A number of items for this afternoon having to do with our southern border and battle over immigration in all its forms.
First of all, I have a friend of mine working in the state government who came across this tidbit:
The Comptroller’s Office provided CASA of Maryland with four computers from our excess property. CASA of Maryland is a community organization that was founded to help Central American refugees and North Americans. The computers will be used to support CASA’s counseling, medical consultation and referral services. In addition, computers will be placed in a Worker’s Center to be used by community members for computer classes and job searches online.
So not only does this organization which helps immigrants, even if they’re here illegally, get millions in state and local funding but surplus computer equipment as well. I think there are a number of other organizations who don’t get state funding which could have used the computers instead, but they may not be politically correct ones because they’re religious-based groups.
This friend also set me hip to a bill in Congress to repeal Executive Order 13166, which was signed in 2000 by Mr. “Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Pretty cool” himself, President Bill Clinton. (The actual quote is from Clinton aide Paul Begala. But it was the Clinton philosophy to duck around Congress when he could, especially on something like this where he had to know the votes weren’t there.) In short, it made the government multilingual and brought about the era of “press 1 for English.” Unfortunately, the bill’s been languishing for a month and probably won’t see the light of day again in this Congress even though I’d wager that most Americans support such a measure.
Finally, a lighter item courtesy of Michelle Malkin. While some may say that the furor over a recent advertising campaign by Absolut vodka that featured a map of a greatly expanded Mexico was “puzzling“, I happen to take a little offense to the implication and apparently so did competitor SKYY vodka, who responded to Absolut’s campaign. It may be worth buying a bottle just for that – besides, doesn’t the county need the money? Apparently they think so but that’s a post for another day and blogger to comment on. My job is done here for today.
