St. Louis CofCC Blog

WDBO-AM-580 Orlando has the story.

Washington Times:

The head of a Mexican forgery ring was convinced he could make phony documents that illegal aliens could use to indicate fraudulently that they were eligible for a new amnesty, says a government affidavit recounting wiretapped phone calls the man made.

Julio Leija-Sanchez, who ran a $3 million-a-year forgery operation before he was arrested in April, was expecting Congress to pass a legalization program, which he called “amnesty,” and said he could forge documents to fool the U.S. government into believing illegal aliens were in the country in time to qualify for amnesty, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent said in the affidavit.

In recounting a wiretapped telephone conversation, ICE agent Jason E. Medica said he heard Mr. Leija-Sanchez tell an associate the forgery ring could “fix his papers” to meet the requirements of a legalization program such as the bill the Senate is debating today.
“When Leija-Sanchez said ‘if there’s an amnesty, he can fix his papers,’ Leija-Sanchez was referring to the possibility of pending legislation which would allow a certain class of illegal aliens to remain in the United States, as long as they can prove a term of residency in the United States with no convictions,” agent Medica wrote.

In other words, Mr. Leija-Sanchez studied the Senate “Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” (even as Trent Lott implied that this was something only U.S. Senators and not talk radio hosts were qualified to study), and fine-tuned his forgery operations around the bill’s legal requirements. He also understands the bill to be “amnesty,” something which most backers of the bill flatly deny.

Columbia Tribune Politics Blog has the story. His excuse is that he might wind up voting against the bill if some egregious amendments and provisions are still part of the bill.

If the bill ultimately passes the Senate, and Bond votes no, then he will probably trumpet his no vote if he runs for re-election in 2010, even though the bill could have never passed the Senate without a successful cloture vote.

The truth of the matter is that Bond and others yielded to pressure put by the White House and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS).

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said several weeks ago that if the issue of “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” makes it out of the Senate, that she would not bring it to to the House floor for debate unless she thought that there were at least 90 Republicans that would vote for it, as she was keenly aware of opposition to the bill in her own caucus.

Yesterday, House Republicans held an informal vote on the Senate soft amnesty bill, and rejected it by a vote of 114 to 23.

Your calls, letters and faxes are making a difference.

Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell, a Republican, has taken a different approach on the immigration issue than her state’s two U.S. Senators.

Yesterday, she vetoed a bill, passed by both houses of Connecticut’s legislature, but not by override margins, that would have given in-state tuition rates for the state’s public colleges and universities to illegal alien residents of the state.

This writer always wonders why those that propose this measure do not want to seem to grant in-state tuition rates for their state’s public colleges and universities to American citizens from other states.

Phyllis Schlafly’s latest column deals with the perfidy that is “Patent Reform,” which in reality would weaken the rights of patent holders. The irony is that Sens. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) are trying to resist this abrogation of the rights of American inventors.

It’s too bad that Messrs. Brownback and Kyl can’t make the same leap of logic when it comes to American borders.

Let me Abos go loose, Lou,
let me Abos go loose.
They’re of no further use, Lou,
so let me Abos go loose.

– Rolf Harris, in “Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport”

Christian Science Monitor:

Sydney, Australia - They are deployed around the world, from Iraq and Afghanistan to the South Pacific, but in an unprecedented move Australian soldiers are being sent this week into their own backyard.

Troops are to be stationed across the Outback as the Australian government launches a massive crackdown on the alcoholism, sexual assault, and social dysfunction that a recent federal investigation alleges are tearing apart Aboriginal communities.

Shocked by the findings of an official report released earlier this month, the government of Prime Minister John Howard has decided to ban alcohol, confiscate pornography, and make welfare payments conditional on good parenting in more than 60 isolated Aboriginal townships.

This is yet another example of the “Our Diversity Is Our Strength” canard being an empty promise.

The racial diversity in Australia is not just indigenous Abos. Recent arrivals from the Orient, the Arab world and Africa have diversified Australia’s major cities, and in the case of the latter two, driven crime rates up.  Arabic is now Sydney’s  second most prominent language, behind only English, and ahead of Cantonese and Mandarin.  Why PM John Howard has not sent troops into the western suburbs of Sydney is a mystery.