Getting It

"It" being the bottom line (mind out of the gutter).   There are a couple of stories out there rife with narrative manipulation that deserve some IRS-like Tea Party scrutiny, so here goes.

Story one, immigration.  Law-abiding, tax-paying citizens are getting the daily shaft in this country.  They have to follow the laws and rules or they lose their jobs or are thrown in jail.  But there's a huge class of others who break the law daily, not just by their mere presence in the country, but in how they collect their wages, pay taxes, insure their vehicles and other basic things expected of good citizens. 

The law abiding citizens are made to feel guilty about this.  Through no fault other than raising their voices against this inequity they are called names that begin with x, r, and b (when not being told that America is a land of immigrants as if the INS has never existed).  Some folks in government even have had to endure a mob coming to their home to demand that illegal activities be made legal.  Outrage and coverage are limited.
 

And now the law abiding folks are being fed a rasher called amnesty legalization and told that if they don't swallow it the Democrats will have control of America power levers forever.  Maybe they deserve it. 

Rush Limbaugh spoke out on this today, playing the role of Sarah Palin in bashing some of the big money men like Sheldon Adelson and gasp, the Koch Brothers for applying pressure on this..

"All of the Republican major donors want this bill," he said. "I'll give you some names. The Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson. I mean, they want the bill, because they want the influx of new labor. They want it. They're not concerned with how anybody's gonna vote down the line. As long as these guys can stay aligned with whoever is running government, they're in fat city."

That's called 'speaking truth to power', folks.  It's dangerous, even for him.  It probably helped take out Palin.  But the "it" here--the bottom line--is this:  if there were only 100,000 illegal aliens in the country would congress be bending over backwards to legalize them?  This isn't about legalization, it's about money and power just like everything else.  Even for the Catholic church.   

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On the NSA spygate story, good news.  Obama has decided to hold a huge press conference and let everyone, including bloggers, ask questions. He's going to limit his replies to 3 minutes or less and go on as long as necessary until everyone's question is answered.  It's all about his "national debate" on the matter and a showcase of his administration's unprecedented transparency.

Actually no, I made that up.  His real plan to get back control of the issue is to use his golden voice to bash Bush/Cheney, mainly Cheney, while giving limited syrupy interviews to selected journalists, ie, same old same old. Part of the effort is to get the military and law enforcement types out to remind us how scary the terrorists still are despite Biden cackling that Bin Laden was dead and GM was alive, right before his boss announced that AQ was on the run and it's safe to draw down the GWoT and retreat (negotiate) from the war zone in Afghanistan, all while calling Benghazi a reaction to a hateful video. 

Today, officials from the NSA and FBI testified about the 50 or so plots the program has thwarted. That's good, but that's not the actual debate. The debate is HOW MUCH LIBERTY we want to sacrifice for this security effort.   Surely we could ramp up the program and eliminate almost all attack possibilities, just like we could physically disarm the population and decrease gun violence to near zero.  The bottom line is this:  were the 50 plots worth it based on the loss of liberty suffered?  That's the real debate. And the one nobody will be having anytime soon.