Charles Schumer goes to bat for the Yankees.
“My office works tirelessly to help constituents every single day, but it’s not often you get a call from a constituent like the New York Yankees,” Schumer said. “You see, the Yankees called me a couple of days ago to say they were worried about Masahiro Tanaka getting to spring training on time due to the length of time it can take for foreign players to get a visa.
“Foreign baseball players apply for something called a P-visa and the whole process can take up to a month; but with pitchers and catchers reporting on February 14th, it was very possible he wasn’t going to make it. So I made sure we had someone go to the mailroom at USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services), pull his application and get it processed quickly – something I have done in the past for the Mets as well, when they had a similar issue with Jose Reyes.”
I feel sorry for the poor slob with no pull who had to wait an extra day or two so the Yankees could get their pitcher here on time.
Just a thought, but this seems like a pretty good scam from the government. Congress people need large staffs to tirelessly help constituents, because the agencies that are supposed to do the job are incredibly inefficient. Instead of fixing the agencies so that reps need smaller staffs, they go around forcing efficiency to favored constituents, making the politician look good. What a waste of time and money.
Yep. And the best thing is that we’re footing the bill for all of them. Sweet deal that.
It does work though, at least for those elites who have pull. Heck, it takes over a month just for a citizen to add passport pages through regular service, at a cost of almost 100 bucks.
To think we had a revolution over a small tax on tea. The founding fathers would all end up in GITMO today, or would swim back to England (only to discover it was much better under King George)
Like the man said, he is responding to his mega-buck PAC contributors, I mean constituents.
And, of course, the people who get screwed by this scam aren’t voters at all, so no senator need be concerned about them.
I have a good friend who was a green card resident for years (now a citizen). The bureaucracy immigrants and non-citizen residents have to put up with is surely the worst in the United States.
James » I hear about this sort of thing with Social Security checks as well. Someone doesn’t get his or her check. SS doesn’t help, so they call the representative. They get the job done, and the person votes for them next time because they were so helpful. The congress person never makes heads roll at social security so they provide proper customer service without the prodding of a representative.
Not only did he help Tanaka skip the line at the request of a private business, he’s openly bragging about it in the press!
I implore my American friends to take advantage of this opportunity. Let Schumer and his ilk know that this is frowned upon by voters.
Very astute comments. It must be pointed out, however, that like the phony social security crisis, a whole lot could be done if we properly fund the institutions that are supposed to assist us. This way guys like Tanaka wouldn’t have to skip the line to make a public servant look good, and we’d all be given major league treatment.
The public school teachers I know are the hardest working folks I know and they do their jobs under a constant barrage of insults from people who do not have the best interests of education at heart. And yes, there is waste in government, but also a whole lot of people who work very hard in an unforgiving environment, in all phases of public sector jobs… including the social studies teacher and the para-educator who work countless hours coaching baseball after school in the spring for pennies on the dollar.
Let’s not forget that the vast majority of
Yet another classic example of what is wrong with politicians and Washington D.C. This is also in keeping with the warning that the most dangerous place to stand is between Sen. Schumer and a TV camera.