Posted on 01/20/2004 9:05:55 AM PST by VU4G10
Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo is a thorn in Karl Rove’s side, to say the least. Tancredo favors border controls; the president and many in Congress do not. Rove, the president’s senior advisor, is attempting to find someone to run against Cong. Tancredo in this year’s election. So far, he has no takers. After all, Tancredo won re-election in 2002 with a 70-percent majority, and no mentally-balanced person would want to challenge such a formidable foe. It would be a waste of time and money.
Many Arizona conservatives are urging State Rep. Russell Pearce to run against Cong. Jeff Flake in District 6 this year. Pearce is a senior advisor to the popular Protect Arizona Now (PAN) initiative. If placed on the 2004 ballot, and if voters support it as expected, PAN would actually require proof of citizenship for things of some importance, such as voting. The White House, state and national GOP leadership favor the president’s Temporary Worker Program and the Flake-McCain-Kolbe guest worker bill, which amount to nothing more than amnesty for millions of foreign invaders.
Now the stage is set: two diametrically-opposed sides with sharply-contrasting views on the border invasion. Tancredo and Pearce are advocating tighter controls of the borders and a stoppage of the drain on American taxpayers caused by the border invasion. The corporate appeasers want to dissolve the borders.
The worst thing in Rove’s world would be to lose Flake and have Pearce replace him through the election process. Rove wants to subtract Tancredo and isn’t going to succeed in that aim. He sure doesn’t want Pearce -- another Tancredo -- going to Washington, D.C., a year from now. Two Tancredo’s are two too many, in the view of the Bush Administration. However, most Republicans would love to see Tancredo and Pearce representing them in Congress.
How motivated are those who oppose Tancredo and Pearce? Let's put things into proper perspective and look at some very recent history.
Some influential and well-connected people have recently suggest that Barnes may be a set-up, a plant to dilute a potential Pearce candidacy by splitting votes between Flake's would-be challengers. Barnes is a moderate who's totally with President Bush.
On Dec. 31, Rep. Pearce was getting ready to appear as a guest on Salt Lake City Radio Station KSL's “Born on the 4th of July" program, hosted by Barbara Jean. It appeared that this would be just another of the many state/regional/national media appearances Pearce would make on the border controversy. As it turned out, this was no ordinary day.
Arizona people listening on the Internet reported that the Salt Lake City station's power went down and the show’s producers were having trouble with outgoing broadcasting and incoming calls. Just bad luck? Tampering? Sun spots? Possibly any of the above, but we're just getting warmed up. There's more to the story.
Fast forward to last week when Pearce was getting ready to guest-host two hours of Ernie Hancock's show on KFNX Radio in Phoenix. Guess what? The station reported losing power and similar problems as the Utah station had experienced. Pearce claims a car accident damaged a nearby power source. But wait: we're still not done.
Rusty Childress, co-chairman of PAN, was a guest on KJZZ Radio, of Mesa, last week ... and guess what happened? The call-in lines went dead.
On Saturday night, Kathy McKee, the other co-chair of PAN, tried to call KFNX Radio to be the guest on the "Mad as Hell" program. ''To make a long story short, I couldn't get in .. . . because the phone lines went down at 10:45 p.m.,'' McKee said. ''They had to call me and patch me in, but then callers couldn't call in.'' Hmmm ... mighty, mighty interesting series of events.
Also, last week GOPUSA/Arizona posted two separate Internet polls on the Congressional District 6 race. The first poll appeared on the Internet for three days and queried readers as to their choice between Barnes and the incumbent Flake. This was a poll that did not get much traction or generate much excitement. Barnes received 22 of the 40 total votes cast, with Flake garnering 13 votes and the third option: “other” getting five votes.
In mid-week, the poll changed to add Pearce to the mix. Almost as quickly as the poll went up, some unknown person(s) with great technical expertise -- possibly some of it legal -- developed a very keen interest in the poll. It became readily apparent that the insertion of Pearce’s name had tripped the sensor of someone very interested in one Arizona congressional seat.
Within 12 hours, 188 votes showed up on the poll screen. Flake and Barnes were neck and neck; Pearce did not show up on the radar. A short time later, the vote tally reached 240 and Flake began to pull away from Barnes. Pearce barely registered a heartbeat with a 3-percent showing.
Then a remarkable thing happened for the first time in the 20-month history of GOPUSA/Arizona polls: The numbers actually went down -- from 240 total votes to 75. And Pearce’s numbers dropped to zero.
Then the vote tally started racing wildly upward. In the next few hours, the vote total pushed toward 2,000. Flake was winning big and Pearce was staying at zero percent, even though his supporters informed me they were starting to vote for him -- and starting to wonder why their tallies were not showing up. In one 10-minute period, 100 new votes went up on the board.
The next morning, the vote total continued to balloon, reaching nearly 4,800. It had been less than 36 hours since the poll was posted on the Internet. Flake had a lead of 2-1 over Barnes, and Pearce registered a faint glimmer with one percent of the vote.
As emails started coming in from bewildered people watching the poll, GOPUSA’s CEO, Bobby Eberle, was alerted about the dubious nature of the poll. Whoever was tampering with this poll had all the guile of a Pampalona bull on its way to Barcelona.
A short time later, Eberle confirmed that someone had indeed hacked into the system. He advised that the poll be removed to get the hacker out of the system. A new poll was quickly posted. Over the next several hours, only a trickle of new votes came in on the new poll. Someone no longer had any interest in GOPUSA/Arizona polls.
Looking again at the bogus poll results, one more strange occurrence was discovered. The poll totals now sat at 4,514 votes, a decline of nearly 300 votes in the last few minutes. Flake had 2,880 “votes,” Barnes had 1,560, Pearce 66 and the “other” option had four votes. Whomever tampered with Flake’s vote total obviously took Barnes’ total up in an effort to make it look like a second contestant was registering believable vote totals. Nice try, but it didn’t work. Nice, illegal try.
The 4,514 votes represented a higher number than the total number of votes cast in all the GOPUSA/Arizona poll votes for the entire year of 2003.
Now the big questions: Who has an interest in the re-election of Cong. Flake? Who has an interest in undermining Rep. Pearce? Is the hacker just some kid down the street who likes to play games with other people’s websites? Was it a political organization or a political operative acting on someone’s orders? Who would care enough about this particular poll to risk a visit from the FBI for hacking?
The answers, as of this moment, are unknown, but the questions are legitimate.
As of Sunday night, Eberle had not responded to queries about whether or not he was able to discern the identity of the hacker, or if he had reported the crime to authorities.
One footnote: Just as Cong. Tom Tancredo concluded his address to the Arizona Republican Assembly in Scottsdale Saturday morning, the power went out in the auditorium. Russell Pearce was in that room; he had introduced Tancredo. Two Tancredo’s is two too many for some people.
You know, I keep seeing a lot of people pointing to Tom Tancredo as the "anti-Bush" on immigration - yet when I read the bill he proposed, I don't see "anti-Bush", but "Bush plus"... That is, Tancredo also proposes a guest worker program, just like GWB. Tancredo has a few additional features to help with enforcement that I think would be good, but are not laid out in detail.
Why do so many people seem to think that you have to be for Tancredo or for Bush? Why can't you take the common features (guest worker registration, insuring jobs offered to immigrants are advertised to citizens first), add some of the better Bush features (provide incentives for workers to leave after jobs are done, fine illegals already here before they can get a guest worker visa, no preference for guest workers for green cards, etc.), and add some of the better Tancredo provisions (better enforcement of borders, stronger penalties for employers). That would seem to be a good bill, and not THAT far from what the president has already proposed.
BTW, nowhere in Tancredo's bill did I see anything about penalties for illegals already here, deportation of illegals, or denying illegals benefits or preference for green cards. That may be his position, but he didn't include it in the bill - I wonder why?
Also, if Tancredo is the hope for the conservatives on teh immigration issue, why hasn't his bill been passed? He was serving in Congress two years before Bush was elected. If Tancredo has not been able to get his legislation passed as a member of the majority party in Congress, why are so many people screaming about Bush's proposal? As I say, they are substantially similar, differing mainly in details about enforcement.
Do you consider small-gov't advocates to be on the "whack job right?"
I like my chances. II put my money where my mouth is, I sent a $2K check to the Bush re-election fund just last Friday. It hurt, but this is a seminal time in our history.
We're at war for our survival. We have an opportunity to turn back 65 years of Socialism. INCREMENTALLY. It may be news to you, but we're not at war with Mexico. Bush is making structural changes to Medicare, Education and soon SSI, and that will change the DEMAND for Government, which is the only way to shrink government. Gingrich and the House tried shrinking only the supply of government, and we Pubbies were beyatchslapped by the American public in 96 and 98 because of it. Bush is infinitely more elegant and effective, and he's playing at a grandmaster chess level and most of y'all can't even get the "Chutes and Ladders" box open.
There's an Article I, III and IV to the Constitution. It's not just Article II and the Amendments.
You tell me how we get to a "small government" in a nation of 300 million people with an annual GNP of $12 trillion, and we'll both hop aboard the Hale Bopp in our Nike sweatsuits.
However, I've read the transcript of President Bush's proposal and it includes amnesty for and application for citizenship by illegal aliens, which is flat-out not right.
Other options? Sabertooth has some good ideas.
Nominated for quote of the month!
I wonder what the reaction would be from the WH if that were to show up on the front page of FR. Maybe they'd sign in more often and check the pulse of their BASE.
It is amazing how many people know "facts" that are just not true. Bush's proposal does not provide amnesty (anyone here illegally has to pay a fine before they can apply for a guest worker visa), and does give any preference to illegals for a green card or for citizenship. Anyone here on a guest worker visa would still have to apply for a green card and get in line behind everyone else, and the time spent here illegally could not be counted toward time for citizenship.
Mis-type - should read "does NOT give any preference to illegals for a green card or for citizenship. "
It's all about injury in desperate search for insult.
In your dreams.
But, you can vote for whomever you want.
"This program will offer legal status, as temporary workers, to the millions of undocumented men and women now employed in the United States,"...
"Some temporary workers will make the decision to pursue American citizenship. Those who make this choice will be allowed to apply in the normal way."
"This program will offer legal status, as temporary workers, to the millions of undocumented men and women now employed in the United States,"
Read the critical qualifying phrase... "as temporary workers". Not as citizens, not as permanent resident aliens (green card holders). Big difference. He is just saying that, with a guest worker visa, they will be able to legally work here.
"Some temporary workers will make the decision to pursue American citizenship. Those who make this choice will be allowed to apply in the normal way."
Once again, read the qualifying phrase - "in the normal way". This indicates that they will not get preference. They will have to wait for a green card and go through the same naturalization process that everyone else goes through. And you left out the very next sentences - perhaps intentionally?
"They will not be given unfair advantage over people who have followed legal procedures from the start. I oppose amnesty, placing undocumented workers on the automatic path to citizenship. Granting amnesty encourages the violation of our laws, and perpetuates illegal immigration. America is a welcoming country, but citizenship must not be the automatic reward for violating the laws of America."
When Jim calls President Bush "Jorge", photoshops him into sombreros and other Mexican garb, well I may wonder about his approach. He doesn't do that crap.
Bush's proposal was about illegal immigrants already here, census bureau saying 30-40% of which are non-Mexican. This is NOT an illegally resident worker or trespasser from Mexico problem, it is a much more important American border security and resident illegal alien accountability problem. All borders. All ethnicities.
This is a vital national concern, but it is absolutely marginalized on this Forum. Bush made a good faith proposal, there's room for people of good will to disagree with the wisdom, but there's no good faith counterproposals (Write in Tancredo HA!) forthcoming from this "think tank".
To some Freepers, whom I don't like one bit, it's at its core a Mexican problem. Legal Immigrant or illegal-immigrant ... THAT's the energy those who feel beseiged by some Bush insult that's keeping 10, 11 or 12 freeping threads running here concurrently 24X7? Gimme a break. They don't like Mexicans. The people. The competition for jobs. The language. The "third world culture". Period. If all illegal immigrants were deported, then brought back over the border legally to their same homes and jobs ... it wouldn't matter ONE IOTA. It's the fact that they are here at all.
No wonder they're not assimilating.
I don't like bigoted stuff. Too bad if you don't like that I don't like bigoted stuff. I see it here, and I'm no polyanna and I'm not working some political program, but I call it when I see it like I would in any other facet of my life outside this cyberplace. You guys go apeshit at even the inference, when it's not personally directed. That speaks volumes to me. Yeah, call me a race baiter ... again. Ouch.
You're right. It's only a police action like Korea, just rotated 180 degrees.
>>>Says who? I've never heard Rep. Tancredo say anything that was "over the top". Not once.
Says me! Look, I was simply prefacing my comments, but wouldn't you agree that no politician is perfect?
I live in Colorado and have been following RepTancredo for years. He's a good conservative Republican and I like him and we both support sealing the borders and no amnesty. But the facts speak for themselves. For one thing, Tancredo broke his term limit pledge. He reversed his promise to step down after three terms in the House. That wasn't just over the top, it was a "whopper".
Tancredo also employed illegal aliens to remodel his home. He said, he didn't know they were in the US illegally. Then Tancredo turned around and demanded that the INS deport a teenager brought here by his parents illegally, when he was a youngster. After the former event took place, the latter sounded meanspirited and deadwrong.
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