US Senate puts off action on immigration bill

The Senate decided to put off any final action on the proposed immigration bill until June, instead of trying to shove it through by Memorial Day.

"It would be to the best interests of the Senate ... that we not try to finish this bill this week," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., as the chamber began debate on the bill. "I think we could, but I'm afraid the conclusion wouldn't be anything that anyone wanted."

The bill has severe problems that prevented it from being pushed through the Senate quite as rapidly as its proponents and President Bush wanted, to say the least.

Many people objected to what amounts to amnesty combined with unworkable enforcement procedures, the ridiculous "Z" visa provisions, and the mammoth guest worker program.

Illegal immigrant activists claim the bill doesn't go far enough, and dislike any suggestion of curtailing family unification in terms of a `point system.'

While some of the politicians involved in this nonsense are justifiably feeling the heat ( GOP Senators Lindsay Graham and Mel Martinez got booed at gatherings of Republicans yesterday), there is still going to be a lot of pressure to shove this bill through, and the Bush White House is lobbying feverishly for it, especially among Republicans who voted against last year's ridiculous attempt.

Here the crux of the matter in a nutshell - in a post 9/11 world, ingress and egress into the US ought to be treated as a security issue, rather than an economic or social one.

When the US government shows that it can enforce our borders, track down the over 600,000 illegal aliens that have already been ordered deported and can't be found and make a dent finding out who's here and who shouldn't be, then we can talk about legalizing people here who want to assimilate and become citizens and bringing more people in as our needs dictate.

Stay tuned...and keep on your representatives like the plague. Just tell them plainly that if they vote for amnesty, they can count on you supporting their opponent.

Jihad Homer sez....

Israel faces its choices in Gaza

Car hit by Qassams in Sderot that killed one Israeli woman


Faced with an ongoing missile barrage from Gaza on its southern cities, the Israeli government has apparently decided to refrain from any major action in Gaza to end the assault and go back to a strategy that has had mixed results in the past...targeted strikes on terrorist leaders.

Not all terrorist leaders, mind you.The ones affiliated with Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah apparently are exempt. The IDF will be concentrating on Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

As I wrote yesterday, Israel is Between a rock and a hard place in Gaza, a direct result of the retreat two years ago. Either they come in with a full assault on Hamas's stronghold in Gaza, and use the IDF in a bloody campaign to consolidate the rule of that other terrorist, Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas, something that would invoke shrill outrage from the UN and the Palestinian groupies worldwide and which would ultimately not benefit Israel in the least or they provide a limited response and learn to put up with an on again-off again war of attrition that will gradually turn the south of Israel into a ghost town.

The Bush Administration has been pushing for choice number one.

Apparently,the Olmert government has chosen a revised mixture of both. They will attempt to consolidate Abbas' rule by taking out the Hamas political leadership, rather than going into Gaza full bore.

Yesterday, Israel launched a targeted strike on Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya's house in Gaza, where eight people were killed. That brings the toll from Israeli airstrikes up to 35 since Hamas began ramping up the missile barrage last week.

According to Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, Israel is going to continue to pursue a policy of targeted killings against the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leadership. "Everyone who deals with terror against us should take cover," Dichter told Channel 2 TV. Unless of course, they get a paycheck from Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas.

The direct result of the Israeli air strikes has been to pull the Palestinians together, for now, and end the ongoing gang war in Gaza.Hamas and Fatah issued a joint statement Sunday ordering their gunmen to observe the truce.

"We warn all those who commit a violation that they will be held accountable," it said.

Masked gunmen who had been controlling the streets and taking over apartment buildings and strategic rooftops and checkpoints last week scaled back their presence, and residents who had holed up at home finally ventured out to shop and stock up on supplies.

Meanwhile,both Abbas and Hamas called for international pressure on Israel to end the `criminal attacks.' And Hamas reiterated that they have no plans for any kind of peace with Israel. Today, Hamas official Nizhar Riyan declared again that "Israel must be wiped off the map" and replaced with the state of Palestine. Hamas would fight, he said, until the "last Jew was expelled" - not only from Sderot but from "all of Palestine."

Hamas, of course, continues to launch missiles against Israel. Just this morning, a Qassam hit a car in Sderot's commercial center and woman was killed and a man `moderately injured'. `Moderately injured' by the way is an Israeli press euphemism that can cover things like the loss of limbs, blinding, and severe cuts and lacerations calling for the removal of shrapnel and requiring major surgery. Remember this the next time you see the Qassams downgraded in the dinosaur media as `causing minor casualties' or `largely ineffectual'.

Hamas has also threatened to escalate the conflict by using its forces on the West Bank to attack Israel with homicide bombers, kidnappings and sniper attacks...something it is fully capable of doing, and something that would end up being a joint operation with Abbas' paid thugs in the Tanzim and the al-Aksa Martyr's Brigade.

Needless to say, the Olmert government's ineffectual approach is not popular, especially as it didn't work in the past. Olmert's already shaky coalition took another blow Sunday when Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened to pull his Yisrael Beitenu party out of the government unless the government eliminates the threat from Hamas once and for all.

"Either Hamas is going to be dismantled, or the government is going to be dismantled," Lieberman said in a statement. "This is not an ultimatum, but these are the options."

Well, with all respect to MK Lieberman, the problem is deeper than simply Hamas. It's important to remember that Hamas is the Palestinian government, and Fatah merely its junior partner. They are two sides of the same coin. And sending the IDF in force into Gaza simply to benefit Fatah while leaving Fatah in place, especially given the current Israeli leadership and the ongoing reorganization of the IDF since Lebanon is asking for trouble.

Instead, Israel needs to play the Palestinian's game, only better...and with no restraints. For a start, remember that Gaza is a fairly small area, and one the Israelis have the ability to control most of the ingress and egress to. The Israelis also have control over Gaza's ability to function, since they sell Gaza most of its water and electricity. If Israel pulled the plug, Hamasistan would have major problems in day to day functioning and would become a most unpleasant place to be very quickly.

The Israelis, rather than going in full bore right now could concentrate on using small undercover commando units and air strikes in Gaza to target and destroy the Palestinian infrastructure, weapons depots, supply and command centers while hunting down their fighters, commanders, and leaders 24/7. They could also demand that Abbas either use his security forces against Hamas or be deemed a part of the problem.

The Israeli could then apply that same strategy to the Palestinian areas in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) if terrorist attacks against Israel's civilians heat up there.

Once the Palestinians' ability to strike Israel and function on a day to day basis is eroded, then it might be time to send the IDF in full force.

In short, the Israelis have to realize the essential mistake they made at Oslo, understand that having a terrorist enclave on their borders is simply unacceptable, and that a second Arab Palestinian state is a recipe for continued war and turmoil in the region.

Either Israel would end up with an actual government that had shown its commitment to living next to Israel in peace, or they would have ended the threat to Israel once and for all, and simply dismantled the Palestinian Authority. At that point, real talks on where to resettle these people and where to draw final borders could be made with Egypt and Jordan.

Copenhagen's Little Mermaid forcibly converted to Islam

Copenhagen's `Little Mermaid' statue is a major landmark in the Danish city's harbor. The statue, sculpted by Edvard Eriksen in honor of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale in 1913 draws over a million visiters a year.

Today, Copenhagen's residents awoke to find that someone had decided that the poor girl was a prime candidate for `reversion' to the Religion of Peace, or at least dhimmi status....and draped the Mermaid in a Muslim burka and hijab.

The police removed the Muslima costume from the Mermaid after they got complaints from residents.

Does that mean she's now an apostate and subject to sharia penalties?

Crazy Unkie Jimmy mouths off again

Ah yes, crazy Unkie Jimmie Carter, the gift that keeps on giving...

They don't hardly make `em like Jimmy Carter anymore.

Ex-President Carter was shilling for a series of audiobooks he's pitching, `Sunday Mornings in Plains," and decided that the proximity of an AP reporter was just too good to waste...so he started ranting about President Bush, whom he characterized as `the worst ever.'

This follows his rant last Saturday, when, in honor of Tony Blair's farewell visit to the US, Carter described Blair as "Abominable. Loyal. Blind. Apparently subservient."

"And I think the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world," Carter told the BBC.

Now, I'm no great fan of either of the two world leaders he mentioned, but I can't let Unkie Jimmy be so magnanimous as all that.

When it comes to `the worst ever', the Carter Administration is in a fetid class all its own. Some of us still remember the condition President Carter left the country in when his sorry behind was booted out of Washington after one term.

And `subservient'? I think that particular adjective would apply more properly to an anti-Semitic, senile old fool who was willing to grab his ankles, write a blatantly false piece of `anti-Zionist' propaganda at the behest of his Arab paymasters and gad around the country as a paid shill and Jew hater for sale.

Now. aside from being willing to trash his own country to a bunch of foreigners - and I'm sure they just lapped it up at the Beeb - there is something to be said for having the basic decency, once you're out of office, to avoid criticizing your successors. Previous presidents on both sides of the aisles understood this quite well, and what's more, maintained a gentleman's agreement about it.

But President Carter continues to run off at the mouth in public, to the point where it's embarrassing. Having been a colossal failure in office himself, he seeks to divert us from that history by trashing the present.

I'm sure it works in some quarters, but it's despicable.

Crazy Unkie Jimmy continues to set new lows for public behavior by political figures.

It's a free country and he's entitled, so we can probably expect this yahoo to come out of the attic and soil himself in public from time to time.

Lebanon: Gunfight at the Nahr al-Bared corral

The Lebanese army is actively engaged in military action in the north of the country against Palestinian fighters centered on one of those infamous refugee camps, Nahr al-Barad located just southwest of the city of Tripoli.

At least 23 Lebanese army and 19 Palestinians have been killed so far in the gunbattles, which have spread to the outskirts of Tripoli itself after the Palestinians opened fire on roads leading to the city and ambushed a Lebanese military unit.

Reportedly, 8 Lebanese soldiers have been taken prisoner by the Palestinians as well

For those of you who don't know, Palestinian `refugees', as elsewhere in much of the Arab world are subjected to treatment that makes that nasty Zionist so-called occupation look positively benign. The Palestinians are despised by many Lebanese for the role they played in sparking the civil war back in the `80's and overturning the precarious factional balance that kept Lebanon peaceful until Arafat and the Palestinians came along after being chased out of Jordan. They are, essentially imprisoned in camps like Ein al-Hewar and Nahr al-Barad and forbidden to work in most professions, own land or otherwise participate in normal activities, and the Lebanese Authorities normally keep a tight watch on the inhabitants.

This is a natural breeding ground for Islamic terrorists, as the Palestinians lend themselves to the idea of being shock troops for different factions.

In this case, it appears that the Palestinians in question belong to Fatah al-Islam, a group with ties to al-Qaeda, and most likely Iran and Syria, although the official Syrian backed Palestinian group is called Fatah Uprising and this is supposedly an offshoot - but given Fatah al-Islam's heavy weaponry, it's obvious that Iran and Syria are involved somewhere.

Can't tell the jihadis without a scorecard, hmmm?

The fun started, according to my sources when some of the Fatah al-Islam boys held up a bank in a small town southeast of Tripoli called Amyoun got away with around $120,000 and were chased by the Lebanese government authorities back into the camp...which is when the shooting broke out.

The Lebanese Army sent reinforcements to the outskirts of Nahr al-Bared, but didn't go inside the camp, in line with a 1969 Arab League agreement that bars Lebanese security forces from entering Palestinian camps.

This is likely connected with Syria's efforts to derail UN efforts to set up an international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of Rafiq Hariri...some of whom are higher ups in the Assad government. So this is more than just the simple battle against `al-Qaeda radicals' that it's being reported as.

Another factor bearing this out is the fact that, just like the Mafia, groups like Hezbollah, Amal and the other militias and factions control their turf religiously, and it's unlikely that upstarts like Fatah al-islam would have gotten away with committing a bank robbery like this unless it was sanctioned by higher authority...like, say, Syria and Iran.

We'll see what develops...

`Welcome to Tehran' - How the Brits lost South Iraq to Iran

We don't hear all that much in the US about the Shiite areas of South Iraq and Basra, where the British are nominally in control. Apparently, `nominally' is hardly the word.

This rather bleak article: 'Welcome to Tehran' - how Iran took control of Basra is an eyewitness account of the extent of Iran's control, via the militias and local Shiites.

What we essentially have there is mafia-style control of the oil wells, and indeed just about every function of government.

And the strings are all pulled by Iran...

The international scuttlebutt is that one of Gordon Brown's first acts as the new British PM when he takes over will be to accelerate the UK pullout from Iraq.

We'll see...

Bush removes provision requiring back taxes from illegal immigrants

President George Bush has something for all you law abiding citizens who pay your taxes - a huge Bronx cheer and a mocking cry of `sucker'!

The President has already made a change in the Senate bill on illegal immigration....removing a provision in the bill requiring back taxes and penalties from illegal aliens.

This change in the bipartisan Senate immigration bill enables 12 million undocumented aliens to avoid paying back taxes or associated fines to the IRS, something that was in the initial version of the bill.

An independent analyst estimated the decision could cost the IRS tens of billions of dollars.

What's more, they apparently tried to mislead about it in the initial press conference on the bill, when Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, speaking in reference to illegal immigrants seeking legal status, made a totally misleading statement to the assembled press and said, "You've got to pay your taxes."

It was only later, after White House spokesmouth Scott Stanzell was asked to clarify what Chertoff meant that it came out that Chertoff only referred to future taxes.

The rationale from the White House in getting the provision removed was that it would be `too difficult' to figure out which illegal immigrants owed back taxes!

This is,frankly, one of the most blatant lies imaginable, since the IRS has been aiding and abetting tax cheating by illegal aliens for years by accepting Employer Identification Numbers (EIN's) as a cover for bogus Social Security numbers for years, costing the US millions of dollars in bogus Earned Income Credit filings and inflated refunds. All the tax preparers have been doing is attaching a letter to the files stating that such-and-such an EIN number is connected to such-and-such a Social Security number...a tacit admission that the Social Security number involved is bogus.

For those of you who are reading between the lines, yes, that means that the IRS, and thus the federal government have always had a pretty good idea where to find many of these people.

Amnesty, indeed.

Call your representatives and scream bloody murder. And call the Republican and Democratic National Committees and tell them that you're not voting for a single incumbent that supports this...and that they can get their donations from donors who are doing political contributions Americans aren't doing.

Weekend Monkey on the Immigration controversy

I think it is time for some common sense on immigration reform.

As your president, I would take a comprehensive approach to this issue.

A banana rots from the top, and so does bad policy. The very first step we should take is to outsource our current high paid legislators who favor continuing to import exploited guest workers and replace them with congressmen guest workers who will work for lower wages and benefits at jobs that American congressmen are not doing.

Aside from saving millions in wages, staff expenses and benefits, the imported congressmen guest workers would likely take a more effective approach to guarding the border in order to protect their new jobs.

What's more, we can even extend that to the White house,with my election. Same difference, right? Only cheaper and more efficient.













I also think that the current proposals are limited in that they appear to only target illegal workers currently in America, with the idea of making them legal and subject to minimum wage laws.

That's no way to ensure continued cheap labor!

I recommend that the US create a program to bring monkeys and apes from around the world to America to work in the fast food, agriculture, construction, carwashes, gardening and house cleaning and similar industries.

Monkeys and apes can do these jobs cheaper and more efficiently than illegal aliens...they will practically work for peanuts. And there are thousands of my fellow primates who would jump at the chance to swing into the jungle that is America.

Monkeys and apes will pick your crops, wash your cars and clean your toilets. All they're asking for is an even break, a departure from the species-ist prejudices of the past.

After all, if we can create one set of special policies aimed at creating a low wage underclass and exploit their labor, why not another, especially when it saves us billions of dollars and keeps the price of labor down..wa-ay down! And think of the savings on education and health care.. most apes and monkeys do.. er... home schooling, as it were, and many diseases that afflict humans are not transferable from their fellow primates.

Rather than try to utilize an inefficient government bureaucracy to kick primates of one species out, we can concentrate on bringing in the kind of primates who will be a major boon to the economy, create new opportunities and let the marketplace sort the situation out.

This is a win-win scenario, and a major opportunity for America to experience real diversity. Plus it will create a new constituency for forward swinging politicians like myself.

And I ask you to join me in climbing to the treetops of America with bold new ideas for its future!


VOTE MONKEY IN `08.....NO PRIMATE LEFT BEHIND

Israel: Between a rock and a hard place in Gaza

Gettin' right with the jihad at a Hamas mosque...


The bitter fruits of Israel's retreat from Gaza have now become all too apparent.

It's become exactly the sort of terrorist enclave that the Sharon government assured the Israeli population it would never become, and all of the painstaking `security arrangements' brokered by Secretary of State Condi Rice between Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Egypt with American guarantees turned out, as many of us predicted to be so much waste paper....to be polite about it.

The missile assault against southern Israel continues, with another 20 missiles coming over today and hitting another school. Three Israelis were injured, and even Israeli Chief of Staff General Gaby Ashkenazi had to end up running for cover from a missile assault on Sderot.

The Palestinians have fired over 120 missiles at Southern Israel in four days, and over 4,500 civilians have left or been evacuated. And the Israeli port of Ashkelon is gearing up for expected attacks.

The Israelis have retaliated with a fairly limited response thus far,mainly concentrating on the odd Hamas missile launching site or compound. They've taken out 11 Hamas fighters thus far in air raids on Gaza.

Needless to say, this band-aid approach is doing absolutely nothing to end the attacks on Israel.

Even worse, the Israelis are being pressured by the US to get involved in the Palestinian gang war with their military to save the American's preferred terrorists, Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah!

In Gaza itself, in spite of the Israelis allowing 500 American equipped Fatah gunmen to cross into Gaza, Hamas has been steadily winning almost every street battle against Fatah and confiscating all those American arms they were given, courtesy of the Bush Administration.

Part of the problem is that Abbas' security forces have been thoroughly infiltrated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and there's no telling who's bought out who at this point.

Because of that, and because he's resisting plunging the Palestinians into a full scale civil war that he'd likely lose,at least in Gaza,Abbas has been refusing to send more of his Force 17 thugs over to fight Hamas on its home turf. Abbas was even forced to cancel a meeting with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh when he found out that he most likely would not have gotten back out of Gaza without being assassinated.

So the Israelis are faced with a major dilemma: if they go into a full scale war with Hamas and make a major incursion back into Gaza, they'd be using the Israeli military in a bloody campaign to consolidate Abbas' rule - something that will generate more outrage from the UN and the Palestinian groupies in the West.

I can just see the pictures in the AP and al-Reuters now.

Plus, that strategy will likely backfire over time anyway, as Abbas is hardly anything remotely resembling a `peace partner', has no real constituency in Gaza anyway and would become even less popular as `an ally of the Jews.'

But if the Israelis hold back, they are stuck with a war of attrition and terrorism that will gradually turn southern Israel into a no-man's land.

The real solution, of course, would be for the Israelis to admit that leaving Gaza was a horrible mistake, reoccupy the entire strip, destroy the Hamas military infrastructure, annex the Gaza Strip to Israel and remove the Palestinian population either to the Palestinian areas in Judea and Samaria or insist that the UN relocate them to Egypt or another Arab country.

The odds on the Olmert government doing that, especially with George W.Bush in the White House are slim...if for no other reason than because Olmert and his partners in crime would then have to admit to a long string of errors.

But, horrible as it would be, that's the only real permanent solution to decades of failed policy, starting with Oslo.

Imagine..instead of a terrorist enclave and slum that destabilizes the entire region and is a threat to the West, there would be a peaceful, prosperous region replete with agriculture, tourism and high tech.

But that would mean that Israel would own it, and most of the population would be Jews...and we can't have that now, can we?

Krauthammer - Prelude to the Six Days

Columnist Charles Krauthammer reminds us of of a little history, as he writes about what was going on inIsrael and the Middle East prior to the 1967 War - and gives us some insight into why Israel might be just a little bit reluctant to trust its security to Arab and international guarantees ala' the Saudi ultimatum in his piece "Prelude to the Six Days"

Watcher's Council Results, 5/18/07

The Council has spoken! A complete list of results can be found at the site of our fearless leader, the infamous Watcher of Weasels

This week, there was a three way tie for first which the Watcher broke by choosing my piece as the winning entry this week, J O S H U A P U N D I T: Cheney's chess moves in the Middle East which examined VP Cheney's trip to the Middle East, his largely futile attempt to try and shore up our `allies' among the Sunni autocrats against Iran and made some predictions on where things appear to be headed...some of which already appear to be on the horizon.

Tied for second were:

Cheat Seeking Missiles: Positive Thinking Vs. The Greenies Laer's superb examination focusing on finding positive answers for environmental problems rather than giving way to gloom, doom and prohibitions.

And

The Glittering Eye:Gone across Peterson
Dave's moving tribute to his recently deceased dog, Qila.


For non-Council The winner was:
IRAQ THE MODEL: Don't Bury Your Heads In The Sand Mohammed's plea to the West not to abandon Iraq.

In second place was Gates of Vienna: A Communism for the 21st Century a must read piece by Fjordman published by my old pals Baron and Dymphna at Gates of Vienna. Fjordman writes about multiculturalism, and how it resembles the old Marxist totalitarian model. And while Fjordman writes in a European context, don't think it can't ever happen here. It can.

Hearty Kudos to all the winners!

Amnesty? Si se peude!

Senators Teddy Kennedy, Lindsay Graham(R-SC) and Mel Martinez ( R-FL) giggle over what they just did to the country.

It appears that the Republican senate has finally caved in, and then we're headed for an amnesty bill for illegal immigrants, with the eager encouragement of the current occupant of the White House. Even worse, the bill as it now stands makes a mockery of a any notion of feasibility, and in fact is designed to keep cheap, undocumented labor flowing north even as we `normalize' the status of the 12 million or so illegal aliens that are already here.

The details are sketchy, as the senate is deliberately keeping most of it under wraps and may even circumvent any debate on the matter before sending to the House.

Ok, Teddy's sobered up for the big press conference, flanked by McCain and Spector.

Here's what we've got so far - and of course, your humble Freedom Fighter's comments:

The proposed agreement allows illegal immigrants who entered the US prior to January of `07 to obtain a "Z visa" and — after paying fees and a $5,000 fine — ultimately get on track for permanent residency, which could take between eight and 13 years. They'll have to return to their home countries first, and await background checks. Not only that, but they can also obtain "Z" visas for their families back in Mexico and Central America and bring them here as well...

- Hmmm..many of these are people that earn maybe fifteen to twenty thousand per year, and they're going to cough up $5,000? And then they're going to quit their jobs, go home voluntarily and wait for the US government to do a background check???

Sure they will. Just like the 600,000 plus illegal aliens that the courts have already signed deportation orders for and the ICE can't find.

This wonderful bit of legislation also assumes that all of these people are interested in citizenship, rather than simply a piece of paper that allows them to stay in the US indefinitely.
Not only that, but the volume of paperwork insures that it will be YEARS before the background and health checks are implemented..and meanwhile, we still won't know who's here.

And to add to the mess, all those family members will come North as well, adding to the burden on local social services and the problems we already have assimilating the 12 million or so illegal immigrants that are here already? Sounds like a winner to me.

Illegal aliens could opt to come forward right away to get a probationary card that would let them live and work legally in the U.S., but could not begin the path to permanent residency or citizenship until border security improvements and the high-tech worker identification program were completed. They needn't choose to become citizens if they don't want to.

They'd have to return home after a two year stint, and could renew the cards twice, but would have to leave for a year in between each time. And if they wanted to stay in the U.S. permanently, they'd have to apply under a ` point system' for a green card.

There's also a provision for establishing a` temporary' worker program admitting 400,000 workers yearly for a two-year visa after which they world be required to return home for a year and then re-apply.

Why would they even bother? There are a number of cities in the US that pride themselves on being `sanctuary cities' for illegals and prohibit law enforcement from asking about immigration status even during any run-ins with the criminal justice system. Two of the the Fort Dix Six had multiple run-ins with the cops and were never challenged in any way. So did Mohamed Atta.

And again, do they really expect these people to leave voluntarily, just because of a piece of easily forged paper? I could take Teddy into the MacArthur Park area in Los Angeles and get him a Social Security card, a Green Card and a Consular Matricular card in the name of Eduardo Garcia in a couple of hours.

The point system. like those $5,000 fines will, of course, likely be successfully challenged in court under the equal protection clause. And the provision for background checks will likely never be implemented, as it will take ICE years. Whom does the Senate think they're kidding?

It supposedly tilts the green card program in favor of `qualified' immigrants rather than mere family ties.

But let's forget about all those family members who will get to come in on those "Z" visas, hmmm?

The bill provides for the hiring of 6,000 more Border Patrol agents, actually cuts back on the length of the fence Congress already voted to establish ( and which, as Congressman Duncan Hunter, who wrote the bill revealed the other night, hardly any of which has been built yet) and establishes an employment verification system mandatory for employers to check the status of new hires.

I'll believe that when it happens. The 700 mile fence has had all of 2 miles completed, Border patrol agents are quitting faster than ICE can hire them because of the legal prosecutions designed to keep them from doing their jobs, and let's just say I'm skeptical about any realistic enforcement on employers. I mean, are we enforcing the laws that exist now, let alone new ones?

This is, as Senator Jim DeMint put it, amnesty, no matter what you call it. Not only does the bill's lackadaisical enforcement provisions guarantee a continued flow on undocumented cheap labor, but it guarantees a built in disrespect for law and a total lack of concern for border security.

Law's a fragile thing. When you start out with the misdemeanor of crossing the border illegally, it leads to more serious offenses like not buying legally mandated auto insurance, passing forged documentation, lying on Federal benefits and income tax forms, and worse.

What's more, it's ultimately a slap in the face to everyone who played bythe rules and came here legally.

It's also racist, because it benefits Hispanics at the expense of Africans, Asians and Europeans, simply because of proximity and a wink by our government.

Many of these people have the potential to become fine citizens, and they're an important human resource. There are ways America can make this work to our advantage.

But this cynical nonsense isn't the way to do it, and it shows a basic contempt for the American people and for our Republic.

Call your representatives. Now.

Mubarak: `Hamas will never sign a peace treaty with Israel'

Just after Israel's naive Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni went public saying that the only way to peace in the Israeli Palestinian conflict is a two-state solution she got a dose of reality from Egypt's president Mubarak - Hamas will never sign a peace agreement with Israel.

Whoopsie.

Mubarak apparently says that Egypt is `at a loss' regarding Gaza's future, which is something very different from what Mubarak and his foreign Minister Suleiman told Condi Rice and Arik Sharon when they were crafting all those security arrangements that were supposed to keep things peaceful after Israel retreated.

The real reason for Mubarak's concern, of course, is Hamas' contacts with its parent organization, the Muslim brotherhood, which is Egypt's Islamist opostion to the Mubarak regime.

Meanwhile, Hamas is increasingly in firm control of Gaza. They've won every engagement they've had in the gang war with Abbas' Fatah minions.

Palestinians score direct hit on Sderot synagogue, school classroom

While the dinosaur media wrings it's hands over the self-inflicted Palestinian carnage in Gaza, they appear to care less about the terrorist rocket bombings inflicted on the Israeli town of Sderot.

They apparently could care less, unless the IDF retaliates. Then, of course, it's front page news, with the usual suspects blathering about the `cycle of violence.'

Last night the Palestinians scored a direct hit on Sderot's Ohalei Sinai synagogue ,just minutes after most of the congregation had left after celebrating the bringing of a Torah scroll into the synagogue. Minutes before, there had been over 300 people in the building. As it was, the handful of people left in the building tiding up after the celebration were treated for shock and moderate injuries.

Can you imagine the headlines if the IDF targeted a mosque?

The Palestinians also hit a classroom in a high school on the edge of the town this morning. The ceiling was blown open to the sky, and the room was covered with broken glass and debris. The eighth graders should have been in a geography class there at the time, according to their schedule,but luckily, because of the rockets, they werein a safer classroom on a lower floor.

“I heard the rocket alert, saw kids running toward the protected rooms, and then I heard the boom,” said Ilanit Asayag, 36, who works in the library nearby.

The attacks were likely a mocking gesture towards Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, who left shortly before the missile attacks after visiting Sderot and pledging to help the town and stop the terrorist attacks. Olmert toured the town in the company of Yonatan Abukasis, whose 16 year-old daughter Ela was killed by a Kassam missile two years ago when she shielded her younger brother with her own body.

The residents, needless to say are not exactly fans of the Olmert goverment these days. And they are wondering out loud - as they have been for months - what their government plans on doing about this intolerable situation.

Even the normally clueless Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni made a point of calling the situation “unbearable,” saying that “Israel left (Gaza) in order to “give the Palestinians the possibility to create a normal life and not to attack Israel.”

The PA government is responsible for the incessant attacks, she added. “The fact that terrorist organizations who actually make up part of the government….are involved in this shooting is a situation that, from Israel’s standpoint, is intolerable.”

"We are making it clear to the international community that until now, Israel has shown restraint…We must understand that no one has a magic solution. We will have to act."

UPDATE: The IDF made a small movement into the Gaza Strip late today and took up positions in the Gaza Strip west of Sderot, as well as at the ruins of former Israeli communities of Nisanit and Elei Sina. Apparently, the idea is to deter the Qassam crews from having too close a shot at Sderot.

The IDF also carried out a number of pinpoint strikes, targeting a Hamas compound in Gaza City and a car carrying two jihadis, one of whom was Imad Shbana, a senior member of Hamas. Rest assured that the IDF retaliation against the Paletinians was covered by the dinosaur media in great depth - as compared to the Sderot synagogue and high school bombing, which were only covered in the Israeli press.

This is more in the nature of a warning to the Palestinians rather than the precursor to a major Israeli offensive...and of course,it will have the same effect as all of the others.

The Israelis are going to have to come to a decision to either deal with this themselves, once and for all or to get being the victims of genocide by inches.

Jabotinsky was right.

GOP debate: Giuliani seen as clear winner...and Duncan Hunter racks up some points as well

Here's an interesting shot - after the debate, it's Rudy & Romney who embrace one another, while McCain's the odd man out....

Last night's GOP debate in South Carolina ended up being much more focused than the last one.

Based on the scuttlebutt I'm hearing, Rudy Giuliani came off quite well, especially in a smackdown of Congressman Ron Paul, who suggested that the US was to blame for 9/11 and the answer was to `listen to the people who attacked us' and become isolationist.

Rudy, visibly angry(I'm sure he was visualizing some of the good friends he lost in the attack), said that of all the explanations he had heard for 9/11, this was one of the most ridiculous, and suggested that Paul withdraw the comments. Giuliani got the loudest, most sustained ovation of the night for that.

Rudy also scored by being straight foward on topics like abortion, taxes...and Islamic fascism.

Mitt Romney came across a bit more scattered and not as in command as he was during the first debate, although he made no major errors.

One big winner was one of my favorites, California's own Duncan Hunter,who's pithy,no nonsense demeanor got him a lot of attention:


On China Trade:

Q: Congressman Hunter, virtually all U.S. exporters want access to China's huge market. You have said that you would deal with the enormous trade deficit this country has with that country. Tell me how you'd do it and how fast.

REP. HUNTER: Yeah, very simple. China is cheating on trade. They devalue their currency by 40 percent.That undercuts the American markets, wipes American products off the shelf not only here but around the world. And the latest study I've seen shows that we've lost 1.8 million jobs in the United States, high-paying manufacturing jobs, to China, 27,000 jobs lost in South Carolina alone. I would enforce the law with China, the trade rules with China.

And the other thing I would do is, I would zero the manufacturing tax on American manufacturers. Our guys are down right now. They've been buffetted by these unfair trade practices. Let's bring back the American industrial base, and that's important for national security as well.

That means we'll be able to have -- you know, I sent out my teams a couple years ago when our guys were getting hurt by roadside bombs. We found only one company left in America that could still make high- grade armor steel plate. The arsenal of democracy is leaving these shores. We need to bring it back. I'll do that.

On Illegal immigration and the borders:


REP. HUNTER: I wrote the bill that the president signed in October that takes the San Diego fence 854 miles across Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, and it's mandatory. I called up the other day, and they've done two miles of border fence.

This administration has a case of the slows on border enforcement (...)this 2,000-mile porous border, incidentally, is our biggest homeland security problem; it's not just an immigration problem, it's a homeland security problem. We need to build the border fence. We need to have a Border Patrol which is big enough to get the job done, and we need to be able to ask people when they want to come into America, knock on the front door, because the back door is going to be closed.

On interrogating terrorists:

Q: Here is the premise: Three shopping centers near major U.S. cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attack has been averted when the attackers were captured off the Florida coast and taken to Guantanamo Bay, where they are being questioned....How aggressively would you interrogate those being held at Guantanamo Bay for information about where the next attack might be?

REP. HUNTER: Yeah, let me just say this would take a one-minute conversation with the secretary of Defense. (Laughter.) I would call him up or call him in. I would say to SECDEF, in terms of getting information that would save American lives, even if it involves very high-pressure techniques, one sentence: Get the information. Have it back within an hour, and let's act on it. Let's execute with Special Operations or whoever else is necessary, and I will take full responsibility. Get the information.

It's pretty obvious that thus far, the field boils down to the Big Three, Giuliani, McCain, and Romney. And Duncan Hunter may just have entered prime time as well.

John Bolton: Attack Iran before it gets the bomb

John Bolton, ex-US ambassador to the UN talked to the Daily Telegraph today and had a few things to say about Iran.

Bolton warned that the EU had to "get more serious" about Iran and realize that its diplomatic attempts to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program were a failure.

Iran has "clearly mastered the enrichment technology now...they're not stopping, they're making progress and our time is limited", he said.

"It's been conclusively proven Iran is not going to be talked out of its nuclear program. So to stop them from doing it, we have to massively increase the pressure.

"If we can't get enough other countries to come along with us to do that, then we've got to go with regime change by bolstering opposition groups and the like, because that's the circumstance most likely for an Iranian government to decide that it's safer not to pursue nuclear weapons than to continue to do so. And if all else fails, if the choice is between a nuclear-capable Iran and the use of force, then I think we need to look at the use of force."

"If the choice is them continuing [towards a nuclear bomb] or the use of force, I think you're at a Hitler marching into the Rhineland point. If you don't stop it then, the future is in his hands, not in your hands, just as the future decisions on their nuclear program would be in Iran's hands, not ours."

Just to add a little something to the mix,just yesterday a surprise inspection by the IAEA at Natanz ( one of the few facilities the IAEA has access to) discovered that the Iranians were much farther along in their nuclear program than was previously thought.

They found that Iran was operating 1,312 centrifuges, which is about half way there to the amount needed to produce enough weapons grade uranium for a nuclear bomb.

According to all those `experts' this was supposed to take at least another two years before the mullahs mastered enrichment technology - and then another two years to be able to produce enough material for a bomb.

Remember...this is just what Iran is allowing the IAEA to see.

It's official - Gordon Brown is the new British Labour PM

According to the Beeb, Gordon Brown has secured the backing of enough MPs to ensure he will not face a contest to become the next Labour leader and prime minister, and thus will enter No. 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister's official residence unopposed, without new elections being held when Tony Blair steps down on June 27th.

Oddly enough, the British themselves seem unsure of what the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer will be like as PM. Brown has a rep as being rather saturnine, reserved and self-absorbed...so I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Senate rejects bill to cut off funds for troops in Iraq...but Hillary and Obama vote `yes'

The US Senate today rejected a bill to cut off funding for US troops sponsored by Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI), Harry Reid ( D-NV) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn).

On the final vote, 19 Democrats joined 47 Republicans and Connecticut Democrat Independent Joseph Lieberman in opposing the measure. Of the 29 supporting were 28 Democrats and Vermont Socialist Independent Bernard Sanders...including presidential candidates Joe Biden(D-DE), Hillary Clinton(D-NY), Dodd, and of course, Barack Obama ( D-IL).

I actually look on this as a breath of fresh air. It is much more honest than the previous attempts by the Democrats to have it both ways by handicapping our military while still claiming to `support the troops' and trying to avoid the political fallout.

I also hope that people notice that every one of the Democratic presidential candidates, fighting to appeal to their party's Left in order to get the nomination were willing to place their own selfish political advantages above principal, even though some of them have previously been on record as not wanting to cut off funding to our troops precipitously.

Forewarned is forearmed. Remember this when you vote for a commander in chief in 2008.

Massive Hamas rocket barrage into Israel as Gaza gang war continues

The mob violence between Hamas and Fatah continued, with estimates of the dead between 16 and 20 people.

This morning, the Palestinians took time out from killing each other and fired off a barrage of Qassam missiles into Israel, targeting Sderot.

To read Palestinian shills working for the dinosaur media like Nidal al-Mughrabi, Ibrahim Barzak or Sarah El-Deeb , these were `minor strikes with no causalities' and the headlines read like `Israel attacks Gaza amid factional fighting, 4 killed', giving the impression that the Israelis are taking advantage of the Palestinian gang war to kill a few Arabs.

Here's what those `minor strikes' consisted of...

30 Qassam missiles from from Gaza hit Sderot, knocking out all power in the town. That makes over 60 missiles fired at Israel in a period of 48 hours. Some of the rockets hit a basketball court at a school, which, just by chance, had no kids using it. There have been over thirty reported injuries, some of them serious, including a mother and three children. The schools and workplaces are closed in Sderot and in Shear Hanegev next door, and a number of people have evacuated.

Just minor stuff, right? At least if you take the word of the dinosaur media.

Israel did indeed retaliate, finally. First, the IAF targeted a Hamas command center in Rafah, killing 7 and injuring 20. next, they took out a missile crew in Sejaya as they were preparing to launch some more rockets into Israel.

Earlier, Hamas gunmen killed five bodyguards barricaded in the house of Fatah leader Rashid Abu Shbak, whom we're familiar with. Hamas hit the building with sustained mortar fire ( more of those American arms we gave Abbas that Hamas ended up with) and turned it into a rather messy urban renewal project. And late yesterday, an Egyptian diplomat was shot and wounded, and Hamas used those American mortars to hit the Gaza offices of Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas.

The beast continues to eat itself.