Cynical Nation

I suspect it has something to do with the word "distraction", especially since we found out this week that Fearless Leader knew Goddamn well there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

First off, I'm glad to hear you have a life outside of this blog.

;)

Second, it seems tyo me that the powers that be, all of them, feel they have something to gain from the influx of illegals. The Cons want them for cheap labor, the Libs want them for votes. (Yeah, I know they can't vote, but don't be so sure...)

The victims here are the poor saps that come here to be little more than slaves to their employers.

There are very few Conservatives who want illegal immigration for cheap labor. Mainly it'sspecific businesses that do - produce growers, the food service industry and some types of Construction...oh yeah, and some dipshit home owners.

A neighbor of another home I own, out in Sussex, NJ uses them all the time - I've shown him articles where many of these guys have been members of gangs and come back and burglarized or otherwise attacked the homes they've worked in ("cased") or gone "the American route" and sued for various "slip & fall" type incidents, but the idiot still uses them.

Liberals "THINK" most of these new immigrants will vote Democratic, but that seems highly unlikely given that virtually ALL the Hispanic and Phillipino , among other immigrants are devout Catholics (far more devout than the "Sunday morning" kind of Catholics most American suburbs are filled with today).

The GOP's "Culture War" plays great with religious people, as much as the "secular humanist, progressive" agenda turns such people off.

The illegal immigration issue is a disaster. It's a national disgrace on the part of EVERYONE who's served in government over the last five years that nothing's been done to secure our borders post-9/11.

Immigration (ALL immigration) is now BOTH a security issue and an economic issue as well.

The security issues around a porous border are obvious and must be dealt with - our southern border can be easily closed. A fence, backed up by a few National Guard Units and its done.

The economic issue is just as serious and it makes liars out of that bullshit Liberal canard that they are "pro-worker." In a pig's eye.

Either they're virulently anti-worker (as I suspect) OR, just as likely, they have absoultely NO understanding of basic economics. OK, I'll concede it very well could be both.

Illegal immigration is an economic disaster on two levels - first illegal immigrants cost us some $150 Billion/year more than they bring into the economy in productivity and that's only in the calculable costs of illegal immigration (29% of all federal prisoners are illegal immigrants, huge emergency room bills, education costs, etc)...it does not factor in the costs in illicit welfare benefits gotten with fraudulent IDs, etc.

So those idiots who tell you, "That $1 head of lettuce would cost you $5 without illegal immigrant labor," don't know what they're talking about!

We're already paying MORE than that $5 for that head of lettuce - the $1 upfront cost and more than the the other $4 in all those ancillary costs!

Costs that would show up in reduced taxes, were our educational, emergency room, prison and welfare costs be reduced by the absence of all this "cheap labor."

Second, and just as important is the fact that these 11 million illegal aliens put a persistent and downward pressure on wage rates.

Lower wage rates ARE NOT good. They're good for some investors, they're certainly a short-term good for some businesses and some unscrupulous homeowners...but low wage rates deliberately harm U.S. workers.

That's why we need a delicate balance between Trade Unions and Management - a balance that had once gone too far in favor of Unions - see the death of hundreds of small newspapers in the 1960s, the Steel industry in the 1970s and the after-effects still being suffered by GM & Ford today as proofs, is now in danger of going too far the other way.

Illegal immigration can be stopped and the illegal immigrants here can be forced to self-deport by doing two simple things - (1) refuse any basic services to undocumented citizens (hospitals, schools, welfare, etc) and (2) penalize businesses and citizens for employing illegal labor - a $10,000 fine for paying below the U.S. Minimum Wage rate and another $25,000 for hiring undocumented workers.

With that, the jobs would dry up, the free services would dry up and thus, any reasons for those folks to come here would dry up.

Posted by Jill

I suspect it has something to do with the word "distraction", especially since we found out this week that Fearless Leader knew Goddamn well there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

>

A few things, Jill:

a) [I]You[/I] didn't this find out. You have always believed it since day one. So what's with the 'we'?

b) I must have missed it as did the Times, CBS and your other accomplices in the MSM. Do you possess existential powers to ratchet up the news you and your fellow cocoa-klatch Deaniacs want to hear?

Just wondering.

jmk:: How did rupert's hatred for the media get caught in your psyche? who cares why the Iraq thing got started?

It's here now because of mass incompetence in DC. Let's crank up the draft and get serious about PAX Americana before the low life neocons know what's happening.

I really don't have any problem with a draft, William...I once did - "State coercion," and all that. In retrospect that argument boils down to selfishness.

A draft probably SHOULD be instituted and those who wish to avoid Military service should be able to opt for Peace Corps duty or other such things...and the Military option shouldn't be limited by age, but by fitness, IMO.

I've seen forty-something firefighters in better shape than many twenty-somethings, the exception rather than the rule, but a forty or fifty year old in great physical condition is certainly better suited for rigorous work than a younger person in poor to moderate condition.

On 9/11/01 America woke up to find itself at war with the forces of globalized radical Islam and the rogue, mostly Arab/Muslim States that have harbored and supported the international terrorists created by Jihadist radicalized Islam. The other side had been at war with the West for over a decade, so it was no "wake-up" for them. They were already awake to that reality.

Certainly Iraq, along with both Syria and Iran were among those "rogue Arab States." So yes, arguing now, over whether one was a better target, or worse, than any of the others, is superfluous at this point.

I agree with both Blankley and Hitchens that this war inevitably leads some twenty years down the line, ending, most likely, in Sub-Saharan Africa where the last remnants of Islamo-cultism will still exist.

Not finishing this task would be disastrous.

BUT what about the borders?!

On one level it's a part of the domestic Security side of this same agenda.

All Senate bills had some provision inserted which would increase the numbers of "non-immigrant visas" for skilled information technology workers.

I don't know what reports you've been reading but American IT workers are losing their jobs all over and cannot get new jobs in IT. Employers prefer the NIV's who are mostly Indians. They work for much less and the terms of their employment under the H-1b NIV program makes them very much like indentured servants as they await the opportunity to get "green cards".

Why do American employers prefer these foreign NIV workers? labor cost savings. A number of studies have shown that employers pay these NIVs significantly less than the prevailing wage and they attempt to conceal this by misreporting job titles and work responsibilities to the government.

Go visit www.itpaa.org and find out what is happening to the U.S. high tech employment sector.