One of the hot buttons of the Bush presidency and the 2008 presidential campaign was illegal immigration and how to slow or stop it. Bush’s plan was decried as amnesty, and many conservatives have excoriated McCain over his softness on illegal immigration.

Some interesting developments have occurred in this area over the last several months:

• “Self-deportations” have begun to take place as individual states have cracked down on illegals and forced them either to other states or to return home to Mexico and/or other countries. Arizona and Oklahoma have been particularly effective in driving out illegals via new, tough laws - but many of those illegals are simply moving to greener US pastures, such as Texas. This appears to lend credence to the theory that self-deportation, or “attrition through enforcement” could have a significant impact in forcing many illegals out by means other than overt deportation.
• The “border fence” IS being built. A map on the Customers & Border Protection web site shows the progress on the fence/wall, which is in various stages of construction all the way from San Diego to El Paso. As Mark Krikorian points out at The Corner, this isn’t just the “virtual fence,” but is the real deal.
• The economy seems to be having a substantial impact on the ability of illegals to find work in the US. In fact, as one would hope, US citizens are now “intruding” on a job market that was previously almost solely populated by illegal immigrants. The WSJ reports this week that U.S. workers are “crowding out” immigrant labor.

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And I really like this video, especially considering that the guitarist is playing a Taylor:

(ht: Between Two Worlds)

So here’s an open thread for today. Enjoy the week and remember who Christmas is all about.

Oh, and in case someone wants to buy me a Christmas present, this would be interesting.

According to this morning’s news, banks are refusing to reveal what’s being done with the money that was provided under the $350B (so far) TARP bailout money.

“We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’ve not given any accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it,’” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. “We have not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.”

“We’re declining to” Well, there’s a fine “how do you do”. The taxpayer bails these folks out, but they apparently don’t see fit to reveal where OUR money is being spent. The hubris of these corporations is astonishing.

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You be the judge.

(ht: multiple)

Looks like taking money from the TARP fund to support an auto bailout isn’t as much of a slam-dunk as it appeared yesterday. It’s being reported this evening that the WH isn’t quite ready to pull the trigger on a bailout. From Reuters:

President George W. Bush said on Monday an announcement on a auto industry rescue was not imminent, leaving the industry’s fate clouded in uncertainty for a little longer.

Interestingly, this seems to correspond with the appearance of a story that popped from Heritage last night demonstrating that it would be illegal to use TARP money for anything other than financial bailout. The Heritage article reports:

More problematic, however, is Treasury’s lack of statutory authority to direct TARP dollars to the automakers. While the statute, passed by Congress in October, grants the Secretary extremely broad discretion to decide how to employ the funds, it clearly limits the recipients to “financial institutions.” The definition of that term is quite clear:

FINANCIAL INSTITUTION- The term `financial institution’ means any institution, including, but not limited to, any bank, savings association, credit union, security broker or dealer, or insurance company, established and regulated under the laws of the United States or any State, territory, or possession of the United States, the District of Columbia, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, or the United States Virgin Islands, and having significant operations in the United States, but excluding any central bank of, or institution owned by, a foreign government.

This definition does not leave much room for interpretation.

Oooopsies. That’s a little hard to argue with, as Heritage states. Now I wouldn’t be surprised to see them try to pull it off anyway, but it would seem to me that they’d have to go back to Congress for a modification of the TARP bill, and based on the rejection of the Big 3 bailout in the Senate, I’d say the odds of such a mod would be pretty slim. But perhaps there are other shenanigans maneuvers that the WH can conduct to get around this restriction. I doubt there would be much reluctance to pull out the stops to get this done since President Bush seems bound and determined to make this happen.

It just gets more interesting every day, doesn’t it?

All too rarely we see examples of people whose love and grace shine above what we normally see in the world. This week we saw one of those.

On Monday, December 8th, a Marine F/A-18D fighter experienced a power failure on approach to Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego. The pilot ejected, and his plane crashed in a nearby neighborhood, destroying a home and killing the occupants - Young Mi Yoon, Grace and Rachel Yoon, and Young Mi’s mother, Suk Im Kim. The father, Don Yoon, was away from home at the time.

Normally in situations such as this, we see outcries to punish the government, the pilot, or anyone who could serve to take the blame and be the scapegoat for the unfortunate event that occurred. The public’s thirst for blood normally takes over and is stoked by the outcries of the media. But in this case, it hasn’t happened. At least in part, this is a result of the gracious and loving attitude of Mr. Yoon.

The LA Times published a great story on Friday describing Don Yoon’s response to this family tragedy. Rather than criticizing the pilot and/or the government for his loss and any potential fault, he showed love in his response. Yoon said

“I heard the pilot is safe. Please pray for him not to suffer from this accident. I know he is one of our treasures for our country. I don’t blame him. I don’t have any hard feelings. I know he did everything he could.”

In fact, Yoon blamed himself, as he spoke of his father-in-law on the way from South Korea to grieve for his lost wife, daughter and granddaughters. “I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t know how he’ll ever forgive me.”

Hardly a typical response to such an event. At the scene of the crash, Yoon said

“I know there are many people who have experienced more terrible things. Please tell me how to do it, because I don’t know what to do.”

Adrian Hong, the author of the LAT story, responded perfectly:

He showed us exactly what to do, and reminded everyone watching of the better angels of our nature.

Exactly. We need to learn from Mr. Yoon’s example. When faced with adversity and tragedy, we should not look to blame. We should try to avoid self-pity. His strength, grace and respect for his father-in-law and the F-18 pilot showed an attitude we should all strive for.

So President Bush is in Iraq today, and during a press conference he was apparently assaulted by a reporter who threw his shoes at the President.

Something tells me that the Secret Service might have responded a wee bit more “assertively” had that happened with an American reporter here in the USA.

P.S. I’m not as big of a smart-aleck as some of my co-contributors, so I’m opening this one up for shoe jokes.

From the Law of Unintended Consequences Show, Episode 1,245,853. There are those out there who apparently are willing to welsh on their mortgages in order to get on the US government handout gravy train. What a surprise! Did we not see this coming ahead of time? Oh, and if you answered “no” to that semi-rhetorical question, hearken back to this gem from before the election:

Yes, there are people out there who think the government and our Dear Leader-To-Be exist solely to line their pockets.

“The attitude is starting to move toward, ‘How can the government help me,’ ” says Chad Olivier, a certified financial planner in Baton Rouge. “We are seeing it on Wall Street, and now we are seeing it with the public.”

Talk about stating the obvious. And are the government and our friends on the left trying to dissuade this behavior? Of course not. The citizens are just taking the hint from GM, Citigroup, and all the other leeches that are sucking the blood out of the nation.

…to demonize people of faith…especially Christians. Let’s take a look at some of this week’s hits:

Kathleen Parker - again

Not satisfied with angering Christian conservatives the first time, Kathleen Parker comes back for another helping. She received so much attention for her previous cutesy use of “oogedy-boogedy” that she thought she’d milk it for another column. So, just to make her feel better, I’ll bring it back to life here. Unsurprisingly, her new one is just as incoherent as the other.

Parker seems to have a phobia for God, since she spends so much time criticizing those who believe in Him. She’s even dipping into the Democrat Talking-Point-o-Matic with this blather:

That’s a start, but let’s take it another step. How about social conservatives make their arguments without bringing God into it? By all means, let faith inform one’s values, but let reason inform one’s public arguments.

That was and remains my point. It isn’t so much God causing the GOP problems; it’s his fan club.

Here Ms. Parker now implies that faith is unreasonable. Nice. She might wish to leave the “It’s not Christianity, it’s Christians” argument to the left, lest she be mistaken for one of them (I fear it may be too late for that, however). A little reality check for KP: faith drives values, and values drive public arguments. Which means, of course, that faith drives public arguments by nature. If one’s faith is true faith, it will frame their entire worldview. It is inseparably coupled with all parts of life, including politics. People of (true) faith do not check their beliefs at the door of the church when they leave there on Sunday morning.

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There is a minor little skirmish going on in feminist-land over the quasi-revelation that Michelle Obama will be spending more time raising her kids than in trying to be the Assistant President. It seems the fems are looking more for a Hillary activist-type than a Jacqueline Kennedy-style Cosmo fashion plate & stay-at-home mom. For right now, Mrs. Obama appears to be headed down the mommy path.

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This article is intriguing, even though I’m not sure I really believe it in total. But he makes a couple of interesting observations:

Most conservatives did show up on Election Day, but a significant number voted Democrat. Mr. Obama picked up one-third more conservative voters than Sen. John Kerry, at 20 percent. Self-identified conservatives in exit polling comprised 34 percent of voters in both 2004 and 2008, yet the number who called themselves Republican dropped from 37 percent to 32 percent. In an evenly split nation, the GOP losing 14 percent of its base overwhelmed almost everything else.

and

Two key right-leaning constituencies deserted Republicans: security moms and Catholics. Though the media has made the “gender gap” a household term, the more apt classification was a “marriage gap.” Single women were heavily Democrat, and married women leaned Republican. “Security Moms” became the label for married mothers attracted to the hawkishness of the GOP.

Hmmmm.

Obama = The Claw