An anonymous commenter on the previous post says:

TV and newspaper reports on this story focus on citizenship for those who are here illegally rather than on tightening our borders. When you leave the faucet on and the sink over flows, don’t you turn the water off first and then worry about cleaning up the mess? We’re watching congress try to mop up the water while the faucet continues to run full blast.

Mop it up? They’re on vacation hoping everyone will forget.

Meanwhile the proposals for amnesty are producing predictable consequences. More illegal immigrants are rushing to start their residency clock running. Amnesty this year, next year, the dirty little secret is that US politicians have been selling out their citizens and legal immigrants for years.

Given the popularity of the euphemism “undocumented worker” isn’t it odd that amnesty proposals depend on documents? The longer you can prove to have lived here illegally the more deference you’re granted. But remember, we’re not supposed to call it amnesty, because all these sub-minimum-wage aliens will be forced to pay a fine. And if they don’t we’ll deport them. Riiiight. In civil law somebody with no money is “judgement proof” because there’s no point suing them. The illegals invading this country are judgement proof in their own way, and anybody who promises to require documents or levy fines is either a liar or a fool.

Anyway all the euphemisms and wishful thinking concerning the illegals already here is just a distraction from what should be the first priority: turning off the faucet. We need the National Guard to shut down our borders to all illegal traffic. Then we need to begin construction of a barrier that will ultimately make border security cheap and permanent.

In the meantime our politicians must stop inciting even more illegal immigration with their amnesty carrots. The temptation to pander to large voting blocks of former illegal immigrants is a conflict of interest. They should recognize and remove this problem by passing laws that permanently diminish the voting rights of any recipient of amnesty. I won’t be holding my breath while I wait.

See Mickey Kaus and Michelle Malkin for the latest immigration-related developments.

Senate immigration overhaul in doubt
By Donna Smith
Thu Apr 6, 2006 11:18 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. Senate compromise on an overhaul of immigration law appeared to get bogged down late on Thursday in the face of opposition by some Republicans who say it would give amnesty to lawbreakers.

It appeared unlikely the Senate would approve before a two-week congressional break on Friday the radical immigration reform that would give millions of illegal immigrants a chance to earn U.S. citizenship.

The bill’s backers expressed fear that failure to enact the legislation before lawmakers leave for their spring break could hurt its chances in a congressional election year.

Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada earlier hailed a “breakthrough” on the compromise bill that would include a guest worker program sought by President George W. Bush.

But the two leaders were unable to agree on how many amendments to the bill would be allowed.

I was honestly ambivalent about the Dubai Ports World deal. It didn’t seem to matter much either way, and it’s fine with me that the deal got queered in the end.

The illegal immigration issue cuts deeper. Citizens appear to take it even more seriously than the ports deal, but are offset by business money and the huge number of future votes the illegals represent. Will our elected officials preserve our country, or will they sell us out?

When immigration came to a head 20 years ago we let the politicians and businesses have their way and give 1+ million illegals amnesty “just this once.” What did it get us? Empty promises that they’d improve border enforcement and streamline legal immigration. Fast forward 20 years and we’ve got 10+ million illegals. They want another amnesty but refuse to acknowledge that that’s what it is.

“They have to pay a fine, they go to the end of the line.” “We just can’t have strict enforcement without a guest worker program.” “It’s not practical to deport them.” “They’re doing jobs Americans won’t do.” “They’re hard workers.” “They pay taxes.” “They built this country.”

Enough of this bullshit. It’s clear where this is going. We’re either going to get some watered down compromise that is basically amnesty along with some hollow promises to do more on enforcement (riiiight), or we’re going to get a lotta hot air and no action, which is to say the status quo of the last 20 years.

That’s not good enough. We are literally suffering an invasion. People, drugs, the Mexican army itself flow across our border and our government acts like it’s impossible to stop it. We can afford to send troops half a world away to conquer and police other countries, but we can’t stop the Mexican army, their drug smugglers, and their peasants?

It is absofreakinlutely absurd that in a post-9/11 world it’s still possible for unscrupulous business folks to influence unprincipled politicians to let dirt poor uneducated “workers” flood into the US. It’s too expensive to enforce our border with Mexico? It’s too expensive not to. Americans won’t do those jobs? Not for 3rd world wages they won’t. Stop the flow and the money we save on not subsidizing illegals will more than pay for the increase in wages to actual citizens.

Build a wall. Deny illegals participation in and the benefits of our society. No automatic citizenship for their children. Fine businesses who employ them. We won’t have to deport them. They will go home. If the economy takes a dive we can always fling open the border again. Right?

Let our politicians prove that they answer to the desires of their current citizen-voters by actually taking such steps, then we can talk about what kind of guest worker program we’ll create so they can ingratiate themselves to the future voters they seem so willing to sell us out in favor of.

This time if they get away with another “compromise” there’s not going to be a next time.

This brief history of Islamic expansion explains why they hate us. Mandatory reading for all infidels. Those of you already familiar with the subject may find this excerpt sufficient:

Islam’s Imperial Dreams
BY EFRAIM KARSH
Tuesday, April 4, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Whether in its militant or its more benign version, this world-conquering agenda continues to meet with condescension and denial on the part of many educated Westerners. To intellectuals, foreign-policy experts, and politicians alike, “empire” and “imperialism” are categories that apply exclusively to the European powers and, more recently, to the United States. In this view of things, Muslims, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere, are merely objects–the long-suffering victims of the aggressive encroachments of others. Lacking an internal, autonomous dynamic of its own, their history is rather a function of their unhappy interaction with the West, whose obligation it is to make amends. This perspective dominated the widespread explanation of the 9/11 attacks as only a response to America’s (allegedly) arrogant and self-serving foreign policy, particularly with respect to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

As we have seen, however, Islamic history has been anything but reactive. From Muhammad to the Ottomans, the story of Islam has been the story of the rise and fall of an often astonishing imperial aggressiveness and, no less important, of never quiescent imperial dreams. Even as these dreams have repeatedly frustrated any possibility for the peaceful social and political development of the Arab-Muslim world, they have given rise to no less repeated fantasies of revenge and restoration and to murderous efforts to transform fantasy into fact. If, today, America is reviled in the Muslim world, it is not because of its specific policies but because, as the preeminent world power, it blocks the final realization of this same age-old dream of regaining, in Zawahiri’s words, the “lost glory” of the caliphate.

Nor is the vision confined to a tiny extremist fringe. This we saw in the overwhelming support for the 9/11 attacks throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds, in the admiring evocations of bin Laden’s murderous acts during the crisis over the Danish cartoons, and in such recent findings as the poll indicating significant reservoirs of sympathy among Muslims in Britain for the “feelings and motives” of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July. In the historical imagination of many Muslims and Arabs, bin Laden represents nothing short of the new incarnation of Saladin, defeater of the Crusaders and conqueror of Jerusalem. In this sense, the House of Islam’s war for world mastery is a traditional, indeed venerable, quest that is far from over.

To the contrary, now that this war has itself met with a so far determined counterattack by the United States and others, and with a Western intervention in the heart of the House of Islam, it has escalated to a new stage of virulence. In many Middle Eastern countries, Islamist movements, and movements appealing to traditionalist Muslims, are now jockeying fiercely for positions of power, both against the Americans and against secular parties. For the Islamists, the stakes are very high indeed, for if the political elites of the Middle East and elsewhere were ever to reconcile themselves to the reality that there is no Arab or Islamic “nation,” but only modern Muslim states with destinies and domestic responsibilities of their own, the imperialist dream would die.

How often do you think Newsweek says these kinds of things about a film (emphasis mine):

A Dark Day Revisited
By Sean Smith and Jac Chebatoris, Newsweek

“One lady was crying,” says one of the theater’s managers, Kevin Adjodha. “She was saying we shouldn’t have [played the trailer]. That this was wrong … I don’t think people are ready for this.”

We’re about to find out. “United 93” is the first feature film to deal explicitly with the events of September 11, 2001, and is certain to ignite an emotional debate before and after it opens on April 28. Is it too soon? Should the film have been made at all? More to the point, will anyone want to see it?

What kind of ridiculous questions are these? My response to the trailer is: about time. My response to the people who can’t handle it: get a grip.

The families of the passengers who suffered this nightmare cooperated with and approve of the film, so please spare us the faux overwrought horror. You can’t get enough of films like Syriana and Fahrenheit 9/11 that feed the fantasy of America as the world’s villain, but you’re not ready for this? It’s easy to guess the real reason why. You don’t want to face the reality of the cold-blooded evil that could plan and carry out such attacks. They don’t exist. George Bush is the world’s biggest terrorist. That’s what you’re comfortable with, and you don’t know why anyone else might feel differently. So in your denial you ask imbecilic questions like: “Why would anyone want to watch this?” Go ahead and skip the movie but don’t project your ennui on me.

Universal, which is releasing the film, plans to donate 10 percent of its opening weekend gross to the Flight 93 National Memorial Fund. That hasn’t stopped criticism that the studio is exploiting a national tragedy. O’Hare thinks that’s unfair. “This story has to be told to honor the passengers and crew for what they did,” she says. “But more than that, it raises awareness. Our ports aren’t secure. Our borders aren’t secure. Our airlines still aren’t secure, and this is what happens when you’re not secure. That’s the message I want people to hear.”

It’s unclear whether Americans will pay $9.50 to hear it. The A&E cable movie “Flight 93” drew 5.9 million viewers in January, the highest-rated show in the channel’s history. But movies are different.

Exploiting a national tragedy? You mean like the endless demagoguing of Hurricane Katrina? And since when does Hollywood care whether people pay to see their movies? They make films about important issues, like gay cowboys, because their consciences demand it not because it sells tickets. Besides, TV has already demonstrated the story’s popularity, so why would anyone think a movie would be different? More denial?

Not everyone screaming “too soon” is deluding themselves. Some do so with quite conscious disgust because they know the film will remind people what happened and cause many to reflect, to become angry, to want to defend their country and countrymen. Fresh images of 9/11 tend to evoke support for offensive action against the jihadis, and tend to deflate the conspiracy theories about our military and The Joooos. No, not “too soon”, more like “just in time”.

Katie Couric is apparently very close to leaving her morning show to take Dan Rather’s old job anchoring the CBS evening news.

I have never been a regular viewer but I do remember hearing that her show’s ratings were suffering around election time 2004, supposedly because her regular audience was put off by her rather biased (pun intended) political views. I’d catch a segment occasionally and that sure is the way it seemed to me.

Well I’ll never forget the look on Katie’s face the morning after the election. She literally looked like she was choking on a shit sandwich when she had to report four more years of George Bush. Either that or her dog had just died.

Anyway, whoever’s in charge over at CBS apparently hasn’t learned anything from the disgrace they suffered in the wake of Memogate. Like Dan Rather I’m sure they don’t see any bias whatsoever in their worldview. Everybody they went to an Ivy League school with and chat with at social events in the penthouses overlooking Central Park sees the world just like they do. Katie’s going to fit in so well.