Calling All Illegals...Come On In! Luv, Denny and Bill

Here's the lede from a front page story in today's Washington Times:

Any immigration legislation passed by Congress this year will not include the inflammatory provisions approved by the House last year that make it a felony to be in the United States illegally, Republican leaders on Capitol Hill said yesterday.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said in a joint statement that "it remains our intent to produce a strong border security bill that will not make unlawful presence in the United States a felony." The commitment removes a primary concern held by many Democrats who say that the yearlong imprisonment carried by a felony conviction is too harsh.

And here's the third graf from a front page story in today's Washington Post:

Yesterday, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) issued a joint statement seeking to deflect blame for the harshest provisions of the House bill toward the Democrats, who they said showed a lack of compassion. "It remains our intent to produce a strong border security bill that will not make unlawful presence in the United States a felony," Hastert and Frist said.

Ted Kennedy offered these helpful comments in the next graf:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) fired back that "there's no running away from the fact that the Republican House passed a bill and Senator Frist offered one that criminalizes immigrants."

What gives here? Let's see, if I swipe a GameBoy from Toys-R-Us and get caught, that's a felony. But if I'm an illegal immigrant or, hey, even a terrorist, and sneak into the U.S. by swimming the Rio Grande, and I get caught, then that's okay, or at least not a felony? And this will guarantee a strong border security bill?

One of few people alive today who admit to voting for Richard Nixon, Wonker fell off the wagon and voted for St. Jimmy in 1976 and has repented of this sin now for 3 decades. I've voted Republican ever since. But both these stories, one from a rightie paper and one from a leftie rag, cite the same quote, and reveal just how quickly the Republican Party has forgotten about its base since the 2004 elections, which left them victorious and the Democrats eviscerated and demoralized, but even more determined to regain the power they abused for over half a century and which they still regard as their right under God, or would if they believed in God.

What's wrong with the Repubs? We think we know. We would guess that the good folks who put money in their campaign coffers, most notably the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—with whom we generally have no quarrel—like the fact that hordes of new workers, illegal or not, are helping keep wages perpetually low and would like for this to continue. And so they support effectively doing nothing at all about our increasingly laughable border situation.

Earth to the Chamber and to the Repubs: Your core constituency—us—is absolutely and totally pissed on this issue. Unfortunately, you maybe haven't figured that out yet, since most of us don't get funded by leftist organizations to carry on mass demonstrations letting you know what we think of you, which is not bloody much right now. You were elected to hold down the Federal budget, not build Bridges to Nowehere. And you were hired to protect our borders after 9/11, not the Democrats whom we didn't and don't trust.

Remember, it's we who vote for Congress, not the Chamber of Commerce and others who are slap happy with low wages and with not having to pay irritating things like Social Security and Workman's Comp. And there are a LOT more of us than there are donors in the Chambers of Commerce.

You're playing these games with our national security, including creating the impression that our laws and sovereignty can be flouted with impunity, because you're confident that in the end, we'll forgive you and vote for you because we will never vote for a Democrat. And you're partially right. We will never vote for a Democrat.

But if you don't wake up pretty soon, we might just stay home. Think about it.