Thursday, June 07, 2007

Amnesty bill withdrawn from the Senate - for now

It appears that what Senator Lindsay Graham nastily referred to as `the loud people' seem to have had an effect. The Senate Amnesty bill crashed and burned when Harry Reid and the so-called `grand bargainers' in the Senate tried to shove it through in a late night session.

The bill failed a crucial test when it could not attract even a simple majority to limit debate and bring it to the floor for a vote.The final total was 50-45, against. 7 Republicans (I'm sure we can guess who) voted with the majority of Democrats to try and push this bill through,while 11 democrats voted with the Republicans to block efforts to speed the bill through.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid quickly pulled it from the floor and moved on to other business..which means it's off the agenda-for now.

Jon Kyl, (R-Ariz) was one of the `grand bargainers' who watched as even fairly moderate enforcement measures, like his amendment not to include felons or people already ordered deported by the courts in the amnesty were voted down.

In the end, Kyl simply couldn't stand it any more. He broke with Ted Kennedy and John McCain and ended up siding with the senators who said they hadn't gotten enough time to study the 380 page bill or to toughen the enforcement aspects.

Like Lindsay Graham, he's another incumbent who might be experiencing a change in employment come the next election, though he may be able to redeem himself if he keeps on the right side of this issue.

"It's time to scrap this mess of a bill," said Sen. Jim DeMint, (R-S.C) one of the senators who opposed the amnesty legislation from the jump.

One could think of it as saving the taxpayer $2.3 trillion dollars - which is what the Congressional Budget Office estimates the amnesty bill would end up costing us.

And that's without figuring in the cost of a major terrorist attack originating from our open borders.

For those of us `loud people' who took the time and trouble to read up on this disaster and inform the good senators how we felt about it, it doesn't end here.

They will try and sneak this nonsense through again, and we will have to be vigilant.

The beast isn't dead..just wounded.

We need to insist on enforcement first, as a security matter - and then,once the government proves itself capable of policing the borders, we can talk about how to deal with the illegal aliens already here.

Res Ipsa Loquiter

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