Michael Chertoff Trips Up His President Again
The very name “Homeland Security” doesn't work for me, sounds like a cut-rate burglar alarm system at Wal-Mart. Russians and Eastern Europeans refer to their countries as homelands, but it doesn't roll off the tongue for an American. John Wayne was hell on ‘homesteaders,’ but I never heard him raise a posse to protect some school marm’s ‘homeland.’ It’s just not in the national lexicon.
Maybe I’m being picky. September 11th changed a whole lot of things. It's possible we’re suddenly a ‘homeland’ and we need Michael Chertoff out there playing Duke Wayne and fighting the Mexicans. Mike certainly hasn’t had much luck with terrorists, other than annoying us all by making us take off our shoes in airports. Tidying up after hurricanes isn’t his strong suit either.
The man doesn't look like he could handle a Winchester '76 either, but he struck several blows for our national security in the past month that will certainly make me sleep better.
First off, he arrested over a thousand evil-doers, illegal aliens harbored by a Dutch company. Those tricky Dutch, you gotta watch ‘em every minute or they’ll be selling your kids pot or, worse yet, actually manufacturing plastic crates and wooden pallets.
That’s really a threat to the security of this land we call home. Go for it, Mike.
Chertoff understands what making plastic crates with undocumented workers can lead to. Unlike most of us, Mike has been there when wooden pallets are manufactured and he’s seen the seamy side of that soft underbelly of criminal activity. Sure, today it’s just crates and pallets, but tomorrow . . . tomorrow, it’s doghouses, birdhouses, garden sheds and who knows what other subversive constructions?
In a single stroke against organized pallet-making, Homeland Security arrested 1,100 illegal aliens and brought charges against seven current and former managers of this latest incursion by the Dutch. David Russell, president of Ifco (North America) always voted Republican and was too dumfounded to make a statement. The report, heavily redacted because of the sensitivity of the content, does not say if either helicopter gunships or sharpshooters were involved.
In a parallel move against home-builders nationwide, Chertoff followed the successful wrapup of the pallet-caper with a lightning strike against Fischer Homes, a Kentucky firm that was consistently harboring illegal aliens in a subversive attempt to weaken and undermine the core (probably the family room) of the American home itself.
"We will continue to bring criminal actions against employers who are consistently harboring illegal aliens," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. A spokesman explained that the Secretary was particularly sensitive to harboring, since the Dubai ports scandal.
“Quick action against this threat will assure that no inappropriate labor is allowed to affect the housing we are not building in the Gulf Coast. All other housing that is not being provided by either FEMA or Homeland Security, is subject to the same rules,” a spokesman was heard to mumble.
Four Fischer Homes managers were charged with aiding and abetting and harboring aliens for commercial profit. While harboring is the special crime that Chertoff hates worse than all others, abetting came in a close second and aiding while abetting caused a special criminal charge. The four, all family men with no prior criminal record, are eligible for penalties of ten years in prison and quarter-million dollar fines, unless a judge laughs the case out of court.
Additional strikes in this latest ‘war against guys without papers trying to make a buck,’ made news as Homeland Security
Stuck a stucco company with criminal employment charges
Squeezed a million bucks out of three Baltimore restaurants
Indicted two Ohio temporary-employment agencies
Interesting Part #1 of this whole fiasco is that the end of the Clinton administration saw 182 such cases referred for prosecution (1999) and the 2004 number, under Bush, fell to 4. Yep, four. Similarly, fines dropped form an annual $3.7 million to $212,000. Hmmmmm.
Interesting Part #2 is that Republicans are desperate for every vote they can beg, borrow or steal in the coming November mid-terms. So, unless I’m missing something really relevant, Michael Chertoff is two-thirds of the way to a hat-trick in tripping up his president.
He provoked and truly angered twenty million or so Gulf-Coast voters by totally screwing up the response to hurricane Katrina and now . . . drum-roll, please . . . he’s alienated (great choice of a word) the nearly 43 million Hispanic-Americans by arresting their compatriots.
God truly does have a sense of humor and Michael Chertoff is God’s gift to George Bush in his time of need.
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