Tancredo's Ended Bid: Milbank Tells Us Much About Milbank, Less about Tancredo

Washington Post circulation figures,
Dana Milbank readership both trend downward

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank is an angry man.

We know this because he has proposed dropping bombs on a candidate who is no longer in the presidential race. We know this because he wrote "Hasta La Vista" for the adoring masses in the Washington Post editorial room. And we know this because he wants to expel anyone whose comments on the immigration debate differ from his own.

Now, the columnist from the Washington Post has a new reason to be angry: The only people who read his columns are those looking for examples of what constitutes the "Washington mentality" or mainstream press arrogance.

Milbank doesn't disappoint in his latest offering, "Hasta La Vista", a particularly vivid example of why most people outside of the beltway don't know who Dana Milbank is.

It's opening paragraphs are paraphrased above.

From the decline of the Washington Post's readership, the trend indicates that in the future, less people in the beltway will know who Dana Milbank is.

For the six months ended March 31, The Washington Post reported a weekday circulation decline of 2.7 percent, to 751,871, compared with the corresponding period a year earlier. Sunday circulation decreased 2.4 percent, to 1,000,565.

Post executives said the company is relying slightly less on so-called third-party sales, in which newspapers sell copies in bulk at a discounted rate to outside groups that distribute the paper, usually for free. But executives did not attribute the decline to any one factor and said the figures are an improvement.

"Our numbers are not down quite so much this year compared to last year," said publisher Boisfeuillet Jones Jr.

We'd write more about the Milbank piece, but if you've read him once, you can pretty much just consult your memory and substitute "Tancredo" for anyone he disagrees with on immigration.

Suffice it to say, Tancredo will move on with his life after his unsuccessful attempt at influencing the immigration debate.

Our jury's still out on Milbank.

by Mondoreb
[image:istock]
Source: Hasta La Vista
Newspaper Circulation Continues to Decline



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Tancredo's Ad: It's Only Alarmist If It Never Happens

Another famous alarmist

Tom Tancredo's new ad has Eric Kleefield at TPM:New Tancredo Ad Depicts Fictional Terrorist Attack in disbelief: Tom Tancredo is a pandering political alarmist.

One has to wonder if the plot is taken from the hypothetical terror scenario described by Brit Hume at the first Fox News debate earlier this year, which involved terrorist attacks taking place at malls.

Tancredo may take comfort that he joins the company of a political figure, derided as an alarmist: Winston Churchill. Eric also forgets--or may be young to remember--another ad, this one involving a Democrat President, which actually depicted a mushroom cloud.

As TPM commenter, Jake D, pointed out, "You youngsters have never seen/heard of LBJ's "Daisy" ad?"

"Daisy" slipped Balloon Juice's John Cole's memory as well.

But apparently Cole, in The "24" Candidate, got so worked up after constructing a sentence with "Malkin" and "orgasm" in it, he called it a day.

Jihadists!
Open Borders!
Someone has to say it!

The sound you are hearing is the Malkin wing of the Republican party having a collective orgasm.

The short post abruptly ends, Cole having made his point that those who worry about terrorism and border security get their talking points watching from watching TV fiction.

More stories are coming from South and Central America of al-Qaida and other terror groups: raising money, building networks and planning future operations in the United States. It would seem natural to wonder where their point of entry might be.

Just last week, a few miles from Cole's state of West Virginia, police stopped a group of Central Americans for speeding. Inside their car, they found a treasure trove of blank documents ready for the user to sign: over 100 Tennessee driver's licenses, passports and social security cards.

The men refused to say where they were heading and were detained by authorities.

In John Cole's worldview, news such as this is a Republican aphrodisiac.

Tom Tancredo gives voice to the concern in the video below.


If the next terror attack in the U.S. is determined to have involved individuals crossing the southern border, what might Kleefeld and Cole's response be?

One wonders if in Cole's case, might it not be a sentence containing the words "Tancredo" and "Playboy".

by Mondoreb




Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

View From the Cheap Seats: The Second Tier--How Paul, Kucinich, Richardson, Hunter, Dodd, et al. Are Doing

Elections are colorful, whether in Turkey or the USA
The view from the cheap seats: or how the lower echelon in both parties are doing these days. The new Rasmussen Poll offers little change among the second-tier candidates of both parties.

According to the Democratic poll, the second ranks look like this.

Bill Richardson attracts 4% while Dennis Kucinich is at 2% along with Joe Biden. Chris Dodd earns 1% and Mike Gravel is below that level while 12% of Likely Democratic Primary Voters are undecided.

Meanwhile, the backbench of the Republican side look like this:

Ron Paul is at 2%, Tom Tancredo at 2% and Duncan Hunter’s support rounds up to 1%. Seventeen percent (17%) are undecided.

The front-runners ebb and flow with the times. No matter how much each candidates' spinners spin, little is likely to change, barring some unforeseen events, until the primaries. For Republicans:

For the seven days ending October 28, 2007 show that Rudy Giuliani earns 21% of the vote while Fred Thompson attracts 18%. John McCain is the favorite for 14% while Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee are tied at 12%.

The Big Three threatens to turn into the Big Two. Or maybe just the Big One.

For the seven days ending October 28, 2007, Hillary Clinton earns 44% of the vote. Barack Obama is second at 20% followed by John Edwards at 14%.

For the second tier, hope rests in someone else dropping out, raising more money than expected or picking up a powerhouse endorsement. Anything that can help build a little momentum and keep supporters flush with hope.

If Richardson, Kucinich, Biden, Dodd and Gravel pooled their poll supporters at this point, they'd ring up less than 10%--not as much as Undecided.

If Paul, Hunter and Tancredo joined forces they'd command about 6%. Of course, Mike Huckabee's recent jump to 12% would have helped. And it did: it gives them hope that they can make the jump also.

Sam Brownback dropped out and no one in the second-tier seemed to be the beneficiary.

There's a long way to go yet. The elections are still more than a year in the future. That there's that much time left is reason for the second stringers to hope all by itself.

by Mondoreb
[image:hsingy]



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Japan's Justice Minister: Friend's Friend Participated In Al-Qaeda Bali Bombing

[photo:CNN]

Japan's Justice Minister says that a friend's friend entered Japan several times and was involved in a bombing in Bali. This story presents more questions than it answers. What was known by who and when was it known, as they say in America?

The news also helps explain the tough new immigration rules Japan has put into place. Shades of Tom Tancredo! Of course, any official implementing of tough immigration measures isn't automatically branded as "xenophobic" in Japan, a homogeneous country.

More on the revelations from CNN:

Japan's justice minister said "a friend of a friend ... is a member of al Qaeda" and had entered the country several times, using various passports, an officer of the Justice Ministry told CNN.

Justice Minister Kumio Hatoyama's comments came during a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on Monday when he was explaining Japan's new, tougher immigration procedures, which will require foreigners to provide finger prints and photographs upon entering the county.

"A friend of a friend of mine is a member of al Qaeda involved in a bombing in Bali," Hatoyama said, adding the alleged member of the terrorist network had gone in and out of Japan a number of times two or three years ago.

The answer to one question was buried deep in the CNN story. The Justice Minister was admonished to choose his words wisely in the future.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said it was clear that Hatoyama did not directly know the al Qaeda member, but he urged Hatoyama before a Cabinet meeting Tuesday to be more careful in his remarks.

Japan realizes what some in the immigration debate don't: if you're going to fight terrorism at home, a good place to start would be at the borders. If you don't know if or how many al-Qaeda are in your country, it's hard to catch them when the next bomb goes off. Proponents of safer borders and better controls have been making the same point in the U.S. Japan gets it.

Open borders are an open invitation.

by Mondoreb



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Waiting for the "Racist" Shoe to Drop: Tancredo Introduces Immigrant DNA Bill

[image:cayankee]
by Mondoreb & Little Baby Ginn

Tom Tancredo introduced a bill into the House of Representatives this week that requires immigrants to submit DNA samples if they are seeking to join relatives in the U.S. This measure, already in force in France, is a sure way to verify what is being claimed by the potential immigrants: that they are related to persons already living in America.

The clock is ticking on the first branding of Tancredo as a "racist" for seeking the measure. From Politics West:

Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo wants foreigners seeking visas to join relatives in the U.S. to provide DNA samples to prove their family ties.

The Colorado congressman introduced a bill Tuesday in the House to require the tests, saying documents provided by immigrants to show they are related to U.S. citizens or permanent residents are sometimes sketchy and unreliable.

"This will help protect the integrity of our immigration system," said Tancredo, who has based his presidential campaign on curbing immigration. "It will give us one more tool to make sure that the beneficiaries of these visas are who they say they are."

Immigrants would pay for the DNA costs through visa application fees under the proposal.

Earlier this month, France's Senate passed an immigration bill that would allow consular officers to request DNA samples from immigrants wanting to join families there.

This may introduce some inconvenience into the system for the would-be immigrant. However, as anyone who was born in this country and has lost their driver's license can attest, that hoop-jumping is already in the system for the native born.

The "racist" countdown clock begins.



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