Thursday, July 29, 2004
Convention Wednesday: La Raza's Forked Tongue
Raul Yzaguirre, President and CEO, National Council of La Raza (The Race), was relegated to the “red meat” portion of Wednesday’s Democratic Convention (5:00-6:00 PM). Mr. Yzaguirre claimed that a poll commissioned by his organization “confirmed that, despite our diversity, Latinos have a shared public policy agenda.”
That agenda? Heavy on the amnesty, please:
Latinos want a humane government that maintains our traditions as a nation of immigrants by passing the Dream Act so that immigrant children can attend college. By enacting the AGJOBS bill to provide better wages and conditions for farmworkers. By working toward comprehensive immigration reform, including an earned legalization program.
Are these amnesty programs for illegal aliens actually a top concern to Puerto Ricans, who have been U.S. citizens since 1917? Have Cuban-Americans united with Hispanic-Americans like Linda Chavez and Kathryn Jean Lopez on the vital importance of immigration issues?
Actually, no. A review of La Raza’s actual polling data shows that a mere 8% of registered Latino voters believed “immigration” was “the most important issue for the Latino community,” while 34% opted for “education/schools” and 22% chose “economy/jobs.”
When La Raza’s pollster asked about amnesty for illegal aliens in most favorable way possible to formulate the question (“would you support or oppose legislation that would allow undocumented immigrants who have lived, worked and paid taxes to the United States to get on a path to U.S. citizenship?”), 15% of registered Hispanic voters still opposed the idea and an additional four percent were not sure.
Interestingly, the transcript of Mr. Yzaguirre’s address issued by the Democratic National Convention Committee omitted all the Spanish he uttered at the podium. That was just as well. English is the primary language of Hispanic registered voters, according to La Raza’s poll. Two-thirds (67%) “mostly watch” English-language television stations, while a mere two percent emphasize Spanish-language television station viewing.
|posted by Jim on 4:16 PM|
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Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Kate Sums Up Teresa's Heinz Kerry's Political Problem
"[I]t's not her fault that she's been persuaded she's a great thinker on global problems. It's the fate of the filthy rich to be indulged and flattered," Kate O'Beirne, National Review Online.
|posted by Jim on 1:58 AM|
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Coburn Wins
Dr. Tom Coburn won Oklahoma's Republican Senate nomination today. Dr. Coburn had the support of English First Political Victory Fund.
|posted by Jim on 1:05 AM|
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Tomorrow's News Today
At 8:40 PM Tuesday night, I asked readers of National Review Online's "The Corner" if it was Tower of Babel Tuesday? By 10:35 PM, those of us watching Teresa Heinz Kerry giving her convention remarks in all five languages she speaks had our answer.
Some folks can know a lot more about something than most of us, yet convey a sense of "you can do this, too." That the mark of a good teacher or a role model. Other folks use their superior knowledge to convey a different message: "you don't understand what I'm saying, do you, peasant?"
Methinks Lady Teresa holds a mighty high opinion of herself. That can be a problem with voters. Another Massachusetts candidate, Eliot Richardson learned that lesson when his opponent paid for a fake edition of the Boston Globe bearing the headline: "Vote for Eliot. He's better than you are."
|posted by Jim on 12:50 AM|
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Tuesday, July 27, 2004
"Affordable" Democratic Health Care?
During the entire Monday session, viewers and delegates were treated to frequent pronouncements by Democratic spokesfolks that the Democrats have a plan to make health care more affordable.
A cursory review of the 2004 Democratic Platform might provide that impression as the document claims that Democrats will “save America’s families up to $1,000 on their premiums” (page 28).
Yet this same document calls for an end to “ethnic health care disparities . . . by breaking down language barriers” (page 29). What might this particular platform plank cost?
In 2002, the Office of Management and Budget estimated a minimum cost of .042 per encounter in the health care area. Yet the National Health Law Program (NHeLP), an advocate of mandatory translation, confessed to an average cost per encounter nearly 1,000 times higher than OMB calculated:
In Washington state, state law requires language assistance. The state estimates that it will spend $24 million over two years for oral interpretation. With an estimated 26,000 encounters per month (or 624,000 encounters in 2 years), the average cost of providing oral interpretation is $38.46 per encounter.
The 2004 platform also includes a pledge to “restore vigorous enforcement of our civil rights laws.” The last time Clinton Executive Order 13166, which makes translation services mandatory, was vigorously enforced, the University of Utah Health Science Center’s expenditure of $300,000 on translation services did not protect them from an investigation by the Clinton Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights.
The amnesty for illegal aliens called for in the platform (page 36) will also drive up medical translation costs (and other costs) as illegal aliens, no longer have any justifiable fear of deportation, will feel encouraged to seek out government benefits they may currently shun, including Medicaid. These newly amnestied would be steeped in an ideology of entitlement and expectation and they will carry that attitude into every doctor’s office and medical facility.
And what happens when these translations are inaccurate? In will come the personal injury lawyers, ready to gouge enormous legal fees for themselves and force new costs onto the health-care sector. (The words “tort reform” appear nowhere in the Democrat’s 2004 Platform, a document which managed to find room to discuss the self-determination interests of Guam.)
If this is cost reduction, I am Marie of Rumania.
|posted by Jim on 5:10 PM|
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Monday, July 26, 2004
Welcome to Boston, USA
"There are two billboards with security rules, but they seem to be written only in Spanish so it's a little confusing," says Michael Tomasky of the American Prospect.
|posted by Jim on 9:12 PM|
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Democratic Convention Thoughts (Day 1)
A small item of mine was picked up by National Review Online today.
A review of today's convention schedule shows the red meat being is served up for Democratic delegates far from the cameras of CBS or CNN. (Thank heaven for C-SPAN.) Tonight is likely to have more emphasis on the more mainstream undecided vote. We can draw two lessons from this scheduling.
First, for all the talk that John Kerry has sewn up the Democratic "base," the need to tend to the red meat-seeking ideologues suggests that the base is still in play. Yes, they hate President Bush. But they do not yet love Kerry.
Second, the Kerry people are concerned that their unvarnished ideology will not meet with favor among the undecided. So they must run two campaigns and hope no one notices.
I'll be commenting from time to time on the Democratic Convention. And plan to do the same kind of analysis of the GOP's production next month. If you want to have your say, write me here.
By the way, this marks my 500th post on this blog. Thank you for reading it.
|posted by Jim on 6:48 PM|
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Thursday, July 22, 2004
Language Rights Across the Pond
Great Britan suffers from its own language crisis, notes Theodore Dalrymple:
When I went to vote in the local elections not long ago, I saw notices in various Indian languages and in Vietnamese explaining how to cast a vote. And at my local airport, the sign directing travelers to the line for returning British passport holders is written not only in English, but in Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu (each with its own script): proof that the granting of citizenship requires no proficiency in the national language.
These practices send the message that newcomers to Britain have no obligation to learn English—indeed, that the obligation is the other way around: that the British state must make itself clear in Arabic, Farsi, Russian, Somali, Swahili, and many other languages. British officialdom doubtless does not know that the confusion of languages after the Tower of Babel fell was meant as a punishment.
|posted by Jim on 3:52 PM|
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Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Edwards' English Record
Via National Review Online's "The Corner" today.
|posted by Jim on 1:13 PM|
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Friday, July 02, 2004
Kerry Running to the Right of Bush on Language, Immigration?
My thoughts via National Review Online's "The Corner".
|posted by Jim on 12:37 AM|
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Thursday, July 01, 2004
No Such Thing as a "Hispanic Vote" (contd.)
Via The Nation, "An Engaging Encounter?" (June 21, 2004):
"It's not that we have incompatibility problems, so much as our families do," the future groom says. His fiancée continues, "I'm Ecuadorean and he's Puerto Rican." Her family's longstanding bigotry toward Puerto Ricans, they explain, is a constant source of stress for them as they attempt to unite the two families for their wedding.
|posted by Jim on 5:13 PM|
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