Congress’s Blind Eye
by Glenn R. Jackson
The economy is back on center stage in our nation’s capital. Washington D.C., and our political class are once again serving up heaping helpings of concern for our well-being by creating perception over reality. Investigations by the Democrats into the collapse and bankruptcy of Enron will soon be followed by the Republicans investigation into the collapse and bankruptcy of the telecommunications giant Global Crossings. Campaign finance reform, the current boogey-man for our political elites’ inability to lead is being hotly debated, but all of which will really only strengthen the political elites’ inability to lead.
The hue and cry for economic stimulus, as in a tax cut not tax reform, is being kicked around and out. Yes everyone sits up and takes notice when the electorate’s economic pacifier has been removed. Yet many pressing issues have been laid aside by Washington without concrete actions or solutions.
The war on terror, our response to an unprecedented attack and loss of life within the borders of our nation, continues. However, it continues without any concrete actions being taken to prevent a recurrence of such attacks being launched again.
Congress allowed itself to be distracted from real leadership in the area of homeland security by its obsession with the Airline Security bill. Have you been through our new air transportation nightmare lately?
If you have experienced the long lines at the security gates, an inconvenience mandated in the Bill, and the “inney-menney-minney-mo” random shoe check at the ticket gates, you know that security is low on the list of priorities. Yes, disguised in the Airline Security bill was the new political mantra “it’s the economy stupid”, as our national “leaders” tried to get America back in the air and off their backs.
Yet when it comes to real action from Washington that might actually enhance our national security by removing those who threaten our security, the silence is deafening. Not a single piece of targeted legislation has been passed that deals with the control of the U.S. border. The Senate has withheld action on the Border Security Act, some say at the direction of the White House, while the INS struggles to find a few thousand Arabs within the United States who had been ordered out of the country years ago.
The INS is struggling not only in finding these few thousand Arab violators, but cannot even address the 300,000 plus other visa violators who already have deportation orders outstanding. Clearly the INS is an agency in need of a massive overhaul. Yet Congress fiddles while these illegals are comfortably watching “Who wants to be a Millionaire”.
Fawaz Wahya al-Rabeei, a Yemeni national, was the subject of an “extraordinary” terrorist alert issued on February 11th by the FBI. The threat from this man and his colleagues was deemed to be specific and tangible.
The good news? The INS says there is no record of a visit from Fawaz Wahya al-Rabeei to the U.S., i.e. no one has a record of this man applying under his real name for a visa.
The bad news? The borders are wide open, and smugglers are plentiful. The INS is overmatched; Arab communities within the U.S. are closed societies being heavily defended by many Arab special interest groups using our Political Correctness police to protect “privacy” rights. Congress remains blind to our defense and to our “immigration” disaster, and visa policy remains unchanged.
Yes, the economy is showing the signs of years of ethical abuse as our nation’s corporations pursued the new business model of “Economic Value Add”. Soaring stock valuation replaced a hard analytical view of the corporate bottom line as the new evaluator of CEO performance. In other words Ken Lay was a genius until Enron stock values tanked below a dollar. Anyone want to hazard a guess at how many other such geniuses are performing in the U.S. stock market?
Unskilled cheap labor flows like a river across our open borders, and somewhere in that mass of humanity many see a form of economic salvation for this country. However, carried along by this human flow are problems galore for the citizen’s of this country. Nearly 28 million more immigrants now reside within our borders since 1990. Estimates are that as many as 1.2 million illegal aliens have registered to vote in the United States. During 1999-2000 unemployment among U.S. blacks rose from already high levels an additional 2%. And just by the nature of the illegal entry enterprise, illegal immigration imports criminals, felons, and those with questionable mental histories. Over 20% of current federal prisoners are illegal aliens.
Yet on border security Congress refuses to budge. Is Congress turning a blind eye to Fawaz Wahya al-Rabeei’s U.S. port of entry?
Glenn R. Jackson is Chairman of the American Reformation Project, former State Chairman for Buchanan Reform and former state Chairman of the Georgia Freedom Party. Glenn also served on the Executive Committee of the Reform Party USA. Glenn holds an MA in Philosophy from Georgia State University in Atlanta.
© Glenn R. Jackson