(no subject)

[which_chick]

Does anyone besides me think that Vincente Fox (the president of Mexico) cut a deal with Bush here lately? Fox, as I'm sure we all recall, was GONNA sign to legalize all kindsa drugs to make Mexico la mejor destinacion para la rotura del resorte but pulled out of that broadly expected move at the last minute quicker than a Catholic emulating Onan, no explanation given. Meanwhile, immigration has blown up in W's face here lately and y'know, a lot of the illegals we get speak Spanish. I don't think they come from Spain.



It's my guess, given Bush's speech on immigration here today (The NYT has the text for you in case you missed the speech or couldn't tolerate listening to the Shrub), that he cut a deal with Fox, to wit, that Fox gave up drugs and a lock on the spring break trade in order to get some motherfucking amnesty for the illegals in this country. (Why would Fox want there to be Mexican peoples in the United States? Two reasons. First, the dissidents are the ones who fucking leave Mexico. Second, most of those who leave send home huge amounts of money that support the economy down there. Money coming into Mexico from immigrants (legal or otherwise) in el norte was about 11 billion in 2003. Mexico has no reason at all to want the immigration thing to stop. Interestingly, on the SOUTHERN border of Mexico, they have the same problem with illegals that we do along the bottom of Texas. Compared to their southerly neighbors, Mexico doesn't suck and it's flooded with illegals looking for a better life and willing to take shit-ass jobs to get it. Seeing as how that's the case for Mexico, you'd think they'd be a little more fucking sympathetic to our issue with THEIR damn people coming here, but apparently that's totally different. Totally.)

Bush says There is a rational middle ground between granting an automatic path to citizenship for every illegal immigrant, and a program of mass deportation. That middle ground recognizes that there are differences between an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently -- and someone who has worked here for many years, and has a home, a family, and an otherwise clean record. I believe that illegal immigrants who have roots in our country and want to stay should have to pay a meaningful penalty for breaking the law, to pay their taxes, to learn English, and to work in a job for a number of years. People who meet these conditions should be able to apply for citizenship -- but approval would not be automatic, and they will have to wait in line behind those who played by the rules and followed the law. What I have just described is not amnesty -- it is a way for those who have broken the law to pay their debt to society, and demonstrate the character that makes a good citizen.

Note the bolded text (my emphasis).

If you've moved here illegally and held a job and worked here and bought a home and so forth, we're going to let you naturalize even though, y'know, you broke the fucking law in the first place. It's OKAY if it was a long time ago, see. The fuck it's not amnesty.

Comments

[teflon-tim.livejournal.com]

This is an empty and ineffectual gesture that Karl Rove hopes will fire up the base and pull Bush's poll numbers above 30%. Nothing more, nothing less. If he doesn't stop the bleeding his own party will throw him under the wheels of the bus to save their own hides -- not that it's going to help people like DeLay, Ney, or the Dukester anytime soon...

The "worker amnesty" program (let's call a spade a spade) has one chief aim that goes unspoken in all the debates: to provide the conservative businessman's wet dream of an underpaid labor force that can't organize and can't vote.

As for the bullshit about all those "jobs Americans won't do"; to me, that's nothing less than an insult to the American worker. Any working man or woman I know who needed work would gladly do those jobs -- if they were paid a real wage for it.

You want to staunch the flow of illegals from the south (and elsewhere)? Start by going after the businesses that hire them. Enforce the rules for a change. Force all these landscaping business and sweatshops to ensure that their workers are documented, and nail them (the businesses) to the fucking wall if they don't. It's real easy to talk about The Invasion of the Brown People, but they wouldn't be coming if there wasn't a slew of unscrupulous businesses ready to hire them for slave wages and no security. No illegal jobs means no illegal workers.

[electroweak.livejournal.com]

My favorite was the two statements, "We're going to crack down on people hiring illegals" and "We're going to allow illegals who have a job to settle down here."

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Those two statements are utterly at odds with one another. You cannot possibly have them both in the same logical system, and we don't even have to call in Godel to prove it.

[cousin-sue.livejournal.com]

Pardon my question, but isn't it *illegal* for the armed services in the United States to function as Police? I believe it is against the constitution or the bill of rights. I can never remember exactly which part of the basis of our law that forbids it.

Indite Karl Rove and make it stick!

[electroweak.livejournal.com]

Using the armed services as police is against the Posse Comitatus Act, which was passed in the years right after the Civil War and has been in full force ever since.

Indict the entire Bush Administration and send 'em off to Guantanamo. A few weeks of waterboarding ought to make them tell us who in the government is corrupt. (I'm allllmost serious. The wiretapping thing has me very angry.)

[cousin-sue.livejournal.com]

It has me frightened.

Can we say "National Socialist Party", anyone?

How about "Communist Party"?

I am finding that a lot of my memory for things is going. There was a time when I wouldn't have forgotten Posse Comitatus. Feh.

If I had to select three people that I wish would sadly be consumed by raging fire from heaven, it would be Cheney, Bush, and Rove.

[teflon-tim.livejournal.com]

Frightened? Then I won't tell you about the concentration camps (http://www.democrats.com/node/7681) that Halliburton is building. Oh, wait; I guess I just did.

They're officially being designated as "temporary detention facilities" to be used in the event of an "immigration emergency." Right. And with the eliminationist rhetoric from the right becoming louder and more "mainstream" every day, I think it's only a matter of time before we start talking about yellow stars and cattle cars. Unless the torches and Frankenstein rakes come first.

[electroweak.livejournal.com]

There's no way those are concentration camps. If someone decided to start rounding up Americans, you would see the first - and only - confluence of interest between the Black Helicopter Crazies and the Hippies. The resulting bloodbath would make Antietam look like a flower show, and would end with the horrible deaths of whoever had suggested and implemented the program.

Don't think the Bush Admin doesn't know this. They understand that they can push just so far, and no further. I would grab my shotgun and march on Washington before letting you - or anyone else - be shoved into a cattle car.

[teflon-tim.livejournal.com]

Actually, the term "concentration camp" refers to the literal use of the word, i.e. a camp where lots of people are concentrated. Auschwitz and Treblinka and the like were death camps. They tainted the "concentration" term by association. The camps we used to intern the Japanese in WWII were technically concentration camps. It is in that sense that I use the word. I suppose the better term would be "internment camps." And I dare you to tell me that that's not what we're seeing there.

Oh, and you can see if you scroll down from the link, it was Ashcroft who came up with the idea.

[electroweak.livejournal.com]

You'll find that "concentration camp" in its older sense has been unused in colloquial English since around 1945. :)

[electroweak.livejournal.com]

I suspect that the only answer to this is going to be a form of Reconstruction where we remove anyone who had anything to do with this from government, and make sure they're never allowed into a position of power in governance or business ever again.

I don't want them consumed by holy fire; I want them tossed to the FBI interrogators so we can find out what other blights on the republic these bastards have been engaged in. You know...the ones that haven't been leaked by outraged public servants.

[cousin-sue.livejournal.com]

I don't.

I want them to be tossed to the IRS.

Posse Comitatus Act

[ardvaark99999.livejournal.com]

I know an attorney who has actually written extensively on the Posse Comitatus Act. One of the better, freely-available articles is available here:

http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/articles/Trebilcock.htm

Craig, fwiw, recently won a bronze star in Iraq. He has written a book critical of our policy in Iraq (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591138922/102-9184707-6477724?v=glance&n=283155). He was also instrumental in helping the Golden Venture immigrants get asylum in the United States (http://www.ydr.com/newsfull/ci_3814636). He is also a partner in one of the better law firms in my area. Basically, he has Posse Comitatus street cred, and cred as a non-looney.

The PCA does not prohibit the use of the National Guard as border defenders, which is what I presume you are referring to. It has few teeth anymore in any case, as the original article discusses.

If you are not referring to the National Guard patrolling the border, I must have missed the press clippings saying that the armed forces were going to do so, and I apologize.

Re: Posse Comitatus Act

[cousin-sue.livejournal.com]

No, I was. I was referring to the National Guard patrolling, which means arresting to my way of thinking.

Though on NPR this morning it seemed they were saying we'd be stationing our boys in cars on the border to sit for ten hours at a stretch.

Much like putting gofers to guard doorways at Otakon.