This is a little off the beaten path for me, so pardon me while I delve into religion and theology for a moment…

Maybe it’s the lapsed (and thus guilt-ridden) Catholic in me, but I really resent Not a Ferry Fan and other’s attacks on Frank Ferry for his comment that God doesn’t distinguish between American and non-American in the February City Council meeting.

Here it is played again in NAFF’s latest and quite possibly blasphemous video in which he takes on the voice of God and schools Frank Ferry on how sinful the illegals are:

After Ferry said this in early February, some said he was putting his allegiance to Cardinal Roger Mahoney before his allegiance to the City of Santa Clarita.

I say so what? So what if Ferry’s position on illegal immigration is informed by his Catholicism? Guess what, mine is too! The question for local conservatives and Christians is why aren’t your views on immigration shaped by your faith first and foremost rather than conservative political orthodoxy?

I’ll let Catholic theologian Richard Benson take over:

Every human being is created in the image of God and is both unique and equal. Some letters to editors refer to undocumented immigrants as “illegals.” I find this appalling language. Apart from the fact that it is bad grammar, it is a type of objectification of others reminiscent of the worst kind of racial profiling. No human being is ever to be reduced to being totally or even primarily identified by the color of their skin, their country of origin, their legal status or any other external characteristic. Every human being is first and foremost a person. In the book of Genesis, Scripture reveals that every human being is created as “imago Dei,” i.e. the image of God. Every human person is the child of God and therefore every human is a part of the family of God. We are sisters and brothers.

Local conservatives and Christians ought to be outraged when know-nothings like Not a Ferry Fan and Pastor Yancey take a person’s legal status before a human-created government and equate it with their standing before everlasting God. As if God would fault a poor man for crossing an arbitrary line on a map in order to better care for his family!

“Oh Jeff, you just don’t understand. The illegals are breaking the law! They’re illegal!” they shout.

But there is a higher law! A law and a law-giver who commands  us to treat fellow human beings with respect, dignity and love. Whether that is a Catholic law, a Christian law, the Golden Rule, karma or any other principle that decent religious people have believed in and fought for throughout the ages, it is a higher law than United States Code or ICE regulations.

Shame on you!

I hope Frank Ferry doesn’t back down at tonight’s Council meeting. I hope he stands for his principles and yes, his Catholic beliefs.

Now back to your regularly scheduled City Council election intrigue.

The Congressman Buck McKeon interview that appeared in Saturday’s Signal is interesting on a number of levels. First of all, it’s rare to see our Congressman interviewed in our local paper on national subjects. Usually our local media just asks him what he’s doing for us in Washington.

Perhaps that’s why Congressman McKeon seems caught off guard and even a tad irritated at Randles line of questioning. And maybe that’s why some of his responses don’t hold up under examination.

To wit:

Term Limits:

Check out McKeon’s deflection when Randles’ asked him directly about federal term limits:

THE SIGNAL: On March 3, you announced you will be running for re-election. You have served in Congress for more than 15 years. How important are term limits for elected officials?

McKEON: How important are they? In what way?

THE SIGNAL: Do you think it’s important to have some sort of term limits on elected officials? You’re the only Congressman that’s serve in the 25th Congressional District…

McKEON: We had a 25th Congressional District before i served in the 25th Congressional District, it was just a different congressional district.

We have term limits every year. Every two years we stand for election so the people have a chance to make a choice at that time and I think that’s a good system.

That’s quite a contrast with what he told the Daily News in 1995. From the May 23, 1995 edition*:

“I believe term limits are necessary to increase citizen participation and revive the concept of the citizen legislator who serves for a short time as a civic duty rather than as a career,” McKeon said. “Without term limits, we will continue to move more and more towards a system dominated by an entrenched class of politicians that erode accountability and responsiveness.”

…

McKeon, serving his House second term, has pledged to limit his congressional career to eight to 10 years. McKeon’s district covers the Los Angeles County portion of the Antelope Valley.

Zoom forward to 2010 and McKeon tells the Signal that he will serve in Congress “as long as I’m healthy and able to continue on.”

Stimulus

But that wasn’t the only flip-flop.  On the topic of the federal stimulus program, McKeon denied to The Signal that he ever said the the stimulus had failed to create jobs.

THE SIGNAL: You have said the $800 billion dollar federal stimulus has created no new jobs and…

McKEON: No, I didn’t say it hasn’t created no new jobs. When you throw out that kind of money it’s bound to create some jobs. What I have said is, since that bill was passed, we were promised it would create 3 million new jobs, but in fact what has happened is we have lost 4 million jobs. What I said was it’s been basically ineffective and for the amount of money that’s been spent, very few jobs have been created.

Actually Congressman, as recently as February you were saying the stimulus didn’t create jobs:

“The question is ‘Did the Stimulus Bill create new jobs?’  The answer is no.  The Democrats’ claimed their stimulus plan was going ‘create new jobs’ and hold unemployment at or below 8.5%.  The reality is new jobs have not been created.   In fact, millions of jobs have been lost, despite the $800 billion boondoggle that was rushed through Congress.

And that was only the latest flip flop. Back in November, McKeon toured a local lock factory that hired 17 new employees with stimulus money. The Signal story about that tour said, “The congressman voted against the stimulus package but conceded that in the case of Pacific Lock, the program is working.”

Health Care

Few issues have lit up our Congressman’s press and outreach machine like Health Care reform.  You should read his discussion with Jonathan Randles on the topic, but I wanted to zero in on McKeon’s abuse of the phrase “government takeover of healthcare,” which has appeared 16 times in outreach emails over the last year.

McKEON: Such as government basically taking over healthcare, and I have real concerns about that.

He goes on to claim that if Health Care reform passes, the 80% of Americans who like the insurance coverage they have “will lose it.”

For the last time, there is no proposal in the House, the Senate or in the President’s desk drawer that amounts to a “government takeover” of healthcare. Respected fact-check website Politifact.com tags Congressmen who say such things as “Liar Liar, Pants on Fire,” saying:

By any reasonable definition, there’s no way that the Democratic plan could be considered a government takeover. Indeed, its primary approach is to set up new systems to encourage private health insurance companies to provide more coverage and better services.

The cornerstone of the Democratic program is actually the status quo. The majority of Americans would continue to get health coverage the way they do now — from private insurance companies. That coverage would be paid for the same way it is now — by private employers and individual premiums. That’s not a government takeover.

Indeed, FactCheck.org said the whole “Government Takeover” mantra was one of 2009’s biggest “whoppers” alongside death panels.

It’s easy to figure out why Congressman McKeon continues to use this inaccurate phrase. Back in May 2009, pollster Frank Luntz said that was the only reasonable chance Republicans had of derailing health care reform.

I hope The Signal and other local media will do more interviews like this as the 2010 campaign season kicks off. Congressman McKeon works for us, after all.

* Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer.  (1995, May 23). CONGRESSMEN BACK MEASURE ON TERM LIMITS MCKEON, THOMAS SUPPORT BID FOR CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT :[ANTELOPE VALLEY Edition]. Daily News,p. AV.1.  Retrieved March 7, 2010, from California, South Newsstand. (Document ID: 19938913)

Here’s a simple word cloud comparison of Congressman McKeon’s outreach emails to constituents before and after the January and February Save Our State rallies in Santa Clarita. The size of the word indicates how often McKeon used the word in his emails and public statements:

Before the Rallies:

Created from 15,323 words in 77 outreach emails from 2/9/2009 to January. Emails are in my inbox

As you can see, before January, McKeon hardly ever mentioned illegal immigration. Nor would we expect him to mention it much because his primary post in Congress is as Ranking Member of the Armed Services Committee.

But now that he’s in campaign mode, it looks like illegal immigration is going to be a major theme.

After the Rallies:

Here’s a word cloud of his 500+ word statement yesterday announcing his reelection:

Created from his email yesterday announcing his reelection effort. "Immigrants" and "Immigration" are two of the largest words

I suppose you could say McKeon is pandering to the base for pivoting so dramatically from defense and national security issues to illegal immigration. But then again, I think the blow-up in Santa Clarita over illegal immigration in January and February was real and reflected uncertainties and fears about the economy in general.

Indeed, it seems McKeon is going to exploit those fears and uncertainties. Since the rallies, he’s also signed on to a number of controversial bills that would strip citizenship from babies born in the US to illegal immigrant parents and deny in-state tuition fees to illegal immigrant students who have lived here for much of their lives.

No matter that those bills have zero chance of passing (or in the case of one, Amending the Constitution), they will be used by McKeon during the campaign to show that he is doing something about illegal immigration.

McKeon is obviously listening and probably got a lot of push-back from constituents after he called for Bob Kellar to apologize.

Pack your bags because Tim Myers is sending us on a guilt trip with regard to Los Angeles County:

Talking negatively about the county seems proto-atypical of the Santa Clarita Valley. Many will remember a former Sunday Signal columnist who spent nearly every column deconstructing the corruption and evilness of county government, embodied in its enumerated anti-Christ, Supervisor Michael Antonovich, apparent representative of all evil in the world.

I’ve been guilty of that here on SCVTalk. It’s far too easy to bash the County apparatus for problems in the SCV (excepting of course the Sheriff’s Department and LACFD). They’re the big bad guys 35 miles away, out of sight and out of touch with the SCV, yet they make decisions that affect us everyday.

But that’s not fair. Our Supervisor is in touch with his District and with this community. His staff always answers my questions, points out errors in coverage and provides good information. They are accessible, and that’s a big thing in a County with 8 million + people.

And Supervisor Antonovich- well, he  is a career politician, but he knows what he’s doing and he has brought a lot of good things to the SCV (there are so many more parks in unincorporated SCV than when I first moved here, for example).

Near and dear to my heart are bicycles and libraries. As Myers pointed out, the public libraries in the SCV are popular and heavily used. And the County is developing a bicycle master plan and has held (and may hold more) meetings in the SCV for cyclists.

Good on Tim Myers for pointing out that we all engage in a little unwarranted County bashing.