The news of Onyango Obama’s arrest comes two weeks after an announcement by the secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano that many immigrants without criminal records who are up for deportation will be allowed to indefinitely stay in the United States and apply for work permits. Which immigrants will be allowed to stay will be determined according to a list of criteria outlined in a prior memo by ICE director John Morton which advised prosecutors to exercise discretion when deciding whether to place someone in deportation proceedings.

Conservatives and Republican leaders have used the news of Onyango Obama’s arrest to denounce the new deportation policy, which many of its opponents have taken to calling “administrative amnesty” (although the policy does not offer legal status or a path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants, which would require an act of Congress).

Conservative media website Newsmax ran a story Monday about Onyango quoting three different Republican U.S. representatives, each of whom drew associations between Onyango Obama’s arrest and the administration’s deportation reform. One of the representatives quoted is Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a tea party movement leader and prominent opponent of any legalization of undocumented immigrants:

…King, who sits on the House immigration subcommittee, said the Onyango Obama case “raises a troubling list of questions about the potential for preferential treatment.

“It is yet another reason Congress should hold hearings to expose President Obama’s executive amnesty program,” he said. “With an existing deportation order, it is not surprising to learn that ‘Uncle Omar’ Obama told police officers that his first call would be to his nephew in the White House. Now that the executive branch has gotten into the business of undermining the rule of law, there is little question that anyone who is connected to the president, politically or otherwise, will have an advantage.”

The article also quotes Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), who called the arrest “the height of irony” and a potential “massive conflict of interest,” and Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Texas), who said, “This is one more example of where the president is in a position where he can give favorable treatment to his cronies, and in this case a relative … It’s one more step making us look like a Third World corrupt government where it’s all about who you know.”

National Review blogger Mark Krikorian, who is also the director of the Center for Immigration Studies, one of a family of restrictionist organizations founded by John Tanton, said of Onyango Obama’s arrest, “Now [President Obama] has two illegal-alien relatives,” referring to Zeituni Obama, Onyango Obama’s sister and Barack Obama’s aunt who applied for asylum in November 2008, the month her nephew was elected president.

Prominent conservative blogger Michelle Malkin echoed Krikorian, writing, “Entry into this country is no longer treated as a privilege, but an irrevocable right for every last griping Zeituni and reckless Omar.” (Omar is what Barack Obama called his uncle in his memoir.)

Cecilia Muñoz, White House director of intergovernmental affairs, wrote at the time of Napolitano’s announcement that the administration “will be reviewing the current deportation caseload to clear out low-priority cases on a case-by-case basis and make more room to deport people who have been convicted of crimes or pose a security risk. And they will take steps to keep low-priority cases out of the deportation pipeline in the first place.”

But as The Florida Independent reported last week, how the deportation reform will play out in practice is very uncertain at this time. Someone convicted of a DUI, which Onyango Obama is accused of, may or may not be a “low priority” case according to ICE’s definition.

Breitbart made waves in 2009 when he posted videos that purported to show an ACORN employee giving advice to a pimp and prostitute; the video was ruled by investigators in several states to have been highly edited and, in some cases, possibly in violation of state law. Despite the misleading videos, the flap contributed to ACORN’s demise and to Congress stripping its funding. Breitbart got the videos from colleague James O’Keefe, who months later was arrested by the U.S. Marshals and charged with entering the office of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.

Breitbart rose to fame again in 2010 when he posted selectively edited footage of Shirley Sherrod, Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the United States Department of Agriculture, during a NAACP event in which she appeared to be making a racist statement. The full video, however, showed that Sherrod had not made a racist statement. Despite that, she lost her position at the USDA.

Sherrod filed a lawsuit against Breitbart in February alleging defamation. Breitbart told Newsweek that he regretted posting the video, but declined to publicly apologize to Sherrod.

The convention will be held at the Minneapolis Hilton on June 17 and 18.

Netroots Nation, which last year featured Sen. Al Franken as its keynote speaker, will be held June 16–19 in downtown Minneapolis and will be headlined by former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold.

The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, which suffered a major setback Tuesday, would grant citizenship to young illegal immigrants brought to the country as children and raised in the U.S., if they are in college and/or the military.

During the event coordinated by the UT College Republicans, Malkin blasted the Barack Obama administration, giving the audience a taste of her latest book, Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies, before moving into a tirade against the immigration reform measure.

When asked by an undocumented immigrant what solutions she had for him post graduation, the Fox News contributor responded by telling him to “get in the back of the line.”

“I want to give back to this great country by working and paying taxes after I graduate college,” said Him Ranjit, a biomedical engineering sophomore originally from Nepal. “The DREAM Act is my only opportunity to do that. What would you suggest for me?”

Malkin retorted that he had not been denied a college education; immigration enforcement was not after him; and due to an “ill-advised quirk in tax law,” he would be able to pay his taxes. There were much more important things, said Malkin, than having him be comfortable, get legal and give back.

“I would rather expend limited resources deporting [illegal immigrants already identified as such by authorities] and then we’ll get to you. You ought to wait,” said Malkin. “This is the thing with so many activists that are coming out now. There is a narcissism bred by the left on campuses. It’s all about me, me, me. You get your education; I am not bothering you; and guess what? There is no ICE agent chasing you down right now.”

Comparing the DREAM Act to a Trojan horse for massive illegal alien amnesty, Malkin rebuffed claims of racism by pointing to her Filipino heritage. Malkin, who has authored a book defending internment and promoting the case for racial profiling in World War II/Iraq War, has often made remarks that have put her amid major controversies.

She later tried to soften her reproach by adding that, at some point national lawmakers should come up with a systematic and orderly way for the undocumented student to make himself known to authorities, go back to his home country and “get in the back of the line.”

“I think many of the DREAM activists labor under the illusion that it is not a zero-sum game — it is. There are scarce resources and if the Act is passed, you will get in the front of the line of people who are here legally. I don’t think that’s right and I don’t think that’s fair,” said Malkin, eliciting a rupture of applause from the audience.

The lecture comes a day after a group of college students and community activists staged a protest sit-in at the office of U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in San Antonio. The 16 activists, who were also on a three-week hunger strike in support of the Act, spent the night in jail on trespassing charges.

At the end of the lecture, Malkin reflected on DREAM Act activists’ questions, stating, “You know, based on their debate skills, I am not sure how much they even have to contribute to this country. And you can quote me on that.”

“There is enough multiculturalism on campuses anyway,” she added. “But to inflate it and encourage those grievances?”

Earlier during her lecture Malkin gave an impassioned speech recounting instances of “liberal racism,” concluding people should never dehumanize or marginalize those with whom they disagree.

In 2001, former Texas state Rep. Rick Noriega (D-Houston) authored the Texas precursor to the DREAM Act, which is now being challenged in a state district court in Houston.

(Image by: Matt Mahurin, Photo: By Mary Tuma)

The DREAM Act would allow states to provide in-state tuition to undocumented students by repealing a 1996 ban on benefits for illegal immigrants. It’s a controversial move, but one some states have already bypassed: Ten states have passed their own laws allowing illegal immigrants to qualify for in-state tuition if they have attended high school in the state for at least three years.

Nevada, for the record, does not provide in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.

Here’s the ad:

The argument that the DREAM Act allows non-natives to take up space and resources in public universities was also used by California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman (R), who said this weekend the DREAM Act would “favor undocumenteds” over citizens.

The question is whether “favor” or “preferred” is an accurate term for what the DREAM Act would allow. While the bill would repeal the section of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act that bans tuition benefits for undocumented students, it would not require states to adopt such standards. It would simply remove the legal obstacles for those that have already chosen to do so: California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Washington. Other states would then be free to determine for themselves whether to offer in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.

While DREAM Act supporters say this would simply help U.S.-educated students attend college, conservatives argue the DREAM Act created an incentive for illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. and would hurt chances for citizens to get financial aid. Michelle Malkin made this case in September:

Open-borders lawmakers have tried and failed to pass the DREAM Act through regular channels for the past decade. That’s because informed voters know giving green cards to illegal alien students undermines the rule of law, creates more illegal immigration incentives and grants preferential treatment to illegal alien students over law-abiding native and naturalized American students struggling to get an education in tough economic times.

Right now, the DREAM Act is stalled in Senate after an unsuccessful attempt to attach it to the defense authorization bill. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has promised to push for the bill during the lame duck session.

Michelle Malkin rallied her supporters last night, arguing that since Democrats “won’t take no for an answer… we have to give them both barrels again.” “Time for Operation Buck Up Maine,” she wrote, and then provided the phone numbers for the district and D.C. offices of Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, both of whom were considered possible swing votes on the issue.

Tea Party Nation (TPN) also got in on the act, notifying members to contact Snowe and Collins and urge them to vote no as well. ”The Disclose act puts restrictions on spending for political speech, but amazingly enough only for those who generally disagree with [Democrats],” the email added. “Certain groups, Democratic constituencies, like unions, are exempt from the requirements of the Disclose act.”

The statement isn’t accurate — the only restrictions in the bill on spending for political speech are on companies with over 20 percent foreign ownership, large government contractors, and TARP recipients — but it was far from the craziest of rumors promulgated today. Resistnet.com claimed another House bill called the CLEAR Act might be added on to DISCLOSE (it was not), arguing that the latter piece of legislation is ”a globalist bill designed to: * give away American Ocean, and Sea regulation rights to the United Nations * makes American Taxpayers pay $900 million per year until 2040. * HR3534 implements climate change legislation, youth education propoganda * BUT MOST IMPORTANT, HR 3534 mandates American membership in the Law of the Sea Treaty without required US Senate two-thirds vote to ratify this treaty. Congress is useless.”

All of this has resulted in lots of attention being paid to the vote, but not the kind that Democrats were hoping for. After the dust has settled they’ll still have their talking points about how Republicans yet again blocked a bill to add transparency to corporate and special interest spending in campaigns, but it looks like they shouldn’t hold their breath for a populist outpouring of sentiment on their behalf.

Some have taken Holdren’s remarks as an opportunity to bash the Obama administration. Michelle Malkin, The Atlantic Wire notes, said: “An administration that goes out of its way to make terrorism sound less dangerous than it really is (i.e. ‘man-caused disaster’) makes the push to sell ‘global warming’ as more dangerous than it really is. Sounds like somebody’s starting to feel uncomfortable because the icecaps and Greenland ice sheets aren’t melting fast enough.”

“America, have you ever heard of a 50-year old man having a tickle-fight — five men tickling each other so hard that they can’t breathe?” said Beck. “I think we found out who he is — someone who can’t be trusted to tell the truth about his life.”

“I almost said, ‘I think we could, but you’ve wasted enough of my time, get out,’” said Beck. “I almost threw him out of the studio three times. … What a waste of time this man was!”

Bitterly, Beck expressed hope that he’d helped Massa kill his own credibility. “Now that we spent the hour,” said Beck, “we don’t have to ever pay attention to this man ever again.”

Later in the show, Beck invited on Michelle Malkin — who’d sounded the alarm to conservatives about trusting Massa — and bowed to her foresight.

From Malkin:

“Conservative hero” my foot.

“Crapweasel” is too kind a description for the desperate, bottom-feeding Massa. He is not a useful idiot. He’s just an idiot.

Allahpundit of Hot Air goes a little further:

When pressed on corruption, all he could do was blow smoke about how super-keen he thinks the tea party is, etc. In fact, not only didn’t he dish new dirt, he cleaned up some of the dirt he’d already dished: In the first clip below, he dismisses the suggestion that the Dems had forced him out unfairly for his behavior. “I forced myself out,” he says — i.e., he deserved to go. Good work, Massa.

And Ace of Spades:

You Know… Beck could have improved his credibility — and provided entertaining TV — if he had switched midway through to a hostile interrogation of Massa, instead of allowing him to blather vaguely that he made some “mistakes” which he takes ownership of but which also weren’t really mistakes, it’s just that people took his tickle-parties the wrong way.

There’s some debate over whether the interview was salvageable at all, with the “no, it wasn’t side” confident that Massa is/was too much of an opportunist for his spin to be taken seriously.

Michelle Malkin, author of a book about “unhinged” liberals, has done the most to move this along. At 10:14 a.m. she posted about the evidence of Bedell’s conspiracy-mindedness and argued that he “hated Bush and littered the Internet with 9/11 Truther rants,” but that was no reason for political games.

[J]ust as I passed on playing the blame game with the global warmicides earlier this week, I’m not playing MSNBC/NYTimes-style “gotcha” with this one, either.

Hours later, an update:

John Patrick Bedell’s voter registration records in Hollister, CA are available for any journalist before he/she goes off and labels him a “right-wing extremist.”

Guess which party he registered under in 2005 and was actively registered under as of 2008?

DEMOCRAT.

Stop playing games, MSM.

Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds rejoices:

YES. I BLAME KEITH OLBERMANN. Anti-Bush Truther shoots up Pentagon; Should we play the political blame game?

Melissa Clouthier jumps in:

I say, embrace John Patrick Bedell left-wing psycho extremists (that’s redundant, I think). He is yours. The leftist ideology spawns murderous, psychotic behavior. Evil. Evil. Evil.

See? That sounds rational and accurate right? Well, it does, if it’s describing a conservative or Teapartier. Guess what? I’ll stop the silliness when you all do. You first.

And here’s Ace of Spades:

John Patrick Beddell, Registered Democrat …but presumably from the Bitter Clinger wing, I guess.

And Stacy McCain:

Send the Body to Keith Olbermann

I think Malkin was closer to the truth of this first: Beddell was a nut. Adrian Chen, who has a huge data dump on the shooter, puts it this way:

What Bedell did was terrible and idiotic. But if any motivation is to be applied to his actions outside of pure insanity, simply writing him off as a brain-washed Glenn Beck zombie “teabagger” or an imbecile anti-government activist can’t capture the incomprehensible complexity of his ideas and the singular weirdness going on in his brain: The Information Currency, the DNA USB drive, his unfettered optimism in technology and obsession with obscure economic theorists. He was operating on a whole other level of crazy.

The worry among conservatives, of course, is that any story like this — especially one where the shooter had made anti-government comments — may be reported as an act of “right-wing extremism.” Stacy McCain puts it best:

If you don’t understand the strategic advantage that the Left gains by continually hyping  their scary stories about  the threat of “right-wing extremism,” you are a worse fool than Patrick Bedell’s ideological BFF – Rosie “Fire Can’t Melt Steel” O’Donnell.

Mediaite has learned that leading center-right web site Hot Air has been acquired by Salem Communications for an undisclosed sum. Sources close to the deal claim that Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit and sole owner of Hot Air, has been in talks with Salem for some time, but the announcement was timed to coincide with the Conservative Political Action Conference, which opens tomorrow in Washington D.C.

Salem, which operates Townhall.com, actually gets around 90 percent of its revenue from talk radio, which is mostly Christian radio and political hosts, including: Bill Bennett, Michael Medved, and Hugh Hewitt.