This article was originally about Lou Dobbs & the Hispanic Caucus... but if people want to talk immigration let me just say that I have a hard time taking anyone seriously when I hear them ranting and raving about the threat posed by illegal immigration.

I don't understand how some people can be so thick.

This country has labor shortages. Other countries have surplus labor. Those laborers come here to work in jobs WE BENEFIT FROM that service our own interests. The market for low-income manual labor is not going to go away. Prohibition only drives it underground and makes the environment these HUMAN BEINGS have to exist in deplorably violent and oppressive.

Illegal immigrants DO NOT cost this country money... only insofar as we spend millions policing a border in the dumbest most inefficient and expensive way possible. Increase the quotas on immigrants from Mexico, and you won't have to spend this money.

Illegal immigrants pay payroll taxes; they do not use the civil services provided by said taxes because they are afraid they will be caught and deported. Overall, (by far) illegal immigrants represent a net revenue gain to this country... a gain that would be even larger if we did away with the cost of policing the "problem," and simply let common sense and market economics run their course.

I think you'll find a lot of the people in charge, i.e. the business lobby (not the ignorant bigots opposed to immigration merely on racial grounds), seek to maintain the status quo because it provides a more easily exploited labor pool. If someone is here illegally, they are going to be reluctant to complain about human rights abuses, violations of US Labor Laws, workplace discrimination, Health violations, etc.

Excellent article... despite Brian Williams' superficial coolness, I'd imagine that weasel is starting to get a bit nervous. With his credibility cracking like an eggshell, his viewship will decline. If his audience goes in the tank will he have to take a pay cut? The horror. I'm sure the Heritage Foundation, or the Federalist Society will hire him to do PR.

I have a question though. Exactly what laws may the Pentagon or the news media have broken here by employing conflicted analysts, presented as unbiased, independent sources? Is there an actual law against this? It seems it might be contrary to policy, but as we've seen over the last 8 years, policy is highly malleable to the ends the military-industrial war machine seeks.

It clearly seems to be a massive fraud put over on the American Taxpayer, but good luck getting Taxpayer Standing to challenge it anywhere in the U.S., after 8 years of a Bush-appointed judiciary. Maybe somewhere in the 9th Circuit.

I could see them sending Nino Scalia to personally slit the throat of any 9th Circuit Judge denying the gov'ts motion to dismiss.

I like this gem:

[Congress has placed specific restrictions in its annual appropriation bills every year since 1951.] According to those restrictions, "No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress."

Seems to me that this clause has probably been violated so often since 1951 that no one even notices it's there anymore. Just more of the legal mumbo-jumbo in those complicated law thingies. Certainly no one with a Pentagon-level-IQ could be expected to have to READ and UNDERSTAND all that liberal hippy crap.

The surprisingly quick collapse of the earlier move to amend FISA made me suspicious. After almost 8 years of getting whatever they wanted, did anyone really suspect the Bush Administration would just drop it all the first time anyone stood up to them?

They'll try again, as far away from the prying eyes of the general public as possible.

I don't really think they are concerned about the Dems winning out and getting the warrantless power in the fall, although I did suspect that at one time. Telecom immunity is what matters here; that's where the big money to fund the PAA is coming from.

It works in so many ways. The Economic Spending Surge...

Apparently with this administration, when something isn't working out the way you planned, that means you need to double down. You're idea couldn't possibly have been ill-advised in the first place; the peons just aren't working hard enough to implement it. We just aren't spending enough!

Kind of like Stalin blaming the slow progress of his 5-year plan on the "wealthy peasants." Plunder them and leave them to starve.

"Barely Delaying the Great Inevitable American Econo-Douche"

(remember Schumpeter's definition of douche)

You've been able to electonically hire a hooker for sex and then kill her in any number of ways since late 2001, when Grand Theft Auto III came out. (My favorite was to let her walk a dozen yards away, then hurl a hand grenade at her... KABOOM!)

I'm surprised Miss Clark-Flory would bring this up now, with all the redundant shock that was displayed when it originally came out, then in 2002 when GTA: Vice City came out, and 2004 when GTA: San Andreas came out. She doesn't look that old and and out-of-touch, but I guess when you're short on ideas and need to grind out a column, cobbling one together on the pop-culture phenomenon du jour with the standard, self-righteous tone perfected by groups like Focus on the Family, provides a quick way to fill a couple pages.