No Documents, No Aid; Tancredo Sends Lettuce To Chertoff; Race Card Played In Manzanares' Suicide

No Duh!:

The founder of a new scholarship program created to help Denver Public Schools students afford college said the fund will not give any money to undocumented immigrant students.

Tim Marquez, the oilman who pledged $50 million of his own money to help seniors from three Denver high schools go to college, said he received legal advice that indicated he couldn't help undocumented students.

Marquez and his lawyers are basing their decision on a federal law that prohibits harboring illegal immigrants. They also said state laws could prohibit giving the money but couldn't cite any.

"We can't knowingly give money to undocumented kids," Marquez said in a recent interview. "If a kid can provide us a Social Security number, that is all we need to know. But if they can't, then we can't help them at all."

Remember folks, these kids are entitled. As one illegal immigrant advocate remarked "it is not only unkind, it is outright unfair"--any mention of legality is unnecessary when it comes to illegal immigrants.

On a related note, Tom Tancredo expressed his displeasure with the Bush administration's overheated rhetoric surrounding illegal immigration:

It’s not every day a presidential hopeful sends Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff a head of lettuce, but that’s what Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, is doing Wednesday to show his disagreement with Chertoff’s recent comments on how failure of passing immigration reform might affect the agricultural industry.

Tancredo says he disagrees with recent comments Chertoff made that suggested if the immigration bill fails, the agricultural industry will suffer. To prove his point he is sending Chertoff a head of lettuce, a fruit basket, and a card saying, “much, much more where this comes from.”

“The administration has taken hyperbole to a whole new level this time,” Tancredo said in a statement. “They are now trying to convince the public that without amnesty, the American people are going to starve?”

“The agriculture industry and the free market has managed to keep producing through floods, droughts, and $3.00 per gallon gas,” Tancredo added, “I doubt very seriously that a nominal increase in labor costs is going to be the end of lettuce as we know it.”

Tossed salad, anyone? (**Update--produce refused for "security reasons", Ken Salazar and Tancredo argue over impact on agriculture)

And--the race card is played in Larry Manzanares' suicide:

But, by far, the most reprehensible comments came from community "leaders" like Rosemary Rodriguez, former Denver City councilwoman and a friend of Manzanares'.

"It's a bad time to be a Hispanic in trouble in this city," she explained.

Rodriguez's insinuation, in case you missed it, is that there is systemic abuse of Latinos in Denver. She was not the only one to infer that such a devious conspiracy was afoot.
. . .
There will always be those who peddle the ugly currency of victimhood to hold political power. Sometimes the currency is used to save political allies from trouble. Other times it's simple pandering.

In this case, it seems that we have a hat trick.

Should Manzanares' alleged crimes not have been followed up because of his ethnicity? That would be old-fashioned racism--selective enforcement of the law based on one's race/ethnicity. But for leftist moonbats who see everything through the prism of race/gender/oppression, this is just another example of the "white man" keeping the former judge, city attorney, and Harvard graduate down.