THE DAILY BLADE: The Senate Goes Out Of Its Way To Create Jobs That Americans Won’t Do
A recent Wall Street Journal editorial heaps praise on Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Larry Craig (R-ID) - yes, he’s still hanging around, even after being publicly admonished by the Senate ethics committee in February over his public bathroom habits (second item) - for co-sponsoring the Emergency Agriculture Relief Act, a bill that would “allow illegal farm workers who are already here to receive temporary resident status (for five years) if they pay a fine, pass a background check and meet other requirements” and “would also reform the H-2A program now in place for foreign farm workers … [to] streamline the process and remove bureaucratic hurdles” so as to more quickly funnel illegal farm workers from the U.S. side of the Mexican border straight into fields and orchards nationwide.
Here’s the kicker: The Journal sees nothing wrong with the Senate Appropriations Committee attaching this illegal immigration amnesty bill to a “must-pass War Supplemental bill.”
“There is an unwritten rule in Congress that the appropriations process should not be used to pass major legislation,” protests Ira Mehlman, media director of Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in Townhall.com column:
And when the legislation gets tacked on to not just any old appropriations bill, but an emergency supplemental appropriations bill to fund our servicemen and women fighting in Iraq, one can assume that the most vital national interests hang in the balance.
What were the compelling interests that led the august Senate Appropriations Committee to include major legislation as part of the military spending bill on Thursday? Amnesty for illegal aliens, and lots of new foreign workers for powerful business interests.
In one afternoon, the Appropriations Committee approved amnesty for 1.35 million illegal alien agricultural workers, and made available an additional 650,000 skilled and unskilled foreign guest workers over the next three years. That’s 2 million new, or newly legalized, foreign workers entering our labor force over the next three years – even as our economy has been losing jobs.
The 2 million figure does not include the dependents of the amnesty recipients or new workers who could be admitted under existing agricultural guest worker programs.
The Journal notes that under the streamlined H-2A program, “Growers would still be required to advertise for domestic workers and hire anyone who's available.” But Mehlman counters: “Just to be extra sure that the agriculture industry will get their workers as cheaply as possible, Sen. Feinstein threw in a provision that freezes wages for these farm workers at 2007 levels.”
In other words, The Journal is applauding a bill crafted by our elected representatives to create jobs that pay such low wages only illegal aliens can afford to take them. When farmers are getting record prices for their crops - not to mention billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidies – why can’t they afford to pay American workers a decent wage to pick or harvest their crops?
Happy Birthday Brooklyn Bridge!
On May 24th, the Brooklyn Bridge is 125 years old. The Associated Press notes that the beloved landmark “remains a powerful symbol of engineering might and imagination, and a revered fixture in the landscape of the nation's largest city”:
“It's an icon for not only New York, but for America,” said Brooklyn's official historian, Ron Schweiger.
The 6,000-foot-long landmark is one of the nation's oldest suspension bridges and among its most treasured. …
The Brooklyn Bridge is roughly six times as long as the biggest earlier bridge of its type, and its Gothic-arched stone towers and web of steel cables are technically impressive even by today's standards, he said.
Building the bridge took 13 years, cost $15 million and claimed several lives, including that of its celebrated designer, John Roebling. He succumbed to an infection after being hurt while looking over the site. His son, Washington Roebling, took over the project. …
The bridge now carries about 126,000 cars per day, at the city's last count in 2006, and is used by countless cyclists and pedestrians. It has been refurbished repeatedly, and some parts have been strengthened. But the towers, main cables and main beams are original.
In the weeks after the September 11, 2001 terror attack on the World Trade Center, the Brooklyn Bridge was closed to all traffic except for emergency vehicles. Pedestrians and bicyclists were still allowed to cross the bridge, however. In 2003, the federal government got wind of an al-Qaeda plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge masterminded by none other than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM). Frankly, The Stiletto hasn’t lost any sleep over his waterboarding.
Editorial Note: The Website NewYorkology lists all the birthday-related events scheduled during Memorial Day week-end.
Just Who Are You Calling Low Class?
Barack Obama, the man who would be our president, thinks millions of Americans are “bitter.” Michelle Obama, the woman who would be our first lady, repeatedly says Americans are “ignorant,” “isolated” and that success is “always just quite out of reach” (translation: we’re all a bunch of miserable failures). So when Americans take umbrage at being repeatedly insulted and call Michelle Obama on her stump speech remarks, the man who would be our president calls us “low class.” And people wonder why rural, small town and working class Americans won’t vote for him?
The WSJ just got a new editor, after all. Yet they published an editorial today by Fred Thompson ... then again, they have exponentially more favorable coverage of Obama.
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