Stephen Colbert Goes To Washington -- Best Moments From Congressional Testimony (Video Collection)

Video:  Colbert explains his true motives -- More video inside

This is the only clip in which Colbert breaks character and talks as himself.

• "I like talking about people who don't have any power...I feel the need to speak for those who can't speak for themselves....We ask them to come and work, and then we ask them to leave again. They suffer, and have no rights."

He also quotes Matthew 25:40:

• "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'"

The truth is that no one wants these jobs.  Only 3 Americans signed up to work in the fields.  Labor conditions are so brutal that no one else will do the work.  It's the untold story of illegal immigration.  If the borders are sealed, who will pick the food? 

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Video:  Colbert's opening remarks (all jokes)

Do you want to be a migrant farm worker?

• Apply here -- Take Our Jobs

• More detail is here

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Video:  Stephen Colbert -- Corn Packer -- Congressional Hearing

More detail on this clip is here:

• Colbert calls gay Iowans 'corn packers'

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The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Fallback Position - Migrant Worker Pt. 2
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

Video:  Stephen Colbert goes to work in the fields -- Original Comedy Central clip that inspired the Congressional testimony

• More detail here (bottom of the story)

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Screenshot

Comments

[DailyBail]

** Job may include using hand tools such as knives, hoes, shovels, etc. Duties may include tilling the soil, transplanting, weeding, thinning, picking, cutting, sorting & packing of harvested produce. May set up & operate irrigation equip. Work is performed outside in all weather conditions (Summertime 90+ degree weather) & is physically demanding requiring workers to bend, stoop, lift & carry up to 50 lbs on a regular basis.

http://www.takeourjobs.org/

This is the problem...no one wants these jobs...only 15 Americans signed up to work in the fields...

[DailyBail]

Colbert, United Farm Workers challenge the unemployed

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2010-07-09-colbert-farm-workers_N.htm

The problem is that conditions are so poor that no one else will do the work...it's the untold story of illegal immigration...if we seal the borders, who will pick the food...?...i don't have any answers...

[Z]

I heard some of it on the radio, very silly, something about the ground being waist level? I guess Al Franken opened the door to this crap. It appealed to that pitiful gossip site Wonkette and to that creepy Huffington site, that’s a good barometer. I am not against a laugh but joking about human suffering and the sorrowful plight of illegal aliens is not funny. I say, flush the toilet humor. Yes, maybe Steve King didn’t at first realize that Colbert was talking about talking a piece of corn up his bunghole. The left really enjoys the gay slurs I guess. It must be some form of self-contempt coming to the surface. It is this type of sick scorn for hard working Americans that is so trademark left. It is deplorable.

Here is Obama doing the same thing…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTxXUufI3jA

I think it says more about Colbert and Obama than anyone else.

[JonL]

If anyone believes that you have to go out to the fruit fields to find illegal immigrants at work, you are sorely mistaken. In any small / non-franchise restaurant, many of the cook, dish-washers, and bus-boys are illegal. Same story in construction, house-cleaning operations and many other small service businesses.
If you are close friends with a manager at such an establishment, you can confirm this fact by asking about their hiring practices .... it's basically a "don't ask, don't tell" system, though as time goes on and there is close to zero enforcement, many in the business simply don't care anymore about even preserving plausible deniability.
So, unless you believe Americans would also not work as bus boys, house painters, cooks, tile layers, etc, I suggest that the 'take our jobs' concept is an attempt to mislead and misinform.

[JonL]

If there is any wide-spread amnesty program for illegals, here's my prediction of what would happen:
1st month - 4 million illegal field workers participating in the program immediately seek new employment
12th month - 4 million new illegals cross the border to replace the original group in the fields.

I think we need to start with enforcement at the site of business -- start by forcing an audit of 1/2 of each farm's workforce, which must be proven to be legal, and set the prevailing wage based on average pay of *legal* farm workers.

If the pay for a given number of hours of labor is intrinsically too low to attract laborers, then we should allow the market, operating in the light of day, to find the correct price and/or location.

[DailyBail]

I think that's what you would have to do jon...i agree...force the wages higher...to attract American workers...but you can't get these companies to do that unless they start getting shut down for their workers...and that hasn't happened under any administration...it's a very difficult situation...essentially wages would have to double...from about $6 per hour to $12...maybe $15...certain food prices will more than double...like i said it's not an easy issue...

[John S]

$10 an hour would do it... If you're unfortunate enough to be laid off in the new normal, you'll find no one is paying more than $10 hour, even for jobs that require 4-year degrees. The part time job I finally found pays $9.75 to start, But it beats the hell out of my second choice, selling coffee through a drive-thru window. That was $7.25 and you were expected to show up at 3:45 am.

[Wil Martindale]

John, your comment is a perfect example of a necessary correction seeking it's baseline.

A recent news story showing hundreds of unfilled agriculture job openings was taunted as a “political ploy” to reveal the hypocrisy of immigration reform. But 99 out of 100 unemployed, relatively unskilled American citizens–who are fit to work as field hands–would choose to play the unemployment extension game over making the same amount of money, or even a little more, working long, hard hours at physical labor, under harsh environmental conditions.

Pelosi, Reid and Frank have blessed this aspect of the social justice fantasy. They forgot that life isn't always fair because they live in a world where you can buy fairness with votes.

Both the American labor correction and the American lifestyle correction are long overdue. Bernanke buying 3 trillion in treasuries to extend the fantasy will only make the reality that much more more harsh when it finally comes.
http://letthemfail.us/archives/5463
(an older post but relevant to the topic)

[Sagebrush]

Mexico enforces their immigration laws. They have tougher laws than Arizona just passed and they aren't timid about enforcing them.

If the U.S. government enforced the existing federal immigration regulations with the same diligence Mexico applies to enforcement of their laws, the U.S. would not have anywhere near as large a problem with illegal immigration as now exists.

These idiots in Congress need to quit playing political games. Stop kissing big business butt and make the minimum wage a living wage. Start prosecuting all illegal employers and make immigrants come here legally in accordance with the law

Enforce the DAMN LAW!!!!!!

[DailyBail]

you are quite right about mexico's immigration laws...they will mess you up pretty badly if you are caught illegally in their country,.,.

From the Associated Press: “Central American migrants are frequently pulled off trains, kidnapped en masse, held at gang hideouts and forced to call relatives in the U.S. to pay off the kidnappers. Such kidnappings affect thousands of migrants each year in Mexico, the [Amnesty International] report says. Many are beaten, raped or killed in the process. One of the main issues, Amnesty says, is that migrants fear they will be deported if they complain to Mexican authorities about abuses.”

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/13118