Capitulation at its finest, people...

The more it changes...in an announcement yesterday, our intrepid HomeSec said it will go ahead with a new policy to crackdown on the hiring of illegal immigrants, only not so much. When the new policy goes into effect on January 15, instead of targeting companies with federal contracts as low as $3000, now the limit applies only to those contractors with deals over $100,000, and employers are now only required to check the work documents of those employees working on those specific projects. Yeah, I really feel as though the issue is being addressed now.

The changes would apply to solicitations or awards made after Jan. 15, and exempt workers who have already received security clearances, contracts for commercial, off-the-shelf items, and contracts lasting less than 120 days. Oh...well then. Why is it so hard for businesses in this country to accept that they have to check the ID of their employees before they hire them, and particularly if they are working on government contracts? I have never held a job where I didn't have to verify my legal status to work in the United States. It's common damn practice, not thumbscrews being tightened by an unreasonable government, and believe you me, folks, this is an administration that knows unreasonable.

Randel K. Johnson, vice president and yeshole for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the administration "had been responsive to a substantial amount of business concerns," particularly by limiting the rule to large contractors, to new contracts and to workers on those contracts. That's cute, Mr. Johnson, as there is a world of difference between being responsive and fumbling for zippers in the dark over promises in your ear. To translate that, it sounds like the current administration either bent over and took it, or got some bruised knees in the process, cause businesses in this country got their way, and seemingly had their way with this new policy.

E-Verify, a system with which companies can check federal Social Security and immigration databases to determine whether an employee is authorized to work, only covers only 1 percent of an estimated 6 million U.S. employers and about 11 percent of annual hiring, at the present. Kind of makes you want to facepalm yourself, doesn't it? According to claims by the United States Chamber of Commerce, the implementation of the system would cost $10 billion. For something that companies and employers are already required to do? How in the fuck does that math add up?

The final nonsense in this isn't even the businesses that are wanting to buck the system, but rather the Department of Homeland Security. Even after all of this, federal officials predict the initiative will eventually cover more than 20 percent of U.S. hiring, DHS yeshole Laura Keehner said.

That's it? 20 fucking percent? That's our Department of Homeland Security for ya, doing a heckuva job since day one.

At Ford, quality may be job #1, but shouldn't common sense be in the top 3 somewhere?

Let me see if I got this straight...according to Alan Mulally, chief executive officer of Ford Motor Company, the economic slump will be "longer and deeper" than most people previously thought. Thank you, Captain Obvious. Perhaps it was the $110 billion in asinine "sweeteners" tacked on to the bailout plan's second take, which surprised absolutely no one, as did the fact the second bailout passed with little of the hemming and hawing that punctuated the first attempt.

Never mind the idea that a guy making $26 million a year to drive a major (and formerly venerable) corporation into the ground like a tent stake is talking about economic slumps. I would say Mulally has taken pages from the Carly Fiorina playbook of business management, but something tells me it was just the playbook's lone page, which Fiorina didn't even bother coloring in completely.

Mulally didn't stop there while making remarks at the Paris auto show, making the non-statement that what makes it harder for everybody (the auto industry) is slowing global auto sales, and confirming that bankruptcy is not an option on the table for Ford. First, consistently sticking with vehicles featuring poor gas mileage performance, and that includes the so-called "crossovers" is what has led to, in large part, slowing global auto sales. Secondly, why would bankruptcy be an option? The guy in a long free-fall isn't so much worried about the view on the way down, just at what point rock bottom's going to arrive.