Luis Ramirez in his death bead [Enlarge Pic] A 25-year-old undocumented immigrant, Luis Ramirez, from Shenandoah, Pennsylvania suffered head injuries after he was viciously beaten July 12 by a pack of at least six teenagers. Ramirez was left in convulsions and foaming at the mouth. His attackers stomped him so hard that an imprint of the Jesus medallion he wore was embedded on his chest.
Authorities now allege that the thugs who beat Luis shouted racial and ethnic epithets. They’ve charged 16-year-old Brandon J. Piekarsky and 17-year-old Colin J. Walsh as adults with homicide and 18-year-old Derrick M. Donchak with aggravated assault. All three were charged with ethnic intimidation. Another juvenile, whom police haven’t named, was charged with assault, and police are continuing to investigate……..[MORE >>]
As McCain’s gaffes pile up, he can only flail and wail at Obama’s shining performance abroad
John McCain will turn 72 the day after Sen. Barack Obama accepts his party’s nomination for president at the age of 47.
McCain’s 72 years are clearly on display.
In the last three weeks a seemingly forgetful and confused McCain has “gaffed” numerous times — ironically, on foreign affairs — which he touts as his area of expertise.
Obama has had his share of mis-statements and gaffes, but they have been sparse and much less pronounced when compared to McCain’s “surge” train of gaffe on top of gaffe.
Either McCain is becoming senile or he is a serial-liar and/or his campaign strategists are utterly incompetent.
Or is he just another Bob Dole — about to fall off a stage?
McCain’s Double-Talk Express
Senator John McCain has become a Gaffe Machine since hitting the campaign trail last year. Here is a regularly updated Master List of McCain gaffes.
Also recently the DNC has released its own list for McCain — what it calls McCain’s “Top 10 mis-statements and outright deceptions.”
1. McCain doesn’t even know who is in charge in Iran.
2. Iraq/Iran, Sunni/Shia: McCain doesn’t know the difference.
3. McCain still thinks Czechoslovakia (which split into two countries in 1993) exists.
4. McCain wrongly claimed that Baghdad was mostly normal.
5. McCain called Baghdad market safe.
6. McCain can’t even remember how little he knows about the economy.
7. McCain falsely claimed he never requested pork.
8. McCain falsely claimed that tax cuts increased government revenues.
9. McCain’s claim to be untainted by special interest money is false.
10. McCain wrongly claimed he never supported amnesty.
Let’s be serious — the man is old, and is probably already in the early stages of senility.
So, how bad is this? I like the way Michael Weiss sums it up:
…..depending on your perspective. Either (ha!) he’s a doddering old fool who might be president, or (shit) he’s a doddering old fool who might be president. The availability of his many flubs and missteps on the Internet, a medium with which he doesn’t even pretend to be acquainted, haven’t helped combat McCain’s image as a sufferer from Early Onset Reagan Mind Mush….[MORE >>]
P/S — Ronald Reagan, the Republican hero — a serial liar with a Heart of Darkness was senile in the second half of his presidency, but Republicans will never admit that…LOL!
Having long been a member of his party’s more moderate wing on a number of issues, Mr McCain began adopting more right-wing positions during the primary campaign.
Immigration
Last year, Mr McCain was one of the key backers of President Bush’s plan for “comprehensive immigration reform”, which would have created “paths to citizenship” for illegal immigrants, while investing more money in border security.
The plan was very unpopular with the Republican rank-and-file, and Senate Republicans succeeded in blocking the scheme.
During the primaries, Mr McCain announced that his immigration focus would be on securing America’s borders, rather than on giving illegal immigrants the chance to become US citizens.
“I understand why you would call it a, quote, shift,” McCain told reporters in November 2007.
“I say it is a lesson learned about what the American people’s priorities are. And their priority is to secure the borders.”
Christian right
Another McCain, quote, shift was in his relationship with the religious right of his party.
During his 2000 bid for the Republican nomination, relations between Mr McCain and Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell were notoriously fractious.
The Arizona senator memorably described Mr Falwell and fellow members of the religious right as “agents of intolerance”.
But in 2006, ahead of his second presidential run, Mr McCain delivered the commencement address at Mr Falwell’s Liberty University, after which he attended a small private party hosted by his former political adversary.
Interrogation rules
More recently, Mr McCain angered his former allies in the political centre by supporting a bill exempting the CIA from following the same rules on interrogation as the US Army.
Guantanamo
Mr McCain was one of the most prominent Republican voices opposed to the Bush administration’s detention policy in Guantanamo Bay.
But when the Supreme Court recently ruled that Guantanamo detainees should have access to US courts, Mr McCain described it as “one of the worst decisions in the history of the country”.
Oil drilling
Since sewing up the Republican nomination in March, Mr McCain - one of only a few prominent Republicans to accept the argument that human activity is causing climate change - has dropped his previous objection to lifting the ban on oil exploration off the coast of the US.
The candidates have been courting this essential voting bloc, including speeches this week to La Raza. One thing is clear: Latinos will not be ignored.
The Latino radio talk show host next to me quipped, “So they’re friends now?”
“Yeah,” I joked. “That’s how you know neither of them is Latino. We’ll hold a grudge for 500 years.”
Latinos aren’t known to forgive and forget. And that’s a problem for John McCain, who spoke Monday. The presumptive Republican nominee has put at risk decades of support from Latino voters in Arizona because of the perception he flip-flopped on immigration. Whereas once he talked about the need for a comprehensive approach that includes giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, he now calls first for securing the border.
But for many Latinos, it’s not just what McCain says that is the problem. It’s why he says it. He’s clearly attempting to placate the nativist fringe of the GOP. So the message that Latinos take away is that the Arizona senator is a fair-weather friend.
A foolhardy strategy
McCain is on a fool’s errand. The nativists detest him for, among other things, calling them nativist. Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum tried to torpedo McCain in the Republican primaries by revealing that, in a private meeting with GOP senators during the immigration debate, McCain scolded his colleagues for being “xenophobic.” He told them that by being tough on the borders, many Latinos would see it as a racist attack, and he was right. Now many Latinos see McCain as bending under pressure. They want a guarantee that, if elected, it’ll be the old McCain that tackles immigration reform.
“I never ask any special privileges from anyone just for having done the right thing,” McCain said. “Doing my duty to my country is its own reward. But I do ask for your trust that when I say that I remain committed to fair, practical and comprehensive immigration reform, I mean it.” That straight talk also drew a strong crowd response. Latinos value loyalty, and many are inclined to stay loyal to McCain.
Many people around the country were probably watching to see how the presidential candidates handled their appearances before the nation’s largest and perhaps most controversial Latino advocacy group. I’d call it a draw.
The irony is that, for U.S.-born Hispanics in particular, immigration is just one issue. They tell pollsters they care about Iraq, the economy, education and health care, just like other Americans. But with the immigration debate so heated and the national mood so ugly, Hispanics are more intensely interested in the issue than they were a few years ago when the waters were calm. In fact, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a majority of Hispanics say immigration is a top issue that will influence their votes in November.
La Raza’s mission
As part of that ugliness, the candidates have been criticized for even bothering to court Latino voters. CNN’s Lou Dobbs regularly blasts La Raza as a “socio-ethnocentric organization.” Apparently, the phrase refers to anyone who stands up to fear-mongers who seek attention — and ratings — by setting off cultural alarm bells and poisoning race relations.
If anything, La Raza has been too corporate, too cautious and too co-opted by Fortune 500 companies seeking an entrée into the $800 billion-a-year Latino market. When its leaders needed to be raising hell, they were raising corporate donations and foundation dollars and steering clear of controversies that could put either in jeopardy.
President and CEO Janet Murguia, who took the reins a few years ago, has been more aggressive in defense of Hispanics. In April, Murguia informed the National Press Club that the immigration debate had turned hateful and that all Hispanics — even the 80% who are U.S. citizens or legal residents — are feeling the backlash. Murguia vowed, “We will not be demonized. We will not be scapegoated. And we will not be ignored.”
Given recent events, I’d say there is little chance of that.
About The Author: Ruben Navarrette is a member of the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune and a nationally syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group. Ruben is a fresh voice on political and social issues who challenges readers to think in new ways — His twice-weekly column offers new thinking on many of the major issues of the day, especially on thorny questions involving ethnicity and national origin….[MORE >>]
Overnight, some industries would become desperate for workers. The biggest beneficiaries would be low-skilled American workers. The big losers might surprise you.
At least 12 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S. Most pick crops, wash dishes, build houses, cut lawns and do other jobs for between $6 and $15 an hour. They make up about 5% of the total U.S. work force. But…
What they were all thrown out?
Lettuce and strawberries would rot in the fields. Dirty dishes would pile up in restaurants. Thousands of farmers and builders would go bust. Predator aircraft drones would prowl the Mexican border. And chunks of Los Angeles and Houston would look like ghost towns.
The biggest losers would be middle-class families with two working parents, living in high-immigrant states such as California, Texas, Florida or New York. Why? They would pay more for food, housing, entertainment and child care as a shortage of low-skilled workers drove up some wages, and therefore, some prices. Meantime, their own pay would remain the same. What’s more, the ripple effect of thousands of businesses shrinking or closing for lack of staff might put one of the parents out of a job. Not to mention the garbage collection going to pot and no one to polish the missus’ nails.
Immigrants Rally in the U.S. — 2007
How likely is it that this will happen?
Although polls show that most Americans want stronger border enforcement, deporting the illegal immigrants already here is not popular. A CBS News poll found 33% of Americans favored deportation [Republicans], while 62% preferred offering legal status. In a Gallup poll, 13% favored deportation and 78% favored offering citizenship. Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama leans toward deportation.
Crime
Critics of lax immigration policies say that drug running, traffic accidents and crime would go down with the illegal immigrants gone. But The Immigration Policy Center, a Washington research group, argues that studies show that immigrants in general are less likely to commit crimes or to end up behind bars than native-born Americans. The debate goes on.
Some states are making it harder for illegal immigrants to attend college by denying in-state tuition benefits or banning undocumented students.
In the past two years, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Oklahoma have refused in-state tuition benefits to students who entered the USA illegally with their parents but grew up and went to school in the state. That represents a reversal from earlier this decade, when 10 states passed laws allowing in-state rates for such students.
This summer, South Carolina became the first state to bar undocumented students from all public colleges and universities.
North Carolina’s community colleges in May ordered its 58 campuses to stop enrolling undocumented students after the state attorney general said admitting them may violate federal law.
“The new trend is to kick illegal aliens out of college altogether,” says William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee, which opposes taxpayer subsidies for undocumented immigrants.
Josh Bernstein of the National Immigration Law Center, an illegal-immigrants advocate, says sweeping anti-immigration bills are “a very serious threat” to the overall illegal population.
Georgia, which barred undocumented students from in-state tuition rates in 2006, enacted laws in May preventing them from receiving state scholarships and certain student loans.
This fall, the University of Arkansas will require students to submit Social Security numbers and proof of residency. In May, Arkansas Department of Higher Education Director Jim Purcell warned that students without documentation “will not be considered as legally enrolled students” when determining an institution’s state funding.
Opponents say students shouldn’t be penalized for their parents’ actions. Helping them is “the right thing to do even if it’s unpopular,” says North Carolina state Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Democrat who introduced a bill that would prevent state institutions from asking about students’ immigration status.
A 25-year-old undocumented immigrant, Luis Ramirez, from Shenandoah, Pennsylvania suffered head injuries after he was viciously beaten July 12 by a pack of at least six teenagers. Ramirez was left in convulsions and foaming at the mouth. His attackers stomped him so hard that an imprint of the Jesus medallion he wore was embedded on his chest.
John McCain will turn 72 the day after Sen. Barack Obama accepts his party’s nomination for president at the age of 47.
SAN DIEGO — During Barack Obama’s speech to the 
About The Author: Ruben Navarrette is a member of the editorial board of the 
Overnight, some industries would become desperate for workers. The biggest beneficiaries would be low-skilled American workers. The big losers might surprise you.
Some states are making it harder for illegal immigrants to attend college by denying in-state tuition benefits or banning undocumented students.
