Insane Clown Posse: Steven Colbert On Capitol Hill

I wasn't going to post on Steven Colbert's "testimony" at a House hearing on immigration, but the BREAKING NEWS graphic has informed me that his appearance descended into well-deserved chaos. Michelle Malkin has the dramatic play-by-play

Update: GOP Rep. Steve King delivers a scathing rebuke to Dems/Colbert — defending American workers who do the dirty jobs the Dems/Colbert say they don’t do. Lambastes illegal immigration’s effects on depressed wages, displacement.

Update: Democrat John Conyers wants Colbert to submit written testimony and then leave because he attracted enough attention. Lofgren says no. Dan Lungren takes mic.

Update 10:41am Eastern: Stephen Colbert delivers his comedic routine, mocking law-abiding American workers, cracking jokes about submitting a colonoscopy. Ends his testimony with “USA #1!”

Conyers observes that Colbert’s written testimony differed considerably from the “testimony” he delivered.

This is probably the only time you'll ever see these words at this blog, so feel free to write them down and pass them along: good for John Conyers.

Colbert was there to do one thing: mock American citizens for their very real concerns about the prevalence of illegal immigration (Americans don't object to "regular" legal immigration), despite the efforts of the political and business elite to reorder American labor markets and society through a combination of willful neglect and smug speechifying about this being a "nation of immigrants." Well, liberals and their Republican enablers need to do better than that because the available evidence shows that Americans have every right to be concerned without being labled racists and know-nothings.

One thing Colbert was there to do was repeat the demagogic claim that increased immigration is necessary to do the "jobs Americans won't do." Here's a reality check

• Of the 465 civilian occupations, only four are majority immigrant. These four occupations account for less than 1 percent of the total U.S. workforce. Moreover, native-born Americans comprise 47 percent of workers in these occupations.
  
  
• Many jobs often thought to be overwhelmingly immigrant are in fact majority native-born:
  • Maids and housekeepers: 55 percent native-born
  • Taxi drivers and chauffeurs: 58 percent native-born
  • Butchers and meat processors: 63 percent native-born
  • Grounds maintenance workers: 65 percent native-born
  • Construction laborers: 65 percent native-born
  • Porters, bellhops, and concierges: 71 percent native-born
  • Janitors: 75 percent native-born
  
  
• There are 93 occupations in which 20 percent or more of workers are immigrants. These high-immigrant occupations are primarily, but not exclusively, lower-wage jobs that require relatively little formal education.
  
  
• There are 23.6 million natives in these high-immigrant occupations (20 percent or more immigrant). These occupations include 19 percent of all native workers.
  
  
• Most natives do not face significant job competition from immigrants; however, those who do tend to be less-educated and poorer than those who face relatively little competition from immigrants.

I'm all for Tea Partying and voting idiots out of office. But, American politics won't be able to repair itself until stunts like this are verboten.