broad spectrum of candidates running for the state legislature and boards of supervisors in Loudoun, Prince William and Fairfax counties. The candidates will have a chance to speak to and field questions from the more than 1,000 attendees expected.

Fairfax County Supervisor Penelope A. Gross (D-Mason), whose diverse district in central Fairfax includes two mosques, said her research has turned up more likely voters among Arab Americans than any other minority group.

"Over the past few years we have seen a lot more interest among Arab Americans in the civic culture of our community," said Gross, adding that she tries to go to the picnic each year and plans to attend tomorrow [August 25].

I wonder if CAIR will also attend.

Islamification continues apace on the political front here in Northern Virginia and elsewhere in the United States. As the percentage of Muslims increases, now allied with immigrants legally present or not, expect more of the same types of events and political pandering. Start checking the local section of your newspaper to see what's happening in your area.

Turn the page ....

This Virginia County Has Had Enough

Enough of illegal invaders. From this July 11, 2007 article in the Washington Post, emphases mine:

Prince William County supervisors voted unanimously last night to approve a resolution that targets illegal immigrants by attempting to curb their access to public services and increasing immigration enforcement by local police. But the resolution approved last night significantly weakens a previous proposal, removing or altering several of its toughest measures but asking county employees to look for ways to lawfully deny services to illegal immigrants.

The largest board meeting crowd in 20 years showed up for the vote at the county government complex, turning Prince William into a microcosm of a debate playing out in communities across the country in the wake of Congress's failure to reform immigration laws.

"How are we supposed to survive here?" asked Gregorio Calderón, a legal U.S. resident from El Salvador who said he worries that police will harass him because of his ethnicity. "They're going to pull me over just for being Hispanic."

The previous resolution would have required officers to check the residency status of anyone who breaks a law, no matter how minor. The measure approved yesterday directs officers to check the status of anyone in police custody who they suspect is an illegal immigrant.

The changes were made after county attorneys, police and supervisors expressed concerns about the legality of some of the measures. The new resolution would not deny access to schools and other legally mandated services. Another measure that would have allowed residents to sue the county for providing services to illegal immigrants was also stripped out.

But the measures still place Prince William at the forefront of Virginia jurisdictions that are trying to check illegal immigration.

"This resolution does have teeth and changes county policy immediately," said board Chairman Corey A. Stewart (R-Occoquan).

Protests before and after the vote and the unusually large crowd outside the board chambers created a charged atmosphere. More than 100 people addressed board members, delaying the vote. Hundreds of others watched on big-screen TVs in the lobby and were reminded to refrain from applauding or booing. One speaker was removed.

When Supervisor John T. Stirrup Jr. (R-Gainesville) introduced the resolution last month, he said its goal was to deny all public services to illegal immigrants and order local police to check the residency status of anyone caught breaking the law. The altered version charts a more cautious course.

Stirrup's resolution had said that illegal immigration is causing "economic hardship and lawlessness" in Prince William and that county agencies may be encouraging illegal immigration by failing to verify immigration status as a condition of providing public services.

The measure "is the first step towards taking back our community," he said.

The new version gives county workers 60 days to help board members determine which public services can be lawfully denied to illegal immigrants. Unlike the previous resolution, it specifies that services such as emergency medical care and other benefits mandated by law cannot be restricted. At the request of the county's attorneys, language was added to several sections to avoid violating federal and state laws.

A roughly equal number of speakers appeared to support and oppose the resolution. One was removed after berating Stirrup for a joke he made to Stewart at a previous meeting in which Stirrup suggested a "Hispanic flag" could be flown in Woodbridge, which has a relatively large Hispanic community.

Many speakers said they were Hispanic immigrants.

Immigrants "have built our homes; they have built our roads," said Hank Azais, who owns a tax preparation service catering to Hispanics in Manassas.

Others said they were worried about damage to the county's reputation. "Prince William County does not have to become the racist capital of America," said Harry Wiggins, a Lake Ridge resident.

Many Stirrup supporters told the board they applauded the measures and saw the effort as a last stand against rising crime, overcrowding and the failure of Hispanic newcomers to adapt to American culture.

"If we turn our heads and permit illegal entry into our county without making any effort or identification, we are saying our language, our culture, our Constitution, our neighborhoods and our flag are inconsequential," said Sue Fleming, a member of the group Help Save Manassas. "It is a price I do not care to pay."

Others decried rapid cultural changes in their communities. "I'm tired of pressing '1' for English" on the phone, Woodbridge resident Chris King said.

One element of Stirrup's resolution was noticeably absent from the amended version. It would have given residents the ability to sue county agencies if they suspected them of providing services to illegal immigrants. County staffers and supervisors expressed concern about the time and expense the county would potentially spend to fend off litigation.

Privately, though, several supervisors had expressed doubts about the implications of denying public services to immigrants. But given the political climate surrounding the issue, they said they felt compelled to back Stirrup.

"It's a start, and Mr. Stirrup was very gutsy," Supervisor Maureen S. Caddigan (R-Dumfries) said.

The educational and healthcare systems in Prince William County are fiscally going under, due to illegals' taking advantage of those services and thereby depriving legal residents of adequate services. Nevertheless, those services are not being targeted. Then, exactly what services are we talking about? Just how many services funded by taxpaying citizens, are being accessed by illegal invaders?

According to this related article in the Washington Times:

Language also was added to the resolution to recognize the benefit of legal immigration, "one of the very bedrock principles upon which our thriving society is built."

Mr. Stirrup said he was "disturbed" by comments from some of the 115 people who spoke during the public comment period, characterizing the resolution as "anti-immigration."

"In no way, shape or form is that what this is designed for," he said. "This is about the rule of law. Unfortunately, that seems to have been lost in some of the press reports over the past few weeks. I have emphasized that. It's what our American civilization is all about. We're doing this directly in response to our community which has called repeatedly — repeatedly — for us to do something."

Mr. Stirrup said he introduced the resolution in response to accusations that the county employs so-called "sanctuary policies" protecting illegal aliens...

[...]

Other speakers include members of faith-based groups and members of Help Save Manassas, whose mission is to reduce the influx of illegal aliens in Prince William County.

Group President Greg Letiecq encouraged supervisors to pass the resolution.

"No more — no more tolerance for criminal illegal aliens who commit assault and battery, stalking, indecent exposure, driving while intoxicated or hit-and-run because these crimes aren't supposedly serious enough to warrant even notifying the immigration authorities," he said. "No more protection for illegal aliens who attempt to obtain taxpayer-funded services, which they are not entitled to receive in order to make their continued unlawful presence in the county more comfortable. No more selective enforcement of our laws in order to make it easier for vast numbers of illegal aliens to maintain in our midst."

In the first link above, Mr. Calderon asked,

How are we supposed to survive here?

I've got news for you, sir. If you're illegal and cannot survive here, go back to your own country. It is not the responsibility of America to see to the "survival" of illegal invaders.

Turn the page ....

Summer Of Terror?

So, several of the bombing suspects turned out to be doctors or doctors in training? Isn't that a comfort?

Here is something else to consider, a July 3, 2007 article in the Washington Post, emphases mine:

The next terrorist assault on the United States is likely to come through relatively unsophisticated, near-simultaneous attacks -- similar to those attempted in Britain over the weekend -- designed more to provoke widespread fear and panic than to cause major losses of life, U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials believe.

Such attacks require minimal expertise and training and are difficult to prevent. Although British investigators have not claimed al-Qaeda involvement in the latest incidents, officials here said they may constitute a "hybrid" phenomenon, in which al-Qaeda inspires and guides local groups from afar but establishes no visible operational or logistical links.

The connection, several officials said, is made through a growing network of al-Qaeda intermediaries and affiliates who are far removed from the organization's leadership.

"What is a direct link?" asked one counterterrorism official. "Is it couriers? Messengers?" U.S. officials "from very senior folks" on down, he said, are watching as the British work to reconstruct the attacks and trace their origin.

In an internal memo titled "Staying on Target," CIA Director Michael V. Hayden told agency employees yesterday that "events in Great Britain since last Friday serve as a reminder -- if we ever needed one -- that this remains a dangerous world and that our work in defending America is as important as ever."

The incidents in England and Scotland, counterterrorism officials said, coincide with recent U.S. intelligence indicating stepped-up movement of money and people from al-Qaeda camps in the ungoverned tribal areas of Pakistan, near the Afghan border. Several senior U.S. military officials were sharply critical yesterday of what they saw as the Pakistani government's unwillingness to move forcefully against the camps and the U.S. administration's failure to press Pakistan harder to curtail what one called a terrorist "growth industry."

Al-Qaeda's "presence in the tribal areas has not been this secure since before 9/11," one senior U.S. military intelligence official wrote in an e-mail.

Hayden's memo appeared designed to rally his troops in the face of the morale-deadening criticism directed at the intelligence community in recent years. Accused of incompetence for failing to warn of the September 2001 attacks and for providing faulty intelligence on Iraq, it is also charged with overzealous anti-terrorism efforts that see al-Qaeda operatives under every bed.

"Even as we deal with the current threat," Hayden's memo said, "it is hard not to notice the growing debates on both sides of the Atlantic about certain aspects of the war on terrorism: Guantanamo, habeas corpus, detentions, renditions, electronic surveillance, etc. For us, though, the choices are pretty clear: We will use all of our lawful authorities to defend America and her friends.

"Some say elements of the current debate reflect the thinking of a pre-9/11 world," the short memo concluded. "Don't worry about that. Keep your eye on our objective. For all of us at CIA, today's date is clear: It's always September 12th."

After the events in Britain, U.S. officials have tried to strike a balance between insisting that "we do not currently have any specific threat information that is credible about a particular attack in the United States," as Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday, and asking Americans to keep a careful watch on their surroundings.

Although the Department of Homeland Security did not raise the threat level, Chertoff and other officials said that security and surveillance have been increased in several ways, including the placement of more U.S. marshals on flights to Britain and other European destinations.

Officials said the weekend's events had only heightened existing concerns. "It's not just what happened in England and Scotland that has us watching," another counterterrorism official said. "We have had some concerns for some time."

On Jan. 22, the Holland Tunnel in New York was evacuated for several hours after a suspicious package was spotted after an accident. Hazardous-materials teams were brought in, and the package was blown up by a robot before the tunnel was reopened.

In Georgetown on Saturday night, some restaurants and nightclubs were evacuated after firefighters spotted an abandoned backpack on a sidewalk. And on Sunday afternoon, police set up checkpoints on the access route into Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, stopping some cars and trucks for inspection.

A senior administration official acknowledged that recent arrests of groups charged with plotting terrorist attacks in Miami and at Fort Dix, N.J., and John F. Kennedy International Airport, as well as the arrest of a man charged with planning to detonate an explosive device in an Illinois shopping mall, have "come under a great deal of criticism for not being serious."

But the official saw some vindication for U.S. law enforcement in the British plots. "Remember that the FBI and the law enforcement community have done important work in nipping these cells in the bud so that we don't get to the stage of cars pouring into an airport terminal," the official said.

Saying that the British incidents "certainly appeared to be al-Qaeda-inspired," the official said they were more of a "reminder" of an ongoing threat in this country than an indication that similar attacks are imminent here.

Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at Georgetown University, said he considered al-Qaeda involvement likely in the British incidents and disagreed with those who labeled the attacks amateurish. "They didn't work, but I think of all the al-Qaeda plots we've seen, their sophistication is in their simplicity. [Go HERE to read about the significant of small, inept plots] They used available materials. Where they tripped up is in the detonation of the devices. That's a trickier business."

The alleged perpetrators under arrest in Britain -- two of them physicians [The number of physicians and physicians in training suspected of being involved in the plot has risen since this article was written, to 7 out of the 8 arrested] -- pose a challenge for both British and U.S. intelligence officials. The doctors' names did not appear on any U.S. list of people with suspected terrorist ties, U.S. officials said.

Al-Qaeda has made a "strategic investment" in Britain in recent years, Hoffman said, creating ties to an infrastructure of individuals and groups that are difficult to fit into an intelligence profile.

By drawing from a large reservoir of potential operatives, Hoffman said, al-Qaeda is attempting to "break any attempt at profiles, and also to demonstrate the diversity of their movement."

Some time back, I read or heard that the chatter level recently has been nearly as high as in the lead-up days to 9/11.

What can we as individuals do? Stay alert. Keep your cell phone charged and handy. Report anything which looks or smells suspicious. Don't get paranoid (yet), but don't be an ostrich either.

Turn the page ....

Resurrect The Immigration Bill?

Article from the June 10, 2007 Washingon Times:

President Bush, stung by Thursday's vote to block the immigration bill, is telling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to put it back on the Senate's schedule, and the bill's supporters say they think it can be resurrected.
---------------------
"I urge Senator Reid to act quickly to bring this bill back to the Senate floor for a vote, and I urge senators from both parties to support it," Mr. Bush said in his weekly radio address. The address is usually aired on Saturday, but the White House released it a day early to insert Mr. Bush, who is traveling overseas, into the public debate over the bill.

[...]

Some senators said the bill will return.

Those who were part of the "grand bargain" that became the bill said they were close to an agreement Thursday night on how to handle amendments when Mr. Reid made the decision to force the procedural vote.

They said they will keep trying, and are counting on Mr. Reid to try again if they can get an agreement.

"If we had taken more time, we would have had an opportunity of reaching a conclusion," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, said at a press conference with other senators who worked on the deal.

But getting an agreement to return to the bill does not guarantee passage. Several amendments had already passed that members of the grand bargain said are fatal to the deal, and senators will have to figure out how to handle those.

[...]

Mr. Bush said senators should accept the immigration deal even though they may not like parts of it....

No, they shouldn't. The overwhelming majority of Americancitizens don't want this bill made into law, to the tune of some 67% against.

Turn the page ....

Alienating The Base

Excerpt from an article in the May 30, 2007 Washington Times:

President Bush yesterday rebuked members of his own political party for trying to "frighten people" into opposing his immigration bill, prompting a quick backlash from some Republicans.

"Those determined to find fault with this bill will always be able to look at a narrow slice of it and find something they don't like," Mr. Bush said, speaking at a training center for immigration enforcement officials in Glynco, Ga.

"If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want to do what's right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it, you can use it to frighten people. Or you can show leadership and solve this problem once and for all," Mr. Bush said....

Read the rest of the article.

Now, watch the following video, filmed in March 2007:




And those who find fault with certain provisions in the immigration bill are un-American? Puhleeeze!

[Hat-tip to Wild Thing of Theodore's World]

Turn the page ....

Dissonance In The Senate (Updated With Information From Ogre)

Looks as if some Senators are worried about backlash from their constituents. Excerpt from this May 21, 2007 article in the Washington Times:

...Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this weekend said he will insist that the bill's guest-worker provision be slashed from 400,000 per year down to 100,000 per year.

"I don't want a program that is a funnel for cheap labor," Mr. Reid, Nevada Democrat, said, according to the Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal. Mr. Reid said the 400,000 number "will not remain in the bill."...

According to the article, fewer than twenty Senators will be supporting the bill when it hits the Senate floor today because

the deal was written in secret by a dozen senators and the Bush administration [and] wasn't even finalized until yesterday and still hasn't reached many Senate offices.

One wonders if some of the reticence found in the recent survey is the result of voters' having flooded Capitol Hill with objections to the bill.

Read the entire article from the Washington Times. The grapevine here says that the voters' communiques the past several days have been running overwhelmingly against the bill.

According to Ogre's analysis of the bill, which he dubs "the Kennedy-StupidMorons Immigration Bill":

...I've heard lots about what's in the bill. I've heard nothing good at ALL about the bill. But I decided to try and do what the Senators won't -- I wanted to read the entire bill. So if you don't want to read the whole 790 pages, I'll attempt to provide the cliff notes version here....

[...]

If this bill passes, and I'm not just blowing smoke here, say goodbye to America -- at least as a free country and a representative republic.

If this passes, you will be able to tell your grandchildren that you were able to witness the fall of America. We had a good run, but I guess this is it.

Ogre's analysis is a long read, but worth your time.

Turn the page ....

The Mexican Migration

Maybe the numbers don't have significance. Or maybe we're annexing Mexico.
---------------------------------------

Item from U.S. News & World Report:

More to a Better Life Than Afterlife
File this under interesting statistics: Mexico has lost more people to migration to the United States than to death since 2000, according to the country's demographics agency. An average of 577,000 people up and moved to the United States annually during the 2000-2005 period, while 495,000 people a year died in Mexico. The agency reports that about 11 million Mexicans are living, legally or not, in the United States.

Of course, the above item does not take into account the birth rate in Mexico.

Turn the page ....

Can Someone Clarify Something?

After a full week of not having time to do more than skim the daily newspaper, last night I finally had time to sit down long enough to peruse the April 24, 2007 edition of the Washington Post. I found this in "Metro," the section with local news. In red font below is a portion about which I'd like more information:

Protest by Truckers May Hobble Beltway

Drivers on the Capital Beltway could find themselves in the middle of a protest by truckers today and tomorrow that might slow traffic.

Organizers of the event have called on truckers to take up all lanes of the Beltway and drive the speed limit. The protest was planned to last from early morning until 5 p.m. through tomorrow.

The action was organized to protest illegal immigration and the ability Mexican truckers will soon have to operate in the United States. It was timed to coincide with a four-day rally in Washington in favor of immigration restrictions.

There were no reports of organized protests yesterday, according to area transportation officials. One driver saw several trucks going slowly in a single lane on the outer loop near Springfield about 10:15 a.m., but it was unclear whether they were part of the demonstration.

Protest organizer Wanda Piety, a self-described "mom and small-business owner" from Sylmar, Calif., said she wanted to call attention to potential safety problems and U.S. job losses that could result from allowing Mexican truckers to operate in the United States.

"Truckers are the easiest way to get America to pay attention," Piety said.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform is holding a rally through tomorrow, but the group said in a statement that it has "played no part" in the trucker protest's "planning or execution."

Okay, fellow bloggers, what is this about "Mexican truckers"?

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