The Wall Street Journal Cocoon

Hat tip to Ace of Spades.

Never mind the insults, they just don't get it. So they just insult us. We have to be "for something, not just against" they say. Well, we are for something--walling off the southern border and tightening up the immigration enforcement, rather than being overrun by any "comprehensive" act (of amnesty, followed by a repeat of the 1986 fiasco).

Stephen Moore continues to live in delusions of Republican vitcory through Hispandering, with the same horribly faulty statistical figures! And then Paul Gigot chimes in about the Irish, Italians, and other immigrant groups of the past.

(Which only proves the point about immigration being a net loss for Republicans, Paul, those groups became part of Democrat machine politics for decades! Only in recent years have snapped out of that, and that is largely due to the anti-white sentiments of the Democrats today, pandering to the more often than not browner immigrants.)

The greedheads call the National Review "foaming at the mouth", yet when NRO tells them to put up (some facts) or shut up, of course the WSJ hacks skulk off.

And Robert Pollock claims that we have "a circular argument" when we want to enforce our laws. "But who's being hurt by the silly immigration laws we have?", he asks. Gee, Robbie, how about victims of illegal alien gangs, the overflowing jails, the public schools that no longer teach, the public hospitals that are closing down, the entry level American workers who watch their wages plummet? Are you THAT out of touch in Manhattan, Robbie?

Love how "bigotry" is thrown there just for kicks. How commie liberal of Pauly Gigot. I am told that I "just hate immigrants". I guess that is why I married one. Is this about anger? You betcha, Pauly. Anger at greedheads like you, who just want to shaft the rest of us and the country as a whole, just so you can have your cheap labor....

Well, Stephen Moore, I'll say it proudly. I AM anti-LEGAL immigration in certain areas:

1. "Refugee" status. Has been abused too often and the people who use it tend to become welfare junkies. Look up the Hmong people for a very sharp case in point. Sure from 1975-1990 they could claim justifiable persecution from the communists. But today, the Soviet empire is gone and Vietnam and Laos are trying to curry favor with the West. And even our vets are returning there for visits.

2. Family immigration "daisy chains". The result here was bringing in Grandma and Grandpa to get on SSI. (Recent legislation has tightened this up, thank goodness).

3. H-1B visas. Indentured servants for the tech industry, and sometimes it does not stop there. These are the least objectionable because they are skilled and English speaking. However, if you are an American student who studied your engineering and programming hard and played by the rules, doesn't it just annoy you that your hard work was just devalued? And they want American kids to work and study hard? When something pays less, you get less of it.

4. The "Diversity Immigrant Visa". Here we have a program that treats Citizenship as a lotto prize, has a stated goal of importing people LEAST likely to immigrate into American society, and does not select immigrants based upon skills, or even family ties. But we are propagandized into believing that "Diversity Is Strength". (War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery)

5. And frankly, culture does matter, Robert Henninger, and yes I CAN say that.

WSJ hack John Fund points this out when he speaks disapprovingly of a lack of assimilation and of political opportunists like Mayor Villagarosa of Los Angeles. But he never can make the connection that their his open borders policies brought too many people to assimilate too soon, and also brought people like Antonio the Asshole into power. And he claims to be from SoCal.

Telling line from John Fund:

There are actual groups now, that didn't use to be a hundred years ago, that want to keep people in linguistic, if I dare use the word, Barrios...

Exactly! You are too cowed by the UnAmerican Left that you are afraid to speak the truth, Mr. Fund! Do you really NOT get that???

So yes, some of us ARE anti-immigration to some extent. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Above all, what on earth is wrong with building and manning a wall fence--NOW, and tightening up the ICE to stop visa overstayers, and coming back LATER for other immigration reforms, in a few years, when we can measurably see progress?

Maybe we DO need many many more legal immigrants as some of the romantics suggest. Frankly, I am skeptical (see my examples of bad LEGAL immigration above) but at least we would have control over our own nation and we could calmly discuss the pros and cons. As it is, we are being stampeded into something awful, by people with romantic delusions, sinister agendas, or both. And they call us evil when we dare suggest we want control of our own country.

Meanwhile, Victor Davis Hanson DOES get it, and notes that this immigration is not just an American problem:

Employers may console themselves that they pay better than what the immigrants earned back at home. This might be true, but the wages are never enough to allow such newcomers to achieve parity with their hosts.

Naturally, immigrants soon get angry. And rather than showing thanks for a ticket out of the slums of Mexico City or Tunis, blatant hypocrisy can follow: The once thankful, but now exhausted, alien may wave the flag of the country he would never return to while shunning the culture of the host county he would never leave.

In the second generation — as we see from riots in France or gangs in Los Angeles — things can get even worse.

The moment illegal immigrants arrive, a sort of race begins: Can these newcomers become legal, speak the host language and get educated before they age, get hurt or lose their job? If so, then they assimilate and their children are held up as models of diversity. If not, the end of the story can be welfare or jail.

Hypocrisy abounds on all sides. Free-marketers claim they must have cheap workers to stay competitive. Yet they also count on public subsidies to take care of their former employees when old, sick or in trouble.

Governments in countries such as Mexico and Morocco usually care far more about their emigrants once they are long gone. Then these poor are no longer volatile proof of their own failures, but victims of some wealthy foreign government's indifference. And these pawns usually send cash home.

The lower middle classes complain most about massive immigration, but then they have to compete with aliens for jobs, often live among them and don't use their services. The wealthier, who hire immigrants for low wages and see them only at work, often think mass immigration, even if illegal, is wonderful.

Condo Conversions Beat Rent Control

Condo conflict Apartment refugees stranded in a sea of high rents

This story is about how rent control is causing landlords to convert their apartments houses to condos. Then the middle class is forced to rent lower quality place, further from their work. This is a good way to get families to leave Los Angeles. Of course those apartments that are available are becoming very expensive—why? because illegal aliens, 3,4, even five families will rent one apartment. This prices honest citizens out of the housing market. The condo’s get bought by the well to do—hence LA becomes a rich/poor city—the middle class squeezed out by government policy.

And you can just bet your ass that when the packing in becomes too difficult to ignore, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will get money for projects—in other words, a permanent underclass that will vote for him in perpetuity.

The 80% Women's Pay fraud

This year the gender victimologists came armed with a new report from the American Association of University Women, Behind the Pay Gap, which purports to show that one year after graduation, women are paid 80% of what men earn.

But it's full of crap, like much else the femi-communists put out.

I admit it's more clever than the usual pap. The fact that women often drop out of the workforce to raise children is acknowledged by this time making a discrimination study based upon a narrow post graduation time frame.

But once again, the AAUW tries the "comparable worth" (a.k.a., communist worth) approach: the AAUW shoe-horned many thousands of jobs into 11 broad occupational categories.

Take the medical profession which is evenly divided between the sexes, compared to nursing which is overwhelmingly female. The AAUW lumped all doctors and nurses into the same "medical professions" group. So you guessed it -- doctors are paid more than nurses, and that's discrimination!

And women who major in business administration gravitate to human resources administration, while men often specialize in finance. Employees who manage a corporation's financial lifeblood tend to be paid well. But the AAUW put both groups into the "business and management" category. Yikes, more discrimination!

But beyond the claims of sex discrimination, Behind the Pay Gap contains a put-down to all working women. That message reads, Ladies, you are unwilling to accept the financial consequences of your decision to work shorter hours and in less lucrative occupations.

That's patronizing and insulting to the women who don't believe they need a government mandate or gender quota to get ahead in life. Hopefully this time around not so many will be taken in by the AAUW's creative calculations.

Mexico's Immigration Policy

American expatriate Allan Wall explains it.

Almost everybody believes that the U.S.A. needs immigration reform. I’d like to propose that we study immigration systems in other countries, to see what we can learn from them.

It's arrogant to assume that we Americans have all the answers, and that no other country can do anything better than we can.

Some of the biggest critics of our immigration policy are Mexicans. So let's examine Mexico’s immigration policy and see what we can learn from it.

We might even decide that Mexico has some approaches to the issue that we could copy. Surely they wouldn’t object to that.

Would they?

Did you know Mexico has its own serious illegal alien problem? Illegal aliens from Guatemala and other Central American countries try to sneak into Mexico. These are people who look the same, talk the same Spanish with Indian dialect, and are culturally very similar. Does Mexico tolerate it? Hell no.

The Bushyrovies STILL don't get it...

And Hot Air has the grisly details.

Sadly, some of the still patriotic "Blue Dog" Joe Lunchbucket Democrats don't get it either. Mickey Kaus, for example, who keeps touting “leftist” objections that might derail the amnesty, “e.g., that the bill, by encouraging another flood of illegals, will drive down the wages of unskilled Americans.” Really? Which “leftists” are touting this except for centrists like himself and Ben Nelson, whom the left regularly deride as Republicans in Democrats’ clothing? Suppressed wages for unskilled workers might have bothered them 50 years ago, but it doesn’t anymore. Not only because multiculturalism has supplanted labor as a core leftist principle, but because they’re about to climb on board a political gravy train here and they damned well know it.

The greatest school massacre in the USA

...happened on this day in 1927. A schoolhouse in Bath, Michigan, was blown up with explosives planted by local farmer Andrew Kehoe, who then set off a dynamite-laden automobile; the attacks killed 38 children and six adults, including Kehoe, who had earlier killed his wife.

They won't have Jerry Falwell to kick around anymore

Jerry Falwell expired of a heart attack, and the liberal media just can't stop smearing him, even over issues long since debunked:

On ABC's World News, which unlike CBS and NBC did not lead with Falwell's death, Dan Harris asserted: "In the final years of his life Falwell alienated some in his own movement with a series of controversial statements. For example, he said the children's TV character 'Tinky Winky' was a gay role model." CBS's Richard Schlesinger recalled that in later years "Falwell started making embarrassing missteps, denouncing a popular cartoon character as a gay role model." Over on the NBC Nightly News, Bob Faw, who concluded his piece by asserting that "the Reverend Jerry Falwell -- crusader and polarizer -- was 73," raised the PBS show: "In 1999, Falwell was ridiculed when he complained one of the PBS Teletubbies was gay."

But a 1999 Cox News story archived on a gay news Web site, began:

"In the flap over whether Tinky Winky the Teletubby is gay, the real news is that the Rev. Jerry Falwell is late to the party." Phil Kloer pointed out that in 1998, the year before Falwell spoke out, "the gay magazine The Advocate presciently wrote that 'PBS is clearly terrified that the same fundamentalists who boycott Disney are going to flip once they get wind of the latest lavender love puppet.'"

And that's not the only place. In the Nexis archives for 1998 alone, there are dozens and dozens of mentions of Tinky Winky being gay — in periodicals such as Newsweek, The Toronto Star, The Washington Post (twice!), The New York Times and Time magazine (also twice).

All this appeared before Falwell made his first mention of Tinky Winky.

After one year of the leftist mainstream media laughing at having put one over on stupid bourgeois religious Americans by promoting a gay cartoon character in a TV show for children, when Falwell criticized the cartoon in February 1999, that same mainstream media howled with derision that Falwell thought a cartoon character could be gay.

Now Falwell should have done it differently--he should have said: why must gays take a nice cartoon character and pervert him?

Then again, the liberal media would have only smeared him and taken out of context anyway.

Like they did when they attributed to Falwell a quote that "God does not hear the prayer of a Jew."

In reality, Falwell rebuked the pastor who stated that. In reality, Jerry Falwell went out of its way to recruit Jews and Catholics who were as disgusted with what was going on the culture as he was, and his Moral Majority was not by any means restricted to evangelical Protestants. The "Christian Right" was quite ecumenical.

Now I was never a big fan nor a supporter of Falwell's. I would never have attended a place like Liberty Baptist University as a student. After a difficult day at school, I liked to go home and blast Metallica on the stereo--something not permitted at Fallwell's campus. But there are three undeniable facts about Jerry Falwell:

1) In a profession chock full of scandals of a sexual and financial nature, his reputation remained clean and honorable. The controversies in his long career involved ill-considered statements or unpopular policy positions, but never any financial or sexual wrongdoing. Even his opponents, like Larry Flynt of Hustler, admitted to Falwell's dedication and passionate sincerity.

2) He helped to build unity among conservative believers of many faith traditions. Despite the long history of Catholic vs. Protestant vs. Jewish antagonism, the Baptist Falwell changed the world by uniting every denomination in the pro-life cause. The Moral Majority enjoyed an unprecedented impact in the 1980’s precisely because it put aside doctrinal disagreements. Without hesitation, he enthusiastically appealed to Jews, Mormons and other minority religions who shared his politics.

3) He nobly illustrated the conservative model for reforming and improving the world – working from inside out and the bottom up, rather than from the top down. The left emphasizes sweeping change, initiated by the federal government or other central planners, as the basis for bettering the lives of the populace. Falwell understood that durable transformations begin with individuals, families, neighborhoods, communities, and then can spread outward to impact millions. He began by organizing the Thomas Road Baptist Church in out-of-the-way Lynchburg in 1971, then gained national influence and worldwide fame, but finally returned his emphasis to the local institutions he had launched and nourished (including Liberty University).

It was 40 years ago today....

...that the Six Day War REALLY began. Charles Krauthammer explains:

On May 16, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Nasser ordered the evacuation from the Sinai Peninsula of the U.N. buffer force that had kept Israel and Egypt at peace for 10 years. The United Nations complied, at which point Nasser imposed a naval blockade of Israel's only outlet to the south, the port of Eilat — an open act of war.

He goes on:

How Egypt came to this reckless provocation is a complicated tale (chronicled in Michael Oren's magisterial "Six Days of War") of aggressive intent compounded with miscommunication and, most fatefully, disinformation. The Soviet Union had reported urgently and falsely to its Middle East clients, Syria and Egypt, that Israel was massing troops on the Syrian border for an attack. Israel desperately tried to disprove this charge by three times inviting the Soviet ambassador in Israel to visit the front. He refused. The Soviet warnings led to a cascade of intra-Arab maneuvers that in turn led Nasser, the champion of pan-Arabism, to mortally confront Israel with a remilitarized Sinai and a southern blockade.

Why is this still important? Because that three-week period between May 16 and June 5 helps explain Israel's 40-year reluctance to give up the fruits of that war — the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza — in return for paper guarantees of peace. Israel had similar guarantees from the 1956 Suez war, after which it evacuated the Sinai in return for that U.N. buffer force and for assurances from the Western powers of free passage through the Straits of Tiran.

All this disappeared with a wave of Nasser's hand. During those three interminable weeks, President Lyndon Johnson did try to rustle up an armada of countries to run the blockade and open Israel's south. The effort failed dismally.

It is hard to exaggerate what it was like for Israel in those three weeks. Egypt, already in an alliance with Syria, formed an emergency military pact with Jordan. Iraq, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco began sending forces to join the coming fight. With troops and armor massing on Israel's every frontier, jubilant broadcasts in every Arab capital hailed the imminent final war for the extermination of Israel. "We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants," declared PLO head Ahmed Shuqayri, "and as for the survivors — if there are any — the boats are ready to deport them."

For Israel, the waiting was excruciating and debilitating. Israel's citizen army had to be mobilized. As its soldiers waited on the various fronts for the world to rescue the nation from its peril, Israeli society ground to a halt and its economy began bleeding to death. Army Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin, later to be hailed as a war hero and even later as a martyred man of peace, had a nervous breakdown. He was incapacitated to the point of incoherence by the unbearable tension of waiting with the life of his country in the balance, knowing that waiting too long would allow the armies of 100 million Arabs to strike first his country of 3 million.

We know the rest of the story. Rabin did recover in time to lead Israel to victory. But we forget how perilous was Israel's condition. The victory hinged on a successful attack on Egypt's air force on the morning of June 5. It was a gamble of astonishing proportions. Israel sent the bulk of its 200-plane air force on the mission, fully exposed to antiaircraft fire and missiles. Had they been detected and the force destroyed, the number of planes remaining behind to defend the Israeli homeland — its cities and civilians — from the Arab air forces' combined 900 planes was . . . 12.

We also forget that Israel's occupation of the West Bank was entirely unsought. Israel begged King Hussein of Jordan to stay out of the conflict. Engaged in fierce combat with a numerically superior Egypt, Israel had no desire to open a new front just yards from Jewish Jerusalem and just miles from Tel Aviv. But Nasser personally told Hussein that Egypt had destroyed Israel's air force and airfields and that total victory was at hand. Hussein could not resist the temptation to join the fight. He joined. He lost.

The world will soon be awash with 40th-anniversary retrospectives of the war — and exegeses on the peace of the ages that awaits if Israel would only to return to lines of June 4, 1967. But Israelis are cautious. They remember the terror of that June 4 and of that unbearable May when, with Israel in possession of no occupied territories whatsoever, the entire Arab world was furiously preparing Israel's imminent extinction. And the world did nothing.

Another insidious tax on developers

An utterly insidious practice now spreading across California is the “private transfer fee.” It is a new invention of developers who want to build housing tracts, but are faced with hysterical opposition by the usual suspects. In order to buy off the opposition, the developer agrees to sell the homes with a condition that every time the property is sold, a percentage of the sale price will be paid to the pet causes of the opponents. (Funny how a little cash can melt away the most fervent and heartfelt objections of Leftist activists). The first funds have been used to line the pockets of environmental and homeless advocates, but anyone can play. These “private transfer fees” have already gone as high as 1.75 percent of the sales price – or $8,700 for a $500,000 home – each and every time that home is sold. Ka-ching.

Bear in mind, there is no legal authority for this larceny. It is an invention concocted from thin air that turns the entire concept of contracts upside down, by binding innocent third parties – in this case, future homebuyers -- to conditions of an agreement to which they were never a party.

Sen. Lou Correa introduced SB 670 to forbid this private property tax – a reform that ought to command overwhelming support among Californians. Correa, although a Democrat, is not a Commiecrat, and has been a defender of property rights.

Against his better judgment, the bill’s sponsors (the California Association of Realtors) agreed to amendments that would authorize and legalize this outrageous practice – making any court challenges moot. Their rationale was that by legitimizing the tax, they could place limits on how much and for how long this theft could go on. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

This immediately provoked a bidding war among the interest groups represented by the Senate’s other Democrats. After all, the amendments created a legalized cash machine with an adjustable knob, and they wanted more. The bill’s sponsors got whacked, and do did future homeowners.

The “private transfer fee” shouldn’t be regulated, adjusted, managed, monitored, or refined. It should be OUTLAWED – as Correa originally proposed. And if the legislature won’t do it, the issue should be fought all the way to the Supreme Court or taken to voters through the initiative.

A generation ago, it was the Realtors who led the property tax revolt that culminated with Prop. 13 and the Gann Spending Limit. How sad to watch them today.

Let's hear it for MSNBC

No really! An actually fair and balanced telecast that explains to Average Joe and Jane Sixpack the Iraq situation, the regional players, and above all, why the U.S. must see it through and not just "retreat and defeat", as some rather foolish people advocate.

Let's hear it for the NBC TV network

An actual promotion from a few months back....

"Moderate" Muslim Joke

A Muslim was killed in a car accident. He arrives at the gates of heaven.

St. Peter says "I'm St. Peter. Welcome to Heaven".

The Muslim says "Nice to meet you Peter, but I'm a Muslim and I want to meet Mohammed."

St. Peter says "Sure no problem. Climb up that ladder behind you and you will meet Mohammed."

The Muslim climbs up the ladder, gets to the top and there is Moses.

Moses says "Hi I'm Moses. Welcome to Heaven".

The Muslim is very excited - "Moses, it's such an honour to meet you. But like I told St. Peter, I'm a Muslim and I really want to meet Mohammed".

Moses says "No problem. Climb up the ladder behind you and you will meet Mohammed."

The Muslim climbs up the ladder, gets to the top, he can't see anything but bright light. He sees this figure before him and asks, "Who are you?"

The figure responds, "I am God. Nice to meet you. Welcome to Heaven." God walks over and shakes his hand.

The Muslim is stunned - he can hardly speak. He says to God, "Sir, it is such an honour to meet you - I can't believe it - this place is great. But I'm a Muslim and, no disrespect intended, but I really want to meet Mohammed."

God says "Ohh.. You're here to see Mohammed. I see. No problem. Have a seat. Get comfortable. Can I get you some coffee or something to eat?"

The Muslim says "I would love a cup of coffee."

God yells into the kitchen, "Hey Mohammed, two coffees!!"

Michael Barone: "The Realignment Of America"

Michael Barone is a Wall Street Journal hack, and as such, he just can't help but gush over the political realignment of the USA. He thinks as the "Red States" boom and the "Blue States" either decline or become unaffordable, it's Republican happy trails. But like any Wall Street Journal hack, he ignores how immigration, so much of it illegal and undesirable, is shaping the nation.

This is not to say that his analysis isn't astute, for it very much is. He divides the nation into five regions:

1. The Coastal Megalopolises.

New York, Los Angeles/Orange County, San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, San Diego, Chicago (on the coast of Lake Michigan), Miami, Washington/Baltimore and Boston. Here is a pattern you don't find in other big cities: Americans moving out and immigrants moving in, in very large numbers, with low overall population growth. Los Angeles, defined by the Census Bureau as Los Angeles and Orange Counties, had a domestic outflow of 6% of 2000 population in six years--balanced by an immigrant inflow of 6%. The numbers are the same for these eight metro areas as a whole.

There are some variations. New York had a domestic outflow of 8% and an immigrant inflow of 6%; San Francisco a whopping domestic outflow of 10% (the bursting of the tech bubble hurt) and an immigrant inflow of 7%. Miami and Washington had domestic outflows of only 2%, overshadowed by immigrant inflows of 8% and 5%, respectively.

This is something few would have predicted 20 years ago. Americans are now moving out of, not into, coastal California and South Florida, and in very large numbers they're moving out of our largest metro areas. They're fleeing hip Boston and San Francisco, and after eight decades of moving to Washington they're moving out. The domestic outflow from these metro areas is 3.9 million people, 650,000 a year. High housing costs, high taxes, a distaste in some cases for the burgeoning immigrant populations--these are driving many Americans elsewhere.

Gee, could it be that the "distaste" for the "burgeoning immigrant populations"is due to the fact that too many of them are arriving too fast and contributing to high housing costs, and too many of them are net takers of social services, contributing to high taxes? And that's the better and legal ones. Meanwhile the illegal aliens contribute crime and drugs. But the Wall Street Journal just keeps on whistling past the national graveyard, and disrespecting patriotic Americans who don't like what has happened to their country.

Mr. Barone goes on:

(Democrat) politicians like to decry what they describe as a widening economic gap in the nation. But the part of the nation where it is widening most visibly is their home turf, the place where they win their biggest margins (these metro areas voted 61% for John Kerry) and where, in exquisitely decorated Park Avenue apartments and Beverly Hills mansions with immigrant servants passing the hors d'oeuvres, they raise most of their money.

The result is that these Coastal Megalopolises are increasingly a two-tiered society, with large affluent populations happily contemplating (at least until recently) their rapidly rising housing values, and a large, mostly immigrant working class working at low wages and struggling to move up the economic ladder. The economic divide in New York and Los Angeles is starting to look like the economic divide in Mexico City and São Paulo.

But Mr. Barone won't admit that his paper's immigration policies have just about everything to do with that. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal policies have turned once reasonably and even solidly conservative areas of California (Orange County, San Jose, Contra Costa County) into elitist liberal zones.

The bad news for them is that the Coastal Megalopolises grew only 4% in 2000-06, while the nation grew 6%. Coastal Megalopolitan states--New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois--are projected to lose five House seats in the 2010 Census, while California, which has gained seats in every census since it was admitted to the Union in 1850, is projected to pick up none and may even lose one.

So where are the middle and working class people fleeing the Coastal Megalopolises going? They are going to:

2. Interior Boomtowns (none touches the Atlantic or Pacific coasts).

Their population has grown 18% in six years. They've had considerable immigrant inflow, 4%, but with the exceptions of Dallas and Houston, this immigrant inflow has been dwarfed by a much larger domestic inflow--three million to 1.5 million overall.

Domestic inflow has been a whopping 19% in Las Vegas, 15% in the Inland Empire (California's Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, where much of the outflow from Los Angeles has gone), 13% in Orlando and Charlotte, 12% in Phoenix, 10% in Tampa, 9% in Jacksonville.

Domestic inflow was over 200,000 in the Inland Empire, Phoenix, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Orlando. These are economic dynamos that are driving much of America's growth. There's much less economic polarization here than in the Coastal Megalopolises, and a higher percentage of traditional families: Natural increase (the excess of births over deaths) in the Interior Boomtowns is 6%, well above the 4% in the Coastal Megalopolises.

The nation's center of gravity is shifting: Dallas is now larger than San Francisco, Houston is now larger than Detroit, Atlanta is now larger than Boston, Charlotte is now larger than Milwaukee. State capitals that were just medium-sized cities dominated by government employees in the 1950s--Sacramento, Austin, Raleigh, Nashville, Richmond--are now booming centers of high-tech and other growing private-sector businesses. San Antonio has more domestic than immigrant inflow even though the border is only three hours' drive away. The Interior Boomtowns generated 38% of the nation's population growth in 2000-06.

This is another political world from the Coastal Megalopolises: the Interior Boomtowns voted 56% for George W. Bush in 2004. Texas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Nevada--states dominated by Interior Boomtowns--are projected to pick up 10 House seats in the 2010 Census.

In other words, Republicans fleeing one desirable coastal areas from which they once could be elected. Why is Mr. Barone trying to call this a Republican victory, when it's really a retreat? A retreat in the face of immigrants to whom the Wall Street Journal tries to Hispander, to no avail? Two thirds will hate the Republicans anyway. And it wasn't like these interior cities were not voting Republican already. But the WSJ just keeps on dreaming...

One other stubborn fact remains: Not everybody is moving by choice. Coastal cities have some of the most expensive housing costs in the country; many of the people who've moved inland still work at jobs within 10 miles of the ocean, and their 75-100 mile daily treks contribute to the nation's worst traffic commutes. (Think Sacramento to Bay Area, or San Berdoo/Riverside to LA). If you ask many inland people if they would move back to the coast if housing costs for pleasant neighborhoods were not a factor, most say yes.

The other three regions consist of:

3. The Rust Belt Cities. (One could argue Chicago belongs here, not in Coastal Megalopolis Category 1)

Their domestic outflow of 4% has been only partially offset by an immigrant inflow of 1%. If the outflow seems smaller than in the 1980s, it's because so many young people have already left. Natural increase is only 2%, lower than in Orlando or Jacksonville in supposedly elderly Florida. Their economies are ailing, more of a drag on, than an engine for, the nation. They're not the source of dynamism they were 80 or 100 years ago. They continue to vote Democratic, but their 54% for John Kerry was much lower than the Coastal Megalopolis's 61%. Their states are projected to lose six House seats in the 2010 Census.

4. "The Static Cities".

These are 18 metropolitan areas with immigrant inflow between zero and 4%, with domestic inflow up to 3% and domestic outflow no higher than 1%. They seem to be holding their own economically, but are not surging ahead and some are in danger of falling back. Philadelphia makes the list, and so do Baltimore, Hartford and Providence in the East.

Surprisingly, some Western cities that boomed in the 1990s are in this category too: Seattle (the tech bust again), Denver, Portland. In the Midwest, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Columbus and Indianapolis are doing better than their Rust Belt neighbors and make the list. In the South, Norfolk, Memphis, Louisville, Oklahoma City and Birmingham are lagging enough behind the Interior Boomtowns to do so. Overall the Static Cities had a domestic inflow of just 18,000 people (.048%) and an immigrant inflow of 2%. Politically, they're a mixed bag, a bit more Democratic than the nation as a whole: 52% for Kerry, 47% for Bush.

5. The Countryside.

What of the rest of the nation? You can find a few smaller metro areas that look like the Coastal Megalopolises (Santa Barbara, university towns like Iowa City), many that resemble the Interior Boomtowns (Fort Myers, Tucson) and the Rust Belt (Canton, Muncie). You can find rural counties that are losing population (as are most counties in North Dakota) and, even amid them, towns that have solid growth (Fargo, Bismarck).

But overall the nation beyond these 49 metro areas looks like the Static Cities: 1% domestic inflow, 1% immigrant inflow, 4% population growth. But politically it is more Republican, taking in as it does large swathes of the South, Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, and in line with the historical record of non-metropolitan areas being less Democratic than metro areas: 56% for Bush, 42% for Kerry.

What's now in store is a shifting of political weight from a small Rust Belt which leans Democratic and from the much larger Coastal Megalopolises, where both secular top earners and immigrant low earners vote heavily Democratic, toward the Interior Megalopolises, where most voters are private-sector religious Republicans but where significant immigrant populations lean to the Democrats. House seats and electoral votes will shift from New York, New Jersey and Illinois to Texas, Florida, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada; within California, House seats will shift from the Democratic coast to the Republican Inland Empire and Central Valley.

But given the immigration factor, that isn't exactly comforting for Republicans.

Another writer, Steve Sailer, commented on this phenomenon: He called it "Affordable Family Formation".

"dialogues" with "comprehensive immigration reformers"

In the spirit of Cinco De Mayo, I just had to repost some real-life "dialogues" I have had with the advocates of the farce and fraud known as "comprehensive immigration reform", a.k.a. Simpson-Mazzoli Redux. It saddens me to see how many "conservative" Republicans just don't get it. Their arguments in italics, my responses in plain type:

"Comprehensive Immigration Reform" advocate: "Well I guess I just do not have a brain then. Or maybe I am just dishonest because I still want to know who is going to pick the lettuce while you are building your wall."

Me: Gee, how about the 11 million or more ALREADY here? I didn't say mass deport them, simply because that isn't possible. (For starters, in the absence of a secure border, they would be back in a week!) Never mind the lack of personnel and facilities and political will with which to do it.
However, what IS possible--and in fact necessary--is to secure the border, FIRST.

THEN, and only then, can we discuss what sort of immigration policy we can have, and contemplate either legalization or deportation of those who will by then be trapped up here, north of the border.

Without secure borders, we cannot choose our immigration policy; Mexico and other nations will choose it for us. And at that point, we lose our country, given the Reconquista Treason element we saw last May Day. It is really as simple as that. Why can you not comprehend this?

"Let me get this straight. You do not want mass roundups you just want them all gone. Like magic."

Another straw man to pitchfork. I NEVER said I wanted them all gone. I said I wanted the inflow to STOP. Then we can calmly discuss legalization of those who have been working and obeying the law here. However, in the absence of border enforcement FIRST, we might as well just give up the nation. Do you really not get this???

"You do not want to consider a bill that allows for more than one thing because it is impossible to build a wall and implement a guest worker program at the same time. The laws of physics dictate this."

That's right. Simpson-Mazzoli proved this. In the absence of enforcement, FIRST, it doesn't matter a whit what kind of program you pass, because it will be violated! It is really as simple as that! Moreover, Victor Davis Hanson has eloquently written about the "helot" problem that guest worker programs create, a problem that the Euros are discovering to their dismay as well.

"So what if the comprehensive program can take pressure off the border?"

You really don't get it, do you? The program The Demunists are pushing, and the RINOs are going along with, will ADD pressure to the border, as it effectively says "olly olly oxen free, come and get it" to those south of the border, and another "bum rush for the border" occurs just as it did in 1986. I will hammer this home until it sinks into your skull: enforcement must come first.

"ten years minimum (moratorium on immigration and wall building period) you say. Why? Because you say so."

Yes, that was a guesstimate on my part. It will probably take that long to get the physical barriers completely finished, the detention centers built, the visa tracking system in place, and the personnel fully hired and trained.

I will be more than happy to be proven wrong.

Once upon a time, Seabees could hack airbases out of the jungles in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in a matter of weeks, but that was sixty-odd years ago, and that kind of American spirit has been lost, sadly.

"better not to deal with it at all than to compromise one iota, because anyone who does not see things your way is dishonest or stupid."We can compromise on the numbers of former illegals we ultimately let in, a decade or so down the road. We can compromise on the fine they will pay. We can compromise on citizenship vs. resident alien vs. guest worker status. But NO, we cannot compromise on the order in which what has to be done is done. We cannot put the cart before the horse. Do you really not get that???

"Fine, so what are you going to do with these people if not round them up and deport them?"

Until we have enforcement to deal with them, leave them in the shadows where they have been. They have been there for decades already, right? But for heavens sake, don't encourage more of them, which is what the Senate's Demunist-RINO sellout does.

"And what are you going to do about all the folks who come in here illegally but do not cross that border and for whom your wall will be no obstacle?"

That's what the (change to) felony status and building of detention facilities are for....moreover the overwhelming bulk of them are crossing the unguarded border. Furthermore, the Eurotrash who decide they like America and overstay their tourist visas are typically educated and professional and DO NOT become net takers from the welfare and social service systems, unlike the Mexican illegal aliens. And if you think it's "racist" to say that, then you are a dupe. It's "classist" I grant you, but there is nothing wrong with that. Americans should be wanting more professional immigrants, even more professional illegal ones.

"Ten years is a long time to go without any kind of immigration reform to a system so many say is broken."Enforcement first, simple as that. The enforcement process make take ten years to fully implement, but we can begin it right now! Any legalization provisions before enforcement is complete simply means another amnesty, another Simpson-Mazzoli farce, and 30 million or more illegal aliens before we know it.

Instead of keeping on chasing that dead horse (of border enforcement), why not pass some flag laws? Why not pass some laws about English? Why not pass some laws so we can clean up the social programs?

Okay here we have a core concept to the debate. What would be the point of passing yet another set of laws? We have laws appropriate to addressing illegal immigration and employer sanctions as well as any other peripheral issue arising from illegal immigration. The problem isn't with law, it is with enforcement. It would seem to me that all of these extra laws being considered are a method to obfuscate and bureaucratize. In fact it may be more of a cover so that bad policy may be attached to these "urgent" laws in a stealthy attempt to do the very opposite of what the constituency demands.

But lets look at this a bit further. Let's say we reward illegal aliens with amnesty, albeit an amnesty that demands assimilation - including those recent arrivals expediting their trek into the nation because they see Americans demanding law enforcement. Will those assimilation encouragement laws stand a chance of being enforced at a future date when a voting bloc who assuredly opposed similar laws (while they were breaking them to enter this country and get benefits/employment) grows in significance? If legalized will they not just vote for officials who will reverse course once again? Will we not have an even larger and more influential voting bloc which would reward future illegal immigration (like the rest of their family and friends in economically depressed areas and not political refugees) and either ignore current law or reverse it?

This is the natural progression of such a policy. So, are we a nation of laws? Do we need to amend that principle to "we are a nation of enforced laws"? It seems we are at that point here because unenforced law is no longer a law - it is mere filler in the expansive texts that keep lawyers employed. We will have abandoned the singular component that separates us from everyone on the planet.

Some would retort that the singular component that makes us unique is, in fact, our immigration - you know, "nation of immigrants" and all.

And that would be false. Many other countries on the planet are nations of immigrants, so in this regard, we really aren't that unique. It is our regard for law, individual rights and equal justice for its citizens that is our crowning jewel. Sadly, too many would just give it away.

"No! Don't enforce the borders! The all-important Latino vote will hate us!" Bush, Rove, and the Wall Street Journal counsel a strategy of "Hispandering".

It won't work. Republicans can't out-pander the "Party of Pandering"! We offer amnesty for 5 million Mexicans, the Democrats make it TEN, and offer them more Medicaid!

MOST OF THEM ARE ONLY GOING TO HATE US ANYWAY....repeat this until it sinks in.

With the notable exception of Cuban Americans, most Latinos will go Democrat no matter what we do. Here's why:

1. They are net takers of social services, and net takers vote Democrat. It's really as simple as that. They are obviously not bad people, mind you, but they are poorer and hence net takers. Always remember that.

2. The Demunist Commiecrat element of the Democrat Party, which now controls that party, will seduce them with the feel-good but utterly destructive "identity politics" of Multi-culturalism. You know, hate whitey, you owe us, acquit the criminal who happens to be of our color, gimmie gimmie gimmie socialism. Most of the African American population is hopelessly lost to this.

Multi-culturalism should really be called multi-communism, given that it is just communist propaganda in racial terms.

And I say Demunist Commiecrats for a reason. Michael Moore and Howard Dean now run that party. Noam Chomsky is their Godhead.

These were the same people who looked the other way or even cheered it on when the communists took over Southeast Asia and the killing fields emerged. They urged appeasement and surrender in the face of the Soviet threat. They knelt down and bent over to perform political fellatio on the Sandinistas.
Where are they now? Why, they are entrenched in academia, the media and much of the bureaucracy. Their Communist dreams failed, so they have changed their tack, playing the racial tragedies in American history to their advantage.

Note that Cuban Americans, who know better about the communists, are resistant to this. You don't see them wearing Che Guevara T-shirts and taking down or burning American flags. But Mexican American youth, indoctrinated by the 5th column in Academia, went out and rallied on Communist May Day.

"Are you in the camp that thinks Bush is just stupid? He understood that this was a done deal when he ran. This is the next voter block."

Then Bush IS stupid, because the bloc won't vote for us (see above), so stop importing more of it!

"Why do you think all the minority groups tried to get these people on board? What makes me disgusted.....I actually know people that Bush changed their minds about the Republicans. Mexicans that voted Bush(Republican!!). "

While it is true that a good many Latinos are disgusted with the Homo-crat element in the Democrat Party, that won't be enough to overcome the seduction of welfare and of an easy scapegoat to hate, which is what multiculturalism is.

"Why not pass some flag laws? Why not pass some laws about English? Why not pass some laws demanding assimilation?" (similiar to an argument above, repeated by someone else)

I am all for fighting the poison of multiculturalism. But don't you see? The Demunists WANT more of an imported underclass, non English speaking, to create a bigger need for the social(ist) programs and to further their goal of Balkanizing America. Mass immigration and lack of assimilation is their tool!

I used to wonder why people who harped about the need for a "living wage" supported immigration policies that reduced wages! But upon reflection I know why they do it; to import a larger and larger underclass that they can manipulate. Heads they win, tails we lose....don't you see?

"Why not welcome them but insist that they become Americans if they live here."
Because the Demunists will say, "vote for us, and you don't even have to become Americans." And people of all races are seduced by the easy way out, even if it is a dead end.

The more things change....

An Associated Press dispatch about last night's Republican presidential debate at the Reagan library contained this observation, which struck me:

The world, however, is far different today than it was some 25 years ago when the nation's 40th president relaxed at his retreat in the rolling hills of southern California. . . .
The former actor and California governor took office in 1981 when the world was absorbed by the Cold War, and good versus evil was defined by countries that aligned with the United States and those that stood with the Soviet Union--"the evil empire" in Reagan's lexicon. The arms race and the ever-present threat of nuclear war overshadowed social issues like abortion. Stem cell research didn't exist. There was no public debate about gay marriage or the so-called right to die.

Frankly, in many ways the political climate in the 1980s wasn't all that different from today:
--Abortion was contentious then too (Robert Bork, anyone?). And frankly, the same hysteria and lack of legal reasoning in favor of judicial tyranny prevailed then, as it does now. No, I'm not anti-abortion, but if "pro-choice" activists want to create an abortion "right", they have to fight for it state-by-state, just as women's suffrage was a century ago.
--There was no stem-cell research, but there was a similar debate over AIDS research. And frankly, in both cases the amount of demagoguery on the part of the Left, unsupported by any scientific fact whatsoever, prevailed/prevails. There is one big difference of course. Terrible accidents like the one that struck Christopher Reeve are hardly the same as deliberately suicidal "bath house culture" behavior. AIDS was (and is) a terrible disease where a milligram of prevention was worth countless tons of non-existent "cure".
--Same-sex marriage was just a gleam in Andrew Sullivan's then twenty something and searching for "rough trade" eye, but there was lots of talk about AIDS, including a massive effort to free gays of the stigma associated with the disease by promoting the idea--false, as it turned out--that a heterosexual epidemic would break out any day now, and that even promiscuity in heterosexual sex was as risky as male homosexual sodomy.
--Believe it or not, there were global warming alarmists then, too. High School students used to argue their merits in those high school debate days. I was one of them. Of course, the "global cooling" alarmism of the 1970's was a much more recent memory back then.....
--The Cold War IS in many ways similar to the war on terror.

• There were dupes then insisting that the Soviet empire wasn't all that bad and they could be appeased, and there are dupes now making the same claims with respect to Iran.
• There were those claiming that El Salvador would be Reagan's Vietnam, and there are those claiming that Iraq is Bush's. And in both cases, their solution was/is the same: let the goons win.

• That stupid "Coexist" bumper sticker reminds me so much of the "nuclear freeze" stickers, and the same naive dupes who put the nuclear freeze stickers on then put the Coexist sticker on now.
• The people who insist 9/11 is a conspiracy now are the same people who knelt down and bent over to perform political fellatio on the Sandinistas then and insisted that the Sandinistas and their ilk were just freeing themselves from American imperialism.

I will admit that there is a difference of degree now vs. then. The Islamunist Menace is just a lot less technologically proficient than the Soviet one. The Moon-God Murdering Madmen have no Sputnik, no Cosmonauts, not even any ambitious Five Year Plans. So perhaps it is just harder for too many Americans to wrap their heads around the concept of what is truly at stake. Especially since the groups with most to lose--feminists and homosexuals--are so "multi culturally" brainwashed they rationalize away the clear threat the Mohammedan Murderers pose.
The main thing I took away from this AP dispatch, though, is a realization that I am getting old. I was a 13 year old kid in 1981, and here's the AP describing it as some long-bygone halcyon era, sort of the way the '50s were in the '80s.
And you know, they don't make nostalgia like they used to.

Bogus "Hate Crimes" Bill Vetoed

As disappointing as Bush The Younger may be on issues like government entitlement programs or illegal aliens, there are times when he is still a godsend. This is one of them.

In general, "hate crime laws" are in effect designed to coddle criminals if they are of the "right" racial or ethnic background. Note how victims like Reginald Denny or Korean store owners DON'T COUNT if they are attacked by criminals who happen to be African (Anti)-American. Indeed, criminals of that sort who kill white police officers in cold blood become heroes to the Demunist Commiecrat Left: Mumia Abu-Jamal, anyone?

But it gets worse. This legislation actually creates two new federally-protected minority groups: “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” – both of which are undefined by the law.

This legislation strikes at the heart of free speech and freedom of expression. Why? Because statements critical of sexual orientation or gender identity can be prosecuted. European examples are already there, and no doubt the Left wants that here too.

Alas, there are all too many RINO Republicans who voted for HR 1592. , Contact them and as nicely as possible, tell them you are disappointed:
Judy Biggert (IL)
Mary Bono (CA) -- like the gay militants in Palm Springs are going to hate you any less, Mary?
Michael Castle (DE)
Charles Dent (PA)
Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL)
Mario Dias-Balart (FL)
Philip English (PA)
Michael Ferguson (NJ)
Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ)
Jim Gerlach (PA)
Wayne Gilchrest (MD)
Mark Kirk(IL)
Randy Kuhl (NY)
Ray LaHood (IL)
Frank LoBiondo (NJ)
Jim McCrery (LA)
Todd Platts (PA)
Jon Porter(NV)
Deborah Pryce (OH)
Dave Reichert (WA)
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL)
Jim Saxton (NJ)
Chris Shays (CT)
Greg Walden (OR)
James Walsh(NY)

And not all Democrats are Commiecrats! Contact those who voted for freedom of thought in opposition to HR 1592 and thank them:
Marion Berry (AR) -- no, not THAT Marion Berry!
Dan Boren (OK)
Christopher Carney (PA)
Robert Cramer (AL)
Lincoln Davis (TN)
Joe Donnelly (IN)
Brad Ellsworth (IN)
Bart Gordon(TN)
Mike McIntyre (NC)
Charlie Melancon (LA)
Collin Peterson (MN)
Mike Ross (AR)
Heath Shuler (NC)
Gene Taylor (MS)

"Police to Review Clash at May Day Rally"

So reads the Guardian headline, about the (now annual?) illegal alien May Day rally in Los Angeles.

How odd that too many American politicians do not take the illegal alien invasion seriously, but the leftist Eurotrash do.

A day of mostly calm immigration rallies around the nation ended with a clash in Los Angeles where officers fired rubber bullets and used batons against demonstrators. Police promised to review the use of force.

Several people, including about a dozen officers, were hurt during skirmishes at MacArthur Park near downtown late Tuesday. About 10 people were taken to hospitals for treatment of injuries including cuts, authorities said. None of the injuries was believed to be serious.

A dozen officers are hurt by pro-illegal alien and communist inspired scum, and THE POLICE have to review their use of force??

May Day marches in Los Angeles brought out about 25,000 people, only a fraction of the 650,000 who rallied last year. Turnout nationwide was also light compared with a year ago.

Organizers said fear about raids and frustration that the marches haven't pushed Congress to pass reform kept many people at home.

GOOD!

They said those who did march felt a sense of urgency to keep immigration reform from being overshadowed by the 2008 presidential elections.

Don't worry, treason lobbyists, it will be a focal point of the elections.

Maria Elena Durazo, the executive secretary-treasurer at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said the trouble was instigated by ``a group of anarchists, not associated with the rally.'' She also criticized the police response, saying the rubber bullets were fired on a peaceful crowd with little warning.

Given her track record in the treason lobby, I would believe her about as far as I could throw rocks and bottles at her....

Magda Ortiz, a 27-year-old legal resident from Mexico and mother of two, pushed through crowds on the city's lakefront with a stroller bearing a sign that read: ``Bush, think about the moms. Stop the raids.''

Bush is bending over--forwards--to pander to these people, against most of his own political party, and they STILL protest against him? Lesson to Mr. Bush: they're only going to hate you anyway!

Illegal Aliens May Day Boycott?

Revealing that it's on Communist May Day. It has been reported that illegal aliens and their supporters have planned May 1st as a "Boycott America" day where they will stay home from work and boycott American companies in order to "show" us that we depend on their labor and purchasing power. So let's go to work and shop on May 1st to disprove this. On that day we hopefully won't have any illegals ahead of us in the checkout line.

I wonder if the plan to Boycott America also includes not giving birth to their 'jackpot' babies, not driving while drunk, not accepting welfare payments, not using food stamps, not dealing drugs, not murdering, stealing or raping, not attending government schools, not buying homes using government financing, not clogging our court system, not sending remittances to Mexico, not breaking our laws by being here and not insisting that we speak Spanish?

No, of course not!