Jun 01 2007
Noonan’s Nonsense
Peggy Noonan is now blaming Bush for the far right’s three years of attacking moderates and attacking Bush on issues ranging from Miers, to Dubai Ports (another grand example of nativism which cost us cargo container inspection machines across the globe – paid for by our allies in the UAE) and now immigration reform:
President Bush has torn the conservative coalition asunder.
Sorry Peggy, but those who used the word RINO and who would keep the status quo on immigration at any cost (and with lots and lots of vitriol added in) are the ones who tore the conservative coalition apart. Don’t blame Bush. He didn’t accuse Miers of being a closet abortion rights activist, based on the muttering of one David Fromm who apparently had a personal vendetta against Miers. Bush did not go overboard when he allowed a perfectly legtimate business acquisition go forward simpy because the acquiring company was in the Middle East. A country that provides security and port services to our Navy and Marines in one of our largest overseas ports.
And Bush is not the one who will tank a bill that would finally allow us to deport immigrants who commit crimes (no – you cannot do that now since the law doesn’t allow it – which is why the cries to enforce the laws on the books are so naive). Those of us who support the guest worker program have been pilloried, while the far right goes on a hysterical tear claiming we are for open borders (no one is) and voting rights for aliens (no one is). And here is the essence of the insanity from the immigration hypochondriacs. While the Bill we want passed will finally allow us to remove the violent criminal immigrants (legal and illegal) from our streets, it is being held hostage by people who want more than a fine and back taxes from honest hard working people. Yep, that’s right. The bizarre logic on the right is it is beter to let the criminals roam around our streets so we can meet out more punishment on those fixing houses, doing women’s hair, landscaping, watching our children. When confronted with this cold, objective picture the far right goes on an even larger rampage. Don’t believe me? Watch the comments on this post and others.
Right now the far right has lost all credibility. I know droves of conservatives who are turning off talk radio. They can’t take the vitriol and self aggrandizing anymore. Radio microphones do not make one omnipotent. I can predict that the talking heads are going to see a huge drop off in loyal listeners. The fawning fans will still be there in some numbers, but the critical thinkers will have moved on. When a group of people would allow violent criminals even a month more in this country because the fines and penalties for the workers who toil beside us day in and day out is not a severe as they wanted then their priorities are screwed up. And yes, they are NOT doing what is right for America. Anytime we decide to let crime fester we are not doing right for America.
So Peggy, don’t blame Bush. He is still making sense. He would compromise with Dems to secure the border, get rid of criminal aliens and make it easier to find and detect terrorists. It is the far right who would throw all this away for some extra pound of flesh. Just like some liberals want to throw away the NSA monitoring program to get a pound of flesh from Bush. Peggy says Bush broke with them. I am here to say loudly I have broke with them too.
Update: Read more about dumb far right tricks. When you can be counted on to screw things up, then you cannot be counted on to govern well. Clearly the conservative movement that is aligned now repeatedly against Bush is out of gas. Their patience is exhausted and they are tired of compromise because it delays the coming of their perfect world. A vision they did not realize was not shared by all in every detail.
Cato
As I clearly stated in the example I was using they were not actual numbers but only an illustration example..
There are many studies out there that show that the unskilled labor market is in fact a “loss leader” of labor cost reduction v social cost impact.
Just a case of someone taking advantage of someone else having their ox get gored. But then the person taking advantage has to balance if their tax payments to support that social cost contribution from their profits exceeds their labor cost savings.
I submit that that is clearly not the current price point.
If it ever reaches it then this whole situation will go ballistic.
FE:
The point of my post was simple, if you don’t assume that I am talking strictly about you or even about this website only.
For seven long years, I’ve watched the plague known as Bush Derangement Syndrome spread and metastasize. I’ve seen President Bush pilloried for everything bad whether from the hand of Man or the hand of God. People on the Left have been doing this for years. People on the Right (some, anyway) started doing it with the Harriet Miers affair and have been doing it since. If Peggy Noonan is now blaming President Bush because the Right is starting to come apart because some on the Right are so angry about issues that they don’t even care what putridness comes out of their mouths, while others on the Right have begun to lose respect for people in the first group, even if they too are angry about the same things, then I have lost respect for Peggy Noonan. President Bush is not America’s Puppetmaster and is not to blame if people start flying off the handle.
My point wasn’t to blast So-and-S0 as a hardliner or as a “my way or the highway” type.
My point wasn’t to suggest (as Linda Chavez did, rightly or wrongly) that however poorly this latest immigration bill has been handled, some of the anti-amnesty anger is coming from people who express anger not about our government being cavalier about enforcing existing law, but about having to put up with those filthy Mexicans and their filthy language.
My point was this: If somebody opens his mouth to blame President Bush, there is a 95% chance that I will immediately stop listening. That was my point. If the Left spends seven years crying wolf about how “Chimpy Shrub McBushitlerburton” is cancelling the Bill of Rights and turning America into a theocratic dictatorship, I’m not suddenly going to perk up and listen just because some on the Right have started in about how “El Presidentissimo Jorge Boooooooooosh” is making a deal with Mexico to trade in the dollar for the Amero and to have America cancelled.
Stevevvs
You missed one of the biggest issues due to no fault of your own.
It is the H1-L visa which addresses employees of a foreign subsidiary or entity.
Lets say Bill Gates has all those legacy employees who got stock options at the birth of the company and now are multi millionaires working coding desks.
He is having to pay the mid baby boomers 70K a year pay plus dividends to get their work out of them.
On the other hand he can either farm out (outsourcing) or bring in someone from MS India or Brazil or Bali who has the same skills for 22k per year plus 17k per diem to do the same job as a replacement or and additional staff member rather than hiring another local at 60k starting wages.
Oh and this person has no citizenship path, has to stay with the same company, can’t be offered a job advancement or promotion during the visa duration. They are locked into the one job they had at the beginning of the visa, and in most cases are only allowed to bring themselves and not their family without a chance of advancement and it is limited to 2 years if I remember correctly.
Then they are sent home and the next crop is harvested. Even though you still have the subsidiary worker now back home and still working for you.
Stevevvs
The other interesting point is that all the other visas have specific caps on numbers, but the H1-L visa has no caps unless I have missed them.
This is the semi truck loophole that many have been driving through for a long time.
Almost as profitable as the yen carry trade.
Merlin: Hi, I actually work with Visa IT candidates, so I know a bit about it.
I think it is correctly called a “L-1” visa; those people can bring their families, you are correct; I also was under the impression it was open ended; but the way it really works, is that foreign workers can only get it, if they work for a company that has it’s HQ in the US, and a foreign subsidiary, then they can come to the US, IF they work only for the same company! The loophole is though, that another company, can sponsor them for an H-1B, and steal them away!
Sorry, can’t answer your question, wish I could!
Stevevvs: the only way, LEGALLY you can still be here, is that you converted your H-1B into a Green Card, and then citizenship, but your point is made!
Hello AJ:
I stopped reading the Corner during Harriet Myers debacle (you are so right about Frum); stopped listening to Sean Hannity (his constant claim that he is a “Reagan conservative†drives me crazy – how come he has no problem over Reagan’s amnesty bill?) with his ridiculous outrage over Dubai port deal; now it hurts me even to think of turning off Rush Limbaugh. I have been such a loyal listener, not even missing a day: always making it a point to listen to him on my i-pod coming back home from work. Yesterday was the first day I did not listen. It comforts me to know that I am not the only one thinking that way. You have been my voice and a very eloquent one at that. Thank you very much for keeping me sane.
I am an immigrant (from India) myself. I came here as a student (single mother with a 10-year old son). I had to wait 10 long years (during which time I got my Ph.D – yes this yahoo has a Ph.D – and a job in one of the colleges in NY), paid thousands of dollars, before I got my green card and after another 5 years got my citizenship. My son got his green card after another 10 long years. So, I will be extremely angry if people, who got here illegally, get their citizenship automatically. But I do not see that in this bill. We let criminals, with a worse crime than sneaking inside this country, to lead a normal life after an appropriate punishment. There are so many legal immigrants who have overstayed here and have become law-breakers. Why is it so hard for some conservatives to accept a humane punishment for these law-breakers that would punish them but not their daughters and sons? You describe their “bizarre logic†very well. Regarding the comments I read here, pointing out the anti-American attitudes of these illegal immigrants, have these people not seen the anti-war protests by our citizens? I have seen legal immigrants from India and other countries bash American culture and touting their own superiority – I have always ended their rant by asking: what is stopping you from going back? You can find bad apples anywhere! I can only conclude that half of us are seeing a glass half-full and the others are seeing half-empty. Apart from feeling that it is the right step to take, I think it is also advantageous for us conservatives to see it half-full, get a political majority and then fill it up with our own ideas!
MMYTHILI: I’m seriously glad you stopped by, I don’t agree with everything you said, but it’s good to get your perspective!
I work with Indian’s everyday by the way, I’m an IT recruiter!
I think, our only point is, with this Bill, we don’t Trust, what we have seen of it, to be a serious enforcement of preventing further ILLEGALS coming in, and of appropriately punishing the lawbreakers that are already here!
I know what you went thru for your citizenship and GC, my wife and stepdaughter have gone thru it too!
There, we agree!
But then again, we’re not worried about people like you, or my wife!
It’s the ILLEGALS, who are going to break the SSA, and get off scott free from any form of punishment/fine, etc., by this bill, that concerns us.
We KNOW that’s true, because Teddy Kennedy is sponsoring this bill; that means, it’s the absolute worst bill possible, and the “conservatives” who are supporting it, are being fulled, willfully, or ignorantly, by it!
AJ, I can not understand the logic behind your statements. First of all, the whole uproar over this immigration bill was totally aimed at the contents of the bill itself, this wasn’t even his bill, he didn’t write it. It wasn’t shifted to President Bush until he jumped the shark and started attacking his own party over what is in the bill. Now he’s made himself fair game for critcism of his opinion.
Why do you keep saying the far right wants it all their way? First, the far right is getting NOTHING they want in this bill, the far left is getting EVERYTHING they want. Who is refusing to compromise? Second, this bill is opposed by a same or HIGHER percentage of democrats AND independents than republicans and you are athunderously silent about that. ?? Obviously, when a bill has no majority of support in any demographic, it is not the fault of the FAR anything! But democrat pols will try to make it look that way.
Also you mentioned those who “would keep the status quo on immigration at any cost”. This debate is not about immigration, it is about ILLEGAL immigration. Why does that one word seem to never pass your lips? And we don’t want the status quo, we want it stopped.
And this statement is absolutely stunning: “While the Bill we want passed will finally allow us to remove the violent criminal immigrants (legal and illegal) from our streets…” WWHHHAAATT in the living blazes are you talking about. It’s at this poing that I visualized you looking at this bill in a mirror and not noticing that the values are reversed. We have laws to deport people simply on being here illegally, let alone criminals. And we do routinely deport illegal aliens. There is a facility here in San Diego called the Corrections Corporation of America facility (CCA) in our daily work jargon, that deports people for varied reasons every day. The effect of the bill would be to stop deportations altogether. Your statement is exactly the opposite of reality! The bill actually has made allocations for gang members! There are over 30,000 members of MS 13 in this country spread all over. That is just one gang. In LA alone the numbers are estimated to be between 40 and 60 thousand gang members. This bill would have them just sign a form, “Renuncification of Affiliation” and they get the same temporary, renewable every two years, status as everyone else. How the heck is that a benefit to this country? Talk about bizarre logic!
I have to parrot the same question I have seen asked here several times but not answered, have you read the bill? Also, if so many democrats are against this bill, why are they never refered to as the stubborn hard left?
The RNC has seen a 40% drop off in contributions since they started pushing this steaming pile of legislation. They have fired all 65 of their phone bank donation solicitors. Peggy Noonan was absolutely right, Bush is destroying his own party and as someone who voted for him twice and still admires and supports him on the war, that is sad to see.
Dale
I am not surprised if I am lost in all the nest of visas, asylum reasons and all the other numbers that have been slipped into many bills over the years almost like ear marks.
We have seen Cambodians , Vietnamese and others slipped in on the wayside.
Hell a shipyard I work at just to do my bit to support the Navy of my past has a paint shop crew that is almost 85% Bosnian. Now tell me that is just an accident.
mmythili,
I am sorry to hear you no longer listen to anyone on radio, or read the National Review. Your free to do that, but I think You will loose a lot of Knowledge by doing so. What so many miss, I guess, is that is this bill actually gets thru the House, which is unlikely at this point, every Alien here now Illegally gets a free pass. Bill supporters call it “probationary status,†but the effect will be to give law breakers legal status and thus access to Social Security, Medicare, some welfare services, and our court systems. And just like that, the main purpose of this immigration bill will have been realized.
We are again told that AFTER this is done, then we will secure the borders. Well, we have had 8 or 9 Amnesties AFTER 1986, and still, no border security, only promises. Now some like myself can be fooled once, but after a while we would like what we were promised in 1986, BEFORE, yet another Amnesty. It’s that simple. But we are charactorized as “The Far Right”, and worse, because we no longer believe our Government on this issue. There are over 600,000 people roaming free as we speak on Expired Visa’s, and our Government does not know where they are. They are “Living in the Shadows” so to speak.
I thank you for coming here legally. You are my hero in that. But some of us just don’t trust our Gov’t. anymore on this issue. While others, for reasons that escape me, seen to believe them, yet again.
I would love for you to leave the Strata Spere, and return to the Third Rock From the Sun. Look around the web, there are a lot of Knowledgeable people out there. Might I suggest. Free Republic, click on Aliens, read whats there. Steyn Report, Numbers USA, Michelle Malkin, the corner at National Review.
David Frum was one of George Bush’s speach writers, was he not.
I’m surprised so many attack Peggy Noonan. George Will also dislikes this bill. I always viewed both as calm, cool, collected, mild manored reasonable people.
I have to go to work now. Take care folks.
What no one wants to take into account is market demands.
When the Bracero program ended in the ’60’s, tomato farmers screamed that they would lose their crops due to the lack of farm workers. But American ingenuity and creativity kicked in and wholla! the tomoto harvester was invented. Now most tomato farmers use the harvester because, IN THE LONG RUN, it is cheaper. Harvesters do not get sick, they don’t get in fights and wind up in jail, they are there every day. And when averaged out over the life of the harvester, they cost less than illegal farm workers and are more dependable. The end result? Tomato harvests were greater with less loss and the price of tomatoes actually decreased.
So do we need 12-20 uneducated farm workers or do we need ONE engineer who can design a piece of machinery to do the work and a couple of factories that provide Americans with jobs building the machinery? The bottom line is that the farm industry has been the last to come into the 21st century and has failed to mechanize with the times. Cattle were once herded on horseback. Now it is done with small aircraft and ATVs. Two ATVs have replaced the cowboy.
The labor costs attached to a head of lettuce is less that the cost to package that head of lettuce and the scare tactic of saying that lettuce is now going to cost $5.00 a head is just so much smoke and mirrors. Sorry if I am not buying into that.
How do you deport 12-20 million people? You make it not worth their while to be here; no jobs, no social services, no medical care except for REAL emergencies, no public housing. When there is no longer a reason to stay, those who come for only what this nation can provide in benefits, will leave.
What everyone who agrees with AJ seems to fail to acknowledge is that immigration should be designed to benefit the host nation, not the immigrant. The billions of dollars that are sent south of the border will continue to leave our nation. No immigration bill making people legal to stay here will eliminate that. Those dollars will still not make it into our economy while the cost of maintaining those who are uneducated and have a high out of wedlock birth rate will continue to climb with the taxpayer being hit harder to pay for them.
One more reason to SECURE the border; and by the way, this story is NOT BS….MS13 aids Jihaid intent upon Nuking America
LOVE your post, mmythili !!! Excellent.
On other things Dale google yen carry trade and pad your old age account.
Borrow at less than 1% , invest in a mix of junk stuff at 14 to 22 % and don’t care if one or two of those tank to maybe 7%.
As long as the Japanese central bank holds interest rates like they have, check out the movement in the last 10 years, it’s just a simple matter of playing the float or however you want to define it.
I am not working the high end junk stuff in the trade, I am putting it into tax free stuff here because of tax optimization growth rates to hit the sweet spot.
In a post 9/11 World, while fighting a global war on terror, do you –
a. secure your border
or
b. pat down Granny at the airport
Like I said before, I fell like I am living in some sort of alternate reality. It is upside down world and I want to go home. I don’t like it here.
To ignore how few of the portions of this bill are mandatory and how many are options to be later funded ignores the risk of political manipulation in the aftermath.
I suggest all parties in this debate read it, and I could not do that more strongly.
Apache
It seems a bit strange that my granny who went with me on a flight to visit her great grand daughter could get touched and examined in ways that I would kick the butt of anybody else who happened to be the lush across the street from her house or the pervert two blocks over.
Merlin: Hmmmm, thanks for that, I’ll check it out!
Apache,
You are such a hypocrite. You have said many times you would rather see nothing change than let this bill pass. Don’t get all into security now – you don’t mean it and we all know it because you said it. You are afraid of illegals getting legal status after fines and restitution. You don’t give a damn about security. Those of us who want to find terrorist are the one’s pushing for the guest worker program so we can spend our time looking for terrorists. Not nannies with papers. The sad thing is you people actually don’t see the hypocrisy in your own words and actions. You all have your own form of BDS.
Merlin, it’s insane isn’t it?
It is upside down world. I don’t understand it, and I don’t like it. I want to go somewhere where up = up, down = down, and water = wet. I’m tired of people trying to convince me that up = down, left = right, and a bad idea is really a good idea. I want off this crazy bus.