Tag Archives: Immigration

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, California, Health Care, Prisons

California Blog Roundup for July 31, 2006

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, CA-04, CA-11, Jerry McNerney, Richard Pombo, John Doolittle, Republican corruption, Proposition 90, Proposition 89, Proposition 87, voting, prisons, health care, immigration.

Governor’s Race

Jerry McNerney / Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

15% Doolittle / CA-04

Other Republican Paragons

Propositions

The Rest

Arnold Schwarzenegger

CA-Gov: The GOP Nativ(ists) are Restless

All politics is local, right?  Well, if you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger in a precarious balancing act, you pass the buck upward.  Specifically, Arnold is trying to court Latino voters in order to get his magical 33% figure all the while trying to keep the nativists in his party in his camp.  It’s not clear if the strategy is really working:

A heavily Republican crowd grilled Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during a campaign appearance in San Diego County on Tuesday, badgering the governor to justify his position on immigration. Typically, such sessions are a breeze for the gregarious governor, in part because they are publicized among local Republicans to ensure a heavy partisan turnout. Less so Tuesday, when Schwarzenegger, who is seeking a second term, saw firsthand how incendiary an issue immigration still is for many Republicans.

Some political analysts believe the governor is pushing the boundaries of how much he can woo Latinos before he risks alienating his party faithful. Immigration ranked as the No. 1 concern among Republican voters in a major poll released Tuesday.

During a question-and-answer session with 150 people at Harry Griffen Park in La Mesa, the governor never lost his composure, but he did lose at least one vote….“I voted for you. And right now, I don’t see much difference between you and Phil Angelines,” Plata said, mispronouncing the name of the governor’s Democratic challenger. “I don’t see that you’re standing up for the citizens of California,” she said to scattered boos and applause from different factions of the audience. (SJ Mercury-News 7/26/06)

The GOP Coalition is being held together by rubberbands and chewing gum at this point.  It’s one thing to claim a “big tent”, another to deal with the devil as Arnold is forced to do.  The fact remains that the GOP is counting on Schwarzenegger’s celebrity to garner a few votes where they couldn’t before…and that doesn’t sit to well with the Natives.

Uncategorized

Governor “admits he erred on [Proposition] 187”

4 Comments

(So very very much Schwarzenegger backpedaling as the election nears. – promoted by jsw)

I’m about as white as they come, being of Scandinavian descent, but I do read a little Spanish. So when I browsed to La Opinion this morning this was the headline:

“Admite erró con la 187” with a giant picture of Ahhnold underneath.  Now, I don’t read every paper in the state every day, but I do read “Rough & Tumble” and none of its headlines covered this.  I will update if I missed it.


Goofily translated by Google for Gringos here.
More below.

I wonder if Arnold would have bothered with this now that the polls show him with an 8 point lead? Anyway, I think it’s interesting that this is in the Spanish media, not the English, and I wonder what the Wingers would think if it were.

Proposition 187 is sort of a reprise of 1950’s race based New Deal exclusionism. The wingers hate social services in general, and, well, they’ll be damned if they’re going to let dirty illegals have them, right? And they can appeal to poor whites by making them feel less privileged than the new comers to get enough votes to put it over the top.

So, anyway, I’m just wondering how much play this gets in the English media and how effectively this can be used to erode Arnold’s Republican support.

UPDATE: Capital Notes has this story now.  Beat you by an hour, Myers. (=

UPDATE II: Someone puh-leeze tell me there will be a “Arnold: I was for Prop 187 before I was against it” commercial.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, California, Health Care

California Blog Roundup for July 24, 2006

3 Comments

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Arnold Schwarzenegger, CA-04, CA-11, CA-50, Richard Pombo, John Doolittle, Republican corruption, voting, health care, immigration.

Governor’s Race

Jerry McNerney / Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

15% Doolittle / CA-04

Almost all of the links below are from Dump Doolittle, who went on a serious roll over the weekend. So, to read these in situ, just go to Dump Doolittle and start scrolling.

Other Republican Paragons

The Rest

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, education, Environment, Prisons

California Blog Roundup, July 16, 2006

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Arnold Schwarzenegger, CA-04, CA-11, Richard Pombo, John Doolittle, corruption, immigration, environment, prisons, education, privacy, voting rights, Republican propaganda.

Top Two Today

  • Local media activist Spocko has been waging a one-Vulcan war against Melanie Morgan and KSFO’s other despicable Republican propagandists. Seriously, you need to go read this stuff.

  • Five of the 20 California House Republicans voted not to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. To put that in perspective, there are 231 Republicans in the House, and only 33 voted against voting rights. And to put that in even more perspective, only eight other Republicans not from the South voted against voting rights. California’s Republicans are far more opposed to voting rights than the Republicans are nationally. Oh, in case anyone is wondering, the culprits are 15% Doolittle (CA-04), John Campbell (CA-48), Wally Herger (CA-02), Gary Miller (CA-42) and Dana Rohrabacher (CA-46). If you’re a constituent, you might call and ask them exactly what they’re afraid of.

Governor’s Race

Jerry McNerney / Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

15% Doolittle / CA-04

Other Republican Paragons

Environment

Prisons

Immigration

Education

Reform

Privacy

Miscellany

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, California, Environment, Prisons

California Blog Roundup for July 11, 2006

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, CA-04, CA-11, Richard Pombo, John Doolittle, Jerry Lewis, Brent Wilkes, corruption, immigration, environment, prisons, environment.

Governor’s Race

Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

15% Doolittle / CA-04

Jerry Lewis / CA-41

Other Republican Paragons

Environment

Prisons

Immigration

Miscellany

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, Environment, Health Care, Prisons

California Blog Roundup for July 6, 2006

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, CA-04, CA-11, Richard Pombo, John Doolittle, corruption, immigration, environment, health care, prisons, environment, clean money.

Governor’s Race

  • OK, today I like Bill Cavala: “Typically, however, columnists who have columns to fill seize upon poll results as facts to be explained – then explain them in terms of information known to dozens of California’s millions of voters.”

  • ABC on the Republican Party’s well-coordinated millionaire-financed pro-Schwarzenegger “he’s not as bad for the Environement as Richard Pombo” ads.

  • Frank Russo reports that Angelides has accepted eight invitations to debate, and wonders whether Arnold will be gutsy enough to meet Angelides for them. ABC also doubts that Schwarzenegger will have the guts to accept more than one or two, probably only the most scripted of them.

  • Follow the money if you want to know who Arnold owes, and who he’ll help.

Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

15% Doolittle / CA-04

Other Republican Paragons

Health Care

Environment

Reform

    Down With Tyranny supports Clean Money and Angelides, but has some concerns. Matt Lockshin responds in comments.

Prisons

Immigration

Miscellany

San Diego

Immigration Hearings in San Diego: Nativism’s Road Tour

Back in Congress, Brian Bilbray is trying to make a name for himself…or one of his old lobbyist clients:

Bilbray said the recent debates on illegal immigration show that not enough has been done to find and remove illegal immigrants.

“The United States has not been serious enough about our national sovereignty, defending our neighborhoods,” Bilbray said. “The problem is coming across the border and not being regulated under a mandate by our federal Constitution.” (San Diego U-T) 7/5/06)

There isn’t much of substance to this whole road show.  It’s just a big campaign for HR4437, Sensenbrenner’s nativist bill.  The Senate Bill was livable, but 4437 is not.  More border patrol doesn’t really solve the problem, which is a poor Mexican economy devestated by government corruption. (Also on that note, there has been no determination of Mexico’s new president, with AMLO trailing by less than one percent.)

A real solution to the immigration question is necessary and the theater isn’t helpful.  If the GOP can get past their grandstanding and nativism, perhas we can find real answers.

Uncategorized

Mexican Elections on 7/2: Why it’s important to us

The Mexican general election will be held this Sunday, July 2.  It will have an enormous impact on America and more specifically California.  The two candidates who are believed to have a chance are Felipe Calderón(Spanish) and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Spanish).  By the way, those are some spiffy websites.  Calderon has a cool soccer game on the top of his.  The campaign practically came to a halt for the Mexican soccer matches, but the attention of the Mexican media is squarely on this election after the Mexican squad fell in a thrilling battle with the powerhouse that is the Argentian national squad.

Calderon is the heir apparent to Mexican president Vicente Fox.  His PAN Party has steered a moderate course, but has failed to accomplish any significant goals since Fox became president.  Lopez Obrador, or AMLO (his initials) as he is commonly known, is the populist/leftist candidate.  And Calderon has been trying to tie AMLO to Hugo Chavez, attempting to play the extremist issue.  Right now, the polls are neck and neck.  Wikipedia has a great English run-down of tons of polls. 

Strangely enough, Ruben Navarrette in SacBee says that an AMLO victory could be a pleasant surprise for America.  You see, the Mexican government has been going through, since the early 20th century, essentially a 90 year Bush Administration.  No government has tackled poverty issues in any meaningful way.  And the growing economic disparity between the rich and the poor continues to cause millions of Mexicans to seek jobs in the U.S.  Really, isn’t this what the Republicans are doing to our nation?  They pillage the government to hand it all of to corporations and the rich.  Large tax cuts for the rich, while social services are stagnant.  Isn’t this what the Bush Administration wants too?  Drowning the government in a bathtub and all?

And that’s what the PRI gave the Mexican people for 71 years.  Then along came Vicente Fox, the first president from a party other than the PRI.  Expectations were high.  The IMF and Bush Administration pulled Fox along the traditional IMF line.  And the rich got richer…and the poor got poorer. No Mexican leader has truly challenged the root causes of poverty.  The corruption has gotten in the way of any meaningful reform.

AMLO has a unique opportunity, though.  He has the initiative to challenge the elites, and hopefully to end the stagnancy in the Mexican economy.  Mexican job growth is the real key to any immigration improvement in the U.S.  And thus, this populist just might be the best thing for the conservatives in America:

Here’s the irony: While many of the Americans in this camp probably consider themselves conservative, the candidate who is most likely to deliver what they want is a left-leaning populist. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the ex-mayor of Mexico City and candidate representing the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), may just win a contest that is still considered too close to call.

At first glance, you would think that conservatives would cringe at the prospect of a populist on the southern border. But in this case, they’d be wise to take a closer look at Lopez Obrador and his appeal to Mexican voters.

The candidate…doesn’t waste time blaming the United States for Mexico’s woes. AMLO cuts to the chase and blames Mexico, specifically the rich elites who prey upon the poor and then react with indifference when those without options leave home to search for opportunities in the United States. He promises to pump government money into the economy to jump-start it.(SacBee 6/28/06)

The Mexican elections bears watching.  An AMLO victory could cause a bit of a worry for the Bush administration, as they’ve never been too friendly with populists.  But, in the end, AMLO could provide the valve that cuts the spigot of undocument immigrants to California: a good economy.

Budget, Health Care

Budget axes child healthcare increases…for now

The Dems agreed to exclude the $23 million that Schwarzenegger had included in his May rewrite of his proposed budget.  However, it looks like the Governator agreed to work with them over the summer to get additional funding for the county health insurance programs.

With four days to go before the end of the fiscal year, legislative leaders and the governor reached agreement Monday on a state spending plan that they predicted would be in place by the July 1 deadline for the first time in six years.

The roughly $131-billion deal would pay back billions the state borrowed from schools in recent years to close budget shortfalls, as well as accelerate repayment of billions of dollars in bonds the state sold to fund transportation and other projects. … The deal includes a reduction in community college fees, new arts and physical education initiatives in public schools, a modest expansion of child care and other programs for the poor and a substantial boost for law enforcement.

Left out of the deal are the funds the governor and Democrats were hoping would be used to expand healthcare programs for low-income children. GOP lawmakers refused to support such an expansion because it would make health insurance available to children who are here illegally. Democrats received a commitment from the governor to work with them on expanding health insurance for low-income children later in the summer. (LA Times 6/27/06)

Now, getting the GOP to agree to additional health care spending in this area seems to be a difficult position.  Once again the problem is that the Reps have decided that they must toe this line in the sand, and a very artificial line at that.  The only people this is hurting are children?  Are we prepared to make children the pawn in some national pissing match?  It seems ludicrous and mean spirited…because it is.  The Democrats have been working in earnest to see this budget through to completion, all the while trying to deal with the GOP veto over the budget working to thrwart the will of the people.

So, my congratulations for completion of the budget, but the work is not yet complete.  We need to increase funds to the health insurance programs.  For more information on the California Budget, take a look at California Progress Report.  Frank’s going to be in Sacramento today reporting on the budget process.  Also, for background try the California Budget Project.