Reportedly, McCain has picked his running mate–and will announce his choice tomorrow. The leading candidates according to Intrade.com are Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty(odds are over 90% one of them will get the nomination). Tom Ridge, Joe Lieberman and Mike Huckabee have some chance of being chosen-and there is also speculation than female VP candidate like Meg Whitman, Kay Bailey Hutchinson or Sarah Palin may be chosen.

The major choices in the GOP VP race have a lot to do with immigration. Tim Pawlenty has been a vocal opponent of illegal immigration despite some questionable actions and overt support for expansion of H-1b visas.
Romney has been a dedicated cheerleader for H-1b expansion and there are real reasons to doubt his sincerity of his criticism of illegal immigration that came when criticism of illegal immigration was the only way he might hope to get the GOP nomination.

Sadly whatever way this choice goes, many American workers are destined for further exposure to world markets–and leaders intent on bringing the enormous economic inequality that exists in the world to America. Most likely, the most we can hope for from a McCain victory is that he dies before he does much damage on the immigration front. However his major VP choices are only marginally better than he is. The most we can hope for from them is that we get some containment of illegal immigration at the expense of expansion of H-1b visas and similar guest worker policies.

It seems like promoting H-1b expansion is becoming as much a litmus test for getting national prominence in the GOP as endorsing repeal of Roe vs. Wade. Eventually the GOP will have to decide whether they want to be a failed fund raising organization or a real political party. If Obama had added the credibility of a realistic immigration policy into his platform, McCain would be in big trouble.

Predictably, the Associated Press is reporting that fear is gripping the local illegal alien community. They’re in the country illegally. They’re supposed to be afraid. I’ve added a couple of square brackets to make things clear that were left out.

Fear grips [illegal]immigrants after Miss. plant raid

By HOLBROOK MOHR

August 27, 2008

LAUREL, Miss. (AP) — A day after the largest single-workplace immigration raid in U.S. history, Elizabeth Alegria was too scared to send her son to school and worried about when she’d see her husband again.

Nearly 600 immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally were detained, creating panic among dozens of families in this small southern Mississippi town.

Alegria, 26, a Mexican [apparently illegal] immigrant, was working at the Howard Industries transformer plant Monday when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stormed in. When they found out she has two sons, ages 4 and 9, she was fitted with a bracelet and told to appear in federal court next month. But her husband, Andres, wasn’t so lucky.

“I’m very traumatized because I don’t know if they are going to let my husband go and when I will see him,” Alegria said through a translator Tuesday as she returned to the Howard Industries parking lot to retrieve her sport utility vehicle.

The superintendent of the county school district said about half of approximately 160 Hispanic students were absent Tuesday.

Roberto Velez, pastor at Iglesia Cristiana Peniel, where an estimated 30 to 40 percent of the 200 parishioners were caught up in the raid, said [illegal]  parents were afraid immigration officials would take them.

“They didn’t send their kids to school today,” he said. “How scared is that?”

One worker caught in Monday’s sweep at the plant said fellow workers applauded as immigrants were taken into custody.[Yes! Those would be Americans applauding there.] Federal officials said a tip from a union member prompted them to start investigating several years ago.[More]

By the way, Howard Industries is using the Civil Rights defense, which may have some truth in it:

In a statement to the Laurel Leader-Call newspaper, Howard Industries said the company “runs every check allowed to ascertain the immigration status of all applicants for its jobs.”

It’s true that there is an Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices which makes it its business to see that employers don’t ask a man with a Mexican accent, a Pancho Villa mustache, and a sombrero any more questions about his immigration status than they’d ask a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. See Indiscriminate Anti-Discrimination Enforcement: Why Is It Illegal To Check For Illegals? By Marcus Epstein. However, I don’t think you can hire six hundred illegal foreigners entirely by accident.

There  are two stories in Canada’s National Post about a young Canadian woman being raped in a refugee camp (an unofficial camp of squatters) known as “The Jungle” near Calais.[Canadian journalist raped while on assignment in France, August 28, 2008, By Shane Dingman ] She went to get a story about the refugees and was raped by what the Calais prosecutor’s office called “an individual who is now being sought.” The French prosecutors may have been more specific about the identity of the rapist (refugees in the camp include “Afghans, Kurds, Iranians and Africans”) but it rarely leaks through two layers of MSM, in this case Agence France Presse and The National Post of Canada. But it’s clear that these refugees are dangerous.

Monique Delannoy, from the Belle Etoile aid group which provides meals to the migrants, told AFP: “I always advise journalists not to visit the squats, and I even discourage people working for us from going there.”[Canadian journalist raped in France: Official AFP, August 28, 2008]

While the the story and headline don’t make it clear that the attack was committed by an immigrant, at least they didn’t say the attack was committed by a “Frenchman.” In Racial Gangrape: Another Diversity Disaster By Sam Francis, seven years ago, I put in a note about a Guardian story that was headlined Gang rape on rise among French youth, [May 3, 2001] No, not French youths–North African youths in France.

I have criticized Mexican culture for its animal cruelty and extreme drinking (especially drunk driving). Both of these elements appear in this fascinating item from the La Plaza blog of the LA Times about a raucous celebration of bulls in a small Mexican town: Amateur bullfighting festival in Mexico ends with 23 injuries, August 25, 2008.

The Huamantlada, which is often compared to the running of the bulls event in Pamplona, takes place every year in this small rural town. The comparison to the event in Spain is inaccurate: the bulls didn’t run anywhere. The town’s 17 central streets were transformed into huge pens for the half-ton animals, which were mercilessly taunted by the crowd and pelted with plastic bottles and beer cans.

Many of the men who challenged the bulls, matador-style, knew what they were doing and approached the animals with caution and capes. But many didn’t. The combination of alcohol, a screaming crowd and poor judgment was too much: 23 people ended up being carried away on stretchers by the Red Cross.

Oh, well! At least nobody was killed during the festivities, unlike last year…

Not everybody was so cautious, but at least nobody lost their lives. Last year, there were 24 injuries and one death — Pimental saw the whole thing. The victim was an older man, and very drunk, she said. He didn’t want to sit with his family; he wanted to touch the bull.

“The animal took out his insides,” Pimental recalled.

Yep, too much drinking makes you stupid, a fact which has shown up in various Darwin Awards.