For quite a few years now, VDARE has been providing the most calm and sophisticated analysis of the electoral impact of immigration. Our position has been that immigration poses a massive problem for the GOP in the long run, but the long run hasn’t arrived quite yet, so there’s still time to do something about it. We’ve also speculated that Karl Rove’s vaunted Hispanic outreach campaign is largely a smokescreen to distract the media from the Strategy that Dare Not Speak Its Name: white inreach.

Now, the liberal Pew Hispanic Center has confirmed much of what we’ve been saying for years. Back in May, I reported, based on Census Bureau survey data:

“Whites provided almost ten times as many incremental Bush votes as the next most important ethnic contributor to his growth, Hispanics, at 0.97 million extra votes.”

In late June, the Pew Hispanic Center’s new report on “Hispanics and the 2004 Election” began:

“Hispanics accounted for half of the population growth in the United States between the elections of 2000 and 2004 but only one-tenth of the increase in the total votes cast, according to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.”

Pew’s analysis makes the important point that:

“The gap between the size of the Latino adult population and the number of Hispanic voters has been growing since at least 1972 and is likely to continue growing given current trends… A total of four people had to be added to the Hispanic population to generate each one of those additional votes.”

In other words, although the U.S. is adding over 1.4 million Hispanics per year, the GOP still has a window of opportunity to save itself by cutting down on immigration.

You may also recall that I offered to bet Michael Barone, who had claimed in U.S. News & World Report that Hispanics might account for nine percent of the vote in 2004, $1,000 that the actual number would be closer to my forecast of 6.1 percent.

Barone prudently did not take me up on this bet. According to Pew: “In November, 2004, Hispanics accounted for 6.0% of all votes cast…”

VDARE.com also took the lead last November in questioning the exit poll report that Bush won 44 percent of the Latino vote. The Pew Hispanic Center report concurs in our skepticism:

“An analysis of the 2004 exit poll data in conjunction with this new CPS data suggests that Bush’s share of the Hispanic vote last year was probably closer to 40 percent than to the 44 percent widely reported last year by news organizations that had relied on national exit poll data.”

Earlier this week the Mexican government passed legislation that would allow citizens “living abroad” to vote in national elections—possibly next year.

The estimated 11% increase in voter turnout would arrive via mail from the 4+ million eligible Mexican voters living in the U.S. More than half are illegal aliens.

[The estimate was provided by the Los Angeles Times so the illegal alien portion is probably closer to 75%.]

Mexican Voting May Extend Into U.S. by Chris Kraul and Sam Quinones 6/29/05 LA Times

The bill requires the signature of Vicente Fox so basically, this is a done deal.

Side note: I don’t know if this actually shocks anyone…they’ve been voting illegally in U.S. elections for years.

The Mexican lobby is thrilled, of course.

According to the Times, Salvador Garcia, President of the Council of Mexican Federations (what is that exactly?) said the vote would make immigrants “feel more a part of Mexico.”

Yeah…you know what else would make them feel more part of Mexico?

If they moved back to Mexico.

The Brits have weighed in on the Sacramento Bee/Diana Griego Erwin scandal.

A post by “Gutterwatch” in The Enquirer points out how easy it would have been for editors to nip immigration enthusiast Griego Erwin’s fiction in the bud. All any of her superiors would have had to do is just ask a few simple but pointed questions about her columns.

(“Sacramento Bee Buzzs Around Sacked Hacks Sources,” by Gutterwatch, The Enquirer,June 26th)

Speaking, as Gutterwatch does, about questions, I have one myself.

Is no one at the Bee going to take a fall for Griego Erwin’s multiple deceits that insulted readers and further damaged the MSM’s already shaky credibility?

I nominate Bee Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Rich Rodriguez as the most deserving to get the boot.

A Conservative MP in Canada, Steven Fletcher, has just been forced into the grovel ritual for saying of Japan’s WWII soldiers;

“The Japs were Bastards”

He was in a particularly good position to assert this because

His grandfather was a prisoner of war held by the Japanese, captured during the fall of Singapore…Fletcher told The Canadian Press: “They used my grandfather’s friend for bayonet practice. They put my grandfather on a raft when he was ill to die. They shot people indiscriminately. In the context of the time, in World War II, they treated people in ways that were barbaric and disgusting, and it should never be forgotten…”

Perhaps to a minor degree because of the facts, indignation has focused on the term  “Japs.”.

Speaking as a (legally speaking, ex-) Brit, I am bemused at the way the use of a straightforward abbreviation has been established as a hanging offence. And at the magnitude of the double standard by which “Brit”, never heard when I was growing up, is now polite usage. After all, there have always been far rougher phrases for the Japanese. (For the British too, although I have always been rather charmed by the French usage “Les Bifteks”. Of course, I like steak.)

The culprit, of course, is the principle that states that people of color are to be privileged in public debate and public life. A pity Steven Fletcher lacked his grandfather’s toughness.

Tell him

Hat tip, American Renaissance

Here’s a rare exception to political correctness, namely a slight admission that culture influences behavior in a negative fashion, imagine that! [Culture might be factor in sexual abuseBy: Annette Newell, News 14 Carolina]

Some societies accept conduct which our American values condemn as criminal and punish accordingly, e.g. female genital mutilation. This instance concerns the sexual violence of hispanic immigrant men.

A recently released report compiled by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg [NC] Police Department showed there has been a 50 percent increase in sexual assault among the local Hispanic population. But experts say part of that might be attributed to cultural differences.
In many Hispanic cultures, it is acceptable for men to engage in sexual activity with younger women, says Dr. Elizabeth Peterson-Vita, who is speaking this week at a mental health conference in Charlotte. She is focusing on cultural differences concerning North Carolina’s growing Hispanic community.

“Younger women” … does that include nine-year-old girls peddling around on their bikes, like the child in Hamilton, Ohio, who was recently raped? The accused, Alfredo Lopez Cruz, may be an illegal alien if his collection of aliases is any clue.

In 2002, the Washington Post presented a straightforward description of Mexican sexism, “In Mexico, an Unpunished Crime: Rape Victims Face Widespread Cultural Bias”. The article revealed that the social status of women in some rural areas is not much better than Taliban level, where females have no civil rights and are essentially slaves for men. For example, a kind of kidnap-for-sex custom remains legal in Oaxaca:

In the southern state of Oaxaca last summer, the one-year-old, government-funded Oaxacan Women’s Institute persuaded the legislature to pass heavy criminal penalties against a practice known as “rapto.” Laws in most Mexican states define rapto as a case where a man kidnaps a woman not for ransom, but with the intent of marrying her or to satisfy his “erotic sexual desire.” The new law championed by the women’s group established penalties of at least 10 years in prison.

But in March, the state legislature reversed itself and again made the practice a minor infraction. A key legislator — a man — argued for the reduction, calling the practice harmless and “romantic.”

Get that? A Mexican political leader called kidnapping and rape “romantic.” Keep that fact in mind the next time Presidente Bush drones on about Mexican family values as he works toward the political unification of the United States and Mexico.

Last week in the state of Victoria, Australia, two Christian ministers were hit with heavy fines and various forms of public humiliation in the first convictions under the state’s contemptible “Racial and Religious Tolerance Act”. Their offence: to read some of the racier passages of the Koran to a meeting of their sympathizers. The Judge was particularly offended that some present had laughed.

Note: no suggestion that violence was advocated.

The same week, reports the Oz Conservative blog

“ASIO [The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation]had raided the homes of several Melbourne Muslims in order to break up a terror cell which had conducted training camps in the countryside…

Then yesterday came the Herald Sun report “Muslim books of hate sold“. It seems that a bookshop attached to a Melbourne mosque has been selling literature which tells Muslims that they should “hate and take as enemies” non-Muslims, that they should learn to hate in order to properly love Allah, that they should learn military tactics and that if a person speaks ill of Islam it’s acceptable to kill them.”

Of course, this makes these Hate Speech laws look ridiculous. But they are not ridiculous: they are an evil attempt to rob citizens of rights traditional in English-speaking countries (and almost nowhere else) for centuries.

The theft is underway in the UK too

And don’t be too sure it can’t happen here: I can well remember when conservatives were confident Affirmative Action would be ruled unconstitutional. And of course just this week, the Kelo eminent domain decision is time-warping us back to pre Magna Carta days.

Mark Krikorian gets off some good shots at Ben Wattenberg in the Spring 2005 Claremont Review of Books. But who, pray tell, does he mean when he says ” As others have noted, this mass-immigration worldview echoes Bertolt Brecht’s suggestion that the East German government dissolve the people and elect a new one.“ Where might these others be found? Not, apparently, with the pages of the Claremont Review of Books.

Wattenberg’s solution, by contrast, is unambiguously undemocratic and coercive. He argues that pro-natalist policies like Longman’s have always proven ineffective, and that the magic solution is mass immigration. Unfortunately, his data refute his argument. The Census Bureau projects an increase in our population of about 140 million, including new immigrants, over the first half of this century, but “only” a 50 million increase if there were no immigration at all. How is it plausible to claim that America will be derailed, and the worldwide spread of human liberty jeopardized, if our population grows by an average of one million a year instead of three million?

Basically, Wattenberg is saying that since Americans have freely chosen to have smaller families, the state must import people to supply the bodies needed to fuel the global democratic revolution. As others have noted, this mass-immigration worldview echoes Bertolt Brecht’s suggestion that the East German government dissolve the people and elect a new one.Wattenberg never offers any specifics about how to “elect” this new people. What kind of actual immigration policy should we have? How many immigrants? What kind? How do we select and screen them? He offers nothing beyond the most vaporous generalities.

* * *

In the end, neither author has sufficient faith in the American people. Wattenberg sees his countrymen as not up to the task History has set before them, and so they must be supplemented by a huge, unending flow of outsiders. Longman, on the other hand, harbors the blue-state fear that those who feel commanded by nature and nature’s God to procreate are itching secretly to establish a theocracy. [The Claremont Institute: No Child Left Behind]

Diana Griego Erwin, recently fired by the Sacramento Bee for fabricating her sources, is more creative than anyone could have imagined.

Today, the Bee published the results of its investigation into Griego Erwin’s career as a fiction writer. Of 171 columns Griego Erwin wrote for the Bee since January 1st, 2004, 30 names “could not be verified.”

(“Bee Publishes Results of Griego Erwin Probe,” Dorthy Korber and John Hill, the Sacramento Bee, June 26, 2005)

And going back to the beginning of her 12-year career at the Bee, an additional 13 names “could not be found in voter registration rolls, property records, telephone books, identity databases or through scores of phone calls.”

I confess to a perverse pleasure in the Bee’s embarrassment over the Griego Erwin incident.

For several years, I did an on-going study for NumbersUSA to analyze media professionalism.

What I found in my dealings with the Bee was that, to a large extent, the staff consisted of self-important, arrogant and lazy journalists.

But what’s bad for the Bee and the rest of the MSM that have distorted the news like Newsweek, USA Today and the Detroit Free Press is good for VDARE.com and other Internet webzines that take pride in reporting the real story.

When I was first writing on the immigration issue over a decade ago, I was pleasantly surprised to realize a group of allies existed beyond the conservative orbit—environmentalists, who don’t want America entirely covered by subdivisions. Very nice people, but they frighten easily.

Now it appears that another group of objective allies is emerging….Gays.

Local Insurgents: ‘Islamic Thinkers’ Menace Gay N.Y. – Ben Smith and Jessica Bruder, New York Observer, June 25 2005,

discusses the increasing Gay alarm about a radical faction of Muslim activists called The Islamic Thinkers, who operate in Jackson Heights, Queens.

The Islamic Thinkers Society had become a regular feature at local gay-pride parades, where they’ve called for the castration and death of gay men, according to several witnesses who spoke to The Observer…to New York’s gays…the scene in Jackson Heights bears a worrying similarity to communal conflicts that are challenging the idea of tolerance across Europe, with particular flashpoints in Holland and Scandinavia. There, young immigrants and the children of immigrants have been drawn to a more radical Islamic ideology… On the extreme fringes, these young men have committed acts of violence against Jews and gays…in a case that shocked Europe, one… murdered the filmmaker Theo van Gogh in an Amsterdam street.

(Curiously, The Observer overlooks the late Pim Fortuyn, the charismatic gay Dutch political leader—also murdered—who made the threat to his community posed by Islamic immigration a centerpiece of his platform.)

Smith and Bruder report:

But the rise of gay bashing on European streets … has also opened up a heated debate within the gay community…over whether the proliferation of intolerant strains of Islam requires…a harder line on issues like immigration and assimilation.

The article is packed with US Islamic figures trying to deny that the sort of zealotry that has appeared in Muslim communities the world over will recur in America.

Anyone tempted by this delusion should read this chilling article, by a Muslim immigrant to Australia who has become a Christian Minister:

The Islamic worldview will ultimately present Western nations with a huge political problem. Muslims don’t send missionaries like the Christian church. They just send floods of people. And once their numbers grow, then they begin to exert political pressure…in recent years growing numbers of Muslims have maintained that it’s a universal religious obligation for all true Muslims to join the jihad to promote a global Islamic revolution…I cannot understand the ignorance of people in the West who say that Islam is a religion of peace.”

(Hat Tip, Aussie News and Views)

Poor Stephen Steinlight appears to have had little success convincing his fellow Jews that immigration might be bad for them.

The Gay community, facing more immediate physical threat, will hopefully be more alert.

One of two Lodi imams held on charges of overstaying his R-1 religious visa appeared in San Francisco immigration court, Friday June 24th.

And Shabbir Amhed’s testimony contained a non-immigration related bombshell. Ahmed admitted to giving several speeches in Pakistan in support of the Taliban in its fight against the U.S. in Afghanistan.[Muslim Cleric Says He Spoke Against the U.S., Rone Tempest and Robert Salladay, Los Angeles Times, June 25th]

But Ahmed claims that once he received his visa and moved to California—only a few months after his comments allegedly stirred up anti-American rioting in Pakistan—he “completely changed his mind about Americans.”

Ahmed noted that he now sees “respect for human life–even animals are taken care of here.“[Imam Admits Blasting U.S., , Dorthy Korber, Denny Walsh and Stephen Magagnini, Sacramento Bee,June 25th]

Immigration judge Anthony S. Murry consolidated Ahmed’s hearing with the other two immigration cases–against Mohammad Adil Khan and his son, Mohammad Hassan Adil.[Attorney Alleges Ties to Terror, Layla Bohm, Lodi News-Sentinel, June 25th]

The proceedings will continue in August.

I can’t help but comment that Amhed certainly had a remarkably rapid conversion from Islamic fundamentalism to his supposed pro-American sentiments.

I wonder if the threat of deportation has anything to do with Amhed’s new perspective.