Matt Ortega

Christmas is less than two weeks away. In the meantime, enjoy these classic clips from Saturday Night Live.

Manuel Jesus Córdova Soberanes, the undocumented migrant who comforted a traffic victim’s child until help arrived, was honored for his act of heroism and humanity. Marisa Treviño writes:

Yet, it wasn’t the fact that he found the boy and stayed with him until help arrived that was so heroic.

Rather, it was that he willingly gave up his dream of finding a job in the United States to earn enough money for his own children so that he could stay so another child would not be alone, is what is heroic.

Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-Tucson, Ariz.) will introduce legislation aimed at getting Soberanes a special visa, although “such legislation rarely passes.”

Compare that story with the bigotry-laden television advertisement from Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton, Colo.) that is making the rounds in the blogosphere. (He’s not the only one.)

In other migrant-related news, the Associated Press must really like their copy of the Tancredo Dictionary for the brewing scandal involving the Governor’s mansion using undocumented labor during Mitt Romney’s tenure. (Governor Romney said they had “funny accents.”)

In a startling and delicious turn of events — Rep. Tancredo hired undocumented laborers to work on an entertainment center. No word if he tried to crack down on himself and blamed “spineless politicians” for letting him get away with it.

Football Night in America, the studio show produced by NBC Sports, is easily my favorite professional football production any night of the week.

Bob Costas, arguably the smartest of sports commentators (and my favorite all-time) sitting next to Keith Olbermann, a former sportscaster from ESPN and FOX Sports.

Olbermann, in a spin-off of his well-received “Worst Person in the World” segment from Countdown, names the “Worst Person in the NFL.” Last week’s winner, Denver Broncos kicker/punter, Todd Sauerbrun, claimed the mantle for declaring he would kick to Chicago Bears returner Devin Hester, who went on to return two kicks for touchdowns.

Watch the video from NBC Sports.

Voters in Venezuela headed to the polls today to vote on the Constitutional changes sought by President Hugo Chavez. Marisa Treviño commented on the potential ramifications the election may have on the immigration debate here in the States.

o the poor of the country, Chavez appears to be a savior. A very quick scan of the referendum in which changes to Venezuela’s Constitution Chavez wants to make speaks to the poor on many levels.

Yet, the real fear is that with these changes brings even greater potential for corruption and dictatorship that should have the whole Western Hemisphere asking ourselves if a new wave of immigrants will be knocking on our door, and given the current climate, what will be said?

Read the full post.

Updated 12/03/07 at 4:01pm: In what was a huge surprise to me, Venezuela voted to defeat Chavez’s sweeping reforming in a narrow election.

Pat Buchanan is the fierce warrior of the conservative culture wars seeking to return to that fantastical age of the 1950s. Think I’m kidding? He basically said so himself.

BUCHANAN: It is. It is. But take a look at the unity we had, say, in the 1950s and early 1960s. What have we gone through? You had a culture war that’s divided us completely on matters of morality. You’ve got a wholesale invasion, the greatest invasion in human history, coming across your southern border, changing the composition and character of your country. You’ve got the melting pot that once welded us all together, which has broken down. All of these things are happening, Sean, and, frankly, I don’t think we got the kind of solid, firm, strong national leadership you need to deal with this crisis. [emphasis added]

Unity in the 1950s and 1960s? Undoubtedly one of the most turbulent times in American history since the Civil War? Buchanan was born in 1938. He looks back to his days as a teenager in segregated schools and all that happened after it — the struggle over civil rights and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy — and thinks “unity.”

The insanity does not stop there. FOX News commentator Sean Hannity reiterates Buchanan’s argument of a “path of national suicide,” which Buchanan uses to recycle the myth of Mexicans reclaiming the southwest for Mexico.

Media Matters notes this passage from Buchanan’s recently released book, Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, And Greed Are Tearing America Apart:

How is America committing suicide? Every way a nation can.

The American majority is not reproducing itself. Its birthrate has been below replacement level for decades. Forty-five million of its young have been destroyed in the womb since Roe v. Wade, as Asian, African, and Latin American children come to inherit the estate the lost generation of American children never got to see.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, from 2005 to 2006, our minority population rose 2.4 million to exceed 100 million. Hispanics, 1 percent of the U.S. population in 1950, are now 14.4 percent. Since 2000, their numbers have soured 25 percent to 45 million. The U.S. Asian population grew by 24 percent since 2000, as the number of white kids of school age fell 4 percent. Half the children five and younger today are minority children. (Pages 7-8)

The language is explicit and his intent quite clear. By “American majority,” Buchanan is obviously talking about whites, who are, according to Buchanan, the real Americans. (Whites are, at the national level, the most populous group in the 2000 U.S. Census, comprising over 80% of the national population.)

Buchanan’s equation is quite simple, actually.

More People of Color = America Dying

(Hat tip: Louis Pagan, Latino Pundit)