comMITTed to Romney!

I have been waiting for this headline to hit for the last couple of years. I don’t claim to know all the details, but whenever someone takes a very high profile, courageous stand as Sheriff Arpaio has on illegal immigration, you have to know that there are forces at work behind the scenes that want to demoralize the members of the pro border law enforcement community and the best way to do that is to go after one of the leaders of the movement. We should all follow this story as it develops and if you see something that I miss, put a link into the open forum weekly post, or any other post, even if it’s off topic.

~~John Cronin~~

CNSNews.com
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona following requests by congressional Democrats and allegations by liberal activists that the department has violated the civil rights of illegal aliens.

Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), and Robert Scott (D-Va.) requested the investigation, and activists groups such as National Day Laborer Organizer Network and ACORN launched petition drives and rallies in support of the probe.

The investigation focuses on Sheriff Joe Arpaio and dozens of officers under his command who were trained through the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security (ACCESS), which partners federal and local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws. (The Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement division is known popularly as ICE.)

In a letter dated March 10, 2009, Loretta Smith, acting assistant attorney general at the DOJ, detailed what her department would be investigating:

“This is to inform you that the United States Department of Justice is commencing an investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (”MCSO”) pursuant to the pattern or practice provisions of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994,42 U.S.C. §14141 (”Section 14141″) and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968,42 U.S.C. § 3789d (”Safe Streets Act”), and pursuant to the prohibitions against national origin discrimination in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d to 2000d-7 (”Title Yr’) and the Safe Streets Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d(c).”

The letter continues: “The investigation will focus on alleged patterns or practices of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures conducted by the MCSO, and on allegations of national origin discrimination, including failure to provide meaningful access to MCSO services for limited English proficient (LEP) individuals.”

“In conducting the investigation, we will seek to determine whether there are violations of the above laws by the MCSO,” the letter says.

Sheriff Arpaio’s efforts to enforce immigration laws have been the focus of previous criticism, but Arpaio has defended his department and the results his ICE-trained officers have netted.

Concerning the DOJ’s investigation, Arpaio told CNSNews.com: “I will not back down. What I am doing is upholding the laws of the state of Arizona, and I will not be persuaded to turn my back on my oath of office as sheriff of this county.”

In an August 2008 press release, Arpaio’s office detailed those results.

“While the Sheriff’s illegal immigration and human smuggling operations conducted on the streets and roadways here have netted nearly 2,300 arrests, another very successful effort to locate illegal aliens has been quietly happening inside Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jails,” the release said.

It continues: “Despite the growing criticism of the Sheriff’s illegal immigration fight by some valley politicians and activists, Sheriff Arpaio says 60 detention officers trained by ICE officials have conducted over 106,000 interviews and investigations of inmates booked into jail since April of 2007.

“In those 18 months, 16,000 inmates were determined to be illegal aliens. Either they have already been deported or will be deported after being tried and/or serving their sentences for crimes committed in the valley. The work being done be Arpaio’s detention staff is a likely contributor to the recent reduction in crime in the valley,” the press release added.

“That number of 16,000 represents a full one-third (1/3) of all inmates in the United States who have had holds placed on them after being identified by jail or prison officials as illegal aliens.”

The press release goes on to say that 20 percent of inmates in the Maricopa County Jail are illegal aliens and that of those, 2,000 illegal aliens - 70 percent - were arrested for felony crimes.

Those felony crimes committed included the following: forgery, 12 percent; kidnapping, 10 percent; aggravated assault, 7 percent; driving under the influence, 7 percent; drug charges, 27 percent; robbery, 3 percent; murder, 3 percent; and theft, 4 percent.

The Democratic Congress members have also asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to launch an investigation into the training provided by ICE.

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Here is a disturbing video from an organization called FULL DISCLOSURE. I have not heard of them before and so I can’t vouch for the accuracy of their report. I have posted this as a FYI type report and I don’t mean to be controversial, it’s just that I hear from various sources that these activities are really happening, but since I don’t live anywhere near these states, I have to rely on news reports and also on corroboration from readers who do.

~~John Cronin~~

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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2181410/posts

WASHINGTON TIMES

By: Jerry Seper

An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as “the avenue of choice” for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally.

Trial continues Monday in the federal lawsuit, which seeks $32 million in actual and punitive damages for civil rights violations, the infliction of emotional distress and other crimes. Also named are Mr. Barnett’s wife, Barbara, his brother, Donald, and Larry Dever, sheriff in Cochise County, Ariz., where the Barnetts live. The civil trial is expected to continue until Friday.

The lawsuit is based on a March 7, 2004, incident in a dry wash on the 22,000-acre ranch, when he approached a group of illegal immigrants while carrying a gun and accompanied by a large dog.

Attorneys for the immigrants - five women and 11 men who were trying to cross illegally into the United States - have accused Mr. Barnett of holding the group captive at gunpoint, threatening to turn his dog loose on them and saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape.

The immigrants are represented at trial by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which also charged that Sheriff Dever did nothing to prevent Mr. Barnett from holding their clients at “gunpoint, yelling obscenities at them and kicking one of the women.”

In the lawsuit, MALDEF said Mr. Barnett approached the group as the immigrants moved through his property, and that he was carrying a pistol and threatening them in English …

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By: Heather Mac Donald

CITY JOURNAL

What are the chances that New York’s new senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, will maintain her support for immigration enforcement after being rushed by a massive line of illegal-alien advocates and other members of the liberal elite? Gillibrand is said to harbor ambitions for much higher office. If she holds onto her immigration principles despite the intended sacking, she will have distinguished herself early on as a unique politician worthy of further attention.

Gillibrand seems to have backed just about every measure to strengthen the immigration rule of law during her single term in Congress representing an Albany-area district. She opposed amnesty and driver’s licenses for illegal aliens; she supported using local police to enforce immigration laws. She co-sponsored the SAVE Act, which would have required employers to verify the legal status of their employees, expedited deportation of illegals, and boosted border technology. She wanted to protect employers who require their workers to speak English from being sued as civil rights violators.

Needless to say, these positions are anathema to the open-borders lobby, so earlier this week, the New York Times published what was virtually a set of serial press releases from that lobby denouncing her. “Borders on xenophobia,” “extremist,” a “slap to immigrant New Yorkers,” and a “disappointing choice” were among the predictable jabs from New York City politicians, Spanish-language newspapers, and advocates. Particularly amusing was the charge from the executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition that Gillibrand’s “past positions are pretty much out of line with the rest of New York State.” Tell that to Eliot Spitzer, whose plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, which Gillibrand opposed, went up in flames just a little bit before he did himself. The New York Times, however, buttresses the conceit that Gillibrand represents just a small and irrelevant portion of New Yorkers, noting that she comes from an “overwhelmingly white district along New York’s eastern fringe,” as if only white New Yorkers support the rule of law.

The advocates know just what is needed: reeducation. “I think she needs to be educated, frankly,” says the past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, who is optimistic that she will “modify” her immigration positions now that she is in the Senate.

“Frankly,” her views are even more valid today than they were two years ago, when she entered Congress. Amnesty will achieve just what it has achieved every other time it has been tried: encourage more migrants to cross the border and wait for their illegal status to be erased, thus putting further downward pressure on the labor market. The administrative costs of regularizing millions of illegals would be enormous, as they were during the 1986 amnesty, and even more burdensome at a time when government should be eliminating unnecessary expenses. Since society’s bonds face greater strain during an economic crisis, it is all the more important to buttress respect for the law. The perception that government is unable to enforce the law and maintain order has far-reaching consequences for how people conduct themselves in the public and economic realms. And low-skilled, low-educated Hispanics, who make up the vast majority of illegal aliens, consume a large share of services for the needy, including government health care and remedial education.

As a political appointee, Gillibrand will undoubtedly feel beholden to her patrons. But if she wants to be returned to the Senate in 2010, New York’s powerful patronage machine will not be enough; she will actually have to appeal to voters. Standing firm on the rule of law would give her enormous credibility, not just as she tries to hold onto her Senate seat but thereafter as well. A New York City councilman is holding a rally at City Hall today to demand that Gillibrand change her immigration positions. The public should let her know that she is not, in fact, “out of line with the rest of New York State,” despite what she will be hearing from the illegal-alien lobby.

— Heather Mac Donald is a contributing editor at City Journal and the co-author of The Immigration Solution.

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Forgive me if I am a little skeptical, considering Ms. Napolitano’s track record in her own state, but I can only hope somebody gets serious about our southern border before a tragedy befalls the citizens of this country.

One thing is for sure, no one in the government can say they weren’t warned.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090129/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/immigration_deportations

By EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – If you’re a criminal and you’re not entitled to be in the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants you out of the country. Napolitano wants what she calls “criminal aliens” off American streets. She is looking at existing immigration enforcement programs to see if taxpayers are getting the most bang for their buck.

“That sounds very simple, but it’s historically not been done,” Napolitano said, speaking to reporters and senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials Thursday.

About 113,000 criminals who were in the U.S. illegally were deported last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. The agency estimates there are now as many as 450,000 criminals in federal, state and local detention centers who are in the country illegally.

Napolitano said she wants to improve data-sharing among local, state and federal facilities. So far, there are jails in 26 counties across the country with computer systems that can talk instantly with immigration systems.

The goal, Napolitano said, is for federal immigration officials to know whether an inmate is in the country illegally immediately after he is processed into a detention facility. After the criminal serves his or her sentence, immigration officials can be ready to deport that person right away.

ICE spokesman Richard Rocha said the agency plans to expand this connectivity to all state and local detention centers over the next four years.

Napolitano, whose job includes overseeing immigration laws, says she also will go after criminal fugitives who are in the country illegally.

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Looking at this primary campaign debate video, it’s not hard to remember why John McCain lost his one shot at getting elected President. His attempt to explain why his Amnesty bill was not an amnesty is a case study in why the voters hold most politicians in contempt.

In the video, Mitt Romney rightly points out that McCain could at least attempt to deny that the bill was a de facto amnesty because it did have some bare bones requirements to qualify for the provisions of the bill. English proficiency, no felony convictions and pay a $5,000 fine. Wow! Tough stuff! Who said we weren’t going to lay the wood to lawbreakers? As one pundit pointed out, the $5,000 fine was nothing more than a membership fee.

The other thing that struck me was the three man tag team of McCain, Giuliani and Fred Thompson all ganging up on Gov. Romney in an attempt to rattle him. Even under trying circumstances, Mitt was very effective in getting his points across.

With rumors swirling about the possible collapse of the Mexican government and the poor people of that country under increased pressure to try to escape the poverty, violence and corruption of their system, now it’s more important than ever to have pro border law enforcement policies coming out of Washington. Of course, that is highly unlikely coming from this administration. Looking at the video and hearing Gov. Romney’s common sense solutions to a problem that is threatening to spiral out of control, the tragedy of the outcome of this election cycle and both the leadership that we got and the leadership that we were denied is brought home with a vengeance.

~~John Cronin~~

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More wink, wink and turn your back border law enforcement and this from the woman who wants to head the Dept. of Homeland Security. Will it take another 911 for these hacks to get the message that if the borders aren’t defended every American is potentially at great risk?

~~John Cronin~~

TOWNHALL.COM

by Austin Hill

Today, the Arizona state budget is right back where it was when Napolitano became Governor - - facing a staggering $2 billion deficit. And as she moves “up” to Washington, the Governor leaves for her predecessor Jan Brewer the tough task of cutting government spending, an ordeal made even more difficult by years of Napolitano’s unwillingness to reign-in her own spendthrift behavior.

In the public safety arena, a state governor’s equivalent of “homeland security,” Napolitano has been all over the road with policy positions. Early in her first term in 2003, she voiced support for a proposal to allow illegal immigrants to be issued state driver’s licenses. When public outcry turned against her, she fell silent on the issue, and later refused to take a position on the matter when her fellow Democrats introduced legislation to actually make the driver’s license “dream” a reality.

And while 2003 saw the states of California and Texas contemplate whether or not to send state National Guard Troops to the U.S. / Mexico border, Napolitano opposed the idea for Arizona, arguing at the time that border security is a “federal issue” and not the job of state government. Yet three years later, in the midst of her 2006 re-election campaign, Napolitano shocked Democrats and Republicans alike by dispatching the Arizona National Guard to the Mexican border, to “help” with the flood of illegal immigrants.

In so doing, Ms. Napolitano grabbed international media headlines by becoming the first state Governor to place National Guard Troops at the U.S. / Mexico border ( a fact that she confidently reiterated during her Senate testimony). Yet Americans don’t realize that the move was almost entirely symbolic - - she sent troops to the border, yes, but she refused to authorize the troops to do anything besides merely “observe” the border.

One of the most extraordinary components of Napolitano’s Arizona legacy has emerged all within the past four months. With virtually no input from the state legislature, the Governor used her executive powers to mandate the purchase and installation of speed-limit enforcing “photo radar” cameras. The cameras are now dispersed literally everywhere in Arizona - - in the city, and throughout the state’s vast rural regions as well.

Napolitano’s approach to speed enforcement is bad enough for its draconian, big brother tactics. But worse still, in a blatantly cynical move, Napolitano established that citations from the statewide “speed cameras” would carry with them no penalty to one’s driving record - - just a monetary fee. As long as offending drivers are willing to write the check and pay off the government, they can continue to violate speed limit laws with no restrictions on their driving privileges, and the state “profits” all the more.

In recent weeks, Napolitano herself has even begun to speak of her “speed cameras” as a “solution” to the state’s budget woes. And this raises an important question: if Governor Napolitano is willing to reduce-down to a mere dollar figure the punishment assigned to the “crime” of speeding, will Secretary Napolitano be willing to place a mere price tag on the crime of terrorism?

Troops doing nothing at the international border. Driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. Crime and punishment reduced to dollars and cents. This is Arizona homeland security, Napolitano style. Is America ready?

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Because we have taken a hard line line on illegal immigration, as Gov. Romney did during the 2008 primary season, we have had to defend our positions on illegal immigration on several occasions.

One debate point that has come up frequently is: “What are you going to do, get 12 million people on buses and drive them back to the Mexican border?” The answer is: “We won’t have to do anything. Just turn off the jobs magnet and they will deport themselves.”

Turning off the jobs magnet produces results in two stages. The first stage is that, as the article states, the word gets out fast that the United States of America is not hiring and so illegals don’t come here in the first place. The second stage is that illegals already here will start self-deporting as they lose their jobs and are unable to find other work because of e serious recession. In fact, their was a report several months ago that the government estimated that over 75,000 illegals had already left the country voluntarily.

When you can escape the mismanagement of your own economy by a corrupt government, come here for wages that are 10 times what you can get back home, receive free medical care at tax payer expense and up until a few months ago, buy a new home with no money down, no credit check, while earning $10/hr., why on earth would you not come here???

They did come here, in droves, but we can now see very clearly that we, with the help of insane government policies and subsidies, created a fool’s paradise. As anyone who has to work for a living can tell you, paradise is emptying out.

~~John Cronin~~

By CAM SIMPSON

WASHINGTON – Illegal immigration to the U.S. may be slowing, but undocumented migrants who are already here aren’t likely to return home en masse barring a more severe economic downturn, according to a study to be released Wednesday by the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.
The nonpartisan group also found that the recession hasn’t limited legal immigration, because most of those people come to the U.S. on family-based visas that take years to secure.

Demographers have found since last year that the growth of the foreign-born population in the U.S. began slowing when the recession started at the end of 2007. Net illegal immigration is dropping to near zero, according to the institute and other groups. [Editor's note: emphasis mine]

But Wednesday’s study concludes that it is premature to expect a wave of returnees to home countries, even in Latin America. The study looked at current and historical data, finding “there is no definitive trend so far that can be tied in a significant way to the U.S. economic conditions.”
Instead, the institute found that even in the toughest economic times, illegal immigrants are likely to search for lower-paying work, then move within the U.S. to find other work, before considering a return home. Economic conditions in their native countries compared with those inside the U.S. also weigh more heavily in decisions about whether to return, the study’s lead author, Dimitrios Papademetriou, said.

Write to Cam Simpson at cam.simpson@wsj.com

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Can you believe this guy? He passes up Mitt Romney, takes the GOP down in flames in the general election, supports the environmental whacko’s global warming cap and trade jive, backs a No Illegal Alien Left Behind Amnesty, won’t support the woman he told us was qualified to be a heart beat away from the Presidency just a few weeks ago and now the little b*****d is criticizing the Party that gave him a shot at the Presidency!! Unbelievable, just unbelievable. I don’t ever want to hear his name and the Presidency mentioned in the same paragraph again.

~~John Cronin~~

CNN) – Sen. John McCain said Sunday he would not necessarily support his former running mate if she chose to run for president.

Speaking to ABC’s “This Week,” McCain was asked whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin could count on his support.

“I can’t say something like that. We’ve got some great other young governors. I think you’re going to see the governors assume a greater leadership role in our Republican Party,” he said.

McCain was pressed on why he can’t promise support for the woman who, just months ago, he named as the second best person to lead the nation.

In his first Sunday political TV appearance since November 4, McCain also promised to work to build consensus in tackling America’s challenges, and criticized his own party for its latest attack on Obama.

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Polls this far out are more important for their entertainment value than for anything else, but they do offer a very general guide for “taking the Party’s temperature.”

On two unrelated notes, did you see where Louisiana has graced the Republican Party with two seats this year? Rep. Jefferson, the scandal-tainted Democrat who evidently foresaw the banking crisis by a couple of years and providentially deposited $100,000 in cold, hard cash in the freezer compartment of his refrigerator, was unceremoniously turned out of office. We have got a long way to go, but we are moving in the right direction.

On the second note, we went out to dinner last night at a new Mexican restaurant in a St. Louis suburb and except for a couple we saw dining in another area, the four of us were the only customers during what should have been the dinner rush. Because it was so slow, we had a chance to visit with our waiter and the manager of the restaurant, both from Mexico.

The waiter didn’t speak much English and he was talking to my brother and a friend of his, while I got into a conversation with the manager about, what else, politics.

He was against the war in Iraq, citing a documentary he saw about the war which showed the wounds that our service personnel are enduring and I saw the pain in his eyes as he recalled the footage. I told him we all wish the war was over and that the killing and casualties would stop.

But I told him that there are worse things than war. I asked him to keep in mind that Islamofascists flew two airliners into the Trade Towers in lower Manhattan and killed almost 3,000 innocent people whose only offense were that they were Americans. If we didn’t respond to that, the terrorists would have taken it as a sign of weakness and would have kept coming at us here, where we live. Instead of rolling over for them, we took the fight to their neighborhood, brought democracy to 50,000,000 people and secured the world’s oil supply. All in all, not bad.

We talked about the economy, the moral decline in America, his background of moving to Mexico from Spain and then from Mexico to California. He is a hard working guy, ( I could tell from his handshake that he has done a great deal of manual labor ) loves his family and is very worried about the direction that his adopted country is moving in. At the end of the conversation, I could tell that he is about a quarter of an inch away from becoming a Republican voter. His values are the same as the members of this site and I will encourage the RNC to reach out to these voters, not by promising the illegals something they haven’t earned, but by asking them to join a conservative party that will promise to enforce the law and help to restore, first to the Party and then to the country, the principles that made us the greatest civilization on earth.

~~John Cronin~~

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/2008_12_05_Poll_finds_Romney_in_good_shape_for_White_House_run/

By Dave Wedge

Former Bay State Gov. Mitt Romney’s bruising battle with Sen. John McCain has apparently left him in a good position should he decide to make another White House run in 2012.

According to a CNN poll released today, Romney is running third among possible Republican presidential candidates, slightly trailing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Of the 460 Republicans polled, 67 percent said they would be “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to vote for Palin, followed by Huckabee with 65 percent and Romney with 61.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani ranked fourth with 57 percent, former House Speaker Newt

Gingrich with 52, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal with 44 and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist with 32.
Huckabee, who’s now hosting a Fox News show and recently put out a book, ranked first among those who said they’d be “very likely” to vote for him with 34 percent. Palin was second with 32 percent followed by Romney with 28.

Crist had the most opposition with 20 percent saying they were “not likely at all” to vote for him. Gingrich followed with 19 percent while just 13 percent said it was unlikely they’d vote for Romney.

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Several months ago when I posted here that I was going to write-in Mitt Romney’s name on my Missouri ballot, I was thinking ahead to the day when I would see a headline very similar to the one that THEHILL.COM just used for their article.

I did everything in my power to prevent John McCain from becoming the Republican Party’s nominee. I did so primarily because of his wrong headed support of a policy that will further add to this county’s unbelievable debt and financial problems, and that is the coming amnesty for the illegal immigrants who have flouted our laws and who have hired criminal smugglers to get them into this country. Now, if Dingy Harry Reid, Obama and John “Landslide” McCain get their way, these folks will be rewarded for their criminal activity by becoming US citizens, just in time to start collecting unemployment benefits. Is it any wonder that this country is in the pathetic shape it’s in? How could it be any different? We have violated every principle of economics, we have wasted money on every useless, feckless and pointless government program devised by the human mind and now, to add the icing to the bankruptcy cake, we will make another push for a general amnesty for illegal aliens.

Congratulations Sen. McCain, you have not disappointed me. You have done PRECISELY what I expected you to do. BTW, for those of you who observed on these pages the deafening silence during McCain’s anemic campaign regarding the illegal immigration issue, this move toward amnesty will, of course, not shock any of you. We all knew exactly why this was not being debated. The answer is that there was nothing to debate. Both Obama and McCain were totally on board this train, we all knew it, and that is why I would have written in Romney’s name if my state allowed it.

The fix was in. I saw it coming and as I wrote here months ago, it really didn’t matter who got elected, we were going to have another amnesty bill shoved down our throats, regardless.

Now, once again, it is up to the voters to turn the screws down on the thumbs of their Congressional delegations and let them know that you are in favor of the rule of law and that you will demand that they enforce our border laws and that you will eject them from office if they fail to follow your directives. We must keep in mind that these people work for us and that we will fire their lame posteriors if they don’t meet our expectations.

~~John Cronin~~

http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2008/11/25/reid-obamamccain-agreement-on-immigration/

President-elect Barack Obama and his former general election rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), have come to an agreement on immigration, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid told the Detroit Free Press in a recent interview.
Reid said the two standard-bearers have agreed to move forward on immigration legislation during Obama’s White House tenure.

“On immigration, there’s been an agreement between Obama and McCain to move forward on that,” Reidsaid when how Congress would handle immigration and healthcare with expanded Democratic majorities and Obama in the White House.

Early on in their general election campaign, both McCain and Obama pledged to enact sweeping immigration reforms. McCain attempted to pass a massive immigration bill during the last Congress, forging alliances with such heavyweights as Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and President Bush. McCain proposed granting a pathway to citizenship for illegal resident aliens and ramping up security efforts along the U.S./Mexico border. The effort failed.

When asked if immigration reform would cause “as much of a fight” in Congress the next time it comes up, Reid cited McCain as a key GOP ally who could enable Democrats to enact reforms.
“We’ve got McCain and we’ve got a few others. I don’t expect much of a fight at all,” Reid said.
The Detroit Free Press posted Reid’s interview to its website Sunday.

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If you are not familiar with the story behind Jason Chaffetz and the conservative principles that motivate his candidacy, please invest the time to acquaint yourself with the Utah Republican that I consider to be a Mitt Romney clone.

~~John Cronin~~

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/285061/1/

On one hand, Jason Chaffetz wants to pinch himself.

After all, the 41-year-old Alpine resident accomplished the unexpected. In the June primary, he defeated six-term incumbent Chris Cannon to become the Republican candidate for Congress in Utah’s 3rd District.

But, on the other hand, the former Brigham Young University football player expected the victory.
“I’m a very confident person,” he said. “I know if I apply myself and give it 110 percent I can do it. I don’t want to sound cocky, but if not me, who?”

A product of the West, Chaffetz was born in California, attended grade school in Arizona and graduated high school in Colorado. Recruited by then BYU football coach LaVell Edwards as a place kicker, Chaffetz joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in college and hasn’t left Utah since.

After finishing college with a degree in communications, Chaffetz joined Nu Skin as an intern. He would stay at Nu Skin for nearly 11 years, moving up the ladder and holding titles such as managing director of marketing and product development and general manager for Australia and New Zealand.

Since leaving Nu Skin in 2000, he has worked at several other companies including at Covol Fuels, now Headwaters Energy Services. He now owns his own marketing business, Maxtera, with his brother Alex. Maxtera’s clients include Ford, Omni brokerage and Orchard securities, Chaffetz said.
Chaffetz says he didn’t plan on going into politics, though he’d been involved in political campaigns, even serving as co-chairman in 1988 of Dukakis for Utah. Chaffetz’s father, John, had married and divorced Kitty Dukakis before she married then Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.

His conversion to the Republican Party happened over time, he said, starting while working during the 1988 presidential race. That’s when he says he discovered that he fit in better with Republicans. But the change was complete when he met Ronald Reagan in 1990, when Reagan came to Nu Skin as a motivational speaker.

Years later, another politician would change Chaffetz’s political life — Jon Huntsman Jr.
“… I thought I could put up a few yard signs,” he said. “That pretty much changed my life.”
In 2004, Chaffetz was angling for a job, any job, with Huntsman’s gubernatorial campaign. He had volunteered for other campaigns in previous years, including U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon’s in 1996, going so far as to write a letter to the editor lauding him as the best man for the 3rd District seat.

While Chaffetz hadn’t played a significant role in any of those previous campaigns, he was eventually chosen as Huntsman’s director of communications. Huntsman surprised him during a trip to Fillmore by asking him to take the next step and become his campaign manager. Shortly after rolling to victory in the state’s general election, Huntsman asked Chaffetz to stay on as his chief of staff, a job he freely acknowledges he wasn’t qualified for. While Huntsman would eventually tell the Deseret News in 2005 that Chaffetz was the “most gifted political strategist I have ever encountered,” his stint as chief of staff was both short and rocky.

He left after less than a year — the official line was “to pursue other business opportunities” and to nurse a badly broken foot that happened in a fall at home.

“Those two years working with Huntsman, the political bug bit me,” he said. “I thought, ‘I can do this, and I can do this better than Chris Cannon can.’”

He set his sights on defeating Cannon early.

“In early 2007 instead of riding my bike I was down in my basement, calling delegates,” he said. “More than a year before the convention I was driving to Richfield to meet three people. Good old-fashioned hard work — there’s no substitute for it.”

Statistically — 98 percent of incumbents in the House of Representatives win their races — and financially — Cannon outspent him by $600,000 — Chaffetz’s chances for victory were slim.

“We really changed the equation,” he said. “Traditionally big dollars plus big name identification might mean big victory. But now policy plus principle plus good old-fashioned hard work equals big victory.”

Chaffetz is where he is today because, as he put it, he raised his hand.

“So few people raise their hands but those that do make a big difference. A big part of my life is raising my hand when most others wouldn’t — it’s how I became place kicker, it’s how I became Jon Huntsman Jr.’s chief of staff, it’s how I became candidate, it’s how I met my wife.”

Now that he’s raised his hand to become the 3rd District’s congressman, the father of three has plans to revamp some of Cannon’s policies. His biggest plans are for immigration.

In September, the candidate faced heat for his suggestion that illegal immigrants should be detained in tent cities surrounded by barbed wire. Chaffetz says that his plan has been misunderstood or deliberately misconstrued.

“I want to enforce the law. And I’m sure that far-left, liberal Democrats like [New Mexico Gov.] Bill Richardson and Bennion Spencer don’t like it,” he said. Spencer is one of Chaffetz’s opponents in the 3rd District. “I’ve never said I want to round up people based on their ethnicity and throw them in a tent.”

He has since stated he regrets using the word “tent.”

“I can do better calling them eco-friendly, highly portable, low-cost detention facilities,” Chaffetz said. He now points to structures like those built by Utah company Sprung Instant Structures as a model. “You don’t go down to Cabela’s to get these things.”

Still, his stance on immigration remains the same, even calling for the elimination of birthright citizenship if the parents are illegal.

“We can’t reward illegal behavior,” he said. “We must hold people accountable when they break our laws. But we must also be accountable for the poor policy decisions that got us where we are. My priorities are to fix legal immigration, reject amnesty, secure the border and enforce our current laws. We must remove incentives to come here illegally and give businesses the tools to stay in compliance with the law.”

He’d also like to retool Cannon’s fiscal policies.

“Over the 12 years that he was in office, our budget doubled. There’s nothing conservative about that,” Chaffetz said. “We have to rein in spending.”

Saying that how a candidate runs his campaign is indicative of how he will be in office, Chaffetz is most proud of the fact that he has run his campaign debt free. His campaign has raised more than $359,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a group that tracks money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy.

In July, Chaffetz flew to Alaska and met with Gov. Sarah Palin to see the Artic National Wildlife Refuge and said he returned “more in favor of drilling domestically than ever.”

“We need to extract oil shale in Utah and on the continental shelf and I think we can do it in an environmentally friendly way.”

Although his opponent, Spencer, a Riverton resident, criticizes him for not living within the 3rd District, Chaffetz says, “I have a lot more in common with Utah County than anywhere else. We’re lifers here, we’re not moving.”

And while he admits confidence comes easy to him, Chaffetz said it will be humbling to represent 850,000 people.

“Hopefully I can stay grounded and represent Utah to Washington not Washington to Utah.”

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http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/us-stocks-end-sharply-lower/story.aspx?guid={D42C3BA8-E4C4-4A58-9435-4D47A857CF64}

By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) – Stocks on Tuesday wavered in and out of positive terrain with investors in limbo with further hearings Wednesday on the Bush administration’s $700 billion proposal to relieve banks of bad debt and bring back the troubled credit markets.

“Investors remain reluctant to stick their necks out too far, even as policy-makers meet to discuss the proposed bailout plan. A nagging fear of ‘what ifs’ is also weighing on sentiment,” said Frederic Ruffy, options strategist at WhatsTrading.com.

After triple digit rises and declines during the session, the Dow Jones Industrial Averages fell 161.51 points, or 1.5%, to end at 10,854.17, with all but three of it’s 30 components ending in the red.

In other news….

The WSJ reports that immigration levels have fallen 50% from last year’s level. Over the last several years, the U.S. had about one million immigrants come here annually, many of them illegally. The combination of high-profile law enforcement raids and the soft economy has discouraged many from coming here and has motivated upwards of 1.2 million already here to self-deport. One illegal immigrant said, “Why stay here when we don’t have papers and there is no work? We are thinking of going back after the first of the year.”

When ever we are tempted to get discouraged in the political process because our first pick, Mitt Romney, didn’t win the nomination, ask yourself this question: Where would we be today, if we had allowed the Washington elites to cram their amnesty bill down our throats in June, 2007? All these newly minted citizens would now be on welfare or collecting unemployment benefits or both. All of this would be going on in the midst of the worst credit crunch and Wall Street shakeout of our lifetimes. In addition to the trillion plus bailout of the gambling, er, I mean financial industry, we would now have millions of new entitlement clients lining up at government offices to collect their benefits.

I don’t know how everybody else feels, but I am very encouraged that political activism can work wonders when enough people get involved. IMHO, those of use who leaned hard on our elected Reps helped the U.S. dodge a bullet on this one.

One More Thing…..

THE HUNT FOR BLACK GOLD….CNBC Stocks Fox Maria Bartiromo will interview VP candidate Sarah Palin Wednesday, Sept. 24 at 9 PM ET/10 PM PT

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On the face of it, the idea of putting illegal aliens in tent cities while they await deportation, seems mean spirited, but I honestly believe Jason Chaffetz is acknowledging reality. Number one, their presence here is a national security issue for the simple reason that we don’t know the backgrounds of the people crossing our borders and for what I hope is the obvious fact that we must enforce the rule of law or else return to the law of the jungle where only the strong survive. Number two, Jason realizes that the country is going broke, witness the carnage on Wall Street from the week just past. We can’t afford to build gold-plated jails for people who are only going to be here for a short time. Unless we start to run this country the same way most Americans run their households, in other words, take care of the basics, protect your families, work hard and balance your budget, while saving for the future, we as a nation will eventually suffer the same fate as the irresponsible Wall St. gamblers. Broke, busted, belly up.

~~John Cronin~~

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700259998,00.html

PROVO—If special-interest groups want to talk about his suggestion to hold illegal immigrants in tent cities, Jason Chaffetz said Thursday they should talk to him and stop sending press releases.
The Japanese American Citizens League is the latest group to criticize Chaffetz, the Republican with a prohibitive lead in the race to win Utah’s 3rd District seat in Congress.

“Mr. Chaffetz has fumbled the ball on the important issue of immigration and turned it into an engine of fear towards immigrants,” JACL National Executive Director Floyd Mori wrote in a press release issued Wednesday.

Chaffetz said the JACL has not contacted him and didn’t even send the press release to him.

“They haven’t even tried to talk to me,” Chaffetz said. “I’d be happy to sit down and explain my position on immigration. My immediate reaction is that press release is based on bogus lies intended to inflame media coverage.”

The Western Governors Association has proposed construction of regional correctional facilities to hold immigrants convicted of crimes. Chaffetz has suggested tent cities surrounded by barbed wire instead, as a way to cut costs.

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Congratulations to readers 2thePoint and Evelio Perez for helping to keep the issue of illegal immigration alive. They said in their comments that the issue was noticeable by it’s absence at the recently ended Republican Convention. I assume the political consultants employed by the campaign “focus-grouped” it and decided to keep the spotlight off the issue, fearing a back lash from Hispanic voters. As Evelio points out, he is an American of Cuban descent and his prescription for the border as an Hispanic is to CLOSE IT!

~~John Cronin~~

2thePoint Says

We all know where Romney stood on illegal immigration - an issue so vital to our nation’s security. Illegal aliens were not mentioned by either party’s Pres/VP candidates during their speeches at the Repub or Dem conventions. I want to hear specifics from McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden on how they plan to build and enforce a REAL border, what to do with the millions of aliens in America, their opinions on “anchor babies” given automatic U.S. citizenship, how they would handle the increasing violence on the US/Mexican border due to Mexican organized criminals attempting to establish a significant presence in the U.S., and their opinions on the incarcerations of U.S. border agents Jose Alonso Compean to 12 years in prison and Ignacio Ramos to 11 years.
Our past and present methods of dealing with our borders are a real and present threat to every American. The United States can not pretend for four more years that these issues are going to be solved without making DRASTIC changes.

2thePoint Says:

September 7th, 2008 at 10:11 am edit
Our past and current methods of enforcing our borders are woefully ineffective. Our border patrol agents are to be commended, but our cellophane borders and the perpetual inundation of illegal aliens are a real and present danger to every American.

EVELIO PEREZ Says:

September 7th, 2008 at 10:27 am edit
2THEPOINT , You sooooo right , could we have our first Mexican-American president in the near future ? Probably , our way of life is being attacked from all borders and our leaders seem to welcome them with open arms . You are correct, none of the candidates have said word one from our biggest threat , illegal immigration . I am a Cuban , but an American first , close the borders now or face the consequences later.
I hope that Mitt Romney again leads the charge in the illegal immigration fiasco , this could be a good catapult to the Presidency on 2012 .

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