It’s the first thing our readers would ask, and the first thing we’d ask, (to figure out if this is a case of “Immigrant Mass Murder” syndrome) but it’s the last thing  the Mainstream Media wants to tell us, so we have to look for clues. I’m assuming that from the fact that his mother is named Dennise, an extremely American name, and a neighbor in his small town referred to having known him since he was born, that Isaac Zamora is not an immigrant. Except for going crazy, and shooting six people, he would be considered totally assimilated.

In checking to make sure Zamora actually was a Hispanic name, I came across the case of Diane Zamora, the Texas Cadet Murderess. Diane Zamora was a midshipman cadet at the US Naval Academy and a member of the National Honor Society. Except for bashing Adrianne Jones’s head in over a “love triangle,” she was totally  assimilated, too.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Skagit County shooting spree leaves 6 dead, including sheriff’s deputy, 2 injured

A shooting spree in Skagit County has left six people dead and two injured by a man authorities describe as a well-known criminal with mental problems. State Patrol Trooper Keith Leary said 28-year-old Isaac Zamora of Alger, known to have a mental illness, was arrested after turning himself in at the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office.

By Jennifer Sullivan, Warren Cornwall and Jim Brunner

Seattle Times
ALGER, Skagit County — A man shot and killed a sheriff’s deputy and five other people, and wounded two more, during a shooting rampage near his rural home and a high-speed chase along Interstate 5 Tuesday afternoon.

The suspect, 28-year-old Isaac Zamora of Alger, has a criminal record and a history of mental problems and had been living in the woods. He ended the violent rampage and ensuing high-speed chase when he turned himself in Tuesday afternoon at the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office.

Anne Jackson, a 40-year-old Skagit County sheriff’s deputy, was the only slain victim identified by authorities Tuesday night.

Dennise Zamora, the suspect’s mother, said her son was “extremely mentally ill” and had been living in the woods on and off for years. He was released last month from jail after a drug offense and was under Department of Corrections supervision, according to a department spokesman.

Dennise Zamora said Jackson was aware of her son’s illness and told the Zamora family to call her anytime for help.

After watching Isaac walk in and out of neighbors’ homes, Dennise Zamora called deputies on Tuesday. She said her son wasn’t aware of his mental illnesses.

Dennise Zamora said she wished she could switch places with the people slain Tuesday.

“When I say I wish it was me and not them, I mean it from the bottom of my heart,” she said, sobbing.[More]

How about we all pat ourselves on the back for the great job this country did in vetting the Democratic nominee for President? After all, by the middle of March 2008, when the vast majority of Americans first heard about the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., there were still eight (count ‘em, eight!) states that hadn’t yet held primaries or caucuses. Sure, 42 primaries / caucuses had been held in ignorance of Barack Obama’s actual background, but, hey, 8 out of 50 ain’t bad!

By the time the Rev. came back from his cruise and proved six weeks later that in Obama’s celebrated “More Perfect Union” oration, Obama had merely been “saying what a politician has to say,” thus making Obama so mad he finally did disown Wright, there were still seven states left. And by the time Rev. Wright’s much ballyhooed successor, Otis Moss, had proven how leftist he was, causing Obama to disown his church at the very end of May, there were two entire primaries left.

America, you’re doing a heck of a job!

A couple of writers for Slate get it (almost) about how the Palins are the exemplars of my theory of Affordable Family Formation:

Working-Class Hero: How the Palins’ enviable blue-collar lifestyle could help the McCain campaign.
By Adriaan Lanni and Wesley Kelman

But the pregnancy (which could help swing voters identify with Palin) threatens to obscure a seductive and misleading subtext in Palin’s biography that may play a key role in the election: the way she embodies the hope of a blue-collar life without economic insecurity.

Actually, the 18-year-old fiance looks quite capable of doing a man’s work and earning a man’s pay in the Alaskan economy. I have no idea if he, personally, will turn out to be a decent provider, but he’s got a strong back in a place where that’s worth something. (more…)

Muslims residing in the United States appear to be organizing to advance their influence on American society.

A large coalition of Muslim nonprofit groups and mosques has taken the first steps to build a unifying Bay Area network. By working together, they hope not only to develop a common voice, but also to more effectively serve their growing community. [...]

“Until we Muslims are organized in San Diego, as well as Central and Northern California,” he said, “we will not be able to negotiate our future as we ought to as the largest Muslim population in the country.” [Muslims form coordinated Bay Area network, San Francisco Chronicle, September 3, 2008]

For what end do they wish to “negotiate”? Sharia law? Polygamy? The oppression of women? Why not assimilate to American values if they immigrated here of their own free will? Washington should have ended Muslim immigration from terror-supporting states after 9/11, but remains too PC to protect the American people.

As a recent example of their ceaseless demands, consider the irritating Muslims in Canada who want a city swimming pool built to their religious specifications: Aquatic centre’s windows pose problem for Muslim women.

The new aquatic centre at Halifax’s planned $40.5-million Mainland Common Centre will include two 25-metre pools and lots of big windows designed to handle natural and artificial light.

For one user group - Muslim women who like to swim - the window configuration at the centre is a concern, municipal officials familiar with the project said Friday.
That’s because modesty and privacy are paramount for these religious women.

A female reader calls my attention to a minor article about Bristol Palin’s fiance attending the GOP convention on the website of the San Francisco Chronicle, a fairly minor big city newspaper. And yet, in the ten hours that the article has been up on the SF Chronicle’s website, it has garnered (let me check the latest) well over 1000 comments. This story isn’t some exclusive scoop for the SF Chronicle–they just took it from the AP feed, so it’s reasonable to guess the same scale of reaction is happening nationwide.

My reader adds:

I’ve never seen anything quite like it. BTW, I get comments w/ my five, but, let me “wear” my baby in a bjorn carrier w/ my four in tow and strangers make scenes…

Offhand, the only political whoop-te-doos that I can recall to compare to this in frenzy were Monica Lewinsky and Anita Hill. Hmmhmhmm, what did they all have in common?

As I remarked on Monday concerning the latest Wall Street Journal offering, the striking thing about the current crop of rah-rah immigration editorials is their stunning unoriginality - and especially their systematic assumption that they have no need to meet counter arguments.

Republicans lag among Latinos The Dallas Morning News [September 3 2008] continues this fine tradition of unreflectiveness. Proceeding on the apparent assumption that only Hispanic votes are real the editorial bewails:

…the latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows only 23 percent of Latinos backing Republican nominee John McCain.
Mr. McCain can hardly afford that huge drop-off. He especially can’t afford an exodus of Latino Protestants, a key part of Mr. Bush’s base.
In 2004, 37 percent of Latino Protestants considered themselves Republicans. But a June survey by Calvin College’s Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics reveals that number has fallen to 16 percent heading into this election.

(What proportion of Latinos is Protestant? Is it even 20%? We are talking of a shift of 21% of 20% of less than 10% of the electorate! Is this a serious observation?)

The Dallas Morning News conclusion:

Mr. McCain needs to make clear he’s not backing down from fairly and thoroughly overhauling our immigration laws. He may risk alienating the Lou Dobbs crowd, but he also can’t keep hemorrhaging Latino support

To give it credit, unlike the WSJ, this editorial does not perpetrate the Bush Hispanic vote/ above 40% lie:

Mr. Bush received nearly 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in his re-election campaign against John Kerry (VDARE.com emphasis)

To the even greater credit of the Texan paper, it allows quick posting of comments at the foot of the article, not late and hidden away like the WSJ. Crushing refutations appeared immediately

Having our borders SECURE is more important than pandering to Latino votes. There are more than enough true blue Americans who will vote for him and get him elected without compromising our country’s security…

The real question for McCain is can he afford to lose the Anglo vote? It’s much larger than the Hispanic vote…. I don’t think any Republican will be that successful with Hispanics. Democrats have been exploiting the poor and ignorant for over a hundred years and are masters at it….

I have news for the DMN, the “Lou Dobbs” crowd is the vast majority of all Americans…

The WSJ itself has finally got round to allowing comments to be posted on its own immigration editorial, several days later and buried a number of pages back in the separate “Forum” section. (Could it be the WSJ is not interested in the opinions of its readers?) A dozen replies were allowed, ten hostile, one confused and one supportive.

The supportive one is significant: an individual showered with US benefits for many years still puts ethnicity above national loyalty and demands deference to Hispanics:

What a mean spirited and paltry vision of America a 1,000 mile wall brings to mind….My parents came to the US seeking medical treatment for my sister and fell in love with America. I am a first generation American who served in the U.S. Navy thirty years, my brother served in the U.S. Marines, and my son attends the U.S. Naval Academy…The Republican party needs to ask itself this…will all the sons and daughters of those immigrants currently living in the U.S. align with a political party that with such xenophobic fervor demonized their parents and families?

-antylyzyk (email him)

The rest put America first:

I am unhappy with the contention that Republicans (or any political party) should abandon the illegal alien problems as it might alienate Hispanic …We have laws to allow orderly immigration and we have chosen not to enforce those laws. We are now faced with increased crime, increased numbers of aliens who do not speak English, whose children are attending our schools and being given ESL classes ( expensive budget items) and who continue their allegiance to their home countries. The money spent on ER treatments, schools, social services, etc should be spent on American citizens. Why are we not concerned with the cultural, ethnic change which is transforming our country? Has a vote on this issue ever been put to the American people? Or do politicians cater to this Hispanic vote at the expense of what is best for our country and its citizens? Do politicians really think that our long term best interests are served by making America Hispanic? Are our politicians thinking about what is best for American citizens and our children? I think not… and am very concerned about this trend…

Before we wax poetically about this being a nation built by immigrants let us keep in mind most of the previous waves of immigrants generally oriented themselves in many ways into the existing culture…I see little evidence of that in the current wave of Latina immigrants. I recently stopped at a McDonald’s in what was clearly a non-Latino neighborhood. I had to repeat the order 5 times. The young Latino lady could not understand me and I could not understand her. The other workers, all Latinos and appearing to be teenagers all spoke among themselves in non-English…. In my opinion many, perhaps most, Latinos seem content to illegally cross the border, settle into the United States within their own culture using their own language, procreate “native” Americans of sufficient quantity to become a dominant political force of their own so to orient this country to a more Latino culture…

No doubt President McCain and the Democratic Congress will attempt another Amnesty push. On the basis of these editorials and responses, they will need to tell their MSM friends to sharpen up their arguments - and they had better leave their phones off the hook.

Tell Dallas Morning News editorial page editor Keven Ann Willey she needs to improve the quality of their immigration editorials. (The Wall Street Journal is beyond redemption.)