Durham City Council Mariachi Caucus loses a member

If the Durham City Council was apt to listen to logic and well-reasoned arguments tonight, it would have taken the advice of City Councilmen Howard Clement III and Eugene A. Brown. Instead, they listened to the feel-good entreaties of City Manager Tom Bonfield and Police Chief Jose Lopez Sr., and voted to put the city’s stamp of approval on the sham Mexican I.D. called the matricula consular.

Brown pointed out that the city has no committees on foreign affairs or immigration services, and he said he came to the conclusion that since the police chief had already said he’s been accepting the consular for three years, why was the Durham City Council contemplating any action at all on the issue. Then he wondered out loud whether “we are being used to advance someone’s political agenda.”

Clement said he had done some research on the consular as an I.D. and had found that the U.S. Department of Justice as well as the FBI have termed it an unreliable document. He also pointed out that there is no way of knowing that the person holding the consular is actually the person named on the document, given the lax standards used by the Mexican Consulate to issue them. He said he didn’t see that this questionable document needed to “be imposed on the City of Durham,” especially since anyone here legally should already have a valid driver’s license and some form of I.D.

Needless to say, both Brown and Clement voted courageously against this absurd measure. The rest of the go-along-to-get-along council members, steamrolled by the pro-illegal immigration lobby groups in Durham, took refuge in the advice of law enforcement, as questionable as that advice was. Lopez, for instance, incredibly compared the consular to a Canadian driver’s license or a library card.

For his position tonight, and his eloquent comments prior to the vote, I have removed Clement from the City Council’s Mariachi Caucus. He was put there last summer for his vote on an equally ridiculous resolution to suspend city travel to the state of Oklahoma Arizona because of the immigration law passed by its legislature. Brown, for his vote against that resolution, was never in the Mariachi Caucus.

The Mariachi Caucus now consists of Mayor Pro-Tem Cora Cole-McFadden, Mayor William V. ‘Bill’ Bell, Diane N. Catotti, Michael Woodard, and Farad Ali, all of whom voted for both ridiculous measures.

In praise of Renee Ellmers

PowerLine’s Scott Johnson has a very complimentary post on Renee Ellmers, who has apparently defeated 2nd District Democratic incumbent Bob Etheridge:

Ellmers undertook an extremely difficult race in order to resist the nationalization of American health care. As a registered nurse, she had a pretty good idea what she was talking about. She ran a professional campaign. She was in the right place to benefit from Etheridge’s unhinged attempt to ascertain the identity of his sidewalk interlocutors. Then the Wave helped carry her to victory on November 2.

Ellmers will contribute to the ranks of congressmen who took a professional path outside of law, as will a few others in the new class of freshmen. For all these reasons, it seems to me, her victory is one to be celebrated and savored.

Palin misunderestimated again, refudiates TV critics

Sarah Palin continues to prove her naysayers wrong. The latest example was last night’s premiere of her TLC reality series “Sarah Palin’s Alaska”:

Sarah Palin’s documentary / travelogue / reality / biopic shattered TLC ratings records Sunday night.

The debut of Sarah Palin’s Alaska delivered a whopping 5 million viewers.

The first episode of the eight-part series was the most-watched program launch in TLC’s history.

Putting this into context, that’s more viewers than any recent cable show other than Monday Night Football, Hannah Montana and Fox’s election coverage.

Thank David Price for airport naked-body scans

Flyers are in rebellion over naked body scanners that have recently been deployed in airports. This latest experiment in degradation comes straight from recently re-elected Democratic Rep. David Price of N.C.:

Rapiscan got the other naked-scanner contract from the TSA, worth $173 million. Rapiscan’s lobbyists include Susan Carr, a former senior legislative aide to Rep. David Price, D-N.C., chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee. When Defense Daily reported on Price’s appropriations bill last winter, the publication noted “Price likes the budget for its emphasis on filling gaps in aviation security, in particular the whole body imaging systems.”

So, as you stand spread-eagled with doltish TSA goons leering at your body, or, if you take the sexual-assault pat-down option to avoid being seen naked by government bureaucrats, think of David Price, who has at least another two years to think of ideas like this.

The Anarchist Recruitment Message

The anarchists met in Carrboro over the weekend. A pre-convention piece in the Duke Chronicle concluded with this message from Lydia Theia, a coordinator of the book fair.

The day will conclude with a dance-party fundraiser for the Prison Books Collective, a Chapel Hill-based prison-abolitionist project that sends free literature to inmates.

And in Theia’s opinion, Duke students shouldn’t be intimidated: “People are less inhibited and friendlier at anarchist parties, and they’re a lot safer because people are less likely to steal your s*** if they think you’re comrades.”

Who knew?

$679,000 the State Can Save Today

The Herald-Sun is reporting on a vote scheduled for today by the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund. If approved, the project under consideration would provide $679,000 in state funds for 100+acres of land in eastern Durham County. The goal, according to the story, is to keep the land near Falls Lake as a park area.

Then there’s this jarring piece of information (emphasis is mine):

The story notes that the Fund’s executive director, Richard Rogers, laments that there are “$13 million worth of projects and $3 million to spend on those.”

With the state facing a nearly $4 billion gap between what it expects to collect in revenue and what it wants to spend, reasonable people should be able to agree the Fund’s expenditures should be stopped immediately. This type of spending is a “want” and not a “need.”