The Texas 18th District Blog

John Falk on Immigration Reform

From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: November 1, 2008

TX 18th

Dear friends in Texas’s 18th Congressional District,

You are fortunate to have a candidate for Congress who has gone out of the way to be identified as a TRUE IMMIGRATION REFORM CANDIDATE.

John Faulk was one of a small percentage of congressional candidates who volunteered to take our very tough survey on where they stand on key immigration issues. We don’t require 100% agreement with our positions — but pretty close. John Faulk met our criteria as a TRUE REFORMER.

Please take a look at the survey here that compares the candidates in this congressional race

NON-PARTISAN ALERT: NumbersUSA is strictly non-partisan. In some Districts like yours, the True Reformer is a Republican. But in others, Democrats hold that honor, such as Democrat Bob Conley, a True Reformer trying to unseat Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is one of the biggest amnesty supporters in Congress.

In the race for U.S. Representative from your Congressional District, the incumbent Member of Congress has taken actions that usually reward or encourage illegal immigration, that force congestion and that flood occupations with foreign workers to the detriment of vulnerable American workers and legal immigrants already here.

NumbersUSA never endorses candidates. We know you will cast your vote based on many issues, as well as character and experience. But we hope you will take into serious consideration the great disparity on immigration positions between the candidates on your ballot when you vote Tuesday.

Thanks for your concern on immigration issues,

Roy Beck

Founder & CEO, NumbersUSA

P.S. We can triple our membership quickly if our members email their friends about us and they in turn email theirs. Polls show that most Americans agree with NumbersUSA’s positions but, despite our recent rapid growth, most American voters still have never heard of us. You can help change that by forwarding this email widely. (Note: depending on your email provider, you may need to send this as an “attachment.”)

This may be a good time for you to make sure that you’ve let us know all of the areas you are interested in. In order to further customize the type of alerts you receive click here http://www.numbersusa.com/survey?action=longlist

As a NumbersUSA subscriber, you will receive occasional emails about immigration-related opportunities. If you want to increase or reduce the frequency of these emails, click here and choose from Total Activism, Moderate Activism, or Limited Activism at the bottom of your registration form: http://www.numbersusa.com/user

NumbersUSA - relies upon individuals like you to reach its goal of an environmentally sustainable and economically just America.

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Obama’s vision is far from that of Founding Fathers

by Star Parker

“Pushing back on accusations from John McCain that he’s a socialist, Barack Obama said, “I don’t know what’s next. By the end of the week, he’ll be accusing me of being a secret Communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

Once again, we get the Obama oratorical fog. The problem isn’t what he does with his toys or sandwich, it’s what he sees as legitimate to do, under authority of government, with mine and yours.

“(McCain) has called me a socialist for wanting to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we can finally give tax relief to the middle class.”

Obama’s plans go much further than using the tax code to redistribute wealth.

He’s got about $700 billion in so-called refundable tax credits in mind, direct money transfers to individuals, to finance his social engineering ideas in education, child care, and environmental policy.”

Who says Jews are Smart?

By Jonathan Rosenblum

Virtually his whole public career has been closely intertwined with the unrepentant former Weatherman William Ayers.

Another member of Ayers’ Hyde Park circle was former PLO official and the current Edward Said Professor at Columbia University, Rashid Khalidi, whom Obama credits with opening his eyes to the plight of Palestinians. He has been heavily funded by the virulently anti-Israel George Soros. (link)

Obama has numerous ties to the Nation of Islam, in particular through Tony Rezko, the convicted, Syrian-born racketeer, who partly paid for Obama’s home.

Obama’s foreign policy advisors have included: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor and thirty-year critic of Israel; Samantha Powers, who has called for an end to aid to Israel and the introduction of American forces to protect the Palestinians; and Robert Malley, who has made a career of advancing, together with a former Arafat advisor, a revisionist account in which Israel was responsible for the breakdown of Camp David.

*** 

I always like to throw in a little humor to lighten things up.  My daughter and her husband are standing in line in New Jersey to vote right at this moment.  Starbucks is offering free coffee today.  So here is her message to me:

Starbucks is giving away free coffee today if you say you voted.  So Tim tells the people in line just now, that the coffee is free if you voted, but if you voted Democrat you have to pay tax on it!

LOL!

Sheila Jackson Lee on Immigration & Homeland Security

Legal and Illegal Immigration are 2 completely different Issues.

Sheila Jackson Lee sets on several Congressional Committees and Sub-Committees vital for our Nation’s Homeland Security, yet her voting record indicates that we should drop border security and let terrorists and anyone else that wants to come, come on in.

• Member, House Committee on Homeland Security
• Member, Subcommittee on Border, Maritime, and Global Counterterrorism
• Chair, Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection

Sheila Jackson Lee is a member of and even “chairs” (leads) Congressional Committees vital to our Nation’s and Houston’s Homeland Security, yet she has continuously voted all out to drop border restraints in favor of illegal immigration!:

• Voted NO on building a fence along the Mexican border. (Sep 2006)
• Voted NO on preventing tipping off Mexicans about Minuteman Project. (Jun 2006)
• Voted NO on reporting illegal aliens who receive hospital treatment. (May 2004)
• Voted YES on extending Immigrant Residency rules. (May 2001)
• Voted YES on more immigrant visas for skilled workers. (Sep 1998)
• Rated 0% by FAIR, indicating a voting record loosening immigration. (Dec 2003)
• Cover child resident aliens under Medicaid and SCHIP. (May 2005)
• Rated 0% by USBC, indicating an open-border stance. (Dec 2006)

Maybe she just doesn’t understand the relationship between Border Control and Homeland Security. That sure doesn’t make me feel any better living in a high priority terrorist target region like The Greater Houston Area!

She has not only voted to bang the borders wide open, but voted for American taxpayers to pick up their medical expenses. You just don’t expect that kind of dichotic behavior out of a Congressional Representative setting on some of our most important Homeland Security Congressional Committees.

How do voters anywhere justify electing legislators like Sheila Jackson Lee to represent themselves or anyone else?

John Faulk supports border control and legal immigration… as most Americans are decendants of legal immigrants.

Engineer2

Everywhere I look, I find more reasons to vote for John Faulk and send Sheila Jackson Lee home to New York!

 What an old anecdote about Mo Udall in the hospital reveals about McCain’s character.  (and Slate has not been kind to Republicans)

A nurse entered and seemed surprised to find anyone there, and it wasn’t long before I found out why: Almost no one visits anymore. In his time, which was not very long ago, Mo Udall was one of the most-sought-after men in the Democratic Party. Yet as he dies in a veterans hospital a few miles from the Capitol, he is visited regularly only by a single old political friend, John McCain. “He’s not going to wake up this time,” McCain said.

On the way out of the parking lot, McCain recalled what it was like to be a nobody called upon by a somebody. As he did, his voice acquired the same warmth that colored Russell Feingold’s speech when he described the first call from John McCain. “When you called Feingold … ” I started to ask him. But before I could, he interrupted. “Yeah,” he says, “I thought of Mo.”

 Mark Steyn: Obama’s a better symbol than president

And why not? Obama in the White House, Obama on the dollar bill, Obama on Rushmore would symbolize the possibilities of America more than that narrow list of white-bread protestant presidents to date.

The problem is we’re not electing a symbol, a logo, a two-dimensional image. Long before he emerged on the national stage as Barack the Hope-Giver and Bringer of Change, there was a three-dimensional Barack Obama, a real man who lives in the real world. And that’s where the problem lies.

The senator and his doting Obots in the media have gone to great lengths to obscure what Barack Obama does when he’s not being a symbol: his voting record, his friends, his patrons, his life outside the soft-focus memoirs is deemed nonrelevant to the general hopey-changey vibe. But occasionally we get a glimpse. The offhand aside to Joe the Plumber about “spreading the wealth around” was revealing because it suggests a crude redistributive view of “social justice”. Yet the nimble Hope-a-Dope sidestepper brushed it aside, telling a crowd in Raleigh that next John McCain will be “accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten.”

***

Not only has this party belittled working people in this campaign, it has also been part of tearing down two female candidates.

—

The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.”

Having worked in politics, I know that absolutely none of this is on the level. This back and forth is posturing, a charade, and a political game. These lines are what I refer to as “hooker lines”—a sure thing to get applause and the press to scribble as if they’re reporting meaningful news.

As the nation slouches toward disaster, the level of political discourse is unworthy of this moment in history. We have Republicans raising Ayers and Democrats fostering ageism with “erratic” and jokes about Depends. Sexism. Racism. Ageism and maybe some Socialism have all made their ugly cameos in election 2008. It’s not inspiring. Perhaps this is why I found the initial mocking of Joe so offensive and I realized an old line applied: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me.”

 ***

***

Harry Reid

Changes We Can Believe In – American Voters Hit List #3 – Harry Reid D-Nevada

Voters will be voting many members out of Congress that have failed us this year. I sincerely hope that these are among top priorities for American voters across the nation this election year.

Harry Reid
Senate Majority Leader

The Majority leader customarily serves as the chief representative and “face” of his or her party in Senate, and sometimes even in all of Congress if the House of Representatives and thus the office of Speaker of the House is controlled by the opposition party.

As much energy as Las Vegas uses, you wouldn’t think Nevada voters would elect a brainwashed eco-nut to such an influential position as a top legislator in the Senate.

Maybe he doesn’t know that certain “fossil fuels” like natural gas burn very clean in combustion engines. Maybe he is like Nancy Pelosi and doesn’t know that natural gas is a fossil fuel. Maybe he hasn’t heard of clean coal technology. Maybe he doesn’t realize that it takes a while to turn a big ship and we are going to be dependent on various fossil fuels for at least another decade in a transitional period as we advance cleaner and renewable energy sources.

One of his worst blunders was to prematurely wave a white flag of defeat in IRAQ:

Americans just can’t tolerate this kind of irresponsible Legislative leadership grinding down realistic economically viable energy plan progress and waving the white flag of surrender, interfering in International affairs.

Why do Americans keep electing energy ignorant representatives in legislative leadership roles during the middle of an energy crisis? You would think that his limited views of what it will take in the energy conversion interim would also be indicative of his lack of financial knowledge and budgetary foresight.

I am sure I can speak for the majority of Texans and many across the Nation when I ask Nevada Voters to fire Harry Reid and elect someone who will represent the rest of the Nation responsibly.

Harry Reid has a demonstrated deficit of knowledge and prowess in dealing with American energy solutions, the economy and International Affairs. Why would anyone reelect him to office?

He oozes “grey caulk” every time he speaks… The best think he could do for America is never speak in public again!

Harry Reid took $77,000 from Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae. 

Engineer2

American Voters know which politicians failed us in the Mortgage Meltdown!

Changes We Can Believe In – American Voters Hit List #2 – Nancy Pelosi D-California

Voters will be voting many members out of Congress that have failed us this year. I sincerely hope that these are among top priorities for American voters across the nation this election year. 

Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of The US House of Representatives

The Speaker of the House is second in line to assume the Presidency,  just behind the Vice President. Maybe California voters just didn’t know that when they elected her.

It’s beyond belief for most educated voters that a House Majority Leader could so ardently discourage Bi-Partisan voting on urgent issues in The House of Representatives and doesn’t know anything about energy and energy sources. How do representatives like Nancy Pelosi even get elected?

2 Heartbeats Away - Nancy Pelosi and Natural Gas

Can you imagine a President of the United States that doesn’t even know natural gas is a fossil fuel and has to be drilled for?

We are asking California voters to please keep in mind that Nancy Pelosi as President is just plain scary. In fact, Americans don’t need or want anyone in Congress who doesn’t have sound energy knowledge going forward.

Americans all over the country are asking California voters to fire Nancy Pelosi so that the country has a better chance at a reasonable energy policy. We can’t face the possibility of her ever assuming the Presidential role.

California, please spare the rest of the Nation of another term with an energy ignorant Congressional Leader by voting Nancy Pelosi out of office this year.

Nancy Pelosi took $56,250 from Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae.

Does a National Representative in Congress come any more pathetic than that?

Engineer2

American Voters know which politicians failed us in the Mortgage Meltdown!

When was the last time a poor person offered you a job?

Engineer2

American Voters know which politicians failed us in the Mortgage Meltdown!

A Perfect Storm

 by Thomas Sowell

Some elections are routine, some are important and some are historic. If Senator John McCain wins this election, it will probably go down in history as routine. But if Senator Barack Obama wins, it is more likely to be historic– and catastrophic.

Once the election is over, the glittering generalities of rhetoric and style will mean nothing. Everything will depend on performance in facing huge challenges, domestic and foreign.

Performance is where Barack Obama has nothing to show for his political career, either in Illinois or in Washington.

***

Sheila Jackson Lee and Ties to Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) link here

Our law enforcement agencies and the FBI have been torn by this failure to define an ideological enemy. At the same time that the FBI is testifying at the Holy Land Foundation trial as to how the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic supremacist goals, other parts of the FBI have been told to invite CAIR to provide training for the FBI on their views of Islam. CAIR also has provided “training” and guidance to DHS, TSA, Customs, and other law enforcement agencies. CAIR also attends meetings with an influential advisory panel on homeland security. The Investigative Project of Terrorism reports that “several members of Congress maintain close ties with CAIR” (Jim McDermott, Keith Ellison, Sheila Jackson Lee, Bill Pascrell, Dennis Kucinich). Such congressional representatives have no concerns about CAIR’s founder and Executive Director Nihad Awad as a documented supporter of the Hamas Islamic supremacist terrorist group. The American mainstream media frequently contacts CAIR to provide comments on news stories without providing context as to who and what they are - providing further public legitimacy for them. America has similar challenges with other groups associated with Islamic supremacism such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). CAIR and ISNA are unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation terror finance trial. The President of ISNA not only spoke at a national political party’s presidential convention, she also is on the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project team calling for engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood.

American Voters know which politicians failed us in the Mortgage Meltdown!

Shield laws in the United States (wikipedia)  As I mentioned months ago Wikipedia is not an academic source but a great place to get a quick summary and starting point.

A “shield law” is legislation designed to provide a news reporter with the right to refuse to testify as to information and/or sources of information obtained during the newsgathering and dissemination process.

There is no federal shield law (although a limited one has been passed by the House and awaits a Senate vote as of July 2008), and state shield laws vary in scope, as further discussed in this article. In general, however, a shield law aims to provide the classic protection of, “a reporter cannot be forced to reveal his or her source” law.

Veteran reporter Judith Miller joins Fox News

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) – Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who spent 85 days in jail for contempt of court during the Valerie Plame affair, has joined the Fox News Channel as a contributor, the network said Monday.

Miller will be an analyst at Fox News on security and international affairs and write for FoxNews.com.

Before joining Fox News Channel, Miller was a New York Times reporter for 25 years. She was jailed in 2005 when she declined to reveal the name of a confidential source to a federal grand jury investigating Plame’s unmasking as a CIA operative.

Miller won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting about terrorism and has written about that topic and many others. She also is an adjunct at the Manhattan Institute.

 “a special prosecutor’s zeal to get a conviction in a case involving a non-crime”

More recently, Colin Powell sat silent while two lives were ruined in a special prosecutor’s zeal to get a conviction in a case involving a non-crime: telling columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.

The full story is told in Novak’s book, “The Prince of Darkness.” What is relevant here is that a New York Times reporter went to jail for refusing to tell who had revealed Ms. Plame’s occupation to her, and White House aide Scooter Libby was convicted of perjury because his memory of what he said did not match the memories of some reporters– whose memories did not match each other’s.

All the while Colin Powell knew that his own subordinate, Richard Armitage, was the one who had told Robert Novak that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. Neither Armitage nor anybody else was convicted for that because there was no crime to convict them of.

The only crimes were those created in the course of the investigation, unless the silence of Richard Armitage and Colin Powell are regarded as moral crimes.

I think a grave injustice was done to a number of people in the instances cited above.  On the other hand this recent Rashid Khalidi story concerning the LA Times is a different aspect of the issue.  An unidentified source says he videotaped a dinner at which politically sensitive issues were discussed.  Khalidi and Obama were at the dinner.  The source gave a tape to the L A Times with the condition that they not release it.  They say they released a transcript.  One issue is how do we know the integrity of the transcript.  There’s been a lot of news articles about that this week see  here In Camera.

Not releasing the tape has created a lot of negative speculation that what is on the tape could be harmful to Obama.  Apparently the transcript wasn’t.  I haven’t read it.  So if a reporter doesn’t disclose sources it leads to speculation about the credibility of the reporter and the sources.  If a reporter discloses sources, it puts the reporter out of business. 

My experience as an auditor was if someone told me where to look for a problem that they new existed I kept their identity secret from everyone.  I then had a subordinate audit or I personally audited the information and if I found problems I reported them as routine audit findings.  If a reporter invents issues and reports them as actual that too is harmful.

The Federal Government has whistleblower protection laws that are to protect someone who reports a contractor or employee ripping off the government.  The whistleblower gets a financial reward and usually suffers job loss and a lot of harassment.  Look here:

Thomas Sowell 

Let us hope that today’s Israeli government understands that issue the same way as regards Iran, since ours may not.

Despite the media hype that we need to rehabilitate ourselves in the eyes of the world, the United States of America remains the number one destination of immigrants from around the world, some of whom take desperate chances with their lives to get here, whether across the waters of the Caribbean or by crossing our dangerous southwest desert.

Mychal Massie

“Is freedom of speech in Obama’s lexicon?
Tuesday October 28, 2008 by Mychal Massie — Obama has staked his presidential aspirations on “change” and being the advocate for the middle class, i.e., the people. Yet it appears that one of the primary changes he will exact is to strip the “people” of their constitutional right to freedom of speech by ensuring that they pay a painful pr …”

Obama just said “we are 4 days away...” from election day.  Finally, a truthful utterance!

Heritage Foundation Requests Obama to Pull False Ad

Plundering the Plumber’s Records

If Joe the Plumber were Jawad the Suspected Terrorist, civil liberties activists would stampede the halls of Congress on his behalf. Liberal columnists would hyperventilate over the outrageous invasions of his privacy by Ohio state and local employees. The ACLU would demand the Big Brother snoopers’ heads. And Democratic leaders would convene immediate hearings and parade him around the Beltway as the new poster boy/victim of unlawful domestic spying.

But because peaceful American citizen Joe Wurzelbacher is an outspoken enemy of socialism, rather than an enemy of America, the defenders of privacy have responded to his plight with an impenetrable cone of silence.

The title above is my personal opinion. 

I have read numerous times over the last 10 years in James Taranto’s Wall St Journal column about scientists disagreeing with the media on Global Warming.  Most recently about fishermen having difficulty getting to North Sea fishing areas where they normally fish in summers. The idea of Global Warming is to implement more government control over our lives by taking away our cars and making us use public transportation; by making us live in smaller houses so we can pay more taxes, and on and on. 

 MIT scientists baffled by global warming theory, contradicts scientific data

Boston (MA) - Scientists at MIT have recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels. This is the first increase in ten years, and what baffles science is that this data contradicts theories stating man is the primary source of increase for this greenhouse gas. It takes about one full year for gases generated in the highly industrial northern hemisphere to cycle through and reach the southern hemisphere. However, since all worldwide levels rose simultaneously throughout the same year, it is now believed this may be part of a natural cycle in mother nature - and not the direct result of man’s contributions.

Record snow storm triggers delays

Snow flurries throughout the night and early morning caused numerous delays for travellers using Switzerland’s rail system on Thursday.

Snow blankets London for Global Warming debate 

Recently the American media has begun to notice the odd incongruity of saturation media coverage here which insists that global warming is both man-made and urgent, and a British public which increasingly doubts either to be true. 60 per cent of the British population now doubt the influence of humans on climate change, and more people than not think Global Warming won’t be as bad “as people say”.

RECORD COLD FOR OCALA

Record cold swept over the region Wednesday

It was a record for Oct. 29 and the second lowest temperature ever recorded in October since 1850. Ocala’s official weather site is at the city water treatment plant on Southeast 24th Street.Until Wednesday, Oct. 29’s record temperature was 37 in 1943 and a close second was 38 degrees in 1957.

I heard Obama this morning condemn Bush and McCain for not doing enough to fight global warming.  From the above articles it seems they are overdoing it.  Bush and McCain need to reduce their efforts or we are going to be too cool.

More Information 

Scientists who remain calm are intimidated, and those extreme skeptics who doubt the global warming orthodoxy are abominated. A distinguished American think tank that sought an open debate on climate change, the American Enterprise Institute, was slandered in the media as a tool of Big Oil. A leading British climate scientist, Mike Hulme of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, has adumbrated the extent of this anti-intellectual campaign, saying “I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric.”

More Here

Global Warming Gobbledygook
“Here’s a Reuters dispatch that exemplifies why “global warming” is impossible to take seriously:

Even if people stopped pumping out carbon dioxide and other pollutants tomorrow, global warming would still get worse, two teams of researchers reported on Thursday. . . .

Virtually no one disagrees human activity is fueling global warming, and a global treaty signed in Kyoto, Japan, aims to reduce polluting emissions. But the world’s biggest polluter, the United States, has withdrawn from the 1997 treaty, saying its provisions would hurt the U.S. economy.

Actually, lots of people disagree that “human activity is fueling global warming,” but Reuters seems to view them as nonpersons. (By contrast, if you think Osama bin Laden is a “freedom fighter,” you can count on Reuters’ respect.)

In any case, the first paragraph quoted above refutes the second one. If there’s nothing we can do to stop “global warming,” how can we be causing it to begin with?”

Remember to vote straight Republican on the ballot so you don’t accidentally miss John Faulk.

Another view on why the stock markets are so bad  Wall St Journal article you should see.

 Obama and the Politics of Crowds

“On the face of it, there is nothing overwhelmingly stirring about Sen. Obama. There is a cerebral quality to him, and an air of detachment. He has eloquence, but within bounds. After nearly two years on the trail, the audience can pretty much anticipate and recite his lines. The political genius of the man is that he is a blank slate. The devotees can project onto him what they wish. The coalition that has propelled his quest — African-Americans and affluent white liberals — has no economic coherence. But for the moment, there is the illusion of a common undertaking — Canetti’s feeling of equality within the crowd…”

Obama and “The Left” 

A candidate who spends two decades promoting polarization and then runs as a healer and uniter, rather than a divider, forfeits all trust by that fact alone.”