The city of Escondido in California is concentrating on deporting illegal aliens with a criminal record.

If you cover this story, you can choose to illustrate the effects by giving anecdotes concerning: a) a person who was victimized by an illegal alien criminal; b) an anecdote of a low-level offender who will be deported — poor guy!

Which do you figure the L.A. Times chooses?

If you guessed b), you win! Meaning you are not a complete moron.

It was just an inconvenient traffic stop on the way through town for Javier Barrera Saldivar. Police had spotted the broken tail light on his car, and he figured he’d get a fix-it ticket and be on his way. But federal immigration officers soon rolled up, wielding handcuffs and Barrera’s mug shot on a cellphone.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have been stationed at the Police Department of this San Diego County city since May, responding to everything from traffic stops to gang sweeps in an aggressive effort to clear the community of illegal immigrants with deportation orders or criminal records.

Barrera, 24, the records showed, was a previously deported illegal immigrant with convictions for drunk driving and possessing a false driver’s license. Instead of receiving a traffic citation and being released — which is what typically would have occurred — he was arrested and placed in deportation proceedings.

We get the typical claptrap about racial profiling and about how Latinos are “on edge.” We don’t get ANY context about why the government might actually want to Deport the Criminals First.

The story reinforces the theme: some of these people have done nothing more than be illegal immigrants. Uh, and drunk drivers. Uh, and child molesters. WHY DON’T WE GO AFTER THE “REAL” CRIMINALS??!!!1!!1

But critics contend that most detainees are people with drunk driving convictions from long ago who are hardly criminals.

. . . .

When Salvador Santoyo Juarez, 61, was pulled over last month for a having tinted windows in his car, an immigration check revealed that he had convictions for child molestation, drug transportation and drunk driving — all more than 20 years old.

To his family, the grandfather of eight was hardly a threat to the community, spending most of his days resting his injured hip in front of the television. His wife, Carmen, 54, said his deportation would tear the family apart. “There are so many bad people, and they focus on the one who does nothing,” she said. “How sad.”

Yeah, some of them are “only” illegal alien drunk drivers. Never mind that the government has the authority and duty to deport any illegal alien it comes in contact with — regardless of whether they have committed other crimes. Place that issue to one side for the moment.

And ask yourself: does this article have any stories about people killed by illegal alien drunk drivers? It’s not like those stories don’t exist. For example, the paper could tell us about any of these people who were killed by illegal alien drunk drivers:

• Kenosha County Sheriff’s Deputy Frank Fabiano

  

• Four year-old Angel Avendano

• Jasmine Lawrence

• Police chief Ernie Mendoza

  

• Amy Kortlang

  

• Maria, Vanessa, and Nathaniel Ortiz

• Sister Denise Mosier
  

• Sara Cole was “lucky.” She lived, and “only” had her legs crushed.

I am, of course, just scratching the surface.

It’s like the article I wrote about this morning, which attacks Sarah Palin for “partisanship” when she talks about runaway spending. If the paper is going to savage people for trying to do something about a problem, without even reminding us why we consider the problem to be a real problem, the editors aren’t doing their job.

This paper is failing, fast. As far as I am concerned, it can’t be fast enough.

And “partisan” means bad.

So don’t talk about limited government, unless you want to be seen as a bad partisan.

That is the message of the L.A. Times coverage of a Sarah Palin speech paying tribute to Ronald Reagan:

See? The suggestion is, here is this tribute for this old dead guy, and this witch is making it about partisanship. When the appropriate thing to do would be to “set partisanship aside.” That’s clearly the suggestion, right?

As she launched a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birthday, Sarah Palin delivered a blistering critique of the expansion of government under President Obama’s watch and called on like-minded Americans to fight for Reagan’s principles of individual freedom and smaller government.

During a banquet at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, Palin skewered Obama’s recent State of the Union address.

Nice people don’t issue “blistering critiques,” Governor Palin. It’s not considered polite to “skewer” people. Try not to be such a grating shrew, will you?

So what is the “partisan fire”? What are the “blistering critiques”?

“They have all sorts of half-baked ideas of what to spend — I mean, invest — our hard-earned money on for their idea of national greatness. These investments include everything from solar shingles to fast train tracks,” Palin said. “But as we struggle to merely service our unsustainable debt, the only thing this investment will get us is a bullet train to bankruptcy.”

That particular “blistering critique” is just the sort of thing Reagan would have said, if he were still around today. (I often find myself inclined to get a shovel and see if we can bring him back.) And indeed, a lot of Palin’s “partisan fire” turns out to be just her quoting the words of the dead old guy, from his classic speeches like “A Time for Choosing”:

Palin’s starting point for her remarks was an October 1964 address by Reagan, which he delivered at a Los Angeles campaign fundraiser on behalf of then-presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

The speech was widely viewed as a moment that helped launch Reagan’s political career.

Two years after the speech, which became known as “A Time for Choosing,” Reagan was elected governor of California.

Palin said many of Reagan’s critiques of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society in that speech have resonance now.

She reprised a line from that speech in which Reagan said the issue of the 1964 election was “whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”

Oh, my! The blistering unpleasant partisan fire of that scorching attack is searing my skin!

What really irritates me about stories like this is the hypocrisy of editors who love to pretend that politicians should make tough choices, yet label as “partisan” anyone who actually tries.

Let me directly address the editors of the L.A. Times right now. Are you people listening to me? Good.

You sanctimonious frauds. You looooove to wring your carefully manicured hands and say things like there is a fiscal crisis in this country, but the politicians refuse to be adults and talk about the real problems.

And then when someone comes along and proposes to actually do something about out of control runaway spending, you start assigning stories about how the old people and children will suffer. And you label anyone who wants to reduce spending as “partisan.”

Let me explain something to you people. If one party is fully in support of trillions of dollars in useless government giveaways; if one party supports a new health care entitlement that will eventually put the government in charge of 1/6 of the nation’s economy; if one party screams “look out, old people!” every time someone speaks about meaningful entitlement reform — and if the other party says they want to discuss spending reductions — then I guess you can now justify labeling out of control spending as a “partisan” issue, can’t you?

But all you’re doing is contributing to the problem.

You could take another approach. When Republicans talk about runaway spending, you could tell your readers the facts. You could remind them we have a $14 trillion debt. You could quote experts to explain that unless we reform Medicare, it will only get worse — and this will cripple our children’s futures, (further) mortgage our country’s capital to China, and ultimately result in our country’s loss of its status as a world superpower.

Or you could just label all such talk “partisan,” dust off your hands, and go home to a nice glass of Chardonnay. In other words, you could continue to provide propaganda for the bloated welfare state — even as you prepare tomorrow’s editorial about those irresponsible politicians who won’t tackle our real problems.

You people are as big a part of the problem as anyone in the country, L.A. Times editors. Yes, you. You self-righteous hypocrites.

You want to see this country improve? Stop looking at any anecdotes that help Democrats as material that needs to be given prominent coverage, while at the same time you view any facts that would help Republicans as pesky necessary “balance” that you have to shoehorn in at the end of an article, as minimally as possible. When people discuss spending issues, remind them about the facts of what a big hole we’re in.

And stop labeling anyone who wants to talk about these things as “partisan.”

That’s my advice to you.

Which you will ignore.

Which, remind me again why we’re supposed to care that your newspaper is dying?

In a recent column titled Lap-Band maker Allergan wants it both ways, Michael Hiltzik rails against advertising for the Lap Band:

Another concern is the high-powered marketing of Lap-Band surgery virtually as a cosmetic procedure. The best example is the 1-800-GET-THIN freeway billboard campaign here in Southern California, sponsored by a firm that has identified itself as “a marketing company” that “provides marketing for the ‘Lap Band®’ procedure.” (That little symbol signifies that “Lap-Band” is an Allergan trademark.)

The ads have drawn fire from Jonathan Fielding, head of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Last month he asked the FDA to investigate the campaign as potentially a “misleading promotion” of Allergan’s Lap-Band, a device that comes under the FDA’s jurisdiction. Among his complaints was that the billboards overstated the suitability of the surgery and were silent on its risks.

Hiltzik passionately argues that the 1-800-GET-THIN advertising campaign may be dangerous to consumers. But he goes further and accuses Allergan of hypocrisy:

But shouldn’t Allergan be more vigilant about what a “marketing company” like 1-800-GET-THIN says about its product, given the life-threatening potential of the operation? As I’ve reported, two deaths have been linked by local county coroners to Lap-Band procedures at the Beverly Hills clinic connected to the 1-800-GET-THIN campaign.

It’s not as though the GET-THIN billboards are a secret to executives at Allergan’s Irvine headquarters. On major Southern California freeways, those billboards are harder to miss than smog.

Hiltzik drives home the theme: Allergan wants to have it both ways. They want to disclaim any connection to the advertising, but profit from the advertising:

So the company wants to have it both ways. It wants to hawk its product to consumers — “increase public awareness,” as the company describes its marketing goal — and is apparently happy to profit from its own customers’ ad campaigns featuring claims about the product that are devoid of context or qualifications. But when push comes to shove, it also wants to claim the end results are not its responsibility.

Does this sound like ethical corporate behavior?

Thank God the L.A. Times doesn’t engage in such hypocrisy. Rest assured that they would never simultaneously criticize the 1-800-GET-THIN program and similar ad campaigns that publicize the procedure as a cosmetic weight-loss program . . . and attempt to profit from such ad campaigns at the same time.

Would they?

Oh: this seems like a good time to show you the screenshot I took from the bottom of the page of Hiltzik’s column:

Now go back and re-read the quotes I took from Hiltzik’s column — especially the bolded bits. Be sure to chuckle sardonically at the rich, deep irony.