Calling B.S.on Politico

A rumbling in the barrio?

Obama promised hope and change, and Hispanics hoped for the usual two Latinos in the Cabinet. And heck, why not three or four? Now that would be a change. But at this early stage in the appointments process, there is a trickle of disappointment running through the Latino community.

Yeah, right. Someone should do a poll and see what percentage of Latinos can name a single appointee to Obama's Cabinet. I doubt it's 10 percent. Given that the "community" is not paying attention, where is this "trickle of disappointment" really located?

First, the most prominent Hispanic leader, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, lost the plum secretary of state assignment to New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Last spring, Richardson angered the Clintonistas by backing Obama over Clinton during the heated Democratic Primary contest, only to now see her being offered the top diplomatic post.
“There’s nobody more prepared and experienced” for the job than Richardson, said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Richardson was energy secretary and ambassador to the United Nations during the Clinton administration, and he helped free hostages in North Korea, Iraq and Cuba.
Second, grass-roots immigrant rights activists have mixed feelings about Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano being the likely nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security.
Arizona is the epicenter of the national immigration crisis, and Napolitano, the popular border state governor, has navigated through turbulent rhetoric on all sides to calm the debate.
Napolitano signed into law last year the nation’s harshest penalties against employers who hire undocumented workers.

In other words, a bunch of Hispanic officeholders are grumbling about "jobs for the boys," and the amnesty activists are afraid that the choice of Napolitano might indicate that Obama won't pander sufficiently to the Atzlan mob. It's not the "community," it's the special interests.

The special interests ought to remember that Hillary was leading in Iowa until she stumbled over Tim Russert's question about drivers licenses for illegals. If the "trickle of disappointment" means that Obama isn't going to pander to La Raza, it's a very good sign.

Juan La Raza McCain

Trying to outpander Obama:

Barack Obama takes the podium at the National Council of La Raza/The Race tonight. John McCain will Hispander, as Mickey Kaus puts it so well, tomorrow.
It’ll be an open-borders lovefest for Obama, who was championed yesterday at The Race conference by L.A.'s zealous pro-illegal immigration mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa. . . .
As for McCain’s appearance tomorrow, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review calls it "the biggest mistake of his 2008 presidential run."

He wasn't born here. Is it too late to deport him?

UPDATE: Selling out conservative values? No, it's a "centrist shift," says the L.A. Times.

Our Hispanic baby boom

Fox News headlines its story: "Teen Pregnancy Rate Hits 15-Year High." Bet dollars to donuts that this misleading angle will be repeated in dozens of op-ed columns blaming the rise on abstinence education.

But before everyone hits the panic button and buys into the Planned Parenthood propaganda, let me point out that the recent rise in teen birth rates is entirely a function of the increased Hispanic population.

The federal report that is the basis for the Fox News story doesn't mention this fact in its summary, but look at the statistics from the report:

Teen Birth Rates 2006
(Per 1,000 females 15-19)
White* 26.6
Black* 64.3
Asian 16.7
Hispanic 83.0
(*Excluding Hispanics, who may be of any race.)

Compare these figures to 15 years earlier:

Teen Birth Rates 1991
(Per 1,000 females 15-19)
White* 43.4
Black* 114.8
Asian 27.3
Hispanic 104.6
(*Excluding Hispanics, who may be of any race.)

So, since 1991, the teen birth rate for whites and Asians has decreased 39%, while the black teen birth rate has decreased 44%, but the Hispanic teen birth rate has decreased only 21%.

The report describes the demographic impact of the continued Hispanic influx:

In 2007, 57 percent of children were White, non-Hispanic, 21 percent were Hispanic, 15 percent were Black, 4 percent were Asian, and 4 percent were of all other races (Figure 1).The percentage of children who are Hispanic has increased faster than that of any other racial or ethnic group, growing from 9 percent of the child population in 1980 to 21 percent in 2007.

In other words, the proportion of U.S. children in the demographic group with the highest teen birth rates has increased 133% since 1980. So, despite 39%-44% declines in teen births among other ethnic groups, we now see teen births on the rise again. The change in the birth rate is not due to a change in teen behavior, but a change in teen demographics.

What these statistics make clear is that, if U.S. officials seriously wanted to decrease the number of teen births, they could do so merely by enforcing its immigration laws, since a substantial share of the current Hispanic population is here illegally.

As I've written before, however, I am not a "teen pregnancy crisis" alarmist, and view such alarmists with suspicion.

UPDATE: Jessica Grose at Jezebel reports that this story -- also reported as news Friday by CNN and Bloomberg -- is based on statistics originally released nine months ago by the CDC.