Mercedes exec busted by Ala. law

November 22, 2011 By

Show me your legal I.D. or go to jail. Ask yourself, what if nobody notices you’re missing? What if there is nobody to call collect to come help you? What if no one is able to help you, to get your papers from home or the hotel? Is this being a Free Society?

By TIM MAK | 11/22/11 6:30 AM EST

A German car executive is among the latest to be charged under the Alabama law targeting illegal immigrants after he was stopped by police and could not produce proper identification.

The 46-year-old Mercedes-Benz manager was stopped last week for not having a tag on his rental vehicle, the AP reports. Since he only had a German identification card, and not his passport or driver’s license, he was arrested and charged under the immigration law that some have called the strictest in the country.

Read more: Click here.

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John and Ken: Groups claim they want their show off the air over their rants against illegal status immigrants getting privileges that trump U.S. citizens’ but I believe it is a cynical move.

October 4, 2011 By

The LAT’s headline and byline reads:

Groups want ‘John and Ken’ show off the air
The popular KFI radio hosts gave out the cellphone number of an immigrant rights activist, prompting hate-filled calls. Minority and immigrant rights groups say they will boycott advertisers if the show isn’t taken off the air.

Last week on Tuesday, John and Ken convened a meeting of what they call the Legion of Acceptability. This followed words Jerry Brown said in NYT’s interview to a reporter. He said “GOP legislators obey strict fealty to the ‘Legion of Acceptability’….whose roster Jerry told the NYT includes:

‘Jon Coupal, who works for Howard Jarvis; Grover Norquist; the Ken and John talk show; the guy who does the Flash Report. Any two of those can stop any bill in the Legislature where Republicans are needed. They basically work for them…’”

On Friday the attack from the Latino Groups hit the two most influential among all of those mentioned as the “Legion.”   Jon Fleishman posted this story, Groups want ‘John and Ken’ show off the air, on his Flash Report. 

On Friday night,September 30, 2011 at 6:15 PM I sat down at my notebook to try to write down what was reeling though my head after listening intently to their show, captivated by their discussion of, their reaction to, and the reaction from their listeners as reflected on their new John and Ken listener line.

I had just finished listening to their playing of their first round of chosen calls from their listener line. Many of the messages related directly to John and Ken’s previous segment, which consisted primarily around their reaction, response to and discussion of the charges and accusations being levied against them by Latino groups who are united around an intent to have John and Ken removed from the air.

John and Ken recited a list of the groups who want them off the air, their threat of a boycott, and more specifically, their discussion of an additional statement released by Rosalia Tenorio, Director of Communications for the National Hispanic Media Coalition, which read the Coalition’s accusations of John and Ken for inciting hate speech and even violence against Latinos. As evidence of their charges, they pointed to John and Ken’s having given out the cell phone number of Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

The press release claims that John and Ken are responsible for inciting hate crimes against immigrants including murder.

I was excited to hear this battle erupting, only because I have often cringed over things John and Ken say when discussing issues that involve immigrants of illegal status, or illegal immigrants, as they like to say, with adequate contempt and froth. I am sensitive to the plight illegals, and because the majority of these immigrants are from Mexico and Central America, I share a cultural background that makes me sympathetic. That doesn’t mean I want to extend our absurd runaway welfare benefits to immigrants of illegal status. I am sure the vast majority of legal Latinos in CA share my opinion on this matter. I want to see us reform our immigration policy so that it is not so dysfunctional and disconnected with reality, and I want to see us develop policy that doesn’t punish legal citizens by fiat, by taking what is available in financial aid and distributing it to residents of illegal status.

The discussion on this issue on Conservative Talk Radio is often hyperbole. It may be great for ratings but it is vitriolic. Many times the descriptions of ‘illegals’ suggest they’re all violent, or stupid, or thieves or welfare rats, parasites, trash. Yet to people who eat where they eat, live where they live, and shop where they shop, we see the human beings who are here illegally. We see individuals who live among us and have illegal status, and our impressions and considerations are more complex. I love the sinner, but hate the sin.

I loved several of the callers’ messages on Friday, some supporting John and Ken, some telling them how they love them and then get angry with them.

It seemed to me that a few of the callers were Latino. One identified himself as such. His message was passionate. He told them he loved what they were doing, and he was angry about the displacement of legal citizen being displaced by illegal citizens.

I thought, that caller, all those callers who said they love their show, love the things I love about listening to John and Ken, how they expose corruption of some police departments and officers, constantly exposing the abuse and corruption of elected officials whose elections are funded by public employee unions, and who cater to their same unions and their members at the general public’s expense and financial obligations.

Those are the battles that make them heroes, and that is why for me, despite how many times I swear at them, curse them, and shut them off when they go off on their anti-illegal-immigrant rants, not because they are offended by the unethical policies of the politicians that give welfare benefits away as if it were their own money they were spending, and not for the costs and expenses they object to, but for the aspersions they hurl against a culture, a language, and a people that my own mother embodied, even though she was always legally here.

  The vast majority of legal status Latino immigrants and Latino citizens DO NOT WANT rampant free for all of benefits and welfare for illegal status immigrants.

Most people don’t want that. People who work hard, who are responsible, who pay their taxes, want to be secure and live free and peacefully and they want their government to be fair and responsible. 

Many Latinos have relatives who are illegally here, and  those who are citizens vote, legally.  They care about their home and their neighborhood but they also care about their brother.   All I’m saying is you catch more flies with sugar. You can lead or govern with harshness and insult or by reason and inspiration.

You can insult people and their relatives to shame them into agreement if you don’t repel them first, or you can appeal to their higher moral being.  You can win points by fanning flames of hatred and rage, or you can build a broad coalition by appealing to people’s common ethics, goals, dreams desires and righteous moral indignation.  It’s probably not as hot for ratings.  But I bet John and Ken’s ratings are higher now, because of their coverage of the issues of Kelly Thomas and the police cover up of his murder, and their coverage of the moral turpitude of governments who are allowing the public employee unions to bankrupt their cities and live fat off the hog, on our backs, and our security. 

I loved that woman caller who goes on and on about how she just loves John and Ken. “I love you guys” and then sometimes she hates what they’re talking about (I said to myself as I listened to her, yup, that’s me!), and she went on, about how she loves what they talk about and they’re fun (and I think, very exciting), and then they talk about somethings that she hates the way they talk about them, and she turns them off (That’s me too!!!) and then we come back.

For me, it’s the WAY they frame what they say about people illegally here, how it occurs to people who have neighbors or relatives or friends who have illegal status. People like me, with my sensibilities and background, also care about this issue.

We don’t want to go bankrupt. We care about our legally-born-and-raised-here-families, we also care about some persons of illegal status. We know some of them personally, and some, we are related to.

We’re are not trying to champion government tax payer funded benefits for people who are here illegally. But we care about those people just as John and Ken care about Kelly Thomas. Why was Kelly out on the streets? Our laws make it impossible to institutionalize him.   Does that give license to the cops to beat him to death for kicks?   Hell no!  Thank you John and Ken for taking this issue on!

Why? Why do we come back?  Because of what they talk about, and the way they do it.  We love how they talk about all of the corruption!  We love how poignant they are,  the way they pound on it!

That’s why the “Latino Groups” want them out. Those groups are part of the club that pulls the levers up in Sacramento.  They get funding, access, and power. 

For years they’ve ignored John and Ken. It has been most convenient for them to have Latinos shut John and Ken off and tune them out.   They’ve benefited from having this large eclectic population of Latino voters ignore and avoid listening to John and Ken and their words that rain and reign over the radio waves that cover all of Southern California. 

But now, I would bet that John and Ken are garnering a fast growing following of  listeners who are Latinos!  People like me, who LOVE what they do, for the most part, even though we seethe when they talk as if they don’t like Mexicans. I pray out loud with frequency,  “Dear God, please let one of John’s children fall in love with an illegal Mexican.” I know he loves his children, and maybe this would cause him to love an illegal sister too, despite her status and shortcomings with the law.

Maybe when he talked about the issue of illegal immigration, he would save all his vitriol for the politicians and the “Latino Groups” who claim to love them so much, and use them so well for their own fat greedy destructive parasitical power.   Those “Groups”  have the power to force education reform, but no, they don’t do it.  They’re whores who serve their masters for a dollar.   They let the Latino children rot in decrepit schools that fail them.  They let the ones who drop out and get into trouble languish and rot in corrupt prisons.  And they love this Dream Act farce where they pose as heroes to save a token few, while poking legal-status-citizen-taxpayers in the eye.

The legislature is now on a full throttle attack against the citizenry that want’s to save their city. They have basically declared war on local cities and municipalities. The governor, it seems, just can’t do enough for the public employee labor unions who funded his election.

I cheered when he seized the money from the local redevelopment agencies and spoke of abolishing them once and for all. Good riddance! They’re parasites and slush funds for the opportunists who see it as de riguer to take as much as they can because if they don’t someone else will. Real moral turpitude there.

The Police corruption surfacing in Orange County, and here in Los Angeles, the County’s Sheriff’s Department is boiling over with corruption, and it is out in the open. The corruption, abuse and violations of civil liberties, human rights, legal protections, and due process have been a matter of course in LA County jails and in Orange County’s Fullerton Police Dept in particular.   John and Ken are on it, and they’re staying on it! And there are a lot of people who didn’t listen to them on other issues that are vital, listening to them now.  

They are heroes to everyone who has suffered injustice at the hands of peace officers in isolation and without any support. The listeners care about this issue passionately! We care passionately about the public employee unions and the retirees, and their politicians, and the mess we are in.

John and Ken don’t care about Kelly Thomas because he’s white, or because he was homeless or schizophrenic. They care because what the police did to him was wrong, and because how the police department, and the City Council of Fullerton was trying to ignore the matter, and it could have slipped under the rug, had it not been for the bloggers at Friends for Fullerton’s Future, writing about the corruption,  posting everything they could to tell the story.  John and Ken picked it up!  They got it!

They care about government’s abuse of power, their corruption, their self serving selfish, destructive self preserving actions that run roughshod over the interests of the people at large. That’s why John and Ken are so freaking hot now, and why the Latino Groups, weighing the costs v benefits, have made a decision to try to get them removed.

Links:

JOHN AND KEN ON DEMAND Podcast for Friday, September 30, 2011 LA Times [article about groups that want John and Ken off the air] 5PM (9/30)

Groups want ‘John and Ken’ show off the air

Latino Leaders Discuss Hate Speech on the ‘John & Ken Show’

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Tonight on Gadfly Radio w/ Martha & CalWatchDog’s John Seiler, CA City Journal’s Ben Boychuk & Special Guests, Angelo M. Codevilla & Tom Donalson

September 20, 2011 By

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT


Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929 
September 20, 2011 Tonight live at 8PM PT:  Tonight on Gadfly Radio, Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal joins me as we talk with John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com, Angelo M. Codevilla, professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University, Senior Fellow with The Clarmont Institute and author most recently of “The Ruling Class” and “Advice to War Presidents.”
Tom Donalson is the President of America’s PAC and America’s Majority.  He works to carry on the work compiled by the late Richard Nadler, a contributor to American Spectator and NRO as well as the founder and President of America’s Majority up until his passing in May of 2009.

Why have Latino voters abandoned the Republican Party in CA in such dramatic numbers?  The GOP cannot win and has no future in CA unless it wins over a significant number of Latino voters.  What is the problem?  What is the solution? Does it matter? 


Our program focuses mainly on CA politics, policy, business and jobs.   This past weekend, the CA GOP had its fall convention in the heart of Los Angeles, in a redevelopment zone called LA Live.   Ron Paul stole the thunder in the Presidential Straw Poll, and Michelle Bachmann fared worse than Perry and Romney  in the same poll even though she was the keynote speaker on Friday night at the Convention.

The State of CA is close to being fully dominated by the Democratic Party.   Republicans cling to a thread of power but have to fight the redisticting maps to hold on.   Their numbers of support among Latinos is at an all time low.

Juliet Williams reported in the Washington Examiner:

GOP registration has been sliding for years, with Republicans now accounting for 31 percent of registered voters, compared to 44 percent for Democrats and about 20 percent for independents.
Any strategy to revive that registration cannot succeed without persuading Hispanics, who comprise a third of the California electorate.  Click here to read more.

In June of 2010, the WSJ reported Hispanic Voters Drift From GOP:

Among California Latinos who registered between the 2002 and 2006 midterm elections, 23% were Republican, 50% were Democrats and 23% declined to state. More recently, GOP affiliation among Latinos has begun to slip. For those who registered since the 2006 midterm vote, only 16% are Republicans, 56% are Democrats and 24% declined to state an affiliation. For non-Latino voters, the figures are 24% Republican, 44% Democrat and 26% independent since 2006. 

Back in May of 2009, Alan Hoffenblum who has been a  guest on this program, wrote about the CA GOP’s shrinking base in this piece called California’s Republican Legislators — a White Males’ Club.   In it, he cited a recent poll by the CA branch of Public Opinion Strategies:

According to their research,voter registration among LATINO voters is 57% Democratic, 19% Republican, 20% Independent, and 4% other; among ASIAN voters, it is 30% Democratic, 29% Republican, 39% Independent, 2% other; and among BLACK voters, it is 83% Democratic, 8% Republican, 9% Independent.  

Angelo M. Codevilla wrote this piece  in June 2009,  and started a firestorm among Conservatives  around the message they send to Latinos. 

Recently, Mark Kerkorian engaged in debate  with Codevilla.  Here are few links to some of the writings back and forth: 

Not from the Onion May 6, 2011 4:43 P.M. By Mark Krikorian 
Response to Codevilla By Mark Krikorian, Posted on May 16, 2011 9:53 AM 

Perhaps the most ridiculous sentence ever written on immigration from the right: Were Americans once again to take citizenship seriously, to dismantle the welfare state’s bureaucratic and psychological culture of entitlement, to dismiss the image of themselves as white-gloved administrators, and to banish America’s drug culture, then Americans could safely stop worrying about our southern border. Yeah, and if there were less gravity we’d all run faster. 
Re: Not from the Onion May 9, 2011 2:58 P.M. By Angelo M. Codevilla 
Mark Krikorian writes that my article “Our Borders, Ourselves” “attempt[s] to undermine opposition” to one of our ruling class’s “most important tools,” namely “mass migration.” He charges that I want to “allow our nation to be crucified on the cross of unlimited immigration” and accuses me of “contempt for the actual people living in the actual United States of America who, whatever our manifold sins, would like to preserve whatever’s left of our country.”

 
I recently met a young man, in his early thirties, thin and tan and sporting aviator sunglasses with mirrored lenses.  He kept his hope alive by the encounters with people who bartered with him honestly, despite the many who cheat him of his pay for a hard day’s, week’s and even several weeks’ work.  He is an ‘llegal.’   He likes to read and write and study history in his spare time.  He sends money home to put his two sister through college and help his mother in the Central American Country he comes from.  

He  showed me a book he carries in his backpack, a tattered paperback called “Como Ganar Amigos E Influir Sobre las Personas” in Spanish. We know it in English as “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.   He recommended it to me.  Said he knew he could be somebody someday. 

I know that book.  I’ve read it before.  It’s from one of our legendary U.S. Capitalists.  It’s  a primer in Capitalism.  You start with the customer is always right. You have something to offer, to sell. How are you communicating your message to your customers?   


We are in the business of ideas.  Our marketplace is broad and diverse.  Our fundamentals are fundamental and shape our success or our failure.   


Codevilla closed his article back in 2009 with this statement: 
“How Russians or Chinese or Indonesians feel about Americans, or how we feel about them, makes little difference simply because such peoples are neither neighbors nor relatives. But because Mexicans are at once close neighbors and relatives, our sentiments toward them and theirs toward us are of the greatest importance. When we make enemies of Mexicans, we foul our own nest.”

Agree or disagree, hope you join us for the conversation.  

We’ll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929.

I am a stand for liberty, freedom and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.

It’s a pleasure to share this program with
CalWatchDog’s team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!

Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.

Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:



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Calif. GOP looks to Hispanic voters for revival | The Associated Press | News | Washington Examiner

September 20, 2011 By

Interesting read. I’m a skeptic, and have been so utterly disappointed in the Republican Party for all the reasons stated by DelBeccaro, Hector Barajas, University of California, Berkeley student Francisco Loayza, 20, treasurer of the Berkeley College Republicans group, in this article. And I agree with “Selena Sanchez, 27. The preschool teacher from Riverside came to the convention Saturday to support [Ron] Paul,…”

I believe Barajas is authentic in what he says he’s committed to accomplishing. I hope those whom he says are going to stay the course and support an on going program to court and recruit Latinos really do intend to continue their efforts and focus beyond the next election cycle, this time. May be they really really really mean it this time, about building a base of support among Hispanics in CA. It would mean building on core principles that make possible, a coalition big enough to stand up to the ruling class of public employee unions, big business and the politicians who serve them, and curry them favor at everyone’s expense.

Is the CA GOP going to respond to the concern and issue with Immigration Francisco Loayza articulates in the article, about compassion, and reform of the process for legal immigration status? Or does the GOP in CA intend to go around that issue and address other issues that are critical to Latinos? Education? Small Business issues–regulations, red tape, taxes? I heard public safety? Good. Will they stand up to the teachers’ union to support the parents who want their children to get a real shot at an education? Will they stand with the people of Fullerton, and other citizens from all around Orange County and Los Angeles County who are riveted around the case of Kelly Thomas, the Fullerton six, the Chief of Police, the three City Council members who are going face a recall, and the DA who has yet to make any statement other than that there is an investigation? Law enforcement is at a crossroads in CA. For Hispanics, it means a lot of people in prisons, and it’s vital that the public trust the integrity of our State’s law enforcement establishment.

Click here to read the article.

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The media deportation of Jose Antonio Vargas–a powerful lesson in the hypocricy of so many engaged in matters of liberty and justice.

July 1, 2011 By

The media deportation of Jose Antonio Vargas

Journalism’s self-appointed guardians have denounced Vargas’s deception with no regard for the realities of his immigrant status

Vargas showed a lot of courage and a lot faith in his fellow journalists when he stepped out of the closet.  Problem for him, it was the wrong closet to step out of.  It’s hard to imagine how he must have believed that the majority of journalists gave a damn about the individuals who live among us illegally.  He must have thought they had compassion for those who live a secret life in terror of being discovered.  He didn’t interpret his colleagues’ silence around the plight, treatment, and indignity of illegal workers who live in the shadows and are increasingly hated by self described freedom loving Americans as meaning they didn’t care, or worse, that they agreed with such perspective.

He must have thought there was a silent concern and objection among his peers to the growing concessions made by legal citizens, of their own civil liberties, in exchange for the promise that illegals would be weeded out and deported, and anyone hiring or even transporting them would be punished.  

Surly, he must have thought, his colleagues would be inspired when they realized that a so-called illegal could be anyone!  Even a Pulitzer prize winning fellow journalist. 

His experience must be a living hell, to realize how those of his fellow colleagues whom he thought shared a real concern and compassion for humanity and freedom, were in fact shallow, petty and hollow.  

Vargas is a man persecuted by unjust laws for being who he is – an undocumented immigrant – trying to live not just a normal, but an extraordinary, life. For that, he should be applauded. Meanwhile, Bronstein and others in the journalism establishment are rewriting Vargas’s tragedy as a boilerplate melodrama, with themselves playing the victims.–Excerpt from The media deportation of Jose Antonio Vargas | Daniel Denvir | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk Click here to read more.

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Hornberger’s back to back commentaries on immigration policy: Immigration Controls and a Police State & Buchanan’s Anti-Immigration Rant

June 30, 2011 By

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Immigration Controls and a Police State
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Yesterday I commented on conservative Pat Buchanan’s recent anti-immigration rant. Today, I wish to comment on an aspect of immigration controls that both conservatives and liberals rarely confront — the federal government’s police-state powers that come with enforcing immigration controls. Click here to read more.

Hornberger’s Blog – Buchanan’s Anti-Immigration Rant

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Buchanan’s Anti-Immigration Rant
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Conservative Pat Buchanan went off on one of his periodic anti-immigration rants in an article yesterday entitled “Say Goodbye to Los Angeles.” In the article, Buchanan laments the fact that thousands of people in the Rose Bowl were cheering for Mexico in a soccer match against the United States.
Click here to read more.

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Tonight on Gadfly Radio: Martha Montelongo w/CalWatchDog’s Steve Greenhut & John Seiler, w/ Guest, Carlos A. Rodriguez, on the Role of Latinos in CA Politics, His Efforts to Recruit Them to Liberty’s Cause, & His Stand on Immigration Policy

May 10, 2011 By
Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929

This week, CalWatchDog‘s Steven Greenhut and John Seiler both join me on the show.  We’ll be joined by Carlos A. Rodriguez.   

Carlos was the 2010 Libertarian Party Candidate for U.S. Congress, CA District #28.  He got 8% of the vote, in a district with a very high Latino population.   He is an immigration attorney, a Libertarian, committed to advancing the Libertarian Party, and he’s a Cuban American, which gives many Latino Democrats fodder to cast aspersions and dismiss his credentials as “authentically” like the majority of Latinos in California.  

We’ll ask Carlos about his positions on policy and politics related to public employee benefits and pensions, education, property rights, his own political evolution and his self-identified strongest suits– the role of Latinos in CA politics and his team’s efforts to recruit them to liberty’s cause, and the issue of immigration. 
Other news for discussion on tonight’s show, from CalWatchDog’s Website, re-posted here:

Breaking News

MAY 10, 2011 By DAVE ROBERTS “I’ve never forgotten Jack Kemp saying the way we define compassion is not by adding up how many people receive government benefits, but rather tallying the numbers of those who no longer need them. The Democrat Party is not interested in that definition of compassio…

MAY 9, 2011 By KATY GRIMES California residents planning automobile road trips this summer beware. The Department of Motor Vehicles is not allowing July auto registrations to be paid. The DMV has been ordered by Gov. Jerry Brown to refuse to accept payment of all two million July vehicle regis…

MAY 9, 2011 By JOHN SEILER Californians keep looking for ways to boost our economy, which also would bring in more revenue to the state government. The Legislature still is struggling with a budget deficit of about $15 billion, after $10 billion in cuts were made. Here’s an idea: Switch to …

MAY 6, 2011 By STEVEN GREENHUT Yet another report released this week confirms the enormous liabilities that California taxpayers must endure to pay for pensions for public employees. The study, released at a Pension Boot Camp for elected officials held in Citrus Heights by the reform group Cal…

News from Around the State


We’ll touch on as many of these stories with our hosts and guest, as time permits, and get your imput if you want to give us a call during the show. 
 
My mission for this radio program is (I quote here the mission statement of The Future of Freedom Foundation. I agree with their stated mission,  by which I am inspired and for which I stand, to the best of my ability), “to advance freedom by providing an uncompromising moral and economic case for individual liberty, free markets, private property, and limited government.”
 I am committed to being a stand and a cause for liberty, freedom and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that creates jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.   Thank you for supporting our enterprise, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.  I value your patronage. 

It’s a pleasure to share this program with CalWatchDog’s team of government watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!

Join us Tuesday nights, on Gadfly Radio live in Southern California or where ever you are.  California is a land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, if we get it right.   Join us.

Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the player below: 

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Utah bucks conservative trend on illegal immigration: A state effort to offer legal residency to many illegal immigrants is driven in part by the influence of the Mormon Church.

May 2, 2011 By

By Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times

March 19, 2011, 8:36 p.m.
Reporting from Salt Lake City—
President Obama’s aides were flabbergasted. Here was Mark Shurtleff, the conservative Republican attorney general of deeply red Utah, explaining how he and other GOP officials had approved a statewide version of the immigration measures that the president and his progressive allies have long sought.

“You sued us on healthcare,” Shurtleff recalls the aides saying during his meeting in Washington this month. “How is it you did something differently on immigration?”

The answer lies in how Utah expresses its conservative values — particularly the importance placed on family and business — and the influence of the Mormon Church.Click here to read more.

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Tonight on Gadfly Radio w/ Martha and CalWatchDog’s Steve Greenhut and John Seiler: Gov Brown’s Yawner Budget, Suicide by Public Employee makes Costa Mesa Ground Zero in the Battles Over Public Pensions

April 5, 2011 By

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT
To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
Gadfly Radio, with me and  CalWatchDog’s Steven Greenhut and John Seiler on some of the latest and hottest stories up at CalWatchDog.com

Brown’s Pension Reform A Yawner
 Jerry Brown’s Pension Reform Proposal for California Is a Yawner and today is the first Costa Mesa City Council meeting since Huy Pham, 29year old maintenance worker’s suicide in Costa Mesa, after he was called in to receive his notice of termination?   Bloomberg News reported today, Costa Mesa, California Is ‘Ground Zero’ for Pension Battle After Worker Suicide (Christopher Palmeri / Bloomberg)

Sky Not ‘Falling’ on School Budgets
What’s the story behind these  “cuts” in education we have been hearing about on radio ads 24/7?  CalWatchDog’s reporter, Wayne Lusvardi refutes the “sky is falling” claims we’ve been bombarded with on the airwaves.  We’ll discuss his report and tell the side the mainstream media is not telling you.

Card Check Bill Passes CA Senate, reported by Katy Grimes on March 31: The “card check” bill, SB 104, authored by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, passed the Senate this morning 24-14, after a heated debate.  “This bill would permit agricultural employees, as an alternative procedure, to select their labor representatives by submitting a petition to the board accompanied by representation cards signed by a majority of the bargaining unit,” reads the bill.  “On the Waterfront” anybody?  And to do this the most vulnerable workers in the name of protecting them is doubly immoral.

Dependency Bill is a bill that if passed would put government powers back in check where parents and children were safe from abuse by social workers’ powers to remove children from their parents and put children into foster care without due process, or merit, or accountability.  Will it survive the next phase?

 Show Us Your Papers Please!
“Republican legislators gathered on the north steps of the state Capitol today to pitch AB26, which would clamp down on illegal immigration. Modeled after Arizona’s controversial anti-illegal-immigration law, the bill would “beef up enforcement of immigration laws against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and make being in California illegally punishable as a misdemeanor,” according to the Victor Valley Daily Press. “It aims to end so-called sanctuary cities by enabling residents to sue the government over lax enforcement.” Members of the Service Employees International Union were on the sidewalks making catcalls as various officials and crime victims addressed a crowd that seemed dominated by Tea Party members.”

“The bill certainly expands government powers.   Steve Greenhut’s “main concern is summed up by a sign holder who was an official participant at the event, someone who was standing in the group surrounding the Assembly members: ‘I would be happy to show you my papers any time. Yes AB26.’
Is this right? Are self-styled supporters of freedom and the Constitution really willing and happy to show government agents their papers at any time?
American citizens of Latino heritage know that they will be the ones repeatedly asked to show their papers in any such scenario. This explains the opposition to it from so many people. Once again, we see Republicans who are advocating laws that are in direct conflict with their stated goals of promoting liberty.”

My mission for this radio program is (and I quote here the mission statement of  The Future of Freedom Foundation, with whom I have no affiliation other than that I agree with their stated mission,  by which I am inspired and for which I stand, to the best of my ability), “to advance freedom by providing an uncompromising moral and economic case for individual liberty, free markets, private property, and limited government.”

It’s my privilege to share this program with CalWatchDog’s team of government watch dogs!

Join us Tuesday nights, on Gadfly Radio live in Southern California or where ever you are. No matter how bad things are, California is a land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, if we can manage to get it right.   Join us.

To listen to a podcast later, if you missed the live call in show:

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Guests this Saturday night are former Bracero turned Wine Maker Grower Reynaldo Robledo Sr. & Jacob Hornberger on Immigration, Prosperity and Liberty

January 21, 2011 By
Podcast Part 1 & Part 2

Saturday Nights at 11PM Pacific Time
You can listen live on line at KRLA870AM.com
To call us during the show: 1-866-870-5752

This Saturday night, January 22, 2011:

Sr. Reynaldo Robledo Sr. came to California from Mexico as a teenager and a Bracero, a guest worker, in 1968.  He discovered a passion for growing grapes, and learned how to grow them exceptionally well.  His story is a great American story. 

Today in addition to his thriving vineyard management business managing hundreds of acres and his family’s own over three hundred acres, the Robledo Family also is a fine wine maker. 

His values are the values shared by all free spirited lovers of liberty and freedom, family and entrepreneurship. 

He believes in the possibility of individuals like him, who start with nothing, but given the opportunity, can rise to create wealth, fulfilling jobs, and beautiful products for edifying pleasure and celebration.

I am also delighted to welcome a new friend, Jacob Hornberger, President and founder of Future of Freedom Foundation FFF.org.   Love the name!   Mr. Hornberger is a native of Laredo Texas and he grew up in a bilingual bi-cultural community.  He notes in an essay “The city, whose street names include many Spanish and Mexican historical figures, has the biggest celebration in the nation honoring George Washington’s birthday.”  His example as does Reynaldo Robledo’s, shatters the myth that multi-lingual, multi-cultural communities undermine American Exceptionalism!  In Spanish we would say ¡Eso! ¡Eso! in English, Here! Here!

The truth, the words of freedom and liberty ring true and are the same principles in any language. Like the Bible is the Word, in any language, the principles of Liberty are the principles of liberty in any language. If we speak them and practice them, we are united.

The Future of Freedom Foundation’s mission statement rings true, loud and clear: The mission of The Future of Freedom Foundation is to advance freedom by providing an uncompromising moral and economic case for individual liberty, free markets, private property, and limited government.

The motivation for the people who make this radio program possible is our passion for liberty.  Our purpose is to inform, inspire, celebrate and advance integrity, creative endeavors and individual liberty.

We talk politics, business and culture, and feature ordinary individuals who accomplish extraordinary feats, who act and lead to help transform the future of California such that our best days lay ahead.

Make us your nightcap on Saturday nights in Southern California or where ever you are.  California is still a happening place, and this little engine, The Martha Montelongo Show is revved up to go! Join us.

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Socialism and Empire, Not Immigration, Are Destroying America

January 21, 2011 By

by Jacob G. Hornberger
A friend recently sent me an article written a couple of years ago entitled “How to Destroy America,” which provided an account of a Washington, D.C., “immigration-overpopulation conference filled to capacity by many of America’s finest minds and leaders.” According to the article, Richard D. Lamm, former governor of Colorado, made the startling claim at the conference that “the way to destroy America is to turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual.”
Unfortunately, the good ex-governor apparently failed to explain how his amazing thesis can be reconciled with Switzerland, a long-established, peaceful, and harmonious European country in which Swiss citizens speak German, French, or Italian, depending on which section of Switzerland in which they happen to live. Switzerland seems to have had no problem surviving
— and for centuries!
Or maybe the good ex-governor isn’t familiar with my hometown of Laredo, Texas, located on the Rio Grande, which is both bilingual and bicultural — and has been for at least 150 years! In fact, I would estimate that at least 75 percent of the Laredo populace is bilingual and that 15 percent speaks Spanish only. The city, whose street names include many Spanish and Mexican historical figures, has the biggest celebration in the nation honoring George Washington’s birthday.

As far as I know, no one in Laredo lives in fear that the city is about to collapse. In fact, people in Laredo, which has been under Spanish, Mexican, French, Texas, Confederate, and U.S. rule (as well as self-rule as the Republic of the Rio Grande), seem to live as normally and harmoniously as people in pure, white, Anglo, English-only societies. I wonder how the good exgovernor of Colorado reconciles that with his startling claim that “no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures.”
The “How to Destroy America” article also states that “a brilliant college professor, Victor Davis Hansen, talked about his latest book, Mexifornia, explaining how immigration, both legal and illegal, was destroying the entire state of California,” where, by the way, Los Angelenos recently overwhelmingly elected a bilingual Latino, Antonio Villaraigosa, as mayor.
Surely the good professor knows that California, along with New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and parts of Colorado, once constituted the northern half of Mexico. Those areas were knowingly taken over by the United States with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, leaving all (former) Mexican citizens in that area, Spanish-speakers all and thoroughly inculcated with Spanish and Mexican culture, as U.S. citizens. Talk about “Mexiforia” and “Mexinewmexico” and “Mexiarizona” and “Mexitexas” and “Mexicolorado”! Given all those Spanish-speaking (former)
Mexicans living in that part of the United States, which had been the northern half of Mexico the night before the treaty was implemented, did that mean that the demise of the United States was imminent? I don’t think so.

For that matter, did the open borders that were maintained between the United States and (the southern half of) Mexico for the next 80 years or so, which enabled Mexicans and Americans to freely cross back and forth across the border to visit, tour, work, or open businesses, result in the demise of the United States? I don’t think so.
Contrary to what all the “finest minds and leaders” at that “immigration-overpopulation conference” suggest, what is destroying America is not immigrants, legal or illegal. Click here to read the article.

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The Center for Immigration Studies recently put out a study arguing that immigration has had negative effects on California. Who are the Big Moochers as of June 2010?

January 5, 2011 By

With Vermont Earning the Dubious Distinction of First Place, Northeastern States Dominate the Moocher Index

June 16, 2010 by Dan Mitchell

The Center for Immigration Studies recently put out a study arguing that immigration has had negative effects on California. One of their measures was a comparison of how many people in the state were receiving some form of welfare compared to other states. I found that data (see Table 3 of the report) very interesting, but not because of the immigration debate (I’ll leave others to debate that topic). Instead, I wanted to get a better understanding of the variations in government dependency. Is there a greater willingness to sign up for income redistribution programs, all other things being equal, from one state to another? The “all other things being equal” caveat is very important, of course, since the comparison produced by CIS may simply be an indirect measure of the factors that determine welfare eligibility. One obvious (albeit crude) way of addressing this problem is to subtract each state’s poverty rate to get a measure of how many non-poor people are signed up for income-redistribution programs. Let’s call this the Moocher Index. Click here to read more.

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Regarding a news story many friends have sent to me: Latino leaders swirl around idea of Tequila Party–Here’s the article and my reply to my friends…

December 1, 2010 By

This Tequila Party Proposal is gaining international attention. Latino leaders in Nevada and nationwide are quietly debating whether to sever their traditional Democratic ties and form an independent grass-roots political group.

The idea, born of frustration over the party’s inaction on immigration reform and fears that as a voting bloc they’re a political afterthought, Latino leaders have discussed the idea among themselves locally and in conference calls with colleagues across the country.

The unlikely model for the movement they would like to launch is the Tea Party — not in substance, of course, but in its grass-roots organizational style. Acknowledging the source of their inspiration, Latino leaders have dubbed the proposed movement the “Tequila Party.” (Click here to read more of the article, Tequila Party)

My response–I’m only interested if Francisco d’Anconia will be its symbolic leader. (He’s one of the heroic characters of Atlas Shrugged) Women shouldn’t form their own party to support abortion rights, and Latinos shouldn’t form a party around the issue of immigration. Too bad the Libertarian Party is so fringe.

Richard Nadler tried to enlighten his fellow conservatives and he left a treasure trove of powerfully insightful and persuasive analysis concerning the Latino Vote and Immigration. He’s the best on this issue and he’s departed. Here’s a small excerpt from his work analyzing the 2008 elections, in his comprehensive published report called The Edge of the Wedge–Immigration and the Congressional Contests of 2008:

The deal breaker between Latino voters and conservatives isn’t border security, or official English, or future immigration levels. A Republican can run right on any of these, and sustain significant Latino support. The deal-breaker is deportation.

A mass of evidence explains this.

There is the fact that 40% of Hispanic citizens fear a deportation action against a friend or family member.

There is the fact that 44% of Latinos hear their clergy preach against “enforcement only” in the churches they attend.

There is the fact that 80% of Latinos favor comprehensive immigration reform.

But forget all that. Use your common sense. I have yet to meet a conservative who doesn’t understand the dynamic of the Elian Gonzalez incident in 2000 – how a SWAT team, on orders from a Democratic attorney general, invaded an ordinary Cuban home, and tore a screaming child from the arms of his protector. That sight, revisited nightly in Miami-Dade, carried Florida (and the presidency) for George W. Bush. What Republican didn’t understand that?

But due to our commitment to enforcement-only immigration policy, Hispanics are treated to Elian Gonzalez-style incidents nightly on Univision and Telemundo. In living color, viewers watch huddled Latinos cuffed by ICE raiders at their place of work, moms clutching their rosaries, priests pleading for mercy. It’s not rocket science to understand how Hispanic citizens react. Only now, the villains are Los Republicanos rather than the Clintonistas.

We all enjoy happy talk about the natural affinity between Republicans and Latinos. But given this broadcast bombardment, it is increasingly irrelevant that Hispanic opinion on right-to-life, or marriage, or school choice mirrors that of conservatives. The linked prospects of ICE raids, persecuted clergy, ruptured families, and mass profiling spooks the legal, working-class Latino. As long as the prospect of mass deportation remains in our playbook and in our platform, Democrats will clobber us with it.

Now, some of you think that we can lose the Hispanic vote by 40 percent, and make it up among non-Hispanics. I say: think again.

First, it didn’t happen. In 435 contests, not a single Congressional district with a historical trend of voting Democrat elected a Republican “enforcement only” advocate. But dozens of enforcement-only Republicans went down to defeat, most of them in historically Republican districts.

Some wedge issue, huh? (Click here to download a pdf of the full 138 Page Report, Edge of the Wedge)

By the way, I love Tequila too! It’d be a fun party, so long as we stayed away from policy issues while enjoying the spirits. Never safe to drink and drive.

Martha

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The GOP’s Immigration Opportunity Republicans are natural champions of sensible changes that would make us more secure and benefit the economy.

November 22, 2010 By

By JOE JACQUOT
AND DAVID B. RIVKIN JR.

With the incoming Congress looking for accomplishments, here’s one the Republican majority should take up immediately: immigration reform. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Republicans are its natural champions. The GOP led the way in 1986 and 1996, when partial immigration reforms were enacted. And a Republican Senate, with the support of President George W. Bush, passed comprehensive reform in 2006, only to see it die in the House.

Under President Barack Obama and a House run by Nancy Pelosi, immigration became a wedge used to separate Hispanic voters from the Republican Party. Thus came the sad spectacle of the Justice Department suing to block Arizona’s common-sense enforcement efforts. Congress’s failure to move any legislation on the issue has only added to the public’s discontent.

Republicans should break this logjam by offering a vision of sensible immigration reform that can benefit U.S. citizens and boost America’s influence globally. Such reform should focus on three critical national interests: security, the economy and freedom.

Security is first: Immigration must be viewed in a post-9/11 context. Immigration enforcement—including background checks for visa issuance, customs and border security, and apprehension of dangerous illegal aliens—is the frontline in the campaign against terrorism. Click here to read more.

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My comments submitted at Fox & Hound regarding Richard Rider’s Column titled: GOP failure in California

November 18, 2010 By

Dear Richard,
I thank you for calling out the GOP on their anti-Hispanic vitriol. It has become absurd how offensive and off-putting the political discourse around immigration has grown. Those most responsible engage in the tactic of dissembling and fallacy. They accuse anyone who calls them on the not-so-subtle message of outright contempt for Hispanic Immigrants as being FOR OPEN BORDERS! Elaborating on their fallacies, they justify their rancor with the qualifier: “Oh, but we don’t mind if you’re LEGAL. We just don’t want to allow ANY more immigration reform until the border is COMPLETELY SECURE, NO ONE is getting in here illegally…” You cheer at raids, ignoring the horror of the Elian Gonzalez episode in Florida and the fact it cost Gore the Presidency!

To hell with the agriculture industry in California! While we cry about all the lost jobs and the Jabba the Hut Government of California, our backbone industry in California, yes, the biggest industry of California, withers. The Republicans are responsible for killing it. They have eaten their own. It is barely alive. It is on life support. And it is the reddest of red zones in CA. For every illegal farm worker, four white collar jobs are supported. The marketing, sales, distribution, crop dusting, irrigation engineering and more, all dependent on the farmers being able to harvest their crops. We could help them secure the labor they need legally and realistically.

We could have taken out the congressional representatives and Barbara Boxer, who have been aiding the Obama administration kill the Central Valley, and our greatest economic industry in California, and maybe we could have rattled the Leftist controlled California Legislature that is doing to the Central Valley what Saddam Husein did the resistors who tried to escape persecution by hiding in the Arab marches, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet.

Withstanding the fallacy that if one is for comprehensive reform that addresses the broken legal process of getting work permits and visas and yes, even legal citizenship, I would welcome, as would the majority of citizens who support rational comprehensive immigration reform, that in addition to the issues you suggest we pursue by ballot initiative by conservatives who want to advance limited government, that we add an initiative to require that we show legal valid I.D. to vote, that registration rolls be validated on a timely basis, and especially, that provisional ballots require a valid I.D.

All of this can be successfully argued for justly and courteously to all Californians, including our large Hispanic immigrant population, without offending their illegal friends, family and neighbors, in the name of honoring the integrity of every individual’s right to vote.

Mexico requires a valid I.D. It’s not a debated issue in Mexico. It’s common sense. The racial identity politicians who argue that it is racist to require ID play on White Guilt when they suggest it’s racist to require.

The secret to success in arguing for something that limits the power of government and protects our individual liberty and our vote to secure it is simple. Be nice. Be courteous, be inclusive and avoid castings aspersions at ethnic groups. Qualifiers about referring to illegal versus legal Hispanics do not fly. Click here to read more of Richard’s op-ed.

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GOP Failure in California

November 18, 2010 By

By Richard Rider
Chairman of the San Diego Tax Fighters
Wed, November 17th, 2010

Be it real or be it perception, the GOP’s perceived anti-immigrant (and especially anti-Hispanic) stance is losing (has lost) the minority vote in this state. The vociferous conservative element that puts essentially all blame for our problems on illegal immigrants projects itself as the GOP.

Some of the most popular right wing talk show hosts build their loyal (essentially all white) following with their Jihad against illegal Hispanics (mainly Mexicans).

Say what you will — this is PERCEIVED as anti-Hispanic. ALL Hispanics. Click here to read more of Richard’s op-ed.
Dear Richard,
I thank you for calling out the GOP on their anti-Hispanic vitriol. It has become absurd how offensive and off-putting the political discourse around immigration has grown. Those most responsible engage in the tactic of dissembling and fallacy. They accuse anyone who calls them on the not-so-subtle message of outright contempt for Hispanic Immigrants as being FOR OPEN BORDERS! Elaborating on their fallacies, they justify their rancor with the qualifier: “Oh, but we don’t mind if you’re LEGAL. We just don’t want to allow ANY more immigration reform until the border is COMPLETELY SECURE, NO ONE is getting in here illegally…” You cheer at raids, ignoring the horror of the Elian Gonzalez episode in Florida and the fact it cost Gore the Presidency!

To hell with the agriculture industry in California! While we cry about all the lost jobs and the Jabba the Hut Government of California, our backbone industry in California, yes, the biggest industry of California, withers. The Republicans are responsible for killing it. They have eaten their own. It is barely alive. It is on life support. And it is the reddest of red zones in CA. For every illegal farm worker, four white collar jobs are supported. The marketing, sales, distribution, crop dusting, irrigation engineering and more, all dependent on the farmers being able to harvest their crops. We could help them secure the labor they need legally and realistically.

We could have taken out the congressional representatives and Barbara Boxer, who have been aiding the Obama administration kill the Central Valley, and our greatest economic industry in California, and maybe we could have rattled the Leftist controlled California Legislature that is doing to the Central Valley what Saddam Husein did the resistors who tried to escape persecution by hiding in the Arab marches, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet.

Withstanding the fallacy that if one is for comprehensive reform that addresses the broken legal process of getting work permits and visas and yes, even legal citizenship, I would welcome, as would the majority of citizens who support rational comprehensive immigration reform, that in addition to the issues you suggest we pursue by ballot initiative by conservatives who want to advance limited government, that we add an initiative to require that we show legal valid I.D. to vote, that registration rolls be validated on a timely basis, and especially, that provisional ballots require a valid I.D.

All of this can be successfully argued for justly and courteously to all Californians, including our large Hispanic immigrant population, without offending their illegal friends, family and neighbors, in the name of honoring the integrity of every individual’s right to vote.

Mexico requires a valid I.D. It’s not a debated issue in Mexico. It’s common sense. The racial identity politicians who argue that it is racist to require ID play on White Guilt when they suggest it’s racist to require.

The secret to success in arguing for something that limits the power of government and protects our individual liberty and our vote to secure it is simple. Be nice. Be courteous, be inclusive and avoid castings aspersions at ethnic groups. Qualifiers about referring to illegal versus legal Hispanics do not fly. Click here to read more of Richard’s op-ed.

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Rubio Republicans: Republican candidates can talk tough on immigration and still do well with Hispanic voters if they can convincingly promote a message of economic opportunity.

November 8, 2010 By

(John Fund says convincingly. I think it’s more like with warmth and a genuine desire to establish a powerful connection that connect mind and heart. Corny? Well, that’s what “mi casa es tuya” or “mi casa es su casa” is all about. Good luck, and ¡salud!)
By JOHN FUND

When it comes to Hispanic voters, last week’s elections were a tale of two results for Republicans. On one level, the GOP can take pride in the fact that 31% of all Hispanic members of Congress are now in their party. But on another level, the overwhelming Democratic advantage among Hispanics helped cost the GOP key Senate seats in Nevada, Colorado and California.

The next Congress will feature an unprecedented five new Hispanic Republicans. Two are from Texas and defeated Democratic incumbents – Bill Flores of Bryan and Quico Conseco from San Antonio. Jaime Herrera was elected to an open seat in Washington state. Raul Labrador defeated a Democratic incumbent in Idaho. David Rivera won an open House seat in Florida, just as Marco Rubio won that state’s vacant U.S. Senate seat. In addition, Republicans elected two Hispanic governors — prosecutor Susan Martinez in New Mexico and Brian Sandoval, a judge, in Nevada.

But Hispanic voters also powered the come-from-behind victories of two Democratic Senators. Hispanics accounted for 14% of the electorate in Nevada, up from 12% in the last midterm election of 2006. The two-to-one advantage they gave Majority Leader Harry Reid allowed him to win by a surprising 50% to 45% margin. In Colorado, Hispanic voters made up 13% of the vote, up from only 9% four years ago. Their big margin in favor of Democratic Senator Michael Bennet helped him pull off a come-from-behind victory.Click here to read more.

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Steven Greenhut’s “State GOP verging on irrelevant” may be a great understatement. The Dems aren’t the only ones who’ve been in denial over the destructive course of their actions.

November 8, 2010 By

And it appears there is little sign of any large or significant aspect of epiphany. All the same, I believe and so, I cannot resign into cynicism. Hope you read it and move into a positive course of action.

Republicans have been amused by President Barack Obama’s thick-headed response to the Democratic Party’s electoral defeat. Despite near-historic gains for the GOP in the House of Representatives and significant GOP gains in the Senate and statehouses, Obama refused in his news conference Wednesday to pin the blame on his agenda, instead pointing to economic frustrations and a failure by his administration to adequately explain his policies.

Despite the president’s delusion, Democrats would be wise to engage in some soul-searching if they hope to reconnect with the public.

Republicans in California need to do some soul-searching of their own as they find themselves in a much deeper hole than the Obamaites. The Democrats eventually will regain some steam across the country, but Tuesday’s drubbing of the GOP in California suggests the state party might now be an irrelevancy. Click here to read the article

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He is feared because his message resonates with a vast majority: “Where Republicans have failed: We should be the pro-legal immigration party, not the anti- illegal immigration party,” he says. If he wins, Mr. Rubio will be the most prominent elected Hispanic official in the U.S. from either party.

November 1, 2010 By

Who’s Afraid of Marco Rubio?
WSJ
Nov 2, 2010

Democrats are scared enough of the charismatic Republican Senate hopeful that some were willing to sacrifice their own candidate to help a stronger challenger in the race.

By MATTHEW KAMINSKI

West Palm Beach, Fla.

Marco Rubio is the newest Republican star, but not for any obvious reasons. On policy, the Senate hopeful from the Sunshine State blends in easily with the tea party crowd. Less government, taxes and debt, check; repeal ObamaCare, ditto. More eye-catching are his boyish good looks, a gift for speechmaking, and inspirational biography and ethnic roots. Yet those were Barack Obama’s attributes as well. Two years into his presidency they are devalued novelties, no matter which party card you hold.

Something else accounts for Mr. Rubio’s rise from a blip in polls against the popular governor in his party, to the runaway favorite tomorrow. He appealed as a different sort of Republican. He kept his pitch upbeat, shunned personal attacks, worked hard to widen support without apologizing for his conservatism, and more noticeably than anyone in this race ran on an unabashed and constantly invoked faith in American exceptionalism. Click here to read more.

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Why Latinos should vote Tea Party

October 27, 2010 By

Martha Montelongo
October 25,2010
Orange County Register

The firestorm ignited by Robert Deposada’s Latinos for Change ads blipped off the news cycles in less than three days. The ads urged Latinos not to vote.

But Democrats have seized on the incident as a hammer to convince Latino voters it is a Republican ploy to suppress their vote and undermine their power to decide this election.

First, I find offensive the implied assertion – by “Latino leaders” and the Univision executives – that Latino TV viewers must be protected from hearing or viewing misguided political campaign messages urging them not to vote. They suggest Latinos are too helpless to discern matters for themselves. And we are to presume these self-appointed protectors are benevolent and above reproach for their move to shield their audience.

Deposada’s message to Latinos was foolish, even if the claims he makes are true. He said Latinos are taken for granted and played by the Democrats but disrespected and denigrated by a growing chorus of Republicans who voice anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant vitriol. Republicans don’t sound like they want to be friends.

I understand Deposada’s frustration; however, being single-issue minded when speaking to Latinos also betrays Latinos. More important issues affect Latinos:
Click here to read the full article. I hope you will, whether you are Latino or not, and I hope you’ll share it. Thank you.

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“Arizona and Immigration” Podcast featuring Daniel Griswold of The Cato Institute

May 17, 2010 By

Click here to listen to a podcast posted on May 17th, at CATO.org, on Immigration, and Arizona’s state law.

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Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders–Six common arguments against Immigration and why they are wrong. Get beyond the anger; see the possibility!

July 9, 2009 By

A five minute interview with Jason Riley, author of Let Them In: The case for Open Borders–Six common arguments against immigration and why they are wrong, with Nick Gillespie of Reason and also, a longer almost 26 minute version of the same interview.

A 33 minute video of a presentation by Jason Riley on his book, Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders.

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A Charter School Model That Produces Extraordinary Results–Meet one of them. Also, Immigration Policy for Liberty: Sat. June 13, 2009

June 12, 2009 By
Join me on the air, Saturday at 11 AM PST


CRN Channel 5 (On the Internet)
Call in number for the program:800-336-2225
This Saturday, my guest is Karely Ordaz, a recent graduate of American Indian Public High School of Oakland, CA, and a graduate of Oakland Charter Academy, a sister school of American Indian Public Middle School. Karely is 18 years old, an immigrant from Mexico, and is going to Berkeley in the fall. She will share with us her experience, before and after her middle school was transformed into one of the top performing middle schools in CA, and how she transformed from being on a path of rebelion and victimhood to one of leadership and achievement. Her experience demonstrates it’s not money that generates excellence.
The poorest, from the most underprivileged backgrounds can achieve greatness, academically, intellectually, physically, as a rule, not the exception! It’s a simple and cost effective anecdote to typical public school structure and curriculum in poor inner-city schools in CA.
Ty Greaves, President of the CA Republican Assembly Chapter of San Jose, joins me to talk about a new presentation he put together on the subject of Immigration. Ty’s point of view was recently challenged in part by the new book by Jason Riley of the WSJ, called “Let Them In–The Case for Open Borders.” Now Ty challenges prevailing beliefs about immigration and where the GOP should stand.
He believes that conventional thinking on immigration by conservatives is inconsistent with Republican Values, is wrong on the facts, and alienates Mexican immigrants who might otherwise join us, thus making it more difficult for the GOP to win and lead. In conventional conservative circles today, this is heresy.
Basic to his argument, Ty assumes that legal immigration is not an issue among Republicans and that Republicans are people of reason and are passionate in their commitment to free people, minds and markets, Judeo-Christian principles, strong families, decentralized government, and equal opportunity. But US Immigration policy is a barrier to our beliefs. Join us for hot talk Saturday at 11 PDT.

CRN Digital Talk Radio is now available in High Definition audio! Listen to CRN on your local cable or satellite provider, local radio affiliate, mobile device or at CRN! To see where CRN is available in your area click here.
To request CRN Digital Talk Radio in your home or for advertising information, email info@CRNi.net.

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A Voice of Immigration Sanity Lost: Adios Amigo, Hermano, Richard Nadler

June 5, 2009 By

(in the middle in this photo, flanked my me, and Steven Greenhut)
From the WSJ’s Political Diary, 6-5-2009
One Less Guide Out of the GOP’s Wilderness
Richard Nadler, head of the think tank Americas Majority and one of the keenest observers of minority politics in the conservative movement, passed away suddenly at his Overland Park, Kansas home last Saturday. He was only 60 years old.
Nadler had an amazing career. He dropped out of high school, became a successful jazz musician touring with a black ensemble, and eventually dropped his socialist views for conservatism. His major work was motivated by his discovery during the time he spent with both blacks and Hispanics that they held many essentially conservative views, but that Republicans had failed miserably to reach them.
He assembled comprehensive political databases that helped show a key reason John McCain last year underperformed George W. Bush’s showing among Hispanics by 13%. He found that many Hispanic voters, the fastest-growing part of the electorate, were alienated by the “enforcement only” approach that many conservatives adopted towards illegal immigration. “They will support border enforcement but not if it means massive deportations and no legal way that the seven million people now working here can stay,” he told me.
He noted that the country’s 30 million Hispanics are linked to illegal aliens through ties of family, church, culture and a common broadcast media. The Pew Hispanic Center notes that 41% of America’s Hispanic citizens fear a deportation action against a friend or family member. “To the extent that Republicans don’t come up with a guest-worker program that helps reduce the flow of undocumented workers, they commit themselves to navigate a population minefield — one whose volatility will inevitably increase with the natural migrations of Latino legal citizens who can and do vote.”
Accolades for Nadler are coming in from many quarters. “He was one of the most brilliant men I ever met,” says Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review, who cheerfully disagreed with some of Nadler’s analysis. “One of the few grown-ups one meets in politics,” says Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. “He knew it was important to both get your political goals correct — what are you trying to do — and to know how to get there.”
At a time when conservatives seem as much at sea as ever on how to handle immigration issues, Nadler’s voice will be missed.
– John Fund

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Three Dynamic Leaders on this Memorial Day Weekend Show, Saturday, May 23, 2009 at 11 AM PT

May 22, 2009 By
Join me on the air, Saturday at 11 AM PST


CRN Channel 5 (On the Internet)
Call in number for the program:800-336-2225

This Saturday,
May 23, Alvaro Vargas Llosa, author of The Che Guevara Myth, Liberty for Latin America, The Madness of Things Peruvian, and Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot (with Carlos Alberto Montaner and Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza), on the talks between President Obama and Vicente Fox, immigration, liberty, free enterprise and U.S. politics.

Manny Miranda, Chairman of the Third Branch Conference, on the historical opportunity for a great public debate concerning the significance of choosing our Supreme Court Justices. “A very important teachable moment.”

Shawn Steel, National Republican Committee Man for the CA Republican Party, former CA Republican Party Chairman. We’ll discuss his op-ed GOP should push Sacramento toward pay-as-you-go plan. published Friday, May 22, 2009, in the Orange County Register and The Flashreport : Shawn says “We can win the budget battle… Just say no….Here’s how…” Join us for hot talk Saturday at 11 AM, PT

Candidate for Gov in 2010 Steve Poizner

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Borderline Insanity: How the Right Got Immigration Wrong

January 19, 2009 By
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