HoodaThunk?

Over at BVBL an interesting correlation is being noted. As Prince William County has begun more serious efforts at enforcing immigration law, statistics are showing less crime being committed. Greg L. over there points to this Examiner article:

Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart said the major difference between Prince William and other counties where crime is on the rise is the county’s “very aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration.”

“That’s the major difference,” he said. “As illegal immigrants are leaving, our crime rates are decreasing.”
…
Prince William’s overall crime rate — the number of crimes per 1,000 residents — dropped from 21.6 in 2006 to 19.8 in 2007, down from 24.5 in 2004 and 22.8 in 2005.

Of course, there are open-borders folks who deny that the crackdown on illegals has had anything to do it.

But Nancy Lyall of Mexicans Without Borders, an immigrant advocacy group, said that the declining crime rates are misleading.

“To attribute the crime rate to the [immigrant] resolution is not true,” she said. “It may be impacting the crime rate, but it’s not impacting the crime, especially against the immigrant community. There are a lot of crimes unreported [now] because immigrants are afraid of going to the police.”

And if the crimes are unreported, she’s quantifying them as “alot” how? As has been repeatedly said, legal immigrants should have no fear of going to the police if they’re the victims of a crime. I would really have liked for the reporter who did the interview to pointedly ask exactly what Lyall meant that the enforcement efforts are “impacting the crime rate” but not “impacting the crime”. What, exactly, does that mean? The only way to impact the crime rate is to reduce the number of instances of the crime, so how one is supposedly affecting the crime rate without affecting the crime is beyond me. It makes no sense but that’s not really Ms. Lyall’s forte’.

Neighboring Fairfax County has declined to pursue enforcement efforts like PWC has done and guess what? Over the same reporting period, Fairfax’s overall crime rate has increased by 6%. Its violent crime rate has increased by 4%. Hmmm. Wonder what that could mean?

I’ve brought this up before but it’s a topic that should remain front and center during this election season. The list of Obama’s friends and advisors that have already gone under the wheels of his campaign bus is getting longer (Wright, Pfleger, several of his so-called “positions”…) but there are still those he calls friends that Americans should be concerned about. I’m speaking primarily of a pair of unrepentant domestic terrorists who have been Obama’s political friends and advisors for years. This video has been released lately that sums things up very nicely:

Some will say this is just smoke and mirrors, an effort to deceive and distract. I disagree whole-heartedly. Obama has made a profession out of saying 1 thing and then reversing himself. It is very germane to the discussion of whether Obama is fit to be our nation’s leader to examine the people he’s allied himself with. When you do that, you don’t come up with a pretty picture but that’s what’s necessary to make a rational decision come November.

(Hat tip to Instapundit and Tigerhawk.)

Via Instapundit, this in from Car Lust regarding the 1973-1977 Chevy Malibu:

The mid-1970s Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu lived in a no-man’s land for Malibus, coming as it did after the legendary muscle-car Chevelles and Malibus of the late 1960s, and just before the popular ground-breaking Malibus that debuted in 1978. In that context, it’s difficult to argue that the mid-1970s Malibus were anything other than gutless, tawdry, disappointing (and, to me, stunningly desirable) dinosaurs so typical of the era.

“Gutless?” “Tawdry”? I BEG your pardon?!? The solid steel, hulking behemoth of a chariot that brought me from the northern hinterlands of Ohio to the techno-frontier of northern Virginia over 2 decades ago was a midnight-blue 1975 Chevy Malibu Classic and she was unstoppable beauty in motion. From the day I took her over from my father to the day I drove her to her final resting place she never once failed to start on the 1st crank, come blistering heat or numbing cold. By the time she’d run her course, her piston rings were so worn she was burning almost as much oil as she did gas (my father-in-law remarked that she was almost a 2-stroke engine by that time) and her universal joints in the front were so far gone her front wheels moved about 3-5° independently of one another until I got her up to about 40 mph. I had neither the time nor the money to maintain her in a safe working condition and I had to let her go, but she’s the gold standard of solid car by which I’ve measured every ride I’ve ever driven since.

Gutless? Not my honey, no way. Tawdry? Maybe a little, but on her it worked. Disappointing? Only when I said goodbye. Stunningly desirable? Ooooooohhhh, you betcha. Here’s to the memory of my first 4-wheeled lass. I miss ya, sweetheart. I surely do…

There’s been an awful lot of coverage of the Heller decision by the Supreme Court since it was announced last week, I realize, but the decision was momentous and the ramifications still percolating through our society. One of the more idiotic and - yes, I am going to say it - blatantly unpatriotic responses was that of the Chicago Tribune’s editorial staff who advanced the thought that the 2nd Amendment should be repealed.

If the founders had limited themselves to the final 14 words, the amendment would have been an unambiguous declaration of the right to possess firearms. But they didn’t and it isn’t. The amendment was intended to protect the authority of the states to organize militias. The inartful wording has left the amendment open to public debate for more than 200 years.

Emphasis mine. The Tribune’s little screed (I wonder if the word “inartful” is an Illinois thing?) runs afoul of a simple fact about Heller that’s gone completely unnoticed by such intellectual giants as newspaper editors. Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit - who is an actual law professor, by the way - took note of it as he did research for his own upcoming article on the ruling:

But nonetheless, all nine Justices specifically said the right is individual, and thus rejected the “collective right” position on the Second Amendment, a position that’s been the mainstay of gun-control groups, newspaper editorialists, and lower federal courts for decades, and one that was presented by those adherents as so obviously correct that those arguing for an individual right were called “frauds” and shills for the NRA.

That’s right: all of the Justices currently sitting agreed that the notion the Tribune editors continue to labor under - that “the amendment was intended to protect the authority of the states” - is absolutely, positively dead wrong. That when the Framers wrote about “the people” they meant it exactly the same why as they did when they referred to “the people” in the 1st, 5th, 9th, and 10th Amendments. They meant precisely what they said - the people. Not the states, the people.

Now that the outcome of this debate has been settled and they find the 2nd Amendment supports their opponents’ position and not theirs, they rise to indignantly demand that we change the Constitution to meet their needs. Poll after poll on the subject shows the overwhelming majority of Americans disagree with them, and they clearly know it. You don’t have to look any further than the comments section of the very editorial in question to see that.

My suggestion to these editors and those like them is to settle back for a period of time equal to what we were all forced to endure regarding the so-called “assault weapons ban.” We had that around for 10 years and it proved the point of what many of us were saying about it: that it was useless. That it did nothing to stem crime. Let all the absolute handgun bans around the county come down as a result of this ruling, implement laws in these places where bans were formerly in place that permit law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms and let’s observe the results in 10 years.

I have no more faith that folks like the editors of the Tribune will do any such thing than they do that the 2nd Amendment will be repealed. Fortunately, time will show them to have been wrong.

One of the areas in which I’m definitely not a fan of John McCain is on the matter of illegal immigration. (”No duh,” right?) I remain extremely wary of McCain on the matter although his commentary about understanding that he needs to secure the border first before considering anything that even remotely smells of an amnesty gives me hope. The issue I’m writing of this morning is related to the Senator’s record on immigration, but it’s not his particular stance that’s the real issue. It’s knowing what his stance is and what it was that’s the point. Stephen Dinan at the Washington Times writes this morning about a speech McCain gave recently to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) in which McCain spoke of his support for the 1986 amnesty bill.

The 1986 bill granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants in the country and promised new security measures to crack down on illegal immigration. The amnesty went through, but the security measures were rarely enforced.

Speaking today to NALEO, he brought up that bill: “In 1986, we passed a law that said we would secure the borders and gave amnesty to a couple, three million people. I supported that legislation way back then.”

The problem, writes Dinan, is that he did no such thing. McCain not only voted against the bill, he is on record as being rather vocally opposed to its passage because the requirement contained within it that employers had to verify employment eligibility was “racist.”

Setting aside the fact that I find such a position to be ludicrous, this is a pretty clueless mistake. The 1986 amnesty bill has been a point of contention in the illegal immigration debate that’s been in the public eye for years, now. One would think that a public official who was actually involved in the passage or failure of that bill would know how he felt about the bill at the time. Regardless, McCain’s staff should damn well know how the Senator voted on each and every bill that has come before him, I don’t care how long he’s been in office. This was, as the Power Line gentlemen like to say, an unforced error and McCain can’t afford to be making errors like this. I don’t know if a staffer blew it or McCain went ad lib on them but, either way, they need to tighten it up.

I had the opportunity to hear former general Wesley Clark speak at a business conference I was attending back in 2006. I didn’t think very much of him at the time (most particularly in the sense of a sales advice resource, the alleged reason for his being selected to speak) and his latest shooting off of the mouth hasn’t done anything to brighten my view. Clark is now saying that McCain’s war record isn’t worth being considered in determining McCain’s suitability to serve as President.

Appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Clark downplayed the plane crash that led to McCain’s captivity during the Vietnam War, and said the squadron McCain commanded “wasn’t a wartime squadron.”

“He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility,” Clark said.

Oh, so Clark is making a distinction between members of the military who served in wartime and those who didn’t? Commanding a squadron at any time isn’t child’s play and, I might add, it’s a helluva lot more command experience than the alternative candidate has. I’m curious about whether these Democrats consider military service a plus or a minus with regard to being qualified to be the President. Seems when we were talking John Kerry, it was. And Kerry spent all of 4 months in actual combat ops before turning his colors and meeting with representatives of our enemy’s government. (To say nothing of widely smearing all other Vietnam vets in a Senate hearing with absolutely no proof whatsoever.) Now, when we’re talking about a bona-fide commanding officer with multiple combat sorties flying against what was called the most dangerous air defense system in the world, suddenly that’s just no biggie. Oh, but get this:

When Schieffer noted Obama has not had wartime experiences, Clark said: “Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”

Clark, you arrogant ass. “Riding” in a fighter jet? McCain wasn’t “riding”, you sanctimonious reprobate, he was piloting a combat sortie on bombing missions in Vietnam. He completed 22 successful bombing runs over Hanoi before getting whacked with a missile, so I’d hardly say it was the ho-hum event you imply. Between showing his resolve in furthering our nation’s security and interest and exhibiting command qualifications of any kind at all, he’s outshining Obama’s record on either without even making the attempt.

You’ve just slimed a fellow American combat veteran to promote a shameless, lying hack whose qualifications really are worthy of being dismissed. You’re just quite the credible fellow, now aren’t you? You’ve disgraced the uniform you once wore and, in a just world, no other military man or woman would give you so much as the time of day. Go crawl back under the rock you were festering under and leave the important decisions to we civilians who can value our veterans and make the choices without smearing them.

This is news?

A new report by Army historians levels heavy, unvarnished criticism against Pentagon leadership for its failure to plan beyond the initial invasion of Iraq.

“On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign” — which outlines the 18 months following the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime — said too much focus was placed on a military victory, and not enough on post-war planning, due in part to optimism by the White House and the Pentagon that civilian agencies would take care much of the country’s post war rebuilding.

Hmmm, now I wonder why the Defense Department thought that, perhaps, matters of combat would be their concern and matters of, oh, statesmanship would be considered some other department’s responsibility?

Second hmmm, perhaps the authors have heard of a shift in strategy commonly termed, “the surge” and might have noted said shift dealt with these issues? Almost a year ago? And why is it considered newsworthy that some report trumpeting what we already knew and completely understood over a year ago is released now? I certainly hope the press will grace us with as much prose when these folks write their report on the situation since the surge began last year and to the present state of Iraq.

In December 2007 I wrote a post on an interesting article that appeared on FoxNews.com wherein a declaration of independence from the United States was made supposedly on behalf of the Lakota Indian tribe. That post drew the largest number of hits this blog has ever seen in a 24-hour period, bar none, and continues to get occasional hits almost every day. Today in the Washington Post Magazine, writer Bill Donahue devotes 10 pages (with pictures) to the man behind that declaration and his visit to Washington DC to attempt to garner support from other nations. The man is Russell Means, and his name is not unknown here at HoodaThunk? as his action in this regard raised a pretty serious question.

The article shows Means as he’s been described to me in various e-mails: loud, insistent that anyone white is a racist, and completely convinced that anyone not full-blooded Indian isn’t really an Indian. In short, pugnacious, demanding, and - frankly - racist.

A couple of times in the article, particularly in the beginning, Donahue actually refers to this “country” (the Republic of Lakotah) as if it’s an actual, recognized, functioning nation. It’s not, and that’s a fact. That this reporter would write as if it was calls into question his impartiality and makes the article start to sound more like a PR puff-piece than a serious investigative article. (Of course, it’s possible that Donahue and the Post never intended it to be.)

Means’ attitude about anyone and anything but himself tells the tale about why no one’s taking him seriously, not even the vast majority of various tribes. Told by his lackey, Jerry Collette, that the request to meet with the diplomats from Iceland to discuss the petition to grant this so-called Republic a seat at the UN and gain Iceland’s recognition for it was denied because Iceland’s embassy was busy, Means retorts, “What does Iceland have to be busy about?” No one’s business can possibly be as important as Means’, you see. After pressing his case to the East Timorese and being told that they’d not be taking a position on the petition, Means refuses to believe it’s because they don’t consider the petition worthy of support. It must be, he contends, that the US has bought them off.

Asked about whether he’s got majority support from the tribes, he claims that’s an irrelevant question. Hardly. It is, in fact, the only relevant question on the issue and one that must be answered before continuing to even address the matter. If Means does not have the support of his own people as regards the petition, why should the US even seriously consider it? Means points out that no one has ever questioned “his sovereignity.” Of course they haven’t. That’s because he hasn’t got sovereignity over the tribes and everyone knows it. Why question what one already knows beyond doubt? The fact of the matter is (and Donahue’s investigation supports it) that Means has all of about 8 supporters across all of the Dakota’s. He’s got more than that many opponents in any given tribe’s council, which causes me to reitterate the question I advanced in January, does Russell Means have the standing and authority to be dissolving treaties on behalf of the tribes? I think it’s become increasingly clear that he does not.

With that standing determined, he’s gone from being some kind of “leader of the independence movement” to a class-1 nutjob more interested in elevating himself than doing anything for his people. Not that he considers the vast majority of American Indians “his people.” After the meeting with the Ambassador of East Timor, Donahue expresses to Means his shock that so many of the Timoreans were killed in their war. Means’ reaction is to “sneer” and claim that that’s only 250,000 “full bloods” left in the US, a loss of 99.6% of their population. Donahue reports that Mean’s math is “a little shaky.” The 2000 Census shows 2.5 million American Indians and “Alaskan Natives” in the US. Making such a wildly exaggerating lie isn’t being “a little shaky,” it’s intentionally deceptive. Or blatantly racist: Means did make a point of emphasizing “full bloods.” Donahue let the obviously incorrect “fact” pass unremarked.

In the months since the “declaration” there hasn’t been but 1 nation actually return Means’ calls. So what we have here is a self-declared “leader” walking around issuing dissolution decrees of treaties he’s got no standing to even modify, let alone revoke, while being explicitly opposed or dismissed by the people he purports to represent. There’s nothing new here at all, and yet the Post thinks this warrants a major write-up in its weekly magazine; the cover story, to boot. Means has had his 15 minutes of fame on this issue and hasn’t done diddly to prove he’s worthy of a single minute longer on this matter. Again, if the Lakota people are going to support him, step up and say so. If not, perhaps they should be public about saying Means doesn’t represent them so we can concentrate our efforts alongside of those who do.

Like many bloggers, I appreciate comments from readers. I try to make it a habit to not actually engage in debate in the comments section although I’ve given that a go here and there. Some of the comments, however, demand a response and some of the more egregious ones demand a response that rises to the level of their very own post here at HoodaThunk? Case in point is this comment left by user “Bob Smith” on my post regarding Sheriff Simpson’s signing on to the ICE 287(g) program a couple of weeks ago. The comment is a real beauty and deserves to be pointed out directly. And then to have the glaring fallacies put into the spotlight for all to see. Ladies & gentlemen, here’s Bob:

Should we deal with the problem by allowing law enforcement to engage in national origin profiling? No because we would be asking them to break the law. She we allow them to conduct illegal search and seizures, no this is in violation of the US Constitution. A person walking down the street should not be subject to law enforcement scrutiny because of their national origin, dress style (other than blatant gang-wear), and even then that is questionable. So if it is impossible to deport all of the un-authorized person’s living in this country, what happens when they cannot find legitimate employment? They participate in criminal activity such as gangs. Furthermore, rather than worsening the problems by deporting the illegal-immigrant parents, of legal us born children and disrupting homes, we need to come up with a better way. Your government has failed you on protecting the borders. As a result these immigrants are apart of the fabric of this country.

I propose the following:

1. The government deports any illegal-immigrant convicted of any felony, or any crime of turpitude.

2. Any illegal-immigrant who was convicted of any felony or any crime of turpitude in their respective country should be deported.

3. Any illegal-immigrant participating in a criminal enterprise or gang should be deported.

4. Any illegal immigrant who is in this county and has never been convicted of a felony or any crime of turpitude, in this country or abroad, who is presently working a job that would be considered legal if worked by a person who is authorized to work in the United States is granted legal status to work in this country.

They are here, they will always be here, and there is nothing that you anti-immigrant people can do about it. Total deportation is not the answers and it is impossible. You better be smart in your solution to combat it. You don’t want to make the problem worse.

Comment by Bob Smith | 27 June, 2008

Let’s have a look from the top, shall we? Where in the law is national profiling illegal? Racial profiling is certainly cast as a very dark evil but putting people from different nations through different levels of inspection has long been an accepted practice. When’s the last time you heard of someone required to undergo more stringent medical records checks or offer proof of innoculations when they entered the US from Ireland? Care to make the same observation about arrivals from certain parts of Africa? You’ll find there’s a certain difference in how those issues are handled dependant on from where the arrival comes in. I am also not entirely convinced that racial profiling for immigrations purposes is necessarily illegal. Our policies and procedures disallow it, but I would very much like to see the law making it a crime cited. Care to step up, Bob?

Then there’s the rhetoric about 4th Amendment, asking if we should all vote to allow the government to suspend it. Who’s making that suggestion, really? Is anyone making that suggestion, outside of allegations cast by overheated open-borders folks?

From those 2 assertions, Bob concludes that deporting all un-authorized persons living in this country is impossible. I don’t for a second concede such a thing. Simply because we’re not going to allow police to randomly search anyone on the street or send every person even remotely exhibiting latino characteristics to deportation proceedings doesn’t mean that we can’t deport people who are here illegally. There are other ways to detect such people, not the least of which is in the process of verifying job applicants and verifying eligibility for accessing publicly-funded services. It most certainly can be done, it just hasn’t been and isn’t being. It’s not a matter of being impossible, it’s a function of the lack of will. It’s not that we can’t, it’s that we don’t and won’t. Not yet, in any case.

Slipping right from this notion that we can’t deport all the unauthorized people, he makes the conclusion that anyone who “can’t find legitimate employment” will end up in gangs. Again, not necessarily. Many of them can and do wind up on welfare rolls, drawing a check on the taxpayer.

And, lastly (at least in his opening paragraph) we get that conflation of deporting any illegal with the deportation of illegal alien parents away from US-born kids. Then comes the crack about “Your government has failed you…” and the assertion that these illegals are a part of “the fabric of this country.” No one who has been serious about this issue hasn’t recognized that the situation of illegal alien parents and their US-born children represents real problems for all of us - Americans, illegals, and the kids alike. We do need to determine what we’re going to do about it but that’s not going to happen for so long as people like Bob, here, continue to use these kids as a cheap talking-point to suggest that we should simply ignore the crime these illegals have committed: illegally entering our county in violation of our immigrations laws. In all of these kinds of so-called arguments, the people who want to toss these kids’ unfortunate situation into the faces of we who support enforcement of our laws never seem to want to face the reality that illegal immigrants are illegal because they broke the law. They just want us to ignore it, give it a pass. Anything but actually address it. So long as that continues, this issue isn’t getting fixed.

Last I checked, Bob, the government of the United States is your government, too, so don’t throw that little bit of dross around to heavily. You need look no further than this blog to see my feelings on the government’s horrible record at securing our borders, so don’t think that little bit of theater is going to gain you much with me. Oh, and I don’t see where I have to concede so much as an inch on the matter of whether people who cheerfully busted our laws are to be considered part of this nation’s fabric. I’ll save that designation for the people who are here legally, thank you.

His proposals are just fine, right down to #4. It cracks me up, however, that he included “crime[s] of turpitude” in his list. Look it up and you’ll find some interesting issues about what comprises such a crime and what doesn’t. Public drunkness, even repeatedly, is a misdemeanor. Getting caught having sex at 2:00 am in the public park with one’s wife is charged as a crime of turpitude, assuming the cop in question feels like making an issue of it. In Bob’s proposal, the illegal busted 10 times for falling down drunk in the same park gets a pass. The illegal and his wife on the other hand get deported. That’s fair?

Coming here illegally is a crime. That’s why it’s called illegal. If someone is caught, by whatever method we use, being here illegally, that person should be deported, barring some serious circumstances. That is not, as I’ve said, anti-immigrant. Bob makes the typical open-borders argument that anyone who wants illegals deported is anti-immigrant, and that’s just crap. It puts the gang-banger who snuck over the border in the dead of night in the same category as the lawful immigrant who has dilligently obeyed our laws - all of our laws. That’s not right and I’ll never agree to it. All the name-calling and ad hominen attacks in the world - Bob’s included - don’t add up to persuasive argumentation and proposals that are based on them aren’t real solutions. They’re just laziness and arrogance gussied up to look like compassion.

It’s not like it’s not happened here, but this is a story that makes you want to never fly non-American air carriers:

An Air India flight soared past its Mumbai destination on June 4 as its pilots allegedly dozed off in the cockpit, The Times of India reported Thursday.

The napping pilots flew 359 miles past the airport and were still at cruising altitude when nervous air traffic controllers woke them up.

Now in the reference I made above about it happening here in the US, I’d like to point out that the pilots were not permitted to fly 350 miles past their airport. Especially in today’s post-9/11 environment, there’s no way a plane simply ignoring its flight plan like that is going to be just ignored. The ATC would be calling them as soon as they failed to enter into the approach pattern and, when they didn’t get a response, there’d be F-16’s or F-15’s flying alongside that puppy for sure.

In the end, I’m less than confident in Air India but I’m glad being a few hundred miles out of position in the worst that happened.