Migrants In Lexington

Consider this a public service announcement for the Migrant Network Coalition.

LOVE THY NEIGHBOR GATHERING

This Saturday, April 19th

Anytime between 4-7:00 p.m.

Corner of Main St. and Martin Luther King

Please join other fair-minded Lexington residents as we stand up and say NO to the scapegoating and dehumanization of immigrants that has become so acceptable in mainstream national and local media. Let us change the tide of the discourse together by showing Lexington WE WILL NOT TOLERATE HATE IN OUR COMMUNITY! Feel free to bring a sign showing your support for a diverse and hate-free Lexington.

Please pass the information on to anyone who may be interested!

Now you won’t be seeing any public service announcements from me for the other side, but to be fair if you want to see the other side of issue in Lexington look at the Kfire web site.

The guy that does this site is Doug Roy, that’s his smiling face on the website.

My real problem with Doug Roy, other than I think he is totally wrong on the issue of immigration, is that he and I agree on a couple of other issues. I would really like to blast this guy for being a total idiot, but I can’t.

Here are some of Roy’s opinions:

On George Bush’s war in Iran:

If you still buy the cover stories about Iraqi freedom, WMD and the evil dictator Saddam Hussein, you're still struggling to put dots together to make the picture work. Good luck.

If the truth were told, those missions were indeed accomplished back in 2003. The real mission is continuing to be accomplished: oil under control and buddies making billions.


On big Tobacco:

This year, more than 4,000 Fayette County residents will die untimely and painful deaths from smoking-related illnesses. If that number could be decreased even a little over the next few years because of the smoking ban, would it be worth it?

But some of us are worried that a few businesses will lose money. Saving lives or saving a few businesses: What's your priority?

I just wish he was a little more prone to dialog than demagoguery on the immigration issue.

Racial Profiling in State Hiring

Update:


Senior moments are a bitch, so is screwing up and not completely researching a post. Both have happened here.

Inspite of a not so great summary that says nothing about foster and adoptive families, which is what this bill is about, let me do a mea culpa for not doing my homework and putting out a sloppy posting and even an apology to Stan Lee who appears to be one of the good guys here.



I’m sorry but this strikes me as a totally unnecessary addition to the state bureaucracy.

HB 666 (BR 1074) - D. Owens, R. Meeks
AN ACT relating to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. Create a new section of KRS Chapter 194A to establish the Office on Racial Disportionality within the cabinet secretary's office; specify duties of the office to include training, targeted recruitment and employment efforts, data collection, and strategic planning; require the department and its contractors to collect and analyze data by race, evaluate and implement a plan to address disportionality; require annual report to the Governor, Interim Joint Committee on Health and Welfare, and the public each year.

Before you start calling me a racist, I don’t care if you are black, brown, yellow, red, white or some combination of the above. I don’t care if you are male, female or transgender. I don’t care if you are Baptist, Catholic, Jew, or following the teachings of Islam. I don’t care if you are straight, gay or bisexual.

When it comes to hiring people to work for the state, I do care if you are competent. I do care if you are ethical, honest and trustworthy. I do care if you are the most qualified person for the job.

This bill seeks to institutionalize hiring based on skin color, not a good criterion for hiring and certainly not a good criterion for establishing another state agency.

Oh, and this thing passed the House 95 to 0, with 5 not voting.

Even Stan Lee voted for this thing. I wonder what his supporters think of this vote?

Head on a Pike

Must we all now become government informants? From the Herald-Leader:

Immigration activists and the ACLU are accusing the federal government of overreaching in the prosecution of two Lexington landlords (William Jerry Hadden and Jamey Hadden) who had rented to 60 illegal immigrants……

But civil libertarians and advocates for immigrants are alarmed by the case.

They note the Haddens were charged even though it is not illegal to rent to undocumented immigrants. Outside of landlords who accept federal Section 8 housing subsidies, landlords have no obligation to check a tenant's legal status.

If you can be prosecuted for renting to undocumented immigrants, can you be prosecuted for selling them a car? A car would make it easier to transport illegal immigrants. So it sounds like the car dealers should also be worried.

Anyone who is knowingly harboring, or housing or transporting illegal aliens is subject to criminal prosecution," Montenegro said. "They shouldn't be surprised if they are facing criminal charges."

I’ve always thought of the term harboring as meaning sheltering, and there for taking care of basic needs like putting a roof over someone’s head, or feeding them or perhaps clothing them.

So I guess that a person could be drug into court for selling food or clothing to an undocumented immigrant given this definition. Does that mean the guy that owns the local McDonalds franchise needs to see and ID before he sells a Big Mac to a Hispanic or anyone else? Selling that Big Mac might get you hauled into Federal Court for aiding in harboring an illegal immigrant.

Yes, the Haddens probably knew what they were doing was skirting the law. But their prosecution is an example of selective prosecution aimed at intimidating the public; the Feds could care less about the Haddens.

Our Federal Government realizes the value of intimidating the peasants by sticking a couple of heads on pikes around the castle wall. This is nothing new.

Do you really think that when the Internal Revenue Service sent Leona Helmsley to jail on April 15th they weren’t sending a message to everyone to pay your taxes or go to the big house? This is the same tactic, different agency, different time but the same fear, threat, and intimidation tactics.

The bottom line here is this case is about fear, threat and intimidation.

This is the targeted intimidation of the Hispanic community and of anyone that does business with that group.

This case is about demeaning of a group of people seeking a better life by modern day Know Nothings.

This is about a Congress and a President that can’t lead and is unwilling to deal in practical way with a real issue facing this country.

This case is not about the Haddens.

Righteous Kill

Three cheers for Kathy Stein doing the right thing.

From the Courier-Journal:

The House Judiciary Committee chairwoman yesterday killed a controversial immigration-enforcement bill and has delayed action on a Senate abortion bill.

Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, announced that after an extensive series of hearings on House Bill 304, which would have Kentucky take over many of the federal government's immigration duties, she will not hold a vote on the bill.

Stein said she was particularly concerned by inflammatory rhetoric in e-mails from some citizens supporting a state immigration crackdown -- some of which she described as threatening, intimidating and disturbing.

The Doctor is In The House

Sometimes a legislator will just make you smile, take first term Legislator, Rep. David Watkins for instance.

From the Courier-Journal:

The Health and Welfare Committee voted 9 to 6 to reject Senate Bill 112 -- but not before committee member David Watkins, D-Henderson, delivered a tongue-lashing to the bill's sponsor, Sen. Vernie McGaha, R-Russell Springs.

Watkins, a family physician, called the measure divisive and said the Senate is ignoring the state's biggest health problems, including smoking, obesity and a lack of adequate mental health services for its citizens.

"I am tired of the same petty issues coming before us when we've got major issues to address," he said.

Right On!

The good Doctor is also pushing for a 70 cent increase in the cigarette tax, has yet to show me anything I don’t like.

He is absolutely right that McGaha in the Senate and likes of Stan Lee in the House continue to push petty issues and not addressing the major issues. They are caught up in gay bashing and blaming Hispanics for the ills of the Commonwealth instead of dealing with real problems.

An Editorial in La Voz makes this true point about McGaha, Lee et al:

It is problematic when public offices are used to feed the fire and propagate the ideology of the extreme right that in no way represents the majority.

In fact, each and every politician that aligned his or her electoral campaign with those ideas was defeated. Let’s ask Ernie Fletcher and Stan Lee, who both were completely rejected by the Kentucky electorate when they played the anti-immigrant card.

I guess Vernie couldn’t believe that someone in the General Assembly would tell him the truth so he pulled out the sanctity of marriage argument. I’m still waiting to see the marriage that was saved by that constitutional amendment.

Again from the Courier-Journal:

McGaha said his concern is the "sanctity of marriage" and said he was offended by Watkins' comments.

"Dr. Watkins is totally off-base," McGaha said. "He is a disgrace to the process we have here."

I think Watkins is a credit to the Commonwealth and General Assembly, McGaha may think Watkins is a “disgrace to the process” but as near as I can tell he was just using my Duck rule.

If it sounds like a duck, looks like a duck and smells like a duck, then it probably is a duck.