Meanwhile the DREAM act failed to advance in the Senate. Immigration activists complain that Obama stepped up deportations and got nothing in return from Republicans, legislatively. And they’re right.
I’m not sure, though, that it ever would have been possible to get Republicans to vote for it so I don’t blame Obama for not getting it through. I do blame the White House for thinking that stepping up deportations would get the Republicans to come on board with the DREAM act.
I think though that this mostly wrong:
Republicans, meanwhile, have discovered that they can talk tough on immigration and still appeal to Latino voters by picking conservative Hispanic candidates. That produced three significant Republican victories in 2010: Marco Rubio captured a Senate seat in Florida and Susana Martinez won a gubernatorial race in New Mexico, as did Brian Sandoval in Nevada. Rubio is already being mentioned by some as a vice presidential pick.
Florida Latinos are very atypical, since there are so many Cuban voters. Sandoval and Martinez didn’t do very well with Latino voters (Sandoval got about 33%, exact figures aren’t available for Martinez, but are believed to be similar).
I support immigration reform because it’s insane and unjust to have millions of people in this country who work their asses off only to get treated as second-class citizens (the same way I support gay marriage and DADT repeal). But it’s also a potent issue for Democrats and they need to keep pushing at it, the same way they did with DADT.
Immigration issues are a winner for Democrats. I think gay issues are, too, at this point. There’s a dwindling pool of homophobes in the country and, as everyone I know in New York State politics can tell you and a lot of advertisers of high-end products can tell you too, there’s a lot of money in the gay community that you’d be stupid to leave on the table.
I don’t buy into the idea that if Obama got all Howard Zinn on everyone’s ass in general, the country would rally around him, but on a lot of the classic Republican issues that pit “Us” (white, God-fearing Christians) against “Them” (everyone else), I’d rather be us than them, which means pushing hard for Them, of course.
chopper
of course immigration is a winner for the dems. yeah, the gop’s demagoguing on the issue brings out the base to vote, but as everyone with a brain points out that’s short term and the long-term demographics are brutal for the gop.
california 2010 is going to sting for a while. luckily, the gop won’t learn a thing from it.
patrick II
Maybe I’m just reading this wrong, but it seems that the first sentence of the last paragraph directly contradicts the next, last sentence of that paragraph.
I think it is pretty much the essence of going Howard Zinn when you are “pushing hard for Them”.
Shade Tail
Yeah, on this one Obama was just being stupid. Stepping up deportations not only angers the immigrants (who overwhelmingly vote for the Dems, or at least against the GOP), but it doesn’t even work. The problem with undocumented workers isn’t the laborers themselves, it is the wealthy fat cats and big businesses who exploit them.
Most of Obama’s “caving” decisions lately had definite upsides. This one was bad all around.
Menzies
I’m surprised they managed any Republican votes at all in the Senate. Unfortunate that a few Dems jumped ship.
Oh, and fuck Joe Manchin. Again.
Baud
Immigration can only be a winner for Democrats if there is some semblance of common ground on how to move forward. The traditional problem Dems have had on complex issues like immigration reform in keeping all the factions of the party in line.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
Something that you can’t overlook in this vote, though, is that a handful of Republicans came through. If the Dem caucus had held together, DREAM would have passed.
DougJ
@patrick II:
I guess I didn’t phrase it right, on some issues, he should be all Howard Zinn.
Suck It Up!
What they get is that they have a record that shows this administration is serious and tough on immigration so that they will sound more credible when and if they bring up comprehensive immigration reform again. Its to convince the public, take away excuses from Republicans and maybe bring along some conservadems.
That’s my take anyway.
Yutsano
@Suck It Up!: It’s also the law of the land, and Obama is in charge of executing the laws as enacted by Congress. It doesn’t mean the law doesn’t suck, but until it changes Obama can’t pick and choose which laws to enforce. I call that a huge difference between him and Bush, it’s just not entirely favorable to progressive policies.
cat48
Well, they warned Obama that START will be killed if DADT were brought up, so I guess the DREAM Act & START will both RIP. We’ll see I guess. Maybe if he tap dances on top of the bully pulpit while singing……………
amk
@Suck It Up!: Yup, that’s my take too. Doug’s ‘he gave away too much’ is a typical knee jerk reaction. Obama plays the long-term game and right ignores righteous noises.
kdaug
Oh, well.
Who’s up for Korean War 2.0?
C’mon guys, it’ll be fun! And there’s money to be made!
Baud
@Suck It Up!: You could say the same thing about DADT and not implementing stop loss early on.
Luthe
@Shade Tail:
Which is why Obama has also been stepping up on checking that employers have proper paperwork for all of their employees and handing out big fines for those that don’t. Unlike Bush, who just rounded up the employees and deported them, Obama is going after the businesses and hitting them where it hurts (the bottom line).
Yutsano
@kdaug: Meh. I don’t think China has the stomach for it. It would hurt their economic golden goose to much to lose their major trading partner. People tend to forget the Sino-American economic relationship really is co-dependent. The rest of the world can’t make up the slack of us stopping buying their goods.
FlipYrWhig
I’m not sure why so many decisions are viewed in this horse-trading way. Why not say, simply, that Obama stepped up deportations because he thought it was appropriate to step up deportations? Maybe he ordered a pay freeze on federal employees because he thinks a pay freeze on federal employees is proper. Maybe that makes him look worse to you, fine.
Let’s talk about what the policy is, and what its merits are, rather than presuming that every time the policy isn’t what we want to see it’s because of a misguided attempt to cater to Republicans. All it does is reinforce the “capitulation” gripe that IMHO doesn’t have an awful lot of there there.
(edited slightly after initial submission)
FlipYrWhig
@Yutsano: Right, Obama strikes me as a bit of a stickler for process — which conflicts with our desire, or even yearning, for him to implement progressive policy by any means necessary.
lamh32
@Yutsano:
You said what I was thinking. Obama does seems like a stickler for following the law of the land, unlike Bush.
The Raven
True, true. But a more moderate version of this–the idea that deals with the devil usually work to the devil’s favor–is worth looking at. This administration has made a lot of deals with the radical right; only a few have so far been successful.
kdaug
@Yutsano: Dunno.
Kim Jung-Un needs to prove his bona fides to the military. He’s young enough to do something stupid, and after the dust-up last month, the South’s on hair-trigger.
Suck It Up!
@FlipYrWhig:
This. It really bothers me that everything the admin does that the left doesn’t agree with is boiled down to ‘he wants to please republicans’ or ‘he didn’t get anything for it’.
El Cid
__
While I would in any case think this is a very likely motivation for this increase, is there evidence that this was done for immediately political motivations?
Isn’t it also possible that this is a policy preference in terms of what the administration prefers to do as a legitimate policy goal?
Or maybe there’s good evidence for the former interpretation. I don’t know. But the possibility that this is just what the administration thinks is a better policy should not be ignored off-hand.
Joey Maloney
@lamh32: Except when following the law of the land would result in persons in the previous government going to prison. Or when following the law of the land would make it impossible to surveil the electronic communications of US citizens without any judicial oversight. Or when following the law of the land would require immediately ceasing illegal military action in foreign lands.
Obama’s done some good things, and God knows he’s orders of magnitude better than the alternative, but his record on civil liberties is pretty bad. The only reason I don’t call it a disappointment is because going in I didn’t have any illusions about where he stands on these issues.
FlipYrWhig
@The Raven:
What were these “deals with the radical right”? I’ll give you the tax-cut deal, because Republicans actually did support that. What else?
lol
Let’s blame Obama and not Pryor, Tester, Nelson, Hagan, Baucus and Manchin.
Six Dems defected and the cloture voted failed by five.
Some Republicans *did* vote for the bill.
lol
@FlipYrWhig:
He’s yet another manic progressive who thinks negotiating with conservative Democrats to get legislation passed is the same thing as negotiating with Republicans.
FlipYrWhig
@Suck It Up!: Totally. It’s like, “I don’t like it, it’s all being done for cynical reasons, _and_ they suck at it.” To me, that’s going out of your way to make them look worse than they would if it was a sincerely-held, straightforwardly made decision (that people like us don’t like).
FlipYrWhig
@lol: That was a weird group to defect on the DREAM act, IMHO. Both Montana senators, including the populist one who was the darling of DailyKos? The NC senator whose name you never hear one way or the other? It’s not even the Blue Dog list. No Lincoln, no Landrieu, no Bayh… I don’t get it.
Michael D.
I hope people realize that Harry Reid’s and Nancy Pelosi’s political maneuvering is what got DADT repealed. They were BOTH smarter than we expected. They BOTH got Republicans to say “We’ll support it but not as part of a larger bill.”
They took it out of the bill, made it stand-alone, and those Republicans had to vote for it.
Congratulations to Pelosi AND Reid. They did this. Together. I can’t help but imagine they are both laughing at how they out-maneuvered Republicans on this.
FlipYrWhig
@Michael D.: Also, I was just thinking about it this morning… I think to get to this point they had to _first_ attach it to the defense bill. I think that having DADT repeal as a stand-alone bill all along would not have gotten us to this point. Some troublesome Democrats had to be made sick of talking about the issue and ready to put it all behind them.
DougJ
@Michael D.:
I agree.
Mike Kay (Team America)
he’s worse than Hitler!
amk
@Michael D.: Yes. Both of them played it smart despite the constant annoying ankle bites from the professional left and its followers.
Mike Kay (Team America)
oh, so they already held the DADT vote.
Fucking Obama! This is his fault!
This never would have happened if he only listened to the grassroots and signed an EO during the inaugural address! When will he fucking learn to listen to the netroots!
FlipYrWhig
@amk: Well, on the bright side, now we’ll get to hear how it was only their insistence and their holding everyone’s feet to the fire that kept it all going. So really if anyone deserves the credit, it’s them, but they’re still disappointed that it took so long and left so much undone.
Michael D.
@amk: We all criticized them, especially Harry Reid. Some of us did it in print. Some of us did it in person. Some of us did it under our breath.
I might not be right, but I am going to imagine that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi… and Barack Obama, too. Let’s not forget that, had this in mind all along:
“We’re going to look like assholes for how long it took us. We’re going to get criticized mercilessly by gays and allies for it. But we’re going to do it regardless because we KNOW it’s right.”
I was critical of the time it took. I am very thankful that I can admit that sometimes there are people smarter than me in Congress who actually know what they’re doing.
Thank you to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama. I happily admit you did this right and you fucking did an awesome job.
Michael D.
Oh, and let’s give Joe Lieberman MAJOR credit on this as well. We have lots of other reasons to criticize him. I think he was part of the plan and
Got
It
Done.
Maude
@DougJ:
With Obama trying to get DADT repealed. All three have worked on this. Pelosi and Reid are wonderful.
I guess I’ve become sensitive to the bashing of Obama. Somehow, something in this will be all his fault for some unknown reason.
This session of Congress will be in history books.
btw Bill Richardson is in North Korea. He’s not there officially, but to try to tamp down the tension. Today, South Korea cancelled the live fire exercise.
Michael D.
I love that DATD is repealed. But you know what my favorite part of today is?
Once again, Obama defeated McCain. Mercilessly.
Fuck. Yes.
ChrisS
So, the wealthy get billions of dollars of money on credit from the US … and gays get the right to die in stupid wars. Sounds fair.
Go blue team!
The reason that the DREAM Act wasn’t passed is that the GOP needs their hostages for future elections. Can’t take away all of their boogeymen, doncha know. There’s the working poor tax increase that will highlight next December, and then the tax cuts in 2012, and the estate tax.
eemom
I know it’s old news now, but amidst all this DADT celebrating and DREAM eulogizing I’m personally still kind of fixated on the McConnell-Obama
“Best of All Ass Fucks”tax “compromise” that is now law, and which is going to come right back and bite Obama — not to mention all the rest of us — big time on his bipartisan ass next year — AND the cave on the budget bill that is going to result in lots more other ass-fucks to the not-rich even sooner than that, when No-Boner takes the gavel.And I’m not “blaming” anybody. I just think things are so hopelessly fucked from all directions at this point that I don’t want to care about it any more — and I’m certainly in no mood to celebrate what a great day this is.
amk
@FlipYrWhig: You betcha. Living in a bubble, you can justify anything.
Bob Loblaw
@lamh32:
Ha. I realize people are riding high on DADT repeal, but let’s not blow things out of proportion here.
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes, because if there’s ever a dick move in this world, it’s not giving politicians the benefit of the doubt for their actions. Our political overlords are such decent, honest, noble people don’t ya know? They would never cynically manipulate people’s lives for political space and opportunity…
@Michael D.:
I think it’s more an illustration of continued Republican nihilism really. None of those Republicans who voted today (and half who didn’t) ever gave a shit about this repeal. They would have had no problem voting for it on day one if they were operating in good faith. But their game is the legislative clock. Every bill they can stall is another bill that dies an early grave. It doesn’t cost a whole lot to give the Dems a civil rights win at the eleventh hour when the next Congress is now in place in their favor.
eemom
@ChrisS:
There ya go. Thanks. You said it much more pithily than I did.
Shorter Firebaggers
I TRIIIED SOO HAAAAAARD, AND GOT SO FAAAAR!
BUT IN THE EEEEEEEND IT DOESN’T EVEN MAAATEEEEERRRRRRrrr!!!
Mike Kay (Team America)
Obama > Professional Left™
Rationality > Hysterical Freak Outs
Redshift
Damn. I don’t want miss the beginning of the final vote on DADT, but do I really have to pay for it by watching John McCain sneer about the START treaty? Even with mute on, I can tell he’s being an ass.
amk
@ChrisS: Ah chris, there’s always that, there’s always that. The rethugs made me do it.
gwangung
@Michael D.: Oh, I think you can criticize them for taking this long. A bit.
But it’s a heckuva a lot bigger thing that it got done.
Any criticism after the fact has to be mild and taking into consideration (as you did) “well, maybe they had to take this route.”
Cacti
By the same logic, Republicans must be improving their standing with black voters because they got 2 black Congressmen elected.
Shorter Firebaggers
CRAAAAWLING IIIIIN MY SKIIIIIIIIN!
THESE WOUUUUNDS THEY CAAANOOOT HEEAYUUUL!
MikeMc
I support the DREAM Act and was disappointed to see it fail. However, it’s unfair to say that illegal immigrants are treated like second class citizens. They are treated like they aren’t citizens of this country…because they’re not. They’re suppose to be sent back to their country of origin if they’re apprehended. You may not agree with that law, but it’s still the law.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@eemom: what are you going to do with your unwanted tax cut?
surely, you won’t keep your blood money.
amk
And with that, the loud progressive crowd has arrived.
Yutsano
@amk: I’ll get the tissues and the popcorn.
The Grand Panjandrum
Final vote to repeal DADT is taking place now. Watch here.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@lol: yeah, but the republicans who voted for the bill only did so because it was a free vote. it’s all very kabuki.
ChrisS
@Mike Kay (Team America):
That’s logical. Is all of your political analysis that brilliant?
I’ll give you $300 for $50,000 of your kid’s future earnings.
WTF!? You don’t want $300?
lamh32
@Maude:
I think what the most petty of “Obama-haters’ will hang their hats on is the DREAM ACT being voted down. Forgetting that from most reports the WH was calling Senators and rallying support for the DREAM ACT, and if the ConservDems had just voted for cloture then we would have at least had a vote on it.
So I expect to hear alot of “I’m glad DADT was repealed, but if Obama had only used the bullypit the DREAM ACT…” blah, blah, blah.
Redshift
@FlipYrWhig: Remember that normally, attaching things to the defense approps bill is the easy way to get them passed, because it’s easy to make voting against that look bad, much less filibustering it.
The fact that the Republicans were able to get away with filibustering a Defense appropriations bill in a time of war without being excoriated is as clear an illustration as we’ll ever see of the debased nature of our Fox-influenced media and how, in the words of Josh Marshall, Washington is wired for Republicans. The Democrats deserve some blame for not having effective messaging on that line of attack, but it’s an extraordinarily uphill battle in the current environment.
Michael D.
I am going to write a letter – handwritten – to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Lieberman, Mr. President, AND Susan Collins THANKING them for their work.
I’ll also write a letter to the other Republicans to say Thank you. We need to write to all of these people – ESPECIALLY the Republicans, to say thank you.
You may not like them, but at LEAST give them credit for the good stuff they do. Please.
amk
@Yutsano: I’m not at all surprised how that crowd is spinning this DADT repeal as a victory for the rethugs. LOL@ teh realists.
Comrade Mary
Is it just me, or is the CSPAN site down for everybody?
EDIT: OK, Americablog has the MSNBC feed, which is on the START cloture vote, I think.
Dennis SGMM
Democrats would be wise, I think, not to assume that the Latino vote is theirs by default. They would also be wise to devote some energy to raising Latino turnout at the polls.
I’ve worked Democratic GOTV efforts since 1968 (Save for a hitch in the Navy) and it usually requires a lot of work to translate “view favorably” into actual votes. This goes for most voting blocs – not just Latinos.
ruemara
@Comrade Mary:
Watching it live, right now, but on telly. This is a nailbiter.
You’d think I’d watched enough vote procedure over the years.
Linda Featheringill
@Comrade Mary:
CSPAN is okay for me.
El Tiburon
So did simple folk like myself. The pain and anguish caused by these ‘deportations’ are criminal. Parents ripped away from their children; families held in prisons like dogs.
Yes, I’m going to rip Obama again: this is yet another example of Obama continuing the destructive policies from the right.
amk
@Michael D.: Yup. The much reviled teh bipartisanship worked after all today. Fuck those 5 dem assholes who screwed up a two-fer.
Redshift
Did I just hear that Ensign voted aye?
Maude
@lamh32:
Thank you. I have found myself getting upset at how cruel some are to Obama. I have to stop reading some blogs. You are right about DREAM.
Obama follows the laws and that to me is huge.
He is breaking down the class system and I am in the wrong class, so I’m glad of that.
Shorter Firebaggers
SHEEEE’S A BRICK AND I’M DROOOWNIING SLOOOWLYYY!
I hate you Democratic Party!! I Hate you!! Sure I got the pony but what about a new Corvette!?
WAAAH!
ruemara
@El Tiburon:
Actually, this is Obama following the law. We have to change the law with regard to illegal workers. He is also going after the companies that hire them, more so than the prior administration. If you have another legal avenue that allows enforcement of our employment laws, while letting these people stay in the country, let’s hear it. I’d stand up for that in a heart beat. If you think that there should be no enforcement of the law, then I don’t think that’s a solution.
FlipYrWhig
@Bob Loblaw: Well, look, some politicians actually believe in stuff. Often it’s wrong and even awful stuff. But not everything a politician does is carefully calculated as a slap at or a stroke for the Other Side. It’s a funny thing, though, IMHO, to want to say that Obama increased deportations, something he must not have wanted to do, as a ploy to win support from the other side, but he’s so bad at it that he failed all over again — rather than saying Obama increased deportations because he actually thinks that deportations are proper policy. You can still beat him up for that! You can still be harshly critical! It just doesn’t reinforce the wussy/capitulation frame quite as well, so it’s a much less popular interpretation. It _could_ be cynical politics, or it _could_ be actual policy preference. We can make that determination case by case.
Now, I realize that at first blush this conflicts with the way I talk about HCR and the tax cut deal and other legislation, where I’m quite sure that the final form of what was passed was _not_ what Obama Really Wanted. That’s because in almost all of those cases we have public statements about what he Really Wanted, as compared to what other people with votes Really Wanted, and thus IMHO it makes sense to view those as the result of irksome compromises and even cynical calculation.
But sometimes politicians really do vote based on what they actually think. That’s why some of them don’t budge when you try to convince them that something else would be a smarter course of action.
FlipYrWhig
@Dennis SGMM:
Good point. Do you think that Republicans have an easier time turning the former into the latter? Because it seems like Democrats always struggle with it.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@ChrisS: the asshole who said DADT wouldn’t pass and that obama should immediately sign a EO?
don’t you get tired of being wrong.
and here we are, DADT has been repealed, and your sick hatred of OBama prevents you from saying a nice word.
choke on that bile, loser.
MikeMc
@Dennis SGMM: You’re right. The latino vote isn’t something we can take for granted. If memory serves, George W. Bush had a pretty good relationship with latino voters. Plus, two large portions of latino identity come from family and faith (Catholicism). Republicans, in the past, have done a good job of making Democrats seem hostile to those institutions. I don’t think it’s fair, but it happens.
amk
Looks like many repubs want to be on the right side today on DADT. kohl, even frigging ensign are falling like nine pins. I would love it if passes with more majority than the cloture and we can stick the result up mccain’s ass.
amk
A great post from bwd website (you know the one GG was obsessing about ?)
lamh32
OT, But Dems picked up 2 votes, wonder who it was? Was Manching 1, I doubt it.
Heard it was Burr and Ensign, anyone else heard the same?
Redshift
@FlipYrWhig: They have to do it, too, but I think we have a harder time because of class and community differences. More of our supporters are people who are hard to contact because they’re working more of the time, people who haven’t voted before, and people who are more wary of government and therefore more easily intimidated, and so forth.
(There’s also the fact that it’s easier to motivate people if you’re willing to just lie to them repeatedly to get them fired up over an issue.)
ChrisS
@Mike Kay (Team America): Quote?
And way to to duck my comment. What a fucking joke.
JGabriel
DADT Repeal has passed in the Senate, 65-31. Now it goes over to President Obama for his signature.
.
ruemara
@lamh32:
Pretty sure that spineless wonder slithered out from the cloak room to theoretically vote.
Shorter Firebaggers
@JGabriel:
IT DOESN’T MATTER ANYWAY NOW THAT IT’S PASSED!!!
Blah blah, read Matt Taibbi!!111
Mike Kay (Team America)
@amk:
really? I don’t read glen, but are you saying glen has been railing against bwd?
Redshift
@amk:
I don’t think that’s a fair description. Remember, it wasn’t replacing a military where gays could serve openly, it was replacing one that was required to investigate and prosecute them. So it’s factually correct to say it was a bad law, but it was still an improvement. Even in the recent debate, being able to argue that gays were serving and the policy was just forcing them to lie put us in a stronger position than starting from scratch.
lamh32
From CNN:
Gates said that once President Obama signs repeal into law, then the Pentagaon will take the steps needed to ensure the the law is implanted ASAP.
Tweet from Gibbs: President will sign the repeal this week.
amk
DADT passes 65-31. Did anyone check out whether that bigoted blighter mccain is having an heart attack ? Fuck yeah, mccain.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike Kay (Team America): I forget the exact quote, but Greenwald tweeted that BlackWaterDog’s pro-Obama photo blog was akin to the oeuvre of Leni Riefenstahl.
amk
@Mike Kay (Team America): Oh, yes. There was a twitter war fought by him just a few days. And her site wasn’t even one week old.
Jules
For those haters keeping count that means another promise was kept….
Redshift
@amk: Sadly, it appears he survived. As Reid was discussing upcoming business after the vote, and some amendment by McCain was mentioned, the old asshole could be heard complaining that the Senate was not in order.
Hearing it kinda warmed my heart, actually.
Jay C
REPEALED~!!!!
And finally – FINALLY! – ONE piece of good political news that we cannot, even in jest, construe as “good news for John McCain”
Fnck him, the miserable old hypocrite…..
loser
ruemara
@Mike Kay (Team America):
it was quite bizarre. He tweeted to his followers that if Leni Riefenshtahl had a website that was pro Obama, it would be this and linked to BWD’s wordpress blog. Then denied he was in any way trying to insinuate that BO=Hitler. Very strange for someone of his stature to stoop to picking on a single blogger.
amk
Now it’s such a BFD even globally.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-us-canada-12028657
Go dems.
amk
@Jay C: Roger that. Now we can officially retire that good news meme forever.
Dennis SGMM
@FlipYrWhig:
For what it’s worth, I think that the Republican base turns out no matter what and in close elections that can make the difference. They pick up the remainder of their votes by casting doubts about the competence, motives, patriotism, etc., of the Democrats.
Oddly enough, the liberals who bitch my ear off about the party are the ones who end the tirade with “Of course I’ll vote, I always do.” Other Democratically-inclined voters sometimes need more persuasion.
Finally, everyone knows that the GOP stands (Or professes to stand) for low taxes and small government. It would advantage the Democrats to have a couple of easily-explained core issues that everyone knows they stand for. Being supportive of mutable goodness and niceness doesn’t resonate as much, to my mind, as a couple of short declarative sentences.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@ruemara: this just shows how much of a hater glenn is. he has moved on from hating obama to hating anyone – anyone – who supports obama. it also belies his frustration in being impotent in affecting public policy (ie “I WILL NOT BE IGNORED!”).
amk
More butthurt for mccain
McCain Amendment – aka his fraud – on START defeated 59 to 37.
Mustang Bobby
Re: Marco Rubio; to the Republicans outside of Florida, he’s Hispanic and therefore he’s gonna be their poster boy for trying to rope in the Hispanic vote everywhere else. Except as they’ll tell you down on Calle Ocho in Little Havana, Marco Rubio is not Hispanic; he’s Cuban, and Cubans, especially los historicos, don’t consider themselves on the same level as Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and the rest; they look down their noses at them.
The feeling is mutual. When I lived in New Mexico at the time of the Elian Gonzalez trauma, my Hispanic friends were stunned that any community would try to keep a kid from his father no matter where he lived. They seriously do not get the Cuban obsession with Castro.
To Republicans who assume that all Hispanics are alike: Es una tonteria tremenda.
jcricket
Besides the moral argument, I think the main reason immigration issues are a winner for the Dems is that when they’re brought up, Republicans can’t control their crazies.
Republicans in California decided to wholeheartedly embrace Prop-187, which helped it pass. Even as it was later struck down as unconstitutional, it didn’t matter. The damage to the Republican party was done.
Every time a civil rights type issue comes up (rights for blacks, Jews, women, gays, immigrants) Republicans decide not just to be silent, not just to say “hold on a minute”, but to full-on-embrace the notion that progress must be stopped at all cost. And in doing so, they re-doom themselves every time by shrinking their tent.
Frankly, with the generally wishy-washy performance of Dems, we should be thanking the GOP for doing our opposition research/bringing up their negatives for us. It’s probably the only thing keeping us in office at this point.
superdestroyer
Open borders and unlimited immigration is a long term loser for white progressive Democrats. Unlimited immigraiton harms the environment, makes cities harder to live in, lowers the ability of schools to teach, and harms the U.S.’s ability to compete in the world market. Opebn borders and the accompanying identity theft makes tax collection, crime control, universal health care harder. Anything that progressives seem to support is harder while maintaining open borders and unlimited immigration.
White progressives need to decide if they support turning the world into a verion of Burlington, Iowa or a version of El Paso, Texas. Progressives need to learn that they cannot have both.
Mnemosyne
@superdestroyer:
So you want all of our cities to be shrunk down to a population of 26,838 people or less?
Good luck with that. I doubt that New York or Boston has had that few people since colonial days.
El Tiburon
@Jules:
Joining the army and street-sweeper will be about the only jobs available in the next year or two.
DPirate
I think that’s a valid opinion, but I disagree. They are working illegally, it depresses wages, there is loss of tax revenue, citizens have greater competition for employment. I think the concerns of citizens outweigh any concerns of people who want to come here, whether they want to be citizens or not. There is also the depression of the economy that occurs when money is siphoned out of local economies to be sent to mexico or wherever.
Not that that has much of anything to do with the DREAM bill. What does have to do with it is that there are plenty of people in their home countries applying for visas who are following the law like responsible citizens and will be that much further from getting into America if the DREAM Act were to pass.
I work with a lot of Myanmar guys here on cargo ships, and whenever any one of them asks me if I can help him get a visa, I just tell him to swim to the shore, since sooner or later there will be another amnesty. They won’t, of course, since they are primarily afraid of what would happen to them back in Myanmar after they are deported. Fact is they will never get closer to America than the harbor and the foreign vessel they are crew of, and nevermind the brutality of southeast asia because we have mexicans to pound our nails, clean our houses and pick our beans.