Andrew Breitbart led fight against corrupt media |
Breitbart.com has become one of
the leading voices in the New Media.
While the mainstream media wasted weeks covering the private
prejudices of a basketball owner, and the overblown, soap-opera lawsuits
which followed, the conservative website exposed the illegal immigrant youth
crisis amassing along the Southern Border. While the mainstream media has
given a pass to the Obama Administration’s floodgate of scandals, websites like
Breitbart have attacked the corruption with an unwavering assiduousness.
Reporters have even written about the Republican surge in New
England, where liberal Republican Charlie Baker has polled twice with a slim
lead ahead of Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley, Still smarting from
her 2010 election loss to Scott Brown,
After reading his
piece on Charlie Baker, I reached out to Matthew Boyle, and told him to
report on Mayor Allan Fung’s gubernatorial run as well. He was enthusiastic and
appreciative, because up to recently he was not paying attention to the Rhode
Island race. Looking at the statistics and the demographics, there are enough
reasons why conservative reports would ignore Rhode Island: small state, almost
hidden in New England under Massachusetts and behind Connecticut, with a liberal
Democratic legislature in power for over eight years.
Those dynamics may change this year, though, if the national
unrest against Democrats hits the Ocean State. Other local activists in Rhode
Island have signaled to me the importance of national attention on this race.
In a deep blue state, when a Republican gubernatorial candidate is running neck-and-neck
with a Rhodes Scholar pension reformer,
party heads should turn.
Republican Mayor of Cranston Allan Fung -- Opposes DLs for Illegals |
Boyle’s
latest piece, however, contained one error:
In Rhode
Island, Cranston's GOP mayor Allan Fung is running slightly less aggressively
than Baker or Brown on the issue of immigration, saying that he supports
driver’s licenses for illegal aliens. But he has made clear that he opposes the efforts of the
administration to use Rhode Island as a spot to place illegal aliens as part of
the border crisis, and according to some recent polling data is within striking distance of Democratic nominee state
treasurer Gina Raimondo. Rasmussen's latest survey had him just seven points
back—a pretty impressive feat for a Republican in a state as blue as Rhode Island.
The statement that Fung supports driver’s licenses for
illegal immigrants is untrue. In fact, he and his former primary challenger Ken
Block are
on record opposing the policy:
Block and
Fung said they would advocate for immigration reform on the federal level and
indicated they oppose driver’s licenses for undocumented residents. They each
pledged to restore the state’s use of eVerify background checks for state
employees, a program that Chafee abolished on his first day in office in 2011.
Part of the reason politicians left and
right should champion this stance against illegal immigration is as a nation of
laws, every person living here legally should have access to these privileges,
simple enough, but not those who have entered the country illegally. Allowing law-breakers any legal privilege,
like driving on American streets, only enables more illegal immigration.
Unfortunately, some Republicans are caving in on this issue, like California Republican gubernatorial candidate Neel
Kashkari. While explaining that compassion and open
borders would not solve the illegal immigrant youth crisis, he still
supports drivers licenses for illegal immigrants.
CA GOP Kashkari supports DLs for Illegals |
"They can’t stay here, but while they are
here, they can still drive."
Confusing and contradictory polices like this one
are turning off voters in California. How does this kind of pandering help the
Republican Party win Hispanics votes, and elections in the long-run? Besides,
DLs for illegals ends up trapping states into sanctuary status. Why should
illegal immigrants leave when one can get away with driving legally and not
worry about getting deported if pulled over?
Supporters for this controversial policy
will contend that allowing them to drive legally will create safer roads and
reduce crime. The exact opposite has occurred in San Diego, and other states
enacting this policy. Fraud and human trafficking have become commonplace
in many locales, too.
I contacted Mayor Fung and Matthew Boyle,
who had written the story about Fung. The mayor affirmed his opposition to DLs
for illegals, but Boyle has not yet gotten back to me.
In this Internet-driven media market, misrepresentation
of a politician’s stance no longer goes unnoticed without immediate responses. While
mistakes like the one mischaracterizing Mayor Fung may be more common because of
the rapid increase of news production and consumption, readers and commentators
can take direct action to correct those stories when errors arise.
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