So many things going on today that there’s no time to give them the “Ricky Treatment” – the soulful, meandering, almost coherent ramblings that are the hallmark of this blog in its ongoing defense of the values found in Western Civilization…
Yeah, so? It’s Friday already.
Anyway, here are some items catching my eye this afternoon..
JILL CARROLL: 15 YARD PENALTY FOR PILING ON?
What is wrong with my fellow right wing nuts?
Here we have this poor woman held captive for three months and the page at Memorandum is full of people criticizing her for 1) wearing Muslim dress, 2) praising her captives for their fine treatment of her, 3) not condemning same, 4) and even some criticism of a statement she made with a gun to her head about how bad we Americans are.
That last was figuratively written as some – Macsmind for one – smell a rat. Mac, a former intelligence professional, is not one to go off the deep end so his blog bears watching on this subject. Alexandra however, is willing to give the reporter the benefit of the doubt as is Rusty Shacklelford.
I can see the Italian communist propagandist Guiliana Sgrena , who gave so many versions of her ordeal that they could have made 3 different Mini-series out of it, having herself kidnapped for political purposes but not a serious journalist like Carroll. Let’s wait a few days and see what she has to say when she gets her feet back on the ground before judging her for any real or imagined transgression.
CYNTHIA MCKINNEY: STRANGE BUT TRUE
From what I understand, Representative McKinney has been involved in 4 other similar spats with security guards in the House all because she refuses to wear her Member’s pin. Is it asking too much that our guards be able to recognize the 535 faces of lawmakers?
That’s an awful lot of faces. Unless the guards have been given a course in memory retention, the average human can remember 200 – 300 faces , which means that there is a likelihood that Representative McKinney will not be recognized. This is especially true if she changes her hair style, something she complained about earlier.
In defense of McKinney, she is one of only 14 black members of the House which should mean that this visual clue of skin color should make remembering her face that much easier. Unfortunately, the probability is that officers are trained to check first for the pin without even looking at the face. And since she said she was in a hurry, it is also probable that the guard never saw her face at all.
Blaming racism, as her lawyer does here is unfortunate. When what was apparently an honest mistake on the part of the guard is turned into a political hot potato in order to deflect attention from the issue of Representative McKinney’s possible assault charge, everyone loses. It would have been much better if 1) the guards are given a refresher course in memory retention, and 2) McKinney grow up, act like an adult, and wear her damn Member’s pin.
Perhaps then we can get back to the people’s business in the House…
WALKING THE PLANK ON IMMIGRATION
House Republicans are apparently intent on walking a very short plank in their showdown with the Senate over immigration reform. Standing firm on making it a felony to enter the country illegally, the bitter enders seem intent on either getting their way or killing the bill altogether:
Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, dismissed arguments made by President Bush and business leaders who say the United States needs a pool of foreign workers. He said businesses should be more creative in their efforts to find help and suggested that employers turn to the prison population to fill jobs in agriculture and elsewhere.
“Let the prisoners pick the fruits,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. “We can do it without bringing in millions of foreigners.”
Good thing convicted felons can’t vote, Danny. You’d be in trouble. And most migrant workers – about 1.3 million – are actually US citizens. The seasonal need for additional workers brings about 300,000 illegal immigrants over the borders, a proverbial drop in the bucket.
While it may be hugely satisfying to make illegals into felons, the fact is you can’t round up 11 million people and put them…where? Concentration camps? Not enough room in the jails. And thanks to several controversial court opinions, you just can’t load them onto a bus or plane and send them back where they came from without a hearing.
Yes enforce the law as it is on the books. No to amnesty. No to “guest workers.” And a great big yes please to doing a better job of securing our borders.
Read also, VDH on the subject. Well done as usual.
UPDATE
Kender points out in the comments one other thing I strongly support – jail time for employers who knowingly hire illegals.
Hard to prove but would be an excellent incentive for employers to get fanatical about making sure they hire legal residents.
8:18 pm
Kill the bill and enforce the damned laws. Make hearings faster, and if new laws are enacted make them laws that take away the ability of immigration lawyers to have a never ending series of hearings.
Start fining employers for hiring criminal aliens. You want a new source of revenue? There it is.
Make it a requirement of attaining public social services that you are indeed a legal citizen. Same goes for healthcare that isn’t dire need. If you do seek healthcare and aren’t a citizen, expcet a swift trip home when you are out of the hospital.
Start a system of bio-ID for people that wish to come here to live and work, and make the penalties for even having a forged version extremely stiff, ending with the offender losing all shot at citizenship, forever.
Make the penalties for forging IDs even stiffer than the penalties for possesing forged IDs.
Offer citizenship to those that were born here before a certain date, and if they are still underage, offer to let them return when their parents are admitted legally or they turn 18 and can show the ability to work.
8:20 pm
I agree with many of those except anyone who is born here is automatically a citizen. It’s in the Constitution.
9:33 pm
Actually Rick,
There is a program that has been in place for several years called “Basic Pilot” that allows an employer to verify social security numbers quickly and easily.
It’s important to remember how much the business community has thrown a wrench into any effort to combat illegal immigration. There have been several wildly successful programs that were working.
Vis-ICE began checking SS #’s for meatpacking plants and found several hundred bad ones. Before they could take it much farther these business owners called their reps and…
Also, the SS admin used to send what they called “no match” notices to businesses. This simply meant that there was a question about the supplied number. Guess what happened when it turned out that most the false numbers were being used by illegals?
Illegal immigration can be stopped, can be halted and we can remove the majority. Simply put the relevant agencies have never been allowed to do so.
So to state we can’t get these folks out is somewhat ridiculous. Actually we can, our business leaders and politicians don’t wish to and that’s a whole nother can of worms.
I would just say, don’t believe the hype. You don’t have to have “round-ups” or “jack-boots” to do this job. Just a willingness to follow the law.
Oh, and pretend that you live in a country not an economy! (I’m not saying you, just the ‘I love illegals’ crowd)
11:15 pm
First: As to Ms. McKinney, she is flat wrong. Period. She needs to spend some jail time as the (violent)criminal she is.
I’ve sprnt lots of time dealing with check points on both sides of the gate, including doing the checking at federal office buildings, FAA facilities, and a US courthouse. I don’t care how much of a hurry you are in, or how important you think your business is, when ordered to stop, you STOP! It is not optional.
“In defense of McKinney, she is one of only 14 black members of the House which should mean that this visual clue of skin color should make remembering her face that much easier.”
That sir is racial profiling. Let’s apply that to a slightly different scenario: Ms. M approaches without ID/pin and the officer passes her through. This is observed by bystanders/supervisor who question his action. The officer defends it based on recognition of the subject to which the questioned replies “how can you recognize one insignifcant Rep.?” Does the officer then respond “well she’s black and there aren’t that many . . .” Obviously he would be an idiot to admit it even if true, but that is beside the point.
“Is it asking too much that our guards be able to recognize the 535 faces of lawmakers?”
Yes, in fact it is. In addition to the limit on general ability you cited, the limit in practical terms will be lower. Depending on shift schedules and locations worked, many of the officers may rarely or never see most of the lawmakers, and their faces will quickly drop out of the collection of 300.
The guards don’t need a course in memory retention. The arrogent asses in Congress need to show ID like everyone else. If they want to represent the people, then play the game by the same rules as the rest of us (fat chance there).
As to Ms. Carroll, I haven’t gotten to follow your links yet, but I too think I note the faint aroma of rodent. I have since the beginning, and more so when she didn’t turn up dead after multiple deadlines passed.
Something just doesn’t add up here. I get bad vibes from Carroll.
3:19 am
I am running for the Washington State House of Representative and when queried on immigration I respond: “I support the President on this. What we absolutely must do, however, is get everyone who is in this country narrowed down to having one legal name that is based on a true and valid birth certificate from somewhere. For obvious national security and criminal justice reasons we can’t have people wandering around with five different names and spouting complete lies about their criminal history in five different states and two different nations.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of fighting going on in Iraq recently, so maybe some resources can be devoted to who’s really a hostage and who is just pulling our leg.
If some security person is fired or demoted because a dolt politician in D.C. is too arrogant to show their I.D. there needs to be an impeachment of that lawmaker for failure to exercise due respect to both national authority properly delegated and to working class people in general. Anyone playing the race card on this needs to be charged with a hate crime and obstruction of justice by manipulation.
11:39 am
Carroll went to Iraq with the intention of working against U.S. interests. Her actions brought about the death of her translator and who knows how many hours of soldier time hunting for her. Her father urged her release because she was on their side, I say throw her back, she is just another Axis Sally. Making war against the Unite States should cost her citizenship.
2:01 pm
“you can’t round up 11 million people and put them…where?”
That makes the 114th time I have heard “you can’t round up 11 million people” and the 0th time I have heard “we need to round up 11 million people.”
No one is proposing rounding up 11 million people, but good job attacking the biggest straw man of the last decade.
3:36 pm
Josh, “we need to round up 11 million people”.
Seriously. If these people owed money to the IRS (and they actually probably do), how fast would they be found?