Looks like Senator Sam Brownback may be the second GOP Presidential hopeful after John McCain to have his campaign derailed by his dogmatic immigration enthusiasm:

“I think we had a good strategy. I was very hopeful we’d be able to get the social conservative wing of the party on board early and then build out to the economic conservatives,” he said. “I don’t think conservatives are divided. I just think they’re undecided.”

However, he also admitted that the high-profile debate on an immigration reform bill in the Senate this summer did not help his presidential campaign. His support for the bill angered some conservatives in the GOP base, who charged the measure amounted to providing “amnesty” to illegal immigrants.

Sen. Brownback backs out of GOP presidential race, CNN, October 19, 2007.

In fact, as we have repeatedly demonstrated on VDARE.COM, Brownback’s immigration record has been awful for a long time, especially on the refugee racket. As our James Fulford said back in 2003, Brownback believed his own baloney.

By an amazing coincidence, the other candidate trying working the Religious Right constituency, Mike Huckabee, is equally horrible on immigration.

Hint to campaign consultants: Maybe that’s why “social conservatives” are, in Brownback’s words, “undecided”.

In Britain, dissatisfaction with immigration has been on the uptick, despite the bloviations to the contrary of the elites who benefit from cheap labor and/or believe in the questionable charms of diversity. One worker in eight is foreign born and more than 12 percent of working-age people are foreign born. There have been too many foreigners too fast, not to mention the hostile sons of Allah blowing people up.

(The photo shows Muslims accosting London worshippers as they left Westminster Cathedral in September 2006.)

Almost every UK region has difficulties in housing, health, education and crime because of increased migration, according to an official report.
[Migration 'causes pressure in UK' , BBC 10/17/07]

As a member of the EU, Britain welcomed Polish immigrants, who are now the third-largest immigrant group: two million Poles now occupy the island, more than live in Warsaw. Sausage diversity is up, that’s for sure.

But Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said migration on the scale Britain was currently facing was having a “huge impact” with “little economic justification”.

He added the government must look at cutting the numbers of migrants from non-EU countries.

“You cannot do anything about the eastern Europeans because they are members of the EU and their numbers are likely to decline as the level of these economies come up,” he said.

“Three quarters of migrants come from the rest of the world.”

A couple weeks ago, the Pew Foundation released a poll showing that many people around the world have a negative view of immigration:

In both affluent countries in the West and in the developing world, people are concerned about immigration. Large majorities in nearly every country surveyed express the view that there should be greater restriction of immigration and tighter control of their country’s borders.

And in another example of unhappiness, one of the major bastions of liberal immigration, Canada, is questioning multiculturalism just a little bit:

“There is now a sense of urgency to more clearly define and explain the principle of reasonable accommodation, as alarming shifts regarding the split between ‘them’ and ‘us’ may occur,” the briefing says. “This is of particular concern in Quebec, at a time when the government is putting programs in place to close gaps affecting minority groups.”
['Them' and 'us' split spreading nationwide, federal officials warn, By Bill Curry, Globe and Mail, October 19, 2007]

Hilary Clinton quoted by an article by Beth Fouhy in Associated Press:
“People who are here legally deserve some better treatment and acceptance in the law than people who are not here legally”

I understand there are serious problems with Clinton’s understanding of immigration policy–but statements like these will sure make Clinton look good compared to the mainstream GOP candidates.

Sol Stern has a piece about propagandist Jonathan Kozol, who feels that Bush is to blame for poor performance in urban schools, asking whether teachers are unhappy because of something Bush has done, or because they’ve internalized the Kozol party line that they’re fed in schools of education:

False Prophet
Who’s to blame for urban teacher flight: George W. Bush or Jonathan Kozol?
By Sol Stern,
City Journal
1 October 2007

Jonathan Kozol has a new education book out, which means that he hasn’t been eating. Kozol’s books always come backed by a PR campaign portraying him as someone who courageously exposes the racism of America’s inner-city public schools and even suffers physically alongside the people he writes about. For example, when Amazing Grace, Kozol’s 1995 book about poor minority kids trapped in lousy schools in the South Bronx, first appeared, the author had “lost 30 pounds and had begun suffering from asthma, like so many of the people who live” in the neighborhood, the New York Times reported.

With his new book, Letters to a Young Teacher—consisting of letters to a (possibly imaginary) first-grade Boston public school instructor—Kozol is again winning press plaudits, this time by actually fasting. In a glowing Boston Globe profile, columnist Sam Allis observed that Kozol “has been on a partial fast since the Supreme Court in late June all but banned voluntary school desegregation plans. His belt is working overtime to keep his pants up. I tell him he should eat.” A few weeks later, though, Kozol’s fans and friends received a somewhat different spin on the fast. In a Huffington Post article, Kozol described his refusal to eat solid food as a “personal act of protest” against George W. Bush’s “racially punitive” No Child Left Behind education law. Kozol claimed to have shed 29 pounds so far.

But if teachers are dispirited in inner-city schools, it’s likely to be the kids themselves causing it, by verbally and physically abusing the teachers. Here’s the what Joshua Kaplowitz, who used to be idealistic, wrote in 2003:

Numerous new friends and acquaintances who have taught in D.C.’s inner-city schools–some from Teach for America, some not–report the same outrageous discipline problems that turned them from educators into U.N. peacekeepers.

I’ve learned that an epidemic of violence is raging in elementary schools nationwide, not just in D.C. A recent Philadelphia Inquirer article details a familiar pattern–kindergartners punching pregnant teachers, third-graders hitting their instructors with rulers.

Pennsylvania and New Jersey have reported nearly 30 percent increases in elementary school violence since 1999, and many school districts have established special disciplinary K-6 schools. In New York City, according to the New York Post, some 60 teachers recently demonstrated against out-of-control pupil mayhem, chanting, “Hey, hey, ho, ho; violent students must go.” [Stop The Violence' : Fearful Teachers Protest Students' Reign Of Terror,By Carl Campanile Education Reporter Date: November 23, 2002]Kids who stab each other, use teachers as shields in fights, bang on doors to disrupt classes, and threaten to “kick out that baby” from a pregnant teacher have created a “climate of terror,” the Post reports.

[How I Joined Teach for America–and Got Sued for $20 Million, City Journal, Winter 2003]

This is from conservative humor site IMAO, a profile of one of their commenters:

What’s your favorite political issue? Socialized medicine. Oh boy. We have that already people, it’s called MEDICAID. Talk to your local medical providers and ERs about how well that works for us. There’s another program out there even more socialized (and worse) and that’s called IHS. [Indian Health Service, for American Indians and Alaska Natives]I once had to go into the ER to see an IHS patient because they didn’t have a thermometer at home, literally that was the reason for their visit. That’s great health care delivery there. People that read this mostly know but the Dems need to pull their heads out: medicine is not free. Gas is not free. Electricity is not free. Somewhere along the line people really got it in their heads that medicine shouldn’t cost anything. What? My favorite is the young, able, MEDICAID smoker that has a cell phone more expensive than mine. Now that makes for a tough visit to cope with. I could go on and on, but I will shut up like I must before I get in trouble.IMAO: Ronin Profile: Bob the Doc

But then there’s this:

How long have you been reading IMAO? About 3-4 years ago my wife said to me: “Honey, there’s this website you should look at…” The rest is history, it seems to be one of the few sites not blocked by the filters at most worksites, so you win by default and I read every day I am at work and most days not.

Check out my Fulford File, Vdare.com Censored by Corporate Software for ways around this problem, and remember to write us if you see VDARE.com blocked by a filter, if possible with the name of the filtering company.

The former editor of Commentary Magazine is the redoubtable Norman Podhoretz, who won a Kellett Fellowship to Clare College, Cambridge in the 1950s, entirely on merit.

Norman Podhoretz is the author of My Negro Problem And Ours, [PDF] and this postscript, and a number of serious articles and books over the years. Some examples

• “Lolita,” My Mother-in-Law, the Marquis de Sade, and Larry Flynt) April 1997 about the rise of pornography
• “Sexgate,” the Sisterhood, and Mr. Bumble June 1998 about Clinton and the feminists
• What Happened to Ralph Ellison August 1999 about the complex history of the author of Invisible Man
• A Dissent on Isaiah Berlin February 1999, which is frankly, too deep for me

You can disagree with Norman Podhoretz, and I know a lot of people who do, (a lot of people) but you can’t help taking him seriously as an intellectual.

This is the new editor of Commentary Magazine, John Podhoretz,

The Corner on National Review Online
Thursday, October 18, 2007

“Immigration Is Incompatible With a Modern Society” [John Podhoretz]

So sayeth Mark Krikorian. Thank you, Mark. You have written honest words. And this is where I came in. Nearly four years ago, speaking out in modest support for the original Bush proposal on immigration, I was hammered by John Derbyshire and others for not understanding the profound difference between LEGAL IMMIGRATION (good) and ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION (bad). Now it seems we are to view immigration — all immigration — as incompatible with a modern society. So why didn’t you immigration restrictionists just say so in the first place, instead of hiding behind the word “illegal”? Why didn’t you then acknowledge your problem wasn’t with law-breaking at all but rather with the fact that any people are coming in? Could it be that you knew then it was an extremist view that only had support on the fringe, but that there would be real strength behind using the illegality of illegal immigration to rally people to your cause? And that now, with real movement in your direction ideologically, you now feel freer to advocate openly what you have always hinted at but have never quite said so blatantly?

Again, I thank you for your honesty. America is no longer to admit immigrants. Period. I hope you will now drop the weasel adjective “illegal” from the rhetoric from here on in, because otherwise, you will just be trying to snow people.

10/18 10:19 PM

This is just sad. I suppose I could refute the “points” he’s making, but it’s probably better to let it speak for itself.