I am a ‘happy camper’. Instead of continuously criticizing, and laughing at, Rand Paul, John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell, there is a new challenger. Senator Orin Hatch, Republican from Utah, wants to ignore the first amendment and deny immigrants the rights natural born citizens enjoy.

As promised by Republican Senators, dozens of amendments have been proposed regarding immigration reform in the Judiciary Committee, which are designed to minimize the effects of the legislation, or destroy it in its entirety.

Consistently pompous and self-righteous Orin Hatch wants to require mandatory DNA samples, along with other data, from those applying for Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI) status, which is the path most immigrants would take towards citizenship.

He wants to ensure that they are not in any criminal data base. The federal government already has the authority to take DNA samples from immigrants in detention.

David Leopold, general counsel with the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), is quick to point out that these applicants would not be in detention, they would be applying for an immigration benefit.

“It’s not detention, there’s no requirement that anyone apply for RPI status,” Leopold said. “They could leave the country or they could do nothing.”

Civil liberties groups are wary of Hatch’s proposal.

“I think the biggest thing to understand is how incredibly invasive this would be,” said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for privacy-related issues at the American Civil Liberties Union. “I mean DNA is not like fingerprint. You’re unveiling a lot of personal and sensitive information about a person with DNA.”

Hatch is also bitterly angry at the IRS for targeting certain TEA Party members who had tax exempt status during the 2012 election season.

Orrin Hatch: ‘When we start letting the IRS impose its will on people and doing it in a partisan, biased way, then we’re exposing our country to some real problems’.

The IRS has denied it was intentional, but he, like his fellow right wingers, won’t let it go.

And if he thinks attacks whether imagined or real on the country’s politicos signifies a “real problem”, then he’s not looking at the same Washington debacle I am. I don’t have the time to list all of our nation’s problems government is simply ignoring.

The practice was revealed at an American Bar Association, where Lois Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups for the IRS, said the incident was action by a low-level group in Cincinnati, who targeted two keys, the word “patriot”, and the words “tea party”.

“That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review,” Lerner said according to the Associated Press. “The IRS would like to apologize for that.”

But, in true Republican lack of style, Hatch isn’t happy with an apology.

“We need to have ironclad guarantees from the IRS that it will adopt significant protocols to ensure this kind of harassment of groups that have a constitutional right to express their own views never happens again,” Hatch said in a statement. “There can be no tolerance for the IRS being turned into a political weapon; it has a chilling and, frankly, Nixonian effect on those who wish to speak their mind.” (No politician wants us to know how much money they are hiding from the American public.)

If the IRS’ explanation is reality, is this another non-ending rant by a right winger who wants to continue to keep incidents that were exposed and solutions discussed in the forefront of the news?

The ACLU, which is a group often targeted by Republicans, has said that such an incident must be carefully scrutinized, ensuring that nothing similar is ever repeated.

They don’t actually ‘do’ anything, but politicians can be humorous, but only sometimes.

James Turnage

Columnist-The Guardian Express