Whose side are they on?

So now we hear that the Obama administration is going to sue the state of Arizona.  Fine, as some conservative pundits have observed, maybe the administration's legal officials will finally READ THE $@!% law!

Then again, someone might purchase a winning lottery ticket and slip it under my door this evening.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in her now-infamous interview in Ecuador that the federal government in the U.S. should be the ones making immigration law.

Sure, no argument from me.  But how about you enforce the existing immigration laws?  Because S.B.1070 is just a state-based version of the federal laws.

I read today about how sections of Organ Pipe National Monument are now off-limits to the American citizens because we have citizens of a foreign country invading our sovereign territory with impunity, bringing violence against anyone who opposes them.  Citizens who pay taxes that support the upkeep of the park cannot enjoy the fruits of their taxpayer dollars.  Why aren't more people enraged?

I am sick of the tear-jerker line about how these people are simply coming here for the economic opportunities we take for granted.  You know what?  After spending the last five months of 2009 out of work and ineligible to receive unemployment, I surely don't take the dwindling economic opportunities for granted.  During my unemployment, I suppose I could have robbed a bank or cheated on my taxes or committed insurance fraud to get out from underneath my mortgage.  But I didn't, because those things are illegal, just like non-citizens working under the table.  Laws, when enforced, are meant to restrain our individual liberties to the point that they do not infringe on another's liberties.

It's interesting to me, in this "post-racial America" as it's been called, that the news media wouldn't side with U.S. citizens in the lower economic classes, especially blacks and hispanics.  To be fair, some illegal immigrants work hard for chump change, but some of them come to this country and leech off public services intended for citizens.  Others join gangs and commit violence, often resulting in the deaths of American citizens.  This year, we've had a rancher murdered on his own property by a invading force.  It doesn't matter that the invading force was a bunch of smugglers as opposed to the Mexican army (which routinely violates the border as well).  A hostile act was still committed by a foreign national against a citizen of the United States.  Has the federal government done anything?  Has it applied pressure on the Mexican government to bring the rancher's killer or killers to justice?  Has it done anything to protect others who live in border states?

And someone please tell these sniveling Latinos and Latinas that the U.S. didn't steal their land.  It won it through armed conflict in many cases.  It also bought land from Mexico!  What are we supposed to do, take worthless desert, build up economic prosperity in it, and then give it back?  Well, then, let's sell it back, accounting for interest and the economic infrastructure created from scratch.  It'll resolve this whole issue, and we'll have some extra cash to pay down that debt the last few presidents and members of Congress have run up.



At the same time, we've got the Gulf oil spill and the criminal incompetence of the federal government.  I'm no expert on oil, but it seems to me that the sooner you clean up a spill, the better.  The sooner you deploy booms, the sooner you separate that oil from the water, the better .  What escapes me is the priority that seems to have been given to identifying who to blame.  Joe Biden's prediction was a little off, since it was  sixteen months into the Obama presidency and not six months, but we are seeing Obama's leadership skills being put to the test.  Guess what?  He failed.  He demonstrated why a community organizer is not the same as a leader.  The community organizer in Obama knows how to get the folks riled up, but a leader is someone who motivates others to get the job done.  Some lefty in the media, who's starting to see the light, recently described Obama as some type of ineffective middle-manager.  No, he's not any kind of manager at all.  I've worked for bosses both good and bad.  The worst of my bosses wanted to be my friend.  The best of them never sought my friendship, but they did earn my respect.  In the past, my last boss told me what needed to be done and when it needed to be done by.  But that was only half his job. The other half was to make sure I had what I needed to complete the job efficiently and correctly:  Adequate time, any tools, and whatever obstacles could be removed from my path.

Let's see:  Could Mr. Obama have removed obstacles such as the Coast Guard requirements of having an adequate number of life preservers on oil-sucking barges?  Or the ban preventing the use of Dutch oil booms?

What's worse, the administration has punished all the other oil drilling platforms that have operated accident-free for about a half-century.

He's not alone in this.  The media villified BP for drying to sell some of the crude they've collected from the Gulf.  Umm, what else is BP supposed to do with it, stick it in some giant holding facility somewhere?  OR could they sell it and use the profits to fund their clean-up?  No. No.  No, that makes too much sense.

Don't get me wrong, BP and Transocean screwed up.  But the administration isn't exactly smelling like roses here, either.