Indefensible defense legislation

It's been common practice for years to "bundle" legislation so there's a little something for everyone. That doesn't mean it's right... or beneficial government in action:

What were the compelling interests that led the august Senate Appropriations Committee to include major legislation as part of the military spending bill on Thursday? Amnesty for illegal aliens, and lots of new foreign workers for powerful business interests.

In one afternoon, the Appropriations Committee approved amnesty for 1.35 million illegal alien agricultural workers, and made available an additional 650,000 skilled and unskilled foreign guest workers over the next three years. That’s 2 million new, or newly legalized, foreign workers entering our labor force over the next three years – even as our economy has been losing jobs...

While the Feinstein amendment offers senators a fig leaf to avoid the dreaded “A-Word” (that’s A-M-N-E-S-T-Y) by legalizing these workers for only five years, the sunset provision is sheer kabuki theater. Everyone knows that once we start down that road there is no turning back. At some point in the next five years, the “temporary” amnesty will be made a permanent one and will likely include many other categories of illegal aliens – just to be fair to everyone who broke our laws.

Americans, no matter what they might think of the war in Iraq, genuinely support our men and women who are over there serving our nation. It seems that the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee love our troops too – but for entirely different reasons: they provide convenient cover for passing special interest legislation to benefit illegal aliens and powerful business lobbies.

Talk about your "two for one:" anyone opposing this bundled legislation can be painted as both "racist" for opposing the amnesty and "unpatriotic" for potentially holding up funding 'for the troops.' Thus does the Empire march on...