This will be entertaining:
The Obama administration will insist on measures to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants as it pushes early next year for legislation to overhaul the immigration system, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday.
In an address at the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington, Ms. Napolitano sought to dispel any notion that the administration — with health care, energy and other major issues crowding its agenda — might postpone the most contentious piece of an immigration overhaul until after midterm elections next November.
Laying out the administration’s bottom line, she said it will argue for a “three-legged stool” that includes enacting tougher enforcement laws against illegal immigrants and the people who hire them, and streamlining the system for legal immigration, but also what she called a “tough and fair pathway to earned legal status.”
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the ensuing right-wing freakout will lock up the Hispanic vote for the Democrats in the 2010 midterm. Only, of course, after Bart Stupak and the blue dogs make sure no illegal aliens get abortions.
Redshirt
In fact, I bet the Obama admin times it for maximum impact in 2010
BDeevDad
Good news for John McCain?
Neutron Flux
How are the wingers going to prioritize their outrage?
Will they forget about healthcare and be drawn to this flame like a moth?
Cat Lady
You know how the Bush administration committed so many outrageous and unlawful acts that after awhile one could no longer keep the outrage meter focused on any particular thing because the awfulness was so widespread? I think Rahm was taking notes.
BFR
For a quick refresh on the implications, this was one of my fave 538 posts
Max
Between this and the KSM news, and the possible non-surge in Af/Pak, and healthcare, is there a line on which RWNJ’s head will literally explode first?
That literally brought to you in honor of VP Joey B, who is going to be on the Daily Show next week. I think we’ve now reached the point where TDS is more legitimate than the networks.
Holder is going to be on Newshour (PBS) tonight.
Oh, and Sunday’s MTP looks good… Hilldawg, Newtster and the Reverend Al.
/tv guide
Allan
As long as said legal status includes the right to register and vote immediately, I support this plan.
joe from Lowell
I remember when we were all afraid of the big, scary anti-immigration boogeyman in 2005-2006.
I remember immigrant-bashers getting all giddy about how their issue was going to deliver them a majority in Congress in 2006. There was this one loon called “Lonewacko” who trolled all sorts of blogs, talking about the sceery immigrants who dared – can you believe this? – to hold a march.
They weren’t just fired up; they were triumphalist, and you know what? I, and I suspect a whole lot of you, believed them. I thought they had a big majority, including large chunks of the Democratic electorate, who supported them.
As it turned out, not so much. I believe it was Karl Rove who said, “People don’t like it when you deport their grandmother. Go figure.”
Immigrant-bashing is a losing proposition.
me
Good timing for Lou “Bob” Dobbs to leave the air.
scav
Sheep being startled by the sun in the morning, Wingers being outrages by Obama. This message brought to you by the duplication department of the bureau of redundancy.
cleek
@Cat Lady:
feel free to list all of Obama’s illegal acts – especially those which have been so-proved in a court of law, and not just in the minds of the dingalings who hate that a Democrat won the 08 election.
freelancer
Quick, somebody email Sullivan the Speedy Gonzalez/Road Runner crossover cartoon!
Holy Frijoles!
Tzal
Yes, but how will the Tea Partiers and Town Hollerers compare this policy to Nazism?
Corner Stone
Sure, they have time for immigration but not for teh gays!
/snark
beltane
And no illegal immigrants getting abortions means more Latino US citizens in the future. This is very good news for Republicans.
Mark S.
@joe from Lowell:
It won’t stop them. I was listening to quite a bit of talk radio the last time immigration reform came up, and the racism was appalling.
AnotherBruce
Maybe this is why Lou Dobbs left CNN, he know about this and didn’t want people to see him cry like a baby.
SpotWeld
On the upside, the heat generated by the tea-baggers spontaiously bursting into flame should really help cut down on those winter heating bills.
Cat Lady
@cleek:
I meant that the strategy is the same, not the illegality. The legality of what he’s doing while creating daily wingnut ragegasms is why I’m an O-bot.
R-Jud
@cleek:
I think Cat Lady was implying that Rahmbo had noted how an administration pushing forward on a lot of fronts at once made it difficult for opponents to come up with a coherent attack strategy on any one front. I don’t think she was implying that Obama’s done anything illegal.
soonergrunt
@cleek:
There. FIFY.
John PM
Cat Lady @ #4
@cleek: #11
I believe that you have confused Cat Lady with Church Lady, who is the real Republican apologist. I think that what Cat Lady was trying to say is that, similar to how the Cheney Administration kept rolling out one illegal activity after another, now the Obama Administration is rolling out one part of its agenda after another so quickly that the Republicans do not have sufficient time to build up any type of groundswell against any parts of the agenda. At least that was my interpretation. As at least one other commentator has pointed out, it is going to be very hard for Republicans to stay focused on health care reform with the red meat of immigration reform now out in the open.
Tzal
The comments to the WaPo article on this are comedy gold.
KG
In order to further piss off the wingnuts (and really, what else is there to do in politics these days), I think we should start referring to Obama as Reaganesque. Amnesty, opposition to torture, belief in nonproliferation/disarmament, raising taxes when necessary. Could be fun…
Cat Lady
@R-Jud: @John PM:
Yup. Not Church Lady!
The Moar You Know
In all honesty, I don’t support this (it has a catastrophic effect on the wages for unskilled jobs, such as construction and restaurant work), but it’s inevitable, and I’m glad that my party is doing it rather than the Republicans.
12 million new voters, and they will know which party welcomed them to this country, and which party urged that they all be gassed/shot at the border.
J.D. Rhoades
I’d like to propose a new FCC rule that no wingnut will be allowed to comment on this proposal until he or she can first demonstrate that they understood what the word “amnesty” means.
b-psycho
I like how no matter how many times you explain to the ones screaming “deport them ALL! NOW!!” that in terms of population it’d be like deporting Ohio, practicality of such never comes up.
EvolutionaryDesign
Hopefully the Democrats realize that this is an actual vote-getter for them.
cleek
@Cat Lady:
oops!
my irony detector is due for a tune-up, i guess :)
SpotWeld
@KG:
I like that, it’s perfect punditry “Obama is the Regan that the GOP abandoned, will they find thier way back”
cleek
actually, you’re right.
sloppy reading and a quick trigger is an embarrassing combination.
need more C2H5OH
Rhoda
This is awesome news. This is going to help democrats across the board; there is growing Hispanic population in the Mid-west and south.
The administration needs to pick a high energy us against them fight for 2010 and immigration reform fits the bill. It’s one of the major reasons IMO we won in 2006; an unsung reason. And it’s going to payoff massively for the Democrats as groups organize in 2010 and watch the Hispanic media work for Democrats as much as Fox did.
I love it.
EvolutionaryDesign
@The Moar You Know:
Don’t you think, though, that what’s really the unsaid issue in this case, is that more and more industries are having a light shined on their unfair wage practices? It seems like one of the root causes of the majority of the problems in this country is that those at the top of business gouge wages for those at the bottom to maintain profits.
Calouste
@The Moar You Know:
I don’t see the catastrophic effect of legalizing current illegal immigrants on unskilled wages. It is a lot harder to pay people here legally below the minimum wage than it is to pay people here illegally.
Stefan
Wow. This is actually a pretty bold move. In a mock policy paper for my polisci class this spring I pessimistically predicted that by the time they got around to it, the administration would be so bruised by the health care ruckus that they wouldn’t want to prioritize this fight. Glad to see I was wrong. Do you think Obama’s finally starting to realize the benefits of starting to the left of where you want to be, and negotiating to the center, rather than the other way around?
b-psycho
@KG: IOZ already calls him “Black Reagan”, albeit for a less charitable reason.
shoutingattherain
This hardly counts as “amnesty”, but for a good laugh do go take in the full wingie fury at the WaPo story:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/11/13/napolitano_forecasts_immigrati.html?wprss=44
“Nov. 2, 2010 — 40 COMMIE-CRAT congressmembers become UNEMPLOYED. Bring it – can’t wait to unemploy some LAZY, LYING COMMIE-CRATS.”
EvolutionaryDesign
@Max:
Yessir! Been that way for a good long while now.
Chuck Butcher
@The Moar You Know:
Since I’m in construction I’ll disagree with you, the disaster is the illegal hiring. I’m unsure what you know about the jobs, or think you know, but quality of work and production do trump where there isn’t an artificial wage advantage. There is unskilled labor within construction, it is scarcely the defining feature nor is it a job description of a large portion of it.
Cat Lady
@cleek:
No problema hermano!
cleek
HT Atrios: Digby makes a good point:
sadly, that’s 100% true.
Left Coast Tom
@Neutron Flux:
I guess we’ll find out whether wingnut outrage is really a limited property, or whether it’s potentially limitless.
gypsy howell
Not to worry – the democrats will seize defeat from the jaws of victory by pissing off women voters over The Stupid-Pitts Amendment.
Dork
Where do I go to bet that 2 of those legs will be COMPLETELY IGNORED, while the other is fellated by Tweety and Charles Toddler every morning on my telly?
New Yorker
I’ve got my popcorn ready. The anti-Latino self-immolation by the GOP is one of my favorite things to watch. With luck, Texas will become a swing state (its big cities are already blue).
JGabriel
joe from Lowell:
Not me. I thought the right was showboating with the anti-immigrant rhetoric, which seemed to suddenly come out of nowhere after years of being relegated to the fringe, from the get-go, and that it would backfire on them in much the same way Prop 187 did.
.
Halffasthero
Obama is making a pretty good move here. I cannot think of one way that this does not pay off politically or otherwise. Count me as one that keeps underestimating him. Whenever I think he is being too laid back and allowing others to walk on him, he quickly reminds me that he is a dangerous counter-puncher. He also appears more than content to sit back and let his political adversaries beat themselves up – which they will most certainly do over this – just in time for the 2010 elections.
In addition, the CW crowd in DC should start taking better notes. They seem in a hurry to try and bury him and paint some reality that his administration is doomed to become weak and irrelevant if he doesn’t learn from their collective wisdom.
He will likely continue schooling them and the rest of his adversaries on how things get done the Chicago way.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
This just fits into the the fact that Obama is trying to fix problems in this country, which will actually create help Democrats. The Blue Dogs are more concerned with their own power to see this. I wonder if it would ultimately be better to lose Blue Dog seats next year that we can fill with someone useful next time?
burnspbesq
@cleek:
you seem to be the only one who missed Cat Lady’s point.
Deliberately?
Liberty60 (formerly Reason60)
I think Rahm was taking notes from Lee Atwater and Karl Rove;
That he is finding these wedge issues that split and confuse the Republican party.
The Wall Streeters love immigration, legal or not; The Nativist Lou Dobbs types drive all Hispanics into the arms of the Dems, and quite a few Asians and other ethnic groups that get tired of hearing about “Turd World” immigrants.
(By the way, that is an actual term I heard on a conservative website).
This, paired with the Politico report about the Obama Admin pivoting to focus on deficit reduction will force a very thorny issue for the Republicans; there simply is no way to curb the deficits without either tax increases or a cut in Defense spending.
Deficit hawks like me are already scornful of the GOP claim of fiscal conservatives- and the Erick Erickssons are already beating them over the head for being big spending Republicans quite nicely. So the deficit hawks will be peeled away from the defense hawks in the GOP.
Finally, gay marriage- by adopting a policy against it, O keeps just enough Blue Dogs in his coalition, knowing that the Sullys of the world really have no other party to support- they are even less welcome in the GOP. As long as the issue continues to be in the headlines, younger moderates drift to the Dems, who actually support it at the grass roots level. This helps keep the GOP marginalized as old and rural and evangelical.
Smart plays, all around.
Chuck Butcher
@Chuck Butcher:
I think I’ll let myself get pissed off. What kind of dumb ass calls construction Unskilled? Do you somehow think that since it involves sweat it also involves being stupid or ignorant? Do you honestly think the presence of a keyboard or a micrometer is a requisite for skill?
I’ll be go to hell. Measuring instruments and dangerous tools are a continual feature of construction. The products produced are high end and dependent on quality of labor. Price points depend on production achieved under adverse and continually changing conditions. Just c’mon out, I’ll load you up with tools and stick your ass where you can get killed and expect good work and lots of it from you – and when you can’t I’ll laugh at your unskilled efforts and fire you – if you’re still walking.
cleek
@burnspbesq:
i missed the sarcasm, then misread the name as “Church Lady”.
accident! friendly-fire!
SiubhanDuinne
O/T: I am hazzing a big sad. Just learned server will be down for all of tonight and much of tomorrow, so I probably won’t even be able to read BJ posts and comments, let alone play along with you. Don’t have too much fun, you guys, ‘kay?
JOHN: No pictures of Tunch or Lily while I’m gone. I’m serious. You’ve waited this long, you can wait another 24 hours. And I’m pretty sure asiangrrlMN won’t mind; she always seems like a reasonable person.
General Winfield Stuck
I look forward to Texas turning blue and electing Willie Nelson Governor of Love.
J.
More proof that the illegal Obama administration was behind the Lou Dobbs “resignation”!
LT
This is pretty funny. Pushing back on McChrystal, terrorist trials in New York, legalizing undocumented aliens – it’s like they’re trying to LITERALLY make their heads explode.
Please tell me that Obama is going to sign an executive order over the weekend making gay marriage legal.
cleek
maybe. but there’s really no way Obama will be the right kind of deficit hawk. no matter what he does, even if he asks Congress to enact the GOP’s own proposals, the GOP will be 120% against everything he proposes. and the pundits who don’t want to end up with the RINO label (ex. Frum) will be sure to toe the party line.
Liberty60 (formerly Reason60)
@Tzal:
Easy!
Expect to see numerous references to “Red Dawn” in which the USofA is attacked by swarthy Mexicans/Cubans/Nicaraguans in concert with various African forces.
If I were of an entrepreneurial bent, I would begin mass production of ‘WOLVERINES!!!!” bumperstickers.
Cat Lady
@Halffasthero:
Check out this video from the campaign at the 1:47 mark or so. This is exactly what you mean, and the moment when I became an O-bot.
MikeJ
In the new movie it’s the Chinese who invade, not the Cubans.
trollhattan
Filling in for bOb ’til he gets here to say something insightful about truffs–I’ll guess he thinks them there illegals ruined the real estate market in the waterless shithole of a state he calls home; ergo, he sits today stuck upsidedown in an unsaleable tract home. Now the Democrat party(tm) wants to give all the repos to our newly minted unworthy citizens. Also.
Tancredo-Dobbs ’12!
Halffasthero
@Cat Lady: That is really good. So far he seems to be living up to that perfectly.
General Winfield Stuck
@MikeJ:
Nah, I think they will bring crotchety Chuck Norris out of retirement and make a movie with him vaporizing all the colored peoples with his white hot breath.
ppcli
@Liberty60 (formerly Reason60): @New Yorker:
.
Yep. Remember back when Rove and Bush were pushing immigration reform, with Rove’s hungry eyes on all the votes of that explosively growing Latino population (“Hmmm… they’re religious, socially conservative, if we could lock them up we’ll rule for a generation or two at least…”). Pretty easy call for a Texas pol looking to the long-term future. But like so many red-meat-tossers before them, he learned the hard way that the wild-eyed mob he had been tossing red meat in front of riding couldn’t be steered just anywhere he wanted and they wouldn’t pipe down when he told them to…
.
That high pitched tantrum you hear in the distance is Rove wailing “My permanent majority. It’s mine, damn you. And they’re stealing it. I had the idea first, it’s mine. Waaaah…”
Wile E. Quixote
@John PM
Fix’t
A Mom Anon
@Chuck Butcher:
Thank you. Construction,building maintainence and remodeling are my family’s bread and butter. My husband,father in law and myself may not be formally educated,but we are certainly not unskilled by a long shot. Just because you have to shower after work(rather than get all dolled up before hand)doesn’t make your job less demanding or important.
MikeJ
@General Winfield Stuck: MIne wasn’t a hypothetical. They really are remaking Red Dawn, it’s set in Washington, and it’s a Chinese invasion this time.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/Red_dawn_2010_PLA_propaganda_pamphlet.jpg
JGabriel
shoutingattherain:
Oh, wow, those WaPo comments really are the shiznit. Here’s an assorted sampler:
And so on.
Hell hath no impotence like a wingnut scorned.
.
DougJ
McCain, Graham, and a few others may be too smart to filibuster this.
I also think that this could hurt Dems at the polls in 2010. But the long-term pay-off will be enormous.
I hate to use the word game-changer, but this would be one. If the Republicans fight this, they may go the way of the whigs.
JGabriel
shoutingattherain:
Oh, wow, those WaPo comments really are the shiznit. Here’s an assorted sampler:
And so on.
Hell hath no impotence like a wingnut scorned.
.
General Winfield Stuck
@MikeJ:
That they are. I wonder if the Chinese will be sending bill collectors instead of soldiers. Probly not.
General Winfield Stuck
@DougJ:
And if they don’t, the talk radio windbags will still make sure in a few years all those new citizens vote blue. Lose/Lose poor wingnuts.
Beauzeaux
Wow…Obama blesses illegals, Carrie Prejean gets caught with her pants down, and it’s payment due for Orly Taitz on that $20,000 fine. Is this not the most awesomest Friday the 13th ever?
Nutella
@Stefan:
I hope so! It’s what we really, really need.
I am surprised and heartened by this move. I was beginning to think this administration was wimping out and I will be THRILLED to be proven wrong about that.
Ben
Obama and the rest of the administration needs to start pointing out that the immigration problems stems from the jesus freaks, neocons and greedy cons insisting on plentiful, cheap labor to abuse. If there weren’t jobs for them, they wouldn’t be here.
Wile E. Quixote
@Chuck Butcher
Stupid fucking unimaginative dipshits call construction “unskilled”. These are people who think that since they can hang a picture on a wall without it being too crooked or pulling out a huge chunk of plaster/drywall that they could build a house. These are people who think that putting a house together is no more difficult than slapping together a cheap piece of furniture from Ikea. Of course a house is supposed to last for generations whereas you’re lucky to get two or three years out of most of the shit that Ikea sells (there are exceptions, but they are precious few).
If you want to see the kind of crap that unskilled labor puts together then take a look at BoB’s Brick Oven. Yeah, I’m sure you’d just love to have that monstrosity in your yard, or in your neighbor’s yard.
Chuck Butcher
I will make this caveate regarding sorting out illegal immigration. Building wall is stupid in regards to the job market which is the huge driver – the problem is the illegal hires which is strictly employers’ fault and needs to be addressed with draconian sanctions along with a real ability to verify. That does mean making SS numbers an accurate and trusted resource. It really should not be that hard to clean up that data base, nor should it be a low priority considering what all depends on it.
Brachiator
Interestingly risky move. There is really no up side in promising immigration reform with the economy still sputtering. There is a lot of talk about enforcement and employer sanctions here, but when the proposals are inevitably weakened, the Obama Administration will find it tougher to get support for its proposals.
There is also the interesting, but false assumption that illegal immigrants who want to get legal residency status (probably true) also want to become voting citizens (not necessarily).
Still, this will give the pundits something to chew on.
Rhoda
DougJ
ITD about it hurting in 2010. Every incumbent has an uphill climb in 2010. Bloomburg’s race proved that. Frankly, if the democrats are smart they’d be organizing primaries across the board to juice turnout and release that ‘throw the bums out’ energy. Primaries definitely helped in 2008.
This is the next best thing. 2010 will be a base election; and having the Hispanic electorate awakened and motivated to turnout against the teabaggers will be huge. It could have tipped VA to Deeds in 2009 IMO.
It’s an important part of the electorate that as the Republicans nationalize the elections as they did in NY23 could get more black voters to care and come out; even if the President isn’t on the ticket.
The goal is to wake up the Democratic base and this is a good first step. Health care will do a lot to get the poll numbers up; but not as much as this fight will IMO.
EvolutionaryDesign
@A Mom Anon:
Cheers to you. Everyone’s part in this compromise we call society is important, and should be valued as such!
BFR
@Brachiator:
Not all immigrants will want to become voting citizens, but some of them will. If you increase the total number of legal residents, then you’re also creating a lot more voting citizens.
It’s the same logic as getting young voters to the polls even if you don’t know how they will vote. If you know as a cohort that they are more likely to vote for you, then getting more of them voting is a good idea.
binzinerator
@The Moar You Know:
How? Do you mean the catastrophe will be employers will now have to pay more in wages? Or less?
If they were now legally hireable employers would lose the club they wield (suck it up or go back to Mexico!) to keep them silent about workplace abuses, conditions, benefits, etc.
I see it as keeping wages from falling in those fields, or even causing them to increase, by eliminating or reducing the huge pool of exploitable undocumented labor. And I don’t see that as a catastrophe.
General Winfield Stuck
Some will and some won’t want to vote. And every one that does, will be one vote most likely dem that didn’t exist before.
Wile E. Quixote
Boy, I wish I had a dollar for every wingnut I knew who owned an AK or SKS or Norinco .45 or who bitched about how we couldn’t buy cheap Czech and Chinese AK knockoffs after the 1994 gun control bill was passed. I’m not saying that I’d be rolling around naked in a pile of money like Scrooge McDuck, but I’d have enough for another six months of COBRA, a new roof for my house, a new surface for my deck, a shiny new iMac, christmas presents for my nieces and nephews and enough cash to take a vacation somewhere warm and toasty as soon as I heal up from this goddamned cervical fusion.
I mean for a bunch of government hating, liberty loving idealogues libertarian gun nuts sure did love buying weapons from the most oppressive governments on earth.
Anoniminous
@DougJ:
But if they don’t fight it they can/will be primaried by the Tea Baggers.
hee, hee, hee
Sucks to be them, don’t it?
JGabriel
Rhoda:
Uh, no, it didn’t. As a New Yorker, I can tell you that the closeness of Bloomberg’s Mayoral race was very specifically due to annoyance with his power grab to override a term limits law that he had previously supported.
It had nothing to do with Bloomberg’s incumbency — in fact, exit polls showed that he had a 70% job approval. There were just a lot more people pissed at his third term power grab than anyone expected.
.
General Winfield Stuck
And I will also say, that gratitude and enthusiasm for most new legal citizens tends to motivate them to participate in their new homeland. Human nature.
Wile E. Quixote
@trollhattan
Maybe BoB’s tract home wouldn’t be unsalable if he didn’t have this ugly piece of crap in his backyard. Talk about unskilled labor putting together total pieces of crap.
Molly
@New Yorker: “With luck, Texas will become a swing state (its big cities are already blue).”
Si, un Tejas morado, mi amigo. :)
Rhoda
JGabriel,
I’m not from NYC so I can’t say definitely. But given a 70% approval rating it can’t all be the power grab. And if it is, that just illustrates people don’t want even good politicos back. They want new faces and wanted the term limit honored; even if he was an effective mayor.
JMHO
But I think a big part of Corzine’s loss was not that he didn’t hug Obama enough; it was that the base wanted a new face. I think a different democrat would have pulled it out and definitely would have pulled out VA.
Wile E. Quixote
@Chuck Butcher
I’ll tell you what kind of dumb-ass calls construction labor “unskilled”, morons who think that because they can put up a picture without it hanging too crookedly or taking out a big chunk of drywall/plaster and who think that they can put together shitty Ikea furniture that they are qualified to work in construction. Of course it never occurs to these boneheads that a house is supposed to last for generations, whereas you’re lucky to have a piece of furniture from Ikea last for five years (there are exceptions, but they are precious few) or that putting up walls that last is lot harder than using a Makita power screwdriver to assemble ugly furniture made out of particle board and cheap veneer.
The Moar You Know
@Chuck Butcher: Chuck: don’t go ballistic on me. There are skilled and unskilled jobs in construction. We both know this.
As for your challenge, having been a luthier at one of the nation’s premier acoustic guitar manufacturers for the better part of a decade, I think I could probably give you work – any work, any field (save for plumbing) that would knock your socks off.
But I’m not here to denigrate the work of construction workers, or migrants, or anybody. Just noting that when you bring in a large pool of cheap labor, those who are already fighting it out on the bottom rung of the ladder suddenly have it a little bit harder than they used to.
Brachiator
@Ben:
Obama and the rest of the administration needs to start pointing out that the immigration problems stems from the jesus freaks, neocons and greedy cons insisting on plentiful, cheap labor to abuse. If there weren’t jobs for them, they wouldn’t be here.
The inconvenient truth (especially here in Southern California) is that almost everyone — liberals, conservatives, independents, libertarians — who can hire an illegal immigrant will do so. The only difference is that the liberals will demonstrate faux concern over the plight of illegal immigrants. Not too long ago, the LA Times printed a story with advice from a clergyman that Westside liberals shouldn’t feel guilty over the fact that they were exploiting cheap labor. Meanwhile, officials and law enforcement turn a blind eye to illegal immigrant camps in strongly GOP San Diego, where drug use and sexual exploitation of minors runs rampant.
General Winfield Stuck — Some will and some won’t want to vote. And every one that does, will be one vote most likely dem that didn’t exist before.
I don’t disagree with you here. I just don’t know whether immigration reform attempts will be a net plus for Obama, particularly if the reform proposals are weak. Here in Southern California, voter turnout among Latinos is often low, and there will be defections from voters who think that Obama should concentrate on helping Amurricans first.
Anoniminous
One of the prime factors for McCain losing New Mexico was the GOP’s anti-immigrant bashing. When the GOP starts ranting about ‘Dem Beaners’ they are talking about Uncle Jose, not a real win here.
Kinda like trying to win Boston by complaining about all Micks running around.
To some degree the same thing will be happening in Texas and Arizona, so things could be getting interesting down here in the Southwest.
RememberNovember
“We’ll take the niggers and the chinks, but no Irish”
-Mr. Taggert.
and omg, what did they have…”The sherrif is a Niiii…Bong”
What did he say”
He said The Sherrif is near!
[the Johnsons load their guns and point them at Bart. Bart then points his own pistol at his head]
Bart: [low voice] Hold it! Next man makes a move, the nigger gets it!
Olson Johnson: Hold it, men. He’s not bluffing.
Dr. Sam Johnson: Listen to him, men. He’s just crazy enough to do it!
Bart: [low voice] Drop it! Or I swear I’ll blow this nigger’s head all over this town!
Bart: [high-pitched voice] Oh, lo’dy, lo’d, he’s desp’it! Do what he sayyyy, do what he sayyyy!
[Townspeople drop their guns. Bart jams the gun into his neck and drags himself through the crowd towards the station]
Harriet Johnson: Isn’t anybody going to help that poor man?
Dr. Sam Johnson: Hush, Harriet! That’s a sure way to get him killed!
Bart: [high-pitched voice] Oooh! He’p me, he’p me! Somebody he’p me! He’p me! He’p me! He’p me!
Bart: [low voice] Shut up!
[Bart places his hand over his own mouth, then drags himself through the door into his office]
Bart: Ooh, baby, you are so talented!
[looks into the camera]
Bart: And they are so *dumb*!
– Blazing Saddles, 1974.
The parallels are amazing. Obama is Bart.
Liberty60 (formerly Reason60)
@MikeJ:
Soooo….what do we REALLY know about this Michelle Malkin person?
Inscrutable.
Chuck Butcher
@The Moar You Know:
The short hand you used is a common canard. A four man high-end residential framing crew may be able to support one laborer. The work you do is highly skilled, but really, unless this shit is something you’ve spent awhile doing don’t come out – you’d get paid a lot less to work harder and get less respect. Sometimes I have to remind somebody that we’re not building a piano, here.
You hit a nerve that gets whacked at pretty regular intervals and feeds some real common misaprehensions.
Trollhattan
@Wile E. Quixote
Cripes, point taken!
Davis X. Machina
Successful illegals — the ones that make it — have frequently left homes and families, in many cases crossed deserts, dealt with coyotes, endured shit work, dodged La Migra, often learned new trades, picked up, in many cases, enough of a second language to get by, and by extreme frugality keep whole countries afloat by the remittances they send back home.
Surely if you’re a typical GOP social Darwinist, and believe in survival of the fittest, the ones that make it are pretty damn fit, and deserve a break.
BruinKid
Tim Dickinson had a great piece about GOP immigrant-bashing in last year’s Rolling Stone, “Blame Pedro“.
Wile E. Quixote
Sorry about that double post. It’s the painkillers.
@Davis X. Machina
No kidding. Can we make a deal with Mexico: for every successful illegal we get from them they have to take one successful wing-nut conservative in trade, someone like, Erick, the fat cowardly, pasty-faced son of Erick of Red State or say Doughy McPantsload? What, you say the Mexicans won’t take that deal? C’mon, can’t they see how they would benefit from having some more wing-nuts south of the border? I’m sure that Erick’s ginger kid complexion would really benefit from spending some time under the tropical skies of sunny southern Mexico. And every time I look at Jonah Goldberg I can’t help but think of Jello Biafra singing “You’ll work better with a gun at your back, for a bowl of rice a day”.
LD50
Except that they’re brown. For the GOP, that trumps everything else.
zoe kentucky in pittsburgh
I think it’s one of the smartest moves they could make. It WAY overdue (like HCR) and the GOP is going to twist themselves in absolute knots. Knowing what we do about the right the teabaggers have MUCH stronger opinions about immigration/immigrants than they ever did about health care reform– they had to be fed a lot of that hate and lies to get so worked up over HCR– so any possibility of immigration reform will cause them to absolutely freak the f*ck out. Whatever they come up with will be way uglier than Obama = Hitler and health care reform = concentration camps or burning congresscritters in effigy, just you watch.
It’s a pretty perfect Dem issue and the timing couldn’t be better. (Heck, the tax revenue angle alone could make things interesting.) The GOP has gotten really really publicly snuggly with the teabaggers and they are not going to be able to adequately distance themselves when the teabaggers completely go over the edge.
jcricket
How abouts we pass us some healthcare reform first, with actual teeth (I don’t care how many – but the public option state-level-opt-out, minus Stupak sounds good as a start).
But yeah, let’s stop avoiding the agenda. Prepare your stuff carefully, but running scared never gets us anywhere.
I don’t give a rats ass, per se, as to what the politics of individual Dems are – but the idea that we’ll get anywhere by “avoiding” provoking the Republicans, or nibbling around the edges of issues or taking the “high road” is ludicrous.
Democrats in California, for example, need to make it clear that Republicans are destroying the state. I know, voters in California aren’t entirely smart, but CA is only a couple of Democratic reps/Senators (state-level) from regaining some kind of sanity in their legislative process. Yes, they should repeal the stupid Prop 13 and 2/3rds rules, but that’s not gonna happen.
So to on the national level. We may start losing marginal states that are becoming more conservative, but there are far fewer of them (10-15, max) than there are states that are blue or headed that way. We can win in all those states (at both the state and national level). And that’s more than enough.
I say go for it on immigration reform. It’ll be a hell of a fight, but it’s the right thing to do, and with wingnut overreach it’ll cement the vote of anyone non-white (sorry, but it’s true).
jcricket
@zoe kentucky in pittsburgh:
This is true of basically any social issue. If the Dems were smart, they’d pivot from talking about abortion and make it about birth control and sex ed (which have wide, if not universal, support). The teabaggers would overreach, handing Dems more support from women, young folks, etc.
Basically the best strategy for the Dems is to poke the Republicans in all the hot spots. This will drive anyone outside of their base into the arms of the Democrats.
Paula
Well, pro-amnesty people shouldn’t be triumphalist either. Latin@s, like all Americans, are concerned with health care, the economy, and jobs and if Obama can’t deliver on these then they would have a few practical reasons not to support the Democrats, particularly in 2010 when we would presumably be only @ the policy stage of immigration reform. They are not solely focused on immigration issues. For ex, some Latino voters in 2004 felt an affinity to the Reps based on cultural issues, particularly same-sex marriage and abortion. (Bush’s approach, for once, made sense when compared to the xenophobic madness of his party in 2006, when they lost a lot of the interest that had taken years to cultivate.) So a larger Latin@ vote does not guarantee that liberals will win easily.
Also, I would be curious to see whether the administration has a concurrent plan to help build and stabilize Mexico’s economic infrastructure, as that should be a pillar of helping to curb people making an illegal and possibly dangerous crossing into the states. It’s not good for either Mexico or the individuals involved that able-bodied workers should be forced out of their country to make a decent living.
I’m not particularly fond of the vagueness of Napolitano’s “tougher enforcement laws”, and question whether it would punish individuals more than employers, and even then small businesses rather than large ones. The border wall already sucks, and this action would also suck if it involved a greater militarization of the border, esp. since it’s also coming alongside increased news coverage of intensified “drug cartel war”.
That being said, when one party is calling for people to come into public life while the other one is screaming for them to GTFOH, it makes the difference a little more stark.
Paula
Oh, just to highlight the possibility that this could become a wedge issue even among Democrats, here’s a story about how Gavin Newsom, gearing up for a gubernatorial run in here in liberal CA, has recently opposed a sanctuary policy for immigrant youth approved by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Brian J
@The Moar You Know:
I don’t think immigration is responsible for that much of the inequality/wage issues that we’ve been seeing, but I am not positive about that. Then again, even if it’s bigger than I thought, it’s not the only factor.
Besides, if these people are now legal, or end up in some legal-er situation, wouldn’t minimum wage laws, at bare minimum, apply?
jcricket
@MikeJ: I for one welcome the rule of our Chinese overlords. They have high speed rail.
Yutsano
Yep. Remember all the screaming about a year or two back about how the cost of veggies would soar if they weren’t able to get illegal immigrant labor on the cheap? Granted the claim was totally debunked, but one of the reasons why they like undocumented workers on farms is they don’t complain or they get booted home.
Brian J
Depending on how nutty the freak out is from the right, I think the question becomes more along the lines of, where does this help the Democrats the most? As a group, Hispanics seem to be running from the Republicans like some from the plague, but if the effect would be greatest in districts where we already have an advantage, it might not mean as much. If Hispanics in districts where Republicans hold the seats or where the Democrats need a small boost come out against the right, it could help us a lot. I don’t know the composition of the districts in certain states to know what sort of effect is possible, but it’ll be interesting to watch.
asiangrrlMN
@SiubhanDuinne: Hey! Who you calling reasonable???
Brian J
@Yutsano:
I don’t remember hearing about that.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the cost went up a little bit, depending on how much the cost of labor went up, but then again, I don’t see how they would soar, since it’s not like the corporations would start paying $30 an hour to pick crops.
binz
@Wile E. Quixote:
Is that really BoB’s Brick Oven? The oven the fucker brags about? Gawd. What an eyesore.
When you parge the shit out of brick like that it’s because you are hiding something. Six tons of ugly in a three ton pile.
/unskilled former construction guy
Yutsano
@Brian J: My mom used to tell stories about how she would pick various fruits and vegetables every summer she was in high school. Doesn’t that just scream perfect summer work? I also suggested once using prison labor for that. It gets them outside and due to the whole civil death thingie, they technically don’t have to be paid minimum wage.
(Note to burnspbesq: yes I know the exact term is not civil death but the actual term is escaping me right now. You’ll have to dig back into first year law school memories, but I’m certain you know what I’m talking about and will give me/us the corrected term with my gratitude.)