I listen to radio broadcasts only briefly and sporadically, so I was startled in recent weeks to hear several ads for E-Verify on Sean Hannity’s show. Given the odds arising from my sparse sampling, the ads must run pretty frequently.

Sponsored (naturally) by the Department of Homeland Security [DHS], the ads were quite brief–at most 30 seconds long, perhaps just 15–and not heavy on content. But it was, nevertheless, heartening to hear them.

It turns out that DHS is also spending some advertising bucks with National Public Radio [NPR] on what are called “10-second funding credits.” NPR’s ombudsman Alicia Shepard explains funding credits and the “firewall” between the reporters and the back office here.

Shepard notes that DHS is using NPR because of its “national reach” and adds this jaw-dropper: “E-Verify funding credits also are carried on Latino USA, a show that NPR distributes but does not produce.”

Shepard also reports that she’s received plenty of negative response to the E-Verify squibs. The listener reactions she quotes are filled with misinformation and invective about E-Verify. Listener Mary Hopkins, for example, claims that E-Verify relies upon a “filthy database,” which strikes me as a new coinage  altogether.

Although the E-Verify funding-credits run will apparently continue through February 9, unaffected by such complaints to the ombudsman, it would be good if she also heard from those of us who are enthusiastic about E-Verify, recognizing that it’s the basis for the attrition-by-enforcement strategy.

So how about stepping up? To contact the ombudsman, go here and, on that page, choose “Contact an NPR office or service (transcripts, management, etc.).” This yields a drop-down menu from which you can select “NPR Ombudsman (Listeners’ Advocate).” The spaces for one’s message and contact information are slightly below. Here’s what I wrote to Shepard:

I’m a “refugee” from California and, thus, deeply knowledgeable about what the scourge of illegal immigration is doing to our country. The most important step in rescuing the country from this is to prevent illegal aliens from getting jobs (because if they can’t get jobs, they’ll go back to their own countries). E-Verify lets honest employers make sure they’re not hiring illegal aliens. So I’m delighted that those snippets about E-Verify’s existence are running on NPR.

By the way, if you have detailed questions about E-Verify, nose around at the website of patriot extraordinaire (and my friend and fellow California refugee) Hal Netkin.

Right after Rod Blagojevich was arrested for trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder, (who seems to have been Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.) Bill Richardson, from New Mexico, is being investigated by a Federal Grand Jury.(New Mexico,  in its unsophisticated Hispanic way, is actually more corrupt than Chicago.)

Meanwhile Republican Rich Galen offers the friendly suggestion that if he were advising Rep. Rahm Emanuel, he’d have him resign from the House of Representatives before taking the oath of office. (Emanuel was reelected, but has been tapped for a White House job.) That way, Galen says, he would avoid the jurisdiction of the pesky House Ethics committee.

And Gateway Pundit says: “Remember- This is the change you’ve been looking for.“

Max Blumenthal objected to the use of the phrase “faux-Christmases” to describe the December celebration of Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Bodhi Day, and other such holidays. But it seems to many of us that these holidays are promoted not for their own sake, but as a deliberate antidote to Christmas. Here’s a news release from William Donohue’s Catholic League, which has done some good work in the War For Christmas:

ANTI-CHRISTMAS STRATEGIES EVOLVE

December 10, 2008

Catholic League president Bill Donohue explains how the anti-Christmas agenda has changed:

“There was no anti-Christmas agenda until the 1980s, and at that time it was led by the ACLU. The strategy of choice was to ban the display of religious symbols, especially the crèche, on public property. This legal strategy, which worked relatively well, has been superseded by a cultural strategy. The goal now is to dilute the significance of Christmas via contrived competition. To wit: every religious, racial and ethnic heritage—including invented ones like Kwanzaa—is now celebrated in December.

“It is important to note that the agenda is not a positive one; it is not designed to honor world traditions. No, the agenda is negative—it is designed to combat Christmas. [Emphasis added.] Here’s a splendid example.

“Margaret Downey, founder of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia, sued Chester County in 2001 because a large Ten Commandments plaque was displayed at the Chester County Courthouse. After winding its way through the courts, Downey lost. Chester County, however, decided that the courthouse lawn should be open to all seasonal displays. The crèche and menorah were quickly displayed and now the lawn is adorned with Downey’s ‘Godless Holiday Tree’; it is decorated with the book covers of atheist tracts.

“True to her multicultural religion, Downey is not against all religions—it’s just Christianity that gets her goat. ‘We’d love to see Kwanzaa candles and a Buddha statue, too,’ she said. Buddha is okay because it represents an Eastern religion (Western religions are taboo).

“It’s not just Downey and her merry band of atheists who ascribe to the contrived competition strategy. Elementary school teachers in New Jersey informed officials at William Paterson University that they would not take their students to a holiday show if it just centered on Christmas. They won. The moral of the story is: Best to throw the Nothought Scrooges a bone if the kids are to see Santa.”