It may not be the end of the case, but a judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Miley Cyrus for posing in a picture with other teens, apparently making fun of people of Asian ancestry (mostly). It seems the plaintiffs thought people have a right not to be offended. I wonder where they got that notion?

I'm not going to defend the actions of the people in the photo from criticism. Actually, I criticize their actions. Making fun of entire groups of people for aspects of their appearance that they were born with is stupid and can be downright cruel.  Plus, I happen to think "Asian" eyes are beautiful. But this is a freedom of speech issue. Check out the blog entry and the comments that follow.

There's an update to the case of Larry Lopez, small-time socialist illegal alien advocate accused of vote fraud.  Martin Wisckol has the story in the Orange County Register.

Los Angeles prosecutors allege that Lopez registered to vote at the Boyle Heights office of Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana - and voted in Boyle Heights - while living in Santa Ana last year. Lopez heads both HML and the Mexican American Political Association.

And as if that doesn’t give you enough of a picture...

Lopez left the Democratic Party to join the Green Party in 2004.

Yeah, that was a smart move.

Lopez faces charges alleging fraudulent voter registration, fraudulent document filing, perjury and fraudulent voting. If convicted on all charges, Lopez could be sentenced to a maximum of 3 years and 8 months in state prison.

Please, please, please!

Munoz said that a rift within the Green Party sent a vengeful party member to Secretary of State Debra Bowen with the voter fraud allegations.

Hmmmm, wasn't it supposed to be because of racism?

California has formally apologized to those of Chinese ancestry or origin, as the laws, government policies, and actions (or inactions) used to discriminate against them simply for being Chinese. Corina Knoll of the Los Angeles Times has the article.

The documents Chan Share clutched as he left China were forged. It was 1939 and Asians were not allowed to immigrate to the United States. So, like many others, Share claimed he was a "paper son" and had a California-born relative whose records were lost in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

After two months of interrogation at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, Share was allowed into a country where Chinese laborers decades before him had toiled in the merciless sun to lay miles of railroad track that would connect the dots of America. Despite their hard work, he was told he could not vote, own property or even marry the person of his choice.

That last phrase is a bone to the marriage neutering advocates and doesn't quite accurately describe the situation.  We'll probably see a letter printed in the paper about it, equating the struggles of two guys today who want a marriage license together with the Chinese of the past.  Not even all straight, white, natural-born Christian American guys get to marry the "person of his choice".  The other person has to consent.  For example, if my wife didn't exist, Mary Katharine Ham might be the person of my choice.  But I probably wouldn't be her choice, so I wouldn't get to marry the person of my choice.  There are also a number of other restrictions.

The bill does not seek any financial compensation for Chinese who were mistreated or denied basic civil liberties, but its authors said they intend to ask Congress to adopt the same resolution.

Hey, why not?  Let's have the people who mostly were not involved apologize to other people who were mostly not involved, if it makes people feel better.

The legislation was co-sponsored by Assemblymen Paul Fong (D-Cupertino) and Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles). For Fong it was personal; Chan Share was his grandfather.

And now look at where Fong is.

The article goes on and one about the prevalence and continuation of racism, and yes, there was a lot wrong about how the Chinese were treated in the past.  But let's be realistic here – how would, say, folks of German descent who settled in California have fared if they moved to China back in those days?  How would they have been treated? I personally know naturalized Americans from China who are a bit racist when it comes to the associations their children have.  If racism is bad, it is bad no matter who is doing it.

The apology is part of a wave of formal regret offered by the government in recent years. In 1988, Congress apologized to Japanese Americans who during World War II were thrown into prison camps such as Manzanar. In 2008 the House passed a resolution apologizing for slavery, and the Senate followed suit last month.

Hey, you left out Obama's foreign apology tour, including apologizing for leaving tall buildings in the flight path of some Islamofascist terrorists who merely took a couple of jetliners on a joyride.

The Chinese were historically discriminated against in California.  But as a group, they are doing well.  In fact, Leftists complain that they are overrepresented in the better universities in California.  For some reason, the Chinese were able to overcome racism and succeed. So why do these same Leftists think Latinos need help?  Are they saying that the Latinos can't do things as well as the Chinese?

As for me, I think we're dealing with differences in culture and family dynamics.  I do not believe that any one of the "racial" groups is genetically superior to the others.  However, even though there are people of Asian descent who are not doing so well and Latinos who are doing very well, the successes of the former and the struggles of the latter as general groups on which the left fixates should show that the problem can't be racism, because whitey was just as racist, if not more so, against the Chinese than the Latinos.

I told you Obama's election would not reduce this nonsense.  A recent Los Angeles Times editorial insists that we will need racist policies that treat people differently solely based on their skin color.

To some Americans, it means that today, 145 years after the abolition of slavery, we can finally check race relations off the list and move our focus to the other pressing problems that face the country. Others say that's ridiculous and that, Obama or no Obama, the work of creating a truly egalitarian, nondiscriminatory society remains far from finished.

A lack of racism does not necessarily mean there will be equal outcomes.  Discrimination of some sort is necessary in every aspect of life, though I do agree it is stupid and counterproductive to discriminate against people as employees or consumers or citizens based on circumstances of their birth that have no relation to how well they fulfill their role.  Or rather, I agree with the editorial board that it is stupid and counterproductive when it comes to doing that against traditional minority groups, but where I split from the board is that it is also stupid and counterproductive to discriminate against white people.

Oh, and it is clear in reading this editorial that the board must think that the systems discussed do not discriminate against Asian Americans such as those of Chinese or Japanese ancestry.  Yeah, whitey hates the brown and black man, but not the yellow man.

Or is it that white racism isn't really a widespread, pervasive problem anymore – except when it comes from pandering Leftist who seem to think that some people just can't get along in life without assistance from them?

As many conservatives see it, we're living in a chastened, post-racial America in which discrimination has been largely dismantled, Jim Crow is dead and gaps are being narrowed.

Actually, Larry Elder points out that there is plenty of racism - by some African Americans.

More specifically, we should do away with morally troublesome policies such as affirmative action, minority set-asides and "pre-clearance" that aid minority groups at the expense of the majority, and revert, instead, to the sounder principle of colorblind justice for all.

Of course.

This page agrees that race-conscious policies such as affirmative action should be temporary -- existing only until they are no longer necessary because society's inequities have been addressed.

Outcomes will never, ever be equal.  Never.  Never.  Never.  Even in Soviet-style forced-equality, there were the connected few who had advantages over the masses.  So when is enough enough?  Notice that the race-obsessed Left, which looks at everyone as part of  balkanized groups, can never give a time frame or some hard goal that can be verified.  It is always going to be "needed" because the Left likes to have that control.

But it is naive to think we have arrived at that moment.

Oh, of course it is naïve.  Yes, only the wise editorial board and other Leftists can see what is really going on in society.

Although more blacks go to college today, and although they have more opportunity to compete for middle-class jobs, the black poverty rate in 2007 was still triple that of whites, and the black male unemployment rate today is still almost double the white male rate.

And what can government do about that?  We’ve had government program upon government program for scores of years already.  More government involvement actually seems to make it worse, or stifle true progress.

Blatant, de jure racism has given way to a murkier variant. For instance, although the intentional segregation of public schools was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, UCLA's Civil Rights Project reports that blacks and Latinos attend schools today that are more segregated than they've been in 40 years.

That’s because school attendance is almost mandated according to where people live.  What should we do?  Force people to relocate so that they will be living next to someone of a different skin color?

The disproportionate number of young black men in prison -- one in nine African American men between the ages of 20 and 34 is incarcerated -- has devastated black communities.

And there are far more men in prison than women.  So where is your editorial about that?

They are afraid  that the SCOTUS will strike down racist programs:

But it's not clear how long this conservative court will hold off. In the Austin case, the court noted ominously that "we are now a very different Nation" and hinted that a new look at the constitutional issues surrounding race might be coming.

Give me a break - ominously?  The best way to end racism is to... not be racist!

With race relations, that is?

Apparently not.  We're still getting stories like this one.

There are just too many people who make a living focusing on the "divide".  Meanwhile, the rest of us, regardless of skin color, work together, play together, and this kind of divisive thinking isn't a factor.

Dan Weikel and Shelby Grad bring us some good news in this LATimes.com blog entry.

Felony charges have been filed and an arrest warrant issued for a well-known Orange County political activist suspected of committing election and voter registration fraud, the California secretary of State's office announced Wednesday.

Investigators in the agency's election-fraud unit said Nativo ["Larry"] V. Lopez, 57, of Santa Ana leased office space in Boyle Heights and registered to vote using that address although he lived with his family in Orange County. They also say Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Assn., cast an illegal ballot in L.A. in the 2008 presidential primary.

I'm shocked.  Shocked!

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office, which is working with the secretary of State, charged Lopez with four felonies: fraudulent voter registration, fraudulent document filing, perjury and fraudulent voting. A warrant was issued for his arrest and bail was set at $10,000. The offenses carry penalties of up to three years in prison.

Oh please please please let that happen.  Larry is a "community organizer" racist victicrat who wishes he was the brown Al Sharpton.  He defends things like cockfighting on "cultural" grounds.  He advocates shamnesty and supports socialist causes.

"Rosalio Munoz" wrote on June 25, 2009 at 08:18 AM, taking the usual Larry Lopez route:

This smells of racism.

Yes - whenever you are proven wrong or are busted doing something wrong, cry racism.

"Very simple" wrote on June 25, 2009 at 10:48 AM:

As a 3rd-generation Angeleno and Latino, people like Nativo are disgusting. When my grandparents immigrated here legally, they waited their turn and did it the proper way. They also made a point to learn English and try to assimilate as much as possible.

I found this in a major metropolitan newspaper.

A local white business group launched Thursday, calling itself "the go-to organization" for companies wanting to tap into the Obama administration's stimulus package.

And although most agree there's room for another group advocating for white-owned businesses, there is debate over what the White Business Chamber of Greater Los Angeles will do that isn't already being done.

...

Greg Smith, chairman of the 35-year-old White Business Assn., said he was happy to see a new group form but saw little distinction in what's being offered by the two.

...

Henry Matthews, president of the Los Angeles Metropolitan English Chambers of Commerce, said the new chamber could fill a void.

...

The shared focus on small business at the English Chambers of Commerce and the White Business Chamber could be good for local white entrepreneurs, Mathews said.

Okay, so I made some changes to this Nathan Olivarez-Giles story in the Los Angeles Times.  For those of you who'd say that "they are a minority, so this is justified", I'd like you to know that in Los Angeles County, non-Latino/non-Hispanic "white" is a minority, and Latino/Hispanic is a majority, or at least the largest identified group.

Just for the record, I'm against the porkulous in general, and against racism.  However, I do support property rights and freedom of association, even if someone uses their rights and freedoms to slam the door in my face because I am "white".

University of California regents are trying to get around the anti-racism laws that say the government of California can't treat people differently based on race.  The bottom line is that they want to let less qualified students get into the UC system over more qualified students, because apparently some "races" (I don’t like to use that term, believing we are all once race) are not represented as abundantly as the regents would like.  Larry Gordon of the Los Angeles Times has the story.

Since you are reading this, you have been online today – and since you have been online today, or if you turned on a radio or a television set, then you know that we celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, on the eve of the "historic inauguration" of Obama.  (of course, ALL Presidential Inaugurations are historic, but this one is breathlessly esteemed as HISTORIC because of the pigmentation of Obama's skin).

I am thankful for King's contributions to our society, and I note that he was a REVEREND who constantly appealed to Biblical principles.  Yet, I don't hear the radical secularists denouncing him for this.

However, as I predicted here and here, the election of Obama is not going to stop the victicrats from yelling and screaming about how unfair and racist we all are.  Associated Press writer Deepti Hajela reports.

The focus of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 wasn't what had been accomplished — but rather his view of what still needed to be done.

More than four decades later, King scholars say he would take the same approach at this historic moment — the inauguration of the first black president at a time when the nation is facing its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

I can't wait for them to claim that MLK was concerned about global warming and talk radio without a Fairness Doctrine.

The crisis could widen the already large financial gaps between whites and blacks and make it more difficult to attain King's dream of economic equality in America.

What does that mean?  People are willing to pay more for some goods and services than others – and people buy certain goods and services more often than others.  How that can there be "economic equality" between, say, a plastic surgeon and a part-time library docent?  A dollar from a black hand is just as valuable as a dollar from a white hand.

"I believe that Dr. King would caution us not to rest on the election of a black president and say our work here is done," said Kendra King, associate professor of politics at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta.

Of course.  The work will never be done.  If the work was done, then a lot of people who make their livings stoking racial strife and class warfare would be out of jobs.

While the election of Barack Obama is a huge step toward King's dream of a time when people are judged on the content of their character and not their skin color, economic data shows racial disparities are still pervasive when it comes to financial equality.

Does anyone else find it to be a paradox to extol judging people on their character and not their skin color, and then cite statistics that separate people by their skin color?!?

Going beyond those simple statistics, studies show that economic mobility and the passage of wealth from one generation to another is more of a reality for whites than it is for blacks.

We live in a free country.  In a free country, there is going to be inequality in outcomes.  Notice that people of Asian origin and descent have traditionally faced intense racism in our country, but as a people in general, they have taken advantage of the freedoms we all have and have prospered.  Perhaps there is something to be learned there.

The president of Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated resigned for circulating a racist anti-Obama illustration.  The kicker is that the LA Times waits until the end of the article by staff writer David Kelly to let us know…

Ironically, the illustration was created by a liberal blogger as an attempt to make fun of Republicans.

So it is okay for "liberals" to make racist illustrations, as long as they are trying to make fun of Republicans?  Why no newspaper articles and television news reports hounding the blogger?

I think the resignation was a good idea.  Too bad we don’t see Dems getting their group leaders to resign when they make those kinds of mistakes.

Not wanting to let David Lightman or the McClatchy company outdo them, Carey Gillam at Reuters has a story headlined "Ugly Election Incidents Show Lingering U.S. Racism"

Two weeks before an election that could install the first black U.S. president, scattered ugly incidents have reflected a deep residue of racism among some segments of white America.

Unless you know exactly who is doing it, you don’t know for sure that these are white people.  And Obama is "half black" and not “slave blood” – facts I’m sure the race hustlers will use should Obama win to keep their shakedowns going.

A cardboard likeness of Barack Obama was found strung from fishing wire at a university, the Democratic presidential nominee's face was depicted on mock food stamps, the body of a black bear was left at another university with Obama posters attached to it.

And no derogatory things like this have ever been done with likenesses of Bush or Cheney?

Though the incidents are sporadic and apparently isolated, they stirred up memories of the violent racial past of a country where segregation and lynchings only ended within the last 50 years.

No comparison.  Those lynchings and lack of justice were atrocious.  This hardly rises to that level – especially since the majority of the community, especially McCain supporters, denounce these admittedly sporadic incidents.

Their voices are often heard in radio call-back shows or letters to editors.

Now we can’t express our disapproval of Obama’s policy positions in letter or calls, or we’re a lynch mob?

He estimated there were as many as 800 white supremacy or nationalist groups in the United States, with at least 100,000 as "an inner core" of membership and many more on the fringes.

I want to know if he includes non-racist border control advocates in those figures.  True white racist groups are rightly derided and marginalized by the overwhelming majority of whites.  But can we please compare those numbers to the number of "black" or "brown" gangs and gang members?  I think the greater threats will be readily apparent.

Michigan State University professor Ronald Hall, writing in his new book "Racism in the 21st Century," said racism remains one of the most pressing U.S. social problems, though it now takes forms that are more subtle than the lynchings and mob violence seen decades ago in some parts of the country.

Of course.  Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to write books about it.  I hope Hall also addresses racism directed towards whites or any racism perpetuated by "black" or "brown" people.

In California, a Republican group said it intended no racial overtone when its October newsletter depicted a fake food stamp bearing a likeness of Obama's head on a donkey's body surrounded by fried chicken, watermelon and other images evoking insulting stereotypes about African-Americans.

Yeah, I saw that on TV.  If that designer of that food stamp really didn’t intend a racial overtone, then am left to think that the person is incredibly ignorant.  Ignorant or racist – take your pick.

The piece ends without asking if there may be racism involved in the high percentage of black voters who plan to vote for Obama.  Isn’t voting for someone because of their skin color racist?

Now the Los Angeles Times is running a piece trying to convince us that the “black community” supports neutering marriage licenses, and so if you want to be in step, you will, too.

They’ve run a commentary by Timothy Stewart-Winter, James C. Hormel Fellow in Lesbian and Gay Studies at the University of Chicago.   And as part of such a worthwhile program, you know he’s going to have some clear-headed things to say, right?

At a Democratic presidential forum on gay issues last year, the Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart prefaced a question to Sen. Barack Obama this way: "Now, you and I both know that there's a homophobia problem in the black community."

Really?  Homophobia?  You mean to tell me that there are a lot of people in the “black community”, who, when they see a homosexual person, freak out and run away?  I mean, that’s what people with arachnophobia do when they come across the relatively harmless spider.  Or is homophobia "fear of engaging in homosexual behavior"?  If so, why do you care?  Or are you just using it to broadbrush anyone who does not enthusiastically encourage homosexual behavior?

That notion will be put to the test Nov. 4, when black voters in California -- expected to turn out in record numbers to support Obama -- also will face a proposition to put a ban on same-sex marriage in the state Constitution.

Again, it isn’t really a ban of anything.  It is an affirmation that that people of California should have a say in how they issue licenses.  He also used the imprecise phrase “gay marriage” throughout his commentary.

Across the country, black voters repeatedly reelect African American politicians who support gay rights.

Yes, sometimes it is because they are racist.  Other times, it is because they agree with them on other issues.  Regardless, neutering marriage licensing has an impact on all of us, not just gay people.

Obama, for his part, hasn't backed marriage for gays, but he did call Proposition 8 "divisive and discriminatory," whereas John McCain supports it.

So, the implication, by the standards of the homosexuality advocates, is that Obama is a bigot because he hasn’t backed neutering marriage.  Of course, they won’t call him that.  They just think he is a liar, and they like him for it.  And please tell me what proposition, or law for that matter, isn’t divisive or discriminatory?  By nature, all of them divide and discriminate.  More weasel words from Obama.

Nonetheless, we can expect leaders of the religious right such as James Dobson and Tony Perkins to feature African American ministers prominently in their campaign to end gay and lesbian weddings in California.

It's a cynical strategy.

How dare they include African Americans!  They should exclude them, because that wouldn’t be discriminatory or divisive, right?

Too often the media have played along.

Yeah, that dastardly mainstream media that is always doing the bidding of Dobson and Perkins!

Opposition to gay rights takes culturally specific forms, and Capehart was right, of course, that there is "a homophobia problem in the black community." But it's no worse than the homophobia problem in America that belongs to all of us.

What a load.  I don’t accept this equating of support for the power of the people over judicial overreach, or affirmation of bride-groom marriage licensing as opposition to gay rights or homophobia.  Unfortunately, it is an effective tactic by homosexuality activists – “If you don’t vote the way I want, even though it goes against your basic understand of life and your best interest, then you have a mental disorder or hatred towards me and anyone in your family who is gay.”  It’s a lie, but they tell it so often.

Some of the responses on the website are quite interesting.

“Gay lover” wrote:

When a closeted gay man, marry's your daughter and after 10 years breaks her heart when he finally "comes out" and leaves her (or worse) -- do not complain. If they dont marry each other, they will marry our daughters.

Oh yes.  The reason closeted gay men marry women is because they can’t get a marriage license with another man.  Especially in a state where same-sex domestic partners have all of the trappings of being a spouse.  Um, yeah.  Neutering marriage licensing means a closeted gay man will never ever marry a woman.  Sure.

“Kell Brigan”  wrote:

You're confusing "Gay Rights" with "Marriage". Proponents of Prop 8 endorse the existing civil unions for same-sex couples. We are opposed to removing the right of children to be raised, whenever possible, by both of their natural parents. GLBT civil rights are already protected. We are opposed to the deliberate, casual creation of children whose destiny does not include knowing their real parents. Google "genetic orphans" to learn of victims orphaned from birth not through tragedy, but deliberately by the people who claim to "love" them. Proposition 8 is about CHILDREN'S RIGHTS.

Pretty good.

“Nelson” writes:

Prop 8 is NOT about Children's Rights. Stop using children to promote a heterosexist worldview.

Heterosexist?  Oh brother.  Hetero-normative is more like it.  Heterosexual behavior is how all of us got here.  90-98% of the population is heterosexual.  Both men and women make up society, and it takes both to perpetuate society.  Deal with it.

Children riased in loving and caring homes is what is most important.

It is not very loving or caring to intentionally deprive a child of a mother or father.

Raising children in a heterosexual household doesn't guarentee anything.

Sure it does.  It guarantees that they will be raised with both a mother and a father.

“Are you SERIOUS?!!” writes:

If this is about the kids, why not try to pass a law banning giving kids up for adoption? Why not ban adoption period?

Uh, this does not follow.  Adoption can give kids both a mother and a father - often in cases where they wouldn't otherwise.

Most gay couples who want kids can have them without adopting children!

Not without other people involved, they can’t.

Go after their retched STRAIGHT parents who gave them up and leave us GAY people alone!!

That is a fallacy.  Forcing us to change marriage licensing is not leaving us alone.  It certainly isn’t asking to be left alone.  It is asking for public affirmation.

An arbitrary section of the city will get an arbitrary ban for at least a year on new “fast food” businesses.  I guess the state’s ban on trans fat isn’t enough.  Los Angeles Times staff writers Molly Hennessy-Fiske and David Zahniser have the story.

A law that would bar fast-food restaurants from opening in South [-Central] Los Angeles for at least a year sailed through the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday.

The council approved the fast-food moratorium unanimously, despite complaints from representatives of McDonald's, Carl's Jr. and other companies, who said they were being unfairly targeted.

Councilwoman Jan Perry, who has pushed for a moratorium for six years, said the initiative would give the city time to craft measures to lure sit-down restaurants serving healthier food to a part of the city that desperately wants more of them.

Instead of trying to micromanage business, why not just let the market work?

The law defines fast-food restaurants as "any establishment which dispenses food for consumption on or off the premises, and which has the following characteristics: a limited menu, items prepared in advance or prepared or heated quickly, no table orders and food served in disposable wrapping or containers."

There will be ways around this.

Still, several fast-food workers told the council that the panel was ignoring the good things their franchises accomplish. The workers argued that fast-food establishments provide residents with job opportunities and, in recent years, nutritious menu options.

"McDonald's believes in healthy choices," said Don Bailey, who has owned and operated the company's restaurants in South [-Central] Los Angeles for 22 years.

Another foe of the measure was Madelyn Alfano, whose company, Maria's Italian Kitchen, has restaurants in Sherman Oaks, Brentwood and other parts of the city. Alfano said the law would create new red tape and force restaurateurs to spend thousands more to start businesses.

It’s a big city, but the City Council still thinks they need to micromanage the lives of their residents.

Most of the comments following the story are against the City Council, but these are English readers and writers, and many of the voters aren’t.

I wrote about this mess earlier here and here.

Talk radio in the Los Angeles market has been all over the talks Obama and McCain gave to subversive racist organization La Raza.  However, if you haven’t heard McCain’s “town hall” after his traditional speech, it is worth hearing.  You can go to http://www.kfi640.com/pages/podcasting/ - where, under John & Ken, you can select the 6pm hour from Monday 7/14.

Some things to note:

--McCain has guts for being willing to do a town hall format there to begin with.

--McCain has guts for rightfully continuing to assert that the border must be controlled first.

--McCain’s guts fail to manifest when these entitlement-attitude nutcases assert ridiculous premises and McCain doesn’t call them on it.

--Seriously, listen to those nutcases and their questions.  They think everyone who is of “the race” is entitled to U.S. citizenship and tax-funded social assistance – that the laws should not apply to them.

--McCain’s use of “these are God’s children” is tiresome.  Everyone in the world, in a sense, are God’s children.  Shall we give them all first class passage here, make them citizens, and allow them to do whatever they want, even if it to live off or our foolishly socialistic system?  Immigration policy should benefit the citizens of the receiving country.

B. Hussein Obama, who is an African-American, was praised by LA Mayor, Latino, and Adulterer Tony Villar, at a conference of the racist subversive organization La Raza.  Los Angeles Times staff writer Phil Willon reports.

In his address to thousands attending the National Council of La Raza conference, Villaraigosa criticized the Bush administration for what he called its "selective enforcement" of immigration laws.

Yeah, is Bush not going after those hordes of Swedish illegals?  I do agree that enforcement should be more broadly enforced.

He said that the federal government should focus its efforts on "criminals instead of working people," and that current enforcement practices unfairly tear families apart and punish small businesses.

Uhm, someone who has entered or stated in the country illegally is a criminal.  Families can be re-united in the home country.  Law enforcement always separates.

Before introducing Villaraigosa to the thousands attending the conference Saturday, La Raza President Janet Murguia urged members to be respectful of both candidates, reminding them that La Raza is a nonpartisan organization.

You forgot the “wink, wink”.

He said 12 million illegal immigrants can be brought "out of the shadows and into the light, and onto the tax rolls by electing Barack Obama."

They are hardly in the shadows.  Marching in public marches isn’t hiding in the shadows.

McCain is talking to the racist group today.  Too bad the paper doesn’t identify them by their racism, as they would with many other racist organizations.  And why do these speakers assume that just because someone is Latino they want illegal aliens to get amnesty?  That sounds like stereotyping to me.  Nice to see Villar doing everything but running the City of LA.