Chipotle Hiring Illegals? Really?

Okay, well, here I go on my illegal immigration kick.

Chipotle, you know, the burrito place, is the current subject of the U.S. immigration enforcement guys, ICE. Seriously? Who did Chipotle piss off?

When I first moved to Atlanta it was like, "Wow! Look at all the illegals!" I even called the police when a group of them was hanging out in front of my apartment with a TV plugged into a car cigarette lighter having a little fiesta. I was told they couldn't do anything about it.

Yeah, I was pretty naive at the time. I didn't know that we were all supposed to be looking the other way while illegals took jobs that are typically filled by our poorest and least educated.

It's rampant in Atlanta though. The closest WalMart to my apartment was like a little Guatemala City. It was in poor taste to mention it.

I remember not long ago when a person could make a decent living cutting yards and doing construction work. I grew up with a series of black housekeepers and yeah, I know how that sounds but I did grow up in a wealthy family.

All of those jobs now are being filled by illegals. And not just those but jobs at fast food joints too. McDonald's is notorious for it and they created Chipotle or at least turned it into what it is before divesting.

The problem is that these little kerfluffles about hiring practices are so few and far between that nobody cares. Hell, you could go to any meat packing plant in the Midwest and round up thousands. Instead they round up a few hundred every other year to make it look like they're doing something.

Now, this is where I don't like MSNBC. I'm an ardent viewer and agree on many things. However, recently, there's been a promo bit featuring commentator Lawrence O'Donnell talking about how the history of America is written by immigrants and all that. Oh, and while it looks like he's sitting on an overstuffed leather couch in some exclusive New York gentleman's club.

Yeah, true statement. America was founded by immigrants, yadda yadda. Things are different now in a couple of ways. One is that we have a dearth of available labor in this country for good paying jobs like construction and manufacturing. That wasn't the case in the Ellis Island days. Every illegal that works construction or cuts a yard is taking a job from an American because some jackass doesn't want to pay social security taxes. And number two, the new wave of immigrants from Latin America, for the most part, has no desire to assimilate. They live in insular little communities, don't learn English, and send most of their money to families back home.

Actually I love Lawrence O'Donnell. It would just do him and others on the media left a bit of good to actually get out on the streets and see what's really going on for the poor Americans they talk about on their show so much.

It's just a way for big companies to bust unions easier and for builders to get by on the cheap. In fact, the abundance of new homes built in the past ten years was partly due to the new wave of cheap construction costs due to illegal labor.

As long as business interests run Washington, we'll keep getting little dog and pony shows like this deal with Chipotle. It will make it look like our government is really cracking down and otherwise it will be business as usual. Twenty million illegal immigrants and they bust like a thousand a year. Yeah, right, I'm an idiot.

Please don't get me wrong. I have no problem with immigrants with a desire to assimilate. Just like if I moved to France I'd learn to speak French and take part in French cultural activities. I wouldn't expect anybody to speak English and I wouldn't move there if I didn't know enough French to get around.

So before any stones are thrown, I've had plenty of immigrant friends from all over the freaking place who got here the right way. Kudos to them.

Obama 1, Osama 0 - Bin Laden Finally Gone

Like so many Americans, I remember the morning of 9/11 so vividly it's like it just happened. I was working for my local FOX TV affiliate in Mobile so there were TVs everywhere. Somebody called out from their office the breaking news that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center buildings and, well, you know the rest of that story.

Even in Mobile, Alabama that morning it was an unseasonably cool, clear, and bright day. Not a cloud in the sky and then you noticed no airplanes either as all air traffic ceased. Nobody knew what had happened, if it was over, who had done it. Like many I thought it might be domestic terrorism in the Timothy McVeigh vein.

I remember telling my boss I had a dental appointment that morning so I could go for a job interview elsewhere as I had grown tired of my job. I remember driving to the interview and seeing a Muslim gentleman with long beard and head covering in a car next to me; me looking at him with anger and him looking back with fear. I'm not proud of that moment.

I remember walking out of the interview and saying "Fuck this!" just not being in the frame of mind to deal with it.

I remember driving by a local restaurant run by a guy I knew and him standing outside on the curb passing out little American flags on sticks.

I remember being all patriotic and full of piss and vinegar and going back to work with a vengeance.

I remember being totally behind our president, our troops, going into Afghanistan.

Then it went all stupid.

Then it was Iraq, spending of political capital to kill Social Security, etc.

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the whole 9/11 strike, was as elusive as a snipe.

And finally, May 1, 2011, nine and a half years after the fact, bin Laden is finally dead. Our guys just went in and took him out. Just like that. Nine and a half years later.

I don't know that bin Laden was much more than a figurehead at the time of his death and I think this stroke by our military may simply mean more aggression from terrorists around the world. I'm sure many retributive strikes are in the works.

But, as trite as it sounds, this does feel like a moment of closure.

I hope President Obama doesn't try too hard to turn this into his own political capital, but you can damned well bet that he'll be re-elected in 2012 on the back of this.

Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, will be biting their tongues or crediting the Bush administration but, at any rate, this event is a game changer.

Obama finally sent in our military, to Pakistan, where we've all known bin Laden to be all this time, hidden behind our delicate relationship with that country. Finally somebody said "What the fuck!?! Let's take him out!"

It's about freaking time! Job well done!