L.A. Times Writer Tim Rutten Outrages Illegal Immigrant Supporters

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Los Angeles Times writer Tim Rutten is no shrinking violet when it comes to pissing people off. I mostly agree with Rutten's opinions and understand exactly where he's coming from. What I don't understand is his lack of restraint or perhaps a fondness for taking a well written opinion piece and making it come across as hyperbolic with unfounded asumptions that usually have little to do with the piece.

In an especially ugly and vitriolic piece, Rutten didn't even wait a sentance or two before getting snarky and just started with the title: Obama's pink slips for garment workers. In this piece about the firing of 1,800 immigrant workers at American Apperal, Rutten blasts the Obama Administration for the firings because laws imposed under the Bush are being enforced under Obama.

Don't get me wrong! - It would be great if Obama could just ignore federal law written under Bush like the Patriot Act. However, the law is the law and you'd think that someone who has been working for the God Damn L.A. Times for 30 years would know that. Now, am I trying to imply that Tim Rutten thinks that the Obama Administration should just turn a blind eye to violations of federal law? - ABSOLUTELY! I'm not trying to do that. I am doing that.

Rutten begins his piece by saying that unemployment among American workers climbed to its highest level in a quarter of a century to hype national outrage I can only assume. Then he brings the issue closer to home by saying that in Los Angeles, joblessness has reached levels unmatched since the Depression. Then he plays the race card by mentioning that in many predominantly African American and Latino neighborhoods, nearly one in four people is out of work.

"Yet the Obama administration has chosen this moment to deprive more than 1,800 Angelenos, nearly all Latino immigrants, of thier jobs." according to Rutten

Oh, okay! - So it's just that the Obama administration has chosen "this moment" to make sure that federal law is enforced. Is there ever a good time to enforce the law. I suppose the better question is should there ever be moments when violations of federal law can be overlooked or put on a back burner for enforcement at a later date?

This is no different than those two college students that took a hidden camera into an ACORN office and recored two ACORN workers telling them how they could make their illegal brothel more profitable by listing prostitutes as entertainers. Because Maryland law makes it illegal to videotape anyone without their consent, charges were filed against the pair that recorded the video. Sean Hannity and everyone over at Fox just about shit a cat. They thought that it was outrageous that these two civic minded Americans should be charged for exposing evil ACORN. They didn't want to talk about that fact that these two broke the law while trying to expose larger violations of the law. Once again, the law is the law and either you follow it or you do not.

I've worked in a large million sq. ft. wearhouse in Las Vegas with 70% non-english speaking immigrant workers and we had to keep a trailer out in the parking lot to hire 75 to 100 new workers a every month to make up for the ones we'd have to fire each month when we were notified that their documantation was already being used by another worker or that it was fraudulent and the numbers didn't even exist.

If this investigation into these 1,800 workers at American Apperal has been going on since 2007, you'd think that those that have problems with their documentation would have fixed it by now. But here's the problem! - When you are here illegally and bought bullshit documentation so that you don't have to sell oranges at the freeway offramp, you can't fix problems with your documentation. All you can do is buy more bullshit documentation and get another job. Either you are a legal immigrant with the right to work in the United States or you are not.

The L.A. Times should take a closer look at the "paperwork" of some of their own employess. You know? the ones that work the hardest, but get paid the least. Oy! I'm sure they would be plotzing.

I'm not oblivious to the plight of these people and particularly those who now have American children. If you deport mom and dad, then anlong with them goes an American child into a country not fit for my dog much less an American child.

If Washington wants to pass a law, it should be the law that any illegal immigrant found to have American born children will lose parental rights and then be deported immediately upon completion of a manditory 5 year prison sentance. Under no circumstance should an illegal immigrant be allowed to raise an American child much less take them out of the country.

Or.......Washington can come to terms with the fact that there are simply too many illegal immigrants in the counrty and the connections they have forged are too deep and now multi generational. The only course of action now is to give them legal immigrant status, a legitimate social security card, a slice of apple pie, maybe a few tickets to the Dodger game, one of those little American flags, and then tell them to pay their God Damn taxes!

Problem solved!

If I wasn't such an asshole, I'd run for the senate myself.

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