You're welcome.

Posted by: DrewM at 03:10 PM | Comments (29)
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A sneak preview of “comprehensive” reform.

Step 1. Grab a kid, anyoneÂ’s will do, so you canÂ’t be arrested or deported. (Claim the child is yours if questioned by chauffeurs er, Border Patrol Agents.)
Step 2. Cross into U.S. illegally, hop a bus to El Paso. Panhandle in the largest, most lucrative venues available.
Step 3. When finished panhandling, make public nuisance of oneself.
Step 4. When the Border Patrol arrives, hop in for your free ride home.
Step 5. Repeat. 128 times.

It may well be true, of course, that as one quoted border resident says, “Nothing is served by locking these people up.” And I’m willing to believe that it’s impossible to compute the cost of the practice exactly, as a BP mid-manager type asserts. But I am pretty sure that the practice is diverting Border Patrol agents from more important tasks, although what these might be according to John McCain might be very interesting indeed.

The fact that the problem has gotten this ridiculous is a good example that immigration enforcement policy is badly broken, and that Senator McCain has indeed learned the wrong lesson if he thinks edifying spectacles such as these have whetted Americans’s thirst for “comprehensive” reform. If only one could construct some barrier, some obstacle… I hear the Mexican government may be willing to part with some advice on this point. They should be willing to do so, certainly, since we paid for it.

Posted by: Open Blog at 01:33 PM | Comments (14)
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Still a long way to go in that part of the world.

The Iraqi father who brutally murdered his teenage daughter in an "honour killing" for befriending a British soldier in Basra has said that he has no regrets, and that death "was the least she deserved".
Abdel-Qader Ali boasted that he would have slaughtered his 17-year-old daughter Rand at birth if he had know of the shame she would bring on him and his family.

He proudly told how his two sons helped with the murder, bragging that they were "men enough to help me end the life of someone who had just brought shame to our lives."

Â…The 46-year-old father holds a key post in the Iraqi health ministry, and was quickly released from police custody following the murder because the officers who arrested him were full of praise for his actions.

Â…"I have no regrets, and I had the support of all my friends who are fathers like me, and who know that what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours their religion.

If the British had any balls theyÂ’d have taken care of this monster themselves.

WhereÂ’s todayÂ’s General Napier?

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

h/t Hot Air Headlines

Posted by: DrewM at 12:52 PM | Comments (53)
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Well I was sick as a dog yesterday (freezing cold and raining here in the NE; global warming etc.) and am still not able to rally. Rather than attempting to think and write and failing miserably at either, I'll just concede the obvious: I can't blog today.

I'll put up dumb stuff that requires no thinking. That's my outside limit.

Posted by: Ace at 12:36 PM | Comments (10)
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It's still in progress at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant. ICE says is investigating aggravated identity theft and fraudulent use of Social Security numbers, among other crimes.

600 to 700 arrests are expected, although no one's been bused away yet. Workers and their lawyers were tipped off to the impending raid (though not necessarily the targeted workplace) when ICE rented a nearby fairgrounds last week. It did the same thing in December 2006 before the Swift plant raids.

DHS seems to be learning from the most common objections to those early raids:

Larson [a driver for the meatpacking plant] said the agents told workers to stay in place then separated them by asking those with identification to stand to the right and those with other papers, to stand to the left.

“There was plenty of hollering,” Larson said. “You couldn’t go anywhere.”
When asked who was separated, Larson said those standing in the group with other papers were all Hispanic.

ICE spokesman Harold Ort in Postville did not confirm or deny that anyone had been detained, but went on to say that the children of those detained would be cared for and that “their caregiver situation will be addressed.”

“They were asked multiple times if they have any sole-caregiver issues or any childcare issues,” Ort said.

In 2006 and 2007, ICE was criticized for targeting Latinos specifically (rather than seeking identification from everyone in the plant) and for being unresponsive to child-care and medical issues.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 12:23 PM | Comments (28)
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Pretty sobering stuff.

Two GOP Losses That Validate a National Pattern

These two special elections validate a national polling pattern that is bad news for Republicans. According to a New York Times/CBS Poll, Americans disapprove of the President's job performance by 63 to 28 (and he has been below 40% job approval since December 2006, the longest such period for any president in the history of polling).

A separate New York Times/CBS Poll shows that a full 81 percent of Americans believe the economy is on the wrong track.

The current generic ballot for Congress according to the NY Times/CBS poll is 50 to 32 in favor of the Democrats. That is an 18-point margin, reminiscent of the depths of the Watergate disaster.

...

The Anti-Obama, Anti-Wright, and Anti-Clinton GOP Model Has Been Tested -- And It Failed

The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans try to run an anti-Obama, anti- Reverend Wright, or (if Senator Clinton wins), anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail.

This model has already been tested with disastrous results.

In 2006, there were six incumbent Republican Senators who had plenty of money, the advantage of incumbency, and traditionally successful consultants.

But the voters in all six states had adopted a simple position: "Not you." No matter what the GOP Senators attacked their opponents with, the voters shrugged off the attacks and returned to, "Not you."

The danger for House and Senate Republicans in 2008 is that the voters will say, "Not the Republicans."
Republicans Have Lost the Advantage on Every Single-Issue Poll

A February Washington Post poll shows that Republicans have lost the advantage to the Democrats on which party can handle an issue better -- on every single topic.

Americans now believe that Democrats can handle the deficit better (52 to 31), taxes better (48 to 40) and even terrorism better (44 to 37).

This is a catastrophic collapse of trust in Republicans built up over three generations on the deficit, two generations on taxes, and two generations on national security.

Gingrich offers some prescriptions of varying plausibility.

It just may be that the Senate winds up with a filibuster-proof majority (when you include Senatorial "moderates" like Collins, Snow, and Specter) for appointing liberal judges. And that just about every liberal measure can pass easily in the House.

As Rush says, Republicans may have to "cross over" to vote for McCain just to try to keep the entirety of the federal government out of left-liberal control.

Posted by: Ace at 12:23 PM | Comments (120)
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Ah, staffers. The gift of political blamelessness that keeps on giving.

Yesterday, in an interesting New York Times look at Obama's rise in Chicago politics, we learned that in 2004 some Jewish supporters became alarmed to learn that in a questionnaire Obama refrained from denouncing Yasir Arafat, or from expressing strong support for Israel's security fence.

Reports the Times: "In an e-mail message, Mr. Obama blamed a staff member for the oversight, and expressed the hope that 'none of this has raised any questions on your part regarding my fundamental commitment to IsraelÂ’s security.'"

In January, during MSNBC's presidential debate in Las Vegas, Obama was asked about a document put together by one of his South Carolina staffers that listed comments made by the Clinton campaign that some perceived to be attempting to stoke racial fires. "In hindsight, do you regret pushing this story?” asked Tim Russert.

"Our supporters, our staff get overzealous," Obama said. "They start saying things that I would not say, and it is my responsibility to make sure that we're setting a clear tone in our campaign.”

In February in a meeting with the Chicago Tribune, Obama was asked about an earmark that went to the University of Chicago while his wife Michelle Obama worked there.

"I don’t think that I was obligated to recuse myself from anything related to the university," Obama said, adding, "when it comes to earmarks because of those concerns, it’s probably something that should have been passed on to [U.S. Sen.] Dick Durbin, and I think probably something that slipped through the cracks. It did not come through us, through me or Michelle, and Michelle has been very careful about staying separate and apart from any government work. But you could make a good argument that this is something that slipped through our cracks, through our screening system.”

More at the link. Obama doesn't apparently make any policy or strategy decisions; he's a big picture guy, focused laser-like on Hope and Change.

Via JOM, which notes the NYT continues to soft-pedal Obama's associations with Bill Ayers and his psychopathic wife.

Posted by: Ace at 11:25 AM | Comments (21)
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Sometimes those good people included other servicemen and women.

Corporal Jonathan T. Yale and Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, both US Marines, stood ready and gave their lives to save others.

A truck packed with thousands of pounds of explosives entered the area where Haerter and Yale were standing guard. Realizing the vehicles intentions Haerter and Yale, without hesitation, stood their ground, drew their weapons and fired at the vehicle. The truck rolled to a stop and exploded, killing the two Marines.

Â…In the face of a committed enemy, Haerter and Yale stood their ground, in turn saving the lives of numerous Marines, Sailors, Iraqi policemen, and civilians. Both Marines displayed heroic, self-sacrificing actions and truly lived up to the Corps' values of honor, courage, and commitment.

“They saved all of our lives; if it wasn’t for them that gate probably wouldn’t have held,” Tupaj said. “The explosion blew out all of the windows over 150 meters from where the blast hit. If that truck had made it into the compound, there would’ve been a lot more casualties. They saved everyone’s life here.”

Blackfive has the whole story.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:04 AM | Comments (13)
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Funny stuff: "THE GLOOM AND ANGER VOICED BY THE ASPIRING FIRST LADY AS SHE SURVEYS THE ROTTING, MISERABLE HELL THAT IS AMERICA HAVE REACHED ALARMING DEPTHS."

It goes on to quote Michelle Obama on this horrid country we live in, worrying that her obvious clinical depression might spiral out of control.

Thanks to cristy.

Posted by: Ace at 09:54 AM | Comments (12)
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So... he lied, right? Apparently he's allowed to; that's what hope and change are all about.

Posted by: Ace at 09:50 AM | Comments (8)
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