As Thanksgiving week begins, a couple of turkey nuggets...
~The President's drive-by amnesty for however many bazillion fine upstanding members of the Undocumented-American community is particularly revolting to those of us chumps who were suckered into going through what passes for the legal immigration process in this country. Over at Powerline, an immigration lawyer points out one of the consequences of Emperor Barack's proclamation:
The proposed executive action on immigration (or whatever name you want to give it) will allow [illegal aliens] who have US citizen or green-card children and who have been here for five years to apply for some kind of quasi-status and open market work authorization. That would allow them to work for a period of time at any employer, the authorization presumably renewable until they decide to leave or have an option for US permanent resident status (green card status). This, the administration tells us, is fair and just and Biblical – yada/yada.
But this option is explicitly NOT available to those in the US in a valid legal status. There are millions of people in the US who have temporary status – as students or temporary workers or researchers or as investors (lots of Koreans own businesses with E-2 investor visas, for example). These people – many of them have US citizen children and have been here five years. These people who have been here legally and not violated their immigration status – these people are explicitly NOT eligible for open market work authorization, renewable indefinitely.
You must be in violation of the law to benefit from this provision.
That is to say, you must be a law-breaker to enjoy the protections of American law. If you're law-abiding, get lost. In my new book, I write about a perfectly lawful US resident called Deena Gilbey whose husband died on 9/11 helping evacuate fellow workers from the World Trade Center. Having breezily admitted to the country the persons who murdered her spouse, America's evil immigration bureaucracy then devoted untold effort to getting Mrs Gilbey and her children deported. Those perverse priorities have now been formalized by the President.
All western immigration systems are problematic, thanks mainly to chain migration. But, unlike Australia's or Canada's, America's now explicitly exists to favor the unskilled and ill-educated over high-value economic contributors. Or as Daniel Greenfield puts it:
Immigration requires opportunity. We still have it, but less of it than we used to. Our immigration system is not based on opportunity. It's based on a migratory flow of Democratic Party voters.
Which will have catastrophic, transformative consequences. Last Thursday Obama didn't just proclaim himself king, he proclaimed the rest of you guys peasants. That's why it was necessary to do it a few days after the election - just to rub it in.
~Who doesn't enjoy a heartwarming tale of environmentalists in love? This one comes from the wedding chapel at Corcoran state prison in California, where Charles Manson and his lovely bride will be joined in holy matrimony:
Afton Burton left her parents' home in Illinois at age 19 to move to California, where she could be closer to Manson, [his future mother-in-law Melissa] Burton said.
It was Manson's work as an environmentalist that drew her daughter into him, according to Burton.
"He's an environmentalist, and she's involved in his environmentalist program," Burton said.
It's work that involves supporting the air, trees, water, and animals, she added.
Awwww, it's not just heartwarming, it's planet-cooling!
I shall be in court (in my amicus capacity) at 9.30am at the DC Court of Appeals tomorrow for oral arguments between Big Climate's serial litigant Michael E Mann and my co-defendants National Review, Rand Simberg and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. I'm not a hotshot lawyer or anything, so it's unclear to me, if Dr Mann loses, whether he gets banged up in the big house or is merely out on probation with an electronic bracelet. Evidently, he's already worrying about it. So I'm sure he's heartened to know that an environmental activist can still pull chicks behind bars. Maybe Jessica Alba can be his penpal.
On the other hand, if it all goes south for me, the chances of a denialist getting any babes on California's Denialist Row seems pretty slim.
~While we're on the subject of Big Climate thuggery, why did Obama feel the need to rebuke Australia's Tony Abbott over climate policy while he was at the G20 summit Down Under? It is a basic rule between friendly nations that a guest does not insult his host. That's why, as Greg Sheridan reveals in The Australian, John Berry, America's ambassador in Canberra, advised the President not to give his speech. Yet he went ahead and gave it anyway - and, just to pile insult on insult, refused to provide the Australian Government with an advance copy, and didn't bother acknowledging the presence in the audience of Sir Peter Cosgrove, Australia's Governor-General.
The Queen's representative and the highest-ranking Australian in the land would not have attended the speech had he known Obama was going to urinate all over Her Majesty's Government. The Prime Minister would have, quite rightly, advised Sir Peter not to be seen sitting through such a graceless provocation. But even such a basic courtesy Obama couldn't be bothered with.
I made a point to Hugh Hewitt the other day that in the end all governing systems in civilized countries depend on gentlemen honoring the codes and conventions. Obama says screw that - and, at home and abroad, is governed only by what he can get away with.
But hey, what's one more US ally to add to the mountain of the disaffected?
~What would Mark Twain have made of this? I'll have to mull that one over, but maybe I'll have an answer by December 8th, which is when the Mark Twain House is hosting me in Hartford, Connecticut. It's a great honor for me: as authors, Mark Steyn and Mark Twain don't have much in common, except that the latter is an over-zealous spellcheck correction for the former. But the honor is made even sweeter by the fact that my interviewer on stage that night will be the great Scott Simon from NPR's "Weekend Edition". How often do you get to see an NPR host and a Rush Limbaugh guest-host on stage together?
The fun starts at 7pm on Monday December 8th, and you can find more information and book tickets here.
