Send in the clowns

Posts calling for "rationale debate," notwithstanding, I applaud Congressman Senselessbrenner's push for legislation making all current illegals felons and making it a felony to assist an illegal alien in any way, like, um, giving him or her (or their children, I assume) a glass of water. Oh, and the big ol' iron fence running the length of our border with Mexico...well, it will give both countries so much more wall space.

Most importantly, his bill, matched by Bill Frist's grandstanding push to get similar legislation in the Senate (with Frist knowing it won't pass), should be driving Karl Rove absolutely to distraction. Rove has long seen Hispanics -- Catholic, old-fashioned values, the fastest growing population in the Sun Belt and elsewhere -- as the future of the Republican Party.

Instead, the national Republican party is about to learn a very hard truth the California Republican party learned a decade or so ago.

And do you think that maybe this is the point where Republican demagography finally forces corporate interests to align itself with something other than a party that thinks that shrinking the pool of available labor would be good for business?

Meanwhile, at the Corner of Stupid Street and Fascist Avenue, Michael Ledeen has found something for us to do with Gitmo once all the current denizens are dead or found to be harmless "terrorists." Re-education camps.