April 29, 2010

The Conventional Wisdom

 Dan Froomkin writes:
Former President Bill Clinton enthusiastically weighed into the blistering national debate on immigration today with a resounding assertion that America needs more immigrants -- not fewer -- to ensure its long-term fiscal future. ...

And looking at the overall budget numbers, comparing money in to money out, "I don't think there's any alternative for us but increasing immigration," he said. "I just don't see any palatable way out of this unless that's part of the strategy."

Which is why California, the state with the highest proportion of immigrants and children of immigrants, is in such great fiscal shape compared to, say, North Dakota.

44 comments:

  1. Maybe he was really thinking of his longterm sexual future.

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  2. This is sort of like having someone in your household run up huge credit card bills and then proclaim that the only way to deal with the resulting financial mess is to turn part of your home into a boarding house. I'd sooner have the USA default on its debts and see the entire financial system of the world riven to its foundations than accept this solution. As money is only a way of keeping score and the true wealth of the world resides in land, people, machinery and ideas, I don't even think the real economy would suffer much.

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  3. A subtext of the Arizona dispute could be that illegal immigrants aren't bad for the federal government, but are a burden on state and local government, and the Constitution doesn't address what a state's rights are when being hurt by the federal government's failure to enforce its laws.

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  4. Concerned Netizen4/29/10, 1:43 PM

    You sound as if you are getting a bit burned out.

    Of course Clinton would say that: it's predictable.

    I'm surprised you haven't had more to say about the Arizona law. Plus the Republican candidate for governor in Alabama is calling for an English only law.

    Meanwhile, Tea Partiers are going to have an anti-Gavin Newsome rally in California, to protest his proposed boycott of Arizona!

    Things are looking up and you are still whining about the same old stuff.

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  5. Really Bill? Does that mean you're enthusiastic about sending your kids and grandkids to school with poor recent immigrants from south of the border?

    Went through Chappaqua New York recently. It doesn't make sense how someone who so enthusiastically supports more immigration would live there and not, say in Jackson Heights, Queens.

    So Bill, or any other elitist who supports more immigration: Put your money where your mouth is or shut it.

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  6. Here's another opinion from one of our nation's great leaders:

    "We don't have doctors, and we're not allowing people who want to come here and be doctors to come here," the mayor said. "This is just craziness."

    "People are developing new drugs in India, rather than here. They're going to win the next Nobel Prize in China or in Europe, not here. If we want to have a future, we need to have more immigrants here."


    Of course. Doctors and potential Nobel laureates are EXACTLY the kind of immigrants the Arizona law targets. /sarcasm

    Have you noticed how quickly a proposal to identify the undocumented immigrants in one state has escalated (at least in the minds of its opponents) into not only a threat to every legal immigrant or former immigrant in the US, but also a fullscale frontal assault on the very idea of immigration itself?

    They may end up with more of a discussion on the issue than they can handle. Perhaps that's why Obama and others are trying to back down now.

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  7. An article from the Wall St. Journal about small business and fed govt contracts
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704671904575194172673354864.html
    It discusses small business set-asides, but nothing on other set-asides. Of the two business owners profiled, one, Lebolo, seen here with the yellow pocket ribbon
    http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/view?q=lebolo&uname=ABCCFL&psc=G&filter=1#slideshow/5322759614854427170

    is listed as affirmative action contractor ('disadvantaged business enterprise')
    https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=c3d6a5705ab22efb356dafe1c7fb064e&tab=ivl&tabmode=list

    but no mention of this in the text, typical for the Age of the Fine Print. Thanks WSJ for keeping us informed.

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  8. and karl rove is against arizona's new law, almost certainly because it would remove "natural republicans" from the US. natural republicans. that's what he seriously thinks these border jumpers are.

    between karl rove and bill clinton, i simply have to say:

    these people are fucking crazy.

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  9. Immigration or invasion?

    invasion

    Pronunciation: \in-ˈvā-zhən\
    Function: noun

    Main Entry: in·va·sion
    Etymology: Middle English invasioune, from Anglo-French invasion, from Late Latin invasion-, invasio, from Latin invadere to invade
    Date: 15th century

    1 : an act of invading; especially : incursion of an army for conquest or plunder
    2 : the incoming or spread of something usually hurtful

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  10. And looking at the overall budget numbers, comparing money in to money out, "I don't think there's any alternative for us but increasing immigration," he said.


    Because .... reducing the "money out" is just impossible?

    But this is irrational nonsense in any case. The majority of Americans consume more in government services than they pay in taxes. If you really want to balance the books via immigration, increasing the size of the net-consumers group is not going to do it. And it is that group which the Dems (and Republicans) are committed to increasing.

    If Clinton and the rest of these clowns believed their own aguments, they'd be clamoring to kick out the illegals and restrict future low-skill and low-IQ immigration.

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  11. Good rertort Steve. That's Clinton though. He'll try to point out the plus side of something, even if he has to disregard the facts.

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  12. Of course Clinton is really talking about the future of the Democratic party. With every election the party loses more white voters. Without Hispanics, the Democrats have no future. I wish the Republicans were smart enough to realize this. Unfortunately the GOP seems set on promoting its own demise by fooling itself into believing that Hispanics are somehow natural Republicans.

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  13. Yes Hispanics are just like the Irish, Italians, and Jews circa 1900, but with salsa.

    [Do these people actually believe their own tripe? I'd say no just by looking at their zip codes.]

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  14. Viewing the matter from Canada, I don't understand why the new Arizona law is even controversial. What is wrong with arresting people who are illegal aliens? I don't get it. I doubt there is any other country in the world that just throws open its borders and lets anyone in. Certainly not another developed country.

    Do the people criticizing the law just want to let in everyone who comes along? You would be overrun. If the first world countries opened their borders and invited the world, it would have the effect of making the entire planet 3rd world. It would be like letting everyone into the lifeboat, which would overload it and cause everyone to drown.


    At least now there are still pockets of first-worldness, and the hope that somehow we can help the other countries to become first world too.

    If hoards of poor Mexicans and Central Americans bleed the US dry they will move on to Canada, and do the same thing here. The Canadian government is much to feeble and ineffectual to stop it from happening. We are just lucky that we don't have a border with Mexico.

    I didn't think the US was so wimpy that they would just let themselves be invaded. But I suppose political correctness rule all over the developed world.

    I wonder what China would do if a bunch of Mexican snuck in and expected free schools and health care. They would probably line them up and shoot them. Why don't the SWPLs criticize China for not opening its borders to North Koreans or Mongolians?

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  15. Which is why our elites are working hard to make sure that only the hardest working, wealthiest, brightest immigratns get in.

    O, waith.

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  16. AK Diamond Mine4/29/10, 4:04 PM

    Yes and pair up these comments from Clinton with the asinine comments from Mayor Bloomberg: "The Immigrant Invasion Is Still Too Small!"

    Why doesn't anyone call these bastards out as the lying marxist globalist transnationalist traitors that they are?

    It's the NEW MARXISM every time with these guys. Both parties. It's a fusion of crony capitalism and wefare state socialism. Either way a key component of their attack is to overwhelm (crack) the culture with immigrant aliens.

    FYI The actions of George W. Bush were globalist/socialist to the core.

    FYI Mussolini was a damn leftist. So was Hitler. Nazi is an abbreviation for National SOCIALIST. We are educated in the USA to believe that Communists are far left and Nazis are far right on the political spectrum. The truth is that they are both leftist ideologies. The difference between the two is/was always an internecine fued betweed the internationalists and the nationalists. But they always agreed on the fundamental components of wealth redistribution, collectivism, and the annihilation of God & liberty.

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  17. "these people are fucking crazy."

    No, they are not crazy. They are crypto Marxists. Karl Rove is a New World Order goon.

    Wake up, please. I am tired of honest people who are unable to comprehend the dishonest personality. The hopelessly naive person is more of a danger to society than the criminal. There is such thing as "honest to a fault". Stop trusting that these people are good inside and therefore must be "crazy". They are not crazy.

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  18. People need to force Clinton and anyone else espousing this position to address their arguments in regards to Japan.

    I am tired of all these guys saying we need immigrants to counteract the fact we are not producing 2.1 kids per woman. Japan is not producing 2.1 kids per woman and yet they are not taking in immigrants.

    Japan is not exactly a basket case. Sure they had the "lost" decade, but would anyone argue that Japan is not economically strong? They have low crime, a highly educated population and continue to lead the world in major industries like robotics and automobile manufacturing. I would guess their quality of life is quite high too.

    So I wish Clinton and company would explain why Japan is not forced to take in immigrants to save itself, but the USA apparently must.

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  19. "I'm surprised you haven't had more to say about the Arizona law. Plus the Republican candidate for governor in Alabama is calling for an English only law."

    Just thought I'd make some clarifications about this. He's not proposing "english only" for anything other than driver's license test. His proposal has nothing of substance to it, it's just an effort to get cheap attention since Tim James has A. never held public office, is basically running off his Daddy's name B. isn't currently the front-runner of the republican race. In fact, Tim James runs a construction company that is notorious for employing mainly illegals. That guy is a joke.
    The current Republican front-runner, Bradley Byrne, is a far better candidate than James.

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  20. well, personally i'm not clear on how either bill clinton, or karl rove, is not simply bonkers insane. one of them has to be completely nuts and fully detached from reality. they take contradictory positions about what happens when 30 million short fat brown people jump the border.

    they both think an open border is awesome, but for conflicting reasons.

    bloomberg makes the most sense, and he makes no sense - so how nonsensical are clinton and rove? at minimum, bloomberg sticks to the default jewish usurper position. what are clinton and rove talking about? stuff that makes no sense from any perspective. they both appear to be objectively wrong in their arguments. at least the jewish usurper position is well thought out and is carefully crafted to benefit the intended group.

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  21. The Clintons, Bushes, McCains, Obamas, Michael Steeles, Dick Armeys are all the same. All open borders, invite the world sell outs. They don't care about you or care about this country.

    I say we get behind the Tea Party. That's how we win back our country.

    By the way, I love how scared the media and the DC politicians are of the Tea Party protesters. It shows that we have a viable movement in our hands and we should use it to clean house and bring in sane policies on spending, trade, and immigration.

    Any of you people that lives in Kentucky needs to vote for Rand Paul, ie Ron Paul's son. Any of you Arizonans, I want you to vote for my man JD Hayworth. THe rest of us, if we have any spare cash, should donate to ALIPAC or the Minutemen. Those are the real patriots that care about this country.

    In the UK, the Tory Party is looking like it'll win the parliament. One of their key planks is to reduce immigration by 80% by putting a cap of 40,000 net migration a year. I think if the British can cut immigration, we can do so here in America. We just need to get behind the right leaders and throw the corrupt RINO establishmentarians and Democrats out of office.

    By the way, Clinton's daughter Chelsea is marrying a banker at Goldman Sachs, whose father was busted for political fraud some years back. Hillary is Secretary of State. Bill himself has made millions in speaker fees since he left DC. Say what you want about those Clintons, but they know how to do well for themselves.

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  22. Studies find Latino toddlers' gap in cognitive growth

    By Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations | 20 October 2009

    BERKELEY — Two new studies led by University of California, Berkeley, researchers find that immigrant Latina mothers, who typically live in poor neighborhoods, give birth to healthy babies, but their toddlers start to lag behind middle-class white children in basic language and cognitive skills by the age of 2 or 3.

    The findings, based on a nationwide tracking study of 8,114 infants born in 2001, appear this week in the Maternal and Child Health Journal, and a companion report will be published this winter in the medical journal Pediatrics. The researchers are based at UC Berkeley's Institute of Human Development, UCLA's School of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

    Basic cognition proficiencies for infants at 9 to 15 months of age - such as comprehending their mother's speech and beginning to use their own words and gestures -were found to be statistically equal between Latino and white children, said Fuller. But by 24- to 36-months of age, Mexican-American toddlers lag their white counterparts by up to a half-year in terms of word comprehension, speaking with varying complexity and working with their mothers on simple learning tasks as assessed in English or Spanish, the researchers found.

    By 2025, three in 10 children in the United States will be of Latino descent, according to a report issued in May by the Pew Hispanic Center. Just under half of all Latino children immigrated to the United States or were born here.

    I'll parrot John Derbyshire and proclaim, "We Are Doomed".

    Emigration anyone?

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  23. "at minimum, bloomberg sticks to the default jewish usurper position. what are clinton and rove talking about?"

    They are taking the Scots-Irish and Norwegian usurper positions, respectively.

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  24. Of course it'll work because as we all know, immigrants never get old and sick

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  25. "Anonymous said...

    Japan is not exactly a basket case. Sure they had the "lost" decade, but would anyone argue that Japan is not economically strong?"

    The "lost decade" which has now gone on for nearly two decades is a myth promulgated by Wall Street. What they mean by the term is that, in terms of making money off the japanese economy, it was lost to THEM - to Wall Street. Japan seems to have done just fine. In 1990, Toyota was the largest automotive company in Japan. Today, it is the largest automotive company in the world - far bigger than the big three combined.

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  26. Captain Jack Aubrey4/29/10, 10:52 PM

    Of course it'll work because as we all know, immigrants never get old and sick

    They get old and sick, of course - old and sick and diabetic. But at the age of 55 rather than 70.

    Just in case people need a reminder: 27% of Californians are immigrants.

    Just in case anyone needs a reminder: 27% of Califinorians are immigrants.

    Oh, and in case anyone needs a reminder: 27% of Californians are immigrants.

    What bothers me is not the fact that Bush, Pelosi, Obama, Clinton, Norquist, Armey and Rove are all betraying their country, but that so many Americans still listen to them, and to politicians like them.

    Think about it: until yesterday's "gaffe," there was actually a chance that Labour was going to win next week's election. I mean, really...

    So I guess this is why they've been letting our public schools get so crappy (while sending their children elsewhere): so that we won't be smart enough to catch on.

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  27. 1) If we need more doctors, why not train AMERICAN, English-speakers to be our doctors, instead of bringing in a bunch of foreigners, who are hard to understand, and may very well not be able to fully understand you. Practicing medicine IS a job Americans are willing to do.

    2) As long as we have an unlimited and ever-renewing supply of unskilled immigrants willing to work for $5 an hour without benefits, we will always have a shortage of jobs that pay a living wage plus benefits. The employer thinks that $15 an hour is too much to pay anybody for anything, since he could hire three Mexicans for that kind of money.

    3) With open borders, the rich get richer, and the working class gets poorer. If you are a licensed professional, additional people, even if poor, mean additional work for you at some point, as well as cheap nannies, gardeners, and maids to make your personal life more comfortable. This is why people like Clinton can't see the problem. To Clinton, the people who want his housekeeper to go back to Mexico are nothing but racist haters. Of course she doesn't live in Chappaqua, or send her kids to school there. Her gangbanger sons are committing crimes, making noise, and sucking up social services in somebody else's neighborhood.

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  28. If we need more people for the future, how come Bill only had one child? Is it like whites are too busy having fun and gaining power to have kids?

    Therefore, we need to bring in the suckers from the third world to do all the dirty work?
    Well, the immigrants might work hard but their kids will be on welfare. So, we then have to bring in more immigrants who will work hard.. but their kids will be on welfare. So, we then have to bring in more immigrants who will work hard.... but their kids will be on welfare. So, we then have to...
    by golly, it never ends.

    Democrats want immigrants to come here and work hard but then offer disincentives to work to the children of immigrants.
    Many immigrants may indeed be dazzled by American riches and opportunities--even working at menial jobs--, but their kids don't feel the same razzle dazzle since they grow up in the US with all the freebies promised to them by Democrats like Clinton.

    I might be inclined to agree with Clinton on one condition: we end all black immigration. I see blacks as the #1 problem of America. If whites won't have kids, it's better to have non-black immigrants serve as buffer to blacks.

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  29. Captain Jack Aubrey4/30/10, 12:40 AM

    Democrats want immigrants to come here and work hard but then offer disincentives to work to the children of immigrants.

    "Democrats" feel more contempt for non-professional whites who go to work every day than they do for people who sit on their butts and collect welfare, black, white, or Hispanic. Gordon Brown is a good example of this, if a non-American one.

    You could say it's because non-professional whites have abandoned the Democrats, but that isn't entirely true and, in fact, it was the Democrats who first abandoned them.

    It's really one of those remarkable things: a political party showing more contempt for those who work than for those who don't.

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  30. Maybe he was really thinking of his longterm sexual future.

    I think your comment slipped into the realms of fantasy at the "maybe he was really thinking" stage.

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  31. But they always agreed on the fundamental components of wealth redistribution, collectivism, and the annihilation of God & liberty.

    Except that the nazis didnt ban the church the way the commies did and pre-1939 the economic position of the average German wasnt bad at all, certainly compared to soviet citizens. But apart from that...

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  32. In the UK, the Tory Party is looking like it'll win the parliament. One of their key planks is to reduce immigration by 80% by putting a cap of 40,000 net migration a year.

    I fear just as most mainstream republicans are RINOs, most mainstream tories are TINOs.

    I think the cap is based on net immigration. So if 100,000 white Brits leave (and lots do every year) that frees up 140,000 slots for more vibrant incomers. OK it might slow down the rate of race-replacement. But even with zero net immigration, white British replacement is entrained.

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  33. If the first world countries opened their borders and invited the world, it would have the effect of making the entire planet 3rd world. It would be like letting everyone into the lifeboat, which would overload it and cause everyone to drown.

    Thank you, Garrett Hardin:

    Living on s Lifeboat.

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  34. It's really one of those remarkable things: a political party showing more contempt for those who work than for those who don't.

    Oh, but it's so much deeper than that.

    You are barely even scratching the surface of their monstrous nihilism.

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  35. I wonder what China would do if a bunch of Mexican snuck in and expected free schools and health care.

    Exactly. They have no hesitation regarding deporting North Koreans (who are about the only people who would risk their lives to immigrate to China). And those amount to only a tiny percentage of illegal immigrants in the US, both in terms of percentage and hard numbers.

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  36. Here is some people who disagree:
    http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/30/arizona.hispanics.immigration/index.html

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  37. well, personally i'm not clear on how either bill clinton, or karl rove, is not simply bonkers insane.

    I think the problem arises from the idea that insane is not normal. Generally, no, insane is not normal, but for whites, yes, racially insane most certainly is normal. For whites, racial sanity is abnormal.

    Give me enough cross-examination time with the whites we complain about and I could prove it.

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  38. They are taking the Scots-Irish and Norwegian usurper positions, respectively.

    No, Jody has a point; non-gentiles aren't racially insane.

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  39. "No, Jody has a point; non-gentiles aren't racially insane."

    Here is David Frum sticking up for Arizona's new anti-illegal immigration law. Would he be labeled as "racially insane" too in your world?

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  40. I think the cap is based on net immigration. So if 100,000 white Brits leave (and lots do every year) that frees up 140,000 slots for more vibrant incomers. OK it might slow down the rate of race-replacement. But even with zero net immigration, white British replacement is entrained.

    Lots of white British leave to work and vacation, but many return back. I'm not sure about the exact level of long term net migration, but I would bet it'd be low for a first world country. I would also add that the British will be under pressure to take in Eastern European migrants from the EU, so that'll squeeze out the prolifically breeding Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.

    If you look at the ethnic minority population in Britain, it only started to boom in numbers once Blair took power in 1997 and opened up the immigration floodgates. There was a lot of labor immigration until the late 1960s and family reunification for those immigrants, but otherwise things were relatively sane for a while. Before, the demographic balance was reasonably stable.

    The Tories, for all their flaws, are not the Republican party. They do not promote amnesty and they do not cheer long term demographic transformation. I've been watching the British elections and it suprises me how often the Tories talk about legal immigration and the problems it causes. When was the last time a national Republican talked about that?

    Remember a couple days ago when Labor PM Gordon Brown called a woman bigoted for questioning the impact of migrants on the British social and economic system, but then apologized? In Britain, the woman is being applauded for calling attention to a serious problem. In America, Democrats and Republicans would've tarred her alive for her views. Really dude, you gotta admit that UK Tories are much better on the immigration issue.

    Besides, the UK Tories would cut net migration by 80%! That's really great in this type of environment. I wish Mitt Romney or Palin suggested an 80% cut in immigration. I'd be thrilled to hear something as common sense as that.

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  41. Re.: Frum. It's a devil's advocate column. Here's the core:

    "Arizona’s answer is not perfect, but it is not unreasonable either—and should jerk the national conscience to attention."

    I.e., as long as the people and their representatives in Congress won't do amnesty, then imperfect horrors like Arizona's law will be the only reasonable alternative. The column is clever pro-amnesty propaganda. "Jerk the national conscience to attention."

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  42. "Really Bill? Does that mean you're enthusiastic about sending your kids and grandkids to school with poor recent immigrants from south of the border?"

    Well, we know the answer to that one, don't we?

    Bill & Hill sent their precious daughter to private school when they lived in DC in the White House, as do Barry & Michelle. When college time rolled around did the mend-it-don't-end-it Clintons embrace affirmative action and yield their precious daughter's spot at Stanford to some "deserving" black kid with SAT's 200 points lower than Chelsea's?

    Why, no, now that you mention it!

    What is happening here is that attending the best schools and colleges is going to be more and more an issue of what your contacts and financial resources are.

    In the near future, it will be impossible for a Bill Clinton, that is a sharp kid from working class white America, to get ahead.

    Once they've screwed things up sufficiently here in the USA, they'll embark to other countries where they will have taken out dual citizenship. They are having none of coping with their own failures.

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  43. The Tories, for all their flaws, are not the Republican party. They do not promote amnesty and they do not cheer long term demographic transformation.

    Sure, they do. David Cameron is cheerily replacing British Tory candidates with foreigners.

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