The Capistrano Insider

Conservative King O'Reilly Calls Capistrano's Reeves 'Pinhead' Over Dog Name

Even conservative talk show host Bill O'Reilly has weighed in on the issue of San Juan Capistrano City Councilman Derek Reeve naming his dog "Muhammad," after the Muslim prophet. Reeve said he did it as a lesson in free speech.

O'Reilly's response: "Free speech issues aside, Mr. Reeve is a pinhead," O'Reilly said during the short "pinhead and patriots" segment his Fox News show. "Why offend Muslims if you don't have to? You wanna teach your children about tolerance there are plenty of others way to do it."

Here's a link, with video, via San Juan Capistrano Patch.

And Frank Mickadeit, the OC Register's columnist, has weighed in, too. He attended Tuesday's meeting. His take:

First, was his stated reason for naming one of his dogs Muhammad – teaching his children the meaning of free speech – completely sincere? Did he name his dog something he knew would offend some Muslims because it was necessary to make a point? Or does he mainly just want to offend Muslims?

According to Patch.com, after the Sept. 6 council meeting, he wrote a blog piece for Patch talking about how his two dogs got their names. In the original blog, he wrote:

"While playing with our family's two new Basset Hounds, Muhammad and America (Muhammad is the bitch), I was thinking ..."

But this part of his post was removed a short time later. In response to another reader's inquiry about its disappearance, Patch editor Jenna Chandler wrote that "(Reeve) wrote to me to say he had intended to delete that part of the blog post, and wasn't sure how it remained in our queue. In fairness to him, we deleted it from this story."

So, if Reeves' naming of his dog was also something of a statement – essentially, Muhammad is America's bitch – that would seem to belie his public statement that it was all about freedom of speech. It would be evidence of the insensitivity and mean-spiritedness his critics allege."

Here's Frank's column.

Frank followed up with another column:

"My column yesterday about San Juan City Councilman Derek Reeve naming his dog Muhammad mostly examined the corrupt logic and false sincerity behind his reasoning: he said he was teaching his children a free-speech lesson. Many Muslims consider dogs foul.

It's bad enough you have a politician so consumed by ideology that he gins up some illogical reason to mask what's really going on. That kind of thinking can have spillover into all sorts of policy-setting arenas, so it is worth noting for the future. But what I failed to address, for space reasons, was the very real and immediate impact of his hurtful words within the lovely city of San Juan.

Mayor Sam Allevato wrote me:

"We employ Muslim workers, who were offended by the statement, especially in the manner it was delivered. Who is to speak for them? They won't speak up for themselves as they obviously fear retaliation. I know that a 'hostile work environment' has to be a pervasive culture or pattern of behavior within an organization. But could not a 'pattern' of a hostile work environment begin with one statement made by the highest ranking member of the city?"

SJC is so on notice now, I'd be shocked if you ever heard another slur, but in theory, he's right. More practically, Reeve demoralized a group of employees, and without a real apology that will linger."

Here's that column.

Reeve Doesn't Seem Apologetic About Naming Dog 'Muhammad' *UPDATED

Updated to fix broken link on audio.

San Juan Capistrano City Councilman Derek Reeve doesn't seem apologetic in the wake of announcing he named his dog "Muhammad," although he's been criticized by colleagues, residents and members of the Islamic community.

Courtesy Jim Reardon -- a running mate when Reeve was elected in 2010 -- here's a tape of Reeve's announcement at the City Council meeting:

DogPark

On his Facebook page, he points out the council is more concerned with his dog's name than with a code-enforcement effort against a Capistrano family hosting Bible studies in their home.

Here's a screen grab of that page (click on the photo to read it):

And over on Patch, Editor Jenna Chandler said Reeve's initial blog about the dogs included the line "Muhammad is the bitch," referring to the female dog. That line was removed, Chandler said, because Reeve told her he did not intend to include it.

Here's a screengrab there:

The item remains on Tuesday's council agenda.

Congressional Testimony: E-Verify Bad if Not Part of Larger Reform

SJC Americans in town has pushed for mandatory E-Verify for all businesses in San Juan Capistrano. Businesses would pledge to use it or not get a business license. Instead, the city requires companies that receive city contracts to pledge they will use it.

This out today:

 From the Immigration Policy Center:

 E-Verify: Burdens Businesses and Displaces U.S. Workers

Congressional Hearing Ignores Impacts on Business and Asserts it's Good for Workers

February 10, 2011

Washington D.C. - Today, the House Immigration Subcommittee held its second hearing of the new session. Ironically, the hearing was titled "E-Verify - Preserving Jobs for American Workers." Some members of Congress persist in their belief that expanding E-Verify and making it mandatory is a magic-bullet solution to our immigration woes. However, data and analysis demonstrate that expanding E-Verify now would actually have harmful consequences for U.S. workers, employers, and the economy.

Earlier today, the Immigration Policy Center hosted a call with a U.S. citizen who was wrongfully terminated due to an E-Verify error, an attorney who sees first hand the economic impact voluntary E-Verify is having on U.S. businesses and workers, and policy experts. 

U.S. citizen Jessica St. Pierre described her experience after being rejected by E-Verify. She spent four months trying to correct the error, which originated with her employer and E-Verify. Jessica dealt with federal agencies, credit bureaus and her former employer, trying to clear her name so she could return to work. Read Jessica's story here.

 Attorney Marketa Lindt laid out why mandatory E-Verify isn't ready for prime time and is an additional burden which U.S. business can't afford to shoulder: "Many employers recognize that they do not have the resources to train their staff and to maintain the E-Verify system for their company. Although the government always describes the E-Verify program as free for employers, anyone who runs a business knows that any process that takes staff time to implement costs the employer money. In fact, a recent Bloomberg study states that if E-Verify had been mandatory for employers last year, it would have cost U.S. employers $2.7 billion. And, as the vast majority of U.S. employers are small businesses, almost all of that $2.7 billion price tag would have been shouldered by our country's small businesses." Read More Here.

In testimony submitted to Congress, Tyler Moran, policy director at the National Immigration Law Center, gave the bottom-line problem with expanding E-Verify: "Making E-Verify mandatory outside of broader reform of our immigration system undermines American jobs and will ultimately impose new burdens on our economy, workers, and businesses. We have been trying an immigration enforcement-only approach for at least two decades now, and it has not worked. We need enforcement of labor, employment, and civil-rights laws, not the current churning of the workforce, where undocumented workers are preferred over documented workers because they are easier to hire and fire. That only results in further downward pressure on wages and working conditions of all U.S. workers." 

The Immigration Policy Center also published this report on the impacts.

The National Immigration Law Center says widespread E-Verify would "cripple" small business.

About the Capistrano Chamber's Latino Council ...

It was no surprise that some folks in San Juan Capistrano would complain that the Chamber of Commerce's move to create a "Latino Council."

The council's first event was a visit with Sheriff Sandra Hutchens at Ricardo's restaurant last Thursday. I was there, and I was also at the Latino Council's first meeting Wednesday evening.

Hutchens told the 60 or so at the Ricardo's event that her job is to enforce the law, not to take a stance on political issues -- such as illegal immigration.

Patch.com wrote a piece about the event, and the posting immediately drew fire from residents Orrie Brown and Kim McCarthy -- two residents involved in "SJC Americans" and the "Common Sense" publication.

They contended in the posts that the council is "segregating" the Latinos and thereby created a divide.

If that's true, the chamber's creating divides among car dealers, restaurants, equestrians, too.

Each of those business segments is now represented on the chamber by a "council," along with Latino businesses.

The Chamber of Commerce looked at key business segments and created the council to ensure those businesses are represented on the council and as an outreach tool.

The idea is to gain new members for the chamber and ensure the chamber has a welcome mat out for each of the business segments ...

It seemed like a positive thing to me?

 

Any Publicity is Good Publicity ....

This came out around Halloween, but election madness got in the way. OC Weekly does an annual list of "Orange County's Scariest People" (think Octomom and the like) and this year San Juan Capistrano gets a litlte shout out ...

Coming in at No. 18: SJC Americans.

It takes quite the organization to protest a 9/11 commemoration in which an octogenarian veteran of the Battle of Okinawa received an award, but that’s exactly what this group did, claiming the celebration was un-American because the group running it was a nonprofit fronting as storm troopers for the Reconquista (or so they say)...

See the whole entry here.