Joe Biden Gets It: If You Come to America, Learn English!

ABC's Brian Wheeler has the details on the Delaware Senator sticking up for America:

Biden also said illegal immigrants must "demonstrate they had a job, were paying taxes, they were paying into the social security system, and they had paid their back taxes," he said, "And you require them all like every other generation to have to learn to speak English."

There's no reason why Democrats have to be pro-multicultural. The best Democrats built this country as ONE country. Inclusive and diverse, to be sure, but above all else, united in the same mainstream culture. That's the definition of a nation: It's not just an assemblage of individuals, it's a community, a country.

And now it looks like Biden wants to join in that nation-building tradition.

Who Knew That The Bush Administration Was So Politically Correct? Actually, When It Comes to ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, We All Know.

The Bush administration is so darn politically correct that it can't even bring itself to use the word "illegal" in a Census Bureau press release dated December 27. The population of the US is expanding, you see, way in excess of legal immigration, but the Census Bureau, an arm of the Department of Commerce, doesn't want to notice.

Here's the key sentence:

Meanwhile, net international migration is expected to add one person every 30 seconds. The result is an increase in the total U.S. population of one person every 13 seconds.

Got that? No mention of the word "illegal" in there. Illegality--violating American Sovereignty--is just not a concept that registers on this federal government of ours.

And you wonder why the Bush administration is so uninterested in dealing with illegal immigration? Answer: Because the Bush administration doesn't even recognize it as a problem!

Meanwhile, on the home front -- does anybody remember the home front?

Benazir Bhutto's assassination on Thursday morning is a terrible tragedy. Is this the time to be letting in thousands of Pakistanis illegally--with many more legally?

But closer to home, we Americans have some work to do. Specifically, we must make sure that our own country is defended. George W. Bush might see his grand mission, and his world-historical legacy, as depending on the triumph of democracy 10,000 miles away, but the rest of us have to live in this country, and we would like to be safe in our homes and homeland.

Looming large on our mind is the fact that Pakistan has some 75 nuclear weapons. Do we know where all of them are? And does Osama Bin Laden or any of his henchmen have any of them within their possible reach?

And oh yes, as we ponder those questions, we might recall that young men of Pakistani descent blew up London mass transit in 2005, killing 52 innocent passengers. At the time, those UK-based jihadists cited the British government's Iraq policy as the source of their discontent. Or maybe they were just angry at the world--who knows?

But the point is that that conflicts around the globe have a way of blowing back to other countries. And so as Americans absorb what happened in Pakistan, we should redouble our efforts to protect our homeland--we should keep angry people on their side of the fence, and peace-loving Americans on our side of the fence. (The neocons, of course, should be free to go fight anywhere they wish, although, of course, darn few of them choose to do so.)

In the meantime, all crossings in and out of the US should be legal and monitored. That's sorta common sense, isn't it?

But common sense is in short supply in the Bush administration, especially when it comes to immigration and sovereignty. As The Denver Post reported back on March 26, 2006, headlined, "Mexico is global turnstile to U.S. - More non-Mexicans are crossing border," the US-Mexican border is being crossed by many non-Mexicans. How many? Nobody really knows. So the best we can do is guesstimate, based on the rule of thumb that for every illegal apprehended at the border, at least two illegals get across. Citing data from the Border Patrol, the Post's Bruce Finley dug out these stats, below. And remember, these are the ones who were caught--probably twice as many actually got through!

Non-Mexican migrants caught entering the United States illegally in fiscal years 2002 to 2005 came mostly from Central America and Brazil. Also among them were: Iranians (95), Iraqis (74), Pakistanis (660), Syrians (52), Yemenis (40), Egyptians (106) and Lebanese (91).

Those figures cover all ports of entry. Along the southwestern border, non-Mexican migrants caught from 2002 to 2004 - the latest years for which data could be obtained - included Pakistanis (113), Egyptians (41), Jordanians (55), Iranians (39), Iraqis (22), Yemenis (15) and Saudis (13).

Note that that's 773 Pakistanis apprehended--and again, that means that a lot more got through.

And what sort of folks are these? Well, here's one: Note that Shabbir Ahmed left Pakistan for the United States in January 2002--that's four months AFTER 9-11. And so check out this story, from The Los Angeles Times:

How Visa System Failed to Flag Lodi Imam

Shabbir Ahmed's anti-U.S. invectives were widely known before he was granted entry.

By Rone Tempest
Times Staff Writer

July 3, 2005

SACRAMENTO — As Shabbir Ahmed sits in the county jail on immigration charges connected to an FBI terrorism investigation, federal officials are at a loss to explain how a man who publicly demonstrated his rage against the United States and advocated violence against the U.S.-backed regime in Pakistan could slip so easily through the State Department visa system.

In October 2001, after U.S. military aircraft began bombing Al Qaeda bases and Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan, Ahmed — then a 35-year-old imam of a small mosque in Islamabad — was one of the main speakers at an anti-U.S. demonstration at a market near the U.S. Embassy in the Pakistani capital.

While demonstrators burned American flags and effigies of President Bush, Pakistan Press International news service reported that the slight, bearded Muslim cleric exhorted the crowd to join a jihad, or holy war, against the United States.

A month later at another rally, the Boston Globe quoted Ahmed as calling for a rebellion against Pakistan's president, U.S. ally Gen. Pervez Musharraf: "Whoever is against Islam," said Ahmed, "we will destroy him. If this is rebellion, we are not afraid of rebellion. Blood is going to be spilled in Pakistan."

These events were widely reported by Pakistani and foreign media. But a short time later, probably in January 2002, Ahmed walked into the consular section of the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy compound, where he was granted an uncontested three-year "religious worker" visa to the United States.

He arrived in San Francisco on Jan. 23, 2002, and immediately assumed a position as imam of a Lodi, Calif., mosque that is the center of religious life for that San Joaquin Valley city's large Pakistani American immigrant community. Since then he has made at least two trips back to his native Pakistan.


One might ask, in hindsight, what is wrong with the Bush administration? And with due trepidation, based on this terrible track record, why should Americans have any confidence in the Bush administration in the future?

"There are no nations. There are no peoples."

Flashback to the 1976 movie "Network," in which Ned Beatty explains the world-system to Peter Finch. It was a great movie--won some Oscars.

So why, now, do I get the feeling that history is repeating itself--the first time as a black comedy, the second time as a kind of dark reality?

Blue Collar America in the Bull's Eye

This is verbatim from Slate.com's "Morning Papers" feature:

Climate Control

By Jesse Stanchak

Posted Sunday, Dec. 16, 2007, at 7:02 AM ET

The Washington Post leads with, and everyone else fronts, the end of the U.N. climate talks in Bali, where some surprising, last-minute concessions paved the way for a framework for negotiating new climate change accords over the next two years. The Los Angeles Times leads with the U.S. military's change of plans for reducing troop levels next year, saying troops will be concentrated in Baghdad as it pulls back soldiers from other parts of the country. The New York Times leads with the White House and NATO worrying about losing whatever gains they've made in Afghanistan over the last six years.

Spending two weeks in talks just to settle on a framework for negotiating a climate change pact over the next two years may seem like no great accomplishment to some. But every paper makes it clear that getting nearly 190 countries to agree on even this much required major concessions all around. The United States managed to nix language stipulating hard and fast emissions cuts for developed nations, and developing nations secured promises of financial and technological aid. The LAT says that just keeping the United States engaged in the talks constituted a victory for the United Nations. The NYT's piece, meanwhile, says the framework was agreed to with one eye looking beyond the Bush White House, in hopes that the next president will place a higher priority on addressing climate change.

And this is the key part, worth repeating:

The NYT's piece, meanwhile, says the framework was agreed to with one eye looking beyond the Bush White House, in hopes that the next president will place a higher priority on addressing climate change.

"Addressing climate change" = de-industrializing America. It's that simple.

Will the next President stand up for Middle America? Or will he, or she, sell out?

Sovereignty as a Bipartisan Concern--a Democrat Speaks Out

Fred Siegel is a member in good standing of the Democratic Leadership Council; that puts him at the right end of the Democratic Party, but it also puts him in the vital center of American politics.

So this smart piece, published last July, is still required reading for Sovereigntists, especially those who lean toward the Democrats. If Eliot Spitzer , for example, had been paying better attention to this sort of discussion--Siegel lives in Brooklyn, this piece was published in The New York Daily News, the traditional working-class voice of NYC--the New York governor wouldn't be finding himself in the trouble that he's in.

Here's the key passage in Siegel's piece:

Both left and right are sensitive to the loss of American sovereignty. The right is fearful of turning over part of American foreign policy to the moral swamp at the UN, and the left worries about the ways in which the World Trade Organization, which seems to benefit China more than the U.S., limits our ability to protect American workers.

The Democrats, and to a lesser extent the Republicans, are increasingly sensitive, at a time of vast new fortunes but slow income gains for the middle class, to growing disparities in wealth - symbolized by the big money being made on Wall Street by international private-equity companies whose benefits for the overall economy are questionable.

Think, Democrats! Economic nationalism is one of your best cards. Don't throw it away to get an extra million or two from hedge-funders. In the final analysis, it's votes that win elections, not dollars.

Sanctuary Policing? Two Standards, Separate and Unequal? Where's The Federal Government?

"Robert Morgenthau creates immigrant affairs unit"--that's the headline atop an important story in The New York Daily News. Did you know that the New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, pictured at left, believes in separate-but-equal? What happened to Rudy Giuliani's idea of "one standard"? That was a great idea for New York, and for America--even if Giuliani didn't always apply it as mayor; he, too, supported various sanctuary systems.

But in the here and now, let's take note of this outrage. And what will the US Justice Department do about this? Does the Bush administration even care? Here's the whole story--you decide:

Illegal immigrants victimized by crime need not fear being ratted out to the feds by the Manhattan district attorney's office.

Looking to build confidence with city immigrants, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau has created a special immigrant affairs unit and appointed an assistant district attorney who left the Dominican Republic when she was 5 to head it.

"This is a city of immigrants, and we want to make sure everyone is given the full protection of the law," Morgenthau said. "They're entitled to it."

Morgenthau said the unit seeks to make immigrants feel more at ease when reporting crimes and scams that target new arrivals to the city. The unit is working with immigrant groups to build up trust.

Daysi Mejia, the assistant district attorney put in charge of the unit, stressed that victims should not be afraid to come forward.

"We're not going to contact the INS," she said. "That's not what we do, and that's not what we are ever going to do."

A chief goal of the unit, Mejia said, is to target criminals who prey on immigrants.

And here's the most interesting of the comments, from hjo4, found on the Daily News' website:

Hey buddy illegal is still illegal.If as American Black man I'm expected to obey all laws or I suffer the consequences it should that way for others,including ILLEGAL ALIENS.The prisons are filled with young Black men who made mistakes, no one says give them a pass, yet the district attorney creates a special office using taxpayers dollars to help illegal alien criminals.Something is wrong with that picture.

I dunno who you are, hjo4, but you're my kinda guy!