The Emperor's New Immigration Plan

Thomas Sowell tells it like he sees it. "Bordering on Fraud" dissects the stool sample that the US Senate is trying to pass off as an immigration bill. He flays the various buzzphrases such as, "jobs Americans won't do," the impossibility of "finding and deporting 12 million people," and the chaos that would follow "suddenly taking 12 million people out of the workforce." He exposes the black-and-white arguments of the very people who clamor about how immigration is a gray issue. Finally, he exposes the absurdity of unarmed troops on the border, "sanctuary" cities that prohibit their police from taking any action regarding known illegal aliens, and the notion that, since there are so many illegal alien lawbreakers, the only solution is to make them all legal:

"There is probably no category of law-breakers -- from counterfeiters to burglars or from jay-walkers to murderers -- who can all be found and arrested. But no one suggests that we must therefore make what they have done legal.
Such an argument would suggest that there is nothing in between 100 percent effective law enforcement and zero percent effective law enforcement."

Read it here.


Mona Charen takes on the one underlying flaw in American law that dooms any attempt at creating a guest worker program to ultimate failure: Anchor babies:

"Most Americans take it for granted that the 14th Amendment requires birthright citizenship, but a number of scholars deem this to be a misinterpretation. The clause reads "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" are citizens. If the drafters intended to say only that all persons born on U.S. territory would be considered citizens, why did they add the phrase "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof"? Are those words superfluous? If not, what do they mean?"

What, indeed.

BTW, I read Mona Charen's book, "Do-Gooders: How Liberals Harm Those They Claim to Help -- and the Rest of Us" a couple of years or so ago, and instantly became an avid fan of her writing. Warning: it will piss you off.

Madeleine "Not At" Albright Can't Shut Her Pie-Hole

She was the first woman Secretary of State, about whose stewardship of American foreign policy her former mentor Dean Peter Krogh of Georgetown's School of Foreign Service said one cannot "recall a time when our foreign policy was in less competent hands." She believes that, without her ground-breaking appointment as the nation's highest-ranking diplomat, Condoleezza Rice would never have had a similar opportunity. She collects brooches, yet every word out of her mouth is calculated to pin it all on George W. Bush. She is as partisan as it gets, and as dumb as a bag of hammers.

Madeleine "not-at" Albright once served as congressional liason for Carter's SecDef, Zbigniew "Can I Buy A Vowel" Brzezinski, but only because her dad got her the job. She had lots to say about foreign policy even then, but nobody was interested in listening (having heard the quality of her ideas already). If you want some yucks and to know more about her "illustrious" career, read this article by Julia Gorin. It was written in 9/2003, but some things, like Madeleine's intellect, don't change much.

Now Madeleine is concerned about GWB's faith, saying in a story on CNN.com, "President Bush's certitude about what he believes in, and the division between good and evil, is, I think, different." She goes on to lament that, "Some of his language is really quite over the top. When he says 'God is on our side', it's very different from (former U.S. President Abraham) Lincoln saying 'We have to be on God's side.'"

Now, I'm no Bible-thumper by any stretch of the imagination, but I've never personally been uncomfortable with the president's faith. In these modern times when so few passionately believe in anything bigger than themselves, I think that Bush's faith is a good thing in a president. America has an obligation to maintain the moral high ground, and I have no problem with Bush planting the American flag on the summit.

What really strikes me, regarding Albright's blatherings, is how she fails to contrast or even acknowledge the equally fierce but morally vacuous beliefs held by our radical Ilamic jihadist enemies. The Left usually stumble over themselves apologizing to evil in the world for America's audacity to defend what is right (depending, of course, on what your definition of "is" is).

Julia Gorin sums it up: "... when you employ a merit-based system, you get Condoleezza Rice. And when you employ affirmative action, you get Madeleine Albright."

The Real Iraq

Amir Taheri has penned an assessment of the current state of affairs in Iraq, in which he presents a series of benchmarks for the success of the democratization effort there. He contrasts today's Iraq with the nation as it was under Saddam, against the historical backdrop of the early 20th century when Iraq first appeared on a map, and the coup d'etat in 1958 that ended the constitutional monarchy which had prospered. Taheri readily concedes that the Iraq story is too big for any one news organization to cover in full, and it is only natural that the more sensational events (bombs, murders, and bombs) tend to garner more attention than employment statistics, GDP, and record school attendance. He stresses, however, that the one-sided picture painted by the MSM and the lack of objectivity on the part of anti-Bush and anti-America factions across the globe ignore the plain fact that, although not guaranteed of success, the Iraqi people are rebounding from their decades of oppression, as are the democratic traditions of Iraq's early history. Further, the negative press coverage has become the insurgent's last hope of breaking America's will to win, since all of the insurgency's other attempts to derail democracy and freedom in Iraq have so far come to naught. He sums it up well:

Is Iraq a quagmire, a disaster, a failure? Certainly not; none of the above. Of all the adjectives used by skeptics and critics to describe todays Iraq, the only one that has a ring of truth is messy. Yes, the situation in Iraq today is messy. Births always are. Since when is that a reason to declare a baby unworthy of life?

Read it all here, it is time well spent.

On a separate note, there is a huge furor over reports, apparently attributed to Amir Taheri, that the Iranian government has decided to force all Jews and Christians to wear yellow and blue badges or ribbons, respectively. While it is confirmed that the Iranian parliament has passed a new law imposing an Islamic dress code on all of it's citizens, no news organizations have been able to independantly confirm the yellow/blue badges for Jews/Christians.

Update:
Amir Taheri responds to the furor by indicating that his article was "opinion" and its not his fault if others treated it as news. Get the lowdown at HotAir.

Ahmadinejad to send a Letter to the Pope

Mahmoud Ahmadenijad is writing a letter to Pope Benedict the 16th. Expect it to contain some friendly advice regarding the Pope's poor choice of religion. This is a common theme in his letters.
From HotAir:

He also invited Bush to become a Muslim. And you would be wise to interpret the word “invite” to have a whiff of the mob inviting you to dinner at the end of a pier.

This guy (I get tired of typing his name) is definitely using a page from Mohammed's (phui) bloody-border playbook. And here is why.

Know thy enemy.

In Their Own Words: Al Qaeda Is Losing In Iraq

Captain Ed at CQ has posted this story: Captured AQ Documents: "Every Year Is Worse Than The Previous Year". Very interesting read:

CENTCOM announced today that they had captured
al-Qaeda correspondence in Iraq that discusses the state of the insurgency, especially around Baghdad but also around the entire country. Far from optimistic, the documents captured in an April 16th raid reveal frustration and desperation, as the terrorists acknowledge the superior position of American and free Iraqi forces and their ability to quickly adapt to new tactics.

It goes on to describe how AQ realizes that they are becoming marginalized, the populace (including the all-important imams) are turning against them, and what little they have in the way of leadership is incompetent and ineffective. It does note, however, that the media is still being fooled by their actions, but its just a matter of time before even those useful idiots realize that AQ is on it's last legs in Iraq. Of course, this story will receive nada coverage from the MSM, who would have to admit their own (un?)witting complicity with AQ's aims.

Check it out.