Posted on 01/13/2004 5:54:13 AM PST by JustPiper
Conservative talk-radio star, author says amnesty is betrayal of country
In the latest indication President Bush is having problems with his conservative core political constituency, Michael Savage, one of talk radio's biggest stars, tonight called for the impeachment of President Bush over his plans to legalize millions of illegal aliens.
"This is the worst betrayal of our country in my lifetime," said Savage, whose program is heard on more than 350 stations with an audience reaching some 6 million. His book, "The Savage Nation," last year was No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller's list for five weeks. His follow-up, "The Enemy Within," out just one week, is already No. 8 on the list. Both were published by WND Books.
President Bush
Tonight Savage called Bush a liberal and described him as part of the "enemy within" that is destroying the nation.
Savage created the phrase "compassionate conservative" in 1994, a term picked up by Bush during his presidential campaign – a campaign supported by Savage.
"This is much more serious than dropping your pants for an intern," said Savage. "This is a policy that represents a danger to national security."
Savage is hardly alone in his strong feelings of opposition to Bush's proposal to offer legal status to illegal immigrants. A new ABC News poll finds 52 percent of the nation opposes an amnesty program for illegal immigrants from Mexico, while 57 percent oppose one for illegal immigrants from other countries. Both results are roughly the same as when the administration floated the idea two-and-a-half years ago.
But today in Monterrey, Mexico, Bush reaffirmed his support of the proposal, despite its unpopularity at home. He said it could help illegal immigrants "leave the shadows and have an identity."
At a joint press conference with Mexican President Vicente Fox, Bush warned that his government will not allow the existence in the United States of an underclass of illegal immigrants, but claimed again his proposal is not an amnesty. Amnesty, he said, would only promote the violation of the law and perpetuate illegal immigration.
Bush said his immigration proposal would benefit both the United States and Mexico as it recognizes the contribution of thousands of honest Mexicans who work in the United States.
For his part, Fox embraced Bush's proposal.
"What else can we wish?" Fox said at the news conference with the president.
In the U.S., the latest poll on the controversy shows at least twice as many Americans "strongly" oppose the proposal as strongly support it.
Opposition peaks in Bush's own party: Fifty-eight percent of Republicans oppose his immigration proposal for Mexicans, compared with 50 percent of Democrats. For illegal immigrants other than Mexicans, 63 percent of Republicans are opposed.
Bush reportedly will disclose more details of the plan in his State of the Union address Jan. 20.
Meanwhile, the National Border Patrol Council, which represents all 9,000 of the Border Patrol's non-supervisory agents, has told its members to challenge President Bush´s proposed guest-worker program, calling it a "slap in the face to anyone who has ever tried to enforce the immigration laws of the United States," the Washington Times reported today.
The agents were told in a letter from Vice President John Frecker that the proposal offered last week during a White House press conference "implies that the country really wasn't serious about" immigration enforcement in the first place.
"Hey, you know all those illegal aliens you risked 'life and limb' to apprehend? FAH-GED-ABOWD-IT," said Frecker, a veteran Border Patrol agent. "President Bush has solved the problem. Don't be confused and call this an 'amnesty,' even though those who are here illegally will suddenly become legal and will be allowed to stay here. The president assures us that it's not an amnesty," he said.
Last week Bush proposed the sweeping immigration changes that would allow the 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens thought to be in the United States to remain in the country if they have a job and apply for a guest-worker card. The immigrants could stay for renewable three-year periods, after which they could apply for permanent legal residence.
Savage cited a new report published in the City Journal by the Manhattan Institute suggesting there is a major crime wave in the U.S. caused by illegal immigration.
"Some of the most violent criminals at large today are illegal aliens," the report charges. "Yet in cities where the crime these aliens commit is highest, the police cannot use the most obvious tool to apprehend them: their immigration status. In Los Angeles, for example, dozens of members of a ruthless Salvadoran prison gang have sneaked back into town after having been deported for such crimes as murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and drug trafficking. Police officers know who they are and know that their mere presence in the country is a felony. Yet should a cop arrest an illegal gang-banger for felonious reentry, it is he who will be treated as a criminal, for violating the LAPD’s rule against enforcing immigration law."
The situation is similar, the report says in New York, Chicago, San Diego, Austin and Houston. These "sanctuary policies" generally prohibit city employees, including the cops, from reporting immigration violations to federal authorities, says the report.
"These people are destroying America," said Savage. "That's all I have to say on the subject. But you can talk about it. Talk about it while you can – while America is still a free country, because it's not going to last."
Please show me these facts that all illegal immigrants "remain LOYAL TO MEXICO, fly mexican flags, and vote for liberal democrats." I could lower my self to your level and call you a blind uneducated racist nationalist but then THAT would be liberal PC.
Read my post again genius. I said: "Many of today's illegal immigrants aren't interested in citizenship, just leeching off of our society. They have no respect for our laws, no respect for our heritage (they have contempt for it!), no respect for our heroes. They fly mexican flags at soccer games in LA. I believe you need to rethink."
Do you see the word "many" in there? huh? Do you see what you want to see or do you actually read words?
I've seen it firsthand. I live amongst a sea of illegal immigrants.
"The people come here with their mexican loyalties and mindset, and after they get here, they remain LOYAL TO MEXICO, fly mexican flags, and vote for liberal democrats. "
I'm not starting a flame war here. Obviously of that's not what you meant then you simply misworded your statement.
I worked for a DEMOCRAT boss once. I lost that job to the union. I worked for another DEMOCRAT boss and lost my job because the company went bankrupt. My current REPUBLICAN boss knows how to crunch a budget and I've been there for years.
It's all irrelevent. The CEO sets a profit goal for everyone under him to accomplish. If it takes laying off a couple of people or replacing them with someone who will work on a contract with no benefits, then that's what needs to be done. Whether your boss is Republican or Democrat is irrelevent. What IS relevant is how to accomplish superiority over you competitors as a CEO, and how to best benefit your company so that you DON'T get replaced. I have to say, computer engineering isn't a very good field of work to get into.
These hypocrites rule over us by dividing us to Republican, Democrats, Catholics, Fundamentalists, men, women, Christians, Jews, black, white,
Only caertain ones.
Shut and Sing! American workers and American jobs must be the utmost concerns of the American politicians. The reality is NOT!!!!
It takes an employer to have an empolyee...
I just happened to have a conscious, and worry about others.
You shouldn't.
Ummmm, yeah. But as for "free will", well, employers always say that when they've achieved total victory over their employees, who are signing on as Hobson's choice: do as I say, or starve. Blacks who sharecropped in the South in the 19th century were exercising "free will": do you want to defend sharecropping as a fair and equitable arrangement? It ended up being slavery without the owner's responsibility for the health and well-being of his charges. That's washed clean by "free will"?
It's a square deal if both sides can say "no" and walk away.
I'm not willing to buy lettuce at $3 a head.
As has been pointed out upthread, that is not what's at stake here. I'd accept a consequentialist argument if it were true. The fact is, you could double agricultural wages without producing anything like the price inflation to the consumer that your statement presupposes.
What is on the table here is a) employer pays living wage and does less well himself, or b) employer uses weaseling bargaining tactics with an uneducated workforce without leaders or representation to screw wages down as low as they'll go, and employees and their family live in serfdom while employer's kids break wind through silk and go off to Harvard.
Representation and syndical negotiations can't and won't secure each employee a four-hour workday and a corner office and expense account, with a salary starting at $75K. It just isn't there. But that isn't the point. The point is to arrive at an equitable division of what is there, so that the agricultural workers' kids can go to school and better themselves.
Syndicalism also serves the useful social purpose of spurring innovation to "grow the pie". The workers' efforts become more productive, and everyone benefits.
You shouldn't.
Therefore, the good definition of a Republican, according to you is to have no conscious and not to worry about others. That sound very Christian of you....If you don't mind, I rather not consider my self a Republican if that is the definition.
If you want to be a bleeding heart, send them your paycheck. Just don't demand that risk-taking entrepreneurs lower their wage class for the sake of benefiting grasshoppers. A business owner is a job description too. The federal government will even give you a grant for certain areas of business. Agricultural work is still not slavery.
What is on the table here is a) employer pays living wage and does less well himself, or b) employer uses weaseling bargaining tactics with an uneducated workforce without leaders or representation to screw wages down as low as they'll go, and employees and their family live in serfdom while employer's kids break wind through silk and go off to Harvard
Capitalism 101. Isn't it nice knowing you have the right to be rich if you want to? I'm surprised I got that. I feel dumb today.
Representation and syndical negotiations can't and won't secure each employee a four-hour workday and a corner office and expense account, with a salary starting at $75K.
The only thing that will secure that is for the employee to make himself valued at that.
So if I want to join the Republican party, I have to confess my faith to Christ or Buddah?
this country is 90% Christian, whether you like it or not!
Yeah, Sunday morning Christians. Most are atheists Monday through Saturday.
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