President Bush is headed to Capital Hill today to try and revive his immigration travesty.  In hearing all the spin on this bill and much ignorance about it’s provisions, I thought I would VERY simply point out the Amnesty in S. 1348.

Those supporting the bill like to point to all of these measures that such as learning English and fines to state that there is no Amnesty in this bill.  There are punishments.  There are hoops they have to jump through. But therein lies the dirty little secret of this bill that most people are missing: illegals won’t have to do ANY of those things.

That’s right.  The second this bill is signed into law every single illegal will be LEGAL. Done. Fini. The fine, the English, the mandatory trips back home… they are all steps to citizenship. Don’t want to be a citizen?  Oh – well, you’re legal… have a nice life!

This bill is amnesty because it’s solution to the 12-20 million illegals is to simply make them legal. Tada! No more millions of illegals in the country.  Problem solved right?  Right?  So while the provisions to bring the ex-illegals families into the country by the millions are economically scary and the promises at better enforcement of this new law over the current law are unbelievable, one thing is certain.  Waving a wand to make 20 million il-legals, legal IS Amnesty.

On Monday, the Democratic Presidential hopefuls reached out to the “Religious Right” by holding a forum with the head of the Sojourners Social Justice Ministry. Some of the attempts to connect with the faithful through biblical references were fairly amusing like Sen. Obama’s statement that “I am my brother’s keeper”.

Now while I’m sure Obama was proud that he remembered something from those Sunday school lessons long ago, he probably should have checked his reference. The only time the phrase “my brother’s keeper” is used in the bible is in Genesis 4:8-9. And its use is Cain attempting to change the subject when God asks about his brother Abel (recently killed by Cain). Probably not the imagery the Senator was hoping to conjure up.

Aside from the amusing allusions, there was on statement that I found to be quite shocking. Though no one else seemed to pick up on it. When John Edwards was asked “If you think something is morally wrong, though, you morally disagree with it, as president of the United States, don’t you have a duty to go with your moral belief?”

His response? “No.” No? NO! John Edwards -at a forum that was supposedly faith based- wanted to make it clear that any morals that were held by him would not effect how he ran his Presidency. Now his response was actually quite longer than just no, here is the transcript for his full response:

O’BRIEN: If you think something is morally wrong, though, you morally disagree with it, as president of the United States, don’t you have a duty to go with your moral belief?

EDWARDS: No, I think that, first of all, my faith, my belief in Christ plays an enormous role in the way I view the world. But I think I also understand the distinction between my job as president of the United States, my responsibility to be respectful of and to embrace all faith beliefs in this country because we have many faith beliefs in America. And for that matter we have many faith beliefs in the world. And I think one of the problems that we’ve gotten into is some identification of the president of the United States with a particular faith belief as opposed to showing great respect for all faith beliefs.

John Edwards beyond the normal political rhetoric points to the fact that there a many moral structures out there, and who would he be -as President of the United States- to think that his was any better than anyone else’s. The KEY point to take away from this exchange is this:

If you think something is wrong – you should act on that belief. Now we could argue all day over right and wrong but that is not the point here. He was asked if you think something is morally wrong (whatever John defines as wrong) don’t you have a duty to [act]? “NO” was John’s response. Scary.

Now this won’t be noticed by many because there is a ridiculous belief on the Left and in the Media that it is perfectly fine to have morals, just as long as they DON’T EFFECT YOUR DECISIONS. Look again at Edwards’ statement. That’s exactly what he is saying here.

• CNN Transcript

This is a salute to a great American: Harry Joe Hooper.  I found out about Harry in a rather oblique fasion… my Tivo found him.  A random Tivo suggestion grabbed a Trick My Truck episode about a Vietnam Memorial Replica.  I’d never seen the show, but as a fan of the extraordinary, I couldn’t help but watch.

Mr. Hooper served his country in the Korean War as a young man.  After the war, he tended the graves of soldiers as an undertaker in his county.  Now retired, Harry spends his time driving a replica of the vietnam memoral around to different towns to help honor those that served and help his fellow vets find some closure.  I think Harry put it best:

“Well those fellows didn’t get any respect when they came home, it’s the least we can do is show some now.”

This country sure could use a few more men like Harry Hooper.

Mark Steyn of the Chicago Sun Times has an excellent piece on the Z-visas headed our way unless congress stops the mad train its on. It’s a longer article but the humor and sarcasim make it an enjoyable read. The first four paragraphs are below, check the link for the full scoop.

Are you a fine upstanding member of the Undocumented-American community? That’s to say, are you (if you’ll forgive the expression) an illegal immigrant?

Great news! Being illegal is now perfectly legal! Just for being one of the circa 12 million people who shouldn’t be here, you can now be here indefinitely! If you were living and working in America illegally before Jan. 1, 2007, you’re now entitled to one of the new Z-1 “probationary” visas. And your parents and spouses are entitled to one of the new Z-2 visas, and your children to the new Z-3 visas.

Don’t worry: It’s not an “amnesty.” Every politician in America is opposed to amnesty — if not the concept, then at least the word. That’s why the visa starts with the letter that’s furthest away from the one “amnesty” begins with. “Z” stands for zellout . . . no, hang on, zurrender or Zapatista, or some other word way up the other end of the alphabet from “amnesty.” But the point is, at a stroke there will be no more illegal immigrants. Because being illegal means you’re now legal.

Unless, of course, you came to America after Jan. 1, 2007, and thus aren’t covered by the zamnesty. But in that case why not apply for the Z-1 anyway? After all, you’re here illegally so how would U.S. Immigration know when you arrived? Especially with 12-15-20 million urgent applications tossed in on top of what’s already a multi-year backlog. They’re not exactly going to be doing a lot of in-depth background checks, especially not for a visa category whose only entry requirement under U.S. law is that you’ve broken U.S. law when you entered.

• Capitulation, from A—— to Z