Stories like this are extremely common nationwide:

Citing rising crime, Utah’s D.C. delegation asks Homeland Security for more immigration agents

By Matt Canham
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 03/05/2008 02:37:10 PM MST

Posted: 2:12 PM- WASHINGTON –

Utah needs at least 22 more federal immigration agents, according to letters sent Wednesday by members of Congress to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
“Our jails are full. The crime rates continue to increase, and we can no longer let this problem escalate,” reads one of the letters, signed by Utah’s two senators and three representatives.[More]

That’s why stories like this one, from Jeff Jacoby, [Send him mail]are so incredible: Immigration and crime, The Boston Globe, March 5, 2008. Jacoby seems convinced, on the basis of a new California Public Policy Institute study, [PDF] that immigration somehow actually lowers crime. We’ve dealt with this silly claim repeatedly–one reason immigrant crime can seem lower is that we don’t know about it.(In the media, we aren’t allowed to know about it.) Check out this CIS Backgrounder by Carl Horowitz:

The Meta-Issue: The Veil of Secrecy

Immigration enthusiasts might be prone to use such research as evidence that widespread fear of immigrant crime is an irrational, if understandable, response to sensationalized anecdotes. But such a view may be hasty in its own right. Many immigrant crimes are not reported, and possibly in greater proportion than the crimes that the U.S.-born commit. Many victims of immigrant criminals fear reporting crimes to the police because their victimizers are of the same nationality, and thus are more likely to retaliate in ways that would dissuade the victim from calling police.

This is especially true with immigrant crime rings. As illegal economic activity, organized crime requires an unusually high level of trust to maintain a veil of secrecy from police and mob rivals alike. A common language and experience, apart from the larger American one, can link such people. ““Criminals,”” writes immigration critic Peter Brimelow, “”prefer to deal with co-conspirators they understand and trust — in economist-speak, it reduces their transaction costs. And such tightly-knit groups, operating in a foreign and sometimes obscure language, are notoriously difficult for the police to penetrate.“”[Alien Nation, page 185]

Hillary Clinton, on 60 Minutes, was asked it she thought Obama was a Muslim, and she said ” No! No! Why would I? There’s nothing to base that on. As far as I know.”.The words “As far as I know.” are apparently considered an evil smear or innuendo. Mickey Kaus writes:

I’m with Althouse on Hillary’s “as far as I know” answer on the Obama/Muslim canard. It seems like mere reflexive politico-legal ass-covering on her part, not innuendo-spreading. If you’re Hillary, you have to have learned not to make sweeping declarations of fact about things you can’t really know–e.g., “Obama is not a Muslim”–without adding a caveat. Her sin, if any, was not realizing that this instance was an exception to the normal rule –an occasion where she’d be expected to make a sweeping declaration of fact about something she couldn’t really know.

She might also be remembering the 1990’s, where she held press conferences affirming that her husband wasn’t cheating on her. But here’s my point–why on earth is it Hillary who’s being asked tough questions about Obama’s Muslim past? Shouldn’t they be asking these tough questions of Obama, who knows the answer?

Furthermore, the press could be asking Obama to “distance himself” from Islam, to condemn the Prophet, or ask him to condemn the worldwide Muslim crime wave. That’s just what the SPLC does when it asks Southern politicians to “distance themselves” from what they call hate groups, or what Salon Magazine did, when they asked Tom Tancredo to condemn us. (He declined.)

Hillary wins crucial Ohio easily and Texas narrowly, but Obama still has the lead in delegates, and now there’s not much on the schedule all the way until Pennsylvania on April 22. Obama supporters are mad that Hillary isn’t dropping out, but if their candidate is so strong, why won’t seven more weeks of free publicity and massive fundraising make him stronger in November? Or do they fear what might emerge from more scrutiny?

It will be interesting to see if blacks are sore about Hispanics in Texas voting heavily against Obama.

By the way, the Democrats have a mess involving the DNC’s decision in 2007 to punish Florida and Michigan, out of all the states that moved up their primaries, by not seating their delegations (where Hillary ended up doing well in both primaries, but they weren’t really contested). These are two big purple states, much like Ohio, so the Democrats should want to know who would win them in a fair fight. It would make sense to reschedule their primaries for May.

A lawyer friend writes in response to Steve’s call for explanations of the California housing bubble:

California has an anti-deficiency judgment statute that limits a lender’s recovery to the amount realized in a foreclosure sale. One would imagine that lenders would exercise greater caution in an anti-deficiency judgment state, but why bother when large financial institutions around the world were buying all the mortgage-backed securities thrown onto the market, the majority of which were rated AAA or AA by Moody’s and S&P.

Some purchasers with no-down payment ARMs have done better as “homeowners” than they could have done as renters. As soon as the ARM rate bumps up, they simply stop paying rent and await foreclosure. When they are forced out, they have no liability even if foreclosure fails to satisfy the outstanding mortgages.

I’m not aware of any other state with a similar anti-deficiency judgment statute, although I haven’t researched the issue.