Although the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill recently scuttled in the Senate was deeply flawed, one thing was clear. Our legal immigration system is broken. Nothing proves it more than what happened today. -

On June 13, 2007, the U.S. State Department announced that, as of July 2, individuals seeking permanent residence ("green cards") through employer sponsorship finally would be allowed to proceed with their applications. Applicants would have a short window, possibly only through July or perhaps August, to complete their paperwork.

Those intending immigrants, immediately and at great expense, rushed to gather final documents, complete their paperwork and obtain required medical exams. Many sent their applications off on Friday, June 29 for arrival on July 2 at the Department of Homeland Security, for the last phase of the multi-step process that leads to a green card.

However, on the very day the door was to open, DOS and DHS slammed it shut.

There’s an excellent diary by mswsm, 'US ATTORNEY: Paulose Speaks, Raises New Questions about "Standing in the Gap"'  questioning how Paulose  got appointed as US Attorney in Minnesota. In it, she points out that Paulose has publicly quoted the Bible and admits that she is "standing in the gap." More critically, the diary reveals where this phrase comes from.

It comes from a very fundamentalist prayer, by a group known as Capital Hill Prayer Partnership asking God to empower his "Church" so that they can control America’s culture. It’s not clear to me what "church" or group of churches this prayer alludes to.

Mswsm's revelations got me to thinking. And now I am frightened. Very frightened. Come with me to find out why.

From Think Progress

"Four years after Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was deposed by U.S.-led troops, an international panel charged with recommending invitations for an exclusive meeting of the world’s democracies" has ruled that Iraq is "not invited," the same status the country had under Hussein’s rule. Last year, Iraq had observer status at the Community of Democracies meeting.

George W. Bush has been boasting   ad nauseum about how democracy has been making progress in Iraq.

Who do you think is right on this one?

How about that? Bush is thinking about creating a czar to lead the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and can't get anyone to even consider taking the job. Three retired flag officers shunned his offer.

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the conduct of the activities in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position. . . .

More==>

The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War and Losing the Peace sounds like a must read. It is an insider’s account of how the current administration mis-managed the occupation of Iraq after defeating Saddam’s army.

There's more. . . .

Here're the opening sentences of a Wall Street Journal editorial on Holy Saturday:

In short order, John McCain has gone from Republican presidential front-runner to political death watch. On Wednesday, the Arizona senator kicks off a month of high-profile events, seeking a resurrection of sorts.

He badly needs it.

Only a right-leaning bastion of greed that serves as the main tool for those rich people who can pass through the eye of a needle easier than through the pearly gates could come up with making this comparison - equating McCain's political status as akin to Jesus' death and resurrection. Let's set the record straight over the flip.

I just read David Sirota's diary on his op ed in the Baltimore Sun.

He makes good arguments to support his point that the senators and congresspersons who voted for the supplemental funding for Iraq bill incorporating a timeline for withdrawal were not engaging in protest but were instead legislating.

In doing this, he reminds us all that Congress, when it sends the final bill to the president, will have done its job of making policy. And if, and when George W. Bush vetos this bill, he too will be doing his job. And what we then will have will be constitutional checkmate.

Unfortunately, this checkmate will have consequences for our troops. So it should be avoided at all costs.

It's time for us all to stop surfing for a few minutes and do something. Come with me to find out what. . . .

Thank you Tommy for erasing the board.  Now class, let me start by writing down this idea –

A Scandal A Day

How many of you have kept up with current events in the past few days?  Good. Now I am going to ask each of you to tell me what you have heard going on. I’ll list them on the board as you call them out.

Good one. Yes. Uh-hu. Nice. Very good. Definitely that one. Ok.

Now bear with me and let’s look at what we now have on the list. . . .

I caught this discussion on CNN. Sorry but I cannot find any better link to a more comprehensive transcript.

Arizona Senator McCain, a candidate for the Republican nomination for president, arguing that the surge is working, made a statement today to the effect that "there are some streets in Baghdad there where it is safe to take a walk."

Skeptically, Wolf Blitzer arranged for a remote connection with Michael Ware, CNN's long-standing man on the spot in Baghdad to ask him if what McCain said was true. What Ware said over the flip:

Update: A much better diary by xrepup containing transcription compiled by TIVO is posted about 7 diaries below. But since my point here is the impact of the MSM when it does its job, I'll not delete. See also, Donnas

Update II: Now up at Crooks and Liars

(A quick disclosure – I have owned my home for 29 years and have 8 more payments to make before the mortgage is paid off. I have never re-financed because in the early years I could not afford to, and later when I could,  I had already decided that the house was going to be our only child’s inheritance, so  it didn’t make sense to refinance).

I have a wonderful routine when I bring in my mail. I pick it up from the curbside mailbox and walk up the driveway to the recyclable trash bin. There, I sort through the mail, tearing up the credit card offers, throwing away the store flyers, and dumping the letters offering to lower my mortgage payments. Despite there now being a so-called mortgage meltdown, it just doesn’t seem to me that there has been any decrease in offers to refinance. And even today, with sub-prime lending a major news item, most of these offers allege that I will not need to provide any proof of employment or proof of income.

So I suspect that some people are still making a lot of money in the mortgage industry. And that prior to the current meltdown, some people made a lot of money. My question and concerns over the flip.

Recently, much ado has been made about Congress’ power of oversight of the executive branch. Indeed, presidential spokesperson Tony Snow has gone so far as to state that "Congress does not have oversight power over the executive." One prominent dKos diarist has gone so far as to give sarcarstic credence to Mr. Snow’s assertion by wittily conceding that, Nowhere in the Constitution of the United States of America does the word "oversight" appear .

Mr. Snow’s  assertion is complete and utter hogwash!

As a practicing lawyer, and more so as a retired career military officer, I have always abided by the maxim – when in doubt, RTFM – Read.The.F&#@ing.Manual.  In the context of determining what powers the Congress, or for that matter, the President, has, the manual to read here is (fanfare Ta Dah] the Constitution of the United States of America. Come with me as we do this. . . .

This started as a comment to a recommended diary - Who Told Brent Tolman To Rewrite the Patriot Act?. But the more I wrote, the angrier I got, so here it is as a diary.

It now appears that Brent Tolman, while a Congressional staffer, inserted Section 501 of the Patriot Act at the request of a DOJ executive. This is the section that revised the appointment of US attorneys so that the Attorney General can now appoint replacements without the advice and consent of the Senate. The recent use of this new power now haunts the headlines as our newest Bush administration scandal.

On the flip - what needs to happen now and in the future

In an editorial in today's edition of the New York Times,entitled Immigration Miserythe grey lady describes our current immigration policy as being "indecent."

The focus of the editorial is clearly on recent headline grabbing enforcement activities like family detention and workplace raids. It describes the unintended consequences on families, not only families of immigrants (e.g., those children forced to be jailed with their parents and children who lose their parents when they are picked up at work) but also on U.S. citizens who are denied access to health care because they lack the documentation needed as a result of requirements intended to keep illegal immigrants from seeking health care.

But more so than enforcement related activities, our overall immigration policy is indecent because of the impact it has on Americans. Come with me over the flip for examples.

This is basically a diary to recommend another diary.

If  you are a progressive, and believe that our democratic experiment should be extending the benefits and protections to all people, expecially to the weak, then you should be concerned about the loss of the Great Writ by a group that is the least able to protect itself. This group of people, those detained as enemy combatants, were brought into our system totally against their will, and have absolutely no recourse to the rule of law that our nation claims it stands for.

Ordinarily, I hate spam, especially chain spam from people who somehow got my email address.

For some reason, I actually opened and looked at this.

It really touched me.

Then -

MODERATOR: New question. How would you go about as president deciding when it was in the national interest to use U.S. force, generally?
BUSH: . . . . I would take the use of force very seriously. I would be guarded in my approach. I don't think we can be all things to all people in the world. I think we've got to be very careful when we commit our troops. The vice president and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and therefore prevent war from happening in the first place. So I would take my responsibility seriously. . . . Bonus plans to keep some of our high-skilled folks in the services and a commander in chief that sets the mission to fight and win war and prevent war from happening in the first place. George W. Bush, October 3, 2000 in the First Presidential Debate

Recently, after the flip ->

Speaking to the Economic Club of Washington, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke commented on problems likely to confront the nation as the so- called Baby Boomers retire. One of his suggestions is very intriguing:

Bernanke also said a more liberal immigration policy would ease the burden of a shrinking work force. But, he cautioned, it would take annual flows close to 3.5 million immigrants, not today's 1 million, to replace retiring boomers.

Follow me to the flip >

What a victory for the rule of law, eh? The president overstepped his boundaries and stepped on his crank when he tried to set up a mechanism to convict Guantanamo detainees of whatever misconduct he chose. In a nutshell, the Supreme Court has held that even under his broad war powers, the president  does not have the power unilaterally to 1) abrogate the Geneva Convention and/or 2) create military tribunals to try persons whom he can designate without fetter as "enemy combatants."

This is a great result and affirms the limited powers of the executive under our Constitution. Unfortunately, nothing has changed from Mr. Hamdan's point of view. He's still detained, and he still has no idea on whether he will eventually be tried under a military tribunal. That's because the opinion accepts the underlying premise that our nation is engaged in a War on Terror.

There is no War on Terror, and neither can there ever be a real "war," at least within the meaning of the U.S. constitution. Why? Follow me over the flip.