Dr. Norm Matloff writes:

Let me first make my usual disclaimer that I am a lifelong Democrat. I’ll add that whatever errors Ted Kennedy may have committed in his earlier life, he did evolve into someone who had a deep, genuine desire for social justice.

Having said that, the op-ed linked below confirms my longheld suspicions that even Kennedy felt that the “greater good” demanded that he cave in to the moneyed, powerful special interests on the H-1B work visa–the tech industry lobbyists, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the universities and so on.

To many of us, H-1B serves as an exemplar of the loss of our democracy. I’ve mentioned before, for instance, public statements by Sen. Bob Bennett and Rep. Tom Davis explicitly stating that Congress enacted expansions to the H-1B program because of industry campaign money.

Joyce Plotkin, the author of the linked opinion piece,[Plotkin: Kennedy championed the tech community, Mass High Tech, August 31, 2009] is certainly in a position to know about the politics of H-1B. She served with a Massachusetts tech industry trade group for 22 years, according to one article I read, before she retired this year. I recall being on a panel with her in 1995.

Ms. Plotkin portrays the situation as one in which Sen. Kennedy formulated fair comprises between industry and labor on the H-1B issue. Nothing could be further from the truth. On the contrary, one AFL-CIO official told me in 2004 that Kennedy’s aides literally laughed in her face, saying (I’m paraphrasing), “You [unions] don’t count.” Soon afterward, this labor official was so discouraged that she decided to seek another job.

And note that this occurred during the dot-com bust, a time when Kennedy should have been even more concerned about the impact of H-1B on U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Instead, Congress enacted a 20,000-visa increase to H-1B, by creating a special new category for foreign students at U.S. universities, and even more significantly, expanded the loopholes which enable employers to legally pay H-1Bs below-market wages.

Over the years, Kennedy would from time to time pay lip service to the fact that H-1B is used by employers as a vehicle for cheap labor, etc. But he always supported H-1B expansion when it came to authoring and voting for legislation. He played a key role in the bill expanding H-1B in 2000, in spite of the release of a GAO report that was highly critical of the visa, a month before the legislation was passed. And of course he co-authored the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill in 2007 that would have been devastating to U.S. citizen and permanent resident programmers and engineers.

Plotkin makes a big point of the retraining funds in the 1998 bill, ostensibly designed to reduce H-1B usage. But as we critics pointed out at the time, this was a purely cosmetic action that would not–and could not–impact H-1B usage. This was confirmed by a Department of Commerce report a few years later, and most tellingly, by a public admission by Sun Microsystems that the training funds were never intended to reduce H-1B usage. Sun, of course, had been one of the leading lobbyists pushing that 1998 bill.

Plotkin’s remarks below don’t match the blunt remarks of Bennett and Davis I cited above–Davis said, “This is not a popular bill with the public. It’s popular with the CEOs…This is a very important issue for the high-tech executives who give the money”–but they give us yet another look at the role of money politics in H-1B, very sad.

Norm

From today’s Wall Street Journal:

Donor’s Views on Race Spark Outcry Over Parkland:
Activists Criticize California Town for Accepting Gift’s Terms That Plot Be Named for Scientist Who Backed Eugenics Movement

By BOBBY WHITE

AUBURN, Calif. — This town in the Sierra Nevada foothills accepted the gift of a 28-acre plot from the estate of Nobel laureate William B. Shockley in March. The mostly forested land was to become a community park named after the famous physicist — co-inventor of the transistor — and his late wife.

Then the local newspaper pointed out that Mr. Shockley, who died in 1989, was a proponent of eugenics, a widely discredited movement most prominent in the 1920s and ’30s that held that intelligence was racially linked — and that called for sterilizing some Americans who were deemed socially and intellectually unfit.

Community activists and civil-rights organizations are criticizing Auburn’s leaders for accepting the gift’s terms that the park carry the Shockley name, and they are demanding that the town keep Mr. Shockley’s name off the park or give the land back. “I cannot fathom how officials in Auburn would have the gall to name an area park after a white supremacist and think that would be readily accepted by residents,” said Barry Broad, chairman of the Jewish Community Relations Council in Sacramento.

(more…)

I recently blogged that with the Left exploiting Ted Kennedy’s death for socialist healthcare, we don’t need to worry about them doing the same with amnesty.  I was wrong. Michelle Malkin already has the term: “ShamnesTeddy.”

Morton Kondracke wrote a column in Roll Call, “Congress Should Reform Immigration to Honor Kennedy.”

Along with a health care reform bill, it would be a fitting tribute to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) if Congress could act on his other great unfinished cause: immigration reform…  The administration is certain to call for swift action on health care reform as a tribute to Kennedy. But it also should accelerate work on immigration reform in his name.

I say I was only “sort of” wrong, because while the Democrats might be able to say  “Win one for Teddy,” they can’t win win…certainly not months from now.

An Associated Press piece by one Russell Contreras, published August 29th, pretty much spells it out. The article, entitled
KENNEDY HELPED CHANGE DEMOGRAPHICS OF US AS TIRELESS ADVOCATE FOR IMMIGRANTS begins thusly :

Before 1965, Leticia Hermosa had little chance of crossing the Pacific to the U.S. from the Philippines. Hermosa, a nurse, and others like her just couldn’t get through the strict U.S. immigration quota system, which favored Western Europeans and essentially excluded those from Asia and Latin America. But after Sen. Edward Kennedy pushed through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the door opened for her to immigrate in 1973 to Boston, where she eventually finished school, got a law degree and became a U.S. citizen. On Thursday, Hermosa stood in line with thousands of others at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum to pay her respects to the late senator. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here today,” said the 55-year-old Hermosa, who now lives in Westwood, Mass.

You can already tell there the article is going. One quibble, however - legally, immigration from Latin America was already unlimited under the previous 1924 immigration law, though in practice it wasn’t high until after the 1965 Act. Anyway, the next paragraph says that :

As the nation mourns Kennedy, who died this week of a brain tumor at age 77, historians and immigrant advocates are remembering the senator — perhaps more than any other — as championing legislation that directly benefited immigrants, their children and their grandchildren. The 1965 law that he sponsored fundamentally changed the demographics of the country and transformed many urban enclaves into majority-minority cities.

Yes, that’s true. But did the American people ever choose such a demographic transformation? No they didn’t. As a matter of fact, back in 1965, Senator Kennedy assured us it wouldn’t happen. During the Senate floor debate, Kennedy assured his fellow lawmakers (and the nation) that

First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same…. Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset…. Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia…. In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think…. The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.

All of these things Kennedy said wouldn’t happen did in fact happen. Now, back to the AP article:

Political observers say Kennedy’s most lasting legacy may be the rarely mentioned 1965 immigration law. Before its passage, a national origins quota system was in place to mirror the largely white-ancestral makeup of the U.S.
Rep. Charles A. Gonzalez, D-Texas, whose late father, Henry, served in Congress and worked with Kennedy on the legislation, said the bill would not have passed without Kennedy.
“He was huge and instrumental,” Gonzalez said. “There’s no way you can describe the importance of his involvement. He put all of his talents to make it work.”

And the results ?

In 1965, the U.S. was around 85 percent white, according to various estimates. Today, a third of the country is minority, and nonwhites are on track to become the majority sometime in the 2040s.
Minority populations have grown by leaps and bounds because of high birth rates among those first generations of immigrants and a steady flow from Latin America, Asian and Africa since.
Some political observers even credit the election of President Barack Obama to the political maturation of those populations.

So when did America’s white majority decide to become minority ?

Alexander Hart’s recent analysis of the way in which right radical web radio host/ FBI informant Hal Turner was apparently being used to make the case for Hate Crimes/ Hate Speech totalitarianism rang a bell and I dug into my email inbox (currently 9518 items, aargh) to find this:

Mon 11/27/2006 10:39 PM
Sirs:
I own Turner Radio Network, an internet and radio broadcasting outlet.

This past summer, I decided to change the tone of the network and cleared out 90% of the existing radio shows. I hope to bring new programming from a variety of credible sources which is the purpose of my writing to you.

I would like to offer VDARE and its contributors, FREE radio time on Turner Radio Network. I am willing to make an initial offer of ONE hour per week for programming of your choice, beginning in January, 2007, remaining free until March.

The show can be pre-recorded or live. If live, it can have listener call-ins or not.

Please let me know if this is of interest to you. IF it is of interest, and the programming is well received by my existing audience, I may extend the amount of time offered per week.

Hal Turner
Turner Radio Network
1906 Paterson Plank Road
North Bergen, NJ 07047-1900
USA
201 484-7809

(I was going to delete the contact information because Turner’s family apparently still live there, but I see they post it on their blog.)

I didn’t answer this e-mail, and not just because I am several thousands of emails behind in my correspondence. But now I wonder. November 2006 is well within the period that Turner is supposed to have worked for the FBI–let alone whoever else employed him. What was going on here?

No doubt naively, I also find myself wondering about Turner’s statement that he had “decided to change the tone of the network and cleared out 90% of the existing radio shows. I hope to bring new programming from a variety of credible sources which is the purpose of my writing to you.”

Despite prim Establishment Conservative assertions to the contrary, VDARE.COM is far from being on the extreme–which is, obviously, a matter of relativity. Is it possible that Turner, who was apparently a conventional conservative quite recently, really did want to come in from the cold?

But of course there is no way back if you’re on the right–in mysterious contrast to the endless tolerance extended to the left.

All VDARE.com readers will be sorry to hear that it has been a pretty rainy week up here in the North East, where President Obama is finishing his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard.

North East…Brazil?

The British Press has been fascinated by Martha’s Vineyard this week and not only because of its peculiar place in American life.

As the U.K. Observer put it

Why Martha’s Vineyard is the Obamas’ ideal holiday retreat Robert McCrum Sunday 23 August 2009
With its links to the Kennedys and Clintons, Martha’s Vineyard is Democratic America’s holiday spot of choice.

American Democrats live by water; Republicans hunker down inland. Nowhere in liberal America, from California to New England, is so perfectly Democrat, so supremely liberal, as Martha’s Vineyard… For many of Washington’s beltway insiders, alumni of Harvard (Cambridge, Mass) and Yale (Newhaven, Conn) this little piece of paradise is an obvious choice as a tranquil summer bolthole… With the gay centre of Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod to the north and waspy Nantucket due east, the Vineyard forms the western corner of a triangle that will, on a good weekend, see the cream of the Democratic party at play.

The amazing extent to which Martha’s Vineyard is indeed the prime gathering ground of America’s Left Nomenklatura – the incestuous nexus of Wall Street/MSM/Ivy League/Foundation/Inside the Beltway specimens who batten on this country – has to be personally experienced to be believed.

By going there, Obama, like Clinton before him, was signaling that the Establishment is not at risk from him.

But is not just the Class symbolism which has fascinated the British. It is the astonishing extent to which these plutocratic Democrats have imported a foreign servant class, saving them from having to deal with the obstreperous and expensive American worker. Martha’s Vineyard is turning into Brazil.

The interest started with a long and deplorably enthusiastic story in the Financial Times How migration transformed Martha’s VineyardBy Daniela Gerson August 15 2009

Today, Martha’s Vineyard – summer retreat for the likes of Bill ¬Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, Spike Lee and now the Obamas – depends on thousands of Brazilians to do the hard labour. Unlike earlier influxes, these newcomers are mostly illegal (estimates are as high as 70 per cent)… An estimated 3,000 Brazilians live on ¬Martha’s Vineyard, a considerable presence on an island with a winter population of 15,000 (rising to 100,000 in the summer). For the most part, the Brazilians have created a parallel society…One telling indicator: of all the babies born on the island in 2007, nearly one-third were to Brazilian mothers.

All Anchor Babies, of couse. Since the first Brazilian only arrived in 1986, this build up is by no means over – Martha’s Vineyard is headed for a Brazilian majority in the year round population. The FT story also touches on a number of the major Immigration scandals, such as “Catch and Release”.

Other British MSM outlets got interested, adding to the original story. The BBC had
Obama island’s Brazilian ‘engine’ Sunday 23 Aug 2009

Jessica Nascimento, a 29-year-old American from Middleborough, Massachusetts, works in a restaurant in Oak Bluffs where the kitchen is staffed solely by Brazilians…
Michael Dutton, Oak Bluffs’ town administrator, said…”The Brazilian population has kept to itself. That is not good, because they remain a mystery to the rest of the island.”

And the (as usual) more thinking Daily Telegraph Racial tension simmers on Martha’s Vineyard as Barack Obama arrives 20 August 2009

Jon Parkinson…wrote: “Why is it that young people interested in learning the trades find that many of the entry level positions are filled by Brazilian laborers? Certain segments of the core industries that drive Island life (landscaping, painting, etc.) have all but been taken over by labor provided by illegal immigrants. These are people who drive cars, delivery vans and often large trucks in every town, day and night.”

Why has this happened? The FT story points out that Martha’s Vineyard wages are 10% less than the Massachusetts average (on-the books wages, that is), and there are big reservoirs of underemployment in the northern tier of New England states – Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. (Of course, no one would expect the Democratic aristocracy to risk hiring from the Black slums around Boston.)

The answer is a microcosm of America’s immigration problem. The Brazilians, paid off the books, with no Income taxes or Social Security, could undercut the native-born. Health and education costs were dumped on the local taxpayer. Once established, they hired each other, protected by the exclusiveness of Portuguese. The Democratic Princes got cheap, biddable labor. For their fellow-countrymen, they cared – nothing.

Joe Guzzardi has documented this process here and here.

The Financial Times, in particular, is widely read and frequently scalped by the US MSM. Yet the gushing coverage of Obama’s visit seems to have completely ignored the Brazilian take-over. Can’t disturb our Masters at rest!

An honorable minor exception was Vineyarders pressed by health costs by Kate Lazar The Boston Globe August 25 2008

Among some locals, frustration and resentment is palpable on the issue of free health care for illegal immigrants, though few are comfortable being quoted on the topic. Why, they ask, should they be forced to face a tax penalty for not having health insurance, while others receive government-subsidized emergency care for free?
A wave of immigration over the past decade, largely from Brazil, has created an underground island economy, where 16 of every 100 jobs is estimated to be held by undocumented workers, according to a 2008 analysis for the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.
Massachusetts’s overhaul did not tackle the issue of health care for illegal immigrants, who continue to receive limited care under a government-funded Medicaid program similar to those in other states

A true insight into the fate of America’s workers - and America - under Obama and his managers. They are importing a new People

Our elected officials and punditocracy are engaging in an orgy of nostalgia over the late Ted Kennedy, in part because he embodied their ideal: the Public-Figure-for-Life.

Teddy was elected to the U.S. Senate to replace his brother when he was 29 and then spent almost 47 years in the Senate. You know the old joke about how the only thing that could cost Senator So-and-so reelection is being found with a dead girl or a live boy? Well, Senator Ted wound up with the blood of a dead girl on his hands … and still got over 40 more years in the U.S. Senate. And to a lot of important people, that makes him an inspiration.

On a lesser note, how badly do you have to screw up to lose your job as a celebrity pundit? For example, here’s a video of the New York Times’s Tom Friedman explaining why he supported the Iraq Attaq. The last three words are particularly amusing. Perhaps the Pentagon could send a DVD of this interview home with the coffin to every dead enlistee’s mom.

The astonishingly international blog The Irish Savant has a report from Ireland so ludicrous that is funny.

This is nothing funny about the well-balanced post on Ted Kennedy just posted by The Western Right: Ted Kennedy’s Terrible Legacy.

In the Reuters story I noted today, President Obama said of Kennedy:

“He was a product of an age when the joy and nobility of politics prevented differences of party and philosophy from becoming barriers to cooperation and mutual respect, a time when adversaries still saw each other as patriots,”

This is utter rubbish. If the Russian archives are ever fully opened, we will find that many prominent Democrats of the time, besides Kennedy, reached out to the enemy at the height of the Cold War.

President Obama (who likely first met Edward Kennedy only five years ago when he was ordained Senator from Illinois) has earned this headline from Reuters:

Obama lauds Kennedy as voice of poor and powerless
Sat Aug 29, 2009 12:44pm

The VDARE.com response of course is “poor and powerless of which nationality”? Kennedy’s sponsorship of, and unrepentant attempts to expand the 1965 Immigration Act disaster has been an unmitigated catastrophe for the American Working class – particularly Blacks – in terms of income and quality of life. It has to some extent benefited Plutocrats like Kennedy and the upper class generally.

Counterpunch’s Alexander Coburn, from the Left, puts forward an interesting hypothesis:

Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion CounterPunch Diary
Weekend Edition August 28-30, 2009

Though the obituarists have glowingly evoked Kennedy’s 46-year stint in the US Senate and, as ‘the last liberal’, his mastery of the legislative process, they miss the all-important fact that it was out of Kennedy’s Senate office that came two momentous slabs of legislation that signalled the onset of the neo-liberal era: deregulation of trucking and aviation. They were a disaster for organized labor and the working conditions and pay of people in those industries.

The theorists of deregulation were Stephen Breyer who was Kennedy’s chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Alfred Kahn, out of Cornell…

Did Kennedy fight, might and main, against NAFTA? No. As Steve Early relates in his piece on this site today, he was for it and helped Clinton ratify the job-losing Agreement…

The deadly attacks on the working class and on organized labor are Ted Kennedy’s true monument. But as much as his brothers Jack and Bobby he was adept at persuading the underdogs that he was on their side.

Cockburn spectacularly fails to mention the far more consequential 1965 Act, possibly a testament to the extreme emotionalism of the liberal open-borders lobby, but to his credit he does note:

And it was Kennedy who was the prime force behind the Hate Crimes Bill, aka the Matthew Shepard Act, by dint of which America is well on its way to making it illegal to say anything nasty about gays, Jews, blacks and women. “Hate speech,” far short of any direct incitement to violence, is on the edge of being criminalized, with the First Amendment going the way of the dodo.

No doubt, like AntiWar.com (and us) he feels the chilling shadow.

Cockburn concludes:

To this day there are deluded souls who argue that Jack was going to pull US troops out of Vietnam…that Bobby…was really and truly on the side of the angels; that Ted was the mighty champion of the working people, even though he helped deliver them into the inferno of neoliberalism.

So who was Kennedy working for in his recent decades in the Senate? “NeoLiberals”? We will have to give that some thought.

Would anybody really be so bad at PR as to want to rename Obama’s health care initiative after the late Senator Ted? Don’t they understand the inevitable power of alliterative K’s? (Just ask Krusty the Klown.)

KennedyCare automatically turns into KopechneCare