The rich get richer and the poor get poorer

Just in case you needed further proof that life isn't fair, there's this:

MILWAUKEE (AP) — U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, already a millionaire and heir to the Kimberly-Clark fortune, is on a lucky streak. The Republican hit it big in 1997 with a $250,000 jackpot in the District of Columbia lottery. Then, last spring, he won $1,000 prize in the Wisconsin lottery, and he won another $1,000 in that lottery last week.

"I got lucky," Sensenbrenner said.

Sensenbrenner, 64, was born into a family that helped build Kimberly-Clark Corp., maker of Kleenex tissue and Scott paper towels, and he recently reported a net worth of about $11.6 million. He said he spends about $10 a week on lottery tickets.

The latest winnings came in a Super 2nd Chance drawing, in which people who mail in at least $5 in losing tickets vie for 10 $1,000 prizes each week. Lottery officials put the odds of winning just one time at 1 in 5,000.

Sensenbrenner is a notorious tightwad who travels the globe with his wife while letting special interests pick up the tab.

But it is hard to imagine someone with his money spending his time mailing in his losing lottery tickets.

Maybe he has more time on his hands now that he's in the minority.

Holding the hard line on immigration

Let you think that Fat Jim has moved even slightly on his hard-line anti-immigrant stance, check the Oconomowoc Focus story this week about his talk to local Kiwanians. Some highlights:

"They (illegal immigrants) distort the economy, they take away jobs from the communities, and many times they are paid cash," he said, meaning that often they do not pay taxes for the society they live in...

and

... the Senate's version of the bill ... allows current illegal immigrants, who have lived in the U.S. for five years, to gain U.S. citizenship by paying fines and back taxes for only three of the previous five years.

Sensenbrenner said that is basically giving criminals amnesty.

"By giving illegal immigrants amnesty, not only do you get U.S. citizenship for breaking the law, but you get a lot of money taken away from others."

If U.S. citizens were to only pay limited back taxes, they would be considered lawbreakers and prosecuted, he said.

"Amnesty will never be accepted by the American public," he stated.

Meanwhile, Latino evangelicals are about to abandon the GOP over the issue, The Christian Post reports:

[Rev. Samuel] Rodriguez [president of the National Hispanic Leadership Conference]. and others like him, are now questioning whether they can label the GOP party as the “party of Jeff Sessions, Tom Tancredo and James Sensenbrenner” who were strong opponents of the immigration bill, or the party of George W. Bush and John McCain who are both strongly in favor of the bill.