Hot Air » Blog Archive » Infiltrating Yearly Kos: Tinfoil hats spotted

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Infiltrating Yearly Kos: Tinfoil hats spotted

Just when Conservative bloggers are trying to think of something to write about, the Kos kids come through.

So good, it's just gotta be fattening.

Somehow, I ended up on a mailing list where I get fund raising letters from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). I don't know how I got on the list, and most of their e-mails end up getting caught by my spam blocker, where I generally happily delete them. Occasionally, I'll report them for spam, but I kinda feel sorry for them and occasionally I'll read them for a laugh.

Today, I got a personal note from Representative Jack Murtha (D-Pennsylvania). Now most of you should be well aware that Murtha is a critic of the war in Iraq, and has recently shown his incredible military planning skills in suggesting that we pull our troops out of Iraq and deploy them on missions in the Middle East from a base in Okinawa, thus making their mission impossible and alienating yet another of our allies in the GWOT.

This guy's a genius. I just had to read his note. I mean, it's only polite, since he took the time to write.

There's a screen shot up above so you can see I'm not making this up.

Nice picture, Jack. Apparently, the "senior citizen in mid-rant" look has been selected as a major plus in Democrat fund-raising this year. It's gotta be all the rage with the crucial AARP/KOS kids caucus.

Let's read the text of the letter, shall we?

Dear Nicholas,

Well, it's nice that we're on a first name basis.

To all the Republicans who sit in their air-conditioned offices and talk of the courage it takes for them to keep young kids in harm's way - I say enough. Karl Rove talking about "cutting and running" while he sits on his big, fat backside-saying "stay the course." I say enough! That's not a plan! We've got to have a new direction, and it's clear we need more Democrats in Congress to get that done.

For starters, my office isn't air-conditioned, but it does have a fan. Maybe you think that's a bad thing, Jack. I think it's important to keep fighting the GWOT, though, so I'm sure you're saying "enough" to me. I would take exception to referring to our military as "kids", however, since they are men and women, and I think you owe them a bit more respect. As for Karl's "big, fat backside", well, you don't look all that svelte yourself, Congressman. Pot, I'd like you to meet Kettle.

No matter how obvious the mistakes in Iraq become, or how many Americans get fed up, Republicans in Congress and the White House will label you a traitor to your
country if you stand up and question them.

No, they haven't. I haven't heard anyone who's a Republican in an elected position call anyone a traitor. You might want to get those voices in your head looked at.

Me, however, I'll call you a traitor. I don't do so because you're standing up and questioning them. I do it because you're actively attempting to destroy our war effort. But I'm not elected to anything. I'm just a guy with a blog.

I'm not naïve enough to think it won't be an issue in the election year but
accusing people of being unpatriotic cheats good Americans out of any chance for
a real resolution to the mess in Iraq. And while this issue of war is neither a
Democratic nor a Republican one, the need for new leadership in the House is
clearly an issue.

Golly, you're right! Putting Pelosi in charge is a sure-fire way to solve our problems in the Middle East. Are you sure you're not just a little bit naïve?

While the Republicans have been busy name calling, the situation in Iraq has
only gotten worse. The insurgency has grown exponentially. IED attacks, where
our troops are sitting ducks for an enemy they can't even see, have increased
steadily. And the patience of the American people for this flawed policy is
running out.

The situation in Iraq? Zarkman's dead, a constitutionally-elected government is in place, local military and police are taking more responsibility every day, and oh yeah, they haven't flown any more planes into buildings over here. This is worse? Only for the Democrats.

We need to put an end to these outrageous attacks on people who disagree
with Bush and his Rubber Stamp Republican Congress's "sit and watch" plan
for Iraq. My colleagues in the House Democratic leadership are so committed
to winning a Democratic majority that they have offered to match all
contributions that come in from before midnight on June 30th.

We need to put an end to outrageous attacks, all right. How about we start with yours?

With a Democratic majority, we would have an honest debate about the war. The
American people's concerns and opposition would be recognized.

So, we haven't had an honest debate so far? I've been telling the truth. Are you finally admitting that you haven't?

Double Your Impact Now With a Matched Gift and Help Win a Democratic Majority.

Last week, during the House floor debate, I hoped the Republicans would
have realized that the majority of the American people do not support this war.
I hoped that they would have recognized that the American people need more from
their government than a Republican Congress that asks no questions and demands
no answers. But that didn't happen, and it's clear we need a Democratic majority
to chart a new course.

When I offered a concrete plan to get our troops out of harm's way, where they
have become the target, I didn't expect every member of Congress or every
candidate to agree with my specific proposal in this debate. But I did expect
them to acknowledge that there is more to be done than sitting and watching.

Congressman, your "concrete plan" was to station our troops so that in order to perform their missions, they would have to fly 5000 miles through Chinese and Iranian airspace to get to their destinations. Nobody acknowleged it because it was crazy. People have a lot of respect for your service back when you had some honor, and I don't think they wanted to humilate you in public. They were trying to be nice.

Geeze, some guys can't take a hint.

Double Your Impact Now With a Matched Gift and Help Win a Democratic Majority.

The single most important thing you can do right now as a supporter of the
DCCC is make a contribution.

Except that I'm not a supporter. I think I'll hang on to my money, thank you. Or, just maybe, I'll write a check to the RNC. Thank you so much for helping me to make my decision.

Thank you for all your help, it's so important.

No problem. Now, get those voices checked out, OK?

Sincerely, Jack MurthaMember of Congress, Pennsylvania's 12th District

P.S. I hope you will join me in my fight. Our candidates have to be able to
fight back against the Rove Machine's traitor talk in order to start getting
Congress to move towards finding real solutions. We need a Democratic majority
to change the direction in Iraq. Contribute before midnight on June
30th and your contribution will be matched, doubling your impact towards winning
a Democratic majority.

Let's see, the direction in Iraq is good - Zarkman's dead, new government, Iraqui getting stronger, etc. Electing Democrats will change this direction. Who's side are you on, Congressman?

Anyways, thanks for making my case for me.

A quick report on last week's BCRC meeting

I had the pleasure of seeing Chief Art Acevedo of the California Highway Patrol give a brief talk at last week's meeting. He's acting, in his private capacity, as an advisor of some sort on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign, and came to fly cover for the Gov's immigration policy. His main arguments were that local law enforcement simply doesn't have the resources to handle the Federal Responsibilies in the area of rounding up illegal immigrants and shipping them home.

He also expressed quite rightly the fact that the Democrat-Liberal-Media complex is using the immigration issue to cast Republicans as racist. This is, as I have noted before, a key part of their strategy to drive the Latino vote deeper into the Liberal Plantation.

Needless to say, the guy caught a lot of flak. Many of the members of the BCRC are quite deeply in the nativist camp. They aren't seeing the big picture. As I pointed out to several members after the meeting, while it's important to protect and enforce our borders, and illegals are costing us money and breaking our laws and violating our sovereignty, the only thing that really matters to me is not having my city go up in a nuclear fireball. In order to accomplish this, I strongly believe that we need to elect Republicans. Regardless of how they wish to attack this issue, we need to win the GWOT. None of them had an answer for this.

I'll be backing Arnold, even if he isn't as pure on the immigration issue as I might like him to be.

End of story.

Roll the Dice of Topicality

I'm in the home-stretch of my PMP studies, and haven't written much lately, so I figured I should write something. The muse is hitting me today, for some reason. But, the backlog of things I want to write about is rather extensive, so I have to resort to my time-tested manner of choosing a subject: rolling the twenty-sided Die of Topicality.

Here we go...

[Come on, "Kinky Sex"!]

Damn. "Illegal Immigration." Well, the die has spoken.

I gotta tell you, I'm sick of this subject. However, I've observed that once I've said my piece, there's really nothing left to be said. So, maybe if I grit my teeth and get this article written, everyone will read it, realize how silly everyone is being, and we can put this matter to rest once and for all.

The first thing we must do is get some facts straight. Here's the facts as I see 'em:

• An "Immigrant" is someone who came from this country from somewhere else.


• An "Illegal Immigrant" is an immigrant who came here illegally. The word "Illegal" is an adjective describing the word "Immigrant". It is not referring to the person, but the status of their entry into the country.


• The United States is a sovereign nation. As such, it has the right and obligation, under international laws and customs dating back to the dawn of civilization, to define, maintain and protect its borders, as well as to control migration through its borders. Sovereign nations also get to create laws to govern those within their borders.


• By definition, an illegal immigrant has entered and resides in a sovereign nation in violation of its laws.


• It is impossible to determine the legal status of an individual immigrant by looking at him or her. It requires an examination of documents, which may or may not be carried on the individual.


• Most of us don't carry these documents on a dialy basis. For instance, my passport is locked up in a drawer somewhere, as is my Birth Certificate. When I leave the house, I may or may not carry my driver's license. If I don't plan to drive anywhere, I am completely within my rights (as I choose to define them) not to carry any documents.


• Illegal immigrants take jobs. Due to their status, they take jobs at a price lower than that which legal citizens and immigrants take them, due to minimum wage and other concerns.


• Since illigal immigrants take jobs cheaper than others, they drive the price for those jobs lower, This creates a category of jobs often referred to as "jobs Americans are unwilling to do".


• If those jobs paid better, Americans (and legal immigrants) would do them. For instance, I'd mow your lawn if you'd pay me $100 to do it. I won't do it if you'll only pay me $5.


• Letting people break the law is a bad thing. Failure to enforce laws simply engenders disrespect towards the rule of law, and since this is what our civilization is based on, the defense of civilization requires the enforcement of the civilization's laws.


• The United States is a nation at war against forces which seek our destruction. This is called the "Global War on Terror", or the GWOT.


• Winning this GWOT is the only thing that really matters right now.


• Democrats will not win this war. Only by keeping Democrats out of power will we win this war.


• Electing Republicans is the only proven way to keep Democrats out of power.


• Politicians, barring any suicidal bout of honorable behavior, will by and large do only those things which contribute to the maintainance and growth of their power. This is especially true in an election year.


• The vast majority of the Republican poiticians are reluctant to do much about this issue. They see this issue as a loser. They see this issue as one which drives Latinos deeper into the Democrat camp.


• Democrats are also unwilling to do anything meaningful about this issue, but wish to keep it alive because they believe the Republicans are right. That is, they believe this issue is a lose for Republicans.

For the sake of argument, let's assume the following:

• Most illegal immigrants are law-abiding folks, with the notable exception being that their very act of being here is illegal. By this I mean that they aren't necessarily breaking other laws. They aren't necessarily dealing drugs, for instance.


• While many Americans are passionate about this issue, the vast majority are not. That is to say that while every caller to your favorite talk radio station is virtually foaming with anger over this issue, the polls show that the greatest portion of the electorate really doesn't care. They like $8 car washes and cheap labor around the house. With your kind permission, I'll assume this is correct, and that the numbers of people who are passionately against illegal immigration are roughly matched in numbers by their counterparts on the other side of the issue. One side calls talk radio shows, the other side marches and burns American flags.

With all that said, a few conclusions can be made. The first is that we need to enforce our laws. In doing so, we protect our borders, which is a responsibility of any sovereign power. But, laws can be changed, and at any rate, the laws should suit the needs of the country. That is to say, if we find it beneficial, or even convenient, to alter the laws, this is within our power. However, these laws are created by our elected representatives, who are only likely to do so if they see it as a means to re-election. It would appear that the President and the Senate Republicans believe the law should make some provision to allow those illegal immigrants already here to remain. The House Republicans believe that the status of illegal immigrants should not be changed. Both are, I believe, responding to where they think the electorate is at this time. The Democrats, on the other hand, really don't want any laws passed at all, but rather want to keep the debate going, because they see this as a wedge issue driving the Republican base apart during an election year. They think that by keeping this issue alive, they can recapture the House of Representatives and improve their margin in the Senate.

The second conlusion we can make is that illegal immigrants adversely affect the jobs situation at the lowest rungs of the employment ladder. This results in legal immigrants and citizens without higher-level job skills being unable to find entry-level manual labor jobs. This is a huge problem, since people who can't find jobs make claims against the public either through our social welfare programs, or through crime. The illegal immigrants would simply go home, but the people here legally have no such choice. The only way to remedy this is to force the wages of illegals up to the level that legals would be able to work at, or to force the illegals to leave.

This leads to the third conclusion I wish to make, which is that removing the illegal immigrants is an almost impossible prospect. Estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in this country are varied, but the mean appears to be somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve million people, spread throughout the nation, but largely concentrated in the Southwest. I say almost impossible, because if could be done, but only if we had the will to do so. For starters, we'd have to have a serious program of deporting illegals when they are found. Assuming such a process would require Due Process, you can do some simple math to see that the costs of such an action would be quite high. Let's say that processing an illegal immigrant cost us $1000 to cover the cost of law enforcement on a per capita basis, housing the arrested illegal immigrant, providing a legal hearing, and a bus ride to the border. Multiply this by 12 million people and you have a price tag of about $12 billion dollars. That may be money well-spent, but it won't come close to recouping the cost of letting them remain. The President and the Senate Republicans won't go for this solution anyways, so it's a moot point.

So, if we don't make them leave, how about if we force their wages up so that they are competing on an even footing with legal residents? To do this, we pretty much need to change the law to allow them to stay, legalize their status, and create an environment where illegal immigrants can't be exploited as they are today. This is what the talk radio set is calling "Amnesty". The House Republicans won't go for this, and so it won't happen.

My final conclusion is this: we have to let this issue drop. We are at an impasse. No solution can be found which is acceptable to both sides of the Republican divide. Continued debate on this issue will only divide the base, which is beneficial to the Democrats. Anything which is beneficial to Democrats will assist them in getting more of their numbers elected in the Fall. If more Democrats get elected, we lose the Global War on Terror. If we lose the GWOT, we're all dead.

It's that simple. My preferred solution, enforce the border and force wages for illegals to a standard level so that legal immigrants and citizens will be preferred for those jobs, will result in Democratic gains in the government. As does any other possible solution.

Let the matter drop.

TheStar.com - Take a good look at what's going on

Here's an interesting opinion piece from the Toronto Star: TheStar.com - Take a good look at what's going on

You know, the thing that occurs to me, and that was pointed out quite well on Dennis Praeger's how this morning, is, "Why Canada?" Canada has had almost nothing to do with the GWOT. They helped (and are still helping) in Afghanistan, but have been solidly against us in Iraq, and I'm pretty sure they're not harboring Danish cartoonists. So, what's got the Islamofacists panties in a bunch?

The sad fact is that Canada is an extremely tolerant western nation, and that's what the mullahs want destroyed. Tolerance is bad for muslim fanatics. Western is, too. So, Canada, a nation that has bent over backwards to take the Palestinian side against Isreal, is targetted for terror. Wake up, Canada! With friends like these, you don't need enemies.

Oh, and I'll note, the NSA monitoring and datamining operations that everyone in this country is up in arms about is probably what saved the day for Canada. Just thought I'd point that out.

TheStar.com - Take a good look at what's going on

Here's an interesting opinion piece from the Toronto Star: TheStar.com - Take a good look at what's going on

You know, the thing that occurs to me, and that was pointed out quite well on Dennis Praeger's how this morning, is, "Why Canada?" Canada has had almost nothing to do with the GWOT. They helped (and are still helping) in Afghanistan, but have been solidly against us in Iraq, and I'm pretty sure they're not harboring Danish cartoonists. So, what's got the Islamofacists panties in a bunch?

The sad fact is that Canada is an extremely tolerant western nation, and that's what the mullahs want destroyed. Tolerance is bad for muslim fanatics. Western is, too. So, Canada, a nation that has bent over backwards to take the Palestinian side against Isreal, is targetted for terror. Wake up, Canada! With friends like these, you don't need enemies.

Oh, and I'll note, the NSA monitoring and datamining operations that everyone in this country is up in arms about is probably what saved the day for Canada. Just thought I'd point that out.

Recruiting Links for the Kings Of Chaos crew

Joey
John
Soni
Nick
Chad
Adam
Gene
Josh
Ryan
Kurt - Seems to have gone inactive
Joe
Kit
Danny

If you don't know what Kings of Chaos is, don't worry about it. This is just temporary until the team comes up with a web page to post this on.

Oklahoma Full Auto Shoot - Google Video

Oklahoma Full Auto Shoot - Google Video

Nothing makes for family bonding like when your dad let's you play with his .50 Cal.

And, kids, this is a big part of the reason why we don't let you drive the family car onto the firing range. I don't care if all the cool kids do it.