Poor Howard Dean.

Howard Dean (file photo)

He just can’t bring himself to agree with President Bush, even when he agrees with him.

Via AP:

Democratic Party chief Howard Dean accused President Bush and the Republican Party on Friday of exploiting the immigration issue for political gain by scapegoating Hispanics.

Dean and Bush agree on the legislation at the heart of the debate. Both support a Senate bill that would expand guest-worker programs for an estimated 400,000 immigrants each year.

Clearly this is nothing more than a combination of knee-jerk Bush hatred and the usual race baiting that are staples of Democratic party “thought” today. As with the rest of the leadership of his party, Howard Dean has nothing at all to add to the debate about U.S. border security. Sowing ethnic division may be good for the Democratic Party, but it’s bad for America.

And anybody who believes Howard Dean would spare any outrage if a terrorist attack was traced back to an illegal crossing of the Southern border of the United States, please raise your hand. Anyone? Obviously, that’s a rhetorical question.

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Sister Toldjah
Outside the Beltway

Is anyone surprised to see Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D. – Of Course) resorting to the race card after being accused of punching a Capitol Police officer yesterday?

You’ve heard of DWB (Driving While Black)? Well now there’s BICWB (Being In Congress While Black).

Via AP:

Her lawyer, James W. Myart Jr., said, “Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, like thousands of average Americans across this country, is, too, a victim of the excessive use of force by law enforcement officials because of how she looks and the color of her skin.”

“Ms. McKinney is just a victim of being in Congress while black,” Myart said. “Congresswoman McKinney will be exonerated.”

McKinney’s attorney presumably speaks on her behalf. Unfortunately, this sort of knee-jerk racial wolf-crying is so predictable it’s hardly noteworthy. Will any of Rep. McKinney’s fellow Democrats say anything to condemn this ugly appeal to race? Doubtful.

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Michelle Malkin
The Washington Post

And we thought liberals wanted to keep science and religion separate.

From The NY Times:

Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

The “prayer” study is interesting only because of the glaringly unscientific nature of the whole enterprise.

What was really being studied wasn’t the effect of “intercessory” prayer at all, but merely the state of mind of the study’s subjects. All of the reporting on the study we’ve seen ignores this fact, calling it a study of “the effects of prayer.”

From The Washington Post:

Prayer Doesn’t Aid Recovery, Study Finds
Effect on Healing of Strangers at Distance After Heart-Bypass Surgery Examined

Praying for other people to recover from an illness is ineffective, according to the largest, best-designed study to examine the power of prayer to heal strangers at a distance.

The study of more than 1,800 heart-bypass patients found that those who had people praying for them had as many complications as those who did not. In fact, one group of patients who knew they were the subject of prayers fared worse.

But the study didn’t find that. The study didn’t even study that.

Consider, what is the control group? People who no one is praying for at a distance? How does one measure that? How do they know no one is praying for “subject X”? They cannot know that, therefore the control is not “people not receiving intercessory prayer”.

The groups being studied were defined by what they were told at the beginning of the study.

The new $2.4 million study, funded primarily by the John Templeton Foundation, was designed to overcome some of those shortcomings. Dusek and his colleagues divided 1,802 bypass patients at six hospitals into three groups. Two groups were uncertain whether they would be the subject of prayers. The third was told they would definitely be prayed for.

….

Over the next month, the two groups that were uncertain whether they were the subject of prayers fared virtually the same, with about 52 percent of patients experiencing complications regardless of whether they were the subject of prayers.

Surprisingly, 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for experienced complications.

Because the most common complication was an irregular heartbeat, researchers speculated that knowing they were chosen to receive prayers may have inadvertently put the patients under increased stress.

But the variable was not “whether they were the subject of prayers”, the variable was whether they were told they were being prayed for. The slight variation in complication rates (52% vs. 59%) can easily be attributed to patient expectations based on what they were told beforehand.

Another issue – perhaps prayer requires sincerity. Perhaps praying for the purposes of debunking prayer is less effective than praying sincerely and faithfully for healing. Let’s see them design a study to test that. Good luck.

We actually agree with the skeptics on this one:

“I would hope that these results, combined with similar recent findings, would encourage scientists to stick to science and stop dabbling in the supernatural,” said Bruce Flamm of the University of California at Irvine.

Amen.

More:
Stones Cry Out

Via Drudge, here is a report of a public official, a public school principal, flying the flag of a foreign nation over his school:

“Reagan High School Principal Robert Pambello was ordered to remove a Mexican flag Wednesday morning that he had hoisted below the U.S. and Texas flags that typically fly in front of his school — a symbol he agreed to fly to show support for his predominantly Hispanic student body.

….

Raul Ramos, a professor of Texas history at the University of Houston…said, “it’s important for the school to make efforts to identify with the student body,” not vice versa. “The school, after all, reflects the ethnic identity of the students sitting in its classrooms.”

Nearly 60 percent of HISD’s 200,000-plus students are Hispanic.”

Mr. Ramos has things entirely backwards, unsurprising for a university professor. It’s not up to a school to identify with the students, it’s up to the school to help teach the students about America, in many ways to mold their identities. This is especially true of a public, taxpayer-funded school. And schools, especially public schools, should not be emphasizing ethnicity, in fact they should be de-emphasizing ethnicity, and promoting assimilation into the common American culture.

Incidentally, it would be interesting to know how many of the Hispanic students in the Houston school district are of non-Mexican heritage. Probably most are of Mexican descent due to the close proximity of Houston to Mexico, but it’s likely many are not. How do students with Central or South American roots feel about the Mexican flag flying over their school? Isn’t that sort of the equivalent of saying, “You people all look alike to me”?

More:
Wizbang

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Como Se Dice “Sedición”?…

…one way to say it is by hanging the flag of another nation above the American flag, and hanging the American flag upside down.

Via Michelle Malkin, who also has a photo of the offense:

Whittier area students from Pioneer, California and Whittier high schools walked out of classes to protest the proposed federal immigration bill March 27, 2006. The protestors put up the Mexican flag over the American flag flying upside down at Montebello High.

But don’t anyone dare to question their patriotism.

This is an absolute disgrace. The question arises, why were there not any adults around to stop this? Who’s running the asylum there at Montebello High?

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L.A. Schools teaching wrong lessons to immigrant students

Via AP (via Michelle Malkin):

An Afghan man who faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity has appealed for asylum in another country, the United Nations said Monday.

Malkin adds:

We, a nation whose founders embraced religious freedom as the “first liberty,” should be first in line to offer Abdul Rahman a safe haven.

We’ll second that motion.

Related:
Andrew McCarthy, writing for NRO, says the Rahman case was entirely predictable given the words of the Afghan constitution:

The State Department is midwife of a document fully reflective of a country that is 98-percent Muslim and in which the Taliban and al Qaeda remain forces to be reckoned with. It is a pervasively Islamic evergreen with a few shiny human-rights ornaments attached “” the latter giving “democracy project” obsessives some cover for the inevitability that astonished Americans would one day come-a-callin’ to ask how, in the midst of our war against Muslim extremists, the United States could have abided the installation of Islam and its draconian law as ultimate authority in a country we had given American lives to liberate.

Read the whole thing.

It’s starting to look a bit like the students of Los Angeles have found a good excuse to bail out on school for a few days. “We’re not ditching, we’re protesting!”

From the Los Angeles Times today:

Many students waved Mexican flags as they poured out of schools and onto city streets.

….

Protesters waved flags and signs and chanted, “Latinos, stand up!” [Note: most of the Latinos in America are not illegal aliens. It is the pro-open-borders advocates who are trying to make border security a racial/ethnic issue. -- The Editors]

….

“This is unjust. This land used to belong to us and now they’re trying to kick us out,” said Sandra Molina, 16, a junior from Downtown Magnet High School.

….

At the U.S. Capitol, more than 100 demonstrators wore handcuffs to protest a bill passed by the House last year that would criminalize illegal immigration. [Isn't illegal immigration already, um, illegal? -- The Editors]

….

“No one should play on people’s fears or try to pit neighbors against each other,” [President] Bush said. “No one should pretend that immigrants are threats to America’s identity because immigrants have shaped America’s identity.

Big difference – America used to press for assimilation. Now the schools of the LAUSD and elsewhere are obviously filling these kids’ heads with all kinds of “multicultural” and ethnic identity pap. These kids didn’t learn to wave Mexican flags – placing ethnic identity above American identity, or that “This land used to belong to us…”, or even about the existence of a proposed immigration bill in C0ngress on their own. The supposed adults in their lives are are feeding this stuff to them. The president is right, (legal) immigrants are not a threat. But appeals to ethnic separatism are.

On a somewhat related note, “in the LAUSD, just 39 percent of Latino students and 47 percent of African-American students graduate in four years.”

Others:
Michelle Malkin – More

Also check out The Mudville Gazette

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on intolerance of dissent from the San Franscisco Board of Supervisors and overt bigotry from California State Assemblyman Mark Leno (D. – Of Course).

More than 25,000 evangelical Christian youth landed Friday in San Francisco for a two-day rally at AT&T Park against “the virtue terrorism” of popular culture, and they were greeted by an official city condemnation and a clutch of protesters who said their event amounted to a “fascist mega-pep rally.”

“Battle Cry for a Generation” is led by a 44-year-old Concord native, Ron Luce, who wants “God’s instruction book” to guide young people away from the corrupting influence of popular culture.

….

That’s bad news to Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who told counterprotesters at City Hall on Friday that while such fundamentalists may be small in number, “they’re loud, they’re obnoxious, they’re disgusting, and they should get out of San Francisco.”

….

Earlier this week, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution condemning the “act of provocation” by what it termed an “anti-gay,” “anti-choice” organization that aimed to “negatively influence the politics of America’s most tolerant and progressive city.”

So anyone who doesn’t accept the entire radical secular left-wing worldview of people like Mark Leno, anyone who simply holds traditional Judeo-Christian views that have been central to American culture throughout our history, should essentially be banished from the city. This is what many people on the left mean when they talk about “tolerance.” And what is with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors issuing an official condemnation — an anti-Christian fatwa if you will — against a group based on their religious beliefs? And liberals claim to be such sticklers for “separation of church and state”.

Maybe we should leave the border with Mexico open and put a wall around San Francisco. They don’t seem to want to be part of America anyway.

Also linked at The Mudville Gazette

The AP follows up on the big illegal alien march yesterday:

LOS ANGELES – Thousands of immigration advocates marched through downtown Los Angeles in one of the largest demonstrations for any cause in recent U.S. history.

“Immigration advocates”? The march was about supposed “rights” for illegal immigrants. The bill to be debated in the Senate this week is about illegal immigrants and border security. Anyone who chooses to ignore the distinction between legal and illegal immigration is being disingenuous about the terms of the debate. Every nation has the right and obligation to control its borders. It’s a matter of basic security and sovereignty. That’s what the debate is about, not “immigration advocacy.” We are not against immigration from Mexico, we are for orderly, legal immigration and border security.

Here’s an alternative view from Tamar Jacoby in The Washington Post:

‘Guest Workers’ Won’t Work
A Path to Permanent Citizenship Would Benefit Everyone”

….

Policymakers from George W. Bush to Sens. John McCain, John Cornyn and Edward Kennedy grasp that the main problem with our immigration system is the lack of visas for foreign workers. International supply and demand — demand created by U.S. labor needs — generate a flow of roughly 1.5 million immigrants a year. But our annual immigration quotas accommodate less than two-thirds of that number, producing an annual spillover of about a half-million illegal workers that erodes the rule of law and undermines our security.

The logical remedy: to provide these additional workers with visas and allow them to enter the country in a lawful, dignified way. The only problem: Policymakers are afraid the public would reject such a large increase in permanent immigration. So even those who have been most courageous in promoting reform talk instead about temporary visas. Bush and Cornyn would require foreigners to go home at the end of their work stints. McCain and Kennedy would allow some workers to stay permanently, but they, too, call their proposal a temporary worker program, and many of those who support their package — including myself — have gone along in adopting the term.

….

In 1986, we got amnesty and promises of better border security. We got the former without the latter. Quite simply, this leaves us skeptical when we hear similar promises today. That’s why we want to see border enforcement first this time.

Previous:
Illegal Aliens

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Patterico
Memeorandum
Michelle Malkin
Outside the Beltway

The Los Angeles Times reports a massive march in support of illegal immigration that took place today in downtown L.A., with a crowd estimated at half a million people. Now, we are sympathetic to anyone who just wants to escape poverty and provide a better life for his family. However, although many, perhaps most, illegal immigrants are otherwise decent, hard-working people, it is pretty insulting to the citizens of the United States for those who have violated the laws and sovereignty of this country in coming here to flout the law-breaking and make demands in a massive march like this. Illegal immigrants do not have a claim to the rights of citizens of this country. Instapundit may be right, that this massive show flouting the laws of this country will actually be counter-productive to the marchers’ aims.

Every sovereign nation, including perhaps it must be said, the United States, has the right, and the obligation to its own citizens, to control its borders. This is not a matter of bigotry, or racism, or the desire to deny citizens of other nations any of their rights. No citizen of one nation has a right to citizenship in another.

So what needs to be done? Job one is border enforcement. Right now, anyone can come across – farm workers, day laborers, drug smugglers, gang members, terrorists – anyone. We need to know who’s coming in to stop criminals from coming in. There’s no such thing as a border that’s open for laborers, but closed to terrorists and criminals. The border is either secure or it’s not. Right now it’s obviously not. Enforcement must come first.

Discussions about particular levels of legal immigration, or a guest worker program, can almost be considered secondary issues. Enforcement must come first.

Others:
Patterico
Michelle Malkin
The Mudville Gazette

Here is an interesting article from The Washington Post (via The Corner):

Embryonic Stem Cell Success

Scientists in Germany said yesterday that they had retrieved easily obtained cells from the testes of male mice and transformed them into what appear to be embryonic stem cells, the versatile and medically promising biological building blocks that can morph into all kinds of living tissues.

What’s most eye-catching about the article is not the content itself, though the experiments described are interesting. No, what’s fascinating is the headline – “Embryonic Stem Cell Success” – on an article that is not about embryonic stem cells. It’s not evident whether this is a result of some pro-ESC bias on the part of the headline writer, scientific illiteracy, or just plain sloppiness. Cells taken from adult mice are not embryonic cells, even if they’re transformed in some way to behave similarly to embryonic cells. The liberal war on science continues.

Here’s another important article from Stephen F. Hayes at The Weekly Standard about the ties between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda, “Camp Saddam”.

Just a couple of brief excerpts, read the whole thing:

REPRESENTATIVE John Murtha, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, March 19, to evaluate the war in Iraq on its third anniversary. Murtha, a decorated veteran and longtime hawk, has become a leading spokesman for his party on the war. And on the show, he spoke of what “probably worries me the most” about the U.S. effort in Iraq. The war, said Murtha, is a diversion from the global war on terror.

“There was no terrorism in Iraq before we went there,” said Murtha. “None. There was no connection with al Qaeda, there was no connection with, with terrorism in Iraq itself.” This is now the conventional wisdom on Iraq and terrorism. It is wrong.

….

John Murtha’s claim–that there was no connection “with terrorism in Iraq itself”–might come as a surprise to the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marines. In early April 2003, they found a ten-acre terrorist training camp ten miles outside of Baghdad. In an interview at the time with an embedded reporter from Stars & Stripes, Captain Aaron Robertson said: “We believe this is a training camp where Iraqis trained forces for the Palestine Liberation Front. This is what we would refer to as a sensitive site. This is clearly a terrorist training camp, the type Iraq claimed did not exist.”

Hayes’ reporting provides additional evidence that the “Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism” line being peddled by the left is just plain hogwash. They seem at this point to be immune to all evidence, they have so much invested in the lie they can’t even begin to acknowledge the truth, or even question their assumptions.

This emerging story also provides further evidence for another phenomenon – the fact the mainstream press in America seems largely to be in active opposition to the war effort. If they were not, if they were only interested in seeking and reporting the facts, then these continuing revelations about Saddam’s ties to terrorism would be splashed all over every front page in the country – The NY Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, the AP, Reuters, and on the network and cable TV news broadcasts – everywhere.

This question of Iraq’s ties to terrorists is at the core of the debate over whether the United States and its allies were justified in invading Iraq, and central to public perceptions and support for continuing the fight. Unfortunately, most of the MSM seems to have taken sides in that debate, rather than simply reporting evidence to inform it.

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ThreatsWatch