Republicans have good reason to oppose Obamacare, but illegal immigration? Not to diminish its importance as an issue, but really? Illegal immigration is more important than foreign policy and our pursuit of obscenely expensive foreign wars? More important than our economy and the job market? More important than our tax system? More important than domestic business regulation or international trade?

I don’t see how illegal immigration, which largely benefits the United States due to its influx of cheap labor, could even land itself in the top five issues facing our nation.

So why does Ann Coulter, the wicked witch of shock-conservative talking heads, think it’s so important?

Then it hit me.

Republican leaders want to counter illegal immigration in order to prevent latinos from voting for Democrats.

Latinos make up 9% of the US voting population, and collectively are growing at a much faster rate than the US population as a whole. They’re a coveted voting demographic who tend to favor Democrats by a wide margin: 65% of latino voters are registered Democrats, while only 22% are registered Republicans. There are two reasons for the demographic’s growth. The first is the group’s unusually high fertility rate. The second is that illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico into the US tend to rear children here, and their children become US citizens upon their birth.

Considering that 45% of US population growth after 2030 is projected to come from latino births and that latino voters strongly favor Democratic candidates, the Republican party is in a bit of a bind. If this trend continues, Democrats could be in a position to consolidate control of the house and the senate for a long time; perhaps as long as they did in the 20th century (from 1933 to 1995). For Republicans, then, restricting illegal immigration is not a fight about the party’s values. The party’s position is not a result of a careful assessment of policy options. Rather, restricting illegal immigration is a fight for the continued existence of the Republican Party, period.

“Only one candidate is right on the two most important issues” - Ann Coulter

Thanks for finding this, Lis!

In Washington State, there is an important initiative being put to a public vote that will determine if Washington will maintain its backwards and competition-stifling liquor sales monopoly. It’s called I-1183, and it’s being backed by Republicans (including the Attorney General, Rob McKenna), business leaders (including most notably Costco), libertarians, independents, and the state’s largest newspaper, The Seattle Times. Its detractors primarily fall into two groups: rural social conservatives and national liquor distributors. Big money has been spent on both sides, with most of the money in support of 1183 coming from Costco, and most (if not all) of the money in opposition of 1183 coming from national liquor distributors.

Why do big liquor distributors oppose 1183? Because under the current system, the Washington State Liquor Control Board is the sole buyer of liquor available for sale in the state, which locks in oversized profit margins for the big liquor distributors. If 1183 were to pass, liquor retailers could bargain with liquor distributors for the best prices and could choose not to carry certain brands (or liquor from certain distributors) that carry an excessive markup.

The Costco-financed ‘Yes on 1183′ campaign has been met with tens of thousands of vocal supporters, whereas their opposition seems to have either significantly-less supporters, or supporters who are much less vocal than those in the ‘Yes’ camp.

For an objective comparison, here are the numbers from each sides’ respective Facebook fanpages:

Yes on 1183‘s Facebook Page*:

• 35,147 ‘likes’/fans
• Six fanpages (one official page, five unauthorized/duplicate fanpages each with less than 80 ‘likes’)
• Timeline posts with up to 377 ‘likes’
• Timeline posts with up to 77 comments
• Polls with 1000+ responses

No on 1183‘s Facebook Page*:

In summary, 1183 supporters are absolutely trouncing their opponents–on the web, at least.

The ‘Yes’ camp has more than 18 times as many ‘likes’/fans as the ‘No’ camp, 6.5 times more ‘likes’ on its timeline updates/posts, more than 7 times as many peak comments on its timeline posts, and is using polls to great effect.

All this data begs the question…does ‘No on 1183′ have lots of real supporters, or is their campaign using its large budget to falsely create the appearance of grassroots support (also known as astroturfing)? The data on Facebook points to the latter, but we cannot rely on just one far-from-ideal dataset to answer our question. Doing so would be a failure of scientific and statistical rigor because Facebook is likely not representative of the state’s voting population.

There is another problem that complicates the route to finding an answer: public choice theory. The theory illuminates a common problem in democratic politics: minority special interest groups who stand to gain from changes oftentimes make themselves more vocal than those of indifferent majorities with little to lose. This could explain the gap in visible support of 1183–perhaps voters are evenly split on the issue, but the supporters of 1183 just happen to be much more vocal than its opponents.

So, which side is doing the astroturfing?

Neither side of the 1183 issue is totally innocent of astroturfing, but it is ‘No on 1183′ that is certainly guiltier.

Costco’s support for 1183 is largely self-serving, and it just so happens that their call for change has been met with quite a bit of support from individuals and politicians of all types (Democrats excluded). Big liquor distributors are likewise self-serving in their opposition to 1183, but because they’ve found themselves on the wrong side of a wedge issue that has widespread support, they’ve had to resort to a determined campaign of misinformation in an effort to confuse voters about what would happen if 1183 were to pass, and they’ve attempted to create the illusion that all firefighters, first-responders, and law enforcement professionals in the state are on their side, which isn’t true, either.

It effectively replaces your iPhone Calendar app and does all the regular things (creating/editing calendar entries, inviting others, et cetera) that you would expect. It really shines, though, when you’re running late to meet someone or need a map of the venue to navigate to the meeting venue quickly with GPS.

Here’s an example. If I create a calendar event called “Lunch with Tony W. at Grim’s Seattle”, TouchBase will automatically go through my iPhone contacts and find Tony W. and associate him with the calendar event. The app will also run a Google search for “Grim’s Seattle” and insert the top-ranked search result’s address into the location/address field of the calendar event. Since TouchBase knows who I’m meeting with and automatically fetched his phone number from my address book, I can call or text Tony DIRECTLY from the calendar event, and because TouchBase has automatically fetched the meeting venue’s address, I can navigate to it and get driving directions–also straight from the TouchBase calendar event. If I’m stuck in traffic for our lunch meeting, I can simply hit “I’m running late by 20 minutes” and TouchBase will send Tony a text to let him know (or I can call him).

This is the kind of useful extension of the calendar that I wish Apple had built into the standard iPhone calendar. Anyways, you can now have this functionality for just $0.99 (the price is set to quadruple to $3.99, so get it soon!).

TouchBase App (iTunes)

Via GeekWire.

Oddly enough, my favorite news source (The New York Times) is one that I often find myself at odds with. Usually it’s limited to economist and champion-of-the-left Paul Krugman, what with his defense of big government and socialist policies, but occasionally I find other problems with their reporting.

While reading Binyamin Appelbaum’s piece for NYT’s The Caucus blog, I came upon an egregious error that I must point out:

Subprime Mortgage Lending

Earlier in the [Republican] debate, Michele Bachmann suggested that the federal government caused the boom in subprime mortgage lending by pushing banks to lower “platinum level” lending standards.

[...]

The assertion [...] mischaracterizes the historical relationship between the government and banks. Regulators can sometimes prevent banks from acting, but there is almost no evidence that the government can push banks to make loans they don’t want to make. This point has been underscored over the last two years, as the Obama administration has begged and pleaded with banks to start making loans, and banks have largely declined to do so.

Banks did make subprime loans in large numbers, and the reason they did so, according to their own executives, was that they saw a chance to make lots of money.

Has Mr. Appelbaum ever heard of the Community Reinvestment Act? It’s often been pointed to as one of the partial causes of the subprime mortgage/debt meltdown of 2007-2011. The CRA requires banks to lend money to lower-income and less-creditworthy borrowers, which consequently increases future loan losses and imperils the creditworthiness of banks, potentially risking the health of the entire economy.

The film was light-hearted and funny, and full of surprises. I wouldn’t have normally chosen to see a film in this genre, but after seeing the film I’m quite glad I did.

Check out the remainder of the festival, which goes through Sunday:

festival of new spanish cinema
September 21–25, SIFF Cinema at McCaw Hall

The energy of Almódovar. The risk-taking of Amenabar. The unadulterated exhilaration of Buñuel. SIFF celebrates the return of the Festival of New Spanish Cinema, unveiling the next generation of Spanish film legends. Featuring first-time filmmakers and established masters alike, the very best in contemporary Spanish cinema comes to SIFF Cinema. Join us for award-winning comedies, romances and dramatic masterpieces, and the special unveiling of a horror classic.

Organized by Pragda and SIFF Cinema. Supported by the Embassy of Spain in Washington DC and Ministry of Culture of Spain-ICAA. Additional support comes from Consulate of Spain in Seattle and San Francisco, Instituto Cervantes Seattle, University of Washington, Iberia Airlines, American Airlines and Eurochannel. Wine courtesy of Martín Códax Albariño and Las Rocas Garnacha, our exclusive wine sponsor. Promotional consideration by 88.5 KPLU.

Series Pass Available!
All 10 films for $60 | $40 SIFF Members