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According to Breitbart, Bob Woodward thinks it is absurd to pass an immigration bill no one has read.
Legendary Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward criticized the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill process, and the new rush to pass the repackaged bill with the amendment from Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and John Hoeven (R-ND), on Fox News Sunday.
“You can’t have a Congress that is kind of going around picking this and picking that and that fails and that fails and this fails,” Woodward said in the online post-show panel of Fox News Sunday this weekend.
Woodward added that “when you pass complicated legislation and no one has really read the bill” then “the outcome is absurd.”
Woodward is the veteran journalist who, with Carl Bernstein, broke the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, and has remained a force at the Post over the past several decades.
Steve Hayward takes a look at the bill.
I’m pretty sure it was my first Washington mentor, the great M. Stanton Evans, who told me—and perhaps originated—the famous story of a senior Senate aide explaining American democracy to a Russian visitor shortly after the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991. The story is probably apocryphal, but like Xenophon’s re-telling of Cyrus the Great, or Machiavelli’s subtle mis-tellings of so many stories, it contains the “effectual truth” of the matter:
‘It’s true, we have a two-party system in America: The Evil Party, and the Stupid Party. And every once and a while the Evil Party and the Stupid Party get together to pass something really evil and stupid. That’s called “bipartisanship.” ‘
It would seem the perfect description of the Gang of Eight and immigration reform. Please save us from bipartisan gangs.
Stan also taught me that whenever you hear about a bad piece of legislation under development in Congress, when you actually read the bill you invariably find out that it’s even worse than you imagined. So Stan’s column a few days ago (I don’t have a link) notes:
“On first appraisal, the amnesty/immigration bill before the Senate looks pretty bad. On a more careful comb-through, clause by clause, it looks much worse – like a complete disaster. It also looks like a massive venture in deception. …”
Mickey Kaus has his metaphor for the bill.
I’ve been trying to think of the right metaphor for the giant Corker-Hoeven amendment, the one that is reportedly giving the Gang of 8′s immigration bill enough votes to pass the Senate. Sure, it’s a fig leaf–but a fig leaf is usually something insignificant-yet-real. This is something grandiose that’s a fraud.
The best I can come up with is this: A man comes into your restaurant. You recognize him–he’s a guy who ate a $100 meal last year and said he’d pay later, but he stiffed you. Now he’s back and wants another meal on credit. He senses you are wary and makes a new offer. “This time I’ll pay you … $2 million! How can you refuse? It’s 2 million dollars!”
You get the idea. Just try and collect.
Similarly, Schumer, Durbin & Co. have offered a deal to Corker, Hoeven, and conservatives. In essence, it’s this: You’ll immediately legalize 11 M immigrants who are unlawfully in the country. They’ll get work permits renewable ad infinitum–we call it “provisional,” but basically they’re in. Yes, we know that in 1986 we passed an amnesty and promised enforcement that never happened, but this time we promise to … militarize the Southern border! Hire 20,000 new agents! That’s the ticket. Double the Border Patrol! Spend $20 billion. Quadruple the budget. Drones in the sky–triple the number of drones. Drones! Sensors on the ground! 700 miles of fence! 100% use of E-Verify! ”I don’t know what more to do, short of just shooting people,” says Gang of 8-er Lindsey Graham.
Just try and collect. …
The Atlantic posts on the increasing prison population. Another result of the foolish drug war.
The U.S. incarceration rate has more than quadrupled since 1980. It’s now the highest in the world, just ahead of Russia and Rwanda. …
… Why have U.S. incarceration rates skyrocketed? The answer is not rising crime rates. In fact, crime rates have actually dropped by more than a quarter over the past 40 years. Some look at these statistics and find confirmation of their view that expanding prison populations reduces crime rates. In fact, however, these same decreases have occurred even in places where incarceration rates have remained unchanged.
New sentencing guidelines have been a key factor. They have reduced judges’ discretion in determining who goes to jail and increased the amount of time convicts sentenced to jail spend there. A notable example is the so-called “three-strikes” law, which mandates sentences ranging from 25 years to life for many repeat offenders. Though championed as protecting the public, such sentences have resulted in long confinements for many non-violent offenders, who constitute half of all inmates.
Perhaps the single greatest contributor has been the so-called “war on drugs,” which has precipitated a 12-fold increase in the number of incarcerated drug offenders. About 1.5 million Americans are arrested each year for drug offenses, one-third of whom end up in prison. Many are repeat offenders caught with small quantities of relatively innocuous drugs, such as marijuana, a type of criminal activity often referred to as “victimless.”
Some sentencing laws seem little less than perverse. For example, in the 1980s, crack cocaine received a great deal of public attention. In response, the U.S. Congress passed legislation imposing a 100 to 1 sentencing ratio for possession of crack cocaine, as compared to its powdered form. That is, someone carrying 5 grams of crack cocaine would get the same sentence as someone carrying 500 grams of powdered cocaine. From a medical point of view, this makes little sense. …
WSJ has the lowdown on America’s Cup spying.
The America’s Cup, which begins in San Francisco July 4, isn’t just sailing’s most prestigious competition. It is also a showcase for the most shamelessly conspicuous spy operation in professional sports.
From San Francisco’s waterfront, it’s impossible to miss the teams practicing on their 13-story-tall yachts—and the fleet of enemy spy vessels trailing them. Onboard the powerboats, which sport their teams’ logos, are photographers with $10,000 Nikon lenses trying to shoot pictures of something the other guys don’t want them to see: a shorter sail, a lighter foil, a modified rudder.
Reconnaissance in the Cup is about as old as the 162-year-old competition itself, and it’s especially crucial this year because the four teams are racing largely untested, state-of-the-art yachts. The squads spy on each other to avoid missing technological breakthroughs and to learn their opponents’ racing strategy.
“Sometimes you get caught up in your own processes and you want to think outside the box,” said Cameron, the New Zealand team photographer. “Those guys”—the competition—”are thinking completely outside the box.”
Espionage has already permeated this Cup. New Zealand coach Rod Davis said that in November, his team needed to test a new foil, which elevates a boat’s hull above water so the boat goes faster. The problem: An Oracle spy boat was lurking outside their Auckland dock.
The solution was to prepare two yachts. One had the new foil. The other didn’t. Both left dock, but the sailors on the new-foil boat pretended to suffer a breakdown. The decoy sailed off and Oracle took the bait, Davis said, leaving the first yacht to test the foil. …