June 30, 2007

Amnesty Defeated?

So the other day a whole bunch of Senators grew brains – (at least temporary ones) and finally got the picture – voting for the amnesty based immigration bill would very definitely have mandated the typing of their resumes before the end of autumn, 2008. A lot of credit goes to junior senators who thankfully opted to buck their more senior counterparts and do the right thing for their country, thus proving my theory that imposing term limits on members of Congress would constitute a much needed reform. So-called “junior” senators apparently still possess the principles that drove them to serve to begin with, whereas most of the “senior” ones have become part of the machine.

At any rate, they shot down the bill. We conservatives are both pleased and relieved. I had been really sure that amnesty would pass if for no other reason than that too many Republican Senators would be sold on the proactive additions to the bill, figuring they could use them to placate their anti-amnesty constituencies. After all, a politician’s only real career asset is the gift of gab. He or she can be as dumb as a post, but as long as his/her skills as a con man (or con woman) remain intact, he or she can continue to parasite off the taxpayer for decades.

But I digress (ahem).

Let’s see what happens next – the amnesty that centralized the bill was like a shark, while all the positive ad-on agendas like securing the border and enforcing work eligibility laws were like pilot fish clinging to the shark.

Unfortunately, these particular Naucrates ductor didn’t enjoy the option afforded other pilot fish of simply dropping off a dead shark’s teeth and going elsewhere, they shared the fate of the shark. Bummer.

Now, watch the amnesty mongers on the Hill interpret this to mean that all immigration issues are up for individual assessment or reassessment. Bush signed off on the border fence, but that was before the Democrats became the Congressional majority. Those critters could promise us the moon, then not fund the acquisition when the time comes, somehow blaming their failure to deliver on the Republicans, the liberal mainstream media making it believable to the folks on Maple Street. Since they didn’t promise the fence, starving the project of funding would be at most a picayune bit of intentional neglect.

Given the above, the entire illegal immigration issue can be brought forward, without definitive resolution, right through the 2008 election season, giving the Democrats something to “champion”, with their own patented brand of misleading spin, as a co-side dish to man made global warming “climate change”, alongside the hefty Iraq entrée.

I perceive this as a political misstep for the Democrats, as their immigration agendas are offensive to the majority of Americans. But they would tear flesh from bone to stifle the viewpoint of right thinking Americans and flood the field with their liberal propaganda.

On the other hand, the more they obfuscate and promote delays, the larger the criminal alien problem can grow. The M-19 gangs can expand their memberships and bloody influence, emergency rooms can continue to close, billions of dollars in untaxed wages can be wired out of the country and out of our economy, American tradesmen such as carpenters, masons, roofers, plumbers, painters and landscapers, as well as general laborers, custodial workers, furniture movers and others can go hungry along with their families while unscrupulous contractors replace them with illegal, dirt wage, benefit free illegals.

In short, our enthusiasm regarding the defeat of the amnesty bill should be tempered by concern as to how both Bush and the Democrat majority, neither of whom has exhibited any real interest in quelling the flow of criminal aliens into the U.S. (actually, quite the opposite), will now attempt to exploit whatever they can in its aftermath in order to perpetuate a continued increase in the problem as they drag it out in hopes of eventually seeing their amnesty agenda succeed via the pressure of continuous attrition.

June 8, 2007

So Much For Criminal Amnesty…For Now

I am happy to announce that I was wrong when I predicted that the amnesty supported by the President, the Democrats and a few worthless Republicans was likely a done deal. Fortunately, the bill kinda sorta fell apart in the heat of a rather fierce battle.

The jubilation that I have since received in emails and read of in a number of other places, however, should be tempered: It was such a spirited ruckus, including a Republican filibuster and politicians of both parties crossing the aisle and some proposals that threw everyone for a loop that the folks at the Tower of Babel could sooner have produced a coherent result.

Harry Reid finally jerked the bill, stating time concerns, so it is not yet any kind of a resolved argument.

The immigration “grand bargain” imploded in the Senate last night under a Republican-led filibuster, with the bill under attack from both sides and collapsing of its own weight.

In two votes yesterday Republicans blocked Democratic leaders’ bid to end to the debate and hold a final vote on the bill — each time joined by more than 10 Democrats.

At the end of the day, it was certainly the hammering voters all over the country gave our senators and their staffs regarding the will of the people that spawned those results.

To add to the positive side, RINO John McCain, a Kennedy Kohort in the attempted sellout of America, went away mad. I’ll bet he was muttering “drat, and double drat!”

Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican and a 2008 presidential candidate who had invested a lot of his political capital in the issue, refused to talk to reporters as he left the Senate floor.

“I don’t have anything to say. I apologize, but I don’t have anything to say,” he said as he ducked inside the senators-only elevator. Mr. McCain was one of the seven Republicans who sided with Democrats to break the filibuster.

This is far from over, count on it.

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican and another who voted to break the filibuster, said he will try to force the bill back onto the schedule.

“We could see the finish line,” he said. “At the end of the day, there’s a small group of people, probably on both sides, that want to make sure we don’t succeed. And we’ll find a way around that.”

Mr. Reid left open the possibility of returning to the bill again this year, but Democrats said that will depend on Mr. Bush.

“When the president calls Harry Reid and says I can get some more votes for you, we’ll come back to it. But until that time we can’t,” he said. “They said he made some phone calls, but he could only deliver six or seven votes.”

Passing an amnesty bill is of vital strategic importance to the Democrats: Doing so could literally blast the Republicans out of the ball park. The severe damage it would also inflict on our economy and our national work force are of no concern to the Democrats, not when compared to their party’s political aspirations. So much for patriotism.

Outside winning the War on Terror, the same amnesty is Bush’s first priority, and the President can’t campaign for reelection, as he’s had his two terms.

Given that his own political base is opposed to amnesty for criminal aliens, this says quite a bit,
that he has motives that are strong enough that he’s willing to tell his own party to go piss up a rope.

I’ll bet that when the bill was yanked (not defeated, remember), he was on the telephone with one of his senior people at the Committee On Foreign Relations, discussing strategies for garnering more support for the next go-round on the issue. Amnesty soon would make the transition, three or so years in the future, to the North American Union infinitely smoother.

Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy and the rest of that crowd will no doubt be browbeating or offering pork bribes to the Democrat senators that oppose amnesty, setting the stage, along with Bush, for enough votes to kill a filibuster and win a vote.

The amnesty bill will be bock!

by @ 2:09 am. Filed under Congress, Criminal Aliens, Homeland Security, Immigration

June 3, 2007

A Reverse Revolution

I think the term reverse revolution pretty much defines a situation in which the United States Government mutinies against We, The People for whom, according to the Constitution, the government works.

My case in point is the ongoing immigration kerfuffle.

To simplify what politicians tell us is a complex issue, it’s really quite simple; There are upwards of 12 million illegal aliens currently residing in the United States, most of them from Mexico. One reason they are here is that the government failed to do their job, over a long period of years, of securing our borders and enforcing immigration laws concerning those criminal aliens already here in any way that can be called anything but lackluster. However, that’s moot, what’s done is done and we are now paying the price in terms of legal U.S. citizens being displaced in employment markets by the under the table coolie wage crowd, by our tax money funding social services provided these felony trespassers, by copious criminal activities on the part of same, by quality of life degradation that devalues property in neighborhoods across America and by illegal laborers sending large portions of their untaxed incomes to their families back home, thereby taking hundreds of millions of dollars out of the U.S. economy rather than recirculating the money to keep the economy strong.

Most Americans want our southern border secured, the continuous influx of illegals halted and those already in the country deported and compelled to apply to enter, work in and achieve citizenship in the U.S. through legal means.

Most of our elected government officials, however, are pushing a different solution: Amnesty. Many label it under other names and provide transparently false justifications for doing so. This includes the bulk of the Democrat majority in Congress, a truly sickening number of their Republican colleagues and even the President.

Despite the majority of Americans giving a strong “thumbs down” to any version of amnesty, the government is intent upon going through with it. They are, in effect, and again, this includes President Bush, telling We, The People to go to hell.

Mutiny? Reverse revolution? We, The People no longer control the government, they have in effect established themselves, on a bipartisan basis, as rulers, rather than representatives of, the citizenry.

A column from 20 May by Mark Steyn pretty well describes, with that columnist/author’s famous wit, the whole enchilada of government intent.

In more recent days, President Bush himself has resorted to shameful rhetoric aimed at his detractors, including many who have been staunch supporters of both his political campaigns and most of his other policies.

“If you want to kill the bill, if you don’t want to do what’s right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it, you can use it to frighten people.”

Right.

Washington Times Editor-In-Chief Wesley Prudin weighs in.

Peggy Noonan has written an OpEd piece, rather strongly worded, condemning George Bush for what she considers his sellout of his conservative base and the Republican Party on the issue, which can be read in a link from this excellent post by Old Soldier.

In my personal opinion, in this battle of the Reverse Revolution, the government, by sheer force of Congressional votes and Presidential support, is going to defeat We, The People, no matter the volume of telephone calls, emails and letters we flood their offices with.

May 15, 2007

Congrats! Made It Across The Border, Home Free!

In the Republican/conservative vs Democrat/liberal debate on illegal immigration, there will never be a bipartisan consensus. The issue could be hammered out by honest, sincere thinkers on both sides and never come anywhere near any kind of mutual agreement.
The right believes that immigration should occur according to law, that all aliens entering the United States should be properly documented and should obtain the proper permits from the government in order to work in the U.S. They should be issued Social Security numbers and should both be adequately compensated for their work and pay taxes.
The left believes, for some reason, that anyone who sneaks into the country illegally has automatically earned the right not only to stay, but to avail himself of every tax financed social service in existence. It’s amazing that such supposedly learned individuals as our Democrat members of Congress (and lately, in the pork department, the Republicans as well) have forgotten that the Treasury belongs to all Americans, not just to our politicians to spend at will.
The Democrats are all for issuing drivers’ licenses to people whose existences aren’t even documented with the federal government, for taking care of their housing, medical, family and food expenses and doing so on the taxpayers’ dime. They defend these lawbreakers’ “right” to destroy the quality of life in American neighborhoods by renting one-family houses and moving in three or four families plus a few cousins, a dozen cars and then letting the properties decay while making noise 24/7. They could care less about the street crime, store robberies and gang activity that commence once these neighborhoods are overrun or about the decline in the value of area properties that force fleeing long term residents to sell their homes at prices far below market value.
The liberal mainstream media avoids discussion of the above tragic byproducts of illegal immigration, preferring instead to focus on the occasional sob story of one family being separated from a child during deportation proceedings or to perpetuate the myth that these trespassers do the work Americans won’t do. By this, they must include construction, house painting and other jobs Americans are being forced out of to the detriment of themselves, their families and every taxpaying citizen who has to pick up the slack for the lost tax revenues.
Democrats create “sanctuary cities”, where local authorities are prohibited from reporting illegals whom they encounter professionally to the federal government.
Meanwhile, these same Democrats do whatever needs doing to ensure that illegals don’t descend on their neighborhoods or otherwise have any effect on their lives.
The creation of slums has long been a strategy of the Democrats, who use their squalid, embattled, gang riddled creations as breeding grounds for Democrat voters. Falsely blame the Republicans for these folks’ poverty and make knowingly unfulfillable promises. Get the votes, and then forget all about those constituents until it’s time to campaign to them again. This more than explains the push, from the liberal front, to get criminal aliens into the polls to cast illegal votes.
Meanwhile, the hordes of illegals the policies of the left enable to enter the country have included, and continue to include the odd member of that satanic cult known as Islam, here to plot and execute terrorist operations against the American people. The only consolation there is that President Bush, whom the Democrats continuously describe as dumb, has put together a highly competent organization within his administration that repeatedly prevents such Muslim-made-mayhem from succeeding, but even in that regard any security professional will agree that the terrorists have a distinct advantage here, as does any offense when confronting a purely defensive target – as long as they keep trying, the odds are in their favor that eventually some of their “colleagues” will penetrate our homeland security venues and murder large numbers of innocent people.
The Democrats’ championing of “rights” to “undocumented” immigration will be, in many ways, responsible for the consummation of these Islamofascists’ plans, including, eventually, the smuggling in and detonation of nuclear weapons in one or more U.S. cities.
While numerous officials and other “experts” communicate their belief that such nuclear attacks will target New York and Washington D.C., one can only hope they actually realize that terrorists don’t strategize via the same priorities that legitimate armies do – while desirable, it is not vital to them to attack government centers, they are in business to demoralize the civil population. Exploding a nuke in L.A., Chicago or even Casper, Wyoming would more than suffice.
But I digress (who, me?).
Mark Steyn’s latest and as usual great column, which covers ground on Islamofascism in the Balkans and greater Europe (a figure of speech) to the potential price of the U.S. immigration fiasco, touches on both the subject of my above digression and the ease which the Democrats, as well as a few spineless, therefore Democrat-enabling Republicans, bestow upon criminal aliens to remain in this country.

The three Duka brothers were (if you’ll forgive the expression) illegal immigrants. They’re not meant to be here. Yet they graduated from a New Jersey high school and they operated two roofing companies and a pizzeria. Think of how often you have to produce your driver’s license or Social Security number. But, five years after 9/11, this is still one of the easiest countries in the world in which to establish a functioning but fraudulent identity.

Consider, for example, the post-9/11 ritual of airline security. You have to produce government-issued picture ID to the TSA official. Does that make you feel safer? On that Tuesday morning in September, four of the killers got on board by using picture ID they’d acquired through the “undocumented worker” network in Falls Church, Va. Half the jurisdictions in the United States issue picture ID to people who shouldn’t even be in the country, and they issue it as a matter of policy. The Fort Dix boys were pulled over for 19 traffic violations, but because they were in “sanctuary cities,” any cop who suspected they were illegals was unable to report them to immigration authorities. Again, as a matter of policy.

On one hand, America creates a vast federal security bureaucracy to prevent another 9/11. On the other hand, American politicians and bureaucrats create a parallel system of education and welfare and health care entitlements, maintaining and expanding a vast network of fraudulent identity that corrupts the integrity of almost all state databases. And though it played a part in the killing of 3,000 Americans, leaders of both parties insist nothing can be done to stop it. All we can do is give the Duka brothers “a fast track to citizenship.”

Democrats: What an un-star spangled web they weave….

by @ 5:13 am. Filed under Criminal Aliens, Democrats, Homeland Security, Liberal Agendas