June 11, 2007

Death Of A Bad Bill

One of the greatest courtroom dramas of all time was Anatomy of a Murder., and over the last 48 years, I must have watched it at least a dozen times. Jimmy Stewart plays a small town lawyer who gets Ben Gazarra off of a murder charge by getting the jury to believe in an "irresistible impulse."

An Irresistible Impulse, one that far to many senators succumbed to in authoring and/or supporting a bad bill. Last week, America watched enthralled as the United States Senate debated, and ultimately killed the latest iteration of immigration reform. Earlier "comprehensive" reforms occurred in 1952 and again another in 1986. In the 1986 signing, President Ronald Reagan noted:

Distance has not discouraged illegal immigration to the United States from all around the globe. The problem of illegal immigration should not, therefore, be seen as a problem between the United States and its neighbors. Our objective is only to establish a reasonable, fair, orderly, and secure system of immigration into this country and not to discriminate in any way against particular nations or people."

"The act I am signing today is the product of one of the longest and most difficult legislative undertakings of recent memory. It has truly been a bipartisan effort, with this administration and the allies of immigration reform in the Congress, of both parties, working together to accomplish these critically important reforms. Future generations of Americans will be thankful for our efforts to humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve the value of one of the most sacred possessions of our people: American citizenship." [emphasis added]

"Regain control of our borders." Well, that didn't happen as any one with a lick of sense could have told you (and many of us did.)

The fact of the matter was that when you handed out citizenship to earlier illegal immigrants, you did exactly what Pavlov proved would happen. Reward a behavior and you will get more of the same, in this case somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 20 million additional illegal immigrants since 1986. That should be tattooed on the inside of the eyelids of every man and woman that wants to be a United States Senator, let alone on the inside of the eyelids of each and every current U.S. Senator.

The latest "comprehensive" immigration bill was fraught with difficulty, hence, the multiple votes on amendments to the bill. Each amendment as proposed was to "remove a significant fault" or to add a "significant enhancement" either to the bill, or conversely from the bill, and the American people were up in arms.

The media kept telling us that a "majority" of Americans wanted a comprehensive immigration bill, and that is probably true, but like always, the devil is in the details. Just prior to the final ignominious defeat of the bill, a Rasmussen poll showed some 70 + percent of those polled did not like this particular bill or its multitude of provisions for an alphabetized system of visas. Indeed, they were probably perplexed by the bill.

George W. Bush, Harry Reid, John McCain (who probably tossed his presidential candidacy into the toilet) and Ted Kennedy all fought for the bill and ultimately, the people said "no." And it is a good thing they did. As I commented on another site (see, I don't spend ALL of my time here):

I’m surprised (as perhaps were other) that Marc, who touts polls left and right doesn’t mention that the most recent Rasmussen Poll indicates that a majority of Americans (presumably legal ones) do not indeed support “the Bush backed plan to grant legal status” to the illegals rather, a whopping 74% oppose this bill, many on just those grounds (and this includes Democrats, Republicans, independents and not a few legal immigrants from Mexico and other Hispanic countries.).

You can call them undocumented workers, illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, or as the sublimely stupid Harry Reid said “undocumented Americans,” but the fact of the matter is that the majority of them are hear [sic] because of the last “flawed bill.” A flawed bill is not “better than nothing,” a flawed bill is bad law. [emphasis added, link to the exact quote added]

You read correctly, Harry Reid said, and I quote:
This week, we will vote on cloture and final passage of a comprehensive bill that will strengthen border security, bring the 12 million undocumented Americans out of the shadows, and keep our economy strong. [emphasis added]
By the way, Dennis Miller did a wonderful take-down of "shallow Harry Reid" here (via Glenn Reynolds) but I digress. Those who were interested in establishing a "legacy" by passing this bill were shot down by the blogosphere (H/T to Danny Glover) both the left and the right calling it a bad bill, by individuals of the left, right, center and no stance at all wrote, telephoned, faxed, emailed and otherwise let their Senator know that this bill was no damn good, and 50 Senators responded. Now, despite what you have heard, the vote was NOT to defeat the bill, the bill was "defeated" because Harry Reid pulled the bill from further consideration (feeling, I guess, that discretion is the better part of valor here). The actual vote was merely to cease debate or not to cease debate. If the vote had been for cloture (that is ceasing debate) then the Senate could have voted in the affirmative (passed the bill - in which case it would go to conference committee to hammer out any differences between it and any bill passed by the house) or voted in the negative which would have effectively killed the current bill.

A vote to continue debate would have added amendments, removed amendments or otherwise bastardized an already bastardized bill. But the underlying principle of rewarding behavior remains unchanged. Once again, gentle reader, if you reward (visas, citizenship, voting rights, pathways, what ever you want to call amnesty without calling it amnesty) a behavior (illegal immigration), you get more of the same behavior. The are only a few real ways to stop the inflow of illegal immigrants (and don't call them undocumented Americans please).

  • Adopt a draconian set of laws modeled almost exactly after Mexico's laws (and wouldn't that be a fine kettle of fish?)
  • Fines and prison sentences for anyone caught crossing the border a second time after already being deported once for illegal crossing.
  • Fines and prison sentences for those hiring more than a few illegal immigrants (big business has always supported illegal immigration, it allows them to pay substandard wages).
  • Changing our constitution to eliminate the "anchor baby" phenomenon, thus, if you're illegal, any offspring born in the United States would not gain citizenship by dent of being born here.
    • Please understand, I am not advocating any of these positions, I'm merely saying that we will never gain control of illegal immigration unless we adopt some manner of gaining control of the borders and the American people understood that, even if 45 Senators did not. It seems as though, for once, 50 senators listened to either their conscience or their constituents. And I'd have to guess that in the outpouring of disdain to the U.S. Senate an awful lot of Americans succumbed to an "irresistible impulse."

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    February 03, 2007

    You Can't Keep A Good Pig Down

    The good folk at Qatar Living recently did a post on the absolute stupidity of censoring a child's book:

    In Qatar there is only one decent bookshop (that happens to be a Saudi chain) that has a few shelves of English books. Shopping there is hit or miss - you don't go there to look for a title. You go there in the hope of stumbling upon something interesting.

    The kids selection is not bad though. The other night we saw Disney's "My Very First Encyclopedia with Winnie the Pooh and friends". We grabbed it and thought it was exactly what we needed for our daughter - not only does she love Winnie the Pooh but she's also started taking a keen interest in nature.

    We flipped it open and noticed that some of the pages had been vandalised with a black marker. We figured it must have been bought and returned after some kids had got there hands on it. Further inspection made us realise that this was actually systematic. Someone had deliberately "censored" out each and every picture of Piglet from hundreds of pages in the book with a black marker (my guess is that the book got caught by Saudi Censors enroute to Doha).

    Camper (the author of the post) provided a photo of the censored material.


    Now, I don't know about you, but the deliberate defacement of a child's book like this would make me very, very curious as to what was inked out and would make me that much more interested in the topic than anything they could have done otherwise.

    Being the curious sort that I am, I decided to call up the 100 Acre Wood and ask for my friend Piglet to see what Piglet thought about the whole brouhaha.

    Ring, Ring, Riiiiiinnnnnnggggg!!!

    Voice answers:

    Helloooo? Christipher Robin here."

    Me:

    Christopher, it's me, GM. May I speak to Piglet please!"

    Christopher:

    Oh, hello GM, sure, let me get Piglet for you."

    Piglet:

    GM, so nice to hear from you once again. How have you been doing my friend."

    Me:

    Piglet, I'm doing fine. The wife and daughter are well also."

    Piglet:

    Oh GM, I'm so very glad to hear that. What can I do for you this fine February morning?"

    Me:

    Well Piglet, this is maybe a little insensitive of me, but I was wondering what you thought of having your picture magic markered over in Qatar?"

    Piglet:

    Oh yes, I read about that on one of the blogs just this morning with my cup of tea. I had Pooh over and we made scones with his favorite hunny. Well, GM, to be honest, I didn't think much of it. The people that did that really have no idea what they are doing, they are so confused and so backwards in their thinking. Besides, the last time I checked I was just a little insignificant cartoon.

    "Oh, wait, they get really upset about cartoons don't they GM, well, as Pooh says, "Oh Bother."

    Me:

    But Piglet, do you mean to say that it really doesn't bother you at all? That you don't think it is anything to be worried about. After all, you live in England where there is a lot of unrest about what is going on in the Muslim world."

    Piglet:

    No GM, it really doesn't bother me. You see, I snuck into that bookstore in Qatar, you know the one owned by a Saudi chain and I fixed the problem I think. Here, let me share my "fix" with you. I'll send you an email with a picture of the fix."

    Me:

    Thanks Piglet. I knew I could count on you to figure something out. You know, if those folk had half your smarts, they wouldn't be as backwards as they certainly seem to be. Well, good bye my friend."

    Piglet:

    Good bye GM, and thanks for thinking of me. You know, we really must get together some time soon. When will you be back near the 100 Acre Wood?"

    Me:

    You never know Piglet, sometimes I just turn up and it may be there soon. Good bye again."

    To see Piglet's solution, exactly as he emailed it to me, continue reading more...

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    February 01, 2007

    Lies, Damn Lies and Hillary Clinton!

    As any reader of this blog will undoubtedly know, I'm no big fan of Hillary Clinton, in fact, there are fewer people in politics that I despise more for their politics. When the harridan from New York via Little Rock via Washington via Chicago announced for the Senate in 2000, no one who could think in coherent sentences doubted that her only goal was to run for president. Her constant lies about "not decided yet" not-withstanding, she was running from the first day her husband was running. Anyone remember the famous "two-fer" she uttered during the '92 campaign? That alone should have made it obvious.

    Now, she is "officially" running and true to the ideals of Bill, she is lying up a storm and expecting no one to notice. In Iowa, she said:

    I said that we should not go to war unless we have allies. So [President bush] took the authority that I and others gave him and he misused it, and I regret that deeply. And if we had known then what we know now, there never would have been a vote and I never would have voted to give this president that authority." [emphasis added]
    Wow, the smartest woman in the world was duped by the dumbest president ever! Whoda thunk it? But wait, she has, on record, other statements about her vote, one that kinda, sorta, perhaps, maybe, ah hell, definately puts the lie to her statement in Des Moines when she justified her vote to Code Pink:
    There is a very easy way to prevent anyone from being put into harm's way, that is for Saddam Hussein to disarm. And I have absolutely no belief that he will. I have to say that this is something I've followed for more than a decade. If he were serious about disarming, he would have been much more forthcoming. I ended up voting for the resolution after carefulling reviewing the information, intelligence that I had available, talking with people whose opinions I trusted, trying to discount the political or other factors that I didn't believe should be in any way part of this decision." [emphasis added]
    There you have it, out of her own mouth. Yeppers, the big lie, repeated often enough will be believed (but only by those who can't think their way out of a wet paper sack (you sure are getting fond of that phrase Roper... ed!) I wonder if "I said that we should not go to war unless we have allies," includes her husbands foray's into Kosovo without UN sanction? Hmmm?

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    January 21, 2007

    How To Lose A Sale, And Piss Off America At The Same Time

    Last Friday, Cinnamon Stillwell, a good friend and fellow blogger alerted me to an almost unbelievable "sales" response to one of our troops stationed in Iraq. The troop, one Sgt. Jason Hess serving with the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq. Sgt. Hess was inquiring about better mats for his troops to sleep on. Here is his email to Discount Floor Mats of West Allis, Wisconson:

    To Whom it may concern:
    Do you ship to APO addresses? I'm in the 1st Cavalry Division stationed in Iraq and we are trying to order some mats but we are looking for who ships to APO first.

    SGT Hess

    more...

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    November 28, 2006

    Happy Blogaversary AVI!

    I woke early this morning and noted a comment by my friend The Assistant Village Idiot, whom, like another commenter, Tad, thinks should be named the Chief Village Sage. So, wanting to see what AVI (as I affectionately call him) was up to I went to his blog The Assistant Village Idiot.

    Now, AVI always has some interesting posts up, and Monday he had up "Old Europe -- A Visit to the Nursing Home" which was a reprise of a post he did last year. Going to the original, I found out that it was posted the 2nd day his blog was up which means that the day before was his first post which means that AVI has just passed his FIRST blogaversary. Happy Blogaversary AVI, I love your writing, I love your comments here and you are one hell of a great guy! Long may the Wyman banner wave.

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    November 17, 2006

    A Portent Of Things To Come? - UPDATED

    This post is filed under Liberals And Democrats because it is about Liberals and Democrats. So, what else would I blog in a blogsite devoted to the POV of a right wing, knuckle dragging, neandertholic, conservative? But, I digress.

    Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) is the presumptive Speaker of the United States House of Representatives when the next congress convenes in January, 2007. The newly elected Majority Leader is Jack Murtha Steny Hoyer. Hoyer IS is NOT a friend of Pelosi, and in fact, lost to Pelosi in the race for minority leader two years ago. This setback for Pelosi brings to mind a question as to her competence to be the Speaker (not that Denny Hastert was any shining example). Too, Pelosi has proposed a number of folk for leadership positions that absolutely call into question her fitness for the job. She has proposed, as a sop to the Congressional Black Caucus the elevation of Alcee Hastings to the chair of the House Intelligence Committee over Jane Harmon. The CBC wants Hastings because of the (gasp) ethics problems of William Jefferson (D-La). This is compounded by the fact that Pelosi doesn't like her fellow Californian Jane Harmon. Ruth Marcus, commenting in the afore linked Washington Post article a week prior to the election notes:

    Pelosi is in a box of her own devising. The panel's ranking Democrat is her fellow Californian Jane Harman -- smart and hardworking but also abrasive, ambitious and, in Pelosi's estimation, insufficiently partisan on the committee. So Pelosi, once the intelligence panel's ranking Democrat herself, has made clear that she doesn't intend to name Harman to the chairmanship." [emphasis added]
    Insufficiently partisan? For the Intelligence Committee? Isn't that what Pelosi and her fellow Democrats have railed against? What happened to the Democrats cry's for bipartisanship when they lost an election?

    In fact, there is some evidence that a Pelosi "speakership" will be frought with multiple problems in getting her liberal agenda through. There are the so called "Blue-Dog" Democrats, 44 by last count, who represent a little less than 1/5th(19.3832599% to be a little more precise) of the incoming "ruling" Democrats. What are "Blue-Dog" Democrats you ask? Simple, they are moderate to conservative Democrats who ran and were elected as Democrats in spite of (because of?) not running as Liberals. The website Capital Questions states that Blue-Dog Democrats are

    The Blue Dogs, [,,,] are less fiercely partisan, and they do not all hail from the South. They seek to build ideological bridges to the Republican side of the aisle, are known for their independence from the leadership of their own party, and tend to be more pragmatic than partisan.
    This alone presents an interesting connundrum for Pelosi and the other liberals in the Democratic House Heirarchy. Will her hyperpartisanship (despite her photo-ops with George W. Bush and pronouncements to the contrary) cause her to run up against the Blue-Dogs as often as she will the Republicans? Note also, that many of the "defeated" Republicans were what many conservatives called RINOs (Republican In Name Only).

    As I have stated in a previous post, the coming battles may well prove to be a target rich inverionment for this and other bloggers. In fact, my blog-father, a big time "progressive" (he dosen't like the term liberal applied to himself) Marc Cooper, alluding to the missteps by Pelosi regarding her selections and appoitments saying:

    In the end, it's a stupid, pointless fight and regardless of its outcome a dumb first move by Pelosi that focuses the debate on flawed ethics rather than on bold leadership.
    Cooper also noted that his friend (and fellow liberal progressive Doug Ireland had this to say about Pelosi: "...she just ain't all that smart"
    Just who is Nancy Pelosi, the lawmaker from San Francisco with an exagerrated reputation for liberalism? She's an opportunist and a trimmer, who -- just two days after the Democrats re-took both houses of Congress and her Speakership was assured -- proclaimed, "We must govern from the center." When she was first elected to lead the House Democrats six years ago, I investigated Pelosi's background for the L.A. WEEKLY. And one of the things I found out in my digging was that she just ain't all that smart.

    Pelosi is catching it from the right as well. Lorie Byrd said (in an article titled "From Moderate To Moonbat In Less Than A Week":

    Nancy Pelosi said, “the American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history.”

    In spite of those words, she backed John Murtha over Steny Hoyer for the position of majority leader, even as conservative talk radio hosts played over and over again a decades old tape of Murtha’s involvement in the Abscam scandal.

    Byrd was not the only one on the right (as can well be imagined) who picked up on the faux moderate => to moonbat transformation, Neo-Neo Con notes:
    We expected her stand to offend Republicans; that's not news. But it offended Democrats as well, not to mention Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, previously labeled "...probably the most anti-Bush reporter currently assigned to the White House by a major news organization" by John J. Miller of National Review.

    And there you have it beloved readers, Nancy Pelosi (DIMocrat - California), incoming Speaker of the United States House of Representatives is an airhead and catching it (and well deservedly so I'm sure) from both the right (which is expected) and the left (which is icing on the cake). I'm sure that this is a portent of things to come and I just can't wait!

    Cross Posted At The Real Ugly American.

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    November 04, 2006

    More On The "Fake Doctor"

    Dr. Dario Juarez (his doctorate is, I believe, a "Doctor of Clinical Hypnotherapy" what ever that is) is again behind bars. After being arrested in Cameron County, Texas for posing as a physician (and released on a $100,000.00 bond. In the initial complaint, the so called "Fake Doctor" told the children of one patient that she could die at any moment, to leave her in bed and not bathe or move her. He said she had an aortic aneurysm and cancer. She didn't.

    Channel 4 News did more investigating and found he had probably practiced in Hidalgo County as well. He was arrested in Hidalgo County for writing perscriptions and was due to be released on a $90.000.00 bond. However, new victims came forward including on gentleman we'll call Joe who said that Juarez gave him a physical for The Department of Transportation and was so rough checking for a hernia that he was in pain for five days. Too, Juarez is alleged (he denies it) to have done a rectal exam without a glove that was uncomfortable. Cameron County has arrested Juarez on Sexual Assault charges with the strong possibility of more victims coming forward. Bond has been set at an additional $120,000.00.

    You can bet I'll be at that trial. He doesn't sound one bit different than when I fired him 17 years ago, unless maybe acting a hell of a lot more grandiose if you take into account going from three years of fake medical school to practicing as a fake doctor. I must have missed the fake graduation ceremony!

    Filed under: Oddballs and Misfits

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