Riehl World View

Well

The Internet connect was supposed to be off by the time I came back here tonight. You just can't count on service companies for anything these days.

Read this - via Instapundit.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I can only read Section 601(h) as a massive undercutting of the entire concept of "triggers," an undercutting which various talking points have not underscored or quantified, which points to why the jam down demanded by Senator McCain is so reprehensible.  Ordinary citizens have almost zero chance of figuring out what this bill intends and how its provisions will interact, and the proxies on whom they might rely will hardly have any opportunity to fully vet the language.

Immigration Bill DOA But Issue Can Still Be A Winner For Republicans

Republicans have a middle ground on immigration they can make work for them with a majority of Americans, including moderate and conservative Hispanics, the Democrats don't. Of course, that won't prevent Republicans from allowing themselves to be painted into a corner as anti-immigration, as they lack the vision, courage and, so far, leadership to make the right case to the American people. But it's always fun to dream.

Almost everyone is focusing on Conservative complaints with the pending immigration bill.

But:

Two of the key players in the talks from each end of the political spectrum, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, walked away from the deal before it was announced.

We know what conservatives want - serious enforcement first before we really begin to talk about any form of an amnesty, because history has proved the government can't be trusted to deliver serious enforcement in this regard, triggers destined to be removed or watered down, or not.

If Republicans were smart, which I come to doubt more every day, this could be a real winner for them. They need only focus on border security, tamp down talk of mass deportations and agree to explore any pseudo-amnesty and visa cures in future legislation without a huge immediate crackdown on illegals excepting in cases of National Security and crime. The Democrats do not have that out.

Because liberal Democrats have their demands, too. And, surprise, they're ... blaming Bush:

Tough stand by the White House forced them to accept provisions they nixed before

... immigrant-rights groups were exuberant about getting a generous immigration package from a party historically more allied with their interests.

And that could still happen this year as the legislation wends its way through Congress.

Labor, the Catholic Bishops (a pseudo-business lobby here, as 39% of US Catholics are now Hispanic), People for the American Way, La Raza, etc - aren't going to embrace this bill unless it becomes more liberal.

The few on the Right I see defending this effort as at least something are arguing as if this bill is how it will look after winding its way through a now Democrat controlled Congress. And Reid sees real trouble in the Senate, as Pelosi does in the House - and those issues are within their own party.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., acknowledging deep divisions on immigration among Democrats, says she won't bring it up unless President Bush can guarantee he will produce 70 Republican backers — a tall order given GOP concerns that the bill is too lenient.

"I don't know if the immigration legislation is going to bear fruit and we're going to be able to pass it," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who harbored "serious concerns" about the deal.

When Cornyn and especially Menendez bailed, this deal was dead because it lacks enough support from Democrats and it can't move Right or Left to gain it from one side, without losing support from the other. It's too finely balanced, while the issue is important enough to Americans that they are watching.

Republicans can craft a winning hand from this mess while developing even more needed distance from Bush prior to 2008. That position should find its voice in the next Republican nominee, which is likely why both Thompson and Romney were quick to stake out their positions against the bill. What's needed now is enough back bone from currently serving Republicans to hold firm, defeat this bill along with Blue Dog and moderate Dems, while making the case to the American people they, and not the Democrats, are positioned to make.

But don't hold your breath. The Republican Party we've been seeing lately is more likely to knock the wind out of you, than provide a much needed breath of fresh air from George Bush and the latest war he started without having a clue how to finish it.

Amazing

Here's a complaint about the immigration deal from a Mexican that makes a lot of sense. So, we're punishing those that have been playing by the rules? How many of them will stop doing that and cross with this plan being disucssed?

At the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey, which hands out more temporary visas than any other consulate or embassy in the world, Edmundo Bermudez, a 36-year-old from the northern city of Durango, said the plan rewards those who have already entered the United States illegally, while shutting out those who stayed home hoping to gain legal passage.

He was especially offended by the plan to give preference to migrants with degrees and skills.

"The United States already has enough people with college degrees. Who is going to cut their tobacco?" asked Bermudez, who has been working intermittently in the U.S. for the past eight years. In Mexico, he makes about $10 a day, while in the U.S. he earns almost that—$8—in an hour.

The proposal, unveiled Thursday in Washington, is devoid of Bush's original plan to grant three-year visas to migrants living in their native countries. Instead, it focuses on securing the border and giving illegal residents a path toward legal residency, while gradually giving preference for new visas to those with advanced degrees and highly specialized skills.

Many in Mexico—and U.S. employers who say they need workers for low- skilled jobs—had hoped Congress would expand the guestworker program and allow more to cross legally, work a few months and then return home with their savings to build homes and businesses.

Gilberto Escalante, a 41-year-old fisherman from Topolobampo in Sinaloa state, said the current temporary visa program is better than the congressional plan because it gives Mexicans the option to freely enter and leave the U.S. while maintaining their lives in Mexico—instead of forcing them to choose between the two countries.

"We don't want the house or the latest car in the U.S. We want to go and work so that our families can have a good life in Mexico," said Escalante, who came to the industrial hub of Monterrey to apply for a visa to work on fish and shrimp boats off the coast of Mississippi.

Until that time, Be Well

I may toss up some more posts and then move this to the top, but as I've mentioned previously, I will be off doing other things for an indeterminate period of time and that time is here. It may be for a week, or I could like not blogging so much, it could be for good. Though I doubt that. Blogging is both important as a media form and has been important to me, obviously. Sorry I can't say much more. My comcast email account is closing due to a move, so I will look in and monitor email when I can at riehlworldview-at-aol.com

Still, I wanted to say something about good byes - though hopefully this isn't fully that and not for long, to boot. There are two goodbyes, if you will, I have come to especially like over the years. One is here - from an under rated and often overlooked 1963 movie, Soldier In The Rain featuring late stars Jackie Gleason and Steve McQueen. Apparently not available on DVD - which is an insult, if not quite an outrage, though trigger happy in the "outrage" area I most assuredly am. It's been part of the fun here over the years.

Anyway, the goodbye I mean is a line often employed by Sergeant Maxwell Slaughter (Jackie Gleason) when addressing a young Steve McQueen as Sergeant Eustis Clay.

Until that time Eustis, until that time.

The other goodbye I especially like is, "Be Well". As I have previously had the pleasure to explain, not "be well" as in, see to your health; but "be well," as in, whatever your situation or circumstance, be who you are and do it as best you can. My, how freaking existential for a conservative, ay? ; ) But, there it is. And it's about all I can really say for now. So ...

Until that time, be well, my friends and readers. Thank you for your support, kind and otherwise, over the past three years. I hope to blog at you, soon.

But, until that time, my friends, you be well.

The Rule Of Law? No Mas!

a wiki quote: The rule of law is the principle that governmental authority is legitimately exercised only in accordance with written, publicly disclosed laws adopted and enforced in accordance with established procedure. The principle is intended to be a safeguard against arbitrary governance.

I am not anti-immigration regrading Hispanics, or any group. The fact is, as the latest census has shown, in one-hundred or so years Hispanics are going to be the majority in America, whether one likes it, or not. Frankly, that doesn't bother me a bit. Irresponsible politicians employing racial demagoguery around the immigration reform currently being considered are actually the ones doing the greatest disservice to the very group they would purport to represent, Hispanics themselves.

Why is it that Hispanics, just as millions of others before them over the centuries, want to come to America? They want to come here because it has always been a nation of laws with a democratic form of government supported by a robust capitalist economic engine. They did and still do want to come here because America has, in great part, not been arbitrary in what laws it passes, or how they are enforced. But no mas!

Dismissing if not actually dismantling the Rule of Law to give this or that group of individuals operating outside of the law what they want from fear of being labeled a racist does nothing to sustain the very thing so many immigrants from all over the world desire to come to America to enjoy.

As a conservative, it is the fundamental principles that have made this Nation great that I want to preserve. I don't care what color we are. It has always been America's principles, not her color, or predominant Race that has made her great. And the social and political onslaught against our founding principles we've endured through some forty years of liberal creep have put those principles at risk.

In the twenty-five years since Reagan, we have only barely begun to restore objective democratic principles and values to American society as a whole. We are not talking about suddenly welcoming millions upon millions of new citizens with a deep democratic and capitalist tradition into school systems where traditional Americans values are celebrated, let alone even upheld. We would be welcoming them into a system where, today, Christopher Columbus is considered a pillaging rapist, the Founders have been reduced to fornicating slave holders like Jefferson and, culturally, all bets are off because nothing uniquely American matters anymore.

I don't oppose this amnesty because the people are brown. I oppose it because our current system is ill-prepared to help shape them into the very thing they wish to become - Americans. At least, I think that's the point, or am I not correct?

Because if this group, or that group wants to become American and America itself is not prepared to absorb and assimilate that group due to its own current political and ideological struggles, how is it that they are going to emerge as Americans at the end of the day? The fact is, they won't.

Personally, I do not advocate sending a single otherwise law-abiding, hard working illegal immigrant already here back to Mexico, or anywhere else. Gain control of our borders, assimilate the millions of mostly un-assimilated illegal aliens we currently have residing within our borders. Help them to become, develop and prosper as that which presumably they most want to be - Americans. They can become magnificent leaders for whatever number of legal immigrants one day follow in their path because, to continue to grow, America needs a managed, consistent flow of new immigration.

What America does not need right now is to be overrun by millions more of non-American illegal immigrants with no greater goal than to flee a poor and corrupt homeland simply because they wish to be somewhere else. Preserve our noble history of law, democracy and capitalism and let it become whatever color it might down the road as the result of the people who come here legitimately, compete and succeed within America as it should be.

Don't simply turn over everything we have built up and fought to maintain for hundreds of years because of some misguided sense of responsibility based upon color or race, something we can do very little about. Shore up our borders, our democratic institutions, American traditions and values and open the doors to as many legal immigrants from Mexico or anywhere else we can assimilate as that is, indeed, the American dream.

To sell it all out for some foolish notion of leftist political correctness to one group of people we once fought against to become more established is not a perpetuation of the American Dream. It will be an American nightmare and may be the beginning of the end of the American Experiment itself.

You can read much informative on going discussion on the issue here via NRO:

It’s never a good day for the White House when, at the start of his evening radio show, Mark Levin is provoked by a presidential press conference — one lauding a supposed legislative achievement — to complain on behalf of conservatives: “How about not treating us with animosity?”

 

Reagan 2.0

Instapundit referring to this note at PJM from Fred Thompson:

No wonder Thompson's paying attention to the Internet: "As of Wednesday afternoon, Thompson’s video, in which he suggests that Moore might look into a mental institution, drew 598,600 viewers on Vimeo, YouTube and Google Video. That dwarfs the most views from any moment during the debate."

It was easier, too. It probably took a half hour or less to make that video. People sometimes say that Thompson's lazy, but I'm put in mind of the Robert Heinlein short story, The Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail.

Many have said that Reagan's greatest strength was his ability to talk over the media and connect directly with the American people. The mis-characterizations of his intellect, ability and effort never really hurt him much while he was in office because, in a sense, people felt they had a relationship with Reagan. You didn't need the media to tell you who Reagan was, or that for which he stood. His communication skills were so solid, he told you, you sensed he was telling the truth, and a vast majority of the American electorate very much liked what they heard.

We often hear partisanship being blamed as the big problem with getting effective leadership from Washington. But it's interesting to consider Reagan, his ability to skirt the media, and wonder if the media hasn't been the biggest challenge for Presidents since the Kennedy/Nixon debate.

To the extent that might be true, at least for now Thompson has found the same method around the media we bloggers use. It's powerful and, for a candidate, or a President, it could be Reagan on steroids aka Reagan 2.0.

Unfortunately, assuming there's anything to the above, the media will figure it out and go after Thompson or anyone else who does it effectively with everything they're worth. Only a fool would ignore them, but perhaps we can be glad the MSM isn't worth quite as much as it once was.

The only caveat I'd add is, while reading Thompson's note, which I enjoyed, in thinking generally about the power of the Internet and politics, I realized there is also reason for concern. In the wrong hands, there's no telling what this new power to connect directly with voters could achieve. And, in Thompson's case, liberals could end up sensing that very thing, whether it's true, or not.

Israel Strikes Gaza As Kassams Hit Negev

Bottom line: Hamas appears determined to draw Israel in, going so far as to threaten a renewal of suicide bombing attacks while continuing to launch Kassams. Israel is trying to not give Hamas leverage to unite the Palestinians on a war footing. They've allowed 500 Fatah troops trained in Egypt into Gaza to deal with Hamas while undertaking an air strike on one building over night themselves.

The tanks that rolled about a mile into Gaza yesterday are dug in and no significant military build up by Israel is being reported beyond that. Abbas canceled a visit to Gaza due to concerns his convoy would be attacked. Israel looks to be trying to support Fatah enough for them to prevail, without doing too much and getting caught up on a larger scale. They aren't getting much help from the MSM, including the New York Times, who seems to want to portray it as a looming war. But later reports from the Middle-East don't support that, at least, not yet.

Five Hamas fighters were killed in an Israeli air strike overnight, taking the death toll among the Palestinian movement to 10 in the hours since Israel vowed to hit back for Hamas rocket strikes.

JERUSALEM — Israel this week allowed the Palestinian Fatah movement to bring into the Gaza Strip as many as 500 fresh troops trained under a U.S.-coordinated program to counter Hamas, the militant Islamic group that won Palestinian parliamentary elections last year. Fighting between the rivals has left about 45 Palestinians dead since Sunday.

Residents of Sderot and the west Negev woke up to another day of Qassam attacks Friday.

A rocket hit a Sderot gas station at around 9:30 am, lightly wounding one person. Two more people suffered shock. A second rocket hit a house in the town and caused structural damages.

The first salvo started shortly after 7 am, when Palestinians in north Gaza launched three rockets towards the Israeli community. The Color Red alert system sounded ahead of the attacks.

JERUSALEM — The Middle East was on the verge of war last night after Hamas threatened to renew suicide bombing on Israel. It did so after Israel launched air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip.

"All options are open, including martyrdom operations [suicide attacks]," Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the military wing of Hamas, said.

Israeli F-16 warplanes bombed the headquarters of the Hamas-established Executive Security Force in Gaza City, as sporadic factional clashes between the rival Palestinian Hamas and Fatah persisted yesterday throughout the Strip despite a new truce.

At least 15 people were injured in the air strike on the building in the centre of the city, Hamas sources said, adding that four of them were Executive Force members. The others were bystanders.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas canceled a planned visit to the Gaza Strip on Thursday for fear that Hamas militiamen might attack his convoy, PA officials here said. 

If You Knew Snow White, Like I Knew Snow White

It's only a movie. Check that, it isn't even a movie. IT'S A FREAKIN' CARTOON!!!!!!!!!!!

The "Shrek" films, whose latest installment hits theaters Friday, have made blockbuster business out of subverting classic children's stories, presenting lovably goofy alter egos out of shiny knights and fair damsels and maybe bringing them a little closer to our own not-so-happily-ever-after reality.

"My guess is that in the essence of what these characters originally were, they probably were more complex," said "Shrek the Third" producer Aron Warner. "In the last however many years, one side of them has been shown, and it's the more shiny, happy, everything's perfect side.

"I think that frustrates people whose lives don't in any way, shape or form reflect that. There's a kind of joy and willingness to see the other side, see them undone. In a way, see them more like ourselves. If you really knew Snow White, you'd know there's more to her than just the happy-go-lucky singing girl in the forest."

No wonder Hollywood takes Al Gore so seriously. Reality-based community ... uh huh. Sure. They take themselves so seriously so we don't have to, I suppose.

"It's almost like a `fairy-tales where are they now' special," said Cheri Oteri, who provides the voice of Sleeping Beauty. "Like Jack Be Nimble, whatever happened to him?"

I think he'll be taking meetings again, right after he gets out of Betty Ford, but you'd better call his people to make sure. Nitwit.

Edwards To Tout Foreign Policy Experience

I have to hand it to this guy, Edwards. He consults with a hedge fun for a measly several hundred grand to get to know the poor, now he's invested in the Sudan to strengthen his International cred. What a guy!

Too bad Rudy takes the hit, too.

New Time Hit On Gonzalez A Laugher

I'm not a fan of AG Gonzalez, but Time is reaching into the darkness, actually a hospital room, in what looks like a new angle to nail the AG. They speculate that he may have broken the law when he spoke to Ashcroft in the hospital.

Net net - you can talk about this stuff in the New York Times Newsroom - hell, you can put it on the front page. But, a hospital room? Now what kind of national security is that? If they have a genuine concern for the issue, why did they never make a fuss when the entire world was reading about this and so many other classified government programs in the media each day?

Maybe I'm wrong. I'd look for Tom Maguire to weigh in at some point. But I find the principle, or rather lack thereof on the part of the media here, a joke.

Time: Was Gonzales' Emergency Visit Illegal?

... Comey's unwillingness publicly to say what Gonzales said in the hospital room has raised questions about whether Gonzales may have violated executive branch rules regarding the handling of highly classified information, and possibly the law preventing intentional disclosure of national secrets.

"Executive branch rules require sensitive classified information to be discussed in specialized facilities that are designed to guard against the possibility that officials are being targeted for surveillance outside of the workplace," says Georgetown Law Professor Neal Katyal, who was National Security Advisor to the Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton. "The hospital room of a cabinet official is exactly the type of target ripe for surveillance by a foreign power," Katyal says. This particular information could have been highly sensitive. Says one government official familiar with the Terrorist Surveillance Program: "Since it's that program, it may involve cryptographic information," some of the most highly protected information in the intelligence community.