I just got some information in an email from a dedicated LFR reader. Here’s one portion of the highlights from that email:

You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much? Read this:
1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.
2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.
9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that’s two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US.
11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana and, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.
12. The National Policy Institute, ‘estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.’
13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin.
14. ‘The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States.’

The total cost is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.

I normally don’t post something this statistic-laden but I thought it important in this instance because I felt it was the best way to highlight how much illegal immigration costs each one of us.

Technorati Tags: Immigration, Welfare, WIC, Anchor Babies, Education, Crime Rates

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

Last week, El Tinklenberg was endorsed by the Blue Dog Democrats, a group often thought to be comprised of moderate Democrats in the House. Mr. Tinklenberg is running against my representative, Michele Bachmann. I’ve often thought that this group was similar to the DLC in that they’re still liberal, just not as crazy as loons like Maxine Waters and Dennis Kucinich.

According to the Club For Growth’s Congressional Scorecard, that’s sometimes the case but it isn’t always the case. First let’s look at what’s posted on Tinklenberg’s blog about the Blue Dogs’ endorsement:

The fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition was formed in 1995 with the goal of representing the center of the House of Representatives and appealing to the mainstream values of the American public. The Blue Dogs are dedicated to a core set of beliefs that transcend partisan politics, including a deep commitment to the financial stability and national security of the United States.

With a description like that, you’d think that they represented the pro growth ‘wing’ of the party. Let’s compare that with CFG’s ratings.

Nick Lampson, TX-22, is the highest rated Blue Dog. He’s rated 194th with a 29% rating. FYI- TX-22 is Tom DeLay’s old district. Jim Cooper, Jim Matheson and Gene Taylor follow closely behind with 28%, 28% and 27% respectively. (continue reading post »)

According to this transcript of this morning’s Glenn Beck Show, a Harvard vice president is speaking out against taxing the rich. Who would’ve thought you’d ever see that? The good news is that Glenn attempts to point out ‘the error’ in the VP’s thinking. Here’s the relevant portion of the transcript:

Well, now in Massachusetts they are looking to tax college endowments, university endowments that have more than a billion dollars in it. They say that by doing this, they can put more than a billion dollars a year into the state revenue. Legislators have asked state finance officials to study a plan that would impose a 2.5% annual assessment on colleges with endowments over a billion dollars. Now, the universities are very upset and here’s quite possibly, I want to frame this. I want to frame this. I want this on my wall of my office. When a nonprofit, when a nonprofit is making money, it’s mind-boggling. Why tax them?

Now, one guy who is head of the ways and means committee in Massachusetts says it’s mind-boggling that an entity wouldn’t be paying taxes that has $34 billion. How can you justify that when people can’t afford to live, how could you justify not taxing them? Ready? Here it is. This is what I want framed. Kevin Casey, Harvard’s associate vice president for government, community and public affairs said, “You can’t do that. You’d be taxing success.” No, it gets better. “And over time this would put us at a competitive disadvantage. It would hurt the state.” No, you’re kidding me. It’s like you’re taxing success by taxing people who are making money and who happen to be richer than others? You’re taxing success? Boy, Kevin, I never looked at it that way. You might be onto something there. “Over time this would put us at a real competitive disadvantage.” No, it would put Harvard at a disadvantage against those who didn’t get taxed? No. Who might pay a lower tax? It might put that company at a disadvantage? No, no, Kevin, you’re looking at it wrong. We’re just trying to help out Greater New Haven State Technical College. That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re only trying, it’s affirmative action for Greater New Haven State Technical College. We’re trying to help them. We’re trying to level the playing field. It’s only out of fairness, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It might put them at a — no.

You can’t write stuff this bizarre. A Harvard vice president looking out for the…rich? That’s just too rich. I loved the line about “Kevin” not seeing this tax scheme as “affirmative action for Greater New Haven State Technical College.” When I read that line to King, he couldn’t stop laughing. The truth be told, I was laughing just as much.

There’s a couple of bigger points worth making in this, though. First, I don’t think it’s wise to tax endowment funds. Secondly, I think it’s worth keeping that quote handy when we want to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Mr. Casey obviously thinks that it isn’t right to tax success when it involves his university. Conservatives should ask Mr. Casey if he thinks it’s unfair to tax success when it comes time for the university and fair to tax success if it’s an oil company.

Above all else, I’ll remember this moment because it isn’t likely to happen again in my lifetime.

Technorati Tags: Harvard, Endowments, Tax The Rich, Massachusetts, Affirmative Action

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This morning, Margaret Carlson weighs in on the Philadelphia Fiasco. After recounting the charges and countercharges, she made this important observation:

Karl Rove was the big winner. His Politics About Nothing lives on. If you aren’t going to help the working man, tell him that the other condescending guy wants to take away his gun. Republicans show respect for all the things not under siege, his guns, his religion, his marriage, his patriotism, and hope no one homes in on jobs, foreclosures or health care.

I’ve never thought of Maggie Carlson as the brightest bulb in the Agenda Media’s chandelier. This observation confirms for me that my initial opinion was right. Why on God’s green earth did Ms. Carlson think about Karl Rove after watching the Democrat debate?

The first thing that popped into my head was that Democrats still fear Karl Rove to the point of being paranoid about him. It isn’t a stretch to say that Karl Rove gets blamed for the misfortunes of Democrats. Never mind the fact that they cast aside a real man of substance in Joe Lieberman because he wasn’t liberal enough. Nevermind the fact that they’re on the verge of picking the most unqualified presidential candidate in the history of the United States.

In Ms. Carlson’s mind, the Fiasco In Philadelphia didn’t happen because two radicals with barely a presidential qualification shared the stage. In Ms. Carlson’s mind, the Philadelphia Fiasco happened because Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos asked questions given them by Mr. Rove.

Ms. Carlson wants people to forget the disastrous answers both candidates gave on the Second Amendment. Here’s the exchange between Charlie Gibson and Barack Obama:

MR. GIBSON: Senator Obama, the District of Columbia has a law, it’s had a law since 1976, it’s now before the United States Supreme Court, that prohibits ownership of handguns, a sawed-off shotgun, a machine gun or a short-barreled rifle. Is that law consistent with an individual’s right to bear arms?
SENATOR OBAMA: Well, Charlie, I confess I obviously haven’t listened to the briefs and looked at all the evidence. As a general principle, I believe that the Constitution confers an individual right to bear arms. But just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can’t constrain the exercise of that right, and, you know, in the same way that we have a right to private property but local governments can establish zoning ordinances that determine how you can use it. And I think that it is going to be important for us to reconcile what are two realities in this country.

(continue reading post »)

KSTP-TV is reporting that the Minnesota Department of Education is starting an investigation into the TIZA charter school. Tiza was first highlighted by Strib columnist Katherine Kersten in this column. Here’s what KSTP is reporting:

A Star Tribune newspaper column has prompted a state investigation into a charter school. A substitute teacher said a school in Inver Grove Heights is blurring the line of separation of church and state.

Being a charter school Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, or TIZA, is supported by tax dollars. The teacher told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the presence of religion she observed at the school took her by surprise.

TIZA Executive Director Azad Zaman insisted the school follows with state and federal laws. “TIZA does not endorse any religion,” he said.

Substitute teacher Amanda Getz thinks otherwise:

“I’ve been in a lot of schools and I’ve never been in a school where they had washing rituals, or they had prayer, or where they had a room where you had to take your shoes off,” Getz said.

Of course, Imam Zaman denies Ms. Getz’s allegations: (continue reading post »)

Kathy Kersten has a great article in today’s Strib on a charter school in which religion isn’t just taught, it’s mandatory. After reading the article, I have numerous concerns. Here’s the heart of Ms. Kersten’s article:

TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is “establishing Islam in Minnesota.” The building also houses a mosque. TIZA’s executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.

Students pray daily, the cafeteria serves halal food, [food] permissible under Islamic law, and “Islamic Studies” is offered at the end of the school day.

Zaman maintains that TIZA is not a religious school. He declined, however, to allow me to visit the school to see for myself, “due to the hectic schedule for statewide testing.” But after I e-mailed him that the Minnesota Department of Education had told me that testing would not begin for several weeks, Zaman did not respond, even to urgent calls and e-mails seeking comment before my first column on TIZA.

Now, however, an eyewitness has stepped forward. Amanda Getz of Bloomington is a substitute teacher. She worked as a substitute in two fifth-grade classrooms at TIZA on Friday, March 14. Her experience suggests that school-sponsored religious activity plays an integral role at TIZA.

Arriving on a Friday, the Muslim holy day, she says she was told that the day’s schedule included a “school assembly” in the gym after lunch.

Before the assembly, she says she was told, her duties would include taking her fifth-grade students to the bathroom, four at a time, to perform “their ritual washing.”

Afterward, Getz said, “teachers led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day,” was preparing to lead prayer. Beside him, another man “was prostrating himself in prayer on a carpet as the students entered.”

“The prayer I saw was not voluntary,” Getz said. “The kids were corralled by adults and required to go to the assembly where prayer occurred.”

Islamic Studies was also incorporated into the school day. “When I arrived, I was told ‘after school we have Islamic Studies,’ and I might have to stay for hall duty,” Getz said. “The teachers had written assignments on the blackboard for classes like math and social studies. Islamic Studies was the last one, the board said the kids were studying the Qu’ran. The students were told to copy it into their planner, along with everything else. That gave me the impression that Islamic Studies was a subject like any other.”

First off, it’s troublesome that TIZA’s executive director would directly lie to Ms. Kersten. That’s clearly meant to hide something from the taxpayers who fund the school. That’s really just the tip of the iceberg, though. I just googled Islamic Relief to find out more about them since IR is the school’s sponsor. Here’s what I found: (continue reading post »)

After posting these (1, 2) previous essays on the Democrat Party’s racist infamy, I received several more inquiries about their subatomic contributions toward civil rights. I hope to now answer those last questions.

While Democrats have changed their tactics, cosmetics, and geography since 1792, their perpetual expectation of black inferiority (and presumed racial superiority) remains the same today as it did in 1808 and 1908. A few quick examples:

1. Democrats who insisted that blacks were too stupid to hire in 1908 now use affirmative action to compensate for that same presumed racial inferiority.
2. Hate crime legislation implies that blacks who murder blacks deserve a lesser sentence than whites who (rarely) murder blacks.
3. Democrats who think black mothers have the right to kill their unborn babies are too stupid to manage school vouchers.
4. Democrats who support gun control presume that law-abiding blacks are too stupid, dangerous, and irresponsible to carry concealed firearms in crime-ridden cities where gang members regularly carry and use concealed firearms.

In 1808, blacks who sought freedom were beaten and murdered by Democrats, while Republicans established and operated the Underground Railroad.

In 1908, free blacks who embraced the Republican Party risked the terror and murder wrought by the KKK.

Because Republicans forced Democrats to end lynching and Jim Crow, free blacks are still demonized today in the form of Oreos, epithets, and social alienation. While this may seem like harmless fun to good ol’ boy Democrats, the stigma associated with personal achievement still cripples blacks who choose failure, mediocrity, and poverty to retain their black authenticity.

Unlike the black, white, rich, poor, gay, Christian, secular and Jewish Republicans who view and accept themselves as Party equals, Barack Obama affiliates himself with Trinity not because of Jeremiah Wright’s spiritual coherence, but to secure the “black authenticity” he needs to get other Democrats to accept him. But while Obama’s political choices are comparatively harmless, the fact that millions of black students still fail in school, or that black adults vote Democrat, to avoid the appearance of “looking white,” is a derivative of the black inferiority that Democrats have continuously promoted since 1792.

Self-depreciating minstrel shows that entertained Democrats 100 years ago have been replaced by gangsta rappers today and condescended to as the free expression of urban genius.

This political cynicism isn’t confined to black Americans either. Gay men who support and celebrate the freedoms established by the Republican Party are vilified and alienated by Democrats as self-loathing gays. Republicans bristle at lewd celebrations not because they’re homophobic as Democrats accuse, but for the same reason that San Francisco residents would oppose public heterosexual expressions by Richard or Lynne Cheney.

Although most Americans still oppose gay marriage, the Democrat Party promotes it as a civil rights issue; not because they believe rectal intercourse and fisting is healthy for America, but because they need ANYTHING to build upon their counterfeit human rights record to win votes.

The Democrat Party’s institutionalized sympathizers (public education, universities, and the media) have successfully sold their uninterrupted political contempt for blacks as a racial issue 1) by blaming ALL whites for the exclusive and well-documented sins of the Democrat Party and 2) by bestowing a false sense of racial innocence to those who embrace the Democrat Party and their (anti-) civil rights record. This historical perversion is what leads people like Barack Obama to ridicule his grandmother as a typical white person instead of blaming her for being the committed Democrat she always was.

Both essays (1, 2) illustrate that, since their party’s inception, 1) Republicans have been consistently preoccupied with freedom and empowerment for all Americans equally, while Democrats have been preoccupied with black inferiority, subjugation, and exploitation. In light of their history, further niggling about the synthetic or accidental contributions that Democrats made toward civil rights is an unproductive exercise in futility unworthy of anyone’s time.

Related essays:

An Offer of Proof (2006)
Challenging an Unreasonable Doubt (2008)

Two years ago, a liberal friend of mine told me that Republicans had introduced slavery, Jim Crow, and the KKK to the United States, and that Democrats had always been champions of civil rights for Black Americans. Another friend, a successful physician, expressed surprise when I told him that Abraham Lincoln the first Republican president.

A few weeks later, I wrote this essay to illustrate how our public schools and media had successfully reinvented American history. It remains one of my most satisfying essays and one that still generates controversy.

Although I don’t ordinarily respond to Daily Kos moonbats, Brian penned this somewhat coherent response:

Phooey.

FDR, a Democrat, started efforts to end Jim Crow against the pressures of his own Party. Truman, a Democrat, desegregated the military by executive order against the wishes of Democrats AND Republicans in Congress. (Many associate this action with the Civil Rights banner being carried by the Democratic Party and the long association of the black community with Democratic Politics.)

JFK inspired a generation of civil rights activists. (Of course, there was Hoover’s investigations of civil rights activists, but go ahead, link Hoover to anyone but himself!)

LBJ signs the Civil Rights Act — which admittedly was opposed by many Southern Democrats. However, northern and Western Democrats, along with Republicans — the minority party — pushed it through Congress. (The GOP may want to say they did the CRA on their own, but the math wouldn’t let it happen.) LBJ championed the CRA and when signing it into law acknowledged that he “lost the South for the Democrats for at least a generation.”

Brian sucked Mike in as well, who suffers from what one psychiatrist calls Bush Derangement Syndrome. I decided to respond with something more formal before others got too confused. While Brian raises some good questions, I’ve sourced my answers.

FDR’s efforts began ninety years AFTER Republicans started them. Until the mid-1960s the overwhelming majority of Democrats who supported Civil Rights JOINED the Republican Party. The Solid South didn’t permit such “riff-raff.”

FDR’s effort to end military desegregation began in 1941 when socialist labor leader Philip Randolph began to organize black workers into a social and political force.

Although WWII demonstrated the need to enlist and integrate blacks, Democrats who controlled Congress throughout FDR’s presidency (1932-1945) ignored efforts to end segregation until Republicans gained the majority in 1947 – a year that coincided with Truman’s first presidential campaign.

When Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights recommended the end of segregation, Randolph threatened to organize mass civil disobedience unless the military services were immediately desegregated and Jim Crow laws ended. His appearance upset Democrat committee members like Richard Russell (D-GA), whose political careers were tied to segregation.

Truman tossed bones like Universal Military Training (UMT), but Congress rejected amendments by Republicans Jacob Javits and Adam Powell to desegregate the military and Truman signed it, allowing segregation to continue.

In 1948, Truman issued Executive Order 9981 which, on paper, required equal opportunity for black servicemen. A year later, Truman’s Armed Services Committee agreed that equal opportunity did not necessarily mean desegregate and, in their final report, recommended segregation to continue.

The Korean War finally began the end of segregation. In 1953, NAACP administrator Roy Wilkins reported that integration had begun around the fringes, although there was still no large scale changeover in the US. But in August 1954, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the end of segregation to be eliminated within a matter of months.

By the end of his presidency in 1961, Eisenhower had signed two civil rights bills and had successfully desegregated the military, years before LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA).

LBJ’s action destroyed the Solid South, which rebelled by shifting their vote to Goldwater.

Brian writes that the new, conservative Republican Party began to creep into the realm of the racist South, suggesting the Republicans embraced the entrenched bigotry of the South. Clearly, the opposite was true. Republicans don’t care how many angry bigoted ex-Democrats vote Republican. Why refuse their votes?

Brian’s insinuation that “the shift” changed the Republican support for civil rights is pap.

In 1948, the Solid South secured 98 percent of the vote by threats, terror, and intimidation. Although a lifelong supporter of civil rights, Goldwater goofed when he opposed the CRA for believing that it “exceeded the Constitutional powers of Congress.” Lifelong segregationists switched their support and the Democrats have celebrated black gullibility and white guilt ever since.

But for a moment, think about the lifelong Democrats of 1964: Was it really possible that Democrats like George Wallace, who defended segregation and Jim Crow for half a century, would support civil rights for the same blacks he hated the previous week?

Not a chance.

Not only did Los Angeles and New York City Democrats support segregation throughout the 1950s and 1960s, they also secured control of the two largest public school districts in the nation (LA & NYC).

If George Wallace, who hated black children in 1963, was suddenly given control of their school districts in 1964, what kind of education could we expect those children to receive by 1965, 1985, or 2005?

Is it really a coincidence that LA and NYC school unions, teachers, and bureaucrats are overwhelmingly Democrat? The fact that half of all black students in the 9th grade today won’t graduate high school would make Democrats like George Wallace very proud, which might also explain why Democrats like Brian and Mike are so confused.

The notion that the people who created, supported, and defended civil rights since 1854 would suddenly embrace bigotry is as preposterous as believing that the lifelong supporters of hate would suddenly find love for black Americans.

History speaks much louder than propaganda.

Ruben Navarrette has just written a column in which he accuses the Democratic Party as being the “Anti-Competition Party.” Far be it from me to argue, especially when he puts forth such a compelling arguments as this:

It’s true in education where Democrats, with their slavish devotion to teachers unions, oppose vouchers even for constituencies they pretend to champion such as minorities and the disadvantaged. Vouchers would force public schools into competition.

How’s a self-respecting conservative supposed to argue with that? I’ve argued that vouchers are exactly what’s needed to force true reform in public schools. Here’s another of Mr. Navarrette’s compelling arguments:

And it’s certainly true in the area of trade, where Democrats do the bidding of organized labor by fighting trade agreements and advocating protectionism. Trade, by its very nature, encourages competition by opening up markets across borders and seas.

Bill Clinton pushed hard for NAFTA. His party refused to join to any great extent, though some were brought along kicking and screaming. Today, there isn’t a chance that Hillary or Obama would push for NAFTA because they wouldn’t risk alienating the various unions because they rely on them for GOTV ‘volunteers’ and campaign contributions. (continue reading post »)

Mike Huckabee is thought to have the gift of gab. According to this quote, Gov. Huckabee didn’t have that gift going yesterday:

”Folks, I don’t know what you are going to hear, about that I’m not a conservative, but when you cut taxes, and you increase the per capita income, you improved the schools, and you rebuild the roads, and you preserve the national resources, and you streamline government, your government grows at a rate that is half that of the average of all states,” Huckabee said, his voice rising. “Call it anything you want to, but anybody with an I.Q. above broccoli calls that conservative, rock-solid, kind of leadership.”

I’ll start this fisking with the tax thing. When you cut some taxes a little bit but raise other taxes alot, you aren’t a conservative.

Next, let’s talk about the education issue. You aren’t a conservative when you get endorsed by the NEA, especially when you tell them that you’d veto any school voucher legislation that made it to your desk.

Next, let’s talk about the things that Gov. Huckabee didn’t talk about. When legislators here in Minnesota tried passing the DREAM Act, it was supported almost exclusively by the DFL. (DFL is Minnesotan for flaming liberal.) Mike Huckabee supports giving in-state tuition to children of illegal immigrants. At least he did before flip-flopping and saying that he’d deport every illegal immigrant in the US.

BTW, the outcry against Minnesota’s DREAM Act was so loud that the DFL dropped that out in conference committee.

If Mike Huckabee is the GOP nominee, I won’t vote for him. I’ll focus solely on local races. It’s time that the GOP faithful rejected Gov. Huckabee’s flippant one-liners and his inconsistent beliefs.

Technorati Tags: Mike Huckabee, Taxes, DREAM Act, Education, School Vouchers, Immigration, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog