Several months ago, Hispanics got offended and angry when they learned that Ken Burns’ upcoming PBS docu-epic about WWII did not include special treatment of Latino veterans. He quickly caved to their demands (this is PBS, remember) and assembled additional material to describe the Hispanic “experience” in the war.

This situation is yet another skirmish in the long-term effort of Mexicans to exaggerate their importance in American history and pave the way for a bilingual, Hispanicized America. (See author Jorge Ramos’ brag that “Latinos are not only the largest minority right now, but eventually we will be the majority in the United States, and the process is well underway.”)

Call it a guilt trip or a cultural awakening, but some Latino filmmakers feel that the controversy over Ken Burns’ upcoming World War II documentary has unexpectedly opened doors for their work at PBS.

The maker of “Brown Is the New Green: George Lopez and the American Dream,” which airs Sept. 12, said he believed PBS was anxious to air his film before Burns’ because “they had egg on their face.” [BW: Actually, the date falls within the Hispanic Heritage Month of programming.]

The Lopez film is one of five Latino projects that PBS is airing in the weeks before the start of Burns’ “The War” on Sept. 23. Advocates were angered that the Burns epic did not feature the contributions of Latino soldiers, and their protest this spring forced PBS’ best-known documentarian to add such material to the film.
[A Ken Burns Guilt Trip at PBS? Washington Post 8/26/07]

In fact, the number of Mexican Americans who served in the armed services was around 300,000, not a large number when you consider that 16 million went to war. Therefore, the percentage of Mexican Americans in uniform was less than 2 (1.8 to be precise).

Patriots honor all individuals who served–I certainly do–but the Hispanic presence in the American armed forces during WWII cannot be considered numerically substantial.

The continuing complaining of the reconquista Hispanics in this matter is unseemly and only indicates that they apparently feel their tribe is a special class, separate from other vets. There is no similar demand from other ethnic veterans groups that they receive unique recognition from Burns.

Here’s a story about a recent ACLU suit about conditions in immigration detention, especially for children:

TheStar.com - News - Kevin, 10, helps reform U.S. immigration

Toronto-born boy was a lead plaintiff in lawsuit settled by improved detention conditions for kids
Aug 29, 2007 04:30 AM
Nicholas Keung
IMMIGRATION/DIVERSITY REPORTER

All 10-year-old Kevin Yourdkhani remembers about the T. Don Hutto immigration detention centre in Texas is that it’s “a very bad place for children and babies.”

Yesterday, when the Toronto-born boy heard the deplorable conditions are bound to improve for young inmates, he wasn’t fully convinced.

“I trust nobody there,” noted Kevin, who, along with his parents, was detained at Hutto earlier this year for 45 days. “It’s good that they are fixing up the problems but they should just shut it down.”

In a landmark settlement this week between the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the American Civil Liberties Union, Washington said it would improve the conditions for children and their families inside the Taylor, Tx. facility. The settlement is to be approved by U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks later this week.

Kevin, his father Majid and mother Masomeh Alibegi had been deported to their native Iran and were trying to fly back to Canada in February when caught carrying fake passports during an unscheduled landing in Puerto Rico.

The ACLU has issued a gloat, in English and Spanish:

Landmark Settlement Announced in Federal Lawsuit Challenging Conditions at Immigrant Detention Center in Texas (8/27/2007)

ACLU Urges Congress to End Policy of Detaining Immigrant Children

Se anuncia acuerdo negociado sin precedentes, en demanda entablada en los tribunales federales, impugnando las condiciones en un centro de detención para inmigrantes en Texas (8/27/2007)

La ACLU exhorta al Congreso a ponerle fin a la política de detener a los hijos de los inmigrantes

I admit that the US Government should make an effort to keep the children of illegal immigrants happy while they’re in custody, but first of all, no one has to stay in immigration detention. Just about anyone in detention can leave by agreeing to leave the country, and your tax dollars will pay for their ticket.

Second, the problem is caused by the unique nature of the crime involved–most people don’t bring their children with them when they rob a bank, or burgle a house. They do bring them with them when they immigrate illegally.

That’s the meaning of the famous “Immigrants Crossing” sign,

This is from Alien Nation, Page 238[PDF], about an early 90’s trip to the Border, by Peter Brimelow, who saw, in an infrared scope, a father leading his small child by the hand across the river.

[T]hat point on the border the Tijuana River, through which that father must have dragged his child, is filled with raw sewage (Mexican sewage, although it then flows through U.S. territory).

And the entire no-man’s-land is infested with bandits preying on the illegals. When we had arrived at the celebrated Smuggler’s Canyon after nightfall, my guide had flatly refused to go up into it on the grounds that it was now too dangerous. (The novelist Joseph Wambaugh wrote a powerful 1984 true-crime bestseller, Lines and Shadows, about a San Diego Police Department undercover squad’s heroic but ultimately vain effort to control this nightly carnage in the late 1970s. And traffic then was a fraction of what it is today.)

My young guide, in general remarkably cheerful about the Border Patrol’s thankless task, said it was the illegals’ children that he found the most distressing, too. Particularly when the Border Patrol got there too late and found that the bandits had already managed to steal them. Steal them? I said stupidly. “They sell them to child-prostitution rings.”

Maybe immigration detention isn’t so bad, by comparison.

The question hasn’t been raised in the press, but I was surprised to see that Larry Craig didn’t try to claim Senatorial immunity under Article One, Section 6 of the Constitution, which gives members of either house of Congress immunity from arrest for anything but “Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace,” both “during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same,” which sounds like it includes the men’s room at the Minnesota Airport. What he was charged with was a misdemeanor, after all. In fact, I remember that Robert Byrd, who always has copy of the Constitution in his pocket, literally, used it to beat a traffic charge in 1999.

However, according to Findlaw.com, this clause is not effective on any criminal charges whatever.

Privilege From Arrest

This clause is practically obsolete. It applies only to arrests in civil suits, which were still common in this country at the time the Constitution was adopted. 376 It does not apply to service of process in either civil 377 or criminal cases. 378

Nor does it apply to arrest in any criminal case. The phrase ”treason, felony or breach of the peace” is interpreted to withdraw all criminal offenses from the operation of the privilege. 379

They mention WILLIAMSON v. U.S., 207 U.S. 425 (1908) as a case that stated that Senators and Congressmen can be arrested for anything actually criminal.

The article was designed to prevent partisan judges from issuing writs, including civil writs, which would prevent someone from being able to vote on a bill.

Even if the clause construed literally, Senator Craig’s misconduct was a “breach of the peace.”

The Minnesota statute he was charged under was 609.746 INTERFERENCE WITH PRIVACY, a law which punishes Peeping Toms for peeping, punishes people who install hidden cameras in tanning booths, and is designed to keep men from peering over or reaching under a bathroom stall occupied by another man, who may simply want to be alone with his thoughts. Thus, a “breach of the peace.”

So what Larry Craig was claiming when he showed the arresting officer his business card was not “Senatorial immunity” which has some limited actual existence under the Constitution, but corrupt special privilege, which unfortunately is fairly common–see Beltway-itis: When Politicians Attack, by Michelle Malkin, just the other day.

Anyhow, Senator Craig, even before this scandal, wasn’t much of an asset to either the Republican Party or the rule of law as far is immigration reform is concerned.

In 2003, a reader forwarded an LA Times story about Senator Craig’s “bipartisan” cooperation with Ted Kennedy over “undocumented” workers with the words “With Republicans like this, who needs Democrats?”

This latest incident just reinforces that point.

Daniel de Vise writes in the Washington Post:

The Class of 2007 posted the lowest SAT averages in several years, according to scores released this morning.

Now part of the reason is related to recent immigration:

The share of test-takers for whom English is a second language has nearly doubled in 20 years to 24 percent

I think a bigger reason is that the “economic strategy” of recent years has been moving the US towards more of a low wage, low productivity economy. Why should US students bother to achieve academically when the bulk of investment is in areas like meat packing plants, Walmart or the expanding underground economy–and those skilled jobs that do exist in the US are likely to be subject to immigration practices like H-1b which mean foreigners will be given immigration preferences if they can get an American job?

What I think we are seeing are the fruits of perverse economic incentives in the US that no country could maintain without massive foreign borrowing.

Among other subjects, Joe discusses Giuliani’s immigration deceit , the GOP’s suicide mission on immigration and why the MSM’s failure to report honestly on illegal immigration helps us. Listen here.

It dawns on Matthew Yglesias that if border enforcement succeeded in driving up wages for the unskilled, some jobs wouldn’t be economical to do anymore. But, he doesn’t go far enough:

An early scene in “The Man Who Would Be King” takes place in the office of an English colonial administrator in India. To stay cool, he had a big fan over his head flapped by a servant via a string attached to the sitting servant’s toe. That’s pretty awesome! If wages weren’t so damn high here in America, I could have my own Untouchable toe-fanning servant too, instead of having to use my boring, totally unawesome electric fan. I could impress all my friends. (Well, maybe not the friends I already have, but if I had enough servants, I could assign some of them to get me new friends who would be impressed.)

Think of all the other hundreds of millions of jobs that could be created in America if wages fell to 19th Century Indian levels!

Of course, I couldn’t actually afford to pay my toe-fanning flunky the full cost of what it would take for him and his family to live in America, but I believe the externalities of my servant’s cost of living should be borne by the public at large, not by me. Thus, my worker’s kids should get free schooling, the whole family should get free health care at the emergency room, his tenement should get fire and police protection, he should drive without car insurance, etc. Why shouldn’t I cost shift my conveniences on to everybody else?

Open Borders cheerleaders present people with the false dilemma of deporting 20 million illegal aliens or legalizing 20 million aliens.

Of course they don’t point out there’s another option–start enforcing the law and thus force illegals to self-deport.

Well, it appears that may be happening in my home state of Oklahoma, where a new get-tough law is set to take effect on November 1st. Reportedly, thousands of illegal aliens (called “Hispanics” in the article) have left the Tulsa area already. [Hispanics Moving Out Of Oklahoma Before New Law Takes Effect Jerry Giordano. KTUL.com, August 22, 2007 ]

Part of the new law mandates deportation of all illegal aliens who commit crimes, and Tulsa County deputies are being trained to apprehend and deport them.

Unsurprisingly, the new law is being opposed by the Tulsa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and by homebuilders. Also, the “National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders” is planning to fight it in court.

I hope the new law takes effect and is enforced properly.

As for the fleeing illegals, they are said to be going to Arkansas and Kansas.

Today’s breaking news of Idaho’s US Senator Larry Craig being charged with and pleading guilty to lewd conduct in a Minnesota airport mens’ room follows months of my asking Northern Idaho conservatives about how last Fall’s rumors of Craig’s sexual preferences might explain his traitorous stance on amnesty for illegal aliens (he strongly supports amnesty, voted for both Senate bills, and is cosponsoring the AgJobs and DREAM Act bills, both of which include amnesty clauses).

Was Craig being blackmailed? Locals admitted that for at least two decades, unsubstantiated stories of Craig’s homosexuality had circulated, and that he had married a divorced staffer with children late in life in the face of those rumors. Will this be the final straw for potato heads who have preferred ignorance to action? Craig’s pathetic protestations today (”it’s a he said, he said” matter, his staffer claims) and Craig’s own statements that he “should have sought counsel and not pled guilty” pale in comparison to the detailed, shocking charges leveled by the arresting cop, the apparent target of Craig’s sexual advances.

Let’s hope Craig quickly resigns to spend more time with his family. Gov. Butch Otter can then appoint someone who reflects Craig’s constituents and the state legislature’s strong stance against illegal alien rights, benefits, and unwanted presence in the state.

Matt Welch usually has something interesting to say, and his new book, McCain: The Myth of a Maverick , will no doubt be fascinating. (Welch believes that a President McCain would send more troops overseas–I just wish he’d save a few for the US Border.)

“Maverick,” of course, means

• totally without party loyalty
• unconcerned with the wishes of his constituents, or Americans in general
• extremely friendly with members of the conventional media–he panders to them, they pander to him, and that’s why they call him a “maverick” rather than, say, a hatemonger.

There’s only one problem, which I hope won’t hurt Welch’s sales too badly–McCain is at around 1 percent in the Presidential race. The reason? His support of the massive failed immigration bill.

The New York Times ran an opinion piece Monday with some interesting observations on Mexican wealth and inequality, a subject that should concern Americans more than it does. (For example, Bush is planning to send a robust aid package of American taxpayer dollars to help Presidente Calderon fight Mexican narco-traffickers despite the fact that Mexico has plenty of money and can well afford to pay for its own anti-drug efforts.)

Billionaire Carlos Slim recently surpassed Bill Gates as the richest man on earth, and Mexico’s monopoly-based economic system figures strongly in how Slim accumulated that wealth ($59B). But a simple dollar comparison leaves out the true scope of Slim’s vast fortune…

To put it in perspective, Mr. Slim’s treasure is equivalent to slightly less than 7 percent of Mexico’s total production of goods and services - one out of every 14 dollars’ worth of stuff made by all the people in the country.

The income distribution in the United States may be fast approaching Mexican levels of inequality, but in relative terms, Mr. Gates isn’t even in Mr. Slim’s league. His $58 billion fortune is less than 0.5 percent of the nation’s G.D.P.

Indeed, by this measure, Mr. Slim is richer even than the robber barons of the gilded age. John D. Rockefeller, America’s richest man, was worth the equivalent of about 1.5 percent of the nation’s G.D.P.
[Mexico's Plutocracy Thrives on Robber-Baron Concessions, New York Times 8/27/07]

Mexico scholar George Grayson criticized the corrupt economic system that allowed Slim’s ascent to Numero Uno:

[Slimlandia is] not a reverential term. Many Mexicans hoped privatization, which began in the early 1990s, would create competition and drive prices down drastically. That hasn’t happened. “Slim is one of a dozen fat cats in Mexico who impede that country’s growth because they run monopolies or oligopolies,” says Grayson. “The Mexican economy is highly inefficient, and it is losing its competitive standing vis-à-vis other countries because of people like Slim.” [...]

“He made his billions because of an extremely close and advantageous relationship with the Salinas government,” says professor Grayson of William & Mary.
[Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, CNN Money 8/20/07]

An economy built on oligarchy has a lot of similarities to the growing corporatism replacing representative government in this country. Is that aspect of Mexican society more appealing to Mexichurian George Bush than even the endless supply of inexpensive labor? Bush’s plans for a North American Union may have more to do with importing Mexican business culture than cheap workers.