Once upon a time long ago in America, when I was young and predisposed to assume the essential integrity of our most basic political practices – voting first and foremost – going to the polls was an exhilarating experience. Even dissatisfaction with the choices between or among candidates didn't lessen the emotion. It was a solemn, moving occasion. Read more...

*Pyrrhus of Epirus describing his costly victory over the Romans at Asculum, 279 BC

The Hill newspaper, in "Appropriators deal blow to border fence," reports House conferees killed a $42.8 billion appropriation in the Senate's version of the 2010 Homeland Security spending bill, an amendment inserted in July by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) adopted with majority Republican support and the votes of 21 Democrats. Read more...

The theory and practice of community-oriented policing, its history, political vicissitudes and ascendancy are familiar territory for me from past experience. Especially vivid are recollections shared by and with colleagues of advocating its adoption in precincts or police headquarters with the chief, local commanders, detectives, and patrolmen leaning far back in their chairs, maximizing the physical and psychic distance between us; arms crossed over chests like body armor; heads down, faces impassive. Read more...

Recently I gave an interview to Al Jazeera English to be aired on a TV show about "Unemployed Day Laborers in New York City." When the host called to invite me, the topic initially struck me as oddly narrow and provincial, arguably even a tad esoteric for an audience Al Jazeera claims spans several continents. (I was told the service is "hip," multicultural, and has a broad range of viewers.) Nor was it immediately clear to me what my role was to be considering my professional focus. But I was starting out with several mistaken assumptions. Read more...

"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts."
From Patrick Henry’s “Liberty or Death” speech, March 23, 1775

Though “indulging in the illusions of hope…against a painful truth” is “natural to man,” in one of the greatest speeches in our history Patrick Henry warns us that its consequence can be to degrade our reason so profoundly we become indistinguishable from animals. How much more dangerous is this predilection when practiced by what many still regard as the nation’s newspaper of record? Read more...

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, is point man for President Obama on immigration, riding herd on the Big Push for "comprehensive immigration reform." According to members of Congress committed to this unpopular policy, the campaign will be launched sometime in the fall. There was a bipartisan meeting today to discuss what's possible in the current Congress, but it includes Rep. Anthony Weiner so it's hard to take that one too seriously, and there was another the day before for amnesty advocates. Read more...

Artfully practiced, casuistry is discernible only by the naturally skeptical or perspicacious while remaining invisible to the gullible or incautious majority. When performed ineptly, however, the duplicity is plain to all. Bungled deception insults ordinary "inquiring minds," repels the more acute, and reveals the intellectual slovenliness that accompanies the bad ethics, making each that much more deplorable.

A good illustration is the official announcement by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) of the goals of a $500,000 grant from the Ford Foundation. Read more...

The supposed big news and dominant motif in a survey released by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in May, "Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes 1987-2009," is Americans are far less concerned with "values" when making political choices than four years ago. Respondents who cite "values" as the main reason for choosing a president declined by more than half from 27% in Pew’s post-2004 election survey to a tiny current low of 10%. Read more...

Skirmishing over semantics is such a recurrent component of the immigration debate it seems scarcely worth mentioning. The pro-amnesty, open-borders side eschews the term "illegal alien" and describes all who enter the U.S. legally or illegally as "immigrants." Their policy opponents are equally careful to avoid terminology that serves as euphemisms for lawbreaking, hence their detestation of the coinage "undocumented worker." As George Orwell reminds us in "Politics and the English Language," improving our language is a prerequisite to improving our political thought. Read more...

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is making news again, or, to put it less dramatically, it's garnered a few headlines in Jewish weeklies, some coverage in papers in south Florida, a piece in JTA, angry disbelief on anti-Islamist websites (see, for instance, here and here), and from Jewish bloggers, and an accolade in the on-line publication of the leading Muslim/Islamist Read more...

Before giving E.J. Dionne two cheers for the quotient of candor in his Washington Post column "Buying Time on Immigration," plus three cheers for calling for greater decency in the immigration debate, and a well deserved rap on the knuckles for playing fast and loose with data, it is worth noting a broad rhetorical shift in the media reflected in his column. This change has been introduced into writing and speaking about immigration policy so quietly and ubiquitously it's easy to miss. Read more...

In the age-old battle between the City Slicker and the Country Bumpkin, a literary opposition dating back to Greek and Roman sources that persists to this day in high and popular culture, the outcome never varies: the sophisticated overconfident Slicker loses to the ostensibly witless though wily-wise Country Bumpkin. The narrative expresses the triumph of the pastoral ideal, the tradition out of which the story line emerges, which asserts truth is most readily found and a virtuous, civilized life best lived farthest from cities and closest to nature. It would appear that Kirsten E. Read more...

Starting with its full-throttle campaign on behalf of open-borders immigration policy dating back to its uncritical endorsement of the Immigration Act of 1965, the New York Times has been the chief organ of disinformation in America on immigration and immigration policy. Moreover, it has the dubious distinction of creating the template for much of mainstream media coverage of the subject: don’t be confused by the facts; write every article as a stealth editorial; keep the public in the dark with regard to key legislation; run phony push polls to misrepresent American opinion; and label opponents bigoted nativists. Even seeing its confident predictions proven hopelessly wrong hasn’t chastened the paper: it guaranteed Congress and the public that the 1965 law would not increase immigration – which it did almost immediately. Read more...

Oceans of ink will spill before AgriProcessors ceases to be red meat for news and commentary. Before the recent ICE raid at the Howard Industries transformer plant in Laurel, MS, that led to the arrest of some 600 illegal aliens – making it the largest workplace immigration enforcement action in US history – the ICE raid at the slaughterhouse in Postville, IA, had the dubious distinction of holding first place. Read more...

Whatever Joe Biden does or doesn't contribute to the Democratic ticket by way of gravitas on foreign policy or appeal to white working-class Catholic voters, he's no asset when it comes to immigration policy. He's exhibited neither knowledge nor understanding of the issue – not even of the most basic facts – let alone judgment on policy or comprehension about how to work the issue politically. Read more...

Washington (JTA) -- The immigration raid on the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, the largest kosher plant in the country, caught most American Jews completely off-guard.

Since the raid in May, which resulted in the arrest of nearly 400 illegal workers, additional serious allegations have emerged against the plant owned by the Brooklyn-based Rubashkin family, including inhumane working conditions, egregious violations of child-labor laws, sexual harassment of female workers and multiple workplace safety infractions. Read more...

Is it possible to read any Washington Post editorial on immigration – especially the continual harangues against the now successful campaign by local government in Northern Virginia to rollback the tidal wave of illegal immigration – without recalling Reagan’s historic retort in his debate with Jimmy Carter? Reagan’s bon mot brilliantly encapsulated the widely held sense Carter was hopelessly out of touch, a bungler whose self-righteous aspersions spoke volumes about his sanctimony but little regarding the issues of the day or the lives of ordinary Americans. Read more...

Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Commission’s ruling against releasing names of “Elm City ID” recipients represents a temporary setback in the campaign to promote government transparency and dismantle one prop supporting New Haven’s “sanctuary” status. The decision will be appealed in State Superior Court. The ruling was not unanimous. Vigorously dissenting was FOI Chair, Andrew J. O’Keefe. He dismissed claims of “imminent threats” in hearsay evidence presented by New Haven and other plaintiffs, and found interpretation of CT’s DHS statute addressing protection of government infrastructure to include protection of illegal aliens legally untenable. Read more...