The New York Times reported that Bush sent Vice President Dick Cheney out to promote his immigration plan among conservatives. Read Brenda Walker’s earlier blog today on Cheney’s appearance on the Rush Limbaugh Show.

Cheney is an interesting choice as a front man. According to a recent CBS News Poll, only 18% of Americans had a “favorable” view of the Vice President.

In a similar Gallup poll, only one personality ranked lower than Cheney: Paris Hilton.

Frankly, although I’m no fan, I would be much more likely to listen to Paris Hilton’s opinions than Cheney’s. I suspect she’s more honest.

Just a little while ago, President Bush sent White House Heavyweight Karl Rove to the Hill in an attempt to round-up (bully) support for his amnesty plan.

Rove tries to court GOP on immigration by Suzanne Gamboa, AP 5/17/06

Not by coincidence, swarms of pro-illegal immigration lobbyists were working the Hill at the same time.

It has to be asked, on whose side is the President?

I once described San Francisco Airport as a Ring of Hell (Dantesque)…and I stand by that description but there are far worse places in the World.

Anywhere near Senator Kennedy for example–and by “anywhere near” I mean “on the Hill” or “in the state of Massachusettes” or just “on the same planet.”

I should have kept count but Kennedy has used the word “exploited” to describe the life of an illegal immigrant more times today than I have heard that word used–in any context–in the last thirty years.

What we have this afternoon is a battle between Senator Cornyn and Senator Kennedy. These two are literally going back and forth getting more intense by the word. Yeah, but they are still referring to each other as “my distinguished friend” or “my esteemed colleague” which at least provides an occasional laugh in their otherwise monotonous exchange.

In a nutshell, Cornyn doesn’t like the McKennedy bill because it is basically a long-winded pile of garbage. The proposed Cornyn amendment would gut much of the bill (according to Mc Cain) and McKennedy is not happy about it.

Perhaps Kennedy fears he is losing support for the bill because he is practically hopping up and down he is so frustrated.

And now he’s suggested the absence of a quorum–which is just a mechanism they use to buy time when they need to re-group…or in the case of Kennedy, maybe calm down a bit?

While pro-globalizer Washington is working toward a shotgun marriage with Mexico (aka SPP), the fiance is having a nervous breakdown. The level of violence and corruption has grown to such a level that half of Mexicans believe the whole house of cards is about to fall apart [ Mexico voters fear nation on edge of chaos, AP 5/17/06].

A poll published Friday in Excelsior newspaper found 50 percent of respondents feared the government was on the brink of losing control. [...]

Security is the top concern for Mexicans, and Fox has struggled to reform Mexico’s notoriously corrupt police. Meanwhile, drug-related bloodshed has accelerated, with some cities seeing killings almost daily.

In April, suspected drug lords posted the heads of two police officers on a wall outside a government building where four drug traffickers died in a Jan. 27 shootout with officers in the Pacific resort of Acapulco.

Beheadings in Acapulco? The Tourist Board can’t be happy about that.

Whew! Senator McCain is not happy today–not happy at all.

Responding to Senator Vitter’s (R-Louisiana) remarks, Senator McCain objected to use of the term “amnesty” when describing the McCain/Kennedy bill.

He said “Call it amnesty, call it a banana if you want to, but it’s earned citizenship.”

Cranky McCain said we could call his bill a banana…ok, from now on I’ll call it the Banana Bill.

Referring again to the word “amnesty” McCain said “Frankly I’m growing a little weary of it, I’m growing a little weary of it.”

Yeah, and we’re growing weary of you and your amnesty bill…oops, I mean Banana Bill.

And then the distinguished Senator from Arizona went off on a tangent the likes of which we rarely see outside a looney bin:

Again, addressing the cutie-pie Senator from Louisiana (Vitter) Mc Cain started talking about the children of illegal aliens who are currently serving in Iraq. He said…brace yourselves, people…he said,

“I wonder if the Senator from Louisiana wants to call a soldier fighting in Iraq and tell him that ‘hey, while you’re fighting over there, we’re deporting your parents’.”

Gracious, that man has been spending waaaay too much time with the Kennedy Clan–he’s no longer able to argue the merits (or lack thereof) of his bill so he’s introducing absurd, hypothetical situations.

And how tacky to use soldiers in Iraq…

There he is! My man, Saxy Chambliss (R-Georgia)!!

He just rose to speak in favor of the Vitter Amendment which would, in the words of John Mc Cain:

“Strip the guts of the current bill.”

Yeah, the “current bill” is S.2611 which is basically the Mc Cain/Kennedy bill so…way to go Saxby!!

Senators Kyl and Cornyn introduced an amendment to exclude illegal aliens who have been convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors from staying in the United States.

You might remember before Easter when this amendment was considered a deal-breaker and and one of the reasons for which the Senate did not pass any reform legislation–what’s changed?

Some will claim a new desire for compromise among legislators but how can anyone really believe that?

The amendment was weakened–significantly.

There are exceptions for “hardship cases” and illegal aliens who claim they didn’t know a previous deportation order had been issued for them.

The language is intentionally vague and disingenous–everybody and their brother will claim ignorance and hardship. Interstingly enough, I thought we lived in a country where ignorance of the law was no excuse??

**UPDATE: The amendment passed 99 to 0

There was also a Sessions Amendment that would build 370 miles of fence on the border with Mexico and more than 500 miles of vehicle obstacles–which I assume are structures that prevent vehicles from driving through.

So far, that amendment has been set aside and should be voted on later.

**UPDATE: The Amendment also passsed 83 to 16.

Senator Vitter (R-Louisiana) is introducing his amendment which would strengthen the current bill (S.2611) in many ways–namely, it would not allow any guest worker program or anything of the like to be implemented until the border is secure.

This has been tried before (a few times) and failed. Senator Vitter is a cutie-pie but I am not holding out hope that his amendment will pass.

Never say that President Bush is risking America’s future on an untried immigration plan! In reality, his “Temporary Worker Program” has been perfected in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Most famous for a WWII naval aviation battle, the Marianas Turkey Shoot, and for the nearby Mariana Trench, this Pacific Ocean territory was granted by the U.S. government the lucratively contradictory rights to be both within the U.S. tariff wall for the purposes of not having to pay duties on textiles manufactured on islands (meaning that clothes sewn in the Marianas could display the “Made in USA” label), but outside the U.S. for the purposes of immigration policy.

So, the local authorities in the capital of Saipan set up a guest worker program. Soon, big East Asian apparel companies were bringing in women from the Asian mainland to work in their sweatshops. Something like 40,000 “guests” toiled behind barbed wire, working up to 84-hour weeks. If they got pregnant, their employers sometimes forced them to have abortions.

The American media would occasionally run reports on this scandal. One man who was outraged by what he heard was Alaska Republican Senator Frank Murkowski (now the governor of Alaska). He said, “The last time we heard a justification that economic advances would be jeopardized if workers were treated properly was shortly before Appomattox.” In 2000, he persuaded the Senate to vote unanimously to crack down on the abuse of these indentured servants.

So the Commonwealth powers-that-be paid $9 million to lobbyist Jack Abramoff to get Congress off their back. They got their money’s worth. Abramoff met two dozen times with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on this issue, who made sure that the House did nothing. On a golf trip to Saipan, Delay told the local governor, “You represent everything that is good about what we’re trying to do in America.”

Today, Abramoff has been sentenced to 70 months in prison, and DeLay has resigned. But their soul goes marching on: The President and the Senate now want to introduce this lovely system to the mainland.

One lesson to learn from this is that the Bush’s “temporary” worker program probably wouldn’t “solve” the problem of Mexican illegal immigration in even the cynically nominal sense. The plan is purported to turn future Mexican border-crossers into legal guest workers.

Yet, you’ll note that none of the sweatshop owners in the Northern Marianas bothered to import guest workers from Mexico. Asians are cheaper, more numerous, and more productive.

When you look at the data in the CIA World Factbook, Mexico turns out to be an above average income country. Five billion people live in countries with lower average per capita GDPs than Mexico’s. And Mexicans are not famed for extremely high productivity.

Thus, it’s likely that this“temporary” worker program will mostly bring in Asians from China, Bangladesh, and the like. Meanwhile, Mexicans will continue to sneak across the border.

This may seem like a flaw in the plan to you, but to the Cheap Labor lobby, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. They get new legal “temporary” workers, while still getting the old Mexican illegal aliens. What’s not to like?

The Lodi News-Sentinel, where my weekly Op-ed appears, recently started a blog for readers. In response to a letter from Lodian R.G. Hooper titled “Boycott Story Lacked Balance,” commenter “Hey” advanced these interesting opinions on why illegal immigration is not an altogether bad thing:

“I never heard of a Mexican killer trying to eat his victims like white killers do.”

“The prison population would not be lower it would just make room for more white people who actualy (sic) account for more crime than any race.”

“The only reason the Mexicans took over the crank trade was because the white people making it were to stupid to make any real money doing it.”

“If you boycotted the Taco Trucks how would white people eat, they are way to lazy to cook for themselfs (sic).”

As I have repeatedly noted, in the immigration reform business, you can never say you have heard it all.

It’s good to hear one of the nation’s most popular broadcasters pick up on the radical numbers being shoved down our throats by the Senate, namely the 100-200 million legal immigrants to be admitted over the next two decades. The MSM has been jabbering about “jobs Americans won’t do” and amnesty for 10 million illegals (probably more like 20-30 million), while the nation-busting provisions of essentially opening the borders via legal immigration have been largely ignored [ Rush Limbaugh Transcript: Senate "Compromise" Bill Must Change, Or This Country Will Change Forever, 5/16/06]

In the Hagel-Martinez compromise bill, amnesty would be granted to about ten million illegals (story). That’s not the problem. The real growth in the immigrant population would come later. As part of the bill, the annual flow of legal immigrants allowed into the U.S. would more than double to more than two million annually. In addition, the guest-worker program in the bill would bring in 325,000 new workers annually who could later apply for citizenship. That population would grow exponentially from there because the millions of new citizens would be permitted to bring along their extended families.

Rush also interviewed the Vice President yesterday and brought up the shocking numbers. The response was typically political at best.

RUSH: Well, let’s talk about what’s going on in the Senate. There are a number of bills there. The compromise bill we’re being told is Hagel-Martinez, two Republicans proposing this bill. Robert Rector at Heritage and Senator Sessions, who I know you respect, both did joint analyses of this bill and what they project, using conservative estimates, is anywhere from over the next 20 years 110 to 217 million legal immigrants entering the country and illegals as part of that number being granted legal status. What is the public policy purpose for doing that in these kinds of numbers?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I haven’t seen their analysis, Rush, and at this point, of course, what you have in the House bill is specifically a border-enforcement bill. What you’ve got in the Senate bill is a bill that goes after border enforcement but also you’ve got Hagel-Martinez and there’s Kennedy-McCain. There are a lot of proposals kicking around. The Senate has not finalized its package yet so we don’t know what’s going to come out of the conference. Obviously we’re going to want to look at it very carefully to make sure it does achieve the objectives the president’s talked about.

Translation of Mr. Cheney: Don’t worry your little radio head about these discomforting facts, Rush. We business and government elites have a better idea for running this geographical zone formerly known as America, with less bothersome representative government and borders. The integrated North American Community will be a big improvement, really.

Reader Ryan Kennedy writes:

Jonah Goldberg’s latest:

There’s a reason why the drug war and illegal immigration have similar scripts, even though the actors reading the lines change.

The overwhelming majority of drugs entering this country cross the U.S.-Mexican border. Indeed, in the 1990s, to the extent that the debate over building a wall along the border got any traction, it stemmed from the war on drugs, not a war on illegal immigration. The steel fence constructed between San Diego and Tijuana - which works quite well, by the way - was built to stop drug traffickers, not gardeners.
[ What if Mexicans were crack? May 17, 2006 by Jonah Goldberg]

This one is easy to slap-down. Coincidently enough, exactly one year ago, Mark Reed, a former INS senior exec, gave testimony before the Senate:

Most jaw-dropping excerpt:

“Almost twenty years ago President Bush declared the War on Drugs. I was present at a high level strategy meeting between representatives of Federal Law Enforcement, DOD, and the State Department regarding the urgency of sealing the Mexican border to stop drug smuggling. When DOD stated that they were capable of detecting and interdicting any intrusion, but could not distinguish between groups of migrants from drug smugglers until interdiction, the dialogue became difficult. When DOD refused to entertain the idea that they should only detain drug smugglers upon interdiction, the meeting was abruptly terminated. The safety valve that illegal immigration provided toward the stability of Mexico seemed to be a more compelling national security priority than drug smuggling.”
[Testimony of Mark Reed, Border Management Strategies, LLC ]