Welcome, illegal immigrants! Civics class starts now!

You think that was a protest?

Wait until Tom Tancredo wins the 2008 New Hampshire primary. We'll show you a protest.

Here in Los Angeles, where utility bills come stuffed with dire warnings that THERE ISN'T ENOUGH WATER! and THERE ISN'T ENOUGH ELECTRICITY! and the election campaigns shout that THE SCHOOLS ARE OVERCROWDED! and where the jammed emergency rooms have signs on the wall in Spanish explaining that you are entitled to medical treatment even if you cannot pay, where emergency rooms and hospitals are closing, where there aren't enough paramedics, or police, or jail cells, where the roads are always jammed and often crumbling, where every ballot demands another bond measure to borrow more money for more services for more people, five hundred thousand angry illegal immigrants filled twenty blocks of downtown Los Angeles to demand their rights.

If it had been an animated cartoon, City Hall's pointed tower would have bent at a ninety-degree angle and a neon sign above it would have flashed "South This Way."

Bulletin to illegal immigrants: You're in the United States not by right, but by permission. The permission has been granted by a federal government that has for decades declined to enforce the laws against entering and working in the country illegally.

There is no right to be in the United States illegally.

As long as the taxpayers of the United States are required to pay for education and health care services for people who enter the country illegally, there will be resentment that the United States government refuses to enforce immigration law.

You may think it helps your cause to turn out half a million people for a protest through the streets of Los Angeles. That is only true if you believe it helps your cause to revive Pete Wilson's political career.

To you, it's a civil rights issue. To a lot of Americans, it's a mass demonstration of bottomless need and outrageous ingratitude.

You know what would fix this problem? Not a guest-worker program. Not amnesty. Not mass deportation.

A constitutional amendment.

If the U.S. Constitution stated flatly that no state may be required to provide education or non-emergency health services to people who are in the country illegally, then the people of every state would be free to determine what level of need they have for a population of illegal immigrants and how much they're willing to pay to support that population.

Read more about it in How to Get Congress to Foot the Bill for Illegal Immigration, and Fast at www.SusanShelley.com.

Si se pueda.



Copyright 2006

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The Bush family's Dubai connections

There was a peculiar story in the news on Wednesday about former first lady Barbara Bush. The Houston Chronicle reported that the president's mother donated money to the Bush-Clinton Houston Hurricane Relief Fund on the condition that it be used for one purpose and one purpose only.

She wanted the money to be spent on educational software from Ignite Learning, a company owned by her son Neil.

The educational software costs $10,000 per school.

Wait, it gets better.

Neil Bush founded Ignite Learning in 1999, just as his brother was getting ready to run for president, with money from investors in Dubai.

This fact was reported in the Houston Chronicle after Neil's son, Pierce G. Bush, went to the trouble of writing a letter to the editor of the Chronicle complaining about the firestorm over Dubai Ports World's purchase of operations at six U.S. ports. Pierce, a student at the University of Texas at Austin, said the criticism of the ports deal sent an "ignorant and offensive" message and appeared to be "racially prejudiced."

Pierce told the Chronicle he was personally familiar with Dubai. He said he had visited the emirate with his father, whose educational software company, Ignite Learning, had investors in the United Arab Emirates.

Pierce insisted that his opinions had nothing to do with his father's business interests.

That still leaves the fact that Barbara Bush used a tax-deductible contribution to a disaster victims' fund fronted by her husband to pad the bottom line of her son's business. Did she perhaps hope to give the company some much-needed visibility that could be leveraged into improved sales nationwide?

In fact, Barbara Bush did make a personal appearance at Fleming Middle School in Houston on Thursday to showcase the software in use.

Without knowing the names of Ignite Learning's UAE investors, it won't be possible to track the contributions by those individuals to Bush family projects, like the former president's library at Texas A&M, although the Associated Press did report that the UAE and one of its sheikhs contributed at least a million dollars to the Bush Library Foundation before 1995.

The current President Bush is now considering proposals for his own presidential library. He has put his brother Marvin and his old friend Don Evans in charge of finding the site for the library and the estimated $500 million it will take to build it.

Would you believe it, the United Arab Emirates happens to be a big fan of presidential libraries. The donations from that country to the Clinton Library totaled between $500,000 and $1 million.

Hey, what's a guy supposed to do if he needs to raise half a billion dollars to build his presidential library? Hold a bake sale?

Of course, Neil Bush's little software company is hardly a honey pot of profits for investors in the UAE. It's more likely a conduit for clients to pay the presidential brother for influence peddling. That's what this paragraph from the March 25 Associated Press report seems to indicate:

Two years ago, the Houston school district board wrestled with conflict of interest concerns over the Ignite program. Neil Bush had helped raise $115,000 for the district's philanthropic fund from donors who insisted the money be spent on his company's software.

Let's be honest, why would the donors demand that their money be given to Neil Bush unless they were paying him for a service rendered? If the software was really all that unique and indispensable, Microsoft would have bundled it with Windows by now.

No doubt the Bush family feels that they have sacrificed greatly for the United States and should not have their motives questioned just because they appear to be risking U.S. port security and wasting scarce school district dollars in order to throw business to wealthy foreign donors and grasping family members.

Damn that First Amendment. Where's John Ashcroft when you need him?

Copyright 2006

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Barry Bonds confesses

The San Francisco Chronicle reports today that Barry Bonds is suing over the publication of the new book "Game of Shadows," which details his alleged use of steroids.

But he's not suing for defamation, or libel, or anything that would require him to state that the allegations are untrue.

He's suing, according to his attorney Michael Rains, because the grand jury transcripts used in the book were illegally obtained.

Somebody call the Maris family and tell them to come pick up their home-run record. Let's get it over with.


Copyright 2006


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The Clintons make another deal

The New York Daily News reports today that former president Bill Clinton has agreed to give his wife the "final say" over everything he says and does. The paper said it got the story from "multiple sources." It didn't say how long it took the sources to get the words out while they were rolling on the floor and laughing so hard they could barely catch their breath.

Then again, if the sources are on the Clintons' payroll, it's their job to keep a straight face. Some of them have shown almost superhuman skill over the years.

The Daily News says this new deal between the Clintons stems from the couple's recent split over the Dubai Ports World deal -- Bill was advising the company how to get the deal to go through while Hillary was on Capitol Hill loudly trying to stop it. Fortunately, the disagreement wasn't serious enough to require the Clintons to give back the money they accepted from Dubai for Bill's speeches and for his presidential library.

While the story says Bill has agreed to give Hillary a veto over his words and actions, the paper was silent on what Hillary has agreed to give Bill.

Let's guess. An ambassadorship. A lap dancer. Another round of forgiveness on the network news magazines.

All of the above.

The truth is, Bill Clinton plays a vital role in Hillary Clinton's campaigns. He provides a lively misdirection so no one notices the suspicious fund-raising hauls on her financial disclosure forms.


Copyright 2006

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Great moments in homeland security

If you have "Idiots" as a first-round winner in the NCAA tournament, you're in the money.

Today the Cox Arena at San Diego State University was evacuated after a bomb-sniffing dog sniffed a hot dog cart and became very excited.

In the bomb-sniffing dog trade, this is known as a "hit" on a "suspicious package."

Highly trained security experts brought in a robot to disassemble the hot dog cart and search for dangerous substances.

You can slip on a mustard spill and break your neck, you know. It's possible.

Thankfully, the robot was unhurt.

After two hours of delay, the security experts determined that nothing in the arena posed a threat to public safety. I don't know, I'd still stay away from the nacho cheese sauce.


Copyright 2006


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The indignant Sandra Day O'Connor

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor spoke at Georgetown University today and reportedly warned that partisan attacks on the independence of the judiciary have set the country on the road to dictatorship.

This isn't the first time she's addressed this topic. She spoke about the threat to judicial independence at a panel discussion in Arizona last September.

She was confused then, and she's still confused.

Like it or not, the Constitution gives Congress the power to limit the appellate jurisdiction of the United States Supreme Court.

It's in Article III, Section 2. It's called the Exceptions Clause.

It may seem to the Supreme Court like a partisan attack on the independence of the judiciary, but in fact it's one of the constitutional checks on the power of the judicial branch.

Read more about it, with source notes, in this earlier post, "The strange confusion of Justice O'Connor."


Copyright 2006

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Solving the Barry Bonds problem: Free advice for Commissioner Bud Selig

Let's get one thing straight right at the start: the blame for the steroid corruption in baseball should be placed squarely on the players.

Most of the fault lies with the players who used the substances, but some belongs to the players, in the game and out, who knew and took no action to stop it.

It's wrong to blame the owners, because they were bound by a collective bargaining agreement that limited the actions they could take to investigate drug allegations.

It's wrong to blame the players' union officials, who just did what they were hired to do: protect the players.

It's wrong to blame the media, because journalists are limited by libel laws from reporting damaging stories unless they have evidence to back it up.

It's wrong to blame the fans. If cheering crowds put pressure on players, the players are well compensated to cope with it.

The new book Game of Shadows, by San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, will make it impossible for anybody to credibly deny what everybody has known for quite awhile.

What should Commissioner Bud Selig do?

Here's some free advice.

Engineer a plot to liberate the entire Cuban team right in the middle of the World Baseball Classic. Look up the CIA's old Bay of Pigs plan and make a few tweaks. See to it that the entire squad defects to the United States and signs with the New York Yankees live on the Today show.

Set off a diplomatic incident. Do what you can to keep it in the news for two or three months. Bill O'Reilly will help you.

With a little luck, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales will join Fidel Castro in a small war against Vero Beach.

That should give you enough time to get Barry Bonds safely into retirement and then you can move on to arranging a World Series championship for my Cubs. Thanks in advance.


Copyright 2006


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The president's strange, cynical line-item veto proposal

Is he trying to lose the House and Senate?

On Monday, President Bush said he will send Congress proposed legislation to give the president the authority to cut individual provisions out of spending bills passed by Congress. According to the proposal, the spending bills would then be sent back to Congress for a straight up-or-down vote.

Apparently the dog ate the White House copy of the Constitution. Oh, that Barney.

The president said his administration's proposal will meet the standards set out by the Supreme Court in 1998, when the justices rejected the last line-item veto law as unconstitutional.

The president doesn't like to brag about it, but White House counsel Harriet Miers studied constitutional law at Mussolini Tech.

President Bush's proposal is strange even if, following his example, you set aside the Constitution.

It makes the Republican-majority House and Senate look like irresponsible teenagers racing through a mall with a stolen credit card.

The premise of the line-item veto proposal is this: Congress is enslaved to special interests and only the president has the good of the whole nation at heart. Therefore the president should act like a responsible parent and veto all the irresponsible spending provisions, sending the spending bill back to Congress with this choice: accept the president's changes or shut down the government.

Currently the Constitution requires the president to accept Congress' spending proposals or shut down the government.

That's such an icky choice. Any president would like to pawn it off on someone else.

Still, Mr. Bush is not running for re-election. Shouldn't he be willing to take one for the team? Why is he asking the House and Senate to vote on a line-item veto proposal which only serves to advertise to voters that Republicans are wasting their hard-earned tax dollars?

What is he thinking?

Let's all hold hands around the table and close our eyes, and maybe we will be able to read his mind.

It's foggy, it's cloudy, it's clearing, wait... there it is, concentrate, it's starting to appear, it's coming into focus:

President Bush believes the government can only function effectively if he is the only one in it with any power.

This is a man who owes Saddam Hussein an apology.


Copyright 2006

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A message from Secretary Rumsfeld

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld spoke Thursday at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Museum and Library and addressed the subject of U.S. troops in Iraq.

He said the United States should have enough troops in Iraq, but not more than enough.

"You don't want too many people there that you look like an occupying force," the secretary said, "that the insurgents and the terrorists are able to lie to people and say you're only there for their oil, that you're there to occupy the country, that you intend to stay there permanently, all of which is false."

Secretary Rumsfeld didn't say how many troops would be just enough, nor did he give a specific answer to this question: Enough to do what?

Every day it looks more and more like we have left the U.S. military stranded in Iraq with no military objective. U.S. troops are standing there like targets and tripwires, trying as hard as they can not to take charge of anything.

Secretary Rumsfeld compared U.S. troops in Iraq to an adult trying to teach a child to ride a bicycle. He said you let go slowly, one finger at a time, but you have to let go or eventually "you'll have a 40-year-old who can't ride a bike."

Perhaps that was a message to President Bush that the U.S. military will not be able to baby-sit the Iraqi army indefinitely. Or maybe it was a message to Iraq's government officials that they should not count on free bodyguard services forever.

If our bodyguard services give us any leverage with Iraq's newly-elected or immovable sectarian leaders, we ought to make use of it to push them toward the only policy that will bring stability to Iraq: privatizing the state-owned enterprises, starting with oil.

The Iraq policy hasn't worked because it is built on the false premise that democracy is freedom.

Freedom is a condition that exists under a government of limited power. A government that owns and controls all the important industries in a country has no limits on its power. People who live in countries like that are rightly afraid that if they get on the wrong side of the government, things will not go well for them.

But if the state-owned enterprises are privatized, the Iraqi people will have a path to economic self-sufficiency. Survival will not depend on loyalty to a group or sect or tribe that is trying to seize control of the government's oil revenue. It will depend on individual effort in a free economy.

The Iraq policy can still be saved. The only things standing in the way are a false premise and the wrongheaded ideas that follow from it.

President Bush should give up on the idea that the Iraqi government can be coaxed to use its oil wealth wisely on behalf of its people. He should give up on the idea that the mission in Iraq will succeed if he can just somehow persuade Iraqi hearts and minds to love democracy and trust America.

Instead, he should do what he can to encourage the growth of powerful, competing economic interests that will give the Iraqi people some real options, and a stake in their own freedom.


Copyright 2006

Editor's note: You might be interested to read the earlier post, Why the Iraq Policy Isn't Working, as well as A Plan to Get Out of Iraq: Blackstone's Fundamental Rights and the Power of Property and the source notes that accompany it.

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The Amazing Clinton!

Lock him in a box, strap him to a guillotine, tie him to a pyre of fire, Bill Clinton can get out of anything.

This week the Amazing One took a mindbending position in favor of and against the sale of U.S. port operations to the UAE-owned company, Dubai Ports World. (How does he do it?! Is he twins?!)

Not only that, his wife sang two choruses of anti-globalization hymns on Capitol Hill while he drank a glass of water in New York and no one saw his lips move.

He even attempted the levitation of his former press secretary's income, but that part of the trick fell just a little short.

Sabotage, no doubt. Lucky it wasn't the guillotine trick.

Reports surfaced on Wednesday night that when the Dubai Ports World deal ran into trouble on Capitol Hill, Bill Clinton telephoned his ruling friends (and speaking gig clients) in the United Arab Emirates and gave them advice on how to get the deal to go through.

Today columnist Robert Novak reports that the former president pressed the UAE to hire his former spokesman, Joe Lockhart, to flack for the company in Washington. (Alas, Bob and Elizabeth Dole got there first. Don't mess with the Greatest Generation.)

Then last Friday in New Zealand, Mr. Clinton pointed out in a speech that the United Arab Emirates laundered money that was used in the 9/11 attacks. Whether that was poll-watching backtracking or a nasty bit of vengeance for the rejected Lockhart deal, no one can say. Not even the stagehands know how the trick is done. Some speculate that he has the complete files of the FBI and CIA on a microchip implanted in his brain. Some say it's just the files on Republicans. (Actually, it's just the files on donors.)

The most entertaining part of the show, of course, is the big finish, where he opens a suitcase and unfolds Hillary into a full-sized presidential candidate. Wait until you hear her debate Senator George Allen in 2008. You'll swear she's real.


Copyright 2006

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