Do you recall the recent passport mess? Immigration has been in a similar state of disarray for the last ten years, and it recently got considerably worse thanks to poor planning on the US government's part.

But there is an additional dimension to it: this will affect the voting rights in þe 2008 elections. Thanks to most Republican's stance on immigration, it is generally assumed that most recently-naturalized citizens will tend to vote Democratic.

USCIS recently announced that naturalization times have increased from six months to 16 to 18 months for applications filed after June 1 - too late to vote in 2008.

It has happened. When I tuned into KLSD this morning, all I heard was sports talk.

Update III: It seems that there is a twist to the story that nobody has mentioned yet. One of the problems KLSD had was poor reception and interference from a Christian radio station 300 miles away. It appears that this might be due to an FCC issue. See Update III below.

My neighborhood in heavily Republican CA-49th (Darrell Issa's district) has a mailing list. Recently, one of the members posted an interesting (and completely off topic) message about social security with a slightly new framing. My guess is that it was probably launched by the local wingnutosphere; many of my neighbors are quite active in it.

A few weeks ago, I asked for help debating a Monster anti-union lawyer. Yesterday was the latest salvo in that battle, with some interesting new twists.

As I was saying in the original diary, I am member of a small-business networking group, and a rabid anti-union lawyer recently joined. I took that opportunity to politely debate him (with many thanks to all who commented on the original diary and helped shape the message!)

I notice a tendency to refer to our military members as somebody's "kids" quite frequently. For instance "our kids are dying in Iraq" or "their kids should be drafted".

Personally, I find this language abhorrent; it dehumanizes and objectifies our soldiers into mere property of their parents. The fact that most people use this terminology unthinkingly only makes it more insidious.

Our soldiers are adults and should be treated as their own independent individuals. They have their own pain sensors, too.

Update: For clarification, since many commenters seem to misread this point, I have no problem with using the term "kid". The problem I have is with using it to imply that somehow the parents are more important than the individuals themselves (and did you notice that we rarely talk about husbands or wives in the same way?)

I'm a small business owner, serving other small businesses.

I am also a member of a couple of networking groups with other small business owners, and a boardmember in some of them. They are my friends, regardless of political stripes.

Recently, one of these groups was joined by a rabid anti-union employment lawyer. He advertises that he specializes in defeating unionization, or, as he puts it, "Development and implementation of the employer's strategy to defeat a union in an organizing campaign". Needless to say, he did not get my vote, and I make a point of not shaking his hand.

Next week, I have been invited to speak to that group, and would appreciate some assistance in what to say. This speech is supposed to be primarily about my business and the group. But I also want to use the opportunity to, very carefully, highlight just how offensive I find his presence, without actually offending anybody else or tearing the group apart over it. Ideally, I want him to leave the group.

That's where I need help: what should I say?

Over the last couple of days, there has been a firestorm of criticism regarding Cindy Sheehan's entry in the race against Nancy Pelosi, and about whether or not this should even be discussed on dKos, since Sheehan would be running as an independent against a Democrat.

But I think all the diaries are missing a crucial point:

Cindy Sheehan never said that she was running!

OK, this is totally off the wall. If it wasn't for historical precedent - and for Rove, Cheney et. al. doing anything to win - I would consider this deep tinfoil territory.

Most of us agree that no Republican candidate has a chance to win the Presidency in 2008 unless the Democrats seriously blow it or Rove pulls some major voting shenanigans.

But there is another possibility. Bush might add a 51st state. Out of gratitude (and for various other reasons), the citizens of that state would vote Republican, delivering enough votes to the Electoral College to elect another Republican President.

And there actually might be a candidate for such a 51st state.

Another installment in the Immigration Primer series.

This time, I will cover a very little known provision in immigration law that could actually resolve current and even future illegal immigration without an amnesty. This provision is known as the Registry Date

Previous editions covered immigration in general, illegal immigration, employment-based immigration, becoming a citizen, family-based immigration, US territories and the Mariana Islands, and most recently my own immigration proposal.

Another installment in the Immigration Primer series. Unlike the other immigration primer diaries, in this one I will cover the future outlook, including both some proposals others made, and come up with my own. This, by nature, is more of an editorial, although I will try to present as many facts as I can to support my suggestions and views.

Needless to say, I have no illusions about my proposals actually being implemented.

Previous editions covered immigration in general, illegal immigration, employment-based immigration, becoming a citizen, family-based immigration and most recently US territories and the Mariana Islands.

Most of us were intensely disappointed - to say it mildly - about this week's Iraq war supplemental bill. Many, myself included, vented their anger.

Many people debated whether to continue supporting the Democratic party - and pretty much universally arrived at the conclusion that there is really no alternative. And then it hit me. That's really the explanation for the vote: the Democratic Party doesn't need to listen to us.

They know that they can count on us, because we aren't going to go anywhere. Most of us are diligent about going to vote - because we really want Bush out more than anything. So we won't be staying home, and we won't be voting Republican anyway. And, let's face it, most of the campaign donations come from the corporate world anyway.

From a campaign manager's perspective, I can understand that a candidate would go after those who might flip.

In a way, we are in a similar position as the Evangelicals were for a long time for the Republicans: safe votes no matter what happens.

So, how do we regain influence?

Another installment in the Immigration Primer series. Previous editions covered immigration in general, illegal immigration, employment-based immigration, becoming a citizen and family-based immigration.

In this diary, I want to cover an area that is only peripherally connected to immigration law, namely the status of the various US territories, and in particular the Mariana Islands, with Saipan, that have been in the new related to the Abramoff scandal.

As in all the other diaries, I want to cover specifically the situation as it is, not how it should be.

This is another continuation of the Immigration Primer series after some interruption due to significant events in the immigration arena.

In the past, I wrote about immigration in general, illegal immigration, employment-based immigration and becoming a citizen

Today, I want to write about immigration through marriage, and immigration through family members.

One word of caution: aside from the fact that I'm not an expert in the first place, this is an area of the law that is set to change completely if Kennedy-Kyl becomes law.

As usual, feel free to ask questions in the comments. I will try to answer and/or update the diary.

As I was writing another diary about the Kennedy-Kyl immigration bill I suddenly realized that it may contain a huge Trojan Horse.

One of the provisions requires that employer verify employment eligibility electronically before an employee starts a job. That immediately brought up some concerns about privacy and identity theft. Another concern is just plain database errors in such a huge system. Will an individual have a way to correct an incorrect listing? What happens when somebody gets accidentally deleted?

And then I remembered fellow Kosack Jesselyn Radack and her story of being blacklisted for her private-sector job.

What if BushCo was considering to use this system not just to verify the right to work, but also to deny it?

Am I in tinfoil territory here? Or is the situation so bad that such a thing is even thinkable?

This is another installment in the immigration primer series, addressing the current events. In short, this immigration bill, if it becomes law, would be the biggest overhaul of immigration law since the current immigration law was introduced in 1952.

Unlike most of the immigration primer diaries so far, this one is based on a very incomplete understanding of what the bill includes, and will, by necessity, contain a lot of interpretation and conjecture. Most of the information is based on the summary by Siskind, Susser, Bland PLC, another summary by DHS, as provided by Carl Shusterman and one provided by the American Immigration Lawyer's Assocation (AILA)

At least on first glance, there appear to be some very good provisions, as well as some that are either impractical or too onerous.

This is a special edition of the Immigration Primer diary series due to current events. Like the other diaries, the intent is to provide some background information, with a focus on the way things are, rather than the way should be.

The prior diaries covered general immigration, illegal immigration, employment-based immigration and becoming a citizen.

Today, the city of Farmers Branch, a Dallas suburb, voted to introduce a ban on renting apartments to illegal immigrants. In this diary, I try to look at some of the implications of such a law. Similar laws have been passed by city councils in Escondido, CA and Hazelton, PA, but Farmers Branch is the first time the citizens were able to vote on such a measure.

This is the fourth installment of my series of Immigration Primer diaries.

Once again, I want to give some factual background information, and hopefully clear up some misconceptions (of which there are many).

I will try to stay away from commention on how things should be, in favor of how things actually are. Feel free to add any questions as appropriate.

Previous diaries covered general immigration, illegal immigration, and employment-based immigration and H-1B

This fourth installment covers the question of who a citizen is, and how to become one.

Like the employment-based Primer, I have a particular fondness for this topic, since I became a proud US citizen about two years ago, after having worked for twenty years towards that goal.

This series of Primers is in essence a short version of the FAQ from my site; you can find far more details there. Please post comments with any questions, I'll be happy to add clarifications or other interesting information!

This is the third installment in my informal series of Immigration Primer information diaries. This is primarily meant to be background information about the current state of affairs. I try to focus primarily on facts, without introducing too much bias. Unfortunately, with this particular topic, this is an impossible feat since people tend to not even agree on basic facts. So I'll try to do the second best, and present several different conflicting views, along with my personal commentary.

The first covered general immigration, the second covered illegal immigration

This third diary will cover information about employment-based immigration, and in particular H-1B and employment-based Green Cards. Hopefully, this diary will explain what they are and how they are being used.

I have particular experience with (and fondness for) this topic, since I first came to the USA as an H-1B, later got a Green Card, and now am a naturalized citizen, and business owner after having lost several jobs in a row to outsourcing. Besides being a business owner, I also teach budding programmers and network administrators at a local college.