The only victory we of the snaggletoothed, chicken-chokin, inbred redneck community want is defeat of the entire bill and a President that is committed to controlling our borders and allowing in only those who are permitted to enter under the law. Once that is done, we can talk amnesty.

The Houston Chronicle, and you, are conflating Republican Senators with conservatives. Now, off to brush my tooth, kiss my sister/wife and choke a pullet.

So OJ is not for a blanket amnesty and meaningless borders and a bill that punishes those who were conscientiously trying to go through the legitimate process by sending them to the beginning of the line? I'm confused.

Of course he is, he who lives in Whiteworld is throwing us racists a bone.

BUT

Reid is controlling the amendments - still a very bad bill and they're going to pass it.

Refreshingly, the Ecuadorian pres is threatening a mass wave of illegals if W doesn't sign the 1-way "free trade" bill.

Sandy: Don't want to be called a racist, don't act like one. Brown hordes from Eucudor!

h-man: "President that is committed to controlling our borders and allowing in only those who are permitted to enter under the law:? Who will that be? Clinton? Obama? Edwards? Because if you insist on unconditional victory and break the GOP, that is what you get.

Bob

I guess you'll have to mark me down as a romantic/idealist, not a realist/pragmatist.

Btw that would be "illegal" brown hordes, if it makes any difference to you.

OJ,

Notice how this amemdment does next to nothing, while the far more reasonable amendment - throwing felons out of the country - won't come to a vote.

Assuming all your arguments on 'amnesty' are valid, just what is gained by the US allowing even one felon to become a citizen?

Also, Assuming all your arguments on 'amnesty' are valid, just what is gained by loading a bill up with crap that everyone knows can't be enforced.

I'm 80% with you on all the concepts of the issue. We benefit from a) decent people who wish to become Americans, and b) decent people who want to work, make some money, and go back home to live in their native land.

We do not benefit from the current system, which is tearing parties and communities apart (you're just plain wrong that 'most are assimilating." Nor do we benefit from these "comprehensive bills that are basically a charade to give Ted Kennedy more clients for his welfare state and ethically challenged businessmen cheap labor to exploit.

The 'wahoos' you beat up on are half right. Absent enforcement of rules, there are too many things that aren't going right. The half they have wrong is that we need to dramatically expand, and then control, legal immigration.

To provide the guys who've painted themselves into the wahoo corner enough political cover to vote their consciences.

I'm racist but La Raza and mECHA who wrote the bill aren't.

Go figure.

Go no problem w/Indians and Chinese unless they're ChicCOMS......

Name 1 successful current or former Spanish colony.

Florida, California, Puerto Rico, Chile, Costa Rica...

So it really is just Latinos?

OJ:

Your list is facile - they're all under the influence of America (literally or almost). What about those that aren't?

They have paid a steep price, as the Venezuelans are finding out now. Surely that is what Sandy meant.

Mexico could certainly have become as Canada, but did not - in fact, it regressed severely during the 1980s, which is one reason why things are so out of whack today. And Cuba is obviously the poster child for being far behind where it might have been.

What is really wrong about our 'immigration' policies (current or proposed) is that some groups are aggressively hounded (Haitians, Jamaicans, Africans, some professional Europeans and Asians, etc.) while others get carte blanche.

If the bill would just do a better job of sorting out who is here (more than a 24-hour fantasy background check), and also differentiate between potential hostiles and garden-variety illegals (as Hugh Hewitt has written), it would be better.

But, for the political class, only politics matters. And that means Latinos. That 'racial' problem is driven by the elites (looking for advantage), not by most conservatives.

The President could have done himself a great favor by firmly insisting on a couple of these enforcement provisions weeks and weeks ago - while promising to take the barbs publicly. He chose to stand off, and now is paying the price for his indifference to the sausage process.

One thing that is becoming increasingly clear is that Chertoff, Rice, and Josh Bolten are no match for Ashcroft, Powell, and Andrew Card. And if George Mitchell were Majority Leader, the President would be as weak as his father was in 1992.

Yes, that's the point. The more heavily they're interlaced with America the better for all concerned. The attempt to isolate ourselves from them is indecent and unChristian, which is why it won't happen.