I'm calling "Bull Shit!" ...

. . . on the entire amnesty for illegal aliens immigration reform bill the Senate's debating. All of it.

So there I was ranting and raving (politely, of course) about the Senate's decision to legalize identity theft by illegal aliens, but something kept bugging me.

You know the way it is I'm sure. There's something. You know it and it's floating around in your mind but when you try to grab it, it just keeps slipping away. The harder you try, the faster it slithers behind something else, while ducking out periodically going, Neener! Can't catch me!

Was it that if amnesty is given to the current batch of illegal aliens who've stolen the Social Security numbers of American citizens and screwed up those peoples' lives, that the precedence will be set allowing all future illegal aliens to legally do the same thing? That it will make the problem even worse?

Nah, that's a given.

The talking heads and pundits have been split.

On one side those like me argue it's insane to reward those who've repeatedly broken the law, and illegal aliens who boosted the the Social Security numbers of others paid into the system with absolutely no expectation of return.

The other side says it doesn't matter whether the illegals broke any laws. They paid into Social Security and that's all that matters. It is, after all, money they earned and not giving back to them what they paid in would be just be so unfair.

(One person repeated, "It's not fair!" at least five times in a less than two-minute interview. In fact, that's pretty much all she said.)

The talking heads and pundits were still yammering away this morning, and for the umpteenth time I heard just how unfair it would if illegal aliens who've worked and paid into the Social Security system couldn't . . .

And there it was, what I knew all along and know all too well:

[W]hen I went to my pre-retirement seminar years ago . . . I discovered no matter how much I'd already paid into Social Security or paid into it in the future, the Windfall Elimination Provision meant the government doesn't have to return to me a stinkin' dime I paid into Social Security or in the future ever will. And under the Government Pension Offset, my local government pension [also] eliminates Hubby's Social Security no matter how much he paid into it in the past or might in the future. -- Doyle (11-07-04) (Please see that post for links to the specific legislation underlined.)

Well, dang.

It's fair to deny US citizens any benefit from a system they've legally paid in to, BUT it would be unfair to illegal aliens who've paid into the same system but by fraudulent means if they can't.

Gag me.

LATER: Norma notes the irony -- and what would be poetic justice -- in her closing paragraph.

LATER-LATER: Bill Quick bellows, "That's Outrageous!"