Brew City Brawler

Will we have John Gard to kick around again?

If we are to believe Ol Lady Owen Robinson, we might, as Johnny "Per Diem"  Gard seems set on another congressional bid. By how many points should Kagen, with the benefit of incumbency, be able to beat him in a rematch? Particularly as Gard seems less than organized.

(Kevin Binversie appears none too happy Owen mentioned it.)

See the relevant FEC filing here. Here's the Gard page.

Will John Gard be able to escape the private sector and return to the public teat once again? Stay tuned!

John Gard, anti-immigrant

Please note the headline says anti-immigrant. Not anti-illegal immigrant. Now why would the Brawler say that?

Because of his willingness to deny food stamps to legal immigrants, including the Hmong who fought on our side in Vietnam. From the Brawler archives:

The Brawler almost forgot how Gard thought we should repay them until he took a trip in the time travel machine. From the 5/1/98 Cap Times:

Republican lawmakers turned their backs on hundreds of Hmong families and other refugees in Wisconsin by refusing to restore food stamp benefits for legal immigrants.

They said the blame lies not with them, but with the U.S. government. Republicans in the U.S. Senate are blocking the aid in Washington, D.C.

On a party-line vote Thursday, the Joint Finance Committee voted 12-4 against restoring the food stamp benefits that were cut by federal welfare and immigration laws that took effect last year.

The federal cuts left an estimated 7,200 legal immigrants in the state -- most of them children -- without food stamps.

The problem has been compounded by Gov. Tommy Thompson's Wisconsin Works welfare replacement plan, because parents who participate in the work program get a flat grant -- which doesn't go far in a large family.

In Madison and other communities, immigrant parents who fought with American forces during the Vietnam War have been astonished by the sudden denial of benefits they say they earned with their blood.

"We are the defenders of the American combat troops in South Vietnam," Chia Vang told reporters during a recent press conference on the food stamp issue. "In Laos, we became citizens of the United States when the American leaders promised to take care of us" if they lost the war.

Some of the refugees, confronted with the loss of food for their families and unable to get jobs because of war wounds or a lack of English, have threatened to commit suicide if they cannot feed their families.

Vang noted that in Laos, when there was hunger, many Hmong families either planted their own crops or foraged in the hills for their own food. "In the USA, when the government terminates their only source of benefits, they will not be able to go to the hills," he said.

Rep. John Gard, the co-chairman of the finance committee, discounted the possibility of tragedies, saying the refugees always talk like that.

"Some of the people who work very closely (with the refugees) say the discussion about violent acts is a natural response to most of their problems," he said.

If any such tragedies do happen, the bodies should be laid at the doorstep of the White House and the U.S. Congress, said Gard, R-Peshtigo.

"It's not our fault that the federal government has a policy like this," he said. "President Clinton and the Congress have a responsibility to set the policy on food stamps and they have made the decision time and time again" to exclude immigrants.

Gard, of course, was taking the principled stand in not wanting to create another entitlement. Gard, a career politician who took a full per-diem even though he lived in Sun Prairie, certainly knows an entitlement when he sees one. But think about it: He didn't want to create an entitlement to help men who fought at the side of our soldiers and their families.

He clearly has the moral fiber to be a Republican congressman.

Gard weak on illegal immigration

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a rundown on how John Gard and other Republicans are leaning on illegal immigration as an issue going into the final weeks of what could be -- could be -- a disastrous election for the Repubs.

Indeed, Gard is lying in his campaign literature that Kagen supports amnesty -- though, of course, what he supports is a pathway to citizenship. As does John McCain, who, in another demonstration of his virtue, visited Wisconsin to stump for Gard. (Oddly, the writers of the piece couldn't find a way to work that into the story).

The story also fails to mention how Gard has taken money from an employer with a history of hiring illegal aliens.

From the JSOnline's 9/28 All Politics Watch:

Kagen accused Gard of supporting illegal immigration, through Gard's receipt of $3,500 in campaign donations over the past six years from the owner of a Green Bay meat processing plant raided by immigration officials a decade ago. The same charge was issued Wednesday by Democratic Party officials in Washington D.C.

Gard has said he was proud to have the donations from the meat plant owner, Carl Kuehne, and that Kuehne wasn't aware the 77 workers arrested at his plant may have been illegal immigrants.

From an 8/21/96 Wisconsin State Journal story on the situation:

Seventy-six suspected illegal aliens were rounded up Tuesday at the American Foods Group plant here, where they worked as meatpackers, officials said.

Roger Lindo of Milwaukee, agent in charge of the district Immigration and Naturalization Service office, said 68 men and eight women had been working with false papers.

"The majority are Mexicans," he said. "If they are willing to go voluntarily, they will be put on vans and taken to the southern U.S. border.

"If they are of other nationalities, they will be taken in custody to Chicago and arrangements made to take them to the country of their nationality. If they do not wish to leave voluntarily, they will be placed in deportation proceedings."

The move came less than two weeks after American Foods announced it would join a pilot program in conjunction with the immigration service. The program is designed to help employers verify immigrants' job eligibility.

The company's chief executive officer, Carl Kuehne, said he understood the INS was looking for forged birth certificates.

"The problem is in forged documentation," said American Foods spokesman Pat Krohlow. "If (papers) appear to be reasonably genuine and relate to the person offering them as identification, you have to accept them."

It is discriminatory to question an applicant further if his or her papers appear true and represent the bearer, he said.

"We value them as good employees," Kuehne said of those rounded up by the INS. "However, their eagerness to work in this country and earn good wages has apparently tempted them to obtain fraudulent documents."

The legalistic defenses of Kuehne and his flack strain credulity. The meatpacking industry for years has made a policy of employing illegal immigrants. Kuehne certainly would know this. Moreover, if he'd been doing business in Green Bay for any period of time he might have wondered why 7 percent of his workforce was from Mexico. It may be discriminatory to ask further questions, but as an upstanding member of the community he might have asked the feds if the region had any illegal immigration issues.

Kagen favors penalties for employers of illegal aliens, by the by.