Friday night videos episode 29

Back after a one week hiatus, the focus shifts to fiscal responsibility and TEA Parties.

Obviously the GOP is critical of Barack Obama’s policies, and this video explains why.

The same goes for Reason.tv, which reminds us how California got into its financial mess.

Two filmmakers for Americans for Limited Government bring the green jobs fallacy home by looking at the closing of the BP Solar plant in Frederick, Maryland.

Now it’s time for a little bit of tea. But first, it’s interesting to note the tenor of counterprotests, as an alert reader sent me a video from another March 20 rally in Washington D.C. that had little to do with health care.

To echo one commenter, I bet you didn’t see this on the nightly news.

Fellow blogger and patriot Bob McCarty does yeoman’s work covering the TEA Party scene in the St. Louis area. Here I have two videos, one from their weekly (!) rally last weekend and one from their TEA Party Express 3 stop a week or so back.

Finally, here’s local TEA Party organizer Chris Lewis from yesterday’s Salisbury rally as I excerpted the conclusion of his speech. Good background music, too.

Speaking of music, there’s no local music to wrap up this week, but that’s intentional. Next Friday I’m doing another all-music edition of FNV and plan on making it a regular event every 10 episodes (along with placing a music video or two in most other editions.) I look forward to putting it together so hopefully you’ll enjoy watching!

Friday night videos episode 26

Doing this real time tonight, so let’s see what I have. Three guesses what the main subject is, first two don’t count.

Then again, perhaps I can deem this post already done – isn’t that what the House wants to do?

And here’s the epitome of sleaze part two, courtesy of the National Republican Congressional Committee:

And if that weren’t enough, the GOP came up with sleaze part three on the part of Democrats:

Finally, a voice of sanity: Indiana Congressman Mike Pence.

There are other things going on, though. This is an admirable effort by the Sunlight Foundation to bring government back into the open.

And this last one is just for inspiration for my friends heading up to Washington, D.C. tomorrow morning. I already had plans for the day, but I’ll be there in spirit.

It’s a good way to close this 26th edition of FNV. Well, actually a good way to close it out would be to announce they’ve dropped Obamacare and Ava Aston was coming here. Maybe by next time.

Immigration: divisive issue

In the last few days – as if fending off TEA Partiers and worrying about how new GOP wunderkind Scott Brown will vote isn’t enough – observers see a rift in the Republican Party over immigration.

Two pieces have drawn my attention. One is an article by Peter Slevin in the Washington Post and the other comes through the Center for Immigration Studies as a Backgrounder by James G. Gimpel, who is a professor of government at the University of Maryland. Both look at immigration as an issue which could permanently relegate the GOP to minority status.

But the two pieces disagree on why. Slevin and the Post, no friend of conservative Republicans, blames the hardline stance of TEA Partiers who want the borders secured and illegal immigrants frogmarched out of the country. Conversely, the Gimpel piece simply notes that, “The decline (in GOP voting share) does not seem to be associated with the local Republican Party’s position on illegal immigration.” Instead, the Gimpel study seems to indicate this has more to do with socioeconomic status and the state of politics where newly-arrived immigrants seem to congregate, large urban areas.

I’ve noted before that at the current time it’s better to not lose the base the GOP has by being soft on illegal immigration than cater to a group who is more likely to vote with their meager pocketbooks and support all the government goodies they can get. It’s going to be just as much up to the Latinos to bring themselves out of the ghetto that Democratic policies have placed them in as it is the black population’s own job to get off of the plantation Democrats have placed them on. Those who have immigrated here legally have just as much – if not more – of a stake in stemming the illegal flow as native-born Americans do.

For over 200 years, history has shown that the best way to get ahead in America is to assimilate into its culture. Certainly we can celebrate our heritage (I sure like my Polish cuisine) but the route to success over time has been to emphasize the “American” part of the moniker much more heavily than the “Polish,” “Mexican,” or “African.” In years past, immigrants were eager to shed their old ways and Americanize their first-generation offspring – now we only Americanize them insofar as striving to have them born in the United States to become “anchor babies.”

If a nation is to survive for long, it must have clearly defined borders and be prepared to only allow in those it deems worthy of entry. While I know some of my associates in the political and blogging worlds believe totally in the idea of a free market which includes providing labor, that policy has to have limitations or it will lead to chaos.

Immigrants in our history came for opportunities, and these opportunities only came to those who worked hard and were willing to sacrifice their blood, sweat, and toil. Unfortunately, our system of entitlements has brought forth a different sort of immigrants, and while they remain a few bad apples in a bunch that is still willing to work hard for little financial gain, those bad apples sap the strength of the whole.

But while the TEA Partiers are falsely accused of having a strain of xenophobia, it’s worth pointing out that the Gimbel study shows that ideology trumps race at election time among a larger and larger share of the minority population. Regardless of what the Republican Party does to attract minorities, it would never be enough for liberal Democrats to give them credit for trying. Just as we see in the black population, voting against their self-interest is becoming a problem for Latinos as well, and the immigration issue is just a red herring to the real problem of victimization practiced by poverty pimps of all colors.

Blaming the man for holding you down is a universal language.

Does the GOP listen to a minority – or its base?

Longtime readers may know that some of my readers are on the opposite side of the immigration issue as I, and the other day one sent along a report attempting to convince me of dire consequences if the GOP doesn’t follow the Democrats as the party of amnesty. One of the findings of this report by America’s Voice is that Latinos distrust the GOP on immigration and switched over a four year period from being Bush voters to Obama voters. Then again, one needs to question the mindset of the group when the report is released in a press conference with:

The America’s Voice report “The Power of the Latino Vote” was released yesterday during a telephonic press conference with Eliseo Medina, Executive Vice President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Janet Murguía, President of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR); and Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice.

Undoubtedly, each of these groups has an interest in unfettered immigration, particularly the SEIU – you don’t think they’d love to organize these low-skill workers for the millions in union dues they can shift to the Democratic Party?

Given that backing, it’s no wonder they try to convince Republicans they have the wrong view; but in truth even if the GOP completely changed its position to advocate for amnesty they’d be better off attempting to woo voters in downtown San Francisco. In many respects the Latino population is like the black population and will likely languish in poverty the same way, just with poverty pimps who speak Spanish.

On the other hand, the base that the GOP counts on doesn’t want amnesty, and it’s a stance which appeals to those union households who were the backbone of the Reagan Democrats.

A Zogby poll conducted in November asked a cross-section of Americans their views on immigration with specific attention paid to business executives, union households, and small business owners. As documented by the Center for Immigration Studies, these groups overwhelmingly believe that amnesty is not the way to go.

Something tells me that a number of these people also comprise a goodly portion of TEA Party activists – the ones who stayed home on Election Day 2008 because they were disillusioned with a GOP candidate who was perceived as pro-amnesty in John McCain. Yet even the pro-amnesty side concedes that:

Last week, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) sent a political warning to his fellow Democrats: if immigration reform doesn’t pass, as promised, Latinos won’t vote.

Thus, the threat posed by the pro-amnesty side may be a hollow one, and I’d rather take my chances on not losing the votes of the TEA Party people who have been ready and raring to go to the polls by stopping amnesty than worry about Latino voters who may or may not show up – chances are that the heavily Latino districts would vote Democrat anyway just as heavily black districts do.

Do we need immigration reform? Yes, we do. But the first steps need to be making our border more secure and verifying that illegals aren’t getting the jobs Americans can do, along with reforming the visa system to help us root out scofflaws who overstay.

The question becomes whether we are a nation which sacrifices the rule of law for the almighty buck, and allowing those who cross illegally to become legal citizens without significant penalty flies in the face of those law-abiding immigrants who went about chasing the American Dream the right way. While Ronald Reagan was a great President, one of his biggest mistakes was agreeing to amnesty for millions of illegals in 1986 – it was the root of the immigration problem we have now.