La Raza

In an item about how Arizona Senator John McCain is sticking to his characterization of illegal immigrants as "illegal," Kevin Cirilli at the Politico relayed without the least bit of skepticism a claim by illegal-immigrant advocates that those who enter the country illegally should only be called "illegal" if they have previously been deported, and that those who illegally overstay their visas really aren't acting illegally at all.

McCain's current position (who knows what it will be tomorrow or a week for now?), as quoted by Cirilli, is that "Someone who crosses our borders illegally is here illegally. You can call it whatever you want to, but it’s illegal. I think there’s a big difference between someone who does something that’s illegal and someone who’s undocumented. I’ll continue to call it illegal.” Illegal-immigrant advocates -- incorrectly, as will be seen -- don't see it that way (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Stephen Colbert channeled the mother and teacher from the classic "A Christmas Story" on Thursday's Colbert Report, as he made fun of a proposed dormitory for undergraduates with gun permits at the University of Colorado. The only thing missing from his left-wing stereotypes of gun owners as trigger-happy yahoos was the famous "you'll shoot your eye out" line.

Colbert cracked that the move from the mountain state school would "forever ensur[e] that no one will think of it as a safety school." After pointing out that not one student had signed up for the dorm, he snarked, "Come on! This is college! It's time to get crazy - do shots, take shots, get shot....live a little - if not very long." As you might expect, CBS This Morning spotlighted the Colbert sketch on Friday. [audio available here; video below the jump]

For MSNBC, Gov. Rick Perry's (R-Texas) record of enforcing existing law, protecting the border, and implementing "only a limited version" of the DREAM Act constitutes an "aggressive stance" on immigration that "may cost him some votes" in the Hispanic community, even though Perry's position on the DREAM Act is considered moderate within the Republican Party.

MSNBC fill-in anchor Craig Melvin on Tuesday quoted a Democratic mayor in Texas who called Perry's record "easily the most anti-Latino agenda in more than a generation" and brought on an adviser for the National Council for La Raza (NCLR) to criticize the presidential contender.

[Video follows page break]

MSNBC’s May 26 special on immigration reform, “A Nation Divided,” was replete with unbalanced interviews with liberal activists and one-sided segments featuring only liberal positions on the controversial issue.

MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer pitched softballs to Democrats Michael Nowakowski, vice mayor of Phoenix, and Raul Castro, former Arizona governor, without brining on guests to counter their liberal perspectives.

“The other thing that this really does is it puts businesses in the enforcement business, and responsible for making sure that their employees are here legally,” Brewer told Nowakowski. “The consequences for which could mean business owners lose their livelihoods.”

In the same interview, Brewer set up Nowakowski to bemoan the supposedly high cost of enforcing Arizona’s new immigration law, which empowers state authorities to inquire into a person’s legal status if there is reasonable suspicion that a person is in the country illegally.

Which is more newsworthy: hearsay accounts of racial slurs unsupported by video evidence of the alleged incident, or video of a protester calling for violent revolution against the federal government, the imposition of socialism, and the annexation of the Southwestern states for Mexico?

If you chose the latter, you're probably not a journalist of the self-proclaimed "mainstream" variety. The legacy media has been largely silent on video of Los Angles schoolteacher at a La Raza protest of the recently-passed Arizona immigration law literally calling for the violent overthrow of the United States government.

"There's 40 million potential revolutionaries north of the border, inside the belly of the beast," Los Angeles high school history teacher Ron Gochez told a frenzied crowd, referring to the 40 million Latin Americans in the United States. He went on to claim that teaching or writing a book "is not part of the movement," and that his followers needed to go a step further -- to literal revolution (video embedded below the fold - h/t Jawa Report).

The Pentagon rescinded the invitation of evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at its May 6 National Day of Prayer event because of complaints about his previous comments about Islam.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation expressed its concern over Graham's involvement with the event in an April 19 letter sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. MRFF's complaint about Graham, the son of Rev. Billy Graham, focused on remarks he made after 9/11 in which he called Islam "wicked" and "evil" and his lack of apology for those words.

Col. Tom Collins, an Army spokesman, told ABC News on April 22, "This Army honors all faiths and tries to inculcate our soldiers and work force with an appreciation of all faiths and his past comments just were not appropriate for this venue."

A cover story in the June edition of Latino Magazine, discussed CBS Early Show co-host Maggie Rodriguez’s efforts to "...educate her peers on how to be cognizant of Latino viewers, by pushing stories about Latinos that are of interest to all Americans, as well as informing them of more humane and respectful labels – such as undocumented immigrant instead of illegal alien."

The story, written by Aida Bardales, quoted Rodriguez: "All you have to do is to mention it to them. If I wasn’t here, they wouldn’t think twice because forever ‘illegal alien’ was used and they didn’t put a face to that term." It went on to praise Rodriguez’s reporting on the 2008 conference of the left-wing Hispanic group La Raza: "Though she’s careful to not force irrelevant stories upon her viewers, she does feel a need to include the Latino perspective. When she was invited to host the National Council of La Raza’s Annual Conference in 2008, she saw it as opportunity to share the experience with "The Early Show" viewers."

Earlier in the story, Rodriguez argued that her ethnic background actually made her a better reporter on certain issues: "As Hispanics [we] will always give a more accurate representation of a Hispanic story...just because we understand the language and are part of the culture. We have a unique understanding of the people that an Anglo would not have."

**Video Below the Fold**

If you want to see how liberals in the media “do” their thing, nothing has been a better example than the analysis by CNN’s Jeffery Toobin. We’ve highlighted some on-air work of his Sotomayor coverage, but he also has a written piece on CNN.com that is a perfect example of how the left spins rhetoric to legitimize leftist precepts.

In his July 13 piece, for instance, Toobin calls Sotomayor a “cautious and careful liberal” like Ginsburg and Breyer. So, it makes one wonder, has Toobin ever called anyone on the right a “cautious and careful conservative”?

Margery Eagan of the Boston Herald has done it again. She's unleashed her deathless prose filled with soaring rhetoric and high concepts all revealing her infinite sagacity. OK, that was just sarcasm. In truth, Eagan has given us another example of the sort of low-end, guttural, sputterings that we have become so used to seeing drip like sour milk from her pen. Her latest Boston Herald piece is a prime example of the unprofessionalism that pervades her work.

In a posting titled "Men in throes of Supreme panic," Eagan gets into her best name calling mode against all those eeeevil "white men" out there that might find reason to oppose President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, a woman well known for positing that female Hispanics are inherently better judges than white men -- a sentiment that if reversed would be considered a racist statement.

If Barack Obama is looking for an elder statesman with national security credentials as his running mate, my two cents say he should pick Sam Nunn. The conventional wisdom, though, has Obama leaning toward Joe Biden.  If the senior senator from Delaware is indeed tapped, we can expect that mere milliseconds will elapse before some MSM outlet labels Biden a "moderate" or a "centrist."  

We thought it might be useful to do a little prophylactic exploration of the Biden record.  Given his long tenure in the Senate, he's earned literally hundreds of interest-group ratings over the years. But here is a representative sample, as culled from the invaluable Project Vote Smart. Although his "grades" have of course varied from year to year, overall we find—surprise!—that Biden is a garden-variety  liberal.

• NARAL - A [2006]
• Planned Parenthood - A [2006]
• National Right to Life Committee - 0% [2005-06]
• National Taxpayers Union - F [2007]

Continues . . .

On Tuesday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Maggie Rodriguez aired her interview with John McCain that followed his Monday speech to the National Council of La Raza and teased the segment by asking: "Up next, Senator John McCain, a maverick or a flip-flopper to Latinos?" During the interview, Rodriguez, who hosted the liberal La Raza conference, pressed McCain from the left on his immigration stance: "You championed a comprehensive immigration reform bill. But now as the nominee you admit you wouldn't vote for it if it came up today. Why not?" [audio excerpt available here]

After McCain explained that the legislation had failed twice due to lack of popular support, Rodriguez wondered: "The fact that it failed, does that tell you that the American people didn't want it or that your party didn't want it?" Rodriguez then followed up by quoting Obama campaign talking points: "Some political analysts say, and in fact, Senator Obama made the comments here yesterday, that when you became the nominee, when you could no longer risk alienating your conservative base, you started emphasizing border security over a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. What about that?"

When McCain later suggested that: "Americans want the confidence that we'll have secure borders. And then I believe the overwhelming majority of them will support a humane and compassionate approach to temporary worker program and to a comprehensive immigration reform." Rodriguez responded: "But securing the border could take years. What if it never happens? When will you get to comprehensive immigration reform?"

On Monday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Maggie Rodriguez reported from California and touted her role as emcee at the annual conference for the liberal Hispanic group La Raza: "The conference for the National Council of La Raza, the country's largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy group. Yesterday I hosted the luncheon in San Diego where Senator Barack Obama spoke to a crowd of thousands. Later today I will host the one where Senator McCain will be speaking."

At the top of the show, Rodriguez teased the segment by proclaiming: " Both John McCain and Barack Obama are reaching out to this voting bloc. And ahead this morning I'll tell you the 45 million reasons why they both covet the Hispanic vote." Later during the segment Rodriguez continued to emphasize the importance of the Hispanic vote: "From coast to coast, in countless corners of American cities, the Latino influence is undeniable. Latinos are the largest minority in this country. 45 million strong and growing. By 2050 that number's expected to almost triple to 128 million. And a growing Latino population means more influence for Latino voters."

Following that observation, Rodriguez played a clip of Arturo Vargas, Executive Director of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials, praising past immigration protests in the Hispanic community: "In 2008 we're culminating on several years of activism and mobilization of the Latino community. Just look back two years ago, with the 2006 marches, where millions of people took to the streets, many of them young people, who said today we march, tomorrow we vote. Well, tomorrow has arrived."

I'll say one thing for the Tribune Company's new "Chief Innovation Officer," Lee Abrams. He might not be able to solve the declining newspaper circulation problems but he is absolutely irrepressible in a very funny way. On the heels of his recent suggestion that the Los Angeles Times could solve some of its problems by repainting its news vans, we have yet another of Abrams' famous memos which goes in all directions powered by a generous dose of psychobabble. You might need to channel the late Timothy Leary to interpret Abrams' latest memo, THINK PIECE: BUSTING DENIALS AND ASSUMPTIONS,  issued last Monday which starts out with ideas about "re-imaging" the WGN Superstation, which is owned by the Tribune Co.,  and ultimately reaches the outer limits of the newspaper galaxy.

An April 7 CBS Evening News report on the health care monetary burden of illegal aliens on American taxpayers has just now drawn the ire and the fire of the two largest Hispanic grievance groups -- the National Council of La Raza (translation: "The Race") and the Mexican American Legal and Educational Fund (MAL (not Mos) DEF).

Byron Pitts' piece is fairly mild and pretty much down the middle of the fairway, and CBS News and their (for now) flagship girl Katie Couric deserve kudos for at least addressing the issue.

But the Latino Intolerance Duo (LID -- as in flipped their's) can not let stand unchallenged the reporting of the costs of the invasion. Pitts pointing out that someone somewhere (that would of course be us) must pick up the tab -- when the likes of Fabiola (the illegal alien mother featured in the story) does not -- is to them an "anti-Latino falsehood". They do not offer how or why something so obvious as this is either "anti-Latino" or a "falsehood" -- we are left to assume that their asserting it empirically makes it so.

On our end, there was bit of a bone to be picked with the Tiffany Network's numbers.

Taking the Reconquista concept all the way to the end, Absolut Vodka launched an ad campaign that appears on billboards and at least one magazine that features a map of the western U.S. and Mexico with nearly the entire west coast appearing as a part of Mexico. This ad appears in Quien Magazine, which is owned by Time Warner and also appears on billboards in Mexico. Quien claims a "total audience" of 513,000 readers in Mexico and the southwestern U.S.

The map covers what used to be Mexico's claimed borders before our 1846 war with them from which the U.S. took possession of California, Texas, New Mexico, etc. But, the ad shows those states as part of Mexico with the "Estados Unidos De America" situated to the north and east of the "Absolut World" Mexico.

In a day when immigration issues are incendiary between our two countries, Time Warner accepting ads that stirs Mexico's sentiments to "take back" parts of the U.S. (as the term Reconquista means) as their own territory is quite extraordinary.

On the New York Times's political blog this morning, Ariel Alexovich reported in a very mild tone on a very shocking speech by National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguia -- "A Call to End Hate Speech."

By calling to end "hate speech" (an inflammatory phrase the Times doesn't put in quotation marks), Murguia means that anyone harshly criticizing illegal immigrants -- specifically, mainstream opinion-makers like Sean Hannity on FOX News and Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck of CNN -- should be removed from the air waves.

"The head of the country's largest Latino civil rights organization called on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News to stop providing a forum for pundits who consistently disparage the documented and undocumented Hispanic immigrant population.

Can the Associated Press distinguish between racial supremacy groups and civil rights groups? Apparently not. AP writer Maria Sudekum Fisher covers the appointment of 73 year old Frances Semler to Kansas City's parks board, which Fisher opposes because Semler is a member of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. As Fisher writes,

But Frances B. Semler's appointment could now cost the city millions of dollars because she is a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a group that advocates vigilante patrolling of the Mexican border and reports illegal immigrants to authorities.

Which would you find more desirable in your community: a group that advocates to abide by U.S. law, or one that advocates to break U.S. law? Well, leave it to an American newspaper to present a story as if a member of a group that advocates for America is a less desirable person in the community than a member of a group that promotes ideas against America. In a story on the La Raza Council's threat to move their annual convention out of Kansas City, Missouri, the Kansas City Star has labeled the patriot group The Minutemen a "militant group" yet nowhere is there harsh labels in their story for La Raza, the Hispanic illegal immigrant advocates. In fact, La Raza is treated like a completely respectable organization throughout the story with the Minutemen treated as if they should be something to be ashamed of.