Loose Lips (You Know the Rest)

From the AP's Eileen Sullivan Today:

"The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret."

Geez. I remember when 'officials' WOULDN'T even speak if the information was classified. Of course, once upon a time most 'officials' were concerned about being traitors instead of just being known as one.

Hey AP! Can Eileen do a waterboarding story next so we can find out who's got the loose lips?

Al Durah Affair Update

Breath of the Beast nails the whole sordid "al Durah Affair" and Charles Enderlin with Enderlin's Ocean of Blood.

Read and Heed.

Ted Kennedy Fun at Ann Althouse

Althouse: Ted Kennedy is unhappy with Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

I don't normally read the comments beyond Ms Althouse's post, but this time around there's some fun going on in the comments section. Evidently she has a regular(?) visitor, a 'Christopher', who takes exception to the mere mention of Uncle Ted's Driving School's safety record.

'Chris' actually begins defending the indefensible via a poor imitation of Taranto's now famous reminder: "Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment"

I honestly don't know why people just don't talk over and ignore his (Chris') hissy fits, but they keep trying to talk to the boy....and as they say: "hilarity ensues."

Illinois Number 1? HAH and NEVAH!

Via Ann Althouse (in an Acting Instapundit role), we find Illinois making some noise in the 'Varsity Corruption League'.

Sure Illinois is always a favorite in the “Regionals”, but they’re never quite good enough to take the "National" title. That honor has to go to the perennial Champion: Louisiana!

Heck, Louisiana’s program is culturally imbued: 'English Law' states haven’t a chance against the 'Napoleonic Code'. Louisiana is SO dominant that surrounding states only offer token competition. Now, the run-up and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina may have provided enough impetus to cement the dynasty for another decade.

Evidence:

LOUISIANA CORRUPTION

John Fund

Corruption as Usual

Louisiana's history of corruption bodes ill

Louisiana Corruption Roundup

Corruption Costs Jobs : August 16, 2005

Although the American Spectator seems to believe that Louisiana may have sacrificed quality for quantity, and a couple of years ago the Corporate Crime Reporter (PDF) tried to jigger the formula (ala BCS) in a misplaced Yankee effort to make Connecticut more competitive, let there be no doubt: the 'Huey Long Trophy' will reside in Louisiana as long as they can sustain that special 'Nawlin’s magic'.

Ken Lay Cheated Justice?

I would say to the author (or more likely the "snazzy-title editor" at Forbes):
Dude...Ken Lay is Dead. Deceased. Gone on to his Great Reward. Finito.

Sure, in the end he doesn't pay a criminal-court-mandated monetary price, and his prison sentence was effectively reduced to 'time-served', but....he.....is.....still..... dead.

No doubt having paid with his life through the stress of choosing the 'dark side' and getting caught. Now his victims can seek monetary redress EARLIER through civil courts. I hope they find some compensation for their pain and discomfort caused by Ken Lay(et al's) misdeeds.

What is the motivation behind the author's article? Was he planning on milking the story through the appeals process and now he has to work hard to find some other scandal?

I can visualize the author of this Forbe's piece in the 19th Century Wild West:

Died?! Died?! Goll'durn it Sheriff, we rode three days ta' get here from Alkali Flats so weez cuud see us a hangin'! Now I don' care if the varmit IS dead, String 'em up anyways!

I Got Yer 'Principled Immigration' Right Here...

In the Wall Street Journal’s online editorial site, OpinionJournal.com, they republished an opinion piece on immigration reform from a Harvard Law professor, Mary Ann Glendon, that very much revealed her humanity and Catholicism as well as her legal mind. Her ‘article’ was initially published as the June/July featured article at First Things.

I would characterize the expression of her thoughts as an ‘almost’ opinion piece: it almost passes the smell test and almost grasps the real issue and challenge.

Very few things set off my alarm bells faster than someone talking about a problem as one of ‘image’ instead of essence. When Professor Glendon notes the ‘importance of the rule of law to most Americans’ as a something that needs to be addressed in a way that avoids ‘the appearance of rewarding law-breakers’ she is telling us that rewarding law-breakers is exactly what she thinks should happen. She confirms this with the deft-phrasing in closing the same sentence:

“yet shift the focus in individual cases to how the immigrants have comported themselves while in residence here.”

One assumes that by ‘comportment’ she means other than the duplicity and fraud required to successfully enter the country illegally and laws violated to avoid detection or deportation while ‘in residence’.

I suppose her point would be well taken IF most Americans felt the appearance rather than the existence of a rule of law was important.

Citing societal and moral implications of the issue Professor Glendon indicates, to her credit, that she understands this issue goes beyond a simple legal one, and grasps that immigration plays a vital role in our history and future. Where she fails miserably is that she avoids or ignores the responsibilities we have to the future: that immigration must be controlled in a manner that ensures the perpetuation of the kind of society that will continue to attract people who want to come here for our freedoms, opportunities and justice. Any immigration environment (such as one that turns a blind eye towards the wholesale invasion of illegal aliens) that does not promote the perpetuation of these and other key elements of our society, will inevitably condemn not only our descendents, but also the future of untold generations of current and future legal immigrants and their descendents.

There is also a not-so-niggling catch to her attempt to overlay some ‘humanity’ on the issue via government policy as well. From the comments the article received at OpinionJournal, I would say I’m not the only one who noticed:

At last! Liberals are outed. Their agenda under the pretext of immigration reform is to install socialism, communism, Marxism and Leninism as the controlling social and economic policies of the United States of America. Who said you can't learn anything from a Harvard professor.

Ms Glendon, I submit that “Principled Immigration” involves a lot of ‘tough love’ that those of your ilk are too weak to understand much less administer. This includes taking steps that do not reward and perpetuate the injustice and poverty in the corrupt societies that fuel our immigration problems.

Attention Speaker Hastert: You are not above the law

Even in YOUR "House"

It appears some in Congress have their knickers in a knot over the raid on Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-La.) Congressional office this weekend. For Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, the issue seems to be over the “constitutionality” of the raid and he has gone on records saying “the seizure of legislative papers, no matter how innocuous, was a violation of the “the principles of Separation of Powers, the independence of the Legislative Branch, and the protections afforded by the Speech and Debate clause of the Constitution.”
Ohhhh Kaaay. The same article goes on citing Hastert:

Hastert also singled out Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in that statement: “It would appear that the Attorney General himself was aware that Separation of Powers concerns existed … because in seeking the warrant the FBI suggested to the judge procedures it would follow to deal with Constitutionally protected materials.”

Alright then! Heck, we can’t let the Executive Branch run roughshod over the HEY! Wait a second……
“Seeking the warrant”? They got a Federal judge to issue a warrant? And they had to describe to the judge how they would deal with the Constitutional issues before he would give them the warrant? Sounds like some due process going on. What does the AG have to say for himself?

"We respectfully, of course, disagree with the characterization by some,” Gonzales said. “We believe … we have been very careful, very thorough in our pursuit of criminal wrongdoing, and that’s what’s going on here. We have an obligation to the American people to pursue the evidence where it exists.”

So the story so far is this....

On the one hand we have a Justice Department eager to look at what a guy known to be ‘dirty’ might be keeping in an office where he thinks he’s untouchable. He put a pile of suspect cash in the freezer and is on tape taking dirty money for crying out loud! I wonder what he wouldn’t think to hide in his office! The AG does the right thing and gets a warrant, which is essentially a buy-in on the idea that a search is a good thing by the Judicial branch of government.

On the other hand we have a House of Representatives that seems to think they should be untouchable when on ‘hallowed ground’.

Hmmm...

RECOMMENDATION: Speaker Hastert and his ilk should shut up, quietly cry in their beer, and worry how this perceived attempt to keep themselves above the law will look to their constituencies.

Crap. Of course, a bazillion people will read about this first at Instapundit. Looks like Professor Reynolds posted about the time I finished my first paragraph. I feel good knowing I'm on the same wavelength as the Blogfather, but I gotta either get off work earlier or learn to type faster [;-)

Round Up The Usual Suspects

If the Feds want us to believe they aren’t just a bunch of “Captain Renaults” and are serious about rounding up illegals they need to do a couple of things...

First: Don’t let them go after you catch them
Second: Keep gathering them up.

Crime Stopper Tip: The meat processing industry seems a pretty good follow-up to the pallet-making industry.

No More "Illegals"

Will Be Discussed Here For a While...

Instead, I'm going to cool my jets on illegals and immigration and just soak up this series. Looks like they will be 'must reads'.
Hat Tip: Powerline

Rabble Roused, Spanish-Language Film at 11

Or “There Oughta Be a Law ”

I have zero knowledge of this area of law, so I have to ask: Is there a clause (or something) in the requirements to have an FCC license concerning a broadcaster’s responsibilities to operate in the public good? What about a clause concerning political activism? – Any ‘equal time’ provisions for issues like those for political candidates?

I don’t believe there is a clause in either case, but surely it is illegal for broadcasters to promote subversion of federal laws? Is ‘contributing to the delinquency of a minor’ only a crime when it involves one minor? If not, what is the penalty for contributing to the delinquency of thousands of minors?

What are the broadcasters’ and schools’ civil liabilities when minors experience harm after being urged into committing truancy?

The school systems won’t support the civil disobedience after they wake up and see they’re losing their federal AIS (A** in Seat) funds every day the seats are empty. But what is the motivation for a broadcaster to stop attempting subversion?

Carrot or Stick – It doesn’t matter, but there needs to be something that requires operators to behave in a civilized manner as a condition of their broadcast license.

And if it’s not too much trouble, we obviously need to increase the minimum school requirements and budget for civics and government classes. These poor kids need help!

Immigration: Walls, Processes and Defense in Depth

I think that Arnold Kling, with whom I generally agree with and defer to on most things economic, doesn’t quite get the point, economic or otherwise, on the illegal immigration issue. Either that or he wrote his TCS Daily article yesterday in fit of passion and untypical haste. He wrote a particularly wandering paragraph (second one):

I believe that illegal immigrants bring relatively little economic benefit and cause relatively little economic harm.

Well, to the best of my research and knowledge, we don’t have any real data (only ideas , indications, extrapolations, and suspicions), so I don’t think we have a good enough handle on the true scale and/or impact of the issue to state categorically either way. After this whiff, he then quite aptly zeroes in 'right on target' in the next few sentences:

I believe that there are substitutes readily available for the work done by illegal immigrants. Legal residents could do some of the work. Other labor could be replaced by capital or by alternative production techniques.

Which is pretty consistent with my (and others) belief that ‘doing the jobs Americans won’t’ is a canard. But he then closes the paragraph way 'out there' with:

By the same token, because there are many substitutes available for unskilled labor, the salvation of American workers does not lie in immigration restrictions.

From my perspective, there’s couple of key things wrong with this statement.

First, the economic issue isn’t about ‘the salvation of American workers’ so much as extracting maximum efficiency out of the economy, AKA that ‘labor could be replaced by capital or by alternative production techniques’ thing he mentioned earlier.

Second, characterizing control of immigration as ‘immigration restrictions’ is a very negative and oversimplified caricature of the objective: to diminish or eliminate ILLEGAL and therefore UNCONTROLLED entry of aliens into this country. No sane adherents to the ‘anti-illegals’ side of the debate that I have spoken with, read about, or even heard of, wants to eliminate or restrict LEGAL immigration, so the ‘restrictions’ in Dr. Kling’s sentence can only mean ‘illegal immigration’ (man, I hate that term – immigration by definition is a process with legal and citizenship implications, otherwise you’re just ‘traveling around’).

Of course, beside the control our borders for economic security that provides us with more economic ‘certainty’, there is an equal or superior reason to do so for national security purposes at any time. In a time of war, the security aspect of controlling the borders should be paramount.

Dr. Kling presents an argument against controlling the border by hammering on the idea of a border fence:

A strong border would provide, at best, a false sense of security. We could have a perfect fence along the border with Mexico and still suffer a major terror attack, even from legal citizensI am not saying that the security benefit of a fence would be zero. However, the benefit would be very low, and a reasonable guess is that the benefit would be far below the "opportunity cost" of deploying those resources on other security measures..

If this was all that we would do: build a wall and go home, Dr. Kling and some equally wrong bloggers would be very correct: it would be a “fixed fortifications are man’s monument….” example.

But this is not the case. Since building a ‘continuous’ wall is only one option, and since building some sort of actual wall is not the only thing we would do, Dr. Kling’s ‘fence’ (in whatever form it takes) would be part of a system of measures that would control the threat in a defense in depth. Marry the physical deterrents of a fence and related measures with those Dr. Kling proposes and others, and you are talking real security.

And the Number One Reason to Increase Control of the Borders is....
Probably the nail in the coffin for any argument against controlling the illegals coming into the country that doesn’t involve increased control of the borders is this: it’s been tried for years and it hasn’t worked so far. Let’s start immigration reform by controlling the borders, we can finish it using any tool Dr. Kling suggests.

A personal nit: Dr. Kling’s statement “We could have a perfect fence along the border with Mexico and still suffer a major terror attack, even from legal citizens” is akin to saying “I won’t get accidental death insurance because I might die from a disease”. For years, I would go ‘rounds’ with people on security measures (no questions concerning what we were protecting please, they won’t be answered) that were designed to comply with various classification requirements. Some measures were put in place to protect against inadvertent disclosures to John Q. Public. Some measures were to ensure the smallest possible dissemination of minor operational details so people working ‘near’ the activity but not briefed on the activity could not learn anything meaningful about that activity over time. Some were designed to prevent an ‘adversary’ from gaining information through direct, active, means. Dilettantes would always challenge me, “Why do we do this? It doesn’t protect against that!” To which I would have to respond with ‘Yes, but this third thing over here protects against that and this protects against that other thing.

It’s amazing how many people have a hard time grasping that in security, like a lot of other things, it takes more than one tool to do the whole job.

Well, We Know Where We Should Start Checking for Green Cards

HERE

Honestly, I don't care where you come from or what you look like. But I do care if you are here legally or not.

If you're here legally, WELCOME!

Now just learn and speak English, walk and drive on 'the right', set an example for the dumb natives by using your turn indicators, don't jaywalk, and accept the basic idea that everybody has a right to do whatever they want as long as they don't impose on anyone else....and we'll get along just fine!

If you're here illegally, or knowingly hire illegals: turn yourself in to the authorities! Then we can afford to increase the rate we can accept more law-abiding immigrants(the kind we need and want) into our country.