Bob Filner
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 51st district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2003
Preceded by	Duke Cunningham
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 50th district
In office January 3, 1993 – January 2, 2003
Preceded by	None (District Created after the United States Census of 1990)
Succeeded by	Duke Cunningham
Chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee
In office January 4, 2007 – January 3, 2011
Preceded by	Steve Buyer
Succeeded by	Jeff Miller
Personal details
Born	Robert Earl Filner (1942-09-04) September 4, 1942 (age 69) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Political party	Democratic
Relations	Jane Merrill (Ex-Wife) Erin Filner (Daughter)
Residence	San Diego, California
Alma mater	Cornell University
Occupation	college professor
Religion	Judaism

Robert Earl "Bob" Filner (born September 4, 1942) is the U.S. Representative for California's 51st congressional district, and previously the 50th, serving since 1993, and was Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs 2007-2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district is one of the most ethnically diverse in the nation, including much of San Diego's southern section, the cities of Chula Vista and National City and all of Imperial County. It includes most of California's border with Mexico, except for the city of Imperial Beach. He is retiring from Congress in 2012 to run for Mayor of San Diego.

Early life, education, and academic career[link]

Filner was born in Pittsburgh, in Squirrel Hill into a Jewish family. Filner began his advocacy for civil rights at the age of 18 when he became one of the first people to set foot on a Greyhound bus that was headed into the deep south on what would become known as, the Freedom Rides. ^[1] At the time he was a student at Cornell University where he was studying engineering. In June 1961, after pulling into the bus station in Jackson, Mississippi, Filner was arrested along with his co-riders for "disturbing the peace and inciting a riot". It was there in Jackson, that Filner would stand up for what he believed in by not taking the easy road out. Filner refused to post bond in for his release and remained incarcerated in prison for two months.^[2][3] His case was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States along with all the cases for other activists. It was when this happened, that they also overturned the laws for racial separation. This overturning of the case was nothing that Filner was pushing for though. Filner believes that what he did during that Freedom Ride is what he needed to do to have a say in what was happening. In Filner's own words he says "I've never been a passive person". "I've always felt that, if you think something should be changed, it's your responsibility to actively pursue that change." ^[4]

Also, as a student, he worked as a member of the Cornell Daily Sun, the student newspaper. He graduated from Cornell in 1963 with a degree in chemistry, and earned his doctorate in history of science from the same school six years later. Shortly after earning his PhD, he moved to San Diego, becoming a history professor at San Diego State University for more than 20 years. He resigned his position in 1992 to run for Congress.^{[citation needed]}

Early political career[link]

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Filner was long interested in politics, serving as a staffer for U.S. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota in 1975 and for Congressman Don Fraser, also of Minnesota, in 1976. He also served as a staffer for U.S. Congressman Jim Bates from the San Diego area in 1984.

Early portrait of Filner

His elective career began in 1979, when his opposition to the closing of a neighborhood school led him to run for the San Diego Board of Education, where he defeated a longtime incumbent. Even though he was the only Democrat on the board, his "back to basics" approach to education won him wide praise, and his colleagues elected him president of the board in 1982. For part of his tenure on the board, he served alongside Susan Davis, who now represents most of the other side of San Diego in the House. He was elected to the San Diego City Council in 1987. He was handily reelected in 1991, and his colleagues elected him Deputy Mayor of San Diego. His main interest was in economic expansion.

Over the years, Representative Filner has held many local offices in his area of San Diego, California especially in the areas of education. For 20 years, he was a professor of history at San Diego State University. He was also on the San Diego Board of Education for 5 years following his teaching career.^[5]

U.S. House of Representatives[link]

Elections[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2012)

California gained seven seats after the 1990 census, and one of them was the 50th District in south San Diego (renumbered the 51st District after the 2000 census). In 1992, Filner ran in a five-way Democratic primary for the seat and won a narrow victory. One of his primary opponents was his former boss, Jim Bates, who had lost his seat in a sexual harassment scandal in 1990^[6] and whose home had been drawn into the district. Another opponent was veteran state Senator Wadie Deddeh, who was term-limited. Filner defeated Deddeh by a narrow margin, with Bates finishing third place in the primary. The district was almost 40% Hispanic (redistricting in 2000 made it 53% Hispanic) and heavily Democratic, and his victory in November (with 57 percent of the vote) was a foregone conclusion. He has been reelected six times with no substantive Republican opposition. He ran unopposed in 1998.

Filner has a bitter rivalry with Juan Vargas, another Democratic politician who has run against Filner in the Democratic primary three times. Filner won the latest Democratic primary, on June 6, 2006, with 51% of the vote, in a race against Vargas and two minor challengers, Danny Ramirez and Jesse Bresnihan. Filner and Vargas have accused each other of corruption. Filner easily won re-election in November 2006, defeating Republican Blake Miles and Libertarian Dan Litwin. Filner won about 67 percent of the vote cast in the district. Miles received about 31 percent and Litwin about 2 percent.

Tenure[link]

Filner is a founding member of the Progressive Caucus. He is also a member of the Congressional Motorcycle Safety Caucus and International Conservation Caucus

He was one of the 31 who voted in the House to not count the electoral votes from Ohio in the 2004 presidential election.^[7]

In 2008, Filner sponsored a resolution, passed by the House of Representatives, in support of National Aviation Maintenance Technician Day.

Phillippines

In February 2009, a bill was filed in the Philippine House of Representatives by Rep. Antonio Diaz seeking to confer honorary Filipino citizenship on Filner, Senators Daniel Inouye, Daniel Akaka and Ted Stevens, for their role in securing the passage of benefits for Filipino World War II veterans.^[8]

Airline worker controversy

On August 20, 2007, Filner was involved in an altercation with a United Airlines Employee at Dulles International Airport after he became upset that his baggage had not yet arrived on a baggage carousel. Filner entered the baggage claim office and became irritated when the employee was busy helping another customer and asked the congressman to wait his turn. It was at this point that it is alleged that Filner attempted to enter the employee only area of the office. He was asked to leave the area several times by airline employees but refused to do so until airport police were called in.^[9]

Filner was on his way to visit troops in Iraq at the time of the incident. He released a statement saying "suffice it to say now, that the story that has appeared in the press is factually incorrect and the charges are ridiculous".^[9] He was later charged with assault and battery.^[10] Filner entered a plea after prosecutors reduced the charge to trespassing.^[11] The House Ethics Committee began a probe into the event,^[12] but it was later dropped.^[13]

MEK controversy

Filner has been a vocal supporter of the People's Mujahedin of Iran, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States. Filner, along with several, senior US officials, has argued that the group's designation should be removed, and considers the MEK an ally against the Iranian regime. He has accepted free trips,^[14] and paid speaking engagements from the group for which he has been criticized by the National Iranian American Council.^[15]

Committee assignments[link]

• Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
  • Subcommittee on Aviation
  • Subcommittee on Highways and Transit
  • Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment
• Committee on Veterans' Affairs (Ranking Member)

2012 San Diego mayoral election[link]

Filner announced on June 8, 2011 that he is a candidate for Mayor of San Diego, California. ^[16] A June primary will select two candidates for a November runoff. He is not running for re-election to Congress.

Personal life[link]

Filner has a daughter, Erin Filner, who is a social studies teacher at The Fox Lane Middle School in Bedford, NY. He also has a son, Adam Filner, who is married and is the father of two young children.

References[link]

• Prism Magazine.

External links[link]

• U.S. Representative Bob Filner official U.S. House site
• Bob Filner for U.S. Congress official campaign site
• Bob Filner for mayor of San Diego official campaign site
• Biography at WhoRunsGov.com at The Washington Post
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Congressional profile at GovTrack
• Congressional profile at OpenCongress
• Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
• Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
• Staff salaries, trips and personal finance at LegiStorm.com
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Appearances on C-SPAN programs

Articles

• Bigamy, bribery, other allegations plague California congressional race Miriam Raftery, Raw Story, June 5, 2006
• Rep. Filner beats Democratic rival in latest rematch Philip J. LaVelle and Dani Dodge, San Diego Union-Tribune, June 7, 2006
• CA 51: Slim Margin Gives Way to Safety for Filner This Fall CQ Politics, June 7, 2006

v t e Chairmen of the United States House Committee on Veterans' Affairs Rogers Rankin Rogers Teague Dorn Roberts Montgomery Stump Smith Buyer Filner Miller

Michelle Malkin
At the RightOnline Summit in Dallas, Texas (2008)
Born	Michelle Marie Maglalang (1970-10-20) October 20, 1970 (age 41) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Residence	Colorado Springs, Colorado
Ethnicity	Filipino
Citizenship	American
Alma mater	Oberlin College - (B.A., 1992)
Occupation	Author, syndicated columnist, television personality and blogger
Religion	Roman Catholic[1]
Spouse	Jesse D. Malkin (1993–present)
Children	2
Website
Michelle Malkin

Michelle Malkin (née Maglalang; born October 20, 1970) is an American conservative blogger, political commentator and author.^[2][3] Her weekly syndicated column appears in a number of newspapers and websites.^[2] She is a Fox News Channel contributor and has been a guest on MSNBC, C-SPAN, and national radio programs. Malkin has written four books published by Regnery Publishing.

Early life[link]

Malkin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Philippine citizens Rafaela (née Perez) – a homemaker and teacher – and Apolo DeCastro Maglalang, who was then a physician-in-training.^[1] Several months prior to Malkin's birth, her parents had immigrated to the United States on an employer-sponsored visa.^[4] After her father finished his medical training, the family moved^[5] to Absecon, New Jersey. Malkin has a younger brother.^[6] She has described her parents as Reagan Republicans who were "not incredibly politically active."^[1]

Malkin, a Roman Catholic,^[1][7] attended Holy Spirit Roman Catholic High School, where she edited the school newspaper and aspired to become a concert pianist.^[1] Following her graduation in 1988, she enrolled at Oberlin College.^[1] Malkin originally planned to pursue a bachelor's degree in music, but changed her major to English.^[1] During her college years, she worked as a press inserter, tax preparation aide, and network news librarian.^[8] While attending Oberlin, Malkin was hired to write for an independent, right-of-center student newspaper by fellow student Jesse Dylan Malkin. Her first article for the paper heavily criticized Oberlin's affirmative action program and received a "hugely negative response" from other students on campus.^[1] She graduated in 1992^[9] and later described her alma mater as "radically left-wing."^[1][10]

Career[link]

Malkin began her journalism career at the Los Angeles Daily News, working as a columnist from 1992 to 1994. In 1995, she worked in Washington, D.C., as a journalism fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute,^[11] a free-market, anti-government regulation, libertarian think tank.^[12][13] In 1996, she moved to Seattle, Washington, where she wrote columns for The Seattle Times. Malkin became a nationally-syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate in 1999.^[14][15]

For many years, Malkin was a frequent commentator for Fox News Channel and a regular guest host of The O'Reilly Factor. In 2007, she announced that she would not return to The O'Reilly Factor, claiming that Fox News had mishandled a dispute over derogatory statements made about her by Geraldo Rivera in a Boston Globe interview.^[16] Since 2007, she has concentrated on her writing, blogging and public speaking, although she still appears on television occasionally, especially with Sean Hannity on Fox News and Fox & Friends once a week. In December 2009, Malkin began writing for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

In August 2004, following claims by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that presidential candidate John Kerry had exaggerated his record during the Vietnam War, Malkin appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and stated that there were "legitimate questions" over whether Kerry's wounds were "self-inflicted." When host Chris Matthews asked her eleven times whether she meant Kerry had shot himself on purpose, she dodged the question,^[17] but ultimately said that other soldiers had made this claim.^{[citation needed]} Malkin criticized Matthews and the MSNBC staff in her blog the following day.^[17] Georgia Senator Zell Miller accused Matthews of "browbeating" Malkin.^[18]

Books[link]

Malkin has written four books, all published by Regnery Publishing.

• Her first book, Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces (2002)^[19] was a New York Times bestseller.

• In 2004, she wrote In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror,^[20] defending the U.S. government's internment of 112,000 Japanese Americans in prison camps during World War II, and arguing that the same procedures could be used on Arab- and Muslim-Americans today. The book engendered harsh criticism from several Asian American civil rights organizations.^[21] The "Historians' Committee for Fairness", a group of professors, condemned the book for not having undergone peer review and argued that its central thesis is false.^[22][23] As a result of the controversy, the Hawaii-based newspaper MidWeek dropped her column in August 2004;^[24] The Virginian-Pilot called her "an Asian Ann Coulter" and dropped her column in November 2004.^[25] Malkin responded: "I'm not Asian, I'm American," and described the comparison to Coulter as, "a compliment."^[26] Critics of Malkin's theory attempted to get the Manzanar National Historic Site, (a former relocation and internment camp), to ban her book from its' store, but failed.^[27]

• Malkin's third book, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, was released in October 2005.^[28]

• Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies, Malkin's fourth book, was released in July 2009^[29] and was a The New York Times Non-Fiction, Hardcover Best Seller for six weeks.^[30][31][32] Malkin said she hoped the book would, "shatter completely the myths of hope and change in the new politics in Washington," described the Obama administration as run by, "influence peddlers, power brokers and very wealthy people," and called it, "one of the most corrupt administrations in recent memory."^[33] She later discussed chapter two of the book, "Bitter Half: First Crony Michelle Obama," on NBC's Today show. She described Michelle Obama as, "steeped in the politics of the Daley machine," and as having based her professional career on nepotism and "old white boy" network connections.^[34]

Blogging[link]

MichelleMalkin.com[link]

In June 2004 she launched a political blog, MichelleMalkin.com.^[35] A 2007 memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee described Malkin as one of the five "best-read national conservative bloggers",^[36] and Technorati ranks MichelleMalkin.com consistently in its "Top 100 blogs of all types".^[37] The people search company PeekYou claims Malkin has the largest digital footprint of any political blogger.^[38]

After Malkin criticized hip hop artist Akon for "degrading women" in a Vent episode, Akon's record label, Universal Music Group, forced YouTube to remove the video by issuing a DMCA takedown notice,^[39] but decided to retract this notice^[40] after the Electronic Frontier Foundation joined Malkin and Hot Air in contesting the removal as a misuse of copyright law.^[41]

In an interview with BusinessWeek magazine in July 2007, Malkin said, "We’re doing what few other blogs can do. We serve up terabytes of bandwidth... I'm shelling out for gold-plated servers. That's expensive, and we want to be able to withstand huge traffic surges."^[42]

She continued to contribute frequently to MichelleMalkin.com, and in June 2007, she revamped it, moving it to a larger server on WordPress.^[43] With the new redesign, she re-enabled comments on her blog, which she said she had disallowed after February 2005 due to a high level of obscene and racist comments.^[44] Subscribed readers could once again post comments, although registration for the comments is rarely open. Malkin states her policy thus: "I may allow as much or as little opportunity for registration as I choose, in my absolute discretion, and I may close particular comment threads."^[45]

Jamil Hussein[link]

Malkin was one of several bloggers who questioned the credibility and even the existence of Iraqi police Captain "Jamil Hussein" who had been used as a source by the Associated Press in over 60 stories about the Iraq war. The controversy started in November 2006 when the AP reported that six Iraqis had been burned alive as they left a mosque and that four mosques had been destroyed, citing Hussein as one of its sources. In January 2007, Malkin visited Baghdad, and stated, "the Iraqi Ministry of Interior says disputed Associated Press source Jamil Hussein does exist. At least one story he told the AP just doesn’t check out: The Sunni mosques that as Hussein claimed and AP reported as 'destroyed,' 'torched' and 'burned and blown up' are all still standing. So the credibility of every AP story relying on Jamil Hussein remains dubious."^[46] Malkin has issued a correction for her denial of Capt. Hussein's existence.^[47]

Students Against War controversy[link]

In April 2006, Students Against War (SAW), a campus group at University of California, Santa Cruz, staged a protest against the presence of military recruiters on campus, and sent out a press release containing contact details (names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses) of three student leaders for use by reporters. Malkin included these contact details in a blog column entitled "Seditious Santa Cruz vs. America".^[48] Malkin claimed the contact information was originally taken from SAW's own website, but that later SAW had removed it and had "wiped" the "cached version".^[49] The students asked Malkin to remove the contact details from her blog, but Malkin reposted them several times^[50] writing in her blog: "I am leaving it up. If you are contacting them, I do not condone death threats or foul language. As for SAW, my message is this: You are responsible for your individual actions. Other individuals are responsible for theirs. Grow up and take responsibility."^[48]

SAW remarked: "Due to the continued irresponsible actions of some bloggers, members of the group have received numerous death threats and anti-Semitic comments through phone calls and emails."^[51] A blog war ensued. Malkin claimed that she received hostile e-mails^[52] then her private home address, phone number, photos of her neighborhood and maps to her house were published on several websites. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported receiving an email from Malkin saying that this forced her to remove one of her children from school and move her family.^[53]

Another controversy involving private addresses began on July 1, 2006, when Malkin and other bloggers commented on a New York Times Travel section article that had featured the town where Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld owned summer homes. The article included a picture of Rumsfeld's long tree-lined driveway that showed a birdhouse and small portion of the housefront.^[54] Malkin declared that this story was part of "a concerted, organized effort to dig up and publicize the private home information of prominent conservatives in the media and blogosphere to intimidate them." In fact, the photos of Rumsfeld's house were taken with Rumsfeld's permission.^[55]

[edit] Hot Air

On April 24, 2006, Hot Air, a "conservative Internet broadcast network" went into operation, with Malkin as founder/CEO.^[56] She intended the blog to provide "content and analysis you can't get anywhere else on a daily basis–both on the blog and in our original video features".^[57] Her staffers included 'Allahpundit' and Bryan Preston, though the latter was replaced by Ed Morrissey on February 25, 2008.^[58] In February 2010, Hotair.com was bought by Salem Communications and is no longer administered by Malkin.^[59]

Viewpoints[link]

Citizenship[link]

Malkin believes that the custom of granting automatic U.S. citizenship at birth to children of foreign tourists, to temporary, foreign workers and to "anchor babies" delivered by illegal aliens on American soil undermines the integrity of citizenship. She argues that the custom of blanket birthright citizenship is supported neither by the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment nor by American legal precedent.^[60]

Immigration enforcement[link]

Malkin also opposes sanctuary cities, in which local authorities do not enforce all national immigration laws or coordinate with agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Following the August 2007 execution-style murder of three college students in Newark, New Jersey, she repeated her criticisms of politicians' posture toward sanctuary cities. In particular, she criticized former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's proposal for a tamper-proof identification card with this comment:

"What Rudy-come-lately fails to comprehend is that there are already multiple alien tracking databases mandated by federal law that have yet to be fully implemented, integrated and used. The reason they don’t work is because open-borders interests have sabotaged them by restricting funding for them, objecting to them on civil liberties grounds, and pushing local and state governments to forbid public employees from checking them to verify citizenship status. Ring a bell, Rudy?"^[61]

She supports coordination with federal authorities through the use of Section 287(g) of the IIRIRA to investigate, detain, and arrest aliens on civil and criminal grounds.^[62][63] Malkin supports the detention and deportation of some immigrants, regardless of legal status, on national security grounds.^[21]

Unemployment benefits[link]

During an appearance as a news analyst on the roundtable segment of ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos on August 2, 2009, she explained why she opposed another 13-week extension of unemployment benefits: "If you put enough government cheese in front of people they are going to just keep eating it and kicking the can down the road... people will just delay getting a job until the three weeks before the benefits run out."^[64]

Women's issues[link]

In a February 2012 column, Malkin called the "War on Women" a false narrative, arguing rather that, "It's the progressive left in this country that has viciously and systematically slimed female conservatives for their beliefs."^[65]

Personal life[link]

At Oberlin, she began dating Jesse Malkin.^[66] Jesse was granted a Rhodes Scholarship to begin study at Oxford University in 1991.^[67] They married in 1993, and have two children. Jesse worked as an associate policy analyst and economist focusing on healthcare issues for the RAND Corporation.^[68] In 2004, Malkin reported on her website that Jesse had left a "lucrative health-care consulting job" to be a stay-at-home dad.^[66][69]

In 2006, Malkin gave a lecture at her alma mater, Oberlin College, discussing racism, among other topics.^[70] She refuted allegations that she had been insensitive to the "plight of minorities" by listing several racial epithets that had been used against her, and by relating a lesson she learned from her mother for which she is "eternally grateful."^[70] When in kindergarten, Malkin went home in tears one day because her classmates had called her a racist name. But, her mother comforted her with the words, "....Everyone has prejudice."^[70]

The Malkin family lived in North Bethesda, Maryland,^[71] but relocated to Colorado Springs, Colorado^[72] in November 2008.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Michelle Malkin

• Malkin's official site
• Michelle Malkin Features at Creators Syndicate
• Hot Air
• Archive of Malkin's columns at Townhall.com
• "Columnist isn't smiling over swastika in rally photo". Rocky Mountain News. February 19, 2009.
• "Michelle Malkin: Grace, gratitude, and G-d". Jewish World Review. November 24, 2004.
• Archive of Malkin's columns at Jewish World Review
• Appearances on C-SPAN
  • Booknotes interview with Malkin on Invasion, December 8, 2002.
  • In Depth interview with Malkin, January 3, 2010
• Works by or about Michelle Malkin in libraries (WorldCat catalog)