I’ve added a bunch of news feeds to my daily rss reading and remembered that C-SPAN is available for viewing online so instead of the navel gazing post I was going to make today, ya’ll get the results of me gorging myself on current events (not to be confused with the zombie of syndicated TV, A Current Affair, which I have managed to avoid since it’s return).
Tossing aside my previous statement about steering clear of national politics, I came across a news story which I felt compelled to share given the view many of my friends have of the former fratboy we call president. Of course I then read a second story that pisses me off again, but first the “good” news.
Following up on a recent announcement by the Departments of State and Homeland Security that in 2008 an American citizen returning to the U.S. from Canada will need to have a passport (or a NEXUS or FAST card), Bush has ordered a review of those rules. He points out, quite correctly, that such a requirement would “disrupt the honest flow of traffic.” One thing he fails to mention, but which a reporter at the briefing linked above did mention, is that the rules carry a heavy cost for your average American.
For example, the couple of times I’ve traveled to Canada I rode along with my grandparents and my aunt. At the border, my granddad showed his driver’s license and the border official gave my grandmother, my aunt and I a quick glance. At most the necessary ID cost maybe $15 in toto (using the current cost of a driver’s license). Under the new rules the cost of the crossing would have been $358, one passport for each of us. (Of course, by 2008, that will also be the cost of the gas burned while passing through the border station, assuming you’re driving a hybrid car.)
Bush suggests possible fingerprint scanning as an alternative, which I can’t admit to liking anymore than requiring a passport, but it’s heck of a lot cheaper. And speaking of Bush ideas that I don’t like, let’s take a look at the second story that caught my eye. U.S. Has Freed Foreign Murderers Under Loophole. What a great headline, sounds all sorts of scary, doesn’t it? It certainly caught my attention, but not as much as the lead of the article:
The United States has freed numerous illegal aliens into the community who are dangerous murderers, rapists and child molesters under a legal loophole created by Supreme Court decisions, the Bush administration said on Thursday.
Damn that Supreme Court! They’re out to get us, I tell you, always making up laws and sending out their death squads. But wait a second, some scrap of memory is coming back from high school. Don’t they base their decisions on that old document that says we can have guns? And isn’t it Congress that actually creates the loopholes by writing sh*tty laws? Seems a member of the Justice Department has the same high school civics memories as me since he told a Senate subcommittee that “Congress should urgently pass legislation to close the loopholes”. Before you get excited that the Justice Department is trying to keep you safe, I’ve here to tell you they’re just still trying to find a way to keep people in prison forever.
The loophole arose after the Supreme Court ruled in two cases, one in 2001 and the other this year, that criminal aliens could only be held in prison for six months pending deportation after completing their criminal sentences. [emphasis mine]
If the individual’s home country refused to accept him within that time, the criminal alien must be released. The administration wants Congress to pass a law allowing such people to be held indefinitely.
Yep, you commit your crime, do your time and then do more time and more time and more time and then you’re dead. What a great idea. Send us your evil, conniving, raping masses you’re yearning to have locked up.
Some old white guy once said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” A couple years from now, if you’re a foreign criminal, you get death and if you’re an American, and if you can afford it, you get liberty. Sounds reasonable to me.