0 comment Friday, June 27, 2014 | admin
Lou Dobbs on CNN today ran a report on the problems faced by the cities across America who are passing legislation to crack down on illegal immigration.
Cities like Hazleton, Pennsylvania, Farmers Branch, Texas, and Escondido, California are feeling the financial and social strain of dealing with the huge influx of illegals, and their budgets are severely burdened. But now they have to deal with very costly legal battles, as a result of the lawsuits brought by a phalanx of leftist groups.
TUCKER: The three groups most active in challenging the cities laws are the ACLU, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The combined assets of those groups, $270 million, with undisclosed pro bono legal help available for member law firms.
And while the towns have to answer to taxpayers, those groups have to answer to donors who usually remain anonymous. And there is a financial incentive for these groups to challenge the laws. Win or lose, their legal fees are usually included in the settlement.
RICHARD SAMP, WASHINGTON LEGAL FOUNDATION: They threaten that a lawsuit involving the city of Hazleton, that they would bankrupt us, thinking that we would roll over and back off. And we really don't have a choice.''
Add the costs of all this litigation to the other costs of illegal (and legal) immigration, and the total is something staggering. As the CNN report implies, the situation of the cities vs. these deep-pockets leftist groups and foundations is a David-and-Goliath battle, and the cities are little David. These subversive groups seem to have almost limitless resources at their disposal, and the cities have limited funds, which ultimately come from taxpayers. Yet as Dobbs points out, the Goliath leftist groups have corporate funds, monies probably from leftist foundations like Soros' groups, along with -- you guessed it: federal funding. Taxpayers' money.
There is something so profoundly sinister and wrong about these activist, pro-illegal groups bullying the duly elected officials of these cities, and threatening to bankrupt them if they do not overturn their local laws and submit to being swamped by illegals. This is just wrong in so many ways. What happens to the rights of the citizens of these towns and cities? They have elected representatives and local legislation which reflects their will. Yet the ACLU and MALDEF and the rest can come along with threats and ultimatums: 'do as we tell you, or we will bankrupt you.' So there's the dilemma: do what the illegals and their dictatorial enablers demand, and you will be bankrupted by the costs associated with a huge influx of illegals. Or fail to obey them and their unlawful demands, and you will be bankrupted by fighting them in court. Either way, these cities lose.
And we lose: America loses.
Who gains by this? The illegals and their bullying enablers, and the crooked businessmen who profit from the illegals' presence: slumlords, unscrupulous employers looking for bargain-basement cheap labor, the Democrats who will now have a new 'client base' and victim group/voting bloc.
But the rest of us lose, big time. I meet so many Americans who are still in the ostrich stage with the immigration crisis. They openly admit that they avert their eyes; they don't want to be bothered with something that they feel is not within their power to change. 'I can't do anything about it, so I'd rather not think about it; why get frustrated if I can't change anything?'
This is what I hear from people.
It sounds as if many Americans have essentially given up on the whole idea of America. After all, if the government's power derives from the people, from the will of the majority, we should be involved. If we abdicate our responsibility as citizens to inform ourselves, to make our views and our will known, to communicate among ourselves as to the issues that concern our country's well-being, then we have in fact given up on the whole American idea. We have, if we give in to that passive thinking, given the bullies and the elitists and the illegals free rein to do as they will. The people that are the most motivated will prevail, and I see the illegals and those who profit from them in some way as being zealous and determined, while too many Americans are resigned and in denial.
I think Lou Dobbs, almost single-handedly in our mainstream media, is awakening a number of people to the urgency of our situation. I give him considerable credit, but there are too few like him.
And then there's the blogosphere; there are many bloggers sounding the alarm.
I like to think of the blogger as the modern analogue to the pamphleteers and writers of political tracts, often anonymously or pseudonymously written by the original American patriots in colonial times. Remember, there was no monolithic 'mainstream media' to distort and dominate and shape the political issues of the day, so broadsides and pamphlets were passed around, and had a great effect. Political bloggers are working in that tradition, I like to think.
There are urgent issues facing America, and we can't count on the MSM to cover these things adequately; we need to establish more democratic political dialogue in our country, and stop relying on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News to inform us and educate us. We've got to wake up the sleepers, as Paul Revere, Samuel Prescott, and William Dawes did back in 1775; some people don't want to be woken out of their slumber, but it's time.
There are moments in life when keeping silent becomes a fault, and speaking is an obligation. A civic duty, a moral challenge, a categorical imperative from which we cannot escape.'' - Oriana Fallaci
Cities like Hazleton, Pennsylvania, Farmers Branch, Texas, and Escondido, California are feeling the financial and social strain of dealing with the huge influx of illegals, and their budgets are severely burdened. But now they have to deal with very costly legal battles, as a result of the lawsuits brought by a phalanx of leftist groups.
TUCKER: The three groups most active in challenging the cities laws are the ACLU, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The combined assets of those groups, $270 million, with undisclosed pro bono legal help available for member law firms.
And while the towns have to answer to taxpayers, those groups have to answer to donors who usually remain anonymous. And there is a financial incentive for these groups to challenge the laws. Win or lose, their legal fees are usually included in the settlement.
RICHARD SAMP, WASHINGTON LEGAL FOUNDATION: They threaten that a lawsuit involving the city of Hazleton, that they would bankrupt us, thinking that we would roll over and back off. And we really don't have a choice.''
Add the costs of all this litigation to the other costs of illegal (and legal) immigration, and the total is something staggering. As the CNN report implies, the situation of the cities vs. these deep-pockets leftist groups and foundations is a David-and-Goliath battle, and the cities are little David. These subversive groups seem to have almost limitless resources at their disposal, and the cities have limited funds, which ultimately come from taxpayers. Yet as Dobbs points out, the Goliath leftist groups have corporate funds, monies probably from leftist foundations like Soros' groups, along with -- you guessed it: federal funding. Taxpayers' money.
There is something so profoundly sinister and wrong about these activist, pro-illegal groups bullying the duly elected officials of these cities, and threatening to bankrupt them if they do not overturn their local laws and submit to being swamped by illegals. This is just wrong in so many ways. What happens to the rights of the citizens of these towns and cities? They have elected representatives and local legislation which reflects their will. Yet the ACLU and MALDEF and the rest can come along with threats and ultimatums: 'do as we tell you, or we will bankrupt you.' So there's the dilemma: do what the illegals and their dictatorial enablers demand, and you will be bankrupted by the costs associated with a huge influx of illegals. Or fail to obey them and their unlawful demands, and you will be bankrupted by fighting them in court. Either way, these cities lose.
And we lose: America loses.
Who gains by this? The illegals and their bullying enablers, and the crooked businessmen who profit from the illegals' presence: slumlords, unscrupulous employers looking for bargain-basement cheap labor, the Democrats who will now have a new 'client base' and victim group/voting bloc.
But the rest of us lose, big time. I meet so many Americans who are still in the ostrich stage with the immigration crisis. They openly admit that they avert their eyes; they don't want to be bothered with something that they feel is not within their power to change. 'I can't do anything about it, so I'd rather not think about it; why get frustrated if I can't change anything?'
This is what I hear from people.
It sounds as if many Americans have essentially given up on the whole idea of America. After all, if the government's power derives from the people, from the will of the majority, we should be involved. If we abdicate our responsibility as citizens to inform ourselves, to make our views and our will known, to communicate among ourselves as to the issues that concern our country's well-being, then we have in fact given up on the whole American idea. We have, if we give in to that passive thinking, given the bullies and the elitists and the illegals free rein to do as they will. The people that are the most motivated will prevail, and I see the illegals and those who profit from them in some way as being zealous and determined, while too many Americans are resigned and in denial.
I think Lou Dobbs, almost single-handedly in our mainstream media, is awakening a number of people to the urgency of our situation. I give him considerable credit, but there are too few like him.
And then there's the blogosphere; there are many bloggers sounding the alarm.
I like to think of the blogger as the modern analogue to the pamphleteers and writers of political tracts, often anonymously or pseudonymously written by the original American patriots in colonial times. Remember, there was no monolithic 'mainstream media' to distort and dominate and shape the political issues of the day, so broadsides and pamphlets were passed around, and had a great effect. Political bloggers are working in that tradition, I like to think.
There are urgent issues facing America, and we can't count on the MSM to cover these things adequately; we need to establish more democratic political dialogue in our country, and stop relying on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News to inform us and educate us. We've got to wake up the sleepers, as Paul Revere, Samuel Prescott, and William Dawes did back in 1775; some people don't want to be woken out of their slumber, but it's time.
There are moments in life when keeping silent becomes a fault, and speaking is an obligation. A civic duty, a moral challenge, a categorical imperative from which we cannot escape.'' - Oriana Fallaci