newsobserver.com projects - immigration - Comments

Re: Price: Immigration reform necessary

BitterEXdemocrat — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:15:28 -0400

huh? why all of sudden now, price?

Re: Trolling the N & O blogs......

j1c2kp — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:26:58 -0500

After reading Kristen's past columns on the woes of the illegals living here, I would be hesitant to contact her. What kind of slant will she put on the story?

Trolling the N & O blogs......

domewatcher — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 08:19:14 -0500

Well, GOSH......

"....has to troll on N&O blogs to try to find that fringe minority...."

I'm not worried that Kristen will ever upstage the rest of us trolls who live on some fringe or another. We're always dragging ballyhoo through here trying to get a strike.

Practice catch and release.

Re: Who are they polling ??

Gosh — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 07:36:21 -0500

If you are in that position (laid off and unable to find even a lower-paying job in construction or another immigrant dominated trade) or know anyone who is, I would love to talk to you. I am working on a story on this issue now. Thanks, Kristin Collins (N&O reporter), 919-829-4881

I'd call that qualitative confirmation of the quantitative polling of lessened concern over illegal immigration. The reporter assigned to exploit the "increased concern" over illegal immigrants has to troll on N&O blogs to try to find that fringe minority that still watches Lou Dobbs (3 percent was it?).

Scientific polling works. Too bad there's no such thing as scientific reporting.

Re: Immigration issue receding for voters?

bnartist — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:06:54 -0500

Illegal immigration is a civil offense, not criminal.

Re: Immigration issue receding for voters?

FFC1304 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 19:08:27 -0500

criminal illegals should be a BIGGER priority in an economic downturn.

illegals take precious jobs for the legal citizens.

Re: Who are they polling ??

kcollins — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:18:17 -0500

If you are in that position (laid off and unable to find even a lower-paying job in construction or another immigrant dominated trade) or know anyone who is, I would love to talk to you. I am working on a story on this issue now. Thanks, Kristin Collins (N&O reporter), 919-829-4881

Re: Who are they polling ??

Notsurewhere_NC — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:59:13 -0500

All the daily bad news is a smoke screen. Illegal immigration is and continues to be a major underlying drag on the economy. When you loose your job, your focused on that, but when you discover you can't even get lesser paying work because an illegal is holding that position, it will go to the top of your this is BS list in rapid order.

Re: Passionate, but already locked in the R column

Gosh — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:58:37 -0500

There's nothing the D's can do to get them or the R's can do to lose them.

So true.

If you hate gays enough to think Larry Craig was framed and Mark Foley was an overly enthusiastic Boy Scout Master, then the Party of Pink Elephants on Parade is all you'll ever vote when you enter that voting closet.

Passionate, but already locked in the R column

cornbread — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:33:49 -0500

Gods, guns, and gays may still hold sway with 10% in PPP's poll, but the important part is that this 10% is already solidly in the R column.

There's nothing the D's can do to get them or the R's can do to lose them.

They've succeeded only in marginalizing themselves, and in decreasing numbers (according to PPP's tracking).

Re: Press Limitations in N.C.

Proctor — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:30:03 -0400

Journalists from other states ought to make sure they maintain their home-state connections while covering politics in North Carolina because the Democratic Party of this state has a sordid record of limitation of freedom of the press for writers who do not support the proper "ltef-liberal" wing of the national and state Democratic parties.

Around here in Raleigh and Durham, the sort-of-liberal wing of our Democratic Party loves to try to please the supposedly liberal branches of the national Democratic Party in Texas and in the Northeast and New England, even if it means limiting the publication of editorial essays in support of the Democratic candidate for governor of North Carolina, Bev Perdue.

So the end result of our Democratic Party's meddling with constitutionally protected press liberties has resulted in a whole slew of newspaper editorials in favor of the Republican candidate for governor.

Although our own home state's Democratic Party deserves the major responsibility for this unhealthy state of literary and journalistic affairs, some of the "credit" must also go to certain Democratic Party organizations in the Northeast, which managed to convince our political, educational and journalistic establishment in the Triangle years ago that our own North Carolina writers should play a lot of second fiddle when it comes to writing about politics, education and government here in North Carolina.

The extent to which certain operatives of both the state and national Democratic parties will go to make life miserable personally for Tar Heel writers unwilling to follow this nebulous left-liberal party line in their own independent research and editorial work is one of the great untold stories in American journalism today.

Because certain outstanding journalists--such as David Brinkley, Charles Kuralt and Tom Wicker--went from their native North Carolina to important positions at leading national press organizations such as NBC, CBS and The New York Times, now the conventional wisdom is that the Democratic Party, in dubious "arrangements" with certain local organizations of the Republican Party in cities such as Charlotte, ought to try to exercise harsh, unrelenting editorial control over the work of writers and editors in the Old North State.

Only in "liberal" North Carolina is it possible to go 30 years under the poverty line trying to earn an honest livelihood in journalism-related endeavors free from direct intervention or even censorship by the "progressive" wing of the national and state Democratic parties.

David P. McKnight

Re: "The Old North State"

Proctor — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:42:56 -0400

Oops--In my previous post, make that judge and songwriter William Gaston, who penned "The Old North State."

D. McKnight

Re: Talking Heads Talking Points

Proctor — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:40:53 -0400

Of course, some of us think that North Carolina is really a blue state which has been on another one of its traditional extended Rip Van Winkle naps as occurred in the 19th Century.

And besides Andrew Jackson (Union County, N.C. and Nashville, Tenn.), James K. Polk (Mecklenburg County, N.C., and Nashville, Tenn.) and Andrew Johnson (Raleigh, N.C., and Greeneville, Tenn.), don't forget Vice President Rufus King of Alabama, a native of Sampson County, N.C. Of course, we should perhaps remember him as Vice President-Elect King since he died of an illness before Inauguration Day.

Here's to our judge and songwriter, William Gaston of New Bern, who penned "The Old North Carolina":

"Hoorah, hoorah, the Old North State forever,
"Hoorah, hoorah, the Old North State."

Gastonia and Gaston County, N.C., are named in honor of William Gaston as is the community of Gaston in Northampton County, N.C., just south of the Virginia line.

Thanks to Joe the Candidate--Joe Felmet, the former Winston-Salem Journal newspaperman who entered the field of candidates in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in 1978, we often sang Gaston's "The Old North State" at campaign forums and meetings that year, so the song is anything but forgotten on the highways and byways of the--er, the Old North State.

David P. McKnight

Re: Talking Heads Talking Points

jjsmith2 — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:16:03 -0400

Please don't call us the Tar Heel State. It's too close to that curse word Tarheel.

Try again

scharrison — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:50:48 -0400

Nice little dance there, but my point was: if "breaking the law" is what sets undocumented aliens apart from the rest of us, and keeps them from attending community college, then why are we pushing hard for others who "broke the law" to have these benefits?

Many of the answers fit both sets of people: we want them to be more productive in society and less likely to commit crimes, they set a good example for others with similar circumstances, etc.

You can throw the word ILLEGAL out there all you want to, but since when did trespassing become more "evil" than burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, sexual assault, etc.?