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QUOTE OF THE WEEK |
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Amnesty says, "Illegal immigrants - we're basically going to say, we're going to wave a wand and you're all legal." The president opposes that. Ken Mehlman
Bush campaign manager and front-runner to head the Republican National Committee to Washington Times |
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ACTIVIST CALL |
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How much more can the country take of Wall Street Journal Republicans running our immigration policy? Call the White House and tell President Bush you are opposed to Ken Mehlman heading the Republican National Committee (RNC) because he won't level with the American people on immigration policy. Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461 |
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...btw |
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Also from the Washington Times story: "[Mr. Cannon] and Mr. Mehlman dispute the label of amnesty for the president's plan. "But he would not say whether Mr. Bush's plan would have illegal aliens leave the country and wait for a period of time before applying for the guest-worker  program, as the law currently says." The reporter on this story, Stephen Dinan, got it exactly right. He asked Mehlman precisely the question that needs to be asked of every politician or hack floating a new immigration/amnesty/guest worker scheme. It's the question we've been asking Chris Cannon for nearly a year -- a question he, like Mehlman, has been unable to answer. Friends, it also demonstrates the value of the work we do here at ProjectUSA. Please, in all sincerity, help us, help the country, by contributing what you can to our effort. It's so important to fight the Mehlmans, the Cannons, and the immigration lawyer industry. |
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One hesitates to bring up someone like Rep. Chris Cannon during a season that is supposed to be about joy and good will, but an update on the Utah Congressman is in order. Earlier this month, quotes attributed to Rep. Cannon in the Washington Times indicate the Congressman is as indifferent as ever to the wishes of his constituents on immigration policy ("Republicans warn of party split over immigration," December 3). In the article, Cannon dismissed critics of his extremist immigration views as "a very small number of people," and sought to portray his reelection as a voter endorsement of his cheap labor policies. However, the fact that a virtually unknown opponent, spending less than six percent the amount he did, forced him into a primary over his immigration policies was a political whipping for Cannon, and those who pay attention to such things know it. Not content, however, with distorting the political lessons of the race, Cannon went on to trash his opponent personally. "My opponent was a very coarse opportunist," sniffed the Congressman to the Washington Times. "He said amnesty over and over again." Coarse opportunist? While it's true that, like ProjectUSA, Cannon's opponent, Matt Throckmorton, did "say amnesty over and over again" in the Utah race when campaigning against the massive AgJobs amnesty Rep. Cannon sponsored, it's not true that Throckmorton is the coarse opportunist. If anyone in the third district of Utah is a coarse opportunist, it's Chris Cannon. Whenever confronted with the charge that his AgJOBS bill is an amnesty, Rep. Cannon denied it, which is to say, Rep. Cannon lied over and over again. In fact, Cannon spent over $200,000 lying over and over again in a massive advertising campaign that confused and misled his constituents about his true position on immigration. I'd say that, in itself, is pretty coarse, but it gets coarser. The money Cannon spent lying to the people of Utah was money paid to him by grasping special interests with a financial stake in his open borders policies -- in particular the immigration lawyer industry. As reported by Kirsten Stewart in the Salt Lake Tribune in September,
"A close look at who is giving also shows a sudden jump in contributions from immigration attorneys...at least five of the attorneys serve on the executive committee of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which helped Cannon draft the "AgJOBS" bill. And all of them stand to benefit from a provision in the bill requiring that immigrants applying for amnesty be represented by a lawyer. The bill also gives illegals who can't afford an attorney access to public money. "Cannon is giving us a policy we don't want. He's receiving money for introducing it and he's allowing people profiting from it, the immigration lawyer industry, to charge the taxpayers for it," says Nelsen.
Before I get a bunch of emails accusing me of coarseness for being unable to resist using a quote that quotes me, let me just point out that my characterization of Cannon's AgJOBS amnesty is dead on. Cannon's brand of politics is as coarse as politics gets. As for opportunism, I encourage you to read this account, as reported by the News India-Times, of a fundraising dinner given for Chris Cannon in New York City by some immigration attorneys. Coarse opportunism aside, in addition to socially accepted standards, we believe Cannon has overstepped legal boundaries as well. There is more to come on that, but, if you're keeping score at home, this week we're adding a new charge -- and request for an investigation -- to those we've made previously: REQUEST FOR INVESTIGATION
Internal Revenue Service/Federal Election Commission http://projectusa.org/Library/cannon/2004-12-11-Cannon_WLF_Bramble_CLIIC.htm
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