Immigration

Linda Greenhouse, former Supreme Court reporter for the Times, got soppy in defense of Arizona's illegal immigrants in "The Lower Floor" her latest biweekly column posted Wednesday evening. Apparently Supreme Court justices were remiss last week when they focused on arguing the law, as opposed to reciting Robert Frost and giving in to sympathetic anecdotes about "the simply humanity" of illegals (or, in Greenhouse's politically correct terminology, "undocumented residents").

(Greenhouse has famously argued that Supreme Court's Obama-care opponents have no case, even after Obama-care was annihilated in oral argument before the justices.)

New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel is still searching out electoral problems for Republicans among Hispanics: "Crucial to Romney, Florida’s Latino Voters Are Wary of Him, Too."

If Mitt Romney is to overcome his problem with Hispanic voters, he is going to have to start by changing a lot of minds in central Florida.

A key battleground in a vital swing state, the region is home to growing numbers of non-Cuban Hispanics who have always been viewed by Republicans as open to their economic and social views but reluctant to back the party in part because of its position on illegal immigration. With Mr. Romney having taken hawkish stances on immigration during the primary season, he and his campaign are now trying to shift the debate to what they feel will be friendlier terrain -- jobs.

Reporter-turned-liberal columnist Dana Milbank is incensed that Antonin Scalia is, well, being himself. The Washington Post scribe -- who infamously appeared on a February 2006 Countdown with Keith Olbermann in hunting gear to mock Vice President Dick Cheney, who accidentally shot a friend during a hunting excursion -- slammed the Reagan-appointed associate justice for "verbally lacerat[ing] anybody" who "was [not] a champion of the Arizona [immigration] crackdown."

"Scalia's tart tongue has been a fixture on the bench for years, but as the justices venture this year into highly political areas such as health-care reform and immigration, the divisive and pugilistic style of the senior associate justice is very much defining the public image of the Roberts Court," Milbank complained in his April 26 column.

There are politically motivated hearings every day on Capitol Hill. So why did the New York Times single out one in particular for coverage? Likely because it was led by liberal Sen. Chuck Schumer and exploting the Times' favorite cause, the defense of illegal immigrants.

Immigration-beat reporter Julia Preston, one of the paper's most reliably pro-amnesty reporters, authored Wednesday's "Fierce Debate on Arizona Immigration Law on Eve of Supreme Court Hearing."

Other than "climate change," no issue brings out the New York Times's liberal bias more than illegal immigration. Thursday Times reporter Fernanda Santos piled on the pro-illegal immigrant tropes in her story from Phoenix, "In Arizona, Immigrants Make Plans In Shadows." Santos claims an Arizona law "seeks to push illegal immigrants out of the state by making it hard for them to go about their lives and earn a living." The paper has used that sympathetic description in several purportedly objective news stories about illegal immigrants.

Another beloved Times cliche: "shadows." The Times loves to call up the image of illegal immigrants cowering "in the shadows" -- the phrase has cropped up in several news stories, though it doesn't seem to jive with the massive pro-amnesty street demonstrations put on my immigrant supporters (and the photos of illegals that constantly grace the paper, like the one below).

On Monday Julia Preston, one of the New York Times's most reliably pro-amnesty reporters, slid into Denver bureau chief Kirk Johnson's usual slot of using a news story to promote a different kind of Western Republican (i.e. not one of those harsh conservatives), in this case Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who is "A Die-Hard Conservative, but Not on Immigrants."

He is a Republican and a Mormon. He opposes abortion. Mark L. Shurtleff, the attorney general of Utah, also rejects President Obama’s health care law as an assault on states’ rights and he went to Washington last week to urge the Supreme Court to throw it out.

Leave it to the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Propagandists, to cover for Barack Obama's Uncle Omar, formally known as Onyango Obama. Today, Uncle Omar was given a slap on the wrists so light it's hard to imagine he even felt it.

Today's AP cleanup in Massachusetts arrives via Denise Lavoie, whose principal contribution to the spin is to tell readers that Uncle Omar is "appealing a deportation order," when in fact he ignored an order for 19 years until his arrest for "operating under the influence" in August of last year. Excerpts, including the "say as little as possible" headline, follow:

What does the New York Times have against Texas A&M, a rare public university whose student body leans right? Manny Fernandez reported Saturday from the campus in College Station, on an illegal immigrant who lost his bid for student body president: "Vying for Campus President, Illegal Immigrant Gets a Gamut of Responses." Who was to blame? A conservative student body who made him feel unwelcome.

Jose Luis Zelaya stood with a crowd of other students waiting to hear the news. It was election day at Texas A&M University here, and he was running for student body president. A victory for Mr. Zelaya, a 24-year-old graduate student from Honduras, would make history at Texas A&M: He would become its first Hispanic student body president -- and the first illegal immigrant to hold the position.

Concluding a dramatically slanted discussion on immigration on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, host David Gregory grilled Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on a recent argument with President Obama and her declining an invitation to a White House party, insisting: "Are you showing disrespect for the office of the presidency?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

In the lead-up conversation to that question, Gregory lobbed softballs to California Democratic Governor Jerry Brown while declaring to Governor Brewer that the Republican stance on immigration, including Arizona's "very tough immigration law," are a "big part of the problem" in the GOP attracting Hispanic voters.

Tuesday’s lead New York Times editorial lambasting the GOP field as fringe and extremist on illegal immigration (“Immigration and the Campaign – President Obama is less than inspiring, but the Republicans have abandoned all principle”) sounded a bit like the paper’s supposedly objective news coverage of the issue, which it insists on calling “immigration,” not “illegal immigration.”

Republicans are deceitfully playing with words to avoid being slammed as homophobes, racists, and bigots, claimed CNN contributor L.Z. Granderson on Tuesday morning's Newsroom. Anchor Kyra Phillips simply let Granderson air his liberal diatribe without any challenge, and no conservative guest was brought on to respond.

Republicans "aren't fighting for Muslims and mosques," said Granderson of their claims of "religious freedom," but simply "fighting for Christianity." [Video below. Click here for audio.]

After warning for years of the dangers posed by the Religious Right in politics, the New York Times is suddenly interested in injecting Mormon (and Catholic) religion into politics, at least when it comes to pet issues like amnesty for illegal immigrants. The top of Friday’s National section featured religion reporter Laurie Goodstein’s “Romney’s Tough Immigration View Is at Odds With His Church.”

There was no “I Wouldn't Buy the Underwear Just Yet” mockery of Mormons this time. And while the paper aimed a harsh front-page spotlight on the Mormon church for its involvement in passing California’s Proposition 8, which preserved the state ban on gay marriage, Goodstein has no criticism of its involvement in the Democratic-friendly cause of amnesty.

Once again, CNN sympathized with an illegal immigrant supporting the largely Democratic-sponsored DREAM Act. Anchor Brooke Baldwin on Tuesday hailed "DREAMer" Mayra Hidalgo who blistered Republicans for their rigidity on immigration.

Baldwin let Hidalgo air this message to certain Republican candidates: "Do you even have a heart?" The immigrant directed her ire at Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney for saying an illegal immigrant would have to serve in the military to earn citizenship. "You're messing with people's lives," she ranted. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

So a guy whose contract was terminated by NPR on a phony pretext for not toeing the liberal line enough, including writing a book ("Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It") which indicted the modern civil-rights movement for, well, undermining Black America, now appears to want eliminate "Constitution" and "Founding Fathers" from the lexicon of Republican candidates -- and possibly, it would appear, from political discussion in general -- because, well, they're racial code words. How ironic.

That is what Juan Williams outrageously claims in his latest column at the Hill today (bold is mine):

New York Times reporter Helene Cooper, touring the West with the president, claimed that the dust-up between Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer and President Obama on an airport tarmac in Phoenix could help him among Hispanics: “In Airport Run-In, Democrats See Help for Obama Among Hispanics.”

A flattering photo from Las Vegas of Obama and some star-struck preteens was just part of the spin in her Friday story:

By daring to stand up for herself in recent exchange with President Obama, the media quickly labeled Arizona Governor Jan Brewer a villain. On Thursday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams was aghast: "Who have you ever seen talking to the president like this?....The governor of Arizona with her finger in the face of the President of the United States. You don't see that often or maybe ever." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Reporter Norah O'Donnell chided the governor of Arizona on Thursday, insisting, "...It's [Jan] Brewer's finger that has tongues wagging." All three networks highlighted a confrontation between the Republican and Barack Obama at a Phoenix tarmac. However, CBS, NBC and ABC ignored the context of the conflict, the Justice Department's lawsuit against the state's illegal immigration law.

The This Morning reporter suggested Brewer's recounting of a 2010 White House meeting was inconsistent. After a clip of Brewer describing the "cordial discussion," O'Donnell corrected, "Yet, a year later in her book, she recalled that same meeting quite differently." (On Amazon.com, Scorpions for Breakfast jumped 211 percent in sales after Wednesday's incident.)

HBO’s Bill Maher said Friday that members of the Tea Party support Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich because he’s racist like them.

Fortunately for the small portion of Real Time viewers with a brain, the Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis was there to set the ignorant host straight (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

As he appeared on Friday's The O'Reilly Factor, FNC's Geraldo Rivera complained that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney never mentions that his father, George Romney, was born in Mexico while campaigning as the "most virulent anti-illegal immigration person ever," and ended up calling the former Massachusetts governor a "hypocrite." (Video below)

On NBC's Rock Center on Monday, correspondent Mike Taibbi led the broadcast with a report on Mitt Romney's family roots in Mexico: "It's a little known fact that there's a whole branch of Mitt's family living right here in Mexico, including his second cousin, Layton Romney." [Audio available here]

Following the report, host Brian Williams used the story to discuss Mitt Romney's stance on illegal immigration, observing: "And couldn't you make the case the family tree is an aspect of the Dream Act?" Taibbi agreed: "Absolutely. I mean, his father [George Romney] could be the poster boy for the Dream Act." [View video after the jump]

CNN's Soledad O'Brien tried to make race an issue on Tuesday where there was no conflict to begin with, and she continued thumping Republicans over immigration on Wednesday. O'Brien asked candidate Mitt Romney if he was simply driving Latino voters to Obama with his immigration stance, and brought up the issue again in a later interview.

In her interview with Romney, O'Brien cited his opposition to the Dream Act and noted the large Latino voting bloc in Florida, the site of an upcoming GOP primary. "You know immigration is a big issue for Latino voters. When you tackle that, when you say something like that very publicly and very strongly, are you essentially handing those voters off to President Obama?" she pressed the candidate. [Video below the break.]

On Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Tom Brokaw asked Perry, Iowa resident Eddie Diaz: "Were you accepted right away by the community?" Brokaw explained: "Diaz is a Perry high school teacher, part of a growing Hispanic population....Eddie could go elsewhere, but he likes Perry, which he says is more moderate, politically and culturally, than the candidates realize."

Brokaw touted how Diaz lectured Michele Bachmann at a campaign event: "Recently he challenged Michele Bachmann for her hard line on immigration." Diaz argued: "Why would you choose to punish these kids?...Because every election cycle, immigration is used as a punching bag, and it's just so easy to demonize people."

Wednesday's CBS Evening News featured a report by correspondent Mark Strassmann playing up the reservations that some are having about the new law to strictly enforce immigration laws in Alabama.

After noting that a poll supposedly shows that Latino voters are dissatisfied because the Obama administration has deported record numbers of illegal immigrants, substitute anchor Jeff Glor introduced Strassmann's piece by playing up the "second thoughts" that some supporters of the law are having: "Mark Strassmann went to Alabama, where some are having second thoughts now about a tough new law."

(Video below)

CBS's Bob Schieffer displayed his liberal leanings on Sunday's Face the Nation when he raised the issue of illegal immigration. Schieffer claimed during an interview of Newt Gingrich that "Mitt Romney has taken such a hard line, it seems to me, on immigration that some within the Republican Party are saying he is simply running off Hispanic voters."

The journalist asked Gingrich for his take on this claim about halfway through the half-hour long interview. Gingrich replied, "I'm not going on comment on Governor Romney," and simply recited his policy recommendations on illegal immigration. When the candidate stated near the end of his answer that "I do not believe the American people are going to send police out to round up folks who have been here 25 years," Schieffer followed up and asked, "There are 11 million of these people. I mean, what are you going to do with them? I mean, you can't build that many prisons to put them in jail....and you can't get that many buses to haul them back."

Both NBC and ABC's newscasts on Thursday highlighted outrage at the "accusations of abuse and bigotry" from "bully" sheriff Joe Arpaio.  Faced with new claims from Barack Obama's Justice Department, the two networks played up dramatic attacks from critics. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

"Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams flatly declared, "Tonight, the U.S. Justice Department says the sheriff and his deputies have gone too far. They have been systematically been violating the constitutional rights of Latinos." ABC's "World News" uncritically featured one of Arpaio's prisoners who hyperbolically insisted, "The food we eat is disgusting. It's more like a concentration camp than anything else."

In his Monday column “The Good Newt,” former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller dished out some rare if backhanded defense for Newt Gingrich, at least on Newt’s amnesty-style ideas on illegal immigration: “There are plenty of reasons the thought of President Newt Gingrich makes me shudder. But on this hard, defining American issue, he’s shown a combination of brains, heart and guts that puts the rest of his party to shame.” Later, after backlash from liberal readers, Keller posted that he would avoid using the word "illegals" in future.