Senate Puts Off Action on Immigration

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate leaders agreed Monday that they would wait until June to take final action on a bipartisan plan to give millions of unlawful immigrants legal status.

The measure, which also tightens border security and workplace enforcement measures, unites a group of influential liberals, centrists and conservatives and has White House backing, but it has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum. In a nod to that opposition, Senate leaders won't seek to complete it before a hoped-for Memorial Day deadline.

"It would be to the best interests of the Senate ... that we not try to finish this bill this week," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., as the chamber began debate on the volatile issue. "I think we could, but I'm afraid the conclusion wouldn't be anything that anyone wanted."

Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq

I wonder if they are coordinating this with Teddy Kennedy?

Glenn Reynolds comments:

THE MAIN FRONT IN THE WAR IS CONGRESS:

Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.
Well, if they're targeting Congress they're certainly targeting our weak spot.

UPDATE: Reader Drew Kelley emails: "Wouldn't we be better off if we gave them Congress?"

As I've said before, I oppose torture.

Instapundit

Does Glenn Reynolds sacrifice newborn babies by moonlight in satanic rituals? Well, he has been accused of blending poor innocent puppies.

The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Iraq.

This is a message that cannot be overemphasized:

I share Americans' frustration with this difficult war, but this frustration does not change the underlying reality: The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Iraq. Our enemies -- radical Islamists waging a global insurgency -- already exalt their victory over the Soviets in Afghanistan as proof of their ascendance, and believe the weak-kneed Americans will be the second Goliath to fall at their feet.

But this need not be the case. There is a new general in town with a new strategy, and reports from Anbar and Baghdad are promising. All I ask -- as a soldier who fought next to Americans and Iraqis who died for Iraq's future -- is for the time necessary to give this winning strategy a chance.

Unlike Viet Nam, this is not a war we can walk away from, letting poor foreigners take it in the neck because we lost our will. This is our fight, much more than theirs. If we lose the war in Iraq we WILL fight it on our soil.

Iraqi Forces Repel Major Mosul Attack

Iraqi Security Forces countered several terrorists who targeted bridges, transition jails, police stations and a combat outpost with vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, sporadic small-arms fire and indirect mortar attacks throughout the evening.

“This was a total team effort on the part of the Iraqi Security Forces and emergency responders,” said U.S. Army Col. Stephen Twitty, commander of 4th Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. “This Iraqi team showed the people of Mosul that they are resolute in their efforts to defeat this very cowardly, desperate enemy while protecting innocent civilians.”

There are more Iraqis on our side than theirs. All that has to happen is for our side not to cut and run. We win.

FORBES' RICH KARLGAARD ASKS how many people died because of Rachel Carson?

Well, at least the eagles survived.

Hidden costs of corn-based ethanol: Diverting corn from food to fuel could create unprecedented turmoil.

Actually, the costs are not so hidden. They are being paid already by the poor.

...it is no surprise that the price of corn has doubled in the past year – from $2 to $4 a bushel. We are already seeing upward pressure on food prices as the demand for ethanol boosts the demand for corn. Until the recent ethanol boom, more than 60 percent of the annual US corn harvest was fed domestically to cattle, hogs, and chickens or used in food or beverages. Thousands of food items contain corn or corn byproducts. In Mexico, where corn is a staple food, the price of tortillas has skyrocketed because US corn has been diverted to ethanol production.

David Frum's Thoughts on the Immigration Bill

With the immigration * compromise * in the Senate, President Bush and the Senators have detonated the slow-motion trigger on a Republican debacle in 2008.

Faculty enablers: CU committee would give Churchill a virtual pass

Ever wonder what ever happened to Ward Churchill: accused of plagiarism, fabrication and falsification? His fate, believe it or not, has not been decided. And now University of Colorado's Privilege and Tenure Committee has recommended professor Ward Churchill be suspended for a year ... but not fired.

So why is the latest recommendation such a depressing development? Because it undermines the united front that CU - that any university - should present to a member of its community who indulges in academic misconduct that includes plagiarism and the falsification of the historical record. Secondly, because the recommendation is yet another piece of evidence that a significant portion of the CU faculty rejects all meaningful accountability.

After all, the committee freely acknowledges the gravity of Churchill's transgressions. It concludes that he "committed multiple acts of plagiarism, fabrication and falsification." It says his behavior falls "below minimum standards of professional integrity" - the minimum, mind you - and therefore "requires severe sanctions."

And yet for three of the five committee members, a one-year suspension qualifies as "severe."

Why such leniency? Because while the Churchill case "shows misbehavior," the committee concluded, it is "not the worst possible misbehavior."

We wonder what the committee has in mind. Does a professor have to shoot someone? Commit a rape at high noon on the middle of campus? We are at a loss to determine what academic crimes have to be committed to get fired. Churchill’s major crime was not that he called the people who died on 9/11 “little Eichmanns.” That’s par for the course in academia.

He lied about his heritage – the Indian tribe he claims to be part of denies it – in order to become a department head. He has copied art from other artists and passed it off as his own. He falsified information about historical events when he wrote his “scholarly” papers. In other words he is an academic fraud. Yet the committee proposes that CU should continue to have on its faculty a person who is a proven and unrepentant liar. Is it possible that the professors at CU are challenging Duke’s faculty for the most witless moral cretins in the academic universe?

More MSM Death Watch

Gannett April Revenue Slides 2 Percent

54 Trib staffers raise hand for buyout

Interviews, Going the Way of the Linotype?

Microsoft, Google, Yahoo in online ad war (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Ad Revenues Plunge At 'Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,' Sister Papers

MSM Death Watch

With St. John On My Side

An interesting discussion about McCain and "torture."

John McCain got props all over for his principled stand against torture at the recent Republican debate.

[snip]

There is just the smallest of small problems midst the hosannas - McCain actually *supported* the use of torture in the extreme scenario presented by Brit Hume. Roll the debate transcript, and then roll McCain's follow-up with Sean Hannity (my emphasis added):

SEN. MCCAIN: If I knew for sure that they had that kind of information, I, as the president of the United States, would take that responsibility. That is a million-to-one scenario. But only I would take that responsibility.

What is very interesting are the comments that follow.

"F*** you": The inside story

without reading the bill, this tells me all I want to know about the Immigration Bill, and I oppose it.

The eruption of Senator John McCain at fellow Republican Sen. John Cornyn (TX) is an incident that reverberates on several levels. It renews lingering doubts about whether Senator McCain possesses the proper temperament to be president. It also raises serious questions about the substance of the "grand bargain" immigration bill that Senators Kennedy, Specter, McCain and others are attempting to rush through the Senate. (The written bill language was finally distributed to Senate offices early Saturday morning, 326 pages, still marked as a draft.)

When word of the McCain incident began to leak late Friday, we found Senate offices circling the wagons, trying to avoid talking about it. We believe that accounts published to date fail to provide the context necessary to understand the incident properly. We have pieced together the following account that we believe more accurately relates the incident and provides the necessary context.
[snip]
The roots of the controversy date back to spring 2005, when Senators McCain and Kennedy filed their original immigration reform plan. It was immediately dubbed an amnesty proposal. Senator Cornyn and Senator Kyl (R-AZ) filed a competing plan about two months later. Cornyn-Kyl contained a complete approach to enforcement, including border security, workplace verification, interior enforcement, and measures that required those here illegally to return to their country of origin and get in line before becoming eligible for U.S. citizenship. McCain-Kennedy contained almost no enforcement, but concentrated instead on measures for illegals to stay and "earn" legalization through fines, work, learning English and avoiding criminal activity.

The House largely borrowed most of Cornyn-Kyl’s enforcement provisions and passed them in late 2005 and early 2006. The Senate instead favored McCain-Kennedy, finally adding some enforcement, renaming it Hagel-Martinez and approving it last summer. But GOP House leadership decided to make the Senate bill an election issue, and refused to go to conference. Even if they were right about the issue, Democrats won the election and took over Congress.

Border enforcement and workplace verification are obvious components of any effective plan, but relatively-obscure interior enforcement is just as important. Will Congress authorize and fund an infrastructure to catch, jail, prosecute and promptly deport those who continue to violate the plan? The 1986 amnesty also promised enforcement. It was never delivered. Unless the 2007 version provides more ICE enforcement agents, information-sharing authority to find and arrest illegals, beds to house them, prosecutors and judges to adjudicate their cases, and workable procedures for deportation, we’ll soon be back in the same position we’re now in.

Republicans had managed to amend Hagel-Martinez on the floor last year so that criminals and absconders could not receive amnesty. This is significant because the current system has produced 600,000 absconders – those under a deportation order who have disappeared while remaining free, itself a separate crime.

Republicans also pushed for a provision allowing DHS to halt "catch and release," a step strongly supported by the Administration. In September, Homeland Security chief Chertoff wrote House Judiciary then-Chairman James Sensenbrenner saying that provision ending catch-and-release was absolutely necessary to enforcing our national immigration laws.

But this year, now in charge, Senator Kennedy declared this provision to be a "deal-breaker" and refused to include it. Cornyn was pressing again for a streamlined judicial review process, and other enforcement provisions, when McCain suddenly lost his patience. The bill released yesterday does not include the provision designed to end catch-and-release.

Opinion is mixed on congressional reaction to this bill. Lindsey Graham confidently predicted on Fox News Sunday today it would pass "overwhelmingly," and mentioned 80 Senate votes as a possibility. But Harry Reid is trying to hurry it through with a preliminary vote Monday, followed shortly by a cloture motion, wrapping it all up by Friday. These are not measures that signal confidence.

HERE's the bill.

The Washington Examiner concludes: Cheap labor + cheap votes = political cave-in

That bipartisan immigration “reform” bill, crafted during secret negotiations led by President Bush, Sen. Edward Kennedy and Sen. John McCain, combines a Republican desire for cheap labor with a Democratic vision of cheap votes. The result is a stubborn refusal to halt illegal immigration, one of the most serious problems facing the United States. By granting legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, this legislative chimera would make securing our borders even harder than it is now.

And from the Washington Times: Few senators support the illegals bill

He's a poll question from Mickey Kaus:

Will backers of "comprehensive" immigration reform continue to tout approving poll numbers from polls that specifically cited the now-defunct "back taxes" requirement before asking voters for their opinion about semi-amnesty? The CNN poll of May 4, 2007, for example, got a large favorable response when it asked if people favored

"Creating a program that would allow illegal immigrants already living in the United States for a number of years to stay in this country and apply for U.S. citizenship if they had a job and paid back taxes." [E.A.]

I wonder what the response would be to a query about favoring

"Creating a program that would allow illegal immigrants already living in the United States for a number of years to stay in this country and apply for U.S. citizenship even if they don't pay back taxes."

And in a final note: Curses:

It's often noted that our presidents don't come from the Senate anymore. The last president elected from the Senate was John Kennedy, and he was an historical rarity even then.

The most common explanation for this phenomenon is that Senators are called upon to make tough votes that tend to undermine their popularity. Though this probably is an important factor, let me suggest another -- the Senate is a fairly rotten place. For example, it's the kind of place where 14 Senators can hijack the judicial confirmation process. Worse, it's kind of place where a handful of Senators can reach a deal on fundamental issues about the identity of America and then try to force a vote on the resulting 600 page bill with little time for the body as a whole to study or debate it.

This year, John McCain is the lone first-tier Republican presidential candidate jeopardized by the "curse of the Senate." But don't think of McCain as a potential victim of the curse; think of him as the embodiment of the sort of high-handedness and arrogance that lies behind the curse.

Phony Soldier Charged With Making Up Claims of Atrocities in Iraq

SEATTLE — A man who tried to position himself as a leader of the anti-war movement by claiming to have participated in war crimes while serving in Iraq is facing federal charges of falsifying his record.

Jesse Adam Macbeth, 23, formerly of Phoenix, garnered attention on blogs and in some alternative media after he began claiming in 2005 to have been awarded a Purple Heart for his service, which he said included slaughtering innocents in a Fallujah mosque. His story was contradicted by his discharge form, showing that he was kicked out of the Army after six weeks at Fort Benning, Ga., in 2003 because of his “entry level performance and conduct.”

A Leaker Goes to Jail

This goes, I think, in the "too little, too late" category:

A U.S. Navy lawyer convicted of divulging information about Guantanamo Bay detainees was sentenced to six months in prison Friday.
The Virginian-Pilot reported that in addition to his prison sentence, Lt. Cmdr. Matthew M. Diaz also was informed he would be dismissed from the Navy as part of his punishment for the intelligence leak.

Diaz had been convicted on four charges from the intelligence leak, including a violation of the Espionage Act.


For several years, we have been calling for the criminal prosecution of CIA officials and others who have fed the New York Times and Washington Post a steady stream of anti-administration leaks that have damaged national security. We have also pointed out that in some instances, at least, the reporters and editors who published the leaks were exposed to criminal prosecution.

It's good to see a leaker prosecuted, but the locus of the federal bureaucracy's war against the administration wasn't the Navy's JAG staff. I think it's fair to say that the bureaucracy's war against the Bush administration is more or less over, and the bureaucracy won.

Boehner Statement on Rogers Resolution to Reprimand Rep. Murtha For Earmark & Ethics Violations

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) strongly backed Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) after he announced his intent to file a privileged resolution in response to the threats by senior Democratic Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) on the House floor today. The resolution, set to be introduced by Rogers on Monday, will force the full House to vote on whether to reprimand Murtha for his conduct. Boehner issued the following statement:

“The resolution offered by Congressman Rogers outlines a blatant abuse of power stemming from a Republican-authored proposal to cut wasteful earmark spending from legislation pending before the House. This egregious action is not only beneath the dignity of this institution, it constitutes a violation of House rules, which preclude Members from conditioning earmarks on another Member’s vote, and the House should reprimand Murtha for his conduct.

“Mike Rogers knows public corruption and he knows about threats and intimidation. For five years as an FBI Special Agent, it was Rogers’ job to go after those who abused the public’s trust and to stare down mobsters. No Member of Congress should be threatened or intimidated because of his or her efforts to crack down on wasteful spending and protect the interests of taxpayers.

“This is yet another example of the Democrats abusing the rules of the House and breaking the commitments they made to the American people. In fact, over the last four months they have not led at all, nor have they delivered anything remotely close to an open, deliberative, and results-oriented House.”

NOTE: Last Friday, Rogers offered a GOP motion-to-recommit to the FY 2008 Intelligence Act that would have taken funding away from an illegitimate, wasteful earmark tucked into the bill to benefit Murtha in order to restore funding for human intelligence programs. The Murtha earmark would authorize tens of millions for the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), a government agency based in Murtha’s district that the House Government Reform Committee has deemed “an expensive and duplicative use of scarce federal drug enforcement resources,” according to an article in the May 8 edition of The Hill.

Today, on the House floor, Murtha violated House rules by telling Rogers “I hope you don’t have any earmarks in the appropriations bills because they are gone and you will not get any earmarks now and forever.”

Read gthe rest...

Global warming debunked

Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week.

Man's contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn't change the climate if we tried, he maintained.

"We're all going to survive this. It's all going to be a joke in five years," he said.

A combination of misinterpreted and misguided science, media hype, and political spin had created the current hysteria and it was time to put a stop to it.

"It is time to attack the myth of global warming," he said.

Read the rest.

Fred Thompson’s Watershed?

On the day of the first Southern-state Republican debate on the Fox News Channel, one undeclared GOP candidate performed a media leapfrog.

With the help of one 38-second video clip and a great sense of humor, Fred Thompson, the former U.S. senator from Tennessee who is one sock away from dipping his toe into the race for the White House, remained just as relevant as the other GOP candidates.And thanks to Michael Moore, the Hollywood documentarian who just can’t help himself, Thompson delivered what, in time, could become his watershed moment.

Indoctrinate U: the Flyer

See the trailer for this film.

Indoctrinate U: The Flyer
Warning: On college campuses, hanging flyers that do not meet with the political approval of school administrators can be hazardous to your academic career. As a result, you should not post this Indoctrinate U PDF flyer on campus if you are at all queasy about having to defend your free speech rights.

John Bolton being interviewed by a BBC Dunce

Via Little Green Footballs