Why The Democrats Suck [Updated]
Update: Early reports say yet another half-million people, this time in Dallas, marched for immigrant rights on Sunday. I believe this startling event adds even more context to what is said below. Another marker on just how much the entire professional American political class (Republicans and Democrats) has fallen behind ground-level reality.
Kevin Drum, among many others, are struggling to refute the notion (raised in my blog posting below this one) that Harry Reid and the Democratic Senate leadership are primarily responsible for unnecessarily scuttling the immigration reform compromise of last week.
Let me begin my counter-rebuttal by saying that I fully understand Drum's (and Reid's) logic and, in fact, I concede that what the Senate Democrats did is completely coherent and consistent with their record on this issue (and their behavior in general).
Quickly summarizing the Drum/Reid argument: After a bi-partisan Senate majority agreed on an immigration compromise last Thursday night, Reid sensed that he and the Dems were being suckered into a Republican trap. They were worried that Bill Frist would allow an almost unlimited of amendments from hard-right wingers that could distort the intent of the bill. And even though those could be defeated on the floor, the compromise -- it is argued-- would be turned into something noxious when it went back to the House for conference. That's certainly likely and even probable. When the conference version would eventually come back to the Senate for re-ratification -- perhaps in unacceptable form-- the Democrats would then be forced to vote against it. They would look weak on the issue of border enforcement and would have fallen right into Frist's trap right on the eve of the mid-term elections. So goes the argument. That's why at the last moment, on Friday, Reid employed parliamentary maneuvers to block a vote.
Well, it's all a rather water-tight argument, in fact -- if one realizes the miserable showing the Democrats have so far made on immigration reform i.e. doing nothing. Ted Kennedy is about the lone exception in the Senate -- having admirably gotten way out there in front of the curve, and in front of how own party which has been basically invisible on the issue.
Here's my alternative view: There had actually been great and unanticipated progress made in the past month on the immigration issue. An upsurge in Latino political mobilization including massive national demonstrations, the emergence of a sizeable fraction of the GOP not willing to alienate that constituency, vigorous lobbying from industry, unions and the Church, and George W. Bush taking at least a middling rather than a xenophonic position had allowed unexpected progress. Senate hard-liners, including Frist, are the ones who had to give ground not the other way around. And what come out of the compromise -- while not Nirvana-- was certainly a framework acceptable to immigration advocates and reformers. Much more of a victory for them then for Frist and Sensenbrenner. It would have opened the path to legalization of 7 million or more people currently living in legal netherworld and it would have recognized the need for future, expanded legalized immigration. In short -- in this political moment-- it was actually as much or more than liberal and reform forces could expect.
Faced with the "trap" that Reid claims had been laid, he should have done the following:
1) Allowed the Senate to vote for the compromise, getting 63-67 Senators (an astounding amount) on record in support of liberalized reform. That majority, in turn, would have been enough to vote down the poison pill amendments that the hard-liners had ready to roll-out.
2) Let the approved Senate bill go to the House for conference. During that process -- which would take many weeks if not months-- the Democrats could undertake a serious, profound and vigorous political campaign to explain to the American people why the measures in the Senate version were far superior to the simle-minded enforcement-only measures wanted by the House. It would be an opportunity for Democrats to come out boldly on the issue and in doing so, to clarify it.
3) Link that political campaign -- which would be supported by business and labor alike-- to the rising Latino political mobilization which is going to be very actvive in the streets (beginning again today). In other words, by voting yes on the compromise and joining with the reform-faction Republicans AND the Latino grass-roots, the Democrats could put enormous pressure on the recalcitrant House to do the right thng. If Sensenbrenner and the restrictionists then prevailed anyway, it would be they, not the Democrats, who would bear the pre-election onus having failed on reform. Or maybe, God Forbid, their could have been enough pressure put on the House to come up with something decent.
Natch, all this would require a Democratic Party ready to actually take the pro-active leadership on this issue (with all the risks inherent in leading). It would require a Democratic Party that was willing to make such nuanced but crucial arguments to an American electorate. And it would require the same Democratic Party -- which didn't give a damn about the fate of migrants when President Clinton implemented the most retrograde of border and immigration policy when he was in power-- to actually give one.
In that sense, then, Kevin Drum is right and I'm wrong. Harry Reid offered precisely the sort of "leadership" we would expect from this party-- one which has so richly and consistently shown its failure of nerve, its lack of imagination and its phobia of leadership.
April 9th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Marc.
Maybe he just got tired of being lied to and treated like a chump.
By standing firm and not being willing to be double-dealed by Frist again, Reid is also in a position when the Senate returns to see if they are genuinely interested in creating a bill without the amendments. In other words, he’s thrown down his gloves and is positioned to call the Senate’s bluff.
I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Also frankly, this comment:
kind of reminds me of Bill Clinton’s signing the welfare reform bill of 1996 with the comment afterwards that they would work to fix the bill later. (P.S. It hasn’t been fixed). This was a bill, by the way, that Pat Moynihan commented was designed to punish children for the irresponsibility of their parents.
Marc, you can look at the situation the way you have choose to view it. On the other hand, mama always taught me to try to get something right the first time. That’s what it appears to me that Reid is trying to do.
April 9th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
My personal view on immigration reform is hopelessly split down the middle. I agree strongly with the notion that business is crazy for cheap labor and that is one of the primary motivating factors behind the president’s call for immigration reform.
My experiences in Germany seeing guest workers and how they were treated makes me very dubious about guest workers. I also happen to live in a community with a heavy immigrant population. I’m the son of one immigrant and the spouse of another and understand the burden that illegal immigration can place on a society, however, I cannot abide the hate-filled, nativist tone some people have used in the comments to these posts.
It’s not the end of the world for me to have to say “con permiso” when I get on the 7 train when people don’t respond to “excuse me.” Yet, there is something intrinsically valuable about learning a country’s language when you live there. When I lived in Germany, I made a point of learning Germany, despite the fact that so many Germans speak English fluently.
It is a way of showing respect for people. Towards that end, it’s worth recounting an experience today. We attend mass at Our Lady of Pompeii Church in Greenwich Village. There is a mass in Portuguese for the Brazilian immigrant community. The church is run by the Scalabrinians, an order dedicated to helping immigrants (originally for Italian immigrants in New York).
In any event, the priest announced the rally scheduled for tomorrow near NYC’s City Hall and also requested that if people wanted to bring flags that they should bring US flags. He commented that it is important that people understand that immigrants want to become part of this country.
Anyway, I’m just throwing out for people to chew over. I’m sure someone will probably accuse me of hating America.
April 9th, 2006 at 4:40 pm
You make the mistake of believing protestors marching in the streets and hispanic voters can influence the process on the Republican end. They can’t. Morevover hispanic reps are for the Frist version. You hate Democrats so it’s always their fault, never mind the numbers and majority opposition. We get it.
April 9th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
“the Democrats could undertake a serious, profound and vigorous political campaign to explain to the American people why the measures in the Senate version were far superior to the simle-minded enforcement-only measures wanted by the House. It would be an opportunity for Democrats to come out boldly on the issue and in doing so, to clarify it.”
A profound and vigorous campaign for a proposal that everyone knows is a half-assed, pro-business/ethnic head-counting compromise – with some rhetorical bones thrown to “border enforcement” to begin with ?
Not there’s a plan to get people to take the party more seriously…
April 9th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
Marc, it may surprise you to learn that many of the main immigration reform groups coordinating the lobbying supported Reid’s manuever, including the National Immigration Law Center and others…
April 9th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
This issue was dead on arrival. Until a plan with cojones comes out that doesn’t kowtow to demands of guest worker programs (based on false economic analyses that people like Marc are either getting duped by or disingenuously ignoring), we’re still in limbo. Incidentally, Marc, Reid’s political machinations are no more unseemly than your skewing of the immigration argument–you either play politics and compromise (which has some necessary ugliness), or you demand the ideal. You criticize people who hold out for a better plan as unrealistic, and the former as Reid-esque slimeballs. The thing is, you’re doing the same thing, but the difference is that you’re aligning with a different type of slimeball.
And in anticipation of your “provide a better plan” rejoinder, I’ll reiterate what I’ve said before: road to citizienship/amnesty for the 12 million here (or some percentage), some token deportation of the remainder, an actual enforcement of workplace laws and document verification, and increased border security. Two additional (and slightly more controversial) possibilities: 1) punish employers but NOT future undocumented immigrants, which pressures the demand side (which pisses off your Chamber of Commerce (Dem & GOP) buddies; 2) build, yes, a wall (which pisses off immigrant organizations, some churches, and the bleeding heart liberals). The more I learn about this possibility, the less I think it is impossible. It’s been done before, and, after all, we’re in the 21st century: we should be able to handle the technological challenge. (Kaus has provided some good links on this.) If not, the only end to this process is the merging of the United States and Mexico (and the rest of Central America…). Everyone ready for that?
So, back to your corners everyone, but maybe rethink your alliances before the next round.
April 9th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
LET’S ALL HOLD HANDS
I propose a borderless world, we all hold hands a sing kumbia!
“So join in the folk song army!
Guitars are the weapons we bring
to the fight against poverty, war, and injustice.
Ready, aim, sing!”
Tom Lehrer “That Was the Week That Was”
So if we open all borders, and create a world of “nation states,†who will run this big show, and what will it look like politically? If we were borderless, why would we need multiple languages, it only perpetuates lack of communication and sustains a confusing “Tower a Babel†and miscommunication—so what language shall we choose, maybe to be fair, sign language—at least the planet would be much less noisy.
Well if this never materializes, and we’re stuck with those two parties,—Republican and Democrat; and the world remains as is then perhaps, we have to look at why these politicians are reticent to be brave and bold.
According to the April 10, issue of Times Magazine: 82 percent polled stated that the U.S. is not doing enough in controlling the borders; 69 percent said that illegal immigrants should not be able to obtain driver’s license and 75 percent stated that they should not have access to free health care or food stamps. However, 72 percent of those polled are if favor of temporary visas, so that they can work seasonally and then return to their country.
This article also points out that the population that gets hurt the most economically from illegal immigration is high school dropouts—and they have lost 8 percent of their income.
Jobs in industries like food services and construction are being taken over by illegal immigration. It should be noted, that there is a 50 percent drop out rate for minorities in inner city high schools, and there is a 40 to 50 percent unemployment rate for black males, ironically, these dropouts and minorities are competing for the same jobs that are now given to illegal immigrants.
In the recent past, construction jobs were considered well paying, and “blue collar†folk with only a high school diploma, but with some ability to “work a hammer,†were able to make quite a good living. All of that has changed, and many of these workers can no loner find employment, their labor is being devalued by illegal immigration.
YOU BETTER BELIEVE THAT BOTH DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS ARE HEARING THE ANGER, AND FEELING THE PRESSURE FROM THEIR CONSTITUTENCY NOT TO PASS A HALF-ASS BILL!
AND HERE ARE A FEW OTHER STATISTICS TO THROW INTO THE MIX:
33% of the U.S. prison population is made up of illegal.
In Los Angeles, 95 percent of outstanding homicides warrants are for illegal aliens, as are 66 percent of fugitive felony warrants.
The notorious 18 Street Gang has 20,000 members, of whom 60 to 80 percent are illegal aliens, according to the California Department of Justice and the Los Angeles Police Department, respectively.
The Lil’ Cycos Gang, notorious for murder, racketeering, and drugs in Los Angeles’s MacArthur Park, was thought to be 60 percent illegals in 2002, and the percentage is higher now.
90 percent of the meth (methamphetamine) manufactured in this country is manufactured by Mexican national (Mexican non-U.S citizen) drug organizations,“
Methamphetamine cases today account for 80% of the nation’s police departments’ drug investigations.
Over the past five years, an average of more than 72,000 aliens has been arrested annually on drug charges alone.
Taxpayers pay $750 million annually to house the 18,000 illegal aliens in California prisons alone.
April 9th, 2006 at 7:12 pm
Lets not forget just how many radicals did not see this coming. Lets also note that the Left is playing NO role in this movement. Another tragedy.
These people have NO representation in the professional political class and NO representation in the professional intellectual class and NO representation in the professional leftist class. Really sad for those folks.
But inspiring to see a insurgent populist movement that is not nutty.
Bill Bradley should also be happy. I saw the protestors carrying a BIG american flag!
April 9th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Those are are some pretty damning stats Eleanore. Looks like someone “left the cake out in the rain” bigtime.
April 9th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
“Lets not forget just how many radicals did not see this coming. Lets also note that the Left is playing NO role in this movement. Another tragedy.
These people have NO representation in the professional political class and NO representation in the professional intellectual class and NO representation in the professional leftist class. Really sad for those folks.”
Not true; the radical position is for full amenesty, open borders and uniting and mobilizing immigrants and all working poor.
The position is that the immigrant movement lends more power to the issues of the working-class, and further energizes an international movement of the poor and marginalized.
April 9th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Eleanore – The left has spent more time defening Mumia Abu Jumal than working for amnesty for immigrants. The current position is one of convenience. An attempt to take credit for an insurgent populist movement that the left has had no part in organizing.
April 9th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
Maybe ease off that hipster juice, Josh:
http://www.internationalanswer.org/
Open foot and…insert!
April 9th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
Josh,
Additionally, organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the European Parliament, and the Japanese Diet, as well as several national U.S. trade union federations (ILWU, AFSCME, SEIU, the national postal union) and the 1.8 million member California Labor Federation, demand either a new trial or Abu-Jamal’s immediate release.
Maybe, they will all show up for the next immigration demonstration.
April 9th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
Rich,
ANSWER my friend is blowing in the wind–and everywhere else.
April 9th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
Eleanore, that was precisely my point: ANSWER is a nut-bowl of Mumia leftists who are currently dedicating all of their energies to supporting amnesty-type immigration proposals (click on the link to see their current home page). Say what you want about leftist nut-bowls like ANSWER, but to claim that they’re not actively engaged in organizing the current immigration marches, etc., is miles off the mark.
April 9th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
As mobs for amnesty chant ¡SÃ, Se Puede!, I realize, ironically, that I share a view with the source of this slogan–Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers union…which opposed illegal immigration.
April 9th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
Marc, you certainly factor in a lot of “what ifs” that are not exactly certain. I can’t help but believe that you are trying to save face here instead of admitting that Reid was correct in what he did.
April 9th, 2006 at 11:45 pm
Eleanore – I am sure many of the members of those organizations do not even know who Mumia is. Luckily kooks like you will keep the flame burning.
My point is this. The left has wasted energy on romantic causes for far too long. The folks on the street in LA and Dallas do not read The Nation and are not in unions. They do not eat organic foods or drive a Prius. They are the uninitiated.
The left should listen to them and not the concerns of well off lefties in Manhattan and Santa Monica. The left should purge the nutty sectarian groups and Mumia kooks once and for all. Get serious about the war and immigration and maybe gain some political power.
April 10th, 2006 at 12:14 am
David Cummings: What? Are you joking? I state my opinions loud and clear for a profession and Im not afraid to be right — or wrong. Saving face? Um…er… it looks like 2 million people are gonna be in the streets Monday demanding exactly the sort of thing that was in the Senate bill. I think it’s the Wonderful Mr. Reid who needs to save some face.
Do some web searching and see what Horrible Harry said about immigration reform in 1993 and then re-think your knee-jerk defense of the Democrats Hint: what Reid said then is indistinguishable from what Tancredo says today– Harry was just ahea of him! LOL
Eleanore and Josh: As soon as I see the word Mumia I stop reading. So I have to say I dont even know what’s in the related comments above. Folks who support Mumia’s innocence aren’t romantics — they are fools. But I’m sure Mumia appreciates all that love.
April 10th, 2006 at 4:48 am
Marc: the first political skill is the ability to count. You’re not counting votes accurately — the cloture votes aren’t at all like the whip counts on various amendments. Cornyn, Kyl, Sessions would have all gotten considerably more than 50 votes for their amendments to the compromise bill (which will be re-introduced as a clean Specter bill by the end of the month).
That would have put Democrats in a position of trying to filibuster straightforward border security and law enforcement provisions (which they would have called “punitive”), or to actually oppose the compromise which they were on record supporting.
And you’re simply not reading the conference right: ever been to one?
Now what’s gonna happen is either 1) Frist will bring up the compromise as a new Specter bill in June or so, with the same dynamic that Reid and Schumer rejected this time for the reasons stated above, OR 2) Kennedy will offer the Specter compromise in late summer as an amendment to some other bill. (Amendments can’t be amended as often or easily as free-standing bills.)
You really should learn something about a subject before you post.
April 10th, 2006 at 5:41 am
“This was a bill, by the way, that Pat Moynihan commented was designed to punish children for the irresponsibility of their parents.”
Hmmm, just like abortion.
April 10th, 2006 at 6:07 am
Why Democrats Suck (Update): They are unwilling to defend the nation’s borders, its culture or its laws.
Their holding out for guaranteed amnesty for large majorities of illegal aliens is but a piece of this. Chalk up another loss in November ‘06.
April 10th, 2006 at 8:13 am
I dunno Tim. It kinda depends on how many repubs agree with our lovely and talented host:
An upsurge in Latino political mobilization including massive national demonstrations, the emergence of a sizeable fraction of the GOP not willing to alienate that constituency, vigorous lobbying from industry, unions and the Church, and George W. Bush taking at least a middling rather than a xenophonic position had allowed unexpected progress.
I don’t think most voters view the above developments as positive “progress.” So if the repubs seem just as likely to give away the house as the dems, I think the election is in play.
April 10th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Marc,
Trouble is, after 30 years of experience watching “spontaneous” marches in the street, the American public just doesn’t buy “spontaneous” anymore. We all assume, probably correctly, that these marches are organized by open borders, anti-American groups or Church politicos who want more constituents. And if the organizers tell the folks to carry US flags this time, they are a day late and a dollar short–we all know the real spirit of these marches. It’s all about asserting “rights” against the Great Oppressor Amerikkka.
And who’s going to handle this 11-year path to citizenship? The US Immigration Service? They’re a joke The same people who granted visas to the 9/11 hijackers months after their attack.
And, yes, Randy, “It is a way of showing respect for people.” In this multicultural paradise, it’s time to respect one more culture–ours.
April 10th, 2006 at 8:37 am
Here’s why the democrats suck, and have lost many elections lately. They used to stand for folks like these:
Linda Swope, who operates Complete Employment Services Inc. in Mobile, Ala., told The Washington Times last week that the workers — whom she described as U.S. citizens, residents of Alabama and predominantly black — had been “urgently requested” by contractors hired to rebuild and clear devastated areas of the state, but were told to leave three job sites when the foreign workers showed up.
“After Katrina, our company had 70 workers on the job the first day, but the companies decided they didn’t need them anymore because the Mexicans had arrived,” Mrs. Swope said. “I assure you it is not true that Americans don’t want to work.
“We had been told that 270 jobs might be available, and we could have filled every one of them with men from this area, most of whom lost their jobs because of the hurricane,” she said. “When we told the guys they would not be needed, they actually cried … and we cried with them. This is a shame.”
Now they stand with illegal immigrants and the bottom feeding employers who want to hire them so they don’t have to pay American salaries and benefits. I really, really don’t get it.
April 10th, 2006 at 9:19 am
amyc, excellent comments.
April 10th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Thanks Rich! And I’m not being snarky to Marc with the lovely and talented thing. I really enjoy his blog.
April 10th, 2006 at 10:12 am
amyc,
It’s a numbers game for Democrats, pure and simple. They’ve lost the white male vote and only have slim majority of the white female vote, of which the majority of that vote is single w/o children rather than married w/children. And, given the birth and abortion rates in “blue” states and amongst African-Americans, there just aren’t as many reliable Democrats in the pipeline as there used to be. So then, who is available?
That African-Americans are being screwed by this shouldn’t surprise anyone, let alone African-Americans. Democrats screwed African-Americans with prevailing wage laws to secure the union vote (look up the history of the Davis-Bacon Act, including the Congressional Record); they screwed Asians with affirmative action policies (just try and get into a major university applying while Asian) to secure the African-American vote; they’ll screw African-Americans again with an open-boarders/cheap labor policy to secure Latino voters. The irony in this is that they’ll screw their feminist and gay voters too, as Latinos are much less tolerant of abortion and gay rights than the standard Democrat primary voter.
Just watch – if the Democrats win this policy debate, not only will they literally change the complexion of the nation, so too will they change the Democratic Party into a pro-jobs, pro-economic growth, pro-traditional values party. White liberals will flee to the Green Party just as they fled urban America for the suburbs decades ago. Too funny.
April 10th, 2006 at 10:19 am
Have you been living in this country for the last 12 years? Have you seen the conference committee reports on nearly every bill, which drop out any Democratic idea and foreground every Republican one? Just recently Frist and Hastert slipped protections for pharmaceutical companies against big lawsuits into a defense spending bill.
Compromise bills like this routinely limit amendments, I mean the Republican have done this like 40 times in the past decade. NOW it’s heresy to get a clean bill through the Senate?
And do you really think it’s a good compromise to split up earned legalization by how many years illegal immigrants have been in the country? There’s a reason they’re called undocumented workers: nobody time-stamps their passport when they come across the Rio Grande River. This would be another bill (and that’s if the earned legalization compromise even stayed in the bill) that would be completely unenforceable.
This is a difficult and emotional debate and it might require discussion for more than a couple weeks. And it definitely requires less finger-pointing from those who simply have a hard-on for criticizing Democrats. Stick to writing about Vegas, Coop.
April 10th, 2006 at 10:20 am
Regarding amyc’s Katrina comments, here’s a post with the backstory on the sellout.
Both Bush and Reid were involved in helping illegal aliens take rebuilding jobs from American hurricane victims.
The only Dems who spoke out against that were Blanco, Nagin, and Landrieu, and they appear to have been silenced through things like this.
April 10th, 2006 at 10:56 am
dday, yes the “more benefits for those here over 5 years” provision was laughable. Do most migrant workers cart large filing cabinets around for 5 years? Not the ones who just want to work their asses off anywhere they can for the family.
Yes, TLB neither party is clad with glory on this issue. It’s sickening, and actually makes it harder to argue with someone like Kanye West (”George Bush doesn’t care about black people”). The best that can be said in response is that democrats don’t care either. And that’s not exactly a great argument. More like elementary school crap.
April 10th, 2006 at 11:33 am
The sad thing is that after these people get legal status, the American Chamber of Commerce will then import workers from Bolivia, Paraguay, Ghana, Nigeria, etc.
The race to the bottom continues.
April 10th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: THE GALVIN PLAN…
The Senate’s tiered plan is rife with problems. If implemented it will be abused. Under our plan, all illegal aliens are treated equally and Congress predetermines who stays and leaves….
April 10th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
TLB–finally followed the link. Just another example of a democrat (I assume because the exerpt is from TNR) siding with illegals over American blue collar workers. This issue would seem tailor made for the democrats and labor unions, who in times past earned the reputation for standing up for the US working man. And now they chase the illusive illegal “vote” whatever that is. Are they ignorant of the Mexican culture’s attitudes toward women, gays, population control, comfort with state sanctioned religion, etc? It just makes no sense at all.
April 10th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
The republicans are in control of our government (for the time being). Let them govern. They are just digging themselves a deeper hole.
I have been a dem for as long as I can remember and have never seen such a negative atmosphere in this country.
Even political campaigns are negative.
If employers want to pay substandard wages, they are called Bottom Feeders. Unions classify the workers as scabs because they really do take decent paying jobs away from Americans.
If the employers couldn’t get cheap labor, they would be forced to deal with Unions and Americans could get back to work.
5% unemployment is too high when you are bringing in foreigners because you can’t find workers. You say you are bringing them in “to do jobs that AMericans won’t do”. Well finish the thought ” at the wages we are willing to pay.”.
Border enforcement and Immigration should be kept separate.
April 10th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
“Border enforcement and Immigration should be kept separate.”
Indeed. Because immigrants, regardless of their legality, never cross the border; similarly, enforcing the border has nothing to do with immigration because, don’t you know, immigrants don’t cross the border.
Tom C. must be moonlighting from his job at the union-funded “think” tank to post such pearls of wisdom with us know-nothings.
April 10th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
Reid and the democrats wanted to vote on the bipartisan Hagel/Martinez bill which in itself was already a watered down version of the bi partisan bill that came out of the senate judiciary committee. After hailing it as a great breakthrough Frist under pressure from his own side opened it up for amendments which were clearly going to gut it even before it went to conference. Reid perceived the danger and maneuvered the Republicans into a situation where they are identified with the only bill out there which is the Republican house bill. This is the bill that is the cause of the demos we have seen and it is well and truly around the Republicans necks. It was actually a brilliant parliamentary maneuver by Reid who consistently runs rings round Frist. Basically the Democrats are in a win win with this issue which really resonates strongly with only two constituencies: hispanics and the hard right of the Republican party. Middle America wants strengthened borders but is quite happy to see some sort of amnesty program. In summary: if there is no bill, the only one out there is the Sensenbrenner criminalization effort which is poison to hispanics and will harm the Republicans with this group, alternatively if a generous bill is passed the Democrats claim credit (note the speakers in Washington and NYC were Kennedy and Hillary) and the hard right will be infuriated with their own party for not stopping it.
April 10th, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Marc — there’s a damn trap all right and it goes to this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28343728@N00/126025662/
“Honkies, why don’t you take your asses back to Europe?” Next to a picture of Che.
Or perhaps this one:
http://blog.simmins.org/index.php/2006/04/rochester-immigration-protest
“Open the Borders, Close the Pentagon, Socialist Worker”
These rallies are being organized by ANSWER. They’re full of loonies and hate-America, hate-White People, crazy stuff.
Mexico as Part of Texas as seen by the Democratic Party:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28343728@N00/126025429/
Yes. Every person not of “La Raza” understands they will sit in the back of the line when it comes to Dems. Conservative Republicans are going to pick up the non-La Raza vote because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Believe me, these photos are damning, and will show up in non-Latino districts in all sorts of campaign commercials. If Harry Reid WANTED to make Democrats so overtly, anti-American and against everyone not La Raza he could not have done a better job. The best thing for Republicans is this is not a smear. Not anything untrue. Democrats themselves put these things together. They have only themselves to blame by getting into bed with ANSWER.
Yes African-Americans resent profoundly the transformation of New Orleans from African-American to Latino through illegals pricing out African American diaspora workers. Though few lived there, New Orleans had a special place in African American culture. This pandering by Dems has not gone unnoticed. In the meantime, there’s Swannie and Steele. Being put up by Republicans.
Look at the pictures yourself. Rove is no genius. He just let Reid shoot himself in the foot time after time.
April 10th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
fuck you and your demand for $300,000 middle class salary. fuck you and fuck your entire career. what you may have done in the past regarding jonestown you have completely shit upon.
you are now, like woodward, just a heap of shit.
so fuck you.
And fuck your fuckbuddy roger l simon.
April 10th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
“No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, OR ENGAGE IN WAR, UNLESS ACTUALLY INVADED, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay†U.S. Constitution Article 1 Sect 10
Congress can dawdle all it likes. The border states, on their own, right now, have the right to toss out the illegals and build a wall—and withhold federal funds to do both.
April 11th, 2006 at 1:06 am
Just a few questions, and a few points:
1.) I understand that a great many LEGAL immigrants of Mexican and/or Central American origin actually want to slow or stop illegal immigration. These people are the ones who can vote. Shouldn’t our representatives listen to them (and those others of us who vote — most polls put the support for a tough immigration bill at 75%+) more so than the illegals, who have no vote, who are protesting, albeit in great numbers, but without legitimate political influence?
2.) If the illegals supposedly want to become a part of this country so badly, why do we need to publish all government documents in their native language? My grandfather came here in 1914 from Italy (legally), and made it a point to learn English, in order to become a citizen and function in society.
3.) As for the “jobs no American will do”, perhaps it’s due to the low wages paid for those jobs. If you will follow with me for a moment: Company XYZ pays Jose Alien $5.15 an hour. This is not enough to live on, so we as a society pony up the balance in the form of social services, i.e. – housing assistance, welfare, food stamps, medical care, dental care, schools, free lunches and breakfasts for the kids, etc. What do you think the total cost for those services is? Probably far more than if XYZ actually paid a living wage, considering the overhead that occurs as an inherent part of the breaucracies involved. Now that Jose’s other “expenses” are taken care of, he can afford to send a chunk of the actual case he’s paid back across the border to family in Mexico, thereby causing a bigger drain on this country’s economy, as it is not used to purchase goods and services here. XYZ (remember them?) is happy as can be, because they have essentially received a combined subsidy from Federal, State, and local government in the form of these services that relieves them of having to cough up the cash for the worker. No wonder business likes the status quo. If we were to require that the minimum wage be brought more in line with the cost of living, the employers would be out of pocket a greater amount, and the cost of their goods would increase, but at least we have the competitive marketplace to help keep prices from escalating to the amounts we ALL now pay in taxes, without any choice in the matter, for the social services filtered through the government bureaucracies. All in all, the current situation is a huge net loss to the U.S. Citizen, who has to shell out taxes to support this “subsidy”, as well as meet his own expenses for the private-sector equivalent of the above services given to those who are not even citizens (I own and operate a small business — has anyone priced private health insurance lately? The illegals get better care for free than I can afford, even at $1000+ a month in premiums and a $5000 annual deductible).
4.) As for the “civil rights” argument: the premise that a person has civil rights derives from the assumption that that person has legal standing as a citizen in this country. By definition, if someone is here illegally, they have no civil rights.
5.) Finally, please answer this: how many of the readers here are for the abolition of birthright citizenship for children born to people in this country illegally? I would propose that if a baby is born in this country to an illegal alien, that child should have the opportunity (but not the right, unless other criteria are met) to become a citizen upon reaching 18 years of age, after passing standard citizenship requirements (language, civic knowledge, oath of alliegiance), but should, until that age, be required to return with his/her parent(s) to their native country. This would preserve the idea that being born here conveys upon that child an opportunity for citizenship, without burdening society with the social costs related to housing, feeding, and otherwise caring for his (probably extended) family throughout the 18 years while he is growing up.
Just some thoughts and comments. What’s your take?
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I agree with you 100%. We subsidize the living cost of illegals(in the form of a burdened tax system) and the last time I checked, the national defecit wasn’t concerted to such an expenditure. I think we need tougher enforcement of our laws and fewer whining liberals who think they need to step on the toes of the taxpayers. Kudos to you.
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November 26th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
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