HavenWorks.com/us/immigration - US Immigration News

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z

US Immigration News

HavenWorks

Mexico

US Immigration

US IMMIGRATION News:

20080915

John McCain

Sarah Palin

Federal

Money

Politics

Immigration

Religion

Alaska

Russia

Iraq

Military

2008 Election

"John McCain's Journey From Maverick to Liar." ... "When Jon Stewart asked [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate John] McCain last year, "Are you going into crazy base world?" the celebrated maverick acknowledged, "I'm afraid so."" ... "McCain flip-flopped on the [Republican President] Bush tax cuts. He abandoned immigration reform. He reached out to Jerry Falwell and other religious conservatives." ... "It wasn't enough. And so, in a move that even one of his longtime advisers conceded (in a remark captured by an open microphone) was disturbingly "cynical," McCain gave the base [2008 Election Republican Vice Presidential Candidate] Sarah Palin." ... "So far, the main "maverick" actions that McCain has promised as the next Republican president are to trim nonmilitary Democratic spending and continue the Iraq war. You can't get more conventional than that." ... "And even that message has been somewhat undermined by disclosures that Palin was a champion of those costly federal earmark projects she has lobbied for in Alaska—where, you know, you can see Russia." ... "At this point, McCain has taken the obvious way out—launching a series of distracting attacks on [2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate] Barack Obama, with slim regard for truth." ... "The ads have spurred a backlash, the consequences (or lack) of which may well decide the election." ... "For 18 months, Obama has wagered all his chips on the (quaint? idealistic? brilliant?) idea that the American people are tired of the same old sleazy and divisive politics. McCain has now chosen to bet against him." ... "And we are the cards." -By John Aloysius Farrell

-usnews.com

20080910

Gordon Smith

Illegal

Immigration

Business

Food

Workers

Politics

Agriculture

Property

History

Oregon

Hawaii

Utah

Wash

"Señor Smith: Low-wage Latino workers keep [Oregon Republican Senator] Sen. Gordon Smith’s family business humming. Not all of them are legal." ... "Up on a hill overlooking this Eastern Oregon town of 701 people, Smith Frozen Foods turns raw produce from the surrounding fields into ready-to-eat products." ... "Smith’s goods appear in grocery stores under other brand names. But in tiny Weston [Oregon], a water tank emblazoned with the capital letters S-M-I-T-H sits like a sentry greeting travelers on nearby Highway 11." ... "Gordon Smith, a United States senator from Oregon and the only Republican senator representing a West Coast state, has owned the plant his grandfather founded in 1919 for nearly 30 years." ... "“Son,” father Milan Smith once said, according to Gordon Smith’s 2006 memoir, “you can sell ice to Eskimos and coals to Newcastle.”" ... "Today, Smith Frozen Foods generates millions in income for the senator, according to Smith’s 2007 financial disclosure report." ... "And in this town, Smith’s wealth looms large, even though the 56-year-old lawmaker seldom visits and calls nearby Pendleton [Oregon] his home. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Smith is the 12th-richest member of the U.S. [United States] Senate, with an estimated net worth between $8 million and $39 million—wealth that’s allowed him to buy a $3.5 million mansion in Bethesda, Md. [Maryland], property on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, a Park City, Utah, condominium and—more famously—four antique golf clubs worth $1.25 million." ... "The workers at Smith Frozen Foods, who clean the machinery, monitor production and pack upward of 50 million pounds of produce each year, earn about $80 a day, four or five days a week, 10 months a year—if they’re lucky." ... "One other thing—some of them appear to be illegal immigrants." ... "WW recently spent several days in Weston, and the nearby cities of Milton-Freewater [Oregon] and Walla Walla, Wash. [Washington], where most of Smith’s employees live. WW spoke to dozens of current and former Smith workers, Latino advocates, court personnel, public defenders, educators, police administrators, church officials, social service agents and business owners and determined that some portion of Smith’s workforce comprises undocumented immigrants." ... "It’s a revelation that may not be newsworthy around Weston, where most people this reporter interviewed knew, or assumed, that the agricultural processing plant hired illegal immigrants." ... "Additional interviews and review of public records reveal that Smith’s company appears to have employed illegal immigrants for decades, stretching back as far as the 1980s." -By Beth Slovic

-WWeek.com

20080420

Don Young - Abramoff - Bob Schaffer - Money - Politics - Mariana Islands - Chinese - Garment - Factory - Industry - Labor - Women - Abortion - Human Rights - Investigations - Government - Immigration - Law- History - US - Colorado - Alaska - "Records expose Young-Abramoff ties: MARIANA ISLANDS." ... "[Alaska Republican Represenative] Rep. Don Young has said he never allowed convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff to be an influential force over him in Congress." ... "But now a trove of old billing records from two of Abramoff's firms show that his team of lobbyists had more than 120 contacts with Young's personal and committee staffs over 25 months, including at least 10 with Young himself." ... "The available records cover a single Abramoff client, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. [United States] territory in the Pacific that Young oversaw when he chaired the House Resources Committee from 1995 to 2001." ... "The records show that one of the looming concerns of Abramoff and his fellow lobbyists at the time was a bill introduced by Young's fellow Alaskan, [Republican Senator] Sen. Frank Murkowski, to reform labor and immigration practices feeding the island's notorious Chinese-owned sweatshops. In 2000, Murkowski's bill passed the Senate unanimously, but Young stopped it cold in his committee, refusing to hold even a hearing." ... "Investigations by the government, media and human rights groups uncovered widespread abuses in the garment industry and among sex workers there starting in the mid-1990s, but Young asserted those investigations were bogus." ... "As a member of Young's Resources Committee, [Colorado Republican Representative and 2008 Election Colorado Senator Candidate Bob] Schaffer took a free trip to the Mariana Islands arranged by Abramoff's law firm, then played a central role in a 1989 committee hearing investigating Interior department officials in the [Democratic President Bill] Clinton administration who were trying to rein in the Saipan government [Saipan is the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands' capital]." ... "A growing number of reports spoke of near slave-labor conditions, with workers kept in sealed compounds, required to work seven days a week without overtime, and sometimes getting no paycheck at all. There were widespread reports of women coerced into getting abortions to keep their jobs. Some women hired abroad found themselves working not in garment factories at all, but sex clubs." -By Richard Mauer -ADN.com

20080410

Jack Abramoff - Bob Schaffer - Criminal - Money - Politician - Vacation - Colorado - US - Mariana Islands - Textile - Factory - Immigration - Human Rights - Law - 2008 Election - "Abramoff ties cloud [Bob] Schaffer's '99 fact-finding trip." ... "Just before boarding a plane to the [Northern] Mariana Islands in 1999, [Colorado Republican Representative] then-Congressman Bob Schaffer announced he was embarking on a fact-finding mission to get to the bottom of repeated allegations of labor abuse in the American protectorate." ... "What he didn't say was that the trip was partly arranged by the firm of now-jailed [Republican] lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who represented textile factory owners fighting congressional efforts to reform labor and immigration laws on the islands and who was being handsomely paid to keep the islands' cherished exemptions." ... "Schaffer and his wife stayed for free at a palm-studded beach resort and, besides factories, also toured historical sites and met with clients of Preston-Gates, Abramoff's firm, according to a copy of the trip's agenda archived in Schaffer's congressional papers." ... "In a recent interview with The Denver Post, the Republican candidate for Colorado's open Senate seat described the protectorate's guest-worker program as a "model" lawmakers could use as they overhaul the U.S. [United States] immigration system." ... "It has left Schaffer defending a guest-worker program criticized in more than a decade of government reports and journalistic exposés; and it links him to what Abramoff later boasted was an incredibly successful lobbying effort to quash reform by cashing in on ties to key House Republicans, including those on the House Resources Committee, on which Schaffer sat." ... ""Given that many Republican members, including Tom DeLay, Bob Ney and Conrad Burns, have lost their seat or gone to prison based on their association with this criminal, it's pretty remarkable that Schaffer seems to be proud of his association with these sleazy Abramoff-sponsored junkets," said Taylor West, a spokeswoman for Schaffer's [2008 Election] Democratic opponent, Mark Udall." ... "At heart of the issue is the islands' massive textile industry, which is exempted from the U.S. minimum wage as well as most American immigration laws. The Northern Marianas economy is built on thousands of workers from China, the Philippines and Bangladesh, some of whom pay labor recruiters as much as $7,000 to land a job on U.S. soil." ... "A class-action lawsuit filed the year Schaffer toured the islands alleged that many of those workers lived in slum conditions, housed seven to a room in barracks surrounded by barbed wire designed to keep the workers in. Workers in some factories labored 12 hours a day, seven days a week, the suit alleged — without pay if they fell behind set quotas." ... "A U.S. Interior Department investigation found that pregnant workers were forced to get illegal abortions or lose their jobs. Some were recruited for factories but forced into the sex trade instead." ... "Said Matthew Miller, spokesman for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee: "The fact that (Schaffer) sided against the human rights of those workers, not just then, but still today, shows he was more interested in doing the bidding of the people who set up the trip than in actually investigating abuses."" -By Michael Riley -DenverPost.com

20080409

Bob Schaffer - Jack Abramoff - Criminal - Money - Politician - Abortion - Child - Labor - Female - Textile - Factory - Immigration - Human Rights - Law - History - US - Mariana Islands - 2008 Election - Colorado - Vacation - "Fashhhionating." ... "Earlier today we noted that the [2008 Election] Republican Senate candidate from Colorado, Bob Schaffer, told the Denver Post that America should adopt an immigration and guest labor policy modeled on that of the Mariana Islands (aka the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) -- whose guest worker program is notorious around the world for forced abortion, slavery, child prostitution, sex trafficking, beatings, female workers kept in shacks with no plumbing surrounded by barbed wire and other fun stuff [sarcasm]." ... "TPM Reader AK points out that the folks at ProgressNowAction have done a little digging. And it seems that that back in 1999, when Schaffer was serving in Congress, he went on one of those junkets to the Islands put together by none other than disgraced lobbyist and now-federal inmate Jack Abramoff." ... "Those of you with a clear recollection of the details of the Abramoff scandal will remember that one of Jack's biggest clients was the group of sharks who ran the Marianas sweat shops." ... "They had a great thing going because they were able to slap Made In The USA labels on clothes and other items made in Saipan [Northern Mariana Islands capital] by female guest workers imported from other parts of East Asia to work in sub-Third World labor conditions. That is, when the guest workers weren't busy getting beaten, raped or coerced into having abortions. Jack's job was to find politicians willing to travel with him on junkets to the Marianas, hang out at the casinos and come back to the states and say how well the labor conditions actually there seemed to be." ... "In any case, it was just one of these junkets with Abramoff that then US Rep. Bob Schaffer took back in 1999, which, as it happens, was a year after the release of the Department of Labor report that confirmed the 15 year old sex slave's account." -By Josh Marshall -TalkingPointsMemo.com
Watch TPMtv Video update: "... Colorado senate candidate Bob Schaffer (R) says we should remodel our national immigration policy on that of the Mariana Islands -- a program notorious for child prostitution, forced abortions, beatings, slavery, twelve hour days and sex trafficking. Now it turns out he went on a Jack Abramoff junket to the islands and came back saying it was A-OK!" -By Josh Marshall -Veracifier
Immigration - Politics - Texas - School - "Athens School 'Attack' Proven To Be False, Girl To Be Charged." ... "Charges are being filed against 13 year old Melanie Bowers by Athens ISD [Independent School District] through the Henderson County District Attorney's office for filing a false report, said AISD officials today." ... "Bowers claimed earlier this week that she was beaten and threatened - with killing and rape, no less - by a group of students at Athens ISD last Friday, for creating a protest sign saying, "If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration."" ... "After Melanie's accusations, administrators reviewed school survellience videotape of the incident - which, instead of showing students beating or attacking her, showed Bowers scratching herself on her arms, face, and neck, and walking through the halls of the school calmly long after she claimed the incident happened." ... "After Melanie's parents were presented with that information and the video, the school confronted Melanie, and she admitted that she made the story up." -KLTV.com

20080407

Bob Schaffer - Corporate - Colorado - US - Foreign - Textile - Worker - Immigration - Mariana Islands - 2008 Election - "Tricky issue of immigration played down." ... "Calling America a country perfectly "capable of multitasking," [2008 Election] Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer said the U.S. [United States] ought to be pursuing a guest- worker program at the same time it fortifies its borders." ... "He pointed to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. protectorate that imports tens of thousands of foreign textile workers, as a successful model for a guest-worker program that could be adapted nationally." ... ""The concept of prequalifying foreign workers in their home country under private- sector management is a system that works very well in one place in America," he said of the islands' program. "I think members of Congress ought to be looking at that model and be considering it as a possible basis for a nationwide program."" -By Michael Riley -DenverPost.com

20080209

John McCain - Immigration - Finance - Legislation - Politics - Arizona- 2008 Election - "Wash. Post claimed McCain "diverged from conservatives" on immigration, taxes, without noting his flip-flops." ... "Summary: In an article on [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona Senator] Sen. John McCain's efforts "to rally conservatives to his candidacy," The Washington Post asserted that McCain "has diverged from conservatives on several issues, including campaign finance legislation, immigration policy and President Bush's tax cuts." But, unlike a previous Post article [#1, #2] that documented McCain's "flip-flops" on taxes and immigration, this one did not mention that McCain has changed his positions on those two issues to more closely align himself with the base of the Republican Party." -MediaMatters.org

20080205

John McCain - Mitt Romney - Money - Immigration - Ethanol - Religious - Abortion - Law - Fla - 2008 Election - Media - "Dancing With GOP Stars: McCain, Romney Do Flip-Flop Waltz." ... "The record shows that [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt] Romney and [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate John] McCain have both changed their positions on taxes, immigration and other issues that are important to GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican] voters. Romney's changes have garnered more attention, raising questions about his core convictions, but McCain has changed his stances more often than he is usually prepared to admit." ... "Speaking in Jacksonville, Fla. [Florida], McCain sarcastically praised Romney: "He's consistently taken both sides of any major issue. He has consistently flip-flopped on every issue."" ... "Romney shot back that McCain was "against the Bush tax cuts" but "now he's for making them permanent." And "he was for McCain-Kennedy" immigration reform, Romney continued. "Now he's for a new program on immigration. He's changed his view on issue after issue. He was against ethanol, then for it, then against it again."" ... "Romney supporters argue that McCain's flip-flops have largely been under the public radar because they conflict with the "straight shooter" narrative that they say has been accepted and promoted by the media. McCain has altered his position on such issues as taxes, immigration, the religious right, Roe v. Wade [the Supreme Court case legalizing abortion] and ethanol." ... "The senator has sought to disguise his flip-flop on the [Republican President] Bush tax cuts by arguing that the main reason he opposed them was that they were not accompanied by cuts in government spending. This was not the explanation he gave at the time, however. In a May 2001 speech on the Senate floor, he said he could not "in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans who most need tax relief."" -By Michael Dobbs -WashingtonPost
John McCain - Pat Robertson - Money - Religion - Immigrant - Workers - Women - Abortions - Illegal - Iowa - Ethanol - Air - Environment - US - Global - Climate - History - 2008 Election - "Top McCain Flip-Flops." ... "1. Taxes. [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] John McCain was one of two Republican senators to vote against [Republican] President Bush's tax cuts of 2001, saying that he could not support cuts that benefited the rich rather than the middle class. He now favors making the tax cuts permanent." ... "2. The religious right. During the 2000 presidential campaign, he attacked [Republican televangelists] Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance." He withdrew that remark in a 2006 interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," saying that the Christian right has a "major role to play in the Republican Party."" ... "3. Immigration. Last year, he sponsored a bill that would combine a temporary-worker program and a path to citizenship for many illegal immigrants while also increasing border security. He now emphasizes securing the borders first." ... "4. Roe v. Wade. In August 1999, he told the San Francisco Chronicle that he would "not support repeal of Roe v. Wade" because it would force women to have illegal abortions. He has subsequently said that he was speaking about the need to change the "culture of America" and that he supports the repeal of Roe, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide." ... "5. Ethanol. In 2003, he said that ethanol "does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality." Campaigning in Iowa in August 2006, he described ethanol as a "vital alternative energy source, not only because of our dependency on foreign oil, but its greenhouse-reduction effects."" -WashingtonPost

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

US Immigration
websites

ICE.gov

USCIS.gov
Travel.State.gov

Visas

Immigration Law News via:

FindLaw.com

Immigration.

US Immigration News Sources:

Search US Immigration News:
News Search
<US Immigration> in:

<AllTheWeb-[News]>

<AltaVista-[News]>

<Google-[News]>

<MSN-[News]>

Specialty search:

<Google's U.S. "Uncle Sam," .gov and .mil>

Search:
<US Immigration News> in:

<Google>

<MSN>

<Yahoo>

Search United States Immigration News:
News Search
<United States Immigration> in:

<AllTheWeb-[News]>

<AltaVista-[News]>

<Google-[News]>

<MSN-[News]>

Specialty search:

<Google's U.S. "Uncle Sam," .gov and .mil>

Search:
<United States Immigration News> in:

<Google>

<MSN>

<Yahoo>

Immigration
Brought to you by the alphabet letter I
I
;-)

20080124

US Immigration - Federal - Law - Enforcement - Politics - Arizona - Minnesota - Georgia - Colorado - "Immigration officials detaining, deporting American citizens." ... "Thomas Warziniack was born in Minnesota and grew up in Georgia, but immigration authorities pronounced him an illegal immigrant from Russia." ... "Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held Warziniack for weeks in an Arizona detention facility with the aim of deporting him to a country he's never seen. His jailers shrugged off Warziniack's claims that he was an American citizen, even though they could have retrieved his Minnesota birth certificate in minutes and even though a Colorado court had concluded that he was a U.S. [United States] citizen a year before it shipped him to Arizona." ... "On Thursday, Warziniack was told he would be released. Immigration authorities were finally able to verify his citizenship." ... ""The immigration agents told me they never make mistakes," Warziniack said in a phone interview from jail. "All I know is that somebody dropped the ball."" ... "The story of how immigration officials decided that a small-town drifter with a Southern accent was an illegal Russian immigrant illustrates how the federal government mistakenly detains and sometimes deports American citizens." ... "U.S. citizens who are mistakenly jailed by immigration authorities can get caught up in a nightmarish bureaucratic tangle in which they're simply not believed." ... "Unlike suspects charged in criminal courts, detainees accused of immigration violations don't have a right to an attorney, and three-quarters of them represent themselves. Less affluent or resourceful U.S. citizens who are detained must try to maneuver on their own through a complicated system." -By Marisa Taylor with contributions by Tish Wells -McClatchyDC.com

20080107

US Immigrant - Women - Children - Politics - Sacramento - California - US - Mexico - "Abused immigrant spouses may face deportation: U.S. [United States] rethinks its policy of letting them remain here in certain cases." ... "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is re-examining a longtime policy [Violence Against Women Act visas] to let immigrant spouses remain here when their abusive U.S. citizen or permanent-resident spouses refuse to help them obtain legal status." ... "Ana Bertha Arellano, who runs her own Sacramento [California's capital] restaurant and cleans offices all night as a janitor, fears a change in that policy would destroy the safe life she's been struggling to build for herself and her children." ... "Without that protection, Arellano could end up deported by the same U.S. officials who agreed to shelter her from abuse six years ago and legally stay here on a special provisional visa." ... ""I have my own health insurance. I don't take any aid for anything. I don't want anything else but a chance to have some stability for my family," said Arellano, 37, one of the thousands of immigrants, many mothers of U.S.-born children, who could be affected if the policy shifts." ... "Arellano's story, like many, begins with marriage to a husband she loved and with whom she had two children, both born here. But her husband, a permanent resident of the United States, never filed papers to sponsor her for permanent residency, she said." ... "After they were married, she said he told her to cross the border from Mexico illegally in 1997, saying he would submit their application once she got here." ... "Instead, she said, he used her undocumented status to prevent her from complaining about his subsequent beatings and verbal taunts." ... "Beth Hassett, executive director of Women Escaping a Violent Environment, which counsels battered women in Sacramento County, predicted that a hard-line policy will cause immigrant women to remain in violent relationships if coming forward leaves them vulnerable to deportation." (1, 2) -By Susan Ferriss -SacBee.com

20071231

Mike Huckabee - Mitt Romney - Iowa - Television - Ads - Crime - Money - Illegal - Immigrants - Colleges - Abortion - Health-Care - Arkansas - Massachusetts - 2008 Election - "Huckabee: Romney running 'dishonest' campaign." ... "Former Arkansas [Governor and 2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Gov. Mike Huckabee blasted Republican presidential rival [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Mitt Romney as running a "desperate and dishonest" campaign and predicted the former Massachusetts governor won't be the Republican nominee." ... "Romney has been blasting Huckabee's record on crime and taxes as governor of Arkansas in [Iowa] television ads in the last days of the race." ... "Asked on Monday on CNN's "American Morning" why he felt the need to respond to Romney's attacks, Huckabee said, "I think a lot of people are deceived, and you have to ask do people want to elect a president who has been dishonest in order to get the job and said things about his opponents that simply aren't true?"" ... "With the two men locked in a statistical dead heat atop the latest Iowa polls, Romney has been airing television ads criticizing Huckabee for raising state spending, backing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants at state colleges and granting more than 1,000 pardons and commutations." ... "Huckabee has said the claims are taken out of context, and hit back by questioning the sincerity of Romney's opposition to abortion -- which was covered by the state health care program Romney pushed through in Massachusetts." -CNN

20071230

Mitt Romney - Mike Huckabee - John McCain - Iowa - Television - Ads - 2008 Election - New Hampshire - Arizona - Illegal - Immigrants - "Romney, Huckabee attack each other in Iowa." ... "[2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Mitt Romney's blistering ads criticizing [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Mike Huckabee and [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] John McCain drew sharp rebukes from their targets and wary responses from voters Saturday, as candidates barnstormed Iowa five days before the nation's first presidential voting takes place in caucuses here." ... "Romney launched a new one against McCain in New Hampshire on Saturday." ... ""McCain championed a bill to let every illegal immigrant stay in American permanently," the 30-second TV spot says. "He even voted to allow illegal immigrants to collect Social Security."" ... "The tone was similar to one Romney rolled out Friday in Iowa against Huckabee." ... ""Soft on government spending," the ad charges. "His foreign policy? 'Ludicrous,' says Condoleezza Rice." ... "Huckabee fought back Saturday." ... ""Every time you turn on your television you're going to see all the terrible things my opponents said I did," he told hundreds crowded into a restaurant in Indianola [Iowa]. "Mitt Romney's not only attacking me. He's now attacked John McCain, he's attacked Rudy Giuliani, he's attacked everybody. He's not telling people why he ought to be president."" ... "McCain, the Arizona senator, dismissed Romney's charges and called him "a phony."" -By David Lightman with contributions by Jim Morrill -McClatchyDC.com

20071226

John McCain - Mitt Romney - Politics - Abortion - Immigration - New Hampshire - 2008 Election - "The Romney backlash: Conservatives are coming home." ... "[New Hampshire] Granite Staters want a candidate who will look them in the eye and tell them the truth. [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] John McCain has done that day in and day out, never wavering, never faltering, never pandering." ... "[2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Mitt Romney has not. He has spoken his lines well, but the people can sense that the words are memorized, not heartfelt." ... "Last week Romney was reduced to debating what the meaning of "saw" is. It was only the latest in a string of demonstrably false claims -- he'd been a hunter "pretty much" all his life, he'd had the NRA's endorsement, he marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. -- that call into question the veracity of his justifications for switching sides on immigration, abortion, taxes and his affection for Ronald Reagan." ... "In this primary, the more Mitt Romney speaks, the less believable he becomes. That is why Granite Staters who have listened attentively are now returning to John McCain. They might not agree with McCain on everything, as we don't, but like us, they judge him to be a man of integrity and conviction, a man who won't sell them out, who won't break his promises, and who won't lie to get elected." -UnionLeader.com

20071221

Mitt Romney - Pro-Choice - Stem Cells - Illegal - Immigrant - Health - Crime - Politics - History - Massachusetts - Michigan - 2008 Election - "King said George Romney didn't march: But, as usual, the truth wasn't good enough for Mitt." ... "Running for Senate in Massachusetts, in 1994, and trying to establish pro-choice credibility that he had done nothing to earn, [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt] Romney told stories about his mother, Lenore Romney, running on a strong pro-choice platform in her own unsuccessful bid for public office in 1970. Those tales were debunked by Boston Globe columnist Eileen McNamara." ... "Then, as now, Romney tried to buttress his statement with weak documentation at odds with the precision of the claim: in that case, Romney provided the Globe with a vaguely-worded campaign document that could be read as supporting the pre-Roe v Wade status quo, in which abortion was a felony in Michigan. ''I support and recognize the need for more liberal abortion rights while reaffirming the legal and medical measures needed to protect the unborn and pregnant woman [sic]," the document read." ... "Again, at that time, Romney did not just pass along falsehood as fact. He sold it as personal truth, speaking of the painful memories of a close relative's death, from complications of an illegal abortion." ... "Romney was telling that tale, of course, when it was politically expedient to be pro-choice. Today, needing to be pro-life, he has a new, highly personal and emotional tale of personal conversion after a doctor showed him how stem cells are handled in research — another specific but uncorroborated story, about which even the doctor involved has expressed skepticism." ... "Romney once favored gun control; now, needing gun-rights voters, he has falsely claimed to be a "lifelong hunter" and to have been endorsed in 2002 by the National Rifle Association – an endorsement the NRA never gave him. Needing to establish anti-illegal-immigrant credentials, he boasts of an attitude that he never displayed while governor — when he expressed no concern over several "sanctuary cities" in the state — until the very end of his term, when he had turned his attention to the Republican Presidential nomination." ... "This week, he finds the need to attack [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidat] Mike Huckabee on crime, and so Romney has re-invented his record there, falsely claiming, in a new ad, to have cracked down on methamphetamine." ... "It is not just that these are untruths. They are the actions of a man desperate to cater to the whims of his audience. What they want, he must appear to be. " -By David S. Bernstein -ThePhoenix.com
Tom Tancredo - Mitt Romney - Illegal - Immigration - Colorado - Iowa - 2008 Election - "Tancredo pulls out, backing Romney: Says he has best chance of winning." ... "[2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Tom Tancredo pulled out of the presidential race yesterday and endorsed [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Mitt Romney, saying his erstwhile rival is the Republican with the best chance to win the White House and continue the fight to end illegal immigration, an issue the Coloradan helped push to the forefront of the campaign." ... "The fifth-term congressman, who consistently polled at the bottom of the nine-candidate GOP [Grand Old Party=Republican] field, said he dropped out two weeks before the Iowa caucuses because he feared his continued candidacy could enable an opponent favoring a less-stringent approach to immigration to win." -BostonGlobe

20071220

Mitt Romney - Rudy Giuliani - Mike Huckabee - Tom Tancredo - Criminal - Illegal - Employer - Immigrants - Employees - Language - Terrorism - History - Colo - New York - Arkansas - US - Mexican - People - Noteworthy - 2008 Election - "GOP hopefuls run in a hypocrisy derby." ... "Everybody knows that [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Mitt Romney was running - as [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Rudy Giuliani put it - a "sanctuary mansion." But not many people know that he was not the only one." ... "No less an anti-immigrant zealot than [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Colorado Representative] Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.[Republican-Colorado]), the would-be President who built a failing campaign on the single issue of persecuting "criminal aliens" - as he is fond of calling undocumented immigrants - also has a few skeletons in his closet." ... "Listen to this: Five years ago, when Tancredo wanted to install a home theater and make other renovations in his house, he had no qualms hiring a contractor that - gasp! - also employed undocumented workers." ... "The man who had said, "[The face of illegal immigration] is the face of murder. It is the face of infiltration into the country of people who are coming to do us great harm," wasn't at all troubled by the fact that only two in the crew of five or six laborers spoke English." ... "[In 1994, then New York Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani said] "If you come here and you work hard, and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city," he told The New York Times in 1994." ... "While in Arkansas, he [Arkansas Republican Governor and 2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee] was instrumental in bringing a Mexican Consulate to Little Rock [Arkansas's capital]. That consulate issued thousands of identification forms that now, after he has become a presidential hopeful, Huckabee has begun to call "illegal immigrant identification cards."" ... "And do not forget that if he is elected President, he has vowed to expel the nation's estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants within 120 days, which comes to deporting 100,000 people per day." -By Albor Ruiz -NYDailyNews.com

20071218

John McCain - Mitt Romney - Immigrants -