Dems guilty of 'political cowardice' on immigration (WILLIE HORTON ALERT)

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | November 26, 2007 | Teresa Puente

[Chi-townChief]

Remember Willie Horton? He was the convicted rapist who was allowed out on a weekend pass and attacked another woman while Michael Dukakis was governor of Massachusetts. Playing to white America's fear of black men, Horton was used in a campaign ad against Dukakis when he ran for president in 1988. It probably cost him the election.

Fast forward almost 20 years. Illegal immigrants are the new Willie Hortons of this campaign season. They are being used to rile up American fears of Mexicans and the Latinization of the United States.

Republicans are having a field day taking a hard line and blaming illegal immigrants for everything wrong with this country. Demo-crats, afraid they will also lose big, are too sheepish to take a stand on immigration.

"It's a kind of political cowardice," said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. "We need people to speak the truth on these issues and not run scared."

Instead of bashing Republicans, who won't change their hard line on immigration, immigrant advocates are now going after U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, Democratic chief strategist, who they say has betrayed the immigrant community.

They're furious Emanuel has called immigration the new "third rail of politics," a topic so charged it could result in political death. They are running ads in Spanish, Polish and Korean slamming Emanuel.

"There's a lack of leadership. There's a lack of action," said Young Sun Song, a community organizer with the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center in Chicago.

Emanuel said Democrats will not give up on immigration reform. But immigrant advocates charge he is backtracking.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is doing it, too. First she kind of said yes, then she said no on giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, an idea proposed and then nixed by New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

Clinton and Congress need to stop flip-flopping and propose real solutions. They failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform this year. As a result, we have chaos with states and cities proposing everything from asking landlords to play immigration police to the driver's license proposal.

Yes, we do need secure borders. Nobody is calling for open borders. Yes, we also need comprehensive immigration reform to legalize many of the people who are law-abiding and contributing to our economy. So what's the alternative?

Kick out all the illegal immigrants in a nationwide raid. Practically, that won't work, and it would have a devastating effect on our economy. Are you willing to pay $5 for a head of lettuce? Are you willing to pay $12 for a sandwich? This is the kind of inflation we could see without the illegal immigrant work force.

Another cost: Namby-pamby politicians risk losing the legal immigrant vote.

The number of legal immigrants applying for citizenship doubled to 1.4 million in fiscal year 2007. Many have illegal immigrant relatives and are likely to vote for candidates who support amnesty for their families.

Immigrants and their children are and always will be part of the American fabric. For the first time this year, the Census Bureau found two Latino surnames -- Garcia and Rodriguez -- are among the top 10 most common last names in the United States. In the Chicago area, two-thirds of the Latino population are citizens.

>>> AND THE AUTHOR WAITS UNTIL THE END FOR THE RED HERRING <<<

Most Americans are ashamed of the way immigrants have been treated in the past -- from Japanese internment to bigotry against the Irish and the Italians.

We need a real leader to step forward, one who isn't afraid to defend immigrants. We need a leader to remind us how immigrants have -- and will -- strengthen our, and their, homeland.

mailto:tpuente@suntimes.com

[Chi-townChief]

Senora Puente can sure lay on the mierda del toro.

[pennboricua]

no se la lay se la come.

[DB]

Democrats, please take on Republicans on immigration... Demand drivers licenses for everyone... Please... You know that’s what is in your heart. Be true to yourself... The truth will set you free!

[reefdiver]

What a bunch of Bull Sht , Secure the borders , do it now. You want to be an American Fine, Do it legally, And while your at it stop calling me a racist because I want my country to have secure borders.

[ml/nj]

Remember Willie Horton? He was the convicted rapist who was allowed out on a weekend pass and attacked another woman while Michael Dukakis was governor of Massachusetts. Playing to white America's fear of black men, Horton was used in a campaign ad against Dukakis when he ran for president in 1988. It probably cost him the election.

As someone who was around in 1988, paying attention to the election, and saw the commercial, I'd like to tell those of you who have only heard about it, that it never occurred to me that Willie Horton was black when I first watched the ad. He was just a small figure in a revolving door. I needed racist Democrats to tell me WIllie Horton was black.

And Dukakis didn't lose the election because of the Willie Horton commercial. Dukakis lost because many perceived him to be a schmuck and he was not the one most likely to continue the Reagan prosperity.

ML/NJ

[DustyMoment]

Republicans are having a field day taking a hard line and blaming illegal immigrants for everything wrong with this country.

I guess Teresa has missed the fact that, in recent years, illegals have been responsible for more crime including rapes, murders, robberies, DUI homocides and the like. And, she also appears to have missed the fact that most of these illegals have been handled with kid gloves by the American judicial system which refuses, under orders from Bush, Martinez, Minetta and Chertoff, to treat these criminals as criminals.

It is startling (to say the least) that illegals are responsible for more American domestic deaths than American soldiers that have died in the Iraq War. If the Surrendercrats want to bleat about American deaths, perhaps they should adopt this as their rallying cry.

[mewzilla]

Paging Ms. Puente...

Illegal aliens murder12 Americans dailyDeath toll in 2006 higher than soldiers killed MidEast

The US has more than enough homegrown criminals. Why import them?

[UltraKonservativen]

The “Willie Horton ad” is always the excuse for Dukakis’loss but let us not forget how it came about...from Wikipedia:

“The first person to mention the Massachusetts furlough program in the 1988 presidential campaign was Al Gore. During a debate at the Felt Forum sponsored by the New York Daily News, Gore took issue with the furlough program. He did not, however, mention Horton by name. He asked it in the form of a rhetorical question, asking Dukakis whether or not he would extend Massachusetts-style furloughs to the federal level.”

[bcsco]

This is a ping list promoting Immigration Enforcement and Congressional Reform.
If you wish to be added or removed from this ping list, please contact me.

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[gondramB]

Eight of the ten largest U.S. cities are “sanctuary cities” and all eight are majority Democrat. This situation likely calls for more courage than the Dems have available.

[Joe Boucher]

illegals & extreme leftists, round em All up and deport them all.

[puroresu]

And the fact that Horton was black doesn’t make any difference. The fact is, he was a vicious criminal who was idiotically released on furlough, and he escaped and committed another heinous crime. The Dukakis forces knew they had no defense on this issue, so they played the race card. “Horton’s black, so you’re a racist for using this as an issue”.

The Willie Horton ad was a perfectly legitimate ad. Just as concern about illegal immigration is a perfectly legitimate concern.

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

Republicans are having a field day taking a hard line and blaming illegal immigrants for everything wrong with this country.

Uh, no. We don't blame illegal immigrants for everything wrong with this country. We do blame them for violating a basic law that every nation on earth adheres to--the right to determine who gets to enter their country. And we blame the politicians, particularly the democrats (but there is plenty of blame to go around,) for not enforcing that basic law.

[Liz]

Latino Horton's have infiltrated and corrupted our institutions and are turning America into a Third World. Here's an horrific case of illegals thrill-kill----the slaughtering of Black Americans.

NEWARK FIENDS FIRST FAILED AT SEX ATTACK
By AUSTIN FENNER NY POST August 23, 2007

The thugs who shot four Black college students in Newark reportedly preceded their sick attack by trying to sexually assault their two female victims. The group of six assailants - who shot two men and a woman dead and wounded another woman - failed in their attempt at a sexual attack, and then decided to kill their victims. Six suspects have now been charged in the Aug. 4 atrocity, in which the victims were blasted execution-style.

Yesterday, a family member of one of the slain victims described the level of savagery of the attack. He said the thugs used a machete to hack their victims.

"They cut my niece's face off," said John McClain, who is Iofemi Hightower's great-uncle, and the chaplain of the Newark Police Department. "They cut her from cheek to cheek. They left her head hanging." McClain said the mortician had to work for three days to put his grand-niece's face back together. --SNIP--

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08232007/news/regionalnews/newark_fiends_first_failed_at_.htm

NOTE: Machetes are the signature weapons of violent MS-13 gangs from South America who are active in 42 states according to a FBI report.

LINE-UP OF EVIL These three are the scum that mutilated three victims w/ machetes then shot them execution-style. Carranza from Peru is also a child rapist (let go scot-free); another scumbag is from Honduras.

Melvin Jovel, Jose Carranza, Rodolfo Godinez (L to R)

===================================

If they only had a brain-----the sap-happy Newark justice system includes politically correct judges, prosecutors......and a Mayor who vocally defended the killers. How these dolts got law degrees is anybody's guess. The rancid odor of affirmative action fouls the air. Newark prosecutors Paula Dow, Margarita Rivera and Judge Thomas Vena are the PC nitwits who freed Carranza (a man with 32 counts of child rape).

======================================

BACKUP: Superior Court Judge Thomas Vena decided to lower Carranza's bail to $150,000 from $300,000. A chronology released by the office of the Assignment Judge said the bail was lowered with the consent of Margarita Rivera, the assistant prosecutor handling Carranza's child sex assault case.

According to news reports, Prosecutor Rivera did a CYA; she lied, and said she had never given consent. But MSNBC aired courtroom footage where Judge Vena asked Carranza for his Social Security number; Carranza responded, "I don't have it." On-camera, Prosecutor Margarita Rivera clarified the statement, saying on-camera Carranza didn't have a Social Security number. CONCLUSION Sycophant Rivera knowingly allowed an illegal latino, and child rapist, to go free.

[woollyone]

vaca caca

[bboop]

That’s right, stop calling us racists because we want the rule of law and not of sappy-hearted non-thinking. grrr.

[puroresu]

If illegal aliens are such a boom to our economy, why is it that California (which has more illegals than any state) is in such horrendous shape? I read an article recently that the city of Salinas is closing its public libraries, and will become the largest city in America with no public library. The article said that the city’s population had grown but tax revenues were down. You had to read between the lines, but putting two and two together it looks as if the city has to pay for the upkeep of their new “residents”, so they can’t afford things like libraries any more.

Isn’t California in perpetual fiscal crisis now that it’s full of illegals?

[3AngelaD]

I agree. Democratic candidates must be encouraged to do the right thing, drop all other issues and focus on this vital matter. They must insist on drivers licenses for illegals, and more important, immediate amnesty for these poor people. Any Democrat who doesn’t do this is a heartless sell-out, and a bigot. Democrats need to get their priorities straight. You tell ‘em, Teresa.

[3AngelaD]

Salinas has become a Mexican city. It is no longer an American city. Its middle class and their institutions have been overrun and displaced. Welcome to the Third World.

[steel_resolve]

Are you willing to pay $12 for a sandwich?

well, what kind of sandwich? Does it have double meat? And what type of condiments are we talking about? I mean really, there is just not enough information to make a decision here.