During Lou Dobbs’ Jan. 30 broadcast, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was harping about the influx of illegal foreign workers into the Gulf Region that was preventing many local poor residents from participating in the clean-up efforts after Hurricane Katrina.

“Well, number one, these workers are not just coming across the border, they’re being sent for, brought in and hired. (Gasp!)They’ve been trafficked in often working on the very exposing condition without of course any health insurance.” (Is he serious?)

Earth to Jesse (and those just out of touch in general):

This sort of thing has been going on for years, nay, decades, and you and others who have been passing themselves off as “black leaders” know damn well it has. But you’ve been busy with more lucrative, uh, I mean, critical issues, e.g., boycotting large corporations that you say have been sticking it to black Americans since the beginning of time. Or defending the “rights” of a few high school punks who were expelled after starting a fight at a football game.

Far more important, eh, Jesse than, say, attacking an immigration policy that has made the people you say you care so much about the nation’s second largest minority and is slowly unraveling all the political and economic gains made since the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

Then last spring, in what can only be termed one of the best CYA maneuvers on public record, you said you were creating a black-Hispanic coalition because both minority groups share a history of discrimination.

That’s right, Jesse. Things are going to be so much better now that you’ve climbed into bed with the very people whose presence, much of it illegal, has created so much economic pain for American blacks.

One more question, reverend, if I may: Do you have mirrors in your home?

P.S. Good luck with your “massive demonstration on April 1st demanding that these citizens, white, black and brown, whether Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, have the right to return with preferences on jobs and contracts.” Let me know how many of your new-found Hispanic allies you stood shoulder to shoulder with that day in Little Rock, Ark., show up.

The two Lodi, CA men charged in June 2005 with terrorism related crimes have been out of the national news for some months.

But the multiple unsuccessful efforts of Umer Hayat and his 23-year-old son, Hamid Hayat to get free on bond has been an on-going story here in my hometown of Lodi.

Earlier this week, the case against the two men took on another dimension. Each learned that an additional charge of lying to federal agents had been filed against them bringing the total number to five counts of lying and one count of providing material support to terrorists. [Father, Son Face More Charges in Terror Case, Lodi News-Sentinel Staff, January 31, 2006]

The Hayats’ trial is scheduled to start on February 14th.

In the meantime, the rest of the Lodi Muslim community, erroneously reported by the Sacramento Bee to be “awash in fear” during the summer, is functioning without any problems whatsoever.