The Golden Gate Bridge stands as proof of America’s can-do attitude. Locally, the Sanctuary Sisters Traitors Troika (Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi) regularly betray citizen-constituents in Washington DC with votes to reward, empower and legalize illegals.

Against this backdrop, fed-up citizens chose the Golden Gate–reportedly a prime target of foreign terrorists–as the site to peacefully demonstrate last Saturday, October 13, demanding our immigration laws be enforced and open borders be secured. The Permit issued for this event was subject to revocation “in the event that the national security level rises above yellow,” i.e., if foreign terrorists here due to unenforced immigration laws posed a greater threat.

Organized by North Bay Minutemen with support from Castro Valley, East Bay and Golden Gate Minutemen; Save Our State, Minutemen Civil Defense Corps-Northern California and other groups, marchers met on the Bridge’s Marin County (north) side to avoid problems on San Francisco Sanctuary City soil at the south end. For two hours, we traversed the bridge dressed in red, white, and blue, our signs held high for oncoming traffic: “Enforce Immigration Laws,” Close the Borders,” “Boycott Sanctuary Cities,” “No Shamnesty,” “No NAU/SPP.” Countless drivers honked horns in support, passengers flashing smiles and thumbs up. A woman sharing the bridge walkway with us said, “Thank You” to each and every marcher. Curious foreign tourists snapped photos of our all-American protest.[See photos here.]

Yes indeedy, We the People still can exercise our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech or of the press, peaceable assembly and to petition our public servants–“the Government”–for redress of grievances. Or can we?

The required Permit (hmmmm) for this peaceable assembly issued by controlling authority Golden Gate Bridge Highway & Transportation District (a public entity under State law) included 16 “Special Conditions” many that expressly violated our First Amendment rights.

First, we were commanded to arrive in the Bridge’s east public parking lot “no earlier than 9:30 am”, to enter the bridge “no earlier from 10 am” and to exit “by 12:00 pm.”

Maximum sign size was 24”x36”, with no more than 50 signs and painstakingly defined “props” permitted, regardless of the number of participants.

We the Sheeple did have the Bridge District’s permission to “pin pictures on our clothing.”

The Permit prohibited press conferences on the Bridge, asserting that, “This of course is not meant to limit press coverage or interviews….”

“If a press release is to be issued regarding this event, please coordinate with [the District’s] Public Affairs Director,” giving the District oversight and, potentially, the right to demand we censor our messages to the media, or lose the Permit.

By far the most offensive, clearly illegal condition of the Permit banned us from displaying American flags. “Flags or banners of any kind or size are not permitted.” So the Golden Gate Bridge District, a governmental entity operating under our Constitution and Bill of Rights, denies its employees–We the People–the right to display our nation’s flag in any way, shape, or form. Think about it.

The Golden Gate Bridge, completed in 1937, reflects Americans’ willingness to face great odds and prevail. It was the final glimpse of America many WWII GIs had before they made the ultimate sacrifice for America in horrific Pacific battles.

This majestic span measures 1.7 miles. Given the shameless quashing of our uniquely American, God-given rights–now under assault by petty, power-hungry bureaucrats coast to coast–the road to regain our liberty will be far longer.
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Terry Graham is not a member of any of the groups that coordinated this event. She participated as a private citizen, and her comments do not express the opinions of any of these groups.

For a list of Minuteman Groups, which may include some in your area, see VDARE.COM’s Minutemen Map, compiled by Kevin Carter.

As I’ve noted before, Mexican gangs are practicing systematic ethnic cleansing in Los Angeles against black citizens.

The term “ethnic cleansing” is not a phrase of blogger hysteria over ugly crime statistics, but describes accurately the situation as determined by a Los Angeles court of law: From the Los Angeles Times, 8/2/06, 4 Los Angeles Latino Gang Members Convicted of Anti-Black Conspiracy…

The jury finds that the defendants terrorized African Americans to try to drive them from the Highland Park neighborhood.

Four members of a Latino gang in Highland Park were found guilty Tuesday of unleashing a barrage of assaults and killings to push African Americans out of the predominantly Latino community in northeast Los Angeles.

Today’s news downplayed the racial aspect and emphasized the gang-on-gang violence, where innocent bystanders have become victims as well. But the race agenda is part of the territory when gangsters are reconquistas with tattoos.

Federal prosecutors today charged members of the Latino Florencia 13 street gang with racially motivated crimes against African Americans, including several attempted homicides.

Authorities said the gang specifically tried to eliminate rival African American gangs in South L.A. and the Florence-Firestone area in an effort to “cleanse” the neighborhood. In doing so, they mistakenly harassed and attacked innocent African American residents, according to the indictment.

More than 60 members and associates of the Florencia 13 street gang were charged with federal racketeering and drug charges.
Members of Latino gang charged with race-motivated crimes LA Times 10/16/07]

The hideous graffiti from some Mexican gangster artiste is a visual assault and territory-marking device. And another example of Mexican criminal diversity.(For powerful supplementary reading, see la Times’ city homicide blog.)

Kathy Shaidle asks if I have more citations for the “Disparate Impact” theory of minority relations I blogged about earlier.

Legally, “disparate impact” is a term of art coined in Griggs vs Duke Power, 1971, in which, as I said a while back,, “The message of Griggs and “disparate impact” theory: if minorities fail tests at a higher rate than whites, it’s the test that’s wrong.”

This gives the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) tremendous power to mess up both civil service and private sector hiring, requiring them to hire ex-convicts and people with incomprehensible accents, because they’re more likely to be members of minority groups.

Politically, there’s felon enfranchisement, seat belt laws,credit ratings, menthol cigarettes, mortage lending, statehood for the District of Columbia, and the complaint by Haitian-American Councilman Jacques Despinosse, of the City of North Miami, Florida, which is right on the Atlantic Ocean, that is was unfair to ask the City’s police officers to know how to swim:

“North Miami City Councilman Jacques Despinosse created a bit of a stir Tuesday when he asked the police department to rescind its swimming requirement for recruits because it eliminated many black candidates,” the Miami Herald reports. ” ‘We can’t swim,’ said Despinosse, a Haitian American. ‘Most of us didn’t come on the Mayflower. We came on slave ships.’ “[Swimming Requirement Called Unfair, By David Ovalle,Miami Herald (), Feb. 17, 2003, not online, quoted here or here.]

In April, 2004, the North Miami PD dropped the swimming requirement.

There’s a lot more, but I’m saving it for a Fulford File.

On Monday, the ever-reliable Shankar Vedantam reported in the Washington Post: “When Immigration Goes Up, Prices Go Down.” And now we have some real world confirmation on just how cheap it is to live in America’s immigration capital, Los Angeles. From the LA Times:

Poverty line out of touch with costs, advocates say

A report by the California Budget Project estimates that a two-working-parent family in L.A. needs $74,044 to make ends meet.

By Alana Semuels

Everyone knows living in California isn’t cheap. But a new report casts a light on how challenging it is to afford basic necessities — and how inadequate a minimum-wage job is to meet those needs.

A person working full-time for the state’s minimum wage of $7.50 an hour earns $15,600 annually. But a single adult in Los Angeles needs to make $28,126 a year to live modestly, while a single parent needs $62,393, according to the California Budget Project, the policy group behind the report being released today.

A two-parent family in Los Angeles with one working member needs $51,035, while a two-working-parent family needs $74,044, the report calculated.

The group estimated the cost of housing, food, transportation, child care, healthcare, taxes and miscellaneous items in regions across the state.

Calculations were based on families who do not receive healthcare through employment, rent rather than own real estate and have a car.

“The standard of living envisioned is more than a ‘bare bones existence,’ ” the report says, “yet covers only basic expenses, allowing little to no room for ‘extras’ such as college savings, vacations, or emergencies.”

They are assuming $1,269 per month for rent and utilities for a family of four. For a three bedroom apartment, that would put you in some place pretty dismal, rather than in a section of LA with decent public middle schools, such as Sherman Oaks or Valley Village. On the other hand, they are assuming $861 per month for health care, so the head-above-water point is a little lower if you get insurance through your job. (Of course, you could pay a lot more than $861 for health insurance on an individual family basis–as a cancer survivor, I once got quoted $1,500 per month.)

To buy a home rather than rent, you’d roughly have to double that income to, say, $150,000, although at present, nobody is buying anymore, so it’s all pretty theoretical.

This probably wins some kind of prize for “not mentioning race:”

Cheney and Obama are distant cousins: Mrs. Cheney - Yahoo! News

Tue Oct 16, 6:01 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There’s no sign of a family reunion planned, but U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama are distant cousins.
ADVERTISEMENT

So says the vice president’s wife, Lynne Cheney, who said she discovered that her husband of 43 years is eighth cousins with the senator from Illinois.

The two men could hardly be more different. Cheney is an advocate for pursuing the war in Iraq to try to stabilize the country, while Obama wants to get U.S. troops out of Iraq.

One of the more striking ways the two men are different is that one is black and the other is white. Years ago, Ishmael Reed wrote that if Alex Haley had traced his father’s rather than his mother’s “roots,” “he would have traveled 12 generations back to, not Gambia, but Ireland.” That’s what’s happening here, although obviously in this case it’s Obama’s mother whose ancestors came from Ireland. But I repeat, it’s amazing that they don’t mention the most striking, and politically important, distinction between Cheney and Obama, even though there is a photograph.

This is from John Rosenberg at Discriminations:

Discriminations: Does Colorblind Equality Cause Population Loss?

You probably think I’m joking, but I’m not. A California organization in favor of racial preferences and opposed to colorblind racial equality points to Prop. 209 as causing a drop in the black population of California on “a scale not seen since the Exodus of 1858, when blacks left San Francisco for British Columbia due to the Fugitive Slave Act….”

Who’d a thunk: equality as a form of population control!

One of his commenters noted the violent ethnic cleansing that Mexican gangs are attempting in black neighborhoods, but even without that, “it’s the immigration, stupid,” that’s making blacks and whites leave California for greener pastures.

See In California, Immigration Is The Real Terminator in which Sam Francis quoted an LA Times article to the effect that “More than 1.4 million people in the U.S. migrated to California from 1995 to 2000, while 2.2 million left–the highest migration numbers in the country.” More about the impact of immigration from Linda Thom here and from Two Blowhards here.

I’d never heard of the “Exodus of 1858,” by the way, it was apparently caused largely by a gold rush on the Fraser River which led to a labor shortage in British Columbia.

Mark Steyn, discussing the DHS:

I think they’re in a kind of difficult mess here, because on the one hand, they’re trying to argue that we need a kind of national security, orange alert war on terror state, and at the same time, they’re saying well, there’s nothing we can do about itinerant peasants breaching our Southern Border. Essentially, those two arguments are incompatible. One may be correct. The other may be correct. But they can’t both be right, and I think that’s the problem for Homeland Security, that you can’t be on orange alert and then just say well, 30 million people can penetrate the Border, and there’s nothing we can do about it. [Mark Steyn, on the Hugh Hewitt,October 11, 2007]