Anyone who knows much about Tom Tancredo (R-Xenophobia) already knows he hates Hispanic people. But his latest attack on Miami is one of his worst diatribes yet. His words speak for themselves:
Tancredo, R-Littleton, touched off a controversy when he said during a weekend summit of conservative activists at a Palm Beach resort that unfettered immigration, both legal and illegal, was behind problems like high crime rates in Miami.
“You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace,” Tancredo said of Miami, according to the Web site WorldNetDaily. “You would never know you’re in the United States of America. You would certainly say you’re in a Third World country.”
…
Tancredo spokesman Carlos Espinosa said the congressman stood behind his comments, saying they echoed what he has said for years about isolated immigrant communities that resist assimilation and cling to their native languages and customs.
Espinosa said that contributes to poverty and crime, and he cited a recent documentary that claimed Miami was more dangerous than Baghdad, Iraq.
“It’s as bad as any ghetto in any Third World country,” Espinosa said.
Waste of a politician, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen jumped to the city’s defense:
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican who represents Miami, disputed Tancredo’s characterizations and invited him to come down to see her district for himself.
“Tom is a good friend of mine and I hope that he accepts my invitation to see my hometown, a first-class city,” Ros-Lehtinen said Tuesday.
Really, Ileana, that’s the best you can do? Even Jeb did better than that:
On Tuesday night, Gov. Jeb Bush sent a pointed letter to Tancredo, calling his comments “disappointing” and “naïve.”
Bush cited contributions by people of all ethnicities, and he pointed to shrinking crime rates and improvements in test scores posted by minority students.
“The bottom line is Miami is a wonderful city filled with diversity and heritage that we choose to celebrate, not insult,” Bush wrote.
Tancredo’s defense of his comments may be even worse:
“I knew speaking your mind could be dangerous in Havana — I guess it’s equally dangerous to do so in Miami,” Tancredo said in a statement. “Apparently, there isn’t much of a difference between the two anymore.
“I hope to someday return to Miami when it has been able to extricate itself from the clutches of the radical multiculturalists.”
And conservatives wonder why they lost ground in the 2006 elections amongst the Hispanic population. Because their immigration policies are rooted in racism, that’s why.
his latest statements:
I am sorry and disappointed that radical groups were able to prevent my speech to the Miami Rotary.
I certainly understand the decision of those who felt it necessary to put public safety
ahead of public discourse today. I know this kind of thing is not unusual in third world
countries but it sad to see we are not immune to such tactics in America. Of course, this incident may, indeed prove the point I was coming to Miami to make.
I look forward to someday being able to speak in Miami about an issue, which, as
evidenced by events in the City, desperately needs to be part of the public dialogue. I
want to wish everyone in Florida a very Merry Christmas
I’m about as liberal as they get, but I am happy to hear somebody speak out about the corrupt system in Miami. While I don’t totally agree with some of the more racist things he said, it needed to be said.
Miami has many problems because of a discriminatory federal law: the ‘wet foot, dry foot’ policy. Because ‘Americans’ are now a minority, there is nothing we can do on a local level, and all 3 US Representatives have a death grip on this town, Americans don’t have a say in how we are governed in Miami. This discriminatory immigration policy is to blame, and it has to go!
I admit, that some of my own liberal views led to this usurpation of power, but it is a problem, and we must do something about it. I say, praise Tancredo for saying what he did because I’m glad it didn’t come form a Democrat…and it needs to be said to open a more rational dialogue. Miami press used to openly talk about these issues in a rational way until they received threats from Cuban-American politicians and Mafia. Now, the discussion has devolved into borderline racist remarks from elected officials.
I’m tired of ‘extremist’ efforts to ban books, create local business monopolies, and not being able to find a person who speaks English in my grocery store (or find a store that consistently has the same products for sale). If local powers in Miami stifle free speech and expression, as they have in Miami, they can expect some ‘American’ reprisals.
Liberal groups aren’t against Tancredo’s comments, because we see it as an opportunity to open a dialogue. I’m glad it’s coming from a Republican, though.
what happened to the comment that was here…I wanted to comment on it?
I don’t know what happened to the comment that was here before, but I’ll comment on it, anyway.
The comment alluded to the ‘wet foot, dry foot’ policy as a point of contention. I think that he/she brought up a valuable point in that Cuban immigrants receive special treatment, as opposed to those coming from any other country.
We SHOULD get rid of this policy. It is unfair, discriminates against other immigrants, and HAS led to corruption of the Miami political scene…it is a federal solution, and not a local one.
While there is a special political status that comes with Cuban immigration, as a result of their communist regime, I don’t think they should receive any more benefits than any other immigrant. There should be a level playing field.
The comment also referred to the 3 Cuban-American Republicans that have held Congressional seats in the US for nearly sixteen years. There is a ‘death-grip’ on the political scene in Miami…but by Republicans, not necessarily Cuban Americans.
While Tancredo’s statements were racist in nature, I wish he would have cited specific things he was unhappy with instead of lashing out in a racist manner…then maybe we could get some ‘real dialogue’ on the issues.
dave, I think the comment got shunted to the moderation queue. I just approved a comment on this thread that may be the one you were looking for.
thanks, dave! I commented on the points I wanted to, anyway
Tom Tancredo is an embarrassment to Coloradoans. He is not just any pernicious crank; he is, indeed, as persistent as viral disease. How does he manage to grab the spotlight?
An embarassment? Pernicious crank? Persistent as a viral disease? Grab the spotlight? I wonder the same thing about that c**ksucker Alan Grayson. He demagogues to the left. And you lap it up like cats on a bowl of milk.
The difference being that what Grayson is saying, while exaggerated and/or blown up for effect, is based on truth. What Tancredo is saying is almost always demonstrably false by any standard of evidence.
No, sir, Grayson is a demagogue AND a liar. There is no basis for his claim 440,000 Americans die each year for lack of health care. That is at best a wild ass guess and at worst a fabrication for political purposes. Those Harvard so-called scientific studies on healthcare, including the one that attributes 60 percent of consumer bankruptcies to unpaid medical bills, are bogus; an example of science suborned for political purposes. What you progressives believe and arrogantly promulgate is nothing but a form of faith and a false faith as well. The public isn’t buying, bud. And the the faith of the progressive effort in the US is summarized in this bit of news:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100122/ap_on_en_ot/us_air_america_bankruptcy
People like you reject scientific studies you disagree with without having any evidence to support it. Just you saying that they are false doesn’t make them false. And even if they were false, there is no public evidence of that, so that wouldn’t make Grayson a liar, since he’s simply reporting on studies released by well-respected academics.
You say the public isn’t buying, but polling disagrees with you overwhelmingly. Don’t drink the kool-aid that says that any time a Democrat loses it’s because they aren’t conservative enough. The evidence says otherwise, that Dems are losing because they aren’t being liberal enough.
Air America failed because the two biggest stars and best hosts they had went on to other things (Franken and Maddow) and they had a bad business model and made decisions like replacing the starts with people like Jerry Springer and Montel Williams.
Well, Q, your response is typical of the presumption and conceit I would expect from a lower-rung-the-ladder academic and self styled progressive. Any opinions that diverge from your own are treated with contempt. At least you are not an obscenity-spouting, fatuous raver like that unemployed whiner Jeff Spoeri. Regarding scientific studies I disagree with, first I work in the area of insolvency, and have since 1992, and am familiar with the Harvard study put out by Himmelstein, Elizabeth Warren, et al, and can testify from first hand experience it’s conclusions are flawed. Even the NY Times has acknowledged these flaws, its loose standards applied to the data, and the bias in its authors; the Office of the US Trustee, part of Dept of Justice, which has oversight over all federal bankruptcy filings, also review this paper and found its data did not support its conclusions. For the simple reason its conclusions were motivated by the authors’ political agenda. I labor over these details because Himmelstein was the author of the study which attributed 440,000 deaths per annum to lack of health insurance (previous studies had put forth a far lesser number); again, his methodology has been criticized, as being loose with data, speculative, biased by his politics.
It’s all but worthless to debate you, Quinnell, because of your invincible ignorance as a true believer of the so-called progressive cause. I won’t even bother with your asinine assertions regarding Democrat losses at the polls and the failure of Air America. Suffice to say, keep on keeping on, bro, I’m sure you can explain away every reversal.
Funny that you are responding to things I didn’t even say. I didn’t say the study was accurate, I haven’t looked at it. I’m also not taking your word for it. And, again, even if the study is flawed, that doesn’t make Grayson a liar, since he reported on the study, he didn’t conduct it. Beyond that, even if the study is wrong, the overall point isn’t, that people die without insurance and that the Republicans don’t have a plan that would change that and the Democrats (at least the liberal ones) do.
It’s clear that you aren’t someone whose judgment shouldn’t be trusted, since you are anonymous and label yourself a troll, while at the same time using right-wing sponsored bad grammar in making your claims (“Democrat losses”). You follow the right-wing trend of saying anything to prove your point and don’t back any of it up with evidence. As for elections, there’s nothing to explain. In the past every off-year election, with two exceptions, has always led losses for the president’s party, on average more than 30 seats lost. That’ll happen this time and it has nothing to do with the president’s agenda or the right-wing agenda, it’s the natural flow of politics and the electorate. The alternate is to believe that the public has nearly universally disagreed with the agenda of the president they elected two years earlier. You claim to know something about statistics, yet ignore basic ones.
You are such a pretentious asshole!
Ah, good comeback. I guess I’ll go down and change my voter registration to Republican, you’ve used such flawless logic.