There’s a story about a group of liberal Southern Baptists, including Jimmy Carter, who are starting a new group that will not be part of the Religious Right, but the Religious Left instead. [New Baptist Group Counters Conservatives, KXAS, nbc5i.com, January 29, 2008]

A quick search of the “Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant” website showed that they’re having a speech on “The Challenges of Immigration” by Senator Lindsey Graham, and a sermon (not by any means a political speech, of course) on the topic “The Bible Speaks about Welcoming the Stranger” by Professor Joel Gregory [send him mail] of Baylor.

They’re also planning a workshop on “Welcoming A Stranger” featuring

• Richard Munoz – [Send him mail] Director, The Immigration Service and Aid Center (ISAAC), Dallas, Texas
• Houmphanh Vongsurith – [Send him mail]President, Laotian National Baptist Fellowship and Pastor, First Laotian Baptist Church, Grand Prairie, TX

What the two of the will be discussing is this: “Many immigrants need help negotiating life in their new homes. How can churches help?” Well, by helping them stay home? By encouraging them to live good Christian lives, with no stealing, sexual harassment, drinking, and, if they’re Baptists, no dancing either?

Well, no, usually by encouraging them to come to the US, and helping them get access to government relief when the do, and providing them with “sanctuary” if they’re deportable. See my article The Refugee Industry, Slavery, And Rape in which I quoted Sam Francis to the the effect that “The Protestant churches are the Open Borders Lobby at prayer—though a good many churches seem to spend more time preaching politics than praying.”

That, no doubt, is what’s in the future for this “New Baptist Covenant” thing.
Normally, by the way, prominent Baptist Mike Huckabee would be all over this like, er, felt on a flannel board. The reason he’s not is because he can’t afford to while he’s running for President.

This story, which is about the forcible rape of white female college students by black criminals, does not contain the words black or white. I guess they just don’t think anyone would be interested in facts like that.

Trial opens for 3 men accused in rapes of USD students
By Dana Littlefield
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

January 29, 2008

A group of college students was hanging out at a Mission Beach condominium in 2006 when they were attacked by several men who entered through an unlocked door, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

The University of San Diego students – two women and two men – were terrified by the intruders, who forced them to participate in sexual acts and stole items from the two-story condo.

Given the names of the alleged rapists, (Willie Louis Watkins, 32, Donald Duante Smith, 20, and Antonio Washington, 19) we might make a shrewd guess, based on our knowledge of differential naming conventions, at the race of the suspects, but reporter Dana Littlefield [Email him] and the Editors of the San Diego Union-Tribune [Email their readers representive] don’t want us to know.

But here’s a story that does contain this information, (and a photograph of the alleged rapists) because the judge is asking jurors if they’re able to be impartial in a case like this:

Fifty [prospective] jurors were being questioned at the San Diego County Courthouse on Thursday. Judge John Einhorn addressed the juror pool, saying that race is an issue because the defendants are black and the victims are white. The judge has been asking jurors if that would affect their ability to be fair and impartial in the case — can they concentrate on the evidence, not skin color. [Judge: Race An Issue In Mission Beach Rape Case, NBCSanDiego.com, January 24, 2008]

By the way, even when the Judge isn’t channeling To Kill A Mockingbird, it frequently happens that local TV stations are the place to go for the information that the AP Stylebook says isn’t pertinent. Even if they wanted to ignore the issue, they can’t–they always have photographs of the suspects.

I guess I’m supposed to provide some primary punditry … hmmhmhh … Okay, in the Florida primary, the winner was McCain and the big loser was former frontrunner Giuliani who skipped all those earlier primaries so he could concentrate on Florida, with all its ex-New Yorkers. And he still got only about 15% of the vote.

So, are all the neocons who got jobs in the Giuliani campaign, like N. Podhoretz, Frum, Rubin, going to jump ship and join the McCain campaign? A lot of them supported McCain back in 2000. And will they be greeted with open arms by the McCain campaign, or will they be told they’re losers–as shown by the Giuliani steamroller–and should stay away. My guess is the former, mostly because neocons are harder to kill than Rasputin. No matter how often everything they touch turns to ashes, they, personally, pop right back up with nice new sinecures in influential institutions.

Also, can somebody explain exactly what the difference is between McCain and Giuliani? They both are invade-the-world, invite-the-world, in-hock-to-the-world guys, just like Bush. So, why is McCain doing well and Giuliani is in the tank? Is it just because McCain showed up in the first few primaries while Giuliani was off acting like he had something better to do than run for President? Perhaps Woody Allen was right and 90% of success is showing up.

And do voters have any idea what anybody really stands for? I’d like to use Giuliani’s flop as a weapon against the neocons–The voters rejected your man overwhelmingly, proving that your World War IV policies are bankrupt!–but I have this vague hunch that practically nobody who voted in Florida knew that Giuliani had thrown his lot in with the World War IV crowd anyway. (And the folks who vote in primaries are the hard core public affairs junkies compared to the crowd that turns out in November!)

And what exactly is the deal with Romney? I don’t watch TV much other than American Idol, so I’ve never seen the man say one word. When he speaks, is there something about him that makes people just not like him? On magazine covers, he looks like a distinguished President, and his resume makes him sound like the least likely to screw up royally of all the current candidates in either party. But I’ve almost never seen anybody anywhere express any warm feelings toward him. Does he just get on people’s nerves or what?

I’m not good at forecasting elections, but I am confident in my prediction of how it will be spun.

If John McCain gets the GOP nomination, he will still lose the Hispanic vote by a large margin.

If he wins, the chattering classes will compare how he well he did among Hispanics compared to the GOP’s performance in the 2006 midterms, proving that the Hispanic vote won him the election.

If he loses, they will compare his low numbers to George Bush’s phony success among Hispanics in 2004. His defeat will be attributed to his toned down his support for open borders and/or the xenophobia of other Republicans.

I predicted last summer when Rudy Giuliani was riding high, and I projected again during one of his many swings through California , that the former New York would never get the GOP presidential nomination. He’s too New York, too pro-illegal immigration and too bald.

Now it is official: Giuliani is dead meat .

So I’ll make another prediction: McCain will never make it to the top spot either. He’s got too much anti-GOP baggage and as much personal dirt on him as Giuliani does. In McCain’s case it hasn’t all come out yet…but it will.

During our recent interview Todd Hartley, my host on a recent PHXnews.COM Immigration PodCast, told me that McCain is the most hated Republican in Arizona .

A McCain nomination is unlikely for the most obvious of reasons. McCain is committed to George Bush’s Iraq War policy and open borders immigration agenda, the two major factors that have contributed to the president’s 30 percent approval rating.

What’s McCain going to do–campaign on the platform of a sustained war and more immigration? Even against equally staunch proponents of unchecked immigration, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (who is still promising driver’s licenses to illegal aliens), that’s an invitation for the Democrats to waltz into the White House.

At least Clinton and Obama have the war issue on their side.

The Republicans need to put someone up who at least can give the appearance of being serious about ending illegal immigration: ideally Ron Paul but more probably Mitt Romney .

Here’s something to watch for also. McCain is old! Notice in film clips from his campaign stops McCain’s heavy reliance on railings, his wife’s arm and the presence of aides to help him up and down airplane stairs and on and off the podium.

So it appears that John McCain has won in the Republican Florida Primary. As Peter Brimelow remarked the other day, the intense tribalism of this year’s contests is breathtaking, as is:

how complacently this is passed over in the MSM. Women vote for Hillary in Nevada. Hispanics vote for Hillary in Nevada. Mormons vote for Romney in Nevada. Evangelicals vote for Huckabee in South Carolina. Veterans vote for McCain in South Carolina. (Close race). Probably blacks will vote overwhelmingly for Obama throughout the South.

And, apparently, the Aged vote for John McCain in Florida. Of course, Ron Paul is over 70 too. But McCain deals exclusively in memories, and Paul mainly in ideas: it is a very serious practical difference.

Voting for your own makes a certain sense. In a more recent blog, Peter Brimelow noted what absolutely does not make sense: in South Carolina, where the

near-lynching of Senator Lindsey Graham was among the first signs that the Kennedy-Bush amnesty/ immigration surge bill was going to fail, McCain, who supported it, got a quarter (24%)of those naming immigration. He even got a quarter (26%) of the gratifying majority (52%) of South Carolina Republican voters who thought illegal immigrants should be deported.

It is indisputable that the grass roots rebellion which blocked the Bush/Kennedy Amnesty of last year was one of the most powerful popular political spasms of modern times.

So what does this tell us of John McCain’s appreciation - or respect - for the popular will ( especially of his party) that he so grovellingly slurped up the endorsement of Florida’s Senator Mel Martinez last week? Martinez (R-Cuba) whose bigoted ethnocentric political behavior has been hugely damaging to the Republican base and repulsively anti- American into the bargain?

Nothing good.

Why is it that Ron Paul’s rather respectable credentials on the immigration issue – which was so white hot last year – do not help him?

Peter Brimelow, in his comment on the South Carolina results has the answer:

Ron Paul, who got an appalling 4% of both groups [those saying immigration most important issue; those wanting illegals deported] is missing a huge opportunity by not stressing his commitment to national sovereignty

Some year, a Presidential candidate will appear who hears this music.

Goodnight, my someone…