“Man, I wish June was over. And we’re barely at the halfway point.”

Far be it from the Czar to quote the Washington Post favorably, but even they are calling BS on the President’s immigration announcement Friday. Right in the headline:

Young illegal immigrants’ amnesty could tighten competition for jobs, college

Sic. Yes, the slant of the article is clear that this move is going to hurt, hurt, hurt the already too-highly unemployed youth. And yes, it will.

But of course, the President would like to offer a small correction: this isn’t amnesty! Had WaPo been listening, the President made it quite clear that he is not offering amnesty.

No, indeed, what he is offering is the refusal to prosecute. And that isn’t an opinion, but reflects exactly what the detailed terms of his executive order entail.

Of course, refusal to enforce a Constitutional law enacted by Congress is grounds for impeachment, by the way, since it violates the Presidential Oath of Office. That also is not an opinion; the President is not free to pick and choose which federal laws are enforced. And he ought to know better: what it is to stop a Republican governor from refusing to enforce Obamacare? Or to allow his or her Secretary of State to tabulate Democratic votes this fall? That governor could easily announce, with strong passion, that it is the right thing to do, even if it isn’t.

The Czar predicts—and this is opinion by the way, but we shall soon see if it becomes fact—that this is going to blow up in the President’s face in exactly the same way his support of gay marriage (but only at the state level) did: it will be perceived as a purely political stunt that makes mockery of a serious subject. And, if you recall, Americans overwhelmingly believed his support of gay marriage (but only at the state level) was a farce and it ultimately cost him votes. The Republican War on Women was seen overwhelmingly as a political stunt, and this too cost him votes.

An interesting point though is that many conservatives—and the Czar is among them—feel great sympathy for the people affected by this executive order. Sneaking across the border to break the law is definitely a criminal act—but kids who are brought across the border against their will should not necessarily be prosecuted for that. We get it. But rather than engage in serious discussion about ways to reform or (better yet) refine the law have now been trashed into lunacy because President Obama is frenetically trying to scrape out another 1 or 2 percentage points from voters.

And while he probably will gain a small percentage bump from this—but not a lot, since the folks he’s trying to help here are too young to vote even if they were to be given citizenship—this will be more than offset by the independents who, well, happen to agree with the Washington Post.

The real problem for the President is not immigration any more than it was gay marriage (but only at the state level) or birth control or any of the other inane Hail Mary passes thrown at the press. The problem is that Mitt Romney’s strategy is working: even potential voters who have never pulled an elephant’s lever in their life are asking “What does this have to do with getting me back to work?”

And while you can argue whether this is truly amnesty or something just as bad, the reality is that the President’s move is going to hurt the unemployment rate as tens of thousands of work permits are suddenly issued with no jobs for their holders.

Wow, the President is really tanking his campaign. Makes you wonder what communities he’s ever organized. He’s making the Cubs look good.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.