On foreign soil, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano expressed concern about “backlash” in response to the Ft. Hood Massacre.

Some people seem more concerned about “anti-Muslim backlash” than Muslim violence against non-Muslims.

According to the AP report Homeland Chief Warns Against Anti-Muslim Backlash , Napolitano was visiting Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and assured her hosts she was fighting that backlash:

“The U.S. Homeland Security secretary says she is working to prevent a possible wave of anti-Muslim sentiment after the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas. Janet Napolitano says her agency is working with groups across the United States to try to deflect any backlash against American Muslims following Thursday’s rampage by Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim who reportedly expressed growing dismay over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

This is the same Janet Napolitano, mind you, whose Homeland Security Department issued a “report” on “Rightwing Extremism” exhorting the police to watch out for military veterans, for citizens who are against illegal immigration, abortion, same-sex marriage and one world government.

That “Rightwing Extremism” report didn’t help us prevent the Ft. Hood Massacre though, did it ?

November 2nd is Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), the Mexican form of All Souls’ Day.
It’s also being taken advantage of by Mexican activists who blame U.S. immigration policy for border deaths. The Associated Press reported on Oct. 30th that

Rights activists in the northern Mexican border city of Tijuana have hung 5,100 small white crosses on the fence straddling the U.S. frontier to commemorate migrants who have died trying to cross… The crosses represent the number of migrants estimated to have died in the 15 years since the United States toughened border security.

Mexican Activists Place 5,100 Crosses at Border Fence to Mark Migrant Deaths, Associated Press, Oct. 30th, 2009

These activists have it backwards. If the U.S. were really serious about border control, interior immigration enforcement, and the elimination of benefits for illegal aliens, then thousands of Mexican lives would be saved. Probably  most of those 5,100 people would be alive, in Mexico.
But are these activists really concerned about saving lives, or about utilizing death to promote their agenda?
So I say, Stop Death in the Desert - Build the Border Wall!

Mexican diplomats and politicians have become accustomed to meddling with abandon in U.S. immigration policy, and we just let them get away with it.

Heads up Canada, Mexico is starting to meddle in your immigration policy. The Mexican government is really offended that Canada is now requiring visas for Mexicans to visit Canada. What an injustice!

An article in the Globe and Mail entitled Visa controls on Mexico ‘humiliating,’ senator says (October 24, 2009) reports the visit to Canada of Rosario Green, Mexican senator and former Mexican Foreign Minister. here are some excerpts:

A senior Mexican senator and former foreign affairs minister yesterday called Canada’s visa controls on Mexico a humiliation and questioned whether Canadian-Mexican relations will improve as long as Stephen Harper is Prime Minister.

Senator Green let it be known that she herself was subjected to Canadian immigration procedures:

In a blunt speech to a Toronto business and academic gathering, Senator Rosario Green Macias detailed the information she was required to provide to the Canadian government to enter Canada – proof of property ownership, her last six bank statements, a letter from the Mexican senate stating she is a senator and personal information about other members of her family. “That has to stop,” said Ms. Green, who is president of the external relations commission of Mexico’s senate, an academic, a former secretary-general of Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and a one-time senior United Nations official as well as diplomat and cabinet minister.

“That has to stop”? Sounds like an order. And she’s worried about Mexican-Canadian relations:

She repeatedly told her audience that the Mexican-Canada relationship is troubled. Twice she used the word “humiliating” to describe Canada’s visa controls, linking them to the wall – which she also called a humiliation – that the United States is building along the U.S.-Mexican border to keep out illegal migrant Mexicans.

Oh, the horror and injustice of it all! And her solution?

Later, talking to journalists, she said the relationship will improve “when you change prime ministers,” then realized what she’d said and asked not to be quoted. The two journalists who heard her did not give her that assurance and Ms. Green did not press her request.

And why did Canada force Mexicans to suffer the indignity of having to have visas?

Canada imposed visa requirements on Mexicans in July after a huge upsurge in the number of Mexicans arriving in Canada and claiming refugee status. Ottawa said most of the claims were bogus and had been orchestrated by unscrupulous Mexican firms giving advice on how to take advantage of Canada’s asylum system.

So what should Canada have done?

Ms. Green, who spoke at the launch of a joint forum by Mexican and Canadian non-government policy institutes to improve relations between the two countries, said the Canadian government first should have proposed a study with the Mexican government to resolve the problem before suddenly imposing visas.

So how about Mexico’s own immigration system?

Mexico, she said, was working on curbing illegal migrants.

So it’s OK for Mexico to “curb illegal migrants” but not OK for Canada to require a visa for Mexicans?

Rosario is also not pleased with the portrayal of Mexico in the Canadian media:

She criticized the media’s portrait of Mexico as nothing more than a society of illegal migration, drugs and violence…

And she also criticized the Mexican asylum-seekers themselves:

… she said her fellow citizens found it amazing that Mexican asylum seekers in Canada were claiming their government couldn’t protect them from the drug wars and corrupt and abusive security forces.

So what does she want?

Ms. Green also said the North American free-trade agreement should be re-launched with a new attitude that recognized Mexico as an equal partner with Canada and the U.S. and not as an irritant.

The article is followed by comments. One commenter calling himself J.D., wrote at 12:22:34 a.m. on Oct. 25th, and had this to say:

Sorry, Mexico, but the visa requirements aren’t the problem. They are a response to the problem.

From the CIS website, here are some results of a recent Zogby poll conducted in Mexico:

A clear majority of people in Mexico, 56 percent, thought giving legal status to illegal immigrants in the United States would make it more likely that people they know would go to the United States illegally. Just 17 percent thought it would make Mexicans less likely to go illegally. The rest were unsure or thought it would make no difference.

Of Mexicans with a member of their immediate household in the United States, 65 percent said a legalization program would make people they know more likely to go to America illegally.

Two-thirds of Mexicans know someone living in the United States; one-third said an immediate member of their household was living in the United States.

Interest in going to the United States remains strong even in the current recession, with 36 percent of Mexicans (39 million people) saying they would move to the United States if they could. At present, 12 to 13 million Mexico-born people live in the United States.

Of course amnesty would increase illegal immigration - Mexicans understand this too.
Here’s what the poll indicated about Mexicans’ opinions about Mexican-Americans and
where their loyalty should lie:

An overwhelming majority (69 percent) of people in Mexico thought that the primary loyalty of Mexican-Americans (Mexico- and U.S.-born) should be to Mexico. Just 20 percent said it should be to the United States. The rest were unsure.

Do Mexicans approve of Mexican government meddling in the United States?

Also, 69 percent of people in Mexico felt that the Mexican government should represent the interests of Mexican-Americans (Mexico- and U.S.-born) in the United States.
Source:

Public Opinion in Mexico on U.S. Immigration: Zogby Poll Examines Attitudes by Steven A. Camarota.

Isabel Lyman, a friend of VDARE.COM who wrote The Homeschooling Revolution, is blogging again, at The Castillo Chronicles.
One of the entries on the blog is Puerto Rico Statehood: Deal or No Deal? It concerns H.R. 2449, “The Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2009″, which calls for a referendum in Puerto Rico which is rigged for statehood. Read the whole thing.

The National Association of Evangelicals has pronounced itself in favor of amnesty. Well, they don’t use the word, but that’s what they mean.
According to an article which appeared in the Christianity Today website :

The National Association of Evangelicals on Thursday endorsed comprehensive immigration reform, saying new policies should reflect “biblical grace to the stranger.” “We seek fair and human treatment for those who are immigrants,” NAE President Leith Anderson told reporters on Capitol Hill, shortly before testifying with other religious leaders at a Senate subcommittee hearing on faith-based perspectives on immigration reform.

What kind of reform is the NAE actually endorsing ?

The resolution, approved overwhelmingly by voice vote of the NAE board, calls for the government to safeguard national borders, recognize the importance of family reunification and establish an “equitable process toward earned legal status for currently undocumented immigrants.” Asked for specifics of NAE’s suggestions about undocumented immigrants, Anderson said the process should be a reasonable one that might require, for example, undocumented immigrants to pay back taxes. “We are not suggesting that those that are already in the United States without documentation are automatically granted either residency or citizenship status,” he said.

It’s still an amnesty. Also, the NEA president adopted the “Immigrants Are Us” argument :

Anderson said the NAE board adopted the resolution as growing numbers of immigrants fill the pews of churches affiliated with his organization, which includes 40 denominations and scores of other evangelical groups. “Many of the immigrants in America are us,” he said. “That is, the growing edge of evangelical churches and denominations in the United States is the immigrant community.”

Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. supports the resolution. See my article here which discusses Hispanic Evangelical Amnesty Agitators and includes some quotes from Rodriguez.
The article on Christianity Today’s website includes comments, and not everybody is in agreement with this resolution. One comment included this exhortation :
“Read www.vdare.com and be informed by reality. ”
If you’d like to add your comment, click here
and jump into the discussion.

There’s a lot to be said for former presidents just gracefully retiring, writing their memoirs, relaxing, taking up hobbies or playing golf. They’d certainly do less damage.

Former president Bill Clinton, however, will not shut up. In an recent interview, Clinton brought up the famed “vast-right-wing conspiracy”. During his presidency, Clinton’s wife Hillary brought up the purported existence of such a conspiracy. According to the Associated Press:

Bill Clinton says a vast, right-wing conspiracy that once targeted him is now focusing on President Barack Obama. The ex-president made the comment in a television interview when he was asked about one of the signature moments of the Monica Lewinsky affair over a decade ago. Back then, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton used the term “vast, right-wing conspiracy” to describe how her husband’s political enemies were out to destroy his presidency.

Bill Clinton Speaks of Vast, Right-Wing Conspiracy

Notice what else Bill said :

Bill Clinton was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether the conspiracy is still there. He replied: “You bet. Sure it is. It’s not as strong as it was because America has changed demographically. But it’s as virulent as it was.”

Did you catch that about the demographic change weakening the “the vast right-wing conspiracy”? In other words, Clinton is pointing out that immigration is swamping American with Democratic voters and he’s happy with that.

What about the supposed “vast right-wing conspiracy”? Wouldn’t it be working overtime to stop the importation of Democratic voters? Why hasn’t it had much success on that?

This past Sunday, President Obama had five Mainstream Media reporters, one by one, over to the White House for interviews which even the New York Times called “choreographed”. You can see the photos here, at the New York Times‘ For President, Five Programs, One Message. The five networks whose reporters were invited were CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN and the Spanish-language Univision. The Fox network was not invited.

The reporter who represented Univision was none other than Jorge Ramos, about whom I’ve written before. Ramos was also a moderator at both the Democratic and Republican Spanish-language debates back in 2007.

Jorge Ramos is not even an American citizen, he’s a Mexican citizen. Yet he´s made it to the upper echelons of the U.S. media world, has moderated presidential debates, and arrogantly promotes the Hispanicization of the United States.

Ramos, by the way is not settling for a reconquista of the U.S. Southwest, as some others have promoted. Ramos is pushing for a Hispanic demographic takeover of the whole country.

In 2007, the same year as those debates he moderated, Ramos triumphantly wrote that

We [Hispanics] are 50 million… and in a century we will be the majority of the United States.

Would Mexico allow a high-level American agitator comparable to Jorge Ramos to do similar things in Mexico? To ask the question is to answer it.

If the United States had a political leadership (of both parties) that defended our sovereignty, wouldn’t Jorge Ramos be unceremoniously expelled back to Mexico?

Alas, however, we don’t have such leadership, do we?

According to an article in the Telegraph, the most popular name for newborn baby boys in London, England, is Mohammed :

When various spellings of the Islamic prophet are added together - including Muhammad, Mohammad, Mohamed and Muhammed - the name is now more than twice as popular in London as the capital’s second-ranked boys name, Daniel. There were 1,828 baby boys given the name Mohammed, including varients, in 2008, compared with only 844 who were called Daniel.

This information was gleaned from a report published by the ONS (Office for National Statistics). According to the Telegraph :

The way in which the true figures emerged, days after the official publication, will fuel claims that Government statisticians tried to play down the increasing popularity of the Muslim name. The official announcement by the ONS, which does not take varient spellings into account, states that Mohammed was only the third most popular name in London… In recent years the ONS has refused to divulge regional lists of popular baby names. It is likely that Mohammed has been the most popular choice in the capital for a number of years already, but it has never been demonstrated conclusively until now.

London is not the only part of Britain where the name is popular :

In the West Midlands, 1,399 baby boys were given the name Mohammed last year, including varient spellings, almost twice as many as the next most popular name, Jack, with 768.
In the North West 1,337 boys were named Mohammed, including varients, beating Jack into second place with 1,154. And in Yorkshire and the Humber there were 1,255 babies registered with the name Mohammed, including varients, with Jack again second with 854. Throughout England and Wales Mohammed, including its varient spellings, was the third most popular name, with 6,591 newborns given the religious name, behind Jack with 8,007 and Oliver with 7,413.

As mentioned in a previous blog entry, thousands of British-born Muslims have gone to Afghanistan to help the Taliban fight the British Army. Many of them hail from the West Midlands and Yorkshire, mentioned in the Telegraph article as being areas of England where Mohammed is popular as a name for baby boys. In fact, when the British listen in on Taliban communication transmissions in Afghanistan, they sometimes hear jihadis lapsing into a West Midlands accents of English.
In European capitals, Mohammed is already the most popular boy’s name in Brussels, Amsterdam, Cophenhagen and Oslo.
The Telegraph cites more government statistics:

Other ONS data from its July to September 2008 Labour Force Survey shows the Muslim population is growing 10 times faster than the rest of the population. Last year more than 2.4 million people identified themselves as Muslims, according to the survey’s findings, up more than 500,000 in four years. In the same period the number of Christians fell by more than 2 million, to 42.6 million.

Mohammed is Most Popular Name for Baby Boys in London
Rebecca Lefort and Ben Leapman, Telegraph, Sept. 15th, 2009
Ben Leapman has more comments in his blog entry ,
Mohammed Now No 1 Baby Boys’ Name in London :

For those who follow these things, this won’t come as a huge surprise. We know that the UK’s Muslim population is growing, both through immigration and through its higher birthrate. We know that there are particular concentrations in London, the West Midlands and the North of England. We know that Muslim families tend to choose one particular name for their baby boys - Mohammed - a way that other communities do not. And last week it was reported that the name was now the third most popular in England as a whole. In fact, Mohammed probably rose to the number one slot in the capital some time ago. For several years, I have been trying to pin this down as a fact. But until now, it has proved impossible because for the past decade or so, the Office for National Statistics has not disclosed regional breakdowns of popular baby names, only national totals. My requests for the regional figures were met with the response that this would be impossible to provide, even under the Freedom of Information Act.

So the UK government boasts of multiculturalism yet simultaneously tries to obfuscate the fact that Mohammed is now London’s #1 name for baby boys. They can do this because, as I discussed in my surnames article , the Arabic and Latin alphabets are incompatible, giving rise to various transliterations of the same Arabic name. Leapman shows how the ONS used such variant transliterations in its obfuscation:

Now that the ONS has somehow managed to produce regional figures after all, we can see that Mohammed is number one in London, West Mids, North West and Yorkshire/Humberside. Yet you wouldn’t know it from a cursory glance at the ONS press release, issued on Sept 8, which states that Mohammed is “number three in London”. That is because the ONS does not take varient spellings into account. Fair enough. But in this case, the number-crunchers were being literal to the point of being obtuse. Some will suspect that they were motivated by a well-meaning attempt to avoid interpeting their own findings in a way which would prove controversial. Some would call this political correctness. Even before today’s revelation of the regional findings, Max Hastings accused the ONS of a “shabby effort to conceal” the fact that Mohammed is the third-most-popular name England-wide. The fact that it has taken a week from the publication of the figures for the full story to emerge will surely reinforce this view in the mind of many people who are already sceptical of Government statistics.

Years ago, I used to enjoy watching “Laredo“, a Western about Texas Rangers. Interestingly enough, Texas governor Rick Perry has now announced a deployment of Texas Rangers to the border with Mexico. In fact, the Rangers have already begun integrated operations with the Texas Army National Guard (in which I formerly served).

According to the AP report Texas Governor Sends Rangers to Mexican Border (AP, Sept. 11th, 2009):

Special teams of Texas Rangers will be deployed to the Texas-Mexico border to deal with increasing violence because the federal government has failed to address growing problems there, Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday. “It is an expansive effort with the Rangers playing a more high-profile role than they’ve ever played before,” Perry said of the Department of Public Safety’s elite investigative unit. The forces, dubbed “Ranger recon” teams, are the latest effort “to fill the gap that’s been left by the federal government’s ongoing failure to adequately secure our international border with Mexico,” he said. The governor early this year asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for 1,000 National Guard troops and renewed his call last month in a letter to President Barack Obama. The request is bogged down over who will pay for the troops and how they will be deployed.

Here are some details:

Perry’s announcement Thursday comes amid increasing border violence, particularly in El Paso, mostly involving people with ties to Mexican drug gangs. “They’ll be deployed to high-traffic, high-crime areas along the border,” he said. “They’ll give us boots on the ground, put people in these hot spots no matter what or where they may exist.” Perry said the effort also would focus on remote areas where farmers and ranchers have complained of being overrun by smugglers and gangs from Mexico in numbers that also overwhelm local law enforcement and border patrol officers. “Washington is shortchanging them, not giving them the support they need,” Perry said. “As a result, we’re having to dedicate our resources to deal with the challenges we have along the Texas-Mexico border and ensuing issues that porous border has created all across state of Texas.” He said the state would pick up the tab of $110 million, allocated by the Legislature in the past two sessions.

The plan was criticized by a fellow Republican and political rival:

Perry’s announcement drew immediate criticism from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is running against the two-term incumbent in the March GOP primary. “Today’s announcement is yet another empty election-year promise from Rick Perry on border security,” Hutchison spokesman Joe Pounder said. Perry fired back that it was the “height of hypocrisy for someone who’s been in Washington, D.C., for 16 years, who’s had the opportunity to help Texas on our border security, and they’ve been no more successful in delivering the resources and help.” “So please do that job up there first before you come down here and start criticizing about the state of Texas,” he said.

Senator Hutchinson, however, had another criticism of Perry:

Hutchison also took Perry to task for the absence of any Texas agency from a federal program that allows Homeland Security personnel to work with local law enforcement on immigration issues. “Texans need a governor they can trust to actually improve our security,” her campaign said in a statement.

Perry’s response?

“I happen to think we’ve taken advantage of every program that’s been effective,” responded Perry, who has been branding his opponent as someone from Washington out of touch with her home state. “Pointing out one program that has been funded and leaving the 800-pound gorilla — which is 1,000 National Guard troops that we need — I am stunned someone from Washington, D.C., would say they’ve [sic] done enough to secure our border.”

It’s a positive development to see politicians try to outdo each other in supporting border security, IF it leads to real results. In the meantime, go Texas Rangers!