Seriously, if you could see me now, I'm very Yosemite Sam. Very stampy and tantrumy and incoherent.
Just a few minutes ago, on the floor of the United States Senate, senators debated an amendment to the McCain immigration bill.
This is not, by itself, profanity-inducing.
But here's the substance of the debate-- Should ILLEGAL immigrants, once made legal by the McCain legislation, be entitled to receive the Social Security benefits they have paid into the system while ILLEGALLY using FRAUDULENT Social Security numbers STOLEN from actual, legal citizens of the United States of America.
The fact that this is even up for debate is just beyond insane. Everyone knows we will never have enough Social Security funds to serve, you know, actual citizens.
Every single one of those senators knows that, and they're debating whether we should extend such non-existent, unsustainable, budget-busting, generation-saddling benefits to millions of people who fraudulently entered the system by stealing the identities (and sometimes ruining the credit) of legal Americans?!?
Sen. Ensign, God bless him, offered an amendment suggesting illegals should not be eligible for Social Security benefits accrued while illegal.
The U.S. Senate voted to kill that amendment, 50-49.
Are these guys freakin' serious? I'm so disgusted I'm just hoping maybe my C-SPAN feed is faulty or I'm mistaken. I don't think I am.
UPDATE: Tim IMs me, "Actually, they are dead serious...dead serious about securing 100 million new voters over the next 20 years."
Right, at the low, low price of all our tax money, ever, until the end of time.
UPDATE 1:49p.m.: I was not mistaken. Here's the vote info. The individual votes aren't up yet, but should be soon.
UPDATE 2:02p.m.: The specifics on the vote are now up, here.
Some of the usual Republican suspects voted to kill the amendment. Here's the list: McCain, Specter, Stevens, Voinovich, Lugar, Hagel, Dewine, Chafee, Brownback. I somehow missed two earlier: Martinez and Graham are guilty, too.
Capitol switchboard, baby: (202) 224-3121
UPDATE 3:54p.m.: The Senate will vote at 4-ish on an Inhofe amendment to make English the official language of this country.
UPDATE 4:41p.m.: They're still talking about the Inhofe amendment.
UPDATE 5:32p.m.: Classy debate tactic, Sen. Reid.
Despite the barb, the Inhofe amendment passed, 63-34.
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