WashPo: The New Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
By Greg L | 24 September 2007 | Illegal Aliens, Virginia Politics | 13 Comments
The Washington Post editorializes in a news article that appears in today’s edition that all of this recent talk about illegal aliens is some sort of a strategy to somehow make voters forget about the “abusive driver fees” that were included in HB3202. It’s amazing that the talking points of Razing Kaine start showing up as news items in the Washington Post, while they somehow neglect to talk to anyone who actually worked to put this issue was on the political radar screen this year. The goofiness of this journalistic psychosis is pretty stunning.
First off, there’s an assumption that Republicans are going to pay the price because Governor Kaine, a Democrat, removed provisions that abusive driver fees would be assessed to out of state drivers and ensured this burden would only fall on Virginia drivers. Before this landed on the Governor’s Desk, there were provisions to ensure that out of state drivers would pay these fees. So in order to somehow deflect criticism against Governor Kaine’s efforts to exclude out of state drivers from abusive driver fees, the Republicans concocted illegal aliens as an issue and managed to drive it to the top concern of voters? Poppycock!
There were a few Republican legislators who were early adopters of this issue, long before it rise to the top, and that list includes Delegate Jackson Miller and Delegate Jeffrey Frederick, both of whom introduced legislation in the last General Assembly session to combat the unlawful presence of illegal aliens in Virginia. These initiatives passed the House of Delegates by veto-proof majorities only to get killed in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee by Republican traitor Kenneth Stolle, who has since gotten a tremendous amount of negative feedback regarding his malfeasance and is at least starting to change his tune. Some folks were pretty upset that the only thing making it out of the General Assembly on the illegal alien issue is a bill establishing a commission to study the problem that was introduced by Delegate Bob Marshall, which will have it’s first meeting tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes.
Between the inaction of the General Assembly to do what it can to help reduce the impacts of illegal immigration in Virginia, the United States Senate’s outrageous attempt to grant amnesty to illegal aliens, and a problem that has been exploding in many communities, citizens simply got fed up and started getting organized. The Republican Party of Virginia didn’t sign up 1,800 people to join Help Save Manassas, or the hundreds of people who are part of Help Save Loudoun, Help Save Herndon or Help Save Fairfax. The citizens just got fed up with Mexicans Without Borders, taxpayer-supported La Raza and other fringe illegal alien lobbyists dominating the debate and advocating for the enactment of legislation that most Americans find abominable. The wackos wanted a fight, and citizens have decided to take up the gauntlet, as has happened numerous times in our history.
If the Post thinks that somehow this popular uprising is going to spare Republicans who have been unhelpful on this issue at the local, state or national level, they clearly have no idea what is going on. Since they never bothered to speak with anyone involved in this grass-roots movement, that’s not terribly surprising. From the Post’s standpoint, this is all about partisan politics, and to make things even more nutty, they’re trying to promote the idea that having legislators respond to their constituents on this issue is somehow going to result in political suicide. So much for the idea of representative Democracy. Suggesting that it’s better to ignore the vast public outcries for our elected officials to do something to help address the problem is a pretty weak cover for being on the wrong side of the issue. Anyone who dedicates their future to the “ostrich caucus”, regardless of party affiliation, is going to encounter a chainsaw of harsh public reaction in pretty short order in most areas of Virginia.
Candidates like Bob Fitzsimmonds, who were featured in the article, have taken the time to understand what the electorate wants, and are crafting their legislative agendas to be responsive to the legitimate concerns of the electorate. Most candidates aren’t even driving the debate, they’re reacting to it as any candidate for office would reasonably do during an election season. Despite all that, this is somehow some grand plan by the Republican Party of Virginia to make people stop talking about abusive driver fees and start talking about illegal aliens.
Would that they had the ability to do this. Right now I’m not sure whether they’d be able to find their butt with both hands. If this was such a great strategy for Republicans, you’d think they’d at least be supporting these grass-roots organizations so they could get something done between now and November. I’ve been down to Richmond twice already to see if I could just speak with Charlie Judd or John Hager, and they won’t even meet with me. If this is some new version of the “vast right-wing conspiracy”, it’s a darned dysfunctional one.
The opinions expressed here are solely the views of the author, and not representative of the position of any organization, political party, doughnut shop, knitting guild, or waste recycling facility, but may be correctly attributed to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. If anything in the above article has offended you, please click here to receive an immediate apology.
You can follow the discussion through the Comments feed.
13 Comments
Views: 1048
Loading ...
Saying Virginia Republicans invented the illegal immigration issue is like saying FDR invented the Great Depression issue. Good job Greg for calling out the pro-illegal bias.
The issue likely wouldn’t have been talked about as much if the public didn’t care, but FitzSimmonds has been working on this issue for a few years now. FitzSimmonds was Senator Ken Cuccinelli’s legislative director in 2005 when Ken first authored citizen voter legislation and also worked on the 2006 bill that became law (despite Colgan’s vote against it).
Liberals like the journalists in the W/P just can’t handle the fact that the general population raised this issue. That concept would be anathema to their dogma that the population needs to be controlled and manipulated because it just doesn’t know what’s good for it.
You see, under federal law (8 USC §1324a(h)(2)) local criminal or civil sanctions against employers are not permissible. Here’s how it reads:
The provisions of this section preempt any State or local law imposing civil or criminal sanctions (other than through licensing and similar laws) upon those who employ, or recruit or refer for a fee for employment, unauthorized aliens.
And this is where your friendly republican congress critter has thrown all of us under the bus.
They are aware of and refuse to address this code. They have had the majority while this situation go out of hand.
Every time you read of a crime committed by an illegal, see the ghettos sprouting, read of an illegal who kills a cop or an innocent in a traffic accident, see wages for Americans artificially depressed…
Call your congressman and thank them.
Bob Fitzsimmonds and Jackson Miller need our support.
Greg, you need to go back and read the story again. Although Del. Seslaw’s quote about the abusive drivers’ fees issue was in there, the story really tried to get opinions from both Democrats and Republicans as to how the illegal immigration issue would affect the races this fall. Some said they thought the issue would hurt the Republican Party, others did not.
The story was by no means an editorial. If anything, I think it bent over backwards to quote Republicans, and it was very well sourced.
From a recent FAIR posting:
Lastly, on Thursday, September 20, Representative Dave Weldon (R-FL) introduced legislation authorizing state and local governments to impose additional employment verification requirements on employers and to provide state penalties for hiring illegal aliens. The bill is aimed at undoing the recent federal court decision striking down the efforts of the city of Hazelton, Pennsylvania to punish businesses which employ illegal aliens by revoking their business licenses. The legislation clearly reasserts the authority of states and municipalities to sanction employers through state and local power to issue business licenses. In addition, it allows state and local governments to impose more demanding standards of employment verification than those imposed by federal law. According to Rep. Weldon, “The federal government has passed immigration laws but refuses to enforce them. My bill will ensure that communities, which are forced to pay for tens of billions of dollars in services to illegal immigrants, are able to address local problems caused by the influx of illegal immigrants.” (TCPalm.com, September 21, 2007).
The article was more balanced than that. The reader can make up their own mind whether the politicians are drumming up the issue, or responding to public anger and concern.
If you guys don’t realize that a lot of these pols are just trying to push your buttons to get a few quick votes, you’re deceiving yourselves. There are two types of local and state politicians working this issue. Both are pols that would have trouble getting elected without an emotional rallying point like this (note FitzSimmonds’ history of previous electoral failure). The first group knows that there is virtually nothing that local and state officials can do other than to enforce existing law to address the real and perceived issues raised by illegal immigration, but who are willing to play the game and tell you folks what you want to hear in return for your votes. The second is a peculiarly ignorant crowd who actually thinks they can substantively influence this issue at the local level. Neither is qualified to hold public office. The dilemma in dealing with these people is deciding whether one should focus on the moral reprehensibility of the first group, its disregard for the federal system, and its flinty willingness to flim-flam the voters, or the second group, who are so uninformed that they don’t understand anything about their country and its Constitution.
NoVA
What are your credintials as a constitutional scholar? I do not profess to know it all but I do believe that local and state gov’t can have an impact on these issues.
George: I studied high school civics. Once you master that, my Constitutional point is clear. My other concern, of course, was stated in the article: a lot of Republicans fear that this issue will wreck the Party. The issue is crack-cocaine for mediocre candidates. It makes them feel really good for a little bit, but it can kill them over the long haul.
I would propose that any candidate that backed off this issue because it may “wreck” whatever party affiliation they may have does not deserve to be a candidate. This is an issue that needs to be addressed at ALL levels of gov’t. And any candidate, worth his salt, should stand up for his beliefs and those of his constituents. The fear of any backlash in the “long haul” should not hinder a candidate with integrity, virtue and a will to do that which is right. and.. in all deference to your high school civics studies; I believe that there is a part that can be played to fix this problem from local, state and federal govt’s
In regard to Connolly’s “do nothing” approach, I just had lunch with three friends who all live in Centreville and over the weekend were called by one of Connolly’s people asking them to vote for him. Each of them asked about the “do nothing” approach and when they didn’t get the answer they wanted politely told the person on the other end of the phone that they were voting for someone who will “do something”. Maybe his days are numbered. Time will tell.
George: I fully agree that local government can do a great deal to address the complaints that I frequently encounter on this site: Local governments only have to enforce local ordinances fairly, equally, and without regard to immigration status. Rape is rape, DWI is DWI, chickens in the front yard is chickens in the front yard, ID theft is ID theft, no matter who does it. That’s the Fairfax approach that I submit is far superior than everyone running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to be junior G-Men. State governments can do virtually nothing so cats like FitzSimmonds who are trying to boost their careers with this are either consciously scamming you or are too ignorant to be qualified for office. If you fall for this, you’ll fall for anything.