So I am sitting in my Washington, DC hotel room enjoying life…despite the fact that the hotel does not have HBO or Showtime (even though it proudly advertises that it does) and the air conditioning was completely broken for a day and a half (while temperatures were around 90).

What’s so funny you ask? Well, I was just watching one of Washington, DC’s two public access/government public relations stations. Yup, I was sitting here watching a DC Council sesssion. The chairman of this particular committee is a bow tie wearing guy named Jim Graham. Seems like a nice enough chap except for the fact that he is outraged that someone was stopped and questioned about an immigration matter in a subway station. Councilman Graham is livid. How could anyone be questioned as to immigration status he wonders? How could this happen in the DC subway he wants to know. Testifying before this DC Council meeting is the new general manager of the agency that runs the DC transit system. General Manager Catoe, who proudly points out that he has been on the job for ninety days…TODAY! His anniversary, how touching. He states that his agency is only in the business of moving people. Other agencies deal with immigration issues, not his.

 Councilman Graham wants assurances from the transit manager that the transit agency will not cooperate in any way with immigration officials. See, it is alleged that the immigration folks were able to use a subway station office to ask someone about his immigration status. Oh the horror.

What is so twisted about all of this is the fact that Councilman Graham is a big government sort of guy. Just take a look at his website (www.grahamwone.com) and you will see that he’s seemingly never met a big government program he didn’t like. Government outlawing smoking? Graham likes it. Government telling private property owners how much to charge for rent? Free market be damned Graham screams. Raise taxes to fund more government involvement in private lives? Yes, yes, yes he says. Allow an immigration inspector to duck in to an empty office for five minutes? Hell, no. We won’t have that in my city.

According to guys like Graham, the government should do everything except perform its one fundamental purpose - protect the nation from enemies, foreign and domestic.

I wonder if Councilman Graham can help me establish my constitutional right to air conditioning and cable tv? I promise I won’t ride the subway while I am in town if he can help.

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