From U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP):

CBP’s 2011 Fiscal Year in Review

(Monday, December 12, 2011)

….U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions-a key indicator of illegal immigration-decreased to 340,252 in FY 2011, down 53 percent since FY 2008 and one fifth of what they were at their peak in FY 2000….

….CBP officers and agents seized nearly five million pounds of narcotics, a 20 percent increase from FY 2010 and more than $126 million in undeclared currency…..

….CBP has more than doubled the size of the Border Patrol since 2004. In FY 2011, CBP increased the number of Border Patrol agents to 21,444, an increase of 886 agents from FY 2010, making our borders better staffed today than ever before. In addition, CBP employed 20,500 CBP officers in FY 2011 with additional officers expected to be on board by the end of the Calendar Year….

[emphasis added]

The actual statistics:

United States Border Patrol

Total Illegal Alien Apprehensions By Fiscal Year [pdf]

1999 1,579,010

2000 1,676,438

2001 1,266,214

2002 955,310

2003 931,557

2004 1,160,395

2005 1,189,075

2006 1,089,092

2007 876,704

2008 723,825

2009 556,041

2010 463,382

2011 340,252

Apprehensions are down because there are fewer illegal immigrants trying to get in, for one reason or another.

Today, via Twitter:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler ‏@RepHartzler

Following the #SCOTUS decision on #AZ immigration, we realize more that our government must enforce immigration laws and protect our borders 2:12 PM – 26 Jun 12

Yep, late to the parade. And, as Yael Abouhalkah wrote almost two years ago, still vacuous.

There are some who believe the Supreme Court striking down the Affordable Health Care Act, aka Obamacare, will actually help President Obama’s reelection to a second term.

Clearly-it’s understandable why some feel that should the Supreme Court reject the legislative centerpiece of President Obama’s first term in the White House, it would be damaging to Obama. The year long health care reform process would be seen in retrospect as a massive waste of time and incompetently executed, with the chief bulwark upon which the law stands-the individual mandate-cited as unconstitutional. The verdict? Some would see Obama as being ineffective in getting things done, and squandering resources (political capital) in the process.

But what are pundits saying about an Obamacare flameout actually helping President Obama’s reelection ambitions?

Peter Boyer of the Daily Beast said Republicans would lose their most animating issue and free Obama from the burden of having to mount a “broad defense of his health-care plan” during his re-election campaign.

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post frames the possibility that the Supreme Court ruling may provide Obama’s reelection campaign with a target to focus on: running against the Supreme Court.

Cillizza notes that the Supreme Court has reached 25-year lows in positive ratings, and that in April, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found, “50 percent of registered voters said that the justices were likely to decide the heath care case based on their “partisan political views,” while 40 percent said the Court would rule “on the basis of the law”.

Frank Rich and James Carville offered a plausible outlay of the political aftermath of Obamacare being struck down: Republicans will have to come up with an alternative or risk owning all the negativity associated with skyrocketing health care prices and the callous inefficiencies that plague our American health care system-which is viewed by many people in other modern democratic nations as an elitist health care system that only caters to those of means.

It remains to be seen whether the SCOTUS ruling will help or hurt Obama, but come November it may not even be on the radar anymore.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner promised to repeal any provisions in the Affordable Health Care act that the Supreme Court doesn’t strike down, in the event of the highest court solely isolating on the individual mandate’s constitutionality.

Jonathan Chait, yesterday, at New York Magazine:

….This is why it’s vital to bring yourself face-to face with the implications of mass uninsurance – not as emotional manipulation, but to force you to decide what forms of material deprivation ought to be morally acceptable. This question has become, at least at the moment, the primary philosophical divide between the parties. Democrats will confine the unfortunate to many forms of deprivation, but not deprivation of basic medical care. Republicans will. The GOP is the only mainstream political party in the advanced world to hold this stance….

Go. Read the whole thing.

Yesterday, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C121327 06/25/2012 COMMITTEE FOR ECONOMIC LIBERTY Ameristar One Ameristar St Charles MO 63301 6/25/2012 $50,000.00

[emphasis added]

What’s this all about? That’s (relatively) serious cash.

C121327: Committee For Economic Liberty

Po Box 1661 Committee Type: Political Action

St Charles Mo 63302

(888) 332-3811 Established Date: 06/06/2012

[emphasis added]

Brand new.

Treasurer

Carl Bearden

Po Box 561

St Charles Mo 63302

[emphasis added]

Now we’re getting somewhere.

A lobbyist:

LOBID:L002591 Received Date:7/17/2007

Lobbyist’s Name Carl Bearden

Lobbyist’s Address PO Box 561

Lobbyist’s Address2

Lobbyist’s C/S/Z St Charles, MO 63302

[emphasis added]

Fancy that. The same address.

Principal(s) listed by Lobbyist

Principal Name/Address/Phone Status Date Added Date Deleted

CARL BEARDEN

PO BOX 561

ST. CHARLES MO 63302

[xxx-xxx-xxxx] A 7/19/2007

UNITED FOR MISSOURI

PO BOX 11466

SPRINGFIELD MO 65808

[xxx-xxx-xxxx] A 7/30/2010

UNITED FOR MISSOURI’S FUTURE

PO BOX 11466

SPRINGFIELD MO 65808

[xxx-xxx-xxxx] A 7/30/2010

That’s a compact list.

Well, something’s up in St. Charles. With a PAC name like “Committee for Economic Liberty” it’ll be interesting to watch.

…and see who has the biggest checkbook. Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C091011 06/25/2012 CITIZENS FOR BRAD LAGER Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Self Investments 6/25/2012 $385,000.00

[emphasis added]

Keeping up with the other one percenters must be hard work.

Previously (today): Campaign Finance: it’s their world, the rest of us only get to live in it (June 25, 2012)

….Uh, yep, Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder (r) must’ve really upset at least one person….

Make that two people.

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C091011 06/25/2012 CITIZENS FOR BRAD LAGER David Humphreys P O Box 4050 Joplin MO 64803 TAMKO Bldg Products Executive 6/23/2012 $250,000.00

Uh, yep, Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder (r) must’ve really upset at least one person.

Ironically (or maybe not), on the same day the United States Supreme Court eliminated [pdf] a hundred year practice of campaign finance restrictions on corporations in Montana.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote today in his dissent:

….Montana’s experience, like considerable experience elsewhere since the Court’s decision in Citizens United, casts grave doubt on the Court’s supposition that independent expenditures do not corrupt or appear to do so….

It’s not so much about money per se, it’s really about the unlimited amounts. It’s their world, the rest of us only get to live in it.

Who’s next?

Previously:

Representative Mark Parkinson (r): “Show us your papers, please.” (April 29, 2010)

Governor Jay Nixon at Missouri Boys State: Q and A on Arizona’s SB 1070 (June 14, 2010)

In an opinion [ARIZONA ET AL. v. UNITED STATES, No. 11-182. Argued April 25, 2012-Decided June 25, 2012] [pdf] released today the U.S. Supreme Court overturned three of the four challenged provisions in Arizona’s SB 1070 on the grounds that federal law preempted state law.

…Sections 3, 5(C) and 6 of S. B. 1070 are preempted by federal law….

….Section 3 intrudes on the field of alien registration, a field in which Congress has left no room for States to regulate….

….Section 5(C)’s criminal penalty stands as an obstacle to the federal regulatory system….

….The correct instruction to draw from the text, structure, and history of IRCA is that Congress decided it would be inappropriate to impose criminal penalties on unauthorized employees….

….By authorizing state and local officers to make warrantless arrests of certain aliens suspected of being removable, §6 too creates an obstacle to federal law….

However, on the “your papers, please” portion of the law:

….It was improper to enjoin §2(B) before the state courts had an opportunity to construe it and without some showing that §2(B)’s enforcement in fact conflicts with federal immigration law and its objectives….

….It is not clear at this stage and on this record that §2(B), in practice, will require state officers to delay the release of detainees for no reason other than to verify their immigration status. This would raise constitutional concerns. And it would disrupt the federal framework to put state officers in the position of holding aliens in custody for possible unlawful presence without federal direction and supervision. But §2(B) could be read to avoid these concerns. If the law only requires state officers to conduct a status check during the course of an authorized, lawful detention or after a detainee has been released, the provision would likely survive preemption-at least absent some showing that it has other consequences that are adverse to federal law and its objectives. Without the benefit of a definitive interpretation from the state courts, it would be inappropriate to assume §2(B) will be construed in a way that conflicts with federal law….

….This opinion does not foreclose other preemption and constitutional challenges to the law as interpreted and applied after it goes into effect….

[emphasis added]

The “your papers, please” part depends on how the State of Arizona implements it.

And, of course, the Supreme Court’s resident paleo-originalist, Justice Antonin Scalia, injects a political jab in his dissent:

….After this case was argued and while it was under consideration, the Secretary of Homeland Security announced a program exempting from immigration enforcement some 1.4 million illegal immigrants under the age of 30. If an individual unlawfully present in the United States

“• came to the United States under the age of sixteen;

“• has continuously resided in the United States for at least five years…,

“• is currently in school, has graduated from high

school, has obtained a general education development certificate, or is an honorably discharged veteran…,

“• has not been convicted of a [serious crime]; and

“• is not above the age of thirty,”

then U. S. immigration officials have been directed to “defe[r] action” against such individual “for a period of two years, subject to renewal.” The husbanding of scarce enforcement resources can hardly be the justification for this, since the considerable administrative cost of conducting as many as 1.4 million background checks, and ruling on the biennial requests for dispensation that the nonenforcement program envisions, will necessarily be deducted from immigration enforcement. The President said at a news conference that the new program is “the right thing to do” in light of Congress’s failure to pass the Administration’s proposed revision of the Immigration Act. Perhaps it is, though Arizona may not think so. But to say, as the Court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of the Immigration Act that the President declines to enforce boggles the mind….

….Thousands of Arizona’s estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants-including not just children but men and women under 30-are now assured immunity from enforcement, and will be able to compete openly with Arizona citizens for employment.

Arizona has moved to protect its sovereignty-not in contradiction of federal law, but in complete compliance with it. The laws under challenge here do not extend or revise federal immigration restrictions, but merely enforce those restrictions more effectively. If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign State. I dissent.

[emphasis added]

“…Perhaps it is, though Arizona may not think so…”

That’s the whole point of the majority opinion. Arizona doesn’t get to decide. The President does, and Congress, when they get around to it.

So much for being an apolitical originalist.  

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C001135 06/24/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Ameren UE PAC PO Box 780 Jefferson City MO 65102 6/22/2012 $45,000.00

C001135 06/24/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI United Food & Commercial Workers International Active Ballot Club 1775 K Street, NW Washington DC 20006 6/22/2012 $50,000.00

C001135 06/24/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Missouri DRIVE Fund 1850 E. Division Street Springfield MO 65803 6/22/2012 $25,000.00

[emphasis added]

$120,000.00. That’s a really good day for Governor Jay Nixon’s (D) campaign. Actually, it was Friday, it just got reported today.