Why Guestworker Programs Don't Work

A commonly stated solution for the problem of undocumented immigration is to implement a guestworker problem. Immigrant rights activists routinely note the fundamental problem with this--workers have no rights. The bracero program of the mid-twentieth century saw migrant workers suffer all sorts of abuse. Guestworker advocates say that such abuses couldn't take place today. That's just flat out not true. Mike Elk:

Last year, the leaders of the U.S.-based foreign labor and supply company Global Horizons were indicted in what the Department of Justice considered the biggest human trafficking case ever brought by the federal government. They were charged with holding 400 Thai guest farm workers in the United States against their will in conditions that essentially amounted to slavery.

The workers were given guest visas to work in the United States under the H-2A visa program. They were kept under brutal conditions under armed guard in Hawaii and forced to live in substandard conditions in hot shipping containers "with no carpet, beds, furniture, indoor plumbing, kitchen or air conditioning," according to federal investigators. They were under constant threat of violence from gun-toting guards, and on one occasion a guard told the workers they would be shot if they tried to escape.

Several company officials have already pleaded guilty in plea bargain deals and several others are expected to stand trial. In 2006, when the workers' maltreatment was discovered, the Department of Labor also debarred Global Horizons from participating in the H-2A agricultural guest worker program for the mandatory three years; it issued an additional three year debarment in 2009. Last week, a judge upheld the three year debarment after Global Horizons appealed it.

I don't know if you believe in the power of the modern government to regulate farms so that worker abuse doesn't happen. With our severely hampered and underfunded government, I absolutely do not. After all, what regulations in this country are properly followed? Food safety? Labor? Environmental? None of the above. Even under Democratic administrations, employers and polluters are in control of the regulatory process.

Moreover, our farms are in out of the way places. How many readers  have visited farms with migrant workers? Even among progressive groups, how many are active on these issues. There are some, such as the Farm Labor Organizing Committee in North Carolina and the PCUN in Oregon (sadly, the UFW is basically defunct). But even these worker rights groups and unions are heavily underfunded, under reported in the press, and have virtually no power to stop farm employer abuses. 

Guestworker programs will lead to more abuses like this one in Hawaii. These must be opposed as part of any immigration legislation.

Historical Image of the Day

A mother and her children at the Indian Independence Parade, New York City, 1990

More on Environment and Immigration

So Wilderness Watch responded to my critique of their connection between immigration and environmental problems, detailed here.

This was their reply:

Erik,
While some may take offense, the reality is that overpopulation, which in the United States is driven largely by immigration, is a major global environmental problem, one we agree knows no borders. It is important for every country, including and maybe especially the United States, to stabilize its population. That can’t be done in this country without limiting immigration. It’s the indisputable numerical demographic that drives population growth in the U.S. Howie never implied that immigrants are any more of a problem than anyone else.

Overpopulation is the root cause and driver of all of humanity’s other problems (in the U.S. and around the globe)—including climate change, water shortages, overcrowding, etc. Quite simply, the earth cannot indefinitely sustain an ever-expanding human population without major die-offs of other species. We think it’s pretty darn important to recognize this issue, especially when no one seems willing to tackle it.

We agree that overconsumption is also a major problem, and it’s well-known that industrialized nations use much more than their fair share of resources. That’s an issue we’ll try to address in another post.

There are many great organizations dedicated to important humanitarian and social/environmental justice work, but Wilderness Watch is the only national group working to ensure that America’s great National Wilderness Preservation System stays wild.

–Wilderness Watch staff

My response in return:

Why on earth would it be especially important for the United States to stabilize its population? I don’t understand why this would be so over other countries.

Also, you might think about writing about consumption in another post, but it’s precisely the type of behavior that allows wealthy white people to be wilderness consumers that goes toward creating climate change, not immigrants. By far, the greenest place in the United States is Manhattan. If you are really worried about these problems, isn’t it far better to move into a 500 square foot apartment in an urban center and not drive a car (and of course I don’t have any idea of your lifestyle) and never burn fossil fuels to visit wilderness areas?

Immigration is essentially a non-issue to US environmental problems, particularly when compared to transportation infrastructure, housing policy, and personal consumption patterns. If you truly believe in these the sanctity of these wilderness areas, the best thing you can do is never visit them unless you walk or ride a bike. And if you do visit them and say that the peoples of the world should not be allowed to come to America (as your ancestors were allowed to do) is to say that only the wealthy (and mostly) white can benefit from visiting the wilderness.

And that’s really screwed up.

One of the biggest threats to wilderness areas are the people who purport to love them and visit them all the time–because their burning of fossil fuels creates climate change and because of the desire of people to live in the “wilderburbs” of the West which breaks up wildlife habitat, forces people to buy gas guzzling 4×4 vehicles, and drive 50 miles into work and back.

Compared to this, the threat immigrants pose to wilderness is a drop in the bucket.

I think it would be very interesting to take a poll of the Wilderness Watch staff to see where they live, what kind of vehicles they drive, and gauge what their carbon footprint is.

Then we can compare that carbon footprint to the average person in Bangladesh, Zambia, or Indonesia. And we’ll see if overpopulation is really the issue here.

I print all of this to give you a sense of the battles within the environmental movement between people who want to shift the blame for environmental problems off of themselves and their consumerist lifestyle and toward others who cannot fight back. Again, I find this all very offensive, antisocial, and poorly argued. Moreover it's a politically losing strategy toward building a successful environmental movement.

Shorter Texas Republicans: "Illegal Immigration is OK So Long as I Can Exploit Them To Clean My House. Everyone Else Who Hires Wetbacks Should Be Thrown in Prison"

Texas is really outdoing itself on this one:

Texas has long been a hotbed of controversy on immigration issues. And a proposed immigration bill in the Texas state House is sure to raise more than a few eyebrows. The bill would make hiring an "unauthorized alien" a crime punishable by up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine, unless that is, they are hired to do household chores.

Yes, under the House Bill 2012 introduced by a tea party favorite state Rep. Debbie Riddle -- who's been saying for some time that she'd like to see Texas institute an Arizona-style immigration law -- hiring an undocumented maid, caretaker, lawnworker or any type of houseworker would be allowed. Why? As Texas state Rep. Aaron Pena, also a Republican, told CNN, without the exemption, "a large segment of the Texas population" would wind up in prison if the bill became law.

"When it comes to household employees or yard workers it is extremely common for Texans to hire people who are likely undocumented workers," Pena told the news giant. "It is so common it is overlooked."

Jon English, Rep. Riddle's chief of staff explained that the exemption was an attempt to avoid "stifling the economic engine" in Texas, which today is, somewhat ironically, celebrating its declaring independence from Mexico in 1836.

I never think I can be amazed by the myopia of rich right-wing Texans. And then they consistently blow my mind. 

Overpopulation, Wilderness, and the Assumptions of Too Many Environmentalists

I am pretty outraged by this Howie Wolke blog post at Wilderness Watch connecting overpopulation to the destruction of wilderness. In part:

Many on the political left view jobs and social issues as more important than the environment; they miss the numerous connections to overpopulation. And they oppose the tough immigration policies that could halt continued growth (in the U.S. today, population growth is mostly a function of immigration) in the United States. Meanwhile, the political right worships at big industry’s altar of growth at all cost. In addition, religious fundamentalists of nearly every ilk believe that it is their duty to overwhelm all others with their progeny.
And the environmental movement, at least here in the U.S., remains oddly silent on overpopulation.

The solutions to overpopulation are no secret. Economic policies based upon stability, not perpetual growth, are essential. Better health care and education plus political and economic empowerment of women – especially in poorer countries – are equally important. Family planning services must be integral, safe, and available to all, everywhere. Also, men must assume greater responsibility for their obvious role in population growth. In the United States, immigration must be brought under control. We also need to create tax and other economic incentives for smaller families. But none of this will happen if overpopulation continues to elude the discussion.

Until overpopulation is recognized, the United States and many other nations will continue to fail to develop and implement population policies, and humans will continue to obliterate not just wilderness, but most remaining natural ecosystems on Earth. Oh well, it’s obvious that humans can endure in horribly over-crowded, polluted, denuded and impoverished squalor. That’s proven each day in many corners of the world. The flip side of that problem is that so many other forms of life cannot.

I'm just going to reproduce my comment to the original post (which has not yet made it through moderation):

This article is wrong-headed for many reasons. And the idea that immigration is a major environmental problem is offensive.

1. This idea that immigration is a threat to our environment assumes that somehow environmental issues stop at international borders and if we keep people out of our nation, our environment will be protected. Meanwhile, climate change imperils our wilderness areas whether people remain in Guatemala or try to improve their lives in the United States.

2. Even if the above assumption is strictly true when it comes to technical boundaries of wilderness, it assumes that environmental issues in the U.S. are somehow more important than environmental issues in other countries.

3. The entire argument that overpopulation is the major threat to the environment shifts the blame for environmental problems from rich people who consume a vast majority of the world’s resources and onto poor people. Immigrants, because they are poor, are going to have a much smaller environmental footprint than a person with a house in the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico who commutes into Albuquerque for instance. Who is really to blame for climate change in that scenario–the person with the 3000 square foot mansion in the Sandias or 100 immigrants with their combined environmental footprint?

4. The focus on wilderness and the potential threats to it is emblematic of the white elitist form of environmentalism that has dominated the movement since the late 1970s. Rather than focus on the environmental problems of people and the ecosystems around them, Wolke worries about lands that most Americans will never visit. And while those lands have great value, this kind of argument does zilch to build the kind of bipartisan and electorally popular environmental movement of the 1960s that focused as much as the environment of the backyard as that of the alpine wilderness.

This isn’t to say that overpopulation is a non-issue. But it certainly isn’t the most important problem we have to face as environmentalists. And to reinforce the environmental movement as white and privileged, of which this article is guilty, does absolutely nothing to further a sustainable world.

This pretty much sums up my view on the matter, but I will say this is precisely the kind of environmental thought that is most damaging and unsupportable. It was this kind of person who tried to take over the Sierra Club several years ago on a nativist platform. And it's this kind of environmentalism that I will never, ever support. 

Colonias

Alex Hannaford's disturbing Atlantic article on colonias along the border is essential reading--there are thousands of Latino migrants living in substandard developing world conditions within the borders of the United States. This is especially true in south Texas, a part of the nation seemingly forgotten about by most Americans. When we talk about Texas, how often are we talking about the border region? Yet this is a densely populated area that is growing quickly and is the key to future Democratic gains in Texas.

These are people who often lack running water, basic sanitation, and sturdy housing, not to mention decent schools and health care. This is unacceptable in the United States. Yet states like Texas and Arizona, dominated by governments who couldn't care less about the conditions of immigrant labor, do very little to fix these problems.

Immigration Documentaries

C.N. at The Color Line has compiled a three part series on the best immigration documentaries. A fine resourced for those of us who teach American history, as well as many other fields.

Historical Image of the Day

This week's images will come from American social movements between World War I and World War II.

Protesting the execution of the Italian immigrant anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti for a murder they did not commit, Massachusetts, 1927

DADT and The Dream Act

Am I the only one who can't work up a ton of joy over repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell? Obviously, it's a great thing.  But I am so deeply frustrated that it took two years of a large Democratic majority to overturn such an incredibly stupid law. It's an important step in the history of American civil rights. Given how rarely these benchmarks happen, I should celebrate.

But my joy is severely tempered by the failure of the Dream Act to get 60 votes in the Senate. Although under any sane system, it passed by a decent majority, it couldn't achieve the supermajority numbers to pass under the laws that only exist when Democrats control the Senate. This was a basic piece of civil rights legislation that would assist millions of young Latinos. It may be that this kind of legislation motivates Latinos to the polls in 2012 to support politicians who will help them, but given the disappointments after they did so in 2008, I don't know. Moreover, the fact that Democrats would vote against the Dream Act is disgusting. Kos lays into Jon Tester for doing so; frankly, Tester has been incredibly disappointing given the role the Netroots played in getting him elected. I guess he feels he can't get reelected in Montana in 2012 if he supports brown people, but as so many have pointed out, Democrats pretending to be Republicans don't get reelected anyway.

Anyway, under any decent system, with a Majority Leader who knew how to rally his votes and a president who understood how partisanship worked, DADT would have been gone around February 2009 and immigration legislation far surpassing the Dream Act would have passed as well. Some claim that given the supermajority requirements, Republican intransigence, and the fear of Blue Dogs to support their own party, there's really nothing Reid and Obama could do. Me, I tend to believe in the power of strong leadership with some serious sticks and carrots to get senators to do what they need to do. After all, it's not as if that hadn't worked throughout the nation's history until the very recent past or anything.

So while I'm glad DADT is dead, my thoughts are that it's about damn time and a massive disappointment that it took this long to make it happen. Meanwhile, white America continues to support the white supremacist policies of the current Republican party, dooming equal rights for the children of migrant workers.

Border Threats, circa 1919

This isn't the first time Americans have freaked out from essentially non-existent threats to national security crossing the Mexican border.

This New York Times article from November 24, 1919 might as well come from 2010 with a few words changed. In 1919, American leaders were freaking out about radicals and Chinese crossing the Mexican border into the United States and threatening our national institutions. Of course, this proved to be vastly overblown--people were crossing the border illegally, but to work, not to assassinate the president. Today, people are also crossing the border and again, they are crossing to work. We laugh at our ancestors worries from 90 years ago; in 90 years, Americans may well shake their head at our actions today.

Our Immigration System--Not At All Afflicted with Racial Profiling....

The story of a Mexican-American kid who had his birth certificate with him when cops pulled him over and was forced to sign a statement saying it was a forgery and was then deported is truly disgusting.

Luis Alberto Delgado, 19, was carrying his American birth certificate, Social Security card and Texas ID when he was pulled over in a routine traffic stop on June 17, according to Houston immigration lawyer Isaias Torres, who represented him in his legal battle for repatriation.

A South Texas sheriff’s deputy who apparently believed the documents were not authentic handed Delgado over to U.S. border agents. After eight hours of questioning, Torres said, Delgado felt pressured to sign a document agreeing to voluntary removal from the country and waiving his right to a lawyer. The Border Patrol then drove Delgado to Matamoros and left him, he said.

He was finally able to return home over the weekend, Torres said.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection service said it could not comment specifically on Delgado’s case. But in a statement it said, “When an individual requests and is granted a voluntary return, they sign a notice of rights where they are admitting to being in the U.S. illegally and give up their right to a hearing in Immigration Court.”

...

“They kept saying, ‘These are not your documents. You’re lying to us. You’re going to go prison for 20 years’,” Torres said. “They basically wore him down. He’s a 19-year-old kid.”

With the resurgence of open racism in the U.S., we increasingly define citizenship by color and language more than actual, you know, citizenship.

Plus the fact that the Border Patrol has zero interest or incentive to find out whether the people they want to deport are actual citizens shows the deep institutionalized flaws within that agency.

And that this all took place in Texas surprises not at all.

The Changing Country

Despite what racist white people are organizing to stop, the growing dominance of Latinos is pretty unstoppable. Evidence? How's this for you?

Univision was the most popular network among television viewers aged 18 to 49 years old last week, the first time a Spanish-language station has beaten the English ones in this key demographic in the United States.

That's not going to happen every week of course, but the fact that it's even possible is pretty amazing.  This may seem relatively minor but it's precisely this kind of evidence that historians use to track societal changes. So it's possible that historians of the future will see last week as a key turning point in American history. We don't always realize change when it happens around us.

You Can Combine Racism With Travel Too!

In case you can't read this travel advertisement created by a Columbus, Ohio radio station, let me block quote it for you:

610 WTVN would like to send you where Americans are proud and illegals are scared, sunny Phoenix, Arizona! You’ll spend a weekend chasing aliens and spending cash in the desert, just make sure you have your green card! Win round trip airfare to Phoenix, hotel accommodations, and a few pesos in spending cash — just register below! City employees encouraged to enter.

It's been awhile since this nation has so openly combined tourism and racism. I wonder what that looked like:

Ah yes. The good old days....

Kermit's Wingnut Cousin

I guess Kermit the Frog has a wingnut cousin who supports Arizona's new immigration law and is a close of friend of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who put together this absurdity:



I guess the habitat of this species of frog doesn't cross the border. He won't be cut off from others of his species like so many other animals.

Are Anti-Immigration Activists Acting For Show?

As anti-immigration activists work to pass laws undermining the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, granting citizenship to people born here, I wonder how serious they are. There is almost no question that the recent Arizona anti-immigration is going to be thrown out of court almost immediately. While judges such as Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas vote for the Republican party line regardless of constitutionality, most judges at least have a semblance of respect for the Constitution.

Now, the same Arizona legislator who introduced the insidious legislation is coming back with a bill denying citizenship to babies born of undocumented people in the United States. This is blatantly and obviously unconstitutional. Anyone with even the slightest perfunctory knowledge of the Constitution can tell you this. So are these politicians just making a name for themselves by introducing racist legislation they know will never pass just to make a name for themselves? Quite possible.

Gerson and Immigration

This may be the only time in history I will agree with Michael Gerson, but he is making sense on Arizona's recent racist anti-Mexican laws:

Immigration issues are emotional and complex. But this must be recognized for what it is: political suicide. Consider that Hispanics make up 40 percent of the K-12 students in Arizona, 44 percent in Texas, 47 percent in California, 54 percent in New Mexico. Whatever temporary gains Republicans might make feeding resentment of this demographic shift, the party identified with that resentment will eventually be voted into singularity. In a matter of decades, the Republican Party could cease to be a national party.

Even describing this reality invites scorn from those who regard immigration as a matter of principle instead of politics. But this represents a deep misunderstanding of politics itself. In America, political ideals are carried by parties. Republicans who are pro-business and pro-life, support a strong national defense and oppose deficit spending depend on one another to achieve influence. Each of these convictions alienates someone -- pro-choice voters, economic liberals, pacifists. But Republican activists who alienate not an issue-group but an influential, growing ethnic group are a threat to every other constituency. The vocal faction of anti-immigrant Republicans is not merely part of a coalition; it will eventually make it impossible for anyone else in that coalition to succeed at the national level.

The good news for Republicans is that Hispanics tend to be entrepreneurial and socially conservative. While the general image Hispanics hold of the GOP is poor, individual Republican candidates can make significant inroads. In presidential elections, Hispanic support can swing widely. In 1996, Bill Clinton got 72 percent of the Hispanic vote. In 2004, John Kerry's support was in the 50s. And Republicans do not need to win a majority of the Latino vote to compete nationally, just a competitive minority of that vote.

But even this modest goal is impossible if Hispanic voters feel targeted rather than courted.

For all the massive evil of the Bush Administration, Bush and many of his cronies did see the political reality his former speechwriter describes here. Republicans cannot be knee-jerk anti-Mexican and survive. And Gerson is right that if Republicans weren't so damn racist, they could make real inroads into the Latino vote on issues like abortion and gay marriage.

What Gerson doesn't say is that Republicans made a choice to be the white man's party in the 1960s and today they are paying the cost for that decision. Nixon's Southern Strategy made brilliant sense from a political perspective in 1968, but by fostering and coddling the racist elements within the Republican Party while also driving out moderates of all stripes, the Southern Strategy today means extreme anti-Mexican prejudice in many corners of the party is not just accepted, but expected.

And for all their social conservatism, Latinos are going to vote for Democrats in overwhelming numbers across the nation, just like they do in California today.

While I'm glad this reality is going to help the Democratic Party for the rest of my life, I'm sad one of the two political parties in this nation still has such a strong commitment to racism.

Arizona

Gabriel Arana provides worthy analysis of Arizona's recent spate of racist legislation:

The story of Hispanics' political powerlessness in Arizona is partly a story about big demographic trends. Since the 1990s, the state has seen an influx of two groups: white Midwesterners and undocumented workers from Mexico. The swell of Midwestern retirees and families to the Phoenix area follows a pattern of migration from post-industrial cities in the middle of the country to the Sun Belt, where the cost of living is lower and economic opportunities more fruitful. In addition, according to the Department of Homeland Security, the rate of illegal immigration to the state jumped 70 percent between 2000 and 2008.

Experts say the influx of the two groups has led to a cultural clash and strengthened the conservative base in Maricopa County, which dominates state politics. Republicans control both houses of the legislature and the governorship, which left Democratic representatives -- who hail largely from Southern Arizona -- relatively powerless to stop SB 1070.

"[Midwestern immigrants] are less familiar with Latinos as a group, which partially explains the support for tough immigration laws," says John Garcia, a political science professor at the University of Arizona.

In theory, these two demographics would both influence state-level policy. But the infrastructure for political participation by Hispanics doesn't exist in the same way it does for native-born Americans, the exceptions being states like California and Texas, which have more multi-generational Hispanic families and a larger percentage of eligible voters who are Hispanic. There is the obvious problem that about a quarter of Hispanics in Arizona are undocumented, but political participation is also low for citizens and permanent residents. Hispanics in Arizona – as well as nationwide -- are less likely than whites or African Americans to register to vote or participate in civic organizations. Only 17 percent of voters in the state are Hispanic. 

Agreed entirely. But I think it's worth stating more bluntly than Arana the commitment of many white Arizona voters to white supremacy. While they may not state it as such, the older Midwesterners who move to Arizona came of age in the generation of white backlash. Many of them themselves likely moved out of neighborhoods when blacks moved in, participating in anti-busing or anti-civil rights protests, or just think this is a white man's nation.

Of course, this is a very old demographic in Arizona. But while they will pass from the scene soon, will new generations of old conservative racist whites move to Arizona and continue the state's long white supremacist history? Or will the Latino population mobilize and take over the state politically. Both perhaps. As we forward in time, older people are less likely to have a strong commitment to white supremacy I suppose. But as I've stated in a much longer piece on Arizona and race here, the state is likely to become the next California after Prop 187: an empowered, growing, and angry Latino community ready to attack the state's white conservative power structure.

In California, that led to the state becoming one of the most liberal in the nation. We forget easily that through most of the 20th century, California was arguably the single most conservative state in the U.S. Today, it's among the most liberal. Of course, there are many reasons for this. While Arizona has its own version of right-wing Orange County, it definitely does not have its own San Francisco. So the ability of Arizona Latinos to unite with large numbers of white liberals may make the transition of Arizona to a liberal state slower. But I do believe it will happen and we may possibly see the effects in the next few years.

Historical Image of the Day

Italian-American fishermen repairing nets, San Francisco, 1891

The Disingenuous Lindsay Graham

So Lindsay Graham says he is pulling out of negoitations over a climate bill because President Obama has decided to push for immigration reform. Supposedly this dooms a climate bill.

Does anyone really believe that a climate bill was going to pass anyway? Each and every Republican has no intention on allowing any part of Obama's agenda to pass. Maybe, just maybe, Lindsay Graham was committed to climate change legislation (not committed enough to overcome disdain for brown people of course). But first, he was the only Republican who might theoretically ever vote for a climate bill. Second, in order to do this, he would have watered it down into nothing. Third, Joe Lieberman or Blanche Lincoln would have blown it up anyway. So Graham can complain all he wants to but until Republicans show even a basic willingness to negotiate with Democrats in good faith, he's not worth listening to.

Moreover, immigration reform is precisely what Obama should start pushing for. While the issue scares many conservative Democrats from white states, the issue makes perfect political and moral sense. With states like Arizona openly embracing white supremacy, Obama needs to show that America stands for fairness and at least a semblance of justice. With Latinos the fastest growing demographic in this country, he has the opportunity to lock in much of that vote for a generation, turning states like Arizona and Nevada to the Democrats, as possibly even Texas in another decade.

Besides, whatever lame climate legislation that might have received Lindsay Graham's vote would have been a drop in the bucket in actually stopping this insidious process. I'd rather Democrats fight for something that's actually going to matter.

GOP Grandstanding Redux

Every now and again, the issue of the 14th amendment and birthright citizenship makes its way into some frazzled GOP operative's head. I wrote about a California ballot initiative that was crafted to end birthright citizenship here last summer; now Congressional Republicans are mounting a bill to "amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to clarify the interpretation of the 14th amendment". Of course, this bill wouldn't come close to passing Constitutional muster-- the very idea that an act of Congress could change a long-held interpretation of the Constitution should smack anyone with an 8th grade education as ludicrous.

But my guess is that the GOP is making a really slick tactical move here. Smart GOP leaders know that this has no chance of passing, and even if it did, no chance of passing a Supreme Court hearing. They also know that many (if not most) people lack a fundamental understanding of how our government works. By introducing a bill like this, the wingnuts can force Democrats to vote against it and pillory them with the usual complaints of being soft on illegal immigration. In fact, I'm sure the higher-ups in the GOP would be terrified if something like this actually passed, since they would lose this sure-fire way to rouse the base. This kind of bill is a lot like the flag burning amendment that makes its way into Congress every once in a while. While the strategy is probably effective on some level, it really irks me.

I could go into the disgust many of us share at the nefarious scapegoating and blatant racism that underlies the whole thing, but really, right now I'm as angry at the fact that this is a complete and utter waste of time from a public policy perspective. Once again, the Republicans have proven that they are more interested in the political games and power plays than being a constructive partner in governance.