american citizens

I have just a few items that like to talk about:

• 53 hours. It was 53 hours from a homeless veteran’s report to authorities that a suspicious car was on fire to authorities pulling Faisal Shahzad off a plane, headed to Dubai, at John F. Kennedy Airport. Over the past several years, we’ve heard lots of criticism of the “law enforcement” approach to terrorism. This approach appeared to have worked very well. There are some Americans who say they love the Constitution. At times of crisis, however, these same Americans sometimes seem to be the first ones who want to throw the Constitution in the trash. After word of Faisal Shahzad capture was leaked to the press, John McCain was stating that reading this naturalized American citizen his Miranda rights would be a mistake. A mistake? Does the United States Constitution not apply to all American citizens? If so, then there was no mistake. There have been times over the last 200 years when we have seen our Constitution selectively applied. Only certain citizens have, at times, been billed “American enough” for all of our laws to apply to them. It is clearly time that the Constitution applies to everyone who is an American citizen. If you’d like to discuss whether he should have been made a naturalized citizen, that’s another discussion. The What the Heck Were They Thinking? Award goes to a few Senators who want to strip Shahzad’s citizenship before he has been tired and convicted. After trial, the Senate can do what they want, but now, before trial, they should be quiet and let the wheels of justice turn. Congratulations to New York and the Obama administration for quickly capturing this terrorist. This near miss should show us once again how vulnerable we can be. As a free society, we are going to be vulnerable to those who want to do us harm.
• The immigration law signed by the Arizona governor several weeks ago is an excellent example of the overreach of government. Where are the tea baggers now? The law basically states that members of law enforcement should and must stop anyone they suspect of being in this country illegally. There’s been lots of finger-pointing from both sides about immigration. Both sides declare that the other side is weak on immigration. What would happen if Arizona went about this a different way? What would happen if they passed a law which reinforced current federal law? What if the law stated that any business that hires illegal workers (economic refugees) will be subject to a fine up to $100,000 per economic refugee and the cost of deportation of that economic refugee? What would the reaction have been? Well, there would be outrage from the business community. The Chamber of Commerce would’ve gone nuts and declared that the Arizona government was declaring war on business. Economic refugees come to United States for a reason. They don’t come here to stand on corners. They don’t come here to bus tables. They come here to make more money than they could make at home. If we were to strengthen our borders and enforce the laws we have, our immigration problem would go away.
• Finally, we need to fix Wall Street. Now, do not let your eyes glaze over. Focus. The guys on Wall Street want us to leave Wall Street alone. Like a patronizing teacher, they are patting us on our collective head and asking us to sit in the corner and be quiet. They want our eyes to glaze over at the sound of Credit Default Swaps. Three things got us into this mess. 1) Unregulated nonbank lenders 2) Low or no interest rates 3) Rating agencies stamping AAA on stuff that smelled like junk. So, to fix this we need a bill that is going to fix the rating agencies. We need to regulate mortgage lenders. Finally, we need to fix the too-big-to-fail-guys. Regulation is not going to fix everything. A few banks (six, to be precise – Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) own assests totalling over 60% of our GDP. I’m sorry. That’s too much money in the hands of six banks. These banks are currently free to do whatever they please because they know they are too big to fail. No matter how much these guys screwed up we would have to bail them out in order to prevent our economy from completely imploding. These guys need to be cut down to a size so that we, the American taxpayers, can live with them. This is a must. So, when you are listening to the news in the coming weeks, listen to see if Congress is going to break up the big banks, regulate the mortgage industry and fix the rating agencies. It’s the least Congress should do.