"Let the prisoners pick the fruits"

That's what it's all about--reinstituting slavery. The quote above comes from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Confederacy). The McCain-Kennedy Senate bill, which is pretty much along the lines that W has been pushing for for a couple of years, is horrible enough. It would basically legalize the current system of an underclass of low-wage labor without legal rights at the workplace, beholden to employers who would no longer be breaking the law by hiring them. But Rohrabacher and his neanderthal House colleagues want to go further--slave labor. The good news is that they are threatening to tear the Repug party to shreds over this issue:

"I don't think [Bush is] concerned about alienating voters, he's not running for re-election," said Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado. He said Republicans could lose the House and Senate over the immigration issue, and he said of the president: "I wish he'd think about the party and of course I also wish he'd think about the country."
...
Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona and others said Republicans would pay a price in the midterm elections if they vote for anything like the Senate legislation. "Many of those who have stood for the Republican Party for the last decade are not only angry. They will be absent in November," he said.

Rohrabacher said Americans should be able to "smell the foul odor that's coming out of the U.S. Senate."

Asked a few moments later whether the same odor was emanating from the president, he said, "I have no comment."

Hmmm...should have asked him that question earlier! Rep. Steve King wants to make a class war out of it:

"The elite class in America is becoming a ruling class and they've made enough money by hiring cheap illegal labor that they think they also have some kind of a right to cheap servants to manicure their nails and their lawn, for example.

"So this ruling class, this new ruling class of America, is expanding a servant class in America at the expense of the middle class of America, the blue collar of America that used to be able to punch a time clock, buy a modest house and raise their families. ... Those young people are cut out of this process."

The mind boggles--an Iowa Repug attacking the ruling class. Dude--you ARE the ruling class! Maybe Rep. King should ask Rep. Rohrabacher how having prisoners do the work is going to help the middle class. Of course, these are Repugs talking, so logic is not an issue:

Referring to a wave of demonstrations in recent weeks, Rep. Virgil Goode of Virginia said, "I say if you are here illegally and want to fly the Mexican flag, go to Mexico and wave the American flag."

Oooh! Goode one! These are the people making our laws. We are doomed.