The top Republican left in New York State politics is State Senate Majority leader Joe Bruno – and he’s a real piece of work. When Sptizer’s people did a really ham-handed look into what Bruno was doing when he was borrowing a state helicopter for ‘official’ business, Bruno went ballistic. He’s been hiring big name GOP gun slingers on the state’s dime to attack Sptizer, holding Senate hearings, and every other kind of obstruction you can imagine.

According to The Albany Project blog, Joe Bruno will be on Lou Dobbs tonight, and you can guess what he’ll be talking about.

The Albany Project has more on the whole feud, like this piece.

It ain’t entertaining anymore. This petty, ugly grudge match has stalled Albany. Granted, that usually would be considered a good thing, given the State Legislature’s well-earned label as “most dysfunctional in the country.” But the feud between Spitzer and Bruno threatens to interfere with everything from $2 exactas to the siting of new power plants.

To his credit, the new governor made significant progress on a batch of serious issues before the battle with Bruno exploded. The long-running lawsuit over public-education funding was resolved. Workers’-compensation formulas were rationalized, saving state businesses nearly $1 billion this year. A state-budget-reform package was signed into law. Major state agencies were overhauled.

It was a nice start. But by blundering into a war with Bruno, Spitzer has seen his agenda paralyzed. Spitzer’s years as attorney general made it clear he enjoyed playing rough. The notion of using the state police and the IRS to mess with a political opponent, however, verges on Nixonian and is beneath Spitzer. But let’s be clear: In its cost to New York, a few months of clumsy Spitzer tricksterism is a bargain compared with 31 years of Bruno’s gobbling from the public trough. Each August, in the glorious sun of Saratoga, Bruno makes a show of being a genteel patron of the sport of kings. Yet he’s more adept in hardball politics than his current enemy.

There’s more at the link.

I know that when someone without a license or insurance hit my car a couple years back, I had no recourse whatsoever.

the dangerous potential enemy who would seek to sneak in illegally, and maybe with weapons, would be easier to catch

They come in without weapons, on tourist or student visas. That’s legal entry.

Those aren’t the ones we’re supposed to be worried about at the illegal border entry points. The really dangerous ones might be carrying a backpack nuke or even marijuana.

The potentially dangerous ones who come without weapons are indeed still potentially dangerous, but potentially dangerous is different than Clearly Dangerous.

the dangerous potential enemy who would seek to sneak in illegally, and maybe with weapons, would be easier to catch

They come in without weapons, on tourist or student visas. That’s legal entry.

Jane, you said

[D]enying drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants only makes sense if your desire is to make their lives as miserable as possible

I believe this is the goal of many on that side of the issue. The belief being, that if they are miserable, they’ll go “home.”

Of course, there are some who are going to be so far from home that they simply wouldn’t want to ever go back. But, for some who live in northern Mexico, it would be great if they had a visitor/worker status which would let them come here to work (if they like) and return home whenever they want. Giving them some flexibility would possibly keep down the number moving here permanently.

One thing the wingnuts forget to do is consider the consequences of their policy ideas. They are so fanatical and ideological they forget they might get their goal achieved by considering various plans, not just a knee-jerk.

As a resident of Arizona, this is a huge issue. We have a high incident of hit & run accidents and our uninsured driver coverage here is very expensive.

This solution is so reasonable but the wingnuts just get their panties in a wad because in their next breath….then undocumented persons then would be getting welfare & medicaid. BUT then they would NOT be undocumented workers, there could be a handle on how many truly ARE in the country.

Again logic and wingnut thinking never are within the same world view.

It seems to me that it behooves us to protect ourselves by giving some kind of standard identification to anyone coming into the country. Who we let in and how many is a separate issue, but I would think that it should be much easier to protect the borders (with the few border patrol we’re using) if the mass of immigrants feel comfortable coming through standard checkpoints. We would be able to spot others coming across the border in odd locations much easier — they would stand out like a sore thumb. We could also spread our border patrol a bit thinner to cover more border area.

For national security we need to let people come through ‘normally’ and with identification, so the dangerous potential enemy who would seek to sneak in illegally, and maybe with weapons, would be easier to catch.