As the rhetoric over illegal immigration heats up, so-called “sanctuary cities” — municipalities that refuse to strictly enforce federal immigration and deportation laws — have become the piñata du jour for Mitt Romney.
Sound Bite: “Think what kind of a message that sends to people in other countries. Here, these are these cities where you can go and they won’t enforce the law.”
Dennis Kucinich preaches on immigration, getting more worked up than I’ve seen him on YouTube videos. On top of that, he vows to cancel NAFTA and the WTO but proposes inserting himself into Mexican labor laws. He lost me there.
The very blonde Citizen Kate gets a chance to ask Bill Richardson a question — but forgets to turn on her camera. So she reports that she rode down the escalator with him, backwards, and saw up his nose; no further details at his hour. Journalism’s hard.
Josh Marshall launches into Mitt Romney for attacking Barack Obama for saying that we need more troops in Afghanistan because missile attacks on terrorists are killing too many civilians.
Sound bite: “Mitt Romney is probably the biggest phony in the 2008 presidential race… It’s also turned out that he’s remarkably ignorant of American foreign policy.”
Has Rudy Giuliani flip-flopped on the illegal immigration issue as some of his opponents are charging? Here’s a report from WMUR-TV in New Hampshire.
In a speech in South Carolina on August 14, 2007, Giuliani talks specifics about how to end illegal immigration and secure US borders.
Talkingpointsmemo.com goes for a gotcha moment with its juxtaposition of Giuliani’s current posiiton on immigration vs. comments he made at a 1996 conference.
Giuliani’s camp releases a clip of the mayor talking about illegal immigration at another conference in 1996.
Here’s Giuliani talking illegal immigration with Bill O’Reilly.
Chris Dodd calls on the White House, under its World Trade Organization authority, to ban imports of food and toys from China. Frankly, I’m surprised it took so long for someone to make this an issue.
John Edwards calls for Congress to override a threatened presidential veto of the bill that extends health insurance to uninsured children — as a stopgap until Edwards gets into office and delivers his promised universal health care.
He’s critical of George Bush for threatening that veto and I almost think he’s jealous of the White House and Karl Rove going after Hillary Clinton for her attack on Bush. What Democratic candidate wouldn’t want that attack?
At an appearance in Cedar Falls, Iowa, Senator Barack Obama talks about changing the “nature of our politics.” Doesn’t Obama’s “new politics” sound exactly like traditional liberal Democratic politics?
Sound Bite: “We’ve got to bring the American people’s voice back to the table — in every issue: on healthcare, on education, on trade, we’ve got to make sure the workers are represented, not just CEOs. We’ve got to make sure the patients are represented, and the nurses are represented, not just drug company executives.”
And here’s Obama at an AFL-CIO convention in Waterloo, Iowa.
Sound Bite: “We’ve just gone through an administration that came into office with one of its objectives to destroy the labor movement.”
As noted previously, video gamers are taking a break from their joysticks and getting political. For the inside story, go to GamePolitics.com — “Where politics and Video Games collide.” The site, part of the Entertainment Consumers Association, does a nice job covering all things political and cultural related to video games. It’s edited by Dennis McCauley, longtime video game columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, who also writes a column for the video game site Joystiq.
GamePolitics has jumped on the grassroots gamer response to the CNN/YouTube Republican debate and is now running a contest to spur more video submissions. Here’s what the gamers are saying:
Austin from Oregon says let the video game industry to regulate itself just like the movie industry.
Parents need to be responsible, says Tim.
And this dude gets in character to ask the candidates if the government should censor digital media such as the Internet and video games.
The Republican YouTube debate is on and rescheduled for Nov. 28 in Florida and it appears that Romney is the only candidate with cold feet; he has not yet committed.
The conservative bloggers who nudged their candidates to face the people at Save the Debate.com are going one step beyond the last debate, recruiting video volunteers to go to Republican events and ask the people to ask the candidates questions, jumping over any digital divide.
Bill Richardson got all tangled up at the recent gay and lesbian forum in Los Angeles when answering a question about whether homosexuality is choice or biology. Richardson said “It’s a choice.” Buzzzzz. Wrong answer, Governor.
After the forum, clarifications ensued. Richardson said he “didn’t understand the question.” He does understand damage control, however, so here’s a campaign clip featuring a gay and lesbian activist and a New Mexico government official talking about how Richardson has supported gay and lesbian issues for years.
Mitt Romney is flogging his win in the Iowa Straw Poll like a rented mule. No wonder. Despite a vigorous campaign and lots of spending, his numbers in nearly every national poll remain low. In this ad, Romney thanks Iowa voters and says he wants to “Strengthen our military. Strengthen our economy. Strengthen our families.” Oh yes, he also says he wants to “strengthen marriage.” Aren’t code words fun?
