¡Hola! Fellow Republicans

By Bill Maher

Only when the borders are secure, only then can those who are in the US illegally, "come out of the shadows, get biometrically identified, start paying taxes, pay a fine for the law they broke. They can't stay unless they learn our language, and they have to get in the back of line before they become citizens. They can't cut in front of the line regarding people who are doing it right and it can take over a decade to get their green card."

                                                - Lindsay Graham, on "Face the Nation"

He didn't mean it, really. It sounds harsh, but what Lindsay Graham was saying (as predictably as heartburn after a burrito) is that we're going to be having a great big Latino-loving legislative fiesta before Cinco de Mayo.

The language has to be harsh. The Republicans have to strongly condemn the idea of amnesty and the idea of forgiveness, and make it clear that such things will not be tolerated. And they will strictly enforce the letter of their law by making illegal immigrants suffer the deep, painful, merciless punishment of...paperwork!

That's right -- go back to Mexico, because there's no way, Jose. At least not unless you sign here. And here. And here. And give us a DNA sample. Okay, and wait a couple of years, just like you've been waiting, feel free to keep cleaning those toilets while you do. And then...Hey, welcome to America, citizen! Have fun, and please consider voting Republican!

The language that Republicans are going to be spouting for the next few months will continue to sound harsh, as they struggle to convince their base that they are Solving the Problems caused by shiftless Mexicans. And talk is all that's needed, because several of the key problems are imaginary, which are the easiest sort of problems to resolve.

So we'll "close" the border by beefing up security...and then be able to brag about the fact that we've attained a net cross-border migration of zero. Which, of course, we've already got. And we'll force those Mexicans to learn English, which, obviously, most of them want to do. We won't let them steal the jobs we want, which they’re not doing. And we'll make them wait patiently for their papers, which isn't a huge hardship for people who've been waiting anyway.

Obviously, this will be a huge victory for Democrats and something the Republicans are doing only because they feel they have to if they want to remain politically relevant. But let's not fool ourselves -- it's a victory for Democratic ideas, but politically it could work out to be a way better thing for Republicans. If they can convince their base that they've "solved" the illegal immigrant problem and take the nasty Joe Arpaio-type talk off the table, there's not a lot of reason why they couldn't find themselves grabbing much, much larger percentages of the Latino vote right away, and we'll be saying a fond "¡Adios!" to the new "permanent" Democratic advantage.

Then again, you can never underestimate the Republicans' ability to come across as racist douchebags.

I Dream of Geney

By Bill Maher


Genetic scientists have finally mapped the DNA of a primate cousin of the chimpanzee known as the bonobo. And I just thought you should know that. Actually, the genetically-ingrained personality traits of the bonobo versus those of the chimp may tell us something about humans and human nature. 

You see, bonobos, chimps and man all shared a common ancestor about six million years ago – Abe Vigoda. But then, as happens with evolution, man went off on his own genetic direction and the bonobo and the chimp shared the same common ancestor up until about a million years ago. Then the Congo River formed and the ape ancestors on one side of the river evolved differently than the ape ancestors on the other. Eventually, we got two different species – the chimpanzee and the bonobo – who share about 99.6% of their genomes. As opposed to humans, who have about 98.7% of the same genetic blueprint as both bonobos and chimpanzees. I swear I’m going somewhere with this. 

Just as a common ancestor came to an evolutionary crossroads where two distinct genetic cousins – the bonobo and chimp – were formed, perhaps man has come to a genetic crossroads where we’re evolving into two slightly-genetically-different species: liberal man and conservative man. Only the thing that’s prompting this split into two separate species isn’t a physical division; it’s a political one. Our Congo River is American politics. 

Consider this: genetically, the bonobo is the liberal ape. It’s kinder and gentler than the chimp. Where chimps have been documented to be more prone to violence and to actually make war, bonobos share food with total strangers and are more nurturing. The bonobos are also more tolerant and social than chimps and they’re far more sexual. They are much more likely to release tension through the act of having sex than the way chimps release tension, by fighting. 

Sound familiar? If these apes could vote, the chimps would be the sexually repressed balls of angst who want gun rights and a stronger military and the bonobo would be all for welfare spending and teaching sex-ed in schools. Only they couldn’t do that condom demonstration because they’d keep eating the banana. 

Is the gulf becoming too wide? Are liberals and conservatives evolving into two separate, distinct types of humans?