Correspondence: Trump's ace, Rocca go home & c.
CORRESPONDENCE An Apostle's Creed As one of the "apostles of campaign finance reform" cited in Byron York's article on Federal Election Commission nominee Brad Smith ("Taking Aim at Mr. Smith,"...
...I'm through...
...If the U.S...
...Only if I had doubts about their answers would I refer them for closer inspection...
...He can buy Mr...
...An added thought: Has anybody noticed that nobody ever lends out a book by Waugh...
...Steyn Has Sowell Mark Steyn is an absolute treasure...
...Perhaps this is what passes for perceptive journalism in what was once supposed to be a conservative publication—one gets the impression that Trump's priapism is actually supposed to be a recommendation for public office...
...An academic like Smith, who has made a career out of bashing Congress's decision to ban corporate and labor contributions as well as large individual contributions, cannot be entrusted to work Congress's will in this area...
...The role of Commissioners is to decide the most hotly contested issues concerning the parameters of federal campaign finance law...
...It is Basic Books, not the Free Press...
...Instead, Mr...
...Trump, who fired a parthian shot or two in the direction of the Reform Party upon his abrupt departure from it, had a number of things to say about the unsavory company he was forced to keep while in it...
...Shiflett to strip and streak through your publication's covers...
...GENE WADE Snellyille, Georgia Francis X. Rocca replies: I thought I made it clear in the article that my wife and I deceived no one...
...Rocca's criticisms of the Treasury Departmentforms he filled out and immigration procedures were so filled with half-truths and distortions that, as a former Immigration Inspector with the INS, I scarcely recognized the procedure one goes through to enter or re-enter the U.S...
...later determined that a terrorist had been admitted to this country, and had liedto that question, then it would be easier to deport said terrorist for fraud...
...Smith misses the point when he asserts that he would faithfully enforce the contribution limits he abhors...
...As to Rocca's comparison between Italian and U.S...
...A Bolivian or an Angolan cannot simply hop on a plane and visit New York without a visa, as a Swede or an Italian can...
...His take on New Hampshire, colored by his local affiliation, seems to have hit the nail on the head about Mr...
...CATHERINE WINDELS Scarsdale, New York a U.S...
...Or was it under the tutelage of the well-paid Mr...
...Ed...
...Virtually all other industrialized nations have clamped down on immigration, so now the U.S...
...66 April 2000 The American Spectator...
...He was and is as hollow as an empty oil drum...
...Perhaps they only committed "deceit...
...If it were up to me, the policy would be more liberal all around...
...Rocca's meandering about someone in Franco's Spain, an ally of Hitler's Germany, being involved in assisting genocide and not eligible for a visa is ridiculous...
...His embassies in Europe also saved many Jews from the Nazis by giving them Spanish passports...
...immigration laws, the last I heard, half the world wasn't clamoring to live in Italy...
...He can make even the most mundane of political reporting assignments vastly entertaining and educational...
...SUSAN TUCKER Roanoke, Virginia The Editors reply: Mr...
...Rocca's information, Franco's Spain was neutral in World War II, and Franco, by preventing Hitler from attacking Gibraltar, significantly aided the Allies in achieving victory...
...DENNIS KOZIEL Littleton, Colorado The Element of Surprise I enjoyed the review by Algis Valiunas of The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh ("Always the Loved One," TAS, February 2000...
...Presumably, it was there that he learned the economic wisdom that was later to induce him to pronounce in favor of a 27 percent income tax increase...
...Yes, we want to know where people have traveled...
...However, your reviewer has committed the cardinal sin of revealing the "surprise endings" to some of the stories...
...Lenora Fulani...
...Shiflett genuflecting to the god of mammon while continuously patting himself on the back does raise an amusing image...
...Borderline Insanity" was a good title for the article, however, more as a description of Mr...
...The art of the deal indeed...
...Trump is gone—banished by the little lady who cleaned hisclock in the struggle for the control of the New York Reform Party Dr...
...No wonder the official looked at him with "pity...
...As for Franco and Hitler, it's true that Spain was officially neutral in the Second World War, though Spanish troops fought alongside the Germans on the Russian front...
...The real reason Trump is leaving is because he has been pushed out of the party by Pat Buchanan and his allies—and he has proven himself a wimp with no stomach for a fight...
...citizens...
...Rocca really believe that, because he asserts to an immigration official that "surely there aren't many cases of marriage fraud involving Italians," he and his wife should receive special treatment from the INS...
...is the country of choice...
...His opinion has been ably backed up by the other pundit whose opinion I value highly—Thomas Sowell...
...Trump stood for nothing but Trump...
...Donald Trump could not hack it at Fordham University—back in those days the Jesuits insisted on rigorous academic standards (ask Pat Buchanan) — and so ended up at the Wharton School, that elegant dumping ground for the liberal effete...
...These forms are stored in stacks of boxes for a short period of time, then destroyed...
...Trump found her unsavory too—but he obviously could not use her as a reason for leaving, because she was in the Reform Party before he was...
...To allow the author, a self-proclaimed hack, to review his own book could have been pretty funny...
...Nevertheless, I was surprised to see Dave Shiflett's review of a new book by—David Shiflett...
...Shiflett lands somewhere between too cutesy to be really funny, and so impressed with himself that the mental picture of Mr...
...Although a clear majority in both the House and the Senate has voted to stop the flood of money into politics, Senator McConnell has blocked further reform with a filibuster...
...Windels objects that I wanted "special treatment" for my wife, but the immigration system is hardly evenhanded...
...For you to have Donald Trump's co-author write a review (I) of the book that he wrote...
...I suspect Rocca's reported conversation with a consular officer lacks a few details...
...I should think this tends to compromise the credibility of both Mr...
...Treasury form and is used primarily to identify instances where duties are due or possibly illegal items are present, it is also used by immigration and agriculture inspectors...
...We acted as we did in order to avoid a misunderstanding—i.e., that she was entering the U.S...
...for a (Continued on page 66) Perhaps the article by Francis X. Rocca was intended to be funny but to me was not...
...Perhaps Mr...
...Until Smith's academic writings can convince a majority of Congress that it erred in enacting the FECA, we should continue to appoint FEC Commissioners who at least agree with the mission of the agency...
...I personally hope Rocca remains in Italy with his wife, forever...
...As to "why such particular fuss about Nazis," it's because Congress says so...
...Doubtless our orange-haired Lothario includes in that category Charles A. Lindbergh, Robert A. Taft, Herbert Hoover, and Harry S Truman—who are on record sharing Pat's views about World War II...
...Smith," TAS, February moo), I would like to clarify what is at stake in Senator McConnell's power play to force the nomination...
...Crossings Francis X. Rocca's article, "Borderline Insanity" (TAS, February z000), was heartening to read — heartening because it is good to know that some immigration officials are trying to defend our borders...
...The hack and his hero expose themselves to have all the depth of a small tea saucer...
...Keep up the good work, we out here in fly-over land love you...
...McCain ("Retort From New Hampshire," TAS, February 2000...
...Can Mr...
...York hopes that the future may prove that Smith has made a "clear-eyed case for a better way...
...Now Senator McConnell is shifting from obstructing reform to dismantling the current laws by appointing enforcement officers with no interest in enforcing even the current loophole-ridden campaign finance laws...
...The "unfounded" warning from the consular official was corroborated for me by an experienced immigration lawyer, so we didn't want to take the chance...
...As silly as it may sound, that statement is really not as silly as it seems...
...Rocca's ideas in immigration policy (essentially, open borders) than as an indictment of current U.S...
...Trump has ridden off into political obscurity, which is just as well for the Republic...
...As to Rocca's "disappointment that I observe the current tendency to keep out newcomers": If he had seen the tidal wave of "newcomers" threatening to engulf this country, perhaps he would understand this feeling.— Rocca's article was misleading, arrogant, and vicious, and not deserving publication in The American Spectator...
...She might encounter a few extra questions as to intent and if she were immigrating, but for Rocca to suggest that she would be turned back is unfounded...
...in order to reside there...
...For example, the FEC currently has before it such controversial issues as whether to close the "soft money" loophole and how better to define prohibited "coordination" between political parties and advocacy groups...
...Shiflett and the Spectator itself...
...Presumably this is because Africans and Latin Americans are deemed more likely than Europeans to overstay their time limits and look for jobs...
...Visits to different countries could prompt additional and different questions...
...Rocca described is a Customs Declaration...
...E. JOSHUA ROSENKRANZ Brennan Center for Justice New York, New York The Shiflett We Deserve All hail Dave Shiflett, who can get paid handsomely for ghost-writing a book under the name of Donald Trump, and then get paid again by your august publication for writing a favorable review of same ("Trump's No Chump," TAS, February 2000...
...The adjudication of a visa application includes analyzing the facts in each situation and will take individual situations into consideration...
...SHARON O'CONNOR Fort Lauderdale, Florida Correction Last month's review of David Frum's new book, How We Got Here: The do's, listed the incorrect publisher...
...Although Senator McConnell clearly lacks the votes to repeal the Federal Election Campaign Act, he can accomplish his goal by appointing an FEC Commissioner who will gut the agency's enforcement efforts...
...Had she been asked her marital status, or anything else, she would have answered truthfully...
...But never mind...
...I was thinking instead of the Civil War, in which Hitler backed Franco...
...In reality, the Immigration, Customs and Agricultural inspections are as low key and unobtrusive as possible...
...These agencies are actually incapable of tracking non-U.S...
...Incidentally, for Mr...
...WILLIAM KREBS Santa Rosa, California 10 April 2000 • The American Spectator Please, please, please...don't send me any more magazines and cancel whatever portion left I have of my subscription...
...DAVID R. WADE The Buchanan Brigades of Illinois Aurora, Illinois Your new humor feature in the February 2000 issue, "Trump's No Chump," is an interesting experiment in journalism...
...I bought the book anyway...
...As to Rocca's presumption that this travel information goes into a computer, rubbish...
...First, the first form Mr...
...That's beyond the line of journalistic bounds...
...citizen (and of no further interest to the INS), or if a foreign visitor, were they coming for a valid reason, are they drug addicts, drug carriers, terrorists, impostors with someone else's documents or counterfeit or forged documents...
...Since this glowing review was written, Mr...
...With Sowell and Steyn on the case, McCain would be wise to hang it up...
...visitors, much less U.S...
...Travel to drug source countries may be of interest to a customs agent...
...His Italian spouse should encounter no real difficulty entering the U.S...
...Until Rocca's wife decides to live in the U.S., she is ineligible for a green card, as green card holders are expected to maintain their main domicile in the U.S....It was silly for Rocca and his wife to travel separately to avoid certain immigration questions...
...Although this is The American Spectator • April 2000 11 Correspondence (Continuedfrompage visit...
...Shiflett is in Atlantic City and unavailable for comment...
...Lackey Shiflett celebrates the sexual promiscuity of his boss...
...Unlike the company he has kept in the past with various mobsters and con men like Meyer Lansky and Bernie Cornfield while he was busy building up his gambling empire, they being the founding fathers of his present wealth...
...Shiflett, but he could not buy the Reform Party...
...I agree only slightly with Rocca about his criticism that no "self-respecting" terrorist would ever admit on a form that he was a terrorist...
...Perhaps you have just arrived from a country with rampant Ebola or TB or visited a foreign horse farm in a country with a history of a severe equine virus...
...In our democracy, Congress, not administrators, make those kinds of ultimate decisions...
...Shiflett's ghostwriter regrets to say that Mr...
...As an INS Inspector, I had about 30 seconds to examine/inspect each arriving passenger to determine if the person in front of me was really a U.S...
...Legally, if she actually lied or misrepresented herself to an Immigration Inspector, she committed fraud, a federal and deportable offense...
...Which, come to think of it, is a pretty good reason to allow Mr...
...they are still murderers, they are still out there and they don't have a "right" to be in the U.S...
...It was Italy, of course, not Spain, that was allied with Hitler...
...Rocca should discuss his belief with some Jewish friends, if he has any...
...Buchanan, who writes his own books, stands for definite principles...
...at our international airports...
...Our apologies to Basic Books and to our readers...
...FRAN RAAB Allegan, Michigan I am aware The American Spectator enjoys taking an unconventional approach to culture...
...Shiflett that he learned to identify Pat Buchanan as a neo-Nazi...
...The notorious attack on Guernica, for instance, was the work of the Luftwaffe's Condor Legion...
...He also seems to have excelled in history...
Vol. 33 • April 2000 • No. 3
