E Pluribus Unum

by shep

Listen very carefully to what this woman is saying.

Or get punked by Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan, I’m not really sure I give a shit anymore.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

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Categories: 2008 Election , Democrats , Immigration reform , Politics , Republicans

by shep

Welcome to the fold, traitors.

How does it feel?

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Categories: Democrats , George W. Bush , Immigration reform , Politics , Republicans

• I was in Chicago Tues-Thurs and flew out yesterday morning just ahead of that monster storm. I understand 265 flights were canceled at O'Hare alone. It was cold in Baton Rouge last night too -- we got hit by the same cold front and the temp this morning just after sun-up was 40 degrees.

• There are a few speakers who I always want to listen to if I have the chance, e.g., Robert Reich, Mario Cuomo, Arianna Huffington, Christopher Hitchens, Bill Clinton, Camille Paglia, Newt Gingrich and Kristina Vanden Heuvel are a just a few off the top of my head. I don't always agree with them and often I am diametrically opposed to their positions; but they are always interesting, articulate and challenging. David Gergen is also in that group.

• Speaking of a collection of "Bigfoots," the Baker Commission's recommendations are due out next week and can I tell you that I have SO moved on in my mind to other stuff. To be blunt, it sounds like they've come up with a solution that is designed to please everyone but will, in fact, piss everyone off to one degree or another. Besides which, Maliki has already said that he wants the US to begin pulling out of Iraq by next summer -- and "don't let the door hit you in the butt yadda yadda yadda."

• Speaking of Maliki, you had to laugh reading the Hadley Memo's description of the Iraqi leader as someone who is the captive of "a small circle" of advisors who are "coloring his actions and his interpretations of reality." Ouch!

• Speaking of hypocritical bigfoots, it seems that Gov. Mitt Romney hired illegal immigrants to do landscaping at his private home.

  Asked by a reporter yesterday about his use of Community Lawn Service with a Heart, Romney, who was hosting the Republican Governors Association conference in Miami, said, "Aw, geez," and walked away.

  Brilliant comeback, Governor!

• At least Romney's lame comment was brief, unlike the logorrhea that Dennis Prager, et. al, suffer from. It seems that they're upset that -- wait for it -- Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) wants to be sworn into office using a copy of the Koran and not the Bible!. Prager & Co. remind me of what Lincoln said about an acquaintance: "He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." [P.S. Did you know that Congressmen are routinely sworn in without resting their left hand on any book at all?]

• Crikey -- first we hear that two British Airways planes showed traces of radioactivity and now ABC News is reporting that an Italian security expert who met that Russian ex-spy has tested positive for a radioactive substance. Quick! Turn out the lights! You know you're going to have a bad day if you glow in the dark.

• Speaking of medical tests for bigfoots, I hear that Sen. Obama will publicly be tested for AIDS. Let's see Hillary top that!

• Speaking of bigfoots running for president, Kerry wants everyone to forget the botched joke and focus on serious stuff. Good luck on that, Senator. Maybe you should call Howard Dean for advice on just exactly how that works.

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Categories: 2008 Election , About Me , Immigration reform , Odds & Sods , Religion , War in Iraq

Interesting polling analysis on the politics of immigration reform:

A USA TODAY breakdown of public opinion, based on Gallup polls taken in April and May, finds Americans falling into four clusters that are roughly equal in size but vary dramatically in point of view. The groups can be characterized as "hard-liners," "unconcerned," "ambivalent" and "welcoming."

Continue reading "Nation splits 4 ways on illegals" »

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Categories: 2006 Elections , Immigration reform , Politics , Poll , Republicans

Frum:

[Bush's] plan won't work, and it is not seriously meant to work. It's supposed to look dramatic and buy the president some respite from negative polls - and then it is supposed to fail, strengthening the administration's case for its truly preferred approach: amnesty + guestworkers.

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Categories: 2006 Elections , George W. Bush , Immigration reform , Politics , Republicans

Sorry, I was watching my Pistons get outplayed by the Caviliers in the second round of the NBA playoffs.

Oh yeah, that's right -- Bush gave a speech immigration reform. Tom Shales has the story.

Update:

• Holy crap -- Bush got mauled by his base.

• Jesse Walker had this quote that sent me over to Wikipedia to check it out:

  Apparently, there's some chatter on the right about impeaching the president for being too soft on illegal immigrants. It's hard to believe, but some folks out there think Bush isn't enough of a caudillo.

  Heh.

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  Categories: Immigration reform

Bush addresses the nation tonight on the need for sending the National Guard to stop illegal aliens from entering the US.

Glenn Greenwald:

This is a major, major political problem for the White House. The measures which Bush's base demands, the ones necessary to really satisfy them -- a huge wall and active deportation -- are far too extreme for Bush to embrace. And yet they aren't going to be satisfied without extreme measures.

The media loves to talk about how Democrats are being harmed because "the Left" of the party is dragging it towards policies which are too extreme, but the reality is that dynamic is taking place within, and is threatening to drown, the Republican Party.

Bush has very few supporters left. The few he has left are demanding that he adopt immigration positions which he clearly opposes and which would alienate most people in the country. And he is far too weak to satisfy them with symbolic measures.

They are actually debating his impeachment over this issue. What is a 29% President to do?

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Categories: 2006 Elections , George W. Bush , Immigration reform , Republicans

As faithful watchers of The West Wing know, the incoming President has 18 months, tops, to get anything done. So his/her campaign has to focus on what that is -- and leave the rest for later.

That said, I was interested to see this list of issues that Democrats in Blogville have reached consensus on.

Scan the list and tell me -- which one of these you would campaign on?

Atrios:

I think the "liberal netroots" does have a fairly clear consensus on a number of issues. I'm not going to claim every liberal blogger or blog reader agress with everything on this list - that'd be ridiculous - but nonetheless I'd say there's a pretty obvious general consensus on the following:

• Undo the bankruptcy bill enacted by this administration
  
• Repeal the estate tax repeal
  
• Increase the minimum wage and index it to the CPI
  
• Universal health care (obviously the devil is in the details on this one)
  
• Increase CAFE standards. Some other environment-related regulation
  
• Pro-reproductive rights, getting rid of abstinence-only education, improving education about and access to contraception including the morning after pill, and supporting choice. On the last one there's probably some disagreement around the edges (parental notification, for example), but otherwise.
  
• Simplify and increase the progressivity of the tax code
  
• Kill faith-based funding. Certainly kill federal funding of anything that engages in religious discrimination.
  
• Reduce corporate giveaways
  
• Have Medicare run the Medicare drug plan
  
• Force companies to stop underfunding their pensions. Change corporate bankruptcy law to put workers and retirees at the head of the line with respect to their pensions.
  
• Leave the states alone on issues like medical marijuana. Generally move towards "more decriminalization" of drugs, though the details complicated there too.
  
• Imprison Jeff Goldstein for crimes against humanity for his neverending stupidity
  
• Paper ballots
  
• Improve access to daycare and other pro-family policies. Obiously details matter.
  
• Raise the cap on wages covered by FICA taxes.

I'm sure I could think of a few more things. I left off foreign policy because I find that most people who write about it imagine they're playing the game of Risk. It's nice to have nice bumpersticker doctrines which are ultimately meaningless, but basically "put grownups in charge" is my prescription. Kick the petulant children out.

...adding a few more things which would be obvious if we weren't living in the Grand and Glorious Age of Bush:

• Torture is bad
  
• Imprisoning citizens without charges is bad
  
• Playing Calvinball with the Geneva Conventions and treaties generally is bad
  
• Imprisoning anyone indefinitely without charges is bad
  
• Stating that the president can break any law he wants any time "just because" is bad

...oh, and I meant to include:

• Marriage rights for all, which includes "gay marriage" and quicker transition to citizenship for the foreign spouses of citizens.

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Categories: 2006 Elections , Business , Constitution , Democrats , Economics , Energy , Faith & Religion , Health + Wellness , Health Care , Immigration reform , Iran , Iraq , Jobs , Law , Military , NSA , Politics , Random thoughts , Terrorism , War , War in Iraq

From AP:

"Day labor is not a niche market," said Abel Valenzuela, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and one of three authors of the first national day-labor study, which was released in January. "It's now entering different aspects of the national mainstream economy."

Forty-nine percent of day labor employers are homeowners, according to 2,660 laborers interviewed for the study. Contractors were second, at 43 percent. The study also found that three quarters of day laborers were illegal immigrants and most were from Latin America.

Day laborers like homeowners, too. Shady contractors routinely stiff them. Not homeowners -- the workers know where they live.

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Categories: Immigration reform

More on Iran below. But first this write-up from Ron Brownstein:

By a solid 2-1 margin, those surveyed said they would prefer such a comprehensive approach [to immigration reform], which a bipartisan group of senators has proposed, to an enforcement-only strategy, which the House of Representatives approved in December. Support for a comprehensive approach was about the same among Democrats, independents and Republicans, the poll found.

[...]

Although President Bush's job approval rating was essentially unchanged from his 38% showing last month, the new poll found Democrats opening double-digit leads on the key measures of voters' early preferences for the November balloting.

[...]

Democrats lead Republicans 49% to 35% among registered voters who were asked which party they intended to support in their congressional districts this fall. When registered voters were asked which party they hoped would control the House and Senate after the midterm election, 51% picked the Democrats and 38% the GOP.

Americans are divided over the prospect of U.S. military action against Iran if the government in Tehran continues to pursue nuclear technology — and a majority do not trust President Bush to make the "right decision" on that issue, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

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Categories: 2006 Elections , George W. Bush , Immigration reform , Iran , Poll

Two headlines:

Bush Blames Reid for bill's failure

...and:

More than 1 million expected to participate in protests across US

Heh. Do you think they're protesting Harry Reid's intransigence? Nope. They're protesting the House Republican version of "immigration reform," a bill Reid is against and Bush is ... well, what the hell IS Bush for anymore except saving his own hide?

P.S. The collapse of the Senate immigration bill and the collapse of the House Budget bill are examples of what happens when a President's approval rating falls to all-time lows.

P.S.S. From The Note:

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) will address the DC rally on the National Mall at 4:30 pm ET. He is expected to address head-on the enforcement-only immigration bill passed by the House. Sen. Kennedy will be joined by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and other labor leaders.

Sen. Kennedy is expected to tell the crowd that the Republican House bill is wrong because it will make America less secure.

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Categories: 2006 Elections , Democrats , George W. Bush , Immigration reform , Poll , Republicans

Kevin Drum pieces it together and it makes more sense than anything else I've read so far.

Summary:

When someone [Frist] has suckered you [Reid] enough times, you demand guarantees before you'll make another deal with him. If all you get is sweet talk, you know the fix is in and you walk away. Reid walked away, and it was the right thing to do.

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Categories: Democrats , Immigration reform , Republicans

Fareed Zakaria:

"The income gap between the United States and Mexico is the largest between any two contiguous countries in the world," writes Stanford historian David Kennedy. That huge disparity is producing massive demand in the United States and massive supply from Mexico and Central America.

Whenever governments try to come between these two forces -- think of drugs -- simply increasing enforcement does not work. Tighter border control is an excellent idea, but to work, it will have to be coupled with some recognition of the laws of supply and demand -- that is, it will have to include expansion of the legal immigrant pool.

[Note: Great minds think alike.]

Beyond the purely economic issue, however, there is the much deeper one that defines America -- to itself, to its immigrants and to the world. How do we want to treat those who are already in this country, working and living with us? How do we want to treat those who come in on visas or guest permits? These people must have some hope, some reasonable path to becoming Americans. Otherwise we are sending a signal that there are groups of people who are somehow unfit to be Americans, that these newcomers are not really welcome and that what we want are workers, not potential citizens. And we will end up with immigrants who have similarly cold feelings about America.

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Categories: Immigration reform

Well, that was the headline in the Washington Times, at any rate. It seemed designed to stoke the resentment of many in the Republican Congress.

Here's the thing: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has gone on record saying that he would not consider any legislation adopting a "guest worker program" without a majority of the majority voting for it. Got that? A majority of Republicans in the Senate would have to be for the legislation.

Well, he's facing an uphill battle, for sure: the Senate Judiciary committee voted 12-6 in favor of the reform bill...meaning that 4 of the 10 Republicans joined all 8 Democrats...meaning that a majority of the majority was against the bill.

It's enough to make Sen. McCain's head explode -- apparently, the Senator and Charlie Gibson of ABC sparred over whether the bill really did amount to "amnesty." Talk about a wedge issue!

The Note:

While the guest worker program made it out of committee, many hurdles remain... Hurdle number one is making it onto the Senate floor. Hurdle number two is coming to an agreement with a House of Representatives diametrically opposed to a guest worker program. Hurdle number three will be the White House. It remains unclear if President Bush will support the comprehensive immigration act as passed out of committee today.

And how about them 40,000 students marching in protest on the highways? I understand that was organized by the kids via MySpace.com. Heh.

I'll ask the question again, because I haven't yet been able to get an answer from the frothing nativists among us:Other than crossing the border illegally, is there an epidemic of lawlessness by Hispanic aliens that I'm not aware of?

It seems to me that the majority of "illegals" would want to maintain, shall we say, a low profile. Or, as Bob Dylan once said, "To live outside the law you must be honest."

P.S. I'm an immigrant. IJS.

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Categories: Immigration reform

I admit that the 500 thousand people that showed up to demonstrate in Los Angeles caught me by surprise.

I also admit I haven't followed this debate closely until now.

That said, here's my question: Other than crossing the border illegally, is there an epidemic of lawlessness by Hispanic aliens that I'm not aware of?

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Categories: Immigration reform