Thread: Comments on Illegal Immigration By Kennedy's Challenger

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Sat, Aug 5, 2006

This is pretty long, but below in bold are his comments on illegal immigration.
NEWS

http://www.capenews.net/story.php?id=10522

Posted: Aug 4, 2006
GOP’s Ken Chase Seeks To Hold Kennedy Accountable For ‘Failures’

By MICHAEL C. BAILEY
When Kenneth G. Chase looks at US Senator Edward M. Kennedy, he sees a man with power and influence. More importantly, Mr. Chase sees a man who he thinks has not done as much with it as he could have.
“There are many areas over the last 44 years where Ted Kennedy has come up dreadfully short in his performance,” said the Belmont Republican, who hopes to challenge Mr. Kennedy this fall. “I’m here to address certain failures on his part.”
Mr. Chase, an entrepreneur who has worked on campaigns for the past three Massachusetts governors, admitted that he is facing an uphill battle, not so much from Mr. Kennedy but rather from a system set up to favor incumbents.
“People like Ted Kennedy and other Democratic leaders will never [leave office] of their own volition. They’ve so rigged the system” through gerrymandered districts, Mr. Chase said, “that they can never be beaten at the ballot box.”
Mr. Chase said he would avoid that trap by embracing mandatory two-term limits on service in the Senate. “Why embrace something that is by definition undemocratic like term limits?” he said. “Because if term limits are enacted and [legislators] know their term is up, and their choices are doing the bidding of special interest groups and getting their money or doing the bidding of the populace in general, they will most likely tell the special interest groups to take a hike.”
Senator Humpty Dumpty?
Throughout his interview, conducted in his Belmont home, Mr. Chase repeatedly criticized Mr. Kennedy for failing to use his considerable power to positively impact the lives of his constituents, even the nation as a whole.
“My job is to make the argument in a cogent and articulate way that Ted Kennedy may be powerful, but not powerful enough,” Mr. Chase said. “If he’s so powerful, then why are we at war? Why is the Central Artery project becoming our white elephant in the room? Why [is Massachusetts] losing 42,000 citizens a year? Why are our property values falling?”
Mr. Chase listed numerous problems that have “exploded” in Massachusetts during Mr. Kennedy’s time in office, from rising drug abuse to homelessness to violent crime, and said Mr. Kennedy has failed to effectively address any of those issues, despite his position in the Senate.
“If that’s your definition of powerful, then I need a new dictionary,” he said. “We need to expose the man for what he is. We’ve seen his best game for 44 years and nothing will improve Ted Kennedy…he’s a tired, failed shell of a politician, and I expect [the Boston Globe] will just prop him up like Humpty Dumpty.”
“It’s time to stop hiding behind your friends at the Boston Globe…tell your media friends and spin department to stand down,” Mr. Scott continued, throwing down the gauntlet and challenging Mr. Kennedy to a series of 10 debates. “If he’s so proud of who he is, I would think he would welcome a knock-down, drag-out fight in front of the people of Massachusetts.”
Despite his tough talk, Mr. Chase insisted he was challenging the senator’s record and policies, not the man himself. “I’m not about attacking Ted Kennedy on a personal level. I wish him well,” he said, “and I’m not demanding perfection. Ted Kennedy has had some beneficial effect…but he has also come up dreadfully short.”
Kennedy’s Legacy Of Inaction
Mr. Chase said some of the most damning evidence of Mr. Kennedy’s legacy of inaction may be seen in the country’s energy policy. “The greatest act of legislative malfeasance is our government’s inability to free us from Middle Eastern oil,” he said, singling out Mr. Kennedy, “already a senior senator” during the energy crisis in the early 1970s, for failing to heed the warning signs and take action.
According to Mr. Chase, the 1973 OAPEC (Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil embargo gave Congress more than sufficient cause to embrace initiatives such as President Richard M. Nixon’s “Project Independence,” which sought to make the US energy independent by 1980.
Mr. Chase said that the country’s failure to achieve independence in the 1970s eventually led to the Gulf War, “when we went into Kuwait in 1991 for oil. That led to the US establishing military bases in Saudi Arabia, and those bases gave Osama Bin Laden his raison d’être, and he acted upon his declaration of war with 9/11.”
While he admits the credibility of the intelligence that led to the current war in the Middle East is subject to debate, Mr. Chase said, “There would have been no Middle East conflicts if Ted Kennedy understood the process and took the steps to free us from Middle Eastern oil when he had the chance…I am calling upon Ted Kennedy to apologize to all the parents who have lost children in the Middle East.”
He added, “The prospect of Iran turning off its oil spigot could drive a barrel of oil up over $100 a barrel overnight…and that’s the price we pay for failed leadership.”
Mr. Chase said the US needed to “learn from our friends in France and Japan” and explore the latest in nuclear energy technology, which provides both counties with the bulk of their electricity. “They didn’t have sufficient oil reserves on their own land, so their options were to import foreign oil or challenge their scientists to come up with safe nuclear power,” he said. “We must do the same.”
In addition to nuclear energy, Mr. Chase said the US should explore wind energy, adding that he would “gladly pay the penalty of losing votes on Cape Cod by embracing Cape Wind,” the controversial offshore wind farm project sited for Nantucket Sound. “It’s an important step on the path to energy independence.”
Mr. Chase To Mr. Scott: Drop Out
Mr. Chase softened his words, to a degree, when speaking about his opponent in the primaries, Kevin P. Scott.
“I don’t know much about Kevin Scott,” he said. “I don’t know what he stands for.”
Mr. Chase said he first met his initial opponent at the Massachusetts Republican State Convention, where Mr. Chase took 54 percent of the delegates to Mr. Scott’s 15 percent. “I think the reason I never crossed paths with Kevin Scott before is because he was a Democratic activist,” Mr. Chase said, adding that his big win at the state convention was due to “Republicans probably looking for a Republican to run, not a lifelong Democrat.”
“We’re not going to beat Ted Kennedy with someone who likes what Ted Kennedy has done. We need an opposing point of view,” he continued. “If I’m going to raise the money I need to beat Ted Kennedy, it would be beneficial if Kevin Scott dropped out and honored the will of the Republicans.”
Mr. Chase conceded that the ideological schism that exists between himself and Mr. Scott was not a beneficial element of modern politics, but said the right is simply responding to the “tactics” of the left.
“The left started this fight…we did not start this separation,” he said. “The people on the left started it, and the right responded. And we responded later, so the fault is not with Republicans or conservatives.”
The examples Mr. Chase cited ranged from the relatively minor, such as “the left’s portrayal of Christopher Columbus as rapacious, as a killer, as a conqueror,” or attempts to remove the phrase “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, to more serious issues such as abortion and “G-A-Y marriage.”
According to Mr. Chase, the left’s efforts to push “that marriage” into law through a court action and, subsequently, quash efforts to allow a public vote on the matter are “perfect examples of the left’s plot to evade democracy.”
“If they embrace the process, they will have to be truthful and honest, and talk about what they stand for,” Mr. Chase continued. “The left has to reduce everything to a PR campaign, and when you reduce issues to a PR campaign, what goes out the window are the facts, is the truth. I say, let’s put this on the table honestly, warts and all. Let’s talk about the merits of each and every issue.”
“You should not embrace democracy only when you think you will win,” he said.
Mr. Chase said the left’s other favored tactic when tackling tough issues is to “demonize” its opponents. As an example, Mr. Chase said the left “does everyone a disservice by demonizing and vilifying pro-lifers as intolerant, anti-woman, religious fanatics” instead of acknowledging that there is a “wide spectrum of opinions among the right.
“Their way is fundamentally mean-spirited and dishonest…and they got what they deserved in ’04” when President George W. Bush won his bid for re-election, Mr. Chase said. “People are hip and they’re not buying what the left is selling.”
A Hands-Off Approach?
While Mr. Chase touched on several issues he hopes to address if elected, he listed a number of issues he believed should stay off the Senate floor entirely.
Same-sex marriage is one such topic. “I believe that is a matter best handled by state legislators,” he said, adding he would “prefer not” to deal with it as a US Senator.
He added, “The matter is best decided by the people, not by four Cambridge Democrats on the [Supreme Judicial Court]…it ought to be put to a vote.”
Mr. Chase said he personally supported “traditional marriage” between one man and one woman and “would need to see more” on the subject of same-sex civil unions before taking a stand one way or the other. “At this point, I don’t see the need for that,” he said. “There are other ways to address the issue.”
The war in the Middle East is also a “hands-off” topic for Mr. Chase, who stated that decisions regarding troop withdrawal “is not a political issue, nor should it be. It is a military issue…the Commander-in-Chief will not decide when to bring our troops home, but the military leaders will.”
“We do a disrespect to the president if we imply that his number one goal or his greatest desire is not to get the troops home,” he said, “but setting arbitrarily a date for the troops to come home is impractical.”
“Our priority is the safety of our troops and accomplishing our mission with honor,” Mr. Chase said. “The war was easily avoidable, but it is wrong and cowardly for politicians who voted for the war to wantonly criticize the president and our troops and the decisions they make on the ground…an opportunistic politician is nothing to admire.”
On the flip side, Mr. Chase said illegal immigration is one of the issues lawmakers need to tackle hard. “We have to enforce our laws” within US borders and beyond, he said, chastising Mexican President Vincente Fox Quesada for effectively “exporting his country’s poverty to our nation” by not cracking down on his citizens who emigrate illegally.
“He must keep his people within his borders and respect ours,” Mr. Chase said. “We should not be punished financially by Mexico allowing its people in our country illegally. Mr. Chase agreed that the prospect of trying to locate “23 million illegal immigrants” is a logistical challenge, but supported “the orderly and humane repatriation of illegal aliens” over amnesty.
“Amnesty is wrong and insulting,” he said, “and it’s mean-spirited to give 23 million illegals citizenship when so many other people are following the proper process. It’s insulting and a slap in the face to those playing by the rules…everyone who wants to come here should do what my wife (a native of Spain) and mother did: wait in line, fill out the paperwork, and come in when we let them in.”
“It would be a beautiful thing if we had leaders who could unite people…but almost like Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy drives a wedge between people,” Mr. Chase said. “The greatest thing that could happen to Massachusetts is sending a Republican senator to work with the majority party.”
For more information about Mr. Chase and his campaign, visit his official web site at chaseforsenate.com.

Could you imagine someone actually defeating Senator Kennedy? I'd like to have that dream tonight. The man seems untouchable and why? Has he done that much for the people of MA? Anyone here from that state?

Could you imagine someone actually defeating Senator Kennedy?

I would like to see it happen! He and McCain and several others need to sit down...be quiet...and go home! For Good!
They should not be allowed to remain in office that long. There should be limits so that their damage can be ...hopefully, reduced!

No Jean he had not done much for the people of MA. He uses his power, money and influence of the Kennedy name to buy his seat at every election. He bullies any challengers at every election that is how he has stayed in his Senate seat so long. I do believe that he has insulted enough MA voters this time with his stance on illegal aliens that he has alienated many voters in his party who say they will not vote for him this election. He has alienated the very people he says he represents in this state and they are angry. This years election should be very interesting.

I would love to see Teddy bested at the polls. I heard a woman on tv last night who is running against Murtha, she sounded really good, didn't catch her name though!

Originally Posted by nittygritty

I would love to see Teddy bested at the polls. I heard a woman on tv last night who is running against Murtha, she sounded really good, didn't catch her name though!

Diana Irey.

http://www.irey.com/

Her take on immigration:

Immigration

Monday, July 17, 2006

America is a land built by immigrants, and it would deny reality to suggest otherwise. Other than those who can trace their lineage back to the indigenous peoples of North America, every single one of us Americans has a family tree that eventually goes back to some foreign nation -- and, therefore, each of us must be grateful that America long has had an open door to welcome immigrants from far-off lands.

But while we recognize and appreciate the contributions made by those who have come to America from foreign lands, we also must recognize that in the 21st century, we must take a long, hard look at dealing with what has become an unprecedented crisis -- the millions of illegal immigrants who have slipped across our borders, or overstayed their visas, and who now maintain residence beyond the reach of the authorities.

In the opening years of the 21st century, immigration control policy is inextricably intertwined with homeland security policy.

No nation can long survive that cannot -- or will not -- protect its borders. In a world where the greatest threats to our security come not from green-suited armies on distant battlefields, nor even from nuclear missiles launched from other continents -- but instead from chemical or biological or even nuclear weapons smuggled in across a border by a few terrorists bent on killing innocent Americans -- immigration control is no longer a simple question of who gets to enjoy the bounty of America; it is now, in a very real sense, a matter of life and death.

Providing for the security of the American homeland must be the federal government's top priority -- and securing our borders is an essential element of that task. Far too many people find it far too easy in far too many places to cross our borders under cover of night. We must end this flow of illegals immediately.

We must also eliminate incentives to illegal immigration, including so-called "birthright citizenship." We're the only industrialized country in the world that rewards illegals by making their children lawful citizens. This just makes no sense at all.

Think about it: When a burglar breaks into your home at night, your proper response is not to invite him to sit down to dinner; it is to call the authorities, if need be, to remove him. Why should we treat illegal immigrants any differently?

But it's not simply a matter of propriety; "birthright citizenship" ties our hands by preventing us from returning illegals to their country of origin, because we don't break up the families of children who have the rights of US citizens.

I do not support amnesty for those currently in our country illegally. Whatever you call it -- "amnesty," "a path to citizenship," or anything else -- a policy that allows people who are here because they broke our laws is a policy that will encourage more people to come here in violation of our laws.

We must also end the senseless and expensive process known as "release and return" -- that is, arresting illegal aliens for other offenses, only to return them to the street instead of deporting them. The lack of state-federal cooperation in prosecutions of immigration violations is indefensible, and our local police must be authorized to enforce the immigration laws, not ignore them.